Nov. 25, 2009 Daniel Pipes: Islamism 2.0 JWisdom.com: No God … No You! Know God, Know You! with Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (8 minutes) Nov. 24, 2009 Rabbi Avi Shafran : The Atheists' unintended gift JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes) Nov. 23, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Negotiating nuisances JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff Nov. 20, 2009 Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry Nov. 19, 2009 Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes) Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics Nov. 18, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes) Nov. 17, 2009 Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations? JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung Nov. 16, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes) Nov. 13, 2009 JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity Nov. 12, 2009 The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes) Nov. 11, 2009 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes) Nov. 10, 2009 Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes) Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Feb. 6, 2009 / 12 Shevat 5769 Responsibility — If Only By Mona Charen http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In his inaugural address, President Obama promised to initiate a "new era of responsibility." These heights were to be scaled following a successful campaign to transcend the "old politics" of Washington, D.C. Two weeks is a short period of time on which to judge an era, so let's just say it hasn't gotten off to a roaring start. The hallmark of this new era is apparently the cap on executive compensation for banks taking bailout money from Uncle Sam. This makes Democrats giddy, as they despise high salaries for executives, except when those executives are Democratic former members of Congress, former Democratic presidents, and trial lawyers. Some of us find the whole notion of government caps on income obnoxious, but will shed no tears for executives who will have to make do with $500,000. If they had run their companies more competently, they wouldn't be dancing to Uncle Sam's tune. (Here is an under-reported story: the failure of boards of directors to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders by curbing unwarranted executive compensation. Where were the corporate raiders when we needed them?) If responsibility means anything, it means being accountable for one's behavior. Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer, Bill Richardson, and Timothy Geithner — that's a pretty significant percentage of appointees to show up with ethical clouds. Richardson, the abortive Secretary of Commerce, apparently was caught up in a Blagojevich style "pay to play" scheme in his home state of New Mexico. Exit Richardson. Nancy Killefer, tapped by Obama as the administration's "performance czar," reportedly failed to pay unemployment taxes for her household help and had a tax lien imposed on her home by the District of Columbia. Tom Daschle failed, among other things, to pay taxes on a limousine and driver provided by a "good friend." He didn't know, the former majority leader of the U.S. senate explained, that the IRS considered the limo income. Until the evening before Daschle's withdrawal, President Responsibility had stood behind him. Asked at a Monday night meeting if he still supported Daschle, Obama said "Absolutely." But the next day, the president acknowledged that he had "screwed up," and that there cannot be two different standards, "one for prominent people" and another "for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes." Good TV. Very good TV. Except for one thing: Survey the cabinet table and there in a place of honor sits Tim Geithner at the Treasury Department. This "prominent person," whose department oversees the IRS, failed to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for four years running. A number of observers believe that if Daschle had been named first, he would be holding his post and Geithner would have been the one to bow out rather than the reverse. There certainly doesn't seem to be any principled difference between the two. Which kind of tax avoidance is more culpable — failing to report income or simply failing to file? Hmm. Everywhere you look in American life today you see a desperate need for more responsibility. But the stimulus bill the Obama Administration has taken ownership of actually encourages irresponsibility rather than the reverse. Certainly governors and state legislatures are not being held accountable for their reckless spending sprees. As Stephen Spruiell has reported in National Review, $79 billion of the "stimulus" bill is devoted to the "State Fiscal Stabilization Fund." What's that? It's a system by which those states that have not hugely overspent their available tax revenues, like Indiana, North Dakota, and Virginia, will pay for those states, like California and New Jersey, that have. Another $89 billion is slated to help states meet their obligations to Medicaid — a program that is everywhere in deficit. But rather than reform the bottomless pit that is health care spending by government, the Democrats propose to expand the government's role with SCHIP. Government, as Milton Friedman taught, has vastly increased the percentage of national wealth spent on health care through tax exemption and Medicare/Medicaid. Friedman estimated that 60 percent of the total increase in costs between 1946 and 1997 was attributable to those two things. We're bailing out the car companies and the banks and the states and let's not forget ACORN (they can apply for some of the $4.19 billion in "neighborhood stabilization activities"). We don't ask how you used the money we gave you last year or whether you got results. Remember (oh, how quaint it seems now!) when Obama promised to go through the budget line by line and zero out those programs that weren't working? Good or bad, effective or not, straight or crooked, everyone is being bailed out now. It's a new era all right, but responsibility is only dimly visible in the rearview mirror. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment on JWR contributor Mona Charen's column by clicking here. Mona Charen Archives © 2006, Creators Syndicate

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works