Sharyl Attkisson

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News

Women are more likely to grow old alone

Twice as many women over age 60 live alone than men, according to a PewResearch.org study.

One-in-five women ages 60 and older live in a solo household (20%), compared with one-in-ten men (11%).

Pew Research Center

Women are typically younger than their male partners, according to Pew. These trends hold true no matter where people live or what religion they belong to.

Pew found the rates of living alone are impacted by many things, such as societal norms, levels of education, life expectancy, and financial considerations.

Geographically, the most older women who live alone are found in Europe and North America, where approximately one in three women on average live alone compared to one in five men.

Women are also more likely to be single parents, according to Pew.

Click on the link below to read the full Pew Research story:

Globally, women are younger than their male partners, more likely to age alone

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Another "Fast and Furious" killer gets life sentence

Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in 2010 by illegal aliens armed with weapons sold by ATF Fast and Furious suspects.

An illegal immigrant convicted of murdering U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry during the government's ill-fated "Fast and Furious" operation has been sentenced to life in prison, according to Associated Press (AP).

Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes was one of seven illegal immigrants charged with shooting Terry in 2010. Terry's four-man border team encountered Osorio-Arellanes' group while on a mission in the southern Arizona desert to protect illegal immigrants from other illegal immigrant bandits.

The border patrol unit reportedly fired bean bags at the illegal immigrants after they refused orders to stop approaching. Osorio-Arellanes and his men returned fire with AK-47 assault rifles, killing Terry.

Two of the rifles found at the scene of Terry's murder were weapons that U.S. agents allowed to be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels as part of an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) case named "Fast and Furious." Thousands of weapons were put in the hands of drug traffickers through the operation.

After I first broke news of the secret operation in 2011, the Justice Department denied its existence. Later, the government admitted to the "gun walking" operation but claimed they intended to track the weapons to criminal organizations and make big arrests. However, there was no attempt to actually track the weapons.

Former President Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder were heavily criticized for the failed operation. Holder was held in contempt for refusing to turn over documents pertaining to the operation. President Obama declared executive privilege to keep the documents secret.

Several of Brian Terry's family members tearfully spoke at Osorio-Arellanes' sentencing hearing in a courtroom in Tucson, Arizona.

Osorio-Arellanes' is the sixth of the seven men charged with Terry's murder to be sentenced. The seventh man is in custody in Mexico, but has not been extradited or tried yet, according to AP.

Click on the link below to read all my Fast and Furious stories:

Fast and Furious Story Links

Read the full AP News story by clicking on the link below:

https://apnews.com/f8f46eb36645a44a9626fa5e5127fab0

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POLL: Most people say U.S. troops should leave Iraq

The Iraqi parliament recently voted to expel all U.S. troops from Iraq. The majority of respondents in the latest unscientific poll at SharylAttkisson.com agree our troops should exit Iraq.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of respondents say we should bring our troops home. Twenty-three percent (23%) said that we should not leave.

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!

Iraqi parliament voted to expel U.S. Should we go?

61% Yes

23% No

16% I don't know/unsure

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POLL: 41% of voters say U.S. heading in right direction

Forty-one percent (41%) of likely U.S. voters say the country is headed in the right direction. That's according to the latest numbers from Rasmussen Reports. During most of 2016, President Obama's last year in office, fewer than 30% said the country was headed in the right direction.

Also, Rasmussen Reports finds voters say they trust President Trump on economic issues more than they trust the average member of Congress or reporter. However, they trust their own judgment most of all.

Meantime, President Trump's job approval rating for December was at 49%, up two points from November, despite the House impeaching him.

Joe Biden is still the leading potential Democratic presidential nominee but his support levels are the lowest they have been to date.

Positive outlook for the coming year is up dramatically from last year, with 72% of American adults saying that 2020 will be at least a "good" year. That compares to 54% a year ago. Many of those say 2020 will be "excellent" or one of the best years ever.

Click on the link below for a summary of recent Rasmussen reports:

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/weekly_updates/what_they_told_us_jan04

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CNN settles Covington Catholic student's defamation suit

Nicholas Sandmann (left), January 2019

CNN has settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic High School student, Nick Sandmann. The case was over CNN's coverage of Sandmann's videotaped interaction with an Omaha Tribe elder, Nathan Phillips, at the Lincoln Memorial early last year.

According to reports, Sandmann and his classmates were waiting for a bus after an anti-abortion event in Washington D.C. in January 2019. Phillips was attending the Indigenous Peoples March.

Sandmann and Phillips were seen on videotape facing one another; Sandmann, wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, was smiling at Phillips; Phillips was beating a drum and chanting.

Widespread media reports accused Sandmann of engaging in a confrontation with Phillips. Sandmann said he was trying to defuse the situation. Later, fuller context showed that a group of black men had taunted the high school group with racial slurs and disparaging comments. Some commentators apologized for mistakenly blaming Sandmann for the confrontation.

Sandmann sued CNN for $275 million, alleging that its coverage of the interaction falsely attacked, vilified, and bullied him. Details of CNN's settlement were not made public.

Sandmann still has defamation suits against several other media outlets, including NBC and The Washington Post.

Read the full story as reported by CNN and the USA Today by clicking on the links below:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/07/nick-sandmann-cnn-confirms-settlement-covington-catholic-student/2837478001/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/media/cnn-settles-lawsuit-viral-video/index.html

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POLL: Majority polled say they trust President Trump

Over 90% of respondents in the latest unscientific poll at SharylAttkisson.com say they definitely trust President Trump.

Ninety-two percent (92%) of the respondents replied "Definitely yes", to the question: Do you generally trust President Trump?

Five percent (5%) polled answered "Absolutely not", with another 3% answering that they were unsure or didn't care.

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!

Do you generally trust President Trump?

92% Definitely yes

5% Absolutely not

3% Not sure/don't care

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

Uncovering the "secret door" to free tax filing

The following is a transcript of my investigation into the free filing program offered by the Internal Revenue Service on “Full Measure.” Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Earlier this year, The IRS announced new changes in a program that was supposed to provide free tax preparation to millions...a deal the IRS cut years ago with big tax firms. If they’d offer free help, the IRS agreed not to build its own software to do it. Turns out the free help has been too hard to find and often steered people to paid services. Paul Kiel of Propublica investigated.

Sharyl Attkisson: By way of background, has there been a lot of discussion over the years that the IRS ought to make it easier and provide a free way for people, especially of lower incomes to file?

Kiel: Yeah, I mean, so this goes back to the 1990s, you know, everybody used to file on paper. And there was a big push to get people to file electronically cause the IRS saved a lot of money. Those types of proposals have been something Intuit has viewed as a threat and have tried to stop.

Sharyl: What power do companies like Intuit have or TurboTax have to try to prevent something like this? What do they do?

Kiel: Well, they, they have an army of lobbyists. And we counted this year, they have over 40 lobbyists on Capitol Hill. You know, they spread their contributions around Congress. And also I think they're able to make the arguments that people find persuasive in part because the IRS is not a popular agency. So they're able to make arguments like, do you want the IRS unit preparing your taxes and also auditing you?

Sharyl: On its face, it sounds like a good thing that Turbo Tax and Intuit would come up with a program to let you file for free if you go to their website under certain conditions. But it sounds like you're saying that it's sort of an end run around the notion of really making it easier and free for people?

Kiel: Right. Well, I mean the main thing to know about this program, which goes back to 2002 is that very few people actually know about it. So last year under 3 million people used this program, which is you have to find sort of like a secret door on the IRS’ website. It's called the free file program. And if you may get to that page and then you file a link back to TurboTax, then you'll absolutely have a free tax return filing. Both federal and state is what they're offering right now. But very few people find that secret door. One reason for this is that intuit and H and R Block have these free offers that they make. So if you Google on the Internet free tax prep, what's going to come up usually is like TurboTax and H&R block saying hey, free. But it's a marketing ploy. Both Intuit and H and R block stop Google from indexing their pages because they didn't want people, if you googled “free tax prep,” they didn't want the government program coming up.

Sharyl: How can they stop Google?

Kiel: You can, you can put language on like, you know, basically code on your website that says “Google: no, don't read this.”

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Sharyl: Were you able to find out how many people do use the free program that's available through the IRS?

Kiel: So it's under 3 million people, which, 100 million people are eligible, you know, supposedly. But no more than 5 million have ever used it in the whole history of the program. But nevertheless, the IRS claims that this is a successful program.

Sharyl: Can you quantify how much that industries, the tax filing industry spends on lobbyists lobbying and political contributions?

Kiel: I think we total those over $30 million that Intuit is used on, spent on, you know, lobbying over the last decade or so. It's an enormous return on an investment given, you know, the billions of dollars that they've made in profit. So it's, you know, it's a good investment.

Sharyl: Can you tell is whether one party political party or another political party is sort of pushing it? A lot of times it's one against the other

Kiel: Well, they've spread around their money pretty well in Congress and they've gotten bills introduced by both members of both parties.

One study found five of 12 companies that partnered with the IRS used coding that hid their free services from many online searches.

Watch the video investigation by clicking the link below:

http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/tax-conspiracy

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

To tap, or not to tap...your shaken beer can

Tap or not?

The burning question of whether tapping on the side or bottom of a shaken beer can before opening it lessens the fizz and associated beer loss has been addressed by a Cornell University study.

A group of twelve Cornell University researchers recently published their findings in a seventeen-page report. The group randomly placed 1,000 cans of beer into one of four groups: unshaken/untapped, unshaken/tapped, shaken/untapped, shaken/tapped. Each can in the two "shaken" groups was shaken to simulate a 10-minute bicycle ride. (Do bicycle riders commonly transport their beer on shaky bike rides?)

The researchers then weighed the unopened cans, tapped the cans in the "tapped" groups three times on the side with a single finger, opened the cans, soaked up the overflowed beer with paper towels, and re-weighed the cans.

Here's the answer you've been waiting for!

The report concludes that tapping the can before opening it does not prevent beer loss, stating that "the only apparent remedy to avoid liquid loss is to wait for bubbles to settle before opening the can."

Additional documentation from Cornell study

The report detailed the methodology used to maintain the integrity of the experiment, including the use of a butter knife to open the cans, to avoid "finger and nail-bed pain for researchers who were opening cans." It also addressed the "broader social implications" of the study, such as minimizing the potential for "tapping-related finger injuries", and the health benefits of slowing drinkers down by convincing them to wait for a shaken can to settle, rather than tap and drink more rapidly.

Now you know.

You can read the Cornell study and report for yourself by clicking on the links below:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.01999

https://sharylattkisson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Shaken-beer-study.pdf

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkisson's work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.