RUTHFULLY YOURS

ARKANSAS 2014
Filing Deadline (Party & Write-In Candidates): March 1, 2014
Primary: May 20, 2014

To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. SENATE
Senator John Boozman (R ) Next Election in 2016.

Senator Mark Pryor (D ) Incumbent
http://pryorforsenate.com/
http://www.pryor.senate.gov/public/
http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/mark_pryor.htm **
Pryor serves on six Senate Committees, including the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. He was recently named Chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture Appropriations—a position that will allow him to prioritize funding for federal programs that benefit Arkansas farmers, producers, and rural communities, and keep Arkansas’s agricultural sector strong.
Pryor also serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee; the Senate Rules Committee; and the Senate Ethics Committee.
ISSUES

ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/96974/coalition-including-mark-pryor-backs-keystone-xl-oil-pipeline
BACKS KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE

HEALTHCARE
http://americarising.tumblr.com/post/57610782446/mark-pryor-says-obamacare-has-been-amazing-success
Mark Pryor Says ObamaCare Has Been Amazing Success Story So Far
Continuing his full embrace of ObamaCare for 2014, Mark Pryor called ObamaCare an “amazing success story so far”:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/01/03/politicos_john_harris_obama_and_obamacare_dragging_down_mark_pryor.html

IMMIGRATION
http://immigrationstance.diggersrealm.com/ar/senator_mark_pryors_record_on_immigration_reform_and_illegal_aliens.html
Senator Mark Pryor has voted in favor of giving illegal aliens further rewards and other incentives to come such as in-state tuition, educational benefits, welfare and health care services.

Rep. Tom Cotton (R) Challenger
Presently Rep. district 4, Attorney, Afghan War Veteran
http://cotton.house.gov/
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Tom_Cotton.htm **
ISSUES

DEFENSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY:
http://cotton.house.gov/issues/defense-and-national-security
I volunteered to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I believe those wars are just and necessary. As a veteran, I want to bring our troops home as much as anyone, but I want to bring them home victoriously. I don’t believe in exit strategies; I believe in victory strategies. In Congress, I will stand up to President Obama, whose short-sighted and politically motivated decisions threaten the lives and money that America has invested in these wars.I strongly support the many critical fronts in our global war against Islamic terrorists. We must continue to track and monitor our enemies through terrorist-surveillance programs. We should target these terrorists aggressively through the use of drone technology wherever possible. We should employ our special-operations forces and intelligence professionals where feasible. When we capture terrorists, they should go to Guantanamo Bay for vigorous interrogation—not to a civilian court in America
ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT
http://cotton.house.gov/issues/energy
We must open federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to more exploration and production. The oil-and-gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic Ocean, and federal public lands in the West and Alaska are a tremendous untapped source of economic growth. Greater exploration and production will increase the reliability of our supplies and reduce prices, create high-paying jobs that can’t be sent overseas, and reduce the deficit through higher lease and royalty payments. In Congress, I will work not only to open these lands and the OCS, but also to ensure that regulators act on drilling and production permits in a timely, responsible manner.I strongly oppose all forms of a “cap and trade” schemes, which are nothing more than a massive new tax on energy I will fight tirelessly against cap and trade, both in Congress and against the EPA’s abusive use of the Clean Air Act to implement cap and trade unilaterally.

HEALTHCARE
http://cotton.house.gov/issues/health-issues
President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, is a job-killer, a health-care disaster, and an assault on liberty. I will fight to repeal and replace ObamaCare with free-market reforms that empower patients and doctors to make health-care decisions..I will also help states to reform the medical-malpractice system to protect our doctors and serve our patients.
ObamaCare must be repealed entirely. If that does not happen, it must be repealed piece-by-piece. And if that fails, it must be defunded.

U.S.CONGRESS
District 1

Rick Crawford (R) Incumbent

http://crawford.house.gov/
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Rick_Crawford.htm **
http://crawford.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=42749
Rated -3 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

ISSUES

ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT
In order to get our country back on track, we must create certainty for businesses by reducing the regulatory burden and permanently lowering taxes. Moreover, I support efforts to overhaul the current tax system by broadening the tax base and lowering the corporate tax rate. These measures would have immediate and long-term effects by spurring job growth and making America more internationally competitive. One of my first acts as a Member of Congress was to introduce legislation that eliminates the 1099 paperwork requirement included in ObamaCare. This provides immediate relief to small businesses allowing them to redirect resources and focus on job creation. I also co-sponsored legislation that permanently extends the Bush tax cuts and repeals the estate tax.
As a Member of the House Committee on Agriculture, I am responsible for writing policies that support our farmers and advance the interests of American agriculture. Unfortunately, the current Administration has put a squeeze on our farmers with excessive regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). I have worked with my colleagues on oversight and will continue to do everything within my power to scale back the EPA’s overreach. I have been particularly vocal on the House floor and in Committee about the EPA’s proposal to regulate farm dust.
Supports construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments.

HEALTHCARE
We must ensure that the quality of health care afforded to our citizens remains the best in the world. Doctors and patients should make decisions, not Washington bureaucrats.. My first act as a new Member of Congress was to introduce H.R. 2, the Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Act.

Jackie McPherson (D) Challenger
http://www.jackieforarkansas.com/

District 2

Tim Griffin (R) Retiring in 2014 no Incumbent
http://griffin.house.gov/

French Hill (R ) Challenger
http://www.electfrench.com/
http://talkbusiness.net/2013/10/banker-french-hill-to-run-for-congress/
“I’m running for Congress because we need more business leaders in Congress – not more career politicians. I grew up in the Second District and live and work here today,” said Hill. “Everyday at my business my priorities are helping Arkansas’s entrepreneurs start and grow their own businesses and encouraging families to save and invest. I know first hand the challenges businesses and families in Arkansas face, and in Congress, I will fight every day for policies that spur economic growth and job creation. I will demand greater accountability at every level of the federal government and do away with job-killing policies like ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. Representing the Second District in Congress would be an honor, and I look forward to working hard to earn the trust and support of Arkansans in the months ahead.”
Hill is a former George H.W. Bush administration official having served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

ISSUES
HEALTHCARE
Obamacare is more than just a malfunctioning website—it is a $2.2 trillion mistake. Big government, “one size fits all” solutions simply do not work in our large, complex country. This law is harming Americans with fewer choices, higher healthcare costs and countless tax increases. It is also chipping away at the physician/patient relationship. We need to repeal and replace it with reforms that lower healthcare costs for all Arkansans. We need to reject the ever-expanding culture of dependency and encourage our able-bodied citizens to pursue lives of virtue, hard work, and civic service.
We must also embrace reforms that reward quality healthcare, encourage healthy living, and minimize waste through patient choice, information, transparent pricing, and healthcare ownership. We need a private insurance market that allows for flexibility, portability, and choice. We must reform Medicaid so that governors have flexibility to control state budgets and manage high-impact patients who drive up costs for local providers and federal/state officials. We also need medical malpractice reform.
Our healthcare system faces some serious problems. But, we need targeted, surgical, carefully considered reforms that acknowledge the complexity of our healthcare system.
JOBS, TAXES AND ECONOMY
Our economy remains adrift, wages are flat, Obamacare is not working, and businesses face so much uncertainty. Americans have little faith in Washington. Sadly, opportunities are slipping away for future generations because of anti-business regulations and job-killing policies. The current administration has only made things worse.
We must demand accountability and simplicity at every level of the federal government. That starts by repealing the endless regulations, mandates and taxes that saddle Arkansas small businesses. We have a federal tax code that is madly complex. We need a simple, clear, fairer tax code. Manufacturers need certainty and relief so they can to grow, expand, and add jobs.
In short, we must completely overhaul the federal government’s wet blanket that is holding our nation back. Hardworking Americans and entrepreneurs need an ally—not an enemy—in Washington.
Washington is out of control and career politicians are bankrupting our country. The federal government needs to quit trying to do everything and instead, shift power back to state and local governments. The federal government is too big and spends too much.
The federal government must reform entitlements, cut low-priority spending, and stop performing functions best left to state and local governments or the private sector. We need a cultural change in which the federal government is a smaller, less significant, and much less expensive and intrusive part of everyone’s lives. We must enact a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and a line-item presidential veto power that could pass constitutional muster. These types of reforms are a necessary antidote to Congress’s failures to exercise self-control.

Patrick Henry Hayes (D ) Challenger
Army Veteran, Attorney, Former Mayor of North Little Rock
http://www.patrickhenryhays.com/
ISSUES

JOBS AND ECONOMY
As Mayor of North Little Rock, Patrick Henry Hays cut wasteful spending and used the savings to grow the economy and create jobs. Hays championed the construction of Verizon Arena, Dickey-Stephens Ballpark, and attracted Caterpillar’s new factory to North Little Rock – creating hundreds of local jobs. And by revitalizing downtown Argenta, enhancing Burns Park, and making a better quality of life for the people of his city, Mayor Hays was able to attract business and tourism that helped keep the local economy afloat, even during the Great Recession.
In Congress, Patrick Henry Hays will take the same approach. He will cut wasteful spending, eliminate burdensome and outdated regulations, keep higher education affordable, and invest in the things that create jobs – like public and technical schools and high-tech research.
Cutting Federal Spending
The skyrocketing national debt is unacceptable. Washington needs to learn how to balance its budget the same way we do. As Mayor of North Little Rock, Patrick Henry Hays balanced 24 city budgets, slashed the city’s debt, and cut wasteful spending. That’s how Hays transformed North Little Rock into an engine of economic growth.
Patrick Henry Hays will take the same approach in Congress – working with Democrats and Republicans to cut spending, reduce our government’s growing debt, save taxpayer dollars, and help businesses create jobs.
NATIONAL SECURITY
The United States government’s first and foremost responsibility is to keep Americans safe from foreign and domestic threats. In Congress, Patrick Henry Hays will keep our military strong, invest in our capacity to fight terrorism at home and abroad, and encourage investment in renewable energy sources that will make our country energy independent.
GUN RIGHTS
As a gun owner himself and a member of the NRA, Patrick Henry Hays understands that gun ownership is an important part of Arkansas tradition – and the right to bear arms is guaranteed by our Constitution. In Congress, Hays will oppose any law, including an assault weapons ban, that would take guns away from law-abiding citizens. But as a Mayor, Hays understands that we need background checks on commercial gun sales – to help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.
ENERGY
Energy Independence is essential to America’s national security, and the key to making energy more affordable for families in Arkansas. Patrick Henry Hays supports a do-it-all approach: we need to invest in renewable energy like wind, solar and biofuels, while also taking full advantage of our abundant domestic resources like oil and natural gas. That’s why Hays strongly supports the completion of the Keystone pipeline.

District 3

Steve Womack (R) Incumbent
http://womack.house.gov/
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Steve_Womack.htm **
http://womack.house.gov/issues/
Rated -4 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

ISSUES
ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT
Energy independence is a National Security issue and we must support and promote domestic energy exploration and production. Additionally, we must continue to work hard to develop new forms of “cleaner and greener” energy that will carry us into the next century. I am committed to reducing our dependence on foreign oil. I will continue to support policies to remove barriers to domestic energy production and stop harmful regulations from driving up energy costs .Supported construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments.

HEALTHCARE
I will work to ensure health care is affordable and portable but we must address the fiasco known OBAMAcare. I will demand that Tort reform is put at the forefront of the discussion – it must be fixed to reduce costly defensive medical practices. We do not need Government run health care in this country. I will lead the way to reach a bipartisan approach that benefits ALL Americans.

IMMIGRATION
Prior to any discussion about immigration reform, I will demand that our borders are secure. I believe that we can secure our borders within a short time period – but Congress must have the will to push this issue. I will lead a broad bi-partisan fight to ensure we have a person in charge that is competent and committed to get the job done. We must fix this issue with compassion and common sense – but I not in favor of Amnesty – in fact I am on record against it.

DEFENSE:
As a 30-year veteran of the United States Army National Guard, I understand the importance of ensuring our nation is protected from those who want to harm us.
No Democratic Party Challenger

District 4

Tom Cotton (R )- Is leaving Congress to run for Senate No Incumbent
Bruce Westerman(R) Challenger
State House Majority Leader, Ex-Fountain Lake School Board Pres. & Agricultural Engineerand member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, representing District 22. He was first elected to the chamber in 2010.
http://www.brucewesterman.com/
I am asking for your vote and support to continue my fight in Washington, where an unfair Obama administration governs from the top-down, picking winners and losers. .

James Lee Witt (D ) Challenger
http://www.jamesleeforcongress.com/
James Lee served 10 years as County Judge until he was appointed Director of Arkansas Office of Emergency Services and managed the state’s response to disasters. Based on his performance, President Clinton nominated James Lee to be the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). His nomination won unanimous support in the United States Senate.
At FEMA, James Lee was the best kind of leader: a common sense guy who would listen to everyone. In just a short time, he transformed FEMA from a failing agency to what was widely recognized as the most successful agency in government. He accomplished this unprecedented turnaround by putting performance and people ahead of politics.
Time Magazine’s special segment on James Lee called him the “Master of Disaster.” Democrats and Republicans alike praised him for his leadership and FEMA’s performance, as did the state and local officials where FEMA worked. As Director, Witt oversaw 379 major disasters, including some of the most devastating disasters of all time. These included the Oklahoma City bombing, the Great Midwest Flood, horrendous tornadoes, numerous wildfires and hurricanes, and Northridge, the most destructive recent earthquake in the country. Witt managed a total of 710 disaster declarations, 65 emergency declarations and 266 fire suppression authorizations.
After FEMA, James Lee opened James Lee Witt Associates, a company that helps governments and corporations throughout the world recover from disasters and deal with other crises.

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Humberto Fontova, the author of three critically-acclaimed and internationally-published books on the Cuban Revolution. He was born in Havana, Cuba in 1954 and escaped from Castro’s communist regime in 1961 with his family. His father remained briefly in Cuba as a political prisoner while Humberto and his family were accepted as political refugees in the USA. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of New Orleans and a Masters Degree in Latin American Studies from Tulane University. Humberto has become FoxNews’ “go-to-guy” on Cuban matters and has been a regular Frontpage Magazine contributor for almost a decade. He is the author of the new book, The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro.

FP: Welcome, amigo.

Fontova: Great to be here, Jamie. Thanks for the invite.

FP: Let’s begin with what inspired you to write this book.

Fontova: I’m gritting my teeth as I write this, because I normally detest the term “consciousness-raising,” —but I simply can’t avoid it here. That’s precisely what I’m attempting with this book, as I have with my previous ones on the so-called Cuban Revolution. Few events in modern history are as misunderstood. Few have been as effectively propagandized. Among historical figures, Fidel Castro wins, hands down, as the most persistently effective liar of modern times. Castro’s colorful cachet as worldwide icon of anti-Americanism and as pioneering beatnik allows his record as a warmonger, racist/Stalinist and the godfather of modern terrorism to be forgiven, ignored and falsified. The Longest Romance exposes this record, the abettors and the falsifiers.

FP: So what story does The Longest Romance tell and how is it different from other books on the subject?

Holocaust-Denial Assignments for American Children — on The Glazov Gang

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/holocaust-denial-assignments-for-american-children-on-the-glazov-gang/print/

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by superstars Basil Hoffman, a Hollywood actor (“Rio, I Love You”), Ann-Marie Murrell, the National Director of PolitiChicks.tv and Ernie White, a Civil Rights Activist.

The Gang discussed Holocaust-Denial Assignments for American Children, analyzing how Stealth jihad and Jew-hate have now entered our public schools (starting at the 20:30 mark).

The discussion occurred with the context of The Cancer of Common Core, in which the guests discussed how Islam is a big investor in the Left’s new educational concept, how Mao’s Cultural Revolution has now reached America’s public schools, how individualism is being crushed in the new “raising of standards,” and much, much more:

…We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want that we will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies.

Those words were spoken by Ehud Olmert in a speech to the dovish, American Jewish, Israel Policy Forum in June 2005. At that time Olmert was Israel’s deputy prime minister. Less than a year later, in April 2006, he became prime minister.

The words shocked many at the time; they sounded morally and intellectually corrupt. The Second Intifada, a savage five-year Palestinian terror war waged mostly against Israeli civilians, was then still winding down—thanks only to the courageous fighting of the Israeli security forces. To intimate that Israel was exhausted, and only looking to get chummy with “enemies” of murderous ilk, sounded like stunning, cavalier cynicism.

Olmert was prime minister from April 2006 to March 2009. Last week a Tel Aviv District Court judge, David Rozen, sentenced him to six years in prison and a million-shekel ($290,000) fine for taking bribes as part of a massive real estate scandal, both while Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and subsequently when he was a cabinet minister.

Judge Rozen censured Olmert with particularly harsh words:

A public official who accepts bribes, an individual who abuses his power to gain illicit benefits for his own gain, is no better than a traitor. An individual who offers bribes is corrupt and his actions corrupt others. Those who accept bribes evoke nothing but disdain, as they antagonize the public and undermine state institutions.

Some in Israel—generally those who still share the dovish outlook that Olmert adopted—see the sentence as excessive and put hopes in Olmert and his lawyers’ planned appeal to the Supreme Court. Others note that Olmert, going back to when he was mayor, was known to be a focal point of corruption in Israel and see the sentence as justice finally catching up with him.

Eli Hazan, a commentator for the right-of-center daily Israel Hayom, notes that Olmert as mayor

left behind enormous debts, failing municipal services, a mass exodus…from the city…. Ahead of the 2006…election, many Jerusalemites tried to raise the question of Olmert’s conduct in the national media…. The sentence given to Olmert on Tuesday provided Jerusalem residents with closure.… Olmert learned that everyone is equal before the law. This is how things work in a properly run country.

Last year Obama delivered his own “Mission Accomplished” speech at the National Defense University. Its broad theme was that the War on Terror was over; it was time to shut down Guantanamo Bay and stand down from a war footing.

Obama claimed credit for putting “the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan” on the “path to defeat” with his disastrous Afghan strategy which cost 1,600 American lives while letting the Taliban take over the country. He did not acknowledge that the so-called core Al Qaeda had stopped being relevant even before he was elected.

1,600 Americans died chasing a political slogan that existed only in the heads of his speechwriters.

In 2009, the CIA determined that there were at most 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Next year his own CIA director admitted that there were at most 50-100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

That same year 499 Americans were killed in Afghanistan.

Obama had declared victory against an enemy that the United States wasn’t fighting while losing a war to an enemy that the United States was fighting.

Meanwhile his own people were telling him that Al Qaeda had not been defeated.

National Intelligence Director James Clapper said, in response to a question about whether Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, “No. It is morphing and franchising itself, not only here but in other areas of the world.”

“They are not,” Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Flynn added.

These two men were not telling the Senate Armed Services committee anything they had not already told Obama. But their boss was choosing not to listen.

By narrowly defining Al Qaeda as a small number of leaders and fighters in pre-existing war zones in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, he and his White House staffers were making it easier to claim victory while ignoring the threat from expanding groups such as Boko Haram and Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.

Obama’s policy snapshot of Al Qaeda in which Osama bin Laden was still a menace and Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan were the biggest threat to America was a decade out of date.

In his Mission Accomplished speech, Obama said that the core of Al Qaeda was no longer a threat.”They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston.”

Al Qaeda’s core might not have directed either attack, though it’s possible it did, but both attacks emerged from its strategy of building up local franchises and training lone wolf attackers over the internet.

What Obama was celebrating as proof of his victory over Al Qaeda actually reflected his failure to understand and prepare for Al Qaeda’s next move.

He was using the fact that Al Qaeda had outmaneuvered him twice, and carried out devastating attacks, as proof that he had defeated Al Qaeda and that we no longer had to worry about Al Qaeda.

In Beverly Hills on May 12, Robert Spencer spoke about his new book, “Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About The War We’re In,” at the Wednesday Morning Club’s monthly luncheon.

Spencer is the author of 13 books, the most notable of which are “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam” and “The Truth About Muhammad.” His new book, he said, describes how nobody who speaks out about the real goals of Islam is spared by either the liberal main-stream media or those on the political left who seem unable or, worse still, unwilling to define the destructive intentions which Islam has towards America and the West.

Paradoxically, said Spencer, these destructive intentions have been public knowledge for quite some time. In 2008, the Holy Land Foundation, a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, was convicted of raising money for the terrorist group Hamas, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its leaders were given life sentences for funneling $12 million to Hamas. During the trial documents revealed a strategy paper that stated:

The Ikhwan (Arabic for Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

It went on to say that this process requires a “mastery of the art of ‘coalitions’, the art of ‘absorption’ and the principles of ‘cooperation’.”

In other words, the scheme is to ingratiate and insinuate themselves into our society by appearing to be in favor of pluralism, democratic values and common fellowship, all the time gaining trust and acceptance only to sucker punch us when the time is right. The Muslim Brotherhood is black with menace. Their hatred of America and the West is doctrinally inspired and is entirely due to the religious fanaticism which inspires Islamic supremacism.

In recent history, many Western leaders born and bred in the fear of the Soviet Union failed to see the resurgence of Islamic totalitarianism and the terror it always engenders. Somehow, they have been unable to identify the defining issue of our time and so imperil us all.

The Veterans Administration hospital scandal that has claimed the lives of at least 40 U.S. military veterans continues to expand, adding to the image of a president who neither knows nor cares what happens to those who shed their blood on the battlefield for their fellow Americans.

With a little under six months before the crucial midterm elections, it is a helpful reminder to voters of the horrors that are not glitches, but essential features, of government-provided health care. The problems at the VA are omens, sneak previews of what the delivery of all health care in America will look like under Obamacare, and so it is fortuitous that the scandal should surface now.

President Obama is predictably, perfunctorily, outraged about these bad things that have been happening in the government he controls. He is shocked and promises to get to the bottom of the issue and do better in the future. It is tedious stuff.

The happenings at the VA are also more evidence, Obama critics say, that the president despises the military. Obama has been moving to reduce soldier pay and benefits and hollow out the military to mid-century staff levels. He has also been going on a human resources rampage, firing flag officers at a rate that alarms military observers. And like any good leftist, Obama believes that the only good American soldier is one who is functioning as a social worker, not a war-fighter.

Meanwhile, Obama VA officials have been working overtime covering up the various waiting list atrocities that have been popping up cross the country.

A whistleblower who exposed the waiting list scandal in Fort Collins, Colorado, says she was suspended after she refused to falsify records.

Lisa Lee, who was employed at that clinic, said she was placed on two weeks of unpaid leave for not following a directive that involved “cooking the books” on scheduling medical appointments to create the false impression that appointments were made closer to the time veterans requested.

“Why are they throwing me under the bus when I’m trying to say what the problem is?”

At least 40 U.S. veterans have died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix, Ariz., Veterans Affairs Health Care system, CNN reported April 30. Many of the dead had been put on a secret waiting list.

We’ve long known the economic case. The humanitarian case is even stronger.
The economic case against the minimum wage exists, and has been made by me and others often enough. But there’s another, even stronger case against the rule. That is the humanitarian case. And until that case, too, receives consideration, the debate will always be a lopsided one.

Consider the current employment culture. Sit down with an employment officer at the company where you hope to work, and something feels strange. After a while, you realize what it is: The party on the other side of the desk is not a company executive, it is Jacqueline Berrien, the head of the EEOC. The process moves in similarly creepy fashion when you are the one offering the job: Sure, your future hire is there in the flesh, but you might as well be talking to Thomas Perez. That is, the rules the United States secretary of labor enforces determine the course of your conversation more than anything you, or the new hire, might feel like saying.

It was not always thus. In the 19th century and well into the 20th, many employers and employees believed that their relationship, the two-party one, was key. Outsiders — regulators, unions, lawmakers — were intruders. That privacy of employer and employee often yielded negative results. The employer might exploit the employee. But the two-party dynamic often succeeded. Because the employee-employer pair set their terms together, they trusted each other. From time to time, they also helped each other.

Example: It’s hard to find employers more vilified in the annals of American history than Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick. These gentlemen hired the Pinkerton men who shot at the workers during the steel strike over, yes, wages at Homestead, Pa., in 1892. What is mostly forgotten is that the workers also shot at the detectives. What is entirely forgotten is that Carnegie and Frick did much for workers, precisely because they felt responsible to their counterparty. The exploiting Robber Baron Carnegie endowed more than 1,500 public libraries up and down the Atlantic seaboard and out west, and many more around the world. Carnegie’s aim was to dare workers like those who tackled the Pinkertons to improve their skills, so that they might rise as Carnegie himself had. “He that dare not reason is a slave,” reads the motto at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. Many immigrants after Carnegie did reason, and did rise.

“Trigger warnings” are the latest trend in political correctness — and they’re madness.

Trigger warning: I am going to make fun of “trigger warnings.”

Of course, if you’re the sort of person who takes trigger warnings very seriously, you probably don’t read this column too often. So maybe my mockery will miss its target, sort of like making fun of the Amish on the Internet — it’s not like they’ll find out.

In fairness, the Amish are actually very impressive people. Even though some Amish communities are more tolerant of technology than the stereotypes suggest, their Anabaptist puritanical streak leaves me cold. On the whole, I like modernity. I may not love every new fad of the last few centuries, but mark me down as a fan of refrigeration, Netflix, modern dentistry, universal suffrage, the internal-combustion engine, and all that stuff.

Here’s another thing about the Amish. They don’t expect everyone else to pussyfoot around them.

You can’t say the same thing about the trigger-unhappy folks making headway on college campuses. Before I continue, I should explain what a trigger warning is.

It started on left-wing and feminist websites. Like a spoiler alert in a movie review or a more specific version of the movie-rating system, trigger warnings are intended to alert very sensitive people that some content might set off, or trigger, their post-traumatic stress disorder or simply offend some people. According to most accounts, this was a conscientious accommodation of people who’d been raped or otherwise horribly abused.

But soon the practice metastasized. Trigger warnings were provided for an ever-increasing, and ridiculous, list of “triggers.” For example, one website offers a trigger warning that it contains images of small holes, lest it terrify people suffering from trypophobia, which is — you guessed it — a fear of clusters of small holes. Another website warns visitors that it will not tolerate any debate over the validity of its trigger warnings for, among many other things, trypophobia, pictures from high places, audio of snapping fingers, or images or discussion of spiders, food, escalators, or animals in wigs.

Now, the Internet is a very big place, and there’s nothing wrong with obscure websites catering to the boutique anxieties of troubled people.

But now the cancer has spread to the college campus. At UC Santa Barbara, the student government has formally requested that professors provide trigger warnings on their syllabi. The idea was initially suggested by a student who had been the victim of sexual abuse. Her class was shown a film that depicted a rape, and while she herself was not “triggered” by it, she felt she should have been warned.

Vibrating capsule helping constipation sufferers
‘It’s completely novel,’ says gastroenterologist
HOW PILL WORKS

Yishai Ron, the research leader and a gastroenterologist at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, said the capsule is designed to pulsate three times a minute, roughly the same pace the colon contracts to move waste products through. It starts vibrating 6-8 hours after being swallowed — roughly the time it takes for food to reach the lower part of the digestive system — so the vibrations are not perceptible, he said.
• Patients in the trial took the capsules twice a week for two weeks. It is too early to know how much the pills will cost or how long a patient would need to take the single-use capsules to clear up constipation.

Millions of people suffer from constipation — sometimes so bad it can go on for months or years. Medications are effective, but as many as half of all those with chronic constipation get little relief or suffer significant side effects, studies show.

Now an Israeli company, Vibrant, is testing a capsule that would vibrate in the colon, rather than deliver medications.

Adding movements inside the lower intestine mimics peristalsis, the biological process that pushes waves of waste through the bowel. The researchers hope it will break up clumps of waste and encourage the system to work more normally.

They have only just begun to test the multivitamin-sized pill, releasing results Saturday showing it was safely tested in 26 patients who have bowel movements just twice a week on average.