Tag Archives: emergency

Twenty-five governments came together to make the world’s largest marine reserve.

by JaclynAuricht36 Posted on October 28, 2016

The 1996 Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) allows other states to send law enforcement and employees when a governor declares a state of emergency — or, according to its website, “whenever disaster strikes!”

The compact encompasses all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and some territories, including Puerto Rico. Big hurricane hit your state? EMAC facilitates another state sending over emergency personnel while taking samples back to their state’s lab to test for contamination.

But it is also being activated to quell dissent.

Riot-clad police arrested 141 people Thursday for what the local sheriff says is trespassing on private property near a local highway. As EcoWatch, DeSmog, and local outlets point out, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple used EMAC to bring in law enforcement from six states to clear the encampment near construction for the Dakota Access pipeline.

The mutual aid law was also used in Baltimore in 2015 following Black Lives Matter protests mourning the death of Freddie Gray. EMAC was even used ahead of anticipated protests at the Republican National Convention, resulting in the deployment of an additional 5,500 cops from across the country to Cleveland this summer.

EMAC director Angela Copple and her staff didn’t respond to a request to explain about why the program is being used in North Dakota.

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Twenty-five governments came together to make the world’s largest marine reserve.

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Hackers Just Brought the Internet to Its Knees—And No One Knows Why

by kelliemclendon Posted on October 21, 2016

Mother Jones

A number of websites—including Twitter, Netflix, and PayPal—were disrupted today by an early morning cyberattack against a key company responsible for routing internet traffic. The company, Dyn, has been posting a series of updates throughout the day, claiming that it came under multiple Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. A DDoS attack floods a website or server with traffic from multiple sources, slowing the targeted site or shutting it down altogether.

In this case, the target was Dyn, a major provider of Domain Name Servers (DNS), which allow internet traffic to get routed properly. (Gizmodo has an excellent breakdown of how DNS servers work, and why an attack on a major provider of them would impact so many sites at once.) The attack started at about 7:10 a.m. on the East Coast of the United States, and the company was initially able to restore service. But later in the morning a second and more widespread attack ensued, and service disruption might have spread to Western Europe, according to Reuters.

Today’s attack is being investigated by the US government as a “criminal act,” Reuters reports, and it could be just the latest in what the Department of Homeland Security has characterized as increasingly powerful DDoS attacks. In an October 14 message posted on the DHS Computer Emergency Readiness Team page, the agency warned of “increased risks” of massive DDoS attacks because of poorly secured internet-connected devices such as cameras and home routers. “Recently, Internet of Things devices have been used to create large-scale botnets—networks of devices infected with self-propogating malware—that can execute rippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks,” the warning read.

Although it’s unclear who is behind the attack, in an early Friday evening tweet, WikiLeaks told its supporters:

By the way, here’s what a DDoS attack looks like when it’s visualized (via Gizmodo):

Link – 

Hackers Just Brought the Internet to Its Knees—And No One Knows Why

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The Supreme Court Just Blocked North Carolina’s Sweeping Voting Restrictions

by MarianMessina Posted on August 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Supreme Court turned down North Carolina’s request on Wednesday to implement a restrictive voting law that a lower federal court blocked last month. The law would have imposed strict ID requirements, shortened early voting periods, and eliminated same-day voter registration, among other barriers to voting. Critics had said the 2013 law was racially discriminatory, and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last month agreed, observing that the state legislature had targeted voting restrictions at African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”

The state waited 17 days after that decision to file an “emergency” request with the Supreme Court for a stay of the ruling, which would have allowed the state to proceed with the November election under the restrictive rules. The eight-member court deadlocked 4-4 on Wednesday on whether to grant that request, falling short of the majority required for a stay of the lower court’s ruling. The February death of Justice Antonin Scalia once again affected the outcome of a highly politicized case, as his vote with the court’s four-member conservative bloc would have allowed North Carolina to proceed with its law.

The North Carolina law was one of the most dramatic and restrictive voting measures enacted in any state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited discrimination against minorities in voting. The Supreme Court itself paved the way for its passage in 2013 with its decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the section of the Voting Rights Act that required preclearance by the Department of Justice to enact changes affecting minority voting rights in areas with a long history of discrimination. North Carolina was one of those areas, and it initiated its voting law the day after the Shelby County decision came down.

Allison Riggs, a senior attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice who helped argue the case before the appeals court, issued the following statement after the decision:

The Supreme Court acted in the best interest of North Carolina voters, allowing elections this fall to proceed absent the cloud and concern of racially discriminatory voting laws. This decision opens the door for fair and full access to the democratic process for all voters. Hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians will now be able to vote without barriers. The voting booth is the one place where everyone is equal and where we all have the same say.

Read the decision here:

US Supreme Court

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The Supreme Court Just Blocked North Carolina’s Sweeping Voting Restrictions

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Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

by FranceODowd1081 Posted on August 15, 2016

Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

By on Aug 15, 2016Share

Historic rainfall and flooding in Louisiana this weekend have led to at least six deaths and thousands of damaged homes. Over a foot of rain fell in Kentwood, La. in just 12 hours, and five different cities in the region have reported rainfall totals of over two feet. The amount of rain is being called “scarily high” by the National Weather Service.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said Sunday that more than 20,000 people had been rescued in the flood, including himself: The Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rogue flooded in the deluge, and the Edwards and his family were evacuated to the Louisiana State Police Joint Emergency Services Training Center in Zachary.

“It’s not over,” Gov. Edwards said at a press conference. “The water’s going to rise in many areas. It’s no time to let the guard down.”

Indeed, rainfall of this magnitude is increasingly common. Why? Warming temperatures from climate change cause additional water vapor in the atmosphere, which leads to heavy precipitation. As Eric Holthaus points out in Pacific Standard: Statistically, we should only see rainfall of this magnitude occurring once every 500 years, but this is the eighth 500-year rainfall in the U.S. in just over a year.

Clearly, something has fundamentally changed — and that something is the climate. The silver lining for Louisiana? Gov. Edwards is more promising than his predecessor, former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), with regard to acknowledging the threat that climate change poses to his state. Granted, that bar was extremely low.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

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An Indiana Court Just Said Women Can’t Be Jailed for Ending Their Own Pregnancies

by ThaoGoodell Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Indiana Court of Appeals on Friday overturned the feticide conviction of a woman found guilty in the death of her child after she bought abortion-inducing drugs off the internet. Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in 2015 after an Indiana trial court convicted her of two felonies: feticide and “neglect of a dependent.”

Patel, in her mid-30s, was managing her family’s restaurant in rural Indiana when she got pregnant. After doing research online, Patel ordered mifepristone and misoprostol (the same drugs typically prescribed for a medical abortion by a clinic) from a Hong Kong pharmacy for $72. In July 2013, Patel texted a friend, “Just lost the baby.”

But when she started experiencing severe bleeding, Patel went to the emergency room. There, her doctors called the police, who found the baby, which they estimated weighed a little over a pound, in a dumpster near Patel’s work. One of the ER physicians, who was also a member of a pro-life medical organization, left the hospital to join police in the search. About a week later, Patel was arrested and charged with feticide and neglect.

During her trial, attorneys for Indiana argued that Patel was at least 25 weeks into her pregnancy and that her fetus was not only viable but also took at least one breath before dying. They also argued that the state’s feticide law, passed in 2009 to protect pregnant women from acts of violence, could be used to criminalize pregnant women, not just third-parties. In 2015, after two years behind bars, Patel was convicted of both charges.

Patel’s attorneys, along with abortion rights advocates, vowed to overturn what they called a wrongful and contradictory conviction.

“Even assuming Indiana’s feticide law could somehow become an abortion criminalization law, many people were initially baffled by how Patel could be charged with two seemingly contradictory charges: feticide for ending a pregnancy and also child neglect for giving birth to a baby and then failing to care for it,” wrote Lynn Paltrow, the founder and executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which provided legal support to Patel’s case.

In its ruling on Friday, the Appeals Court noted the contradiction, calling the outcome “absurd,” but found that the state’s feticide statute doesn’t require a dead fetus, despite the common definition of the word. Instead, the law just requires that a person terminates the pregnancy.

But the court did overturn the feticide conviction, ruling that the statute wasn’t meant to be applied to pregnant women themselves. The court also ruled that Patel’s class A felony charge should be bumped down to a class D felony. The case will go to a trial court for resentencing.

Jill E. Adams, a lawyer and the chief strategist for the University of California-Berkeley Law School’s new Self-Induced Abortion Legal Team, which also gave legal support to Patel, told Mother Jones that Patel does not plan to challenge the new felony charge.

“The SIA Legal Team is pleased the court recognized that feticide laws are intended to protect, not prosecute, pregnant women,” she wrote in an email. “Women don’t need to be stigmatized and sentenced; instead, they need safe, affordable access to provider-directed and self-directed health care.”

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An Indiana Court Just Said Women Can’t Be Jailed for Ending Their Own Pregnancies

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California’s Wildfires Just Tripled in Size

by kurtponinski Posted on June 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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When it comes to forest fires, California can’t seem to catch a break.

Last year was a hellacious one for uncontrolled burns, and 2016 is looking just as bad. In the past week, the number of acres scorched by wildfire has tripled from around 32,000 to more than 98,000, according to the state’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The number of fires the department, known simply as Cal Fire, has responded to is slightly above the seasonal five year average. But it’s early in the fire season. (California’s 2013 Rim Fire, the largest ever recorded in the Sierra Nevada, began in early August and blazed on into October, torching more than 257,000 acres.)

Local, state, and federal firefighters have already dealt with more than 2,400 wildfires so far this season, say’s Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire’s information officer. Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Southern California’s Kern County, where the largest of those conflagrations still rages; the Eskrine fire covers more than 45,000 acres and is only 40 percent contained. It has killed two people so far, destroying 150 homes and damaging 75.

In recent years, drought conditions have fueled fires across the state. El Niño conditions brought badly needed rain this past winter, but the wetter conditions also begat a bumper crop of grasses that are now reduced to dry fuel. “The rain is always a blessing and a curse,” Berlant says.

In addition, thanks to prolonged drought and hungry bark beetles, California has more than 66 million dead trees, the US Forest Service estimates—more than double last year’s count. In short, the state is a tinderbox.

Ahead of the July 4 weekend, Cal Fire officials warn that they’ll be confiscating illegal fireworks. They’re also urging residents to keep fireworks away from dry, flammable materials. Which should be pretty obvious, but sadly…

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California’s Wildfires Just Tripled in Size

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What We Know About the EgyptAir Flight That Crashed Into the Mediterranean

by LakeshaTrigg Posted on May 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Egyptian authorities confirmed on Thursday that the EgyptAir plane that went missing overnight had crashed into the Mediterranean. Flight MS804, which took off in Paris, was carrying 66 people when it disappeared shortly after crossing into Egyptian airspace.

In a press conference Thursday, French President Francois Hollande said that “no hypothesis was being ruled out” in the crash, including the possibility of terrorism. The country remains under a state of emergency that went into effect after the Paris attacks in November.

“When we have the truth, we must draw all the conclusions, whether it is an accident or another hypothesis, which everybody has in mind, the terrorist hypothesis,” Hollande said.

The Associated Press reports the last known contact with the plane was recorded about ten minutes before it vanished, with no distress call received. The plane departed at 11:05 p.m. and was expected to land at 3:15 a.m. in Cairo, according to EgyptAir.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in on the crash on Thursday, speculating that it was likely the result of a terrorist attack.

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What We Know About the EgyptAir Flight That Crashed Into the Mediterranean

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Shia Mob in Iraq Demands More Technocrats

by GroverDingle Posted on April 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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Protesters stormed the Iraqi parliament today:

Baghdad Operations Command declared a state of emergency and said all roads into the capital had been closed….Iraq is in the grip of a political crisis, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi attempting to reshuffle his cabinet and meet the demands of the demonstrators, who have been spurred on by the powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. But Abadi has been hampered by chaotic parliament sessions, where lawmakers have thrown water bottles and punches at one another.

Oddly, the “firebrand cleric” Sadr (remember when that practically used to be his first name in news reports?) is demanding that…the current hacks running government ministries be replaced with nonpartisan technocrats. “More bean counters in the cabinet!” isn’t the usual rallying cry of a populist uprising, but there you have it.

Needless to say, the sectarian hacks currently in charge have been resisting this change for the past month. In the meantime, Iraq is in chaos. Again.

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Shia Mob in Iraq Demands More Technocrats

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As W.H.O. Declares Zika a Global Health Emergency, a Look at the World’s Failed Mosquito Policies

by Myrna Posted on February 1, 2016

Areas stricken in Zika virus outbreak were once free of the mosquito that carries this and other dangerous diseases. Continue reading:   As W.H.O. Declares Zika a Global Health Emergency, a Look at the World’s Failed Mosquito Policies ; ; ;

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As W.H.O. Declares Zika a Global Health Emergency, a Look at the World’s Failed Mosquito Policies

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Congress Has Agreed On a Highway Bill!

by ArthurAEOG Posted on December 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Maybe Paul Ryan really is getting a handle on this whole governing thing:

Congressional negotiators have agreed to a $305 billion measure to fund highways and mass-transit projects for five years, the longest in almost two decades—and an unexpected show of agreement after years of clamoring by state transportation officials for money for infrastructure projects.

….The agreement was made possible when lawmakers identified a collection of strategies to offset the costs. Among other things, the measure would raise revenue by selling oil from the nation’s emergency stockpile and taking money from a Federal Reserve surplus account that works as a sort of cushion to help the bank pay for potential losses.

The “strategies” here are necessary because the gas tax has declined over the past two decades, and unlike in past eras, inflationary erosion is no longer being offset by a rapid increase in miles driven. As a result, the highway trust fund doesn’t have enough money to pay for all the stuff Congress wants to do. This is being fixed by funding highways partly by gas taxes and partly by other revenue sources, which destroys the principle that “people who use federal transportation systems should pay for the projects.”

Of course, this is a dumb principle anyway. Lots of people benefit from transportation infrastructure who don’t pay gas taxes. We should just ditch this principle for good and instead fund the government like this:

  1. Collect tax money from various sources.
  2. Put it all in the general fund.
  3. Spend the money as Congress directs.

See? Easy peasy. We still have the problem of matching revenue and spending, of course, but at least we get rid of all the nonsense about funding specific programs from specific sources and worrying about trust funds “going broke.” Nothing is going broke. We’re just raising money and spending money. If we’re worried about a balanced budget, then we have to raise taxes or reduce spending, and it doesn’t really matter which taxes or which spending we target. It’s all just money.

So I’m perfectly happy that Congress is ignoring the “principle” of funding transportation projects only via gas tax money. On the other hand, the revenue sources they’re tapping in order to pass this bill are probably pretty ill considered. Both are in the nature of emergency funds, and both are one-time deals that can’t be repeated. But in a world in which taxes not only can’t be raised, but can’t even be kept the same, I guess there’s little choice.

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Congress Has Agreed On a Highway Bill!

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