The Wit and Wisdom of Kamala Never has someone so empty of everything come this close to running everything. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/wit-and-wisdom-kamala-daniel-greenfield/

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris might be the single worst pair of communicators to occupy the White House. Both Joe and Kamala are wedded to teleprompters because he has too much to say and she has nothing to say. Teleprompters are there to keep Joe Biden from telling wildly inappropriate stories about his leg hairs or announcing an impromptu surrender to China, but they’re also there because in her natural state Kamala is incapable of saying anything at all.

Presidents and their veeps are supposed to be a balance of strengths and weaknesses like a good marriage, but instead Biden and Kamala are a bad marriage in which their weaknesses are mirror opposites, but also so far apart that they’re incapable of balancing each other out.

Neither Joe or Kamala have any real skills. They both got to where they are as a combination of political accidents by men who were attracted to their weakness and incompetence.

Obama picked Biden because the failed presidential candidate was an old white man who would be too inept to build his own power base or function independently of his team. And Obama proved correct when Biden not only failed to declare his independence during eight years as his second banana, but even after Obama twice refused to endorse his presidential run is still dependent on Obama’s people to tell him what to do, where to go and what to say.

Kamala was handpicked by Willie Brown for her willingness to sleep with a much older man. And to represent Willie’s interests on various commissions. Despite no apparent skills or real track record, she advanced through the ranks because she was a hollow vessel. Having very little in the way of a mind of her own, she could be counted on to do what her bosses wanted.

Why It’s Time for Defense Secretary Austin to Resign The compounded failures of a progressive ideologue. Amber Smith

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/why-its-time-defense-secretary-austin-resign-amber-smith/

Amber Smith is a former Pentagon official and U.S. Army Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. She is the author of ‘Danger Close’.

The consequence of the Department of Defense COVID vaccine mandate? A self-inflicted national security threat to readiness, recruitment, retention and ultimately to the all-volunteer force. Secretary of Defense Loyd Austin made a foolish decision to throw away battle tested, combat proven service members with years of priceless war fighting experience and leadership who were an incredible asset to the fighting force. This deliberate decision has caused irreversible damage to the military and the force’s ability to accomplish the mission.

Austin should resign for his failures to maintain necessary force end strength, the worst recruitment crisis since the Vietnam war, for playing politics with soldiers’ careers over the COVID vaccine mandate, and the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. His failure to intervene early in order to tackle these issues prior to becoming full-fledged crises has significantly degraded the military’s capabilities, readiness and national security. 

But Austin’s failures started long before COVID. 

Michelle Obama 2024: A review of Joel Gilbert’s new film By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/08/emmichelle_obama_2024em_a_review_of_joel_gilberts_new_film.html

I confess that, having paid pretty close attention to the lives of Barack and Michelle Obama ever since the entry of the couple into presidential politics in 2003, I was surprised at how much I learned from filmmaker Joel Gilbert’s new film.  Michelle Obama 2024: Her Real Life Story and Plan for Power, offers a deeper look into the former first lady — and, in Gilbert’s opinion, the likely 2024 Democrat nominee — than I had ever experienced.  (You can read Joel’s recent AT article derived from the film here.)

It is a hugely entertaining look as well.  Gilbert travels to the key locations in Michelle Obama’s life, starting with the apartment complex her family first lived in, the schools she attended (quite a story there!), and the places she worked, as well as the places she and her husband made key moments in his political rise.

This is a very personal film, with Gilbert guiding viewers on this tour, and sometimes talking on camera with important persons in her life, including Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, through a closed screen door on her house.

It is a testament to the honesty and thoroughness of the filmmaker that I came away from the film with a heightened appreciation for the efforts of Fraser and Marian Robinson in raising their children, older brother Craig and Michelle, as well as a deeper understanding of how thoroughly marinated in politics Michelle has been since early childhood.

Harvard Study: Only 8% of Capitol Rioters Wanted ‘Insurrection’

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/07/31/harvard-study-only-8-of-capitol-rioters-wanted-insurrection/

A comprehensive study by Harvard University of the motivations of those who participated in the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol found that only 8% wanted to start an insurrection or civil war — contrary to claims by the January 6 Committee.

The Harvard Crimson reported last week:

In the most comprehensive study to date of what motivated the Trump supporters to attack the Capitol, Shorenstein Center researchers found that 20.6 percent of the rioters, a plurality, were motivated to take part in the riot because they supported Trump. Another 20.6 percent of the rioters cited Trump’s fraudulent claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged as their primary reason for participating in the Jan. 6 riot.

The third most common reason for attacking the Capitol: a desire to start a civil war or an armed revolution, according to the study. Almost 8 percent of defendants indicated it was their main motivation.

In an interview, Fagan said she was surprised by how frequently support for Trump and concerns about the election were cited as primary motivations for joining the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The FBI Twice Interfered in the 2020 Election to Sabotage Trump. Now What? The evidence is amassed and verified—the only unknown is what Republicans will do next. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/01/the-fbi-twice-interfered-in-the-2020-election-to-sabotage-trump-now-what/

It could be the whopper of the year.

“I can tell you that in every case we follow the facts and the evidence and the law and we do so without regard to politics or ideology,” Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, solemnly assured the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing last week.

Olsen was responding to a question by U.S. Representative Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) about the decision to arrest several men for supposedly conspiring to abduct and assassinate Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. “The alleged Whitmer plot was announced on October 7, 2020 within a month of the U.S. presidential election,” Bishop asked Olsen. “How come that [was the] timing for the FBI’s announcement of this plot?”

Olsen refused to explain why, opting instead to commit borderline perjury by insisting the Justice Department turns a blind eye to politics—all evidence accumulated over the past six years to the contrary.

But now that two men have been acquitted after defense attorneys convinced a Michigan jury in April that the FBI entrapped their clients—the jury deadlocked on two other defendants who face a new trial next week—Bishop’s question demands an answer. And it won’t come from a dangerously-weaponized Justice Department focused almost entirely on prosecuting Americans who protested Joe Biden’s election on January 6, 2021 and with its sights now trained on indicting Donald Trump.

Despite Olsen’s stonewalling, the answer to Bishop’s question is in plain sight. Just as it did with phony claims of Russian election collusion in 2016, the FBI fabricated a scandal in 2020 aimed at sabotaging Trump right before a national election.

Asia Times’ “China Center” newsletter: The Pelosi visit and the Chinese property market: David Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/

The Biden Administration’s policy signaling on China has been confused and contradictory from the inception of the Administration, and the confusion around House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s rumored visit to Taiwan suggests that Biden’s foreign policy team blundered its way into a prospective crisis. At China Center’s deadline, Pelosi was en route to Asia, without confirmation or denial of a stop in Taiwan.

The seriousness of the present situation cannot be emphasized enough. Remnin University Professor Jin Canrong, one of the Chinese analysts most closely followed by Biden’s national security team, said Aug. 1 in an interview with the “Observer” (guancha.cn) website: “It can be said that in our offshore waters, whether in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, our military has advantages. Our ballistic missiles can cover the entire South China Sea, the air force can basically cover the entire South China Sea, and the navy has certain advantages over several US fleets. In addition, we have obvious advantages given our geographic position in electronic countermeasures and reconnaissance systems. If the US really wants to create friction here, it won’t be cheap.”

In off-record discussions in Washington, several US former top foreign policy officials expressed doubt that Pelosi planned a trip to Taiwan without consulting the White House. How the visit was first mooted suggests an amateurish attempt at plausible deniability. Pelosi did not announce a visit to Taiwan, and no American media outlet has confirmed such plans. Instead, the first mention of a possible visit came from the London Financial Times July 18, citing six separate sources. That is not eavesdropping at a hotel lobby bar, but a deliberate leak. The newspaper also said that the Administration was divided over whether Pelosi should visit Taiwan.

In Paul Krugman’s Upper West Side Bubble, All Is Well

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/02/in-paul-krugmans-upper-west-side-bubble-all-is-well/

After Richard Nixon’s landslide victory over leftist George McGovern in 1972, New York Times movie critic Pauline Kael supposedly said: “How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him.”

This weekend, current New York Times columnist Paul Krugman outdid Kael in the utterly-clueless-liberal-bubble department.

On CNN Sunday, Krugman said that the big problem with the economy today is that media are unfairly writing negative stories about it. “I think that what’s happening now is that there’s been a kind of a negativity bias in coverage,” he said.

Then Krugman went full Kael, telling CNN’s Brian Stelter, “if you ask people, ‘How are you doing?’ they are pretty — they’re pretty upbeat … if you ask people, ‘How’s your financial situation?’ it’s pretty favorable.”

Really? What people?

The folks who attend dinner parties with Krugman in New York’s Upper West Side, for whom inflation is a petty annoyance, if they notice it at all? Are those the people Krugman’s been talking to?

If he talked to families struggling to make ends meet, or find baby formula, or pay their rent, he’d get a far different response than “pretty upbeat.” Because out here in the real world, they’ve watched things go from bad to worse.

If Krugman can’t bring himself to talk to the unwashed masses, at least he could look at recent poll data.

A DECLARATION OF DISSOLUTION: WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT FIRES THE STARTING SHOT

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/01/a-declaration-of-dissolution-wisconsin-supreme-court-fires-the-starting-gun/

“If elections are conducted outside of the law, the people have not conferred their consent on the government. Such elections are unlawful, and their results are illegitimate.” — Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley, writing for the Wisconsin Supreme Court majority in Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission

A court of law has finally confirmed it: The 2020 election was “illegitimate.” And all the demands for sufficient evidence of voter fraud to reverse the outcome were a red herring.

The truly dispositive factor, as stated by a Republican Wisconsin state legislator in a March hearing and affirmed in the opinion: “If a vote is cast in an illegal process, it’s an illegal vote!”

The reasons for legislatively enacted absentee ballot protections are clear. Justice Bradley quotes the Wisconsin Legislature’s rationale: “(P)revent the potential for fraud or abuse … overzealous solicitation of absent electors who may prefer not to participate in an election … undue influence on an absent elector … or other similar abuses.”

And that’s exactly what unlawfully relaxed provisions occasioned in Wisconsin:

Nearly 3,600 trips by 138 “mules” to drop boxes to traffic 137,551 votes. (Trump lost the state by about 20,000.)
Illegal assistance with absentee ballots by nursing home staff to residents, some with dementia.
“Zuckerbucks” exploiting these changes to “purchase Joe Biden an additional 65,222 votes, without which Donald Trump would have won the state by 44,540 votes.”

But again, per Wisconsin’s Supremes, Donald Trump didn’t have to prove the existence or extent of fraud, only deviation from legislative schemes. Because – nota bene! – the votes’ unlawful nature is the proof.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

This week I am speechless! The number of Israeli medical breakthroughs and protocols and technology that bring hope and potential cure to cancers is simply astonishing. Furthermore, Michael Ordman reveals that “ 1,500 US doctors use Israeli software to review patients’ data before they start a diagnosis and Israeli scientists have manipulated malignant leukemia cells to “start again” as normal cells and two Israeli startups have partnered to detect ALS before it gets started.”

BDS? Does it really mean “Before Diagnosis Strikes” Israel is working on the cure? rsk

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
It started here. (TY Irene) This article gives more details about the fecal microbial transfer (FMT) trial at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center in 2020 to treat terminally ill melanoma patients (see here previously). FMT trials are now underway in at least 30 global locations. The “gut feeling” is that one day it could save millions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01959-7
 
Making leukemia cells harmless. (TY UWI) Scientists from Tel Aviv University were key members of a team led by University of Barcelona scientists, that reverted malignant blood cancer cells back into “normal” cells in the laboratory. They used messenger RNA to convert acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells to macrophages.
https://www.jpost.com/science/article-709219   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41375-022-01621-1
 
Startups partner to detect ALS. Israel’s NeuraLight (see here) and NeuroSense Therapeutics (see here) are partnering to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). They will study patients using NeuroSense’s biological markers, together with Neuralight’s digital oculometric biomarkers.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rj06yaktc
 
The world’s largest ER facility. Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital has inaugurated the Sylvan Adams Emergency Hospital (see here previously). The 8,000sqm Emergency Room is the largest in the world. Technology includes facial recognition registration, self-triage, alerts for abnormal results, navigation robots and an app.
https://www.jns.org/canadian-philanthropist-sylvan-adams-opens-worlds-largest-emergency-room-at-tel-avivs-ichilov-hospital/  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/357263
 
The patient revealed. (TY UWI) Israel’s Navina has made great strides since it was reported here in Nov 2020. Its AI technology filters now organizes and presents patient data to 1,500 physicians in the U.S.  The founders’ IDF 8200-unit know-how now helps doctors assess patients more effectively, with less misdiagnoses.
https://nocamels.com/2022/07/military-intelligence-patient-data-overload/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDbtpMi0llg
 
Teenager’s online mental first aid course. When Maayan Cohen finished a regular first aid course she realized there was no psychological component, so she created one. Some 3,000 people are currently taking part in the pilot phase of the free online course. It focuses on detecting distress and taking initial action.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/mental-health-first-aid-course-for-teens-by-17-year-old-israeli-draws-thousands/
 
Attracting doctors to the periphery. Israel’s Aliyah and Integration Ministry is to provide a grant package for physicians who emigrated to Israel and live outside of the center of the country. They will be eligible to receive 50,000 shekels per family. Lower value grants are available for other health care and engineering professionals.
https://www.jns.org/israel-approves-grants-for-immigrant-healthcare-professionals-living-in-periphery/
 
Maccabiah athletes register their bone-marrow. Israeli medical charity Ezer Mizion are offering Maccabiah athletes the opportunity to join the world’s largest Jewish bone-marrow donor registry. They volunteer to submit saliva samples which are then checked against the DNA of blood cancer sufferers.
https://www.jns.org/athletes-at-israels-maccabiah-games-asked-to-join-jewish-bone-marrow-bank/
 

The Antidote to Tyranny is Liberty, Not Democracy or International Government by J.B. Shurk

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18754/tyranny-liberty-democracy

When presidents and prime ministers make and enforce their own laws under the pretext of “emergency powers,” then citizens should not be surprised when their leaders discover an endless supply of “emergencies” requiring urgent action.

The opposite of tyranny is not democracy, but rather liberty and individual rights. Is it not startling, then, that Western leaders extol democracy, yet pay such little homage to personal freedoms?

Yet freedom, liberty, and individual rights are rarely mentioned. In their stead, political leaders cherish the “virtues” of democracy and little else. It is as if a linguistic sleight of hand has robbed Western citizens of their most valuable heritage.

Is it not strange that Western leaders laud democracy over authoritarianism while simultaneously diminishing the power of their voters and strengthening the authority of foreign institutions [such as the EU, the UN, and the WHO]? Shouldn’t “democratic” nations decide their own fates?

Why should bigger, broader forms of international government, however, be seen as more virtuous and less corrupt than their national forms?…. For that matter, had Hitler’s Nazi Party succeeded in conquering all of Europe, would his “European Union” have deserved greater legitimacy than the national governments of Poland, Belgium, or France?

When national populations are denied self-determination and personal liberties are treated as privileges, not rights, then tyranny is never far from taking hold.

Political language manipulates political debate. Abortion opponents who define themselves as “pro-life” semantically render abortion proponents as “pro-death.” Abortion supporters who define themselves as “pro-choice” semantically render any opposition as “anti-choice.” Who wants to be “pro-death” or “anti-choice,” after all? Such is the nature of politics. Words are weapons: when wielded deftly, they shape the battlespace for our minds.

So what does it mean when Western leaders these days speak so much of democracy but so little of individual rights? Or that they preach the virtues of international institutions, while demonizing nationalism as xenophobic and dangerous? It means that national sovereignty and natural, inviolable rights are under direct attack throughout the West.