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March 2019

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Can pretty-boy Justin Trudeau survive? By Peter Skurkiss

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/can_prettyboy_justin_trudeau_survive.html

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is on the ropes. He has two thorns in his side that could either force his resignation or at least significantly dim his chances for reelection in October.

The first problem is that Trudeau’s former justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, testified under oath before a parliamentary committee that Trudeau and his top aides tried to pressure her to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a large engineering company headquartered in Montreal.

The company is accused of paying the late Libyan strongman Muammar Khadafy’s family nearly $50 million in bribes between 2001 and 2011 to secure contracts. This is illegal according to Canadian law. SNC admitted to wrongdoing and was angling for an agreement to pay a fine rather than to be criminally prosecuted. But Wilson-Raybould and her office stood firm and said no. In doing so, she testified: “I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Who Is Paying for Sandy O? By James Lewis

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/who_is_paying_for_sandy_o.html

So, a new star is born!

Not just a pop star, but a D.C. power pop star.

Alexandria!

But if we have any political brains, we know perfectly well that miraculous new stars coming out of bartending in the Bronx represent Big Money somewhere. You don’t buy a hot new barrista from the Bronx without a lot of careful stage management, big investments, and payoffs to Nancy Pelosi to back off and let this freshling rise far beyond her actual achievements — and the media, let’s face it, are anti-American.

So we have to ask our own questions and guess at some reasonable answers.

In Hollywood, stars are launched, not “discovered” by magic. They represent huge studio investments. Launch the wrong star, and somebody loses a ton of money. Hollywood is not in biz to lose money.

So here is the puzzle.

Alexandria O-C, AKA Sandy O, is suddenly rising to high headline status, followed by a gazillion Twitter-heads, including some actual human beings, perhaps, and it all happened with amazing speed.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

New peer-reviewed study reveals majority of scientists are skeptical of ‘global warming crisis’By Thomas Lifson

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/new_peerreviewed_study_reveals_majority_of_scientists_are_skeptical_of_global_warming_crisis.html

Without the claimed “scientific consensus” on global warming or climate change, the Green New Deal becomes just another progressive con game, but with the highest stakes ever.

Writing in Forbes, James Taylor shows that the supposed 97% “scientific consensus” on global warming is false:

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Is Dan Crenshaw (R-TX District 2)the Future of the GOP? The right’s newest young star in Congress offers a vision for the party somewhere between Trumpism and NeverTrumpism. But it’s not easy walking the line in Washington. By John McCormack

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/02/i

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland—It’s 4 p.m. on Wednesday, the first day of the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference—not exactly a prime speaking slot—but a standing room-only crowd has gathered to hear from freshman Congressman Dan Crenshaw. While we wait for the 34-year-old Texan, who is running late due to a vote in the House, the first person I talk to at the back of the Eastern Shore meeting room is Jacob Foster, an 18-year-old high-school student at Gann Academy outside Boston, who is attending CPAC for the third time in his young life. Foster is something of an endangered species at the conference: a conservative who likes a lot of the policies advanced by President Donald Trump yet doesn’t intend to vote for him in 2020 because of Trump’s character. But Crenshaw gives Foster hope.

“The glaring difference is he’s not facing accusations of sexual assault, he hasn’t had three marriages, he didn’t dodge the Vietnam draft,” Foster says. “On policy issues, there are meaningful differences. On trade, he’s not as quick to use tariffs.”

When Crenshaw arrives, the former Navy SEAL speaks about how to inspire “people back home” to embrace conservative values—personal responsibility, limited government, virtue, liberty—over a culture of outrage.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S., China Close In on Trade Deal Both countries could lift some tariffs imposed last year, and Beijing would agree to ease restrictions on American products By Lingling Wei in Beijing and Bob Davis in Washington

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-close-in-on-trade-deal-11551641540

China and the U.S. are in the final stage of completing a trade deal, with Beijing offering to lower tariffs and other restrictions on American farm, chemical, auto and other products and Washington considering removing most, if not all, sanctions levied against Chinese products since last year.

The agreement is taking shape following February’s talks in Washington, people briefed on the matter on both sides said. They cautioned that hurdles remain, and each side faces possible resistance at home that the terms are too favorable to the other side.

Despite the remaining hurdles, the talks have progressed to the extent that a formal agreement could be reached at a summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, probably around March 27, after Mr. Xi finishes a trip to Italy and France, individuals with knowledge of the plans said.

As part of a deal, China is pledging to help level the playing field, including speeding up the timetable for removing foreign-ownership limitations on car ventures and reducing tariffs on imported vehicles to below the current auto tariff of 15%.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Adding to Social Insecurity House Democrats propose to increase the entitlement burden.

By on March 4th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/adding-to-social-insecurity-11551650108

Memo to young workers: The Democrats you recently elected want to raise Social Security benefits for retirees while taxing you more to pay for it. Too bad they didn’t tell you about this last year when they were running against Donald Trump. Among the many tax increases Democrats are now pushing is the Social Security 2100 Act sponsored by John Larson of House Ways and Means. The plan would raise average benefits by 2% and ties cost-of-living raises to a highly generous and experimental measure of inflation for the elderly known as CPI-E. The payroll tax rate for Social Security would rise steadily over two decades to 14.8% from 12.4% for all workers, and Democrats would also apply the tax to income above $400,000.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Did Ilhan Omar actually like it when Farrakhan called her ‘sweetheart’?By Monica Showalter

By on March 3rd, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/did_ilhan_omar_actually_like_it_when_farrakhan_called_her_sweetheart.html

You want to hope she didn’t, but the Minnesota socialist’s new round of Jew-hating statements and her failure to apologize for them suggests some kind of influence from the famous anti-Semitic pariah.

Here’s here latest controversy over what a Democratic congressional leader called her vile anti-Semitic slur:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is facing new accusations of making anti-Semitic remarks, this time rebuked by a senior member of her party who says the House freshman’s words conjured a “vile anti-Semitic slur.”

Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has demanded an apology over comments Omar made Wednesday, less than a month after she was condemned by bipartisan leadership for suggesting pro-Israel lobbying groups and Jewish politicians influence American politics.

[For Rep. Ilhan Omar, 2 apologies in 3 weeks for ‘anti-Semitic tropes’]

Her comments came during a town hall in Washington while speaking about liberal issues. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Gas-guzzling car rides expose AOC’s hypocrisy amid Green New Deal pledgeBy Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein

By on March 3rd, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/03/02/gas-guzzling-car-rides-expose-aocs-hypocrisy-amid-green-new-deal-pledge/

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to save the planet with her Green New Deal, but she keeps tripping over her own giant carbon footprint.

“We’re like, ‘The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,’ ” the progressive darling said in January, speaking of herself and her fellow millennials. “And, like, this is the war; this is our World War II.”

Last week, she ratcheted up the rhetoric: “It is basically a scientific consensus that the lives of our children are going to be very difficult” due to climate change. “And it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: is it OK to still have children?”

The guiding principle of her eco-vision is to bring about “a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases” within 10 years.To achieve this, the GND fact sheet says, the nation must “totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail … create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.”But the woman who boasts of a “razor-sharp BS detector” seems to have trouble sniffing out her own.Since declaring her candidacy in May 2017, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign heavily relied on those combustible-engine cars — even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her Elmhurst campaign office.

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BOOKS, HISTORY Comments turned off

‘Islam: The Essays,’ Bruce Bawer’s Magnum Opus on ‘The Religion of Peace’ By Thom Nickels

By on March 3rd, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/islam-the-essays-bruce-bawers-magnum-opus-on-the-religion-of-peace/

It is perhaps fitting that on the day I was to begin my review of Bruce Bawer’s magnum opus on Islam, Islam: the Essays, that Facebook would send me a notice stating that my “Free Tommy Robinson Philadelphia” page had been deleted because of “hate speech.” My Robinson page criticized Islam as an ideology but it did not attack individual Muslims at all. Still, why should I have been surprised at the censorship? We’re living in a new world where criticizing a group — in this case, Islam — is tantamount to the worst obscenity. For me it was an epiphanous moment that brought Bawer’s new book of essays to life. It also got me thinking about other brave writers who aren’t afraid to tell the truth about Islam: Oriana Fallaci in The Rage and The Pride; Pat Buchanan; and James V. Schall, S.J., whose little book, On Islam, published by Ignatius Press, was released last year.

“The first is that the West insists on seeing Islam through the lenses of its own modern, liberal theories about religion, freedom, and human motivation. Islam is just another religion; we are told that it acts like other religions, even when it does not,” Schall writes.

Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses, which got the Ayatollah Khomeini to put a fatwa on his head in 1989, not long ago told France’s L’Express, “We are living in the darkest time I have ever known. I’ve since had the feeling that, if the attacks against Satanic Verses had taken place today, these people would not have defended me, and would have used the same arguments against me, accusing me of insulting an ethnic and cultural minority.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on March 3rd, 2019

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Early pregnancy blood test for genetic disorders. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a new blood test to detect genetic disorders in fetuses as early as 11 weeks into pregnancy. DNA in the mother and father’s blood is sequenced. Then fetal DNA fragments in the mother’s blood is checked for any mutations.
https://www.jpost.com/Jpost-Tech/Business-and-Innovation/TAU-develops-blood-test-to-detect-genetic-disorders-in-early-pregnancy-581252

Identifying the early signs of heart failure. Israel’s Technion has partnered with Israeli startup Cordio Medical to develop a smartphone app to identify the first signs of heart failure. The app detects changes in a person’s voice due to lung fluid – an early warning of congestive heart failure. Clinical trials are in progress.
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/technion-working-with-startup-on-app-to-identify-early-signs-of-heart-failure/

AI system for diabetes treatment. I reported previously (see here) on Israel’s DreaMed Diabetes monitors. DreaMed has just partnered with French company BioCorp to create an Artificially Intelligent system that integrates BioCorp’s Mallya smart cap for pen injectors with DreaMed’s Advisor Pro insulin analysis system.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190220005514/en/BIOCORP-DreaMed-Diabetes-Join-Offer-Outstanding-AI https://dreamed-diabetes.com/advisor/

Artificial Intelligence to benefit humanity. A brief introduction to Israel’s Weizmann Institute’s new Artificial Intelligence Center for Scientific Exploration. It highlights Professor Yaron Lipman’s recent AI breakthrough in developing the On-Sight algorithm to automate heart function measurement from ultrasound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITAtrt7iv6s
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/math-computer-science/algorithm-rivals-experts-could-save-lives

Why black women suffer hair loss. A 7-year international study led by Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s Professor Eli Sprecher, has revealed that a defect in the protein gene PAD13 is responsible for hair loss due to Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia [CCCA]. The condition affects 5% of African-American women.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Bald-black-woman-Israeli-scientists-make-the-leap-towards-a-cure-580698
https://read.qxmd.com/read/30763140/variant-padi3-in-central-centrifugal-cicatricial-alopecia

Predicting sports injuries. Israeli-founded startup Zone7 (InPlay Ltd) has developed software that analyzes data from wearables and video, tracks medical condition and performance and forecasts injuries. It is used by soccer clubs in the UK, Israel, and Spain. Zone7 has just raised $2.5 million including from top sportsmen.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3756158,00.html http://zone7.ai/

Hotline saves Israeli lives. ERAN is Israel’s only crisis intervention hotline, with 1,200 vetted and highly-trained volunteers, plus 25 full and part-time staff. They handled nearly 200,000 calls in 2018 and prevented some 800 likely suicides. ERAN has also trained 25 ex-pat Israelis in Canada to help cover overnight shifts.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-expats-in-canada-staff-hebrew-suicide-hotline-to-serve-their-homeland/

Stem cell transplant restored vision. Surgeons at Haifa’s Rambam hospital have restored vision to a woman suffering from chemical burns on her eyes. They took amniotic membrane from a mother who had undergone a Caesarian section and sewed it underneath the patient’s eyelids. After a short recovery, she could see!
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israqeli-doctors-restore-vision-with-revolutionary-membrane-transplant/

A center for stem cell donations. Israel has just opened the Ezer Mizion Stem Cell Harvesting Center – the first Israeli medical center specially designed to collect stem cells for bone marrow transplants. It will enable the public to donate stem cells in a dedicated environment, without having to spend up to 7 hours in hospital.
http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/israels-first-stem-cell-harvesting-center-established-outside-of-a-hospital-opened-by-ezer-mizion/

Eat healthy in Israel. (TY Jacob Richman) The Israel Ministry of Health has been running a TV and social media campaign against processed food. It recommends alternatives such as fresh chicken, legumes, and fresh vegetables. Jacob has created a page of the videos with English translations.
https://jr.co.il/videos/eat-healthy-hebrew-videos.htm
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3757091,00.html

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