Palestinians Celebrate Synagogue Slaughter 

In my special alert this morning I mentioned that Palestinians would celebrate today's barbaric attack on a Jerusalem synagogue. As difficult as it may be to imagine anyone rejoicing at such carnage, The Weekly Standard has posted a video of Palestinians doing just that. Click here and watch the second video. 

This enthusiastic celebration of the brutal murder of four rabbis speaks volumes about the sickness that permeates Palestinian society. Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (which your tax dollars are supporting), issued a perfunctory statement condemning the killings. But then he immediately segued into why Israel was responsible. 

Sadly, the comments from our own State Department and president weren't much better. Obama offered a typical "cycle of violence" analysis in which he said a majority of Palestinians wanted peace. No, they clearly do not. 

Meanwhile, the European Union has decided that it is time to take a tough stand for peace. It is preparing to impose sanctions . . . on Israel. 

How ironic! The E.U. is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, which is promoting anti-Semitism and terrorism, and European governments think Israel should be sanctioned for not doing enough to promote peace. 

Our hearts and prayers go out to the families in Israel and the United States who are mourning the loss of their family members today. 

Occupy Ferguson? 

Tensions in the St. Louis area are building as everyone awaits an announcement from the grand jury investigating the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. 

The New York Times recently reported that President Obama met privately with protest organizers, including Al Sharpton, the day after the election to encourage them to "stay on course." Just what "course" is that? 

I wonder if the president has met with the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police or reached out to the business owners who had their stores burned and looted.   

This has gone way beyond a confrontation between a policeman and the young man who was shot. The Ferguson demonstrations were hijacked by far left radicals advocating every cause from Palestinian statehood to anti-capitalism. 

The group Justice for Mike Brown has published a map of potential demonstration targets, such as city hall and the Ferguson courthouse, if the grand jury fails to indict Officer Wilson. But why would the targets also include Boeing, Peabody Energy, Anheuser-Busch and Emerson Electric? It looks like Occupy Wall Street has set up shop in Ferguson. 

Anxious About Amnesty 

It seems some liberals are getting anxious about Obama's overreach on amnesty. On his MSNBC show last night, lefty Lawrence O'Donnell pressed Vermont's Rep. Peter Welch (D) to explain what legal authority allows Obama to issue work permits to as many as five million illegal immigrants. O'Donnell said:
 

"No one at the White House has been able to give me the legal justification for the following component of the president's plan. . . Can you tell me -- and has the White House told you -- what is the legal justification for the president to create a new category of beneficiaries for work documents? How can that be done without legislation?"

Welch couldn't answer for the obvious reason that there isn't a legal justification for Obama's amnesty. Watch the exchange here. 

It's not every day that I will applaud a self-described socialist like O'Donnell. But he deserves kudos for at least questioning this abuse of power, which is more than can be said of most of the media right now. 

"Grubergate" 

We've known for a while that Obamacare was sold to us on a foundation of lies. "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it." That was Politifact's Lie of the Year. And there were others like Obama's oft-repeated promise to cut family premiums by $2,500 a year. Instead, premiums went up by at least $2,500. 

Conservatives were mocked and ridiculed for suggesting that many of these claims were untrue. In recent days, several videos have emerged of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber essentially admitting that conservatives were right -- that the administration and its congressional allies lied to us and counted on the lack of transparency and the "stupidity of the American voter," in Gruber's words, in order to ram Obamacare through Congress on a party-line vote. 

Now liberals are lying about their lying. Nancy Pelosi has denied ever knowing Gruber, even though she has previously praised him. 

President Obama was asked earlier this week about Gruber's arrogant and unflattering comments. "Go look back at your stories," he said incredulously. "The one thing we can't say is that we did not have a lengthy debate about healthcare in the United States of America, or that it was not adequately covered." 

It certainly wasn't a fair debate -- the American people were being misled the whole time! 

Then Obama tried to dismiss Gruber as just "an adviser who was never on our staff." But Gruber wasn't just an adviser. While technically not on the White House staff, he visited the White House more than 20 times and was paid nearly $400,000 for his advice and counsel. In 2006, Obama praised Gruber, saying he had "liberally" stolen from his ideas. 

If you have any doubt at all about who is telling the truth now, consider this statement from Steve Rattner, a major liberal fundraiser who manages Michael Bloomberg's financial assets and who managed Obama's bailout of the auto industry. Referring to "Grubergate" this morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Rattner said: 
 

"Jonathan Gruber was . . . the guru on health care. I remember that when I was in the White House, he was certainly viewed as an important figure in helping to put Obamacare together. I think if you go back and look at . . . anything from that period you will find Jonathan Gruber's name all over it."