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February 2018

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Where in the World is Mahmoud Abbas? Being Treated in a Great Satan Hospital By Ethel C. Fenig

By on February 26th, 2018

After damning the United States for recognizing reality by stating that since Jerusalem is the capital of Israel the US will move its Embassy there in May to celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary, the PLO president-for-life, Mahmoud (a variation of the name Mohammed) Abbas took his traveling hate show to a receptive audience, the UN, where he repeated the message but in more moderate — relatively — terms.

And then? Well, since he condemns the US and all that it symbolizes whenever the opportunity arises — and even when it doesn’t…

“Damn your money!” to the United States following President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem. “We will not accept for the U.S. to be a mediator, because after what they have done to us — a believer shall not be stung twice in the same place.”

…he quickly returned to the well…”s&#*hole” territory he presides over. where US aid money, which he still eagerly accepts, European aid money, oil aid money from Muslim countries, and UNRWA aid money is used for weapons and destruction, not schools and hospitals. Except that he didn’t return there, according to the Jewish Insider, almost the only outlet on the story:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was sighted on Wednesday in Baltimore, Maryland. According to a source, Abbas is receiving medical treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

An impressive motorcade of Secret Service vehicles were seen parked outside the Four Seasons Hotel in the Harbor East neighborhood of Baltimore.

Abbas’ Boeing 737 [A Boeing Business Jet, the most expensive private jet in the world, far better than aircraft used by most heads of legitimate states — such as The Netherlands, Chile, or Norway – ed.] landed at Baltimore–Washington International Airport at 3:00 PM EST after a short flight from White Plains, New York, according to the Flight Radar24 site. (snip)

Abbas’ medical treatment in Baltimore may explain the timing of his speech this week at the UN.

This past December, Haaretz reported that Abbas received an invitation to visit the White House for the second time in a year after the Trump administration was made aware that the Palestinian president was slated to be in the city for a medical procedure.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

American Rhythms By Eileen F. Toplansky

By on February 26th, 2018

In Mitch Albom’s magical book titled The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, “narrated by the voice of Music itself,” there is a singular line that describes what is sorely lacking in our world today. Many people speak of the cultural changes – perhaps even the cultural rot – demoralizing far too many Americans. Instead, we need, as Albom asserts, an understanding that “the secret is not to make your music louder but to make the world quieter.” Given the cacophony of brutal words spewed online via Twitter or by so many in show business and politics, we need a return to quiet introspection. It is imperative that we approach subjects with reason and logic rather than capitulate to the empty barrels that make the most noise.

In the world of education, it is long overdue to expect – in fact, demand – not perfection, but surely excellence. The soft bigotry of low expectations is producing a crop of young people who are functionally illiterate, historically ignorant, and frighteningly incoherent. For starters, the teaching of phonics must begin in kindergarten. I have college students who cannot sound out words or names because they were never taught how to use phonics. Moreover, students do not know what an anthology is because books are now replaced with readings on the internet. They have no clue about biblical or mythological allusions. There is a constant level of superficiality despite the plethora of information available to them. Few have learned the skills of separating the wheat from the chaff.

The so-called adults in the room are abdicating their responsibilities to mold and lead young people to make in-depth and thoughtful decisions. Instead, the focus is on who can scream the loudest and who can virtually blackmail higher authority. Facts are forsaken while censoring ideas is accepted, even applauded. This is not a good silence.

We need to return to ideas and language that evoke the sublime, not the gutter talk that pollutes so much conversation these days. We need to instill a return to the days of the “magic words” such as “please” and “thank you.” I cringe every time a person says “no problem” when I say “thank you.” It implies that being polite is a hardship in the first place.

Dizzy Gillespie once said, “It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.” In fact, “[s]ilence enhances music” just as pauses offer think time. But there are few rests in life anymore. It is a constant din.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

After Boko Haram Raid, Nigerians Try Again to Bring Girls Back The Feb. 19 attack was similar to the 2014 Chibok kidnapping, and 110 schoolgirls remain missing By Gbenga Akingbule and Joe Parkinson

By on February 26th, 2018

DAPCHI, Nigeria— Garba Sule was preparing for evening prayers when heavily armed Boko Haram jihadists rode into town last week in pickup trucks, firing hundreds of rounds into the air and demanding directions to the local girls’ school.

The camouflage-clad militants loaded up dozens of students from the Dapchi Government Girls Science and Technical College and drove them into the surrounding scrubland, according to eyewitnesses, schoolteachers and local officials. Among them: Mr. Sule’s 13-year-old daughter, Zara.

A week after the Feb. 19 attack, 110 schoolgirls from this remote town in northeastern Nigeria remain unaccounted for, stunning Africa’s most populous nation and rekindling memories of Boko Haram’s seizure of 276 girls from Chibok Government Secondary School in 2014.

That earlier attack, initially ignored by Nigeria’s government, ultimately prompted a global activist movement—#BringBackOurGirls. About half of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls either escaped or were ransomed; 112 remain missing. At least 13 are presumed dead. Boko Haram continues to hold thousands of abducted boys and girls.

The latest episode has sparked outrage across Nigeria, where public anger has focused on authorities who initially refused to acknowledge the incident and then incorrectly claimed to have rescued the girls.

“We are in deep pain. We’ve hardly eaten,” said Mr. Sule, a 45-year-old researcher at the local hospital. “The government has lied to us, like they did with the Chibok girls.”

Over the weekend, President Muhammadu Buhari said in a tweet that the kidnapping was a “national disaster” and pledged to mobilize all the government’s resources to locate the girls. On Sunday, Nigeria’s air force confirmed it was assisting in the manhunt. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A New Regulatory Threat to Cancer Patients Washington may impose needless limits on genetic testing. By Olivier Elemento

By on February 26th, 2018

The federal government is threatening to limit treatment options for doctors fighting cancer. A regulatory decision due Wednesday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could undermine the care delivered to the more than 1.6 million Americans who are diagnosed with cancer each year.

At issue is whether reimbursements will be available to most physicians, hospitals and patients for a diagnostic technology known as next-generation sequencing. A cornerstone of the emerging field of precision medicine, NGS tests analyze molecular changes that occur in cancerous tumors and show up in biopsies.

To fight tumors, DNA-sequencing-based tests can determine how genes and mutations differ from one patient to the next. NGS tests enable oncologists to prescribe and administer customized, highly targeted drug therapies. The technology limits patients’ exposure to unnecessary toxic drugs and helps doctors make vital treatment decisions. Hundreds of thousands of cancer patients have already received NGS testing.

The proposed new CMS policy would abruptly change the way NGS testing is regulated and administered. It would drastically limit insurance coverage by requiring that tests be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Current NGS tests are conducted at accredited clinical laboratories and premier academic medical centers under strict regulation. They are as accurate and reliable as FDA-approved testing. There is no evidence that restricting reimbursement to FDA-approved tests would improve care.

Under the proposed policy, only one of hundreds of laboratories that currently offer NGS testing would meet all the new reimbursement requirements. The policy would in effect force clinicians and institutions to send all NGS testing to a single vendor, Foundation Medicine .

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats for Eavesdrop Abuse Their intel memo confirms the FBI used Clinton research to spy on Carter Page.

By on February 26th, 2018

The House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released the long-awaited Democratic response to allegations the FBI abused its surveillance powers during the 2016 election. Committee Chairman Devin Nunes owes ranking Democrat Adam Schiff a thank you for assisting his case.

The 10-page Democratic memo begins by declaring that “The FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.” Yet the facts it lays out show the opposite.

In particular the memo confirms that the FBI used an opposition-research document paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee as part of its application to surveil Carter Page, who was associated with the Donald Trump campaign.

Democrats dispute the degree to which the FBI relied on the dossier created by opposition-researcher Christopher Steele in applying for its FISA court order, but that’s beside the point. If the FBI had as much “compelling evidence” and “probable cause” as the memo asserts, it would not have needed to cite the Steele document. And the Democrats do not dispute that the Steele dossier was the FBI’s only source in its initial FISA application for its allegation that Mr. Page met with suspect Russians in Moscow in July 2016.

The Democratic memo makes no attempt to rebut the widely reported news that former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told Congress that the FBI would not have sought a surveillance warrant without the dossier. Democratic Rep. Jim Himes claimed on “Fox News Sunday” that Mr. McCabe never said that, but then why not put that in the memo?

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: Israel is One Big Settlement by Bassam Tawil

By on February 26th, 2018

Let us be clear about this: When Palestinians — and some of their supporters in the international community, including Europe — say that they want an end to the “occupation,” they mean they want to see an end to Israel’s existence, full stop. They do not want to throw the Jews out of their homes in the settlements; rather, they want Jews to be expelled from the whole country.

The conflict, as far as the Palestinians are concerned, did not begin in 1967, when east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip came under Israeli control. In the eyes of the Palestinians, all Jews are “settlers” and “colonialists.” All the land, they argue, stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, is Muslim-owned land, and no Muslim is entitled to give up any part of it to a non-Muslim. For the Palestinians, accepting Israel’s “right to exist” with Jews is seen as an act of treason.

What is really bothering the Palestinians is that Israel, with Jews, exists, period. The Palestinians want all of Jerusalem. They want all of “Palestine.” They want Israel removed from the planet. It is time to listen carefully to what the Palestinians are saying — in Arabic — to understand that the conflict is not about Jerusalem and not about settlements.

No doubt Ismail Radwan is a terrorist, but, unlike other Palestinian leaders and spokesmen, he is at least an honest one.

At a time when most Palestinian leaders are telling the world that settlements are the real “obstacle” to peace, Radwan, a senior Hamas official, last week made it clear that the conflict with Israel is not about Jews living in a settlement in the West Bank. The truth is that the Palestinians see Israel as one big settlement that needs to be uprooted from the Middle East.

The Palestinians do not differentiate between a Jew living in a settlement on the outskirts of Bethlehem, in the West Bank, and a Jew living in the cities of Haifa, and Tel Aviv and Eilat. All the Jews, they say, are “occupiers” and “settlers” who need to “go back to where they came from.”

For the Palestinians, the real “occupation” began with the establishment of Israel in 1948.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

US Embassy in Jerusalem enhances US Interest Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on February 26th, 2018

The US decision to comply with the law of the land – the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act – recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the US Embassy there, enhances the US posture of deterrence, in defiance of threats and pressure, while walking against the grain.

This reasserts the independence of US unilateral diplomatic action, rather than subordinate US interests to multilateral diplomacy, which tends to undermine US interests. Moreover, it challenges the political correctness of the UN, the Department of State and the “elite” media, which have been serial blunderers on Middle East issues.

While President Trump recognizes Israel as a unique ally, strategically and morally – in an explosive region and during an unpredictably violent era – his determination to remedy this 70-year-old faulty policy aims at advancing US interests, rather than demonstrate pro-Israel sentiments.

The relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem reflects the realization that retreat in the face of threats and pressure intensifies anti-US policies, aggression and terrorism, while defiance of pressure is a prerequisite for the rehabilitation of deterrence, a precondition to peace and security.

US procrastination on the implementation of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act did not advance the cause of peace. Rather, intensified Palestinian expectations forced them to outflank the US from the radical side and therefore, added another obstacle on the road to peace.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Total Failure of the State by Mark Steyn

By on February 26th, 2018

During Wednesday’s horrible fiasco of a “Town Hall”, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel spelled it out:

What I’m asking the law makers to give police all over this country is more power.

I was sufficiently struck by the above to write it down – because it was clear even then that Sheriff Israel is an incompetent deployer of the power he already has. The scale of his department’s appalling failure in the Parkland massacre gets worse almost hourly. I was on air with Tucker Carlson when I heard that Stoneman Douglas High’s on-site “school resource officer” – Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, uniformed, trained and armed – had declined to enter the building and had stayed safely outside until Nikolas Cruz had finished killing everybody.

After a day on supension without pay, Deputy Peterson has now “retired”, which assuredly comes with pay.

But, as I said, it gets worse. Three of his fellow deputies, from Sheriff Israel’s department, then showed up at the school and also decided not to enter the building but to remain crouched behind their vehicles until the shooting had stopped:

When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.

With direction from the Broward deputies who were outside, Coral Springs police soon entered the building where the shooter was. New Broward County Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, and two of those deputies and an officer from Sunrise, Florida, joined the Coral Springs police as they went into the building.

By my arithmetic, that sounds like at least seven of Sheriff Israel’s deputies were at the school, but only two entered the building. Still, it seems to be a crackerjack police department in terms of response time: They’re first on the scene – and then they just sit back and watch at a safe distance. Or as Dr Jesse Kelly tweets:

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“There’s someone breaking into my house. Could you send the Broward County Sheriff’s Department to water my garden while I kill the intruder?”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Don’t Dare Sit with Us if You Want to Live” Muslim Persecution of Christians, September 2017 by Raymond Ibrahim

By on February 26th, 2018

“They get paid for every Coptic Christian girl they bring in. In some cases, police provide the kidnappers with drugs they seize. The drugs are then given to the girls to weaken their resistance… I even know of cases in which police offered helped to beat up the girls to make them recite the Islamic creed.” — World Watch Monitor, Egypt; September 14, 2017.

On September 14, a court sentenced a Christian man to death for “blasphemy” against the prophet of Islam. Nadeem James, a 27-year-old father of two, was originally arrested in July 2016, after a Muslim angry with him for personal reasons falsely accused James, who is illiterate, of texting a poem deemed “blasphemous” of Muhammad. — Pakistan.

School textbooks taught her that “it was the Christians who wanted to plunder the lands and the riches of the Muslim world” and Turks merely responded by “defend[ing] what was rightfully theirs.” (In reality, modern day Turkey consists of territory that was Christian for more than a thousand years before it was conquered by Turks in the name of jihad.) “Everything is used to make the Christians look like villains,” she said, adding, “It’s the same all through Muslim countries.” — Turkey.

Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Pakistan: Sharoon, a Christian boy who achieved academic excellence despite years of entrenched discrimination and bullying—and whose poverty-stricken parents had worked hard to put him in MC Model Boys Government High School—was beaten to death by Muslim pupils. On his first day at the school, the teacher slapped him across the face while blurting an anti-Christian slur. Having set a precedent, the rest of the classroom of Muslim boys continued harassing him throughout the same first day: they hurled out derogatory terms against Christians, denied him access to drinking water, and told him, “You’re a Christian don’t dare sit with us if you want to live.” According to one report: “His academic prowess … only added to the disdain for him felt by other pupils.” Another report said, “there were repeated attempts to convert him to Islam. Sharoon however, never quit his faith to the chagrin of the Muslim children around him, exacerbating his pariah status.” Then, on August 27—his fourth day at the prestigious Model school—Muslim students attacked him in the classroom (the teacher supposedly did not notice; he was reading his paper). “The violence,” continues the report, “was of such sickening ferocity that poor Sharoon died where he was in the classroom.” A cacophony of insults accompanied the beating; he was called a “filthy Christian” and a “demon.” According to the murdered teen’s mother:

“My son was a kind-hearted, hard-working and affable boy. He has always been loved by teachers and pupils alike and shared great sorrow that he was being targeted by students at his new school because of his faith. Sharoon and I cried every night as he described the daily torture he was subjected to…. The evil boys that hated my child are now refusing to reveal who else was involved in his murder. Nevertheless one day God will have His judgement.”

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