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Leading Climate Experts Have Some Advice for Donald Trump

by GladisK22jhqjwt Posted on January 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

To fulfill his campaign slogan of “Make America great again,” Donald Trump must back the boom in green technology—that was the message from the leading climate figures ahead of his inauguration as president on Friday.

Unleashing US innovation on the trillion-dollar clean technology market will create good US jobs, stimulate its economy, maintain the US’ political leadership around the globe and, not least, make the world a safer place by tackling climate change, the experts told the Guardian.

The omens are not encouraging. Trump has called global warming a hoax and is filling his administration with climate change deniers and oil barons. But reversing action on climate change and championing fossil fuels will only “make China great again,” said one top adviser.

Here are the messages to Trump from some of the key figures the Guardian contacted.

Michael Liebreich, founder of analyst firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance who has advised the UN and World Economic Forum on energy: “If I had one minute with president elect Trump my message would be that the best way to ‘Make America great again’ is by owning the clean energy, transportation and infrastructure technologies of the future. Not only will this create countless well-paid, fulfilling jobs for Americans, but will also lock in the US’ geopolitical leadership for another generation.”

John Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who has advised Angela Merkel, the Pope and the EU: “Mr. President, if you want to make China great again, you have to stay the course you have promised. I think it would be the end of US domination in innovation, in economics. If you try to take the US backwards to the days of mountain top removal for coal in West Virginia and all those things, then you will just make sure China becomes No. 1 in all respects. In the end, you would produce precisely what you promised to avoid to your electorate.”

Dame Julia King, an eminent engineer and one of the UK government’s official advisers at the Committee on Climate Change: “If President Trump wants to deliver greater job security for Americans, he should focus on clean and sustainable industries where the US has a competitive advantage. Those are the sectors that are set to prosper. He needs to build an economy for 2050, not one for 1950.”

Lord Nicholas Stern, a leading climate change economist at the London School of Economics: “If you want to make America great again, building modern, clean and smart infrastructure makes tremendous commercial and national sense. In the longer term, the low carbon growth story is the only growth story on offer. There is no long-term, high-carbon growth story, because destruction of the environment would reverse growth.”

Mark Campanale, founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative think tank: “If you’re interested in quality, high paying and skilled jobs for the American middle classes, then renewable energy has to absolutely be the place to look. It’s a sector with more employees now than in the US coal industry and with a long way to grow.”

James Hansen, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University: “If Trump wants to achieve the things that he claimed he would: improving the situation of the common man, the best way he could do this would be a program of a rising carbon fee with the money distributed to the public.”

Jennifer Morgan, co-executive director of Greenpeace International: “Mr. Trump, you might not realize it yet, but your action, or inaction, on climate will define your legacy as president. The renewable energy transformation is unstoppable and, if the US chooses to turn its back on the future, it will miss out on all the opportunities it brings in terms of jobs, investment and technology advances. China, India and others are racing ahead to be the global clean energy superpowers and surely the US, led by a businessman, does not want to be left behind.”

Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists in the US: “Trump’s stance threatens to diminish America’s standing in the world and to weaken the ability of US companies and workers to compete in the rapidly growing global market for clean energy technologies.”

May Boeve, head of climate campaign group 350.org: “Quit. But if you have to stick around, realize that the clean energy economy is the greatest, biggest job creator in history.”

Some leading figures, who will have to deal directly with the Trump administration, chose more diplomatic messages to the new president, while emphasizing the vital need to act on global warming:

Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change—the UN’s climate chief: “I look forward to working with your new administration to make the world a better place for the people of the US and for peoples everywhere in this very special world.”

Scientist Derek Arndt, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, presenting the temperature data showing 2016 was the hottest year on record: “We present this assessment for the benefit of the American people.”

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Leading Climate Experts Have Some Advice for Donald Trump

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It’s happening: Climate change starts disappearing from government websites.

by KelleePulido Posted on January 20, 2017

That’s according to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

You’re probably used to hearing about how denser cities cut transportation emissions, thanks to reduced driving. This study looks at a different impact: how density affects greenhouse gas emissions from buildings.

The researchers projected emissions from buildings under different potential urban densities between now and 2050. They found that denser development patterns lead to lower emissions because people live and work in smaller units that consume less energy. Attached buildings are also more efficient for heating and cooling.

So the PNAS study finds that greater density has the potential to substantially reduce building emissions, more so than other efforts to improve energy efficiency like better weather-proofing.

Unfortunately, global trends are moving in the wrong direction. Cities around the world are growing, but at the same time, urban density is decreasing, as cars enable cities and their suburbs to sprawl outwards.

Governments can adopt policies to make their cities and towns denser, and they’ll need to — not just in the relatively sprawling cities of North America and Europe, but in the fast-growing cities of Asia and the rest of the developing world.

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It’s happening: Climate change starts disappearing from government websites.

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Climate Change Means Fewer Days of Perfect Weather

by Jane Adams Posted on January 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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Picture the perfect picnic day: It’s neither too hot nor too cold, neither too humid nor too dry. The sun is shining, and there’s little chance of rain. For many of our outdoor activities, these are the days we care about and plan for. And yet, in the last few decades of climate research, scientists haven’t spent much time researching these “mild weather” days.

“In standard climate science research, we either focus on changes in the mean climate—what is the average annual temperature globally and how does that change in time, or what is the average annual rainfall amount and how does rainfall amount change in a region—or we look at extreme weather and storms, so hurricanes or floods or droughts,” says Sarah Kapnick, a climate scientist at the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But today, Kapnick, along with two colleagues at NOAA and Princeton University, have released the very first study on global shifts in “mild weather” over the next century, and the results are not looking good.

Annual number of mild weather days right now.

Changes in annual mild weather days in years 2081-2100.

Using a climate simulation model to analyze mild weather days worldwide, the scientists found that today a person, on average, experiences 89 mild days—but by 2100 she will only experience 78. Moreover, though the latter half of the century will see the fastest decline in mild days, we will begin to see the effects within the next twenty years. The model projects that by 2035, our global average of mild days will fall by four. To put this into perspective, El Niño—one of the largest natural climate-changing events—only chips off one mild weather day per year from the global average.

Of course, these mild weather changes are not evenly distributed around the world. For example, the majority of Africa, as well as, parts of Asia, eastern Latin America, and northern Australia—regions most hard-hit by other studied climate change impacts—will also suffer the greatest losses in mild weather, upwards of 25 fewer days, over the next century. That isn’t to say that the US will ride through the upcoming decades unscathed. A table published along with the study shows exactly what key American cities should expect within the next twenty years. Take two examples: Miami, which currently experiences 97 mild weather days per year, will lose 16 of those days by 2035; DC, currently tallied at 81, will lose 7.

Changes in annual mild weather days for key cities in the US. Karin van der Wiel, lead author of the study

Ticking off a couple of days here and there doesn’t sound too bad when you’re planning for picnics or hikes. But, as Kapnick points out, mild weather days also affect critical economic activities, including construction, infrastructure projects, agriculture, and air and rail travel. Such shrinking and shifting of mild weather could lead to significant negative economic consequences, not to mention a threat to our global food supply. Even for the handful of regions around the world where mild weather is predicted to increase, there could be unexpected consequences. “People in sunny California know that just because you have sunny, lovely weather, mild weather, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a good thing for your water resources,” says Kapnick.

Now that a model exists for studying the everyday impacts of climate change, Kapnick hopes other scientists will build off of her team’s work. She says, “We have started with mild weather, but future work can look at other ranges of climate that interest people for specific purposes or activities.”

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Climate Change Means Fewer Days of Perfect Weather

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A Stray Email Exposes a Prison Company’s Rebranding Efforts

by BlytheDouglas Posted on January 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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CoreCivic, the private prison company formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America, has been working with a communications firm that boasts an “aggressive media strategy” for countering investigative journalists. CoreCivic apparently retained the Alexandria, Virginia-based firm to manage its reputation following the publication of a Mother Jones story in which I detailed my four months working as a corrections officer at a CoreCivic-operated prison in Louisiana.

The prison company’s connection to the PR firm came to light through a recent email sent by CoreCivic spokesperson Jonathan Burns to Hillenby chief operating officer Katie Lilley. Burns copied Texas Public Radio reporter Aaron Schrank on the email, presumably unintentionally. Schrank forwarded the email to me. The email suggests that Hillenby has been assisting CoreCivic in developing its public response to my reporting.

A two-page set of talking points, titled “Get the Facts on Mother Jonesâ&#128;¨,” were attached to the message. Burns said he wanted to have the talking points, which CoreCivic originally issued last summer, “handy” during a “Metro Commission meeting,” and asked Lilley if she could have it “CoreCivic-ified first,” referring to the company’s recent decision to change its name and logo. The meeting Burns mentioned may be a reference to a meeting in Nashville, where CoreCivic is based and where it has a contract to run the Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility.

The talking points label me as an “activist reporter” who sought to “force onto Mother Jones readers a rehashed and predetermined premise instead of a factual and informed story.” The document focuses largely on the fact that I sought employment as a prison guard rather than simply interviewing CoreCivic about their company. It accuses me of having “jeopardized the safety and security” of the prison and its employees by writing about the things I had witnessed and experienced there, rather than reporting them to my supervising officer. The memo also criticizes me for neglecting to speak “to a person supportive of our company and the solutions we provide.” CoreCivic declined multiple interview requests while I was reporting my article. I also sent the company more than 150 questions seeking responses and further information.

CoreCivic and Hillenby’s executives did not respond to requests to comment for this article.

It’s unclear what, if any, steps Hillenby has taken to help rebrand CoreCivic. On its website, Hillenby doesn’t name many of its clients and describes its campaigns in general terms. The firm claims it has successfully curtailed the publication of investigative reports “with every national television network, investigative cable news programs and several other print, digital and broadcast outlets, including hardline activist media.” For example, it claims that its “aggressive media strategy” succeeded in pushing an investigative report by an unnamed broadcast company to be “indefinitely delayed” and “likely dropped.” The firm says it helps companies “incorporate certain language” in their correspondence with investigative reporters to “introduce the concept of legal risk.”

The PR firm’s top executives, Rob Hoppin and Katie Lilley, previously worked at Edelman, one of the world’s largest PR firms. Edelman has used controversial strategies while performing corporate facelifts. In 2006, it created Working Families for Walmart, a supposedly grassroots group of Walmart supporters. Its blog posts turned out to have been written by Edelman employees. Edelman also helped organize “Wal-Marting Across America,” a blog written by a road-tripping couple who recorded their overwhelmingly positive interactions with Walmart employees. Edelman flew the couple to Las Vegas and furnished them with a mint-green RV adorned with the Working Families for Walmart logo. It’s unclear if Hoppin and Lilley worked on those campaigns, though both were on Edelman’s Walmart account at the time, according to their online bios.

A few weeks after I stopped working at the prison, in early 2015, CoreCivic notified the Louisiana Department of Corrections that it planned to terminate its contract to operate the facility, which had been set to expire in 2020. According to DOC documents, the state had asked CoreCivic to address numerous issues at the prison involving security, staffing levels, training, programming for inmates, and a bonus paid to Winn’s warden that “causes neglect of basic needs.” Shortly following the publication of my article last June, the Justice Department announced it would phase out its use of private prisons.

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A Stray Email Exposes a Prison Company’s Rebranding Efforts

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Health Care Is All About the Benjamins

by FernElledge Posted on January 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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Sherri Underwood, a Midwestern woman in her mid-50s, writes that she voted for Donald Trump but now regrets it:

Most of my decision came down to my poor experience with Obamacare. In the ’90s, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic illness that causes fatigue, memory loss, physical aches, and soreness….I eventually was unable to work at all. I lost employer-based health insurance when I left the workforce and had to pay my health care costs out of pocket.

When Obamacare first came into effect, I was excited to get what I thought would be financial help with my costly medicine and treatments. But my husband’s salary put me in an earning bracket too high to qualify for any financial assistance….I’m left with a premium of $893, so high that I can no longer afford the cost of my medicines and treatments on top of the monthly premiums.

….In the end, I voted for Trump because he promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, and that was the most important issue to my own life. Looking back, I realize what a mistake it was. I ignored the pundits who repeated over and over again that he would not follow through on his promises, thinking they were spewing hysterics for better ratings. Sitting on my couch, my mouth agape at the words coming out his mouth on the TV before me, I realized just how wrong I was.

This is so depressing. Underwood’s general problem is that she’s decided Trump is not a man who will carry out his promises, so now she doesn’t believe he’s going to improve Obamacare. Fine. But what Underwood never understood is that even if Trump did carry out his promises, she’d still be worse off. Although Underwood may not have qualified for a subsidy, she did benefit from the fact that Obamacare allows a maximum premium ratio of 3:1 between old people and young people. Trump and other Republicans think this ought to be 5:1. If it were, Underwood’s premium would be over $1,000. Obamacare probably saved her something in the neighborhood of $2,000 per year.

Plus Obamacare allowed her to get insurance in the first place. Until it took effect, no one would cover her.

Lots of people have benefited considerably from Obamacare, but not everyone. Underwood found herself in the worst possible position: old enough to have a high premium but well-off enough that she didn’t qualify for assistance. So she was gobsmacked when she discovered just how much health care costs in America. Most people have no real clue about this, but per-capita health care spending in the US for someone 55 years old is about $10,000 per year. That means insurance premiums are going to be $10,000+ per year too. There’s just no getting around this.

If Republicans want to cover people like Underwood, they’re going to have to spend more money than Obamacare. If they want to reduce deductibles, they’re going to have to spend more money than Obamacare. If they want to increase subsidies for the middle class, they’re going to have to spend more money than Obamacare. This is an iron law, and no amount of blather about state lines or tort reform or anything else changes it more than minutely. But Republicans want to spend less, not more. Even if Trump had been sincere, there was never any chance that Underwood would do better under his plan than under Obamacare.

It all comes down to money. Ignore the rest of the chaff. If you think national health care should be better, it means spending more money. Period.

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Health Care Is All About the Benjamins

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Here Are Just Some of the Stunningly Bad Moments From Betsy DeVos’ Confirmation Hearing

by VilmaGairdner Posted on January 18, 2017

Mother Jones

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Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing to become President-elect Donald Trump’s education secretary was originally scheduled for last Wednesday but was ultimately postponed until late Tuesday afternoon. With an extra week to get ready, Senate Democrats came prepared—and DeVos, oddly enough, did not.

Our latest investigation: Betsy DeVos Wants to Use America’s Schools to Build “God’s Kingdom”

While Republicans on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions lauded the billionaire philanthropist—and prominent GOP donor—for her commitment to expanding charter schools and voucher programs, committee Democrats barraged DeVos with specific, pointed questions about her attempts to privatize public education, even pleading with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the HELP chairman, for the opportunity to ask more questions as the three-and-a-half-hour hearing boiled over.

DeVos reaffirmed her support for an education system beyond a “one-size-fits-all” approach that opened up choices—”whether magnet, virtual, charter, home, religious, or any combination thereof.” But when pushed beyond her talking points, she was stiff and often thrown off her game:

“If you were not a multibillionaire…”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) didn’t shy away from challenging DeVos on her family’s large contributions to the Republican Party. “Do you think that if you were not a multibillionaire, if your family had not made hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions, that you would be sitting here today?” Sanders followed up by grilling DeVos on free college education and tax cuts on the richest Americans.

“Do you not want to answer my question?”

During a tense exchange, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) challenged DeVos on whether schools that receive federal funding should meet the same accountability standards, the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, and report the same information on instances of bullying, discipline, and harassment. DeVos…was less than forthcoming.

Growth, proficiency…and conversion therapy:

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) wanted to know if DeVos thought test scores should measure a student’s proficiency (i.e., did she reach a specific standard?) or a student’s growth (i.e., did she improve over time?). After DeVos struggled to clarify the distinction, Franken responded, “This is a subject that has been debated in the education community for years…But it surprises me that you don’t know this issue.” He also pushed DeVos on her family’s past donations to groups that support anti-LGBT causes—including Focus on the Family, a nonprofit founded by evangelical leader James Dobson—and even asked whether DeVos supported conversion therapy.

Campus sexual assault

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) asked whether DeVos would uphold a 2011 Department of Education letter establishing that sexual assault on college campuses was covered by Title IX and school reporting standards. DeVos would not commit to an answer, noting it would be “premature” to do so and that she would work with lawmakers to find a resolution.

Guns—and bears?!

Longtime gun control proponent Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked DeVos directly whether guns had any place in schools. “That’s best left to locales and states to decide,” she responded. When Murphy followed up, DeVos referred back to an earlier question about an elementary school from Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.). “I would imagine that there’s probably a gun at the school to protect from potential grizzlies,” DeVos said.

Kids with disabilities

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), whose son has cerebral palsy, questioned DeVos on her knowledge of the Individuals with Disabilities Act—particularly whether DeVos knew that it was a federal law. DeVos eventually said she “may have confused it” with something else.

On the Prince Foundation board or not?

Hassan also asked DeVos about a $5.2 million donation that the Edger and Elsa Prince Foundation made to Focus on the Family. As my colleague Kristina Rizga noted in her new, in-depth investigation, DeVos was listed as a vice president of the Prince Foundation in tax documents through at least 2014. But DeVos denied having any real involvement in her parents’ foundation: “That was a clerical error. I can assure you I have never made decisions on my mother’s behalf on her foundation’s board.”

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Here Are Just Some of the Stunningly Bad Moments From Betsy DeVos’ Confirmation Hearing

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Cops’ Feelings on Race Show How Far We Have to Go

by johnsmithwindows Posted on January 16, 2017

Mother Jones

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This week, the Pew Research Center released a report entitled “Behind the Badge,” a comprehensive survey of nearly 8,000 law enforcement officials across the United States examining their attitudes toward their jobs, police protests, interactions with their communities, racial issues, and much more. The report states that it is appearing “at a crisis point in America’s relationship with the men and women who enforce its laws, precipitated by a series of deaths of black Americans during encounters with the police.”

According to 2016 University of Louisville and University of South Carolina study, police fatally shoot black men at disproportionate rates. Since the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the last few years have been marked with protests leading to a national discussion around race and policing. This report explores how law enforcement officers in the United States view the intersection of policing and race—often, not surprisingly, with very different perspectives between white and black officers.

Here are some of the highlights:

Racial equality: When asked about racial inequality in the country, 92 percent of white officers answered that the United States does not need to make any more changes to achieve equal rights for black Americans. Only 29 percent of black cops agreed. This is in sharp contrast to white civilians, the report notes: Only 57 percent of white adults believe that equal rights have been secured for black people; a mere 8 percent of black people agree, Pew found in a separate survey.
Demonstrations against police: Sixty-eight percent of the officers interviewed say demonstrations against police brutality are motivated by anti-police bias, and 67 percent say the deaths of black people at the hands of police are isolated incidents. Once more, there is a significant racial divide between the respondents: 57 percent of black cops think the high-profile incidents point to a larger problem, while only 27 percent of their white colleagues agree.
Police involvement in immigrant deportation: During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump supported local law enforcement having more of a role in deporting undocumented immigrants, and a small majority of cops agree. Overall, 52 percent of police officers believe they should have an active role in immigration enforcement; 59 percent of white cops agree, compared with 35 percent of black officers and 38 percent of Hispanic police officers.
Community policing: The idea of training police officers to work with community members to achieve better policing has become the center of the conversation surrounding police reform since President Barack Obama organized a task force around the “community policing” concept. But 56 percent of all police officers interviewed consider an aggressive approach to policing more appropriate in certain neighborhoods than the approach of being courteous. There was no racial breakdown for this result.
Physical confrontation: For most police officers, according to the report, physical confrontations do not occur every day, but one-third of those interviewed reported having a physical struggle with a suspect who was resisting arrest within the last month. Thirty-six percent of white officers reported having such an incident, while 33 percent of Hispanic officers reported the same thing. Only 20 percent of black officers said they had a physical altercation with a suspect.

The report also includes police officers attitudes on job satisfaction and police reform proposals. “Police and the public hold sharply different views about key aspects of policing as well as on some major policy issues facing the country,” the report concludes.

Read the full report here.

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Cops’ Feelings on Race Show How Far We Have to Go

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Obamacare Is One of the Best Social Welfare Programs Ever Passed

by JamisonJose503 Posted on January 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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Jeff Stein reports on Democratic plans to fight any attempt to repeal Obamacare:

“We are united in our opposition to these Republican attempts to Make America Sick Again,” Schumer said, cracking a slight smile at the inversion of Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. The line suggests that Schumer wants to reframe the fight over Obamacare into one about the broader GOP health care agenda, which includes proposals to change Medicaid andMedicare.

Since the health care law passed in 2009, Schumer and other Democrats in Congress have learned that defending it can be a political loser. Republicans stayed unified in their opposition, and public opinion stayed on their side. But in their final push to save it, Democrats are moving the battle to new turf, fighting over Americans’ shared frustration with the inadequacies of the country’s health care system, not the law itself.

This is sadly true. Democrats have never been willing to defend Obamacare, and they still aren’t. It’s crazy. Obamacare isn’t perfect. Nothing this side of the pearly gates is. But if politicians limited themselves to defending programs with no problems, we’d never hear from them again.1

But considering where we started—with a Rube Goldberg medical system dominated by well-heeled special interests and all but indifferent to the near-poor—Obamacare is almost miraculously close to perfect. I know that Republicans have convinced everyone otherwise, but take a look at the results of this Kaiser tracking poll from November. Virtually every single aspect of Obamacare is not just popular, but very popular:

Even Republicans like practically everything about Obamacare, including the taxes to pay for it. People like the subsidies; they like the exchanges; they like the out-of-pocket caps; they like the Medicaid expansion; they like the pre-existing conditions ban; and they like taxing the rich to fund it all. The only unpopular part of the whole law is the individual mandate.

What’s more, Obamacare has been a huge success. It’s provided health coverage to 20 million people. It’s massively reduced the cost of health coverage for low-income families. It’s slashed the number of uninsured by half among blacks and whites and by a quarter among Hispanics. It’s allowed people with expensive chronic illnesses to get treatment. It will help keep overall health costs down in the future. It’s had no negative impact on the employer health care system. And it’s done all this without raising the deficit. In fact, it’s cut the deficit.

And yet, Democrats are still afraid to defend it loudly and proudly. This just boggles me. Sure, Obamacare has some problems. Certain regions don’t have enough competition. Deductibles are high if you buy a bronze plan. And a small part of the population has been hit with large premium increases.

But this is something like 10 percent of Obamacare. The other 90 percent is purely positive. Why are so many liberals unwilling to say so? Why aren’t they willing to defend Obamacare with the same fervor they defend other imperfect programs, like Medicare or the ADA or the Clean Air Act or Social Security? Obamacare is at least as good as any of them. But no one will ever believe it if Republicans are attacking it relentlessly while Democrats mutter resentfully that there’s no public option and politicians hide in their offices in the hope that nobody will blame them if their premiums have gone up.

If Democrats aren’t willing to defend Obamacare, it’s hardly a surprise that Republicans feel free to go after it without consequence. Maybe they should start.

1Yes, I know, that might not be a bad thing.

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Obamacare Is One of the Best Social Welfare Programs Ever Passed

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Paul Ryan Says the GOP Will Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood

by AnnettaBernhard Posted on January 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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During a news conference on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the process to dismantle Obamacare will include stripping all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but he did not provide much further detail.

His remarks come two days after a Republican-led House investigative panel released a report that recommended the health care provider be defunded. The investigative panel—created to examine allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for profit—was then disbanded, because it was not reauthorized for a new Congress. Planned Parenthood was never found guilty of any wrongdoing at the state or federal level, despite multiple GOP-led investigations.

Democrats immediately denounced the move. “I just would like to speak individually to women across America: This is about respect for you, for your judgment about your personal decisions in terms of your reproductive needs, the size and timing of your family or the rest, not to be determined by the insurance company or by the Republican ideological right-wing caucus in the House of Representatives,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “So this is a very important occasion where we’re pointing out very specifically what repeal of the Affordable Care Act will mean to women.”

The measure to cut funding will appear in a special fast-track bill expected to pass Congress in February, during a session that allows legislation to bypass filibuster. The bill would need only a simple majority of senators to pass, rather than a 60-vote supermajority. Should the measure pass, according to the Washington Post, the largest women’s health care organization in the country would lose 40 percent of its funding. Planned Parenthood received $528 million in federal funding in 2014, and the government is its largest single source of funding.

A federal law known as the Hyde Amendment forbids the use of any federal funds for abortions. The money Planned Parenthood receives is for preventative screenings, birth control, and general women’s health care for their 2.5 million patients.

Rep. Diane DeGette (D-Colo.) promised that Democrats would “stand against this with every fiber of our beings.”

A similar measure passed the House and the Senate in 2015 but was repealed once it reached President Barack Obama’s desk. Obama has long supported the preservation of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. In December, he issued a rule that barred states from withholding funds from Planned Parenthood based on the fact that they provide abortion care.

President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he opposes continuing federal funding for Planned Parenthood, so a presidential veto would be unlikely. Similarly, Vice President-elect Mike Pence has been staunchly anti-abortion throughout his political career—he signed a measure to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana during his tenure as governor, and he was successful in slashing funding for the provider in his state.

Reacting to Ryan’s proposal, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action fund, told reporters, “It’s likely no accident that this attack was launched the day after Vice President-elect Mike Pence, a long-time opponent of Planned Parenthood, held a closed-door meeting with Speaker Ryan and the Republican leadership.”

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Paul Ryan Says the GOP Will Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood

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Instead of Trashing Homeless Camps, This City is Providing Them With Trash Pickup

by LauriElliot Posted on January 2, 2017

Mother Jones

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It’s cleaning time at one of the several encampments set up in the shadow of the elevated MacArthur Freeway in West Oakland, California. More than two dozen tents in various states of repair sit in the musty space beneath the stark overpass. Axel, a black man in his late 40s who lives along the camp’s outskirts, pushes a broom across the sidewalk that serves as a front porch for his tarp-draped tent. After a few minutes of sweeping, the trash he has arranged into a neat pile is collected by Abby Harrison, who places it into one of the five shiny Waste Management trash cans circulating in the camp. In a little while, the cans will be arranged on the street bordering the camp’s southern edge, where they will wait to be emptied by a garbage truck.

The cleanup continues by the camp’s two portable toilets, where a man is gathering used toiletries for disposal and clearing the path for a pumper truck to back in. The truck arrives a few minutes ahead of schedule, and the driver hops out to quickly clean and service the porta-potties. The driver is gone after a few minutes of pumping and wiping, much to the relief of another man patiently waiting to use the facilities.

In many respects, this homeless encampment is like hundreds of other camps that have mushroomed in cities across America, especially in the West. But what distinguishes the camp beneath the 580 freeway is that rather than being targeted for removal, it’s receiving public services from the city of Oakland. Instead of razing the encampment, Oakland and Alameda County policymakers set up a pilot program that offers basic services to some unsheltered residents. This includes not just waste pickup and porta-potties, but a mobile health clinic and the placement of large concrete barriers to protect the camp from traffic. Oakland has also directed its social services and relief employees to work with the residents of the MacArthur Freeway camp to help them find permanent housing. Since the pilot started in October, city officials report that 17 of the camp’s 42 original residents have moved into stable living situations.

Garbage cans sit by an encampment beneath the MacArthur Freeway in Oakland. Matt Tinoco

This approach is unique, especially as many cities double down on anti-camping laws and controversial “sweeps”, often conducted under the guise of protecting public health. The process is familiar: Homeless people set up a camp, bringing with it trash, human waste, and sometimes crime. Neighbors complain, and, before long, the local government serves the camp’s residents with a notice to vacate. The camp is cleared, but it either moves or returns after a few weeks.

San Francisco’s municipal authorities cleared out a large camp of 250 people from beneath one of the city’s freeways earlier this year. In November, the city’s voters passed Proposition Q, which prohibits assembling a tent on a public sidewalk. As Supervisor David Campos explained in a September statement, “encampments are not a solution to homelessness. They are unhealthy for homeless people, and they are unhealthy for residents and businesses around them.” Yet homelessness advocates note that clearing out camps is often little more than a cosmetic solution.

Like Oakland, other cities have also experimented with an approach that moves away from simply removing homeless people. Though sweeps still occur in Seattle, the city has set up a partnership with religious organizations that allows some homeless people to live on the organizations’ property. (Nevertheless, 2015 motion that would have authorized city services like waste pickup at encampments died after Seattle residents objected.) Santa Barbara, California, has a “safe-parking” program that allows people who live in vehicles to park in public parking lots without threat of citation.

The Oakland pilot project is based on the understanding that if unsheltered residents have, at the very least, a reliable and sanitary place to pitch their tents, they can devote more time and energy to finding a more stable place to live. “Breaking camps apart takes them farther away from permanent housing,” says Alex Marqusee, a legislative analyst for City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney, the chief sponsor of the project in Oakland. “It’s opposite of the direction we want to go.”

“It’s like, where am I going to go?'” says Harrison, a black woman in her early 40s who lives under the MacArthur Freeway. “When I have to move it messes everything up. I get them people up in their nice houses not wanting to see any of this. I don’t want to see this. But I need to live, and it’s not like I want to live here.”

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Instead of Trashing Homeless Camps, This City is Providing Them With Trash Pickup

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