ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why is DeSantis tanking? by Byron York

Posted By on September 22nd, 2023

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-is-desantis-tanking

WHY IS DESANTIS TANKING? A new poll Wednesday from the University of New Hampshire shook up the world of political obsessives who watch each twist and turn in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. No, there was no change at the top — former President Donald Trump is still in the lead in New Hampshire, 26 points ahead of the nearest competitor. The news was that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), for a long time Trump’s chief rival, has slipped to fifth place in New Hampshire, the second state to vote in the GOP primary contest.

Fifth place! How did that happen? How did DeSantis come to trail not only Trump, with 39% of the vote, but, in order, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, with 13%; former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, with 12%; and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, with 11%? DeSantis’s 10% of the vote in New Hampshire puts him at what might be called the bottom of the second tier. The first tier, of course, is Trump all by himself. The second tier is the group from Ramaswamy to DeSantis. After that, the third tier is Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), with 6%, former Vice President Mike Pence, with 2%, and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) and former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, with 1% each.

The first thing to consider is whether the new Granite State poll is an outlier. The answer is, it appears not. There haven’t been many polls in New Hampshire — just one so far this month, two in August, and three in July — but DeSantis has been bobbing around between 8% and 11% since the summer. Before that, in polls going back to January, he was significantly higher. What appears to be happening in the new poll is that DeSantis is stuck in the 10% range, while others, especially Ramaswamy and Haley, and even Christie a little bit, have risen and narrowly overtaken him.

So what is going on? “The biggest problem I see for DeSantis is that the cultural campaign he has been waging simply doesn’t resonate with New Hampshire Republicans,” said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which conducts the Granite State Poll. “I am still surprised he’s pushing anti-woke rhetoric in New Hampshire. He also peaked too early and became a target of Trump, which prevented him from peeling off some Trump supporters.”

A veteran New Hampshire Republican political operative offers more. “DeSantis has zero on-the-ground presence,” he said. “His national flailings, drama, and message windmilling have scared off folks with little hope of attracting new folks. The Reagan Library debate has to be his breakout moment or…” He let the sentence trail off after that.

One of the good things about starting the Republican primaries with Iowa, then New Hampshire, and then South Carolina is that the three states are very different. There are different kinds of GOP voters in each, which means a candidate must know how to appeal to different kinds of GOP voters, which is, of course, a prerequisite for winning the nomination and being elected president.

MEDIA, MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Heather Mac Donald: Rational Fears of the Irrational Concerns about future Covid lockdowns are conspiracy theories, insists the New York Times—but what credibility does the paper have to assure anyone?

Posted By on September 22nd, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/article/rational-fears-of-the-irrational

The New York Times has an updated Covid warning for its readers: “Right-wing influencers and conspiracy theorists are stoking fears about mass lockdowns and spreading unsubstantiated new ideas about Covid-19’s links to world events.” Only a right-wing nutcase, according to the Times, would imagine that policymakers and their media boosters would overreact to the latest round of Covid infections, which the Times and other outlets have been assiduously covering:

To conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers online, each uptick is an opportunity to sow fear and rile up their supporters, according to disinformation experts. The use of “plandemic” and “scamdemic”—two terms describing Covid-19 as a ruse—rose sharply in August on right-wing websites, according to data from Pyrra, a company that monitors threats and misinformation on alternative social networks.

“I would almost call it an obsession for the Covid denier, anti-vax community,” said Welton Chang, the co-founder and chief executive of Pyrra. “They just make mountains out of molehills for every little thing.”

“Opportunity to sow fear?” “Obsession?” “Mountains out of molehills?” Hypocrisy, thy name is the New York Times!

Who can forget the dozens of banner headlines, in fonts of ever-increasing stridency, trumpeting each new threshold of Covid cases? Who can forget the Times’s daily caseload maps and graphs; the diagrams demonstrating the virus’s allegedly Olympian aerial reach; and the “Those We Lost” Covid obituary page, which never once showed an obese victim and which suggested that 96-year-old decedents were robbed of another decade or more of vibrant life by a Covid infection? Who does not recall the Times’s refusal to distinguish “deaths with Covid” and “deaths from Covid?” Or the paper’s fearful reporting on the innocuous Omicron strain, which quoted terrified New Yorkers as models of appropriate Covid response? Or the weeks of opprobrium piled on South Dakota for allowing an outdoor biker gathering while the Times and public health authorities waxed breathless over the nobility of Black Lives Matter protesters?

The Times cites as an example of “Covid misinformation” the claim that Covid vaccines are causing sudden deaths of young people: “While there is no link between Covid-19 vaccines and sudden deaths, conspiracy theorists have often circulated the idea as celebrities and athletes fall ill from unrelated causes.”

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

We’re fighting the Covid censors When there is scientific disagreement or uncertainty, the government must never pretend there is consensus and certainty Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff

Posted By on September 22nd, 2023

https://thespectator.com/topic/were-fighting-the-covid-censors-censorship/

On July 4, our Independence Day, Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction ordering the federal government to immediately cease contact with social media companies, which it had been urging to censor protected free speech. Evidence unearthed in the Missouri v. Biden case, in which we are co-plaintiffs, has revealed a vast federal enterprise dictating to social media companies who and what to censor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Surgeon General’s office, the National Institutes of Health, the FBI, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the White House itself were all closely involved.

You can get a good sense of what ideas the government finds threatening from its priority list of what it does not want Americans to talk about freely: the pandemic, vaccines, wars, concerns about election fraud and Hunter Biden’s laptop.

In the Missouri case, depositions of government officials and the discovery of email exchanges between the government and social media companies show an administration willing to threaten the use of its regulatory power to harm social media companies that do not comply with censorship demands.

Social media companies rely on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes them against defamation lawsuits that traditional media are subject to. It states, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” But unlike, for example, a phone company, they may still censor or decline to publish perfectly legal content protected under the First Amendment. For social media companies, losing this protection would threaten their multibillion-dollar business.

The companies understand what is at stake even if the threats are not explicit. But documents adduced in this case sometimes show explicit threats. For instance, at one point, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield announced that “the White House is assessing whether social-media platforms are legally liable for misinformation spread on their platforms, and examining how misinformation fits into the liability protection process by Section 230 of The Communication [sic] Decency Act.” The government’s message to social media companies was unmistakable: comply or else. Internal documents show company employees sometimes trying to push back on censorship demands but then capitulating.

HISTORY Comments turned off

Aim for Yom Kippur, ‘if Not Higher’ A treatment of an old Jewish tale offers a model of faith during the Days of Awe. By Ruth R. Wisse

Posted By on September 22nd, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/aim-for-yom-kippur-if-not-higher-judaism-faith-literature-days-of-awe-peretz-b818bb1?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

In the Hebrew calendar, the 10-day period beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and ending with Yom Kippur, the year’s holiest day, are called Yamim Noraim, the “Days of Awe.” During this time—which began this year on Sept. 16—our reckoning before the Supreme Judge is so fearsome that the very fish are said to tremble in the seas.

This intense concentration on one’s regrettable actions can often inspire a resolve for teshuvah, or return, in this case from one’s iniquities. Since modernity seemed to lead Jews inexorably from religious faith to secular humanism, this time presented an opportunity to encourage Jews who had strayed from the path to return to the traditional way of life. The term ba’al teshuvah came to refer to one who had reassumed the historically sanctioned habits of Jewish observance.

But things aren’t always as they seem.

One of the best-known stories about this penitential period, set in a small town in Eastern Europe, features a Hasidic rebbe who is in the strange habit of disappearing every year during these days of judgment when his congregants most require his presence. “Where could the rebbe be?” Where else, they conclude, but in heaven, interceding on their behalf at God’s holy throne.

One year, there arrives in town a skeptic determined to learn the truth. Hiding under the rebbe’s bed, and sensing him rise in the middle of the night, he peeks out. The rebbe dresses in peasant clothing, girds himself with rope and axe, and makes for the forest. There the skeptic watches as the rebbe chops and binds branches for firewood, and then goes to the home of a poor widow at the outskirts of town. Still in disguise, the holy man lights the woman’s fire and assures her that he can wait for payment.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

WHY ARE PA TAXPAYERS FUNDING ANTISEMITIC HATEFEST AT PENN? LORI LOWENTHAL MARCUS

Posted By on September 22nd, 2023

WWW.DeborahProject.Org

Palestine Writes at UPenn is funded in part by Pennsylvania taxpayers through a grant issued by the
Pennsylvania Council for the Arts in violation of Pennsylvania Human Rights law which bars discrimination on
the basis of religion, nationality, and ethnicity.

Billed as a literary event, Palestine Writes is in fact devoted entirely to promoting the destruction of the Jewish
State, denial of the Jews’ connection to the land of Israel and denunciation of Zionism which is the Jewish
commitment to sovereignty in the land of Israel. It also promotes and celebrates the murder of Jewish civilians
and calls for the liberation of terrorists whose murders are hailed as a legitimate form of resistance.

An incomplete but representative list of the speakers at this hate fest include convicted terrorists, supporters
of convicted terrorists, enablers of convicted terrorists and terrorism supporters.
• Mays a/k/a Mayss Abu Ghosh, a convicted terrorist, works with the terrorist groups Hezbollah and the
PFLP and explicitly supports violence as the “only road to Palestine.”

• Antisemitic musician Roger Waters, a prominent BDS activist who regularly employs antisemitic tropes
and imagery – including a pig-shaped balloon emblazoned with a Star of David – that denigrate Jewish
people, including equating Israel with Nazi Germany

• Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement which cooperates with the terrorist
organizations Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP. She and other ISM activists served as
human shields for the siege of the Church of the Nativity during which 200 civilian hostages were held
amongst bombs and booby traps

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Mark Schneider California’s War On Parents Policymakers believe the state, not parents, holds authority over children when it comes to sex and gender issues—but families are pushing back.

Posted By on September 22nd, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/article/californias-war-on-parents

A promising revolt has begun in California. Seven school districts there have recently passed parental-notification policies. And not a moment too soon. As many parents are discovering, the local school board is the one place where they can effect positive change in their children’s public schools—if, that is, the state doesn’t find a way to stop them.

Notification policies require that school officials inform parents in a timely fashion about certain occurrences in their children’s lives. These typically include a child bullying someone or being bullied, giving evidence of suicidal ideation, or identifying with a nonbiological gender. It is this last point upon which a storm of reaction has ensued by state officials. In July, during policy deliberations by the Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD), the first of the seven districts to pass such measures, Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of schools, made a personal appearance to warn the board against its passage. Fortunately, and under the leadership of board president Sonja Shaw, the board passed the policy by a vote of four to one. A month later, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an action against CVUSD in Superior Court for declaratory and injunctive relief. Additional lawsuits are all but certain. In the meantime, vitriol and death threats have been leveled against an embattled school board member for exercising what was once regarded as common sense.

What’s behind California’s hostility to parents being apprised of their children’s gender identity? It stems from two central presumptions.

The first is that nonbinary gender identification is an essential good that must be encouraged. As stated on California’s Department of Education’s Health website, “gender and sexuality are a continuum, they are often fluid, and they do not fit neatly into categories.” This belief is official state orthodoxy with roots that go back more than 20 years—much further than most people realize.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on September 21st, 2023

On this coming Sunday at sundown until Monday at sundown, Jewish people observe Yom Kippur, arguably the holiest of holidays. It is a day of reflection on one’s character, responsibilities, and behavior, and regret and contrition for slights and offense one may have caused during the past year. We end the prayers with “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a Good Year.”

And a good year and longer and better life is what Israel’s researchers work for around the clock and every single day, to benefit billions of citizens on every continent. Michael Ordman details these astonishing contributions. May he and good people of every faith be inscribed and prosper from the fruits of Israel’s Labor. “G’mar chatima tova” rsk

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Better together. Researchers at Israel’s Technion have developed an AI system that identified 77 approved cancer nano-therapies that can chemically self-assemble in nearly 2,000 combinations to be far more effective, with less side-effects. They proved their system, combining bortezomib-cabozantinib to treat head/neck cancer.
https://nocamels.com/2023/09/new-ai-tool-combines-cancer-drugs-to-optimize-treatment/
https://www.israel21c.org/ai-matchmaker-heralds-new-era-in-nano-cancer-treatment/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168365923004236?dgcid=author
 
Woman saved from deadly skin-peeling disease. A woman with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) was saved by doctors at Soroka-University Medical Center in Beersheba. The genetic disease progresses into toxic epidermal necrolysis – a life threatening condition causing 30% of the skin to peel off.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-756591
 
Positive results in bladder cancer trial. Israel’s UroGen Pharma (see here previously) has published positive results from two clinical trials of bladder cancer treatment UGN-102. The therapy can benefit some 80,000 patients. Trial success (65%) was similar to patients who had surgery but with a 55% less re-occurrence rate.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-urogen-to-raise-120m-after-positive-bladder-cancer-trial-results-1001453726
 
Nasal spray combats allergic reactions. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Nasus Pharma (see here previously) has reported positive results from its latest clinical study of its FMXIN002 intranasal Epinephrine powder spray device. It provides a safe and effective rescue for the emergency treatment of life-threatening allergic reactions.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasus-pharma-announces-publication-of-its-positive-clinical-results-with-fmxin002-intranasal-powder-epinephrine-spray-in-the-journal-of-allergy-and-clinical-immunology-in-practice-301895372.html   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37394178/
 
MS treatment commercialized. GranaGard Nano Omega 5, made by Israel’s Granalix Biotechnologies, is now available in Israel and online. The nano-engineered high antioxidant supplement from pomegranate oil (see previously) improves cognitive function in Multiple Sclerosis patients and will be tested on dementia patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nano-engineered-pomegranate-oil-holds-hope-for-brain-disease-study-shows/
https://il.granalix.com/en/  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211034821003709
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ef3JpVl90
 
EU funds trial for preemie insulin. Israel’s Elgan Pharma (see here previously) has been awarded a 2.36 million euros grant by the European Innovation Council. It will support a Phase III study of its ELGN-GL oral insulin-based formulation that helps the development of a preemie’s gastrointestinal (GI) system.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-company-nears-final-hurdle-to-okay-insulin-based-preemie-therapy/
 
US approval for cancer treatment software. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Techsomed (see here previously) has received US FDA approval for its Ablation Treatment Planning and Confirmation Software. VisAble.IO helps guide surgeons using ablation therapy (extreme heat or cold) to destroy tumors.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/techsomed-announces-fda-clearance-for-ablation-treatment-planning-and-confirmation-software-301917800.html
 
US approval for precision endoscope.  Israel’s Limaca Medical (see here previously) has received US FDA approval for its Precision GI™ Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS) Biopsy Device. The device automatically obtains biopsies, for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and other cancers, quicker and safer than current products.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/limaca-medical-receives-fda-510k-clearance-for-its-breakthrough-precision-gi-endoscopic-biopsy-device-301923165.html
 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

West Point Sued Over Race-Based Admissions Process By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on September 21st, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/20/west-point-sued-over-race-based-admissions-process/

On Tuesday, an anti-affirmative action group filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point over its race-based admissions process in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning such practices.

As reported by Axios, the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Students for Fair Admissions (SFA), the same advocacy group that ultimately ended affirmative action through two cases it had filed before the Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. In both cases, SFA successfully argued that affirmative action unfairly benefits black and Hispanic students, while disproportionately discriminating against White and Asian students.

Although the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action – the practice of admitting students based on their race rather than their qualifications – was an unconstitutional practice, the court did allow an exception for military academies such as West Point. The lawsuit by SFA declares that military academies should also have to adhere to the same standard as public and private universities.

“West Point sets benchmarks for the percentage of each class that should be filled by ‘African Americans,’ ‘Hispanics,’ and ‘Asians,’ and it meticulously tracks its compliance with those figures,” the lawsuit states. “These racial benchmarks vary by year, based on the ever-shifting demographics of the enlisted ranks.”

In the Supreme Court’s decision in June, the 6-justice majority specifically noted the “potentially distinct interests” that military academies might have in maintaining a level of racial diversity, and thus allowed such schools to be exempt from the ruling. In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared to denounce this exemption, saying that “the Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom.”

In either case, the outcome of SFA’s new lawsuit could also apply to other prestigious military academies in the United States, including the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Palestinians: Israeli Concessions Are a Sign of Weakness by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on September 21st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19981/palestinians-israeli-concessions

On the 18th anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the Iran-backed Palestinian terror groups are still talking about the need to step up attacks against Israel until the “liberation of all of Palestine,” from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

These groups still see Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip not as a humanitarian gift to allow the Gazans to build the “Singapore of the Middle East,” as former Israeli President Shimon Peres put it, but instead as the beginning of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s 1974 “Ten Point Plan” (also known as the “phased plan”) for the “comprehensive liberation” of all the land stretching “from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” — a euphemism for the elimination of Israel. The Plan essentially states that the Palestinians should take whatever land they are given and use it as a launching pad for getting the rest.

Hamas and other Palestinians never saw the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a sign that Israel seeks to live in peace and coexistence with its Arab neighbors. On the contrary, they saw the withdrawal as an Israeli retreat — a defeat in the face of a massive wave of terrorism.

The message the Palestinians came away with was not that the Israelis had given them land in the hope of peace, but rather: “We were shooting and they ran away, so let’s keep on shooting and they will keep on running away!”

The Palestinian terror groups are trying to drive Jews out of the West Bank through drive-by shootings, stabbings, rockets and car-rammings. They want to turn the West Bank into another launching pad for attacking Israel the same way they did with the Gaza Strip.

To this day, many Palestinians, not only in Hamas, continue to view the Israeli disengagement as a direct result of terrorism. They use the Arabic term indihar — defeat — to describe the Israeli withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip.

Hamas arch-terrorist Mohammed Def recently reminded everyone that as far as his group is concerned, the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip marks the beginning of the first “phase” toward destroying Israel.

For the Palestinians, acquiring the Gaza Strip, was, it seems, merely a taste. In their words, they want the West Bank, Jerusalem and the whole of Israel. They want all “settlers” removed not only from the Gaza Strip, but also from the West Bank, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and all of Israel. In their view, “all of Israel” is just one big settlement.

The Biden administration and other international parties that continue to promote the idea of a “two-state solution” are simply empowering Iran’s Palestinian proxies and encouraging them to pursue their “phased plan” to increase terrorism, destroy Israel and replace it with yet another Islamist state.

The Iranian government recently set up a new airport “for terror purposes ” in southern Lebanon, only 12 miles from the Israeli border — presumably to make it easier for Iran’s terrorist proxies there, such as Hizballah, to launch aerial attacks against Israel.

If Israel withdraws from the West Bank, the area will, without doubt, fall into the hands of the Iranian regime and its Palestinian proxies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Ian Kingsbury A New Front in the War on Merit Researchers propose measuring the “diversity factor” of new scientific discoveries.

Posted By on September 21st, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-new-front-in-the-war-on-merit

Millions of academic studies are published each year. Some fundamentally alter the course of history, while others never even get cited. Those curious about the effect of specific researchers, papers, or journals often turn to a metric called “impact factor.” This metric counts the number of citations accrued by a researcher or research paper, or the average number of citations for studies in a specific journal. It’s a sensible and simple method for measuring influence.

According to a new “study,” it’s also an exercise in racism and sexism.

The paper, “A new tool for evaluating health equity in academic journals; the Diversity Factor,” published in PLOS Global Public Health, correctly points out that impact factor is an imperfect measure of cultural and scientific reach. Among the problems: researchers game the stats through self-citation, and journal-impact factors are skewed by studies that pick up extremely high numbers of citations. Still, impact factor represents a reasonably good proxy of the thing it purports to measure. While sensible researchers know not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, activists instead see imperfection as opportunity. Enter: the “diversity factor.” 

The authors propose that henceforth studies should be scored according to both impact factor and their new diversity metric. Though they admit that the diversity factor is still in development, they suggest it should award points on the basis of diversity within the dataset (for example, representation of ethnic minorities), representation of authors from multiple countries, greater female representation within the authorship group, and affiliation with non-prestigious universities. These recommendations, the authors contend, will offer “a more complete perspective on factors aligned with scientific excellence based on contribution to advancing diversity and inclusion, improving health outcomes, and achieving equity.”

These exhortations represent a solution in search of a problem. It’s true that the predominance of men in the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge was for a time propagated by racial and ethnic bigotry and sexism. But the goal of impact factor is to offer a snapshot measure of scientific influence, not to referee the ethics of the social and political environment in which a discovery was made. Jonas Salk’s scientific legacy ought to be defined by the development of the polio vaccine, not the absence of Aboriginal trans men on the research team that developed it.