More in ‘health care’

Much has been written in the progressive press about how Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman has betrayed, first, the party that elected him to the senate in the first place (and protected his seniority in the second place, when he got himself reelected to the senate as an independent); second, the Obama agenda that he supported ...

Why aren’t the battalions of Jewish anti-defamation organizations across the United States playing hardball with the many health-care reform opponents who’ve been comparing President Barack Obama to Hitler and health-care reform to Nazism, Peter Keating wonders on New York magazine’s website today. He suggests a few possible answers: “Nonpartisan organizations typically avoid wading into partisan ...

Every new year, Jews are told to seek forgiveness for the “sins we have sinned.” It sounds fairly straight forward, but it’s not, especially for people who are prone to over-thinking. On what basis should we judge our behavior and those sins? The Bible? An internal moral compass? And how broad should our self-examination be? ...

• President Obama’s spokesman said that the United States plans to “finalize the steps” for resumed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks over the coming month. [JTA]
• Even so, prominent officials on each side blamed the other side for forestalling the prospect of talks. [ynet]
• A Saudi newspaper reported that the country plans to build its first nuclear ...

It’s August, dear readers, and the temperature, at least here in Manhattan, has climbed into registers more befitting a slow-cooking boeuf bourguignon approaching its third hour than a human being trying to make it through the day.
The political climate is even hotter. Every town seems to hold town hall meetings, and in every town hall ...

• Ben Stein got props from a woman at a town hall meeting on health care, who credited him with “tracing the decline of America to taking prayer out of school.” No word on how Stein feels about her claim that America’s a Christian nation, or how Jews feel about her claim that Stein’s a ...

President Obama yesterday spoke to two conference calls of religious leaders—one organized by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and featuring rabbis from all three major movements; the other an interfaith call including clergy and lay leaders—seeking their help in selling the need for health-care reform. With no end in sight to the nationwide ...

There are many reasons we love Barney Frank, the charmingly disheveled, wittily brilliant, gay, Jewish Democrat who represents Boston’s ritzy suburbs in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the latest is this: At a town hall meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, last night, he provided an object lesson in how politicians should react when confronted by ...

• In an interview, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad says, “Israel’s character is Israel’s business and nobody else’s,” and shares his modest goal: “to prove to the world that the Palestinians can run a state no worse than anyone else.” [Haaretz]
• Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of “waging a propaganda war” against the group’s findings ...

• Like the fabled restaurant mints, it turns out mezuzahs, hung in doorways and traditionally kissed for luck, are covered in gross bacteria from so many pious hands and mouths. In order to prevent the spread of swine flu, one doctor recommends becoming more religious—about hygiene—and sticking with air kisses for the time being. [Ynet]
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