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America’s Dirtiest Power Companies, Ranked

by LonnaBuley599 Posted on July 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Coal-fired power plants are the single biggest driver of global climate change in the United States. That’s why President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving quickly to put the finishing touches on a new set of regulations, called the Clean Power Plan, that aim to reduce the nation’s overall carbon footprint 30 percent by 2030 by cracking down on emissions from the energy sector.

Unsurprisingly, many power companies—particularly those that rely on coal as their main source of fuel—are crying foul. Recently, one major coal company and a dozen coal-reliant states tried to block the new rules in federal court. (The court decided last month not to hear the challenge, since the rules haven’t yet been finalized.) And this week, executives from two of the country’s biggest power companies met with White House officials in an attempt to persuade them that the crackdown would be “too much too soon.”

As it turns out, those same two companies—Duke Energy and American Electric Power—emit more carbon pollution than any other power producers in the country. That’s according to a new report released from a coalition of environmental groups and power companies, which draws on public data from the EPA and the Energy Information Administration to reveal the carbon footprints of the 100 biggest power producers in the nation. Many of the names in the database, like AEP or California’s Pacific Gas & Electric, might be familiar from your monthly bill, depending on where you live. The list does leave out some big utilities, like New York’s Con Ed, that primarily distribute power they purchase wholesale from someone else. That said, the database offers a pretty comprehensive snapshot of the companies most responsible for producing climate-changing emissions in the US.

The chart below shows the top 10 climate offenders from the database, according to two different metrics, and where each company ranks nationwide in terms of total power production. The first chart shows total carbon dioxide emissions in 2013. Unsurprisingly, that list is comprised mostly of the country’s biggest power companies, such as Duke, Southern, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. These companies produce a huge amount of power, and much of it comes from coal. Duke, for example, gets about 45 percent of its power from coal; for AEP, it’s about 60 percent.

The second chart shows the companies that are the most carbon-intense—that is, the companies that emit the most carbon dioxide per unit of electricity generated. Many of these are small, regional producers that rely almost exclusively on coal. While these companies generate relatively little power overall, what they do generate is exceptionally dirty, climate-wise. Big Rivers Electric, for example, provides power for a patch of western Kentucky with four coal-fired plants, the newest of which came online in 1986. Big Rivers declined to comment for this story. But a spokesperson for Great River Energy pointed out that the dataset may not fully represent a company’s portfolio, because it accounts only for power plants that the companies own and not for contracts with third-party wind and solar farms.

Tim McDonnell/Climate Desk

Take another look at the top chart. You might have noticed that while many of the country’s largest power producers appear on the list of major carbon polluters, a few big names are absent. That’s important, and it illustrates the huge climate benefit of using low-carbon fuels. In some cases, these companies have avoided significant carbon emissions because their energy generation portfolio is made up mostly of nuclear (which practically zero-carbon) and/or natural gas-fired plants (which release relatively little CO2). For example, the nation’s number-two power producer is Exelon, which gets 59 percent of its power from nuclear. The number-four producer, NextEra, gets 52 percent of its power from natural gas, 27 percent from nuclear, and 16 percent from wind. In other words, the carbon footprint ranking is essentially a proxy for which power companies are most reliant on coal.

There’s some good news in the data, as well. In the last few years, nationwide coal use has dropped precipitously. That’s mostly a product of market forces, rather than environmental regulation: Natural gas, made cheaper by the fracking boom, has displaced coal in power plants across the country. At the same time, renewable energy sources have boomed.

“What you see in this report is a significant shift to cleaner fuels,” said Derek Furstenwerth, a contributor to the report and the director of environmental services at Calpine, one of the country’s biggest power companies. Like NextEra, Calpine gets the bulk of its power from natural gas. Calpine has also emerged as a major proponent of Obama’s climate plan.

The shift away from coal has had a significant impact on emissions: Since 2008, carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector have dropped 12 percent. Other types of air emissions reported in the database are also way down, driven by regulations from the EPA that took effect prior to the Obama years. Emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide (both of which cause acid rain and other nasty environmental impacts) are down 74 percent and 80 percent, respectively, since 1990. The trends in those emissions offer a bit of a crystal ball into what will happen when the federal limits on carbon dioxide emissions kick in, said Dan Bakal, a contributor to the report and director of the electric power program at Ceres, a group that tracks environmental issues in the private sector.

“At the time, industry really thought reducing NOx and SO2 emissions was not going to be achievable and that it would be much more costly,” he said. “But they stepped up to the challenge and found ways to reduce emissions very cost-effectively. The same thing will happen with CO2.”

Just because carbon emissions are already on the decline, doesn’t mean Obama’s rules are unnecessary. The change isn’t happening fast enough to avert dangerous climate change, Bakal said. But the current trend does show that cleaning up the power sector is possible.

Complying with the Clean Power Plan “will be a bit of a stretch for the industry, which is appropriate for a regulation intended to put us on an improving path,” Furstenwerth said. “But we believe that it’s definitely achievable.”

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America’s Dirtiest Power Companies, Ranked

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Watch the Exact Moment South Carolina Finally Lowered the Confederate Flag

by EarleneDougherty Posted on July 10, 2015

Mother Jones

In a short, historic ceremony on Friday morning, the Confederate battle flag was finally lowered and removed from South Carolina’s statehouse grounds, three weeks after nine black parishioners were murdered at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church. The removal comes more than 50 years after the state first raised the battle flag to protest the civil rights movement.

The removal of the flag, which quickly emerged as a national issue following last month’s massacre, was met largely with praise during Friday’s brief ceremony, where chants of “take it down” could be heard, though protestors were also present.

On Thursday, Gov. Nikki Haley signed a bill into law calling for the flag’s removal.

“Twenty-two days ago, I didn’t know that I would ever be able to say this again, but today, I am very proud to say that it is a great day in South Carolina,” she said during the bill’s signing ceremony, where family members of the people killed in Charleston were in attendance.

South Carolina’s House of Representatives voted to take it down on Thursday by a 94-20 vote.

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Watch the Exact Moment South Carolina Finally Lowered the Confederate Flag

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Watch House Republicans Block an Effort to Remove the Confederate Flag From the US Capitol

by JeanettMillard Posted on July 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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The floor of the US House of Representatives was as noisy and contentious as the British Parliament on Thursday afternoon, when House Republicans tried to stall a vote on a spending bill that surprisingly included a Republican amendment to keep the Confederate flag on display in federal cemeteries.

Earlier in the week, the House had approved amendments introduced by Rep. Jared Huffman, (D-California) that would block the display of Confederate flags on graves in federal cemeteries and prohibit the use of federal funds to display the flag on federal lands. The amendments passed as part of a Department of Interior spending bill, which was set for a vote on Thursday. But Wednesday night, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-California) inserted an amendment that would make it possible for Confederate flags to stay in use in federal cemeteries. House Democrats immediately objected, and House Republicans—with their leaders apparently nervous about being portrayed as pro-Confederacy—pulled the entire bill from the floor. (Here’s a good breakdown on the sequence of events from The Atlantic).

On Thursday, the same day the state of South Carolina voted to remove the flag from its capitol grounds, as Congress was wrestling with the Interior spending bill and the Confederate flag provisions, House Democrats upped the ante. Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi proposed a measure that would remove any flag with Confederate symbols from the US Capitol. House Republicans objected and essentially kicked the resolution off the floor, sending to a committee. Chaos ensued. As the House clerk read the motion to exile the measure to a GOP-controlled committee, Democrats started shouting in protest. When a voice vote was called, Republicans yelled “aye,” while Democrats loudly shouted “no.” Republicans won, and the Democrats responded by yelling, “vote! vote! vote!”—challenging the Rs to vote on the flag-removing measure and not duck the issue.

The video above captures the moment that the GOP ran away from the issue when Democrats tried to remove the Confederate flag from Capitol Hill. (For a more complete video, see here.)

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Watch House Republicans Block an Effort to Remove the Confederate Flag From the US Capitol

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Exxon Knew About Global Warming More Than 30 Years Ago

by FMRBeatriz Posted on July 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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

ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, knew as early as 1981 of climate change—seven years before it became a public issue, according to a newly discovered email from one of the firm’s own scientists. Despite this the firm spent millions over the next 27 years to promote climate denial.

The email from Exxon’s in-house climate expert provides evidence the company was aware of the connection between fossil fuels and climate change, and the potential for carbon-cutting regulations that could hurt its bottom line, over a generation ago—factoring that knowledge into its decision about an enormous gas field in south-east Asia. The field, off the coast of Indonesia, would have been the single largest source of global warming pollution at the time.

“Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia,” Lenny Bernstein, a 30-year industry veteran and Exxon’s former in-house climate expert, wrote in the email. “This is an immense reserve of natural gas, but it is 70 percent CO2,” or carbon dioxide, the main driver of climate change.

However, Exxon’s public position was marked by continued refusal to acknowledge the dangers of climate change, even in response to appeals from the Rockefellers, its founding family, and its continued financial support for climate denial. Over the years, Exxon spent more than $30 million on think tanks and researchers that promoted climate denial, according to Greenpeace.

Exxon said on Wednesday that it now acknowledges the risk of climate change and does not fund climate change denial groups.

Some climate campaigners have likened the industry to the conduct of the tobacco industry which for decades resisted the evidence that smoking causes cancer.

In the email Bernstein, a chemical engineer and climate expert who spent 30 years at Exxon and Mobil and was a lead author on two of the United Nations’ blockbuster IPCC climate science reports, said climate change first emerged on the company’s radar in 1981, when the company was considering the development of Southeast Asia’s biggest gas field, off Indonesia.

That was seven years ahead of other oil companies and the public, according to Bernstein’s account.

Climate change was largely confined to the realm of science until 1988, when the climate scientist James Hansen told Congress that global warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels.

By that time, it was clear that developing the Natuna site would set off a huge amount of climate change pollution—effectively a “carbon bomb,” according to Bernstein.

“When I first learned about the project in 1989, the projections were that if Natuna were developed and its CO2 vented to the atmosphere, it would be the largest point source of CO2 in the world and account for about 1 percent of projected global CO2 emissions. I’m sure that it would still be the largest point source of CO2, but since CO2 emissions have grown faster than projected in 1989, it would probably account for a smaller fraction of global CO2 emissions,” Bernstein wrote.

The email was written in response to an inquiry on business ethics from the Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics at Ohio University.

“What it shows is that Exxon knew years earlier than James Hansen’s testimony to Congress that climate change was a reality; that it accepted the reality, instead of denying the reality as they have done publicly, and to such an extent that it took it into account in their decision making, in making their economic calculation,” the director of the institute, Alyssa Bernstein (no relation), told the Guardian.

“One thing that occurs to me is the behavior of the tobacco companies denying the connection between smoking and lung cancer for the sake of profits, but this is an order of magnitude greater moral offense, in my opinion, because what is at stake is the fate of the planet, humanity, and the future of civilization, not to be melodramatic.”

Bernstein’s response, first posted on the institute’s website last October, was released by the Union of Concerned Scientists on Wednesday as part of a report on climate disinformation promoted by companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and Peabody Energy, called the Climate Deception Dossiers.

Asked about Bernstein’s comments, Exxon said climate science in the early 1980s was at a preliminary stage, but the company now saw climate change as a risk.

“The science in 1981 on this subject was in the very, very early days and there was considerable division of opinion,” Richard Keil, an Exxon spokesman, said. “There was nobody you could have gone to in 1981 or 1984 who would have said whether it was real or not. Nobody could provide a definitive answer.”

He rejected the idea that Exxon had funded groups promoting climate denial. “I am here to talk to you about the present,” he said. “We have been factoring the likelihood of some kind of carbon tax into our business planning since 2007. We do not fund or support those who deny the reality of climate change.”

Exxon, unlike other companies and the public at large in the early 1980s, was already aware of climate change—and the prospect of regulations to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, according to Bernstein’s account.

“In the 1980s, Exxon needed to understand the potential for concerns about climate change to lead to regulation that would affect Natuna and other potential projects. They were well ahead of the rest of industry in this awareness. Other companies, such as Mobil, only became aware of the issue in 1988, when it first became a political issue,” he wrote.

“Natural resource companies—oil, coal, minerals—have to make investments that have lifetimes of 50-100 years. Whatever their public stance, internally they make very careful assessments of the potential for regulation, including the scientific basis for those regulations,” Bernstein wrote in the email.

Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University professor who researches the history of climate science, said it was unsurprising Exxon would have factored climate change in its plans in the early 1980s—but she disputed Bernstein’s suggestion that other companies were not. She also took issue with Exxon’s assertion of uncertainty about the science in the 1980s, noting the National Academy of Science describing a consensus on climate change from the 1970s.

The White House and the National Academy of Sciences came out with reports on climate change in the 1970s, and government scientific agencies were studying climate change in the 1960s, she said. There were also a number of major scientific meetings on climate change in the 1970s.

“I find it difficult to believe that an industry whose business model depends on fossil fuels could have been completely ignoring major environmental reports, major environmental meetings taken place in which carbon dioxide and climate change were talked about,” she said in an interview with the Guardian.

The East Natuna gas field, about 140 miles north-east of the Natuna islands in the South China Sea and 700 miles north of Jakarta, is the biggest in Southeast Asia, with about 46 trillion cubic feet (1.3 trillion cubic meters) of recoverable reserves.

However, Exxon did not go into production on the field.

Bernstein writes in his email to Ohio University: “Corporations are interested in environmental impacts only to the extent that they affect profits, either current or future. They may take what appears to be altruistic positions to improve their public image, but the assumption underlying those actions is that they will increase future profits. ExxonMobil is an interesting case in point.”

Bernstein, who is now in his mid-70s, spent 20 years as a scientist at Exxon and 10 years at Mobil. During the 1990s he headed the science and technology advisory committee of the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group that lobbied aggressively against the scientific consensus around the causes of climate change.

However, GCC climate experts accepted the impact of human activity on climate change in their internal communications as early as 1995, according to a document filed in a 2009 lawsuit and included in the UCS dossier.

The document, a 17-page primer on climate science produced by Bernstein’s advisory committee, discounts the alternate theories about the causes of climate change promoted by climate contrarian researchers such as Willie Soon, who was partly funded by Exxon.

“The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change,” the advisory committee said.

The 1995 primer was never released for publication. A subsequent version, which was publicly distributed in 1998, removed the reference to “contrarian theories,” and continued to dispute the science underlying climate change.

Kenneth Kimmel, the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said ExxonMobil and the other companies profiled in its report had failed to take responsibility about the danger to the public of producing fossil fuels.

“Instead of taking responsibility, they have either directly—or indirectly through trade and industry groups—sown doubt about the science of climate change and fought efforts to cut emissions,” he wrote in a blog post. “I believe that the conduct outlined in the UCS report puts the fossil fuel companies’ social license at risk. And once that social license is gone, it is very hard to get it back. Just look at what happened to tobacco companies after litigation finally pried open the documents that exposed decades of misinformation and deception.”

Keil, the ExxonMobil spokesman, confirmed that the company had decided not to develop Natuna, but would not comment on the reasons. “There could be a huge range of reasons why we don’t develop projects,” he said.

Full text of scientist’s email

Below is the text of an email from Lenny Bernstein to the director of the Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics at Ohio University, Alyssa Bernstein (no relation), who had asked for ideas to stimulate students for an ethics day announced by the Carnegie Council.

Alyssa’s right. Feel free to share this e-mail with her. Corporations are interested in environmental impacts only to the extent that they affect profits, either current or future. They may take what appears to be altruistic positions to improve their public image, but the assumption underlying those actions is that they will increase future profits. ExxonMobil is an interesting case in point.

Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia. This is an immense reserve of natural gas, but it is 70 percent CO2. That CO2 would have to be separated to make the natural gas usable. Natural gas often contains CO2 and the technology for removing CO2 is well known. In 1981 (and now) the usual practice was to vent the CO2 to the atmosphere. When I first learned about the project in 1989, the projections were that if Natuna were developed and its CO2 vented to the atmosphere, it would be the largest point source of CO2 in the world and account for about 1 percent of projected global CO2 emissions. I’m sure that it would still be the largest point source of CO2, but since CO2 emissions have grown faster than projected in 1989, it would probably account for a smaller fraction of global CO2 emissions.

The alternative to venting CO2 to the atmosphere is to inject it into ground. This technology was also well known, since the oil industry had been injecting limited quantities of CO2 to enhance oil recovery. There were many questions about whether the CO2 would remain in the ground, some of which have been answered by Statoil’s now almost 20 years of experience injecting CO2 in the North Sea. Statoil did this because the Norwegian government placed a tax on vented CO2. It was cheaper for Statoil to inject CO2 than pay the tax. Of course, Statoil has touted how much CO2 it has prevented from being emitted.

In the 1980s, Exxon needed to understand the potential for concerns about climate change to lead to regulation that would affect Natuna and other potential projects. They were well ahead of the rest of industry in this awareness. Other companies, such as Mobil, only became aware of the issue in 1988, when it first became a political issue. Natural resource companies—oil, coal, minerals—have to make investments that have lifetimes of 50-100 years. Whatever their public stance, internally they make very careful assessments of the potential for regulation, including the scientific basis for those regulations. Exxon NEVER denied the potential for humans to impact the climate system. It did question—legitimately, in my opinion—the validity of some of the science.

Political battles need to personify the enemy. This is why liberals spend so much time vilifying the Koch brothers—who are hardly the only big money supporters of conservative ideas. In climate change, the first villain was a man named Donald Pearlman, who was a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. (In another life, he was instrumental in getting the US Holocaust Museum funded and built.) Pearlman’s usefulness as a villain ended when he died of lung cancer—he was a heavy smoker to the end.

Then the villain was the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a trade organization of energy producers and large energy users. I was involved in GCC for a while, unsuccessfully trying to get them to recognize scientific reality. (That effort got me on to the front page of the New York Times, but that’s another story.) Environmental group pressure was successful in putting GCC out of business, but they also lost their villain. They needed one which wouldn’t die and wouldn’t go out of business. Exxon, and after its merger with Mobil ExxonMobil, fit the bill, especially under its former CEO, Lee Raymond, who was vocally opposed to climate change regulation. ExxonMobil’s current CEO, Rex Tillerson, has taken a much softer line, but ExxonMobil has not lost its position as the personification of corporate, and especially climate change, evil. It is the only company mentioned in Alyssa’s e-mail, even though, in my opinion, it is far more ethical that many other large corporations.

Having spent twenty years working for Exxon and ten working for Mobil, I know that much of that ethical behavior comes from a business calculation that it is cheaper in the long run to be ethical than unethical. Safety is the clearest example of this. ExxonMobil knows all too well the cost of poor safety practices. The Exxon Valdez is the most public, but far from the only, example of the high cost of unsafe operations. The value of good environmental practices are more subtle, but a facility that does a good job of controlling emission and waste is a well run facility, that is probably maximizing profit. All major companies will tell you that they are trying to minimize their internal CO2 emissions. Mostly, they are doing this by improving energy efficiency and reducing cost. The same is true for internal recycling, again a practice most companies follow. Its sic just good engineering.

I could go on, but this e-mail is long enough.

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Exxon Knew About Global Warming More Than 30 Years Ago

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The Shocking Truth About Wednesday’s Apocalypse Involving Wall Street, China, ISIS, and United Airlines

by NapoleonWND Posted on July 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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When the New York Stock Exchange inexplicably halted trades at about 11:30 Wednesday morning, people around the Twittersphere reacted with their typical restraint, reasoned analysis, and careful double-checking of the facts.

Or not.

After all, there were an unusual number of suspicious events today, and Twitter was swirling with paranoid conspiracy theories linking Wall Street, the grounding of United Airlines flights, ISIS, and the Chinese financial meltdown.

Initial reactions were largely variants of this one:

But the conspiracy theories—involving the Chinese, the CIA, and even ISIS—were not far behind. Some came from on high. Here’s one from US Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.):

He wasn’t the only one taking things in that direction:

And even after the US Department of Homeland Security said there was no indication that the NYSE situation was due to a malicious act, some people weren’t buying it:

The theory that China might be behind this series of events could be supported by data from the Norse Intelligence Network, a California-based online security company. The company offers up a real-time cyber attack map, which seemed to show at midday on Wednesday that China was the number-one attacker and the US was the number-one target:

Screenshot from the Norse Intelligence Network attack map on July 8, 2015. map.norsecorp.com

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The Shocking Truth About Wednesday’s Apocalypse Involving Wall Street, China, ISIS, and United Airlines

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Ron Wyden Just Used Rap Genius to Troll the FBI Director

by ChristiCass Posted on July 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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FBI Director James Comey says encryption is hurting national security and helping ISIS. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is calling BS—and using a rap lyrics site to do it.

Comey spent Wednesday in front of Congress, arguing that law enforcement agencies face a growing threat from people who use encrypted messages—even though the government couldn’t say how big the threat actually is now. He also gave a preview of his argument in a post on Monday at Lawfare, an influential blog on national security law. “There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong encryption,” he wrote. “Part of my job is make sure the debate is informed by a reasonable understanding of the costs.”

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Ron Wyden Just Used Rap Genius to Troll the FBI Director

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Scott Walker’s Office Was Part of a Sneaky Effort to Keep His Records Private

by Danielzhg Posted on July 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Update (7/7/15): Gov. Scott Walker’s office has confirmed in a statement that it was involved with the measure to change Wisconsin’s open-records law to block access to many currently available government documents. The statement was released after Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) acknowledged that Walker’s office took part in discussions to slip the changes into a last-minute budget bill. Fitzgerald said the governor’s office had specifically cited the volume of requests it receives as one reason for the measure. Another Wisconsin Republican lawmaker, Rep. Dale Kooyenga, the vice-chairman of the legislative committee that included the provision, apologized for his role in allowing it into the budget bill. According to Kooyenga, he had been led to believe the change would put Wisconsin’s public records law in line with the rest of the country and federal law; since voting for the measure, he learned that it was actually much harsher.

Late on Thursday night, before the start of the holiday weekend, Republican state legislators in Wisconsin slipped wording into a bill authorizing Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget that would have blocked access to many public records. This includes records the Walker administration is currently fighting to keep secret, which concern a controversial proposal to rewrite key parts of the Wisconsin University system’s charter. Reporters and the governor’s Democratic critics immediately suspected this legislative maneuver was an attempt to shield Walker, who is about to announce his presidential bid next week, from greater scrutiny.

On Friday, as the controversy over the provision escalated, Walker at first avoided discussing it. But soon Republican lawmakers who had not been part of the committee that approved the language joined the chorus of critics. Knowing that he didn’t even have the support of fellow Republicans, Walker issued a joint statement with top GOP lawmakers Saturday morning stating that the language would be pulled from the budget, at least for now.

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Scott Walker’s Office Was Part of a Sneaky Effort to Keep His Records Private

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The Vast Majority of America’s Elected Prosecutors Are White Men

by JudyGearynnn Posted on July 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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A study released on Tuesday reveals a glaring lack of diversity among America’s elected prosecutors. The data, gathered by the Center for Technology and Civil Life and published by the Women’s Donors Network, examines the racial and gender makeup of the more than 2,400 elected city, county and district prosecutors, as well as state attorneys general, serving in office during the summer of 2014. Here are the key findings:

95 percent of all elected prosecutors were white.
79 percent of all elected prosecutors were white men.
In 14 states, all elected prosecutors were white.
Just 1 percent of the 2,437 elected prosecutors serving were women of color.

The study comes amid stark questions about race and the American criminal justice system, an issue thrust into the spotlight after a string of high-profile police killings of black Americans. Most of the nation’s police forces are disproportionately white. And while a high-profile prosecution in Baltimore is being led by a black woman, other controversial cases in Cleveland, Ohio, and most famously in Ferguson, Missouri, have been in the hands of white men.

See the full dataset on elected prosecutors here.

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The Vast Majority of America’s Elected Prosecutors Are White Men

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We Love America, and You Should, Too

by BraydenSconce Posted on July 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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James West: Okay. How to start. How to start?

Ben Dreyfuss: July 4th! America! That great American holiday wherein we celebrate some bit of the American story. I think the earliest bit. Or the earliest official bit? We aren’t celebrating the stuff with the Mayflower.

JW: So the idea is we’re chatting about what makes this holiday so great for Americans and America and by extension the world, because for Americans: America is the world. It’s a bit off-brand for Mother Jones, no?

BD: You could say that, yes. We don’t have a lot of stories called “America Is Great.”

JW: It’s usually: “America: It’s Far Worse Than You Think ” or “America: Get Out. Seriously, Get Out While You Can.”

BD: But you can’t be critical all of the time or you’ll have an aneurysm. So let’s talk about the truth of the thing, which is that we actually love America! We’re harsh and critical about it, but that’s because we love it so much. We wouldn’t bother writing these stories that urge it to be better if we didn’t have some deep abiding love for it.

JW: I mean, I love America more than is reasonable, because I left a sun-soaked beach paradise with universal health coverage and a social safety net to move to this rat-infested fuckshow called New York City. But anyway, I’m going to start with a simple question. What is your favorite thing about America? FIRST THING that comes to your mind.

BD: Blue jeans. I think blue jeans are amazing. I also love Hollywood and rock & roll. Blue jeans and Hollywood and rock & roll won the cold war.

JW: Blue jeans, when they’re not made by children in Asia.

BD: Well, even then we invented them. “Guess” may make them in Asia but those kids are playing an American song.

JW: “Designed in California” is how Apple describes that particular phenomenon.

BD: Apple! Right, that’s another cool thing America has. Innovation! Other places have that too, though.

JW: Innovation is one thing I think America excels at quite legitimately and can lay claim to (despite lack of diversity hires.) Have you tried to use 3G in the UK? It’s awful. And all their websites break when you try to book a ticket to see Jurassic World 3D. The internet is basically America. At least in the Anglophone world.

BD: That’s true, but in their favor they did invent radar.

JW: Jurassic World 3D, by the way, is an American film, made by Americans.

BD: American films are the best films. This is a fact. Cinema is—along with Jazz—the great American art form.

JW: I think that’s a fact, too. I mean, what is the comparison? French films? I don’t think so. Bollywood? Bollywood is great. But very long films.

BD: And cinema in a very real sense created the American identity that has been exported around the world. For instance, would blue jeans be as important had not James Dean worn them? The French films are all very…well, French. Great! But arty to the point of being intentionally obtuse.

JW: British films are all set in a kitchen making tea… why is that? And Keira Knightley is in every single one of them.

BD: Have you seen the Eddie Izzard bit on the differences between British and American films?

BD: British films are all “room with a view and a staircase and a pond.”

JW: Now I’m in an Eddie Izzard YouTube K-hole.

BD: “You fuck my wife? You fuck my wife?” “I am your wife!”

JW: Okay, now I’m going to stop this.

BD: One thing I think he gets at in this discussion of the size and expanse of American films is the thematic size and expanse of the American ideal, right?

JW: Big, brash, uncompromising, and designed to sell you food made out of corn served in containers made of corn, in seats made of corn.

BD: You had this ridiculous frontier mentality in the 18th century. Then you have the moon looming large in the 20th century. There is this idea that you can do anything in America! Even though this isn’t true and the poverty trap here is as terrible as anywhere, it’s still baked into the pitch. You came here from Australia. Did you get that growing up?

JW: I think what most Australians refuse to really admit is that we are far more similar to Americans than we are to the British. Same frontier thing, same sense of upward-mobility (as a sometimes-flawed, problematic) national obsession, same sense that given the right circumstances everyone can achieve greatness. (Though in Australia’s case, not too great, otherwise you’re arrogant, “like an American.”)

BD: Haha right. “Arrogant like an American” is a very British thing. You still have traces of British in you.

JW: It’s tactical! America loomed large—and continues to loom the largest for Australians, I think. My childhood was drenched with all the cultural products your childhood was.

BD: Nationality was—and is—far less a divide than age… because “everything is global, man!”

JW: If I dusted off my Marxist undergraduate degree I would say something about the spread of global capitalism and America’s imperialist soft power. But that’s kind of boring, isn’t it. Plus, I love America.

BD: Right, I mean we’re going to get into the Bad Bits later. We are liberal journalists, after all.

JW: And if there’s any country’s soft power I would want, it’s America’s, on balance. I mean, Scandinavian furniture is really nice, and better than American, but they aren’t a superpower. But given the choice of current superpowers, I would throw my chips down for America. Also, New York hosts the UN, man, and it’s a beautiful building full of august (ineffective!) debate about the future of the planet!

BD: And Hillary Clinton wasn’t afraid to announce her run for president in front of it!

JW: No. That was bold.

BD: That was great. I think a lot of people—myself included—think of America as a leader of the world, right? But what Hillary was saying with that backdrop was that we’re a leader sure, but still a member of this global community. And that’s true and important and when America acts like its worst self on the global stage is when we forget that.

JW: I’ve been doing some thinking about this question, and I want to get sentimental for a second about America. Are you ready?

BD: Yes.

JW: America got a really bad wrap in recent years around the world for obvious reasons. And it made people kind of…”bigoted” against Americans. Certainly there was this feeling that American culture is crass, debased, somehow inferior. But actually I’ve only ever found the opposite: a culture that is genuinely open to people and ideas, in the pursuit of creating something cool. In my case, writing and videos. But there’s never any hesitation to welcome an idea in any field, from my experience. Americans are natural storytellers, and therefore natural listeners, alert to things and excited by them. That’s a really fun culture to be around.

BD: Right. Like, storytelling is a big thing in like every culture but it does hold a special place in America.

JW: Every American has a “story.” That’s fun. (And great for a reporter.)

BD: Nietzsche said that everyone tells themselves the story of their life. That’s true about countries, too. We’re constantly telling ourselves the American story.

JW: Americans are especially good at framing a personal narrative, and then putting it on a path to redemption. Right, the same is true for the country.

BD: I think we do that because—we should do it more, too—but we do that because we have done so much terrible shit. Like, I know we’re talking about America as one thing right now and basically it’s a very New York liberal blah blah version of America but I was raised with an acute awareness of our original sins. The story of America is necessarily one of progress because if it’s not than it’s a stale story where we have not risen above Klansmen.

JW: I do like the stakes involved in the project of America though: “We’ve done awful shit. We’ll keep doing awful shit. But we also think of ourselves as the best country on Earth, so we have to hold ourselves to a higher ideal.” I mean, what a crazy motherfucking insane project that is. The Russians don’t do that. The Chinese don’t do that. But it matters, because if America succeeds in that project, the world is a better place for it.

BD: But like also, yeesh, obviously America is still totally fucking awful on these issues.

JW: Dreadful.

BD: And it’s insane. For decades in America, centuries even, lynching was just a thing that happened. Then not that long after people looked back at it with the genuine shock and outrage it deserved and wondered, “HOW THE HELL DID WE DO THAT?” I think we’ll look back on a lot of stuff that happens today the same way. Not seeing ourselves—not recognizing ourselves— in our own history. That’s a scary feeling. One that everyone can’t help but feel time to time.

JW: But at the same time, America has this idea of itself—rightly, wrongly—of becoming better, never settling, never being comfortable, always at war with the concept of “doing good”—and that makes it really interesting from an outsider’s perspective. I’m from Australia. We go to the beach instead of confront our demons.

BD: Haha.

JW: I mean, if you guys had beaches like Australia’s you’d do the same.

BD: Have you been to Southern California? Southern California is the most beautiful place on Earth.

JW: OK, apart from Southern California, which is beautiful. And the Pacific Northwest. And actually, a lot of America is really beautiful.

BD: Gorgeous!

JW: Haha.

BD: There are ugly bits but even the ugly bits aren’t that bad.

JW: Coming back from Newark airport is pretty bad.

BD: Wait, wait, before we start just listing our favorite parts of America—which we’ll do in a second— I want to do something before we leave the history bit of this discussion.

JW: Okay.

BD: The constitution looms large, right? My dad likes to talk about how it was a first. Other people had strived for freedom and promise and ratatatata but the Constitution was the first time we codified it aspirationally and wrote it down and put it up on a wall and said, “this is us.” If your father was a cobbler, and his father was a cobbler, and his father was a cobbler, you don’t have to be a cobbler.

I mean Magna Carta was codified, DAD. “Look, dad, have you even fucking read the Magna Carta?”

JW: Apparently the Magna Carta was over-rated?

BD: I mean, it seems like it would have to be.

JW: Look at Britain now!

BD: Haha.

JW: I think Constitutional festishism can be a bit of a problem, though. Pick your amendment to be a nut about!

BD: Right. No one seems to give a fuck about them all equally. I mean, it would be weird to do that maybe too. I hate the constitutional originalism. Like, it’s not some magical document. It was written by a bunch of smart people—most of whom are in hell now by the way—hundreds of years ago. Who gives a fuck what the founding fathers would think?

JW: Also, they would have been horrible people, by modern standards.

BD: Horrible!

JW: With awful teeth.

BD: Wooden!

JW: Thank god for fluoride. When I think of America, I think of Janis Joplin. I think of Nina Simone. I think of Martin Luther King Jr. I think of protest and struggle. There’s never really been a time of calm—where counter culture has given in. All the way through to Baltimore, Ferguson, Charleston.

BD: That’s so interesting. Maybe it’s just because I’m a ’90s kid but I really had this disruptive change after 9/11 where I felt a calmness lost. Like that is definitely because of “white privilege” and shit though.

JW: Yeah, the “innocence lost” narrative of 9/11 is one to poke holes in for sure, but the whole world was involved, so wasn’t just about America at that point.

BD: Sure, but I don’t think it’s true that it was like equally spread out over the world. A few months ago I was abroad somewhere and a political person from that country was trying to make some point and kept being like “how did you feel on 9/11?” and I was like, “stop trying to co-opt our tragedy for your own bullshit purposes.”

JW: Haha. Well, loads of countries went to war with you guys, including ours. So in that sense your tragedy was very ours.

BD: Anyway…

JW: Can we list other things we like about America now, in short order?

BD: Yes. Southern California, Jazz, Hollywood, our breakfasts, the Pacific Northwest, basketball, rock & roll, going to the moon, leather jackets, bourbon, New York City.

JW: The Good Wife. Road-trips and going to diners on road trips with my BF. HBO. The Empire State Building.

BD: The Good Wife! The Americans! Pop music!

JW: American newscasts and hyperbolic segues. I love them. I also love the weather segments which go for so long compared to back home.

BD: Oh, they’re amazing I love the bullshit morning shows. They’re so stupid but I love them.

JW: The national anthem is also pretty special, and amazing, piece of music. Especially as sung by Whitney.

BD: We’re good at music.

JW: And I also think—I’m going to say it—the design of your national flag is really iconic and beautiful.

BD: Yeah it’s nice. I like it. It’s on the moon, too! When the aliens come they’ll be very impressed.

JW: America! I’m so worked up about America now and feel so self-validated by my decisions to move here! Yay, America!

BD: Yay!

JW: Happy July 4!

BD: Ok, so I guess that’s how we wrap this up. We love America. You should too.

JW: I think I wanna end on a quote from my favorite American play (duh—it’s so unsurprising. don’t laugh)… Angels in America… About the guy who wrote the national anthem, one of the characters remarks that he “knew what he was doing. He set the word ‘free’ to a note so high nobody can reach it.”

I like that. Sums it up for me. Still trying to hit that high note.

BD: Perfect. All right, let’s publish this motherfucker.

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We Love America, and You Should, Too

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The US Government Spent Hundreds of Millions on Afghan Health Clinics. Now It’s Not Sure It Can Find Them.

by RozellaMccune Posted on July 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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The US government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on heath care facilities in Afghanistan as part of its efforts to rebuild the war-torn country. The problem is that two government agencies involved with the project can’t seem to agree on whether they know where the facilities are located—or even whether they’re all in Afghanistan.

Under the US Agency for International Development’s Partnership Contracts for Health program, the US government helps support basic health care needs for people across Afghanistan. As of March 2015, it had spent more than $210 million on the program, spread across 641 individual facilities.

But the location data USAID gave to a federal inspector general doesn’t seem to line up with actual facilities. John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), who leads the group charged with making sure Afghanistan reconstruction resources are used appropriately and lawfully, told USAID in a June 25 letter that the location data are incorrect—sometimes wildly so—for nearly 80 percent of the 641 health care facilities the agency is helping to support. Using geospatial data from the Army Geospatial Center, SIGAR tried to verify location data for the list of facilities that USAID provided.

“Thirteen coordinates were not located in Afghanistan,” Sopko wrote, noting that six were in Pakistan, six were in Tajikistan, “and one was located in the Mediterranean Sea.” There were also 13 cases where USAID reported two distinct facilities at the same location, more than 150 coordinates that didn’t clearly identify a specific building, and 90 cases where a location wasn’t provided, Sopko wrote. “To provide meaningful oversight of these facilities, both USAID and the Afghan government need to know where they are,” he added.

USAID says the data SIGAR used for its analysis is Afghan government data rather than USAID data, that USAID data is accurate, and that the agency knows how to find these clinics and monitor them, thank you very much.

“Local staff, third-party monitors, Afghan Government officials, and the benefiting community do not use GPS to navigate, let alone to find a health facility, because they are familiar with the area or from the community benefiting from the project,” Larry Sampler, an assistant to the administrator for Afghanistan and Pakistan affairs for USAID, said in a statement provided to Mother Jones. Sampler said USAID has put in place a “rigorous” monitoring system to oversee these clinics.

A USAID spokesperson further said the agency has its own set of data, distinct from Afghan government data, and that it is working with the Afghan government to bolster its record-keeping, a process that has already improved the Afghan data in the time since SIGAR requested information in the first place.

In response, a SIGAR spokesperson told Mother Jones that the information was originally requested in the course of an ongoing investigation into the Partnership Contracts for Health program, and that SIGAR went forward with the information provided by USAID. When asked why USAID didn’t just give SIGAR the correct data if it had it, a USAID spokesperson said, “The separate USAID data came from third party site visits that took place after May of 2014. I believe that SIGAR’s initial request for the data was informal in nature. SIGAR did not express concerns about the data with us prior to this inquiry letter.”

The point might seem trivial, but the geospatial data within geotagged photos, along with site visits, are used by USAID to verify that inspections actually take place. In a country where civilian travel is incredibly difficult, geotagged photos with precise location data are one of the best ways to ensure work is getting done and money is being spent correctly. In order to inspect these costly facilities, it’s helpful to agree on where to find them.

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The US Government Spent Hundreds of Millions on Afghan Health Clinics. Now It’s Not Sure It Can Find Them.

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