According to the Hill: “Maine health insurers are getting a temporary waiver from the health reform law’s requirement that they spend at least 80 percent of premiums on care, federal regulators decided Tuesday. Maine is the first state to get a waiver. Three other states — New Hampshire, Nevada and Kentucky — have pending waiver applications.”

So we’ve now gone from individual companies receiving wavers from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to entire states receiving waivers. How about if the entire country is granted a permanent waiver from ObamaCare?

A recent Forward article about the Washington Jewish Week’s sudden dismissal of a top editor generated a bit of a stir among the D.C. Jewish community last week. The report suggested that long-time editor Debra Rubin may have been terminated a few weeks ago because she published several articles that were critical of the D.C. chapter of the Jewish Federation — an organization that the new WJW ownership has close ties to:

Several sources, from within the paper and the Jewish community, say Rubin’s firing was a culmination of increasing friction with owners who sought greater influence over some editorial content. “They wanted it to be a federation mouthpiece,” said one of the sources, who, like others approached by the Forward, would not speak on the record.

It’s hard to know how much editorial power the D.C. federation has been exercising over the WJW since the new ownership took over, because sources both inside and outside the paper have been unwilling to speak about the situation on the record.

But whether or not politics played a role in Rubin’s termination, there are still members of the Jewish community who have expressed concerns about the federation’s involvement in the paper.

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who leads the National Synagogue in Washington, D.C., told me that he believes the new owners of the WJW “have wonderful motivation and intentions,” but added that “they have ended up doing something that ultimately won’t be helpful for the community. I don’t think the community deserves to lose an independent voice that has served as a check on the Federation.”

And a check on the D.C. federation is especially necessary right now. Recently, the organization has been reluctant to discuss its controversial funding of Theater J, a playhouse that has hosted misogynistic, anti-Israel, and borderline anti-Semitic productions. Read More

Newt Gingrich today said the sort of thing that he sometimes says — the sort of thing that makes him unelectable, to put it mildly. Talking to David Brody of CBN, he suggested that his adulteries were the result of working too hard for his country:

“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” said Gingrich. “And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them.

“I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God. Somebody once said that when we’re young, we seek justice, but as we get older, we seek mercy. There’s something to that, I think. … Callista and I have a great marriage. I think that I’ve learned an immense amount. And I do feel, in that sense, that God has given me, has blessed me with an opportunity as a person.”

See, he worked far too hard because he loved his country too much and then he acted wrongly, but fortunately God forgives, plus God blessed him with an opportunity as a person.

I’d spend some time parsing this, seeking to show how he simultaneously takes responsibility and doesn’t take responsibility and how he actually praises himself when he’s supposedly criticizing himself. But what’s the point? He’s a fascinating, and occasionally brilliant, political thinker, but one thing the merciful and forgiving God who has so blessed him did not bestow upon Newt Gingrich was a sense of when to stop talking.

It’s only Wednesday, but we can probably already declare former NPR fundraising executive Ron Schiller the winner of the “Worst Week in Washington” contest. After being booted from his NPR job owing to the inflammatory comments he made about Zionists and conservatives on a sting video, he has now preemptively resigned/quit/been fired from his upcoming job at the Aspen Institute.

Here’s the Aspen Institute’s statement, via the Washington Examiner:

Ron Schiller has informed us that, in light of the controversy surrounding his recent statements, he does not feel that it’s in the best interests of the Aspen Institute for him to come work here.

While Schiller’s comments may not have been as offensive as recent ones made by Helen Thomas or John Galliano, they were still incredibly inappropriate. Fundraisers have to deal with crazy donors all the time, and most learn how to politely but firmly deflect odious statements made by them. There’s no doubt that the Aspen Institute wanted to get as far away from this NPR controversy as possible, but Schiller’s actions on the video also displayed a lack of professionalism that was probably just as disturbing to his potential employers.

And in related news, the Zionist Organization of America is one of the first Jewish groups to condemn Schiller’s remarks, but it looks like they missed the boat a bit. In a press release sent out at around 12:30 p.m. today, the organization “called for the resignation of National Public Radio (NPR) senior executive, Ron Schiller, after he was caught by concealed camera dining with two men posing as members of an American affiliate of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, nodding, agreeing with and not repudiating anti-Semitic remarks put to him by the two men.”

The Anti-Defamation League, which has been busy criticizing John Galliano and Charlie Sheen for anti-Semitic statements this week, also just e-mailed me a comment: “No matter the circumstances, raising false stereotypes about Jewish control of the media is dangerous and inappropriate. Mr. Schiller’s remarks were offensive and he should acknowledge his mistake and apologize.”

It will be interesting to see what other Jewish groups, if any, weigh in on the matter.

In his column today, George Will — a skeptic concerning American intervention in Libya — asks a series of questions he says all interventionists should answer, including whether Libya is a vital national interest; will a no-fly zone be effective or decisive; and if grounding Colonel Qaddafi’s aircraft is a humanitarian imperative, why isn’t protecting his enemies from ground attacks?

Those questions are legitimate ones. There are counter-arguments to Will’s position, of course, including ones offered up by Bret Stephens and James Thomas and Zachary Cooper.

In any event, one thing that strikes me is that one’s views on American military intervention often depend on the model to which one looks. In modern times, is it Grenada, Panama, Sierra Leone, the first Gulf War, Iraq in 2003, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Beirut, or Libya (President Reagan bombed Libya in 1986 in response to the bombing of the La Belle discothèque in West Berlin)?

George Will is himself an interesting case study. In 2002, he was a strong supporter for intervening in Iraq, telling Charlie Rose on October 8, 2002, that Read More

As leftist college activists gear up to celebrate Israel Apartheid Week (which, the Jerusalem Post notes, puzzlingly runs for two weeks from March 7 to March 20), NGO Monitor has launched an interactive website called the “BDS Sewer System” to help shed some light on the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement:

Israeli Apartheid Week, an effort by groups and activists supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel to discredit it and label it an “apartheid state,” kicked off Monday in many cities and college campuses worldwide.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, the group NGO Monitor has announced its efforts to combat Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) with the “BDS Sewer System” which provides detailed information, in graphic form, on the sources of delegitimization campaigns against Israel.

“This ‘Sewer System’ map details and explains the complex network of non-governmental organizations and their funders that lead this campaign,” NGO Monitor president Gerald Steinberg told the Jerusalem Post. “Most importantly, it is a tool for students to demonstrate the illiberal and ‘anti-human rights’ nature of the movements they face on campus.”

The BDS movement is often misleadingly portrayed as a “grassroots” campaign. In fact, as the BDS Sewer System map points out, the movement is actually top-down. Foreign governments, the European Union, and foundations like the New Israel Fund often help finance activist NGOs that organize individual boycott campaigns, which often involve community or campus activist groups.

While BDS doesn’t do much damage to Israel from an economic standpoint, it does have a political impact because it promotes the delegitimization of the Jewish state. That’s why it’s important to have tools — like the BDS Sewer System — that explain who is propping up the movement, and why.

I certainly agree with John that it’s a good day when Vivian Schiller gets the boot from NPR. She should have been fired for her grotesque remark regarding Juan Williams last fall. And I also agree that NPR and Public Broadcasting would be much better off if they no longer got public funding. The whole raison d’être for publicly funded radio and television disappeared well over 20 years ago as cable television began to eat broadcast television’s lunch.

But how to wean NPR and PBS off of the public teat? Michael Barone suggests a way: do what the National Trust for Historic Preservation did in 1995 and ask to lose funding. When the Republicans took Congress in 1994, the National Trust was on their hit list. Dick Moe, the head of the trust, went to Congress and proposed a three-year transition period while the trust developed private sources of support.

In retrospect, Moe has said, it was the best thing that could have happened to his organization. It prompted the National Trust to reach out to citizens and donors who shared its vision. And it allowed the organization to take politically controversial stands without fear of political retribution.

The National Trust is thriving today. It has undertaken major projects, like a splendid restoration of James Madison’s home Montpelier. It publishes a first-rate magazine. It has developed a large constituency of contributors … who appreciate its work. It does not have to do the bidding of political masters.

Today the National Trust spends $82 million a year on preserving the country’s vast historical heritage without a dime of federal support. NPR and PBS, with two of the biggest megaphones in the country at their disposal, could raise far more than that. (Especially if they got rid of those unendurable begathons in which they cancel all the good shows, substitute dreck, and then interrupt the dreck every 20 minutes to do the verbal equivalent of the Chinese water torture to plead for money and offer tote bags.)

The handwriting is on the wall, and NPR and PBS would do themselves a big favor by reading it.

Recently, two State Department officials were invited to speak at a seminar on Iranian sanctions sponsored by the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) and oil and gas companies that could profit from sanctions being lifted. NIAC, of course, is the pro-Iranian-regime lobbying group that claims to represent the Iranian American community, when in fact it has fewer than 500 members.

And now, in the latest sign that the State Department is forging a closer bond with NIAC, the deputy assistant secretary of state is listed as a speaker at one of the organization’s upcoming events on human rights.

Other speakers at the March 15 conference include the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, Rep. Keith Ellison, and Sarah Leah Whitson, the Human Rights Watch official who was recently criticized for writing credulous reports of Muammar Qaddafi’s “human rights reforms” over the past few years. Needless to say, Whitson may not be the best judge of the human-rights situation in Iran.

And for that matter, neither is NIAC. The organization’s president, Trita Parsi, who was accused of skirting lobbying rules in 2009, has been a defender of the Iranian regime and has lobbied to lift U.S. sanctions against the country.

A day after the release of a hit video in which National Public Radio’s chief fundraiser trashed conservatives, Republicans, Tea Party activists, and Israel in pursuit of a phantom $5 million gift from activists posing as members of the Muslim Brotherhood, NPR’s board has ousted the news organization’s head, Vivian Schiller. Ms. Schiller, who joined NPR in 2009, has been at the helm through the two greatest embarrassments in NPR history — the outrageous firing and subsequent trashing of Juan Williams for the unspeakable crime of saying he was frightened when he saw men in Muslim garb in airports and now this amazing video. Controversy of any kind is the last thing NPR needs, as it seeks to keep its federal funding during a era in which budget cutting has become the order of the day. But what this entire incident reveals is, simply, that NPR would be better off separating itself from the federal government and becoming a private nonprofit. It certainly would; indeed, there’s every reason to believe it could thrive as a for-profit radio network for the most part. NPR presents an undeniably remarkable but ideologically skewed news and talk agenda, and as a public trust, its internal behavior is an entirely appropriate subject for public discussion and journalistic stings. As a private institution, that would not be the case.

NPR raises nearly $800 million a year; the federal government’s support accounts for only 10 percent of its budget. The now-ousted Schiller claimed in a speech last week that it needs those federal dollars to “leverage” its private support, but that’s absurd — chances are the common knowledge of its federal funding somewhat depresses its fundraising possibilities. If its new head and the organization’s board announced their intention to get off the public teat, NPR could certainly begin an endowment drive in the hundreds of millions of dollars that would throw off sufficient annual cash to defray the loss of federal dollars. They’d better be considering it, because the budget crisis isn’t going anywhere, and that $90 million it gets from the feds is going to disappear at some point.

Public-union reform has been temporarily stymied in Wisconsin, where the walkout of Democratic senators has brought democratic government to a halt and demonstrations in and around the Capitol have monopolized media attention. But reform is proceeding apace in other states.

In Idaho yesterday, the state House passed a bill 48-22 that eliminates teacher tenure, removes such issues as class size and workloads from collective bargaining, limits teacher contracts to one year, and eliminates seniority as the basis for layoffs. The bill, which earlier passed the Senate by a smaller margin, now goes to Governor Butch Otter, who is expected to sign it. (Could even Dickens have come up with a better name for the Republican governor of Idaho than Butch Otter?)

A tough reform bill, which affects all public employees, not just teachers, has passed the Ohio Senate and is expected to pass the House and be signed by Governor John Kasich. Iowa, Michigan, Florida, and other states are moving on public-union reform as well.

Wisconsin is getting all the attention, but public-service-union reform is happening in other states. I have no doubt it will happen in Wisconsin as well.

Aside from avoiding outrageous gaffes, is there anything Israel can do to improve its miserable public relations? The BBC poll Alana cited this week, which once again showed Israel to be one of the world’s least-popular countries, actually points the way: Israel must start making a long-term investment in cultivating ties with Russia, China, and India.

Clearly, Jerusalem shouldn’t delude itself that it can change the hostile policies of these countries’ current governments. Indeed, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s effort to “reset” Israel’s relations with Moscow has failed spectacularly; Russia’s decision to sell cruise missiles to Syria is merely the latest example.

But as the unrest now sweeping the Arab world amply proves, authoritarian governments don’t last forever. Someday, the autocratic regimes in Russia and China will fall, and Israel must prepare for that day now by cultivating ties with the Russian and Chinese peoples — not merely because both countries are superpowers, but because, as the poll showed, they are actually Israel’s best prospects for future allies.

According to the poll, the countries with “the most positive view of Israel were the United States, Russia, Ghana, and China.” At first glance, that is shocking. One would expect Israel to draw the most support from other Western democracies, not the Russian and Chinese autocracies. But in reality, it’s eminently natural. Read More

It’s not clear whether Muammar Qaddafi is importing mercenaries to help him (further) crush his own people. The Christian Science Monitor is inclined to credit the reports, while Human Rights Watch argues that the allegations are unconfirmed and arise from Qaddafi’s efforts to promote civil equality in Libya (no, really, that’s what they say).

Given that Qaddafi has employed mercenaries in the past and has nothing to lose from employing them now, there is no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even if he is not importing mercenaries, he is clearly using up a lot of ammunition, and though his stockpiles may be large, they cannot be unlimited. It would cost us very little to seek to cut him off from resupply of both men and material. Max Boot has made the case for a no-fly zone over Libya. But there’s an even better case to be made for trying to make sure Qaddafi can’t draw on resources outside Libya. John Stuart Mill’s essay on nonintervention is relevant: Read More