Tag Archives: mojo

Breaking: At Least 14 Killed in San Bernardino Mass Shooting

by Cornelius37M Posted on December 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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At least 14 people are dead and 14 wounded after heavily-armed gunmen opened fire inside a facility that assists people with developmental disabilities, in San Bernardino, California, police confirmed in a news conference Wednesday afternoon. The area remains under lockdown, as a manhunt for up to three suspects continues.

The Guardian and the LA Times, citing police officials, report authorities are searching for an SUV that was used to flee the scene. Police confirm a suspect was seen wearing what is being described as “tactical gear.” The attackers used “long guns, not handguns,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in the news conference.

.@SanBernardinoPD and other Law Enforcement agencies are evacuating people from the Inland Regional Center pic.twitter.com/kPU2dbWqV3

— Doug Saunders (@crimeshutterbug) December 2, 2015

“We do not know where the suspects are,” Burguan told reporters. “At minimum we have domestic-type terrorism situation.”

This is a breaking news post. We will update as more information becomes available.

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Breaking: At Least 14 Killed in San Bernardino Mass Shooting

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Police Just Released Dashcam Footage of the Laquan McDonald Shooting

by WilbertJeppesen Posted on November 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, Chicago officials released the dashcam footage from the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The video’s release came hours after state prosecutors charged Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke with first-degree murder in McDonald’s shooting last October, reportedly becoming the first cop in the city to face such charges in nearly 35 years.

The video, posted below, is disturbing. (WARNING: Seriously, watch at your own discretion.)

In April, the city of Chicago paid McDonald’s family $5 million, before any lawsuit was formally filed.

The footage and a bond hearing early Tuesday revealed details that differed from the initial police narrative of events. Police previously said they had found McDonald in the street slashing a car’s tires, and that when ordered to drop his knife, he walked away. After a second police car arrived and police tried to block McDonald’s path, police said, McDonald punctured a police car’s tires. When officers got out of the car, police officials alleged McDonald lunged at them with the knife and Van Dyke, who feared for his life, shot him.

Instead, the footage shows McDonald, who was carrying a knife, ambling away from police as Van Dyke and his partner get out of their car. Van Dyke then unloads a barrage of bullets on the teen about six seconds after then. The Chicago Tribune reported that according to prosecutors, Van Dyke fired 16 rounds at McDonald in 14 or 15 seconds and was told to hold his fire when he began to reload his weapon. For about 13 of those seconds, McDonald is on the ground.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez described the video as “deeply disturbing” and told reporters that Van Dyke’s actions “were not justified and were not a proper use of deadly force.”

A judge had ordered the video’s release by Wednesday, but Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced that the city would release the video a day early. “The officer in this case took a young man’s life and he’s going to have to account for his actions,” McCarthy told reporters. Van Dyke could face between 20 years and life in prison if convicted.

“With these charges, we are bringing a full measure of justice that this demands,” Alvarez said.

Van Dyke’s attorney Daniel Herbert questioned whether the case amounted to a murder case and believed the shooting was justified. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for calm after the video’s release. “Jason Van Dyke will be judged in the court of law,” Emanuel told reporters. “That’s exactly how it should be.” In a statement through attorneys, McDonald’s family reiterated a call for peace and said they would have preferred for the video not to be released.

“No one understands the anger more than us, but if you choose to speak out, we urge you to be peaceful,” the family said. “Don’t resort to violence in Laquan’s name. Let his legacy be better than that.”

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Police Just Released Dashcam Footage of the Laquan McDonald Shooting

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What You Need to Know About the Ongoing Lockdown in Brussels

by RalphReaves Posted on November 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Brussels remains under lockdown for the third straight day as authorities continue to hunt down suspects in connection with the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. As of Monday morning, a spokesman for the chief Belgian prosecutor said 21 people have been arrested in a series of anti-terror raids since Sunday.

But police officers are still searching for the primary target of these raids—Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old suspect believed to have taken part in the Paris attacks. Officials say Abdeslam’s brother detonated himself in the Paris attacks.

Amid the crackdown, officials are also warning residents of a possible “serious and imminent attack” in the Belgian capital. Schools, underground public transit, and shopping centers are all closed, as Brussels remains at the highest level of terror alert.

Over the weekend, the police requested that residents refrain from posting details of the raids on social media and potentially tipping the suspects off in the process. Twitter users followed through by flooding the platform with photos of cats in order to show a moment of levity and stamp out any possible security leaks.

On Monday, British Prime Minster David Cameron announced that he will seek parliamentary support to launch new airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. The Guardian reports that US special operation forces will be deployed in Syria “very soon.”

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What You Need to Know About the Ongoing Lockdown in Brussels

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Alabama May Back Off Its Policy of Treating New Moms Like Meth Cooks

by 0dyqe2k7 Posted on November 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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A subcommittee of the Alabama Governor’s Health Care Improvement Task Force is examining proposals that aim to reform the nation’s harshest “chemical endangerment of a child” statute. The law states that “knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally” exposing a child to controlled substances or drug-making chemicals is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison if a child is unharmed, and 99 years if a child dies.

The enforcement of the law, originally intended to prosecute methamphetamine users who exposed children to the drug, has been unusually broad—including, as ProPublica’s Nina Martin previously reported in Mother Jones, the prosecution of pregnant women for exposing their fetuses to even small amounts of anti-anxiety medication. Nearly 500 women have been arrested on related charges since the law passed in 2006.

The law has been criticized by civil rights groups and public health experts for being harmful to those who need the most help—women who are faced with poverty and addiction—and for unfairly prosecuting women who were not drug users at all, but who might have simply taken a small dose of medication that eventually appeared appeared in the blood test of their new babies.

At the task force meeting on Wednesday, Dr. Darlene Traffanstedt, who heads the subcommittee, announced that three proposals were under consideration. One would require prosecutors to offer drug treatment to pregnant women instead of prosecution, another would protect women using drugs that have been legally prescribed to them (which has not been the case since 2006). The third option would hold the law to its “original intent” by preventing its use against women who are using pregnancy-related medication.

The subcommittee’s next meeting is in December, and a draft bill is expected by the beginning of February’s legislative session. Read more about the law and its consequences here.

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Alabama May Back Off Its Policy of Treating New Moms Like Meth Cooks

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Gunmen Take 170 Hostages Inside Mali Hotel

by TanyaSwope28921 Posted on November 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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At least three people are dead after gunmen—reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great”—seized control on Friday of a Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, where 170 people were taken hostage.

Security forces launched a counterassault mission, reportedly freeing 80 out of the initial 170 hostages as of this time.

The Times reports that the gunmen are also releasing Muslims but continuing to hold non-Muslims inside.

The hostage situation in Mali comes just one week after the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. On Friday, French President Francois Hollande showed his solidarity with the Malian people.

“With the means we have in the area, we will do what is possible to obtain the freedom of the hostage,” Hollande said. “Once again, terrorists want to mark with their barbaric presence all places where they can kill or massacre.”

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Gunmen Take 170 Hostages Inside Mali Hotel

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Kansas Asks Its Entire Supreme Court to Step Aside in Key Case

by MorganTobin Posted on November 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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Kansas Republicans believe they have created a law that their own high court cannot review.

In the latest twist of the topsy-turvy constitutional showdown between the GOP-controlled state legislature and the state Supreme Court, the Kansas attorney general has asked the entire Kansas Supreme Court to recuse itself from hearing a key case.

The power struggle between Kansas Republicans and the state’s highest court goes back to a years-long battle over education funding. The state Supreme Court has repeatedly ordered the legislature to spend more money on public education, a request that conflicts with Republicans’ desire to cut taxes. In 2014, the legislature passed a bill stripping the Supreme Court of the administrative authority to appoint chief judges in Kansas’ 31 judicial districts, a move Democrats saw as a power play by the legislature to intimidate the top court during the ongoing fight over school spending. Chief District Court Judge Larry Solomon challenged the constitutionality of the judicial administration law, arguing that it violates the state’s separation of powers.

But the legislature doubled down. Earlier this year, it passed a judicial budget that would cut off funding for the entire Kansas court system if the courts struck down the judicial administration bill—a situation that would seize critical state functions such as criminal prosecutions, civil disputes, real estate sales, and adoptions. That led to the bizarre moment in September when a district court ruled the administrative bill unconstitutional, putting all the funding for the state courts in sudden jeopardy. The situation threatened to devolve into a judicial catch-22, in which no court could rule on the legality of the laws because those laws had defunded them. To avoid that situation, the judge put a hold on his ruling invalidating the law until the state Supreme Court could hear the case—except that the state of Kansas is now arguing that the Supreme Court shouldn’t have its say.

Rather than let the case proceed to the Supreme Court, Attorney General Derek Schmidt argued in a brief last week that the justices should not hear the case because the law involves the court’s authority. Schmidt’s brief also notes that the chief justice of the Supreme Court criticized the law when it passed, betraying his bias against the law.

Under Kansas law, Supreme Court justices can appoint district court judges to sit in their place when they recuse themselves. But Schmidt argues that a district court judge shouldn’t be involved either, because the law involves appointing chief judges at the district court level. Instead, Schmidt proposes that judges on the Kansas Court of Appeals—just below the level of the Supreme Court and above the district courts—review the case. (Perhaps not coincidentally, in 2013, the Republican-controlled legislature changed the selection process for appeals court judges. Before then, a commission nominated potential judges for the governor to choose from; now the judges are appointed directly by the governor, currently Republican Sam Brownback. The judges most sympathetic to the Republican legislature may be those at the appeals court level.)

Lawyers fighting the judicial administration bill believe the recusal request is frivolous. As they wrote in a brief this week, “centuries of precedent make clear that it is the province and duty of this Court to decide cases that involve the scope of the Court’s authority, jurisdiction, and duties vis-à-vis the other branches of government.” In a response filed Thursday, the state held firm that the highest court should not hear the case.

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Kansas Asks Its Entire Supreme Court to Step Aside in Key Case

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Louisiana Republican Stokes Fears of Syrian Refugees to Boost Struggling Campaign for Governor

by JenniferBaier41 Posted on November 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the days since terror attacks roiled Paris, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who has been trailing in the race for governor against his Democratic rival John Bel Edwards, has settled on a new strategy for winning over voters: warning them about Syrian refugees entering the state.

After Edwards released an apparently altered statement on Facebook in the attacks’ aftermath noting he would help “to assist the people coming here and fleeing from religious persecution,” Vitter’s campaign pounced. In a robocall over the weekend, Vitter warned that President Barack Obama’s “reckless policies” for allowing 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country would turn Louisiana into a “dangerous refugee zone.” (The State Department confirmed to the Times-Picayune that only 14 Syrian immigrants had settled in Louisiana since January 1.)

On Monday, as Gov. Bobby Jindal signed an executive order seeking to block refugees from entering the state, Vitter released an ad claiming that Obama had been “sending refugees to Louisiana” and that Edwards had vowed to work with the president to welcome them. A day later, Vitter introduced federal legislation that would halt incoming refugee admissions for at least 300 days while a review of the screening process takes place.

An email sent from the Louisiana Republican Party on Tuesday warned supporters about the possibility of “missing” refugees in the state.

Just yesterday, David Vitter had to notify the Obama Administration that a Syrian refugee who had been living in Baton Rouge has gone missing. What kind of accountability is that? There is an unmonitored Syrian refugee who is walking around freely, and no one knows where he is.

It turns out that the “missing” refugee in Baton Rouge hadn’t disappeared at all. A day before the email went out, the New Orleans Advocate reported that Catholic Charities, the organization that aids in refugee resettlement, had helped the Syrian man for a few days before he left the state to meet with family in Washington, DC. Before he left, the man filed relocation paperwork to the federal government.

Vitter’s wife, Wendy Vitter, reportedly works as a lawyer for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which is affiliated with Catholic Charities. The organization received a flood of phone calls about the supposedly “missing” refugee, according to the Advocate, and a Jefferson Parish Sheriff warned that “somebody’s going to get killed” as a result of the misinformation, according to the New Orleans alt-weekly The Gambit.

Vitter, whose campaign has also been mired in reports that he may have had a love child with a prostitute, will find if his last-ditch effort to lure Louisiana voters is successful when the election takes place on Saturday.

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Louisiana Republican Stokes Fears of Syrian Refugees to Boost Struggling Campaign for Governor

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The Latest on Paris Attacks and the Campaign Against ISIS

by FAKBrentlzll Posted on November 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, Russian officials confirmed for the first time that a homemade explosive was found on the downed Metrojet airliner that crashed in Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board.

Shortly after the confirmation, Russia announced the country was stepping up air strikes in Syria, hoping to work directly with France in the fight against ISIS.

“We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them,” President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with Russian security authorities.

Russia’s FSB security service also announced a $50 million reward for anyone who could provide intelligence leading to the arrests of the terrorists responsible for the attack.

The announcement comes amid the ongoing international manhunt for suspects connected to the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday. Authorities are said to be specifically targeting Belgian-born, 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, the suspected eighth terrorist behind Friday’s siege.

On Monday, authorities conducted 128 overnight raids throughout France, searching for people involved with the attacks. Several arrests in Germany have already been made, but officials say they were not “closely”connected” to Friday’s attacks.

On Tuesday, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian made an official request to the European Union for assistance in the fight against ISIS. The Associated Press reports French President Francois Hollande will meet with President Obama in Washington and President Putin in Moscow next week to discuss the international effort.

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The Latest on Paris Attacks and the Campaign Against ISIS

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"An Attack on of all of Humanity": President Obama Delivers Statement After Paris Erupts in Violence

by KatheriPohlman Posted on November 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama delivered remarks on the deadly series of shootings and bombings that erupted in Paris on Friday evening.

“This is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share,” Obama said.

He indicated he has not yet reached out to French President Francois Hollande, as the French capital remains under attack.

For continuing coverage of the deadly shootings, head to our live blog here.

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"An Attack on of all of Humanity": President Obama Delivers Statement After Paris Erupts in Violence

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Ted Cruz Can’t Remember All the Departments He Wants to Defund

by GaryULNmsilfnrv Posted on November 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Oops.

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Ted Cruz Can’t Remember All the Departments He Wants to Defund

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