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What Donald Trump’s Debate-Rivaling Rally Says About His Candidacy

by FlynnStahl Posted on January 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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When Donald Trump announced, with just two days’ notice, that instead of attending the Republican debate Thursday night he would host a rival event at Drake University in Des Moines, the question was, would his supporters flock to him? Would they come from across the city, the state, even around the country to see him?

Judging from the line outside his event, billed as a fundraiser to support veterans, it seemed that they had. The queue stretched so far back that you couldn’t make out the end of it, and people waited in the cold for hours to get in (and many were ultimately turned away when the venue reached capacity). If Trump could muster this much support at a moment’s notice, you would think he should be well on his way to winning the Iowa caucuses. But on further inspection, the impressive crowd was composed largely of Drake University students, few of whom actually seemed prepared to caucus for Trump—or even to caucus at all.

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What Donald Trump’s Debate-Rivaling Rally Says About His Candidacy

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The Chinese Are Coming….To Syria

by ShelbyNorthcott Posted on November 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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In a typical election, candidates move from the extreme to the middle as the campaign progresses. If you’re a Republican, for example, you start out as a fire-breathing conservative in order to win the early primaries, and then slowly move to the center to win the later primaries and the general election.

Donald Trump has flipped the script, though. Now, you start out outrageous in order to get some attention, and then slowly become more sober-minded in order to appear more plausibly presidential. Will it work? Wait and find out! But it sure looks like Ben Carson has been taking lessons from the master. In Tuesday’s debate he seemed to suggest that China had troops in Syria. Today, his business manager and all-around campaign major-domo, Armstrong Williams, took away any possible doubt:

When MSNBC’s Tamron Hall told Williams on Wednesday that the Chinese are not in Syria, Williams remained steadfast.

“From your perspective and what most people know, maybe that is inaccurate,” Williams told MSNBC….”Just because the mainstream media and other experts don’t want to see any credibility to it, does not mean some way down the line in the next few days that that story will come out and will be reinforced and given credibility by others,” Williams said. “But as far as our intelligence and the briefings that Dr. Carson’s been in and I’ve certainly been in with him, we’ve certainly been told the Chinese are there.”

Carson—or Williams—really ought to tell us who these experts are that keep briefing the campaign on foreign policy issues. Are these the same guys who told him that seizing the Anbar oil fields in Iraq could be done “fairly easily” and that ISIS could then be destroyed in short order? I mean, I like the can-do attitude here, but I’m still a little curious about what the exact battle plan would be. Maybe Carson will share that with us in the next debate.

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The Chinese Are Coming….To Syria

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It’s Not Just Middle-Aged Men Who Are Dying Younger

by BrennaFinniss47 Posted on November 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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That paper by Angus Deaton and Anne Case about middle-aged white men dying at higher rates seems to be having a second life, so I want to highlight something that I might have buried in my initial post about it: it’s not just middle-aged men. This is right in the paper, with a colorful chart and everything. Every single white age group, from 30 to 65, has seen a big spike in deaths from alcohol, suicide, and drug overdoses:

And it’s white women too:

The change in all-cause mortality for white non-Hispanics 45–54 is largely accounted for by an increasing death rate from external causes, mostly increases in drug and alcohol poisonings and in suicide. (Patterns are similar for men and women when analyzed separately.)

So why is everyone focusing solely on middle-aged men? Because that’s what the paper focuses on. However, the authors make it very clear that every age group is affected:

The focus of this paper is on changes in mortality and morbidity for those aged 45–54. However, as Fig. 4 makes clear, all 5-y age groups between 30–34 and 60–64 have witnessed marked and similar increases in mortality from the sum of drug and alcohol poisoning, suicide, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis over the period 1999–2013; the midlife group is different only in that the sum of these deaths is large enough that the common growth rate changes the direction of all-cause mortality.

In other words, the phenomenon they describe applies to all white men and women between the ages of 30-65. The only difference among midlife white men is that declining overall mortality has turned into increasing overall mortality. Among other groups, declining mortality presumably turns flat, or perhaps declines less rapidly—though the authors don’t say.

In other words, midlife men make for a more dramatic chart because the line actually changes direction. But there’s nothing magic about zero. If you go from a slope of -5 to -1, that’s still a lot even if the line hasn’t changed direction. What’s more, whatever it is that makes the change in overall mortality bigger for midlife men, it’s not the suicide, alcohol, and drug overdoses that the authors focus on. The chart above makes that clear. In fact, the midlife group appears to have seen a smaller growth in those things than both the younger group and the older groups. This would be clearer if the chart were drawn differently, but since the authors don’t include a table with raw data, I can’t do that.

Bottom line: There’s been a sharp increase in death by suicide/alcohol/drugs among all whites of all age groups from 30-65. Whatever the reason, it’s not something that applies solely to middle-aged white men.

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It’s Not Just Middle-Aged Men Who Are Dying Younger

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Texas Poised to Let An Unfairly Prosecuted Person Walk, For Once

by MarieMawby Posted on July 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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The number of criminal charges against Rick Perry has been cut in half, thanks to a Texas court. On Friday, reports the Houston Chronicle, the 3rd Court of Appeals tossed out the charge that the former Texas governor and GOP hopeful had coerced a public official. In effect, the court said Perry was free to trash-talk Texas officials as much as he pleased, even if it meant encouraging one of those officials—the Travis County District Attorney—to leave office.

Perry’s legal troubles date back to a line-item veto he signed in 2013, erasing $7.5 million that had been designated for the Public Integrity Unit in the Travis County District Attorney’s office—a small group tasked with investigating corruption in the state’s political class. At the time, Perry claimed the Integrity Unit could no longer be trusted to fulfill those duties after the district attorney had remained in office following her arrest for drunk driving. (She had also been caught on camera trying to exploit her office to get out of the arrest.) Perry has been accused of overstepping his authority as governor by explicitly tying that veto to his desire to see the district attorney—a locally elected official—removed from office.

His use of the line-item veto is still under review. While the court sided with Perry on one count, it wasn’t ready to dismiss the entire case. Perry still faces one felony indictment for abusing his powers as governor by zeroing out the budget for the state’s corruption watchdog.

Read more about the history of the charges against Perry here.

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Texas Poised to Let An Unfairly Prosecuted Person Walk, For Once

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Jeb Bush Doesn’t Want to Repeal Obamacare. Maybe.

by LawrencB82 Posted on June 16, 2015

Mother Jones

This is interesting from Sarah Kliff:

Jeb Bush laid out his top policies Monday in a speech announcing his run for the 2016 Republican nomination. But he left out one big Republican priority: repealing Obamacare….This reflects the changing politics of Obamacare. As Obamacare becomes more and more entrenched, it builds a constituency. As more people sign up for Obamacare, it becomes increasingly difficult to take away both practically and politically. So Republicans, who once ran and won calling for its end, are beginning to abandon the line.

Jeb has been fuzzy on Obamacare for a while, to the point where it’s been hard to know where he actually stands. It’s clear enough that he doesn’t like Obamacare—it’s a “monstrosity” and the “greatest job suppressor of the recovery”—but he never goes much beyond this kind of pro forma denunciation. So it’s not surprising that he didn’t give it a lot of attention in his announcement speech.

Still, it’s something to watch. Will he be gung ho for repeal once he’s on a debate stage with all the other candidates? Or will he stay soft and get pilloried? And if he does, how will this affect him with Republican voters?

Have any of the other ten GOP candidates who have announced so far gone soft on Obamacare repeal? This should be a research project for someone other than me. Inquiring minds want to know.

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Jeb Bush Doesn’t Want to Repeal Obamacare. Maybe.

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Freddie Gray and the Real Lesson of Urban Policing

by Florine1674 Posted on April 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post features a simple headline today that encompasses decades of personal tragedy and public policy disaster:

Freddie Gray’s life a study in the sad effects of lead paint on poor blacks

When Freddie Gray was 22 months old, he had a tested blood lead level of 37 micrograms per deciliter. This is an absolutely astronomical amount. Freddie never even had the slightest chance of growing up normally. Lead poisoning doomed him from the start to a life of heightened aggression, poor learning abilities, and weak impulse control. His life was a tragedy set in motion the day he was born.

But even from the midst of my chemo haze, I want to make a short, sharp point about this that goes far beyond just Gray’s personal tragedy. It’s this: thanks both to lead paint and leaded gasoline, there were lots of teenagers like Freddie Gray in the 90s. This created a huge and genuinely scary wave of violent crime, and in response we turned many of our urban police forces into occupying armies. This may have been wrong even then, but it was hardly inexplicable. Decades of lead poisoning really had created huge numbers of scarily violent teenagers, and a massive, militaristic response may have seemed like the only way to even begin to hold the line.

But here’s the thing: that era is over. Individual tragedies like Freddie Gray are still too common, but overall lead poisoning has plummeted. As a result, our cities are safer because our kids are fundamentally less dangerous. To a large extent, they are now normal teenagers, not lead-poisoned predators.

This is important, because even if you’re a hard-ass law-and-order type, you should understand that we no longer need urban police departments to act like occupying armies. The 90s are gone, and today’s teenagers are just ordinary teenagers. They still act stupid and some of them are still violent, but they can be dealt with using ordinary urban policing tactics. We don’t need to constantly harass and bully them; we don’t need to haul them in for every petty infraction; we don’t need to beat them senseless; and we don’t need to incarcerate them by the millions.

We just don’t. We live in a different, safer era, and it’s time for all of us—voters, politicians, cops, parents—to get this through our collective heads. Generation Lead is over, thank God. Let’s stop pretending it’s always and forever 1993. Reform is way overdue.

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Freddie Gray and the Real Lesson of Urban Policing

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Top 5 Ways the Renewable Fuel Standard is Supporting Rural Economies

by Posted on February 10, 2015

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Top 5 Ways the Renewable Fuel Standard is Supporting Rural Economies

Posted 10 February 2015 in

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From North Carolina to California, renewable fuel is driving economic growth in rural communities across the country. Since the passage of the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2005, the renewable fuel industry has grown by leaps and bounds — and along with it the communities that rely on this rapidly growing sector. As the EPA finalizes the 2014 renewable fuel targets, it’s important to remember that:

The RFS supports more than 852,000 jobs across the United States.
The workers of the renewable fuel sector take home $46.2 billion in wages every year.
The direct output of the renewable fuel industry is greater than the economic activity generated by the beef cattle sector.
There are over 840 facilities supporting renewable fuel production and distribution; research and development; and other activities throughout the country.
Iowa is the top state for biofuels jobs. The renewable fuel sector supports more than 73,000 jobs and $5 billion in wages for Iowa farmers, workers, and small business owners.

With so much on the line, Americans need to know that the President, Congress, and the EPA will stand up for these homegrown jobs — and strong, vibrant rural economies.

Find out how the Renewable Fuel Standard has impacted your community.

Fuels America News & Stories

Fuels
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Top 5 Ways the Renewable Fuel Standard is Supporting Rural Economies

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Here Is What Robert De Niro Had To Say About Being Nervous His First Time On Camera

by NormandCoover Posted on August 17, 2014

Mother Jones

Robert De Niro’s first appearance on screen, in the 1965 French film “Three Rooms in Manhattan.” Les Productions Montaigne

Robert De Niro was born August 17, 1943. To celebrate his birthday, here is the two-time Oscar winner—who has appeared in nearly 100 films—telling Playboy about his first time on camera.

PLAYBOY: Do you remember your first experience before the cameras?

ROBERT DE NIRO: There was some little thing I did that I don’t know whatever happened to. Some walk-on for an independent film: I walked in and ordered a drink at a bar.

I remember a bunch of other young actors hanging around, moaning and bitching, all made up, with pieces of tissue in their collars; it was the kind of thing you always hear about actors—where they’re just silly or vain, complaining back and forth, walking around primping, not wanting to get the make-up on their shirts.

PLAYBOY: So you didn’t exactly feel as if you had found a home.

ROBERT DE NIRO: No, I didn’t want to be around those people at all. I just walked in and walked out. I was nervous, though, just to say the line “Gimme a drink.” It makes me think of that joke: “Hark! I hear the cannon roar!” You know that joke?

PLAYBOY: No.

ROBERT DE NIRO: I’m surprised you never heard it; it’s a famous actor’s joke.

This guy hasn’t acted in about 15 years, because he always forgets his lines, so finally he has to give it up. He’s working in a gas station and gets a phone call from someone saying that they want him for a Shakespearean play—all he has to do is say, “Hark! I hear the cannon roar!” He says, “Well, God, I don’t know.” The director says, “Look, it’ll be OK. You’ll get paid and everything.” So he says, “OK, I’ll do it.” The play has five acts and he has to go on in the third act and say, “Hark! I hear the cannon roar!” That’s all he has to do. So he rehearses it when he’s in his apartment: “Hark! I hear the cannon roar! Hark! I hear the cannon roar! Hark! I hear the cannon roar!” Every variation, every possible emphasis. They’re into rehearsal, and he’s got it written on his mirror: “Hark! I hear the cannon roar! Hark! I hear the cannon roar! Hark! I hear the cannon roar!” And so on. Finally, comes opening night, first act, no problem. Second act, things go fine. Audience applauds. Stage manager says, “You have five minutes for the third act.” He tells him to get backstage. His time comes, he runs out, muttering to himself, “Hark! I hear the cannon roar! Hark! I hear the cannon roar! Hark! I hear the cannon roar!” And as he runs out, he hears a big brrrooooom!! Turns around and says, “What the fuck was that?”

Robert De Niro is great.

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Here Is What Robert De Niro Had To Say About Being Nervous His First Time On Camera

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Ferguson Is 60 Percent Black. Virtually All Its Cops Are White.

by AveryWinder Posted on August 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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Black residents of Ferguson, Missouri, the working-class city in northern St. Louis county where an unarmed black teenager was shot dead by police officers on Saturday, say the town has been a “powder keg” of racial imbalance for decades. “They treat us like second class all the way down the line,” one black resident told the LA Times. A black city alderman said the ensuing protests are “a boiling over of tensions that had been going on for a long while.”

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at who lives in Ferguson, who’s in charge, who gets stopped by police, and more.

All icons courtesy of the Noun Project. Houses: Laurène Smith

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the number of black members of Ferguson’s school board.

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Ferguson Is 60 Percent Black. Virtually All Its Cops Are White.

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Unsportsmanlike Conduct in the NBA Follows an Inverted U-Shaped Curve

by BrandieRitz Posted on April 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Over at 538, Benjamin Morris asks “Just How Bad Were the Bad Boys?” The bad boys in question are the Detroit Pistons basketball team of the late 80s, who had a reputation for being unusually aggressive on the court. Did they deserve their reputation? To test this, Morris looks at how many technical fouls they racked up, a good measure of unsportsmanlike conduct. In fact, he takes a look at the total number of technical fouls for the entire league, and finds that the number rose steadily until 1995 and then started a long-term decline.

I promise this is just for fun, but I’ve overlaid another line against Morris’s chart. Not a perfect fit, granted, but not too far off, either. I’m sure a few of you can guess what it is, can’t you?

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Unsportsmanlike Conduct in the NBA Follows an Inverted U-Shaped Curve

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