A Couple Of Examples Of Real Systemic Racism in the U.S. Francis Menton

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=21c1dc7597

There has been a lot of talk recently about “systemic racism” in the United States. At first, I was skeptical of the term, particularly because those who throw the term around rarely name an example of specific conduct by anyone that intentionally disadvantages blacks. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that there actually are quite a number of instances of major societal institutions engaging in systemic conduct that is clearly known to differentially disadvantage blacks. In every case I can think of, the conduct that systemically disadvantages blacks is a sacred cow of the left promoted for the benefit of some other progressive interest group.

For today, I’ll discuss two of the most clear-cut examples. One has been going on for a long time, while the other is new. Because both involve sacred cows of the political left, the harmful systemic effect on blacks just gets ignored.

Opposition to School Choice

Over the course of the last year or so, the two big national teachers unions (National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers) have been mostly in the news for their advocacy to keep schools closed and kids at home. That’s bad enough, but hopefully will end soon. But then the teachers unions will revert to their previous and perennial priority number one, which is the opposition to school choice — otherwise known as keeping minority kids trapped in failing urban public schools.

Here in New York, charter schools saw major expansion under the strong advocacy of Mayor Michael Bloomberg (2002-2013). But current Mayor de Blasio, who was backed by the teachers union, has done everything in his power to stall and halt the expansion of the charters, and thereby keep as many kids as possible trapped in the failing unionized schools. Moreover, the state legislature, also at the behest of the union, has imposed a cap on the number of charters. That cap has been reached in New York City, meaning that no more charters can open; and the legislature has failed to raise the cap. A charter school advocacy group called the New York City Charter School Center lists 6 new charters ready to open but unable to do so due to the cap. Meanwhile, applications by students to attend the charters exceed available slots by factors of 2:1 in Manhattan and Brooklyn, 3:1 in the Bronx, and 4:1 in Queens.

Data on school performance overwhelming show that the charters wildly outpace the unionized public alternatives. In a post back in 2017 I quoted this statistic from 2016 comparing the regular public schools to Success Academies, one of the top charters:

Test scores released by the state Friday show 94% of Success Academy students passed the 2016 math exam and 82% passed the reading exam. . . . By comparison, 38% of students in traditional public schools met state reading standards this year, up from 30.4% in 2015. And 36.4% of city kids passed math tests in 2016, up from 35.2% in 2015.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com  

On the evening of September 6th, 2021, the holiday Rosh-Ha-Shana celebrates 5782 years of Jewish life. I hope that included in the rituals of observance and sermons will be an accounting of Israel’s outsize contributions to every aspect of human endeavor throughout the globe. Millenia, centuries, and decades are daunting, but Michael Ordman’s weekly newsletters gives us updates on medical, scientific, technologic, and social institutions that dazzle and evoke admiration in lieu of libel and bias. rsk

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Successful Covid-19 treatment trial. A successful Israeli trial of Covid-19 treatment EXO-CD24 (see here previously) has now been reinforced by a trial on 88 patients in Greece. 90% of the moderate and serious patients (aged up to 85) were released within five days of treatment. None required to be put on ventilators.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/88-patients-0-intubated-israeli-precision-covid-drug-wrapping-up-early-trial/
 
Second most coronavirus innovations. (TY Hazel) The 2021 report by research center StartupBlink cited Israel as the source of 38 of some 1,300 pandemic-related innovations, ranking it world number 2 after the USA. The report praised Israel’s many innovations relative to its small size and also its vaccination program.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israel-ranks-second-in-world-in-coronavirus-innovation-study-675728
 
Breakthrough in detecting metastatic breast cancer. Researchers from four Israeli medical institutes have identified early signs in the body that indicate breast cancer is about to spread to other organs. The discovery could save millions of lives. They also discovered that the protein MYC speeds the growth of cancerous cells.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/breakthrough-in-the-battle-against-metastatic-breast-cancer-in-tau-study-675842
 
Eat up those cancer cells. A US clinical study involving Irving Weissman of Ben Gurion University is using the antibody Magrolimab to enhance “scavenger macrophages” – cancer cell-eating white blood cells. Magrolimab blocks the CD47 molecule that cancer cells produce to signal “don’t eat me” to the macrophages.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/bgu_stanford.aspx
 
Understanding Alzheimer’s. (TY WIN) It is known that a build-up of Amyloid plaques in the brain is common in Alzheimer’s patients, but what do they affect? Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have just found that they are a catalyst to the degradation of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and adrenaline.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/Amyloid-Plaques-Alzheimer.aspx
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667109321001366?via%3Dihub
 
Removable heart implant. Israel’s Append Medical is developing the Appligator – an implantable device for closing the Left Atrial Appendix (LAA) to prevent blood clot leakage and strokes in those suffering from atrial fibrillation (AF). However, unlike other implants, the device is removed after surgery, leaving just stitches.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3914175,00.html   https://www.appendmedical.com/
 
President’s booster. Honest Reporting’s Daniel Pomerantz was interviewed on Turkish TV about Israel’s coronavirus activities. He revealed that President Isaac Herzog was one of the first to receive a third (booster) vaccination against SARS-Cov-2. It was administered at Sheba hospital by Muslim Arab nurse Lina Ahmad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y1ZFi16DAs  
 
Heart monitoring smartwatch ready to launch. Israel’s CardiacSense (see here previously) is about to ship its first heart-monitoring smartwatches around the world. This article gives the history and technical details of the low-cost product that can save many lives, at a fraction of the cost of hospital sensors and implants.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3913705,00.html
 
US approves 3D medical holographs. Israel-based RealView Imaging (see here previously) has received FDA clearance for its HOLOSCOPE-i holographic system. The system creates spatially accurate, 3D interactive medical holograms, based on data received from standard CT scans and 3D ultrasound systems.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3914003,00.html  
 
Ribbons of Hope. The Israel Cancer Research Fund is holding a virtual gala on 10th Aug to raise funds to help the most promising Israeli scientists advance ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. ICRF has already provided more than 2,500 grants that have been responsible for major cancer research breakthroughs.
https://www.icrfonline.org/
 
His father’s son.  Having watched his father save many lives as a volunteer EMT for Israel’s United Hatzalah, 16-year-old Shaked decided to learn how to administer CPR himself. So, when bystanders didn’t know what to do when a woman collapsed in Afula, Shaked stepped right up and saved her life.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/311232
 

When In Doubt, Blame A Republican For COVID Deaths

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/07/when-in-doubt-blame-a-republican-for-covid-deaths/

Throughout the COVID crisis, we’ve witnessed an amazing display of leftist logic. No matter the circumstances, Republicans were always at fault.

When the coronavirus first swept the nation in early 2020, the deaths were concentrated almost entirely in the country’s liberal enclaves: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania.

And we know a big reason: Democratic governors in those states panicked and ordered nursing homes to take sick elderly out of hospitals, even if they were positive for COVID. The result was that nursing homes turned into death camps.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was even caught red-handed lying about the number of nursing home deaths to cover up this tragedy.

Yet at the time, blame for every COVID death in the country was pinned on the supposed ineptitude of President Donald Trump (rather than communist China, where the blame ultimately rests).

That was almost exactly how candidate Joe Biden framed it, as a matter of fact. “If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive,” Biden said during the presidential campaign, as the death toll reached 200,000. “All the people. I’m not making this up. Just look at the data.”

Trump did, to be sure, send lots of mixed messages about COVID. But so did Democrats.  Biden himself attacked Trump’s supposed xenophobia after he quickly slapped a travel ban from China – before we knew of any cases in the U.S. Top Democrats, along with the sainted Anthony Fauci, were publicly downplaying the disease early on, telling people not to worry, not to bother with masks, and get out and party.

Never mind. Now that Biden’s in charge, he and the rest of the liberal chorus is blaming … Republican governors for the current rise in COVID cases.

Thoughts on an Awful Anniversary The decision to drop the bomb was founded on the conviction that a blockade and invasion of Japan would cause massive casualties. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/07/thoughts-on-an-awful-anniversary/

I mean “awful” in the old sense of “full of awe.”

It is not often that I agree with the politics espoused by The Guardian, England’s most left-wing serious newspaper (or perhaps I mean its most serious left-wing paper). But several years ago on the date of this writing—August 6—The Guardian published a sober and clear-sighted article about the terrifying event whose anniversary August 6 commemorates: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The article by the journalist Oliver Kamm won my wholehearted endorsement and I wrote about it at the time.

The idea that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—and, since the Japanese failed to surrender, of Nagasaki on August 9—was a “war crime” has slowly acquired currency not only among the anti-American intelligentsia but also among other sentimentalists of limited worldly experience. In fact, as Kamm points out, the two bombings, terrible though they were, “should be remembered for the suffering which was brought to an end.”  For here is the . . . I was going to say “inarguable,” but that is clearly not right, since there have been plenty of arguments against it. No, a better word is “irrefutable.” The irrefutable fact about the atomic bombings of Japan in 1945 is that they ended World War II. They saved hundreds of thousands of American lives—including, possibly, that of my father, who was a Marine stationed somewhere out East—and, nota bene, millions, yes millions, of Japanese lives. (They also brought to an end the industrial-strength sadistic behavior of the Japanese in China, towards all its prisoners of war, and its future plans for wholesale destruction.)

Were those bombings terrible? You betcha. I, like many people reading this, have read John Hersey’s manipulative book on the subject and have seen plenty of pictures of the devastation those two explosions caused.  But again, if they caused suffering, they saved the much greater suffering that would have ensued had the United States invaded Japan. This was understood at the time. But in recent years a revisionist view has grown up, especially on the Left, which faults President Truman for his decision to drop the bombs. “This alternative history,” Kamm argues, “is devoid of merit.”

New historical research in fact lends powerful support to the traditionalist interpretation of the decision to drop the bomb. This conclusion may surprise Guardian readers. The so-called revisionist interpretation of the bomb made headway from the 1960s to the 1990s. It argued that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less the concluding acts of the Pacific war than the opening acts of the cold war. Japan was already on the verge of surrender; the decision to drop the bomb was taken primarily to gain diplomatic advantage against the Soviet Union.

Yet there is no evidence that any American diplomat warned a Soviet counterpart in 1945-46 to watch out because America had the bomb. The decision to drop the bomb was founded on the conviction that a blockade and invasion of Japan would cause massive casualties. Estimates derived from intelligence about Japan’s military deployments projected hundreds of thousands of American casualties.

Kamm’s article elicited the usual howls of rage and vituperation. But he was right:

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often used as a shorthand term for war crimes. That is not how they were judged at the time. Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire—and for Japan itself. One of Japan’s highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties. The destruction of two cities, and the suffering it caused for decades afterwards, cannot but temper our view of the Pacific war. Yet we can conclude with a high degree of probability that abjuring the bomb would have caused greater suffering still.

“Their Goal Is Really to Eradicate Christianity”: Persecution of Christians, June 2021 by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17610/persecution-of-christians-june

A Muslim father-of-four abducted a 13-year-old Christian girl, forced her to convert to Islam, and then “married” her…. He had also promised to pay the girl Rs.10,000 (US $63) per month for her services, but stopped paying her after a couple of months…. . She told her grandmother that she wanted to go home and was willing to sign anything to do so…. The following day, a visibly battered Nayab appeared before court and reaffirmed that she was 19-years-old and had converted to Islam of her own free will. — Pakistan.

[N]early a million people have been displaced since 2017 and thousands slaughtered…. “They say their goal is to set up a caliphate similar to ISIS in Iraq and Syria…. They ask, ‘Are you a Christian? Or are you a Muslim?’ If you’re a Christian, you’re killed. If you’re a Muslim, then you get the opportunity to quote some Quranic verses. And if you can quote them sufficiently, you save your life. Otherwise, you also get killed [sometimes by crucifixion].” — Todd Nettleton, The Voice of the Martyrs USA, Mission Network News, June 28, 2021, Mozambique.

Five Muslims entered the hospital he worked in, seized and left with him, and then killed him and left his body in the bush… “His killers, who are herdsmen, came to the hospital, specifically asked for [the Christian doctor] …. collected his money, took him away, and killed him without asking for ransom. “What did he do wrong?…. Everyone loved him, always smiling, and he was one of the most hard-working persons I have ever known. His hospital boomed because he was saving lives. If you had any problems, Emeka would be there to help.” — Morning Star News, June 21, 2021, Nigeria.

“Armed groups are destroying schools and hospitals. Teachers and pupils are being killed. They are even killing the sick as they lie in their hospital beds. Not a day goes by without people being killed… Many people are traumatized… A large-scale project is underway to Islamize or expel the indigenous populations. Anyone who has been kidnapped by these terrorist groups and managed to escape from them alive has told the same story. They were given the choice between death and converting to Islam.” — Bishop Paluku, Catholic World Report, July 28, 2021, Democratic Republic of Congo

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of June 2021:

Pakistan

The Rape, Forced Conversion, and Child Marriage of Christians

A Muslim father of four abducted a 13-year-old Christian girl, forced her to convert to Islam, and then “married” her. According to the father of Nayab Gill, when the beauty school she was attending shut down due to the Covid-19 lockdown, Saddam Hayat, a local Muslim who ran his own beauty shop, “told me that rather than wasting time, Nayab should learn salon skills to help her in supporting the family financially. He even offered to pick her up from home and drop her off after work, assuring us that she was just like his daughter.”

Hayat had also promised to pay the girl Rs.10,000 (US $63) per month for her services, but stopped paying her after a couple of months. When the girl went missing on May 20, her frantic parents turned to Hayat, who claimed not to know where she was, and kindly offered to help them find her. He even instructed Nayab’s simple and trusting mother to fill out the missing person’s report in a way that did not implicate him.

“On May 26, we were informed by the police that Nayab was in the Darul Aman [women’s shelter] since May 21,” her father continued. “In an application submitted to a magistrate’s court, Nayab claimed she had willfully converted to Islam a month ago …”

Lebanon and its Ticking Bombs by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17620/lebanon-ticking-bombs

Lebanon’s problems are deeply political. The consensus on which the Lebanese state was founded from the start has been badly shaken. Formal government structures have been duplicated, and at times replaced, by shadowy organs answerable to no one except, perhaps, foreign paymasters. The minimum rule of law that had survived many upheavals including a full-scale civil war has been replaced by the rule of the gunman.

The outside world cannot abandon Lebanon to its fate.

On the positive side, the region and beyond in the world needs Lebanon as a haven of contact, dialogue and peace, while a Lebanon turned into a platform for “exporting revolution” and real terror, along with drugs and dirty money, could harm everyone around or close to the Mediterranean basin.

In international politics, what do you do when you don’t know what to do but wish to appear to be doing something?

The answer is: you convene an international conference.

The gimmick started with the notorious Versailles Conference after the First World War that morphed into a series of photo-ops while real decisions were taken elsewhere and behind the scenes. More recently we had the grand Madrid Conference that was supposed to produce an unlikely peace in the Middle East but became an introduction to a new era of conflict in the war-torn region. Last week we have had a virtual version of the international conference on Lebanon, the second in 12 months and designed to mark the anniversary of the deadly explosion that tore Beirut apart.

The explosion shocked many, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, out of years of inattention to the many time-bombs that were ticking in Lebanon for almost three decades.

The first conference ended with classical clichés about solidarity with the Lebanese people and sugar-coated with pledges to provide $295 million for helping rebuild the shattered capital. The second conference noted that none of those clichés have acquired any meaning and that the money promised has either not been disbursed or ended up in the pockets of the usual suspects. The only rebuilding that has taken place, albeit on a modest scale, has been done by NGOs with some help from Switzerland and a few other countries.

On campus, the worst is yet to come By Richard Baehr

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/on_campus_the_worst_is_yet_to_come.html

Review of Nevergreen by Andrew Pessin, 2021, Open Books

Andrew Pessin, the author of the comic novel Nevergreen (to be published September first), is a professor of philosophy at Connecticut College. He ignited the furies among the student body  at his college over his support for the state of Israel. That experience informs his newly published novel about a doctor invited to give a talk  at a fictional college facing the campus lynch mob. The book is titled to evoke the infamous case of Bret Weinstein of The Evergreen State University.  Weinstein was hounded out of his professorship and eventually collected a quarter million-dollar settlement from the University for the outrageous treatment he experienced.  In both the Weinstein and Pessin incidents, there were serious threats of physical harm to the “offending” professors, and administrators who did nothing to defend or protect them.

Nevergreen manages to capture the passions unleashed at the two real colleges (and many others in the past few years). In the novel, a physician who goes by J (his wife clarifies it is Jeffrey near the end), meets a woman on a plane while in route to a medical conference. He gets invited by the woman to speak at the school where she works, Nevergreen College, after his conference is concluded.  Nevergreen College is built on a small island where an asylum was once located, and inmates were buried, an ominous metaphor and portent.

J delivers his talk though no one is there to hear it. However, he soon becomes the focus of those who hate “the hate” he represents to them, which includes pretty much everyone on campus.  The campus gatherings directed at J, are longer than the daily two minutes hate in George Orwell’s 1984 and include campus newspaper attacks, and posting of his picture everywhere, including on masks worn by students hunting him down.

The Predators Among Us By Abraham H. Miller

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/the_predators_among_us.html

In our cities exists a culture of violence, and we ignore it at our peril, for we are all potential victims.

University of Chicago student Max Lewis was commuting to school on the Green Line Elevated Train when a bullet tore into his spine. A good Samaritan nurtured and consoled him until the paramedics came. An active and vibrant twenty-year-old, Lewis could only move his eyes when he awoke in his hospital bed. And with that, he communicated that he wanted the plug pulled. He did not want to live as a vegetable. He was ready to greet death.

Another life in a long list of lives tragically snuffed out by a “stray” bullet on Chicago’s southside. The police have no idea from where the bullet was fired. But was it a stray bullet? Did someone target the Elevated train the way people have targeted airline pilots with lasers, hoping to blind them on their approach and witness a plane crash?

As I read the demographics of victims of Chicago’s gang violence, I wonder, as have others, if there are predators out there hunting people for sport the way game hunters wantonly kill for sport. There are simply too many women and children, too many innocents, on the victims list.

I stumbled upon this notion when, during the George Floyd riots, carloads of young blacks descended on my exurban community and smashed their way into the upscale shopping mall. Armed police stood in place as the vandals looted the stores and unnecessarily damaged showcases and fixtures while helping themselves to whatever they desired.

Having successfully looted the stores as police looked on, the vandals loaded up their vehicles and drove toward the freeway. As one car veered out of the shopping area, someone fired a random shot into a group of shoppers.

Israel beats Russia, wins gold in gymnastics; Angry Russians accuse judges of bias

https://worldisraelnews.com/israel-beats-russia-wins-gold-in-gymnastics-angry-russians-accuse-judges-of-bias/?utm_source=

Linoy Ashram becomes first Israeli woman to take Olympic gold as Russians accuse judges of bias.

Her blue ribbon soared halfway to the rafters, and Israel’s Linoy Ashram spun and swirled and caught it, winning gold in a performance that ended Russia’s decades-long dominance in rhythmic gymnastics.

But Russian sports officials accused the judges of bias and said they would lodge a complaint.

Ashram, 22, became the first Israeli woman to ever win an Olympic gold medal, edging out a pair of Russian identical twin sisters who were the favorites heading into Tokyo.

Dina Averina, 22, placed second and her sister, Arina, fell to fourth place. Alina Harnasko of Belarus won the bronze medal.

“This is history. I’m proud of represent Israel here, on the biggest stage in the world,” Ashram said after her victory. “It’s like a dream, I think it’s like I’m not here.”

Ashram, 22, has served as an Israeli military secretary since 2017, and she works there every day when she’s not performing. Israeli women are required to perform at least two years of military service, and she said it is important to her to give time and energy to her country.

In her final performance in the four-round competition, she danced to a techno remix of the Jewish celebratory folk song “Hava Nagila” as the crowd clapped along. Ashram, wearing a blue and white feathered bird leotard in the colors of the Israeli flag, missed a catch, and spectators gasped.

Dina Averina, who was set to perform just after Ashram, saw her mistake and was hopeful it was a chance for her to take the gold medal back to Russia.

Why the Border Crisis Is Here to Stay By Andrew C. McCarthy •

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/why-the-border-crisis-is-here-to-stay/

Absent a credible impeachment threat, President Biden and the progressives are only going to continue abetting illegal immigration.

D on’t blame me, blame the Supreme Court — along with congressional Republicans, Republican presidents, and Washington’s entrenched post-sovereign, transnational–progressive political establishment. But don’t say you weren’t warned: The only hope for reestablishing security on the southern border is a credible threat to impeach President Biden.

And don’t bet on that emerging from a Democrat-dominated House.

That blunt reality is elucidated by the Biden administration’s assault on any remaining vestige of state sovereignty. In El Paso federal court, the Justice Department has sued Texas and Governor Greg Abbott for attempting to protect the state from waves of illegal aliens who are streaming into the country.

The federal government is aiding and abetting illegal immigration. That is a violation of federal law and thus another manifestation of Biden’s disregard for his solemn duty to execute the laws faithfully, on unabashed display this week with his dictatorial eviction-moratorium decree, which he and his administration concede is unconstitutional.

Immigration law commands that aliens who do not have a legal right to be present in the United States “shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed.” That is, even those who credibly claim to fear persecution if returned from whence they came — the infinitesimally small percentage of legitimate refugees among the hordes now seeking entry — are supposed to be held in custody until that claim is fully adjudicated.

But Biden has signaled that the border is open and that those who try to cross illegally stand an excellent chance of getting in and staying. Rhetorically, the president pretends the laws are being enforced, but he knows this is impossible in the conditions he has willfully created. The government is woefully short of the detention space, enforcement personnel, and administrative resources that would be needed to handle the vast migrant crowds arriving daily.