RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324100904578404580119306900.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
The White House Brain Initiative Hits a Tax Hurdle
While the president launches an exciting initiative to map the brain, a new tax hurts the very innovation it seeks.

Step into any operating room where neurosurgery is being performed, and there is a good chance that the surgeon is viewing the brain through a camera. Technology today is saving lives by enabling surgeons to see what the naked eye cannot. As archeologists use advanced radar technology to examine sensitive sites before excavating, neurosurgeons use advanced imaging technology to get a clear picture of the brain before operating. The data are then loaded into microscopes that guide surgery, providing a safer path through the brain’s intricate wiring, where one wrong cut risks paralyzing the patient.

Over the past two decades, these breakthroughs in scanning technology have led to dramatic improvements in the rates of survival and recovery from brain surgery. The next generation of imaging technology—being developed in labs from Massachusetts to California to the National Institutes of Health—promises to create an even more profound window into the human brain.

These efforts could be greatly accelerated by President Obama’s recent announcement of a new initiative to map the brain’s activity in unprecedented detail. Aiming to “do for the human brain what the Human Genome did for genetics,” the $3 billion “Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative” gives hope to those suffering from conditions like Alzheimer’s, autism, stroke and traumatic brain injury.

But here’s the bad news: The brain initiative is already being undermined by a new Washington policy that went into effect on Jan. 1. Under regulations passed as part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the medical-technology industry is now subject to a $30 billion annual tax on medical devices.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324504704578413110123095782.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Luckily, the Constitution gives the Senate exclusive power to ratify, or block, the Arms Trade Treaty.

Even before his most ambitious gun-control proposals were falling by the wayside, President Obama was turning for help to the United Nations. On April 2, the United States led 154 nations to approve the Arms Trade Treaty in the U.N. General Assembly. While much of the treaty governs the international sale of conventional weapons, its regulation of small arms would provide American gun-control advocates with a new tool for restricting rights. Yet because the Constitution requires that two-thirds of the Senate give its advice and consent to any treaty, Second Amendment supporters still have a political route to stop the administration.

But the new treaty also demands domestic regulation of “small arms and light weapons.” The treaty’s Article 5 requires nations to “establish and maintain a national control system,” including a “national control list.” Article 10 requires signatories “to regulate brokering” of conventional arms. The treaty offers no guarantee for individual rights, but instead only declares it is “mindful” of the “legitimate trade and lawful ownership” of arms for”recreational, cultural, historical, and sporting activities.” Not a word about the right to possess guns for a broader individual right of self-defense.

Gun-control advocates will use these provisions to argue that the U.S. must enact measures such as a national gun registry, licenses for guns and ammunition sales, universal background checks, and even a ban of certain weapons. The treaty thus provides the Obama administration with an end-run around Congress to reach these gun-control holy grails. As the Supreme Court’s Heller and McDonald cases recently declared, the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right “to keep and bear Arms” such as handguns and rifles. Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce remains broad, but the court’s decisions in other cases—even last year’s challenge to the Affordable Care Act—remind us that those powers are limited.

International treaties don’t suffer these limits. The Constitution establishes treaties in Article II (which sets out the president’s executive powers), rather than in Article I (which defines the legislature’s authority)—so treaties therefore aren’t textually subject to the limits on Congress’s power. Treaties still receive the force of law under the Supremacy Clause, which declares that “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”

http://commonsensecampaign.org/site/index.php/csc-concerns-choose-alabama-or-america/csc-concerns-in-america/410-list-of-46-senators-who-voted-to-repeal-the-2nd-amendment-via-the-un-small-arms-treaty.html Over the weekend, we came four votes away from the United States Senate giving our Constitutional rights over to the United Nations. In a 53-46 vote, the senate narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. Read below the 46 senators who voted […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324240804578418904084666638.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

JOHN KERRY TO NORTH KOREA…’I’M WARNING YOU NOW…YOU ARE GOING TO GET THE MOTHER OF ALL WARNINGS…..” RSK

Secretary of State John Kerry visited Beijing on the weekend, with no discernible progress in persuading China to drop its support for its North Korean clients. That’s a familiar China bites U.S. story. The more important—and disquieting—news is the dispute over the North Korean threat among U.S. intelligence agencies.

The dispute broke into public view on Thursday when Congressman Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.) read an unclassified sentence from a new assessment by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. The DIA has concluded with “moderate confidence” that North Korea may have a nuclear warhead small enough to be placed on a ballistic missile. This judgment arrives two months after North Korea tested a nuclear device—its third—and when another test missile launch is expected any day.

That news produced a scramble inside the Obama Administration, with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issuing a statement telling everyone not to worry. Mr. Clapper quoted a separate Pentagon statement that “it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully developed and tested the kinds of nuclear weapons referenced in the passage.” And in any case, Mr. Clapper added, “the statement read by the Member is not an Intelligence Community assessment” (his emphasis).

Neither of these not-to-worry statements is reassuring, especially given the U.S. intelligence track record on North Korea. Even if Pyongyang hasn’t so far “fully developed” a missile that can nuke Los Angeles, the point is that it is making major progress. It’s also important to understand that an “intelligence community assessment” is a lowest-common denominator bureaucratic consensus that is often wrong.

http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/174754/jewish-stars-of-bollywood/

They were towering stars of Bollywood, the century-old Mumbai-centered film industry that still cranks out 800 films a year, more than double the output of the U.S. And Danny Ben-Moshe, a research fellow at Deakin University in Australia, has spent six years piecing together their fascinating and largely forgotten stories for “Shalom Bollywood,” a documentary set for release later this year. The film “tells of the 2,000-year-old Indian Jewish community and its formative place in the Indian film industry,” according to its web site.

Peppering his presentation with rare film clips, Ben-Moshe will “tell the tale of how I stumbled on the story, how it unfolded, and the trials and tribulations of trying to make [the film].” He corresponded by email with The Arty Semite before boarding a plane for Toronto.

Michael Kaminer: How did you get into this subject, and what compelled you to make a movie about it?

Danny Ben-Moshe: An Indian student of mine gave me an obituary of Nadira, the last of the great Jewish Bollywood actors to pass away. I knew there were Indian Jews but had no idea there was such a prominent Jewish on screen star. I went to India to do some research to see if there was enough material to make a film about Nadira but I found out she was the tip of the iceberg.

The compelling factor was that it was such an intriguing different and eye-opening story. Given the subject matter, it offered the opportunity to make a vibrant, fun, slightly quirky film. How often do filmmakers get the opportunity to make all-singing, all-dancing documentaries?

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3672/muslim-brotherhood-us-government Given the long history of Muslim Brotherhood activity in this country, its declared objective to “destroy the Western civilization from within,” and the extensive evidence of successful influence operations at the highest levels of the U.S. government, it is urgent that we recognize this clear and present danger that threatens not only our Republic […]

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0413/russian_human_rights_violators.php3 US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators   The Obama administration, acting in accordance with a law passed by Congress last year that roiled US-Russia relations, named 18 Russian officials Friday who will face visa bans and a US assets freeze as a result of alleged […]

2013.04.13 (Matani, Pakistan) – Women are among nine killed when Mujahideen bomb a passenger bus.
2013.04.12 (Karachi, Pakistan) – A Shia religious scholar is murdered by Sunni rivals from the Ahl-e-Sunnat wal Jamaat terror group.
2013.04.12 (Kidal, Mali) – At least three people are killed by a suicide bomber.
2013.04.12 (Kanaan, Iraq) – Mujahideen detonate two bombs at a Sunni mosque, leaving a dozen worshippers dead.
2013.04.11 (Homs, Syria) – Six children, including a baby, are among twenty people executed by Hezbollah.
2013.04.11 (Sindh, Pakistan) – The Tehreek-e-Taliban assassinate a secular politician.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/04/13/gosnellgate/?print=1 Conor Friedersdorf has written an excellent article in the Atlantic on the extraordinary case of 72-year-old abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell titled, “Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s Trial Should Be a Front-Page Story [1].” For those who have missed it — and given Friedersdorf’s title apparently many have — Gosnell is a doctor who regularly performed late-term […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/11/editorial-chamber-horrors/ By his own lawyer’s count, Kermit Gosnell, a 72-year-old doctor in West Philadelphia, Pa., performed more than 16,000 abortions over the course of 31 years. Dr. Gosnell has an attorney explaining his work because he is busy being tried for murder over seven of those abortions and the death of one prospective mother. Karnamaya […]