Negotiating with Terrorists
August 29, 2016 Weekly Columns
It has been a longstanding policy of the United States that we will not negotiate with terrorists and we will not pay ransom money to free hostages. The reasons for this policy are obvious; paying ransoms incentivizes the taking of more hostages. U.S. presidents for decades have recognized this policy and adhered to it - until this president.

As we have learned over the last several weeks, the Obama administration paid Iran $400 million in pallets of foreign currency – supposedly to pay them back for an arms deal in the late 1970’s that the United States had negotiated with the Shah of Iran when they were considered a friendly ally. Not surprisingly, when the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Revolutionaries took over the country and seized 52 American hostages, that arms deal was negated and diplomatic relations between our two countries were severed.

Former President Barack Obama didn’t give “150 billion in cash” to Iran.

The nuclear agreement included China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, so Obama didn’t carry out any part of it on his own. The deal did lift some sanctions, which lifted a freeze on Iran’s assets that were held largely in foreign, not U.S., banks. And, to be clear, the money that was unfrozen belonged to Iran. It had only been made inaccessible by sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s nuclear program.

A restraining order or protective order is an order used by a court to protect a person, object, business, company, state, country, establishment, or entity, and the general public, in a situation involving alleged domestic violence, child abuse, assault, harassment, stalking, or sexual assault. In the United States, every state has some form of domestic violence restraining order law,[1] and many states also have specific restraining order laws for stalking[2] and sexual assault.[3]

Restraining and personal protection order laws vary from one jurisdiction to another but all establish who can file for an order, what protection or relief a person can get from such an order, and how the order will be enforced. The court will order the adverse party to refrain from certain actions or require compliance with certain provisions. Failure to comply is a violation of the order which can result in the arrest and prosecution of the offender. Violations in some jurisdictions may also constitute criminal or civil contempt of court.

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s former health director was charged Thursday with involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of nine people who got Legionnaires’ disease during the Flint water crisis as prosecutors revisit how the city’s water system was contaminated with lead and bacteria during one of worst human-made environmental disasters in U.S. history.

Nick Lyon pleaded not guilty during an appearance in a Genesee County court. Moments later, his old boss, former Gov. Rick Snyder, also pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of willful neglect of duty in Flint.

Each of the involuntary manslaughter counts is punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $7,500 fine.

Authorities also counted at least 90 cases of Legionnaires’ disease in Genesee County, including 12 deaths. Some experts found there was not enough chlorine in Flint’s water-treatment system to control legionella bacteria, which can trigger a severe form of pneumonia when spread through misting and cooling systems.

It’s the second time that Lyon has been charged with manslaughter, but the earlier case involved only two deaths. He was accused in 2017 of failing to timely warn the public about the outbreak but the case was dropped by prosecutors when they decided to take a fresh look at evidence.

MISSOULA, Mont. — President Trump praised a Republican candidate’s assault last year on a reporter and fumed over his Democratic opponents here on Thursday night in a freewheeling rally meant to mobilize his base’s support in the coming midterm elections.

In urging the crowd to vote for Representative Greg Gianforte, who is running for re-election and who was sentenced to anger management classes and community service for assaulting a reporter last spring, Mr. Trump jokingly warned the crowd to “never wrestle him.”

“I had heard he body-slammed a reporter,” Mr. Trump said, noting that he was initially concerned that Mr. Gianforte would lose in a special election last May. “I said, ‘Wait a minute. I know Montana pretty well; I think it might help him.’ And it did.”

“Anybody that can do a body-slam,” the president added, “that’s my kind of guy.”

There’s a growing number of businesses that have kept quiet when it comes to the health care debate. While they may be all about the free market, the reality is that the exponentially rising costs of providing health care to their employees is increasing overhead, reducing profits and making them less competitive with foreign markets.

Many believe a universal health care plan — a government-sponsored program in which medical care is provided to everyone regardless of their ability to pay — could help solve these problems. In short, companies could stop paying for health insurance. Presumably, that means they could pay their employees more, although much of the increase may be absorbed by higher taxes to fund the program. However, the competitive benefit for employers — both large and small — would remain.

Small businesses would no longer lose out to larger companies when it comes to hiring talent, as health care would no longer be a competitive benefit. Employees who would rather work at a smaller company would now have that option without losing out on a robust health insurance plan.

Employees would also be released from the phenomenon known as “job lock,” when many people stay at their jobs solely for health insurance benefits. This has a lot of downsides, from poor morale and lower productivity to curbing labor mobility and entrepreneurship. In terms of economic growth, small businesses account for two-thirds of net new jobs and represent close to half (44 percent) of U.S. economic activity. If workers aren’t saddled by the need for employer-sponsored health insurance, they would have the option to quit and start their own businesses.

This issue was recently spotlighted by a report that over the past 10 years, the employee share of health insurance premiums has increased 71 percent, while average earnings increased only 26 percent. Even workers with robust employer-sponsored insurance are increasingly paying more out of pocket. On average, employees pay $1,242 (singles) or $6,015 (families) a year for insurance premiums, and deductibles have doubled from $826 to $1,655 on average.

There are many other potentially significant advantages to broad-scale universal health care. First, it could reduce the overall cost of health care because the government would be able to leverage volume to negotiate better pricing structures for medical services and prescription drugs. Administrative costs — particularly for hospitals and doctor’s offices — would decrease because they could file claims with a single entity instead of multiple insurance companies. That would reduce provider overhead expenses, allowing these entities to invest in more medical personnel.

As Republican senators work to fix their troubled health care bill, there is one giant health insurance subsidy no one is talking about.

It is bigger than any offered under the Affordable Care Act — subsidies some Republicans loathe as handouts — and costs the federal government $250 billion in lost tax revenue every year.

The beneficiaries: everyone who gets health insurance through a job, including members of Congress.

Much of the bitter debate over how to repeal and replace the law known as Obamacare has focused on cutting Medicaid and subsidies that help low-income people buy insurance.

But economists on the left and the right argue that to really rein in health costs, Congress should scale back or eliminate the tax exclusion on what employers pay toward employees’ health insurance premiums. Under current law, those premiums are not subject to the payroll or income taxes that are taken out of employees’ wages, an arrangement that vastly benefits middle- and upper-income people.

That one policy tweak could reduce health care spending, stabilize the health insurance market and, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, shrink the federal budget deficit by between $174 billion and $429 billion over a six-year period.