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Ruth King

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL WHERE #ALL LIVES MATTER! FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on December 8th, 2019

Israelis and Israeli innovations that save lives are so prominent in this week’s positive Israel newsletter. Medical research breakthroughs and programs; vital medical devices and emergency responders; global initiatives to reduce hunger, poverty and drought; rescue operations, doctors and surgeons treating non-Israelis overseas; technology to prevent plane crashes, maintain emergency services and reduce CO2 levels; and organizations and activities that rescue animals.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Another breakthrough in pancreatic cancer research. Israeli scientists and doctors have induced the self-destruction of pancreatic cancer cells in mice. A small molecule, PJ34, normally used to treat stroke victims, reduced cancer cells by up to 90 percent a month. There were no adverse effects. Normal cells were unaffected.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-possible-breakthrough-molecule-destroys-pancreatic-cancer-cells-in-mice/
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-scientists-find-way-to-treat-deadly-pancreatic-cancer-in-14-days-609647  
 
US approvals for AI image analyses. Israel’s Zebra Medical has received several approvals from the US FDA. They include detecting heart disease, (see here) pneumothorax (lung trauma – see here), intercranial hemorrhages (brain bleeds – see here). It has just received another for detecting fluid on the lungs.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/zebra-medical-gets-fda-nod-for-device-that-detects-water-in-lungs/
 
Green light for finger prick blood test. As predicted previously, (13th May) the OLO finger prick blood test device from Israel’s Sight Diagnostics flowed through the US FDA approval process.  It enables use of the CBC (Complete Blood Test) device in laboratories run by hospitals, diagnostic providers, and outpatient clinics.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/unlike-theranos-startups-blood-test-device-delivers-on-promise-with-fda-nod/
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/04/reuters-america-u-s-fda-clears-israeli-startup-sight-diagnostics-finger-prick-blood-test.html
 
Israeli doctor runs Canadian AIDS clinic. (TY Robert) To coincide with World AIDS day, Robert Sarner wrote this article about Israeli-born Dr Neora Pick. As medical director of Canada’s only multidisciplinary clinic for women and children with HIV, she treats some of the 63,000 (and increasing) Canadians with HIV.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-born-doctor-fights-for-her-patients-at-canadas-only-holistic-hiv-clinic/
 
Increasing US-Israeli medical cooperation. (TY Janglo) 21 bipartisan US lawmakers have requested that the US establishes an FDA office in Israel to facilitate collaboration in life-saving research. They wrote that Israel’s world class medical research programs have positively impacted the global health system.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-lawmakers-call-for-a-food-and-drug-administration-office-in-israel/
 
Teva partners Israeli universities for new cancer treatments. (TY Nocamels) Israel’s Teva and Tel Aviv University have signed an R&D agreement in the fields of cancer and brain studies. Teva has also partnered with Israel’s Weizmann Institute to identify the next generation of innovative antibodies for cancer treatment.
https://www.tevapharm.com/news/Teva_and_Tel_Aviv_University_sign_a_collaboration_agreement.aspx
 
Showcasing Israeli digital health tech. Over a thousand participants gathered in Tel Aviv for the second annual Digital.Health.Now conference. It focused on showcasing advanced Israeli innovations in telemedicine, digital healthcare, and general wellness aided by technology.
http://nocamels.com/2019/11/virtual-hospitalnav-app-blind-ar-microscope-israel-digital-health-tech/
 
How blind people use Smartphones. One Israeli startup at the Digital.Health.Now conference was RightHear. (see here). This video shows how the blind use its technology to access the functions on a Smartphone. Also, (TY Jacques) RightHear is supporting the first official blind-friendly street in Israel, and possibly the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkQk8ZbToNo
http://israelbetweenthelines.com/2019/12/05/the-israeli-startup-leading-the-blind/
 
Calm down. Another Israeli product showcased at Israel’s Digital.Health.Now conference was Calmigo. Its advanced technology provides immediate, drug-free relief for moments of distress, anxiousness, and stress by regulating your breathing patterns and stimulating your senses.
https://calmigo.com/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ktjXiRCGOo
 
Reducing injuries. Zone7, founded by IDF veterans, uses AI to foresee and prevent injuries to sports people. It advertises an 80% reduction in injury days and provides coaches, trainers and sports scientists with intervention strategies. Zone7 is partnering its platform with global medical company Garmin Health.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zone7-raises-2-5-million-seed-round-to-help-professional-sports-franchises-and-ncaa-athletic-departments-predict-injury-risk-300803592.html  http://zone7.ai/
 
A day in the life. Last week 50 members of our synagogue were privileged to be given a tour of Emergency Service United Hatzalah’s headquarters in Jerusalem.  United Hatzalah’s volunteer EMTs arrive at the scene of an incident within three minutes, often saving lives in Israel.  Click the link to read a recent typical example.
https://israelrescue.org/blog/early-cpr-intervention-saves-truck-driver/   https://israelrescue.org/
 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why moderates are holding back on impeachment NBC News

By on December 8th, 2019

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/12/07/why-moderates-are-holding-back-on-impeachment/23876261/

BY JONATHAN ALLEN AND LEIGH ANN CALDWELL

Like many of the 31 Democrats from districts President Donald Trump won in 2016, freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., is feeling the squeeze of impeachment.

A former CIA, Pentagon and National Security Council before winning election to the House last year, Slotkin helped launch the House inquiry into President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal by co-writing an opinion column calling for a probe after an intelligence community whistleblower accused the president of abusing his office.

But now, as the House Judiciary Committee drafts articles of impeachment and Democrats from politically competitive districts wait to see how they are written, Slotkin is being lobbied by Republican colleagues who argue that Trump’s actions — even if imperfect — don’t amount to impeachable offenses and that she should accept, given her background, that the president needs room to use leverage in foreign policy.

“I feel very strongly that in my prior life we often went to other countries and foreign governments when I was at the Pentagon and said, ‘We want you to do X in exchange for Y,’ but that exchange was exclusively for the national security interests of the country, not for Elissa Slotkin’s personal or political gain,” said Slotkin, who hasn’t committed one way or the other on impeachment. “And that’s a pretty fundamental difference and that was the conversation I had with one of my peers.”

While the GOP push hasn’t been persuasive, moderate Democrats are worried that liberals in their own party are going to put forward articles of impeachment that are hard to vote for and even harder to explain voting for.

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HISTORY Comments turned off

DECEMBER 8, 1941

By on December 7th, 2019

Here is the complete text of President Roosevelt’s
8 December 1941 address to Congress:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. CONTINUE READING

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

MARK STEYN: TOO STUPID TO SURVIVE

By on December 7th, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9896/too-stupid-to-survive-cont

I can no longer remember when I first used the line, but, as I’ve said many times before, sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive.

Back when President Trump was Candidate Trump, he famously proposed a soi-disant “Muslim ban” on entry to the United States “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on”.

Which was a rationale to which I was rather partial – because a failure to “figure out what the hell is going on” is a big part of why we’re where we are a generation after 9/11. Mohammed is now in the Top Ten boys’ names in America, which means it will sooner than you think be, as it is in Europe, among the Top Five boys’ names, and eventually the Number One. [UPDATE: See Michelle Stone’s comment below.]

Well, the “Muslim ban” never happened, after being struck down by judges and filleted into meaninglessness by the lawyers of the permanent bureaucracy. But you would think, given the mountain of corpses piled up on 9/11, that at the very minimum Saudi nationals would no longer be being given pilot training in Florida. After all, fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and half of those who flew the planes received their lessons in the Sunshine State.

Yet today Americans pick up their papers to read:

PENSACOLA, Fla. — A Saudi Arabian military pilot training in the United States opened fire Friday morning at Naval Air Station Pensacola, leaving three people dead and several others wounded before Florida sheriff’s deputies shot and killed him.

Or as The New York Times headlined it:

Florida Shooting Updates: Authorities Say It’s Too Early to Know if It’s Terrorism

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Once More into the Fogged Bottom by Mark Steyn

By on December 7th, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9853/once-more-into-the-fogged-bottom

Yesterday I caught a bit of the impeachment theatre en route to a lunchtime speaking engagement. To be honest, if they’d come round and performed it live in my hotel room, I’d still have fled. If universally respected eminent lifelong career foreign-service bigshots Bill Taylor and George Kent are Adam Schiff’s star witnesses, their chief purpose seems to be to get Democrats pining for the charisma of Bill de Blasio and the self-effacement of John Kerry.

In a functioning system, the head of the government sets foreign policy and the diplomats enact it. So naturally there’s not a chance of that in Washington. When Taylor and Kent whine that there seemed to be a “shadow foreign policy”, the shadow is theirs; they spent a day testifying that everything had been going ticketty-boo for decades just as they’d always done things – and then Trump came along and took a different view. Oh, my! Anyone would think that, as Barack Obama once proposed, “elections have consequences”.

First up was George Kent, the “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus”. He warmed up the crowd with some extensive biographical material about the “nearly sixty years” of George Kents (I believe he’s George III or some such) who have “chosen” to endow America with the blessings of their “public service”. It didn’t help that he wore a bow tie. Eventually he stopped talking about himself and started talking about Ukraine:

Our strategic aim for the entirety of my foreign service career is not possible without a Ukraine whole, free, and at peace, including Crimea and Donbas, territories currently occupied by Russia.

Crimea is, of course, familiar to anyone who’s read “The Charge of the Light Brigade”:

Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do or die…

Or, in the case of low-level diplomats who’ve never had a single conversation with the President, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or tender their resignations after first ensuring that their pensions won’t be affected. Instead:

Into the valley of the SCIF
Rode the six hundred hearsay witnesses…

As I said, any Tom, Dick or Harry can bandy Crimea, but it takes a career striped-pants Foggy Bottom public servant to toss in “Donbas” with gay abandon. It would have been interesting to see whether Adam Schiff or anyone else in the room could have found Donbas on a map. The odds of pinning the tail on the Donbas blindfolded are better. It’s bordered to the north, east and south-east by Russia, so it’s akin to the Russian foreign ministry regarding northern Mexico as a vital national-security interest of Moscow’s.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Pensacola Jihad Massacre Proves We’ve Learned Nothing Since the Fort Hood Attack By Robert Spencer

By on December 7th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/pensacola-jihad-massacre-shows-again-the-danger-of-political-correctness-regarding-jihad/

Second Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, an aviation officer in the Saudi Air Force, opened fire at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday, killing four people and wounding many others. In doing so, he showed yet again that the prevailing politically correct obfuscation and denial regarding the jihad threat is not only wrong, it’s dangerous. If we had a realistic approach to the jihad threat, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani’s victims would be alive today.

Before he embarked upon his killing spree, someone who appeared to be Alshamrani ranted on Twitter about the evils of America. First, he rejected the George W. Bush explanation for jihad terrorism, “They hate us because of our freedom”: “O American people – I’m not against you for being American, I don’t hate you because your freedoms, I hate you because every day you [sic] supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but against humanity.”

Alshamrani went on to elucidate exactly what those crimes were: “What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie [sic], I see invasion of many countries by it’s [sic] troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.” He added: “I’m against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil.”

This statement, if it did indeed come from Alshamrani, as appears likely, makes clear that he was a jihad terrorist. He was killing because of America’s supposed crimes against Muslims; that rules out the alternative explanation for his acts, that he was lashing out after some negative incident or mistreatment at the Naval Air Station.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Unexpected Jobs Boom Leaves Dems Incoherent by John Merline

By on December 7th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/12/06/trumps-unexpected-jobs-boom-leaves-dems-incoherent/

Job growth in November came in 79,000 higher than economists had expected, something that has become a regular occurrence under President Trump, where the economy has repeatedly defied what the “experts” forecast.

Just how big that gap is becomes clear when you look at longer-term forecasts these same experts made.

Take that jobs number. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now a total of 152.2 million jobs in the U.S.  That’s an increase of 6.8 million since Trump took office. Backers of President Obama will say that during the same 35-month stretch of Obama’s last term in office, the economy created 7.7 million jobs, so Trump is actually doing worse.

That’s misleading, at best. The economy was still coming back from a deep recession, which is when job growth should be robust.  (In truth, post-recession job growth under Obama was one of the worst on record since the Great Depression.)

What matters is where economists saw the economy heading when Trump took office.

The Congressional Budget Office provides the answer. At the start of 2017, it released its 10-year economic forecast, which the CBO always boasts is right in the meaty part of the consensus of economists.

When it made its forecast, which assumed that nothing would change in terms of tax, regulatory, spending or any other policies, the CBO figured that the number of jobs created between January 2017 and today would be 2 million.

So Trump is doing better than expected on jobs by 4.8 million.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Medicare for All, Progressive-Campaign Killer By Matthew Continetti

By on December 7th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/medicare-for-all-politica

Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren fell for the fool’s gold of socialized medicine.

Pundits have a ready explanation when one of their favorites loses or ends a campaign: The voters just didn’t get to know the candidate the way media do. He or she was too wonky, or eager to please, or insular, or revealing, or uncertain for the masses. The electoral process made it impossible for him or her to connect with voters. The classic example is Hillary Clinton, who has reintroduced herself to the public umpteen times over the decades. A friend who knows her once told me I would like Clinton if only I got to meet her informally. I had a good laugh at that one.

A similar lament greeted the news that Kamala Harris had dropped out of the Democratic primary. Last year, CNN ranked Harris first among the contenders. Now it’s back to the Senate. The Washington Free Beacon compiled a short video of media types saddened by Harris’s departure. A New York Times op-ed asked, “Did We Ever Know the Real Kamala Harris?” Writers for the Washington Post said that Harris failed because she lacked “a theory of the case” and wasn’t able “to explain why she was running for president.” Yes, it helps to have a reason for your candidacy beyond media reports that you check all the right boxes. But the argument that Harris flopped because of a failure to communicate lets her off easy.

The Times piece didn’t mention the policy initiative upon which Harris launched her campaign: Bernie Sanders’s Medicare-for-All legislation, which would eliminate private and employer-based health insurance. Harris signed on as a cosponsor to the bill last April. It’s haunted her ever since. Medicare for All might look like the sort of “big, structural change” that sets progressive hearts aflutter. For most voters it causes arrhythmia.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

ANDREW McCARTHY: THE IMPEACHMENT EYE-TEST

By on December 7th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/trump-impeachment-inquiry-democrats-abuse-of-power-standard/

We know an impeachable offense when we see one — or do we?

T o put it mildly, the 1960s were not notorious for juridical modesty. They might compare favorably, though, to Wednesday’s episode of “The Lawyer Left Does Impeachment” at the House Judiciary Committee. Oh, I have no doubt that the three progressive constitutional scholars spotlighted by Democrats yearn in their hearts (and their classrooms) for the Warren Court, that apex of make-it-up-as-you-go-along lawyering. But even those jurists had the occasional convulsion of modesty.

The most instructive one for present purposes belonged to Justice Potter Stewart. The question before the High Court in the 1964 case of Jacobellis v. Ohio was how to define hard-core pornography for purposes of setting the elusive boundary where protected free expression transmogrifies into criminal obscenity. Assessing the terrain, Justice Stewart confessed that he could not “intelligibly” provide a workable definition … “but I know it when I see it.”

Impeachment has an eye-test, too.

You would never know that from listening to the law profs. Not that it matters much: The most memorable moment in the hearing turned out to be the mind-bogglingly moronic decision by Stanford’s Pamela Karlan to use 13-year-old Barron Trump in one of her many snarky jabs at the president. This, naturally, ignited an explosion of indignation from the pro-Trump right, whose sensibilities did not seem quite so tender when the president was tweeting about 16-year-old Greta Thunberg. That, just as naturally, inspired an even more embarrassing performance by Professor Karlan: So advanced is her Trump derangement that she is incapable of apologizing for her own poor judgment without taking another snide shot at the Bad Orange Man, lest we forget how morally superior she is.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

REP.MATT GETZ VS. PAMELA KARLAN, JOHN KERRY ON BUS TOUR WITH BIDEN, KAMALA AND GILLIBRAND..

By on December 7th, 2019

www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/how_can_liberals_of_such_high_stature_stoop_to_such_catty_high_school_girl_insults.html

How can liberals of such high stature stoop to such catty high school girl insults?
Richard Jack Rail

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has been a real fighter in the charade of an impeachment hearing going on in the House.  He shredded the anti-Trump lib law profs who came before the hearing, getting all three to admit donating to Democrat candidates, and one to writing snarky columns about the president.  When Pamela Karlan tried to interrupt, he cut her off at the knees: “Excuse me, you don’t get to interrupt me during this time” (the limited time he was allowed to question witnesses).

www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/12/john-kerry-joins-joe-biden-on-iowa-bus-tour-kerry-touts-biden-as-messianic-figure-who-can-save-the-world-video/

John Kerry Joins Joe Biden on Iowa Bus Tour – Kerry Touts Biden as Messianic Figure Who Can ‘Save the World’ (VIDEO) Cristina Laila

https://spectator.org/kamala-and-gillibrand-a-study-in-black-white-of-two-identical-failures/?

Kamala and Gillibrand — A Study in Black & White of Two Identical Failures
Dov Fischer, Spectator.org

Kamala Harris finally threw in the towel the other day, joining an ever-growing congregation in the Church of “Can’t Miss Presidential Winners” and its patron saint, Saint Ludicrous. Like, she was going to be elected president of the United States in 2020? Based on what? Based on news analysts at CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the rest of the Corrupt Journalist Corps? Come on.

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