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The reaction to Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and plans to move the Embassy has not generated nearly the heat and fury as predicted. There have been protests and rock throwing, but the numbers of people involved have been surprisingly small in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The most serious incidence was the stabbing of a bus terminal security guard by a Palestinian.

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A federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled Monday afternoon that, beginning January 1, the U.S. military will be required to allow enlistment of openly transgender recruits. The order issued by Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton-appointee on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is embedded at the bottom of this post. She had already ruled on October 30 that the military could not delay implementing this new policy, which had been finalized under the Obama Administration but not fully put into effect.  The government requested that she stay her ruling pending appellate review. She declined to do so Monday.

The GOP in Congress are no doubt desperate for a victory after the failed Obamacare repeal attempts, but that desperation could come back and bite them. They want to pass the tax bill before Christmas, but all the rushing and late nights have caused errors. From The Washington Post:
Questionable special-interest provisions have been stuffed in along the way, out of public view and in some cases literally in the dead of night. Drafting errors by exhausted staff are cropping up and need fixes, which must be tackled by congressional negotiators working to reconcile competing versions of the legislation passed separately by the House and the Senate.

We've been covering the on-going DACA saga here at LI; President Trump tossed Obama's unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) back to Congress, initially giving them six months to get a bill to his desk that would enshrine some version of DACA into law. The president later announced that he would grant Congress an extension if they weren't able to get their act together within the original time frame.  Trump, in other words, will gladly sign a DACA bill should one make its way to his desk.

Last week, Bloomberg published an article how one man had enough of fake debt collectors badgering him and his family to collect a phantom debt, money he did not owe. Andrew Therrien used his own money and time to track down these people and only found assistance from the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You know what agency was missing? The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Instead of concentrating on fraud, the agency decided to target businesses already well-regulated that help the poor.

Authorities have identified the suspect in the New York City explosion on Monday morning as Akayed Ullah, 27. They have also called the explosion an "attempted terrorist attack." The New York Post reported that sources said the suspect told investigators he wanted revenge:
Akayed Ullah, 27, who is believed to be from Bangladesh and was living in Brooklyn, told authorities in sum and substance from his hospital bed: “They’ve been bombing in my country and I wanted to do damage here,” sources said.

An excellent Open Letter to the President of the Vassar College from a Vassar alumnus, published in the student newspaper, is a must read as to what happened when I spoke at Vassar on "hate speech" and free speech. President Elizabeth Bradley's response is here. That letter exchange was the subject of my post, Alum to Vassar College President: “You owe Professor Jacobson a public apology”, which has even more detailed background. That letter exchange also caused me to go back and look at a letter from the Executive Board of the Vassar Student Association (the student government) to Vassar's President, demanding my appearance be cancelled. After lodging a series of accusations against me, the VSA letter concluded:

In one of those odd moments in which a politician accidentally speaks the truth, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in 2010 that multiculturalism had failed.  She said that the idea of various cultures living in harmony, "side-by-side" didn't work, that it had "utterly failed."  She's since changed her tune, of course, but she wasn't wrong. Multiculturalism does not, indeed cannot, create a peaceful and happy socio-cultural climate. By its very nature it is about division and disunity, about separating people of various cultures and encouraging them to stay separate from the rest of society.

Roll Call has unveiled another instance of taxpayers paying for a lawmaker to hide his disgusting behavior. This time, us taxpayers forked over $220,000 so Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) could settle a sexual harassment lawsuit:
Winsome Packer, a former staff member of a congressional commission that promotes international human rights, said in documents that the congressman touched her, made unwanted sexual advances, and threatened her job. At the time, Hastings was the chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, where Packer worked.

Antisemitic demonstrations erupted over the weekend in major European cities, with Muslim groups staging violent and angry protests under the pretext of the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A gang of 20 masked-men fire-bombed a synagogue late Saturday in the Swedish city of Goteborg. The assailants threw several molotov cocktails at the synagogue while a youth event was underway. Jewish children were forced to take shelter in a cellar during the attack, German broadcaster DW News reported.

On Tuesday, Alabama voters head to the polls to elect their new United States senator, and depending on which outlet you read, the race is "too close to call," Judge Roy Moore (R) is leading by between 3 and 7 points, and Doug Jones (D) is "a normal polling error away from a win." FiveThirtyEight reports:
Things seem to be going Roy Moore’s way. President Trump endorsed him. The Republican National Committee is back to supporting him. And Moore, who has been accused of sexual contact with women when they were underaged, has led by an average of 3 percentage points in polls1 taken within 21 days of the Dec. 12 special Senate election in Alabama. The betting markets give Moore about an 80 percent chance of victory. . . .