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Trump Soars to New Heights in Poll After Proposing Muslim Ban

by Aaron Small Posted on December 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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A week after proposing to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, Donald Trump has reached new heights in the polls.

The real estate tycoon has 41 percent nationally in the Republican presidential contest, according to a survey released Monday by Monmouth University—27 points ahead of the rest of the field. Ted Cruz comes in a distant second at 14 percent, followed by Marco Rubio at 10 percent and Ben Carson at 9 percent. No other candidate exceeds 3 percent.

Monmouth’s findings are based on interviews with 385 registered Republican or Republican-leaning voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Among that sample, 67 percent responded that they would feel either “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” if Trump became the GOP nominee, while 28 percent reported that they would be “dissatisfied” or “upset.” Trump is also enjoying his peak favorability among these voters: 61 percent have a favorable impression of him, 29 percent are unfavorable, and just 10 have no opinion.

While continuing to gain in nationwide polls, Trump’s only recent bad news comes out of Iowa, where Cruz, the tea-party-aligned senator from Texas, has recently gained on him and now holds a small lead over Trump in most recent polls.

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Trump Soars to New Heights in Poll After Proposing Muslim Ban

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Gun Activists Plan to Stage a Fake Mass Shooting This Weekend

by ChristiBrien Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Gun rights activists in Texas are planning to stage a mock mass shooting at the University of Texas this weekend in protest of both gun-free zones and President Barack Obama’s continued calls for tougher gun control legislation.

According to the website Statesman, gun rights supporters will begin the day by marching through Austin with loaded weapons and conclude their walk with a “theatrical performance.”

A spokesman for the two participating gun rights groups, Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com, told the site the event will involve using fake blood and bullhorns to mimic gunshot noises.

“In the wake of yet another gun free zone shooting, Obama is using it to aggressively push his gun confiscation agenda,” a Facebook page for the event read. “Now is the time to stand up, take a walk, speak out against the lies and put an end to the gun free killing zones.”

In June, state lawmakers made Texas the eighth state in the country to allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus grounds. Saturday’s event comes amid ongoing concerns about the new law.

“We want criminals to fear the public being armed,” spokesman Matthew Short said. “An armed society is a polite society.”

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Gun Activists Plan to Stage a Fake Mass Shooting This Weekend

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Ben Carson and the Conservative Grift Machine

by GustavoScarberry Posted on November 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the LA Times today Joseph Tanfani and Maloy Moore have a great piece about the American Legacy PAC and its 2014 Save Our Healthcare campaign. It was fronted by Ben Carson, who starred in a video denouncing Obamacare and told viewers, “If you want to hold Washington accountable and truly save American health care, join me and sign our petition today.” Needless to say, when you called the toll-free number, it turned out that Carson wanted more than just your John Hancock. He also wanted your Benjamins:

When Juanita McMillon saw his name, she was eager to get out her checkbook. “I think he is sincere, and I think he is honest, and I think he is exactly what we need,” said McMillon, 80, from the small town of De Kalb in northeast Texas. She gave $350….American Legacy raised close to $6 million in 2014 — and spent nearly all of it paying the consultants and firms that raised the money. Just 2% was donated to Republican candidates and committees, financial reports show.

“I’m really careful who I give money to, but I guess I did not read it close enough,” McMillon said, adding that she had never heard of American Legacy. “I prefer to give money to individuals, and I assumed, I guess, that Dr. Carson was getting my money.”

Though American Legacy didn’t raise much money for Obamacare-hating Republicans, it was a success at something else — finding people willing to give to Carson….When Carson entered the race, the campaign tapped those donors again. Donnell gave another $250 to the campaign, and McMillon another $450. Of the more than 4,000 donors to American Legacy, more than 25% also ended up giving to the Carson campaign, a Los Angeles Times analysis showed.

This is good reporting, but so far there’s nothing all that new here. Conservatives have turned grifting into a high art, and Carson is just the flavor of the month. What makes this piece great is the response from Doug Watts, Carson’s campaign spokesman:

Watts defended the American Legacy effort and offered assurance to donors. “I would say to those people, you did give to Dr. Carson,” Watts said. “They participated in the building of a list” of donors for the campaign.

Booyah! By giving money to Carson’s anti-Obamacare campaign, you identified yourself as a soft touch who would give Carson even more money later on. And that’s a big help. Of course, these elderly donors thought they were helping Carson fight Obamacare, because, you know, that’s what Carson actually said. But what’s the difference? Tomayto, tomahto.

Anyway, read the whole thing if you’ve got the stomach for it.

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Ben Carson and the Conservative Grift Machine

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This Judge Just Condemned Wisconsin’s Abortion Law as Unconstitutional. Read the Withering Ruling.

by SheenaKatz51691 Posted on November 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that a Wisconsin law requiring abortion providers to gain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional.

The law that was struck down is known as a TRAP law—short for “targeted regulation of abortion providers.” According to the Guttmacher Institute, Wisconsin is one of eleven states that have required similar admitting privileges. (Courts have blocked these requirements in six of those states.) The law is particularly effective in conservative regions where hospitals are less likely to grant those privileges to abortion providers. The law’s supporters say the law ensures continuity of care if complications arise from the procedure. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists notes that less than one half of one percent of all abortions involve major complications.

The 2-to-1 decision comes at a time when the constitutionality of TRAP laws are in question nationally. Just over a week ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to Texas’ “HB 2,” which decreased the state’s number of abortion clinics from 41 to 18 by implementing a host of TRAP laws. The ruling, due next year, will be the most notable reproductive rights ruling since Roe v. Wade.

Judge Richard Posner, writing for the 7th Circuit majority, stated that the regulation qualifies as an “undue burden” and that the medical grounds for such a requirement is “nonexistent.” Posner also had some words for abortion foes: “Opponents of abortion reveal their true objectives when they procure legislation limited to a medical procedure— abortion—that rarely produces a medical emergency.”

Posner—nominated by President Ronald Reagan—is known for his tart legal arguments, as we’ve noted previously. This case is no exception:

A great many Americans, including a number of judges, legislators, governors, and civil servants, are passionately opposed to abortion—as they are entitled to be. But persons who have a sophisticated understanding of the law and of the Supreme Court know that convincing the Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey is a steep uphill fight, and so some of them proceed indirectly, seeking to discourage abortions by making it more difficult for women to obtain them. They may do this in the name of protecting the health of women who have abortions, yet as in this case the specific measures they support may do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion. This is true of the Texas requirement, upheld by the Fifth Circuit in the Whole Woman’s case now before the Supreme Court, that abortion clinics meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers—a requirement that if upheld will permit only 8 of Texas’s abortion clinics to remain open, out of more than 40 that existed when the law was passed.

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This Judge Just Condemned Wisconsin’s Abortion Law as Unconstitutional. Read the Withering Ruling.

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Obama Asks the Supreme Court to Take Up the Fight Over Immigration

by JuanitaSelwyn Posted on November 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to take up a case that has stymied the president’s sweeping executive actions on immigration. President Obama’s executive orders, announced a year ago today, would have given temporary legal status to the undocumented parents of US citizens and expanded a program to protect immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. Nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants would have been shielded from deportation.

Although the federal government is largely in control of immigration policy, Texas led 25 other states in opposing the measure, arguing that Obama’s executive actions overreached his authority and would force the states to provide services to the immigrants or modify their laws. They took their objections to court and the program has been suspended since February. The administration appealed the decision, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 earlier this month to uphold the earlier decision blocking the measure.

The lower court’s decision “will force millions of people…to continue to work off the books, without the option of lawful employment to provide for their families,” the Department of Justice wrote in its petition to the Supreme Court. “And it will place a cloud over the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who came to the United States as children, have lived here for years, and been accorded deferred action.”

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Obama Asks the Supreme Court to Take Up the Fight Over Immigration

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Brennan Center: No "Crime Wave" in 2015

by ShadSolander Posted on November 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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Has there been an explosion of crime in 2015? It will take some time before official figures are available, so the Brennan Center decided to compile some unofficial figures through October. They surveyed the 30 largest cities and asked for both the murder rate and the overall “index” crime rate (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft). Their conclusion: the murder rate is up 11 percent while the overall crime rate is down 1.5 percent.

It’s true that some cities have seen very large increases in their murder rates. But that’s not uncommon. The base of murders is pretty small, so it doesn’t make much to create a big spike in a single year. The overall crime rate, which has a much larger base, is usually more stable.

Any time the murder rate goes up, it’s a good idea to be concerned. But murder rates have ticked up by 10 percent or so on several occasions in the past. There’s just a lot of noise the data. Overall, though, there’s little evidence of any kind of explosion in either the murder rate or the crime rate. A few cities (Baltimore, DC, Denver, most of Texas) seem to have a serious problem, but that’s about it.

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Brennan Center: No "Crime Wave" in 2015

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Here’s What the Latest Investigation of Planned Parenthood Just Revealed

by PollyWillshire Posted on November 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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Read more MoJo coverage of attacks on Planned Parenthood


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Congress Is Holding A Hearing On Planned Parenthoodâ&#128;&#148;Here’s What’s At Stake

Government investigations of Planned Parenthood in response to a series of deceptive videos produced by anti-abortion activists continue to lead to nothing.

On Monday, a 48-page report released by Washington state’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson stated that his team’s investigation into allegations about Planned Parenthood profiting from sales of fetal tissue “found no indication that procedures performed by Planned Parenthood are anything other than performance of a legally authorized medical procedure.”

After undercover videos filmed by David Daleiden and his anti-abortion group, Center for Medical Progress, went viral, legislators across the country called for probes of Planned Parenthood operations. So far, none of these investigations have turned up any wrongdoing.

What that have done, however, is have a chilling effect on important research into cures for diseases including diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, as Mother Jones reported last month. That Planned Parenthood was cleared of any misconduct in Washington is particularly notable because Washington is one of only two states that allows patients to donate tissue to scientific research. (California is the other.)

Despite the lack of evidence from these state investigations, Republicans in the US Senate continue their attempts to defund Planned Parenthood; they are currently working to pass a fast-track “reconciliation” package that aims to dismantle key components of Obamacare and rescind Planned Parenthood funding.

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Here’s What the Latest Investigation of Planned Parenthood Just Revealed

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President Obama Calls Rejection of Syrian Refugees a "Betrayal of Our Values"

by KimHeiden4411 Posted on November 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Obama said on Monday morning that the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed more than 100 people on Friday should not affect the small intake of Syrian refugees into the United States. “Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values,” he said during remarks at the G20 economic summit in Antalya, Turkey.

The comments were a direct rebuke to the governors of Alabama and Michigan, who announced over the weekend that their states would no longer resettle Syrian refugees because of security concerns. They were joined by the governors of Texas and Arkansas on Monday morning. While no Syrians have settled in Alabama since the start of the country’s uprising in 2011, Michigan is home to a large Arab and Middle Eastern community and at least 200 Syrians have found homes there, according to data compiled by the New York Times. That number was likely to rise after the Obama administration’s announcement in September that the US would take in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, a nearly tenfold increase in the number of Syrians who have settled here since 2012.

Obama also took a clear swipe at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, both of whom said on Sunday that the US should focus on taking in Christian refugees rather than Muslims. Their comments echoed those of Eastern European leaders who pushed back against accepting refugees over the summer by saying their countries weren’t prepared to accept Muslims. “When I heard political leaders suggest that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing a warn-torn country is admitted…that’s shameful,” Obama said, growing visibly heated. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”

Opponents of refugee resettlement have called for more stringent security checks on Syrians to make sure they have no connections to ISIS or other terrorist groups, but Syrians currently undergo a lengthy screening process that resettlement experts say is already sufficient to uncover terrorist ties. “Refugees are subject to the highest level of security checks of any category of traveler to the United States,” wrote Danna Van Brandt, a spokeswoman for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, in an email to Mother Jones. “Screening includes the involvement of the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense.”

A Syrian passport bearing the name Ahmed Almuhamed was found near the remains of a suicide bomber at Paris’ Stade de France on Friday night. The passport was used by a refugee who entered Greece just six weeks ago, stoking fears that ISIS members may be using the refugee crisis as cover. But Syrian passports, both stolen and forged, are popular on the black market, and it’s still unknown if Almuhamed himself was the bomber. Obama cautioned on Monday about drawing quick links between terrorist groups and refugees. “It’s very important that…we do not close our hearts or these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism,” he said.

Obama also fielded several questions about his strategy in Syria, which he defended as the only “sustainable” strategy available to the United States. While he said there will be an “intensification” of the current US actions, which include a long-running bombing campaign against ISIS and the recent deployment of special operations soldiers to northern Syria, he rejected any possibility that the US will deploy a large ground force to take on ISIS. “It is not just my view, but the view of my closest military and civilian advisors, that that would be a mistake,” he said. “We would see a repetition of what we’ve see before: If you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremists, that they resurface unless you’re prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries.”

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President Obama Calls Rejection of Syrian Refugees a "Betrayal of Our Values"

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Everything You Need to Know About Yik Yak, the Social App at the Center of Missouri’s Racist Threats

by WilmaAldrich Posted on November 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, University of Missouri police arrested 19-year-old Hunter M. Park for “making a terrorist threat” on the anonymous messaging app Yik Yak. And later that morning, in a separate incident, police nabbed Connor Stottlemyre, a freshman at Northwest Missouri State University, in connection to a message he allegedly posted on the site: “I’m gonna shoot any black people tomorrow, so be ready.”

Just two days earlier, amid protests over racial inequality at the University of Missouri, “Yakkers” on and around campus took to the app’s hyperlocal message boards to debate the resignations of university president Tim Wolfe and chancellor R. Bowen Loftin and question whether the protests did more harm than good. As the threats of harming black students allegedly linked to Park and Stottlemyre surfaced, concern spread throughout the University of Missouri, Columbia campus. Once bustling spaces were left empty as many students stayed home.

So what exactly is Yik Yak, the app at the center of these cases? Here’s what you need to know:

What is Yik Yak? Yik Yak is a bulletin board-style, location-based social network where users can anonymously post messages to anyone within a five-mile radius. The app, founded in 2013 by two recent college graduates, was meant to be “a place where communities share news, crack jokes, ask questions, offer support, and build camaraderie,” cofounder Brooks Buffington explained in a blog post on Wednesday. The site is limited to users who are 17 or older and has become especially popular on college campuses. The company has built “geofences” to block the app’s use around elementary, middle, and high schools.

In theory, the app operates as a self-policing community. As on sites like Reddit, Yakkers can upvote comments they like and vote down comments they don’t making it harder for them to be seen. Yet the seemingly innocuous banter can devolve into a cesspool of crude and demeaning remarks, blurring the line between free speech and online bullying.

If message contains threatening (but not necessarily racist or abusive) language, the app is supposed to detect it. A pop-up will warn about the consequences of posting that message. “You’re probably an awesome person but just know that Yik Yak and law enforcement take threats seriously,” reads one warning screen. Critics say that these pop-ups are not enough to curb abuse on the social network.

Yik Yak

Is it really anonymous? It’s unclear how exactly university police linked Park to the anonymous posts, but a Yik Yak spokesperson confirmed to Mother Jones that authorities need a subpoena to obtain user information unless “a post poses a risk of imminent harm.” That’s what happened three weeks ago, when Texas A&M police obtained an emergency subpoena to arrest and charge Christopher Louis Bolanos-Garza for posting a threat on Yik Yak.

“Yik Yak cooperates with law enforcement and works alongside local authorities to help with investigations,” a Yik Yak spokesman said in a statement. After submitting a detailed request to Yik Yak, authorities can obtain information such as a “user’s IP address, GPS coordinates, message timestamps, telephone number, user-agent string, and/or the contents of other messages from the user’s posting history,” according to the site’s legal provisions. Yik Yak handles these on a “case-by-case basis.”

The company’s statement also says that it “may provide information without a subpoena, warrant, or court order when a post poses a risk of imminent harm.”

What constitutes an imminent threat on Yik Yak? The company may disclose user information to authorities “when we believe that doing so is necessary to prevent death or serious physical harm to someone,” according to its legal fine print. These provisions highlight examples of imminent dangers that include bomb threats, kidnapping, school shootings, or suicide threats. Yakkers can also flag and report posts and file complaints with the company.

In Park’s case, university police received numerous complaints from people about his alleged threat, though it’s unclear if it had been flagged by Yik Yak.

What kinds of problems have cropped up on Yik Yak elsewhere? At colleges and universities throughout the country, threats of mass shootings, racially charged commentary, sexually explicit comments, and even a sex tape have cropped up on the network. The Washington Post has a list of incidents here. The Post reports that at least a dozen universities have tried to banish the app by blocking access to it on campus wi-fi. In May, after seven students filed complaints about feeling threatened on the app, the College of Idaho tried to ban Yik Yak and asked the company to build a geofence around the campus. Yik Yak declined to do so.

What’s next for Yik Yak? Pressure is mounting on the company to step up its efforts to curb harassment and threats. In October, a coalition of 72 feminist and civil rights groups urged the Department of Education to issue guidelines that protect “students from harassment and threats based on sex, race, color, or national origin” on Yik Yak and other anonymous social media platforms. The coalition told the Post they would send a letter to the app’s Silicon Valley investors, urging them to strengthen the company’s policies to combat “hateful targeting and harassment of students on college campuses.”

Buffington, Yik Yak’s cofounder, emphasized in his blog post about the events at the University of Missouri, “Let’s not waste any words here: This sort of misbehavior is NOT what Yik Yak is to be used for. Period.” Part of the Yakker herd, he wrote, means respecting one another: “At its core, Yik Yak is your community; it’s an extension of the real world directly around you.” And like the real world, Yik Yak can get pretty messy.

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Everything You Need to Know About Yik Yak, the Social App at the Center of Missouri’s Racist Threats

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Prefer Your Meat Drug-Free? You’re the "Fringe 1 Percent"

by NataliaBrunning Posted on November 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Elanco, the animal-health division of the pharma giant Eli Lilly, makes one of the world’s most controversial growth-promoting chemicals for meat production: ractopamine, marketed as Optaflexx for cattle, Paylean for pigs, and Topmax for turkeys.

A member of the class of medicines known as beta-agonists, which are also given to asthmatic people to help relax their airway muscles, ractopamine makes animals rapidly put on lean weight—but it also mimics stress hormones and makes their hearts beat faster. Studies suggest that it makes livestock more vulnerable to heat. Ractopamine is banned in the European Union, China, and more than 100 other countries, and it faces mounting criticism here in the United States.

To clean up his company’s image, Elanco’s president, Jeff Simmons, has launched a “counteroffensive,” reports Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Andrew Martin. In addition to his responsibilities operating a $2.3 billion-dollar global animal-drug business, Simmons runs an initiative called ENOUGH Movement, which calls itself a “global community working together to ensure everyone has access to nutritious, affordable food—today and in the coming decades.” Combating global hunger is one of ENOUGH’S major themes. Simmons uses a “grainy photo of himself carrying a small African child on his back” as his Twitter avatar, Martin reports.

Elanco served as the primary underwriter of The Atlantic magazine’s 2015 Food Summit, held last week in Washington, D.C. Simmons delivered a sponsored presentation at the event. In it, he complained that a group he labeled the “fringe 1 percent,” agitating for increased regulation on meat producers, is driving the national debate around food. Simmons also regaled the crowd with ENOUGH’s core messages: The world needs to produce 60 percent more meat, eggs, and dairy by 2050; doing so will require “innovative farming techniques that increase efficiency;” and organic methods—which forbid growth-boosting chemicals for animals—aren’t going to cut it. Instead, ENOUGH insists, “we must leverage the innovations and technological advances that will allow us to produce more food without using more resources.”

One can see why an exec operating in the meat industry might be feeling defensive. Industrial-scale meat production has been linked to the rise of antibiotic resistance in human medicine (which claims at least 700,000 lives per year globally); ecological ruin; increased risk of cancer; and the hollowing out of communities where it alights. Insult to injury, US consumers have been cutting back on meat consumption overall, and turning increasingly to drug-free, pasture-raised product.

And Simmons has rushed into the fray. In short, Martin shows, Simmons is taking a page from the agrichemical/GMO industry playbook: present your industry as crucial to “feeding the world” as global population grows to 9 billion by 2050, and paint your critics as out-of-touch elitists who are indifferent to hunger and poverty.

“Simmons doesn’t directly pitch Elanco products during his speeches on hunger, saying he has a higher purpose: alleviating world hunger and changing a conversation that’s been hijacked by a vocal fringe of activists,” Businessweek’s Martin writes. “If the arguments sound familiar, it’s because Monsanto and other proponents of genetically modified foods made similar claims.”

One key part of the strategy to avoid discussion of existing products, and point instead to future innovation. Generally speaking, Monsanto execs prefer to talk about still-in-development crops rather than current offerings, which are riddled by weeds and insects that have evolved to resist them. Likewise, Simmons doesn’t say much on the stump about the company’s best-known product, ractopamine.

A 2014 study from Texas Tech and Kansas State researchers found that it nearly doubled the mortality rate of cows fed on it in the weeks before slaughter. As for pigs, the drug has “triggered more adverse reports in pigs than any other animal drug on the market,” a 2012 investigation by journalist Helena Bottemiller found. “Pigs suffered from hyperactivity, trembling, broken limbs, inability to walk, and death, according to FDA reports released under a Freedom of Information Act request.”

Rather than ponder such troubles, Simmons urges us to imagine a future where meat is abundant and the scourge of malnutrition has been defeated, all driven by “innovation” and “science.” Whether or not that vision comes to pass, this much seems clear: We’re on the verge of a loud campaign by the meat industry, particularly its pharma sector, to portray its critics as a privileged fringe, untroubled by global hunger.

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Prefer Your Meat Drug-Free? You’re the "Fringe 1 Percent"

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