Category Archives: Vintage

GOP Candidate Asks Residents to Mail Him Their Pee

by MatthiaSwinburn Posted on August 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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In the run-up to this fall’s rematch against Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-Ore.), Republican Art Robinson is making an unusual ask.

“My name is Art Robinson,” read one of the mailers he sent to 500,000 Oregon residents in March. “I am a scientist who has lived and worked in Josephine County for 34 years. My colleagues and I are developing improved methods for the measurement of human health. Please consider giving us a sample of your urine.”

Robinson is a scientist, and that’s part of the problem. For the last three decades, when he’s not running for office, the Caltech-educated chemist has run a research nonprofit out of a family compound in the mountain town of Cave Junction, near the California border. In a monthly newsletter called Access to Energy, Robinson has used his academic credentials to float theories on everything from AIDS to public schooling to climate change (which he believes is a myth). In perhaps his most famous missive, Robinson once proposed using airplanes to disperse radioactive waste on Oregon homes, in the hopes of building up resistance to degenerative illnesses.

“All we need do with nuclear waste is dilute it to a low radiation level and sprinkle it over the ocean—or even over America after hormesis is better understood and verified with respect to more diseases,” Robinson wrote in 1997. He added, “If we could use it to enhance our own drinking water here in Oregon, where background radiation is low, it would hormetically enhance our resistance to degenerative diseases. Alas, this would be against the law.” (Robinson has since clarified that such proposals would be politically untenable.)

In another essay, he called public education “the most widespread and devastating form of child abuse and racism in the United States,” leaving people “so mentally handicapped that they cannot be responsible custodians of the energy technology base or other advanced accomplishments of our civilization.”

Robinson theorized that the government had overhyped the AIDS epidemic in order to force social engineering experiments on those aforementioned public school students. The truth, he contended, was far more complex:

There is a possibility that the entire ‘war’ on HIV and AIDS is in error. U.S. government AIDS programs are now receiving $6 billion per year and are based entirely upon the hypothesis that HIV virus causes AIDS. Yet, the articles referenced above and numerous additional publications by scientists who have become involved in this controversy state that: attempts to cause AIDS experimentally with HIV have completely failed; thousands of AIDS victims are HIV-free; and HIV shows none of the classical characteristics of a disease-producing organism. Moreover, AIDS is not a unique disease—it is an increased susceptibility to many ordinary diseases presumably as a result of depressed immune response. This depressed immunity can result from many other factors including those especially prevalent in the AIDS afflicted population—drug abuse and unhygienic exposure to very large numbers of different disease vectors. Moreover, large numbers of HIV carriers who are symptom-free are being treated by powerful life-threatening drugs that kill people in ways very similar to AIDS.

Those writings have become an albatross in his repeated challenges to DeFazio, who has publicized Robinson’s work. Robinson lost by 10 points in 2010, and then by 20 two years later in a district that had become more Democratic after redistricting. Last year, he entered the GOP primary yet again (on a whim one day while driving past the clerk’s office), and won the nomination by default in May when no other candidates materialized. Adding to the uphill odds is the fact that Robinson now has a second job: Since last August, he’s served as the chair of the Oregon Republican Party.

As for the urine samples, Robinson told the Roseburg (Ore.) News-Review he received 1,000 in response, which will go toward a study on aging. His campaign might not be worth a bucket of warm piss. But at least he’ll have plenty of it to fall back on.

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GOP Candidate Asks Residents to Mail Him Their Pee

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Now Your Food Has Fake DNA in It

by HRYRachell Posted on August 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Like many novel technologies in this age of TED Talks and Silicon Valley triumphalism, synthetic biology—synbio for short—floats on a sea of hype. One of its founding scientists, Boston University biomedical engineer James Collins, has called it “genetic engineering on steroids.” Whereas garden-variety genetic engineers busy themselves moving genes from one organism into another—to create tomatoes that don’t bruise easily, for example—synthetic biologists generate new DNA sequences the way programmers write code, creating new life-forms.

It may sound like science fiction, but synbio companies have already performed modest miracles. The California-based firm Amyris, for example, has harnessed the technology to make a malaria drug that now comes from a tropical plant. In order to do this, company scientists leveraged the well-known transformative powers of yeast, which humans have used for millennia to turn, say, the sugar in grape juice into alcohol: They figured out how the wormwood tree generates artemisinic acid—the compound that makes up the globe’s last consistently effective anti-malarial treatment—and programmed a yeast strain to do the same thing.

And there could be more innovations on the horizon. In 2011, Craig Venter, the scientist/entrepreneur who spearheaded the mapping of the human genome, vowed to synthesize an algae that would use sunlight to unlock the energy in carbon dioxide. If successful, this attempt to replicate photosynthesis could transform CO2 from climate-heating scourge into a limitless source of energy. Synthetic biologists also aim to conjure up self-growing buildings, streetlight-replacing glowing trees, and medicines tailored to your body’s needs. No wonder the market for synbio is expected to reach $13.4 billion by 2019.

So how soon can you expect glowing trees to light up your block? Well, no one knows. That’s because thus far it has been much easier to create novel life-forms than to control how they function. Venter, for example, hasn’t yet figured out how to cheaply grow enough of his synbio algae to make it competitive with fossil fuels. And malaria is rapidly developing resistance to artemisin drugs, which could eventually render the synbio replicant as useless as the real deal.

But while synbio likely won’t sort out our climate and health woes anytime soon, it just might transform our…ice cream. By creating yeasts that produce high-end flavorings, a Swiss company called Evolva has created synbio vanillin, the main flavor compound in the vanilla bean—and it insists its product tastes much better than the petroleum-derived synthetic vanillin that now comprises virtually all of the vanilla market. Evolva is also preparing to release a synbio version of resveratrol, a compound with antioxidant properties naturally found in grapes and cocoa beans. Next up: a better-tasting version of stevia, a natural, low-calorie sweetener that the soda industry hopes can replace synthetic chemicals in diet sodas. After that, Evolva hopes to make a dizzying variety of lab-grown analogues, including musk, truffle flavoring, and even breast milk.

What could possibly go wrong with vanilla flavoring brewed by DNA-manipulated yeast? Well, like genetic engineering, synbio falls into a regulatory void that often allows products to go from lab to grocery store with little or no oversight. Evolva’s vanillin and resveratrol will likely sail through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process—and end up in your food without any special labeling—because they are versions of already-existing compounds and thus have “generally recognized as safe” status. The Environmental Protection Agency—which is supposed to evaluate the environmental implications of new products—requires companies to file a report on novel microbes but doesn’t always mandate testing.

And what happens to farmers when their jobs are taken over by designer yeasts? Jim Thomas, the research program manager for the Canada-based technology watchdog ETC Group, points out that synbio companies are so far targeting stuff grown in the Global South, which could have devastating economic consequences for the poor farmers who produce the natural versions. In addition to vanilla (grown in Madagascar, Indonesia, and Mexico) and stevia (China, Paraguay, and Kenya), Evolva’s projected roster of products includes saffron (Iran), turmeric (India), and ginseng (China).

Evolva CEO Neil Goldsmith says that Thomas raises a “legitimate question” but doesn’t think farmers will ultimately be harmed. He argues that synthetic vanillin has existed for decades without taking business away from natural vanilla producers. But that could be because consumers are willing to pay more for the real version. If Evolva is allowed to market its vanillin as a “natural” flavoring rather than a synthetic one, then it could compete directly with vanilla farmers—and it looks like Evolva is aiming to do just that: A recent press release called the product “natural vanillin for global food and flavor markets.”

Indeed, Goldsmith claims that his process is “as natural as bread.” Yeasts used in commercial bakeries have been carefully selected and cultivated. Now, you may consider creating new DNA to be an entirely different matter, but whether you find it creepy or cool ultimately doesn’t matter: Because synbio foods won’t have to be labeled as such, you’ll likely soon be eating them—without even knowing it.

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Now Your Food Has Fake DNA in It

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Here’s What Happens to Police Officers Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men

by CaridadSleeman Posted on August 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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In the week since 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, initial autopsy findings, police reports, and eyewitness accounts have begun to provide some insights into the circumstances of his death. But plenty of questions remain unanswered, not the least of them: Where is Officer Darren Wilson, and what’s likely to happen to him?

Wilson, who was put on administrative leave after killing Brown, reportedly left home with his family a few days before his name was made public. A fundraising campaign launched on August 17 has already raised more than $10,000 to cover the financial needs of Wilson’s family, “including legal fees.” (The campaign has since increased its goal to $100,000.)

It remains to be seen whether Wilson will face criminal charges, but a limited review of similar killings by police suggests that the officers more often than not walk away without an indictment, and are very rarely convicted. Delores Jones-Brown, a law professor and director of the Center on Race, Crime, and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, looked at 21 publicized cases from 1994 through 2009 in which a police officer killed an unarmed black person. Of those, only seven cases resulted in an indictment—for criminally negligent homicide, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, or violation of civil rights—and only three officers were found guilty.

Let’s take a closer look at five specific cases in which an unarmed black man was killed by officers while allegedly fleeing or resisting in some fashion.

City: Memphis, Tennessee
Date: October 1974
Officers: Elton Hymon and Leslie Wright
Victim: Edward Garner
What happened: Officers Hymon and Wright were responding to a burglary call when Hymon spotted Garner, an unarmed 15-year-old, by a fence in the backyard of the home in question. After Hymon ordered Garner to halt, the teenager tried to climb the fence. In response, the officer shot him fatally in the head. A federal district court ruled that the shooting was justified under a Tennessee statute—the law said that once a police officer voices intent to arrest a suspect, “the officer may use all the necessary means to effect the arrest.” Garner’s father appealed, and the case ended up in the Supreme Court, which ruled the Tennessee statute unconstitutional and the killing unjustified. Justice Byron White wrote for the majority: “It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape. Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so. It is no doubt unfortunate when a suspect who is in sight escapes, but the fact that the police arrive a little late or are a little slower afoot does not always justify killing the suspect. A police officer may not seize an unarmed, non-dangerous suspect by shooting him dead.” Despite the reversal, the officer who shot Hymon was never charged.

Iris and Ramon Baez, parents of Anthony Baez, address the media after the sentencing of former police officer Frank Livoti Lynsey Addario/AP

City: Bronx, New York
Date: December 1994
Officer: Francis X. Livoti
Victim: Anthony Baez
What happened: Officer Livoti choked to death 29-year-old Anthony Baez in a case that would later be featured in a PBS documentary titled Every Mother’s Son. After their football struck his patrol car, Livoti had ordered Baez and his brother to leave the area. When the brothers refused, Livoti attempted an arrest. After Baez allegedly resisted, the officer administered the choke hold that ended his life. Livoti, who had been accused of brutality 11 times over 11 years, was charged with criminally negligent homicide, but found not guilty during a state trial in October 1996. He was fired the following year, however, after a judge ruled his choke hold illegal. In June 1998, a federal jury sentenced him to 7.5 years in prison for violating Baez’s civil rights, and the Baez family received a $3 million settlement from the city later that year. In 2003, two more cops were fired for giving false testimony in Livoti’s defense.

Officers Richard Murphy, left, Kenneth Boss, center, and Edward McMellon listen to their attorneys speak to the media, Mar. 31, 1999. David Karp/AP

City: Bronx, New York
Date: February 1999
Officers: Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Kenneth Boss, Richard Murphy
Victim: Amadou Diallo
What happened: Amadou Diallo, an unarmed, 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was killed in the vestibule of his own building when four white police officers fired 41 shots, striking him 19 times. Diallo had just returned home from his job as a street vendor at 12:44 a.m. when he was confronted by the plainclothes officers. The officers later said he matched the description of a rape suspect, and that they mistakenly believed he was reaching for a gun. (He was pulling out his wallet.) Three of the officers had been involved in previous shootings, including one that led to the death of another black civilian in 1997. The four cops were acquitted of all charges, prompting citywide protests. They were not fired, either, but lost permission to carry a weapon—although one of the officers eventually had his carrying privilege restored. In 2004, Diallo’s family received a $3 million settlement from the city. His mother said her son had been saving to attend college and become a computer programmer. A foundation in Diallo’s name seeks to promote racial healing.

A candlelit vigil for Anthony Dwain Lee in front of the West Los Angeles police station, Oct 30, 2000 Kim D. Johnson/AP

City: Los Angeles, California
Date: October 2000
Officer: Tarriel Hopper
Victim: Anthony Dwain Lee
What happened: Lee, a 39-year-old black actor who had roles in the 1997 movie Liar Liar and the TV series ER, was attending a Halloween party when the LAPD showed up, responding to a noise complaint. According to police accounts, a group of officers were searching for the party’s host when they found Lee and two other men in a small room, engaged in what the police claimed looked like a drug deal. Lee, who was dressed as a devil, allegedly held up a toy pistol, whereupon Officer Hopper fired several times, wounding him fatally. The LAPD’s internal review board determined that the shooting was justified because Hopper had believed Lee’s pistol was real and feared for his life.

Johannes Mehserle, left, talks with his attorney Christopher Miller, Jan. 14, 2009. Cathleen Allison/AP

City: Oakland, California
Date: January 2009
Officer: Johannes Mehserle
Victim: Oscar Grant
What happened: Early on New Year’s Day, BART transit officers responding to reports of fighting on a train detained Oscar Grant, 22, and several other men on the platform at Fruitvale Station. In an incident captured on cell phone cameras, Officer Mehserle pulled out his gun and fatally shot Grant, who was face down on the platform at the time. Mehserle later testified that he thought he was reaching for his Taser while trying to put handcuffs on Grant, who resisted. A jury found Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced him to two years in jail. He was released after serving 11 months at the Los Angeles County Jail. The episode was turned into the acclaimed 2013 feature film, Fruitvale Station.

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Here’s What Happens to Police Officers Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men

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"I Pay Taxes Out My Ass But They Still Harrass Me": 11 Amazing Songs About Police Brutality

by HalleySapp Posted on August 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Last Friday, just days after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, 29-year-old North Carolina rapper J. Cole uploaded the stirring tribute “Be Free” to his SoundCloud, dedicating it to “every young black man murdered in America.” The song promptly went viral.

Protests against the shooting, and police brutality more broadly, already had been gaining steam as the police launched a highly militarized crackdown, and Cole’s timely reaction—in visceral, heartfelt form—struck a chord among people who know what it’s like to be profiled or harassed by law enforcement. As Cole writes in a blog post introducing the track, “That coulda been me, easily. That could have been my best friend.”

Cole is hardly the only one speaking out: Artists as far and wide as Frank Ocean, Big Boi, Moby, John Legend, and Young Jeezy have taken to Twitter and the airwaves in recent days to express their dissent, and Cole is part of a long tradition of musicians who have done so in song. Here are eleven other amazing tracks on the topic of police brutality in America:

1. “Oxford Town,” by Bob Dylan: Dylan wrote this tune in 1962 in response to a magazine solicitation for songs about the admission of James Meredith into the University of Mississippi, its first black student. Covered here by Richie Havens, it makes terse observations about a racist police force that don’t seem too far off today: “Guns and clubs followed him down / All because his face was brown / Better get away from Oxford Town.”

2. “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker),” by The Rolling Stones: “You’re a heartbreaker / With your .44,” Mick Jagger sings of the New York police in this symphonic 1973 double-ballad from the album Goats Head Soup.

3. “Who Got the Camera?” by Ice Cube: Released on the heels of the Los Angeles riots provoked by the beating of Rodney King, Ice Cube narrates the experience of being a black motorist harassed by law enforcement. “Police gettin badder,” he raps. But “if I had a camera, the shit wouldn’t matter.”

4. “Sound of Da Police,” by KRS-ONE: “Whoop, whoop! That’s the sound of the police!” goes the memorable hook off KRS-One’s 1993 debut solo album, Return of the Boom Bap. “After 400 years, I’ve got no choices,” he raps, noting the continuity between slavery and racist policing. “The overseer rode around the plantation,” he raps, while “the officer is off patrolling all the nation.”

5. “The Beast,” by The Fugees: “Warn the town, the beast is loose,” the Fugees sing over police sirens in this 1996 classic. Lauryn Hill, Pras Michel, and Wyclef Jean spit old-school rhymes from gritty “ghetto Gotham,” where “I pay taxes out my ass but they still harrass me.”

6. “American Skin (41 Shots),” by Bruce Springsteen: “41 shots,” goes the chorus to Springsteen’s 2000 tribute to 23-year-old Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo, shot at that many times by four NYPD officers who killed him outside his Bronx apartment in February 1999. “Well, is it a gun? Is it a knife? / Is it a wallet? This is your life,” he sings, referencing the cops’ purported rationale for the barrage, which began when Diallo reached for his wallet. Backed by the E Street Band, Springsteen mournfully reminds us that “You can get killed just for living in your American skin.”

7. “Made You Die,” by Dead Prez, Yasiin Bey, and mikeflo: Dead Prez’s stic.man, consistently one of hip-hop’s sharpest social commentators, opens this Trayvon Martin tribute with his characteristic community-mindedness: “Now let’s put it all in perspective / Before the outrage burns out misdirected / What can we do so our community’s protected?” The three other MCs join in to flow on what Bey calls a “young black world in a struggle for a survival.”

8. “Don’t Die,” by Killer Mike: Killer Mike has long protested the corrosive effects of racist policing on black communities in his native Atlanta, where his own father was a cop. In this song off his 2012 release R.A.P. Music, Mike works through the nuances of that personal history, acknowledging that while police are often honest, working-class individuals, their institutional role can be insidious. “‘Fuck tha police’ is still all I gotta say,” he concludes, paying homage to the NWA hit from the dawn of gangsta rap.

9. “Stand Your Ground,” by Pharoahe Monch: Here Monch repurposes the name of the Florida law used to justify George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin into a slogan for community organizers rallying in the killing’s aftermath. “Get involved, get involved, get involved,” the Queens rapper urges over roaring guitar riffs, soliciting support for the Martin family foundation in its effort to repeal the statutes.

10. “Amerika,” by Lil Wayne: Lil Wayne is a rapper far better known for punch lines than political analysis, but he leaves the puns behind (mostly) in this somber single from last summer. In the video, riot police stand glaring in front of a flag whose stars “are never shining.” Wayne’s “Amerika” is a blighted landscape of foreclosed homes and teargas for which he modifies the patriotic anthem: “My country ’tis of thee / Sweet land of kill ’em all and let ’em die.”

11. “Remove Ya,” by Ratking: In this dance-y, grime-influenced track, the young rap experimentalists reflect on their daily experiences with cops in today’s New York. The song is a upbeat call for community against adversity, featuring rapper Wiki playing off the well-circulated Nation recording of an NYPD officer’s stopping and frisking a guy (“for being a fucking mutt“): “I’m a mutt, you a mutt, yeah, we some mutts.” His companion Hak chimes in with memories of being arbitrarily stopped by an officer: “Hear the ‘whoop whoop whoop whoop, stop don’t move’ / ‘Hands on the hood, you gave me that look, wearing your hood.'”

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"I Pay Taxes Out My Ass But They Still Harrass Me": 11 Amazing Songs About Police Brutality

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Don’t Believe the Crocodile Tears Over High Corporate Tax Rates

by AidenLoche Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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The US corporate tax code is inefficient, distortive, and staggeringly complex. Almost no one defends it on those grounds. But US multinational corporations, who have recently been engaged in a wave of tax inversions, have a different complaint: our tax rates are just flatly too high. They make American corporations uncompetitive compared to their foreign peers, and that’s why they’re being forced to relocate their headquarters to other countries with lower tax rates.

Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor at the Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California and a former chief of staff to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, says this is nonsense. Firms that are entirely (or almost entirely) domestic do indeed pay high corporate taxes. But multinationals don’t. Thanks to the “feast of tax planning opportunities laid out before them on the groaning board of corporate tax expenditures,” they mostly pay effective tax rates that aren’t much different from French or German companies. They are, in fact, perfectly competitive.

So why the recent binge of tax inversions?

The short answer is that the current mania for inversions is driven by U.S. firms’ increasingly desperate need to do something with their $1 trillion in offshore cash, and by a desire to reduce U.S. domestic tax burdens on U.S. domestic operating earnings.

The year 2004 is a good place to start, because that year’s corporate offshore cash tax amnesty (section 965) had a perfectly predictable knock-on effect, which was to convince corporate America that the one-time never to be repeated tax amnesty would inevitably be followed by additional tax amnesties, if only multinationals would opportune their legislators enough. The 2004 law thus created a massive incentive to accumulate as much permanently reinvested earnings in the form of cash as possible.

….The convergence of these two phenomena led to an explosion in stateless income strategies and in the total stockpile of U.S. multinationals’ permanently reinvested earnings. But U.S. multinationals are now hoist by their own petard. The best of the stateless income planners are now drowning in low-taxed overseas cash….It is less than a secret that firms in this position really have no intention at all of “permanently” reinvesting the cash overseas, but instead are counting the days until the money can be used to goose share prices through stock buy backs and dividends.

….The obvious solution from the perspective of the multinationals would have been a second, and then a third and fourth, one-time only repatriation holiday, but there are still hard feelings in Congress surrounding the differences between the representations made to legislators relating to how the cash from the first holiday would be used, and what in fact happened.

Indeed. Back in 2004, multinational corporations swore that if Congress granted them a tax amnesty to repatriate their foreign income into the United States, it would unleash a tsunami of new investment. Needless to say, that never happened. Corporate investment had never been credit-constrained in the first place. Instead, all that lovely cash was used mostly to goose stock prices via buy-backs and increased dividends. It’s no wonder that Congress is unwilling to repeat that fiasco.

Kleinbard’s paper is an interesting one, with a couple of fascinating case studies demolishing the self-serving ways that corporate CEOs try to blame the tax code for things that have nothing to do with it. Andrew Ross Sorkin has more here.

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Don’t Believe the Crocodile Tears Over High Corporate Tax Rates

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Rick Perry Indictment Highlights the Hack Gap Once Again

by Houston68Q Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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Simon Maloy finds five pundits arguing that last week’s indictment of Rick Perry was flimsy and obviously politically motivated:

Who are these five pundits downplaying the case against Texas’ Republican governor? In order: New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, MSNBC host Ari Melber, political scientist and American Prospect contributor Scott Lemieux, the Center for American Progress’ Ian Millhiser, and the New Republic’s Alec MacGillis. Five guys who work/write for big-name liberal publications or organizations. This, friends, is the Hack Gap in action.

Ah yes, the hack gap. Where would we be without it? For the most part, it doesn’t show up on the policy side, where liberals and conservatives both feature a range of thinkers who bicker internally over lots of things. It mostly shows up on the process side. Is the legal reasoning on subject X sound? Is it appropriate to attack candidate Y in a particular way? Is program Z working well or poorly? How unanimously should we pretend that a mediocre speech/poll/debate performance is really a world-historical victory for our guy?

Both sides have hacks who are willing to take their party’s side on these things no matter how ridiculous their arguments are. But Republicans sure have a lot more of them. We’ve seen this most recently with Obamacare. Obviously liberals have been more positive in their assessments of how it’s doing, but they’ve also been perfectly willing to acknowledge its problems, ranging from the website rollout debacle to the problems of narrow networks to the reality of rate shock for at least some buyers. Conservatives, conversely, have been all but unanimous in their insistence that every single aspect of the program is a flat-out failure. Even as Obamacare’s initial problems were fixed and it became clear that, in fact, the program was working reasonably well, conservatives never changed their tune. They barely even acknowledged the good news, and when they did it was only to set up lengthy explanations of why it could be safely ignored. To this day, virtually no conservative pundits have made any concessions to reality. Obamacare is a failure on every possible front, and that’s that.

Liberals just don’t have quite this level of hackish discipline. Even on a subject as near and dear to the Democratic heart as Social Security, you could find some liberals who supported a version of privatization back when George Bush was hawking the idea in 2005. It’s pretty hard to imagine any conservatives doing the opposite.

Is this changing? Are liberals starting to close the gap? Possibly. The liberal narrative on events in Ferguson has stayed pretty firm even as bits and pieces of contradictory evidence have surfaced along the way. The fact that Michael Brown had robbed a convenience store; that he wasn’t running away when he was shot; and that a lighter policing touch didn’t stop the looting and violence—none of those things have changed the liberal storyline much. And maybe they shouldn’t, since they don’t really affect the deeper issues. A cop still pumped six rounds into an unarmed teenager; the militarized response to the subsequent protests remains disgraceful; and the obvious fear of Ferguson’s black community toward its white police force is palpable. Maybe it’s best to keep the focus there, where it belongs.

Still, a bit of honest acknowledgment that the story has taken a few confusing turns wouldn’t hurt. Just as having a few liberal voices defending Rick Perry doesn’t hurt. Keep it honest, folks.

POSTSCRIPT: And what do I think of the Perry indictment? I’m not sure. When I first saw the headlines on Friday I was shocked, but then I read the stories and realized this was all about something Perry had done very publicly. That seemed like a bit of a yawner, and it was getting late, so I just skipped commenting on it. By Monday, it hardly seemed worth rehashing, especially since I didn’t have a very good sense of the law involved.

So….I still don’t know. The special prosecutor who brought the indictment seems like a fairly straight shooter, so there might be something there. Overall, though, I guess it mostly seems like a pretty political use of prosecutorial power.

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Rick Perry Indictment Highlights the Hack Gap Once Again

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It Looks Like Obamacare Is Here to Stay

by MildredRandell Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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Republicans may say that Obamacare is still the white-hot issue it’s always been, and among their tea party base that might still be true. But if money talks, it turns out that Republicans no longer really believe Obamacare is a winning issue anywhere else. Bloomberg ran the numbers in a few battleground Senate races and discovered that GOP candidates are starting to turn to other issues:

Republicans seeking to unseat the U.S. Senate incumbent in North Carolina have cut in half the portion of their top issue ads citing Obamacare, a sign that the party’s favorite attack against Democrats is losing its punch.

The shift — also taking place in competitive states such as Arkansas and Louisiana — shows Republicans are easing off their strategy of criticizing Democrats over the Affordable Care Act now that many Americans are benefiting from the law and the measure is unlikely to be repealed.

….In April, anti-Obamacare advertising dwarfed all other spots in North Carolina. It accounted for 3,061, or 54 percent, of the 5,704 top five issue ads in North Carolina, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. By July, the numbers had reversed, with anti-Obamacare ads accounting for 971, or 27 percent, of the top issue ads, and the budget, government spending, jobs and unemployment accounting for 2,608, or 72 percent, of such ads, CMAG data show.

As Greg Sargent points out, this doesn’t mean Democrats are any more likely to hold the Senate this year. But it does suggest that as time goes by and Obamacare appears to be working fairly well without causing the collapse of the Republic, even the GOP faithful are starting to accept it. More and more, it looks like Obamacare is here to stay.

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It Looks Like Obamacare Is Here to Stay

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for August 19, 2014

by Tetianah03 Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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A US Marine shouts out to his crew during a training mission in the Atlantic. (US Marine Corps photo taken by Lance Cpl. Alex W. Mitchel)

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for August 19, 2014

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Cop Being Sued Over Beating Is Now a Ferguson City Councilwoman

by JaxonAshcraft Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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In 2009, police in Ferguson, Missouri, arrested Henry M. Davis on suspicion of driving under the influence and took him to jail. What followed is described in court documents as “physical contact between the officers and Mr. Davis.” One officer, Kim Tihen, allegedly “struck Davis in his head with a closed fist and hit him in the head with handcuffs.” Davis suffered a concussion and severe facial lacerations, while an officer was left with a broken nose. Afterwards, prosecutors charged Davis with four counts of destruction of property—because his blood had dirtied the officers’ uniforms.

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Davis pleaded guilty to reduced charges and ended up moving to Mississippi. Officer Tihen, for her part, is no longer with the Ferguson Police Department. In 2012, after four years on the force, she won election to the city council, becoming one of the six-person body’s five white members. (The sixth is Latino.) Two-thirds of Ferguson’s residents are black, but the city holds elections in the spring, making for low turnout—in April 2012, when Tihen was elected, less than 9 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. (The Ferguson police force is even less representative of the city’s African American majority: Just 4 percent of its members are black.) Last week, after police cracked down on residents protesting the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed teen, Tihen and the rest of the city council issued a statement calling on demonstrations to cease at dusk.

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Cop Being Sued Over Beating Is Now a Ferguson City Councilwoman

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Happy 75th Ginger Baker! British Drummer Carried Beat for Cream

by RufusBustos Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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If you’ve ever jammed to “Sunshine of Your Love” or “White Room” by Cream, spent time with the Blind Faith album, got down to Levitation by Hawkwind or listened to Public Image Limited’s classic Album, then tip your hat to Mr. Ginger Baker, who turns 75 on August 19th, 2014.

To celebrate, Here are a few killer photos of Baker playing with Cream on the Dutch television show Fanclub.

F. van Geelen/Fanclub/Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision

And a more recent photo of Mr. Baker:

Peter Edward ‘Ginger” Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream. He is also known for his numerous associations with New World music and the use of African influences and other diverse collaborations such as his work with the rock band Hawkwind. David Levene/eyevine/ZUMA Press

Oh, and Bill Clinton and Tipper Gore also share a birthday today. Whatta party!

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Happy 75th Ginger Baker! British Drummer Carried Beat for Cream

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