MEDIA Comments turned off

KEVIN WILLIAMSON AT THE NRO

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-truth-about-u-s-aid-to-israel/#slide-1

Hateful as usual…..rsk

“As rich people tend to do for obvious reasons, Americans will labor mightily to make a financial issue out of a nonfinancial one, and so the question of U.S. aid to Israel — a poorly understood and often misrepresented issue — returns periodically to prominence. Nicholas Kristof, writing in the New York Times, laments: “As American taxpayers, we don’t have much influence over Hamas, while we do have influence over Israel and we provide several billion dollars a year in military assistance to a rich country and thus subsidize bombings of Palestinians.”

The ideology that heaps scorn and hatred on the Jewish state also heaps scorn and hatred on the United States, insisting that the United States and Israel are two local expressions of the same global phenomenon — and they are not wrong about that. The Left may give that phenomenon any number of damning names — capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, etc. — but the Noam Chomskys of the world are entirely correct to believe that the United States and Israel represent one possible way of being in the world while Hamas and Cuba and Iran and Venezuela represent a different way of being in the world. We know which side Representative Ocasio-Cortez is throwing in with.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Crenshaw Says GOP Can’t ‘Excommunicate’ President Trump By Zachary Evans

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/crenshaw-says-gop-cant-excommunicate-president-trump/

Representative Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) appeared to caution against attempts to push former president Trump out of a position of influence within the GOP, in comments on MSNBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

Host Chuck Todd asked whether Crenshaw believed Trump was a “legitimate leader of the Republican party.”

“Hold on, I believe that you’re not going to excommunicate a former president, right?” Crenshaw responded. “I refuse to go into this sort of black and white thinking about, it’s either totally one thing or totally the other. These are complex human relationships that involve millions of people.”

Crenshaw also commented on the House GOP’s decision to oust Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) as GOP Conference Chair, by a voice vote on Wednesday. Cheney and colleague Adam Kinzinger (R., Il.) have continued to criticize Trump over his allegations that Democrats “stole” the election, and for his apparent refusal to help quell rioting at the Capitol on January 6.

“I refuse to allow this drama to engulf us. That’s what [Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy was saying, and I fully agree with that,” Crenshaw said. “Look, I say this to Liz, and I say this to Adam: You’re not going to get the colleagues who believe in that stuff to apologize to you, to agree with you.”

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Why the White House won’t define pipeline attack as terrorism By Jonathan Turley

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/553690-why-the-white-house-wont-define-darksides-pipeline-attack-as-terrorism

We’ve heard calls in recent years for an ever-widening category of “terrorists” to encompass groups from the Jan. 6 rioters to antifa to the the Ku Klux Klan. So it is surprising that the White House and the media have referred to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attackers simply as “hackers.” “DarkSide” is not just a collection of hackers — it’s a group of terrorists. And the only thing more concerning than the failure to label them correctly is the possible reason for not doing so.

From the White House to The Washington Post, the mantra has been uniform: Gas to the East Coast was cut off by hackers who demanded — and reportedly received — $5 million in ransom to give us back control of a critical pipeline. The White House not only called these individuals hackers but — when pressed about its position on paying the ransom — insisted it was just a decision for a private company. Deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger said, “Colonial is a private company, and we’ll defer information regarding their decision on paying a ransom to them.” She and others in the Biden administration insisted the ransom payment was a “private sector decision” and said that “the administration has not offered further advice at this time.”

After the ransom was widely reported as having been paid and gas began to flow again, President Biden gave a “no comment” when asked if he was aware of the payment. It was a curious response since the media apparently knew. The company certainly knew, and, most importantly, DarkSide knew. Yet, the White House wanted to portray itself as a pure observer to a private decision on how to handle “hackers.”

The reason is obvious: Colonial just paid a ransom to terrorists. Moreover, gas pipelines are not just “a private company” but a highly regulated industry that closely follows the government’s directions.

The fact is that most of Washington wanted the company to pay off the terrorists because our East Coast was rapidly melting down over shortages. While The New York Times bizarrely issued (and later quietly deleted) a statement that the attack had not led to any gas station lines or higher prices, other news stories were filled with images of long lines, fights at pumps and cascading shortages.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

Israel is at war with Hamas, but in the laboratories, hospitals and scientific institutes the work to ameliorate suffering and enhance life expectancy and quality continues apace as Michael Ordman catalogs.

To Israel’s brave citizens and defense forces is this stanza from Psalm 91:

“For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
 they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.”

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Trials for Covid-19 wonder treatment. The EXO-CD24 Covid treatment (see here) invented by doctors at Israel’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center, is about to begin Phase 2 trials in Greece on 90 patients. If successful, the treatment could be available to treat patients in India, Brazil etc. by end 2021.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-promising-precision-covid-drug-starting-trial-in-greece-next-week/

How Covid-19 fools the immune system. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have produced the most detailed analysis yet of how SARS-Cov-2 stops cells from making the proteins needed to alert the immune system. When Covid-19 is finally detected, the immune system’s cytokine storm response is too massive.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-does-covid-make-people-so-sick-so-quickly-israeli-geneticist-has-an-answer/

Post-Pfizer vaccination study. Tel Aviv University scientists conducted the world’s first digital monitoring study to check concerns about the side effects of the SARS-Cov-2 vaccine. Almost all 160 Israelis monitored showed changes to vital signs (heart rates, blood pressure etc.). These all returned to normal 3 days later.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-research-explains-post-vaccine-grogginess-and-why-its-not-worrying/

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.06.21256587v1

Israeli vaccine news. Israel’s Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) anticipates commencing Phase 3 of its coronavirus vaccine trials soon – probably in Argentina as 30,000 unvaccinated volunteers are required. A new trial may also be launched to test if the two-shot vaccine could be combined into a higher dose single shot.

https://nocamels.com/2021/05/israeli-covid-19-vaccine-single-dose-redo-trials/

First US patients for Israeli blood clot remover. (TY Atid-EDI) The first US patients have been treated with the Tigertriever from Israel’s Rapid Medical. The device helps neurosurgeons to remove blood clots and restore blood flow to the brain following an ischemic (stroke) event. It was approved by the US FDA in March.

https://www.cathlabdigest.com/content/first-us-ischemic-stroke-patients-treated-rapid-medicals-novel-clot-retriever  https://news.yahoo.com/wellstar-docs-tool-remove-blood-223600879.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjUfE_DZIdM   https://vimeo.com/248700464

Transformative treatment for Cystic Fibrosis. Israel’s SpliSense (see here), is developing mRNA-altering therapies for cystic fibrosis (CF) and other genetic pulmonary diseases. SpliSense founder Professor Batsheva Kerem was part of the Hebrew University team that identified the CFTR gene and developed the CF therapy.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3907693,00.html

Molecule protects implants. Researchers from Tel Aviv University have developed an active molecule (SNV) that can significantly suppress inflammation and resulting bone destruction following dental implants. SNV was originally developed to treat Alzheimer’s disease but was tested on implants by a dentist for her PhD thesis.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/tu-tfa051121.php

Protein from mosquitos could treat brain disorders. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have used a light-sensitive protein derived from mosquitos to regulate the pathways connecting parts of the brain. They believe that the discovery may lead to treatments for neurological disorders such as epilepsy. 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-lab-switches-off-brain-connectors-boosting-efforts-to-treat-disorders/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0896627321001616?dgcid=author

Breakthrough app warns of heart failure. Israel’s Cordio Medical (see here previously) has been granted breakthrough device designation by the US FDA for its HearO smartphone app that gives early warning of congestive heart failure by detecting subtle changes in voice tone. It could save millions of lives every year.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/startup-founded-by-top-israeli-cardiologist-detects-heart-disease-via-smartphone/

Accessible cardiac ultrasound. (TY ToI) Israel’s UltraSight has developed an ultrasound device and AI software that allows medical professionals to perform timely and accurate cardiac ultrasound tests regardless of their sonography (medical ultrasound) training. UltraSight won the TCT 2020 Innovation Competition.

https://www.ultrasight.com/ultrasight-raises-13-million-to-bring-a  https://www.ultrasight.com/

https://scienmag.com/onsight-medical-wins-tct-connect-2020-shark-tank-innovation-competition/

More than just a wristband monitor. (TY Atid-EDI) Europe’s CE Mark has been awarded to the Remote Patient AI Monitoring Platform developed by Israel’s Bio-Beat. The system has recently been radically upgraded (see previous) and now automatically and continuously tracks 15 cardio-pulmonary vital signs.

https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/biobeat-s-ai-powered-remote-patient-monitoring-platform-receives-a-full-ce-mark-883148022.html   https://www.bio-beat.com/

It pays to be healthy. Israel’s UVTAL Health has developed Rumble – an app that uses social, behavioral and economic incentives to help over one million Israelis take exercise. The app records the number of steps walked and converts that into tokens that can be spent at many shops and websites.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3907283,00.html  https://www.rumble.co.il/

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Questioning ‘the Science’ on Climate Change Robert Murray

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/05/questioning-the-science-on-climate-change/

What is it about “climate change” that makes it so different from every other issue? It divides families, friendships and political parties, it has brought about media and campus censorship and classroom propaganda. Minds close over, spooked. To question any aspect is the eighth deadly sin. “Deniers” are sub-human.

About anything else, research that suggests that a looming catastrophe might not be as bad as at first predicted would be welcome news indeed. Some of the issues in question are highly technical, but most are not that difficult.

This is a layman’s attempt—not even particularly sceptical—to explain them and suggest a way ahead. The nub of it is the long-term impact of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There are respectable scientific arguments about it, as with many a complex problem, but politics, misconceptions and side issues are more and more clouding things over.

The “official” science comes from the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The main criticism is that it over-estimates future global warming—an argument easy to state but technical in detail and now smothered in irrelevance. In other words, some experts think “the science” is wrong.

So far, after thirty years of operation, the global warming the IPCC has predicted has been at the lower end of the “scenarios” of its mathematical modelling. There are respectable arguments—as there have been from the start—that the IPCC’s theories do not work out in practice.

The IPCC is effectively a global climate science monopoly, with unique power to estimate long-term climate trends and ways to mitigate them, such as the Paris Accords. It has access to a budget of billions, while sceptical scientists have barely peanuts for research and publicity. In Australia they are volunteers.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Trumpets and Tank Engines: A Turning Point in Gaza? by Richard Kemp

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17372/turning-point-in-gaza

Hamas is no match for the IDF and could be quickly and much more cheaply defeated by blunt and crushing military force were it not for one thing — the Israeli need to minimise loss of civilian life. Hamas know that.

Over many years of conflict in Gaza, the majority of the world’s media have enthusiastically reported the deaths of Palestinian civilians as though they were the deliberate object of Israel’s callous and uncaring way of war. This blatantly false propaganda has been taken up by Hamas supporters and “useful idiots” in the West…. Human rights groups around the world have been doing the same.

The wilful ignorance combined with malice has always been breathtaking. Every commission of inquiry determined Israel’s guilt before it even met for the first time.

Every debate and vote has overwhelmingly and of course falsely affirmed Israel’s supposed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Meanwhile Hamas’s actual multiple war crimes have been brushed aside.

[T]he IDF did all they could to ensure minimum loss of civilian life by selecting targets where the lowest levels of innocents would be harmed…. As in previous conflicts in Gaza the IDF has made radio broadcasts in Arabic, sent SMS messages and even phoned civilians inside the strip to warn them of impending strikes….Gazans have given interviews confirming this.

Many in the media, human rights groups and international bodies have rushed to characterise all civilian casualties (other than those inflicted by Hamas of course) as war crimes. But the Geneva Conventions disagree. Inflicting civilian casualties is not illegal provided a military operation is necessary for the prosecution of a war, they are not disproportionate to the planned military gain and that combatant commanders do not intentionally target civilians while doing all they can to avoid hitting them.

The media takes reports from the Gaza health ministry as authoritative and objective. That is disingenuous and they know it. The health ministry is controlled by Hamas and follows their every order.

Despite all of this, as the media unceasingly show us, the real victims in this campaign have indeed been Gaza civilians. But they usually get the cause wrong. Every one is due to Hamas’s unprovoked aggression against Israel. None would have occurred without it.

If Western governments, international bodies and human rights groups are genuinely interested in avoiding suffering in Gaza, they should start now, striving to end Hamas’s reign of terror rather than support it by parroting their baleful narrative.

During an operation in Gaza last week, the Israel Defence Forces attacked a Hamas tunnel complex with 12 squadrons of 160 combat planes striking over 150 targets with hundreds of bunker-busting JDAMs [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] in less than an hour. Although the battle damage assessment is still underway, the raid destroyed perhaps the most critical element of Hamas infrastructure, wiping out vast stocks of munitions and likely killing dozens if not hundreds of fighters. This was a hammer blow to Hamas and may prove to be a turning point in the conflict. It also sent a powerful message to Iran and Hizballah, foretelling the consequences of an assault on Israel with their arsenal of tens of thousands of missiles in southern Lebanon.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Great Reject By David Solway

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2021/05/13/the-great-reject-n1446584

We know from Klaus Schwab, Chair of the World Economic Forum that meets annually in Davos, Switzerland, and architect of the Great Reset which envisions the entire re-making of Western society into a globalist oligopoly, that the pandemic is largely a manufactured crisis. COVID-19 is not “an existential threat,” he writes in COVID-19: The Great Reset; in fact, it is “one of the least deadly pandemics the world has experienced in the last 2000 years.” Strategic chicanery has become the order of the day. According to Schwab, the COVID crisis must be weaponized to deceive and suppress a credulous population and to stifle dissent in order to bring about the total restructuring of Western societies. COVID is the stalking horse behind which the true purpose of the revolutionary scheme and prospectus advances.

World governments and public health organizations have complied with the Davos agenda, mobilizing a veritable arsenal of tactical ordnance in the service of the larger plan. The disease constitutes “our defining moment,” Schwab exults, as the world’s political and medical peerage prepared to launch a four-pronged attack on the free-market West: mask mandates, perpetual lockdowns, defective PCR testing protocols and controversial if not toxic vaccines. Almost everything government officials and public health authorities have stipulated and enforced has been engineered to create an unprecedented catastrophe.

Entire populations will be demoralized and deprived of agency, the entrepreneurial and self-employed middle class will be effectively phased out, and the ethos of individuality and self-reliance will succumb to a global collectivity. “You will own nothing and be happy” is the operative watchword. Only the political, technocratic and plutocratic elite will be spared, as Patrick Wood explains in Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation. This in a nutshell is the Great Reset. It sounds like a conspiracy theory aching to be debunked—the BBC’s considers the Reset as a laudable plan to restore the world’s economy rather than a “baseless conspiracy…which claims a group of world leaders orchestrated the pandemic to take control of the global economy.” The BBC perspective, among similar take-down efforts by many other Leftist venues, is wholly predictable. But a reading of Schwab’s various books detailing the project, in particular COVID-19: The Great Reset and Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the complicity of major international players like Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson, Al Gore, Prince Charles, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and a host of others, as well as the backing of Time Magazine, Greenpeace International, BP, etc., make it abundantly clear that an insurrectionary program is afoot.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why AOC’s Disgusting Slanderous Attack Against Israel Falls Apart By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/05/15/israeli-arab-refutes-aocs-claim-that-israel-is-an-apartheid-state-n1447260

On Saturday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and other members of her “Squad” endorsed the claim that Israel is an “apartheid state” and therefore is not a democracy. An Arab-Israeli activist who served in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) defended his homeland from her slanderous claim. Many Americans on the Left have taken the Palestinian side in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, due in part to this argument.

“Apartheid states aren’t democracies,” AOC tweeted on Saturday, with Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) echoing her words. AOC and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) shared videos of MSNBC host Ali Velshi’s monologue arguing that Israel is an apartheid state.

“Palestinians are at best, third class citizens in the nation of their birth. The idea that it is even remotely controversial to call what Israel has imposed on Palestinians as apartheid is laughable,” Velshi argued.

Yoseph Haddad, an Arab who actually lives in Israel, powerfully countered AOC’s claim.

“I’m Yoseph, an Israeli Arab. I checked the definition of apartheid and you seem to be confused by the propaganda of this political org,” Haddad tweeted. “Arabs like me have full equal rights and live, learn, work, and play together. Take it from me, I live it. Stop lying.”

Speaking on Israel’s I-24 News, Haddad explained that Israel is a multi-racial society

“Here you will see Israeli Jews and Arab Christians and Arab Muslims and Druze and all kinds of minorities. Here they shop together, work together, go to school together, make art together, save lives together, report the news together, serve in the army together, protest the government together, even work as lawyers and judges in the courts together,” he said.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

House GOP Members Want Answers on January 6 Probe By Julie Kelly

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/14/house-gop-members-want-answers-on-january-6-probe/

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Representatives Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) asked for information about the Justice Department’s abusive investigation into January 6.

“Those that damaged property and assaulted police officers on January 6th should rightfully face justice,” the pair wrote in a letter sent May 14. “However, the public outcry and hyper-politicization of the events on January 6th may incentivize prosecutors to use overly aggressive tactics, overcharge, and abuse the power of the federal government in order to satisfy favored political groups.”

Roy and Massie asked Garland to schedule a briefing with Congress before the end of the month to address several concerns, including how plea deals are arranged, the FBI’s use of force in raiding the homes of nonviolent protesteors, and the Justice Department’s request to hold defendants behind bars pending trial. “[C]ongressional oversight of these prosecutions is essential as a check and balance on that power.”

House Republicans finally are pushing back on the Democrats’ largely fabricated narrative about what happened on January 6. Several GOP congressmen confronted ex-Trump officials in a House hearing on Wednesday, demanding answers on the killing of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed veteran shot by a still-unidentified Capitol Police officer, and all the “outright propaganda and lies,” as Representative. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) said, peddled by Democrats and the news media.

Gosar also called for the release of the surveillance video captured by the Capitol Police’s security system on January 6. The USCP and Joe Biden’s Justice Department are fighting to keep those recordings under seal even from defense attorneys.

In a lengthy speech on the House floor Friday afternoon, Representative. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) expressed his outrage over the Capitol breach investigation; he cited numerous articles from American Greatness detailing how defendants are being treated and how political protest is being criminalized by Joe Biden’s Justice Department.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Way of Socialism An absolute commitment to benevolence, like the road that is paved with good intentions, typically leads to an unprofitable destination. By Roger Kimball *****

Posted By on May 16th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/15/the-way-of-socialism/

Anyone who doubts that those in charge of the operation of Providence have a sly sense of humor needs only to ponder the sweet declarations emitted by our more pampered celebrities on the subject of socialism. I remember, for example, when the actor Jim Carrey told Bill Maher that “we have to say yes to socialism—to the word and everything. We have to stop apologizing.”

What a card! Were socialism to be instituted in the United States, one of the first things that would happen is that people like Jim Carrey—with an estimated net worth of $180 million—would be instantly pauperized. For what are the two fundamental pillars of socialism? The abolition of private property and the equalization of wealth. And the cherry on top of this fudge sundae is that Jim Carrey actually starred in a movie called Dumb and Dumber, which is about “two unintelligent but well-meaning friends from Providence, Rhode Island.” Talk about art imitating life.

Let’s leave the latest incarnation of really-existing socialism—the country of Venezuela—to one side. That is a laboratory demonstration of what happens when you take a prosperous country and rigorously impose socialist policies on it. Jeremy Corbyn was partly right when he said the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez showed there was “another way” of doing politics and “it’s called socialism.”

Corbyn forgot to add: that way leads to universal immiseration and societal collapse, which is exactly what is happening in the once-rich South American country now. 

Is Joe Biden on the cusp of doing to us what Chavez did to Venezuela? To be frank, I do not think the American people will let him. But in the House of Fiscal Misery there are many mansions, and so far the actions of the Biden Administration have not been encouraging, as anyone who can pronounce the words “inflation,” “consumer confidence,” “energy prices,” or “taxes” knows full well.