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Sheriff Says Pipeline Employee Who Pointed Rifle at Protesters Was "Victim"

by HaydenGunter7 Posted on November 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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Yesterday, the Morton County Sherriff’s Department released an employee of the Dakota Access Pipeline who was arrested last Thursday after entering the camp of activists protesting against the pipeline. Numerous witnesses recounted a car chase and tense standoff during which the man pointed an AR-15 rifle at protesters. “No charges will be filed against this man,” the sheriff’s department stated, “as he was using the weapon to protect himself.”

A statement from the Sheriff’s Department described the Dakota Access Pipeline employee as “the victim in the case.” It said that he was checking construction equipment near the site of protests and had “disguised himself so he would be able to gain access without being singled out as a construction worker.”

Last Friday, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier confirmed that the man had been armed but disputed the account of the protesters who had confronted him. Kirchmeier said the man “was more or less acting in self-defense.” No shots were fired during the standoff, Kirchmeier said, contradicting an earlier press release. This video of the incident shows the man pointing his rifle at protesters as they approach him.

A woman talks with the armed Dakota Access Pipeline employee who entered the anti-pipeline protesters’ camp near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation last week. Ryan Vizziones

Inside the man’s truck, protesters found three documents identifying him as a security worker for Dakota Access, LLC, the company that is constructing the pipeline. Afterward, a flare was shot into the man’s truck, setting it on fire.

Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Donnell Hushka confirmed the man’s identity. His name has been published elsewhere but we have redacted his name here because he has not been charged with a crime.

On Monday, the Dakota Access Pipeline employee posted an account of the incident on his Facebook page. He writes that he was disguised so he could investigate the vandalism of pipeline equipment. (Photos of the man show him wearing sunglasses and a red bandanna.) He recounts that he “drew out my rifle,” but only “after my vehicle was disabled and over 300 protesters were rapidly approaching my location, a few had knives and were dead set on using those knives.” He also claims that a protester fired a flare at him.

Facebook

“I was in a situation in which myself and others were faced with the difficult decision to take another’s life or not,” he writes. “A decision in which most people are never faced with and I hope never will, a decision in which changes a person’s outlook on life forever.”

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Sheriff Says Pipeline Employee Who Pointed Rifle at Protesters Was "Victim"

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Obama Slams FBI Over New Hillary Clinton Emails

by ZulmaLinder Posted on November 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama harshly criticized the FBI’s actions informing Congress about the discovery of new Hillary Clinton emails, suggesting to NowThisNews on Wednesday that the much-criticized letter was outside of law enforcement protocol.

“We don’t operate on innuendo,” Obama said in his first remarks since the FBI’s announcement last Friday. “We don’t operate on incomplete information and we don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.

“When this was investigated thoroughly, the last time, the conclusion of the FBI, the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was that she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable.”

The president also reiterated his support for Clinton and urged young people not to allow the ongoing email investigation affect their votes.

“I trust her, I know her,” he said. “I wouldn’t be supporting her if I didn’t have absolute confidence in her integrity and her interest in making sure that young people have a better future.”

The interview comes just one day after White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest refused to defend or criticize FBI Director James Comey over the decision. Since the ambiguous letter was released on Friday, the Clinton campaign has accused Comey of improperly interfering with the election, thus benefiting her opponent.

“That announcement has allowed for Donald Trump to take advantage of the absence of facts to wildly speculate and lie about Hillary Clinton,” campaign manager Robby Mook said on Monday.

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Obama Slams FBI Over New Hillary Clinton Emails

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Alcohol and Crime: The Story Isn’t Quite So Simple

by JennaManifold Posted on November 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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The chart below comes from Wonkblog. It’s from a study of crime in Oregon, and shows that at age 21—the legal drinking age in Oregon—crime spikes considerably:

One striking chart shows how alcohol can turn people into criminals

As soon as people turned 21, their likelihood of criminality spiked considerably….The number of charges filed against 21-year-olds was similar to the number for 19-year-olds. In other words, from a criminal-justice standpoint, turning 21 is akin to turning back the clock to your late teens.

The mechanism by which this works is fairly obvious — access to alcohol increases dramatically at age 21. That brings more intoxication, and with it more aggressive, belligerent and criminally stupid behavior.

Sometimes, though, one striking chart isn’t enough. Sometimes you really need to see a whole bunch of them. I apologize for the size and readability of this, but I think it’s best if I show you everything, instead of just picking and choosing. Here’s the complete set of charts from the Oregon study:

Virtually the entire effect is driven not by “more aggressive, belligerent and criminally stupid behavior” in general—violent crime shows no effect at all—but specifically by alcohol-related offenses: DUI/reckless driving, providing alcohol to minors, public disorder, and so forth. The authors suggest there might be some small effect on assault, trespass, marijuana, and cocaine. But if you take a look at those charts without pre-assuming a change at age 21, you see a very vague scatterplot that doesn’t really suggest anything special at that age.

Bottom line: Legal access to alcohol certainly increases alcohol use, and therefore increases the rate of drunk driving, alcohol-induced public disorder, and providing alcohol to minors. You hardly need a study to tell you that. But on all other kinds of crime? It seems to have barely any effect at all.

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Alcohol and Crime: The Story Isn’t Quite So Simple

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Liberals No Longer Allowed to Nominate Supreme Court Justices

by JuliannPRY Posted on November 1, 2016

Mother Jones

The latest hotness on the right is to promise not just to hold up Senate hearings on Merrick Garland until we get a new president, but to hold up all hearings for all Supreme Court nominees forever if Hillary Clinton wins:

That prospect — which could impact every aspect of American life including climate regulations, abortion and gun rights — was first raised by Senator John McCain of Arizona, then Ted Cruz of Texas and now Richard Burr of North Carolina, who CNN reported Monday talked up the idea at a private event over the weekend.

“If Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court,” Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told a group of Republican volunteers, according to CNN.

Marco Rubio, taking his usual craven approach to political landmines, says it would be wrong to blockade everyone, but it would be OK to blockade anyone who’s not a conservative:

“If it’s someone good who understands that their job is to apply the constitution, according to its original intent, then that will be a welcome surprise,” he said. “But barring whether it’s Republican or a Democrat, if they appoint someone who I believe doesn’t meet that standard I’ll oppose that nominee.”

Ross Douthat explains the principled thinking behind this strategy:

There you have it. Liberal views of the law are inherently illegitimate, so Democrats don’t get to pick any more Supreme Court justices. There’s a name for this kind of republic. Starts with a B. Not quite coming to me, though.

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Liberals No Longer Allowed to Nominate Supreme Court Justices

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NYT: We’ve Figured Out How Trump Gamed the Tax System

by Rita7799phdn Posted on November 1, 2016

Mother Jones

A few weeks ago the New York Times got hold of the first page of Donald Trump’s 1995 tax return. It showed a net operating loss of $916 million, which Trump was able to use to offset his income over the next 20 years, thus avoiding millions of dollars in income taxes. But while solving one mystery, it opened another: Just exactly how did Trump manage to declare such a big loss? Several theories made the rounds, but the Times now thinks it has the answer, thanks to a cache of “newly obtained documents.” Here’s the nutshell version of the Times’ explanation:

Trump was a terrible businessman and lost a huge amount of money on his casino operations in the early 90s.
As part of his bankruptcy negotiations in 1991, he persuaded banks to forgive hundred of millions of dollars in loans.
Forgiven loans count as “Cancellation of Debt” income, which should have offset his huge operating losses. But somehow they didn’t. Why?
The Times says it was because Trump used a legally dubious “equity-for-debt” swap. Basically, he swapped the bonds he couldn’t pay for new bonds that he classified as equity shares in the casino partnership.

The Times makes a good case that Trump’s own tax lawyers told him this plan was extremely risky (see the excerpt from the official tax opinion on the right) and would most likely be disallowed by the IRS. But we don’t know if it was. The trail stops cold in 1995.

If I’m reading this right, the basic story is that Trump gave his banks “New Bonds” in place of their old bonds and classified the new bonds as equity shares in the casino partnership. Trump then valued the equity as equal to the old debt, thus showing no net loan forgiveness and therefore no COD income. This despite the fact that, in reality, the equity was close to worthless.

So Trump then had $916 million in operating losses, but no debt forgiveness to offset it. “Even in the opaque, rarefied world of gaming impenetrable tax regulations,” says the Times, “this particular maneuver was about as close as a company could get to waving a magic wand and making taxes disappear.”

At this point, the question of how Trump gamed the tax system is mostly a matter of academic interest. Still, I’ve written about this before, and figured I should follow up with the latest theory. And this is it.

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NYT: We’ve Figured Out How Trump Gamed the Tax System

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No, Trump Didn’t Do Best in “Rapidly Diversifying” Counties

by KingDktnvhfsc Posted on November 1, 2016

Mother Jones

The Wall Street Journal reports that Donald Trump is doing especially well in places where white majorities are dwindling:

Small towns in the Midwest have diversified more quickly than almost any part of the U.S. since the start of an immigration wave at the beginning of this century. The resulting cultural changes appear to be moving the political needle.

That shift helps explain the emergence of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump as a political force, and signals that tensions over immigration will likely outlive his candidacy….Mr. Trump won about 71% of sizable counties nationwide during the Republican presidential primaries. He took 73% of those where diversity at least doubled since 2000, and 80% of those where the diversity index rose at least 150%, the Journal’s analysis found.

Hmmm. I’m no political scientist, but I play one on the internet—and 71 percent vs. 73 percent sure doesn’t sound like a very substantial effect to me. Trump’s 80 percent win rate in counties where diversity rose by 150 percent is slightly more impressive, but the sample size is pretty low. Here’s the diversity map:

The Journal identifies a “distinct cluster of Midwestern states—Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota” that saw the fastest influx of nonwhite residents. So let’s take a look at who those states supported in the Republican primaries:

That sure doesn’t look like a region where Trump kicked any special ass. In fact, aside from his home territory in the mid-Atlantic states, he did best in the South, which has seen virtually no change in diversity according to the Journal’s map. White folks there have been living among nonwhites for a long time, and they were completely in love with Trump.

I wonder what accounts for that? Economic anxiety, perhaps?

Unemployment is actually lower in rapidly diversifying counties than in the country on the whole, a sign that concerns over lost jobs are weighing less on voters in these areas….Craig Williams, chairman of the Carroll County Republican Party, said it is the lawlessness of illegal immigration that bothers residents. “People talk about immigration as if we’re a bunch of racists,” he said. “Do we have laws, or do we not have laws? If we’re just going to ignore them, then what’s the point?”

It’s a chin scratcher, all right. I guess we’ll never know.

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No, Trump Didn’t Do Best in “Rapidly Diversifying” Counties

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Obama Tells Samantha Bee a Halloween Story That Should Truly Terrify You

by PorfiriWexler Posted on November 1, 2016

Mother Jones

President Barack Obama continued his media farewell tour on Monday with an appearance on Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, where he made a pitch to young people to get out the vote next Tuesday.

“This is probably the most important election of our lifetimes,” Obama said. “The choices could not be clearer. If we want to build on progress on issues like climate change and gender equality and making sure everybody has health care and making sure young people have a good education and can afford college, they’ve got to make sure their voices are heard.”

He also shared his prediction for what the female equivalent of birtherism might be if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

“I think the equivalent will be ‘she’s tired,’ ‘she’s moody,’ ‘she’s being emotional,’ ‘there’s something about her,'” Obama said. “When men are ambitious, it’s just taken for granted. ‘Well, of course they should be ambitious.’ When women are ambitious, ‘why?’ That theme will continue throughout her presidency, and it’s contributed to this notion that she’s hiding something.”

Bee concluded the interview by asking the president to share a spooky Halloween story. His response should actually terrify you.

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Obama Tells Samantha Bee a Halloween Story That Should Truly Terrify You

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Comeygate Is Looking Worse and Worse

by Pearlin9582 Posted on October 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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We’re into single digits, people. There are only 9 days left until the hellscape of this year’s presidential campaign ends. In the meantime, let’s play a game! Can you guess who the mystery man is in this story?

In the fall of 1996, a charity called the Association to Benefit Children held a ribbon-cutting in Manhattan for a new nursery school serving children with AIDS. The bold-faced names took seats up front. There was then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) and former mayor David Dinkins (D). TV stars Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, who were major donors. And there was a seat saved for Steven Fisher, a developer who had given generously to build the nursery.

Then, all of a sudden…“There’s this kind of ruckus at the door…He just gets up on the podium and sits down.”…“Frank Gifford turned to me and said, ‘Why is he here?’ ” Buchenholz recalled recently. By then, the ceremony had begun. There was nothing to do.

Once he was onstage, he played the part of a big donor convincingly. Photos from the event show him smiling, right behind Giuliani, as the mayor cut the ribbon. During the “celebratory dance” segment of the program, he mugged and did the macarena with Giuliani, Kathie Lee Gifford and a group of children.

“I am just heartsick,” Buchenholz, the executive director, wrote the next day to the donor whose seat had been taken. Buchenholz provided a copy of the email.

What’s that? You all guessed Donald Trump? Seriously? All of you? Damn. And here I thought I was being so clever. But click the link anyway to read David Fahrenthold’s latest reporting on the almost pathological aversion to actual charity that has marked Donald Trump’s life.

Meanwhile, in the breaking news department, Comeygate is getting fishier and fishier. It’s already unclear why FBI Director James Comey decided to ignite a firestorm over a set of emails that nobody had read yet and quite possibly have nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. It’s also unclear why the FBI hasn’t yet gotten a warrant to go ahead and read the emails, something that most likely could be done in a few hours. Now there’s this:

The FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server knew early this month that messages recovered in a separate probe might be germane to their case, but they waited weeks before briefing the FBI director, according to people familiar with the case….Given that the Clinton email team knew for weeks that it may have cause to resume its work, it is unclear why investigators did not tell Comey sooner.

This is now getting beyond a case of mere poor judgment on Comey’s part. If the FBI knew about these messages weeks ago, they could easily have gotten a warrant and begun looking at them. If they were harmless—which I’m willing to bet on—Comey could then have either said nothing, or else made it clear that the emails were nothing new.

Instead, the Bureau sat on this for weeks; failed to get a warrant; and informed Comey only at the very tail end of a presidential campaign, when there wouldn’t be enough time to release any exonerating information before Election Day. And if published reports are accurate, Comey went public with this within ten days of an election—something that contravenes longstanding policy at the Department of Justice—because he basically figured he was operating under a threat that it would be leaked with or without him.

If you had material that was literally meaningless because no one had yet looked at it, but you wanted to make it sound sinister, this is how you would play it. Is that just coincidence? Beats me. But something smells very, very rotten here.

POSTSCRIPT: Still, let’s stay clear on something. The behavior of Comey and the FBI is somewhere between clueless and scandalous, but the behavior of the media has been flatly outrageous. Given what we know, there is simply no reason for this to have been a 24/7 cable obsession—or to command the entire top half of the front page of the New York Times. This massive amount of attention has been in the service of literally nothing new. Once again, though, when the press hears the words “email” and “Hillary Clinton” anywhere near each other, they go completely out of their minds.

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Comeygate Is Looking Worse and Worse

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The Cubs Almost Blew It

by FredricNazario Posted on October 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’ve been vaguely rooting for Cleveland in the World Series this year. Mostly this is because Cleveland is sort of a hard-luck city, and two championships in one year seems like a nice thing for them. But mostly it’s because of my deep insight into the true passion of Cubs fans. For example:

If the Cubs won this year, fans would have to give up all this. No more lovable losers. No more humblebragging about how the Cubs always find a way to blow it. No more genuine bragging about not winning a World Series since the fall of the Roman Empire. No more generational bonding over stories about Cub incompetence.

And most important, no more uniqueness, the true source of Cub pride. If the Cubs won, they’d be just another team and next year would be just another year. That’s what happened in Boston. Now, the Red Sox are nothing more than another garden variety moneyball team. Before long they’ll probably move out to a shiny new billion-dollar sports palace in the suburbs. And why not? There’s nothing special about them anymore.

This could have happened to you, Chicago. But it looks like you’ve dodged that bullet. Congratulations!

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The Cubs Almost Blew It

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Remembering Candy Cigarettes, Big Tobacco’s Most Evil Way to Turn Children Into Smokers

by Tanya9640569088 Posted on October 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Encouraging children to smoke? No, sir! Courtesy Robert Proctor

There was a time you’d think nothing of seeing young kids puffing on candy cigarettes. Parents would even hand them out on Halloween. Smoking was KOOL. “Just Like Daddy!” one candy ad promised. Hershey Corporation started the trend a century ago when it began hawking chocolate smokes, and by the 1920s, companies such as World Candies and Necco were selling a chalky white version. You could also get skinny bubble gum cigs in white paper tubes. Bonus: Blowing on them produced a little puff of gum-dust smoke.

All images courtesy of Robert Proctor

Big Tobacco often looked the other way as its names and logos popped up in candy aisles around the nation. “Not too bad an advertisement,” a lawyer for Brown & Williamson once conceded to a candymaker. Some tobacco execs even supplied art specs for use on candy packaging, notes Stanford historian Robert Proctor, who painstakingly details the industry’s evildoings in his 2012 book, Golden Holocaust.

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

It paid off, too: In a 2007 study that surveyed 25,000 people, researchers at the University of Rochester found that respondents who consumed candy cigarettes as kids were roughly twice as likely as those who hadn’t to report that they later became smokers. When tobacco companies eventually grew sensitive to negative PR and began policing their copyrights more aggressively, confectioners responded with a wink: “Marboro,” “Winstun,” “Kamel,” “Lucky Stripe.”

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

One state, North Dakota, actually outlawed candy cigarettes from 1953 to 1967, but federal lawmakers who tried the same were no match for Big Tobacco’s friends in Congress. In the end, didn’t matter. Following the massive tobacco settlements of the 1980s, which included restrictions on advertising and product placement, smoking became way less cool and candy cigs slowly disappeared from most stores on their own. You can still buy the fake cancer sticks online without the recognizable logos. Now they’re just “candy sticks.”

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

Courtesy of Robert Proctor

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Remembering Candy Cigarettes, Big Tobacco’s Most Evil Way to Turn Children Into Smokers

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