Truth Serum Today

Saturday, August 13, 2016

GOP elite - Make the establishment great again

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In November, Americans will elect either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as President. All minor party candidates as well as an upstart “conservative” alternative to Donald Trump have no prayer of victory.

Any Republican or conservative who does not support the GOP nominee might as well join former liberal Connecticut Republican Congressman Chris Shays and formally endorse Hillary Clinton.

There are many groups of Republicans who are aiding and abetting Hillary Clinton. The establishment Republicans such as Bill Kristol, Mitt Romney and the Bush family are not supporting Trump.

There is also a group of “Never Trump” conservatives such as commentator Glenn Beck and Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse. There are also the former presidential candidates such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham who signed a pledge to support the nominee, but refuse to follow through on their commitment.

Sadly, these Trump hating GOP leaders are being joined by other groups of disenchanted Republicans. Next week, an alliance of 70 Republicans will send an official letter requesting that the RNC stop supporting the Trump presidential campaign and focus on House and Senate races, in an effort to retain control of Congress.

Among this anti-Trump GOP group is former New Hampshire Senator Gordon Humphrey and former Missouri Congressman Tom Coleman.

This follows a letter by 50 former security and diplomatic officials from Republican administrations who denounced Trump and his policies. In response, the GOP nominee said that Americans should blame such officials for making the world a “mess” and “such a dangerous place.”

There is also the “Free the Delegates” movement that is still trying to use RNC rules to replace Trump as the nominee. They are contacting RNC members in an attempt to persuade them that Trump is destined for defeat and needs to be ousted.

This group failed spectacularly at the RNC Convention in Cleveland, but hopes that recent Trump controversies will spur the RNC to hold an extraordinary meeting to change nominees.

All of this is happening while a few Republicans in Congress have officially declined to support Donald Trump for President. The latest defection occurred this week when liberal Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins decided to formally reject Trump and announce she will not vote for him.

Every one of these announcements gets massive attention from the liberal news media who are working overtime to give the election to Hillary Clinton. They refuse to cover the real scandals involving the corrupt, lying Democrat nominee and instead focus on media created Trump controversies.

These left wing reporters just love highlighting GOP leaders deserting their nominee. It is a sad day when Republicans are being used so effectively by the liberal news media to elect a scandal ridden candidate who belongs in the Big House, not the White House.

With these abandonments one would think Clinton has a lock on the election, yet the latest Los Angeles Times poll has Trump just one point behind. There is also good news in the important area of fundraising as the Trump campaign raised $82 million last month, a major improvement over the month before.

Anti-Trump Republicans are obviously ignoring this information because they want Hillary to win. In this election, Trump ran against the establishment and they cannot forgive him, so they are determined to elect Hillary.

For much of the GOP ruling class, Hillary is a better choice because it will mean “business as usual” in Washington D.C. Trump promises massive change and that is the last thing the establishment wants. He also threatens the establishment’s cozy and profitable relationships in the Beltway, their globalist policies and the international trade deals which sellout American workers.

In contrast, Democrats are too smart to have any public infighting. After Bernie Sanders lost the nomination, he retired to Vermont and bought an expensive vacation home. Inquiring minds want to know how Bernie, who never worked until the age of 40 and lives on his Senate salary, can afford three expensive homes.

Nonetheless, he is relaxing in luxury and is perfectly comfortable with Hillary Clinton as the nominee, even though some of his supporters remain upset about how he was treated by the DNC.

Thus, the loser of the Democratic presidential nomination urged unity and disappeared from the spotlight, while too many of the Republicans who lost the presidential race remain in the news and continue to campaign against Donald Trump. If Trump loses, all of the oppositional Republicans will deserve blame.

Never before has there been so much infighting within the GOP after a candidate has secured the nomination. Even for horrible presidential candidates like Senator John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, the party coalesced behind the nominees and there was unity.

This election is different because the nominee is not a politician, but a businessman. Trump has never run for office before and speaks his mind openly, without politically correct talking points. He also represents the often overlooked grassroots of the Republican Party.

In this election, he won close to 14 million votes, more than any other GOP presidential candidate in history. In the process, he won 37 states and three times more delegates than his nearest competitor.

In reality, his critics have a problem not just with Donald Trump, but with his millions of supporters, who have had enough of the politics as usual system and the cronyism of the establishment. These elitists are upset that the Republican voters had the audacity to actually nominate a candidate who was not selected for them by the establishment.

This election is example of the classic struggle between the people and their political overseers. The GOP elite are desperate to maintain power and they’ll gladly destroy the party, if not the country, before they allow Donald Trump to be elected President of the United States.

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To order a copy of Jeff Crouere’s new book, “America’s Last Chance,”

visit www.JeffCrouere.com

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 10:00 p.m. Sunday on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore.

For more information, visit Jeff's web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com or email him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.
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Less pain - fewer pills from Mary Jane Popp

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Available on Amazon

Did you know that 28,000 Americans died of Opiod overdose in 2014? The Centers for Disease Control recently issued guidelines to severely limit prescriptions for Opiods like Oxycontin, Percoset, and Vicodin in response to the national epidemic of prescription drug overdose.

Dr. Beth Darnall has researched the inadequacy of the medical establishment’s current response to people with chronic pain. She is Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Pain Medicine at Stanford University and treats individuals and groups at the Stanford Pain Management Center.

On my radio show POPPOFF, Dr. Darnall told me that “pain is your harm alarm, and you need to be able to turn the harm alarm off.” But the key is how to get off those pain killers. She tackles the issue in her book “Less Pain, Fewer Pills” Avoid the dangers of prescription Opioids and gain control over Chronic Pain.

The good Doc truly believes you can taper off prescription Opiods, and she shared seven tips for success.

1) TALK WITH YOUR DOCTOR. Always talk to your prescribing doctor before making medication changes. This is the first step in any opiod tapering program. Most doctors are happy to help their patients reduce their medication.

2) TIMING IS EVERYTHING. Plan to start to taper when life is relatively calm. Avoid the holidays or times when work or family stress are particularly high. You want to set yourself up for success. Stress creates challenges and worsens pain.

3) OPIOIDS SHOULD BE YOUR ONLY MEDICATION CHANGE DURING THE TAPER. Many people fall into the trap of trying to change more than one medication at a time. It’s a setup for failure. Think of your taper as an experiment. When things are calm and you are clear about the result from that change, you can consider making changes to the next medication.

4) GO S-L-O-W. THE TURTLE WINS THE RACE. Some doctors will suggest a quick taper of 1-2 weeks. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. By tapering slowly, you can prevent symptoms of withdrawal, stress, and anxiety.

5) USE YOUR MIND-BODY SKILLS. Optimize success with opioid tapering by focusing on calming your mind and body regularly throughout each day. Calming your mind and body needs to be your main priority during the taper period.

6) WATCH YOUR CHOICES. Resist the temptation to make many life changes during your opioid taper. If you decide to taper opioids, keep the rest of your life at a constant. If you already walk twice weekly for thirty minutes, stay with that if it is working for you. You can ramp up your activity level or make other changes once you are through with the taper.

7) GET EXTRA SUPPORT. Your medical or psychological circumstances may require more structure and support.

If your doctor recommends additional support, or if you are running into problems, consider working with a medical professional who can closely supervise your taper.

To date, more Americans have died from prescription drug overdoses than died in the Vietnam War. According to Dr. Darnall this constitutes a national emergency. So far only Ibuprofen and Tylenol are the only alternatives, yet chronic pain affects more Americans than heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined.

Check out www.BethDarnall.com. “Less Pain, Fewer Pills” might give you new insight. STAY WELL!

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From the files of Mary Jane Popp at KAHI Radio in Sacramento, California

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A despicable American export

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Click Here to Read More from Colonel Allen B. West

There are many great products the United States exports to other countries. However, we do need to balance our trade relations so we can reduce the ever-growing trade deficit, which currently sits somewhere near $800 billion.

But there’s something else being exported out of our country which here in America represents a deficit in character and truth: the Black Lives Matter movement.

As reported by the Washington Post, “His name was Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black construction worker who loved soccer and spent the summer aching for the much-anticipated French victory in the Euro 2016 finals that never came.

For Adama, what did come this summer was death in police custody on July 19, his birthday. According to police documents shared with select French media outlets, Adama and his brother, Bagui, were stopped on their bikes that afternoon in the center of this small town, which is about an hour north of Paris.

The police were after Bagui, wanted in connection with an extortion case. But when Adama fled the scene, three officers ultimately subdued him by pouncing on his back all at once. By the time they arrived at the station, the officers said Adama was not breathing.

The case of Adama Traoré is not the first to call into question this long-held ideology of national identity and to suggest that race, perhaps, has mattered all along. In 2005, for instance, two minority teenagers were killed after a police chase in the Paris suburbs as they left a soccer game, triggering weeks of riots across France.

But this time, a local incident has intersected with an international current, translating “Black Lives Matter” into French and galvanizing a message increasingly global in its appeal. This month, with the international spotlight on the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, protesters have condemned the routine police killings of black civilians across Brazil.

There have been similar demonstrations in Norway and Britain, where, last week, demonstrators invoking the Black Lives Matter message obstructed traffic into London’s Heathrow airport. In Canada recently, over 500 people marched in Ottawa to protest the death of a mentally ill black man after his arrest.

When about 600 protesters joined France’s first-ever Black Lives Matter demonstration in Paris four days after Adama’s death, they were taking part not only in what was couched as an international intervention against anti-blackness but also against what Fania Noël, 29, a founding member of the movement here, called France’s “Republican mythology.”

Click here for the rest of the Allen B. West story

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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Could she possibly short-circuit the nuke button?

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Click Here - Grab that Morning Coffee and Check Out Branco Online

Okay, I’m hyperventilating. Tony combines beautiful drawings with biting politically incorrect wit and laugh out loud humor.” – Larry Elder – TV and Radio personality at at Fox News and KRLM AM 870

Lighten things up! Political discussions and debates don’t always have to be deep and long-winded arguments with points and counter points. Sometimes we just need to take a step back from it all and have a good laugh.

With so many discouraging things happening in our country lately, that’s the only thing we can do to keep from crying.

Conservative artist Antonio Branco is a master at encapsulating deep and complex issues in a simple comic.

He has written his first book in a series and takes on a wide array of issues, from food stamps to global warming to foreign policy, Antonio isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.

Presented in a coffee table book style, this is the perfect conversation starter with friends and family that pick it up and start glancing through it’s pages.

Who knows, that liberal aunt of yours just might come over to the right side because of this book!

This 80 pages, hardcover comic measures 8″ x 10".

ORDER HERE ORDER NOW – also autographed editions available

Read more from A.F. (Tony) Branco at this link.

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A real threat to your daughter

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Many parents concerned about their daughter’s future are concluding it’s safer for her to clerk in a Baltimore liquor store during a Freddie Gray rally than it is to attend college.

And who can blame them? “Survey” findings claim that 20 percent of college women suffer a sexual assault. The numbers are used to blame men for creating a “rape culture,” when the truth is universities tolerate a coma culture.

Consider a school closing in on the sexual assault hall of fame: The University of Virginia and it's president, ~~Pontius Pilate~~ Teresa Sullivan.

UVA was founded by Thomas Jefferson. Smug boosters never tire of boasting about Jefferson’s Honor Code governing student behavior.

The code functions much like Islam in that the rules only apply when you are dealing with other UVA students. And even then the Code is soluble in ethanol.

Here are just a few lurid incidents covered by the Washington Post and Vanity Fair.

But wait! Copyright requires I send you to Newsmax.com where the Shannon column can be found.

Click here for the rest of the article.

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Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher (for the League of American Voters), and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor and available on Amazon.com)."
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Failing to stay on message

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Click Here to Read More from Colonel Allen B. West

One of the consequences for not staying on message is that critical issues go unnoticed. It’s a strategic imperative to own the narrative, and yes, I know the liberal progressive media is stacked against anyone who’s not a progressive socialist.

However, instead of taking their bait and going into their ambush, one must avoid the frontal assault and use other forms of maneuver — such as envelopment, infiltration, a turning movement, and penetration. If you have the media platform, make the topic and theme of your choice and put the opposition on defense.

Donald Trump was effective in doing that in his GOP nomination speech, as I assessed here. And the way you can tell, is that immediately Barack Obama came out and gave an impromptu and unscheduled press conference — as we say down South, “a hit dog will holler.”

And last week, instead of dealing with off-topic media assaults, there was a great opportunity to put a torpedo in the tug boat SS Obama, and the attached dingy Hillary Clinton.

As reported by Investors Business Daily, “Aetna (AET) on [last] Tuesday said it intended to abandon its 2017 expansion plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges and was reviewing future participation in the marketplaces, even as the health insurance giant reported second-quarter results that beat estimates.

Just three months ago, Aetna said it planned to continue its Obamacare business next year as it mulled an expansion to a few additional states. The company’s shift makes it the latest health insurer to sour on the exchange marketplaces.

Humana (HUM), which Aetna wants to buy, has said it planned to cut its exchange offerings next year. UnitedHealth (UNH) has also announced plans to leave most of its Obamacare exchanges. Anthem (ANTM) and Cigna (CI), which are also trying to merge, have also warned on higher costs from Affordable Care Act patients.

“While we are pleased with our overall results, in light of updated 2016 projections for our individual products and the significant structural challenges facing the public exchanges, we intend to withdraw all of our 2017 public exchange expansion plans and are undertaking a complete evaluation of future participation in our current 15-state footprint,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said in a statement. Aetna said it expected to lose more than $300 million on its Affordable Care Act plans offered this year.”

You don’t want to have . . . . . read more at Allen B. West

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Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Meet the trash talker-in-chief

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Click Here - Grab that Morning Coffee and Check Out Branco Online

ORDER HERE ORDER NOW – also autographed editions available

Read more from A.F. (Tony) Branco at this link.

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Work required for food stamp recipients

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From the Files of Rachel Sheffield - Click Here

Several states have grappled with welfare reform. A few states that have incorporated work requirements have seen encouraging outcomes that should provide a blueprint for greater welfare reform efforts nationwide.

From March to April of this year, the number of food stamp recipients decreased by 773,134. This brings food stamp enrollment down to 2011 levels and represents the biggest drop in participation since 2005.

However, food stamp participation is still far higher than it was prior to the recession, as the recently released Index of Culture and Opportunity shows. Participation is expected to remain higher than pre-recession levels for the next several years, and so is food stamp spending.

Although food stamp participation grew rapidly during the recession, it was on an upward climb before then. Policies were put into place that made it easier for people to get on the program and stay there.

Then, during the recession, the food stamp work requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents was suspended as part of President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus package.

(The work requirement limits able-bodied adults without dependents to three months of food stamp benefits in a 36-month period unless they work at least part time, participate in a work program, or do community service.)

The decline in food stamp rolls between March and April of this year follows the re-establishment of work requirements in a number of states. On January 1st, 22 states had to reinstate the federal work requirement for areas of the state or the entire state because their waivers expired.

Some states did not wait until their waiver to end, however. Instead, they took a proactive approach to ensure that able-bodied adults were encouraged toward work.

Maine, one of the most proactive states in reinstating work requirements for food stamps, saw its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents decrease by 80 percent within just a few months after re-establishing the work requirement.

Kansas has experienced similar results, seeing its caseload decline by 75 percent. Accompanying the decline in caseload has been an increase in employment and earnings for able-bodied adults without dependents.

The Foundation for Government Accountability identified that nearly 60 percent of Kansans who left the food stamp rolls following the establishment of food stamp work requirements found employment within 12 months and, “their incomes rose by an average of 127 percent per year.”

Indiana has experienced similar outcomes. Indiana reinstated work requirements in July 2015. Six months after reinstating these requirements, the state’s caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents decreased by 68 percent.

According to Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration, “Nearly 5,000 Hoosiers who were receiving benefits in July are no longer receiving assistance because they obtained gainful employment and now have an income that exceeds eligibility standards.”

The vast majority of Americans support work requirements for welfare programs. Work requirements serve as a gatekeeper to ensure that benefits go toward those most in need, and they encourage people toward self-sufficiency. Work requirements provide a balanced approach to aiding those who need assistance while also being fair to taxpayers.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of government means-tested welfare programs don’t include a work requirement. Even the work requirements that do exist in a handful of programs, including the food stamp’s work requirement, need to be strengthened.

Policymakers should look to the success of Maine and other states and move forward to promote work and self-sufficiency in the welfare system.
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The Obama politically correct Army

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Click Here to Read More from Colonel Allen B. West

While the world burns, U.S. Army Sergeant Major admits this ‘key’ problem.

At this critical time for our U.S. military, we should not be focusing on social engineering and pet political ideological agendas.

I know, the immediate retort from the progressive socialist left is that we’re winning against ISIS — how peculiar. We’re now bombing ISIS sanctuaries in Libya, if you haven’t noticed. And I’m tired of being told about ISIS no longer being in Ramadi or Fallujah — they weren’t there before we made the foolish decision to conduct a complete withdrawal of our combat ground forces.

Yet, ISIS still maintains solid bases of operations, centers of gravity, in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria. Meanwhile, ISIS has spread its cancerous barbarism to far more areas and states. So we’re not “winning” against ISIS, nor are we winning against the global Islamic jihad.

If you haven’t seen, the Taliban just claimed responsibility for an ambush of U.S. and European tourists in Afghanistan. My question is, who chooses an active combat zone for a vacay?

The world is in a chaotic and tumultuous state, and what is the U.S. Army Sergeant Major doing?

As reported by The Daily Caller, Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey has urged female non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and officers to apply for combat jobs, as there is a notable lack of females ready to fill those positions.

“Currently, we have over 100 young women across America who have volunteered to join our ranks as cavalry scouts, armor crewmen, fire support specialists and infantrymen,” Dailey, the Army’s head non-commissioned officer, said in a memo Monday, according to Army Times.

“… As young soldiers do, they will look for leadership and mentorship from their superiors. Unfortunately, we have not had a sufficient number of serving female soldiers and [non-commissioned officers] volunteer to transfer into these mentorship and leadership roles.”

For Dailey, the key problem is a lack of females in combat leadership positions. As part of the Army’s plan to integrate women into all-male combat units, the service has decided to move females into leadership positions in those units, so that they can then facilitate more junior females coming in.

The Army has approved an estimated 22 female officers for the role of second lieutenant in infantry and armor, but those officers will have to pass training first to qualify as infantry officers.

At a time when we’re witnessing the decimation of the U.S. Army, taking it down to pre-World War II levels, a key problem of the Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army is the lack of females in combat leadership positions?

I would think . . . . click here to read more
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Wild and crazy presidential nuts

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Get Your Daily Dose of Humor and Reality from Dan Youra at Utoons.com

Dan Youra is one of the outstanding conservative cartoonists in the trade today who follows in the footsteps of the great political cartoon masters, whose quotes inspire a new generation of followers.

"Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will." ~ Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist.

"Too many of today's artists regard editorial cartooning as a trade instead of a profession. They try not to be too offensive. The hell with that. We need more stirrer-uppers." ~ Bill Mauldin.

Youra was one of the first recipients of a Fulbright Scholarship and worked in Latin America. He served as an editor of Current Thought on Peace and War at the United Nations in New York.

"As long as there are politicians who continue to try and fool the voters, there is no chance of ever running out of material to work with because they create it themselves and about themselves," says Dan Youra.

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Dan is the small business owner and operator of the Youra Studios located in the State of Washington. Visit the Youra Studios at Utoons.com
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Save thousands of lives - reward organ donors

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Reward organ donors, and thousands of lives will be saved by Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe

Howard Broadman donated a kidney to a patient who needed
one now. In exchange, his grandson Quinn will receive
a kidney when he is old enough for the
transplant he will require.

Howard Broadman is a retired California judge with an active private practice as an arbitrator. He is also the grandfather of a little boy named Quinn, who was born with serious kidney problems. In time Quinn will require regular dialysis to stay alive until he's eligible for a kidney transplant.

Broadman would gladly have donated one of his own kidneys to save his grandson's life. But Quinn is still too young for a transplant — and by the time he's ready, his grandfather will be too old.

So Broadman, together with transplant surgeon Jeffrey Veale, proposed an arrangement to the UCLA Medical Center: He would donate a kidney to a patient who needs one now, in exchange for a "voucher" that Quinn can use when he needs a transplant in the future. UCLA not only agreed to the proposal, it inspired 10 other hospitals around the country to offer the same arrangement to potential kidney donors: Save a stranger's life today, so your loved one's life can be saved in the future.

Veale hopes that if Broadman's brainchild spreads, the waiting list for kidney transplants may at last begin to shrink. For years that list has been growing, and the death toll from kidney failure with it.

The numbers are heartbreaking. As of January, according to the National Kidney Foundation, nearly 101,000 Americans were waiting for a kidney transplant, and more than 3,000 patients were being added to the waiting list each month.

In 2014, approximately 17,000 kidney transplants were performed in the United States. But almost 4,800 patients died while waiting for a kidney that never came, and another 3,700 grew so sick that they were no longer eligible for a transplant.

Every day, another 13 Americans die for lack of a lifesaving kidney. Yet if just one-half of 1 percent of the nation's adults became living kidney donors, as UCLA's transplant staff points out, the US waiting list for kidneys would be eliminated 15 times over.

Most transplanted organs currently come from the bodies of people of who have recently died; in 2014, there were about 7,800 such donors, yielding 11,570 usable kidneys.

If more Americans registered as organ donors — or if the United States were to emulate Spain's "opt-out" system, which presumes that individuals consent to donate their organs at death unless they specify otherwise — thousands of additional lives could be saved each year.

But cadaveric organ donation will never be enough. "Relatively few people die in ways that leave their organs suitable for transplantation," writes Sally Satel, a physician and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (and herself the recipient of a donated kidney). And organs donated by living donors last, on average, five to 10 years longer than those transplanted from a deceased donor.

The need for more living donors has never been greater. Broadman's blessed innovation will help, by providing an incentive in the form of a kidney voucher for a family member in the future. But judging from the minuscule number of living donors in this country — only 5,500 Americans donated a kidney in 2014 — it will take more concrete incentives to get the number up.

Unfortunately, the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act makes it a crime to reward anyone with "valuable consideration" for agreeing to donate a kidney or other organ. Altruism alone is supposed to motivate organ donations.

Lawmakers feared that offering financial incentives to donors or their families would be demeaning, turning human organs into mere commodities to be bought and sold. Others have expressed concerns about the poor being exploited, relinquishing an organ not from the goodness of their hearts, but from a desperate need for cash.

Against those theoretical sensibilities is the brutal outcome of our existing organ transplant policy: More than 100,000 sufferers condemned to dialysis, agonizing waits for a kidney to become available, and thousands of preventable deaths every year.

Some people will always be motivated to donate an organ — or do any good or useful thing — for altruistic motives. Far more will be motivated by material rewards. Successful kidney transplantation requires the services of surgeons and anesthesiologists, nurses and orderlies, clerical and pharmaceutical staff.

None of them is expected to volunteer their efforts, and no one suggests it is demeaning or immoral for them to be paid. Yet federal law demands that the most crucial transplantation service of all — the donation of the organ that preserves a life — be provided out of sheer good will. Until that changes, Americans who could be saved will go on dying.

Economists have frequently argued that a liberalized market in organ transplants would rapidly increase the supply of kidneys. Medical researchers have reached similar conclusions. A study published last year in the American Journal of Transplantation calculated that if the government were to begin paying $45,000 for each donated kidney, taxpayers would end up saving $12 billion annually in public expenditures.

And for society and the economy as a whole, the study estimated, the "net benefit" from saving so many lives and reducing the need for dialysis "would be about $46 billion per year, with the benefits exceeding the costs by a factor of 3."

Incentives don't have to take the form of cash payments. Satel has proposed reimbursing organ donations with in-kind rewards, "such as a contribution to the donor's retirement fund; an income tax credit or a tuition voucher; lifetime health insurance; a contribution to a charity of the donor's choice; or loan forgiveness."

She notes that even the American Medical Association has called for testing the effect of material incentives on organ donation rates.

It may be hard for some to shake the sense that there's something repellent about paying people to give up a kidney.

The alternative is for thousands of Americans to die pointlessly each year. Isn't that more repellent?
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Approved pipeline and angry environmentalists

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Final federal approval for what is being called the “new Keystone” came from the Army Corps of Engineers on July 26—allowing the pipeline to move forward. The 1,168-mile long Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), also called the Bakken Pipeline, is comparable in length to the Keystone XL.

It will cross four states and carry 450,000 barrels of oil a day from North Dakota to a transfer terminal in Illinois where it will connect with other pipelines and be taken to refineries.

The $3.8 billion dollar project has pitted environmentalists against economic interests.

During the Keystone fight, outspoken opponent Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, said: “In America we should be focused on making sure that the oil in North Dakota, Oklahoma, and others, in Montana, that that oil is getting to market.” Now, thanks to DAPL, America’s oil will have a safer way to get “to market”—freeing up as many as 750 train cars a day to transport corn, soybeans, and grain.

However, as soon as DAPL came on the scene, they moved the marker, and environmental opposition was mounted. Bold Iowa, a group that shares a website with Kleeb’s Bold Nebraska, says it has members willing to risk arrest in “nonviolent protests.” They are also training monitors to report any environmental violations or hazards.

On August 1, nine pieces of heavy equipment—excavators and bulldozers—were set on fire at three different DAPL construction sites, causing $3 million in damage. At the time of this writing, no arrests have been made.

Additionally, protestors have gathered on the grounds of the North Dakota Capitol, calling for Governor Jack Dalrymple and legislators to put a halt to construction of the pipeline until their lawsuits are addressed.

On its “Stop the Bakken Pipeline” page, the Iowa Sierra Club posted: “A new pipeline will delay the US transition to clean and renewable energy and more fuel-efficient vehicles. The United States needs to move away from fossil fuel extractions and to energy sources that have less impact on climate change.”

The Club’s position sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton’s. When she finally came out against Keystone, she said: “We need to be transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy.” She called the pipeline “a distraction from important work we have to do on climate change.”

Opposition, however, is not as broad-based as the environmental groups had hoped for. At an April meeting of the Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition in Iowa, organizers were disappointed. Chairs were set up for 200, but only about 40 “trickled in.” In the four states the pipeline will cross, more than 90 percent, on average, of the landowners signed the voluntary easement agreements.

At its peak, the DAPL’s construction is expected to involve as many as 4000 workers in each state and will require the purchase of $200 million in American-made heavy construction and related equipment from Caterpillar, Deere, and Vermeer.

Cory Bryson, Business Agent for Laborers Local 563 reports: “We’ve been inundated with calls from all over the country from people wanting to work on this pipeline project. Mainline pipeline projects like Dakota Access provide excellent working opportunities for our members and tremendous wages. The Laborers excel at this work.” No wonder men and women want to travel to the pipeline’s locale, some workers, most without college degrees, brag about banking $2-5000 a week.

In Illinois, the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce has assembled hundreds of packets with information including restaurants, health-care facilities, RV sites, and Laundromats. Executive Director Lisa Musch reports that her office has been receiving calls for months from people looking for rental properties.

Teriann Gutierrez, owner of Buena Vista Farms, a resort-campground, and a retired plastics engineer, says: “I’ve been full since the beginning of April.” She told me the boost in population is bringing a lot of money into the community that has been hit hard with the loss of manufacturing jobs. DAPL is putting a lot of local people to work. Gutierrez is very thankful as the boom means she’ll be able to pay down debt.

“Like any major construction project, the DAPL will create, and more importantly maintain, high paying American jobs throughout the supply chain and throughout the nation,” North Dakota’s at-large Congressman Kevin Cramer said. “I’ve seen the crews that work on building the line and they take great pride in their craft. They spend money in local, usually rural, communities throughout the route.

The steel suppliers and equipment manufacturers and distributors are just a few of the links in the chain. Everybody from fry cooks to hotel owners to financers are affected. Perhaps, most importantly, in a low price crude market, the economics of moving oil by the most efficient and safe manner possible preserves jobs on the production side of the equation as well.”

While DAPL is already creating lots of jobs, it is just one of many pipeline projects in the works that could be bringing much needed economic development to other communities and high-paying jobs for American workers. Gutierrez explained that, according to the workers staying at Buena Vista Farms: “The hardest thing is getting the permits.

The long process holds up jobs.” Apparently, many of them made reservations but, then, had to delay them—and delay starting to work on the pipeline—because the permits hadn’t been approved as expected. It doesn’t have to be that way. Under President Obama, permitting for oil-and-gas activity has been slow-walked. Jobs have been held up.

Donald Trump has made clear that he’ll support pipelines and said he’ll invite TransCanada to reapply for the Keystone permit. On the other side, Clinton opposed Keystone and supports moving away from fossil fuels. Secretary of State John Kerry, Clinton’s successor, has implied that with “some 300 pipelines” we really don’t need any more. He said: “it’s not as if we’re pipeline-less.” A Clinton administration would likely extend the Obama delay tactic.

Whichever candidate wins in November will appoint agency heads who support his or her views—thus driving the policy direction.

Like Gutierrez, union members are grateful for the jobs. Last week, Dave Barnett, Pipeline Representative for the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, told me: “We are pleased that the thousands of job opportunities associated with these projects are being decided on their need and merits, not on political pressures by extremists as the Keystone XL was.”

Whether the thousands of additional job opportunities materialize depends on American voters. Will we vote for pipelines that fuel the American economy and transport our natural resources safely and cheaply?

Or, will we block job creation and economic development by voting with the environmentalists who want to “keep it in the ground?” In less than 100 days, we’ll have the answer to these important questions.

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The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy.

Marita hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy - which expands on the content of her weekly column.

Follow her @EnergyRabbit.

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Ecological double standards

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Why can locals block fracking, but not support it … get wind turbines, but
not block them? by Paul Driessen

Donald Trump recently said he supports giving local communities control over hydraulic fracturing. “If some areas don’t want” fracking, the decision should be “up to them,” he commented.

Trump supports this proven and safe technology to develop America’s enormous oil and natural gas deposits, create millions of jobs and generate billions in revenues. However, his stance on local veto power is the same as Hillary Clinton’s, though she would also try to regulate fracking into oblivion.

Their willingness to cede control over this single energy technology to thousands of communities across shale country appears to reflect common misperceptions that fracking causes earthquakes, water contamination and air pollution. As explained in articles, commentaries, reports and documentary films, there is no evidence to support these claims.

Fracking-induced earth tremors are akin to vibrations from a dump truck on your street. No groundwater contamination has ever been traced to hydraulic fracturing. Methane in tap water results from water wells improperly drilled through gas-prone rock formations and was an issue long before fracking. Air emissions are below what we find in residential neighborhoods during non-rush hours.

But anti-fossil fuel activists assiduously promote disinformation about this revolutionary technology, as part of their agenda to fundamentally transform the way we produce energy to support our livelihoods and living standards. They want to replace affordable, reliable hydrocarbons with expensive, unreliable, subsidized, crony-corporatist, environmentally damaging wind, solar and biofuel sources.

Equally important, the two candidates’ stance on local fracking vetoes represents a double standard that raises fascinating public policy questions.

What if poor communities WANT fracking? What if a state restricts or bans fracking – but some towns (like those in New York’s Southern Tier, where Marcellus Shale deposits are located) don’t believe the anti-fracking disinformation and desperately need the jobs, revenues and improved living standards they see across the border in Pennsylvania, where fracking is permitted?

Shouldn’t those communities be able to permit it, in defiance of the state ban? Will Trump and Clinton support THEIR self-determination?

Suppose those same communities don’t want any more 600-foot-tall wind turbines, but the state decrees they have no choice. The locals underscore the human health impacts, bird and bat slaughter, lost tourism and high electricity prices associated with wind power. They note that a few landowners will profit, while the rest receive no benefits, and many monstrous towers will not be removed when they stop working.

They point out that people could go to jail for possessing an eagle feather, but wind energy companies can kill thousands of eagles annually with no penalty. They note that politicians support turbines because they get hefty campaign contributions from Big Wind, in exchange for mandates, subsidies and big profits.

If those NY communities don’t want more (or any) wind turbines, shouldn’t the decision be up to them? If West Virginians want coal mining, low-cost coal-based electricity and the good jobs that these industries provide – and reject Climate Hustle assertions that carbon-based energy causes weather and climate chaos – shouldn’t the decision to continue mining and burning coal be “up to them,” too?

If they are tired of thousands of lost jobs, local families and businesses driven into bankruptcy, housing markets devastated, people forced to go on welfare, churches and charities overwhelmed by pleas for food and counseling, schools and hospitals unable to remain open – because of EPA’s War on Coal – shouldn’t their state and local communities be “given control” over their lives and destinies?

Yet another conflagration is incinerating forests, wildlife and homes, and threatening the lives of residents and firefighters west of Hamilton, Montana. Like the Waldo Canyon fire near Colorado Springs a few years ago, and countless others in between, the Roaring Lion wildfire is largely due to radical environmentalists, politicians, bureaucrats and judges refusing to allow tree thinning in national forests.

They know dry summers, high winds and beetle kills make disasters in and around these forests highly likely, but they refuse to revise their policies, and don’t seem to give one spotted owl hoot.

Shouldn’t those communities have the right to thin out trees and brush, create fire breaks and take other preventive measures, before additional homes, dreams and lives are lost to more uncontrollable infernos?

Hundreds of millions of acres have already been set aside as national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas – made off-limits to any development. Other federal lands (in states where the federal government controls 30-89% of all the acreage) contain vast amounts of oil, gas, coal, metals, timber, water, grazing and other valuable resources.

The Institute for Energy Research has calculated that US federal, state and private lands contain five times more oil than Saudi Arabia, 575 years worth of natural gas and 4,000 years of coal, at current consumption rates.

Developing just the fossil fuels on federal lands – in an environmentally sound fashion – could create millions of new jobs, increase US economic activity by $21 trillion, and generate $5.8 trillion in federal, state and local tax revenues over the next 37 years, the IER estimates.

If the majority of Americans want to develop these resources and create jobs and better futures for their children, shouldn’t that decision be up to them? Shouldn’t they be freed from the shackles of unelected, unaccountable Big Green and Big Government?

Shouldn’t decisions about responsibly developing oil, gas, coal, gold and rare earth metals be primarily up to voters at large and individual states – with guidance and assistance (but not veto power) from federal authorities – especially when the bureaucrats are in improper and illegal collusion with radical environmentalist groups?

Why should California farm families and communities be sacrificed on the altar of a fishy evolutionary failure that barely escaped extinction – while bald and golden eagles are wiped out by wind turbines?

If the majority of Americans don’t want climate change agendas jammed down their throats – including carbon taxes and restrictions, habitat-eating biofuels, wind turbines, bird-roasting solar thermal plants, and huge solar farms that smother cropland and wildlife habitats under solar panels – shouldn’t the decisions be up to them, and not just to a few greenies, politicians, bureaucrats and judges?

Why must these decisions always amount to a one-way street, a ratchet that cranks ever tighter and more restrictive – always in favor of eco-purists and fanatics?

Indeed, on a host of issues, why should small numbers of activist politicians, campaigners and judges be able to dictate our lives, livelihoods, living standards, liberties, life spans and societal norms – and asset the “right” to bend or break our laws, constitution and science to impose their will?

With our economy growing at its worst rate out of a recession since 1949, and expanding at barely 1% a year in Obama’s last year, why should every state, community, business and family have to accept the lies and edicts handed down by intolerant, dictatorial Washington, Albany or Sacramento elites?

If local control is a good thing, and it generally is, why not have it across the board, or at least on most issues? On abortion, health insurance for nuns and transgender access to bathrooms, for instance?

Why, instead, is local control almost always ignored in favor of policies that serve progressive-leftist-environmentalist-Democrat ideologies and agendas? And why isn’t our national will implemented on immigration and sanctuary cities for illegal, criminal and terrorist immigrants?

These issues dominate this year’s election. Let’s remember that when we head to the polls.

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Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
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