Baltimore Sun.

Freddie Gray suffered a single "high-energy injury" to his neck and spine — most likely caused when the police van in which he was riding suddenly decelerated, according to a copy of the autopsy report obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

The state medical examiner's office concluded that Gray's death could not be ruled an accident, and was instead a homicide, because officers failed to follow safety procedures "through acts of omission."

Though Gray was loaded into the van on his belly, the medical examiner surmised that he may have gotten to his feet and was thrown into the wall during an abrupt change in direction. He was not belted in, but his wrists and ankles were shackled, putting him "at risk for an unsupported fall during acceleration or deceleration of the van."

The medical examiner compared Gray's injury to those seen in shallow-water diving incidents.

Gray, 25, was arrested April 12 following a foot pursuit by officers in the Gilmor Homes area, and he suffered a severe spinal injury while in police custody. His death a week later sparked protests over police brutality and unrest in the city — including looting and rioting — that drew international attention to the case.

The Baltimore state's attorney's office charged the six officers involved in Gray's arrest and transport. Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr. the driver of the van, is charged with second-degree depraved-heart murder, while Sgt. Alicia D. White, Officer William F. Porter and Lt. Brian W. Rice are charged with manslaughter. Officers Edward M. Nero and Garrett E. Miller face lesser charges, including second-degree assault.

All of the officers have pleaded not guilty, and a trial has been set for October.

The autopsy report was completed April 30, the day before State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced criminal charges against the officers. The autopsy has not been made public, and the deadline for releasing evidence in the case to defense lawyers is Friday. A copy of the autopsy was obtained and verified by sources who requested anonymity because of the high-profile nature of the case.

The chief medical examiner, Dr. David Fowler, declined to comment, as did the defense attorneys for the officers, who said they have not received the autopsy.

In a statement, Mosby denounced the release of the report. She has sought a protective order to keep evidence in the case out of public view. "I strongly condemn anyone with access to trial evidence who has leaked information prior to the resolution of this case," Mosby said.

Baltimore police union president Lt. Gene Ryan said details in the autopsy raise questions about the charges, demonstrating why the union didn't want prosecutors to "rush to a decision."

"Why not wait till all the facts are in before you make a decision?" he asked. "Let's just sit back and take a breath and let's see everything unfold. I want to see all the evidence come out, because I believe our guys have nothing to hide."

The autopsy details a chronology of the events surrounding Gray's arrest that helped inform the medical examiner's conclusion. The medical examiner relied upon witness statements, videos and an examination of the transport van.

Gray tested positive for opiates and cannabinoid when he was admitted to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, according to the autopsy. The report makes no further reference to the drugs found in his system.

The report does not note any previous injuries to Gray's spine.

In concluding his death was a homicide, Assistant Medical Examiner Carol H. Allan wrote that it was "not an unforeseen event that a vulnerable individual was injured during operation of the vehicle, and that without prompt medical attention, the injury would prove fatal."

While bystanders captured his arrest on video showing Gray moaning for help, the autopsy concluded that he suffered no injuries suggesting a neck hold or stemming from physical restraint. Allan noted that Gray could be seen bearing weight on his legs and speaking as he was loaded into the van.

Officers placed Gray on a metal bench running from front to back along the outside wall of the van. He was not belted in, which is a violation of Baltimore police policy. After the doors were closed, he could be heard yelling and banging, "causing the van to rock," the autopsy noted.

The van made several stops. The second stop occurred a few blocks away on Baker Street, where officers placed an identification band and leg restraints on Gray.

"Reportedly, Mr. Gray was still yelling and shaking the van," the medical examiner wrote. "He was removed from the van and placed on the ground in a kneeling position, facing the van doors, while ankle cuffs were placed, and then slid onto the floor of the van, belly down and head first, reportedly still verbally and physically active."

Authorities previously said the third stop in the area of Fremont and Mosher streets was captured on video, which showed the van driver, Goodson, getting out and looking in the back.

During a fourth stop, at Dolphin Street and Druid Hill Avenue, authorities said, Goodson called for assistance, at which point Porter got involved.

"The assisting officer opened the doors and observed Mr. Gray lying belly down on the floor with his head facing the cabin compartment, and reportedly he was asking for help, saying he couldn't breathe, couldn't get up, and needed a medic," the autopsy says. "The officer assisted Mr. Gray to the bench and the van continued on its way."

The van made a fifth stop at North and Pennsylvania avenues to pick up a second arrestee, where Mosby has said White helped check on Gray.

"Mr. Gray was found kneeling on the floor, facing the front of the van and slumped over to his right against the bench, and reportedly appeared lethargic with minimal responses to direct questions," the report says.

The medical examiner concluded that Gray's most significant injury was to the lower left part of his head. Given the descriptions of his demeanor and positioning in the van, it most likely occurred between the second and fourth stops made by the van driver, and possibly before the third stop, according to the autopsy.

While it's possible Gray was hurt while lying on the floor and moving back and forth, Allan determined that his body likely couldn't have moved in that position with enough force to cause his injuries.

Allan surmised that Gray could have gotten to his feet using the bench and opposite wall. With his hands and ankles restrained, and unable to see out of the van and anticipate turns, she said, he was at a high risk for an unsupported fall.

She also noted the possibility that Gray's neck injury occurred "with him in a partially reclining position or as he was changing his position on the floor of the van," if the van moved abruptly enough.

The injury to Gray's spinal cord would have caused loss of function of his limbs, and would have "direct effects" on his ability to breathe, according to the autopsy.

Police had said in a court filing that the second passenger reported hearing Gray banging and kicking through the metal divider. Allan said that would not have been possible given Gray's injuries, but he may have been suffering a seizure at the time, which could have caused the noise, she said.

Old news, but I don't remember seeing anything about it on here.

Here.

They have beefed up the TRIPS support from the draft and strengthened the provision allowing countries to ignore TPP when it clashes with public health policy.

The compromise on publication of IP registrations excludes the wording a couple of countries were seeking to allow them not to publish for things they considered obscene but makes it an objective rather then mandatory for most forms.

The first signs of harmonization, as with every other trade treaty its a statement of intent rather then actual harmonization. An international registry with a single application process would be a nice outcome. In this section they also dropped the adoption of traditional knowledge exceptions to patents and instead simply restated the last WIPO treaty.

Nothing unexpected in trademarks, only US change is that we are going to start recognizing geographical marks. All the advanced economies part to TPP already have domestic laws in place to deal with cybersquatting and the section simply mandates that parties have a process in place rather than enforcing anything draconian.

Patentability changes have been dropped since the draft, new section allowing countries to exclude patents on things they consider harmful.

Administrative delay extension has been made optional.

Data exclusivity has been retained on agricultural chemicals and pharma. Exclusivity for pharma is too short to survive patent exclusivity on IND's and TPP excludes new uses & compositions from exclusivity requirements.

Patent linkage has been mostly switched to a duration extension, USTO is pushing towards replacing pharma patents with a post-approval exclusivity period and this is a nice transition towards this. Remaining portions of patent linkage are much weaker then they previously were. Section also suggests countries adopt their own accelerated approvals process. It still contains an allowance for countries to adopt linkage though.

As expected biologics have a greater informational exclusivity period (8 years vs 5) but with a provision to come back to it in a decade for review.

Copyright terms are life + 70, already standardized in other treaties.

Explicit fair use requirement.

This is the copyright enforcement section that people were getting upset about before, some minor changes from the draft. As expected enforcement section doesn't require service providers to spy on people, hand over data whenever rights-holders ask for it or any of the draconian measures which people claimed would absolutely be in there. Not familiar with the IP protection regimes of all the countries party to TPP but everything seems fairly normal, I don't imagine this will impact anyone beyond the the developing economies. Criminal enforcement is only mandated for commercial scale violations but doesn't actually state what those penalties should be (beyond high enough to discourage). There is safe-harbor and notice & counter-notice in TPP though.

So, as most of your probably know, I recently made the transition to university. And--again, as most of you probably know--I am a Conservative, in the sense that I tend to prefer the Tories over any other political party in the UK. I usually don't describe myself as a "conservative",but the label is sufficient for my point here.

I've already gotten into a few discussions, one with a girl who was a third-wave feminist and a Labour voter (who, the next day, I heard drunkenly say "All Tories should kill themselves) and a couple of other people who also voted Labour. We all know that students have a tendency to be more left-of-centre, progressive and to have attitudes of social justice. Already I have encountered people calling me a "wanker" or "scum" for voting Conservative, although most of the time it's done in a light-hearted manner and is actually pretty funny. But it's a useful segue into a point I've been wanting to make for a long time.

On college campuses--the one place which should be devoted to intellectual diversity and freedom of speech--we are seeing a worrying trend towards intolerance of these things (and, indeed, among younger people in general). Occurrences such as this, where speakers are shouted down or somehow silenced on or removed from a campus are becoming increasingly common. In fact, there was a case at my own university two years ago when students effectively removed Israel's deputy ambassador when he was scheduled to give a talk.

The first example, though, is particularly interesting. The speaker who was shouted down was done so for recently publishing some literature which questioned the whole "rape culture on college campuses" meme--which, by now, is pretty well known to be false. He was, as far as it matters, prevented from speaking for committing heresy; he was shouted down and silenced for questioning the dominant narrative, with no respect from the people upholding that narrative for his point of view. It's rather an insult to whole point of higher education: the one place you should indeed have the freedom to speak and listen, the freedom to have your views challenged, the freedom to feel uncomfortable and the freedom to be offended.

Why do I call these things freedoms? Social psychologists--particularly Jonathan Haidt--have documented how humans are rather "anti-fragile". Facing resistance and obstacles is good for you and it develops you as a person; yet we have calls for things like trigger warnings and safe spaces. Keeping in mind, by the way, that the best way to deal with post-traumatic stress is to face your triggers and harden yourself to them. Again, humans are generally anti-fragile in nature. It's also dangerous as it seems to be breeding a generation of students who have no respect for the fact that the world around them will not change because they shout down people they disagree with--often something they mistake for strength, when it is in fact a sign of significant weakness. Ancient philosophers from the stoics to Buddha and even Jesus recognised it makes far more sense to change yourself to deal with the world around you, than to try and change the world extrospectively.

This shouting down of speakers to a more benign way of non-participation in intellectual fora belies a class of people unwilling to have their assumptions and their dogma challenged. It is the kind of anti-intellectualism that has always accompanied intolerant regimes or ways of thinking. It is a situation that has led to the actual shunning of students. It's not a case of the majority thinking the minority incorrect; it's a case of them believing them to be also evil, malicious or immoral in some form or another. This sort of moralising attitude kills discourse in the very place it ought to be protected. It's similar to the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" narrative regarding Michael Brown which was pushed by progressives and social justice activists--and, funnily enough, I discussed this with the aforementioned girl. People who disagreed with the narrative were sometimes labelled racist, and this continued after the Justice Dept. (and, IIRC, an independent report commissioned by the family) disproved that narrative.

Now, let me be clear, the issue is not that these "progressives" were wrong about Michael Brown. The issue is that they approached the issue in such a way as to stifle discussion and, ironically, genuine progress on that case. Of course, when it comes to college campuses, the fault doesn't lie squarely with the students; if anything, the professors and academics facilitating this behaviour--and indeed those who do nothing to encourage intellectual diversity in homogeneous fields--are primarily to blame. All students should have their assumptions and pre-conceived ideas challenged: from the conservative to the progressive.

And this is rather an endemic problem in academia. Particularly social psychology and sociology. Indeed psychology, there has been a worrying trend leftwards with most respondents describing themselves as "liberal" (although, in this post, I am using the term "progressive" synonymously); prior to the 1990s, academic psychology leaned left, whereas today it is overwhelmingly devoid of conservatives, libertarians or even moderates. The current ratio of liberals and Democrats to conservatives and Republicans is around 14:1, being just 4:1 before the '90s. The paper I linked goes on to describe a number of "risk points" that come with this political monoculture, one being the assumption of progressive values in research. Which, indeed, we do see--this paper finds that individuals who are high in either right-wing authoritarianism or social dominance orientation tend to make more unethical decisions, yet the things considered unethical are decisions such as not formally taking the side of a female colleague in a sexual harassment complaint while having limited information. Researchers may also follow "progressive-friendly" lines of research while ignoring those with 'uncouth' connotations; for instance, there was starkly little research into stereotypes between the 1930s and 1980s--just assumed by psychologists to be false--until a conservative psychologist in 1978 put it to the test and sparked a litany of literature which indeed confirmed the opposite to be true. Stereotypes, it so happens, actually have a pretty decent chance of being broadly correct.

Such monoculture in psychology has also led to the mischaracterisation of opponent conservatives, by calling them more intolerant--or, perhaps, rigid is a better word. Despite the fact we now know that this cognitive failure arises in both liberals and conservatives pretty much equally. We can also see numerous other examples, such as the prevalence of confirmation bias which is worsened in ideological echo chambers.

Of course, you could offer explanations for this which have little to do with the political homogeneity of psychology--and social sciences in general. Maybe conservatives are just less intelligent and thus less likely to get a PhD and find a place in academia? While social conservatism is indeed correlated with lower cognitive ability, economic conservatism is correlated with higher cognitive ability, while libertarians have the highest IQ of any group while being severely under-represented. It's also probably not the case that education makes future academics so overwhelmingly liberal. The biggest factors that seem to influence the lack of conservatives heading into psychology tends to be the existence of disproportionate self-selection, a general hostile climate and genuine discrimination.

While the issue with the politicisation of psychology has been raised as early as 1994, this is a disease afflicted social science more broadly. And, personally, I find it scary when this bleeds into campuses; the infection of academia is a cancer worthy of fear all by itself, but when 55pc of colleges have restrictive speech codes in some sense, it becomes very worrying. Indeed, it is probably true that hearing other viewpoints is one of the most important process in making us more tolerant people (there's that anti-fragility again), and yet the trend we clearly see is moving away from that. When we have this kind of attitude to opposing ideas, we can't face the evidence against us even if we ultimately turn out to be correct; take this example from sociology:

[E]xamples of inconvenient facts abound. Blacks (and Asians) have better mental health than Whites, an effect labeled the Black–White paradox (Keyes 2009). Hispanics have better physical health and lower mortality than Whites, an effect known as the Hispanic paradox (Markides and Eschbach 2005). And Asians have a higher average education level than Whites (Sakamoto et al. 2009), an effect which is as yet unnamed. The use of “paradox” rather than “falsification” for these effects is telling, given that a robust theory should have no paradoxes. In other cases, no clear ranking can be made. Although Asians have the highest median household income, Whites have the highest median net worth (Kochhar, Taylor, and Fry 2011). Black men are perceived as both highly attractive and highly dangerous (Lewis 2011; Sadler et al. 2012). And Blacks have the highest risk of being a victim of a hate crime, but Blacks also commit hate crimes at the highest per capita rate (Chorba 2001; Rubenstein 2003). Meanwhile, Jews and Asians and are almost exclusively victims rather than perpetrators of hate crimes (Chorba 2001; Rubenstein 2003), which seems to put them at bottom of a racial hierarchy, but their education and income put them at the top of the racial hierarchy.

TL;DR: We are fucking goosestepping towards a world of academic echo-chambers, intellectually intolerant students, young people who have no idea how to face the world and a general attitude of the prioritisation of emotional and social justice over fundamental liberties and empirical rigor. Fuck me.

fu k

With stem cells.

British surgeons have taken a “big step forward” towards curing the most common form of blindness by developing and successfully performing a ground breaking operation.

Surgeons at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital carried out the first operation on a female patient with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), characterised by leaking blood vessels. They now believe that the same procedure could apply to dry AMD, which accounts for nine out of 10 of the 600,000 people affected by the condition in the UK.

AMD affects central vision which is what you see when focus straight ahead, according to NHS Choices. In AMD this vision becomes increasingly blurred, which means that reading becomes difficult, colours appear less vibrant and people’s face are difficult to recognise. By 2020, it's predicted almost 700,000 people will have late-stage AMD in the UK.

However, after performing surgery on the 60-year patient, who was classified as legally blind, surgeons are optimistic of a breakthrough, although the full impact on her sight is known. She is one of 10 people to take part in the trial. After taking a single stem cell from an embryo and growing a patch of cells in a laboratory, these were then transplanted into the patient’s eye. The cells were taken from unused embryos created during IVF treatment.

“The reason why we are so excited is that we have been able to grow a perfect copy of the eye,” Professor Lyndon Da Cruz, a surgeon at Moorfields told the Telegraph. He added that he optimistic that the patient’s sight would be restored. “Having got this far, we feel it will work,” Prof Cruz said.

“There has been a lot of research behind this and this is now looking like a route to treatment.” The surgery could be routine within five years, he said. Professor Chris Mason, a professor of regenerative medicine at University College London, described the surgery as “a big step forward to curing a major cause of blindness.”

If the trials were successful he told The Telegraph that the therapy could be “affordably manufactured at large scale,” enabling all patients to benefit.

muh souls

Here

Lots of misinformation going around regarding the price hike on pyrimethamine both on reddit and in the media and with a dozen people tagging me to answer questions over the last couple of days I figured it would be useful to post all the common questions people seem to have. Also happy to answer any questions people have about pharma or healthcare.

How is there still a patent in place for a drug developed 62 years ago?

There is no current patent in place for pyrimethamine. Instead it has a special FDA classification called orphan drug.

An orphan drug classification is awarded for drugs that have a very small market and the FDA believes that guaranteeing a protected market is the only way to ensure the drug remains available to US patients.

The classification is also awarded for small markets if no prior efficacy trials have been completed for a use and a pharma completes them, this can be an off-label usage or it can be for a drug developed prior to 1965 when we began to require efficacy trials for new drugs. A pharma who completes efficacy trials is awarded a 7 year period of marketing exclusivity in the US.

Marketing exclusivity means that no other pharma can distribute it in the US, it behaves similarly to a patent in this regard.

Doesn't he need to raise the money to continue development?

No. While I can't directly speak to his claims of attempting to develop new drugs none of his prior companies have engaged in drug development activity and instead they have simply purchased licenses for existing drugs.

In addition drug development doesn't work in this manner. Pharma seeks investment and then recovers the cost of development to return to investors when a drug is on market (which is why we have protected markets with patents in the first place), for multi-drug companies they will certainly seek to recover the cost of failed drugs too but they don't increase the price of existing drugs in anticipation of completing new development activity.

How will the price rises impact consumers?

ACA regulated how those with chronic conditions pay for drugs. Cost exposure for individuals who need the drug is effectively unchanged as they are subject to a co-payment instead of co-insurance. The cost will fall on RX providers and the federal government (via Ryan White programs and Medicare) which is obviously a cost for everyone in the country.

What legislative/regulatory action is possible?

While the FDA do move fairly slowly they have the authority to act against those abusing an orphan license in this manner and they probably have already sent out a regulatory notice, pharma are required to notify the FDA before making a public announcement regarding a price change. The process for revoking their orphan license takes about a year, the FDA have done this in the past for similar pricing abuse.

For this specific drug there is also another option as its part of the WHO essential drugs list, any item that appears on this list a country is permitted to simply ignore any patents for under the TRIPS agreement. This would require NiH, congress or the executive to act to assert the countries rights under this agreement.

How long would it take for a new generic to make it to market?

For this drug the process would take around 6 months. Newer generics take up to 15 months.

Older drugs like this are inexpensive to manufacture and can use existing filings rather then having to complete their own clinical work so there is not a particularly high cost of entry in this case. The cost to file with the FDA in this case would be $38,020, assuming an existing pharma takes it on additional entry costs are only for things like designing packaging, drug information sheets etc.

Is it is true the US is the only country in the world which doesn't regulate price?

Every country which is not the US sets a limit on the price they are willing to pay for drugs based on their efficacy, in most countries this process is a dialog as there is not a true objective standard for measuring efficacy. No country tells pharma how much they can charge beyond this, as long as a drug meets their price/efficacy standards they don't regulate prices beyond this.

The US should have a similar system, it will certainly reduce our drug expenditure by removing low-efficacy drugs from the market but the savings likely wont be very large on an average per-unit basis. The drugs we consume the most of are generally not unreasonably priced, we would have a readjustment in prices (some would come up as the efficacy system would set a bar, others would come down for the same reason) but little net change.

In the case of this drug even the most restrictive system in the world (currently the UK) would still buy it, its extremely effective and the price wasn't set high enough for any country to refuse to cover it. However this problem generally would not occur outside the US as the US is one of only two countries which deal with orphan drugs in this manner, most don't require re-approval for a use which has already been demonstrated on-market (IE off-label use can be licensed absent efficacy trials if sufficient data exists elsewhere) and they don't discourage off-label use (EG Medicare prohibits physicians from writing off-label, its thankfully poorly enforced but remains a problem).

How do our drug costs compare with the rest of the world?

On a per-unit basis we are higher then average but not an outlier, our costs are comparable to Germany and Japan. Our per-capita costs are much higher then average and we are an outlier, this is due to very high consumption, we consume a much high proportion of branded drugs and we consume a much higher proportion of on-patent drugs.

Excess consumption mainly comes from those covered by Medicare, an efficacy/cost control mechanism would do a good job of reducing this. Our excess from branded drugs comes from stronger regulations on substitution preventing pharmacists from substituting and physicians writing no-substitute prescription far more frequently then they should. Our on-patent excess is driven by almost all drugs entering the world market in the US before elsewhere as 47% of development cost recovery worldwide is from US markets.

BBC

There were more than 1,000 newly recorded cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in England between April and June, NHS data reveals.

For the first time the official figures were expanded to include information from general practices and mental health trusts.

They show nine cases where girls were under 18 when first seen.

FGM is illegal across the UK and it is illegal to take someone abroad for this purpose.

Not all cases would have taken place in the past three months - some may have been picked up at routine appointments for other health issues many years after the incidents occurred.

And the report did not look at whether the cases took place in the UK or abroad.

Sometimes called female circumcision, FGM refers to procedures including the partial or total removal of external female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

It can cause issues including severe pain, infections, pregnancy complications and even death.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre figures covered cases of FGM reported by the women and girls themselves and others recorded by clinicians during appointments.

'Global dimension'

Experts say figures on the practice have been patchy and it is difficult to know exactly how many women have been affected by FGM.

But the government has plans to make data collection mandatory across many areas of the NHS.

Tanya Barron of the charity Plan UK said global action was needed to tackle this problem.

She added: "It's shocking to see the extent of FGM here in the UK.

"We've seen hugely increased attention on this problem in the past few years and we are now waking up to the scale of this terrible practice.

"What we must always keep in mind though is that this is not specifically a British problem.

"FGM is a practice with an inherently global dimension.

"And while it's vital that we do everything we can to stop FGM here in the UK, as well as to support the girls and women affected by it, the reality is that this practice won't end in the UK until it is ended worldwide."

Analysis: What do the numbers show?

Charities say it is very difficult to know exactly how many women have been affected by FGM in the UK.

And many of the cases recorded by the NHS in the last three months will have not have taken place recently.

There are a number of reasons women or girls do not talk openly about FGM soon after it happens - including the fear of stigma or getting people into trouble.

Some incidents may come to light years later - for example at a hospital appointment for an unrelated issue or during an antenatal visit.

What is new is a concerted push to collect more data on FGM.

In the last few months clinicians in acute hospitals in England have been told it is mandatory to record any cases they see - whether they were previously recorded by NHS systems or not.

And in October this reporting will be mandatory for GP practices and mental health specialists as well.

Many practices have already started collating these figures and some have been used in this latest report.

For these reasons we can't compare any previous figures and so experts don't yet have a sense of what the trend is.
But there are many experts who hope that more data will help them better understand the scale of the problem.

I admit it. I was Oldfag Sparkles.

he's wrong

MY BAD

MSNBC

For much of the summer, the polls in the Republican presidential race have moved in one direction: Donald Trump building on his previous leads, gathering additional support from GOP voters.
 
But as every financial-firm commercial is required to tell you, past performance is not indicative of future results. MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin reported yesterday on an interesting new CNN poll.
The first major national poll since the second GOP debate finds Carly Fiorina surging into a second place and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s campaign in total collapse.
 
The survey by CNN of 444 registered Republican voters put Donald Trump in first place with 24% support, a drop of 8 points since their last poll, and Fiorina in second place with 15%. Fiorina earned plaudits on the right for her debate performance, which included multiple clashes with Trump, although fact checkers pointed out that she vividly cited footage from a hidden camera video of Planned Parenthood that does not appear to exist.
Here’s the latest rundown:
 
1. Donald Trump: 24% (down eight points from early September)
2. Carly Fiorina: 15% (up 12 points)
3. Ben Carson: 14% (down five points)
4. Marco Rubio: 11% (up eight points)
5. Jeb Bush: 9% (unchanged)
6. Ted Cruz: 6% (down one point)
6. Mike Huckabee: 6% (up one point)
8. Rand Paul: 4% (up one point)
9. Chris Christie: 3% (up one point)
10. John Kasich: 2% (unchanged)
 
If you’re noticing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) absence, you’re not alone. The far-right governor is tied for 12th place with – I kid you not – less than 1% support.
 
In fact, in CNN polling, if a candidate’s support is .5 or greater, that total is rounded up the next closest percentage point (5.5% becomes 6%; 10.5% becomes 11%, and so on). In Walker’s case, his support is listed simply as an asterisk, which means he’s registering support below 0.5%, tying him with Bobby Jindal, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki.
 
There was a time, not too long ago, that Team Jindal would have been thrilled beyond words to be tied with Scott Walker. That time has long since passed.
 
At the risk of twisting the knife, let’s note that Walker is now also tied with candidates who are barely trying.
 
As for the top tier, this is the first time in quite a while that four different candidates reached double digits in the same national poll. That said, the top three candidates – who currently enjoy 53% of the Republican vote between them – have a combined total of zero days in public office.
 
Trump remains on top, at least for now, and his backers can’t be pleased to see his advantage shrink this much, this quickly. But looking past the top-line result, Trump is still seen by GOP voters as the best candidate to handle the economy, address illegal immigration, and oversee foreign policy.
 
Asked, however, about “social issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage,” Republican voters narrowly preferred Ben Carson to Trump.

Fionrina and Rubio are the winners, it'd seem.

So, Bernie has a cute little webpage where he lists ten reasons why TPP would be bad for America. Unsurprisingly, they are mostly bullshit.

1. TPP will allow corporations to outsource even more jobs.

Who cares? The resulting "job loss" from this is literally true only in the most irrelevant kind of way. Required reading for people stupid enough to make this claim is Paul Krugman's A Country is Not a Company. Free trade doesn't even lead to a spike in unemployment; usually because jobs also get insourced, as well as monetary policy being able to reduce slack in the labour market.

Besides, gains from trade are in wages and prices, not employment.

2. U.S. sovereignty will be undermined by giving corporations the right to challenge our laws before international tribunals.

Sanders doesn't even understand what he is criticising. ISDS is an arbitration process wherein companies can receive monetary compensation for suffering at the hands of unfair or discriminatory laws; it doesn't allow legislation to be "challenged", and does not allow companies to 'sue for lost profits'. (See: Phillip Morris, Ethyl Corp, Hamburg-Vattenfall).

3 - Wages, benefits, and collective bargaining will be threatened.

This is the opposite of what free trade does; wages and benefits have been doing just fine since NAFTA passed. This really is a basic concept of economics; if Vietnamese workers can make jeans for $0.50/hr compared to US workers making jeans for $2.00/hr this is good for Americans because jeans will then be cheaper. It's called comparative advantage.

4 - Our ability to protect the environment will be undermined.

There's a decent argument to be made for the environmental externalities of trade; Sanders doesn't make them. He goes on to claim that most ISDS cases are regarding environmental law, but the TPP itself has a public health exemption. So long as the regulations apply to both foreign and domestic firms, and so long as they're actually public health laws, the legislation is fine.

Cases wherein environmental law has been challenged (Ethyl Corp, Hamburg-Vattenfall) is usually due to said law being unduly discriminatory or unnecessary.

5 - Food Safety Standards will be threatened.

He doesn't even make an argument here; it's just playground logic about how Vietnamese food exports could be contaminated and thus the increase in volume will bring illnesses into the US. It's just stupid.

6 - Buy America laws could come to an end.

Good. Although, unfortunately, the US usually manages to get exemptions for this from trade deals.

7 - Prescription drug prices will increase, access to life saving drugs will decrease, and the profits of drug companies will go up.

We've heard the same bullshit come out of groups like Doctors Without Borders. Countries are permitted to ignore pharmaceutical patents for anything on the essential drugs list, or if there is a public health crisis as long as the drugs are manufactured for domestic consumption. An agreement between developed countries, however, usually results in the patents being honoured in order to incentivise further development so we can all have better drugs.

When it comes to developing countries, they are either excused or subject to mandatory generic licensing of pharmaceutical patents with the exception of drugs considered elective. This was formalised in a WTO agreement called TRIPS, which was amended in the early 2000s to allow third parties to manufacture essential drugs for certain countries and provide them for free (most HIV for Africa is manufactured in the US) since most poor countries don't have the biomedical infrastructure to produce them. The TPP IP chapter reaffirms the primacy of TRIPS.

8 - Wall Street would benefit at the expense of everyone else.

He claims TPP would outlaw a FTT and restrict the implementation of capital controls; utterly baseless.

9 - The TPP would reward authoritarian regimes like Vietnam that systematically violate human rights.

Foreign aid is a much bigger issue in this arena, but personally I will be waiting for Bernie to reveal his plan to improve human rights in countries like Vietnam.

10 - The TPP has no expiration date, making it virtually impossible to repeal.

He would've been better off making a list of nine points.

IDS is the thorn in my Conservative side.

A coroner has concluded for the first time that a man with severe mental illness killed himself as a direct result of being found “fit to work” by the Government’s outsourced disability assessors.

Michael O’Sullivan, a 60-year-old father from north London, hanged himself after his disability benefits were removed despite the opinion of three doctors that he was suffering from recurrent depression and certified as unable to work by his GP.

Figures released last month by the Department for Work and Pensions showed that nearly 90 people died every month between 2011 and 2014 after they had been declared fit for employment after undergoing a work capability assessment (WCA).

Ministers insisted that the statistics provided no basis for a link to the Government’s welfare reforms. But it has now emerged that a coroner ruled in the case of Mr O’Sullivan that the WCA and anxiety caused to him by its findings were the direct cause of his death.

Mary Hassell, the senior coroner for inner north London, wrote to the DWP warning that she believed there was a risk of similar deaths in future and demanding preventative action.

And far from being the thorn in just my side, he is the bullet in the loaded gun pointed at the heads of disabled people in the UK.

Recommend me a game on Steam I can currently afford.

Bearing in mind I won't be coming for another two years, but fuck it you can't be too prepared.

I've heard that the word "cunt" is a lot stronger in the US than it is in England, and apparently getting out of your car when the cops pull you over is a big no-no.