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Ruth King

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Federal Agencies’ Nutrition And Obesity Recommendations Are Junk Science Too often, medical research is stunted by cronyism, bad incentives, and lack of competent peer review. And it all comes at the expense of taxpayers.By Edward Archer

By on January 30th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/30/federal-agencies-nutrition-obesity-recommendations-junk-science/

Over the past decade, my colleagues and I have published analyses in top medical and scientific journals showing that no human could survive on the diets the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) used to create the dietary guidelines for Americans. To be precise, we demonstrated that the methods used by researchers at public health agencies produced data that were physiologically implausible and inadmissible as scientific evidence. We further showed that these pseudo-scientific methods and meaningless data generated a fictional diet-centric discourse on obesity and chronic disease, with significant consequences for public health policy.

Yet despite our rigorous analyses plus scathing critiques from scientists around the world, federal public health agencies repeatedly refused to address contrary evidence and re-examine their demonstrably invalid methods. As a result the USDA, HHS, National Cancer Institute (NCI), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continue to use meaningless dietary data to tell Americans what to eat and drink while promoting futile “diet-centric” public health policies such as menu-labeling mandates and banning large sodas.

Nevertheless, federal agencies impeding scientific progress is merely the tip of the iceberg. Recent events show that the U.S. research establishment is incompetent and corrupt, existing largely to transfer wealth from hard-working Americans to elite academics.
Taxpayer Funding Is A Substitute For Scientific Rigor

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Austria Reeling From Migrants’ Murder of Women When patriarchy and misogyny among foreigners spawn killings. Stephen Brown

By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272710/austria-reeling-migrants-murder-women-stephen-brown

It is definitely not how Austrians wanted to begin the New Year.

In a bloody start to 2019, four women have been brutally murdered in the peaceful Alpine nation of almost 9 million people in just over two weeks, shaking the country to its core.

With an additional two murders of women committed last December, the tally of this “femicide,” as it is being termed, stands at six in a little over five weeks. (There have been no male murder victims.) And this in a country with the very low murder rate of only .66 per 100,000 people! (The United States, by contrast, has 5.35)

What is conspicuous to Austrians about these terrible tragedies is that all the women-killers, except one, are not native Austrians. (Non-Austrians are only 15 per cent of the population.) Another visible factor is most murders were committed by partners or ex-partners of women who were about to leave, or had left, relationships with their killers.

“It is striking that many foreigners and asylum seekers are found over proportionally among the suspects. That suggests that this group is particularly misogynistic and patriarchist oriented,” said social scientist Birgitt Haller of the Institute for Conflict Research in Vienna.

Police concur. They report that sometimes when called to a migrant home where the husband is physically abusing his wife: “Then he doesn’t understand at all why he is not allowed to hit his wife and why he has to leave the apartment.”

Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the ruling conservative Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), horrified by the killings, says the fact most of the criminals have a migrant background “is not permitted to be withheld.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Guns, #MeToo, Israel, Human Rights and Trump Do you have an opinion that is not shared by most of your peers?

By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/guns-metoo-israel-human-rights-and-trump-11548806463

Editor’s Note: This is the first edition of Future View, a WSJ Opinion series allowing college students to sound off on politics, culture and global affairs. In this installment, contributors share opinions that are unpopular among their peers. Next we ask, “What’s one issue on which President Trump and the Democrats can compromise?” Click here to submit responses of fewer than 250 words by noon ET Feb. 5. The best responses will be published on Feb. 6.

Women Need the Right to Bear Arms

If you don’t support Second Amendment rights, you can’t claim to be a supporter of the #MeToo movement. In the fall of 2016 I was a senior at my dream university in Philadelphia. What started as an ordinary day ended up being the worst of my life: I was violently raped. At the time I was a law-abiding gun owner, but I couldn’t bring my gun with me to my gun-free university. That senseless rule left me defenseless. I was just months away from being the first in my family to graduate from college, but I was forced to drop out due to the emotional trauma stemming from my assault.

Unfortunately, there are times when women in particular need to have a reliable means of self-defense. There are times when seconds count and no one is there to save us. If you won’t respect our right to bear arms and let us have a reliable means of self-defense on college campuses, you have no right to tell us you stand with victims of sexual assault.

–Savannah Lindquist, Tidewater Community College and Old Dominion University, majoring in psychology.

Israel Is Powerful. That Doesn’t Make it Wrong

Why do my peers oppose Israel? Not because college students are anti-Semitic, but because most hold one truth to be self-evident: Powerlessness implies moral legitimacy. The Israelis are powerful; the Palestinians are not. As such, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is merely a struggle between victim and oppressor, and nobody wants to support the oppressor.

Accordingly, campus pro-Israel groups often try to portray Israel as a victim, too—a victim of international bias and unprovoked aggression from its Arab neighbors. This strategy, however, has failed. It will continue to fail because even though Israel may be under threat, it isn’t powerless. Israel’s army is strong and its technology is advanced. But power doesn’t automatically imply moral turpitude; and conversely, powerlessness does not guarantee goodness. In other words, might does not make Israel right, but it certainly does not make Israel wrong, either. Indeed, Israel strives for justice and peace. But students can’t see that when they allow the popular morality of power to obscure the truth.

–Benjamin Simon, Stanford University, intends to major in philosophy and religious studies and computer science.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Latest Brexit Episode Disappoints Remainers By John O’Sullivan

By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/latest-brexit-episode-disappoints-remainers/

It didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to.

In the latest thrilling parliamentary episode of Brexit, the hopes and expectations of, among other Remainers, House of Commons speaker John Bercow were largely disappointed, and the hopes of Brexiteers began to rise again. That was not supposed to happen.

Before the actual votes on seven amendments to a government motion supporting Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union, it was generally expected that some would pass and either delay the date of Brexit, or transfer control of parliamentary business from cabinet ministers to a coalition of Remainers, or allow MPs to choose among several alternative versions of Brexit. All of these were departures from usual parliamentary conventions — which Bercow had approved, contrary to both precedent and his duty of impartiality — and almost all represented a reversal of what a vast majority of MPs had voted for a year ago. Most significantly, however, they would all have had the intended effect of delaying Brexit indefinitely and likely canceling it altogether.

That was expected because it has become conventional wisdom that a House of Commons with a Remainer majority would inevitably vote only for a Brexit tolerable to the Remainers and thus disappointing to Leavers. It very much didn’t turn out that way. Of the seven amendments, the five most hostile ones were defeated, all by healthy majorities. The two amendments that did pass were (1) the Brady amendment, which the government had accepted as a way of keeping May’s plan alive, and (2) a non-binding amendment calling for the government not to pursue a No Deal Brexit but not providing any means to prevent it.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Death Spiral for BuzzFeed, the Millennial Reader’s Digest By Kyle Smith

By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/buzzfeed-death-spiral-the-millennial-readers-digest/

Which Pandering And Meretricious Yet Doomed Advertorial Dungbot Are You? Take The Quiz!

At its peak in the 1970s, Reader’s Digest pleased America like no other publication ever, selling 17 million copies a month while leaving no footprint whatsoever. It was invisible yet ubiquitous. Sure, it carried (often condensed) versions of real news stories written by fancy reporters for respected outlets, but that wasn’t why America adored it. Mainly it was defined by its periphery, its ephemera. Reader’s Digest was the mild, studiously inoffensive little nuggets of japery that readers sent in. The heartwarming stories about men in uniform, pets, kids. The “service journalism” — tips for soothing your aches or bringing harmony to your bank account. The patriotism, the Christmas miracles, the ironclad Frank Capra optimism. You’d see desiccated copies in your dentist’s waiting room or on Grandma’s coffee table. The product wasn’t quite junk food, merely the gentlest possible level of mental stimulation for the lowest common denominator. It was literary meatloaf.

Now picture the Reader’s Digest ethos reborn in 2006. What if you were willing to endure any amount of ridicule, contempt, dismissal, and eye-rolling in pursuit of the largest conceivable audience? What if your highest aspiration was the lowest common denominator? Keep in mind that the public had lost interest in paying for even moderately high-quality journalism, must less replacement-level journalism, much less the LCD variety. And all of the Gladyses were gone.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

KAMALA HARRIS: THE ELIMINATOR

By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/kamala-harris-health-care-plan-elimination/

Kamala Harris has a big idea for your health-care plan: elimination.

The early contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are working feverishly to out-radical each other. Senator Elizabeth Warren has come out with a confiscatory wealth tax that in practice proved too oppressive for Sweden and Denmark, both of which abolished theirs years ago. Harris, not wanting to be outflanked on her left, has now called for the abolition of private health insurance, a proposal that would go well beyond even the practice in single-payer systems such as those of the United Kingdom and Canada.

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her whether under her “Medicare for All” proposal people would be permitted to keep their insurance if they like it. Harris, unlike Barack Obama, offered no such concession. Instead, she offered this: “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.”

Move on to what?

Harris argued that under her system patients would be liberated from having third parties “give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require.” That has not, to say the least, been the experience under government-monopoly health-care systems in real-world practice. In reality, those systems are characterized by bureaucracy, delays, and seemingly arbitrary decisions enforced by the state. There is plenty to criticize about the U.S. health-insurance and health-care businesses, which remain much in need of reform, but the evidence of history strongly suggests that the imposition of a new federal bureaucracy is not the most convenient means of reducing paperwork and delay.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DC ANTIFA LEADER CHARGED WITH ‘ETHNIC INTIMIDATION’ RELATED TO ATTACK ON MARINES

By on January 30th, 2019

https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/29/antifa-leader-marines-arrested/

Washington, D.C. Antifa leader Joseph “Jose” Alcoff, also known as “Chepe,” was arrested and charged with multiple felonies in Philadelphia on Jan. 10 in connection to the Antifa mob attack against two Marines in November.

Alcoff faces 17 charges, including multiple counts of aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, conspiracy and terroristic threats, and one count of robbery while inflicting serious bodily injury.

An affidavit filed in the case reveals that The Daily Caller News Foundation’s reporting on Alcoff’s connection to violent Antifa groups was an integral factor leading to his arrest.

The Marines, Alejandro Godinez and Luis Torres, testified in December that a group of 10 to 12 Antifa members called them “Nazis” and “white supremacists” and attacked them on the street despite their denials that they had no association with the right-wing group demonstrating nearby.

During the attack, Godinez said he shouted “I’m Mexican” at the mob, which allegedly led the attackers to call him a “spic” and “wetback.”

Thomas Keenan and Thomas Massey were arrested in November in connection to the beating. Keenan, who has been called a “leader” of the Antifa contingent in the Philadelphia area, was arrested and charged with rioting alongside Alcoff in New Jersey in 2011.

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It’s Time to Get Real About Our Enemies By Karin McQuillan

By on January 30th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/29/its
Out here in Realville, we better get real about our opponents. They are not well-meaning liberals. They are dangerous. The target is not Trump. They are out to get all of us.

Out here in Realville, to borrow from Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump’s supporters could be very happy. For ordinary Americans—from the top to the bottom of the economic spectrum, black, white and brown—President Trump has brought good times. Except for the screeching drama queens in the Democratic Party and among #TheResistance—and our serious mass immigration problems—life is good and the country is secure.

In a sensible world, we would be basking in this period of unprecedented prosperity and peace.

The country should be unified and full of bonhomie. The whole world has advanced to inconceivable levels of global peace and prosperity. Life is easier, healthier, and more comfortable for more people than ever before in history.

Socialism and Communism—those tragic sisters from the 1800s that led to the greatest human suffering, poverty, and mass starvation in human history—should barely be remembered.

Instead, they are ascendant in the Democrat Party. Cultural Marxism and socialism are the new Democrat chic. The entire country is in an uproar. Everyone feels a sense of doom and gloom.

There is more to #TheResistance than the political panic inspired by the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). They are riding a monster not of their own making. In order to survive, they are providing cover and normalization of something not at all normal.

Conservative pundits have latched onto the fun words “hysteria” and “Trump derangement syndrome.” These words, though cute, mask the seriousness of what is actually happening. The mass hysteria is a goal and a tactic, whipped up by cool-headed, purposeful people. It was not caused by Trump’s tweets or orange coloring. It has everything to do with a long game to change our country. Things are so weird in American politics on purpose or, rather, for purposes—radical left purposes.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why Was Stone Arrested Instead of Being Asked to Surrender? by Alan M. Dershowitz

By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13649/roger-stone-arrest

If there was no legitimate reason for the arrest and handcuffing of this presumed innocent defendant, what was the illegitimate reason? The illegitimate purpose of the arrest was to intimidate the potential witness — namely Stone — into not invoking his constitutional right to remain silent, rather than to testify as a government witness.

As Judge T.S. Ellis, III, who presided over the Manafort trial observed: “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud – what you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”

The ACLU has been absolutely silent in regard to the questionable tactics employed by Mueller. They, too, would have been up in arms had these tactics been employed against their favorite candidate and mine, Hillary Clinton. Their silence speaks volumes about their partisanship and lack of neutral standards of civil liberties.

Congress must act to prevent these abuses from recurring.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Stacey Abrams is an Odd Choice to Deliver the State of the Union Response Daniel Greenfield

By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/272722/stacey-abrams-odd-choice-deliver-state-union-daniel-greenfield

After the disastrous response to Trump’s wall speech, it’s understandable that the Dems don’t want to bring Schumer and Pelosi back to counter President Trump’s State of the Union address. And a lot of their top talent is pondering running in 2020.

So they can’t play favorites.

But Stacey Abrams has also been flirting with running, she’s a campaign loser and she’s a terrible public speaker. The Dems could have picked Hakeem Jeffries, or any one of a dozen other Dems in the national or state leadership who aren’t thinking of running.

And who would actually leave viewers with a positive impression.

Picking Abrams is meant to boost her comeback campaign, but at the cost of the Dem brand.

I know the pre-written media headlines about Abrams “destroying” Trump with lines carefully scripted for her by guys who charge you $50K just to hear them sneeze will be given added spice by the identity politics here, and the consultants have told the Dems that getting black women out to vote is the key to victory, but she’s still a terrible choice.

But at least she probably isn’t running in 2020. It’s hard to find a Dem who isn’t.

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