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Half of Scott Walker's Cash Comes From Out-of-State Dark-Money Donors

Andy Kroll — Sat, 26 May 2012 15:22:46 +0000

Wisconsin's June 5 gubernatorial recall, pitting Gov. Scott Walker against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, is no mere statewide race. It's a national fight. The Tea Party Express group calls Wisconsin "ground zero for the battle against Obama's liberal agenda."

It's not surprising, then, to learn that out-of-state money is pouring into the Walker recall at a record pace—and it's powering the efforts of Democrats, Republicans, interest groups, and unions alike.

In Wisconsin's 2006 gubernatorial election, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, out-of-state campaign donations made up 15 percent of all donations. In 2010 it was 9 percent. But in the Walker recall? It's a staggering 57 percent.

According to an analysis by the political-money-watching Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, $3 out of every $5 raised by Walker came from outside Wisconsin. Walker's largest donors include Texas homebuilding king and Swift Boat for Veterans backer Bob Perry, Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, and Richard DeVos, heir to Amway fortune. A little more than $1 of every $10 given to Barrett was out-of-state campaign cash.

Walker raised $13 million in the first three months of 2012, bringing his total fundraising haul since January 1, 2011, to $25 million. Walker benefitted from a quirk in state election law allowing him raising unlimited campaign cash for months to fend off the recall challenge. Barrett raised $750,000 in the first 25 days after entering the race in late March.

Interest groups bankrolled by out-of-state cash are also playing a pivotal role in the recall. The Republican and Democratic Governors Associations, both based in Washington, DC, have together ponied up nearly $7 million for the Walker recall. The RGA, as Mother Jones has reported, is the GOP's corporate-funded dark money machine, shuffling tens of millions in campaign cash to boost Republicans and bash Democrats nationwide. Labor unions have pumped millions more into the groups We Are Wisconsin, which supported Democrats in last summer's state Senate recall races and supports Barrett now, and Wisconsin for Falk, which supported Kathleen Falk in the recall Democratic primary and opened field offices around the state.

"Chernobyl Diaries": Is It Really Any More Insensitive Than Zombie Nazis?

Asawin Suebsaeng — Sat, 26 May 2012 01:02:05 +0000

Chernobyl Diaries
Warner Bros. Pictures
86 minutes

It sometimes seems as though people who make zombie movies (and zombie-ish movies) are trying to create a monopoly over minimizing tragedy.

This trend continues with Chernobyl Diaries, the new zombie(-ish) horror flick conceived and produced by Oren Peli (the Israeli-American director and ex-video game programmer who brought you the Paranormal Activity series and ABC's The River). A group of upper-middle class white kids from America sojourn to Eastern Europe. They decide to dabble in "extreme tourism" and jump in a van headed to Prypiat, a long-abandoned Ukrainian city bordering the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. It's worth mentioning that these kids have big dreams. One of them is about to propose to his intelligent/hot/super-loyal girlfriend. Another is mulling over plans to relocate to Prague. Another wants to make a name for herself as an artist and photographer.

Well, none of those nice things are ever going to happen because, as previously mentioned, these people made a conscious decision to hike through a radiation-drenched, eerie-ass ghost town—a deserted city where (you guessed it) they are not alone.

By "not alone," I mean to say that there's a large gaggle of flesh-chomping freaks waddling all about the joint. The deranged gaggle of nuclear-undead chase after them in the dark of night. Needless to point out, the young tourists are: [censored].

Chernobyl Diaries does indeed have some chilling atmospherics—for that you may thank first-time feature director and visual-effects ace Bradley Parker. But the movie ultimately falls flat due to its lagging energy and a disappointing, thrill-free final act.

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Corn on "Hardball": Trump Revives the Birther Meme

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:14:37 +0000

David Corn and Salon's Joan Walsh joined guest host Michael Smerconish on MSNBC's Hardball to discuss Donald Trump's role in the most recent iteration of the birther conspiracy. Why won't Mitt Romney repudiate The Donald?

David Corn is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief. For more of his stories, click here. He's also on Twitter.

Senate Panel Advances Measure To Broaden Military Access to Abortion

Kate Sheppard — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:26:00 +0000

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013 that would allow greater access to abortions for women in the military and their families.

The measure, from New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D), would allow the military to pay for ending pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest. Current Department of Defense policy only provides abortion coverage if the life of the mother is at stake. Under the 1976 Hyde Amendment, federal money cannot be used to provide abortion services, except in the case of rape, incest, or if the woman's life is endangered. But since 1979, the DOD has had an even stricter limit on abortions, refusing to cover them in cases of rape despite the high rate of sexual assaults in the military. (Over 3,000 sexual assaults were reported in the armed services in 2010 alone.)

If Shaheen's measure passes, the 400,000 women in the armed services will have the same access to abortion that other federal employees get. If a Department of Health and Human Services employee working in Washington, D.C. is raped, her government health insurance plan will pay for an abortion if she wants one. But if an Army medic serving in Afghanistan is raped and wants an abortion, she can't use her government health insurance to cover it—she'll have to pay out of her own pocket. And even when she does pay for it, she won't be able to get the abortion at a military hospital, because that's illegal, too.

Attempts to lift the military's abortion ban failed in 2010 and 2011, but advocates are launching an all-out push this year through the Stand With Servicewomen campaign launched by retired military officers and a coalition of reproductive rights groups. Given all the attention abortion has received over the past year, you can bet the military abortion debate will be contentious this time around, too.

Friday Cat Blogging — 25 May 2012

Adam Serwer — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:10:10 +0000

Last week, when I mentioned that I lived with four orange cats, some folks were disappointed I didn't post pictures of all four. If you were one of those people, today is your lucky day.

Here's Pumpkin, who says it's time to get off the computer:

And here are Butters and James, hanging out:

Here are Burns and James (right), who happen to be twins although Burns takes much better care of himself:

Now, you might be wondering whether they all decide to crowd on one person ever. The answer is yes, and this is what it looks like when the herd of Garfields is at full strength:

This is about sixty pounds of pure, uncut marmalade tabby.

Anyway, I'm going on vacation next week, so some of my other Mother Jones colleagues will be pitching in. I'd like to thank Kevin for giving me the opportunity to blog in his absence, and all of you guys for putting up with the lack of charts in the meantime.

Adam is now done filling in for Kevin while Kevin is on vacation.

Obama and Marijuana

Adam Serwer — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:43:43 +0000

Turns out young Barack Obama was a fairly frequent weed smoker, according to a forthcoming biography by David Maraniss:

A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning "to smoke marijuana."

[...]

Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted "Intercepted!," and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.

This shouldn't and won't bear on Obama's reelection prospects, which seems about right. But we shouldn't ignore it, particularly given the president's recent campaign against medical marijuana in states that have legalized it. It's past time that public officials who have smoked weed acknowledge that youthful marijuana use doesn't consign individuals to a life of crime and addiction, and that current policy is at odds with that basic fact.

Liberals' Targeted Killing Problem

Adam Serwer — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:15:47 +0000

The Associated Press recently reported that White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan is America's new death czar—the individual most responsible for overseeing the Obama administration's targeted killing of suspected terrorists.

There's long been a right-wing meme comparing targeted killing to torture, with the conclusion that torture is obviously less immoral. The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf doesn't make this argument directly, but he alludes to it in his post on Brennan's new authority:

So to sum up, Barack Obama insists while campaigning that "enhanced-interrogation techniques" are a euphemism for illegal, immoral torture that makes us less rather than more safe from terrorism, and insists that the Bush Administration was imprudent for using those tactics.

After being elected, Obama forbids those tactics from being used. And he names as a top counterterrorism adviser someone who advocated the tactics he regards as imprudent and immoral -- ultimately entrusting him with more power than anyone else to decide whether various figures should be assassinated by our classified flying robot army.

There's a really important moral and legal distinction to be made between torture, which is always illegal and always wrong, and killing, which can occasionally be both justified and legal. And conservatives who argue that targeted killing is worse than torture are not saying we should stop killing people—they're saying we should also torture them. There is an obvious legal and moral bright line between mistreating people in our custody and killing on the battlefield.

Blurring the lines between custodial treatment and killing combatants only aids lawlessness. The laws of war exist to contain violence to combatants, who have consented to fight one another with the knowledge that doing so could lead to their deaths. This is why we should (but we sometimes don't) make a distinction between those who fight willingly and those who cannot consent, such as child soldiers. By definition, no one consents to being tortured.

Nevertheless, liberals' uncritical embrace of the Obama administration's widespread use of targeted killing represents a significant departure from their stated values. Although the ethics of targeted killing don't parallel the ethics of torture (except as far as disclosure is concerned), they do resemble the ethical debate around detention. For most of the Bush administration, liberals fought against President Bush's attempt to place suspected terror detainees in a legal black hole without habeas rights. Bush's critics understood that the concept of membership in a terrorist group is far more nebulous than being a soldier in a uniformed military. Establishing that the individuals we're treating as terrorists are actually terrorists is therefore a moral imperative.

With targeted killing, the same issues are at play. Unlike detention, however, the results of targeted killing are irreversible. Dead is dead. And the collateral damage is considerably greater, because civilians can be killed along with the target. Osama bin Laden's death was the most justifiable use of targeted killing in the past decade, but he's obviously also a unique case. What percentage of the thousands who have died in American drone strikes represent as clear-cut a choice as killing the man responsible for carving a bloody hole into New York City? That lethal force is sometimes justified does not absolve the government to ensure that it is only used when it is justified.

Yet that same insistence on accuracy, on making sure that we "had the right guy," so to speak, is largely absent in the debate over drone strikes. Liberals have been largely content to use Obama's body count to defend his foreign policy record without confronting the moral implications of our vastly expanded covert battle against Al Qaeda and its affiliates. The admirable skepticism towards Bush's claims that those imprisoned at Gitmo were "the worst of the worst," long since vindicated, is absent. Many of the same people who fought the Bush-era imperial presidency—groups like the ACLU and the CCR—still hold fast to their banners, but for the most part political liberals have quit the field, preferring to defend their president from right-wing lunacy about Democratic weakness. That's a tragic abdication of responsibility that will have profound implications for national security in the future.

Adam Serwer is filling in while Kevin is on vacation.

LA Bans Plastic Bags—Is Your Town Next?

Kacey Deamer — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:01:41 +0000

Attention Los Angelinos: It's time to start hoarding those plastic shopping bags you love so much. The Los Angeles City Council voted on Wednesday to phase out plastic bags over the next 16 months. The city will eventually implement a 10-cent charge for paper bags, too.

LA is the largest city to approve a ban on "single-use" plastic bags in supermarkets. The ban is a victory for environmentalists, who campaigned for it for years. The decision did not pass without complaint, however—employees of plastic bag companies and some consumers have voiced concerns over the change.

LA's not the only city that has passed a plastic bag ban. Here are some other places that have similar ordinances:

San Francisco was the first US city to adopt a plastic shopping bag ban in April 2007. The ordinance originally applied only to supermarket and pharmacy chains but was expanded to all retail establishments earlier this year.
Maui, Hawaii banned plastic bags in August, 2008, becoming the first county in Hawaii to do so. Since then, Kauai and Honolulu have also passed legislation to ban plastic bags.
Washington, D.C. has charged 5 cents for all disposable shopping bags since 2010. The tax has reduced plastic bag use.
In December, Seattle unanimously passed an ordinance banning single-use plastic bags and forcing stores to begin charging for paper bags. The new rules will go into effect later this year.
In March, Austin adopted a ban on all single-use shopping bags for all business establishments. The ban begins in 2013.
Portland passed a plastic bag ban in July 2011 after the state legislature failed to pass a state-wide ban.

At this rate, it's only a matter of time before folks with fashionable eco-friendly tote bags no longer stand out in a crowd.

Also, it seems that the British are behind the trend, too:

Record Early Start to Hurricane Season

Julia Whitty — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:00:08 +0000

Hurricane Bud at 1345 Zulu on 25 May 2012: NOAA Last night Hurricane Bud off Mexico's west coast peaked at Category 3 strength, with 115 mile-per-hour winds. That makes it the earliest Category 3 hurricane on record this early in the Eastern Pacific. As Jeff Masters writes at Wunderblog:

Hurricanes are uncommon in the Eastern Pacific in May; there have been just twelve since record keeping began in 1949—an average of one May hurricane every five years. If Bud ends up making landfall in Mexico as a hurricane, it would be only the second Eastern Pacific May hurricane on record to hit Mexico.

Sea surface temperatures on 24 May 2012, in degrees Celsius: NOAA Masters also notes that sea surface temperatures (SSTs) this year in the Pacific where Aletta and Bud formed are slightly above average... though he concludes that large-scale atmospheric patterns are the more likely cause of this year's exceptionally early start to hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific.

Near-average SSTs are one factor NOAA is citing in its prediction for a near normal hurricane season on the Atlantic side this year—with 9 to 15 named storms, 4 to 8 hurricanes, 1 to 3 major hurricanes, and an Accumulated Cyclone Energy for the season ranging from 65 to 140 percent of the median.

94L at 1915 Zulu on 25 May 2012: NASA | NOAA | GOES Project Science At the moment the National Hurricane Center is following a system called Invest 94L 275 miles southeast of the Carolinas. There's currently an 80 percent chance this system will develop into a tropical or subtropical cyclone in the next 48 hours and turn west into the US coast over the weekend.

The good news is that 94L, which may develop into Beryl, will likely bring relief to the severe drought underway in the US Southeast.

Senate Says 'Frankenfish' Don't Need More Testing

Kate Sheppard — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:00:00 +0000

Despite strong lobbying from northwestern senators for a measure that would require more testing of genetically engineered salmon before it's introduced in the US, the Senate on Thursday voted it down. The "frankenfish" measure, introduced by Alaskan Republican Lisa Murkowski, failed by a 46-50 vote.

Murkowski put forth the measure as an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration Reauthorization Bill (a measure that would create a user-fee to partially fund FDA's work). Her measure would have required that the FDA hold off on approving or rejecting so-called "test tube salmon" until the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has done its own tests on the environmental and economic impacts the salmon might have on fisheries.

The FDA granted preliminary approved for GE salmon back in September 2010, but it remains a contentious issue. If approved, it would be the first GE animal approved for human consumption in the US.

AquaBounty Technologies has been seeking approval for the fish for 15 years. The fish is an Atlantic salmon that has been tweaked to include a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon that allows the fish to grow to full size in half the time it takes for normal Atlantic salmon. But that's probably the least strange thing about them. As the Los Angeles Times described last year, the company's proposal "calls for the embryos of the fish to be sterilized in Canada before being shipped to Panama, where the males would be exposed to estrogen and sex-reversed."

Murkowski and other opponents argue that the FDA is not looking at the wider environmental concerns. Agitating against GE salmon is a bipartisan issue in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Murkowski's cosponsors included Democratic Alaskan Sen. Mark Begich, Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, and Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley—all from states where the salmon industry is a big player. The fast-growing GE salmon would provide stiff competition with regular salmon.

"At my home, we eat a lot of salmon and I can stand there and I can say 'This is brain food, this is good for you, it’s loaded with Omega 3 fatty acids – it’s as good as you’re going to get.’ And I can say that with certainty," said Murkowski in a floor speech on Thursday. "We can’t say that, and we won’t say that with this genetically engineered fish. As a mom, I’m not going to say, 'Eat this Frankenfish.'"

Supporters of GE salmon argue that the modified fish would help grow the industry in the US, and provide alternatives for declining natural fish stocks. And you could grow the fish in places where it doesn't live naturally, they argue.

While the measure failed, supporters at the Marine Fish Conservation Network said in an emailed statement that they believe the 46 votes in favor is "indicative of wide-spread concern on behalf of the public" about GE salmon.