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John Kasich Is Banking on a Contested Convention

by TamelaDennys Posted on March 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich doesn’t have much hope of racking up enough delegates to be elected the Republican presidential nominee by the party’s convention in Cleveland this summer. So far he’s only secured 25 delegates, per the New York Times, far behind Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, let alone front-runner Donald Trump.

But during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, DC, on Friday afternoon, Kasich remained optimistic that he could become his party’s nominee—by winning a contested convention. “I don’t think anyone’s going to get that,” Kasich said when Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked him about the prospects for any candidate to gain enough delegates to win the nomination on a first-ballot vote. “Could you think of anything cooler than a contested convention?” Kasich said, adding that it would make for a fun civics lesson for viewers at home.

Before he sat down with Hannity, Kasich roamed the CPAC stage solo, speaking to the crowd. He kicked off his speech with remembrances of how, as a young man in 1976, he worked to force a contested convention in order to put Ronald Reagan forward as the Republican nominee over incumbent President Gerald Ford. (Ford won the nomination but lost the presidency.) “The fact is, we got him on the ballot, and I was at the convention with Gov. Reagan, and I had at a very young age found myself in charge of five states for Gov. Reagan,” Kasich said.

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John Kasich Is Banking on a Contested Convention

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Hillary Clinton’s Leftward Shift on Climate Change

by Raymund7885 Posted on February 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in The New Republic and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

In July, the climate grassroots group 350 Action asked Hillary Clinton at a campaign stop in New Hampshire for her position on banning fossil fuel development on public lands. Clinton gave what she deemed a “responsible answer” that she wouldn’t accept a ban until we get “the alternatives in place.” I asked her campaign chair John Podesta the same question in October, and he only suggested a willingness to use “policy levers” to affect fossil fuel production.

Now, Clinton is ready to take a more definitive stand on limiting fossil fuel extraction on federal lands—which has emerged as a top priority for climate organizers after their victory against the Keystone XL pipeline. Griffin Sinclair-Wingate, a 350 Action organizer, approached Clinton after the New Hampshire debate on Thursday night and asked her, “Would you ban extraction on public lands?”

“Yeah, that’s a done deal,” Clinton said, as though her position were obvious. Afterward, she told another 350 activist that she agrees with “where the president is moving. No future extraction.” Adam Greenberg asked her in a third video on Friday while campaigning in New Hampshire, “Would you end all oil, coal, and gas leases on federal lands?” Clinton said, “I want to impose a moratorium…because there are legal issues you have to go through, you know all of that, but I would support a moratorium.”

Clinton doesn’t appear to be endorsing anything too radical, or so far beyond what President Barack Obama has already started. In order for the United States to deliver on its promises in the Paris climate agreement, the next administration will have to take additional steps to limit the demand and supply of fossil fuels, even if the agreement itself was vague on the details. Scientists and activists insist that any meaningful curb on climate change must keep coal, oil, and gas reserves in the ground. One encouraging sign was the president’s recent announcement to impose a three-year moratorium on leasing public lands for coal development, allowing the Department of Interior time to reform how it leases lands for extraction.

Clinton’s comments only show that she supports that moratorium, and that she might support expanding it to oil and gas leases. Yet her position still represents a tectonic shift in the Democratic Party on policies that were once a long-shot wish of climate activists.

However, there are limits to how far Clinton is willing to go. Pressed on her position regarding hydraulic fracturing, a controversial drilling process to extract gas and oil more commonly known as fracking, Clinton wouldn’t call for an outright ban, unlike her opponent Bernie Sanders. She pointed out, accurately, that the president also doesn’t have much control over drilling on private lands, where much of the development occurs. “What the government does have the ability to do is to impose very strict regulations on the chemicals that are used,” Clinton said. “I don’t want to mislead you and say, ‘Oh, I can ban it,’ that is just not accurate.”

Sanders may have something to do with Clinton’s change of tune. He proposed a bill to ban fossil fuel development on public lands in December, and there’s evidence his strong climate proposals gave him an advantage in Iowa—enough to get him to a virtual tie.

If Clinton is serious about imposing strict limits—and I’m not fully convinced these off-hand comments show she is—that would mean she and Sanders agree on many of the climate movement’s top priorities.

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Hillary Clinton’s Leftward Shift on Climate Change

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January is Radon Action Month. Here’s What You Need to Know.

by AdrianYqwwp Posted on January 15, 2016

Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. You can’t see it or smell it,which is why the U.S. EPA and other organizations encourage people to be on the lookout for it.

January is Radon Action Month, which makes it a perfect time to find out if your home is contaminated with radon. If so, there are several ways you can fix the problem.

Health Impacts of Radon

Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Although lung cancer can be treated, only between 11 and 15 percent of those afflicted with this horrible disease will live beyond five years. Smoking and secondhand smoke also cause lung cancer, but radon isthe second leading cause. It’s responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths every year. The U.S. Surgeon General issued this national health advisory on radon to encourage people to get their homes tested if they have any reason to believe it could be contaminated.

Where is Radon Found?

Radon comes from the natural radioactive breakdown of uranium in soil, rock and water. It also can get into the air you breathe. Because it is a gas, it can easily get into buildings, including your home.

How Do You Know if Your House has a Radon Problem?

The only way to know for sure if you and your family are at risk from radon is to test for it. The EPA and the U.S. Surgeon General recommend testing all homes below the third floor for radon. EPA also recommends testing in schools.

How Can You Test For Radon?

Use a test kit or find a qualified radon measurement professional to do the test. The National Radon Program Services at Kansas State University offers discounted test kits for purchase online. The cost between $15 and $25 and will test for radon over both the short and long-term. Alternatively, you may be able to find a test kit at your local home improvement or hardware store.

If you need to bring in a professional, you can use EPA’s Map of Radon Zones to find links to your state’s radon program, if one exists, or EPA’s regional contacts, which should be able to help you get in touch with the right contractors.

What If You Find a Radon Problem?

According to EPA, you will need to fix or mitigate the radon problem in your home if, through testing, you find that your radon level is confirmed to be 4 picocuries per liter, pCi/L, or higher. EPA says radon levels less than that amount still pose a risk, so you might want to err on the side of caution and still take steps to reduce radon in your home. If you smoke and your home has high radon levels, you are at a significant risk for developing lung cancer.

To fix the problem, work with a qualified radon mitigation contractor. Before you start, you probably should get estimates from at least two contractors. In its handy Consumer’s Guide to Radon Reduction: How to Fix Your Home, EPA provides a very useful checklist that will help you do a good job securing a contractor and supervising the work.

How the problem is ultimately fixed will depend on the kind of home you have and what the problem is. Some techniques prevent radon from entering your home; others reduce radon levels after it has entered. It’s generally best to prevent radon from getting in, perhaps by suctioning it out of your home or the soil surrounding your home and venting it to the open air, where it will dissipate. If you have a crawlspace under your home, the solution may be to cover the soil below with high density plastic, then suction the radon emanating from the soil below the plastic and send it out into the air.

Sealing cracks and other openings in your home’s foundation may also help prevent radon from entering. Increasing ventilation in the spaces that contain radon will also help, though it’s not generally a permanent solution.

Generally speaking, if your home has a basement or a crawl space, you should probably have it tested for radon. Again, the test is not expensive but the consequences can be extreme if the problem is ignored. Even new homes built with radon-resistant features should be tested after occupancy to ensure that radon levels are low.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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January is Radon Action Month. Here’s What You Need to Know.

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Poll: 30% of Republicans Want to Bomb a Fictional Disney Country

by OpalTepper70 Posted on December 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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According to Public Policy Polling, a recent poll of 532 Republican primary voters found that 30 percent supported bombing Agrabah. The only problem is that Agrabah is the fictional country from the Disney movie Aladdin.

Public Policy Polling was founded in 2001 and, according to its website, aims to “address inefficiencies in public policy surveys” by using efficient, mathematical polling strategies. Not everyone is pleased with this news, and some have cried foul on Twitter.

Actually, they did. Of the Democratic primary voters who were asked the same question, 36 percent opposed bombing Agrabah, compared with 19 percent who supported the action.

In this same poll, 26 percent of Republican voters thought that Islam should be illegal in the United States, and 46 percent supported a Muslim national database, an idea proposed by Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

See all the results below.

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Poll: 30% of Republicans Want to Bomb a Fictional Disney Country

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Hackers are messing with the oil and gas industry

by CoryDescoteaux Posted on November 18, 2015

Hackers are messing with the oil and gas industry

By on 18 Nov 2015commentsShare

The best part about an oil and gas addiction — besides all the pollution, environmental degradation, and crippling income inequality, of course — is how pathetically vulnerable it makes us to cyber attacks.

Say you’re a hacker. Pick a cool name — something like Krazy Keys or The Epidemic. Now, say you want to really fuck with the U.S. economy (you’re still reeling over those damn Starbucks cups). What better way to take down Uncle Sam than to target the slick, gooey oil that is his life blood? Fortunately for you, Cyber Satan, a growing number of oil and gas companies are making that pretty easy to do.

By connecting their infrastructure to the ever-expanding network of internet-enabled devices known as of the Internet of Things (check out our explainer video here), these companies are automating their operations and thus improving efficiency, but they’re also opening themselves up to cyber attacks. Here’s more from Motherboard:

The industry has a lot of different moving parts and processes, including pump control, blow-out prevention, and managing gas storage. Unexpected changes to these processes or the operations technology systems that run them can have a major impact like production stoppages or even damage to the infrastructure.

“Maybe the hackers’ intentions may not be to destroy something, but by not understanding the full picture of the system or what component of it they are messing with, they can have a real catastrophic effect,” said (cyber security expert Jasper Graham). This could be anything from bringing productivity to a standstill to disabling alarm systems or communications between workers on the field, which could put their safety at risk.

Already, there have been a number of attacks on oil companies around the world. In 2012, a group called The Cutting Sword of Justice (real name) attacked Saudi Aramco, partially or fully wiping files on 35,000 computers, Motherboard reports. The hackers didn’t manage to tamper with any pumping or drilling operations, but the company did have to temporarily shut down all of its computers. And last year, dozens of oil companies in Norway fell prey to unidentified internet marauders. Even Anonymous is getting in on the action, according to Motherboard. The notorious hacking group targeted gas stations earlier this year.

Unfortunately, oil and gas companies aren’t the only ones failing to protect themselves against cybersecurity threats. The Internet of Things is taking over a lot of our infrastructure, and most of that infrastructure isn’t ready to take on hackers. On the plus side, the oil industry is pretty evil, so as long as Queen Crypto and The Wackadoodle aren’t hurting anyone or creating serious economic mayhem, more power to them. And besides, the environmental movement is always in desperate need of a little badassery. These Hackers might just do the trick:

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The Internet of Things Is Making Oil Production Vulnerable to Hacking

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Angry Obama Blasts Congress for Failing America on Guns

by HoracioBittner Posted on October 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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At a press conference Thursday, President Barack Obama was visibly frustrated with a lack of action from Congress to prevent mass shootings like the one that happened today at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

“It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun,” Obama said.

He recalled an interview in which he said that America is the only country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings regularly. Hours later, there were reports of a shooting at a Lafayette, Louisiana, movie theater.

He continued: “We spend over $1 trillion on preventing terrorism…yet we have a Congress that prevents us from even collecting data on how to reduce gun deaths.”

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Angry Obama Blasts Congress for Failing America on Guns

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This video about the aging pipeline below the Great Lakes should be this summer’s top horror flick

by DwainOquinn Posted on August 11, 2015

This video about the aging pipeline below the Great Lakes should be this summer’s top horror flick

By on 11 Aug 2015commentsShare

You know that feeling you get when you’re watching a scary movie, and something bad is about to happen? The music gets weird, the action starts to slow down, someone says something meaningful like “I’ll always be there for you.” That’s the feeling you might get watching this video from Motherboard about an aging oil pipeline lying at the bottom of the Great Lakes.

Here’s the gist: A company called Enbridge (appropriately evil-sounding) owns a 62-year-old pipeline running between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan along the Straits of Mackinac. The pipeline was originally built to last 50 years and is in questionable shape, but don’t worry — Enbridge says they have everything under control. Sure, the company had 800 spills between 1999 and 2010, according to Motherboard, and yes, one of those spills was the worst inland spill in U.S. history, causing more than 800,000 gallons of oil to spew into the Kalamazoo River in 2010. But no matter — there’s a very nice Enbridge employee in the video who says that the company doesn’t want to have any more spills.

Now, there’s no one I trust more than a giant oil pipeline operator, but this 17-minute video still feels like a teaser for an impending catastrophe. David Schwab, a scientist at the University of Michigan who spoke with Motherboard, says that when currents are at their peak, the amount of water flowing through the strait is 10 times the amount flowing over Niagara Falls. If a rupture occurs, he says, oil will quickly spread into both lakes. And even if Enbridge takes action immediately, Motherboard reports, the best-case scenario would end in a 1.5 million gallon spill.

So let’s consider ourselves warned. Now if there is a spill, we’ll all be that stupid character who went down to the basement to check up on a mysterious noise, when she knew full well that there was a killer on the loose.

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A Massive Oil Pipeline Under the Great Lakes Is Way Past Its Expiration Date

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This video about the aging pipeline below the Great Lakes should be this summer’s top horror flick

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Here’s Donald Trump’s Cell Phone Number

by IlanaEbersbache Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Two weeks after publicly releasing a Republican presidential rival’s cell phone number, Donald Trump got his comeuppance on Monday.

Gawker’s Sam Biddle published Trump’s phone number in a story, responding to Trump’s public reading of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone number during a campaign speech in South Carolina on July 21. Biddle argued that the release of Graham’s number was important to maintaining open and direct channels of communication between voters and candidates, and felt that Trump should be held to a similar standard.

But before you pull out your own phone and start dialing, remember that the billionaire is hardly the type to limit himself to a single number.

“It’s a very old number,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told Mother Jones. “This is not one he uses. Mr. Trump has several numbers so he has not experienced any issues.”

It remains to be seen which pyrotechnic method Trump will use to destroy his outed phone in response.

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Here’s Donald Trump’s Cell Phone Number

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Chris Christie Really Wants Republicans to Forget his Bromance With Obama

by EmmanueGoff Posted on July 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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After a somewhat lackluster response to his announcement that he was entering the presidential race, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie appears to be revving up his brusque, straight-talking persona in a big attempt to garner the attention of the GOP base. Christie angered many on the right when in the final months of the 2012 election he gushed about President Barack Obama’s leadership skills during Superstorm Sandy. He was, after all, a top surrogate for Mitt Romney. During a visit to New Hampshire this week, Christie went out of his way to take a swipe at the president.

According to Washington Post’s National Political Correspondent Philip Rucker, Christie said the following during a town hall meeting Thursday:

Christie certainly didn’t seem to feel this way in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, when he praised Obama’s “great” response to the natural disaster. “The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit,” he told MSNBC’s Morning Joe, before going on to brag about their late night phone calls, saying that Obama, “told me to call him if I needed anything and he absolutely means it, and it’s been very good working with the President and his administration.”

And it was a two way street. “I want to let you know your governor is working overtime,” Obama remarked after the duo finished up a tour of the damage.

By March 2014, having learned his lesson from the GOP base who shamed him, Christie was back to dissing the president, calling him a weak leader at a Conservative Political Action Conference. Expect plenty more Obama-bashing from Christie as he elbows his way into the crowded primary field.

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Chris Christie Really Wants Republicans to Forget his Bromance With Obama

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This Is the Perfect Response to Fox’s Racist Theory About Michelle Obama’s Time at Princeton

by SterlinH09 Posted on May 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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Over the weekend, Michelle Obama delivered a passionate, candid commencement speech to the graduating class at Tuskegee University, Alabama, in which she addressed the daily slights of racism she has endured throughout her life. From Saturday’s ceremony:

We’ve both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives. The folks who crossed the street in fear of their safety, the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores. The people at formal events who assumed we were the help. And those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country, and I know that these little indignities are obviously nothing compared to what folks across the country are dealing with every single day.

It was a powerful speech, and naturally, the folks at Fox News were not happy. Fox News contributor Angela McGlowan on Tuesday suggested the speech was yet another example of the White House dividing the country on issues of race, asking, “Why didn’t the first lady share the reason why she got into Princeton was probably because of Affirmative Action?”

“The reason why she became an associate at a law firm was probably because of diversity, they needed a woman—not saying that she wasn’t qualified—but they needed a woman, and a woman of color,” she said.

Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore was not having it. In a segment on the Nightly Show, he fired back: “When a coke-snorting, alcohol-guzzling son of a CIA director DUI’s his way into Yale and ultimately into the Oval Office because his daddy’s was in both places, that’s affirmative action.”

George W., we hope you’re watching.

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This Is the Perfect Response to Fox’s Racist Theory About Michelle Obama’s Time at Princeton

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