Blogs | Mother Jones Mother Jones logo en Mitch Albom Becomes an Issue in Michigan House Primary <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>According to a conservative PAC, Republican House candidate David Trott is one of the five people you meet in Hell. Trott, who is <a href="" target="_blank">challenging</a> first-term GOP Rep. Kerry Bentivolio in the GOP primary for Michigan's 11th district, runs a law firm that specializes in mortgage foreclosures. In a new ad, a Virginia-based group called Freedom's Defense Fund highlights a foreclosure Trott's firm processed in 2011 that left a 101-year-old homeowner, Texana Hollis, out on the street:</p> <object height="354" width="630"><param name="movie" value="//;version=3"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="354" src="//;version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="630"></embed></object> <p>The eviction highlighted in the ad came about after the woman's son fell behind on his property tax payments and ignored repeated warnings. But there was a happy ending: <em>Detroit Free-Press</em> columnist and <a href="" target="_blank">airport bookstore king</a> Mitch Albom bought the house and transferred it back to Hollis.</p> <p>As I reported in January, Trott has a hand in every step of the foreclosure process&mdash;he even owns the newspaper where foreclosure notices are required to be posted. But while the ad itself is brutal, it probably won't do much damage, because Freedom's Defense Fund is only spending $15,000 to run it on local cable channels. That's consistent with a group that spends much of the money it raises paying Washington-area direct-mail outfits. Of the $1.6 million FDF spent in 2013, just $120,000 went toward candidates or independent expenditures. As <em>Think Progress</em> <a href="" target="_blank">notes</a>, $1.2 million went to fundraising services, which means the PAC is spending most of the money it raises on raising more money.</p> </body></html> MoJo Elections Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:59:19 +0000 Tim Murphy 247431 at We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for March 13, 2014 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/0313-630.jpg"></div> <p class="rtecenter"><em>Lance Cpl. Steven T. Peterson, a machine gunner with Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division and part of Black Sea Rotational Force 14, subdues a simulated enemy during a mechanical arm control holds course after being exposed to oleoresin capsicum spray on Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, March 5, 2014. The Marines were directly exposed to the OC spray, then instructed to complete a course with different stations which required them to execute different take down techniques on a simulated enemy combatant. Black Sea Rotational Force 14 is a contingent of Marines to maintain positive relations with partner nations, regional stability and increase interoperability while providing the capability for rapid crisis response, as directed by U.S. European Command, in the Black Sea, Balkan and Caucus regions of Eastern Europe. (<a href="" target="_blank">U.S. Marine Corps photo</a> by Lance Cpl. Scott W. Whiting/Released)</em></p> </body></html> MoJo Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:05:15 +0000 247426 at Guns May Soon Be Everywhere in Georgia <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Soon gun owners in the state of Georgia may be allowed to pack heat almost anywhere&mdash;including K-12 schools, bars, churches, government buildings, and airports. The "Safe Carry Protection Act" (HB 875) would also expand Georgia's Stand Your Ground statute, the controversial law <a href="" target="_blank">made famous by the Trayvon Martin killing</a>, which allows armed citizens to defend themselves with deadly force if they believe they are faced with serious physical harm.</p> <p>The bill could pass as soon as next week, before the current legislative session ends on March 20. It is the latest effort in the battle over gun laws that continues to rage <a href="" target="_blank">in statehouses around the country</a>. It is perhaps also the most extreme yet. "Of all the bills pending right now in state legislatures, this is the most sweeping and most dangerous," Laura Cutiletta, a staff attorney with the <a href="" target="_blank">Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence</a>, <a href="">told PolitiFact</a>. Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun-reform advocacy group founded by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords after she was shot in the head,&nbsp;<a href=";">has deemed it</a>&nbsp;the "guns everywhere" bill. For its part, the National Rifle Association <a href="">recently called</a> HB 875 "the most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent state history."</p> <p>In addition to overturning current state laws and dramatically rolling back concealed-carry restrictions, HB 875 <a href="">would loosen other</a> gun regulations in the state. <a href="" target="_blank">The law</a> would:</p> <ul> <li>Remove the fingerprinting requirement for gun license renewals</li> <li>Prohibit the state from keeping a gun license database</li> <li>Tighten the state's preemption statute, which restricts local governments from passing gun laws that conflict with state laws</li> <li>Repeal the state licensing requirement for firearms dealers (requiring only a federal firearms license)</li> <li>Expand gun owner rights in a declared state of emergency by prohibiting government authorities from seizing, registering, or otherwise limiting the carrying of guns in any way permitted by law&nbsp;before the emergency was declared</li> <li>Limit the governor's emergency powers by repealing the ability to regulate the sale of firearms during a declared&nbsp;state of emergency</li> <li>Lower the age to obtain a concealed carry license from 21 to 18 for active-duty military and honorably discharged veterans who've completed basic training</li> <li>Prohibit detaining someone for the sole purpose of checking whether they have a gun license</li> </ul> <p>The sweeping bill would also expand the state's Stand your Ground law into an "absolute" defense for the use of deadly force in self-protection. "Defense of self or others," the bills reads "shall be an absolute defense to any violation under this part." In its current wording, the bill would even allow individuals who possess a gun illegally&mdash;convicted felons, for example&mdash;to still claim a Stand Your Ground defense.</p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/georgia-guns-concealed-carry-stand-your-ground"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Crime and Justice Guns Top Stories Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:00:09 +0000 Hannah Levintova 247396 at In a Radical Shift, California Police Chiefs Push for Regulation of Medical Marijuana <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div> <div id="mininav" class="inline-subnav"> <!-- header content --> <div id="mininav-header-content"> <div id="mininav-header-image"> <img src="/files/images/motherjones_mininav/marijuana-leaf-225_0.jpg" width="220" border="0"> </div> </div> <!-- linked stories --> <div id="mininav-linked-stories"> <ul> <span id="linked-story-244126"> <li><a href="/politics/2014/02/pot-marijuana-legalization-map-states"> Maps: Will Your State Be Next to Legalize Pot?</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-215461"> <li><a href="/blue-marble/2013/02/google-earth-tour-marijuana-farms-environment-video"> How Industrial Pot Growers Ravage the Land: A Google Earth Tour</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-89881"> <li><a href="/politics/2011/01/marijuana-industry"> The New Marijuana Service Industry</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-210701"> <li><a href="/mojo/2012/12/mitch-daniels-marijuana-federalism"> When Republicans Love Legalized Pot</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-81351"> <li><a href="/politics/2010/10/california-medical-marijuana-pot-card"> How to Get a Pot Card (Without Really Trying)</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-141947"> <li><a href="/politics/2011/12/tony-dsouza-marijuana-growers"> The New Dealers</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-206156"> <li><a href="/politics/2012/11/breckenridge-rockies-amendment-64-marijuana-colorado"> Welcome to the Amsterdam of the Rockies</a></li> </span> </ul> </div> <!-- footer content --> </div> </div> <p>California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, but like the pimply-faced stoner dude you may have known in high school, it hasn't had the healthiest of relationships with Mary Jane. The Golden State differs from most others&nbsp;with medical pot laws in that it&nbsp;doesn't actually regulate production and sale of the herb. Instead, it lets cities and counties enact their own laws&mdash;though in practice most haven't. The result has been the Wild West of weed: <a href="" target="_blank">Almost any adult can score a scrip</a> and some bud from a local dispensary, assuming, of course, that it hasn't yet been <a href="" target="_blank">raided</a> and shut down by the feds.&nbsp;</p> <p>But all of that might be about to change. The California Police Chiefs Association (CPCA)&nbsp;<a href="" target="_blank">recently announced</a> support for a bill that would put the state in the business of regulating the medical pot trade. Though you'd think cops would&nbsp;have pushed for such a thing decades ago, the reality is quite the opposite: The CPCA and other law enforcement organizations have, until now,&nbsp;opposed pretty much&nbsp;every reform to California's medical marijuana system for <a href="" target="_blank">fear</a>&nbsp;that anything&nbsp;short of completely abolishing it would&nbsp;legitimize it.</p> <p>The CPCA's change of heart&nbsp;"is a huge for us," says Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association, the state's marijuana industry trade group. Bradley agrees with his police adversaries that tighter regs would legitimize medical marijuana, which is why the CCIA has pushed for them since the group's inception four years ago. Bolstering his case,&nbsp;the US Department of Justice last year <a href="" target="_blank">announced</a> that it would no longer raid dispensaries in states that it believes are regulating them adequately&mdash;a formulation that seemed to exclude California. <a href="" target="_blank">New rules</a> issued last month by the Obama administration allow&nbsp;banks to accept funds from pot dealers, but only if they're licensed in the state where they operate.</p> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">So why are California's&nbsp;drug warriors reversing course? "We could no longer ignore that the political landscape on this issue was shifting," the CPCA explained in a letter written jointly&nbsp;with the League of California Cities. Polls and changing federal policies suggest&nbsp;that medical pot reform "could be enacted," and that "without our proactive intervention, it could take a form that was severely damaging to our interests."</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">The bill that law enforcement groups are backing, SB 1262, is flawed, but it's something that "we can work with," says Bradley, who previously worked as a cop in California's Yuba County. Advocates of medical pot don't like how the bill constrains the ability of doctors to recommend marijuana, <a href="" target="_blank">outlaws potent pot concentrates</a> such as hash oil, and puts regulation in the hands of the Department of Public Health, rather than the Department of Alcoholic Beverages Control.</span></p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/california-police-chiefs-regulation-medical-marijuana"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Civil Liberties Top Stories marijuana Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:00:07 +0000 Josh Harkinson 247321 at Marco Rubio Wants to Save the Internet From Foreigners <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Sen. Marco Rubio, still engaged in his campaign to reconnect with his tea party roots after blowing it on immigration reform, announced today that he plans to introduce a bill that would "prevent a 'takeover' of the Internet by the United Nations or another government regime." <a href="" target="_blank">Steve Benen is puzzled:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>To be sure, there are foreign governments that censor their citizens&rsquo; access to online content, but it&rsquo;s not at all clear why Rubio sees this as a domestic threat here in the U.S. As best as I can tell, there is no effort to empower the United Nations or anyone else to regulate the Internet on a global scale. Such a policy would certainly be scary, and would require opposition, but at present, it&rsquo;s also non-existent.</p> </blockquote> <p>For the most part, Rubio is probably just glomming onto a random bit of jingoism that he thinks will rile up his base. Still, there's actually a kernel of substance to this. Right now, the US Department of Commerce exercises ultimate control over the DNS root zone, and ICANN, a nonprofit that administers the DNS naming system, does so under contract <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_icann_logo.jpg" style="margin: 20px 20px 15px 30px;">to the Commerce Department. And while ICANN has a global governance structure, it's based in Los Angeles and has historically had a heavy American management presence.</p> <p>But that could change. <a href="" target="_blank">Last year,</a> in response to some of Edward Snowden's spying revelations, ICANN's board of directors issued a statement that called for "accelerating the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing." <a href="" target="_blank">Last month</a> the European Commission joined in, releasing a statement that lamented a "continued loss of confidence in the Internet and its current governance" and proposing new governance that would "identify how to globalise the IANA functions" and "establish a clear timeline for the globalisation of ICANN." <a href="" target="_blank">A week later,</a> rumors surfaced that ICANN might try to move its headquarters to Geneva.</p> <p>Now, this kind of squabbling has gone on forever, and the politics behind these statements is usually pretty murky. There's no telling if it will ever amount to anything, and in any case it certainly has nothing to do with UN control over the internet. Nonetheless, other countries have long chafed under effective American control of the internet's plumbing, and the Snowden leaks have given new momentum to calls for that control to end. It's possible that this is what Rubio is thinking of.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum International Tech Thu, 13 Mar 2014 01:42:10 +0000 Kevin Drum 247416 at Sorry, the Dog Ate My Homework <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/images/Blog_Scream.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 8px 20px 15px 30px;">Apologies for the radio silence. I had an adventure-filled afternoon. My first adventure prompted me to call for help, and I discovered that my iPhone's contact list had mysteriously disappeared. No calling for help for me! Eventually everything got sorted out, and when I finally got home I restored my contacts via iCloud. So no permanent harm done. Still, when my car strands me, I always figure my phone will bail me out. That's what a phone is for. Right? But what do you do when your phone mysteriously decides to strand you at the same time?</p> <p>And what did I do to deserve all this, anyway?</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Climate Change Thu, 13 Mar 2014 00:15:51 +0000 Kevin Drum 247411 at Sen. Feinstein: The CIA Scandal Began Because the Agency Misled Congress About Torture <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, kicked off a Washington&nbsp;</span>kerfuffle<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">&nbsp;with&nbsp;</span><a href="" style="line-height: 24px;" target="_blank">significant constitutional implications</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">&nbsp;w</span>hen she&nbsp;<a href="" target="_blank">took to the&nbsp;Senate floor</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday to accuse&nbsp;the CIA of spying on her committee's investigation into&nbsp;its controversial interrogation and detention program. As pro-CIA partisans and the agency's overseers on Capitol Hill squared off for a DC turf battle&mdash;with finger-pointing in both directions&mdash;lost in the hubbub was a basic and troubling fact: Feinstein had contended that this all began because, years ago, the spies of Langley had severely misled the legislators responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies.</p> <p>At the start of her speech, Feinstein laid out the back story, and her account is a tale of a major CIA abuse. The CIA's detention and interrogation (a.k.a. torture) program began in 2002. For its first four years, the CIA only told the chairman and vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee about the program, keeping the rest of the panel in the dark. In September 2006, hours before President George W. Bush was to disclose the program to the public, then CIA Director Michael Hayden informed the rest of the committee. This piece of history shows the limits of congressional oversight. If only two members of the committee were informed, it meant that the panel&nbsp;could not provide full oversight of this program. But keeping secrets from legislators&mdash;even members of the intelligence committee&mdash;is not that unusual, and the story gets worse.</p> <p>In December 2007, the <em>New York Times </em><a href="" target="_blank">reported</a> that the CIA had destroyed two videotapes of the CIA's interrogation (or torture) sessions. After this disclosure, Hayden told the Senate intelligence committee that eradicating the videos was not as worrisome as it seemed. According to Feinstein, he noted that CIA cables had detailed the interrogations and detention conditions and were "a more than adequate representation" of what had happened. He offered Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who was then chairing the committee, the opportunity to review these thousands of cables. Rockefeller dispatched two staffers to peruse these records.</p> <p>It took the pair about a year to sift through all the material and produce a report for the intelligence committee. That report, Feinstein noted, was "chilling." The review, she said, showed that the "interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detention sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us."</p> <p>That is, the CIA had misled the Capitol Hill watchdogs.</p> <p>After reading the staff report, Feinstein, now chairing the committee, and Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), then the senior Republican on the committee, decided a far more expansive investigation was called for. On March 5, 2009, the committee voted 14 to 1 to initiate a full-fledged review of the CIA's detention and interrogation program.</p> <p>It is that inquiry that has caused the recent fuss, with Feinstein claiming that the CIA (possibly illegally) penetrated computers used by committee investigators and removed documents indicating a CIA internal review of this program had concluded it was poorly managed, went too far, and did not produce decent intelligence. The committee's more comprehensive review eventually produced a 6,300-page report slamming CIA that has yet to be made public, despite Feinstein pushing the CIA to declassify it.</p> <p>So while this week's focus is on whether the CIA improperly&mdash;or illegally&mdash;spied on the folks who have the constitutional obligation to monitor CIA actions in order to ensure the agency acts appropriately and within US law, Feinstein's big reveal also presented a highly troubling charge: The CIA lied to Congress about what might be its most controversial program in decades. This in and of itself should be big news.</p> <p>At the conclusion of her speech, Feinstein, referring to the present controversy, said, "How this will be resolved will show whether the intelligence committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation's intelligence activities or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee." That is true. And if there cannot be effective oversight of intelligence operations, then the foundation of the national security state is in question. Yet Feinstein's remarks provide evidence that oversight was not working prior to the current face-off. If the CIA did not tell the Senate intelligence committee the truth about its interrogation and detention program, much more needs to be resolved than whether the spies hacked the gumshoes of Capitol Hill.</p> </body></html> MoJo Civil Liberties Congress Top Stories Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:13:13 +0000 David Corn 247391 at An Endorsement From Barack Obama Might Be the Kiss of Death This Year <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>A friend just emailed me with a gloomy outlook for Democrats in this year's midterm elections. I don't really have an outlook myself yet, though obviously Democrats suffer from a difficult electoral map, the traditional 6-year blues, and their usual problem turning out voters in off-year elections. But as long as we're being gloomy, here's something else to add to the bonfire. It's an extract from a <a href="" target="_blank"><em>Washington Post</em> poll graphic</a> showing how voters react to congressional candidates being associated with the Obama administration. It's not a pretty picture.</p> <p>Now, if you want some good news, all you have to do is take a look at some of the other numbers in the poll, which makes it clear that most people have no idea what really makes them more or less likely to vote for someone. At the very bottom, for example, you'll see that virtually no one is willing to fess up that they're more likely to vote for an incumbent, despite mountains of research showing that incumbency is the single most powerful predictor of electoral success there is. So maybe this is all just a bunch of hooey. But I wouldn't bet on it.</p> <p><img align="middle" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_obama_endorse.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 15px 0px 5px 15px;"></p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Elections Obama Wed, 12 Mar 2014 17:31:50 +0000 Kevin Drum 247376 at The British Economy Is Not a Poster Child for Austerity <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Keith Humphreys notes that economic growth over the past year has been similar in Britain and the United States even though the two countries adopted <a href="" target="_blank">very different responses to the Great Recession:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>But don&rsquo;t expect the similar levels of growth in the two countries to shake many people&rsquo;s faith in their economic views. Most of the &ldquo;slim government&rdquo; crowd will argue that Britain didn&rsquo;t cut enough (or that the U.S. growth isn&rsquo;t real) and that&rsquo;s why the U.K. hasn&rsquo;t left the U.S. in the dust. Most increased government spending supporters will see proof that the stimulus wasn&rsquo;t big enough (or that the U.K. growth isn&rsquo;t real) because if it had been U.S. growth would be dwarfing that of the sceptred isle.</p> <p>Many people seem to have stable preferences about whether they want government bigger or smaller. They will point to current economic conditions as the reason for why their preferences should prevail, but their preferences do not change when those putatively justifying economic conditions fade away. Neither are most people fazed when the government spending policies they support (as well as those that they oppose) deliver different results than they expected. Motivated reason is such a force in this particular policy area that rather than arguing over what current economic conditions particularly require, debaters are probably <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_gdp_usa_britain_1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">better off cutting to the chase and arguing directly about the real issue: Disagreement about how big or small we want the government to be.</p> </blockquote> <p>I don't think this is fair. If you want to compare Britain and the US, you have to look at their entire growth trajectory since the start of the recession. The chart on the right is taken from <a href="" target="_blank">OECD numbers,</a> so it's an apples-to-apples comparison. And really, there is no comparison. As of 2012 (the most recent figures available from the OECD) Britain's GDP was still 3 percent below its 2007 level. By contrast, US GDP was 4 percent above its 2007 level.</p> <p>We can argue all day long about what caused this divergence, but I think the raw data is fairly unequivocal. Whatever the reason, the US economy really did suffer less and recover more robustly than the British economy.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Economy Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:59:03 +0000 Kevin Drum 247371 at Are Russia and Ukraine on the Verge of an All-Out Cyberwar? <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>For the past week, reports of physical violence have been rolling out of Ukraine: Russian troops <a href="" target="_blank">storming a base</a>&nbsp;in Crimea, officers <a href="" target="_blank">beating journalists</a>, and <a href=";rref=world" target="_blank">violent brawls</a>&nbsp;<a href="" target="_blank">at rallies</a>. But as tensions escalate, another part of the conflict appears to be playing out in a cloudier realm: cyberspace.</p> <p><a href="">On Saturday</a>, Ukraine's top security agency&mdash;the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine&mdash;announced at a briefing that it had been hit by severe denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, "apparently aimed at hindering a response to the challenges faced by our state." This comes on the heels of a number of alleged hacks involving&nbsp;Russian and Ukrainian targets, including attacks on news outlets and blocking reception to<strong>&nbsp;</strong>the&nbsp;cellphones of Ukrainian parliament members.</p> <p><a href=";_type=blogs&amp;ref=technology&amp;_r=0">Security experts say</a>&nbsp;the region is&nbsp;currently seeing an unusually high number of DDoS attacks, which aim to shut down networks, usually by overwhelming them with traffic. But many of those seem to be coming from third parties, rather than government entities. In terms of state-sponsored cyberwarfare, "we haven't seen that much," says Dmitri Alperovitch, CTO of CrowdStrike, a California-based&nbsp;cybersecurity firm.<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Alperovitch adds, though, that his firm has seen a significant amount of cyber-espionage on the part of the Russian intelligence services&mdash;including tracking the activities&nbsp;of&nbsp;Putin opponents in both Russia and Ukraine&mdash;but he would&nbsp;not disclose names of those being monitored.</p> <p>Ukraine is situated in a region of the world&nbsp;known for breeding some of the most talented cyber criminals. Several Russian <a href="" target="_blank">universities offer </a>top-notch hacking training, and a Ukrainian hacker <a href="" target="_blank">is suspected</a> in December's theft of 40 million credit card numbers from Target. But Ukraine and Russia aren't on equal footing when it comes to their&nbsp;cyberwarfare capabilities.&nbsp;"Russia is a Tier 1 cyber power," says Alperovitch. "Ukraine isn't even in Tier 3." So Russia has a leg up in this arena&mdash;and, during past conflicts with former Soviet bloc countries,&nbsp;it has flexed its cyberwarfare muscles. In April 2007, hackers unleashed a wave of cyberattacks on Estonian government agencies, banks, businesses, newspapers, and political parties,&nbsp;following a spat over the removal of a Soviet war memorial in Tallin, the country's capital. (The Kremlin <a href="">took only partial credit</a> for the crippling three-week attack.) Georgia was targeted with similar attacks in 2008&nbsp;in the days leading up to its&nbsp;invasion of the secessionist republic of South Ossetia. (Russian involvement <a href="">was widely</a> <a href="">suspected</a>.)</p> <p>Ukraine&nbsp;has yet be targeted with these type of widespread cyberassaults on key infrastructure&mdash;but it may not be long.&nbsp;"I anticipate continued escalation," says Jason Healey, director of the Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative and the former White House&nbsp;director of cyber infrastructure protection during the Bush administration.&nbsp;So far, the cyberskirmish&nbsp;is playing out differently than past&nbsp;attacks, Healey says. While the&nbsp;Estonia and Georgia attacks were strictly digital,&nbsp;in Ukraine's case, pro-Moscow forces&nbsp;have also deployed more hands-on attacks on information: "This old-school, Cold War style physical manipulation of equipment.&nbsp;Getting in and physically messing with the switches so Ukrainian civic leaders don't have phone service," Healey says. In Ukraine,&nbsp;these sorts of attacks&nbsp;&acirc;&#128;&#139;are likely to be a&nbsp;bigger threat, because much of the telecommunications infrastructure was installed by Russians during the Soviet&nbsp;era. "Cyberattacks the way we tend to look at them&mdash;denial-of-service attacks, and so forth&mdash;you don't have to do those when you've got physical access to the guy's switch!" says Healey.</p> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 2em;">Here's a run-down of what has transpired so far:&nbsp;</span></p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/cyber-war-ukraine-russia"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Foreign Policy International Tech Top Stories Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:16:07 +0000 Hannah Levintova 247156 at Florida Special Election Turns Out Not to Be Very Special After All <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Dave Weigel describes the dispiriting nature of yesterday's <a href="" target="_blank">special election in Florida's 13th district:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The Pinellas County race pit Alex Sink, an uninspiring corporate Democrat, against David Jolly, a say-anything lobbyist who spent half a week of the stretch sleazily and baselessly calling his opponent a "bigot." Both of them came off like people desperately trying to sell you a time share.</p> </blockquote> <p>And then he explains <a href="" target="_blank">why Republican David Jolly won:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Having now spent 6,000-odd words on the Florida special election, I should admit that smart analysts predicted the result with one number. Two-hundred thousand. If that many ballots showed up in FL-13, Democrats were hitting their turnout models and winning the race. If fewer, they were losing. There were about 180,000 votes cast in the race, and the Democrats lost.</p> </blockquote> <p>Yep. Basically, it was a tight race in a district previously held by a Republican but won by Obama in 2012. And Jolly ended up winning by two percentage points. There's really not much of a lesson to be learned here aside from the fact that (a) it was truly a tossup district, and (b) Democrats have a really tough time with turnout in non-presidential elections. Eventually they're going to have to figure out what to do about that.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Congress Elections Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:06:27 +0000 Kevin Drum 247361 at VIDEO: David Corn on Why the CIA's Fight with Senators Is "All-out War" <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><em>Mother Jones</em> DC bureau chief David Corn spoke with <a href="" target="_blank">MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell</a> and Julian Epstein this week about the "unprecedented" allegations of CIA snooping on congressional investigators. Watch here:</p> <p><iframe border="no" height="497" scrolling="no" src="" width="630"></iframe></p> </body></html> MoJo Video Civil Liberties Congress Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:43:31 +0000 David Corn 247351 at We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for March 12, 2014 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/0312-630.jpg"></div> <div id="meta"> <div class="photo-desc" id="description_div"> <p class="rtecenter"><em>CAMP HUNTER LIGGETT, Calif. -- As crew chief Spc. Scott Pauley, Company B, 1-140 Aviation Battalion provides direction, a Soldier with 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry clears out of a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, Feb. 8. Soldiers of the 1-184 were sharpening their air assault skills in preparation for annual training 2014. (<a href="" target="_blank">Photo</a> by Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin M.M. Cossel)</em></p> </div> </div> </body></html> MoJo Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:10:14 +0000 247346 at WATCH: Front-Runner in GOP Senate Primary Says Planned Parenthood Wants to Kill Newborns <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <object height="354" width="630"><param name="movie" value="//;version=3"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="354" src="//;version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="630"></embed></object> <p>According to North Carolina GOP Senate candidate Greg Brannon, Planned Parenthood has a secret plan to legalize the killing of newborn babies as old as three months. Brannon, a Rand Paul-backed obstetrician who is a front-runner for the GOP nomination, made the allegations at a November fundraiser for Hand of Hope, a chain of crisis pregnancy centers he operates in North Carolina.</p> <blockquote> <p>Well how far will [it] go? Last year, February 29, 2012, the <em>Journal of Ethics</em> in Australia, they debated that. They said we already know abortion is fine, why stop in the womb? Why not three months after. Why should we end the responsibility at that point? It could happen in America. Florida's trying to do it right now and so is Georgia. Planned Parenthood. Because we allowed that slippery slope. Every human being deserves life, liberty, and property.</p> </blockquote> <p>Brannon's statement appears to be based on testimony given last year by a lobbyist for the Florida&nbsp;Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. Asked how the organization's physicians would respond if a baby were born alive during an abortion, the lobbyist appeared confused and said she'd have to check. But in a follow-up statement, Barbara Zdravecky, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central&nbsp;Florida, unambiguously rejected the notion: "In the extremely unlikely event that the scenario presented by the legislators ever happened, of course Planned Parenthood would provide appropriate care to both the woman and the infant."</p> <p>"These absurd and patently false claims by Greg Brannon demonstrate just how extreme and out of touch he is when it comes to women's health issues&mdash;and the rest of the Republican Senate candidates in North Carolina are just as dangerous," Planned Parenthood Action Fund Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens said in a statement. Brannon's campaign did not respond to request for clarification.</p> <p>In the same speech, Brannon said women get abortions because of the same nihilistic worldview that causes them to believe in evolution. "We have people who believe they evolve from nothing, they came from nothing, they'll go to nothing, and today doesn't matter, so when they have a mistake, why not move on?" he said.</p> <p>The most recent survey of the race, from Public Policy Polling, showed Brannon tied with Thom Tillis, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, for the Republican nomination&mdash;and running even with Sen. Kay Hagan (R-N.C.) in a hypothetical November matchup.</p> </body></html> MoJo Elections Reproductive Rights Top Stories Wed, 12 Mar 2014 10:00:09 +0000 Tim Murphy 247311 at President Obama Takes on Overtime Rules <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">From the <em>New York Times</em>:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>President Obama this week will seek to force American businesses to pay more overtime to millions of workers, the latest move by his administration to confront corporations that have had soaring profits even as wages have stagnated....Mr. Obama&rsquo;s decision to use his executive authority to change the nation&rsquo;s overtime rules is likely to be seen as a challenge to Republicans in Congress, who have already blocked most of the president&rsquo;s economic agenda and have said they intend to fight his proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour from $7.25.</p> </blockquote> <p>This is obviously just the latest in Obama's long series of Constitution-crushing moves that flout the law and turn the president into a despot-in-chief, gleefully kneecapping Congress and &mdash; wait. What's this?</p> <blockquote> <p>In 2004, business groups persuaded President George W. Bush&rsquo;s administration to allow them greater latitude on exempting salaried white-collar workers from overtime pay, even as organized labor objected....Mr. Obama&rsquo;s authority to act comes from his ability as president to revise the rules that carry out the Fair Labor Standards Act, which Congress originally passed in 1938. Mr. Bush and previous <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/images/Blog_Constitution_0.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">presidents used similar tactics at times to work around opponents in Congress.</p> </blockquote> <p>Oh. So he's just doing the same stuff that every other president has done. Sorry about that. You may go about your business.</p> <p>For what it's worth, this gets to the heart of my impatience with all the right-wing hysteria about how Obama is shredding the Constitution and turning himself into a modern-day Napoleon. I'm not unpersuadable on the general point that Obama's executive orders sometimes go too far. But so far no one has provided any evidence that Obama has done anything more than any other modern president. They all issue executive orders, and Obama has actually issued fewer than most. They all urge the federal bureaucracy to reinterpret regulations in liberal or conservative directions. They all appoint agency heads with mandates to push the rulemaking process in agreeable directions. And they all get taken to court over this stuff and sometimes get their hats handed to them.</p> <p>Is Obama opening up whole new vistas in executive overreach? I don't see it, and I don't even see anyone making the case seriously. You can't just run down a laundry list of executive actions you happen to dislike. You need to take a genuinely evenhanded look at the past 30 or 40 years of this stuff and make an argument that Obama is doing something unique. Until you do that, you're just playing dumb partisan games.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Congress Labor Obama Wed, 12 Mar 2014 05:58:35 +0000 Kevin Drum 247341 at What Have the Democrats Ever Done For Us? <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Yesterday</a> I wrote a post griping about the supposed mystery of why so many working and middle class voters (WMC for short) have drifted into the Republican Party over the past few decades. It's hardly a mystery, I said, and it's not an example of people voting against their own economic interest. The problem is simple: Democrats haven't really done much for the WMC lately, so fewer and fewer of them view Democrats as their champions. That being the case, they might as well vote for the party that promises to cut their taxes and supports traditional values.</p> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Scott Lemieux agrees with many of the specific points I made,</a> but nonetheless thinks I went too far with my "general framing." His post is worth a read, and it also gives me a handy excuse to write a follow-up. This is partly to expand on some things, partly to defend myself, and partly to concede an issue or two. So in no special order, here goes:</p> <p><strong>First off, you're really talking about the <em>white</em> WMC, right?</strong></p> <p>Yeah, that's usually how this stuff is framed. As it happens, I'd argue that although the black and Hispanic WMC still firmly supports Democrats, they largely do it for noneconomic reasons these days. But that's a subject for a different day. What we're talking about here is mostly about the white WMC.</p> <p><strong>But has this drift toward the Republican Party even happened? Haven't you written before that it's a myth?</strong></p> <p>Yes I have, based on the work of Larry Bartels, who says this is solely a Southern phenomenon. However, I've been persuaded by <a href="" target="_blank">Lane Kenworthy's work</a> that the drift is both real and national. It's not a myth.</p> <p><strong>Lemieux says that relative to Republicans, Democrats are better than I give them credit for. What about that?</strong></p> <p>No argument there. I don't think anyone could read this site for more than five minutes and not know what I think of the modern Republican Party.</p> <p><iframe align="right" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="290" src="" style="margin: 8px 0px 15px 30px;" width="450"></iframe></p> <p><strong>Plus he says that Obamacare has been a big plus for the WMC. And a bunch of folks on Twitter said the same thing.</strong></p> <p>That's a point I'll concede. I was thinking of a few things here. First, most WMC voters already get health coverage at work, so Obamacare's impact on them is limited. Beyond that, the Medicaid expansion was targeted at the poor, and the exchange subsidies get pretty small by the time you reach a middle-class income. But my memory was faulty on that score. A middle-class family with an income of, say, $50-60,000 still gets a pretty hefty subsidy. And of course there are other features of Obamacare that help the middle class too. I was a little too dismissive of this.</p> <p>On the other hand, this is also a pretty good example of Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They stuck together unanimously to pass the bill, which was great. But ideological ambivalence had already watered it down significantly by then, and ever since Obama signed it, it seems like half the party has been running for cover lest anyone know they voted for it. If Democrats themselves can't loudly sell their own bill as a middle class boon, it's hardly any surprise that lots of middle-class voters don't see it that way either.</p> <p><strong>But Democrats have done a lot of things beyond just Obamacare.</strong></p> <p>Sure, <a href="" target="_blank">and I've listed them myself from time to time.</a> But here's the thing: folks like Lemieux and me can look at this stuff and make a case that Democrats are helping the middle class. Unfortunately, it's mostly too abstract to register with average voters. Did the stimulus bill help the WMC? Probably, but it's not concrete enough for anyone to feel like it helped them personally. How about the CFPB, which Lemieux mentions? I think it's great. But if you stopped a dozen average folks on the street, not one would have the slightest inkling of what it is or whether they benefited from it. These things are just too small, too watered-down, and too sporadic to have much impact. What's more, whatever small impact they do have gets wiped out whenever Democrats support things like the 2005 bankruptcy bill or get cold feet about repealing something like the carried interest loophole.</p> <p><strong>OK, but why did you "yadda yadda" all the genuinely big things Democrats have done for the poor?</strong></p> <p>I didn't. I explicitly mentioned them. And this isn't some kind of shell game over definitions of "poor" and "working class." After all, no one ever asks why the poor have drifted away from the Democratic Party, even though they presumably have social views that are similar to the WMC. You know why? Because they haven't drifted away. And why is that? <em>Because Democrats have done stuff for them</em>.</p> <p>That's the whole point here. The WMC feels like Democrats do stuff for the poor, but not for them. And there's a lot of truth to that.</p> <p><strong>But what can Democrats do? Republicans block every proposal they ever make.</strong></p> <p>I'm not blaming them for that. Politics is politics. And I'm not ignoring the fact that Dems stand up against Republicans all the time. They do. Nor is this an exercise in "both sides do it." Obviously Republicans are far more slavishly devoted to the interests of corporations and the rich than Democrats.</p> <p>Hell, I don't even personally oppose every manifestation of the&nbsp;neoliberal policy evolution of the post-70s Democratic Party. Some of it I support. I'm a fairly moderate, neoliberalish squish myself most of the time. If you care about evidence in the policymaking process, the evidence is pretty strong that some lefty dreams just don't make sense.</p> <p>Nonetheless, the corporate drift of the Democratic Party since the 80s is simply a matter of record. Lemieux and I can toss out lists of small-ball Democratic accomplishments all day long, but the vast majority of low-information voters have never heard of them or don't think they really do them any good. Maybe they're mistaken or misguided, but that's the way it is.</p> <p>If Democrats want to regain the support of the WMC, they have to consistently unite behind stuff that benefits the WMC in very simple, concrete ways. Democrats do that on abortion, for example, and everyone knows where they stand even if they don't win all their battles. It's the same way with economic policy. Even if they don't win all or most of their battles, they need to unite behind real programs for the middle class; they need to talk about them loudly; they need to stop diluting their message by taking the side of the plutocrats whenever it's convenient; and they have to keep it up for decades.</p> <p>Maybe the reality of modern politics prevents this. But if that's the case, then it's time to stop navel-gazing about why the WMC has drifted away from the Democrats. The answer is staring us all in the face.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Economy Labor Wed, 12 Mar 2014 03:21:37 +0000 Kevin Drum 247336 at The Mystery of the Disappearing Malaysian Plane Deepens Even Further <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Here's the latest strangeness surrounding the <a href="" target="_blank">disappearance of that Malaysian airliner:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>As a search continued Tuesday for a Malaysian airliner that mysteriously disappeared, <strong>Malaysian military officials said radar data showed it inexplicably turned around and headed toward the Malacca Strait,</strong> hundreds of miles off its scheduled flight path, news agencies and Malaysian media reported.</p> <p>....<strong>Search teams from 10 nations had initially focused their efforts mainly east of the peninsula</strong>....A high-ranking military official involved in the investigation confirmed that the plane changed course and said it was believed to <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_malaysia_flight_370_2.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">be flying low, the Associated Press reported.</p> </blockquote> <p>It is, of course, mysterious that the plane veered off course and turned west an hour after takeoff. But that's not the real puzzle. The plane disappeared on Saturday. If the Malaysian military tracked it turning west into the Malacca Strait in real time, how is it that it took them three days to bother telling anyone about this? That seems damn peculiar even if things were just generally fubared at the time. <a href=";_r=0" target="_blank">Here's another account:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The [Malaysian] air force chief did not say what kind of signals the military had tracked. But his remarks raised questions about whether the military had noticed the plane as it flew across the country and about when it informed civilian authorities.</p> <p>According to the general&rsquo;s account, the last sign of the plane was recorded at 2:40 a.m., and the aircraft was then near Pulau Perak, an island more than 100 miles off the western shore of the Malaysian peninsula. <strong>That assertion stunned aviation experts as well as officials in China,</strong> who had been told again and again that the authorities lost contact with the plane more than an hour earlier, when it was on course over the Gulf of Thailand, east of the peninsula. But the new account seemed to fit with the decision on Monday, previously unexplained, to expand the search area to include waters west of the peninsula.</p> </blockquote> <p><a href="" target="_blank">And yet another:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>It is unclear why the west coast contact, if correct, was not made public until now. Asked on Monday why crews were searching the strait, the country's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters: <strong>"There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Military Tue, 11 Mar 2014 22:14:10 +0000 Kevin Drum 247316 at Infamous George Zimmerman Prosecutor Puts Disproportionate Number of Black Men on Death Row <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Florida is working hard these days to make itself a case study argument in favor of abolishing the death penalty. In a state that has seen <a href="" target="_blank">more innocent people exonerated from death row</a> than any other in the country, lawmakers last year passed legislation to try to speed up the pace of executions. Last month, <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Gov. Rick Scott (R)</span>&nbsp;set a dubious record for presiding over more&nbsp;<a href="" target="_blank">executions in his first term</a> than any governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the state <a href="" target="_blank">continues to ignore US Supreme Court</a> rulings banning the execution of the mentally ill and intellectually disabled. Just last week, the state argued before the Supreme Court that it <a href="" target="_blank">didn&rsquo;t want to use accepted scientific principles </a>to comply with the court's ban on executing mentally disabled people because that would spare too many death row residents, a move that would be "inconsistent with Florida&rsquo;s purposes."&nbsp;And now comes the news the state's most notorious prosecutor has not only sent a disproportionate number of felons to death row, but a disproportionate number of African-Americans, once again raising the troubling issue of racial disparities in the state's capital punishment system.</p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/angela-corey-florida-death-row"><strong><em>Continue Reading &raquo;</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Civil Liberties Courts Tue, 11 Mar 2014 18:35:52 +0000 Stephanie Mencimer 247226 at Opposition to Obamacare Remains Under 40 Percent, the Same as Always <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Greg Sargent</a> points us to the <a href="" target="_blank">latest CNN poll on Obamacare</a> today, one of the few polls that accurately judges public attitudes on the subject. Instead of just asking whether people support or oppose the law, CNN asks if their opposition is because the law is too liberal or <em>not liberal enough</em>. The latter aren't tea partiers <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_cnn_obamacare_support_february_2014.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 5px 15px 30px;">who hate Obamacare, they're lefties and Democrats who mostly support the concept of Obamacare but want it to go further. Counting them as opponents of Obamacare has always been seriously misleading.</p> <p>I went ahead and charted CNN's poll results over time, and they've been remarkably stable. Ever since the law passed, about 40 percent of the country has opposed it, while more than 50 percent have either supported it or said they want it to go even further. This goes a long way toward explaining the supposedly mysterious result that lots of people oppose Obamacare but few want to repeal it. The truth is that actual opposition has always been a minority view. Polls routinely show that only about <a href="" target="_blank">40 percent of Americans want to repeal Obamacare,</a> and there's nothing mysterious about that once you understand that this is also the level of actual opposition to the law.</p> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Sargent has more here,</a> including some interesting internals and crosstabs.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Health Care Tue, 11 Mar 2014 18:15:59 +0000 Kevin Drum 247296 at President Obama Reaches Out to the Kids <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><iframe align="right" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="290" src="" style="margin: 8px 0px 15px 30px;" width="450"></iframe></p> <p>Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that President Obama has taped a <em>Between Two Ferns</em> segment with comedian Zach Galifianakis to promote Obamacare. <a href="" target="_blank"><em>Time's</em> James Poniewozik comments:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>It&rsquo;s a specific, unusually edgy kind of comedy for any politician, much less a sitting President&ndash;a cringe-humor show whose whole idea is playing off staged discomfort with the guest. Obama trades insults, he stews at the clueless slights (will he build his Presidential library &ldquo;in Hawaii or your home country of Kenya&rdquo;?), he needles Galiafinakis about his handsome Hangover co-star Bradley Cooper. (&ldquo;He kind of carried that movie, didn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;)</p> <p>It&rsquo;s the tone of the comedy as much as the online medium that really targets the young audience Obama is pitching to here. There&rsquo;s a cringe-humor generation gap; <strong>if you&rsquo;re over a certain age, or simply haven&rsquo;t watched much of a certain kind of contemporary comedy, you&rsquo;ll probably watch it thinking that the segment is bombing and Obama is getting legitimately angry.</strong> But it&rsquo;s a good fit for Obama&rsquo;s sense of humor, which is a little dry and a little cutting&ndash;in ways that don&rsquo;t always play in rooms when there are no ferns present.</p> </blockquote> <p>This doesn't seem quite right to me. I'm in my fifties, and I thought it was pretty funny. Maybe you have to be even older not to get it? Post-SNL, perhaps? I'm not sure. Go ahead and <a href="" target="_blank">watch it here</a> and let's do a reader poll. Rate it from 1 to 5 stars and be sure to include your age.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Health Care Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:33:44 +0000 Kevin Drum 247286 at Taking Advantage of Cancer Patients for Fun and Profit <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>When we last met cancer patient Julie Boonstra, she was the centerpiece of a TV ad claiming that her new insurance plan under Obamacare was far more expensive than her old plan and didn't cover all her medications. On examination, it turned out to cost about the same. Today, however, <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_boonstra.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 20px 15px 30px;">the <em>Detroit News</em> reports that, in fact, Obamacare will <em>save</em> Boonstra <a href="" target="_blank">more than a thousand dollars per year:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Boonstra said Monday her new plan she dislikes is the Blue Cross Premier Gold health care plan, which caps patient responsibility for out-of-pocket costs at $5,100 a year, lower than the federal law&rsquo;s maximum of $6,350 a year. It means the new plan will save her at least $1,200 compared with her former insurance plan she preferred that was ended under Obamacare&rsquo;s coverage requirements.</p> <p><strong>....When advised of the details of her Blues&rsquo; plan, Boonstra said the idea that it would be cheaper &ldquo;can&rsquo;t be true.&rdquo;</strong></p> <p><strong>&ldquo;I personally do not believe that,&rdquo; Boonstra said.</strong></p> <p>....She also said her out-of-pocket maximum could be higher than advertised because there&rsquo;s one prescription that was previously covered by her old plan that isn&rsquo;t and she now buys with a separate prescription discount card....<strong>Boonstra&rsquo;s health plan covers all prescriptions, [Blue Cross spokesman Andy] Hetzel said,</strong> who advises she use the coverage instead of a prescription discount card so co-pays would go toward meeting the out-of-pocket maximum.</p> </blockquote> <p>If you think I'm posting about this just because it's a big, fat poke in the face to the Koch-funded ambulance chasers at AFP who originally ran the Boonstra ad&mdash;well, you're right. But there's a real point to be made about this too. I don't know anything about Julie Boonstra, but it sure seems as if she's been bamboozled by a bunch of fanatic Obamacare haters who have caused her a ton of pain and misery. Boonstra had some genuine problems with the rollout of the exchanges, just as many people did, but once that finally got straightened out, she ended up with coverage that was both better and less expensive than her previous plan. There's no reason for her to be so anxious about her continued care.</p> <p>But she never really learned that. For purely venal political reasons, AFP found itself a woman fighting cancer and proceeded to stoke her fears of her new health coverage in order to get a TV ad made. <em>A TV ad</em>. These are people who, if there's any justice, should not be sleeping easily at night. They are swine.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Health Care Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:43:47 +0000 Kevin Drum 247281 at Dianne Feinstein Upset that CIA Is Spying on Dianne Feinstein <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">If the CIA has lost Dianne Feinstein....</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.</p> <p>Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: <strong>&ldquo;I am not taking it lightly.&rdquo;</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>In the end, I suspect that she will indeed take it lightly. Still, if there's one thing an intelligence agency shouldn't do, it's get caught monitoring the Senate committee that oversees it. The intelligence community can spy on millions of Americans and Dianne Feinstein yawns. But spy on Dianne Feinstein and you're in trouble.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Civil Liberties Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:52:13 +0000 Kevin Drum 247271 at We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for March 11, 2014 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/0311-630x354.jpg"></div> <div id="meta"> <div class="photo-desc" id="description_div"> <p class="rtecenter"><em>Sgt. Scott Hulsizer (left), a team leader with second platoon, Bravo Company, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, based in Okinawa, Japan, fires an M136 AT-4 rocket launcher after breaking away from the firing line as part of a weapons training package on the Kaneohe Bay Range Training Facility, March 4, 2014. 3rd Recon Bn. fired multiple weapon systems, such as the .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine gun, MK-19 automatic grenade launcher and M136 AT-4 rocket launchers, as part of a two day weapons package for Exercise Sandfisher. The weapons package focused on increasing the platoon&rsquo;s proficiency with each system on the battlefield. (<a href="" target="_blank">U.S. Marine Corps photo</a> by Lance Cpl. Matthew Bragg/Released)</em></p> </div> </div> </body></html> MoJo Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:09:58 +0000 247266 at Here Is President Obama's "Between Two Ferns" Interview With Zach Galifianakis <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Tuesday morning, comedy website <a href="" target="_blank">Funny or Die</a> released an episode of Zach Galifianakis' satirical interview show <em><a href="http://" target="_blank">Between Two Ferns</a></em> featuring Barack Obama. The 44th president came on to promote the Affordable Care Act. (At the end of the six-and-a-half-minute video, there is <a href="" target="_blank">a link to</a></p> <p>The whole thing is pretty funny. To be clear, it isn't going to set the world on fire or anything, but there are definitely some amusing bits. ("What is it like to be the last black president?" "<em>Seriously</em>?") Funny or Die has a very good relationship with the Obama administration, which includes creating a recent batch of <a href="" target="_blank">pro-Obamacare</a> <a href="" target="_blank">videos</a>, and even <a href="" target="_blank">pitching the president</a> a sketch idea directly. <a href="" target="_blank">Galifianakis</a> is himself an <a href="" target="_blank">Obama supporter</a>.</p> <p>Here is the whole bit for your viewing pleasure:</p> <p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="400" mozallowfullscreen="" src="" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="630"></iframe></p> <div style="text-align:left;font-size:x-small;margin-top:0;width:640px;">&nbsp;</div> <p>Or as the White House describes it:</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p>&bull; President Obama &bull; Zach Galifianakis &bull; Spider bites All things you can find here &rarr; <a href=""></a> <a href=";src=hash">#BetweenTwoFerns</a> <a href=";src=hash">#GetCoveredNow</a></p> &mdash; The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href="">March 11, 2014</a> </blockquote> <script async src="//" charset="utf-8"></script> </body></html> MoJo Film and TV Top Stories Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:02:06 +0000 Ben Dreyfuss and Asawin Suebsaeng 247261 at You Don't Have to Be a Foul-Mouthed White Guy to Be a World-Class Chef <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>What does it take to break the mould in a prestigious, white-male-dominated industry? I tackled that question in a recent <a href="" target="_blank">piece</a> on how women chefs, who, despite impressive advances in recent years, get short shrift when it comes to big-name awards and invitations to high-minded culinary confabs. But restaurants' diversity problem is bigger than just a gender imbalance. More then two centuries after the invention of the fine-dining restaurant in the wake of the French Revolution, chefly prestige remains largely&mdash;but not completely&mdash;the domain of not just males, but <em>white</em> males. What gives?</p> <p>On a frigid evening in Harlem last week, I got the opportunity to put the question directly to four mould-breakers in a public conversation at Ginny's Supper Club, the cozy, red-tinted, speakeasy-like saloon in the cellar of <a href="" target="_blank">Red Rooster</a>, chef Marcus Samuelsson's neo-soul-food establishment on Lenox just north of 125th Street. The evening started with wine and snacks, which included house-made charcuterie, cheese, and cornbread madeleines&mdash;the latter, I thought, a clever mashup of French and US traditions, a Proustian nod to our most memory-drenched and historically fraught region, the South. My own melancholic musings aside, the room buzzed and glowed in the hour or so leading up to the panel&mdash;a diverse crowd of 150 or so chatted and circulated, young, old, and in between, culinary students, chefs, writers, and food lovers of all stripes, from the neighborhood and other parts of Manhattan, from Brooklyn, and even, I hear, from <a href="" target="_blank">Chicago</a>.</p> <p>Eventually, we took to the stage: to my right Marcus himself; then Gabrielle Hamilton, chef/proprietor of the highly influential East Village spot <a href="" target="_blank">Prune</a>; then Charlene Johnson-Hadley, a daughter of Brooklyn's West Indian diaspora who worked her way up through Samuelsson's Red Rooster kitchen and is now executive chef at his Lincoln Center outpost <a href="" target="_blank">American Table Bar and Cafe</a>; and finally Floyd Cardoz, chef at <a href="" target="_blank">North End Grill</a> in Battery Park City, who brought the cooking of his native India into the glamor of a buzzy Manhattan restaurant with the late and much-lamented Tabla.</p> <p>Unfortunately, our conversation wasn't recorded. But<em> Eater </em>delivered a <a href="" target="_blank">"10 Best Quotes" piece</a>, <em>Serious Eats</em>' Jacqueline Raposo has a very thoughtful <a href="" target="_blank">post</a> on the event, also with several quotes, and the blogger Ronda Lee offered <a href="" target="_blank">worthy commentary</a> on the event.</p> <p>My favorite parts of the discussion were:</p> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"> <img alt="" class="image" src="/files/marcus-gab.jpg"><div class="caption">Two New York icons: Samuelsson and Hamiton</div> </div> <p>1) Marcus&mdash;who was born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden&mdash;talking about coming up as an ambitious young cook in France, where the message he got was<em> "ce n'est pas possible,"</em> i.e., it's not possible for a black man to command his own kitchen. His outsider status served as a spur, he said: With the conventional path to chefdom blocked to him, he had to forge his own, which included moving to the melting pot of New York and grabbing the reins of the Swedish restaurant Aquavit.</p> <p>2) Gabrielle talking about how she found herself in the restaurant world not out of a passion for cooking, but rather out of the need to support herself at a very young age&mdash;and about how being a woman in restaurant kitchens, when she came up in the 1980s, meant having to forge an identity, a way to fit in, since there was no preexisting identity to fall into. Here's her money quote, which I'm cribbing from <em>Eater</em> because I didn't take notes:</p> <blockquote> <p>Yes, there were horrible white men in the kitchens and the hardest part of that is the contortions you'd put yourself through to figure out your place in that kitchen. Should I be a chain-smoking dirt-talking motherfucker who can crank it fucking out? Or should I be kind of a dainty female with lipstick and be like, 'Can you help me with this stock pot because I just can't?' Frankly it's a freaking second job on top of what you're already doing. One of the hardest parts is trying to make a viable self that you can live with and and go home and respect at the end of the day.</p> </blockquote> <p>3) Charlene talking about how she was drawn to cooking as a child through her grandmother's Jamaican-inflected kitchen, and how, while in college in the 1990s, she realized she wanted to make a career of cooking, which sent her to culinary school and her current path. It struck me that unlike Marcus and Gabrielle, who came up in the 1980s, Charlene could envision for herself a conventional path to success: go to chef's school, get a job. Here's Charlene's take on being a woman of color in the professional kitchen (quote from Raposo's piece): "I just think you need to get past yourself and not think of yourself as 'the different one.' That shouldn't be your focus. Your focus should be following your ambition, making sure you are doing what it is you want to do, and making yourself an asset to wherever you are."</p> <p>4) Floyd on aspiring to cook professionally while growing up middle class in India&mdash;and the culture shock it gave his parents, who hoped he would be a doctor. Until pretty recently, the professional kitchen was a place middle class people aspired to flee. Now, with the rise of the celebrity chef, it has emerged as a site of aspiration. Hamilton touched on that topic, too, when she mentioned that suddenly, "40-year-old white males" are applying to work in her kitchen. She went on (quote from Raposo):</p> <blockquote> <p>Now we have the whole new problem of, "I used to be an architect" and "I have a trust fund" and "I have so much more money and power than you're ever going to have in this world." And you have to go up to that guy and say, "You know, your sauce is a little salty."</p> </blockquote> <p>As Ronda Lee put it in her blog post, "gender and race [in the professional kitchen] is a lot to cover in a two-hour discussion." And our panel in Harlem last week barely scratched the surface. I learned again what I learned when writing my piece on gender: This is a fascinating and complex conversation, one that people working to make the restaurant world more inclusive are eager to have. There's so much we didn't get to&mdash;for example, what about the role of Mexican immigrants, who are the lifeblood of kitchen lines from Los Angeles to New York? We at <em>Mother Jones</em> plan to continue exploring it. Stay tuned.</p> </body></html> Tom Philpott Food and Ag Race and Ethnicity Sex and Gender Top Stories Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:00:06 +0000 Tom Philpott 247236 at