Obama’s Descent
July 27, 2009
This image has been posted with express written permission. Apologies in advance to those who will be disappointed, upset or even further obsessed.
This cartoon was originally published at Town Hall.
About That White House Beer
July 27, 2009
This image has been posted with express written permission. Apologies in advance to those who will be disappointed, upset or even further obsessed.
This cartoon was originally published at Town Hall.
Obama Really Believed
July 27, 2009
This image has been posted with express written permission. Apologies in advance to those who will be disappointed, upset or even further obsessed.
This cartoon was originally published at Town Hall.
5 freedoms you’d lose in health care reform
July 27, 2009
In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans — and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.
A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy’s Health committee, contradict the President’s assurances. To be sure, it isn’t easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.
If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company’s Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests — you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.
In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage — including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money — but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can’t have. It’s a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.
Let’s explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare…
A Teaching Moment
July 27, 2009
This image has been posted with express written permission. Apologies in advance to those who will be disappointed, upset or even further obsessed.
This cartoon was originally published at Town Hall.
Do You Know Who I Am?
July 27, 2009
This image has been posted with express written permission. Apologies in advance to those who will be disappointed, upset or even further obsessed.
This cartoon was originally published at Town Hall.
How settlements became ‘illegal’
July 27, 2009
In 1967, under attack, Israel struck back and conquered the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, and Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem (the West Bank) from Jordan. Israel had been threatened with a second Holocaust, and few questioned its actions. No one spoke of a Palestinian state; there was no “Palestinian people.”
Many legal experts accepted Israel’s right to “occupy” and settle its historic homeland, because the areas had been illegally occupied by invading Arab countries since 1948.
One organization, however – the International Committee of the Red Cross – disagreed.
Meeting secretly in the early 1970s in Geneva, the ICRC determined that Israel was in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Based on the Hague Convention, GC IV was drawn up after World War II to protect innocent civilians and restrict brutal occupations. Unilaterally, the ICRC turned it into a weapon to delegitimize and demonize Israel.
As far as is known, the ICRC did not rely on any legal precedents; it made up “the law.”
Judge and jury, its decisions lacked the pretense of due process. Since all decisions and protocols of the ICRC in this matter are closed, even the identities of the people involved are secret. And there is no appeal. Without transparency or judicial ethics, ICRC rulings became “international law.” Its condemnations of Israel provide the basis for accusing Israel of “illegal occupation” of all territory conquered in 1967.
Although most of the international community, its NGOs and institutions accept the authority of the ICRC and other institutions, such as the International Court of Justice, as sole arbiters of what is “legal,” or not, it’s strange that some Israeli politicians and jurists cannot defend Israel’s legal claim to the territories. And Israel’s case is strong…
