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February 2016

A kiss in Havana: Pope rolls out his ‘Mission Impossible’ on world stage: By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING-Much to the amazement of the rest of the world, Pope Francis and the Vatican have been steadily raising their profile in international affairs over the past couple of years.

The latest expression is a historic meeting in Havana, Cuba that took place between the Pope and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on Feb. 12. A symbolic “kiss” in an airport VIP room symbolized the first meeting between two leaders of the churches in 1,000 years in a political gesture also aimed at Russia. The pontiff also broke precedent on Feb. 2 by sending a Chinese New Year’s greeting to President Xi Jinping. He also called on the world “not to fear China’s rise” in an exclusive interview with Asia Times.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis embrace in Havana.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis embrace in Havana.

At first glance, this may appear to be a miracle. But the developments have deep historical roots. It is a continuation of the Vatican’s past approach to world affairs that shows itself more clearly due to the failure of the US, its competitors, the UN and other existing agencies to provide leadership in the world. Sensing a political vacuum, the church has moved to fill the void.

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Last Night’s GOP Debate: Lies and Liars By James Arlandson

“If strength of language without all the anger that Trump showed is the criterion, then Rubio won, with a close second to either Cruz or Bush.Bottom line: Rubio did what he had to do, so the laurels go to him.”

The main story for the night was anger and passion. Does this help or hurt the GOP’s prospects in November?

Everyone seemed nervous, including the main moderator. His voice quavered. But the moderators were not the story, so we can move past them.

Everyone talked about Scalia’s passing and how important this election is. Two branches of government are at stake.

With that appropriate opening, let’s take them in alphabetical order.

Bush

He criticized Trump as having a wrongheaded foreign policy. Russia should not be an ally, and Assad should not remain in power. Bush does not get his foreign policy from TV, which Trump does.

Bush told Trump to stop attacking Bush’s elderly mother. Trump leveled the charge that George W. did not keep America safe; look at 9/11, after all. Bush shot back that while Trump was building a reality TV show, his brother was building a security apparatus that kept us safe.

He brought up Trump’s “McCain is a loser” comment. Trump denied it, but unconvincingly, because everyone knows he said it.

He went after Trump on eminent domain. Trump pointed out that George W. used it to build a stadium. Jeb said he disagreed with his brother; eminent domain is okay for public reasons, but not for private business.

His line of the night: Reagan said to tear down this wall, while Trump tears down other people.

Don’t Let Obama Fill Scalia’s Seat By Bruce Walker

Congress has frittered away virtually every constitutional power save one: the power of the Senate to deny presidential appointments to the federal bench. If Senate Republicans expect conservatives to ever trust them on anything, then they must decline to consider Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Scalia.

There is precedent for this. In 1968, when Republicans were a Senate minority possessing only the power of filibuster, Everett Dirksen prevented Lyndon Johnson from appointing Associate Justice Abe Fortas to replace retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren and then appointing Homer Thornbury to take Fortas’s seat as an associate justice.

Senate Minority Leader Dirksen did not run the Senate or control any Senate committees. Republicans, in fact, held only 36 Senate seats, and several of these were leftists. Yet Dirksen was able to cobble together enough senators to prevent Johnson from filling a Supreme Court office during a heated election year. The left, of course, squealed and yelled, but it lost, because Senate Republicans and a handful of Senate Democrats stood firm.

If Everett Dirksen, who was only a moderate conservative holding a very weak hand, was able to thwart LBJ, who had been Senate majority leader before he was vice president and who knew all the ropes and all the tricks of the Senate, then Senate Majority Leader McConnell clearly has the power to do the same.

In fact, all McConnell and the Republican leadership have to do is to decline to consider any nominee appointed by Obama. State clearly that the Senate is exercising its constitutional power and, unlike Obama who presumes powers he does not have, that the power to confirm or deny a presidential appointment is at the heart of the Senate’s control of the Executive Branch.

Michael Galak The Very Russian Mind of Vladimir Putin

Dr Michael Galak and his family came to Australia as refugees from the Soviet Union in 1978
His country enjoyed a decade of the relatively good life, courtesy of its energy exports. As that bounty shrinks and collapses, don’t expect the leader’s grasp on power to be enfeebled. Paranoia, propaganda and history will likely put pay to any and all hope of change, let alone reform
L’etat, c’est moi

— Louis XIV

Those words reflect not only the totality of a leader’s identification with the functioning of his entire state, they also speak of a damaged personality and, in their imperious arrogance, a lack of insight that we should bear in mind when contemplating the fundamental distinctions between Western and Russian governance. The former’s ability to change leaders and adjust in an orderly, transparent and bloodless fashion sets it apart. Russians on the other hand, along with Arabs, Africans and many others not blessed by traditions of democracy, property rights and free speech, lack such mechanisms. This makes it of immense importance to understand the personality of the autocrat presiding over the Russian Federation and its nuclear arsenal. As the West has no choice but to cope with Vladimir Putin, it is essential to understand him.

First, never forget that Putin is a product of a country isolated from the wider world by history, religion and culture, even down to its alphabet. Above all, what has set Russia apart is the abiding fear of its ruling class that their own people will come to recognise just how pitifully incompetent and corrupt are their masters. Russians bear the accumulated scars from centuries of bloodshed and despotism, the well-founded expectation being that those in power will always feel free to treat the populace with utter contempt when it suits their purposes. This is Putin’s cultural legacy as both a product of that society and the man who now presides over it. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel put it in one of her more astute moments, Putin inhabits a world of his own. He is sincerely convinced that he is empowered to redress with his actions and policies the historic injustices he sees as having been inflicted on his homeland by the West. To balance the scales, to achieve what he sees as “justice”, he will do whatever he deems is required. More than that, he will do so without shame, reservations or apology.

The US Senate Must Hold the Line By Frank Salvato

With the passing of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia we stand at a very sober moment for our nation, a moment that finds the US Constitution – and the idea of constitutionality in general – in a very fragile state. With the make-up of the US Supreme Court existing on a razor’s edge between the conflicting ideologies of Progressivism (which views the Constitution as malleable) and Constitutionalism (which sees the document at a limitation on government) what happens in the next months will serve to chart the course for our country. The two paths couldn’t be more different: one a pathway to national demise.

I am want to recall a passage from a speech that Ronald Reagan gave in 1964:

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

Today, with the passing of Justice Scalia, the Republican and Conservative members of the United States Senate have met up with their own “rendezvous with destiny.” They will soon be presented with a nominee to the US Supreme Court from President Obama, a Far-Left Progressive who has already seated two political activists to the Court. It will be the Senate’s duty – not their option, but their duty – to deny Mr. Obama another Progressive seat on the US Supreme Court.

Progressives by their very nature believe that the US Constitution is a flawed document; something to be improved, perfected and otherwise titrated to the needs of the times. That is anathema to what the Framers intended and history bears that out. The Framers intended for the US Constitution to be the “chains” that binds government to the service of the nation, not the service to the ideological and/or the few.

Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying:

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

Pentagon Says North Korea Bent on Developing Missile That Can Reach U.S. Report comes after recent rocket launch and as America and its regional allies consider ways to confront a more-menacing Pyongyang By Gordon Lubold

http://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-says-north-korea-bent-on-developing-missile-that-can-reach-u-s-1455318851

WASHINGTON—North Korea remains committed to developing a long-range, nuclear-armed missile that could pose a threat to the U.S., a Pentagon report released on Friday said.

That conclusion, in a report required by Congress every other year, underscores the security concern posed by the country less than a week after its leader Kim Jong Un test-fired a Taopodong-2 long-range rocket.

But it is North Korea’s KN08 intercontinental ballistic missile, known as the Hwasong-13, that could have the capability to pose a threat to the U.S., according to the assessment.

“If successfully designed and developed, the KN08 likely would be capable of reaching much of the continental United States, assuming the missiles displayed are generally representative of missiles that will be fielded,” the report said. It noted the complexity of the system and said it would require multiple flight tests for the missile to be effective.

North Korea also continues to develop another weapon, the TD-2, which also could reach the continental U.S. if it were configured as an intercontinental ballistic missile, the report said. READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN AT THE SITE

Barack Obama Promises to Nominate Successor for Justice Antonin Scalia Sets stage for fierce battle with Republicans over who next will sit on the Supreme Court By Carol E. Lee

http://www.wsj.com/articles/barack-obama-promises-to-nominate-successor-for-justice-antonin-scalia-1455417127?mod=trending_now_1

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif.—The sudden vacancy on the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia presents President Barack Obama with both a historic opportunity and one of his steepest challenges during his last year in office.

Mr. Obama quickly sought to lay down his marker in what had already become a pitched political debate over Mr. Scalia’s successor in the hours after his death was announced Saturday.

The president stepped before the cameras during a golf vacation in California to make clear he wouldn’t leave Mr. Scalia’s vacancy for his successor to fill, as some Republicans have suggested. By addressing the matter immediately, Mr. Obama underscored how fiercely he intends to mount a public campaign to pressure the Senate to confirm the third Supreme Court nominee of his presidency.

“I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor in due time,” Mr. Obama said Saturday. “There will be plenty of time for me to do so, and for the Senate to fulfill its responsibility to give that person a fair hearing and a timely vote.”

Mr. Obama will be the first president since Ronald Reagan, who nominated Mr. Scalia, to be tasked with filling three Supreme Court vacancies. He now faces a decision on what type of nominee to choose: a liberal, as desired by his Democratic Party base, or a moderate who may have a better chance of winning the 14 Republican votes needed to meet the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to secure confirmation. READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN AT THE SITE

America, be wary of a Palestinian state! Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger,

President Obama and Secretary Kerry intend to advance recognition of an independent Palestinian state by January 20, 2017, the end of Obama’s second term, irrespective of its adverse impact upon the national security and homeland security of the US. Therefore, the President turned down a request by the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, to make a commitment to veto any UN Security Council resolution, which calls for an independent Palestinian state. According to the President, and the US foreign policy establishment, a Palestinian state would enhance stability, moderation, peace, and democracy.

How credible and reality- based is this assessment/expectation?

In 1993, Senator John Kerry and the US foreign policy establishment were convinced that Arafat – a role model for international terrorism – would respond to Israel’s unprecedented Oslo Accords concessions by ”transforming himself from lawlessness to statesmanship.” However, their assessment was discredited by an unprecedented wave of Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas-engineered hate-education, incitement and (the resulting) terrorism, which still persists today.

In 2011, President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Senator Kerry believed that the eruption of turbulence on the Arab Street was an Arab Spring, youth revolution, Facebook revolution, transitioning the Arab World to democracy: “Through the moral force of nonviolence, the people of the [Middle East] have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades….” However, their assessment has been disproved by the reality of an anti-US, anti-human rights, terror-driven and Islamic supremacy-inspired Arab Tsunami, led by ruthless minority regimes, followed/cheered by obedient and politically insignificant Muslim majority.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Reversing Alzheimer’s symptoms. (TY UWI) Israel’s Dr. Shira Knafo heads Spain’s Molecular Cognition Laboratory at BioCruces Health Research Institute. She has discovered a small protein, which inhibits the processes normally associated with impairment, including depression and Alzheimer’s disease.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/02/09/medical-breakthrough-israeli-scientist-heading-intl-research-team-reverses-alzheimers-symptoms-in-mice/ http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.4225.html

Sealing wounds without stitches, tape or bandage. Israel’s Vigor Medical Technologies won the Innovex Disrupt contest at Tel Aviv’s Innovex2016 conference. Vigor’s sealant system treats thoracic trauma, a chest injury that can cause the lungs to collapse. If treated within one hour, the patient has an 80% survival chance.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/start-ups-sealant-for-collapsed-lungs-nabs-prize-at-innovex/

Sensors to monitor the elderly. Kytera is another Israeli startup that has developed innovative sensor technology to keep a close eye on at-risk seniors. It also collects anonymous data that can be used to provide vital research on specific illnesses or medications. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOTn_rmJexc

Heart device saves more lives. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported on Israel’s V-Wave in May 2014 when it implanted its first heart shunt to treat congestive heart failure patients. It has since successfully treated over 30 patients. V-Wave has just raised $28 million to expand clinical evaluation, development and production.
http://vwavemedical.com/2016/01/20/v-wave-ltd-announces-28m-series-b-financing/

Portable ultrasound. Professor Yonina Eldar at Israel’s Technion is developing an innovative portable ultrasound system that transmits scans to the treating physician immediately. Scans can be performed in disaster areas, at road accidents, and in developing countries where the medical infrastructure is limited.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/technion-develops-small-portable-ultrasound/2016/02/09/

Socks to warn of foot ulcers. Another great innovation from Hadassah / Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s BioDesign students. Their SenseGo socks contain dozens of micro-fabricated pressure sensors that send warnings via smartphone of incorrect posture or ill-fitting shoes that may cause foot ulcers to develop.
http://new.huji.ac.il/en/article/28743 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drc7NpiiB74

Another app to cure stuttering. Israel’s Ninispeech enables people who stutter to take control over their speech, using unique mobile feedback technology. NiNiSpeech catalyzes assimilation of speech strategies, encourages communication, sharpens learning curve, and maximizes success rate. 3 top Israeli doctors are cofounders, including Dr Yoav Medan, ex-CTO of Israeli focused ultrasound specialists InSightec.
http://www.ninispeech.com/

Device to shakeup a snorer. (TY Dan) Israeli startup Nexense manufactures a device to treat snoring and sleep apnea. Worn as a chest strap or wristwatch, it detects snoring or sleep apnea and then vibrates to help the patient resume breathing or stop snoring, without waking him / her up. http://nexense.com/?page_id=87
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-sleep-apnea-treatment-co-nexense-raises-3m-1001099272
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cUgh38h8gI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrCod0AQgyw

Linked to Life. (TY Chani) Cancer charity Ezer Mizion has a unique WhatsApp Group. “Linked to Life” has about 4,000 volunteers who respond fast to (sometimes life-threatening) problems. Like forgotten medication or a premature baby who needs special formula. http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/whats-app-by-kobi-arieli/