2-6-16 Hodgepodge

A Pardon en Route to the Coronation?

Andrew Napolitano examines the legal ramifications of Hillary Clinton's use of an insecure computer as a repository for her email, which often contained national security information. He ends:

Let's be as blunt about this as the FBI will be: Causing state secrets to reside in a nonsecure, nongovernmental venue, whether done intentionally or negligently, constitutes the crime of espionage.

And there is more. When asked about the consequences of Clinton's brazen exposure of state secrets to anyone who knows how to hack into a nonsecure computer, an intelligence operative winced as if in pain when he remarked that the nation's then chief diplomat surely compromised the "sources, methods, and lives" of her colleagues. Even Democrats who see Clinton as a symbol of their long-time wish for a progressive female in the Oval Office are beginning to recognize that anyone who has jeopardized American lives for political gain is unworthy of their votes, unworthy of their trust, and unworthy of public office.

I am skeptical that Democrats will care that much, given that one of their own, who has at least as much contempt for rule of law as Clinton does of national security, resides in the Oval Office and will be able to pardon her of wrongdoing -- if she gets past her more openly statist competitor.

This is important to know, but Republicans should spend less time hoping Clinton gets caught, and more time making a case for why the American people should choose their nominee over her (or Sanders).

Weekend Reading

"Life doesn't need to be as hard as some people make it, so I've come up with a Top Ten List of things people do to bring problems onto themselves." -- Michael Hurd, in "Get Out of Your Own Way!" at The Delaware Wave

"One of the biggest mistakes parents make is to tell their kids to not get 'a big head'..." -- Michael Hurd, in "What Does -- and Does Not -- Create Conceited Kids" at The Delaware Coast Press

"[Y]ou can see how our implied endorsement of Tehran would reinforce their view of America as morally bankrupt: economically and militarily, America is the world's most powerful nation, yet it stoops to appease a far weaker adversary." -- Elan Journo, in "Fueling Iran's Hostility" at The Times of Israel

A Grain of Sense

Via In the Pipeline, I ran across a nice debunking of David Perlmutter, a popular quack famous for writing Grain Brain, which, has played a big part in fomenting the current gluten panic, and whose assertions contradict much of his own past advice. Here's a sample, regarding Perlmutter's promotion of glutathione for Parkinson's Disease

These case studies raise an obvious question: If glutathione injection is such a miracle procedure, why hasn't the protocol been more widely adopted? Perlmutter's answer points to the profit-driven influence of Big Pharma: "Glutathione ... cannot be owned exclusively by any particular pharmaceutical company and therefore won't find its way to the highly influential advertising sections of the medical journals."

Sure, maybe. Or it could be that doctors don't prescribe intravenous glutathione for Parkinson's because it doesn't work. And they know it doesn't work thanks, in part, to work done by a man named ... David Perlmutter. In 2009, he collaborated on a randomized, double-blind study of intravenous glutathione for Parkinson's. The results are clearly stated in the study's conclusion: "We did not observe a significant improvement in parkinsonian signs and symptoms in the glutathione group when compared with the placebo group." Based on these results, the National Parkinson Foundation put out a strongly worded statement about intravenous glutathione: "First, there is a lack of evidence it actually works; second, the therapy requires an intravenous line which has both short and long term risks; and finally, insurance does not cover the costs of this therapy. .. Patients should beware of any medical practices offering a fee for glutathione treatment of Parkinson's disease."

Read the whole thing for a good picture of the modern snake oil salesman.

-- CAV