Elitists Rage at Pro-Brexit Masses: New at Reason

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Hell hath no fury like an establishment spurned. If you didn't know this already, you certainly know it now, following the British people's vote for a "Brexit." A whopping 17.5 million of us voted last week to cut the U.K.'s ties with the European Union (E.U.), against 16 million who voted to stay. And they did so against the advice of most of the political class, media "experts," E.U. bureaucracy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), celebrities such as Benedict Cumberbatch, President Barack Obama, and virtually every other Western leader. They defied them all, rejecting every E.U.-loving overture from the great and good and well-educated. And boy, is the establishment mad.

In the three days since this modern-day peasants' revolt—the poor and working-class voted for a Brexit in far large numbers than the well-to-do and well-connected—the political and media elites have rained damnation upon the little people. They're calling into question the ability of ordinary people to rationally weigh up hefty political matters, and are even suggesting the referendum result be overturned in the name of the "national interest." 

Much of the elitist rage with the masses who voted for Brexit echoes a longstanding suspicion of democracy, writes Londonite and spiked editor Brendan O'Neill. Among the upper echelons of British society there has never been a willing acceptance of the idea that ordinary people should have an equal say in political life.

View this article.

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Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Say “Christian Conservative”

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(ANTIMEDIA) Division is created by fear, which generates hate. Politics is the biggest dividing line in this country, and politicians exacerbate that division by unabashedly promoting fear — which rouses hate in those who allow the paranoia and angst to consume them. People who are filled with hate are angry enough to vote. And if a politician “hates” what you hate, you’re more likely to vote for them. The technical term for those who fall for this cycle is “sucker.”

Evangelicals make up a large portion of the American populace. You only need to turn on Fox News to hear them espouse their beliefs and to get a sense of what they stand for. Many in this community have labeled themselves “conservatives,” and even more proclaim themselves “Christians.” We should refrain from using these terms to describe this right-wing star-spangled demographic.

First, this powerful political voting block cannot be described with the moniker of “conservative” because there is nothing fiscally or morally conservative about wanting to expand the U.S. military in 2016, and in the many years prior. If you want to drop more bombs, spend more on war, and live in constant fear of the next terrorist attack, that is your prerogative as a citizen of a free nation — but there is nothing “conservative” about those who hold these positions and they should not be described as such.

To conserve is to save or avoid waste, meaning a fiscal conservative would traditionally believe in spending less money, especially when the entity spending funds is already broke. Constantly begging to grow the military is the same as begging to grow government. Those who preach small government while calling for a larger military contradict themselves and shouldn’t be taken seriously until they can at least figure out what they actually believe in.

According to NationalPriorities.org:

“The U.S. outpaces all other nations in military expenditures. World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the total.

U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined.”

One who bemoans the expenditures of a country that is $19 trillion in debt certainly has a credible complaint, but if that same person also calls to print more money to pay for something that already accounts for 54% of national discretionary spending, they are something alright — but they’re certainly not a conservative.

To put that figure in context, the United States’ second biggest financial allotment in its annual discretionary budget is for its governmental operations – those funds account for 6.5% of approved spending. Education comes in third at roughly 6.2%. The percentages of discretionary spending only go down from there.

So let’s recap. “Conservatives” rightly say the U.S. is broke, but then say not enough is spent on projects that already accounts for over 50% of the annual U.S. spending approved by Congress each year. Oh, right, I forgot to mention — the $600 billion plus spent on the military each year goes towards an ongoing global offensive campaign that results in bombs being dropped for the end goal of promoting the self-interests of a fledgling empire. Bombs don’t spread the Gospel, they maim and kill.

In fact, Barack Obama – the same person lambasted daily by politicians and political pundits for being weak on U.S. military conquests — dropped over 23,000 bombs in 2015 alone. If, as a conservative, you consider that weak, what do you want from him? Fifty-thousand bombs dropped? One-hundred-thousand? How much blood must be spilled before you consider him “tough?”

Barack Obama has been at war longer than any president in U.S. history. He has bombed eight different countries — that we know about (most outlets report seven because bombing a former territory of the U.S., the Philippines, isn’t good for poll numbers). Even “warmongering” George W. Bush — the public relations guy during the Cheney administration — didn’t bomb that many. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama has bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and the Philippines. The Philippines is a former territory of the U.S., and the guy considered “reluctant” to go to war “discreetly” drone bombed them in 2012.

There is no real way to know how many innocent people have lost their lives due to repeated U.S. military interventions over the past 15 years, but a conservative (real definition) estimate dwarfs those killed in all U.S. mass shootings combined — times 1,000.

Where were Congressman John Lewis and his cohorts when those innocent people died? I don’t remember them staging sit-ins for the countless children killed by the bombs dropped by their Democratic colleague or his Republican predecessor. Maybe that’s because that brood of greedy leeches is filled with political opportunists — not individuals who actually care about human life. At least, that’s how their actions paint them, regardless of their privately-held beliefs. Would Jesus pick and choose which innocent lives we value?

This brings us to the term “Christian” when describing a block of voters.

Not all Muslims are terrorists and not all Christians are Sean Hannity-following hooligans.

A Christian is someone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. If you’ve ever read the teachings of Jesus – what He actually taught, not some Fox News fear-filled interpretation of what He taught – He spoke of love and forgiveness. That is the exact opposite of pretty much everything the U.S. government does.

When Donald Trump was asked earlier this year what his favorite Bible verse was, he responded with: “An eye for an eye.”

According to Matthew 5 of the Bible, Jesus said:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person….You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Donald Trump literally responded with the one verse Jesus said to dismiss, and yet “Christian conservatives” support him in droves. I have yet to figure that one out.

Sean Hannity said in 2009:

“Here you are, you’re a liberal, probably define peace as the absence of conflict. I define peace as the ability to defend yourself and blow your enemies into smithereens.”

Sean Hannity and the legions of right-wing Americans who hold beliefs similar to his may very well be Christians, but they in no way, shape, or form speak for Christianity. That’s because they are flag worshipping demagogues first and foremost — according to their own rhetoric.

A huge segment of Americans has unknowingly allowed government to become their god. Blowing people to “smithereens” isn’t anything the Jesus I read about would advocate, but it is something the U.S. government happily promotes.

For those that subscribe to the teachings of Jesus — if you are a defender of needless death, all for the glory of a flag or uniform —  you need to check what you really believe. And if you don’t subscribe to His teachings, please stop labeling this intervention-loving, red, white, and blue worshipping right-wing movement a Christian one.

As a Christian myself, I think they’re lunatics.

So maybe instead of the term “Christian conservatives,” we should start calling them what their own words suggest they are…

Government-first, war-thirsty, militarily liberal hypocrites.

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This article (Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Say “Christian Conservative”) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to SM Gibson and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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Don’t Believe Any Headline Showing Hillary Clinton with a 12-Point Lead over Donald Trump

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"A new poll shows Hillary Clinton with a 12 point lead over Donald Trump," trumpets ABC News Radio, hyping a broadcast of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Well, yes, but mostly no.

There is indeed a 51 percent to 39 percent advantage for Clinton over Trump in newly released Washington Post/ABC News poll, conducted from June 20-23. But that same survey also asked the same pool of voters to react to a far more representative ballot, i.e., one that includes Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson (who is widely expected to end up on the ballots of all 50 states), and the Green Party's Jill Stein, who is projected to wind up on as many as 47. Leaving Johnson and Stein off polls is bad science; electing to emphasize the numbers that exclude them is journalistic malpractice.

How do the numbers differ with or without the third-party candidates included? Here's the WashPost/ABC poll, with the first line the misleading Clinton-vs.-Trump matchup, and the second line better reflecting reality. OT = "other," NV = "not voting."

HC 51% DT 39% OT 2% NV 6%

HC 47% DT 37% OT 1% NV 0% GJ 7% JS 3%

So it's a 10-point lead, not a 12-point lead, and Clinton is not supported by a majority of voters. (In fact, this marks her high-water mark in any poll this season that has included Johnson and Stein; in all others, she has been between 39 percent and 44 percent.)

The split is even more dramatic with the other poll making news today, from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal:

HC 46% DT 41%

HC 39% DT 38 GJ% 10 JS 6%

And yet here is how numbers wizard Nate Silver reacted to this poll:

The bad news for Trump is that a poll showing him 5 points down is considered good news for Trump.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 26, 2016

That quip would read a lot differently if it were "The bad news for Trump is that a poll showing him 1 point down is considered good news for Trump," and yet the edited version is the more accurate one. (Silver, in other venues, has argued for Johnson to be included in polling, saying "it's not a pollster's job, in my view, to take that choice away from the voter when they'll have it on the ballot. They can always ask the question both ways, too — with Johnson and without.") 

Such selective, inaccurate reading is not just the stuff of Twitter jokes. This is how the Wall Street Journal headlined its own damned poll: "Hillary Clinton Holds 5-Point Lead Over Donald Trump, Latest Poll Finds." Right, except when you include the names of the candidates who will actually be on the ballots. ABC News did the same with its survey: "Clinton Opens 12-Point Lead on Trump."

Well, just because some news organizations are elevating clickbait over accuracy doesn't mean the rest of us need play along. There have been, to my count, seven national polls over the last month that asked about all four candidates, and also provided results for just Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Before you read or share any headline about presidential polls, make sure you check to see whether they've included Johnson and/or Stein, and then keep this month-long average in mind:

HC 46% DT 38% OT 7% NV 5% 

HC 42% DT 36% OT 2% NV 2% GJ 7% JS 5%

Notice the interesting symmetry in those numbers? Without the third-party candidates, "other" and "not voting" have 7 percent and 5 percent, respectively. Include them, and its Johnson and Stein who get 7 percent and 5 percent, while the number of voters feeling left out of the process plummets. And yes, the third-party challengers on net are drawing more from the Democrat.

The other thing that jumps out of the four-way polling is this: Clinton has yet to reach 50 percent when her proper competition is included, and Trump hasn't even cracked 40. It's early yet, and third-party support historically dwindles toward Election Day, but preliminarily the numbers illustrate what our gut already tells us: America is not enthusiastic about its major-party presidential choices.

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Hillary's Official Calendar Is "Missing" A Lot Of Entries

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Little by little the public is starting to learn more about Hillary Clinton's time as US Secretary of State, beyond the official narrative . Most recently it was revealed that the State Department disabled its own security software to accommodate emails being sent from Hillary's private server, and also that Clinton omitted a key email discussing that very topic when turning over records to the State Department.

And now, courtesy of the AP, we learn that the official calendar that Hillary kept as secretary of state did not closely mirror the more detailed records of Clinton's daily meetings provided by her aides. The detailed schedules were included in files the State Department turned over to the AP after it sued the government in federal court.

When the AP compared Clinton's 1,500 page official calendar with the detailed planning schedules, what the AP found was stunning. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, and at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests were not recorded or omitted from the official calendar.

Additionally, more than 60 other events listed on the detailed planners were omitted entirely from Clinton's calendar, noted as "private meetings", none of which named names of anyone who Clinton met with.

For example, in an entry on Clinton's schedule in September 2009 didn't contain the identities of major Wall Street and business leaders who met with Clinton for a private breakfast discussion at the New York Stock Exchange. The meeting occurred minutes before Clinton appeared in public at the exchange to ring the opening bell. However, the detailed planning schedules from the same day listed all of the names that were omitted from the official schedule.

More from AP

Despite the omission, Clinton's State Department planning schedules from the same day listed the names of all Clinton's breakfast guests — most of whose firms had lobbied the government and donated to her family's global charity. The event was closed to the press and merited only a brief mention in her calendar, which omitted all her guests' names — among them Blackstone Group Chairman Steven Schwarzman, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and then-New York Bank of Mellon CEO Robert Kelly.

 

Besides Schwarzman, Nooyi and Kelly, Clinton's other guests were Fabrizio Freda, CEO of the Estee Lauder Companies Inc.; Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks Corp.; Lewis Frankfort, chairman of Coach Inc.; Ellen Kullman, then-CEO of DuPont; David M. Cote, CEO of Honeywell International Inc.; James Tisch, president of Loews Corp.; John D. Wren, CEO of Omnicom Group; then-McGraw Hill Companies chairman Harold McGraw III; and James Taiclet, chairman of the American Tower Corp. Also attending was then-NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer, who later accompanied Clinton when she rang the stock exchange bell.

 

Four of the attendees — Schwarzman, Nooyi, Cote and Kullman — headed companies that later donated to Clinton's pet diplomatic project of that period, the U.S. pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

 

All the firms represented except Coach lobbied the government in 2009; Blackstone, Honeywell, Omnicom and DuPont lobbied the State Department that year. Schwarzman and Frankfort have personally donated to the Clinton Foundation, and the other firms — except for American Tower and New York Bank of Mellon — also contributed to the Clinton charity.

The AP noted that Clinton's calendar also repeatedly omitted private dinners with political donors, policy sessions with groups of corporate leaders and "drop-bys" with old Clinton campaign hands and advisers. Among the names that were omitted from Clinton's schedule but again were found on the detailed planning documents were longtime adviser Sidney Blumenthal, consultant and former Clinton White House chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty, former energy lobbyist Joseph Wilson and entertainment magnate and Clinton campaign bundler Haim Saban.

The lengths that AP had to go to in order to obtain these documents were significant, and no documents showed who specifically logged entries in Clinton's calendar or edited material. Once again, we find deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin's name in the mix, as Abedin held weekly meetings and emailed almost every day about Clinton's plans. Also, a stunning finding was made in that Clinton's official calendar was edited after each event.

The AP first sought Clinton's calendar and schedules from the State Department in August 2013, but the agency would not acknowledge even that it had the material. After nearly two years of delay, the AP sued the State Department in March 2015. The department agreed in a court filing last August to turn over Clinton's calendar, and provided the documents in November. After noticing discrepancies between Clinton's calendar and some schedules, the AP pressed in court for all of Clinton's planning material. The U.S. has released about one-third of those planners to the AP, so far.

 

The State Department censored both sets of documents for national security and other reasons, but those changes were made after the documents were turned over to the State Department at the end of Clinton's tenure.

 

The documents obtained by the AP do not show who specifically logged entries in Clinton's calendar or who edited the material. Clinton's emails and other records show that she and two close aides, deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin and scheduling assistant Lona J. Valmoro, held weekly meetings and emailed almost every day about Clinton's plans. According to the recent inspector general's audit and a court declaration made last December by the State Department's acting executive secretary, Clinton's aides had access to her calendar through a government Microsoft Outlook account. Both Abedin and Valmoro were political appointees at the State Department and are now aides in her presidential campaign.

 

Unlike Clinton's planning schedules, which were sent to Clinton each morning, her calendar was edited after each event, the AP's review showed. Some calendar entries were accompanied by Valmoro emails — indicating she may have added those entries. Every meeting entry also included both the planned time of the event and the actual time — showing that Clinton's calendar was being used to document each meeting after it ended.

 

The State Department said Friday that "extensive records" from Clinton's calendars were preserved. Spokesman John Kirby said he couldn't speak in more detail about practices during Clinton's tenure because of the AP's ongoing lawsuit.

Former department officials as well as government records experts said that secretaries of state have wide latitude in keeping their schedules, despite federal laws and agency rulings overseeing the archiving of calendars and warning against altering or deleting records.

"It's clear that any outside influence needs to be clearly identified in some way to at least guarantee transparency. That didn't happen. These discrepancies are striking because of her possible interest at the time in running for the presidency" said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.

* * *

So we learn now that not only did Clinton omit key emails to the government, often times the official schedule omitted - if not outright "redacted" - key names and events as well while Clinton was the Secretary of State. Ironically, just as the case was with Abedin submitted an email that Hillary chose to keep from the government, the daily planning schedules from Hillary's aides now shines a light on the detail Clinton tried to keep from the public record once again. We're sure that's just an oversight on Clinton's part though, she was probably just too busy to make sure the official calendar accurately reflected what was taking place and who the US Secretary of State was meeting with.

Will anyone ask the question of what exactly was discussed when Hillary had these so called "private" meetings with Wall Street and big business? Probably not. However, for the sake of our readers and the so-called "posterity", we have decided to document what the rest of the media will ignore, and we will not forget.

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CNN’s Clinton Cash ‘Fact-Check’ Ends in Embarrassment for Cristina Alesci and Laurie Frankel

Hawaii Governor Signs Bill Putting Gun Owners in Database

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Hawaii Gov. David Ige (EE'-gay) is signing a bill that makes the state the first to enter gun owners into an FBI database that will automatically notify police if an island resident is arrested anywhere else in the country.

Ige said in a statement Thursday the legislation is about community safety and responsible gun ownership. He says it will help law enforcement agencies protect Hawaii residents and visitors.

State Sen. Will Espero, who introduced the bill, and the Honolulu Police Department say the measure could serve as a model for other states. But critics say gun owners shouldn't have to be entered in a database to practice a constitutional right.

Ige also signed legislation that disqualifies perpetrators of stalking or sex assault from owning or possessing a gun or ammunition.

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CDC Zika information Zika has not yet been transmitted by mosquitoes in the continental U.S. As of...

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CDC Zika information

Zika has not yet been transmitted by mosquitoes in the continental U.S.

As of June 23 the U.S. had admitted at least 819 travelers infected with Zika into the continental U.S.

198 New York, 162 in Florida, 52 in California, 42 in Texas

One case of Zika in U.S. was “lab-acquired.”

Many of them in the states that have the species of mosquito that can transmit the virus, which is how CDC says Zika will soon become endemic to the U.S.

Zika virus has been around since the 1940’s.

Zika is considered one of the mildest mosquito-borne viruses.

At least 80% of people who get Zika don’t become sick and have no symptoms.

For 70 years, Zika wasn’t linked to microcephaly birth defects. That only happened after a 2015 rise in microcephaly in Brazil coincident with a Zika outbreak.

Brazil’s Ministry of Health originally thought it had 4,180 cases of Zika-related microcephaly between October and December 2015. However, after scrutiny by experts, it reported that Zika and other infectious diseases were ruled out in a majority of the cases.

An Argentina doctors’ group said Brazil’s rash of microcephaly was noticed shortly after some communities began using the larvicide “pyriproxyfen” in drinking water. “It’s a hypothesis, a probability,” Dr. Medardo Avila Vazquez, a pediatrician in Cordoba, Argentina and main author of the report told NPR. “And for us, it’s more likely that it’s the chemical larvicide and not Zika.” (“Pyriproxyfen” is also spelled “pyroproxyfen” in some publications.)

Read the Argentina doctors’ report on pyriproxyfen

After the doctors’ group report, one Brazilian state announced it would stop putting pyriproxyfen in drinking water.

Chemical interests and medical authorities, including the World Health Organization, attacked the Argentina doctors’ report and said there was no cause for concern about pyriproxyfen, which they said is safe to drink at low levels. Other pyriproxyfen supporters launched a campaign to declare concerns about it “rumor” and a “debunked,” “ridiculous” “conspiracy theory” by “cranks.”  including a propagandist known for pushing the pharmaceutical industry’s interests: David Gorski a/k/a “ORAC.”

This dispute led to an edit war on Wikipedia.

Read the NPR report on why medical experts say there’s no concern about pyriproxyfen

Doctors say there’s no “smoking gun” that links Zika to microcephaly, but that all the evidence taken together indicates there’s an association.

There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes. Zika is spread primarily by just one of them: Aedes species  (Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus). Most U.S. states do not have this species.

Within the continental U.S., the Aedes aegypti mosquito that has spread most Zika cases is common only in Florida along the Gulf Coast.

For the minority who actually get sick from Zika, symptoms may include joint pain and swelling, conjunctivitis and cold symptoms.

You’re not supposed to spray bug repellent on skin under clothing.

The Obama administration has requested about $1.9 billion to fight Zika.

Half the requested taxpayer funds are for projects outside of the U.S.

Human travelers from Zika-ridden countries are not being screened…but primates are. Monkeys and apes imported into the U.S. undergo a mandatory 31-day quarantine period on arrival.

Microcephaly birth defects are not reported in monkeys and apes with Zika.

Once antibodies develop, a person or primate can no longer spread Zika. Humans are believed contagious for about a week.

Zika is not considered a fatal disease. CDC says it only “very rarely” contributes to death.

Zika was given emergency status though no cases had been transmitted in the continental U.S. That’s in stark contrast to the mysterious, contagious EV-D68 and AFM outbreak in 2014. CDC said that outbreak afflicted millions of Americans, occurred in every state, paralyzed at least 115 children and killed at least 14. There was no emergency declaration or funding request, and CDC deflected many questions and slow-walked a Freedom of Information request about EV-D68 and AFM.

Zika can rarely, possibly cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nerves causing paralysis. So can some vaccines, according to CDC, including flu and swine flu vaccines.

Microcephaly has also been associated with pregnant women using alcohol, drugs and getting other infections.

Some in the health sector have questioned a possible link to mirocephaly and Tdap vaccine introduced into the regimen for pregnant women in Brazil in late 2014.

The World Health Organization dismisses the possibility of a Tdap vaccine link saying the Brazilian government has one of the most stringent health regulatory authorities in the world.

At least 15 companies have been working on developing a Zika vaccine.

Congress and the Obama administration agree that at least $140 to $200 million tax dollars should go to vaccine development.

Normally, microcephaly occurs in about 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 10,000 of all births.

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FBI and Police are Knocking on Activists’ Doors Ahead of Republican National Convention

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Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been knocking on the doors of activists and community organizers in Cleveland, Ohio, asking about their plans for the Republican National Convention in July.

As the city gears up to welcome an estimated 50,000 visitors, and an unknown number of protesters, some of the preparations and restrictions put in place by officials have angered civil rights activists. But the latest string of unannounced home visits by local and federal police mark a significant escalation in officials’ efforts to stifle protest, they say.

“The purpose of these door knocks is simple: to intimidate the target and others in efforts to discourage people from engaging in lawful First Amendment activities,” Jocelyn Rosnick, a coordinator with the Ohio chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, wrote in a statement denouncing the home visits.

More than a dozen people in the Cleveland area have reported being visited this week by local police, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the Secret Service.

Michael Nelson, an attorney and the president of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP, said that police officers visited the parents of one of his clients, a young woman who was among 71 people arrested in May 2015 following the acquittal of a police officer in the deaths of two unarmed people.

When the parents asked whether their daughter was in trouble and why they wanted to speak with her, the officers replied that they wanted to ask “about any information she might have about anybody engaging in violence, planning violence for the RNC.” Nelson and others have asked for a meeting with the agencies involved in the door knocks.

“Maybe we need to have a discussion about the Constitution,” he told The Intercept. “Last time we heard of anything like this was when Dr. King and J. Edgar Hoover were around.”

The FBI confirmed that visits have taken place. “In preparation for the upcoming RNC the FBI along with our federal, state, and local partners has been working collaboratively with members of the community,” a spokesperson for the FBI’s Cleveland field office told The Intercept. “As part of this preparation law enforcement is reaching out to individuals known in the community who may have information that could help ensure a safe and secure environment during the RNC.” Cleveland’s police department did not respond to requests for comment.

Maggie Rice, an organizer with Food Not Bombs, said that members of her group were visited by police but felt too “rattled” to speak to a reporter. The group is not planning to stage protests but has applied for permits to be in the RNC event zone in order to feed both protesters and Cleveland residents dealing with disruptions to public transportation and services like Meals on Wheels.

“A lot of Cleveland’s most vulnerable residents will be at risk,” Rice said. “The idea that the FBI would be coming in, knocking on our doors and asking questions of people that they know are not involved in organizing any protests and that are basically a humanitarian organization is completely unacceptable and very disturbing.”

“One FBI agent and one plainclothes Cleveland police officer, both white men, showed up and started asking questions about other Food Not Bombs members and our activities,” Rice said. “I personally believe that this is an attempt to intimidate because they know we play a vital role in helping people stay out longer and have their voices heard.”

In other visits, officers asked about people’s previous addresses, political and social affiliation, and convention plans, according to the NLG. “We are concerned these visits will chill the free speech activities of individuals wishing to lawfully protest,” said Rosnick. “And that individuals who are not planning to be involved in the RNC are being harassed due to their associations.”

The group is holding free legal training sessions for local activists and residents and has been monitoring law enforcement preparations ahead of the convention. To Cleveland organizers, the recent door knocks are just a reminder that they are being watched.

“Cleveland is no stranger to FBI interference and FBI entrapment,” said Rice. “I’d say most Cleveland activists and support organizations like ours are aware that every room we’re in probably has an FBI agent in it. And we act accordingly.”

Top photo: “FBI Police Car” by Tony Hisgett using CC BY 2.0

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The post FBI and Police are Knocking on Activists’ Doors Ahead of Republican National Convention appeared first on The Intercept.

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Free Meals from Drug Companies Influence how Doctors Prescribe Drugs

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Doctors often feel they owe drug companies for buying them lunch

by Julie Fidler, Natural Society:

Drug companies don’t need to give doctors thousands of dollars in kickbacks to sway them to prescribe their medications and implant their devices. A new study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that doctors who received a free meal from a pharmaceutical company were more likely to prescribe the drug the company was promoting than doctors who received no such meals.

The findings of the study were based on an analysis of U.S. government data which tracked both industry payments to doctors and physicians’ from ‘Medicare Part D’ and prescriptions of drugs. Researchers analyzed payments and prescriptions in 2013 associated with 3 brand-name cardiovascular drugs and 1 antidepressant, The Wall Street Journal reports. All of the drugs had lower-cost alternatives.

Drug companies regularly shower doctors with not only free food, but all kinds of trinkets, cash, and all-expenses paid vacations to exotic locations. In 2008, so many complaints had been lodged about the industry’s efforts to influence doctors with gifts that the industry voluntarily gave up a lot of the items they offered to doctors, ranging from pens bearing a company’s name, to expensive equipment. However, attractive-looking drug reps still hand out gifts to doctors, even if it’s in the form of a pizza.

Just 1 Meal is Enough to Sway

Read: The Drug Industry Spent $27 Billion Marketing to Doctors in 2012

The study found that doctors who received just 1 meal, which often costs less than $20 on average, were up to 2 times more likely to prescribe a brand-name drug promoted by a company than a cheaper generic alternative, compared with physicians who did not accept a meal.

The team wrote:

Read More @ NaturalSociety.com

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Americans Are the Most Unhappy Parents Among Developed Countries, and Here's Why

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The absence of family friendly social policies helps explain why moms and dads aren't feeling so carefree.

“The days are long, but the years are short,” goes the old saying. That’s true of life itself, but the phrase has become a mantra of parents and caregivers, a reassuring bit of what’s called “everyday wisdom” for the perpetually sleep-deprived and stressed-out. Even parents with the deepest reserves of patience and caring need the occasional reminder that 5 am feedings, toddler tantrums and teen eye-rolls will, in the distant future, be affectionately missed when the nest is finally empty. Because while child-rearing is filled with moments of unadulterated joy and wonder, there’s another, far less-discussed open secret of parenting. And it’s that raising kids can sometimes be a real drag.

People are often loath to say that out loud, but social scientists have been confirming it for decades. The New York Times quotes scholar and UK-based author Nick Powdthavee, who cuts to the chase about what the research has to say. “Over the past few decades, social scientists like me have found consistent evidence that there is an almost zero association between having children and happiness,” Powdthavee writes. “But the warnings for prospective parents are even more stark than ‘it’s not going to make you happier.’ Using data sets from Europe and America, numerous scholars have found some evidence that, on aggregate, parents often report statistically significantly lower levels of happiness (Alesina et al., 2004), life satisfaction (Di Tella et al., 2003), marital satisfaction (Twenge et al., 2003), and mental well-being (Clark & Oswald, 2002) compared with non-parents.”

There’s plenty more where that comes from. Back in 2004, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman asked 909 working women in Texas to rate their daily activities based on the pleasure they derived from each. On a list of 19 items, childcare came in near the bottom, way down in 16th place. Only “morning commute,” “evening commute” and “working” scored lower, while “housework” actually placed higher. Another 2015 study focused on German parents found the “drop in life satisfaction during the year following the first birth [of a child] is even larger than that caused by unemployment, divorce or the death of a partner.”

Powdthavee notes that “the strains associated with parenthood are not only limited to the period during which children are physically and economically dependent.” He cites a 1981 study that found even parents whose kids have grown up and moved out are only as happy, or slightly less happy, than “non-parents of similar age and status.”

All this is proof that the “happiness gap” between those who have kids and those who don’t is an international phenomenon. But a new collaborative study by researchers at the University of Texas, Wake Forest University and Baylor University finds the size of the gap differs from country to country. The researchers studied 22 nations, all wealthy countries with similar birth rates. They discovered that American parents are 13 percent less happy than American non-parents, the largest gap in all the countries surveyed, and one significantly larger than the gap observed in Great Britain and Australia. When researchers drilled down to find out exactly why the gulf is so large in the U.S., they found out it had everything to do with social policies. More specifically, America’s shameful lack of family and parent-support laws explain why so many of the country’s parents fall short on the happiness meter.

“We looked at several specific government policies that we thought would make a difference in the lives of employed parents,” the researchers write in a brief at the Council on Contemporary Families, “the duration and generosity of paid parenting leave, the number of annual paid sick and vacation days guaranteed by law, the cost of child care for the average 2-year old as a percent of median wages, and the extent of work schedule flexibility offered to parents of dependent children.” They found that “the negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirelyexplained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations.” This held true for both mothers and fathers.

“We comprehensively tested every other alternative,” Jennifer Glass, lead author of the study, told the New York Times. “The two things that came out most strongly in explaining the variation were the cost of care for the average 2-year-old as a percent of wages and the total extent of paid sick and vacation days.”

The researchers also noted that countries with “better family policy ‘packages’ had no happiness gap between parents and non-parents.” That’s probably why countries with generous laws around parental leave—Sweden, France, Finland and Norway among them—have reverse gaps, with parents identifying as happier than their childless cohorts. In America, workers have no legal rights to paid vacation, sick days or maternity leave, and paternity leave isn’t even on the table. Couple that with the financial burden of child care in the U.S. In 2014, the annual average cost of child care for an infant outpaced a year of tuition at public colleges in 28 states and the District of Columbia, according to Child Care Aware of America. The built-in challenges of raising a kid—the long hours and exhausting demands—are compounded in a system that provides parents little to no support.

Americans see themselves as pretty happy in general, ranking their happiness levels somewhere between 8 and 10 on average of scale one to 10, which is higher than most other places. (Researchers note that the French, for example, “tend to rate their levels significantly lower—in the middle of the scale from 5-7.”) This is likely due to differing cultural notions around what qualifies as true happiness. Considering the fact that more Americans take antidepressants than the residents of any other super-rich country, it might do us good to push for the policies that made the happiness gap smaller or nonexistent in other nations. Researchers found that those policies also tended to contribute to everyone’s contentment:

The policies that helped parents the most were policies that also improved the happiness of everyone in that country, whether they had children or not. Policies such as guaranteed minimum paid sick and vacation days make everyone happier, but they had an extra happiness bonus for parents of minor children. The same pattern held even for policies such as subsidized child care, which one might assume would only benefit parents. Countries with cheaper out-of-pocket costs for child care had happier non-parents as well as parents.

"Having kids in the U.S. is brutal," Robin Simon, a Wake Forest sociology professor who co-authored the study, told the South China Morning Post. "The federal government requires that workplaces give six weeks maternity leave, but there is no requirement that it is paid. We just don't do anything to assist parents."

The stress of having to make up for America’s shameful lack of supportive social policies effectively wiped out other benefits the researchers expected to accompany the act of parenting among Americans. The South China Morning Post points out that “in ongoing work looking at 12 indicators of well-being, including physical health, self-acceptance and sense of purpose, Simon and her colleagues found that none, except lower alcohol use, was associated with parenthood in the U.S.”

Another indicator that failed to make its mark? The sense that raising kids makes one's own life more meaningful.

"I thought at least purpose and meaning in life would be higher for parents, and we find it's just flat," Simon told the outlet. "There is joy to having kids. But I think that for most people, the stresses that are associated with having kids overshadow those joys."

 

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