mother jones

Mother Jones:

Send a public records request seeking documents from his 12-year stint as Arkansas governor, as Mother Jones did recently, and an eyebrow-raising reply will come back: The records are unavailable, and the computer hard drives that once contained them were erased and physically destroyed by the Huckabee administration as the governor prepared to leave office and launch a presidential bid.

What’s Mike Huckabee trying to hide? We already know how he likes to let hardened criminals out of jail, like Maurice Clemmons, who went on to kill four police officers. Is there something even worse hiding in Huckabee’s tenure?

Looks like South Carolina's unknown Democratic Senate nominee is in some more trouble:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) US Senate nominee Alvin Greene indicted on felony charge of showing porn to SC college student.

For background on these charges, check out this article on Mother Jones.

I have spent a long time working in the computer industry and one of the areas I do a lot of work in is cyber security. That means I have been very interested in the whole Palin email hacking case. Essentially what has puzzled me is the attention it has received from the Department of Justice. Email accounts get hacked all the time, usually at the rate of thousands per day. Even worse is the number of people who get suckered into bank scams or suffer from identity theft. These are far worse crimes yet the DOJ has allocated very few resources to fighting them. But when Sarah Palin gets her email hacked, they jump into a full Elliot Ness style task force to hunt down the perpetrators.

Harpers Magazine is now raising these issues in an article that deserves an entire read, but here is a key part:

The Justice Department seems to be setting one of its amazing new rules. When a Republican political figure is damaged in her expectation of being elected to office, it is telling us, that’s a felony. And why is that the case here? Because the hacker helped establish something important: Sarah Palin has been systematically violating the Open Records Act. As David Corn has noted at Mother Jones, Palin relied heavily on private email accounts for improper purposes. As governor of Alaska, she was obligated to maintain as public records her communications with respect to her discharge of official duties. Palin skirted this obligation by turning to private email accounts for government related dealings. In fact, the hacker in question helped flush out Palin’s violations. The hacker also helped establish a motive for the illegal conduct: Palin regularly involved her husband in official business, and it’s easy to understand why she did not want to leave behind evidence of her husband’s involvement.

Mother Jones has started a new website dedicated to defending our oceans. Ocean Voyager promises this:

Once a week for five weeks, you’ll receive an email invitation to a different ocean “hot spot” around the world. From chasing fish pirates off the coast of Africa to tracking a mother polar bear across the Arctic, you’ll learn how our oceans are under attack — and then take action. Our online tools make it easy. From fighting for better ocean laws to keeping endangered seafood off your plate, you’ll make a difference.

As Think Progress points out "What’s noteworthy about the site is that it doesn’t focus on the work of one organization, but rather highlights the best of the best of what a multitude of nonprofits are doing to conserve our oceans.”

This site provides free videos and asks us to get involved in protecting our oceans. It provides the information and tools necessary so we can all work to help make a difference and protect our endangered oceans. Please take a moment and sign-up and invite someone else to join in this great cause.