| Falling for Hamas's media manipulation Nov 29th 2012, 00:54 What makes better headlines? Is it numbing figures such as the 8,000 Palestinian rockets fired at Israel since it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the 42.5 percent of Israeli children living near the Gaza border who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder? Or is it high-resolution images of bombed-out buildings in Gaza and emotional stories of bereaved Palestinians? The last, obviously, as demonstrated by much of the media coverage of Israel's recent operation against Hamas. But that answer raises a more fundamental question: Which stories best serve the terrorists' interest? Read full article >>   |  | Editorial Board: Keeping e-mail private Nov 29th 2012, 00:40 IF YOU LEFT a letter on your desk for 180 days, you wouldn't imagine that the police could then swoop in and read it without your permission, or a judge's. But that's just what law enforcement officers can do with your e-mail. Using only a subpoena, government agents can demand that service providers turn over electronic communications they have stored, as long as those communications are more than six months old. Protections are even weaker for opened e-mail or documents stored in the "cloud." The advertisements that the Postal Service piles into your mailbox every day are legally sacrosanct; the medical notifications your health-insurance company sends to your Gmail account are not. Read full article >>   | | Editorial Board: What will Palestinians do after the U.N. vote? Nov 29th 2012, 00:39 THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY will almost certainly win a vote Thursday in the U.N. General Assembly granting observer status to a state of Palestine. But it will be a pale triumph for President Mahmoud Abbas and his West Bank-based Fatah movement. So weak has his administration become, especially in contrast to its rival, the Gaza-based Hamas movement, that some governments, such as Britain, are considering voting for the resolution, even though they oppose it in principle, out of fear that the authority is fading into irrelevance. Israel, too, appears to have toned down its plans for reacting, with officials saying they will wait and see what Mr. Abbas does after the vote. Read full article >>   | | A cliff of their own choosing Nov 28th 2012, 23:22 With a chip on his shoulder larger than his margin of victory, Barack Obama is approaching his second term by replicating the mistake of his first. Then his overreaching involved health care — expanding the entitlement state at the expense of economic growth. Now he seeks another surge of statism, enlarging the portion of gross domestic product grasped by government and dispensed by politics. The occasion is the misnamed "fiscal cliff," the proper name for which is: the Democratic Party's agenda. Read full article >> | | Nov 28th 2012, 22:56 Drug makers aren't alone in privileging positive trials. Top-tier medical journals have long been reluctant to publish negative studies, and published trials sponsored by nonprofit groups are just as favorable as those funded by the industry. Read full article >>   | | Nov 28th 2012, 22:56 An area where vendor-sponsored research could be biased is in trials where two drugs are compared. For example, the well-respected journal Lancet published in its June 16 issue two well-done randomized trial comparisons of diabetes drugs. A study favoring the use of Lantus was sponsored by its vendor, Sanofi, and a study favoring the use of Byetta was sponsored by its vendor, Amylin. Read full article >>   | | Nov 28th 2012, 22:56 A year ago, I was called for jury duty in District Court in Washington and was selected for an interview with the judge after the initial screening. The case involved a young man charged with dealing drugs, and I told the judge that I would not be an appropriate juror, as I believed the charge to be hypocritical. Read full article >>   | | Jennifer Rubin: Obamacare is signed but not yet sealed nor delivered Nov 28th 2012, 19:19 One of the biggest concerns Republicans voiced about the 2012 election was that a victory by President Obama would solidify Obamacare and forever change the disposition of the American people toward government and the shape of our economy. That is not an unrealistic fear given the ever-expanding federal welfare state in which "change" is always in the form of addition and never subtraction. But the fears may be premature. Read full article >>   | | Jennifer Rubin: Republicans, be bold on immigration Nov 28th 2012, 18:44 The Post reports: "After an election that bared the GOP's huge disadvantages on immigration, three influential Republican senators have introduced legislation that would grant legal residency to young people brought illegally to the United States, if they seek higher education or enlist in the military. The proposal comes as more Republicans have called for the party to soften its opposition to illegal immigration in the wake of massive November electoral losses that were driven, in part, by low support among Latino voters." Read full article >>   | | A road map to higher taxes on the rich Nov 28th 2012, 17:41 As a practical matter, the debate over higher taxes is finished. If there's an agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff," it will almost certainly contain large tax increases mostly or entirely on the wealthy. President Obama defines them as couples with more than $250,000 of income and singles with $200,000 or more. The open questions are which taxes would go up, by how much and with what effect. Read full article >>   | | Jennifer Rubin: What does Bolling's exit from Va. governor's race mean for Cuccinelli? Nov 28th 2012, 16:56 Virginia's Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling announced today that he will not run for governor, essentially conceding the Republican nomination to State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. In a statement he explained, "Four years ago I decided to set my personal ambition to be Governor aside and join with Bob McDonnell to create a united Republican ticket. . . . I had hoped that Attorney General Cuccinelli and I would be able to form that same kind of united Republican ticket in 2013. However, late last year Mr. Cuccinelli unexpectedly announced that he intended to challenge me for the Republican Party's nomination for Governor." Moreover, the die was cast when the state party decided to hold a convention rather than an open primary: "I reluctantly concluded that the decision to change the method of nomination from a primary to a convention created too many obstacles for us to overcome. . . . Conventions are by their very nature exclusive, and at a time when we need to be projecting a positive image and reaching out to involve more Virginians in the Republican Party, I am unwilling to be part of a process that could seriously damage our image and appeal." Read full article >>   | | Mitt Romney: A good man. The right fight. Nov 28th 2012, 16:07 Over the years, one of the more troubling characteristics of the Democratic Party and the left in general has been a shortage of loyalty and an abundance of self-loathing. It would be a shame if we Republicans took a narrow presidential loss as a signal that those are traits we should emulate. Read full article >>   | |
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