RUTHFULLY YOURS

Among the too numerous frustrations of the political process is that a lot of smart and talented people spend their time and energy fulminating about things that don’t really matter. That diverts attention from our nation’s real problems. There are few better examples than today’s debate about economic inequality.

America may well have an economic inequality problem, but it’s not a problem that will be solved by denouncing “the 1%” or blaming bankers, Republicans or tax rates that are too low. It’s not a problem that will be solved by senseless rhetoric about the false wage gap between the sexes or calling for large minimum wage increases that would reduce the number of entry-level jobs.

To the extent we have an economic inequality problem, it’s not because a small percenatge of our population—comprised of professional entertainers and athletes, corporate CEOs, internet pioneers, and others—are wealthier than the average American. Young graduates bearing large student loans while facing a weak job market, families facing unemployment or low wages, and single parents struggling to raise children do not find their situations any more difficult because some in our nation are wealthy.

Yet, liberals seem to think otherwise, and here we find a stark illustration of the converse mindsets of liberals and conservatives. Liberals seem to want to reduce economic inequality by bringing the people at the top down, while conservatives want to reduce inequality by bringing the people at the bottom up. The left wants to focus on class warfare while the right wants to focus on economic growth, the proverbial rising tide that raises all boats.

If we want to reduce economic inequality, the only logical solution is to raise the living standards of the middle class and those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. History, economics and sociology show that the optimal way to do this is not through political grandstanding or government diktats but through the pursuit of policies that have grown our economy in the past.

We must reform our almost Rube Goldberg-like tax code to remove its economic inefficiencies. We need a simpler, fairer and flatter tax structure, one that lowers rates across the board and eliminates most of the provisions that, while perhaps well-intentioned, serve as disincentives to economic growth. President Reagan enacted tax rate reductions and simplified the tax code in the 1980s, ushering in a quarter-century of economic growth. Certainly there were the usual economic cycles over that period, but this growth led to millions of new jobs and overcame the tax increases of t

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304279904579518273176775310?mg=reno64-wsj
It’s time to defy health-care mandates issued by bureaucrats not in the healing profession.

In my 23 years as a practicing physician, I’ve learned that the only thing that matters is the doctor-patient relationship. How we interact and treat our patients is the practice of medicine. I acknowledge that there is a problem with the rising cost of health care, but there is also a problem when the individual physician in the trenches does not have a voice in the debate and is being told what to do and how to do it.

As a group, the nearly 880,000 licensed physicians in the U.S. are, for the most part, well-intentioned. We strive to do our best even while we sometimes contend with unrealistic expectations. The demands are great, and many of our families pay a huge price for our not being around. We do the things we do because it is right and our patients expect us to.

So when do we say damn the mandates and requirements from bureaucrats who are not in the healing profession? When do we stand up and say we are not going to take it any more?

Corbis

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services dictates that we must use an electronic health record (EHR) or be penalized with lower reimbursements in the future. There are “meaningful use” criteria whereby the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tells us as physicians what we need to include in the electronic health record or we will not be subsidized the cost of converting to the electronic system and we will be penalized by lower reimbursements. Across the country, doctors waste precious time filling in unnecessary electronic-record fields just to satisfy a regulatory measure. I personally spend two hours a day dictating and documenting electronic health records just so I can be paid and not face a government audit. Is that the best use of time for a highly trained surgical specialist?

Nicholas Kulish and Souad Makhennet recently appeared on CSPAN to promote their new book The Eternal Nazi: From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim. Kulish and Makhennet did not find Dr. Heim, who died more than 20 years ago, but their relentless pursuit proved enlightening in several ways.

The authors find Dr. Heim remarkably unlike the “superhuman Nazi of popular imagination” from films such as Marathon Man and The Boys From Brazil. The Austrian Heim excelled at ice hockey and easily mastered foreign languages. He completed his medical studies in Vienna at the age of 25 and was drafted into SS. His wartime duties included service in 1941 at Mauthausen. Survivors of the concentration camp there charge that Dr. Heim killed inmates by injecting gasoline into their hearts and that he decorated his desk with the skulls of selected victims.

After the war Heim spent three years as a POW, treating other prisoners as a medical doctor. His record at Mauthausen somehow failed to emerge and in 1947 he was set free and soon living the good life in a resurgent West Germany. In the early 1960s, about the time the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, Heim began to get nervous. He fled, but not to South America like other Nazi war criminals.

He decamped for Tangier then moved on to Egypt, where German military officers received a warm welcome, a legacy of support for the Axis powers in World War II. The authors also observe that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj al-Husseini, worked with the Nazis and even visited concentration camps.

In Egypt Heim was able to maintain his German properties by remote control. He eventually converted to Islam and adopted the name Tarek Hussein Farid. In 1979 he made the cover of Der Spiegel but the authors show how sleuths such as German policeman Alfred Aedtner were unable to reel him in. So was celebrity Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, who gets rough treatment in The Eternal Nazi. The authors show how Wiesenthal got it wrong on UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim and his lies about his wartime service in areas where Jews were being deported to concentration camps. As the joke had it, he suffered from “Waldheimers Disease,” which made him forget he was a Nazi.

No Nazi hunter or government spy agency was able to bag “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele, the big prize, and Treblinka guard John Demjanjuk turned out not to be “Ivan the Terrible.” Likewise, nobody was able to pry SS doctor Aribert Heim out of Egypt where he died in 1992. The authors tracked down his briefcase, full of revealing documents, and put together the story. Along the way they fail to flag some key collaborators.

Werner J. Dannhauser, who worked for COMMENTARY as an editor fifty years ago before moving into academia as a celebrated teacher of political philosophy, was an American original—and of a type of which there are, sadly, fewer and fewer as the years pass. He was a deeply serious intellectual—and a bit of a reprobate. He was a highly responsible bourgeois who tragically found himself a widower at a very young age with two very young children—and a party animal who liked to gamble and drink. (He once prevailed upon his legendary teacher, Leo Strauss, for a loan when he got himself in over his head in a professional poker game and needed some scratch to keep his legs from getting broken out from under him.) He had the beard of a 19th Century Swedenborgian clergyman—and told a Jewish joke like nobody’s business. He taught moral and political philosophy with great gravity—and got into hot water for talking dirty in a Cornell classroom. He was a genuinely delightful man and, when he could free himself from the writer’s block that oddly afflicts so many Straussians, a prose stylist of true grace and wit.

Here he is, in 1975, in an article called “On Teaching Politics Today” which is so politically incorrect in its discussion of, among other things, his students’s “bosoms” that no one, not even he, would write it now:

Like everybody else around me I learned Shaw’s not-so-bon mot early: Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach. I wanted to be the third baseman for the Cleveland Indians when I grew up, or a jazz trumpeter, or a movie star, but never a teacher. I drifted into teaching just as I drifted into everything else, both wonderful and dreadful, in my life. Graduate students need money—a student, according to Balzac, is somebody who can afford only luxuries—so I began to do a little teaching on the side. It became more than a sideline because it was a stage of sorts and I was not too bad as an actor on it. To watch a classroom full of people taking down what I said was heady, especially when there were admiring girls among them. So I kept teaching.

Then came a time when I began to realize I had grown too old to be a third baseman and I suddenly got the dreadful feeling that real life was somewhere else. So I left teaching and looked for real life as a social worker, a truck dispatcher, an editor, a researcher for a labor union. In the ivory tower the university struck me as, well, an ivory tower; but out of it, it seemed to be the place where the action was. In I went and out I went, and now I’m back in, having learned, as Milton Friedman puts it, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. One pays a price for being a teacher. One’s wit becomes donnish; one’s arguments pedantic; one grows slower without growing calmer. Continued association with those younger than oneself may hasten the coming of senility. Faculty parties are immeasurably more boring than Village parties or family parties. But real life is not out there either. It’s inside somewhere, hard to find, and teachers have a better chance of finding it than most. One has to learn to trust oneself, to trust the great stupidity one is (Nietzsche). I have not learned much about who I am, but I have learned I am a teacher.

by Avi Goldreich

(Translated from the Hebrew by Nurit Greenger.)

The time machine is a sensation that nests in me when I am visiting Mr. Hobber old books store in Budapest, Hungary. Hobber learned to know my quirks and after the initial greeting and the glass of mineral water (Mr. Hobber is a vegan) he leads me down the stairs to the huge basement, to the Jewish “section.”

The Jewish section is a room full of antiquity books on subjects that Mr. Hobber sees to be Jewish. Among the books there are some that are not even worthy their leather binding. However, sometime, one can find there real culture treasure. Many of the books are Holy Books that may have been stolen from synagogues’ archives: Talmud, Bible, Mishnah, old Ashkenazi style Siddur, and others. Customarily, I open them to see who the proprietor is; who was the Bar Mitzvah boy who received the book two hundred years ago and to whom did he pass the book at the end of his days. It is simply curiosity.

Many of the books are written in the German language. They are books of Jewish rumination written by Christians or assimilating Jews. Sometime one can find a hand written Talmud volume that is very expensive; thousands of Euros, set in the specially aired cabinet. Hobber knows their value. Sometime one can find a bargain such as the book Palestina by Hadriani Relandi — its original professional name Palaestina, ex monumentis veteribus illustrata, published by Trajecti Batavorum: Ex Libraria G. Brodelet, 1714. One can find such original books in only few places in the world, also in Haifa University.

Odd how Rev. Jeremiah Wright got away with being racist for years, isn’t it?
A racist catch makes everybody feel good and right now we all feel terrific, all across the land. Donald Sterling, a billionaire who owns most of Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles Clippers pro basketball team, is our Racist Catch of the Day. He made some terrible remarks about African Americans and he merits our disapproval.

President Obama was quick to register his disgust against Sterling.
Years ago, however, Obama was not so quick to condemn his pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright for Wright’s repeated anti-Semitic slurs from the pulpit. Obama sat there for some 20 years listening to all that trash-talk and most in the Liberal press also agreed that Wright did not warrant much coverage…certainly not enough to tarnish Obama.

Only the Conservative press, Fox News, tried and failed to make it a big deal.

But finally here is something we can all agree on – Liberals, Conservatives and Independents. We are all in the same boat. Yippee. We got our man.

We hate that guy Donald Sterling for allegedly warning his mistress (or former mistress) to quit taking pictures with African Americans, and to quit bringing them to the games, even though most of his team is made up of African Americans. So this comment of Sterling’s is not just reprehensible but confusing.

If you’re looking for a mostly white sport, try tennis or cricket.

Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day fell this year on yesterday evening and today. Yom HaShoah (literally “Day the-Holocaust” in Hebrew) was declared a national memorial day in Israel in 1953, five years after the state’s establishment, and is now observed throughout the Jewish world.

Unlike much older Jewish holidays, Yom HaShoah has had to be improvised. By now, in Israel (where I’ve been living for almost 30 years), the day has a structure and contents that rather effectively convey somberness and an intense identification with the Holocaust’s victims.

Yom HaShoah begins in Israel (at sundown) with a ceremony in a square beside Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. I’ve been watching it on TV now for years and generally find it tactful, authentic, and moving. It includes speeches by the prime minister and the president before an honor guard, the lighting of six torches (symbolizing six million victims) by Holocaust survivors, musical presentations, and most of all the heart-wrenching singing of the prayer “El Malei Rahamim” by the chief army cantor.

Yom HaShoah is a regular workday, but with places of entertainment closed and all TV and radio programs devoted to Holocaust-related themes. At 11 a.m. sirens blare throughout the country and all traffic and motion stops. Drivers exit their cars and, like the surrounding pedestrians, stand for the two-minute duration of the siren in silent commemoration. These are moments of eerie, slightly frightening power.

The Holocaust is central to the Israeli ethos but it is not—as often claimed by Arab propaganda—the raison d’être or historical antecedent of the state. Zionist settlement in the Land of Israel began about six decades before World War II broke out. By that time, the Yishuv (prestate Jewish community) numbered hundreds of thousands and was called a “state in the making”; the effect of the Holocaust was to rob this community, and world Jewry in general, of immense riches of human life.

Big lies don’t always start out big. They don’t even always start out as lies. They only grow big in the cover-up when the truth has to be beaten off with a stick made out of even bigger lies.

A brief read of the daily newspapers, a quick flick through the cable news networks and an ear cocked to the drive time news minute might give you the idea that Israel is isolated and besieged. Israel is indeed a small country. It’s always been isolated in a Muslim region that is willing to kill even fellow Arab Christians and fellow Arab Shiites over differences of religion.

But contrary to the Peace Lobby sloganeering, Israel isn’t morally bankrupt, the intellectual premises of Zionism aren’t shattered and it’s not a failed state on the verge of destruction.

It’s the Peace Lobby that is frantically struggling to keep its big lie together. Its attacks on Israel are not a show of strength, but a desperate cover-up. From the high chambers where John Kerry suggests Israel is going to be an Apartheid State to the low chambers of failed boycotts against academics and soda companies, the purveyors of the big lie are coming apart at the seams.

The big peace lie started out small. Both sides would shake hands and make peace. And white doves would fly from Jerusalem to Ramallah. To some it wasn’t even a lie; just blind idealism and wishful thinking. It was only when the lie was tried and failed that it truly became a lie and then there were no more idealists, only desperate liars covering up one lie with another.

The entire peace process rested on the lie that the PLO wanted to make peace. Israel had successfully reached peace agreements, including territorial compromises, with its enemies. Its credibility was never in question. The PLO’s credibility was the big question mark and when its willingness to make peace was put to the test and it failed, again and again, the big lie began.

Israel can’t do anything right in the peace process and the PLO can’t do anything wrong. When Abbas blatantly violated his agreements by going to the UN, Secretary of State John Kerry took a seat in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and blamed Israel.

Then Abbas made a unity deal with Hamas, which is committed to destroying Israel, and Kerry told the Trilateral Commission that Israel was on the path to becoming an Apartheid state.

Kerry may be notorious for his terrorist sympathies, but he was following the grand tradition of his predecessors and of the entire Peace Lobby by blaming the peace partner with the most credibility instead of the one with the least credibility because the credibility of the peace process depends on its weakest link. And that is the Palestinian Authority’s Abbas and his PLO terrorists.

If you were trying to negotiate the sale of a home from a seller acting in good faith to a buyer acting in bad faith, you would blame the seller because once you admit that the buyer is acting in bad faith, the credibility of the sale vanishes into thin air. The smart thing for the seller to do is to walk away, but unfortunately Israeli leaders are convinced that they can prove their good faith by eagerly showing up to negotiate.

What they don’t understand is that blaming Israel is a structural part of the peace process.

http://www.newstribune.com/news/2014/mar/04/steinman-vs-steinman/

Leonard Steinman has run for Jefferson City mayor, Cole County Western District commissioner, Missouri governor and the U.S. House of Representatives.
But he’s never campaigned against his wife, Velma Steinman, before. In fact, it’s quite possibly the first time in Missouri’s history a husband and wife have competed against one another for a congressional seat.
With his white beard, gadfly persona and penchant for eccentric costumes, Leonard, 62, cuts a well-known figure in Jefferson City. Velma, 53, isn’t as familiar as her spouse, but has roots in Cole County just as deep as her husband’s.
Asked why the two would run against each other for the same job, Velma replied: “People think we’re doing this as a lark. They think it’s funny. But I think it shows that husbands and wives can have separate views and still work together. Congress can do the same.”

Leonard said: “One way or another, we’re going to get into Congress and open people’s eyes up.”
Last week, as filing opened for the Aug. 5 primary election, both Velma and Leonard stepped forward to compete for the 3rd U.S. Congressional District, a seat occupied by Blaine Luetkemeyer now.
Velma is currently the only Democratic candidate listed on the ballot. On the Republican ticket, Leonard is listed first, followed by Luetkemeyer and a St. Peters man named John Morris.
Luetkemeyer’s office declined to answer specific questions about the pair of opponents. A spokesman said: “The congressman is focused on his own campaign and representing the people of the 3rd District. We have no further comment.”
Leonard said he has not always been encouraged by party leaders to participate on their tickets. “They tell you politely up front: ‘You have no recognition,’” he said.
But Leonard feels he’s just as well known as others who’ve tried to run for office. “If you come to the Capitol with me,” he said, “People from both the House and the Senate will say, ‘Hi, Leonard!’”
Traditionally Leonard has filed as a Democrat, but this time he’s a Republican.
“I was asked to change parties by some Republicans,” he said.

Both of the Steinmans were born and raised in Jefferson City.

Congress has been out of session, and he isn’t up for reelection this year, but Utah senator Mike Lee is a busy man. He was out campaigning last week, traveling from Texas to Oklahoma to Nebraska to stump for Republican candidates engaged in competitive primary battles.

From his office in Washington, D.C., he is operating what a senior aide describes as a “shadow party,” lending support to insurgent Republican candidates and churning out a series of policy proposals intended to put the GOP in a better position to win in 2016 and beyond. The proposals, which together Lee calls a “conservative reform agenda,” are intended to serve as inspiration for the party’s presidential candidates.

On Thursday, Lee, Republican colleague Ted Cruz, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin were in Tulsa headlining a “Liberty Rally” for Senate candidate T. W. Shannon, the former state-house speaker who is locked in a primary battle with representative James Lankford, a member of the Republican House leadership. From there, they jetted to southwestern Nebraska to raise money for Senate candidate Ben Sasse, a college president battling former state treasurer and Navy pilot Shane Osborn for the party’s nomination in May.

At a time when some of his closest allies and other tea-party favorites, such as Rand Paul and Florida senator Marco Rubio, are focused on building their fundraising networks and campaign operations in advance of potential presidential bids in 2016, Lee’s attention is elsewhere.

“I’m encouraging my fellow Republicans, incumbents and candidates alike, to take note of the fact that we do much better when we promote our agenda,” the senator says. “We can’t always just be the party that’s about being against what we don’t like in Washington. We need also to be the party that’s for things we want to have happen in Washington.”

Lee’s work to articulate a vision of conservative governance is reminiscent of the conservative reform movements that arose in the 1970s, when groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the Republican Study Committee were founded. The policy proposals and ideological fervor that emanated from them helped to sustain the dozen years of Republican governance that followed, first under Ronald Reagan and then under George H. W. Bush. Reagan famously distributed the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership, which contained thousands of policy proposals, at the first meeting of his cabinet, and his administration proceeded to implement many of them. “I think there are some important similarities,” Lee says.