Displaying the most recent of 92278 posts written by

Ruth King

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

The Experts, Science, Medicine—All Amazing, All Fallible Joan Swirsky

By on December 1st, 2024

https://newswithviews.com/the-experts-science-medicine-all-amazing-all-fallible/

For thousands of years, going back to the Bible, women have wept and grieved and pleaded to God over their miscarriages. Indeed, it took all these millennia for modern-day pharmaceutical companies to develop solutions to this ongoing nightmare.

In the 1940s, they were happy to offer doctors the ability to prescribe diethylstilbestrol (DES) to prevent miscarriage. “You can tell them you would give it to your wife,” the marketing mavens from Big Pharma suggested to physicians.

And with good reason. This “miracle drug” worked! Women who had experienced no trouble conceiving but were plagued by constant miscarriages were now able to carry their babies to term and deliver quite “perfect” bundles of joy!

But then disaster hit with unspeakable horror. After one or two years of watching their beautiful babies smile and roll over and teethe and then walk and speak and thrive, the little girls began developing hideous vaginal cancers, and those who survived to adulthood experienced higher-than-normal premature births, miscarriages, and ectopic pregnancies.

The little boys, too, had horrible anomalies in their urogenital tracts and are still being watched for higher-than-average cases of testicular and prostate cancers.

In 1971, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took DES off the market.

So much for the science!

SECOND TIME’S A CHARM

In 1957, another miracle medication, originally marketed as a sleeping pill but also found to prevent miscarriages,was developed in West Germany, and soon found its way to America, where women eagerly took the drug––approved by the FDA––and, again, were thrilled to carry their babies to term.

But unlike DES, where the monstrous effects took months to years to develop, the grotesque and tragic effects of the new drug––Thalidomide––were obvious from the moment of birth: children born with missing arms and legs, eye and urinary tract anomalies, heart problems, et al. The list of horrors went on and on.

So much for the science!

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Trump and Congress Gear Up To Fight Campus Antisemitism President-elect Trump vows to address campus antisemitism, citing widespread issues in a GOP report after the October 7 Hamas attacks. By Peter Berkowitz

By on November 29th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/29/trump-and-congress-gear-up-to-fight-campus-antisemitism/

On Nov. 15, sounding nothing like the racist threat to democracy that many of those who oppose him fear, President-elect Donald Trump announced measures “to defeat antisemitism and defend our Jewish citizens in America.” The former and soon-to-be president aims to act expeditiously. “My first week back in the Oval Office my administration will inform every college president that if you do not end antisemitic propaganda, they will lose their accreditation and federal taxpayer support,” he stated. “I will inform every educational institution in our land that if they permit violence, harassment, or threats against Jewish students, the schools will be held accountable for violations of the civil rights laws.” Trump emphasized that “Jewish Americans must have equal protection under the law.” And he promised that “[m]y administration will move swiftly to restore safety for Jewish students and Jewish people on American streets.”

Trump’s words hearten, particularly considering the blatant upsurge of antisemitism on campus and off since Oct. 7, 2023. On that horrible day, Iran-backed Hamas jihadists from Gaza massacred some 1,200 persons in southern Israel, among them approximately 40 Americans, and took approximately 250 hostages, including 12 Americans. Particularly at America’s most selective colleges and universities, campus protestors rushed to embrace the perpetrators of the mass atrocities against Israel, to heap blame on the Jewish victims of barbarism, and to pour scorn on the nation-state of the Jewish people for exercising its right to self-defense.

Peaceful protests, which abide by reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, contribute to universities’ educational mission. But many of the post-Oct. 7 anti-Israel protests at the nation’s best universities not only featured calls for the destruction of the Jewish state but also intimidation of Jewish students, seizing and vandalism of campus property, and disruption of universities’ educational mission.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Top Priority for the Musk/Ramaswamy DOGE Commission: Decentralizing the Federal Government Decentralizing the federal government should be a top priority for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). By Fred Fleitz

By on November 29th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/29/a-top-priority-for-the-musk-ramaswamy-doge-commission-decentralizing-the-federal-government/

One of the best ideas I heard from Donald Trump for his second term is to move as many as 100,000 federal employees to “new locations outside the Washington Swamp” to places “filled with patriots who love America.” This initiative will save tax dollars and help depoliticize federal agencies. There also are important security and fairness reasons to relocate these agencies across the United States.

I speak from experience. In the early 1990s, the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) drafted legislation to move thousands of CIA employees to West Virginia. Bryd proposed closing 21 CIA offices in Washington, DC, and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs and moving them to large campuses in Jefferson County, West Virginia.

My wife and I were CIA employees at the time, and we were thrilled about the potential move of our office out of the DC area. We were unable to afford a house without a lengthy commute on our federal salaries because the large presence of federal workers and contractors had driven housing prices through the roof. (Five of the seven wealthiest U.S. counties are in the DC suburbs.) We also disliked the liberal culture and high taxes of the DC area.

Unfortunately, the Washington establishment, including many well-paid senior CIA officers and contractors, blocked Senator Byrd’s attempt to relocate CIA offices to West Virginia. As a result, when my wife could no longer work full-time because of the disability of one of our children, we ended up buying a house 50 miles from DC with a roundtrip commute of 2.5 to 3 hours per day.

Moving federal agencies out of the DC area to areas with affordable housing and reasonable commutes are two good reasons why the Trump administration should decentralize the federal government. The current practice of locating these agencies within a few miles of the White House and Congress reflects a bygone era before telephones, email, and video conferences. Most federal employees rarely interact with members of Congress and the White House and can do their jobs more efficiently and economically in more affordable and less congested areas of the country.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Forever-Tarnished Legacy of Barack Obama From puppet master to political pauper. by Jeff Davidson

By on November 29th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-forever-tarnished-legacy-of-barack-obama/

Among the many benefits of Donald Trump’s re-election that our nation and the world are already experiencing is the forever tarnished legacy of Barack Obama. In 2028, will the Democrat candidate want Obama to go on the campaign trail for him or her? I doubt it.

Obama’s Un-enduring Influence

When he was elected president (assuming that massive Democratic cheating was not in full swing in 2008), Democrats held a commanding 55- to 45-seat majority in the U.S. Senate and an overwhelming 256- to 179-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

By the time Obama left office on January 20, 2017, Democrats were down nine seats in the Senate and a whopping 62 seats in the House – they lost the majority in each chamber. Among the 50 states, there were twelve fewer Democrat governors. You’d have to look back more than 95 years to see when the Democrats did so poorly at the polls on a national and state level.

For all the mainstream media blather heaped upon Obama as some kind of political savior, at the end of his two terms, he left the Democratic Party in shambles. However, he has personally benefitted financially in extraordinary ways.

Considering the “Obama effect” on the nation’s vote totals, is any sane Democrat willing to extol the virtues of his influence on the electorate?

Continue reading →
FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

‘What is it that the Biden Administration is Threatening Israel With?’ Threats grave enough that “Netanyahu is taking them very seriously.” by Robert Spencer

By on November 29th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/what-is-it-that-the-biden-administration-is-threatening-israel-with/

A ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon appeared imminent on Tuesday afternoon. While numerous mainstream analysts, as clueless as ever, hailed it as the first step toward reducing tensions and establishing a lasting peace in the region, others were not so sanguine.

For over a year now and against enormous international pressure, Israel has been vowing to fight on until Hamas and Hezbollah were completely destroyed. Now it is apparently about to agree to a ceasefire that could allow Hezbollah to survive and murder more Israeli civilians on another day. What is going on? Two words, as Joe Biden would say, and those words are the man’s name himself: Old Joe Biden.

Former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer Sarit Zahavi explained what was at stake: “But the gap lies with the question of whether Hezbollah will be able to recover or not. After what happened on October 7th, Israelis are not willing to enable Hezbollah to recover. This is not going to happen anymore. We are not going to enable that. While I am speaking to you, there are alerts proving that Hezbollah still has the capabilities to launch rockets and missiles against Israel. We cannot rely on just promises. We need to make sure that Hezbollah is not capable of threatening us and our families over here in the north.” Yet the ceasefire, at least as it is being reported, would allow Hezbollah to do just that.

CBS News reported Tuesday that “under the deal, a full and permanent ceasefire would be implemented immediately. There will be 60 days permitted for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces — a gradual withdrawal to allow the Lebanese forces to mobilize and move in to secure the area, but the trigger time is immediate, set to take effect later Tuesday.

Continue reading →
IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Largest Illegal Alien County Prepares ‘Resistance’ to Trump Can you guess how many illegal aliens live in this ‘sanctuary county’? by Daniel Greenfield

By on November 29th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/largest-illegal-alien-county-prepares-resistance-to-trump/

Eight percent of Los Angeles County is illegal. This is where 800,000 illegal aliens out of an estimated 3 million statewide (the real numbers are likely much higher) have been harbored.

And that may be about to change.

In no county and state has the political power of the Democrats been as closely tied to open borders as in Los Angeles County and California. Flipping California convinced the Democrats to tie their national fortunes to mass migration and for a while it seemed to be working.

Biden’s open borders team, from Border Czar Kamala Harris to Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and USCIS director Ur Mendoza Jaddou, were not only Californians, but typical products of its diverse checkbox political class who rejected the idea of national borders.

California deportations had sharply dropped off after the state began implementing pro-illegal and pro-crime laws in 2014, falling from a high of nearly 100,000 to less than 4,000 in 2024. With the California Values Act (SB 54) blocking law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in place, the first Trump administration struggled to bring deportations up to around 30,000 a year and under Biden deportations effectively disappeared in California.

But the 2024 election may be about to crack the nation’s worst sanctuary state, county and city.

If Kamala had won, she would have been the first White House Democrat from California, but instead California Democrats in the largest illegal alien county in the country are panicking.

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

Election Be Damned, Google’s Anti-Trump Bias Is Alive And Well

By on November 29th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/11/29/election-be-damned-googles-anti-trump-bias-is-alive-and-well/

Donald Trump may have overwhelmingly won reelection, but according to Google’s content police, saying anything nice about him is “demonstrably false” and a threat to the “democratic process.”

Do you think we’re exaggerating?

We received notice the other day that our article “Unburdened By What Has Been, Trump Is Poised To Deliver Bigly” contained, according to Google, “unreliable and harmful claims.”

What falls into this category? Content that:

makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.
promotes harmful health claims, or relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus.
contradicts authoritative scientific consensus on climate change.

Google didn’t, and never does, provide any specific information on what exactly violated these standards or what a “fix” would entail. But it did strip its ads from that page, costing us money.

So, we decided to try to figure out on our own what the violation was. There were no health claims or mention of “climate change,” so it has to be the first bullet above.

What was “demonstrably false”?

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Cracks in the New ‘Axis of Evil’: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on November 29th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21163/china-russia-north-korea-fracture

The Russia-North Korea-China relationship is not an equilateral triangle but an evolving alliance with conflicting interests, and reportedly beginning to show signs of fracture and lack of trust.

One report suggests that, ultimately, North Korea may dispatch 100,000 troops to Russia.

China nevertheless views Russia as principally a source of oil and raw materials. The Kremlin might hope to rejuvenate itself by re-asserting its failing primacy in Central Asia amidst the independent post-Soviet countries.

The Russia-North Korea-China relationship is not an equilateral triangle but an evolving alliance with conflicting interests, and reportedly beginning to show signs of fracture and lack of trust.

Now that North Korean troops have joined Russian forces in fighting a democratic country, Ukraine, the global ramifications of this East-West coalitional warfare have darkened. An alliance of aggressive dictatorships are directly confronting the free West.

Western intelligence agencies have reported that North Korea has deployed about 3,000 troops in the Kursk region of Russia, now occupied by Ukraine. North Korea has reportedly dispatched an additional 7,000 troops to Russia.

The deployment of these North Korean troops is supposedly justified by Moscow and Pyongyang through the joint Russia-North Korea Defense Treaty, signed on June 19, 2024 and ratified this month, stipulating that each signatory will come to the military assistance of the other if under attack by a third country.

The increased military-to-military links between North Korea and Russia also have regional ramifications, and China appears to have indicated to Moscow that the once heralded Sino-Russian “No Limits Alliance” may have some limits, after all.

Continue reading →
OPINION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Taiwan: Ukraine’s Survival Is Our Survival by Gordon G. Chang

By on November 28th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21156/taiwan-ukraine-survival

[T[he United States has an obligation to defend Ukraine — and it is definitely in its interest to do so.

In the Budapest Memorandum, the three parties [the US, the UK and Russia] made six pledges to the former Soviet republic, the most important of which was “their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

“[W]hen negotiating the security assurances, U.S. officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that, were Russia to violate them, the United States would take a strong interest and respond.” — Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

If Russia keeps the territory it has seized — certainly if it grabs even more — countries will believe that American promises to defend them are worthless and will begin building a nuclear deterrent of their own.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, after all, will not stop there, just as he did not stop after breaking apart Georgia in 2008 or after seizing Crimea in 2014. “If Ukraine falls, Poland, the Baltic republics and other NATO member states will face existential threats,” Greg Scarlatoiu, president of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told this publication. Then, the U.S. and its NATO partners will be even more stretched — and less able to defend Taiwan — than they are now.

When Chinese leaders saw Washington’s failure to act, they soon moved against Second Thomas Shoal and other Philippine reefs in the South China Sea, went after Japan’s islets in the East China Sea, and started reclaiming and militarizing features in the Spratly Island chain. Obama and Biden legitimized the worst elements in the Chinese political system by showing everybody else that aggression worked.

The best way to stop China from attacking Taiwan is to defeat its proxies, especially Russia in Europe.

As Tsai Ing-wen, who stepped down as Taiwan’s president in May, said on November 23, “A Ukrainian victory will serve as the most effective deterrence against future aggression.”

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Universities Have a 2025 Rendezvous With Reality Public confidence in universities has sharply declined due to rising costs, administrative bloat, ideological bias, student debt issues, and discrimination concerns. Victor Davis Hanson

By on November 28th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/11/28/universities-have-a-2025-rendezvous-with-reality/

Universities have suffered a cataclysmic decline in public approval and support.

A Gallup poll taken this year found that only 36 percent of Americans polled either expressed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education—once the agreed-on touchstone to upward mobility.

Gifting to most universities has been down for two consecutive years.

There is zero intellectual diversity on most university campuses.

Speakers with conservative viewpoints are often either disinvited or shouted down—and worse.

The federally guaranteed student loan program is in shambles. Some $1.7 trillion in outstanding loans were taken out by half of all college students.

Nearly a fifth are now not being paid back.

Marriage, child-rearing, and home ownership are all delayed by some 40 million indebted graduates, who can take decades to pay loans back.

The Biden administration demagogued the issue by illegally granting rolling student loan amnesties to win votes just before both the midterm and general elections. That proposed debt relief would be covered by taxpayers, over half of whom never went to college.

The expansion of student loan debt roughly correlates with universities raising their annual costs higher than the rate of inflation—largely due to administrative bloat.

Although the Supreme Court recently struck down the practice of using race and gender to adjudicate applications and hiring, universities are already seeking ways to circumvent the ruling.

Asian- and white-Americans for decades have been systematically, overtly, and supposedly with justification, discriminated against by ignoring or not requiring test scores and downplaying grade point averages.

Continue reading →