Tag Archives: white

Southern White Women Are Apparently in Pretty Bad Shape These Days

by DanialLeverett Posted on January 19, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Since I happened to mention the famous Case/Deaton mortality study in the previous post, here’s the latest from Andrew Gelman. As you may recall, Case and Deaton concluded that mortality among middle-aged whites from suicide, alcohol, and drug poisoning had skyrocketed over the past two decades. This set pundits afire with theories about what was going on, but Gelman has done some age adjustment to the cohorts that Case and Deaton used, and then broken up the data by gender, and then by geographic area. Here’s what he gets:

After 2005, there’s no effect on middle-aged men at all. It’s all women. And if you break it down further, nearly the entire effect is concentrated among women in the South. But why? Gelman punts:

I don’t have any explanations for this. As I told a reporter the other day, I believe in the division of labor: I try to figure out what’s happening, and I’ll let other people explain why.

I think that’s wise. For one thing, if you slice the data in a different way, you might get a different result. What’s more, as I’ve mentioned several times, the increased mortality affects the young too, not just the middle aged. So if you spun some brilliant theories about why middle-aged whites are so damn depressed these days, you might want to rethink things. Your new theory needs to explain why the young and the middle-aged are dying in greater numbers, and you also need to explain why it’s affecting primarily women in the South. Good luck.

Visit site:  

Southern White Women Are Apparently in Pretty Bad Shape These Days

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Southern White Women Are Apparently in Pretty Bad Shape These Days

Charts of the Day: Which One Do You Believe?

by MinervaShuman9 Posted on January 15, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Over at the motherblog, Kristina Rizga has an interesting piece about what happens when you try to integrate majority-black schools. Basically, nobody likes it. The poorer (mostly black) parents don’t like the idea of a bunch of rich folks coming in and pushing them around. The richer (mostly white) parents don’t like the idea of their kids going to a low-performing school. But Kristina points to a substantial body of research showing that, in fact, white kids do fine when they move to schools in poorer black neighborhoods. In fact, they might even do better on a variety of metrics.

The whole piece is worth a read, but because I’m a nerd I going to use it as an excuse for a statistics lesson. One of the links in the piece is to a recent report from the federal government about the black-white achievement gap. It contains three charts of note. The first is on the right, and it shows white test scores in schools with different densities of black students. Basically, it confirms the worst fears of white parents: as the percentage of black kids goes up, the test scores of the white kids go down.

But wait. Maybe the white kids in majority-black districts are lower performing to begin with. So let’s control for income. That gets you the chart on the bottom left. Not so bad! Then let’s control for some other characteristics. Bingo! If we do a proper job of comparing apples to apples, white kids actually do better when they go to schools with very high densities of black students. White fears turn out to be entirely unfounded.

So here’s the question: which chart do you believe? The one with the raw data? Or the ones with all the fancy-pants statistical controls? Are the controls legitimate? Or are they just the result of a bunch of liberal analysts in the Department of Education torturing the data until they get the politically correct result they want?

Even statisticians might disagree about this. So how are laymen supposed to understand it? If you were a parent and these were your kids we were talking about, which chart would you believe?

Read more: 

Charts of the Day: Which One Do You Believe?

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Charts of the Day: Which One Do You Believe?

The Company Behind Keystone XL Now Wants $15 Billion From US Taxpayers

by LoreneTanaka453 Posted on January 7, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In November, environmentalists were ecstatic when President Barack Obama decided not to grant a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. But TransCanada, the company behind the project, was not so happy. On Wednesday, it filed a lawsuit against the federal government seeking to overturn the permit rejection. At the same time, it gave notice that it plans to pursue compensation under the North American Free Trade Agreement, to the tune of $15 billion.

In its NAFTA complaint, TransCanada alleges that “the politically-driven denial of Keystone’s application was contrary to all precedent; inconsistent with any reasonable and expected application of the relevant rules and regulations; and arbitrary, discriminatory, and expropriatory.”

In other words, TransCanada thinks it got misled and ripped off by the Obama administration, just to satisfy a wacky cabal of treehuggers. Now, it wants the US Treasury to cough up an apology in cash.

NAFTA is a trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico meant to protect trade between those countries. One provision of the agreement, Chapter 11, allows a corporation in one country to sue the government of another country if it feels that country’s regulations unfairly discriminate against it. It’s a provision that has always been highly controversial with environmentalists, since it provides an avenue for corporations to contest another country’s environmental policies, as TransCanada is doing now.

That strategy is unlikely to succeed, according to David Wirth, a professor of international trade law at Boston College and a leading expert on international environmental disputes. Wirth said he actually used this very question—could TransCanada win a NAFTA case against the United States?—on a recent exam, and the answer was pretty clearly no. First off, although TransCanada claims to have spent around $3 billion preparing to build the Keystone XL pipeline, it’s not clear that this would actually count as an “investment” that was illegally taken from the Canadian company by the US administration.

“They knew that without the permit approval the project wouldn’t go forward,” Wirth said. “So any money spent in advance is purely speculative.”

Second, although the complaint claims that “environmental activists…turned opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline into a litmus test for politicians—including US President Barack Obama,” it’s not clear how that really constitutes a legal problem.

“The president, in making a decision in the national interest, has to weigh a variety of factors, including arguments of environmentalists,” Wirth said. “Just because there was political disagreement doesn’t mean the process was defective.”

But most importantly, Wirth said, TransCanada’s complaint doesn’t distinguish between a bureaucratic trade decision that treated a foreign company unfairly—the kind of action NAFTA is supposed to prevent—and a decision made by the president for the benefit of public health and the environment.

“The intent of NAFTA was not to require governments to pay every time they take an action that’s in the public interest,” Wirth said. “It’s very troubling if every time the president makes a decision in the interest of the people, he’s risking an enormous liability of this sort.”

The US has a good track record on NAFTA suits brought by foreign corporations, having lost just one of 14 since the agreement came into effect in 1994. Wirth said NAFTA tribunals have tended to set a pretty low bar for the minimum standard of treatment foreign companies should expect to receive. In other words, TransCanada would have to prove that it was treated exceptionally unjustly by the Obama administration, not just that it had a frustrating experience.

As for TransCanada’s federal lawsuit seeking to reverse Obama’s ruling, the odds for that aren’t great either, since US courts have previously found that cross-border pipelines really are the president’s decision to make, according to Reuters.

Sorry, TransCanada. Maybe try for the permit again in 2017 if a Republican wins the White House. Until then, you might be out of luck.

Link – 

The Company Behind Keystone XL Now Wants $15 Billion From US Taxpayers

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Company Behind Keystone XL Now Wants $15 Billion From US Taxpayers

The Republican War on Obamacare Heads to the President’s Desk

by Barney69Iujua Posted on January 6, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Republicans in Congress have finally concluded their long-running, if likely futile, campaign to send a law gutting the landmark Affordable Care Act to President Barack Obama’s desk. The House passed a bill on Wednesday by a vote of 240 to 181 that would repeal much of Obama’s signature 2010 health care law. But it’s ultimately a symbolic measure: Obama pledged in December to veto the bill, which could strip health care coverage from millions of low-income Americans, and Republicans don’t have the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

This is the 62nd time that Congress has voted on repealing the law colloquially known as Obamacare, but it’s the first time the repeal bill has actually cleared both houses of Congress. Republicans finally got the bill through the Senate last December through a special filibuster-proof budget process that requires only 51 votes for passage instead of the usual 60, and the House approved the Senate’s bill on Wednesday. The bill would eliminate many of Obamacare’s key provisions, including the Medicaid expansion, tax credits to help low-income people afford insurance, and taxes to fund the program. It would also abolish the requirements that people get health care coverage and that large employers provide it.

Democratic lawmakers have lambasted the bill as a waste of time, but Republicans are eager to demonstrate their conservative credentials to constituents. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) touted the bill on Twitter as the beginning of a new era for conservatives in Congress.

The bill also includes measures to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood, another conservative priority. The reproductive health organization has been under fire since an anti-abortion group released videos last year purporting to show officials from the organization discussing the sale of fetal tissue.

While the effort to gut Obamacare may be doomed to failure as long as Obama remains in the White House, the stakes are high. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 17.6 million uninsured people have gained coverage through Obamacare. And despite their frequent attempts to repeal the program, Republicans have yet to agree on an alternative.

Follow this link – 

The Republican War on Obamacare Heads to the President’s Desk

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Republican War on Obamacare Heads to the President’s Desk

Obama Announces New Plan to Strengthen Gun Control Legislation Without Congress

by KatheriLeigh Posted on January 5, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

President Barack Obama formally unveiled new executive actions on Tuesday aimed at expanding background checks and strengthening existing federal gun control laws in America.

“I want to be absolutely clear at the start, I believe in the second amendment,” he said. “It’s there written on the paper—it guarantees the right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to twist my words around—I taught constitutional law, I know a little about this. But I also believe we can find ways to reduce violence consistent with the second amendment.”

“I’m not on the ballot again,” Obama added. “I’m not looking to score some points.”

The president made the announcement flanked by Vice President Joe Biden as well as victims and family members affected by gun violence. Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was shot during a political event outside a supermarket in 2011, was also in the room.

The press conference comes a day after the White House released a memo outlining the president’s proposal to reduce gun violence without Congress—a move that has prompted swift backlash from Republican presidential candidates:

“Let’s be specific: the president is not circumventing Congress,” White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said on Tuesday, ahead of Obama’s press conference. “They have made it very clear they are not going to act and the president is doing what is well within his executive authority to do so.”

The president also met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Monday to confirm his plan was constitutionally legal.

In the aftermath of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, the president’s initiative to pass a gun reform package was ultimately blocked by a Democratic-controlled Senate. Obama has previously called Congress’ failure to act on the issue the “biggest frustration” of his presidency.

“Every time I think about those kids, it makes me mad,” Obama said on Tuesday, wiping away tears.

For a detailed look at the president’s plan, head to our explainer here.

View the original here: 

Obama Announces New Plan to Strengthen Gun Control Legislation Without Congress

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama Announces New Plan to Strengthen Gun Control Legislation Without Congress

Here’s Obama’s New Plan to Tighten Gun Laws

by LizzieStaton Posted on January 5, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

As expected, President Barack Obama will announce a series of gun-related executive actions Tuesday meant to expand background checks on firearm purchases and step up federal enforcement of existing gun laws.

One executive action would clarify existing law that anyone “engaged in the business of selling firearms”—including at gun shows and online—must be licensed and conduct background checks on gun purchasers. The White House’s fact sheet explains:

…it doesn’t matter where you conduct your business—from a store, at gun shows, or over the Internet: If you’re in the business of selling firearms, you must get a license and conduct background checks. Background checks have been shown to keep guns out of the wrong hands, but too many gun sales—particularly online and at gun shows—occur without basic background checks.

But as my colleague Mark Follman wrote Monday, that clarification won’t be enough: “Expanding background checks through a broader interpretation of current federal law still won’t close the so-called gun show loophole; hundreds of thousands of firearms will continue to be bought and sold with minimal regulation, both online and in person. Only an act of Congress could change that comprehensively.”

Other executive actions include:

A $500 million investment in mental-health services.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, Firearms, and Explosives will announce a rule requiring background checks for people who purchase weapons through a trust or corporation. (The White House’s earlier efforts to close this loophole through executive action hit a roadblock nearly two years ago, when ATF officials delayed publishing the rule after facing opposition from industry groups, including the National Rifle Association.)
The White House will request funding for 200 new ATF agents and investigators to enforce existing gun laws.
The ATF will require licensed dealers who ship guns to notify law enforcement if their guns are lost or stolen.
The FBI will hire more than 230 examiners to process background checks in an overhauled system.

Obama’s announcement comes days before he hosts a town hall meeting on guns Thursday night. The move is expected to garner pushback from opponents, especially those in a divided Congress who blocked legislation three years ago to close the so-called gun show loophole. House Speaker Paul Ryan has already warned that the president’s actions was a “dangerous level of executive overreach.”

“This is not going to solve every violent crime in this country. It’s not going to prevent every mass shooting. It’s not going to keep every gun out of the hands of a criminal,” Obama told reporters on Monday. “It will potentially save lives in this country and spare families the pain of these extraordinary loss.”

Excerpt from:

Here’s Obama’s New Plan to Tighten Gun Laws

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Safer, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s Obama’s New Plan to Tighten Gun Laws

Hillary Clinton Pledges to "Get to the Bottom" of UFOs and Aliens

by AllenFlora Posted on January 4, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The truth is out there for Hillary Clinton.

When Daymond Steer from the Conway Daily Sun recently asked her to weigh in on UFOs—a topic Steer says he broached with Clinton in 2007—the Democratic presidential candidate reportedly promised to “get to the bottom of it” if she were elected to the White House.

“I think we may have been visited already,” she added. “We don’t know for sure.”

Clinton’s comments are among the rare public statements she’s made on UFOs and possible government cover-ups—a familiar subject for both Hillary and Bill Clinton. As Mother Jones has reported, the couple’s interest in extraterrestrial activity reaches as far back as the 1990s, when Laurence Rockefeller began lobbying the Clinton administration for the release of government documents relating to UFOs—documents that many say reveal the extent of government research into the phenomena.

Additionally, Clinton’s current campaign chairman, John Podesta, a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and an X-Files fan, has long expressed interest in the topic.

But these statements are Clinton’s first remarks on the subject during this campaign. They will likely strengthen her support among voters who happen to be UFO enthusiasts and are not supporting any extraterrestrial candidates in the Republican field.

Continue at source – 

Hillary Clinton Pledges to "Get to the Bottom" of UFOs and Aliens

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hillary Clinton Pledges to "Get to the Bottom" of UFOs and Aliens

State Department Releases 5,500 More of Hillary Clinton’s Darkest Secrets

by CarrieGottshall Posted on January 1, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

It’s the last day of the month, and that’s when the State Department releases additional tranches of Hillary Clinton’s email from her stint as Secretary of State. Here’s one from State’s chief of protocol keeping Hillary apprised of a joke Obama told about her at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. Don’t worry, it’s unclassified:

If you want to browse through them yourself, click here. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the first to find the smoking gun that destroys Hillary once and for all!

Link: 

State Department Releases 5,500 More of Hillary Clinton’s Darkest Secrets

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on State Department Releases 5,500 More of Hillary Clinton’s Darkest Secrets

BREAKING: The United States Spies on Israel

by ChetHarness Posted on December 31, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The latest outrage in conservative circles is the NSA’s surveillance program. They aren’t outraged by spying on American citizens, of course—though more on that later. They’re outraged by spying on Israel. You see, when NSA surveillance of foreign leaders was exposed by Edward Snowden, President Obama promised to stop it—but with exceptions. And it turns out that Israel was one of those exceptions. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

There was little debate over Israel. “Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that,” a senior U.S. official said, using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname.

That’s not exactly surprising. I don’t imagine George W. Bush ever contemplated going dark on Bibi either—or any other Israeli leader, for that matter. Nor, quite obviously, have the Israelis ever eased up on their spying of us.

So what’s the outrage? First of all, NSA surveillance allowed Obama to keep current on Netanyahu’s relentless efforts to undermine his negotiations with Iran. Charles Krauthammer finds that outrageous:

This was about trying to get through the Congress the Iran agreement. That is not a validated “national security” purpose. This is a way to win a battle with Congress….And that is, I think, a violation of the power of the executive interfering with legitimate activities and interactions of the Congress.

Spare me. The executive branch negotiates treaties. Netanyahu was doing everything he could to torpedo an active negotiation. So Obama kept an eye on him. Right or wrong, there isn’t a president in history who wouldn’t have done the same thing.

But it turns out there was one thing even the White House was concerned about: when you spy on Bibi, you’re also going to end up spying on members of Congress, since Bibi talks to them all the time. When this happens, the intercepted information is supposed to be “minimized,” and that’s especially the case when it comes to members of Congress. Apparently the NSA did this, delivering only Bibi’s side of intercepted communications. Still, Republicans in Congress are suspicious.

I can’t say that I blame them. On the other hand, my sympathy is pretty limited since this is a very general problem, and Republicans in Congress seem aggressively uninterested in it when it affects anyone other than themselves.

So that’s that. The NSA spied on Netanyahu. That’s a nothingburger. Of course they spied on Netanyahu. And the NSA says that they properly minimized the congressional end of any conversations between Netanyahu and a member of Congress. Since conservatives insist that we should take their word for this in general, why shouldn’t we take their word for it now? Wake me up if it turns out there’s anything more to this story.

See more here:  

BREAKING: The United States Spies on Israel

Posted in Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on BREAKING: The United States Spies on Israel

10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015

by HugoMcBrayer Posted on December 24, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Another year is about to pass, which means we’ve managed to survive 12 months of cable news—and endure some fantastically awful segments that the networks churned out. But that doesn’t mean we emerged unscathed! Whether it was calling the president of the United States a “pussy” on live television or relentlessly covering Donald Trump’s circuslike presidential campaign, cable news had plenty of lowlights in 2015. Here are some of the most memorable ones:

San Bernardino shooting
Days after the shooting in San Bernardino, California, several media outlets were able to get inside the home of the two suspected shooters—access that involved a crowbar and a cooperative landlord. Despite the questionable circumstances, reporters from a slew of networks, including CNN and MSNBC, swarmed the residence. The resulting circus of cable TV coverage even disturbed some network hosts.

“I’m having chills down my spine, what I’m seeing here,” said CNN security analyst Harry Houck, as reporters on the scene continued to film throughout the home. “This apartment is clearly full of evidence.”

At one point, an MSNBC reporter zoomed in on a driver’s license that likely belonged to one of the suspects’ relatives.

Insulting the president
A Fox News contributor abandoned every sense of decorum when he slammed President Barack Obama’s terrorism strategy and called him a “pussy” on live television. The network suspended him for two weeks, finally answering the question we’ve all wondered: “Just what does it take to get suspended from Fox News?”

Migrant crisis and Syrian refugees
The international effort to resettle Syrian refugees sparked widespread concern about how refugees are vetted when they seek to be admitted into the United States, particularly in light of the deadly attacks in Paris. Instead of taking time to explain the complex and rigorous process, cable news shows often appeared to inflame safety concerns with misleading portrayals of refugees escaping violence in Europe and the Middle East:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Fox News also appeared to lend legitimacy to a biblical prophecy that some have used speculate that the Syrian crisis may signal the end of times. Watch the report on the “spooky passage” below:

Gun control and mass shootings
Amid calls to strengthen gun control laws and end the gun violence epidemic, Fox & Friends aired a segment about how to teach kids how to take down an active shooter with these self-defense skills:

Freddie Gray
When protests erupted in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident who died from a spinal cord injury while in police custody, CNN chose to ignore the demonstrations in favor of covering every second of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

If you were seeking coverage of the rallies, contributor Errol Louis suggested viewers could “find a live feed” somewhere else.

When the network did report on Gray later, CNN led one online story by describing Gray as the “son of an illiterate heroin addict.”

Donald Trump
There are myriad factors that have led to the rise of Donald Trump as a major GOP presidential candidate. The media’s insatiable appetite (including our own, at times) to cover his inflammatory campaign rhetoric is definitely one of them. On cable news, Trump was practically unavoidable.

After announcing his plan to bar all Muslims from entering the United States if elected president, a slew of cable news shows scrambled to talk to Trump about the proposal, which gave Trump a huge platform for his offensive ideas:

Leggings
In one of the creepier clips of the year, Fox News featured an all-male panel to opine on how a woman should dress in public. The clothing item in question was leggings. In the segment, the official “Panel of Fathers” ruminates over “lady parts” and whether they’re comfortable with the “women in their life parading in public with leggings, because they ain’t pants.”

“Guardian Angels”
In which Fox News, a news organization, lends legitimacy to this photo of a “guardian angel.”

Happy holidays!

Continue reading: 

10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015