Free Republic

The past three years have not been easy for the political fortunes or the emotional health of America’s Democrats. To the extent they feel optimistic about anything, they have been waiting for the 2020 election in the way inhabitants of a storm-ravaged city might look toward the end of hurricane season — as an opportunity to restore order not just to their fractured physical world, but to their battered psyches. Why, then, even with the potential catharsis of impeachment proceedings against President Trump now underway, do so many feel so awful? ~snip

A Silicon Valley startup has completed what appears to be the first commercial freight cross-country trip by an autonomous truck, which finished a 2,800-mile-run from Tulare, California to Quakertown, Pennsylvania for Land O’Lakes in under three days. The trip was smooth like butter, 40,000 pounds of it. Plus.ai, a 3-year-old company in Cupertino, announced the milestone Tuesday. A safety driver was aboard the autonomous semi, ready to take the wheel if needed, along with a safety engineer who observed how things were going. “We wanted to demonstrate the safety, reliability and maturity of our overall system,” said Shawn Kerrigan, co-founder...

In Campaign To Stop Teen Vaping, States Turn To Tried-And-True Remedy: TaxesCarmen Heredia Rodriguez, Kaiser Health NewsKathleen Hambleton once used to spend $100 a week on Marlboro Reds.The 43-year-old nurse from Saxtons River, Vt., paid a high price for her addiction to smoking, undergoing multiple throat surgeries. The financial hit was also a big burden.After lozenges, patches and hypnosis failed to help Hambleton quit, she tried vaping. She is convinced she is healthier now and spends less than $40 per month on her vaping supplies.But Vermont recently passed a 92% wholesale tax on vaping and e-cigarette products. Hambleton believes the...

When it comes to “going on a diet”, there are many well-trodden approaches. The traditional one, usually advocated by official policy makers, is to eat less and move more. This advice is based on the first law of thermodynamics, a law that applies beautifully to internal combustion engines. Not so much human metabolism. Nevertheless, the simplicity of this theory is so intuitively appealing that it has endured, and continues to endure, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It assumes that obesity is a disorder of energy imbalance: when calories-in exceed calories-out, there is an energy surplus that the body...

In the face of mounting investigations, subpoenas and lawsuits, Juul Labs has insisted that it never marketed or knowingly sold its trendy e-cigarettes and flavored nicotine pods to teenagers. ~snip The Juul, which looked unlike any other e-cigarette and delivered a far more powerful nicotine punch, ~snip

More than one in four high school students in the U.S. use e-cigarettes, as teen vaping rates surged to yet another record despite efforts to control the epidemic, according to new federal data. Among high school students, 27.5% reported using an e-cigarette in the previous 30 days, up from 20.8% in 2018, according to preliminary results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual National Youth Tobacco Survey. Fruit, menthol and mint flavors were by far the most popular flavors, with more than 60% of teens who vaped saying they used them. The rapid rise in teen e-cigarette use...

https://ethics.house.gov/publication/code-official-conduct 18. (a) A Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House who works under the supervision of the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, or who is an employee of a committee on which the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner serves. This paragraph does not apply with respect to any relationship between two people who are married to each other

The link between vaping and severe lung problems is getting a lot of attention. But scientists say they're also worried about vaping's effect on teenage brains. "Unfortunately, the brain problems and challenges may be things that we see later on down the road," says Nii Addy, associate professor of psychiatry and cellular and molecular physiology at Yale School of Medicine. Potential problems include attention disorders like ADHD, impulse control issues and susceptibility to substance abuse. There's no easy way to study precisely what nicotine is doing in a teenager's brain. But research on young animals shows that nicotine can interfere...

WASHINGTON - The owner of the Red Hen, the bistro in Lexington, Virginia, that drew global attention last year after asking then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders to leave, this week said she might do the same thing again if Sanders returned. ~snip

For decades, WBAI-FM has remained a proudly scrappy alternative in New York’s radio market, a bastion of left-wing political commentary and community voices rarely heard elsewhere on the dial. That identity was cast into doubt on Monday... ~snip. click on link.

uul Labs has agreed to stop advertising its popular e-cigarettes in the United States and announced that its chief executive officer is stepping down as state and federal regulators examine hundreds of cases of people who are sick from what appears to be a vaping-related lung disease. The company also said in a Wednesday statement that it will not push back on a Trump administration plan to pull flavored e-cigarettes from the market until the controversial products win approval from federal regulators. In the statement, Juul officials said the company will be "refraining from lobbying the administration on its draft...

After the number of vaping-related illnesses jumped to at least 450 cases in 33 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned people Friday about using e-cigarettes, especially those bought off the street. The CDC is currently investigating the spate of vaping-related illnesses that have popped up across the country in recent weeks. "While this investigation is ongoing, people should consider not using e-cigarette products. People who do use e-cigarette products should monitor themselves for symptoms," the CDC wrote in a news release. ~snip

The Real Dangers of Vaping Are Only Now Beginning to Be Understood Nicotine toxicity, formaldehyde, and a whole host of new carcinogens. Yes, vaping is bad for you. Perhaps, experts are starting to think, worse than cigarettes. Let’s start with some good news: Fewer teenagers are smoking than ever before. According to a January 2019 report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the number of teens who smoke cigarettes daily has dropped 88 percent since the mid-1990s. But, as we all know from the cloudy corners on the outskirts of high schools, more teens are flirting with the dangers...

Nearly three dozen journalists at a broad range of major publications have been targeted by a far-right group that maintains a Deep Web database listing the personal information of people who threaten their views. This group specializes in encouraging others to harass those targeted by their ire, and has claimed responsibility for dozens of bomb threats and “swatting” incidents, where police are tricked into visiting potentially deadly force on the target’s address. At issue is a site called the “Doxbin,” which hosts the names, addresses, phone number and often known IP addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other...

Listen to the audio in link...NPR's Robin Young calls Trump supporters Brownshirts

With his latest round of attacks on four first-year members of Congress who are women of color, President Trump has once again touched the raw nerve of racism in American life. He has also tapped into one of the oldest strains in our politics — the fear and vilification of immigrants and their descendants. Although three of the four women were born in the United States, the president said they should all "go back" where they came from. That phrase has echoed down generations of nativist discourse as successive waves of newcomers have been targeted by individuals, groups and even...

There's a scene in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things where the skeptical police chief, Chief Jim Hopper, is at his desk chomping on an apple. He listens to a theory that a local teen may have been kidnapped by Russian spies. Fed up, he spits out the fruit, sticks a cigarette in his mouth and lights up. But Netflix has now pledged to cut down on moments like this: The streaming content giant announced Wednesday that it will stub out depictions of smoking across all of its original shows aimed at younger viewers. The announcement comes on the heels...