CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Joe Biden’s Iran plan is a total disaster Michael Goodwin

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://nypost.com/2022/03/19/joe-bidens-iran-plan-is-a-total-disaster/

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does. The Biden administration is working on a plan that would make the world a far more dangerous place.  

It’s a plot with three steps, all terrible and each arguably worse than the previous one.

Step One is the determination to make a new sweetheart nuclear deal with Iran. There is no good reason, only the fetish to undo everything Donald Trump did.

He wisely scuttled the first bad deal, so President Biden is hellbent on making a new one, and is close to the finish line, meaning Iran could escape sanctions and its oil could hit the world market.

Step Two in the budding disaster is that the White House is letting the butcher of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, broker the talks between America and Iran. As I noted last week, on one hand, Putin is a war criminal raining death and destruction on millions of civilians, and on the other hand, we trust him to make an ironclad deal that blocks the mad mullahs from getting the ultimate weapons of mass destruction. 

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

What Our Betters Have In Mind For Us In The Era Of Fossil Fuel Suppression Francis Menton

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-3-19-what-our-betters-have-in-mind-for-us-in-the-era-of-fossil-fuel-suppression

As you undoubtedly know, back in January 2021 newly-inaugurated President Biden ordered the entire federal bureaucracy into full-battle mode in the crusade to suppress production and use of fossil fuels, aka “carbon emissions” (or maybe “climate pollution”). From Biden’s January 27, 2021 Executive Order (“Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”):

It is the policy of my Administration to organize and deploy the full capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis to implement a Government-wide approach that reduces climate pollution in every sector of the economy. . . .

And thus we have every federal agency, under orders from the boss, whether or not its statutory mission has anything to do with “climate,” diligently devising schemes to outdo the other agencies in the fossil fuel suppression game. It’s not just EPA scheming to force closure of perfectly good power plants, but also Interior imposing a “moratorium” on oil and gas leasing on federal lands and offshore; and FERC putting out new standards of review to make it impossible for any new gas pipeline to get approved; and the Department of Energy imposing costly new efficiency standards on mobil homes; and even the Federal Reserve promising to make life difficult for banks that lend to fossil fuel producers; and the SEC imposing new and costly “climate” disclosure requirements on issuers; and on and on.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Same People Who Said Hunter’s Laptop Was Fake and a Trump Pee Tape Was Real Are Pushing for War With Russia Supporting the people of Ukraine does not mean propelling the world into a war that will end all wars. Time and again, American involvement has not helped. This is one of those times. JD Rucker

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://jdrucker.substack.com/p/the-same-people-who-said-hunters?token=e

I hope and pray that most of our readers are at least reticent if not adamantly opposed to going to war with Russia. One can support Ukraine, oppose Russia, and still not want the United States to get involved militarily or to escalate our response to Russia to the point that they attack NATO, drawing us into WWIII.

But there are Democrats and RINOs who are warmongering us towards direct involvement in the regional conflict prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They are getting louder. Anecdotally on social media, I’m seeing more “conservatives” calling for actions like no-fly zones that will force us to shoot down Russian aircraft and plunge us into war. My question is this: Why are so many otherwise lucid America First conservatives buying into the warmonger narrative?

As I stated on Twitter…

Reminder: The same people who told you Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” are now telling you Soros- and Schwab-backed Volodymyr Zelensky is democracy’s messiah. Accepting that Zelensky is corrupt and antagonizing world war does not make you a “Putin apologist.”

Andrea Widburg wrote an article for American Thinker that embraced an article by Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse. It details some of the inconsistencies we’re seeing with the sudden rise in warmongers across America, who now account for an uncomfortable number of people.

MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hunter Biden and the media’s feedback loop If you’re waiting for an apology from partisan journalists, you’ll wait in vain Cahrles Lipson

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/hunter-biden-laptop-media-feedback-loop/

Well over a year after the presidential election, long after all mainstream media outlets killed a legitimate story about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, the New York Times finally announced it had “authenticated” the computer and its messages. The computer, left amid a drug-filled haze at a Delaware computer repair shot, is filled with damning information about Hunter’s pay-to-play operations, which monetized his family’s political power.

His only marketable skill was opening doors with his last name. It’s still unclear how deeply and directly Hunter’s father, Joe, is implicated in this sleazy business, which went on for years. Not that the Times wanted to know any of this when it mattered most, before the 2020 election.

As NPR’s managing editor for news put it on October 22, 2020, after the New York Post had broken the story, “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

NPR and the Times were hardly alone in killing the story. The Post was the only major paper that investigated and ran the damning news. Fox News was the only TV source that reported on it. For that investigative work, the Post deserved a roomful of journalistic prizes but, predictably, it received none. Why “predictably”? Because the folks who award prizes are the same hall monitors who try to control public discussion. They were the ones who suppressed the laptop story.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 
As of December 2020, Israel, once the battered orphan state of the United Nations, has diplomatic relations with 164 of the 193 total UN member states. How did this come about? Much credit is due to the Abraham accords forged by former President Donald Trump, his Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, the Israeli political establishment, and modern new leaders in the Arab world.

The credit must also go to Israel for the reasons that Michael Ordman catalogs on a weekly basis, namely, Israel’s dazzling research, technology and innovation which could be tapped into by cooperative nations.

By every measure, in spite of its biased detractors, Israel is a successful modern democracy on the cusp of its birthday of 74 or 5, 782 years. rsk

With so much in the world to worry about, the Jewish festival of Purim arrived just at the right time. It coincided with Israelis bringing relief to Jews sheltering in Ukraine, to refugees in border countries and those rescued and now safe in Israel. Israeli volunteers flew to the region to treat, donate aid and bring Purim cheer to Ukrainians of all religions. In other news, Israeli medical advances have put smiles on the faces of many of those suffering from Covid-19 and cancer. There was further uplifting news of Israel’s improving relations with the UAE, Morocco and Egypt. Meanwhile, two inspiring Israeli startups launched “out of this world” innovative technology. No wonder Israel has leaped up to ninth place in the United Nations-sponsored World Happiness Index. Michael Ordman

 

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Tons of equipment for Israeli Ukraine field hospital. Israel airlifted some 17 tons of equipment to build its $6.5 million “Kochav Meir” (Shining Star) Ukraine field hospital (see here previously), which is expected to treat around 100 patients per day. Also, Magen David Adom is sending 4 bullet-proof ambulances to Ukraine.
https://www.jns.org/el-al-planes-take-off-with-17-tons-of-equipment-for-israeli-field-hospital-in-ukraine/
 
Dental NGO relieves pain for Ukrainian child. 4-year-old Feiga arrived in Israel from Ukraine, unable to eat due to her poor dental condition. Just 24 hours after contacting Dental Volunteers for Israel, Feiga had root canal treatment to alleviate her pain, while pediatric dentists gently prepared her for further treatment.
https://dental-dvi.org.il/feige-a-4-year-old-jewish-refugee-from-ukraine-newly-arrived-in-jerusalem/
 
New Covid treatment available. Ziv Medical Center in Tzfat (Safed) is currently offering AMOR-18 from Israel’s Amorphical (see here previously) to all moderate to serious COVID-19 patients. It is also undergoing clinical trials at four Israeli hospitals. All 18 patients in Ziv’s trials of AMOR-18 recovered quickly.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/new-israeli-covid-drug-offered-to-ziv-medical-center-patients/
 
Diagnostic blood test advances. Israel’s OncoHost (see here previously) has opened a new laboratory in North Carolina for its PROphet blood test to identify which cancer treatments are likely to work. Israeli Nobel Prize winner Aaron Ciechanover is an OncoHost’s advisor. PROphet may also help autoimmune disease sufferers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/lifting-the-veil-of-uncertainty-around-cancer-treatments/
 
Remote monitoring pilot success. Israel’s Essence SmartCare has completed a successful pilot of its VitalOn remote patient monitoring system. Patients of Clalit Health Services and homecare provider Sharan Medical Center were monitored at home on transfer from hospital.  VitalOn even saved a patient suffering low oxygen.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-701244  https://www.essencesmartcare.com/
 
A fierce medical company. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s MeMed (see here previously) has been named as one of the “Fierce MedTech Fierce 15” most promising medical technology companies. The annual list is produced by the prestigious medical magazine and resource Fierce Biotech.
https://www.me-med.com/_files/ugd/6a0f21_298b9f7e9e074852a576b8bf12773912.pdf
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-reports/fierce-medtechs-2021-fierce-15
 
A breath test for any disease. Israel’s Breath of Health (BOH – see here previously) was featured on I24 News. Its trial at Israeli hospitals showed that it could replace the PCR test for COVID detection. Its blow test pattern analysis can be adapted to detect any pathogen – e.g., different cancers, Alzheimer’s, or diabetes etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIpBD_5Hk_U
 
Improving outcomes for cancer patients. The Israeli-developed Intelligent Care platform of US-based Canopy improves life-saving care provided to cancer patients. Canopy’s suite of intelligent, electronic health-record integrated tools helps cancer centers engage with their patients and streamline clinical processes.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkgqe9lfc  https://www.canopycare.us/
 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Who Will Be America’s Teachers? You catch the fire of love from someone else on fire. So do you also catch smallpox—the smallpox of reducing everything to a political aim. By Anthony Esolen

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/19/who-will-be-americas-teachers/

The essential quality of a teacher, I have long believed, is the desire to share what he has found of the true or good or beautiful, or at least useful—which means that it will be good in an immediate instrumental way, serving some obvious human need or wholesome desire. The teacher says, “Come, look at this!” And he shows you the great painting of the Crucifixion by Andrea Mantegna (d. 1506), and the dramatic moment, set into the background of the work, not in the center but all the more arresting for its being understated, when the centurion looks upon Christ and says, “Surely, this was the Son of God.” He shows you not just what there is to see in the painting, but how to see. He gives you eyes.

The first time I listened to the polyphonic music of the Renaissance, I did not know what I had come upon. It was Thomas Tallis’ 40-voice motet, Spem in alium. I had expected a stanzaic hymn. This was just a verse or two from Scripture, set to music. I had expected a clear and single melodic line. This was a tissue of 40 melodic lines woven together simultaneously. I might as well have been a native of the jungles of Borneo, gaping at the turbine of a hydroelectric dam. I didn’t have a teacher to help me, at least not one I could speak to; it was instead Palestrina who “taught” me, by means of fewer and more immediately discernible polyphonic lines, what I was hearing, or what I could learn to hear, when I listened to Spem in alium. It happened while I was listening to the Creed in Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, and I heard three separate voices, each following right upon the other, singing the word simul simultaneously and not simultaneously, expressing musically the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It flashed upon me that this was profoundly intellectual music, like the façade of a medieval cathedral. Palestrina gave me ears.

We need teachers with eyes and ears. We will not get them.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s Long Arm in Turkey, Turkey’s Fake “Peace” by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18337/iran-turkey-fake-peace

What, then, revived Iran’s covert operations in Turkey? For Iran, the “good Turkey” was the one in constant bickering with the West and Israel. The “bad” one is claiming to seek reconciliation with Israel, the Gulf states and Egypt.

Iran’s mullahs are notoriously good at poisoning peace and stability, at home and in their own neighborhood as well as in distant lands, such as Cuba and Venezuela. After a short pause, the long arm of the mullahs is back to Turkey. Twelve (foiled) plots in such a short time is a “message.”

Iran is trying to sabotage the Abraham Accords and their positive transformations in the region by means of subversion in Turkey against Israeli nationals. The Iranians are also vehemently trying to discourage Turkey from reconciling with the Gulf states, Israel and Egypt….

When the UAE moved to normalize relations with Israel, Turkey threatened to downgrade diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi; and Turkey has been at odds with Egypt since 2013. These frictions have placed Turkey on the side of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, while on the other side are the Gulf states, Israel and Egypt.

Totally isolated and facing a punishing economic crisis, Erdoğan apparently decided to look as if he were changing course and reconcile with Israel and the Gulf states. The effort shows that Erdoğan was on the wrong course to begin with: He apparently thought Turkey’s enemies were Israel and Sunni Arabs while now he should see that the real enemy is Shia Islam, in the form of Iran’s theocracy.

Finally, there is a lesson to Westerners who seem blind to Turkey and Iran. These rogue states are still plotting acts of terror on NATO soil. What more do they have to do for the international community to hold them to account?

The lesson for governments is: Ignore Erdoğan’s threats. Do not keep overestimating him or Turkey’s clout. Keep isolating him to keep him from doing further harm. Isolate him to soften his rigidity on refusing the EastMed pipeline. In other words, if you want to avoid more Turkish damage in the neighborhood, do more to isolate Turkey than you have done in the past decade. And one more thing: The Mediterranean alliance should remain monolithic and, above all, ignore Erdoğan’s threats.

Yair Geller, 75, an Israeli businessman who owns an advanced technologies and engineering company in Turkey, CNC İleri Teknoloji, did not know that his residence in Istanbul was long under surveillance by a cell of assassins operated by the Iranian regime. The assassins did not know that they were long under surveillance by MIT, Turkey’s national intelligence agency.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Putin’s War: The Next Phase by Amir Taheri

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18336/putin-war-the-next-phase

Most wars are aimed at replacing a status quo regarded as undesirable by one or both adversaries, with a new one acceptable by the winning side and tolerable by the loser.

So far, the European Union and NATO have opted for what amounts to knee-jerk reaction to show that they are doing something without deciding what it is they are actually facing.

Seizing the assets of the oligarchs makes good news copy. But it is doubtful that it will sway Putin away from his adversarial trajectory. In any case, if the oligarchs’ assets were produced by corruption if not actual theft, why did Western democracies welcome them as legitimate “investment”? And, if they were legit to start with, why seize them when the Western legal system excludes guilt by association?

Both the EU and NATO would do well to try and de-couple Putin and the Russian people through information, public diplomacy, and carefully targeted sanctions.

As it heads for its second month, like other wars in history, the war in Ukraine seems to be finding the rhythm and tempo that determines its cruising speed at least for some time.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The NCAA’s Three-Day Swim Farce Is Over, but the Controversy Is Not By Madeleine Kearns

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-ncaas-three-day-swim-farce-is-over-but-the-controversy-is-not/

Atlanta — UPenn swimmer and biological male Lia Thomas finished eighth at the women’s NCAA 100-yard freestyle final tonight, with a time of 48.18 seconds. The winner was UVA’s Gretchen Walsh, at 46.05 seconds. And so concludes the NCAA’s sexist three-day swim farce.

On Thursday, Thomas was awarded the women’s 500-yard freestyle championship. On Friday, Thomas took to the podium again for a joint fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle.

The New York Times and other outlets have framed Thomas’s 500-yard victory as the story of “the first openly transgender woman to win a N.C.A.A. swimming championship.” Really, the story here isn’t about athletes’ identities. The story — or rather, the scandal — is about biological sex.

Nobody objects, for instance, to the participation of Yale swimmer Iszac Henig in the women’s championships. Henig identifies as transgender but – crucially — is biologically female. Henig finished fifth in tonight’s NCAA 100-yard freestyle, with a time of 47.32 seconds.

The same people who would boo Thomas can happily cheer for Henig. How can that be, if their motivation is “transphobia”?

That Henig has been content to swim alongside other biological females also exposes the nonsense argument that it would somehow be a denial of “human rights” to expect Thomas to swim alongside biological males.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Should Be Done to Fight Inflation? A U.S. Lawmaker (Lisa McClain R-MI) Interviews Two Michigan Economists

Posted By on March 20th, 2022

https://www.aier.org/article/what-should-be-done-to-fight-inflation-a-u-s-lawmaker-interviews-two-michigan-economists/

The following is a recent discussion between US Congresswoman Lisa C. McClain, Northwood University Economics department chair Dr. Dale C. Matcheck and Dr. Timothy G. Nash, director of the McNair Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Northwood University. The conversation centered around recent comments by US Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Jerome Powell, and how the Federal Reserve intends to bring our 40-year high inflation rate down to levels prior to 2021. 

McClain: It’s great to be here with two of my favorite economists, Northwood University’s Dr. Tim Nash, and Dr. Dale Matcheck, to discuss Federal Reserve monetary policy. Dale let’s start with you defining inflation.

Matcheck: Sure, Lisa, it’s great to be here. Inflation is the decline in a country’s currency purchasing power over a sustained period of time. Inflation is reflected in an increase in the average price level of goods, services, and assets. The best-known yardstick to measure US inflation is the Consumer Price Index or CPI.

McClain: Tim, your and John Hantz’s late January inflation piece in The Detroit News underscored why it’s so important to discuss Milton Friedman when determining the cause of inflation and how to battle it. Especially topical, given our current inflation rate is at a 40-year high as measured by the CPI.