Tag Archives: photos

Quote of the Day: Photo ID Will Help Republicans Beat Hillary

by ShanonAkhtar Posted on April 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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From Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman on how Republicans can win his state this November:

I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.

Shhh! You’re not supposed to admit publicly that this is the point of photo ID laws. But Grothman is a freshman, so I guess he can be excused. He’ll learn.

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Quote of the Day: Photo ID Will Help Republicans Beat Hillary

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White Teachers Think Pretty Poorly of Their Black Students

by NatalieHilton6 Posted on April 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Bob Somerby draws my attention to a new study about the effect of race on teacher evaluations of students. The authors took advantage of a large dataset that included evaluations of students from two teachers each. They then compared the teacher evaluations of each student based on differences in the teachers’ races.

The chart on the right tells the story. White students didn’t suffer from having a teacher of another race. Expectations of dropping out were the same and expectations of getting a college degree were actually higher. Hispanic students were modestly affected. Teachers of other races thought Hispanic students had a slightly higher chance of dropping out and the same chance of completing college.

But black students were enormously affected. Compared to black teachers, teachers of other races thought their black students had a far higher chance of dropping out and a far lower chance of completing college. Since the baseline expectation of dropping out was 31 percent for black students, a change of 12 percentage points represents a whopping 39 percent increase. Likewise, the baseline expectation of a college degree was 37 percent for black students, so a change of 9 percentage points represents 24 percent decrease.

The authors conclude with this:

The general finding of systematic biases in teachers’ expectations for student attainment indicates that the topic of teacher expectations is ripe for future research. Particularly policy relevant areas for future inquiry include how teachers form expectations, what types of interventions can eliminate biases from teacher expectations, and how teacher expectations affect the long-run student outcomes of ultimate import. To the extent that teacher expectations affect student outcomes, the results presented in the current study provide additional support for the hiring of a more diverse and representative teaching force, as nonwhite teachers are underrepresented in U.S. public schools.

Let’s ask all our presidential candidate what, if anything, they think we should do about this.

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White Teachers Think Pretty Poorly of Their Black Students

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Obamacare Notches Another Win. Are You Tired of Winning Yet?

by Maurici0519 Posted on April 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’ve mentioned before that one of the reasons Obamacare signup rates are below projections is because employer coverage is above projections. Back in 2010, analysts assumed that employers would steadily drop health coverage and simply pay their employees to buy insurance on the exchanges. But that hasn’t happened—and that’s a good thing.

Now the New York Times has joined the party, so maybe everyone else will start to get this too:

The surprise turnaround adds to an emerging consensus about the contentious health law: It has not upturned the core of the country’s health insurance system, even while insuring millions of low-income people.

….About 155 million Americans have employer-based health insurance coverage in 2016, according to an analysis released by the Congressional Budget Office last month. The number will fall to 152 million people in 2019, the C.B.O. estimates, but will remain stable through 2026. Slightly more than half of people under 65 will be enrolled in employment-based coverage.

Employers seem to be staying the course even more strongly than they did before the law. The percentage of adults under 65 with employer-based insurance held firm for the last five years after steadily declining since 1999, according to an analysis of federal data released last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which closely tracks the health insurance market.

The CDC has been tracking health coverage for years, and their numbers show that private coverage (not including exchanges) has gone up since Obamacare went live. These numbers include both employer coverage and private coverage purchased off-exchange, but employer coverage is by far the biggest component and there’s no special reason to think that off-exchange individual coverage has increased much. This provides a very strong indication that the employer market has stayed healthy, and the CBO report confirms this.

If you want to know how Obamacare is doing, don’t look at Obamacare enrollments compared to early projections. Instead, look at the total uninsured rate compared to early projections. That’s the only number that provides a comprehensive look at all forms of health insurance and how they’ve done compared to predictions. When you do that, you’ll find that Obamacare is actually doing a little better than anyone thought it would.

To paraphrase a prominent politician, I wonder if Obamacare’s critics are tired of losing all the time? If so, come on over to the side of light and goodness. You’ll win so much you’ll get tired of winning.

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Obamacare Notches Another Win. Are You Tired of Winning Yet?

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The Financialization of the World Is Kind of Mysterious

by AntjeNcrjwgq Posted on March 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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In the course of a general critique of the US economy over the past few decades, Brad DeLong says this:

The US today spends 8% of GDP on finance. That is twice as much as 40 years ago. Once again, the U.S. gets nothing for it—gets, in fact less than nothing, because the lion’s share of responsibility for the 10% growth shortfall of the past decade rests on the shoulders of the hypertrophied dysfunctional finance system. It is not as though anybody claims that the plutocrats of high finance and of our corporations are doing a materially better job at running their organizations and allocating capital by enough to justify their now even-more outsized compensation packages. It is not as though we can see the impact of paying more to financiers in the tracks of faster economic growth. Rather the reverse.

I know I’m probably revealing more ignorance here than I should, but how did this happen? Finance isn’t a monopoly. In fact, it’s one of the most globalized, fluid, and competitive industries on the planet. Why haven’t its profits long since been reduced to zero, or close to it? I can understand occasional blips as markets change—CDOs and SIVs get hot for a while, so experts in CDOs and SIVs make a killing—but the overall industry? How has it managed to hold onto such outlandish rents for such a sustained period?

Real answers, please, not buzzwords or conspiracy theories. What’s the deal here?

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The Financialization of the World Is Kind of Mysterious

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Everybody Is Wrong

by SonyaSleeman7 Posted on March 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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Atrios is unhappy with how the left is treated:

I’m struck by how everything The Left does is wrong. Not just in terms of policy, but tactics. Running a third party candidate is wrong (I actually agree with this generally!), running in a major party primary is wrong, protesting is wrong, protesting the wrong way is wrong, not protesting is wrong, having a journal of important Lefty ideas is wrong, not catering to the feefees of Real Americans is wrong, proposing legislation is wrong, objecting to racism and sexism is wrong. There’s a longer list, I’m sure, but self-styled “moderates” chastise Lefties no matter what they do.

I dunno. I’m pretty sure we all feel this way. I’m a more moderate liberal than Atrios, but as near as I can tell I’m also wrong about pretty much everything. Hillary is a liar, Glass-Steagall did too cause the economic collapse, nobody votes for a squish, it’s all just privilege, Bernie is going to lead a revolution and his numbers add up just fine, I’m a shill for big corporations, Obama is a total sellout, etc.

On the conservative side, where I can take a more Olympian view of things, it’s pretty obvious the same thing is true. The tea partiers hate the RINOs, the RINOs hate Trump, and the Trumpettes hate everyone. One side are sellouts, the other side is just a bunch of purity mongers.

That’s life. In politics, you’re always wrong according to everyone who’s not you—and the more extreme you get, the wronger you are. That’s the price of being in the arena, or even just being a spectator cheering against the Romans.

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Everybody Is Wrong

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Donald Trump Wants to Punish Women Who Have Abortions

by KrystalChu11 Posted on March 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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Sigh. Yet another news cycle for Donald Trump:

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Donald Trump Wants to Punish Women Who Have Abortions

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Hillary Email Scandal Continue To Be Dumb But Non-Scandalous

by CEEVerna673 Posted on March 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over at the Washington Post, Robert O’Harrow Jr. has a deep dive into the roots of Hillary Clinton’s email troubles. As near as I can tell, once you cut through the weeds it’s the story of a senior official who’s technically illiterate and didn’t want to change her email habits. Both Clinton and her inner circle of advisers were “dedicated BlackBerry addicts,” but apparently neither the NSA nor anyone else was willing to help them make their BlackBerries safe. So, like millions of us who have tried to stay under the radar of our IT departments, Hillary just kept on using hers, hoping that eventually everyone would forget the whole thing. In the meantime, she grudgingly obeyed rules that required her to leave her phone behind when she entered her 7th floor office, but used it everywhere else.

That remains inexplicably dumb, but hardly scandalous. Nonetheless, we have this:

The FBI is now trying to determine whether a crime was committed in the handling of that classified material. It is also examining whether the server was hacked. One hundred forty-seven FBI agents have been deployed to run down leads, according to a lawmaker briefed by FBI Director James B. Comey. The FBI has accelerated the investigation because officials want to avoid the possibility of announcing any action too close to the election.

147 agents! To track down leads on one email server whose location and purpose have been known for two years. That’s crazy. It’s gotta be time for the FBI to either bring some charges or shut this thing down. Enough’s enough.

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Hillary Email Scandal Continue To Be Dumb But Non-Scandalous

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Sublime Photos of African Wildlife Roaming Their Lost Habitat

by GitaLayton Posted on March 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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As an ardent conservationist, photographer Nick Brandt’s early work showing the majesty of the large animals that once ruled East Africa wasn’t enough. Brandt created three gorgeous photo books focused on African animals in danger of extinction: On This Earth (2005), A Shadow Falls (2009) and Across the Ravaged Land (2013). As a result of that work, what he saw, and what he learned, in 2010 he created the Big Life Foundation with conservationist Richard Bonham. Big Life protects more than 2 million acres of the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem in East Africa.

Brandt’s new project, Inherit the Dust, pushes his photography further to help visualize the impact poaching and development has on wildlife. Inherit the Dust helps viewers see areas where elephants, giraffes, lions and other animals once roamed by placing 30-foot panels with photographs in the now industrialized landscapes. You see elephants sauntering through large dumps or under overpasses, giraffes blending in with machinery at mining sites. It’s a striking and effective technique. The book includes 68 images that, though admittedly repetitive in their execution and style, are no less impactful.

Wasteland with Elephant 2015

The work in the book has a beautiful bleakness to it. Looking at the photos alone leaves you feeling depressed. But the images also raise an important issue: Who is Brandt to question—let alone criticize—African nations for developing their countries? Brandt addresses this in the introduction. “I had to stop and ask myself, am I just grieving for the loss of this world because as a privileged white guy from the West, I’ll never again be able to see these animals in the wild?”

He answers by taking a subtle swipe at China for its role in the blink-of-an-eye pace of development in African countries. He also says just because Western nations trampled their environments in the name of progress, that doesn’t mean it’s a model to follow. With his work as a photographer and with the Big Life Foundation, Brandt asserts that environmental consciousness and growing a country’s economy “do not have to be mutually exclusive.”

Brandt punctuates his argument with Inherit the Dust‘s sweeping, somewhat painful panoramic photos.

All photos by Nick Brandt, Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York.

Quarry with Giraffe 2014

Quarry with Lion 2014

Alleyway with Chimpanzee 2014

Road to Factory with Zebra 2014

Underpass with Elephants (Lean Back, Your Life is on Track) 2015

Wasteland with Rhinos & Residents 2015

Behind the scenes: Giraffe & Goats

Crew wrapping elephant panel at sunset, November 2014

Photos from Inherit the Dust are on exhibition at Edwynn Houck Gallery in New York (March 10 to April 30, 2016); Fahey Klein Gallery in Los Angeles (March 24 to May 14); and Camerawork in Berlin (May 12 to July 8). Nick Brandt is a featured speaker at this year’s LOOK3 Festival of Photography in Charlottesville, Virginia (June 13-19).

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Sublime Photos of African Wildlife Roaming Their Lost Habitat

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Was the Great Ad Blocker Freakout of 2015 Justified?

by bileteavion Posted on March 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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Six months ago, after years of power surfers happily using ad blockers with no real problems, Apple decided to ruin things for everyone by supporting ad blocking in its products. Since everything Apple does is, by definition, the most pivotal event ever in the tech world—if you happen to work in the online journalism biz, anyway—this caused instant panic in the online journalism biz. Suddenly you could hardly click your mouse without running into a site nagging you about your ad blocker, or even flatly refusing to allow you in unless you turned the blocker off.

It’s time to take stock. Was this panic justified? The use of ad-blocking apps has certainly grown over the past few years, but has it specifically skyrocketed since Apple’s announcement? I’m unable to find any reliable data on this score, and my gut tells me that the panic over this was probably unjustified, as panic usually is.

Needless to say, though, my gut is not infallible. I’d prefer actual evidence. With the benefit of several months for tempers to calm, I think it’s time for someone to examine this and tell us what’s really happened. Who out there has the data to do this?

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Was the Great Ad Blocker Freakout of 2015 Justified?

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Ted Cruz Calls For Massive Police Presence in Muslim Neighborhoods

by MurrayQxbxwezgo Posted on March 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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One of the odd Republican obsessions of the moment is their outrage over liberal refusal to “call radical Islam by its name.” In the wake of today’s Brussels bombing, Ted Cruz naturally says this kind of namby-pamby political correctness is at an end. But that’s not all:

We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. “We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration.

“Patrol and secure.” That has an ominous sound to it, especially the “secure” part. Apparently Cruz is trying to out-Trump Trump before Trump even has a chance to say something stupid. This is some campaign these guys are running.

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Ted Cruz Calls For Massive Police Presence in Muslim Neighborhoods

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