Tag Archives: friday

Republicans Are Trying to Block Syrian Refugees Yet Again

by SGGGordon421 Posted on January 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Republican politicians have restarted their push to stop Syrian refugees from entering the United States after the FBI announced on Thursday that it had arrested two Iraqi refugees on charges of providing material support to ISIS.

“The arrests of these men present a stark warning about the deficiencies of our programs for accepting refugees from Iraq and Syria,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Friday. “Continuing these programs in their current form poses unacceptable risks to our national security that are growing more acute by the day.”

The House passed a bill called the American SAFE Act in November after the terrorist attacks in Paris stoked fears that terrorists were trying to infiltrate the United States by posing as refugees. The legislation would temporarily halt all Syrian refugee resettlement, and within the current refugee vetting process it would require the FBI director, the Homeland Security secretary, and the director of national intelligence to all personally sign off that each admitted Syrian posed no security risk.

The SAFE Act passed the House with a veto-proof majority but stood little chance of making it through the Senate. Now House Republicans are using Thursday’s announcement of terrorism arrests to pressure the Senate to take it up. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the House Homeland Security Committee chairman and a co-sponsor of the SAFE Act, demanded on Friday that the Senate pass the bill as well. “We cannot delay while more potential jihadists slip through the cracks,” he said in a statement. “Terrorist groups like ISIS have vowed to use these programs to infiltrate the West, and now it is clearer than ever that we should take them at their word.”

Critics of the legislation, including President Barack Obama, the Democratic congressional leadership, and refugee resettlement groups, have called the SAFE Act an unnecessary addition to an already lengthy and secure vetting process—and one that would make refugee admissions all but impossible. The White House and refugee groups argued in November that Syrians undergo the most thorough screening of anyone who enters the United States. “These are not just random people showing up who we don’t know who they are,” said Matthew Soerens, who works on refugee resettlement for World Relief, one of the nine groups that helps place refugees in the United States. “These are people we know all sorts of details about, who’ve been individually interviewed, vetted, before they come to the United States.”

The two terrorism suspects whose arrests were announced by the FBI are both from Iraq; one entered the United States in 2009 and the other in 2012. More than 130,000 Iraqis refugees have resettled in the United States since 2007, and administration officials have acknowledged that the vetting of Iraqi refugees was not as strong as the current system. FBI director James Comey told the House Judiciary Committee in October that Iraqis had undergone “less-then-excellent vetting,” but said that the government has “improved dramatically our ability as an interagency—all parts of the US government—to query and check people.” Senior administration officials who work on refugee resettlement echoed that statement during a conference call with reporters in November. “I would say that with the Syrian program, we’ve benefited from our years of experience in vetting Iraqi refugee applicants,” said one official. “The partnerships we have today and the security checks we have today really are more robust.”

Speaking to reporters on Friday, McCaul said the administration must put in place a “proper vetting system” before more Syrians are admitted to the United States, but he did not provide details on what steps would be required to fix the current system. McCaul’s office could not immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones about what a sufficient vetting process would entail.

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Republicans Are Trying to Block Syrian Refugees Yet Again

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Obama Is Setting Free 95 Nonviolent Drug Offenders—Including 2 Pot Lifers

by Kali73Ukpvrtfio Posted on December 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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Marine veteran William “Billy” Ervin Dekle, 66, used to fly planeloads of weed into South Florida in the 1970s and ’80s in his single-prop airplane. Charlie Cundiff, now approaching 70, had two minor priors for growing and possessing marijuana before he got caught up in a pot sting in Tallahassee in 1991. Both men have been behind bars since the early 1990s after getting life sentences for conspiracy to distribute a substance that’s now legal in some form in 23 states and Washington, DC.

On Friday, Dekle and Cundiff were among the 95 nonviolent drug offenders granted clemency by the Obama administration as part of its efforts to reduce the federal inmate population and give relief to those sentenced under the war on drugs. Today’s commutations are more than twice as many as he announced last March, which were the most granted at a single time since Lyndon B. Johnson.

As Mother Jones has reported, at least 69 people have been sentenced to life without parole for marijuana crimes, sometimes with charges as insignificant as serving as go-betweens in the sale of minor quantities of marijuana to undercover police officers—as in the case of Fate Vincent Winslow, a homeless man who provided two $10 bags of weed in exchange for a $5 commission he intended to use to get something to eat.

While today’s announcements are a step in the right direction for the administration’s intention to reduce harsh sentences for drug offenders, it’s a far cry from the 10,000 prisoners who former Attorney General Eric Holder said “were potentially going to be released” under the new clemency initiative announced in 2011. For Winslow, the dozens of other pot lifers, the 95,000 federal drug offenders, and the more than 35,000 inmates who have applied for clemency relief, today’s news will be met with disappointment.

“For an activist like me who works with marijuana lifers and who has been working directly with these two men, the news does not get much better than this,” says Cheri Sicard, former vice president of the CAN-DO Foundation, an advocacy group for nonviolent drug offenders. “At the same time, I am deeply disappointed for the many marijuana lifers left behind. I am in regular contact with them and their families, and I know the anticipation that comes with waiting for the clemency announcements, as well as the subsequent devastating blow it is to not see their names on the list.”

Today’s announcement brings Obama’s clemency total to 91 pardons and 159 commutations. To put those numbers in perspective, federal prisons hold approximately 200,000 people. “We take President Obama at his word that there is no ceiling on the number of commutations he will grant before leaving office,” said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, in a statement Friday. “And so while we are grateful for every single commutation, there are many hundreds more who deserve relief. We urge the President to confound the skeptics by making 2016 an historic year for clemency grants.”

Dekle and Cundiff will first be sent to lower-security prisons and then to halfway houses to begin their transitions before being released from Federal Bureau of Prisons custody. The process is expected to take four months. Meanwhile, as the Washington Post reported this morning, lawmakers in Congress are debating several bills aimed at changing sentencing laws.

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Obama Is Setting Free 95 Nonviolent Drug Offenders—Including 2 Pot Lifers

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Texas Sues to Block Syrian Refugees

by FlorrieMacdonel Posted on December 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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A lawsuit filed by the state of Texas on Wednesday has prompted yet another legal and logistical stalemate over attempts to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission sued the federal government and the International Rescue Committee, a human rights group that helps resettle refugees in the United States, over the IRC’s plans to relocate a family of six Syrians to Dallas on Friday. Texas has taken in 243 Syrian refugees since the start of 2011—more than any other state but California—but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, was one of 31 governors who said taking in Syrians would pose a safety risk following the terrorist attacks in Paris.

“The point of this lawsuit is not about specific refugees,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement. “It is about protecting Texans by ensuring that the federal government fulfills its obligation to properly vet the refugees and cooperate and consult with the state.”

Other states, most notably Indiana, have threatened to pull funding from refugee resettlement groups that place Syrians in their states. But the Texas lawsuit is the first legal action taken by any state attempting to bar Syrians. The state’s court filing quotes the Refugee Act of 1980, which says that “in providing refugee assistance…local voluntary agency activities should be conducted in close cooperation and advance consultation with State and local governments.” Paxton claimed on Wednesday that resettlement groups and the federal government had not conducted such consultations, and the Health and Human Services Commission has suggested that the government of Texas has a right to reject any refugees it does not approve.

Resettlement groups say Texas’ arguments are false. The IRC did not respond to requests for comment, but other resettlement organizations have told Mother Jones that routine consultations with state governments do take place. “We are contractually mandated to do community consultations in every location where we do resettlement before our numbers get approved for any given year,” says Erol Kekic, the director of the Immigration and Refugee Program at Church World Service, a national resettlement agency. “That includes talking to elected officials, that includes talking to law enforcement, school systems, health systems, etc.”

The groups also contend that states still cannot unilaterally demand that resettlements stop. “The Refugee Act of 1980 does not give the state any kind of veto power,” says Lavinia Limón, president and CEO of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. “They don’t have any authority. It’s a consultative process.”

What will happen with the six refugees on Friday is unclear. The Dallas Morning News reported that the family due to arrive on Friday is related to refugees who arrived in the area in February, and resettlement groups have previously told Mother Jones that they would not change resettlement plans for refugees who have existing family connections in a specific area. But neither the IRC nor Texas Refugee Services, a local resettlement group, responded to requests for comment, and Bryan Black of the Texas HHSC said his agency does not know if the family will arrive in Texas.

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Texas Sues to Block Syrian Refugees

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Instead of buying something this Friday, fix something

by ThorstenHardiman Posted on November 25, 2015

Instead of buying something this Friday, fix something

By on 25 Nov 2015commentsShare

If you’re looking for something to do this Black Friday that’s doesn’t involve draining your bank account directly into the pockets of giant corporations, then consider this: Your home is probably already full of half-broken junk. So why not just fix some of that, rather than spring for a bunch of brand-new, soon-to-be-half-broken junk?

I know, I know — that doesn’t sound nearly as much fun as strapping on the old IV drip of consumerist Kool-Aid and getting lost in the aisles of Walmart, but stick with me. I promise that this alternate route leads to pizza, whiskey, and the beautiful but increasingly elusive feeling of self-reliance. It also leads to socially and environmentally responsible consumerism, but in the battle against shameless indulgence, it’s probably best to focus on the pizza and whiskey.

Our journey begins with Jason Koebler, a reporter with Motherboard who took a deep dive into the DIY repair community — and those trying to sabotage it — after accidentally busting the screen on his own Apple laptop. You can read all about Koebler’s long road from a loose pentalobe screw to the Electronics Reuse Conference here, but if you’re anxious to get back to those Black Friday deals on Amazon, here are some highlights. First, what’s a pentalobe screw?

The iPhone 4 shipped with standard, Phillips head screws. Sometime in late 2010, however, the company began ordering its Apple Store Geniuses to replace standard screws with pentalobe ones on any iPhone 4 devices that were brought in for repair. Reuters reported on January 20, 2011 that employees were instructed to not tell customers that they had made the switch. The switch should have, in theory, made it impossible for anyone except for Apple to open the device.

Koebler was lucky, then, that when he knocked over his laptop, one of those screws just happened to come loose. Fortunately for the rest of us, the well-known DIY repair company iFixit also countered the pentalobe move with an “iPhone Liberation Kit,” complete with a homemade pentalobe screwdriver. “That was the first screwdriver in the world outside of Apple that would remove the pentalobe screw,” Kevin Wiens, CEO of iFixit, told Koebler. “Apple was literally screwing their customers, and because we had a heads up, we were able to sell a screwdriver as soon as it came to the United States.”

But as Koebler discovered, Apple isn’t alone in trying to prevent consumers from repairing their own property. Plenty of companies are now using copyright laws to prevent third party repair shops from stepping on their business. Here’s more from Koebler:

Last year, Customs and Border Patrol seized $162 million worth of consumer electronics in 6,612 separate raids as part of a program called “Operation Chain Reaction” that 16 separate government agencies are involved in. Spend some time searching the internet, and you’ll find forum posts written by people who say their businesses or livelihoods were destroyed because of a CBP seizure.

“We got really scared, legitimately. We pulled all our parts out of our stores and we kept them at my house,” Ivan Mladenovic, who runs two TechBar repair shops in South Florida, told me about the months following the federal raids in Miami. “We would shuttle parts to the store 2-3 at a time. I’m under the impression that the business of repairing iPhones could just go away one day. Apple could vanish an industry if it really wants to go after us.”

Still, the DIY repair community is fighting back. Koebler found himself at the heart of that community earlier this month at the Electronics Reuse Conference in New Orleans, where he met some pretty badass DIY-ers like this:

Jessa Jones, a former microbiologist-turned iPad repairwoman, is widely considered in the profession to be among the best repair professionals in the world. In between taking care of her four kids as a stay-at-home mother, she spends her days casually recovering priceless data from water-damaged iPads that would no one else would ever bother touching, or fixing short circuits that cause the iPad LCD backlight to burn out. She’s so good that, if she can’t fix a device, she doesn’t charge her customers.

Of course, fixing one’s own electronics is about more than self-reliance and sticking it to the man. It’s also about the massive e-waste problem piling up in the developing world. Wiens of iFixit is highly aware of this problem and has even visited some of these places to see for himself how bad it is. This epidemic is partly why iFixit deals not only in Apple devices, but in all kinds of products, including Xbox 360s, DSLR cameras, washing machines, alarm clocks, and even Patagonia shirts.

Now, if you’re still not convinced that fixing your old junk is a good idea, then I did promise you pizza and whiskey, so here’s a look at what Koebler, Jones, and Wiens got up to after the Electronics Reuse Conference:

iPhone and iPad parts littered the floor and table. Someone was showing off the custom back they had made for their phone. Jessa Jones was fixing iPad backlights and teaching others what each little electrical component does. Wiens and his staff were talking about sci fi books and discussing what toppings of pizza to order and were geeking out over their most recent repairs. Several separate beer runs were made.

At one point, Wiens poured himself a room-temperature whiskey. He grabbed a pressurized can of freeze spray—used to find hot chips on broken logic boards—stuck it into his whiskey, and sprayed. It splashed all over the place, but the drink was colder.

Source:

How to Fix Everything

, Motherboard.

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Instead of buying something this Friday, fix something

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France Goes to War on Civil Liberties

by DrusillJnb Posted on November 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, many in France have said they finally understand what things were like for Americans just after September 11, 2001. The attacks have emboldened France’s conservatives, and pushed liberal and moderate factions rightward. On Friday, the French parliament voted to extend a nationwide state of emergency for another three months, granting authorities broad powers to limit civil liberties in the name of combating terrorism. The French public overwhelmingly supports the move.

The rise of a police state in France may come as a surprise to Americans old enough to remember when France stood out as Europe’s greatest critic of President George W. Bush’s War on Terror—a spat that peaked in 2003 when, in response to French opposition to the invasion of Iraq, the House of Representatives cafeteria rebranded its French fries “Freedom Fries.”

Nowadays, of course, just about everyone looks with disfavor on that war, which is credited with giving ISIS a foothold. Though France bombed targets in Syria on November 15, it has so far stopped short of sending in ground troops against ISIS. And, while it’s too early to tell, there’s no evidence its intelligence services are abducting or torturing terror suspects.

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France Goes to War on Civil Liberties

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Two Dead and Seven Arrested in Raid Targeting Paris Attacks "Mastermind"

by CareyKopp1618 Posted on November 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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Update, 12:56 p.m. EST: Big questions remain concerning the identities of those killed and arrested in the early morning raid carried out in St. Denis. The Washington Post reports Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected “mastermind” behind last Friday’s attacks on Paris, is dead. However, France’s chief prosecutor said in a press conference the identity of those killed and arrested could still not verified.

Previously:

Two terror suspects, including one female suicide bomber who detonated herself using an explosive vest, were killed in an early morning raid in the northern Paris suburb of St-Denis on Wednesday. Seven people were also arrested in the seven-hour standoff.

The raid was targeting Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian-born terror suspect believed to be the “mastermind” behind the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday. Authorities have yet to determine the identities of the terror suspects arrested and killed in Wednesday’s raid.

According to some reports, the woman who blew herself up may have been Abaaoud’s cousin.

A heavy police presence remains in the city. The Guardian reports residents have been told to stay inside and roads have been blocked off.

Speaking to mayors around the country on Wednesday morning, French President Francois Hollande pointed to the violent raid as a sign the country was at “war with ISIS.” He also reaffirmed France’s commitment to taking in 30,000 refugees, despite fears that terrorists may try to enter Europe with the flow of migrants.

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Two Dead and Seven Arrested in Raid Targeting Paris Attacks "Mastermind"

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John Oliver Unleashes Profanity-Laced Rant on Paris Attackers: "Fuck These Assholes"

by Shavonn02T Posted on November 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Following the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, John Oliver began his show on Sunday by unleashing an impassioned, profanity-laced condemnation on the attackers responsible for the deadly siege.

“It’s hardly been 48 hours and much is unknown, but there are a few things we can say for certain,” Oliver started off. “And this is when it actually helps to be on HBO, where those things can be said without restraint, because after the many necessary and appropriate moments of silence, I’d like to offer you a moment of premium-cable profanity.”

“First as of now, we know this attack was carried out by gigantic fucking assholes, unconscionable flaming assholes, possibly working with other fucking assholes, definitely working in service of an ideology of pure assholery,” he said. “Second, and this goes almost without saying: Fuck these assholes.

“And third: It is important to remember, nothing about what these assholes are trying to do is going to work. France is going to endure.”

The Last Week Tonight host continued to offer a message of hope for France, vowing terrorism will never succeed in the face of freedom.

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John Oliver Unleashes Profanity-Laced Rant on Paris Attackers: "Fuck These Assholes"

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Watch Thousands of Parisians Respond to the Terrorist Attacks in the Best Way Possible

by Felixct7yh Posted on November 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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As Paris’ “night of terror” unfolded, thousands of soccer fans were ordered to evacuate the Stade de France, where France was playing Germany—and near where at least one explosion had erupted.

A video posted to Facebook shows these soccer fans joining in unison to sing the French national anthem. Some could be seen waving the French flag, as the exiting crowd cheered in defiance of the tragic attacks still taking place throughout the city.

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Dans un tunnel de sortie du Stade de France, sortie dans le calme…. Et la Marseillaise. #fier

Posted by

Karl Olive on Friday, November 13, 2015

(h/t Mashable)

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Watch Thousands of Parisians Respond to the Terrorist Attacks in the Best Way Possible

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Tyrant Obama Issues Rule Creating Death Panels, No One Cares

by MarquitPFR Posted on November 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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This happened last Friday and I completely missed it:

Six years after legislation to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a furor over “death panels,” the Obama administration issued a final rule on Friday that authorizes Medicare to pay doctors for consultations with patients on how they would like to be cared for as they are dying.

The administration proposed the payments in July, touching off none of the rancor that first accompanied the idea during debate on the Affordable Care Act in 2009….“We received overwhelmingly positive comments about the importance of these conversations between physicians and patients,” Dr. Conway said. “We know that many patients and families want to have these discussions.”

Huh. It turns out that Republicans never really had any problem with this at all.1 I guess that whole “death panel” thing was just a big misunderstanding. The Wall Street Journal explains what happened:

Since 2010, legislation that would allow reimbursements to physicians for advance planning discussions has gained bipartisan support….The climate has changed in part because of lobbying and education campaigns by medical groups.

Yeah, that must be it. I’m glad we got that straightened out.

1Except for Sarah Palin, of course, who offered her familiar common-sense take: “Government needs to stay the hell out of our ‘end-of-life’ discussions,” she said in a long, um, commentary on Facebook. “I’m so angry at democrat and republican politicians who just rolled their eyes when I, and many others, rose up with warnings that each step forward taken by champions of this socialist program would jerk back two steps from every free American and our God-given rights.” Etc.

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Tyrant Obama Issues Rule Creating Death Panels, No One Cares

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The State Deptartment Just Released an Email Showing How Hillary Clinton Learned to Use Emoji—and It’s Awwwww

by Christen6100 Posted on October 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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The State Department published more Hillary Clinton emails Friday afternoon from her time as secretary of state, adding an additional 7,000 pages to the public record, and marking the halfway point in the department’s release plan, according to ABC News.

Paige Lavender, senior politics editor at the Huffington Post, tweeted this genuinely adorable gem from the new collection, featuring an exchange between “H” and her senior adviser Phillipe Reines:

🙂 🙂 🙂

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The State Deptartment Just Released an Email Showing How Hillary Clinton Learned to Use Emoji—and It’s Awwwww

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