Tag Archives: military

Obama Just Announced a Plan to Restrict Police Use of Military-Style Equipment

by DaniloErnst Posted on May 18, 2015

Mother Jones

On Monday, the White House announced a plan to set new restrictions on local police departments from obtaining military-style equipment from the federal government. The limitation on military gear is part of an ongoing effort to rebuild trust between community members and law enforcement officials following the unrest seen in Ferguson, Missouri, particularly the police response to protesters there.

The announcement is in response to a report put forth by a task force created by the president in December to address broken police relations, especially in minority communities, across the country. Banned items include wheeled-armored vehicles, battering rams, grenade launchers, and more.

“We are, without a doubt, sitting at a defining moment in American policing,” Ronald Davis, head of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, told reporters on Monday. “We have a unique opportunity to redefine policing in our democracy, to ensure that public safety becomes more than the absence of crime, but it must also include a presence for justice.”

For a deeper look into how local police departments became so militarized, check out our in-depth report, “The Making of the Warrior Cop,” here.

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Obama Just Announced a Plan to Restrict Police Use of Military-Style Equipment

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The US Military’s Sexual-Assault Problem Is So Bad the UN Is Getting Involved

by PhilipConyers Posted on May 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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The US military has a problem with sexual violence. That’s the conclusion of the Universal Periodic Review Panel, a UN panel that aims to address the human rights records of the 193 UN member states. This is the second time that the panel has scrutinized the United States; the first was in 2010, when the list of concerns included detention in Guantanamo Bay, torture, the death penalty, and access to health care. Its latest report came out Monday morning, and there was a surprising addition to the predictable laundry list of US human rights violations.

In one of 12 final recommendations, the UN Council urged the US military “to prevent sexual violence in the military and ensure effective prosecution of offenders and redress for victims.” Other recommendations included stopping the militarization of police forces, closing Guantanamo Bay, ending the death penalty, and stopping NSA surveillance of citizens.

For years US lawmakers and activists have complained about sexual assault in the military, but this is the first time the United Nations has addressed the issue.

Representatives from Denmark and Slovenia were especially outspoken in their criticism of the United States for not doing enough to prevent and prosecute alleged cases of sexual assault. Vojislav Šuc, Slovenia’s representative, encouraged the US to “redouble efforts to prevent sexual violence in the military and ensure protection of offenders and redress for victims.”

Stephanie Schroeder, a military sexual-assault survivor who traveled to Geneva for the hearing, said in a press release, “Today’s outcome shows that redress can be won before the UN—and hopefully lead to meaningful change back home.”

The UN panels likely decided to investigate US military sexual violence in response to a report last year from the Service Women’s Action Network and Cornell Law School’s Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and the Global Gender Justice Clinic. It analyzed statistics from the Department of Defense, survivors’ stories from federal cases, and interviews with survivors.

The report concluded, “In cases where an act of sexual assault has already been committed in the military, the U.S. oftentimes fails to promptly and impartially prosecute and effectively redress the assault and thereby violates servicemen and women’s rights under international law.”

The UN Human Rights Council evaluation targeted the military’s reporting process, in which the decision of whether to prosecute cases of alleged sexual assault or harassment is left to superiors in the chain of command rather than an outsider with experience in sexual assault. For years, activists and lawmakers in the United States have tried to change this protocol—but leaders in the military have balked at bringing civilians into bases and military academies to investigate alleged assaults. Advocates say that commanders should not be in charge of handling these cases, since they are not trained in legal or criminal matters and often directly supervise both the victim and the perpetrator. Victims often are afraid to report the assault, fearing retribution or inaction. In a 2014 RAND Corporation survey of service members who reported sexual assaults, 62 percent of those who responded claimed they experienced social or professional retaliation after reporting unwanted sexual harassment, including being fired.

Denmark’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Carsten Staur, recommended “removing from the chain of command the decision about whether to prosecute cases of alleged assault.” His comments marked the “first time that a human rights body has called upon the U.S. to remove key decision-making authority from the chain of command in cases alleging sexual violence,” noted Liz Brundige, the Avon Global Center’s director, in a press release.

The State Department, the Pentagon, and the US representative to the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment on the council report.

When the UN Human Rights Council last reviewed the United States in 2010, the US government promised to respond to all of the recommendations—including improvements to health care, criminal justice, and other areas of concern—with a written report of goals. This year, the UN Human Rights Council commended the US for six areas of “positive achievement,” including strengthening the social welfare system in the United States, creating a task force on 21st-century policing, taking some measures to address violence against women, upholding some of the rights of LGBT individuals, improving access to health care, and releasing details on CIA interrogation techniques. When the panel reviews the United States again, the US will have to update the United Nations on its progress on sexual assault in the military.

Of course, the problem of military sexual assault is not limited to the United States. Last year, Swedish UN official Anders Kompass leaked to French authorities an internal investigation detailing allegations that French soldiers on a peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic raped children and traded food for sex. Kompass said that he leaked the report because he was concerned that the United Nations would not disclose its findings or take action. Just last week, after the report was revealed by the Guardian, French prosecutors launched an investigation into the allegations. The whistleblower is now under internal investigation, according to the UN secretary general’s office, for a “serious breach in protocol” and risking victims’ privacy. French President Francois Hollande has declared he “will be merciless” if the allegations are proven true.

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The US Military’s Sexual-Assault Problem Is So Bad the UN Is Getting Involved

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Arkansas Will Force Doctors To Tell Women Abortions Can Be "Reversed"

by JosetteSeely Posted on April 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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As conservative lawmakers pass a record number of anti-abortion laws, it is staggering to consider how many require doctors to tell patients information that has no basis in science. Five states now require abortion providers to inform women about a bogus link between abortion and breast cancer. Several states mandate that doctors say ending a pregnancy can lead to mental health conditions like clinical depression—another falsehood, in the eyes of most mainstream medical groups.

Now there’s a new crop of legislation to add this list: laws forcing doctors to tell women planning to take abortion-inducing drugs that they may be able to change their minds mid-treatment.

On Monday, Arkansas became the second state to pass such a law, just over a week after Arizona’s Republican governor signed a similar measure. A spokeswoman for Americans United for Life, the legal arm of the anti-abortion movement, confirmed that both laws are based on the group’s model legislation.

Critics have slammed these bills as propagating a lie based on “junk science.” According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), “Claims of medication abortion reversal are not supported by the body of scientific evidence.”

Americans United for Life has not only backed the bills, but has enthusiastically endorsed a new procedure pioneered by George Delgado, a pro-life doctor who claims to have reversed abortions.

Most drug-induced abortions require two pills taken a few days apart. The initial dose, of mifepristone, blocks the progesterone hormones that help sustain the pregnancy. The second dose, of misopristol, causes contractions that flush out the pregnancy. Delgado says he’s stopped abortions by injecting supplemental progesterone between the two rounds of medicine. The evidence backing his discovery, however, is incredibly thin. As Olga Khazan writes for The Atlantic:

Women who only take the first pill already have a 30 to 50 percent chance of continuing their pregnancy normally, according to ACOG. The progesterone advice is based on a study by Delgado in which he analyzed six case studies of patients who regretted their abortions and were given progesterone. Four out of the six patients went on to deliver healthy infants. In other words, the limited evidence we have suggests that taking progesterone does not appear to improve the odds of fetal survival by much. The abortion pill binds more tightly to progesterone receptors than progesterone itself does, one reproductive researcher told Iowa Public Radio, and thus the hormone surge is unlikely to do much of anything.

As Cheryl Chastine, an abortion provider at South Wind Women’s Center in Kansas, put it recently, “Even if these doctors were to offer a large dose of purple Skittles, they’d appear to have ‘worked’ to ‘save’ the pregnancy about half the time.”

That’s why, on the small chance that a woman does regret her abortion midway through, ACOG-affiliated doctors say they would simply tell her not to take the second pill.

The injections might not only be useless—large doses of progesterone can actually be dangerous: “There can be cardiovascular side effects, glucose tolerance issues, it can cause problems with depression in people who already had it,” Ilana Addis, a gynecologist who opposed the Arizona measure, told The Atlantic. “And there are more annoying things, like bloating, fatigue, that kind of stuff. It’s an unpleasant drug to take.”

The new Arkansas law requires the state’s health department to write up information on abortion reversal for doctors to make available to patients, and it’s not yet clear if the health department will promote Delgado’s specific method. Meanwhile, Arkansas Right to Life is already promoting the services of doctors who are “trained to effectively reverse” abortions, and more than 200 physicians around the country have told pro-life groups that they are willing to conduct the procedure.

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Arkansas Will Force Doctors To Tell Women Abortions Can Be "Reversed"

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More Fabulous Health News

by Russel47Otaug Posted on April 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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I continue to be a star patient. Final results from yesterday clocked in at 5.2 million stem cells. Apparently I only need two million for the transplant, but they like to get a double sample in case I need another transplant a few years down the road. So four million is the goal.

So why am I still here? Good question. I don’t really have a good answer, though. Just in case? More is always better? This is actually a SPECTRE front and they use excess stem cells to breed an undefeatable clone army that will take over the world?

Not sure. In any case, stem cell collection has gone swimmingly and I’ll soon be out of here. Now there’s only one step left: the actual second round chemo itself followed by transplanting my stem cells back into my body. That begins on April 20.

BY THE WAY: The folks here, who have much more experience with cancer meds than your standard ER facility, are quite certain that my excruciating back pain on Friday was a side effect of the Neupogen. So that’s that. Today was my last shot of Neupogen, which means I can get off the pain meds in the next day or two.

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More Fabulous Health News

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The Link Between Fracking and Oklahoma’s Quakes Keeps Getting Stronger

by BrittSpargo Posted on April 6, 2015

Mother Jones

Over the last few years, Oklahoma has experienced an insane uptick in earthquakes. As we reported in 2013, the count exploded from just a couple per year back in the mid-2000s to over a thousand in 2010, growing alongside a boom in the state’s natural gas drilling industry.

There is now a heap of peer-reviewed research finding that Oklahoma’s earthquake “swarm” is directly linked to fracking—not the gas drilling itself, but a follow-up step where brackish wastewater is re-injected into disposal wells deep underground. It’s a troubling trend in an industry that thrives under notoriously lax regulations, especially when the risk to property and public safety is so obvious.

If those numbers weren’t dramatic enough, here’s another: This year, Oklahoma has experienced an average of two quakes per day of magnitude 3.0—enough to be felt and inflict damage to structures—or greater. That’s according to a deep, comprehensive report on the subject out in this week’s New Yorker.

But even freakier than the earthquakes themselves, according to the story, is the pervasive denial of science coming from state agencies like the Oklahoma Geological Survey, whose job it is to oversee the oil and gas industry:

The official position of the O.G.S. is that the Prague Oklahoma earthquakes were likely a natural event and that there is insufficient evidence to say that most earthquakes in Oklahoma are the result of disposal wells. That position, however, has no published research to support it, and there are at least twenty-three peer-reviewed, published papers that conclude otherwise.

The story goes on to detail super-cozy relationships between top regulators and drilling company executives; the state’s ongoing and systemic habit of dismissing or ignoring the rapidly accumulating pile of evidence about the quakes; and a failure by regulators and the state legislature to take any meaningful steps to address the crisis. It’s really quite damning.

As a reporter covering the fracking industry, I’ve found that a lot of the problems associated with the technique aren’t necessarily inherent to it, and could be resolved with more pressure on companies to behave responsibly, or laws requiring them to. Better zoning regulations could keep wells out of neighborhoods. Stricter well construction standards could cut down on the leakage of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and help ensure that gas or chemicals don’t contaminate groundwater. In other words, while industry may resist them, there are ready solutions at hand to many of the most cited drawbacks. And the same could be true in the case of earthquakes: while many geologists have now found that drilling wells into deep “basement” rock can set off temblors, there still isn’t a law in Oklahoma that simply requires locating disposal wells elsewhere.

Their state’s lack of basic engagement on the fracking-and-earthquakes issue is, understandably, a source of great frustration to Oklahomans, including those who are otherwise totally supportive the drilling industry. They’re worried not only about above-ground damage, but about how quakes might effect the state’s vast network of oil pipelines and underground aquifers. It’s hard to imagine the nightmare that would result if a serious earthquake ruptured these pipelines and caused a major spill. That sentiment was nicely captured in the New Yorker by a quote from the town manager of Medford, a hamlet outside the oil center of Cushing:

“We want to be a good partner for the oil companies—it’s exciting for us that they’re here. But if they can move the disposal well even just three miles, what a difference that would make.”

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The Link Between Fracking and Oklahoma’s Quakes Keeps Getting Stronger

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Happy Easter

by kosiczek1910 Posted on April 5, 2015

Mother Jones

I slept 7 hours last night! That’s the first time this has happened in months. And that was even in addition to an hour or two of napping that I did yesterday afternoon.

This is my Easter present to myself.

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Happy Easter

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Against All Odds, We Have a Tentative Nuclear Deal With Iran

by Johnathan Black Posted on April 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Well, I’ll be damned. As President Obama just said, the details of the newly announced nuclear deal with Iran matter, and the deal isn’t done until those details are fully worked out. Still, I figured the odds of getting even a framework agreement at about 70-30 against. This time, at least, it looks like John Kerry’s tenacity has paid off.

The question of precisely when sanctions on Iran will be lifted seems to have been carefully avoided in the press conferences I’ve seen so far, but presumably that will get worked out. That aside, the framework seems pretty reasonable. I’ll be fascinated to learn what tack Republicans take to justify their inevitable opposition.

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Against All Odds, We Have a Tentative Nuclear Deal With Iran

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Headline of the Day: Our Mideast Allies Suck

by BelindaJoe Posted on April 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s my favorite headline of the day:

Inept Allies in Mideast

Emma Ashford so perfectly channels my view of our putative allies in the Mideast that I won’t even pretend to objectivity here. I like her piece for no better reason than the fact that I agree with nearly every word of it.

This doesn’t get President Obama off the hook for mistakes he’s made, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the US has a better strategy available to it. The world is what it is. Still, more people should understand just what we’re up against in the region. The answer is: just about everything.

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Headline of the Day: Our Mideast Allies Suck

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Once Again, We Are Unlearning the Lesson of the Great Debt Bubble

by LynetteNettleto Posted on April 1, 2015

Mother Jones

Is this good news?

Millions of Americans unable to obtain credit cards, mortgages and auto loans from banks will receive a boost with the launch of a new credit score aimed at consumers regarded as too risky by lenders.

Here’s more:

The new score is largely a response to banks’ desire to boost lending volumes by increasing loan originations to borrowers who otherwise wouldn’t qualify, many of whom tend to be charged more for loans….The new score, which isn’t yet named, will be calculated based on consumers’ payment history with their cable, cellphone, electric and gas bills, as well as how often they change addresses and other factors.

….The new score could help applicants who don’t use credit often but are responsible with their monthly payments to get approved for financing….But many borrowers who don’t have a traditional FICO score are very risky.

….Besides increasing their pool of borrowers and loan originations, banks stand to earn more in interest revenue from riskier borrowers. Lenders charge higher interest rates and in some cases extra fees to borrowers who present a higher risk of falling behind on debt payments.

Color me deeply skeptical. Helping people who are denied credit simply because they don’t currently use any credit sounds great. And assessing them by their reliability in paying normal monthly bills sounds perfectly reasonable.

But I very much doubt this is really the target of this initiative. After all, people with no previous credit history already have access to credit. They just have to start slowly, with low credit limits and so forth. This new scoring system probably won’t change that.

What it will do is give banks an excuse to extend high-cost credit to risky borrowers—exactly the same thing they did during the housing bubble. As you may recall, that didn’t turn out well, and there was a simple reason: risky borrowers are risky for a reason. When banks start to get too loose with their lending standards they end up dealing with default rates much higher than they expected.

This won’t happen right away, of course. Banks will be relatively cautious at first. They always are. But just wait a few years and it will be a different story. Then the standards will be lowered just a little too far, the rocket scientists will do their thing, and we’ll be headed toward yet another debt crisis.

This is almost certainly a bad idea. We’d all like to see everyone get a chance, but there are good reasons to restrict credit to borrowers who are likely to repay. We should remember that.

UPDATE: Megan McArdle has a different take here. I’m skeptical, but it’s worth reading.

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Once Again, We Are Unlearning the Lesson of the Great Debt Bubble

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Should We Welcome Saudi Arabia to the Fight in the Middle East?

by SonjaBaynes Posted on March 28, 2015

Mother Jones

I have occasionally griped in this space about the fact that putative Middle East allies like Saudi Arabia and Jordan basically view the American military as a sort of mercenary force to fight their own tribal battles. Sure, they provide us with basing rights, and sometimes money, but they want us to do all the fighting, and they complain bitterly about American naiveté when we don’t fight every war they think we should fight.

Recently this has changed a bit, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan launching independent air attacks against various neighbors, and Saudi Arabia even making noises about launching ground attacks in Yemen. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Josh Marshall makes some useful points:

It is always dangerous when power and accountability are unchained from each other. In recent decades, we’ve had a system in which our clients look to us for protection, ask for military action of various sorts — but privately. And then we act, but always in the process whipping up anti-American sentiment, mixed with extremist religious enthusiasms, which our allies often, paradoxically, stoke or accommodate to secure their own holds on power. This is, to put it mildly, an unstable and politically toxic state of affairs. This does not even get into the costs to the US in blood and treasure.

There are pluses to the old or existing system. We control everything. Wars don’t start until we start them. But the downsides are obvious, as well. And nowhere has this been more clear than with the Saudis. The Saudis sell us oil; and they buy our weapons. We start wars to protect them, the reaction to which curdles in the confines of their domestic repression and breaks out in terrorist attacks against us. I don’t mean to suggest that we are purely victims here. We’re not. But it’s a pernicious arrangement.

This is why I think we should be heartened to see the Saudis acting on their own account, taking action on their own account for which they must create domestic support and stand behind internationally.

There’s more, and Marshall is hardly unaware of the risks in widespread military action among countries that barely even count as coherent states. “Still, the old system bred irresponsibility on many levels, including a lack of responsibility and accountability from the existing governments in the region. For all the dangers and unpredictabilities involved with having the Saudis or in other cases the Egyptians stand up and take actions which they believe are critical to their security on their own account is better for everyone involved.”

Some food for thought this weekend.

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Should We Welcome Saudi Arabia to the Fight in the Middle East?

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