Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

What To Cook

Summer is slowly fading into Fall. The kids are back to school the days are noticeably shorter and evenings outdoors require a sweater. Here are some simple recipes that use the end of Summer harvest.

When you’ve got less than half an hour to get dinner on the table, a sausage sheet-pan dinner will always be there for you. With crispy mini potatoes and hearty greens that are roasted in a sweet-tart mustard dressing, this one’s an easy crowd-pleaser.

It’s a pizza. It’s a salad. It’s…a pizza with a huge salad on top of it. Who can argue?

This all-green salad is studded with creamy avocado, crunchy cucumbers, and asparagus, and punctuated by tons of fresh dill and basil. The varied shades of green look like spring in a bowl.

Getting your chicken super juicy on the inside and extra crispy on the outside requires one simple tool (that’s the brick part) and a few helpful techniques. If you don’t want to get your hands messy (we get it), ask your butcher to remove the bones from four chicken thighs, leaving the skin intact. Position the skin-on, boneless thighs close to each other in the pan so that each brick sits on top of two pieces while they cook.

If you don’t feel like smoking up your kitchen by charring the beans on the stovetop, try grilling or just blanching them instead.

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Do you know why Mega Business loves regulation? Because compliance is a barrier to entry that promotes monopolistic power.

If that sounds bad it’s because it is bad.

It is also part of the standard argument for Federalizing Regulation, because the rules are the same for everyone it’s fair. Federalizing pulls the shithole States up! In fact what it usually does is erode “extra” consumer and evnironmental protections in States that are being good and pulls them down (I allude to this phenomena in my previous piece).

Case in point, California Emissions Standards. Because it’s such a big market it uses it’s power to control access to that market to drive up standards Nationwide. Rigid Free Marketeers hate that because it’s one instance of a Market actually functioning the way it’s supposed to in textbooks and the result is what their dogma predicts, but does not expect.

The Mega Car manufacturers are happy to comply, barrier to entry. Rattle shaking Shamen unhappy because their religious practice contradicts their dogma. Must. Have. Faith. In. Deregulation. I can’t hold her Captain, she’s breaking up.

The way to police Mega Corporations’ Monopolistic tendencies is to threaten to revoke the charter that allows them to do business with the permission of the State (every company ever works this way). In short more Anti-Trust Regulation, not more Deregulation.

We’ve proven that doesn’t work.

In the following illustration don’t let them lie to you by cloaking their attempts to sabotage Regulation under the False Flag of Anti-Trust action.

Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Automakers’ Emissions Pact With California
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Coral Davenport, The New York Times
Sept. 6, 2019

The Justice Department has opened an antitrust inquiry into the four major automakers that struck a deal with California this year to reduce automobile emissions, according to people familiar with the matter, escalating a standoff between President Trump, California and the auto industry over one of his most significant rollbacks of climate regulations.

The Trump administration is moving to dramatically roll back Obama-era rules designed to reduce car emissions that contribute to global warming, an effort major automakers have publicly opposed. The administration is also considering a plan to revoke California’s legal authority to enforce stricter greenhouse gas emissions rules within its state borders, putting the two sides on a collision course.

In July, four automakers — Ford Motor Company, Volkswagen of America, Honda and BMW — announced that they had reached an agreement with California to stick with standards slightly less stringent than the Obama-era rules but would nevertheless require automakers to significantly improve the fuel economy of their vehicles. The announcement came as an embarrassment for the Trump administration, which assailed the move as a “P.R. stunt.”

Now, the Justice Department is investigating whether the four automakers violated federal antitrust laws by reaching a side deal to follow California’s stricter rules, those people said.

Top lawyers from the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department on Friday sent a letter to Mary Nichols, California’s top clean air official, saying, “The purpose of this letter is to put California on notice” that its deal with automakers “appears to be inconsistent with federal law.”

Legal experts and people close to the Trump administration said the investigation was meant as a show of force for companies that have displeased the president.

“The antitrust statutes give the government quite a lot of power to threaten companies with anticollusion charges, and they’re going to go ahead and use it,” said Myron Ebell, who heads the energy program at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded research organization, and who led the administration’s transition at the E.P.A. “It’s really the threat that matters. In many cases, it’s a shot across the bow to get the attention of corporations.”

Richard Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University, said he saw the case as an unprecedented effort to use the Justice Department to intimidate or punish companies that had angered the president.

Mr. Revesz noted that a Justice Department investigation into the deal was atypical because the agreement between California and the auto companies is, so far, largely an agreement in principle that has not yet been signed or legally formalized.

“It is extremely unusual for a prosecutor to investigate a deal that hasn’t even been signed,” Mr. Revesz said.

“These are four car companies standing in the way of something the president wants to do,” Mr. Revesz said. “Now the enormous prosecutorial power of the federal government is brought to bear against them. This should make any large companies very nervous.”

The investigation already appears to be having that effect. Another company, Mercedes-Benz, had been poised to join the California agreement. But after the German government learned of the federal investigation into the other companies that had signed on, it warned Mercedes not to join, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously about it because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

Under the agreement, the four automakers, which account for about 30 percent of the United States’ auto market, would be required to reach an average fleetwide fuel economy of 51 miles per gallon by 2026, a slightly looser standard than the 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 set forth by the Obama administration.

In comparison, the Trump administration’s plan would roll back those standards to about 37 miles per gallon.

Honda, Ford and BMW confirmed they had been contacted on the matter by the Justice Department, and said they were cooperating. Volkswagen declined to comment.

Personally I think “The announcement came as an embarrassment for the administration” has a lot to do with it too.

If you’re looking for a General Election don’t hold your breath. Current Opposition strategy is to vote against on Monday, the last working day before suspension.

The deadline that bites in what is being called the Benn Bill is October 19th by which time Johnson must have communicated a request to the EU for an extension, using language practically dictated by Parliament. Boris could do it tomorrow if he liked. He could also call off the suspension.

Failure to meet this deadline really is a (unwritten)Constitutional crisis. In any event Parliament is likely to call for Elections in November and after a 25 day campaign there will be a vote. You already know my predictions (Tories Tank, Nothing changes for Labour, Liberal Democrats Zoom but not enough to overtake Labour). An anti-Brexit coalition on the Left? Corbyn will try a totally different approach that emphasizes continuity, the Germans will love it. Britain will give up what little leverage they have in the EU for basically nothing but a nebulous U.S. Trade Deal that will absolutely include chlorinated chicken.

I don’t think at this point you dare pass it without a separate referendum, though the Election will be a good proxy. Some advocate going ahead right now with No Deal, May’s Deal, and Remain as the choices. I think May’s deal is a bad deal, wrongheaded, and Labour and Corbyn should get a chance. There are Left criticisms to make, one being that the EU stifles regulatory innovation (in that California Clean Air Standard kind of way). Also their Austerity Policy (since Britain is not part of the Eurozone this effects them less).

This is not exactly on topic, but it’s an interesting piece by Fareed Zakaria on the history of the Post Modern Tory Party.

The end of one of the world’s most successful political parties
By Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post
September 5, 2019

Britain’s Tories are arguably the most successful political party of the modern age. The Conservatives have ruled Britain more than 50 of the 90 years since 1929 (the country’s first election with equal suffrage for men and women). But this week, we watched the beginning of the end of the Conservative Party as we have known it.

Like most enduring parties, the Tories have embraced many different factions and ideologies over the years. But in the post-World War II era, they were defined by an advocacy of free markets and traditional values — a combination that was brought to its climax in the person of Margaret Thatcher, the Tories’ most effective prime minister since Winston Churchill.

The free-market orientation made sense. The second half of the 20th century was dominated by one big issue — the clash between communism and capitalism. Throughout the world, parties aligned themselves on a left-right spectrum that related to that central issue: the role of the state in economics. In the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, the Democrats included Northern progressives and Southern segregationists, but they generally agreed on the need for an interventionist state.
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You can see the breakdown of the old order by looking back at Britain’s previous five prime ministers, two from the Labour Party and three from the Tories. All were in favor of Britain staying in the European Union. (Theresa May had voted to remain in the E.U. , but once the “leave” side won the referendum, she promised to carry out the will of the people and take her country out of the union.) By contrast, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is remaking the Tories into the party of Brexit and this week expelled 21 members of Parliament from the Conservative Party, including very senior figures, who disagreed with the new party line.

Many commentators in Britain have pointed to the analogies between now and 1846, when Prime Minister Robert Peel pushed through a free-trade agenda that split the Conservative Party and kept it mostly out of power for a generation. No analogy is perfect, but when a party divides over a big issue — as did, for example, the U.S. Whigs over slavery — it usually narrows its political base and electability. There hasn’t been a Whig president in the United States since Millard Fillmore left office in 1853.
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More significant is the fact that whatever the views of the new Tory leaders, the people who voted for Brexit — and who would presumably support what would essentially be a new Tory-Brexit Party — largely embrace a closed ideology. They are suspicious of foreigners and resentful of the new, cosmopolitan Britain that they see in London and the country’s other big cities. They want less immigration and multiculturalism. They are more rural, more traditional, older and whiter and want some kind of a return to the Britain in which they grew up.

The United States, of course, has a similar constituency. While many of the Republicans who support President Trump might well be free marketeers, his base is largely animated by the same suspicions and passions that motivated the Brexit voters. Trump himself is an ideological omnivore — supporting free markets while simultaneously imposing the biggest tariff hikes since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. The most likely future for the Republican Party is one that conforms with its voters’ preferences — for limits on trade and immigration and greater hostility toward big technology companies.

In Britain, there is confusion on the other side of the aisle as well. The Labour Party has moved leftward and still contains elements that are skeptical about the European Union. Over time, Labour will probably move more robustly in a pro-Europe direction and, with the Liberal Democrats, try to create a new “open” governing majority. In the United States, the Democrats have to resolve similar differences mostly around trade, an issue on which many Democrats are as protectionist as Trump.

But what is happening now in Britain is a telltale sign. One of the world’s most enduring political parties is cracking — yet another reminder that we are living in an age of political revolutions.

Fareed’s notion that Labour is getting any more Neo Liberal is a pipe dream, Alf Garnett votes Labour and is a member of Unite.

What was always a dumb idea is still a dumb idea that steals money from Red States and has pissed off the Pentagon.

Trump’s border wall is now a monument to his failure
By Paul Waldman, 2019
September 5, 2019

From the outset it was an idea both stupid and malign, but he was committed to it. Yet again and again, he tried to obtain funding for it, only to find that even many Republicans in Congress weren’t interested. He even shut down the government to get it, but failed then, too.

Until this February, when he declared a farcical “national emergency” as a way of circumventing the Constitution, which says that the executive branch may spend money only on things Congress has authorized. The administration will be taking funds from the military budget and using it to build 175 miles of new fencing and barriers at various points along the border.

First, let’s look at what the administration decided to take money from. You can read the entire list of 127 projects here.
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As The Post’s James Hohmann notes, local media in some of those 23 states are already featuring stories about the funds the states are losing and what the consequences will be, suggesting that there will be political fallout for the president and his party from this decision.

That’s not to mention the fact that it’s all for something that isn’t popular and never has been: Polls consistently show about 6 in 10 Americans oppose the building of a border wall.

Trump’s most ardent supporters are, of course, in the other 4 in 10. But let’s consider what the border wall meant when he sold it to them back in 2016 and what it means today.

The idea of building a wall on the southern border began as an idea some of Trump’s aides had, as a way of reminding their undisciplined candidate to talk about immigration, since it was simple for him to understand and appealing to him as a builder. But when he began talking about it at rallies, the rapturous response from his supporters convinced him that it should be the emotional centerpiece of his campaign.

Before long, he added the idea that Mexico would pay for the wall, using it in a gleeful call-and-response during those rallies. “Who’s going to pay for it?” he’d ask, and the crowd would shout, “Mexico!”

It was never about the money, of course. It was a way of saying to people who felt that the world had left them behind: Make me president, and we’ll stand tall again. I will give you back the feeling of potency that you’ve lost. The point of making Mexico pay was not that we’d save a few billion dollars but that we’d dominate them, humiliate them, and in so doing regain the status people felt we had lost. We’d make them losers, and we’d be winners.

But Trump couldn’t do it. Mexico isn’t paying — instead, U.S. taxpayers are, and we’re doing it by taking money away from military bases and service members’ kids. There is no “big, beautiful wall” stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

This is part of a broader failure of Trump’s on immigration that I’ve discussed before: For all of the venom he spews, all the children ripped from their parents’ arms, all the efforts to make it harder for nonwhite people to come to the United States, he hasn’t delivered what he really promised. The United States has no fewer immigrants now than it did before he was elected. His supporters are no less likely to experience the trauma of being in line at the supermarket and hearing someone speak Spanish. America has not been Made Great Again, in the way they wanted it to be.

So as we embark on the 2020 presidential campaign, what does Trump’s wall represent? Does it, as he had hoped, represent power and manliness, a country reasserting control of its destiny, getting rid of all the no-good foreigners and keeping the rest of them out?

Hardly. The wall barely exists, and accomplishes none of what he promised. It’s a monument to Trump’s failure: his rancid appeals to xenophobia and racism, his grandiose dishonesty and his incompetence.

When he runs in 2020 saying, “I told you I’d build the wall, and I did” (which he will), his supporters will applaud, but not so loud this time. And the rest of the electorate will feel nothing but contempt.

Sometimes I feel good that only 40% of people are racist. Then I feel bad that 40% of the people are still racist.