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The Supreme Court Just Got Deluged With Arguments Against Texas’ Stupid Anti-Abortion Law

by KraigHailey3 Posted on January 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, a wide-ranging group of organizations and individuals asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Texas anti-abortion law that threatens to close the majority of clinics in the state. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for the case in March and make a decision this summer.

The groups, which included medical professionals, legal experts, economists, religious organizations, the Obama administration, and more than 160 members of Congress, filed 45 briefs explaining their opposition to HB 2, the sweeping 2013 anti-abortion law that has been caught up in legal battles ever since it was passed. More than half of the state’s 41 clinics have closed as a result of the law. If the Supreme Court does not overturn HB 2, the number of clinics in the state could drop to just 10.

“For many women in Texas, HB 2 would create a legal regime in which a real choice about whether to carry a pregnancy to full term ‘exists in theory but not in fact,” argued attorneys at the Department of Justice in a brief, adding that the restrictions imposed by the law “do not serve—in fact, they disserve—the government’s interest in protecting women’s health.”

Both abortion rights opponents and advocates say the case will affect existing restrictions on abortion across the country and will also determine to what extent states can restrict abortion. The case, Whole Women’s Health v. Cole focuses on two aspects of HB 2: one that requires abortion facilities to meet hospital-like architectural standards, and another requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges with a nearby hospital.

“There is incontrovertible evidence that imposing these unjustified burdens on abortion providers is impeding women’s access to quality, evidence-based medicine,” wrote a number of the leading physician’s organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in their brief. “HB 2 has delayed, and in some cases blocked, women’s access to legal abortion. Both outcomes jeopardize women’s health.”

The 45 briefs filed on Tuesday were an unprecedented demonstration of opposition to anti-abortion laws, according to Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“Never before has such a diverse array of organizations and leaders from the fields of medicine, government, law, business, and religion stepped forward to condemn abortion restrictions at the US Supreme Court,” Northrup told reporters. “These briefs present a thorough record of the undeniable damage Texas’ sham law has and will continue to cause, and an indisputable legal argument for why it must be struck down. This deceptive law is an affront to science-based medicine, an insult to women’s dignity, and reflects a total disregard for the rule of law and the rights of millions.”

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The Supreme Court Just Got Deluged With Arguments Against Texas’ Stupid Anti-Abortion Law

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Get Solar Energy Without Putting It On Your Own Roof

by ErnestiHillard Posted on January 3, 2016

As appealing as clean energy is, you might be among the millions of people who can’t put solar panels on their own roof or pop a windmill up in their backyard.

Worry not. Here are two ways you can still get access to power that is not generated by coal, oil or other fossil fuels whose emissions pollute the air and cause climate change.

1) Stick with your utility, but switch to a clean energy provider. Solar and wind companies are setting up arrays of photovoltaic cells or fields of windmills, generating power and then shipping the electricity they generateto utility companies via power lines. The utility companies then distribute that power to customers who opt for clean energy through their existing grid. You get billed by your utility, receive uninterrupted service and if there’s a power outage, you contact your utility company, not the wind or solar provider.

It will cost you a little bit more money but it’s a pretty easy way tosupport a greater level of utility company investment in renewable energy technologies. The smallpremium on your electric bill helps cover the incremental cost of the additional renewable energy. As of the end of 2014, nearly 850 utilities across the nation, including investor-owned, municipal utilities and cooperatives, offered a green pricing option, says the U.S. Department of Energy.

You can switch back to primarily fossil fuels at any time without penalty. Usually you can sign up easily online, but as it happens, I signed up with someone who knocked on my door and had all the paperwork ready to go.

To find a clean energy provider in your area, contact your local utility company and find out who they do business with. You can get their number from your monthly bill or simply by searching for your utility by name on the internet.

Several companies compare all of the providers in your area to show the varying rates per kilowatt hour the companies charge. For example, ChooseEnergy.com provides rate comparisons for the following states: California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C.

You can also check this map developed by the U.S. Department of Energy. Click on your state to find out where green power is offered nearby. You’ll find utility green pricing programs (how much utilities charge to deliver non-fossil fuel power to your home) and a variety of other options for avoiding coal, gas and oil.

2) Join a solar coop or network. The Community Power Network is a great resource for consumers who want to support solar but don’t have the ability to install it on their own homes. You’ll find a variety of models to choose from.

For example, the Farmers Electric Cooperative’s Solar Garden Program in Iowa invites customers to buy part of a “solar garden” located at its main office building in exchange for a reduction in their monthly bill.

In the “Special Purpose Entity Model,” individuals join in a business enterprise to develop a solar project the community shares. In my own state of Maryland, the University Park Community Solar LLC and Greenbelt Community Solar set up limited liability companies that enables Maryland residents to develop solar power generation on buildings in the community.

In nearby Washington, D.C., the Sidwell Friends School (attended by Pres. Obama’s daughters) invited members of the community to purchase “solar bonds” so a solar system could be installed on the school.

There’s even an option for people who live in apartment buildings. Grid Alternatives is a nonprofit that helps people install solar on multi-family buildings by working together to get financing and figure out what photovoltaic system works best for the structure at hand.

Want to get started in your own community? Check out this Guide to Community Shared Solar put together by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Related
11 Solar Energy Myth Busters
6 Reasons to Get Excited About Obama’s New Solar Energy Plan

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Get Solar Energy Without Putting It On Your Own Roof

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What We Won and What We Didn’t in 2015

by Freddie9132 Posted on January 1, 2016

As 2015 comes to a close, what environmental gains did we make, and what still needs to get done in the year ahead?

What Didn’t Get Done?

* Protect the coastal plain of America’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides habitat for polar bears, musk oxen, Arctic foxes and hundreds of species of birds. It’s also where the Porcupine Caribou go to birth their young. These wild lands have been in the sights of the oil industry for years, but thus far, the efforts of Alaska Wilderness League and many other environmental groups have helped keep oil drilling on the coastal plain at bay. President Obama has recommended that the region be designated as wilderness, which ensure it staysoff limits to industrial development permanently. The next session of Congress shouldmake that happen.

* Pass strong legislation to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – Given the tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals that are loose in the environment, strengthening the Toxic Substances Control Act is of paramount importance. The Senate did pass a reform bill as 2015 was coming to a close. However, as Andy Igrjas of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families notes here, it did not go nearly far enough. On the plus side, the legislation lets EPA order companies to test a chemical, rather than go through a formal (and long) rulemaking process. It also helps protect many existing state laws, including those that are stronger than the federal law. On the other hand, it makes it harder for EPA to intercept a dangerous chemical when it enters the country as part of an imported product. It also prevents states from taking new actions against toxic chemicals if EPA is also assessing them, a measure that could delay needed health interventions for years. The House has already passed its own version of TSCA reform. The next step will be to mesh the two bills and come up with final legislation that hopefully is stronger than either the House or the Senate version. Read a more thorough analysis of the issue at SaferChemicals.org.

* Prevent mass animal extinction – The killing of Cecil the Lion in July 2015 spawned international outrage and helped highlight the threats animals worldwide face, not just from hunting, but from issues like overdevelopment and climate change as well. Fifty Democrats in the House of Representatives have asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the lion as an endangered species, which would limit trophy hunting. But, that may be too little, too late. The Center for Biological Diversity reports that natural extinction rates are about one to five species per year. Now, “scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times” that rate, “with literally dozens going extinct every day,” a crisis caused almost entirely by humans. An astonishing “99 percent of currently threatened species are at risk from human activities, primarily those driving habitat loss, introduction of exotic species, and global warming.”

* Improve food safety – As 2015 comes to a close, Chipotle Restaurants are still under scrutiny for the E.coli outbreaks that have sickened over 50 people in their restaurants. But that’s just the tip of the food poisoned iceberg. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that “One in six Americans will get sick from foodborne diseases.” “That amounts to nearly 50 million people, resulting in approximately 128,000 hospitalizations, and, tragically, 3,000 deaths,” says Consumer Reports.The Food Safety Modernization Act was passed to create a safer, healthier food supply. But, Congress hasn’t funded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with nearly enough money to implement the Act. Organizations ranging from the American Public Health Association to the Center for Science in the Public Interest to the Trust for America’s Health continue to urge both the House and the Senate to boost funding so FDAcan “build the systems it needs to implement the law” and make our food supply truly safe.

What Did Get Done?

* Get international agreement to stop climate change – In a feat no one expected would happen, leaders of nearly 200 countries went to Paris and left with a plan in place to try to bring climate change to a halt. While most people agree that the plan doesn’t go far enough, and others criticize its mostly voluntary measures, it still cannot be denied that climate change finally became an international priority that many countries, including the United States, acknowledge they can no longer ignore.

* Cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline – After years of pressure from focused and motivated activists, President Obama finally canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline would have transported dirty tar sands oil from Canada across the U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico for oil refining. Activists argued that the oil should stay in the ground rather than be burned as a way to combat climate change as well as air pollution. (This Care2 article highlights 5 ways the pipeline could make people sick.)

* Ban plastic microbeads – This is a big one! Pres. Obama signed into law a bill that will phase out plastic microbeads in face wash, toothpaste and shampoo. Manufacturing of these products must cease by July 1, 2017, and all sales of products on the shelf that contain the plastic pellets must end by July 1, 2018. The ban came after increasing research showed that micro-plastic does not biodegrade and is building up in the ocean at alarming rates. It followed the passage of a similar law in California.

* Convincefurniture companies to ban the use of fire retardants – Furniture manufacturers have long treated their furniture with toxic flame retardant chemicals. The Natural Resources Defense Council called it a “stupid use of a chemical: they are ineffective in preventing furniture fires and are linked to serious health effects.” In 2015, Ashley Furniture, the largest manufacturer and retailer of furniture in the country, bowed to consumer demand and said it would ban toxic flame retardant chemicals in all of their furniture. Ethan Allen, Restoration Hardware and Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams have all said their furiture is free of toxic flame retardants. Crate and Barrel, Room & Board, and Williams-Sonoma, which includes Pottery Barn and West Elm, say they have mostly eliminated the chemicals from their products. IKEA and Wal-Mart have told their vendors to stop adding flame retardants to their furniture as well.

* Protect whales from military vessels – The U.S. Navy has had a deafening, blinding impact on whales – literally. Naval vessels use intense, high-volume and far-ranging sound waves to detect submarines and other objects beneath the earth’s surface. Because whales and dolphins “see” with their ears, the noise disrupts the ability of these animals to reproduce and thrive. In one documented case, 17 whales beached themselves and died, an action that was attributed to mid-frequency sonar emitted by the Navy. Happily, a federal court agreement reached between the Natural Resources Defense Council and the U.S. Navy will force the Navy to silence its sonar in areas around Southern California and Hawaii during certain periods of the year when marine mammal populations are most vulnerable. The agreement runs until the end of 2018, reports NRDC’s onearth.org, when the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service will issue neCecil environmental impact statements and authorizations regarding military exercises in sensitive water.

Activists, of course, made the difference in just about all of these victories, reports Moms Clean Air Force, who credits their Naptime Activism program for making it easy to sign petitions to elected officials. And, of course, all of the petitions circulated across Care2.com helped, as well.

Formore good news about the Earth, stop byGrist.org.

What do you consider a major environmental victory for 2015? And what tops your agenda for 2016? Please share!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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What We Won and What We Didn’t in 2015

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The Solar Industry’s Christmas Miracle

by LeeGetz986282874 Posted on December 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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

We all know the hallmarks of the classic business-themed Christmas movie. A good, well-meaning executive faces some tough business fundamentals as the holiday season approaches. Unexpected events deepen the gloom. But just in time for Christmas, a miracle arrives from on high, ensuring peace, prosperity, and happiness for years to come.

It’s a Wonderful Life? Yes. But it’s also the story of solar companies in the past few months. In November, things were looking bleak for the renewable energy sector at large and for solar companies in particular. The sector has been booming since 2009. The price of installing solar panels has come down sharply as scale has risen, new business models have hastened the spread of the technology, and giant companies are entering contracts to buy huge volumes of renewable energy. But none of that would have been possible without 1) the special federal tax breaks and credits for owners of solar panels, and 2) abundant capital seeking returns in a world of extraordinarily low interest rates. And in the second half of 2015, the investment thesis that kept solar stocks burning bright began to dim.

The solar investment tax credit—in which owners of solar-panel systems get a 30 percent tax credit—was always meant to be temporary and is set to expire next year. The Republicans in Congress generally favor fossil fuels over renewables, generally oppose anything President Obama is for, and deny the need to deal with climate change. So as fall settled in, investors began to focus on the fact that by the end of 2016, the solar investment tax credit of 30 percent would fall to 10 percent for commercial systems and disappear entirely for home-based systems.

Another problem: Renewable energy is as much about financial engineering as it is about electrical engineering. For solar to work, investors had to believe that the structures rigged up to build solar would stand up over time. In recent years, energy companies had hived off renewable energy projects into special, publicly traded vehicles—yieldcos—that were supposed to pay dividends. But many of them failed to deliver expected results. Worse, the attractiveness of such fixed-income investments stands in inverse relation to the interest rates available elsewhere. And with the Federal Reserve telegraphing an interest rate increase in December, investors began to flee yieldcos.

Finally, the entire renewable industry depends to a large degree on the zeitgeist. When the world is in a green mood, when it looks like there will be a widespread, coordinated effort to combat climate change, investors get psyched about solar. When it appears that the will for collective action is fading, investors get the blahs. And throughout October and November, it was common to hear observers argue that the much-bruited Paris conference was going to be a bust, that it would deadlock over conflicts between rich and poor nations.

There’s a cruelty and ruthlessness to the markets, which can provide a fire hose of capital on Monday only to shut it off entirely on Tuesday. And that’s what began to happen in November. Stock markets are famously futures markets, and forward-looking investors suddenly didn’t like what they were seeing in the future. The stock of SunEdison, the self-proclaimed “largest global renewable energy development company,” fell from a high of $31.50 in July to a low of $2.86 on Nov. 19—a loss of 91 percent. The stock helped sandbag the performance of well-known hedge fund manager David Einhorn, whose sale of a big chunk of SunEdison stock helped increase the melancholy. Analysts began to question the company’s liquidity, which is poison for a company with lots of debt. SolarCity, the giant rooftop-panel installer founded by Elon Musk and his cousins, saw its stock fall from $62 in May to $25 in early November, a decline of about 59 percent.

Like George Bailey, investors and executives at solar companies were essentially teetering on the bridge outside of town.

And then a series of miracles happened. On December 12, the Paris climate talks concluded with an unexpectedly strong agreement among countries to attempt to limit emissions. The US publicly recommitted to green policies, and a large number of giant, influential global companies signed on to an initiative to get 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources. Investors began to reconsider their pessimism.

Next, Washington delivered—defying the conventional wisdom. Newly installed House Speaker Paul Ryan realized that he’d have to negotiate with congressional Democrats if he wanted to get a budget and tax deal before the end of the year. And as they came to the table, another miracle happened: The Democrats held fast. On December 14, Democrats indicated they would be willing to support the Republican-backed effort to lift the ban on oil exports—but only if the Republicans would consent to measures including a multiyear extension of renewable energy credits. It worked. Last Friday, Congress voted to extend the 30 percent solar investment tax credit through 2019, and then to reduce it to 10 percent through 2022.

That move instantly made the US solar industry viable for another six years. Investors were elated. SolarCity’s stock popped as details of the budget agreement began to emerge and then soared on its announcement. By Friday, the stock was above $56, up about 117 percent from its November low. SunEdison’s stock closed on Friday at $6.51, up 127 percent in a month. The Guggenheim Solar ETF is up about 30 percent from Nov. 19 through last Friday.

God bless us, everyone.

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The Solar Industry’s Christmas Miracle

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10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015

by HugoMcBrayer Posted on December 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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Another year is about to pass, which means we’ve managed to survive 12 months of cable news—and endure some fantastically awful segments that the networks churned out. But that doesn’t mean we emerged unscathed! Whether it was calling the president of the United States a “pussy” on live television or relentlessly covering Donald Trump’s circuslike presidential campaign, cable news had plenty of lowlights in 2015. Here are some of the most memorable ones:

San Bernardino shooting
Days after the shooting in San Bernardino, California, several media outlets were able to get inside the home of the two suspected shooters—access that involved a crowbar and a cooperative landlord. Despite the questionable circumstances, reporters from a slew of networks, including CNN and MSNBC, swarmed the residence. The resulting circus of cable TV coverage even disturbed some network hosts.

“I’m having chills down my spine, what I’m seeing here,” said CNN security analyst Harry Houck, as reporters on the scene continued to film throughout the home. “This apartment is clearly full of evidence.”

At one point, an MSNBC reporter zoomed in on a driver’s license that likely belonged to one of the suspects’ relatives.

Insulting the president
A Fox News contributor abandoned every sense of decorum when he slammed President Barack Obama’s terrorism strategy and called him a “pussy” on live television. The network suspended him for two weeks, finally answering the question we’ve all wondered: “Just what does it take to get suspended from Fox News?”

Migrant crisis and Syrian refugees
The international effort to resettle Syrian refugees sparked widespread concern about how refugees are vetted when they seek to be admitted into the United States, particularly in light of the deadly attacks in Paris. Instead of taking time to explain the complex and rigorous process, cable news shows often appeared to inflame safety concerns with misleading portrayals of refugees escaping violence in Europe and the Middle East:

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Fox News also appeared to lend legitimacy to a biblical prophecy that some have used speculate that the Syrian crisis may signal the end of times. Watch the report on the “spooky passage” below:

Gun control and mass shootings
Amid calls to strengthen gun control laws and end the gun violence epidemic, Fox & Friends aired a segment about how to teach kids how to take down an active shooter with these self-defense skills:

Freddie Gray
When protests erupted in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident who died from a spinal cord injury while in police custody, CNN chose to ignore the demonstrations in favor of covering every second of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

If you were seeking coverage of the rallies, contributor Errol Louis suggested viewers could “find a live feed” somewhere else.

When the network did report on Gray later, CNN led one online story by describing Gray as the “son of an illiterate heroin addict.”

Donald Trump
There are myriad factors that have led to the rise of Donald Trump as a major GOP presidential candidate. The media’s insatiable appetite (including our own, at times) to cover his inflammatory campaign rhetoric is definitely one of them. On cable news, Trump was practically unavoidable.

After announcing his plan to bar all Muslims from entering the United States if elected president, a slew of cable news shows scrambled to talk to Trump about the proposal, which gave Trump a huge platform for his offensive ideas:

Leggings
In one of the creepier clips of the year, Fox News featured an all-male panel to opine on how a woman should dress in public. The clothing item in question was leggings. In the segment, the official “Panel of Fathers” ruminates over “lady parts” and whether they’re comfortable with the “women in their life parading in public with leggings, because they ain’t pants.”

“Guardian Angels”
In which Fox News, a news organization, lends legitimacy to this photo of a “guardian angel.”

Happy holidays!

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10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015

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Six Embarrassing Things Republicans Said About Cybersecurity Last Night

by Melodee5461 Posted on December 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Huge hacks, Internet-savvy terrorists, and controversial legislation has made cybersecurity big news this year, but candidates from both parties barely mentioned the topic until Tuesday night’s Republican debate in Las Vegas. That’s when Republican candidates finally addressed cybersecurity and Internet privacy at length, but the results weren’t always pretty. Here are some of the lowlights:

1. Candidates demand encryption “backdoors.” Again: “There is a big problem. It’s called encryption,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who delivered the night’s sharpest attack on encrypted Internet tools that allegedly help terrorists evade US law enforcement and intelligence services. Kasich, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and former New York Gov. George Pataki, called for “backdoors,” or methods of decrypting message that would allow the government a way to read them. It was the latest episode in a debate that’s grown louder since the shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, California; there have been claims that both sets of attackers used encrypted messages to evade detection, though none of those claims have been proven. Nevertheless, key members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have said they’re working on a bill mandating backdoors in the wake of the attacks.

But encryption is also a vital part of the Internet’s basic infrastructure, and millions of people now use encrypted apps and programs to protect the privacy of their emails and messages. And giving the government access to encryption means allowing anyone else, including criminals, hackers, and foreign governments, access into those messages as well, according to cryptography experts.

2. Santorum thinks metadata isn’t personal information: Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was one of several candidates who wanted to undo the USA Freedom Act, the law passed in May that ended the National Security Agency’s ability to engage in a mass collection of the phone records of Americans. Santorum brushed the law aside, arguing the program didn’t impinge on people’s privacy. “This metadata collection is not collecting people’s phone calls, their voices, they’re not collecting information that’s personal,” he said at the undercard debate.

The first part is true, but the second isn’t even close. Metadata includes phone numbers, location data, call times, and other information that intelligence agencies use to create create extensive, detailed profiles of a target—or anyone else.

3. Donald Trump doesn’t understand how the Internet works: Trump again called for shutting down at least parts of the Internet to try and stop ISIS from using online tools to recruit and plan attacks. “I would certainly be open to closing areas where we are at war with somebody,” he said. Whether or not that’s possible—and it’s probably not, given that many people in Syria rely on satellite connections after years of war—it would likely be horrible for Syrians and Iraqis, whose countries’ communications’ infrastructures have been heavily damaged by war. Many Syrians rely on Internet connections to maintain contact with family and the outside world, and human rights activists rely on the web to document atrocities by the Assad regime and ISIS.

4. Fiorina comes up short on the tech test: Fiorina is trying to cast herself as the field’s technology expert thanks to her years leading Hewlett-Packard, one of the country’s biggest tech companies. “A lifetime of politics is not necessarily the right kind of experience anymore. It matters that you understand technology,” she told the conservative website Breitbart in a pre-debate interview on Tuesday. But her evidence of tech-savvy during the debate was nothing more than a story about helping the NSA in the days after 9/11 by sending them a large shipment of servers. Fiorina’s other big suggestion was to ask the private sector for help in improving cybersecurity, something that already routinely happens.

Fiorina also seemed clueless about the state of cybersecurity laws during the Breitbart interview. She claimed the Obama administration had ignored critical legislation that would let private companies share information on cyberattacks with the government. But at the same time the Republicans were debating on stage on Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) was wedging that same legislation, which Congress debated for months, into the trillion-dollar spending deal approved later that night.

5. Bush cheers China’s hacking of journalists: The Washington Post reported on Monday that when China stole millions of US government personnel records, it also got the information of journalists who had applied for government credentials—and Jeb Bush seemed pretty happy about it. “Maybe that’s the only part that’s good news, so you guys can get a feel for what it’s like now to see this type of attack,” said the former Florida governor, breaking briefly into an awkward half-smile.

6. Lindsay Graham says to get a flip phone: “This is why I own a flip phone, you don’t have to worry about all this stuff,” Graham quipped. Actually, your flip phone, in addition to being terrible, would still leave its records all over your cell carrier’s network for the government to access. Please do not listen to this awful advice. Also, Lindsey Graham now has an iPhone.

To be fair, cybersecurity also prompted the night’s most substantive exchange. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio attacked Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz along with others who voted for the USA Freedom Act, which prevents the NSA from accessing or collecting records in bulk without a ruling from a federal judge. It’s proponents say the Act protects Americans from unconstitutional surveillance while making intelligence more effective, because investigators must target specific data and not drown in huge amounts of records. Both men hit back hard supporting the case for NSA reform. Cruz defended the law—and its national security benefits—so well that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the Senate’s most outspoken privacy advocate, backed him up in a press release issued during the debate.

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Six Embarrassing Things Republicans Said About Cybersecurity Last Night

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Here Is the Worst Answer From Tonight’s Debate

by KaiGerowspeox Posted on December 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here is Hugh Hewitt asking Donald Trump about America’s nuclear triad—missiles, subs, and bombers:

HEWITT: What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?

TRUMP: Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible; who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important. And one of the things that I’m frankly most proud of is that in 2003, 2004, I was totally against going into Iraq because you’re going to destabilize the Middle East. I called it. I called it very strongly. And it was very important.

But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ball game. Frankly, I would have said get out of Syria; get out — if we didn’t have the power of weaponry today. The power is so massive that we can’t just leave areas that 50 years ago or 75 years ago we wouldn’t care. It was hand-to-hand combat.

The biggest problem this world has today is not President Obama with global warming, which is inconceivable, this is what he’s saying. The biggest problem we have is nuclear — nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. That’s in my opinion, that is the single biggest problem that our country faces right now.

HEWITT: Of the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority? I want to go to Senator Rubio after that and ask him.

TRUMP: I think — I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.

I seriously want to hear anyone on the right side of the aisle defend Trump as a potential commander-in-chief after hearing this. Any conservative who still wants this guy as president has forfeited their last smidgen of credibility as anything more than a crude partisan hack.

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Here Is the Worst Answer From Tonight’s Debate

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Rick Santorum Just Defended Donald Trump’s Plan to Ban Muslims From Traveling to the US

by AileenBrodney3 Posted on December 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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In what could be his final appearance on the GOP debate stage this election cycle, Rick Santorum (who’s polling at 0.3 percent, which is second to last) ramped up his rhetoric on Muslims and terrorism. “We have entered World War III!” he declared.

Asked about Donald Trump’s widely condemned proposal to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States, Santorum set himself apart from his undercard rivals by defending the GOP front-runner. “What Donald Trump was saying was nothing against Muslims,” Santorum claimed, faulting President Barack Obama for Trump’s position.

“The fact of the matter is that not all Muslims are jihadists,” Santorum said. “No one—including, I suspect, Donald Trump—would say that. But the reality is all jihadists are Muslims. That’s a reality, and we have to stop worrying about offending some people and start defending all Americans.”

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Rick Santorum Just Defended Donald Trump’s Plan to Ban Muslims From Traveling to the US

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Don’t Blame Ted Cruz for Facebook’s Sins

by CelindaBeliveau Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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A Guardian headline today blares: “Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users.” Interesting! But you sure have to read a long way into the story to figure out what the real problem is. Is it the fact that Cambridge Analytica—the firm Cruz is using—compiled “psychographic profiles” of Facebook users? Nah. Call it what you will, but that’s practically old hat these days. Is it that fact that Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, founder of CA’s parent, paid users of Mechanical Turk a dollar to fill out a questionnaire and turn over their Facebook profiles? No again. If people want to sell their profiles for a dollar, they can do it. So what’s the problem?

Crucially, Kogan also captured the same data for each person’s unwitting friends. For every individual recruited on MTurk, he harvested information about their friends, meaning the dataset ballooned significantly in size. Research shows that in 2014, Facebook users had an average of around 340 friends.

….By summer 2014, Kogan’s company had created an expansive and powerful dataset. His business partner boasted on LinkedIn that their private outfit, Global Science Research (GSR), “owns a massive data pool of 40+ million individuals across the United States — for each of whom we have generated detailed characteristic and trait profiles”.

Consumer research firms do this kind of stuff routinely, so there’s not really any big news here. And if there’s anyone at fault, it’s our old friend Facebook. Once again, they’re allowing people to take advantage of the fact that Facebook’s default settings open users up to this kind of harvesting. Very few people ever bother to change their defaults, and Facebook knows it.

As for Cruz, there are plenty of places to get information like this. I don’t know if CA is one of the best or not. But every serious campaign does this kind of microtargeting. As Cruz explained last month, he’s a big admirer of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign strategy—which just goes to show that there’s at least one thing that Cruz and Obama agree about.

Bottom line: I don’t think Cruz really did anything wrong here. Facebook probably did. Big surprise.

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Don’t Blame Ted Cruz for Facebook’s Sins

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What’s the Link Between Terrorism and Climate Change?

by Alejand7284 Posted on December 10, 2015

Not even three weeks after the deadly terrorist attacks that struck Paris in November, President Obama acknowledged a connection between terrorism and climate change in a statement at COP21. The 12-day summit, at which UN leaders have convened to discuss strategies to combat climate change, is being held in Le Bourget, right in the heart of the city that was so recently struck by terror. In his speech, President Obama called the summit an act of defiance that proves nothing will deter us from building the future we want for our children.

Though Paris serves as a surface-level link between terrorism and climate change, this is hardly the first time weve heard of such a connection. At the November 14 Democratic debate, Senator Bernie Sanders asserted that climate change continued to be the United States greatest threat, claiming that climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism.”

What do politicians mean when they correlate terrorism with climate change? How does climate influence the growth of terrorism (if at all) and what does science have to say about the supposed link?

Climate change as a threat multiplier

In 2014, the United States Department of Defense published the Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, outlining defense and security issues in relation to climate change. The department warned that climate change was a threat multiplier, in that it stands to intensify already-acknowledged security threats such as resource scarcity, disease, drought and displacement. Regions that are ill-equipped to handle this onslaught of problems may be susceptible to the spread of extremism, according to the DOD.

These developments could undermine already-fragile governments that are unable to respond effectively or challenge currently‐stable governments, as well as increasing competition and tension between countries vying for limited resources, the paper states. These gaps in governance can create an avenue for extremist ideologies and condition that foster terrorism.

Climate change and migration

Its no secret that climate change is expected to cause massive problems related to migration. People are already beginning to seek refuge, with the worlds first climate refugeesa family from the Polynesian island nation of Tuvaluhaving been granted residency in New Zealand in 2014 due to rising tides.

Worldwide, the number of refugees (from all causes) is skyrocketing. In 2014, a staggering nearly 60 million people sought refuge in other countries due to war, poverty, resource scarcity, natural disasters and other problems, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Most of us are familiar with the current refugee crisis in Europe, but the problem extends to all corners of the globe. Unfortunately, these numbers show little promise of decreasing, with climate change threatening to displace an estimated 187 million people by 2100 if weather trends continue to follow the patterns anticipated by climate scientists.

In an interview with CBSs Face the Nation following the Nov. 14 debates, Senator Sanders expounded on his claim that climate change could exacerbate terrorism through migration issues.

… when you have drought, when people cant grow their crops, theyre going to migrate into cities, he said. And when people migrate into cities, and they dont have jobs, theres going to be a lot more instability, a lot more unemployment. And people will be subject to the types of propaganda that al Qaeda and ISIS are using right now.

Climate change and conflict

According to many leading environmentalists, we need look no further than the current civil war in Syria for evidence of climate changes role in fueling extremist ideologies. In a recent speech, Secretary of State John Kerry said that while Syrias devastating drought is of course not the sole cause of Syrias current conflict, he believes it to be at least partially responsible.

And Kerry isnt the only one. A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and the implications of the recent Syrian drought found that climate set into motion resource scarcity, instability and fighting in the region.

Terrorism and the fight against it are complex issues. Wed be wrong to blame any one factor on the spread of extremism and the horror that has ensued because of it. But understanding a possible link between climate change and terrorism can help us keep the big picture in mind: A planet thats sustainable, fertile and has few extreme weather events and plentiful resources may help keep populations safer and less vulnerable to conflict.

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These Photo Projects Give New Perspective to the Social Issues of Our Time
Who’s Benefitting from San Bernardino and Paris Most? Weapon Makers

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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What’s the Link Between Terrorism and Climate Change?

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