ELECTIONS Comments turned off

ANDREW McCARTHY ON VOTING FOR TRUMP

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/11/the-stakes-of-the-election-are-high/

The stakes of the 2024 election could be very high depending on who wins. I don’t approve of either of the two candidates — I think they’ve both committed impeachable offenses and demonstrated unfitness. I’m voting for Trump. That’s not an endorsement, it’s just how I’ve resolved the choice — I don’t understand how any conservative could support Harris, but I sympathize with those who can’t vote for Trump.

Do I think Trump would appoint better people than Harris would, including a number of strong conservatives? I do indeed. Trump is not a committed conservative, but his last administration had much for conservatives to like; and even if I don’t have hopes as high for a new Trump-Vance administration, I’m convinced a Harris-Walz administration would be a disaster for the country.

But here is my main calculation: The system’s guardrails — Congress, the courts, the administrative state, the armed forces, the state governments, the media, and business leaders — are zealous in policing against executive excess when a Republican is in power. The worst thing Trump did was the soft coup attempt, and it never had a smidgeon of a chance. By contrast, the guardrails are not nearly as effective in checking executive overreach, usurpation, and other abuses of power by Democrats — in fact, many of the institutions we rely on as checks become, instead, progressive cheerleaders. As a result, I have considerably less trepidation about a Trump presidency than a Harris presidency.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Fight! Fight! Fight! Vs. Fake, Fake, Fake By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/11/fight_fight_fight_vs_fake_fake_fake.html

The most iconic image of the 2024 campaign came from the Butler Farm Show Grounds in Pennsylvania on July 13.  An assassin had just fired multiple shots at President Trump, wounding him in the ear.  Secret Service agents scrambled to shield the president, while counter-snipers neutralized the shooter.  As members of his security detail began to briskly move him from the stage where he was speaking, President Trump asked them to stop so that he could reassure supporters he was alive and well.  With blood streaked across his face and pooling near one side of his mouth, he stretched a closed fist toward a blue sky with an American flag waving just behind his head and shouted to all who could hear, “Fight!  Fight!  Fight!”

Arguably, it was not just the most iconic visual of the campaign, but also one of the most iconic images in American history.  The picture of a bloodied but defiant American president reaching toward the heavens and expressing a sense of resolute calm in a moment of chaos will remain in many people’s minds for the rest of their lives.  President Trump’s bravery is seared in their memories. 

In any other election cycle, the contest would have ended on July 13.  On a sunny day during a festive campaign rally, a shooter murdered a husband and father protecting his family, injured two other attendees critically, and nearly assassinated a former president.  Such outrageous political violence should have sufficiently shifted public sentiment toward Trump’s favor to make his victory a foregone conclusion.  (For what it’s worth, President Biden dropped out of the race eight days later.)  Fearing that possibility, the propaganda press immediately worked to erase the incident from the public’s thoughts.  

After becoming one of the most famous photographs in the world, the image of President Trump’s raw courage disappeared from publications and websites.  Reporters barely talked about the murder of local Pennsylvanian Corey Comperatore or the serious injuries to other rallygoers.  Anonymous FBI sources initially downplayed the attempted assassination by speculating that Trump had not actually been shot but had instead been cut by flying pieces of broken glass.  Cable news pundits openly mocked the bandaging around Trump’s ear and acted as if being shot in the face is no big deal.  To this day, FBI investigators preposterously claim that they are unable to ascertain the shooter’s motive. 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL EVEN DURING WARTIME FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

  www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Israel’s daring, dazzling, and advanced prowess in defense has impressed Israel’s supporters and humiliated its enemies. Behind the military news, as Michael Ordman reminds us, research and development in every single aspect of humanitarian endeavor flourishes in the laboratories and social institutions of that remarkable nation from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. rsk

 
POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Wounded paramedic returns. United Hatzalah emergency medic Rabbi Chaim Sassi was seriously wounded by a Hamas terrorist in Sderot on Oct 7. He has now returned to active service after receiving a custom-made “ambucycle” designed to accommodate his lingering leg injury. Rabbi Chaim was praised as “an inspiration”.
https://www.jns.org/volunteer-medic-injured-on-oct-7-returns-to-service-with-ambucycle/
 
Mezuzah from devastated kibbutz goes to Paraguay. A mezuzah was all that survived on Oct 7 from a home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. To honor the memory of the owners of the home, the mezuzah was placed on the doorpost of the new Israeli embassy in Paraguay.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/mezuzah-rescued-from-kfar-azza-finds-new-home-in-israeli-embassy-in-paraguay/
 
Boxer is champion defender. US boxing legend Floyd Mayweather has donated $100,000 to purchase 100 bulletproof vests for Israeli medical volunteers on the front lines. He announced the gift during a sold-out United Hatzalah event in Jerusalem to raise funds for 1,000 protective kits for its volunteer EMTs.
https://worldisraelnews.com/ex-boxing-champ-gives-israeli-rescue-group-100-bulletproof-vests/
 
US Christians donate armored ambulances. Samaritan’s Purse, founded by Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, has donated two more armored ambulances to Magen David Adom. They previously donated 14 ambulances and have committed to donate 28 more. They have also donated 1,000 trauma kits.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/us-evangelical-leader-donates-28-armored-ambulances-in-memory-of-murdered-hostages/
 
South African Christians donate MDA response cars. (TY Yanky) The South African branch of the Christian organization Bridges for Peace is spearheading a donation of two $80,000 Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency rapid response vehicles. MDA will use the cars in communities attacked on Oct. 7.
https://www.jns.org/south-african-christians-donate-emergency-vehicles-to-israel/
 
Gaza envelope kibbutz looks to regrow. Kibbutz Holit has begun to rehabilitate after the Oct 7 Hamas attacks. It will grow the potato developed by Israel’s Rumafeed (see here previously) that has eliminated the toxic glycoalkaloids in its foliage. Rumafeed has just been selected for the latest Intel Ignite accelerator group.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/kibbutz-ravaged-on-oct-7-looks-to-renewal-through-gene-edited-vegetable-trials/  https://unitedwithisrael.org/kibbutz-holit-ravaged-on-oct-7-grows-into-hub-for-agricultural-innovation/
 
An AI view of Gaza without Hamas. ChatGPT was asked the question, “What would life, culture, and the economy be like in Gaza if Hamas were not  in control?”  ChatGPT also was also asked to generate a visual image of Gaza without Hamas.  I expect “Lebanon without Hezbollah?” might generate a similar response.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-chatgpt-shows-what-gaza-could-be-without-terrorism-and-hamas/
 
Anti-drone system recycled. Israel has deployed the Israeli-upgraded M61 Vulcan cannon along its northern border, to combat suicide drones launched by Hezbollah terrorists. An older version of the M61 Vulcan was originally provided to Israel by the U.S. during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and saw action in Lebanon in 1982.
https://worldisraelnews.com/unique-vulcan-anti-drone-cannon-deployed-in-north/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machbet   https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-826246
 
One Day raises $1 million. US Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu performed a concert titled “One Day” in New York City. It was part of a Ben Gurion University event that raised $1 million to help the rebuilding and recovery of Israel’s southern communities. “There’ll be no more wars, and our children will play. One Day!”
https://www.jns.org/one-day-benefit-featuring-matisyahu-raises-1m-for-recovery-education-in-southern-israel/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRmBChQjZPs  https://genius.com/Matisyahu-one-day-lyrics
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Protein antibody to treat cancer. Tel Aviv University researchers were checking protein levels after exposure to UV light. They saw that Ly6a levels rose significantly and speculated it might suppress the immune system in cancer patients. Lab tests showed that antibodies against Ly6a reduced tumor size in many cancers.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/398375  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52079-x
 
Recovery from strokes. Israel’s BioXtreme has developed the deXtreme rehabilitation robot device for improving of motor recovery of upper limbs for stroke patients. And doctors in 30 countries use Tigertriever, from Israel’s Rapid Medical (see here previously) to respond in real time during thrombectomy procedures.
https://www.israel21c.org/8-startups-transforming-stroke-prevention-detection-treatment/
https://bio-xtreme.com/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJOPaxTO5gE
https://www.rapid-medical.com/tigertriever
 
Life-saving blood cancer analysis. (TY OurCrowd) Israel’s Scopio Labs (see here previously) has launched its groundbreaking Full-Field Bone Marrow Aspirate™ (FF-BMA) Application for effective, digital imaging and AI analysis of blood cells. It replaces previous slow, manual, expert-only, error-prone, analysis methods.
https://scopiolabs.com/news/scopio-labs-receives-groundbreaking-fda-clearance-for-first-ever-digital-bone-marrow-aspirate-application/  https://www.ourcrowd.com/startup-news/beckman-coulter-and-scopio-labs-add-worlds-first-digital-bone-marrow-imaging-and-analysis-to-long-term-partnership https://scopiolabs.com/ff-bma/
 
Reducing phantom pain. Israel’s 6Degrees (see here previously) is now using its MyMove virtual reality games to enable dozens of new war amputees to have independent physical therapy sessions while decreasing their phantom pain and dependence on pain medications. “Exercising” an amputated limb helps blood flow.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-virtual-reality-game-helps-dozens-of-new-war-amputees-reduce-phantom-pain/
 
500 successful transplants. The partnership between the Gift of Life Marrow Registry and Taglit-Birthright Israel has just celebrated its 500th successful transplant of blood stem cell and bone marrow from Birthright donors to patients. They have saved hundreds of sufferers with leukemia, lymphoma and immune disorders.
https://www.jns.org/wire/gift-of-life-marrow-registry-marks-500th-lifesaving-transplant-from-birthright-donors/
 
Personal park guide for the visually impaired. The audio orientation and guiding system Israel’s RightHear (see here previously) has now been installed at 2,500+ global locations from Angola to the UAE. In August, Natural Bridge State Park in Virginia became the first US state park to offer the digital accessibility solution.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-startup-opening-up-the-world-for-the-visually-impaired/
 
Ariel’s first medical graduates. Israel’s Ariel University celebrated the first class of graduates from its 2019-founded Adelson School of Medicine. 53 students (including 40 women) were awarded their “Doctor of Medicine.” degrees in a ceremony attended by Israeli President Herzog and philanthropist Dr. Miriam Adelson.
https://www.jns.org/ariels-adelson-school-of-medicine-marks-first-graduating-class/

ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Thomas Hogan Is the Era of Progressive Prosecutors Ending? Voters in several major American cities have an opportunity to revamp public safety on November 5.

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/is-the-era-of-progressive-prosecutors-ending

We all know that the presidential election is looming, but for a few big cities, a crucial down-ballot vote—for the office of chief prosecutor—could have a major effect on the day-to-day safety of their citizens.

In Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city, voters will decide whether to oust radical prosecutor George Gascón. Gascón barely made it through his first term, surviving two recall efforts based on technicalities. Soaring crime rates and a general sense of disorder have led even progressive Angelenos to say that enough is enough.

Gascón is opposed by Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who has promised to pursue policies that treat those who commit crimes as criminals. In current polling, Gascón trails Hochman by 24 points. In a last-minute Hail Mary, Gascón has decided to support re-sentencing and clemency for the notorious Menendez brothers, convicted of the brutal murders of their parents, despite their claims having been repeatedly rejected by the courts. Election Day will decide whether Los Angeles is ready to start rebuilding.

Meantime, heading north in California, another critical chief prosecutor is on the ballot: Pamela Price in Oakland. Price, along with Oakland’s mayor Sheng Thao, is facing a recall election after just two years in office. Many Oakland voters have expressed the same buyers’ remorse as their neighbors across the bay in San Francisco, who recalled progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin after a few years in office, amid spiraling crime and disorder.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Deranged Harris Supporters Harass and Threaten the McDonald’s That Hosted Trump So once again: who’s the fascist? by Robert Spencer

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/deranged-harris-supporters-harass-and-threaten-the-mcdonalds-that-hosted-trump/

We’ve been hearing a great deal about fascism in this election, with the left making increasingly unhinged warnings about how Donald Trump will destroy Americans’ freedom to waste their lives watching pornography and force them to have children, while in the process of taking an axe to “our democracy” itself.

This seems, however, to be an increasingly obvious case of leftists resorting to their familiar tactic of accusing their opponents of what they themselves are actually doing. Over and over, we see leftists trying to intimidate people into being afraid to express views that oppose them, or even to allow their foes to have a fair hearing. So once again: who’s the fascist? They’re finding out at the McDonald’s that famously played host to Donald Trump.

What the Daily Caller reported Thursday was drearily predictable: “In the wake of Trump’s widely-publicized campaign stop at the ‘Golden Arches’” franchise in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, “Yelp disabled reviews for the location amid a flood of negative comments, and the franchise’s owner retained private security to ensure the safety of employees and patrons in response to threats made against the eatery.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake. Threats? Remember that when Trump made his celebrated appearance at Mickey D’s, the corporation issued a balanced and generous statement, saying: “As we’ve seen, our brand has been a fixture of conversation in this election cycle. While we’ve not sought this, it’s a testament to how much McDonald’s resonates with so many Americans. McDonald’s does not endorse candidates for elected office and that remains true in this race for the next President.”

McDonald’s said that Harris was as welcome as Trump was, and added: “Though we are not a political brand, we’ve been proud to hear former President Trump’s love for McDonald’s and Vice President Harris’s fond memories working under the Arches,” as fictional as the latter may have been.

ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Weizmann busts swiped as anti-Israel vandalism sweeps UK By David Isaac

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/weizmann-busts-swiped-as-anti-israel-vandalism-sweeps-uk/

Palestine Action, a United Kingdom-based anti-Israel group, on Saturday carried out coordinated vandalism in several U.K. locations, including Manchester and Cambridge Universities.

Violence included defacing with red paint the Jewish National Fund offices in London and Cambridge University’s Institute of Manufacturing.

Palestine Action said it targeted the Cambridge Institute because it partners with Rolls-Royce, Siemens and BAE Systems, which the group has accused of “perpetrating genocide.”

The vandalism marked the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917, a public statement by the British Government during World War I announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people,” an important step in the political process leading to the creation of modern Israel.

The declaration was due mainly to the efforts of Chaim Weizmann, who led world Jewry following WWI and became Israel’s first president.

Weizmann worked as a chemist at Manchester University during the war, making an important contribution to the war effort.

In perhaps the most brazen act, Palestine Action activists smashed a glass display case at the university’s chemistry building and stole two busts of Weizmann, posting a video of the theft on social media.

ELECTIONS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israeli anxiety, America and the ayatollahs: Ruthie Blum

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/israeli-anxiety-america-and-the-ayatollahs/

Tensions are high in Israel as the United States enters the last lap of its presidential election. Given the level of public concern surrounding the race and the amount of space devoted to it by local analysts, an alien observing from Mars might mistakenly assume that the vote is taking place between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, not across the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s already been established, through surveys and punditocracy consensus—including among those more predisposed politically to Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats in general than to former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party—that most Israelis are praying for the latter to emerge victorious.

Polls showing that the candidates are basically tied, with daily fluctuations in swing-state percentages, is causing a lot of nail-biting, and not exclusively in U.S. capitals or Jerusalem. No, it’s safe to say that the entire world is watching and waiting with bated breath for the outcome.

Though Joe Biden will remain at the helm in the White House until the beginning of 2025 regardless of the results at the ballot box, nobody thinks he’s running the show in any respect, nor has he been for at least two years. It’s assumed in Israel, however, that the figures behind him could engage in serious lame-duck sabotage in the weeks leading up to the inauguration of his successor.

After all, during a similar period at the end of 2016, outgoing President Barack Obama and his sidekick, Secretary of State John Kerry, pulled a few stunts that made Israel’s enemies proud. Key among these moves was the abstention on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted on Dec. 23.

Resolution 2334, which passed by 14-0, condemned Israeli settlements and called for all construction of them to cease. It also called for further labeling of Israeli goods, not only those made in settlements. In addition, it categorized the Western Wall as “occupied Palestinian territory.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why Do We Even Have Elections? Why Don’t We Just Let The Media Choose?

Posted By on November 5th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/11/05/why-do-we-even-have-elections-why-dont-we-just-let-the-media-choose/

We’ve become accustomed to Democratic Party operatives thinly disguised as journalists smearing, slurring, slamming, and lying about Republican candidates. They don’t want voters to know the truth. They’re not objective purveyors of the facts but rather political players who want to have the power to pick the winners of every election.

Some years ago, while at the University of California, Los Angeles, economics professor Timothy Groseclose wrote a book that showed Democratic candidates start their campaigns with significant leads over their GOP candidates due to media preference.

In “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind,” Groseclose, now at George Mason University, demonstrated how that bias could be measured. “​​He is so numerate,” economist David Henderson wrote in a review, “that he makes clear with the data just how extreme the left-wing bias is.”

It’s possible that the hole Republicans have to start in is even deeper than it was when “Left Turn” was published in 2011.

The media are so invested in Democrats, through their votes and their campaign donations, and through their hard-left ideology, that they don’t want voters to determine the outcomes of elections. They want to be the power brokers who coronate the kings and queens of our executive and legislative bodies.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden-Harris Administration Secretly Signs Up for UN World Governance, Internet Censorship by Robert Williams

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21086/un-world-governance-internet-censorship

On September 22, unnoticed by most Americans, the Biden-Harris administration adopted the United Nations Pact for the Future to transform global governance, which introduces the foundations of a world government. There was no debate, no media coverage, no press releases, and no interviews about the Biden-Harris administration’s surrender of United States sovereignty to the UN.

Americans were apparently not supposed to find out.

These agreements usher in a dystopian future, where the UN — an active supporter of terrorism and arguably the world’s most corrupt international entity… in partnership with the unelected and unaccountable World Economic Forum, led by Klaus Schwab… is given unprecedented power over the peoples of sovereign countries, who have had no say whatsoever on the contents of this pact, because it has been kept hidden from them.

Buried near the end of the Digital Global Compact, in paragraph 30, is the only thing you need to know about it: “We must urgently counter and address… all forms of hate speech and discrimination, misinformation and disinformation….”

The UN, its member states and the Biden-Harris administration evidently want to establish world-wide censorship that will make any future criticism of their power grab impossible.

In 2021-22, the UN entered into a partnership with Google to ensure that the search engine only display information reflecting UN perspectives. Dissenting views would have to be erased. The UN did not even hide their totalitarian move, and issued a press release about it.

Google is clearly doing the UN’s bidding. If you try to google the words “climate change” today, every single dissenting view has been suppressed by the search engine. In the first twenty-plus pages of results that come up on Google, not a single of them deviates from the UN/WEF narrative, with most results only containing links to UN bodies or other institutions that partner with the UN, such as the EU, the World Bank, government websites and a few climate-alarmist articles from the Guardian, the New York Times, AP and Reuters.

This is what UN censorship looks like now. Can you imagine what it will be in a few years, if countries do not immediately move to stop it?

ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

LIGHTEN UP AMERICA! SYDNEY WILLIAMS

Posted By on November 4th, 2024

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

While Kamala Harris began her campaign with a promise of joy, it soon deteriorated into character smears against her opponent, with Ms. Harris calling him “fascist” and a “Hitler,” and with President Biden referring to Mr. Trump’s supporters as “garbage.” What makes the “fascist” label ironic is that, as Victor Davis Hanson wrote in last Thursday’s issue of American Greatness, “…he [Trump] has been the target of fascists machinations from her own party and supporters for nearly a decade.”

Mr. Trump has always appeared devoid of humor, except when polls swing his way. Writing in the current UK issue of The Spectator, Kate Andrews noted “…in the past few weeks, something has restored Trump’s humor.” As the audience left a recent rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she quoted a man speaking to his family: “That was better than Netflix.”  Most of us smiled when Mr. Trump, wearing an orange reflector vest (and in response to Mr. Biden’s remark), jumped into a garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump does have a habit of calling his opponents names that would make Gordon Gekko blush. Amidst this war of words, America seems an unhappy place. Last Thursday, The Washington Post editorialized: “…in an increasingly angry nation…incidents of road rage escalate across the country.”  As in 1888 Mudville, there is little joy in the U.S. today.