Tag Archives: fighting

A Closer Look At Alabama’s Driver License Office Closures

by GilbertoBkr Posted on October 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the outrage over Alabama’s closure of 31 driver license offices in 30 of its counties, but Bob Somerby says the prevailing liberal wisdom is a crock. The story is that Alabama closed offices in predominantly black counties as a way of making it harder for blacks to get driver licenses and thus making it harder for them to vote. (Alabama, naturally, has a photo ID requirement to vote.) But is that true?

Well, at great expense, the hardworking staff here totted up the black population of all 30 counties with closed offices. Here are the numbers:

Total population: 826,000
Total black population: 196,000
Percentage black population: 23.8%

For Alabama as a whole, the population is 26.2 percent black. So it looks like Somerby is right. The black population of the affected counties is actually lower than it is for the whole state. If Alabama was deliberately trying to target blacks, they sure seem to have made a hash of it.

Data here.

POSTSCRIPT: There are other criticisms you can make, of course. Closing offices in small rural counties—many of which are majority black—makes it really hard to get a driver license since the nearest open office might be quite far away. At the same time, closing offices in places with very few people is also obviously sensible just in terms of constituent service. In any case, the overall impact doesn’t appear to be much heavier—if at all—on blacks than it is on whites.

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A Closer Look At Alabama’s Driver License Office Closures

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New Study Says Sitting a Lot Won’t Kill You After All

by LoriZVJtsn Posted on October 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Did you buy a standing desk because you heard that sitting too much would kill you? Or because you wanted to be like Don Rumsfeld? It doesn’t matter: a new study says sitting isn’t especially hazardous, and Rumsfeld shouldn’t be a role model for anything. The chart on the right shows the basic association between more sitting and more dying: none. Nor did it matter when the authors controlled for age, gender, employment grade, ethnicity, smoking status, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, BMI, physical functioning, or daily walking time. “There were no associations between any of the five sitting indicators at Phase 5 and all-cause mortality risk over the follow-up period in either model 1 or 2.”

The authors say that their sample is fairly physically active, and “it is therefore possible that the higher than average energy expenditure in the current study may offer a degree of protection from any deleterious effects of high volumes of sitting.” In other words, don’t worry about sitting too much. Just get enough exercise, period. You’ll be OK.

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New Study Says Sitting a Lot Won’t Kill You After All

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Is the Army Cooking the Books on ISIS and Iraq?

by SteveRRJpfpgjce Posted on September 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Daily Beast reports that defense analysts are in revolt over what they see as too much happy talk about ISIS that doesn’t reflect their actual views:

Two senior analysts at CENTCOM signed a written complaint sent to the Defense Department inspector general in July alleging that the reports, some of which were briefed to President Obama, portrayed the terror groups as weaker than the analysts believe they are….That complaint was supported by 50 other analysts, some of whom have complained about politicizing of intelligence reports for months.

….Some of those CENTCOM analysts described the sizeable cadre of protesting analysts as a “revolt” by intelligence professionals who are paid to give their honest assessment, based on facts, and not to be influenced by national-level policy. The analysts have accused senior-level leaders, including the commander in charge of intelligence and his deputy in CENTCOM, of changing their analyses to be more in line with the Obama administration’s public contention that the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda is making progress.

….But the complaint also goes beyond alleged altering of reports and accuses some senior leaders at CENTCOM of creating an unprofessional work environment. One person who knows the contents of the written complaint sent to the inspector general said it used the word “Stalinist” to describe the tone set by officials overseeing CENTCOM’s analysis.

Hmmm. The “Stalinist” jibe sets off some alarm bells. It could mean one of two things: (a) the work climate at CENTCOM is really, really bad, or (b) the senior analysts who filed the complaint are cuckoo. For better or worse, I usually associate accusations of Stalinism with all-upper case rants written by lunatics.

Still, even if one guy is a little over the top, there are 50 more apparently willing to sign on to the general complaint:

Many described a climate in which analysts felt they could not give a candid assessment of the situation in Iraq and Syria. Some felt it was a product of commanders protecting their career advancement by putting the best spin on the war.

….For some, who have served at CENTCOM for more than a decade, scars remained from the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq, when poorly written intelligence reports suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when it did not, formed the basis of the George W. Bush administration’s case for war. “They were frustrated because they didn’t do the right thing then” and speak up about their doubts on Iraq’s weapons program, the defense official told The Daily Beast.

If this turns out to be true, I wonder what’s really going on. My sense is that the Obama administration itself hasn’t been especially inclined to rosy scenarios. The Daily Beast article tried to find examples of sunny public statements from Obama officials and didn’t come up with much. But it’s quite possible that commanders on the ground are loath to admit how poorly things are going, and are insisting that analysts do nothing to muddy the waters.

In any case, now that the scope of these complaints are public, it will be hard for either the administration or CENTCOM to ignore them. Perhaps as a result we’ll finally find out what’s really happening in Iraq.

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Is the Army Cooking the Books on ISIS and Iraq?

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Jeb Bush Has a Tax Plan, But He’s a Little Shy About Sharing It

by MartyWhitehouse Posted on September 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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This is nuts. Apparently there is a detailed Jeb Bush tax plan. His website now features a document laden with specific savings that various taxpayers can expect, which can exist only if there are specific proposals to work from. And a team of friendly economists has produced a paper scoring the tax plan, which can also exist only if there’s a detailed document to draw on. And yet, that document doesn’t appear on his website. What’s going on? Why is Jeb’s plan a secret?

For what it’s worth, the economists say that:

The plan will cost $3.4 trillion over ten years.
But the tax cuts, along with Jeb’s proposed regulatory changes, will supercharge the economy enough to reduce the actual cost to $1.2 trillion.
If we limit federal budget growth to 3.2 percent per year, that will save $1.4 trillion. Voila! We’re ahead by $200 billion.

If you believe all this, Jeb has some swampland in his home state he’d like you to take a look at. But on the bright side, this paper does finally solve the mystery of where we can find the details of Jeb’s tax plan: they’re outlined in an appendix at the end of the paper. I guess it’s meant as a special treat for people who actually read the whole thing.

But why is this the only place the details of Jeb’s tax plan are available? Why not post it on his website? It’s a mystery. But at least there’s enough there that independent folks like the Tax Policy Center can probably take a pretty good swipe at scoring it themselves and figuring out the distributional impact. I can’t wait.

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Jeb Bush Has a Tax Plan, But He’s a Little Shy About Sharing It

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Pope Francis Decides to Make Divorce Easier

by ConsuelOmar Posted on September 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest from the Vatican:

Pope Francis announced new procedures on Tuesday to make it easier for Roman Catholics to obtain marriage annulments, a change intended to streamline a process long criticized by many Catholics as too cumbersome, complicated and expensive.

Under the new rules, the process will be much faster for cases in which a couple is not contesting the annulment.

Such cases had required two separate judgments from a diocesan tribunal. Now, the process, overseen by local bishops, will require only one judgment. Moreover, the new rules require that the hearing process be held within 30 days of application, eliminating a longer waiting period.

Obviously, this is fine with me. But it’s difficult to understand theologically. The Bible contains virtually nothing on the subject of abortion, and yet the church considers it a grave sin. Conversely, Jesus could hardly be clearer about his disapproval of divorce, and yet the church is making divorce easier.1 Aside from the fact that men often want divorces, while abortion is limited to women, what accounts for this?

1And let’s hear no nonsense about annulment being different from divorce. Even church leaders admit that there’s usually little substantive difference.

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Pope Francis Decides to Make Divorce Easier

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What Does Sarah Palin Have Against the Department of Energy?

by ansonsten Posted on September 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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Sarah Palin says she wants to eliminate the Department of Energy. This is a perennial conservative hobbyhorse, so let’s dig in a little bit. Just what does this bureaucratic tax sinkhole do, anyway? Here’s a brief summary:

Program
Cost
Comment
Nuclear weapons R&D and cleanup
$18 billion
Can’t do without this, can we?
National laboratories (Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Yucca Mountain, etc.)
$5 billion
This is mostly basic science, including accelerators, fossil/nuclear/renewable energy research, and nuclear waste disposal. I don’t think Palin has anything against this, does she?
Dams and hydro power
$0
Does Palin want to sell off all the dams we built over the past century? If not, we might as well pay for their upkeep by selling the hydro power they generate.
Energy efficiency
$3 billion
Perhaps this is what she wants to cut? Republicans hate energy efficiency.
Miscellaneous
$3 billion
Good luck finding anything of substance to get rid of here.

Hmmm. There might be some bits and pieces that Republicans object to here, but not much. So why all the hate for the Energy Department? Is it just because it was created by Jimmy Carter? Nah. Who would be childish enough to hold a grudge like that?

In any case, even Republicans agree that we need to do the vast majority of this stuff. So even if Palin managed to kill off the Department of Energy, its functions would just get disbursed to other departments. Would that make any difference? I suppose it means one less chair at cabinet meetings, but it’s hard to see the point otherwise.

One intriguing possibility, raised by Brad Plumer, is that Palin was actually thinking of the Interior Department. He makes a good case. But Palin told Jake Tapper, “I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because energy is my baby.” That being so, it seems unlikely she’d make a mistake so boneheaded. Right?

POSTSCRIPT: It’s worth noting that this is the same con behind nearly every call to eliminate the Department of ______. It sounds dynamic! It cuts the budget! It slashes red tape!

But departments don’t matter. Functions matter, and they just go somewhere else if their department is eliminated. Unless a presidential candidate is willing to specify exactly which functions they want to defund, they aren’t serious. They’re just hawking snake oil to the rubes.

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What Does Sarah Palin Have Against the Department of Energy?

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The American Egg Board Is Tired of Playing Softball With You People

by AlexanderGladne Posted on September 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s something trivial and yet somehow sort of fascinating at the same time. The Guardian has an article today about the American Egg Board, which, as you might guess, is in the business of promoting the use of eggs. For example: “This year the politically connected AEB provided 14,000 eggs for the White House’s annual Easter egg roll and Ivy1 was photographed with President Barack Obama.”

That’s some mighty tasty PR—and perfectly legal. But although AEB is funded by the egg industry, its board members are appointed by the Department of Agriculture. This means it’s limited to promoting the awesomeness of eggs. Attacking other foods is forbidden, a restriction that specifically includes “any advertising (including press releases) deemed disparaging to another commodity.” The Department of Agriculture does not want to be in the business of sponsoring internecine wars between American producers of food (and foodlike) products.

But it turns out that the egg people have been concerned for a while about Hampton Creek, a Silicon Valley darling that makes egg-free products. You may have seen them in the news recently, when the FDA sent out a letter telling Hampton Creek to change the name of Just Mayo, their vegan mayonnaise alternative2—since, by definition, mayonnaise contains eggs. If there are no eggs, it’s not mayonnaise. The AEB lobbied for this, and they also tried to sign up bloggers and cooking celebrities to promote eggs. But did they actually engage in advertising that disparaged non-eggs? That’s harder to say. The smoking gun appears to be a section called “Beyond Eggs Consumer Research” in AEB’s contract with their PR company. Here’s the key sentence:

For example, research will, ideally, provide actionable intelligence on what attacks are gaining traction with consumers and which are not so as to help industry calibrate level of communications response (if any) to ensure a consistent response strategy moving forward.

This is….award-worthy biz-gibberish! I’m suffering twinges of professional jealousy just reading it. Big picture-wise, it gets everything right: it’s all but impossible to even parse this, let alone use it to prove that AEB was asking for attack ads against non-egg products. It’s a masterpiece of the genre.

So is anyone going to be able to prove that AEB has been illegally targeting Hampton Creek for destruction? Unless there’s more than this, I doubt it. They’ll just say that their “response strategy” was to fight back against egg-related misconceptions and highlight all the goodness that real eggs can deliver to the dining tables of hardworking Americans. And who will be able to say otherwise?

1That’s Joanne Ivy, AEB’s CEO and its 2015 Egg Person of the Year.

2It’s vegan, but don’t let that mislead you into thinking it’s necessarily healthy. As the FDA also pointed out, Just Mayo contains too much fat to be labeled “heart healthy.” It’s not much different from ordinary mayonnaise:

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The American Egg Board Is Tired of Playing Softball With You People

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There Is a "Truck Line" Tearing America Apart

by PollyGraf09 Posted on September 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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A few minutes ago, President Obama’s former “car czar” Steven Rattner tweeted the map below. Marcy Wheeler tweaks him for calling Hondas and Toyotas “imports” even though most of them are made in the US. I’d tweak him for saying the map shows the best-selling “cars” in each state, since it also includes trucks. Trucks aren’t cars.

But that’s enough tweaking. I’m willing to cut people a lot of slack on Twitter. Here’s what I’m curious about. You’ve no doubt heard of the famous “soda line” in America: in New England and the West, most of us call fizzy sweetened drinks soda. In the South, it’s coke. Up north, from Washington to the Ohio Valley, it’s pop.

Apparently we also have a truck line in America. In the Midwest and mountain states, people buy Ford F-series trucks. In the Great Lakes region, the Chevy Silverado reigns supreme. Out West, we seem to prefer Dodge Rams.

What’s up with that? Is this just a weird coincidence? Or is there some genuine historical reason that different trucks are popular in different regions?

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There Is a "Truck Line" Tearing America Apart

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Are the F-Bombs Getting Worse Here at Mother Jones? An Exclusive Investigation.

by Kyung Wilhoite Posted on September 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Apropos of my suggested response this morning to the most obnoxious kinds of gotcha questions, David Bailey writes in comments:

Recommended answer: “Oh, go fuck yourself.”

This is off-topic, and I may not be the first to bring it up, but it seems as if Kevin’s posts have been a bit saltier recently. I have a hard time believing he would have written this a year ago.

Not complaining or criticizing, but I just thought it was interesting.

Come on. This was an homage to Dick Cheney, people! Do our schools teach nothing these days?

But am I in fact using the word fuck more often than in the past? This is surprisingly difficult to get a handle on. The problem is that my readers are all such potty mouths. According to Google, there have been 6,330 F-bombs on this blog since its move to Mother Jones, but as near as I can tell, 6,314 of them have been from commenters. Still, that leaves 16 for me. Let’s tot them up.

It turns out that David is right: I’ve already set a new personal best this year. At my current rate I’ll double my previous most obscene year (2010). The deeply researched chart on the right tells the tale, and as a personal favor to Swami Bhut Jolokia, I’ve even labeled the y-axis.

In my defense, I should point out that this total represents only about 0.15 percent of my blog posts, an average of just a bit over two per year. Not bad! What’s more, many of those were quotes of illustrious public servants like Dick Cheney. Still, I admit that if it were solely up to me these numbers would be far higher. However, (a) I know that casual F-bombs can put people off, and (b) my mother reads this blog. So I try to stay family-friendly most of the time.

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Are the F-Bombs Getting Worse Here at Mother Jones? An Exclusive Investigation.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 4 September 2015

by CarmonKTRqhvjz Posted on September 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Like Hillary Clinton, we’ve been watching a lot of HGTV lately. This has inspired Marian to create a long list of renovation projects she’d like to do. It’s inspired me to wonder if literally everyone in the world wants an open-concept floor plan these days.

And one other thing: It’s also made it clear that most interior designers on TV are dog people. How do I know? Because they seem to be very fond of rectangular sinks in bathrooms. However, as we more refined types know, this is entirely unacceptable. Ovals fit the requirements of a properly outfitted household much better.

BONUS FEATURE IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The prefecture of Hiroshima, in the cat-crazy country of Japan, has created the first cat’s-eye version of Google Street View. Check it out.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 4 September 2015

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