Impact of Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren is asking a simple question: When did any of you bank regulators actually try a case against a bank? The implication is that the regulators are giving banks little slaps on the wrist, and Warren's expressed frustration is that the banks are ripping off the public, then invited to settle these egregious cases by merely paying a tiny portion of the ill-gotten goods. This is so refreshing to see a member of Congress demanding straight answers to simple questions in order to expose the all-too-cozy relationships between government agencies and banks.

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Self-destruction of the U.S. Military

Ron Paul blames reckless warmongering on the staggering rates of drug abuse and suicide in the U.S. Military:

With regards to drug abuse, Paul explained, “The truth is, killing strangers in unconstitutional and senseless wars causes guilt to the participant no matter what kind of military indoctrination is attempted. Those afflicted may attempt to bury the pain in alcohol or drugs or other destructive behaviors, but we see that only leads to more problems. It may not be popular to point this out, but it goes against human nature to kill a fellow human being for retaliating against those who initiate a war of aggression on their soil.”
How much does the military medicate its personnel?
[I]n 2011, the Pentagon spent more on pharmaceutical drugs and injections than Black Hawk helicopters, Abrams tanks, Hercules C-130 cargo planes and Patriot missiles combined. Since 2002, the government has spent $5 billion on Lipitor, Plavix, Advair, Nexium and Singulair.” Schwartz also noted, ““The military spent at least $2.7 billion on antidepressants and more than $1.6 billion on opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin and hydrocodone over the past decade.

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The cognitive styles of conservatives and liberals

PLOS offers another bit of evidence that political preferences might have their genesis at low-level cognitive processes:

Liberals and conservatives engage different cognitive processes when they think about risk, and they support recent evidence that conservatives show greater sensitivity to threatening stimuli.
Here are more attempts to tie political persuasion to lower level phenomena.

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