Category Archives: National

It Actually Is Better (and Healthier) to Give Than to Receive, Study Finds

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130204184300Feb. 4, 2013 — A five-year study by researchers at three universities has established that providing tangible assistance to others protects our health and lengthens our lives.

This, after more than two decades of research failed to establish that the same benefits accrue to the recipients of such help.

Principal investigator Michael J. Poulin, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo, says, “This study offers a significant contribution to the research literature on the relationship between social environment and health, and specifically to our understanding of how giving assistance to others may offer health benefits to the giver by buffering the negative effects of stress.”

Poulin, along with colleagues at Stony Brook University and Grand Valley State University, produced the study, “Giving to Others and the Association Between Stress and Mortality,” which was posted online Jan. 17 by the American Journal of Public Health, which will publish the study in an upcoming print issue.

The authors point out that although it is established that social isolation and stress are significant predictors of mortality and morbidity, 20 years of studies and meta-analytical review have failed to establish that receiving social support from others buffers recipients against mortality after exposure to psychosocial stress.

Read more at Science Daily

Professor admits faking AIDS vaccine to get $19M in grants

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aids_vaccineAn Iowa State University professor resigned after admitting he falsely claimed rabbit blood could be turned into a vaccine for the AIDS virus.

Dr. Dong-Pyou Han spiked a clinical test sample with healthy human blood to make it appear that the rabbit serum produced disease-fighting antibodies, officials said.

The bogus findings helped Han’s team obtain $19 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health, said James Bradac, who oversees the institutes’ AIDS research.

Read more at the New York Post

President Obama’s Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013

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By Ilya Shapiro

One of Barack Obama’s chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse.

Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document. And he’s been most frustrated with the separation of powers, which doesn’t allow him to “fundamentally transform” the country without congressional acquiescence.

But that hasn’t stopped him. In its first term, the Administration launched a “We Can’t Wait” initiative, with senior aide Dan Pfeiffer explaining that “when Congress won’t act, this president will.” And earlier this year, President Obama said in announcing his new economic plans that “I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way.”

And so, as we reach the end of another year of political strife that’s fundamentally based on clashing views on the role of government in society, I thought I’d update a list I made two years ago and hereby present President Obama’s top 10 constitutional violations of 2013.

Read more at Forbes Magazine

McDonald’s pulls ‘McResource’ site warning workers against fast food

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By Carly Rothman/The Star-Ledger

mcdIt was an embarrassing nugget in the news this week: McDonald’s own employee website seemed to be advising employees to steer clear of the chain’s own fast food.

Now, tired of defending the McResource line against this and other criticism, the company has yanked it, the Wall Street Journal reports. The site was operated by a third-party vendor.

“Unfortunately, as you may have seen in the news over the past few days and weeks, a number of stories have scrutinized some content and advice found on the well-intended website. Given that the content has been taken out of context and that we are unable to screen and approve all content posted on the site, we decided to remove it from our suite of resources,” read a memo reviewed and quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

Read more at NJ.com

Citizens take law into own hands after cash-strapped Ore. county guts sheriff’s office

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nvcwWhen budget woes reduced the sheriff’s department in one rural Oregon county to a bare-bones force, residents decided to take matters into their own hands — creating armed patrol groups in defiance of local officials.

Their decision has raised safety concerns with the county government, which would prefer residents instead hike their own taxes to fund the hiring of trained deputies. But despite the risks, the move stands as a unique, some would say innovative, response to one of the country’s most severe local budget crunches.

The government in Josephine County, where nearly 70 percent of the land is owned by the U.S. government, had long relied on federal timber subsidies to pay the bills. When the feds terminated the funds, county officials scrambled to pass a May 2012 tax levy to make up a nearly $7.5 million budget shortfall.

Read more at FOX News

Feds charge white ‘knockout’ suspect with hate crime

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‘The plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?’

Federal authorities said Thursday they have arrested and charged a Texas man in connection with the “knockout game,” accusing him of a hate crime for targeting a black man for a vicious street attack.

Most knockout victims that have appeared in news reports have been white, but the Justice Department said in this instance the victim was a 79-year-old black man, and stepped in with federal charges

“Suspected crimes of this nature will simply not be tolerated,” said Kenneth Magidson, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Texas. “Evidence of hate crimes will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted with the assistance of all our partners to the fullest extent of the law.”

Read more at Washington Times

Washington Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon Sends Controversial Tweet After Seahawks Loss

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CardinalsThe Arizona Cardinals ended the Seattle Seahawks’ 14-game, 729-day winning streak at home Sunday with a 17-10 victory.

Washington State Representative Joe Fitzgibbon wasn’t happy with the game, which led to a controversial tweet.

KING TV’s Chris Daniels grabbed a screenshot of it:

WA Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon has deleted his #Seahawks related tweet, which referred to Arizona as a “racist wasteland”. http://t.co/SbU9xuCfJE
— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) December 23, 2013

Read more at Bleacher Report

Pastor Ken Hutcherson, 61, Champion of the Multi-ethnic Church, Dies of Cancer

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By Alex Murashko, Christian Post Reporter
December 18, 2013|7:01 pm

ken-hutchersonPastor Ken Hutcherson, 61, of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Wash., highly respected for his solid biblical teaching and a champion of the multi-ethnic church movement, died Wednesday after a lengthy battle with cancer.

“Antioch Bible Church sadly announces that shortly before noon today our Senior Pastor Dr. Ken Hutcherson was ushered in the [presence] of the Lord. Please pray for comfort and peace for the family,” an announcement on the church website reads. “The family asked that you give them some privacy at this time.”

During an interview with The Christian Post earlier this month, Hutcherson (known to his friends as “Hutch”), with a voice weakened by cancer and its required treatment, said the number one thing he wanted to talk about was the importance of having churches that not only accept, but embrace people of different ethnicities and races.

Read more at the Christian Post

Was Wichita airport bomb suspect a victim of entrapment?

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loewenSince the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government has mounted a number of investigations in which undercover FBI agents or informers have posed as co-conspirators with suspects who get charged with trying to carry out plots.

It has spawned a national debate about whether the suspects are really terrorists or just easily manipulated people who become victims of entrapment. With the arrest of Terry Lee Loewen at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport on Friday, that national debate has come to the Air Capital of the World.

Loewen, a 58-year-old avionics technician, has been charged in an alleged plot to use his airport access to try to drive a car bomb onto the tarmac to inflict maximum deaths. Two FBI employees posed as people engaging him or helping him to carry out the attack, a criminal complaint said. Loewen didn’t find out he had been fooled until he tried to carry out the attack with what was inert material, not high explosives, the court document said.

A letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Eagle typifies the entrapment argument: “The FBI has a pattern of seeking out naive, harmless, disaffected individuals and using them to orchestrate a crime. … Terry Lee Loewen has been entrapped along with others in these phony plots,” wrote Don Anderson of Winfield.

Read more at The Wichita Eagle

Senate confirms Obama pick Jeh Johnson as Homeland Security secretary

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It should be noted that the Senate thwarted a filibuster attempt by Republicans under the new rules prior to the vote for this previously unknown Obama campaign contributor.

johnsonThe Senate approved Jeh Johnson as the fourth Homeland Security secretary, giving him the reins at a department that, more than a decade after its creation, is still unstable and trying to figure out its role in the massive federal bureaucracy.

The 78-16 vote gives President Obama a solid victory, filling a major Cabinet post that has remained empty since Janet A. Napolitano left in September.

“In Jeh, our dedicated homeland security professionals will have a strong leader with a deep understanding of the threats we face and a proven ability to work across agencies and complex organizations to keep America secure,” Mr. Obama said in a statement released soon after the vote. “I look forward to Jeh’s counsel and sound judgment for years to come.”

Moments after the Johnson confirmation, Democrats set up a vote on another contentious Homeland Security nomination in Alejandro Mayorkas, Mr. Obama’s selection to be deputy secretary of the department, even though Mr. Mayorkas is facing an internal department investigation.

Mr. Johnson brings the shortest list of qualifications to the job of any of the secretaries, having served only as a top lawyer in the Defense Department.

Read more at the Washington Times