I am proud of all my children. They are all different in looks and endeavors they have chosen. Recently my oldest daughter and her husband visited her sister in Louisville (my number two daughter - Amy.) Amy has been involved in The West End School where our dear friend , Benjamin Payne, was the headmaster, before moving to Savannah to become Director of The Savannah Classical Academy.
This is what Debra wrote:
" In Louisville, Amy took us on a tour of the West End School.
WES has flourished under Amy’s attention, energies and philanthropy.
WES began as a grade 9-12 boarding school for inner-city boys whose home situations made it doubtful if not impossible for them to thrive and achieve their academic potential. The school is growing and now has classroom space for Pre K thru grade four with a new grade being added each year.
Not all students succeed. Some leave because they do not like the rules.
Others are pulled out by their parents. But the first graduates have gone on to college, law school and beyond. I remain in awe of all my sister has done and continues to do. If you saw the Sandra Bullock movie, Blind Side, know that Amy is
a real life Sandra Bullock and more."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“A liberal’s paradise would be a place where everybody has guaranteed employment, free comprehensive healthcare, free education, free food, free housing, free clothing, free utilities, and only law enforcement has guns.”
And believe it or not, such a place does indeed already exist: It's called Prison." Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Phoenix, AZ
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The next expected radical Democrat to announce he is running is charismatic "Beto" O'Rourke. He has a long list of grievances starting with a document called America's Constitution. (See 1 below.)
And:
Did Pelosi outsmart herself? (See 1a and 1b below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Russian expert says Iranian and Russian interests and conflicting policies are causing them to drift apart. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This from a doctor friend and fellow memo reader.
Diverse cultures can create health "strains" because of their different "cultures." (See 3 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sherman set fire to Atlanta and now the Democrats are scorching Virginia. (See 4 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Other articles of interest?
Dem Women Send Trump a Message: We're Coming for You Amanda Marcotte, Salon
Socialism Is More Popular Than You Think, Mr. President John Nichols, The Nation
Trump Is Under Assault From All Directions Heather Digby Parton, Salon
Ripping Off the Democrats' Mask Stephen Presser, American Greatness
Democrats Need to Find a Centrist or They're Doomed Conrad Black, New York Sun
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)
What's Beto's Problem with the Constitution?
When "Beto" O'Rourke recently questioned whether the basic principles of the Constitution still apply in today's world, what exactly did he mean? Which principles would he reject, and what new principles would he substitute for our governance?
At a time when our Constitution is increasingly attacked as unfair, immoral and obsolete, or simply irrelevant, the pronouncements of political figures such as O'Rourke matter. O'Rourke is a rising star of the left and a presumed 2020 presidential candidate who, as it happens, comes from Texas, a state with a large number of electoral votes.
To get an idea of O'Rourke's principles, we might look to his recent failed Senate run. His campaign platform lists 17 major issue categories. Within O'Rourke's 17 categories are over 75 specific initiatives.
As might be expected, a review of his platform's top initiatives reveals a strong alignment with the progressive left on nearly every point: health care a "basic human right," ensuring "guaranteed due process" as well as citizenship for illegal immigrants, correcting "bias" in the criminal justice system, increasing public funding for "underserved communities," "protecting" teachers' pensions, and much more.
Within this potpourri of regulation, handouts, and carveouts, we can discern a common thread: a larger role for government -- specifically the federal government -- tacitly justified by a deluge of empathy.
O'Rourke's platform aligns neatly with Franklin D. Roosevelt's "second bill of rights" of the 1940s, which viewed the Constitution as inadequate and proposed a vast expansion of federal power and reach as a correction. In more recent times, FDR's view was embraced by Barack Obama, who described the Constitution dismissively as a "charter of negative liberties." O'Rourke is only the latest in a long line of progressives who plainly have trouble with the Constitution.
Yet if O'Rourke's platform contains any actual new "principles of governance" that are somehow superior to the Constitution's and presumably should supersede them, they are obscured by the gratuitous empathy that motivates his initiatives. O'Rourke simply identifies numerous "victims" and makes himself their gallant champion.
In the realm of civics, it is vital to be skeptical of empathy. Viewed cynically, empathy is politically useful inasmuch as it makes it easy to seduce the persuadable to your side, and it opens the door wide to politically useful virtue-signaling.
But viewed realistically, empathy in civic discourse is insidious and corrosive. It is wholly incompatible with rational judgment and sober decision-making -- hallmarks of good governance. Instead, empathy empowers a few individuals to hijack civic priorities, irrespective of facts and in circumvention of just process. Empathy demands compassionate action regardless of any obstacles -- never mind that resources are always and everywhere limited. Empathy privileges certain preferred choices over others, without regard to their relative worthiness -- necessarily trampling the legitimate rights of the truly worthy. Empathy silences opposing points of view, as its claim to the moral high ground makes it virtually immune to criticism.
Does O'Rourke actually understand the real principles at the foundation of the Constitution? Does he appreciate their wisdom and importance?
The Founders were learned men, keen students of human history and human nature, who had endured tyranny firsthand. They understood human weakness and fallibility. They observed the corrupting influence of power on leadership. They appreciated the essential limits and inadequacies of every sort of governance and authority. They respected that individuals, men and women -- and only they -- are the proper guardians of their destiny.
These are durable, unchanging, inherent principles of humankind, and the Constitution embodies this found wisdom. In devising a new form of government, the Founders incorporated these understandings through a variety of structural limitations, controls and "checks and balances" upon government, and upon those who hold office. The Bill of Rights further embodies key concepts of liberty, most importantly the principle of inalienable rights, that additionally restrict the powers of the federal government. This formula of restrained government as an enabler of unprecedented social and economic freedom, combined with individual enterprise, produced the wealthiest and most beneficent nation on Earth, and we are its fortunate inheritors.
Beto O'Rourke is simply wrong to declare these principles obsolete. Human nature has not changed. The passage of "230-plus years" since the Constitution's adoption makes no difference whatsoever.
Is O'Rourke merely ignorant of this basic truth? O'Rourke calls for a "discussion" on these principles, but it is hard to see this as anything other than their implicit rejection. More likely, holding his own views as incontrovertible, O'Rourke arrogantly seeks to control the affairs of American citizens and will use the power of government to achieve his ends. For such purposes the Constitution is decidedly an obstacle and not an enabler.
But who is Beto, or any of his philosophical predecessors and cohorts, to make intimate decisions and judgments for others' lives, families and destinies? Election to office is not such a license, as the Founders understood. It takes stupendous hubris, conceit, and a wholly unjustified sense of personal righteousness, to usurp this privilege.
Only a sound and respected republican Constitution will prevent people like O'Rourke from putting the government in charge of literally everything.
1a)Pelosi Outsmarted Herself on the SOTU
By the time he entered the House chamber, it was already obvious that the national audience would very likely exceed last year’s larger-than-usual viewership for such speeches. This is not typical for the SOTU address. The normal pattern is a reasonably large audience for a president’s first address, followed by a gradual decline in public interest each year thereafter. This was certainly true for Trump’s predecessor. Tuesday evening’s speech, however, drew a larger audience than did the President’s 2018 address. According to a report in the Hill, broadcast TV numbers from Nielsen show the audience share was 10 percent over last year’s speech:
The four major broadcast outlets — CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox — combined for a 16.3 overnight rating during the address Tuesday night, which could result in total viewership of approximately 49 million when final numbers, to include the cable news networks and other outlets, are in later Wednesday.
Moreover, CBS and CNN conducted polls of public reaction to Trump’s words and the vast majority of viewers liked what they heard. The CBS/YouGov poll found that 76 percent of the public approved of the address, including 97 percent of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of Independents. And a majority of viewers agreed that the President accomplished one of his primary goals for the address — improving national unity. According to CBS, “Fifty-six percent of Americans who watched tonight feel the president’s speech will do more to unite the country.” On specific issues, an unambiguous majority of viewers agreed with the President.
And, in more than one case, their answers debunked Democrat talking points. A particularly glaring example of this was the public’s response to his points on illegal immigration. The Democrats have consistently attempted to convince the public that President Trump and his administration is exaggerating the seriousness of the problem. They have frequently accused him of unnecessarily stoking racism and xenophobia in order to “manufacture a crisis.” Indeed, this is the primary basis for their consistent yet evidence-free claims that he himself is a racist. That is not, however, how the Americans who watched last night’s SOTU address view the issue:
It goes without saying, of course, that such unexpected and unwelcome findings forced the people at CBS to downplay the significance of their own poll. To that end, they devoted a lot of irrelevant verbiage to the number of Republicans who watched President Trump’s speech:
In the latest CBS national poll released last month, 25 percent of Americans identified themselves as Republicans. Among those who watched Tuesday night’s address, that figure was 43 percent.
Oddly, the folks at CBS neglect to explain how that datum applies to the extraordinarily high approval figures among the Independents who watched the President’s speech. Moreover, on other issues, the approval ratings on Trump’s speech are also too high to explain away:
On North Korea, 78 percent of speech-watchers think a second meeting between Mr. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a good idea.… Most viewers [74 percent] approved of Mr. Trump’s comments on the Middle East.
The analysts at CNN also conducted a survey of the people who watched the State of the Union address, and found higher rates of approval than they evidently expected. It’s unlikely that these number crunchers were pleased to find that the percentage of viewers who rated the speech as “very positive” or “somewhat positive” was identical to the CBS result — 76 percent. Not coincidentally, CNN also tried to explain that away with the “more Republicans watched” argument. But the positive effect of Trump’s performance was very real and clearly taking its toll on Speaker Pelosi as the speech went on. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich felt her pain:
She had to listen politely.… and pretend to be a good hostess (the President is the guest of the House). When even her most radical new members began standing and applauding, she must have experienced a bit of despair.
This was obvious to anyone watching Madam Speaker gnaw her lip and writhe for the 82 minutes Trump spoke. To paraphrase the immortal P.G. Wodehouse, it was clear that, if not actually disgruntled, she was far from being gruntled. But she could have compromised with Trump on the wall and prevented an unnecessary fight. And she certainly didn’t need to postpone the SOTU. But she refused to do the former and insisted upon the latter — setting Trump up for Tuesday night’s triumph. A classic example of poetic justice. Now the country sees him as more presidential and her as less reasonable. On the shutdown fight, she was too clever by half.
1b)
Two analyses of the State of the Union speech are possible—one short, one long. The short version is that if the presidential figure who delivered this speech replaced Trump of Twitter , he’d be on his way to four more years. The chances of that happening are zero. So on to a longer speculation on the speech’s probable effects on Mr. Trump’s prospects for re-election.
Recall the response of Ben Jealous, the former NAACP head and Democratic candidate for Maryland governor, to a reporter who asked him last summer if he was a socialist: “Are you f—ing kidding me?” He lost anyway.
1b)
Trump Flipped the Opposition
Democrats had to wonder how long they’d get away with the socialism hooey.
By Daniel Henninger
Two analyses of the State of the Union speech are possible—one short, one long. The short version is that if the presidential figure who delivered this speech replaced Trump of Twitter , he’d be on his way to four more years. The chances of that happening are zero. So on to a longer speculation on the speech’s probable effects on Mr. Trump’s prospects for re-election.
Since the midterms, in which many suburban voters turned against the president, the Democrats’ solitary political strategy has been that Mr. Trump would self-destruct. Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump flipped the story line by putting the Democratic Party on the defensive.
“Tonight, we renew our resolve,” Mr. Trump announced, “that America will never be a socialist country.” With one line, he put the Democrats in check. Ever since the “socialism” wave began building inside the party’s ranks, professional Democrats had to wonder how long they’d be able to get away with this hooey.
The Democrats’ leftward drift was going to be trouble enough for the party. But when its presidential candidates started to align with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram version of socialism, it was only a matter of time before someone called them out. The president just did. And more.
At the end of the speech, Mr. Trump went on an extended patriotic riff that began with D-Day and went on to abolishing slavery, building the railroads, the interstate highway system and defeating fascism. It ended with a sort of Woody Guthrie tour through the green farms of Kentucky and golden beaches of California.
For Democratic elites—in the party, the universities and the media—this stuff was pure corn pone. But what the Democrats have become—recently suggested in Howard Schultz’s criticism of the party’s mind-set—reveals a vulnerability the president’s strategists recognized.
Mr. Trump is posing traditional, widely held American values against the Democrats’ confusing, postmodern amalgam of identity politics and national guilt-tripping. That includes his explicit challenge to Democrats on condoning abortion at full term.
Democrats are always rubbing your face in some national moral deficiency or failure. Stacey Abrams’s reply went on about “layoffs looming” and people “living paycheck to paycheck.”
Candidate Trump plans to give voters a remake of Ronald Reagan’s morning in America, while the Democrats are offering a nightmare on Elm Street. The optimistic Reagan vision—which was FDR’s and JFK’s—always wins that competition. By default, the whining Democrats have let dour Donald Trump present himself as the country’s Mr. Sunshine.
Morning in America worked as a campaign message for Reagan in 1984 (he walloped Walter Mondale) because it was real. The economy was recovering smartly from a recession. In Tuesday’s speech, Mr. Trump gave his most effective defense yet of the deregulatory and tax policies that jolted the economy out of the eight-year Obama doldrums.
Mr. Trump’s sunshine strategy will work only if his strong economic record, produced by the policies of 2017, extends into 2020. Mr. Trump made clear in the speech that his primary economic policy tool now will be tariffs. He asked Congress for the authority to impose reciprocal tariffs on other countries.
But Mr. Trump’s professed admiration for the McKinley Tariff of 1890 is at cross-purposes with the complex mechanisms of the world economy 129 years later. General Motors said Wednesday that steel and aluminum tariffs helped damage its bottom line in 2018 by more than $1 billion. The Journal reports soaring farm bankruptcies in part because of the trade wars. If those promised Trump trade deals don’t happen, a slowing global—and U.S.—economy will overwhelm his achievements.
The immigration section of the president’s speech was awful. It included some grace notes about legal immigrants enriching the nation, but what followed makes one wonder if he believes that. Arguably, Mr. Trump was simply trying to put political pressure on the Democrats to fund his border wall. Past some point, though, the catalog of immigrant criminality and threat started to sound like something else.
What used to be an argument for enforcing our laws and securing the border is close to tipping into ethnic animosity. Hispanic-surnamed voters might reasonably begin to wonder where they stand in Mr. Trump’s America. Is the message that we should keep some of them out, or all of them out?
Mr. Trump is right to press Democrats on abortion. Liberals have rarely been willing to talk clearly about terminating late-term pregnancies. Similarly, voters in 2020 deserve more clarity than they’re getting from conservatives and this White House on immigration’s role in the U.S.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2) Russian Expert Shumilin: 'Iran Is No Longer The Ally Of Russia'
Tehran's harsh policy in the Syrian conflict is increasingly at variance with the interests of Moscow in the region, says Russian expert Alexander Shumilin in an interview with the Russian media outlet Rosbalt.ru.
The interview with Shumilin, the director of the Center of Middle East Conflicts at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, followed a January 15, 2019 CNN interview with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov. Asked whether Russia was an ally of Iran, Ryabkov replied: "I wouldn't use this type of words to describe where we are with Iran." The Ryabkov interview, which does not appear on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website, also followed accusations in the Iranian Majlis, by Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee chairman Heshmatollah Falahat Pisheh, that Russia had restrained its S-300 antiaircraft system during Israel's attack on Syria in late January 2019.[1]
In light of the above, Rosbalt.ru speculated: "The Russian mass media has painstakingly created the illusion of an apparent formation in the Middle East of a powerful anti-Western bloc of Russia, Iran and Turkey that opposed the coalition headed by the US. And now signs have appeared that such a configuration of forces in the region could change." The outlet sounded out Shumilin on this possibility.[2]
Below is Shumilin's interview with Rosblat.ru, headlined "Iran Is No Longer The Ally Of Russia."[3]
Iran's Actions Turned Into A Factor That Is Less Satisfactory To Russia In The Syrian Conflict
Q: "How would you evaluate the declaration by Sergey Ryabkov that Iran is not an ally of Russia and Moscow is seriously concerned about Israel's security? Can we in connection with these things speak of a serious turnabout in Russian Middle East policy?"
Shumilin: "I would say that this substantial clarification is long overdue. Ryabkov said that Iran is not an ally of Moscow in the broader sense of the word, but Russia's partner on some questions 'on the ground' in Syria. The word 'ally' assumes a larger confluence of interests. However, it is important that two to three years ago, Ryabkov would not have said it. The variance between the interests of Russia (as the decision makers in Moscow understand them) and the interests of the Iran in Syria began to appear around a year or two ago."
Q: "And how did this find expression?"
Shumilin: "From the beginning Рin Russia's constant desire to balance between the fundamental players in the region. Moscow strove to obtain military victories and converting them into a political process in which its importance would grow. An exit [strategy] in political decisions that were part of the context of international agreements, partially as part of the UN resolutions and the Geneva communiqu̩ of 2012, which Russia up to now has not dismissed. Likewise, it has not rejected the idea of a political settlement in Syria under the United Nations' aegis.
"Although in the year 2017-2018 the Astana process began that many construed as a substitute for the Geneva process. For us officially Astana is not considered a substitute, but a precursor of Geneva. Moscow likewise agreed to a political transition in Syria."
Q: "What was envisaged under this transition?"
Shumilin: "That for a given time Assad would remain in some capacity in that country. In other words were talking about Russia's preparedness for a Syrian solution, even without Assad. 'As the Syrian people decides' – that was the formula employed. All this fundamentally conflicted with the basic interests of Iran, which, as is well known, got into Syria to strengthen the figure of Assad would all available means – military and financial.
Assad was and remains for Tehran an indispensable and irremovable figure. The political process in Syria to Iran's understanding is a procedure for translating military victories in favor of Assad and correspondingly in favor of the Islamic Republic. This Iranian policy has not changed one bit. And when Israel became actively involved in the new spiral of the Syrian conflict, the problem of Tehran's presence in Syria became aggravated. Moscow could have mitigated this problem, but it encountered the fierce refusal of this approach on the part of Iran.
"The position of the Islamic Republic remains that it does not intend to retreat or reduce its presence in Syria. The Iranian strategy in this country has remained as it was previously – broadening its presence, including also for the sake of the struggle with Israel and reinforcing the position of Assad.
Q: "But does not Assad also remain the same irreplaceable leader for the Kremlin as he does for Tehran?"
Shumilin: "No, he doesn't remain [such a leader], although at different stages he was such a leader for us. Until 2013, when the Syrian authorities used chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta, and annihilated a few thousand people there, the Russian position was even formulated somewhat differently. It was not 'glory to Assad – the legal president', but the 'search for a settlement' in which Russia would enter in the capacity of a facilitator wagering on Assad.
"But the behavior of the former US Pres. Barack Obama showed that a wager on that Syrian leader was productive. The American president then brought a military fleet to Syria in order to strike Assad's forces. But Putin convinced Obama, who at that moment was in St. Petersburg for an economic forum not to do's this, but to compel the Syrian leader to embark on chemical [weapons] disarmament and thereby settling the issue without military interference.
"Obama agreed and received for this all that he received – the preservation of the Assad regime, the continuation of the Civil War in Syria and the mushrooming of the 'Islamic State.' (a terrorist organization banned on the territory of Russia).
"Then Assad was indeed useful and irreplaceable for Russia. However, subsequently he became more of a captive to Iran. Iranian instructors worked closely 'on the ground' with the Assad forces taking them under control. In such a manner Assad and Iran became inseparable, which compelled Israel to begin military operations in Syria formally against Iran, but inter alia, also against Assad."
Q: "But Moscow has still retained the formula 'Assad – the legal president of Syria'?"
Shumilin: "This is mere verbiage, because the policy that the Kremlin currently adheres to – the search for a political solution and a political transition – assumes that the fate of Assad – at the very minimum –is open to question."
Q: "Tehran does not agree with this?"
Shumilin: "For it [Iran], there's no room for compromise on this question. For it, everything here is hardball. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and other forces controlled by Iran – Hizbullah, the Shiite militias grab more and more territory and have begun dictating certain measures to Assad. For example, they are pushing him to attack Idlib province where the entire anti-Assad opposition is currently concentrated and is predominantly orientated towards Turkey.
"But let me remind you that the truce around Idlib that discourages hostilities there – is a compromise between Putin and the Turkish President Recep Erdogan that by itself caused outrage in Tehran. Putin's balancing between Iran and Israel prejudicial to the Iranians' position in Syria does not make them happy.
"The situation cannot be balanced for long – every strike by Israel on Tehran's position arouses anger in the Iranian camp on all levels. There questions are being posed everywhere: 'What about Russia? Why didn't it respond? What about S300 supplied to Syria? Why did they not prevent the January 23 raid by Israeli aviation?'
the Iranian forces authorities by their terminology want 'to liberate Northwest Syria's and that means a bloody war with the Kurds that Tehran wants to begin from Idlib. Russia is trying to somewhat soften the Iranian position, because formally we are not opposed to an attack on the Deir e Zor oilfields, but not in a way that creates a direct clash there with the Americans.
"Russia, as opposed to Iran has its hands tied. It cannot act in a way that would trigger serious retaliatory responses by the coalition headed by the US, it could not prevent raids by Israeli aviation because in such a fashion it will put itself in opposition to that country, which is backed by Washington. For this reason it has already become serious. Therefore Moscow needs to maneuver. Iran's actions, meanwhile, have turned into a factor that is less satisfactory to Russia in the Syrian conflict."
Q: "Can this change in Russia's position on Iran lead to its rapprochement with the United States?"
Shumilin: "Ultimately, yes. But here it is necessary to speak cautiously. More likely this will be part of attempts to avoid a clash with the United States that assumes certain mutual understandings and coordination of actions. Any additional military movements in Syria risk clashes with America. And such clashes with the Americans already occurred a year ago in the same Deir e Zor when 300-400 'Wagner contract fighters' died, and a repetition of this is unnecessary for anyone. But Iran is advancing in Syria like a tank, and getting Russia into trouble with each step, for example, by deploying all the new forces. Russia does not intend to spoil relations with Israel because of Iran."
Q: "So it turns out that discretely a new motley coalition is beginning to emerge in Syria against Iran?"
Shumilin: "One has already taken shape– on one side Iran and Assad, and on the other all the rest."
[1] IRNA (Iran), January 24, 2019.
[2] Rosbalt.ru, January 31, 2019.
[3] Rosbalt.ru, January 31, 2019. The interview was conducted by Alexander Zhelenin.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3)TB is on the rise. Guess why?
After more than two decades of steady decline in active cases of tuberculosis in America, the trend has now reversed.
It’s time for fools to take a bow. Congratulations Marxists and complicit members of the GOP. Your commitment to import large numbers of people from third world countries is really paying off.
CDC stats from 2017 show that 70% of reported cases of TB in the United States was found among non-U.S.-born individuals. Migrants from Mexico accounted for the largest share.
On top of that, we’re seeing strains of TB that are multi-drug resistant (MDR). And as dangerous as these strains are, we’re seeing even more lethal strains that are extensively drug resistant (XDR).
TB bacteria (via Flickr)
Then there’s the issue of screening. Per a Star Tribune report:
Immigrants and refugees are screened for TB and treated before entering the United States. Tourists, students and temporary workers are not screened… [snip]Because TB hits some ethnic and racial groups harder than others, TB patients can face discrimination and social isolation. Public health officials worry about finding ways to target high-risk populations with TB education and treatment without stigmatizing those groups.
Why aren’t we testing everyone, and especially those from regions where we know TB is endemic. Come on folks. Stigma vs public health risk? Common sense, no?
Apparently not.
We’d rather put healthy people at risk lest we offend some foreigner carrying a potentially deadly disease. If someone wants to come here, they’ll need to deal with whatever “stigma” they feel when we test them for a contagious and increasingly fatal disease. Geez. You’d think people would be glad to be tested for the sake of their health, the health of their loved ones, and the health of those around them.
But apparently not.
Meanwhile, as you might imagine, treating tuberculosis is labor intensive and costly. The treatment regimen lasts at least six months, if not longer. Some programs require that health care workers witness patients swallowing every dose of medication and that they monitor them for side effects. If a patient can’t get to a health clinic, the worker goes to wherever the patient resides. All the while, cultural and language barriers present additional challenges.
Then there’s the financial cost.
For patients who respond to standard treatment, the cost of treating active TB is about $17,000 per person. For those who have drug-resistant strains, the cost is anywhere from $130,000 to $430,000, depending on how resistant the strain is.
Got that? Taxpayers may shell out nearly half a million dollars to treat one case of a drug-resistant strain of TB.
Then there’s the issue of tracking. After folks develop active disease, tracking them is spotty. So, if they fall off the radar, oh well.
And as you probably guessed, no state is immune to this madness, though some regions account for a disproportionately high number of cases.
California, Texas, New York, and Florida (states with the largest number of foreign-born residents) have more than half the active TB cases in the country. And despite California having the largest TB prevention and control program, their infection rate is nearly twice the national average, though that figure is likely higher since about 2.5 million Californians who are infected are unawarethey have it.
In addition, data from just a few years ago in Minnesota showed that 26% of all foreign-born cases of TB were Somalis who came here through the “refugee resettlement” program and 20% of these colonizers forced upon the good people of Minnesota tested positive for latent TB (latent TB is not contagious, but it can turn into active TB, which is contagious).
And on and on it goes. The same pattern is seen everywhere. An uptick in TB due in large part to an influx of people from impoverished countries (here, here,here, here, here,
And if I may take a brief detour, in addition to TB, leprosy is making a comeback, as is chicken pox. We’re also seeing cases of flesh-eating bacteria. In addition, CDC data documents migrants from Bhutan, Burma, Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Central America infected with malaria, hepatitis, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, HIV, dengue virus, zika virus, and a wide array of intestinal parasites, among others. And that’s just communicable diseases that have been reported in those we know about (here, here, here, here,
The impact of this is devastating. Border patrol is on the front-line battling diseases as they contend with sick migrants, most of whom aren’t vaccinated. Buildings have become infested with scabies. Many of the illegal wannabes showing up with symptoms aren’t being quarantined. And our resources are being depleted and misdirected.
Border patrol agents spend tens of thousands of hours transporting sick migrants to urgent care clinics and hospitals, which diverts time and attention from where it belongs. Dealing with sick migrants is also impacting local communities who are struggling with limited resources to take care of their own citizens, no less citizens from some other country.
And so I ask:
Why are these people even in the United States? Why are they on our side of the border? Shouldn’t they be on the Mexican side of the border?
Why are we obliged to take care of them? It’s a “humanitarian crisis” of their own making. I resent my tax dollars being spent taking care of people who made the choice to drag themselves and their kids on a dangerous journey to enter the United States illegally or make a bogus claim for asylum. Let them figure out how to make their own country better instead of coming here and making ours worse.
We don’t need “immigration reform.” We need to secure our border and enforce our immigration laws. Why is that so hard?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4)The Bonfire of the Democrats
By RICH LOWRY
All statewide officials in the Commonwealth of Virginia should resign if Democrats are held to their own standards.
Even if Gov. Ralph Northam didn’t appear in blackface in an image on his medical-school yearbook, he confessed to once darkening his face as part of a Michael Jackson costume.
Attorney General Mark Herring, who called Northam’s conduct indefensible, also used blackface once when dressing as an African-American singer.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault and been harshly dismissive of the accuser (he reportedly said of her in a private meeting, “f--- that b----”).
If ever wearing blackface, even in the 1980s as both Northam and Herring did, is a career-ender, and if we are supposed to “believe all women,” then all three of these Democrats have to go.
Only Northam has been thrown overboard by the party, with Fairfax and Herring getting passes so far because Democrats don’t want to nuke the entirety of a state executive branch they control.
Regardless, Virginia is an indication of an inflamed and unforgiving Democratic mood that will define the party’s battle for the 2020 presidential nomination.
Democrats are about to embark on the first woke primary, a gantlet of political correctness that will routinely wring abject apologies out of candidates and find fault in even the most sure-footed. The passage of time will be no defense. Nor the best of intentions. Nor anything else.
Any lapses will be interpreted through the most hostile lens, made all the more brutal by the competition of a large field of candidates vying for the approval of a radicalized base. The Democrat nomination battle might as well be fought on the campus of Oberlin College and officiated by the director of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Being a progressive hero of long-standing doesn’t afford any protection. Consider Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She certainly deserves all the grief she gets for her laughable identification of herself over the years as an American Indian. But for the identity-politics Left, her fault runs deeper: In trying to rebut the allegedly racist mockery of her as “Pocahontas,” she herself committed a racial offense.
After taking a DNA test to prove her (distant) Native American ancestry, she stood accused in the words of a member of a tribe in South Dakota of “privileging nonindingenous definitions of being indigenous.” According The New York Times, she had also tread “too far into the fraught area of racial science—a field that has, at times, been used to justify the subjugation of racial minorities and Native Americans.” Not to mention how she had given “validity to the idea that race is determined by blood—a bedrock principle for white supremacists and others who believe in racial hierarchies.”
Yes, Warren stood exposed as implicitly in league with the oppressors of Native Americans—and here she had just wanted Donald Trump to stop referring to her by a derisive nickname. Cherokee Nation activist Rebecca Nagle told CNN last week that Warren needed to apologize “to the tribes that she has harmed and to Native people broadly.”
Sure enough, she apologized, and presumably will keep on doing it as long as she’s running.
It is a season of apologies. When recently announced candidate Kirsten Gillibrand went on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the MSNBC host hit her for having in the past used the term “illegal alien,” although it was standard and technically correct usage. Gillibrand allowed that she was embarrassed by her past positions on immigration. She, of course, was last seen being an enforcer herself, and pushing Al Franken out of the Senate over groping allegations.
Another presidential candidate, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, recorded a four-minute apology video over her former opposition to gay marriage: “In my past, I said and believed things that were wrong, and worse, they were hurtful to people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones.”
In this environment, being a white male, particularly a white male not obsessed with gender and race, is a risk factor. This is a major vulnerability of Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose outright socialism is no defense.
Segments of the Left jumped on him this week for doing the same State of the Union response that he’s done for the past couple of years. This time was different because he’d be following the African-American activist Stacey Abrams, and somehow or other supposedly upstaging her. Activist Marc Lamont Hill called Sanders’ choice “racially tone deaf.” Never mind that Sanders had praised the choice of Abrams for the formal rebuttal.
In every presidential campaign, candidates have to explain and back fill to get with the party’s latest program. What will make this process so much more intense for Democrats is the belief that even past mistakes involving the choice of words or symbolism are affirmatively injurious of other people. And the belief that such mistakes represent deep sins to be repented.
Joe Biden was speaking sardonically when he said a couple of weeks ago regarding the criticism of his praise for a Republican, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” If he runs, Biden will find himself repeating essentially the same sentiment over and over again, given his lengthy record prior to the sharp turn of the Democratic Party toward identity politics.
Even Sen. Kamala Harris, who calls racism, sexism, and trans-phobia matters of “national security,” isn’t safe. She was once a prosecutor, after all. Reviewing her record, a New York Times op-ed writer said “she needs to radically break with her past.”
Who doesn’t? No one will be woke enough to emerge from this process unscathed.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment