Yes, Virginia, America Really Is a Good Country By Charles Lipson –

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/07/04/yes_virginia_america_really_is_a_good_country_

Every year at Christmastime, news sites reprint the touching letter from a little girl, Virginia O’Hanlon, asking about Santa Claus and the columnist’s reassuring, fatherly response. He doesn’t smack her with the hard fact that Santa is a fictional creation. He points toward a deeper truth about our shared celebrations and the web of fond memories that bind together generations of children, parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.

As we celebrate this Independence Day, we desperately need to remember our own shared beliefs and ideals in hopes they will bind together our divided nation. Our shared ideals and common identity as Americans should bind us. Today, alas, they are too frayed to do the job. Some think it is a fraud even to stress those commonalities.

It is not. Our shared aspirations and common identity are our country’s best hope for the future. And our history should be a source of hope, as well as somber reflection.

Those ideals are not “our country, right or wrong.” They are not “our country with an airbrushed past.” Neither are they “our country as a relentless record of evil and oppression, at home and abroad.”

Rather, they are “our country as it strives to become better, to celebrate its accomplishments, to overcome its historical wrongs, to heal its lasting wounds and, ultimately, to achieve the ideals set before us in the Declaration of Independence and made concrete in our Constitution.”

Chuck Brooks: Crafting Cybersecurity’s Future, from Policy to Quantum Frontiers

https://www.mlvp.io/features/chuck-brooks-crafting-cybersecuritys-future-from-policy-to-quantum-frontiers

As the digital fabric of our lives continues to expand, we find ourselves increasingly reliant on the labyrinth of interconnected systems and devices that underpin our modern existence.

But with every new piece of tech that we bring into our homes, every app we download onto our smartphones, and every piece of data we entrust to the cloud, we expose ourselves to an ever-growing array of cyber threats.

It’s a complex, often daunting world, where the very technologies that empower us can also leave us vulnerable. In this rapidly evolving landscape, few guides are as experienced, as knowledgeable, or as engaged as Chuck Brooks.

Originally from Chicago, Chuck made his way to D.C. after an impressive academic journey, which included a stint at The Hague Academy of International Law. Today, this die-hard Cubs, Bears, and Bulls fan sports a different hat, as the proud founder of Brooks Consulting International, where he consults on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies.

“Through my consulting firm, I engage in marketing, government relations, and influencer thought leadership, specifically focusing on cybersecurity, AI, and emerging technologies,” Chuck explains, with a calm confidence that betrays years of navigating the complex dynamics of the cybersecurity industry.

The path Chuck has charted is far from ordinary. His career started in the public sector, where he received two senior Presidential appointments and served as a key player in the Department of Homeland Security’s early days. From government, Chuck extended his reach into academia, industry, and media, becoming a prolific speaker and writer on cybersecurity, homeland security, and technology.

The Bidens’ Existential Threats to the American Rule of Law By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/03/the-bidens-existential-threats-to-the-american-rule-of-law/

President Joe Biden, the Biden grifting conglomerate, the Department of Justice, and the FBI under its fourth consecutive weaponized director, are in danger of subverting the American system of law.

They are in various ways undermining the tradition of self-reported income tax computation and voluntary compliance.

Our tax institutions, of course, are based on the real deterrence of a disinterested, uncompromised Internal Revenue Service. Without it, the income revenues of the United States are existentially threatened.

So far, any negative reputation of the IRS has rested with natural complaints that it is too zealous in hounding out American taxpayers in all walks of life. Or citizens often object that the IRS must enforce a tax code that is innately unfair.

But not until now, has the IRS itself ever been under a shadow of such corruption?

Has it been in the past ever found to have applied so blatantly and deliberately one standard of tax enforcement to elites and quite another to everyday Americans?

Again, if that charge of unequal treatment in tax compliance were to prove true, then Humpy-Dumpty like, the entire American system of revenue collection would shatter.

In other words, millions of Americans might shrug, “If Joe Biden, President of the United States and his criminally minded son, can get away with avoiding millions of dollars in taxes, then should not I, a nobody, at least have the right to avoid hundreds of dollars in taxes?”

So the Bidens, along with Attorney General Merrick Garland and the FBI, are treading on dangerous ground in imperiling a hallowed American tradition—one vital to the very governance and operation of the United States.

What the Fourth of July Was Not By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/03/what-the-fourth-of-july-was-not/

Our national Fourth of July holiday—currently the nation’s 247th since the first in 1776—marks the birth of the United States.

The iconic Declaration of Independence was published on the 4th and largely written by Thomas Jefferson. Its core sentence would become among the most famous words in American history:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those aspirations at the outset pledged the new American nation to hold to its promises “that all men are created equal.”

In other words, so-called white males established a foundational document whose inherent logic was that the millions of Americans not yet born—who would not necessarily look like them, or share their ancestry—would become their political equals.

Most nation founders do not envision the future of their country in terms that might not privilege those of their own tribe.

In contrast, today it would be difficult for a foreign national to become a full-fledged Chinese, Mexican, or Iranian citizen, with full equal rights, who either did not look like, or embrace a religion different from, the majority population.

What followed from the Declaration was a constant demand from many quarters for America to live up to its own exalted words.

Eighty-five years later, that promise culminated in a horrific Civil War that cost 700,000 American lives to remove the stain of slavery, and to honor the promise of the Fourth.

“All men are created equal” further entailed another century of protest and reform, until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s finally enshrined into law equality of opportunity statutes.

But note what the Declaration was not.

There was no full embrace of all the later French Revolutionary slogans of Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Instead, the Declaration promised that all men should start out equally through guaranteed protections to live their lives as they please and ensure their liberty.

Here’s Another Reason To Hate EVs

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/07/03/heres-another-reason-to-hate-evs/

‘As fuel taxes plummet, states weigh charging by the mile instead of the tank.” That was the headline of a recent AP story, which should scare freedom-loving citizens everywhere. And you can place the blame squarely on government-subsidized EVs for this terrible new development.

The background is that state and federal gasoline taxes aren’t raising “enough” money these days to pay for roadway construction and maintenance. And a big reason for the growing shortfall is the increase in electric vehicles.

EVs get massive tax subsidies to convince people to buy them, but their owners don’t pay gasoline taxes, for the obvious reason that they never have to fill up. The more EVs on the road, the less revenue the gas taxes raise.

So the policy geniuses in Washington have a solution: Impose a per-mile tax.

Some states are already experimenting with “vehicle miles traveled” taxes, and the $1 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill includes $125 million for state and local pilot programs to test a national VMT fee.

A VMT sounds reasonable, right? After all, every driver imposes costs on roadways. And a mileage tax would capture all drivers, no matter what fuels their cars.

But look more closely, and the VMT tax is perhaps one of the most insidious tax ideas ever devised.

To start, a VMT tax would be incredibly complicated and costly to impose.

The gas tax is simple. A relatively small number of large fuel suppliers pay the tax, the costs of which are then passed on to retailers. But by definition, a VMT means collecting money directly from hundreds of millions of owners of hundreds of million cars. How?

UN and Arabs Whitewash Atrocities of Bashar Assad, Instead Blame – Guess Who? by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19777/un-arabs-syria-atrocities

The League of Arab States (LAS), which represents 22 member countries, has spent several decades issuing statements of condemnation against Israel. Each time Israel launches a counterterrorism operation in response to Palestinian terrorism, including rockets fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel and shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks, it is denounced.

The same League of Arab States, however, has no problem embracing an Arab president whose regime has killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs, including Palestinians and Syrians, since the beginning of the civil war in Syria in 2011.

The LAS… has effectively whitewashed Syrian President Bashar Assad’s atrocities against his own people and Palestinians.

Assad, in his speech before the Arab heads of state, ironically expressed hope that the summit would mark “the beginning of a new phase of Arab action for solidarity among us, for peace in our region, development and prosperity instead of war and destruction.”

Here is an Arab leader, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Arabs and the displacement of millions more, preaching about “peace, development and prosperity.”

Saudi Arabia played a significant role in welcoming the Assad regime back to the League of Arab States. The Saudis have shown that they prefer to make peace with Assad than normalize their relations with Israel. Drastically cooling years of diplomatic efforts, the Saudis insist that until a Palestinian state has been established, the kingdom will not normalize ties with Israel. If the Saudis are so concerned about the Palestinians, why are they rushing to embrace an Arab dictator whose regime has killed thousands of Palestinians?

With no apparent preconditions for Assad, the League of Arab States is turning its back on more than 500,000 dead Syrians, nearly seven million Syrian refugees, and 13 million displaced Syrians.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

As Michael Ordman reminds us in this week’s dazzling list of Israel’s contributions to medicine, technology, agriculture, and water technology to name only a handful, Tel Aviv is also ranked as the happiest city in the world due to “Rich cultural heritage, kind people, and abundance of food, shopping, and learning” “as well as “a global hot spot for spring break and vacationing as a whole.”(https://www.thetravel.com/happiest-cities-in-the-world/#tel-aviv-israel)

All this from a post-colonial Jewish nation which is the size of New Jersey, Lake Michigan, Wales, or Kruger National Park, and the eighth smallest nation in Asia with a high standard of living and one of the world’s most educated work forces.

Read it all. rsk

 

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
4,000+ spine operations. The xvision Augmented Reality Spine System from Israel’s Augmedics (see here previously) has now been used to treat over 4,000 patients and implant more than 20,000 pedicle screws across 21 U.S. states. It consistently demonstrates 97-100% accuracy across multiple patient studies.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bjfbm8fu3  https://augmedics.com/
 
Hope for children with epilepsy. Researchers at Tel Aviv University and elsewhere have developed therapy in the laboratory to treat Dravet syndrome – a life-threatening form of epilepsy in children caused by a mutation in the SCN1A gene. The scientists used a harmless virus containing normal SCNIA genes to “infect” the brain.
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-discovery-may-help-children-suffering-from-dravet-syndrome/
https://www.jci.org/articles/view/159316
 
Converting skin cells into placenta cells. Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have converted human skin cells into functional human placenta cells. The breakthrough can help cure pregnancy-related diseases and infertility issues by generating placenta cells that won’t be rejected as foreign tissue.
https://www.jns.org/colleges-universities/hebrew-university-of-jerusalem/23/6/21/297061/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39104-1
 
When women should take their meds. Israel’s Levana.ai is an AI-based solution that personalizes women’s prescriptions based on their cycle. It’s a platform for women who are taking long-term medication and provides doctors with recommendations regarding when and how much medication to prescribe to their patients.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/s1iydoovh   https://levana.ai/
 
Brain block may cure addicts. (TY Nevet) Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers have identified in the laboratory that the claustrum area of the brain is vital to preventing addiction to certain medications. Existing remedies could help susceptible individuals increase their resistance and self-control.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-discovery-could-help-brain-block-urge-for-highly-addictive-fentanyl/
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00737-6
 
All fingers and thumbs. Arab Israeli Dr. Firas Mawase is head of the Neurorehabilitation and Sensorimotor Neuroscience Laboratory at Israel’s Technion. He is investigating rehabilitating the dexterity of brain-damaged patients (e.g., from a stroke), using engineering and computational tools and functional imaging of the brain.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2023/05/all-fingers-and-thumbs/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0H0uATaJPA
 
US approval for safe epidural device. The EpiFinder device from Israel’s Omeq Medical (see here previously) has just received US FDA approval. A limited US launch is planned for early 2024.
https://www.israel21c.org/smart-device-aims-to-improve-safety-of-epidurals/
 
Partnership with UAE healthcare system.  Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has partnered UAE’s PureHealth, the largest integrated healthcare platform in the Middle East. The two will conduct joint research, promote advanced technology in healthcare, collaborate on staff training, and boost bi-lateral health tourism.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sheba-medical-center-enters-partnership-with-largest-uae-healthcare-system/
 
Technion and Toronto medical AI partnership. Israel’s Technion Institute and the University of Toronto Artificial Intelligence Centers have partnered to develop AI solutions in the field of medicine. The first workshop took place in Ein Gedi in May. https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2023/05/changing-medicine-with-ai/
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-742749
 
Quick-thinking saves mother and baby. Rachel, a nurse midwife attending a mother in labor at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, noticed that the baby’s head was moving in the wrong direction. She rushed them to ER, where doctors diagnosed a complete rupture of the uterus, delivered baby, and later reconstructed the mother’s womb.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/quick-thinking-israeli-midwife-saves-mother-and-baby/
 
Research training for doctors. The Israel Science Foundation has launched Israel’s MAVRI initiative (Hebrew for “one who heals”). The ISF will award grants totaling $100 million over five years, to create a select team of Medical PhDs who will conduct clinical research that will ultimately benefit patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-science-foundation-announces-new-program-to-support-physician-

Poking the Snoring Conservative Dragon. Part Two Victor Davis Hanson

https://victorhanson.com/poking-the-snoring-conservative-dragon-part-two/

In 2024, the Left will spend $4-5 billion on the presidential and congressional races, with another $4-5 billion in free advertising in propaganda from network news, PBS, NPR, and the Silicon Valley mob. The latter again will do their leftist best, from rigging the order of Google searches, to banning supposed “misinformation” and “disinformation” from non-Twitter social media, to blacklisting traffickers in “hate speech” who might critique Democratic candidates.

The only remedy would be millions of poll watchers to turn out on Election Day 2024. The Right must draft legions of lawyers right now to ensure balloting laws are not massaged by leftist activist lawyers and judges.

There must be a rare conservative mass get-out-the-vote effort (i.e., mail-in and early balloting), targeted at rest homes and retirement communities. Republicans, until they restore integrity to balloting, must bring Barack Obama’s proverbial “gun to a knife fight” (a phrase Obama stole from David Mamet’s screenplay of The Untouchables) determination not to keep losing, and master third-party vote harvesting and ballot curing.

The Left does not have the numbers (look at the poor poll numbers on every of Joe Biden’s current policies), but neither do conservatives—unless they organize and trump the tactics of the Left. (No, I am not suggesting protestors mass outside Hunter Biden’s house in the fashion leftists swarm with impunity the homes of Supreme Court justices in felonious, but exempt, efforts to intimidate them into rendering more favorable opinions.)

But there are things the Right can do, if it wishes to stop losing the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections (George W. Bush’s razor-thin 2004 being the outlier)—and finally for the first time in 36 years win 51% of the popular vote, as George H.W. Bush last managed in 1988 against a weak Mike Dukakis.

So what would an aroused dragon do?

Supreme Court Moves Us Closer to A Colorblind Society by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19759/colorblind-society

Although this decision was split along current conservative-liberal lines, with the court’s three liberals dissenting, it actually reflects traditional liberalism. Justice William Douglas, perhaps the most liberal justice in Supreme Court history, advocated precisely this race neutral approach when affirmative action was first introduced. He was right then, and his liberal, colorblind approach, has now been vindicated.

A simple example demonstrates why employing race as a criteria is both unconstitutional and immoral. As the Supreme Court correctly pointed out, admission to elite universities is a zero-sum game: for every student or group that is given preference, another is disadvantaged. So consider this zero-sum choice:….

After decades of vacillation, the Supreme Court of the United States has finally and firmly declared that the Constitution does not permit publicly funded universities to consider race, as such, in its admission processes. This is a decision that many, including this author, have been advocating since the 1970s, when my first law review article appeared, calling for affirmative action to be based on non-racial criteria and individual accomplishments.

The Supreme Court has been moving in this direction for some time now, but it has until now allowed loopholes the size of university football stadiums. These loopholes were exploited by universities to enforce quota systems whereby approximately the same percentage of minority applicants would be admitted every year. The results of these quotas impacted most heavily on one of the most discriminated against groups in American history – Asian Americans. The plaintiffs in the Harvard case were such Americans. It will be interesting to see how their numbers are affected by the decision.

The Biden Administration’s Dangerous Nuclear Deal: Congressional Approval Required by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19758/dangerous-nuclear-deal

“I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023.

“INARA [the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015] was enacted with strong bipartisan support to ensure Congressional oversight of U.S. policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program…. This definition makes clear that any arrangement or understanding with Iran, even informal, requires submission to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023 [Emphasis added].

[T]he return to the nuclear deal means that the current sanctions against Tehran will be lifted and the regime would reportedly receive $100 billion a year “to Destabilise [the] Region,” as well as legitimately to rejoin the global financial system. Through the nuclear deal, the Iranian regime will again buy itself a blank check to advance its aggressive and fundamentalist policies across the Middle East, just as it did after the 2015 nuclear deal, but this time with the potential of threatening other countries with its nuclear breakout capability.

“To give them another windfall of cash like we did as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to an expansion of their proxy wars in the Middle East, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not in our national interest…. They’re gonna fuel their proxy wars and they’re seeking domination and control in the Middle East…. No, it’s not a good deal. It wasn’t a good deal in 2015. It’s not a good deal now.” — Retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, The Hill, June 18, 2023.https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19758/dangerous-nuclear-deal

“I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023.

“INARA [the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015] was enacted with strong bipartisan support to ensure Congressional oversight of U.S. policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program…. This definition makes clear that any arrangement or understanding with Iran, even informal, requires submission to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023 [Emphasis added].

[T]he return to the nuclear deal means that the current sanctions against Tehran will be lifted and the regime would reportedly receive $100 billion a year “to Destabilise [the] Region,” as well as legitimately to rejoin the global financial system. Through the nuclear deal, the Iranian regime will again buy itself a blank check to advance its aggressive and fundamentalist policies across the Middle East, just as it did after the 2015 nuclear deal, but this time with the potential of threatening other countries with its nuclear breakout capability.

“To give them another windfall of cash like we did as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to an expansion of their proxy wars in the Middle East, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not in our national interest…. They’re gonna fuel their proxy wars and they’re seeking domination and control in the Middle East…. No, it’s not a good deal. It wasn’t a good deal in 2015. It’s not a good deal now.” — Retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, The Hill, June 18, 2023.

The Biden Administration, in an attempt to revive the Iran nuclear deal, has been quietly negotiating with the theocratic regime of President Ebrahim Raisi, known — for his crimes against humanity and his involvement in a massacre of nearly 30,000 political prisoners — as “the Butcher of Tehran.”