Displaying posts published in

November 2019

Peggy Noonan Reminds Us Why Trump Won The NeverTrumpers’ fundamental error. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/peggy-noonan-reminds-us-why-trump-won-bruce-thornton/

Three years after outsider Donald Trump blew up the political world with his implausible victory over the consummate insider, Hillary Clinton, many establishment Republicans still don’t get it. From their elite cocoon, they continue to indulge the hauteur that put off ordinary voters who had grown tired of a fossilized political class that serially ignored their interests, and seemed more concerned with their own insider perks and privilege, rather than in repairing the damage that decades of bipartisan progressive technocracy had inflicted on the Constitutional order.

The grande dame of the disgruntled NeverTrump Republicans has been the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, whose columns on Trump usually sound like a mash-up of the prescriptions of Emily Post and a snobbery redolent of Lady Violet Crawley from Downton Abbey.

Noonan’s latest is an attack on the Republicans’ behavior during the House impeachment hearings, coupled with a scolding of the anonymous author of the anti-Trump book A Warning. We should credit her takedown of “anonymous” as “self-valorous and creepy.” But her comments about the Republicans reveal the underlying grounds for NeverTrump hatred: the resentment against those who don’t accept the progressive assumptions that politics is the business of a self-proclaimed guild possessing knowledge, techniques, and professional manners and decorum that the voting masses don’t have.

As typical of a Noonan column, she starts with some sly preening of her insider-status as a wise political guru: “A young foreign-affairs professional asked last week if the coming impeachment didn’t feel like Watergate.” Unlike hoi polloi, Noonan knows “foreign-affairs professionals,” and they seek her out for her wisdom. She then proceeds to contrast the “dignity and professionalism of the career diplomats” whom the Democrats––“disciplined in their questioning and not bullying and theatrical”––called on to testify, with the Republicans’ “interruptions and chaos-strewing” that she compares to “some of what the Democrats did during the Kavanaugh hearings.”

Who Is Winning The Climate Wars? Francis Menton

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&

If you get most of your news passively by just reading what comes up in some kind of Facebook or Google feed or equivalent, you probably have the impression that the Climate Wars are over and the Climate Campaigners have swept the field of battle. In my case, I certainly don’t rely on those kinds of toxic sources of information, but I do regularly monitor many of the media sources in the “mainstream” category — the New York Times, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Economist, Politico, and several of the television networks like CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN. All of those (and plenty more) have clearly put an absolute ban on any news or information that would cast even the slightest negative light on the proposition that there is an imminent “climate crisis” that must be solved by government transformation of the world economy.

I’ll give a couple of examples of the lengths to which this has gone. Back in September, mentally unstable Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, whose only qualification was her ignorant passion for climate extremism, got the platform of the UN “Climate Action Summit” for a big speech. Excerpt:

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

You would think that sane people would want to stay as far from Greta as possible lest they get accused of child abuse. But instead, Greta is feted as a heroine. In October something called the Nordic Council awarded young Greta its 2019 Environmental Award. (It seems that she has rejected the award, thus claiming for herself an even higher level of holiness among true believers.)

Impeachment: 3 Crucial Questions, 3 Answers, So Far By Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/11/23/impeachment_3_crucial_qu

Question 1: What did the president want from Ukraine?
 
The Democrats presented testimony that Trump cared much more about getting Ukraine to investigate the Biden family than he did about advancing American national security. That’s the most likely explanation for the five-week hold on aid to Ukraine. But the Republicans have offered a plausible alternative, though not an entirely convincing one. Given Ukraine’s dismal record on corruption, they say, wasn’t it prudent to wait briefly and see whether country’s new president lived up to his big promises?
 
Question 2: Can the Democrats prove their case?
 
Can they show conclusively that the president wanted something illicit and was using official resources to get it?
 
Democrats need firsthand proof of Trump’s motives to demolish the Republican case. That means they need documents or testimony from people who dealt directly with the president. Democrats have subpoenaed some of Trump’s close aides; the president ordered them not to testify. Nancy Pelosi has decided to skip over them rather than wait for the Federal Courts to adjudicate the conflict between the two branches.
 
The result, so far, is what Scottish courts call “unproven.” Crimes that carry draconian punishment rightly require conclusive evidence to match. The Democrats simply cannot produce it without firsthand accounts.
 
Question 3: What’s the rush?

The Democrats argue — and have presented testimony — that Trump cared a lot more about getting Ukraine to investigate the Biden family than he did about advancing American national security. If Trump’s real goal was bringing down the Bidens, and if he tried to get Kyiv to do that by leveraging U.S. foreign aid and the prospect of a White House meeting, then he would be wrongly seeking personal, political benefits from a foreign government against a likely 2020 competitor.

Those are reasonable arguments. Indeed, they are the most likely explanations for the 55-day hold on aid to Ukraine, which Congress had authorized. Still, other explanations are possible, and the White House and its Republican allies have offered them. They say Trump had perfectly legitimate national-security concerns about U.S. policy in Ukraine, that he had often mentioned them to advisers, and that he paused the aid as he evaluated them.

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

 www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

 

As this week’s newsletter shows, the Israeli descendants of the Patriarchs are still building items of historic significance. From artificial knee cartilage, to devices that recognize viruses from bacteria; from joint Arab-Jewish learning programs, to water purification systems for hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico; from robots, to satellites; from electric planes, to fraud detection systems, from eco-friendly weed-killer, to ecological parks; and from better access for the disabled, to life-saving bone marrow databases.  Michael Ordman 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Israeli-developed artificial knee cartilage. Israeli doctors performed the first commercial replacement surgery of the meniscus (knee cartilage) on two Israeli patients. Via a small incision, they each received the NUsurface artificial meniscus implant developed at the Netanya, Israel R&D center of US company Active Implants.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/two-patients-in-israel-get-netanya-developed-artificial-meniscus/  
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Worlds-first-artificial-meniscus-implant-performed-in-Israel-608138  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M96NW_uqa-A
 
Positive results for Brainstorm’s ALS trial. As reported (here) previously, the stem cell treatment for ALS from Israel’s Brainstorm is doing well in trials.  The latest Phase 2 trial of Brainstorm’s autologous bone-marrow derived MSC-NTF cells (Nurown) in 48 patients at 3 US sites was effective and well tolerated.
http://ir.brainstorm-cell.com/news-releases/news-release-details/brainstorm-cell-therapeutics-announces-publication-nurownr-als
 
The first Hadassah accelerator graduates. Hadassah Accelerator, run jointly by Hadassah Medical Center IBM and the Jerusalem Development Authority, has graduated its first six med-tech startups. They are MyMilk, TuneFork, Deep Health, Neuroya, Ukappi and MDI Health Technologies.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3772621,00.html https://www.mymilklab.com/
https://www.tunefork.co.il/  http://deep-health.co/ http://www.neuroya.com/https://www.mdi.health/
 
New med-tech TV series. A US TV production team has been filming for a documentary series on Israel’s medical device industry. It will showcase the people and technologies that are saving lives around the world. The show, called “TrueFuture,” will feature Israel in eight to ten episodes in Series 3.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/documentary-delves-into-growing-weight-of-startup-nation-on-med-tech-scene/
 
More Euro funding for virus / bacteria test. (TY UWI) The European Innovation Council has just added 2.5 million Euros to international funds that Israel’s MeMed previously received (see here) to roll out its test that distinguishes between a virus and a bacteria. Very timely for World Antibiotic Awareness Week (Nov 18-24).
https://www.israel21c.org/is-it-a-virus-or-a-bacteria-israeli-solution-wins-e2-5m-award/
 
Let’s get loud. (TY Janglo) On October 15th, 2019, Koolulam collaborated with Israeli NGO ‘One in Nine’ to mark International Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  2,000 people got together in Tel Aviv to sing Jennifer Lopez’s hit “Let’s Get Loud” and celebrate life alongside breast cancer survivors, families and friends.    
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqFzLJXg40 https://www.onein9.org.il/support-services/?lang=en
 
 

The ‘Thought Police’ Come to Norway by Bruce Bawer

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15192/norway-thought-police

[A]s commentator Nina Hjerpset-Østlie put it, it is now illegal “to burn your own books”. Which, she added, means that although Norway’s longstanding blasphemy law was taken off the books four years ago, Bjørnland has, in effect, reinstated it.

Jon Wessel-Aas, a prominent lawyer… called Bjørnland’s one-woman revision of the racism clause “at best prior restraint of an illegal utterance,” and at worst “prior restraint of a legal utterance.” Both forms of restraint, he noted, are unconstitutional.

In defense of Bjørnland’s novel interpretation of criminal law, Martin Bernsen, a senior official of the PST, the agency in charge of Norway’s national security, argued that burning copies of the Koran can trigger acts of violence. Under this kind of logic, of course – the so-called heckler’s veto – any statement or action whatsoever that just might antagonize violence-prone Muslims should presumably be treated as illegal, whereas burning, say, any number of copies of the Talmud or Bible is no problem, since Jews and Christians aren’t in the habit of responding to such actions with mass acts of savage bloodshed.

Americans whose memory of public events goes back more than a news cycle or two may recall Terry Jones, a previously obscure Gainesville, Florida, preacher whose announcement in 2010 of a plan to burn copies of the Koran drew public condemnations from then President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus. Secretary of State Robert Gates phoned Jones personally and asked him not to go ahead with the burning.

In the end, Jones put off his planned 2010 action, burning one Koran in 2011, another in 2012, and hundreds on September 11, 2014.

Jones did not escape legal consequences for these actions. In 2011 he was jailed for a few hours in Dearborn, Michigan, by authorities worried about the possible consequences of his planned participation in an anti-Islam rally, but the ACLU took his side and a county court ruling upheld his First Amendment rights. He was fined $271 in 2012 for violating Gainesville’s fire safety rules. A planned mass burning of Korans on September 11, 2013, resulted in an arrest for transporting fuel, but this verdict was overturned by a circuit court judge. In short, although high-ranking federal officials from the president on down were concerned about Jones’s activities, and although some local officials overreached in their efforts to squelch his plans, the courts ultimately protected his rights.

‘Climate Emergency’ Is Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year Catherine Smith

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/22/climate-emergency-is-oxford-dictionaries-word-of-the-year/

Oxford Dictionaries has declared the phrase “climate emergency” as its Word of the Year, after a 10,000 percent spike in usage.

Since 2004, Oxford has selected a Word of the Year from a word or phrase that has seen an upsurge of interest and reflects the ethos, mood, or preoccupations over the past year, with lasting potential for long term cultural significance.

Oxford defines “climate emergency” as “a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it.”

The phrase“climate emergency” was once relatively obscure, but after a huge spike in its usage this year, it has become one of the most prominent expressions among English speakers. According to a statement published by their panel, “In 2018, climate did not feature in the top words typically used to modify emergency, instead the top types of emergencies people wrote about were health, hospital, and family emergencies. But with climate emergency, we see something new, an extension of emergency to the global level.”

This existential threat surpassed all other “emergencies” in writing by a “huge margin” despite not even making the list in 2018. Even other variations of the same concept, exhorting attention to the health of our native planet, were eclipsed by the relative urgency of the phrase.

The phrases “climate crisis” and “climate action” also made Oxford’s Word of the Year 2019 shortlist.

The Curtain Closes on ‘The Schiff Show’ The California Democrat and chief inquisitor might have exited the stage but his impeachment reel is forever. Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/22/the-curtain-closes-on-the-schiff-show/

Every theater rat knows that closing night is even tougher than the debut.

After all the auditions, the practices, the blocking, the tech rehearsals, the dress rehearsals, the opener, and the full run, the final performance usually comes quicker than expected.

Exhausted and emotional, nerves are as raw as they were during callbacks. The leading man glances around at his castmates one last time, realizing he’ll never have the same experience again. A bow to the orchestra pit, a gesture to the lighting crew, roses for the director, and a prolonged, bittersweet wave to the crowd—then the heavy red curtain slowly closes the stage off from the cheering audience.

The show, the ensemble must accept, is over.

In what presumably was his final encore Thursday afternoon, U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) bid an emotional farewell to his long run as the lead role in his impeachment inquiry, a.k.a. “The Schiff Show.” As the lights dimmed and folks headed for an early exit, Schiff choked up during his closing monologue.

“In my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law,” Schiff emoted, voice trembling, tears welling. “And I would just say to people watching here at home and around the world [dramatic pause] . . . we are better than that!” Voice breaking, Schiff then gaveled his theater to a close.

Winning Was Trump’s High Crime and Misdemeanor His conflict with his staff over Ukraine was nothing compared with Obama’s decision to leave Iraq. By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/winning-was-trumps-high-crime-and-misdemeanor-11574466051

When I don’t get the feeling Adam Schiff is secretly working for the Russians, I get the feeling he’s secretly working for Donald Trump. The latter feeling predominated during two weeks of impeachment hearings. The case, which doesn’t strike me as strong, should be that Mr. Trump withheld, or threatened to withhold, congressionally mandated military aid for Ukraine for an illegal purpose. But the witnesses who were supposed to be harmful to Mr. Trump weren’t. They failed to establish, or even argue, that Mr. Trump’s concern with the Biden role in Ukraine, or Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election, was illegitimate.

State Department witness George Kent testified that he himself upbraided Ukrainian officials for ending an investigation of Burisma, Hunter Biden’s employer, which U.S. taxpayer dollars had helped support. He called for—guess what?—an investigation: “I would love to see [Ukraine’s government] find out who the corrupt prosecutor was, and who took the bribe, and how much he was paid.”

William Taylor, another presumably hostile State Department witness, was sufficiently open to the agenda of his outsider president to propose that an official other than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky make the wished-for announcement, “in coordination with Attorney General Barr’s probe into the investigation of interference in the 2016 elections.”

Like a dinner-theater detective, Mr. Schiff shouts “Aha!” at every confirmation of what has been obvious since the White House released its own transcript of the Trump call with Mr. Zelensky. The Trump administration was keen on arming Ukraine and supporting its new government to exact a cost from Vladimir Putin. That is, everybody in the Trump administration except the president himself, who was cool or indifferent to this agenda but intruded only occasionally to push the Biden talking point.

His staff, apparently appreciating who actually received votes from the electorate, busied itself at times trying to reconcile Mr. Trump’s agenda with their own. And yet, in the manner of factotums everywhere, the agenda they ended up delivering was their own—Ukraine got its arms and presidential meeting—while Mr. Trump’s fell through the cracks.

Mr. Trump is chaotic, unschooled and politically motivated, but only the first two qualities differentiate him from other presidents. He cares only about “the big things,” Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified. Isn’t that the job description? If President Obama’s staff had been as successful as Mr. Trump’s, U.S. troops would never have left Iraq. Yet Mr. Obama was entitled to make the trade-off he did, unfortunate as it was. Securing re-election is the first thing any president owes his supporters. It’s what makes our system go ’round.

Unfortunately, the media, in the grip of narrative-itis and its own partisan myopia, leaves no fact or logical premise unmolested. Numerous outlets peddle the fallacy that election meddling is what economists call a rivalrous good: If Russia engaged in it, Ukraine couldn’t have. An NBC reporter, lacking any bombshells, proclaims that a “bombshell” is the word “more” in an official’s recollected impression that Mr. Trump “cared more” about investigations than he did about Ukraine.

The national media is an idiot at this point to keep the name of the whisteblower, which they’ve known for weeks, from the public. His identity and motives are unquestionably newsworthy. The media exists to report newsworthy information. All the press does is sow distrust about what other news it’s hiding. CONTINUE AT SITE

Former CIA Officer Sentenced to 19 Years in Prison Over Chinese Espionage Contacts By Tobias Hoonhout

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/former-cia-officer-sentenced-to-19-years-in-prison-over-chinese-espionage-contacts/

A Central Intelligence Officer who was paid nearly $1 million from Chinese sources, and admitted to taking directions from Chinese agents to reveal classified U.S. intelligence, was sentenced to 19 years in prison Friday, the third former U.S. intelligence officer to be convicted this year over contacts with China.

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, who served for over a decade in the CIA, “had firsthand knowledge of some of the CIA’s most significant secrets, from the location of operations to counterintelligence techniques to the identities of clandestine human sources and the identities of covert CIA officers,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

Lee was arrested in January 2018 after the FBI found notebooks and a thumb drive containing classified intel on CIA operatives and locations. He pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to provide national defense information with a foreign government.

Israeli Settlements Are a Political, Not a Legal Issue By Douglas J. Feith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/israeli-settlements-are-a-political-not-a-legal-issue/

It was not radical for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to revive the Reagan policy.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has just upended longstanding, widely held opinion about the legality of Israel’s West Bank settlements. Critics say he is off on the law, has radically broken with U.S. policy, and is undermining the pursuit of peace. Those critics are wrong on all scores.

Pompeo made four main points. First, the settlements are not “inherently illegal.” Second, the West Bank’s fate should be determined through negotiations. Third, international law “does not compel a particular outcome” in favor of Israel or the Palestinians. And fourth, the issue is political in nature, not legal, and attacking the settlements’ legality “hasn’t advanced the cause of peace.”

For 35 years U.S. administrations refrained from repeating President Carter’s criticism of Israeli settlements as illegal, Pompeo recounted, but then President Obama broke with this policy by taking the Carter position at the United Nations. President Reagan had rejected Carter’s view. “This administration,” Pompeo said, “agrees with President Reagan.”

I advised President Reagan on the subject. Here’s some background.

President Carter had a famously strained relationship with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin. Carter pressured him to make concessions to the Palestinians. This included condemnation of Israeli settlements as illegal, supported by a five-page letter dated April 21, 1978, and signed by State Department legal adviser Herbert Hansell.