Blogs | Mother Jones Mother Jones logo en WATCH: The Religious Right has Spread the "Good News of Homophobia" Around the World [Fiore Cartoon] <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=c96134" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></div> <p>Mark Fiore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the <em>Washington Post, </em>the <em>Los Angeles Times, </em>the <em>San Francisco Examiner, </em>and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a <a href="" target="_newWindow">website</a> featuring his work.</p> </body></html> Mixed Media Cartoons Video Gay Rights International Religion The Right Thu, 13 Mar 2014 23:57:58 +0000 Mark Fiore 247521 at If Reagan Were President, He Would…Do Nothing Much About Ukraine <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>On the Senate floor today, John McCain <a href="" target="_blank">blistered</a> his fellow Republicans over their holdup of an aid bill to Ukraine. "Don't call yourself Reagan Republicans," he said. "Reagan would never tolerate this." Dan Drezner provides the history lesson via Twitter:</p> <p><img align="middle" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_drezner_tweet_reagan.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 15px 0px 5px 25px;"></p> </body></html> Kevin Drum International Thu, 13 Mar 2014 22:52:52 +0000 Kevin Drum 247516 at Sleeping In Ignites Teenager's Passion <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>The <em>New York Times</em> tells the story of Jilly Dos Santos, a Missouri student who took an AP world history class that <a href="" target="_blank">"explores the role of leadership":</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Students were urged to find a contemporary topic that ignited their passion. One morning, the teachers mentioned that a school board committee had recommended an earlier start time to solve logistical problems in scheduling bus routes. The issue would be discussed at a school board hearing in five days. If you do not like it, the teachers said, do something.</p> <p>Jilly did the ugly math: A first bell at 7:20 a.m. meant she would have to wake up at 6 a.m.</p> <p>She had found her passion.</p> </blockquote> <p>Jilly is my hero. The kids these days are all right in my book.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Health Thu, 13 Mar 2014 22:22:52 +0000 Kevin Drum 247501 at McDonald's Accused of Stealing Wages From Already Underpaid Workers <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Fast food workers make very little money. How little money? Very little money! So little in fact that a single parent of one living in New York City would have to work 144 hours a week "to make a secure yet modest living." But apparently, those wages are not low enough, a group of McDonald's workers&nbsp;<a href="" target="_blank">allege</a>, to stop the company from also stealing from them.</p> <p>Wage-theft suits brought against McDonald's this week in Michigan, California, and New York accuse the chain of refusing to pay overtime, ordering people to work off the clock, and straight up erasing hours from timecards. If these allegations are true, <em>and maybe they're not, </em>but maybe they are, then the company has been illegally screwing people who are already being legally screwed.</p> <p>This is the most recent development in a <a href="" target="_blank">months-long campaign</a> by fast-food workers pushing for a $15/hour starting wage.</p> <p>You shouldn't eat fast food because fast food is bad for you but if you do eat fast food (and you will eat fast food at least once in a while because nobody can be perfect all the time), be nice to the people who serve you. They have to fight tooth and nail to make ends meet.</p> <p>Could you make it on fast food wages? Here's a depressing calculator. (Spoiler: Probably not!)<br> &nbsp;</p> <div><img alt="" class="image" id="fast-food-banner" src="/files/big-mac-02_2.png"></div> <div id="fast-food-calculator"> <form id="calculate_this"> <label for="household">How many people are in your household?</label> <select id="selected_household" name="household"><option value="1P0C">One Adult No Children</option> <option value="1P1C">One Adult One Child</option> <option value="1P2C">One Adult Two Children</option> <option value="1P3C">One Adult Three Children</option> <option value="2P0C">Two Adults No Children</option> <option value="2P1C">Two Adults One Child</option> <option value="2P2C">Two Adults Two Children</option> <option value="2P3C">Two Adults Three Children</option></select><label for="state">Which state do you live in?</label> <select id="selected_state" name="state"></select><label for="locale">Which area do you live in? (Area data not available for households without children.)</label><select id="selected_locale" name="locale"></select><label for="salary">How much do you make in a year?</label> $<input id="input_salary" name="salary" type="number" value="26000"><input id="calculate" type="submit" value="Submit">&nbsp;</form> <div id="calculated" style="display:none;"> <p>In order to make $<span id="salary">___</span> a year, the typical fast-food worker has to work <span id="salary_hours_per_week">__</span> hours a week.</p> <p>A household like yours in <span id="fast_food_calculator_locale">___,</span> <span id="fast_food_calculator_state">___</span> needs to earn <strong>$<span id="fast_food_calculator_living_wage_annual">__</span></strong> annually to make a secure yet modest living. A fast-food worker working full time would have to earn $<span id="living_wage_hourly">__</span> an hour to make that much.</p> <p>The average fast-food employee works less than <strong>25</strong> hours a week. To make a living wage in <span id="fast_food_calculator_locale2">___,</span> <span id="fast_food_calculator_state2">___</span> at current median wages, s/he would have to work <span id="living_hours_per_week">__</span> hours a week.</p> <p>In <span id="living_hours_per_week2">__</span> hours, McDonald's serves <span id="mc_d_customers_served">__</span> customers and makes <strong>$</strong><span id="mc_d_money_earned">__</span>. That's about <span id="big_mac_count">__</span> Big Macs.</p> </div> </div> <!-- data is in here --><script src=""></script><script> var median_fast_food_worker_wage = 8.94; // Source: National Employment Law Project, July 2013; var work_weeks_per_year = 52; var months_per_year = 12; var average_fast_food_worker_hours_per_week = 24.4; var average_weeks_in_a_month = 4.348; var hours_worked_at_full_time = 40; var days_in_2012 = 366; //leap year var McDonalds_customers_per_day_in_2012 = 69000000; // Source: McDonalds 2012 Annual Report var hours_in_day = 24; var mcD_systemwide_restaurants = 34480; var mcD_served_per_hour = McDonalds_customers_per_day_in_2012 / hours_in_day; var mcD_earnings_in_2012 = 27567000000; // Source: McDonalds 2012 Annual Report var mcD_earned_per_hour = Math.round(mcD_earnings_in_2012 / days_in_2012 / hours_in_day); var cost_of_big_mac = 4; var first_state = 'AK'; var first_locale = 'Anchorage, AK HUD Metro FMR Area'; var state_abbr = { 'AL' : 'Alabama', 'AK' : 'Alaska', 'AS' : 'America Samoa', 'AZ' : 'Arizona', 'AR' : 'Arkansas', 'CA' : 'California', 'CO' : 'Colorado', 'CT' : 'Connecticut', 'DE' : 'Delaware', 'DC' : 'District of Columbia', 'FM' : 'Micronesia1', 'FL' : 'Florida', 'GA' : 'Georgia', 'GU' : 'Guam', 'HI' : 'Hawaii', 'ID' : 'Idaho', 'IL' : 'Illinois', 'IN' : 'Indiana', 'IA' : 'Iowa', 'KS' : 'Kansas', 'KY' : 'Kentucky', 'LA' : 'Louisiana', 'ME' : 'Maine', 'MH' : 'Islands1', 'MD' : 'Maryland', 'MA' : 'Massachusetts', 'MI' : 'Michigan', 'MN' : 'Minnesota', 'MS' : 'Mississippi', 'MO' : 'Missouri', 'MT' : 'Montana', 'NE' : 'Nebraska', 'NV' : 'Nevada', 'NH' : 'New Hampshire', 'NJ' : 'New Jersey', 'NM' : 'New Mexico', 'NY' : 'New York', 'NC' : 'North Carolina', 'ND' : 'North Dakota', 'OH' : 'Ohio', 'OK' : 'Oklahoma', 'OR' : 'Oregon', 'PW' : 'Palau', 'PA' : 'Pennsylvania', 'PR' : 'Puerto Rico', 'RI' : 'Rhode Island', 'SC' : 'South Carolina', 'SD' : 'South Dakota', 'TN' : 'Tennessee', 'TX' : 'Texas', 'UT' : 'Utah', 'VT' : 'Vermont', 'VI' : 'Virgin Island', 'VA' : 'Virginia', 'WA' : 'Washington', 'WV' : 'West Virginia', 'WI' : 'Wisconsin', 'WY' : 'Wyoming' } var selected_state = jQuery("#selected_state"); var selected_locale = jQuery("#selected_locale"); var selected_household = jQuery("#selected_household"); for (var state in bfjo) { var option = jQuery('<option value="' + state + '">' + state_abbr[state] + ''); selected_state.append(option); } var fill_locale_selector = function(state_object) { selected_locale.html(""); for (var locale in state_object) { var option = jQuery('<option value="' + locale + '">' + locale.replace(/,.*$/, '') + ''); selected_locale.append(option); } } fill_locale_selector(bfjo[first_state]) selected_state.bind("change", function() { var state = $("#selected_state option:selected").val(); var state_object = bfjo[state]; fill_locale_selector(state_object); } ) /* var fill_household_selector = function(locale_object) { var selected_household = jQuery("#selected_household"); selected_household.html(""); for (var household in locale_object) { var option = jQuery('<option value="' + household + '">' + household + ''); selected_household.append(option); } } fill_household_selector(bfjo[first_state][first_locale]) */ selected_locale.bind("change", function() { var state = $("#selected_state option:selected").val(); var locale = $("#selected_locale option:selected").val(); var locale_object = bfjo[state][locale]; //fill_household_selector(locale_object); } ) enable_disable_locale = function() { var household = $("#selected_household option:selected").val(); if (household === '1P0C' || household === '2P0C') { selected_locale.attr('disabled', 'disabled'); } else { selected_locale.attr('disabled', ''); } } selected_household.bind("change", function() { enable_disable_locale(); } ); enable_disable_locale(); jQuery("#calculate_this").bind("submit", function() { var state = $("#selected_state option:selected").val(); var locale = $("#selected_locale option:selected").val(); var household = $("#selected_household option:selected").val(); var salary = parseInt($("#input_salary").val()); var annual_living_wage = bfjo[state][locale][household]; console.log(state); console.log(locale); console.log(household); console.log(annual_living_wage); var hourly_for_living = annual_living_wage / months_per_year / average_weeks_in_a_month / hours_worked_at_full_time; var hours_to_live_per_month = annual_living_wage / months_per_year / median_fast_food_worker_wage; var weeks_to_live_per_month = hours_to_live_per_month / hours_worked_at_full_time; var salary_monthly = salary / months_per_year; var hours_to_salary_monthly = salary_monthly / median_fast_food_worker_wage; var weeks_to_salary_monthly = hours_to_salary_monthly / hours_worked_at_full_time; var hours_living_a_week = hours_to_live_per_month / average_weeks_in_a_month; var hours_salary_a_week = hours_to_salary_monthly / average_weeks_in_a_month; var commify = function(number) { while (/(\d+)(\d{3})/.test(number.toString())){ number = number.toString().replace(/(\d+)(\d{3})/, '$1'+','+'$2'); } return number; } var salary_string = commify(salary); var yearly_living_wage_string = commify(annual_living_wage); /* while (/(\d+)(\d{3})/.test(salary_string.toString())){ salary_string = salary_string.toString().replace(/(\d+)(\d{3})/, '$1'+','+'$2'); } while (/(\d+)(\d{3})/.test(yearly_living_wage_string.toString())){ yearly_living_wage_string = yearly_living_wage_string.toString().replace(/(\d+)(\d{3})/, '$1'+','+'$2'); } */ jQuery("#calculated").show(); jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_hours").text(Math.round(hours_to_live_per_month)); jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_state").text(state_abbr[state]); jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_state2").text(state_abbr[state]); if (household === "1P0C" || household === "2P0C") { jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_locale").text(''); jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_locale2").text(''); } else { jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_locale").text(locale.replace(/,.*$/, '') + ','); jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_locale2").text(locale.replace(/,.*$/, '') + ','); } jQuery("#salary").text(salary_string); jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_time").text(Math.round(hours_to_salary_monthly)); jQuery("#living_hours_per_week").text(Math.round(hours_living_a_week)); jQuery("#living_hours_per_week2").text(Math.round(hours_living_a_week)); jQuery("#salary_hours_per_week").text(Math.round(hours_salary_a_week)); jQuery("#fast_food_calculator_living_wage_annual").text(yearly_living_wage_string); jQuery("#mc_d_customers_served").text( commify( Math.round( Math.round(hours_living_a_week) * mcD_served_per_hour ) ) ); jQuery("#mc_d_money_earned").text( commify(Math.round(Math.round(hours_living_a_week) * mcD_earned_per_hour)) ); jQuery("#big_mac_count").text( commify( Math.round( Math.round(hours_living_a_week) * mcD_earned_per_hour / cost_of_big_mac ) ) ); console.log(hourly_for_living); var hourly_for_living_clean = Math.round(hourly_for_living * 100) .toString().replace(/(\d+)(\d{2})/, '$1'+'.'+'$2'); jQuery("#living_wage_hourly").text(hourly_for_living_clean); return false; } ) </script> </body></html> MoJo Food and Ag Labor Thu, 13 Mar 2014 20:23:30 +0000 Ben Dreyfuss 247466 at Tesla Pits Texas vs. the Free Market <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Tesla is having a lot of well-publicized problems selling its cars direct to the public. Most states mandate that cars can only be sold through independent dealers, and that's shut Tesla out of <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_tesla_roadster.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 20px 15px 30px;">the market in plenty of places, including ultra-free market bastions like Texas. <a href="" target="_blank">Paul Waldman comments:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>You'd think that if conservatives really believed all their rhetoric about the value of unfettered free markets, they would be all over this issue, advocating for Tesla's side of the controversy and campaigning to break up the anti-free-enterprise car dealer oligopolies. But of course, we're talking about Tesla, and liberals like electric cars, and therefore conservatives feel obligated to hate electric cars, so that probably won't happen.</p> </blockquote> <p>OK, sure, but here's the thing: Teslas are also really expensive. That means they can only be purchased by rich people, and conservatives really like rich people. So this is a dilemma, no?</p> <p>Now, I suppose that in Texas they don't think much of any car that doesn't run on refined hydrocarbon products, so maybe the cognitive dissonance there is less than I think. But North Carolina doesn't have any oil. So what's the deal there?</p> <p>In any case, I want to know who's buying these cars, anyway. Last Halloween, Marian and I decided to escape the house and eat out. In order to kill time, we walked around the shopping center we had gone to and I spied a Tesla store there. So I popped in and sat down in a Roadster. I didn't even come close to fitting, and I'm only an inch or so taller than six feet. Am I just pickier than most tall people? Do tall people who buy Teslas slouch a lot? Or has Tesla simply abandoned the quarter of the market over six feet?</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Climate Change Thu, 13 Mar 2014 19:04:42 +0000 Kevin Drum 247476 at California Just Had Its Warmest Winter on Record <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div class="inline inline-center" style="display: table; width: 1%"> <img alt="temperature map" class="image" src="/files/201312-201402_0.png"><div class="caption">NOAA</div> </div> <p>This winter has been a tale of two Americas: The Midwest is just beginning to thaw out from a battery of epic cold snaps, while Californians might feel that they pretty much skipped winter altogether. In fact, <a href="" target="_blank">new NOAA data</a> reveal that California's winter (December through February) was the warmest in the <a href=";parameter=tmp&amp;state=4&amp;div=0&amp;year=2014&amp;month=2#ranks-form" target="_blank">119-year record</a>, 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.</p> <p>The map above ranks every state's winter temperature average relative to its own historical record low (in other words, relative to itself and not to other states). Low numbers indicate that the state was unusually cold; higher numbers mean it was exceptionally warm. As you can see, the Midwest was much colder than average, while the West was hotter than average (despite a season-long kerfluffle about polar vortexes, the East Coast wasn't exceptionally cold, after all).</p> <p>As we've reported, there's currently a scientific debate over whether climate change in the Arcitc is making the <a href="" target="_blank">jet stream "drunk,"</a> and thereby increasing the likelihood of extreme cold spells; the exact role of climate change in California's record heat is <a href="" target="_blank">still unclear</a>.</p> <p>As anyone working in <a href="" target="_blank">California's farming industry</a> could confirm, the state also had an exceptionally dry winter, the third-lowest precipitation on record. Other interesting facts from the NOAA report:</p> <ul> <li>At the beginning of March, 91 percent of the Great Lakes remained frozen, the second-largest ice cover since record keeping began in 1973.</li> <li>With reservoirs in central and northern California at 36 to 74 percent of their historical average levels, these regions would need 18 inches of rain over the next three months to end the drought, much more than the state normally gets in that time period.</li> <li>Alaska's winter was the eighth-warmest on record, 6.2 degrees F over the 1971-2000 average.</li> </ul> </body></html> Blue Marble Maps Climate Change Climate Desk Science Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:26:04 +0000 Tim McDonnell 247441 at It's Time to Release the Torture Report, Mr. President <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">From President Obama,</a> commenting on the Senate's investigation of Bush-era torture tactics:</p> <blockquote> <p>I am absolutely committed to declassifying that report as soon as the report is completed. In fact, I would urge them to go ahead and complete the report, send it to us. We will declassify those findings so that the American people can understand what happened in the past, and that can help guide us as we move forward.</p> </blockquote> <p>Say what? Last I heard, the report was completed in 2012. The CIA responded last June. Dianne Feinstein has been pushing for declassification of at least the report's executive summary every since. So if Feinstein wants to release the report, and Obama wants to release the report, what's the holdup?</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Civil Liberties Congress Obama Thu, 13 Mar 2014 17:14:44 +0000 Kevin Drum 247456 at NSA: Foreign Leaders Often in the Dark About Spying Activities <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Glenn Greenwald publishes a fascinating little extract from an NSA document today. The unnamed author is explaining why cooperation with foreign countries doesn't change much depending on <a href="" target="_blank">which party wins national elections:</a></p> <blockquote> <p><em><strong>Are our foreign intelligence relationships usually insulated from short-term political ups and downs, or not?</strong></em></p> <p>(S//SI//REL) For a variety of reasons, our intelligence relationships are rarely disrupted by foreign political perturbations, international or domestic. First, we are helping our partners address critical intelligence shortfalls, just as they are assisting us. Second, in many of our foreign partners&rsquo; capitals, few senior officials outside of their defense-intelligence apparatuses are witting to any SIGINT connection to the U.S./NSA.</p> </blockquote> <p>In other words, you might be the prime minister, but that doesn't mean you have any idea what your intelligence apparatus is up to.</p> <p>Now, this is worth taking with a grain of salt, since we don't know who wrote this, or whether he really knew what he was talking about. I've been skeptical all along of the "shocked, shocked" reaction of many foreign leaders to the Snowden leaks, and I remain skeptical that they didn't know at least the broad outlines of what the NSA and their own intelligence services were up to. Nonetheless, this provides a useful window into the NSA's thinking: the less their political masters know, the better off they are.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Civil Liberties Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:21:47 +0000 Kevin Drum 247446 at The Fed Was Supposed to Rein In Its Bailout Powers. Instead It Did This. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve&mdash;the US central bank tasked with regulating unemployment and inflation&mdash;handed out <a href="" target="_blank">an unprecedented $20 trillion in super-low interest loans</a> to failing Wall Street banks. The 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law required&nbsp;the Fed to restrict its emergency lending powers so that too-big-to-fail banks don't expect the central bank to dole out easy money again in the event of another financial crisis. The Fed <a href="" target="_blank">waited over</a> <a href="" target="_blank">three years</a> to craft regulations to comply with the Dodd-Frank provision, and now it&nbsp;has finally drafted rules&nbsp;to limit its bailout powers, financial reform advocates say the restrictions are far too weak.</p> <p>Dodd-Frank says that any future emergency lending by the Fed <a href="" target="_blank">can't be used to bail out insolvent firms, has to be backed by good collateral,</a> and <a href="" target="_blank">can't go to a single institution</a>. The law also imposes time limits on the Fed's emergency loans to banks. The <a href="" target="_blank">draft rule that the Federal Reserve released in late December</a> (before current Fed chair Janet Yellen was confirmed) misses the mark on all these requirements, Marcus Stanley, the policy director for the advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) <a href="" target="_blank">said in a letter to the Fed this week</a>, adding that though the rule "complies with the letter of the law, it does not fulfill the spirit of the Congressional mandate," which intended to significantly restrict the Fed's bailout abilities.</p> <p>"The rule mostly reiterates the language of [Dodd-Frank]," Stanley says. "And the drafters take advantage of every opportunity to interpret the statute in ways that minimize limits on emergency lending authority."</p> <p>Instead of limiting the Fed's emergency lending powers to temporary cash assistance as it is supposed to, the draft rule imposes no clear time limit on how long a big bank may remain dependent on Fed largesse. And the draft regulation defines "solvency" with far too broad a brush, according to AFR. The proposed rule does not require the Fed to assess if a potential borrower's liabilities exceed the value of its assets.</p> <p>While the emergency lending rule would ban loans to a single institution, it would still allow the creation of loan programs that lend to, say, three or four of the largest banks, while allowing smaller banks to flounder.</p> <p>The Fed's draft emergency lending rule does not even set an interest rate at which loans will be extended, a provision that would help to limit the "moral hazard" of easy money, AFR notes. And the rule is unclear as to how it would value borrowers' collateral.</p> <p>The Fed declined to comment. But last year, former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke dismissed concerns that the central bank had not yet drafted a&nbsp;rule limiting its emergency lending powers, insisting that the language in the Dodd-Frank law was sufficient. "I think that [Dodd-Frank] is very clear about what we can and cannot do. And I don't think that the absence of a formal rule would allow us to do something which the law prohibits," including bailing out an individual firm, or lending to an insolvent bank, he said at a House hearing in July.</p> <p>The Fed is currently accepting public comment on its emergency lending rule, so it is possible that reformers may win some victories before a final rule is put in place. Though the lobbying clout of the financial industry <a href="" target="_blank">vastly outweighs</a> that of pro-reform groups.</p> <p>Before the Fed finally drafted its emergency lending rules, financial reformers said the central bank was likely dragging its feet because it didn't want to cede&nbsp;some of its authority over the financial world. This latest lukewarm effort to rein in its bailout abilities makes it seem like that may be the case.</p> <p>"There are two ways to keep the economy on an even keel," AFR's Stanley <a href="" target="_blank">told me last July.</a> "Through clear, transparent rules that treat everyone the same&mdash;which is pretty challenging, and involves taking on a lot of interests." Or, he says, "you get to create a whole bunch of money out of nothing and you can hand it out wherever the problem is&hellip; It's easier to have this magic power."</p> </body></html> MoJo Economy Regulatory Affairs Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:05:55 +0000 Erika Eichelberger 247421 at Can the Koch Brothers Force Voters to Take Republicans Seriously? <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Greg Sargent takes a look at the Democratic strategy of <a href="" target="_blank">linking Republican senatorial candidates to the Koch brothers:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>As I noted the other day, this is all about creating a framework within which voters can be made to understand the actual policy agenda Republicans are campaigning on. This is what the Bain attacks on Mitt Romney were all about: <strong>Dem focus groups showed voters simply didn&rsquo;t believe Romney <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_koch_brothers.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 20px 15px 30px;">would cut entitlements (per the Paul Ryan plan) while cutting taxes on the rich.</strong> The Bain narrative made Romney&rsquo;s actual priorities more comprehensible.</p> <p>The Koch attacks are designed to do something similar. They aren&rsquo;t really about the Kochs. They are a proxy for the one percent, a means through which to tap into a general sense that the economy remains rigged in favor of the very wealthy. Placed into this frame, GOP policies &mdash; opposition to raising the minimum wage; the Paul Ryan fiscal blueprint, which would redistribute wealth upwards; opposition to the Medicaid expansion, which AFP is fighting in multiple states&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp; become more comprehensible as part of a broader storyline. In that narrative, Republican candidates are trying to maintain or even exacerbate an economic status quo that&rsquo;s stacked against ordinary Americans, while Dems are offering solutions to boost economic mobility and reduce inequality, which are increasingly pressing public concerns.</p> </blockquote> <p>Plus it's always good to have a bogeyman, isn't it?</p> <p>But I agree with Sargent, and this is something that relates back to my posts earlier this week about the fact that middle-class voters don't perceive a big difference between the economic policies of Democrats and Republicans. I argued that one reason for this is that Democrats haven't offered the middle class very much over the past few decades. But several critics pounced on this: even if it's true, they said, the <em>policy agendas</em> of the two parties are like night and day. Republicans want to privatize Social Security. They want to shred the safety net. They want to let the minimum wage erode to nothing. They want to eliminate capital gains taxes. They want to gut the EPA. Etc.</p> <p>But one of the mysteries of modern politics is that a lot of voters don't take this seriously. Partly it's because Republicans have never had the unified power to pass this agenda. Partly it's because they chickened out on a lot of it even when they came close to having that power during the Bush era. As a result, when Republicans engage in one of their periodic anti-government jeremiads it strikes a lot of people as just a sort of meaningless chant, words that Republican candidates have to mouth in order to prove they're part of the team, but not something they're really serious about.</p> <p>This frustrates Democrats no end, and they'd love to find a way to truly pin this stuff on the backs of Republican candidates. If Sargent is right, the Koch brothers are a way to do this.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Elections Money in Politics The Right Thu, 13 Mar 2014 15:14:37 +0000 Kevin Drum 247436 at 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 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 <em>PolitiFact</em></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 (D-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