NYPD caught wikiwashing Wikipedia entries on police brutality

Edits to Wikipedia pages on Bell, Garner, Diallo traced to 1 Police Plaza

Edits ranged from sensitive entries on cases of police brutality to the British band, Chumbawamba. (Photocomposite)

By Kelly Weill 

Computers operating on the New York Police Department’s computer network at its 1 Police Plaza headquarters have been used to alter Wikipedia pages containing details of alleged police brutality, a review by Capital has revealed.

“The matter is under internal review,” an NYPD spokeswoman, Det. Cheryl Crispin, wrote in an email to Capital after examples of the changes were presented to the NYPD.

The edits and changes were linked to the NYPD through a series of Internet Protocol addresses, or IP addresses, which can be publicly tracked by various websites. (Here, for example, is one website that shows a number of IP addresses registered to the NYPD.) IP addresses can locate where a computer is when it connects to the Internet.

Computer users identified by Capital as working on the NYPD headquarters' network have edited and attempted to delete Wikipedia entries for several well-known victims of police altercations, including entries for Eric Garner, Sean Bell, and Amadou Diallo. Capital identified 85 NYPD addresses that have edited Wikipedia, although it is unclear how many users were involved, as computers on the NYPD network can operate on the department’s range of IP addresses.

NYPD IP addresses have also been used to edit entries on stop-and-frisk, NYPD scandals, and prominent figures in the city’s political and police leadership.

There are more than 15,000 IP addresses registered to the NYPD, which employs 50,000 people, including uniformed officers and civilians. Notable Wikipedia activity was linked to about a dozen of those NYPD IP addresses.

On the evening of Dec. 3, hours after a Staten Island grand jury ruled not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, a user on the 1 Police Plaza network made multiple edits, visible here and here, to the “Death of Eric Garner” Wikipedia entry. The edits, all concerning the actions of Eric Garner and the police officers involved in the confrontation, are as follows:

● “Garner raised both his arms in the air” was changed to “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke.”
● “[P]ush Garner's face into the sidewalk” was changed to “push Garner's head down into the sidewalk.”
● “Use of the chokehold has been prohibited” was changed to “Use of the chokehold is legal, but has been prohibited.”
● The sentence, “Garner, who was considerably larger than any of the officers, continued to struggle with them,” was added to the description of the incident.
● Instances of the word “chokehold” were replaced twice, once to “chokehold or headlock,” and once to “respiratory distress.”

As of March 12, three of these edits (“chokehold or headlock,” “respiratory distress,” and “head down”) remained in “Death of Eric Garner” article, while the rest had been removed in later Wikipedia users’ revisions.

This process of revision and counterrevision is typical of Wikipedia’s self-policing user community.

The website allows anyone to edit entries, either logged in with a Wikipedia account, or anonymously, in which case the website logs the user’s IP address and creates a publicly available record of the user’s edits. Edits from 1 Police Plaza were made anonymously, therefore creating a permanent Wikipedia log of edits made on NYPD IP addresses. Using this information, Capital was able to write a computer program that would search Wikipedia for all anonymous edits made on the range of IP addresses registered to 1 Police Plaza.

Over the past decade, NYPD IP addresses have logged hundreds of anonymous Wikipedia edits, many of which had nothing to do with police issues. A long series of edits contributes to entries on the Catholic Church. There is an edit to the entry on British band Chumbawamba, seven edits to the entry on ages of consent in Europe, and an edit vandalizing the entry for “stye” with graphic comments on gay sex. However, a significant number of edits by NYPD IP addresses have been to entries that challenge NYPD conduct.

On Nov. 25, 2006, undercover NYPD officers fired 50 times at three unarmed men, killing Sean Bell, and sparking citywide protests against police brutality. On April 12, 2007, a user on 1 Police Plaza’s network attempted to delete the Wikipedia entry “Sean Bell shooting incident”.

“He [Bell] was in the news for about two months, and now no one except Al Sharpton cares anymore.

The police shoot people every day, and times with a lot more than 50 bullets. This incident is more news than notable,” the user wrote on Wikipedia’s internal “Articles for deletion” page.

A user on the NYPD network made a second edit to the Sean Bell entry on Dec. 23, 2009, this time changing “one Latino and two African-American men were shot a total of fifty times” to “one Latino and two African-American men were shot at a total of fifty times” (emphasis Capital’s).

On Nov. 23, 2013, a user on the 1 Police Plaza network edited the Wikipedia entry for Amadou Diallo, an unarmed who was killed when police mistook his wallet for a gun in 1999.

The person using this IP address made two edits to a sentence about NYPD Officer Kenneth Boss, one of the officers involved in the shooting: “Officer Kenneth Boss had been previously involved in an incident where an unarmed man was shot, but remained working as a police officer” was changed to “Officer Kenneth Boss had been previously involved in an incident where an armed man was shot.”

“Unarmed” was changed to “armed,” and “but remained working as a police officer” was omitted entirely.

On Oct. 15, 2013, a user at 1 Police Plaza edited the entry for the “Alexien Lien beating,” an event in which bikers and an undercover NYPD officer chased and assaulted a driver on the West Side Highway. The user deleted paragraphs of potentially anti-NYPD vandalism from the entry. Among the deleted text were claims like “After this incident police were pressuring on bikers because Alexian Lien uncle is their boss. Looks like Alexian has influential friends in the govt and got away with the incident.”

On three separate occasions between October 2012 and March 2013, a user on the 1 Police Plaza network edited the “Stop-and-frisk” entry. The changes are as follows; bolded words indicate edits:

“The stop-and-frisk program of New York City is a practice of the New York City Police Department to stop, question, and search people.” was changed to “The stop-and-frisk program of New York City is a practice of the New York City Police Department to stop, question and, if the circumstances of the stop warrant it, conduct a frisk of the person stopped.”

● “The stop-and-frisk program of New York City is a practice of the New York City Police Department to stop, question and, if the circumstances of the stop warrant it, conduct a frisk of the person stopped.” was changed to “The stop-and-frisk program of New York City is a practice of the New York City Police Department by which a police officer who reasonably suspects a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a felony or a Penal Law misdemeanor, stops and questions that person, and, if the circumstances of the stop warrant it, conducts a frisk of the person stopped.”
● “The rules for stop and frisk are found in New York State Criminal Procedure Law section 140.50, and are based on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Terry v. Ohio” was added to the entry.
● “if the circumstances of the stop warrant it, conducts a frisk of the person stopped” was changed to “if the officer reasonably suspects he or she is in danger of physical injury, frisks the person stopped for weapons.”
● An extraneous “and” was removed from a sentence.

On two separate occasions, a user on the 1 Police Plaza network edited sections of Wikipedia’s “New York City Police Department” entry that described police misconduct. On June 30, 2006, the user deleted 1,502 characters from the “scandals and corruption” section, including a sentence that claimed “at the end of March, 2006, NYPD started to make changes to this very article in an attempt to censor scandals and corruption information.” The full deleted text can be read here.

On June 19, 2008, a user on the 1 Police Plaza network deleted the entire “Allegations of police misconduct and the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB)” and “Other incidents” sections from the entry, for a combined total of 25,611 deleted characters. The full deleted text can be read here and here.

Wikipedia discourages users from making edits that might constitute a conflict of interest. “COI [conflict of interest] editing involves contributing to Wikipedia to promote your own interests, including your business or financial interests, or those of your external relationships, such as with family, friends or employers,” Wikipedia states in its behavioral guidelines. “COI editing is strongly discouraged.”

A list of all anonymous Wikipedia edits made by NYPD IP addresses is available here.
—additional reporting by Azi Paybarah

Blame It on Hip-Hop: Why Morning Blow Came to SAE’s Rescue

Host Mika Brzezinski was sent back on the air to “clarify” the remarks blaming hip-hop for the racist sing-along by the Oklahoma SAE fraternity boys.

By Kirsten West Savali

As MSNBC continues its obvious attempts to draw conservatives away from Fox News, Morning Blow co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have fully embraced their roles as the Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin of the network.

Mocking rapper Waka Flocka Flame for canceling a scheduled performance at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat house at the University of Oklahoma, Brzezinski said, “If you look at every single song, I guess you call these, that he’s written, it’s a bunch of garbage. It’s full of n-words, it’s full of f-words.

It’s wrong. And he shouldn’t be disgusted with [the fraternity]; he should be disgusted with himself.”

Of course, Brzezinski was suggesting that Waka Flocka shouldn’t be disgusted by these words:
“There will never be a nigger SAE/There will never be a nigger SAE/You can hang ’em from a tree, but it will never start with me/There will never be a nigger SAE.”

Because, hip-hop.

Scarborough even went so far as to insinuate that SAE became familiar with the n-word through hip-hop—as opposed to, say, the generations of redneck ratchetry passed down to them through their Confederacy-loving brotherhood. But it was Brzezinski—with her snide comments about Waka Flocka’s music and side eyes at his stage name—who was given the role of bigot-in-residence, and it has been left to her to clean up the mess.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s The Cycle, Brzezinski backpedaled as furiously as Amy Pascal did after her hacked emails at Sony were exposed. She denied drawing a link between use of the n-word in hip-hop and SAE’s little party-bus jam session, saying, “Lyrics have nothing to do with the actions that happened on the bus.”

“Having said that,” Brzezinski said to the Rev. Al Sharpton (because, of course, where else would he be?), “[Waka Flocka’s] lyrics are inflammatory. They use the n-word and the f-bomb ... but that, again, is a separate conversation. It is sort of like the big picture in terms of where we are moving in terms of our society, and also how we view art and what is art and what is dangerous, or what is art and what perhaps could be disturbing to people. But that is a completely different and fascinating conversation.”

Oh, now it’s a different conversation? Now it’s fascinating? What a difference a day makes when black viewership is on the line.

No, Brzezinski did not blame hip-hop for the ease with which SAE members sang that song, nor for some white people’s casual use of the n-word in general. Scarborough and guest Bill Kristol, however, did. And she should be embarrassed that she’s ducking and dodging that issue on their behalf.

Let’s be clear: The misogynoir and violence that permeate hip-hop are not something to be dismissed, but that is not the conversation that was being had. And despite Brzezinski’s assertion otherwise, the only reason that she brought it up was to race-bait and switch the conversation from SAE to hip-hop—the black scapegoat in every single conversation about racism in this country, along with “irresponsible,” young black mothers and “absent” black fathers. She brought it up as if to say, “If you think these SAE kids are bad, you should check out this rapper.”

Bill O’Reilly must be so proud.

There is speech, moving one’s mouth to form words, and there is language, a “symbolic, rule-governed system used to convey a message.” And the speech on that frat bus, the juvenile use of the word “nigger,” is of much less concern than the language that the Morning Blow panel is trying to minimize.

The joy, the smug superiority, the frenzied, good-ole’-boy excitement of being among other white people who get it, who find humor in nooses squeezing the life from another human being—that is the language of racialized, state-sanctioned terrorism that taunts black America in 2015 as much as it did in 1856, when SAE was founded. So, trying to shift the blame to a culture born from that terror, a culture that exposes and at times reflects white supremacy, instead of keeping it squarely at the feet of privileged little white frat boys—and the antebellum Southern system that spawned them—is what’s disgusting here.

I don’t believe Brzezinski’s faux outrage over lyrics she probably Googled right before the show just to have something to say. I don’t believe that Scarborough is ignorant enough to believe that hip-hop is the inspiration for a hundred-year-old song that these frat boys reportedly had to learn upon initiation. Those attempts to shame those of us outraged into silence won’t work, and I would have more respect for them if they had cut through the bullshit and said what they really felt:

Black people: Stop teaching white people to hate you.

Hip-hop isn’t the system of oppression that the Morning Blow panel needs to dismantle. The thugs of Sigma Alpha Epsilon are just the rotten fruit of trees stained with the blood of black people who built this country on their backs.

And let’s be clear: When their white ancestors were holding lynching parties and hanging us from trees, they weren’t bumping Biggie.

Kirsten West Savali is a cultural critic and senior writer for The Root, where she explores the intersections of race, gender, politics and pop culture. Follow her on Twitter.

Grifters Gotta Grift: 'Tehran Tom' Cottons Up To Defense Industry

By Susie Madrak

So this cotton-picking Iran-letter-writing traitor is really sucking up after those fat defense campaign contributions! We are so very surprised! Via Lee Fang at the Intercept:

[...] Cotton will appear at an “Off the Record and strictly Non-Attribution” event with the National Defense Industrial Association, a lobbying and professional group for defense contractors.

The NDIA is composed of executives from major military businesses such as Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, ManTech International, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense and Booz Allen Hamilton, among other firms.

Cotton strongly advocates higher defense spending and a more aggressive foreign policy. As The New Republic’s David Ramsey noted, “Pick a topic — Syria, Iran, Russia, ISIS, drones, NSA snooping — and Cotton can be found at the hawkish outer edge of the debate…During his senate campaign, he told a tele-townhall that ISIS and Mexican drug cartels joining forces to attack Arkansas was an ‘urgent problem.'”

On Iran, Cotton has issued specific calls for military intervention. In December he said Congress should consider supplying Israel with B-52s and so-called “bunker-buster” bombs — both items manufactured by NDIA member Boeing — to be used for a possible strike against Iran.

Asked if Cotton will speak about his Iran letter tomorrow, Jimmy Thomas, NDIA Director of Legislative Policy, said, “[M]ost members…talk about everything from the budget to Iran…so it’s highly likely that he may address that in his remarks.” According to Thomas, the Cotton event was scheduled in January, “but certainly we bring people to the platform that have influence directly on our issues.”

Here's the kind of teabagger scoundrel Tom is. Despite his Harvard Law degree, he proposed this blatantly unconstitutional law back when he was still in Congress, because FREEDOM:

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday offered legislative language that would "automatically" punish family members of people who violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, levying sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
The provision was introduced as an amendment to the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013, which lays out strong penalties for people who violate human rights, engage in censorship, or commit other abuses associated with the Iranian government.

Cotton also seeks to punish any family member of those people, "to include a spouse and any relative to the third degree," including, "parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids," Cotton said.

"There would be no investigation," Cotton said during Wednesday's markup hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "If the prime malefactor of the family is identified as on the list for sanctions, then everyone within their family would automatically come within the sanctions regime as well. It'd be very hard to demonstrate and investigate to conclusive proof."

Oh, and Jonathan Chait calls him "the perfect Republican."

ISIS falling apart from within, reports claim

Brutal, militant group Boko Haram reportedly pledged their official allegiance to the radical group ISIS. Ed Schultz, former Rep. Joe Sestak, Rep. Gerry Connolly and Lacie Heeley discuss.

World of Warcraft gamer dies after playing 19 hours straight

By Sully Sheperd

A 24 years old man believed to be addicted to World of Warcraft died after playing 19-hours straight.

Wu Tai was at an Internet cafe in Shanghai, China for playing the role-playing game. After he spent 19 hours of playing, his friends saw him away from screen and violently coughing. He slumped in his chair after the coughing attack, and his gaming compatriots noticed he was dabbing blood away from his mouth with a handkerchief. The gamer sitting next to him said:

“I suddenly heard him groan and when I turned to see what had happened he was very pale and looked uncomfortable.
He was dabbing his mouth with a hankie which had blood on it.
I asked him if he was OK and he said he’d felt better, but that he would be OK. I called for an ambulance while my friend went to get some help from staff. But while we waited he just died in front of us, and there was nothing the staff could do.”

The medical crews tried to rescue him but he was already dead. A police man said about this:

“An autopsy will determine the cause of death but there seems little doubt his playing on the computer for 19 hours instead of resting contributed to his death.”

Of course playing World of Warcraft is not dangerous as long as people listen to developers and take 15 minutes break after each hour of playing.

Rahm Emanuel could lose re-election

Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces a tight run-off campaign, trying to appeal to working families and teachers despite his track record. Ed Schultz, Mayoral Candidate Jesus Garcia discuss.

Robert Menendez: ‘I am not going anywhere’

By Burgess Everett
 

A defiant Sen. Robert Menendez forcefully denied any wrongdoing on Friday night as the Justice Department prepared to bring corruption charges against the New Jersey Democrat.

In a hastily-arranged press conference at a Newark Hilton, the influential Democratic lawmaker acknowledged that there is an “ongoing inquiry” and declined to take questions about the looming charges he is set to face. But he made clear that he had no intention of resigning,

“I am not going anywhere,” Menendez told a bank of television cameras.

The senator made no mention of whether he will step down from his prominent post as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez is expected to be charged over using his office to aid the business interests of Salomon Melgen, a political ally and also a personal friend, first reported by CNN. In his two-minute statement, the two-term senator made no effort to distance himself from Melgen, who he called a “real friend,” but pushed back against the suggestion he’s done anything illegal.

Also on POLITICO

Feds to charge Menendez with corruption

JOHN BRESNAHAN, MANU RAJU and BURGESS EVERETT

“Let me be very clear, very clear. I have always conducted myself appropriately and in accordance with the law,” Menendez said, listing his advocacy for anti-terrorism preparation and hurricane recovery. “As to Dr. Melgen, anyone who knows us knows that he and his family and me and my family have been real friends for more than two decades.”

He added that he and Melgen have “given each other birthday, holiday and wedding presents just as friends do.” Menendez had previously paid back $70,000 to Melgen for unreported flights on his private plane.

One of President Barack Obama’s sharpest critics on the president’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran, Menendez highlighted his fight to make “certain that Iran never, never achieves the ability to produce nuclear weapons.”

No reporters shouted questions after he delivered his statement, first in English then in Spanish. But Menendez indicated he may have more to say in the future.

“As much as I would like to, I cannot make any additional comments or answer any questions. The time may come to do that, and I hope you will understand,” he told reporters.

'Who knows? She could implode totally'

Clinton email scandal alarms Democrats.

By Gabriel Debenedetti

Three days into the rolling controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email address as Secretary of State, Democrats are showing signs of stress.

In interviews with more than three dozen Democratic activists, donors, and officials from across the country — including many in the influential presidential nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — some were scathing in their criticism over the revelations, while others admitted to being unnerved.

“I’m very disappointed that yet another person in political power treats the ‘rules’ as if they do not apply to them,” said Matt Tapscott, chairman of Iowa’s Winneshiek County Democrats.

“This story doesn’t alter my opinion of Hillary,” said Martin Peterson, chairman of Iowa’s Crawford County Democrats, “but it does alarm me that she is a lightning rod for any type of criticism of invented scandals by the opposition.”

At the moment, Democrats continue to present a largely united front in their public support for Clinton and in their belief that the email issue isn’t one that will ultimately matter to voters.

But while the overall message of trust in the presumptive frontrunner is clear, the saga is also exposing deep party-wide anxieties about having so much invested in a single candidate, more than 20 months before November 2016.

“It adds more reason to get other people involved in this process, to make sure we have other strong, good candidates running,” said Larry Hogden, chairman of Iowa’s Cedar County Democrats.

“Because, who knows? She could implode totally.”

Some locals are “wringing their hands and shaking their heads,” said Linda Nelson, chairwoman of Iowa’s Pottawattamie County Democrats. “It’s just one more straw that can break the camel’s back, in their eyes.”

For many Democrats — even those who insist the email questions are unimportant to voters and little more than an optics problem for Clinton, ginned up by Republicans and fanned by cable news pundits — the moment has exposed a party that has few presidential prospects organized enough to fully test Clinton, or prepared to step into the void in the event that she falters.

“What I’m hearing from other people is that they want an actual primary,” said Iowa City activist and blogger John Deeth. “The main problem with this whole email thing is that at the moment there’s no real option. Jim Webb is not considered a serious option. [Martin] O’Malley has got the problem of being considered another old white guy. The only viable option I see out there is [Joe] Biden, [Bernie] Sanders, and [Elizabeth] Warren.”

Doug Grant, the Democratic chairman for northern Grafton County in New Hampshire, framed it this way:

“Is Hillary electable? Admittedly the Republicans have a lot of problems with their candidates who are members of the slave-and serf-owning classes, but we worry nevertheless that one of them will become the next president,” he said. “I would like to see an alternative to Hillary who was popular, populist, wanted to run, electable, not too old and could raise money.”

The predicament in which the party finds itself as it nears the sunset of the Obama era was laid out in stark terms in the recent Democratic National Committee “autopsy” report, which emphasized the need to build a strong party bench in the wake of sweeping electoral losses in 2014 from state houses to governors’ mansions, to the Senate, and a broader hollowing out of the party infrastructure since Obama’s election in 2008. The party’s lack of depth at the national level is reflected in the flimsy emerging presidential field beyond the Clinton juggernaut, despite some activists’ attempts to encourage popular figures to jump in the race to ensure Clinton is battle-tested before the general election.

It’s a sign of Clinton’s strength that none of the influential Democrats POLITICO surveyed on Wednesday or Thursday indicated that the email news would alone be enough to turn them away from Clinton entirely. The former senator and First Lady’s allies have worked overtime to insist that the email flap is unimportant to Americans themselves.
 
“Voters do not give a shit. They do not even give a fart,” said longtime Clinton ally and Democratic strategist Paul Begala, echoing the sentiments of most Clinton allies who believe the all-but-certain nominee is enough of a defined quantity in voters’ eyes that Republican attacks on her email policies cannot sway them — especially not over a year-and-a-half before she faces a competitive vote.

“Find me one persuadable voter who agrees with HRC on the issues but will vote against her because she has a non-archival-compliant email system and I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window and say it smells like roses,” he said.

Other Democrats were more measured, insisting that the news was worrisome and that the party should field more presidential contenders in case Clinton struggles in a serious way. But most kept their criticisms to a minimum, and just one early-state figure reported hearing from any of the other potential candidates since the news broke on Monday night.

Some of Clinton’s financial backers are scratching their heads as the story has spiraled into a major point of conversation on cable news and radio, questioning the turbulent home-stretch of Clinton’s pre-campaign phase.

One Democratic donor told POLITICO on Wednesday that Clinton’s last few days have caused concern in New York’s influential donor community. But most of her high-level donors have stood staunchly by her side, and Clinton had a chance to speak with many of her backers on Wednesday night as she headlined the Clinton Foundation’s annual gala — which cost between $2,500 and $100,000 to attend — in Manhattan’s financial district.
 
After disappointing several supporters by not addressing the swirling controversies during a Tuesday appearance in Washington, Clinton on Thursday added a Saturday stop in Miami to her schedule — a stop where many Clinton-watchers expect her to comment on the news.

Announced just hours after Clinton tweeted that she had asked the State Department to release her emails after reviewing them, the appearance will be at an event that was originally supposed to be hosted just by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.
After her stop in Miami, Clinton will return to New York for a pair of major events where she will unveil her much-anticipated report on the status of women and girls worldwide, alongside a slate of high-profile women.

Clinton’s recent stumbles, however, have served as a reminder of her struggles during her summer 2014 book tour, despite the carefully designed sprint through March.

“There is some concern. Some people are saying, ‘Is this going to blow up in her face?,’” said Jack Hatch, the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Iowa governor in 2014.

Others see the ongoing questions as an indication that Clinton has to better manage her public image in the weeks before she officially announces her candidacy, if Democrats are going to win the White House.
 

“This is a signal, it’s a warning, that whatever [else] there may be … get it straight, be prepared to be open with it, above board,” said former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder, noting that at a moment of deep public distrust of the government, the last thing Clinton needs is to come across as secretive. “She can’t afford to give any impression that, ‘This is the way it’s going to be from the start of my campaign, or from my government.’ I think they’re aware of that.”

The general trust in Clinton’s ability to handle the situation is not universal, however. At least one outspoken Democratic activist who has a bad history with the Clintons seized upon the news to insist that others jump in the race.

“Her [potential] campaign is so disdainful of anybody who raises any issues,” said former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian, a long-standing booster of Vice President Joe Biden. “You need to get out ahead of it. How does she not see that one coming?”

Biden has raised some eyebrows by appearing in New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina in recent weeks on official White House business, but the vast majority of Democrats concede it is highly unlikely that the 72-year-old vice president throws his hat in the ring.

Few of Clinton’s possible rivals have spent much time in the early states this year, though former Maryland Governor O’Malley has been ramping up his travel after subtly jabbing at Clinton during a stop in South Carolina last weekend.

But O’Malley is not expected to weigh in on the email saga before the weekend, and even his friends in early states say the controversy is overblown.

“I’ve seen it in the news. My wife and I have sat together to watch it on the news, and we have not said a word to each other about it. I’ve had no one — what’s it been out, three days? — not one person has said a thing. Family, friends, people I’ve run into, not one person has brought it up as a topic,” said O’Malley friend Dan O’Neil, an alderman in Manchester, N.H.

O’Malley is set to appear in New Hampshire and Kansas this weekend before a speaking engagement in Washington next week and a swing through Iowa later this month. And former Virginia Sen. James Webb formed an exploratory committee in November, but he has been largely quiet since then, despite scheduling one Iowa appearance for late March.

Craig Crawford, Webb’s spokesman, said he doesn’t think voters care about Clinton’s emails.

“They’d rather all be talking about jobs and the economy and how working people can get a leg up when wages are falling and income at the top is growing,” he said.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist who is technically an Independent, continues to waffle over running. And the groups backing a run by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who says she won’t run, are unlikely to weigh in on anything Clinton does as they stick to positive messaging and work to organize in Iowa and New Hampshire for Warren.

But while Republicans and reporters continue to dig into Clinton’s email practices, a mix of concerned resignation and urgency has settled in among Democrats involved in the nominating process.

“It may continue to haunt her,” said Mary Hoyer, chair of Iowa’s Henry County Democrats, in an email. “She has to go on the offensive and find her message or she will never overcome these ‘paper cuts.’”

Katie Glueck, Jonathan Topaz, and Ben Schreckinger contributed to this report.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews Promises ‘Transparent’ Coverage If Wife Runs For Congress

By Lloyd Grove

The MSNBC host said he had the strongest belief in wife Kathleen’s judgment and values, and if she runs for office her campaign will be covered fairly by the network.

Six years ago, MSNBC host Chris Matthews briefly flirted with running for public office—a Senate seat from his native Pennsylvania—and then quickly dropped the idea. But now it looks like his wife, Kathleen, might actually take the plunge.

“Last night, Kathleen decided she is going to take a serious look at running for the United States Congress from where we live in Maryland,” Matthews told viewers of Thursday night’s Hardball, his 7 p.m. political show. “Our local congressman, a very good guy, by the way, just announced he is running for the U.S. Senate, and this development is all unfolding quickly.”


 

Matthews explained that he was discussing the prospect of his wife’s candidacy on the air because “it’s important in my position here to be as transparent as possible with you, our loyal viewers.”

Thursday night’s disclosure was prompted by a report in Politico that Matthews’s wife of nearly four decades—a Marriott Corp. public relations executive and a local celebrity in her own right as a former longtime news anchor on WJLA-TV, Washington’s ABC affiliate—is “likely” to mount a campaign to replace Rep. Chris Van Hollen Jr. in the 2016 election cycle.

The seven-term Democratic congressman, who represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District in the affluent suburbs of the nation’s capital, including Chevy Chase where Chris and Kathleen Matthews live, on Wednesday declared his candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Barbara Mikulski, who is retiring after 30 years in the Senate.

“This is something I’ve just got to deal with,” Matthews told me Thursday morning when I reached him at home. “I think people know who I am. I talk about Kathleen on the show all the time, and she’s been on a good number of times…I think viewers should have a heads-up from me about what I know—so they’re going to get it.”

If Kathleen Matthews does decide to run, her campaign would likely create ethical complications for her outspoken husband, 69, who is also the author of seven books about politics and history.

“I know her commitment runs truly deep.In our nearly four decades together I have always had the strongest belief in her judgment and values.”

Addressing possible ethical issues, an MSNBC source told The Daily Beast: “As this process moves forward, if Kathleen decides to run for office, MSNBC and the Hardball Team would take all appropriate measures to ensure that coverage is transparent and fair, which would include fully disclosing Chris’ relationship to Kathleen if her candidacy is mentioned either by him or a guest.”
The MSNBC source added: “Chris doesn’t cover individual congressional races too regularly, which is worth noting.”

The question of campaign contributions would also be a potential sticky wicket. The NBC Universal News Group, of which MSNBC is a subsidiary, imposes strict rules on its anchors, who are generally prohibited from donating to political campaigns unless they receive prior approval.

In 2010, MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann, a liberal Democrat, and Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, were punished with two-day suspensions for writing checks to various candidates without permission.

In Matthews’ case, he’s sleeping with the prospective candidate, the mother of their three grown children, so it’s reasonable to ask if he’ll receive a marital exemption.

The MSNBC source referred me to the “all appropriate measures” vow. After all, even if their bank accounts are not commingled and he doesn’t max out in hard money, Matthews, if he’s a decent spouse, will definitely be making “in-kind” contributions.

A self-styled centrist Democrat, Matthews was a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and a top aide to Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill before joining the chattering classes as a columnist and Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner and later a television host and protégé of then-NBC executive Roger Ailes on the fledgling “America’s Talking” network, a forerunner to MNSBC.

“Kathleen and I have not had much time to talk about it—right now she’s on business overseas, heading from Berlin to South Africa right now—but I know she’s been involved with public issues her entire career from anchoring the news to serving as a top executive with Marriott,” Matthews said on the air. “I know her commitment runs truly deep. In our nearly four decades together I have always had the strongest belief in her judgment and values.”

He added: “I am proud of her and support her. And if she does indeed decide to run, then we will make sure we continue to fully disclose my relationship—I’ve never denied it—with her, as part of our commitment here at MSNBC to be transparent and fair in our coverage.”

Debt buyers bury hard-hit consumers in lies

Posted by Jim Hightower

Listen to this Commentary

Whenever a corporation issues a statement declaring that it is committed to "treating consumers fairly and with respect," chances are it's not.

After all, if the outfit was actually doing it, there would be no need for a statement. Indeed, this particular claim came from Encore Capital, one of our country's largest buyers of bad consumer debt – and it definitely has not been playing nice with the people it browbeats to collect overdue credit card bills, car loans, etc.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman found that Encore, based in San Diego, filed nearly 240,000 lawsuits against debtors in a recent four-year period, using our courts as its private collection arm. Problem is, Encore's bulk filing of lawsuits are rife with errors, out-of-date payment data, fabricated credit card statements, etc. Tons of them are missing original loan documents, payment histories, and other proof of debt.

Debt predators, however, scoot around this lack of facts by simply having their employees sign affidavits asserting that the level of money owed is accurate. Judges, overwhelmed by the unending flood of lawsuits filed by Encore et al, have accepted those affidavits as true, thus ruling in favor of the corporations. But Schneiderman found that – Surprise! – affidavits were simply being rubber-stamped by company employees, who didn't have time to check for accuracy. An employee of one large debt-buyer testified that he was having to sign about 2,000 affidavits a day!

This is no minor scam – one in seven adults in the U.S. is under pursuit by debt collectors. It's hard enough for struggling families to claw their way out from under the economic crash without having lying, cheating, predator corporations twist the court system to pick their pockets and shut off their hope of recovery.

"Debt Buyer Faces Fine In Doubtful Lawsuits," The New York Times, January 9, 2015.

Shadow of Mordor, Arkham Knight highlight this week’s best game trailers

By Jacob Siegal

Every week, a landslide of video game trailers hit the Internet, hyping up the games that have just been released, the games that are about to be released and even the games that don’t have release dates. It can be a bit overwhelming to keep up with all of them, which is why we’ve decided to collect our favorites into a single post.



A Batman game with a mature ESRB rating? Count me in. Arkham City didn’t blow me away like it did many others, but with the Batmobile in tow and the darker tone of Arkham Knight, I’m ready for it to be June already.



This isn’t Final Fantasy XV, but it’s the next best thing. Final Fantasy Type-0 HD pleasantly surprised me when I had a chance to go hands-on with it last year. The game has supposedly received a few major tweaks since then as well, so I’m hoping for a polished port when this game hits PS4 and Xbox One in March.



The final DLC for Shadow of Mordor brings Celebrimbor face-to-face with the Dark Lord himself. The DLC for Shadow of Mordor has been surprisingly competent up to this point, but even if you’ve missed out on everything before it, The Bright Lord DLC looks like it will be the one to pick up.



I have no idea why this exists, but it’s free to download and you don’t even need to own Forza Horizon 2 to play it. Still no word on whether Vin Diesel did any voice over work for the game.




OlliOlli was a hit in 2014, and just over a year later, the sequel is nearly ready to launch on PS4 and PS Vita. It looks like more of the same, so if you enjoyed the first one, OlliOlli2 shouldn’t disappoint.

5 Right-Wing Lunacies This Week: The Nonstop Comedy Show of CPAC

By Janet Allon / AlterNet

 

CPAC is like a nonstop comedy show. One hit after another. Scott Walker tried to steal the show by comparing ISIS to those vicious union members he battled in his state, and he was rightfully and roundly ridiculed for that. It'll take some serious backtracking and spinning to undo the damage to the Republican darling. But he was far from the only standup comedian on the roster.

1. Duck Dynasty star to CPAC: Bring your Bible to the Oval Office, and your woman, 'cause the hippies are coming to get you.

Phil Robertson issued the above piece of advice to the CPAC audience, and no one is exactly clear what it means, honestly. Nor did the rest of his speech make a whole lot of sense. His biggest concern seems to be that Republicans not get sexually transmitted diseases.

“There is a penalty to be paid from what the beatniks, who morphed into the hippies (did)!” the Duck Commander rambled, rather incoherently. “What do you call the 110 million people who have sexually transmitted illnesses? It’s the revenge of the hippies! Sex, drugs and rock & roll have come back to haunt us!”

Head for the hills, people! With your Bible under one arm, and your woman under the other! "You lose your religion," Duck Commander bellowed. "And you lose your morality."

Robertson actually claimed, though he "hated to admit it," that he had done some research on the CDC website and found out that only one encounter was necessary to contract a sexually transmitted illness. “How many seconds does it take to get genital herpes?” he asked the CPAC audience, rhetorically. “It said 30 seconds. I’m like, whoa, that’s pretty quick.”

Well, thanks Phil. This has all been terribly enlightening.

Here's the video in case you'd like to enjoy it yourself:
 

 

2. Sarah Palin says a bunch of nonsense at CPAC, then inadvertently says something extremely true.

It’s a bit disorienting, really. In her speech at CPAC, Sarah Palin stayed in her usual history-mangling character when she suggested that the U.S. killed all the Nazis in WWII, when a passing acquaintance with the subject shows is laughably far from the truth. She said we should do the same to ISIS, just kill all of them—both impossible and plain old stupid and dangerous. So far, so good. Palin doing Palin.

Then she did something totally off brand, and wandered into the thickets of truth. It was a mistake, we’re sure. She said: “It’s said that old men declare wars, and then they send the young ones to fight ‘em. So it’s the duty of he who sends them to actually make sure that we can win those wars. And it’s our duty to elect an honorable commander-in-chief who is willing to make the same sacrifices he sends others away to make.”

So, as Raw Story figures, Palin is essentially saying that neither she, nor any other Republican hopeful is qualified to be president, since none has been willing to make such a sacrifice. Governors Jeb Bush of Florida, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin have not served, nor have Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida. Nor, of course, Sarah Palin herself, although her son Track, who served in Iraq for a year.

So, basically, everybody out of the pool!

Except Track. Track Palin for President! Woohoo!

3. Jim Inhofe reduces climate change debate to a snowball.

There has been some snow this winter, in case you have not heard. And to Senator Jim Inhofe, that can only mean one thing. It’s cold out! Also, snowball fight! Oh yeah, and obviously climate change must be a hoax.

To drive his point home, darned if the Senate’s chief climate change denier didn’t bring a snowball to the Senate floor and toss it. Oh! Feel the burn, all you science believers!

"In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, 'You know what this is?'" Inhofe said, holding up his secret weapon. "It's a snowball, from outside here. So it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable."

Yes it is. Very very cold.

Never mind that despite some record low temperatures in various parts of the country, 2014 remains the warmest year on record, and the nation overall has been experiencing a warmer-than-average winter. It’s cold where Inhofe is—he has to bundle up—and he’d rather just throw a snowball than deal with all that pesky data.

4. Stupid Giuliana Rancic makes racist comment about black hair and Solange Knowles has a great response.

Joan Rivers’ replacement, Giuliana Rancic, may have apologized for her idiotic and racist snark about 18-year-old actress and singer Zendaya’s dreadlocks at the Oscars, but the comments spoke volumes about Hollywood’s inability to regard African Americans as equals and creative forces to be reckoned with. In her “Fashion Police” roundup, Rancic ventured away from talking about Zendaya’s Vivienne Westwood gown, to suggest that her hair probably smells of “patchouli oil” and “weed.”

Really? Why?

Twitter erupted in understandable outrage over the fact that black women's hair just keeps being an obnoxious topic of discussion and object of bewilderment and scrutiny by white powers that be. As HuffPo says, “From TSA agents patting down Afros, a woman having to cut her locks to keep her job, and the Army's discriminatory ban on particular African American hairstyles—the list goes on and on.”

It’s not a random comment, and Rancic’s “I’m sorry if I offended you” apology really does not wash. Zendaya’s eloquent outrage put the “Fashion Police” to shame, as did Solange Knowles’ nifty response.

just shut up, white people. Shut up.

5. Fox News doctor: Crack babies come from women who smoke weed!

Fox News Medical A-Team (ha!) doctor David Samadi is not one for scientific reports. Or science, or, like, facts. So he certainly was not going to admit that a recent study published in Scientific Reports found that pot is quite possibly the least harmful drug humans ingest, including alcohol and cigarettes.

“I think it’s a very dangerous study,” Samadi argued. “People need to be very careful about not getting the wrong message from this study. They’re using a lethal dose as a comparison. For example, they’re putting pot against or weed against cocaine or alcohol. We know you need less amount of alcohol to die. So, they’re using death to see what’s dangerous and what’s not.”

Wait, what?

He went on to make various hysterical claims, such as that pot causes heart attacks and psychosis.

Then this bit of nonsense: “Now we have crack babies coming in because pregnant women are smoking this whole marijuana business.”

They are smoking the whole marijuana business.

Looks like his brain is misfiring, and the dangerous drug he is on appears to be a combination anti-science pathology, anti-pot hysteria and just not having done his homework about the fact that the whole crack baby scare was a myth. Not to mention the fact that the mythological crack babies were not born to mothers who smoked pot.

Walker unscripted falls flat

Gov. Scott Walker proudly touts his ability to survive a recall election and his union busting ways, but a poorly planned analogy at CPAC fails to impress. Ed Schultz, John Nichols, and Jean Ross discuss.

Erased: ISIS and the Destruction of Ancient Artifacts

The smashing of priceless sculptures is part of a tradition of iconoclasm that goes back to Abraham.

By David A. Graham Feb 26 2015, 4:05 PM ET

AP/The Atlantic

New videos released on Thursday apparently show ISIS militants destroying Assyrian and Akkadian artifacts in Mosul—smashing statues and scraping through a winged bull from the 7th century B.C.

This is only the latest episode in a spree of iconoclasm ISIS has unleashed across the areas under its control in Iraq and Syria. In May 2014, there were reports of separate Assyrian artifacts being excavated and destroyed. In July 2014, fighters destroyed the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah in Nineveh.

Earlier this week, reports said the group had burned 100,000 books and manuscripts from the Mosul library.

One way to think about this is as part of a concerted attack on civilization itself. "I'm totally shocked," a professor at the University of Mosul's college of archeology told the AP. "It's a catastrophe. With the destruction of these artifacts, we can no longer be proud of Mosul's civilization."

But another way to think about it is as squarely in a tradition of iconoclasm. Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, himself destroyed idols, according to tradition. There's a strong tradition of icon-destruction in Christianity. And in pre-Islamic Mecca, the Kaaba was the site of multiple idols, which Muhammad cleared out before rededicating the site to God. This is certainly the tradition to which ISIS wishes to claim a connection. The Taliban, another group that claimed fidelity to the principles of early Islam, also spent a great deal of time destroying images of people—most notably the massive Buddhas at Bamiyan in Afghanistan. The tomb of Muhammad in Mecca was itself destroyed by Ibn Saud, the first monarch of Saudi Arabia, early in the 20th century.

 

The fog of war makes it tough to tell when genuine artifacts are missing or in danger.

In reality, the relationship with icons in all three Abrahamic religions is rather more elaborate than Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would want us to believe—but the tradition is there. Destroying traces of forebears, and even robbing and destroying tombs, has perhaps a longer tradition in civilization than preservation.

ISIS can't claim total purity on the matter itself, either. The group has widely been reported to be profiting by selling plundered artifacts on the black market. In fact, there's speculation among archeologists that some of the destruction in the new videos is a sham. While the winged-bull sculpture was most likely original, the other statues appear to be replicas. Some of the artifacts have been removed to Baghdad, while others may have been sold off. "You can see iron bars inside," Mark Altaweel of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London told Channel 4. "The originals don't have iron bars." Other reports, such as the AP's, quoted experts familiar with the museum saying most of the pieces are genuine.

The Daily News has a video of the event:

Even in the scope of the destruction wrought by ISIS and the Syrian civil war, the damage to irreplaceable pieces of history is enormous. That's especially true since the region's archaeological history is so rich—stretching from the beginnings to civilization through the biblical period and on into the history of Islam—and because it follows on the American invasion of Iraq, which was itself a huge blow to museums and preservation. Not all of the damage results from religious zealotry or plain malice; in many cases, civilians dig for artifacts to sell simply for subsistence in the midst of war. Even when items aren't destroyed, they may be scattered to private collections through the black market and never recovered.

In September, Secretary of State John Kerry and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova spoke at an event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art about preserving heritage. "How shocking and historically shameful it would be if we did nothing while the forces of chaos rob the very cradle of our civilization," Kerry said. "So many different traditions trace their roots back to this part of the world, as we all know. Our heritage is literally in peril in this moment, and we believe it is imperative that we act now."

Those are strong words. But as the fighting drags on and the U.S. and its allies struggle to find effective ways to reckon with ISIS, the futility of the words becomes clearer, and priceless objects disappear into dust.

3D Printer Shop 'Pixelwizard' Recreates Missing Retro Computer Covers & Parts

By Cauterize

When you lose the cover for your Amiga 1200's expansion port, or even worse damage the front door to your Commodore 1702 monitor's control panel, what do you do? Similar to the Nintendo Game Boy's battery cover, replacing these individual parts is a difficult task requiring you to rely on eBay users to lists spares, as and when they find them. That's all about to change though as a 3D printing enthusiast has set up shop selling those easily lost parts from retro computers and consoles.

Starting out with a selection of Commodore based replacements, online shop Pixelwizard has begun providing retro gamers with the all important parts needed to fix up their kit. All printed from scratch using accurate 3D models of the originals as reference, all sales come in white nylon plastic with a matte finish and slight grainy feel. Looking through each product's page, you'll soon notice how each and every one of these newly printed pieces fits into place perfectly, at what also appears to be a reasonable price too.

As of speaking here's what's currently available thanks to the wonders of 3D printing:

• Expansion Slot Cover DVI compatible to Amiga 1200
• 3,5" Floppy Rails compatible to Amiga 3000
• Expansion Slot Cover compatible to Amiga 1000
• Interlock Knobs for SX-64
• Front Cover compatible to Commodore Monitor 1702

While all of these products may be for Commodore systems, Pixelwizard does leave things open for consoles and handhelds too. Although there are no products currently in the category, there is a section marked for Nintendo hardware - one we can only assume will soon be flooded with Game Boy battery covers and Nintendo 64 expansion port flaps. That said, should you be looking for a specific part, this might be the one shop you want to drop a line.

Link: Pixelwizard's 3D Printed Retro Replacements

Purina sued over claims it killed 4,000 dogs with 'toxic' food

By James Joiner 

A class action lawsuit alleges a mold byproduct used in kibble is leading pets to agonizing deaths.

Despite years of online allegations that one of the most popular dog food brands has been poisoning pets, it wasn’t until just weeks ago that the cat was let out of the bag in a court filing. A class action lawsuit was filed that blames the deaths of thousands of dogs on one of Purina’s most popular brands of chow.

Googling Nestle Purina Petcare’s Beneful brand will get you the pet food manufacturer’s website, a Facebook page with over a million likes, and, in stark contrast, a Consumer Affairs page with 708 one-star ratings supported with page after grim page detailing dogs suffering slow, agonizing deaths from mysterious causes.

Internal bleeding. Diarrhea. Seizures. Liver malfunction. It reads like something from a horror movie or a plague documentary, but a suit brought in California federal court by plaintiff Frank Lucido alleges that this is all too real—and too frequent to be a coincidence.

But it all relies upon finding a chemical that may be in the food—and has been a staple in dog food recalls in the past—with an experiment that neither Lucido, his lawyers, or even independent scientists have even begun to conduct.

Lucido said it began last month when his beloved German shepherd began losing an alarming amount of hair, smelled strange, and wound up at the vet with symptoms “consistent with poisoning.” A week later, his wife found one of their other dogs, an English Bulldog, dead. An autopsy showed signs of internal bleeding in the stomach and lesions on the liver, symptoms eerily similar to the shepherd’s, according to the complaint. Then their third dog also became ill.

“All these dogs are eating Beneful,” explained Jeff Cereghino, one of the attorneys representing Lucido in the action. “And the dogs are all, for a variety of reasons, not in the same house. So you take away the automatic assumption that the neighbor didn’t like the dogs or whatever. He was feeding them Beneful at the start of this, and one got sick and died, the other two were very ill. And then he started doing a little research, and he realized the causal link, at least in his mind, was the food.”

It doesn’t take much digging to uncover what appears to be a pattern of allegations, Cereghino said. Lots and lots of allegations. After hearing Lucido’s story, Cereghino checked it out for himself.

“We found a significant number of folks who were trying to draw exactly the same causal link.

Thousands,” he said.

The sheer volume is what made the seasoned lawyer—one who said “a good part of our business is class action work”—realize something may be fishy.

“But when I look at 4,000? Holy hell, there’s a lot of people out here.”

“If it’s a hundred or so, it’s like, ‘Okay, a lot of dogs eat Beneful; things happen.’ But when you start getting into the thousands… The long and short of it is the complaint pyramid is such that even with the Internet–easy access to complain about things– there’s still a very large percentage of folks who simply don’t complain, or whose vet tells ‘em, ‘We don’t know what happened,’ and they’re not drawing conclusions or leaping to assumptions, “ he said.

“But when I look at 4,000? Holy hell, there’s a lot of people out here.”

So Cereghino and his partners started talking to those people, comparing more and more of the stories of heartbreak.

“There seems to be somewhat of a singular event. [The dogs] are vomiting. They’re having liver problems, failures,” he said. “I’m not a vet, but you look at some of this stuff and say, ‘OK, we’re starting to have similar symptoms across the board, and we’re starting to have causation.’”

When these dire accusations first started appearing online years ago, the initial accusation was that one of the additives in the food, propylene glycol, was the culprit.

Purina maintains the type of propylene it uses is perfectly safe for consumption, saying on its website: “Propylene glycol is an FDA-approved food additive that’s also in human foods like salad dressing and cake mix.”

It’s also the same substance that caused the spiced whiskey Fireball to be recalled in Europe, which found excessive amounts of the chemical, also used in antifreeze, in the cinnamon swill last fall. The tainted liquor was from the North American batch because, in the U.S., much higher volumes of antifreeze additives are OK for human—or canine—consumption.

“It’s horrible. That is something that you don’t want in dog food,” noted veterinarian and author Karen "Doc" Halligan when reached by phone. “It’s controversial. Why do you want to take a risk if there’s any kind of chance that that could be bad for them?”

But whether it’s good for dogs or not, food grade propylene glycol has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It also hasn’t been linked to toxicity, especially the type being alleged against Beneful.

Cereghino thinks there’s another culprit in the mix, and he’s named it in the lawsuit. They’re called mycotoxins.

Translated directly from the Greek words for “fungus poison,” mycotoxins are, essentially, a toxic byproduct of mold. When it comes to ducking discovery, they’re an especially crafty brand mold byproduct, and one found in all types of grains.

If you read the ingredients label of Beneful, it sounds an awful lot like breakfast cereal: ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, rice flour, soy flour. Sure, there’s some “chicken byproduct meal” and “animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols,” but the food is certainly more grain than meat.

“In the channels of trade, grain is quite a lot like hamburger these days. As in ‘There’s multiple cows in a hamburger,’ if you will,” explained Dr. Gregory Möller, professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at the University of Idaho and Washington State University joint School of Food Science. “It’s a mixed and blended commodity. So one farmer, one granary, or one mill, may have not stored their product well, which allowed for mold growth in storage.”

Even if a scientist were to stumble upon a load of grain rife with mycotoxins, Möller added, he or she could test it and still miss them.

“You can go into a sample that is known contaminated,” Möller noted. “But the particular sub sample you pull may not have enough on it to actually see. There is that challenge.”

This can be exacerbated when the host grain is earmarked for non-human use.

“Commodities that are targeted towards pet foods are managed a little bit differently, in terms of the regulatory criteria they have to pass,” he continued. “It is a very large industry. There is attention and concern about quality, but there is a difference in how the concern is managed.”

In layman’s terms?

“I think what’s put forth here is a plausible scenario,” Möller said.

When asked about the alleged symptoms described in the class action suit and online, especially the repeated liver failure, Halligan was clear in her potential diagnosis, especially as it pertained to animals of a variety of ages.

“Toxins would be real high on my list. If an animal ingests some type of toxin, that can lead to liver disease because the liver has to process it,” said Halligan.

But there have not yet been any tests to determine if mycotoxins are in Beneful at all—or any other dog food, for that matter.

Cereghino said he’s determined to find that out.

“As soon as we are able to, and the federal courts move at a fairly rapid rate, we will get discovery,” said Cereghino.

That’s when Cereghino will get to find out where Beneful’s products come from, how they’re stored, whether there’s a “connecting piece in the storage or the grain, the sourcing of it all, that sort of make sense.” He plans on running tests on the food both he and other members of the class action suit have saved to send over to a lab in the next few weeks.

That’s when they’ll know if those potentially dangerous chemicals are in the formula. And, if they are, they’ll still have to fight to prove that the mycotoxins are dangerous enough to make thousands of dogs sick.

As for Purina, when approached for comment, Keith Schopp, vice president of corporate public relations, read this statement to The Daily Beast:

“We believe the lawsuit is without merit and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves. Beneful is a high-quality nutritious food enjoyed by millions of dogs each year and there are no product quality issues with Beneful.”

MSNBC Not All In with Chris Hayes Anymore

By Joe Concha

When reporting on a TV personality possibly getting the boot from their network, it’s par for the course to request for official comment on the matter. When you do this long enough, you begin to notice some patterns as it pertains to certain networks. In the case of MSNBC (and NBC News in general), I think I’ve found — as they say in poker — their tell.

A tell, of course, is that trait or sign in regard to the poker hand they hold. Is that person bluffing? Doesn’t he have a straight flush? A tell — as seen in the classic Rounders with Matt Damon and John Malkovich as the great Teddy KGB — can make or break who wins the pot. With MSNBC, I first noticed its tell following my original exclusive about the demise of Ronan Farrow’s daytime show.

To review, when asking if the network was planning on cancelling the ill-fated program for the 26 year old Cronkite Award Winner, the answer was the following: “No. We’re fully committed to Ronan.”

So, I took that as a standard denial without reading between the lines too much. But in retrospect, the tell is obvious: Being fully committed to Ronan is one thing, being fully committed to his program is quite another. Network spokespeople are meticulously trained in this stuff and, in this case, thought of that response very carefully before replying. The language specifically engineered so that if I went back to them now and called them out, they can always say, “Hey, we never said we were committed to the show, just committed to the host staying on at the network in a different capacity,” or something to that effect.

Fast forward to last week and the announcement around the aforementioned Farrow and Joy Reid‘s respective 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. ET programs being cancelled. Not a big surprise given the anemic numbers — even by MSNBC standards. But the bigger story to emerge was that the network is eying Chris Hayes as well, who isn’t exactly killing it at 8 p.m. (the most important time slot out there), falling to third and sometimes fourth place behind HLN’s Forensic Files repeats.

Any objective media critic or fan will tell you Hayes isn’t a prime-time host (he was great on weekend mornings in his old Up spot, where his style, pace and topic selection was and would be a better fit) — and that reportedly includes Griffin, who made the big bet (at the reported behest of Rachel Maddow) on Hayes and is seeing very little return on investment.

All of that said, when asked if the network planned to cancel Hayes following the report in The Daily Beast, here was the response below from an MSNBC spokesperson: “Contrary to the rumors from unnamed sources, we have no plans take Chris Hayes’ show off the air or move Rachel Maddow’s show.”

Given the Farrow example, you see the tell, right? No plans to take Chris Hayes’ show off the air will likely mean not taking it off entirely, but instead moving it to a different home out of prime time. Or no plans could be flackese for no finalized plans at this exact moment in time.

This isn’t the first time NBC has gone this route either. Just think back to the time the network denied that Ed Schultz was being removed from weekday primetime to a weekend slot (Hint: It happened, despite denials). Or the times NBC News repeatedly denied the ousting of David Gregory from his moderator spot on Meet the Press (Hint: He did). Or Ann Curry being safe on the Today Show (Yeah, you get the idea).

Of course, this just doesn’t pertain to MSNBC, but all networks trying to hang on and control the narrative after word is leaked of a program’s or personality’s impending doom.

But given his network’s track record, if I’m Chris Hayes, I see the tell and start looking forward to getting my weekday dinner time back with the wife and kid again soon.

>> Follow Joe Concha on Twitter @JoeConchaTV

Rahm Emanuel's Moment of Fucking Truth

The Chicago mayor hopes voters will allow him to avoid an April runoff despite school closures and outbreaks of violent crime.

By David A. Graham

Larry Downing/Reuters

Too often, candidates run for office promising one thing and deliver another, alienating or simply disaffecting voters, and ultimately losing their offices. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces a different sort of challenge: For the most part, he's given voters what he said he would. Now, do they want to keep it?

He'll find out Tuesday, when Windy City voters go to the polls in a mayoral election. Emanuel has mounted an extremely expensive, high-powered push to get past 50 percent of the vote—the threshold he needs to win reelection outright and avoid an April 7 runoff. The X-factor in the race seems to be black voters, so Emanuel has rolled out endorsements from high-profile African American politicians, including his former boss President Obama and Representative Bobby Rush, the only man to ever beat Obama in an election.

A Chicago Tribune poll last week showed that Emanuel was within striking distance of an outright majority, with 45 percent of voters backing him, and nearly 20 percent undecided. Emanuel's top opponent is Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia; other challengers include Alderman Bob Fioretti and businessman Willie Wilson.

It's been a rambunctious four years for Emanuel. After an election campaign in which he was nearly disqualified under residency requirements, the former U.S. representative and White House chief of staff cruised to victory. Since then, Emanuel has closed almost 50 schools; dealt with a strike by public-school teachers; passed an austerity budget for the city; and faced a significant murder rate.

The bruising term has turned some voters off, especially after 22 years in which the city was led by the same man, Richard Daley. But in many ways, Emanuel has done just what he said he would, bringing his brusque, no-nonsense approach to the mayorship.

Long a pragmatic moderate who reveled in muscling his preferred strategies through—often with the aid of a generous helping of profanity—that's just what he's done, on issues ranging from the budget to education. Emanuel has exercised a control over the levers of power that exceeds even his long-tenured predecessor, bending the City Council and even the state legislature to his will. But that focus seems to have come at a cost: retaining support among voters themselves, who have grown chilly on Emanuel after giving him 55 percent of the vote four years ago.

Reaching the 45 percent mark is an accomplishment in its own right. Not long ago, Emanuel's polling was in the tank, and his reelection seemed in doubt. His rebound has been helped by two big factors: good luck, and piles and piles of money. First, two of his most formidable potential opponents bowed out. Two black candidates decided not to run—Toni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County Board, passed, and Karen Lewis, a major Emanuel antagonist as head of the teachers' union, opted against running when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Meanwhile, Emanuel has raised $15 million in the race, pouring much of it into television ads. His enormous war chest has allowed him to far outspend Garcia on the airwaves, who was unable to get TV time until the final two-week stretch of the race. In moving early to get on TV and bury his opponent, Emanuel is taking a page out of Obama's playbook in the 2012 presidential election, when he and allies spent early to "define" Mitt Romney for voters.

Still, black voters—who came out in force for Emanuel four years ago, in part because of Obama's backing—remain cool. In the Tribune poll, only 42 percent backed him this time around, with a quarter still undecided. That's in large part because minority neighborhoods have borne the brunt of Chicago's recent troubles. Most of the schools that closed are in those neighborhoods. Emanuel says that was actually for the better: The schools that were shuttered were underused and under-performing, and the closures should lead to students getting better educations. He also boasts of improvements like longer school days and more extensive pre-K programs. Horrific violence is also a major factor. Even as other cities saw big drops, there were 500 murders in Chicago in 2013, many of them concentrated in minority neighborhoods. (The number was down to 407 in 2014, a 40-year record low.)

If Emanuel has ridden Obama's coattails, his challengers have tried to emulate New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's example. As a technocratic, moderate Democrat who used a top-down style and has won plaudits from neoliberal pundits on issues like education, he seems to invite just the sort of left-wing campaign de Blasio used in his come-from-behind victory in 2013. They've even co-opted de Blasio's leitmotif, accusing Emanuel of overseeing a city divided into "two Chicagos."

Emanuel essentially admitted that was true in an interview with The New York Times. “‘The city that works’ has to work for everybody,” he said, alluding to a nickname for Chicago. “Have we made progress in areas that had developed for years? Yes. Is our work done? Absolutely not.” (Skeptics might note that he's been saying the same since his term started, and apparently hasn't finished the job yet. In a profile in The Atlantic in 2012, Emanuel told Jonathan Alter almost exactly the same thing: "We are known as ‘the city that works.’ You gotta make sure it works for everybody and not just a few.”)

The irony is that even as Emanuel risks losing voters, his hold on the city has been extremely strong—stronger even than Daley, by some measures. The mayor has managed to turn the city council into a "rubber stamp" for his policies, with aldermen backing him more than they did Daley or his father, who was mayor for 21 years.

If Emanuel can win on Tuesday, it might set him up for a tenure comparable to Daley pere or fils, perhaps even with more power. But most analysts are calling the contest too close to predict at this point, and if Emanuel wins only a strong plurality matters get murkier. Emanuel would retain the advantage of incumbency, fundraising, and backing from the national Democratic establishment. Yet Dick Simpson, an oft-quoted political scientist and former alderman, thinks Emanuel would be in trouble in a runoff: He'd suddenly look far more vulnerable, and national liberals would flock in to aid Garcia. (For the record, Simpson has contributed to Garcia's campaign.)

Hence the race to the finish for the mayor, as he spent aggressively and shook as many hands as possible in the last few days before balloting. Not that glad-handing is a pleasant task right now—as of writing, it feels like -14º F in Chicago. Tuesday won't be great either, with the high barely reaching freezing and a forecast of gusty winds that should live up to Chicago's nickname. Bad weather tends to be a boon to incumbents. For a candidate who's already gotten very lucky, the forecast is one last stroke of fortune.

Final Judgment: MSNBC Moving Away From "Left-Wing TV"

Cenk Uygur host of The Young Turks addresses the recent programming shift at MSNBC. A source at MSNBC said the goal of the changes was to "move away from left wing TV". Cenk has a unique opinion as someone who was once inside the MSNBC bubble.