MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Lessons Lost to History: the Tragically Unheeded 2008 Warning of Biolab Threat By Ben Bartee

Posted By on April 15th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/04/14/lessons-lost-to-history-the-tragically-unheeded-2008-warning-of-biolab-threat-n1687401

We ignore prescient warnings in the present at the peril of our future selves.

This one comes from a decade and a half ago, a full twelve years before the course of world history was literally changed forever for the worse by forced lockdowns, masking, and medical mandates unimaginable prior to 2020.

Via Scientific American, 2008:

In an opinion that echoes those of several public health scientists, Keith Rhodes, the Government Accountability Office’s chief technologist, told a congressional hearing in October 2007 that “we are at greater risk today” than before of an infectious disease epidemic because of the great increase in biolaboratories and the absence of oversight they receive.

Nevertheless, Michael Kurilla, NIAID’s director of extramural research, says that “we’re much better off” having spent $41 billion on bioterror research since 2002.

The study’s author, John Dudley Miller, offered his unheeded warning in the context of the anthrax score of the aughts.

Note how often these biomedical security state threads lead back to, and intertwine with, the post-9/11 War on Terror waged by the Bush Administration and continued by its predecessor.

In many ways, this is all one continuous, ever-evolving permanent emergency. The referent objects and threats (real or manufactured) change, but all of the unending crises that we are subjected serve to justify increased national security powers in some form.

The overarching message I wish to convey when discussing AI developers or virologists tinkering with forces beyond their control in a lab is: these people do not know what they are doing.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Michael A. Helfand : A New York State court ruling vindicates the principle of parental authority in education.

Posted By on April 15th, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/article/ny-court-vindicates-parental-authority-in-education

Late last month, the ongoing battle between the New York State Education Department (NYSED) and a small group of Orthodox Jewish schools took a surprising turn. For the better part of a decade, the NYSED has been battling these schools over the quality of the education they provide, arguing that they fail to meet the basic educational standards required by New York law. For that reason, this past fall, the NYSED enacted new regulations setting out a process to assess the instruction provided in nonpublic schools and, when a school fails to meet state standards, ensuring its closure. Not surprisingly, a number of Jewish organizations and schools filed suit against the new regulations. But instead of deciding the case based on big-ticket constitutional questions, a New York court invalidated the regulations on grounds that put the obligation to meet educational standards on parents, not on schools. In so doing, the court severely undermined the NYSED’s ability to regulate nonpublic schools.

New York education law requires that, when minors receive “instruction” outside a public school, the instruction “shall be at least substantially equivalent to the instruction given to minors of like age and attainments at the public schools of the city or district where the minor resides.” This “substantially equivalent” standard has been on the books in New York since the late nineteenth century.

Recent controversies have stemmed from complaints that a small group of Orthodox Jewish schools—primarily Hasidic schools—are failing to meet state standards. After some false starts, the NYSED enacted rules this past fall establishing a process for reviewing whether nonpublic schools were meeting the “substantially equivalent” requirement. If a school receives a final determination that it has failed to meet state standards, the penalties are severe. Under such circumstances, “the nonpublic school shall no longer be deemed a school,” in compliance with the state’s compulsory education law, and parents with children in that school are required “to enroll their children in a different, appropriate educational setting.” In sum, the school must close.

Various Jewish institutions and schools filed suit against the new regulations. According to their complaint, the regulations both exceeded the legal authority of the NYSED and, more dramatically, violated their constitutional rights, including their religious liberty, free speech, due process, and equal protection rights. Indeed, the lawsuit seemed destined to be fought out on the terrain of the Fourteenth Amendment, which ensures parents’ rights to control the upbringing of their children. This right, to be sure, is balanced against the government’s obligation to ensure that children receive an education that enables them to be economically self-sufficient and civically engaged. Figuring out where to draw the line between parental and government authority appeared to be the crux of the legal challenge.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Thirty Years of Global Warming Prophecies By Warren Beatty

Posted By on April 15th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/thirty_years_of_global_warming_prophecies.html

NBC News recently touted a report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that says, “The chance to secure a livable future for everyone on Earth is slipping away.”  It further reported, “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” This was echoed by Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council: “This is the stone cold truth laid out in unassailable science by the world’s top climate experts.  We’re hurtling down the road to ruin and running out of time to change course.”

That’s the same U.N. that was wrong 34 years ago when Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, said that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”

Fiona Harvey, Environment Editor at the Guardian, says, “Scientists have delivered a ‘final warning’ on the climate crisis, as rising greenhouse gas emissions push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage that only swift and drastic action can avert.”  She cited a report from the IPCC, comprised of the world’s leading climate scientists.

The U.N. again.

CBS News cited a study by Atmospheric scientist Dr. Walker Ashley at Northern Illinois University who predicts storms like the ones that tore through Mississippi, killing several dozen people, could become more common due to climate change.

Now let’s shift attention to hypocritical politicians who make predictions with their mouths and actions, beginning with Barack Obama.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts the sea level to rise by as much as 12″ in the next 30 years.  NOAA predicts the sea level rise, “…will create a profound shift in coastal flooding over the next 30 years by causing tide and storm surge heights to increase and reach further inland.  By 2050, ‘moderate’ (typically damaging) flooding is expected to occur, on average, more than 10 times as often as it does today.”

But that information didn’t deter Obama from purchasing an oceanside mansion on Martha’s Vineyard.  The 7,000 square foot house is zero feet above sea level and about a quarter mile from the sea.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in 2019, “…there is an urgency needed in addressing man-made climate change, warning that it will ‘destroy the planet’ in a dozen years if humans do not address the issue, no matter the cost.” 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Tim Scott’s ‘Land of Opportunity’ The Senator’s optimistic conservatism may stand out in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries.

Posted By on April 15th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-scott-presidential-primary-gop-south-carolina-conservatism-2c4b2cce?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

One regrettable reality of today’s politics is that a left-right condominium is preaching that America is a failed experiment. All the more reason to welcome GOP Sen. Tim Scott as a presidential candidate running on better days ahead and a “new American sunrise.” The question is whether he can refine his aspirational politics into a credible agenda for national renewal.

“I know America is a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression,” the 57-year-old from South Carolina said in a three-minute video released this week. “I know it because I’ve lived it.” Mr. Scott was raised by a single mother in poverty. “I was that hopeless kid in America,” he said in a 2020 speech.

But he graduated from college and started his own business, and he credits his success in large part to the support of his Christian mother and a local Chick-fil-A franchisee who took an interest in him. Many voters will see the better angels of America’s nature in this story.

Mr. Scott has been a Senator for a decade, which isn’t an asset in an era when most of the country dislikes Washington. But he has been largely a constructive force, as Senators go. He helped build the GOP coalition for tax reform in 2017, and he rightly says the Tax Cut and Jobs Act built “the most inclusive economy” in recent U.S. memory, with record low unemployment for black and Hispanic Americans.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Supreme Court 9, Administrative State 0 The Justices rule that individuals can take a constitutional challenge to federal agencies directly to federal court.

Posted By on April 15th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-axon-v-ftc-sec-v-cochran-administrative-state-federal-court-elena-kagan-43f6b20?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The Supreme Court on Friday dealt the administrative state another blow with a 9-0 decision holding that individuals and businesses harpooned by an independent agency don’t have to suffer a torturous government adjudication to challenge its constitutionality in federal court (Axon Enterprise v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran).

The private litigants in these cases want to challenge Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission actions on grounds that the agencies are unconstitutionally structured. But the discrete question before the Court was whether they had to run through the agencies’ long and costly administrative process before they could go to federal court.

The government claimed they did, but a unanimous Court disagreed. In the controlling opinion, Justice Elena Kagan explained that both parties in the two cases allege they are “‘being subjected’ to ‘unconstitutional agency authority’—a ‘proceeding by an unaccountable [administrative law judge].’”

“This Court has made clear that it is ‘a here-and-now injury,’” she writes, citing its Seila Law (2020) precedent. “And—here is the rub—it is impossible to remedy once the proceeding is over, which is when appellate review kicks in.” Judicial review after cases are adjudicated by the government “would come too late to be meaningful.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Democrats to Biden: Ensure aid to Israel isn’t used in support of human rights violations

Posted By on April 15th, 2023

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369983

A group of 14 Democratic lawmakers on Thursday urged the Biden administration to undertake a foundational shift in its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict.

Spearheaded by Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the letter, quoted in Haaretz, urges US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “undertake a shift in US policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights. Only by protecting democracy, human rights, and self-determination for all Palestinians and Israelis can we achieve a lasting peace.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Summer Lee, Betty McCollum, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Raul Grijalva, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and Delia Ramirez.

The lawmakers are further urging the Biden administration to ensure US taxpayer funds are not supporting “Israeli settlements projects”, and to determine whether US military aid is in violation of the Arms Export Control Act or the so-called “Leahy Law.” The Arms Export and Controls Act stipulates that US weapons are sold only for legitimate self-defense, while the Leahy Law prohibits US funding from being used to equip or train foreign military forces suspected of human rights abuses or war crimes.

“Furthermore, we call on your administration to ensure that all future foreign assistance to Israel, including weapons and equipment, is not used in support of gross violations of human rights, including by strengthening end-use monitoring and financial tracking. We ask that you respond with a detailed plan as to how the administration plans to achieve that goal,” the letter says.

The lawmakers wrote that they are “deeply concerned by Israeli government moves that demonstrate that illegal de facto and de jure annexation of the occupied West Bank is well underway,” stressing that “this Israeli government’s anti-democratic mission to dismantle the rule of law is a threat to Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

“We know your administration has met repeatedly with Israeli officials to reiterate US support for ‘equal measures of freedom, dignity, security and prosperity’ for both Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, these good faith entreaties have had no effect,” they note.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Jonathan Tobin:The ‘occupation’ myth is the engine of antisemitic terror The biased reactions of U.N. officials and corporate media to attacks on Israelis as well as to disputes over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount are rooted in leftist lies about Zionism.

Posted By on April 15th, 2023

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-occupation-myth-is-the-engine-of-antisemitic-terror/?utm_source=sendinblue&utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%2004-14-2023&utm_medium=email

Anger at the U.N.’s “Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories” Francesca Albanese for her outrageous slanders of Israel is more than justified. So is frustration and outrage about biased coverage of the Middle East in leading corporate media outlets like CNN and The New York Times of a string of deadly Palestinian terror attacks as well as recent events on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

The never-ending series of egregious comments from Albanese provides plenty of fodder for critics of the United Nations and the international “human rights” community. Similarly, news reports that treat terrorist attacks on Jews with indifference while hyping the shootings of Palestinian terror suspects by the Israel Defense Forces or even attempts to restore order on the Temple Mount after the mosques there were commandeered by rioters into grave violations of human rights are flagged by the vital groups that monitor anti-Israel media bias.

These awful examples of how both international groups and the media misreport and falsely characterize events in Israel are, by themselves, important and deserve vigorous pushback. But such statements and media coverage that might well be termed more a form of disinformation or propaganda than journalism are just the tip of the iceberg that those who care about the campaign against Israel must confront. And, as important, even essential, as it is to call out each and every such instance of lies and prejudice may be, the confluence of so many egregious incidents should serve as a reminder that the problem goes much deeper.

The bile and lies tweeted by Albanese as well as most of the media coverage of what’s been happening on the Temple Mount as well as in attacks, such as the tragic slaying of 48-year-old Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, when Palestinian terrorist fired on their car, is infuriating. But it’s not merely the product of indifference to Jewish suffering and rights or even antisemitism, though all of it can be easily observed in such cases.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Climate Change Alarmism Is a Lie that Must Stop by Drieu Godefridi

Posted By on April 14th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19580/climate-change-alarmism

With China opening an average of two new coal-fired power plants a week and India apparently more determined than ever to continue its development curve, as is the entire non-Western world, global CO2 emissions will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. There is not yet any available, inexpensive alternative to fossil fuels.

This increase in global CO2 emissions would be inevitable even if the West persists in its efforts to reduce emissions: Western reductions are — and will continue to be — more than offset by the increase in emissions in the rest of the world.

“Setting an example” to regimes and countries around the world that often hate the West simply enables those countries to grow stronger, while the countries setting the example weaken themselves by committing themselves to severe economic disadvantage — while having virtually no net effect on the climate…. Meanwhile, as they grow, they would doubtless be extremely happy to see the West hobbling itself.

The climate knows neither Europe nor Asia. Nothing that Europe and the West accomplish in this field has the slightest meaning if reduction of emissions is not global.

In its fifth and latest (full) report, the IPCC estimates that a 3° warming — twice the Paris Agreement target — would reduce global economic growth by 3%. Three per cent a year? No, 3% by the year 2100. This amount represents a reduction in global economic growth of 0.04% a year, a number that is barely measurable statistically. That is in the IPCC’s pessimistic scenario. In the more optimistic scenarios, the economic impact of warming will be virtually non-existent.

[A]ccording to the data of the IPCC itself, the economic growth and well-being in Europe and the United States are more threatened by extremist and delusional environmental policies than by global warming.

“The EU and its Member States have focused on climate policy, mobilizing enormous financial and human resources, thereby reducing the resources necessary for the development of its industry and weakening the security of energy supply.” — Jean-Pierre Schaeken Willemaers, Thomas More Institute, president of the Energy, Climate and Environment Cluster, science-climat-energie.be, February 22, 2023.

Future generations will judge us harshly for allowing extremist environmental activism to enfeeble us in the West, while a hostile East – China, Russia, North Korea and Iran — continue to advance their industrial and military capabilities. Instead of trying to fight CO2 emissions, we would do better to invest in researching ways to make reliable supplies of energy both cleaner and less expensive so that everyone — by choice — will rush to use them.

Global emissions and the accumulated stock of CO2 in the atmosphere will, unfortunately, not be decreasing any time soon, but that is no reason to let the global standing of the West decrease instead.

Since 1992 and the Earth Summit in Rio, the West has been living under the spell of a “climate emergency” that is repeatedly renewed but never happened. Since then, the West – and only the West — has set itself the main goal of reducing CO2 emissions (and other greenhouse gases, implied in the rest of this article).

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Is Hamas smelling Israeli weakness? Ruthie Blum

Posted By on April 14th, 2023

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-739190

In a 2004 Israel TV interview on their newly published book about the Second Intifada, co-authors Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel recounted the purpose of the joint endeavor and what their research uncovered. Expressing amazement at their findings, show host Meni Pe’er (who died a decade later) pointed in particular to their research on suicide bombings.

“Yes,” said Issacharoff. “In The Seventh War: How We Won and Why We Lost the War with the Palestinians, we tried to examine the thinking of Hamas, not merely that of the Palestinian mainstream.”

To do this, the two Israeli correspondents and commentators on Arab and Middle East affairs spoke to senior Hamas officials. Among these was Sheikh Hassan Yousef.

Yousef, a co-founder and spiritual leader of the terrorist organization, spent several stints in Israeli prisons. Today, he is in charge of the group’s West Bank (Judea and Samaria) operations.

According to Issacharoff, Yousef explained that one of Hamas’s goals in its overall pursuit of the Jewish state’s ultimate destruction had been to foment and enhance internecine Israeli strife. Evidence of a schism on which the organization could build, Yousef told the authors, lay in calls on the part of the Israeli Left for a complete withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and for IDF soldiers and reservists to refuse to serve in those territories. 

It was the latter, above all, he said, that buoyed Hamas to keep up its suicide attacks on Israelis.

MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: DOUBLE STANDARDS

Posted By on April 14th, 2023

September 2019- The controversial call that spurred an impeachment inquiry. On July 25, President Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The summary of the controversial phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s president in which Trump asked his counterpart to look into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden was released.

The release came a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she was launching an impeachment inquiry related to the phone call.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, what Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great,” Trump said to Zelensky in the call.
Zelenskiy, when asked in the open, has said he never felt “pushed” by Trump.