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Ruth King

Sorry, Elon, You Are 100% Wrong on Taiwan by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21265/elon-musk-taiwan

In fact, no Chinese ruling group has ever held indisputable sovereignty to the island.

From 1928 to 1943, the Communist Party itself recognized Taiwan as a state separate and apart from China.

If Xi Jinping thinks Trump will not defend Taiwan, will he then attack?

[T]he People’s Republic is getting weaker — the Chinese economy is failing — making notions of inevitability outdated.

“From their standpoint, you know, maybe it’s analogous to like Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because… the U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force,” Elon Musk, appearing remotely at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles in September, said referring to Taiwan.

In May, Musk talked to CNBC on the same topic. “The official policy of China is that Taiwan should be integrated,” he told the channel’s David Faber. “One does not need to read between the lines. One should only read the lines.” And then the world’s richest man stated this: “I think there’s a certain, there’s some inevitability to the situation.”

Musk is brilliant when it comes to providing what the world needs, but he is ignorant about Taiwan. His conclusions could not be more wrong.

Ms. Candace–-Pretty Little Virulent Racist Joan Swirsky

https://www.thepostemail.com/2024/12/29/ms-candace-pretty-little-virulent-racist/

Pretty counts, and pretty girls know from the time they’re two years old that prettiness has power.
Brains count, and pretty girls with brains are quite thrilled when they realize––about age four or five––that they’ve been doubly blessed.
Pretty brainy Black girls who were born into the right era came of age during the Obama regime. But sometimes those pretty brainy Black girls realized that if they wanted to get noticed, they could never join the poor-me, I’m-a-victim, racist mantra of Obama’s Democrat Party.
They knew they would have to distinguish themselves in an original and unexpected way, sort of like the hooker Gypsy Rose Lee in the Broadway musical “Gypsy,” who sang “Ya Gotta Have a Gimmick.”

Aha! Why don’t we go the conservative route? Here is just one list of strong, independent-thinking, and often courageous Black women who were authentic in their embrace of conservatism.

Also on that list is pretty, brainy Black Candace Owens, but who was 100% fake and fraudulent in her conservatism––which is not racist––but who cleverly used that political identity to insinuate her way into widespread recognition.

The Gray Lady’s latest anti-Israel hit job Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/the-gray-ladys-latest-anti-israel-hit-job/

It’s hard to imagine The New York Times stooping any lower than usual in its coverage of Israel’s defensive war in Gaza. Yet the Gray Lady seems to have managed to outdo itself on this score once again.

Its latest hit job took the form of a lengthy news feature on Thursday, titled “Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians.”

The article, marked by as many bylines as anonymous sources, attempted to lull readers with a neat trick: using the Israel Defense Forces’ self-imposed “purity of arms” doctrine, a stricter code of ethics than that of any other military in history, to highlight the Jewish state’s allegedly unacceptable behavior on the battlefield.

The subhead perfectly encapsulated the chutzpah: “Surprised by Oct. 7 and fearful of another attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants, allowing officers to endanger up to 20 people in each airstrike,” it read. “One of the deadliest bombardments of the 21st century followed.”

The piece began with mention of an order that was issued on the day of the Hamas massacre, which “granted mid-ranking Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of militants and military sites that had never been a priority in previous wars in Gaza.”

This directive, which the NYT took credit for revealing, gave the IDF more leeway to “pursue not only the senior Hamas commanders, arms depots and rocket launchers that were the focus of earlier campaigns, but also the lowest-ranking fighters.”

Jimmy Carter Was a Terrible President — and an Even Worse Former President By Philip Klein

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/12/jimmy-carter-was-a-terrible-president-and-an-even-worse-former-president/

The truth is that historians have not been harsh enough.

A popular narrative surrounding the legacy of Jimmy Carter is that as president he was a victim of unlucky timing that impeded him politically but that he excelled during his long post-presidential career. The reality is that he was a terrible president but an even worse former president.

Carter’s true legacy is one of economic misery at home and embarrassment on the world stage. He left the country in its weakest position of the post–World War II era. After being booted out of office in landslide fashion, the self-described “citizen of the world” spent the rest of his life meddling in U.S. foreign policy and working against the United States and its allies in a manner that could fairly be described as treasonous. His obsessive hatred of Israel, and pompous belief that only he could forge Middle East peace, led him to befriend terrorists and lash out at American Jews who criticized him.

A former governor of Georgia who had little charisma and national name recognition when he began campaigning for president, Carter ended up in the White House as a fluke. He presented an image as an honest, moderate, and humble southern Evangelical Christian outsider — an antidote to the corruption of the Watergate era. He also benefited from the vulnerabilities of the sitting president, Gerald Ford.

Harris In 2028? One In Five Of Her Own Voters Hope Not: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/12/30/one-in-five-harris-voters-in-2024-arent-sure-theyd-vote-for-her-again-in-2028-ii-tipp-poll/

Vice President Kamala Harris lost soundly to President-elect Donald Trump, despite spending well over $1 billion on her campaign. And if those who voted for her are any indication, she might want to hang up her presidential aspirations, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

The online national I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,411 adults across the country this question: “In the 2024 election for president, did you vote for Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, another candidate, or did you not vote for president?”

Of those answering, 41% answered “Donald Trump,” 38% said “Kamala Harris,” 15% said “Did not vote,” 3% responded “Other,” and 3% preferred not to answer. The poll’s margin of error is +/-2.6 percentage points.

The political split is revealing: Trump received 85% of all Republican votes in the sample, while Harris took just 80% of the Democrats. Trump and Harris tied among independents, with 28% each.

But, Harris received fewer Republican votes (5%) than Trump’s 7% of Democrats. So not only did Harris get fewer votes overall, a major part of her loss can be attributed to Democrats defecting to Trump or third-party candidates.

To get at how voters perceive Harris and a possible future candidacy in four years, I&I/TIPP further queried poll respondents: “Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly considering a presidential run in 2028. Which of the following best describes your feelings about this possibility?”

The possible answers included “Excited,” “Optimistic,” “Concerned,” “Scared,” and “Not sure.”

The responses aren’t encouraging. Among all those answering, 43% said they were either “excited” (18%) or “optimistic” (25%) over a future prospective presidential run by Harris. But an overall 43% called themselves either “concerned” (25%) or “scared” (18%). Another 14% weren’t sure.

Civic Education Is Making a Much-Needed Comeback By Jack Miller & Michael Poliakoff

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/12/civic-education-is-making-a-much-needed-comeback/

Over 300 JMC-supported programs enrich the academic lives of students, providing guest speakers, fellowships, courses, and a chance to interact with dedicated faculty who are outside of the stale progressive academic mainstream.

The Center for American Studies at Christopher Newport University is an example of this transformational work. Begun in 2007 with JMC’s assistance, it has grown to be a major force on campus. Co-directed by professors Elizabeth and Nathan Busch, it has a full-time faculty of six who mentor many undergraduate students. The center has brought to campus distinguished scholars and public officials, including the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, Jonathan Turley, John Yoo, and William J. Perry, for presentations to the university community.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) works alongside JMC to promote the formation of new independent institutes. ACTA has redoubled its efforts to ensure that all undergraduates pass a required course that covers core American founding principles.

For 30 years, ACTA has warned of the cost of higher education’s malfeasance. In 2000, its extensive survey of students at the 50 most elite colleges and universities revealed a shocking level of historical and civic ignorance. ACTA’s survey report, “Losing America’s Memory,” led to a joint, unanimous resolution passed by Congress that called for improving the civic knowledge of college students.

ACTA’s 2024 survey that polled 3,000 college students shows that we must redouble our efforts.

Our work so far has helped South Carolina adopt the REACH Act. Since 2021, all of the state’s public universities require a course in which students study the key documents and moments in our nation’s story.

The Shamelessness of Ta-Nehisi Coates By Tal Fortgang

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/12/the-shamelessness-of-ta-nehisi-coates/

Recognition of what Coates is really up to — in The Message and elsewhere — should chasten those who have long treated him as the moral conscience of the West.

None of the many criticisms leveled at Ta-Nehisi Coates seem to land. Coates has made a fool of himself in his new book, The Message, and the tour promoting it, with TV and podcast appearances (including one in which he suggested that he, too, would have been tempted to raid Israel, rape women, and burn children alive if he grew up in Gaza) that would spell the end of nearly anyone else’s time in the limelight. Who can take seriously a man whose career was built on profound musings about race now observing that black Israeli soldiers — many of whom are Ethiopian Jews who have sought refuge in Israel — “would, in America, have been seen as ‘white’”? Is that what we have landed on? “White” just means the guy with the gun? The bad guy?

That’s where Coates has settled, which ought to make anyone who previously treated his musings on American racism as gospel question their own judgment. Yet, his TV appearances and media profiles keep coming, and his reputation seems likely to remain intact. He hardly seems moved to consider that perhaps he may have bitten off more than he can chew in pronouncing his judgment on one of the world’s most vexing conflicts after a short junket to Israel and the Palestinian territories, all of which he calls “Palestine.”

More onTa-Nehisi Coates

Black Critics Shake Their Heads at Ta-Nehisi Coates

The man is like the Dunning-Kruger effect incarnate — yet he acts as though he really has an irreproachable sense of moral discernment. After CBS host Tony Dokoupil was accused of racism and put through the sensitivity-training ringer for civilly pointing out that Coates’s book was extreme and thoroughly misleading, Coates kept mum. Perhaps it would be too much to ask Coates to stick up for Dokoupil by publicly admitting that Coates had pretended to analyze the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by amplifying conspiracy theories about the Jewish state. But a certain kind of public intellectual, committed to honest grappling with the world’s complexity, might have been tempted to tell Dokoupil’s tormentors to back off because the whole exchange was within the bounds of normal argument. He didn’t do that either. Honest grappling is not Coates’s commitment, attested to most of all by The Message, the publication of which affirms that for Coates, shamelessness remains the name of the game.

Shamelessness is one thread running through Coates’s short but eventful stint as the darling oracle of race-obsessed Americans. It did not begin with The Message. There’s a shamelessness to insisting with a straight face that white Americans are engaged in an ongoing race war against black Americans when the most basic facts that might prove such a claim actually point the other direction. (There is no race war, which you could have figured out by the amount of time Coates spends mind-reading in Between the World and Me, for which he won several awards.) There’s a similar shamelessness to hearing Dokoupil point out that Coates’s book about a region has completely ignored the eliminationism animating one side of a conflict and responding, yeah, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Most of what you need to know about The Message is that it’s a whole lot more of that: warning readers against the “elevation of complexity over justice” — as if that isn’t the consummate false choice, as if justice is self-evident and straightforward — and assuming that readers will pretend this is profound and not an incredible insult to their intelligence.

But merely calling Coates a shameless grifter misses the point. More important questions situate Coates in the context of a movement whose adherents allow him to get away with — indeed, get famous for — unserious drivel. Why are Coates and his writings impervious to criticism? How has he avoided consignment to laughingstock status?

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

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.  

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

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?”

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

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