Displaying posts published in

March 2025

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Has Set Up Iran’s Next War in the Middle East by Gordon G. Chang

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21488/china-iran-middle-east-war

Iran, in short, has a nuclear weapons program because of China. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as the “atomic ayatollahs,” in violation of their treaty obligations, worked on building these fearsome devices. President Donald Trump, to his credit, is taking the issue head on.

Tehran almost certainly has [a nuclear bomb] by now. The Iranians themselves have made that clear. There is only a “one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test” of a nuclear bomb, according to an April 2024 public statement of a senior Iran lawmaker.

Diplomats from Russia, Iran, and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Tehran, bolstered by Beijing and Moscow, publicly said it had no desire to talk to Trump.

There are in fact conversations behind the scenes, but Iran nonetheless would not be as brazen if Beijing were not fully supporting it.

If Waltz is as good as his word — that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — then China, by arming the ayatollahs with nukes, has made sure that the world’s next confrontation will be historic.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told ABC News’s Martha Raddatz on March 16th.

Waltz’s demand was in fact more comprehensive. He said that Iran must also hand over, among other things, missiles and uranium enrichment capability.

China helped Iran possess both. Beijing has set the stage for the next war in the Middle East.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Inside the Cult of Luigi Mangione By Olivia Reingold

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/inside-the-cult-of-luigi-mangione
A Columbia grad, a cashier from Utah, and a Lockheed Martin engineer have one thing in common: They believe the alleged killer is a progressive American hero.

For the past few months, Nicole Haedo, a 36-year-old logistics coordinator, has been walking around her small town of DeKalb, Illinois, wielding an act of “quiet defiance” at her fingertips: a fresh manicure dedicated to progressive causes.

Ten nails, each a proverbial middle finger. On her left hand, her thumb bears the word TRUMP with a slash through it. On her pinkie: BLM. Her middle digit is an ode to The Handmaid’s Tale—an avatar for abortion rights. And the nail on her pointer finger is painted black with the words FREE LUIGI painted on top in bright green.

“It’s my small way of showing support,” she told me. “This is my way of keeping his story alive.”

She is talking about Luigi Mangione—the 26-year-old man accused of murdering a healthcare CEO in Manhattan in the early hours of December 4, 2024.

Haedo said her mom was shocked when she first saw her tribute to the suspect.

“She was like, ‘But he’s a murderer,’ ” Haedo told me. “I’m like, well, first of all, ‘He’s innocent until proven guilty—and second, whoever the shooter was, if his actions start to change the healthcare system, it saves lives.’ ”

Sure, “nobody wants to see bloodshed,” she admitted to me. But “the shooting of the CEO was just a small tip of the iceberg of what’s to come in America.”

“People are getting fed up,” she said.

“It’s my small way of showing support,” Haedo says of her pro-Mangione manicure. “This is my way of keeping his story alive.” (Lyndon French for The Free Press)

When Americans learned that a man shrouded in black had fired three gunshots into the back of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk, the first reaction for most was horror. But within hours, a different emotion began to surface: glee. By the afternoon, when UnitedHealthcare announced the death of its top executive on Facebook, more than 77,000 online commenters found it so funny they responded with a laughter emoji. Meanwhile, Reddit users were discussing how to start a legal defense fund for the gunman.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

Every week I look forward to Michael Ordman’s exhaustive compilation of positive news from Israel, the best antidote to columnists, academics, and newscasters who routinely defame, libel and slander the Jewish nation.  Israel, an embattled democracy makes more contributions per capita to the health and aspirations of humanity, than any other nation. Read it all. rsk

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR

$1.7 million raised for Bibas family. In a public fundraising campaign, the Lehosheet Yad (Lend a Hand) foundation has raised more than $1.7 million in 24 hours from nearly 31,000 donors. It will help freed hostage Yarden Bibas’s recovery and establish a memorial for his wife, Shiri, and two young sons, Ariel and Kfir.

https://www.jns.org/bibas-family-fundraiser-exceeds-1-3-million-in-under-24-hours/

The 10,000th Birthright volunteer. New York’s Madison Stock is the 10,000th participant in the Birthright Israel volunteer program. Activities include food rescue operations to prevent shortages in the Israeli market and supporting kibbutz restoration projects in areas hardest hit on Oct 7 2023 and the subsequent war.

https://www.jns.org/22-year-old-is-10000th-participant-in-birthright-israel-volunteer-program/

IDF soldier makes connection in Sri Lanka. A Golani soldier wounded in Gaza, was vacationing in Sri Lanka and read the story of Purim in a synagogue. He suddenly realized that the scroll he was reading from had been dedicated to the memory of 3 IDF soldiers including has own Major, Moshe Bar-On who fell in the same battle.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/405368

Syrian Druze visit sacred site in Israel. Israel opened its border to allow hundreds of Syrian Druze dignitaries and leaders to visit Israel. They the Galilee tomb of the Biblical Yitro (revered as a prophet) for the first time since 1948.  Amazing video. Useful article about the Druze at the second link below.

https://www.israelunwired.com/israel-opens-its-borders-for-syrian-druze-something-big-is-about-to-happen/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-druze-honor-the-prophet-jethro-in-annual-pilgrimage-to-ancient-tomb/

Aid for Syrian Druze. 10,000 packages of humanitarian aid (including oil, salt, flour, sugar, rice, and more) have been delivered to the Druze community in the battle areas of Syria. This was coordinated with the head of the Druze community Sheikh Muafik Tarif, and the Druze Religious Council, and the IDF.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/405309

How to navigate crises. Waze co- founder Uri Levine has published a new edition of his handbook for entrepreneurs, “Fall in Love With the Problem, Not the Solution”. It now has a chapter on how to navigate crises, such as Oct 7 2023 and the subsequent war, using interviews with CEOs and their roads to recovery.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/waze-co-founder-uri-levine-has-written-the-book-on-startups-navigating-crises-literally/

Still happy despite the war. Israel remains in the top ten list of happiest countries in the world despite an anxious year with the wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its 8th placed in the World Happiness Report 2025 is down from 5th in 2024 but still remarkable, considering.

https://www.jns.org/israel-8th-happiest-country-despite-war/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Identifying gene on / off switches. (TY TPS) Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Medical Center used DNA methylation (chemical tagging human DNA) to uncover insights into how genes are turned on and off. It could transform the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases.

https://worldisraelnews.com/new-dna-mapping-reveals-gene-on-off-switches-paving-way-for-disease-treatment/

Why people exercise. Tel Aviv University researchers used AI tools to discover what motivates people to exercise. They found that 23.9% of those who engage in sports do so to improve their appearance, 18.9% exercise to maintain their physical health, and 16.9% exercise to maintain their mental health.

https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-research-people-exercise-more-for-their-appearance-than-their-physical-health/    https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e54489

 

More smiles soon. (TY Atid-EDI) Dror Ortho-Design has successfully completed user experience trials for its ZSmile platform (see here previously) ahead of commercial release. Feedback has been integrated for ZSmile to begin manufacture and distribution in Israel in the first half of 2025. 250 patients have already been treated.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/02/24/3031133/0/en/Dror-Successfully-Completes-User-Experience-Trial-of-its-new-ZSmile-Platform.html

 

Personal 3D models for pre-surgical training. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Stratasys and Europe’s Siemens have used Stratasys’ RadioMatrix™ materials and Digital Anatomy® technology with Siemens Healthineers’ algorithms to produce complex patient-specific anatomical models for pre-surgery planning and education.

https://investors.stratasys.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/932/stratasys-and-siemens-healthineers-bring-a-new-era-for

 

Mental health tech innovation. The 2025 Israeli Mental Health Technology Landscape Map, by Startup Nation Central and the ICAR Collective and Bezyl, highlights around 120 Israeli companies leveraging AI, automation, and digital platforms to enhance mental health care access and improve treatment outcomes.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/syxaay0sjg

https://finder.startupnationcentral.org/reports/mental-health-2025-landscape-map

 

1-2-3. (TY Yanky) Efrat and Daniel Cohen were delighted when their first child was followed by twins. Now Efrat has given birth to triplets at the Kaplan Medical Centre. Says Efrat: “The staff were amazing, supportive and attentive. We have given the grandmothers a heads-up – double shifts and night shifts if needed.”

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/bj124vnj1x

Remote healthcare in Virginia and North Dakota. (TY OurCrowd) Uninsured patients in rural southwest Virginia will receive remote medical monitors from Israel’s TytoCare (see here previously) to save hospital visits. Meanwhile, medics in North Dakota with TytoCare devices will visit patients discharged from hospital.

https://wtop.com/virginia/2025/03/bringing-the-doctor-to-your-doorstep-rural-virginia-clinics-expand-telehealth-access/ https://news.sanfordhealth.org/news/hospital-at-home-program-launches-at-sanford-fargo/

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Angst of the Well-Endowed One enormous facet of the education controversy remains ignored Matt Taibbi

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/the-angst-of-the-well-endowed
I’m sure a lot of good people are being hammered by the recent cuts, and yes, there are real speech issues in play. The reaction from academia however leads me to believe these institutions are so myopic and intrinsically exploitative that they can’t be fixed without first being taken apart. They have to be moved back to reality, but if they won’t go on their own, what is there to do?

From Thomas Edsall in the New York Times this morning:

Marc Andreessen, a billionaire venture capitalist, cryptocurrency investor and pivotal but unofficial adviser to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, made the case in a recent interview that the entire system of American higher education should be shuttered and abandoned… The American university system commands worldwide respect. What would prompt a call for its abolition?

At Johns Hopkins, the loss of $800 million in U.S.A.I.D. grants has forced the school to lay off 2,200 foreign and domestic workers… The Trump administration announced that it was cutting $400 million in grants to Columbia University “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

Twenty years ago, maybe even ten, I’d have found these stories about Elon Von Hitler-Musk detonating thousands of campus-related jobs horrifying. But the education sob stories now flying off the presses are a Burj Khalifa of “needs context.” A gigantic lie of omission is a constant feature of these stories:

Take Johns Hopkins. NBC News was one of many to highlight the “grave consequences” the new administration’s policies have had on the famed institution, noting “the changes will also have an economic impact in Baltimore because the university is the largest private employer in Maryland.” NBC pointed out that “about half of Johns Hopkins’ funding last year came from federal research dollars, according to a letter from Ron Daniels, the university’s president.”

It seemed odd that the “largest private employer in Maryland” is half-funded by the federal “research dollars,” but I shrugged and went to the Johns Hopkins website to read the Daniels letter. When there’s money on the line and university presidents have time to compose their thoughts, expect the ultimate in soaring magniloquent resplenditude. Daniels didn’t disappoint.

Continue reading →
MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The New York Times Makes a Stunning Admission About the Democrats Matt Margolis

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/03/22/the-nyt-make-a-stunning-admission-about-the-democrats-n4938177

Liberals are in full-blown panic mode over President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Democrats in Congress are hysterically crying “constitutional crisis,” while unhinged activists are lashing out at Tesla vehicles and showrooms—all because Elon Musk dares to support cutting government waste. Conservatives have long suspected there’s a deeper reason why the left goes berserk over efforts to rein in reckless spending. Now, the New York Times has accidentally said the quiet part out loud—the left’s political machine is fueled by your tax dollars.

In a stunning admission, the Times wrote:

Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.

Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come.

So far, the attacks have been diffuse and sometimes indiscriminate or inaccurate. But inside the administration, there are moves to coordinate and expand the assault.

A small group of White House officials has been working to identify targets and vulnerabilities inside the Democratic ecosystem, taking stock of previous efforts to investigate them, according to two people familiar with the group’s work who requested anonymity to describe it.

Continue reading →
IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Reclaiming Control of America’s Immigration System By Allen Gindler

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/03/reclaiming_control_of_america_s_immigration_system.html

In biology, the membrane defines the boundary of a cell, regulating what enters and exits to ensure the cell’s survival.  Without this boundary, the cell disintegrates.

Similarly, a nation’s border defines its sovereignty, regulating the flow of people, goods, and ideas to protect its identity and security.  President Donald Trump captured this truth when he asserted, “We do not have a state without a border.”

Just as a cell membrane is essential for life, a nation’s border is essential for its existence.  The state’s role, at its core, is to provide law and order — establishing and enforcing laws that govern what crosses its borders.  This includes regulating commodities, labor, and investment, not by dictating individual choices, but by ensuring that all actions comply with the rule of law.  The debate over how much regulation is necessary often divides libertarians and conservatives, but ordinary Americans intuitively understand that uncontrolled illegal immigration is akin to finding an uninvited stranger in your home.  It disrupts the order and security that borders are meant to protect.

The immigration issue was one of the key factors that brought Trump to the presidency.  It even saved his life when a bullet grazed his ear as he turned his head toward a banner displaying a graph on illegal immigration.  In principle, President Trump is right on immigration, and his stance resonates with the public.  However, campaign promises and realities on the ground do not necessarily align.

Below, I summarize data from several studies on immigration, which present a slightly different picture from what rally rhetoric suggests.

According to the most recent Pew Research Center estimates, the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States grew to 11.0 million in 2022.  This situation is indeed unacceptable, and changes are necessary — not only for Trump’s term, but also for the foreseeable future.  To achieve this, amendments must be made to the nation’s laws.

Continue reading →
BOOKS, RELIGION Comments turned off

Nora Kenney Faith in the Age of AI Ross Douthat’s book offers modern readers reason to believe.

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/believe-why-everyone-should-be-religious-ross-douthat-review

Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, by Ross Douthat (Zondervan, 240 pp., $26.99)

Religious belief can feel like the last refuge from pervasive technology. When New York Times columnist Ross Douthat called our society “decadent” in 2020, the threat of such technologies seemed comparatively distant. Innovation appeared stagnant, and our most pressing crises were updated versions of age-old conflicts—battles over “identity,” a scolding progressive moralism, and a plague.

Just five years later, the landscape has shifted. Drone warfare, cyborg defense experiments, and ChatGPT are among the signs of rapid technological acceleration. These developments make religious faith feel more urgent—not as a reactionary impulse, but as a steadying force. “Can religion save us from artificial intelligence?” asked a 2023 Los Angeles Times piece. Perhaps—but that religion would need to be something solid and enduring, not “moralistic therapeutic deism,” tribal wokeism on the left, or neo-paganism on the right.

Enter Douthat’s Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. His new book doesn’t frame itself as a response to technological advances, but in the wake of his The Decadent Society and developments since, it’s easy to read it that way.

Continue reading →
BOOKS, MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Ned Ryun’s “Must See” Documentary: American Leviathan—The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism Ned Ryun’s American Leviathan warns that the unelected Administrative State threatens America’s constitutional republic, urging populist unity to dismantle its power. By Thaddeus G. McCotter

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/22/ned-ryuns-must-see-documentary-american-leviathan-the-birth-of-the-administrative-state-and-progressive-authoritarianism/

ore than merely a companion piece to his bestselling book of the same name, Ned Ryun’s documentary film, American Leviathan: The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism, further explores and explains the perils the proponents and practitioners of the unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucracy pose for our constitutional republic.

A project of American Majority and Iron Light, which was directed by Jason Rink and edited by Keith Wahrer, American Leviathan commences with Mr. Ryun as our narrator, and we are subsequently led through the labyrinthine Leviathan with the able assistance of both intellectual and political defenders of our freedom, who describe the origins and aims of the Administrative State (as well as its subgroup of intelligence and police power-wielding entities known colloquially as the “Deep State.”)

These devotees of “first principles” and “permanent things” include elected officials, such as U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Jim Banks (R-Ind.), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.); and U.S. Representative Chip Roy (R-Tex.). Further, the documentary also interviews intellectual luminaries from academia, MAGA-aligned “think tanks,” and practical policy shops: Mark Corallo, Steve Cortes, Rachel Bovard, Wade Miller, Mike Davis, Bradley Watson, Elle Prunell, and Jeff Clark.

The impetus for Mr. Ryun’s documentary is succinctly put by Mr. Bradley Watson: “‘Our Democracy’ has become synonymous with an embrace of the Administrative State. Anything the Administrative State is doing, anything the Deep State is doing is identified by the left with ‘Our Democracy.’ And, in fact, it is the enemy of our constitutional republic.”

He is correct.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Trump’s War on Woke: Columbia and Big Law Fall in Line Columbia and corporate elites cave to Trump’s crackdown on woke institutions, as his administration enforces fiscal discipline and accountability—with years left to escalate. By Roger Kimball

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/23/trumps-war-on-woke-columbia-and-big-law-fall-in-line/

The parade of capitulations to Donald Trump’s instauration of America has been breathtaking. on to the phase of grumbling, then abject acquiescence. Here are a couple of notable examples from the last several days.

Columbia University, one conspicuous home of Intifada wannabes, was dinged some $400 million in government contracts because it had conspicuously failed to follow laws prohibiting discrimination. As Secretary of Education Linda McMahon explained, since the October 7, 2023, slaughter by Hamas of some 1,200 Israelis in Gaza, “Jewish students have faced relentless violence, intimidation, and anti-Semitic harassment on their campuses—only to be ignored by those who are supposed to protect them.”

At first, Columbia officials attempted to mount some moderately high, if decrepit, horses to insist on their defiance. But just a few days ago, the administration completely caved, basically acceding in substance to all nine of Trump’s demands. The university agreed to ban masks and allow campus police officers to arrest unruly students. It also agreed to appoint a senior university official to oversee the Department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies as well as the Center for Palestine Studies. The university objected to the term “receivership” to describe this outcome. But as The Wall Street Journal noted, “the changes align with what usually happens in a receivership.”

Although The Wall Street Journal is not usually thought of as a comic publication, that column did contain one inadvertently hilarious sentence. The column noted that educational institutions across the country are watching what is happening at Columbia “with alarm.” They should be alarmed, for the same reason that John Donne advised readers not to ask for whom the bell tolls. Then came the funny bit. “Their primary concern,” the Journal intoned, was that “without freedom to follow their intellectual curiosity, the discoveries and innovations that fuel the U.S.’s economy will decline or even grind to a halt.”

Set the phenomenon of “intellectual curiosity” on one side of a chart. Then write down “Columbia’s Departments of Middle East and Palestine Studies.” What connects the two? It’s a baffling problem that no one has yet been able to answer.

But it is probably not as baffling as the suggestion that what goes on in those politicized, anti-Semitic redoubts has ever issued in “discoveries and innovations that fuel the U.S.’s economy” or that, absent such putative “discoveries and innovations,” said the economy would “decline or even grind to a halt.”

That would be like saying that Columbia’s “Women’s and Gender Studies” Department featured “intellectual curiosity,” as distinct from politicized grievance-mongering, or that any verbiage emitted from those hothouse quarters ever issued in “discoveries and innovations that fuel the U.S.’s economy.”

Continue reading →
HOMELAND SECURITY, MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Rallies Against Deportation of Student Who Urged Taking “Cue” from Hamas “My hatred of the US empire knows no bound” Daniel Greenfield

By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/media-rallies-against-deportation-student-who-urged-taking-cue-from-hamas/

Momodou Taal had a simple plan. Come to America on a student visa to destroy it from within.

In one post, he wrote, “The end of the US empire in our lifetime in sha Allah.” Months later, he celebrated receiving his student visa, writing, “Student Visa issued. We going to America baby! Alhamdulillah!” Shortly thereafter, he tweeted, “My hatred of the US empire knows no bound. Wallahi.”

“When the enemy is US imperialism, then absolutely anyone the US calls an enemy is my friend,” he posted in July. “My hatred for US imperialism and the global system it reproduces knows no bounds,” he wrote one month prior. “At this point; any movement, nation, people who are working to decrease the impact and effects of US imperialism on the world has my support.”

Any sane country would never have let the likes of Momodou Taal inside. But we let him in and welcomed him in every possible way as he chanted support for Islamic terrorism.

While leading an anti-Israel campus demonstration last year, Taal called on his fellow student protesters to take their “cue from the armed resistance in Palestine.”

That is to say Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Jihadist groups.

Taal made a similar statement hours after the October 7 attacks, writing, “The dialect demands: That wherever you have oppression, you will find those who [are] fighting against it. Glory to the resistance!”

Continue reading →