Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | The Example of Senator Warren

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On Tuesday night, Democrats in the Senate took the floor to speak out against the nomination of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. Earlier in the day, the Senate voted 52-47 to limit debate on Sessions and move towards the final confirmation vote. Sessions was later confirmed as Attorney General on Wednesday night. There are several concerns that Democratic Senators, and many members of the public, have with the appointment of Sessions. As Attorney General, Sessions would need to be an impartial enforcer of the nation’s laws, which may require him to stand up to President Donald Trump if his actions overstep the boundaries of his executive power.

Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | How We Move Forward After Defeat

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In the coming days, we will begin to understand the outcome of Tuesday night’s elections and see how Donald Trump triumphed when almost every major news source was predicting a win for Hillary Clinton on Monday. The results are shocking and deeply startling to many people whose personal identities were attacked by Trump throughout his campaign. Processing this outcome will not happen overnight and the fear that he will follow through with his campaign promises rooted in hatred and xenophobia will likely remain throughout the course of his presidency. Trump has shown himself to be a highly unpredictable man and pathological liar, and the fear that I feel for my friends and loved ones in the numerous minority groups that he has shunned, criticized and sworn to further marginalize is deep and very real. For now, though, perhaps the best thing that we can do is to take the time to consider how and why this has happened.

Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | After a week full of scandal, could Trump still win?

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If after this weekend you were left wondering what the state of our political system has come to, you are not alone. After a video was released of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, claiming that he had the right to sexually assault women because he was a celebrity, the Republican Party started falling to pieces. On top of that, Trump tried to brush off his comments as ‘locker room’ talk, failing to  recognize that it is this very ‘boys will be boys’ attitude that perpetuates rape culture and teaches young boys to treat women as sexual objects. Then, during Monday night’s debate, we witnessed one of the most vitriolic displays between two presidential candidates in modern memory, in which Trump and Clinton refused to start off by shaking hands. Social media sites were rife with people voicing their opinions and expressing how appalled they are with this current election cycle.

Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | To Millennials Considering the Protest Vote

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If you are like many college students, you probably find that you have barely enough time to complete your class work, let alone follow the news everyday. In case you have managed to avoid a newspaper since you came to campus in August, I am here with some potentially bad news: Hillary Clinton has lost the solid lead in the polls that she maintained towards the end of the summer. Nate Silver, the famed statistician of FiveThirtyEight, currently has Clinton’s chance of winning the election at only 55.8%, while a month ago he predicted her chance of winning at 80.9%. Furthermore, Donald Trump seems to be gaining more momentum in key battleground states like Florida and Ohio — both of which Silver predicted would vote for Clinton in August and now predicts will go to Trump. However, Clinton still has time to come back from her bumpy September.

Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | How the Sugar Industry Won (and How We Lost)

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Earlier this week, an article was published in JAMA Internal Medicine providing evidence that in the 1960s the sugar industry supplied funding for scientific research that identified fat and cholesterol as the main culprits of coronary heart disease, and downplayed the evidence that sugar consumption can also be linked to CHD. It is likely that this literature, sponsored by the Sugar Research Foundation and originally published in the New England Journal of Medicine, contributed to the rise of low-fat diet in the mid to late 1900s. Today, the American public consumes 25% more carbohydrates than we did in the 1970s, as we have turned away from fatty foods like nuts, meat, and cheese, and began to consume more grains, potatoes, and ‘low-fat’ versions of food. These ‘low-fat’ foods, marketed as the healthier option, are actually packed with salt and sugar to make them taste as good as the original option containing fat. The American Heart Association and the U.S. government, based on misleading information and studies that could not be replicated, perpetuated the idea that a low-fat diet would help reduce weight and risk of heart failure.

Entertainment

THE MCEVOY MINUTE | The Rules of the Game

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With a week to go until Super Tuesday, candidates from both parties are hoping to establish themselves as the solid frontrunners in the presidential primary campaign. Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton have won the most primaries and caucuses to date, and are leading in the number of delegates that will consequently vote for them at each party’s National Convention this summer. The Republican candidate needs 1,237 out of 2,472 delegate votes in order to win the nomination, while the Democrat candidate will need 2,382 out of 4,762 delegate votes. As of right now, Trump is securely leading his party with 67 delegates, significantly more than Ted Cruz (11), Marco Rubio (10), John Kasich (5) or Ben Carson (3). On the Democratic side, Clinton has 51 pledged delegates to her name, while Bernie Sanders trails close behind with 36 pledged delegates.