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House Republicans Hold Hearing on Why Their Shutdown Shut Things Down

by oliwia_konarzewska@o2.pl Posted on October 16, 2013

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ended his two-week standoff with the White House and Senate Democrats, agreeing to bring to a vote a Senate-brokered bill to raise the debt ceiling through February 7 and fund the federal government through January 15. But a light at the end of the tunnel of this latest Capitol Hill crisis didn’t mean an end to the GOP political theatrics. Even as House Republicans were capitulating on the demands that had precipitated this standoff, they were convening a hearing to get to the bottom of why the National Park Service had shuttered the memorials on the National Mall, hauling NPS director Jonathan Jarvis before the committees on oversight and natural resources in an effort to portray the closures as a politically motivated effort to turn up the heat on the GOP.

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4 Things the Fed Could Do About a Default


Economist Mark Zandi: “We Will Be Dooming Our Economy and the Entire Global Economy”

“I regret that Jarvis would not come voluntarily and had to be subpoenaed and served by a US Marshal,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), sounding almost as if he meant it.

For 15 days, Republicans have tried to turn Jarvis into the villain of the shutdown by highlighting the closure of popular sites like the WWII memorial. He was the lead player in this right-wing conspiracy theory, in which Obama had supposedly forced parks and memorials to close to make the GOP-cased shutdown appear worse than it really was. On Saturday, hundreds of veterans demonstrated against the closure of this site on the National Mall, joined by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. At the time, conservatives hailed the protest as a game-changer in the public relations war. And apparently they still do.

At the hearing, Rep. Doc Hastings, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, alleged that the monument closures were indeed “an attempt to make the shutdown as painful and as visible as possible” and their reopening was “an attempt to squash the ensuing bad PR.”

Republican congressmen had a handy point of comparison for the closures on the National Mall: Occupy DC set up camp on the NPS-maintained McPherson Square for 100 days in 2011 without harassment from park police. “Do you consider it an exercise of your First Amendment right to walk to a monument that you helped build,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) asked Jarvis, “or is it only just smoking pot at McPherson Square?”

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) seized on a quote, provided anonymously from a NPS ranger to a Washington Times columnist, that “we’ve been told to make life as difficult for the people as we can.” Over the last two weeks, conservatives have cited this as evidence the White House may have orchestrated the monument closures. Jarvis insisted that it was strictly an NPS decision. He denied any such order to make life difficult and said the quote—which after all appeared in a newspaper that regularly publishes Ted Nugent—was “hearsay.” “It may be hearsay,” Mica said, but he was sticking to it.

Midway through his opening remarks, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, held up a small blue-edged hand mirror. “If those Republican colleagues will look at me, I will show you who’s responsible.” Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)—who recently called on the “four branches of government” to work together—stood up from his chair on the far side of his room and stared blankly in DeFazio’s direction, then sat down. Most of his colleagues kept their focus straight ahead.

House Republicans may have lost the shutdown war, but at least they still think they’re winning.

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House Republicans Hold Hearing on Why Their Shutdown Shut Things Down

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Laid-Off Workers: Ken Cuccinelli’s Campaign Tricked Us Into Appearing in GOP Attack Ad

by oliwia_konarzewska@o2.pl Posted on September 5, 2013

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, the campaign of Republican Ken Cuccinelli, who is running for governor in Virginia, released a new TV ad hammering Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe for investing in the fiber-optics company Global Crossing. When Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy in January 2002, hundreds of workers were laid off and many current and former employees saw their 401(k) accounts and severance pay packages wiped out. “Yet political insider and investor Terry McAuliffe cashed in,” Cuccinelli’s ad says. McAuliffe banked $8 million on an investment of $100,000.

The new ad features three former Global Crossing workers. Like last year’s powerful ads featuring middle-class workers talking about Mitt Romney’s business record, the ex-Global Crossing employees give the ad its emotional resonance. But here’s the catch: Two of the three employees tell Mother Jones that they were never told their words would be used in a political attack ad appearing in a state some 400 miles away.

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Laid-Off Workers: Ken Cuccinelli’s Campaign Tricked Us Into Appearing in GOP Attack Ad

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To avoid diabetes, eat fruit, don’t drink fruit juice

by oliwia_konarzewska@o2.pl Posted on August 30, 2013

To avoid diabetes, eat fruit, don’t drink fruit juice

By

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Blueberries are bloomin’ delicious — and they can help stave off type 2 diabetes.

Another study has shown that fruit is good for you. Just be sure to eat it in solid form.

Research published Thursday in the British Medical Journal analyzed the results of long-term health studies that tracked the diets of nearly 200,000 people over two decades, some of whom developed type 2 diabetes.

The scientists found that those who ate at least a couple of servings per week of certain whole fruits — notably blueberries, grapes, and apples — were 23 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who avoided them.

BMJThis graph from the paper shows that blueberries are particularly good at staving off type 2 diabetes. Cantaloupe — not so much. (Click to embiggen.)

On the other hand, those who drank at least one serving of fruit juice daily were 21 percent more likely to develop the disease. The BBC breaks it down:

The study calculated that replacing weekly fruit juice consumption with whole fruits could bring health benefits.

For example, replacing fruit juice with blueberries could reduce the risk of contracting type-2 diabetes by 33%, with grapes and raisins by 19%, apples and pears by 13% – and with any combination of whole fruit by 7%.

Replacing fruit juice with oranges, peaches, plums and apricots had a similar effect.

Qi Sun, study author and assistant professor at Harvard School of Public Health, said, in general, fruit juices contained less of the beneficial compounds found in whole fruits.

“The juicing process gets rid of the fruit, just leaving fluids which are absorbed more quickly, causing blood sugars and insulin levels to rise if they contain sugars.”

So don’t fear the fruit, folks. Fear the fruit juice.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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To avoid diabetes, eat fruit, don’t drink fruit juice

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The Pentagon’s Transgender Problem

by oliwia_konarzewska@o2.pl Posted on August 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Ever since she was a boy growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, Zoey Gearhart had “tendencies that were odd.” Raised as Robert Gearhart, she would identify with female characters in books and on TV, in video games and movies. She would also wear her mother’s fake nails, or make her own out of clay. “I was told to stop in no uncertain terms by my father,” she said. In 2007, at the age of 19, she decided to join the Navy. “I thought maybe joining the military would just help straighten me out,” she said. “Make me into a normal individual.”

At first, Gearhart tried to prove her machismo by applying and becoming accepted into the Navy SEALs program, the elite force that killed Osama bin Laden. “I used to be in incredible shape,” she said. She did preliminary training with the SEALs, but after an ex-fiancé pleaded with her not to continue on to BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition School) training, Gearhart decided to become a linguist instead. The first known transgender SEAL, Kristin Beck, first came out on her LinkedIn profile earlier this year and in her tell-all book, Warrior Princess. On the cover, she sports a long, bushy beard from the days she went by “Chris.”

While in the Navy, Gearhart kept her female identity a secret, hiding it from a Marine staff sergeant roommate whom she described as a “cave-dwelling dude-bro.” After her enlistment term expired in March, she decided not to reenlist so that she could begin her transition to womanhood in earnest. Had Beck or Gearhart revealed that they were trans while still in uniform, they would have received a medical or administrative discharge. Even after the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2011, the military still officially forbids openly transgender people from serving. The end of DADT, Gearhart said, “is this landmark for the LGBT movement. But there’s that hanging T. Trans service was not even addressed.”

Transgender soldiers and sailors largely fly under the radar, but they are hardly uncommon. In a recent survey (PDF) by the Harvard Kennedy School’s LGBTQ Policy Journal, 20 percent of transgender people contacted said they had served in the military—that’s twice the rate of the general population. A 2011 study estimates there are nearly 700,000 transgender individuals (about three people per thousand) living in the United States. Meanwhile, the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) is scheduled to release a report today, which draws from Department of Veterans Affairs data, showing that the number of veterans accepting treatment for transgender health issues has doubled in the past decade. (While viewing the full report requires a subscription, an abstract should be available online as of today.)

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The Pentagon’s Transgender Problem

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