NY Times:
The White House is stepping up its antagonism toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite his victory in this week’s elections, signaling that it is in no rush to repair a historic rift between the United States and Israel.
The sharpened tone indicates that the Obama administration may be re-evaluating its relationship with its closest ally in the Middle East, having lost patience with Mr. Netanyahu in the closing days of an election campaign in which he spotlighted deep disagreements with President Obama over a Palestinian state and a nuclear deal with Iran.
“You reach a tipping point,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel and Egypt. “It’s the culmination of six and a half years of frustration, including some direct hits at the president’s prestige and the office of the presidency.”
NY Times:
Long before the latest election in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu was a polarizing figure among American Jews. But even many of his supporters said this week that they were appalled at his last-minute bid to mobilize Jewish voters by warning that Arabs were going to the polls in droves, and his renunciation of a two-state solution to the Palestinian crisis.
Mr. Netanyahu’s party won the election and cheers from hawkish American Jews. But in interviews this week, rabbis, scholars and Jews from across the country and a range of denominations said that with his campaign tactics, he had further divided American Jews and alienated even some conservatives, who had already suspected that he was more committed to building settlements than to building peace with the Palestinians.
Even with Mr. Netanyahu’s postelection interview walking back his statements against a two-state plan for peace with Palestinians, many Jews say they are worried that the most lasting outcome of the elections will be the increasing isolation of Israel — not only around the world but also from the younger generation of American Jews. Unlike their parents and grandparents, these Jews have grown up in an era when Israel is portrayed not as a heroic underdog but as an oppressive occupier, and many of them tend to see Mr. Netanyahu as out of step with their views on Israel and the world.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Gallup:
Women continue to have a much more positive opinion of Hillary Clinton than men do. Fifty-six percent of women have a favorable opinion of Clinton, while 32% view her unfavorably. Men are evenly divided in their opinions of Clinton.
Ted Mann:
Federal prosecutors issued a new subpoena to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey this week seeking possible evidence of claims New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration retaliated against the Democratic mayor of Jersey City.
The subpoena seeks records from a broad range of former authority officials regarding their interactions with Jersey City, according to a person familiar with the matter, including two Christie allies who resigned from the authority amid the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has said that the Christie administration punished him when he failed to endorse the governor’s reelection in 2013.
Robert Pearl, MD:
American health care is obsessed with more.
But the industry is beginning to realize that more isn’t always what’s best for patients. Dr. Atul Gawande, a globally respected surgeon, recently pointed out the harm that can come when physicians do more, particularly for patients near the end of their lives. And Charles Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and partner to Warren Buffett, called health care’s fee-for-service payment model dysfunctional because it rewards doctors for performing more procedures, not for achieving better outcomes.
In the pursuit of more, American health care has too often missed the mark on better. And to become better, health care must change its culture, its financial structure and how we educate our nation’s medical students.
Newtown Bee:
For the third consecutive year, a group of 26 hearty cyclists will pedal their way from Edmond Town Hall to the US Capital in Washington, DC, to support a number of what the team describes as “common sense legislation to reduce the epidemic of gun violence that plagues our nation.”
The group — dubbed Team 26, representing those killed on 12/14 — and their support team, is the brainchild of Sandy Hook resident and world-class competitive cyclist Monte Frank. Mr Frank is kicking off this third ride on the morning of March 28 along with fellow Newtowner Bill Muzzio. According to the cycling team’s website (sandyhookrideonwashington.com), the team continues to support the following measures:
*Requiring all gun buyers pass criminal background checks;
*A ban of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines;
*Making gun trafficking a federal crime, including real penalties for “straw buyers”; and
*Strengthening gun ownership restrictions for people with severe mental illness.
The site states that Team 26 consists of professional and top amateur and masters cyclists from the Northeast.
My good friend Monte will be leading the team on their ride, and will be on David Waldman's radio show (
Kagro in the Morning) this coming week to talk about it.
Harvard Gazette:
Inadequate vaccine coverage is likely a driving force behind the ongoing Disneyland measles outbreak, according to calculations by a research team at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Boston Children’s Hospital, a Harvard affiliate.
Their report, based on epidemiological data and published online by JAMA Pediatrics, indicates that vaccine coverage among the exposed populations is far below that necessary to keep the virus in check, and is the first to positively link measles vaccination rates and the ongoing outbreak.
The researchers — led by Maimuna Majumder, a research fellow at HealthMap, and John Brownstein, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s — examined case numbers reported by the California Department of Public Health and current and historical case data captured by the HealthMap disease surveillance system.
They estimate that the measles vaccination rate among the case clusters in California, Arizona, and Illinois is between 50 and 86 percent, far below the 96 to 99 percent necessary to create a herd immunity effect.