Remembering And A Warning 

All over Israel this morning, everybody and everything stopped. Each year on Holocaust Remembrance Day the Jewish state observes two minutes of silence to remember the horror and to pledge "Never again." 

Unbelievably, as Israelis were preparing for Remembrance Day, Secretary of State John Kerry warned that Israel could become an "apartheid state" if it does not cave in to demands to carve out a Palestinian state from Judea and Samaria. 

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning. Recalling how the world did not want to face the truth about Hitler and his Nazi regime in the years leading up to World War II, Netanyahu suggested that the same self-deception is taking place today about Iran. Then the prime minister made this plea:
 

"I call on leaders of the world powers to insist on a full dismantling of Iran's capability to manufacture nuclear weapons, and to persist until this goal is achieved."

He finished with this warning: 
 

"In any event, the people of Israel are strong. When faced with an existential threat, the situation of our people today is entirely different than it was during the Holocaust. Now we have great power to defend ourselves. On behalf of the Jewish people, I say to all those who still seek to destroy us: you have failed and you will fail. Israel is a state that seeks peace with all its neighbors -- a state with a will of iron to ensure the future of its people."

Liberal Donor In Race Scandal 

Billionaire Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, is making headlines. His girlfriend recorded a phone conversation in which Sterling allegedly complained that she was bringing black people, including former LA Lakers star Magic Johnson, to his games. Here are some excerpts of his remarks: 
 

"It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to? … You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want.  The little I ask you is not to promote it ... and not to bring them to my games. ... Don't put him [Magic] on an Instagram for the world to have to see…  And don't bring him to my games." 

While traveling in Asia yesterday, President Obama was asked about the controversy and offered this response: "The owner is reported to have said some incredibly offensive racist statements that were published. I don't think I have to interpret those statements for you; they kind of speak for themselves." 

Indeed they do. And Sterling is creating a bit of a PR problem for the left. As it turns out, Sterling's only campaign donations have gone to liberals, and he has given lavishly to the NAACP. 

In fact, Sterling was scheduled to receive a lifetime achievement award from the NAACP next month. But given his history of racial issues, some have suggested that Sterling's generosity may have been less than sincere. 

We call on every candidate who took money from Sterling to donate it to a charity that actually helps minorities. If Sterling were a conservative, the media would be in full-throated attack mode. We don't have to speculate about that. 

I remember well what happened to Marge Schott, the late owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Schott was a conservative who made a disgusting statement that sounded pro-Hitler and was quickly forced to sell her stake in the team. 

The Karl Marx Of Our Day 

You can tell a lot about a movement by what gets its members excited. Conservatives eagerly await new books from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity about America's greatness or promoting liberty by shrinking government. Books about Reagan always sell like hotcakes. 

Right now, there's one book that has captured the imagination of American leftist -- Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." It's nearly 700 pages long and sits atop Amazon's best-sellers list. In fact, it is such a hit that Amazon is currently out of stock. The reviews are glowing. New York magazine labeled Piketty a "rock-star economist" and an "intellectual superstar." 

So what exactly is it all about? As one columnist put it, "It seems fair to say that [Piketty's] book aims to do for the left today what Karl Marx's Capital -- Das Kapital in the original German -- did for the left in the 19th century."

As you likely guessed, Piketty is a full-throated socialist. He teaches at the Paris School of Economics, previously worked for the French Socialist Party and writes for the socialist Liberation.  But you'd be hard-pressed to get any of that information from the mainstream media. 

His economic solutions, however, clearly expose his ideology. For example, Piketty argues for an 80% tax rate on incomes starting around $500,000. Taxing the rich makes for an easy sound bite. But economically, it doesn't raise a lot of money. Piketty knows this. His goal is "to put an end to such incomes." 

To generate real revenue for the socialist state, Professor Piketty writes that we will need at least a 50% tax rate on incomes as low as $200,000. And that's just the beginning. Piketty advocates seizing wealth with an annual asset tax of 10% on billionaires and "a one-time assessment as high as 20% on much lower levels of existing wealth," much along the lines of the "savings tax" that was proposed in Cyprus last year. 

And this is what has the left so excited -- confiscating wealth and growing big government.