ISRAEL Comments turned off

Thank heaven for fools Nothing will do for them except 100 percent of everything, Jack Engelhard ****

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25162

Thank heaven for fools

The worry is that these people, such as Abbas and Olmert, will wake up and realize that the deal of the century is a boon for the Palestinian Arabs.

Meantime, the big deal is a big flop, for reasons some people, like this observer, don’t understand.

I mean, I hate it too, but for opposite reasons. I registered my qualms here, here and here, but would rather not mention it again, lest it gives them ideas.

Ideas about how sweet it is for the Arab side, and how bitter it is for the Israelis, for whom a two-state solution has always been anathema. 

The Palestinian Arabs, under Kushner’s plan, get their own country, for crying out land. What more do they want? Plenty, I know.

But having your own country means you get to pretend you’re part of the civilized world. The Palestinian Arabs get it after producing, some would say, nothing, except terrorism.

Shouldn’t they be thankful? Doesn’t work that way, apparently, and not for the rest of the world, either, neither the UN or the EU.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

KIMBALL ON “PETE”, SCALISE ON DURHAM INVESTIGATION, THE COUP THAT FAILED

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://spectator.us/mayor-pete-moderate-bernie-sanders/

Pete Buttigieg Is not Going to Win Roger Kimball,

I see that various pundits are competing to write the political epitaph for Joe ‘son-of-a-bitch‘ Biden. That’s entirely understandable. It’s been clear for some time that Biden is on the threshold of senility, and it is only my charitable disposition that prevents me from speculating about which side of the threshold he occupies.

And then there was the desolation wrought by the Democrats’ impeachment entertainment. From the start, it was clear that the chief casualty of that amateur theatrics was going to be Joe Biden and his sniff, sniff, sniffing son Hunter.

Everyone who is not Bill Kristol understood that the bullet of that purely partisan hit job would miss President Trump. I do not understand why it was not also understood that the Bidens, knee- or perhaps even neck-deep in the influence-peddling nepotism-is-neat corruption biz, would be the prime victims of that bizarre soap opera. Or maybe it was understood and the real point was to give old Joe the shove that he required but to do it covertly. Deep waters.  CONTINUE READING

www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/scalise-ive-seen-classified-information-showing-people-ought-to-go-to-jail-over-durham-investigation

SCALISE: “I’ve seen classified information showing ‘people ought to go to jail’ over Durham investigation.”Andrew Mark Miller

Rep. Steve Scalise said that after seeing classified information, he believes that some people should be in jail after U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia inquiry concludes.

“People ought to go to jail,” the Louisiana Republican said to Sean Hannity after explaining there are still “dirty cops” in Washington undermining the president’s agenda.

“I have seen some classified information I can’t go into — but, I can say this: Hopefully, Durham names names. I think the attorney general is waiting to see what comes out of that. And then, hopefully, they go after those people and put them in jail.”

Scalise assured the public that Durham’s report will exonerate “99%” of FBI rank-in-file employees who are “good people” at an important agency. 

Durham was given the task of investigating the origins of the Russia investigation and the surveillance of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign with a wider scope than Inspector General Michael Horowitz had while putting together and eventually releasing his report documenting FISA abuses. CONTINUE READING

http://andmagazine.com/talk/2020/02/03/the-coup-failed-now-what/ 

THE COUP FAILED – NOW WHAT? Charles “Sam” Faddis

Throughout history, political succession has been a bloody, chaotic business. The Romans and the Ottomans among others engaged in palace intrigue, assassination and civil war as a means of determining who would rule next when an emperor or sultan was replaced.We have been, for over two hundred and fifty years, a rare example of the legal, peaceful transfer of power.

Until now. Until 2016.

The absurd Ukrainian impeachment attempt is dying. A final stake will be put through its heart within days. Three years of unprecedented extralegal efforts by members of the Democratic Party and rogue federal bureaucrats to overturn the results of a free and fair election are coming to an end. CONTINUE READING

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France Quietly Reintroducing the Crime of Blasphemy by Giulio Meotti

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15526/france-blasphemy-censorship

Today, in France, using freedom of expression to criticize Islam is clearly an extremely dangerous act, even if you, like Mila, are a child.

France is rapidly going from laïcité (secularism) to lâcheté(cowardice); from freedom of expression to unconditional surrender. France keeps trying to procrastinate while Islamism thrives on the elites’ rapidly abandoning their Judeo-Christian values.

Feminist organizations, so quick to denounce “toxic masculinity” and “patriarchal structures of domination”, were also silent.

Today, in France, the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system…. are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy.

France had just come out of the fifth anniversary of the massacre at its satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo than it was plunged into a similar case. On January 18, Mila O., a 16-year-old French girl, made insulting comments about Islam during an Instagram livestream.

“During her livestream, a Muslim boy asked her out in the comments, but she turned him down because she is gay. He responded by accusing her of racism and calling her a ‘dirty lesbian’. In an angry follow-up video, streamed immediately after she was insulted, Mila responded by saying that she ‘hates religion'”.

Mila continued, saying among other things:

“Are you familiar with freedom of expression? I didn’t hesitate to say what I thought. I hate religion. The Koran is a religion of hatred; there is only hatred in it. That’s what I think. I say what I think… Islam is sh*t… I’m not a racist at all. One cannot simply be racist against a religion… I say what I want, I say what I think. Your religion is sh*t. I’d stick a finger up your god’s a**h*le…”

What she said might be considered a bit raw, but does she have the right to say it? After all, Jews are called the descendants of pigs and apes without the speech police having a stroke.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Man of a Thousand Faces Wears a New Mask by Amir Taheri

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15556/hassan-rouhani-mask

In the meantime, conscious of the fact that Iranians are suckers for real or fake academic titles, to enhance his persona, Rouhani enrolled in a British college in Glasgow to obtain a PhD in Islamic law. Thus, in a few years’ time, he was able to rebrand himself as Dr. Hassan Rouhani, the “moderate reformist with Western education.”

By the 1990s, in Western policy circles, Rouhani had acquired the reputation of “a man with whom we can work”.

Rouhani’s message, peddled by cronies including Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif, is that the internal opposition and foreign powers worried about Iran should be patient and help “moderates” re-orient the storm-stricken ship of the regime towards calmer waters.

Will Rouhani’s scenario, for easing Khamenei off his pedestal, work? I doubt it. Rouhani may be a talented man of a thousand faces, but 40 years of experience has shown that every one of those faces turned out to be a mask.

Whatever one might think of Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one thing is certain: had things gone differently in Iran 40 years ago, he might have become a writer of penny-dreadfuls with provincial themes. Rouhani’s talent for fiction writing is demonstrated by the way he has reinvented himself over the decades.

In 1977, when the first rumbles of revolution roared in Iran, he was a student, going by the name of Hassan Fereidun, in England, seeking a degree in textile design.

A few months later, he re-named himself Rouhani, meaning spiritual or clerical. Fereidun was a Persian nationalistic name and would not do for a man plotting to cast himself as a champion of faith.

He then spent a few weeks of holidays taking classes in Shiite theology. In the meantime, he grew a beard and cast off Western clothes, thus creating a persona soon aggrandized by the claim which he minted that he was the first to grant Khomeini the title of Imam. Rouhani claims that he did so when addressing a memorial service for Khomeini’s son Mostafa, who had passed away in Iraq. There is, of course, no evidence that Rouhani was even present at the service which, incidentally was reported complete with a photo in the daily Kayhan.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Vassar College Workshop: ‘All White People Are Racist’ Catherine Smith

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/07/vassar-college-workshop-all-white-people-are-racist/

Students that attended a recent workshop at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, were reportedly told that “all white people are racist,” Breitbart reports.

According to a report by The College Fix, The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond’s “Undoing Racism” workshop, hosted on various college campuses and other community locations across the nation, works to end systemic racism and institutional oppression, teaching students that racism is woven into the fabric of American society.

One way it does that is by telling attendees “all white people are racist.”

An op-ed in Vassar College’s student newspaper states that during an Undoing Racism workshop there during the fall 2019 semester, instructors made that statement and highlighted specific ways in which they believe American society is racist.

“We looked into each other’s souls as we discussed hardships and shared truths. For some spotting racism is easy, while for others it comes to light that racism is not always this blatant use of the n-word or making someone sit in the back of the bus. It’s oppression. It’s a lack of opportunities. Racism is thinking you are being progressive by allowing a Black child into your predominantly white school, but not wanting your white child to attend a predominantly Black school.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Bernie Owes Obama Big Time Barack Obama set the stage for the Vermont socialist’s rise to national prominence. But the Democrat’s Marxist coming-out party happened too soon for America. Karin McQuillan

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/08/bernie-owes-obama-big-time/

Those who are surprised by Bernie Sanders’ power in the Democrat primaries of 2016 and 2020 have not been paying attention. The self-styled “democratic socialist” from Vermont has inherited what President Obama sowed. Sanders is riding a wave of well-funded and highly trained young Marxists weaponized by President Obama. It is Obama’s hard work that allowed Bernie to jump from fringe character to viable presidential candidate.

These 21st-century progressives are not the loser SDS-types familiar to Baby Boomers. They know all about power. They are fundraising juggernauts on social media. Democratic candidates cater to them or drop out.

They foisted the “resistance” on traditional liberal Democrats. After Trump’s inauguration, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were talking about working with the president. Hordes of activists descended on them, threatening their positions and threatening their homes.

The growing power of the hard Left within the Democratic Party’s ranks is not new. It is not the result of Trump derangement. It is the cause of Trump derangement.

Progressives punch way above their weight class, first writing the regulations as government bureaucrats and then using threats of lawsuits to control corporations and colleges. They write the federal and state regulations that require racial and gender quotas. They run the human resources departments to enforce compliance. Activists invade and intimidate boardrooms (one of the things Obama led and taught as a community organizer) insisting corporations adopt woke policies by accusing them of racism, homophobia, and misogyny, and threatening lawsuits.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL COMPILED BY MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

http://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Inhibiting an enzyme may cure Alzheimer’s. Israel’s ProteKt Therapeutics is developing a treatment for early stage Alzheimer’s disease. It inhibits the PKR enzyme that is over-expressed in Alzheimer’s patients and may slow or even reverse the progress of the disease. It also has potential for ALS, Huntington and Parkinson’s.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-startup-hopes-to-battle-alzheimers-with-enzyme-busting-drug/

Orphan status for pancreatic cancer treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) The European Commission has just granted Orphan drug status to the BL-8040 (Motixafortide) pancreatic cancer treatment from Israel’s BioLineRX (see here). BioLineRX can now receive benefits including EU funding, less regulation, and market exclusivity.

https://ir.biolinerx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/biolinerx-receives-orphan-drug-designation-motixafortide-bl-8040

HealthTECH World Cancer Day. Tel Aviv University represented Israel on World Cancer day as one of five European cities simultaneously broadcasting news of the latest technological developments in cancer diagnosis and treatment. The event was sponsored by the NOBEL Project, which is revolutionizing healthcare in Europe.

https://en-med.tau.ac.il/event/healthtech/world/cancer/day/2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sTRkSG6Zwc  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsgEkVqQF0I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBVdtmZz3WA

Sheba’s partners Berlin AI for cancer R&D. (TY Atid-EDI) Berlin’s caresyntax, has launched an R&D partnership with the ARC (Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate) complex at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. They will use Artificial Intelligence to develop algorithms for predicting outcomes for cancer treatment procedures.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200107005204/en/caresyntax-ARC-Sheba-Medical-Center-Launch-Collaboration   https://caresyntax.com/news/caresyntax-sheba-medical-launch-collaboration/

US approves complete AI stroke detection package. (TY Atid-EDI) The US FDA previously approved the brain scan software from Israel’s Aidoc (Oct 2018),. It has now approved all four of Aidoc’s AI products, so its comprehensive package can quickly identify and triage both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke in CT scans.

https://www.aidoc.com/blog/news/ai-saving-brain-fda-clears-aidocs-complete-ai-stroke-package/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OQOZedPlmY

Accelerating regenerative medicine. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s CollPlant is partnering with US-based 3D Systems to spur breakthroughs in regenerative medicine. It brings together top 3D-printing technology with Collprint’s bioink technology for 3D bioprinting of tissues and organs.

https://ir.collplant.com/press-releases/detail/83/3d-systems-and-collplant-biotechnologies-join-forces-to

https://www.3dsystems.com/press-releases/3d-systems-and-collplant-biotechnologies-join-forces-accelerate-breakthroughs

Space medical research with Italy. (TY WIN) Israel and Italy are to launch a satellite in March, on which medical research will be conducted in zero gravity. The mission involves Israel’s SpacePharma (see here), Israel’s Technion, Sheba hospital, the Hebrew University and the Israeli and Italian space agencies.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/02/06/israel-italy-eye-joint-scientific-space-venture/

https://www.jpost.com/Jpost-Tech/Israeli-scientific-experiments-to-be-performed-in-outer-space-597127

https://www.space4p.com/missions

Body on a chip. (TY David F) A team of over 50 researchers at Harvard University and Tel Aviv University (TAU) have successfully built human “organs-on-chips” that aim to speed up trials of new treatments. They have linked 10 chips together to form a “functional human Body-on-Chips platform”.

http://nocamels.com/2020/02/tau-harvard-researchers-human-body-chip-drug-response/

Microsoft Israel gives patients hope. As reported previously (Feb 2019) Microsoft’s Israeli R&D team developed the Microsoft Healthcare AI virtual medical assistant. Team leader Hadas Bitran describes the project. They are now working on the New Hope project to match patients with clinical trials around the globe.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/this-microsoft-health-assistant-bot-was-made-in-israel/

The first Hasid to graduate from Israeli med school. Dr. Yehuda Sabiner is the first Israeli-born Haredi to graduate from medical school. A member of the Gerrer Hasidic sect, Yehuda enrolled at Israel’s Technion, graduated and will intern at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. 35 Haredim are now following in his footsteps.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/first-israeli-born-hasidic-doctor-blazes-new-trail-in-medicine/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vtf2pPywyY

POLITICS Comments turned off

Mini Mike Bloomberg thinks Americans are really stupid and lack nuance By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/mini_mike_bloomberg_thinks_americans_are_really_stupid_and_lack_nuance.html

Looking at the dysfunctional group of Democrat presidential candidates, Mike Bloomberg is planning, through strategically placed ads and a well-funded ground-game, to be the last man standing. His problem, though, is that he’s a bully, lacks charm and, as a recently unearthed video reveals, dislikes and disrespects the American people.

American politicians used to pretend they liked the citizens whose votes they sought. Nowadays, though, Democrat politicians limit themselves to attacking their opponents; they also attack the American voters. The most famous example is Hillary’s “deplorables” statement:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Barack Obama castigated Americans as bitter-clingers and hostile xenophobes:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. *** And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

John “Reporting for Duty” Kerry didn’t think much of the military:

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trump’s withdrawal from Syria may be a disaster . . . for Iran and Turkey By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/trumps_withdrawal_from_syria_may_be_a_disaster____for_iran_and_turkey.html

In December 2018, Trump ordered the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, where they’d been hard at work destroying the last military vestiges of ISIS, the one-time “JV team” that ignited a reign of terror across Iraq and Syria. The Democrat party and its lapdog media promised us that our Kurdish allies would be slaughtered and we’d be on the verge of yet another one of the many Trump initiated World Wars.

None of that happened, but it appears that two regimes hostile to American interests are at each other’s throats. And of course, it’s always preferable when one’s enemies turn their aggression towards each other.

The New York Times´ reporting from 2018 about Trump’s planned withdrawal is a good example of the concern the Democrats and the foreign policy establishment had that Trump would get America into war by getting America out of war:

In overruling his generals and civilian advisers, Mr. Trump fulfilled his frequently expressed desire to bring home American forces from a messy foreign entanglement. But his decision, conveyed via Twitter on Wednesday, plunges the administration’s Middle East strategy into disarray, rattling allies like Britain and Israel and forsaking Syria’s ethnic Kurds, who have been faithful partners in fighting the Islamic State.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Pelosi and Rumpelstiltskin By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on February 9th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/pelosi_and_rumpelstiltskin.html

Watching Nancy Pelosi and her gang of insolent quislings, it was hard not to think of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin.”  Power, greed, deal-making, sacrifice of children, and petulant rage are a few of the themes of this fairy tale that aptly describe the current Democrat party.

The fairy tale relates that a young woman must spin straw into gold thread because her father, a miller, foolishly boasted to the greedy king that she can.  Clearly, this is an impossible task until a “strange little man” saves the day — but at what cost?  Constantly trying to keep up with the demands of the avaricious king, the miller’s daughter accepts a bargain that entails giving up her newborn baby son if she cannot identify the “little man’s” name.  Through happenstance, she is able to counter the odious demand, and the now identified Rumpelstiltskin flies into a fit of rage.  In fact, in “his anger he stamped with his right foot so hard that it went into the ground above his knee; then he seized his left foot with both his hands in such a fury that he split in two, and there was an end of him.”

So what does an ancient fairy tale have to do with Nancy Pelosi?

For far too long, the Democrats have wheedled their way into American’s lives with sly promises and sleight-of-hand maneuvers.  Oh, a bone or two will be flung, but the depressed Baltimores, Detroits, and Clevelands never improve.  A recreational center may be built, but illegals bearing deadly intentions and drugs will not be stopped as they destroy neighborhoods.