RUTHFULLY YOURS

Some years ago I had a medical procedure that required visiting a few different doctors, and, dysgraphic as I am, I was intensely annoyed by the fact that at every doctor’s office, I was given pencil and paper to fill out what was essentially the same questionnaire, over and over. There being nothing much more pressing at issue than whether I am allergic to penicillin or had been feeling dizzy lately, this seemed to me like the sort of thing that ought to be done electronically and shared among practices. I pointed out to one not-at-all-interested physician that when I received bills, they were produced electronically rather than with pencil and paper.

“What’s your point?” he asked.

“The point is that when it comes to my interests — the timely and efficient transmission of my medical records — you are content to use 17th-century technology, the first mass-produced pencil having been developed in Nuremberg in 1662. When it comes to your interests — getting paid — you use 21st-century technology. It strikes me as odd that we have a very sophisticated electronic system for monitoring credit scores but no such thing for medical data.”

My weekend column profiled Bosch Fawstin, the intrepid cartoonist who won last spring’s “Draw Muhammad” contest that was attacked by two ISIS-inspired jihadists in Garland, Texas. (The terrorists were killed in a shootout with police.) Fawstin compellingly argues that the best way to fight a repulsive conquest ideology such as Islamic supremacism is to expose it. That means an unstinting reliance on our constitutional right to free expression.

Apparently, Twitter has opted to join the campaign to crack down on free expression. And one is left to wonder whether the big Saudi bucks that have come its way are a factor in Twitter’s decision-making.

As I recount in the column, the top agenda item of Islamic supremacists has long been the imposition of sharia blasphemy standards on the West. This campaign is not waged exclusively or even primarily by violent jihadists. Instead, its leading proponents are the Muslim Brotherhood’s network of Islamist activist groups in the West and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (a 57-government bloc of, mainly, majority-Muslim countries).

The West should be fighting these anti-Western Islamic supremacists in defense of our core principles. Instead, the Obama administration — particularly the president and his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton — has colluded with them. So have other left-leaning governments and institutions that are naturally hostile to free speech and open debate. One prominent result, which I discussed in the column as well as in Islam and Free Speech, is U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18. This blatantly unconstitutional provision, co-sponsored by Obama, Clinton, and OIC members, calls on all nations to ban speech that could promote mere hostility to Islam. Essentially, this is a codification of sharia, which prohibits all expression that subjects Islam to critical examination.

Aviation police officers at Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports have been advised to “run and hide” in the event of an active shooter at either facility.

The officers really have no other options because they are not allowed to carry guns.

According to CNN, the 300 aviation officers all have “badges, uniforms and vehicles…[that] say ‘police.’” Moreover, “they are certified police officers in the state of Illinois.” But they have no guns. Therefore, “internal aviation department documents” obtained by CNN advise the officers to evacuate in the event of a shooter. And “if evacuation is not possible: hide.”

The documents also say, “We must also ensure that unarmed security personnel … do not attempt to become part of the response, but could be invaluable to the evacuation efforts.”

A training video for aviation police officers provides similar guidance: “If evacuation is not possible, you should find a place to hide where the active shooter is less likely to find you. Block entry to your hiding place and lock the door.”

An unidentified aviation police officer commented, saying,

We’re not trying to replace the Chicago police officers; we just want to have the tools to do the job like every other law enforcement agency in the country. We’re nothing but casualties if you tell us to run and hide. And how can the public look at us if they see police officers running and hiding? That goes against the very oath we were sworn to that we took.

Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, said “there is a danger” in allowing Syrian refugees to resettle in the United States at this time and cautioned the Obama administration to be “prudent” with the process.

“With regard to the refugees, sure, there’s no requirement to be stupid, along with being generous, so my short summary would be simply I would advise the chief executive to speak like and act like Mother Teresa and then before the meeting broke up to grab whoever is filling my chair now, pull them aside, poke his finger into his sternum and say, ‘now you make sure nothing bad happens.’ We can do both. We are talented. We’ve got talent at this,” Hayden said during a homeland security discussion held by the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Look, there is a danger. We should be prudent about it, but just simply saying ‘it ain’t going to happen’ is actually destructive of our security, not just destructive of our character,” he added.

Hayden served as NSA director from 1999-2005 and as CIA director from May 2006 to February 2009.

Former Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Robert Bonner said the U.S. visa waiver program poses more of a threat than the refugee process.

We live in an expanding culture of victimhood fueled by identity politics. Americans are supposedly saved from themselves by a new hipster generation of Silicon Valley zillionaires, socially aware techies, progressive government bureaucrats, crusading liberal journalists, and cranky, mostly irrelevant academics. So why do they not address the need for politically correct self-policing? Here are five examples of how postmodern do-gooders could help the nation in 2016.

iPhone-induced Mayhem

The left believes a corporation or business is ultimately financially responsible for the unanticipated consequences of using its product. Smoke too many cigarettes and the tobacco companies are sued for knowingly having tar and nicotine in their products. We go after fast food and super-sized drinks for inundating unaware Americans with trans fats and processed sugar. Design flaws earn auto companies billions of dollars in recalls and fines.

But why do we ignore smart-phone companies? Studies supposedly reveal that texting or net surfing while driving is a greater impairment than is driving while under the influence. How many of us have seen 20-ton semi-trucks weave down mountain passes, as a 20-something driver is glued to the opiate-like device on his lap? Doesn’t Apple know how its product is being misused and causing death and mayhem—or has it commissioned some secret study showing that its devices are as addictive as painkillers and therefore essential for expanding sales?

Shouldn’t a benevolent government agency in 2016—in the fashion that it regulates less-lethal handguns—go after iPhones to block their use while the user is in motion? Cannot Obama’s consumer protection bureaucrats put an “automatic motion shut-off app” on every smart phone? In one day last week, a vagrant with shopping cart walked into my bumper at a crosswalk while texting, a young woman slammed on her brakes in front of me during a bottleneck while texting, and a driver went off the road into the gravel. Again, all were texting. How about a microchip to turn these gadgets off once they are in motion? Wouldn’t that remedy be as humane and socially aware as trigger locks on new handguns? Could we register lethal iPhones?

For thousands of years, man has sought to ward off the dark by using light to illuminate the night. Now, EPA chief Gina McCarthy and celebrity astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson want to take us back a few thousand years by giving the agency the ability to deal with “light pollution.”

The only way to deal with light pollution is to, well, turn off the lights. This will be a boon to astronomers like Tyson who will be able to see the stars and planets a lot better. But for the rest of us, not so good. Crime will rise, accidents will increase, and more people will die just so that Tyson can study the heavens.

Washington Examiner:

“So is there a day, is there some occasion, where I can add light pollution to your portfolio,” he asked McCarthy during a segment released for Sunday’s episode of “Star Talk,” a weekly late-night talk show he hosts on National Geographic.

“Well, this is another thing that’s been called to our attention for satellites,” McCarthy answered. “The imagery of the United States at night shows all those flares from oil and gas in places that are in the middle of nowhere. It is startling to me, to see the change in the night sky.”

“Go in the big world and see how vast it is, and get a sense of yourself in it,” she added. “It changes your perspective forever. And you’re absolutely right. That’s one of the reasons why we have to be worried about light pollution. It’s in our portfolio, and we’re thinking about it and there are steps we can take, but it needs to be on everybody’s mind because the way in which we disconnect ourselves from the natural world means that my job gets harder and harder.”

The Obama administration this weekend began detaining Central Americans who have evaded deportation orders, launching a crackdown on people illegally in the country amid an increase in migrants trying to cross the southwest border.

Just before Christmas, government officials confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security was planning a clampdown on Central American migrants in January that would include women and children. The operation began in Georgia and Texas, immigration attorneys and advocates said Sunday.

Representatives of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Georgia and Texas declined to comment, saying the Homeland Security agency doesn’t discuss ongoing operations. It was unclear Sunday how many people had been taken into custody.

If the raids spread across the country, they would mark the first large-scale operation mounted specifically against Central Americans.

“We are expecting these raids to occur on a national level” since “these families are all over the country,” said Michelle Mendez, a lawyer with Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., a national immigrant-rights organization.

California is such a pro-abortion state that:

1. It allows non-doctor nurse practitioners to terminate fetal life.

2. Its voters have twice refused to vote in a “parent notification” law, requiring that parents of underage girls be told–not approve, just notified–that their daughter had an abortion.

And now:

3. Crisis pregnancy centers–that help women choose to give birth by providing counseling and material support–will be required to post notices of where abortions can be obtained with phone numbers, as well as that they might be obtained for free.

A federal judge earlier ruled that such forced speech is peachy keen because the communication is simply “factual.” Now, a Court of Appeals is allowing the law to go into effect. From the San Francisco Chronicle story:

No doubt you, too, spent the holidays relishing the humiliation of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, the overrated and obnoxious Democratic party hack who, finally, is teetering on the brink of political oblivion. How the former ballet dancer and Sarah Lawrence alumnus parlayed ambition and drive and the ability to scream like a lunatic into high office and a fortune of more than $10 million is one of the remarkable political stories of our time. “Emanuel has succeeded in almost every professional endeavor he has undertaken,” Ryan Lizza wrote approvingly in 2009. Spoke too soon.

How bad is Rahm Emanuel? He makes Bill de Blasio look good. He was forced into an unprecedented runoff before winning a second term last spring. In early December his approval rating was 18 percent. Protesters, including Democratic powerbroker Al Sharpton, want him to resign for the city’s withholding of video in the case of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager killed by a police officer in 2014. Gang violence is pervasive. Municipal finances are a wreck.

Normally one might be inclined to sympathize, however faintly, with a city manager out of his depth and at the mercy of events. Not in this case. And I suspect my reluctance to commiserate is widely shared among the very large class of people in Chicago, in D.C., in Los Angeles, and in New York who have been at the receiving end of one of Emanuel’s tantrums, or had to put up with his B.S., or pretended to excuse his loutishness and misplaced self-confidence as a funny, even endearing, quirk of personality. Emanuel has been wise to limit his screaming of obscenities to “private” interactions with colleagues or employees, so that this revolting side of him is discussed typically in profiles, giving the reader the feeling of being an “insider” who understands what it means to say, “That’s just Rahm being Rahm.”