ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum :Scales of Israeli justice Outrageously, a panel of 11 judges will determine this week whether the electorate made the right choice of parliamentarians at the ballot box.

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/scales-of-israeli-justice/

Israel’s High Court of Justice just spent two full days hearing petitions against the continued rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the national-unity deal that he signed last month with Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz. The only thing good about the proceedings was that they were broadcast live. This not only gave viewers a glimpse into the workings of judicial activism, as well as a better understanding of the arguments on both sides of the dispute, but hopefully served to keep the robed men and women on the illustrious bench somewhat in check.

After all, these self-anointed demigods of democracy may have been able to fend off coronavirus droplets with surgical masks and plastic seat dividers, but the rest of us need protecting from the political power that the High Court wields far beyond its purview.

Ironically, judicial reform was a key element of Netanyahu and his Likud Party’s platform during all three rounds of Knesset elections, the first two of which resulted in political deadlock. Though the outcome of the third initially appeared to be pointing in a similar direction, the stalemate was resolved (if you can call it that) by the very coalition deal whose legitimacy is being determined—you guessed it—by the court.

To put it simply, this means that a panel of 11 judges will decide later this week on whether the Israeli people made the right choice of parliamentarians at the ballot box. If it weren’t so outrageous, it would be funny that one of the petitioners against Netanyahu and the coalition-in-the-making is the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a self-described “non-partisan” NGO, whose president, Eliad Shraga, played a starring role in the High Court hearings on Sunday and Monday.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Antibody blocks infection by the SARS-CoV-2 in cells, scientists discover

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200504074722.htm
Source:
Utrecht University
Summary:
Researchers report that they have identified a fully human monoclonal antibody that prevents the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus from infecting cultured cells. The discovery is an initial step towards developing a fully human antibody to treat or prevent the respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Researchers at Utrecht University, Erasmus Medical Center and Harbour BioMed (HBM) today reported that they have identified a fully human monoclonal antibody that prevents the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus from infecting cultured cells. The discovery, published online today in Nature Communications, is an initial step towards developing a fully human antibody to treat or prevent the respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly across the globe infecting more than 3.3M people worldwide and killing more than 235,000 people so far.

“This research builds on the work our groups have done in the past on antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV that emerged in 2002/2003,” said Berend-Jan Bosch, Associate Professor, Research leader at Utrecht University, and co-lead author of the Nature Communications study. “Using this collection of SARS-CoV antibodies, we identified an antibody that also neutralizes infection of SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells. Such a neutralizing antibody has potential to alter the course of infection in the infected host, support virus clearance or protect an uninfected individual that is exposed to the virus.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

U.S.DEATHS FALL TO NEW LOW

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://twitter.com/paulinkjet/status/1257563094718582787

Fact found buried on BBC website: “The US records 1,015 virus deaths in 24 hours – the lowest one-day tally in a month.”

Alex Berenson

@AlexBerenson

Basically no outdoor transmission. Little proof that retail/office is a major vector. Weak if any proof that masks cut transmission, esp. in anyone asymptomatic. Much evidence that masks are virtue signaling and yet more government overreach. It’s time to stop pretending.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

BAD NEWS IN IOWA: SENATOR JONI ERNST FACES AN UPHILL BATTLE

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/495937-poll-ernst-lead-evaporates-in-iowa-senate-race

Joni Kay Ernst is  the junior United States Senator for Iowa since 2015. A Republican, she served in the Iowa State Senate from 2011 to 2014. She served in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1993 to 2015, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

To learn about her and support her please visit: https://joniernst.com/

Poll: Ernst lead evaporates in Iowa Senate race

The Senate race in Iowa is tightening, according to a new poll that shows Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) lead over her likely Democratic opponent, Theresa Greenfield, narrowing to just 1 point.

The survey from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows Ernst leading Greenfield, 43 percent to 42 percent. That suggests a significantly closer race than a previous poll conducted by the firm in December that found Ernst ahead of Greenfield by a 6-point margin.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

EU: Covid-19 Does Not Suspend Asylum Rights by Judith Bergman

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15976/eu-covid-19-immigration

Persons “in need of international protection or for other humanitarian reasons”, however, are exempted from these restrictions on non-essential travel from third countries.” — European Commission statement, March 30, 2020.

This means that people who apply for international protection cannot be turned away and that the rights of migrants and refugees to apply for asylum cannot be suspended, even in the time of coronavirus.

This policy was on display during the recent crisis on the border between Turkey and Greece, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used migrants — whom Turkey transported to the border with Greece — as political blackmail, threatening to unleash a new migration crisis on Europe. At least 14,000 migrants were brought to the border, according to media reports.

As much as the EU remains committed to international law, it would seem that under the circumstances of a worldwide pandemic, which has forced countries to go to extremes in terms of limiting the liberties of their own citizens to fight Covid-19, it should be possible to find ways temporarily to suspend the right of third-country nationals to migrate to the EU.

On March 16, the European Commission recommended a temporary restriction of non-essential travel from third countries into the “EU+ area” for 30 days. On April 8, the European Commission recommended that the temporary restriction be prolonged until May 15. According to the European Commission’s press release:

“The Commission’s assessment of the current situation points to a continued rise in the number of new cases and deaths across the EU, as well as to the progression of the pandemic outside of the EU, including in countries from where millions of people usually travel to the EU every year. In this context, prolonging the travel restriction is necessary to reduce the risk of the disease spreading further.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

When Judges Rule: A Comparison between the US and Israel by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15975/judges-us-israel

Were the Supreme Court of Israel to decide that Benjamin Netanyahu is legally prohibited from forming a government in which he served as prime minister because he is under indictment, it would be usurping the role of the Knesset (which has not enacted such a prohibition) and the electorate (which gave him plurality, knowing that he was under indictment), as well as undercutting the rule of law (which presumes indicted individuals innocent until and unless convicted).

Such a ruling would throw the justices into the “political thicket” (to quote the US Supreme Court) and further politicize the manner by which justices are selected. It would be a self-inflicted wound on the independence and neutrality of the Supreme Court. Finally, it would give too much power to prosecutors and police officials to interfere with elections, by issuing indictments that might not result in convictions

This is not the time to further politicize a great Israeli institution.

The book of Ruth begins with a cautionary description: “In the days when judges ruled, there was famine in the land.” Though the Bible suggests no causal relationship between the judiciary ruling the people and bad things happening to them, history suggests that governance by unelected Platonic guardians is anathema to democracy.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Death on a Hunger Strike Unmasks a Hate-Filled Turkey by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15858/turkey-hunger-strike-death

The placard read: “Let Nuriye and Semih live.” Just one line — it was a simple, peaceful wish that the two teachers would not die in prison during their hunger strike. The governor’s officials and law enforcement authorities acted immediately. From security cameras, they identified the persons who displayed the placard and launched a criminal probe against them on charges of “supporting a terror organization”

This is a compilation of shame for Turkey. Bölek and other members of Grup Yorum have never been charged with engaging in any terrorist activity. They were prosecuted for allegedly sympathizing with a terrorist organization with their songs. With their songs, not guns or bombs.

Those in the free world do not have to care what ideology Grup Yorum adopted; what they should be aware of is the level of religious zealotry and overbearing governmental control that has been reached in a presumably “Western,” NATO-member country.

When someone dies on a hunger strike, there is often a political motivation. It is understandable, therefore, if supporters of that political motivation mourn the victim while opponents just shrug it off. One such death in Turkey, however, again unveiled how dangerously a thin line of deep hatred divides Turks along pro- and anti-government lines. This is a psychological cold war.

The Turkish state is notoriously cruel to every ideology and its adherents that it considers “hostile.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Failed Experiment of Social Distancing Julie Kelly

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/04/the-failed-experiment-of-social-distancing/

The history of science, sadly, is littered with bad experiments gone horribly wrong. The Great Social Distancing Experiment of 2020, when it is over, will very likely be toward the top of that list.

After a two-month trial, researchers are collecting early outcomes of the Great American Social Distancing Experiment of 2020.

The results, to say the least, ain’t pretty—and the “experts” who initiated this experiment on 330 million well-meaning but unwitting test subjects are starting to admit failure.

“Wait. An experiment?” you may ask. But we have been assured by the credentialed class that keeping a distance of six feet between healthy people for weeks on end was the only tried-and-true way to prevent the deadly spread of the novel coronavirus. No way would the government shutter public schools and colleges for five months, bankrupt small businesses, send tens of millions to the unemployment line, jeopardize the nation’s food supply chain, prevent children from comforting dying parents and grandparents, and subject their fellow countrymen to soul-crushing house arrest for the first time in U.S. history if the so-called “social distancing” guidance hadn’t been carefully vetted over time, you might insist.

Certainly every variable and every side effect of social distancing has been factored into this economy-crashing “mitigation” strategy, right?

Unfortunately, and maddeningly, the answer is no.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration and a lead booster of social distancing, admitted Sunday that the draconian measures aren’t working as the experts promised.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Cuomo Plays On Fears And Ignorance About Reopening The Economy

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/04/cuomo-plays-on-fears-and-ignorance-about-reopening-the-economy/

Why Are We Still Trying to ‘Flatten the Curve’?

Now that roughly half the states in the country are starting to reopen their economies, expect a rash of stories about how they opened “too soon” and that COVID-19 cases are climbing as a result. 

A headline on Friday, for example, was about how Georgia reported more than 1,000 new cases of the virus “the same day its governor lifted the stay-at-home order.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned Saturday about “blindly” lifting lockdowns and reopening the economy. “Use information to determine action – not emotions, not politics, not what people think or feel,” he said.

It’s Cuomo himself who is playing politics, acting on emotions, and ignoring information.

The fact is that the lockdowns weren’t about stopping the spread of the disease. Their justification was to “flatten the curve,” — that is, slow the spread so our health care system wasn’t overwhelmed. Cuomo should know that even in his home state there’s little evidence that the health care system was even close to being engulfed.

Remember, the impetus for the lockdowns was based on dire forecasts that COVID-19 would kill more than a million people – even with draconian measures in place – and that its death rate was on the order of 30 times greater than the flu. Now that we’re getting antibody test results – which are showing magnitudes more had been infected than showed symptoms – the death rate is more like 0.3%.  

Yes, that’s worse than the flu and enough to cause temporary, local shortages of health care, but not anywhere near enough to cause a nationwide breakdown of the system. 

POLITICS Comments turned off

Voter Fraud Goes Viral Democrats exploit the pandemic with a push for mail-in ballots. Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/voter-fraud-goes-viral-lloyd-billingsley/

Last month, California governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order for “all-mail” ballots for elections in May and June. In similar style, Democrats in Congress have been pushing for ballots to be mailed to every registered voter for the November election. What could possibly go wrong? Consider the California experience, starting back in 2004.

Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative featured Christopher Reeve, Brad Pitt, and Michael J. Fox touting life-saving cures for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other diseases. The $3 billion proposition, backed by Democrat tycoon Robert Klein,  created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The new state agency promptly hired former state senator and Democrat Party boss Art Torres, and at one point handed out more than 90 percent of its grants to institutions with representatives on its governing board.

By 2020, CIRM had blown through the $3 billion but a ballpark figure for the number of cures and therapies was zero, perhaps the biggest bust in state history. Even so, CIRM is going back to the voters with the $5.5 billion California Stem Cell Research, Treatments, and Cures Initiative of 2020. To get the measure on the ballot, Klein’s Americans for Cures needed 950,000 signatures by April 18, and backers opted to push the envelope.

Signature gatherers have been telling voters the measure was seeking only $1.5 billion, a blatant falsehood. As the deadline approached, Don Reed, Americans for Cures vice president of public policy, began pushing for mail-in signatures. “Your signatures might literally save CIRM, helping us put a  $5.5 billion renewal bill on the ballot,” Reed wrote. “Its purpose is to fight chronic diseases, like COVID-19, the dread coronavirus—and so much more!!”