Displaying the most recent of 90914 posts written by

Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Walensky Dodges on How Many U.S. Covid Deaths Are Actually Caused by Covid By Caroline Downey

By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/walensky-dodges-on-how-many-u-s-covid-deaths-are-actually-caused-by-covid/

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, CDC director Rochelle Walensky failed to clarify how many of the 836,000 U.S. patients whose deaths were attributed to Covid in the last two years had underlying medical conditions.

“How many of the 836,000 deaths in the U.S. linked to Covid are from Covid or how many are with Covid but they had other co-morbidities. Do you have that breakdown?” anchor Bret Baier asked.

“Yes, of course, with Omicron we’re following that very carefully, our death registry takes a few weeks to collect and Omicron has been with us for just a few weeks but those data will be forthcoming,” Walensky replied.

Throughout the pandemic, public-health officials have harped on the alarming fatality rate of the virus but have not clarified whether Covid death record-keeping reflects accompanying risk factors that may have been present in victims.

For example, some mainstream news outlets published scientific studies last week recognizing the long-indisputable fact that obesity is a Covid comorbidity, making people likelier to suffer seriously from the disease. A CDC study from December, which surveyed juvenile (under age 18) cases of Covid that necessitated hospitalization, “approximately two thirds of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 aged 12–17 years had obesity.” In addition, “compared with patients without obesity, those with obesity required higher levels and longer duration of care.”

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Nothing to Bragg About Under its new anti-prosecution district attorney, Manhattan might be in for more dark days. Rafael A. Mangual

By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.city-journal.org/manhattans-new-anti-prosecution-district-attorney-alvin-bragg

Less than a week ago, New Yorkers closed the book on a year that saw 485 murders—a slight rise over 2020, which saw a massive increase over 2019. Along with marking the end of Bill de Blasio’s tenure as mayor, 2021 also became the fourth consecutive year in which Big Apple homicides increased. Four straight years of homicide increases: that has never happened in my lifetime. Depressing as the crime data have been as of late, many Gothamites rang in the New Year with optimism about new mayor Eric Adams, a former cop who ran on an explicitly anti-crime platform. But New Yorkers are quickly learning that last year’s election outcomes weren’t universally anti-crime.

On January 3, newly minted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg distributed a memo setting out a number of radical changes to the office’s approach to law enforcement. For starters, he was doing away with the whole “enforcement” thing for a host of offenses: fare evasion, trespass, traffic infractions, resisting arrest, prostitution . . . the list goes on. With some exceptions, these offenses (among others) will no longer be prosecuted in Manhattan. Many other misdemeanors will now be met with diversion into “programs,” completion of which will also trigger non-prosecution.

More serious charges, like robbery and burglary, will be downgraded in many cases, according to the memo. If someone robs a convenience store with an empty gun, a Manhattan prosecutor must now charge the offender with petit larceny (a Class A misdemeanor) instead of robbery in the first degree (a Class B felony). Never mind that in a situation like that, the clerk, if armed, would be well within her rights to shoot the crook dead—such conduct is no longer deemed serious enough to warrant the kind of prison sentence that would normally accompany a robbery conviction.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Racial Essentialism Corrupts Medicine Minnesota has joined New York in using race to determine access to life-saving Covid treatments. Rav Arora

By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.city-journal.org/racial-essentialism-corrupts-medicine

The progressive Left is openly attempting to codify racial categories into education, culture, law—and now medicine. New York State has authorized health-care providers to include race in a set of risk factors to determine who qualifies for the limited quantity of life-saving Covid-19 treatments. New York City’s official guidance to providers also reads: “Longstanding systemic health and social inequities may contribute to an increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.” As a result, health-care providers in the city will now “consider race and ethnicity when assessing individual risk,” prioritizing nonwhite patients over their white counterparts.

Skin color is far too broad a category to offer any meaningful insight at the individual level. Using race as a proxy to assess an individual’s risk would make sense only if there were evidence that it genetically puts one at higher risk of severe Covid. No such evidence exists. The virus does not appear to selectively target those of African descent, for example. African countries generally have far lower Covid death rates than Western ones.

Of course, the New York Health Department is not claiming otherwise. Under the influence of woke ideology, it is using oversimplified racial categories to correct for alleged systemic inequities that fall along racial lines. On progressive thinking, this compromising of medical practice allegedly achieves a greater social good. Racial prioritization is not perfect, say progressives, but it is justified on a group level since whites have better outcomes than “people of color” in the aggregate.

But even this rationale doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Not all nonwhite groups suffer more than whites on average from Covid. According to CDC data last updated on November 22, Asian-Americans have a 20 percent lower rate of Covid hospitalizations and a 10 percent lower rate of Covid deaths. There is no justification for prioritizing Asians over whites for Covid therapeutics.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Crimes in the Name of Religion”: The Persecution of Christians, November 2021 by Raymond Ibrahim

By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18097/persecution-of-christians-november

“The servants of Allah entered my house in order to remove the clothes which they were wearing, because they were soaked in blood, and said that they had killed an infidel, hence Allah will reward them….” — Morning Star News; November 14, 2021; Uganda.

“The United Nations has estimated that since 2011, Boko Haram has killed more than 15,200 Nigerians and forced 1.7 million others from their homes as it has sought to turn Nigeria into an Islamic nation ruled by Sharia law.” — Catholicherald.co.uk, November 5, 2021; Nigeria.

On November 17, the U.S. removed Nigeria from its list of Countries of Particular Concern, meaning nations that engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. Nigeria was the country with the most Christians killed (3,530) for their faith in 2020….. “If the U.S. CPC list means anything at all – an open question at this point – Nigeria belongs on it.” — Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, quoting Christian Solidarity, Nigeria.

“[I]n recent weeks there have been cases in which the terrorists have first been asking whether the owner [of cattle] is a Christian or a Muslim…. ‘If the owners were Christians the attackers didn’t consider it necessary to count their animals, because they said that they didn’t just want to take their animals, but also to kill the owners….'” — churchinneed.org, November 5, 2021; Nigeria.

“They also tried to force my wife and our four children to convert to Islam, but when they refused to convert, they shot my wife in the head while our four children were cut into pieces with a Somali sword… the rebel militants intend to establish an Islamist state ruled by sharia [Islamic law].” — Morning Star News, December 1, 2021, for November 20-25, 2021; Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to a separate, November 19 report, in just the first half of 2021, in Pakistan’s Punjab Province alone, 6,754 women were abducted. Out of those, 1,890 were raped, 3,721 were tortured and 752 children were raped. The same report notes that “over 1,000 girls belonging to Hindu and Christian communities are forcefully converted to Islam every year in Pakistan.”

“Mareeb is only 12 years old, and she cannot marry. The perpetrators commit these crimes in the name of religion.” — Pastor Zahid Augustine, asianews.it; Pakistan.

Ramy Kamel, a Christian activist arrested two years earlier for reporting on the persecution of the nation’s indigenous Christian minority, the Copts, remained under arrest—mostly in solitary confinement, and sometimes under torture—beyond the maximum amount of time permitted by law. “Furthermore, Ramy Kamel’s case is not unique. There are many other Egyptian activists, journalists, politicians, and regular citizens who are suffering under Egypt’s sham of a judicial system.” — copticsolidarity.org, November 29, 2021; Egypt.

Based on a new law that came into effect on November 1, converting out of Islam has become illegal in Malaysia’s Kelantan State. Apostates now face prison, fines, and/or caning. Other sharia-compliant mandates that also came into effect in November include laws against disrespecting Ramadan, misrepresenting Islam, getting tattoos or plastic surgery, engaging in sexual intercourse with corpses and non-humans, and witchcraft. — thestar.com.my, November 2, 2021; Malaysia.

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of November 2021:

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on January 9th, 2022

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

Israel is open again to all foreign tourists, including so many from formerly hostile nations. Tourism is Israel’s best defense against the bias and libels that plague the democratic, diverse, inclusive and free wheeling Jewish State. Many of those tourists are citizens of nations that profit from the dazzling and outsize research and development of life enriching technology that brings succor, hope and light 24/7 to millions of people throughout the globe. To his enormous credit, Michael Ordman catalogs the foregoing as well as Israel’s outstanding social and entertainment institutions in his weekly newsletters.  rsk

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Etta’s cancer breakthrough. Professor Etta Livneh of Israel’s Ben Gurion University has found a peptide (uPEP2) in the body’s messenger RNA that inhibits cancer cell survival, tumor progression, metastasis and more. Amazingly, uPEP2 originates from a gene classified with the Greek letter Eta (Prof Livneh’s forename).
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/hetta_livne.aspx   https://www.pnas.org/content/118/40/e2018899118
 
Unraveling the genetics of ADHD. Israeli scientists at Ben-Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center have proved that a mutation in a single gene, CDH2, can cause ADHD. Molecular analysis of neurons in mutant mice demonstrated the precise effects of the mutation on the activity of synapses in the brain.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/mind-and-spirit/what-causes-adhd-new-israeli-study-may-have-found-out-687668   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26426-1
 
First Israeli to receive new Alzheimer’s treatment. (TY WIN) Yirmiyahu Kozari, 57, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, is the first Israeli to receive Aduhelm (Aducanumab) from Biogen, at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. The treatment removes beta-amyloid from the brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz39Zt5HZcw
 
First shipment of anti-Covid pill. Israel has received its first consignment of tens of thousands of Pfizer’s COVID-fighting Paxlovid pills – the first country outside the USA to take delivery. Israel has authorized use of the treatment, which is effective if taken within five days of the onset of coronavirus symptoms.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-first-shipment-of-pfizer-covid-pills-set-to-arrive/
 
Dormant insulin-producing cells. Israeli scientists have discovered that babies make insulin in their intestines before birth. The responsible cells are present after birth, but they no longer produce insulin. This means that adults may have a “backup” system that could be reactivated to treat diabetes.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-scientists-say-humans-may-have-backup-insulin-system-diabetics-could-use/  https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/while-waiting-food-surprising-fetal-gut-cells-make-insulin
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01586-1
 
Haifa’s digital health accelerator launched. Plans to promote tech innovation in Haifa (see here previously) have come to fruition with the launch of Startup City Haifa – Digital Health Accelerator. Led by JVP, Margalit Startup City and others, it will support startups working on advanced medical technology and cybersecurity.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3926027,00.html
 
Coexistence saves Myanmar girl. 8-year-old Hannah from Myanmar was brought to Israel for an urgent operation by Jewish, Muslim and Christian doctors from Israeli non-profit Save A Child’s Heart. The surgeons were led by Dr Hagi Dekel and included Dr Mervat El-Faraha from the PA and Dr Ziwa Modniso from Zambia.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/only-in-israel-jewish-christian-and-muslim-doctors-save-8-year-old-from-myanmar/
 
Brain surgery under local anesthetic. (TY WIN) Israel’s Rabin Medical Center recently completed the world’s first ever operation on a patient’s brain, using ketamine as a local anesthetic. They performed Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), implanting an electrode to cure the tremors of a patient with Parkinson’s disease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1TYsT0tJoo
 
The world’s smallest needles. Israel’s NanoPass (see here) is partnering Korea’s Micro2Nano to mass-produce the world’s smallest needles.  The tiny needle uses standard syringes, allowing intradermal (between the skin layers) injections, including for coronavirus. These are painless and elicit a better immune response.
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/01/03/nanopass-developed-the-worlds-painless-smallest-medical-needle/
 
Two in a million. An Israeli woman gave birth to healthy twins at the Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) hospital. The boy and girl only encountered each other after the birth, as the mother was born with a double uterus – a rare condition, known as Uterus didelphys. Less than 15 cases of similar births have ever been reported.
https://worldisraelnews.com/one-in-a-million-israeli-woman-with-two-wombs-gives-birth-to-healthy-twins/
 
 

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

World Order: Back to the Future by Amir Taheri

By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18110/world-order

The whispering in Moscow is that Putin will try to tempt Biden with a number of promises.

These include persuading the Islamic Republic in Iran to re-endorse the Obama “nuclear deal”, which President Donald Trump denounced as a sham. Tehran’s acceptance of a new version presented by the US would give Biden his first diplomatic victory.

In exchange Putin wants the removal of sanctions, a promise not to extend NATO to Ukraine, and to gradually accept the annexation of Crimea and South Ossetia, the virtual occupation of Abkhazia, and Russia’s military presence in Transcaucasia, as so many faits accomplis.

The problem is that Putin’s hope of reverting to the status quo ante, a balance of power that no longer exists, sounds more like a fantasy than a serious strategy. This is no longer a bipolar system in which a US-USSR accord could have an immediate impact on a crisis.

With so many players trying to deal with the problems of the 21st century with solutions shaped in 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, we are unlikely to witness the emergence of a new world order anytime soon, certainly not through this week’s diplomatic razzmatazz.

In the next few days we will witness a tsunami of diplomatic agitations spanning over Geneva and Brussels as American, Russian and European leaders try to create the impression that they know what is going on and what must be done about it.

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

Veteran Miami Herald Reporter Caught Coaching Democrats to Cheat An audio recording reveals reporter Mary Ellen Klas allegedly “seeking to pre-litigate the 2022 redistricting cycle.” By Rod Thomson

By on January 9th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/08/veteran-miami-herald-reporter-caught-coaching-democrats-to-cheat/

Long-time Miami Herald reporter Mary Ellen Klas was just caught red-handed coaching Democrats on how to challenge Republican redistricting in Florida.

For conservatives and Republicans, the story is as old as time. But some amazing revelations reflecting the current state of journalism, including indisputable evidence of Klas’ partisanship, help illustrate our current predicament. Klas, who is no newbie, is the Miami Herald’s capitol bureau chief in Tallahassee, where she has covered Florida politics since the 1990s. One wonders how often she has freelanced as a political consultant over the years. In this instance, she was cavalier enough to get caught by a Republican Senate staffer who was sitting right there.

A public records request netted an audio recording by an aide to Senate President Wilton Simpson of Klas talking to state Senator Randolph Bracy, an Orlando Democrat currently running for Congress. The audio, Simpson wrote, showed Klas was “seeking to pre-litigate the 2022 redistricting cycle, pitting Senate counsel against expert witnesses frequently used by plaintiffs in litigation against the state, thereby creating a manipulated legislative record to be used in the courts.”

The story broke with Florida Power and Light—a favorite target for Klas over the years and the largest power company in the nation—taking the extreme measure of publicly going on the attack against Klas and the Herald. FPL on Wednesday launched a website called Truth Matters that details Klas’ duplicitous and partisan coverage against the power company. Giant companies rarely go to such lengths, particularly those as heavily regulated as a utility. But apparently FPL felt it had no choice, and the website makes clear why. 

The final straw for FPL was a December 20, 2021 “story” by Klas claiming FPL was using “dark money” and lobbyists to write legislation that would hamstring rooftop solar. In the increasingly dirty world of the partisan media, it’s important to note that this story was done in conjunction with Floodlight, an environmentalist group which describes itself this way on its own site: “Floodlight investigates the corporate interests holding back climate action. We partner and co-publish with local journalists and national outlets . . . .” 

So there is not even the pretense of this being honest journalism. FPL vehemently denies the veracity of the story and wrote an opinion piece refuting it. But the Miami Herald refused to run the opinion piece and instead heavily edited it down, removing all criticism of the Herald and of Klas, and then ran it as a watery letter to the editor. Even that was just in the lightly read print edition, and not online.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump in 2024? Maybe! What’s certain is not too many Americans will be willing to hand over the honor of choosing the next president to Liz Cheney and her smug, entitled, and repellent confrères. By Roger Kimball

By on January 9th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/08/trump-in-2024-maybe/

Among Trump-friendly conservatives, there seem to be essentially two strands of sentiment about who should be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. One strand says, “Donald Trump, assuming he runs and his health is good.” 

The other strand exhibits various shades of dubiousness. Some profess admiration for what Trump accomplished in his first term, but lament his “divisiveness,” which they anatomize in various ways as a product of narcissism, impulsiveness, or simple bad character. 

A few in this group blame the divisiveness not on Trump, but the people, inside his administration and out, who spent the entirety of Trump’s first term trying to undermine his presidency. A sizable segment of this dubious group would, truth be told, like to see the back of Donald Trump forever. 

Other segments of this group acknowledge that they would support Trump should he run and win the nomination, but confess, sotto voce, that they would prefer another “Trumpist” candidate. “Trumpism without Trump” is the slogan of many in this group, and it is in these circles that one repeatedly hears the names of Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, and Mike Pompeo, secretary of state in the second part of the Trump Administration.

Is there such a thing as “Trumpism without Trump”? I do not know. I understand those who argue that asking for Trumpism without Trump is a bit like asking for sunshine without the sun. It was often said, sometimes thankfully, sometimes as a matter of fact, that Trump was sui generis. If that is the case, then it might well be that the message and the messenger are so closely bound up with each other that the effort to disentangle them is doomed to fail. 

I understand the concern about Trump’s vaunted “divisiveness.” But it is well to acknowledge this irony. The tsunami of hatred and vitriol that washed over Donald Trump since before he assumed office until the present moment was nothing if not “divisive.” It infected the Twittersphere as brazenly as any of Trump’s “mean tweets” about Jim Acosta, the “fake news,” or sundry other “losers.” Why was that not castigated as “divisive,” evidence of bad character, against the norms or civilized political behavior? 

We now know that the whole Russia collusion delusion was invented lock-stock-and-barrel in the fetid skunkworks of the Clinton campaign. We know, too, that it was seized upon and pumped up by an irresponsible media and the rancid outposts of the administrative state and its so-called intelligence agencies. Trump was cooked before he set foot in the Oval Office. 

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel should declare 3 No’s By Ted Belman

By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/israel_should_declare_3_nos.html

In June 1967, Israel defeated five Arab armies in what became known as the Six Day War.  That war actually began when the Arabs invaded Israel immediately after her Declaration of Independence in 1948. The Arabs had hoped to destroy Israel and “drive the Jews into the sea”.

Three months later, the Arab League met in Khartoum and declared their 3 no’s; no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel, Also included was their insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.

Thereafter they resorted to a different battlefield. They began a diplomatic war against Israel in which they used propaganda, extortion and terror to achieve their desired goal. Eventually, they managed to get most of the world to back their false narrative and to support their cause. In particular, the world now believes that the land in question is Occupied Palestinian Land and that international law supports them and holds that the settlements are illegal. These beliefs are supported by the US, the EU and the UN among others.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. For the truth, read International Law and the State of Israel and The Legality of Israel Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria According to International law.

It is long past time for Israel to declare its own 3 no’s; no to a nuclear Iran, no to the two-state solution, no to a bi-national state.

Why so? Because nothing is to be gained by negotiating.

Continue reading →
MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The Movie Chinese Communists Hate the Most? By Janet Levy

By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/the_movie_chinese_communists_hate_the_most.html

Some films are chilling because their fiction penetrates the agonizing core of reality.  The soon to be released Unsilenced, from award-winning Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Leon Lee, is a prime example.  It brings into sharp focus the oppression unleashed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Falun Gong, a movement that emphasizes ethical conduct, qigong exercises, and meditation.  Fearing that Falun Gong would overtake it in popularity, the party has since 1999 been persecuting practitioners with arrest, torture, forced labor, menticide, and execution.  But an underground resistance has established itself, led by ordinary Falun Gong practitioners pushed by extraordinary circumstances into heroic acts.

The film’s lead character, Wang (played by Ting Wu), is based on Wang Weiyu, a survivor of China’s prisons and labor camps.  Wang and his friends pay a heavy price for fighting back.  But with the help of journalist Daniel Davis (played by Sam Trammell), they succeed in getting the word out on the plight of the Falun Gong.  Leading the crackdown against them is the sadistic Secretary Yang (played by Tzu-Chiang Wang).

Although Lee has been living in Canada since 2006, he is no stranger to Falun Gong or the CCP’s atrocities.  His documentary Human Harvest (2014) exposed China’s demonic removal and sale of organs from prisoners and inmates at labor camps.  Many of these are Falun Gong practitioners.  The documentary was broadcast in more than 25 countries and won the Peabody Award.

His Letter from Masanjia (2018) is an equally heartrending true story of a note found in a box of Halloween decorations by an Oregon resident.  The writer of the note is Sun Yi, a Falun Gong practitioner held at an infamous labor camp where the decorations were made.  Tracing Sun Yi after his release, collaborating with him via surreptitious Skype calls, and instructing him on how to use a camera, Lee put together the story of what happens in the CCP’s labor camps.  Sun Yi risked it all and later made his way to Indonesia, since China allows travel there without a passport.  He died in 2017 in Indonesia, most likely poisoned by Chinese agents.

Lee’s company, Flying Cloud Productions, remains committed to bringing “human rights violations to light in both documentary and narrative filmmaking.”  His films are among the most pirated in China, and he often receives emails from anonymous Chinese viewers stupefied by the content they hasten to share, evidence that Falun Gong may be reigniting hope in the People’s Republic.

The filming of Unsilenced, which took place in Taiwan, was replete with challenges.  During production, Taiwanese fighter jets scrambled to intercept Chinese planes intruding Taiwan’s airspace.  Many film professionals shied away from the production, cast and crew used aliases or remained anonymous, and a few actors quit after being threatened.  Lee was under constant pressure to recruit new talent and scout for alternative locations as filming permission would suddenly be withdrawn.  There were post-production hitches, too.  The owner of the Canadian production company wouldn’t risk listing his name in the credits.  Chinese students at Boston University were enlisted to protest a screening of the movie.  The film is as much a testament to his persistence as that of its protagonists.

Continue reading →