President Trump Is Breaking His Promise on Christian Refugees
During his campaign, President Trump promised to prioritize Christian refugees facing persecution, evenimplying that the Obama administration was actively disfavoring Christians. Many Christian refugee communities in the United Statessupported him based on this promise. One of his very first executive orderspromised to prioritize Christian refugees. Despite these statements, however, President Trump has failed to deliver: his administration has accepted far fewer Christian refugees than in prior years.According tofigures from the U.S. Department of State, the United States accepted 3,671 Christian refugees per month from O...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 18, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
All I Want For Christmas Is to Fight Just the Necessary Wars
All I want for Christmas is for the U.S. to only fight the wars it has to and to stay out of all the others. The lives of young Americans are too high a price to pay for wars driven by threat inflation, ego, or fool-hardy social experiments.First, we ’re Americans. Enough of the hand wringing. Islamist-inspired terrorists do not hide around every corner. Instead, we have been and continue to be quite safe. The threat from groups operating within failed states like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and so on pales in comparison to Hitler’s armies mar ching across Europe and our nuclear Cold War with the Soviet Union, despiteP...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 14, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Erik Goepner Source Type: blogs
All I Want for Christmas...Is a BRAC
Five successive Secretaries of Defense have asked Congress for permission to reduce excess and unnecessary military bases. The fairest and most transparent way to make such cuts is through another Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round. So far, however, the SecDefs ’ requests have gone unanswered. For their sake, but mostly for the sake of the men and women serving in our armed forces, I want one, too. All I want for Christmas is a BRAC.According tothe Pentagon ’s latest estimates, the military as a whole has 19 percent excess base capacity. If it helps to visualize the nature of the problem, nearly 1 in every 5 fac...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 13, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Christopher A. Preble Source Type: blogs
Muslim Ban? Fewer Muslim Refugees, Immigrants, and Travelers Enter U.S. in 2017
During his campaign, President Trumppromised to ban all Muslims outright until he could figure out “what is going on.” Helater explained that this idea had developed into several policies that would have the same effect. Since his inauguration, Trump has begun to implement them —they includeslashing the refugee program,banning all immigration and travelers from several majority Muslim countries, andimposing new burdens on all visa applicants as part of “extreme vetting” initiatives. So far, these policies appear to have “worked,” strongly reducing Muslim immigration and travel to the United States.Muslim refu...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 12, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
Virtual Reality to Treat PTSD: Interview with Todd Richmond, Director of USC ’s Mixed Reality Lab
While PTSD is a significant issue for many of those serving in the military and others who work in traumatic situations, it also affects huge numbers of ordinary people who experience traumatic events such as assaults or natural disasters. Nearly 24 million Americans suffer from PTSD at any given time, and women are twice as likely as men to develop the condition. PTSD can sometimes be overlooked and is reportedly underdiagnosed, but anxiety disorders still cost society approximately $40 billion per year in treatment costs and loss of productivity.
A relatively new option for PTSD therapy involves virtual reality, with the...
Source: Medgadget - December 4, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
How Tom Cotton Will Undermine U.S. Foreign Policy
It is no secret that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Trump haven ’t beengetting along. According to theNew York Times, the administration has developed a plan toreplace Tillerson with current CIA director Mike Pompeo. If ousted, Tillerson would have one of theshortest stints as secretary of state in U.S. history —not the worst consequence of that position, though an embarrassing one for Tillerson, and perhaps the administration. But the most troubling consequence of Tillerson’s departure would be to replace Pompeo withSenator Tom Cotton as CIA director.To begin with, it ’s difficult to believe Cotton...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 1, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Sahar Khan Source Type: blogs
Remembering Uwe
By JEFF GOLDSMITH
The healthcare world learned with great sadness this week of the passing of our friend, Uwe Reinhardt. I met Uwe in 1982 at the Federation of American Hospitals meeting in Las Vegas. Uwe opened the meeting by apologizing, in his disarming German accent, for not being his usual sharp self. He had, he said, skipped breakfast because his wife May had instructed him not to pay for anything in Las Vegas that he could get for free at home. This was vintage Reinhardt, innocent and knowing at the same time. That meeting was the beginning of a long and warm friendship.
Uwe would have been acutely uncomfortable wi...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 15, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Veterans deserve our full attention
When I walked into the hospital room with my team to meet him for the first time, what struck me was how young he looked. He was listed as 26 years old, but he looked younger than that. He looked so young that it was hard to believe he had served a tour in Iraq a few years prior, or that he likely saw things there that no one would want to see. We didn’t know much about what he did in Iraq, partly due to privacy rules, but also because he didn’t want to tell us. With his lack of eye contact, I imagined he saw things in combat that still affected him at that moment.
He was back in the hospital dealing with an infection ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 11, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/chiduzie-madubata" rel="tag" > Chiduzie Madubata, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Hospital-Based Medicine Psychiatry Source Type: blogs
U.S. Continues to Lock up and Attempt to Deport Iraqi Christians
In 1993, Jony Jarjissentered the United States on a temporary visa for fianc és of U.S. citizens. The relationship fell apart, and in 1994, an immigration judge ordered his removal for overstaying his visa. Iraq refused to accept him back, and so for 23 years, Jarjiss has checked in with immigration authorities. Then, due to a new deal with Iraq, the Trump administrationarrested him in July 2017 and is now attempting to deport him. He is “terrified” of the persecution that he may face as a Christian upon his return and is attempting to reopen his immigration case. The government is trying to remove him before he has t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 9, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
Jellybean 82 with Wesam Al-Basaam
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
Jellybean 82; Extraordinary tales of ordinary heroism. An Iraqi Story.
The best thing about making the jellybeans is that I get to meet some thoroughly excellent people.
While at the CICM ASM in Sydney I was introduced to a gentleman named Wesam Al-Basaam and he had a story to tell. When I say gentleman I really mean gentleman. Wesam is a consultant intensivist at the Austin Hospital. That is a pretty good job. It’s a very good hospital and most of us would be very h...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - November 7, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Doug Lynch Tags: JellyBean Austin Hospital CICM ASM Wesam Al-Basaam Source Type: blogs
Jellybean 82 with Wisam Al-Basaam
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
Jellybean 82; Extraordinary tales of ordinary heroism. An Iraqi Story.
The best thing about making the jellybeans is that I get to meet some thoroughly excellent people.
While at the CICM ASM in Sydney I was introduced to a gentleman named Wisam Al-Basaam and he had a story to tell. When I say gentleman I really mean gentleman. Wisam is a consultant intensivist at the Austin Hospital. That is a pretty good job. It’s a very good hospital and most of us would be very h...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - November 7, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Doug Lynch Tags: JellyBean Austin Hospital CICM ASM Wisam Al-Basaam Source Type: blogs
Why the Fall of the'Caliphate' in Syria Will Not Ease Western Security Concerns
A Syria and Iraq free of ISIS do not, unfortunately, free the West from the ISIS threat. Instead, ISIS is likely to either disperse, with its followers prepared to carry out a range of further attacks, or attempt to regroup in the fragile states of Africa. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - November 3, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Antonia Ward Source Type: blogs
The Benefits of Base Closures – Glenview, Illinois Edition
Last month, Secretary of DefenseJames Mattis urged Congress to allow the Pentagon to reduce its excess overhead. Mattis has requested this authority before – as have at least four of his predecessors (Carter, Panetta, Hagel, and Gates) – but the latest request accompaniesa new Pentagon report that assesses the military ’s infrastructure needs based on a much larger force structure than the one it has today. Even if the military, and especially the Army, were to grow back to the levels seen when the United States was actively fighting wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq (2012), the DoD is carrying 19 percent excess capa...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 2, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Christopher A. Preble Source Type: blogs
Make “Enhanced” Vetting Great Again
ConclusionThe enhanced vetting procedures for refugees are modest extensions of current vetting procedures. Before President Trump took office, refugee vetting was already extreme and difficult to further enhance. The eleven countries singled out for intensive new refugee scrutiny make little sense from a national security perspective and even less sense if the goal is to secure the public safety of Americans. No refugee from any of those nations has murdered an American in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil and their incarceration rates, except for Somalis, are all well below those of native-born Americans. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 31, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Travel Ban Is Based on Executive Whim, Not Objective Criteria
ConclusionFor countries on the list, and for any country wishing to remain off the list, it is vitally important that they understand which factors led to their inclusion or exclusion. If the United States is acting in good faith —seeking to change behavior as opposed to looking for an excuse to ban people—its criteria should be clearly explained and understood. The Iran nuclear deal, for example, hasvery precise requirements for Iran to avoid sanctions, down to the exact percentage of purity for its enriched uranium. This is very far from the case here.No consistent combination of factors or mitigating factors trigger...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 9, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
