IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The Case for a Merit-Based Immigration System The current system is not only economically counterproductive but incentivises people to become illegal immigrants. Jay Sophalkalyan

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://quillette.com/2024/08/23/why-we-needs-points-based-immigration/

As the 2024 US presidential election approaches, immigration continues to be one of the most divisive topics in the national conversation. Amid this debate, one disparity is frequently overlooked: the contrasting treatment of international students who have graduated from US universities versus undocumented immigrants. While international students must navigate a complex and highly selective process to secure their place in the country, many undocumented immigrants attempt to manipulate the asylum system, adding strain to an already overwhelmed infrastructure. This contrast underscores the shortcomings of the current immigration framework and highlights the urgent need for a points-based immigration system.  

Asylum Seekers and the Legal Limbo

The US has a moral obligation to assist asylum seekers and refugees. Following the Refugee Act of 1980, the country admitted 50,000 refugees annually from around the world—including some of my own aunts and uncles, who were fleeing the genocide in Cambodia. But the process was different back then. Asylum cases were reviewed while applicants were still overseas. Defectors, dissidents, and refugees from places like Cambodia and Vietnam were stationed in refugee camps and pre-vetted before being granted visas to enter the US.

Before the advent of rapid transit and instant communication, the idea that large numbers of asylum seekers would be able to arrive at land borders unannounced was almost unimaginable, but this changed in around 2014. The US Border Patrol officers, who had been trained to intercept single Mexican men crossing the border in search of work, now faced an influx of entire families from Central America, who arrived, promptly turned themselves in, and sought asylum. Some of those who were successful naturally shared tips on how to game the system on their social media accounts. The number of economic migrants entering under the guise of seeking asylum increased.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

His Own Words: Why RFK Jr now Backs Trump

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/america/2024/08/his-own-words-why-rfk-jr-now-backs-trump/

On Friday (US time) the unthinkable came to pass: A Kennedy, the closest America gets to political royalty, endorsed Donald Trump. Below, the edited text of his announcement, in which he lays out his reasons: lawfare, the corruption of a forever lying media, the fear, as he puts it, that a party beholding to ‘Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag, and Big Money’ represents not democracy but its betrayal. — rf

___________________

SIXTEEN months ago, in April of 2023, I launched my campaign for President of the United States. I began this journey as a Democrat — the party of my father and my uncle, the party to which I pledged my allegiance long before I was old enough to vote.

I attended my first Democratic convention at age six in 1960. Back then, the Democrats were the champions of the Constitution, and civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, and against colonialism, imperialism, and unjust wars. We were the party of labor and the working class. The Democrats were the party of government transparency and the champion of the environment. Our party was the bulwark against Big Money interests and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy.

As you all know, I left that party last October because it had departed so dramatically from the core values I grew up with. It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag, and Big Money. When it abandoned democracy by cancelling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting President, I left the party to run as an independent…

…I’m sorry to say that while democracy may still be alive at the grass roots, it has become little more than a slogan for our political institutions, our media, and our government, and most sadly of all, for the Democratic Party.

In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it. Lacking confidence that its candidate could win at the voting booth, the DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself. Each time our volunteers turned in those towering boxes of signatures needed to get on the ballot, the DNC dragged us into court state by state attempting to erase their work and to subvert the will of the voters who had signed. It deployed DNC-aligned judges to throw me — and other candidates — off the ballot and to throw President Trump in jail. It ran a sham of a primary, rigged to prevent any serious challenge to President Biden.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Campuses Aren’t Ready for the Return of Encampments Leslie Lenkowsky

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/campuses-arent-ready-for-the-return-of-encampments/

Indiana University’s confusion over its policies for dealing with demonstrators is likely to prove representative.

As students start returning to their colleges and universities this month, many will find new rules about protests, camping, signage, and other types of “expressive activity” on their campuses. These changes were prompted by last spring’s demonstrations over the war in the Middle East that led to confrontations among students and faculty, disrupted classes and graduations, and in some cases resulted in police action and arrests. Penn, Texas, and Harvard are among the schools reportedly revising their policies.

At its July meeting, Indiana University’s board of trustees adopted a new “expressive activity” policy, which went into effect on August 1. It may provide a glimpse into what higher education is planning to do about last spring’s demonstrations — and why it doesn’t go far enough.

In late April, a group of IU students and faculty (along with outsiders) began what was meant to be an “indefinite” encampment in Dunn Meadow, a portion of the Bloomington campus at which protests had been allowed since the 1960s. In short order, IU’s leadership — after specially trained administration and faculty teams failed to persuade the protesters to dismantle the encampment — asked campus and state police to remove the tents. Several hundred faculty members quickly signed a petition demanding the resignations of IU president Pamela Whitten and her provost, Rahul Shrivastav. Neither resigned, but in response, the university’s trustees retained Cooley LLP to conduct an independent investigation.

The law firm’s July report is disturbing. It describes a chaotic situation in which well-organized demonstrators faced off against understaffed and unprepared “de-escalation” teams and police. After several attempts, the teams succeeded in dismantling most of the encampment, making more than 50 arrests, but allowing the protesters to remain.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas alone is to blame for the deaths of the hostages The West needs to stop making excuses for the atrocities of anti-Semitic terrorists. Brendan O’Neill

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/23/hamas-alone-is-to-blame-for-the-deaths-of-those-hostages/

A bizarre debate has blown up. All over social media, people want to know: who’s responsible for the deaths of the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were discovered by the IDF in a tunnel in Khan Younis this week? Initial reports suggest the men might have died from suffocation after the IDF bombed a nearby Hamas position, causing carbon dioxide to flood the dank lair in which they were chained up. So it’s on Israel? They did this? CNN reports that the IDF was asked if it ‘killed the hostages’ at a recent press conference. Others are more brutal: those six poor souls were ‘butchered by the Israeli military onslaught’, says Owen Jones of the Guardian.

Let’s save these people some time. Let’s nip in the bud their moral deflection dolled up as critical analysis. The sole responsibility for the deaths of these six men lies with the gang of fascists who dragged them from their homes on 7 October. It lies with the Jew-haters who spirited these Jews from the safety of Southern Israel into the inevitable warzone of Gaza. It lies with the army of anti-Semites who treated the men like animals, violently robbing them of their liberty and hauling them into the dark heart of a deadly war. These men would be alive today were it not for the fascist actions of Hamas, and that’s all there is to it.

No sooner were the men’s bodies discovered than the cry went up: they died ‘as a result of [an] IDF bombing’. It seems so red is Israel’s bloodlust it even kills its own. If it was true they died as a result of a leak unleashed by the IDF’s pounding of Hamas, that would make their grim fate doubly tragic, we’re told. Here we had six Israeli civilians, four of them in their seventies or eighties, whose lives were first turned upside down by violent Islamists on 7 October, and then brought to an end as a consequence of the actions of their own army. Their deaths are proof, said Muhammad Shehada of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, that Israel’s ‘war of extermination on Gaza’ is ‘the biggest threat to the hostages’ lives’.

Soon, however, an inconvenient discovery intruded on these feverish efforts to blame Israel for the death of its own people. IDF autopsies discovered ‘marks suggestive of gunshots’. ‘Bullets were found in the bodies’, said the Hostages Family Forum, which represents the relatives of the Israelis still held captive in Gaza. No, these ‘marks’ do not prove the men were executed by their captors. As the New York Times reports, it is ‘too soon to determine whether gunshot wounds were the cause of death’. But these scars of the inhuman treatment meted out to the men by Hamas certainly complicate the early IDF-blaming narrative of Hamas’s Lord Haw Haws in the Western media.

So the debate goes on: did Hamas kill the men or did the IDF? Were they ‘butchered’ by reckless Israel or by their captors? As one report asks: did the IDF ‘again accidentally kill Israeli hostages’ or was this a ‘Hamas execution’? Who’s to blame? I’ll give you a clue: it’s the terrorist army who forced the men against their will to become actors in an apocalyptic war. It’s the racist gunmen who dragged the men into an underground hell that they knew perfectly well would be fired on and bombed. It’s Hamas. The commentariat’s reluctance to hold Hamas responsible for anything, even its own wicked deeds, is getting scary now.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Another week of Israel with one hand fighting a war against those who love death, and with the other hand working to create a better future for those who love life. Michael Ordman

 

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Oct 7 hero rehabilitates IDF soldiers. On Oct 7, Lt Yehonatan Skariszewski fought Hamas terrorists and guided over 100 Nova festival survivors to safety. He now works for NGO “For the Home, For Tomorrow,” training ex-combat soldiers in manual skills as therapy to counter anxieties following their active service.
https://www.jns.org/oct-7-hero-saved-dozens-at-nova-festival-now-rehabilitates-combat-soldiers/ 
 
Inspiration from Israelis returning home. (TY Ruth Kaplan) On Oct 7, residents of Kibbutz Magen fought off dozens of invading Hamas terrorists (video link below). They were then evacuated to the Dead Sea, from where 90% have since returned to their Kibbutz. Their stories of resilience give strength to Jews everywhere.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/kibbutz-magen-first-border-community-to-return-home-inspires-boston/ 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_nBmWIVPDU 
 
Resilience in the North. While Israeli citizens in the South are returning to their homes, many in the North have never left. The residents of this region – Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze alike – have become the guardians of their homeland, refusing to abandon the land they love, even in the face of unimaginable adversity.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/07/23/the-unbreakable-bonds-stories-of-resilience-from-israels-embattled-north/ 
 
Far-seeing enhancement. (TY UWI) While regular IDF soldiers have modern weapons, reservists lacked precision scopes for their Negev guns. So, several Israeli civilians voluntarily developed the Tomer Adapter, named after Tomer Nagar – a “Negevist” who fell while bravely defending the Kissufim military post on Oct 7.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/idf/its-saving-our-lives-israeli-hack-gives-precision-to-first-generation-machine-gun/2024/07/30/ 
 
Donations for Northern hospitals. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) is donating $1 million to the Tzafon Medical Center (Poriya) to bolster its Trauma Unit. It is also funding $620,000 worth of new equipment and medical supplies at the Italian Hospital in Nazareth.
https://israfan.com/p/ifcj-boosts-northern-israels-medical-infrastructure-162m-donation 
 
Thousands of American volunteers. (TY Stefan) Another article publicizing the work of volunteers from America. They include some 3,500 who came on missions organized by JNF-USA since Oct 7, helping repair, rehabilitate, and rebuild Gaza border communities and giving vital motivational support.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-810564 
 
Helping rebuild Israeli communities. Russell Robinson, CEO of JNF USA, describes how his organization is building a community center 2km from Gaza. Self-funded volunteers on JNF-USA trips are cleaning up schools so that children can resume their studies. In the north, JNF-USA is building culinary and medical centers.
https://video.i24news.tv/video/brightcove/6360820023112/6360820023112_hls 
 
Reduced university tuition fees for reservists. Some 500 Tel Aviv University 1st-year students beginning their studies in the coming academic year who have served at least 30 days in the reserves since the beginning of 2024 will be entitled to a tuition discount of NIS 2,500, covering about 25% of total tuition fees.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-811913 
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Rejuvenating cancer-killing cells. Researchers at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University have discovered why natural killer (NK) cells in the immune system lose their ability to fight cancer. They introduced nanoparticles that silenced the enzyme DGK alpha and the transcription factor Egr2, returning the NK cells to normal function.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/394893  https://www.biu.ac.il/en/article/581709 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDjFPY3zcmk 
 
Cancer pain treatment now used in US. (TY Nevet) The US is now recommending the innovative pain relief treatment for pancreatic cancer patients developed at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center (see here previously). 125 international patients received radiation treatment to the celiac plexus nerve. 53% reported significant benefit.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-811486 
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(24)00223-7/abstract 
 
Wearable can predict epileptic attacks. Israel’s Blink Energy has developed a tiny device, fitted to one eyelid, that monitors and analyzes blink patterns to detect or diagnose health conditions. E.g., to warn of an imminent epileptic seizure; or if about to fall asleep at the wheel; or to diagnose Parkinson’s disease or sleep disorders.
https://www.israel21c.org/eyelid-wearable-can-predict-and-alert-to-epileptic-seizure/ 
https://www.blinkenrg.com/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTfrhaxO7ig 
 
Fighting superbugs. Latest article about Israel’s NanoSynex (see here previously) and its antibiotic diagnosis test. The $11 million funding from investors, the IAA and Europe has helped it develop the product to test up to 20 patients at once and determine the correct antibiotic to use against bacteriological infections.
https://nocamels.com/2024/07/startup-fights-superbugs-antibiotic-resistance-with-rapid-testing/ 
 
The secrets of nutrient absorption. Scientists from Israel’s Weizmann Institute and Sheba Medical Center have compiled the first detailed map of the various activity areas in the human small intestine, revealing what makes it so effective at absorbing nutrients and protecting the body from infection.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/394262  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07793-3 
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/navigating-digestive-tract 
 
Can you shed light on this? (TY Ron M) I don’t know why an 8-year-old child swallowed a flashlight part – but he didn’t die. Doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital removed the object, which had created an electrical circuit in the child’s esophagus. In another hour, it could have caused irreversible damage.
https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/s1z5jfb000 
 
Antibiotics from pepper. Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have created a derivative of the long pepper plant that disrupts the chemical communication between bacteria. The PL-18 derivative of Piperlongumine reducies bacterial virulence by disrupting the biofilm that surrounds bacteria.
https://nocamels.com/2024/07/bgu-study-finds-antibiotic-properties-in-pepper-plant/ 
 
Detecting COPD with a smartwatch. Israel’s RespirAI uses artificial intelligence and smartwatch sensors to monitor chronic patients e.g., with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). RespirAI compares oxygen saturation levels (SpO2) and EKG data with the wearer’s physical movement to predict imminent deterioration.
https://www.israel21c.org/copd-flareups-could-be-predicted-via-smartwatch/  https://www.respirai.com/ 
 
Diagnosing high-risk fat. All fat is not created equal. Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have devised a non-surgical miRNA biomarker biopsy test for visceral adipose tissue (VAT) inflammation, which is derived from a specific type of body fat that poses a high cardio-metabolic risk in obese individuals.
https://www.israel21c.org/if-your-fat-is-vat-fat-you-could-be-at-higher-risk/
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/109/3/858/7274810 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Big Difference Between The U.S. And Venezuela Is Economic Policy Francis Menton

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-8-23-the-big-difference-between-the-us-and-venezuela-is-economic-policy

Here in the U.S., we are accustomed to economic growth almost every year. Look at a chart of U.S. GDP over the course of the last century, and the impression is of near-continuous and extremely robust growth. Here is such a chart from USA Facts, based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (Commerce Department).

The so-called “Great Recession” of 2008-09 registers as barely a blip. Same for the Covid-related dip of 2020. (Note in the graph that backing out inflation flattens the slope of the curves to some degree, but does not change the basic form of robust and continuous growth.)

This pattern of continual growth is unfortunately not true for all countries. For an extreme case of the opposite situation, consider Venezuela. Venezuela elected the socialist Hugo Chavez in 1998, and he and his ideologically-aligned successor Nicolas Maduro have ruled ever since. It is not easy to get useful economic data from Venezuela. The best I can find for its GDP since the Chavez election and to the present is from Statista. Here is their chart:

ELECTIONS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Don’t cry for Gaza, Madam Vice President.

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/aug/23/war-is-hell-especially-for-those-who-bring-it-on-t/
Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, notorious for his devastating march through Georgia, said war is hell. Yes, and especially for those who bring it on themselves.

At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President Kamala Harris took the time to criticize Israel for its conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip, based on her vast military experience.

After Israel’s airstrike against a school building that was harboring terrorists, the Democratic nominee for president declared that “far too many civilians have been killed yet again.” She did not specify how many civilian deaths would be acceptable.

Ms. Harris also said the Israeli military has “an important responsibility” to avoid killing noncombatants. Perhaps she thinks Israeli soldiers can shoot weapons out of the hands of terrorists, like the Lone Ranger.

Hamas intentionally places its fighters in schools and hospitals, courting civilian deaths for propaganda.

All of the casualty figures from Gaza come from its Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas.

After Israel’s Aug. 10 strike with precision missiles, the Hamas Health Ministry changed the number of civilians killed from 50 to 70 to 80 and finally settled on 93.

What Hamas reported as an earlier Israeli airstrike against the Al-Ahli School turned out to be a missile launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that misfired and landed in Gaza.

A war without civilian casualties is impossible, even for those who try hard to avoid them. The United Nations says the average civilian-to-combatant ratio of deaths in all of the wars fought since 1945 is 9-to-1. For Israel’s war in Gaza, it’s 4-to-1.

During World War II, between 350,000 and 635,000 Germans died in Allied strategic bombing. Germany’s cities were reduced to rubble.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Sudden shift in jobs data shows workers are struggling to survive Biden-Harris inflation

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4842492-job-additions-overstated-biden-harris/

The government recently reported that job gains between March 2023 and March 2024 had been overstated by 818,000, a breath-taking “goof” by the official bean counters. All those reports that were cheered by the Biden-Harris administration? They were as phony as a three-dollar bill. 

Has the Biden-Harris White House been cooking the books, as some have claimed? Maybe, but there is another possible explanation for the significant downward revision in the jobs number — equally unflattering to the administration and its happy-talk about the economy. 

Simply put, many middle-class workers have taken on multiple jobs and are struggling to make ends meet. Those extra shifts are included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics data as multiple jobs; they are, in reality, just overworked Americans trying to navigate the Biden-Harris inflation tsunami.

While it is normal for the BLS to issue modest annual revisions to the monthly jobs figures, this year’s restatement is the largest revision in 15 years, since the time when reporting was being muddled by the turmoil of the Great Recession.  

Given the importance that policy-makers attach to the BLS tallies, the revision is quite alarming — and also inexcusable.  

Economists have been warning that something is not right about the monthly employment reports. In June, when the government reported against all odds that 272,000 jobs had been created in May, even Fed Chairman Jay Powell expressed skepticism, saying there was the possibility the reports “may be a bit overstated.”  

Last year, job numbers were revised downward (never upward) for 10 months — not a stellar record. In June 2023, for instance, instead of adding 209,000 jobs, as originally reported, it turns out the economy added only 105,000. That kind of repeated error makes people suspicious.  

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Harris, Walz, and a Peculiar Definition of ‘Freedom’ Enjoy your freedom, but only to do as you’re told. It’s for your own good, after all. By Stephen Soukup

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/24/harris-walz-and-a-peculiar-definition-of-freedom/

To hear the mainstream media tell the story, the just-finished Democratic National Convention was not just about “reintroducing” Kamala Harris to the American people, but about reintroducing the Democratic Party as well. While Americans might have been convinced by nefarious MAGAs and other nogoodniks that the Democrats want to control their lives and tell them what to think, what to drive, what to eat, and how to behave in countless other facets of their lives, the truth is that the Democrats are the party of “freedom.” They—and they alone—stand between the nation and the totalitarianism of the Right.

NBC News, for example, noted in response to Minnesota governor (and vice presidential nominee) Tim Walz’s convention speech that he “capped off the third day of his party’s convention, touting his vision of ‘freedom’ and excoriating the GOP.” The Washington Post, for its part, suggested that the entire theme of the convention was to modify “Democrats’ message from ‘democracy’ to ‘freedom.’” Harris, the paper wrote, “has shifted the focus, speaking far less about democracy and far more about freedom.” The independent journalist Matt Taibbi, himself, at least nominally a man of the left, lamented the Democrats’ “sinister rebrand of ‘Freedom’” and argued that “freedom” was “was right up there with ‘joy’ and ‘unity’ as key themes” of the convention, which he concluded “was not funny.”

The Democrats’ effort to reintroduce themselves as the true and rightful protectors of “freedom” is inarguably as complicated as it is cynical. And as Taibbi suggests a great deal of the logic underlying the Democrats’ pretense is derived from the differences between “negative rights” and “positive rights,” which have been at least a peripheral theme in American politics since Barack Obama’s rise to power more than a decade and a half ago.

Nevertheless, to understand what is going on here and why the Democrats think they can make the case that they are the party of freedom, it is important to recognize that none of this is technically a “rebrand.” None of this is, in any way, new. Indeed, it is foundational to the ideology of the left. For nearly three centuries now, that which we know today as leftism has portrayed itself in precisely the sense that the Democrats portrayed themselves this week: the true and exclusive guarantors of freedom.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Has the time come for Canada to leave the British Commonwealth? Diane Bederman

Posted By on August 25th, 2024

https://dianebederman.com/has-the-time-come-for-canada-to-leave-the-british-commonwealth/

Has the time come for Canada to leave the British Commonwealth?

This is a rather lengthy article. I suggest you have not seen or heard about these events via Main Stream Media. Please take the time to read and open the links!

Something has gone awry in Great Britain. White indigenous people are now evil. They are racist. In Northern Ireland Minister for Justice Naomi Long said the violence and racist attacks in recent days were “not reflective” of the people of Northern Ireland.

“We need to call it for what it is. It is racism, it is Islamophobia, it is xenophobia. “If we’re going to deal with it, we need to name it for what it is, and we need to challenge it.″

Seems that British people of no colour are called out as racists when they march proudly with the British flag. Patriotism to ones’ heritage is now called out as racism. It isn’t about racism or religion. It is about CULTURE and acculturation.

I suggest that extreme tolerance, inclusion and accommodation is leading to the negation of Western Culture.

This is Britain, today.

If you join a protest holding up the Union Jack you are called a far right racist. These actions should look familiar to many Americans.