Tag Archives: march

The Racially Charged San Francisco Police Shooting You Don’t Know About But Should

by ShariOlson Posted on December 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Dozens of people gathered at a candlelit vigil on Thursday night in San Francisco, at the spot where 26-year-old Mario Woods was killed by police the day before. Woods, who is black, died in a hail of bullets fired by San Francisco Police Department officers on Wednesday afternoon in the city’s Bayview district. Police identified him as the suspect in an attack whose victim was apparently stabbed in the shoulder but is expected to survive. Police officials said Woods was wielding a kitchen knife that he refused to relinquish even as officers ordered him to drop it, fired bean bag pellets, and pepper-sprayed him.

The moments leading up to the shooting were captured on several widely circulated videos recorded on cellphones. In one, Woods can be seen standing with his back against a wall, surrounded by police whose guns are drawn. When Woods begins to walk away, an officer steps in his path, and within seconds a series of shots rings out. SFPD Chief Greg Suhr told reporters that a total of five officers opened fire. (Warning: graphic images)

A video posted by HotRod (@daniggahot) on Dec 2, 2015 at 4:59pm PST

Woods died at the scene. A resident who lives next to the site of the shooting told Mother Jones that he counted at least 36 shell casings on the sidewalk after the violence was over. Another angle also captured the shooting (graphic).

SF Weekly reported that Woods had been a gang member in 2009 and had previously served prison and jail time for possession of a firearm by a felon. Woods’ mother, Gwendolyn, told ABC7 News that her son had suffered from mental health issues but was getting through them. “He just needed some help,” she said. “He fought past them.” She told interviewers that her son had “gotten his uniform” for his new job with the United Parcel Service that he was slated to begin the day after he was murdered.

The San Francisco police department has had a troubled history of police aggression and racism toward minority communities. In February, four San Francisco police officers were cleared in the shooting death of Alex Nieto, a 28-year-old Hispanic man who was shot 10 to 15 times by police in March 2014. Police officers mistook a Taser for a gun. In March, a series of racist and homophobic text messages sent among a group of officers in 2011 and 2012 emerged as part of a federal case against a former San Francisco police sergeant convicted of corruption charges, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The department tried to fire eight officers and suspend several others involved, but the disciplinary process is ongoing. In August, a video of more than a dozen San Francisco police officers surrounding and tackling a disabled homeless man went viral, spurring outrage.

Neighborhood residents where Woods was shot questioned the level of force used to subdue him.

“They had six officers against this one little guy,” area resident Cedric Smith told the San Francisco Chronicle. “They could have used batons. They could have backed off. They didn’t need to shoot him.” And Chemika Hollis, another resident, wondered why police officers shot him so many times. “How can you feel a threat when you have 10 cops around you?” she said.

Thursday’s vigil was set up on the spot where Woods was gunned down, with pictures of him, candles, and a sign posted to the wall reading, “Black Lives Matter.” A few blocks away from the vigil, dozens more gathered at a community meeting in the St. Paul of the Shipwreck Catholic church, while others held a peaceful protest outside.

Jaeah Lee

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr has said the officers were justified in shooting Woods, and he promised a thorough investigation.

“It’s a tragic loss anytime somebody dies. We never want to do that,” he told reporters after the shooting. “But this is all they could do. I really don’t know how much more you can make it plain to a wanted felon that he should drop the knife.”

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The Racially Charged San Francisco Police Shooting You Don’t Know About But Should

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New Hillary Clinton Emails Surface

by RobertaRosenbau Posted on September 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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Uh oh:

The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state, officials said Friday, adding to the growing questions related to the Democratic presidential front-runner’s unusual usage of a private email account and server while in government.

This is the kind of thing that really could hurt Hillary Clinton. But when you scroll down to the details, it looks a lot less sinister:

The messages were exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus….They largely pertained to personnel matters and don’t appear to deal with highly classified material, officials said.

….The State Department’s record of Clinton emails begins on March 18, 2009 — almost two months after she entered office. Before then, Clinton has said she used an old AT&T Blackberry email account, the contents of which she no longer can access. The Petraeus emails…start on Jan. 10, 2009, with Clinton using the older email account. But by Jan. 28 — a week after her swearing in — she switched to using the private email address on a homebrew server that she would rely on for the rest of her tenure. There are less than 10 emails back and forth in total, officials said, and the chain ends on Feb. 1.

In other words, we’re missing the very tag end of an innocuous email chain from Hillary’s Senate days that spilled over into her tenure as Secretary of State. That’s a little hard to get too exercised about.

I don’t know what the broader picture is here. Clinton has consistently said she switched to her new email address on March 18, but the Petraeus emails make it look like she might have switched by January 28. Or maybe she partially switched? Or else emails started getting forwarded to the new account as a test for a few weeks, and then got deleted on March 18 when she began using it for good? Beats me.

Either way, this seems typical of this whole affair. Substantively, it’s hard to believe anything shady is going on here. After all, it’s unlikely there’s anything to hide from her first few weeks in office, and certainly not the Petraeus emails. But optically, it certainly looks bad. It seems like another example of Clinton handling her email issue awkwardly and defensively when she doesn’t really need to.

On the bright side for Hillary, this news was released on a day when the media was preoccupied with popemania and John Boehner’s resignation. So at least she’s not getting another round of dismal front-page headlines out of it. Yet.

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New Hillary Clinton Emails Surface

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Intelligence Community Inspector General Is Done With Clinton’s Emails—But the FBI Isn’t

by ShellieMfm Posted on August 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Monday, the ongoing political and legal problems swirling around Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email system during her time as secretary of state got simpler and more complicated. A spokeswoman with the office of the inspector general for the intelligence community told Mother Jones that it had finished reviewing Clinton’s emails and was not taking further action. But the matter was still being investigated by the FBI. And on the same day, a lawyer from the State Department told a federal judge that more than 300 of her emails needed further review by intelligence agencies to determine if they contained classified material. Last week, it was reported that a small sample of Clinton’s emails contained classified material, which Clinton and her team have denied since the March New York Times story revealing the existence of her private email. (Sen. Dianne Feinstein did say last week that none of the emails that Clinton wrote contained classified info.)

Clinton’s problems began in December 2014, when the State Department asked recent former secretaries of state to hand over documents that would help bolster its record keeping. Clinton turned in more than 55,000 pages of emails containing roughly 30,000 emails. (She deleted another 30,000 that she said were private.) A federal judge has since ruled that the 30,000 emails turned over to the State Department must be made public by January 2016, and the department has been releasing them in batches since May.

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Intelligence Community Inspector General Is Done With Clinton’s Emails—But the FBI Isn’t

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This Is Mike Huckabee’s Brain on Ethanol

by FNEVaughnzo Posted on May 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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Mike Huckabee said the right things at the Iowa Ag Summit in March. Charlie Neibergall/AP

On the campaign trail, GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of the ethanol industry. The former Arkansas governor has repeatedly spoken out in defense of the Renewable Fuel Standard—the federal policy that requires energy companies to blend billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel supply. That makes political sense in Iowa, where corn is big business. Ethanol made from corn constitutes the vast majority of domestic biofuel consumption. And roughly 40 percent of corn grown in the United States is used to produce ethanol.

So it was a bit surprising when Huckabee used his latest book to take direct aim at biofuels such as ethanol. In the middle of a chapter questioning the science of climate change, he suggested that biofuels have been propped up by unscientific “environmentalist policies” that drive up food prices and make global warming worse. Here’s the relevant passage from God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, which was published in January:

Climate change isn’t the only field in which the environmental movement has claimed to represent unassailable scientific truth, only to be brought up short by new data.

For years, we were told that biofuels were the future. Skeptics who questioned whether it took more energy to create a gallon of fuel from corn than was generated by burning it were dismissed. But as we devoted more and more of our food crops to energy production, we discovered yet again that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Science!) In this case, so-called environmentalist policies hurt the poor when the supply of corn and other grains fell, causing skyrocketing food prices and shortages that led to riots in undeveloped nations. At this writing, the European Union has just agreed to limit biofuels, for those reasons and also because they were found to make some engines run less efficiently, to cause more pollution than expected, and to harm the environment and contribute to global warming, due to the need for clear-cutting more farmland.

Huckabee’s professed skepticism about biofuels actually echoes the views shared by a number of conservative activists and environmentalists. But it diverges greatly from much of what he has said and written elsewhere. For example, here’s what Huckabee wrote in his 2007 book, From Hope to Higher Ground:

One energy source that makes perfect sense for America to aggressively explore and dramatically increase is the production and use of biofuels. The most common biofuels are ethanol and biodiesel, both of which have the potential of decreasing our dependence on oil, but could also have a dramatic and positive impact on America’s agricultural production. It could give our farmers the ability to feed and fuel us. While the cost of converting a biofuel source to usable fuel has been historically expensive and therefore not as attractive as gasoline, creating incentives with potential hefty financial rewards could be valuable in the production of ethanol and biodiesel. New technologies using forms of biomass are increasingly viable, and the production of these would be controlled within our own borders. An added advantage of biofuels is that unlike gasoline and conventional diesel, they contain oxygen, which allows petroleum products to burn more completely, reducing air pollution and cutting back on the buildup of greenhouse gases.

Huckabee reportedly backed the Renewable Fuel Standard during the 2008 campaign (although, in at least one debate, he appeared to reject the idea of biofuel mandates). At the time, his campaign website said that “we need more ethanol.”

This past March—less than two months after slamming biofuels in his book—Huckabee attended the Iowa Ag Summit in Des Moines, where spent 20 minutes answering questions posed by ethanol kingpin and GOP megadonor Bruce Rastetter. “You’ve been an unabashed supporter of the RFS,” Rastetter said.

“Yeah,” responded Huckabee, adding that the biofuel mandate was part of a “bigger picture of energy independence and energy security” that could help the United States “turn the tables” on Russia and Iran. He didn’t say anything about “skyrocketing food prices.” You can watch the exchange here:

Huckabee addressed the issue again at a May 7 campaign event in Sioux City, where he argued that ending government support for ethanol puts farmers and companies “out of business, and it destroys what is beginning to become a more reasonable, responsible, and economically viable industry.”

I asked Huckabee’s campaign how they reconcile the candidate’s campaign-trail biofuels boosterism with the sharp criticism leveled in his book. They didn’t respond.

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This Is Mike Huckabee’s Brain on Ethanol

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Former Walker Aide Blasts Walker for Immigration Flip-Flop

by OlenMorisset Posted on April 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Liz Mair, the GOP operative who resigned from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign-in-waiting after a day on the job, is in campaign mode again—and this time, she’s targeting her former boss. On Tuesday morning, Mair sent an email detailing Walker’s “Olympic-quality flip-flop” on the issue of immigration.

On Monday, Breitbart reported that Walker is the only declared or likely GOP candidate so far to support rolling back legal immigration to the United States, including for highly skilled workers. In her email, Mair pointed out that, historically, Walker has hardly been an immigration hardliner: In 2013, he vocally supported expanding legal immigration, and as recently as March, he said he was in favor of giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. She suggested that Walker’s back-tracking could make him an easy target for strong GOP rivals.

Mair, who served on Walker’s recall campaign in 2012, resigned from the governor’s PAC in March in the wake of a kerfuffle over several tweets in which she criticized Iowa and its outsized political importance. Mair told Mother Jones she did not call out Walker in service of a client. She said she is “in the camp of people who see immigration as a benefit, who believe we should be welcoming to immigrants and make legal immigration easier, and who favor comprehensive immigration reform in some form…I’ve also long been highly critical of flip-floppery.”

Here’s an excerpt from her email:

In fulfilling my professional duties as constructed today, as opposed to on March 16, I wanted to flag the below Olympic-quality flip-flop on immigration policy to you. Apologies if this seems crass to some of you, but I would not be meeting certain responsibilities if I did not shoot this email out.

Yesterday, it was reported that Scott Walker has now adopted the immigration position of Sen. Jeff Sessions and has been taking instruction from Sessions on the issue of immigration. Notably, Sessions wants to further restrict legal immigration including high-skilled immigration, a position that is at odds with the traditional GOP anti-amnesty stance taken by virtually all presidential candidates, and which also puts him at odds with conservative policy experts and economists…this new positioning seems to represent a full 180 degree turn from where Walker has been on immigration historically, which is to say in the very pro-immigration and even pro-comprehensive reform camp…

Setting aside the substance of the policy, as the 2008 election demonstrated, it is really difficult in the age of Google to execute full policy reversals without earning a reputation as an untrustworthy, “say anything to win,” substance-and-guts-free politician. Even in 2012, when Republicans nominated Mitt Romney, his reputation for policy, er, flexibility was a significant negative for him and one that diminished enthusiasm for the candidate, probably adversely impacting his performance in that race.

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Former Walker Aide Blasts Walker for Immigration Flip-Flop

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The Largest Newspaper In Indiana Just Made One Hell Of A Statement

by DaniloErnst Posted on March 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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This is the front page of tomorrow Indianapolis Star:

Hell yeah.

We are at a critical moment in Indiana’s history.

And much is at stake.

Our image. Our reputation as a state that embraces people of diverse backgrounds and makes them feel welcome. And our efforts over many years to retool our economy, to attract talented workers and thriving businesses, and to improve the quality of life for millions of Hoosiers.

All of this is at risk because of a new law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that no matter its original intent already has done enormous harm to our state and potentially our economic future.

The consequences will only get worse if our state leaders delay in fixing the deep mess created.

Half steps will not be enough. Half steps will not undo the damage.

Go read the whole thing.

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The Largest Newspaper In Indiana Just Made One Hell Of A Statement

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Winners & Losers? Changing the Equation at the Pump

by Posted on March 27, 2015

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Winners & Losers? Changing the Equation at the Pump

Posted 27 March 2015 in

National

Opponents of the commonsense, bipartisan Renewable Fuel Standard like to say that Washington “shouldn’t pick winners and losers” when it comes to energy policy.

It’s hard to make this argument with a straight face, however, especially since Washington has been favoring oil companies with special tax breaks, an oil spill bailout fund, and other favorable policies for more than a century.

It was, after all, President Woodrow Wilson who signed the “percentage based depletion allowance” into law back in 1913 … a tax break which is, incredibly, still on the books after more than 102 years. In contrast, the ethanol tax credit expired in 2012.

The dominance of oil companies has given them a near monopoly on the marketplace and the power to use exclusive supplier/distributor contracts to dictate which fuels retailers can and cannot make available to consumers. There is a long, well documented history of oil companies exerting this control to prevent consumers from having access to a wider range of renewable fuel options — higher octane options that deliver better engine performance but cost less and cut into their bottom line.

The Renewable Fuel Standard changes that equation, and ensures that homegrown, American made renewable fuel has a chance to access the marketplace. It is providing new fueling options for American consumers and creating market certainty so that businesses are investing billions of dollars in next generation technologies like cellulosic ethanol production. Without it, that investment would quickly shift overseas, and America would become ever more dependent on foreign oil.

Gutting the RFS means allowing oil companies to prevent competitors from accessing the market. Now THAT is picking a winner … the same winner Washington has been picking for a century.

Fuels America News & Stories

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Winners & Losers? Changing the Equation at the Pump

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Winners &amp; Losers? Changing the Equation at the Pump

by Posted on March 27, 2015

back

Winners & Losers? Changing the Equation at the Pump

Posted 27 March 2015 in

National

Opponents of the commonsense, bipartisan Renewable Fuel Standard like to say that Washington “shouldn’t pick winners and losers” when it comes to energy policy.

It’s hard to make this argument with a straight face, however, especially since Washington has been favoring oil companies with special tax breaks, an oil spill bailout fund, and other favorable policies for more than a century.

It was, after all, President Woodrow Wilson who signed the “percentage based depletion allowance” into law back in 1913 … a tax break which is, incredibly, still on the books after more than 102 years. In contrast, the ethanol tax credit expired in 2012.

The dominance of oil companies has given them a near monopoly on the marketplace and the power to use exclusive supplier/distributor contracts to dictate which fuels retailers can and cannot make available to consumers. There is a long, well documented history of oil companies exerting this control to prevent consumers from having access to a wider range of renewable fuel options — higher octane options that deliver better engine performance but cost less and cut into their bottom line.

The Renewable Fuel Standard changes that equation, and ensures that homegrown, American made renewable fuel has a chance to access the marketplace. It is providing new fueling options for American consumers and creating market certainty so that businesses are investing billions of dollars in next generation technologies like cellulosic ethanol production. Without it, that investment would quickly shift overseas, and America would become ever more dependent on foreign oil.

Gutting the RFS means allowing oil companies to prevent competitors from accessing the market. Now THAT is picking a winner … the same winner Washington has been picking for a century.

Fuels America News & Stories

Fuels
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Winners &amp; Losers? Changing the Equation at the Pump

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UVA Student’s Violent Arrest Sparks Outrage and Calls for #JusticeForMartese

by ChadwickCampa Posted on March 19, 2015

Mother Jones

Images and footage capturing the arrest of Martese Johnson, a University of Virginia student who needed 10 stitches after being arrested by state liquor police for allegedly having a fake ID, prompted large protests at UVA’s Charlottesville campus on Wednesday, with hundreds of students gathering to demand justice.

Johnson, 20-years-old and a member of the school’s Honor Committee, was arrested on Tuesday by officers from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control as bystanders recorded the bloody encounter. In one video, Johnson’s head appears covered in blood, and he screams “you fucking racists.” According to Johnson’s lawyer, he was charged with “obstructing justice without force” and public intoxication.

After footage of the arrest emerged online, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe launched an investigation into the incident.

“Governor McAuliffe is concerned by the reports of this incident and has asked the Secretary of Public Safety to initiate an independent Virginia State Police investigation into the use of force in this matter,” his office said in a statement.

It is unclear what led to the arrest. A statement from the state’s liquor agents said that “a determination was made by the agents to further detain the individual based on their observations and further questioning.” On Wednesday night, Johnson joined the demonstrators and appeared with a gash wound to the head.

“His head was slammed into the hard pavement with excessive force,” UVA officials said in a released statement. “This was wrong and should not have occurred. In the many years of our medical, professional and leadership roles at the University, we view the nature of this assault as highly unusual and appalling based on the information we have received.”

As images of both the protest and Johnson’s arrest flooded online with the hashtag #JusticeForMartese, demonstrators chanted “black lives matter” and “shut it down.”

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UVA Student’s Violent Arrest Sparks Outrage and Calls for #JusticeForMartese

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Watch John Oliver Explain Why the NCAA Should Stop Exploiting Student Athletes and Pay Up

by TNPGenevasjzsx Posted on March 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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The National Collegiate Athletic Association reaps in nearly $1 billion a year in revenue, thanks to an annual onslaught of glitzy advertising campaigns and television deals. Coaches and top executives are paid in the millions, but student athletes return to their dorm rooms with nothing but an education for compensation, “the only currency more difficult to spent than Bitcoin,” John Oliver noted last night.

With the start of March Madness on Tuesday, “Last Week Tonight” takes on this very issue, slamming the “illegal sweatshop” nature of the NCAA’s non-pay scale. “There is nothing inherently wrong with a sporting tournament making huge amounts of money,” Oliver said. “But there is something slightly troubling about a billion-dollar sports enterprise where the athletes are not paid a penny, because they aren’t.”

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Watch John Oliver Explain Why the NCAA Should Stop Exploiting Student Athletes and Pay Up

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, organic, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Watch John Oliver Explain Why the NCAA Should Stop Exploiting Student Athletes and Pay Up