WashPost Is Richly Rewarded for False News About Russia Threat While Public Is Deceived

Glenn Greenwald

IN THE PAST six weeks, the Washington Post published two blockbuster stories about the Russian threat that went viral: one on how Russia is behind a massive explosion of “fake news,” the other on how it invaded the U.S. electric grid. Both articles were fundamentally false. Each now bears a humiliating editor’s note grudgingly acknowledging that the core claims of the story were fiction: The first note was posted a full two weeks later to the top of the original article; the other was buried the following day at the bottom.

The second story on the electric grid turned out to be far worse than I realized when I wrote about it on Saturday, when it became clear that there was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid” as the Post had claimed. In addition to the editor’s note, the Russia-hacked-our-electric-grid story now has a full-scale retraction in the form of a separate article admitting that “the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility” and there may not even have been malware at all on this laptop.

But while these debacles are embarrassing for the paper, they are also richly rewarding. That’s because journalists — including those at the Post — aggressively hype and promote the original, sensationalistic false stories, ensuring that they go viral, generating massive traffic for the Post (the paper’s executive editor, Marty Baron, recently boasted about how profitable the paper has become).

After spreading the falsehoods far and wide, raising fear levels and manipulating U.S. political discourse in the process (both Russia stories were widely hyped on cable news), journalists who spread the false claims subsequently note the retraction or corrections only in the most muted way possible, and often not at all. As a result, only a tiny fraction of people who were exposed to the original false story end up learning of the retractions.

Baron himself, editorial leader of the Post, is a perfect case study in this irresponsible tactic. It was Baron who went to Twitter on the evening of November 24 to announce the Post’s exposé of the enormous reach of Russia’s fake news operation, based on what he heralded as the findings of “independent researchers.” Baron’s tweet went all over the place; to date, it has been re-tweeted more than 3,000 times, including by many journalists with their own large followings:

But after that story faced a barrage of intense criticism — from Adrian Chen in the New Yorker (“propaganda about Russia propaganda”), Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone (“shameful, disgusting”), my own article, and many others — including legal threats from the sites smeared as Russian propaganda outlets by the Post’s “independent researchers” — the Post finally added its lengthy editor’s note distancing itself from the anonymous group that provided the key claims of its story (“The Post … does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings” and “since publication of the Post’s story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list”).

What did Baron tell his followers about this editor’s note that gutted the key claims of the story he hyped? Nothing. Not a word. To date, he has been publicly silent about these revisions. Having spread the original claims to tens of thousands of people, if not more, he took no steps to ensure that any of them heard about the major walk back on the article’s most significant, inflammatory claims. He did, however, ironically find the time to promote a different Post story about how terrible and damaging Fake News is

WHETHER THE POST’S false stories here can be distinguished from what is commonly called “Fake News” is, at this point, a semantic dispute, particularly since “Fake News” has no cogent definition. Defenders of Fake News as a distinct category typically emphasize intent in order to differentiate it from bad journalism. That’s really just a way of defining Fake News so as to make it definitionally impossible for mainstream media outlets like the Post ever to be guilty of it (much the way terrorism is defined to ensure that the U.S. government and its allies cannot, by definition, ever commit it).

But what was the Post’s motive in publishing two false stories about Russia that, very predictably, generated massive attention, traffic, and political impact? Was it ideological and political — namely, devotion to the D.C. agenda of elevating Russia into a grave threat to U.S. security? Was it to please its audience — knowing that its readers, in the wake of Trump’s victory, want to be fed stories about Russian treachery? Was it access and source servitude — proving it will serve as a loyal and uncritical repository for any propaganda intelligence officials want disseminated? Was it profit — to generate revenue through sensationalistic click-bait headlines with a reckless disregard to whether its stories are true? In an institution as large as the Post, with numerous reporters and editors participating in these stories, it’s impossible to identify any one motive as definitive.

Whatever the motives, the effects of these false stories are exactly the same as those of whatever one regards as Fake News. The false claims travel all over the internet, deceiving huge numbers into believing them. The propagators of the falsehoods receive ample profit from their false, viral “news.” And there is no accountability of the kind that would disincentivize a repeat of the behavior. (That the Post ultimately corrects its false story does not distinguish it from classic Fake News sites, which also sometimes do the same.)

And while it’s true that all media outlets make mistakes, and that even the most careful journalism sometimes errs, those facts do not remotely mitigate the Post’s behavior here. In these cases, they did not make good faith mistakes after engaging in careful journalism. With both stories, they were reckless (at best) from the start, and the glaring deficiencies in the reporting were immediately self-evident (which is why both stories were widely attacked upon publication).

As this excellent timeline by Kalev Leetaru documents, the Post did not even bother to contact the utility companies in question — the most elementary step of journalistic responsibility — until after the story was published. Intelligence officials insisting on anonymity — so as to ensure no accountability — whispered to them that this happened, and despite how significant the consequences would be, they rushed to print it with no verification at all. This is not a case of good journalism producing inaccurate reporting; it is the case of a media outlet publishing a story that it knew would produce massive benefits and consequences without the slightest due diligence or care.

THE MOST IRONIC aspect of all this is that it is mainstream journalists — the very people who have become obsessed with the crusade against Fake News — who play the key role in enabling and fueling this dissemination of false stories. They do so not only by uncritically spreading them, but also by taking little or no steps to notify the public of their falsity.

The Post’s epic debacle this weekend regarding its electric grid fiction vividly illustrates this dynamic. As I noted on Saturday, many journalists reacted to this story the same way they do every story about Russia: They instantly click and re-tweet and share the story without the slightest critical scrutiny. That these claims are constantly based on the whispers of anonymous officials and accompanied by no evidence whatsoever gives those journalists no pause at all; any official claim that Russia and Putin are behind some global evil is instantly treated as Truth. That’s a significant reason papers like the Post are incentivized to recklessly publish stories of this kind. They know they will be praised and rewarded no matter the accuracy or reliability because their Cause — the agenda — is the right one.

On Friday night, immediately after the Post’s story was published, one of the most dramatic pronouncements came from the New York Times’s editorial writer Brent Staples, who said this:



Now that this story has collapsed and been fully retracted, what has Staples done to note that this tweet was false? Just like Baron, absolutely nothing. Actually, that’s not quite accurate, as he did do something: At some point after Friday night, he quietly deleted his tweet without comment. He has not uttered a word about the fact that the story he promoted has collapsed, and that what he told his 16,000-plus followers — along with the countless number of people who re-tweeted the dramatic claim of this prominent journalist — turned out to be totally false in every respect.

Even more instructive is the case of MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin, a prolific and skilled social media user who has seen his following explode this year with a constant stream of anti-Trump content. On Friday night, when the Post story was published, Griffin hyped it with a series of tweets designed to make the story seem as menacing and consequential as possible. That included hysterical statements from Vermont officials — who believed the Post’s false claim — that in retrospect are unbelievably embarrassing.

That tweet from Griffin — convincing people that Putin was endangering the health and safety of Vermonters — was re-tweeted more than 1,000 times. His other similar tweets — such as this one featuring Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy’s warning that Putin was trying to “shut down [the grid] in the middle of winter” — were also widely spread.

But the next day, the crux of the story collapsed — the Post’s editor’s note acknowledged that “there is no indication” that “Russian hackers had penetrated the electricity grid” — and Griffin said nothing. Indeed, he said nothing further on any of this until yesterday — four days after his series of widely shared tweets — in which he simply re-tweeted a Post reporter noting an “update” that the story was false without providing any comment himself

In contrast to Griffin’s original inflammatory tweets about the Russian menace, which were widely and enthusiastically spread, this after-the-fact correction has a paltry 289 re-tweets. Thus, a small fraction of those who were exposed to Griffin’s sensationalistic hyping of this story ended up learning that all of it was false.

I genuinely do not mean to single out these individual journalists for scorn. They are just illustrative of a very common dynamic: Any story that bolsters the prevailing D.C. orthodoxy on the Russia Threat, no matter how dubious, is spread far and wide. And then, as has happened so often, when the story turns out to be false or misleading, little or nothing is done to correct the deceitful effects. And, most amazingly of all, these are the same people constantly decrying the threat posed by Fake News.

A VERY COMMON dynamic is driving all of this: media groupthink, greatly exacerbated (as I described on Saturday) by the incentive scheme of Twitter. As the grand media failure of 2002 demonstrated, American journalists are highly susceptible to fueling and leading the parade in demonizing a new Foreign Enemy rather than exerting restraint and skepticism in evaluating the true nature of that threat.

It is no coincidence that many of the most embarrassing journalistic debacles of this year involve the Russia Threat, and they all involve this same dynamic. Perhaps the worst one was the facially ridiculous, pre-election Slate story — which multiple outlets (including The Intercept) had been offered but passed on — alleging that Trump had created a secret server to communicate with a Russian bank; that story was so widely shared that even the Clinton campaign ended up hyping it — a tweet that, by itself, was re-tweeted almost 12,000 times.

But only a small percentage of those who heard of it ended up hearing of the major walk back and debunking from other outlets. The same is true of The Guardian story from last week on WikiLeaks and Putin that ended up going viral, only to have its retraction barely noticed because most of the journalists who spread the story did not bother to note it.

Beyond the journalistic tendency to echo anonymous officials on whatever Scary Foreign Threat they are hyping at the moment, there is an independent incentive scheme sustaining all of this. That Russia is a Grave Menace attacking the U.S. has — for obvious reasons — become a critical narrative for Democrats and other Trump opponents who dominate elite media circles on social media and elsewhere. They reward and herald anyone who bolsters that narrative, while viciously attacking anyone who questions it.

Indeed, in my 10-plus years of writing about politics on an endless number of polarizing issues — including the Snowden reporting — nothing remotely compares to the smear campaign that has been launched as a result of the work I’ve done questioning and challenging claims about Russian hacking and the threat posed by that country generally. This is being engineered not by random, fringe accounts, but by the most prominent Democratic pundits with the largest media followings.

I’ve been transformed, overnight, into an early adherent of alt-right ideology, an avid fan of Breitbart, an enthusiastic Trump supporter, and — needless to say  — a Kremlin operative. That’s literally the explicit script they’re now using, often with outright fabrications of what I say

They, of course, know all of this is false. A primary focus of the last 10 years of my journalism has been a defense of the civil liberties of Muslims. I wrote an entire book on the racism and inequality inherent in the U.S. justice system. My legal career involved numerous representations of victims of racial discrimination. I was one of the first journalists to condemn the misleadingly “neutral” approach to reporting on Trump and to call for more explicit condemnations of his extremism and lies.

I was one of the few to defend Jorge Ramos from widespread media attacks when he challenged Trump’s immigration extremism. Along with many others, I tried to warn Democrats that nominating a candidate as unpopular as Hillary Clinton risked a Trump victory. And as someone who is very publicly in a same-sex, inter-racial marriage — with someone just elected to public office as a socialist — I make for a very unlikely alt-right leader, to put that mildly.

The malice of this campaign is exceeded only by its blatant stupidity. Even having to dignify it with a defense is depressing, though once it becomes this widespread, one has little choice.

But this is the climate Democrats have successfully cultivated — where anyone dissenting or even expressing skepticism about their deeply self-serving Russia narrative is the target of coordinated and potent smears; where, as The Nation’s James Carden documented yesterday, skepticism is literally equated with treason. And the converse is equally true: Those who disseminate claims and stories that bolster this narrative — no matter how divorced from reason and evidence they are — receive an array of benefits and rewards.

That the story ends up being completely discredited matters little. The damage is done, and the benefits received. Fake News in the narrow sense of that term is certainly something worth worrying about. But whatever one wants to call this type of behavior from the Post, it is a much greater menace given how far the reach is of the institutions that engage in it.

SOURCE

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Why we need Trump:  "Manufacturing Jobs Declined by 45,000 in 2016; Government Jobs Increased by 183,000--Now Outnumber Manufacturing by 9,948,000

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Paul Ryan: Russia Didn’t Put the Server in Hillary Clinton’s Basement

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Why Are American Automakers Running to Mexico?

Embarrassment:  In part because Mexico has freer trade than the land of the free does

On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Wednesday, host Mark Levin explained that American automakers are running to Mexico, in part because Mexico has cheaper labor, but more significantly because Mexico has access to more countries willing to trade tariff-free.

“‘Why is everybody running to Mexico?’ you may ask, and you may think you have the answer,” explained Mark Levin. “‘Well, because they pay their people next to nothing.’ That’s not the whole answer. It’s not even a significant part of the answer. ...

“‘[O]ne of [Mexico’s] key advantages is that it has’ – you ready?” Levin rhetorically asked moments later in response to the question posed above. “‘One of its key advantages is that it has trade agreements with 44 countries giving automakers access to half the global car market tariff-free.’”

SOURCE

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Alt-Left Insanity: The Great Race Toward Racism

It’s time once more for the Great Race! No, not the excellent Jack Lemmon/Tony Curtis comedy, I mean the media/alt-left’s quest to make everything in America about race – except when it’s about race in a way they don’t like.

Then it’s not about race at all.

We saw in black and white this week how awful racism can be. It’s not just about what white people do to African-Americans or what African-Americans do to whites. It’s what people do to one another based on race and how the media and the left mock it when it’s a narrative they don’t like.

For purposes of example, there’s Washington Post idiot Callum Borchers who wrote this about the heinous kidnapping and torture: “If you believe discrimination against white people is rampant, that Donald Trump supporters face persecution, that Chicago is a war zone, and the media is dishonest, then your entire worldview is likely to be confirmed by one awful story.”

The empathy just oozes off the page.

Some outlets, like our friends at Huffington Post, went out of their way to hide the racist nature of the assault. Here was their headline: “4 Charged With Hate Crime After Facebook Live Broadcast Shows Man Being Tortured.” Dang, you’d think they worked at major networks with that spin. We finally have reached Obama’s post-racial America after all.

For those who endured watching the torture video, one of the things the attackers said multiple times was: “F--- Donald Trump.” Now, that might just be scumbags mouthing off. Or it might be that our monsters were repeating what they heard during the campaign – the song “F--- Donald Trump,” which features its title phrase 32 times. The remake starred the talented trio of YG, G-Eazy and Macklemore. (Apparently, Nipsey Hussle wasn’t fly enough to make the second recording.)

What we learned in advertising, applies to culture. Repeat something often enough and it sinks in, whether it’s buying a Coca-Cola, learning about violence from Tarantino movies or learning to hate Trump and conservatives from no-talent hacks like YG.

‘Giving Up White Male Authors’:

When you take your reading cues from Buzzfeed, you’ve got problems. But that’s precisely what bigot Layla Schlack did, and she naturally went on to the web to claim moral superiority. Of course, she chose her local Boston NPR outlet. Where else would you post a left-wing, racist tract? In a piece under the elitist category Cognoscenti, she wrote about the modern form of book burning. Maybe call it book Berning, in honor of its far-left roots (and the last item on today’s column.) Under the headline: “Banned Books: Giving Up White Male Authors,” we are treated to blatant, PC racism.

Actual quote: “One day, a friend and I were talking about books, and she said, ‘I’m kind of trying not to read things by white men.’ So there it was, a description of what I had been doing. And I wasn’t the only one.” No, it’s not about what’s written in black and white, it’s about the color of the skin of the author.

Schlack, who is an editor (shocker!) at Wine Enthusiast, claimed her actions were “anti-racist.” I’m sure I could find Klan literature that claims their actions were much the same. She also argues that it’s not much of a loss. Actual quote two: “I'm not looking for a pat on the head for giving up fine literature by white men, because it's not a sacrifice.” Yeah, who needs Shakespeare or Hemingway or Twain or … .

Teach The Children:

Once more, Teen Vogue reminds us how much liberals try to propagandize to your kids. The moron mag attacked conservative Philip Anschutz because he takes profits from his many businesses and uses them to support things he believes in. Horrors!! Actual quote: “For example, the Family Research Council (one of the groups that Anschutz supports) describes itself as a ‘Pro-Marriage and Pro-Life’ organization. Their website shows that it is anti-gay rights, anti-transgender rights, and anti-abortion.” Notice how the less-than-honest turned supporting something like human life into an “anti”?

Teens, who only recently happened to be small children dependent on their moms for existence, are fed this garbage to indoctrinate them. Still, Teen Vogue wants to whine because Anshutz owns AEG and “one of those events that's run by AEG is Coachella.” OMG! Beyonce is, like, performing at Coachella! That’s like she works for the conservative movement! Yes, every Teen Vogue editorial meeting (if they have them) must include a hefty dose of exclamation points and emoji. And all of them must be used to react every time a certified cool person like Queen Bee even interacts with a conservative human. And liberals wonder how Donald Trump got elected.

Bernie Sanders:

The Musical ‘Inspired By The Revolution’: I almost fell over laughing when my coworker Eric Scheiner showed me his video of the Bernie Sanders musical. The play about “Santa Bernie” was performed in the lefty stronghold of Burlington, Vt. Natch. “Feel The Bern, The Musical” depicted a future America where socialism and climate change are both dominant. The dueling dystopias weren’t seen that way by the fellow travelers in the Village Voice. The Christmas themed performance even remade holiday songs as Bernie ballads. According to the Voice’s Michael Appler, “an orange-haired Grinch has slithered down from his tower to promise us gifts.” But never fear, “that dream of a Bernie Sanders utopia is still alive.”

Actual quote: “Her spectacle is also postapocalyptic and takes place in the year 2132: Global warming has washed away the eastern coast of the United States, and the characters have gathered for their holiday on the new shore — in Cleveland.” Perhaps, by that time, the Browns will have had a winning season. Or, Buffy fans might at least hope the hellmouth is closed.

Actual quote two: “Christmas is obsolete in 2132; instead the characters assemble to celebrate NotMeUs, a festival fixated on Sanders, who has returned to Earth in the form of Sanders Claus.” Notice how liberals like to turn their politicians into religious, almost-God-like figures? They did it for Obama all the time, especially the halos in the photos. And they even sang redone hymms (or hers) to Hillary. When you lack a moral center, it’s easy to manufacture one – as long as you wear your Birkenstocks while doing it.

SOURCE

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Rep. Dave Brat: ‘The Left Is Trying to Get Rid of History’

In a recent interview with Arutz Sheva TV, Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) talked about the left-leaning bias in U.S. academia, saying, the left is trying to “get rid of history.”

“The left is dismantling history and getting rid of philosophy, because that’s the data points for human nature,” Brat said, “and the left would love to be utopian and think we can all just get along if it wasn’t for us capitalists or Christians, right, or other religious groups. They think we’d be in heaven, you know without the bulk of the American people.”

Brat was attending the Jerusalem Leaders’ Summit and was initially asked about anti-Israel sentiment in academia.

“I’m in academia, and unfortunately, about 90 percent of academia is anti-Israel, and part of that has to do I think unfortunately with first, principles,” he explained in the Dec. 27 interview. “I’m, on the other hand, 110 percent pro-Israel, and I went to seminary, and I’m in the Protestant tradition, but that tradition takes very seriously Hebrew scripture.

“That presumption of first principles and the existence of God implies a certain ethics, and so the antagonism, I think in academia, largely comes from that,” Brat continued. “Roughly the left has Rousseau and Marx, and those are by the way the only two philosophers of note that had a positive view of human nature.”

Brat pointed out in contrast that in Scripture it “takes about two chapters for humanity to fall.”

“The left right now is trying to get rid of history,” he claimed. “Education in our country in the United States has been totally distorted. K-12 kids aren’t taught any religion, no ethics, no ethical system, no philosophers of note.”

“The left is dismantling history and getting rid of philosophy because that’s the data points for human nature,” he emphasized, “and the left would love to be utopian and think we can all just get along if it wasn’t for us capitalists or Christians, right, or other religious groups, they think we’d be in heaven, you know without the bulk of the American people.”

Brat added that the left even uses “scare tactics” on kids over religious ideas, saying “I’ve had kids in my own district say God bless you after a kid sneezes and they get in trouble.”

“When the central question of all liberal arts education beginning with Socrates, right about 2400 years ago, right, is: what is a good human life,” he concluded, “when you can’t ask the central question in the liberal arts tradition, what is a good human life and what makes it good - and by the way how do you define what’s good, in the Judeo-Christian tradition? We have an answer to the definition of good, and the left cannot give you an answer to what is good today.”

SOURCE

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Do you carry? Violence against Trump supporters explodes across country

The FBI ran a record-smashing 27.5 million gun-related background checks in 2016, indicating that many Americans are likely getting their carry licenses. And it’s no wonder: a nationwide explosion of violent mob attacks by rabid liberals has Donald Trump supporters trading in “MAGA” for “CCW.”

The heinous kidnapping and torture of a special-needs white man by four black youths in Chicago is just the latest anti-Trump assault/hate crime to take place since the election. Here’s a rundown of some of the others:

    Again in Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago, a group of black men assaulted a white man after a fender bender because he presumably voted for Trump.

    High school students in Rockville, Md., just outside Washington, D.C., assaulted a fellow student for supporting Trump.

    A black high school student in Redwood City, Calif., accused a white Trump-supporting student of hating Mexicans before viciously beating her.

    An anti-bullying ambassador with ties to Black Lives Matter was charged with felony assault after she shoved a 74-year-old-man to the ground while protesting outside Trump Tower in New York City.

    A man was reportedly attacked and choked on a New York subway for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.

    Prior to the election, Trump supporters were assaulted and bloodied by protestors outside a Trump rally in San Jose, Calif.

    A 62-year-old man wearing a Trump shirt was attacked with a crowbar in New Jersey.

This is far from a comprehensive list. Unlike the myriad hoax assaults reported by liberals, the attacks and hate crimes being carried out against Trump supporters are very, very real. It’s no wonder Americans are choosing to pack heat.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Mediterranean diet nonsense again

It is hard to know what to laugh at first in the report below.  For a start, where did they find eaters of a Mediterranean diet in Scotland?

Secondly, Scottish food makes English food look gourmet.  Scottish food is extraordinarily plain, with "mince 'n tatties" being the staple.  So any departure from it should increase the range of nutrients consumed.

Thirdly, do we know that diet had anything to do with it at all?  Scots who deviated from their traditional diet could well have been more health-conscious and done other things to keep themselves healthy -- like jogging and having a "doch 'n doris" (alcohol) less frequently.

Fourthly, if a Mediterranean diet is so good for you, how came Australians are exceptionally long lived?  Foods such as hamburgers, steak, sausages, beef pies and sausage rolls are Australian staples and they are about as far from a Mediterranean diet as Australia is geographically far from the Mediterranean

The study tells us NOTHING about the Mediterranean diet


IT is never too late to start eating a Mediterranean diet, as a study shows it could stop the brains of people in their seventies from shrinking.

Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, olive oil, and even a glass of wine a day, may protect the grey matter which declines as we age.

A study of pensioners with this diet found their brain shrinkage, associated with memory loss and Alzheimer’s, was half of others their age.

The benefits are believed to come from the antioxidants found in vegetables, olive oil and even the glass of red every day which forms part of the Mediterranean diet. These are thought to reduce damage in the brain from oxidation, which leads to neural degeneration.

Lead author Dr Michelle Luciano, from the University of Edinburgh, said: 'As we age, the brain shrinks and we lose brain cells which can affect learning and memory,

'This study adds to the body of evidence that suggests the Mediterranean diet has a positive impact on brain health.'

The latest study, published in the journal Neurology, gathered information on the dietary habits of almost 1,000 people in Scotland aged 70.

A Mediterranean diet was judged as one high in fruit and vegetables, beans and grains such as wheat and rice, including the mono-unsaturated fats found in olive oil, and even allowing for moderate consumption of up to the equivalent of a large glass of wine a day for women or two for men.

People of this age would be expected to lose around 18ml of their brain volume in the three years between 73 and 76. Up to two per cent of the brain is lost every year as we grow older.

But those found to have most closely stuck to a Mediterranean diet when questioned about it by researchers experienced less than half of that shrinkage, MRI brain scans showed.

This is important because a loss of brain volume as people get older affects their memory, increases the speed at which they process information and even the speed at which they speak and their attention span.

Dr Luciano said: 'In our study, eating habits were measured before brain volume was, which suggests that the diet may be able to provide long-term protection to the brain. Still, larger studies are needed to confirm these results.'

SOURCE

UPDATE:  The academic journal article is "Mediterranean-type diet and brain structural change from 73 to 76 years in a Scottish cohort". The only social controls applied were for education and IQ.

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Trump seeks to repeal Obamacare quickly

President Barack Obama has exhorted fellow Democrats to preserve his legacy-defining healthcare law as Republicans moved ahead with their long-sought bid to scrap it in what Vice President-elect Mike Pence called the "first order of business" of Donald Trump's administration.

The emerging Democratic strategy is to warn that Republicans risk throwing the entire US healthcare system into chaos by moving to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, without a plan to replace it.

Republicans argue the system is already broken and that they will help more people gain coverage by repealing the law while working to minimise disruptions to those who depend on it.

Both Obama and Pence visited Capitol Hill for closed-door discussions on Obamacare.

Pence, the Indiana governor and a former member of the US House of Representatives, met Republican lawmakers to plot the path forward on scuttling the law.

"The first order of business is to keep our promise to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the kind of healthcare reform that will lower the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government," Pence told a news conference.

Down the hall from Pence, Obama, who hands over the presidency to Trump on January 20, urged Democratic lawmakers to protect his signature domestic policy measure. He told reporters his message was: "Look out for the American people."

Democrats acknowledge they lack the votes needed to stop repeal legislation being pushed by Republicans, who will control the White House and both chambers of Congress when Trump takes office. But they are warning of the risks of the repeal legislation in hopes of spurring a public backlash against it.

Without a replacement by Republicans, as early as 2018, the roughly 20 million people who gained insurance under the law could see their coverage in jeopardy.

"The Republican plan to cut healthcare wouldn't 'make America great again,'" Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, invoking Trump's campaign slogan. "It would make America sick again and lead to chaos instead of affordable care."

Since the law was enacted, Republicans in Congress have voted more than 50 times to try to repeal all or part of it and conservatives have filed suits to try to invalidate it.

Republicans criticise Obamacare as an excessive government intrusion into the healthcare market and contend it is harming job growth by adding burdens on businesses.

Republicans on Wednesday stepped up their rhetorical attack on Obamacare, with House Speaker Paul Ryan saying the law ruined the American healthcare system.

Trump wrote on Twitter that Republicans "must be careful in that the Dems own the failed ObamaCare disaster, with its poor coverage and massive premium increases."

Pence said Trump would work with congressional leaders for a "smooth transition to a market-based healthcare reform system" through legislative and executive action.

SOURCE

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Can Trump and Putin Avert Cold War II?

BY: PATRICK BUCHANAN

In retaliation for the hacking of John Podesta and the DNC, Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and ordered closure of their country houses on Long Island and Maryland’s Eastern shore.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that 35 U.S. diplomats would be expelled. But Vladimir Putin stepped in, declined to retaliate at all, and invited the U.S. diplomats in Moscow and their children to the Christmas and New Year’s party at the Kremlin.

“A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger,” reads Proverbs 15:1. “Great move,” tweeted President-elect Trump, “I always knew he was very smart!” Among our Russophobes, one can almost hear the gnashing of teeth.

Clearly, Putin believes the Trump presidency offers Russia the prospect of a better relationship with the United States. He appears to want this, and most Americans seem to want the same. After all, Hillary Clinton, who accused Trump of being “Putin’s puppet,” lost.

Is then a Cold War II between Russia and the U.S. avoidable? That question raises several others. Who is more responsible for both great powers having reached this level of animosity and acrimony, 25 years after Ronald Reagan walked arm-in-arm with Mikhail Gorbachev through Red Square? And what are the causes of the emerging Cold War II?

Comes the retort: Putin has put nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania. True, but who began this escalation?

George W. Bush was the one who trashed Richard Nixon’s ABM Treaty and Obama put anti-missile missiles in Poland. After invading Iraq, George W. Bush moved NATO into the Baltic States in violation of a commitment given to Gorbachev by his father to not move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army withdrew.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, says John McCain.  Russia did, after Georgia invaded its breakaway province of South Ossetia and killed Russian peacekeepers. Putin threw the Georgians out, occupied part of Georgia, and then withdrew.

Russia, it is said, has supported Syria’s Bashar Assad, bombed U.S.-backed rebels and participated in the Aleppo slaughter.

But who started this horrific civil war in Syria? Was it not our Gulf allies, Turkey, and ourselves by backing an insurgency against a regime that had been Russia’s ally for decades and hosts Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean?

Did we not exercise the same right of assisting a beleaguered ally when we sent 500,000 troops to aid South Vietnam against a Viet Cong insurgency supported by Hanoi, Beijing and Moscow? That’s what allies do.

The unanswered question: Why did we support the overthrow of Assad when the likely successor regime would have been Islamist and murderously hostile toward Syria’s Christians?

Russia, we are told, committed aggression against Ukraine by invading Crimea. But Russia did not invade Crimea. To secure their Black Sea naval base, Russia executed a bloodless coup, but only after the U.S. backed the overthrow of the pro-Russian elected government in Kiev.

Crimea had belonged to Moscow from the time of Catherine the Great in the 18th century, and the Russia-Ukraine relationship dates back to before the Crusades. When did this become a vital interest of the USA?

As for Putin’s backing of secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk, he is standing by kinfolk left behind when his country broke apart. Russians live in many of the 14 former Soviet republics that are now independent nations.  Has Putin no right to be concerned about his lost countrymen?

Unlike America’s elites, Putin is an ethnonationalist in a time when tribalism is shoving aside transnationalism as the force of the future.

Russia, it is said, is supporting right-wing and anti-EU parties. But has not our National Endowment for Democracy backed regime change in the Balkans as well as in former Soviet republics?  We appear to be denouncing Putin for what we did first.

Moreover, the populist, nationalist, anti-EU and secessionist parties in Europe have arisen on their own and are advancing through free elections.

Sovereignty, independence, a restoration of national identity, all appear to be more important to these parties than what they regard as an excessively supervised existence in the soft-dictatorship of the EU.

In the Cold War between Communism and capitalism, the single-party dictatorship and the free society, we prevailed. But in the new struggle we are in, the ethnonational state seems ascendant over the multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial, multilingual “universal nation” whose avatar is Barack Obama.

Putin does not seek to destroy or conquer us or Europe. He wants Russia, and her interests, and her rights as a great power to be respected. He is not mucking around in our front yard; we are in his.

The worst mistake President Trump could make would be to let the Russophobes grab the wheel and steer us into another Cold War that could be as costly as the first, and might not end as peacefully.

Reagan’s outstretched hand to Gorbachev worked. Trump has nothing to lose by extending his to Vladimir Putin, and much perhaps to win.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The fish-oil fad is fading

Medical wisdom about diet keeps getting overturned.  One of the most enduring bits of "wisdom" is the multifarious benefits of fish oil. But it seems that even that may be a total myth.  The latest  review article in JAMA is:  "The Unfulfilled Promise of ω-3 Fatty Acid Supplementation" by Gregory Curfman, MD.  It is in JAMA Intern Med. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.8236.  A couple of extracts below:





SOURCE

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Surprise! Leftist double standard about hacking

On Thursday, Barack Obama, through the office of the U.S. Treasury Department, announced his response to the alleged Russian hackings of the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The U.S. will expel 35 Russian diplomats and intelligence agents, sanction three Russian businesses and close access to two Russian government-owned compounds in Maryland and New York. Obama blamed the highest levels of government in Moscow for the hacks, claiming they were done to interfere in the U.S. election.

Democrats are predictably heaping praise on Obama’s decision, while several Republicans, long supportive of taking action against Moscow, have questioned the timing. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) stated, “While today’s action by the administration is overdue, it is an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia.”

What is troubling about Obama’s recent actions is indeed the timing. Why now? While Obama decries Russian interference and the need for retaliation and greater security, the truth is, had Hillary Clinton won the election, he wouldn’t have even considered lifting a finger. Perhaps this was the yin to his 2012 yang, when he promised more flexibility with Russia after that election.

Furthermore, consider Obama’s response to China’s unprecedented hacking of the Office of Personnel Management. China stole personal data on more than 21.5 million government workers and Obama said almost nothing. In fact, the New York Times reported at the time that government officials “were under strict instructions to avoid naming China as the source of the attack.” How times have changed.

Obama’s newfound concern over the nation’s cybersecurity has far less to do with protecting the U.S. against future cyberattacks than bitter political retaliation against Donald Trump. Obama’s actions belie his lack of respect and trust in the U.S. system of government. He is primarily motivated not by concern for the well-being and security of the nation, but by protecting his own legacy and agenda. Since an incoming Trump presidency is a greater threat to Obama’s legacy than a nefarious geopolitical power such as Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Obama clearly wants to complicate rather than support future foreign policy efforts by the incoming president. Some legacy.

SOURCE

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Congress Just Punched a Big Hole in Obamacare

President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act on December 13. Promoted as a pro-innovation bill, the new law will improve the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory processes; as well as fund Vice-President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, the National Institutes of Health, and steps to reduce the opioid epidemic.

However, the final version of the bill also included an important payment reform: Significantly expanding the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) by small businesses. The Affordable Care Act limited employers’ use of these funding vehicles. The IRS promulgated rules levying an excise tax of up to $100 per employee per day.

The advantage of HRAs and similar funding vehicles is that they allow employers to give money directly to employees, who can spend it on medical care. This gets around health insurers’ bureaucracies, which add unnecessary administrative costs.

Obamacare was supposed to be a hand-out to health insurers. It did not quite work out that way. Nevertheless, the law forces as much health spending as possible through insurers’ claims processing. Not only does this add bureaucracy, but it inhibits proper price formation (which in a normal market takes place where the marginal supplier meets the marginal producer). Instead, U.S. health prices are determined administratively between insurers, governments, and providers.

Advocates of consumer-driven health care hope that an ever increasing share of medical payments will be paid by patients directly to providers. At some point, the insurers’ role in price-fixing will become so obviously absurd it will fall apart, and prices will be determined in a more properly functioning market.

21st Century Cures removes the Affordable Care Act’s constraints on small businesses using HRAs to fund employees’ medical spending, instead of overpriced health insurance. As one tax expert notes:

Because of the ACA, many small employers have been prohibited from using reimbursement arrangements that previously were long-standing and effective methods of providing employees with health care benefits. The new law is a welcome modification to the ACA since it gives small employers excise tax relief plus a method for providing health benefits to their employees via the QSEHRA [Qualifying Small Employer HRA].

Hopefully, more such reforms will come in the next Congress.

SOURCE

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Liberal Struggle Against Reality

By Walter E. Williams

We will never understand liberals and progressives until we recognize that they often see reality as a social construct subject to being challenged and changed. For example, throughout the world, boys and girls have different toy preferences. Typically, boys like to play with cars and trucks, whereas girls prefer dolls. Liberals explain this with the assertion that boys and girls are socialized and encouraged to play with different types of toys by their parents, peers and "society." Growing scientific evidence suggests that toy preferences have a biological origin. Even studies of male and female primates find that they exhibit similar toy preferences. Despite the growing evidence of biological determinism, liberals have managed to intimidate toy sellers into getting rid of the labels "toys for boys" and "toys for girls."

Another reality issue that's extremely annoying to liberals and progressives is chromosomal sex determination. The XX/XY sex determination system is found in humans. Females have two of the same kind of sex chromosome (XX), whereas males have two distinct sex chromosomes (XY). This chromosomal reality is seen as limiting, annoying and an artifact of a patriarchal, chauvinistic society. So liberals and progressives want to change it. Say you are an XY (male) individual but would like to conduct your affairs in a facility designated for XX (female) individuals, such as a ladies' room. You can satisfy your desire by claiming that you are transgender — that is, you've switched from one gender to another. Therefore, if one has XY chromosomes, he can behave as if he were an XXer.

Plus, there is the expectation of being addressed according to one's chosen gender. The Minneapolis Police Department has a new rule that requires officers to address transgender people using their preferred names and pronouns. When an XYer is arrested but claims he is a woman, I wonder whether the police will place him in a cell with XXers. Just how far the Minneapolis authorities will go is in question; maybe they, too, believe that reality is optional.

Another part of reality that liberals and progressives find difficult to accept is the fact that equality among humans is the exception and inequality the norm. If one were to list the world's top 30 violinists of the 20th century, at least 20 of them would be of Jewish ancestry. Jews constitute no more than 3 percent of the U.S. population but 35 percent of American Nobel Prize winners. One wonders what liberals would propose to promote equality in violin excellence and winning a Nobel Prize. By the way, liberals and progressives love to attend classical concerts, where there is a virtual absence of racial diversity.

Year after year, blacks of West African descent walk away with all of the prizes in the Olympic 100-meter run. The probability of such an outcome by chance is all but zero. It must be a reality — namely, genetic physiological and biomechanical characteristics — that causes blacks to excel in certain sports (e.g., basketball, football and track) and spells disaster for those who have aspirations to be Olympic-class swimmers.

Somehow liberals and progressives manage to cope with some realities but go ballistic with others. They cope well with black domination of basketball, football and track and with the near absence of black performers in classical concerts. They also accept the complete absence of women in the NFL and NBA. They even accept geographical disparities. For example, not a single player in the NHL's history can boast of having been born and raised in Hawaii, Louisiana or Mississippi.

The reality that they go ballistic on is the reality that we are not all equally intelligent. There are many more male geniuses than female, and median male IQ is higher. Liberals might argue bias in the testing. Men are taller on average than women. If liberals don't like that, would they accuse the height-measuring device of being biased?

The lesson liberals need to learn is that despite their arrogance, they do not have the power to alter reality.

SOURCE

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Governors lead a Republican renaissance in New England

BOSTON—Republican governors will lead Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine next month – a remarkable feat considering how much the GOP has struggled in New England for more than a generation.

Phil Scott, the governor-elect in Vermont, defeated his Democratic opponent by nine points, even as Donald Trump got wiped out by 29 points. (The president-elect garnered less than one-third of the vote in the Green Mountain State.)

-- New Hampshire was much closer. Trump lost by just half a percentage point. While Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte went down by fewer than one thousand votes, Chris Sununu won the governor’s race by just over 12,000 ballots – out of 629,000. One key factor might have been Chris’s decision to stand by Trump after the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape came out, while Kelly rescinded her endorsement.

-- Ticket splitting has become increasingly uncommon in congressional contests, but voters are perhaps more willing than ever to vote for a governor and president of different parties. Democrats note that they won in West Virginia and Montana last month, and they picked up an open seat in Louisiana last year. Trump carried those states by 42 points, 21 points and 20 points, respectively.

-- Just as there are not many national Democrats who can help out Gov.-elect Jim Justice in the Mountaineer State, neither are there many Republicans who can assist a GOP candidate in Vermont.

-- Charlie Baker is the exception. The Massachusetts governor did events for both Scott and Sununu. “I think New Hampshire is purple. Maine actually goes back and forth quite a bit too. Vermont’s obviously pretty blue, so is Massachusetts,” Baker said. “Part of what made both of those guys interesting to me was the fact that they’re people who would be really hard for someone to stereotype.”

Baker has a 70 percent approval rating in the deep-blue Bay State, making him one of – if not the most – popular governor in America. He’s viewed as a pragmatist and admired for his effective managerial abilities, even though many of his priorities have been blocked by liberals in the legislature.

Much more HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Are conservatives moral?

They are certainly not the unprincipled authoritarians that the active Left are but are they consciously concerned about morality? Dennis Prager (below) says they are but he speaks both from his own religious background (Jewish) and from the background of the United States, where conservatism and Christianity are closely linked.  And there is absolutely no doubt that Christianity focuses heavily on morality and moral improvement, partly on sexual morality but also on morality in one's dealings with others generally.  And, as Prager says, Christians are constantly being urged to improve their behaviour and to avoid sin.



But I live in a very conservative country by world standards that is also irreligious. There is for instance no homosexual marriage in Australia nor is there likely to be -- despite frantic pushes for it from the Left.

From its foundation in 1788, Australia has always been a traditionally unholy place with a very low rate of churchgoing. Americans trace their founding fathers to religious zealots but Australians trace their foundations to convicts. And other major population elements in the white settlement of Australia -- such as goldrush "diggers" and Irish rebels -- did little to alter the culture originating from our convict origins.

A majority of Australians have some religious affiliation but only a tiny minority go to church regularly.  When I was young, it was still common for official forms to ask your religion.  My father never set foot in a church after he was married in one but he would always put on the forms as his religion: "C of E" (Church of England).  So census statistics tell you nothing about religion in Australia.  More revealing is that Australians rarely know and rarely ask about any religious affiliation of people they deal with daily -- let alone people they encounter casually.

So an irreligious conservative is both possible and is the norm -- in Australia.

Prager's stress is on moral improvement rather than morality as such.  There is a difference.  Because they are basically contented with their society, conservatives tend to adopt its values.  And as a post-Christian society, Australian values are largely Christian.  The Ten Commandments are respected if not always obeyed.  Additionally there are some other, purely Australian commandments that have never been officially promulgated in any way but are generally accepted in a quite heartfelt way.  To breach them is to expose oneself to scorn. Here is one formulation of them:

* Thou shalt not dob in thy mates
* Thou shalt not bung on an act.
* Thou shalt not be a tall poppy
* Thou shalt give everyone a fair go
* Thou shalt be fair dinkum
* Thou shalt not crawl to the boss

Translating these into standard English yields APPROXIMATELY the following:

* You must not incriminate your friends to the boss, the police or anyone else. Loyalty to your associates is all-important.
* You must not be ostentatious or pretend to be what you are not.
* You must treat others as your equals. If you are seen as being better than others in anything but sport you will be made to suffer for it.
* You must be fair and permissive in your treatment of others.
* You must not be insincere or dishonest.
* You must not be hypocritical towards you employer or try to ingratiate yourself with him.

And wherefrom come those commandments?  From nowhere in particular.  They are just values that most Australians have had from the early days: Particularly working class Australians.  We just absorb them daily from other Australians that we interact with.  Australians will, for instance, generally be rather tolerant of a man who commits adultery but will be utterly contemptuous of a man who crawled to the boss or who bunged on an act.

So Australian are in fact highly moral despite being irreligious. But the idea that they seek to improve themselves morally is basically unknown outside the churches.

So what Prager says about conservatism is probably pretty right about America but not right about conservatives generally. I would juxtapose to the Leftist desire to change society a conservative satisfaction with the way things generally are -- requiring only minor adjustments -- mostly adjustments to get rid of Leftist attempts to tyrannize us into becoming something that we are not.

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Trump Is Looking to Go – ‘Big League.’ Congress Says They’re Ready. Let’s Do It

President-elect Donald Trump is from all appearances looking from Day One to very rapidly go very “big league.”  And by “big league” – he means huge reductions in the amounts of the federal government to which we are subjected.

After more than a century of Washington, D.C. ceaselessly, inexorably vacuuming up power that Constitutionally belongs to the states, municipalities and/or We the People – Trump’s revolution will be about re-devolving power.

Trump’s not doing this as the implementation of a lifelong ideological crusade.  Because he’s not an ideological crusader.  He’s a businessman – he just wants things to work.  And he has spent a lifetime watching government (at all levels) royally screw up…basically everything.

Call this the Reality Revolution.  DC has spent a century-plus ignoring Reality – Trump intends to again acknowledge it.

Trump was throughout the campaign routinely ridiculed by the Left and the Never Trump Right for his amorphous pledge to hire “the best people.”  Turns out he wasn’t kidding.  He is rapidly assembling, almost inarguably, the most deregulatory Cabinet in our nation’s history.

Heck, Trump’s nominated as Energy Secretary former Texas Governor Rick Perry – who four years ago ran for President pledging to close the Energy Department.  It doesn’t get any more deregulatory than that.  (And it should be closed – and be just one of oh-so-very-many to go.)

Because Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama grew so much government via Executive Branch fiat – Trump can undo a lot of it himself.  But there are slates of government that must be undone by President Trump and Congress together.  Enter Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.

I saw Fox News’ Bret Baier interview Ryan the day after the election – just after Ryan had met with Trump.  Ryan was so excited, I don’t think he blinked once during the entire conversation.  He nigh breathlessly, repeatedly, joyously said how fast Trump says he wants to hit the ground  running.  And Ryan metaphorically had his feet on the desk – lacing up and tying tight his track shoes.  He appears to want to jubilantly join Trump in the race.

Last week during a CNBC interview, Ryan said that at the end of 2015 he had (wisely, I add parenthetically) told his Committee Chairman to spend 2016 writing full-on, ready-to-go reform bills.  Preparing as if the Republicans would in 2017 control both houses of Congress and the White House.

And now Republicans do.  Here’s hoping they’ve learned the lessons of the last time they did – and royally screwed it up.  Under President George W. Bush in the 2000s.  We the People – then as now – wanted less government.  The Republicans instead unleashed a spending and earmark avalanche, passed massive new entitlements, drastically and badly expanded the Feds’ role in education and tried to jam through illegal alien amnesty.

A resume that cost them the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008.  Let us not repeat that mistake.  Save for his ridiculous $1 trillion infrastructure boondoggle, Trump doesn’t appear to be anywhere near doing so.  And (cautiously, I add parenthetically) it doesn’t sound like Ryan is either.

President Bill Clinton in 1996 famously said “the era of big government is over.”  Because, way back then, he knew that that is what We the People wanted.  It was why we had just elected a Republican House for the first time in (then) forty years.

Twenty years later – We the People are still waiting for the epoch to actually end.  Here’s hoping that terminus has finally arrived.

Trump ran on truly revolutionary reforms.  And won.  Congress should acknowledge that fact – and act upon it.  Trump ran on repealing and replacing terminally ill Obamacare – and is nominating the people to do it.  Don’t futz around, Congress – do it.  All the way.  Trump ran on repealing the Dodd-Frank banking disaster legislation – and is nominating the people to do it.  Don’t futz around, Congress – do it.  All the way.

And this full-on, big league reform should be executed in every area government is poisoning the private sector.  Which is…every area of the private sector.  And just because a sector isn’t a big part of the conversation – doesn’t mean it isn’t a big part of the private sector.

To wit: the Tech sector.  Which has rapidly grown to be 1/6 of our entire economy.  And the Obama Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spent its entire existence pummeling it with huge power grab after huge power grab.

The biggest, Net Neutrality, garnered a correctly derogatory 2014 Trump Tweet.  Trump’s Tech transition team matches the rest of the Trump transition team – it is fantastic.  Deregulatory folks who know the sector – and know all that needs to be (un)done.

A Trump FCC can its own self roll back many of these abuses.  And it absolutely should.  But the Commission is operating under the antiquated, sclerotic 1996 Telecommunications Act.  Get that?  Think of the innumerable millions (billions?) of technological advancements that have taken place since NINETEEN-NINETY-SIX.

Think of the exponential evolutions over two decades delivered us by the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).  Who exponentially grew Internet speeds – thus making possible the exponential evolutions of the “edge providers” (Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc), computer companies, cellular phone companies, applications companies, etc, etc, etc.

During all of which Congress updated…nothing.  Again, the Trump Administration-to-be is wide-open for a full-on, big league reform.  Congress shouldn’t futz around – they should deliver it.  A complete rewrite of the 1996 Act – the 2017 (or, ok, 2018) Telecommunications Act.

The private sector left the ’96 Act completely behind a LONG time ago.  We need a wholly new law – but this time with demarcated, delineated limits on what the federal government can and CAN NOT do.

No more leaving huge decisions to the bureaucrats – they will never, ever defer to and thus leave alone the private sector.  No more nebulous bureaucrat powers to unilaterally determine things like the “public interest” – they will always use them as government weapons against the private sector.

The 21st-Century, constantly-changing Tech Sector needs revolutionary new law.  To represent the times – both technologically, and the long-time sentiment of its long-suffering people.

Now is not the time to tinker around the edges.  Trump didn’t run on it.  Ryan didn’t prep for it.  We the People don’t want it.

Now is the time for big league reforms that result in much less government.  Trump ran on it.  Ryan prepped for it.  We the People want it.

Let’s do it.

SOURCE

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Assange To Hannity: Source For WikiLeaks Was Not Russian Government

In an exclusive interview with FOX News Channel's Sean Hannity the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange said Russia was not the source for the DNC and John Podesta hacks.

HANNITY: Can you say to the American people, unequivocally, that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta's emails, can you tell the American people 1,000 percent that you did not get it from Russia or anybody associated with Russia?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Yes. We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.

SOURCE

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In November 2016, James Clapper resigned as Director of National Intelligence, effective at the end of President Obama's term.



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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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2016 IN A NUT SHELL



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Mainstream Media Does An About-Face On Clinton’s Election Loss

The mainstream media has finally decided that it wasn’t racism, Russian president Vladimir Putin or FBI director James Comey that cost Hillary Clinton the presidency – it was Clinton.

In recent days, everyone from The New York Times to the Huffington Post has run feature news analyses pointing the finger at the former First Lady for throwing away her chances at victory in  November.

First, there was former Reagan speechwriter and biographer Lou Cannon writing in Real Clear Politics on December 22.   In a lengthy analysis entitled “The Importance of Being There,” Cannon offers a blistering critique of Clinton for failing to show up to campaign in the major Rust Belt states that threw their support to Trump.

Cannon argues that Clinton’s campaign was actually more effective than many people realize, pointing to her big win in Nevada and closer than expected showing in Arizona as proof.  In those states, Clinton campaigned heavily and in Nevada, she not only one beat Trump handily but also flipped both houses of the legislature to the Democrats.

But in Blue-leaning states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, Clinton never really campaigned in earnest.  In Michigan, despite pleas from the United Auto Workers and her own field staff, she failed to show up at local events.  In Wisconsin, she failed to make a single appearance anywhere. And she got shellacked.

Cannon is especially contemptuous of suggestions that “racism” among Trump supporters and White voters explains Clinton’s loss.

In one electoral district after another where White support for Obama had been strong in 2008 and 2012, voters threw their support to Trump, Cannon shows.

For example, Trump flipped Luzerne County in northeastern Pennsylvania, which went for Obama in 2012 by five percentage points and 12,000 votes. The billionaire real estate mogul won the county by an amazing 20 points and 25,000 votes.

Trump also flipped Erie County, which Obama had won by a whopping 57-41 percent margin. Trump won it, 49-47 percent.   The same story was repeated in counties throughout the Rust Belt, Cannon found.

David Kuhn, in an op-ed published four days later in The New York Times, echoed Cannon’s analysis. Kuhn reviewed voting data for those that expressed a low favorability rating for Trump and Clinton and found that the overwhelming majority of them broke for Trump.  His conclusion:  Many people voted for Trump in spite of his views on race and gender – not because of them.

“Bluntly put, much of the white working class decided that Mr. Trump could be a jerk,” Kuhn writes.  “Absent any other champion, they supported the jerk they thought was more on their side — that is, on the issues that most concerned them.”

Kuhn also looked at Trump voter views on immigration and found that most did not support his hard-line views.  But they voted for him anyway because of his stances on jobs, terrorism and other issues.

Even the liberal Huffington Post has decided belatedly that Clinton was responsible for her own woes. Senior HuffPo political columnist Sam Stein reviewed a host of interviews with late breaking undecided voters who overwhelmingly went for Trump and found that many had actually made up their minds weeks earlier.

One interviewee, Leonard Rainey, said he had serious doubts about Trump, especially his ability to handle an international crisis.  He also complained that Trump “was always running his fucking mouth” and saying “inappropriate” things. But, because of Clinton’s basic credibility problems, he voted for the reality star anyway.

Even Comey’s revived email investigation, which Clinton herself has singled out as the most important factor swaying late deciding voters, wasn’t that significant in the end. “That was not the nail in the coffin,” Rainey asserted. “It was the throwing of gas on a fire. … Ultimately, there was too much baggage with her.”

Stein also found it wasn’t just Republicans that broke late for Trump – it was Democrats, too.  And ultimately many looked beyond Trump’s alleged character foibles and made up their minds based on the issues.

“I think Trump is far less likely to get us involved in endless war in the Middle East,” Mark Bagley, a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, told interviewers.  “And the thing to me that is most important is not getting into unnecessary wars.  I am 100% certain that Clinton will get us into a war in the Middle East.”

Another Democratic interviewee said that Clinton’s incessant harping on Trumps’ alleged gender problem actually ended up swaying him toward The Donald.   He came to admire Trump’s “perseverance” and concluded that the former First Lady was simply dodging the issues.

The fact that the so many mainstream media organs are running pieces critical of the Clinton campaign may be a sign that the efforts to delegitimize Trump’s victory have finally come to an end.

But it’s hardly the end of the media’s war against Trump.  With Senate hearings to confirm a slew of controversial Trump cabinet nominations still pending, expect these same news organs to go back on the offensive to try to knock the incoming administration off balance.

The big war is over, but the post-election battles are just getting underway.

SOURCE

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Same White House blaming Russia for Trump earlier shot down claims of Russian influence

The White House blames Donald Trump’s presidential campaign victory on “fake news” websites run by the Russian government.

That’s why Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton is even more confused by President Barack Obama’s opposition earlier this year to a plan to combat Russian disinformation.

Concerned by Russian efforts to control the U.S. media, Cotton earlier this year pushed an effort “to force the White House to create a panel with representatives from a number of government agencies to counter Russian efforts ‘to exert covert influence,’ including by exposing Russian ‘falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations,’” POLITICO reports.

“Vladimir Putin is KGB. He always has been, and he always will be,” Cotton tells POLITICO.

The White House responded with a letter, rejecting the plan.

They claim they already had a plan to stop Russia from interfering in U.S. politics.

No they didn’t, says Cotton, pointing to Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee. While Wikileaks took credit for hacking the server, Russian state-run media were releasing the emails hours before Wikileaks “unveiled” them.

SOURCE

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Trump Likes Chuck Schumer More Than Republican Leadership

President-elect Donald Trump told incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that he liked him much better than Republican leadership in Congress, according to a Sunday report from the New York Post.

The exchange occurred during a private phone call between the two leaders, but staffers with Schumer’s office failed to confirm the content of the exchange, according to the report. Trump’s lack of affection for Republican leadership stems from the fact that “establishment” Republicans didn’t support Trump during his bid for the White House, according to an unnamed staffer with the Trump transition.

Trump “said to Schumer he likes Schumer more than Ryan and McConnell because they both wanted him to lose,” the source told the New York Post. “They are Republicans and Trump knows they didn’t support him.”

Trump describes his relationship with Schumer as “very good,” and the two men reportedly shared several phone conversations in the weeks following Trump’s election to the White House in November.

That affection could change now that Schumer doubled down on his move to slow every appointee Trump made to his cabinet.

SOURCE

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What experts predict, reality will contradict

by Jeff Jacoby

A NEW YEAR dawns, and you know what that means: Insiders, pundits, and gurus will spend the next 12 months making confident predictions that turn out to be spectacularly wrong.

But the experts themselves — often mistaken, but never in doubt — rarely seem to learn that lesson. Their forecasts will keep flowing in the year ahead, undeterred by their egregious blunders in the one just ended.

2016! Was there ever such a year for making donkeys out of seers? An entire column could be filled with nothing but the names of sages and savants, supposedly adept in the ways of politics, who confidently assured everyone that Donald J. Trump couldn't possibly win the Republican presidential nomination, let alone be elected president of the United States.

"If Trump is nominated, then everything we think we know about presidential nominations is wrong," wrote Larry Sabato, whose highly-regarded website at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics is called Sabato's Crystal Ball. Peering into his crystal ball on Nov. 7, he saw Hillary Clinton poised to harvest 322 votes in the Electoral College, handily defeating Trump in the next day's election.

Countless experts made similar predictions. "GOP insiders: Trump can't win," read a Politico headline last summer. Atop the story was the cocksure analysis of one of those insiders that nothing could keep Trump from losing short of "video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of 'Death to America.'" Pollsters, politicians, and even the incumbent POTUS announced with perfect certitude that a Trump victory was off the table. Indeed, prophesied Damon Linker, senior correspondent at The Week, not only would Trump lose, he would "lose in the biggest landslide in modern American history."

By no means was it only in the realm of US presidential politics that experts blew it.

Climate experts predicted that by the late summer of 2016, for the first time in 100,000 years, the Arctic Ocean would be effectively ice-free. Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University, said the decline in sea ice was unstoppable. But when satellite images for September were released, they showed ice levels greater than they were in 2012.

Fortune magazine played up the doomsaying of Wall Street strategist Albert Edwards, who warned that 2016 would bring the biggest stock-market crash in a generation. "The illusion of prosperity is shattered as boom now turns to bust," Edwards wrote in January, amid a market swoon. Bust? By year's end, the Dow was flirting with an all-time record high.

British experts of every description made the case for keeping the United Kingdom inside the European Union, and pollsters were sure Brexit would go down to defeat. But on the day of the election, voters tore up the script, handing the "Leave" campaign a victory margin of more than a million votes. Michael Gove, the UK's justice minister and a leading Brexiteer, had been laughed at when he contended: "People in this country have had enough of experts." Maybe the experts should have listened.

Maybe all of us should be more skeptical when experts are telling us what to think.

A book I cherish is The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation. Compiled by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, it mercilessly documents the uncanny ability of experts to get things hopelessly, cataclysmically wrong. Flip through it at random, and marvel at the howlers: Business Week reporting in November 1929 that the Wall Street crash would not lead to a depression because the economy was "stronger than ever before." The 50 political insiders unanimously predicting Thomas Dewey's defeat of Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential race. The 1977 declaration by Ken Olson, president of Boston's Digital Equipment Corp.: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."

For hundreds of pages, on hundreds of subjects, the experts get it wrong. I've often wished that The Experts Speak was supplied with an annual supplement, the better to be reminded that knowledge is no guarantee of truth, and that renown doesn't equal prophecy.

SOURCE

UPDATE about Chris Brand:

I have just heard from his wife, Dr. Fang, that he is on the mend but not expected out of hospital soon. She was with him for the ringing in of the New Year -- but she is beside his bedside most of the time.  Natalia Fang is a quality lady so it tells you something about Chris that he has her devotion.  Her degree is in fine arts and she has publications in that field.  The usual Leftist morons would call Chris a racist but the fact that he is married to a very fine Han Chinese lady might make that hard to sustain.

My son Joe is over there at the moment so I liked Natalia's comment about that. She said:  "I met Joe some while ago. He is a dashing, smart and thoughtful young man indeed".  Forgive fatherly pride.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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2 January, 2017

Are Liberals Bigger Drug Users?

They are, but why?  This author asserts that drug use MAKES people liberal and gives an extensive rationale for that view but I think it could well work the other way.  Leftists are angry at the world and hence contemptuous of it so to reject its standards of behaviour and conventional ideas of wisdom should come naturally.  And drug use is a good example of that rejection.  Contented people don't need drugs.  Discontented people do

Author Peter Schweizer wanted to know if there could be a link between a person’s political leanings and illegal drug use. His eye-opening finding: Liberals are five times more likely than conservatives to use marijuana and cocaine.

His findings are explored in his latest book: “Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less … and Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals.”

Schweizer, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, writes in his new book “Makers and Takers”:

“Academic studies have found that those on the political left are five times more likely to use marijuana and cocaine . . . Another survey found that Democrats were five times more likely to use marijuana than Republicans . . .

“A study published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse found that among heavy drug users, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans was more than 8-to-1.”

Yet another survey found a “direct and linear relationship” between liberalism and the use of any illicit drug.

Schweizer, whose other books include “Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy,” observes: “The liberal search for autonomy and the credo ‘if it feels good do it’ have a strong influence on who uses drugs and why. Many liberals denounce drug use as a danger while at the same time engaging in a wink-wink attitude towards its actual use.”

Drawing on extensive attitude surveys, Schweizer also details in his book how liberals are more motivated by money than are conservatives, are angrier than conservatives, give less to charity, and are more likely to believe in ghosts, ESP, and reincarnation.

SOURCE  

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Romneycare not so hot

It was the model for Obamacare. It aimed to reform healthcare by providing all MA residents with affordable quality health insurance

By Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy, and management at the Boston University School of Public Health

DAVID TORCHIANA, president and CEO of Partners HealthCare, once again has recited Commonwealth Fund analyses of federal survey data showing that Massachusetts health insurance premiums are a lower share of median income than prevails nationally.

But federal data on actual health spending contradict Torchiana. Massachusetts health spending per person was 36 percent above the US average, the highest in the world. After deducting Medicare and Medicaid dollars, private Massachusetts health costs per person were 40 percent above the US average, an excess of $11 billion over national average costs. Meanwhile, median income here was only 20 percent above the US average.

And US health spending is no bargain. It’s five times our defense spending. It’s also double the average for rich democracies, while citizens of other nations get more care and live longer.

Health costs fall heaviest on the half of people with below-median incomes. Since income inequality in Massachusetts is third-worst in the nation, our state’s lower-income citizens and their employers have particular trouble affording our state’s high costs and high insurance premiums.

Worse, high health costs propel employers to raise deductibles and co-insurance. These amount to taxes on being sick; they afflict everyone who needs care and fall heaviest on lower-income people.

To paraphrase the Marx Brothers: Who should we believe — Torchiana or our own lying eyes, wallets, and credit card statements?

SOURCE

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Sorry, Vegan Eatery—Good Intentions Don’t Absolve Your Economic Sins

By Abigail R. Hall Blanco

I frequently teach economics principles courses, offering many college students their first exposure to the subject. While we cover all the basics—supply and demand, elasticity (consumer and producer sensitivity to price changes), taxation, trade, and externalities—I’m under no illusion that most of them will remember a lot of the material come a year from now, much less longer.

But there is one thing I hope all my students remember forever—the role of prices and private property. In particular, I want them to remember how these mechanisms are vital for a free and prosperous society. I make it clear to them that I think this material is of the utmost importance. In fact, prior to beginning our discussion of prices, I tell them I will be thrilled if the price system is one thing they remember from the class fifteen years from now.

Prices and private property rights are fundamentally important. Failure to grasp how these forces work leads to positively detrimental outcomes.

A recent example of what happens when one fails to understand these core economic principles occurred in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Garden Diner and Café, formerly known as the Butchertown Diner, announced it would close its doors at the end of last month despite a pleasing menu and offering hip vegan food options.

In addition to the food, the diner’s business model received a great deal of attention. While some politely say the diner’s means of operation were “progressive,” at least one media outlet referred to the establishment as “Marxist Vegan.”

Several years ago the restaurant’s founder, Ryan Cappelletti, told a local news outlet why he had chosen a communist-inspired business model for the restaurant:

“Because of our economy, people are working 12-to-15 hour shifts, servers take home $200 to $300 a night in tips, the cooks are making $10 an hour and the owner takes whatever he takes. We’re going to have equal pay and equal say across the board. Everyone working together.”

The restaurant had no bosses, and decisions were made collectively by the staff. The workers decided when to open and close, leading to highly irregular hours. Customers might come to the establishment to eat only to find it closed. All workers were paid a “living wage,” meaning relatively unskilled workers would earn just as much as workers with more skills. Moreover, customers were not allowed to tip–meaning there was really no way for workers to be rewarded for exceptional service or work. Not surprisingly, this meant the restaurant experienced higher costs and lower revenues. Patrons often complained not just about the hours, but of the sometimes40 minute wait to receive a sandwich.

To add to the ambience and the “collective” spirit of the business, Cappelletti had a mural of Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, and other famous communist leaders “tackling restaurant duties.”

Now putting a portrait of the man (Zedong) responsible for a famine that killed tens of millions of people in a restaurant reflects either a really dark sense of humor or complete ignorance of history and economics. Given the aforementioned business model of the diner—I’m going with the latter.

What the creators of the diner (and the communist leaders on their walls) failed to recognize is that private property rights, prices, profit and loss are fundamental to bringing producers and consumers together, giving consumers what they want, and increasing wealth and prosperity.

First, consider the prime importance of private property rights. Having a private property right means that an individual has exclusive rights to use a particular asset. He doesn’t have to worry about someone else using his assets without his permission. As a result, the owner internalizes whatever action he takes with regard to his property. If a man takes good care of his business and provides a product or service consumers like, for example, he benefits in several ways. First, his customers reward him with their business and he likely earns a profit. Second, when it comes time to sell, the owner will be again rewarded for his hard work in building and maintaining a profitable enterprise. If, by contrast, he allows his business costs to skyrocket, hires incompetent workers, and produces a subpar product, he will face the negative consequences of his actions. He may earn negative profits or even have to shut down. If he were to sell the venture, he’d fetch a much lower price.

Having something that’s “owned collectively” fails to establish the same incentives because no one has the exclusive rights to the property. The owner of a business incurs the wrath of failing to satisfy customers by way of his bottom line. Rightly, he will do what he can to satisfy customers and increase his profit and help himself. So while a sole proprietor with his “skin in the game” knows what’s on the line should his business fail, the workers at the diner stood to lose comparatively less should the operation fold. They didn’t face the same incentives.

Second, it’s important to understand the role of prices. Economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok describe a price as a “signal wrapped in an incentive.” This is perhaps best explained with an example.

Suppose that the price of sandwiches increases by 50 percent. This change in price sends a signal to both producers and consumers—sandwiches are more valuable. The price increase provides an incentive for consumers to reduce their consumption. Those who value sandwiches comparatively less (i.e. those who aren’t willing to pay the higher price) will forego buying them, leaving the sandwiches for people who value them more and are willing to pay the higher price. Simultaneously, the price jump offers an incentive to producers to make more sandwiches! They can fetch a higher price if they do so. As a result, more sandwiches will be produced.

The increase in the number of sandwiches being produced in turn pushes the price back down and more consumers will have sandwiches! It’s actually pretty incredible.

When price signals are disturbed, it leads to poor outcomes. Rent controls and the minimum wage are textbook examples of what happens with prices are controlled artificially. Rent controls lead to housing shortages and black markets in real estate. Minimum wages lead to unemployment among the least skilled workers.

The diner largely ignored these signals and ultimately learned that, sooner or later, market forces will find you. That’s the thing about those pesky prices and profit and loss signals. While they never fail to reward you for producing something that provides value to your fellow man, they’re quick to slap you square in the face with your failures.

While my students may not remember a lot of what we covered in class, I hope this is a lesson they’ve truly taken to heart. They might not be economists in the end, but they won’t be foolish enough to open a “collective” diner with murderous tyrants painted on the walls.

SOURCE

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UPDATE about Chris Brand:

I have just heard from his wife, Dr. Fang, that he is on the mend but not expected out of hospital soon. She was with him for the ringing in of the New Year -- but she is beside his bedside most of the time.  Natalia Fang is a quality lady so it tells you something about Chris that he has her devotion.  Her degree is in fine arts and she has publications in that field.  The usual Leftist morons would call Chris a racist but the fact that he is married to a very fine Han Chinese lady might make that hard to sustain.

My son Joe is over there at the moment so I liked Natalia's comment about that. She said:  "I met Joe some while ago. He is a dashing, smart and thoughtful young man indeed".  Forgive fatherly pride.

******************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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