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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 4, 2007 / 18 Tamuz, 5767

Studies show: Felons smarter than libs

By Ann Coulter


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Just in time for the Fourth of July, John Lott, author of the groundbreaking 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime," has released another amazing book: "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." This book provides studies and analysis proving that your every right-wing instinct is based on sound economic analysis.


To wit:

  • Women shouldn't vote: "What changed ... that explains the growth of government? The answer is women's suffrage."

  • Fox News Channel isn't conservative: "Even employees of Fox News, which is widely regarded as a conservative channel, donate 81 percent of their contributions to Democrats."

  • Public schools are government re-education camps: "(P)ublic education was actually designed to spread government-approved values."

  • Nothing good has come from abortion: "(A)bortion, in fact, increases crime."

  • Felons vote Democrat: "Remarkably, it looks as if virtually all felons are Democrats."


To make your flights even more enjoyable this summer, consider this interesting incentive system described by Lott: "To receive disability benefits due to job-related stress, air traffic controllers must present a well-documented stressful incident — a collision or close call — that has caused a deterioration in their performance. Unsurprisingly, when it became easier to file for disability, flights suddenly started experiencing more 'close calls.'"



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Say, wouldn't it be even more stressful, deserving of a greater disability payment, if the near-miss involved an Iranian Air jet?


Lott shows that there are pretty clear answers to what lowers the crime rate, what increases the crime rate and what doesn't have any effect at all. Despite their popularity as explanations for the remarkable drop in crime in the '90s, the aging of the population and the enforcement of quality-of-life crimes both had virtually no effect.


What did work was higher arrest and conviction rates, concealed-carry laws and the reinstitution of the death penalty. "Generally, the studies found," Lott writes, "that each execution saved the lives of roughly 15 to 18 potential murder victims." So basically, there's a much bigger death penalty for having no death penalty.


Meanwhile, gun locks and gun self-storage laws lead to more deaths, for the obvious reason that if the owner can't get to his gun in time, the beneficial effect of having a gun is lost. Lott also shows that crime skyrocketed in cities that implemented affirmative action policies that lowered allegedly "biased" and "irrelevant" tests for cops.


Speaking of crime, there's even something for Paris Hilton in this book! Lott says that "when we analyze the overall consequences a criminal faces after conviction, we find a surprising result: Rich criminals face disproportionately high penalties."


The Los Angeles Times recently did an analysis of jail sentences for Hilton's precise offense: i.e., driving with a suspended license after being arrested for drunk driving. The majority of these offenders served four days, exactly what Hilton got — until she was returned to prison. By serving her full 23 days, Hilton served more time than 80 percent of people arrested for the same offense.


In addition to losing their reputations, their inheritances and generally their spouses, according to Lott, wealthy felons also earn less money post-conviction than poor defendants. Not relative to their prior salaries, but in direct comparison. "Amazingly," Lott says, "after controlling for a variety of social and demographic factors, wealthier ex-convicts on average earn a lower salary after their conviction than poorer ex-convicts."


Let's hope so. Felons are usually Democrats. As Lott notes: "Michael Milken, Martha Stewart and Leona Helmsley share something in common besides being convicted felons — they are all Democrats. While their wealth sets them apart from the typical felon, their party registration is the same as most former convicts."


I believe this point was subtly highlighted when Willie Horton told the press in 1988 that of course he supported Michael Dukakis for president. "According to academic studies," Lott says, "from 1972 to 1996, on average, 80 percent of felons would have voted Democratic. An overwhelming 93 percent ostensibly would have voted for Bill Clinton in 1996."


This is not because, as you might imagine, blacks have high crime rates and also happen to be overwhelmingly Democratic. Lott compares the voting patterns of felons and nonfelons, controlling for race, age, education level, religious habits, employment, age and country of residence. Wholly apart from all these factors, felons were still more likely to vote Democratic. Indeed, in the 2004 election, Lott says, felons in Washington state "voted exclusively for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry."


With so many felons being Democrats, the party might want to think about changing its mascot from a donkey to a jailbird.


Needless to say, Democrats are neurotically obsessed with restoring the right to vote to felons. But the ex-cons themselves rarely express any interest in regaining this particular right. What ex-cons want is the right to own a gun. "Felons," Lott says, "who frequently live in poor, high-crime neighborhoods, want to be able to defend themselves."


So the evidence is in on that one, too: Preferring the right to bear arms to the right to vote (for choice), convicted felons have a superior value system to liberals.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Ann Coulter is the author of, most recently, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism".

Ann Coulter Archives

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"Godless: The Church of Liberalism"  

GODLESS is the most explosive book yet from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Coulter. In this completely original and thoroughly controversial work, Coulter writes, "Liberals love to boast that they are not 'religious,' which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion.'" GODLESS throws open the doors of the “Church of Liberalism.”

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