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Douglas Murray: An Outsider’s Perspective on America’s Racial Discontent

Posted By on November 2nd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/11/16/white-supremacy-in-a-magic-lantern/?utm_source=

An outsider’s perspective on America’s racial discontent

For several years I have marveled at, and become worried by, the depiction of America that has been playing around the world. Despite being a lifelong admirer of this country, I’ve not been in America for a couple of years, and during that time even I have occasionally wondered whether my image of America might have been wrong all along. Might the country have been — or become — what its detractors both internal and external say it is? Now I have had a month traveling around the United States, and I feel as though I may have come to a better understanding of a problem that afflicts this country. Perhaps an outsider might share a modest insight?

The problem first clarified during a conversation in New York with several people, two of whom happened to be comedians. Looking forward to shooting the breeze, I found myself instead marveling at the forensic detail in which everyone was going over the death of Breonna Taylor. Why were we talking about this so furiously? Why were comedians discussing ballistics reports? Why did everybody — whatever his viewpoint — need to have this much knowledge? And the obvious truth dawned on me that in this era every single detail of every single wrongdoing or alleged wrongdoing on the part of America matters, because the focus of light on America today operates in the manner of a magic-lantern projector. The light shining on this country today is so great that it does not just illuminate — it magnifies. Shift the tiniest detail in the picture and the image projected is monstrously altered.

Over recent years I have watched a very particular image of America projected onto the wall of the world and worried about it as much as any other friend of America. For it is an image of a society riven by many conflicts, just one of which (but worst of all) is the racism problem from which America is said to suffer. It is hard to exaggerate how starkly this is perceived by the rest of the world. While Americans argue over and eventually litigate every police interaction gone wrong, the rest of the world sees only one vast blown-up version of the problem.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Pittsburgh Paper Backs Trump in First Republican Presidential Endorsement Since 1972 By Zachary Evans

Posted By on November 2nd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pittsburgh-paper-backs-trump-in-first-republican-presidential-endorsement-since-1972/?utm_source=

““I am worried about Pennsylvania,” Democratic strategist Neil Oxman told the Washington Post on Saturday. Oxman said it was possible that Trump voters “will come out just a little bit stronger than our base.”

A Pittsburgh, Pa., newspaper has backed Donald Trump just days before the general election in the paper’s first endorsement of a Republican presidential candidate since 1972.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette released its endorsement on Saturday, just before the general elections are set to take place. President Trump flipped Pennsylvania red during the 2016 elections, and the state’s fracking industry has become a major campaign issue, with Trump accusing Joe Biden of aiming to downsize the industry.

“We share the embarrassment of millions of Americans who are disturbed by the president’s unpresidential manners and character — his rudeness and put-downs and bragging and bending of the truth,” the Post-Gazette editors wrote. “But we believe Mr. Trump, for all his faults, is the better choice this year.”

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Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Frets Over Trump Support: ‘That’s Not Photoshop’ By Jack Phillips

Posted By on November 2nd, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/democrat-lt-gov-frets-over-trump-support-in-pennsylvania-thats-not-photoshop_3560670.html

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, says he hasn’t seen anything like President Donald Trump’s rallies and barnstorming across Pennsylvania.

“Donald Trump is doing things that have never been done in Pennsylvania politics in terms of the raw barnstorming across small county Pennsylvania,” Fetterman told CNN on Nov. 1. “It’s hard to predict with certainty how that’s going to activate not only his base of voters from 2016, but also those that sat it out, too.”

Fetterman then sounded the alarm to fellow Democrats who are pinning their hopes on Democratic nominee Joe Biden winning the Keystone State. Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes would provide a significant boost toward winning the 270 needed to win the White House.

“I’m not saying Donald Trump is going to win Pennsylvania, but what I am saying is he’s doing everything that he can to maximize his chances,” he said.

Trump held multiple events on Oct. 31 in Pennsylvania, including one in Butler County, where tens of thousands of supporters turned out. Photos and videos showed a scene more reminiscent of a rock concert than a political event.

Fetterman on Twitter offered a more urgent warning to Democrats.

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

The ‘Anonymous’ saga ended with a dud — a perfect example of the problem of Trump-era media By Steve Krakauer,

Posted By on November 2nd, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/523692-the-anonymous-saga-ended-with-a-dud-a-perfect-example-of-the-problem-of

There will be many incidents from the past four years of the Trump era that will erode the public’s faith in the press to provide fair, accurate information — all the nonsense from the Russia collusion story, pings in Prague, the Steele dossier mess, false promises of what would be in the Mueller report and more. These will leave lasting, damaging marks.

But no story better exemplifies the core problem with the media’s anti-Trump instincts to elevate every crumb of a story to an 11 out of 10, only to be let down consistently for their exaggeration or outright falsehood, than the saga of “Anonymous.”

For those who don’t remember the drama that gripped Washington and the Acela media (located along Amtrak’s Acela rail corridor between D.C. and New York City), The New York Times published a column in September 2018 from someone identified as “Anonymous,” whom the Times described as a “senior official inside the Trump administration.” The column, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,’’ detailed the work that the author and others in the administration supposedly were doing to undermine President Trump’s agenda. 

Guesses of who the author was started flowing in. RealClearInvestigations thought it was Victoria Coates. Josh Campbell, a former FBI agent and current CNN contributor, thought it was Kirstjen Nielsen, based on her use of commas in her resignation letter. But most guesses on Twitter and throughout the media rose to higher ranks. Mike Pence? Nikki Haley? CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote, in retrospect, a spectacularly wrong column titled “13 people who might be the author of The New York Times op-ed.” His arguments included names such as Kellyanne Conway and John Kelly, then some of the top advisers to Trump, as well as “Javanka” and Melania Trump. Dripping with innuendo, it was sure to grab a ton of clicks from CNN’s audience and throughout the #Resistance mediasphere.

And then, this week, we got the big reveal. “Anonymous” was Miles Taylor — a name that is likely literally anonymous to you to begin with.

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Winning! Winning! Winning! by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on November 1st, 2020

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/24699/winning-winning-winning

   http://goudsmit.pundicity.com  http://lindagoudsmit.com

We measure ourselves from the time we are children. “Johnny grew three inches!” “Susie got all As in school!”

We compare ourselves with others to measure our accomplishments. “Johnny is faster than Fred.” “Susie is smarter than Mary.”

We compete with each other for advancement. “Johnny won a gold medal in swimming!” “Susie got into Harvard!”

We measure, compare, and compete with others as we establish our own individual identities. We also measure, compare, and compete with ourselves as we establish our own internal sense of self. So, what is the problem?

Competence is the mother of self-esteem. It is the foundation of the meritocracy and source of the American dream. Theoretically, when we study and work hard we achieve competence, feel good about ourselves and are rewarded with advancement. Competition is an integral and important part of establishing an individual identity, a family identity, a community identity, and a national identity.

There are rules in every competition because fairness is the essential qualifying element for the meritocracy. Individuals compete. Teams compete. Families compete. Countries compete. When the rules for fair competition are broken, the entire merit system breaks down and the competition is replaced with a counterfeit performance that is presented as fair and legitimate.

The breakdown in American society is a breakdown of the merit system.

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Biden Opposed the Pakistan Raid That Took Out Bin Laden, The Pakistan Lobby is One of His Biggest Donors Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on November 1st, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/11/biden-opposed-pakistan-raid-took-out-bin-laden-daniel-greenfield/

Is the Indian-American community paying attention?

The Biden campaign, right before the election, finally released its list of biggest fundraisers. These are donors who have raised at least $100,000 for the Democrat candidate.

One of them is Ijaz Ahmad.

Ahmad is the head of the American-Pakistani Political Action Committee and Biden has been happy to offer them Islamist dog whistles.

Former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden has expressed concern over deteriorating situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) saying restrictions preventing peaceful protests or shutting down the internet, weakens democracy.

In an online meeting, with head of American-Pakistani Political Action Committee, Dr. Ijaz Ahmad along with prominent members of Muslim community, Joe Biden called upon Indian government to take all necessary steps to restore rights for all people of Kashmir.

He quoted a hadith from the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) instructs, ‘Whomever among you sees a wrong, let him change it with his hand’ If he is not able, then with his tongue. If he is not able, then with his heart.’

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Twitter’s ‘Living’ Censorship The social-media firm finally unfreezes the New York Post after its story on Hunter Biden’s laptop files.

Posted By on November 1st, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitters-living-censorship-11604263210?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

When social-media companies sanction political speech they don’t like, they always point to one policy or another that was supposedly violated. The truth is they are often making up the rules as they go.

Twitter admitted as much Friday when it finally agreed to unlock the New York Post’s account after freezing it on Oct. 14 as punishment for reporting on Hunter Biden’s business dealings that were exposed on his abandoned laptop computer.

“Our policies are living documents,” the company said in explaining its decision to stop blocking the newspaper. Initially, Twitter said the Post’s Biden story violated a policy against “content obtained without authorization.” That was absurd, as leaks of one kind or another are ubiquitous in modern political reporting.

Once that rationale collapsed, Twitter said it “decided to make changes to the policy,” and stopped preventing users from sharing the Post story. But it maintained that the story still violated the policy in effect at the time the Post tweeted it, so the newspaper’s account would remain locked until the offending tweets were deleted.

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

Trump Has Torn the Mask Off the Liberal Media The press resents him because he exposes its bias.By Frank Pavone

Posted By on November 1st, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-has-torn-the-mask-off-the-liberal-media-11604266772?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Why does the media hate Donald Trump so much? There are all kinds of theories, but only one really makes sense: We are a country at odds over the most fundamental principles of ideology, economics, religion, race, culture, morality—even our own history. The media is on one side of that metaphorical war, and President Trump calls it out.

In this dispute the two sides have always been known to the participants, but the media doesn’t identify them publicly. A major part of the mainstream media’s strategy has been to preserve the perception of its neutrality and keep its role as hidden as possible. It has been criticized in the past for its liberal bias—by conservatives. But never by a sitting president with such effectiveness. (Richard Nixon mostly delegated the job to Vice President Spiro Agnew.) By treating the media for what it is—a belligerent in the culture war—Mr. Trump has done it irreparable damage.

The media is supposed to be a neutral participant. So, to a lesser extent, are Hollywood and academia. Hollywood’s job is to entertain us. The universities’ job is to educate us. The media’s job is to report the news to us. If there is indeed some kind of philosophical, theological and economic battle being waged for the soul of the country, Americans would certainly want to know if those responsible for filtering information to us are doing so in an objective fashion.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on November 1st, 2020

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Starving leukemia cells to protect the brain. Israeli and Scottish scientists have found that the brain can be protected from metastatic leukemia by blocking the production of the fatty acid stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD). The discovery is particularly important for the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children.

https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2020/10/leukemia-and-the-brain/ 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43018-020-00115-2

Prospective treatment for liver failure. There are some 2,000 cases (80% fatal) of Acute Liver Failure (ALF) in the US each year. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have managed to control the severity of ALF in the lab by blocking signals from the gut microbiome to the MYC protein in the liver.

https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/surprising-players-acute-liver-failure-point-potential-treatment

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1102-2

Early stroke detection. The Scan&Sound app developed by students at Israel’s Technion Institute uses AI to analyze subtle changes in a potential stroke victim’s voice and facial expressions. Scan&Sound won 2nd place at John Hopkins University MedHacks in the category “Personalized Medicine Using Data-Driven Healthcare.”

https://www.israel21c.org/hackers-build-prize-winning-early-stroke-detection-app/  https://medhacks.io/

Track the eyes to reduce stress. Israel’s Umoove (reported here previously) has partnered British behavioral change consultant Matt Hudson to reduce stress and anxiety. The app MindReset uses the mobile camera and Umoove’s mobile eye tracking technology to observe the user’s nonverbal responses to stress.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/289974  http://www.umoove.me/press.html

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.umoove.mindreset

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyE1q0B8Ov8

Radiotherapy institute for Jerusalem. Construction is underway on a new innovative radiotherapy institute at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. It will serve as a national center for cancer treatment, with advanced treatment methods and technologies.  https://www.jpost.com/health-science/new-innovative-radiotherapy-institute-approved-for-shaare-zedek-646876

https://www.szmc.org.il/eng/article/news,217/ https://shaarezedek.org.uk/cutting-edge-cancer-treatment/

Better clinical trials. The race to produce a Covid-19 vaccine has spurred researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University to partner with Israeli startup Panacea to speed up the human test phases. They have developed an AI tool to help select participants and markers, improve the analysis of results and presentation of findings.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3865794,00.html

A new way to diagnose infections. Israel’s MeMed (reported here previously) has received clearance in Israel, Europe and Switzerland for its MeMed BV and MeMed Key infection analyzers. They measure 3 biomarker proteins and use AI algorithms to determine if an infection is viral or bacterial and whether to use antibiotics.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3865516,00.html

Femtech telemedicine at Sheba. A follow-up to the article reported here previously about the new Women’s Health Innovation Center at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. The pioneering femtech (female technology) center, was originally set up to promote patient and doctor safety during COVID-19.

https://nocamels.com/2020/10/women-health-innovation-center-sheba-femtech/

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Shame on the Girl Scouts: Thin Skin instead of Thin Mints by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on November 1st, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16708/shame-on-the-girl-scouts-thin-skin-instead

The Tweet was anything but partisan or political. It was a girl’s organization dedicated to educating young women about their unlimited possibilities in life. The Tweet itself was innocuous. Here is what it said: “Congratulations Amy Coney Barrett on becoming the 5th woman appointed to the Supreme Court since its inception in 1789.”

When the Girl Scouts can’t even congratulate a woman for helping to break a longstanding glass ceiling, we know that we are in trouble.

The reason I am so angry at the Girl Scouts’ decision to withdraw their original Tweet is that it is a reflection of the divisive nature of our nation and the growing intolerance, particularly by the hard left, of dissenting speech that is seen as supporting the other side.

I don’t know why I am so mad at the Girl Scouts for having withdrawn their Tweet congratulating Justice Amy Coney Barrett for being the fifth woman nominated to the Supreme Court in its long history. The Tweet was anything but partisan or political. It was a girl’s organization dedicated to educating young women about their unlimited possibilities in life. The Tweet itself was innocuous. Here is what it said: “”Congratulations Amy Coney Barrett on becoming the 5th woman appointed to the Supreme Court since its inception in 1789.”

It was accompanied by a collage of photographs of the five women who have served on the high court – three of them liberals and two conservatives. But when a few angry leftists led by Cambridge U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and actor Amber Tamblyn complained, the Girl scouts quickly removed the Tweet and apologized for doing something that could be “viewed as a political and a partisan statement.”

Megyn Kelly responded quite appropriately to that absurd claim saying:

“This is pathetic. It’s not ‘partisan’ to generically congratulate the 5th woman ever to join the High Court. It’s patriotic. Taking your tweet down is partisan, however, and a real disappointment.