Dr. Ben Fears for His Life From Militant Liberals

Ben Carson. (photo: Scott Morgan/WP)

By Cenk Uygur, Informed Comment

02 November 15

readersupportednews.org

 

en Carson has asked for Secret Service protection. He believes secular progressive hoards are coming to destroy him. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down.

“When asked on Thursday about his campaign’s request for Secret Service protection, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said that he is in danger because progressives see him as an “existential threat.”

During a radio interview on WABC, host Rita Cosby noted that the Carson campaign hadrequested a Secret Service detail and asked Carson about the threats he has received.

“I’d prefer not to talk about security issues but I have recognized — and people have been telling me for many many months — that I’m in great danger because I challenge the secular progressive movement to the very core,” Carson said in response, according to audio posted byBuzzfeed News.”

Comments

+6 # Barbara K 2015-11-03 13:24

If these paranoid kooks think they are in danger, let them hire and pay for their own security. We shouldn't have to foot the bill for their paranoia and delusions. There has never been an instance where they were in any danger from Dems. However, there are a lot of Rs burning down churches and Planned Parenthood places, etc. Maybe we are the ones who need protection from kooks like these.

0 # Barbara K 2015-11-03 13:32

See this important info about this kook:

http://samuel-warde.com/2015/10/ben-carsons-deadly-lies-put-profits-over-people/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SamuelWarde+%28Samuel+Wynn+Warde%29

+81 # RMDC 2015-11-02 16:14

I think Trump has also asked for secret service protection. This is just more delusional thinking from the two reality show stars now leading the republican pack. They think they are now important so the taxpayers must protect them. this is ego run wild. No one would waste a perfectly good bullet on these two clowns. TV reality has gone to thier heads.

+15 # RnR 2015-11-02 19:02

No, Trump called out GWB on 9/11 for negligence.

+38 # JJS 2015-11-02 18:18

Where does he get this stuff?
Fox News, specifically Bill O'Reilly, of course!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_Warrior
"Culture Warrior is a book by Fox News Channel political commentator Bill O'Reilly, published in the fall of 2006. O'Reilly asserts that the United States is in the midst of a "culture war" between "traditionalist s" and "secular-progre ssives".

+61 # edwin_ 2015-11-02 18:29

If you notice that he talks with his eyes closed & is way too mellowed-out, he is obviously on some kind of meds and they make him paranoid

+51 # Dongi 2015-11-02 19:11

What's wrong with his eyes? Looks like he is seeing something on the floor. Where's his evidence for all these plots against him? Another republican candidate over the deep end. Too f*cking bad. Go Bernie, go.

+62 # JJS 2015-11-02 19:17

If only he was armed, conceal-carry, then he would be able to "take care" of those secular-progres sives himself without burdening the taxpayers with Secret Service entitlements.

+50 # guomashi 2015-11-02 23:15

Carson is an obvious psychopath.  Carson is now leading in at least one national poll.  The only possible conclusion is that the republican party is psychopathic.  There should never again be any talk of 'bipartisan'.

+32 # Jim Rocket 2015-11-03 01:01

Carson did say that he thought Obama was a psychopath - as he looked into his lunch. I wonder if that's more right-wing projection or if he has something totally different wrong with him. He's a very strange man.

+20 # Texas Aggie 2015-11-02 23:38

He is in as much danger as Caribou Barbie was. Both of them are such total jerks that the people that they have to fear are the ones who they unconsciously are parodying, not the ones who benefit from their comic value.

+23 # kitster 2015-11-02 23:50

what? why would we want to harm the goose that is about to lay the golden egg? with dr. ben leading in the pachy polls...the idiot savant surgeon, brilliant about the brain but bonkers about everything else...a progressive win for president is a slam dunk. nobody in their right mind...and who in redstateland resembles that reference...wou ld cast their vote for that kook? please, oh please...let him soft-gobbledego ok his way to a g.o.p. gigging that's 100% guaranteed.

+44 # angelfish 2015-11-03 00:00

"Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep, it starts when you're always afraid, step outta line, the man comes and takes you away. ...". Ben Carson better take care lest those nice young men in their clean, white coats come and carry him off for a Psychiatric evaluation! To me it's an indication of just HOW unfit for public office he REALLY is. You can't tell me he isn't Schizo-Affectiv e or some other DSM-III Diagnosis. He has NO discernible affect or emotion. He is TOTALLY flat and speaks in a monotone. Visit a Psych Ward somewhere and you'll get my drift....BONKER S!

+23 # Farafalla 2015-11-03 00:52

I agree. Carson is totally mentally whack. I like the references to two of my fave songs.

+21 # m... 2015-11-03 00:20

I'm hoping that we will all get to witness Carson's extraordinary talent as a brain surgeon and the great strides that have been made in the field of neuroscience by operating on himself (behind Progressive-Pro of Glass if necessary) during the next Clown Debate, so as to clearly demonstrate that he is indeed a man of action while all the others just stand around moving their lips, waving their hands and bulging their eyes.

+43 # Polfrosch 2015-11-03 00:59

Great. If this man becomes president, guess what he thinks Putin and Xi Jinping want to do to him. Or Jeremy Corbyn and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Or muslims and atheists. Or The Joker and Mr. Freeze. Or bacteria and the fluoride communists poured into our water supplies to harm our precious bodily fluids.
And all that seperates him from the red button is the CIA, fearing the world hegemony plans of all of the above.

My dear Americans, could you please all vote for Bernie Sanders and make shure Mr. Carson get´s his proper medication?

+57 # NAVYVET 2015-11-03 02:56

We can't take chances on someone whose public views are obviously delusional. Some are plummeting into the abyss and could take millions with them if they gained power. They cry out for (a) satire, or (b) a diagnosis of serious paranoia. Or both. Dr Carson, alas, is one of those. Trump is probably more cynical and opportunistic than psycho, but Huckabee is even more of a candidate for a shrink than Carson. None of the current GOP candidates seems sane enough to elect even as dogcatcher. Too many paranoids now sit on school boards--and look at the results!

There is no doubt that the mentally weird have produced many wonderful works of art and scholarship. I think of Vincent Van Gogh, Richard Dadd, Ezra Pound, and Dr William Minor, a physician but also a psychotic murderer who, from prison, almost singlehandedly created the etymologies in the massive Oxford English Dictionary. I admire all of them for their creations. But they worked in the humanities, which allows and even encourages eccentricity, and thank God only one of them, Pound, got mixed up in the egomaniac Fascist politics paranoids tend to embrace. We saw the results when a resentful failed artist, Hitler--who had dreamt of being a famous oil painter--gained political power! His delusions cost the world millions of lives. Add the paranoics Genghiz Khan, Tamerlane, Stalin, Idi Amin and Pol Pot, and we have very good reason to shun and denounce those asking for positions of political leadership who spout insanity.

+4 # kalpal 2015-11-03 10:57

Do you find Uncle Ben Carson to be a credible candidate for anything other than president of the funny farm?

+15 # RCW 2015-11-03 01:16

+21 # John Puma 2015-11-03 01:18

Mr Carson would more correctly fear for his life due to the near-perfect vacuum that exists between his ears.

+19 # Dongi 2015-11-03 04:16

Carson says he challenges the secular progressive movement to the core, that's why we are after him. The guy is delusional that's for sure. I think we could find a place for him in DSM IV or the handbook that almost all psychologists and psychiatrists use. Having this creep as President is the stuff of all nightmares. And, he leads the Republican candidates????? ????

+21 # jcdav 2015-11-03 06:02

Oddly enough I cannot recall a single life taken by a crazed liberal, ever....more publicity circus and ego enhancement from the clown car crowd.

+14 # Sweet Pea 2015-11-03 07:09

Ben Carson is being put on the parade of candidates for the Republican party simply because they think that having a candidate with darker skin will gain support for the Republicans by the black community. Do these Republicans really think that the black community would be dumb enough to vote for a person simply because of the color of their skin? This is an insult!

+12 # revhen 2015-11-03 07:39

Carson et al: A textbook example of paranoia and psychotic projection. I fear these nuts more than ISIS.

+17 # Desiderata 2015-11-03 07:41

One should not lose one's sense of humour because REALLY this is the comedy of the year in the making. I think they should throw Sarah Palin back in just to mix it up a bit.

As for Carson what the hell is he on and can I have some.

+9 # Dongi 2015-11-03 08:23

Throwing Sarah Palin back in etc is a stroke of comic genius. Good job, Desiderata.

+7 # Kootenay Coyote 2015-11-03 09:21

Isn't that the lady who last week said the US should send Latin illegals 'overseas to Mexico'?

+12 # progressiveguy 2015-11-03 08:20

I believe that what Carson fears most is that he might be elected president. He knows that he is totally unprepared to be president but he (and most of the other candidates) are really running to be picked as the vice presidents running mate. Most of these candidates wouldn't even make a decent vice president either. This situation would be funny if the election was for a less important office but the harm that could be done by one of these clowns if elected president is cause for great concern. It is certainly sad that a great candidate (Bernie sanders) doesn't have a better chance of winning. One can only hope that the American people will wise up before its too late and vote for Bernie all across this country.

+9 # Kootenay Coyote 2015-11-03 09:22

Conservative barking-mad paranoiac psychosis. Carson’s got more to fear from white cops….

+7 # rhgreen 2015-11-03 09:31

Let me tell you about fear. It's in those of us who live on the north side of the U.S. north border. If either Trump or Carson are elected (maybe any Republican for that matter) then you'll have a Canadian-built fence on the border faster than you can say "wingnut". Anyway, as a former Canadian Immigration Minister has pointed out, most of the illegal traffic across that border has been South to North. Americans tend to be ignorant of reality. Did you hear the one (this is true) about the black guy from Winnipeg (probably a pro football player in the Canadian league) who drove down to Mississippi in his fancy sports car to visit family and was stopped by a cop for "driving while black". He heard the cop on his radio saying "I've got a n----r here driving a fancy car with [hesitation] Man-I-tow-BA plates". The guy put it in the Winnipeg newspaper when he got home.

+9 # jazzman633 2015-11-03 10:11

I suggest the good doctor wrap his head in aluminum foil. That should quiet all those disturbing voices and block off any further death threats from "progressive secularists".

Benghazi investigations cost taxpayers $4.7 million

  GEORGE TEMPLETON  

         COMMENTARY        

By George Templeton
Gazette Columnist

Data Wizards 

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was not to look behind the curtain, but like Alice in Wonderland, she became “curiouser and curiouser” as she opened the telescope and looked backwards, down at her seemingly receding feet.  That is what happens when you look through the wrong end of the telescope, when your world view insists that up is down.

Benghazi

I watched the eight hour Benghazi fact finding hearing recently.  There, Republican Chairman Trey Gowdy could be found hiding behind the curtain of an alleged “all the truth and nothing but the truth, a final definitive accounting” which he stated was “my perspective”.  We were invited to entertain conspiracies that were “within the realm of possibility”, but the fact is that we live in an unavoidably uncertain world.  The improbable can occur, and by definition it is not foreseen.

If the proceeding had anything to do with improving the security of our overseas embassies it would have invited specialists who could address the situation at every location.  Funding for improvements would have been discussed and planned for.  Trey informed us that the hearing was not a prosecution, but you would think otherwise if you counted the number of lawyer congressmen present and the blaming tone of the proceeding.  Trey’s angry outburst exclaiming “Just wait until the next round”, I’ll get you then, was not about inquiring.  It came from his wounded competitive pride.  It was not about fairness, promoting harmony, or statesmanship, putting the good of the American people above self-interest.  It was about leading questions, “Isn’t it true that …”, and creating distrust. 

Fox News had already run more than 1000 segments on Benghazi and there had been eight previous investigations.  More time and money was wasted by tax payer funded political theater.  It cost us 4.7 million dollars.

Big Data

Trey Gowdy’s final assessment suggested that his “more” could be measured, counted, and added up to create a statistical labyrinth of truth.  Statistics is about the collective, but only the individuals are real.  They are described by the distribution of the data.  They are free to do as they choose.

The digital world and big data is our latest rage, but the world is more than numbers.  Numbers confuse fact with subjective reality.  Things that are qualitative and complex are mapped into the quantitative and easy, but numerical data cannot begin to capture the many facets of real situations.  Will surveying millions of people, “just like you”, lead to understanding and helping you?  They say that data can change your world, but will it do it in ways that you want?  We must remember that data collection requires categories, forms, and rules, and that officials with a mind-set and world-view will do their design.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified meat as carcinogenic, like cigarettes.  It combined eight-hundred studies to argue that “probably?” red and processed meat (how much, how often, prepared how?) increased the chances of colon cancer by eighteen percent (above what?) in some people, somewhere.  The study was a sample and as a consequence that eighteen percent has a tolerance, a confidence interval that was not reported.  At least the WHO did not plagiarize research like the intelligently designing creationists do when they reinterpret findings.  What about combining data, sensitivity to initial conditions, evolutionary behaviors, the branching tree of reality,  hidden and interacting variables, and uncontrolled parameters?

Business wants to be your friend and will give you “points”.  It will help you without your even asking.

Claims have been made that the fountain of youth and cures for chronic diseases that take a lifetime to develop have been found by simply surveying available world-wide data at a moment in time.  Studies justify this, claiming that they are “almost statistically significant”.  Findings are “linked together”, implying “relationships” while disregarding mathematics and doubt about “more of the same”.

It has been claimed that we should believe contradictory studies.  The easiest solution to this quandary is to disregard all of them until a consensus of opinion between experts develops.  A better solution requires learning a few things about data, probability, statistics, science, and experimental design.  The public school system has been deficient in this regard, but leadership industries have found it necessary, developed complete curriculum, and successfully taught such things to selected high school graduates. 

We must realize that the man behind the curtain is he who controls the computer that he uses to micromanage.  His flaw is that he does not have the courage to admit that he does not understand.  That makes it impossible to learn.

In March of last year I wrote about Nelson Goodman, categories, and self-referential ambiguity.  Ever increasing complexity and a growing numbers of categories can become a “now you see it, now you don’t” shell game used to deceive and rob the poor and obscure.  Science believes that quantification is an important thing for understanding.  But Nelson Goodman creeps into that.  Things cannot be measured without a precise definition of what is and what is not an instance of them.

When the immeasurable is quantified and computerized, it becomes “garbage in, garbage out”.  For example, if you take a pill, you must have the problem it was taken for.  The illness is the pill.  That’s the easy way to see it.  An assisted living facility will charge you for it even if the pill controls things; there has been no instance of it, no action taken, and no future plan.  It is self-referential and circular because if you stop taking the pill, by definition that makes you well.  The pill is no longer needed, but what was responsible for the pill in the first place could reoccur.  Worse yet, every pill you take can be double counted, once for their administration and again for their implied crisis.  Conveniently, this can be managed by executives who are thousands of miles away from families and caregivers.

Attaching a number to things does not just measure them.  It changes them.  When corporate rates numerical points (0.01 out of 2000) they imply authority and precision that does not exist.  That number simplifies, overlooks, and forever more becomes part of your assessment.  So, because a number and an expense will be attached to your condition, you might abandon a medication that works.

You have been taking that pill for 15 years, so long ago that you don’t remember what started it in the first place.  If it’s working, the doctors continue it, and so it becomes an ambiguity, a self-referential justification for continuing the prescription.  The assisted living center will charge you more and report it to government surveys indicting that you have a lifestyle interrupting problem even though it does not exist.

The truth is rarely simple and complete.  It is not served by top-down corporate or government power and control.  Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that goes into statistics where subjectivity and incompleteness is ignored.

Some things cannot be put in words because doing so is only an approximation.  There is such a thing as seeing without vision and gut feeling.  They are important.  But seeing is not just with the eyes.  Biologically, we all have a blind spot, and the mind fills in for that flaw.  There is such a thing as human reality and the metaphor that means different things to people in different situations.  But the man behind the curtain will not have it that way.  He will not embrace the unavoidable uncertainty that we have to learn to live with.

Understanding Data

According to Fox News, the facts do not support man-caused global warming.  They are only computer simulations that should be ignored, but shapes matter.  Bends in a response curve reveal time constants and energy movement.  The sharpness of those changes reveals whether the measured behaviors are simple or the result of many coupled things.  It is forensic evidence, a signature that goes beyond the magnitude of temperature rise and the difference in slope between Centigrade and Fahrenheit degrees.

The bell curve is another shape that has impacted nearly everyone’s life.  We were graded by it.  It is the signature of probability, expected value, Las Vegas profits, and a random variable.  What we have to consider is that all statistics is an abstraction.  The only thing that is real is the data.  Correlation is not causation.  Scientists should be respected because data, measurement, and statistics are central to their work.  They live with the problems of measurement and data every day.

The computer has made it possible to acquire and generate massive amounts of data.  Those of us who worked within this situation recognize that a large portion of their job was to destroy data.  It was necessary to survive.  What we wanted was meaning.  In science and math there are only a few simple but powerful ideas that apply to myriad situations.  What we look for is the courage and insight of those providing mountains of data to interpret it.  But that is only the first step.

A simplification is to fit a mathematical curve, line, or “fit” to the data.  Then, all we have to do is consider the curve, how good the fit is, and whether it could have happened by chance or if there could be something that is partly responsible for it.  Although these measures exist they are not communicated to the public because “the layman would not understand” or maybe because the author has a hidden objective.

The problem is that all the data points may not fall perfectly on the line.  If we make the equation, the “fitting function”, more complex with lots of variables, we can make our curve go perfectly through every data point, but things become extremely complicated, confounding our original intent that was to simplify so we could see.

The simple straight line is the thing that high school graduates need to understand most of all.  Fitting functions are an example of art work that can also use curved lines and equations such as those that are quadratic or cubic, but they are more likely to become wild and unstable.

In mathematics there can be any number of dimensions.  Each variable used in a big data model adds another dimension.  We can see up to three with difficulty.  More than that improves the fit, but destroys simplification and our ability to see and to undertake the follow-on work that is necessary to understand what is going on.

The Clinton Inquisition

So, what does all this have to do with the Benghazi hearings?  They were for the man behind the curtain who was growing “curiouser and curiouser” thinking that he might be able to discover, to fabricate a connection that would hurt his opponent.

There is a moral imperative to this, but it is not the touchy, feely, personal morality of the Seven Deadly Sins.  It is a mean spirited morality, about expediency, duty, and pragmatism that emphasizes winning above policies that care about people.  This is the human reality that we must weigh and decide.

Bernie Sanders: Let States Make Marijuana Legal

Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: berniesanders.com)

By Press Release, BernieSanders.com

29 October 15
readersupportednews.org

 
iting a recent FBI report that someone in the United States is arrested every minute on marijuana charges, Sen. Bernie Sanders told a nationwide meeting of college students on Wednesday that he would take marijuana off the federal government’s list of outlawed drugs.

Speaking from George Mason University to 250 online student meetings in all 50 states, Sanders said he favors removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances regulated by federal law.

“In the United States we have 2.2 million people in jail today, more than any other country. And we’re spending about $80 billion a year to lock people up. We need major changes in our criminal justice system – including changes in drug laws,” Sanders said.

“Too many Americans have seen their lives destroyed because they have criminal records as a result of marijuana use. That’s wrong. That has got to change,” he added. Under the senator’s proposal, people in states which legalize marijuana no longer would be subject to federal prosecution for using pot. Owners of stores that sell marijuana could fully participate in the banking system, like any other business.

States which want to regulate marijuana would remain free to do so the same way local laws now govern sales of alcohol and tobacco. Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, would continue to allow federal law enforcement officials to arrest and prosecute drug dealers for trafficking in marijuana sales.

Highlighting the proposal as part of a criminal justice reform agenda, Sanders noted that there were 620,000 marijuana possession arrests in 2014. That’s one a minute, according to The Washington Post.

Sanders pointed to marijuana arrests as another example of the disparate treatment of African-Americans by the criminal justice system. Although about the same proportion of blacks and whites use marijuana, a black person is almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, the American Civil Liberties Union found. According to the ACLU report, there were more than 8 million marijuana arrests in the United States from 2001 to 2010, and almost 9 in 10 were for possession. State governments spent $3.6 billion enforcing marijuana possession laws in 2010, the most recent year in the study.

Arrests for marijuana possession rose nationwide last year even as Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the use of marijuana, followed by Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia. The legalization movement may spread next year when marijuana decriminalization advocates plan to put the question to voters on ballots in Nevada, Arizona and California.

A 2012 estimate calculated that about 20,000-30,000 people are in prison on marijuana possession alone.

 

Comments

+2 # reiverpacific 2015-10-29 09:41

Does that include the united States of Pacifica bloc; Washington, Oregon and California (It's only legal for prescription medical use in Hawaii)?
Have those imprisoned for Cannabis possession in such states been released?

+8 # jimmyjames 2015-10-29 10:53

Hallelujah! Bernie should garner a shitload of votes for his stance on marijuana. And it's about time somebody with some real sense made this commitment.

+8 # MsAnnaNOLA 2015-10-29 10:54

We should have full legalization with no constraints or criminal penalties. Let people grow and use it as they wish.

0 # MidwestTom 2015-10-29 13:19

You do not understand the devastation this will cause south of our border; imagine gangs with no money, gun dealers with no customers. How can we possibly do this and destroy 2/3 of the export market for many Central American countries.

0 # Robbee 2015-10-29 11:03

# reiverpacific 2015-10-29 09:41 "Have those imprisoned for Cannabis possession in such states been released?"

- i hear obama is working on this, in all states

+5 # reiverpacific 2015-10-29 11:19

Quoting Robbee:

# reiverpacific 2015-10-29 09:41 "Have those imprisoned for Cannabis possession in such states been released?"

- i hear obama is working on this, in all states

Thanks. That should relieve the load on many "correctional" warehouses, a.k.a. "Universities of Crime".
Now let's get behind Bernie's wish to close private prisons.

 

+4 # Dongi 2015-10-29 11:53

It's about time to decriminalize marijuana and end private prisons. Time to start thinking and end the tenure of Republican politicians. Come on Bernie, you can do it.

-1 # MidwestTom 2015-10-29 13:16

Marijuana is just one of many questions that should be left up to the states. I would suggest that polygamy as a states issue, also gun ownership, and educational standards.

+1 # dbrize 2015-10-29 13:20

Bernie for the Tenth Amendment.

Now, that is going to pull in some crossover votes.

Sanders Rejects Donation from Big Pharma’s Martin Shkreli—Gives it to a Health Clinic Instead

Big Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli pledged his support and donated to Bernie Sanders last week. So how did Bernie respond? By taking the money and giving it to a health clinic in Washington.

Published: October 17, 2015 | Authors: Elizabeth Miller | NationofChange | News Report 

Remember Martin Shkreli? In case you don’t, Shkreli, CEO of Turking Pharmaceuticals, is the man that raised the price of a drug last month by 4,000 percent—from $13.50 to $750 per pill. The drug, Daraprim, is the only treatment of a rare parasitic infection.

It turns out Shkreli is a supporter of Bernie Sanders. If you think this is odd, you are not alone. Sanders has long been a proponent of lowering prices for prescription drugs, even proposing to let people import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, and calling for Medicare to lower drug prices. But Shkreli doesn’t like Hillary Clinton, claimining: “I don’t think she really stands for anything. At least Bernie’s passionate and really kind of provocative.”

Shkreli tweeted his support for Sanders live during this week’s Democratic National Debate and has been trying to get a meeting with the Vermont Senator for weeks. He was been repeatedly turned away though, resulting in him making a $2,700 donation in an effort to get Sanders’ attention. On Thursday, Michael Briggs, campaign spokesman for Bernie Sanders, announced that “We are not keeping the money from this poster boy for drug company greed,” but will instead make a $2,700 donation to Whitman-Walker health clinic in Washington.

Although Shrekli supports Sanders call for free public college and mental health care, he doesn’t agree with his stance on drug prices. He claims that he donated in an effort to get a meeting with Sanders in order to explain why drug companies set the prices the way that they do.

Now that Sanders has both refused a meeting and donated his money elsewhere, Shrekli is angry: “I think it’s cheap to use one person’s action as a platform without kind of talking to that person,” Shkreli said in the interview. “He’ll take my money, but he won’t engage with me for five minutes to understand this issue better.”

He isn’t worried about the laws changing any time soon though: “Right now the rule of law in the United States is that drug companies can price their products wherever they see fit, not wherever he sees fit,” Shkreli said. “If the rule changes by congressional vote, then you know, I’ll adapt to the rules.”

Shkreli also tweeted about his donation during the Democratic National Debate on Tuesday, along with the claim that soaring drug prices are what pays for research and development on drugs for the future.

So what do you think? Did Bernie make the right move? Do you agree with Shkreli that it is okay to raise the price of a drug by 4,000 percent to make up for paying for research and development?

Study: 7 in 10 Americans believe in solid evidence of global warming

By TY SCHOLES
Cronkite News 

PHOENIX – Severe drought affecting many parts of the nation is convincing skeptics of global warming to reconsider their position on the matter.

For the first time since 2008, 7 out of 10 Americans indicate that there is solid evidence of global warming, according to a report from the National Surveys on Energy and Environment. This is a 10 percent increase from last fall and just behind the record 72 percent in 2008. More than 60 percent of those who believe global warming evidence cite severe drought as having a “very large effect” on their stance.

Dr. Nancy Selover, the state climatologist for Arizona, said there is good science supporting the public’s belief in global warming, “We’re seeing warming in different areas and in some cases we’re not necessarily seeing evidence of extreme events, but continuously warmer temperatures,” she said, adding that drought is not a good indicator of global warming.

“We have cycles of drought that come and go. In the 20th century, we had a 37-year wet period that followed an extremely short dry 10 years,” said Selover, “… and now we’re in a 21-year dry period.”

Regardless of whether drought is proof of climate change, environmentalists are encouraged by the study’s finding of increased acceptance of global warming.

“The misinformation that came out confused some people for a bit, but eventually people figured it out. A lot of that is due to good scientists getting that information out,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter.

“It’s hard to get action if people don’t think there is a problem. No matter what the problem is, you have to acknowledge that there is one. Then, the next step is to figure out the kinds of actions that we can take to address it,” said Bahr.
The report also found:

• 56 percent of Republicans believe there is solid evidence of global warming, up 9 percent from 2014. 79 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Independents believe in warming.
• Of those who believe in global warming, a record 65 percent say they are “very confident” in their belief.
• Of those doubtful of global warming, a record 34 percent say local weather observation has “no effect” on their views. In previous surveys, “large majorities of Americans who do not believe there is evidence of global warming have pointed to local weather observations as the basis for their position.”

Larky Hodges, who speaks to groups about climate change, related the issue to the tobacco industry. 

“You know how long it took people to understand that cigarettes cause cancer. And you know that was all a misinformation campaign. It’s the exact same problem,” said the Ahwatukee resident.

Hodges said the issue should transcend political affiliations.

"If you see a flood coming down the road, you're going to be sandbagging with all of your neighbors whether they're Democrats or Republicans," she said.  "We should all be in this together and people just have to look past the partisan politics and say what's best for me and my children."