“As Evidence Grows For Climate Change, Opponents Dig In”: GOP Has Abandoned Science For The Siren Call Of Their Monied Backers
Water, water everywhere.
Here on the nation’s Gulf Coast, where I live, we’ve got precipitation to spare — severe thunderstorms, overwhelmed sewer systems, and flash floods. It’s hard to remember I’m not living in a land with regularly scheduled monsoons.
Meanwhile, the great state of California is desperately dry as it endures the fourth year of a drought that has already burned through every historical record. It’s been 1,200 years, according to a recent study, since the state has experienced anything like this.
As different as the manifestations are, though, both regions are likely grappling with the effects of climate change. As the Earth warms, droughts will become more frequent and more severe, leading to devastating fires, water shortages and, in some areas, agricultural collapse, according to climate scientists.
At the same time (and this befuddles the layperson), a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, so areas that tend toward rain will have more of it, leading to more floods. There may also be more snowfall in colder climes, so don’t let a blizzard or two fool you.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2014 was the hottest year on record, with continents and oceans warmer than any year since 1880. And despite a bitterly cold winter in the Northeast and Midwest, 2015 is vying to best that. January, February, and March were the warmest on record for the planet, scientists say. Climate change is real.
Jerry Brown, California’s Democratic governor, knows that. He is living through its havoc and trying to meet it squarely. After enacting rigid new regulations about water use weeks ago, he has just issued new rules on carbon emissions — even though his state already had pretty tough requirements. Good for him.
In a speech, Brown said he wants California to stand out as an example for how to deal with global warming. “It’s a real test. Not just for California, not just for America, but for the world. Can we rise above the parochialisms, the ethnocentric perspectives, the immediacy of I-want-I-want-I-need, to a vision, a way of life, that is sustainable?”
President Obama is also doing what he can. He has called for increased fuel efficiency for vehicles; cars and light-duty trucks should be getting the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon by model year 2025. And, in a more ambitious move, the Environmental Protection Agency has set new rules for power plants, requiring them to limit the amount of carbon dioxide they dump into the atmosphere.
But those commonsense measures have met fierce resistance, not only from industries and the billionaires who own them (think the Koch brothers), but also from their lap dogs in the Republican Party. Several GOP state attorneys general — in apparent collusion with energy companies — have sued the EPA to prevent the regulations from taking effect. “Never before have attorneys general joined on this scale with corporate interests to challenge Washington and file lawsuits in federal court,” according to The New York Times.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), for his part, has urged states to refuse to cooperate in setting targets to limit emissions from power plants. In other words, he has — shades of the Old South — advised them to rebel against federal authority.
(In April, one of his state’s largest newspapers, The Lexington Herald-Leader, printed a powerful editorial rebuking him for that stance. “Mitch McConnell and others who are trying to obstruct climate protections will be regarded one day in the same way we think of 19th-century apologists for human slavery: How could economic interests blind them to the immorality of their position?”)
While the scientific consensus on climate change — that human activity is causing it — grows stronger with each week’s evidence, so does Republican resistance to measures to combat it. Though conservatives once held science in high esteem, they have abandoned it for the siren call of their monied backers.
California’s governor has called this era a “test,” a challenging moment in which we are called to rise above greed, partisanship, and selfish convenience. So far, we’re not doing so well.
By: Cynthia Tucker, Pulitzer Prize Winner for Commentary in 2007; The National Memo, May 2, 2015
“Helping To Serve As A Check On Abuse”: New ACLU Cellphone App Automatically Preserves Video Of Police Encounters
The ACLU in California today released a free smart-phone app that allows people to send cellphone videos of police encounters to the ACLU, automatically—and the ACLU will preserve the video footage, even if the cops seize the phone and delete the video or destroy the phone. The app, “Mobile Justice CA,” works for both iPhones and Android users. It’s available at Apple’s App Store and at Google Play.
The app features a large red “Record” button in the middle of the screen. When it’s pressed, the video is recorded on the phone and a duplicate copy is transmitted simultaneously to the ACLU server. When the “stop” button is pressed, a “Report” screen appears, where information about the location of the incident and the people involved can also be transmitted to the ACLU. The video and the information are treated as a request for legal assistance and reviewed by staff members. No action is taken by the ACLU, however, unless an explicit request is made, and the reports are treated as confidential and privileged legal communications. The videos, however, may be shared by the ACLU with the news media, community organizations or the general public to help call attention to police abuse.
The app is available in English and Spanish. It includes a “Know Your Rights” page.
The value of the Mobile Justice app was dramatized this month in the Los Angeles suburb of South Gate, where a bystander taped cops detaining people in her neighborhood. A second person was recording her, and in that video, a lawman rushes at the first woman, grabs her cell phone, and smashes it on the floor. The second video ended up on YouTube. (South Gate police later said the officer was not a local cop but rather a deputy US marshal.)
Meanwhile in Texas, a proposed law would make it a crime for ordinary people to videotape police actions—on the grounds that it was “interference” with police activity. In California, on the other hand, the state senate this month approved legislation providing clear legal protection to people who videotape police activity without interfering with investigations.
“People who historically have had very little power in the face of law enforcement now have this tool to reclaim their power and dignity,” said Patrisse Cullors, director of the Truth and Reinvestment Campaign at the Ella Baker Center, which is working with the ACLU of California to support the launch of the Mobile Justice CA app. “Our vision is that this app will ultimately help community members connect and organize to respond to incidents of law enforcement violence, and then share their experiences and knowledge with others.”
The Mobile Justice CA app complies with California law. ACLU affiliates in other states have developed other versions for use in those states: residents of New York should use the “Stop and Frisk Watch” app; in New Jersey, it’s the “Police Tape” app; in Oregon and Missouri it’s the “Mobile Justice” app. These work in different ways: with the New York app, shaking the phone stops the filming; the New Jersey app does not transmit the video automatically—the user must choose to send it to the ACLU-NJ for backup storage. Not all of them are available on all platforms and not all are available in Spanish, as the California app is. However, video submitted from anywhere via the California app will be stored and available to those who submitted it, an ACLU SoCal official said.
“This app will help serve as a check on abuse,” said Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California (ACLU SoCal), where the app was developed. It will “allow ordinary citizens to record and document any interaction with law enforcement,” he said, including “police officers, sheriff’s deputies, border patrol, or other officials.”
By: Jon Wiener, The Nation, May 1, 2015
“A Bad Week For The NRA”: Every Time The NRA Has A Week As Bad As This One, The American Public Wins
The NRA wants people to believe that its agenda — guns for anyone, anywhere, anytime — is as American as apple pie.
Only, the American public isn’t buying it.
This week, gun lobby extremism went down to defeat in a number of venues, in a number of states.
Guns for anyone? Not in California.
Guns anywhere? Not in Arkansas.
Guns anytime? Not in Florida.
It’s been a bad week for the NRA.
Consider what happened in California. You’d think we could all agree that someone who poses a significant danger to himself or herself or others shouldn’t have a gun. At the same time, that person is entitled to due process.
That’s why the particulars of California’s new gun violence restraining order law are important. Lawmakers — following the lead of states as diverse as Connecticut, Indiana, and Texas — got it right.
California’s law, which the governor signed on Tuesday, allows law enforcement or immediate family members to present evidence to a judge, who can order the police to take temporary custody of a person’s guns for an emergency period. Unless there’s a petition to hold the guns longer, the person will have his or her guns back after 21 days.
Now, both the police and family members can intervene in dangerous situations. More gun deaths — both homicides and suicides — can be prevented.
Of course, the NRA opposed the bill.
In California, no one was talking about banning guns — just temporarily keeping guns away from people who have given police and/or loved ones cause for significant concern.
But according to the NRA, letting everyone — felons, domestic abusers, the seriously mentally ill — have guns is just the price we pay for our Second Amendment rights. According to the NRA, life-saving restrictions on gun ownership — even court-ordered, temporary restrictions — are unacceptable.
While the NRA has had success pushing its agenda in state legislatures over the years, it’s met resistance on college campuses, where law enforcement and administrators agree that guns don’t belong.
You can understand the reasons college officials don’t want guns on campus. Think of those college ratings that magazines publish — and parents consult –every year. Colleges don’t want to be known as party schools, let alone places where people are carrying guns in classrooms and cafeterias.
The Arkansas legislature, in the NRA’s infinite wisdom, last year passed a law permitting university faculty and staff to carry guns on campus. Schools in the state do have the right to opt out of campus carry. But if only to make opting out more onerous, Arkansas requires schools to take that step and opt out every year.
For the second straight year, the vote on campus was unanimous. Once again, the governing boards of every Arkansas college, university, and technical institute chose to prohibit guns.
And that’s part of a pattern we’re seeing across the country. The gun lobby makes a dedicated push in state legislatures to pass campus carry laws. Then, when schools can opt out of allowing guns on their property, they almost uniformly do so.
Guns for anyone, anywhere, anytime might sound good to the NRA and gun manufacturers — but for the rest of us, it’s not a sound or an appealing public policy.
An argument over loud music, for example, isn’t the time to shoot someone. Justice was done in Florida this week, when a jury rejected Michael Dunn’s “Stand Your Ground” defense and found him guilty of first-degree murder — another high-profile blow to the “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality that NRA-backed Stand Your Ground laws help create.
With its losses adding up, the NRA’s political arm is getting desperate. On Wednesday, PolitiFact gave a “Pants on Fire” rating to the ad the NRA is running against Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. The Washington Post‘sFact Checker gave it “Four Pinocchios” — a perfect score for a perfectly misleading ad.
When you see or hear an NRA ad talking about someone trying to take away your gun rights, it’s not true. As PolitiFact put it, it’s fear mongering, plain and simple.
The truth is that the NRA’s agenda is more guns, in more places, all the time. It’s dangerous and deeply irresponsible — and an ideology that elected officials, school administrators, and concerned citizens alike are increasingly rejecting.
And every time the NRA has a week as bad as this one, the American public wins.
By: John Feinblatt, The Huffington Post Blog, October 3, 2014
“Not A Pretty Picture”: The Trouble With Republican Reinvention
The political landscape is replete with hope that the GOP will find a way to reinvent itself as a more inclusive and more reality-based organization in the future. The Washington Post carried another such piece today. All it’s a question of, say the optimists, is a few tweaks, some rebranding and a minor dose of reconciliation.
We haven’t seen the beginnings of that at a national level because, well, national Republicans still feel pretty good about themselves. They’ve got control of the House, they may well gain control of the Senate, and they look with relish at President Obama’s approval ratings.
But shouldn’t we be starting to see signs of the reinvention where the GOP is facing its toughest challenges? We should. But it’s not pretty:
The gathering opened on a sour note Friday, when the evening’s keynote speaker, state controller candidate Ashley Swearengin, told reporters she was still mulling whether to vote for Kashkari or Brown. “I’m looking at the two candidates like other Californians are,” she said. And Pete Peterson, the Republican running for secretary of state, said in an interview that he was not endorsing Kashkari — or anyone else on the statewide ballot — and did not plan to vote a straight party ticket.
The extraordinary display of disunity led Ron Nehring, a former state Republican chairman and underdog candidate for lieutenant governor, to vent his fury in a profanity-tinged email to party brass just before midnight Friday, after news organizations began reporting the dust-up.
Kashkari is an economic royalist who hasn’t strayed far off the GOP ranch when it comes to supply-side economics, tax cuts for the rich, and the rest of the Republican financial tapestry. But he does preach a more inclusive social message. And for that if nothing else, rank-and-file conservatives are avoiding him like the plague.
A moderate social message is essential for Republican rebirth in California. A more moderate economic one is, too, but Republicans won’t even be able to get a foot in the door without a change on issues like gay marriage and immigration. It would seem that rebranding should be easy on the west coast.
But they can’t even manage it there. How will they ever manage it in Iowa?
By: David Atkins, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 21, 2014
“Becoming Increasingly Clear”: Despite What The Critics Say, Obamacare Is Working
Despite the treasured right-wing talking points, it’s increasingly clear that Obamacare is a success. Moreover, in places where Obamacare is not succeeding, it’s also clear that the right wing is to blame. Well, it’s clear to any who look at the state-by-state numbers of the newly insured. A whole lot of Americans will have to look, however, for the program’s success to redound to Democrats’ advantage.
Charles Gaba, an enterprising Web site designer, has taken it upon himself to track the number of Americans who have gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Tallying those who have signed up on the state and federal exchanges (2.1 million), those who have obtained Medicaid coverage (4.4 million) and those who gained coverage through the law’s requirement that private plans allow parents to cover their children up to age 26 (3.1 million), he cites more than 9 million newly insured through Obamacare.
The meaning of that number is, to be sure, a little fuzzy. To begin, it’s a gross, not a net, increase. Some of the 2.1 million who purchased insurance on exchanges did so after their previous plans were altered or canceled. In some states, the increase in those insured through Medicaid does not distinguish between those not eligible previously and those who are simply renewing coverage.
All that said, whether the total is 9 million or 7 million, it’s a big number and it’s rising rapidly: December sign-ups far exceeded those in November, and the number is expected to continue growing through 2014.
Whether you can access the benefits of the ACA, however, depends on where you live. In states that set up their own exchanges and accepted federal funding for Medicaid expansion, the increase in the number of insured vastly exceeds that in states that declined to do either.
Theda Skocpol, a Harvard professor of government and sociology, has compared state totals of those who gained insurance through the exchanges and Medicaid with Congressional Budget Office projections of the number of enrollees in each state for the first year the ACA is in effect, as well as with the Kaiser Medicaid Commission’s projections of new Medicaid recipients in that first year.
In the three months since the exchanges opened, she wrote this week, the 14 states that established their own exchanges and accepted Medicaid funding reported increases amounting to 37.2 percent of the projected yearly exchange purchases and 42.9 percent of the projected Medicaid enrollments. In the 23 states that refused to establish insurance exchanges, refused to cooperate in making the federal Web site easily accessible and declined to expand Medicaid, exchange purchases were just 5.6 percent of the projected increase and Medicaid enrollments just 1.5 percent. (The 13 states that partially embraced the programs generally had increases lower than the 14 full implementers but higher than the 23 refusniks.)
Which is to say, the ACA is working as planned, perhaps a little better, in the states where governors and legislatures chose to implement it, such as California and New York. It is barely working in those states where governors and legislators have refused to implement it, such as Texas. Although the number of states declining any participation probably will diminish over time, as the tea party’s grip on the Republican Party wanes or as older white conservative voters die off, the resulting red-blue division between the states probably will be a feature of the nation’s political economy for some time.
Consider the implications: A larger share of Californians will be able to afford regular medical check-ups than Texans. A smaller share of Californians is likely to be bankrupted by the expense of major medical treatment than Texans. When the law’s tax penalties take effect, a smaller share of Californians will be subject to the penalties that come with the individual mandates than will Texans. In the coming years, a smaller share of California hospitals will face financial risk for indigent care than hospitals in Texas, where fewer of the sick and poor will be covered by Medicaid.
The conservative argument that the ACA is a disaster is true only when it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: Most of the negative consequences that right-wingers have warned against have occurred only in those places where right-wingers have subverted implementation of the law. What supporters of the ACA must keep in mind, however, is that Americans who live in states where implementation has been stymied may continue to see the act as a failure and continue to blame President Obama and his party.
Only by publicizing the act’s manifest success in states where it has been implemented can supporters begin to change the public’s verdict.
By: Harold Meyerson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, January 8, 2014
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