Author Archives: DemetriHmi

Ted Cruz Tells Nevadans Only He Can Preserve Scalia’s Legacy

by DemetriHmi Posted on February 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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After a disappointing third-place finish in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary, Ted Cruz is looking to a new ally to boost his performance in the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday: the ghost of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Cruz seems to have settled on the idea that President Barack Obama won’t get a Supreme Court justice confirmed to replace Scalia. During a stump speech Monday afternoon in Las Vegas, Cruz said one of his first actions as president would be to name a “strong principled constitutionalist” as Scalia’s successor.

Cruz has begun to emphasize his legal career on the campaign trail in order to paint himself as the lone Republican candidate who can defend Scalia’s legacy. It’s a two-step dance to take down his rivals: heighten the stakes of the election to minimize Donald Trump as an unserious candidate, and push the idea that Marco Rubio isn’t conservative enough to be entrusted with picking Supreme Court nominees.

“As Ronald Reagan was to the presidency, so too was Justice Scalia to the Supreme Court,” Cruz said. “And his passing underscores the stakes of this election. It’s not one branch of government, but two that hang in the balance.”

Cruz laid out a conservative’s dystopian vision of the Supreme Court, where the law of the land would flip to a liberal interpretation should Scalia’s seat go to a Democratic appointee. “We are one liberal justice away from the Supreme Court mandating unlimited abortion on demand all across this country with no restrictions whatsoever,” Cruz said. “We are one liberal justice away from the Supreme Court reading the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights.” Cruz warned that a 5-4 liberal majority would also mean the dismantling of statues based on the Ten Commandments, “or the Supreme Court concluding that the United Nations and the World Court can bind our justice system…and subjecting us to international law and taking away sovereignty.”

Amid this doom and gloom, Cruz made sure to remind the crowd of Nevadans that he is a former lawyer who has argued before the Supreme Court, so he knows how the institution operates. At the same time, he repeatedly hammered the point that he wouldn’t waffle, vowing that he was the only Republican candidate the voters should trust to appoint truly conservative judges.

“I think Justice Scalia’s passing,” Cruz said, taking a veiled jab at Trump’s gutter politics, “has elevated the assessment of the men and women of Nevada.”

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Ted Cruz Tells Nevadans Only He Can Preserve Scalia’s Legacy

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Meet the Guy Behind Your Favorite Rock ‘n’ Roll Songs

by DemetriHmi Posted on November 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Various Artists
Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll
Yep Roc

“Invented” might be a slight exaggeration, but Memphis, Tennessee’s Sam Phillips discovered and/or produced some of the greatest voices in blues and early rock ‘n’ roll, releasing many of them on his own Sun Records label. This wonderful 55-track compilation illustrates the staggering range of electrifying music he midwifed, from Elvis Presley (“Mystery Train”) and Jerry Lee Lewis (“Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On”), to Howlin’ Wolf (“How Many More Years?”) and B.B. King (“She’s Dynamite”), to Carl Perkins (“Blue Suede Shoes”) and Johnny Cash (“Big River”). Not to mention Roy Orbison, Ike Turner, Junior Parker, Charlie Rich, and many other lesser-known but vital performers. For newcomers, this is the perfect introduction to an essential body of work; for everyone else, it’s merely a thoroughly satisfying collection.

Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll was compiled by journalist Peter Guralnick as a companion piece to his absorbing new book of the same name (to be published November 10 by Little, Brown, and Company). The author of the best biography of Elvis Presley to date, as well as a host of other excellent studies of American roots music, Guralnick is a captivating enthusiast and exhaustive researcher, who never lets a mastery of the facts obscure the visceral thrill of the art he celebrates. At 600 pages, his thoughtful account of Phillips’ complex life is not for the casual reader, but it’s hard to put down once you get started.

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Meet the Guy Behind Your Favorite Rock ‘n’ Roll Songs

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Obama Wants to Crack Down on Fracking Emissions

by DemetriHmi Posted on January 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in the Guardian and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

President Barack Obama will unveil a new plan to cut methane from America’s booming oil and gas industry ahead of the State of the Union address, in an attempt to cement his climate legacy during his remaining two years in the White House.

The new methane rules—expected ahead of the State of the Union speech next week—are the last big chance for Obama to fight climate change, campaigners said.

“It is the largest opportunity to deal with climate pollution that this administration has not already seized,” said David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Methane is the second biggest driver of climate change, after carbon dioxide. On a 20-year timescale, it is 87 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas.

US officials acknowledge that Obama will have to cut methane if he is to make good on his promise to cut US greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025.

“It is the largest thing left, and it’s the most cost-effective thing they can do that they haven’t done already, and all the signs are there that they intend to step forward on that,” Doniger said.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to roll out a combination of regulations and voluntary guidelines for the oil and gas industry, people familiar with the plan said.

The rules represent Obama’s first big climate push on the oil and gas sector, after moving to cut emissions from power plants and, during his first term, cars and trucks.

But the clock is ticking. Any new EPA regulations would have to be finalized by the end of 2016—and Republicans in Congress and industry lobby groups are already mobilizing to oppose the standards.

Methane accounts for about 9 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA. The biggest share of this by far comes from the oil and gas industry, which has exploded over the last decade.

The US is now the world’s largest producer of natural gas, and is on track to become the world’s largest oil producer in 2015.

Most of those greenhouse gas emissions are from leaky equipment—faulty casing on newly fracked wells, but also millions of miles of pipelines and aging infrastructure.

The EPA had originally promised to announce a new methane plan by the end of last year.

The agency administrator, Gina McCarthy, indicated that the agency would combine regulations with voluntary guidelines for industry.

Unlike the power plant rules, which left industry a fair amount of latitude in cutting emissions, the methane standards are believed to be tightly focused on plugging leaks.

The new rules could directly target leaking valves and other equipment that allow methane to escape from wells, pipelines and other infrastructure.

The new rules could also be backed up with voluntary guidelines for other types of air pollutants that would also lower methane emissions.

“If you take steps to reduce volatile organic compounds, those steps would automatically have the secondary benefit of reducing methane emissions,” said Sandra Snyder, an environmental attorney at the Bracewell Giuliani law firm.

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Obama Wants to Crack Down on Fracking Emissions

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