ELECTIONS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Election Integrity’s Biggest Threat: Big Tech Why Republicans Cannot Win; Monitor Tech Manipulations, Make Findings Public by Robert Epstein

Posted By on May 1st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19608/election-threat-big-tech

[T]ech companies… can flip elections any and all ways they please without anyone knowing.

When you monitor, you can catch them in their shenanigans, and you can get them to back down. We got Google to back down by exposing some of the manipulations that they were engaging in in the presidential election.

You may not have heard the term “ephemeral experiences” before…. These are very brief experiences that we all have online every day. They are things like newsfeeds, search results, search suggestions, sequences of YouTube videos. None of that is recorded anywhere. It affects us, as Google executives know full well.

It just appears, we click, and it disappears. It is stored nowhere, it leaves no paper trail for authorities to trace. It can be used to manipulate, and it is being used to manipulate very deliberately and strategically, especially at Google. I think some of the other companies as well have been catching on, especially Facebook.

[A]s of 2015, you could shift so many votes that way that we calculated that upwards of 25 percent of the national elections in the world – the outcomes of those elections – were being determined by Google’s search engine.

[These manipulations] are shifting people’s opinions week by week. [They] are shifting people out of the undecided group into the other groups. People are making up their minds, but because of the bias in search results, anything that they search on, anything political at all, is leading them to web pages that make one candidate look better than the other….

You play that forward for six months. When you get to the election, you have an enormous gap. You have created a gap of more than 100,000 people between the votes we shift into Democrats and the votes we shift to Republicans – with no one knowing and with no paper trail. That is roughly how this works.

[I]n 2016, my team and I developed the first-ever system for doing to the tech companies what they do to us…. [W]e are monitoring what they are showing real people on those screens.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Jerusalem rally was a reminder that democracy didn’t lose; the left did Ruthie Blum

Posted By on May 1st, 2023

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-jerusalem-rally-was-a-reminder-that-democracy-didnt-lose-the-left-did/

 Those of us who were among the hundreds of thousands of participants in the right-wing rally in Jerusalem on Thursday evening weren’t surprised when the “resistance” bloc pulled a two-fer: downplaying the significance of and attendance at the event, on the one hand; and treating the happening as evidence that Israeli democracy is in danger of annihilation at the hands of fanatics, on the other.

Nor did we imagine that coverage from most media outlets would be accurate, let alone fair, since they’ve been acting all along like a branch of the protest movement. Instead, we drew encouragement from the throngs of fellow members of the national camp who turned up to bolster the government and urge it not to be bullied into backtracking on its mandate.

Both were necessary under the circumstances, with the Orwellian doublespeak of the opposition having become so blatant that it’s putting regular propaganda to shame. Indeed, the projection on the part of the protest instigators isn’t merely jaw-dropping (calling the government, rather than those trying to topple it, a “coup,” for instance); it’s actually been successful at sowing self-doubt in coalition circles.

Ahead of the opening of the Knesset’s summer session on Sunday, then, it was particularly crucial for lawmakers to be reminded of the populace that isn’t drinking the Kool-Aid—those still expecting and demanding judicial reform, with or without a broad consensus. It was also important to highlight that compromise on this or any other issue isn’t on the agenda of the forces spearheading the weekly demonstrations.

The points were made amid much good cheer and lots of applause for the speakers. Justice Minister Yariv Levin was given an especially warm welcome, in addition to cautionary chants of “Don’t be afraid!”

The message was that he shouldn’t cave on the judicial-reform process that the government had put on hold. This was done to allow for negotiations to bring about an agreement and prevent civil war.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Getting the Candidate We Deserve Time to redesign the GOP presidential nominating process.by Jeffrey H. Anderson

Posted By on May 1st, 2023

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/getting-the-candidate-we-deserve/

In his 1888 essay, “Why Great Men are Not Chosen Presidents,” Britain’s James Bryce wrote that “the ordinary American voter does not object to mediocrity.” Yet by the time of Bryce’s writing, less than one score removed from Abraham Lincoln’s day, America had already produced eight presidents who Bryce said were “statesmen in the European sense” or who “belong to the history of the world.” If Bryce could see the dearth of presidents over the past half-century fitting either of those descriptions, he might recalibrate his assessment of earlier voters’ expectations.

In recent voters’ defense, however, they can hardly help pulling the lever (or licking the stamp) for mediocrity when our current presidential selection process serves up little else. It’s hardly surprising, moreover, that this process was designed (to the extent it was designed at all) by the left wing of the Democratic Party. Republicans then adopted it without much debate. Nor should it be surprising that this ill-advised system hurts Republicans more than Democrats.

The current process is an outgrowth of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The New Left was frustrated because, though Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy and New York Senator Robert Kennedy battled closely in the primaries, Lyndon Johnson’s vice president Hubert Humphrey sat out those contests yet walked away with the nomination. He was the last nominee of either party to win the honor without entering a single presidential primary. Those dissatisfied with Humphrey’s independence or moderation successfully pushed for a post-election review of party rules led by Senator George McGovern and Representative Donald Fraser. The McGovern-Fraser Commission sought to replace the old process for selecting presidential nominees, in which Democratic party leaders would decide on a nominee at the convention. Primary elections, previously regarded as non-binding recommendations to the convention from the electorate, became the deciding factor in choosing candidates. To the delight of party radicals and the dismay of party regulars, the first great success of the new rules was the nomination of McGovern in 1972, who went on to win one state and the District of Columbia. Republicans, not wishing to be seen as insufficiently “democratic,” had already obligingly decided to follow suit.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Vivek Ramaswamy Schools Chuck Todd on the Evils of Transitioning Children By Matt Margolis

Posted By on May 1st, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/04/30/vivek-ramaswamy-schools-chuck-todd-on-the-evils-of-transitioning-children-n1691640

Democrats have a history of claiming to be the party of science. To them, their positions are objectively supported by scientific evidence, be they about abortion, the COVID-19 vaccines, or climate change. Yet, the “science” that they claim backs up their positions is not exactly true. The most recent example of this is the radical left’s endorsement of transgender ideology.

On NBC’s Meet the Press when moderator Chuck Todd engaged in a debate with GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on this issue, particularly when it comes to children, Ramaswamy argued that it is reasonable to prohibit genital mutilation or chemical castration through puberty blockers for minors. Chuck Todd disagreed, offering some ginormous whoppers to support his position.

“But below the age of 18, I think it’s perfectly legitimate to say that we won’t allow genital mutilation or chemical castration through puberty blockers,” Ramaswamy said.

“You’re calling it that, but how do you know it’s that? Again, how do you know? Are you confident that you know that gender is as binary as you’re describing it? Are you confident?”

For what it’s worth, Ramaswamy graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude with an A.B. in biology and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Chuck Todd, however, attend George Washington University and majored in political science but didn’t earn a degree.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Hot, Hot, Hot: Global Warming Models are Running Hotter than Reality

Posted By on May 1st, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/01/hot-hot-hot/

The sky warriors hold the climate models that have been predicting global doom to be sacrosanct. But as we have reported many times in the past, they’re flawed. A new research paper confirms our warnings. It would be helpful if the brand name media would make note of it. We won’t be holding our own hot air, though.

A January report from Berkeley Earth – self-described as a “non-profit research organization” that “has been preparing independent analyses of global mean temperature changes since 2013″ – starts out as anyone would expect: with a frightful declaration “that 2022 was nominally the fifth warmest year on Earth since 1850.” Which of course means nothing.

It goes on to say “​​the last eight years have included all eight of the warmest years observed in the instrumental record,” another string of words that sound ominous but aren’t. 

What is important, however, is buried near the bottom of the report.

Since 1980, Earth’s temperature trend “has changed little.” The researchers reckon that global temperatures have increased 0.19 degrees Celsius per decade over that period. The data was pulled from 50,498 weather stations combined with sea-surface temperature data.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the predictions that have been made by the climate models. Their forecasts indicate that ​​temperatures should be increasing at the rate of about 0.28–0.29 degrees Celsius per decade. That’s about 50% higher than the increases Berkeley Earth found.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Don’t Count Ron DeSantis Out If he wants to win, he has to ease up on the culture war and start appealing to moderate primary voters. By Mark Penn

Posted By on May 1st, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-count-ron-desantis-out-trump-2024-gop-primary-moderates-culture-war-34be9a75?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Can Ron DeSantis beat Donald Trump? In the game of presidential politics, well-known front-runners often falter and up-and-comers often win—Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy Carter came from nowhere to beat establishment figures such as Rep. Mo Udall and Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson. When Mr. Trump was the challenger, he polished off Jeb Bush, the Florida governor who once led the pack.

The DeSantis ship is clearly listing and must right itself. I wouldn’t normally give advice to a Republican candidate, but someone has to stop Donald Trump from regaining the presidency, and I wouldn’t count on President Biden to do it given his low job-approval rating and widespread doubts about his fitness. Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden in the RealClearPolitics polling average. A Trump-Biden rematch is a risky proposition, and with the Democrats consolidated around Mr. Biden, the only way to avoid it is through the Republican primary.

To get back in the game, Mr. DeSantis has to put cultural issues to the side and run on character, competence and common sense. He has the strong character of a family man who cares for his wife, a cancer survivor; the energetic competence of an accomplished governor; and the common sense to campaign on such issues as a balanced budget, a workable immigration system, crime policies that target criminals and improve policing, and programs that reduce the size of government. The major issues facing the country ,according to Mr. DeSantis’s supporters in the latest Harvard/CAPS Harris poll, are inflation (36%), immigration (29%), and the economy and jobs (28%). Eighty-one percent of all voters back a plan to balance the budget, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents. This could be the cornerstone of a smart economic plan.

Challenger presidential campaigns always have at least one near-death experience, so a dip isn’t unusual. Mr. DeSantis has been swinging for social conservatives, which has alienated centrist and liberal voters while failing to take any voters from Mr. Trump. Conservative Republicans have, in the face of Mr. Trump’s indictment, rallied behind the former president. How long this supports lasts or how it might hold up in the event of other indictments isn’t clear, but Mr. Trump definitely has gained strength in recent weeks.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Women in Science Are Doing All Right A new study challenges the notion that sexism is rampant in the sciences.

Posted By on May 1st, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-female-scientists-are-all-right-women-engineering-wage-gap-sexism-discrimination-b186f9d9?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

The toy maker Mattel recently honored International Women’s Day by making “role model dolls” of women in science, tech, engineering and math jobs, while lamenting that “girls are systemically tracked away from STEM.” It’s a cliché that these fields are rife with sexism, but at least in academia the data disagree, according to a new paper in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

“The literature on women in science, both scholarly and popular, portrays academic sexism today as an omnipresent, pervasive force in the daily lives of tenure-track women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields,” write Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams of Cornell and Shulamit Kahn of Boston University. Yet their review of the evidence from 2000 to 2020 shows that women in scholarly sciences are doing fine.

Tenure-track women are at parity with their male counterparts in grant funding, recommendation letters and having research accepted by journals, the authors say. In hiring, women have an advantage over men: “Women are less likely than men to apply for tenure-track jobs, but when they do apply, they receive offers at an equal or higher rate than men do.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on April 30th, 2023

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

On May 14, 1948, eleven minutes after the declaration of the reborn state of Israel, Unite States President Harry Truman, officially recognized the legitimacy and sovereignty of the Jewish State. He did so in spite of the advice of some of his most trusted cabinet members. His memory is a blessing.

This was a magnificent moment in the history of the Jewish people and answer to the prayer of Jews from time immemorial- “Hear oh Israel.” Israel heard and became a remarkable democracy whose dazzling and outsize contribution to all human endeavors in science, technology, medicine, agriculture, water circulation and succor in crisis, are listed by Michael Ordman below.

On a personal note, the first time my family visited Israel was shortly after the fragile cease-fire that ended the Arab war against the state. Our car had a flat tire in Beersheba and while my father and the driver were attempting to inflate a spare, a squadron of small airplanes flew overhead with the Star of David prominently displayed.  My little brother shouted “Jewish planes!” Indeed! those little planes were the first manifestation of the mighty and state of the art Israel Defense Forces whose responsibility and destiny are the defense of the Jewish state. Happy Birthday Israel. Rsk

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Cancer therapy breakthrough. (TY WIN) Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed nanoparticles containing RNA that silences the protein CKAP5 – essential to the stability of many types of cancer. The therapy causes the cancer cells to collapse and is 80% effective in lab tests targeting ovarian cancer.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/370420  https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade4800
 
Diffusing radiation therapy for inoperable cancer. Israel’s Alpha Tau Medical (see here previously) has used its Alpha DaRT radiation therapy to treat its first patient with advanced inoperable pancreatic cancer. The Montreal trial will treat 30 patients with Stage II, III, or IV pancreatic cancer or an inoperable pancreatic tumor.
https://www.alphatau.com/single-post/alpha-tau-jgh-announce-alpha-dart-treatment-of-first-patient-in-pancreatic-cancer-clinical-trial
 
Preventing mosquito bites. Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers have discovered that a thin coating of natural, sustainable, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) applied to human skin, decreases the number of mosquito bites by 80%. In combination with the naturally occurring amino acid Indole, it is over 99% effective.
https://www.jns.org/hebrew-u-researchers-develop-new-method-to-prevent-mosquito-bites/  
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37056470/   https://www.ourcrowd.com/companies/alpha-tau
 
Relieving social anxiety without pills. An Israeli-led study of 105 adults with social anxiety disorder used therapy based on eye-tracking, combined with a musical reward. The “gaze-contingent music reward therapy” (GC-MRT) was just as successful (50%) as the standard psychiatric medicine.
https://www.israel21c.org/musical-technology-relieves-social-anxiety-without-drugs/
https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.20220533
 
Relieve stress with an AI-based nutrition coach. April is Stress Awareness Month in both the USA and UK, Israeli-US startup myAir has marked it by launching its stressless routine smart food platform. It includes 24/7 personal support from an AI-based nutrition coach to supplement its nutrition bars (see here previously).
https://myair.ai/landing/coach/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz_AMupe9wQ
 
Turning out alright. It took an Israeli – Dr Abraham Yaari – to invent the Yaari Extractor™- a simple device that solves shoulder dystocia – an emergency where a baby’s shoulders are preventing safe delivery. The device allows the obstetrician or gynecologist to turn the baby 45 degrees, thus preventing its suffocation.
https://nocamels.com/2023/04/super-simple-device-that-frees-trapped-babies/  https://yaariextractor.com/
 
Matching patients to the best treatments. The normally anti-Israel BBC has discovered Israel’s Genetika+ (see here previously) which is developing a precision tool that uses Artificial Intelligence to determine if a particular antidepressant will work for an individual.  https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65260592
 
Super-paramedic. Benny, a United Hatzalah volunteer EMT, treated two victims of a terrorist stabbing.  Before that, however, he helped immobilize the terrorist.  A real life Israeli super-hero.
https://israelrescue.org/blog/barehanded-emt-neutralizes-knife-wielding-terrorist-then-treats-two-injured-people-one-in-serious-condition/
 
Israeli doctor saves passenger. For the second newsletter in a row, another Israeli doctor saved an airline passenger. This time it was a teenager who suffered a severe anaphylactic attack. United Hatzalah volunteer Dr. Natan Ungar used adrenaline to treat the patient, and the El Al plane continued from Tel Aviv to New York.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/370205
 
Robotic surgery saves Jerusalem doctor. When Dr. Ariel Lipschuetz fractured his back skiing in France, he called Dr Schroeder, Director of Hadassah’s back unit. Amazingly, he was skiing only 26km away and arranged for robotic percutaneous fixation surgery at Hadassah. It saved Dr Lipschuetz from almost certain paralysis.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-739194
 
Celebrating the Remarkable 3. I highly recommend watching this inspiring video of some of the pioneering medical science and researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University. It describes BGU’s groundbreaking discoveries and innovations in 3D printed science, cancer research, biomedical engineering, and so much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv81QOBhdrY

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Outcome of Proud Boys Trial Could Decide Trump’s Fate Guilty verdicts in the most consequential January 6 trial will be the green light the Justice Department has been waiting for to go after the former president. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on April 28th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/27/outcome-of-proud-boys-trial-could-decide-trumps-fate/

Of the hundreds of video clips used as evidence in the marathon trial of five members of the Proud Boys, prosecutors began closing arguments not with a clip of the defendants engaged in criminal activity but with a clip of Donald Trump.

The government showed the jury a portion of the September 2020 presidential debate; goaded by Joe Biden and then-Fox News host Chris Wallace to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups” in an effort to downplay Black Lives Matter and Antifa violence, Trump asked them to “give me a name.” Biden quickly answered, “the Proud Boys.”

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said in response.

The offhand remark—Trump later said he did not know who the Proud Boys were—made the group “jubilant,” assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe told the jury on Monday morning. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what,” Mulroe said, referring to Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Enrique Tarrio, Dominic Pezzola, and Zachary Rehl.

Prosecutors have used the clip at other points during the nearly four-month trial—a not-so-subtle reminder to jurors from a city that voted 93 percent for Joe Biden that the men on trial supported Trump. But the Justice Department may have a more sisnter reason to tie the Proud Boys to the former president. Any convictions in this trial would give Special Counsel Jack Smith, an independent prosecutor in name only, justification to pursue similar charges against Trump as a coconspirator of sorts.

In fact, the Proud Boys face three conspiracy counts: seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and a conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties. A conspiracy, according to the government, only requires the agreement of two or more individuals.

Prosecutors insist the conspiracy began on December 19, 2020—a date that should alarm Team Trump. At 1:42 a.m. on December 19, Trump tweeted this: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” According to the Justice Department, that prompted Tarrio and Biggs to formulate plans to “radicalize” the group.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Ruling Class’s Stalinist Purge By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on April 28th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/the_ruling_classs_stalinist_purge.html

Recent history has shown us the end result of the injustices Joe Biden and his administration are committing.

Like a hammer smashing anyone who seeks to “make America great,” the ruling class pounds Trump, his supporters, and now even Tucker Carlson.  A “great America,” you see, is antithetical to the technocratic police State that the Marxist globalists are busy building.  When individual rights and liberties are respected, self-sufficient Americans do not need government apparatchiks to fashion drab, one-size-fits-all, welfare-dependent, groupthink-dominated futures.  When American families are independent and strong, there are no psychologically unstable, lost, “woke” generations to crave parenting from the State.  When Americans choose God’s truth over the government’s lies, then man-made institutions look frail next to the divine.  Anybody who does not toe the Establishment line must go because totalitarianism cannot survive even a whisper of condemnation.  Lies built from sand can withstand no breeze.

I think this difficult period of American history — during which the Marxist globalists and their appeasers have openly embraced censorship, political persecution, and social “cancelation” — will be remembered as a kind of Stalinist “purge” long in the making.  I should say “Soviet purge,” because Lenin used murder and imprisonment to silence dissent (or potential dissent) just as ruthlessly as his successor.  It was Stalin who really took it to the “intellectuals,” though, and many who ignored Lenin’s brutality out of a self-sabotaging allegiance to communism belatedly learned that any system predicated on total control over individual minds will eventually find anybody with a mind a threat.  

The more general “Soviet purge” has been ongoing for decades, as defenders of liberty — often politically conservative in their outlook and in possession of true religious faith — have been run out of academia, denied promotion within the federal bureaucracy, and kept from having any editorial voices on the pages of the nation’s leading newspapers.  Everybody has been aware that the Marxists’ “long march through the institutions” has been trudging along unabated, but because those who parroted “politically correct” opinions found professional advancement and steady accolades while their colleagues “disappeared,” they held their tongues and said nothing.  Now the “Stalinist purge” begins in full swing, and many who have traded their consciences for cushy lifestyles over these last few decades will learn that totalitarian systems always save their supporters for dessert.