Month: July 2024

Authored by Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Chevron deference, which had the effect of enhancing federal agency power, has been deemed a “seismic” change for U.S. administrative law.

Members of Congress tell The Epoch Times that they believe the Supreme Court ruling will equally shake up the process of lawmaking.

On June 28, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court struck down its 40-year-old precedent in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which required federal courts to defer to government agencies’ “reasonable interpretation” of ambiguous laws that the agencies enforce through federal regulations—even if the courts disagreed with those interpretations.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Loper Bright decision now empowers courts to “independently interpret the statute and effectuate the will of Congress.”

Members of Congress have since been considering how to update the way that laws and regulations are drafted to meet the requirements outlined by the Loper Bright decision, such that the “will of Congress” may be clear when regulations are challenged in court.

Specify Laws

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill indicated that several reforms to the legislative process are likely to follow the Loper Bright decision.

“This institution is going to have to change; how we staff committees is going to have to change, and how we work with the administrative state will have to change,” Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told The Epoch Times.

“We’re going to have to be much more specific in the lawmaking exercise … we’re going to have to have committees that have more staff in order to accommodate specific legislative writing.”

He said Congress will “have to have some changes in our internal processes of what comes to the floor.”

“We don’t have the muscle memory of how to write laws specific enough … it’s muscle memory that has to be recreated here. And it’s possible but it’s going to be hard,” Mr. McHenry said. He briefly acted as the House Speaker pro tempore in 2023 after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was stripped of the gavel.

The Supreme Court in Loper Bright opined that non-specificity in statutes is unintentional, suggesting that Congress could now intentionally write laws more specifically.

“A statutory ambiguity does not necessarily reflect a congressional intent that an agency, as opposed to a court, resolve the resulting interpretive question. Many or perhaps most statutory ambiguities may be unintentional,” Justice Roberts wrote for the court’s majority opinion.

However, members of Congress say ambiguous laws are a political necessity, given disagreements between lawmakers over a law’s scope and purpose.

In those situations, Congress, for convenience, often delegated the interpretation of some laws to federal agencies, which gave them wide discretion to regulate.

“The vast majority of all regulations in the last 40 years have been because of the ambiguity,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told The Epoch Times.

“When people know there are not votes to pass the laws, they figure: ‘Well, let’s make it ambiguous, and then the agency will interpret it in a way we like,’” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Epoch Times. “None of that will be able to occur anymore.”

“The Supreme Court seems to be pointing at Congress to say: Be more specific,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told The Epoch Times. “That does put a little more of a burden on our shoulders when we’re doing legislation, to not just broadly defer. Exactly how specific [laws] have to be, I don’t know.”

That level of specificity has divided members as they draft legislation, with some believing it’s impossible.

“There is always going to be some ambiguity in the bills that we pass … as much as you want to write bills that are very, very specific, you can’t,” Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) said.

Instead, some lawmakers believe Congress should now specify how courts treat post-Chevron disputes about regulations, such as making evidence reviewable “de novo”—whereby courts can examine evidence beyond the agency’s administrative record, to which they are currently limited by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).

That proposal goes beyond Loper Bright, in that courts would not only interpret the law authorizing a regulation but also judge the validity of scientific and technical evidence supporting it.

“Moving forward, we need to prescribe and be very clear that … [there] is a de novo review,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) told The Epoch Times.

Others think that all new regulations should require Congressional approval before passage.

“Rulemaking should come back to the House. If the administrative branch writes a rule based on our law, we as Congress should be able to approve that rule: up or down,” Mr. Giménez said.

Some Lawmakers Favor Reversing Loper Bright

As some members of Congress consider how to adapt to Chevron’s departure, several Democrat lawmakers have responded by looking for ways to restore Chevron deference to agencies.

“We’re going to fix what the Supreme Court did when they overruled precedent for no good reason, in what is known as Chevron case,” House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said.

“The Supreme Court has now essentially said that, ‘Hey, judges are better than the technical experts at agencies and looking at congressional statutes’ … No, judges are not better,” he said.

Efforts to codify Chevron deference into law have been gaining steam among congressional Democrats.

In March of 2023, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) introduced a related bill with several co-sponsors. After the recent Loper Bright decision, 35 Democrats have joined as co-sponsors, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over reforms to federal courts.

The Senate’s 60-vote “cloture” requirement to overcome a filibuster means such reforms are unlikely unless Democrats force a rule change to rescind it. Moreover, some legal experts raise constitutional and practical concerns about the idea.

“Over the years, Chevron had acquired many exceptions, qualifications, and acknowledged ambiguities,” said Jeremy Rabkin, a distinguished fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.

“It wouldn’t be enough for a statute to say, ‘Never mind Loper Bright, just go back to Chevron.’ The statute would have to explain what that was supposed to mean. But, once you get down to the details, I am doubtful Congress could reach an agreement on what it would like,” Mr. Rabkin said.

“Beyond all that, I think there are serious constitutional problems with a statute that tells courts how they should interpret statutes.”

Other Democrats have suggested more measured reforms.

“We’re still looking into [reforms] and whether a general amendment of some kind to the Administrative Procedures Act, or more specific bill by bill ramparts, to protect the expertise from judicial meddling are the best way to go,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told The Epoch Times.

Since the Loper Bright decision, Congress has not taken up any major administrative proposals that would invite regulation.

Whenever that may be, it will likely prove to be the first test of how Congress proceeds with legislation post-Chevron.

“There’s been a sea change of how this place operates. I think, how the whole government operates,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) said of the impact of the decision.

It’s the last day of the 2024 Republican National Convention – and it’s going to be a big one.

7:30 p.m. Central

Tucker Carlson, founder of Tucker Carlson Network

7:30-8 p.m. Central

Carrie Ruiz

Hulk Hogan, former professional entertainer and wrestler

Annette Albright

8-9 p.m. Central

Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

Eric Trump

Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship

9-10:30 p.m. Central

Former President Donald J. Trump

Watch Live:

US Secret Service whistleblowers have approached the House Judiciary Committee, claiming that there were limited resources to cover former President Donald Trump last weekend due to the North Atlantic Treato Organization (NATO) summit in Washington DC, as well as first lady Jill Biden’s campaign rally in Pittsburgh, PA.

Chairman Jim Jordan has demanded answers FBI Director Christopher Wray, according to the Daily Caller.

“Whistleblowers have disclosed to the Committee that the USSS led two briefings regarding the July 13 campaign rally on July 8, 2024, with the Western Pennsylvania Fusion Center (WPFC) and other stakeholders, to discuss the upcoming, unrelated visits by President Trump and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden,” reads a Thursday letter from Jordan to Wray. “The USSS Special Agent in Charge Tim Burke reportedly told law enforcement partners that the USSS had limited resources that week because the agency was covering the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, D.C. FBI personnel were present at those briefings. While the Committee recognizes that the FBI is one of many agencies represented in the WPFC, it is the lead federal investigative arm and a key source of intelligence on potential threats for special events in its area of responsibility,” he continued.

“The Committee has several unanswered questions about the failures that led to the attempted assassination of a president—the first in over forty years—as well as the FBI’s ability to conduct a rapid, transparent, and thorough investigation in the wake of its recent scandals. Accordingly, to ensure that the Committee can effectively evaluate these matters during your testimony on July 24, 2024.”

Jordan seeks the following information from Wray:

• How many agents, analysts, and support personnel has the FBI dedicated to the investigation?

• Was there coordination between the FBI, USSS, and the WPFC prior to President Trump’s event on July 13?

• How many buildings had to be secured inside and outside of the security perimeter for President Trump’s event on July 13?

• Why was the roof of the AGR International building left unsecured?

• How much time elapsed between identifying the shooter as a potential threat and the attempted assassination?

• How much time elapsed between the local police officer encountering the shooter on the sloped roof and the attempted assassination?

• Has the FBI interviewed the local police officer who encountered the shooter?

• What does the FBI’s evaluation of the shooter’s phone and digital activity show about his actions and movements in the days and hours leading up to the attempted assassination?

• Was the security posture at President Trump’s event limited due to resource constraints with the NATO Summit and/or First Lady Dr. Jill Biden’s event in Pittsburgh?

• Is the FBI’s investigation limited to the shooter and his motivations or does it include the security failures that led to the attempted assassination?

• How did communications breakdowns between various law enforcement entities affect the ability of local law enforcement and USSS to identify the shooter as a potential threat and mitigate the threat before he took action?

• What actions did the USSS take to remove or cover President Trump after a threat was known or detected?

Read the letter below:

(DAILY CALLER OBTAINED) — … by Henry Rodgers

Authored by Vince Bielski via RealClearInvestigations,

Next month, the Huntsville School District in Arkansas will join the wave of public schools switching to a four-day week. 

The shorter school week, which first emerged in a few rural areas decades ago, is now expanding into suburbs and smaller cities. At least 2,100 schools in half the states have embraced the three-day weekend mostly as an incentive to hire and keep teachers, prompting cheers of support from instructors, unions, and many families.  

Despite the growing popularity of the shorter week, some researchers and lawmakers are pushing back on the strategy. While its impact on teacher shortages appears to be mixed in different districts, its harmful effects on the academic growth of students – arguably the top priority of public education – is clear. Teams of researchers examining the program in a variety of states have come to a similar conclusion: The four-day week stymies learning in math and English when instructional time is reduced, as is often the case. 

The most authoritative multi-state study to date found that students have suffered small-to-medium negative effects, learning “significantly less” than they would have in a traditional five-day program, says co-author Emily Morton of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

The push for a shorter week comes at a troubling time for public schools. Many districts remain in a tough spot in the wake of the pandemic, suffering from increased teacher turnover as well as classrooms full of students who have recovered only a small portion of months and even years of lost learning. What’s more, an unprecedented $190 billion in emergency federal aid ends in September, adding to the financial pressures on districts.

While superintendents see the four-day week as an inexpensive way to address the need for teachers, they also risk causing further harm to students. “It’s a huge mistake to move to a four-day school week,” said Matt Kraft of Brown University, who co-wrote a paper on the influence of class time on learning. “At this moment we need to maximize instructional time to support students’ academic recovery, not reduce it.”

But a Monday-to-Thursday or Tuesday-to-Friday week is a gamble some school leaders are willing to take. 

Huntsville Superintendent Jonathan Warren, who led his district’s move to a four-day week before his recent retirement, has read the critical research. Initially he had reservations too. But he changed his mind after a survey of teachers and families revealed that they favored the shorter schedule by a wide margin over three other options, including the traditional five-day program. 

To lessen the risks to students, Warren followed the advice of researchers to lengthen the remaining four school days enough so they receive at least the same amount of instructional time in math and English. He hopes students won’t fall further behind, but only time will tell. 

“We recognize the potential risk, and we will be monitoring the metrics to make sure that the risks don’t outweigh the benefits, mostly with teacher retention,” Warren told RealClear. “If student outcomes show a drop, a dramatic drop, then it’s a no brainer to go back to traditional calendar.”

A Movement of Rural Schools

The four-day week hasn’t generated nearly as much attention as the culture war battles over race and gender in schools, despite the potential danger to students. It has been a quiet transformation in public education partly because, early on, only small rural districts in western states like Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon adopted the shorter week. 

By 1999, 108 districts had made the switch, primarily in an attempt to save money and reduce the burden on families with long commutes in rural areas, according to a study by Paul Thompson, an economist at Oregon State University and leading expert on the trend. 

The financial crisis of 2009 spurred the next wave of adopters looking to save money as funding for education fell in many states. By 2019, the number of four-day districts had soared six-fold to 662 in 24 states.

But significant cost savings never materialized. Districts found that reduced expenses from building operations and busing students were minimal, or less than 2%. That’s because salaries, the biggest expense in education, don’t change for teachers and administrators when shaving a day off the week. 

Colorado district 27J in the suburbs of Denver discovered to its surprise that the switch to four days created new costs. The district had to extend its four school days to 4:30 p.m. to increase instructional time. But that pushed sporting practices and events into the evenings, requiring the district to install lights on its softball fields and tennis courts.

“We initially thought that if we transported kids less, it would be more savings in our pockets,” said 27J Superintendent Will Pierce. “But now we have lights on fields, costs we didn’t pay before. In the end, doing four-day has been a wash compared with five-day.” 

The pandemic provided the impetus for the most recent round of adopters. By 2023 nearly 900 districts, or 7% of the total – all in 26 western, midwestern and southern states – had signed on, according to Thompson’s research. 

In Colorado, almost two-thirds of its 179 districts have gone four-day. In Oregon, about 40% of districts have converted. In Missouri, it’s about one-third, including the metropolitan district of Independence, one of the largest non-rural school systems to join the parade. 

Thompson says the shorter week is spreading partly because districts have control over the school schedule as a means to reach their goals, such as teacher retention.

“Other avenues likely mean an influx of funding, which is often at the purview of states or local taxpayers,” he said. “In many cases the access to additional funding is minimal.” 

The Carrot of a Three-Day Weekend

Districts now stress a shortage of teachers to justify a four-day week, a problem exacerbated by pandemic, but that’s now in retreat in some states.

In Arkansas, for instance, annual teacher turnover increased from 21% in 2018-2019 to 24% in 2023-2024, forcing districts to fill some of those positions with unlicensed or not appropriately certified instructors, according to Andrew Camp at the University of Arkansas. 

In Colorado, however, teachers have been returning to the classrooms. The number of open positions went down significantly last year, according to the department of education, a sign that the supply of teachers is improving.

Superintendents credit the three-day weekend for luring talent to their districts. Colorado’s 27J, one of the lowest paying districts in the Denver area, has historically lost experienced teachers to nearby Adams 12 district that lures them with higher compensation. Superintendent Pierce says the shorter week and recent pay raises have reduced turnover from about 23% annually before the switch to 10% last year. 

Dale Herl, superintendent of the Independence district in Missouri, considers the shorter week a magnet for all types of workers. He told the media that the district was fully staffed with bus drivers and nurses for the first time in fifteen years because of the changeover in 2023. 

Researchers so far haven’t found such remarkable results. A study of 27J showed that retention of experienced teachers actually fell 5% in the first year of the four-day week. In Arkansas, the shorter week improved teacher retention within 32 districts by only about 1.4 percentage points, according to a 2024 study by Camp at Arkansas.

“Districts making the change to four days should be realistic about what they can expect to achieve,” said Camp. “They should consider other options to help deal with staffing challenges that don’t put students at risk of learning loss.”

Camp says “grow your own” teacher programs have the potential to fill some of the shortage. Districts in several states are rolling out such programs that turn paraeducators into teachers. Some are offering paid apprenticeships that combine on-the-job and university training to address the high cost of obtaining a license, a major barrier to the supply of teachers. 

Teacher unions have strongly supported the four-day week, and in some states like Colorado, played a pivotal role in the changeover. It requires an overhaul of almost every facet of school operations, from the curriculum and homework load to extracurricular activities, teacher training, working hours, and days off. In 27J, the labor contract had to be significantly revised over weeks of negotiations. 

Kathey Ruybal, president of the Brighton Teachers Association, says the union backed the switch in 27J in fairness to teachers it considers underpaid at a starting salary of $52,000. Ruybal says students also benefit because the extra day off provides more time for teachers to plan lessons, collaborate over best practices, and receive training.

“Our district would not have done the four-day without our union support,” said Ruybal, a former English teacher. “Teachers have an extreme amount of work that they have to bring home. And the four-day work week allows them to have a bit of a weekend.”

Shortchanging Students 

Most families and students also like the three-day weekend, according to surveys in districts. Enough parents work at home now that daycare on Fridays or Mondays isn’t a widespread problem, and some districts like 27J offer the service at a low-cost. 

Students say they feel less stress with a three-day weekend. During the extra day off, they sleep in, chill out, catchup on homework, do chores or work at part-time jobs. Back at school, and feeling more relaxed, students are less likely to fight and bully each other, according to researchers. 

The downside risk of more learning loss doesn’t seem too concerning to families. In the post-pandemic era, schools are putting less value on striving for good test scores and more on making students comfortable by lowering academic standards for grading and graduation. 

In states like Oregon, however, the poor performance of students on state tests is hard to ignore. Scores are among the worst in the nation, with only 22% of eighth graders showing proficiency in math in 2022. The four-day week has only added to Oregon’s education woes. 

Examining test results in the state’s four-day schools from 2007 to 2015, Thompson, the economist, found “detrimental impacts” in both reading and math in third through eighth grades. 

The problem is that districts in Oregon and other states haven’t added enough time to the remaining four school days to provide students with the same amount of instruction. Compared with other states, Oregon has very low minimum instructional time requirements for its districts, at 966 hours a year for 12th graders. So, in moving to four days, Oregon districts have been able to shave off almost 3.5 hours a week in class time and still meet state mandates, according to Thompson’s study. 

“We know that allocating sufficient time in school for students within the four-day school week can mitigate declines in student achievement,” Thompson said. “However, not all districts are able or willing to keep hours close to what they were under the five-day week, which is why we see declines in achievement.”

Across the country, four-day students spend an average of about 1,150 hours a year in school, or 85 hours less than five-day students, according to another investigation by Thompson. In comparing instructional time in core subjects, it’s noteworthy that four-day students get 25 fewer minutes a week in math and 49 fewer minutes in English. 

Colorado’s 27J underscores how less instructional time can complicate a district’s understanding of its academic struggles. In the six years that 27J has operated a four-day week, its test scores have worsened relative to state averages. Is the problem that its middle and high school students have received a little less instructional time? Or that more low-income students have come to the district?

“Whether this is actually a four-day problem, a pandemic problem, or a changing demographics of our community problem, our team has tried to figure out what are the contributing factors to the drop in test scores,” Superintendent Pierce said. 

Some four-day districts, including those in Arkansas, have done a better job in maintaining an equivalent amount of class time to the benefit of students. As a result, students in Arkansas’ 34 four-day districts haven’t suffered a drop in achievement, according to a study co-authored by Kate Barnes at the University of Arkansas. 

Pushback

Even as more districts shift to the four-day week, the research showing the academic risks has prompted a few states to push back on the trendy program. 

In New Mexico, lawmakers are trying to turn around a school system that’s producing bottom-of-the-barrel test scores. A 2023 law requires districts to add between 90 and 150 instructional hours a year to what had been the state’s low minimum requirements.

Then this year, a new rule mandating that all schools be in session for at least 180 days was met with protests from the teachers union and superintendents association. It is suing the state to protect the four-day districts that operate for about 155 days a year. 

Missouri is dangling a carrot in front of districts to curtail the four-day week. A new law gives districts that stay or return to five days additional funding for teacher pay hikes. It also mandates that the decision of large districts like Independence to adopt a four-day schedule be put before voters for approval by July 2026. 

State Senator Doug Beck told RealClear that he wrote the legislative provisions because of Missouri’s troubling test scores, with only 35% of students achieving proficiency in math. “Students need a traditional five-day week, with in-class instruction from a quality teacher, if we ever hope to improve these reading and math scores,” Beck said.

The senator’s view is backed up by research showing a “clear positive effect of additional time on student achievement,” according to a paper co-authored by Brown University’s Kraft, who reviewed 74 studies on the topic. With huge differences among states in the time students spend in school, Kraft says, states on the low end like Oregon should add instructional hours to help students become proficient in math and English. 

Despite the risks, the four-day movement continues to gather steam. In the upcoming school year, at least five more districts in Arkansas will make the shift and another one in Missouri is converting, too. And Indiana will debut its first four-day school, Vinton Elementary. 

Vinton Principal Cindy Preston says while she has concerns about the academic impact of the shift, the longer school day will help teachers provide more meaningful learning experiences. 

“Having that extra day off during the week will allow our students and staff to find that quality school-life balance that benefits their mental health,” Preston said. 

The distribution of news in the internet era has never quite been so fractured.

Between competing outlets, platforms, and formats, Americans can get their news from anywhere between a TikTok video to a station newspaper.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, shows the percentage of Americans who use various news sources on a weekly basis.

More than 2,000 nationally representative Americans were surveyed in a 2024 YouGov survey commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Local TV News Still Has a Foothold in America

When it comes to traditional mediums (TV, radio, and print), local TV stations are still the most frequently used by Americans (28%). Fox News (27%) comes in at a close second.

Multiple choices allowed. Responses do not sum to 100.

Meanwhile, CNN ranks as the third most popular choice (23%) with ABC and CBS News (both 20%) rounding out the top five.

As a whole, TV stations fill out the top six spots with local newspapers coming in 7th (14%). The New York Times (13%) and USA Today (12%) are the only named newspaper outlets to have double-digit responses.

Fox News and CNN Battle For Online Audience

However, in the digital realm, Fox News online (18%) just about takes the crown with a 1 percentage point lead over CNN.com (17%).

Multiple choices allowed. Responses do not sum to 100.

Local TV news websites and Yahoo! News tie for third place (16%). Both NYT and USA Today’s online editions perform better than their print counterparts.

In fact, the Times has been seeing declining print subscriptions for the last two years, even as online-only subscribers grow. A core component of drawing more online patrons is through bundling its many services. Games like Wordle are used as a funnel to grow digital subscriptions.

If you liked this article, check out Ranked: The World’s Most Popular Apps by Downloads for a quick overview of where people are spending their time online.

Authored by JoJo Novaes and Ben Lam via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Eating junk food is as pervasive in our current culture as eating naturally was in our not-so-long-ago past—and it shows. A systematic review published in The BMJ this year, involving 9.8 million participants, indicated an association between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of 32 diseases, including heart disease, cancer, Type 2 diabetes, anxiety, and premature death.

Dr. Zheng Yuanyu, former attending physician of the Infectious Disease Department at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, discussed the addictive nature of ultra-processed foods and strategies for managing their consumption rationally on the “Health 1+1” program.

What Are Ultra-Processed Foods?

Some examples of ultra-processed foods include ready-to-eat meals, packaged baked goods, snacks, sugary cereals, and carbonated drinks, according to a BMJ Group press release. These items undergo multiple industrial processing steps and typically contain colorings, emulsifiers, flavorings, and other additives. Additionally, they are often high in added sugars, fats, and salts, while being low in fiber and vitamins.

Dr. Zheng noted that the definition of “processed foods” is broad, and not all processed foods are classified as “ultra-processed” or unhealthy. For example, he said, foods that are heated and sealed in a factory are considered minimally processed. However, some simple processed products can still be unhealthy. The most common ultra-processed foods, such as various snacks, beverages, and factory-produced cookies and bread, undergo more complex manufacturing processes and contain multiple chemical additives, resulting in a less healthy nutritional profile.

7 Health Risks of Ultra-Processed Foods

The BMJ review included 45 distinct studies involving over 9.8 million participants. The results multitude of adverse health outcomes revealed by the review can be broadly classified into the following seven categories:

1. Mortality: All-cause mortality, cancer-related mortality, cardiovascular disease-related mortality, and heart disease-related mortality.
2. Cancer: Overall cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, central nervous system tumors, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, pancreatic cancer, and prostate cancer.
3. Mental health: Poor sleep, anxiety, common mental disorders, and depression.
4. Cardiovascular health: Cardiovascular disease, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, and low HDL cholesterol levels.
5. Respiratory health: Asthma and wheezing.
6. Gastrointestinal health: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
7. Metabolic health: Abdominal obesity, high blood sugar, metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, overweight, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.

The researchers assessed the credibility and quality of evidence from various studies and found that excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods was particularly associated with a higher risk of cardiometabolic issues, common mental disorders, and mortality outcomes.

Specifically, the researchers noted that “compelling evidence” indicated a higher intake of ultra-processed foods was linked to a 50 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease-related mortality, as well as a 48 to 53 percent increased risk of anxiety and common mental disorders. Furthermore, it was associated with a 12 percent increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Additionally, highly suggestive evidence showed that a higher intake of ultra-processed foods was associated with a 21 percent increased risk of all-cause mortality, a 22 percent increased risk of depression, and a 40 to 66 percent increased risk of heart disease-related mortality, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and sleep problems.

Dr. Zheng highlighted that while ultra-processed foods are linked to numerous diseases, this does not necessarily indicate a direct causal relationship. However, he specifically emphasized that the evidence connecting ultra-processed foods to diabetes is the most compelling, with relatively high-quality research supporting this association. Diabetes can deteriorate vascular and immune functions throughout the body, increasing the risk of various other diseases in patients already predisposed to diabetes.

Dr. Zheng cited a study published in JAMA Network Open in 2023, which explored the association between ultra-processed foods and the risk of mental illness. The study suggested that ultra-processed foods may increase the likelihood of developing depression. The researchers tracked more than 30,000 health care professionals for 15 years and found that individuals in the highest quintile of ultra-processed food intake had a 49 percent higher risk of depression compared to those in the lowest quintile. The study revealed that eating more ultra-processed foods, especially those containing artificial sweeteners, significantly increased the risk of depression.

The Addictive Nature of Ultra-Processed Foods

A 2023 study published in The BMJ estimated that approximately 14 percent of adults and 12 percent of children may experience issues related to ultra-processed food addiction.

Dr. Zheng stated that issues related to ultra-processed food addiction, much like smartphone and alcohol addiction, can significantly impact mental health. He explained that the complex ingredients in ultra-processed foods, such as refined carbohydrates and fats, can stimulate the brain to release large amounts of dopamine, reaching levels similar to those triggered by substances like nicotine and alcohol, thereby contributing to addiction.

Furthermore, Dr. Zheng pointed out that ultra-processed foods are high in refined carbohydrates and often contain added fats and chemical additives. Due to various processing methods, these foods can produce certain effects that disrupt the body’s appetite regulation mechanisms, leading to increased calorie consumption without realizing it. The long-term accumulation of excess calories can, in turn, result in subsequent health issues.

Health Tips for Moderating Ultra-Processed Food Intake

In today’s environment, the temptation of ultra-processed foods is unavoidable. Dr. Zheng emphasized the importance of recognizing the addictive nature and health hazards of these foods. They should be enjoyed in moderation, avoiding excessive consumption. If signs of addiction appear, early intervention is crucial.

Among ultra-processed foods, it is recommended to choose relatively healthier options. For instance, for breakfast, opt for cereals that are lower in sugar, sodium, and salt, and higher in fiber, while avoiding refined carbohydrates. Additionally, mixing sugary cereals with unsweetened ones can help reduce the overall sugar content.

Dr. Zheng used a popular chocolate cake product as an example, highlighting that its ingredient list contains a significant amount of chemical additives, such as complex thickeners, emulsifiers, and agents for improving baking fat quality. Each 3.53 ounces (100 grams) of the cake contains 0.93 ounces (26.3 grams) of sugar, which accounts for over a quarter of its composition, indicating a very high sugar content, along with 0.62 ounces (17.7 grams) of fat. Dr. Zheng cautions that such a cake should not be consumed as a daily snack and should be avoided unless there is a special occasion.

When Google and YouTube first announced that they would be demonetizing a host of channels back in 2017 (including firearms related content) they said is was because advertisers were “complaining” about their ads being featured in videos that were contrary to their messaging.  In other words, the excuse was that ads embedded on firearms channels might give their customers the “wrong impression” about those companies and their products, and Google didn’t want to anger their advertising partners. 

It’s hard to say how accurate this claim was. The exposure of ESG and Big Tech collusion with government agencies to censor conservative platforms supports the idea that there was probably an organized corporate push to suppress the political opposition on YouTube as much as there was an effort to shut them down on social media.

The majority of conservative content creators understood that this was not about advertisers, it was about narratives.  The exploding popularity of gun channels runs contrary to the media assertion that American society is moving increasingly to the left.  And, even though gun channels mostly focus on firearms and instruction, they also promoted conservative and constitutional values which represent a thorn in the side of the establishment.

More proof has surfaced that randomized advertising and company complaints were never the issue.  Gun related channels are reporting that Google/YouTube is not only demonetizing them, they are also no longer allowed to feature private sponsors that market gun related products.

That is to say, YouTube tried to crush these channels by removing cash incentives.  That didn’t work because gun channels adapted and found their own outside sponsors.  So, YouTube is doubling down and denying them the option of getting ad money from any gun associated sponsor.  And apparently, what constitutes a “gun sponsor” is up to the discretion of Google.  

The channels will still be allowed to post content, however, making any money while doing so will be increasingly difficult.  Videos posted after June 18th that include gun-related sponsors will be removed and the channel will receive a strike.  Strikes can lead to the cancellation of the entire channel.

Remember, these are not random sponsors that work with Google, they are outside sponsors working directly with the content creators.  There is no chance that the presence of these sponsors will hurt Google in any way.  The move to stop them from working directly with creators appears to be motivated by politics, not by business.  It also showcases an active hostility within Google towards the free market. 

The decision comes only weeks after YouTube changed their official policy on firearms videos to include possible age restrictions, along with the removal of some videos which give instructions on how to modify firearms or produce ammunition.  Ostensibly, this was to prevent the publishing of “ghost gun” and 3D printing content.   

As long as creators continue to rely on highly centralized and controlled platforms like YouTube the potential for censorship will loom large.  These policies are rarely reversed, the restrictions only continue to grow.  Alternative platforms need to be explored (Rumble and Gunstreamer are a good start) because it’s unlikely that Big Tech will ever back away from its hostility towards conservative content.    

Authored by David Samuels via UnHerd.com,

The 2024 political war is just beginning – The Democratic party has rigged the system

In a moment of raw personal courage at local fair-grounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump upended America’s presidential race by surviving an assassin’s bullet and then leaping to his feet and punching the air while proclaiming “USA!” and “Fight! Fight! Fight!” The resulting photographs may well change America and the world in ways no one seriously imagined even last week. 

Trump’s heroic response to an attempt on his life is a reminder of the extent to which, even in our technologically-mediated universe, the arts of narrative manipulation and framing only reach so far. At the core of every story is a human being whose character, as expressed through his actions, will be judged favourably or not by his or her fellow humans — such stories being especially important in societies where people elect their leaders, as shown by the rapturous reception that Trump received at the opening of the party’s National Convention in Milwaukee.

Trump’s instincts under fire prove him to possess the courage of a leader, however dubious other aspects of his character may be. It is fair to surmise that there isn’t a single head of state on earth, from Emmanuel Macron to Vladimir Putin to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who wouldn’t trade a large part of their kingdoms for a photograph of themselves standing bloodied and defiant beneath their national flag, having taken an assassin’s bullet and lived. That kind of political charisma is impossible to counterfeit.     

The images of the bloodied but defiant Trump also clearly underlined the contrast between a man who at 78 retains the physical vigour and presence of mind to take a bullet in front of a crowd, then get off the ground and shape a lasting image in the moment, and his doddering rival. Now, the sport of reading the Beltway tea leaves to determine which party figurehead might head the Democratic ticket in November has been replaced by inklings of real panic. 

Even worse for the Democrats is Trump’s ability to seize the most valuable ground in American politics: the future. If most peoples on earth live their collective national lives somewhere between the past and the present, Americans have always been different. Their idea of their past is generally shaky and non-binding. Instead, Americans exist between the present and the future, which is why they do things like invent digital technology and the iPhone and send men to the moon and Mars.

In the 24 hours following the assassination attempt, Trump seized the future with two bold moves. The first was attracting the public endorsement of Elon Musk, the technologist and builder who also happens to be the single wealthiest man in America. By uniting his charisma with Musk’s, Trump showed that he is not simply the backwards-looking angry white man candidate of 2016 looking to “Make America Great Again”. Rather, he is seeking to Make the American Future Great, which is a different, more inspiring, and potentially more unifying, sentiment. To underline the importance of the future, Trump then chose a Vice Presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, who is 40 years younger than he is, anointing a successor who can inherit his movement — and who could in theory serve two terms as president after Trump’s term is done.

It’s been a while since an American political candidate was able to capture the future. Trump’s first campaign was an angry, backwards-looking affair that targeted the country’s feckless elites; Biden never bothered with the future at all. Obama, who ran his first campaign on the basis of “hope”, by his second term was largely looking abroad to repair supposed past American crimes everywhere from Iran to Cuba. A heroic Trump who has energised his base and proven his personal courage while laying claim to the future is likely to have significant appeal to American voters.

Yet, the Democratic Party is a well-functioning, massively-funded, centrally-directed machine, capable — as it did in 2020 — of rewriting election laws to its advantage and banking millions of absentee ballots in advance of the election. By contrast, the Republican Party is a ramshackle, decentralised affair whose local worthies tend to be car dealers or pillow salesmen rather than corporate Ivy League types and lawyers. The structural imbalance between the parties has suggested that Democrats could run a cardboard cut-out of Taylor Swift for the presidency in 2024 and still win — especially given the immutable presence of the polarising Trump at the top of the Republican ticket. In fact, some polls showed Biden doing better against Trump after his doddering debate performance.

“The Democratic Party is a well-functioning, massively-funded, centrally-directed machine.”

Trump’s fairground heroics, therefore, hardly guarantee a win in November. To be clear, that’s because America is no longer home to a functioning two-party system, in which each of the two parties represent coalitions of regional interests and can count on the allegiance of local industries and opinion leaders. That’s a concept from political textbooks written 50 years ago. 

Since the Nineties, America has morphed from a sprawling, continent-sized democracy to a more European-style centralised federal state with a ruling class of coastal billionaires serviced by a unitary national elite. The Democratic Party is the home of the vast majority of America’s ruling oligarchy, and of the highly-paid, well-credentialed class of lawyers, consultants, researchers, media bosses, and others with degrees from a small number of elite universities who help the oligarchs do business, as well as the class of billionaire-funded NGO workers and “organisers” who harvest votes on behalf of the Party, which is both a self-enclosed life-world and a unitary socio-political machine. Unless you intend to confine your professional life to a few far-flung, largely rural states, being a Republican in such circles, or even being insufficiently “progressive”, is a sure-fire career-ender. 

By enforcing an ideological line that serves America’s billionaires in the name of the “oppressed”, and labelling discordant or disruptive views as either bigotry or Russian propaganda, the Democratic Party helps ease the glaring contradictions of the privileged classes it represents, while continuing on with the work of destroying the country’s middle-class and unionised labour markets and ensuring that the oligarchs don’t pay taxes. 

The structural importance of the Democratic Party to the new American system goes deeper, though. As the institution that mediates between the country’s oligarchy, its servant class elite, and masses of dispossessed voters, who are divided up into ever-multiplying numbers of identity groups and then set against each other, the party plays a key role in making the new American system run. It coordinates the activities of bureaucrats; the sprawling network of billionaire-funded NGOs that augments the power of the bureaucracy and the party alike; the media; and academia. The party also sets the policy and hiring agendas for America’s large corporations, to the point where, before the shooting, Trump had yet to attract the endorsement of the head of a single Fortune 500 company.

With all that socio-economic and bureaucratic power at their fingertips, it is perhaps no surprise that Democrats had long ago argued away the need to be polite to their increasingly powerless Republican opponents. Whether you were a corporate CEO, a university president, a tech baron, or head of a major American law firms, endorsing Trump meant more than social suicide; much lesser offences have reliably resulted in being aggressively targeted by NGO-led pressure campaigns NGO-led pressure campaigns and having protesters show up at your home, as well direct targeting by a federal bureaucracy that has increasingly abandoned the pose of social neutrality in favour of enforcing Party diktats on gender, race and nearly every other subject under the sun. Republicans, with the exception of a narrow group of fellow Beltway elitists, were racist, sexist, transphobic white supremacists and insurrectionists.

One of the chief targets of the Democratic Party’s society-wide enforcement machine has been Trump himself. Since Trump left office in 2020, he has been relentlessly targeted by a series of cases that have been aggressively prosecuted by both local and federal prosecutors despite a glaring paucity of evidence to support the idea that his actions were, in fact, crimes. Actually, the legal basis for these cases was dismissed as such by authorities as various as former Democratic New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and Democrat-appointed judges on the US Supreme Court. The recent federal case against Trump, alleging that he had committed a crime by retaining classified government documents, which resulted in a full-scale raid by armed FBI agents on his home in Florida, was thrown out yesterday by the presiding judge, Aileen Cannon, on the grounds that the appointment and funding of a special prosecutor in the case was itself “unlawful”. But the legality of the cases against Trump was never the point — which was to use the proceedings to prevent Trump from campaigning for months, while suggesting to voters that he was a criminal.

In turn, the legal onslaught against Trump and his supporters, which began even before he took office in January 2017, was only one part of a larger, incredibly well-funded, whole-of-society campaign that the Democrats launched against a man they have ceaselessly depicted not merely as the blustering, attention-seeking buffoon that he clearly sometimes is, but as a dark Hitlerian threat to democracy. In the wake of the attempted assassination, it is the other two major components of the elite anti-Trump campaign that appear most threatening to the American future.

In a pervasive information warfare campaign, Trump is depicted not as a political naif or a crude vulgarian, or as a deeply chaotic personality who can’t manage his way out of a paper bag, but as a sinister dictator-in-waiting, who must be stopped from attaining or exercising power at any price.

To support this dark view, Trump was placed at the centre of a whirl of conspiracy theories which were duly reported as front-page news on a daily basis for nearly a decade. Yet to date, there is no evidence that Vladimir Putin conspired with Trump to deny Hillary Clinton her rightful victory in 2016; Clinton lost because she was a terrible candidate who blew a perfectly winnable election. No, Trump was not a paid Russian agent who communicated with Putin through a secret server in the basement of the Alpha Bank branch in Kiev. No, Trump didn’t have a secret deal with Russian businessmen to build hotels in Azerbaijan, which allowed Putin to control him. No, Trump was not taking money from Putin through intermediaries representing the Chabad Lubavitch stream of Judaism in Russia.

Every conspiracy theory was wilder than the last, and was treated like the scoop of the century for a day or a week before disappearing without a trace. Nor was there any form of correction or consequences for the reporters and editors involved. Instead, they rewarded themselves with Pulitzer prizes. The result has been the wholesale and tragic destruction of the entire credibility of the mainstream American press. 

Unsurprisingly, the decline in Americans being able to trust what they read, and the rise in apocalyptic political rhetoric, was matched by a corresponding rise in political violence. Trump himself was hardly innocent of involvement with political violence, even if he never exactly called the white supremacist rioters at Charlottesville “good people” — a charge that has been extensively debunked. Still, clashes between the Proud Boys (a Canadian-led Right-wing group) and other so-called patriot groups and Left-wing Antifa protesters were common in the first two years of Trump’s Presidency, lending credence to the idea that both parties were cultivating bully-boy militias. Yet, as Trump’s interest in the violent Right lessened after the first year or so of his Presidency, the Left’s reliance on violence as a political tool only increased.

Trump’s election was greeted by large-scale riots in every major American city, some of which went on for weeks. In June 2017, Steve Scalise, the Republican majority leader in the House, was nearly killed in a mass shooting by a Bernie Sanders supporter in what the Virginia State Attorney General concluded was “an act of terrorism… fuelled by rage against Republican legislators”. A year later, in June 2018, recently appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was targeted by a California man named Nicholas Roske, who arrived at Kavanaugh’s house with a rifle before giving himself up to police, and was then indicted for attempting to assassinate Kavanaugh. Roske told investigators that he was upset over the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade as well as the potential for Kavanaugh to help loosen gun laws in the country. 

The steady drum-beat of calls to public disorder from the Left during Trump’s Presidency reached its apogee in the run-up to the 2020 election, where rioters acting under various banners, from Black Lives Matter to Antifa, trashed the shopping districts of over 20 major American cities. In cities such as Portland, nightly battles between the police and Molotov-cocktail-wielding demonstrators went on for months, becoming a form of nightly street theatre in which young masked attackers threw bombs at police and federal buildings while teams of Democratic Party-aligned NGO lawyers stood ready to get offenders out of jail. As the damage mounted, and local panic increased, violent protesters in Democrat-led municipalities, most of whom turned out to be from upper middle-class Democratic families, seldom faced any consequences for their actions, with celebrities and others offering to bail them out. 

“The party’s message was that Donald Trump, not the rioters, was responsible for the scary scenes shown nightly on television.”

With the attempted assassination of Trump, the political and social stakes have once again been raised, in a system that seems ill-equipped to meet such a significant challenge. Any attempt at return to a procedural normalcy that was already badly weakened before Trump took office seems entirely beyond the capacity of America’s callow and insulated elites, which have lost themselves for nearly a decade in the fantasy cosplay of anti-Trump.

What we will witness over the next four months will be an election campaign pitting the hero figure of a bloodied but unbowed Trump, a man despised by nearly half the country, against the anti-democratic manoeuvrings of the country’s institutional elite, as exemplified by whichever hand-picked candidate Democratic Party insiders choose to field against him. The resulting campaign will be a game without limits, in which the level of violence seems likely to escalate — which will further diminish the interest or ability on either side to acknowledge a victory by the other. Americans are about to find out what it feels like to live in a country at war with itself — no matter who wins the presidency in November.

FilmLA, the partner film office for the City and County of Los Angeles and other local jurisdictions, released a new report on Wednesday that detailed film production continued dropping in the second quarter due to an ongoing slowdown in content spending and Hollywood still reeling from post-strike paralysis.

Local on-location filming fell 12.4% year-over-year from April through June, reaching 5,749 shooting days in the quarter. There were declines in feature film production (-3.3% to 704 shooting days) and commercial production down 5% to 817 shooting days – both are minor declines compared with the crash in unscripted television production. 

“Filming of Reality TV fell -56.9 percent to 868 SD, taking the broader Television category (down -27.7 percent to 1,901 SD) lower with it,” FilmLA wrote in the report. 

Inversely, the report noted, “Elsewhere within the Television category, scripted content production increased substantially for the period, compared to the earliest strike-affected months of 2023. TV Drama production rose 98.3 percent to 714 SD, and TV Comedy production rose 103.6 percent to 171 SD, while filming for TV Pilots rose 54.5 percent to 17 SD.” 

Bloomberg was the first to cover FilmLA’s new report, indicating the slowdown in shooting days stems from “studios began cutting production and firing staff under pressure from investors to show a profit in streaming” in the second half of 2021. Compound this with the labor actions by workers in the Los Angeles entertainment industry last year that halted production. However, striking actors and writers have resolved their labor contracts with studios. 

Decreasing shooting days paint a grim picture for the industry, while the streaming downturn intensifies with Netflix cutting back on shows and hundreds of workers from Amazon Prime and MGM Studios being laid off earlier this year.

Bloomberg cited data from Creative Economy showing that LA’s entertainment industry workforce contracted by 16% last year. 

Most Americans couldn’t care less about the Hollywood film bust. Studios have been churning out “woke” content that many find unappealing. Additionally, the threat of AI continues to loom over the remaining workers.

Authored by Guy Shepherd via The Blaze,

What if enough minorities — Latinos, African Americans, Jews, and Asians — broke ranks with their default political loyalties and split their vote this November?

If the taken-for-granted and ill-served among these groups just split their vote to reflect their present dissatisfaction, their political power would tangibly increase within both parties overnight.

Put it this way: Instead of one seat at the Democratic table that is not serving you and yours, you would have seats at two tables — both competing to serve you and yours. It’s a pretty good deal. So, why is it not being pursued aggressively?

Politics is the art (and science) of understanding what’s possible and making it happen.

Smart Republicans understand that this election will be won with (and lost without) a big swing in Hispanic support. Democrats’ black, Jewish, and Asian blue wall appears to show signs of cracking, and this vulnerability is gaining electoral polling attention.

If enough of this cohort walked away from the Democratic camp, it would mark a tectonic shift in American politics. It would push the Democratic Party back to the center — a good, salutary development, and far from where it currently resides.

A whisper to dissatisfied Democrats: Please don’t register and vote as independents. It’s such a political waste.

Independents come in two primary political colors: embarrassed Democrats and embarrassed Republicans. Only 10% of independents are truly independent — that is, nonaffiliated.

Traditionally, these two dissatisfied voting blocs vote for the brand and party that they disavowed for doing them dirty when Election Day comes around. Doing so is a form of political Stockholm Syndrome, which is when you identify with and support your captors. It’s worse than a wasted vote. Independents know what the problem is — yet they still contribute to it.

That might not be completely fair. In the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms, dissatisfied Republicans and their adjacent independent cohort crossed partisan lines and contributed to the Democratic win. In their defense, they wanted their establishment, deep-state perks back and their more liberal spouses, kids, and friends to stop hating them. (Kellyanne and George Conway are notable exceptions to this broad-brush rendering).

But dissatisfied Democrats and adjacent independents have not reciprocated. They consistently fail to do their part, and, in doing so, they send a confusing, illiberal message: that it’s OK to turn up the woke heat, when all the polling data suggests otherwise.

Ruy Teixeira over at the Liberal Patriot— a must read on Substack — has captured the growing divide within the Democratic and adjacent independent ranks. The dissatisfaction runs deep and wide. But in contrast to dissatisfied Republicans and adjacent independents, dissatisfied Democrats and adjacent independents have shown a structural inability to cross the political picket line and send a clear “knock-it-off” message at the polling both.

As a result, the “wash, rinse, repeat” insanity of Democratic partisan politics continues and probably will do so again this November. This is the leading reason why “We, the People” can’t have nice things and why we are not currently enjoying a happy, well-adjusted, pursuit-of-happiness-oriented 21st century.

Who can lead the way out of this illiberal, woke madness?

Dissatisfied Democratic men — or so the polling suggests. Males across blue-wall ethnic cross-tabulations are rightfully unhappy, more than concerned by the madness, and want better.

In contrast, the ladies have not budged in their commitment to the party in power and its woke program. And herein lies the challenge.

This is the unstated reason Democratic men don’t stage a political walkout in the requisite numbers: It would infuriate the women in their lives and raise the heat on them at home. Not just from their girlfriends, wives, and daughters, but from their mothers and grandmothers, not to mention church ladies. The blue wall is devoutly defended by women.

I come from an Irish, New Deal, Democratic family. My grandfather was a machine politician. But it was my grandmother who was the enforcer of political faith and morals. She has been gone for more than a decade, but her stay-on-the-political-reservation voice and influence is still felt and followed within our extended clan. Might my experience be typical among Democratic households, as well as among mating and dating partners?

I think it is. But more importantly, what do our politically unsatisfied and potentially tectonic-plate shifting Democratic men, stuck on the sidelines, think is holding them back? There is not a poll to consult on this yet. You need to look inside yourself for the answer.

What’s a conflicted guy to do?

How about following your political gut in the polling booth?

The polling booth remains a “safe space” for now. You don’t have to share your voting choices with anyone, including your loved ones. Just vote based on what you think is best politically for you, your family, your job, and your country.

When the election results are tallied — it might take a few days for Pennsylvania to come in — and the message is sent, you’re not obliged to take credit for what has happened.

Just say, “Wow.” Ask the women in your lives what they think happened and listen patiently. Shake your head in supportive disbelief.

“Wow.”

If asked for your thoughts, say something like this: “I guess, for the silent majority of American voters, the bad-orange-boogie-man card we played was less scary than the woke-boogie-woman-and-party-in-charge-for-the-past-four-years card.”

You might add: “My read going forward is that the Democratic Party needs to find the winning, common-sense center, or else it’s going to lose even more of the base that it has taken for granted and served so poorly for years.”

Throw in one more “wow” if you think it will help. And leave it at that.

Guy Shepherd is founder and editor of Planned Man.