Socialized medicine

As I noted recently, I am now no longer updating my SOCIALIZED MEDICINE blog. Now that Obamacare has been passed and signed, I take to heart President Reagan's comment that the nearest thing to eternal life is a government program. I hope that is wrong as it applies to Obamacare but I am not counting on it.

The horror stories about Britain's socialized medicine system are so frequent, however, that I feel I have to draw attention to them. So I have decided that I will lead off my postings for each day on my EYE ON BRITAIN blog with the latest stories about that. Few days go by without such stories. The post I will be putting up later today has FOUR such stories -- four in one day!

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Obamalypse for Israel

There is an Obamalyptic tone at the White House. The president put the all the chips he owned in domestic politics on the table for a health care bill opposed by more than 60% of polled voters, and now he has thrown all his foreign policy chips into the pot in order to humiliate a close American ally for whom the American public has overwhelming sympathy. One has the sense that the Obamoids fear that their tenure in power will be brief and that they want to do the most to alter the world before the peasants march on the castle and burn them out.

As Jackson Diehl put it in a now-viral meme on the Washington Post blog, the White House treated Netanyahu like an “unsavory dictator who had to be kept at arm’s length.” He was sneaked in the back door; there was no photo opportunity, and no final statement.

Although the Israeli government has clamped a blackout on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meetings with President Obama and aides David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, the content has leaked out through various channels. Israel will either stop housing construction in its capital city per Obama’s orders, or the United States will offer a final version of a “peace agreement” between Israel and the Palestinians and shove it down Israel’s throat.

I have independently confirmed the substance of the following report from the Debka website:

A high-ranking US official categorized the current crisis in US-Israeli relations as the most acute in 54 years, ever since 1956 when President Dwight Eisenhower gave David Ben-Gurion an ultimatum to pull Israeli forces out of Sinai – certainly more serious than the impasse over the Madrid conference between the first President Bush and Yitzhak Shamir in 1992.

A US presidential notice condemning Israel and predetermining the shape of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement would be tantamount to a US diktat and put the lid on negotiations, direct or indirect, because Israel would be dragged to the table in handcuffs to face an Arab partner who would accept nothing less than the terms Washington imposed in advance on Israel.

Such a notice would put a clamp on the close dialogue which has historically characterized US-Israeli ties – to the detriment of Israel’s international standing.

[Jackson Diehl in] The Washington Post laid the blame for the crisis squarely on President Obama, whom it accused of treating Netanyahu “as if he were an unsavory Third World dictator, needed for strategic reasons but conspicuously held at arms length.”

The WP went on to say: “Obama picked a fight over something that virtually all Israelis agree on, and before serious discussions have even begun. ”A new administration can be excused for making such a mistake in the treacherous and complex theater of Middle East diplomacy. That’s why Obama was given a pass by many when he made exactly the same mistake last year. The second time around, the president doesn’t look naive. He appears ideological — and vindictive.”

What is the administration thinking?

First of all, as I explained earlier this week, the administration envisions a strategic alliance with Iran to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, in which Iran will be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons — just as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Zbignew Brzezinski proposed in a 2004 report for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Second, Rahm Emanuel — who ushered the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to the infamous 1993 Rose Garden handshake with Yassir Arafat — appears to think that he’s doing Israel a favor by forcing a settlement. The American left is still stuck on the Oslo fantasy of the earl 1990s; the Israeli public, after having tried Oslo and gotten Intifada and terrorism, knows better.

Obama’s gamble is enormous. So far he has gotten a free pass on foreign policy as the inheritor of a mess left behind by the Bush administration, while domestic problems — above all the 20% rate of under- and unemployment — took precedence. But Israel is the single most emotional issue in foreign policy, and the Gallup Poll reports that American support for Israel is at the all-time high reached briefly during the First Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s Scud rockets rained on Tel Aviv.

“[Former Secretary of State] James Baker said, ‘Screw the Jews, they don’t vote for us,’ and Obama is saying, ‘Screw the Jews, they’ll vote for us anyway,” a prominent American rabbi said this week. The mainstream Jewish organizations, who overwhelmingly supported Obama and share his domestic agenda, are in such a state of shock over the outcome of Netanyahu’s visit that it will take them some days to begin to blink.

The world is a radically different place than the liberal Jewish majority imagined it was, and Obama is a radically different man. It is quite possible that they will throw Israel under the bus for fear that an open attack on Obama at this time would contribute to a Democratic debacle in November. However Jews vote, they are less than 3% of the electorate, but a collapse of US relations with Israel would energize evangelical and other Christian voters against Obama.

Netanyahu is in a bind: never since 1956 has the United States put a gun to the head of an Israeli government, and that was over the joint Anglo-French-Israeli occupation of Suez, not about urgent Israeli security concerns. Creating a Hamastan within easy rocket range of Tel Aviv and Israel’s major airports would threaten Israel’s existence. Hamas rocketeers firing behind a human shield of civilians (just as Hamas has done in Gaza and Hizbollah in Southern Lebanon) would leave Israel the choice of reoccupying territory at the cost of many civilian casualties, or permitting ordinary life to become intolerate. That is precisely what Israel has said.

As Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren told Charlie Rose March 19, “Keep in mind the Israeli people are going to be asked to make extraordinary risks here. We withdrew from Lebanon. We withdrew from Gaza, we got rockets. To create peace with the Palestinian we`re going to have to withdraw from territory that is immediately adjacent to our major population state centers. We have to be assured that when we do that we`re not going to get Gaza again, we`re not going to get Lebanon again. We want to be assured that we`re going to have real peace.”

The future of Israel well may be fought out in the November elections. This is not a drill. This is the real thing. Obama is exposed and vulnerable. If the Democrats are not punished for shifting America’s foreign-policy loyalties away from Israel and towards Iran, Israel’s long-term security position will deteriorate.

SOURCE

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Rising Anti-Semitism on the Left

by Gary Bauer

Not content to divide his party in his year-long effort to pass socialized health care, President Obama has spent the last ten days fomenting intra-party discord on the contentious issue of Middle East peace.

The Obama administration hasn’t stopped berating Israel about the “settlements” issue since it came to power 14 months ago. I was glad to see pro-Israel Democrats bravely stand up to the administration’s attacks this week.

But I fear the Obama administration’s over-reaction to what amounts to a municipal zoning decision is indicative of the growing anti-Semitism on the Left. The president’s heavy-handed approach to Israel is leading his party away from its historic support for the Jewish State.

No, I am not accusing the president of being an anti-Semite. What I am contending is that Obama’s Israel policy is getting its largest cheers among Muslim special interest groups and the anti-Semitic left. His policy reflects the anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel of those he has closely associated with all his life, and of those with increasing prominence in the Democratic Party.

Obama spent significant time with radical Muslim activists during his time as a community organizer. And it is not unreasonable to wonder how much of his long-time pastor Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Jewish vitriol he absorbed. The list of his past associates and advisors -- including Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abuminah, Susan Rice and Robert Malley -- is a who’s who of prominent Israel-bashers.

The ancient hatred of Jews will find a home wherever it can, and it has done so as easily on the radical right as on the radical left. But in recent years anti-Semitism has become a more consequential force on the Left.

In 2006, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a Campus Anti-Semitism report announcing that anti-Semitism is “a serious problem” on many American university campuses, those bastions of political liberalism.

Anti-Semitism has become a staple of bloggers on leftwing websites like the Huffington Post, the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org. Former Clinton administration official Lanny Davis wrote in the Wall Street Journal of his dismay at the anti-Semitic “hate and vitriol” against Joe Lieberman, for whom Davis was campaigning, in his 2006 primary campaign against Ned Lamont. Davis recounted some of the attacks, and concluded that “bigotry and hate aren’t just for right-wingers anymore.”

The Left’s growing anti-Semitism is discouraging in part because the party many radicals associate with has been home to Jews for nearly a century. And Democrats have historically been some of Israel’s greatest defenders.

This week many Democrats spoke out against the White House’s over-reaction to Israel’s decision to build more housing for its growing population. New York Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner said, “The appropriate response was a shake of the head – not a temper tantrum. Israel is a sovereign nation and an ally, not a punching bag. Enough already.” Other Democrats issued similar statements reaffirming the U.S.-Israel bond.

A February Gallup poll put American public support for Israel at 63 percent, its highest in nearly 20 years. And only 15 percent of Americans side with the Palestinians.

Gallup noted that “Since 2001…there has been a more dramatic shift in partisan attitudes: a 25 point increase in sympathy for Israel among Republicans and an 18 point increase among independents.”

Sadly, the Democratic Party’s historic support for Israel may be fraying. A majority of self-identified Democrats no longer support Israel. Democratic support for Israel has decreased since Obama took office, from 54 percent last year to 48 percent this year. Gallup also found that more Democrats have a favorable view of autocratic Russia, and nearly as many have a favorable view of Communist China, than have a favorable view of Israel, America’s only dependable ally in the Middle East.

Jews have been a reliable Democratic constituency for decades. And 80 percent of American Jewish voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama in 2008.

But that support may be weakening among those for whom a strong and secure Israel is important. As Alan Dershowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Many American supporters of Israel who voted for Barack Obama now suspect they may have been victims of a bait and switch.” That was in July. I wouldn’t be surprised if those suspicions have turned into reality for many pro-Israel Americans.

Part of Obama’s problem is that he seems to misunderstand the Jewish claim to Israel. In his Cairo speech last summer, Obama promoted the radical Muslim narrative that modern Israel is a “guilt offering” for the Holocaust. The Jewish presence in Israel has been constant for thousands of years, not 70. And it’s founded in God’s benevolence, not European guilt.

The Obama administration’s ridiculous demand this week that the settlement decision be reversed and that Israel make a “substantial gesture” toward the Palestinians has only emboldened the Palestinians to demand the same as preconditions to “peace” talks.

And the administration’s apoplectic response to Israel’s creation of new homes to serve a growing population in its capital city may already have had deadly consequences. An Israeli was killed by a Gaza rocket fired by Palestinian terrorists this week, the first such death in more than a year.

Earlier this week, I wrote a letter to President Obama, challenging his administration to end its rhetorical assault on Israel and to turn his efforts to the real security threat facing the U.S. and Israel – the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Many other conservative leaders have signed on. You can read it here:

I and my friends in the Democratic Party disagree on many issues. But we have always agreed on the importance of a strong alliance between the United States and Israel, against communism during the Cold War and against radical Islam now. I hope those friends can convince the current Democrat in the White House to return to his party’s noble tradition of supporting Israel.

SOURCE

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ARE AMERICANS STILL AMERICANS?

by Dr. Jack Wheeler

That's the question and the bet of our day. Conservatives and TeaPartyers bet yes, Democrats and moonbat moochers bet no. The Republican Party establishment wants to bet yes but hasn't got the guts to go all in.

Understand this and you understand American politics today. Who wins the bet determines America's future.

What made Americans Americans was their commitment - unrivaled in human history - to individual liberty. This commitment was enshrined as the founding principle of America in the Declaration of Independence:

That every human being and specifically every American has a moral right endowed by his Creator, by what is required by his nature to be fully human, to his own personal life, his own personal liberty, and the pursuit of his own personal happiness - and that no government has the moral right or legitimate authority to violate this individual right.

Further, that the very purpose of government, what legitimized a government's very existence, was to secure and protect this individual right - and whenever a government becomes destructive of this right, those governed by it have a moral right to alter and abolish it.

The Declaration of Independence is the most truly revolutionary document in political history. It is the most profoundly moral document as well. And to confound the long line of philosophers who claim there is an unbridgeable abyss between moral behavior and pragmatic self-interested behavior, it is also the most practically successful document in history. America's prosperity dwarfs any historical comparison.

The truth of America's founding principles were "self-evident" to the Americans who created our country. They are no longer to an increasingly large fraction of Americans today. The stated purpose and clear goal of Democrats is to increase that fraction. The claimed purpose and alleged goal of Republicans is to reduce it.

For decades upon decades now, Americans on the whole have been slowly and progressively becoming less American, less independent and responsible for their own lives, more dependent on government programs and demanding of others to be responsible for them.

We have now reached the point where between 40 to 50% of people in this country are so unwilling to be responsible for their lives and freedom, so demanding of their supposed right to mooch off taxpayers, that they still maintain a firm support of a president who believes that God should damn America.

We have reached the point with the passage of ObamaCare that we are justified in terming those who continue to support President Zero and the Pelosi-Reid Democrat Party AINOs - Americans In Name Only.

In one sense, we can be glad that ObamaCare passed in the House last Sunday, March 21, and signed into law by President Zero two days later - because it forces the issue. America must now choose between freedom or fascism, there is no other choice, nothing in-between.

"Give me liberty or give me death," proclaimed Patrick Henry in 1775. "Live free or die," said Revolutionary War general John Stark, which New Hampshire adopted as its state motto. That was a real choice at the birth of America. Now it is again.

The next seven months are going to be the ugliest this country has experienced in our lifetimes. Any and all opponents of ObamaCare will be branded as terrorists - indeed they are already. The Democrats will look upon their ObamaCare victory as a template, and attempt to ram through via bribes and corruption passage of amnesty for illegals, a carbon tax, a VAT tax, and every other major item on their Marxist Fascist agenda.

More here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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