Tag Archives: georgia

Disturbing New Evidence About What Common Pesticides Can Do to Brains

by AdriannHaggard Posted on April 13, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

For defense against the fungal pathogens that attack crops—think the blight that bedeviled Irish potato fields in the 19th century—farmers turn to fungicides. They’re widely sprayed on fruit, vegetable, and nut crops, and in the past decade, they’ve become quite common in the corn and soybean fields (see here and here for more). But as the use of fungicides has ramped up in recent years, some scientists are starting to wonder: What are these chemicals doing to the ecosystems they touch, and to us?

A new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications adds to a disturbing body of evidence that fungicides might be doing more than just killing fungi. For the study, a team of University of North Carolina Neuroscience Center researchers led by Mark Zylka subjected mouse cortical neuron cultures—which are similar in cellular and molecular terms to the the human brain—to 294 chemicals “commonly found in the environment and on food.” The idea was to see whether any of them triggered changes that mimicked patterns found in brain samples from people with autism, advanced age, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Eight chemicals fit the bill, the researchers found. Of them, the two most widely used are from a relatively new class of fungicides called “quinone outside inhibitors,” which have surged in use since being introduced in US farm fields in the early 2000s: pyraclostrobin and trifloxystrobin.

Now, it’s important to note, Zylka told me in an interview, that in vitro research like the kind his team conducted for this study is only the first step in determining whether a chemical poses risk to people. The project identified chemicals that can cause harm to brain cells in a lab setting, but it did not establish that they harm human brains as they’re currently used. Nailing that down will involve careful epidemiological studies, Zylka said: Scientists will have to track populations that have been exposed to the chemicals—say farm workers—to see if they show a heightened propensity for brain disorders, and also test people who eat foods with residues of suspect chemicals to see if they show up in their bodies at significant levels.

That work remains to be done, Zylka said. “What’s most disturbing to me is that we’ve allowed these chemicals to be widely used, widely found on food and in the environment, without knowing more about their potential effects,” he said.

How widely are they used? The paper points to US Geological Survey data for pyraclostrobin, a fungicide that landed on the UNC team’s list of chemicals that trigger “changes in vitro that are similar to those seen in brain samples from humans with autism, advanced age and neurodegeneration.” It’s marketed by the German chemical giant BASF’s US unit under the brand name Headline, for use on corn, soybeans, citrus fruit, dried beans, and more. BASF calls Headline the “nation’s leading fungicide.” The USGS chart below shows just how rapidly it has become a blockbuster on US farm fields.

Use of pyraclostrobin in the United States has spiked since 2002.

Then there’s trifloxystrobin, which also made the UNC team’s list. Marketed by another German chemical giant, Bayer, trifloxystrobin, too, boasts an impressive USGS chart, reproduced below.

US Trifloxystrobin use has boomed since 1999. USGS

In an emailed statement, a BASF spokeswoman wrote that cell-tissue studies like Zylka’s “have not demonstrated relevance compared with results from studies conducted on live animals.” She added: “While the study adds to the debate of some scientific questions, it provides no evidence that the chemicals contribute to the development of some diseases of the central nervous system. This publication has no impact on the established safety of pyraclostrobin when used according to label instructions in agricultural settings.” A Bayer spokesman told me that the company’s scientists are looking into the Zylka study and “don’t have any initial feedback to offer right now.” He added that “our products are rigorously tested and their safety and efficacy is our focus.”

As Zylka’s team points out, both of these chemicals turn up on food samples in the US Department of Agriculture’s routine testing program. Pyraclostrobin residues, according to USDA data compiled by Pesticide Action Network, have been found on spinach, kale, and grapes, among others, in recent years, while trifloxystrobin has been detected on grapes, cherry tomatoes, and sweet bell peppers. Again, there hasn’t been sufficient research to establish whether these traces are causing us harm, Zylka stressed, but since they are entering out bodies through food, he thinks more research is imperative.

Meanwhile, a disturbing picture of the ecosystem impacts is emerging. These same chemicals also leave the farm via water. A 2012 US Geological Survey study found pyraclostrobin in 40 percent of streams in three farming-intensive areas. In another 2012 USGS study, researchers looked for a variety of pesticides in the bed sediments of ponds located within amphibian habitats in California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, and Oregon. Pyraclostrobin was the most often-detected chemical of all, turning up in more than 40 percent of tested sites.

Studies suggest that as the fungicides leach out into the larger environment, they’re harmful to more than just fungi. Oklahoma State researchers found BASF’s pyraclostrobin-based fungicide Headline deadly to tadpoles at levels frequently encountered in ponds. And a 2013 study by German and Swiss researchers found that frogs sprayed with Headline at the rate recommended on the label die within an hour—a stunning result for a chemical meant to kill funguses, not frogs. I wrote about the study when it came out. “These studies were performed under unrealistic laboratory conditions,” a BASF spokeswoman told me at the time. “The study design neither reflects conditions of realistic agricultural use in practice nor the natural behavior of the animals.”

Then there are honeybees. In a 2013 study, a team of USDA researchers found pyraclostrobin and several other fungicides and insecticides in the pollen of beehives placed near farm fields—and that bees fed pyraclostrobin-laced pollen were nearly three times more likely to die from common gut pathogen called Nosema ceranae than the unexposed control group (more here).

Meanwhile, the industry is enthusiastically marketing these products. “Headline fungicide helps growers control diseases and improve overall Plant Health. That means potentially higher yields, better ROI and, ultimately, better profits,” BASF”s website states. “It can help secure a family’s future, fund a college education, finance an equipment upgrade, or maybe buy just a bit more of a vacation for the whole family.” Such supposed benefits aside, I wish we knew more about the environmental and public-health costs of these increasingly ubiquitous chemicals.

Originally posted here – 

Disturbing New Evidence About What Common Pesticides Can Do to Brains

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Disturbing New Evidence About What Common Pesticides Can Do to Brains

Mississippi Poised to Pass Breathtaking Anti-LGBT Law

by PrincesWestover Posted on April 1, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The Mississippi House of Representatives passed a sweeping anti-LGBT law on Friday that will make it easier to discriminate against gender and sexual minorities in the state.

The so-called Religious Liberty Accommodations Act is meant to protect people, businesses, and organizations with “sincerely held” religious beliefs about the sanctity of traditional marriage. The bill also says gender is determined by “an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.”

The Mississippi measure comes on the heels of similar anti-LGBT bills passed in North Carolina and Georgia in March. The North Carolina law was widely regarded as the broadest anti-LGBT law in the country for requiring transgender people from to use the restroom of the sex listed on their birth certificate and striking down existing LGBT nondiscrimination statutes. Georgia’s bill was vetoed by Gov. Nathan Deal.

But the Mississippi bill is so sweeping that it may be more discriminatory than even the North Carolina statute. The Mississippi bill would essentially make it impossible to sue for gender or sexuality discrimination if the motivation for the discrimination was religion.

Here are some of the bill’s provisions:

Any organization can decline “to provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation, celebration or recognition of any marriage.”
Employers can make a “decision whether or not to hire, terminate or discipline an individual whose conduct or religious beliefs are inconsistent with those of the religious organization.”
Mississippians can deny housing based on religious beliefs.
Foster care organizations and adoption agencies can “decline to provide any adoption or foster care service” without fear of retribution.
The state can’t prosecute any person who “declines to participate in the provision of treatments, counseling, or surgeries related to sex reassignment or gender identity transitioning or declines to participate in the provision of psychological, counseling or fertility services” or any wedding- or marriage-related services.
Schools and business owners can establish “sex-specific standards or policies concerning employee or student dress or grooming, or concerning access to restrooms, spas, baths, showers, dressing rooms, locker rooms, or other intimate facilities or settings.”

During a brief debate on the bill, opponents said the bill was a step back for the state. Proponents said it would protect Mississippians from religious discrimination.

“We should not be intimidated, not buy into the April fool’s propaganda being disseminated by national media,” said Rep. Andy Gipson, an author of the bill. “This is an anti-discrimination bill.”

The bill overwhelmingly passed the House by an 85-24 vote. The Senate approved the measure once in March but will vote on it a second time next week because Democrats have asked for a procedural vote on Monday—likely as a delaying tactic.

If the state Senate approves the measure next week, it will go to Gov. Bryant’s desk for a signature. All indications are that he will sign. Earlier this week, Bryant said he doesn’t think the bill is discriminatory. “I think it gives some people as I appreciate it, the right to be able to say, ‘That’s against my religious beliefs, and I don’t need to carry out that particular task.'”

But when asked by reporters about his intentions on Friday, Bryant said he has not made up his mind yet because he still needs to “look at it” and decide.

This article has been revised.

Read the article: 

Mississippi Poised to Pass Breathtaking Anti-LGBT Law

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Oster, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Mississippi Poised to Pass Breathtaking Anti-LGBT Law

Here’s What Bernie Sanders Actually Did in the Civil Rights Movement

by WillardFriedman Posted on February 11, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Civil rights icon John Lewis told reporters that he never encountered Bernie Sanders when the Vermont senator was working with Lewis’ Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s. Because he made his remarks at a press conference announcing the Congressional Black Caucus PAC’s endorsement of Sanders’ opponent, Hillary Clinton, Lewis’ comments can be seen as a mild dig at Sanders. (In the same breath he said he had met Bill and Hillary Clinton.)

But it’s also undoubtedly true.

The Georgia congressman was a titan of the civil rights movement. A participant in the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), he went on to lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and still bears the scars he received at Selma. Sanders’ involvement was, by comparison, brief and localized, his sacrifices limited to one arrest for protesting and a bad GPA from neglecting his studies. But Sanders was, in his own right, an active participant in the movement during his three years at the University of Chicago.

Although Sanders did attend the 1963 March on Washington, at which Lewis spoke, most of his work was in and around Hyde Park, where he became involved with the campus chapter of CORE shortly after transferring from Brooklyn College in 1961. During Sanders’ first year in Chicago, a group of apartment-hunting white and black students had discovered that off-campus buildings owned by the university were refusing to rent to black students, in violation of the school’s policies. CORE organized a 15-day sit-in at the administration building, which Sanders helped lead. (James Farmer, who co-founded CORE and had been a Freedom Rider with Lewis, came to the University of Chicago that winter to praise the activists’ work.) The protest ended when George Beadle, the university’s president, agreed to form a commission to study the school’s housing policies.

Sanders was one of two students from CORE appointed to the commission, which included the neighborhood’s alderman and state representative, in addition to members of the administration. But not long afterward, Sanders blew up at the administration, accusing Beadle of reneging on his promise and refusing to answer questions from students on its integration plan. In an open letter in the student newspaper, the Chicago Maroon, Sanders vented about the double-cross:

Chicago Maroon

That spring, with Sanders as its chairman, the university chapter of CORE merged with the university chapter of SNCC. Sanders announced plans to take the fight to the city of Chicago, and in the fall of 1962 he followed through, organizing picketers at a Howard Johnson in Cicero. Sanders told the Chicago Maroon, the student newspaper, that he wanted to keep the pressure on the restaurant chain after the arrest of 12 CORE demonstrators in North Carolina for trying to eat at a Howard Johnson there:

Chicago Maroon

Sanders left his leadership role at the organization not long afterward; his grades suffered so much from his activism that a dean asked him to take some time off from school. (He didn’t take much interest in his studies, anyway.) But he continued his activism with CORE and SNCC. In August of 1963, not long after returning to Chicago from the March on Washington, Sanders was charged with resisting arrest after protesting segregation at a school on the city’s South Side. He was later fined $25, according to the Chicago Tribune:

Chicago Tribune

Excerpt from: 

Here’s What Bernie Sanders Actually Did in the Civil Rights Movement

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s What Bernie Sanders Actually Did in the Civil Rights Movement

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor Invokes Jailed Relatives to Highlight Racism in Jury Selection

by pwh63qn7 Posted on November 3, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has referenced Dr. Seuss to get her point across during oral arguments. Justice Stephen Breyer on Monday drew an analogy to his grandson making excuses to avoid doing homework. Rhetorical devices take all kinds of forms on the bench. But Sonia Sotomayor might be the first justice in recent memory to invoke her own relatives in jail to make a point.

During oral arguments on Monday morning in Foster v. Chatman, a case involving racial discrimination in jury selection, Sotomayor questioned whether a Georgia prosecutor had used a bogus pretext to bounce an African American woman from a jury. The prosecutor had claimed he excused her because the woman’s cousin had been arrested on a drug charge. “There’s an assumption that she has a relationship with this cousin,” Sotomayor told Georgia deputy attorney general Beth Burton, who argued Georgia’s case before the court. “I have cousins who I know have been arrested, but I have no idea where they’re in jail. I hardly—I don’t know them…Doesn’t that show pretext?”

Her comments demonstrate the importance of her role as the first Latina justice on the court, an institution dominated by white men from privileged backgrounds. She asked the sort of question African Americans might welcome from Clarence Thomas, the only black justice, who rarely speaks from the bench. The insights she brings from her formative years in a Bronx public housing project are particularly applicable to racially charged cases like this one.

Continue Reading »

Read more:

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor Invokes Jailed Relatives to Highlight Racism in Jury Selection

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Oster, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor Invokes Jailed Relatives to Highlight Racism in Jury Selection

How Many Like Baltimore’s Freddie Gray Have Been Killed in Police Custody?

by DarwinMcintire Posted on April 29, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

For many in Baltimore, Freddie Gray’s death was shocking but came as little surprise. It was only a matter of time, some said, before Baltimore erupted the way Ferguson, Missouri, did last summer. While no one knows exactly how many Americans die in police custody each year, limited data gathered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics starts to give some sense of scale: At least 4,813 people died while in custody of local and state law enforcement between 2003 and 2009, according to the latest available report, published in 2011. Sixty-one percent of those deaths were classified as homicides.

As I reported last August in Mother Jones, the BJS collects data on what it calls “arrest-related deaths” that occur either during or shortly after police officers “engage in an arrest or restraint process.” The agency reports that 41.7 percent of those who were deemed to have been killed by police while in custody were white, 31.7 percent were black, and 20.3 percent were Hispanic. (Others died from intoxication, suicide, or by accidental, natural, or unknown causes.)

But you could be forgiven for suspecting that’s not the full picture: There were an estimated 98 million arrests in the United States by local, state, and federal law enforcement from 2003 to 2009, according to FBI statistics. Fifteen states, plus the District of Columbia, did not consistently report deaths in police custody during that period—and Maryland, along with Georgia and Montana, didn’t submit any records at all.

In other words, as the turmoil in Baltimore continues, what the data seems to tell us at this point is just how much we still don’t know.

Taken from:  

How Many Like Baltimore’s Freddie Gray Have Been Killed in Police Custody?

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Many Like Baltimore’s Freddie Gray Have Been Killed in Police Custody?

Feds Say Georgia’s Treatment of Transgender Prisoners Is Unconstitutional

by ErnaKPDfqnkrhes Posted on April 3, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

For three years, the Georgia Department of Corrections allegedly has denied transgender inmate Ashley Diamond medical treatment for gender dysphoria, causing her such distress that she has attempted on multiple occasions to castrate herself, cut off her penis, and kill herself. In February, Diamond filed a lawsuit against GDC officials, and on Friday the Department of Justice dealt the GDC a major blow, claiming that the state’s failure to adequately treat inmates with gender dysphoria “constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.”

The DOJ weighed in on Diamond’s case via a statement of interest, which offers recommendations for how the district court in Georgia should rule in the case. It focused on Georgia’s so-called freeze-frame policy, which prevents inmates from receiving hormone therapy for gender dysphoria if they were not identified as transgender and referred for treatment immediately during the prison intake process. “Freeze-frame policies and other policies that apply blanket prohibitions to such treatment are facially unconstitutional because they fail to provide individualized assessment and treatment of a serious medical need,” DOJ officials wrote, adding that similar policies have been previously struck down in Wisconsin and New York.

Chinyere Ezie, Diamond’s lead attorney, says the defense has until next Friday to submit briefs in response to the complaint, which may include a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The first hearing for the case is scheduled for April 13. You can read the DOJ’s entire statement below, and check out our earlier coverage of Diamond’s case.

DV.load(“//www.documentcloud.org/documents/1701497-diamond-statement-of-interest.js”,
width: 630,
height: 354,
sidebar: false,
container: “#DV-viewer-1701497-diamond-statement-of-interest”
);

Diamond Statement of Interest (PDF)

Diamond Statement of Interest (Text)

See original article here:

Feds Say Georgia’s Treatment of Transgender Prisoners Is Unconstitutional

Posted in Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Feds Say Georgia’s Treatment of Transgender Prisoners Is Unconstitutional

GOP Chair of the Science and Tech Subcommittee: I Didn’t Vaccinate My Kids

by Veola28Njffo Posted on February 27, 2015

Mother Jones

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican who recently became the chair of a key congressional subcommittee on science and technology, didn’t vaccinate most of his children, he told a crowd at his first town hall meeting last week.

Loudermilk was responding to a woman who asked whether he’d be looking into (discredited) allegations that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had covered up information linking vaccines to autism. He responded with a rather unscientific personal anecdote: “I believe it’s the parents’ decision whether to immunize or not…Most of our children, we didn’t immunize. They’re healthy.”

Loudermilk’s comment sparked sharp criticism, including from Rick Wilson, a prominent Republican strategist who called for the congressman’s resignation.

Having “healthy,” unvaccinated kids does not mean that they aren’t at risk, or that they won’t put others at risk later if they become infected. So far this year, there have been 154 cases of measles and three outbreaks; one outbreak sickened 86 people and landed 30 babies in home isolation. The disease spreads rapidly, afflicting not only those who lack immunization due to parental choice, but also those who haven’t been vaccinated because they are immunocompromised. Prior to the advent of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, measles was responsible for up to 500 deaths in the United States every year. Due to low vaccination rates, 2014 saw the most confirmed cases of measles since 2000, when the CDC had declared the illness all but eliminated in the United States.

If Loudermilk is unconcerned about the potential health effects of once-common diseases, he may want to note the economic repercussions. The 107 confirmed cases of measles during the 2011 outbreak cost taxpayers $5.3 million to contain. Rigorous scientific research—including the 2004 CDC study cited by Loudermilk’s constituent—has shown that theories about a supposed connection between vaccines and autism are unfounded.

The CDC study in question looked at children with and without autism to find out if there was any difference in their rates of MMR vaccination. The researchers found none. The so-called “cover-up” originated from a secretly recorded and cherry-picked conversation between William Thompson, a senior scientist at the CDC, and Brian Hooker of Focus for Health, an organization that seeks “to put an end to the needless harm of children by vaccination and other environmental factors.” In the conversation, Thompson allowed that among African-American boys, in a small subset of children studied, the incidence of autism was higher for those who were vaccinated than those who were not. That statement landed in a wildly misleading video released on YouTube produced by Hooker and Andrew Wakefield, a British researcher whose medical license was revoked in 2010. A year later, a journal that published Wakefield’s paper linking autism and vaccines determined his findings were fraudulent.

We’ve reached out to Rep. Loudermilk for comment.

Watch the full press conference, via Georgiapolitics.org, here. (Vaccines enter the fray at 1:26:00)

View the original here – 

GOP Chair of the Science and Tech Subcommittee: I Didn’t Vaccinate My Kids

Posted in Anchor, ATTRA, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on GOP Chair of the Science and Tech Subcommittee: I Didn’t Vaccinate My Kids

We Lock Up Tons of Innocent People—and Charge Them for the Privilege

by BernadiD30 Posted on February 17, 2015

Mother Jones

The United States has a prison problem. We have just 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its prisoners. Even though our imprisonment rate has grown more than 400 percent since 1970, locking people up has not proved to be a deterrent.

The prison problem also extends to jails, which hold defendants awaiting trial and prisoners sentenced for minor offenses. A new report from the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit focused on justice policy, reports that America’s local jails, which hold roughly 731,000 people on any given day, are holding more people even though the crime rate is going down. Jails disproportionately detain people of color longer and for lesser crimes. The report also finds that jails are less likely to give inmates the rehabilitation and mental-health support that could keep them out of prison.

Inside the Wild, Shadowy, and Highly Lucrative Bail Industry

“I observe injustice routinely. Nonetheless even I—as this report came together—was jolted by the extent to which unconvicted people in this country are held in jail simply because they are too poor to pay what it costs to get out,” writes Vera president and director Nicholas Turner. He described poor detention practices in which the mentally ill, homeless, and substance abusers are routinely jailed for bad behavior and described the practice as “destructive to individuals, their families, and entire communities.”

The 46-page report paints a devastating portrait of American jails. Here are a few quick takeaways:

1. The number of people going to jail is going up while crime rates are falling: In 1983, roughly 6 million people were admitted to a local jail. That number grew to roughly 11.7 million in 2013. Meanwhile, crime rates have been dropping. See Vera’s chart:

Jail admissions rates include people who’ve gone to jail more than once—recidivism is a separate, but related issue—but even factoring that in, more people are going to jail. The report speculates that this is tied to arrests for drug crimes: In 1983, drug defendants and inmates made up less than 10 percent of local jail populations but by 2002 they accounted for 25 percent.

2. Jail time is getting longer: Once people land in jail, their average stay has increased nearly 65 percent, from 14 days to 23. This statistic doesn’t distinguish between pretrial detention and those serving actual jail terms, but, as the report notes, “the proportion of jail inmates that are being held pretrial has grown substantially in the last thirty years—from about 40 to 62 percent—it is highly likely that the increase in the average length of stay is largely driven by longer stays in jails by people who are unconvicted of any crime.”

3. People who go to jail often work less and earn less after getting out: Spending any time in jail can, and usually does, significantly alter someone’s ability to lead a normal life upon release. Plus, many jail inmates have to pay fees for laundry service, room and board, and even booking fees. Even if they’re later found innocent, they still must pay those bills, leaving many former defendants indebted to the system.

Consider Kevin Thompson, a Georgia man who had been jailed once and was jailed again for not paying $838 in traffic fines, court fees, and probation fees to a private probation company.

4. Lack of money is the main reason defendants sit in jail: The report comes to a depressing, if not surprising, conclusion: “Money, or the lack thereof, is now the most important factor in determining whether someone is held in jail pretrail. Almost everyone is offered monetary bail, but the majority of defendants cannot raise the money quickly or, in some cases, at all.” This leads to situations where people are stuck in jail for minor offenses. A 2010 Human Rights Watch report found that in about 19,000 criminal cases in New York City, many people couldn’t afford bail set at $1,000 or less. In some cases, the accused pled guilty early to get out of jail, even if they were innocent.

5. Society’s race problems are amplified by the local jail dynamic: The Vera report notes that about 38 percent of felony defendants will spend their entire pretrial periods in jail, but only one in 10 were denied bail in the first place. The rest, many of whom are African American men, simply can’t afford to post bail: “Black men appear to be caught in a cycle of disadvantage: incarcerated at higher rates and, therefore, more likely to be unemployed and/or in debt, they have more trouble posting bail.”

Continued – 

We Lock Up Tons of Innocent People—and Charge Them for the Privilege

Posted in Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We Lock Up Tons of Innocent People—and Charge Them for the Privilege

The Singer of "Love Shack" Is Back With an Upbeat Solo Album

by AudreaOsvsifkns Posted on February 16, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The B-52s have kept their glittery, campy party vibe going for nearly four decades, from early jams like “Rock Lobster,” through later hits like “Love Shack,” right up to 2008 with the release of their well-received album Funplex. With retro outfits, beehive hairdos, and funky dance moves, they made the thrift-store esthetic cool before Macklemore was even born. But while the band continues to perform live, founding member Keith Strickland announced in 2012 he would stop touring and no new music appears to be on the horizon.

Kate Pierson

Yet Kate Pierson, the band’s bassist, keyboard player, and singer, shows no signs of slowing down. This month, at age 66, she’ll release her first solo album, Guitars and Microphones. It pulses with energy and spunk powered by Pierson’s towering vocals and melodies from the enigmatic pop artist Sia, who produced the album.

“Sia and I were laughing all the time,” said Pierson about making the album. “It was a real fun process, light-hearted, it was magical.”

Pierson spoke with me about her new project from her snowed-in house in Woodstock, New York, where, when not on the road, she leads a quiet life with her partner Monica Coleman and their dogs. We covered the excitement and exhaustion of touring, ageism in rock and roll, Glee‘s rendition of “Rock Lobster,” and the trans community’s reaction to her new song “Mister Sister.”

Continue Reading »

Originally posted here:

The Singer of "Love Shack" Is Back With an Upbeat Solo Album

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, Free Press, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, oven, PUR, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Singer of "Love Shack" Is Back With an Upbeat Solo Album

Democrats Blast Obama’s Plan to Allow Oil Drilling Off the East Coast

by LKCWilliams Posted on January 28, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A group of Senate Democrats from the Northeast is pushing back on the Obama administration’s proposal to open new areas of the Atlantic Ocean to oil and gas drilling.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker called the move “absolutely unacceptable” in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Joining in the press conference were fellow Democrats Ed Markey (Mass.), Robert Menendez (N.J.) and Ben Cardin (Md.).

“If drilling is allowed off the east coast of the United States, it puts our beaches, our fisherman, and our environment in the crosshairs for an oil spill that could devastate our shores,” said Markey. “We’re going to make it clear we’re very unhappy with this plan…You’re looking at the beginning of an alliance to put pressure on this administration to withdraw this proposal.”

The Obama administration on Tuesday released a draft of its five-year plan to open up drilling, including sales in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The plan, which would not begin until 2017, can still be revised.

The Democrats said they would seek to get the administration to change the proposal before it issues its final plan, asking for the removal of all areas on the east coast.

While there are no proposed sales off Maryland, New Jersey or Massachusetts included in the plan, the legislators said a potential spill to the south could imperial their coasts as the oil circulates. They cited billion-dollar coastal industries like tourism and fishing as potentially at risk in the event of a spill. “All of the risk is put on the backs of our shore communities, and all the reward goes to big oil,” said Menendez.

The group also criticized Congress for failing to put in place tougher regulations on offshore drilling in the wake of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. While changes were proposed after that spill, they never passed the Senate, even though Democrats were in the majority at that time.

Cardin said that the reserves off the Atlantic Coast “are minimal compared to the risk.” The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) estimated last year that there are 4.72 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 37.51 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf off the entire east coast. The Gulf of Mexico, in contrast, contains an estimated 48.4 billion barrels.

The senators cited a recent report from the environmental group Oceana, which found that offshore wind development has the potential to create twice as many jobs and energy as oil and gas development on the Atlantic coast.

Booker also criticized the plan from a climate change standpoint, arguing that further development of oil and gas would contribute more planet-warming emissions.

“Scientists are clearly telling us we need to leave more than 50 percent of the already known fossil fuel reserves in the ground,” said Booker. “To purse this strategy not only threatens New Jersey…but it also flies in the face of the urgent need for us to have a more comprehensive vision for an energy policy that will make sure we don’t cross that line.”

Virginia’s Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have both supported drilling off the coast of their state. In a joint statement Tuesday, they expressed support for the proposal’s goals, but said they want Virginia to be able to share in the revenue the drilling generates. The legislators said they intend to introduce legislation to that effect.

North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia each have two Republican senators who support offshore drilling.

Visit site:  

Democrats Blast Obama’s Plan to Allow Oil Drilling Off the East Coast

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Democrats Blast Obama’s Plan to Allow Oil Drilling Off the East Coast