Tips, Comments, Complaints, Etc!

The power and patterns of pipeline protests

More than 5,000 placard-waving activists gathered Saturday in Burnaby, B.C., to voice their opposition to the federally approved expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.

The protest comes on the heels of an Alberta-imposed ban on B.C. wine, which was later rescinded, after B.C. said it would restrict the flow of bitumen though the pipeline until more research was completed into pipeline safety and spill response.

But what fuels a mass gathering like Saturday’s — and what gets people so riled up about bitumen transport, anyway?

UBC sociology professor David Tindall, an expert on social movements, met CBC’s On the Coast host Gloria Macarenko to try to answer these questions.

..

How did the weekend’s events stand out?

I think this was one of the biggest recent protests, at least on the anti-pipeline side.

In the social movements literature there’s a scholar named Charles Tilley who has talked about a concept called “WUNC” — which is kind of a funny name, but it refers to worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment.

To some extent what happened on Saturday is a reflection of that.

Worthiness, such as who was involved in the protest, like Aboriginal leaders. Unity, [as in] the types of songs and signs. Numbers, [meaning] the 5,000 people who showed up, and commitment — this is something that’s been going on for some time, in all kinds of weather.

Texas Dems worry bigger rifts ahead with national party

Texas Democrats are imploring their party to send national money to Texas — but leave the national strategists home.

Three candidates national Democrats sought to help in key races this month failed to advance from the first round of Democratic primaries. A fourth candidate, who the party committee attacked, saw a late surge of support from the grassroots and made it into a runoff.

“The challenge for any party in Texas is the sheer scale of the state,” said Cliff Walker, Democratic Party of Texas political director. “We’re happy to have any investment of resources, whether it’s doors knocked, mail, digital, any sort of voter communication — that’s a net benefit to everybody.”

But, he said, “Even among candidates and activists that were critical of the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], the overwhelming sentiment has been: ‘Bring your resources, not your attacks.’”

..

The DCCC is already exploring subtle ways to help candidates there and other states without sounding alarm bells about its influence. Those moves could include digital ads, field staff, and cash transfers to the state committee – all tactics it’s recently deployed to help a special election candidate in a conservative district in Pennsylvania.

Three candidates the committee quietly sought to help in top tier races, Jay Hulings in Texas’s 23rd district, Ed Meier in Texas’s 32nd district, and Alex Triantaphyllis in Texas’s 7th district, failed to advance to their party’s runoff elections.

Meier and Hulings both led most of their opponents in fundraising —usually a sign of the blessing of party leaders — but finished fourth in their primaries.

National Democrats aren’t backing down on their strategy, including helping runoff candidates they think give them the best shot of winning in November.

Can You Beat a Billionaire by Mobilizing Young Voters?

On a mid-February morning, Illinois gubernatorial candidate Daniel Biss hit the road at 6:15 to begin an 18-hour day of driving. The 40-year-old Democratic state senator was on the last leg of his “Road Forward College Tour,” an eight-day trip to 14 of the state’s college campuses, and the final push was ambitious. He began the day in Champaign, home to the University of Illinois’ flagship campus, and traveled 140 miles to Western Illinois University, a smaller public college near the Iowa and Missouri borders. After hosting a town hall, he drove another 250 miles down to Southern Illinois University, where he spent the evening with students before making it back to his home in Chicago’s northern suburbs at midnight.

College tours are typical campaign fare, and Biss’ top rivals in the Democratic primary, businessmen J.B. Pritzker and Chris Kennedy, have done their share. But “college tour” understates what Biss has been doing since declaring his candidacy a year ago. The former University of Chicago math professor has visited 53 of the state’s colleges and universities, many more than once, to pitch a platform that seems designed to appeal to young voters, pledging free public college education and universal government-provided health care.

Biss is at the forefront of a national push by progressive—and often underdog—Democratic candidates to see if they can replay Bernie Sanders’ 2016 insurgency by getting young voters to turn out for them in 2018. Organizers across the country will look to Biss’ performance in next Tuesday’s primary—just the second contest in the 2018 midterm election season—to see whether a direct appeal to the youth vote and the support of millennial-driven progressive organizations can be stronger assets than massive campaign spending and establishment backing. There are signs that the strategy has boosted Biss, who moved from a distant third place to within 10 points of frontrunner Pritzker in two February polls.

How A Twitter Fight Over Bernie Sanders Revealed A Network Of Fake Accounts

When Russians at the Internet Research Agency interfered in U.S. politics, they created false online personas and fake political groups to amplify divisive messages that already had a homegrown American audience. It’s not too far from what some U.S. political consultants are doing themselves.

Take Sally Albright, a Democratic Party communications consultant who backed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. Unsurprisingly, Albright is vocally opposed to President Donald Trump and a big supporter of the resistance to his administration. She is also one of the loudest, most divisive voices attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Clinton’s onetime Democratic primary opponent, and his left-wing supporters.

Well after the primary, Albright continues to claim that Sanders is a fraud, a liar, racist and corrupt, among many other things. In one instance she declared that the policy idea of free college, as promoted by Sanders, was racist. This provoked Sanders supporters to argue back.

Trevor, a Sanders supporter who declined to provide his last name for fear of being doxxed, but goes by @likingonline on Twitter, noticed a strange pattern of behavior when Albright responded to him. Her tweets addressing him were rapidly retweeted by the same series of accounts. This created a barrage of notifications making it look as though there was an avalanche of opposition to everything he said.

..

Albright told HuffPost that the accounts were voluntarily handed over by their original users to an unnamed client of hers to be automated in “an analytics program.” She said she was bound by a non-disclosure agreement and could not disclose who was collecting and automating these accounts or for what purpose.

But like her, these accounts were all pro-Clinton, anti-Trump and anti-Sanders.

Sky-high prices of everything make US healthcare the world’s most expensive

The United States spends twice as much on healthcare as 10 other high-income nations, driven by the high price of everything from prescription drugs to doctors’ salaries, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds.

Recent attempts to reform American healthcare have assigned blame for the high cost of care to nearly every sector – from drug companies to hospitals to health insurers.

However, a co-author of the new study said those arguments ignore the “800-pound gorilla”: sky-high prices everywhere.

“Most countries get to lower prices one of two ways: they either have a very strong price setter, usually a government agency, or more efficient markets,” said Dr Ashish Jha, co-author of the study by researchers at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health. “The US has figured out how to do the worst of both.”

Stephen Hawking, physicist and inspiration to millions, dies aged 76

Stephen Hawking, the brightest star in the firmament of science, whose insights shaped modern cosmology and inspired global audiences in the millions, has died aged 76.

His family released a statement in the early hours of Wednesday morning confirming his death at his home in Cambridge.

Hawking’s children, Lucy, Robert and Tim, said in a statement: “We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world.

“He once said: ‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’ We will miss him for ever.”

For fellow scientists and loved ones, it was Hawking’s intuition and wicked sense of humour that marked him out as much as the fierce intellect that, coupled with his illness, came to symbolise the unbounded possibilities of the human mind.

‘Recipe for War’: Experts Warn Pick of Pompeo Intensifies Risk of US Attack on Iran

Appointing CIA director to lead State Department “furthers a dangerous trend in which Trump is increasingly surrounding himself with foreign policy hawks who fully support his erratic and belligerent foreign policy”

WV DEP Orders Rover Pipeline To Halt Construction

State regulators have slapped a cease-and-desist order on a natural gas pipeline, citing multiple water pollution violations, according to a letter made public by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

The 713-mile-long Rover Pipeline, which would transport 3.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from processing plants in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, received the order on March 5 from Scott Mandirola, director of the Division of Water and Waste Management, documents show.

According to the order, DEP officials conducted inspections on four days in February, during which they said they found 14 violations in Doddridge, Tyler and Wetzel counties. The alleged offenses include leaving trash and construction debris partially buried on site, improperly installing perimeter control and failing to inspect or clean public and private roads around the construction site.

The pipeline, owned by Energy Transfer Partners, has been ordered to halt construction until state regulators inspect the site and determine that Rover Pipeline LLC is complying with the Water Pollution Control Permit issued Dec. 15, 2016. Rover also is tasked with submitting a plan of “corrective action,” due March 25, and installing devices to control erosion and sediment-water release.

Energy Transfer Partners also owns the Dakota Access Pipeline — the subject of protests in North Dakota last year.

GOP Now Wants Federal Prosecutors to Probe Pipeline Deal

North Carolina Republicans continue to attack Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper over a $57.8 million agreement his office reached with utilities poised to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Now, the GOP hopes that criticism will garner the attention of federal prosecutors.

State Republican Party leaders asked Tuesday for a federal investigation of whether Cooper broke the law with the memorandum of understanding, calling it possible extortion by the governor for his personal or political benefit.

GOP lawmakers and their allies have been persistent in going after Cooper over the agreement, saying it put the governor in control of funds that should be expended by the General Assembly. The legislature passed a law last month taking effect later this week that would intercept money coming from the agreement and earmark it for school districts along the route of the natural gas pipeline.

Cooper and his office have defended the agreement and said that nothing unlawful was done. He and other Democrats have dismissed the new law redirecting the funds as a partisan power grab by Republicans.

The money in the memo would have gone to environmental mitigation, economic development and renewable energy, but it lacked many details on how the funds would be distributed. Cooper’s office announced the agreement the same day as state regulators approved a key permit, leading critics to suggest the permit was conditional upon the agreement

While I do not like the ‘payoff’ its obvious the Republicans are playing politics and eventually shut up when its shown that quite a few Republican officials have signed similar agreements in other states.

Here's the good news: since November 2012, more than 20 states and 40 cities and counties have raised their minimum wages. We're winning the fight for a living wage. pic.twitter.com/ll7c2k27QO

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 13, 2018

Many Americans are unaware that the people of Yemen are suffering today in a devastating civil war, or that U.S. forces have been actively engaged in support of the Saudi coalition in this war.https://t.co/hcOGRJGaAS pic.twitter.com/rr5BcyITta

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 13, 2018

Pennsylvania special election: Democrats declare victory in setback for Trump

Democrat Conor Lamb has claimed victory in a very tight special election race for Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, where his surprisingly strong showing in a Republican stronghold dealt a blow to Donald Trump.

After midnight, with all precincts reporting, unofficial results had Lamb leading Republican Rick Saccone by fewer than 600 votes. But more than 1,000 absentee ballots were still being tabulated as the count carried into Wednesday, and regardless of the outcome a recount was possible.

Saccone, who ran as an extension of Trump in a district the US president won by 20 points in 2016, said he would be “Trump’s wingman” in Washington and touted himself as “Trump before Trump”.

He appeared with Trump in a rally only days before the election and held campaign events with two of the president’s children as well as a number of administration officials.

The photo finish in such a deep red district made clear how much Trump’s standing has fallen since 2016 and gives Democrats increased optimism for November’s midterm elections. In a race this close, either candidate’s supporters can ask for a recount. However there are stiff requirements, including requiring three voters in the same precinct who can attest that error or fraud was committed.

Democrats ‘Fooling Themselves’ to Think Wall Street Giveaway Will Bolster 2018 Chances, Progressives Warn

Do Democrats actually believe that rewarding Wall Street will help them win re-election?

That key question has been asked with growing frequency in recent days as a relatively large faction of centrist Democrats—led by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.)—has partnered with Republicans in the Senate to advance a deregulatory bill denounced by progressive lawmakers and independent commentators as a giveaway to massive banks and a possible catalyst for the next financial meltdown.

Robert Borasage, co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), argued in an interview with The Hill Tuesday that the final vote this week on the bank measure (S.2155) will be a “very significant thing, both symbolically and in substance.”

As the GOP-crafted bill has sailed through the Senate, much of the media coverage has framed Democratic support for the legislation as pragmatism on the part of red-state senators facing tough re-election bids in 2018.

But progressives argue that any vote to relieve Wall Street will harm, not help, Democrats’ chances—and new polling data (pdf) bolsters this view.

“There’s no way that any vote in a red state or a blue state that supports Wall Street like this is a benefit at the polls,” Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, told The Hill. “When you have a [Democratic Sen.] Jon Tester in Montana that votes in the wrong way on an issue like this, he’s hurting his chances for reelection, he’s not helping.”

A video put together by Garcia’s campaign:

Across 90 cities and 45 counties in Michigan I’ve visited, Michiganders are asking the same questions: "How do we rebuild an economy that doesn’t lock people like me out? How do we rebuild schools worthy of our kids?"

— Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) March 13, 2018

The party and press continue to amp up Kennedy as a new Dem hero for some reason, even despite the failings of his SOTU response.

Activists plan protest of ‘Potomac Pipeline’ ahead of key deadline

Clean-water activists plan to protest a natural gas pipeline on Wednesday, demanding from the steps of the Maryland statehouse that Gov. Larry Hogan (R) halt the project before the state loses the power to intervene.

But a spokeswoman for the governor says the issue is for the federal Army Corps of Engineers to decide.

Environmentalists spent much of last year trying to block construction of the 3.5-mile pipeline beneath the Potomac River and C & O Canal in Western Maryland. They say the pipeline could jeopardize the drinking water supply of about 6 million people, many of them in the Washington metropolitan area.

Their last chance appears to be convincing Hogan to direct the Maryland Department of the Environment to initiate its own review of what activists are calling the Potomac Pipeline. Hogan would have to act before Thursday, said Denise Robbins, communications director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

“It’s been unbelievably frustrating,” Robbins said. “All the concerns that people have about the quality of their drinking water are being completely ignored.”

World’s great forests could lose half of all wildlife as planet warms – report

The world’s greatest forests could lose more than half of their plant species by the end of the century unless nations ramp up efforts to tackle climate change, according to a new report on the impacts of global warming on biodiversity hotspots.

Mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds are also likely to disappear on a catastrophic scale in the Amazon and other naturally rich ecosysterms in Africa, Asia, North America and Australia if temperatures rise by more than 1.5C, concludes the study by WWF, the University of East Anglia and the James Cook University.

The research in the journal Climate Change examined the impact of three different levels of warming – 2C (the upper target in the 2015 Paris agreement), 3.2C (the likely rise given existing national commitments) and 4.5C (the forecast outcome if emissions trends remain unchanged) on nearly 80,000 plant and animal species in 35 of the world’s most biodiverse regions.

If governments fail to set more ambitious commitments than those currently on the table, the report projects devastating losses of more than 60% of plant species and almost 50% of animal species in the Amazon at a temperature rise of 3.2C.

If countries lift their efforts sufficiently to reach the 2C goal, the outlook is improved – but still grim – with more than 35% of species at risk of local extinction in the region. If no actions are taken, the picture is apocalyptic, with a likely loss of more than 70% of plant and reptile species and a more than 60% decline of mammal, reptile and bird species in the Amazon.

A New Report Has Some Grim News About Black Babies

For decades, the number of American babies born too small was on the decline. But new data suggests the rate may be ticking up again—especially among African Americans.

The World Health Organization defines an underweight newborn as weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces. In 2016, according to new joint report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute’s annual county health rankings, 8.2 percent of new babies failed to exceed the threshold. That’s a 2 percent increase in underweight births since 2014.

Babies can be born too small for a number of reasons: Most commonly, it’s because they are premature or because the mother’s placenta isn’t providing enough nutrients. Low birth weight is associated with a range of health problems, from infections and brain bleeds in infancy to a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease later in life. Birth weights are a good general indicator of the health of a community, says Julia A. Willems Van Dijk, a University of Wisconsin public health scientist and a lead researcher on the report. “It’s very useful because it not only talks about infants but it’s also a reflection of maternal health.”

The researchers found that low birth weights were especially pronounced in the Southeast and parts of the Southwest. In some states, the rates varied widely by county—take Colorado, where rates ranged from 7 percent in some counties to more than 12 percent in others.

But even more striking were the racial disparities. The low birth weight rate for black babies was 13 percent, compared with 7 percent for white and Hispanic babies and 8 percent for Asian and Native American babies.

Extreme winter weather becoming more common as Arctic warms, study finds

The sort of severe winter weather that has rattled parts of the US and UK is becoming more common as the Arctic warms, with scientists finding a strong link between high temperatures near the pole and unusually heavy snowfall and frigid weather further south.

A sharp increase in temperatures across the Arctic since the early 1990s has coincided with an uptick in abnormally cold snaps in winter, particularly in the eastern US, according to new research that analyzed temperature data from 1950 onwards.

Extreme cold winter weather is up to four times more likely when temperatures in the Arctic are unusually high, the study found. Researchers compared daily temperatures from across the Arctic region with something called the accumulated winter season severity index, which grades winter weather based on temperature, snow fall and snow depth, across 12 US cities.

“There’s a remarkably strong correlation between a warm Arctic and cold winter weather further south,” said Judah Cohen, a climatologist at Atmospheric and Environmental Research. “It’s a complex story – global warming is contributing to milder temperatures but is also having unforeseen consequences such as this.”

New Zealand diplomat tells US Democrats to organise against Trump or ‘we all die’

A senior New Zealand diplomat based in Washington is in hot water over a series of tweets directed at the US Democratic party saying “please get your shit together or we will all die”.

Caroline Beresford, New Zealand’s deputy head of mission to the US and ambassador to Haiti, sent the tweet in response to a post by US politics website the Hill detailing the Democratic party’s plans for the 2020 election and the possible pairing of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as running mates. “A Sanders-Warren ticket could win big in 2020” declared the headline.
“No it couldn’t” responded Beresford in a tweet that was later deleted. “Please get your shit together or we will all die.”

In another tweet on the same article, Beresford added “They’ve learned nothing.”

A spokesperson for the New Zealand ministry of foreign affairs and trade said they were aware of Beresford’s tweets and were taking “appropriate action”.

Tower residents told to pay £500,000 to replace Grenfell-style cladding

Leaseholders in an apartment block covered in Grenfell-style cladding have been ordered to pay £500,000 to make their building safe after a tribunal ruled that they, rather than the management company, were obliged to cover the costs.

The ruling, which could be challenged, means leaseholders of the 95-apartment Citiscape complex in Croydon, south London, may face a £2m bill, which some have said would force them into financial ruin.

The building is owned by the family trust of the multimillionaire property mogul Vincent Tchenguiz, but the case was brought by FirstPort Property Services property management company, seeking clarification on who should pay.

..

One resident, Richard Low-Foon, told the tribunal he needed “a miracle” to fund the works as his father was ill and could not sell his flat because of the risk the building carried for any future investor. “He is in hospital because of all this. It got too much for him,” he said.

However, the chairman of the London residential property first tier tribunal, Angus Andrew, ruled against the leaseholders, insisting they should pay because “if the manager is obliged to do work … the tenants are obliged to contribute to the cost although they remain entitled to dispute the reasonableness of the cost”.

Michael Hari: Minnesota Mosque Bombing Suspect Wanted to Build Trump’s Border Wall for $10bn

Three men from rural Illinois have been charged in connection with the 2017 bombing of a mosque in Minnesota and the attempted bombing of an abortion clinic.

Michael Hari, 47, Joe Morris, 22, and Michael McWhorter, 29, are accused of carrying out the attack on the Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, just before morning prayers on August 5 2017. The building was damaged, but no one was killed or injured during the attack.

The three men are also charged with the attempted bombing of the Women’s Health Practice abortion clinic in Champaign, Illinois, on November 7 2017, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield, Illinois.

The Associated Press reports that McWhorter allegedly told an FBI agent following his arrest the group planned to bomb a mosque to let Muslims know they are not welcome in the U.S. and to “scare them out of the country.”

Fellow suspect Hari also previously told the Chicago Tribune in April 2017 how he planned to build President Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico for around $10 billion.

Judge agrees to issue injunction against tree sitters protesting pipeline

Opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline are continuing their tree-sitting protest on Peters Mountain. But how long they will stay is unclear, after a ruling in a West Virginia courtroom Tuesday afternoon.

..

Pipeline opponents from West Virginia and Virginia crowded into the Monroe County courthouse Tuesday afternoon to support them.

During a lengthy hearing, MVP ‘s lawyer argued that the company has the property rights and the legal authority to move forward.

Project Manager Robert Cooper testified that the protest could delay the project and add millions of dollars to the cost.

But an attorney representing protestors questioned whether MVP had actually established that the tree sitters are in West Virginia, and whether they have received proper legal notice. He said the delay was of little consequence to a multi-billion dollar company.

“The young people in the trees are trying to shine a light on the fact that this process has been unfair,” said Monroe County resident Nancy Bouldin.

“These two trees and the people sitting in ’em hold a big message for our communities and that is that they have a future in which they are invested,” said Roanoke County resident Roberta Bondurant.

The judge said he would grant the injunction after the company submits additional documentation from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Keystone XL pipeline gets another delay as Appeals Court OKs one-month extension

The much-delayed Keystone XL pipeline has hit another delay, this time to allow attorneys another month to prepare legal briefs.

But the Nebraska Court of Appeals, in a ruling Monday, warned that it would be unlikely to allow another postponement.

“Neither the stipulation of the parties nor the press of other business” will justify another delay, the court wrote, after granting a request to push back the deadline for a written brief to April 16.

Dozens of landowners are contesting the decision last year by the Nebraska Public Service Commission to approve an alternative route across the state for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. They argue that the commission had the authority to approve only the preferred route submitted by pipeline developer TransCanada, and not the alternative route that was given the OK.

The initial, written arguments from the landowners were due this Friday, but their attorneys, Dave Domina and Brian Jorde of Omaha, asked for a 30-day extension of the deadline because of the complexity of the issues, and the volume of the exhibits, which exceeded 20,000 pages.

Single-payer bill all but dead this year as California lawmakers craft new health package

California Democratic lawmakers are quietly working on a package of up to 20 health care bills that would soften the political blow from the all-but-certain death of a single-payer universal care bill this year.

Senate Bill 562 cleared the Senate last year but stalled in the Assembly when Speaker Anthony Rendon blasted it as “woefully incomplete.” The legislation still lacks a plan to cover its $400 billion price tag, a way to control rising health care costs and a strategy to secure federal waivers needed from the Trump administration.

Rendon has not formally killed the bill, but he told The Sacramento Bee earlier this month that a fresh health care package is in the works – the clearest sign yet that Senate Bill 562 is dead.

Democratic Assemblymen Jim Wood of Healdsburg and Joaquin Arambula of Fresno, who chair a special health committee formed by Rendon last year after the single-payer bill passed the Senate, said Tuesday they are eying legislation this year that seeks to improve quality, expand access and lower rising health care costs.

Both expressed doubt, however, that single-payer bill could move forward this year.

“I would say single-payer is not a reality this year because of the complexity of the steps that we need to go through,” Wood said.

ELECTIONS U.S. Congress, 6th Dist. Amanda Howland making another bid for office

Civil rights attorney Amanda Howland, who in 2016 unsuccessfully challenged Republican incumbent for his post as 6th District U.S. Representative, is making another try for Roskam’s office. Defining herself as “unapologetically progressive,” she’s facing the large field of contenders in the March 20 Democratic primary. Those opponents include Becky Anderson Wilkins, Sean Casten, Jennifer Zordani, Ryan Huffman, Carole Cheney and Kelly Mazeski.

Windy City Times: What prompted your run?

Amanda Howland: I ran last cycle. I was asked to run because they wanted someone with name recognition, but they really didn’t think I would do anything. They never saw it as a viable seat. Roskam spent $3 million. I spent $130,000 and I didn’t have any full-paid staff until June 2016. I got 41 percent of the vote. So we mobilized a big group of progressives and grassroots people to make sure I got on the ballot and got on the vote, and I thought I di exceptionally well, given the limited resources.

Shortly after that race, I found out that I had a malignant kidney. I was in the hospital December 19, had the kidney removed the next day and, at that point, I was not thinking of running, except that I saw what was happening with the Trump wave. The more my husband and I talked about it, the more we realized that you need to run more than once to get the name recognition to win. So we decided to that I was going to throw my hat in the ring again. Since then, in Washington, things have only gotten worse.

WCT: What do you perceive attitudes towards Roskam as being like in the district? Why do you think so many people feel compelled to challenge him?

AH: What he’s been able to do in the past is [play off the fact that] people don’t look at his voting record; they look at him as a person because he grew up there. He went to high school there. His family’s there, so everybody knows him. Now that people are people are starting to scrutinize voting records, they saw what he did with the Planned Parenthood issue over and over. They saw him with the Hillary-bashing. They saw him stand with Trump on various things that outraged people, and he helped write the tax bill that they jammed down everybody’s throat. People are looking at him in a different light; people are saying, “He’s not the moderate guy I thought he was. We better start paying attention to the votes.” … The thing that’s most different is, I’ve had many moderate Republican women that I know come up to me and say, “We are so sorry we did not vote for you last time. We will not vote for Roskam this time.”

Rashida Tlaib keeping it real

Ask your average candidate why they want to go to Congress, and you are likely to hear them gas on about making a difference.

When I ask Rashida Tlaib for the No. 1 reason she is running, she doesn’t hesitate. “I think this is about electing the jury that will impeach him, and I would be a heck of a juror!”

No need to ask who “him” is. Tlaib is running in the Democratic primary in the 13th district, which takes in, roughly, the bottom half of Detroit and then twists up, down, and hooks to the west — a successfully gerrymandered Republican creation designed to corral as many Democrats into one place as possible.

No Democrat ever needs to campaign here in the fall; whoever wins the primary on Aug. 7 will be the next member of Congress. This district is unique in several ways. It is not only the poorest (by far) congressional district in Michigan, it is the third poorest in the nation, or was at the time of the last census eight years ago.

It is also the only Congressional district in the state that is contained entirely within one county (Wayne) and the only one that doesn’t have a congressman — not since the disgraced John Conyers quit, allegedly because of his health, on Dec. 5.

..

Tlaib, who is openly proud of her heritage as a Muslim (potentially the first Muslim woman in Congress) and prouder of her heritage as a Detroiter, and she vows to stay one.

“I’ve been looking at the schedule, and I found out I’d only have to be in Washington nine days out of each month,” she tells me.

Not only is she promising not to “go Washington,” she clearly doesn’t want to. “These are my people. They are who I care about. This is where I belong,” she tells me.

Oklahoma should prioritize students, teachers — not oil, gas companies

On March 5, the superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools district, Deborah Gist, presided over what became a less than typical school board meeting. Gist rallied school board members to vote for a resolution supporting the thousands of Oklahoma teachers threatening a strike over low pay. In a written statement, the district mentioned “joining school districts … to advocate for a proposal to restore funding to education and increase teacher salaries.”

Pinning the entire blame of Oklahoma’s current circumstances on one event or one person is difficult. But the most blame sits at the desks of Mary Fallin, governor of Oklahoma and the state legislators who have protected the oil and gas industry. Now, the state’s budget cannot accommodate for basic services like adequate education funding and decent teacher pay.

Gov. Fallin, and her colleagues in the state legislature have intentionally left revenue-generating opportunities on the table. Chief among them is more appropriately taxing energy companies.

From Asthma to Cancer, ‘Blistering’ New Report Details Human Cost of Fracking

A team of researchers on Tuesday released a “blistering” report on the serious public health threats—from headaches to asthma to cancer—posed by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process of injecting a mix of water and chemicals into rocks to release oil and natural gas.

The study—described as “the most authoritative” of its kind—was published by Concerned Health Professionals of New York and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Researchers found that “by several measures, evidence for fracking-related health problems is emerging across the United States and Canada.”

Looking to Pennsylvania—a hotbed for fracking—as an example, the report says that “as the number of gas wells increase in a community, so do rates of hospitalization, and community members experience sleep disturbance, headache, throat irritation, stress/anxiety, cough, shortness of breath, sinus, fatigue, wheezing and nausea.”

“Drilling and fracking operations are also correlated with increased rates of asthma, elevated motor vehicle fatalities, ambulance runs and emergency room visits and gonorrhea incidence,” according to the report, for which researchers analyzed thousands of journalistic investigations, government research and peer-reviewed scientific articles.

Democratic gubernatorial primary is one to watch

In case you haven’t heard, there is a Democratic primary race for governor, and A.J. Balukoff — the presumptive frontrunner — is happy to see it.

“I was telling people what I was hoping that we were going to have a (Democratic) primary,” he said. “I was trying to recruit people to run against me, and no one wanted to do that.”

Then, along came former Rep. Paulette Jordan of Plummer, and the Boise millionaire’s wish was granted.

Perhaps Balukoff should be more careful about what he wishes for, because from what I hear, Jordan has a good chance of winning this race. There are good reasons she has a reasonable shot at winning.

Jordan is 38, and the future is in the hands of people of her generation. Balukoff is 72 and perhaps a decade or two away from assisted living. Her experience in the Legislature gives her some background in state government and working with legislators. His main government experience is 21 years on the Boise School Board. She appears comfortable while posing atop a horse; he has the look of an elderly man who likes bow ties.

The voter turnout should be low, with at least some Democrats being more inspired to register for the Republican primary. But members of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, and other Native Americans, no doubt will be motivated to vote for Jordan – and that’s a huge voting bloc. Jordan doesn’t advertise the fact that she would be the first woman, and the first Native American of any state, to win the governorship. But she doesn’t need to.

Chelsea Manning says software developers need a code of ethics

Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower who gave diplomatic and military documents to WikiLeaks, took the stage at SXSW this morning to talk about what life has been like for her post-prison, the current political landscape, and the misuse of technology and data.

In Iraq, Manning said she had gone in with the mindset that algorithms could make things better. But during her service, Manning said she noticed people would pick and choose the data they would and wouldn’t believe.

“The algorithms themselves are not unbiased,” she said. “We put our biases in there when we write it.”

It’s also possible that engineers feed it biased data, she said, and pointed to predictive policing. With predictive policing, if a police department is already over-policing a neighborhood due to racism and biases, for example, the data they put into it will already be tainted.

“It’s a feedback loop,” Manning said.

In systems that affect millions of people, technologists and developers have a responsibility to be aware of the potential consequences of the tools they develop. Manning, herself, said she’s been in the “hot seat” to ship code quickly and has gotten caught up in the development process without thinking too much about the bigger picture.

“There’s also dangers in writing software for one thing and expecting it to only be used for one thing,” she said.

Everything you need to know about the 1st potential Muslim woman in Congress

“In Arabic, my name means ‘precious stone.’ In English, it means 17 different spellings on my Starbucks cup.” This is how the campaign video for 34-year-old Congress-hopeful Fayrouz Saad begins.

Saad, a “proud progressive,” announced her candidacy in July 2017, and if she’s elected into the seat for Michigan’s 11th District — now filled by Republican Dave Trott — she’ll be making history as the first Muslim congresswoman.

“I say quite simply that I am the product of the American Dream,” Saad told Amna Nawaz on ABC’s “Uncomfortable” series.

Her parents came to the U.S. from Lebanon over 40 years ago and started a small meat wholesale business in Detroit’s Eastern Market. “I watched them be successful. I watched them integrate into America,” Saad, one of six siblings, said. “They really inspired me, and seeing the success that they were able to have, I entered into a career in public service because of that.”

Dan Lipinski Raked in Rail Industry Campaign Dollars While Delaying Safety Standards

Chicago-area Rep. Dan Lipinski has a significant cash advantage over his rival in an upcoming Democratic primary, activist Marie Newman. The war chest is thanks in significant part to Lipinski’s friendly relationship with the railroad industry.

Nearly one out of every six dollars Lipinski raised to accumulate a $1.2 million campaign war chest over the last decade came from rail company PACs, a review of Federal Election Commission reports reveals.

But his push on behalf of the industry has put him at the center of one of most heated public-safety controversies of our time, the railroad industry’s resistance to installing the automatic braking technology known as Positive Train Control. Lipinski helped lead a push in 2015 to delay the requirement that railways install the technology that experts say will save lives when finally implemented.

Lipinski, one of the most conservative Democrats facing a serious progressive primary challenge this year, won his seat when his father, longtime Rep. William Lipinski, announced his retirement after the primary in 2004, allowing his son to ease his way onto the ballot and effectively face no competition. The senior Lipinski, long backed by the Illinois Democratic machine, went on to become a rail-industry lobbyist.