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Ruth King

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Kerry Says Vienna Talks Are Best Chance for Syria Solution By Felicia Schwartz

By on October 31st, 2015

WASHINGTON—Secretary of State John Kerry, before traveling to Vienna for meetings on Syria, on Wednesday said the planned talks are the most promising opportunity for a political settlement to the country’s 4½ year civil war.

The talks, to be held Friday, are expected to include Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, the European Union and France, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, adding that other nations are expected to announce they will attend as well.

Iran will participate in the political talks for the first time, after the U.S. and its Arab allies blocked Tehran from taking part in previous rounds citing Tehran’s support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Mr. Kerry, in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Wednesday, outlined U.S. policies across the Middle East, acknowledging the difficulties posed by Russia’s military buildup and bombing campaign and by brutal Islamic State tactics.

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Jeb Bush’s ‘Impossible’ Candidacy By James Freeman

By on October 31st, 2015

Plus Republicans want another great communicator and 26 states sue to stop the President’s so-called Clean Power Plan.
Peggy Noonan says it’s hard to see how the Jeb Bush campaign can work. “By hard I mean, for me, impossible,” says our columnist. “It‘s widely believed among high Jeb supporters” that Donald Trump “has kept Mr. Bush from rising. But Mr. Trump isn’t the problem, he was the revealer of the problem: Jeb just isn’t very good at this.”

Ms. Noonan adds that Mr. Bush is “not good at the merry aggression of national politics. He never had an obvious broad base within the party.” And he “was playing from an old playbook—he means to show people his heart, hopes to run joyously. But it’s 2015, we’re in crisis; they don’t care about your heart and joy, they care about your brains, guts and toughness.”

Kimberley Strassel writes that on debate night, “An outsider race gave way to an insider breakout. Three insiders, to be precise: Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and Ted Cruz.” A big reason why is that Republican voters want “a great communicator, an effective advocate for their cause. They haven’t had one since Reagan, and the Bushes and McCains and Romneys have highlighted how big a problem that is.”

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Franz Kafka in Footie Pajamas My consignment company for secondhand children’s clothes has somehow run afoul of federal regulators.By Rhea Lana Riner

By on October 31st, 2015

When I founded Rhea Lana’s, a children’s clothing consignment company, 18 years ago, I knew that going into business would bring challenges. What I didn’t guess was that the biggest one would be the government.

For the last 34 months, I have found myself stuck between the Labor Department, which says my business model is illegal, and the federal courts, which refuse to clear the air.

I first set up shop in 1997, although it wasn’t much of a business back then. A stay-at-home mom in Conway, Ark., I realized that, like me, many mothers in the neighborhood couldn’t afford cute children’s clothes. Seeing an opportunity to help their families and mine, I began organizing consignment sales in my family’s living room. Before long these little sales grew beyond our wildest dreams. Thanks to my husband’s engineering know-how, we computerized, went online and began to offer real-time tracking of consignor sales. We converted to a franchise model in 2008 and now have 80 locations across 24 states.

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Abuse Plagues System of Legal Guardians for Adults By Arian Campo-Flores and Ashby Jones

By on October 31st, 2015

Allegations of financial exploitation and abuse are rife, despite waves of overhaul efforts.
One day in March 2012, 71-year-old Linda McDowell received a knock at the door of her small Vancouver, Wash., home. Ms. McDowell needed court-appointed help, the visitor told her.

It turned out that Ms. McDowell’s former housemate and companion had pushed for a court petition claiming Ms. McDowell was unable to take care of herself. The petition said Ms. McDowell had recently made an unsafe driving maneuver, had been disruptive in a doctor’s office and, in a recent phone call, had seemed confused over the whereabouts of some personal papers.

Based on the motion, a judge ordered an attorney to act as a temporary guardian with control over Ms. McDowell’s money and medical care. Ms. McDowell was also to pay for these services.

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Britain’s Tax Warning for Marco Rubio Pro-natalist credits don’t work and become new entitlements.

By on October 31st, 2015

British politics was thrown into turmoil this week when Parliament blocked David Cameron’s plan to reform family tax credits. There’s a warning here for conservatives elsewhere, especially American Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, about the dangers of social engineering through taxation.

At issue is a convoluted tax benefit developed by Tony Blair in 2003 that was supposed to reward low-income work and childbearing. Under 2015-16 rates, low-income families can receive up to £2,780 ($4,263) in refundable credits per nondisabled child and £3,140 per disabled child, in addition to a per-family credit of £545. The per-child benefits go down as incomes rise up to £35,000 a year. Low-income workers with or without children can also earn a working tax credit on incomes below £6,420. The credits now cost some £30 billion per year in lost revenue and refunds to lower earners.

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The Closing of a Newsroom’s Mind By Donald E. Graham

By on October 31st, 2015

I’ve seen how for-profit colleges can help students—many of them older and seeking better jobs—but the government and the media want to shut them down.
For the first time since I left the newspaper business, I feel I have some news. And it’s news that might shake up a stagnant Washington policy debate.

For-profit colleges have become a standard target of the progressive left (and not them alone). Their charges include: The students are recruited aggressively; the prices are too high; most of the students drop out and many incur high levels of debt and then default; for those who stick it out and graduate, the degrees aren’t worth much.

These charges have been so widely publicized and so often repeated that they have entered the realm of accepted truth. In some quarters, to defend any for-profit education company is to defend the indefensible. Hear me: There are huge differences among for-profit colleges, as among other colleges. Some for-profit colleges have behaved disgracefully to their students; I do not defend them.

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Marilyn Penn: Dementia in Manhattan

By on October 31st, 2015

Recently, an old friend was moved into a dementia unit on the upper west side. It appeared to be as cheerful, well-run and upbeat as one could hope, with art-filled corridors and photos of patients’ families outside their rooms. Within a few weeks of his move, families were suddenly informed that the unit was closing and patients requiring this special security and care would have to be evicted. Although the facility encompassed only 28 beds, the panic and distress this notice caused made me curious about the availability of residential dementia units in NYC and I was shocked by what I discovered.

Going by the population numbers of the 2010 census, there are approximately 320,000 seniors who live in Manhattan. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 1 in 9 people over 65 has dementia, leaving us with approximately 34,450 Manhattan residents who are afflicted with this disease. Out of these, a significant number will eventually require custodial care outside the home, preferably in Manhattan so that elderly spouses (and family and friends) would be able to visit without driving or the expense of car service. Yet, in all of our medically sophisticated borough, there are only a handful of residential facilities which accept patients with dementia – under 200 beds in all.

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Israeli start-up uses Trojan horse technology to kill cancer cells By David Shamah see note please

By on October 31st, 2015

This should not be available for the BDS scoundrels…..rsk
BioSight has figured out a way to fool cancer cells into allowing themselves to be killed off – without harming normal cells.

BioSight, a medical technology start-up, has developed a technology that enables leukemia patients to avoid the worst effects of chemotherapy.

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“Our interim results in a major study of patients with leukemia shows that our system yields the maximum efficiency from chemo, with a minimum of toxicity,” said Dr. Ruth Ben Yakar, CEO of BioSight. “Our method of using chemo does not cause brain damage or weaken blood cells,” with all its attendant phenomena, such as lethargy, loss of hair, etc.

BioSight’s “Trojan horse” chemo technology doesn’t only work for leukemia patients, said Ben Yakar. “We believe it will be effective in many other kinds of cancer as well. It’s a matter of finding the amino acid that a specific cancer is ‘allergic’ to, and packaging it in a structure that the cancer cell thinks contains material that strengthens it, while in reality it contains material that destroys it.”

The technology, said Ben Yakar, could become very important in the field of cancer treatment.”This really could be the cure for cancer.”

BioSight was one of a dozen start-ups that presented their technology at the annual Go4Israel conference in Tel Aviv Monday. Considered one of the most important gatherings of international investors in Israel, the conference discussed issues relevant to investors and start-ups, including raising funds and establishing strategic alliances between corporate, entrepreneurs and investors from around the world. Companies presenting at the event included firms in high-tech, life sciences, renewable energy, and others. Among the investors was a large delegation from Europe – particularly France – and from China.

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An Assault on Common Sense The phony campus rape crisis Heather Mac Donald

By on October 30th, 2015

In August 2012, two rapes by unknown assailants were reported at Harvard University, sending the school into crisis. Police cruisers idled around the campus; uniformed and plainclothes officers came out in force. Students were advised not to walk alone. A member of the undergraduate council called for the closing of Harvard Yard. “I thought Cambridge wasn’t a dangerous area,” a freshman told the student newspaper. “It was Harvard—it was supposed to be safe, academic.” (In fact, Harvard still was safe. The campus authorities ultimately deemed at least one of the rape allegations baseless, judging by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports. Since Harvard never disclosed the outcome of either of its investigations, its findings regarding the other supposed incident remain secret.)

In September 2015, Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust announced that Harvard students experience sexual assault with “alarming frequency.” Faust was responding to the results of a sexual assault survey conducted at Harvard and 26 other colleges earlier in the year. According to the survey, spearheaded by the Association of American Universities (AAU), 16 percent of Harvard female seniors had experienced nonconsensual sexual penetration during their time at the college and nearly 40 percent had experienced nonconsensual sexual contact. The “severity of the problem” required “an even more intent focus on the problem of sexual assault,” Faust said. Harvard professor and former provost Steve Hyman decried the “terribly damaging” problem that “profoundly violates the values and undermines the educational goals of this University.”

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HOW DO YOU SPELL APPARENT FRAUD? THE CLINTON FOUNDATION, SHADY ACCOUNTING AND AIDS : KEN SILVERSTEIN

By on October 30th, 2015

The Clinton Foundation has until November 16 to amend more than ten years’ worth of state, federal and foreign filings, but it’s going to be virtually impossible to do so without acknowledging that it has engaged in massive accounting fraud since its inception
The Clinton Foundation has gotten a good deal of unflattering attention as of late, which isn’t surprising given that its best known namesakes are Bill, a former president and chronic philanderer, and Hillary, who hopes to be the nation’s next leader. Furthermore, the foundation portrays itself as do-gooder nonprofit organization but a cursory look reveals questionable and incomplete disclosures of its activities and accounts, as well as incredible misspending of donor money, virtually since its inception.
Naturally, this can’t be stated in polite society. For example, the New York Times just had a story on the Clinton Foundation that found highly questionable conduct but buried it under the bland headline, “Rwanda Aid Shows Reach and Limits of Clinton Foundation.” Other stories have mentioned that the foundation has partnered with assorted dictators and robber barons. Among the latter is Canadian “mining magnate” (read: “penny stock artist”) Frank Giustra, who donated millions to the foundation after Bill Clinton helped him land a mining concession for him in Kazakhstan.
(Note: I have an upcoming story on the Clinton Foundation’s links to Giustra and to Washington-based consultant Alexander Mirtchev, who is a front-man for powerful Kazakh government officials.)

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