Tag Archives: nyc

Awlaki Assassination Memo Finally Released

by AnnabelCorrigan Posted on June 23, 2014

Mother Jones

A federal court has finally released the Obama administration’s memo justifying the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen living in Yemen who was apparently a top Al Qaeda operative. I think we mostly knew this already, but the memo confirms that the decision to kill Awlaki was based primarily on the Authorization to Use Military Force passed a few weeks after 9/11:

“We believe that the AUMF’s authority to use lethal force abroad also may apply in appropriate circumstances to a United States citizen who is part of the forces of an enemy authorization within the scope of the force authorization,” reads the Justice Department memorandum, written for attorney general Eric Holder on 16 July 2010 and ostensibly intended strictly for Awlaki’s case.

Among those circumstances: “Where high-level government officials have determined that a capture operation is infeasible and that the targeted person is part of a dangerous enemy force and is engaged in activities that pose a continued and imminent threat to US persons or interests.”

I’ve never taken a firm stand on the decision to kill Awlaki. Everything I’ve read persuades me that he was, indeed, a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative, and a dangerous one. If we were engaged in a normal war, there would be no question about our right to treat him like any other enemy combatant.

But we aren’t engaged in a normal war, are we? There’s no specific enemy, no specific battlefield, and no way of knowing if and when the war is over. The AUMF is open-ended, both in time and geography, and is famously vague about just who it authorizes the president to make war against. It specifies “those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,” and that takes in a helluva lot of ground.

Thus, the problem I’ve always had isn’t specifically with the targeting of Awlaki, but with the fact that the targeting was based on such a flimsy legal pretext. However, despite the fact that I’m disappointed in Obama’s decision to interpret the AUMF widely, most of the blame on that score should be directed not at Obama, but at Congress. The AUMF is now more than a dozen years old, and it’s long past time for Congress to emerge from its fetal crouch and write a new law specifically designed for our present circumstances. Among other things, it should address the president’s ability to target American citizens for killing. If Congress wants to give the president that power, it should debate and pass a law and the courts should rule on its constitutionality. That’s the rule of law. And regardless of whether I liked the law, I’d accept it if Congress passed it, the president signed it, and the Supreme Court declared it constitutional.

Instead, as usual, Congress prefers to do nothing. This leaves them free to kibitz if they don’t like what the president is doing, or to simply avoid having to take a stand at all. It’s shameful.

Read the full Justice Department memo here.

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Awlaki Assassination Memo Finally Released

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Supreme Court Strikes Down EPA Interpretation of Clean Air Act

by JackieMesserly Posted on June 23, 2014

Mother Jones

A few years ago, the EPA added carbon dioxide to an established program that limits emissions of harmful pollutants. But there was a problem: the Clean Air Act says that permits are required by any source that emits more than 250 tons of a covered pollutant. Because CO2 is such a common gas, this would have forced tens of thousands of small sources to go through an expensive and pointless permitting process, something EPA wanted to avoid. So, for CO2 only, they unilaterally changed the threshold to 100,000 tons per year. This exempted most large businesses, but it also gave critics an opening to challenge the law. Today they won:

The Supreme Court, in a split ruling, has blocked the Obama administration from requiring special permits for some new power plants, but upheld them for others. In a dense 5-4 decision Monday, the justices said the Environmental Protection Agency had wrongly stretched an anti-pollution provision of the Clean Air Act to cover carbon emissions in new or modified plants.

But the ruling was confined to only one regulatory provision, and it is not likely to directly affect the broader climate-change policy that the administration announced earlier this month. That policy relies on a different part of the law that says states must take steps to reduce harmful air pollutants, which include greenhouse gases.

This doesn’t affect the EPA’s recent proposal that would limit CO2 emissions from power plants, since that relies on a different provision of the Clean Air Act that’s already been blessed by the Supreme Court. However, today’s ruling is a demonstration of something I’ve mentioned before: When an executive agency modifies the way it interprets a law, it’s a fairly routine affair. Interpretations of federal statutes, especially complex regulatory constructions, are notoriously difficult, and agencies do it all the time. There’s no presidential “lawlessness” or “tyranny” involved, and disputes over these interpretations are routinely resolved by courts. In this case, it was obviously a close call, since the decision was 5-4 and the opinion was long and dense.

This is what’s likely to happen in other cases where the Obama administration has interpreted a law in ways that his critics don’t like. If the critics are serious, they’ll go to court, and in some cases they’ll win. In others, they’ll lose. Welcome to the 21st century.

UPDATE: I wrote this hastily because—and I know you’re going to love this excuse—a temporary crown fell out and I had to pop out to my dentist to get it re-cemented. But now that I’m back, it’s worth pointing out that today’s Supreme Court decision actually upheld most of the EPA’s new limitations on CO2 emissions. The main reason I highlighted the one piece they struck down was because I wanted to make a point about presidential “lawlessness” that’s become such a talking point on the right these days. In the case of the 250-ton rule, the EPA tried to reinterpret the law and the court ruled against them. Other interpretations were upheld. That’s the way this stuff goes.

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Supreme Court Strikes Down EPA Interpretation of Clean Air Act

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Real Men Know What a Codec Is

by ClaritaHartmann Posted on June 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Tyler Cowen points today to a list of words that show the biggest disparities in recognition between men and women. Men, for example, are pretty familiar with humvee, claymore, and scimitar. Women are pretty familiar with taffeta, wisteria, and bodice. No big surprises there. But here’s the #1 word on the male list:

codec (88, 48)

Seriously? We’re supposed to believe that 88 percent of men are familiar with the word codec? True, this is only a test for recognizing a word, not necessarily for knowing what it means, but still. Something is wrong with this picture. Even taking into account the number of gamers and audiophiles who end up having to muck around with codecs, I’d still guess that no more than 10-20 percent of the men in America have ever come across the word.

But then again, maybe I’m wrong. Is it possible that among American males, knowledge of codecs is as widespread as knowledge of carburetors used to be?

Source article – 

Real Men Know What a Codec Is

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Is a Government Shutdown Over Coal in Our Future?

by Oleksajp9 Posted on June 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Brian Beutler thinks Republicans are likely to force yet another government shutdown, this time over the EPA’s proposed restriction on coal-fired power plants. But unlike the last shutdown, which came last September because it literally seemed like their last chance to prevent Obamacare from taking effect, they have more leeway this time around:

I think history and reason both suggest they will not shut down the government before the election—but that their vehement interest in emitting as much carbon pollution as possible, combined with the likelihood that they’ll win several Senate seats in November, presages a dramatic confrontation between Republicans Congress and the White House either right after the election or early next Congress.

….The crucial difference between last September and the coming one is that Republicans (particularly the hardline/opportunist faction) were staring down the imminent launch of the Affordable Care Act on October 1, 2013….The EPA rule is nothing like that. Or, at least, it isn’t there yet. If Republicans cave now, or simply punt a confrontation over it until after the election, they’ll have sacrificed nothing other than the opportunity to pants themselves in front of God and everyone a month before the election. And if they win a bunch of seats in November, their hands will be strengthened when they actually do go to the mattresses during this year’s lame duck session of Congress or in early 2015.

This makes perfect sense. That doesn’t mean Republicans will do it this way, of course, since common sense has been in short supply in the GOP caucus lately. Still, the recent election of relatively non-insane folks to the House leadership suggests just enough adult presence to keep the yahoos in line and the government open at least through November. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. If they’re really going to do it, though, it might be best to wait until late next year so they can force all their presidential candidates to weigh in. That should do maximum damage to the GOP brand, which seems to be their real goal here.

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Is a Government Shutdown Over Coal in Our Future?

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About Half of Obamacare Exchange Enrollees Were Previously Uninsured

by AntoniaHUW Posted on June 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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A new Kaiser survey shows that 57 percent of those who bought health insurance on Obamacare exchanges were previously uninsured. That’s about 4.5 million people who gained private insurance via the exchanges, and the vast majority of them say they would have remained uninsured if not for Obamacare. If this number is correct, it suggests that the number of newly insured by the end of the year will be a little higher than I’ve projected before—perhaps around 11-13 million.

But is it correct? Sarah Kliff provides the chart on the right showing the wildly different estimates from different sources, and explains that much of the divergence is due to different organizations asking different questions:

McKinsey asked people to identify the insurance they had “most of the year” in 2013….The RAND estimate relies on the research firm’s ongoing American Life Panel….It found that, when it reached out to them mostly in early March, that 36 percent of those who had exchange coverage were, in earlier surveys, uninsured.

….Health and Human Services has estimated 87 percent of certain Obamacare enrollees lacked coverage when they signed up. This figure comes from a question on Healthcare.gov….The Kaiser Family Foundation report….asked survey respondents this question: “Before you began coverage under your current health insurance plan, were you covered by a different plan you purchased yourself, were you covered by an employer, by COBRA, did you have Medicaid or other public coverage, or were you uninsured?”

To a certain extent, there is no right answer. The basic problem is that the pool of uninsured has a lot of churn: people are covered for a while, then lose their jobs, then get another job, etc. So if you had insurance last August, but lost your job and signed up for Obamacare in November, do you count as previously uninsured? According to McKinsey, no. According to Kaiser, yes.

My own guess is that the Kaiser methodology is probably the closest of the four to what we’d normally think of as “uninsured,” and its sample size is big enough to be reliable. In any case, when you combine these surveys with the Gallup results, the most likely number seems to be somewhere around 50 percent. Given the inherent subjectivity of the topic, that’s probably about as good an estimate as we can get. There’s just no reliable way to get precision any higher.

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About Half of Obamacare Exchange Enrollees Were Previously Uninsured

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Low Inflation Continues to Disappoint Inflation Hawks

by JurgenCisco Posted on June 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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Perhaps you’ve read that inflation is up recently. Last night, for example, NBC News breathlessly told me that the price of eggs had gone up 13 cents over the past year. Does this mean that the inflation worries we’ve been hearing about continuously for the past four years are finally coming true?

I’d be happy if they were, since I think higher inflation would do the economy some good. Sadly, though, inflation remains well anchored. Despite the higher numbers of the past two months, the Fed’s latest projections have increased by….one tenth of a percentage point. Or, if you take the average of their range, by one twentieth of a percentage point, from 1.55 percent to 1.6 percent.

And how about 2015? They’re projecting 1.75 percent. And 2016? A whopping 1.8 percent. In other words, they believe that we’ll continue to undershoot our inflation target for at least the next three years.

At the same time, their projection of GDP growth has plummeted from 2.9 percent to 2.2 percent. And their projections for 2015 and 2016 continue to hover around an anemic 3 percent.

So: we have low growth, low price inflation, low wage inflation, and unemployment is still high. This is really not an environment in which spending cuts and lower deficits are the answer. More here from Mark Thoma.

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Low Inflation Continues to Disappoint Inflation Hawks

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It’s Time to Acknowledge Reality: Obamacare is Working Pretty Well

by JulianaWillifor Posted on June 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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A new paper concludes that “rate shock” under Obamacare has been generally more modest than we thought:

Using data from the Current Population Survey, we find that the average prices increased by 14 to 28 percent, with similar changes in California and the federal exchange states; we attribute the increase primarily to higher premiums in exchanges associated with insurer expectations of a higher risk population being enrolled.

This doesn’t take into account federal subsidies, which would lower this number even further. What’s more, rates most likely would have gone up about 10 percent even if Obamacare had never existed. Taken together, this suggests that the average premium increase thanks to Obamacare has been very small. And of course, that small increase buys you a policy that in most cases is considerably more robust than older policies.

In related news, HHS reports that people who qualify for tax credits are paying an average of $82 per month for their policies. This is roughly a fourth of what they’d pay without subsidies. The chart on the right shows how this breaks down: more than two-thirds of those who qualify for subsidies are paying less than $100 per month. Fewer than 20 percent are paying more than $150. In a nutshell, then, we now know that (a) the system works, (b) enrollment targets were largely met, and (c) health insurance under Obamacare is pretty affordable. Matt Yglesias explains what this means:

These three factors together should end the phony war over Obamacare and let the real debate begin — not the debate over whether the program “works” but the debate over whether economic resources should be devoted to providing health insurance to people at the bottom of the income distribution or to providing tax cuts to people at the top.

….Obamacare is a large-scale effort to improve living standards for people in the bottom half of the income distribution by giving them additional economic resources. One of America’s political parties doesn’t like that idea in any non-health context and they don’t like it for health care either. They think the money it costs to provide those subsidies should be taken away, and it should be given to high-income households in the form of tax cuts.

This is an excellent and important policy debate to have. One of the great ideological issues not just of our time and place, but of democratic politics across eras and countries. Should economic resources be distributed more equally or less equally?

Yep. It’s time to stop arguing over minutiae. Fundamentally, Obamacare “works.” It’s not perfect, but after nine months we can now say that it does indeed provide health coverage to the poor and the working-class in a reasonably efficient manner, and it does this largely by a combination of taxing and/or reducing payments to the relatively well off.

I think this is a good idea. Republicans don’t. But this, rather than the cacophony of nonsense we’ve been subjected to over the past several years, is what we should be arguing about.

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It’s Time to Acknowledge Reality: Obamacare is Working Pretty Well

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Yet More Benghazi Conspiracy Theories Are Only a Day Away

by RoseanneQVJ Posted on June 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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After a year of planning, US commandos have captured one of the militia leaders thought to be a ringleader in the Benghazi attacks. For political junkies, however, it was the 17th paragraph of the Times story that drew the most attention:

Mr. Obama’s Republican critics, who have sought to portray the Benghazi attack as an administration cover-up and efforts to prosecute those responsible as weak, were cautious in their initial response to news of Mr. Abu Khattala’s capture.

Indeed. I wonder just how long that caution will last? I’d give it no more than 24 hours. More than likely, it’s just a publicity stunt meant to draw attention away from the IRS/EPA/ISIS/Iran. Amirite? In turn, all of those things are publicity stunts meant to draw attention away from Benghazi. It’s like a finely tuned Swiss watch, isn’t it?

By the way: does anyone know why this guy is referred to as Mr. Abu Khattala on all references in most news stories? It’s never shortened. I’ve never noticed that with any other Arabic name.

UPDATE: Sorry about that. I thought I had seen “Mr. Abu Khattala” used repeatedly elsewhere too, but apparently not. Only in the New York Times, where it’s house style.

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Yet More Benghazi Conspiracy Theories Are Only a Day Away

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Stop Freaking Out About Lead in Backyard Chicken Eggs

by ClaudioFitzGibb Posted on December 16, 2013

Photo: Matt Green

The rise of foodies and of locavore cuisine has also brought the return of the backyard chicken coop. But this boom in popularity has also brought a surge of news stories fretting about the risks of raising food on contaminated city soils.

The worries are not unfounded, and, actually, they kind of make sense. Soil contamination from things like lead is prevalent in urban centers. According to a new study led by Henry Spliethoff, with the New York State Department of Health, “soils in urban yards, and in vacant lots and brownfields often considered as sites for urban community gardens and farms, may contain chemical contaminants.”

Lead, for example, which has a median background concentration of 23 mg/kg in New York State rural soils (NYSDEC 2006), can be found at concentrations of several hundred or even thousands of mg/kg in soil in NYC and other cities, due to historical sources such as lead-based paint, leaded gasoline combustion emissions, and point sources such as waste incinerators and metal smelters.

Last year the New York Times ran a story on Spliethoff’s preliminary research after he found elevated levels of lead in eggs from urban hens. The big question left by the Times is what those lead concentrations actually mean, health-wise.

A year later, Spliethoff’s results are ready, published recently in the journal Environmental Geochemistry and Health. The result? Everybody can calm down.

All but one of the eggs in our study had less than 100 μg/kg lead, suggesting that, in general, they contained lead at concentrations were not higher than those in foods considered acceptable for commercial distribution.

Lead at 100 micrograms per kilogram is the acceptable level given by the FDA for lead in candy.

The scientists did find detectable levels of lead in roughly half of the urban eggs they tested, while store-bought and rural-raised eggs had no detectable lead. They found that the amount of lead in chickens’ eggs depended on the amount of lead in the soil.

As a worst-case scenario, the scientists calculated lead exposure if a small child ate an egg from the highest measured concentration, “every day, all year.” At these extreme levels the lead exposure would top the recommended daily maximum intake, but just barely.

These evaluations implied that, overall, the lead concentrations we found in eggs from NYC community gardens were not likely to significantly increase lead exposure or to pose a significant health risk. However, frequent consumption of eggs with the highest lead concentration we found could significantly increase lead exposure, and chickens exposed to higher concentrations of lead in soil are likely to produce eggs with higher concentrations of lead. This exposure pathway could potentially be significant in some gardens, and it should not be ignored.

So, if you’re set on raising chickens in the city this is something to keep in mind and deal with, but it’s not really worth freaking out about.

If you do raise chickens in the city, Spliethoff has some tips on how you can help minimize the amount of lead flowing into your chicken’s eggs.

Add clean soil, mulch, or other clean cover material to existing chicken runs to help reduce chickens’ contact with and ingestion of contaminated soil. Use clean soil when constructing new chicken runs. Inspect the clean cover material regularly, and add or maintain material as needed to help keep chickens from coming in contact with underlying soil that may have higher concentrations of lead.
Provide chickens’ regular feed in feeders, and avoid scattering feed, including scratch grains and food scraps, on bare ground in areas where soil has higher concentrations of lead, or where lead concentrations are not well characterized.
Evaluate gardens for potential sources of lead. Do not allow chickens to forage near these sources. For example, keep chickens away from structures painted with lead-based paint and out of areas where the soil has higher concentrations of lead.
Avoid feeding chickens unwashed garden scraps from areas where the soil has higher concentrations of lead.
Consider providing a calcium supplement, which may help to reduce the amount of lead that gets into chickens’ eggs.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Love Chicken Nuggets? Thank Cornell Poultry Professor Robert C. Baker
Blame Your Chicken Dinner for That Persistant Urinary Tract Infection

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Stop Freaking Out About Lead in Backyard Chicken Eggs

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NYC judge throws out Bloomberg’s big sugar drink ban

by DenaeTina858 Posted on March 11, 2013

NYC judge throws out Bloomberg’s big sugar drink ban

By Susie Cagle

Good news, soda lovers and Bloomberg haters!

Reuters reports that New York State Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling threw out New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pet ban, calling it “arbitrary and capricious,” in response to lawsuits brought by the American Beverage Association and other unapologetic sugar peddlers business groups.

Passed last September, the measure would’ve banned the sale of certain sugary drinks bigger than 16 ounces (sweetened iced tea and soda, but not alcoholic drinks or fruit juice) from certain locations (restaurants and movie theater concessions, but not convenience stores). Sweet-toothed sellers defying the ban would’ve faced $200 fines starting in June.

Bloomberg sold the “Big Gulp” ban as an obesity-fighting measure, though it didn’t outlaw fatty fast-food milkshakes or “Big Gulp” drinks themselves.

So what’s next for arbitrary ‘n capricious Bloomy? Perhaps a ban on Styrofoam cups? Because I’m sure they don’t have a powerful industry lobby at all…

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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NYC judge throws out Bloomberg’s big sugar drink ban

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