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These Are the Regions Where Americans Are Most Likely to Favor Secession

Mother Jones

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Inspired by the events surrounding the recent Scottish independence referendum, a new poll reveals an alarming number of Americans think a similar splintering of the union is a fine idea.

The poll, organized by Reuters, found that 23.9 percent of Americans would favor their state seceding from the rest of the country. Residents of the Southwest and the Rockies were the most likely to voice support, polling at 34 percent and 25 percent respectively. A plurality of would-be secessionists reported an annual income of $25,000 or less.

A shock to no one, more Republicans than Democrats want to break free.

Among reasons for secession, a disillusionment with Washington, coupled with a strong hatred for Obamacare ranked high. All this despite the fact these Americans are in need of healthcare expansion the most and studies continue to show states that have embraced the Affordable Care Act have seen the sharpest drop in uninsured rates.

Texas in particular, which has a history of secessionist sentiment and makes up a large portion of the Southwest, is the one determined state that might actually have a chance at surviving without the American whole. But let’s keep in mind Texas has relied heavily on their much deplored Washington.

Turns out Texas was the state that depended the most on those very stimulus funds to plug nearly 97% of its shortfall for fiscal 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Texas, which crafts a budget every two years, was facing a $6.6 billion shortfall for its 2010-2011 fiscal years. It plugged nearly all of that deficit with $6.4 billion in Recovery Act money, allowing it to leave its $9.1 billion rainy day fund untouched.

“Texas has everything we need. We have the manufacturing, we have the oil, and we don’t need them,” one Texan still told Reuters.

But don’t be too concerned. The same poll found 53.3 percent understand secession is a no good, bad idea.

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These Are the Regions Where Americans Are Most Likely to Favor Secession

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The Texas Tribune: Aquifer Is No Quick Fix for Central Texas Thirst

Experts disagree how much water the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer holds and how long it would be able to sustain Central Texas’s growing population. Source:   The Texas Tribune: Aquifer Is No Quick Fix for Central Texas Thirst ; ; ;

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The Texas Tribune: Aquifer Is No Quick Fix for Central Texas Thirst

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Investing in the hardest working body of water in the world

A unique partnership has created an incredible opportunity to help rehabilitate the Gulf region. View article: Investing in the hardest working body of water in the world Related Articles Single experimental tree produces 40 different kinds of fruit (Video) Yikes! California’s extreme drought could last “a decade or more”, 2014 driest year in a century W.H.O. on Use of Experimental Ebola Drug

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Investing in the hardest working body of water in the world

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Compton to District Security Guards: Go Ahead, Bring Your AR-15s to School

Mother Jones

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When students in the Compton Unified School District return to classrooms on Monday, some of them will have new pencils or notebooks. Their teachers will have new textbooks. But this year, the district’s campus police will be getting an upgrade, too: AR-15 assault rifles.

The board of the Los Angeles-area school district approved a measure to allow the campus cops to carry the new guns in July. The district’s police chief, William Wu, told the board that equipping school police with semi-automatic AR-15s is intended to ensure student safety.

“This is our objective—save lives, bottom line,” Wu told the board.

Crime is a serious problem in Compton, an independent jurisdiction south of downtown Los Angeles. In the 12 months preceding July, the city of nearly 100,000 experienced 28 murders, making it the 11th-deadliest neighborhood in the county, according to a data analysis by the Los Angeles Times.

But the choice to make Compton school police the latest local law enforcement agency to adopt military-style weapons was less about dealing with street crime than it was about preventing more exotic incidents like mass shootings. At the board meeting, Wu cited an FBI report released in January that found that 5 percent of “active shooters”— or shooters which are conducting an ongoing assault on a group of people—wore body armor, which can stop most bullets fired from handguns. To make his case, Wu cited a range of examples, including the Mumbai terrorist attacks and the University of Texas shooting in 1966, in which a student killed 16 people from the campus clock tower, out of range of police sidearms. (The student was eventually killed when a group of police climbed the tower and shot him at close range.)

“They will continue until they are stopped,” Wu said, at which point a board member interjected.

“No, they will continue until we stop them,” he said. “Compton Unified School Police…holding it down.”

“These rifles give us greater flexibility in dealing with a person with bad intent who comes onto any of our campuses,” Wu said in a statement. “The officers will keep the rifles in the trunks of their cars, unless they are needed.”

Compton is not the first district in the Southern California to allow AR-15s on its campuses. At the meeting, Wu said that Los Angeles, Baldwin Park, Santa Ana, Fontana, and San Bernardino all allow their officers to use the same weapons.

Compton school police last made news in May 2013, when a group of parents and students filed a suit against the department, alleging a pattern of racial profiling and abuse targeting Latino students. The complaint said that officers beat, pepper-sprayed, and put a chokehold on a bystander who was recording an arrest with his iPod. The group also claimed that Compton school police used excessive force against students and parents who complained that English-as-a-second-language programs were underfunded. (The case is ongoing.)

Wu said at the board meeting that seven officers have already been trained to use the new weapons. He said all officers would be purchasing their own weapons. The guns will be the officers’ personal property, but they could be bringing them to work as early as September.

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Compton to District Security Guards: Go Ahead, Bring Your AR-15s to School

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Group Earns Oil Income Despite Pledge on Drilling

The Nature Conservancy is earning money from an oil well on land it controls in Texas, despite pledging a decade ago not to permit new oil and gas drilling on land supposedly set aside for conservation. Continue at source –  Group Earns Oil Income Despite Pledge on Drilling ; ;Related ArticlesWhite House Pushes Financial Case for Carbon RuleEconomic View: Shattering Myths to Help the ClimateDot Earth Blog: Heading Down East for a Spell ;

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Group Earns Oil Income Despite Pledge on Drilling

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8 Reasons Why Jose Antonio Vargas Won’t Be Deported

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday morning, Jose Antonio Vargas, one of the most prominent and vocal undocumented immigrants in the United States, was detained at a Texas airport after traveling there to report on the plight of unaccompanied minors crossing the border. The Border Patrol took him into custody when he showed them a Filipino passport and no other form of identification. This was one of the few times Vargas, who self-identifies as the “most privileged” undocumented immigrant in the US, has had that privilege seriously questioned. He was released on Tuesday evening and issued a statement through his nonprofit organization, Define American:

I’ve been released by Border Patrol. I want to thank everyone who stands by me and the undocumented immigrants of south Texas and across the country. Our daily lives are filled with fear in simple acts such as getting on an airplane to go home to our family.

Vargas reminds those watching his case that he is representative of so many more undocumented children. But there are also many reasons why his is a special case—and why he won’t be deported:


70,000 Kids Will Show Up Alone at Our Border This Year. What Happens to Them?


What’s Next for the Children We Deport?


Map: These Are the Places Central American Child Migrants Are Fleeing


Why Our Immigration Courts Can’t Handle the Child Migrant Crisis


GOP Congressman Who Warned About Unvaccinated Migrants Opposed Vaccination

  1. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a celebrity.â&#128;&#139;
  2. He’s been detained, and released, before: Two years ago, a year after he revealed his status as an undocumented Filipino immigrant, Vargas was driving through Minneapolis without a legal license while wearing headphones, according to MinnPost. Although the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office was signed up for a Bush administration initiative called Secure Communities that encourages local law enforcement to hold booked undocumented immigrants for ICE, Vargas was released after roughly five hours. It’s unclear how much information authorities had about Vargas’ citizenship, though MinnPost points out that it was unusual for police to haul him in, given that those suspected of driving without a license tend to be issued a citation on the scene.
  3. He’s dared the ICE to deport him, and it did nothing: As Vox points out, Vargas essentially surrendered to the feds in 2012 when he called ICE and “asked what the government wanted to do with him.” The agency declined to comment. Technically, they can come knocking anytime they want to deport him, and they have not done so.
  4. He’s not a priority: The Obama administration claims it prioritizes cases having to do with “national security, public safety, and border security,” including repeat offenders who have crossed the border after deportation, convicted criminals, and “recent border crossers.” Vargas doesn’t fit these descriptions, considering he’s been convicted of no crime and has lived in the United States since he was 12 years old.
  5. The courts are already backlogged: As MoJo‘s Stephanie Mencimer wrote earlier this week, immigration courts are drowning in cases, especially with the sudden influx of unaccompanied minors. There are currently 30 vacancies on the immigration bench, dozens more judges eligible for retirement, and a backlog of 375,503 cases—up 50,000 since 2013. A case like Vargas’ could’ve sat around for years before it was addressed.
  6. Prosecutorial discretion might have favored him anyway: Even if Vargas’ case were taken up by ICE, the government could have chosen at any time not to proceed. ICE can waive deportation in cases where a defendant has “positive priorities,” including status as a veteran, longtime US residency, a degree from a US college or university, or even just “ties to the United States,” including a “role in the community” or “work as a volunteer.” Vargas arrived as an undocumented minor and was unaware of his status until he was older. He’s been a journalist since he was 17. He’s a graduate of San Francisco State University. And now he’s the founder of nonprofit advocacy group Define American. Not only does he fit many of the positive criterion, he doesn’t fit into the clearly defined “negative” categories: He is not a clear threat to national security, a gang member, or a convicted criminal.
  7. He has a slew of lawyers, immigration groups, and public figures supporting him: Chris Rickerd, a policy council expert in the American Civil Liberties Union, says Vargas’ “equities are such that he should be allowed to continue his stay in the US.” Allegra McLeod, a law professor at Georgetown University, claimed that she thought “his long-standing ties to this country would make the claim that it would be a moral disaster for this country” if officials were forced to consider his deportation. Cristina Jimenez, a representative of the youth immigration group United We Dream, declared in a statement: “We stand in solidarity with Jose Antonio and demand for his immediate release, but we must remember that there are thousands of people along the border that live with this same fear every day.” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced his support for Vargas in a public statement Tuesday, describing him as an “exemplary man whose tireless work has helped raise awareness around the lives of millions of undocumented immigrants living on American soil” and encouraging authorities to use discretion when it came to his case.
  8. He’d be a giant headache when the government already has plenty. (See also No. 1.) We’ll just have to see if the outcry over Vargas’ release would be any less of a headache for the Obama administration than his deportation might have been.

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8 Reasons Why Jose Antonio Vargas Won’t Be Deported

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Tom’s Kitchen: Now Is the Time of Gazpacho

Mother Jones

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Gazpacho can be a drag: dull and savoring of the refrigerator. That’s because its essential ingredients—tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers—are too often mass-produced and hauled in hundreds of miles from God knows where. However, when those hot-weather staples are in season and grown by talented farmers in your region—or better, in a nearby garden—gazpacho can be a revelation: vibrant, zippy, and as fresh as a sun-baked veggie patch.

Here in central Texas, it’s gazpacho time. My own tomato plants are towering and healthy, but a diabolical squirrel is helping itself to all the big ones, leaving me with just cherry tomatoes—delicious, but not right for the gazpacho blender. As for sweet peppers, mine aren’t quite ready yet. I did grow some fabulous cukes, though. So I headed over to Austin’s glorious Boggy Creek Farm, now in the midst of an epic tomato harvest, to fill out my gazpacho larder.

Now, my gazpacho mojo hit a snag a few years ago when a close friend dismissed a batch I had whipped up with a soul-crushing assessment: “salsa in disguise.” I realized my mistake: not enough cucumber and sweet pepper, and too much hot chile pepper. Since then, I’ve been using one medium-sized cucumber and one sweet pepper each for every five medium-sized tomatoes. As for hot pepper, I usually reserve it for garnish, in the form of a few chile flakes. These days, my gazpacho tastes like a summer garden in a bowl, not something you want to plunge a chip into. For a slightly spicy and ligher—but still un-salsalike—version, check out the one I came up with last year.

Essential gazpacho gear.

Gazpacho
(Serves two)

5 medium-sized tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 medium cucumber (if it’s super-fresh, no need to peel), coarsely chopped
1 medium (or too small) sweet pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 slice of good rustic day-old bread, toasted and torn into pieces
Sherry vinegar, one splash at a time, to taste
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Garnish
Extra virgin olive oil
Something green, like chopped parsley and/or garlic chives
Crushed red chile flakes
A few coarsely chopped cherry tomatoes (optional)

Place the chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and garlic into a blender, along with the olive oil, a good dash of vinegar, and a healthy lashing of salt and pepper. Blend until smooth. Taste. Add more vinegar and salt if need.

To serve, divide into two bowls (there may be a bit leftover). Give them a drizzle of olive oil and top with remaining garnishes.

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Tom’s Kitchen: Now Is the Time of Gazpacho

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7 Republicans Who Said Obama Wasn’t Trying Hard Enough to Bring the Benghazi Attacker to Justice

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post broke a big scoop on Tuesday with the news that US special forces, working with FBI agents, mounted a secret raid in Libya this past weekend that captured Ahmed Abu Khattala, who is suspected of masterminding the attack on the US diplomatic facility in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The Post story noted that the operation had been months in the making. In fact, US Special Forces had a plan to apprehend Abu Khattala last October, days after US commandos in Tripoli snatched Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, who was accused of bombing US embassies in East Africa in 1998. But that attempt to apprehend Abu Khattala had to be called off at the last minute.

So for a long stretch, maybe a year or more, the Obama administration had been trying to figure out how best to grab Abu Khattala, who was identified as a possible Benghazi ringleader soon after the September 11, 2012, assault. Yet for much of that time, Republican critics of the president have repeatedly criticized Obama for not capturing the Benghazi perps. Even though it took a decade to nab Osama bin Laden, GOPers have depicted Obama as feckless on the Benghazi front, with some even saying that he was not truly interested in bringing the Benghazi killers to justice.

Here’s a sampling of those GOP attacks:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): In November, Cruz criticized the Obama administration for failing to use a State Department program that offers rewards to people with information about terrorists in order to track down the Benghazi attacker: “The State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program exists to help the US identify and apprehend its enemies, but the Obama administration has not used it to pursue the terrorists who attacked our personnel in Benghazi,” he said.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.): In August, Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has held numerous hearings on the Benghazi attack, harped on the administration’s “delay” in apprehending Abu Khattala: “If our government knows who perpetrated the attack that killed four Americans, it is critical that they be questioned and placed in custody of US officials without delay,” he said. “Delays in apprehending the suspected Benghazi killers will only put American lives at further and needless risk.”

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and John McCain (R-Ariz.): In a February letter to Obama, the three GOP senators wrote, “In almost 17 months, none of the terrorists have been brought to justice. The families of the murdered Americans deserve to see the terrorists brought to justice. Moreover, terrorists around the world need to know that if they kill Americans, we will hunt them down and bring them to justice. Allowing terrorists apparently involved in the attack to sit and give interviews in cafés sends a dangerous message that there are no consequences for killing Americans.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah): “Let’s not forget the Benghazi terrorist attackers,” Chaffetz told USA Today in October. “There’s been no visibility on whether or not we’re pursuing that.”

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.): In August, when the Justice Department filed charges against Abu Khattala, Wolf suggested the administration wouldn’t have acted without Republican pressure. “I think they’re feeling pressure to do something, to show they’re making progress,” he told the Washington Times, adding that charges against suspects have likely been delayed by “confusion” among US law enforcement authorities.

By now, it should be obvious: It can take a while—even years—to capture a suspected terrorist overseas. (Ruqai, the embassy bombings suspect, was apprehended 15 years after the attacks.) Yet that didn’t stop these Republicans and other conservatives from slamming the president and suggesting publicly—in a real underhanded dig—that Obama was not seeking the murderers of Benghazi. Now what will they say? That his heart wasn’t really in it?

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7 Republicans Who Said Obama Wasn’t Trying Hard Enough to Bring the Benghazi Attacker to Justice

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Ted Cruz Addresses Rally Organized By Doctor Who Says Gays Recruit Children

Mother Jones

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz Cruz spoke at an anti-gay marriage rally on Thursday hosted by Steven Hotze, a controversial doctor who has told women that birth control would make them unappealing to men and has warned that equality for gays would be a stepping stone to child molestation. Hotze, who runs an alternative medicine practice in suburban Houston and is suing the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act, organized the event through his political action committee, Conservative Republicans of Texas. Cruz was joined on stage fellow Sen. John Cornyn, and state Sen. Dan Patrick, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor.

As I reported in April, Hotze’s opposition to gay rights stretches back to at least the early 1980s, when he told Third Coast magazine that gay people “proliferate by one means, and one means only, and that’s recruiting. And they recruit the weak. They recruit children or young people in their formative years.” With that, he was off:

Three years later, after overturning an anti-discrimination ordinance in Houston, Hotze organized a group of eight candidates he considered allies in the fight against homosexuality. He called them “the Straight Slate.” His preferred mayoral candidate said that the best way to fight AIDS was to “shoot the queers.” Hotze told a local newspaper reporter that he cased out restaurants before making reservations to make sure they didn’t have any gay employees and became such a divisive figure in local politics that for a brief period the Harris County Republican Party cleaved in two.

More recently, his PAC spent big bucks to oppose Annise Parker, a Democratic candidate who would become Houston’s first openly gay mayor in 2009. On Thursday, Cruz also signed onto an amicus brief in support of Hotze’s lawsuit against Obamacare, which he contends is unconstitutional because it did not originate in the House. But Hotze is an unusual mascot for politicians who fear Obamacare has ruined the health care system, because he operates largely outside of it. An investigation by the Houston Press raised questions about his medical practice, noting that he had inflated his credentials and touted the healing powers of treatments such as colloidal silver—which can turn patients’ skin permanently blue—which are not covered by health insurance and not backed up by studies.

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Ted Cruz Addresses Rally Organized By Doctor Who Says Gays Recruit Children

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American Southwest heating faster than rest of nation

How do you like your state cooked?

American Southwest heating faster than rest of nation

Shutterstock

Stick a fork in the American Southwest. The ranches there are broiled.

Separate analyses published this week both found that the region has heated up more than any other in the U.S. in recent decades as global warming’s most prominent effect — warming — has taken hold. The first analysis came from Climate Central, which looked at summertime heat:

Climate Central

From Climate Central’s article:

Nationwide, the summer warming trend averages out to a little more than 0.4°F per decade since 1970. The places warming the fastest also happen to be some of the hottest places in the country, with a large chunk of the Southwest and all of Texas warming more than 1°F per decade.

The notable blue spot in a sea of red is the Upper Midwest, where substantial parts of Iowa and the Dakotas have seen a slight cooling trend since 1970. Interestingly, that region is actually home to some of the fastest-warming states when you look at the change in annual average temperatures. Winters in particular have warmed dramatically there over the past 40 years.

On that note, the AP analyzed average year-round temperatures, reaching these conclusions:

The United States is warming fastest at two of its corners, in the Northeast and the Southwest, an analysis of federal temperature records shows. …

The Southwest warming, especially in the summer, seems to be driven by dryness, because when there is little water the air and ground warm up faster, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

“Heat and drought are a vicious cycle that has been hitting the Southwest hard in recent years,” Hayhoe said.

And in the Northeast, the temperatures are pushed up by milder winters and warm water in the North Atlantic, said Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. And less snow on the ground over the winter often means warmer temperatures, said Alan Betts, a climate scientist at Atmospheric Research in Pittsford, Vermont.

The Southeast and Northwest were among the places that warmed the least. In the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, industrial sulfur particle pollutants from coal burning may be reflecting sunlight, thus countering heating caused by coal’s carbon dioxide emissions, said Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann.

Of course, warming isn’t the only impact that’s being felt from climate change. Another prominent impact is rising seas. And The Washington Post recently reported that high tides have risen by 1.5 feet during the past decade in Norfolk, Va., where water levels have been rising faster than anywhere else on the East Coast.


Source
Here’s How Much U.S. Summers Have Warmed Since 1970, Climate Central
What states are warming the fastest?, The Associated Press
In Norfolk, evidence of climate change is in the streets at high tide, The Washington Post

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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American Southwest heating faster than rest of nation

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