Omicron Makes Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Obsolete There is no evidence so far that vaccines are reducing infections from the fast-spreading variant. By Luc Montagnier and Jed Rubenfeld

https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicron-makes-bidens-vaccine-mandates-obsolete-covid-healthcare-osha-evidence-supreme-court-11641760009?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Dr. Montagnier was a winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the human immunodeficiency virus. Mr. Rubenfeld is a constitutional scholar.

Federal courts considering the Biden administration’s vaccination mandates—including the Supreme Court at Friday’s oral argument—have focused on administrative-law issues. The decrees raise constitutional issues as well. But there’s a simpler reason the justices should stay these mandates: the rise of the Omicron variant.

It would be irrational, legally indefensible and contrary to the public interest for government to mandate vaccines absent any evidence that the vaccines are effective in stopping the spread of the pathogen they target. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening here.

Both mandates—from the Health and Human Services Department for healthcare workers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for large employers in many other industries—were issued Nov. 5. At that time, the Delta variant represented almost all U.S. Covid-19 cases, and both agencies appropriately considered Delta at length and in detail, finding that the vaccines remained effective against it.

Those findings are now obsolete. As of Jan. 1, Omicron represented more than 95% of U.S. Covid cases, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because some of Omicron’s 50 mutations are known to evade antibody protection, because more than 30 of those mutations are to the spike protein used as an immunogen by the existing vaccines, and because there have been mass Omicron outbreaks in heavily vaccinated populations, scientists are highly uncertain the existing vaccines can stop it from spreading. As the CDC put it on Dec. 20, “we don’t yet know . . . how well available vaccines and medications work against it.”

The Progressive Logic of Build Back Better — and Its Dangers .By Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/01/09/the_progressive_logic_of_build_back_better__and_its_dangers_147003.html

“Build Back Better” is far more consequential than the earlier COVID relief packages. That’s why Democrats are so angry at those who blocked its passage and so determined to push it forward.

Why is BBB more important than the COVID legislation? Because pandemic relief was essentially a massive stimulus program, with the usual smorgasbord of treats for favored groups, but little more than that. Although BBB is also a massive stimulus, its real importance lies in the permanent entitlement programs it would launch, everything from universal pre-K and Medicare expansion to mandated paid leave from private employers.

Those are major building blocks in the Democrats’ long-term plan to construct a full-fledged social-welfare state along European lines. Achieving that ambitious, transformational goal — while making irreversible changes in how America governs itself — is why the party is fighting so hard and why the left is so furious about the Senate stalemate, personified by West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a Democrat who refuses to go along, either to pass the bill or eliminate the filibuster to pass President Biden’s non-budget initiatives.

Enacting these massive, new entitlements is one reason the House bill is rightly called “progressive.” The second, equally important reason is that nearly all Democrats, except Manchin and his Arizona colleague Kyrsten Sinema, are willing to break the Senate’s longstanding rules and procedures to achieve their desired outcome. This determination to override traditional governing procedures and the institutions that embody them has been a hallmark of capital-P Progressivism since Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette came roaring into the Senate in 1906.

By 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was running for president as the Progressive Party nominee. Woodrow Wilson, the man who gained the Oval Office by TR’s third-party candidacy, had embraced progressivism while a professor (and later college president) at Princeton. Wilson and progressive public intellectuals such as Herbert Croly explained their rationale far more candidly than their political descendants do. The Constitution, they rightly noted, encumbered our national government with its enumerated powers, decentralized federalism, multiple veto points for any new policies, and strong protections for private property, contracts, and minority-party rights. Progressives argued that those restraints may have been fine for the 18th and 19th centuries but not for the 20th, which needed a far more active state.

SOCIALISM AND THE DEATH OF MEDICAL CARE: DIANE BEDERMAN

https://dianebederman.com/socialism-and-the-death-of-medical-care/

There is no doubt in my mind that socializing medical care will be the death of medical care. Government may have good intentions, but government has a track record of exploding budgets and a terrible track record for implementation.

This is a follow up to my post about my family health team clinic and the doctor who is now under investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The College responded to my concerns quickly. But trying to discover who oversaw the actions of the Family Health Team Clinic; well that took on a long life of its own because of government bureaucracy and the socialization of medical care.

A reminder. I told my doctor I didn’t trust him and then I received a registered letter September 30 telling me that he would no longer be my doctor and no other doctor in the clinic would see me based on Best Practice standards of the clinic. There are no Best Practice standards. The clinic lied; well Kim Bell, the administrator. But I was without a doctor the middle of Covid and I am a senior. To put this in perspective, there are at least 10 people looking for a doctor at any time.

This is the story of my crusade of almost two months trying to find out who oversaw these 184 family health team clinics serving 3,000,000 people in 200 communities in Ontario with a population of 14 million citizens.

I finally found out when I received an email November 17, from Fernando Tavares A/Program Manager, Interprofessional Programs Unit from PCOInquiries Interprofessional Programs Primary Health Care Branch,OHIP, Pharmaceuticals and Devices Division,Ministry of Health (what a title!)

New York City Mayor Signs Law Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-city-mayor-signs-law-allowing-non-citizens-to-vote/

New York City Mayor Eric Adams enacted a measure Sunday that will allow more than 800,000 non-citizens in the city to vote in municipal elections.

The new law, which the city council passed a month ago, will grant voting rights to any adult who has been a lawful permanent resident in the city for more than 30 days. If it survives a legal challenge, New York City will be the first to institute such a law. Under the law, legal non-Americans would be able to vote for a number of elected positions including mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president, and council member.

However, the law would disqualify eligible individuals from voting for president or members of Congress in federal races and state gubernatorial elections, among others. Undocumented immigrants would not be granted the right to vote under the measure.

A handful of localities across the United States, including eleven towns in Maryland and two in Vermont, permit non-citizens to participate in their elections.

“I believe that New Yorkers should have a say in their government, which is why I have and will continue to support this important legislation,” Adams said in a statement Saturday.

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

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.”

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

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.

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

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.

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

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:

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

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/
 
 

World Order: Back to the Future by Amir Taheri

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.