BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

by Cara You’ve almost certainly heard: in certain U.S. states, insurance companies are legally calling domestic violence a “pre-existing condition” and are therefore refusing to cover any treatment related to it. If the person in question doesn’t disclose the domestic violence prior to taking on insurance, they can have their coverage dropped by the insurance company. And, in the cases that are making the most news, those who have previously been victims of domestic violence are being denied access to insurance entirely. The story has been around for several weeks now. And seemingly, it’s not going away anytime soon. I keep seeing more details pop up in my Twitter feed. In my blog reader, someone shared an item at Jezebel about the Democratic plan to ban the classification of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Of course, this ban is a part of the plan to end the denial of coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, period — but for some reason, the issue of domes...

...IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN By Ed Koch I consider the Obama administration's recent actions against the Israeli government to be outrageous and a breach of trust . I refer to the denunciations by Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials The world knows what happened; nevertheless, I will try to put it into context. Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem to convey to the Israelis and the world that the United States government is committed to protecting and assuring the security of Israel from attack. While he was there, an Israeli government minister announced that the Israeli government had authorized the construction of 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem to be occupied by Jews. Currently, 280,000 Jews live in East Jerusalem, and these apartments were to be added to an existing complex, built on land owned by Jews; about 250,000 Jews live on the West Bank outside of Jerusalem. The timing of the Israeli government...

by Phil Mushnick The news media always seems to lose their nerve with the wrong people at the worst times. The news media almost always grows politely silent when it's time to be firm and inquisitive. Thus, thus the follow-up questions that audiences are eager to have answered are never even asked. The recent terrorist bombings that left 200 murdered and 300 injured in Mumbai inspired the usual shock and outrage. And the same, boilerplate responses from Muslim spokesmen here, there and everywhere: "This is not what Islam teaches" and/or "These are not real Muslims; Islam teaches respect for life." For example, an organization known as Muslim Matters, responded with: "As Muslims, we condemn such senseless carnage against innocent civilians, wherever it may occur. This goes against the fundamental spirit of Islam, which promotes a culture of life and humanity, not bloodshed and violence. And another example of why extremist ideology, whatever that ideology m...

NO FAT CHICKS I was busy this morning, while snow fell gently on most of the NYC area, and didn't get to blog this then. But, while having my coffee I took a brief scan of all my favorite blogs and was disgusted by a piece picked up by one of my favorite blogs DEATH BY 1000 PAPERCUTS. Don't read me wrong, while DBKP leans more right than I do they have some great finds and laugh-out-loud, nothing held back takes on the news that I find reable and likeable. It wasn't DBKP that was enraging me - it was the news in the article. Excerpts: House Bill 282, introduced by Show, Mayhill, Jr., and Read in the 2008 session in Mississippi. "An act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to anyone who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health; to direct the department to prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese and provide those materials to the food establishments ...

Michael B. Mukasey and the Sanctification of Depravity It looked like the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey was on the ropes because he refused to condemn the use of waterboarding. This brought a small ripple of outrage from the senate judicial committee and the nomination seemed DOA. That was until the democrats rode to the rescue by caving. All of a sudden, sen. Chuck Schumer (d. NY) and sen. Diane Feinstein (d. Calif.) announced they would support him, thus assuring his confirmation by the committee. Their reason is telling: It seems Mukasey promised them that if congress passed a law banning harsh interrogation methods, he would enforce it. Mind you, we are talking about a law that would include signing statements, interpretations, rulings, parsing and convoluted definitions of just what constitutes harsh interrogation methods. And this assumes that congress would pass such a law, which will they never will because banning harsh interrogation methods would make the democrats app...