ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Ella Whelan : The celebrity fund for poor women reveals how patronising #MeToo is.

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Anyone hoping that the #MeToo panic would be left in 2017 will have been disappointed this week, when Hollywood A-listers launched their new campaign: Time’s Up.

Spurred on by the momentum of the so-called ‘silence breakers’ and the flurry of exposés, allegations and sackings related to sexual harassment last year, celebrity women have given their cash to fund legal aid for poor women who are apparently being abused in the workplace.

The launch letter, published in the New York Times, begins with ‘Dear sisters’. It reads like a charity pledge – and this is exactly what it is. ‘We particularly want to lift up the voices, power, and strength of women working in low-wage industries where the lack of financial stability makes them vulnerable to high rates of gender-based violence and exploitation’, it says. Apparently Emma Stone, Sarah Jessica Parker and hundreds of other female celebrities think their money will give poor women a voice. How Dickensian. And what about the suggestion that there are high rates of ‘gender-based violence’ in low-wage industries? Where’s the proof?

This sense of paternalism runs through the letter. ‘We see you’, it tells the members of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas (a female farmworkers’ union) which wrote in support of #MeToo last year. Yes, those hitherto invisible female farmworkers should now be overjoyed after having been ‘seen’ by the cultural elites of New York and LA. The wealthy feminists of the #MeToo movement are now posing as the saviours of helpless, stupid, poor women:

‘To every woman employed in agriculture who has had to fend off unwanted sexual advances from her boss, every housekeeper who has tried to escape an assaultive guest, every janitor trapped nightly in a building with a predatory supervisor, every waitress grabbed by a customer and expected to take it with a smile, every garment and factory worker forced to trade sexual acts for more shifts, every domestic worker or home health aide forcibly touched by a client, every immigrant woman silenced by the threat of her undocumented status being reported in retaliation for speaking up, and to women in every industry who are subjected to indignities and offensive behaviour that they are expected to tolerate in order to make a living: We stand with you. We support you.’

The worst thing about Time’s Up is the hollowness of its support for workers.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Another Subway Tragedy The murder of Jacinto Suarez demonstrates the need for reforming how New York deals with serious mental illness. DJ Jaffe

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Governor Andrew Cuomo began his 2018 State of the State address 19 years to the day—and hour—that Kendra Webdale was pushed to her death in front of a subway train by Andrew Goldstein, a man with untreated serious mental illness. Before Cuomo finished his speech, something similar had happened again: mentally ill Andrew Cordero pushed Jacinto Suarez onto the subway tracks in Brooklyn. Suarez, too, died. Kendra’s death led to the adoption of Kendra’s Law, which empowers judges to mandate treatment for the mentally ill who are a danger to themselves or to the community. The death of Jacinto Suarez should lead to further reforms.

While Cuomo didn’t mention Webdale or Kendra’s Law, he did talk about mental illness and the homeless. “Homelessness is on the rise in our cities and worse than ever before,” the governor said. “It pains me personally to acknowledge this reality.” As well it should: Cuomo’s unapologetic embrace of the long-standing bipartisan policy of closing state psychiatric hospitals is increasing both homelessness and incarceration.

The governor recounted his own history on the issue, recalling that he headed Mayor Dinkins’s homeless commission in 1992. I arranged for parents of the seriously mentally ill to testify before that commission. The parents wanted New York to adopt policies that would allow them to get care for their seriously mentally ill children before they became a danger to themselves or others. Cuomo rejected their pleas, siding with the mental health establishment, which has never been willing to take responsibility for the most seriously ill. As Cuomo wrote in the commission’s report, “The Commission considered and rejected a lowering of the standard for involuntary institutionalization as . . . inappropriate and unnecessary.” He noted that sick people could be sent to state hospitals “for months” to be stabilized. But during his tenure as governor, he has closed state psychiatric hospitals, effectively taking that option off the table.

The governor spoke eloquently about the plight of people incapable of taking care of themselves. “While we aggressively protect an individual’s civil liberties, we believe in helping people in need.” Leaving the sick to “fend for themselves is not progressive, charitable or ethical or legal.” Cuomo emphasized the need for more outreach, proclaiming that “some jurisdictions say case law prevents them from helping mentally ill street homeless. If that is their excuse, they should tell us what law stops them from helping sick homeless people and we will change the law this session.” But the governor is being disingenuous: the changes needed are the same ones that Democrats have refused to support in the past, and that he blocked when he headed the mayor’s homeless commission. These proposals have been made multiple times in recent years by State Senator Catharine Young, and more recently were included in the campaign platform of Assembly Member Nicole Malliotakis when she ran for mayor of New York City.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Compare and contrast: Female Iran resisters, female American resisters By Ethel C. Fenig

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

A real resistance, a brave resistance against an oppressive government that has created real problems of poverty and repression among its citizens, continues in Iran. Women are taking an active part despite significant dangers to their safety, their lives. Indeed, two of the most iconic photos from Iran symbolizing the protests are of young women.

In one (click the link to see), engulfed in a tear gas cloud, a young student defiantly raises her fist while her other hand covers her mouth to avoid inhaling the dangerous fumes.

In the other photo, another brave young Iranian woman climbs on top of a concrete street structure, where, standing tall above the crowd, her uncovered hair visible to all, she waves a white scarf.

I repeat: her hair is not covered. She is probably waving her scarf. And that is brave resistance because:

For nearly 40 years, women in Iran have been forced [emphasis added] to cover their hair and wear long, loose garments. Younger and more liberal-minded women have long pushed the boundaries of the official dress code, wearing loose headscarves that don’t fully cover their hair and painting their nails, drawing the ire of conservatives.

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Support for Anti-Israel BDS Movement ‘Virtually Nonexistent’ Among College Students, Study Finds By Toni Airaksinen (?????)

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Student activists at the University of Michigan (UM) made school history this past November after successfully lobbying the student government to pass an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) resolution. The first of its kind at UM, the resolution urged the university to divest from three Israeli companies, and was passed 23-17.

If the UM student government truly represented the student population, then this resolution would reflect widespread anti-Israel sentiment among students. Indeed, this is a concern for many Jewish and pro-Israel parents, who worry that American universities are slowly turning into hostile climates for their kids. But a new study cast doubt on this — finding that support for BDS at UM is, in fact, “virtually nonexistent.”

In a study of 3,000 students at UM, researchers found that only about 7 percent of non-Jewish students “somewhat” or “strongly” support a boycott of Israel. Among Jewish students in particular, that number was even lower: only about 2 percent of them say they would support a boycott of Israel. That leads us to an interesting question: how did the BDS resolution at UM pass if most students didn’t agree?

Leonard Saxe, a Brandeis University professor who co-authored the survey, told PJ Media in an interview that campus BDS victories are rarely reflective of the general student body. Instead, citing the successful BDS resolution at UM, Saxe explained that this is what happens when a “handful” of student activists successfully seize political power.

“What’s clear is that the UM resolution does not represent the views of most students on campus, but a small minority of students,” Sax told PJ Media, explaining that this is “what happens when a small group of people try to hold the political process of student government, but it doesn’t represent the views of most students.”

This paradox has played out at numerous college campuses in the last two years. Even as the BDS movement claims victories at an increasing number of colleges, student support for the movement remains low. At the three other colleges that Saxe and his team surveyed — Harvard University, Brandeis University, and the University of Pennsylvania — support for the BDS movement was in the single digits, Saxe told PJ Media.

ANTI-SEMITISM, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Democrats’ ‘Russian Descent’ Tactics in the Trump probe are starting to look a lot like McCarthyism. By Kimberley A. Strassel

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Democrats have spent weeks making the case that the Russia-Trump probes need to continue, piling on demands for more witnesses and documents. So desperate is the left to keep this Trump cudgel to hand that Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats have moved toward neo- McCarthyism.

If that sounds hyperbolic, consider an email recently disclosed by the Young Turks Network, a progressive YouTube news channel. It’s dated Dec. 19, 2017, and its author is April Doss, senior counsel for the committee’s Democrats, including Vice Chairman Mark Warner.

Ms. Doss was writing to Robert Barnes, an attorney for Charles C. Johnson, the controversial and unpleasant alt-right blogger. Mr. Johnson’s interactions with Julian Assange inspired some in the media to speculate last year that Mr. Johnson had served as a back channel between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. There’s still no proof, but in July the Intelligence Committee sent a letter requesting Mr. Johnson submit to them any documents, emails, texts or the like related to “any communications with Russian persons” in a variety of 2016 circumstances, including those related to “the 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign.”

Mr. Barnes seems to have wanted clarification from Ms. Doss about the definition of “Russian persons.” And this would make sense, since it’s a loose term. Russians in Russia? Russians in America? Russians with business in the country? Russians who lobby the U.S. and might be affected by the election—though not in contact with campaigns?

Ms. Doss’s response was more sweeping than any of these: “The provision we discussed narrowing was clarifying that the phrase ‘Russian persons’ in [the committee letter] may be read to refer to persons that Mr. Johnson knows or has reason to believe are of Russian nationality or descent” (emphasis added).

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Climate-Change Policies Can Be Punishing for the Poor America should learn from Europe’s failure to protect the needy while reducing carbon emissions.By Bjorn Lomborg

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Freezing temperatures in the U.S. Northeast have pushed up heating costs, creating serious stress for many Americans. Although the rich world’s energy poor are largely forgotten in discussions about climate policies, they bear an unfair burden for well-meaning proposals. That reality is being laid bare this icy winter as energy and electricity prices surge.

When we think about energy poverty, we imagine a lack of light in the world’s worst-off nations, where more than one billion people still lack electricity. This is a huge challenge that the world can hope to address as it reduces poverty and expands access to grid electricity, largely powered by fossil fuels.

But there is a less visible form of energy poverty that affects even the world’s richest country. Economists consider households energy poor if they spend 10% of their income to cover energy costs. A recent report from the International Energy Agency shows that more than 30 million Americans live in households that are energy poor—a number that is significantly increased by climate policies that require Americans to consume expensive green energy from subsidized solar panels and wind turbines.

Last year, for the first time, the International Energy Agency tried to calculate the global scale of this problem. The IEA estimates that in the world’s rich countries—those that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—200 million people are in energy poverty. That includes 1 in 10 Americans, although the IEA notes that the highest estimates for the U.S. approach 1 in 4.

People of modest means spend a significantly higher share of their income paying for their energy needs. One careful study of energy usage in North Carolina found that a lower-income family might spend more than 20% of its income on energy. Among people with incomes below 50% of the federal poverty line, energy costs regularly consumed more than a third of their budgets.

Europe, where renewable subsidies are about three times as high as in the U.S., provides a window into America’s possible energy future. Higher costs from policies like stringent emissions caps and onerous renewable-energy targets make it even harder for the poorest citizens to afford gas and electricity. In Germany, more than 30% of the population spends at least one-tenth of income on energy. Some estimates show that half of Greeks are in energy poverty, according to the IEA.

Calls for government to take ever stronger action on climate change can seem like selfless appeals to democracy and shared responsibility: The gist is that everyone should carry the burden and pay more. But that isn’t what happens. Policies aimed at addressing climate change can easily end up punishing the poor. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Offshore Energy Opening No other developed nation has comparable offshore drilling limits.

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

The United States sits on more than a decade’s worth of oil and natural gas offshore. In another reversal of President Obama’s policies, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke proposed Thursday to open up more than 90% of America’s Outer Continental Shelf for potential energy development.

The Interior Department’s plan would expand the areas under consideration for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. It would also open up the Pacific Coast from Washington to California, the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Florida and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and nearly all of the waters surrounding Alaska. The proposal will go through two more rounds of public comment, and no doubt some revisions, but when finalized the expanded lease sales could begin as early as 2019.

The proposal would enhance U.S. energy security while raising billions in federal revenue. In the past decade, thanks to the fracking revolution, the U.S. has surpassed Saudi Arabia in oil production and Russia in natural gas. America and its allies are now far less dependent on energy from international disruptors and despots.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israel and U.S. Ramp Up Criticism of Iran’s Actions Abroad Bid to limit Iran’s sway in Middle East comes as domestic protests put pressure on Tehran By Rory Jones in Tel Aviv and Dion Nissenbaum in Washington

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Israel and the U.S. are amplifying criticism of Iran’s role in Middle East conflicts, part of a coordinated effort to curb Tehran’s influence in the region as antigovernment protests put pressure on the country’s leaders.

Since protests began last week in Iran, Israel has accused Tehran of setting up a terrorist cell in the Palestinian West Bank and blamed Iran for supplying mortars fired on Israeli territory by militants from the Gaza Strip. Iran hasn’t responded to the allegations.

“The fact that they have exposed [Iran] now is related to a broader pressure campaign,” Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said of the Israeli accusations. “When Iran is under pressure it’s a good idea to increase the pressure.”
People in Iran have demonstrated against the government in the biggest wave of protests to hit the country in almost a decade. Here’s what could be next for Iran and what the unrest means for more than 80 million Iranians.

When the new year started, U.S. officials said, domestic protest in Iran wasn’t expected to be at the top of the Trump administration agenda. But the demonstrations are now part of the administration’s evolving effort to cast Iran as an international pariah.

President Donald Trump has tweeted about Iran five times in recent days. “The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime,” he said on Twitter on Tuesday. “All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their ‘pockets.’ The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!” CONTINUE AT SITE

ISRAEL Comments turned off

AMAZING ISRAEL: SAVING LIVES ABROAD

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Tonight Sheba Medical Center will send its first response delegation to Zambia.The situation in Zambia is difficult due to cholera .

The team from Sheba includes prof. Elhanan Bar-on, prof Eli Schwartz and Mr. Moshe Hagai the water engineer from Sheba. They will evaluate the situation and report back to Israel about the needs there.

The Israel Center for Disaster Medicine and Humanitarian Response,Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer

Mass casualty events, natural disasters and humanitarian crises around the world necessitate

Effective and expert preparedness and immediate response to minimize human suffering.

This type of precision response requires experienced emergency medical teams,

Logistic support and assertive crisis leadership.

The Israel Center for Disaster Medicine and Humanitarian Response at Sheba Medical Center was established in 2017 by highly experienced specialists in this field to lead the charge in preparing and responding to global humanitarian crises and emergencies.

Through a strategic combination of teaching, training, operational deployment and research, the Israel Center for Humanitarian, Emergency and Disaster Medicine is spearheading a comprehensive curriculum for responding to mass casualty incidents to share worldwide.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran’s Mullahs: Dictators Who Need A Perpetual Enemy Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on January 5th, 2018

Nikki Haley, America’s formidable ambassador to the United Nations, has done it again. The Iranian uprising has been hard to “see.” Cell phone videos, photos, Facebook posts and Twitter allow us only sporadic peeks, and even those are being shut down in places, as the Islamic regime works to close Iranian access to the wider world. Ambassador Haley used her microphone to spread the slogans of the protesters:

“Let go of Palestine”
“Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life (only) for Iran”
“Leave Syria. Think about us.”
“Don’t be afraid; don’t be afraid, we’re all together.”
“Feel some shame (Khameini). Let go of the country.”
“All these brigades have come out to the street; they’ve come out against the leader.”
“Political prisoners must be freed.”
“Independence, freedom, Iranian Republic.”

For all that the mainstream media, and erstwhile members of the Obama “echo chamber” would have us believe this is an economic uprising, it is inextricably tied to the political desire of the Iranian people for freedom and a government that responds to their needs and aspirations. It is inextricably tied to Iranian nationalism – and tied to the choices of their government to spend the national treasury on war. Yes, the Iranian economy is terrible – even after the easing of trade sanctions and the delivery of pallets of cash by the Obama administration. But the Mullahs running the Islamic Republic are not interested in the economy, the people, or nationalism. Months ago, I wrote in a different context: