RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/we-liked-our-doctor/?print=1

We liked our doctor. A lot. We invested time and effort in finding him. He spent time getting to know his patients. And when our health insurance premiums skyrocketed not so long ago — and, yes, they soared — we told ourselves that at least, when we need medical care, we have a good doctor.

But here it is. A letter arrived. As the perspicacious predicted (though not as the American public was promised), we are losing our doctor. Oh, he is not yet entirely unavailable — there are physician’s assistants in his old office who may still be able to see us, for at least a little longer, and if necessary consult with him by phone. But he has moved to a different job, in which he may be better able to surmount the paperwork and continue to support his family.

No surprise. Apart from physicians who cater to Hollywood-celebrity levels of wealth or Washington-elite levels of power, how can any doctor with a private practice find time to deal with individual patients? The new prime imperative imposed by law requires that a doctor spend most of his or her time and energy toiling to comply with a regulatory burden so titanic that even those who issue it can’t keep track of it. I have no criticism of our (former) doctor, who invested years in mastering his profession, but has now been effectively commandeered as a serf of the federal bureaucracy. He is behaving pretty much the way Obamacare (dis)incentives would have him do.

It makes me sad. Not only because I really did like our doctor, and what clearly lies ahead is a path of rising costs, dwindling choice and lengthening queues. But because what lies ahead for this country is not good medical care for all, but gray standardization in which we are not only forced to pay for things we don’t need, but deprived in a crisis of the medical care that we really do need. Federal regulators, not doctors and patients, will make the decisions.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/12/ben_carson_in_his_own_words.html

After five years of President Obama, we want a dynamic conservative candidate who we can believe in to take us to 2016. With names on the horizon like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Nikki Haley, we have some promising politicians; and another name has risen to the top: Dr. Ben Carson.

Ben Carson is the latest potential presidential candidate to be anointed by conservatives. Less than a year after his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, the 61-year old neurosurgeon, known for his deeply held religious beliefs as well as his determination to live the American Dream, has gained support from many conservative organizations like the Tea Party, right-to-life groups, Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works, and David Horowitz’s Freedom Center .

Carson’s post-election entrance onto the national stage at the 2013 Prayer Breakfast gave despondent conservatives new hope. The famous surgeon criticized the President’s signature health law and mocked political correctness while the President sat stone faced. Carson’s boldness made headlines from MSNBC to far-right alternative blogs.

The decidedly political speech, different from his 1997 Prayer Breakfast address, was a triumph and made him an instant hit with stalwarts on the right. Glenn Beck actually said “I love you” during an interview when Carson told him his favorite person in history was George Washington. Rush Limbaugh thinks Carson “has everybody in the Democrat Party scared to death.” Mark Levin and Sarah Palin have lauded Carson on their sites.

Now, as a Tea Party favorite with aspirations to run for president, and a self-proclaimed convert to conservatism, Carson has an obligation to explain himself when his words at times don’t match conservative views on sacrosanct issues.

Just this week, gun rights reporter Kurt Hofmann writing for the St. Louis Examiner, wrote a column with the title: “When It Comes to Guns, Dr. Ben Carson Still Doesn’t Get It.” In his piece, Hofmann revisits an interview Carson had with Glenn Beck back in March when the doctor suggested keeping guns out of the hands of city dwellers; thereby treating the bearing of arms as a “licensing” issue, not as a “fundamental right.”

But Dr. Carson’s forte is medicine, not gun rights, and he has written extensively on healthcare and has been interviewed about the topic countless times. He now has a regular gig on Fox News and a column in the Washington Times. This past week, Carson appeared on GretaWire on Fox News. Greta Van Susteren asked Dr. Carson if he was surprised doctors were getting out of the business because of Obamacare regulations, and he said he wasn’t surprised.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-financial-collapse-of-america?f=puball “The United States is in very deep trouble. First, the concept of repaying $16.7 trillion in debt is not even a remote possibility over the next 100 years, even if the government had small surpluses. Then, because the country is running such large deficits, the national debt is increasing and getting worse…much worse. In […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/anti-israel-lessons-in-american-classrooms?f=puball
Far from being a problem exclusive to local schools, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic curricular materials are endemic in American classrooms.

At issue is not only the insidious nature of materials that inculcate anti-Israel biases disguised as history and multicultural lessons, but also the flaccid response by educators, elected officials and sometimes the mainstream Jewish community.

Examples abound and are surfacing from Massachusetts to California where concerned and sometimes angry parents are reacting.

In Williamson County, Tenn., one biased text asks students: “If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?”

Complaints by a dozen angry parents – who were supported by their Jewish Federation – forced the publisher to remove the offending language from all electronic versions and future 10thand 11th-print editions. The local Jewish Federation then joined with parents to help school officials better train teachers about the realities of Middle Eastern conflicts. In New York, preparatory materials for the famed Regents exam falsely claim that Israel prevailed militarily in 1948 only due to strong support from the United States. (There was almost none. The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia were major allies). This is Arab propaganda, utilized to both demonize America and to explain the failure of the six Arab armies that attacked the tiny Jewish state.

In Albany, N.Y., an English teacher had her students write an essay, as part of a persuasive writing exercise, imagining themselves to be Nazis and assigned some of them the task of describing why Jews are evil. After this case came to light – the result of assertive parents – the School Superintendent publicly apologized and the teacher was removed from the classroom.

At Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a prep school in New York, administrators held an Israel-Palestine Day and, under the pretense of “evenhandedness,” invited Rashid Khalidi and Tony Judt as featured speakers to represent “both sides” of the conflict. Both Khalidi and Judt believe the state of Israel should not exist. Rabbi Avi Weiss, one of the panelists, withdrew from the conference upon learning about the contents and opted instead to organize a counter-demonstration. The school refused to allow a single pro-Israel speaker at this event. Among the invited speakers were noted anti- Israel advocates Sara Roy from Harvard University, Kenneth Roth from Human Rights Watch and Fawaz Gerges from Georgetown University. Meanwhile, teachers instructed students not to speak to the protesters or the media, and the school’s Principal announced at the end of the conference that they just heard a “comprehensive” analysis of the Middle East conflict from distinguished speakers and to remember that “the protesters are outnumbered.” This event drew strong criticism from the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and several politicians.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/pushing-that-idea-away-the-obama-administrations-denial-of-nigerian-jihad?f=puball

American officials previously “did everything they could to push that idea” about Nigeria’s Boko Haram’s Islamist ideology aside, Ann Buwalda of the Christian human rights organization Jubilee Campaign stated at a November 14, 2013, Hudson Institute panel. If past is any prologue, a jihad understanding of Boko Haram will have to struggle against attributions of violence in Nigeria to socioeconomic disparities, recent American policymaker statements notwithstanding.

Developmental neglect in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north as the identified motive in an estimated 4,000 killings by Boko Haram since 2009 has a long history among American policymakers. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, for example, expressed such views at a March 24, 2013, hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and in an April 9, 2012, address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “Boko Haram,” he stated, “capitalizes on popular frustrations with the nation’s leaders, poor government service delivery, and the dismal living conditions of many northerners.” A a “new social compact” with northern Nigeria along with a “security strategy” were necessary.

By contrast, Carson sought “to stress that religion is not driving extremist violence” in Nigeria. “Nigeria’s religious and ethnic diversity is one of its greatest strengths,” Carson said, “and there are many examples of communities working together to protect each other.” Carson seemingly spoke of equal opportunity killing in “Boko Haram’s attacks on churches and mosques,” yet Jubilee Campaign and others note the disproportionate concentration of Boko Haram upon Christian targets.

Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger has been demonstrating this fact for years with his demographic research….rsk

Uri Sadot, Foreign Policy. Contrary to dire predictions of a “demographic time bomb,” Israeli Jews have a healthy and largely stable demographic majority in Israel and the West Bank.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2013/12/the-demographic-myth/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=ecb37301d1-Mosaic_2013_12_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-ecb37301d1-41165129

If you listen to some top American and Israeli officials, Israel’s “demographic time bomb” is ticking — and it’s set to explode any day now. Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Dec. 7 that Israel’s demographic dynamics represented an “existential threat … that makes it impossible for Israel to preserve its future as a democratic, Jewish state.” Some officials in Jerusalem agree with him: Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog and senior Cabinet member Yair Lapid last week echoed similar concerns that demographic trends would turn Israel into a “bi-national state.” On all three occasions, demography was cited as an urgent reason to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The argument, in a nutshell, goes like this: The birth rate among Arab families in Israel and Palestine is higher than it is for Jewish families. Therefore, at some point in the future the Arabs will become a majority in the area Israel occupies. When that day comes, Israelis will have to choose between having a Jewish state or a democratic one, because giving every person an equal vote would mean losing the Jewish character of the state. Israel’s only hope of maintaining its identity, proponents of the “demographic time bomb” theory would argue, is to soon cut a peace deal that paves the way for an independent Palestinian state.

There’s only one problem: The numbers just don’t add up. Demography relies on more than just birth rates, and similar predictions have a long history of falling flat. Israeli Jews have a healthy and largely stable demographic majority in Israel and the West Bank, and developments in the coming years may even enhance this trend. The demographic time bomb, in other words, is a dud.

In mid-2013, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported a population of 8,018,000 citizens. A fifth of those, numbering 1,658,000, are Israeli citizens who identify themselves as Arab. The estimates for the number of Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank, without voting rights, range from 1.5 million to 2.5 million. Even if one uses the upper-end estimates issued by the Palestinian Authority, then, the combined number of Israeli-Arab citizens and Palestinians amounts to less than a third of Israel’s current population. As for the residents of the Gaza Strip, it is hard to argue for their inclusion, since Israel has not exerted civilian control in the area since 2005.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/12/walker_2_unions_0.html

WHILE SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN GENERALLY SPEND A LOT OF THEIR TIME IN GETTING RE-ELECTED, GOVERNORS ACTUALLY GOVERN WHICH MAKES THEM BETTER CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT…..RSK

It seems that the unions had good reason to fear Scott Walker.

In news that is unlikely to receive wide play in the legacy media, it appears that a number of Wisconsin unions failed to achieve recertification as a result of year-end member votes.

The recertification votes were a consequence of Act 10, the epoch-making collective-bargain reforms pushed through by Walker in the face of mass demonstrations, vandalism, death threats, and all but open rebellion by unions in 2011. One of act’s provisions was that public-sector unions must be annually recertified by a positive vote of at least half their members. The first such vote took place over the past few weeks, with results released Thursday.

According to preliminary results from the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, over 5,500 Wisconsin workers chose to abandon their unions. These include an entire unit of substitute teachers in Milwaukee along with food service, maintenance, and transportation units in Dane Country. Both are onetime centers of anti-Walker sentiment.

Other union failures occurred in towns as widely separated as Menomonee Falls (which saw the collapse of its entire teachers union), Lake Geneva, Fond du Lac, New Berlin, Germantown, Beaver Dam, and Elcho.

The vote marks a serious rebuke to the public-sector unions, the AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) above all, particularly in light of the fact that Wisconsin is the birthplace of public-sector unionism. It strongly implies that the hold of unions on workers may be a lot more tenuous than previously thought. It also embodies a personal triumph for Scott Walker, who put his career and reputation on the line to see Act 10 through. Walker can now start thinking seriously about 2016.

Hat tip: Bryan Demko

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303997604579238071420235120?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Venezuelans went to the polls on Dec. 8 to elect more than 300 mayors and over 2,000 city council members in a nationwide ballot. Though the opposition coalition made some important gains in the cities, the ruling socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro managed to edge out its rivals in the popular vote (49% to 43%). I now fear that my country is one step closer to becoming a full-fledged dictatorship along the lines of Zimbabwe in Africa.

Less than a year after Hugo Chávez succumbed to cancer, Venezuela is now mired in a crisis unprecedented during the 14 years of the so-called “Bolivarian revolution.” Chávez was certainly a ruthless authoritarian; I know this from firsthand experience. Between 2000 and 2005, I was an elected opposition representative challenging the comandante’s agenda in the National Assembly.

I was forced to leave after Chávez officials tried to remove my parliamentary immunity by fabricating allegations of my involvement in a U.S.-backed conspiracy.

Now Mr. Maduro, whom I knew well in parliament as a more conciliatory figure, is rapidly accelerating the late president’s economic and social policies to their deadliest conclusion.

This is happening because Mr. Maduro, who served as Chávez’s foreign minister from 2006-13, has ties with Cuba’s ruling Communists that stretch back to the 1980s, when he trained in Havana as a labor-union organizer. Having entered Chávez’s trusted circle with the support of the Cubans, Mr. Maduro emerged as Chávez’s handpicked successor and came to power in April, defeating the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, by a razor thin margin of 1.5%. Despite thousands of allegations of voter fraud, the regime refused a recount.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303773704579267862150314576?mod=World_newsreel_1 Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the kind of secret surveillance programs that Edward Snowden exposed in the U.S. as a “necessity,” but called the former National Security Agency contractor’s efforts to reveal them a “noble cause.” Mr. Putin, a former KGB officer in the Soviet Union, said he believed the U.S. had good reasons […]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304866904579268611658114286?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

WASHINGTON—The White House issued a rare veto threat in response to a bipartisan Senate bill that would slap Iran with new sanctions if it violates an interim deal reached last month to curb its nuclear program.
The threat sets up a standoff in the new year between President Barack Obama and more than two dozen Senate Democrats and Republicans who introduced the legislation on Thursday. The challenge to Mr. Obama is particularly stark because half of the lawmakers sponsoring the new bill are from his own party.

The bill could also imperil Mr. Obama’s efforts to reach a diplomatic end to the decadelong standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, which administration officials hope will be a signature achievement of his second term.

Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened in recent days to back out of negotiations with the U.S. and other global powers over Tehran’s nuclear program if Washington enacts new sanctions.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney criticized the Senate move, saying such sanctions would undermine Mr. Obama’s diplomatic efforts “no matter how they’re structured.”

“We don’t think it will be enacted. We certainly don’t think it should be enacted,” Mr. Carney said. “If it were to pass, the president would veto it.”