#ive made this post ten billion times but one of the many functions of this blog is a record of times i have been unwell

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hm. very lightheaded

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http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019/10/the-full-case-for-trump-impeachment.html?__twitter_impression=true

The (Full) Case for Impeachment

A menu of high crimes and misdemeanors.

By Jonathan Chait | Published October 14, 2019 | New York Magazine | Posted October 15, 2019 |

The crimes for which impeachment is the prescribed punishment are notoriously undefined. And that’s for a reason: Presidential powers are vast, and it’s impossible to design laws to cover every possible abuse of the office’s authority. House Democrats have calculated that an impeachment focused narrowly on the Ukraine scandal will make the strongest legal case against President Trump. But that’s not Trump’s only impeachable offense. A full accounting would include a wide array of dangerous and authoritarian acts — 82, to be precise. His violations fall into seven broad categories of potentially impeachable misconduct that should be weighed, if not by the House, then at least by history.

I. Abusing Power for Political Gain

Explanation: The single most dangerous threat to any democratic system is that the ruling party will use its governing powers to entrench itself illegitimately.

Evidence: (1) The Ukraine scandal is fundamentally about the president abusing his authority by wielding his power over foreign policy as a cudgel against his domestic opponents. The president is both implicitly and explicitly trading the U.S. government’s favor for investigations intended to create adverse publicity for Americans whom Trump wishes to discredit.  (2) During his campaign, he threatened to impose policies harmful to Amazon in retribution for critical coverage in the Washington Post. (“If I become president, oh do they have problems.”) He has since pushed the postmaster general to double rates on Amazon, and the Defense Department held up a $10 billion contract with Amazon, almost certainly at his behest. (3) He has ordered his officials to block the AT&T–Time Warner merger as punishment for CNN’s coverage of him. (4) He encouraged the NFL to blacklist Colin Kaepernick.

II. Mishandling Classified Information

Explanation: As he does with many other laws, the president enjoys broad immunity from regulations on the proper handling of classified information, allowing him to take action that would result in felony convictions for other federal employees. President Trump’s mishandling of classified information is not merely careless but a danger to national security.

Evidence: (5) Trump has habitually communicated on a smartphone highly vulnerable to foreign espionage. (6–30)  He has reversed 25 security-clearance denials (including for his son-in-law, who has conducted potentially compromising business with foreign interests). (31) He has turned Mar-a-Lago into an unsecured second White House and even once handled news of North Korea’s missile launch in public view. (32) He gave Russian officials sensitive Israeli intelligence that blew “the most valuable source of information on external plotting by [the] Islamic State,” the Wall Street Journal reported. (33) He tweeted a high-resolution satellite image of an Iranian launch site for the sake of boasting.

III. Undermining Duly Enacted Federal Law

Explanation: President Trump has abused his authority either by distorting the intent of laws passed by Congress or by flouting them. He has directly ordered subordinates to violate the law and has promised pardons in advance, enabling him and his staff to operate with impunity. In these actions, he has undermined Congress’s constitutional authority to make laws.

Evidence: (34) Having failed to secure funding authority for a border wall, President Trump unilaterally ordered funds to be moved from other budget accounts. (35) He has undermined regulations on health insurance under the Affordable Care Act preventing insurers from charging higher rates to customers with more expensive risk profiles. (36) He has abused emergency powers to impose tariffs, intended to protect the supply chain in case of war, to seize from Congress its authority to negotiate international trade agreements. (37–38) He has ordered border agents to illegally block asylum seekers from entering the country and has ordered other aides to violate eminent-domain laws and contracting procedures in building the border wall, (39–40) both times promising immunity from lawbreaking through presidential pardons.

IV. Obstruction of Congress

Explanation: The executive branch and Congress are co-equal, each intended to guard against usurpation of authority by the other. Trump has refused to acknowledge any legitimate oversight function of Congress, insisting that because Congress has political motivations, it is disqualified from it. His actions and rationale strike at the Constitution’s design of using the political ambitions of the elected branches to check one another.

Evidence: (41) Trump has refused to abide by a congressional demand to release his tax returns, despite an unambiguous law granting the House this authority. His lawyers have flouted the law on the spurious grounds that subpoenas for his tax returns “were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.” Trump’s lawyers have argued that Congress cannot investigate potentially illegal behavior by the president because the authority to do so belongs to prosecutors. In other litigation, those lawyers have argued that prosecutors cannot investigate the president. These contradictory positions support an underlying stance that no authority can investigate his misconduct. (42) He has defended his refusal to accept oversight on the grounds that members of Congress “aren’t, like, impartial people. The Democrats are trying to win 2020.” (43) The president has also declared that impeachment is illegal and should be stopped in the courts (though, unlike with his other obstructive acts, he has not yet taken any legal action toward this end).

V. Obstruction of Justice

Explanation: By virtue of his control over the federal government’s investigative apparatus, the president (along with the attorney general) is uniquely well positioned to cover up his own misconduct. Impeachment is the sole available remedy for a president who uses his powers of office to hold himself immune from legal accountability. In particular, the pardon power gives the president almost unlimited authority to obstruct investigations by providing him with a means to induce the silence of co-conspirators.

Evidence: (44–53) The Mueller report contains ten instances of President Trump engaging in obstructive acts. While none of those succeeded in stopping the probe, Trump dangled pardons and induced his co-conspirators to lie or withhold evidence from investigators. Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress that Trump had directed him to lie to it about his negotiations with the Russian government during the campaign to secure a lucrative building contract in Moscow. And when Cohen stated his willingness to lie, Robert Costello, an attorney who had worked with Rudy Giuliani, emailed Cohen assuring him he could “sleep well tonight” because he had “friends in high places.” Trump has publicly praised witnesses in the Russia investigation for refusing to cooperate, and he sent a private message to former national-security adviser Michael Flynn urging him to “stay strong.” He has reinforced this signal by repeatedly denouncing witnesses who cooperate with investigators as “flippers.” (54–61) He has exercised his pardon power for a series of Republican loyalists, sending a message that at least some of his co-conspirators have received. The president’s pardon of conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza “has to be a signal to Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and even Robert S. Mueller III: Indict people for crimes that don’t pertain to Russian collusion and this is what could happen,” Roger Stone told the Washington Post. “The special counsel has awesome powers, as you know, but the president has even more awesome powers.”

VI. Profiting From Office

Explanation: Federal employees must follow strict rules to prevent them from being influenced by any financial conflict. Conflict-of-interest rules are less clear for a sitting president because all presidential misconduct will be resolved by either reelection or impeachment. If Trump held any position in the federal government below the presidency, he would have been fired for his obvious conflicts. His violations are so gross and blatant they merit impeachment.

Evidence: (62) He has maintained a private business while holding office, (63) made decisions that influence that business, (64) and accepted payments from parties both domestic and foreign who have an interest in his policies. (65) He has openly signaled that these parties can gain his favor by doing so. (66) He has refused even to disclose his interests, which would at least make public which parties are paying him.

VII. Fomenting Violence

Explanation: One of the unspoken roles of the president is to serve as a symbolic head of state. Presidents have very wide latitude for their political rhetoric, but Trump has violated its bounds, exceeding in his viciousness the rhetoric of Andrew Johnson (who was impeached in part for the same offense).

Evidence: (67) Trump called for locking up his 2016 opponent after the election. (68–71) He has clamored for the deportation of four women of color who are congressional representatives of the opposite party. (72) He has described a wide array of domestic political opponents as treasonous, including the news media. (73–80) On at least eight occasions, he has encouraged his supporters — including members of the armed forces — to attack his political opponents. (“I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”) (81) He has threatened journalists with violence if they fail to produce positive coverage. (“If the media would write correctly and write accurately and write fairly, you’d have a lot less violence in the country.”) (82) There have been 36 criminal cases nationwide in which the defendant invoked Trump’s name in connection with violence; 29 of these cited him as the inspiration for an attack.

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<p>CANCER: METABOLIC MODEL A NON-TOXIC PATH TO SURVIVAL?</p>

0Commentby fmadmin

CANCER: METABOLIC MODEL A NON-TOXIC PATH TO UP SURVIVAL ODDS?

Posted in Cancer

If cancer has touched you or anyone you've ever cared about, this book is for you. Even if you just want to lower your chance of dread disease, it's for you.

The Definitive Approach to Cancer is groundbreaking. The book's subtitle speaks volumes: Integrating Deep Nutrition, the Ketogenic Diet, and Nontoxic Bio-Individualized Therapies.

Yes, the "k" word (ketogenic) diet is there. Yet many oncologists still consider it a swear word. And they pass that on to patients who think ketogenic signals grave threat.

Take, for example, an oncologist's answer to a patient in South Africa recently. The individual said that he had done research and wanted to go on a ketogenic diet before and during chemotherapy. He might also have said he wished to inject laetrile (discredited apricot kernel extract) to his veins.

The physician's answer was sudden and angry: "In that case, I'll cancel your chemotherapy. Along with your medical aid won't pay for future treatment," he said. That is enough to terrify the life out of any cancer patient. In the end, orthodox treatment prices can decode patients and their loved ones, despite medical aid.

The answer was an example of what experts say is "eminence-based medication". It's also the symptom of the terminally ill paternalistic model of medication. This book effectively sabotages any vestige of foundation for this model. Additionally, it undermines one of modern medicine's "most entrenched paradigms".  

Americans authors Dr Nasha Winters and Jess Higgins Kelley are powerhouse cancer mythbusters. They make their book a milestone on many different levels. Not the least of those   are their authentic voices. Both have been up-close-and-personal with the disease.

Winters is a naturopathic oncologist, a specialist in integrative medicine, a licensed acupuncturist and a cancer survivor. Her experience of dread disease made her change midstream from traditional (orthodox) medicine to be a naturopathic oncology doctor.

Winters says that she has seen "hundreds of stage IV cancer patients" who have lived far beyond their "expiration date". All because they exercised their freedom of choice to stick to an evidence-based treatment model distinct from conference.

Likewise, Kelley is an iconoclast. She's a master nutrition therapist who has practised oncology nutrition therapy for more than ten years. She has taught in the Nutrition Therapy Institute in Denver, Colorado since 2010. Kelley is also founder of the innovative.

In 2014 physicians diagnosed her father, John "Jack" Higgins, with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). GBM is the most common type of malignant brain tumour in adults. It's also the most aggressive form -- it grows fast and spreads as fast as it kills. For this reason, it has a grim prognosis -- as have other forms of the dread disease.

Higgins died in October, 2016, eight days short of his 62nd birthday. Winters and Kelley committed their book.

It is a mistake to assume that Winters and Keely are contrary to orthodox medicine. Far from it. They just don't buy into the orthodox view that cancer is a genetic disease. They also don't think it is just down to bad luck, as some researchers think.

Click here to read: Cancer: pilot's survival 'secret' takes wings

The authors draw on 30 years of collective work in the fields of naturopathy, oriental medicine, acupuncture, nutrition and integrative oncology. They also draw on one of the most exciting avenues of research: the metabolic model.  That is based on the pioneering work of German doctor Dr Otto Warburg in the 1920s.

Warburg's well-known theory is that all cancer is a disease of energy metabolism. At heart of the model is mitochondrial dysfunction. Rebooting mitochondrial function and depriving cancer of the fuel it needs to survive lie at the heart of this book.

Thus, the authors are not fans of modern medicine's "slash, poison and burn" treatment approach. They see well-documented limitations inherent in chemotherapy and radiation, even operation.

Tripping over the Truth by Travis Christofferson. The subtitle is: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer is Overturning One of Medicine's Most Entrenched Paradigms.

Christofferson calls Winters and Kelley's book a "new gem" from the universe of books on the disease. It's "a powerhouse of detailed advice about how best to prevent, manage, and treat cancer". That is because they hone in on the health of the person, "not just killing cancer cells alone".

The foreword is by Kelly Turner, PhD, a Harvard graduate. Turner is the New York Times bestselling author of now in 20 languages. It's the fruits of her extensive research into " radical remission of cancer". That is what she calls people who heal themselves without "Western medicine" or after it has failed.

Turner calls cancer "a mitochondrial disease related to a person's physiology, psychology, and ecology". Analyzing a damaged gene by itself is like "putting on your seat belt after your vehicle has crashed", she says.

Thus, Winters and Kelley remind readers that chemotherapy and radiation are carcinogenic (cancer-causing). Thus, they focus on safe, effective, evidence-based alternatives to conventional oncology's "antiquated and largely ineffective treatments". To put it differently, they mean treatments that make patients "much more likely to die earlier" and with lower quality of life.

They do not underestimate the battle confronting patients. They say that cancer is history's " most elusive, cunning, adaptable, intelligent, and innovative disease". It's also one that has "outsmarted us for a very long time". And while it isn't contagious, the disease is "unquestionably the bubonic plague of our day".

The authors dispense with the somatic mutation theory (SMT) that the disease is from "rogue" cells.  The concept is that there needs to be extensive damage over time to a cell's genetic material -- deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Once it reaches breaking point, the mobile "goes rogue from its intended purpose and becomes cancerous".

Click here to read: Cancer: Dr William Li cooks up revolutionary menu to conquer it

They say that the specialists cast SMT concept was set "in carbonite over 75 years ago" but is now outdated.Thus, they attempt to release treatment and research from "the tiny confines of this tenet".

It will not get us any closer to preventing or treating this "frightening, tragic, expensive and painful disease". Certainly, physicians are "not winning the war on cancer -- not even close", state Winters and Kelley. They say that there is a better likelihood of surviving Russian roulette now than cancer and related Western treatments.

The figures tell a grim story and not only in this publication. The World Health Organisation states that the disease is the second leading cause of death globally. Research showed that in 2015, cancer brought about 8.8million deaths. Additionally, it showed that the vast majority (70 percent) of deaths are in low- to middle-income nations. Research also shows that cancer directly affects nearly half of the US population.

Winters and Kelley dispel the enduring myth  it's a disease of aging. They point out that from the early 1980s to 1990s, the prevalence of cancer in American children under age 10 climbed by 37%.   They also point out that after injuries, cancer is the next most frequent cause of death in US children.

The authors take a sober look at why cancer research and drug development are big business. In 2014 alone, the international market for cancer drugs hit $100 billion. Cancer might be "spectacular for the economy" but has shown "both costly and deadly for the individual", they say.

That's about the issue. This publication is also strong on solutions.

The authors go over a few old scientific floor but with new eyes. They are aware that they aren't the first to declare that "cancer loves glucose" (glucose). Nor are they the first to demonstrate that uncontrolled growth defines cancer.

They build on the pioneering work of US biochemistry professor Thomas Seyfried. Seyfried, a world authority on the metabolic model of cancer, famously said that we've made cancer to "an industry". He also said that we should "not have to burn and poison patients to treat cancer. There must be a gentler way."

Winters and Kelley devote their publication to showing you the way.

They provide "logical, nontoxic, therapeutic strategies for starving cancer cells of the prime fuels" while improving overall wellness, says Seyfried. Their publication is a "valuable resource for all cancer patients and their oncologists".

They do not pretend that there is any magic bullet or single intervention to cure cancer magically. Instead, they offer insight into how the disease develops and how to stop it in its tracks.

Fighting cancer requires lifestyles and diets that are in accordance with our evolution, they say. The key is to understand "the underlying conditions" that include metabolic disorders and inflammation. These create the fertile ground (Winters and Kelley call it the "terrain")  for cancer to grow.

They expose the omnipresent threats to optimum health in modern urban lifestyles. These include the American food pyramid, overconsumption of sugar, GMO foods, modern agriculture practices, processed soy, grains and gluten, pesticides and antibiotics.

They also finger low-fat diets, vegan diets, processed foods, nutrient deficiencies, sedentary lifestyles and stress. These contribute to "imbalances in the terrain" and to the cancer process, they say.

Through epigenetics, to which they devote a chapter, the authors show the advantages of positive diet and lifestyle change. They explain how to influence gene expression and mitochondrial function through lifestyle, diet and even thoughts.

"That is strong medicine," they state.

The metabolic model means optimising the body's healing mechanisms rather than waging war on them.   It involves "treating the terrain, not the tumour". The version is also about building the body up, not assaulting it.That involves a diet that provides adequate amounts of macro- and micronutrients, minerals and vitamins. Additionally, it means giving the body enough exercise, sleep, fresh water, sun, love, and attention.

Do that and enjoy a healthy garden, your body will flourish, they say. Feed it anti-nutrients and compounds, insufficient sunshine and expose it to excessive stress, and your body will wither.

Winters and Kelley empower patients and restore their right to be actively engaged in their own health and treatment. At heart, this book is about creating modern medicine what it should be: healthy collaboration between doctor and patient.

The authors invite you on a neverending journey. It's one that points the way to living with, rather than dying from, cancer.

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