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December 2018

Our Exhausted American Mediocracy By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/30/our-exhausted-

The unlikely 2016 election of Donald Trump—the first president without either prior political or military office—was a repudiation of the American “aristocracy.” By “rule of the best” I mean the ancien régime was no longer understood to suggest wealth and birth (alone), but instead envisioned itself as a supposed national meritocracy of those with proper degrees, and long service in the top hierarchies of government, media, blue-chip law firms, Wall Street, high tech, and academia.

The 2016 election and refutation of the ruling class did not signal that those without such educations and qualifications were de facto better suited to direct the country. Instead, the lesson was that the past record of governance and the current stature of our assumed best and brightest certainly did not justify their reputations or authority, much less their outsized self-regard. In short, instead of being a meritocracy, they amount to a mediocracy, neither great nor awful, but mostly mediocre.

This mediocracy is akin to late 4th-century B.C. Athenian politicians, the last generation of the Roman Republic, the late 18th-century French aristocracy, or the British bipartisan elite of the mid-1930s—their reputations relying on the greater wisdom and accomplishment of an earlier generation, while they remain convinced that their own credentials and titles are synonymous with achievement, and clueless about radical political, economic, military, and social upheavals right under their noses.

Remember the “new normal”? Our economic czars had simply decided anemic economic growth was the best Americans could expect and that 3 percent annualized GDP growth was out of the realm of possibility. Big government incompetence combined with Wall Street buccaneerism had almost melted down the economy in 2008. Recent presidents had doubled the debt—twice.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

New treatment for Glioblastoma. I reported previously ((11th Nov) the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s breakthrough in glioblastoma (aggressive brain cancer) treatment. Now Sheba Medical Center researchers have developed SIXAC, a new six-amino-acid-based compound, that restricts the progression of glioblastoma.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-researchers-say-new-drug-may-lead-to-cure-for-aggressive-brain-cancer/

Blood test for lung cancer. I reported previously (see here) on two Israeli startups (Nucleix and Medial EarlySign) developing blood tests for diagnosing early stage lung cancer. Here is another – Savicell, achieving a 91% success rate. Early detection gives the patient a 50-80% recovery chance. At late stage it is only 4%.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/12/20/israeli-company-creates-successful-blood-test-for-lung-cancer/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00262-018-2173-5 http://www.savicell.com/

Device to spot melanoma. (TY WIN) Israeli startup Scade Medical has patented a prototype scanner, to diagnose early stage melanoma. BlueSky is based on DOSI (differential optical spectro-polarimetric imaging) technology invented by Ofir Aharon, whose mother contracted melanoma. It has already saved seven lives.
https://www.israel21c.org/moms-melanoma-leads-to-israeli-device-for-early-detection/

US approves cervical cancer diagnostic device. I reported previously (25th Sep) that Israel’s Biop had raised $2.2 million to fund its cervical cancer diagnosis device. Biop has just received US FDA approval for the device, which maps the cervix and identifies cancerous and precancerous cells in epithelial tissues.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3752348,00.html

Home diagnosis kit. (TY Arutz Sheva) Israeli startup Diagnoz.me has a smartphone system that can detect infections from home and send results to your doctor. Founder and CTO Tamir Epstein described the system on ILTV. Diagnoz.me just won the dHealth 2018 Summit and its NIS 3 million prize money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I1weyrbn9Y
https://diagnoz.me/2018/12/17/diagnoz-me-wins-dhealth-2018/

The Origin/als aim to end ALS. A team of students at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University competed in the 2018 International Genetically Engineered Competition (iGEM) at MIT in Boston. The group presented findings on a new therapeutic approach for Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), known also as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
http://www.winnipegjewishreview.com/article_detail.cfm?id=6845&sec=2

Novatis backs Israeli anti-cancer biotech. I reported previously (see here) on Israeli biotech Ayala and its personalized cancer treatment. It is already partnering with Bristol-Myers Squibb. Now multinational Novatis has made a $|10 million investment in Ayala, focusing on the aggressive blood cancer multiple myeloma.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3752698,00.html

Lonza opens center for Israeli cooperation. (TY Calcalistech) Swiss biotech multinational Lonza has opened an innovation center in Haifa. Its aim is to partner “with Israeli talent in academia, medical institutions and early-stage innovative companies”. Lomza sees Israel’s technologies providing new healthcare solutions.
https://www.lonza.com/about-lonza/media-center/news/Tensid/2018-11-19-08-45-English.aspx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcKJlKWpz_8

Amgen partners Israeli biomed. (TY Calcalistech) I reported previously (see here) on Israel’s Entera Bio and its treatment for hypoparathyroidism. Entera Bio has just signed a research and licensing agreement with US multinational Amgen to develop a new oral molecule-based treatment that currently is given via IV or injection.
https://investors.enterabio.com/news-releases/news-release-details/entera-bio-and-amgen-enter-strategic-research-collaboration https://www.enterabio.com/

The West’s Big-Ticket Power Grabs Why Should People Respect the Social Contract when Politicians Do Not? by David Brown

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13441/power-grabs

The assertiveness of supra-national organisations with a focus on global policy-making is direct threat to the sovereignty of the nation state, and a dilution of the power of the individuals within it.

Most alarmingly, as MEP Marcel de Graaff neatly surmised from the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration: “Criticism of migration will become a criminal offense.” At what point have we left all pretext of democracy and moved into the sphere of dictatorship, manifest at a supranational level?

“It’s very simple: the globalist political elite doesn’t respect nation-states, nor does it give a damn about the views of ordinary people. Indeed, it despises them so much that it would much rather make their views illegal than listen to what they have to say.” — James Delingpole, Breitbart, December 9, 2018.

It is a strange time to be a citizen in a Western democracy. Our society is based on exchange — we transact in the free market, we share ideas online, and most significantly we give up some of our natural liberty in exchange for a civil society and a vote.

But increasingly, the freedoms supposed to be protected by civil society are being eroded away. At the level of the individual, our freedom of speech is under attack. Criticism of migration is apparently about to become “hate speech” and a prosecutable offence.

When the authority of the nation state is ceded to a supra-national body, such as the United Nations, our power as citizens is diluted.

Based on the contractual theory of society and the works of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau from the 17th and 18th century, real power is supposed to sit with the people; in order to retain moral character, government must thus rest on the consent of the governed, or the volonté générale (“general will”):

“What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract)

What happens if you start to interfere with this contract? What happens, for instance if clauses within this contract are removed, or the contract ripped up altogether?

America’s Loyal Syrian Kurdish Allies Evade Annihilation While US forces in Iraq face expulsion by Malcolm Lowe

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13493/syria-kurds-us-allies

It would be strategic wisdom to maintain the small US presence in Syria while reducing the US profile in Iraq in order to forestall a looming demand by the Iraqi parliament for a total US withdrawal. Now it is probably too late because the Syrian Kurds have decided to abandon the US before the US abandons them. It seems that US forces will leave Syria not on American and Turkish terms but on Russian and Iranian terms.

Trump was doubtless informed about events in Iraq on a running basis by McGurk over recent months, but his statements at the US base were as nonchalant about the facts in Iraq as about the situation in Syria. What he does not imagine at all is that the day may be close when the Iraqi parliament votes by a large majority to ask him to remove US forces from the country — and he will have to comply.

The consequences of these December days will delay regime change in Iran. If a perception arises in Iran that the regime can expel the US from Iraq as well as Syria, while expanding its influence to dominate Syria from end to end, some Iranians will give the regime another chance and others will be significantly more discouraged from challenging its power. Thus a single obstinate insistence to prefer a personal instinct to all better-informed advice may bring US policy tumbling down throughout the Middle East.

In April 2018, we warned that President Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from Syria would be a repetition of President Obama’s worst mistake, the precipitate withdrawal from Iraq that facilitated the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State (ISIS).

We perceived that the immediate consequence of abandoning Syria would be a Turkish-led campaign to annihilate America’s Syrian Kurdish allies, who heroically bore the brunt of defeating the ISIS in Syria and capturing its capital, Raqqa.

The conclusion drawn was that the Syrian Kurds would have no choice but to appeal to Iran for help. For it was only Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman who had protested vehemently against the Turkish-facilitated capture of Afrin, a Kurdish town in northwest Syria, in March by an Islamist militia. In the meantime, Turkey has sent many thousands of Kurds fleeing, who have been replaced with “displaced Syrian Arabs from East Ghouta.” The Islamist militia has subjected Christians to Sharia-style dhimmitude and forced Yazidis to convert to Islam on pain of death. Amnesty International has also reported on rampant offences against property and individuals; it mentions the thousands of refugees who have fled from Afrin.

Unveiling the Left’s Globalist Agenda Frontpage associate editor Christine Williams reveals the real culprit behind illegal immigration.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272391/unveiling-lefts-globalist-agenda-frontpagemagcom

[Below is a Sputnik News interview with Frontpage Associate Editor Christine Douglass-Williams about the Left’s globalist agenda behind the massive flow of illegals trying to break through America’s border.]

On December 25, the US Customs and Border Protection said that the second migrant child died after being apprehended over an illegal entry attempt in the United States over the past month. Sputnik spoke about it to Christine Douglass Williams, a human rights activist and former director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

Sputnik: In your view, why is the mainstream media not focusing on the fact that children are being used as human shields by parent to cross the border illegally?

Christine Douglass Williams: Mainstream media is primarily Left-leaning and partisan at best, an activist at worst. The globalist, no-borders agenda is the political priority of Democrats. The Left-leaning media feasts on anti-Trump rhetoric to disparage and malign him in the eyes of the general population. Nothing is worse than an uncaring, inhumane bigot who doesn’t care about children dying. So, portraying Trump as “bigoted”, “racist”, “nationalist”, “uncaring” in his opposition to illegal immigration is the worse. Holding the illegal migrants accountable is contrary to the open-door mission.

The mainstream media will not inform about any facts that may sway public opinion away from the Democrat agenda. The recklessness in reporting real news is even immoral. The obsession of the media is “Russian collusion” when it comes to Trump when there is no evidence of such. The Caravan’s violation of American sovereign borders is a crisis, however. The right of Americans to know who is entering their borders, investigations of the political power brokers who are driving illegal immigration activism-and the real victims that stand to lose big from that drive-are important for mainstream media to be focussing on.

But, children being used as human shields to cross the border illegally is not expedient to report about widely. Imagine, throwing rocks at border agents while using women and children as human shields being pushed out in front as they attacked authorities. This is monstrous, but to advance a no-border agenda, it is the Border Patrol agents who are doing their jobs to protect America and uphold the law that is being portrayed in the media as Boogeymen.

Walter Russell Mead: 2018’s Biggest Loser Was the Liberal International Order The runners-up are China, the U.K., France’s Macron and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/2018s-biggest-loser-was-the-liberal-international-order-11546199900

It’s been a year of tumult and chaos in world politics. In Japan, a national poll selected the kanji character sai, meaning disaster, as best reflecting the national mood. Perhaps 2019 will bring better news. In the meantime, here are the states, individuals, institutions and ideas that were 2018’s biggest losers. Next week: the winners.

• China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In 2018 Beijing began to learn how hard it is to build an international system. The BRI isn’t only a massive infrastructure project intended to build an integrated commercial area centered on China; it is an attempt to translate China’s economic might into geopolitical power.

After Beijing forced Sri Lanka to hand over control of its Hambantota port facilities for 99 years to satisfy its debt late in 2017, this year saw China’s most important BRI targets cancel existing agreements (Malaysia), demand better terms (Pakistan) and scale back projects (Myanmar). Chinese ties to South Africa’s Gupta family (widely blamed for facilitating the corruption of former president Jacob Zuma) and other corrupt figures have contributed to a more skeptical view of Beijing’s intentions across Asia and Africa. The pushback has only begun. China’s debt-trap diplomacy will face more obstacles in 2019.

• Britain. The United Kingdom slowly twisted in the wind in 2018, unable to negotiate an acceptable European Union exit package or to make up its mind what to do next. At year’s end the future of Brexit is as uncertain as it was 12 months ago. None of the available options—accept the EU’s offer, crash out of the EU in a “no deal” Brexit, hold a second referendum, or give up and remain in the EU—command a parliamentary majority. Within living memory Britain was one of the world’s leading powers and its parliamentary system lauded as the most successful model of democratic governance. At the start of 2019, British prestige and power are touching new lows.

• Mohammed bin Salman. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia managed to keep his job in 2018, but otherwise the year was a nightmare for him and his country. Staging the brutal murder in Istanbul of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may have been intended to deliver a message to the Turkish leader, a Saudi rival. Instead the Turks outplayed the Saudis and dripped out one damaging revelation after another as the Saudi public-relations machine struggled to contain the fallout. Saudi prestige bled further as the kingdom’s war in Yemen wrought havoc on civilians.

When Harry Cheated on Sally by Linda Goudsmit

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/22188/when-harry-cheated-on-sally,http://goudsmit.pundicity.com
http://lindagoudsmit.com

When Harry cheated on Sally he accused Sally of cheating. What? It is called projection. Psychological projection is a “psychological defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others.” Projection is a method of blame shifting – Harry blamed Sally for what Harry did.

When Harry accuses Sally it is incumbent upon Sally to defend herself from the bogus charges. This cunning maneuver shifts the focus from Harry to Sally which is the underlying strategic objective of the false allegations. So, while Sally is busy defending herself Harry’s guilt goes unchallenged and he can continue to cheat. The best defense is an offense.

Political projection operates in the same way. A politician or political group accuses the opposition of doing precisely what they are doing themselves. The coordinated attack on President Trump and the well-orchestrated, well-funded effort to destabilize and delegitimize his presidency is a prime example of political projection.

So, who is the opposition and what are the charges?

In my 12.23.18 article, “The Betrayal of America: Who Do You Trust” I define globalism as synonymous with one world government and state unequivocally that:

“Globalists are the existential enemy of American sovereignty, independence, and they are desperately trying to destroy America first President Donald Trump and every one of his America first initiatives. Globalism is at war with Americanism…Globalist politicians are enemies of the state and serve their own agenda on both sides of the aisle. Their loyalties are to the global enterprise (one world government) and not to the United States of America.”

So, how do the globalist elite control the corrupt globalist politicians in the Washington swamp? They finance their preferred candidates of course!

Hillary Clinton was the globalist darling of 2016 – OOPS – that did not go as planned. So, the deep state had to switch to alternative Plan Y – their insurance policy that would destroy President Trump by any means necessary. The litany of allegations and accusations leveled against POTUS are staggering and the commitment to investigate them shown by the deep state operatives is stunningly hypocritical.