Tag Archives: national

Exclusive: The Democratic National Committee Has Told the FBI It Found Evidence Its HQ Was Bugged

by CristinDraper Posted on November 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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In an episode reminiscent of Watergate, the Democratic Party recently informed the FBI that it had collected evidence suggesting its Washington headquarters had been bugged, according to two Democratic National Committee officials who asked not to be named.

In September, according to these sources, the DNC hired a firm to conduct an electronic sweep of its offices. After Russian hackers had penetrated its email system and those of other Democratic targets, DNC officials believed it was prudent to scrutinize their offices. This examination found nothing unusual.

In late October, after conservative activist James O’Keefe released a new set of hidden-camera videos targeting Democrats, interim party chairwoman Donna Brazile ordered up another sweep. There was a concern that Republican foes might have infiltrated the DNC offices, where volunteers were reporting to work on phone banks and other election activities. (For some of their actions, O’Keefe and his crew have used people posing as volunteers to gain access to Democratic outfits.)

The second sweep, according to the Democratic officials, found a radio signal near the chairman’s office that indicated there might be a listening device outside the office. “We were told that this was something that could pick up calls from cellphones,” a DNC official says. “The guys who did the sweep said it was a strong indication.” No device was recovered. No possible culprits were identified.

The DNC sent a report with the technical details to the FBI, according to the DNC officials. “We believe it’s been given by the bureau to another agency with three letters to examine,” the DNC official says. “We’re not supposed to talk about it.”

A Democratic consultant who has done work for the DNC, who asked not to be identified, says he was recently informed about the suspected bugging.

The DNC officials will not say what countermeasures were subsequently taken. “As a general policy, we don’t talk about such efforts,” the other DNC official says. But this official adds, “You have to take all of this incredibly seriously.” The first DNC official notes, “We are the oldest political party in this country, and we are under constant attack from Russia and/or maybe others.”

Adam Hodge, a spokesman for the DNC, says, “The DNC is not going to comment on stories about its security. In all security matters, we cooperate fully with the appropriate law enforcement agencies and take all necessary steps to protect the committee and the safety and security of our staff.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

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Exclusive: The Democratic National Committee Has Told the FBI It Found Evidence Its HQ Was Bugged

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New Research Confirms Guns on College Campuses Are Dangerous

by tfem31x Posted on November 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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Eight states currently have laws that allow people to carry guns on college campuses. In 24 others, individual colleges can decide whether to allow firearms on the premises. The primary rationale for these laws, according to their supporters, is safety: School shooters, they say, are less likely to succeed in their attacks if students and teachers are armed and able to fight back.

But a new study from Johns Hopkins University shows that campus carry laws are unlikely to deter rampage shooters and may in fact lead to more injuries and deaths. Here are the main takeaways from the research:

Concealed-carry laws do not deter mass shootings

Advocates for looser gun laws have popularized the idea that armed criminals are more likely to attack in “gun free” zones where nobody can fight back against them. Colleges that ban students from carrying weapons are consequently more dangerous, according to proponents of campus carry laws. But this theory is not supported by data, the Johns Hopkins study found. From 1966 to 2015, only 12 percent of 111 high-fatality mass shootings in the United States—at college campuses or elsewhere—took place in “gun free” zones, and only 5 percent took place in “gun restricted” zones, where security guards were armed but civilians were banned from carrying weapons. Another analysis, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, drew similar conclusions: Only 13 percent of mass shootings from 2009 to 2015 occurred in gun-free or gun-restricted zones. What’s more, allowing people to carry concealed weapons has been connected with an increase in violent crime, according to researchers at the Brennan Center for Justice. They noted a 10 percent average increase in violent crime in states that adopted right-to-carry laws.

Armed civilians are not likely to stop a rampage shooter

When a mass shooting does occur, campus carry advocates say, it helps to have responsible gun-toting civilians in the area, so they can thwart the attacker. Pro-gun economist John Lott and other advocates point to 39 incidents where they say armed civilians have helped stop gunmen. But when the Johns Hopkins researchers looked into the cases, they found that only 4 of 39 actually involved an armed civilian stopping a rampage shooter. What about the other 35 alleged incidents? As with various past cases debunked by Mother Jones, they did not stand up to scrutiny: Twenty-two of them weren’t actually mass shootings—sometimes a gun was never even fired. In two mass-shooting incidents, an armed security guard or a law enforcement officer, not a civilian, intervened. In two other incidents, armed civilians helped detain a perpetrator after the shooting had already ended, and they didn’t use guns to do so. In five mass shootings, armed civilians tried but failed to stop the attacker—and three of them were shot in the process.

Separate research from the FBI shows similar results. The bureau looked at 160 active-shooter situations from 2000 to 2013 and found only one case where an armed civilian intervened to stop an attack that was underway. (And that civilian was a US Marine.) In 21 cases, an unarmed civilian interrupted the attack and restrained the gunman. In other words, unarmed civilians were far more likely than those with guns to stop an active shooting in progress.

Respond effectively in an active-shooting situation requires extensive training, the Johns Hopkins researchers noted. “There is no reason to believe that college students, faculty and civilian staff will shoot accurately in active shooter situations when they have only passed minimal training requirements for a permit to carry,” they wrote.

Campus carry could lead to more suicides and other gun violence

College students are much less likely to stop a rampage shooter than they are to use firearms to inflict harm on themselves or others, the researchers found. The brains of young adults are still developing, they explain, and that can compromise impulse control and judgment—both of which “are essential for avoiding the circumstances in which firearm access leads to tragedy.” That could be one reason why 19- to 21-year-olds have the highest rate of homicide offenses, according to FBI data. The risk of violent confrontations increases when you throw alcohol and binge-drinking into the mix, the researchers added.

The risk of suicidal behavior, which peaks at age 16, is also high through the mid-20s, the researchers wrote, noting the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses on college campuses. “Research demonstrates that access to firearms substantially increases suicide risks, especially among adolescents and young adults, as firearms are the most common method of lethal self-harm,” they explained. In one study of 645 college campuses, guns were used in about a third of suicides by male students.

The Johns Hopkins study also broke down gun violence on campuses another way: Of 85 shootings or “undesirable discharges of firearms” on colleges from 2013 to June this year, only 2 percent involved rampage shooters. Much more common were interpersonal arguments that turned into gun violence (45 percent), premeditated attacks on a single person (12 percent), suicides or murder/suicides (12 percent), or unintentional discharges (9 percent).

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New Research Confirms Guns on College Campuses Are Dangerous

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Think Bats Are Creepy? Well, Check Out These Adorable Photos.

by PaulettKen Posted on October 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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Lots of people think bats are downright frightening. After all, they do seem to check all the creepiness boxes: They come out at night; they live in dark, scary places; they communicate via high-pitch screeching.

Now multiply that by 10.

Flying foxes, also commonly known as fruit bats, are the largest flying mammal. Their wingspans stretch up to five feet. They can weigh more than two pounds and eat three times their body weight in nectar in just one night. Just check out this video from National Geographic:

With Halloween fast approaching, bats are the subject on this week’s episode of Inquiring Minds podcast. Host Indre Vikontas talks with bat expert and educator Merlin Tuttle about these somewhat cuddly creatures that often get a bad rap. “We invariably fear most what we understand least,” he says. And it turns out that we actually have a lot to thank bats for: These long-distance migrators pollinate a lot of the fruit we eat.

Tuttle, whose recent book is called The Secret Lives of Bats, has been fascinated with all kinds of bats ever since a classmate brought one for show-and-tell way back in the fourth grade. He started exploring caves near his home in Tennessee to learn more and ended up devoting his life to bat conservation. Tuttle has photographed more than 300 species on every continent where they reside.

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Click above to hear Tuttle as he tells his best bat tales, explains his most interesting findings, and recounts how his childhood fascination led to strange friendships with shot-gun-toting Tennessee moonshiners.

And while you’re listening, check out these amazing photos from Tuttle’s close-up collection:

A juvenile male Wrinkle-faced bat from Trinidad

A lesser long-nosed bat pollinating saguaro cactus in Mexico

Foot of Rickett’s Big-footed Myotis

A pallid bat catching a giant desert centipede in Arizona

Minor epauletted bat from Kenya

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Think Bats Are Creepy? Well, Check Out These Adorable Photos.

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Donald Trump Knows Nothing About His Own Businesses

by PreciousBlubaugh Posted on October 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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With only 14 days left before Election Day, it hardly feels worth it to highlight Donald Trump’s latest public declaration of ignorance, but I have another point to make about today’s Trump Follies. Here is Donald on Obamacare:

Well, I don’t use much Obamacare, I must be honest with you, because it is so bad for the people and they can’t afford it. And like, for instance, I’m at Trump National Doral in Miami, and we don’t even use Obamacare. We don’t want it. The people don’t want it, and I spend more money on health coverage, but we don’t use it.

The obvious point to make is that Trump obviously has no idea what Obamacare is. He’s apparently under the impression that it’s some kind of option that employers can choose as group insurance for their employees. Ha ha. What an idiot.

And that’s true enough. But did you notice something else? Once again, Trump has made it clear that he has no idea how his own businesses are run. This is hardly the first time, either. As near as I can tell, Trump’s job as CEO of the Trump Organization is to (a) watch a lot of TV, (b) appear on a lot of TV, (c) make command decisions about what kind of marble to use in the bathrooms, and (d) threaten to sue people who get in his way. Beyond that, he appears to play no real role in running things.

This explains, for example, his promise last year to release his tax returns. He made that promise because he had no idea what was in them. It was only later, when someone on his finance team apparently pointed out what they contained, that he reneged on his promise. It also explains his frequent business failures. He was in love with the Plaza Hotel but had no idea what it was worth or how to run it. He loved the idea of owning an airline but had no clue about the shuttle market. He loved the casino business, but was entirely ignorant about casino operations. He loves to play golf, but doesn’t understand the business of golf. Etc. He’s spent his whole life diddling around in businesses that seemed interesting, but without knowing anything about them or understanding how to run them.

His presidential campaign is the same thing. He thought it sounded neat to run for president but had no interest in how campaigns are actually run. If he ever became president, it would be more of the same. He’d run the country the way he runs his golf courses: making windswept exits from helicopters to deliver grand statements, and then quickly losing all interest. At best, things would toddle along without catastrophe if he picked decent people to run things. At worst, he’d pick fellow con men who would embroil him in endless scandals that made Teapot Dome look like a child’s lark.

Luckily, we’ll never have to find out.

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Donald Trump Knows Nothing About His Own Businesses

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Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs – Roger Lederer

by Myrna Posted on October 22, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs
How the Struggle for Survival Has Shaped Birds and Their Behavior
Roger Lederer

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: June 22, 2016

Publisher: Timber Press

Seller: Workman Publishing Co., Inc.


“Reveals the strange and wondrous adaptations birds rely on to get by.” —National Audubon Society When we see a bird flying from branch to branch happily chirping, it is easy to imagine they lead a simple life of freedom, flight, and feathers. What we don’t see is the arduous, life-threatening challenges they face at every moment.&#xa0; Beaks, Bones, and&#xa0;Bird Songs guides the reader through the myriad, and often almost miraculous, things that birds do every day to merely stay alive. Like the goldfinch, which manages extreme weather changes by doubling the density of its plumage in winter. Or urban birds, which&#xa0;navigate traffic through a keen understanding of posted speed limits. In engaging and accessible prose, Roger Lederer shares how and why birds use their sensory abilities to see ultraviolet, find food without seeing it, fly thousands of miles without stopping, change their songs in noisy cities, navigate by smell, and much more.

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Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs – Roger Lederer

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Fossil fuel favorite Lamar Smith just lost a big ol’ endorsement.

by Nathanmlm Posted on October 19, 2016

The San Antonio Express-News, the fourth-largest daily newspaper in Texas, has refused to repeat its prior endorsement of Rep. Smith, who has represented Texas’ 21st congressional district since 1987.

Smith is chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee — and a climate change denier. The paper’s editorial board accuses him of “abuse” of that position and “bullying on the issue of climate change”:

[L]ast year Smith threatened the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Kathryn Sullivan, with criminal charges if she didn’t release emails from scientists about a certain climate change study. That study refuted gospel by deniers that global warming slowed between 1998 and 2012.

Smith said he was shielding scientific inquiry. But the real effect would be to chill such efforts. And in 2015, Smith sought to cut NASA funding for earth science — a science that includes climate science research. He said the agency should focus on space exploration. Both are necessary.

The non-endorsement ends with an acknowledgment that Smith will probably win in his largely conservative district anyway.

Luckily for Smith, he has other friends in high places: namely, the fossil fuel industry, which has donated more than $92,000 to his campaign this season.

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Fossil fuel favorite Lamar Smith just lost a big ol’ endorsement.

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Even More Proof That Gun Laws Work

by MonroeW02xi Posted on October 12, 2016

Mother Jones

The rates of gun violence in the 10 states with the weakest gun laws are more than 3 times higher than those in the 10 states with the strongest gun laws. That’s one of the major findings of a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) that analyzes 10 indicators of firearm violence—including suicide, murder, fatal gun accidents, and mass shootings—in all 50 states and finds a “strong” correlation between gun violence and weak gun laws.

The states with the highest levels of gun violence include Louisiana, Alaska, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Alabama, which also have some of the weakest gun laws in the nation, according to CAP. States with relatively strict gun laws, such as Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, experience significantly lower levels of gun violence. While the report does not assess the impact of specific laws, it does note previous examples of how specific laws have affected gun crime. For example, when Connecticut implemented laws requiring a permit to purchase a gun and mandated background checks, gun-related homicides dropped 40 percent. In contrast, when Missouri eliminated the same requirements, its gun homicide rate increased by 25 percent.

Center for American Progress

“If you have good gun laws, the people in your state will in fact be safer, and if you have bad gun laws, people in your state—and people in other states—will be at risk,” Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said in a press call about the study. “In many of the cases where violence plays out in Connecticut, we discover that the gun was purchased in a state that had loopholes that we don’t have in our own state.” Since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, Connecticut has mandated background checks for all gun sales, required safer gun storage, limited the types of guns that can be sold, and required that all guns in the state be licensed. “In the two completed years that have been analyzed since we passed our updated gun laws, Connecticut has seen the sharpest drop in violent crime of any of the 50 states,” Malloy, a Democrat, said.

Meanwhile, “Florida has taken the exact opposite approach to dealing with gun violence,” said Mayor Andrew Gillum of Tallahassee, Florida. In the same call with reporters, Gillum noted that in response to an attempted mass shooting at a Florida University in 2015, the state legislature introduced a proposal to allow concealed carry on college campuses. He added that the legislature and governor “have taken affirmative steps to prevent local governments like mine from trying to take action” to address gun violence.

Under Florida law, local governments cannot regulate the use of weapons. “In my very own city, we have a gun law that says you can’t fire off weapons in city parks where kids play and our families picnic,” Gillum explained. In response, Tallahassee was sued by pro-gun groups including the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association, as well as the state’s attorney general. “It’s extremely frustrating to try to work to keep our communities safe in a state when the legislature is actively working against you, and is beholden unfortunately to the powerful gun lobby,” Gillum said.

The new study builds on a growing body of research that has reached the same conclusion: Stricter gun laws are linked to lower rates of gun violence. The NRA has long rejected these findings. Speaking to the New York Times about the new report and those with similar findings that came before it, an NRA spokeswoman claimed that the research “cherry picked” evidence. As a counterpoint, she cited the work of the controversial researcher John Lott, whose widely discredited theory is summed up in the title of his best-known book: More Guns, Less Crime.

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Even More Proof That Gun Laws Work

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Trump Says He’ll Imprison Clinton’s Lawyers, Too

by JanetteRichmond Posted on October 12, 2016

Mother Jones

After Donald Trump called for Hillary Clinton to be jailed during Sunday’s presidential debate, some Trump surrogates suggested that he was simply joking, and his running mate Mike Pence said his remarks had been taken out of context. But at a Wednesday rally in Lakeland, Florida, Trump promised that no, he really did intend to throw Hillary Clinton in prison if elected—and to prosecute her lawyers for good measure.

In his afternoon speech outside an airplane hangar off I-4 in the center of the swing state, Trump offered his toughest words yet for the former secretary of state. “Hillary Clinton bleached and deleted 33,000 emails after a congressional subpoena,” he told the crowd. “So she gets the subpoena, she gets the subpoena, and after—not before, that would be bad—but after getting the subpoena to give over your emails and lots of other things, she deleted the emails. She. Has. To. Go. To. Jail.”

Trump didn’t stop there. He also wanted the people who advised her to delete the emails to be charged, arrested, and jailed. “And her law firm, which is a very big and powerful law firm, which is the one that said, ‘Oh, they’ll determine what they’re giving,’ those representatives within that law firm that did that, have to go to jail,” Trump said.

The rally was the third stop in a three-day swing through the Sunshine State, where Clinton has taken a small but steady lead during Trump’s October collapse. Supporters packed onto the tarmac to wait for Trump’s campaign plane to pull up, and some passed out from the heat before and during the event. When a woman who had collapsed earlier in his speech returned to the crowd to hear the ending, Trump praised her durability and took a shot at the National Football League’s concussion policy. “Uh! Uh!” he said. “A little ding in the head you can’t play the rest of the season.”

The prospect of prosecuting Clinton was a through-line of the event. Trump supporters donned “Hillary for Prison” t-shirts, and one attendee wore black-and-white stripes with a Hillary mask. When Rep. Dennis Ross, a Florida Republican who spoke before the plane had arrived, was interrupted with a chant of “lock her up!”, he promised to help make it a reality. “When he becomes president, we’ll work on that,” Ross said.

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Trump Says He’ll Imprison Clinton’s Lawyers, Too

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Paul Ryan Won’t Defend Donald Trump—But Is Still Endorsing Him

by CarmaDja7537 Posted on October 10, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over the weekend dozens of Republicans condemned and abandoned Donald Trump, but Paul Ryan still seems to be hedging his bets. The House Speaker convened a conference call with Republicans in his caucus Monday morning to discuss the state of the GOP amidst the turmoil caused by leaked audio of Donald Trump describing how his celebrity status allows him to get away with sexually assaulting women. Per news reports, Ryan is now trying to distance himself from his party’s presidential nominee but is still standing by his plan to vote for Trump.

According to CNN, Ryan gave his blessing to House Republicans to either ditch Trump or to stay behind the GOP candidate, saying “you all need to do what’s best for you and your district.” It sounds as if Ryan has essentially given up hope that Republicans can defeat Hillary Clinton and win back the White House.

Ryan has expressed general discomfort with Trump throughout the campaign. After Trump went off against an Indiana judge, saying the judge’s Mexican heritage made him unfit to oversee a case against Trump University, Ryan called Trump’s statement the “textbook definition of a racist comment.” Yet Trump was Ryan’s racist, and the House Speaker campaigned for the GOP nominee. At the Republican National Convention this summer, Ryan said, “Only with Donald Trump and Mike Pence do we have a chance of a better way.” Even though he disinvited Trump to campaign with him in Wisconsin this weekend, saying he was “sickened” by the leaked video, Ryan is still planning to vote for the candidate he says he won’t campaign for or defend.

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Paul Ryan Won’t Defend Donald Trump—But Is Still Endorsing Him

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Former GOP Chairman: It’s Over for Trump and the Party

by ClarenceMcClear Posted on October 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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In the middle of the political storm detonated by the release of the video showing Donald Trump bragging that he engaged in sexual assault, Republicans have been in chaos. Some have abandoned their party’s nominee, some have stayed silent, some have tried to concoct a plan (probably unworkable) to dump Trump. And Trump weighed in—via a tweet, of course—to proclaim his defiance: “The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly – I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN!”

Trump’s declaration aside, the question of the day is: Is it over for the reality TV celebrity? Has he unintentionally fired himself?

Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican Party, believes it is. On Saturday afternoon, I asked him for his reaction to the Trumpocalypse under way. He cut to the chase:

This is a devastating blow to the Trump campaign and to the party, and there is not much either can do to salvage it. It almost doesn’t matter what Trump does in the next debate.

A former GOP chief says the elephant is cooked. As another former GOP official tells me, “This is no longer about what happens on Election Day. It’s about what happens in 20 years—and whether there is still a Republican Party then.”

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Former GOP Chairman: It’s Over for Trump and the Party

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