Displaying the most recent of 90914 posts written by

Ruth King

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Palestinian application of chutzpah on the Temple Mount By Lev Tsitrin

By on July 27th, 2017

The classic example of chutzpah is to kill one’s parents and then demand clemency in the court on the grounds of being an orphan.

People laugh hearing this example despite its gruesomeness, for no one in his right mind can take it seriously. Yet it is no laughing matter anymore, for recently, Palestinians utilized that very excuse in the court of public opinion.

There is a hill in Jerusalem called by Palestinians the Al-Aqsa compound, by Jews the Temple Mount. After Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War a half-century ago, Israelis and Arabs came up with a simple equilibrium that became the status quo regarding the site: all can visit, but only Muslims can pray there.

Simply put, the status quo is this: the Al-Aqsa compound is a site of Muslim prayer.

On July 14, 2017, three terrorists ran out of it, gunning down two Israeli policemen, and ran back, hoping to escape there. They were shot and killed by the police.

This means that the status quo got changed – by the Palestinians. From the place of prayer, Al-Aqsa was turned into a weapons storage facility and a launchpad for terrorist attacks.

By placing around it metal detectors and surveillance cameras – thus rendering Al-Aqsa unusable for military purposes – Israeli authorities turned the location back into a prayer site.

And yet the Palestinians are unhappy. Instead of being grateful for restoring the status quo, they are accusing Israelis of altering the very status quo they, the Palestinians, themselves murderously altered in the first place, which Israelis restored! Not willing to come back to Al-Aqsa, they cry to heaven, irate at Jewish perfidy!

I don’t think heaven hears them. They are refusing to come pray at Al-Aqsa for several days now, yet somehow the heavens are not falling down.

Perhaps even Allah does not find funny Palestinians’ bizarre claims of victimhood after committing a murder.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

It’s about Sovereignty By Shoshana Bryen

By on July 27th, 2017

The disgusting terror murders of two Israeli policemen (one shot in the back) on the Temple Mount, coupled with the indescribable terror murders of three Israelis (grandfather, father, and aunt) celebrating the birth of a baby at their Sabbath dinner, were met with howls of outrage and threats of retaliatory violence and even religious war –- not by Israelis seeking vengeance, but by Palestinians!

Echoed by Jordanians, al Jazeera, and the UN, Palestinian strongman Mahmoud Abbas claimed he couldn’t be held responsible for escalated violence if Israel maintained the metal detectors on the Temple Mount installed to prevent a recurrence of violence directed at Jews.

Nothing in the Middle East is ever what it looks like. Metal detectors may be metal detectors elsewhere, but on the Temple Mount they are an attack on “Muslim patrimony.” Turkey’s President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan made that clear. “When Israeli soldiers carelessly pollute the grounds of Al-Aqsa with their combat boots by using simple issues as a pretext and then easily spill blood there, the reason [they are able to do that] is we [Muslims] have not done enough to stake our claim over Jerusalem.”

Israel, to the relief — and kind words — of the White House, has removed the metal detectors, but far from resolving the problem, the retreat encouraged Fatah to announce it would “intensify the struggle” because the “campaign for Jerusalem has effectively begun, and will not stop until a Palestinian victory and the release of the holy sites from Israeli occupation.”

Two important issues have to be sorted out here: first, the political and religious rights of Jews in their indigenous space; and second, the right not to be murdered for the “crime” of being Jewish, or Israeli, or non-Jewish and non-Israeli but being in Israel. Among the recent victims of Palestinian terror are Druze Muslim police officers Kamil Shnaan, 22 and Haiel Sitawe, and American Vanderbilt University student and U.S. Army veteran Taylor Force, as well as American and Israeli Jews.

Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people — the restoration of Jewish sovereignty to even part of the historic homeland was prayed for since the end of the Second Jewish Commonwealth and celebrated since 1948. In the 20th century, Jews and Israelis accepted various suggestions and commands for borders of a reconstituted State — everything from the lopping off of 75% of the British Mandate for a Judenrein Arab state (1917) to the split-state Peel Commission Partition Plan (1937) to the British Partition Plan (1938) to the Jewish Agency plan (1946) to the much smaller UN Partition Plan (1947).

The Arab states agreed to none of those and declined to say where Jews might then exercise sovereignty — because there was no such place. The 1949-67 lines were unacceptable and so were the post-67 lines. Israel and the U.S. posited new lines after the Oslo Accords, and in 2008 when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed 93% of the West Bank plus political rights in Jerusalem for the Palestinians (the Gaza Strip already being 100% in Palestinian hands). Mahmoud Abbas said no.

“No” was the necessary answer because the Palestinians agree there is no legitimate place for Jews to exercise sovereign authority. This goes directly to the question of the Temple Mount and metal detectors.

Continue reading →
MOVIES AND TELEVISION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Missing Weapon at Dunkirk By Steve Feinstein

By on July 27th, 2017

Although most people under 40 are astonishingly ignorant about it, a great worldwide armed conflict known as World War II took place from 1939-1945 in the European and Pacific regions. It is relevant and important to know and understand because the outcome of World War II put into place the political, economic and geographical conditions and relationships that make the world what it is today. An understanding of the ramifications of WWII is central to comprehending how today’s world came to be. People under 40—heck, even under 60—would do themselves a huge favor if they learned some history and saw how that history affected today’s world.

The 1939 war in Europe was caused mostly by the consequences of the unresolved complications and volatile conditions that persisted following the end of World War I in 1918. World War I took place from 1914 to 1918 and was a struggle for the control of Europe, primarily between the Germans on one side against the French and British (aided by America after 1917) on the other side. Germany remained particularly unstable in the years after the end of the Great War (as WWI came to be known) and in retrospect, many historians now feel that another war in Europe was inevitable.

The inevitability of another European war after 1918 became reality on Sept. 1, 1939 when Germany turned eastward and attacked Poland. Having built up its military forces in direct contravention to post-WWI treaties, Germany overwhelmed Poland in a matter of a few short weeks, using their newly-developed blitzkrieg tactics. Unlike the ponderous, static, slow-motion trench warfare that dominated World War I, Germany saw the potential of combining fast-moving armored forces with close-support air power (dive bombers and fast low-altitude bombers) to deliver a decisive, overpowering blow to their enemy’s critical targets in the very early stages of the action. (Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics were so successful that the term has now become part of the popular lexicon, meaning any quick, overwhelming action, whether in sports or business or some other endeavor.)

Following a relatively uneventful 1939-1940 winter (a time period that came to be known as the “Phony War”), Germany resumed its hostilities against Europe in the spring of 1940, turning its attention westward. German forces blasted through the “Low Countries” of the Netherlands and Belgium and swung around to invade France from a point behind its main defensive eastern border with Germany. Following World War I, France fortified its eastern border with Germany with a massive wall of concrete and armament called the Maginot Line in an effort to prevent any future invasion by Germany. But Germany attacked the Netherlands and Belgium to the north and west of Germany, through the supposedly impenetrably dense Ardennes forest and then swung into France from behind the Maginot Line. France’s expensive, foolproof defense against German aggression proved to be a worthless folly.

As German forces poured into France, the French military was disoriented, confused and demoralized. Despite having numerical superiority over Germany in planes and equipment, the French utterly failed to mount an effective defense of their homeland. Desperate and panicked, France pleaded with Britain to send men and materiél to their aid.

The British did so, in the form of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), consisting of several hundred thousand troops along with tanks and aircraft. It was a wasted effort, as the British could not buttress the listless and disorganized French forces against the brilliantly trained, highly motivated German army. Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics decimated the allied formations, inflicting severe losses and taking great swaths of French territory.

Sometimes, what might seem to be a small decision at the time can have huge long-range consequences, with repercussions that last decades into the future, even to the point of altering the course of history. Such was the case in the battle for France in May of 1940. British Air Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding made the decision to not send any of Britain’s valuable Spitfire fighter aircraft to France for the fight against the Germans. The Spitfire was generally regarded as the best fighter plane in the world at the time (narrowly edging out Germany’s BF-109). Dowding correctly recognized that Britain would soon be in a one-on-one fight for survival against Germany and any hope Britain had of fighting off the German air force (the Luftwaffe) rested squarely on the shoulders of their small contingent of Spitfires.

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

That Joe and Mika New York Magazine Cover Is Why Everyone Hates the Media When journalists willingly make themselves the center of the story, ordinary voters shake their heads in disgust. By Tiana Lowe

By on July 26th, 2017

Once upon a time, the greatest sin journalists could commit was to make themselves a part of the story. On Sunday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski did just that, soaking up the fluorescent spotlight on the cover of New York magazine and dishing about their “star-crossed relationship with the president” — and, of course, each other — in its pages.

During trying times, contentiousness between the press and the president has often morphed into spectacle, with anchors such as Sam Donaldson receiving flak from the public for seeming to enter the political arena rather than report or comment on it. With the advent of social media, the lines between reporting, commentary, analysis, and activism were blurred, and they’ve been obliterated by the crossover of celebrity into politics. First there was Al Franken. Now, there is Trump. Soon, there might be Senator Kid Rock. So it makes sense that reporters will become unwittingly entangled in the political fray. We saw as much with Megyn Kelly, who became a political lightning rod overnight following Trump’s deeply personal attacks on her moderation of the first Republican primary debate.

In all fairness — or depending on whether you believe that Morning Joe’s fluffy platforming helped him win the Republican nomination — Trump sort of started it. In his petty, derisive, unpresidential tweet-storm last month, he attacked Brzezinski’s appearance and Scarborough’s sanity, and immediately after the fact, the pair responded with a measured defense in the Washington Post. They seemed to rise above the pathetic occasion and take Trump’s bullying in stride. At first.

Earlier this month, Scarborough published a high-and-mighty critique of the GOP, notable only for what it unwittingly revealed about its author. No, the former Republican congressman did not object to Trump’s denouncing John McCain for being captured in the line of duty during the Vietnam War. He did not declare the Republican party shot when it chose Trump as its nominee. He reached his breaking point only once the personal became political.

The next stop on Joe and Mika’s media junket was The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, in which the duo discussed the vicissitudes of journalism in the 24-hour news cycle, the ethics of sourcing, and their own relationship, making a few obvious Trump jokes along the way. At the end, Joe even got to debut a song from his new dad-rock album!

Their New York magazine cover, then, really shouldn’t be shocking, yet somehow, it is.

It’s not that journalists and commentators should exist in the shadows, especially when Trump pulls them into the arena. Jake Tapper and Megyn Kelly have both recently been featured and glamorized in monthly magazines, but in each case they discussed their roles as journalists, not as the leaders of an opposition or resistance movement. Mika and Joe, meanwhile, used the opportunity to embrace their roles in the cheap soap opera of petty palace intrigue.

“At one point, Joe sent me a Snapchat and Donald was on top, and then he sent me another one and Melania was!” Brzezinski gushed about her pet bunnies, not-at-all-creepily named after the president and first lady, to Olivia Nuzzi, the magazine’s Washington correspondent. The nearly 6,000-word cover story is rife with such anecdotes. Scarborough makes sure to get in a plug for his album, discussing the process of writing a love song for Brzezinski. She makes sure to flaunt her “large diamond solitaire” and play with his hair in front of Nuzzi. They both express shock and awe that Trump remained, well, himself as he progressed from candidate to president. Barely half of the feature covers the pair’s dealings with the president. The rest reads like an incredibly nuanced analysis of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

This Is a Safe Space. No Jews Allowed. Why are some American progressives embracing overt anti-Semitism? By Mark Joseph Stern

By on July 26th, 2017

Are you a Jew in Chicago who’d like to march for LGBTQ rights and gender equality? You’ll have to follow a few rules, helpfully laid out in recent weeks by the Chicago Dyke March and the Chicago SlutWalk.

First, you must not carry any “Zionist displays.” What are Zionist displays? That’s for others to decide. A Star of David might be OK. But if it’s on a rainbow flag, it probably isn’t because “its connections to the oppression enacted by Israel is too strong for it to be neutral.”

Second, you must express solidarity with Palestine. Marching in a parade with a pro-Palestinian stance is not sufficient, nor is advocating for a Palestinian state. As an openly Jewish person, you’ll need to satisfy more heightened scrutiny; other marchers may repeatedly demand that you disavow Israel and swear allegiance to the Palestinian cause. You must comply with these demands or else you will be expelled.

Want to listen to this article out loud? Hear it on Slate Voice.

Third, you must renounce any previous connections you have had with Israel. Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a group with ties to Israel? Repudiate and repent. Openly Jewish marchers are presumed to be in league with the Israeli government unless they can prove otherwise.

One final note: If you are a journalist who covers the implementation of these rules, you deserve to lose your job.

Listed all at once, these guidelines may sound too blatantly anti-Semitic to be stated openly—yet they are, at present, the operating principles of two widely celebrated progressive movements in Chicago. Both the Dyke March and the SlutWalk allege that these rules are compelled by intersectionality, the theory that all forms of social oppression are linked. In reality, both groups are using intersectionality as a smokescreen for anti-Semitism, creating a litmus test that Jews must pass to be part of these movements. American progressives should reject this perversion of social justice. No coherent vision of equality can command the maltreatment of Jews.

The debate over intersectionality and anti-Semitism jumped into the headlines following last month’s Dyke March, an LGBTQ demonstration that avoids the corporate sponsorships and bland political undertones of mainstream Pride events. During the march, several organizers approached Jewish demonstrators who were carrying rainbow Star of David flags. The organizers asked whether these women held Zionist sympathies, their suspicions reportedly having been aroused when the flag-carriers allegedly replaced the word “Palestine” with “everywhere” in a group chant. (That chant: “From Palestine to Mexico, border walls have got to go.) One woman, Laurel Grauer, reportedly responded, “I do care about the state of Israel but I also believe in a two-state solution and an independent Palestine.” The organizers then ejected the Jewish demonstrators.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Else Did Al Gore Get Wrong? Over time, the former vice president’s pronouncements on population may be more embarrassing than his climate predictions.By James Freeman

By on July 26th, 2017

Al Gore’s latest global warming movie will open in U.S. theaters on Friday. “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” arrives eleven years after his award-winning “An Inconvenient Truth.” In the interim, conservatives like talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh haven’t let Mr. Gore forget his most dire and least accurate weather predictions. But the Gore analysis on another issue is being rejected by even some of his committed climate allies.

The good news for all of us is that Mr. Gore appears to have overstated the threat of eco-apocalypse, which he seems to implicitly acknowledge on his latest media tour.

Back in 2006, CBS News reported on Mr. Gore’s arrival at the Sundance Film Festival:

The former vice president came to town for the premiere of “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary chronicling what has become his crusade since losing the 2000 presidential election: Educating the masses that global warming is about to toast our ecology and our way of life.

…Americans have been hearing it for decades, wavering between belief and skepticism that it all may just be a natural part of Earth’s cyclical warming and cooling phases.

And politicians and corporations have been ignoring the issue for decades, to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, Gore said.

Eleven years later, the mischief makers at the Climate Depot website asked him about the 10-year deadline at this year’s festival—just before he climbed into a large chauffeured sport-utility vehicle. He didn’t have much to say then, but in the absence of drastic global measures, it’s clear that Mr. Gore now believes that the end is not quite nigh. The tech website CNET describes an “optimistic” Mr. Gore with a “sunny outlook” discussing his latest cinematic venture with a crowd in San Francisco.

The new movie will likely spark more discussion about the accuracy of various Gore environmental predictions. The left-leaning Politifact has flagged several “half-truths” from the former vice president.

CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Sarah Halimi case: Will truth lead to justice? Nidra Poller

By on July 26th, 2017

Commemoration of the Rafle du vel d’hiv

There was every reason to expect the July 16th commemoration of the Rafle du vel d’hiv to be limited to the usual concern for the dead. It does not take a gigantic soul to condemn retrospectively the arrest, deportation and extermination of more than 13,000 Parisian Jews, including over 4,000 children. Since 1995, when President Jacques Chirac placed responsibility for the irreparable crime on France, subsequent presidents have followed suit. But the Front National candidate Marine Le Pen dissents. During the presidential campaign she vehemently rejected this misguided repentance: France was in London, the Vichy government was not France. Her international anti-jihad supporters didn’t even notice let alone understand this reassertion of the founding values of the party she inherited from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen.

dozen members of the Truth and Justice for Sarah Halimi committee, meeting a few days before the commemoration were resigned to the certainty that it would be restricted to the historical past. The Crif, they supposed, would maintain its lay-low institutional role and not make waves or in any way embarrass the president who, at this stage, had shown absolutely no interest in the case and its broader implications. One member suggested they wear white armbands, a knotted piece of torn sheet like the ones handed out at the recent demonstration of cyclists for Sarah.

The ceremony kicked off early in the morning on July 16th with a walk around the memorial garden guided by Serge Klarsfeld who has tirelessly unearthed and published information about the exterminated children one by one. For security reasons, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu did not accompany the small group. The Vel d’hiv ceremony was a striking contrast with the pomp and circumstance of the 14th of July parade with honored guest President Donald Trump, protected by the most imposing security detail known to man. The magnificence of French architecture, French style, French ceremony, the Champs Elysées, the mounted Garde Républicaine, combat planes with their red white and blue plumes, military cadence, well-rehearsed exactitude, the first ladies and their wardrobes (no one can compete with Melania Trump). The back-slapping shoulder-tapping good hearted-hugging friendship between the Trumps and the Macrons was almost comical…and almost sincere.

The site where the infamous winter velodrome stood until it was demolished in the mid-fifties is surrounded by nondescript buildings. The modest ceremony was held before a small audience under a pitched tent roof in the presence of a handful of survivors, a bouquet of children, a sprinkling of descendants of righteous gentiles. Brigitte Macron, contrary to what had been announced, did not attend. The commemoration, broadcast live by BFM TV, LCI and, of course, i24 news French channel, was followed by ample media commentary. As far as I could tell CNN Intl. did not cover or even mention the ceremony.

Rabbi Oliver Kaufman chanted El Mole Rachamim, Raphael Esrail recited the kaddish, followed by a minute of silence, the Marseillaise…but no Hatikvah. And then, Crif President Francis Kalifat stood upright and articulated forthrightly the message that Jews and non-Jews have been trying to communicate to French society and authorities over the past seventeen years. Yes, Jews and non-Jews. One of the ploys used to stifle this message is the constant repetition of “the Sarah Halimi murder has dismayed French Jews, the Jewish community is distressed by the failure to investigate the anti-Semitic motive of the suspect,” etc. as if it were a narrowly Jewish issue pushed by parochially Jewish worry warts and exploited to attract attention to their minority concerns.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hamas Must Remain on Terror List, Says EU’s Top Court The European Court of Justice reversed a lower court’s decision By Laurence Norman

By on July 26th, 2017

The European Union’s top court ruled Wednesday that Palestinian group Hamas should be kept on the bloc’s terror list, reversing a lower court decision, but said the striking down of a Sri Lankan terror group listing was appropriate.

The decisions won’t have an immediate impact. Both groups were relisted on new grounds by the EU earlier this year and any funds connected to the groups remain frozen. However, the earlier ruling on Hamas in 2014 had added to tensions with Israel and raised questions about the bloc’s counterterror work.

In the case of Hamas, the European Court of Justice said the lower court’s 2014 decision wrongly demanded stronger evidence from EU member states to keep the group on the terror list.

“We welcome the ECJ ruling which confirmed the legality of Hamas listing in 2010-2014,” said the EU embassy in Israel. “The EU continues to consider Hamas a terrorist organization; measures restricting its activity remain in force.”

The ECJ said that while specific evidence must be provided by an EU member state to blacklist a group or person, there were less strict conditions on evidence to maintain that blacklisting. All that was needed to extend the listing was evidence showing that there is a continuing risk of the person or group being involved in terrorist activities. As a result, the lower court was wrong to discard the looser evidence provided on Hamas’ continuing terror activities.

However, for the Tamil Tigers, the court said that the EU didn’t explain why it believed the Sri Lankan group, following its military defeat in 2009, still posed a terror risk.

The court therefore confirmed the lower court’s decision to annul the freezing of Tamil Tiger funds from 2011 to 2015.

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Connect the Dots to Stop Terror Plots Congressional barriers to information sharing would heighten the risk of another 9/11. By Adam Klein

By on July 26th, 2017

Why didn’t intelligence agencies prevent 9/11? According to the 9/11 Commission, before the attacks, information from intelligence agencies “often failed to make its way to criminal investigators” at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

By the summer of 2000, the Central Intelligence Agency already knew that two future hijackers were associates of known terrorists, that both men held visas to enter the U.S., and that one had in fact flown to Los Angeles in March 2000. Unfortunately, the FBI learned of this in August 2001—at which point the men had already made their last, fateful entry into the U.S. With better information-sharing, the FBI might have arrested the terrorists and prevented the 9/11 attacks.

Some members of Congress now propose to erect new barriers against information-sharing within the intelligence community that could make it even more difficult for officials to spot future terrorists before they strike.

The proposal would affect Section 702, a 2008 law that allows the intelligence community to collect the communications of foreign intelligence targets when the communications travel across U.S. internet cables or are stored on U.S. servers. This has been an effective counterterrorism tool because foreign targets’ messages often touch the U.S. internet infrastructure.

Foreign targets are not protected by the Fourth Amendment, so the government has the authority to collect their messages under Section 702 without a warrant. But when foreign targets communicate with Americans, those messages are collected as well, raising privacy concerns.

Another key aspect of the privacy debate around Section 702 is what intelligence agencies should be allowed to do with that data. Courts have allowed agencies to search their 702 records for foreign intelligence purposes and, in the FBI’s case, for evidence of crime, which sometimes includes searches for information about Americans.

Privacy-minded House members from both parties are now reportedly considering amending Section 702 to bar government officials from searching 702 data for information about an American unless they get a warrant, based on probable cause, from a federal judge. Reformers have leverage this year because Congress must pass a 702 reauthorization bill before the law sunsets on Dec. 31.

But keeping officials from searching this data would make it more difficult to prevent homegrown terrorist attacks. In 2009 the National Security Agency used 702 to collect emails in which an unknown person in the U.S. asked an al Qaeda member in Pakistan for advice on making explosives. Those emails led the FBI to Najibullah Zazi, a Colorado man with imminent plans to bomb the New York subway system. Catching him saved dozens if not hundreds of lives. If an American appears to be radicalizing, the first thing the FBI should do is check the information already in its database to see whether that person has been in contact with known ISIS or al Qaeda operatives. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

ObamaCare’s GOP Preservers Seven Republicans pull a switcheroo as repeal fails, 45-55.

By on July 26th, 2017

The Senate voted 45-55 Wednesday not to repeal ObamaCare with a two-year delay to replace it, and the only consolation for Republicans is the clarity of seeing who voted to preserve and protect rather than repeal and replace.

Congress had passed and sent to Barack Obama’s desk a similar measure in 2015, with support from every current Senate Republican except Susan Collins of Maine. This time seven voted no, including Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who aren’t up for re-election until 2022 and 2020, respectively. If you’re going to renege on your political promises, better to do it early, we suppose.

The repeal failure follows a Tuesday vote in which nine Republicans defeated a package to replace parts of the law and rehabilitate Medicaid, which went down 43-57. Only three Republicans voted against both, or to maintain the undiluted status quo: Ms. Collins, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Dean Heller of Nevada.

In 2015 Ms. Murkowski’s office put out an encomium to her many efforts to unwind ObamaCare, which she voted against in 2009. (See nearby.) Ms. Murkowski has co-sponsored bills to delay the individual mandate and to nix the law’s “Cadillac tax” on expensive plans. She bragged about her vote to eliminate the medical device tax and published op-eds on the “harmful impacts” of ObamaCare. This was apparently make-work for her staff.

Mr. Heller is the only Republican likely to have a tough re-election fight next year, and this week he made it that much tougher. The Nevadan voted Tuesday to allow debate, which Democrats will portray as a vote for repeal. But the GOP voters who helped him eke out a roughly 10,000-vote victory in 2012 will rightly judge the opposite from Wednesday’s vote. Don’t bet the fortune in the Vegas casinos or on a second Heller term.

Then there’s Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, who voted for repeal and will soon be flaunting their self-styled reputations as the only political saints in Sin City. The reality is that their long refusal to vote for less-than-perfect repeal gave decisive leverage to Senate GOP moderates, who have combined to water down reform.

The practical effect will likely be to squander a historic opportunity to put Medicaid on a sustainable budget and better serve the truly needy rather than able-bodied adults. Can we at least no longer hear lectures from Mr. Paul of the kind he offered in January that we “can absolutely not balance a budget” without addressing entitlements?

The Senate is continuing to debate amendments in a crush of votes, and no one knows what will result. The most likely possibility is a “skinny repeal” that kills discrete features of ObamaCare like the employer and individual mandates and medical device tax. Moving even a “skinny bill” into a conference negotiation with the House is better than nothing, but it is light years from the bold Republican Senate promises of 2015-2016.

The best outcome of Wednesday’s repeal vote would have been to send the bill to a Republican President who is willing and even desperate to sign it. But at least voters have clarity about which GOP Senators are willing to ratify President Obama’s achievements.

Continue reading →