Sweetened Drinks Associated with Increased Depression Risk

Story at-a-glance

• Preliminary study findings report that drinking sweetened beverages – whether they’re sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners – is associated with an increased risk of depression.
• Those who drank more than four cans or glasses of diet soda or other artificially sweetened beverages had a nearly 30 percent higher risk of depression compared to those who did not consume diet drinks. Regular soda drinkers had a 22 percent increased risk.
• Potential mechanisms through which sugar intake could exert a toxic effect on mental health include causing insulin and leptin resistance; suppressing activity of a key hormone called BDNF, which are critically low in depressed patients; and promoting chronic inflammation, which is thought to be a primary cause of depression.
• Previous studies have also shown that aspartame has a detrimental effect on brain function, neurological, cognitive, and behavioral health.

By Dr. Mercola

Foods have an immense impact on your body and your brain, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan is the best way to support your mental and physical health.

Avoiding sugar (particularly fructose) and artificial sweeteners is in my view, based on the evidence, a very important aspect of preventing and/or treating depression. Both contribute to chronic inflammation, and can wreak havoc with your brain function.

Preliminary study findings that will be presented at the 65th annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology reports that drinking sweetened beverages – whether they’re sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners – is associated with an increased risk of depression. Coffee was associated with a slightly reduced risk.

As reported by WebMD:¹

“Researchers say the findings suggest that cutting down on sweetened drinks or replacing them entirely with non-sweetened beverages may help lower depression risk.”

The study included nearly 264,000 American adults over the age of 50, who were enrolled in an AARP diet and health study. At the outset of the study, the participants filled out a detailed dietary survey. At a 10-year follow-up, they were asked whether they’d been diagnosed with depression at any point during the past decade.

• Those who drank more than four cans or glasses of diet soda or other artificially sweetened beverages had a nearly 30 percent higher risk of depression compared to those who did not consume diet drinks
• Regular soda drinkers had a 22 percent increased risk

Meanwhile, those who drank four cups of coffee per day had a 10 percent decreased risk of depression, compared to those who drank none. Researcher Honglei Chen, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) told WebMD:

“While our findings are preliminary, and the underlying biological mechanisms are not known, they are intriguing and consistent with a small but growing body of evidence suggesting that artificially sweetened beverages may be associated with poor health outcomes.”

While the featured research does not prove causation, and some have pointed out that those who are depressed may turn to sweets for self-soothing, there is plenty of other evidence indicating that both sugar and artificial sweeteners can have a significant and detrimental impact on mental health, so the findings really are not at all surprising. As for the underlying mechanisms, previous research has offered up a number of compelling clues.

Why Sugar Can Increase Depression Risk

Let’s start with sugar. There are at least three potential mechanisms through which refined sugar intake could exert a toxic effect on mental health:

• Sugar (particularly fructose) and grains contribute to insulin and leptin resistance and impaired signaling, which play a significant role in your mental health
• Sugar suppresses activity of a key growth hormone called BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor) which promotes healthy brain neurons. BDNF levels are critically low in both depression and schizophrenia, which animal models suggest might actually be causative
• Sugar consumption also triggers a cascade of chemical reactions in your body that promote chronic inflammation. In the long term, inflammation disrupts the normal functioning of your immune system, which is linked to a greater risk of depression

In 2004, noted British psychiatric researcher Malcolm Peet published a provocative cross-cultural analysis of the relationship between diet and mental illness.² His primary finding was a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia. According to Peet:

“A higher national dietary intake of refined sugar and dairy products predicted a worse 2-year outcome of schizophrenia. A high national prevalence of depression was predicted by a low dietary intake of fish and seafood. The dietary predictors of... prevalence of depression are similar to those that predict illnesses such as coronary heart disease and diabetes, which are more common in people with mental health problems and in which nutritional approaches are widely recommended. Dietary intervention studies are indicated in schizophrenia and depression.”

One of the key predictors of heart disease and diabetes is in fact chronic inflammation, which, as Peet mentions, is also associated with poor mental health. And sugar consumption is a primary driver of chronic inflammation in your body, so consuming excessive amounts of sugar can truly set off an avalanche of negative health events – both mental and physical.

Following my recently revised nutrition plan is a simple way to automatically reduce your intake of sugar from all sources. Another previous study published in the International Breastfeeding Journal,³ found that inflammation may be more than just another risk factor. It may in fact be THE risk factor that underlies all others... According to the researchers:

“The old paradigm described inflammation as simply one of many risk factors for depression. The new paradigm is based on more recent research that has indicated that physical and psychological stressors increase inflammation. These recent studies constitute an important shift in the depression paradigm: inflammation is not simply a risk factor; it is the risk factor that underlies all the others.

Moreover, inflammation explains why psychosocial, behavioral and physical risk factors increase the risk of depression. This is true for depression in general and for postpartum depression in particular.”

Omega-3 Fats are Also Vital for Your Optimal Brain Function and Mental Health

Another major culprit that encourages inflammation in your body is rancid or oxidized omega-fats (think trans fats), whereas a diet rich in omega-3 fats helps to reduce inflammation. Healthy omega-6 fats like gamma linoleic acid (GLA), found in evening primrose, black currant seed and borage oil can also help counteract inflammation.

As you may already know, I recommend taking animal-based omega-3 supplements for many types of inflammation, and for optimal brain health. Most alternative health practitioners are also well aware of the benefits of omega-3’s for depression. While all omega-3 fats possess immune-boosting qualities, omega-3 fats from marine sources (EPA and DHA) are more biologically potent than omega-3 fat ALA found in plant sources such as flax seeds, and are more potent inflammation fighters. My favorite source of omega-3 fats is krill oil, as it has several advantages over fish oil.

Artificial Sweeteners and Depression

The artificial sweetener aspartame is the number one source of side-effect complaints to the FDA, with over 10,000 complaints filed and over 91 symptoms documented that are related to its consumption. Among them are mental adverse effects such as depression and panic attacks. The following video will familiarize you with some of the terrifying side-effects and health problems you could encounter if you consume products containing this chemical. Unfortunately, aspartame toxicity is not well-known by doctors, despite its frequency.

A number of studies have shown that aspartame has a detrimental effect on brain function, neurological, cognitive, and behavioral health. For a listing of such studies, please see my Aspartame Studies page. For example:

• In a 1986 evaluation of reactions to food additives,⁴ aspartame (in commonly consumed amounts) was linked to mood alterations (anxiety, agitation, irritability, or depression), headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and fatigue
• A 1993 study⁵ found that individuals with mood disorders are particularly sensitive to aspartame, suggesting its use in this population should be discouraged. In the clinical study, the project was halted by the Institutional Review Board after a total of 13 individuals had completed the study because of the severity of reactions within the group of patients with a history of depression
• A 2006 study⁶ found that high concentrations of aspartame can cause neurological symptoms, including memory and learning problems
• In 2008, researchers asserted that excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the pathogenesis of certain mental disorders (DSM-IV-TR 2000) and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning⁷

Humans Cannot Compensate for Methanol Toxicity

Aspartame is primarily made up of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. The phenylalanine has been synthetically modified to carry a methyl group, which provides the majority of the sweetness. That phenylalanine methyl bond, called a methyl ester, is very weak, which allows the methyl group on the phenylalanine to easily break off and form methanol. (This is in sharp contrast to naturally-occurring methanol found in certain fruits and vegetables, where it is firmly bonded to pectin, allowing the methanol to be safely passed through your digestive tract.)

Methanol acts as a Trojan horse; it's carried into susceptible tissues in your body, like your brain and bone marrow, where an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) converts it into formaldehyde, which wreaks havoc with sensitive proteins and DNA. Interestingly, and most importantly, humans are the only animals that do NOT have a protective mechanism to compensate for methanol toxicity...

Both animals and humans have small structures called peroxisomes in each cell. There are a couple of hundred in every cell of your body, which are designed to detoxify a variety of chemicals. Peroxisome contains catalase, which help detoxify methanol. Other chemicals in the peroxisome convert the formaldehyde to formic acid, which is harmless, but this last step occurs only in animals. When methanol enters the peroxisome of every animal except humans, it gets into that mechanism. Humans do have the same number of peroxisomes in comparable cells as animals, but human peroxisomes cannot convert the toxic formaldehyde into harmless formic acid.

So, in humans, methanol is allowed to be transported in your body to susceptible tissues where this enzyme, ADH, then converts it to formaldehyde, which damages your protein and DNA, which of course can lead to all sorts of health issues.

Don’t Be Fooled by the Aspartame Propaganda

Aspartame proponents claim it’s harmless, pointing out that phenylalanine and aspartic acid can be readily found in whole foods. However, comparing aspartame to whole food is really comparing apples to oranges.

In a normal protein like meat, fish or eggs, phenylalanine and aspartic acid comprise 4-5 percent each of the total amino acid profile. This is how nature intends the human body to encounter these two amino acids and there is nothing wrong with these substances if they occur naturally in a proper balance with other amino acids. But in aspartame the ratio of these two amino acids is 50 percent phenylalanine and 40 percent aspartic acid (with 10 percent methyl ester bond, aka wood alcohol, a known poison).

In other words, on a percentage basis this is a massive quantity of two unnaturally isolated amino acids that are simply not found in this ratio in nature, bonded together by a known poison. The result of this chemical cocktail is a sweet tasting neurotoxin.

As a result of its unnatural structure, your body processes the amino acids found in aspartame very differently from a steak or a piece of fish. The amino acids in aspartame literally attack your cells, even crossing the blood-brain barrier to attack your brain cells, creating a toxic cellular overstimulation, called excitotoxicity. MSG is another excitotoxin, and works synergistically with aspartame to create even more damage to your brain cells.

The truth is, aspartame should never have been approved, and it should not be on the market, considering how many complaints the FDA has received by people who experienced frightening and devastating side effects from it. (To get the back-story of how it got approved in the first place, please see my previous article Proven Unsafe But FDA-Approved: Are YOU Still Consuming This Man-Made Poison?)

The only way to put pressure on the FDA to address the very real hazards of aspartame (and other artificial sweeteners) is to keep adding to the mounting pile of complaints. So please, if you experience an adverse reaction to any aspartame product, I urge you to call the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator in your area, and file an adverse event report.

Key Factors to Overcoming Depression

There’s no doubt in my mind that radically reducing or eliminating all forms of sugar and artificial sweeteners from your diet is a crucial step to prevent and/or address depression. Quite simply, if you fail to address the root of the problem, you could be left floundering and struggling with ineffective and potentially toxic band-aids for a long time. Your diet does play a huge part in your mental health so please do not ignore the impact sugar and artificial sweeteners might be having. Here are six additional strategies that can help you even further:

1. Exercise – If you have depression, or even if you just feel down from time to time, exercise is a MUST. The research is overwhelmingly positive in this area, with studies confirming that physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed. One of the primary ways it does this is by increasing the level of endorphins, the "feel good" hormones, in your brain. It also helps to normalize your insulin and leptin signaling.
2. Eat a healthy diet – A factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your mood and ability to cope and be happy, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental health. Avoiding sugar and grains will help normalize your insulin and leptin levels, and eliminating artificial sweeteners will eliminate your chances of suffering its toxic effects.
3. Optimize your gut health– Fermented foods, such as fermented vegetables are also important for optimal mental health, as they are key for optimizing your gut health. Many fail to realize that your gut is literally your second brain, and can significantly influence your mind, mood, and behavior. Your gut actually produces more mood-boosting serotonin than your brain does.
4. Support optimal brain functioning with essential fats– I also strongly recommend supplementing your diet with a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. This may be the single most important nutrient to battle depression.
5. Get plenty of sunshine – Making sure you're getting enough sunlight exposure to have healthy vitamin D levels is also a crucial factor in treating depression or keeping it at bay. One previous study found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who had normal levels. Vitamin D deficiency is actually more the norm than the exception, and has previously been implicated in both psychiatric and neurological disorders.
6. Address your stress– Depression is a very serious condition, however it is not a "disease." Rather, it's a sign that your body and your life are out of balance. This is so important to remember, because as soon as you start to view depression as an "illness," you think you need to take a drug to fix it. In reality, all you need to do is return balance to your life, and one of the key ways to doing this is addressing stress.

   Meditation or yoga can sometimes help. If weather permits, get outside for a walk. But in addition to that, I also recommend using a system that can help you address emotional issues that you may not even be consciously aware of. For this, my favorite is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). However, if you have depression or serious stress, I believe it would be best to consult with a mental health professional who is also an EFT practitioner to guide you.

Related:

The Aspartame Trap: You May Be Unknowingly Ingesting this Toxic Sweetener

America's Deadliest Sweetener Betrays Millions, Then Hoodwinks You With Name Change

Dumbing Down Society Part I: Foods, Beverages and Meds

12 Food Additives to Remove From Your Diet

Health Tip For 2013: Go All Natural — Ditch The Artificial Sweeteners!

The 76 Dangers of Sugar

The Aspartame Trap: You May Be Unknowingly Ingesting this Toxic Sweetener

America's Deadliest Sweetener Betrays Millions, Then Hoodwinks You With Name Change

Technorati Tags: aspartame,sugar,sugars,depression,Dr. Mercola,sodas

As We Face 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Justin Bieber’s Mom Hopes to ‘Encourage Young Women All Over the World’ Wi New Anti-Abortion Film

On 40 years of Roe v. Wade

TPN: Today is the 40^th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states. As we remember that decision today, a dispute rages in the conservative movement. Some conservatives say we should abandon social issues all together and some say we should embrace them.

What does Roe v. Wade mean to the conservative movement?

Roe v. Wade is marked as the beginning of legalized abortion in this nation.

That is not true.

Abortion was legal in some states and illegal in others. If you have ever read the Roe decision, and I had to in law school, you can only come away with the conclusion that Harry Blackmun was either senile or had his own private stash of LSD in his chambers. Roe has got to be one of the most delusional pieces of writing ever to escape the Supreme Court.

What has the result of Roe been?

It has created the multi-billion dollar Planned Parenthood racket. It has solidified the Democrats as the Party of Corruption.

Most experts say since Roe there have been 55 million abortions in the United States. Regardless of whether you think abortion should be legal or not, think about that for a second. We are a nation of 300 million and since 1973 there have been 55 million abortions.

Does anyone think this has been a good thing?

55 million children have been aborted (murdered) since Roe v. Wade was passed.

Among those who have been aborted were some who would have been star athletes, military heroes, business leaders and who were never born.

55 Million abortions is simply appalling.

In this day and age, abortions should be almost non-existent. We have effective birth control today. If you can’t figure out how to use to birth control, you definitely have no business having sex, unless you want children.

The real result of Roe has been the creation of a cash cow for the Democrats and another massive special interest group.

In 2011, Planned Parenthood received $542 million dollars from the taxpayer. Their primary and virtually only service is abortion.

Why are American taxpayers paying this money to Planned Parenthood?

Congressman Marsha Blackburn has introduced a bill in Congress H.R. 61, which would defund Planned Parenthood.

Regardless of whether you believe abortion should be legal or not, the government has no business funding it. We have no business funding an entity that simply turns around and contributes money to Democrats who will then vote for more funding for Planned Parenthood.

Roe v. Wade has been a disaster for America. Planned Parenthood has been a disaster for America. One of the best things we can do for America is to defund Planned Parenthood.

Call your Congressman and ask them to support Congressman Marsha Blackburn and co-sponsor H.R. 61.

Justin Bieber, right, and Pattie Mallette arrive at the 40th Anniversary American Music Awards on Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, in Los Angeles. (Photo: AP)

(TheBlaze/AP) — Justin Bieber’s mother, Pattie Mallette, is an executive producer on an upcoming anti-abortion short film.

The makers of “Crescendo” hope to raise $10 million for pregnancy centers at screenings worldwide starting Feb. 28. Mallette herself will appear at some of these, said production company Movie to Movement on Friday.

The pop star’s mother has written and spoken extensively about the addiction and abuse that led to her teenage pregnancy.

“I knew that I had to do what it took,” the 37-year-old mother wrote in her book Nowhere but Up. “I just couldn’t abort him.”

Mallette said in a statement she hopes her involvement with “Crescendo” will “encourage young women all over the world, just like me, to let them know that there is a place to go, people who will take care of you and a safe home to live in if you are pregnant and think you have nowhere else to turn.”

Here’s what Gawker had to say on the matter:

Poor Justin Bieber. When he’s not the subject of a murder/castration plot or, worse, being mocked by James Franco, he’s getting embarrassed by his mom, Pattie Mallette, who executive produced a pro-life film coming out soon…

Of course, Bieber probably isn’t completely embarrassed by the move; after all, two years ago he went on the record as being pro-life (“I really don’t believe in abortion. It’s like killing a baby?”). Then again, in that same interview Bieber said “Whatever they have in Korea, that’s bad” when asked about political parties, so we probably shouldn’t put too much stock in his opinions on anything, not that any of us necessarily were.

Check out this related video at @5minMedia  http://aol.it/XNnQN1

Related:

What do Beethoven, Justin Bieber and Tim Tebow Have in Common? 

America passes 55 million abortion mark

After the attack on 9/11 many were asking why God had let this happen… why God had abandoned us, the U.S.  Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Graham’s daughter, said it was us that moved away from God through our tolerance of Progressive Secularism and Atheism, our tolerance of the murder of innocents… 55 million through abortion, our tolerance of bestiality and our movement, as a country, away from God as we abandon the Judeo-Christian principles we were founded on.

Technorati Tags: abortion,pro-life,life,Justin Bieber,ABC News,choice,Choices,anti-abortion,Life is a Gift,Roe v. Wade,TPN,bestiality,religion,Judeo-Christian principles

States’ refusal to establish exchanges could undo Obamacare

The Daily Caller:  The Obama administration is waiving the deadline for states to establish a health insurance exchange in accordance with Obamacare, reports The New York Times. But it should not be taken as a sign of deference to the states, or a willingness to be flexible; it should be taken as a sign of desperation.

The announcement is in fact an attempt by the administration to shore up the health care law’s inherent weaknesses and to cajole states into enacting a federal scheme. Contrary to what the feds now claim, the latest and most glaring weakness of Obamacare is that it was crafted to depend on states to establish health insurance exchanges. These exchanges are meant to be the vehicles for the distribution of tax credits and subsidies to buy qualified health insurance plans.

If a state refuses to set up an exchange, and so far 25 have refused,the federal government must step in and create one. However, the law does not authorize tax credits and subsidies to flow through federally created exchanges, only those created by states. An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule issued in May 2012 attempted to fix this problem — initially dismissed as a “drafting error” — by extending credits and subsidies to federal exchanges and so-called “partnership exchanges,” which a number of states have indicated they will adopt.

But the law’s plain meaning, and Congress’ intent, cannot be swept aside by a rule issued by the IRS. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is challenging the IRS in federal court over the rule and the case will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. It has huge implications. If federal exchanges cannot facilitate tax credits and subsidies, they also cannot be used to impose penalties on employers that fail to comply with the law’s “employer mandate” — a fine of $2,000 per employee per year. States that refuse to set up an exchange could therefore shield thousands of their residents and small businesses from onerous federal taxes and penalties.

The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon has made this argument forcefully and in great detail, and it seems to be gaining ground. Cannon, along with Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, have authored what will likely be the definitive argument against the legality of the IRS rule in a forthcoming Health Matrix article.

They argue that once it became clear that a significant number of states were not going to set up exchanges, the IRS sought to fix the problem by regulatory decree. However, by stipulating that tax credits and subsidies would be available only through state-created exchanges, Congress sought to create an incentive for states to set up their own exchanges — because it could not simply order states to create them without overstepping constitutional boundaries. It seems that it did not occur to Obamacare’s authors that many states would simply refuse, or that offering tax credits and subsidies would not be sufficient inducement for them to comply. It was a gross miscalculation, and could mean the undoing of Obamacare.

Seen in this light, this week’s announcement by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius looks more like a plea to recalcitrant states to cooperate and set up exchanges so the feds won’t have to. Sebelius was supposed to determine by January 1 whether states were prepared to run an exchange, but she knew as far back as Nov. 15 that Texas, at least, would not establish one.

Waiving the deadline isn’t a deferential gesture by HHS to the states; it is the latest attempt by the federal government to deputize states into implementing federal policy, and a desperate attempt at that.

Texas and other states should remain steadfast in their resolve not to become tools for Washington, D.C. If the feds want Obamacare exchanges, let them set up those exchanges themselves. Americans would be much better off with weak federal exchanges than they would with the state-based exchanges Congress first envisioned in the law.

John Davidson is a policy analyst for the Center for Health Care Policy with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. He may be reached at jdavidson@texaspolicy.com.  -  Cross-Posted at AskMarion

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,healthcare,ObamaCare Exchanges,passive resistance,stand-up America,Repeal and Replace ObamaCare,HHS

At Age 76 ObamaCare will not...

PLEASE SHARE THIS OUTRAGE TO EVERYONE  YOU CAN

This was not a surprise to me and won’t be those who have been following the ObamaCare Bill process.

THIS should be read by everyone, especially important to those over 75... If you are younger, then it applies to your parents or grandparents, and eventually to you. 

Your hospital Medicare admittance has just change under Obama Care. You must be admitted by your primary Physician in order for Medicare to pay for it! If you are admitted by an emergency room doctor it is treated as outpatient care where hospital costs are not covered. This is only the tip of the iceberg for Obama Care. Just wait to see what happen in 2013 & 2014!

Age 76 - Today, I went to the Dr. for my monthly B12 shot that I have been getting for a number of years. The nurse came and got me, got out the needle filled and ready to go then looked at the computer and got very quiet and asked if I was prepared to pay for it. I said no that my insurance takes care of it.

She said, that Medicare had turned it down and went to talk to my Dr. about it. 15 minutes later she came back and said, she was sorry but they had tried every-thing they could but Medicare is beginning to turn many things away for seniors because of the projected Obama Care coming in. She was brushing at tears and said, "Some day they too will get old", I am so very sorry!!

Please for the sake of many good people. . . ..be/get informed please.

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS...

At age 76, when you most need it, you are no longer eligible for cancer treatment

* see page 272

What Nancy Pelosi didn't want us to know until after the healthcare bill was passed. Remember she said, "We have to pass the Bill so that we can see what's in it." Well, here it is.

Obama Care Highlighted by Page Number

THE CARE BILL HB 3200

JUDGE KITHIL IS THE 2ND OFFICIAL WHO HAS OUTLINED THESE PARTS OF THE CARE BILL.

Judge Kithil of Marble Falls, TX - highlighted the most egregious pages of HB3200 - things were edited, changed and moved for the passing of final version of the bill, but the intention and most or what was in the original bill is still there… just hidden, re-written, or has been/will be added in later! They have not stopped writing and re-writing this bill since it was passed.

Please read this....... especially the reference to pages 58 & 59
JUDGE KITHIL wrote:

**
Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non-U.S. residents, even if they are here illegally… (but seniors will lost much of their coverage… go figure.)
**
Page 58 and 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual's bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts.
**
Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations (such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - ACORN).
**
Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this section will not be treated as a tax. (How could anybody in their right mind come up with that?)
**
Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors' fees.
**
Page 272. section 1145: Cancer hospital will ration care according to the patient's age.
**
Page 317 and 321: The government will impose a prohibition on hospital expansion; however, communities may petition for an exception.

**
Page 425, line 4-12: The government mandates advance-care planning consultations. Those on Social Security will be required to attend an "end-of-life planning" seminar every five years. (Death counseling..)
**
Page 429, line 13-25: The government will specify which doctors can write an end-of-life order.

HAD ENOUGH???? Judge Kithil then goes on to identify:
"Finally, it is specifically stated that this bill will not apply to members of Congress!”
Honorable David Kithil of Marble Falls , Texas

All of the above should give you the ammo you need to oppose/fight Obamacare.

Please send this information on to all of your email contacts and print it out for those not on email.

Technorati Tags: seniors,ObamaCare,ObamaCare surprises,rationing,Cancer,Texas,watch the other hand,educate yourself and others,age 76,Nancy Pelosi,socialized medicine,end of life counseling,Progressivism,Communism,stand-up America,soylent green

Obamacare’s Other Shoe l Mark Steyn

The Pentagon and Chuck Hagel

Former senator Chuck Hagel

National Review: If you had buttonholed me in the Senate men’s room circa 2003 and told me that a decade hence Joe Biden would be America’s vice president, John Kerry secretary of state, and Chuck Hagel secretary of defense, I’d have laughed and waited for the punch line. The Leahy administration? President Lautenberg? Celebrate lack of diversity! But even in the republic’s descent into a Blowhardocracy staffed by a Zombie House of Lords, there are distinctions to be drawn. Senator Kerry having been reliably wrong on every foreign-policy issue of the last 40 years, it would seem likely that at this stage in his life he will be content merely to be in office, jetting hither and yon boring the pants off whichever presidents and prime ministers are foolish enough to grant him an audience. Beyond the photo-ops, the world will drift on toward the post-American era: Beijing will carry on gobbling up resources around the planet, Czar Putin will flex his moobs across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Arab Spring “democracies” will see impressive growth in the critical clitoridectomy sector of the economy, Iran will go nuclear, and John Kerry will go to black-tie banquets in Europe. But Chuck Hagel is a different kettle of senatorial huffenpuffer. And not because of what appears to be a certain antipathy toward Jews and gays. That would be awkward at the Tony Awards, but at the Arab League the post-summit locker-room schmoozing should be a breeze. Since his celebrated “evolution” on marriage last year, President Obama is famously partial to one of those constituencies, so presumably he didn’t nominate an obscure forgotten senator because of his fascinating insights into the appropriate level of “obviousness” the differently oriented should adopt. So why Hagel? Why now?

My comrade Jonah Goldberg says this nomination is a “petty pick” made by Obama “out of spite.” I’m not so sure. If the signature accomplishment of the president’s first term was Obamacare (I’m using “signature accomplishment” in the Washington sense of “ruinously expensive bureaucratic sinkhole”), what would he be looking to pull off in his second (aside from the repeal of the 22nd Amendment)? Hagel isn’t being nominated to the Department of Zionist and Homosexual Regulatory Oversight but to the Department of Defense. Which he calls “bloated.”

Leon Panetta, who’s strongly opposed to the mandated  “sequestration” cuts  to the defense budget, Hagel thinks they’re merely a good start.

That’s why Obama’s offered him the gig. Because Obamacare at home leads inevitably to Obamacuts abroad. In that sense, America will be doing no more than following the same glum trajectory of every other great power in the postwar era. I feel only a wee bit sheepish about quoting my book After America two weeks running, since it’s hardly my fault Obama’s using it as the operating manual for his second term (I may sue for breach of copyright and retire to Tahiti). At any rate, somewhere around Chapter Five, I suggest that, having succeeded Britain as the dominant power, America may follow the old country in decline, too:

“In what other ways might the mighty eagle emulate the tattered old lion? First comes reorientation, and the shrinking of the horizon. After empire, Britain turned inward: Between 1951 and 1997 the proportion of government expenditure on defense fell from 24 percent to seven, while the proportion on health and welfare rose from 22 percent to 53. And that’s before New Labor came along to widen the gap further.

“Those British numbers are a bald statement of reality: You can have Euro-sized entitlements or a global military, but not both. What’s easier to do if you’re a democratic government that’s made promises it can’t afford — cut back on nanny-state lollipops, or shrug off thankless military commitments for which the electorate has minimal appetite?”

Democrats put it slightly differently: In 2004 John Kerry demanded to know why we were building firehouses in Iraq but closing them in America (the municipal fire department apparently falling, like everything else, under the federal government). Barack Obama prefers to say that it’s time for the United States to do some nation-building at home — the pilot program in Afghanistan having worked out so well. Either line will do, and, like Britain’s inverted budget priorities, both implicitly acknowledge that a military-industrial complex and a dependency-bureaucrat complex are incompatible. And that’s before you factor in Washington-size borrowing, under which, within this decade, the interest payments on the debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese military. America can fund the Pentagon or the People’s Liberation Army, but not both, not for long. Having gotten the citizenry to accept a supersized welfare bureaucracy, Obama reasonably enough figures he can just as easily get them used to a shrunken American presence in the wider world.

So the president is looking for his equivalent of Denis Healey, the Labor cabinet minister who in the 1968 defense review announced an all but total withdrawal of British forces from “east of Suez” — a phrase that in the imperial imagination is less geographic than psychological.

Kipling’s English Tommy on the road to Mandalay: “Ship me somewheres east of Suez . . . ” And then a cheeseparing defense minister says: No, we won’t. Not now, not ever again. It’s over.

Who would you hire for the Pentagon’s east-of-Suez moment? According to the Washington Post, Obama picked Hagel to “bridge the partisan divide.”

By Mark Steyn  - Author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, and America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It

 

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Obamaland,Mark Steyn,Hagel,Brennen,psychological,watch the other hand

Got Cancer? Milk poisoning cover-up Fox whistle-blower of Monsanto

Video:  Got Cancer? Milk poisoning cover-up Fox whistle-blower of Monsanto

Related:

Video:  RAW MILK ? COWS MILK OR BREAST MILK ?: What’s better for health & weight

Video: SOY-THE DEADLY POISON_ FRIGHTENING

Book:  The Whole Soy Story

Technorati Tags: food,milk,soymilk,soy,GMO,Cancer,watch the other hand,Big Business,Big Agribiz,food supply. Monsanto,Fox News

Mental Health Group Looks to Remove Stigma From Pedophilia… Really?

Mental Health Group Looks to Remove Stigma From Pedophilia

Fox News:  Originally Published August 24, 2011

A group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals say it's time to change the way society views individuals who have physical attractions to children.

The organization, which calls itself B4U-Act, is lobbying for changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the guideline of standards on mental health that's put together by the American Psychiatric Association.

The group says its mission is to help pedophiles before they create a crisis, and to do so by offering a less critical view of the disorder.

"Stigmatizing and stereotyping minor-attracted people inflames the fears of minor-attracted people, mental health professionals and the public, without contributing to an understanding of minor-attracted people or the issue of child sexual abuse," reads the organization's website.

B4U-Act said that 38 individuals attended a symposium in Baltimore last week, including researchers from Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the universities of Illinois and Louisville. According to the group, which said to not endorse every point of view expressed, the speakers in attendance concluded that "minor-attracted" individuals are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized even as their actions should be discouraged.

Speakers also argued that people who are sexually attracted to children should have input into the decision about how pedophilia is defined in the DSM, which they said is supposed to be a guide to promote “mental health vs. social control.”

Critics of the conference say it was a thinly veiled attempt to make children of any age sexually accessible to adults.

"Absolutely," Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting professor of law at Liberty School of Law said. "Oh, they're very clear about that. Their goal is to take all shame out of the lust for children."

The American Psychiatric Association did not participate in the conference, and evidently does not condone the group's message.

"An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act and this is never considered normal or socially acceptable behavior," the APA wrote in a 2003 position statement.

Critics of the effort also note that the movement likens its fight for pedophilia acceptance to society's more recent embrace of homosexuality. They warn of a slippery slope to a time when pedophilia is "just another lifestyle choice" that won't warrant criminal charges—and will leave young children at risk.

Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council, said, "I think that we have to face the fact that most of these people with pedophile attractions are going to come up against the law. The laws against sex abuse and the laws against child pornography. And those laws should be strictly enforced."

Fox News’ Shannon Bream contributed to this report.

Don't Pooh-Pooh the Left's Push to Normalize Pedophilia

Originally posted on January 07, 2013 at The Rush Limbaugh Show

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We are loaded today, folks. You can't afford to miss a single syllable today. For example:

There is an effort underway to normalize pedophilia. Yep. And it has two aspects to it. One is that sex with children doesn't hurt them. Kids like it, and so do adults, and there's nothing wrong with it. It is something... I want to take you back. I want you to remember the first time, wherever you were, that you heard about gay marriage, and I want you to try to recall your reaction -- your first gut reaction -- when you heard that some activists or somebody was trying to promote the notion of gay marriage. What was your initial reaction?

"Aw, come on. It'll never happen. That's silly. What are you talking about?"

There is a movement on to normalize pedophilia, and I guarantee you your reaction to that is probably much the same as your reaction when you first heard about gay marriage. What has happened to gay marriage? It's become normal -- and in fact, with certain people in certain demographics it's the most important issue in terms of who they vote for. So don't pooh-pooh. There's a movement to normalize pedophilia. Don't pooh-pooh it. The people behind it are serious, and you know the left as well as I do. They glom onto something and they don't let go.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It's right there. It's in the UK Guardian. "Pedophilia: Bringing Dark Desires to Light -- The Jimmy Savile scandal..." He's a presenter on the BBC. "The Jimmy Savile scandal," it says here, "caused public revulsion, but experts disagree about what causes pedophilia -- and even how much harm it causes." So "experts disagree about what causes pedophilia," and then they do interviews to make the case for pedophilia.

(interruption)

No, it's not a crime; it's love!

(interruption)

Yeah, there are statutes on the book.

The statutes are wrong. The statutes are from a bygone era where everybody's morality was wrong. Look, I’m just telling you what it says. They make the case that kids enjoy it, adults enjoy it; what's wrong with a little love? The same things that were said about gay marriage. Look at the Elmo story, the puppeteer at PBS. Three or four young people, kids, were hit on by that puppeteer. Look how little attention that story got. In fact, that story was laughed off. It wasn't a big deal at all.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I'm not engaging in shock value. I'm not trying to shock you. I'm just telling you what's out there on this pedophilia business. I'll tell you where I first saw it. Wesley Smith, who is married to Debra Saunders. She's a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. He had a little blog post at the National Review website: "Is Pedophilia Just Another 'Sexual Orientation'?" I said, "What?" So I read it.

It was this piece that alerted me to the column, the piece about this in The Guardian, and that piece suggests that pedophilia may be just another sexual orientation. It's not perverted, it's not wrong, it's just another sexual orientation. And, in fact, it's quite loving and as natural as any other sexual orientation. This is what those of us with our heads and minds in the Dark Ages have got to modernize and realize.

The argument being made in the piece is that the desire for sex with children is a natural part of the human condition. And, in fact, if we acknowledge it, and encourage it, we can actually somehow better protect children. That's in the story, too. It's the same thinking, if you remember back in the nineties, when we were told that kids are going to have sex, you can't stop them. And that's why we needed to give away condoms in the schools.

Remember we had stories from Long Island about parents who said that they willingly let their daughters' boyfriends spend the night because it was better if their daughter was gonna have sex in a clean bedroom rather than the backseat of a car. Well, same thing here. We can better protect children if we know that they're having sex with adults rather than it being done on the sly.

If it's supervised, and if it's engaged in by loving people, then what's wrong with it? This is in the article. I just want to remind you, now, when you first heard about gay marriage -- and I don't mean to pick on gays. It's not what I'm saying. It's just something that was such a tremendous departure from accepted norms of the day. When you first heard about gay marriage, you pooh-poohed it.

When you first heard me say that the Sierra Club was gonna try to come after you and ban your SUV, what was your reaction? "Aw, come on, Rush! There you go again: Overreacting, exaggerating." Well, you know that the SUV has become a target. You know all about that. You know how much progress the notion of gay marriage has made. So I'm just keeping you here on the cutting edge.

In fact, the article in the Guardian actually quotes some academics. (For those of you in Rio Linda, that's college professor types. These are the people you see that have leather arm patches on their sport coats.) Academics are quoted in the Guardian piece saying that sex with adults does not hurt children. Normalization. So Jon Henley decided he'd write a whole piece on this, normalizing pedophilia, where he quotes extensively and looks into it and finds out what this is all about.

"Pedophilia: Bringing Dark Desires to Light," and it says, among other things (this article is loaded), "Pedophiles may be wired differently." There's nothing wrong with them. They're just "wired differently. ... But there is a growing conviction, notably in Canada, that pedophilia should probably be classified as a distinct sexual orientation, like heterosexuality or homosexuality. Two eminent researchers testified to that effect to a Canadian parliamentary commission last year, and the Harvard Mental Health Letter of July 2010 stated baldly that pedophilia 'is a sexual orientation' and therefore 'unlikely to change.'"

Can you imagine if Jerry Sandusky had had this information at his trial? What do you think the reaction would be to Jerry Sandusky's defense saying, "Hey, look, it's normal. The kids love it, he loved it, nobody was hurt. And in fact, it's just a different sexual orientation"? Now, what do you think's behind this? What kind of people do you think are behind this, this effort to normalize pedophilia? Which is what? The abuse of kids, is it not? Who's behind that?

What is their objective? They want us to all think that pedophilia is just another sexual orientation. You know who's gonna fall right in line is college kids, just like they have on gay marriage, just like they do on all other revolutionary social issues. Their own definition of the cutting edge, civil rights, freedom, understanding, tolerance. So I'm just warning you here. You think it can't happen. "Impossible! Don't be nutso and wacko on us, Rush."

I'm just asking you to remember all of the things that occur normally in our culture now that when you first heard about them you thought, "No way! That'll never happen; that'll never be mainstream," and now they are. Here is another one to add to the list. (interruption) You want more excerpts from this piece? "In 1976 the National Council for Civil Liberties, the respectable (and responsible) pressure group now known as Liberty, made a submission to parliament's criminal law revision committee.

"It caused barely a ripple. 'Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in with an adult,' it read, 'result in no identifiable damage ... The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all cases of pedophilia result in lasting damage.'" So you see it's you who have to reorient your thinking. It's you who have to get rid of your bigotry. It's you that have to open up and become more tolerant. It is you judgmental people who think this is child abuse when it isn't.

You are the ones who are going to have to change. The pedophiles and the children involved, they're normal, just like you or anybody else. It is your old-fashioned conventions that create the problem. So another excerpt. "It is difficult today, after the public firestorm unleashed by revelations about Jimmy Savile [the presenter at BBC] and the host of child abuse allegations they have triggered, to imagine any mainstream group making anything like such a claim.

"But if it is shocking to realize how dramatically attitudes to pedophilia have changed in just three decades, it is even more surprising to discover how little agreement there is even now among those who are considered experts on the subject." Here is the money quote: "For Goode, though, broader, societal change is needed. 'Adult sexual attraction to children is part of the continuum of human sexuality; it's not something we can eliminate,' she says.

"'If we can talk about this rationally -- acknowledge that, yes, men do get sexually attracted to children, but no, they don't have to act on it -- we can maybe avoid the hysteria. We won't label pedophiles monsters; it won't be taboo to see and name what is happening in front of us.'" See? The only people who have to change are you who have these old-fashioned, Victorian-type attitudes. You're gonna have to open yourselves up to love and realize that wherever it happens, it's wonderful. No matter what.

Now, there were people -- I just want to remind you -- back during the early days of the effort to redefine what a family is, and in the early days of the gay marriage activists. There were people who said, "Well, if this becomes mainstream, then someday marrying your dog is gonna be okay, and then having two husbands and two wives in one family is gonna be okay, 'cause who can say it isn't?" There were others who predicted that pedophilia would be mainstream, and there was an outcry of opposition to this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, the expert that I was quoting extensively from in the pedophilia story in the UK Guardian is Sarah Goode. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Winchester and is the author of two, count them, two major sociological studies on pedophilia in society in 2009, 2011. Hey, folks, look, I know it's uncomfortable. I'm just warning you, there's now an effort on to normalize it. It's safe for children. Controlled supervised, engaged in two loving people, it's actually safer for children this way.

I mean, it's the same rationale back in the nineties for giving away condoms. We can't stop it. Kids are going to have sex, so we want to make it as safe as we can. It's the same technique being used here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now to the phones and Walter in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. I'm glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I was really incensed earlier when you were talking about the business of pedophilia being entertained in England and possibly among the leftists in this society as giving it some kind of credibility. And every single civilization that I've ever studied about and every religion in this country teaches us over and over again about the destruction of civilization because of it. I mean, Greek history is one of the most egregious people who adapted as part of their culture the culture of the warrior and pedophilia. And it just absolutely amazed me that we live in this age where people have forgotten what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah, what Christ taught in his most profound thing, in anger, was about the hurting of little children. That he would put a millstone around them and cast them into the sea. And it's amazing that people have forgotten these warnings over 4,000 years and are willing to entertain this over and over again. I remember at BU, Boston University, where I studied, a [professor] told us that in the mid-sixties, that psychological association of the United States went from one person held off these aberrations and said that they were, you know, they were mental problems that needed to be directly dealt with from, you know, a clinical point of view, and when that person died, the American Psychological Association then began the slippery slope of allowing all these aberrations to --

RUSH: Let me ask you a question.

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: You say you've been studying this.

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: Before I mentioned this today, were you aware of the UK Guardian story? Were you aware of the effort that is quite a ways along now to normalize pedophilia?

CALLER: I didn't know that. I thought that they had --

RUSH: This is the point. You didn't know it, I didn't know it 'til I ran across the story, you didn't know it, and most other people don't know it, either, and this is why it succeeds. Most people don't have time for stuff like this. Most people aren't reading the UK Guardian; they're trying to get jobs. Or, as in the case of some, I got a New York Post story here: "Welfare Recipients Take Out Cash At Strip Clubs, Liquor Stores And X-Rated Shops." Welfare recipients are using the debit cards at these kinds of places, whatever, they're not paying any attention to pedophilia. So this stuff happens literally under the radar.

Now, if you're just joining us, the UK Guardian has a story today that essentially quotes a bunch of college academics who've studied it and said there's really nothing wrong with pedophilia. It's just another sexual orientation. In fact, it may be safer for children when it's engaged in knowingly and accepted. Children love it, the adults love it, and if there's love involved, what can be wrong? I'm not making this up. We'll link to the story at RushLimbaugh.com. You can read it yourself. I was made aware of it by a contributor at National Review, Wesley J. Smith.

Like I mentioned, try to imagine where you were the very first time you heard somebody seriously make the case for gay marriage and ask yourself what was your reaction. It was probably something like, "Right, that will never happen," and now here we are. Gay marriage and gay rights happen to be at the top of important issues for young voters ages 18 to 29. It is the number one most important issue to them, civil rights, freedom, tolerance, liberty, all that cool stuff when you're that young. Well, here we go with the same technique. It's safer. It's safer for children under these circumstances than if it's happening under the cover of darkness and behind the law. If it's happening under the shroud of illegality, then it has a stigma; but it really shouldn't, it's just another sexual orientation. It's a serious piece, a serious effort. And it's all about these people wishing to have their preferences and desires judged to be normal, not weird or perverted or what have you.

And even if you had heard about it, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do about it? You might organize opposition to it. You might organize in California, a proposition, you put it on the ballot to oppose it and you win, and a federal judge will overturn it. Yeah, pedophilia, it's already against the law. What do you do to stop it? Who's gonna stop it? Do you think today's Democrat Party's gonna speak out against it? No. You won't have 'em advocating it, not yet, but that day's coming, if it follows the same progression as some of these other things you thought would never, ever happen and they are happening now in a mainstream way.

So that is what Walter here is reacting to, and he said that pedophilia, societies can't survive when stuff like this becomes normal. But you've got some official psychiatric groups that are endorsing it as normal. And the only thing wrong with pedophilia is the bigoted attitude towards it, is the point of the story in the UK Guardian, which is left wing, but it's not a fringe publication, it's a mainstream publication in Great Britain.

END TRANSCRIPT

Cross-Posted at AskMarion

Related:

Saudi Cleric Issues Fatwa Defending Pedophilia As ‘Marriage’

The Real War on Women

Afghanistan’s dancing boys

Exposing Kinsey sex atrocities goes global

Breaking: Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Is Promoting Child Porn in the Classroom– Kevin Jennings and the GLSEN Reading List

Another Bad Day for Children, Decency and Common Values

ACLU: Give kids ‘lesbian’ book at school – Without Parents Knowledge

5th Graders Being Taught Oral & Anal Sex

Public Schools are Teaching What???

Losing Our Kids: Tweens, LGBTIQ Role Models, You Do Not Need to Respect Old People, and Body Searches OK for 6- Yr-Olds

Indoctrination of Our Children

Trailer – Welcoming Schools Film: What Do You Know?

Critics Assail Obama’s ‘Safe Schools’ Czar, Say He’s Wrong Man for the Job

More Shocking Comments From the Safe School Czar

Senate Approves Bill that Legalizes Sodomy and Bestiality in U.S. Military

Technorati Tags: Rush Limbaugh,Fox News,Pedophilia,the Guaridian,watch the other hand,mental disorders,psychiatry,England,Great Britain,mental health,perverts,Islam,Sharia Law,Obama's czars,Safe Schools,Czar,child porn,Kevin Jennings,Obamaland,destroying America,war on Christianity,was on decency,sex,radicals in the White House,parental rights,GLSEN

This Is How a Secret Gun Provision Made its Way Into Obamacare Legislation

The Blaze: There’s a widely-unknown provision in the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) — legislative wording that is capturing attention in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Pushed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), a newly-noticed regulation that was placed deep within the bill back in 2010, among other things, bans doctors from documenting patients’ answers to questions that focus upon guns.

The Washington Post first reported on Dec. 30 about the presence of this controversial wording. Under a section with the headline “Protection of Second Amendment Gun Rights,” the NRA-advocated wording is nestled deep within the law. The Post called the inclusion, “a largely overlooked but significant challenge to a movement in American medicine to treat firearms as a matter of public health.”

As the outlet also noted, it was in the final stretch of the debate over Obama’s health care legislation that the NRA successfully pushed to insert this language. Below, see the portions of the Affordable Care Act that include mentions of firearms and the parameters through which doctors must operate in questioning patients (read the entire health care bill here):

 On Tuesday, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta spoke on-air with “Situation Room” host Wolf Blitzer. The two discussed how the gun provision made its way into health care legislation, while also explaining portions of the text for viewers.

Gupta noted that the initiative to have the wording included during the contentious health care debate was rooted in the NRA’s stance that patients should not be penalized or discriminated against for owning firearms. As can be seen from the above portion of the legislation, while doctors are not banned from asking about guns, they are forbidden from documenting the information and using it for research purposes.

Watch Gupta explain the additive language HERE:

In addition to gun-owner information and how it must be handled by doctors, the text also notes that the law cannot be used to keep and maintain records of individuals’ firearm possession, nor can it be used to track ammunition. Additionally, the language deals with the price of health care coverage, noting that cost cannot be impacted by the possession or ownership of guns, the Post also reported.

Following the tragedy at Sandy Hook, the presence of this provision has gained some press, with select politicians and medical groups taking a stand against it. Advocates are worried that research and medical care could suffer as a result of the wording; some are even pushing the Obama administration to consider changes to the text in light of recent events and an impending battle over new gun control legislation.

The Post has more about the ongoing battle between the NRA and physicians and advocates who stand opposed to the language inserted into the Affordable Care legislation:

NRA officials say they requested the provision out of concern that insurance companies could use such data to raise premiums on gun owners. The measure’s supporters in the Senate say they did not intend to interfere with the work of doctors or researchers.

But physician groups and researchers see the provision as part of a decades-long strategy by the gun lobby to choke off federal support for studies of firearms violence.

The research restrictions began in the 1990s, when the NRA urged Congress to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division that studied gun violence. In 1996, Congress sharply limited the agency’s ability to fund that type of research.

This is extremely important at this time with the shocker information recently released that there is now a 'Vaccine' that prevents gun violence and the implications of the use of that vaccine in today’s control frenzy climate coming from the White House and progressive liberals in general!

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi take part in a joint Senate and House session to count of the Electoral College votes for the 2012 presidential election at the Capitol Hill in Washington on January 4, 2013. US President Barack Obama was officially declared the winner of 2012 presidential election after the counting session– a quaint formality, perhaps, but constitutionally required. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Just as interesting as the debate over the provision, itself, is the notion that it was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), an NRA-supporter, who added the wording to the bill back in 2010. While a spokesperson for Reid told the Post that the leader never spoke with the NRA about the wording and that he did not believe that “it changed gun laws in any way,” that hasn’t stopped critics from wondering why Reid so staunchly supported the measure.

The language was purportedly added to stem off criticism from the NRA that could have railroaded, delayed or prevented the controversial health care bill from passing. Also, the wording was placed deep within the bill in an effort to convince people not to embrace so-called conspiracy theories about Obamacare — mainly that the legislation would be used to keep and maintain a massive gun-ownership database. Once the language was added, the NRA reportedly remained neutral regarding passage of the law.

While Reid has been a gun rights advocate for quite some time, the politician may be having a change of heart in the wake of recent shootings and controversy surrounding this language. An adviser who spoke off-the-record, recently told CNN that the senator is “in a different place than he was in 2010″ when it comes to firearms.

Cross-Posted at Ask Marion

Related:

Shocker! 'Vaccine' prevents gun violence

NRA Releases List of Celebrities, Organizations that Support Gun Control

FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year than Rifles

Biden: Obama Considering Executive Orders on Guns

All NYC Gun Owners Posted Online

Former FBI Informant Says: Obama Will Destroy America Once He Has All The Guns… as Details of False Flag and Conspiracy in Connecticut Shooting Appear

Pravda tells America: Keep your guns

English Warning To Americans: DONT GIVE UP YOUR GUNS!

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,gun control,small victories,alert,Harry Reid,Nancy Pelosi,NRA,guns,second amendment,diseases,ObamaCare surprises,Sandy Hook,CNN,Gupta,TheBlaze,the Blaze,Affordable Care Act,classifying gun violence as a disease,Washington Post,knowledge is power,politics,Progressives in Congress,Progressivism,Dr. Sanjay Gupta,vaccines,vaccines for violence prevention,1984,Big Brother,freedom,Bill of Rights,FBI

Journalists incredulous that Obamacare means higher health care costs

Gay Patriot: I found myself laughing last night when watching a report on a local newscast about the rising cost of health care despite the passage of the “Affordable” Care Act. Perhaps, it would have sounded differently had I heard the newcaster’s voice instead of reading the closed captioning. (Again I caught the news while doing cardio.)

I laughed because the individual reporting a story seemed incredulous that a government program designed to reduce cost had actual led to the increase. Might have been nice had the journalist had some economics education, an education where they studied not just abstract theories as articulated by astute economists, but the real-world results of increases in government regulation. He would then have known that enterprises pass the cost of increased regulations onto their customers.

In commenting on a New York Times article on rising health insurance rates, Glenn Reynolds asked in a seemingly rhetorical tone, “Who could have seen this coming?” Who indeed. Will be interesting to see just how many conservative bloggers, pundits and public figures predicted this. And how many liberal pundits and Democrat politicians assured that such “right-wingers” were talking nonsense.

Interesting also to speculate whether the local reporters in Los Angeles would have picked up on this story had the New York Times not covered it.

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,ObamaTax,rising healthcare costs,journalists,wake-up America,Affordable Care Act,taxes,ObamaCare costs,ObamaCare surprises

Shocker! 'Vaccine' prevents gun violence

WND: In recent years, some physicians and physician groups have proposed that “gun violence” be considered a disease – that we should analyze these public mass shootings as we would a disease and, using that paradigm, search for a cure.

Of course their cure is always disarmament of all citizens, not just criminals. But the same docs want more “evidence-based medicine,” and the evidence points to a very different approach.

In the late 18th century, a London physician, Edward Jenner, learned from local dairymen that dairy maids who got cowpox never contracted the more fatal smallpox. He speculated that cowpox somehow prevented smallpox and tested this theory by taking germs from the cowpox lesions and inoculating unexposed persons. These people were shown to survive smallpox outbreaks unscathed and thus was born the science of immunology and the process of controlling the deadly disease of smallpox. This is real science – observation, testing and practice – no politics involved.

If we observe gun violence as a “disease,” one thing is strikingly clear – this disease never strikes people known to be or potentially armed! It may be true that the recent Connecticut shooter was mentally ill, but he was not so crazy as to take on a police station. Neither he, nor any of the other similar shooters, decide to shoot up gun stores or NRA conventioneers. They may be crazy, but apparently not that crazy.

No, they invariably pick gun-free zones for their mayhem. And when confronted with an armed counterforce, they either surrender or shoot themselves. They do not wage gun battles against other armed people.

So, using the logic of Edward Jenner, the inoculation to prevent the disease of gun violence is putting guns into the hands of potential victims. So thinking like Edward Jenner, lets see what happens when we do just that – arm citizens by permitting concealed carrying of firearms.

Dr. Jacob Deakins, in an excellent review of the subject, “Guns, Truth, Medicine and the Constitution,” points out that both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2004 and the Center for Disease Control in 2003 failed to find any written evidence that gun control reduced violent crime, suicides or gun violence.

Dr. Deakins goes on to cite John Lott Jr., who reviewed the FBI’s yearly crime statistics for all 3,054 U.S. counties over 18 years (1977-1994). This constitutes the largest national survey of gun ownership and state police documentation in illegal gun use.

Lott concludes:

• While neither state waiting periods nor the federal Brady Law is associated with a reduction in crime rates, adopting concealed-carry gun laws cut death rates from public multiple shootings by 69 percent.
• Allowing people to carry concealed weapons deters violent crime – without any apparent increase in accidental death. If states without right-to-carry laws had adopted them in 1992, about 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes and 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided annually.
• Children 14 to 15 years of age are 14.5 times more likely to die from automobile injuries, five times more likely to die from drowning or fire and burns and three times more likely to die from bicycle accidents than they are to die from gun accidents.
• When concealed-carry laws went into effect in a given county, murders fell by 8 percent, rapes by 5 percent and aggravated assaults by 7 percent.
• For each additional year concealed-carry laws are in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, robberies by more than 2 percent and rape by 1 percent.

It is generally conceded that immunization of some percentage of a population confers decreased risk of disease on the entire group, not just those immunized – the so-called “herd immunity.” So too, allowing people voluntarily to carry concealed weapons confers some protection on those not carrying – because criminals and crazies never know if the person they confront will be armed.

Recently in New York State, a newspaper published a who’s who of registered gun owners in two counties, giving out names and addresses. Part of the ensuing hue and cry came, not from those listed, but from people not on the list who had just been “outed” as being unarmed. They felt they had been put at risk by this information. So too every no-gun sticker on every hospital or school door puts occupants of the building at risk.

Edward Jenner wasn’t the first person to invent vaccination – he was the first to fine tune it and sell the idea to the masses. More people have died as the result of smallpox than from all the wars combined, but now no one dies thanks to appropriate medical action.

How many unarmed populations will be genocidally murdered, how many shootings will take place in gun-free zones before we get the point, take appropriate action and allow weapons to be carried by those at risk and/or their defenders?

Related:

Statistics Prove: More Guns, Less Crime

FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year than Rifles

Technorati Tags: gun violence,violence,gun violence as a disease,diseases,guns,gun grabbers,gun control,gun-free zones,WND,vaccines,Big Brother,FBI,prevention or control,disarming America,Obamaland

Why Was a 2.3% 'Medical Excise Tax' Showing Up on Receipts from Sporting Goods Giant Cabela's?

The Blaze:  January 1, 2013 brought a host of new taxes, fees, and charges to the American people. Some of them were anticipated. Others, like the Medical Device Excise Tax (MDET), were not — at least not in this way.

How so? Well, the MDET has started showing up on the receipts for purchases made at sporting goods giant Cabela’s. This receipt from one such store in Texas is making the rounds on the web. It shows an additional tax has been added to the purchase, after the local sales tax of nearly 10% was charged.

Image: Twitchy.com

A series of phone calls to both the corporate offices of Cabela’s as well as three Texas outlets where the taxes have been showing up yielded what appears to be a satisfactory explanation and resolution.

Customer service reps for Cabela’s stated the added tax was “a computer glitch that has been fixed.” In one case, a representative offered to take my receipt information over the phone and expedite a refund to my credit card. Cash purchases that were hit with the extra 2.3% tax must return to the store for a cash refund.

With that mystery solved, we couldn’t stop wondering about the tax. What is a Medical Excise Tax? Which devices will be affected by it?

Photo Credit: AP

TheBlaze asked the people responsible for collecting the tax — the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). There is much information about this new tax on the IRS website. Let’s start with the obvious question, “What is it?”

Section 4191 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes an excise tax on the sale of certain medical devices by the manufacturer or importer of the device.

That’s the very first response from the IRS to the question about the tax. Based on that definition, it would seem that the mandated 2.3% tax should be charged to the manufacturer or importer and not the consumer. The IRS clearly states responsibility to pay the tax points to the maker and importer, but the word “generally” in their answer leaves wiggle room:

Generally, the manufacturer or importer of a taxable medical device is responsible for filing Form 720, Quarterly Federal Excise Tax Return, and paying the tax to the IRS.

Some tax experts say that adding the word “generally” may allow for the manufacturers and importers to pass that same 2.3% tax on to consumers through elevated prices at the retail level. At least one source at a major American manufacturer — who asked to remain anonymous because they’re not authorized to speak publicly on the matter — said the company will be forced to increase prices.

“If our profit margin is 4%, and we’re hit with an added 2.3% charge by this tax, more than half of our profit is instantly gone,” the company source said.

Looking deeper into the IRS clarification on this, we wondered what qualifies as a “medical device?” The IRS has guidance on that topic — sort of. Here’s the slightly confusing answer to the question, What is a taxable medical device?

In general, a taxable medical device is a device that is listed as a device with the Food and Drug Administration under section 510(j) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and 21 CFR part 807, unless the device falls within an exemption from the tax, such as the retail exemption.

Section 501 is a 23 page document filled with language that would confuse most folks, but then again, it allegedly applies only to commercial sales and importation of medical devices. The aforementioned “retail exemption” is a bit easier to grasp. Clarification on this issue is courtesy of the legal eagles at JDsupra.com:

There are two main categories of devices exempt from the tax. First, eyeglasses, contact lenses and hearing aids are specifically listed as being exempt. The second and broader category, commonly referred to as the “Retail Exception,” exempts a device which is “of a type which is generally purchased by the general public at retail for individual use.”

At the end of the day, the Medical Device Excise Tax was supposed to generate an additional $29 billion to help pay for Obamacare. During the deliberations of the 2009 law, the bill’s authors envisioned the $29 billion coming from “big companies” who made or imported the devices. More than one of the medical device manufacturers say that their operating profit margins are so thin, that they have no choice but to pass the cost on to consumers.

It appears that much of the $29 billion will be coming from the pockets of consumers.

(H/T: Twitchy.com)

Technorati Tags: MDET,TheBlaze,ObamaCare,ObamaCare surprises,ObamaTax,taxes,fees,wake-up America,repeal and replace ObamaCare

Hormones, Milk & Corruption

Dr. Berg: Check out this video, and you'll see the power of certain companies over the news and our foods.

Video: Hormones, Milk & Corruption

By Dr. Eric Berg DC

Technorati Tags: milk,hormones,Dr. Berg,Fox News

Health Tip For 2013: Go All Natural — Ditch The Artificial Sweeteners!

Everyone makes a New Year's resolution to be healthier, but precious few actually follow through on it!

But what if there were simple ways you could improve your health?

Dietician Julieanna Hever says there are, and she has ten amazing tips for staying healthy in 2013!

Here's one!

Eliminate all artificial sweeteners.

This includes stevia, sugar alcohols, and the stuff in brightly colored packets at restaurants. They are designed to be hundreds- to thousands of times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). Replacing sugar with these products increases sweet cravings, confuses your hormones, and most likely helps you keep on or even gain weight. Opt for whole food sweeteners like 100% pure maple syrup, date syrup, date paste, and fruit purees. In three weeks or less, your cravings will subside, your taste buds will recover, and you will notice you are now sensitive to the sweetness of natural foods.

Related:

The Aspartame Trap: You May Be Unknowingly Ingesting this Toxic Sweetener

America's Deadliest Sweetener Betrays Millions, Then Hoodwinks You With Name Change

The 76 Dangers of Sugar