MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Annals of Government-Run Medicine Socialized health care is failing again. James Freeman

Posted By on September 20th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/annals-of-government-run-medicine-d24f4656?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

One of the world’s most celebrated socialized medical systems is doing what socialized medical systems do: limiting patient care. Pending work stoppages could mean that the worst is yet to come for patients of England’s National Health Service.

For obvious reasons, American politicians seeking an even greater federal role in U.S. health care avoid discussing the staggering privations under Marxist regimes in places like Cuba and Venezuela. Instead, pols like Sen. Bernie Sanders (socialist, Vt.) point to government-run health systems within largely free, developed economies. But the U.K. is another example they’ll want to avoid.

Josephine Franks reports for Sky News that senior doctors, called consultants in Britain, will be joining their less experienced colleagues in withholding treatment:

Consultants and junior doctors are set to strike for several more days this week and early next month, bringing more chaos to the NHS after several months of walkouts and delayed appointments…
A health chief said the NHS is in “uncharted territory” due to the strikes, with thousands of patient appointments expected to be cancelled.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said this week’s strike action “can’t become the status quo”.

Sadly it can. If there’s one brutal lesson of government-run health care it’s that things can always get worse. Turning doctors into unionized government bureaucrats brings a host of problems, including the fact that politicians, not patients, decide what doctors are paid. This is of course a problem in the U.S. as well. England is a sort of preview of just how badly government management can mangle the incentives to provide medical services—and the duty to provide care. Ms. Franks continues:

On the picket lines of the March strike, junior doctors told Sky News why they were striking and described having to borrow money off family for medical exams, watching colleagues leave for better paid jobs abroad and how they were struggling to pay rent.

If anyone asks Mr. Sanders to comment, no doubt he will rail about the British government not spending enough, just as his answer to every question about U.S. health care involves a greater burden on taxpayers and fewer free choices for consumers.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Irrelevant United Nations The annual gabfest in New York underscores its global failures.

Posted By on September 20th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/united-nations-general-assembly-iran-china-russia-ukraine-biden-administration-fc4aa8c?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

New York City this week is full of dignitaries and functionaries from around the world for the United Nations General Assembly, and President Biden chipped in with his annual speech on Tuesday. The Lady Godiva question no one wants to ask is: Why?

Amid the mountain of words this week, what will be accomplished? In the emerging world order of rogue regimes and multi-polar power centers, what good does the U.N. do anymore?

The Presidents of Russia, China and France and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom didn’t even show up. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi made an appearance to lecture about American perfidy. In a show of its respect for the U.N., Iran expelled the U.N.’s most experienced nuclear-weapons inspectors on the eve of Mr. Raisi’s visit. The U.N. has likewise been helpless as North Korea ignores Security Council resolutions and sanctions to expand its nuclear program.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rare trip to New York on Tuesday to make the moral case for support against Russia’s invasion. But the U.N. has been worse than useless during the Ukraine conflict. Russia’s veto in the Security Council with Chinese support has blocked any serious response to the Kremlin’s marauding. The one U.N. contribution was to help negotiate a deal to allow grain exports from Ukraine. But Vladimir Putin recently nixed that agreement.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

China’s Communist Party Infiltrates American K-12 Schools by Robert Williams

Posted By on September 19th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19979/china-infiltrates-american-schools

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has, or has had, ties to 143 school districts in the United States, including 20 near military bases, through its “Confucius Classrooms,” according to a recent report, “Little Red Classrooms: China’s Infiltration of American K-12 Schools” by Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots organization.

Attention to Confucius Institutes has mainly been centered around colleges and universities, but less so on K-12 education. This means that Chinese state propaganda is probably now pretty much all over American K-12 classrooms.

PDE observed that more than $17 million had been spent by the CCP on Confucius classrooms in the US between the years 2009-2023.

“Three of the nation’s top science and technology high schools have ties to Chinese government affiliated programs including Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has had ties to Tsinghua University High School—the high school affiliated with one of China’s top military schools, Tsinghua University…” — Peter Wood, President, National Association of Scholars, Daily Signal, August 15, 2023.

“[W]hat’s happening in these schools is that they learn that China is a benevolent institution, the heir of an ancient civilization that means nothing but goodwill to the rest of the world… And the notion that you can take children who have some aptitude for the hard sciences and math and get them to view China as a potential partner and friend… all through their educational careers. We’re creating an assembly line for talented young men and women who will be unable to distinguish the American national interest from the Chinese national interest. They’re getting blurred together at a young age and that’s very difficult to undo once it’s done.” [Emphasis added.] — Peter Wood, Daily Signal, August 15, 2023.

Wood noted that CCP infiltration of American K-12 schools is “almost everywhere.”

“[I]t’s concentrated in the feeder schools to elite education, which means mostly West Coast and East Coast, but not exclusively those…. China’s… looking for places where buying influence will yield results in the long term.” — Peter Wood, Daily Signal, August 15, 2023.

OPINION Comments turned off

Joanna Williams The Censorship Bureaucracy Behind faceless policies on everything from emotional health to diversity, equity, and inclusion lies an impulse to control language—and thereby, thought.

Posted By on September 19th, 2023

https://media5.manhattan-institute.org/iiif/2/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F5%2FThe-Censorship-Bureaucracy.jpg/full/!99999,960/0/default.jpg

In a recurring sketch from a popular early 2000s U.K. comedy show called Little Britain, a bank clerk listens to customers’ queries, randomly types on a keyboard, and then deadpans the catchphrase: “computer says no.” Whatever the follow-up questions, no matter how angry or upset customers become, the response remains the same: “computer says no.” This skit lives on in Britons’ collective psyche mainly because it is funny, but also because it points to a familiar sentiment: the frustration of finding oneself stonewalled by an intransigent bureaucracy.

The sketch came to mind earlier this year when the Canadian Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) invited me to give its annual guest lecture. The venue was to be the public library in London, Ontario. I titled my talk “Sex, Gender, and the Limits of Free Speech on Campus” and looked forward to the occasion. Then, without any apparent sense of irony, the library cancelled my lecture with one emailed sentence: “As per the library’s policy governing room rentals, we are not able to approve the rental request.” Computer says no.

After much nudging, library staff revealed the specific policies I had unknowingly breached. My lecture was considered “likely to be in violation of library policy, including, but not limited to, the library’s rules of conduct, charter of library use or workplace harassment and sexual-harassment prevention policies.” More specifically, there was allegedly “a risk or likelihood of physical danger to participants or the audience or misuse of the property or equipment.” Finally, my speech might “negatively impact or impede the ability of others to enjoy the services and facilities of the library, and/or library operations.” Thankfully, SAFS managed to find an alternative venue, and my speech was recorded, so listeners can gauge for themselves whether I posed a risk of sexual harassment or physical danger.

Looking back at this event now, what strikes me most is the faceless, bureaucratic nature of censorship. No individual was bold enough to say: “I do not like what you have to say and I am going to prevent you from saying it.” Rather than taking responsibility for the decision to stop me from speaking —and, importantly, to prevent people from hearing what I had to say—library officials hid behind selected quotations from institutional policies. This cowardly approach gives bureaucrats plausible deniability when accused of censorship. Worse still, it allows them to appear almost apologetic: “We support free speech but, unfortunately, policy says no.”

BOOKS Comments turned off

Mark Levin’s The Democrat Party Hates America By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on September 19th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/09/mark_levins_emthe_democrat_party_hates_americaem.html

Once again, Mark Levin has done a great service to the Republic by writing a fully documented, highly pointed book on a topic of vital national interest. Published today by the Threshold Editions imprint of Simon & Schuster, The Democrat Party Hates America is required reading for anyone who follows politics in America. That most assuredly includes those who identify as Democrats, though most will shun the book because it is too much of a challenge to their sense of self-worth and virtue. For the few who have the courage to read it, the book will be a revelation. I make no secret that I was born into a family of active Democrats, and until reality intruded well into adulthood, I shared that political attachment. I have since regarded it as a mistaken affiliation, but after reading this book I now have a sense a shame.

If it is widely enough read, and I predict that it will be a runaway best-seller, the book will change the way the public understands one of our two major political parties, forever tainting the Democrats for the racism, hypocrisy, lack of principle, and sheer ruthless pursuit of power at any cost that have permeated their party throughout its history.  If you have family members, colleagues, associates, or friends who are vocal Democrats and who do not shy away from political discussions, The Democrat Party Hates America is a cornucopia of evidence that you can use to persuade them out of their delusion that they are supporting a worthwhile political movement.

Chapter One, “The Democrat Party and Authoritarianism,” introduces several themes that weave throughout the entire text. The Democrats seek, and via their dominance of the administrative state composed of career bureaucrats exercising powers that rightly belong to Congress and even the judiciary, to monopolize political power, and have succeeded to an alarming degree. Excellent use is made of a 2017 report by Freedom House, a nonpartisan NGO founded in 1941 that has historically focused on authoritarian governments overseas, including most recently China and Russia. Mark shows in detail how the most recent report on authoritarianism overseas also applies to the United States under Democrat administrations at the state and federal level.  

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Oslo Accords Began Israel’s Folly With the Palestinians Negotiating with PLO leader Arafat instead of other local leaders has led to intractable conflict. By Amir Avivi

Posted By on September 19th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-oslo-accords-began-israels-folly-with-the-palestinians-plo-conflict-peace-terrorist-36661be1?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Barbara W. Tuchman opens her iconic 1984 book, “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam,” with Rehoboam, who caused the Kingdom of Israel to splinter into Judah and Israel. If Tuchman were writing today, she might have ended it with another wretched chapter from the history of Israel—the great folly of Oslo.

Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to its own interests, whose adverse effects are apparent in real time, with the availability of feasible alternatives. The perpetrators are a group, not a single ruler, whose leadership spans longer than a generation. Israel’s implementation of the Oslo Accords, which were signed 30 years ago this month, meets all her criteria.

The folly of Oslo lies not in the creation of Palestinian autonomy (or as Yitzhak Rabin repeatedly called it, “less than a state”), which was part of the peace agreement Menachem Begin forged between Israel and Egypt. This idea was popular in Israel. But the decision to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization, a bloodthirsty terror organization devoted to the destruction of Israel, was an act of sheer folly. Viable alternatives existed, first and foremost local leaders in the Arab cities in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

In the days between the 1991 Gulf War and Oslo, PLO leader Yasser Arafat was a regional outcast because of his support for Saddam Hussein against the American-led Arab coalition. His prestige and the PLO’s suffered greatly. Yet Israel allowed Arafat to become a global player and even furnished him with weapons.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

EU Power Grab Free and fair elections? They are so 20th century. by Bruce Bawer

Posted By on September 19th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/eu-power-grab/

In case you missed it, September 13 was the big day – the occasion of the annual “State of the European Union” speech by European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen. Whether you voted for her or not – no, scratch that; unless you’re a member of the European Commission, which nominates its President, or the European Parliament, which chooses to ratify or reject the Commission’s selection, you can’t possibly ever have voted for her. Free and fair elections by the citizens of sovereign nations? Forget them! They’re so twentieth century. Don’t you realize that the European Union has moved far beyond such antiquated concepts, and is fast advancing toward a degree of international integration and power concentration – known in the EU lexicon as “democracy” – that it’ll make the likes of Klaus Schwab at the World Economic Forum pea-green with envy?

But before we get to van der Leyen’s speech – and to the not-to-be-missed response by Guy Verhofstadt – let’s go back briefly to the beginning. You know, of course, that the cause of European unity has a long and noble history. Napoleon did his best to bring it about in the early 1800s. A bit over a century later, Hitler gave it the old college try. After World War II, the Soviets would have had a go at it too, but the Western Allies were spoilsports. On the western side of the Iron Curtain, however, there quickly arose a postwar movement to unite Europeans under one government, whether Europeans themselves liked the idea or not. The name most intimately associated with this movement was Jean Monnet, a Frenchman from Chablis whose family business was the production of chablis and whose obsessive pursuit of European unity makes one wonder if he was guzzling too much chablis. To read about the life of this wine merchant, who became known as the “father of Europe,” is to learn about a career consisting of a long series of fancy-sounding jobs as international advisor, diplomat, and negotiator, of memberships on various blue-ribbon commissions, committees, and councils, and of the high-level hatching of various plans, projects, and programs. What you never come across is mention of an election. Because nobody ever voted for Monnet for anything.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Missing F-35 is found: Debris from $80M stealth fighter jet is recovered in a field two hours north of Charleston after pilot ejected on Sunday and plane continued in ‘zombie mode’ – sparking Pentagon to GROUND all models

Posted By on September 19th, 2023

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12532685/missing-fighter-jet-update.html?ito=windows-widget-push-notification&ci=564499

Debris from the F-35 fighter jet missing since its pilot ejected over South Carolina has been found – hours after the military asked the public for help to find it.

Joint Base Charleston had asked the public to call if they have ‘any information that may help our recovery teams locate the F-35,’ which is worth $80 million.

The pilot ejected and parachuted safely into a residential area in North Charleston around 2pm Sunday.

He was taken to a local hospital, where he was in stable condition, said Maj. Melanie Salinas.

The pilot’s name has not been released. On Monday afternoon, the military said debris from the plane had been found. 

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Mexican cartel bases used to spy on enemies, dispatch hitmen The ‘intelligence bunkers’ are active on the Mexico/US border By Luis Chaparro

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexican-cartel-bases-used-to-spy-on-enemies-dispatch-hitmen

The different cartels operating in Mexican border cities are setting up their own “intelligence centers” equipped with cameras, communications and a rudimentary dispatch office from where they send information gathered by their cameras, lookouts or sources to their operators. 

Criminal organizations like the Sinaloa cartel or the Jalisco New Generation cartel are setting up proper “intelligence bunkers” from where they keep a tight watch on authorities, citizens and “enemies” along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Mexican officials and cartel members speaking with Fox News Digital.

In July, the local authorities of the Mexican border city of Tecate, Baja California, found over a dozen “illegal security cameras” around the city allegedly owned by the Sinaloa cartel.

“After an investigation we found these cameras didn’t belong to any of the city or state security forces and decided to remove them in an attempt to combat the criminal organizations operating here,” Tecate’s chief of police, Leopoldo Tizoc Durán, said in a press release. 

In Tijuana, the cartel pays a monthly rent to home or business owners to install security cameras on their properties, according to a Sinaloa cartel operative speaking with Fox News Digital anonymously.

“We pay from 500 pesos to 1,000 ($25 to $50) for installing a couple of cameras around their property,” the operative said. “Those images go straight to a safe house where we have people sending out reports.” 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How Biden Will Circle the Wagons As impeachment becomes inevitable, the President’s defense schemes are predictable By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on September 18th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/18/how-biden-will-circle-the-wagons/

The strategies of saving the Biden presidency from an impeachment and a Senate trial despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption are starting to emerge.

The Family is confronted with damning evidence from the laptop, from the testimonies of Hunter’s business associates Bobulinksi and Archer, from Ukrainian oligarchs and Viktor Shokin, from IRS whistleblowers, from FBI writs, from a likely pseudonymous Biden trove of 4,000 emails to his son and associates, and from the absolute paranoia of a White House that must constantly change its narrative of denials to adjust to a growing portrait of utter corruption, bribery, and perhaps even the treason of warping U.S. policy to fit Biden family interests.

The Defense in Depth 

One of their strategies is to deny, then hedge, then ignore, then grow silent—and repeat the wash/rinse/spin cycle of stonewalling as many times as necessary to evade the mounting truth.

Insidiously Joe Biden has retreated from his once loud protestations that he supposedly had no idea of what Hunter and his associates were doing. Such a patently dishonest denial set the model that the President would have no compunction about lying to the American people until the evidence of his wrongdoing becomes overwhelming.

But this first line of defense did not crumble for years—only to be replaced by a second line of denial: Biden may have known of Hunter’s shenanigans, but he had no business interests with him. That was another blatant untruth.

And that additional stalling also allowed Biden to ignore the closing walls of incrimination for even more months. When these two forward lines of defense collapsed, as the Biden consortium knew they eventually would, a retreat to a third line of defense followed: yes, Joe knew, after all, of Hunter’s miscreant shakedowns; and, yes, Joe, after all, conceded that from time to time he did meet Hunter’s business associates, and upon requests made phone calls to Hunter’s clientele. But he did not profit from such knowledge and associations. Instead an upright old Joe from Scranton was playing along with the “illusion” of influence peddling: Scranton naiveté is not D.C. criminality.

Biden’s tripartite lines of defense always got shorter and shallower as evidence mounted. But so far Biden has managed to consume 31 months of his presidency through these strategic retreats. His fourth and final line of defense will likely be that he was involved, that he had rather than feigned contact, but that he did nothing other than what scores of other high-ranking politicians do who rub shoulders with would-be miscreants, sycophants, and crooks—and so did not knowingly take “loans” and “gifts” that had strings attached.