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Did Jeb Bush Call for a Cyber War Against China?

by DaisyNewsom Posted on September 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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In between all the theatrics and back-and-forth of the second GOP presidential debate—Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina facing off about his derogatory comment regarding her looks, Ben Carson declining to high-five Trump, Rand Paul calling Trump a junior high school bully—something interesting happened that few seemed to notice: Jeb Bush called for launching a cyber attack against China.

In the middle of the lengthy debate, CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Paul, the senator from Kentucky, if he agreed with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s demand that President Barack Obama cancel the state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping because of China’s currency manipulation and its alleged cyber assaults against the United States. Paul replied, “I don’t think we need to be rash, I don’t think we need to be reckless, and I think need to leave lines of communication open.” Walker stuck to his stance: “When it comes to China, why would we be giving an official state visit to a country that’s been involved in a massive cyber attack against the United States?”

Tapper then turned to Bush, the former governor of Florida, and asked, “Your father was the chief diplomatic envoy to China back when Nixon opened relations to China. Is Scott Walker’s approach the right one, canceling the state dinner?” Here’s what Bush said:

No, I don’t think so, but we need to be strong against China. We should use offensive tactics as it relates to cyber security, send a deterrent signal to China. There should be super sanctions in what President Obama has proposed. There’s many other tools that we have without canceling a dinner. That’s not going to change anything, but we can be much stronger as it relates to that. Emphasis added.

Offensive tactics—what does that mean? I asked a cybersecurity expert, who wishes not to be named, and this person noted that this terminology would generally imply cyber attacks aimed at knocking out Chinese networks and information systems. And Ralph Echemendia, a cybersecurity expert who goes by the handle the Ethical Hacker, said in an email that “to use the word offensive implies to attack the Chinese government.”

Echemendia added,

There is a fine line between the use of technology for intelligence gathering to make a strategic move and actually making a move. Without ‘legitimate’ proof of attacks by the Chinese, offensive actions could be considered by many as an offensive action on our part. State-sponsored cyber warfare has and will continue. However due to the nature of the digital domain, having proper proof of an attack’s source can be tricky. Misinformation is very simple to spread and even a teenager with some skills can create a geopolitical situation. Political leaders barely understand how to use their email, much less do they understand the issues surrounding the use of digital weaponry.

US spy agencies have mounted offensive cyber operations—secretly. Public knowledge of what this has entailed is extremely limited. But Bush appeared to be openly calling for a cyber blast on China to deter Beijing. (The unnamed cybersecurity expert quoted above notes, “There’s no reason that we need to respond to cyber with cyber. We could always respond in another way of our choosing.”) This was a bold—high-energy?—recommendation. Yet it drew no comment at the debate and not much afterward. And a Bush campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

At the GOP debates, Trump is usually the contender talking tough about China. But with this remark, Bush out-hawked Trump. Yet he did so in a sideways manner not likely to win him points from GOP voters. The Chinese, though, probably took heed.

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Did Jeb Bush Call for a Cyber War Against China?

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Who Won the Fiction Sweepstakes in Last Night’s Debate?

by HFVLisette Posted on September 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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I just took a quick survey of all the various fact checks of last night’s debate and totted them up. The following list includes only items that I judged (a) fairly important and (b) pretty clearly wrong or misleading, which means I left out several close calls. Here they are:

Trump says Wisconsin is $2.2 billion in the hole
Trump denied lobbying Bush for casino gambling in Florida
Trump says he never went bankrupt
Trump says vaccines lead to autism
Trump says illegal immigration costs us $200 billion per year
Trump says Mexico doesn’t have birthright citizenship
Fiorina says HP doubled its revenue under her leadership
Fiorina says sting video showed baby “with its heart beating, its legs kicking”
Fiorina says Obama did nothing on immigration reform
Christie says Social Security will be insolvent in “seven or eight years”
Christie says he supported medical marijuana
Cruz says Planned Parenthood sells fetal body parts for profit
Cruz says Iran gets to inspect itself
Paul says vaccines lead to autism
Huckabee says Hillary Clinton is under investigation by the FBI
Carson says a better fence was responsible for cutting illegal immigration in the Yuma sector

So the final score is: Trump 6, Fiorina 3, Christie 2, Cruz 2, Paul 1, Huckabee 1, and Carson 1.

Apparently Bush, Rubio, Walker, and Kasich didn’t say a single thing that was badly wrong. Good for them.

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Who Won the Fiction Sweepstakes in Last Night’s Debate?

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Here’s What the GOP Candidates Had to Say About Reproductive Rights at the Debate

by RenaR37tqbryn Posted on September 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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The moderators of CNN’s Wednesday night debate didn’t finish their first round of questions for the Republican presidential contenders before talk turned to Planned Parenthood. State after state investigating the explosive but doctored sting videos accusing Planned Parenthood of selling fetal organs has found the allegations—such sales would be illegal—to be false. But that hasn’t stopped the 11 top-ranked GOP candidates from skewering the organization and promising to strip its federal funding. Here’s what they said:

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — CNN corespondent Dana Bash asked Cruz if his determination to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood was deadly to the Republican ticket for president. “These Planned Parenthood videos are horrifying,” Cruz said. “Planned Parenthood also essentially confesses to multiple felonies…Absolutely we shouldn’t be sending $500 million of taxpayer money to funding an ongoing criminal enterprise, and I’ll tell you, the fact that Republican leadership in both houses has begun this discussion by preemptively surrendering to Barack Obama and saying, ‘We’ll give in because Obama threatens a veto.’ We need to stop surrendering and start standing for our principles.”

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio — Bash asked the governor if he supported Cruz’s strategy to defund Planned Parenthood. “I agree that we should defund Planned Parenthood,” he said. “And in my state, we’re trying to figure out how to get it done.” At the same time, he said, he opposed shutting down the government. “The president of the United States is not going to sign this, and all we’re going to do is shut the government down, and then we’re going to open it up, and the American people are going to shake their heads and say, ‘What’s the story with these Republicans?'”

Read more about how Scott Walker and Chris Christie became part of the 30-year fight to defund Planned Parenthood.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey — “I’ve vetoed Planned Parenthood funding, now, eight times in New Jersey,” Christie said. “Since the day I walked in as governor, Planned Parenthood has not been funded in New Jersey.”

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina — The former tech CEO made the night’s oddest remark about Planned Parenthood: “I would like to link these two issues, both of which are incredibly important: Iran and Planned Parenthood.” Without strictly linking them, she continued, “As regards to Planned Parenthood, I dare Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain'”—a moment that does not actually appear in the videos.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin — As CNN’s Jake Tapper tried to redirect the conversation away from abortion, Walker interrupted him. “I, like so many other governors here, defunded Planned Parenthood, four and a half years ago, in a blue state,” Walker said. “But I think the bigger issue here is we should be able to do this nationally, and this is precisely why so many Republicans are upset with Washington.”

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida — Bash asked Bush to discuss his remark that he was “not sure we need a half billion for women’s health issues”—which Bush called a misstatement. “I’m the most pro-life governor on this stage,” Bush said. “Life is a gift from God. And from beginning to end we need to respect it and err on the side of life. And so I defunded Planned Parenthood. We were the only state to fund crisis pregnancy centers with state monies. We were totally focused on this. And I would bring that kind of philosophy to Washington, DC.”

“There are 13,000 community-based organizations that provide health services to women, 13,000 in this country,” Bush said, repeating a popular conservative myth that other groups could step up to replace Planned Parenthood. “I don’t believe that Planned Parenthood should get a penny from the federal government.”

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Here’s What the GOP Candidates Had to Say About Reproductive Rights at the Debate

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How Top GOP Donors Got Jeb Bush to Facilitate a Hurricane Katrina Cruise-Ship Boondoggle

by Myrna Posted on August 28, 2015

A quarter billion dollars later, the ships sat half empty. Then Florida Gov. Jeb Bush visits the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center the Friday after Hurricane Katrina passed through in August, 2005. Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post/ZUMA Trailing Donald Trump in the polls by a widening margin, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is trying to use the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday to highlight his successes in crisis response. On Tuesday, his presidential campaign released a two-minute ad promoting Bush’s handling of hurricanes as governor. Bush has been widely praised for his response to Katrina, in contrast with the criticism his brother, George W. Bush, faced as president in addressing the disaster. But one thing Jeb Bush is not likely to mention on the anniversary is how he helped Carnival Cruise Lines—via a major GOP donor—land a quarter-billion-dollar federal contract to house people displaced by the hurricane. The fast-tracked contract sent $236 million to the Florida-based cruise company, but the ships sat half empty for weeks, according to the Associated Press, which wrote in 2006 that the deal “has been criticized by lawmakers of both parties as a prime example of wasted spending in Hurricane Katrina-related contracts.” Read the rest at Mother Jones. Original link –  How Top GOP Donors Got Jeb Bush to Facilitate a Hurricane Katrina Cruise-Ship Boondoggle ; ; ;

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How Top GOP Donors Got Jeb Bush to Facilitate a Hurricane Katrina Cruise-Ship Boondoggle

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Your Meat-Eating Habit Is Killing More Than Just Cows

by IsabellAlmeida Posted on August 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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The earth is in the middle of its sixth mass extinction, and die-offs are happening more quickly than ever before. In a little over a century, the world has said goodbye to more than 400 species—and many biologists believe this is just the beginning. Scientists predict that in the next 35 years, as many as 37 percent of the world’s species could go extinct, if current trends continue.

While we know that climate change is a major culprit in the loss of biodiversity, some researchers now believe burgers might also be to blame. In a new report, a team from Florida International University cited the land degradation, pollution, and deforestation caused by rising global demand for meat as “likely the leading cause of modern species extinctions,” and the problem is only expected to get worse.

“It’s a colossally important paper,” Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at Bard College in Annandale-On-Hudson, New York, who studies how human diets affect the environment, told Science Magazine:

Researchers have struggled to determine the full impacts of meat consumption on biodiversity, Eshel says. “Now we can say, only slightly fancifully: You eat a steak, you kill a lemur in Madagascar. You eat a chicken, you kill an Amazonian parrot.”

Meat consumption has increased globally by 24 percent since the 1960s, mostly fueled by high demand from wealthy countries like the United States. Each year the number of livestock—specifically cattle, sheep, goats, and buffalo—increases by 25 million, requiring more space for both housing and feed production. Cattle, which require vast amounts of feed and produce the potent greenhouse gas methane, are expected to grow in number by more than 1 billion by 2050.

The world’s “biodiveristy hotspots,” areas biologists have identified where many species flourish, have already been reduced by nearly 90 percent in size and are now restricted to only 2 percent of the Earth’s land surface. What’s worse is that these biodiverse areas are the places where meat production is most likely to increase in the coming years. Researchers have predicted an additional loss of as much as 50 percent of land to livestock production.

Though Americans are already eating less meat than they used to, the researchers emphasized the continued need to cut back, especially because of how much meat ends up going to waste: Thirty percent of food—or $48 billion worth—is wasted in the United States each year, pushing up demand for meat production. “To support a future with lower animal product food demands,” they write, “would drastically reduce habitat and biodiversity loss, fossil fuel energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and pollution, while providing highly nutritious diets that greatly improve human health.”

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Your Meat-Eating Habit Is Killing More Than Just Cows

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The Hillary Clinton Email Saga: Still No There There

by DannielFrantz Posted on August 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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Is Hillary Clinton starting to get into serious trouble over the personal email account she maintained as Secretary of State? Hard to say. So far there’s no evidence that she did anything wrong, just a beef between State and CIA over whether some of the emails she sent and received were classified properly at the time. That may change, but for now that’s all we’ve got.

So why is this getting so much attention? As Steve Benen points out, Clinton isn’t the first Secretary of State to use a personal email account:

Politico published this report in March: “Like Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State Colin Powell also used a personal email account during his tenure at the State Department, an aide confirmed in a statement.”….MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald added at the time: “….Powell, who served from 2001-2005, apparently did not keep a record of personal emails, unlike Clinton.”

As best as I can tell, no one ever cared about the Republican secretary of state using a personal email account. It was, to borrow a phrase, a non-story.

Jeb Bush also used a personal account when he was governor of Florida. And he held onto those emails for seven years before he finally made them public. What’s more, it’s clear that, like Clinton, he decided which emails to release and which to hold back. “Gov. Bush does not have a plan to release his personal e-mails not related to state business,” an aide said in March. That sounds awfully similar to what Clinton has said about her email archive.

I’m not trying to be faux naive here. Nobody cares about Powell because he’s not running for president. Nobody cares about Jeb Bush because….actually, I’m not sure why nobody cares about Bush. The governor of Florida doesn’t handle classified intel, but if that were the big difference then Powell would be under scrutiny too.

It may turn out at some point that Clinton did something wrong. So far, her only real sin is looking guilty—and I’ll confess I don’t understand why she’s acting that way. All it does is give Republicans ammunition and give the press corps an excuse to treat her the way they used to in the 90s. But as near as I can tell, there’s just nothing here, which is why I haven’t bothered writing about it. Aside from the obvious political motivations (for Republicans) and personal animus (among the press), is there any reason this is getting such big play? What am I missing?

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The Hillary Clinton Email Saga: Still No There There

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California Just Restored Voting Rights to 60,000 Ex-Felons

by EddyAtfxhxwqthx Posted on August 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Yesterday, about 60,000 former felony offenders in California were officially granted the right to vote. Earlier this week, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced that the state would settle litigation over laws that had barred low-level felony offenders under community supervision from voting.

In 2011, California lawmakers passed bills to reduce overcrowding in state prisons by diverting low-level felony offenders to county jails and community supervision, in which recently released prisoners are monitored by county agencies. Then-Secretary of State Debra Bowen told election officials in December 2011 to extend the state’s ban on felon enfranchisement to those offenders, noting that being under community supervision was “functionally equivalent” to parole. Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit last year to challenge Bowen’s directive.

Last May, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the offenders, noting that community supervision was different from parole and that the intention of the 2011 law “was to reintroduce felons into the community, which is consistent with restoring their right to vote.” The state appealed the ruling. Padilla’s announcement means the state will drop its appeal and issue new directives to election officials. “If we are serious about slowing the revolving door at our jails and prisons, and serious about reducing recidivism, we need to engage—not shun—former offenders,” Padilla said in prepared remarks.

Lori Shellenberger, voting rights director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s California chapter, says California’s about-face puts it at the front of the movement to restore voting rights to former convicts. “The intent of that law was to improve reentry and improve the prospects for people,” Shellenberger says. “If you’re living and working in your community, and you’re paying taxes, but you’re not given a political voice, it undermines the purpose of that sentencing.”

The state’s decision marks a significant victory for ex-felons at a time when voting rights are under scrutiny across the nation. The Sentencing Project estimates that nearly six million Americans cannot vote as a result of previous criminal convictions. And voter ineligibility disproportionately affects people of color, especially blacks; 1 in 13 African-Americans can’t cast a ballot.

Efforts are picking up to restore the vote to some felons who have done their time. In Florida, which has some of the nation’s strictest voting laws, momentum is gaining behind a ballot initiative that would grant the vote to more than 1.6 million people with past felony convictions. In March, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced a bill that would give former convicts released from all prisons the right to vote in federal elections.

Still, the path to reenfranchisement remains rough for ex-felons. In May, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed a bill that would have restored voting rights to 40,000 residents with past convictions. Last year, the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging a 2011 decision by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad to reverse a 2005 executive order that restored voting rights for all former felons. The case centers on Kelli Jo Griffin, who was charged with perjury in 2013 after registering to vote in a city election. Earlier that year, Griffin completed a five-year probation for a minor drug offense. She was later acquitted of perjury. Currently, to regain the right to vote in Iowa, ex-felons now must undergo a comprehensive process that includes an application, a criminal background check, and providing proof of paid fines. Of the 14,350 former offenders who have applied for restoration of voter rights since Branstad’s order, just 40 have regained eligibility.

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California Just Restored Voting Rights to 60,000 Ex-Felons

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Jeb Bush: "I’m Not Sure We Need Half a Billion Dollars" for Women’s Health

by gammak Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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When he was governor of Florida, Jeb Bush vetoed state funding for Planned Parenthood. He thinks the next president should do the same—at the federal level.

That’s what Bush said Tuesday at the Send North America conference, one of America’s largest evangelical gatherings. He wasn’t done talking about women’s health care, though:

You could take dollar for dollar—although I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars—for women’s health issues, but if you took dollar for dollar, there are many extraordinarily fine community health organizations that exist to provide quality care for women on a wide variety of health issues. But abortion should not be funded by the government.

Reminder: This is what happens when Planned Parenthood is defunded.

UPDATE, Tuesday, August 4, 3:30 p.m. PT (Becca Andrews): Bush later issued a statement that he “misspoke.” It reads: “There are countless community health centers, rural clinics, and other women’s health organizations that need to be fully funded. They provide critical services to all, but particularly low-income women who don’t have the access they need.” He goes on to say that the “half a billion dollars” line only referred to Planned Parenthood.

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Jeb Bush: "I’m Not Sure We Need Half a Billion Dollars" for Women’s Health

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Donald Trump Was Totally Right to Skip the Big Candidate Forum in New Hampshire

by AngeliaRivenbur Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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So this is what it looks like when Donald Trump stays home. The businessman and board game magnate, who is currently leading the Republican presidential field by a mile, skipped the first full candidate forum of the 2016 presidential race on Monday in New Hampshire. His official reason: the host newspaper, New Hampshire’s Union-Leader, had already signaled that it wasn’t interested in endorsing his campaign. But maybe he had an inkling of what we know for certain now—14 candidates racing against the clock to recite canned talking points makes for a total snoozefest.

The moderator, Jack Heath, deliberately steered clear of any Trump-related questions, which is a shame, because Trump, even in absentia, might have have at least forced the candidates to talk about something besides themselves. As it was, Monday’s forum, the first of three such Q&A sessions in early primary states and a dress rehearsal of sorts for the first GOP debate on Thursday, was like freshman orientation in a class of introverts. The candidates were provided the most generic of icebreaker questions (Carly Fiorina was asked for an example of a time she showed leadership), which they promptly segued away from, and pivoted to the boilerplate speeches they’ve already been delivering in Iowa and New Hampshire for months. Because it was a forum, not a debate, the candidates weren’t allowed to interact with each other. Save for Scott Walker noting that no one in his family had been president before, none of them even tried. In a rare moment of drama, the C-SPAN cameras caught Chris Christie with a finger (his) wiggling in his ear.

But there were still a handful of highlights:

Four years after famously forgetting the third federal agency he intended to eliminate, former Texas governor Rick Perry was offered a shot at a do-over. “I’ve heard this question before!” he said eagerly. Then he pivoted to another topic and never answered it.
Jeb Bush said the president needs to do more to combat the “barbarians” of ISIS, but perhaps wary of unpleasant comparisons to that other Bush (or both of them, really), stopped short of saying “boots on the ground” were needed in the Middle East beyond special forces Ttroops.
Fortunately, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was happy to do just that, calling on an America-Turkish-Egyptian force to bring Syria back under control. He’d tell those allies, “You’re gonna pay for this war, we paid for the last two. We are gonna pull the caliphate up by its roots.”
Graham, who could surely use the boost, also got a laugh from the audience when he suggested that the solution to Washington’s gridlock was to “drink more.”
Ben Carson announced that he would reform the tax code by consulting with “the fairest individual in the universe—that would be God.” The result, he explained, would be a base tax rate of around 10 to 15 percent, similar to a church tithe. But an hour later, he informed the audience that taking more than 10 percent of a billionaire’s income is “called socialism.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said President Obama has “declared war on trans-fats and a ceasefire with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” (That would be Iran.) His first act as president: hold a huge meeting with the Joint Chiefs to announce that America “is back.”
Much has been made of the Republican party’s recent shift toward criminal justice reform, which includes lighter sentencing for many drug crimes. But Florida Sen. Marco Rubio offered a snapshot on how elements of the party might push back. Seizing on northern New England’s heroin epidemic, he reprised an argument that any legalization of marijuana except for strictly medicinal uses would only contribute to drug abuse. Expect this to come up again at a later date, when candidates are allowed to talk to each other.
How will the next president’s policies on climate change be affected by the White House’s big new plan to fight global warming? We still have no idea, because only one candidate was asked about the proposal, and then only in passing. For the record, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says it will be a “buzzsaw to the nation’s economy.”

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Donald Trump Was Totally Right to Skip the Big Candidate Forum in New Hampshire

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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

by YolandaFoust Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama just unveiled the final version of rules that crack down on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants—the most significant contributor to global warming in the United States. “Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore,” Obama said in a video released on Sunday. But not everyone agrees. Here’s what some of the leading 2016 presidential candidates think of Obama’s Clean Power Plan:

Marco Rubio

On Sunday, at an event hosted by the Koch Brothers, the Florida senator slammed the plan. “So if there’s some billionaire somewhere who is a pro-environmental, cap and trade person, yeah, they can probably afford for their electric bill to go up a couple of hundred dollars,” Rubio said, according to The Huffington Post. “But if you’re a single mom in Tampa, Florida, and your electric bill goes up by thirty dollars a month, that is catastrophic.” Experts disagree with Rubio’s suggestion that the new rules will be costly for ratepayers. As Tim McDonnell explains, “even though electric rates will probably go up, monthly electric bills are likely to go down, thanks to efficiency improvements.”

Jeb Bush

The former Florida governor released an official statement, calling the plan “overreaching” and “irresponsible.” Bush argued that the new rules would raise energy prices while also trampling on the powers of state governments. Bush went so far as to say that the plan would “hollow out our economy” for the sake of addressing climate change.

Mike Huckabee

The former Arkansas governor has been adamant about his opposition to the Clean Power Plan, saying that it would “bankrupt families.” On Monday he doubled down on his opposition to the plan, characterizing it as the president’s “carbon crusade”:

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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

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