NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

The Freedom Caucus: Our last line of defense By Earick Ward ****

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

Unless Trump is coordinating an end-around, this is a huge (yuge) mistake. Here’s why.

While Donald Trump drew in countless new, historically Democrat voters, his base was and is the conservatives, formally defined as the Tea Party. The Tea Party came onto the scene at the outset of the Obamacare debate in Congress. They made the case (rightly) that Obamacare would inflate premiums, cause patients to lose their doctors and plans, decrease full-time jobs in favor of part-time employment, and add countless persons to the Medicare rolls. All of these cautions (and more) came to fruition.

“Repeal and replace” has been a rallying call for millions of Americans, including a large majority of those who voted for Donald Trump. Countless congressmen and senators won seats by affirming their support of the repeal and replace efforts.

Nothing, or very little, anyway, of last week’s debate – and, subsequently, the bill being “forced” on the Freedom Caucus – represented what anyone could seriously consider a repeal and replace of Obamacare.

There is an ideological war being waged between liberal progressives (from both parties) and conservatives. This war has been ongoing for at least a couple of decades (if not a century). While we (Republicans) have gained countless state and federal congressional seats, governorships, and now the presidency, at the federal level, we have seen little movement off the progressive agenda advanced by Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi.

The Freedom Caucus’s crime: standing on what they ran on in their districts. The horra.

Here’s Donald’s mistake: while he may truly be concerned about 2018 congressional seats being lost due to not passing a bill “reforming” Obamacare, if we’re not able to unwind dependency on government for health care, we’ll be forever chasing voters who will continue to vote for the Party of Santa Claus.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Russia: Rubber Ducks and Green Paint by Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

How the United States responds to these protests abroad can determine not only the future of those protesting, but also the future of the governments that find themselves under pressure.

Russia seeks superpower status in the Middle East and Europe, but real superpower status has always required the ability to shoulder burdens abroad without fear of upheaval at home.

Ignoring the Green Movement in Iran was a missed opportunity for the West and a tragedy for the people of Iran. It is not America’s job to create or foment unrest in Russia or anywhere else. But it is in the interest of the West to support and hearten those who have the courage to take on a corrupt and aggressive government.

For all the hyperbole in Washington about Russian hacking, Russian disinformation, Russian influence, and Russian espionage, the really remarkable events in Russia over the weekend appear barely to have registered.

One hundred years after the assassination of the last Czar, and two-and-a-half decades after the fall of the communist regime, Russian people have taken to the streets.

In early March, anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny posted a report on YouTube detailing the corruption of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. After more than 13 million views in roughly three weeks, people, including a large number of teenagers, answered Navalny’s call for public protest. They flooded the streets of 95 Russian cities, as well as London, Prague, Basel, and Bonn. Many carried rubber ducks — or real ducks — referring to reports of a luxury duck farm on one of Medvedev’s properties.

Navalny is now in jail.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

London Attacker Made Test Run, Security Officials Say Tracking of Khalid Masood’s car GPS showed he drove across Westminster Bridge and approached Parliament only days before attack By Benoit Faucon and Jenny Gross

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

LONDON—Investigators have concluded that the 52-year-old man who killed four people in a car-and-knife attack near Parliament made a test run in the days before, two security officials said Thursday.

U.K. investigators are still trying to piece together the motives and planning behind Khalid Masood’s attack last week, the worst in Britain since a series of coordinated bombings in 2005 killed 52 people.

Two security officials said tracking of his car’s GPS showed he drove across Westminster Bridge and approached Parliament on Saturday, March 18. The following Wednesday he plowed into pedestrians on the crowded bridge before crashing his car outside Parliament and stabbing a policeman. He was shot dead by police.

Masood’s movements show he prepared the attack, rather than making a last-minute decision beforehand, the officials said.

But it also suggests he wasn’t a trained terrorist. In that case, he “would have come on the same day of the week, or at least a weekday, to ensure the security measures and traffic were similar,” one official said.

A London police spokesman said “the investigation is live and ongoing, and we’re not prepared to comment further at this time.”

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that it was a response to U.S.-led coalition strikes against the extremist group. But police said they have found no evidence he was linked to Islamic State or al Qaeda. Investigators have said that they believe he acted alone and was inspired by Islamist terrorism. CONTINUE AT SITE

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Netanyahu Pushes New West Bank Settlement Construction is intended to house families evicted from Amona outpost By Rory Jones and Felicia Schwartz

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday proposed the first new settlement in decades in the West Bank as Israeli officials and the White House appear to have reached an understanding on future settlement construction.

The new settlement will be built to accommodate roughly 40 families—about 300 residents— evicted in February from a settlement outpost called Amona, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said. The move needs to be confirmed by the Israeli cabinet, his office said.

The announcement comes as U.S. and Israeli officials in recent weeks have conducted talks on limiting settlement construction in the West Bank after President Donald Trump asked Israel to hold off.

The Trump administration gave the new settlement tacit approval on Thursday, by refraining from condemning the settlement construction, as past Democratic and Republican administrations have done.

A White House official said the Trump administration has made clear that “further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace” and welcomed Israel’s commitments to consider U.S. concerns about settlements in the future.

“With regards to the new settlement for Amona residents, we would note that the Israeli Prime Minister made a commitment to the Amona settlers prior to President Trump laying out his expectations, and has consistently indicated that he intended to move forward with this plan,” the official said.

The talks between the U.S. and Israel have aimed at creating the conditions to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table on a future peace deal, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

The U.S. on Thursday called on Israelis and Palestinians to take “reasonable actions moving forward that create a climate that is conducive to peace” and said it would continue to work with the parties and regional powers. CONTINUE AT SITE

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Does Harvard Consider Oscar Wilde ‘Marginalized’? A new requirement to study authors kept down by ‘racism, patriarchy and heteronormativity.’ By Heather Mac Donald

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

Starting next fall, English majors at Harvard will be required to take a course in authors “marginalized for historical reasons.” Those “reasons” include “racism, patriarchy and heteronormativity,” the English Department’s chairman, James Simpson, told the Harvard Crimson.

Campus agitation for an identity-based curriculum is by now drearily familiar. But Harvard’s recent mandate goes further, creating a new literary typology: On one side are the marginalized authors; on the other, authors who, by implication, may have benefited from “racism, patriarchy and heteronormativity.” Academia has already furnished unlettered students with excuses aplenty to ignore the greatest works of Western civilization. Now they’ve got another one.

The Harvard English major imposes few substantive demands: a one-semester survey spanning the millennium from 700 to 1700; a semester of poetry; a course that serves as a vehicle for immigration and postcolonial themes; and one semester of Shakespeare. After that, students are on their own, free to fill out their credits with random classes in literature, theory, creative writing, or “related courses” outside the English Department.

In other words, Harvard, like virtually every other college today, eschews any responsibility for ensuring that students are systematically exposed to the landmarks of the literary canon and that they understand the evolution of literary forms. For Harvard to add a requirement in “marginalization” signals that the faculty considers it important enough to override the department’s laissez-faire philosophy.

It is unclear, though, how the prestigious status will be conferred. How will the faculty decide whether an author has been marginalized because of “patriarchy,” say, rather than because she wasn’t that good in the first place, or because literary tastes have changed? There were female novelists and pamphleteers in the 19th century who have disappeared from view. Is that sexism, or simply the judgment of time? Does Oscar Wilde qualify as marginalized? “Heteronormativity” may have made his final years miserable, but it had no effect on the boundless success of his plays.

Literary reputations rise and fall—for white men as for everyone else. England’s first poet laureate, John Dryden, was once regarded as the heir to Shakespeare, Donne and Milton. Today, at least in the U.S., he is barely read. Likely explanations are that neoclassical verse has fallen out of favor and that few modern readers have the contextual knowledge to understand his satires. Why do similar explanations not hold for “marginalized” authors?

Moreover, given the historical disparities in educational opportunity, it is wrong to assume that all groups should be proportionally represented in the literary pantheon. For centuries, only European males (with few exceptions) received the rigorous training in the Classics that provided the materials for literary creation.

The reasons to study literature include linguistic beauty and insight into the human condition. Being “marginalized” is not one of those reasons, nor should an author’s sex and race count for or against him. If a great work happens to be unknown, that is another matter, one that has nothing to do with social justice. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

What Devin Nunes Knows Team Obama was spying broadly on the incoming administration. Kimberley Strassel

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

California Rep. Adam Schiff may not offer much by way of substance, but give him marks for political flimflam. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee was so successful at ginning up fake outrage over his Republican counterpart that he successfully buried this week’s only real (and bombshell) news.

Mr. Schiff and fellow Democrats spent this week accusing Chairman Devin Nunes of carrying water for President Trump, undermining the committee’s Russia investigation, and hiding information. The press dutifully regurgitated the outrage, as well as Mr. Schiff’s calls for Mr. Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation into possible Russian electoral meddling.

All this engineered drama served to deep-six the important information Americans urgently deserve to know. Mr. Nunes has said he has seen proof that the Obama White House surveilled the incoming administration—on subjects that had nothing to do with Russia—and that it further unmasked (identified by name) transition officials. This is goes far beyond a mere scandal. It’s a potential crime.

We’ve known since early February that a call by former national security adviser Mike Flynn to the Russian ambassador was monitored by U.S. intelligence. There’s nothing improper in tapping foreign officials. But it was improper that Mr. Flynn’s name was revealed and leaked to the press, along with the substance of his conversation. The media nonetheless excused all this by claiming one piece of Mr. Flynn’s conversation (sanctions) was relevant to the continuing investigation into Trump-Russia ties. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Senate Republican Suicide A filibuster deal with Democrats over Gorsuch would be a judicial and political disaster.

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

House Republicans immolated themselves over health care last week, and now Democrats are hoping the Senate GOP will perform its own kamikaze turn over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. If Republicans blink and tolerate Democratic filibusters of High Court nominees, they should hand over their majority to the Democrats now.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s strategy is transparent: Stage-manage an unprecedented filibuster against Judge Gorsuch, and then portray Republicans as radicals if they change Senate rules to break it. The gambit is to coax at least three of the 52 GOP Senators to cut a deal with Democrats that hands the minority political leverage over President Trump’s judicial nominees.

Mr. Schumer and other Democrats are trying to lure those Republicans into a deal by preaching a false institutionalism that claims to be acting for the good of the Senate. They want to scare the GOP into believing that breaking a filibuster would somehow break the Senate as a deliberative body that requires 60 votes and bipartisan consensus to act.

But the real radical act is a Supreme Court filibuster. Mr. Schumer wants to use the filibuster to defeat Judge Gorsuch outright, or negotiate a deal that gives the judge a confirmation pass of 60 votes in return for a guarantee that GOP Senators won’t break a filibuster on future nominees during the Trump Presidency.

Either result would do great harm to the Senate’s advice and consent role under the Constitution, tilt the Supreme Court to the left, reward the most partisan voices in the Senate on the left and right, further inflame grassroots conservative outrage against political elites, and deal a grievous wound to the Republican Party. Other than that, a great day at the office.

Start with the fact that there has never been a partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. The elevation of Justice Abe Fortas to become Chief Justice in 1968 failed amid bipartisan opposition due to his policy collaboration with the White House while he was a Justice.

The one cloture vote to end debate on that nomination failed 45-43, well short of the 67 votes required at the time. Nineteen Democrats and 24 Republicans voted against cloture in what was the last year of Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency, and Fortas asked LBJ to withdraw his nomination.

Filibusters were mooted against William Rehnquist and Samuel Alito but never materialized. A cloture vote against Rehnquist failed in 1971, 52-42, but he was later confirmed 68-26. Justice Alito easily won a cloture vote and was confirmed 58-42. Republicans never even attempted to filibuster Bill Clinton or Barack Obama’s four nominees.

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WHAT IS DHIMMITUDE? VICTOR SHARPE

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

Editor’s Note: This article was first published by us in 2015. With the state of terrorism and the terrorist attacks that are happening in the streets of our cities around the world, we have decided it was worth repeating.

Ask people in the United States what a dhimmi is and perhaps a handful might know. In Europe, and as far as India and the far east, the number would be higher because of latent memories of battles fought against invading Moslem armies across the span of centuries.

For a while there was the specter of triumphant Islam building a giant mosque mere yards from Ground Zero in New York City where Islamic fanatics, in the name of Allah, destroyed the World Trade Center and brought the two magnificent towers down in a cascade of horror.

The mosque would have risen to thirteen or more stories and overlooked the blasted hole in the ground that was once a symbol of America’s freedom and technical ingenuity.

If this outrage had been built, it would not have been a symbol of Muslim outreach to non-Moslems; it would have been a sickening insult to the victims of Islamic barbarism and a tangible rallying cry to millions more jihadists who would see it as Islam’s victory over a vanquished United States of America.

This would have been the 21st century revenge of resurgent Islam over those who centuries ago beat back the many previous Islamic invasions and attempted Muslim conquests of non-Muslim lands.

In 732, Charles Martel led his Frankish forces at Tours to victory against an Islamic invasion of France, which nearly destroyed Christian Europe. Similarly, Islam was ousted from Spain in 1492 after an occupation of the Iberian Peninsula by the Moslems for hundreds of years.

In Italy, Islamic power was brought to an end when the heavy Turkish galleys were defeated by Venetian galleasses at the great naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. And the Moslem Ottoman power, which at its height again threatened Europe, was barely turned back at the gates of Vienna on 11 September 1683 by a coalition of European armies. A previous 9/11.

These were four major defeats by Europe of Islamic attempts of conquest and subjugation set against a history of victorious Moslem invasions and conquests that has been the hallmark of Islam since its founding in the seventh century.

But what of the peoples and nations that fell under Islamic occupation? For them the story was one of forced conversions to Islam, slavery, death, and the Islamic institution of dhimmitude.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israelis develop a blood test to diagnose lung cancer by Dr. Itay Gal

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

Lung cancer is one of the most violent types of cancer, responsible for the death of 1.6 million patients each year; a first of its kind blood test, developed in Israel, succeeds in diagnosing the cancer long before it spreads in the body.

The new test is able to diagnose the disease long before it spreads in the body, thus increasing the chance of survival, as many patients usually die within a few months of the diagnosis.

Each year, approximately 1.8 million new lung cancer patients are diagnosed, a 1.59 million of whom will die within the first year post-diagnosis. Most cases are discovered by chance, after a screening test, or due to abnormal symptoms such as prolonged cough, bloody cough, breathing difficulties or weight loss.

Diagnosis of the disease is usually done via a CT scan, but its level of accuracy is not high, and in 25 percent of the cases, the lung scan shows lesions of which only 3% are indeed cancerous.

The new test was developed by Dr. Elon Ganor, CEO of Nucleix, in collaboration with his colleagues Dr. Danny Frumkin, Dr. Adam Wasserstrom and Dr. Ofer Shapira. The test is based on the genetic characterization of cancer.

Cytosine is one of the four main bases found in DNA and it is held together by three hydrogen bonds.

A study by Prof. Haim Cedar from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that the three hydrogen bonds molecule serves as a kind of on/off switch that activates (or deactivates) different genes and has a decisive effect on our susceptibility to cancer and other diseases. When a certain change occurs on the same molecule, a wild division of uncontrolled cells begins, resulting in the formation of cancerous tumors.

The Israeli researchers were able to isolate the specific change on that three-bonds molecule and designed a unique blood test that identifies it. To examine the efficacy of the development, two studies were conducted, involving 170 volunteers in each study: 70 were lung cancer patients and 100 were healthy, but belonged to groups at high risk for lung cancer, such as heavy smokers.

The results showed a specificity of 94% (i.e., 94% of the healthy subjects were indeed identified as healthy), and a sensitivity of 75% (i.e., 75% of the patients were indeed identified as diseased). This is a very high level of accuracy.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Nuclear Weapons: Trust But Modernize (Part II), by Peter Huessy

Posted By on March 31st, 2017

The United States is planning to modernize its nuclear deterrent over the next 25 years, an effort already two decades late in implementation. That delay, a procurement holiday, resulted in all elements of our nuclear enterprise-the warheads, the communications, the submarines, the land based missiles and the bombers and their associated cruise missiles-reaching the end of their service life nearly simultaneously.

The new modernization effort will thus take many years to complete and it is going to cost $27 billion this year. By the middle of the next decade probably $36 billion a year. In embarking on this effort, the new administration has said let’s have a “Nuclear Posture Review”, a review also done previously in 2010, 2003, and 1994.

Here is some advice for the review consisting of a Baker’s Dozen of nuclear “facts” we first have to get right.

The nuclear Triad is not a jobs program. It is not an invention of the secret so-called “military industrial complex”. As General Bernard Schriever told me some 35 years ago, we first developed the early versions of both the sea and land based intercontinental ballistic missiles we have today in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. Our very national survival was at stake. How did we know in advance both new missile types would work? No missile with a 2000 kilometer or more range had previously been deployed that could be fired from a submarine and no solid-fueled reliable land based missile based in the USA could yet reach the Soviet Union.

But we deployed Polaris submarines in 1959 and Minuteman missiles in 1962. Schriever helped direct both breakthrough technologies in record time. It was no conspiracy. It was actually a miracle.

We now know that nuclear deterrence-based on the Triad-works. It’s value should not be recklessly discarded or minimized. As former USAF Chief of Staff General Larry Welch explained in a 2015 speech “Nuclear deterrence has worked 100% of the time for 70+ years. It’s been perfect”. There is a reason he could say this. We got nuclear deterrence right.

Our nuclear armed missiles are also not on computer hair trigger alert. Just the opposite. As President Kennedy told the nation, our just deployed Minuteman missiles were his “ace in the hole” in preventing the Cuban missile crisis from ending up in doomsday. So stable have our nuclear missiles been, they have been on alert a collective 67 million minutes and never ordered to be launched by an American President.

So much for being in danger of being launched “accidentally” or on “hair trigger.”