Late last night the mayor of Jersey City announced that the shootout at a Kosher supermarket initially reported as simply a “bodega” was motivated by the occupants of the establishment.

Based on our initial investigation (which is ongoing) we now believe the active shooters targeted the location they attacked. Due to an excess of caution the community may see additional police resources in the days/weeks ahead. We have no indication there are any further threats

Time magazine made the most obvious choice for 2019’s Person of the Year: Greta Thunberg. The 16-year-old media creation spent the year yelling at grown-ups and convincing youth around the world that they’re all going to die.

By Thunberg’s own account, her mass school strikes, angry speeches, and yachting hither and yon across the Atlantic on billionaires’ yachts has “achieved nothing.”

I don’t think it is much of a stretch to argue that the way in which people think dictates more about what people do than anything else. This is, in my opinion, why culture matters. It also helps us understand why language matters – the strengths and weaknesses and thought patterns of any given language give words to our thoughts, which in turn help shape and mold our deeds. To take one extreme example as illustration: in lands where the phrase “inshallah,” meaning “if Allah wills it,” is dominant, then people end up with more fatalistic and less curious approaches towards any new idea.

Symbolism in turn underpins culture and language. How we live symbolically trickles through the rest of our lives. Eco-warriors, who really are doing acts that have no concrete impact beyond symbolism, may not make any real difference to the planet, but they certainly make an impact on themselves and on the people with whom they come in contact. So do other unhelpful symbolic belief systems, like those of Social Justice Warriors or anti-Israel BDS activists.

Obama’s minions gave us the IRS scandal, Fast and Furious, the Benghazi cover-up, the Iran deal, the NSA unmasking, the surveillance of the adversarial press and now, as we know, FISA abuse and the arrogant, clandestine, likely illegal, investigation of a political opponent.

Minions within the federal bureaucracy are used to taking their cues from leadership, eager to please, to push past their shared agenda while a complaint press provides cover. Sondland and his cronies naturally assumed that the aid promised Ukraine would be used as leverage. It was a perfect storm of opportunity; corruption was a given; the aid was held up; a quid pro quo could easily be accomplished while providing the comfort of the usual cloak of deniable plausibility.