MK Danon: U.S. Meddling Will Backfire
The Obama administration’s criticism of the current Israeli government only serves to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party more popular with the electorate, charged Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon in an interview on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s AM 970.
Danon had been asked about recent reports that the Obama administration is trying to influence the March 17 general elections in Israel by criticizing Netanyahu’s policies.
The Likud politician charged that “there are a few people in the administration who sometimes want to get involved and I can tell you one thing: Whenever somebody tries to get involved in our politics they actually are achieving the opposite direction.”
He continued: “For example, when President Clinton was trying to get involved in the elections in Israel [in favor of Ehud Barak], he was supporting the Likud party. The same for today.
“The more pressure we see that comes from the U.S. it makes my party, the Likud party, stronger. Because the people understand that the prime minister and the Likud Party are standing on the issues.”
Danon stressed he was referring only to some White House members and not the general U.S. leadership.
He spoke of Israel’s “very strong relationship with the United States,” which he said he has personally witnessed.
Surprise, Surprise: Illegals Don’t Show Up For Court Hearings
A Houston television station has confirmed what many have long been suspected: 96 percent of illegal alien families released on their own recognizance and ordered deported in recent months did not show up for their court dates.
This means those families are still living illegally within the U.S., and it falls to the Department of Homeland Security to track and deport the aliens, something officials have confessed can be “almost impossible.”
This development was foreseeable. A search of news articles as far back as the1990s shows that the U.S. government has known for nearly a decade that the vast majority of illegal aliens released to the streets by immigration agencies fail to show up for their deportation hearings. Yet little has been done to rectify a problem that has now become a near national emergency.
Houston’s KPRC-TV, Channel 2, reported that it spent six moths trying to get the latest data from the U.S. government. Finally, the Executive Office of Immigration Review gave the news channel the information about the percentage that failed to show up in court, prompting judges to order the removals “in absentia.”
Illegals crossing into the U.S. have known since at least the early 1990s that once they are released, most will likely face no real consequences for skipping immigration court appearances.
As early as December 28, 1993, Knight-Ridder Newspapers reported that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the precursor to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had “lost control of its most effective weapon – deporting unwanted immigrants.”
The newspaper reported specific examples of deported Mexicans who turned around and came back within days. It also reported that in 1992, a full 35 percent, or 25,000, illegal aliens released into the U.S. pending court dates did not appear for their deportation hearings.
Fast forward 12 years, and the problem worsened exponentially. In June 2005, the Washington Times noted the U.S. government was releasing on their own recognizance about 70 percent of all so-called “other-than-Mexican” illegals captured along the Southern border. However, Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told the Senate Judiciary Committee that year that few show up for their court dates.
One month later, the Times ran an editorial titled “The ‘Other Than Mexican’ Loophole,” which noted that 70 percent of more than 98,000 non-Mexican nationals were captured and released with court dates.
In September 2005, Jerry Seper of the Washington Times reported that only 13 percent of the “other than Mexicans” released with a “notice to appear” were showing up for their immigration hearing.
In March 2006, the San Bernardino County Sun quoted T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, warning that the majority of those caught do not return for court appearances.
Will We Soon See Death Panels?
Obamacare may lead to death panels after all.
Obamacare called for the establishment of a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute with funding of $3.8 billion. The new institute’s purpose is to carry out “comparative clinical effectiveness research,” which is defined in the law as evaluating and comparing “health outcomes” and “clinical effectiveness, risks and benefits” of two or more medical treatments or services.
The purpose of the research is purportedly for the government to determine which treatments work best so that money is not spent on less effective treatments.
The institute is to be governed by a “board” to assist in identifying research priorities and establishing the research project agenda. Also weighing in will be an “expert advisory panel” of practicing and research clinicians, patients, and experts in scientific and health services research and health services delivery.
A section of Obamacare makes clear that the secretary of health and human services may not use research data from the new institute in a manner that treats the life of an elderly, disabled, or terminally ill individual as lower in value than that of an individual who is younger, non-disabled, or not terminally ill.
However, the dictate comes with a qualifier, which allows the health secretary to limit any “alternative treatments” of the elderly, disabled, or terminally ill if such treatments are not recommended by the new research institute.
The qualifier states:
“Paragraph (1) shall not be construed as preventing the Secretary from using evidence or findings from such comparative clinical effectiveness research in determining coverage, reimbursement, or incentive programs under title XVIII based upon a comparison of the difference in the effectiveness of alternative treatments in extending an individual’s life due to the individual’s age, disability, or terminal illness.”
Paragraph (1) refers to the section that bars the health secretary from valuing the life of an elderly, disabled or terminally ill patient less than that of the younger or non-disabled patient.
The qualifier leaves the health secretary with the power to use government-provided research data to determine whether “alternative treatments” are effective in extending the life of the elderly, disabled, or terminally ill.