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What We Know About the Boston Marathon Explosions

by 7GrittonMaine146 Posted on April 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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This explainer is being regularly updated; click here for the latest post or jump to these recent updates:

Watch video of the first and second blasts
Map: Where the explosions occurred along the marathon route
Full transcript and video of President Obama’s press conference
Three confirmed dead

On Monday, two blasts were reported near the finish line of the annual 26.2-mile Boston Marathon, resulting in at least two three dead and scores 132 injured, according to the Boston Police Department and news reports. The explosions—the first of which was on the north side of Boylston Street—occurred roughly three hours after the winners crossed the finish line. “There are a lot of people down,” runner Frank Deruyter of North Carolina told the Associated Press shortly after the explosions. The cause of the blasts were not initially known.

Here’s video of the incident, via MSNBC:

Here are two photos from the scene (warning: graphic):

David L. Ryan/Twitter

Jackie Bruno/Twitter

Here is the initial update from the Boston Marathon, via Facebook:

From the Boston Herald:

“I saw two explosions. The first one was beyond the finish line. I heard a loud bang and I saw smoke rising,” said Herald reporter Chris Cassidy, who was running in the marathon. “I kept running and I heard behind me a loud bang. It looked like it was in a trash can or something. That one was in front of Abe and Louie’s. There are people who have been hit with debris, people with bloody foreheads.”

In response to this news, New York City counterterrorism units have been dispatched. “We’re stepping up security at hotels and other prominent locations in the city through deployment of the NYPD’s critical response vehicles (CRVs) until more about the explosion is learned,” New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said in a statement Monday afternoon. Washington, DC, and Los Angeles security have also been put on high alert. The White House is in contact with state and local authorities in Boston and Massachusetts. “Our prayers are with those people in Boston who have suffered injuries. I don’t know how many there are,” Vice President Joe Biden said while on a conference call about gun legislation, when he was informed of the blasts.

More from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency:

An intelligence official told the AP that two additional explosive devices were found at the Boston Marathon, and were being dismantled.

Via the New York Times, here is a street map of where the explosions occurred:

UPDATE, Monday, April 15, 4:40 p.m. EDT: Via NBC News broadcast, Alasdair K. Conn, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said in a press conference that the hospital is treating six severely injured patients who required immediate resuscitation. They have 19 patients in total; 5 are “pretty badly off,” according to Conn. “This is like a bomb explosion we hear about in Baghdad or Israel,” he continued.

UPDATE 2, Monday, April 15, 4:44 p.m. EDT: Here is video of the second blast along the marathon route:

Here is footage of the initial blast near the finish line, via Boston.com

UPDATE 3, Monday, April 15, 5:02 p.m. EDT: Edward Davis, Boston police commissioner, said at a press conference today:

At 2:50 p.m. today, there were simultaneous explosions that occurred along the route of the Boston Marathon at the finish line. These explosions occurred 50 to 100 yards apart. Each scene resulted in multiple casualties. At this point in time all the victims shave been removed from the scene, we have sent officers to hospitals to be in touch with family members and possible witnesses. We immediately activated a system of response that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and federal government has in place for these types of incidents…We have at this point in time determined that there has been a third incident that occurred. An explosion that occurred at the JFK library. This is very much an ongoing event at this time. We are not certain if these incidents are related, but we’re treating them as if they are.

There were no injuries at the JFK library that the police know of, per commissioner Davis.

If you are trying to locate someone, call: 617-635-4500. If you have any information about the explosions, call: 1-800-494-TIPS.

UPDATE 4, Monday, April 15, 5:22 p.m. EDT: A law enforcement official tells the AP that cellphone service was shut down in the Boston area “to prevent any potential remote detonations of explosives.” (However, some are casting serious doubts on this story, given reports of functioning cellphones and other factors.) The FAA announced a ground stop for Boston’s Logan airport.

UPDATE 5, Monday, April 15, 5:25 p.m. EDT: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has released the following statement:

This is a horrific day in Boston. My thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured. I have been in touch with the President, Mayor Menino and our public safety leaders. Our focus is on making sure that the area around Copley Square is safe and secured. I am asking everyone to stay away from Copley Square and let the first responders do their jobs.

UPDATE 6, Monday, April 15, 5:47 p.m. EDT: Amtrak issued the following statement via Twitter, regarding the Boston Marathon explosions:

At this time all Amtrak trains are operating as scheduled. We will provide an update if this changes. We are increasing security at stations & track right-of-ways. We ask passengers to … report anything suspicious to 1-800-331-0008 or 911.

UPDATE 7, Monday, April 15, 6:16 p.m. EDT: President Obama held a press conference on the explosions, starting at 6:10 p.m. ET. “We still don’t know who did this or why, but make no mistake, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” the president said.

Here is the full text and video of Obama’s statement; the speech lasted about three-and-a-half minutes:

Good afternoon, everybody. Earlier today, I was briefed by my homeland security team on the events in Boston. We’re continuing to monitor and respond to the situation as it unfolds. And I’ve directed the full resources of the federal government to help state and local authorities protect our people, increase security around the United States as necessary, and investigate what happened.

The American people will say a prayer for Boston tonight. And Michelle and I send our deepest thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims in the wake of this senseless loss.

We don’t yet have all the answers. But we do know that multiple people have been wounded, some gravely, in explosions at the Boston Marathon.

I’ve spoken to FBI Director Mueller and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, and they’re mobilizing the appropriate resources to investigate and to respond.

I’ve updated leaders of Congress in both parties, and we reaffirmed that on days like this there are no Republicans or Democrats — we are Americans, united in concern for our fellow citizens.

I’ve also spoken with Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino, and made it clear that they have every single federal resource necessary to care for the victims and counsel the families. And above all, I made clear to them that all Americans stand with the people of Boston.

Boston police, firefighters, and first responders as well as the National Guard responded heroically, and continue to do so as we speak. It’s a reminder that so many Americans serve and sacrifice on our behalf every single day, without regard to their own safety, in dangerous and difficult circumstances. And we salute all those who assisted in responding so quickly and professionally to this tragedy.

We still do not know who did this or why. And people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But make no mistake — we will get to the bottom of this. And we will find out who did this; we’ll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.

Today is a holiday in Massachusetts — Patriots’ Day. It’s a day that celebrates the free and fiercely independent spirit that this great American city of Boston has reflected from the earliest days of our nation. And it’s a day that draws the world to Boston’s streets in a spirit of friendly competition. Boston is a tough and resilient town. So are its people. I’m supremely confident that Bostonians will pull together, take care of each other, and move forward as one proud city. And as they do, the American people will be with them every single step of the way.

You should anticipate that as we get more information, our teams will provide you briefings. We’re still in the investigation stage at this point. But I just want to reiterate we will find out who did this and we will hold them accountable.

Thank you very much.

UPDATE 8, Monday, April 15, 8:00 p.m. EDT: The New York Times is reporting three other unexploded devices, including one in Newton, which is on marathon route. CNN is reporting 132 bombing victims so far, and at least 10 amputations. Doctors are reportedly pulling ball bearings out of victims. One of the two three confirmed dead is an 8 year old boy. One bit of good news: The runners representing the families of the Newtown, Conn. mass shooting—including Laura Nowacki, whose daughter survived the shooting—are safe.

UPDATE 9, Monday, April 15, 9:00 p.m. EDT: There are now three confirmed dead. The FBI has taken the lead role in the investigation.

UPDATE 10, Monday, April 15, 9:15 p.m. EDT: Did you see this amazing picture taken by Boston Globe photographer John Tlumacki? He’d just finished running the marathon himself:

Now there’s a story about the runner on the ground, Bill Iffrig, who got up and finished. John Eligon, one of the writers of the lede New York Times piece, had also just run the marathon and somehow managed to file this story.

UPDATE 11, Monday, April 15, 9:15 p.m. EDT: A group called the NYC Light Brigade projected various NYC Loves Boston signs on the side of the Brooklyn Art Museum:

Continued:  

What We Know About the Boston Marathon Explosions

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Day Care, the Final Frontier

by dig1iti43 Posted on April 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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In 2011, Jon Cohn wrote a story called “The Two Year Window,” about new research demonstrating the importance of the first two years of a child’s life. Roughly speaking, most child care that’s average or better is probably OK. But down in the bottom third, conditions are often bad enough to cause permanent cognitive damage, sometimes at a biological level. One third is a lot of kids.

Appropriately, two years later Cohn is back with a follow-up, “The Hell of American Day Care.” Children who get proper attention and interaction, he says, “tend to develop the skills they need to thrive as adults—like learning how to calm down after a setback or how to focus on a problem long enough to solve it”:

Kids who grow up without that kind of attention tend to lack impulse control and have more emotional outbursts. Later on, they are more likely to struggle in school or with the law. They also have more physical health problems. Numerous studies show that all children, especially those from low-income homes, benefit greatly from sound child care. The key ingredients are quite simple—starting with plenty of caregivers, who ideally have some expertise in child development.

By these metrics, American day care performs abysmally. A 2007 survey by the National Institute of Child Health Development deemed the majority of operations to be “fair” or “poor”—only 10 percent provided high-quality care. Experts recommend a ratio of one caregiver for every three infants between six and 18 months, but just one-third of children are in settings that meet that standard.

….At the same time, day care is a bruising financial burden for many families—more expensive than rent in 22 states. In the priciest, Massachusetts, it costs an average family $15,000 a year to place an infant full-time in a licensed center. In California, the cost is equivalent to 40 percent of the median income for a single mother.

I remain convinced that the biggest bang for the buck we could get from any kind of new government spending would involve getting serious about pre-K day care. It wouldn’t be cheap: probably the better part of $100 billion per year. That might take the form of subsidies and regulation, or of government-run day care centers. The latter worked well during World War II, and continue to work well for the military. And it’s a system that serves the French well, with their system of crèches and école maternelles. But it’s not the only way. Tougher regulation of private day care, along with better training and subsidies for poor families, could do the job too:

Since the 1930s, with the introduction of Social Security, the United States has constructed—slowly, haphazardly, often painfully—a welfare state. Pensions, public housing, health care—piece by piece, the government created protections for citizens that the market doesn’t always provide. Child care is the major unfinished part of that project. The lack of quality, affordable day care is arguably the most significant barrier to full equality for women in the workplace. It makes it more likely that children born in poverty will remain there. That’s why other developed countries made child care a collective responsibility long ago.

With universal healthcare finally on the horizon (though progressing with plenty of fits and starts), pre-K is now the last big brick in the social welfare edifice. It’s insane that we deliberately give it such short shrift, even with the knowledge that universal, decent-quality pre-K would almost certainly produce a smarter, more stable, better adjusted generation of adults in the very near future. For more, read the whole story. It’s worth a few minutes of your time.

This article: 

Day Care, the Final Frontier

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A Guantanamo Hunger Striker Tells His Story

by bfys19 Posted on April 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Marcy Wheeler tweets:

I’d really love some pollster to figure how what % of Americans know how many Gitmo detainees have been cleared for release.

I believe the answer is about 40 percent—but, like Marcy, I doubt that many people know this. Her tweet was prompted by an op-ed today in the New York Times by Samil Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a Yemeni hunger striker at Guantanamo who is being force fed:

I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial…The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense…I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen’s president do something, that is what I risk every day.

Where is my government? I will submit to any “security measures” they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary.

Yemen’s previous administration prevented the release of many detainees by demanding enormous payments from the US before it would accept them. The current administration has changed course, and has requested that all Yemeni nationals be repatriated to Sana’a. But now it’s the U.S. that refuses to deal. Andy Worthington reports that after the failed underwear bomber plot:

Obama responded to a wave of hysteria by announcing a moratorium on releasing any cleared Yemenis from Guantanamo. That order remains in place two years and eight months later, even though it is a monstrous injustice to continue holding men cleared for release and to pander to populist fear-mongering by insinuating that the very fact of being Yemeni is tantamount to being a terrorist—or, at the very least, a terrorist sympathizer.

But it’s not entirely Obama’s fault, reports the Boston Globe:

Congress bears much of the blame, because lawmakers have included provisions in the annual defense authorization bill that make it harder to close the facility. They prohibit the use of funds to transfer detainees to the United States for trial in federal court and require the secretary of defense to certify that detainees cleared for release are sent to countries that have “agreed to take effective steps to ensure that the transferred person does not pose a future threat to the United States, its citizens or its allies.” That sweeping language has had a chilling effect. No one can give an absolute guarantee that detainees won’t go back to fighting, just as no one can ensure that criminals released from US prisons won’t go back to crime. As Charles Stimson, who headed detainee affairs under George W. Bush, points out: “You have to tolerate some kind of risk.”

….Obama should muster the political courage to stand up to Congress on Guantanamo. If his secretary of defense is unable to certify a transfer under the tough provisions, Obama retains the ability to transfer prisoners with a “national security waiver” — a power he has never used….A new, democratically elected government in Yemen is putting together a plan to take responsibility for its detainees. About a third of the 88 men from Yemen have already been cleared for release. Keeping them at Guantanamo just because of their nationality flies in the face of justice. The US government should support the democratic transition in Yemen by providing the financial, military, and intelligence support necessary to send them home and keep an eye on them.

Some detainees are tougher to deal with than others. But those who have already been cleared for release, and which Yemen is willing to accept, should be the easiest. Moqbel might or might not fall into this category (his status is unclear), but there are at least a couple dozen Yemenis who do. Obama should let them go.

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A Guantanamo Hunger Striker Tells His Story

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The Enduring Mystery of GOP Megadonor Bob Perry

by Isela Harris Posted on April 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Bob Perry, the wealthy Texas homebuilder and Republican mega-donor who helped bankroll the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that attacked John Kerry’s presidential campaign, died on Saturday night. He was 80 years old.

In 2012, I wrote a story about the Republican Governors Association, one of the many Republican causes to which Perry gave generously. During my reporting on the RGA, I interviewed an Austin attorney named Buck Wood who’d once crossed paths with Perry. Wood told me a head-scratcher of a story that, while hardly definitive, struck me as useful to understanding Perry’s place in GOP politics.

In the mid-2000s, Wood represented Chris Bell, a trial lawyer who’d run as the Democratic candidate in Texas’ 2006 gubernatorial election. Late in the race, Bell’s opponent, Gov. Rick Perry, received a $1 million donation from the RGA—an infusion that may well have contributed to Perry’s nine-point win. Bell believed that the $1 million originated with Bob Perry (no relation to Rick), and that Perry funneled the money through the RGA to Rick Perry’s campaign to wipe his fingerprints and avoid causing a fuss about such a big donation. (The RGA denied all this.) Bell sued the RGA in November 2007 for allegedly violating state campaign finance law.

Wood, Bell’s attorney, visited Bob Perry in Houston to depose him in the case. The two met in a conference room next to Perry’s personal office. Perry was pleasant, seemingly unbothered. Before the questioning began, Wood pointed out an aerial photograph on the wall of a new development in Austin built by Perry Homes. Perry looked at the picture, Wood recalled, studying it for an uncomfortably long time. “Yeah, that looks like one of our developments,” Perry replied unconvincingly, according to Wood. In the deposition, Perry recalled little about his RGA donations. Yes, that was his signature on the checks, he said, but he didn’t remember writing them.

Wood ended the deposition convinced that Perry really didn’t remember his $1 million donation to the RGA. He suspected that someone in Perry’s office, not the man himself, was handling Perry’s large political portfolio, as it were. “I wanted to know who was running the show so I could depose them,” he said. Wood asked a few local reporters if they knew anything more about the political affairs over at Perry Homes; he got nothing.

Perry went on to give tens of millions more to Republicans after the 2006 gubernatorial election. The 2010 Citizens United case freed Perry to give even more, which he did, doling out more than $20 million to super-PACs in 2012. When I spoke to Buck Wood on Monday morning, he told me he still didn’t have a clue who handled Perry’s political affairs, if it wasn’t Perry himself. All these years later, Bob Perry was still something of an mystery.

Perry preferred it that way. Here’s an excerpt of an April 2007 Texas Monthly profile that offered a rare glimpse inside Perry’s world:

Unseen by the public, uninvolved with his candidates, the most powerful political donor in the nation has until now remained largely an enigma. Few apart from a small circle of close friends in Houston know much about him. What they do know may surprise some people. For instance, Perry favors affirmative action. He has given money to Democrats, particularly black and Latino Democrats. He opposes his party’s hard line on immigration rights. He is a large-scale donor to an inner-city Houston foundation sponsored by a liberal black minister and to an educational scholarship program for Hispanic students founded by a liberal professor. So who is Bob Perry? Is he the monolithic, unyielding, far-right ideologue he is often portrayed to be? A philanthropist who gives generously to causes he believes in? Some hybrid of the two? Almost nobody knows, and that’s the way he likes it.

As under the radar as he was, Perry loomed large in Republican politics, in Texas and nationwide. His passing leaves the GOP without one of its biggest financial supporters.

Originally posted here:  

The Enduring Mystery of GOP Megadonor Bob Perry

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GOP Congressman Compares Background Checks to Rwandan Genocide

by PierresHood Posted on April 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), who enjoys an A rating from the National Rifle Association, took to Facebook on Thursday to warn Americans of the “evil consequences” of a national gun registry, comparing the dangers of expanded background checks to the Rwandan genocide.

The 2nd Amendment is (or should be) equal to the 1st Amendment and the 4th Amendment and all of the others. Ask yourselves why it is under attack? Ask yourselves about a National gun registry database and how that might be used and why it is so wanted by progressives.

Read about the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu and Tutsi tribes. Read that all Tutsi tribe members were required to register their address with the Hutu government and that this database was used to locate Tutsi for slaughter at the hands of the Hutu. (Since the government had the names and addresses of nearly all Tutsis living in Rwanda (remember, each Rwandan had an identity card that labeled them Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa) the killers could go door to door, slaughtering the Tutsis.

Not with firearms, mind you, but with machetes.

I use this example to warn that national databases can be used with evil consequences.

No lawmaker is proposing a national registry, which federal law has banned since 1986. The new compromise on background checks brokered by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) explicitly re-bans a registry, with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for anyone who uses records from licensed dealers to create one.

In his Facebook message, Duncan also took a hard stance against a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines: “To blame the firearm, or a certain size magazine, or type of ammo—for the tragedies that have occurred in this nation is like blaming the knife used to kill Nicole Brown Simpson or the machetes used to slaughter a million Tutsis in Rwanda.”

“Preying on the fears of the American citizenry is not good governance,” Duncan added.

At least he’s not invoking Hitler.

Read the full statement here.

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GOP Congressman Compares Background Checks to Rwandan Genocide

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Climate change curriculum for American kids watered down

by NielPostma231 Posted on April 11, 2013

Climate change curriculum for American kids watered down

By John Upton

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“Dude, does climate change make books swirl around like that? If only I’d learned more in kindergarten.”

New science education guidelines will formalize the teaching of evolution and climate change in American classrooms. But before they were finalized, recommended global warming lessons were watered down.

We mentioned the draft guidelines last month, noting they are expected to be adopted by the 26 states that helped draft them and that other states might also use them (not Texas, though). The final version of the guidelines was unveiled Tuesday.

From The Guardian:

[T]he standards appeared considerably shorter than draft versions that had circulated in recent months. Unlike earlier drafts, the final standards do not propose teaching climate change until children are in middle school and high school.

Mario Molina, deputy director at the Alliance for Climate Education, said the experts drafting the guidelines had cut 35% from the sections devoted to climate change, in response to public comments. He did not believe it was political, but was response to a need to compress a great deal of material.

However, he said teachers will now need additional materials and clarifications to teach climate change in detail.

Earlier versions had proposed introducing some aspects of climate change as early as kindergarten.

The standards are also much vaguer about the causes of climate change. An earlier version for primary school students had said explicitly that human activity was a driver of climate change. “It’s not as explicit in terms of the connection between human activities and climate change,” Molina said. …

A spokesman for the Next Generation Science Standards refused to comment on the new guidelines, and hung up on the phone when asked about climate change.

Perhaps most disheartening, one notorious group of climate deniers doesn’t hate the standards. From the Los Angeles Times:

James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based conservative think tank, said the standards aren’t perfect — some positive impacts of climate change should have been included, he said. But they are better than most others, he said.

“They are more balanced and fair than most educational guides I have seen put out by advocacy groups or self-professed science groups,” Taylor said.

If the Heartland Institute — known for its climate denial conferences and its billboards comparing climate-concerned citizens to mass murderers – thinks the standards are “balanced and fair,” watch out.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Climate change curriculum for American kids watered down

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"You’ve Got To Pick Yourself Up and Go Forward."

by jex34c67 Posted on April 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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On December 7, 1993, a disturbed man boarded a Long Island Rail Road train carrying a handgun with a 15-round magazine and a canvas bag full of ammunition. He coolly gunned down six people and wounded 19 others before passengers subdued him. Among the dead was Dennis McCarthy, the husband of future Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.). He was on his evening commute back to Mineola with the couple’s son, Kevin.

Another of the gunman’s bullets tore through Kevin’s brain. In a Manhasset hospital, doctors gave him a 10 percent chance of survival. He beat the odds, and in 2012 he told the New York Times that despite the brain trauma that still affects his daily life, he’s been able to move on: “Get married. Live life. Have two kids.”

But almost two decades ago, as her son began his arduous recovery, Carolyn McCarthy had suddenly found herself in the regular eye of the media. She embraced the attention, becoming an important voice for gun control. In 1996 she coasted into Congress and quickly established a reputation as the “doyenne of anti-gun advocates in the House.” McCarthy has since sponsored a range of gun legislation, including a bill to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System NICS that passed with the blessing of the National Rifle Association, and multiple attempts to ban assault weapons and guns with magazines of more than 10 rounds—her current legislative focus.

McCarthy now serves as a vice chair of the House’s newly assembled gun violence task force. She spoke with Mother Jones last week before Congress reconvened to once again take up the divisive task of reforming America’s gun laws.

Mother Jones: You recently described your efforts against gun violence as a “very lonely battle for many, many years.” After the Long Island Rail Road shooting, there have been dozens more like it. What goes through your mind when you hear news of another?

Carolyn McCarthy: I first got to Congress, obviously, to try to get involved with reducing gun violence because of what happened to my family, and learned over the course of time that these kind of killings and daily shootings were destroying so many families. Each time there was another mass killing there would usually be a very short period of concentration on it. You would see that the papers and TV would pick the story up and if it lasted more than 10 days of coverage that would be considered a lot.

And then Virginia Tech happened. I noticed that everybody was shocked when we found out that shooter Seung-Hui Cho had been adjudicated mentally ill. That’s when we passed the NICS bill that I had worked with the NRA on; we knew we could get it onto the floor for a vote.

MJ: During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) assault weapons ban, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that Newtown had “changed America.” What’s different about this shooting that has kept it in the news for so long?

CM: You have to remember, we had Aurora, the shooting at the temple, we had a number of other shootings leading up to Newtown. But Newtown, I think, struck a chord with everybody. Having innocent children, and anybody with an imagination trying to visualize when you’re talking about a child being shot seven to 11 times, that went way over the line. People started thinking, Wait a minute, this is happening in our schools now? And when you think about the large magazines, which is something I’ve been fighting for a ban on because that is what was used in the shooting on the Long Island Rail Road, why do we need large magazines? Why? I understand sportsmen use it when they go to the shooting clubs. Hunters certainly don’t use it.

MJ: In the Senate, NRA member Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) has reportedly been negotiating with Republicans to reach a compromise on expanded background checks. Is the NRA is more willing to negotiate behind the scenes than it will publicly admit?

CM: No, I don’t think they are willing to negotiate behind the scenes. The statements that have come out from the leadership of the NRA have made that very clear, and the message they keep sending out is, it’s infringing on 2nd Amendment rights. Which is not true; anybody with common sense can understand that.

When we met with them in the beginning with our task force, they seemed to be interested in working on background checks with us. But then 10 days later LaPierre came out and said absolutely not.

They’re afraid to give one inch. The NRA is basically afraid of the other fringe groups—Gun Owners of America and one or two of the others—where they feel everybody should have the right to own a gun. Which they do. Everybody keeps forgetting that. The Supreme Court made it very clear that people do have a right to own a gun, but they also said that the municipalities and the cities and the government have a right to protect their people.

MJ: Gun advocates argue that handguns are responsible for the majority of gun violence and that mass shootings are statistically rare, overcovered, and sensationalized in the media. Do they have a point that measures like a ban on assault weapons are misguided?

CM: No, they don’t. I’m talking as a victim now. We don’t want to be a number. Each one of those people who was killed leaves a family, leaves a community in shock.

I can speak for other victims of gun violence: It brings them back to that one moment when they learned that someone in their family was either killed or severely wounded. I think that’s the hardest part of this job, because it brings you back.

And those are memories—you get on with your lives, and we do. It’s very, very painful, and we know what these families are going to go through. It hits at our heart and our mind, and also takes another little piece away from ourselves.

MJ: How were your House colleagues affected by the Tucson shooting that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Az.)? Did it make any of them more sympathetic to gun control?

CM: A couple of members have certainly come up to me after Gabby and after Aurora and, because it happened in their backyards, they were more sympathetic to what we were trying to do, and have begun working with us. So they are becoming more aware, and I think most Americans are becoming more and more aware. When you’re talking about how more than 3,000 people have died since Newtown, people are going, Wait a minute, why are we doing this?

Gabby has become more public with her daily struggle with life. Everyone who knew Gabby before the shooting, how outgoing she was, how energetic she was—she was just an absolutely lovely person. And she still is. But to see her struggle… How long does it take her to get dressed? How long does it take her to do something that would have taken only seconds to do? People don’t hone in on the leftover residue of that kind of a shooting.

MJ: Last July, you told the Daily Beast, “People used to say these killings take place only in the inner cities—that’s not true—it’s like a cancer, and it goes out everywhere.” But do we too conveniently ignore gun violence that doesn’t shock the sensibilities of relatively affluent, white Americans?

CM: It’s true. The daily killings that we see that add up to quite a large amount are basically in the urban settings. In the suburban areas people think they don’t have that issue.

It’s the easy access to these particular guns that is the problem. Anybody can get them. I’ve talked to young people: “How long if you wanted to go out and get a gun, how long would it take?” And they said, 15, 20 minutes. Everybody knows where you can buy a gun illegally, and that’s why even with New York and other states that have good laws, the guns are coming from out of state. That’s why you need to have federal legislation.

MJ: What do you make of this new concept of using 3D printers to make gun parts?

CM: A lot of people are concerned about that. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation last year on that. Not only can they do guns, but they could probably do other things that could be a danger to the general population. Both sides are looking at that.

But technology—that’s something else I don’t understand about the NRA. They started off being a gun safety group, and yet with the technology that’s out there, we’re going to see improvements in gun safety. And yet they’re against that. They don’t want the information coming out of the CDC.

Speaking as a nurse, people forget that information on how to save lives from car accidents, from motorcycle head injuries, a lot of that information that came out from studies from the CDC . We can make sure that we don’t see as many suicides, we can see the effects of laws on domestic violence or an order of protection, when there’s a cooling off period where you can’t buy a gun.

MJ: You must be encouraged by Obama’s executive action on the CDC, then.

CM: I think the CDC has the right to look into gun violence. It’s not judging anybody, it’s just saying, This is the way that we could save lives, this is the way we can prevent more injuries from happening. Why is the Tiahrt Amendment so important? Why are you trying to stop our police officers from stopping crime? If they’re so protective of our police force, why do they stop them at every turn?

I’ll never understand the stances that they take. If anything, because of the NRA we saw higher incidences of violence in our country.

MJ: With groups like Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, do you see a counter NRA forming?

CM: Oh yes, I definitely do. I had said that many years ago when Mayor Bloomberg first started getting involved in the gun issue. He’s taken this issue very, very personally, mainly because he was the person who had to go to the hospital if a police officer was shot or killed. He had to go to the funerals, he had to go visit the parents of the young child who was murdered on the streets of his city.

All these gun groups are all on the same page. We’ve never been able to do that before. That’s the one thing we were always lacking. We didn’t have the money to counteract the NRA. Now we do.

MJ: If enough Republicans see that their constituents are overwhelmingly supportive of background checks, will they press for a vote because they feel not acting would cost them elections?

CM: They’ve got to vote. But I do not believe there is as much risk as they might think. I have always felt that the NRA was not as strong as most people gave them credit for. Yes, they’re powerful. No one should ever take them for granted. But I also believe that they have this myth about them that they can take down any member of Congress.

MJ: Why have so many politicians bought into that myth?

CM: The NRA has won some elections. But I never understood, even on the Democratic side, why they would bow to the NRA when it still was not there with them. There was one member from a very conservative state, he voted with me on a gun bill many years ago. It was a rough year for him, but he went out and explained why he voted for it—it was the right thing to do, he had been a former sheriff—and he won his election easily.

MJ: At what point would gun enthusiasts’ paranoia about a government gun grab become a legitimate complaint?

CM: This is their sport. I used to go skeet shooting. I just didn’t like it. Some people don’t like skiing; I was a great skier. It’s their sport, I respect their sport. They’re law-abiding citizens. It’s the ones who don’t care about the laws, don’t follow the laws, and don’t go for the background checks we need to worry about, and we make it too easy for them to buy guns.

But this paranoia out there, that the government is going to come over and knock at your door and take away your guns, that is purely the NRA’s tactic of fear. There are people who believe that, but they also believe in machine guns, which are banned, and making bombs to be prepared to fight the government.

MJ: After Virginia Tech, you were interviewed on MSNBC by Tucker Carlson, who hounded you about the definition of a barrel shroud.

CM: It was late at night, I was tired, I knew I would make mistakes. We were talking about the NICS bill and all of a sudden he threw that out at me.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to know every little thing about a gun. All I know is that the kind of guns that—and banning the large magazines that we’re trying to do on gun safety can save lives.

MJ: When did you first start feeling less lonely on this issue?

CM: I think it was after Virginia Tech. After Virginia Tech I wasn’t recovering as fast. The killings would keep going on in my mind more and more. Talking to other victims who have been in this battle for a long, long time—we had a hearing and I walked in and saw people whom I hadn’t seen in 15, 16 years, and we would just look at each other and break down crying. It’s very difficult, because you’re fighting for something you believe in. To see it continue, it breaks your heart. It just breaks your heart.

MJ: What gives you peace of mind after something like that?

CM: I worked as an ICU nurse, and if the patient didn’t survive it would be almost like the same feeling. Was there more that I could have done? Was there anything different that could have been done? But you go over it, over it, over it, and you know that there wasn’t anything else you could have done. Believe me, you wanted to stay home and get underneath that comforter and probably not face the world. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you’ve got to pick yourself up and go forward.

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"You’ve Got To Pick Yourself Up and Go Forward."

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Hating on the Deficit

by jackman0022 Posted on April 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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Over at Wonkblog, Dylan Matthews has a long post titled “Why do people hate deficits?” It’s a good summary that runs through all the various reasons people give for thinking that deficits are bad.

But it doesn’t actually answer the question, at least not as I take it. Dylan’s list provides us with two things: (a) technical reasons that some economists dislike big, persistent deficits, and (b) talking points used by politicians who are railing against the deficit and need to toss out some plausible sounding arguments. What we’d really like to know is why so many ordinary people dislike deficits. Here are a few possibilities:

They listen to politicians and pundits railing against the deficit and simply assume that deficits must therefore be bad. After all, everyone says they are.
They don’t really care about deficits, they just hate welfare spending. Opposing the deficit is a convenient proxy.
They think that countries are like households, and getting in debt inevitably means an endless, grinding stuggle to pay the bills.
Liberals have done an abysmal job of explaining why deficits are good during periods of high unemployment, so ordinary citizens have no reason to think deficits are anything other than bad.

I imagine all of these things play a role, but I’d place a lot of weight on the last one. Sure, some of the reasons to dislike deficits are dumb and some are downright dishonest. But that’s just the nature of political discourse. A movement that can’t fight back against slippery arguments had better steel itself to lose lots of battles.

Like it or not, the truth is that deficit hawkery is a pretty obvious default position to have unless someone gives you a really compelling reason to believe otherwise. So if we’re unhappy that the public is too hawkish about the deficit, we have only ourselves to blame.

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Hating on the Deficit

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Con Men Love Tax Havens

by kx0bq6uuw Posted on April 7, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post wins April’s Least Surprising Headline of the Month award with this entry today:

On a serious note, it’s actually an interesting piece. The Post worked with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which somehow obtained 2.5 million records created by a couple of offshore companies. “Among the 4,000 U.S. individuals listed in the records, at least 30 are American citizens accused in lawsuits or criminal cases of fraud, money laundering or other serious financial misconduct.” It’s worth a read to get an idea of what kinds of scams and frauds get hidden by these tax havens.

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Con Men Love Tax Havens

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Donor Advisory Group Flags Berman Nonprofits

by bukaroso Posted on April 5, 2013

Mother Jones

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Charity Navigator, a nonprofit that aims to provide donors with information about the accountability and transparency of other nonprofits, has issued “donor advisory” notices for five different groups run by the notorious DC-based PR firm Berman and Company.

The company, run by Richard Berman, runs a number of non-profits backed by business interests. Here’s how our own Daniel Schulman described Berman’s work in a 2009 piece:

Nicknamed Dr. Evil—a moniker he embraces—he’s the force behind several industry-backed nonprofits that share staff and office space with his very for-profit communications and advertising firm, Berman and Company. The firm promises clients it will not “just change the debate” but “start” one, and a range of companies, from Anheuser-Busch to Philip Morris to the casino chain Harrah’s, have signed up for Berman’s “aggressive” and “hard-hitting” advocacy. Some clients pay Berman and Co. directly, while others donate to his nonprofits—but much of the cash winds up in the same place, via hefty management fees the front groups pay to Berman’s company.

Charity Navigator has posted advisories for five Berman projects: the Center for Consumer Freedom, which opposes regulation of the food and beverage industry; the American Beverage Institute, another beverage industry group; the Center for Union Facts, which targets unions; the Employment Policies Institute Foundation, which campaigns against minimum wage increases; and the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee, a political action committee targeting Democratic candidates.

In its advisories, Charity Navigator cites the fact that the majority of the expenses for these groups are in fact payments to Berman and Company. For the Center for Consumer Freedom, it notes that their 2010 tax forms indicate that $1.7 million of the $2.4 million in total program expenses went directly to Berman and Company. On the American Beverage Institute advisory, it notes that $1.3 million of the total $1.7 million spent in 2011 went to Berman’s for-profit company.

Some of the other non-profit groups that Berman and Company has attacked have asked the IRS to review the tax-exempt status of the 501(c)3s, claiming that they should not qualify as charitable organizations. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which runs the website Berman Exposed, has also filed a complaint with the IRS raising questions about the tax status of the Center for Consumer Freedom specifically. The IRS has declined to say whether it is pursuing an investigation.

The irony of this is that the Center for Consumer Freedom previously crowed when Charity Navigator downgraded the rating of the Humane Society of the United States, one of the main organizations its efforts have targeted.

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Donor Advisory Group Flags Berman Nonprofits

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