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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Best or the Worst of Times? By J.B. Shurk

By on December 29th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/12/the_best_or_the_worst_of_times.html

Now that Christmas Day has passed, I have put down my beloved copy of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and picked up his masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities.  As I have argued before, that novel’s opening sentence perfectly captures the contradictions of our time:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

And you thought that I struggled to locate a terminal period for some of my longest sentences!  In Dickens’s defense, it is one hell of a sentence!  It is also a sophisticated description of the tumultuous events that accompany transformative eras such as our own — what many have come to regard as a “Fourth Turning,” when crisis and social upheaval dominate life for a generation.  

Will we be able to “Make America Great Again”?  Will this be the beginning of a new American “Golden Age,” as President Trump suggests?  Or will we soon endure economic collapse and war the likes of which none of us has ever seen?  As 2024 comes to an end, it is fair to say that uncertainty is only accelerating and that the prospects for peace and prosperity are running neck and neck with their opposites.  

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RELIGION Comments turned off

A Critical Look at Elaine Pagels’ Religious Scholarship In her quest to liberate early Christianity from orthodoxy, Elaine Pagels ends up chaining it to modern politics. By Roger Kimball

By on December 29th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/29/a-critical-look-at-elaine-pagels-religious-scholarship/

Over at Instapundit, Mark Tapscott called my attention to an interview in our former paper of record that Times journo Nicholas Kristoff conducts with Elaine Pagels, the celebrated (by some) Princeton historian of religion. Tapscott cites the commentator Erik Manning, who subjects Pagels’ new-age, secular-lite responses to withering criticism in a delicious column called “The New York Times And Ivy League Professor Team Up To Debunk Christmas.” At bottom, Manning shows, Pagels’s position is

“I like Christmas and some of the moralizing parts of Christianity, but miracles are nonsense, biblical scholarship has it all figured out, evangelicals are too dogmatic, and Jesus was probably a rape baby.” Great backhanded patronizing to stick it to the fundies on Christmas, New York Times. Very cool. Much editorializing. Muh scholarship.

I hadn’t thought about Elaine Pagels for many years, but Manning’s gimlet-eyed analysis reminded me of a longish column about Pagels I wrote many years ago. As a public service, I reprint it here with a few minor tweaks and updates.

I called the essay “Trouble in Paradise: the Gospel According to Pagels.”

It was only to be expected [I wrote] that Elaine Pagels’ book, temptingly entitled Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity, would be showered with all manner of adulation when it appeared in 1989. When her previous book, The Gnostic Gospels, appeared in 1979, it too was greeted by a chorus of critical and popular acclaim. It scooped up both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award in 1980, became something of a best-seller, and greatly boosted the reputation of its thirty-seven-year-old author, then chairman of the department of religion at Barnard College. The following year, 1981, Pagels was visited by grace in the form of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, a grace soon compounded by an offer from Princeton University, where she is currently the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion. How could Adam, Eve, and the Serpent fail to be declared (as it promptly was) a “masterpiece?”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on December 29th, 2024

Beyond the headlines is an Israel where citizens and tourists delight in bistros, cafes, glorious beaches and concerts, dance and art. And behind the scenes, Israel’s scientists and doctors develop new techniques for healing that work far beyond its borders. rsk

Patients suffering from serious chronic diseases will be de-lighted by the results of recent Israeli medical trials which could be the light at the end of a long tunnel. Separately, one Israeli tech system illuminated the path for surgeons to extract a bullet from a Nova survivor’s brain, while another helped them remove a tumor from a teenager’s spine. A pregnant Israeli woman will now be able to see the light, thanks to the removal of a tumor from her optic nerve. And at the other end of the spectrum, Israeli doctors used a groundbreaking single dose of radiation to cure a patient from a deadly heart condition. Michael Ordman

Read it all

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Israeli tech rehabilitates the wounded. In this article MyMove from 6Degrees stops phantom pain in amputees. Sheba hospital repaired a soldier’s facial structure and also a dog’s. Robot guidance helped remove a bullet. Aidoc located a bullet inside a Nova survivor’s brain. Also see LIV (for PTSD) and NexoBrid (burns).
https://unitedwithisrael.org/inside-israels-cutting-edge-tech-that-protects-its-heroes/
 
More Oct 7 survivors’ cafes to open. Israel’s Tamir Barelko is the founder of the Café Otef chain (see here previously) run by Oct 7 2023 survivors. He will shortly be opening Cafe Otef–Sderot (in Rehovot), and also Cafe Otef–Kiryat Shmona, paying tribute to those evacuated from the northern town for 14 months.
https://www.jta.org/2024/12/12/israel/an-israeli-cafe-chain-launched-by-and-for-oct-7-survivors-is-expanding-to-more-cities
 
Building better defenses. Between Oct 2023 and Sep 2024, Israel’s Defense Ministry placed NIS 601 million of orders with 86 startups and small companies – five times more than in the previous year. 58 startups joined the Defense Ministry’s INNOFENSE accelerator program, building AI, navigation and deep tech systems.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-defense-ministry-orders-from-israeli-startups-jumps-1001496278
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
IBD therapy trial exceeds expectations. Israel’s Teva and Sanofi announced promising Phase 2 trial results for duvakitug, designed to treat colitis and Crohn’s disease. In a 14-week phase 2b multi-national study, nearly 50% of patients achieved clinical remission compared with around 20% on a placebo. Teva’s shares rose 15%.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hymmfeyrjg
 
Alzheimer’s vaccine begins trials. (TY Nevet) A first-in-the-world clinical trial taking place at the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem will directly test whether the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) TB vaccine (see here previously) should be widely administered in the fight against Alzheimer’s.
https://www.hadassah.org/story/hadassah-clinical-trial-tests-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-prevent-alzheimers
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-829471
 
Precision medicine for autoimmune diseases. Israel’s Promise Bio is researching immune-mediated disease treatment with advanced precision medicine solutions. Using mass-spectrometry data and AI analysis (called epiproteomics), it aims to identify the best medications to treat a particular patient’s autoimmune disease.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bk7gpunvyl   https://www.promise.bio/
 
Israeli tech helps remove tumor from spine. (TY Nevet) Surgeons at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem removed a dangerous tumor from the spine of a Jerusalem teenager. They used Israel’s PathKeeper Visionary Surgical Nav System (see here previously) to maintain precision and avoid damaging the teen’s spinal nerves.
https://www.hadassah.org/story/teens-tumor-removed-thanks-to-hadassahs-visionary-surgical-nav-system
 
Instant cure for heart patient. (TY Ron M) Nazia Matar (63) had life-threatening heart arrhythmia with no possible surgical solution. Cardiologist Prof. Mahmoud Suleiman at Haifa’s Rambam hospital detected the root cause and directed a single, high-dose of radiation at the problem tissue. Nazia is now completely cured.
https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/h1q11ke00rje
 
Brain surgery patient has healthy baby. (TY Nevet & Hadassah) At Hadassah Ein Kerem, Moriel Indek gave birth to a healthy baby boy after undergoing brain surgery during her pregnancy with her third child. A non-malignant tumor close to her optic nerve was growing, requiring surgeons to urgently operate.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/400158
 
Saving kidney patients. Israel’s FIZE Medical (see here previously) has monitored over 4,000 patients at high risk of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) since its launch last year at leading hospitals in the U.S. and Israel. In 2025 it plans to expand operations in Japan and Europe and enhance its production infrastructure in Israel and Vietnam.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/s1f9axuhje
 
Better evaluation of hospital admissions. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have created a new model for assessing patients on admission to hospital. They enhanced the standard Elixhauser Comorbidity model to include test results, vital signs, and demographic data, with up to 18% better predictions of outcomes.
https://en.huji.ac.il/news/transforming-healthcare-predictions-and-decision-making-new-model
https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-024-11663-z
 
Sheba opens innovation center in France. Israel’s largest hospital, Sheba Medical Center, has opened a branch of its ARC (Sheba’s health transformation and innovation arm) at the Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest (ICO) in Nantes, France.  It will help ICO’s 1,400 professionals, who treat over 48,000 patients annually.
https://www.jns.org/sheba-hospital-opens-innovation-center-in-france/
 
MDA’s friends raise millions. The American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA) Gala raised a total of $4 million to support Israel’s leading emergency service. It also honored actress and pro-Israel advocate Patricia Heaton, with the Champion of Israel Award.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/400723  https://vimeo.com/1038958896

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Rise and Fall of the Never Trump Machine By Hayden Ludwig

By on December 29th, 2024

https://tomklingenstein.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-never-trump-machine/

Kamala Harris and the Democrat establishment may have blown over a billion dollars to lose the 2024 election, but it’s their Never Trump allies most likely facing oblivion after President Donald Trump’s historic victory.

If so, good riddance.

But don’t be too quick to count out the likes of Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Liz Cheney, or the operatives behind groups such as the Lincoln Project who helped organize the Left’s 2020 campaign to oust Trump from the White House. They may still play a role in the second Trump “resistance” beginning in January — if Democrats will let them. 

At the heart of that effort is a set of insider groups — niche publications like The Bulwark and think tanks for exiled ex-conservatives like the Niskanen Center — that led the old GOP’s exiles into the wilderness, forged a powerful political force for undermining Trump’s Republican base, then pledged itself fully to the Harris campaign and the regime that supported it. At each step of the way, these “principled conservatives” grew tangibly more liberal, more hawkish on America’s forever wars, and more fanatical in their hatred of the America First movement. 

By November 2024, however, Never Trump Inc. ended up friendless and defeated. Here’s the story of their rise and fall.

The Nonprofit Revolving Door

There’s no understanding the Never Trump cabal without reading its flagship commentary website: The Bulwark. 

The site operates as a hub for all things anti-Trump, charting the Right’s descent (as they see it) into knuckle-dragging white supremacy, authoritarianism, and subservience to Moscow. It’s a refuge for bitter Beltway relics of the Bush-Romney establishment who smugly cast themselves as the true heirs of Ronald Reagan, rather than out-of-touch elites more aligned with Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden than the Gipper.

The Bulwark was founded by a handful of once-influential Beltway writers, most famously Bill Kristol, son of the late Irving Kristol and editor of the now-defunct Weekly Standard. But his co-founders, ex-Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes, who left the Bulwark for MSNBC in February, and Sarah Longwell, a political consultant and one-time chair of the LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans, are just as critical to The Bulwark’s evolution into Never Trump’s lodestar.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trumpmaganomics by Lawrence Kadish

By on December 29th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21251/trumpmaganomics

The new economic policies of President-elect Donald J. Trump promise to include his campaign pledge to “Make America Great Again.” Just a few months ago, commentators were assessing that the Biden administration’s greatest ambition was “managing America’s decline.” What a difference a day makes: November 5, 2024. Trump, a businessman, appears to have a good grasp of most domestic and foreign policy issues that greet him at the stable door. He has already been overflowing with ideas — such as refusing to allow a hostile Communist China to control the Panama Canal, as it presently does; and aligning more closely with Greenland and Canada to provide the northern hemisphere a stronger foothold to safeguard its security and prosperity and that of the Free World.

In securing America’s financial future, Trump’s maganomic policies appear to turn on three points:

Making American not just energy independent again, but energy dominant. Making use of the “liquid gold” America has under the ground would not only enable Americans to buy just about everything at a lower cost than, as now, unnecessarily relying on expensive imported oil for manufacturing and for transporting goods and oneself. Using American energy could at the same time undercut the price of oil exported by America’s adversaries, such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran, and make them less able to conduct wars and other mischief.
Offering generous tax and other incentives, and removing obsolete regulations, to ignite the economy’s “animal spirits” so that more companies would relocate to America. Once again, “Made in America” would become the hallmark of excellence, affordability and abundance. What other country protects its businesses, workers and investments more comprehensively than the United States? The country is not just a haven for jobs and productivity, but also ensures that America will no longer naively misplace its trust in countries that intend to replace the current world order and, at whim, potentially deprive Americans of medicine, computer chips, and other necessities.
Lowering taxes for everyone while trimming excess fat from unwarranted expenses. This plan does not of course mean depriving the less fortunate of their safety net or demolishing social security. What the plan does mean is that Americans will be able to keep more of their hard-earned money to decide themselves how they would prefer to spend it. At least US citizens would know that the taxes thy are compelled to pay would fund projects they actually want or need, instead of vaporizing for “shrimp on treadmills,” “hamster fights” or more than $1trillion each year – greater than the entire proposed US defense budget of $849.8 billion — just to pay interest on the more than $36 trillion national debt. The US government, according to CNBC, each year wastes more than $247 billion, adding that “The problems mainly stem from the way our government tries to solve an issue, according to critics,” and quoting Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste:

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Blame Hamas and Hezbollah for Civilian Deaths, Not Israel by Con Coughlin

By on December 29th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21250/hamas-hezbollah-civilian-deaths

Whether it is using schools, hospitals and other public buildings that are supposed to be afforded immunity in conflict under international law, or simply using Palestinian civilians as human shields, Hamas terrorists have consistently jeopardised the well-being of those they purport to defend.

Another area where Hamas deliberately intensifies the suffering of Palestinian civilians as a means of pressuring Israel to end its military offensive is by denying Palestinian families access to much-needed aid supplies.

When the Gazans, for whom the aid is intended, try to approach it, there have been reports of Hamas operatives shooting them.

If the Biden administration and its allies in the media, the United Nations and the European Union really want to see a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, then they should direct their criticism of the wilful mistreatment of civilians towards Hamas and Hezbollah, and their backers, not Israel.

Ending the malign operations of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah is the best means of ending the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon respectively, and providing ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese with a genuine opportunity to make a better life for themselves.

If Western politicians and aid agencies want to apportion blame for the high death tolls in the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, then they need look no further than the Iranian-backed terror groups cynically risking the lives of innocent civilians to achieve their diabolical agenda.

From the moment Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists launched their deadly attack against Israel on October 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 or so hostage, Hamas terrorists have shown a wilful disregard for the lives and well-being of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s Race to Nuclear Bombs: The Mullahs Have Got to Go by Majid Rafizadeh

By on December 29th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21248/iran-race-to-nuclear-bombs

In addition, now that Syria has been closed off as a supply route to rearm Hezbollah, Iran is reportedly considering weapons airlifts directly to Lebanon to resupply Hezbollah, so they both can continue their shared goal of eliminating Israel. The mullahs have got to go. So long as they remain in power, the chances for enduring peace in the region is zero.

Iran’s recent losses have left the regime clinging to the hope that nuclear weapons will enable it to secure its reign and dominate the Middle East, then the rest of the world, using Venezuela and the Caribbean to incapacitate the “Great Satan,” the United States.

Allowing Iran to succeed in these endeavors is not a great idea. Both the Iranian people and the entire region need to be freed from a future of tyranny. The future of a nuclear-armed Iran, run by mullahs on a mission, must be averted; the opportunity will not be there forever.

This year, thanks to the relentless — and often maliciously vilified — efforts of Israel standing alone, like David against Goliath, to save the West from an autocratic tyranny, the Iranian regime has at last been facing significant setbacks. Israel, unthanked, has weakened Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, diminished their influence and destabilized their plan to wipe Israel — and after that Western civilization — off the map.

Compounding this, Iran’s longstanding ally, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, collapsed, further isolating Iran’s regime. These events have collectively dealt a heavy blow to Iran’s strategic leverage and regional ambitions. Complacency, however, would be a grave mistake.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

When Will the Press Notice the African Jihad? The assault on Israel is only one dot in a wider jihadist pattern.

By on December 29th, 2024

Regarding Jason Riley’s “All the News That’s Suddenly Fit to Print After the Election” (Upward Mobility, Dec. 18): It is our great hope that the news the New York Times now deems fit to print might include the continuing African jihad. Islamic terrorists in more than eight countries are doing to innocent Africans, mostly Christians, what Hamas did to Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. Jihadists storm African villages, murder and torture villagers, rape and then kidnap young women and girls as sex slaves.

Reporting this would reveal that the assault on the Jewish state is only one dot in a wider jihadist pattern. Dare we hope that a concept that so centrally threatens progressive doctrine would appear in the Grey Lady?

Charles Jacobs and Simon Deng

African Jewish Alliance

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran weakest since revolution, ripe for regime change David Isaac

By on December 29th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/iran-weakest-since-revolution-ripe-for-regime-change/

Its “Axis of Resistance” cracking, most recently with the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria, Iran has never been as vulnerable since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, observers tell JNS.

With Iran’s leadership facing an emboldened Israeli military, the second coming of Donald Trump, internal fissures and a crisis of confidence among its people, experts say here lies a chance for regime change.

The extent of the damage to Iran’s drive for regional domination is evidenced by the remarks of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in a speech on Dec. 11 admonished supporters to “not become depressed, hopeless or heartbroken,” and on Dec. 22 denied that Iran even had proxies.

Tehran has lost Hamas and Hezbollah, its major ally, Syria, and its primary air defenses to Israeli airstrikes, making any Israeli attack potentially even more effective. Moreover, despite its wealth of energy resources, Iran is in the midst of an energy crisis.

“This is a golden opportunity,” Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst with the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told JNS on Tuesday, outlining the possibility of a one-two punch, with the U.S. imposing economic sanctions and Israel delivering military blows.

A U.S. prepared to inflict “Trump maximum pressure 2.0” and a newly confident Israel tackling Iran militarily “puts us in a good position,” he said.

Majid Rafizadeh, a Harvard-educated political scientist and expert on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East, agrees. “Iran is currently at its weakest point since the 1979 Islamic Revolution,” he told JNS on Tuesday. It’s “vulnerable both internally and externally.”

Bashar Assad’s fall is “a catastrophic loss for Iran’s leadership,” Rafizadeh said, not only because Syria served as a conduit for Iran’s proxies, but because the Iranian people now perceive the regime as “increasingly vulnerable, which emboldens anti-government sentiment and protests.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

This year, Israel showed us what anti-fascism really means In 2024, the Jewish State did more to combat racial hatred than any of its preening critics in the West. Brendan O’Neill

By on December 27th, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/12/27/this-year-israel-showed-us-what-anti-fascism-really-means/

In the future, when humanity comes to its senses, 2024 will be seen as a watershed year in the battle against fascism. More fascist-adjacent killers and loons were bumped off over the past 12 months than in any other year in my lifetime. From the leader of an army of anti-Semites that tells its followers to buy cheap knives and ‘cut off the heads of Jews’ (Yahya Sinwar) to the spiritual head of a self-styled ‘Party of God’ that longs to excise those ‘cancerous’ Jews from the Middle East (Hassan Nasrallah), it’s been a rough year for neo-fascist nuts. And about time, too.

2024 is the year anti-fascism grew up. For years, ‘anti-fascism’ was the weekend hobby of bored rich kids. To say the masked wimps of ‘antifa’ gave anti-fascism a bad name is an understatement. They dragged its name into the gutter. Under their black-clad purview, anti-fascism entailed little more than shouting ‘BITCH’ at women who don’t want to see dicks in their changing rooms, weeping on the campus lawn whenever Ben Shapiro showed up, and having fisticuffs with working-class people who voted for Trump. The men of the Normandy landings and the International Brigades will have turned in their graves at the sight of these toytown radicals throwing milkshakes at ‘rednecks’ and calling it anti-fascism.

Now, thankfully, anti-fascism means something again. Largely courtesy of Israel’s war on the Jew-hating belligerents at its borders, a real fight with fascism has replaced the neurotic street theatrics of the affluent activist class that falsely called itself anti-fascism. Sure, these people might have slapped Richard Spencer once, but the IDF has throttled entire movements that were founded with the expressly fascistic intention to kill Jews and erase their homeland.

This year we bid adieu to Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza; the man widely suspected of being the architect of 7 October, the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. It seems likely that Mohammed Deif was also hurried off this mortal coil by the IDF. He was the leader of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, which did so much of the raping and butchering on 7 October.

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