Socialized medicine at work in Britain

More than 33,000 people died needlessly over ten years because of poor care after a heart attack, a major study has found.

Nine out of ten patients do not receive the correct treatment after an attack, it revealed. Shockingly, the researchers warned that the true number of needless deaths could be twice as high as their estimate.

Doctors last night said the findings were ‘unacceptable’ and needed urgent attention across the NHS.

The failure to stick to international treatment guidelines contributes to a quarter of heart attack deaths in England and Wales, which experts say could be easily avoided.

The researchers estimate that one patient dies needlessly every month in every hospital in England and Wales because of poor care – including failing to give patients certain drugs and not ordering crucial scans.

Someone suffers a heart attack every three minutes in the UK, with nearly 200 people of working age dying every week. Treatment has improved rapidly in recent years, with the development of 24/7 acute cardiac units meaning patients are fast-tracked to expert teams.

But the new study reveals the treatment of patients after an attack is falling woefully short.

The researchers analysed 390,000 cases of the most common type of heart attack – called a non-ST elevation heart attack or NSTEMI – in 247 hospitals in England and Wales between 2003 and 2013.

For each case they checked whether the patient had been given 13 treatments – including scans, drugs and medical advice – recommended in international guidelines. They found that in 87 per cent of cases, patients did not receive at least one of the interventions.

Doctors often failed to give patients anti-cholesterol statin drugs or anti-clotting drugs, which are proven to drastically reduce the risk of a repeat attack.

They missed out crucial scans, which can pick up further hidden problems, and they neglected to advise patients about the best way to change their lifestyle, including how to improve their diet and stop smoking.

The researchers from the University of Leeds and University College London wrote in the European Heart Journal: ‘We found that if all patients during the study period had received the investigations and treatments for which they were eligible... around 33,000 deaths may have been prevented.

‘This equates to over a quarter of all NSTEMI deaths, or about one avoidable death per month per hospital over the last decade.’

The team used data from the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP) and said: ‘We speculate that MINAP captures less than half of all NSTEMI in England and Wales. Consequently, the number of preventable deaths that we report will be underestimated.’

They concluded: ‘We clearly show that, across a modern healthcare system such as in the UK, there are substantial opportunities to improve outcomes through relatively simple measures.’

Study leader Dr Chris Gale, of the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, said: ‘What we’ve highlighted here is the unacceptable deficit in the care being given to people after they’ve had an NSTEMI heart attack.

‘The good news is that now we’ve identified the problem, we can certainly fix it. Simple interventions, such as prescribing statins, are being missed and this is resulting in loss of life.’

Professor Peter Weissberg, of the British Heart Foundation, which funded the research, said: ‘This study shows that many people in the UK are receiving sub-optimal care after a heart attack and that lives are being lost as a consequence. Hospitals need to apply the lessons learnt from this research.’

Professor Huon Gray, NHS England’s national clinical director for heart disease, said: ‘Immediate and long-term survival rates after a heart attack are improving thanks to advances in treatment and aftercare, but this study shows there are opportunities to improve outcomes further.’

He added: ‘National and international guidelines are clear, and these findings should act as a reminder to providers and commissioners of care that best practice should always be followed.’

SOURCE

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Why Trump Resonates

While there is considerable and expected animus directed at presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump from the Left, there might be as much, if not more, invective coming from the Right. Columnist George Will is infuriated by the extensive damage Trump has inflicted on the GOP, warning that the collaborationists who support him “will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.” Charles Krauthammer also speaks to the “ideological realignment” of the party. They are two members of a conservative army appalled by Trump’s rise among a voter base they believe has allowed anger to overcome ideology. Yet their angst is largely based on the conventional wisdom regarding the ostensible differences between conservative vs. liberal, or Democrat vs. Republican. What if the conventional wisdom no longer applies?

“Any true understanding of this election requires an appreciation of the one huge political fault line that is driving America into a period of serious political tremors, certain to jolt the political Richter scale,” writes a very insightful Robert W. Merry. “It is nationalists vs. globalists.”

Merry goes on to explain how the globalists “captured” American society by taking over elitist institutions that included the media, academia, big corporations, big finance, Hollywood, think tanks, NGOs, and charitable foundations. In the process of doing so, the elites who ran these institutions began to believe they were the ultimate arbiters of proper thinking. In turn, Merry explains that worldview led to a “quantum expansion of social and political arrogance on the part of these high-flyers.”

Enter Trump, who galvanized an American public furious with the elitist idea that national sovereignty has outlived its usefulness in a rapidly “shrinking” world.

Nowhere have the elites made this plainer than their failure to enforce immigration law. America is on the verge of yet another surge at our southern border. Through the first six months of FY2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported a 78% increase from the 15,616 illegals apprehended last year, and only slightly less than the record-setting surge of illegals apprehended in 2014. Illegals the Obama administration purposely dispersed throughout the nation to await immigration hearings, even as the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review remains fully aware that between between July 2014 and January 2016, a whopping 88% of removal orders were issued “in absentia,” because illegals failed to show up for those hearings.

No matter how loud the public clamors for border control and a crackdown on visa overstays (less than 1% of visa overstayers were deported in 2015), Rule of Law is routinely ignored. Moreover, globalists are not content to allow America to wither from de facto invasion. They also insist legal immigration must be ramped up to accommodate their employment needs, even though many of those who demand such accommodation have been laying off American workers and replacing them with foreign counterparts willing to work for lower wages. This, despite the reality that wages have already been stagnant for decades.

On foreign policy, Merry explains that globalists are animated by humanitarian impulses where the “rights and well-being of the world’s people supersede the rights and well-being of the American populace.” Trump-supporting nationalists want America to remain strong, and any military intervention to be based national security interests only.

Yet discontent with foreign policy pales in comparison to the animus driven by free trade. Rightly or wrongly (a lot wrongly) many Americans who flock to Trump are convinced free trade has hollowed out the nation’s industrial base. And while the protectionist impulses of these Americans are economically problematic, they are driven by two factors. First, there are towns and cities in America that have been decimated by globalization, and no amount of talk about the overall benefits to the nation will resonate with those directly harmed.

Yet the most important element of Trump’s appeal has nothing to do with political ideology at all. The Donald has taken a wrecking ball to the elite-driven political correctness that routinely ridicules and marginalizes ordinary Americans. And despite his multitudinous faults and foibles, Trump embodies the one thing most Republican politicians avoid like Ebola: a take-no-prisoners willingness to employ the very same street-fighter tactics Democrats and their media allies have successfully used for decades.

Krauthammer, et al, rightly rue the loss of dignity Trump represents. But a conservative electorate tired of milquetoast, GOP politicians willing to lose — as long as they do it nobly? Not so much. Thus they gravitate to a so-called Alpha Male they perceive as willing to defend American interests above all.

By contrast, Merry writes that Hillary Clinton “is the personification of the globalist elite … totally in sync with the underlying sensibilities of political correctness, a practitioner of identity politics, which lies at the heart of the assault on the national heritage.” He notes that nothing reflects this better than “the Clinton Foundation, a brilliant program to chase masses of money from across borders to fund the underpinnings of an ongoing political machine.”

Thus, be it by accident or design, Trump may signify the emergence of a new paradigm. “Make America Great Again” is hardly a cutting edge slogan (he “borrowed” it from Ronald Reagan), but it certainly resonates among millions of Americans who see Trump as their last chance to preserve national sovereignty, even if that preservation requires a level of ideological compromise that gives GOP/conservative gatekeepers fits. The very same gatekeepers who whine about the demise of conservatism and the GOP, while they apparently fail to see the steady march towards globalism will lead to the virtual extinction of both.

For those who still believe in the nation-state, Trump may prove ultimately disappointing. Clinton already has. But she and her globalist allies — as well as many disappointed conservative scolds — may be surprised when they discover that in 2016, millions of Americans' political ideology can be reduced to five words: I want my country back.

SOURCE

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Trump Celebrity Endorsement Nobody Was Expecting

Rapper Azaelia Banks, who recently engaged with a vicious war of words on social media with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has announced she's supporting Donald Trump:

The outspoken rapper says Hillary “talks to black people as if we’re children or pets.”

The singer defended her support for the “asshole” GOP candidate and said of Hillary Clinton: She “talks to black people as if we’re children or pets.”

Donald Trump can add another member of Hollywood to his list of supporters.

On Saturday afternoon, singer Azealia Banks expressed her support for the GOP candidate in a spree of tweets, kicking off the conversation with, “I REALLY want Donald Trump to win the election.”

She told her Twitter followers that her predictions about the presidential race were true: “I told you guys Bernie Sanders didn’t have the clout. i told you all he wasn’t going to be the nominee.”

In her series of tweets, Banks defended Trump and his outspoken opinions. “Trump is an asshole but he’s not been groomed and programmed on some mkultra tip to DO & SAY what the establishment wants him to,” she began and added, “Trump just wants the U.S to be lavish … for all of us. I can f— with that.”
Key for Hillary is maintaining the illusion that she cares about black people. If Trump can peel away African American support from the presumptive Democratic nominee, she's toast.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The most dangerous hobby

The rise of the Donald has got the Left scratching their heads. They need some explanation that will save them from admitting that a lot of what he says is right.  Out of that has come the essay below by academic Eitan D. Hersh.  He provides the explanation that Trump supporters are "hobbyists".

I think Hersh does have a point in general and I think that "hobbyism" may well be part of the explanation for Trump support -- but I see the enthusiasm for Trump as too great to be explained fully that way.  I think a lot of Americans really are fed up with a GOP that repeatedly kow-tows to Leftist thinking, with all its double standards and lack of reality contact.

The way both sides of politics describe Islam as a "religion of peace" is truly astonishing.  What do Muslims have to do in the name of their religion for it to be described as a religion of hate? And The Donald is the only one who has said anything negative about Muslims.

But I do think that the Obamamania of 2008 was a prize example of the "hobbyism" that Hersh describes


Something troubling has emerged on the American scene: Political activity has become a hobby. Voting, petitioning, partisan cheering, donating, watching infotainment news: The chief purpose for participating in politics seems to be self-gratification.

We are accustomed to thinking about participation in politics as motivated by civic duty or self-interest, not gratification. That has changed due to a combination of factors related to the nature of free time, the openness of the political process to mass participation, and a recent period of relative peace.

For Americans who are far enough removed from military service, economic hardship, and discrimination, political stakes can seem pretty low, especially in the quarter-century since the end of the Cold War when foreign threats seem less immediate. And so politics has become an erudite way to spend leisure time. But unlike softball or beekeeping, the stakes are actually high.

Donald Trump’s surprising rise sheds light on the perils of political hobbyism. It is clear that far too many people have been treating a high-stakes affair like a low-stakes one. That’s why they never saw Trump coming. When politics is treated like an unserious game, unserious candidates emerge.

TO UNDERSTAND POLITICAL hobbyism, consider three important forms of political participation: campaign contributing, activism, and voting. Today, all three activities are dominated by hobbyists.

Wealthy donors are pouring money into politics. Why? Our reflexive answer is so they can get something in return, like tax breaks or government contracts. But when political scientists study campaign finance, they mostly do not see self-interested donors. Most donations come from individuals, not corporate PACs. Most of these individuals (97 percent) give to only one party, which is not a savvy investment model for self-serving contributors. And donation patterns suggest that donors are less motivated by ideology than by pure partisanship.

So what are donors buying? Not policy, but time with their celebrity crushes. Donors want to attend cocktail parties, pose in photographs, and golf with candidates. They want to socialize with other donors. They want the candidates to solicit their advice. They want to be friends with their favored politicians.

Would a wealthy person really contribute thousands of dollars just for self-gratification? Yes, actually, the rich spend money to gratify themselves in ways that seem unfathomable to the rest of us. Politics is just one of those ways.

Here’s an example: Journalist Matea Gold recently noticed that wealthy donors have been traveling around the country to attend the presidential debates in person. The political parties were saving them seats. Why are donors traveling to watch the debates live? Because they are groupies. Republican donor Foster Friess told Gold, “It’s the same thing as going to a football game. If you’re in the crowd, you can hear the cheers, unfiltered by microphones. The chemistry is so much more exciting.’’ For the avid and wealthy hobbyist, a few thousand dollars is a small price to pay for a good show.

NEXT, CONSIDER ACTIVISM, a form of participation open to nonwealthy hobbyists. When a presidential campaign season is in high gear, millions of people engage. During the 2008 presidential contest, for instance, more than 13 million Obama supporters provided the campaign with their e-mail addresses, more than 3 million donated, and more than 2 million volunteered.

Obama’s campaign organization hoped it could channel this grass-roots energy into policy advocacy. Thus, the campaign morphed into Organizing for America, a group positioned to push the administration’s policy agenda through grass-roots mobilization.

It didn’t work.

The problem is that policy advocacy is much less fun than campaigning. Campaigning involves competition. Policy involves compromise.

In 2009, when Organizing for America began mobilizing support for its first big issue, the Affordable Care Act, only a fraction of campaign supporters took action. The organization tried to get supporters to town hall meetings where conservatives were a dominant presence. But the millions of campaign enthusiasts largely disengaged, even in the first year of Obama’s administration and even on his signature issue.

The demise of Organizing for America (and its reboot after the 2012 election, Organizing for Action) is hardly surprising. For most hobbyists, governing is simply less gratifying than campaigning. Measured by Google searches, almost nobody is interested in “Organizing for America’’ or “Organizing for Action” anymore, and they haven’t been for a while. Organizing for Obama? Fun. Organizing for Action? Meh.

Consider another example of hobbyist activism: online petitions, like those sent to the White House. Over 1,800 petitions (signed by 13 million individuals) were submitted in the first 20 months of the White House’s online petition program, which launched in 2011. Only 5 percent of these petitions addressed issues like health care, public education, taxation, paid parental leave — big issues that social scientists call redistributive. Most petitions either focused on minor issues (Recognize diaphragmatic hernia awareness day!) or addressed broad issues that were not directly related to economic well-being. Even when liberal groups like MoveOn.org and CREDO solicit petitions from their progressive base, economic issues are not particularly popular among petitioners. The most popular political petition that CREDO has ever circulated demanded funding for NPR.

Despite their enormous potential, online petitions are primarily tools for hobbyists. To hobbyists, large-scale economic issues are complicated and tiresome. And, frankly, these issues may not be a priority for hobbyists, whose lives are reasonably comfortable. They’d rather focus on issues that are gratifying and simple, or else just wait for the next exhilarating campaign season to begin.....

For citizens who are socially and financially comfortable, the risks seem low. They have a safety net. They do not fear military conscription. Their lives are stable. And so they do not approach politics with the solemnity appropriate for a high-stakes undertaking. Acting as if the stakes are low when they are high can be exceedingly dangerous.

More HERE

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The Nihilism of Sanctuary Cities

BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

There are an estimated 300 or so jurisdictions -- entire states, counties, cities, and municipalities -- that since the early 1980s have enacted “sanctuary city” laws, forbidding full enforcement of federal immigration law within their jurisdictions.

Most of these entities are controlled by Democrats in general and liberals in particular. Sanctuary officials feel that federal enforcement of the southern border is either unnecessary or immoral, and thus they have decided that there is no real crime in entering and residing in the United States unlawfully. While the majority of illegal aliens are no doubt law-abiding and have avoided public dependence, the pool of unlawful immigrants is so large at over 11 million that even small percentages of lawbreakers can translate into hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens.

The liberal Migration Policy Institute conceded that there are over 800,000 illegal aliens with criminal records, nearly 700,000 of them with felony arrest records.

Those numbers, of course, reflect only those who have been arrested and faced trial, not the unknown number who have committed crimes without being apprehended or charged. In some sanctuary cities, lawlessness among undocumented immigrants has reached epidemic proportions.

Sanctuary cities are on record as having released over 10,000 known criminal aliens into the general population whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were attempting to deport. In addition, hundreds of thousands of criminals are currently protected from deportation as they await trials and sentences. Among them, most infamously, is Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a seven-time convicted felon and five-time deported illegal alien who was not turned over to ICE by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department that held him in custody on a drug charge. He was instead released just weeks before he murdered Kate Steinle.

The apparent principle of sanctuary cities is akin to roulette. The odds suggest that most illegal aliens detained by officials are not career felons and thus supposedly need not be turned over to ICE for deportation. On the chance that some of their 10,000 released criminals will go on to commit further crimes in the manner of Juan Lopez-Sanchez, officials then shrug that the public outcry will be episodic and quickly die down, or will at least not pose political problems as great as would come from deporting aliens.

Yet the idea of a sanctuary city is Confederate to the core, reminiscent of antebellum Southern states picking and choosing which federal statutes they would abide by or reject. Even before the Civil War, the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33 pitted South Carolina against a fellow southerner, President Andrew Jackson, as the state declared that federal tariff laws were not applicable within its confines. Jackson understood the threat to the union, and promised to send in federal troops before South Carolina backed down.

Sanctuary cities are careful to employ euphemisms rather than explicit references to illegal immigration. But not labeling San Francisco as an “illegal alien sanctuary” or even an “immigration sanctuary” only institutionalizes the idea of any city becoming a “sanctuary” from any federal law it finds convent. If sanctuary cities continue to flaunt federal immigration laws and if the federal government does not cut off federally earmarked funds to such offenders -- or if ICE does not, in Jacksonian style, threaten to use force to arrest and deport illegal aliens -- then the concept will spread, and spread well beyond matters of immigration law.

Much of the rural West opposes the Endangered Species Act. Can Wyoming declare that federally protected rats and bugs are not protected inside its state borders, when such pests obstruct construction of dams or highways? Many conservatives oppose federal restrictions on gun sales. Could Oklahoma City declare hand-gun purchases within its city-limits free of federal firearms statutes? Perhaps Little Rock could ignore a Supreme Court ruling and announce that gay marriage is not legal within its jurisdiction. On what rationale would liberals in California object to such nullifications -- that neither state nor city had the right to ignore a federal law or to obstruct the law enforcement duties of federal officials?

As a remedy to such reactionary nullification of liberal federal laws, would San Francisco or Los Angeles advocate cutting off federal funds, sending in federal agents, or nationalizing the local or state police? All of these are proven remedies from when recalcitrant southern states refused to abide by federal integration and civil rights laws in the 1960s.

What if the border between California and Nevada was nullified?

The theory of sanctuary cities is entirely hypocritical and self-serving. The idea of sanctuary from immigration law is predicated ultimately on the belief that there are or should be no national borders and thus no legal right to prosecute those who ignore them. But if California is a sanctuary state and Nevada is not, how is that distinction articulated and maintained?

Obviously California believes it has a clearly demarcated border with Nevada and that such a line is a good thing, allowing the Golden State a quite different approach to politics, economics, culture, and society within its own confines. Furthermore, if an illegal alien were speeding over Interstate 80 and crossed the state border into California, the state would object if any non-state law enforcement agent likewise crossed that line to turn him over to ICE for deportation. In other words, a sanctuary city or state is predicated on its ability to create borders not only to establish enforceable jurisdiction, but also as a reification of difference. Sanctuary cities, then, would insist that they have a right to create and enforce borders, and to create unique places within them that differ from other cities.

Nullification now thrives because our “pen and phone” president has decided to suspend federal immigration law enforcement in the manner that -- on over 20 occasions before his reelection -- he had warned was unconstitutional. But Obama has also ensured the next Republican president that he will have ample liberal precedent to create or neglect laws as his ideological whims dictate. Donald Trump, were he to be elected, might have a very different idea of what qualifies as a sanctuary city or what executive orders are needed to see through agenda with dispatch.

Forget about principles, because there are no consistent principles: sanctuary cities would never allow their precedents to apply to other jurisdictions that did not share their own liberal pieties. They believe federal law is omnipotent for everyone other than their own exalted classes, and they believe that borders, jurisdiction, and the sovereignty of laws are a good thing -- but only to the degree that they enhance their own utopian worldview.

The intellectual pedigree of sanctuary cities is not 1960s one-world ecumenicalism, but 1850s Confederate nullification. Their logical consequence is not a wide-open transnational continent, but utter disunion among the states and a second confederate attempt at destroying the primacy of the federal government.

Their politics are not exalted, but parochial, tribal, and demographic: sanctuary cities are predicated on the emergence of a large and politically potent Latino liberal demographic. Otherwise San Francisco or Los Angeles would be willing to turn over to ICE, for example, a lone Serbian illegal alien who had disrupted an environmental rally, or an Australian who overstayed his visa and began participating in "Trump for President" rallies. If thousands of Hungarian atheists were apprehended for committing crimes in Los Angeles, the Catholic archdiocese would stay mum about their deportation.

Nullification, neo-Confederate, tribal, and cynical are the proper epithets for such cities, which are best summed up as “cities of nihilism.”

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Boston Globe calls Trump a Nazi

But, being The Boston Globe, they did it subtly. No tabloid journalism for their writer.  He called Trump an exponent of the "Fuehrerprinzip" (leadership principle). He even spelled it out in German.  The "Fuehrerprinzip"  was of course promoted by Hitler.  That Hitler's rallies and Trump's rallies could hardly be more different doesn't count, of course


Although various grandees of the Republican Party have greeted Donald Trump’s clinching of their party’s presidential nomination by declaring they will not vote for him, Trump is still able to boast that Russian President Vladimir Putin called the casino magnate "a really brilliant and talented person." Purring like a petted kitten, Trump welcomed Putin’s praise as "a great honor" and remarked that the boss of all Russian bosses is "running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country."

Until some new whistle blower from the NSA posts a Putin-Trump dialogue online, we can only imagine what a chat between these two exponents of the leadership principle (in German, der Fuehrerprinzip) might be like. It could go something like this:

SOURCE

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Trump Gets An Establishment Endorsement

Former Vice President Dick Cheney will support Donald Trump, he told CNN Friday, an important move as the presumptive Republican nominee is encountering intense resistance from senior members of his own party.Cheney told CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel that he has always supported the GOP nominee and will do so this year as well.  The announcement makes Cheney one of the few Republican Party elders to announce their support of Trump and comes a day after House Speaker Paul Ryan told CNN he is "just not ready" to back Trump.

To date, Cheney is the senior most American official to endorse Trump.

SOURCE

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Australia has a "Trump" too

Australia has a Federal Election in July and the leader of the conservative side (Malcolm Turnbull) is like Trump in not being a traditional conservative.  He favors homosexual marriage, for instance.  But let Australian columnist Miranda Devine tell the tale:

Never-Trumpers are the emotional doppelgangers of our own Never-Turnbull crowd

NOW that Donald Trump looks set to take the Republican presidential nomination, a hardcore group of angry conservatives have decided they’d rather blow up the party and vote for Hillary Clinton than adjust to the reality of the candidate they have.

Watching the tantrum of America’s Never-Trump zealots since he scooped the primary pool in Indiana last week, you can’t help but notice parallels to our own conservative ragers.

They would rather vote for the devil incarnate than accept the only conservative choice available. It’s the spoiled brat tantrum of the smugly entitled. That’s MY party, they say, whether Republican or Liberal. You can’t change it without my permission. Whaaaaaa! Foot stamp.

They seem not to understand that sometimes in life you have to choose the lesser of two evils, that things don’t always go your way.

Like those who rail against Trump as a phony conservative, those who attack Turnbull as a closet leftie who has hijacked their party are "making the perfect the enemy of the good”.

It is true that the candidates couldn’t be more different in style and temperament: one is decisive and a populist showman, while the other is a ditherer and uninspiring elitist. But both Trump and Turnbull are political outsiders, shrewd and ruthless enough to have amassed personal fortunes and plenty of enemies.

They feel no need to do politics the usual way and don’t care that they are reviled by their party ­establishments.

The psychological similarities of their spitting-chips detractors go further.

These conservative intransigents are behaving in a most ­unconservative manner, casting aside prudence and caution to ­indulge their self-righteous anger and signal their virtue.

They say they are placing conservative principles ahead of the party. But their rage is all about them, and their fear of irrelevance. The problem is that the "Nevers” don’t have a plan, other than urging people not to vote.

They think that if Clinton/­Shorten win office that an ideologically pure conservative party will magically arise like a phoenix from the ashes.

Typical of the "Nevers” is the Washington Post’s conservative columnist George Will: "If Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power.”

They imagine that wrecking their party’s chance to win the next election will lead to a brief ­period in the wilderness from which a party of conservative ­purity will emerge.

But there is no guarantee that handing power to the Democrats/Labor will result in anything good or even brief, and they risk their conservative principles being excluded from any process of party ­renewal, were it to occur.

It’s ­obvious that Trump and Turnbull are not the most desirable candidates for conservatives (although Trump’s skewering of political correctness is worthwhile).

But they are both streets ahead of the alternative.

In the Trump-Clinton contest, you can boil down the choice for conservatives to one issue: who would you prefer to choose the next Supreme Court justice?

In the Turnbull-Shorten contest, the starkest choice is border security. Who do you trust to keep control of our borders: the party that delivered 50,000 illegal boat arrivals and 1100 drowned asylum-seekers, or the one which stopped the boats?

But the Nevers refuse to rally around the least worst option, ­preferring to live in denial.

If Turnbull/Trump lose, the Nevers will own every decision of Clinton/Shorten and conservatives will not let them ­forget it.

Even after Trump swept last week’s Indiana primary, giving him a total of more than 10 million votes, on track to the highest popular vote of any presidential candidate in Republican history, the Never Trumpers wouldn’t give up.

Like the Never Turnbulls, they try to make a virtue out of delusion.

"WHY WOULD AMERICANS EVER SETTLE FOR A CHOICE LIKE THIS?” tweeted neo-conservative Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.

"For too many Americans, the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump feels like a choice between being shot in the head, and being shot in the head”, said political blogger Liz Mair, founder of Never Trump group Make America Awesome.

But for all their noise, their petition asking conservatives to vow never to vote for Trump has barely managed 30,000 signatures.

Mitt Romney, the failed 2012 Republican presidential nominee and one of the most vocal Trump haters, summed up the situation by saying: "I wish we had better ­choices, and I keep hoping that somehow things will get better, and I just don’t see an easy ­answer from where we are.”

That’s all the Nevers have. Wishing, hoping, praying for a miracle, while reality keeps slapping them in the face.

SOURCE

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20 Quotes From Ancient Greek Philosophers That Liberals Still Don’t Understand

Two thousand years ago, there may not have been liberals as we think of them today, but some of the dumb ideas that underpin the whole ideology were floating around. Fortunately, in Greece some of the greatest minds in human history were there to set people straight. There are an awful lot of liberals who could benefit from reading these more than 2,000 year-old words of wisdom.

1) "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." -- Plutarch

2) "When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger." -- Epictetus

3) "The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

4) "Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns." -- Plato

5) "Toil is no source of shame; idleness is shame." -- Hesiod

6) "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato

7) "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." -- Aesop

8) "The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so." -- Plato

9) "When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income." -- Plato
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10) "Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class." -- Plato

11) "Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous." -- Plato

12) "This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." -- Plato

13) "Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music." -- Diogenes

14) "We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time." -- Aristotle

15) "We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it." -- Pericles

16) "Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms." -- Aristotle

17) "Only the dead have seen the end of war." -- Plato

18) "The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort." -- Plato

19) "Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law." -- Solon

20) "A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true." -- Socrates

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Will Hitler be forever with us?

He will, as long as it suits the Left.  They use the evils he did in the name of racial differences to discredit all mention of race.  They think, rightly, that if they accuse someone of racism, people will think of Hitler's monstrous deeds and become very wary of the accused person.  So they need to keep memory of Hitler alive.  And they use the schools to do just that, leaving out all the inconvenient bits, of course.

So for better or worse we are stuck with old Adolf.  That being so, it pays us to know as much as we can about him and to tell everyone in politics as much as we can about him.  If it becomes widely known that he was in fact a fairly conventional Leftist of his day, all memory of him will suddenly be forgotten.  Which is a reason why WE should not let his memory die.

So about ten years ago, Michael Miller of North Carolina put together a library of information about Hitler, focusing on  things that Leftists "forget" about.  And he used my essay on Hitler to show that Hitler was a Leftist.  But he asks other questions too:  What was Hitler's attitude to abortion, to animal rights, and smoking etc.

Michael used a free hosting service offered by Lycos to put his material up.  And, after a while, when he bowed out, I took on the job of maintaining the site. Recently however the site has disappeared. Someone at Lycos obviously decided that they would -- in typical Leftist fashion -- do a bit of censorship and delete it.

But I am a cautious old conservative type so I had all the files backed up onto not one but two hard disks.  So I have been able to re-post everything.  Reposting did require a lot of alterations to links so it was a bit of work but I think everything now works again.  If there is anything missing I would be obliged to hear about it.  The new home is here

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Immigration: The Central Issue Of The Presidential Campaign

“The Chance Of A Political Lifetime For Real Reform”

Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, immigration will take its place as the central issue of the coming presidential campaign.

Immigration has been the backbone of Trump’s campaign since the day he announced his candidacy last June. Emphasis on the issue brought Trump face-to-face with grassroots outrage over unrestrained immigration that has touched nearly every state and community in America. Immigration is not only an economic issue; it is a national security issue as well.

What is more, immigration was the foundation of Trump’s attack on the failings of establishment Washington. He deftly mined the issue in every campaign rally and media interview. He would tolerate nothing less than legal immigration. He would build a wall to stem the flow of illegal entry into the United States. He would enforce a moratorium on the entry and settlement of Middle Eastern refugees.

Now Trump will take the issue into the general election in a relentless assault on Hillary Clinton and the policies of the Obama administration. His effort could be decisive in November.

In a comprehensive examination of the issue and what it means in the coming presidential campaign, Stanley Renshon of the Center For Immigration Studies writes that 2016 provides what he says is “the chance of a political lifetime for real reform.” He begins by writing that legal and illegal immigration now averages over one million people every year and has been the accepted norm in recent decades.

“That norm was enforced by a consensus of establishment political and civic leaders from both parties and their allies” Renshon writes. “Alternative views were suppressed or shamed. And the preferences of ordinary Americans, about immigration policies, and much else, were generally ignored. As a result, a growing level of public resentment and anger has developed, with Americans seething at what they feel is the incompetence, arrogance, and clubby insularity of Washington ‘elites’. And they have acted on those feelings in the last several midterm elections, transforming the makeup of their state governments and the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Renshon points out that President Obama has made it worse. He abandoned his promise of hope and change and “governed instead in accord with his leftist vision of transformation,” assuring that he will leave office as what Renshon calls modern history’s most divisive president.

“His legacy will be of having governed by executive fiat, including in the critical area of immigration. There, he issued a massive executive amnesty and changed immigration enforcement rules so that millions of illegal aliens are essentially free from any expectation that they will suffer consequences for having broken American immigration laws.”

Now the public wants something different and will be looking to the next president. Renshon asks the key question: “Will They Get It?”

Following are excerpts from the first installment of Renshon’s study titled Immigration in the Presidential Campaign-Part 1:

*The 2016 presidential election represents a once-in-a-political-lifetime opportunity to rethink America’s deeply flawed immigration system and help rescue it from the erroneous “conventional wisdom” that has dominated the immigration debate for decades. And in so doing, it may begin to help resolve America’s real immigration crisis — a system that does not serve national interests, but one that poisons public trust.

*Immigration policy is rarely at the top of public concerns, especially with a major economic downturn and molasses paced-recovery now in its eighth year and counting. Add to that the renewed concern about terrorist attacks, and it is surprising that immigration has moved to be a top-tier issue in the 2016 public campaign debate. Yet it has.

*A Pew poll on the public’s priorities found that immigration was mentioned by 51 percent as a “top priority”, up 11 points since 2013, especially among Republicans. An AP/NORC poll also found that immigration was a top-tier concern for those polled, and 83 percent of those polled said that a “great deal” or “a lot” of effort should be expended in trying to solve the issue, although they were skeptical it would be done.

*Immigration has become a top-tier issue for a variety of reasons. Its prominence owes much to Donald Trump’s loud, blunt, and continuous assault on political correctness. His challenges to the two-decade-long pseudo-consensus favoring “comprehensive immigration reform” opened a long-suppressed flood of public doubt and dissatisfaction about what Americans have been consistently told they must think about immigration, among other important policy issues.

*Unprecedented numbers of legal immigrants, unprecedented numbers of illegal aliens, immigrant population increases of 715 percent that have been projected from 1970 to 2060, and sharp political challenges to the very idea of a primary American national identity have increasingly worried many Americans. So has decreased public commitment to the very basic idea that assimilation to that primary American identity is a central and absolutely necessary underpinning of the country’s openness to substantial immigration.

SOURCE

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Trump Says He'll Choose 'Wonderful, Conservative, Good, Solid, Brilliant Judges'

Never-Trumps should think about the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican Donald Trump told Fox News Thursday night. He said he will appoint "wonderful, conservative, good, solid, brilliant judges," whose names he hopes to "lay out" before the Republican National Convention.

But if his critics decide to split the Republican vote by running an independent candidate, "now you have four to five Supreme Court justices that will be picked by Hillary Clinton," Trump said.

"The worst thing that can happen -- because I'm going to win. I'm going to win. And I'm going to put wonderful, conservative, good, solid brilliant judges in the form of (the late Justice Antonin) Scalia -- I'm  going to actually lay them out.

"I'm going to discuss people. I'm going to--actually I've met with Heritage and a couple of groups.

"I'm going to actually lay them out...I think before the convention, yeah, I want to, put up 10, 12, 15 names that's the type of people that we'd like. I would like to do that." Trump said he would choose the finalists from that list. "These are conservative judges, would be great judges."

SOURCE

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Oklahoma and Georgia Governors Sign Conservative Justice Reform Bills into Law

This past Wednesday, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a package of justice reform bills into law, making the Sooner State the latest conservative state to adopt these “smart-on-crime” policies. That same day, Gov. Nathan Deal, on the other side of the country in Georgia, signed a smaller justice reform package into law, expanding on the state’s already impressive portfolio of justice reform initiatives. With the simultaneous adoption of these justice reform measures into law, conservative states like Oklahoma and Georgia are the pioneers in effective justice reform.

The Oklahoma justice reform package is a group of four bills that primarily deals with limiting the harsh punitive measures taken against non-violent offenders. These new laws would give district attorneys and courts more leeway when dealing with people charged with drug possession, allowing them to classify the charges as misdemeanors and opening up the possibilities for alternate forms of treatment rather than jail time. One such law, HB 2479, reforms the state’s three-strike felony policy for drug-related felonies, lowering the mandatory minimum sentences for people charged with felonies for the first, second, and third time. Gov. Fallin had been extremely supportive of these measures since the beginning of the legislative session, mentioning such justice reform efforts in her State of the State speech.

Across the country, Georgia had first begun implementing justice reform in 2011. Oklahoma actually passed a number of their new initiatives off of Georgia’s example, such as the creation of drug courts. Therefore, the bill that Gov. Deal signed into law on Wednesday, SB 367, is continuing along the trend of expanding the justice reform agenda.

The bill protects the rights of non-violent first time offenders by giving them the opportunity to shield their criminal record from their offense. State licensing boards will also be limited in requiring people with criminal histories to disclose that information on job forms, giving these former inmates a chance to rejoin society and be productive. The bill makes a number of other structural changes, such as creating more charter schools within prisons, allowing former prisoners to keep their driver’s license, and giving non-violent offenders, who have served extremely long sentences, a chance at eligibility for parole.

Both Govs. Mary Fallin and Nathan Deal have been stalwart advocates of criminal justice reform, and these reforms are yielding success. At the signing of the bill, Gov. Deal mentioned how, in 2011, Georgia’s prison population could have expanded to 60,000 inmates if reform weren’t enacted. Now, five years later, the Georgia prison population is 53,800, more than a 10 percent decrease from earlier projections. While much work remains necessary across the country, Oklahoma and Georgia have both made excellent progress in reforming and enacting a successful and effective criminal justice system

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Will Trump hatred Confirm Obama's Radical Supreme Court Nominee!

Major Conservative organizations and media outlets are right now beginning their push to force Mitch McConnell to hold a vote on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

Their argument: They believe Garland is a better nominee than anyone Trump or Clinton/Sanders would nominate to fill Justice Scalia’s seat.

Let me set this argument straight.

Over his career, Merrick Garland had four chances to vote against the 2nd Amendment and he took every single one of them.

In 2000, Merrick Garland voted to reinterpret the law and allow the Federal government to keep a database of American gun owners. The law explicitly states that no registry can be maintained, but Garland voted to allow the database as long as it was called an “audit log” and not a registry…

In 2005, Garland voted against rehearing Seegars v. Gonzales, meaning that he believes the 2nd Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms.

That same year, another panel of judges reached a different decision and determined that Americans do have the right to own a firearm. Garland tried desperately to rehear and overturn that ruling. He failed and that case would go on to be reaffirmed by the Supreme Court with Scalia's Heller decision.

In 2012, Merrick Garland voted to give the government the power to prosecute someone for possessing an automatic weapon even if the defendant had no idea the firearm was fully-automatic.

The only reason that you and I are allowed to purchase, own, and carry firearms is the fact that Justice Scalia wrote the 5-4 Heller opinion affirming that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right.

If Merrick Garland is confirmed, he will undo this ruling and dismantle the Second Amendment. That is a fact!

I understand that emotions are high right now. Whether you supported Trump or Cruz or Kasich, it’s going to take time to create party unity.

That’s not what this emails is about, though. This email is about stopping the powers-that-be from making a terrible error.

Nothing has changed from yesterday. Confirming Merrick Garland would be a grave mistake. It would mean the end of the 2nd Amendment and, most likely, a rewriting of the 1st Amendment as well to give Government control over our political speech.

This can’t be allowed to happen, folks.

Whether you are planning on voting for Trump or not, nothing has changed to make Merrick Garland palatable.

Up until now, we have been able to stop this nomination from going through by holding Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley’s feet to the fire. They alone have the power to move this nomination forward and with your help, we’ve bombarded them with hundreds of thousands of faxes saying “Don’t You Dare!”

But over the past few weeks, the Democrats found a chink in the armor. They have discovered a parliamentary maneuver to bypass the GOP leadership entirely. Harry Reid is about to file a Motion to Discharge.

Like a Discharge Petition in the House of Representatives, this is a parliamentary maneuver that can bypass regular order and force a vote on Obama’s nominee.

Once this vote is held, it will take just a handful of RINOs to vote with the Democrats to push the nominee through.

We have identified at least 16 Republican Senators who are open to voting for Obama’s nominee.  That number will grow now that conservatives are pressuring them to hold a vote.

Don’t let Congress surrender to Obama’s anti-gun nominee! FaxBlast and force Congress to shoot down any attempt to confirm Obama’s radical Supreme Court nominee!

This is not a joke. It’s not an exaggeration. Democrats are forcing a vote and there is more than enough RINO support to get Obama’s nominee onto the bench.

If that happens, we will see the Supreme Court overturn every conservative 5-4 decision from the past decade.

Overturning Heller and giving the government the power to abolish your individual right to own and carry a gun;

Overturning Citizens United and giving the government the power to punish you for speaking out politically during an election year;

Overturning Burwell v Hobby Lobby and giving the Federal government the power to force business owners to violate their religious conscience.

The list goes on and on and on…

Don’t let Republicans cave on this. FaxBlast and demand that they hold the line and stop the RINOs from giving in to Obama’s radical anti-gun Supreme Court nominee!

SOURCE

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Quit whining about Trump

Many Republicans are bemoaning the populist ascendancy of front-runner Donald Trump as if it were the end to the republic itself; that we are somehow entering a new age which is the equivalent of the runaway mobs with their guillotines during the French Revolution. Surely tyranny will follow.

What a bunch of nonsense.

Here is a clue for those just waking up to the political phenomena that we are witnessing: Don't blame Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) or even Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.). Blame those in the Washington political establishment who refused to stand up to President Obama's destroying what remained of the rule of law under the Constitution. Blame those who accepted the premise that allowing the federalization of our nation's schools (at all levels) was acceptable and could be managed.

We are in post-constitutional government. This is not a good thing, but it is objectively true. Congress has ceded all of its authority to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has ruled in King v. Burwell, with a GOP nominee agreeing, that the actual words in legislation don't matter, and can be reinterpreted however the executive branch decides suits its purpose. The GOP in Congress continues to give lip service to things like executive amnesty and concern about the borders while funding Obama's every move. The GOP in Congress pretends to want to stand up to Iran while giving Obama's Iran deal an OK through the original Corker bill.

Congress, the branch of the government that was supposed to be the closest the people, is on life support for all intents and purposes — and has been for years. And with it, the consent of the governed has effectively been eviscerated.

After the disappointments of the 2010 and 2014 Republican congressional landslides, the people understand this, and that is why they are now flocking to a Trump whom they see as their last, best hope of staving off the forces of darkness that are destroying the nation. They don't care about the Constitution per se; we have allowed Americans to graduate from high school without having any appreciation for its genius. They don't care about free-market theories; they have seen their jobs outsourced with big corporations and big government rigging the system against them. And they don't care about speeches at the border; they want someone whom they believe has the strength to tell everyone to go pound sand and send the illegal immigrants back to wherever they came from.

The appeal of Trump is an expression of democracy and representative government, not a rejection or end to it. He is representing his supporters by offering them a voice they have lacked — and he's doing a better job at it than any of his competitors.

The fact that Trump has no identifiable ideology beyond doing what is in America's best interest, as he sees it, is a refreshing change from the politicians offered since President Reagan, and that is why so many people gravitate to him.

I voted for Cruz. But I certainly am sentient enough to understand why the American people have had enough of the business as usual, and have gone with someone who scares the enemies of this country so much that they are already violently protesting him.

And into this mix, we have the GOP Congress blithely proceeding as if nothing has changed, studiously avoiding anything resembling a fight for the future of the nation in the hopes that their meek acquiescence will be rewarded because the other guys are nuts.

Any questions why Trump is swamping everyone in the Republican primaries? If GOP politicians are looking for someone to blame, they merely need to look in the mirror to find their quarry. It was their own failure to properly represent their own constituents that created a rich environment for an outsider like Trump to succeed.

The emergence of Trump is not the end of democracy; it is affirmation that, in fact, democracy in America — if not the constitutional rule of law — is alive and well. Stop whining.

SOURCE

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Don't Underestimate Trump's Support

Such is the state of discontent among voters that Trump is now all but the presumptive Republican nominee after trouncing Ted Cruz in Indiana Tuesday. Cruz and John Kasich quit the race, leaving Trump with no opposition and about 200 more delegates to win. That says a lot about the failed establishment and the state of our country after eight years of Barack Obama.

So, in one of the great ironies of our generation, a billionaire casino mogul and narcissistic philanderer will now head the party of social conservatism. And yet the lesson is clear: Don’t underestimate Trump’s support in the general election.

Some in the commentariat are understandably angry that voters rejected principled conservatism in favor of a crass blowhard they believe will simply blow up Washington. For the record, writes National Review’s Kevin Williamson, “Americans and Republicans, remember: You asked for this. Given the choice between a dozen solid conservatives and one Clinton-supporting con artist and game-show host, you chose the con artist. You chose him freely. Nobody made you do it.”

Williamson isn’t wrong and he’s far from alone among conservative thinkers and writers, but bitterness isn’t helpful, even if Trump supporters can be extraordinarily nasty in chastising us nonbelievers. Bitterness won’t convert a single Trump supporter, nor, arguably, at this point should it. With the primary battle now effectively behind us, the focus turns to the general election and Hillary Clinton. (Or Joe Biden — more on that from Mark Alexander later today.) Like it or not, either a Democrat or a Republican will be our next president.

The more charitable way to view this election cycle is that Trump established unshakeable support from those who looked at the crowded field of more standard Republicans and essentially said:

Why would we want more of the same? We lost with moderate squishes like Dole, McCain and Romney, and Bush was a disaster, so why not try something completely different? Instead of rebuilding the rest of the world — or apologizing to it — why not make America great again?
Trump benefited from three primary factors that we’ve outlined before: The Obama effect, the large fratricidal field of contenders (who spent most of their resources attacking not Trump but each other), and unceasing Leftmedia attention. Mainly, Trump’s supporters (like the rest of us) are just tired of watching yahoos in Washington trash our country.

Having warned against underestimating Trump’s chances in the general election, he faces a daunting task. He trails badly in the polls, and is even more widely disliked than Clinton (no small feat). As of today, the RealClearPolitics average shows Clinton up by 6.5%. And the same Leftmedia that propelled him to the nomination will now eviscerate him in service to the Democrat National Committee, possibly driving his poll numbers even lower.

More important than national polls, however, there’s this little thing the Founders created called the Electoral College. To reach the White House, a candidate must win at least 270 electoral votes. Unfortunately for Republicans, the current map gives a distinct advantage to Democrats.

Assuming Clinton wins Florida given her large lead in the polls there, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza breaks down the math: “If Clinton wins the 19 states (and D.C.) that every Democratic nominee has won from 1992 to 2012, she has 242 electoral votes. Add Florida’s 29 and you get 271. Game over.”

For Republicans, the math isn’t so good. Using the same time frame as his standard, Cillizza says, “There are 13 states that have gone for the GOP presidential nominee in each of the last six elections. But they only total 102 electorate votes. That means the eventual nominee has to find, at least, 168 more electoral votes to get to 270. Which is a hell of a lot harder than finding 28 electoral votes.”

November is a political lifetime away, and a lot will happen between now and then. Will Clinton be indicted for mishandling classified information? Will Trump lose the lawsuit against Trump University? Will two badly fractured parties unite behind their respective nominees?

Republican primary voters have made their choice. We think it was a poor one, but we also don’t underestimate Trump’s ability to overcome all the negatives and, against all odds, win in November.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Prison for Goldman Sachs executives?

Finance is full of gray areas, and getting fuller of them. Over-expansive monetary policy, pursued in the U.S. since 1995 and with fanaticism since 2008, makes those gray areas blacker, larger and more dangerous. This is not some new discovery; the Cantillon Effect, discovered by Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon (1680s-1734) after the failure of the 1716-20 Mississippi Scheme, postulated that expansionary monetary policy constitutes a transfer of money away from old money to new, encouraging financial wrong-doing and worsening wealth inequality. The evil effect of funny money is as clear now as it was in 1720, and Goldman Sachs in its funny-money incarnation is merely today’s equivalent of the get-rich-quick brokers jostling each other on the Rue Quincampoix.

One gray area in finance is insider trading, the one financial crime which the SEC prosecutes with fanaticism, throwing quite small malefactors into jail for lengthy terms. In many senses, insider trading, which was not illegal in Britain until 1980, is a victimless crime. Only very infrequently are the losers from insider trading activities aware of any losses; they have bought securities freely based on the knowledge available to them at the time.

In any case, there are more valuable forms of insider information than advance knowledge of the next quarter’s earnings or an upcoming takeover. The entire specialist system on the New York Stock Exchange relied for its profitability on knowledge of the order flow in the stocks concerned, which the specialist needed to do his job, but which also gave him a major informational advantage over those who came to him to execute trades. Being a specialist was a very profitable business, and it’s difficult to imagine a non-machine stock exchange without specialists or jobbers with inside information of the order flow, which of course they trade on.

Trading desks that have a substantial market share in foreign exchange, bonds and other financial instruments similarly have “inside” information superior to that of their clients, and make money therefrom. That was why the derivatives market grew so rapidly; it was only moderately beneficial to end users, and probably a net detriment to portfolio investors, but it provided a huge stream of income to the brokerage community, because it gave them more opportunities for trading on insider knowledge. Similarly, “fast trading” rests for its profitability on knowing the market order flow a millisecond or two before your competitors; again, this is insider information, and trading on it should on a strict reading of the regulations be illegal and, by SEC precedents, punished with jail sentences.

There are many other gray areas in finance, most of which are highly profitable to the brokerage community. The barrier between gray and white is basically represented by the phrase “caveat emptor,” requiring participants to be vigilant against scams and rip-offs; that between gray and black is formed by transactions that can reasonably be characterized as outright fraud.

The $5 billion Goldman settlement in January related to Goldman Sachs sales of subprime mortgage packages to investors in 2006, on which it appears that Goldman’s own investigations had determined that some of the mortgages were very likely fraudulent, a fact not disclosed in the offering documents. That appears to me to cross the line from gray to black in the world of investment banking. If Goldman knew the statements they were making to investors about the mortgages were untrue, they had a duty to amend those statements, otherwise the offering document would have been fraudulent.

I write here as a journalist with only the sketchiest knowledge of the various transactions involved; it’s possible there were extenuating circumstances. However, if in fact the offering documents relating to the securities offered were inaccurate, and Goldman, the issuing bank, knew them to be so, then the transaction was fraudulent. At that point it crosses the line from grey to black. A $5 billion fine, the cost of which falls on the Goldman Sachs shareholders of 2016, not on those of 2006, and not on the executives who carried out the transactions and only to a limited extent on Goldman Sachs top management, is not the appropriate punishment. For fraud, involving large financial sums, prison sentences are the appropriate punishment, as are doled out for the much less economically heinous crimes involving insider trading.

Similarly, the “Abacus” transaction, in which the junior Goldman trader “Fabulous Fab” Tourre arranged to defraud German banks on a set of mortgage collateralized debt obligations in the interest of another Goldman client, involved only civil penalties, again paid primarily by Goldman Sachs shareholders. Fraud is a serious criminal offense, allowing which makes the capitalist system impossible to operate. Criminal penalties, probably including imprisonment, should have been imposed both on Tourre and on those up his chain of command who authorized and encouraged him to carry out the offense. Regulatory bureaucrats who get jollies and bonuses for extracting large amounts of money from Wall Street banks are imposing penalties that, being paid by shareholders, are no deterrent at all to the senior management of the institutions involved.

There are several other substantial examples of Goldman Sachs malfeasance, where proper ethical controls should have blown a whistle and where legal penalties should have been imposed on the executives involved and their superiors. The 2.8 billion euros loan to Greece in 2001 disguised as a cross-currency swap, thereby allowing Greece to evade the Maastricht Criteria for euro membership, has cost both the Greek people and the whole world hundreds of billions of dollars. Imprisonment should have followed, both for the Greek officials responsible for the transaction and for the Goldman Sachs executives who enabled it. Also the $300 million fee on a $3 billion bond issue for 1MDB, a public sector entity of an A-rated sovereign credit, was direct robbery of the Malaysian people and should again have resulted in jail for all concerned.

It is very clear that Wall Street investment banking is a business where the regulators need to force some prison sentences from time to time, with job losses right up the chain of command, in order to shove the business back towards the white side of gray. In the case of Goldman Sachs, this deterrent effect has been altogether missed – CEO and Chairman Lloyd Blankfein is still, extraordinarily, in the job he assumed in May 2006. There were not even any huge losses inflicted on Goldman Sachs during the crisis, because the $13 billion of credit losses which Goldman incurred on its AIG credit default swaps (most of which represented profits from betting against the market in which they were simultaneously issuing securities to investors) when the AIG CDS business failed were bailed out by the $185 billion provided to AIG by taxpayers.

The real difficulty is that investment banking needs to clean up its act, returning its ethical standards to those of 40 years ago and reducing the remuneration of investment bankers, especially on the trading desk, to more manageable levels, thereby raising the profitability of the business to a level that more properly reflects the risks involved. Probably there also needs to be some substantial downsizing of the investment banking business, and exit of overcapitalized firms like Barclays and Deutsche Bank that are no good at it. At the same time, as in Britain, the regulators need to “ring fence” deposits that are acquired using the FDIC $100,000 guarantee to which Goldman Sachs as a bank is now entitled. If Goldman wants to use that guarantee to attract deposits and go into the credit card business, they are welcome to try, but should do so in an entity entirely separate from the gambling casino that is their trading desk.

Investment banking used to be an economically useful business with high ethical standards and modest but comfortable returns. It needs to get back to that, losing most of the casino, losing the excessive remuneration and above all losing the tendency to defraud clients, which is not an economically useful occupation.

SOURCE

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Collectivism: America’s Greatest Disease

Men vs. Women;  Heterosexuals vs. Homosexuals; Theists vs. Atheists; Blacks vs. Whites.

What do these battles have in common? They are all predicated on the belief that you can judge the character of each individual based upon a collectivized label. Clearly not all men are the same, and neither are all women, but that doesn’t stop politicians and pundits from acting as if they can apply a singular lifestyle prescription to each individual based upon their gender. The ‘I know what’s best for you’ mentality of both liberals and conservatives has driven the American people to form tribes based around hollow perceptions of mass identity. Feminists believe that women should aspire to rise to the highest levels of business. Reactionary anti-feminists argue that the ‘natural’ place for women is in the home. The truth of the matter is that these generalized examinations of the nature of women are based on the false idea that human beings are bound to a certain role based upon collective identity.

Humanity is full of variation. It is a crime to stifle that variation in the pursuit of political power. American politics is a game of force. Whomever controls the government can force everyone to adapt to their personal value system. The easiest way to obtain the power of force is to collectivize. Our mob rule political system has driven us to abandon our individuality in pursuit of a shred of our values. That is in fact all that is left once the game is over. When we subscribe to tribalism in government, we abandon all hope for a free society. After all, the foundation of freedom is individual liberty. People should be free to decide what is best for them. They should not be forced into a role prescribed by the government or society. They shouldn’t be left with just a shred of the life that they wish to pursue.

Most of the tribalist battles that we see forced upon us are nothing but distractions. So many of the social conflicts in American society are the result of meaningless labels devised to sell books, amass power, and keep us all in tidy cages. Sheryl Sandberg thinks women should ‘lean in’. Suzanne Venker thinks men should be the providers. I think both should mind their own business. Of course, minding one’s own business never sold many books.

White, black, believer, and atheist. Sure, these words have meaning, but from a social standpoint they don’t carry nearly as much weight as we have convinced ourselves. When you pierce the heart of society, you will find that there are only two labels which truly matter: individualist or collectivist. You have a choice to decide whether you want to define your life and be an individual, or whether you want to subscribe to a prepackaged role and join a mindless collective.

Shared interests are fine, and forming clubs can be a very healthy activity. However, when we begin to focus entirely on the collective rather than the individuals within society, we begin to lose focus on reality. Remember, someone may be an atheist but that doesn’t mean that they are waging a war of Christmas, and someone may wave a Confederate flag but that doesn’t mean they hate blacks. There is nothing wrong with being an atheist or owning a Confederate flag, it is however wrong to force others to subscribe to your identity. The difference between individualism and collectivism is the difference between flying a Confederate flag in your front yard, and forcing your neighbor to fly one as well. It’s time to move beyond collectivism in American society and focus on the only thing that matters: the individual.

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The eating of humble pie is about to begin

British PM  should 'reach out and apologise' to Donald Trump, his adviser says

David Cameron should apologise for his description of Donald Trump as "divisive, stupid and wrong", according to an adviser to the US presidential hopeful.

George Papadopoulos said it would be "wise" for the Prime Minister to "reach out in a more positive manner" to the Republican front-runner.

Mr Cameron was trenchant in his criticism of Mr Trump last December, when Parliament debated a petition to ban him from the UK over his call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States".

The PM told the House of Commons he opposed a travel ban on Mr Trump, but added: "I think his remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong. If he came to visit our country I think he would unite us all against him."

Mr Papadopoulos, an adviser to the property tycoon and reality TV star, told The Times: "First we need an invitation. Of course if the United Kingdom extended an invitation it would be a tremendous show of unity and a wonderful spectacle.

"That invitation has not yet been extended ... but if it is it would be received in a positive way."

Asked if Mr Trump would forgive Mr Cameron's comments, Mr Papadopoulos told the newspaper: "I can't speak directly for him but it would seem that if Prime Minister Cameron is serious about reaching out, not only to Mr Trump's advisers but to the man himself, an apology or some sort of retraction should happen.

"To see Mr Cameron come out as the most vocal opponent was uncalled for. Considering that we believe that the UK-US relationship should be a cornerstone, not just of Nato policy but elsewhere, it would be wise for him to reach out in a more positive manner to Mr Trump."

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Trump may seem Crazy but he has Sensible Foreign Policy Views

Despite Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s reality show candidacy, his recent foreign policy speech put forth a realistic view of the world and a largely credible foreign policy to deal with it. Continuing his poke at the political establishment, the maverick candidate proposed a viable alternative to the bi-partisan foreign policy consensus, which uses unneeded and profligate military interventions overseas as the primary U.S. foreign policy tool.

As opposed to the interventionist, neo-conservatism of the Bush administration and the equally meddling liberal hawkishness of Hillary Clinton, Trump got back to basics and let Americans citizens know that his foreign policy would safeguard American national interests first—not those of foreign countries, including providing for their security while they freeload.

He laudably said that military intervention would be used only as a last resort, after diplomacy and economic sanctions were used—and even the latter would be used sparingly.

Rather than using military power in a vain attempt to export democracy by force into foreign countries that are unreceptive to it, as the United States did in Iraq and Libya, Trump said that the United States should promote its values through leading by example. This policy is smarter because democracy better takes root when people in a country accept it willingly rather than having it shoved down their throats at gunpoint. In only four out of 18 attempts since 1900 has the forcible U.S. export of democracy succeeded.

Echoing the more traditional, less interventionist, and much more effective U.S. foreign policy that was the norm before the Cold War began, and which has been long forgotten, Trump said that the United States would “not go in search of enemies.” This restrained foreign policy served the United States well from its birth in the late 1700s to 1947—when it began to police the world—because the country has been gifted geographically to be far away from the world’s conflict zones.

To make his case for a more restrained U.S. foreign policy, Trump convincingly noted the twin foreign policy disasters of the Bush and Obama administrations in trying to export democracy using military power and nation building—in Iraq and Libya—that have instead caused chaos in the Middle East and allowed the terror group ISIS to fill the vacuum. He noted that he had opposed Bush’s Iraq War from the start, because the invasion would destabilize the Middle East and strengthen the Islamist regime in Iran, both of which occurred.

Although Trump has been excessively critical of China in trade and economic matters, he expressed a desire to work with that country if it worked with the United States. The United States should try to have better relations with a nuclear-armed nation that is rising in economic and military power and political influence. As for Russia, he saw a common interest in fighting Islamist terrorism and believes that the United States and Russia could ease their strained relations. In both cases, he wants to seek common ground, correctly saying that neither country needed to be a U.S. adversary. One needn’t fully trust these two nuclear-weapon states or agree with their domestic political systems to appreciate their need for a security buffer zone in their respective regions and the need to work with them on specific issues when it is in U.S. national interest to do so.

Finally, Trump realizes a central problem in U.S. foreign policy: U.S. resources have been overextended in policing the world and providing for the defense of wealthy allies that need to do more for their own security. He threatened that if these countries didn’t do more, the United States should let them defend themselves. Trump realizes that unless the United States threatens to do less, these allies will never increase spending on their own defense. Also, he recognizes something that much of the U.S. foreign policy elite gives short shrift—long-term U.S. security requires more emphasis on the health of the American economy.

Despite Trump’s usual campaign bluster, his foreign policy views are largely well argued and based on knowledge of and stark admission of numerous past instances of excessive and failed military meddling overseas.

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Peggy Noonan on The Donald (excerpt)

In my continuing quest to define aspects of Mr. Trump’s rise, to my own satisfaction, I offer what was said this week in a talk with a small group of political activists, all of whom back him. One was about to begin approaching various powerful and influential Republicans who did not support him, and make the case. I told her I’d been thinking that maybe Mr. Trump’s appeal is simple: What Trump supporters believe, what they perceive as they watch him, is that he is on America’s side.

And that comes as a great relief to them, because they believe that for 16 years Presidents Bush and Obama were largely about ideologies. They seemed not so much on America’s side as on the side of abstract notions about justice and the needs of the world. Mr. Obama’s ideological notions are leftist, and indeed he is a hero of the international left. He is about international climate-change agreements, and leftist views of gender, race and income equality. Mr. Bush’s White House was driven by a different ideology — neoconservatism, democratizing, nation building, defeating evil in the world, privatizing Social Security. But it was all ideology.

Then Mr. Trump comes and in his statements radiate the idea that he’s not at all interested in ideology, only in making America great again — through border security and tough trade policy, etc. He’s saying he’s on America’s side, period.

And because people are so happy to hear this after 16 years, because it seems right to them, they give him a pass on his lack of experience in elective office and the daily realities of national politics. They accept him even though he is a casino developer and brander who became famous on reality TV.

They forgive it all. Not only because they’re tired of bad policy but because they’re tired of ideology.

You could see this aspect of Trumpism — I’m about America, end of story — in his much-discussed foreign-policy speech this week. I have found pretty much everything said about it to be true

He certainly jumbles up the categories. Bobby Knight, introducing him at a rally in Evansville, Ind., on Thursday, said that Mr. Trump is not a Republican or a Democrat. The crowd seemed to like that a lot.

Those conservative writers and thinkers who have for nine months warned the base that Mr. Trump is not a conservative should consider the idea that a large portion of the Republican base no longer sees itself as conservative, at least as that term has been defined the past 15 years by Washington writers and thinkers.

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The Wall Street Journal Duped!

Am I the only one who noticed this thing? I was away on vacation and unable to post when this came to my attention. Please help me to embarrass the WSJ- Send this out and post it anywhere you can!

The cover of last Friday’s Wall Street Journal had this ridiculous example of Islamic Fauxtographic Journalism:



This is another classic example of Islamic “fauxtography”. The picture is so obviously staged that I feel embarrassed for the photo editor who selected it. To imagine that a toddler could be pulled out of the wreckage alive is fanciful enough but, okay, miracles do happen. But look again. How could the grimy “rescue worker” possibly have dug the baby out of the rubble. The kid doesn’t have a spot on his clean white tee shirt and socks. And don’t tell me that the dust on the rescue worker is light colored and wouldn’t show, I’ve raised six kids and I know that a white tee shirt shows everything! That kid’s mother must have known he would be starring in the latest promo shots for the Jihad and put him in a brand new outfit. Anyway, the child’s pants are dark blue and nothing shows there either. That’s without even asking, "how could he have escaped being trapped by all that falling masonry with nary a nick or cut on his big, round, pink head?

The truth is, there is a well documented and very sad history of this kind of “journalism” albeit most has been directed at vilifying Israel and the US. Pallywood and fauxtography have a long history. I’ve written about it before by PBS here .  Perhaps the most infamous example was the filming of the non-death of Mohammed al Durah that was exploited to touch off the emotional reaction that fed into the first intefada. It includes some of the most pathetic ruses ever swallowed by a media hungry for images and emotions. My favorite (I wrote about it here) was the Iraqi woman who was photographed during the battle for Sadr City holding up two bullets that she claimed an American soldier fired at her home. Unfortunately for her, and the media stooges who reprinted the picture, the bullets she brandished were live rounds, still shiny and unfired in there brass cartridges. So what did he do, lady, throw them at you?

The whole thing would be funny were it not so dangerous. Western media pipeline this stuff all the time - right from the cesspools of Jihadi propaganda to the living rooms of The West- no filter at all. Until stuff like this gets identified and ridiculed, it will keep on twisting the public debate and anesthetizing the survival instincts of our culture.

If you had no other clue to the falsity of the picture of the "rescue", all you had to do was look at its provenance. Agence France, by way of a Jihadi photographer- Just like much of the propaganda from the middle east (including the al Durah affair by Charles Enderlin), funneled through French media by Arab/Islamic photographerss on the ground... Oh, by the way, the bullet lady came by way of Agence France too.

SOURCE

You have to be clever to lie convincingly and Arabs are dim bulbs -- as the above shows

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Florida Hotel Firm Gives Workers Amazing, Low-Cost Healthcare

Rosen Hotels & Resorts is best known for putting up tourists at its seven hotels in central Florida, but the hospitality company deserves to become even better known for its remarkable health plan: It covers almost everything for its 2,724 employees, yet it spends about 40 percent less per worker than the national average. According to Independent Institute Senior Fellow John C. Goodman, the hotel’s achievement is due to the singular vision of its president and founder, Harris Rosen.

Although Rosen manages to provide comprehensive coverage and keep down costs at the same time, what’s especially remarkable are the health benefits the company’s policies have delivered: 93 to 95 percent of enrollees follow through on getting their prescriptions refilled, compared to only 25 to 30 percent nationwide; its employees’ cancellation rate for medical appointments is almost one-tenth the national average; and when Rosen’s workers require hospital stays, they require an average of two fewer days than non-employee patients using the same facilities. On top of all this, Rosen’s employees tend to be older and have poorer health than the general population.

What’s the “secret” to Rosen’s success? Three components seem especially important: Rosen health director Kenneth Aldridge closely monitors employees’ medical test results and quickly phones those at risk for diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol, encouraging them to stay on top of their treatments. Rosen also makes sure that workers can easily get to a treatment facility, via its 12,000 square foot medical center. In addition, the company’s hiring policy precludes smokers and conducts random drug tests to ensure compliance. “What Rosen does is obviously doable – in a company with fewer than 3,000 employees, in a reasonably concentrated geographic area,” Goodman writes. “Can other employers do the same? I don’t know. But if they find time to get to Orlando, Harris Rosen will give them an earful of his thoughts.”

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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