Author Archives: KianBittner

Democrats Have a Class Gap. Republicans Have a Generation Gap.

by KianBittner Posted on April 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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What are the big fault lines within the Democratic and Republican parties? According to a recent Pew report, Democrats have a class gap: Democratic elites are far more liberal than less educated members of the party. But there’s not much of a generation gap: old and young voters are pretty similar ideologically.

Among Republicans, it’s just the opposite. They have a huge generation gap, with older voters skewing much more conservative than younger voters. But there’s no class gap: their elites are in pretty close sync with the party base. The raw data is here, and the chart below shows the magnitude of the difference:

This is interesting, since the most talked-about aspect of the Democratic primary was the astonishingly strong preference of young voters for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. But why did they prefer Bernie? The obvious answer is that they’re more liberal than older Democrats and therefore preferred his more radical vision—but the Pew data says that’s not the case.

So what is the answer? The age gap could still explain a bit of it, since young Democrats are a little more liberal than older Democrats. And the class gap could also explain a bit of it, since Bernie voters tend to be both young and well educated. But even put together, this doesn’t seem like enough.

Obviously there was something about Bernie that generated huge enthusiasm among younger voters. But if it wasn’t ideology, what was it?

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Democrats Have a Class Gap. Republicans Have a Generation Gap.

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The Pipeline That Texans Are Freaking Out Over (Nope, Not Keystone)

by KianBittner Posted on May 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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Earlier this year a couple of billionaires landed a nearly $770 million contract to run a 143-mile-long natural gas pipeline through Texas’s pristine Big Bend region. As of May 11, rail shipments of pipe had begun to arrive in Big Bend’s Fort Stockton area. This recent progress on the pipeline project is fueling pushback from locals who’ve been concerned about this project since it was announced in November 2014. Big Bend is one of Texas’ last unspoiled wilderness areas and one of few remaining holdouts in a state riddled with energy transmission pipelines and large-scale oil and gas activity. Fearing potential land grabs, increased traffic, and environmental desecration, locals have been mobilizing through town hall meetings and launching activist campaigns to oppose it.

What is the Trans-Pecos pipeline? At 42 inches wide and under 1,400 pounds of pressure per square inch, the Trans-Pecos pipeline will carry as much as 1.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day after its projected completion in early 2017. The gas will originate in Texas’s Permian Basin, travel the length of the pipeline to the border at Presidio, Texas, and Ojinaga, Mexico, where it will be piped further into Mexico for industrial use and power generation. The project was commissioned by the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) as part of the country’s push to modernize its energy systems.

A consortium that includes two energy companies, Mexico-based Carso and Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, won the contract to construct the pipeline in January. Carso is owned by Carlos Slim, the world’s second-richest man, who made his original fortune by charging Mexico’s phone customers monopoly prices, while levying some of the highest fees disproportionately on the poor.

ETP is led by Republican megadonor and multibillionaire Kelcy Warren of Dallas. In February, the company brought on former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the company’s Board of Directors to offer “strategic guidance to ETP’s executive management team,” according to a spokeswoman for the company. Even before that, Perry and Warren had ties: Perry has received at least $250,000 in campaign donations from Warren since 2011. ETP is also currently embroiled in a separate controversial pipeline project to transport crude from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to Illinois. The company is also facing claims that a representative from a subsidiary offered the services of a teenage prostitute to a landowner in exchange for letting ETP run the crude oil pipeline through his property. “We take these types of matters very seriously and are investigating further,” an ETP spokeswoman told KCRG of the claims.

What’s controversial about this project? ETP is running construction of the pipeline on the US side of the border, and Big Bend locals are frustrated with what they’re calling a lack of transparency from the company. Among their key complaints is confusion from ETP on which agency will provide regulatory oversight for the pipeline. This question hinges on whether the pipeline is designated as “interstate” or “intrastate.” The former means that the pipeline is crossing an international border, which would require a Presidential Permit, triggering more rigorous federal guidelines for the pipeline’s construction and operation. The latter, “intrastate,” would require a T-4 form from the Railroad Commission of Texas, the standard application for a permit to own and operate a pipeline through Texas.

Proposed route for the Trans-Pecos pipeline. ETP

Given current plans to have the gas transported into Mexico, some local activists argue that the pipeline should be designated interstate. But in mid-April, ETP hosted several “open house” meetings for Big Bend locals where they claimed the pipeline would be assigned the intrastate designation, and that the company had already applied for and received a T-4 permit from the Railroad Commission.

But a spokesperson for the Railroad Commission told Big Bend Now that’s not the case:

“The Railroad Commission’s pipeline safety jurisdiction applies only to intrastate pipelines that begin and end in Texas. The Energy Transfer flyer you provided me on this pipeline states the pipeline will terminate with an interconnect with a pipeline near Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, which means this is an interstate and international pipeline under the pipeline safety authority of the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and the U.S. Department of State. In short, their flyer is incorrect, and we are contacting the company to make a correction.”

The Railroad Commission did not respond to phone calls or emails from Mother Jones. In a recent email, Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for Energy Transfer Partners, says that only the small section of pipeline that crosses the international border requires a presidential permit, while the remaining 140-plus miles of pipeline across West Texas would fall exclusively under the Texas Railroad Commission’s authority.

How might this project affect the natural habitats? The Big Bend area is a geologically rich, wide-open expanse of mountains, desert, and ranch land; the nearby UNESCO biosphere reserve Big Bend National Park is home to 1,200 species of plants and scores of mammals, birds, reptiles, and other animal species. While the exact route isn’t yet known, the proposed direction shows the pipeline running through private ranch land, close to Big Bend Ranch State Park, and even closer to the Chinati State Natural Area, an undeveloped swath of land known for its diverse flora and fauna. In Texas, pipeline companies are legally allowed to use eminent domain to seize private land if an agreement isn’t reached with individual landowners. ETP’s Granado says that land condemnation is “always an option of last resort.”

But Big Bend is the kind of place where locals take private property seriously and have a distaste for outside interlopers. As local former justice of the peace and rancher Mary Luedeke told San Antonio Express-News, if “you go to talking about condemning something by eminent domain, you’ll get shot in this part of the country.” Anticipating a potential land grab, some locals have already sought legal counsel from San Angelo lawyer Joe Will Ross, who often handles eminent domain cases. (Citing his clients’ interests, Ross declined to comment for this story.)

More than anything, many locals object to what they see as a potential start to wider oil and gas activity in a region that has, up until now, managed to avoid it. “We don’t want the pipeline to impact the sanctity of this region,” says David Keller of Big Bend Conservation Alliance, which is organizing informational meetings on the pipeline for residents in affected counties. “If you go to Midlands just a couple hours north of here, it’s just an industrial wasteland, a sacrifice zone for the oil and gas industry. We see what that does to other communities,” he says, adding: “Big Bend is the last frontier of Texas. Wide-open spaces, beautiful open landscapes, antelope, all that, and we don’t want it to start getting industrialized.”

What’s next for the Trans-Pecos pipeline? Despite mounting opposition, ETP is laying the groundwork for construction, which they’ve announced will begin late this year or early 2016, with hopes of having natural gas flowing by 2017. The company has sent out land surveyors, one of whom was caught trespassing on a ranch; according to Granado, the rail shipments of pipe that began arriving in Big Bend this week will continue to do so through early July.

Correction: This article originally stated that the pipeline would run through public land areas.

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The Pipeline That Texans Are Freaking Out Over (Nope, Not Keystone)

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This Is How the Right Milks Benghazi for Cash

by KianBittner Posted on May 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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If you had any iota of doubt that the right’s never-ending obsession with Benghazi is not driven by its antipathy toward (or fear of) Hillary Clinton and by a desire to raise money for conservative outfits, then please see the fundraising email below that was sent out this week by the Stop Hillary PAC. Dispatched to conservative mailing lists, the solicitation depicts the Benghazi inquiry as all about Clinton, accusing her and her comrades of mounting a cover-up and successfully (apparently) neutering all previous congressional investigations.

The letter is not subtle:

As you know, previous attempts to uncover the truth were met with stonewalling by Hillary Clinton and Obama administration apologists.

Make no mistake: this stonewalling has EVERYTHING to do with protecting Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming President in 2016. You could hear the desperation in Hillary’s own voice when she shrilly yelled, “WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!!!!” at a fact-finding hearing.

Clearly, Hillary Clinton and those surrounding her think the deaths of 4 brave Americans makes no difference. Clinton simply cannot be troubled with anything that might stain the red carpet that has been rolled out for her Presidential run by the liberal elite and their accomplices in the media.

But now that Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has been appointed by House Speaker John Boehner to run a select committee on Benghazi, the Stop Hillary PAC notes, there is finally a chance the truth will emerge. Unless, of course, Clinton and her henchmen destroy Gowdy. The Stop Hillary gang presents this as a real possibility:

Remember, those that dared to uncover the truth about the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton affair and Clinton’s lies under oath about it? The Clinton’s methodically destroyed the careers and reputations of those that dared to lead the impeachment proceedings, including Congressman Bob Livingston, Bob Barr, Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, Helen Chenoweth, and Dan Burton.

Yet these supposed Clinton victims either were not undone by the Clintons or did not fare so badly. Livingston did resign from the House—but because of an extramarital affair. Gingrich was forced out of the House speakership by his fellow GOPers. Still, his career seems still to be kicking. Barr remains in the game; he ran as the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate in 2008, and days ago he won enough votes in a Georgia primary to make it to the runoff for a GOP congressional nomination. Burton—who relentlessly pursued the conspiracy theory that Clinton White House aide Vince Foster was murdered (and did not commit suicide)—stayed in the House until 2012, when he resigned. Chenoweth, too, left the House on her own accord, sticking to a pledge to serve no more than three terms. Hyde carried on in the House until his 81st birthday in 2005, when he announced he would retire.

But the Stop Hillary PAC warns that Americans who want the truth about Benghazi ought to be worried about Gowdy’s fate. There is, however, a way for these Americans to help: They can sign the Stop Hillary PAC’s “statement of support” for Gowdy and, of course, send money to the PAC. If you cannot part with $50, $100, $250, $500 or more, the group suggests a symbolic donation of $20.16. “If Congressman Gowdy can finally uncover the truth, then, perhaps we can stop Hillary once and for all…because, she MUST BE STOPPED,” the group notes.

The letter, not surprisingly, does not say how the Stop Hillary PAC will use these contributions to help Gowdy—who with subpoena power shouldn’t need that much assistance. But the group’s filings with the Federal Elections Committee might cause a potential donor to be concerned. From the start of 2013 until the end of this past March, the group raised $462,749. In this time period, it spent $407,970. About $110,000 of that went straight to fundraising consultants. And most of the rest was paid out to direct mail, political consulting, and PR firms. According to Open Secrets, the PAC has devoted about 90 percent of its expenditures to fundraising overall. This stat gives the impression that the group exists largely to raise money for itself. (The honorary chairman of the Stop Hillary PAC is Colorado state Sen. Ted Harvey, a Republican who once claimed that California wildfires were set by Al Qaeda. They were not.)

Democrats who charge that the new Benghazi committee was established to allow conservatives to bash Clinton and keep milking their movement grassroots for cash need look no further than the Stop Hillary PAC. Its email ends with this enticement: “the first 2,500 patriots” who send $20.16 or more to the PAC to support Gowdy will receive “our extremely popular Stop Hillary window sticker.”

Here’s the full email:

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This Is How the Right Milks Benghazi for Cash

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In the Future, Home Appliances Will Be as Smart as Your Phone

by KianBittner Posted on March 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Estimates vary, but by 2020 there could be over 30 billion devices connected to the Internet. Once dumb, they will have smartened up thanks to sensors and other technologies embedded in them and, thanks to your machines, your life will quite literally have gone online.

The implications are revolutionary. Your smart refrigerator will keep an inventory of food items, noting when they go bad. Your smart thermostat will learn your habits and adjust the temperature to your liking. Smart lights will illuminate dangerous parking garages, even as they keep an “eye” out for suspicious activity.

Techno-evangelists have a nice catchphrase for this future utopia of machines and the never-ending stream of information, known as Big Data, it produces: the Internet of Things. So abstract. So inoffensive. Ultimately, so meaningless.

A future Internet of Things does have the potential to offer real benefits, but the dark side of that seemingly shiny coin is this: companies will increasingly know all there is to know about you. Most people are already aware that virtually everything a typical person does on the Internet is tracked. In the not-too-distant future, however, real space will be increasingly like cyberspace, thanks to our headlong rush toward that Internet of Things. With the rise of the networked device, what people do in their homes, in their cars, in stores, and within their communities will be monitored and analyzed in ever more intrusive ways by corporations and, by extension, the government.

And one more thing: in cyberspace it is at least theoretically possible to log off. In your own well-wired home, there will be no “opt out.”

You can almost hear the ominous narrator’s voice from an old “Twilight Zone” episode saying, “Soon the net will close around all of us. There will be no escape.”

Except it’s no longer science fiction. It’s our barely distant present.

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In the Future, Home Appliances Will Be as Smart as Your Phone

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