Democrat Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, held a hastily-planned press conference to respond to committee chairman Devin Nunes‘ decision to give President Donald Trump updates on the Russia investigation and wiretapping without showing the evidence to Schiff. He said that Nunes’ actions mean that there is reason to create an independent commission to investigate Russia’s involvement.

Schiff, who is also from California, said that Nunes’ actions created “enormous doubt” that Congress can handle an independent investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. He said he will ask House Speaker Paul Ryan about creating an independent commission.

“We have certainly made it clear now for many weeks … we do an investigation through our intelligence committees but we also have a truly independent commission,” Schiff said. “A commission would have a dedicated staff and resources solely on this … issue.”
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Monday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing opened with the revelation that the FBI’s inquiry into Russian electoral interference on Donald Trump’s behalf includes an investigation of the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia.

But later, citing no reasons whatsoever, House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) suggested to FBI Director James Comey that his bureau should also look into possible collusion between Russian officials and the candidate they wanted to lose — Hillary Clinton.

“You announced this morning that there will be an investigation into Trump associates’ possible — and President Trump and anyone around the campaign and any association with the Russian government,” Nunes began. “If this committee — or anyone else for that matter, someone from the public — comes with information to you about the Hillary Clinton campaign or their associates or someone from the Clinton Foundation, will you add that to your investigation? They have ties to Russian intelligence services, Russian agents — would that be something of interest to you?”

Comey — who is clearly never been shy about investigating Hillary Clinton — wouldn’t rule it out.

“People bring us information about what they think is improper and unlawful activity of any kind and we will evaluate it,” he said. “Not just in this context. Folks send us stuff all the time — they should keep doing that.”



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The premise of President Donald Trump’s plan to kill the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon pollution standards is that restricting CO2 hurts the economy. But Trump’s oft-repeated claim that EPA standards kill jobs is bogus.

“Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were flat for a third straight year in 2016 even as the global economy grew,” the International Energy Agency reported Friday, “signaling a continuing decoupling of emissions and economic activity.”

In fact, while CO2 emissions were flat, the global economy grew 3.1 percent.



“Renewables, coal-to-gas switching, and improvements in energy efficiency contributed to stalling emissions growth last year,” the IEA explained. “In 2016, renewables supplied more than half the global electricity demand growth.”

What has been happening in this country is even more remarkable. The IEA noted, “emissions in the United States last year were at their lowest level since 1992, a period during which the economy grew by 80 percent.”
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On Monday morning, FBI Director James Comey made it official — the Trump campaign’s ties with Russian officials are under investigation.

A few hours later, Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried to distance Trump from two members of his inner circle who lost their jobs after their close ties with Russia came to light — former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

During his press conference, a reporter asked Spicer, “Now that we know that there is an ongoing investigation by the FBI, does the president stand by his comments that he’s not aware of any contacts that his campaign associates had with Russia during the election?”

Spicer replied that Trump does stand by the claims he, Vice President Mike Pence, and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus have all made, insisting that no Trump campaign officials were in contact with Russian operatives. But he then hedged his bets by suggesting that even if some campaign officials were in touch with Russian officials, they weren’t major players anyway.

“Even General Flynn was a volunteer of the campaign, and then obviously there’s been this discussion of Paul Manafort who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time,” Spicer said.

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/843888554451193856

When the health insurance startup Oscar lost $92 million selling policies on New York’s insurance exchange last year, CEO Mario Schlosser could have joined the insurance executives blaming Obamacare for their companies’ struggles. Instead, he changed his business model.

Out went Oscar’s original New York model of selling traditional insurance — with access to nearly every doctor and hospital in town — to individual customers via the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplace. In came “narrow networks” that offer customers less choice but lower prices. Schlosser believes the new approach will make the company’s offerings more attractive to customers — and more profitable for investors.

Recent weeks have brought a storm of questions about whether the health insurance exchange system at the heart of President Obama’s signature health law is already unraveling amid defections by major insurers. But as Oscar’s decision illustrates, the true picture is more nuanced. Companies lose — or gain — different amounts of money on the exchanges for different reasons. They need different changes, both in the law and in their own strategies, to make their businesses profitable, which would in turn help ensure Obamacare’s long-term success. And overall, the problem is significantly smaller than it looks.

The bottom line is that the Affordable Care Act is fixable — at least if Congress is willing to take some basic steps to save it.
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West Palm Beach, Florida (CNN)President Donald Trump, once a critic of his predecessor's golfing, has visited one of his golf courses in Florida -- seemingly to play the sport -- five of the last seven weekends.

A president's golf play is far from controversial: In fact, it's the most common pastime of the country's leaders. But before he ran for office, Trump was the most fervent critic of the fact that President Barack Obama regularly hit the links with friends, aides and advisers, arguing that it showed the president was unserious about fixing America's problems.

Now that Trump is President, the comments are coming back to complicate his golf habit.

Trump has visited the two courses near his Mar-a-Lago estate -- Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach and Trump National Golf Course in Jupiter -- 10 times in the first two months of his presidency.
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Cera-Q is a protein hydrolysate, a unique mixture of amino acids extracted from the major protein in silkworm cocoons called fibroin. Cera-Q as a nutraceutical ingredient came out of the longtime consumption of the fibroin as part of traditional Korean medicine.

In the early 2000’s a team of PhD researchers in South Korea set about to identify the specific nutrients within the fibroin which would be most beneficial if consumed orally. Their work led to the discovery of the patented Cera-Q ingredient, which has been demonstrated in published human clinical trials to help improve memory, learning and overall cognitive performance.

To put it simply, Cera-Q is very special because it has a unique amino acid profile comprised mainly of glycine and alanine with a highly differentiated beta pleated sheet molecular structure. This structure and composition are important because they allow Cera-Q to bind very effectively to amyloid plaque, which tends to cluster around human neurons, impacting neuron and cognitive performance increasingly as we age. This binding has been shown to reduce the formation of amyloid plaque around neurons – think of it as a Velcro®-like effect.

Cera-Q has also been shown to increase glucose uptake to the brain, providing the brain with critical energy. Thus the evidence suggests that Cera-Q uniquely works via a dual path to support cognitive function, without stimulants or strange or artificial compounds.

FBI Director James Comey met separately with members of the Senate and House for highly classified briefings. Members went into the briefings looking for a firm answer from the FBI to the question of whether or not their was an ongoing investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia but emerged silent on that question and appearing visibly disturbed.

On the Senate side, Comey met with the Chair, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Ranking Member, Senator Dianne Feinstein, of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

After the meeting, Feinstein spoke very briefly with reporters who had been waiting for the pair to emerge from the briefing:

https://twitter.com/NBCPolitics/status/842118566358921216

Long-time observers of events on the Hill noted the unusually somber appearances of the Senators:

[blockquote style="border:solid 1px #000000;padding:10px;"] Phil Elliott ✔ @Philip_Elliott

I've seen Feinstein have the worried look on her face. This is more than that. She just met with FBI chief Comey.

4:56 PM - 15 Mar 2017

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The Trump administration’s budget outline released today has some shocking numbers when it comes to scientific research. “Make no mistake: These numbers would be crippling to much of the federal science apparatus,” says Matt Hourihan, the director of budget and policy programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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This “skinny” version of the budget contains at least $7 billion in cuts to science research programs, plus a 30 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency. Also painful: The budget seeks to cut 18 percent of the National Institutes of Health’s budget. The NIH provides the largest share of federally funded research dollars to universities across the country.

Other cuts include:

A $102 million cut to NASA’s earth science programs, eliminating four NASA Earth science missions completely.

A $900 million reduction in the Energy Department’s basic science research budget. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy — a $300 million program that provides grants for energy research — is wholly eliminated because “the private sector is better positioned to finance disruptive energy research.”
[font color="blue"]{for profit companies, for the most part, fund "product development" not what you would call "disruptive research". _B_USA}[/font]
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