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6 Basic Assumptions About the Middle East That the Washington Consensus Gets Dead Wrong

by JesusEYOSrkuspb Posted on November 25, 2014

Mother Jones

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

“Iraq no longer exists.” My young friend M, sipping a cappuccino, is deadly serious. We are sitting in a scruffy restaurant across the street from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It’s been years since we’ve last seen each another. It may be years before our paths cross again. As if to drive his point home, M repeats himself: “Iraq just doesn’t exist.”

His is an opinion grounded in experience. As an enlisted soldier, he completed two Iraq tours, serving as a member of a rifle company, before and during the famous Petraeus “surge.” After separating from the Army, he went on to graduate school where he is now writing a dissertation on insurgencies. Choosing the American war in Iraq as one of his cases, M has returned there to continue his research. Indeed, he was heading back again that very evening. As a researcher, his perch provides him with an excellent vantage point for taking stock of the ongoing crisis, now that the Islamic State, or IS, has made it impossible for Americans to sustain the pretense that the Iraq War ever ended.

Few in Washington would endorse M’s assertion, of course. Inside the Beltway, policymakers, politicians, and pundits take Iraq’s existence for granted. Many can even locate it on a map. They also take for granted the proposition that it is incumbent upon the United States to preserve that existence. To paraphrase Chris Hedges, for a certain group of Americans, Iraq is the cause that gives life meaning. For the military-industrial complex, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

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6 Basic Assumptions About the Middle East That the Washington Consensus Gets Dead Wrong

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Obama’s Executive Action Will Protect 5 Million Undocumented Immigrants

by LibbyPritchett Posted on November 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Thursday evening, President Barack Obama announced his hotly anticipated executive action on immigration, which will keep nearly 5 million undocumented residents from being deported. Even though the sweeping measure has elicited threats of retaliation from congressional Republicans, Obama said he moved forward because comprehensive immigration reform is unlikely to go anywhere in the GOP-dominated Congress next year.

“I know some of the critics of this action call it amnesty,” the president said in his speech. “Well, it’s not. Amnesty is the immigration system we have today—millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time. That’s the real amnesty—leaving this broken system the way it is.”

A year and a half ago, a bipartisan immigration bill passed in the Senate but died in the House. The bill likely had enough Republican and Democratic votes to pass in the House, but Speaker John Boehner, catering to his tea partiers, refused to bring the measure to the floor. If signed into law, the legislation would have provided legal status to about 11 million undocumented immigrants. Here’s a look at who benefits most from Obama’s executive action—and who has lost out, thanks in part to GOP obstructionism.

Winners
Undocumented parents of children who are US citizens or permanent residents: “Undocumented immigrants…see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart,” the president said. “It’s been this way for decades. And for decades, we haven’t done much about it.” His executive action will offer temporary legal status to the undocumented parents of children who are US citizens or permanent residents and allow them to apply for work permits—as long as they have lived in the United States for at least five years, pass a background check, and pay taxes.

DREAMers: The president’s move will broaden the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which had temporarily protected from deportation some 1.2 million young people who were brought into the country illegally as children—as long as they entered the country before June 15, 2007. Now, children who came to the United States before January 1, 2010, will be eligible to apply for deferred-action status. The so-called DREAMers (named after the proposed Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) can apply for employment visas, though there is no direct path for them to lawful permanent residence or citizenship. To the dismay of immigration activists, the executive action does not extend benefits to the hundreds of thousands of parents of DREAMers.

Families: Often US citizens and legal permanent residents are separated for long stretches of time from family members who are awaiting legal permanent resident status. The executive action will expand a waiver program that will reduce the time these families spend apart.

Noncriminal undocumented immigrants: Obama’s executive action shifts all of the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement resources toward deporting undocumented immigrants who are criminals—instead of deporting undocumented immigrants who pose no such threat. “We’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security,” Obama said. “Felons, not families.” The president’s order also guts an existing program called Secure Communities, which requires police to share arrestees’ fingerprints with federal immigration officials, who can use the information to deport suspects who are here illegally, even if they turn out to be innocent. The program will be replaced with another devoted to deporting only those convicted of criminal offenses.

Highly skilled workers: Skilled workers who have had their legal permanent resident application approved often wait years to receive their visas. Obama’s order will allow these people to move and change jobs more easily.

Immigrants with pending cases: As part of the president’s executive action, the Justice Department will implement immigration court reforms to quickly process the massive backlog of cases.

Immigrant victims of crime: Obama is directing the Department of Labor to expand the number of visas available for victims of crimes and human trafficking.

The Border Patrol: Obama’s executive action shifts resources to the border, though it doesn’t specify how much more money will be flowing to Customs and Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement along the southern border. (The Senate bill would have allotted some $30 billion over 10 years to hiring at least 19,200 extra border patrol agents.)

Entrepreneurs: The executive action will make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs—who show a potential to create jobs in the United States and attract investment—to immigrate to the US, though there was no mention how the administration will achieve this.

Losers
Undocumented immigrants who have been here since 2011: The failed Senate immigration bill would have allowed immigrants without papers—and their children and spouses—to apply for provisional legal status, if they have been in the United States since the end of 2011. These immigrants could have eventually applied for citizenship.

Undocumented agricultural workers: Under the Senate bill, undocumented agricultural workers would have been eligible for legal immigrant status if they had worked at least 100 full days between 2010 and 2012. The bill would have created a path to citizenship for these farmworkers.

Ag workers with papers: The Senate bill would also have created a new temporary work visa called the W visa for farmworkers. The new program would have permitted these laborers to eventually apply for permanent resident status without an employer’s sponsorship. Less-skilled non-farmworkers could have also applied for a W visa.

Other types of legal immigrants: The Senate bill would have set up a new system that would grant visas to up to 250,000 foreigners a year. Foreign nationals would have accumulated points based on their skill level, education, and employment background. The new system would have cleared the current backlog of applicants for family-based or work visas.

Foreigners attending American universities: More foreigners graduating from American universities in the fields of science, math, and technology would have been able to apply for permanent visas.

Immigrant detainees: If the Senate bill had okayed by the House, unaccompanied minors, mentally disabled immigrants, and other vulnerable people going through the detention and deportation process would have been granted free legal representation. The bill would have limited the use of solitary confinement in immigrant detention facilities.

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Obama’s Executive Action Will Protect 5 Million Undocumented Immigrants

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BREAKING: The US and China Just Announced a Huge Deal on Climate—and it’s a Gamechanger

by Ferne0921fb Posted on November 12, 2014

Mother Jones

In a surprise announcement Tuesday night, the world’s two biggest economies and greenhouse gas emitters, United States and China, said they will partner closely on a broad-ranging package of plans to fight climate change, including new targets to reduce carbon pollution, according to a statement from the White House.

The announcement comes after President Obama met in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and includes headline-grabbing undertakings from both countries which are sure to breathe new life into negotiations to reach a new climate treaty in Paris next year.

According to the plan, the United States will reduce carbon emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, nearly twice the existing target—without imposing new restrictions on power plants or vehicles.

Tuesday’s announcement is equally remarkable for China’s commitment. For the first time, China has set a date at which it expects its emissions will “peak,” or finally begin to taper downwards: around 2030. China is currently the world’s biggest emitter of carbon pollution, largely because of its coal-dependent economy, and reining in emissions while continuing to grow has been the paramount challenge for China’s leaders.

The White House said in a statement that China could reach the target, even sooner than 2030. It “expects that China will succeed in peaking its emissions before 2030 based on its broad economic reform program, plans to address air pollution, and implementation of President Xi’s call for an energy revolution.”

This is also the first time such a policy has come from the very top, President Xi Jinping. Previously, the first and only mention of “peaking” came from Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli at the UN climate talks in New York in September.

“This is clearly a sign of the seriousness and the importance the Chinese government is giving to this issue,” said Barbara Finamore, Asia director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental advocacy group, in an interview from Hong Kong. “The relationship between the US and China is tricky, but climate has been one of the areas where the two sides can and are finding common ground.”

The US also called China’s goal of reaching the goal of 20 percent total energy consumption from zero-emission sources by 2030 “notable,” but painted a picture of the challenges ahead for the energy-hungry giant: “It will require China to deploy an additional 800-1,000 gigawatts of nuclear, wind, solar and other zero emission generation capacity by 2030 – more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today and close to total current electricity generation capacity in the United States.”

The announcement also sets the stage for conflict with the Senate’s new Republican leadership, which just today signaled that attacking Obama’s climate initiatives will be a top priority in 2015.

The plan does not entail using the US Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, as the bulk of Obama’s existing climate strategy does. Instead, it involves a series of initiatives to be undertaken in partnership between the two countries, including:

Expanding funding for clean energy technology research at the US-China Clean Energy Research Center, a think tank Obama created in 2009 with Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao.
Launching a large-scale pilot project in China to study carbon capture and sequestration.
A push to further limit the use of hydroflourocarbons, a potent greenhouse gas found in refrigerants.
A federal framework for cities in both countries to share experiences and best practices for low-carbon economic growth and adaptation to the impacts of climate change at the municipal level.
A call to boost trade in “green” goods, including energy efficiency technology and resilient infrastructure, kicked off by a tour of China next spring by Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

NRDC’s Finamore said the magnitude of the agreement—which was made well in advance of expectations—will provide fresh impetus to the drive for a new global climate agreement in Paris next year. “Hopefully this will give new ambition to other countries as well to move forward quickly,” she said. The agreement “sends a powerful signal to every other country that they are serious and are willing to come to the table to reach a global agreement.”

“Even if the targets aren’t as ambitious as many might hope, the world’s two largest carbon emitters are stepping up together with serious commitments,” said Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Washington policy group. “This will help get other countries on board and greatly improves the odds for a solid global deal next year in Paris.”

“For too long it’s been too easy for both the US and China to hide behind one another,” he said.

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BREAKING: The US and China Just Announced a Huge Deal on Climate—and it’s a Gamechanger

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10 Reasons Democracy May Prevail Despite GOP Voting Restrictions

by MOLMatthias Posted on November 3, 2014

Mother Jones

This story was originally published on BillMoyers.com.

There’s a battle underway to protect Americans’ right to vote, and recent news from the frontlines has been grim. Republicans, assisted by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, have passed new restrictions at a breakneck pace. Texas’ draconian voter ID law was just upheld, possibly disenfranchising as many as 600,000 voters. So, too, were measures to make voting more difficult in North Carolina, including ending same-day registration. And GOP secretaries of state in Georgia and Kansas have so far refused to accept thousands of voter registrations—potentially disenfranchising a lot of eligible voters on technicalities.

But that’s not the whole story. Republicans may have successfully made it tougher to vote in some states, but they’ve failed in others. They couldn’t impose a tougher voter ID law in Arkansas, where one of this year’s truly pivotal Senate races is being fought. And this week in Wisconsin, officials abandoned their efforts (at least for 2014) to impose a tougher ID law that would have targeted university students and minorities.

Their tactics also are generating bad press, which ultimately may push some otherwise unmotivated voters to get out and vote.

Meanwhile, there are a number of pro-voter campaigns hard at work this fall. In some states, activists will keep a sharp eye on attempts to suppress the vote. In others, officials are trying to make the process of voting easier. And across the country, platoons of vigilant lawyers will be on hand to make sure that eligible voters aren’t intimidated by so-called “poll watchers” or forced to jump through hoops that aren’t required under the law.

With all the depressing news about voting access, it’s easy to forget that in states with half the US population, registering to vote has never been easier. Similarly, getting information to voters has never been simpler or more efficient—and election officials are taking advantage of new tools to engage and inform voters. All is not lost.

Here are 10 reasons not to be too pessimistic about voting in 2014.

1. Grassroots Efforts to Get Out the Vote

In several Southern states, young organizers spent the summer organizing “Freedom Side,” an Internet-fueled modern iteration of 1964’s Freedom Summer. Better Schools, Better Jobs set a goal of registering 20,000 new voters in Mississippi. The liberal blog Daily Kos is raising significant funds to get out the Native American vote in South Dakota. In Chicago, low-wage workers who got a taste of politics working with the Fight for 15 campaign are now organizing to get voters registered. Vote Mob is connecting millennial activists online in a handful of battleground states. Nuns on the Bus have been on a nationwide tour to boost turnout. And these are just a few examples of dozens of smaller campaigns by various groups incensed by the GOP’s effort to roll back the clock on voting rights.

2. Senate Dems Have Spent Big Bucks Targeting “Dropoff Voters”

Complimenting those grassroots efforts is a major push by Senate Democrats, dubbed the “Bannock Street Project,” to save their majority by making the 2014 electorate look more like that of a presidential year than a typical midterm—younger and more diverse. We can’t know how effective their efforts will be, but they’ve invested $60 million, and put 4,000 paid staffers to work in 10 key states for what The New York Times described as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s “largest and most data-driven ground game yet.”

3. The US Department of Justice Will Be Watching

Attorney General Eric Holder has made voting rights one of the top priorities of his Civil Rights Division, and they have people ready to go into federal court to protect voters—they’ll seek orders to extend polling place hours or ensure that other steps are taken so that eligible voters can cast their ballots, and those ballots will be counted. These election cops aren’t heavily promoted or widely discussed, but they’ve been on the beat for years.

4. The Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law Also Will Be On the Lookout

The Lawyers Committee not only runs a toll-free nationwide nonpartisan Election Day hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE) that voters can call if problems arise, they’re also poised to go into federal and state courts if necessary. The Committee enlists thousands of volunteer attorneys across the US. They’re involved in pre-Election Day legal battles like the one they’re fighting in Georgia, where, based on dubious claims that some of the forms may have been forged, the conservative secretary of state is holding more than 40,000 new voter registrations in limbo.

5. Lots of New Apps and Online Tools

The most empowering development in recent years may also be the most overlooked. A decade ago, a cellphone couldn’t tell you how to register in your state, confirm your registration status, locate your polling place, give you directions, review any new rules or regulations that you might have to overcome, tell you what kind of machine you’ll be voting on, and possibly translate all that info into Spanish or other languages. But today these tools are commonplace and just a quick Google search away. Both major political parties have integrated these technologies into their turnout operations, as have civil rights groups like the Lawyers Committee. In other words, there’s more how-to information and help available than ever—even in states where partisans are trying to police the process.

6. States Are Identifying Eligible Voters and Urging Them to Register

In the District of Columbia and 11 states—including battleground states like Colorado and Nevada—some 11.6 million eligible but unregistered voters have been identified since the summer of 2012 by ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit that has worked with state election officials. These voters have been contacted and urged to register, and the data ERIC has gathered has been used to update official voter rolls. It appears that this effort has been a real under-the-radar success.

7. There’s More Outreach in States With New Voter ID Laws

Not all states with tough new voter ID laws are like Texas, which, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in a recent dissent, has done almost nothing to inform voters about changes in the state’s election law. Some red and purple states, like South Carolina, Mississippi and Virginia, have launched surprisingly aggressive public information campaigns to urge would-be voters to get the documents necessary to cast their ballots. In some states, financial help is also available for people who might struggle to come up with the fees for state IDs.

8. Online Voter Registration Is Now Available in 20 States

People with driver’s licenses in 20 states, representing more than half the country’s population, can register to vote online. This is another example of states making the process easier, not harder, and it includes some, like Georgia, where there are ongoing legal fights over the franchise.

9. Voting Vigilantes Offer More Bark Than Bite

In recent elections, a handful of tea party-affiliated groups have threatened to police the vote—and intimidate voters—by challenging their eligibility at polling places. The leading example of this, TrueTheVote, has been barred from some polling places for being disruptive. But at the end of the day, their polling place posses have rarely materialized. And in 2014, the group is asking volunteers simply to report suspicions.

10. These Tactics Aren’t New

In 2000, during the presidential election in Florida, and again in 2004 in Ohio, people were alarmed to discover that the voting process may have been gamed by partisans. But since then, many Americans have heard all about how the GOP keeps trying to make it harder for traditionally Democratic constituencies to vote. Knowledge is power here, because the bottom line is that the hurdles red state legislatures have put in place aren’t impossible to surmount. And there is some evidence that attempts to suppress the vote in 2012 may have led to a backlash, ultimately increasing turnout among at least some groups.

None of this is reason to pop the champagne. One of our two major parties is facing strong demographic headwinds, and has responded with a concerted, multifaceted campaign to make it as hard as possible within the law to exercise a fundamental right of democracy. That party controls two dozen state legislatures, and in many cases has been successful erecting new barriers in front of potential voters.

But it’s important to keep in mind that there are also individuals and institutions pushing back, trying to enlarge the electorate. Hopelessness leads to complacency, and complacency is the ultimate tool of voter suppression. So get out and vote!

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10 Reasons Democracy May Prevail Despite GOP Voting Restrictions

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Dot Earth Blog: How Unscientific Ebola Steps in U.S. Could Help Spread Virus Elsewhere

by Myrna Posted on October 28, 2014

How hyper-reactive quarantine steps in the United States could worsen the Ebola epidemic in Africa — and perhaps beyond. Read this article – Dot Earth Blog: How Unscientific Ebola Steps in U.S. Could Help Spread Virus Elsewhere

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Dot Earth Blog: How Unscientific Ebola Steps in U.S. Could Help Spread Virus Elsewhere

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New York City Doctor Tests Positive for Ebola

by Lionel4334 Posted on October 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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The New York Times reports Craig Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders physician who had recently been to West Africa to help treat Ebola patients, has tested positive for the disease. Spencer is the first person in New York to be diagnosed.

As Spencer’s identity had been confirmed late Thursday afternoon, it became known he had been bowling in Brooklyn on Wednesday, traveling via an Uber ride to and from Manhattan.

“Ebola is very difficult to contract, being on the same subway car or living near someone with Ebola does not put someone at risk,” de Blasio told reporters at a news conference Thursday evening.

Since coming back to the United States on October 14th, the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett, confirmed Spencer used the subway’s A, 1, and L lines and bowled at The Gutter in Williamsburg. Bassett said the city has been preparing for the possibility of an outbreak for the past few weeks, with Cuomo emphasizing healthcare workers have been well-trained for such an event.

Earlier Thursday, Spencer was taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan after suffering from Ebola-like symptoms, including a 103-degree fever and nausea.

The New York City Health Department released a statement indicating Spencer had returned to the United States within the past 21 days.

The patient was transported by a specially trained HAZ TAC unit wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). After consulting with the hospital and the CDC, DOHMH has decided to conduct a test for the Ebola virus because of this patient’s recent travel history, pattern of symptoms, and past work. DOHMH and HHC are also evaluating the patient for other causes of illness, as these symptoms can also be consistent with salmonella, malaria, or the stomach flu.

The New York Post first identified Spencer, who returned from Guinea on October 14 and reported his fever this morning.

CNN producer Vaughn Sterling tweeted the following:

This post has been updated throughout.

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New York City Doctor Tests Positive for Ebola

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Did Federal Budget Cuts Make Ebola Worse?

by ChristeAALZ Posted on October 1, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, the CDC confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States—the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It’s the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they’re hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester.

On September 16, the Senate Committees on Appropriations and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing to discuss the resources needed to address the outbreak. Rep. Patty Murray (D-WA) asked NIH representative Anthony Fauci about the sequester’s effect on the efforts.

“I have to tell you honestly it’s been a significant impact on us,” said Fauci. “It has both in an acute and a chronic, insidious way eroded our ability to respond in the way that I and my colleagues would like to see us be able to respond to these emerging threats. And in my institute particularly, that’s responsible for responding on the dime to an emerging infectious disease threat, this is particularly damaging.” The sequester required the NIH to cut its budget by 5 percent, a total of $1.55 billion in 2013. Cuts were applied across all of its programs, affecting every area of medical research.

Dr. Beth Bell, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, testified before the Committee, making a case for increased funding. Her department, which has led the US intervention in West Africa, was hit with a $13 million budget cut as a result of the cuts in 2013. Though appropriations increased in 2014 and are projected to rise further in 2015, the agency hasn’t yet made up for the deficit—according to Bell, $100 million has already gone toward stopping the Ebola epidemic, and much more is needed. The UN estimates it will take over $600 million just to get the crisis under control.

More MoJo coverage of the Ebola crisis.


Liberians Explain Why the Ebola Crisis Is Way Worse Than You Think


These Maps Show How Ebola Spread In Liberia


Why the World Health Organization Doesn’t Have Enough Funds to Fight Ebola


New Drugs and Vaccines Can’t Stop This Ebola Outbreak


We Are Making Ebola Outbreaks Worse by Cutting Down Forests

Bell also argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security. International aid budgets were hit hard by the sequester, reducing global health programs by $411 million and USAID by $289 million. “If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained,” she said during her testimony. “This Ebola epidemic shows that any vulnerability could have widespread impact if not stopped at the source.”

Still, CDC officials have pledged to do everything in their power to stop Ebola in its tracks. “The sooner the world comes together to help West Africa, the safer we all will be,” CDC Director Tom Frieden says in a statement released in early September. “We know how to stop this outbreak. There is a window of opportunity to tamp this down—the challenge is to scale up the massive response needed.”

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Did Federal Budget Cuts Make Ebola Worse?

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What Is Khorasan and Why Did the US Just Bomb It?

by HanneloreUCJW Posted on September 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Monday night, a US-led coalition launched air strikes in Syria against members of ISIS, the extremist Islamic group occupying territory in Iraq and Syria. As a “last-minute add-on,” NBC reports, the US also targeted a different terrorist group: A little-known outfit called Khorasan. This al-Qaeda affiliate gained some public attention earlier this month after US officials reported that the extremists were plotting to sneak bombs on to US airplanes. Last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper noted that the group “perhaps” posed as great a threat to the United States as ISIS. On Tuesday morning, Pentagon spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby maintained that strikes on ISIS and Khorasan were “very successful.” The US targeted Khorasan’s “training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building and command and control facilities,” the Pentagon told the Washington Post.

News of these air strikes raised an obvious question: who and what is Khorasan? The group is led by Muhsin al-Fadhli, a 33-year-old senior Al Qaeda operative who was privy to Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 plans prior to the attacks, according to the New York Times. US officials have tracked Fadhli for years, and the State Department refers to him as a “senior facilitator and financier” for Al Qaeda. In 2012, the State Department was offering up to $7 million for information about his whereabouts. Born in Kuwait, he has operated in Chechnya, fighting Russian soldiers, according to the United Nations, and has been wanted in connection to Al Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia.

In a conference call with reporters after the air strikes, several senior administration officials, speaking on background, said that Khorasan had established a safe haven within the chaos of Syria to plot attacks against the United States and other Western nations. One official reported that this planning was “nearing the execution phase.” A senior administration official also said that Khorasan—described as a band of experienced Al Qaeda veterans—was recruiting Westerners fighting in Syria for “external operations,” and that Khorasan plotting had prompted the United States to beef up aviation security measures a few months ago. One administration official noted that President Obama had been contemplating strikes against Khorasan for months “separate and apart from the growing threat from ISIL.”

On Monday, prior to the strikes, Brian Forst, a professor at American University and a counterterrorism expert, told Mother Jones, “If we can find al-Fadhli and take him out, Khorasan will be largely neutered.” Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior terrorism expert with the RAND Corporation, contends that leaders can always be replaced, referring to both Al Qaeda and ISIS, which have cycled through different leaders. “It doesn’t end their operations,” Jenkins says. “It has a disruptive effect.”

Khorasan, according to press reports, has about 50 jihadist fighters, mostly from Afghanistan and Pakistan. US officials told the AP earlier this month that the group was sent to Syria by Al Qaeda top dog Ayman al-Zawahari to link up with another al-Qaeda affiliated group, the Nusra Front, and “recruit Europeans and Americans whose passports allow them to board a US-bound airliner with less scrutiny from security officials.”

Aki Peritz, a former counter-terrorism analyst with the CIA, says, “It’s much easier to recruit people—especially those with foreign passports—in Syria than in Pakistan for operations abroad.” He adds, “Given that there are several thousand foreigners in Syria today, it’s probably much easier for Al Qaeda to spot, assess, develop, recruit and train willing individuals there than anywhere else in the world.”

Jenkins compared the fighting in Syria and Iraq to a “talent show” that Khorasan was watching and judging, looking for recruits. Khorasan is “scarier” than ISIS, he argues, because it is focused primarily on attacking the West. Forst also notes that Khorasan focuses “more on the West than Syria,”while ISIS is “focusing on Middle Eastern targets.”

So does the Obama administration have the legal authority to hit Khorasan? Under the post-9/11 authorization provided by Congress in 2001, the president is allowed to use force against “those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” And senior administration officials contend that this authorization covers Khorasan, given its connection to Al Qaeda.

In in a statement on Tuesday morning, President Obama referred to Khorasan as “seasoned Al Qaeda operatives”—and he seemed to this group with ISIS, as he vowed to “do what’s necessary to take the fight to this terrorist group.” He added, “Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people.” But as the president spoke, there was not sufficient public information to judge the nature and seriousness of the threat posed by a group most Americans had not yet heard of.

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What Is Khorasan and Why Did the US Just Bomb It?

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Hillary Clinton: Strong Parental Leave Laws Are Great. Here’s Why You Can’t Have Them.

by ConradTomaszews Posted on September 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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The early stages of Hillary Clinton’s proto-presidential campaign this summer were light on details about her domestic policy proposals. Instead, she focused on selling her book, Hard Choices, which focuses on her foreign policy opinions and diplomatic chops.

But this week, during a videotaped speech to a conference on women’s issues in Japan, Clinton staked out a strong view on paid family leave, a topic that could play a role in her 2016 campaign. “The United States, unfortunately, is one of a handful of developed countries without paid family leave,” she said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “If we give parents the flexibility on the job and paid family leave it actually helps productivity, which in turn helps all of us.”

Clinton was asked about family leave during a CNN-hosted town hall in June, and said it was a good idea but one that won’t come to America anytime soon. “I don’t think, politically, we could get it now,” she said.

The United States is one of just four countries where employers are not required to grant new mothers any paid time off after giving birth. Japan, on the other hand, offers 14 weeks.

Paid family leave has been an increasingly important cause for progressives. Three states now buck the national trend and force employers to offer their employees time off. “Many women can’t even get a paid day off to give birth—now that’s a pretty low bar,” President Obama said in June. “That, we should be able to take care of.”

Republicans have resisted calls for offering maternity leave, as it would force company’s to spend more on employee benefits. But polls consistently show that the public is overwhelmingly supportive of such measures. “For her 2016 campaign, Clinton should make paid family leave a—no; the!—central plank,” the Daily Beast‘s Michael Tomasky wrote in July. Clinton’s past profile on domestic politics largely centered on her experience and wisdom on finding ways to offer universal health insurance—a topic that is mostly off the national radar thanks to Obamacare. If she wants to run for president again, anchoring her campaign on getting the US in line with the international consensus of letting workers take a bit of paid time off to take care of newborns or a sick loved one seems like a no-brainer.

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Hillary Clinton: Strong Parental Leave Laws Are Great. Here’s Why You Can’t Have Them.

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A Quarter of Americans Think They or Their Families Will Get Ebola

by CarissaNnc Posted on August 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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No one has contracted Ebola in the United States, or is very likely to. And no one should be surprised that Donald Trump is tweeting this anyway:

What’s more surprising is that many Americans share fears like those that underlie Trump’s tweet. According to a Harvard School of Public Health/SSRS poll, 68 percent of the US population believes Ebola spreads “easily.” Four in 10 are worried there will be a large outbreak in the United States. And a quarter of Americans are afraid the virus will infect them or someone in their families.

That’s partly a consequence of media distortion, says Gillian SteelFisher, a member of the Harvard research team that conducted the poll. “Ebola’s a terrible disease, and the impact it’s having on West Africa is horrible to observe,” she says. “And the news here is going to capture parts of that but not all of it.” When news reports focus on the gruesome effects of Ebola without explaining why it’s been able to spread so fast in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, it’s easy for Americans to believe they’re in danger too. “They’re feeling a very personal and direct threat,” SteelFisher says.

SteelFisher wants the public to hear from health officials who can explain what disease containment resources the United States has and how they differ from West Africa’s. Simple factors like the availability of rubber gloves, which are scarce in Liberia, would make Ebola much easier to control here.

SteelFisher also thinks people might be confused about how Ebola is transmitted. Those who are more familiar with diseases like the flu, or who’ve seen virus disaster films like 2011’s Contagion, might assume Ebola can spread through the air. But in the case of this virus, you can’t get sick without exposure to an infected person’s bodily fluids.

Though some Americans may be overestimating the risk of an Ebola outbreak, more than a few also have a mistakenly rosy view of the treatment plan for people who are infected. A third of those polled said there was “an effective medicine to treat people who have gotten sick with Ebola.” In fact, no such drug has been approved for humans. The drug Zmapp, which was used to treat a pair of American missionaries who caught Ebola in West Africa, is still being tested.

“You don’t want them to be glib,” says SteelFisher. “At the same time, you don’t want people to be panicking here.”

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A Quarter of Americans Think They or Their Families Will Get Ebola

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