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A Tea Party conservative just lost to a Trump supporter, because farm subsidies

subsidie another day

A Tea Party conservative just lost to a Trump supporter, because farm subsidies

By on Aug 3, 2016Share

A Tea Party leader in the House of Representatives just lost a primary bid for reelection — a sign that Republican voters may be fed up with Tea Party obstinance and are casting about for something new. Rep. Tim Huelskamp lost his Kansas primary by a huge margin to newcomer Roger Marshall.

The outgoing Huelskamp is an ideological conservative with a PhD in agricultural policy, and so he was against subsides whether they went to the poor or industry. He repeatedly voted against the Farm Bill even though his district is packed with farms. His obstinance so infuriated former House Speaker John Boehner that he kicked Huelskamp off the agriculture committee.

Marshall, on the other hand, is a Trump supporter who backs subsidies for farming and has earned endorsements from the agriculture lobby.

This fits with one theory of Trump-ism: The new wave of populist Republicans aren’t against all government payouts; just ones that go to people of a different culture or complexion. They’re fine with handouts — like ag subsidies — that go to their people.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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A Tea Party conservative just lost to a Trump supporter, because farm subsidies

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The Republican vision for the environment is not a pretty sight

Dirty dealing

The Republican vision for the environment is not a pretty sight

By on Jul 15, 2016 5:16 amShare

With their party’s national convention just days away, Republicans in the House of Representatives have given us a detailed vision of their environmental agenda. You may be shocked to hear that it would further pollute our air and water and worsen climate change. On Thursday, the House passed its budget bill for the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior on a mostly party-line vote.

The bill would spend $1 billion less on the agencies next year than President Obama requested. That comes on top of severe cuts over the last six years, since Republicans gained control of Congress. “EPA’s budget, not including inflation, is already 20 percent below what it was in 2010,” says Scott Slesinger, legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “When the budget agreement was done last year for 2016 and they found more money for domestic [programs and defense], the only agency that did not get an increase was EPA.”

Environmentalists are even more upset, though, about the “policy riders” — that’s D.C.-ese for unrelated amendments attached to a spending bill. The most extreme ones would:

Block implementation of the Clean Power Plan, the EPA’s program for cutting carbon emissions from power plants.
Stop Interior from completing rules to crack down on mountaintop-removal coal mining.
Halt Bureau of Land Management rules governing fracking on public land.
Prevent EPA from implementing its new rule to limit exposure to lead paint.
Kill the Obama administration’s new rules intended to avert disastrous offshore oil spills.
Axe the just-released Arctic-specific drilling regulations, meant to address the unusual risks of offshore oil and gas drilling there.

On the bright side, Republicans actually dropped some of the most absurd amendments — such as one that would have prevented EPA employees from flying for work.

Obama threatened to veto this bill before it even passed the full House, so there’s no risk of it actually becoming law. But it’s a handy guide to what Republicans want to do, even if they avoid saying so in prime time this coming week.

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The Republican vision for the environment is not a pretty sight

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Congress sends GMO-labeling bill to Obama’s desk

He’ll sign it

Congress sends GMO-labeling bill to Obama’s desk

By on Jul 14, 2016Share

The United States took another step toward requiring food makers to label genetically modified ingredients on Thursday, when both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that cleared the Senate last week.

The bill would require all food companies to label products with GMO ingredients but allow them to slap a barcode or a scannable QR code if they prefer that to simple words or a symbol. It now heads to President Obama who will almost certainly sign it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will have to figure out what needs to be labeled as a GMO under the bill, a tricky job, to say the least.

This is just a quick update on something we’ve been writing about for a long time. Here’s some more:

About the bill

About GMOs in general

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Congress sends GMO-labeling bill to Obama’s desk

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The House Just Voted to Ban Those Tiny Pieces of Plastic in Your Toothpaste

Mother Jones

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Yesterday, the US House of Representatives voted to phase out microbeads, the little pieces of plastic that act as exfoliants in personal-care products ranging from face wash to toothpaste. The bill, which was introduced last year by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), would ban the use of synthetic microplastics in cosmetics by 2018. Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced companion legislation in May.

Environmental advocates have expressed concern for years over the beads, which are so small that they aren’t caught in water treatment plants. There are roughly 300,000 microbeads in a single tube of face wash; by some estimates, Americans dump roughly 300 tons of the beads per year into US waterways. The microplastics, which serve as a sponge for toxins, are frequently confused by fish as food and make their way up the food chain—they’ve turned up in tuna and swordfish.

Several states have enacted microbead bans, starting with Illinois in 2014. California passed the strictest legislation yet in October this year, banning both synthetic and biodegradable plastics. (Many experts argue that there is no such thing as plastic that can biodegrade in ocean conditions.) If it becomes law, the national legislation, which only focuses on synthetic plastics, would supersede these state bans.

Here are a few products with and without the plastic beads. If you’re curious about a product you use, look for polyethylene on the ingredient list.

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The House Just Voted to Ban Those Tiny Pieces of Plastic in Your Toothpaste

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Quote of the Day: Bush Would Have Punched Putin in the Nose

Mother Jones

Here is John Boehner, the leader of the House of Representatives and third in line for the presidency:

When you look at this chaos that’s going on, does anybody think that Vladimir Putin would have gone into Crimea had George W. Bush been president of the United States? No! Even Putin is smart enough to know that Bush would have punched him in the nose in about 10 seconds.

Look, I get it: I’m a partisan, and right now I’m blogging through a slight bit of a morphine haze. But WTF? Have our political leaders always talked like this? This is just ridiculously juvenile.

And while we’re on the subject, I note that Boehner also said this: “I talk to world leaders every week. They want America to lead. They’re begging America to lead. Because when America leads and America’s strong, the world is a safer place.” Ten bucks says Boehner is basically lying, unless by “world leaders” he means Paul Ryan and the odd backbencher in London he happens to have played golf with a couple of years ago. As anyone with a pulse knows, world leaders simply have different priorities than we do. It’s the Europeans who are resisting stronger action against Putin. It’s the Turks who aren’t too interested in saving Kobani. It’s the Saudis who want us to devote all our attention to their longtime Shiite enemies. It’s Angela Merkel who’s single-mindedly intent on destroying the European economy. If John Boehner thinks all these folks are eagerly waiting for America to whip them into line, he’s even more delusional than I thought.

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Quote of the Day: Bush Would Have Punched Putin in the Nose

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How Liberia’s Government Is Using Ebola to Crack Down on the Media

Mother Jones

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Ebola has already claimed the lives of more than 2,000 people in Liberia. Now, the Liberian president’s critics are warning that her response to the epidemic is threatening to undermine the country’s fragile democratic institutions.

More MoJo coverage of the Ebola crisis.


Budget Cuts “Eroded Our Ability to Respond” to Ebola, Says Top Health Official


Liberia Says It’s Going to Need a Lot More Body Bags


How Long Does the Ebola Virus Survive in Semen?


Liberians Explain Why the Ebola Crisis Is Way Worse Than You Think


Why the World Health Organization Doesn’t Have Enough Funds to Fight Ebola


New Drugs and Vaccines Can’t Stop This Ebola Outbreak

The controversy began back on August 6 when President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced a 90-day state of emergency to deal with the crisis. More recently, Sirleaf wrote a letter to the national legislature requesting the legal authority to suspend a number of civil liberties guaranteed by the country’s constitution. If enacted, the measures would give Sirleaf the power to restrict the movement of certain communities by proclamation and even to limit speech that could create “false alarm.” The government would also be able to confiscate private property “without payment of any kind or any further judicial process” in order to protect the public’s health.

The Liberian House of Representatives rejected the proposals in a landslide vote, but the Senate was still debating them as of yesterday.

Even if the Liberian legislature votes against Sirleaf’s request for more power, the government has already taken actions that erode civil liberties in the name of fighting the disease.

Since declaring a state of emergency, Sirleaf’s government has introduced a nationwide curfew, forcing people to stay indoors at night. Against the advice of Ebola experts and Liberian health officials, Sirleaf also ordered the quarantine of an entire slum in Monrovia in an attempt to contain an outbreak in the Liberian capital. (The slum was reopened 10 days later.) This month—with the legislature’s backing—Sirleaf suspended a special Senate election, citing a lack of essential staff and materials.

Press freedoms have also been eroded: When the curfew was first announced, journalists were not included on a list of exempted professions able to move freely around the country at night. (They were added six days later.) In early October, citing privacy concerns, the government announced that reporters could be arrested for speaking with Ebola patients or photographing treatment centers without written permission from the health ministry.

In her recent letter to the legislature, Sirleaf asked for the authority to further restrict freedom of the press. “Because falsehood and negative reporting on the state of the affairs is likely to defeat the national effort in the fight of the Ebola virus, it is important that such be discouraged and prevented,” she wrote. “Accordingly, the Government of Liberia will restrict speeches that will confuse the citizens and residents including the raising of false alarm thereby creating fear during the state of emergency.”

The rule of law has never been strong in Liberia. Almost from its inception, the country was governed by oppressive regimes. But by the time its 14-year civil war ended in 2003, nascent democratic institutions began to take shape. In its latest ratings, the democracy watchdog Freedom House classified Liberia as “partly free.”

Now, some fear, Sirleaf’s proposals are moving the country back in the direction of authoritarian rule.

“In my view, this is dangerous, and it reminds us of the days when the dictators govern Liberia,” Acarous Gray, a member of the Liberian House of Representatives, told the US-funded news agency Voice of America.

Roosevelt Woods, executive director for the Foundation for International Dignity, a Liberian human rights advocacy group, also slammed the president for overreaching. “This is dangerous for our country,” he told a group of journalists last weekend. “Anything that has to do with absolute power that violates human rights is a bad sign for Liberia. Sirleaf was elected to bring positive change, to restore hopes and not to dash them.”

The news also poses a dilemma for the United States, which has been one of the most active partners in aiding Liberia’s democratic transition. Over the past decade, the US Agency for International Development spent $271 million on democracy and governance programs in the country—almost a quarter of all its aid to Liberia during that time, according to an agency report.

Because it was dealing with such a weak state, USAID looked for ways to build up Liberia’s capacity to govern itself, while simultaneously trying to develop measures to ensure the government respected its citizens’ basic rights. The strategy USAID chose was to help strengthen the country’s historically abusive executive branch while also training local media and community-based organizations to report on corruption and better inform the public. But that approach has potential drawbacks. “The risk…is that we put too much emphasis on governance and too little on democratic governance,” the agency acknowledged in its report.

Now, with the Ebola response threatening some core freedoms, the agency says it’s up to Liberians to determine how far Sirleaf can go. “Whether and how any steps are taken to restrict any of these rights is an issue for discussion among Liberia’s three branches of government, and between the government and civil society,” a USAID spokesperson said in a statement to Mother Jones. “We hope it will not be necessary for President Sirleaf to take steps to restrict civil liberties.”

But Liberian authorities have already done just that—especially in their dealings with the press. In August, the government used tear gas to shutter the National Chronicle newspaper just hours after the information minister threatened reporters critical of the government’s response to the crisis. (The Chronicle had recently published a series of stories discussing efforts by Sirleaf’s rivals to challenge her government.) Days later, the editor of the Women Voices newspaper reported being harassed and interrogated by police after publishing a story alleging that law enforcement officials had misused funds intended for the Ebola effort.

Free press advocates have expressed concern over the recent developments. “Liberia’s public health crisis must not be used as a pretext for cracking down on the media,” Virginie Dangles, assistant research director for Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement. “On the contrary, the media need to be involved as much as possible, to provide the population with constant information about the state of the epidemic, the government’s response and the preventive measures being adopted.”

The Chronicle and Women Voices incidents and others were detailed in a letter from the Press Union of Liberia to Justice Minister Christiana Tah on September 4. She won’t be able to do anything about it now, however. Tah resigned on October 6, accusing the president of undermining the independence of her office.

“The investments of national and international stakeholders promoting the rule of law are being eroded by actions that contradict the values that underpin the fabric of our society,” she wrote in her letter of resignation.

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How Liberia’s Government Is Using Ebola to Crack Down on the Media

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How the Defense Industry Convinced Congress to Militarize Local Cops

Mother Jones

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The Ferguson, Missouri, police department’s display of armored cars, officers in riot gear, and assault rifles over the past week shocked Americans who didn’t realize how much military equipment is now available to local police departments. But since the 1990’s, more than 8,000 federal, state, tribal, and local police agencies across the country have armed themselves with the military’s excess gear, free of charge. The inventory includes everything from office furniture and first aid kits to aircraft, armored cars, rifles and bayonets, according to the Defense Logistics Agency, the Department of Defense office that manages the transactions under an initiative called Program 1033.

In June, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) introduced an amendment to de-fund aspects of the program. Grayson’s bill would have exempted certain military equipment, including planes and armored cars, from Program 1033. That effort failed; just 62 members of the House of Representatives voted for the measure, with 355 voting no. Maybe the outcome shouldn’t have been a surprise: According to a new analysis of campaign finance data, the politicians who voted against Grayson’s bill received, on average, 73 percent more campaign donations from defense industry sources from 2011 through 2013 than their peers who voted for it.

The analysis—conducted by the Berkeley-based research group MapLight using data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics—also found that of 59 representatives who received more than $100,000 from the defense industry from 2011 through 2013, all but three voted against the amendment.

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How the Defense Industry Convinced Congress to Militarize Local Cops

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This Is the Democratic Plan to Reverse the Hobby Lobby Decision

Mother Jones

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On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised “to do something” about the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision. Now two members of his caucus say they are preparing a bill that would reverse some of the controversial aspects of last week’s decision.

Take it away, TPM:

The legislation will be sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO). According to a summary reviewed by TPM, it prohibits employers from refusing to provide health services, including contraception, to their employees if required by federal law. It clarifies that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the basis for the Supreme Court’s ruling against the mandate, and all other federal laws don’t permit businesses to opt out of the Obamacare requirement.

This bill will restore the original legal guarantee that women have access to contraceptive coverage through their employment-based insurance plans and will protect coverage of other health services from employer objections as well, according to the summary.

This is all well and good, but unfortunately this bill will never survive a cloture vote in the Senate; even if it did, it would be dead on arrival in the House of Representatives. The only way that Hobby Lobby stands even a chance of being overturned legislatively is if John Boehner is forced to hand over the Speaker’s gavel to a Democrat. That’s probably something someone at the DCCC should remind people of as we head into the midterms.

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This Is the Democratic Plan to Reverse the Hobby Lobby Decision

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Connecticut will label GMOs if you do too

Connecticut will label GMOs if you do too

CT Senate Democrats

Connecticut is poised to become the first state to require labeling of genetically engineered food — in theory, at least.

On Monday, the state House of Representatives passed an amended version of a labeling bill that the state Senate approved two weeks ago, and Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) has said he’ll sign it. The bipartisan bill passed unanimously in the Senate and 134-to-3 in the House, with little debate in either chamber — a major contrast to California’s contentious GMO-labeling ballot initiative that ultimately failed last year. Differences between the two states aside, it goes to show you how much more difficult passing such progressive measures becomes once corporate money and gullible voters are involved.

The Hartford Courant’s political blog reports that “Immediately after the vote, cheers could be heard outside the Hall of the House from advocates who had been pushing the labeling requirement.” The bill’s success is certainly an important victory for the GMO-labeling movement, which seems to have been motivated, not discouraged, by last year’s loss in California. Thirty-seven labeling proposals have been introduced in 21 states so far this year.

But the final version of the Connecticut bill includes quite a crucial catch: The labeling requirement won’t actually go into effect until similar legislation is passed by at least four other states, one of which borders Connecticut. Also, the labeling adopters must include Northeast states with an aggregate population of at least 20 million. So if, say, New York passed a labeling law, that would help a lot, as New York borders Connecticut and has a population of 19.5 million, which, combined with Connecticut’s 3.5 million, easily passes the population target.

This “trigger clause” is meant to allay fears that Connecticut could suffer negative economic impacts by going it alone — higher food prices and lawsuits from major food companies. Lawmakers are counting on safety in numbers, and hoping their state’s precedent will encourage others to follow suit. The Connecticut Post reports:

“Somebody has to go first and say it’s OK to do it with some kind of trigger,” [Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R-Fairfield)] said. “This gives great momentum for advocates in Pennsylvania and New York, for example, for GMO labeling, because if they’re successful in New York we’ll probably see it along the entire East Coast.”

OK, Pennsylvania, New York, and all those other states considering GMO labeling: It’s on you now.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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House GOP wants to crack down on environmental regs because jobs

House GOP wants to crack down on environmental regs because jobs

Library of CongressCongress, circa 1912. Or maybe a GOP meeting of some sort. Can’t tell.

The House of Representatives is run by Republicans these days, because that’s what the American people want. We chose to maintain a majority of Republicans, meaning that Republicans get to do whatever they want. If the GOP House gets reelected, that’s a mandate. If the president does, it isn’t. That’s math. That’s politics.

And leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee know what needs to be done: We need to get rid of those flim-flammin’ environmental regulations so we can finally extract some gol-dang fossil fuels! From The Rassafrassin’ Hill:

The House Natural Resources committee will devote more attention to environmental reviews and their effects on advancing energy development in a new subcommittee next Congress. …

“Moving jurisdiction of [the National Environmental Policy Act] to a specific Subcommittee will allow us to better review and address how this law is being implemented and the impacts its bureaucratic red-tape has on jobs, our economy and access to public lands and resources,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said in a Thursday statement.

The House Natural Resources Committee, which deals with energy development on federal lands, has pushed the Obama administration to expand oil-and-gas drilling. All applications for such drilling projects must go through a NEPA assessment.

Yes. Go get ‘em, guys. (They are all guys.) Just look what that no-good, fossil-fuel-hating Obama has done to fossil fuel extraction:

Up, up, up! The United States recently hit a 14-year high in oil production; the natural gas boom has been nauseatingly documented.

But not up high enough, apparently. Why not? Maybe this graph, showing another set of data, might help explain.

That shows contributions from the oil and gas industry to members of Congress.

Up, up, up!

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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