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January 2023

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Not Seeing Clearly The VA wants to allow optometrists to perform some surgical procedures on veterans. Henry I. Miller

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/veterans-admin-unwise-laser-eye-surgery-policy

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the federal government’s second-largest department. As of 2021, it operated approximately 1,600 health-care facilities, 144 medical centers, and 1,232 outpatient sites, of varying complexity. The VA has long been plagued by a wide spectrum of problems, including long delays in scheduling appointments, substandard care, and years of trying to get a $10 billion electronic system to work effectively.

As a veteran myself (I have never received medical care through the VA, though I did numerous medical school clinical rotations at a VA hospital), I know that veterans deserve better. And yet, the VA seems to be committed to a change in policy that would further degrade the quality of their care—specifically, by allowing underqualified practitioners to perform laser eye surgery.

Last September, the VA modified its eye-care guidelines for treatment from community providers by letting optometrists, who are neither medical doctors nor surgeons, perform some surgical procedures. Without soliciting input from the public or medical community, it removed language from the Community Care guideline, which had ensured that “only ophthalmologists can perform invasive procedures, including injections, lasers and eye surgery.” This change would permit optometrists to perform surgical procedures such as laser trabeculoplasty—an operation on the eye to treat glaucoma—rather than restricting them to ophthalmologists (who are highly trained, experienced, qualified surgeons), as had been the policy. The change would be felt immediately in a small number of states that already allow optometrists to perform laser surgery. But the VA is considering a broader policy change that would make it possible for optometrists in all VA facilities to perform these procedures.

The differences in the amount of training and the scope of competence between optometrists and ophthalmologists are vast. Ophthalmologists log over 17,000 hours of clinical experience in general medicine, surgery, and emergency management during medical school and specialized postgraduate training.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Are ‘The Walls Closing In’ on Joe Biden? New Details Raise Questions By Matt Margolis

By on January 30th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/01/29/are-the-walls-closing-in-on-joe-biden-new-details-raise-questions-n1666036

According to a story published on Saturday, the scope of Joe Biden’s classified documents scandal may be bigger than previously thought. Sources close to the investigation say in addition to classified documents, the FBI also seized notebooks from Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home, which were reportedly written by Biden while he was vice president.

“The notebooks were seized because Biden’s notes on some of the pages relate to his official business as vice president, including details of his diplomatic engagements during the Obama administration, and may refer to classified information, this same person said, adding that the notebooks do not have classified markings on them, but some of the handwritten notes inside them could be considered as such given their sensitive content,” NBC News reported. “Other pages in the notebooks, while they may not contain potentially classified information, could still be considered government property under the Presidential Records Act because they pertain to official business Biden conducted as vice president, according to the person familiar with the investigation.”

According to Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives, if Biden shared the notes with staff while he was vice president, they would be considered official records belonging to the government.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

$60 Billion In COVID Fraud? Try $4 Trillion

By on January 30th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/30/60-billion-in-covid-fraud-try-4-trillion/

As auditors and congressional investigators try to figure out just how much federal COVID relief went to fraudsters, they are missing the trillions of dollars in fraud committed by the federal government itself in a war that we had no chance of winning.

Last week, the Government Accountability Office reported that fraudsters took in about $60 billion in unemployment checks. That’s on top of the tens of billions in fraudulent claims made through the Paycheck Protection Program, the tens of billions handed out through a Small Business Administration program, and on and on.

This Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability will hold a hearing “to investigate rampant waste of taxpayer dollars in COVID relief programs.”

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the chairman of the committee, said “we owe it to Americans to identify how hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent under the guise of pandemic relief were lost to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.”

That’s all well and good. But what we really need is an investigation into how the war against COVID wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars, imposed massive disruptions, handicapped millions of students, and probably didn’t save many, if any, lives.

That sort of investigation, if done honestly, would likely conclude that we would have been better off if we’d done nothing at all beyond asking people to wash their hands and stay home if they’re sick.

Shocking? Impossible to believe? Let’s review the evidence.

Start with the fact that since COVID-19 first landed on U.S. shores three years ago, 1.1 million have died from the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Even now, deaths are averaging around 4,000 per week.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

New Israel Fund accused of tax scheme—report The NIF is incorporated as a foreign company in Israel and therefore its Israeli donors aren’t entitled to tax benefits. David Isaac

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.jns.org/new-israel-fund-suspected-of-tax-fraud-report-says/

New research suggests that the New Israel Fund (NIF) directed donors to make contributions through another NGO so that they could claim tax benefits, an apparent violation of Israeli law.

Research by Ad Kan and Lavi, first reported by journalist Elhanan Gruner of online Israeli news site HaKol HaYehudi on Tuesday, indicates that NIF may have acted fraudulently, telling its donors to give money through an NGO called “Signing Anew.”

As the NIF is incorporated in Israel as a foreign company, its Israeli donors aren’t entitled to tax benefits. According to article 46a of Israel’s Income Tax Ordinance, only donors giving to recognized public institutions under the article are entitled to such benefits.

HaKol HaYehudi reported that about a month ago, the NIF held an end-of-year fundraising campaign. According to the NIF, the campaign raised 2,300,000 shekels (~$683,199). Unable to offer tax benefits to donors itself, according to the report, NIF directed major contributors to Signing Anew, which is registered as an eligible association under article 46a. Text conversations that came into the possession of Hakol HaYehudi appear to show NIF personnel directing donors in real-time as they made donations through Signing Anew.

When one donor wanted to understand how Signing Anew would know that his donation was intended for the New Israel Fund, he was allegedly told that all funds that went to Signing Anew would ultimately be part of a grant from Signing Anew to NIF.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Terror in Jerusalem, PLO flags in Tel Aviv By Ruthie Blum

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.jns.org/opinion/terror-in-jerusalem-plo-flags-in-tel-aviv/

 Neither the terrorist slaughter of seven Jewish worshipers and the wounding of three others in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, nor the near-fatal shooting the following morning of a father and son at the entrance to the City of David National Park in the Israeli capital, prevented the anti-government protests from proceeding as scheduled.

Lest they lose an inch of their self-claimed moral high ground, however, those who came out in disputed numbers for the fourth Saturday night in a row—ostensibly to decry Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s plans to overhaul the judiciary—kicked off their demonstrations with a moment of silence for the victims.

Given the personal and national tragedy of the previous 24 hours, the gesture was warranted. Still, nixing the rallies would have been far more appropriate under the circumstances.

Organizers reportedly considered this option, but decided against it. That the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee was set on Sunday to step up discussions on judicial-reform legislation tipped the scales in favor of virtue signaling in town squares.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the business-as-usual spectacle that followed the 60-second acknowledgement of the occasion was abhorrent. Participants prancing around bemoaning a concocted danger—the so-called “death of Israeli democracy” at the hands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition—made a mockery of the actual mass murder of innocents.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Administration’s Total Disregard for Iran’s Protestors, Nuclear Threat by Majid Rafizadeh

By on January 28th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19343/iran-nuclear-threat

Iran’s mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program’s capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran is selling Russia drones and other material; is Russia “paying” for them by helping the mullahs complete their nuclear weapons undertaking?

Just last week, the US Department of State declared Iran the “world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.” This is the same State Department that had allowed the mullahs to brutally crack down on and kill their own people, deliver drones and other deadly weapons to their ally Russia; freely increase their influence in Latin America, and rapidly advance their nuclear weapons program. What will it take for the Biden administration finally to help the young men and women of Iran who have been fighting so hard for their freedom?

Since the Biden administration assumed office, Iran’s ruling mullahs have seized the opportunity to continuously advance their nuclear program, which is currently a short step away from manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Iran’s mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program’s capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon.

Zohar Palti, the former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s political-military bureau and former intelligence director in the Mossad, recently stated: “They [the Iranian leaders] are days or weeks away from enriching uranium to 90 percent, which is military-grade”.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, BOOKS Comments turned off

Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews by David L. Bernstein and Natan Sharansky

By on January 28th, 2023

Woke Antisemitism is a firsthand account from a top Jewish leader about how woke ideology shuts down discourse, corrupts Jewish values, and spawns a virulent new strain of antisemitism.

In May 2021, amid another conflict with Iran-backed Hamas, Israel took a beating in both the mainstream press and social media. Notwithstanding the rocket fire aimed at its citizens, the Jewish state was portrayed as the oppressor and the Hamas government in Gaza as the oppressed. While Israel has always been subject to excessive scrutiny, this time was different. What had changed in the ideological environment? A veteran leader of Jewish advocacy organizations and a self-described liberal who has broken with the far left over the adoption of woke ideology, David L. Bernstein traces the growth of woke ideology in his life and career from a remote academic study to an international post-colonialist movement, then a faddish campus ideology, morphing into corporate diversity programs to a dominant ideology in mainstream institutions, including many Jewish organizations. Bernstein shows how core ideological tenets—such as privilege, equity, whiteness, and the oppressor/oppressed binary—can be and are weaponized against Jews.

What’s more, surveys tell us that Americans are self-censoring at record rates. Jewish institutions, long known for their robust deliberative processes and open discourse, have not been spared. Many have uncharacteristically dodged controversial issues and have simply fallen in line. He warns that, unabated, the ideology will disenfranchise the American Jewish community and sap Jewish pride. He puts forward a strategy for restoring liberal values and countering political extremism and antisemitism, focusing on rebuilding the political center strategy.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

A 21st-Century High School Movement Career Pathways Programs help young people build social capital for work and life. By Bruno V. Manno

By on January 28th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/27/a-21st-century-high-school-movement/

From 1910 to 1940, the soaring demand for educated workers to staff new white-collar jobs in the manufacturing sector created the American high school movement. It led to “a spectacular education transformation” that raised enrollment of 18-year-olds from 19 to 71 percent, and graduation rates from 9 to more than 50 percent. This lifted the United States to the forefront of educational attainment in the world. 

Today, we see the beginnings of a 21st-century high school movement, created by efforts in K-12 education to connect high school students to work through career pathways partnership programs. 

These programs acquaint students with the demands of the workforce and employers by engaging them in work with adult mentors from backgrounds different from their own. Such connections produce new cross-class friendships, social networks, and information sources among students, teachers, employer mentors, and other program supporters. These relationships with young people help shape their expectations, aspirations, and behaviors by showing them worlds previously unseen and opportunities not imagined. They allow students to build social capital and gain workforce experience. 

Finally, these programs nurture civil society by creating new social networks and forms of community for the young people and adults who participate in them. While the full fruits of this growing movement have yet to be reckoned, cumulatively they suggest a sea change in education that will enable people to thrive in the 21st-century workforce.   

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Socialism: A Grab-Bag of Superstitions Superstitionism is no basis for a system of government. By Lloyd Billingsley

By on January 28th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/27/socialism-a-grab-bag-of-superstitions/

During recent election cycles, “socialism” got quite a workout, without much detail about what it actually represents. For that knowledge, one of the best sources is Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the Twentieth Century by the late Sidney Hook, born in 1902, before any socialist country existed. 

“Socialism was a feeling of moral protest against remediable evils that surrounded us,” Hook writes, but there was more to it. “Our socialism was an ersatz religion in that we lived in its light, were buoyed up by its promise, and prepared to make sacrifices for it.” The great philosopher was also candid about the way it worked.

“Socialist faith contrasted the realities of the capitalist system with the ideals of a vaguely defined socialism, since at the time no Socialist system existed anywhere.” Once the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established, Hook would conduct a proper comparison of the realities of capitalism with the realities of socialism, such as terror and violence, “the weapon of those who scorned argument and evidence.”

Lenin was the first to refer to those who did not support the Soviet regime as “vermin,” but like Stalin professed to believe that the victims of the “Red Terror” were guilty of something, however far-fetched. As Hook recalled, “they would never have admitted to the slaughter of the innocent but their apologists admitted it and justified it!” One of those apologists was dramatist Bertolt Brecht, author of The Threepenny Opera and other works. 

Of the victims of Soviet terror, numbering in the millions, Brecht said, “the more innocent they are, the more they deserved to be shot.” Hook said nothing, escorted Brecht out the door, and never saw him again.  

Soviet socialism was supposedly on the side of the workers, but as Hook discovered, “the workers could be exploited in a collectivist economy as well as in a free market economy.”

Soviet socialism professed to be “scientific,” but as Hook learned, there are no “national truths” in science, no “German science,” and no “Jewish science.” 

In similar style, there are no “class truths” or “party truths” in science; no “proletarian science” and no such thing as “bourgeois physics” and so forth. As the philosopher explains, “this is what happens when one is in the grip of a monastic dogma,” a dogma “sustained by systematic delusion.” 

Later in life, Hook came clean.  

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why Preserve a ‘World Order’ without Freedom? By J.B. Shurk

By on January 28th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/why_preserve_a_world_order_without_freedom.html

Senator Lindsey Graham desperately wants more money and weapons for Ukraine.  Recently standing in Kyiv alongside two (other?) Democrat senators — one who repeatedly lied about his service in Vietnam and another who repeatedly lied about President Trump being a Russian spy — Graham demanded American tanks on the ground immediately.  “World order is at stake!” he declared.  Something serious must be at stake over there; having thrown over a hundred billion dollars to a nation that was known universally as one of the most corrupt in the world before Russia crossed its borders last year, the U.S. government has become “pot committed” to a European war, whether financially struggling Americans care or not.

Just what is this “world order” that keeps Ol’ Lindsey up at night?  Surely he means some combination of American hegemony, military dominance, dollar-denominated financial supremacy, and command over the vaunted “rules-based international system” so-called Western leaders love to defend.  You never hear anything about the importance of defending Western rights and liberties, though, do you?  Senator Graham-nesty isn’t worried about protecting America’s borders.  He says absolutely nothing about securing Westerners’ freedoms from threats of tyranny.  Why?

Because America has relinquished its status as “leader of the free world.”  That is not because dementia-addled Joe Biden is merely a figurehead under the unelected Deep State’s control.  It is because there is no “free world” right now — at least not within the jurisdiction of political governments.  The political persecution of J6 protesters for “thought crimes,” the authoritarian COVID-1984 lockdowns and mandates, and the confirmation through the “Twitter Files” that the U.S. government is heavily invested in censorship and public manipulation all make this damning statement soberingly clear.

Friedrich Hayek warned in The Road to Serfdom, “We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.”  American independence and the U.S. Constitution embraced this principle.  The “American experiment” was not devoted to creating a vast administrative State in which the expertise and benevolence of “public servants” would usher in a future Utopia.  “Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness,” Ludwig von Mises observed, “no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.”  Arguing otherwise has been the fool’s gold of both idealists and tyrants for millennia.  “Freedom is indivisible,” Mises argued.  “As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.”  The American system broke with tyrannies of the past, and for doing so, an unelected, mercurial, deceptive, and vicious Deep State has spent decades breaking the American system.

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