Author Archives: EdmundHinson

Death for Drug Dealers and Quarantines for AIDS Victims: The Mike Huckabee You May Not Remember

by EdmundHinson Posted on May 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, Mike Huckabee made it official. The former Republican Arkansas governor and Fox News host launched his second bid for the White House in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, vowing to stop the “slaughter” of abortion and calling for the protection of the “laws of nature” from the “the false God of judicial supremacy.”

Huckabee is joining a GOP field that’s bigger and more competitive than the one he out-hustled to win the Iowa caucuses seven years ago. The Christian conservatives who flocked to the former Baptist preacher in 2008 can now turn toward other evangelical-minded candidates in the GOP presidential race. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is already in the hunt; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and and ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry are mulling bids. But Huckabee of today is also a far different candidate than the affable ex-gov who once rocked a bass guitar while stumping with Chuck Norris (although Walker, Texas Ranger is officially on board for this campaign, too). Since dropping out of the 2008 race, he’s flaunted a more combative, occasionally conspiratorial brand of politics—flirting with birtherism, advising prospective enlistees to avoid joining the armed forces until President Barack Obama has left office, and, just last month, warning social conservatives that the United States is “moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity.”

By the standards of his political career, 2008 was in many ways an aberration. As he mounts a second run for the nomination, Huckabee is staying true to the kinds of red-meat issues he first entered politics to promote, in a long-shot 1992 bid for Senate against Democratic incumbent Dale Bumpers.

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Death for Drug Dealers and Quarantines for AIDS Victims: The Mike Huckabee You May Not Remember

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Even Liberia’s Legislature Can’t Escape the Ravages of Ebola

by EdmundHinson Posted on September 16, 2014

Mother Jones

Of all the countries doing battle with Ebola, Liberia has been dealt the gravest blow. According to the World Health Organization, the impoverished West African nation now accounts for about half of all documented cases. And more than 1,200 residents are known or suspected to have died from the disease. In late August, the government quarantined an entire neighborhood for twelve days to prevent the outbreak from spreading.

Now the virus is forcing Liberian lawmakers to put their own work on hold.

More MoJo coverage of the Ebola crisis.


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5 Diseases That Are Scarier Than Ebola


We Are Making Ebola Outbreaks Worse by Cutting Down Forests

On Monday, Liberia’s legislature announced that the House of Representatives had canceled an “extraordinary sitting” to discuss the outbreak because its own chamber had been tainted by “a probable case of Ebola” and was being sprayed down with chlorine. The statement didn’t specify the source of the infection, but it noted that one of the chamber’s doormen had recently died after a “short illness.”

Liberia is ill-equipped to fight off the Ebola outbreak. Its entire national budget for 2013-2014 was $553 million, with only $11 million allotted for health care—about what Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are estimated to have spent on their Bel Air mansion in 2012.

Despite its meager resources, last month Liberia’s legislature allocated $20 million to battle the virus. But the nation had already burned through a quarter of that money by the first week of September. On Tuesday, United Nations officials pleaded with the international community to step up assistance to Liberia and neighboring countries, saying it will take $1 billion in aid to keep the number of cases in the region confined to the “tens of thousands.”

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Even Liberia’s Legislature Can’t Escape the Ravages of Ebola

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GOP Congressional Candidate Shoots Down Drone in New Ad

by EdmundHinson Posted on April 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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In Montana congressional candidate Matt Rosendale’s newest ad, which you can you can watch above, Rosendale aims a sighted rifle at a “government drone” and blows it away, before sending a message to the Obama administration: “Spying on our citizens—that’s just wrong.”

This isn’t the first attempt by Rosendale, a state representative who is seeking the GOP nomination to replace Rep. Steve Daines in Congress next fall, to make nice with his state’s far-right elements. In December Rosendale attended an event held by a group called Defend Rural America, whose founder, Kirk MacKenzie, called environmentalists “domestic terrorists.” And although this is the first time a candidate has pretended to shoot down a drone, politicians have a long history of blowing things up in campaign ads. In 2008, Montana Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer used a double-barreled shotgun to blast the federal Real ID law into tiny bits.

As always, Mother Jones reminds you that if you must ritually annihilate a federal policy in a campaign ad, you should at least wear safety goggles and ear plugs.

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GOP Congressional Candidate Shoots Down Drone in New Ad

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Rick Perry Dismantled Texas’ Public Integrity Unit. Now He’s Facing a Grand Jury.

by EdmundHinson Posted on April 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Rick Perry—Republican Texas governor, failed 2012 presidential candidate, and potential 2016 retread contender—is battling legal trouble at home, thanks to his controversial veto that demolished the state office tasked with investigating political scandals. On Monday, a Texas judge convened a grand jury to probe Perry’s decision last year to axe funding for the state’s Public Integrity Unit. The special prosecutor investigating the case, Michael McCrum, has not filed any charges. But earlier this month he said, “I cannot elaborate on what exactly is concerning me, but I can tell you I am very concerned about certain aspects of what happened here.”

Perry’s troubles started when he attempted to to displace the government official in charge of the Public Integrity Unit, a state-funded watchdog agency that investigates charges of public corruption. The unit is led by whoever is serving as the Travis County district attorney, who is based in Austin. The Current DA is Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat. Last April, she was arrested for drunk driving.

After Lehmberg’s arrest, Perry called for her resignation, claiming that the public could no longer place its trust in an official who herself ran afoul of the law. But the governor has no direct control over her job, a locally-elected position, and a grand jury rejected a former opponent’s attempt to have Lehmberg removed from office. For her part, Lehmberg refused to resign, though she said she won’t run for reelection in 2016. That wasn’t enough for Perry. With Lehmberg holding on to her job, the governor decided to cut off the two-year $7.5 million in state funding for the watchdog unit with a line-item veto. “Despite the otherwise good work the Public Integrity Unit’s employees,” a Perry statement said after the veto, “I cannot in good conscience support continued State funding for an office with statewide jurisdiction at a time when the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public’s confidence.”

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Rick Perry Dismantled Texas’ Public Integrity Unit. Now He’s Facing a Grand Jury.

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