Links

Sen. Susan Collins speech about Kavanaugh was so full of lies and misleading half-truths, evidently under the control of McConnell, that she illustrated the reason several decent republicans have left the party because it has become so degraded.


https://theintercept.com/2018/10/04/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-confirmation-corporate-regulations/
Oct. 4, 2018
Business groups with interests before the U.S. Supreme Court have orchestrated a multifaceted campaign to pressure the Senate to swiftly confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court. The advocacy reaches across the influence economy of Washington, D.C., with the largest corporate lobbying groups and billionaires working in concert with Republican operatives to elevate Kavanaugh to a lifetime posting atop the judiciary.


https://qz.com/1415990/read-letter-of-blasey-fords-witness-after-fbis-kavanaugh-probe/
Oct. 6, 2018
late last night, a letter addressed to the body from Keith Koegler, a friend of Christine Blasey Ford and one of her corroborating witnesses, was released, in which he urged senators “to do what is right.”
In it, Koegler said he and at least seven others who had known about the alleged sexual assault that occurred when Ford and Kavanaugh were in high school were not interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation.
“The process by which the Senate Judiciary Committee has ‘investigated’ the facts relating to the assault has been a shameless effort to protect Judge Kavanaugh,” he wrote. “The fact that the FBI did not interview either Christine or Judge Kavanaugh, by itself, renders absurd any assertion that the investigation was ‘thorough.'”
Koegler had previously submitted a letter to the Senate on Sept. 24 detailing an email exchange between him and Ford, in which she named Kavanaugh as her alleged attacker—this occurred shortly after the announcement of justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the bench and more than a week before Trump named Kavanaugh as his Supreme Court pick.
[Read the full letter at the link.]


http://time.com/5416084/john-paul-stevens-brett-kavanaugh/
Oct. 4, 2018
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday that he no longer believes Brett Kavanaugh is qualified for a seat on the Supreme Court because of his performance during last week’s confirmation hearings.


http://time.com/5415845/kavanaugh-fbi-investigation-witnesses/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-fbi-background-check-of-kavanaugh-nears-its-end-probe-appears-to-have-been-highly-curtailed/2018/10/03/2fa4e93e-c72f-11e8-9b1c-a90f1daae309_story.html?utm_term=.dccdc1d0095b
FBI did not interview dozens of people regarding Kavanaugh



[Why did the FDA have to be sued before they removed this stuff from our food? Let's hope the republican supreme court doesn't reverse this.]
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/06/655135633/fda-bans-use-of-7-synthetic-food-additives-after-environmental-groups-sue
Oct. 6, 2018
Ever heard of these food additives? Synthetically-derived benzophenone, ethyl acrylate, methyl eugenol, myrcene, pulegone, or pyridine?
These compounds can help mimic natural flavors and are used to infuse foods with mint, cinnamon and other flavors.
You've likely never seen them on food labels because food manufacturers are permitted to label them simply as "artificial flavors."
Now, the Food and Drug Administration has announced these compounds will no longer be allowed to be used as food additives. The FDA is giving manufacturers time to remove them from the food supply.
The decision comes in response to a petition brought by environmental and consumer groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Food Safety, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest.


https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-05/how-is-donald-trump-profiting-from-the-presidency-let-us-count-the-ways
Mar. 5, 2018
Donald Trump is raking in big bucks from emoluments foreign and domestic.


https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/donald-trump-reports-hes-getting-rich-off-the-presidency/530718/
June 16, 2017
Donald Trump Reports He’s Getting Rich as President


https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian
Oct. 5, 2018
Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls. But a new essay in the New York Review of Books pointing out “troubling similarities” between the 1930s and today is different: It’s written by Christopher Browning, one of America’s most eminent and well-respected historians of the Holocaust. In it, he warns that democracy here is under serious threat, in the way that German democracy was prior to Hitler’s rise — and really could topple altogether.
… So when Browning makes comparisons between the rise of Hitler and our current historical period, this isn’t some keyboard warrior spouting off. It is one of the most knowledgeable people on Nazism alive using his expertise to sound the alarm as to what he sees as an existential threat to American democracy.
The threat to the United States isn’t so much Trump alone as it is the breakdown in the practice of American democracy, and the Republican Party’s commitment to extreme tactics in pursuit of its policy goals in particular.


https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/11/18/16670576/dunning-kruger-effect-video
Nov. 18, 2017
Why incompetent people often think they’re actually the best
There’s a psychological phenomenon behind it: the Dunning-Kruger effect.
“When psychologists Dunning and [Justin] Kruger first described the effect in 1999, they argued that people lacking knowledge and skill in particular areas suffer a double curse. First, they make mistakes and reach poor decisions. But second, those same knowledge gaps also prevent them from catching their errors. In other words, poor performers lack the very expertise needed to recognize how badly they’re doing.”


https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/07/21/a-rigorous-scientific-look-into-the-fox-news-effect/#346f3bf112ab
July 21, 2016
A Look Into The 'Fox News Effect'
In 2012, a Fairleigh Dickinson University survey reported that Fox News viewers were less informed about current events than people who didn't follow the news at all.