RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Democratic party has infantilized women…..making abortion and “women’s issues” priorities instead of issues like foreign policy, immigration, energy and healthcare. The GOP’s female candidates- incumbents and challengers- have moved on and have taken on the major issues and crises of our time…..rsk

It may seem unusual that the husband-and-wife team of Mary Matlin and James Carville have managed to carve successful careers in large part by being on the opposite sides of the political divide. But the really big surprise is that she’s a conservative and he’s a liberal!

Among married couples, it’s usually the other way around, a preference consistently reflected in polling data. In fact, women of all ages 18 to 85 and within all major racial, educational, and marital-status segments of society are more likely to register as Democrats. And the preponderance of liberal feminists in academia continues to prime the pump so that this gender gap persists into the future. Democrats count heavily on the crucial support of women in order to win elections. It helps, too, that women more reliably vote than do men.

Hollywood celebrity Rob Lowe once remarked that he was a liberal because, as an actor, he had greater “empathy” for the feelings and needs of others, the assumption being that Democrats are more empathetic and Republicans are, well, more pathetic. This fallacy continues to drive party rhetoric, as it seeks to portray Democrats as compassionate and Republicans as combative.

Naturally, women want to be seen coming down on the side of compassion. That’s why Democrat campaigns are heavy on the emotion of “doing the right thing,” even if in the end it takes society down the wrong path. For example, Democrat candidates rarely focus on issues like balancing the budget or easing the debt burden on future generations. In their appeal to women, Democrats have had greater success with issues onto which they can slap a face of injustice or immediate need.

Hillary Clinton, who lay low for a while, emerged from the shadows last weekend and headed hand-in-hand with Bill to the Iowa caucuses, hoping for better results than she’d had in her last bid for the presidency. After her usual coy act as to whether she is, indeed, running again, Clinton made a succinct statement to the effect that raising the minimum wage, making education affordable, supporting equal pay for equal work, and giving all people job opportunities is what her party is for – and the Republicans aren’t.

America needs a change of direction domestically to cope with a dangerous and disorderly world.

The reports of Darrell Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are a clinic on how government is really run. The latest on ObamaCare is no exception.

We see Chet Burrell, head of Maryland insurer CareFirst, emailing in alarm last April to White House aide Valerie Jarrett. The administration had just publicly stated its “risk corridor” plan would be revenue neutral—i.e., no extra taxpayer dollars would be available to cover insurer losses.

We see Mr. Burrell warning that sticking with this plan would mean politically “an unwelcome surprise,” namely premium hikes of 20% or more later this year as ObamaCare policies come up for renewal.

We see Ms. Jarrett emailing back in concern. We see her later assuring Mr. Burrell that insurers would get 80% of what they sought. After another program tweak in May, the figure would be closer to 100%.
Sure enough, this week came the fallout. Bob Laszewski, a policy wonk and former insurance executive whose bloggings are closely followed in the ObamaCare debate, writes that the administration has succeeded in temporarily suppressing incipient ObamaCare price hikes, contributing to an illusion of sustainability. He suggests that some insurers might even slash rates to “grab market share because they have nothing to lose with the now unlimited ObamaCare reinsurance program covering their losses.”

The non-surprise revealed here is that ObamaCare turns out to be just another subsidy program, throwing money at health care. In economics, you can’t subsidize everybody but we’re trying: 50 million Americans get help from Medicare, 65 million from Medicaid, nine million from the Department of Veterans Affairs, seven million (and counting) from ObamaCare, and a whopping 149 million from the giant tax handout for employer-provided health insurance.

Much of this money (which will total about $1.3 trillion in 2014) is shoveled out regardless of need, driving up prices and spurring production of services of dubious value. The spending is less effective at improving the nation’s health. An “Affordable Care Act” worth its title would have gotten us off this kamikaze mission. It didn’t.

http://unitedwithisrael.org/innovative-israeli-brain-procedure-broadcast-live-to-12000-american-doctors/

An Israeli medical team performed an innovative life-saving procedure while 12,000 American doctors watched via live broadcast.

A cutting-edge brain catheterization procedure was performed at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem while being broadcast live to 12,000 American doctors in Washington.

The procedure, another example of Israel’s important medical innovations, significantly diminishes the threat to the patient undergoing the operation. The revolutionary stent is covered with a microscopic net that opens up against the arterial wall and can prevent the passage of particles toward the brain, thus preventing cerebral-vascular accidents during its implantation.

The life-saving procedure was debuted in Israel and viewed by American clinicians attending the TCT (Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics) Conference, the world’s largest and most important educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
Shaare Zedek Medical Center

Shaare Zedek Medical Center. (Photo: Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Shaarei Zedek is one of 21 hospitals from around the world to participate in the conference and broadcast live medical procedures.
“This is a World Debut”

The medical team performing the procedure was rigged with audio and visual equipment so as to better present the technique to their audience. Two advanced broadcasting stations were set up at the entrance to the hospital to relay the event to the expectant spectators in the US. They received a step-by-step explanation of the ground-breaking treatment.

“This is a world début for this stent, which provides a first-rate solution to the problem,” says Dr. Yaron Almagor, director of the Invasive Cardiology Unit at Shaare Zedek. “There is no doubt that this is a world-class innovation which can revolutionize the treatment of the carotid arteries and will minimize cerebral damage in the future.”

http://unitedwithisrael.org/fda-approves-groundbreaking-israeli-lung-imaging-system/

The FDA recently approved a groundbreaking, non-invasive, radiation-free lung imaging system created by Deep Breeze an Israeli company.

Deep Breeze is an Israeli company based in Or Akiva in the Haifa District that has invented a non-invasive, radiation-free lung imaging system. Using Vibration Response Imaging, the system generates a real-time picture of the lungs.

This new technology is already being heralded by experts as the biggest breakthrough since ultrasound. It will be used to help diagnose cancer, asthma and other pulmonary diseases. Sales of the system will begin in the US shortly.

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For four decades genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been vilified and caricatured as “Frankenfoods,” the abominations of mad scientists meddling with nature and putting the human race at risk. Currently, over sixty bills have been introduced in over twenty states that will require food labels indicating if the product contains GMO. Globally, over sixty countries restrict or ban GMO outright, including eight E.U. nations and countries in Africa suffering from famine and malnutrition that could be alleviated by genetically modified crops.

Critics accuse GMO of being unhealthy, increasing chemical pollution, threatening other species, causing dangerous side effects, and harming the environment. But as plant molecular biologist Robert Goldberg of UCLA points out, “In spite of hundreds of millions of genetic experiments involving every type of organism on earth, and people eating billions of meals without a problem, we’ve gone back to being ignorant.”

In fact, no one has yet documented a single case of illness from GM foods, even as about 3,000 people a year in the U.S. die of food-borne illnesses, many of them contracted from “organic” foods. All the dangers of GMO that worry critics are speculations of what might happen in the distant future. Mixing genes from different species, critics contend, will create alterations in the organism that will in the long term produce destructive effects, or genetic material from an engineered crop someday may transfer into the human genome.

There were few modern democrats among the armed opposition to Assad two years ago. There are far fewer now. So who can Obama trust not to turn Western-supplied weapons against us later?

The young rebels and opposition activists gathered in a school to discuss how the northern Syrian town of Al Bab should be governed after the departure of Bashar al Assad’s soldiers were taken aback by the question: “Why aren’t there any women here?” It was the summer of 2012, more than 12 months into the uprising against the Syrian president, and more than a year before Abu Bakr al Baghdadi announced the formation of his al Qaeda breakaway, the Islamic State of Syria and Sham, or ISIS.

Initial surprise at my question was followed by smirks. The young men who had talked about ushering in a new era of modern democracy and freedom in Syria pushed forward a nervous young imam to explain. “It is not in our tradition for men and women to mix,” he said. “They can have their own meeting, if they want. And if we need advice on some issues, we can ask them.” There were some chuckles at this. So much for democracy, at least in its Western guise.

Later that night I sat with two local sheikhs who explained how they were forming a court to adjudicate civil disputes and rule on criminal cases. “We will use Sharia law,” said Abdulbaset Kuredy. “What else is there? After Assad, the whole country will be governed by Sharia.” Then he launched into a condemnation of the corrupt West and its acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. The sheikhs were aligned with the Free Syrian Army, the rebel group now touted in Washington as the “moderates” to support in the fight against Assad on the one hand, ISIS on the other.

There was nothing I saw in Al Bab in August 2012—still early days in the insurrection that is now halfway through its fourth year—that led me to feel that if the Syrian uprising toppled Assad, it would lead to an inclusive, minority-respecting, and more or less democratic outcome. Like other countries convulsed by Arab Spring insurrections, there was a mismatch between Western expectations and perceptions and the thinking and religious views of the majority involved in the fighting, and that was a year before the emergence of ISIS. The war back then was clearly becoming more sectarian and Islamic—the trajectory was obvious.