I used to like watching the news. Then, Michael Jackson died and cable news became all Michael Jackson all the time. It appeared the endless tributes, speculation, and life long retrospectives were finally coming to an end. I could finally count on news regarding politics and economics again. Then, today, we had the shocking announcement that Sarah Palin would not only not run for a second term, but that she a href=”http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/03/palins-resignation-stirs-debate-political-future/”would resign. /abr /br /blockquoteSarah’s Palin’s decision to quit as Alaska’s governor at the end of the month left political observers scratching their heads and wondering, is this the beginning of Palin’s run for the the White House or the end of her political career?br //blockquotebr /That snippet is a microcosm of what the news: print, television, radio, and internet will be filled with for the immediate future. We all know that Sarah Palin just announced her resignation. We also know what her reasons are.br /br /diviframe src=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/31727178#31727178″ frameborder=”0″ width=”425″ scrolling=”no” height=”339″/iframe/divdiv/divdivp style=”MARGIN-TOP: 5px; FONT-SIZE: 11px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; WIDTH: 425px; COLOR: #999; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center”Visit msnbc.com for a style=”FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; COLOR: #5799db! important; BORDER-BOTTOM: #999 1px dotted; HEIGHT: 13px; TEXT-DECORATION: none! important” href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/”Breaking News/a, a style=”FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; COLOR: #5799db! important; BORDER-BOTTOM: #999 1px dotted; HEIGHT: 13px; TEXT-DECORATION: none! important” href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032507″World News/a, and a style=”FONT-WEIGHT: normal! important; COLOR: #5799db! important; BORDER-BOTTOM: #999 1px dotted; HEIGHT: 13px; TEXT-DECORATION: none! important” href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032072″News about the Economy/a/p/divdivNow, we can take her at her word or we can speculate endlessly. Most a href=”http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-03/palin-resignation-10-theories-why/”have chosen to speculate endlessly. /aThe endless speculation is useless, very boring, and totally without merit. Only Sarah Palin herself knows why she resigned. She gave her reasonings in her presser. If one doesn’t believe her, they are either a mind reader or engaging in a useless exercise. /divdiv/divdivWorse than that, there is now endless speculation about her potential future, ora href=”http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/03/is-palins-national-political-career-over/” lack thereof. /aThis is even more useless since no one knows what her future holds, not even Sarah Palin herself. Yet, we are in for days of endless speculation. We’re likely to have people hyper analyze her every word, action, and movement over the last several days, weeks, and months. There’s a report that Palin met with the junior Senator from Alaska, a href=”http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0709/Palin_didnt_tell_Begich_during_meeting_.html”Mark Begich/a, and didn’t tel him of her plans. What this actually means is totally unclear. Andrea Mitchell claims that “a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31726640/ns/politics-more_politics/”sources/a” tell her Palin is out of politics for good. /divdiv/divdivOne of those source is likely NOT Sarah Palin’s brother who mentioned nothing of the sort in his interview.br /br /object height=”344″ width=”425″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/_U4dE3I1Wwgamp;hl=enamp;fs=1amp;”param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/_U4dE3I1Wwghl=enfs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″/embed/objectbr /br /So, we’re even for an endless stream of talking heads weighing in on all sides to speculate endlessly over what it all means, and what her future holds. None of it, mind you, will in any way mean anything of substance. Everyone will engage in a useless exercise in which they try and make predictions of the future, and the distant future. There are very few things worse than endless speculation. It isn’t news, and that’s what we’re in store for over the next days and weeks. /divdiv /divdivIn the middle of that speculation we’ll get some more news. That will lead to even more endless speculation and so on and so forth. So, watching the news will be painful the next few days and weeks. /divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-4508127591231710334?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com’//div

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It’s often a topic of discussion among professors in the field of psychiatry and related fields. There is a growing influence by the pharmaceutical industry on research provided on it by those in academia. Often, junkets and seminars are paid for University psychiatry professors by the drug companies. In fact, the relationship is so close that it’s unclear just how much the research these academics do on the drugs that pharmaceuticals develop. In fact, the relationship has gotten so cozy that their role as watchdog over the industry has likely been totally compromised.br /Back in January, I featured an extreme example of just one such relationship. The relationship was between a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/12/broken-corrupt-record-of-emory.html”Dr. Charles Nemeroff /aand several a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/12/some-context-on-nih-charles-nemeroff.html”of the drug companies he did research on/a:Cyberonics, Glaxo Smith Kline, and Pfizer. For years, Dr. Nemeroff received in the neighborhood of $2.6 million from these pharmaceutical companies. In exchange, he wrote favorable articles on drugs these companies were bringing to market. Even worse, he didn’t report a very big chunk of this income. News of this corruption hit the media in October of last year. At the time, Dr. Nemeroff was head of the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University. This quid pro quo became the subject of an a href=”http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/hearing091608.htm”investigation by Senator Charles Grassley. /aThe investigation found that not only was Dr. Nemeroff compromised by his cozy relationship with the pharmaceuticals, but Emory University was lax in their own supervision of Dr. Nemeroff. Worse yet when presented with evidence, the administration not only close ranks around Dr. Nemeroff, but they even attempted to hide the corruption. Email exchanges show that the cover up by Emory University goes all the way to the top of the medical school and includes the Dean of the Medical School, Claudia Adkison.br /br /In one infamous exchange, Adkison not only admits knowing about the fraud but pronounces relief that a Wall Street Journal reporter wasn’t “sophisticated enough to ask the right questions”.br /br /br /blockquotethank goodness the reporter wasn’t sophisticated enough to ask the right questionsbr /br /…in working on handling the reporter I tried to make this story go away because Emory’s name is in the middle of itbr /br /….I am embarrassed and uncomfortable that I write to colleagues around the country to try to defend this when I know all the issues.br //blockquotebr /br /Shockingly, Dr. Nemeroff was in fact removed from head of the Psychiatry Department at Emory but remains a tenured professor, earning six figures and in a position to continue to do research on the very pharmaceutical industry he has been so clearly corrupted by. In fact, Dr. Nemeroff would have faced absolutely no disciplinary action had Grassley not done the investigation. Everything that Emory has done in this case has been strictly in response to his investigation. (the staff at Emory University never responded to emails as is their M.O. a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/updated-summary-of-fiasco-at-emory.html”in any of my exposes of that university)/a No one involved in the cover up including Adkison was disciplined.br /br /Well, now it’s happened again at Emory University. This time it is a a href=”http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124460466072501139.html”Professor Zachary Stowe./abr /br /blockquoteEmory University has disciplined a prominent psychiatrist who was being paid by an antidepressant maker at the same time he was conducting federal research about the use of such drugs in pregnant women.br /br /The university said its medical school dean issued a letter of reprimand on April 30 to psychiatrist Zachary Stowe related to his “external relationships.” Dr. Stowe was instructed to immediately eliminate conflicts related to current federal grants and was barred from having any conflicts for the next two years.br /br /Dr. Stowe, the director of the Women’s Mental Health Program at Emory, is considered a leading expert on the use of antidepressants in pregnant women. He is listed as the primary investigator on at least three National Institutes of Health grants, beginning in 2003 and continuing through last year, that involve antidepressant use in pregnant women and the effects on children delivered by those women.br //blockquotebr /br /Dr. Stowe received nearly $200000 in about two years from Glaxo SmithKline all while working on research on their anti depressent drug, Paxil. This time, unbelievably, all Dr. Stowe faced was a “letter of reprimand”. Even more shockingly, he was barred from having any more such conflicts for TWO YEARS. In other words, even though it was proven that Dr. Stowe was corrupted by his relationship with a pharmaceutical, he faced no financial or professional demotion, let alone being fired outright.br /br /Then, there is the case of a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/”Dr. J. Douglas Bremner. /aUp until 2005, he thought about the pharmaceutical industry the way most academics in his field did. While he was exposed to the cozy relationship between pharmaceuticals and his colleagues, he’d never written or spoken out much about its consequences. That all changed in 2005. A non profit gave Dr. Bremner a grant to study the side effects of an a href=”http://www.specialtyansweringservice.net/articles/acne/Accutane-Side-Effects-Should-Depression-Be-A-Concern_1879/”acne drug named Accutane/a. Dr. Bremner not only found that Accutane had significant side effects like a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/tag/isotretinoin/”depression and even suicide/a, but a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/tag/isotretinoin/”Dr. Bremner began to conclude that /athe corrupt relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and those employed with reseaching it had contributed to white washing much of the warning signs of its side effects.br /br /In fact, his book, a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Before-You-Take-that-Pill/dp/B001FA23T0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1246634584amp;sr=8-1″Before You Take That Pill: Why The Drug Industry May Be Bad For Your Health, /apublished in March 2008. You’ll find little in the form of support and public relations about this book at Emory University. That’s peculiar since Emory has a well a href=”http://www.emory.edu/home/news/for-journalists/index.html”funded and established public relations /adepartment. Whenever an Emory University professor publishes a book, the P.R. department at Emory University releases press releases to media contacts. Then, lead by the a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/emory-university-unraveling-sealed.html”Atlanta Journal Constitution/a, local Atlanta media, where Emory University is located, do a series of book reviews of said books. None of that happened in the case of the book by Dr. Bremner. Even though Dr. Bremner brought his book to the AJC himself, they never reviewed it. (it should be noted that at any given time as much as 40% of AJC staff is Emory alumni) In fact, the story gets even more peculiar. a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/2008/10/missing-press-release.html”Dr. Bremner discovered a press release that Emory had created for his book. /abr /br /blockquoteDouglas Bremner, MD an Emory University and Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center researcher, was concerned about the way information was communicated about medications and supplements, so he decided to take action. After two years ofdoing his own research on hundreds of the most popular medications, he has written a book called “Before You Take that Pill,” which is scheduled to be released on February 28, 2008.br /br /”You have the right to know the risks and benefits of the pills you take and to form an active partnership with your doctor to make decisions about what is right for you,” says Dr. Bremner. “We all want to live as long as possible,” he continues. “If this book allows you to use medications safely and convinces you to change your diet and lifestyle to prevent disease, I will consider it a success.”br /br /The book covers over 300 of the most commonly prescribed prescription drugs, the fifty top-selling prescription drugs, vitamins, and the best selling herbs and supplements. Also included in the book are drugs that are not used much any more but that are particularly unsafe and haven’t been taken off the market yet by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).br /br /Dr. Bremner says the U.S. is focused on developing newer drugs. But those drugs are more expensive and drive up health care costs and are not necessarily more effective than the older drugs. He says that pharmaceutical companies are not required to prove that new drugs are better and have fewer side effects than the older drugs they are claiming to replace. In addition to that, vitamins and supplements and some medications can be avoided altogether if people are encouraged to stick with a healthy diet, exercise regularly and wash their hands to avoid infection.br /br /”Despite the fact that Americans spend twice as much on health care as any other country in the world, we have some of the worst health care outcomes,” says Dr. Bremner. “In a survey of 13 industrialized nations, the United States was found to be the last in many health related measures, and overall was second to the last!”br /br /Dr. Bremner read and analyzed journal articles, editorials, and drug research related to all the medications he describes in this book. Additionally, he reviewed investigative reporting about the safety of the drugs in credible publications such as the New York Times, and he consulted colleagues with specialties related to the medication he was researching.br /br /Says Dr. Bremner “My goal in writing this book is to give patients all the information they need to be aware of the effects of the medications they are taking so that they can have knowledgeable conversations with their physicians, and make informed decisions together.”br /br /Dr. Bremner is professor of Psychiatry and Radiology at Emory University School of Medicine, director of the Emory Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit and director of Mental Health Research, Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Bremner performs research using brain imaging to look at the effects of medications on the brain and brain correlates of mental disorders. He is a board-certified psychiatrist and nuclear medicine physician and has authored or co-authored over 200 peer reviewed articles and book chapters and three books, including “Before You Take that Pill”.br //blockquotebr /br /At the last minute, this press release was pulled and NOT sent out to media. The P.R. department at Emory University told Dr. Bremner, ” Because we felt that your publisher was doing a good enough job on that already”. Bremner published his book months before either scandal broke openly. It was an open secret among Emory Psychiatry faculty that both Stowe and Nemeroff had a cozy rleationship with the pharmaceuticals though at the time, no one know just how cozy. Ultimately, the timing of Dr. Bremner’s book was both ironic and instructive. Both scandals effectively proved the point he made months earlier in the book.br /br /Also last year, Dr. Bremner was brought into the office the aforementioned Claudia Adkison, the head of the Medical School, and grilled about why he was raising so many alarms about the relationship between academics and pharmaceuticals.br /br /Then, not but two weeks ago, Bremner was told by faculty to remove all mention of Emory University from his blog, also titled a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/2009/06/18/i-am-removing-the-name-of-my-university-from-this-blog/”Before You Take That Pill. /aIn one blog post, Dr. Bremner commented on another blogger, Phillip Dawdy, an individual with bi polar disorder that was being forced to stop smoking in his building. Dr. Bremner referred to this as “eco fascism” and in the post he wrote a satirical letter in defense of Dawdy’s right to smoke. Dr. Bremner was told that a complaint came into the university that said that in the blog post Dr. Bremner was effectively giving Dawdy medical advice even though he’d never diagnosed or treated him. (obligatory eye rolls here) As such, the university demanded that Dr. Bremner remove all mention of his affiliation with Emory University on his blog, and Dr. Bremner has complied.br /br /I am fond of the Latin phrase, Res Ipsa Loquitor (the facts speak for themselves) I have hypothesized that the relationship between academia and pharmaceuticals has become so cozy that it has corrupted the role of watchdogs. Instead, Psychiatry professors get into bed so to speak with pharmaceutical companies. As such, universities receive massive grants from pharmaceuticals for research. Meanwhile, professors get paid by drug companies and write favorable reviews rather than honest ones. Let’s see what the facts are here. One university has been exposed as having at least two professors as having unethical relationships with pharmaceuticals all while they write papers that are supposed to objectively review their drugs. Both are punished with nothing more than a slap on the wrist when these corrupt relationships are exposed. Another professor writes and speaks about the very corrupt environment that lead to the conflicts in the case of two of his colleagues. His book is buried by their P.R. department. The local media ignores it. Then, he is threatened and ultimately harrassed over his views. Res Ipsa Loquitor.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-8131661345332815995?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com’//div

It’s often a topic of discussion among professors in the field of psychiatry and related fields. There is a growing influence by the pharmaceutical industry on research provided on it by those in academia. Often, junkets and seminars are paid for University psychiatry professors by the drug companies. In fact, the relationship is so close that it’s unclear just how much the research these academics do on the drugs that pharmaceuticals develop. In fact, the relationship has gotten so cozy that their role as watchdog over the industry has likely been totally compromised.br /Back in January, I featured an extreme example of just one such relationship. The relationship was between a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/12/broken-corrupt-record-of-emory.html”Dr. Charles Nemeroff /aand several a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/12/some-context-on-nih-charles-nemeroff.html”of the drug companies he did research on/a:Cyberonics, Glaxo Smith Kline, and Pfizer. For years, Dr. Nemeroff received in the neighborhood of $2.6 million from these pharmaceutical companies. In exchange, he wrote favorable articles on drugs these companies were bringing to market. Even worse, he didn’t report a very big chunk of this income. News of this corruption hit the media in October of last year. At the time, Dr. Nemeroff was head of the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University. This quid pro quo became the subject of an a href=”http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/hearing091608.htm”investigation by Senator Charles Grassley. /aThe investigation found that not only was Dr. Nemeroff compromised by his cozy relationship with the pharmaceuticals, but Emory University was lax in their own supervision of Dr. Nemeroff. Worse yet when presented with evidence, the administration not only close ranks around Dr. Nemeroff, but they even attempted to hide the corruption. Email exchanges show that the cover up by Emory University goes all the way to the top of the medical school and includes the Dean of the Medical School, Claudia Adkison.br /br /In one infamous exchange, Adkison not only admits knowing about the fraud but pronounces relief that a Wall Street Journal reporter wasn’t “sophisticated enough to ask the right questions”.br /br /br /blockquotethank goodness the reporter wasn’t sophisticated enough to ask the right questionsbr /br /…in working on handling the reporter I tried to make this story go away because Emory’s name is in the middle of itbr /br /….I am embarrassed and uncomfortable that I write to colleagues around the country to try to defend this when I know all the issues.br //blockquotebr /br /Shockingly, Dr. Nemeroff was in fact removed from head of the Psychiatry Department at Emory but remains a tenured professor, earning six figures and in a position to continue to do research on the very pharmaceutical industry he has been so clearly corrupted by. In fact, Dr. Nemeroff would have faced absolutely no disciplinary action had Grassley not done the investigation. Everything that Emory has done in this case has been strictly in response to his investigation. (the staff at Emory University never responded to emails as is their M.O. a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/updated-summary-of-fiasco-at-emory.html”in any of my exposes of that university)/a No one involved in the cover up including Adkison was disciplined.br /br /Well, now it’s happened again at Emory University. This time it is a a href=”http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124460466072501139.html”Professor Zachary Stowe./abr /br /blockquoteEmory University has disciplined a prominent psychiatrist who was being paid by an antidepressant maker at the same time he was conducting federal research about the use of such drugs in pregnant women.br /br /The university said its medical school dean issued a letter of reprimand on April 30 to psychiatrist Zachary Stowe related to his “external relationships.” Dr. Stowe was instructed to immediately eliminate conflicts related to current federal grants and was barred from having any conflicts for the next two years.br /br /Dr. Stowe, the director of the Women’s Mental Health Program at Emory, is considered a leading expert on the use of antidepressants in pregnant women. He is listed as the primary investigator on at least three National Institutes of Health grants, beginning in 2003 and continuing through last year, that involve antidepressant use in pregnant women and the effects on children delivered by those women.br //blockquotebr /br /Dr. Stowe received nearly $200000 in about two years from Glaxo SmithKline all while working on research on their anti depressent drug, Paxil. This time, unbelievably, all Dr. Stowe faced was a “letter of reprimand”. Even more shockingly, he was barred from having any more such conflicts for TWO YEARS. In other words, even though it was proven that Dr. Stowe was corrupted by his relationship with a pharmaceutical, he faced no financial or professional demotion, let alone being fired outright.br /br /Then, there is the case of a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/”Dr. J. Douglas Bremner. /aUp until 2005, he thought about the pharmaceutical industry the way most academics in his field did. While he was exposed to the cozy relationship between pharmaceuticals and his colleagues, he’d never written or spoken out much about its consequences. That all changed in 2005. A non profit gave Dr. Bremner a grant to study the side effects of an a href=”http://www.specialtyansweringservice.net/articles/acne/Accutane-Side-Effects-Should-Depression-Be-A-Concern_1879/”acne drug named Accutane/a. Dr. Bremner not only found that Accutane had significant side effects like a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/tag/isotretinoin/”depression and even suicide/a, but a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/tag/isotretinoin/”Dr. Bremner began to conclude that /athe corrupt relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and those employed with reseaching it had contributed to white washing much of the warning signs of its side effects.br /br /In fact, his book, a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Before-You-Take-that-Pill/dp/B001FA23T0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1246634584amp;sr=8-1″Before You Take That Pill: Why The Drug Industry May Be Bad For Your Health, /apublished in March 2008. You’ll find little in the form of support and public relations about this book at Emory University. That’s peculiar since Emory has a well a href=”http://www.emory.edu/home/news/for-journalists/index.html”funded and established public relations /adepartment. Whenever an Emory University professor publishes a book, the P.R. department at Emory University releases press releases to media contacts. Then, lead by the a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/emory-university-unraveling-sealed.html”Atlanta Journal Constitution/a, local Atlanta media, where Emory University is located, do a series of book reviews of said books. None of that happened in the case of the book by Dr. Bremner. Even though Dr. Bremner brought his book to the AJC himself, they never reviewed it. (it should be noted that at any given time as much as 40% of AJC staff is Emory alumni) In fact, the story gets even more peculiar. a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/2008/10/missing-press-release.html”Dr. Bremner discovered a press release that Emory had created for his book. /abr /br /blockquoteDouglas Bremner, MD an Emory University and Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center researcher, was concerned about the way information was communicated about medications and supplements, so he decided to take action. After two years ofdoing his own research on hundreds of the most popular medications, he has written a book called “Before You Take that Pill,” which is scheduled to be released on February 28, 2008.br /br /”You have the right to know the risks and benefits of the pills you take and to form an active partnership with your doctor to make decisions about what is right for you,” says Dr. Bremner. “We all want to live as long as possible,” he continues. “If this book allows you to use medications safely and convinces you to change your diet and lifestyle to prevent disease, I will consider it a success.”br /br /The book covers over 300 of the most commonly prescribed prescription drugs, the fifty top-selling prescription drugs, vitamins, and the best selling herbs and supplements. Also included in the book are drugs that are not used much any more but that are particularly unsafe and haven’t been taken off the market yet by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).br /br /Dr. Bremner says the U.S. is focused on developing newer drugs. But those drugs are more expensive and drive up health care costs and are not necessarily more effective than the older drugs. He says that pharmaceutical companies are not required to prove that new drugs are better and have fewer side effects than the older drugs they are claiming to replace. In addition to that, vitamins and supplements and some medications can be avoided altogether if people are encouraged to stick with a healthy diet, exercise regularly and wash their hands to avoid infection.br /br /”Despite the fact that Americans spend twice as much on health care as any other country in the world, we have some of the worst health care outcomes,” says Dr. Bremner. “In a survey of 13 industrialized nations, the United States was found to be the last in many health related measures, and overall was second to the last!”br /br /Dr. Bremner read and analyzed journal articles, editorials, and drug research related to all the medications he describes in this book. Additionally, he reviewed investigative reporting about the safety of the drugs in credible publications such as the New York Times, and he consulted colleagues with specialties related to the medication he was researching.br /br /Says Dr. Bremner “My goal in writing this book is to give patients all the information they need to be aware of the effects of the medications they are taking so that they can have knowledgeable conversations with their physicians, and make informed decisions together.”br /br /Dr. Bremner is professor of Psychiatry and Radiology at Emory University School of Medicine, director of the Emory Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit and director of Mental Health Research, Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Bremner performs research using brain imaging to look at the effects of medications on the brain and brain correlates of mental disorders. He is a board-certified psychiatrist and nuclear medicine physician and has authored or co-authored over 200 peer reviewed articles and book chapters and three books, including “Before You Take that Pill”.br //blockquotebr /br /At the last minute, this press release was pulled and NOT sent out to media. The P.R. department at Emory University told Dr. Bremner, ” Because we felt that your publisher was doing a good enough job on that already”. Bremner published his book months before either scandal broke openly. It was an open secret among Emory Psychiatry faculty that both Stowe and Nemeroff had a cozy rleationship with the pharmaceuticals though at the time, no one know just how cozy. Ultimately, the timing of Dr. Bremner’s book was both ironic and instructive. Both scandals effectively proved the point he made months earlier in the book.br /br /Also last year, Dr. Bremner was brought into the office the aforementioned Claudia Adkison, the head of the Medical School, and grilled about why he was raising so many alarms about the relationship between academics and pharmaceuticals.br /br /Then, not but two weeks ago, Bremner was told by faculty to remove all mention of Emory University from his blog, also titled a href=”http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/2009/06/18/i-am-removing-the-name-of-my-university-from-this-blog/”Before You Take That Pill. /aIn one blog post, Dr. Bremner commented on another blogger, Phillip Dawdy, an individual with bi polar disorder that was being forced to stop smoking in his building. Dr. Bremner referred to this as “eco fascism” and in the post he wrote a satirical letter in defense of Dawdy’s right to smoke. Dr. Bremner was told that a complaint came into the university that said that in the blog post Dr. Bremner was effectively giving Dawdy medical advice even though he’d never diagnosed or treated him. (obligatory eye rolls here) As such, the university demanded that Dr. Bremner remove all mention of his affiliation with Emory University on his blog, and Dr. Bremner has complied.br /br /I am fond of the Latin phrase, Res Ipsa Loquitor (the facts speak for themselves) I have hypothesized that the relationship between academia and pharmaceuticals has become so cozy that it has corrupted the role of watchdogs. Instead, Psychiatry professors get into bed so to speak with pharmaceutical companies. As such, universities receive massive grants from pharmaceuticals for research. Meanwhile, professors get paid by drug companies and write favorable reviews rather than honest ones. Let’s see what the facts are here. One university has been exposed as having at least two professors as having unethical relationships with pharmaceuticals all while they write papers that are supposed to objectively review their drugs. Both are punished with nothing more than a slap on the wrist when these corrupt relationships are exposed. Another professor writes and speaks about the very corrupt environment that lead to the conflicts in the case of two of his colleagues. His book is buried by their P.R. department. The local media ignores it. Then, he is threatened and ultimately harrassed over his views. Res Ipsa Loquitor.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-8131661345332815995?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com’//div

divWhat if a corrupt far left billionaire got together with a corrupt but effective grassroots group in an effort to radically change America ? That’s exactly what’s happening between George Soros and ACORN. Think of ACORN as instruments of George Soros grand plan. Soros wants to elect far left candidates, pass universal health care, props up the unions among many liberal ideological goals. Think of ACORN is the tool of implementation of his ideology, or at least a tool. On top of this, every policy which Soros uses a href=”http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDZiMjkwMDczZWI5ODdjOWYxZTIzZGIyNzEyMjE0ODI”ACORN to implement also helps President Obama. /aThat’s the stakes in this unholy alliance.br /br /For instance, ACORN has an affiliate named Project VOTE. It’s an organization that specializes in GOTV campaigns. Of course, the scam is that this group only goes into areas of the sort of candidate that Soros likes. So, while Project Vote does in fact do voter registration drives they do them almost exclusively in poor, African American neighborhoods. In other words, they would only do voter registration in neighborhoods that would back candidates that Soros would also back. Of course, Soros would never give money to ACORN directly. In fact, here, one of his own affiliates Democracy Alliance, gives money to Project Vote, itself an a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/01/inside-story-of-acorn.html”ACORN /aaffiliate.br /br /Whenever a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/george-soros-political-keyser-soze.html”Soros/a does business it’s like this. The reason for this is that the world that both Soros and ACORN inhabit is a maze of tax codes. 501 (C)3, 501 (C)4, and a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/george-soros-political-keyser-soze.html”Soros /afavorite 527 among dozens. Each has its own rule for disclosure. The more tax benefits a non profit organization the more it has to disclose. By both a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/george-soros-political-keyser-soze.html”Soros /aand a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/01/inside-story-of-acorn.html”ACORN/a creating multiple affiliate organizations it’s nearly impossible to track the money. As it moves from one affiliate to another eventually outside folks aren’t allowed to see all their records. a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HrqVuQVu5rA/Sk2ly4yFJ-I/AAAAAAAAAxc/I2vdpqy2Exk/s1600-h/oreilly-20070423-chart.jpg”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354117825667868642″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px” alt=”" src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HrqVuQVu5rA/Sk2ly4yFJ-I/AAAAAAAAAxc/I2vdpqy2Exk/s320/oreilly-20070423-chart.jpg” border=”0″ //abr /(O’Reilly’s now famous diagram of Soros affiliates)/divdivbr /This way all sorts of shenanigans can go on without enough of a paper trail to prove it. a href=”http://spectator.org/blog/2009/06/30/al-franken-d-acorn-heads-to-th”There are stories that have/a reported a href=”http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12491″that Soros /awas a href=”http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/glenn-beck-the-coming-insurrection-cap-and-favor-al-franken-and-acorn-seiu-in-a-nutshell-obamacaremart-july-1/”behind,/a what a href=”http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/acorn_mark_ritchie/2008/12/22/164573.html”they call /aa a href=”http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/01/05/al-franken-stealing-senate-seat-stop-him/”rigged recount /aand a href=”http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/11/acorn-and-soros-are-running-minnesota.html”he used ACORN in /ajust a href=”http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/04/14/obamas-economy-taking-on-the-pirates-plus-al-franken-minnesota-senator.html”such a /away a href=”http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/04/14/obamas-economy-taking-on-the-pirates-plus-al-franken-minnesota-senator.html”to do /ait in Minnesota for Al Frankena href=”http://spsboard.com/SPS/index.php?topic=845.0″. /aOf course, it goes without saying that Franken accounts for the 60th and filibuster proof vote in the Senatebr /br /Another way that a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/george-soros-political-keyser-soze.html”Soros /auses a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/breaking-down-structure-and-power-of.html”ACORN/a is in the area of universal health care. Here, the two form an alliance along with several other far left groups called a href=”http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/about_us/”Health Care for America /aNow. A Politico story recently characterized a href=”http://www.blogger.com/spokesman20Health20for20Now,20major20advocacy20said20that20will20support%20Conrad”HCAN/a as “the groups that represent the base of the Democratic Party”.on the issue of health care. One of the biggest donors in a href=”http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/about_us/”HCAN/a is the a href=”http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderProfile.asp?fndid=5184″Tides foundation. That’s another Soros /aaffiliate. Meanwhile ACORN is one of a group of more than a dozen different organizations that created HCAN. a href=”http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/about_us/”HCAN /aruns as a 501 (c)4. Here are all the principles involved in creating this organization.br /br /br //divblockquotea href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/breaking-down-structure-and-power-of.html”ACORN,/a AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, Americans United for Change, Campaign forbr /America’s Future, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Campaign for Community Change, Children’s Defense Fund Action Council, Communications Workers of America, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace amp; Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), MoveOn.org, NAACP, Nationalbr /Council of La Raza, National Education Association, National Women’s Lawbr /Center, SEIU, UFCW, USAction, Women’s Voices, Women’s Vote and Workingbr /America.br //blockquotedivbr /br /This group is now organizing advertisement campaigns against wavering Democrats like Mary Landrieu. They hold rallies, organize town halls, and make phone calls among many different other support activities in order to get universal health care passed. a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_MtLyDfXJA”(four minutes into this video in front of HCAN, Congress Woman Jan Schakowski admits that the goal of universal health care is single payer)/abr /br /Meanwhile, the guy that runs the Tides Foundation is a gentleman named Drummond Pike. He’s close personal friends with a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/management-council-of-wade-rathke.html”Wade Rathke/a. a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/management-council-of-wade-rathke.html”Wade Rathke /awas the long time CEO of a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/breaking-down-structure-and-power-of.html”ACORN/a who was removed last summer because he covered up a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/embezzlement-of-dale-rathke.html”the embezzlement of his brother Dale. /aWhen this embezzlement was first made public, Wade turned the embezzlement into a loan and then sold said loan to Pike. As such, Aa href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/breaking-down-structure-and-power-of.html”CORN/a no longer owned the paper on what was owed. It’s one of the perks for a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/breaking-down-structure-and-power-of.html”ACORN /aof having wealthy and powerful friends. It’s no different than the quid pro quo they got from Bruce Ratner, owner of the Netsa href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/ratner-and-acorn-alinsky-would-be-proud.html”, to build a new stadium in Brooklyn. /abr /br /Soros is also a supporter of thea href=”http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_allamp;address=367×3920″ unions through /ahis a href=”http://democratsforsale.blogspot.com/2008/02/sorosseiu-fund-for-america-527.html”involvement with the SEIU. /aThe SEIU contributes funds to Soros linked organizations, does GOTV activities, and any other grass roots activites for liberal causes. Of course, the local New Orleans 881 Union is run by Wade Rathke. Yes, that’s the same Wade Rathke that used to run a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/05/breaking-down-structure-and-power-of.html”ACORN./a Furthermore, ACORN members often belong to the a href=”http://oregonionvideo.blogspot.com/2009/05/seiu-acorn-cover-up.html”SEIU/a as well. Thea href=”http://oregonionvideo.blogspot.com/2009/05/seiu-acorn-cover-up.html” SEIU /aoften uses ACORN to organize a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/02/acorn-and-alinskys-rule-13.html”Alinsky like /ademonstrations in order to pressure hospitals, grocery stores, and other places of business to unionize.br /br /Then, there’s George Soros’ good friends Herb and Marion Sandler. They created the Sub Prime Mortgage Company Golden West. They sold it to Wachovia for $24 billion in 2006. It ultimately lead to the demise of Wachovia. The Sandlers contribute a great deal to an organization called the Center for Responsive Lending. This organization was a champion for Community Reinvestment Act, which championed quotas for bank’s mortgage lending an poorer areas. ACORN used this very CRA in order to perpetuate campaigns of intimidation on bankers in order to get them to comply with the CRA. The Center for Responsive Lending funded a lot of ACORN’s CRA activities.br /br /There are several things everyone should know. First, at all times their connections are loose and so difficult to track. Second, ironically, all of these connections are made that much easier by McCain/Feingold. In fact, it’s not too far a stretch to say that McCain was used as a pawn by George Soros in creating the shadow government that a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/george-soros-political-keyser-soze.html”Soros /auses. Now, Soros has a community organizing group to advance the agenda of a President, himself a former community organizer. Under no circumstances should we ever underestimate a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/george-soros-political-keyser-soze.html”George Soros. /abr /br //divp/pdivbr //divblockquote/blockquotedivbr //divp/pdivbr //divpbr //pdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-2467669705639816581?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com’//div

pFrom David Plouffe:/pblockquotepEarlier in the week, we asked if you thought we should put the experiences of real American families on the air and online to show why we need heath care reform. The overwhelming answer? Yes./ppbr /Thanks to your support, we were able to spring into action and share with America the very personal reasons why we cannot afford to miss this one chance to finally reform our health care system.br /br / I want you to be the first to see this powerful ad. It features real people telling their true stories of lost coverage, watching loved ones go without care, and making the case for why we need reform.br /br / Once you watch this, you’ll see what we mean about how powerful these personal stories can be — and why we need to get them on the air right away.br /br / a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”strongWill you watch the video now, and then donate $25 or more to put it on the air?/strong/a/pp align=”center”a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”img src=”http://www.barackobama.com/images/email/070209_ad_d2.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Will you make a donation of $25 or more to put this ad on the air?” width=”498″ height=”166″ //a/ppAs we speak, Congress is rapidly hammering out the details of the health care bill, and getting this message out now is crucial. Our representatives must understand how strongly we feel about the need for real reform — and that we need it now.br /br / In the next few days, we must decide how many of these ads we can make, where we can air them, and how many views we can guarantee. The more resources we have, the greater the impact we’ll be able to make.br /br / So watch this first video, and then please dig deep with a donation of $25 or more so we can get this ad and others like it on the air and online in key areas across the country.br /br / a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”/astronga href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/healthcaread6″https://donate.barackobama.com/healthcaread/a/strongbr /br / Thanks for making it happen,br /br / David Plouffebr /br / P.S. — Over 99,000 people have already donated to power our campaign for health care reform. This is the perfect time to join them, and help us hit our big goal of 100,000 donors for health care./pp align=”center”a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”img src=”http://www.barackobama.com/images/177_donate.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Please donate” //a/p/blockquote

pFrom David Plouffe:/pblockquotepEarlier in the week, we asked if you thought we should put the experiences of real American families on the air and online to show why we need heath care reform. The overwhelming answer? Yes./ppbr /Thanks to your support, we were able to spring into action and share with America the very personal reasons why we cannot afford to miss this one chance to finally reform our health care system.br /br / I want you to be the first to see this powerful ad. It features real people telling their true stories of lost coverage, watching loved ones go without care, and making the case for why we need reform.br /br / Once you watch this, you’ll see what we mean about how powerful these personal stories can be — and why we need to get them on the air right away.br /br / a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”strongWill you watch the video now, and then donate $25 or more to put it on the air?/strong/a/pp align=”center”a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”img src=”http://www.barackobama.com/images/email/070209_ad_d2.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Will you make a donation of $25 or more to put this ad on the air?” width=”498″ height=”166″ //a/ppAs we speak, Congress is rapidly hammering out the details of the health care bill, and getting this message out now is crucial. Our representatives must understand how strongly we feel about the need for real reform — and that we need it now.br /br / In the next few days, we must decide how many of these ads we can make, where we can air them, and how many views we can guarantee. The more resources we have, the greater the impact we’ll be able to make.br /br / So watch this first video, and then please dig deep with a donation of $25 or more so we can get this ad and others like it on the air and online in key areas across the country.br /br / a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”/astronga href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/healthcaread6″https://donate.barackobama.com/healthcaread/a/strongbr /br / Thanks for making it happen,br /br / David Plouffebr /br / P.S. — Over 99,000 people have already donated to power our campaign for health care reform. This is the perfect time to join them, and help us hit our big goal of 100,000 donors for health care./pp align=”center”a href=”https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dnc08hcad?returnlink=falseamp;source=HQBlog” target=”_blank”img src=”http://www.barackobama.com/images/177_donate.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Please donate” //a/p/blockquote

Paul Krugman used the occasion of the latest jobs numbers to continue peddling his idea that one stimulus isn’t a href=”http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Politics/story?id=7966402amp;page=1″enough. /abr /br /blockquoteNobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said the nation is on course for a “prolonged jobless” economic recovery unless the Obama administration steps in with a second round of government stimulus money.br /br /”The fact of the matter is that the unemployment rate is much worse than the administration contemplated or that most people expected,” Krugman told ABC News. “So the economy is much weaker than we thought it’d be, meaning, in fact, it could use more stimulus.”br //blockquotebr /Krugman reminds me of one of those frat guys that puts a drink in your face even after your twelfth shot. To him, the irresponsibility of running up massive deficits is entirely beside the point. The answer to irresponsible massive government spending is in fact more irresponsible and massive government spending.br /br /In fact, Krugman has repeatedly referred to anyone that worries about the consequences of these massive deficits as a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=4″”fear mongers”. /abr /br /blockquoteSuddenly it seems as if everyone is talking about inflation. Stern opinion pieces warn that hyperinflation is just around the corner. And markets may be heeding these warnings: Interest rates on long-term government bonds are up, with fear of future inflation one possible reason for the interest-rate spike.br /br /br /But does the big inflation scare make any sense? Basically, no — with one caveat I’ll get to later. And I suspect that the scare is at least partly about politics rather than economics.First things first. It’s important to realize that there’s no hint of inflationary pressures in the economy right now. Consumer prices are lower now than they were a year ago, and wage increases have stalled in the face of high unemployment. Deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger.br /br /So if prices aren’t rising, why the inflation worries? Some claim that the Federal Reserve is printing lots of money, which must be inflationary, while others claim that budget deficits will eventually force the U.S. government to inflate away its debt.br /br /The first story is just wrong. The second could be right, but isn’t.br //blockquotebr /In the world of Paul Krugman, governments can borrow and spend with absolutely no consequence. Furthermore, when borrowing and spending doesn’t produced the desired effect, you just borrow and spend some more.br /br /Krugman is both naive and delusional. He’s naive because he lives in a hypothetical world. So far, the government hasn’t even spent $100 billion of the initial $787 billion. We could pass a $5 trillion stimulus and it wouldn’t make a difference since the government can’t really spend it all that quickly. In Krugman’s theoretical world, the government quickly spends trillions and those trillions filter into the economy. In the real world, governments deal with bureaucracy and red tape. As such, they spend money at a rather slow pace. Before we get a second stimulus, wouldn’t we want to spend the first? Maybe, rather than demanding we pass more legislation, Krugman should demand that the government start spending the first legislation a bit more quickly.br /br /Krugman is delusional in that he thinks he is “moving the debate”. He’s only moving the debate among his friends and colleagues in the world of punditry and academia. Beyond that, no one is seriously considering another stimulus. The public hates the first stimulus. There would likely be a mutiny if there was a second. Furthermore, the same Paul Krugman that also supports cap and trade and health care reform also wants the Congress to take up a second stimulus. When, exactly, does he think they will have time?br /br /There is now the beginnings of commentary urging a second stimulus. Krugman is certainly the leader of this school of thought. Here’s anothera href=”http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=ff352956-a17d-4d80-895a-8f1c28b6351e” column calling for the same thing. /aThe administration has been coy regarding the matter. They need not be. Everyone should understand one thing, THERE WILL BE NO SECOND STIMULUS.br /br /As for Krugman, he would be totally insignificant and not worth of mention if it weren’t for the fact that he has a Nobel Prize, teaches at Princeton, and has a place of respect in the MSM. As such, is allowed to peddle this nonsense with almost no one challenging him in the basic ways I just did. It’s unlikely that in any of the plethora of interviews he will do will anyone ask him how he plans on having the government spend all this money when they can’t seem to spend the first stimulus. Because he has a position of respect, he’s allowed to peddle this garbage with little scrutiny among his friends in the media.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-7447160121739768733?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com’//div

The main characteristic of the so called a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/l-u-v-and-w.html”W shaped economic /ais that the economy shows signs of recovery for a while and then suddenly begins to pull back. This can happen over and over. As such, words like choppy, stop start, and uneven are often used during a W shaped recovery. That’s exactly the language used by a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-agree-with-george-soros.html”George Soros earlier this week. /abr /br /br /br /br /blockquoteBillionaire investor George Soros on Tuesday predicted a “stop-go” economy for the United States, saying fears of inflation will drive up interest rates and choke off growth.br //blockquotebr /In this AP story, we find similara href=”http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/02/nations-unemployment-rate-edging-closer-double-digits/?test=latestnews” language. /abr /br /br /br /br /blockquoteEmployers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, suggesting that the economy’s road to recovery will be bumpy.br //blockquotebr /In my opinion (and interestingly enough in the opinion of George Soros), the W shaped recovery is caused entirely by the borrow and spend policies of the Obama administration. Politically, that is beside the point and ultimately such a connection doesn’t need to be made explicitly. In fact, all the Republicans need to do is state the facts, because the facts speak for themselves. (Res Ipsa Loquitor)br /br /This past month’s jobs report was the first clear sign that we are looking at a W shaped economy, and that is a political gift for Republicans. First, it turns the President into a bit of a pollyanna. For instance, here’s what he told the APa href=”http://www.politico.com/politico44/” today. /abr /br /blockquotewe have successfully stabilized the financial markets,” and “started to see some stabilization on housing.”br //blockquotebr /I would venture to guess that anyone who has tried to sell their property, get a loan, and certainly are in the business of securing home mortgages would beg to differ with that characterization. In fact, credit has gotten progressively more difficult to get since he came into office.br /br /a href=”http://www.politico.com/politico44/”/aFor the last couple months, he has been touting his stimulus as contributing to a bottoming out of the economy. He used the reduced job losses as evidence. Of course, job losses are no longer being reduced. After four months of seeing job losses shrink, they ballooned this month. By November of next year, the president will have likely claimed a bottom more than once only to have jobs numbers differe afterwards.br /br /As such, not only are we still losing nearly half a million jobs monthly, but it’s unclear which direction the job losses are heading. We could have a couple more months of improving jobs numbers only to have that momentum stopped like we had this month. What this means is that there is absolutely nothing redeeming about the economy.br /br /All the so called green shots, anecdotal evidence of improvements, are nonsense. That was proven in one fell swoop with not only awful jobs numbers but increasingly awful. Since the stimulus was put into effect, we’ve lost more than 2 million jobs. If we only lose 300,000 jobs monthly till the end of the year (that would be herculean given that our best month was 350,000 lost jobs), that would be 1.8 million more lost jobs until the end of the year. There are no signs of recovery. Those signs are nothing more than illusions. We are still in the middle of a terrible recession and there’s absolutely no evidence the end is near.br /br /In the meantime, we have run our deficits from about half a trillion dollars to nearly 2 trillion dollars. This has caused a sudden rise in interest rates. I don’t think it’s mere coincidence that June’s jobs numbers came at exactly the same time that mortgage rates rose nearly a full percentage point. Just think about it. With such an awful economy, we should see record low interest rates. That would reduce borrowing costs and help spur the recovery. Instead, all of the president’s spending has put pressure on interest rates and stunted that avenue of recovery. Think about that for a minute. While our deficit has ballooned to nearly two trillion dollars, our economy will lose about four million new jobs. Meanwhile, the only thing we can say for sure that all of this spending has done is balloon interest rates which only stunts the economy even more. How’s that for res ipsa loquitor?br /br /Meanwhile, the president is working on cap and trade and health care. The PPIP, which was supposed to be critical in removing “toxic assets”, has now been scaled back so that it is currently a href=”http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-and-improved-ppip-is-ready-to.html”insignificant. /aSo, while our economy continues in free fall, our president is determined to battle global warming and socializing medicine.br /br /We will certainly hit 10% unemployment. We might hit 11%, and it might even get worse than that. Meanwhile, the president has spent nearly two trillion dollars, burying the country in debt, in hopes of creating jobs. It is this debt that has lead directly to higher rates and a weak dollar. While our economy continues in free fall, he’s working furiously to combat global warming and socializing our health care system. Those are the facts and they are indisputable, and that’s the story Republicans need to start saying now.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3098264341625381422-5061811409007274357?l=theeprovocateur.blogspot.com’//div

pHere’s the full video of yesterday’s online town hall, in which the President answered questions submitted from Americans across the country:/pobject width=”480″ height=”295″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/zHCQc-wwzDQhl=enfs=1rel=0″/paramparam name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”/paramparam name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”/paramembed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/zHCQc-wwzDQhl=enfs=1rel=0″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”480″ height=”295″/embed/object