MoJo Articles | Mother Jones

The Campaign Against Whistleblowers in Washington

Peter Van Buren — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:07:50 +0000

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

On January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects. His is just the latest prosecution in an unprecedented assault on government whistleblowers and leakers of every sort.

Kiriakou's plight will clearly be but one more battle in a broader war to ensure that government actions and sunshine policies don't go together. By now, there can be little doubt that government retaliation against whistleblowers is not an isolated event, nor even an agency-by-agency practice. The number of cases in play suggests an organized strategy to deprive Americans of knowledge of the more disreputable things that their government does. How it plays out in court and elsewhere will significantly affect our democracy.

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WATCH: How to Win People Over to the Taliban's Side [Fiore Cartoon]

Mark Fiore — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:15:48 +0000

Mark Fiore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a website featuring his work.

The Republican War on Contraception

Nick Baumann — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Last year was not a great one for abortion rights. First, congressional Republicans attempted to deny statutory rape victims access to Medicaid-funded abortions (twice). Then GOP-dominated state legislatures pushed record numbers of laws limiting abortion rights, including proposals that could have treated killing abortion providers as "justifiable homicide."

Yet in the past six months, social conservatives have widened their offensive, and their new target is clear: Not satisfied with making it harder to obtain legal abortions, they want to limit access to birth control, too.

"Contraception is under attack in a way it really wasn't in the past few years," says Judy Waxman, the vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women's Law Center. "In 2004, we could not find any group—the National Right to Life Committee, the Bush campaign, anyone—that would go on the record to say they're opposed to birth control," adds Elizabeth Shipp, the political director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. "We couldn't find them in 2006 either, and in 2008 it was just fringe groups. In 2010, 2011, and this year, it's just exploded."

The first sign of the new assault came last October, when Mississippi activists and congressional Republicans pushed legislation on the state and federal level, respectively, that would have treated zygotes—a.k.a. fertilized human eggs—as legal "persons." If the definition of legal personhood is changed so that it begins when sperm meets an egg, hormonal birth control or barrier devices that prevent zygotes from implanting in the uterine wall could become illegal, making using an IUD tantamount to murder. Yet some 40 percent of House Republicans and a quarter of their allies in the Senate back bills that would do just that.

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Marco Rubio's Plan Could Cut Off Birth Control Coverage for Millions

Nick Baumann — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

A new bill introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a rising conservative star and leading contender for the Republican vice-presidential nomination in 2012, could cut off birth control coverage for millions of women who receive it through their health plans.

Rubio has sold his proposal—introduced January 31 as the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," or S. 2043—as a way to counter President Barack Obama's controversial rule requiring even religiously-affiliated schools and universities to offer copay-free birth control to their employees. But health care experts say that its implications could be far broader.

If passed, the bill would allow any institution or corporation to cut off birth control coverage simply by citing religious grounds. (You can read the bill here or in the DocumentCloud embed below.) It has 26 cosponsors in the Senate; a similar proposal sponsored by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) has 148 cosponsors in the House. On Wednesday, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed to repeal Obama's rule, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pointed to Rubio's bill as a potential model for doing so. Here's the key section of Rubio's proposal:

In English, this means that no entity has to cover birth control in a health plan if it can point to a religious reason for not doing so. And the entity itself is not required to have any religious affiliation. It could just be a plain old corporation. That means that if the middle-aged white guy who runs your company is religiously opposed to birth control, he can have it stripped out of your insurance plan—even if his Viagra is still covered. You could wake up the next morning and find you're paying full price for drugs that you once got for free or at much-reduced prices.

"This could be huge," says Judy Waxman, the vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women's Law Center (NWLC). "It's clearly more than a million women who'd be affected if it were just hospitals and universities [that were affected], but under the Rubio bill it could be any employer. It could be millions."

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Tracking the Secret War on Iran

Hamed Aleaziz — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Rumors about an imminent military attack on Iran over its nuclear program have come and gone for years. In recent weeks such talk has intensified, though it's still anybody's guess as to whether Israel or the United States might openly carry out military action any time soon. But most experts agree on one thing: A covert war with Iran has already been raging for years. Details are often murky, but the conflict has been punctuated with brazen assassinations, exploding missile sites, crippling cyberattacks, and a litany of arrests and spying allegations on all sides. Below is a timeline of major developments in the war—or at least the ones that are publicly known.

Explosions:

According to an in-depth report in Foreign Policy, Israeli agents, allegedly posing as CIA operatives, recruited members of a Pakistan-based terrorist group called Jundallah, apparently to conduct attacks inside Iran. Over the last decade, the group has repeatedly carried out attacks inside the country, including bombing Iranian mosques in 2009 and 2010.
An Iranian missile site blows up, killing 17, including Major General Hassan Moqqadam, a Revolutionary Guard commander who was said to be a key figure in Iran's missile program. Time cites a "Western intelligence official" as saying that Israel was behind the attack. November 2011.
An explosion occurs in the Iranian city of Isfahan, reportedly near a uranium conversion plant. Iranian officials give conflicting accounts of the cause, then deny that there was an explosion. November 2011.
An Iranian steel factory in the city of Yazd blows up, killing seven people, some of them reportedly non-Iranians, according to Iranian media. It remains unclear whether the factory had any relation to Iranian nuclear activity. December 2011.

Assassinations:

Ardeshir Husseinpour, an Iranian nuclear scientist, dies in January 2007. Iran officially says he died from asphyxiation "following a gas leak," but suspects Israel is behind Husseinpour's death.
Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, an Iranian nuclear scientist, is killed by a "remote-controlled bomb" in Tehran. January 2010.
Unidentified motorcyclists in Tehran attach magnetic bombs to cars carrying Iranian nuclear scientists Majid Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi Davani. Shahriari is killed and Abbassi Davani survives the attack. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blames Israel and other "Western governments." A State Department spokesman claims to have "no information" about the attack; an unnamed US official states that the scientists were "bad people, and the work they do is exactly what you need to design a bomb." November 2010.
Iranian state TV interviews Majid Jamali Fash, an Iranian man who claims he worked with Israel to kill an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010. "My first contact with the Israeli intelligence agency was in Istanbul three years ago," the man says. "A man named Radfur approached me and suggested I visit the Israeli consulate." January 2011.
Darioush Rezaei Nejad, nuclear scientist, is shot dead by a gunman while sitting in a car outside of his home. Nejad becomes the fourth nuclear scientist to have been killed since 2007. An Israeli intelligence official tells Germany's Der Speigel that Mossad carried out Nejad's assassination. July 2011.
In January 2012, Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, is killed by a magnetic car bomb in central Tehran. He is the fifth Iranian nuclear scientist to have been killed in since 2007. January 2012.
US officials confirm that the Mujahedin El-Khalq, a terrorist group, has been working with Israel to kill Iranian nuclear scientists. The Obama administration reportedly has not been involved, but confirms the US has been aware that the two have been working together. February 2012.

Cyberattacks:

Inside Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. PhotoXpress/Zuma Press

A computer worm known as Stuxnet infiltrates Iran's nuclear facilities in mid to late 2009. The worm, reportedly tested in Israel, causes serious damage to Iran's nuclear centrifuges—20 percent of them are destroyed. The cyberattack is thought to be an Israeli operation, possibly in cooperation with the US or other Western allies.

In April 2011, Iran's civil defense commander claims that a second computer virus, reportedly called "Stars," has been detected inside Iran. He says of the virus: "Fortunately, our young experts have been able to discover this virus and the Stars virus is now in the laboratory for more investigations."
In September 2011, a third computer virus is reported to have disturbed the Iranian nuclear program. Symantec, a company that develops security software, says the virus is a "precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack." Iranian officials say the virus did not impact the nuclear program.

Disappearances:

Ali-Reza Asgari, a high-ranking official in former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s administration, goes missing in Turkey in 2006. Asgari’s disappearance gives rise to speculation that he'd been kidnapped or had defected, and had ended up in Israel. His whereabouts remain unclear.
Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent, goes missing on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. He reportedly was there to investigate cigarette smuggling on behalf of a private client. Four years later, a video surfaces of Levinson, in which he pleads for the US to help him. It's unclear who is holding Levinson.

Plane crashes:

Over a year and a half, three Revolutionary Guard airplanes go down in Iran on three separate occasions; one crash kills the Guard's ground forces commander. Spokespeople for the Revolutionary Guard say that the planes' engines "failed." 2006-2007
A highly sophisticated US military drone, launched from a base in Afganistan, goes down in Iran. The Iranian government claims to have brought it down—offering conflicting accounts about shooting it down and taking control of it via cyberattack. It says the drone has "priceless technological information," and later shows it off on state television. December 2011.

Arrests and spying allegations

Shahrazad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian woman, is arrested, charged, and sentenced to more than five years for allegedly attempting to export 3,000 "helmet-mounted Generation III U.S. military night vision goggles" from the US to Iran. November 2004.
Amir Hossein Ardebili, an Iranian man, is sentenced to five years for violating US exporting laws. According to US officials cited by CNN, Aredbili "had requested missile and aircraft parts and night vision equipment" to take back to Iran. December 2009.
In a sting operation, US authorities arrest four Columbian citizens and charge them with attempting to export F-5 fighter jet engines to Iran. Their relationship to Iranian officials remains unknown. March 2011.Iranian defector Shahram Amiri. Ahmad Halabisaz/Zuma Press
Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who had defected to the US, returns to Iran in July 2010. After his return, a US official tells CNN that Amiri had been given $5 million for "information." Hillary Clinton states publicly: "Let me say that Mr. Amiri has been in the United States of his own free will." Amiri reportedly is arrested in Iran seven months later. March 2011.
US officials allege that the Iranian government ordered the assassination of the Saudi ambassador to the US. They say that Manssor Arbabsiar, a former used car salesman in Texas, attempted to work with a Mexican drug cartel to conduct the hit. Iran denies the charges. October 2011.
Iran says it has arrested 12 CIA agents. An Iranian official says of the agents' plot: "The main mission of this act of espionage was related to Iran's progress in the fields of nuclear technology and also military and security activities." November 2011.
Mojtaba Atarodi, an Iranian scientist and professor at Tehran's Sharif University, is arrested in Los Angeles for violating export laws in relation to his purchase of high-tech US lab equipment. An official from Sharif university says Atarodi is "just a professor, and he was trying to buy some equipment for his lab" back in Iran. January 2012.
Amir Hekmati, a US citizen and former Marine, is arrested in Iran and sentenced to death for allegedly being a CIA agent. Hekmati admits to becoming a CIA agent on Iranian state media, but his family believes he has made the confession under duress. January 2012.

Avon Wants You to Know It's Not Komen

Nicole Pasulka — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

In light of the PR nightmare that has descended on the Susan G. Komen Foundation since announcing it would no longer fund grants to Planned Parenthood for mammogram referrals, the Avon Foundation for Women, a top breast cancer charity connected to the cosmetics company, rushed to post a clarification on the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Facebook page:

"The Avon Foundation for Women is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is not affiliated in any way with Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer event series is a project of the Avon Foundation and has no connection to any Susan G. Komen event."

The 39-mile, two-day walk is the Avon Foundation's most high-profile charity event. In 2010 nearly 22,000 participants took part in one of nine walks and raised more than $55 million. It's of a piece with Komen's big event, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure event, a 3-day, 60-mile walk that takes place in 14 cities around the country. Though it's true Komen and Avon aren't connected, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about Avon’s Walk for Breast Cancer. AFW claims that their walk increases visibility for the disease and builds solidarity among survivors and their loved ones, but these fundraisers also do a great deal to boost the public image of a cosmetics company best known for its door-to-door saleswomen.

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Most of Obama's "Controversial" Birth Control Rule Was Law During Bush Years

Nick Baumann — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:10:23 +0000

President Barack Obama's decision to require most employers to cover birth control and insurers to offer it at no cost has created a firestorm of controversy. But the central mandate—that most employers have to cover preventative care for women—has been law for over a decade. This point has been completely lost in the current controversy, as Republican presidential candidates and social conservatives claim that Obama has launched a war on religious liberty and the Catholic Church.

Despite the longstanding precedent, "no one screamed" until now, said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert at George Washington University.

In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that companies that provided prescription drugs to their employees but didn't provide birth control were in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. That opinion, which the George W. Bush administration did nothing to alter or withdraw when it took office the next month, is still in effect today—and because it relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it applies to all employers with 15 or more employees. Employers that don't offer prescription coverage or don't offer insurance at all are exempt, because they treat men and women equally—but under the EEOC's interpretation of the law, you can't offer other preventative care coverage without offering birth control coverage, too.

"It was, we thought at the time, a fairly straightforward application of Title VII principles," a top former EEOC official who was involved in the decision told Mother Jones. "All of these plans covered Viagra immediately, without thinking, and they were still declining to cover prescription contraceptives. It's a little bit jaw-dropping to see what is going on now…There was some press at the time but we issued guidances that were far, far more controversial."

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What NASA's Blue Marble Photo Reveals About Climate Change

Bill McKibben — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet—as we shall see—it's unfortunately largely invisible to us.

In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology. Last month, for instance, NASA updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization's gallery: "Blue Marble," originally taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. The spectacular new high-def image shows a picture of the Americas on January 4th, a good day for snapping photos because there weren't many clouds.

It was also a good day because of the striking way it could demonstrate to us just how much the planet has changed in 40 years. As Jeff Masters, the web's most widely read meteorologist, explains, "The US and Canada are virtually snow-free and cloud-free, which is extremely rare for a January day. The lack of snow in the mountains of the Western US is particularly unusual. I doubt one could find a January day this cloud-free with so little snow on the ground throughout the entire satellite record, going back to the early 1960s."

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$6 Billion for a Nuke-Building Shed?

Adam Weinstein — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

How I stopped worrying and learned to fund the bomb: Project on Government Oversight

As the president prepares to unveil his federal budget plan next week, it's a good time to remember that there are boondoggles, and then there are boondoggles. Under the latter, see the multi-billion-dollar "Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility," a single unfinished building in a New Mexico nuclear complex whose cost has ballooned since its approval a decade ago, and whose main purpose is to build stuff we don't need: plutonium components for new atomic bombs.

As you can see from the Project on Government Oversight's infographic below, the entire CMRR complex, located at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was slated to cost US taxpayers $375 million in 2001. But now, just one half of that two-building plant is expected to cost between $3.7 and $5.9 billion. "[S]everal major changes have occurred that have fundamentally affected the basis of the cost estimate," a Los Alamos talking points memo states. Basically, construction costs rose and mistakes were made, since nobody's built anything like this before. Here's the result:

What does that buy America? According to a 2008 congressional report, the facility and its surrounding complex have "no coherent mission to justify it unless the decision is made to begin an aggressive new nuclear warhead design and pit production mission at Los Alamos National Laboratory." In other words, its purpose is to build new nukes—and at a time when we're supposed to be cutting our nuclear arsenal, not expanding it.

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Tuesday Primary Results: Rick Santorum Isn't Finished—Yet

Andy Kroll — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:12:48 +0000

This story has been updated to reflect the latest primary and caucus results.

Rick Santorum is not going away. Not yet.

The former Pennsylvania senator clinched three notable victories Tuesday night, in the Missouri primary and Colorado and Minnesota caucuses. CNN called Missouri for Santorum at 9:45 p.m. Eastern, NBC News called Minnesota for him half an hour later, and the Colorado GOP called that contest for him just after 1 a.m. Santorum led Romney 55 percent to 25 percent in Missouri with nearly all votes tallied. In Minnesota, Santorum led the pack with 45 percent of votes, with 85 percent of precincts reporting. And in Colorado, Tuesday's third and final election, Santorum led Romney by a single percentage point, 38 percent to 37 percent, with 83 percent of votes tallied.

The results of Tuesday night's caucuses and primary aren't binding, which means Santorum won't immediately add any new delegates to his paltry total of 10 so far. (Who gets those delegates will be decided by state party officials in meetings to be held later this spring.) Binding or not, Santorum's wins give him momentum and buzz at a time when he badly needs it. Apart from his belated, razor-thin win in Iowa's caucuses last month, Santorum did not clinch any other early battleground races and has failed to supplant Newt Gingrich as the clear number two in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination.

Speaking from St. Charles, Missouri Tuesday night, Santorum touted the day's results as proof that he's the best Republican to challenge President Obama. "I don't stand here as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney," he said. "I stand here as conservative alternative to Barack Obama."

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