Tag Archives: march

Donald Trump Keeps Finding Bold, New Ways to Disgust Me

by CarltonDecosta Posted on March 6, 2015

Mother Jones

Here is a tweet.

Here is our year-long investigation into what those poor elephants were experiencing.

Draw from these two things whatever conclusions you may.

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Donald Trump Keeps Finding Bold, New Ways to Disgust Me

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If You Watch “The Good Wife,” This Tweet Is Going To Blow Your Mind

by ElwoodAltman Posted on January 21, 2015

Mother Jones

The Good Wife is the best show in the world. It’s on hiatus until March 1 and I was really upset about it but at least this happened tonight:

Thank you, S. Alexander Smith. I want to be your best friend.

(via James West)

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If You Watch “The Good Wife,” This Tweet Is Going To Blow Your Mind

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EPA: Those Bee-Killing Pesticides? They’re Actually Pretty Useless

by LawannaGvr Posted on October 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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So, there’s this widely used class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, marketed by chemical giants Bayer and Syngenta, that have emerged as a prime suspect in honeybee collapse, and may also be harming birds and water-borne critters. But at least they provide benefits to farmers, right?

Well, not soybean farmers, according to a blunt economic assessment released Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (PDF). Conclusion: “There are no clear or consistent economic benefits of neonicotinoid seed treatments in soybeans.”

Wait, what?

The report goes on: “This analysis provides evidence that US soybean growers derive limited to no benefit from neonicotinoid seed treatments in most instances.”

Hmmm. But at least they’re better for farmers than no pesticide at all?

Nope: “Published data indicate that most usage of neonicotinoid seed treatments does not protect soybean yield any better than doing no pest control.”

Ouch.

The EPA notes that in recent years, US farmers have been planting on average 76 million acres of soybeans each season. Of those acres, an average 31 percent are planted in seeds treated with neonics—that is, farmers buy treated seeds, which suffuse the soybean plants with the chemical as they grow. So that’s about 24 million acres of neonic-treated seeds—an area equal in size to the state of Indiana. Why would farmers pay up for a seed treatment that doesn’t do them any good, yet may be doing considerable harm to pollinators and birds? The EPA report has insights: “data from researchers and extension experts … indicate that some growers currently have some difficulty obtaining untreated seed.” The report points to one small poll that found 45 percent of respondents reported finding non-treated seeds “difficult to obtain” or “not available.”

Another reason may be marketing. Syngenta, for example, promotes its “CruiserMaxx” seed treatment for soybeans, which combines a neonic insecticide with two different fungicides. The pitch: “Promotes better emergence, faster speed to canopy, improved vigor and higher yield potential.
Protects against damaging chewing and sucking insect pests. … Increases yield even under low insect pressure.”

Only one US crop is planted more abundantly than soybeans: corn, which typically covers around 90 million acres. According to Purdue entomologist Christian Krupke, “virtually all” of it is from neonic-treated seeds. That’s a land mass just 10 percent smaller than California. You have to wonder what bang those farmers are getting for their buck. I have a query into the EPA to see whether it has plans to conduct a similar assessment for corn. Meanwhile, this March 2014 Center for Food Safety research report, which was reviewed by Krupke and Jonathan Lundgren, a research entomologist at the US Department of Agriculture, found that the bee-killing pesticides offer at best limited benefits to corn farmers, too.

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EPA: Those Bee-Killing Pesticides? They’re Actually Pretty Useless

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Listen to Some of Liberia’s Top Artists Sing about Ebola

by Augustu2586 Posted on September 22, 2014

Mother Jones

Since it started in March, West Africa’s Ebola outbreak has spread to five countries in the region. But its toll on the Liberian people—who account for more than half of the 5,700 cases—has been especially devastating. To instill a sense of unity amid the crisis, several Liberian organizations brought together some of the country’s top artists to make a song about the crisis. The result, called “Save Liberia,” debuted last week. You can listen to it below:

“It’s like ‘We Are the World‘ for Liberia,” says Lawrence Yealue, Liberia’s country director for Accountability Lab, an anti-corruption NGO that helped organize the project. “We Are the World” was a 1985 collaboration between more than 40 artists—from Michael Jackson to Bob Dylan—to raise money for famine relief in the Horn of Africa. This song, Yeaule says, will help spread a message about Ebola’s seriousness to “every village and town” in Liberia.

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Listen to Some of Liberia’s Top Artists Sing about Ebola

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Should Obama Fire His CIA Chief for Misleading the Public About the Senate Spying Scandal?

by JuliannChristma Posted on July 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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On March 11, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, strode on to the Senate floor and made a shocking charge: the CIA had spied on committee investigators who were examining the CIA’s past use of harsh interrogation techniques (a.k.a. torture). She essentially confirmed media reports that the agency had accessed computers that had been set up in a secured facility for her staffers to use—and that this high-tech break-in was related to a CIA memo that the agency had not turned over. The document was far more critical of the CIA’s interrogation program than the agency’s official response to the still-classified (and reportedly scorching) 6,300-page report produced by Feinstein’s committee. As Feinstein described it, the CIA, looking to find out how her sleuths had obtained this particular memo, had been spying on the investigators who were paid by the taxpayers to keep a close watch on America’s spies.

Feinstein’s public statement—unprecedented in US national security history—caused an uproar. I noted that this clash between the Senate and Langley threatened a constitutional crisis. After all, if the CIA was covertly undercutting and interfering with congressional oversight, then the foundation of the national security state was at risk, for the executive branch, in theory, can only engage in clandestine activity as long as members of Congress can keep an eye on it. Yet the system of oversight appeared to have broken down.

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Should Obama Fire His CIA Chief for Misleading the Public About the Senate Spying Scandal?

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Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs in April

by NewtonAJXrv Posted on May 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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The American economy added 288,000 new jobs in March, but about 90,000 of those jobs were needed just to keep up with population growth, so net job growth clocked in at 198,000. The headline unemployment rate plummeted from 6.7 percent to 6.3 percent.

This is a decent result except for one thing: the unemployment rate went down because a ton of people dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted in the totals. Nearly a million people dropped out, causing the labor force participation rate to plunge from 63.2 percent in March to 62.8 percent in April. The participation data is fairly volatile on a monthly basis—it went up 0.4 points during the first three months of the year and then dropped 0.4 points in April—but this is nonetheless a large and disconcerting decline that puts a serious damper on the otherwise good unemployment news.

Why? Well, some of the decline in the participation rate is just due to older workers retiring, but probably not that much of it. Rather, the BLS suggests that it’s mostly due to an unusual dip in the number of new entrants to the labor force, which is hardly good news. In addition, I suspect a big chunk of it is due to unemployed workers who have given up looking for jobs, though I acknowledge that the data doesn’t support this.

So: a mixed result. The jobs number is fairly decent. The labor force number is troubling. We’re still puttering along, but not much more.

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Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs in April

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Anti-Obamacare Hysteria Almost Killed Dean Angstadt

by CatharineKoerst Posted on April 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Robert Calandra of the Philadelphia Inquirer tells the story today of Dean Angstadt, a guy who listened to Republican hysteria about Obamacare and almost paid for it with his life:

“I don’t read what the Democrats have to say about it because I think they’re full of it,” he told his friend Bob Leinhauser, who suggested he sign up….From time to time, Leinhauser would urge Angstadt to buy a plan through the ACA marketplace. And each time, Angstadt refused. “We argued about it for months,” Angstadt said. “I didn’t trust this Obamacare. One of the big reasons is it sounded too good to be true.”

January came, and Angstadt’s health continued to decline. His doctor made it clear he urgently needed valve-replacement surgery. Leinhauser had seen enough and insisted his friend get insured….Leinhauser went to Angstadt’s house, and in less than an hour, the duo had done the application. A day later, Angstadt signed up for the Highmark Blue Cross silver PPO plan and paid his first monthly premium: $26.11.

“All of a sudden, I’m getting notification from Highmark, and I got my card, and it was actually all legitimate,” he said. “I could have done backflips if I was in better shape.” Angstadt’s plan kicked in on March 1. It was just in time. Surgery couldn’t be put off any longer. On March 31, Angstadt had life-saving valve-replacement surgery.

Roger Ailes must be so proud.

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Anti-Obamacare Hysteria Almost Killed Dean Angstadt

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 April 2014

by AlisiaSears Posted on April 18, 2014

Mother Jones

I have to leave early today for yet another pulmonary checkup, so Friday catblogging comes a little ahead of schedule this week. Here is Domino pretending she doesn’t notice the fabulous feline shadow she’s casting in the late afternoon sun. But it is fabulous, no?

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 April 2014

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March Jobs Report Shows a Spring Pick-Up

by Ernest Ricafort Posted on April 4, 2014

Mother Jones

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The US economy added 192,000 jobs in March, according to new numbers released Friday by the Department of Labor (DoL). The unemployment rate remained steady at 6.7 percent.

The number of jobs created last month was an improvement on the more moderate job gains seen in recent months—113,000 in January, and 175,000 in February. And even those numbers were revised upwards in March by a total of 37,000 jobs.

There’s more good news. Six years after the financial crisis, private employers have finally regained all the jobs lost during the recession, and then some. The private sector lost 8.8 million jobs during the economic slump, and has since hired 8.9 million.

The portion of Americans who either had jobs or were looking for jobs—this is called the labor force participation rate—ticked up to 63.2 percent after a half-million Americans began looking for work again last month. And the number of long-term unemployed—those Americans who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more—has fallen by 837,000 since last year.

Economists predict that the positive March jobs numbers mean that the Federal Reserve, the US central bank that sets monetary policy, will likely continue to pull back on the massive economic stimulus measures it put into effect in September 2012.

Now for the sour news. The number of jobs added to the economy last month was still fewer than many economists had expected. “Everybody who said ‘ah we finally turned the corner, we’re going to be booming like crazy’—I think they’re going to have to hold off for a few months,” Austan Goolsbee, President Barack Obama’s former top economic adviser, said on CNBC Friday.

And the jobs gained last month are not necessarily good middle-class jobs. The professional services sector posted the largest gains in March, but of the 57,000 new jobs added, most were in temp work. Food services added 30,000 jobs. The healthcare sector took on 19,000 jobs, and construction added 19,000.

The disparities in unemployment by race changed little in March. The jobless rate was 5.8 percent for whites, 12.4 percent for blacks, 7.9 percent for Hispanics, and 5.4 percent for Asians.

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March Jobs Report Shows a Spring Pick-Up

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LA Times: 9.5 Million Newly Insured By Obamacare

by EstellaMassie Posted on March 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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So how many people are newly insured thanks to Obamacare? Noam Levey of the LA Times provides the current best estimate, based on the latest enrollment and survey data:

As the law’s initial enrollment period closes, at least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverage. Some have done so through marketplaces created by the law, some through other private insurance and others through Medicaid, which has expanded under the law in about half the states.

The tally draws from a review of state and federal enrollment reports, surveys and interviews with insurance executives and government officials nationwide.

….Republican critics of the law have suggested that the cancellations last fall have led to a net reduction in coverage. That is not supported by survey data or insurance companies, many of which report they have retained the vast majority of their 2013 customers by renewing old policies, which is permitted in about half the states, or by moving customers to new plans.

Rand’s latest survey data suggests that the share of uninsured adults has declined from 20.9 percent last fall to 16.6 percent as of March 22. Gallup has also shown a decline in the uninsured, and its March poll will show a further decline, according to Gallup Editor in Chief Frank Newport. More details at the link.

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LA Times: 9.5 Million Newly Insured By Obamacare

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