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September 2016

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 13, 2016 22 Comments
Few sciences have been as settled as dietary science.... until recently. I chronicled the substantial revisions issued regarding the scientific "consensus" about cholesterol last year. The "War on Cholesterol" has officially ended, though there is evidence that it adversely impacted American health and the nation's egg farmers while reaping absolutely no benefit. Now a new analysis of correspondence during the 1960's between a sugar trade group and researchers at Harvard University indicate there was an apparent collusion that ultimately cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease and directed all the blame at fat.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 13, 2016 4 Comments

Clinton eased into racist waters by first addressing the scourge of the alt-right on Republican politics and more prominently, the Trump camp. There, she was sort of right. But she broadened her scope a might bit too far in her latest but teh racists!™ rant. Naturally,...

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 13, 2016 13 Comments
The House Freedom Caucus submitted a resolution to force a vote to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. They have accused him of hampering, "Congress' effort to investigate the IRS for tough assessments of Tea Party groups that sought tax exemptions several years ago." Caucus members Members claim Koskinen failed to provide proper email documents and lied about deleting some emails. They also claim he has shown, "little effort to recover the lost documents." To speed up the vote, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) introduced the bill, "under a privileged motion," allowing the bill to bypass committee. The House could vote on the bill as early as Thursday.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 13, 2016 22 Comments
North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy and Security Bill have drawn another major boycott. The NCAA recently announced its decision to remove seven previously scheduled championship events from the state, including the first and second round games of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. In July, the NBA decided to move its All Star Game from Charlotte to New Orleans over the bill.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 13, 2016 3 Comments
France, home to one of the Europe’s largest Muslim population, is facing an uphill battle against Islamic terrorism. According to France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls, security forces have been foiling terror plots “every day” and warned of more terrorist attacks in the near future. French officials estimates that around 15,000 radical Islamists reside in the country -- and going by the current EU-wide trends -- these numbers were only expected to go up. “We have nearly 700 French jihadists and residents, who are currently fighting in Iraq and Syria,” Valls told French media, adding that this number included “275 women and dozens of children.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 13, 2016 34 Comments
In the same way that Democrats and the media kept Hillary's health out of the news until it could no longer be ignored, they're now working together on the explanation. Clearly, someone sent out a memo which suggested the words "power through" should be used in every response. The Washington Post got the memo:
Clinton's impulse to 'power through' with pneumonia set off cascade of problems ...Then on Sunday, Clinton's plan to “power through,” as her top aides later called it, finally unraveled. She abruptly left the Sept. 11, 2001...

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 13, 2016 1 Comment

Recent studies have shown this assertion to be completely false. You would think a college professor would know that. The Blaze reports: College Professor: U.S. Police Are Promoting ‘State-Sanctioned Violence’ Against Minorities Policing in the United States is akin to “third world” law enforcement which has led to...

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2016 6 Comments
Although we haven't heard much about it recently, the VA scandal is very much alive and well. The National Review published an article about the wide-ranging problems with the VA in April of this year.  Here's a quick reminder, neatly encapsulated in NR's review of VA-related stories:
The Veterans Affairs–scandal headlines speak for themselves. The Daily Beast: “Veteran Burned Himself Alive outside VA Clinic”; azfamily.com: “Dead veterans canceling their own appointments?”; New York Times: “Report Finds Sharp Increase in Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits,” “More than 125,000 U.S. veterans are being denied crucial mental health services,” and “Rubio, Miller ask committee to back VA accountability bills.” Two years ago this week [April, 2016]— thanks to courageous whistleblowers in Phoenix and a fed-up House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman — the world was finally exposed to rampant VA dysfunction and corruption. Dozens of veterans had died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA — which was, unfortunately, just the tip of the iceberg. Across the country, VA officials had manipulated lists to hide real health-care wait times. In total, thousands — and possibly far more — met the same fate: waiting, and dying, at the hands of a calcified and soulless bureaucracy. Investigations were launched, and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki eventually resigned.
Rather than attempting to correct a wide array of serious problems--ranging from incompetence to corruption, the VA has instead and in defiance of a 2014 law  "quietly" stopped sending performance data to a national database for consumers.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 13, 2016 36 Comments
As liberal pundits go, I find Sam Stein among the least objectionable—a low bar to be sure. The HuffPo editor has a streak of fairness to him. But on today's Morning Joe, Stein served up some absurd spin on Hillary's "basket of deplorables." "Deplorables," according to Stein, in a way "does work to her advantage." Why? Because some moderate Republicans will "look at this division between the deplorables and the non-deplorables . . . and do say to themselves: do I want to be part of that?" A kind of snob appeal, Sam? Don't think so, and even Joe Scarborough, who continued his attacks on Trump throughout the show dismissed the notion, saying "you don't win voters by calling other voters irredeemable."

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 12, 2016 7 Comments
The current Austrian presidential election is filled with more drama than America's election cycle, if you can believe that. Independent presidential candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, backed by the Green Party, barely beat Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer in May in an election that came down to the mail-in ballots. However, Austria's highest court overturned the election results in July when the justices noticed problems with mail ballots affecting, "nearly 78,000 votes - more than twice the margin separating the two candidates." As a result, a runoff election was scheduled for October 2. That election has recently been delayed and for an all too familiar reason -- mail-in ballots.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 12, 2016 90 Comments
We've been watching this story grow legs -- the speculation that a Democratic Party cabal met behind closed doors to discuss replacing Hillary on the presidential ticket after her unfortunately public health episode Sunday. I imagine this was nothing more than a whisper campaign that morphed into an actual story. And you know, it couldn't have happened to a nicer gal. But now that replacing Hillary is actually being discussed seriously, we're only doing what's proper -- voting on who we think would (not should) replace Hillary, if it were to come to that.
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