NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Fiddles While Social Security Burns

Posted By on April 4th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/04/04/social-security-is-in-far-worse-shape-than-you-think/

The latest Social Security annual report, projecting that the Trust Fund will be exhausted in 2033, a year sooner than previously thought, politely explains that the Trustees “reassessed their expectations for the economy in light of recent developments.”

What recent developments, you ask? Rising inflation, declining output, weakened GDP forecast, and worsening labor productivity.

In other words, this is another bitter fruit from President Joe Biden’s poisoned economic tree.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen responded to the news about Social Security that “the Biden-Harris administration is committed to ensuring the long-term viability of these critical programs so that retirees can receive the hard-earned benefits they’re owed.”

But in his latest budget proposal, Biden offered no proposals whatsoever to shore up Social Security or prevent a looming 23% cut in retirement benefits that current law will require once the Trust Fund is emptied.

As bad as this seems, Social Security’s financial picture is actually far more dire. It’s likely that the Trust Fund won’t even make it to 2033.

The Social Security trustees have had to downgrade the Trust Fund repeatedly for the past 40 years when their economic and demographic assumptions turned out to be too optimistic. Back in 1983, for example, the trustees promised that the Trust Fund would remain solvent through 2058. By 2003, they were saying it would only be solvent until 2044.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘I Felt Bullied’: Mother of Child Treated at Transgender Center Speaks Out She was told medical intervention would help relieve her 14-year-old’s psychological distress. That’s not what happened. By Emily Yoffe

Posted By on April 4th, 2023

https://www.thefp.com/p/i-felt-bullied-mother-of-child-treated

When he was 14 years old, Caroline’s son got a pharmaceutical implant in his arm that was supposed to help relieve his psychological distress. It was a puberty blocker called Supprelin, and it would continuously release a drug for about the next two years that would arrest further sexual development. Caroline, 43, had been queasy about approving this, but she was assured by the psychologist at the The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital that this was what her son needed—that it was the standard treatment for young patients experiencing discomfort with their sex.

Instead of providing relief, Caroline told The Free Press, her son experienced a devastating decline in his mental and physical health after this intervention. Among the side effects of Supprelin, according to a handout from the Transgender Center, are “mood changes, and weight changes.” The manufacturer’s website also lists “depression, including rare reports of suicidal ideation and attempt.” 

Casey (not his real name) soon experienced all of these. Within a semester, Casey went from all As and Bs to a report card dotted with Ds and Fs. Many days he found it impossible to get out of bed. He missed so much school that it triggered an official meeting about his truancy that included a circuit court judge. He gained more than 30 pounds. 

Most alarmingly, during one therapy session about seven months after he started the blocker, he told the center’s psychologist that he was having suicidal thoughts. She recommended he be immediately checked into the psychiatric ward at Children’s Hospital. When he came out, he was taking several drugs for depression and anxiety. 

Caroline felt desperate and helpless, and she’d had enough. In June of 2022, she wrote an email to the clinic demanding immediate removal of the puberty blocker. The doctors in charge disagreed.

The Supprelin is still in Casey’s arm.

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s Hot Air About Spy Balloons It turns out the blimp was transmitting information to Beijing in real time.

Posted By on April 4th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-spy-balloon-intelligence-biden-administration-pentagon-beijing-27d5a9f8?mod=hp_opin_pos_6#cxrecs_s

Remember when a Chinese spy balloon flew across the entire continental United States? The Administration is hoping the public has forgotten about the February fiasco, so it’s all the more important to note that the Biden narrative about this spectacle is losing altitude as more details emerge.

Press reports on Monday suggest that the Chinese spy balloon that entered U.S. air space near Alaska on Jan. 28 was able to collect intelligence on American military sites. The balloon was spotted flying in Montana, home to intercontinental ballistic-missile fields. U.S. officials told NBC News that the Beijing blimp could fly in figure-eight pirouettes, lingering over areas of interest. The balloon could pick up electronic signals and transmit information to Beijing in real-time, NBC reports.

This is a Sidewinder missile through the White House-Pentagon talking points at the time, namely that the balloon didn’t present a big intelligence risk and couldn’t suck up better information than Chinese satellites in low-earth orbit. Americans were supposed to believe that China would go through the trouble of building a global balloon flotilla, spotted all over Europe and Asia, for no spying benefit.

The Administration repeated this claim all over town. The Pentagon told reporters on Feb. 2 “that whatever the surveillance payload is on this balloon, it does not create significant value added” over satellites. After President Biden ordered the balloon shot down off the U.S. East Coast, defense officials said on Feb. 4 that the action “further neutralized any intelligence value it could have produced, preventing it from returning” to Beijing.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Prosecuting political foes is incompatible with democracy Comparisons between the legal problems of Trump and Netanyahu illustrate the way the left in both countries is wrongly trying to use lawfare tactics to take down foes. Jonathan Tobin

Posted By on April 4th, 2023

https://www.jns.org/opinion/prosecuting-political-foes-is-incompatible-with-democracy/?utm_source=sendinblue&utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%2004-03-2023&utm_medium=email

These are heady times for those who hate both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The news that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had persuaded a grand jury to indict the former president on charges that have yet to be made public was greeted with chortles of satisfaction from the Jewish left, which was already celebrating the recent setback suffered by the Israeli prime minister after he put judicial reform on hold.

The prospect of Trump being booked in New York is not only being celebrated by those who call Netanyahu “crime minister” because of the long-running legal case on corruption charges that he has been fighting in and out of the courts for years. It has also allowed them to see the pair, despite the obvious differences between the two men and the legal stratagems that have been deployed against them, and their predicaments as part of a common struggle against what Haaretz called the way they both attack their respective countries’ democratic institutions.

To the left, that’s the important point.

Their claim is that both Trump and Netanyahu are enemies of democracy. That makes achieving their downfall not so much a matter of alleged wrongdoers getting their comeuppance but can be portrayed as a righteous cause in which threats to the common good are eliminated by lawfare. In that way, even the flimsiest of charges or the use of tactics that target an individual rather than enforcing the law is normalized rather than condemned as violating legal ethics. Actions that would easily be seen as an abuse of power are justified because of a supposedly higher purpose to the prosecution.

As different as the cases against Trump and Netanyahu are, what they have in common is that both men are political leaders being singled out by prosecutors for charges that weren’t so much tailored to their circumstances as they were invented for the sole purpose of taking them down.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on April 3rd, 2023

Regardless of your opinions on the political developments in Israel, one can only be dazzled by the incredible contributions of Israel to the world cataloged by Michael Ordman. rsk

http://www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Breakthrough discovery about pancreatic cancer. (TY Nevet & I24) An international study let by Hebrew University researchers has discovered that pancreatic cancer spreads (metastasis) due to reduced levels of the RNA controlling protein RBFOX2. The finding provides a new target for pancreatic cancer treatments.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-735101
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05820-3
 
How the gut impacts cancer treatment. A Weizmann Institute-led international team of researchers has found how bacteria in the gut microbiome affects the body’s response to cancer immunotherapy (see also here previously). Also, patients treated with specific antibiotics had a poor response to CAR-T cancer treatment.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/368694
 
Diagnosing pre-diabetes from gut microbes. Bar-Ilan University scientists have been able to early diagnose gestational diabetes – glucose intolerance that 10% of women suffer during pregnancy. Analysis of gut bacteria highlights inflammation even in the first trimester, giving vital time for treatment and lifestyle changes.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369075
 
No-pill treatment for acid reflux. (TY Hazel & Sidney) Specialists at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Centre have performed a simple endoscopic procedure, for the first time in Israel, that successfully treats patients suffering from heartburn acid reflux. It reconstructs a valve, avoiding more complex surgery or pills.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-734163
 
Hereditary disease treatment may cure statin pain. Researchers from Ben Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center developed Methylmevalonolactone to save sufferers of a rare deadly hereditary muscle disease. They are now testing it as a treatment for tens of thousands of sufferers of chronic muscle pain due to statins.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/muscle_disease.aspx  https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2217831120
https://nocamels.com/2023/03/new-israeli-drug-combats-deadly-muscular-disease/
 
Biological defibrillator. (TY Hazel & Sidney) Researchers at Rambam hospital and Israel’s Technion Institute have developed a biological receptor to treat heart rhythm disorders. If arrythmia is experienced, the patient takes medication that triggers the receptor to awaken the cells that regulate electrical activity in the heart.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-734381
 
The Waze of dental implants. (TY Israel21c) The Image Guided Implantology (IGI) system from Israel’s Image Navigation uses a CT scan and LED motion tracking to fix dental implants, even when a patient is moving. Red and green lights tell the dentist exactly where the drill tip is, thus reducing surgical treatment time.
https://jlm-biocity.org/image-navigation-to-launch-worlds-most-advanced-image-guided-dental-implant-technology/  https://image-navigation.com/
 
Laser treatment for jaw pain. (TY Israel21c) The cold laser therapy device from Israel’s B-Cure Laser treats many forms of pain due to inflammation. Two clinical trials in Italy proved its ability to treat pain in the jaw, known as chronic TMD and TMJ. Laser light promotes blood circulation to bring nutrients to affected muscles.
https://bcurelaser.com/temporo-mandibular-joint-disorder/
 
Remote lung analysis device approved. The US FDA has approved Tyto Insights™ for Wheeze Detection from Israel’s TytoCare (see here previously). The device uses a database of lung sounds to help clinicians accurately diagnose respiratory conditions remotely in adults and children aged 2+.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tytocare-receives-fda-clearance-for-its-ai-powered-tyto-insights-for-wheeze-detection-to-ensure-diagnostic-accuracy-from-home-301772786.html
 
Pioneering brain cooling saves Philippine woman. (TY UWI) Doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital saved Philippine caregiver Nurila, who suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Medication, catheter, and surgery didn’t stop blood flow, so her brain was cooled to 33 deg C for 8 days. The bleeding stopped and Nurila is now well.
https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-doctors-save-philippine-womans-life-with-new-brain-cooling-procedure/
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-734996
 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Saluting the unsung heroes of the Israeli Air Force By Ruthie Blum

Posted By on April 3rd, 2023

https://www.jns.org/opinion/saluting-the-unsung-heroes-of-the-israeli-air-force/

Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Tuesday evening that he was halting judicial-reform legislation to allow for dialogue between the coalition and opposition, the Israeli Air Force pilots who’ve been engaging in political extortion against the government said they’d return to duty. Their willingness to resume training exercises came with a caveat, however.

As one senior IAF officer warned, if the upshot of the negotiations taking place at the President’s Residence isn’t to their liking, his compatriots will resume their refusal to serve.

Though these cherished members of one of the Israel Defense Forces’ most crucial and elite branches not only crossed a red line—going so far as to threaten not to participate in a potential strike on Iran if their demands aren’t met—they’ve been let off the hook by their superiors.

The only one penalized was IAF Col. Gilad Peled. A key instigator of the pilots’ anti-government protest movement, he was discharged on March 9 for acting “contrary to the orders of the commander of the force and in a manner inappropriate to his rank and status.”

But the following day, IAF commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar reversed the decision to sack Peled, after the latter explained that he hadn’t encouraged any fellow Air Force personnel to refuse to serve. And IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi didn’t call either to task. On the contrary, he, too, has been listening to the “concerns” of the men and women in uniform ridiculously asserting that judicial reform will result in the destruction of Israeli democracy and the rise of a dictatorship.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Indict One—And All? Were the opposition to match tit-for-tat these Democratic means, then the republic would not survive. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on April 3rd, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/02/indict-one-and-all/

As we await the publication of all the impending indictments of former President Donald Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Americans are trying to figure out what constitutes an indictable offense for current and retired public officials.

Most legal experts, Left and Right, have noted:

1) Bragg promised in advance that he would try to find a way to indict Trump. His prior boasts are reminiscent of Stalin’s secret police enforcer Lavrentiy Beria’s quip, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Nancy Pelosi gave the game away, when in her dotage, she muttered that Trump had a right to prove his innocence as if he is presumed guilty.

2) No former president has ever been indicted—and for good reason. Such prosecutions would be viewed as persecutions and render all former presidents veritable targets of every publicity-hungry and politically hostile local, state, or federal prosecutor. They would reduce the presidency to Third World norms. Gratuitously prosecuting former presidents would become a political tool to harm the opposing political party or to tarnish the legacy of a former president.

3) Trump is currently ahead in the polls for the Republican nomination to face Democratic incumbent Biden. And in head-to-head matchups, he outpolls Biden. For a prosecutor of the same party as the current president facing reelection to seek to destroy the viability of a likely opponent is a first in U.S. history. But again, it is now in accordance with Third World norms.

4) At least two left-leaning federal and state prosecutors previously have passed on the same evidence Bragg is now using for his indictments. They have explained that such a prosecution is infeasible because of statutes of limitations, because of a state attorney improperly appropriating the role of a federal prosecutor, and because non-disclosures agreements are a fact of life and not strictly illegal.

5) Bragg’s chief witness Michael Cohen is a felon and confessed liar, with a deep personal hatred of Donald Trump—a fact well known to all potential prosecutors.

6) The current indictment follows a long line of historic harassment of Trump, including the first incidence of two impeachments of a sitting president, the first impeachment trial of a president as a private citizen, and the first FBI armed raid of a retired president’s home, the first instance of an FBI director leaking confidential presidential conversations to the media for the purpose of appointing a special counsel to remove a president.

ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why Is Europe Repressing Ritual Slaughter? Countries across Europe are cracking down on ritual slaughter, making the position of observant Jews and Muslims there more tenuous. Is concern for animals really the motivating factor?

Posted By on April 3rd, 2023

https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/jewish-world/2023/04/why-is-europe-repressing-ritual-slaughter/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&_kx=IxNycqF4MaUb7Z76cxkSoZoWZXWuvsEbectSn87eh

Over the last decade, there has been a growing debate in Europe, initiated primarily by animal-rights groups and environmentalists, about the desirability of banning religious ritual slaughter in the name of animal welfare. This debate has caused concern among Jews not only in Europe but also in Israel and North America, as the ban means for them—and many Muslims—the end of the production of the only meat they can eat.

It is difficult for Jews not to see, lurking behind the argument against animal suffering, the sly face of an anti-Semitism that has always been able to drape itself in the ideals of the moment. This fear is legitimate, but we must also keep in mind that it should not obscure the legal, political, and economic dimensions of the problem. For, when looked at from the right angle, the seemingly narrow controversy over ritual slaughter widens into a prism for better perceiving how a continent and culture are being torn between contradictory values.

I. The Carnivorous Challenge

To understand the sensitivity of Jewish communities toward the issue of ritual slaughter, it is helpful to discuss some basic notions about their relationship with animals in general and meat in particular. That relationship is strikingly close. According to Genesis, man was originally made by God to be a vegetarian, as in the Garden of Eden, where “every green plant shall be food.” (Later, however, the consumption of meat became an integral part of Jewish worship.)

Secondly, the Torah strictly prohibits the mistreatment of animals. It is forbidden for any human being to cut off a limb of a living animal and to eat it. Jews are also obliged to feed their animals before themselves, to relieve their suffering, and in general to cause them the least pain. They must make them rest on Shabbat and it is prohibited to muzzle animals to prevent them from feeding themselves during their work. One may not harness together an ox and a donkey.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Teachers’ Unions Are Destroying American Education By Robert Weissberg

Posted By on April 3rd, 2023

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

American public schools are witnessing a mass exodus of teachers.

The term “stampede” may be more appropriate. According to one poll conducted in 2022, some 55% of educators were ready to leave the profession, and this unease is often translated into action. In one Chicago school nearly every teacher bailed out. Many teachers are not even waiting for the end of the school year and are leaving in mid-term.

These departures overwhelming result from school violence, disorderly classrooms, insufficient administrative support, and trying to teach kids who just don’t care. According to one study during the 2020-21 school year, one-third of teachers reported at least one incident of harassment or threats of violence while 14% were actually physically attacked. The American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Violence against Educators and School Personnel reports that threats can even come from parents convinced that junior is “a good kid” despite carrying a knife to the classroom.

Cold statistics understate the fear of violence, especially in schools where poor, single-parent minority students predominate. Reports of physical confrontations quickly spread to others as does the unwillingness of school administrators to punish culprits.  Further add daily in-your-face hostility to learning such as talking during lectures, constant iPhone use, and obvious boredom that can kill a teacher’s commitment.

Under such circumstances, the usual workplace incentives are of little value to unhappy teachers. A 3% salary raise, or better medical plan, cannot compensate for daily living in fear for one’s safety. This is not the Great Depression where a secure teaching job was prized no matter what. Nor are today’s female teachers limited in their vocational options.   

The problems of unsafe and dangerous working conditions are the classic tribulations that precipitated America’s labor movement. After all, what could be more central to a union?  So, how are the two teacher unions responding? Answer: By making it worse.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

44 Retired Generals and Admirals Issue a Public Rebuke to the Bidenites Asking the Biden administration to provide Israel with the weapons it needs. by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on April 3rd, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/asking-the-biden-administration-to-provide-israel-with-the-weapons-it-needs/

Joe Biden has assured the world that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons “on my watch.” How much credence ought the people of Israel, who will be the ones most affected should Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, give to this assurance? None at all. Israelis cannot entrust their national survival to assurances from Joe Biden and the Bidenites, who have yet to say how they would prevent that acquisition by Iran of nuclear weapons, by stating clearly that “we will use our military power to destroy all of Iran’s nuclear facilities” if Tehran enriches uranium beyond a certain point.

Israel is now preparing for an attack on Iran it hopes it will not ever have to launch. It hopes instead that the Supreme Leader and the rest of his regime will call a halt to their nuclear program before it reaches a stage which will require Israel to act.

Now 44 retired American generals and admirals have made public a letter to the President and to Congress, asking that Israel be supplied with advanced weapons for use in a possible attack on Iran. More on this letter’s contents can be found here: “To Prevent Nuclear Iran, US Should Arm Israel, Write 44 Retired Generals and Admirals,” JNS, March 21, 2023:

In a March 20 open letter issued by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), 44 retired U.S. generals and admirals asked the White House and Congress to “immediately provide Israel with the advanced weapons it needs to deter and prevent a nuclear Iran.”

“Iran is coming ever closer to crossing the nuclear threshold and, thereby, sparking a crisis in the Middle East,” according to the letter released by the Washington, D.C. nonprofit. It first appeared in The Hill on March 21.

The signatories added that Washington should apply lessons from the one-year-old conflict in Ukraine: “It’s vital to arm capable and willing partners facing regional threats, and best to do so before conflict erupts.”

“As retired American military leaders who devoted our lives to the defense of our nation, we prefer a diplomatic solution that would genuinely end the threat posed by Iran’s escalating nuclear program,” they wrote. “But no such deal is imminent, nor realistic.”