Jewish community will ‘stand tall’ after synagogue shooting

POWAY, Calif. — Eight-year-old Noya Dahan had finished praying and gone to play with other children at her Southern California synagogue when gunshots rang out. Her uncle grabbed her and the other children, leading them outside to safety as her leg bled from a shrapnel wound.

“I was scared, really, really scared,” said Noya, recalling how the group of children cried out of fear after a gunman entered Chabad of Poway on Saturday morning and started shooting. “I didn’t see my dad. I thought he was dead.”

The onslaught on the last day of Passover, a Jewish holiday celebrating freedom, wounded Dahan, her uncle Almog Peretz and the congregation’s rabbi. The attack killed beloved congregant Lori Kaye, 60.

Authorities said the 19-year-old gunman opened fire as about 100 people were worshipping exactly six months after a mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

Rabbi Yishoel Goldstein said he was preparing for a service and heard a loud sound, turned around and a saw a young man wearing sunglasses standing in front of him with a rifle.

“I couldn’t see his eyes. I couldn’t see his soul,” Goldstein said. He raised his hands and lost one of his fingers in the shooting.

And then, Goldstein said, “miraculously the gun jammed.”

In the moments that followed, Goldstein said he wrapped his bloodied hand in a prayer shawl and addressed congregants gathered outside the building, vowing to stay strong in the face of the deadly attack targeting his community.

“We are a Jewish nation that will stand tall. We will not let anyone take us down. Terrorism like this will not take us down,” Goldstein recalled telling the community.

Authorities said suspect John T. Earnest, who had no previous contact with law enforcement, may face a hate crime charge in addition to homicide charges when he’s arraigned later this week. He was being held without bail, and it was unclear if he had an attorney.

Police searched Earnest’s house and said he was also being investigated in connection with an arson attack on a mosque in nearby Escondido, California, on March 24.

There were indications an AR-type assault weapon might have malfunctioned after the gunman fired numerous rounds inside, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said. An off-duty Border Patrol agent fired at the shooter as he fled, missing him but striking the getaway vehicle, the sheriff said.

Shortly after fleeing, Earnest called 911 to report the shooting, San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said. When an officer reached him on a roadway, “the suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody,” he said.

Goldstein described Kaye as a pioneering founding member of the congregation and said he was heartbroken by her death. He said the attack could have harmed many more people had the shooter turned toward the sanctuary where so many were praying.

“Lori took the bullet for all of us,” the rabbi said, his hands wrapped in bandages. “She didn’t deserve to die.”

He said that Kaye’s physician husband was called to tend to a wounded worshipper and fainted when he realized it was his wife.

Friends described Kaye as giving, warm and attentive to community members on their birthdays and when they were sick. A wife and mother, she loved gardening and made delicious challah for her family and friends, said Roneet Lev, 55.

When the gunfire erupted, another worshipper, Shimon Abitbul, said he immediately placed his 2-year-old grandson on the floor and waited for a break in the shooting to grab the boy and sprint away.

Abitbul, who was visiting from Israel and staying with his daughter and her family in Southern California, said he was still coming to grips with the carnage.

“All of us are human beings,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you are Jews or Christians or Muslims.”

Peretz, who was wounded in the leg, said he turned around after hearing gunfire and saw the shooter standing by the door. He grabbed his niece by the hand and carried out another child.

He then saw a group of children and got them running, “I tell them, ‘go this way, go this way,” said Peretz, who is visiting from Israel.

Gore said authorities were reviewing Earnest’s social media posts, including what he described as a “manifesto.” There was no known threat after Earnest was arrested, but authorities boosted patrols at places of worship Saturday and again on Sunday as a precaution, police said.

A person identifying himself as John Earnest posted an anti-Jewish screed online about an hour before the attack. The poster described himself as a nursing school student and praised the suspects accused of carrying out deadly attacks on mosques in New Zealand last month that killed 50 and at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, in which 11 people were killed.

“It was a hate crime, no doubt about it,” national security adviser John Bolton said on “Fox News Sunday.” He said investigators have not seen any connection between the suspect and other extremist groups.

California State University, San Marcos, confirmed that Earnest was a student who was on the dean’s list and said the school was “dismayed and disheartened” that he was suspected in “this despicable act.”

Goldstein said President Donald Trump called him to share condolences on behalf of the American people.

The White House acknowledged the call. “The President expressed his love for the Jewish people and the entire community of Poway,” Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said in a statement.

On Sunday night, hundreds of people gathered at a park for a vigil to honour the victims.

People at the community park near Chabad synagogue in Poway held candles and listened to prayer in Hebrew. Leaders asked community members to do acts of kindness to remember Kaye.

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus said he would stand with the community, and Rabbi Goldstein said seeing the crowd come together provided consolation.

“What happened to us, happened to all of us,” Goldstein said.

___

Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in Poway and Daisy Nguyen in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Amy Taxin And Christopher Weber, The Associated Press

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Ottawa’s avalanche of spending hasn’t helped First Nations

Published on November 19, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tom Flanagan

When Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015, he memorably said that the welfare of Indigenous Canadians was his highest priority. He certainly has delivered on his promise, at least in terms of shovelling out money.

During his 10 years in office, budgeted Indigenous spending has approximately tripled, from about $11 billion to almost $33 billion. Prime Minister Trudeau’s instruction to the Department of Justice to negotiate rather than litigate class actions has resulted in paying tens of billions of dollars to Indigenous claimants over alleged wrongs in education and other social services. And his government has settled specific claims—alleged violations of treaty terms or of the Indian Act—at four times the previous rate, resulting in the award of at least an additional $10 billion to First Nations government.

But has this avalanche of money really helped First Nations people living on reserves, who are the poorest segment of Canadian society?

One indicator suggests the answer is yes. The gap between reserves and other communities—as measured by the Community Well-Being Index (CWB), a composite of income, employment, housing and education—fell from 19 to 16 points from 2016 to 2021. But closer analysis shows that the reduction in the gap, although real, cannot be due to the additional spending described above.

The gain in First Nations CWB is due mainly to an increase in the income component of the CWB. But almost all of the federal spending on First Nations, class-action settlements and specific claims do not provide taxable income to First Nations people. Rather, the increase in income documented by the CWB comes from the greatly increased payments legislated by the Liberals in the form of the Canada Child Benefit (CCB). First Nations people have a higher birth rate than other Canadians, so they have more children and receive more (on average) from the Canada Child Benefit. Also, they have lower income on average than other Canadians, so the value of the CCB is higher than comparable non-Indigenous families. The result? A gain in income relative to other Canadians, and thus a narrowing of the CWB gap between First Nations and other communities.

There’s an important lesson here. Tens of billions in additional budgetary spending and legal settlements did not move the needle. What did lead to a measurable improvement was legislation creating financial benefits for all eligible Canadian families with children regardless of race. Racially inspired policies are terrible for many reasons, especially because they rarely achieve their goals in practise. If we want to improve life for First Nations people, we should increase opportunities for Canadians of all racial backgrounds and not enact racially targeted policies.

Moreover, racial policies are also fraught with unintended consequences. In this case, the flood of federal money has made First Nations more dependent rather than less dependent on government. In fact, from 2018 to 2022, “Own Source Revenue” (business earnings plus property taxes and fees) among First Nations bands increased—but not as much as transfers from government. The result? Greater dependency on government transfers.

This finding is not just a statistical oddity. Previous research has shown that First Nations who are relatively less dependent on government transfers tend to achieve higher living standards (again, as measured by the CWB index). Thus, the increase in dependency presided over by the Trudeau government does not augur well for the future.

One qualification: this finding is not as robust as I would like because the number of band governments filing reports on their finances has drastically declined. Of 630 First Nation governments, only 260 filed audited statements for fiscal 2022. All First Nations are theoretically obliged by the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, 2013, to publish such statements, but the Trudeau government announced there would be no penalties for non-compliance, leading to a precipitous decline in reporting.

This is a shame, because First Nations, as they often insist, are governments, not private organizations. And like other governments, they should make their affairs visible to the public. Also, most of their income comes from Canadian taxpayers. Both band members and other Canadians have a right to know how much money they receive, how it’s being spent and whether it’s achieving its intended goals.

Author:

Tom Flanagan

Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Distinguished Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary

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Musk, Ramaswamy to lead Trump efforts to cut waste, fraud in federal government

Published on November 13, 2024

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

During his campaign, Ramaswamy proposed cutting 75% of the federal workforce. Musk recently suggested that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, or about one-third of total U.S. spending.

President-elect Donald Trump picked Tesla CEO Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

The department’s acronym, DOGE, is a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said the new group will pave the way for his administration to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulation, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”

Trump laid out lofty goals for the group in his announcement this week.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhatten Project,’ of our time,” Trump’s announcement said. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”

It won’t be an official government agency, which will likely allow Musk and Ramaswamy to avoid public financial disclosures.

Trump said the change he’s looking for won’t come from within the existing federal government.

“To drive this kind of change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside the government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform and create and entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before,” the announcement noted.

Trump said he looks forward to what Musk and Ramaswamy can accomplish.

“Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 trillion of government spending,” he said.

Trump also gave them a deadline: July 4, 2026.

“A smaller government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy will be the perfect gift to America” on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, according to the announcement.

Ramaswamy, who dropped out the race for the GOP nomination to endorse Trump in January, has previously proposed significant cuts. During his campaign, Ramaswamy proposed cutting 75% of the federal workforce.

Musk recently suggested that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, or about one-third of total U.S. spending. He’s been tossing out ideas on X, previously Twitter before Musk bought the company and changed the name.

“The world is suffering slow strangulation by overregulation. Every year, the noose tightens a little more,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Wednesday. “We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good.”

Musk also said he isn’t a threat to democracy, but a threat to bureaucracy.

DOGE already has an X account. It’s first post: “Working overtime to ensure your tax dollars will be spent wisely!”

Some budget experts have called Musk’s pledge to cut $2 trillion a pipe dream, noting that many of the problems DOGE wants to address have proven intractable.

Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank, called Musk’s proposal “a random number unattached to reality.”

Marc Goldwein, the senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said it could be done with 10 aggressive policies, mostly focused on Medicare and Medicaid.

“The government can legitimately save trillions over a decade by reducing waste and improving efficiency – and I hope we do,” Goldwein wrote on X. “Achieving these savings requires major changes to how and how much we pay for health care.”

Medicare (annual cost of about $1 trillion) is a federal health insurance program for people 65 or older, and some people younger than 65 with certain disabilities or conditions. Medicaid (annual cost of about $558 billion) is a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for some people with limited income and resources.

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as the research arm of Congress, estimated annual fraud losses cost taxpayers between $233 billion and $521 billion annually, in a report in April. The fraud estimate’s range represents 3% to 7% of average federal obligations. The Office of Management and Budget publicly questioned that estimate, calling it “not plausible.”

“OMB has significant concerns that this report will not further efforts to prevent and reduce fraud, but rather will create confusion and promote misleading generalizations that have no factual connection to specific federal programs,” Jason Miller, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, wrote of OMB concerns in a three-page letter to officials with the Government Accountability Office.

On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy detailed his plan to reduce the federal workforce by 75% during an event at the America First Policy Institute in Washington in 2023.

Ramaswamy said he would shutter the FBI (about 35,000 employees); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms a nd Explosives (5,099 employees); the U.S. Department of Education (about 4,200 employees); the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (about 3,000 employees); and the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Services (about 1,500 employees).

Under Ramaswamy’s campaign plan, some 15,000 FBI employees would be moved to other agencies such as the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Secret Service, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

Some groups called the Department of Government Efficiency goals a stretch. Others had more pointed things to say.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a progressive consumer advocacy organization founded by Ralph Nader, said the government agencies and regulations Ramaswamy proposed cutting are in place to protect people.

“The purpose of government regulations is to protect the American people,” she said in a statement. “We all depend on these regulations to protect our air, water, workers, children’s safety, and so much more. ‘Cutting red tape’ is shorthand for getting rid of the safeguards that protect us in order to benefit corporate interests.”