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Conservative: Amnesty’s ‘Genocide’ Game
Amnesty International “produced a report accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza” — but, sniffs Commentary’s Seth Mandel, “a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.”
The group’s Israel branch, “the part of the organization that works on the ground in the country . . . disavowed the report.” Why? “The report is a joke. It didn’t take long for people to find the part where Amnesty explained that in order to find Israel guilty of genocide, the organization had to literally redefine genocide.”
“So Amnesty International dissents from international law. That’s fine. Just be up-front about it: Amnesty is not accusing Israel of ‘genocide,’ it is accusing Israel of a different crime which Amnesty has named ‘genocide,’ just so it could use that word.”
Libertarian: The Obama CIA’s Futile Syria Scheme
“From 2013 to 2017, the CIA spent over $1 billion trying to strengthen ‘moderate rebels’ against both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and anti-American extremists in the opposition,” but “Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, former head of Al Qaeda in Syria” is now “accomplishing in a week what the CIA tried and failed to do for years” after he “organized a surprise offensive against the Syrian government,” reports Reason’s Matthew Petti.
“The collapse of Assad’s government” is “a sign of how futile U.S. intervention has been. The U.S. spent years paying Syrians to kill their countrymen without being able to shape the outcome, before giving up.”
Now, Jolani’s evil Levant Liberation Committee is calling the shots.
“All the American money spent and Syrian blood it paid to spill amounted to very little in the end.”
Labor beat: Biden the Unions’ Man
“Thanks to the undemocratic power of government unions, the new administration will be limited in its ability to deliver more efficient services for citizens,” grumble the Washington Examiner’s editors.
The Biden crew just inked a new labor deal that lets 42,000 Social Security Administration employees work remotely “when President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in” — moving “to thwart Trump’s government efficiency agenda.”
Barring government workers from “signing collective bargaining agreements with government agencies” is the only way “to make the federal government efficient.”
Foreign desk: Blame Macron for French Collapse
France faces “its most serious political, constitutional and economic crisis in decades,” warns Spiked’s Fraser Myers — and President Emmanuel Macron is to blame, as it’s his “hand-picked prime minister,” Michel Barnier, just ousted by a no-confidence vote.
“Under the French constitution, legislative elections cannot be held until the summer of 2025, meaning Macron is stuck with a hung parliament that won’t accept his austerity measures or pass a new budget,” making France “effectively ungovernable for the foreseeable future.”
Many “blame the ‘populists’ on the left and the right for pulling the plug on Barnier’s ailing government.”
But France’s centrists deserve to be j’accused: “While it would be overstating it to say the French economy is on the verge of collapse, we are a very long way away from the dynamic, competitive ‘start-up nation’ that Macron promised to build when he entered the Élysée.”
From the right: End the Pardon-palooza
Now that President Biden has pardoned his son Hunter, Democrats are debating whether he “should hand out similar pre-emptive clemency like Christmas stocking stuffers,” snarks The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.
If Biden goes along, it’ll “be another broken democratic norm, and another swirl into the lawfare spiral.” “Pre-emptive pardons for outgoing officials would be a bad precedent” and “a constitutional abuse.”
They risk “developing a culture of impunity,” with the next administration expecting the same for their guy.
To cool things, Biden could pardon Donald Trump for the two federal cases against him.
Note that Trump said in his debate with Biden that his only retribution will be to be successful.
If he “leaned into that message, it would do the country good.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board