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“You Are Born to Clean Our Houses”: Persecution of Christians, by Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on July 7th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14469/persecution-of-christians-april

“We are a peace-loving community in this small city, we had never hurt anyone, but we don’t know from where this amount of hate is coming.” – a Christian man who survived the bombing at St. Sebastian’s Church, Morningstar News, April 22, 2019, Negombo, Sri Lanka.

“[C]rosses on graves in an Italian cemetery in Pieve di Cento have been covered with black cloth so as not to offend those who may come from another religion.” – Il Giornale, April 4, 2029, and Breitbart; Bologna, Italy.

“My brother… had compassion for me. He [told me of] the plan my father had devised; to have me beheaded in Qatar because I had refused to convert back to Islam.” – Charles Mudasir, Persecution.org (International Christian Concern), April 22, 2019, Mombasa, Kenya.

“It took about a year for me to save and arrange the required funds to establish a grocery store. However, Christians in this… society are not allowed to initiate a business. I had customers in my shop when Fiaz Khattak led an armed group…. ” — Kenneth Johnson, a poor agricultural laborer who takes care of three children, after he tried to open a small grocery store; Persecution.org (International Christian Concern), April 10, 2019, Pakistan.

Slaughter of Christians

Sri Lanka: On Easter Sunday, April 21, Islamic terrorists launched a bombing campaign on Christians; the death toll reached 253, with hundreds more wounded. Eight separate explosions took place, at least two of which were suicide bombings: three targeted churches celebrating Easter Sunday Mass; four targeted hotels frequented by Western tourists possibly in connection with Easter holiday; one blast was in a house, and killed three police officers during a security operation. At least 39 foreigners — including citizens of the United States, Britain, Australia, Japan, Denmark and Portugal — were among the dead.

HISTORY Comments turned off

David Irving’s Great Adventure By Alex Grobman, PhD

Posted By on July 7th, 2019

https://www.jewishlinknj.com/features/32233-david-irving-s-great-adventure

A recent report stated that David Irving, who lost a defamation suit against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin publishers who accused him of Holocaust denial, had planned to lead a tour of Holocaust sites in Poland. According to Irving’s website, his 2019 tour begins on September 1 from Warsaw and ends there on September 9. The group will visit the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s primary headquarters on the Easter Front, not far from the town of Rastenburg in East Prussia. They will also tour Hochwald; the nearby bunker of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS; and Treblinka, Sobibór, Belzec and Majdanek.

For those who know little about David Irving and Ernest Zündel, who before his death in August 2017 was the leading Holocaust denier in North America, this article will help provide some insight.

In “Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?” Michael Shermer and I wrote, “There is no more paradoxical character in the Holocaust denial movement” than David Irving. He seeks the respect and recognition of the academic historical community, while at times derides them for their failure to recognize the value of his works,” which include “Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden,” “Hitler’s War,” “The Trail of the Fox: The Search for the True Field Marshall,” “Goring: A Biography,” and “Churchill’s War: The German Atomic Bomb.”

He ridicules academic historians for being haughty and verbose, yet this is the manner he projects at times. Of all the Holocaust deniers, he is the most historically sophisticated, even though he has no professional training in history. In a widely quoted interview with Michael Shermer, Irving said “Without Hitler Israel probably would not exist today. To that extent he was probably the Jews’ greatest friend.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on July 7th, 2019

Gaza thugs throw incendiary balloons and rocks, the media and academics continue their libels, ignorant cretins continue their street theater demonstrations, and in spite of it all Israel makes outsize contributions in medicine, science, technology and cybersecurity which benefit the citizens of every nation on every continent. Amazing indeed! My friend and e-pal Michael Ordman compiles this list almost every week. rsk

http://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Hadassah surgeons realign baby’s organs. In a first-of-its-kind operation, a team of doctors at Hadassah Medical Center repaired the hernia (muscle between chest and abdomen) of a new-born baby.  Then using low-invasive thoracoscopic surgery, they pushed the baby’s small intestine and spleen back into the abdomen.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/265335

Positive autism treatment results. (TY Stuart) Professor Lidia Gabis of Sheba Medical Center has published two important research articles on the treatment of autistic children. One showed that combined Donepezil and Choline improved their language skills. The other highlighted the benefits of medical clowning.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00431-019-03415-7 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31230222

The protein that weakens the immune system. Researchers from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, working in an international team, have identified that the protein known as TOX represses T-cells within the immune system. By neutralizing TOX, scientists could restore the immune system to fight cancer and chronic or viral diseases.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/study-identifies-protein-that-causes-exhaustion-of-immune-system-cells/

Device for treating ADHD. I mentioned previously (Feb 2017) about Israeli-Arab startup InnoSphere, which was developing a wearable device for treating ADHD. This article describes in detail InnoSphere’s electrode-embedded cap that stimulates neurons in the brains of ADHD sufferers to make new connections.

https://www.israel21c.org/high-hopes-for-new-adhd-treatment-device/

New way to unblock arteries.  (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Transseptal Solutions announced the first TSP Crosser transseptal puncture procedure in the US. Transseptal’s innovative device helps surgeons to insert diagnostic and therapeutic devices into the left atrium with control, speed and precision. It is FDA and CE approved.

https://www.transseptalsolutions.com/

Generic treatment for hypertension. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Teva has launched a generic version of Tracleer tablets in the US. The treatment allows sufferers of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) to exercise better and slows progression of the disease.  PAH is high blood pressure in the blood vessels of the lungs.

https://ir.tevapharm.com/investors/press-releases/press-release-details/2019/Teva-Announces-Launch-of-a-Generic-Version-of-Tracleer-bosentan-Tablets-in-the-United-States/default.aspx

Europe approves diabetes support system. (TY Atid-EDI) I’ve reported previously (see here) on Israel’s GlucoMe diabetes monitors. GlucoMe’s new Decision Support System (“DSS”) has just received the CE Mark. The DSS’s algorithm-based, clinical decision support software helps doctors monitor type 2 diabetes patients.

https://www.glucome.com/about-us/news/GlucoMe-now-has-CE-Mark-for-Diabetes-Decision-Support-Technology

Anyone can save a life. Ezer Mizion’s data processor found she was a DNA match on the Israeli NGO’s bone marrow registry for a woman suffering from Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). She flew halfway around the world to donate some of her stem cells. She tells both her story, and of those still needing a transplant.

http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/what-was-it-like/

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Boris Johnson: British Jews Among Immigrant Groups Who Have ‘Helped to Make Our National Culture’

Posted By on July 7th, 2019

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/07/05/boris-johnson-british-jews-among-immigrant-groups-who-have-helped-to-make-our-national-culture/

In remarks at a Conservative Party hustings on Friday, Boris Johnson hailed British Jews as one of the immigrant groups who “adapted and they have made their lives and they have helped to make our national culture.”

“That’s what I want for our country, I want everybody who comes here and makes their lives here to be and to feel British,” he said.

Johnson — a former London mayor and foreign secretary — is battling current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May, who announced her resignation in May over her failure to handle the Brexit issue. The winner will be declared later this month.

Watch Friday’s event below (via The Guardian). Johnson’s comment about Jews occurs at around the 40:30 mark:

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Rabid French Antisemite Dieudonné Sentenced by Paris Court for Money Laundering, Tax Evasion by Ben Cohen

Posted By on July 7th, 2019

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/07/05/rabid-french-antisemite-dieudonne-sentenced-by-paris-court-for-money-laundering-tax-evasion/

The rabidly antisemitic French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala was sentenced to two years in prison by the Paris Criminal Court on Friday, which convicted him of tax evasion and money laundering.

However, the comedian — who has built his reputation in France by mocking the Nazi Holocaust and promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories — is unlikely to serve actual jail time and will perform “community service” instead, Radio France International reported. He has also been ordered to pay a fine of 200,000 euros (approximately $225,000).

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

ROD LIDDLE ON ANTI-SEMITISM IN 2018

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
Roderick E. Liddle is an English journalist, and an associate editor of The Spectator.

‘This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it…. Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place…. Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered…. And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge)….

Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more…. It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement…. Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.’
Rod Liddle (2018)

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Russian Oligarch Scoffed at FBI’s Collusion Theory By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/oleg-deripaska-fbi-russia-collusion-theory/

Oleg Deripaska did not exculpate Paul Manafort, but he raises more questions about Christopher Steele.

John Solomon is a terrific reporter, and he has done excellent work on the Trump-Russia investigation. Nevertheless, legal analysis is not his specialty. That is evident in his otherwise intriguing report at The Hill about Oleg Deripaska’s dealings with the FBI.

Deripaska is an aluminum magnate who is sometimes referred to as “Putin’s oligarch” thanks to his close relationship with the Russian strongman. He was also Paul Manafort’s business partner.

Manafort, of course, was Donald Trump’s campaign chairman for about four months in mid 2016. He has paid dearly for entering Trump World.

In 2014, an investigation of Manafort’s work for the deposed Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych was closed. Manafort joined the Trump campaign in early 2016. The FBI and the Obama Justice Department reopened the Manafort case, helped along by pro-Clinton officials in Ukraine’s government. In August 2016, the latter leaked a ledger of questionable provenance, purporting to show over $12 million in cash payments to Manafort. The leak of the ledger led to Manafort’s dismissal from the Trump campaign. He was eventually indicted and convicted in the Mueller investigation for tax evasion and other financial-fraud charges. He is serving a 90-month prison sentence. (Manafort has never denied being paid by Yanukovych and his Party of Regions; he has maintained that he was paid by wire, not in cash. As Solomon has reported, the current Ukrainian government does not vouch for the authenticity of the ledger.)

Deripaska has credibly accused Manafort of swindling him in connection with an investment in a grossly overvalued Ukrainian telecom firm. He has sued the political consultant in various jurisdictions for over $25 million.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Grandstanding at the Border Democrats finally admit there’s a problem. How about helping to solve it?

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/grandstanding-at-the-border-11562367921

Ironic good news in the immigration wars: Democrats are finally admitting there’s a crisis at the southern U.S. border, judging by their visits the last two weeks with reporters and TV cameras in tow. Now will they help to stop it?

Nearly every presidential candidate has posed for a border photo op, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as always took it to the limit by claiming migrants were forced to drink from toilets and the U.S. is now heading toward fascism. There’s no confirming evidence about the toilet charge, and the Congresswoman has no standing to complain after she voted against the funding bill last week to get more humanitarian money to the border.

***

And, by the way, where has she been? The “breaking point has arrived this week at our border,” then commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Kevin McAleenan warned way back on March 27. “CBP is facing an unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis all along our Southwest border.”

He was ignored. But suddenly Democrats and their media friends are flogging a pair of new inspector general reports, including one on May 30 that documents the “dangerous overcrowding” at a border control station in El Paso. It describes how one “cell with a maximum capacity of 35 held 155 detainees,” and how migrants were “standing on toilets in the cells to make room and gain breathing space.”

At a CBP facility in the Rio Grande Valley, says a July 2 IG report, “some single adults were held in standing room only conditions for a week.” Some migrants were desperate enough to clog the “toilets with Mylar blankets and socks in order to be released from their cells during maintenance.”

IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How to Put Citizenship Back in the Census The 14th Amendment gives the Trump administration the justification it needs. By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Gilson B. Gray

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-put-citizenship-back-in-the-census-11562264430

The Trump administration said Wednesday it will attempt to add a citizenship question on the 2020 census while complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Department of Commerce v. New York. Five justices held that the Census Act allows the question, but a separate five-justice majority found the rulemaking that added the question was procedurally deficient. There is a way forward. The Constitution itself requires the collection of citizenship information.

Section 2 of the 14th Amendment provides that if a state denies the franchise to anyone eligible to vote, its allotment of House seats shall be “reduced in the proportion which the number of such . . . citizens shall bear to the whole number of . . . citizens . . . in such state.” This language is absolute and mandatory. Compliance is impossible without counting how many citizens live in each state.

The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, and this provision meant to secure the voting rights of newly freed slaves. But it wasn’t limited to that purpose. An earlier version of Section 2, introduced in 1865, specifically referred to limits on suffrage based on “race or color,” but the Senate rejected that limitation. The amendment forbids state interference with the rights of all eligible voters (then limited to males over 21).

Section 2 also applies to every state, a point Rep. John Bingham, the amendment’s principal drafter, emphasized during the floor debate: “The second section . . . simply provides for the equalization of representation among all the States in the Union, North, South, East, and West. It makes no discrimination.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Cultural Casualties of Life in the Fast Lane Patrick Morgan

Posted By on July 6th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/07

Milan Kundera observed in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:

In times when history moved slowly, events were few and far between and easily committed to memory. They formed a commonly accepted backdrop for thrilling scenes of adventure in private life. Nowadays, history moves at a brisk clip … No longer a backdrop, it is now the adventure itself, an adventure enacted before the backdrop of the commonly accepted banality of private life.

The present time and the public realm have upended the past and the private. Give us this day our daily drama of the news cycle. Life on the iPad, Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter take up a good deal of each day, not to mention reading newspapers, watching television and answering the day’s emails, letters and recorded messages. Longer-term projects are postponed in the face of pressing, but passing, matter. (On the positive side, the internet provides an enormous library at our instant disposal.) You may get a lot of “likes”, but this merely reinforces your own views at the expense of more challenging inputs. T.S. Eliot said he didn’t read the newspapers because they were too exciting. We become vicarious actors, expert media sleuths in a continuing global drama, fulfilled by being in touch with vital contemporary currents. The spheres of our inner world and the world conversation happily align. The personal moves to the public sphere.

The ancients juggled carpe diem (living for the day) with vanitas vanitatum (the futility of human endeavour), but for us it’s a no-brainer. In the past, delayed gratification and instinctual renunciation were the ways to achieve long-term goals, but large swathes of our culture have settled for hedonism, stroking of the ego, and instant entertainment. The Bible taught the Jewish and Christian peoples there was nothing new under the sun, but since the 1960s we have been propelled by the shock of the new. This has come about because a unidirectional tendency has overtaken contemporary thought, moving discussion into ever narrower channels and towards the present. Unlikely notions, sometimes originating in the academies, filter down to the media where they are given wider credence by public opinion-formers who act as gatekeepers to the wider community. A sign of coming times was the fad of brainstorming which threw people with limited knowledge together in a room, and provided a wonderful impression that something was going to eventuate, but was futile, as the process lacked any shared pool of information and any criteria of judgment. Ideas don’t appear out of nothing.