Comey on Clinton email probe: ‘Don’t call us weasels’ … The normally-stoic FBI chief grew emotional as he rejected claims that the FBI was in the tank for Clinton.
-Politico
James Comey appeared today before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the FBI’s decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton regarding misuse of classified emails – and in the process told members that once the politics stopped circulating, the FBI would again be seen as the institution “you know and love.”
This hyperbolic statement certainly set the tone for the larger hearing which saw Comey testifying with unusual emotionalism, adding at one point that people ought not to see those involved in the decision as “weasels.”
“You can call us wrong, but don’t call us weasels. We are not weasels,” he said. “We are honest people and….whether or not you agree with the result, this was done the way you want it to be done.”
Despite Hillary’s destruction of various phones with hammers (to mention only one issue), he spent several hours insisting, often querulously, that there was no evidence that she intended to obstruct justice or to hide evidence. His statements were mostly a repetition of already presented justifications. As they made little sense previously, they added neither clarity nor insight.
Republican congressmen – many of whom were increasingly incredulous – pressed him in startling ways. Several virtually demanded he reopen the case and others told him bluntly that “you blew it.”
“I would be in big trouble and I should be in big trouble if I did something like that,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). “There seems to be different strokes for different folks. I think there’s a heavy hand coming from someplace else.”
Comey was confronted with new evidence including a Reddit post from July 2014 probably authored by Platte River Networks specialist Paul Combetta seeking information on how to delete a “VIP” email address. (Platte River provided Clinton server support.) Republican Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said, “This clearly demonstrates an action to destroy evidence by people operating Clinton’s private server and her staff.”
Comey’s response: It seemed to him to be merely an effort to deal with privacy considerations.
At every turn, Comey simply explained and re-explained the logic of determining that there was no evidence to move forward with prosecution of Hillary Clinton for mishandling emails of the most sensitive kind – and with little new information to bolster his perspective.
Now, following this hearing, the public accusation stands front and center: The director of the FBI, James Comey, himself allowed the FBI to be influenced by political considerations.
We previously published an article here anticipating Comey’s eventual resignation based on his inability to muster further evidence to justify the FBI’s decision. We continue to believe this may be the only feasible outcome. He made few new points and his testimony today was directly confronted by a series of Republican Congressmen who were neither convinced by his further elaborations nor apparently cowed by his power and position.
While the FBI is today positioned as part of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), Comey has executive latitude and if thwarted from making decisions can surely resign. Stepping back, one can certainly see this latest appearance by Comey and the Republican pushback as unprecedented. The FBI virtually – specifically – stands accused of making a decision for political purposes and perverting “justice” to make allowances for power.
This is part of the further breakdown of American society in the 21st century and will not be resolved easily nor quickly. In fact, we would argue that it probably will not be resolved at all. Even were Comey to resign, the ramifications will likely remain as Comey has insisted that his decision was supported by many others in the FBI.
Conclusion: Because of the political aspect and the polarizing nature of Hillary herself, the ramifications of Comey’s decision (and his inability to defend it in a common-sense way) will linger and poison the FBI’s reputation. It may continue in some sense as the nation’s “secret police force” but it will do so increasingly without the ability to insist – even rhetorically – that it operates in fair and impartial manner.
ORIGINAL LINK
Follow-up to my appearance on Coast to Coast AM
By Jon Rappoport
On Monday night, I discussed medical controversies with George Noory on Coast to Coast AM. We covered the Zika fraud, the new CDC rules for detaining and forcibly treating American citizens, and the outrageous mandatory vaccination law in California.
Lots of phone calls came into the show, in part because medical covert ops are so shocking.
Here is another one, from my archive. It’s a personal favorite, because it shows how crazy conventional wisdom can turn out to be:
There are many propaganda operations surrounding the flu. Here I just want to boil down a few boggling facts.
Dr. Peter Doshi, writing in the online BMJ (British Medical Journal), reveals one monstrosity.
As Doshi states, every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory samples are taken from flu patients in the US and tested in labs. The kicker: only a small percentage of these samples show the presence of a flu virus.
This means: most of the people in America who are diagnosed by doctors with the flu have no flu virus in their bodies.
So they don’t have the flu.
Therefore, even if you assume the flu vaccine is useful and safe, it couldn’t possibly prevent all those “flu cases” that aren’t flu cases.
The vaccine couldn’t possibly work.
Here’s the exact quote from Peter Doshi’s BMJ review, “Influenza: marketing vaccines by marketing disease” (BMJ 2013; 346:f3037):
“…even the ideal influenza vaccine, matched perfectly to circulating strains of wild influenza and capable of stopping all influenza viruses, can only deal with a small part of the ‘flu’ problem because most ‘flu’ appears to have nothing to do with influenza. Every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory specimens are tested across the US. Of those tested, on average 16% are found to be influenza positive.
“…It’s no wonder so many people feel that ‘flu shots’ don’t work: for most flus, they can’t.”
Because most diagnosed cases of the flu aren’t the flu.
So even if you’re a true believer in mainstream vaccine theory, you’re on the short end of the stick here. They’re conning your socks off.
In December of 2005, the British Medical Journal (online) published another shocking Peter Doshi report, which created tremors through the halls of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), where “the experts” used to tell the press that 36,000 people in the US die every year from the flu.
Here is a quote from Doshi’s report, “Are US flu death figures more PR than science?” (BMJ 2005; 331:1412):
“[According to CDC statistics], ‘influenza and pneumonia’ took 62,034 lives in 2001—61,777 of which were attributable to pneumonia and 257 to flu, and in only 18 cases was the flu virus positively identified.”
Boom.
You see, the CDC has created one overall category that combines both flu and pneumonia deaths. Why do they do this? Because they disingenuously assume that the pneumonia deaths are complications stemming from the flu.
This is an absurd assumption. Pneumonia has a number of causes.
But even worse, in all the flu and pneumonia deaths, only 18 revealed the presence of an influenza virus.
Therefore, the CDC could not say, with assurance, that more than 18 people died of influenza in 2001. Not 36,000 deaths. 18 deaths.
Doshi continued his assessment of published CDC flu-death statistics: “Between 1979 and 2001, [CDC] data show an average of 1348 [flu] deaths per year (range 257 to 3006).”
These figures refer to flu separated out from pneumonia.
This death toll is obviously far lower than the parroted 36,000 figure.
However, when you add the sensible condition that lab tests have to actually find the flu virus in patients, the numbers of flu deaths plummet even further.
In other words, it’s all promotion and hype.
“Well, uh, we say that 36,000 people die from the flu every year in the US. But actually, it’s closer to 20. However, we can’t admit that, because if we did, we’d be exposing our gigantic psyop. The whole campaign to scare people into getting a flu shot would have about the same effect as warning people to carry iron umbrellas, in case toasters fall out of upper-story windows…and, by the way, we’d all be put in prison for fraud.”
False realities bloom from the intentional planting of false seeds. Bit by bit, garden by garden, pasture by pasture, the reality spreads, until it is considered unimpeachable. This is how the game works.
For years, we've been warned about the dangers of eating too much fat or salt, but health authorities and media have been relatively silent about sugar, despite rising obesity rates and failing health in just about every area that has adopted a Western processed food diet.
The sad truth is, there's copious amounts of research, spanning many decades, showing that excess sugar damages your health in many ways, yet the sugar industry managed to bury the evidence and cover it up with faux science that supports its own claims, which is that sugar has little or nothing to do with weight gain and ill health.
To this day, they want you to continue believing the outdated myth that saturated fat is to blame instead of sugar, and the calories-in, calories-out myth. Fortunately, the truth is finally starting to see the light of day, and many brave souls have stepped up to the plate to expose and dismantle the orchestrated deception.
"For 40 years, the sugar industry's priority has been to shed doubt on studies suggesting its product makes people sick. On federal panels, industry-funded scientists cited industry-funded studies to dismiss sugar as a culprit."
His latest book, which will be released this fall, is "The Case Against Sugar." I have read this book and will be interviewing Taubes shortly. If you ever had any doubt about how corrupted and influential the sugar industry is, then you simply must read this book.
Taubes delves into the systematic cover-up of science showing sugar indeed causes disease, and is the most likely culprit in our current health crises of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Gary's book goes into far more detail than this or the featured New York Times article. 2
Dozens of scientists at three American universities have also banded together to create an educational website called SugarScience.org,3 aimed at making independent sugar research available to the public.
Kearns — interviewed by NPR above — is also making headlines with a new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine,4 which details the sugar industry's influence on dietary recommendations.5,6,7,8,9,10
Historical Analysis Shows Sugar Industry Manipulated Nutritional Science
Kearns' historical analysis provides substantial proof that the sugar industry has spent decades manipulating, molding and guiding nutritional research to exonerate sugar and shift the blame to saturated fat instead. As reported by The New York Times:11
"The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today's dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat and heart disease.
The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article,12 which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM], minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat.
Even though the influence-peddling revealed in the documents dates back nearly 50 years, more recent reports show that the food industry has continued to influence nutrition science."
Obnoxious Research That Should Raise Your Suspicions
Some of the studies giving sugar a free pass has industry fingerprints clearly visible all over it. For example, one recent paper13 came to the unbelievable and highly unlikely conclusion that eating candy may help prevent weight gain, as children who eat candy tend to weigh less than those who don't.
The source of the funding reveals the basis for such a bizarre conclusion: The National Confectioners Association (NCA), which represents candy makers like Butterfingers, Hershey and Skittles.
Last year, Coca-Cola Co. was exposed funneling millions of dollars to an anti-obesity front group, paid to downplay the links between soda and obesity14 — a link that has been firmly established by many previous studies.
Evidence has also emerged showing how the sugar industry influenced the scientific agenda of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, which back in 1971 created a national caries program — again downplaying any links between sugar consumption and dental caries.15
The role of sugar in the diet of diabetics is even downplayed, despite its obvious risks. As noted by Kearns in the NPR interview above, diabetic literature often doesn't even mention the need for restricting sugar.
Tragically, while type 2 diabetes can be successfully reversed with a proper low-sugar diet, the focus is placed on simply managing the condition through the use of insulin instead — a strategy that typically makes the condition worse.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi-backed research, on the other hand, came to the disturbing and highly irresponsible conclusion that drinking diet soda was more helpful for weight loss than pure water.16
US Dietary Guidelines Were Tainted From the Start
According to Kearns' historical analysis, one of the Harvard scientists paid to produce research for the sugar industry back in 1967 was Mark Hegsted, Ph.D., a nutrition researcher who passed away in 2009.
In 1977, while heading up the nutrition department at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Hegsted helped draft an early document that eventually became the U.S. dietary guidelines.
In the decades since, U.S. health officials have urged Americans to adopt a low-fat diet to prevent heart disease, and as a result, people switched to processed low-fat, high-sugar foods instead.
This, it turns out, is the REAL recipe for heart disease, yet by taking control of and shaping the scientific discussion, the sugar and processed food industries managed to keep these facts under wraps all these years. The end result is clearly visible in the health statistics of today.
In an accompanying editorial,17 Marion Nestle, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, writes:
"From a deep dive into archival documents from the 1950s and 1960s, they have produced compelling evidence that a sugar trade association not only paid for but also initiated and influenced research expressly to exonerate sugar as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD)."
Shaping Public Opinion Through Research and Legislative Programs
The records, which number around 1,500, include hundreds of pages of letters and correspondence between scientists, nutritionists and sugar executives. The documents were found in the archives of now-defunct sugar companies, as well as in the library records of deceased university researchers who played key roles in the industry's strategy.
The records reveal that as far back as 1964 — a time when researchers had begun suspecting a relationship between high-sugar diets and heart disease — John Hickson, a sugar industry executive, introduced a plan for how the sugar industry could influence public opinion "through our research and information and legislative programs."
As reported in the featured article:18 "Hickson proposed countering the alarming findings on sugar with industry-funded research. 'Then we can publish the data and refute our detractors,' he wrote."
This idea is what led to the hiring of Hegsted and two other Harvard scientists to review and debunk the studies linking sugary diets with heart disease. "I think it's appalling," Nestle told The New York Times.19 "You just never see examples that are this blatant."
Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, also noted that the documents are a potent reminder of "why research should be supported by public funding rather than depending on industry funding." Unfortunately, it will take a lot to make such a shift. Even clamping down on conflicts of interest is turning out to be difficult. As Nestle told Bloomberg:20
"I, for example, have been told repeatedly that since I wrote 'Food Politics,' I am ineligible to serve on federal advisory committees because I am too biased. What this tells me is that people who on principle refuse to take food industry funding are excluded from the candidate pool. But people who do take industry funding are considered acceptable as long as they disclose their financial ties appropriately which, unfortunately, many do not."
Sugar Industry Responds
Meanwhile, the Sugar Association remains steadfast in its course, responding to Kearns' paper by saying:21 "We question this author's continued attempts to reframe historical occurrences to conveniently align with the currently trending anti-sugar narrative, particularly when the last several decades of research have concluded that sugar does not have a unique role in heart disease."
It's interesting to note that the sugar industry's primary defense is to lean on a "scientific foundation" of research tainted by their own conclusions! Take their response to British nutritionist John Yudkin's work for example. In 1972, Yudkin published the book, "Pure White and Deadly," in which he presented decades of research pointing at dietary sugar — rather than fat — as the underlying factor in obesity and diabetes.
In response, the Sugar Association secretly funded a white paper called "Sugar in the Diet of Man," which claimed sugar was not only safe and healthy, but an important "energy" food. "Scientists Dispel Sugar Fears," reads the headline of the Sugar Association's press release.22 And, while they funded the paper in question, they made it appear to be an independent study.
The Sugar Association's biggest apologist was Ancel Keys, Ph.D., who, with industry funding, helped destroy Yudkin's reputation by discrediting him and labeling him a quack. The smear campaign was a huge success, bringing sugar research to a screeching halt. Like the tobacco and chemical industries, those who profit from sugar have become very adept at crushing dissenting voices, including those in the halls of science.
By silencing sugar critics, the sugar industry was able to continue the promotion of saturated fat as the dietary villain, despite its lack of scientific support. The 21st century brought super-sized sodas along with super-sized health problems, and the food industry continues to look the other way — hoping you won't catch on to the truth.
Just as Big Tobacco angled to place the blame for cancer elsewhere, Big Sugar has scrambled for cover, borrowing Big Tobacco tactics such as undermining science, intimidating scientists and subverting public health policy.
How Much Sugar Is Too Much?
According to a 2014 study,23 more than 7 out of 10 American adults get at least 10 percent of their daily calories from added sugar; 1 in 10 get 25 percent or more of their daily calories from added sugars. It also found that:
People who consumed 21 percent or more of their daily calories in the form of sugar were twice as likely to die from heart disease compared to those who got 7 percent or less of their daily calories from added sugar
The risk nearly tripled among those who got 25 percent or more of their calories from sugar
More recent research shows that high-sugar diets are also a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease in children — and pose a significant risk even far below current levels of consumption. As noted in the latest scientific statement on children's sugar consumption from the American Heart Association (AHA):24
"Strong evidence supports the association of added sugars with increased cardiovascular disease risk in children through increased energy intake, increased adiposity, and dyslipidemia … [I]t is reasonable to recommend that children consume ≤25 g[rams] (100 cal[ories] or ≈ 6 teaspoons) of added sugars per day and to avoid added sugars for children <2 years of age."
According to the AHA, kids eat on average 19 teaspoons of added sugar a day — about three times more than recommended, and the evidence clearly indicates that this dietary trend goes hand-in-hand with our current epidemics of obesity and chronic disease. A single can of soda or fruit punch can contain about 40 grams of sugar, making sweetened drinks particularly risky for young children.
Breakfast cereals, cereal bars, bagels and pastries also tend to contain high amounts of added sugars. For the longest time, there was no real cutoff recommendation for sugar, aside from recommendations to eat sugar "in moderation" — something that is virtually impossible to do if you're eating processed foods. Thankfully, this is finally changing. The AHA now recommends limiting daily addedsugar intake to:25,26,27,28,29,30,31
9 teaspoons (38 grams) for men
6 teaspoons (25 grams) for women
6 teaspoons (25 grams) for toddlers and teens between the ages of 2 and 18
Zero added sugars for kids under the age of 2
The National Institute of Health (NIH) has also issued sugar recommendations, suggesting kids between the ages of 4 and 8 limit their added sugar to a maximum of 3 teaspoons a day (12 grams), and children age 9 and older stay below 8 teaspoons. While I agree with the 25 gram max as a general recommendation for healthy people, in my view, virtually everyone would benefit from the under age 2 recommendation.
Tips for Reducing Your Added Sugar Intake
One of the easiest and most rapid ways to dramatically cut down on your added sugar and fructose consumption is to simply eat real food, as most of the added sugar you end up with comes from processed foods. Other ways to cut down on the sugar in your diet includes:
Cutting down, with the aim of eliminating, sugar you personally add to your food and drink or consume in the form of processed foods and sweetened beverages
Using Stevia or Luo Han instead of sugar and/or artificial sweeteners. You can learn more about the best and worst of sugar substitutes in my previous article, "Sugar Substitutes — What's Safe and What's Not"
Using fresh fruit in lieu of canned fruit or sugar for meals or recipes calling for a bit of sweetness
Using spices instead of sugar to add flavor to your meal
Almost exactly eight years ago, the Lehman Brothers collapse plunged the global economy into recession. The interbank market collapsed, and the entire industrialized world was thrown into the worst crisis since the end of World War II. Though central banks have maintained ultra-low interest rates, the crisis hasn’t yet been fully overcome. On the contrary, numerous economies, such as the southern European countries and France, simply aren’t making any headway. And Japan has been on the ropes for a quarter-century.
Some economists believe that this is evidence of “secular stagnation,” a phenomenon described in 1938 by the American economist Alvin Hansen, who drew on Karl Marx’s Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall. Owing to the gradual exhaustion of profitable investment projects, according to this view, the natural real interest rate has continued to fall. Stabilizing the economy thus is possible only by an equivalent decline in policy interest rates.
In view of the huge credit bubble that preceded the crisis in Japan, the United States, and southern Europe, and the aggressive policies pursued by central banks over the last few years, I doubt that this theory is correct. In fact, I find it plausible that a very different mechanism lies behind the post-2008 stagnation, which I refer to as “self-inflicted malaise.”
This hypothesis is best understood in the context of the economist Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of the business cycle. Faulty expectations on the part of market participants regularly cause credit and asset-price bubbles. Investors, expecting prices and incomes to rise, purchase residential and commercial properties, and they take chances on new business ventures. Real-estate prices start to rise, a construction boom occurs, and a new phase of rapid expansion begins, partly sustained by the revitalization of the domestic economy, including services. The growth in incomes increasingly emboldens borrowers, which further heats things up.
Then the bubble bursts. Investment collapses and real-estate prices fall; businesses and banks go bankrupt; factories and residential buildings are vacated; and employees are laid off. Once prices and wages have fallen, new investors step in with new business ideas and establish new firms. After this “creative destruction,” a new phase of rapid expansion sets in.
In the current crisis, however, monetary policy preempted the creative destruction that could have formed the basis for a new upswing in growth. Asset holders talked central bankers into believing that Schumpeter’s economic cycle could be overcome by large-scale bond purchases financed via the printing press, and by corresponding interest-rate reductions.
To be sure, these measures stopped the fall in asset prices halfway and thus saved much wealth. But they also prevented sufficient numbers of young entrepreneurs and investors from risking a new start. Instead, established firms remained in place, keeping themselves afloat but lacking the wherewithal for new investments. In Japan and Europe, in particular, large numbers of such zombie firms and banks survived, and they are now blocking would-be competitors able to drive the next upswing in growth. The resulting economic ossification looks like the secular stagnation that Hansen described; in fact, the malaise is self-inflicted.
And, because low interest rates have reduced asset managers’ returns, some central banks – and the European Central Bank, in particular – have relied on successive interest-rate cuts in an effort to engineer ersatz value gains for assets. The economy is thus caught in a trap, forcing the ECB to engage in ever more radical monetary-policy measures. Its current program of quantitative easing is meant to double the money supply in a very short period. Further guns are being moved into position, such as successively more negative nominal interest rates or so-called helicopter money.
The only way out of the trap is a hefty dose of creative destruction, which in Europe would have to be accompanied by debt relief and exits from the eurozone, with subsequent currency devaluations. The shock would be painful for the incumbent wealth owners, but, after a rapid decline in the dollar values of asset prices, including land and real estate, new businesses and investment projects would soon have room to grow, and new jobs would be created. The natural return on investment would again be high, meaning that the economy could expand once again at normal interest rates. The sooner this purge is allowed to take place, the milder it will be, and the sooner Europeans and others will be able to breathe easy again.
(NaturalNews) Evidence that the Zika virus causes birth defects is weak at best, as most studies linking the two are based on "epidemiological statistics, not rigorous scientific studies of cause and effect," as the Health Ranger observed in recent months.The U.S. Centers for...
Whether you think there has been a housing “recovery” or not is a matter of perspective. Sales are indeed up 117% since the 2010 low, but that low was literally the worst level in the history of this data (since 1963) as a percentage of population growth. It was the Great Depression of Housing, the…
A new ballot measure being considered by voters in Washington State, officially referred to a Initiative Measure 1491, would allow authorities to seize guns from people considered "significantly more likely to commit violence toward themselves or others in the near future." The legislation would allow authorities with a court order to seize an individual's guns for a period of up to 1 year. Under the measure, gun owners would have the right to appeal a court order to have their guns returned but would have no ability to block the upfront confiscation.
The full text of Initiative Measure 1491 is included at the end of this post but below are a couple of key excerpts:
This act is designed to temporarily prevent individuals who are at high risk of harming themselves or others from accessing firearms by allowing family, household members, and police to obtain a court order when there is demonstrated evidence that the person poses a significant danger, including danger as a result of a dangerous mental health crisis or violent behavior.
Studies show that individuals who engage in certain dangerous behaviors are significantly more likely to commit violence toward themselves or others in the near future. These behaviors, which can include other acts or threats of violence, self-harm, or the abuse of drugs or alcohol, are warning signs that the person may soon commit an act of violence.
Individuals who pose a danger to themselves or others often exhibit signs that alert family, household members, or law enforcement to the threat. Many mass shooters displayed warning signs prior to their killings, but federal and state laws provided no clear legal process to suspend the shooters' access to guns, even temporarily.
According to the Wall Street Journal, if the measure passes, Washington would become the second state after California to allow family members and police to petition a judge to take guns from a person considered a danger. Connecticut, Indiana and Texas have similar laws, but only police can ask a judge to do so.
Aside from all the obvious issues surrounding unreasonable seizures of personal property, another key issue with the bill is the broad definition of people who can petition authorities to confiscate someone's guns. Per the measure's definition of "Family or Household Member", any disgruntled former "dating partner" could allege mental instability and have someone's personal property confiscated as a form of retribution.
"Family or household member" means, with respect to a respondent, any: (a) Person related by blood, marriage, or adoption to the respondent; (b) Dating partners of the respondent; (c) Person who has a child in common with the respondent, regardless of whether such person has been married to the respondent or has lived together with the respondent at any time; (d) Person who resides or has resided with the respondent within the past year; (e) Domestic partner of the respondent; (f) Person who has a biological or legal parent-child relationship with the respondent, including stepparents and stepchildren and grandparents and grandchildren; and (g) Person who is acting or has acted as the respondent's legal guardian.
While the WSJ has alleged that the bill has bipartisan support, the state's Republican Party and gun-right's groups are slightly less "enthusiastic" with the Washington State Rifle and Pistol Association saying “it’s just an excuse to go after guns.”
The state Republican Party has yet to take a position on the initiative, and Ms. Hutchison said she doesn’t know if it is a solution.
“That’s something that sounds very good on the surface,” said Joe Waldron, legislative chairman for the Washington State Rifle and Pistol Association. “It’s just an excuse to go after guns.”
Mr. Waldron said he is concerned that the measure would deprive gun owners of their constitutional rights, including due process and protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
What are the chances this bill has any impact at all on violent crime in the state of Washington?
Will John Cryan's name go down in the annals of financial history lore alongside Erin Callan, Joe Gregory, and Dick Fuld?
Given the extreme level of denial and hubris the Deutsche Bank CEO reportedly uses in an interview with Germany's Bild magazine, we'd say chances are better than even.
Echoing Fuld's blustering 2008 description of a Lehman balance sheet with "billions in highly liquid assets," along with his plan to sell prized assets, and threats to "hurt the shorts";
Deutsche's Cryan stated unequivocally that the bank is "comfortably equipped with free liquidity," that he sees no need for a capital raise - as he plans to sell Postbank - and a state bailout "is not an issue for us," could not understand "how someone can say that."
As a reminder, here are some special moments from Fuld and Callan's mouths as Lehman fell...
March 2008: Lehman had eliminated close to 4,000 jobs in the last year.
April 2008:"The worst of the financial crisis impact is behind us" ... "environment will remain challenging for a while"
" by adhering to strong risk-management standards and running the company well, "I will hurt the shorts, and that is my goal."
Lehman has more than $35 billion of cash and liquid assets and another $65 billion of "unencumbered" assets that aren't pledged elsewhere and can easily be turned into cash, Fuld and Chief Financial Erin Callan said Tuesday.
The CEO of Deutsche Bank sees no need for state support of his institution. In an interview with "Bild" (Wednesday) John Cryan said aloud advance notification to the question whether the Bank need government aid: "This is not an issue for us."
The manager had also jected reports and speculation about alleged talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) on state aid for the German bank. "I have not asked the Chancellor at any time for help. I have indicated like nothing." Cryan said. He could not understand "how someone can say that."
Even its shareholders do not want to ask for help of the German Bank CEO. "The question of a capital increase currently does not arise," said the manager. The Bank met all regulatory capital requirements. They have "far fewer risks in the books than in the past" and was "comfortably equipped with free liquidity".
The CEO described the situation of Deutsche Bank as better than it was currently perceived from the outside.
So no capital increase, plenty of liquidity, and fewer risks?
Investor jitters were stoked by a preliminary Justice Department request that the bank pay $14 billion to resolve a probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities. The company has said it expects to whittle down the settlement amount, just as other Wall Street banks did during their talks.
“It was clear from the beginning that we would not pay this sum,” Bild quoted Cryan as saying.
“The Department of Justice will treat us with the same fairness as American banks that have already agreed on a compromise."
The bank is also selling assets (just like Lehman)...
The CEO stressed that he considers the planned sale of Postbank started: ".. Everything is ready, we could pass Postbank tomorrow into new hands - but then the price has to be right, we have time."
When asked whether there would be a bonus waiver for directors like 2016 again next year, Cryan said:
"We're in a difficult transition, everyone knows that no one harbors unrealistic expectations.."
So there you have it. Nothing to see here at all. All you hedgers and speculators are crazy...
So who blinks first? The ECB - knowing the collateral chains that will snap. The Bundesbank - knowing their entire banking system is at risk. The German government - knowing it's over for them if DB depositors have to take a haircut... Or Brussells - who know the entire EU plan is teetering is done if anything but the 'rules' are applied to Deutsche. For now, there is one thing for sure - the market will press for one of these players to be forced to make decision.
It’s very easy to come across conflicting information, especially in regards to the science of health and even more so when it comes to examining meat-based diets in comparison to plant-based ones. Plant-based diets can help prevent over over 60% of chronic disease deaths, yet people are still arguing whether veganism is a safe and sustainable diet. This is largely due to “food industry science,” which is full of bias and false information that’s constantly used in both our education and health care systems. This is neither a secret nor a conspiracy theory, as many people within these industries have come out publicly to address these issues and emphasize the same points.
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine” – Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (source)
A couple years ago, Dr Richard Horton, the current Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, which is considered to be one of the most reputable medical journals in the world, stated that half of all published literature may be false. In his words, “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” (source)
These are important points to consider when talking about science and it’s extremely apparent in the food system, especially when discussing plant-based diets. We’ve been hammered with the idea that meat is necessary for good health, even in an age where an enormous amount of professionals and publications have proven the nutritional benefits of a plant-based diet. It seems kind of fishy, especially given the fact that several billion animals are raised and killed for meat production annually, and that’s just in America alone.
Plant-Based Diets Compared To Meat
If we look at ‘mainstream’ science, scientists are only now starting to accept plant-based diets as a sustainable, healthy option and those doing the research are living, walking and talking examples of that.
For instance Dr. Ellsworth Wareham, a 100-year-old, and a recently retired heart surgeon who has been a vegan for half of his life explains that:
“Veganism is a very fine form of nutrition. It’s a little extreme to tell a person who is using flesh foods that you’re going to take everything entirely away from them. When I was in practice in medicine, I would tell the patients that the vegetable-based diet was the healthy way to go, and to keep away from the animal products as much as possible. People are very sensitive about what they eat. You can talk to people about exercising relaxation, good mental attitude and they will accept that. But you talk to them about what they are eating and people are very sensitive about that. If an individual is willing to listen, I will try to explain to them on a scientific basis of how I think it’s better for them.” – Dr. Ellsworth Wareham (source)
Another example is Kim A. Williams, M.D., incoming president of the American College of Cardiology, who also adopted a vegan diet. He often sees patients who are overweight and struggling with hypertension, type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol. One of the things he advises them to do specifically is to go vegan. He is also the Chairman of Cardiology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. His enthusiasm for a planet-based diet comes from his interpretation of medical literature, having cited several studies proving that people who pursue vegetarian diets lived longer than meat eaters and have lower rates of death from heart disease, diabetes and kidney problems. (source)
According to Harvard Medical School, “studies are confirming the health benefits of meat-free eating. Nowadays, plant-based eating is recognized as not only nutritionally sufficient but also as a way to reduce the risk for many chronic illnesses.” (source)
There are a multitude of studies showing the benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets. For example, the American Dietetic Association weighed in with a position paper, concluding that “appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” (Journal of the American Dietetic Association, July 2009) (source)
These diseases include heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and more. Research carried out by Dr. Dean Ornish, who found that patients who were put on a program that included a vegetarian diet had less coronary plaque and fewer cardiac events, is also commonly cited.
It’s also important to note that when it comes to science and making ‘associations,’ it’s crucial to use the Bradford Hill Criteria. We all know that correlation does not mean causation, and that sometimes, correlation could mean causation. When you have a large number of studies showing such strong correlations, it’s generally safe to assume that correlation in certain instances does mean causation. When it comes to plant based diets, there is no shortage of evidence that clearly outlines their health benefits. Obviously, the benefits of eating more plant based foods goes far beyond just correlation.
This trend is gaining more scientific inquiry as popularity grows. At least 542,000 people in Britain now follow a vegan diet – up from 150,000 in 2006 – and another 521,000 vegetarians hope to reduce their consumption of animal products. It is evident that veganism has become one of the fastest growing lifestyle choices. (Source #2)
One of the most comprehensive studies ever performed on this subject is “The China Study” conducted by Drs. T. Colin Campbell and Thomas Campbell. Their findings showed direct correlations between nutrition and heart-disease, diabetes, and cancer, proving that cultures that eat primarily plant-based diets have lower to no instances of these diseases and that switching to a plant-based diet can successfully reverse diseases already established in the body. The China Study is recognized as themost comprehensive nutritional study ever conducted on the relationship between diet and disease. I highly recommend watching the documentary Forks Over Knives (available on Netflix), which delves into this in more detail.
The list of studies goes on and on, and if you’d like to find more information, we recommend you research this subject yourself as there are far too many studies to include in this article.
Plant Protein Compared To Vegan Protein
“The protein in animal products is filled with fats and chemicals and all sorts of stuff that’s harmful to you. When I was competing and stuffing down all that stuff, I had lots of digestive problems, I was constipated and bloated, just miserable all the time. I don’t concern myself with protein anymore, because there is enough in what I eat. I am not only healthy, but I feel better about myself and how I relate to other creatures in the world.”
Above are the words of Jim Morris, one of many competitive vegan bodybuilders, who has been vegan for most of his life. The last time we saw a vegan bodybuilder he was competing at this years Olympic Games in Brazil. His name is Kendrick Farris and he was the only American male weightlifter to compete in the Rio Olympics. You can read more about that here.
If someone tells you, “I need my protein,” and that’s why they eat meat, they are vastly misinformed. You don’t need protein from meat to be healthy; in fact, it is the complete opposite, as plant-based protein is a healthier alternative. Clearly, the bodybuilders adopting these vegan diets are a great example, but let’s look at what some of the ‘experts’ have to say.
According to Dr. Deepak Bhatt, a Harvard Medical School professor and Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Heart Latter,
“When it comes to getting protein in your diet, meat isn’t the only option. Mounting evidence shows that reducing meat and increasing plant-based protein is a healthier way to go. A diet with any type of meat raises the risk of heart disease and cancer, when compared with a vegetarian diet.” (source)
A more recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital followed more than 130,000 people for 36 years, monitoring illnesses, lifestyles, diets and mortality rates.
They found that substituting between 15g and 19g of animal protein, the equivalent of a single sausage, for legumes, pulses, nuts and other planet protein, significantly decreased the risk of early death. Replacing eggs with plant-based protein also lead to at 19 percent reduction in death risk.
Researchers found that a 10 percent higher intake of meat was associated with a two percent higher mortality rate and an eight percent higher chance of cardiovascular death.
According to Dr. T. Colin Campbell, mentioned earlier in the article from The China Study,
“What I did during the early part of my career was nothing more than what traditional science would suggest. I made the observation that diets presumably higher in animal protein were associated with liver cancer in the Philippines. When coupled with the extraordinary report from India showing that casein fed to experimental rats at the usual levels of intake dramatically promoted liver cancer, it prompted my 27-year-long study The China Project, of how this effect worked. We did dozens of experiments to see if this was true and, further, how it worked.”
It also showed, among others, that animal protein is very acidic, and leak, and body takes calcium and phosphorus from the bones to neutralize the acidity.
Below is a video of him explaining some of his findings.
So, Which One Is Better?
Obviously, there is information on both sides. The main point to remember here is that protein isn’t the same.
Protein is built from building blocks known as amino acids, and our bodies make them in two different ways. Perhaps not everybody’s body is the same, and some can require what they need from scratch, or by modifying others.
A short list of amino acids known as theessential amino acids need to come from food. According to current education, which is largely funded by food corporations who control animal agriculture, preaches that animal sources of protein tend to deliver all the amino acids we need. What they leave out about the animal protein is what you just read above.
Other sources of protein lack one or more essential amino acids, but all a vegetarian or vegan individual needs to do is make sure they contain a variety of protein containing foods, which will help the body make more protein.
That being said, studies on caloric restriction and fasting have shown that a high protein intake, too much, is definitely something you don’t want. If you want to learn more about that, you can check out Dr Valter Longo, or check out some more of our articles on fasting.
Certain meats have also been linked to several diseases. For example, research conducted at Harvard School of Public Health has found that eating even small amounts of red meat, especially processed red meat, on a regular basis is linked to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, and the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or any other cause. Certain meats are also known to cause cancer, and several other diseases. Replacing these meats with healthier sources of protein reversed the effects. (source)(source)
Processed foods/meat are also known to cause cancer.
While underconsumption of protein is harmful to the body, overconsumption comes with risks as well. In the United States, the average omnivore gets more than 1.5 times the optimal amount of protein, and most of that protein is from animal sources. This is bad news, because excess protein is turned into waste or turned into fat. This stored animal protein contributes to weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, inflammation and cancer.
On the other hand, the protein contained in whole plant foods is connected to disease prevention. According to Michelle McMacken, MD, a board-certified internal medicine physician and an assistant professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine:
“[T]he protein found in whole plant foods protects us from many chronic diseases. There is no need to track protein intake or use protein supplements with plant-based diets; if you are meeting your daily calorie needs, you will get plenty of protein. The longest-lived people on Earth, those living in the “Blue Zones,” get about 10% of their calories from protein, compared with the U.S. average of 15-20%.”
Obviously, there are is a great wealth of information out there, and what I’ve presented here is just a tidbit. There are also other factors to consider these days as well, such as industry influence over scientific publications, and more.
If you’d like to read a related CE article and learn more about a meat free diet, you can check out the article liked below:
