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Michigan’s Governor Goes to Washington, Gets Ass Handed to Him by Congress

Mother Jones

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Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy testified Thursday morning in a long-anticipated hearing on the causes of the Flint contamination disaster. This was the third Flint-related hearing before the committee, following Tuesdays morning’s tense questioning of former local, state, and federal officials.

The hearing before the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee quickly turned partisan. Democrats grilled the GOP governor over his claims that he didn’t know the water was contaminated. “Plausible deniability only works when it’s plausible,” said Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.). “You were not in a medically induced coma for a year.” Meanwhile, Republicans questioned why the EPA didn’t step in sooner. If the agency won’t act in emergencies, said committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), “why do we even need an EPA?”

Here are some highlights from today’s hearing:

Rep. Elijah Cummings: “If a corporate CEO did what Gov. Snyder’s administration has done, he would be hauled up on criminal charges.” Cummings, a Maryland congressman and the committee’s ranking Democrat, came down on Snyder in his opening testimony, critiquing the governor for running the state like a business. While “Republicans are desperately trying to blame everything on the EPA,” he noted, primary enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act falls on the state. “The governor’s fingerprints are all over this.”

Rep. Chaffetz to EPA chief: “Why do we even need an EPA?” Chaffetz and other house Republicans repeatedly pointed out that while Snyder has apologized for the crisis and fired officials who were involved, the EPA has not. When asked if the EPA did anything wrong, McCarthy repeatedly skirted the point, saying she wishes the agency were more aggressive. “You messed up 100,000 people’s lives!” Chaffetz said later. “And you take no responsibility.”

Rep. Cartwright to Snyder: “You were not in a medically induced coma for a year.” Cartwright, a former trial lawyer, ripped Snyder for ignoring the crisis. “I’ve had about enough of your false contrition and your phony apologies,” he said. “There you are dripping with guilt, but drawing your paycheck, hiring lawyers at the expense of the people, and doing your dead-level best to spread accountability to others and not being accountable.”

Rep. John Mica to EPA chief: “I heard calls for resignation—I think you should be at the top of the list.” Mica, a Florida Republican, pointed out that an EPA official wrote a memo in late spring of 2015 with concerns about lead contamination and questioned why the EPA didn’t respond more aggressively. “We were strong-armed,” McCarthy said. “We were misled. We were kept at arm’s length. We could not do our jobs effectively.”

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Michigan’s Governor Goes to Washington, Gets Ass Handed to Him by Congress

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Making the Case for LED Lighting

earth911

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Making the Case for LED Lighting

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for January 30, 2014

Mother Jones

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Marines of the riot control team for Golf Battery, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, attempt to subdue a role player wielding a weapon during the culminating event of the unit’s public disorder and non-lethal weapons employment training aboard Camp Hansen, Okinawa, Japan, Jan. 24, 2014. One of the secondary missions of Golf Battery is to serve as a non-lethal contingency force for the 31st MEU, useful in embassy security reinforcement, humanitarian operations and many other contingencies. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Paul Robbins/Released)

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for January 30, 2014

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Is Your Dryer Running Efficiently?

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Is Your Dryer Running Efficiently?

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Can Balkan Beat Box Bring Us Together?

Mother Jones

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Ori Kaplan/DJ Shotnez

It’s 3 p.m. on a foggy August day at San Francisco’s Outside Lands music festival, but inside the Heineken Dome it feels like an after-hours party. Ori Kaplan, a founding member of the contagiously high-energy ensemble Balkan Beat Box, and formerly of the popular gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello, had just performed as his solo alter ego, DJ Shotnez. Festival goers writhed and cheered to his mix of cumbia and Balkan horns, an amalgamation of sounds he calls Global Crunk Base.

In his trailer after the set, Kaplan sparks a cigarette and kicks his feet up on a table. His appearance at the fest was one stop on a short West Coast tour to test out his new material on a non-European audience. A local promoter stops by the trailer to offer praise. “Today was really excellent,” Kaplan says, grinning. “It was a super crowd, really open and excited. I love San Francisco.”

The Israel-born, Vienna-based DJ and multi-instrument has had a love affair with the City by the Bay since his early days with Gogol, and before that with the New York band Firewater, a pioneer of the immigrant punk sound. This week, Balkan Beat Box launches a new mini-West Coast tour before heading into the studio to work on a new EP. With its members spread to the winds—Kaplan in Austria, other members in New York and Tel Aviv—the band keeps its sound fresh by “meeting on airplanes” and bringing the sounds and influences they’ve collected from their side projects back into the studio. At Outside lands, we chatted about the virtues of DJing and the origins of melting-pot music at Mehanata, a little black hole of a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

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Can Balkan Beat Box Bring Us Together?

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6 Risky Gun Storage Products Sold by the NRA

Mother Jones

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This Sunday, the New York Times published an extensive report on children accidentally killed by guns. Most of the tragic examples cited involved kids (almost always boys) coming across an unsecured firearm. As Mother Jones has previously reported, owning a gun has been found to substantially increase the risk of accidental death. Studies have also found that percent 40 percent of homes with guns and kids have at least one unlocked firearm. And an experiment by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that one third of 8- to 12-year-old boys who find a handgun will pull the trigger.

Nevertheless, the National Rifle Association has fought efforts to require safer gun storage. On its website, it even sells various gun storage products that ensure easy access to loaded weapons—without safeguards to protect curious kids (or anyone else). Here are a few:

The NRA Minuteman Concealment Mantel Clock
The NRA Store claims that, “like our revolutionary heroes,” this mahogany-stained working clock “conceals an underlying, defensive capability.” Simply pulling back on the clock’s magnetic front panel allows “quick access” to a gun up to 8 inches long, offering you a “heightened sense of security in your home.”

NRA Diversion/Concealment Book Set
These hollowed-out book covers‘ “elegant spines blend seamlessly with other fine literature” and easily open to store handguns up to 10.5 inches long. They come in two colors: The red set comes with the titles Life and Liberty and The Framework of Freedom. The black set comes with Eternal Vigilance and Rendezvous with Destiny.

NRA Amendment II Peacemaker Wooden Box
With decorations “reminiscent of 19th century Western designs,” this pine, birch, and poplar box features images of an American flag, three Peacemaker revolver, and the full text of the Second Amendment on a removable lid covering enough space for a real Peacemaker. The box is recommended for storing a flag, jewelry, documents, or “other items in need of old fashioned American protection” (hint, hint).

NRA Concealed Carry Day Planner
Featuring separate compartments for a handgun and a three-ring binder stocked with calendar pages, this tactical organizer also has lockable zippers—but a lock is not included.

NRA Under the Desk Holster
For those who need a firearm handy while checking email or paying bills, the NRA touts this desk holster as an “an easy way to inconspicuously keep your handgun at arm’s length.” The elastic holster is designed to “safely and securely” fit any size handgun.

Holster Mate
When combined with the NRA Slide Holster, the Holster Mate® allows you to slip your holster off your belt and onto a metal bracket that fits between your bed’s mattress and box spring. A hook-and-loop backing is included to eliminate slippage.

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6 Risky Gun Storage Products Sold by the NRA

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Photos and Videos From Dramatic Flash Floods in Colorado

Mother Jones

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Heavy rains falling in the Front Range of Colorado this week have left at least three people dead, authorities say. Up to 6 inches of rain fell in 12 hours overnight on Wednesday and into Thursday morning, augmenting what had already been a rainy month in the area and leading to dangerous flash floods.

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Photos and Videos From Dramatic Flash Floods in Colorado

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US Won’t Fund a Massive Coal Plant in Vietnam

Mother Jones

On Thursday, the board of the US Export-Import Bank voted against backing a new coal-fired power plant in Vietnam. The 1,200 megawatt Thai Binh Two plant was the first test of one of the policy changes President Barack Obama laid out in his big climate speech last month.

Reuters reports that Ex-Im said the decision came after “careful environmental review.” In his speech, Obama called for an end to public funding for new coal plants “unless they deploy carbon-capture technologies, or there’s no other viable way for the poorest countries to generate electricity.”

As I’ve reported here before, the US has loaned millions of dollars to energy projects abroad through Ex-Im, like the $805 million it loaned to a massive coal plant in South Africa in 2011. Despite a stated commitment to evaluating the greenhouse gas emissions from each project, Ex-Im loaned $9.6 billion to fossil-fuel projects in 2012, which was almost twice as much as it gave in 2011, according to data that the environmental group Pacific Environment compiled.

Earlier this week, five environmental groups wrote to President Obama, the head of Ex-Im, and its board members asking the bank to turn down the request for Thai Binh Two. “This dirty coal plan will emit unacceptable air pollution that will worsen climate disruption and poison local communities,” they wrote. The decision, they said, would be “the first crucial test case” for Obama’s climate plan.

Thus, turning down the Vietnam plant is a pretty big deal. “It has significance far beyond this project because it sends a message to the international community that financing dirty coal is no longer acceptable practice,” said Doug Norlen, policy director at Pacific Environment. “The impact will spread.”

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US Won’t Fund a Massive Coal Plant in Vietnam

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How Cookies and Jello Help Explain Climate Change

Connie O.

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Yawning Animals Compilation (Video)

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How Cookies and Jello Help Explain Climate Change

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How fracking companies exploit Amish farmers

How fracking companies exploit Amish farmers

Arthur Chapman

It’s no secret that fracking companies engage in some shady behavior. But a report in The New Republic reveals just how low they’ll sink in the rush to exploit natural gas: Energy companies in eastern Ohio — home to the world’s largest Amish population and billions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves — have been convincing Amish farmers to sign away drilling rights to their land for far less than they’re worth, knowing that because their religious tradition frowns on lawsuits, the landowners will have little recourse for justice once they realize they’ve been duped.

Lloyd Miller, for example, an Amish farmer near Millersburg, Ohio, said an agent from Kenoil offered him $10 an acre to drill for shale gas on his 158 acres, promising it was the best deal around. Strapped for cash at the time, Miller and his wife said yes, figuring, “Hey, that’s $1,500 we didn’t have,” Miller explained. But they soon found out many non-Amish farmers in the area were leasing drilling rights for as much as $1,000 an acre. Miller consulted with a lawyer, who told him the agent had committed fraud by promising that $10 an acre was the best he could get. The Millers had grounds to sue — but that’s something that, in accordance with their Amish beliefs, they’d never do. Of the Kenoil agent, Miller said: “He’s got to live with his conscience.”

The New Republic explains:

Their prohibition on the courts derives from the portion of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus instructs his followers to turn the other cheek, and if they are sued for their coats, to give up their cloaks, too. The Amish interpret this to mean that the court is no place to right wrongs. In 2011, for example, after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged a local man, Monroe L. Beachy, with running a Ponzi scheme that wiped out nearly $17 million in Amish retirement savings, a committee representing his some 2,500 Amish creditors asked a judge to dismiss his bankruptcy case so that they could resolve his debts amongst themselves.

Lest you’re tempted to give fracking companies the benefit of the doubt, a lawyer for Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. told The New Republic that the Amish restriction on litigation is “a known fact to us.”

One local father-and-son law firm said it had consulted with dozens of Amish landowners in the area who had been misled by energy companies in a manner similar to the Millers. The Amish are willing to consult with lawyers, and negotiate tough contracts to minimize the possibility of fraud, but once a contract is signed, even if it’s breached, there’s little they can do.

To make these ripoffs more egregious, the hazards of fracking can have an outsize effect on Amish farmers. A fracking site can take up as much as 10 acres, a sizable chunk of the typical Amish farm, which is usually less than 150 acres. And because the Amish don’t rely on modern farming technology, making a profit on their land is a constant struggle, so being cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars is especially painful.

Some say the Amish should know better than to agree to such clearly undervalued leases. But in some cases, energy companies have made it especially difficult for them by capitalizing on decades-old leases that are technically expired. Proving a lease is expired can require landowners to appear in court — again, something the Amish won’t do.

One possible workaround exists:

Aware of the complications caused by a prohibition on lawsuits, some [Amish] bishops have decided that their flock can pursue what’s known as a declaratory judgment, in which a judge merely interprets a contract. Many are still uncomfortable with that … The process still unfolds in a courtroom, but the arrangement is more palatable because there are no monetary awards involved and no jury.

I wouldn’t count on the fracking companies to suddenly be overcome with remorse and decide to put a stop to this exploitation. But maybe as word gets out about how their neighbors are getting fracked, Amish landowners will tread more carefully.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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How fracking companies exploit Amish farmers

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