Sharyl Attkisson

WATCH: What is "Loser Think"? Dilbert creator Scott Adams explains

The following is a transcript of Lisa Fletcher's story in FullMeasure.news. Click on the link at the end of the transcript to watch the story.

Most anyone who’s worked in an office setting with cubicles and an idiot boss can relate to the comic strip Dilbert, created by Scott Adams. Now, Adams has some advice for all of us in a new book about how to get outside our bubble and become a respected thinker. Lisa Fletcher sat down with him in California to talk about his latest book called Loserthink: How Untrained Brains are Ruining America.

Lisa: Describe the meaning of the title.

Scott Adams:So loser think is a word I made up. And it refers to the fact that we all have these blank spots in our mental model. So for example, if you’d never been an economist, you might not know how they think about things or how scientists do, or psychologists, historians, artists. I’m not saying that some people are smart and some people are not smart. It’s just whether you’ve been exposed to the way people think in different domains.

Scott Adams: Some of the examples of loser think are people using analogies to predict. This is my exaggerated example. Hey, my cat has markings under its snout that looks like Hitler's mustache. So my cat's gonna invade Poland. It doesn't work that way. Now you say, okay, that's a stupid example because nobody would think that way. But then you look at the news and people are saying, Hey president Trump is criticizing the press. Who else does that? Dictators. Next thing you know he's going full dictator. But doesn't really work that way because that makes you think past the sale. The sale is, has the press reached a point where having your leader criticize them is actually what you would want? I would argue yes. We’ve reached that point where he’s got free speech, they’ve got free speech, he can say what he wants because they’ve crossed a line in so many cases. So that's an example. Don't use analogies to make predictions.

Lisa: Is loser think a new phenomenon unlocked by social media - or is this something we’ve been dealing with forever?

Scott Adams: We’ve dealt with it forever, but it seems more because of social media and technological change that changed everything. Ruined everything. Really. It was the ability for the media, social media, and the news to measure with precision who’s clicking what. Fake news will always get more clicks than real news. So the business model forces us into a state of fight or flight, you know, our bodies are all cranked up, our hair’s on fire over everything.

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Lisa: If you can pick out your favorite section or chapter of the book- what is it?

Scott Adams: I liked the part about ego, so I talk about getting out of ego jail. The mistake is to think of your ego as who you are. My ego is me. I’m going to protect it. That is pure loser think. The trick is to put yourself in a position where you do embarrass yourself - do a speech, maybe you’re not prepared, ask somebody out, get turned down, just take it all and just wake up the next morning and see if your coffee tastes the same. It does.

Lisa: You are the creator of one of the most successful comic strips of all time, beloved Dilbert. Can you tell us something that maybe you or the audience and fans don’t know about Dilbert?

Scott Adams: Here's a little trivia. Dog Burt's original name was not dog Burt. He was, he was the companion to Dilbert, and before he was syndicated, his name was dill dog. And I think, you know why I changed it. Yeah. So that's a little trivia that some people know, but not too many.

One more piece of advice from Adams to avoid loser think. Don’t try to read minds! Adams says we often make assumptions about what other people are thinking but we shouldn’t be too confident that what we assume is correct.

Click on the link below to watch the video story on FullMeasure.news:

http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/loserthink

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POLL: Trust issues with the FBI on the rise

People trust the FBI less than ever in light of the latest revelations about the FBI's wiretapping misconduct. That's according to the latest unscientific poll at SharylAttkisson.com.

Sixty percent (60%) of the respondents stated they trusted the FBI less in light of the recent reports of misconduct by the FBI, while 38% said their feelings had not changed and they do not trust the FBI.

Read the full results below. Meantime, be sure and vote in our latest poll at SharylAttkisson.com on the home page. Look for the black box in the right sidebar or scroll way down on the mobile site!

With revelations about FBI wiretapping misconduct I trust the FBI:

< 1% More

60% Less

<1% Same (still trust)

38% Same (don't trust)

<1% I don't know/don't care

Head of Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Graham says no more witnesses needed in Trump impeachment but...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Photograph by: Frank Plitt via Wikimedia Commons

In a statement today, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he does not believe additional testimony is needed in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.

According to Graham, President Trump's controversial phone call with the President of Ukraine reflected U.S. concerns about corruption, not selfish political interests.

"There is ample evidence for the President to be concerned about conflicts of interest on behalf of Hunter Biden and that Vice President Joe Biden’s failure to take appropriate action was unacceptable," says Graham. "This combination, in my view, undercut America’s message on reforming corruption in Ukraine. There is a mountain of evidence to suggest the Bidens’ behavior was harmful to the United States."

While Biden was Vice President and overseeing U.S.-Ukrainian issues, his son Hunter was hired by a Ukrainian energy firm that was mired in alleged corruption. Hunter Biden reportedly received $50,000 a month for his service on Burisma's board of directors.

Several anti-Trump State Department witnesses in the House impeachment hearings testified that they found the hiring of Biden's son problematic from an appearance and conflict of interest standpoint. One official says he expressed his concern to the Vice President's office but did not hear back.

Ultimately, Biden himself publicly stated that he threatened to withhold U.S funds from Ukraine if the president did not immediately fire a prosecutor that was investigating the firm that hired Hunter. However, Biden says the threat was made because he thought the prosecutor was corrupt, not because the prosecutor was investigating Burisma. Nonetheless, some experts say, Burisma and Hunter's son benefitted from the quid pro quo arrangement.

Graham indicated that if witnesses are called in the impeachment trial, that the President and his team will likely have a list of witnesses of their own they wish to call, perhaps including the Bidens.

Read Sen. Graham's full statement below:

“It is my opinion, based on the law and facts, that additional testimony is unnecessary in this case.

“For the sake of argument, one could assume everything attributable to John Bolton is accurate and still the House case would fall well below the standards to remove a president from office.

“It is clear to me that there is ample evidence for the President to be concerned about conflicts of interest on behalf of Hunter Biden and that Vice President Joe Biden’s failure to take appropriate action was unacceptable. This combination, in my view, undercut America’s message on reforming corruption in Ukraine. There is a mountain of evidence to suggest the Bidens’ behavior was harmful to the United States.

“The House managers’ claim that the sole reason President Trump temporarily paused the aid was purely personal and political, not public, does not withstand scrutiny.

“However, I am concerned when John Bolton’s credibility is attacked, it makes it more likely some will feel the need to call him as a witness.

“In that event, it would be important for the President and his team to call witnesses on other issues.”

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U.S. troops suffered Traumatic Brain Injury in Iranian attack: What is TBI?

Ryan Larkin, former Navy SEAL, who suffered Traumatic Brain Injury

The Trump administration has announced 50 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI after Iran's missile attack in Iraq January 8.

Most have returned to duty, according to a Pentagon spokesman. At least 18 are being evaluated further.

Experts say there could be a long road ahead for the troops with TBI even if they can, for the moment, continue serving.

From my report on TBI for "Full Measure":

Frank Larkin: Ryan was a sniper, so he fired high caliber sniper weapons. The 50-caliber category use an awful lot of pressure. Exposure to IEDs of which the battlefield was littered with IEDs. There's a variety of sources that can cause concussive effects that ultimately could result in damage.
Because the damage is invisible on regular MRI scans, doctors long lumped the mysterious suffering of brain-injured troops under the catchall of "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." But a sea change began in 2011.
Sharyl: What new do you know today since 2011 about this?
Dr. David Brody: Probably more has been discovered from 2010 to today than in the entire history of science before 2010, because there's been so much interest and attention focused on this problem.
Neurologist David Brody heads up Traumatic Brain Injury research at the Uniformed Services University. He helped lead a landmark study in 2011.
Brody: Before that, Traumatic Brain Injury, a concussion, was something you just shrugged off. "Are you hurt? Are you injured?" You just got back up and went back at, both in sports and the military, and in real life. We recognized around that time that there were real serious consequences of concussive traumatic brain injury that there was a lot more injury than people had previously recognized.
Sharyl: Dr. Brody and his team were first to use a new MRI technique called "diffuser tenser imaging" on soldiers. That allowed them to examine axons, the most vulnerable part of the brain, where long wires transmit information like celery stalks move water.
Dr. Brody: But after injury, the brain's axons become like celery soup. Same color as celery, smells like celery, but now water diffuses in all directions. We can use diffuser tenser imaging to detect the difference between celery and celery soup in the brain.
The results were shocking. Brains that looked normal on regular MRI scans were obviously damaged when imaged using the new technique. Dr. Brody found abnormalities in nearly one third of the soldiers who'd been injured in blasts.
Sharyl: How many men and women in the military do you think are subjected to this potential type of injury, whether they're in the training or they're actually out in the field being exposed to this?
Brody: The official numbers are that there's about 375,000 U.S. military service members that have had traumatic brain injury from 2001 until the present. We think the real numbers may be substantially higher than that. It's probably maybe twice that many.
Sharyl: What percentage is that of the military?
Dr. Brody: Some estimates are that between 10 and 20% of deployed military service members have a brain injury during their deployment.
Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson

The report below is about another soldier who returned to the U.S. with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and other medical problems, but was unable to get the help he needed from the Veterans Administration in 2009.

Fatal Flaws

For more on TBI, watch the full reports on Full Measure. Click the links below about "Ryan's Story."

Ryan's story. Part One.

Ryan's story, Part Two.

Ryan Larkin, former Navy SEAL, who suffered a severe case of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Read more about injuries from the Iranian attack by clicking the link below from the Military Times.

https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2020/01/29/50-service-members-diagnosed-with-tbi-following-iran-ballistic-missile-attack/

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WATCH: Getting the lead out: Newark's water crisis

The following is a transcript of Scott Thuman's investigative report on FullMeasure.news. Click on the link at the end of the transcript to watch the video.

Mention the city “Flint” Michigan and many remember a city water system dangerously contaminated with lead and a government response that failed residents. But what you may not know is cities in every state are grappling with water safety problems-- some worse than Flint. Scott Thuman reports from one such place...Newark, New Jersey...where there are national implications.

Sabre Bee doesn't like to take chances. The filter on her kitchen faucet, just one element of a complex defense she's designed to get the cleanest water she can.

Sabre: where the water comes in from the street into my home, I have a filter there. I have a point of use filter here. And then I filter that water into these pitchers.

Scott: So you triple filter it?

Sabre: I triple filter the water, yeah.

Scott: You don't believe that just one is enough?

Sabre: Absolutely not.

Her home, one of the thousands in this city affected by a crisis in the water system, caused by dangerously high levels of lead. In the shadow of America’s financial capital and the gleaming towers of lower Manhattan, Newark is the largest city in New Jersey. The old decaying infrastructure mean it has long had a lead problem, but back in 2017 the levels in parts of the water system spiked.

Marc Edwards: Like most water crises, it started out with good intentions. They tried to change their water chemistry to reduce the amount of carcinogens that are present to meet EPA regulations, and it backfired because that change lowering the pH caused lead to come off the pipes and contaminate the water supply.

Marc Edwards is Professor of civil engineering at Virginia Tech. He's been working on the problem of lead in water for more than 30 years. Edwards is best known as the scientist who brought national attention to the city of Flint, Michigan, when its lead levels rose dramatically in 2014 and 2015.

Marc Edwards: The two are similar in that the lead levels that were in the water were very high. Actually Newark's were slightly higher than Flint, and probably affected a bigger population.

Lead and water have been associated for milennia. The Romans used it for pipes and roofs, and the English word "plumber" comes from the latin word for lead. But lead's dangers have also been understood for a long time. There's no safe level for it in the human body. In children, it can slow growth, and cause learning problems.

Marc Edwards: It lasts forever, it bends, if there's frost, they would never have to replace it and it doesn't leak. It's really the greatest plumbing material, except for the fact that it poisons and kills people.

In the US, lead was widely used in the 19th century, but concern about health effects encouraged some cities to restrict it in the 1920s. It wasn’t until 1971 that lead in paint was outlawed. Lead pipes were finally banned in 1986. With about 13 million lead service lines nationally, Newark and Flint aren’t exceptions - there are towns and cities all across the US with potentially similar problems.

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In Newark, as in Flint, Sabre says, city leaders began by downplaying the problem.

Sabre: They told people, "Keep calm and carry on. There's no problem here. There's nothing to see here. The water's not poison. You're fine."

In April of 2018, the city posted this notice on its web site, saying the water was safe to drink and was not contaminated, but that headline isn't accurate. Test results published by the city itself showed lead levels in some homes well above the federal action level.

Scott: The truth at some point was that the water is unsafe to drink, right?

Kareem Adeem: The truth at some point, if you had a lead service line from your house and there's a possibility that lead may have been leaching into your house water system, if you had a lead service line. Everybody in the city of Newark don't have a lead service line.

Kareem Adeem is the acting head of Water and Sewere for the city of Newark, says the city has responded well, even if communication could have been better.

Scott: What would you have said differently?

Kareem Adeem: Just make it, the terms that we have to use at times when we explain or something, everybody don't come random, they don't understand. You get bogged down in the 30 page, 30 pages of explaining what happened when you just straightforward, this is what's going on, this is what we plan to do.

The plan in began with free water filters and starting slowly to replace old lead pipes - work that was projected to take a decade. Then in August last year, a breakthrough. The city got $120 million from the county and it's now aiming to replace all lead service lines in just 30 months - one of the biggest and fastest pipe replacement programs ever in the US.

Kareem Adeem: We were replacing a little over 85 lead service lines a day. We just awarded two more contractors on January the second. We're hoping to boost that number up to about a hundred a day by the end of the month.

Scott: This isn't just a Newark problem.

Adeem: It's a national problem-

Scott: This is a national problem. You're suggesting, remove all the lead pipes everywhere.

Kareem Adeem: Remove all the lead pipes everywhere. Upgrade the water and sewer infrastructure.. This is the United States of America. The richest country in the world. We can do it. We're doing it right now in the Newark. We're replacing lead service pipes. So if the Newark can do it, the country can do it.

Even some of the city's strongest critics agree the response is now moving faster than they could have ever expected. But for Sabre, it's forever changed how she feels about water.

Scott: After they replace these lines, how will you feel?

Sabre: As long as I have some test results, as long as science supports it, I am fine with it. I'd still be filtering my water. Oh, from here on out, for the rest of my life, wherever I go, I'm going to have a water filtration system wherever I live. Because this is terrifying. Terrifying.

Even replacing all the lead service lines may not solve the problem. Even some modern plumbing systems using new materials can leave trace amounts of lead. Still, it's worth pointing out that the bans on lead in gasoline, paint and lead pipes have helped drastically reduce the amount of lead in our bodies over the last 20 or 30 years. But these old pipes in towns and cities across the country are a problem for all of us.

Click on the link below to watch the investigative report on FullMeasure.news:

http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/the-lead-crisis

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Harvard's top chemist arrested, accused of hiding Chinese government ties

The head of Harvard University's chemistry department has been arrested on charges related to his alleged ties to China's communist government.

Charles Lieber, 60, is accused of lying to the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health about his participation in China's Thousand Talents Program. The program was reportedly started by China in 2008 allegedly to entice U.S. scientists and researchers to improperly hand over U.S. research.

Under Lieber's Thousand Talents program contract, prosecutors say Wuhan University of Technology in China paid $50,000 a month and provided Lieber with living expenses up to $158,000. Authorities say Lieber also received more than $1.5 million to set up a research lab at Wuhan University of Technology. In return, Lieber allegedly agreed to provide multiple services for the Chinese university including publishing articles and applying for patents.

Harvard has placed Lieber on indefinite administrative leave.

Relationships among U.S. academics, academic institutions, and China have come under scrutiny with China's reported theft of American intellectual property. Investigators say the Chinese government deploys numerous tactics to steal valuable research and other information, often material funded at U.S. taxpayer expense. The tactics include recruiting or using academics and students at American universities.

Prosecutors also charged a Boston University researcher, Yanqing Ye, with lying about her ties to the Chinese military. She is said to now be in China.

A Chinese medical student was also recently charged with attempting to smuggle research specimens to China. Zaosong Zheng was in the U.S. on a Harvard-sponsored visa and allegedly stole the vials of material from a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center lab. An attorney for Zheng has said he is not guilty.

Prosecutors say all three of the China-connected suspects were working "directly or indirectly...for the Chinese government at our country's expense."

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has been investigating China's theft of U.S. scientific research since October 2018.

“Americans have invested billions of dollars in scientific research through direct funding and the tax code," Grassley said in a statement issued after Lieber's arrest. " Taxpayers deserve to know that those resources are kept safe and not stolen or misused by foreign organizations or governments. I’m glad the FBI appears to be taking foreign threats to taxpayer-funded research seriously, but I fear that this case is only the tip of the iceberg. For years, the Chinese communist government has taken advantage of our educational and research system that encourages collaboration, openness and the sharing of information. This is a concerted effort. At the very least, individuals conducting research within the United States should be required to disclose any foreign ties, especially if taxpayers are footing the bill."

According to Grassley, National Institutes of Health research projects have been referred to the inspector general for their failure to disclose foreign affiliations. Also, the Health and Human Services Inspector General released a report NIH's failure to consider the risks posed by providing foreign individuals access to sensitive information.

According to Sen. Grassley's office:

Grassley also wrote to the HHS OIG on January 17, 2019 requesting actions the OIG has taken with respect to threats to research integrity. Last September, Grassley called for immediate action on three HHS OIG reports that raised concern about NIH research oversight.
In August of last year, Grassley sent a letter to the Comptroller General of the United States requesting that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) perform a review of how the federal government is implementing conflict-of-interest policies in taxpayer-supported research and what updates should be made by the executive branch to shore up its ability to detect and deter foreign threats to research. GAO has agreed to perform such a review.
Grassley has also extensively probed grant integrity at the National Science Foundation.
Grassley is also probing foreign threats to Department of Defense (DoD) research, finding that DoD does not vet all researchers working on taxpayer-funded projects, as well as numerous other failures in due diligence.
Grassley has also written to the Justice Department about concerns relating to Confucius Institutes and their abuse of our academic environment and why they have not registered as foreign agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

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Covington Catholic High School student returns to D.C., fresh off CNN defamation settlement

Nick Sandmann at "March for Life"
*Courtesy: Todd Starnes, Twitter*

Fresh off a defamation settlement victory against CNN, Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann was back in Washington D.C. attending the "March for Life" pro-life rally.

Todd Starnes of the "Todd Starnes Show" says he spoke briefly with Nick Sandmann at the rally.

“It was a moving experience,” Nick told me. “It brought back a lot of memories but it was definitely worth it.” Nick said he was especially impressed with President Trump’s speech – the first time a president has ever addressed pro-lifers in person on the mall. “I was proud of the way he stood for the pro-life movement,” Nick told me. “I thought it was one of his best speeches in the history of his presidency.”
Todd Starnes

Sandmann is suing multiple news media outlets after he was unfairly portrayed as an aggressor in a face-off with a Native American at a previous pro-life rally in Washington D.C. CNN settled its lawsuit earlier this month "to avoid a lengthy lawsuit." Sandmann had sued CNN for $275 million in damages.

Nick Sandmann tells me @realDonaldTrump's March for Life speech was "one of the best in the history of his presidency."
READ: https://t.co/qIP2dncTiu pic.twitter.com/8EgcKB2HLZ
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) January 25, 2020

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Behind Flynn's take back of his guilty plea

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Former Trump National Security Adviser

Sentencing in the long and sometimes tortured case of former Trump national security adviser Lt. General Michael Flynn is set for February 27, more than two years after he pleaded guilty.

And Flynn has filed a formal motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

In December 2017, Flynn became one of the earliest casualties of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Trump-Russia collusion. The Mueller investigation ultimately concluded in 2019 that there was no evidence that Trump, anyone from his campaign, or any American colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. However, a number of Trump associates were indicted or charged with crimes unrelated to "Russia collusion."

Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contact with Russian officials, though the contact itself was not illegal or prohibited. Lying to the FBI is a crime even if the subject had committed no crime at the time of the FBI interview.

Over the course of the Mueller investigation, questions about the Flynn case and the FBI's conduct arose. It was learned that FBI agents who interviewed Flynn wrote in a memo that Flynn "did not give any indicators of deception." Flynn's counsel also said Special Counsel attorneys improperly hid "exculpatory" information about Flynn-- information that tended to cast doubt upon his guilt-- from Flynn and the court. However, the federal judge over the case determined the government did not act improperly and was not required to provide the information.

The basis for the request to withdraw Flynn's guilty plea is his claim that the government reneged on the 2017 plea agreement. Prosecutors originally agreed not to ask that Flynn receive any prison time in exchange for his guilty plea and cooperation in a case against Flynn's former business partner, Bijan Kian in a case unrelated to "Russia collusion."

However, the government recently changed its recommendation, and is asking that Flynn receive a prison sentence.

Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, says Flynn kept his end of the bargain, cooperating in the case against Kian. But a federal judge threw out convictions against Kian saying the government's evidence against him was "insufficient."

Powell argues that prosecutors are now asking that Flynn get prison time in retaliation for him refusing to lie in the Kian case.

If Flynn is sentenced to prison on February 27, Powell says she plans to file an appeal.

Below, you can read Flynn's Motion to Withdraw Guilty Plea and a November 2017 email exchange between the Department of Justice (DOJ) Mueller probe lawyer Brandon Van Grack, and Flynn's then-attorneys ("Rob" and "Steve").