A place were I can write...

My simple blog of pictures of travel, friends, activities and the Universe we live in as we go slowly around the Sun.



March 31, 2015

Antarctica hottest day ever recorded: 63.5 degrees for coldest place on Earth?

Antarctica hottest day

By Roz Zurko

Antarctica may have had its hottest day on record yet, with the thermometer rising to 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit. As soon as the verification from the World Meteorological Organization comes back it will be official. This is the fall season in Antarctica, not the summer, so to have the warmest day ever recorded happen at this time of year is somewhat odd. It's not the warmest season of the year for the Antarctica.

According to DB Techno on March 31, the Antarctica is considered the coldest and windiest place on Earth. The world’s most southern continent is not a place that is used to seeing a temperature of 63.5 degrees. It’s been over 50 years since the readings have come close to this recent warm temp.

The 63.5 (17.5) degrees was registered on March 24, at the northern most tip of the Antarctica Peninsula. What the World Meteorological Organization is verifying is the location where this temperature was registered. Was this location within Antarctica or is it technically located in Argentina? This is the question that needs to be answered before it becomes official.

According to Cubiclane today, this highest temperature was recorded by a research station run by Argentina and it is located on the northern most tip of the Antarctica Peninsula. It is called Base Esperanza.

This report of such a warm temperature comes on the heels of a study published during the same week stating that the Antarctica ice sheet is melting at an accelerated rate. The Weather Network reported that if this record temperature is indeed confirmed, this would serve as an “ominous milestone for the Earth’s most desolate continent.”

This possible record temperature report wouldn’t be complete without some mention of global warming, which is what some people believe is happening. Some researchers suggest that Antarctica’s ice shelves have thinned by 18 percent in the past 20 years.

According to DB Techno researchers say: “The ice shelf shrinkage is indirectly linked to rising sea levels, and current volume reduction rates have scientists projecting that half the volume of ice shelves in western Antarctica may be lost in 200 years.”

Wouldn't let the bastards beat me......

Harry Reid wouldn't 'let the bastards beat me'

By Ted Barrett

There are two constants about Harry Reid that have stuck with him since he was a tough young man, taught to box by a manager named Spike: Never be a quitter and never look back.

So when the Senate Democratic Leader surprised the political world late last week, announcing he would hang up his political gloves at the end of his fifth term, he made clear that it wasn't his health or fear of electoral defeat that led him to step aside. And he sure didn't offer any regrets about the many political scrapes and tussles he started -- and survived -- during his lengthy and illustrious career.

That toughness was on display in an exclusive television interview with chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash, when the man who was Senate majority leader for the last eight years said he and his wife, Landra, considered quitting politics seven years ago but decided to stay to spite a newspaper that was pushing for him to leave.

"Frankly, one newspaper here in Nevada kept beating up on me and I said, 'I'm not going to let the bastards beat me,' and so I decided to run a last time," Reid said.

But now Reid, 75 years old, would be 83 by the end of sixth term. He made clear he wants to leave before he gets too old.

"Since 1992, I haven't had a clearer path to re-election," Reid said, explaining he would have faced only "second-tier" candidates in the 2016 race. But he said he "wanted to be remembered for my first 34 years, not my last six," so he made the difficult decision around Christmas to retire after three decades in the chamber.

The recent horrifying exercise accident that left him battered and bruised -- and possibly blind in one eye -- contributed to his decision but not for the most obvious reason.

"The one good part about the accident is for the first time in our married life I was forced to do nothing. The first three weeks I couldn't do anything except feel sorry for myself. But I got over that," he said. "I wanted to make sure that I could take care of my caucus and so I did some pondering. I'm sure it had some bearing on my not running but it wasn't the decision-maker."

Reid defended his decision to bypass Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, and endorse Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to replace him as Democratic leader.

"Schumer has been as loyal to me, as good to me as anybody could be," Reid said. "Once Schumer gets involved in something it's hard to get rid of him. He's a brilliant man. He loves the press. He's very strategic and he's been good to me and I felt it was an opportunity for him. He'll do a good job."

Reid, who rose from a Dickens-like impoverished childhood to become one of the most powerful politicians in America, acknowledged he's not a typical smooth politician out of central casting. He makes up for it, he said, with hard work and dedication to his constituents --namely the people in Nevada he represents and the Senate Democrats he leads.

"I recognized a long time ago that there are people who can speak better than I can. There are people a lot better looking than I am. There are people smarter than I am. But there's nobody who can work harder than I work," he said.

Reid -- meek in appearance -- is so soft-spoken he can be nearly inaudible when he talks. Throughout his life, those traits led many people to underestimate him. From classmates in high school when he ran -- and won -- races for student body president to muscle-bound boxers who were not impressed with his slim build.

"I think I overestimated them. They underestimated me and I did OK," he said while admitting it's a good metaphor for a political career.

In fact, Reid said he was inspired to make controversial changes to filibuster rules in the Senate after Durbin reported to him Republicans were "mocking" him, thinking he'd never have the courage to actually change Senate rules that had been in place for decades.

"Once they said that, I said to myself, that's something you shouldn't have said because don't put me up against a wall because I have nothing to do but fight," he said. "So I went to my caucus, and I got plenty of votes to change rules and so glad we did."

Reid took on other powerful people in recent years, notably presidential candidate Mittens Romney -- who he accused inaccurately of not paying taxes -- and the billionaire Koch brothers who he blasts at every chance he gets for their heavy spending for Republican campaigns.

"The Kock brothers," Reid said. "No one would help me, they were afraid they'd go after them. So I did it on my own. That's what I felt I had to do."

He also said he had no regrets about what he said about Romney. When asked if his methods were reminiscent of McCarthyism, he responded, "They can call it whatever they want. Romney didn't win did he?"

Reid said Obama credits him with being the first to suggest he run for president.

"I called him into my office and told him he should take a look at it. He was stunned because I was first to suggest it to him," Reid said, "When he was re-elected I got a call saying as soon as he gets off the stand, he wants to talk to you. One of most moving phone calls ever received, he said you're the reason I'm here."

"I care about Obama, he changed the world," Reid said.

Reid on the 2016 field

As for the potential 2016 presidential candidates, Reid had mostly kind words for people on both sides of the aisle.

On Hillary Clinton: "I think they country is ready for a woman."

On Sen Rand Paul, R-Kentucky: "I like that guy. He is so nice."

On Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida: Reid said he likes that Rubio has family connections in Las Vegas but declined to say if he'd make a good president.

On Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas: "Ted Cruz and I disagree on virtually everything. But on a personal basis, he's been very nice to me. I don't think he stands much of a chance, but I admire his tenacity for thinking he does."

On Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina: "I like him very, very much. We've worked on stuff together. Whenever I -- this will really hurt him, but I'll do it anyway. Whenever I need to know what's going on with Republicans -- call Lindsey."

On former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush: "I think he doesn't know who he is. Out of all candidates we've mentioned, I hope he loses." 

Reid spoke proudly of driving around Nevada and seeing all the pork-barrel spending projects he's steered to the state. In particular, he's pleased with a $1 billion dollar project at McCarren International Airport in Las Vegas, funded through the economic stimulus bill he helped pass in the Senate early in Obama's first term.

"It created thousands of jobs and helped when we needed it," he said. "It's hard to drive any place in Nevada without seeing renewable energy projects. That's really good, I had something to do with that."

Aides point to the revitalization of older parts of downtown Las Vegas where Reid's influence in the Senate helped direct money to the city hard hit by the 2008 economic crisis.

When Reid announced his retirement Friday, he got a call from former astronaut and Democratic senator from Ohio, John Glenn.

"I love John Glenn. I think he's 95. But he called me and said, 'Why did you do that damnit?' What I said is, 'John, if I knew that I would end up like you, I wouldn't have retired. But not many people wind up like you.'"

Making the rounds for money from the money crowd.. I.E. not you...

Jeb Bush kicks off week-long California money tour in San Diego

By Matea Gold

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush kicked off a four-day, five-city fundraising tour through California Monday with a luncheon at San Diego's luxury Grand Del Mar resort.

The event, which benefits the pro-Bush Right to Rise super PAC, is being hosted by yachtsman and philanthropist Malin Burnham, lawyer Margarita Palau Hernandez, real estate developer Ken Satterlee and Papa Doug Manchester, owner of the U-T San Diego media company, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Washington Post. (The money people are sizing up their money guy)

It's the beginning of a busy fundraising week for Bush, who is making an intense press to raise big donations for his allied super PAC before officially declaring his candidacy for president.

On Monday evening, Bush is swinging through Newport Beach, where he is headlining a $25,000-per-couple "reception and discussion" at the Pacific Club.

On Tuesday, he will be in Bel Air for a reception and dinner at the home of Maria and Robert Tuttle, who was appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom by President George W. Bush. Other co-hosts include Robert Day, founder of an investment management firm; Brad Freeman, co-founder of an investment firm who was a top fundraiser for George W. Bush; asset manager Ric Kayne and his wife Suzanne; former ambassador to Austria Susan McCaw and her husband Craig McCaw, a cellular phone industry entrepreneur; and asset manager Marc Stern and his wife, Eva. (More people with lots of money, you know, people not like you..)

The minimum requested donation is $25,000 per couple. Attendees who wish to attend the reception and dinner are asked to give $100,000 per couple.

Then Bush heads north to Palo Alto, where he is set to attend a luncheon Wednesday at the Four Seasons. The host committee includes venture capitalist (and former chairman of the Export-Import Bank) Bill Draper, former Ambassador to Portugal Tom Stephenson and billionaire school choice advocates Bill and Susan Oberndorf.

On Thursday, the former governor is scheduled to make a stop in San Francisco for a "luncheon and discussion" at the Mandarin Oriental. The hosts include venture capitalist Jay Kern and his wife Katie, as well as the Oberndorfs.

Bush will take a break for Easter, but then he's back on the road next week, with fundraising stops scheduled in Chicago, Boston and Nashville.

Everyone vote...

Universal voting would be good for our democracy

By J. Mijin Cha

The 2014 midterm election saw the lowest voter turnout rate in over 70 years, with just over 36 percent of eligible voters taking part. In fact, voter participation has been steadily declining since 1964. Even in the historic 2008 election, voter participation was just short of 62 percent. Worldwide, the U.S. lags far behind most developed countries in voter turnout rates and our democracy is worse off for it.

A few days ago, President Obama floated the idea of universal voting — which would require all eligible citizens to vote — to address the low rates of voter turnout. At least 32 countries have some form of universal voting for at least one office or in at least one jurisdiction. For those that do not want to vote as a political act, a "none of the above" option is an alternative, as is a nonpunitive fine that would incentive participation but not punish those who choose to exercise their right not to vote. Countries with universal voting have turnout rates anywhere between 7 and 16 percentage points higher than the U.S.

Universal voting could bring tens of millions more voters to the polls, which of course is the problem. Voting is one of the few antidotes we have to the outsized influence money plays in our electoral system. Wealthy and corporate interests dominate our current electoral system. The Koch brothers' network alone will spend $900 million in the next election to fund candidates who will protect their interests. In turn, the policies advanced by our elected officials will reflect the interests of the Kochs and their network of 300 donors and not the interests of average Americans. This dynamic is the reason why the minimum wage remains stagnant year after year while the capital gains tax rate remains low, despite the fact that many more people would benefit from a minimum wage increase than benefit from a low capital gains tax rate.

However, at the end of the day, elected officials need to be voted into office. More people voting means wealthy campaign donors have less influence because elected officials will have to be more responsive to their voting constituents and not just to donors. This threat is one of the fundamental reasons why anti-voting advocates have launched a full-on assault against the right to vote. Since 2010, 180 restrictive voting bills have been introduced in 41 states, making it even harder for eligible voters to access their constitutionally protected right to vote. To put it bluntly: People wouldn't be trying so hard to take away the right to vote if it weren't so powerful.

Moving to a universal voting system could stop the push toward making voting more restrictive. If voting were required for all eligible citizens, officials could work to make it as accessible as possible. Right now, Election Day is on a workday, rather than on the weekend, which in and of itself makes it more difficult for working Americans. Voter ID laws, shortened early voting periods and an overly complicated voter registration system also make it more difficult for eligible voters to vote. Coupled with automatic voter registration, universal voting could streamline the voting process and make our democracy stronger.

Like health insurance, voting is good for our society. Rather than causing the world to end, ObamaCare resulted in millions of previously uninsured individuals having access to healthcare. The healthcare system still needs improvement, but it is more accessible now than ever before. Universal voting has the potential to do the same for our democracy. More people voting will result in a more representative government. Voting is one of the few tools we have left to combat the toxic influence of money in our electoral and political systems. For our democracy to be strong, we must expand, not contract, voter access and engagement.

Political Spending

Federal Contractors Should Disclose Political Spending 

Naren Daniel at the Brennan Center

Ahead of the 2016 election entering full swing, President Obama should mandate disclosure of political spending by government contractors to boost public confidence in government, argues a new Brennan Center analysis issued today.

Since 2010’s Citizens United decision, dark money spending — by groups that conceal their donations from the public — has risen dramatically. The trend raises troubling questions about whether the public can effectively assess the influence of big donors on individual candidates’ policy positions. When it comes to those seeking government contracts, the opportunity for political corruption is even greater and could cost taxpayers millions, according to Requiring Government Contractors to Disclose Political Spending.

In fiscal year 2014, the federal government spent approximately $460 billion on private sector contractors, almost 40 percent of which went to just 25 companies. With so much money at play, the impetus to court politicians with power over those contracts is obvious – as is the American public’s interest in transparency.

“Whether pay-to-play activity is rampant in federal contracting today is unclear because so much federal election spending remains secret,” wrote authors Brent Ferguson, Lawrence Norden, and Daniel Weiner, “Without disclosure, such conduct will remain immune from routine public scrutiny – at least until the next major scandal comes to light. President Obama should use his authority to mandate federal contractors disclose their election spending, in order to ensure taxpayers are getting the best value for their dollars, and head off any potential improprieties that could create opportunities for corruption.”

The authors stress that an Executive Order must be issued soon if it is to be implemented before the 2016 election. More than 50 rallies are planned throughout the country on April 2, calling for President Obama to issue the executive order.

Dark money spending has risen dramatically in recent elections. But it's especially concerning coming from federal contractors, since the billions of dollars at stake open glaring windows for corruption, and since contractors do everything from supply our military, to run our veterans' care, to test air and water quality. The President can take a critical step to address this problem, by issuing an executive order mandating government contractors disclose their political spending.

Brennan Center Link

Harry Reid

Harry Reid choked a man for trying to bribe him, and 11 more facts about the Senate leader

by Andrew Prokop

Today, Harry Reid announced his retirement from the Senate. Reid is well-known for his decade of Senate leadership, for winning the 60 votes necessary to pass Obamacare, and for changing the filibuster rules in 2013.

But he's had a long career and a fascinating life before any of that, including a troubled rural childhood, a stint as an amateur boxer, and some tangles with the mob while he headed the Nevada Gaming Commission. Here are the highlights, drawn mainly from his memoir, The Good Fight.

 1: Reid grew up in Searchlight, Nevada, a declining gold-mining town that had 13 brothels and no churches. His parents were heavy drinkers, and his father sometimes abused his mother.

 2: Nicknamed "Pinky," the young Reid frequently got into fights with other children. He once beat up his teacher's son in front of his class, breaking his own hand. Eventually, he channeled his aggression into amateur boxing.

 3: Reid grew up without any religious affiliation, while his wife, Landra, was Jewish. But the couple converted to Mormonism shortly after they married. Landra's parents did not approve of the marriage, so the couple eloped, and had their wedding dinner at a Chinese restaurant. (Before the marriage, Reid once got in a fistfight with his future father-in-law.)

 4: After Reid's own father died, Reid found his marriage certificate and was surprised to discover that he and his younger brother were born out of wedlock. He called up his brother and said, "Hey, you little bastard," according to his memoir.

 5: In the 1960s, Reid chose to go to law school at George Washington University. His congressman arranged a patronage job for him as a Capitol policeman, and Reid sat at the front desk in the building now named Longworth.

 6: Reid's high school history teacher, Mike O'Callaghan, was crucial to Reid's political rise — because O'Callaghan rose to chair Nevada's Democratic Party and eventually became the state's governor. Reid served as his lieutenant governor from 1971 to 1975, his first statewide political office.

 7: In the mid-'70s, Reid failed to win election to the US Senate and as mayor of Las Vegas. So his mentor, Governor O'Callaghan, intervened again, naming him chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. This gave Reid a powerful position at a time when corruption and mafia influence on gambling were heavy. At one point, Reid's wife's car was rigged to explode.

 8: When a man tried to offer Reid a bribe in 1978, he reported it to the FBI. They set up a sting, but Reid ended up going off-script and choking the criminal as he was about to be arrested. "You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!" he said. (It was videotaped.)

 9: Reid has been involved in two incredibly close elections. He lost his 1974 Senate bid by just 0.4 percent. Then, after finally winning a Senate seat in 1986 and serving two terms, he won a third term in 1998 by just 0.1 percent.

 10: Reid became Senate Democratic whip, the number-two position in party leadership, in 1997. He described his technique as follows: "I would reserve the breast pocket of my suit jacket for [senators'] notes, requests, and complaints, and by the end of most days that pocket would be full." When the top spot opened up in 2005, Reid became Senate Democratic leader — a position he still holds.

 11: Reid's relationship with President George W. Bush was notoriously terrible, due to disagreements ranging from the Iraq War to the administration's plan to store nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Reid publicly called Bush, at various times, a "loser" and a "liar." When a Rolling Stone reporter observed that Reid had apologized for the "loser" comment, Reid responded, "But never for the liar, have I?"

The stupidity of the one's who call to Bomb Iran.......

The New York Times Publishes Call to Bomb Iran

by Robert Parry

If two major newspapers in, say, Russia published major articles openly advocating the unprovoked bombing of a country, say, Israel, the US government and news media would be aflame with denunciations about “aggression,” “criminality,” “madness” and “behavior not fitting the 21st Century.”

But when the newspapers are American – the New York Times and the Washington Post – and the target country is Iran, no one in the US government and media bats an eye. These inflammatory articles – these incitements to murder and violation of international law – are considered just normal discussion in the Land of Exceptionalism.

On Thursday, the New York Times printed an op-ed that urged the bombing of Iran as an alternative to reaching a diplomatic agreement that would sharply curtail Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that it was used only for peaceful purposes. The Post published a similar “we-must-bomb-Iran” op-ed two weeks ago.

The Times’ article by John Bolton, a neocon scholar from the American Enterprise Institute, was entitled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” It followed the Post’s op-ed by Joshua Muravchik, formerly at AEI and now a fellow at the neocon-dominated School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. [For more on that piece, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocon Admits Plan to Bomb Iran.”]

Both articles called on the United States to mount a sustained bombing campaign against Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities and to promote “regime change” in Tehran. Ironically, these “scholars” rationalized their calls for unprovoked aggression against Iran under the theory that Iran is an aggressive state, although Iran has not invaded another country for centuries.

Bolton, who served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, based his call for war on the possibility that if Iran did develop a nuclear bomb – which Iran denies seeking and which the US intelligence community agrees Iran is not building – such a hypothetical event could touch off an arms race in the Middle East.

Curiously, Bolton acknowledged that Israel already has developed an undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal outside international controls, but he didn’t call for bombing Israel. He wrote blithely that “Ironically perhaps, Israel’s nuclear weapons have not triggered an arms race. Other states in the region understood — even if they couldn’t admit it publicly — that Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.”

How Bolton manages to read the minds of Israel’s neighbors who have been at the receiving end of Israeli invasions and other cross-border attacks is not explained. Nor does he address the possibility that Israel’s possession of some 200 nuclear bombs might be at the back of the minds of Iran’s leaders if they do press ahead for a nuclear weapon.

Nor does Bolton explain his assumption that if Iran were to build one or two bombs that it would use them aggressively, rather than hold them as a deterrent. He simply asserts: “Iran is a different story. Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal its ambitions.”

But is that correct? In its refinement of uranium, Iran has not progressed toward the level required for a nuclear weapon since its 2013 interim agreement with the global powers known as “the p-5 plus one” – for the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Instead, Iran has dialed back the level of refinement to below 5 percent (what’s needed for generating electricity) from its earlier level of 20 percent (needed for medical research) — compared with the 90-plus percent purity to build a nuclear weapon.

In other words, rather than challenging the “red line” of uranium refinement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew during a United Nations speech in 2012, the Iranians have gone in the opposite direction – and they have agreed to continue those constraints if a permanent agreement is reached with the p-5-plus-1.

However, instead of supporting such an agreement, American neocons – echoing Israeli hardliners – are demanding war, followed by US subversion of Iran’s government through the financing of an internal opposition for a coup or a “colored revolution.”

Bolton wrote: “An attack need not destroy all of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what’s necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.”

But one should remember that neocon schemes – drawn up at their think tanks and laid out on op-ed pages – don’t always unfold as planned. Since the 1990s, the neocons have maintained a list of countries considered troublesome for Israel and thus targeted for “regime change,” including Iraq, Syria and Iran. In 2003, the neocons got their chance to invade Iraq, but the easy victory that they predicted didn’t exactly pan out.

Still, the neocons never revise their hit list. They just keep coming up with more plans that, in total, have thrown much of the Middle East, northern Africa and now Ukraine into bloodshed and chaos. In effect, the neocons have joined Israel in its de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia for a Sunni sectarian conflict against the Shiites and their allies. Much like the Saudis, Israeli officials rant against the so-called “Shiite crescent” from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Congress Cheers Netanyahu’s Hatred of Iran.”]

Since Iran is considered the most powerful Shiite nation and is allied with Syria, which is governed by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, both countries have remained in the neocons’ crosshairs. But the neocons don’t actually pull the trigger themselves. Their main role is to provide the emotional and political arguments to get the American people to hand over their tax money and their children to fight these wars.

The neocons are so confident in their skills at manipulating the US decision-making process that some have gone so far as to suggest Americans should side with al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria or the even more brutal Islamic State, because those groups love killing Shiites and thus are considered the most effective fighters against Iran’s allies.

The New York Times’ star neocon columnist Thomas L. Friedman ventured to the edge of madness as he floated the idea of the US arming the head-chopping Islamic State, writing this month: “Now I despise ISIS as much as anyone, but let me just toss out a different question: Should we be arming ISIS?”

I realize the New York Times and Washington Post are protected by the First Amendment and can theoretically publish whatever they want. But the truth is that the newspapers are extremely restrictive in what they print. Their op-ed pages are not just free-for-alls for all sorts of opinions.

For instance, neither newspaper would publish a story that urged the United States to launch a bombing campaign to destroy Israel’s actual nuclear arsenal as a step toward creating a nuclear-free Middle East. That would be considered outside responsible thought and reasonable debate.

However, when it comes to advocating a bombing campaign against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, the two newspapers are quite happy to publish such advocacy. The Times doesn’t even blush when one of its most celebrated columnists mulls over the idea of sending weapons to the terrorists in ISIS – all presumably because Israel has identified “the Shiite crescent” as its current chief enemy and the Islamic State is on the other side.

But beyond the hypocrisy and, arguably, the criminality of these propaganda pieces, there is also the neocon record of miscalculation. Remember how the invasion of Iraq was supposed to end with Iraqis tossing rose petals at the American soldiers instead of planting “improvised explosive devices” – and how the new Iraq was to become a model pluralistic democracy?

Well, why does one assume that the same geniuses who were so wrong about Iraq will end up being right about Iran? What if the bombing and the subversion don’t lead to nirvana in Iran? Isn’t it just as likely, if not more so, that Iran would react to this aggression by deciding that it needed nuclear bombs to deter further aggression and to protect its sovereignty and its people?

In other words, might the scheming by Bolton and Muravchik — as published by the New York Times and the Washington Post — produce exactly the result that they say they want to prevent? But don’t worry. If the neocons’ new schemes don’t pan out, they’ll just come up with more.

Around the Horn boys....

Volvo Around the World is going around the Horn, Cape Horn...

Environmental disaster

Bigger Than Science, Bigger Than Religion 

We’re closer to environmental disaster than ever before. We need a new story for our relationship with the Earth, one that goes beyond science and religion. 

By Richard Schiffman

The world as we know it is slipping away. At the current rate of destruction, tropical rainforest could be gone within as little as 40 years. The seas are being overfished to the point of exhaustion, and coral reefs are dying from ocean acidification. Biologists say that we are currently at the start of the largest mass extinction event since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. As greenhouse gases increasingly accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures are likely to rise faster than our current ecological and agricultural systems can adapt.

It is no secret that the Earth is in trouble and that we humans are to blame. Just knowing these grim facts, however, won’t get us very far. We have to transform this knowledge into a deep passion to change course. But passion does not come primarily from the head; it is a product of the heart. And the heart is not aroused by the bare facts alone. It needs stories that weave those facts into a moving and meaningful narrative.

We need a powerful new story that we are a part of nature and not separate from it. We need a story that properly situates humans in the world—neither above it by virtue of our superior intellect, nor dwarfed by the universe into cosmic insignificance. We are equal partners with all that exists, co-creators with trees and galaxies and the microorganisms in our own gut, in a materially and spiritually evolving universe.

This was the breathtaking vision of the late Father Thomas Berry. Berry taught that humanity is presently at a critical decision point. Either we develop a more heart-full relationship with the Earth that sustains us, or we destroy ourselves and life on the planet. I interviewed the white-maned theologian (he preferred the term “geologian,” by which he meant “student of the Earth”) in 1997 at the Riverdale Center of Religious Research on the Hudson River north of New York City. Berry
spoke slowly and with the hint of a southern drawl, revealing his North Carolina upbringing.

“I say that my generation has been autistic,” he told me. “An autistic child is locked into themselves, they cannot get out and the outer world cannot get in. They cannot receive affection, cannot give affection. And this is, I think, a very appropriate way of identifying this generation in its relationship to the natural world.

“We have no feeling for the natural world. We’d as soon cut down our most beautiful tree, the most beautiful forest in the world. We cut it down for what? For timber, for board feet. We don’t see the tree, we only see it in terms of its commercial value.”

It is no accident that we have come to our current crisis, according to Berry. Rather, it is the natural consequence of certain core cultural beliefs that comprise what Berry called “the Old Story.” At the heart of the Old Story is the idea that we humans are set apart from nature and here to conquer it. Berry cited the teaching in Genesis that humans should “subdue the Earth … and have dominion over every living thing.”

But if religion provided the outline for the story, science wrote it large—developing a mind-boggling mastery of the natural world. Indeed, science over time became the new religion, said Berry, an idolatrous worship of our own human prowess. Like true believers, many today are convinced that, however bad things might seem, science and technology will eventually solve all of our problems and fulfill all of our needs.

Berry acknowledged that this naive belief in science served a useful purpose during the formative era when we were still building the modern world and becoming aware of our immense power to transform things.

Like adolescents staking out their own place in the world, we asserted our independence from nature and the greater family of life. But over time, this self-assertion became unbalanced, pushing the Earth to the brink of environmental cataclysm. The time has come to leave this adolescent stage behind, said Berry, and develop a new, mature relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants.

We’ll need to approach this crucial transition on many different fronts. Scientific research has too frequently become the willing handmaiden of what Berry called “the extractive economy,” an economic system that treats our fellow creatures as objects to be exploited rather than as living beings with their own awareness and rights. Moreover, technology, in Berry’s view, potentially separates us from intimacy with life. We flee into “cyberspace”— spending more time on smart phones, iPods, and video games than communing with the real world.

Science and technology are not the problem. Our misuse of them is. Berry said that science needs to acknowledge that the universe is not a random assemblage of dead matter and empty space, but is alive, intelligent, and continually evolving. And it needs to recognize that not only is the world alive, it is alive in us. “We bear the universe in our beings,” Berry reflected, “as the universe bears us in its being.” In Berry’s view, our human lives are no accident. We are the eyes, the minds, and the hearts that the cosmos is evolving so that it can come to know itself ever more perfectly through us.

It’s a view that has been winning some surprising adherents. Several years ago, I had dinner with Edgar Mitchell, one of only a dozen humans who have walked upon the lunar surface. Mitchell, the descendant of New Mexico pioneers and an aeronautical engineer by training, spoke precisely and almost clinically—until he related an experience that happened on his way back to Earth during the Apollo 14 mission. At that point, his voice brightened with awe.

“I was gazing out of the window, at the Earth, moon, sun, and star-studded blackness of space in turn as our capsule slowly rotated,” he said. “Gradually, I was flooded with the ecstatic awareness that I was a part of what I was observing. Every molecule in my body was birthed in a star hanging in space. I became aware that everything that exists is part of one intricately interconnected whole.”

In a recent phone chat, Mitchell called this realization “the Overview Effect,” and he said that virtually all of the moon astronauts experienced it during their flights. In his case, it changed the direction of his life: “I realized that the story of ourselves as told by our scientific cosmology and our religion was incomplete and likely flawed. I saw that the Newtonian idea of separate, independent, discrete things in the universe wasn’t a fully accurate description.”

In pursuit of a holistic understanding, Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) to explore the nature of human consciousness. The question of consciousness might seem remote from issues like climate change. But it is central to the question of how we treat the world. At the core of our abuse of nature is the belief that we humans are essentially islands unto ourselves, alienated from the world beyond our skins. A little god locked within the gated community of his or her own skull won’t feel much responsibility for what goes on outside.

“The classical scientific approach says that observation and consciousness are completely independent of the way the world works,” IONS Chief Scientist Dean Radin told me. But physics has known for decades that mind and matter are not as separable as we once supposed. Radin cites as an example Heisenberg’s discovery that the act of observation changes the phenomenon that is being observed.

Moreover, quantum physics has shown that subatomic particles that are separated in space are nevertheless responsive to one another in ways that are not yet fully understood. We are discovering that there is “some underlying form of connection in which literally everything is connected to everything else all of the time,” asserts Radin. “The universe is less a collection of objects than a web of interrelationships.”

As we come to grasp how inextricably embedded in this vast web of cosmic life we are, Radin hopes that humans will be persuaded to move beyond the idea of ourselves as masters and the world as slave to embrace an equal and mutually beneficial partnership.

Another prophet of a new scientific paradigm is renowned Harvard biologist Edward (E.O.) Wilson. Wilson is best known for his biophilia hypothesis, which says there is an instinctive emotional bond between humans and other life forms. Evolution has fostered in us the drive to love and care for other living beings, Wilson says, as a way to promote the survival not just of our own kind but of life as a whole.

Darwin’s theory of natural selection is invoked to argue that we humans are conditioned by nature to struggle tooth and nail for access to limited resources. But Wilson contends that evolution does not just promote violent competition but also favors the development of compassion and cooperation—traits that serve the interests of the group as a whole.

He calls this radical new idea “group selection.” Groups of altruistically inclined individuals have an evolutionary advantage over groups that are composed of members pursuing only their own survival needs. This collective advantage, he argues, has helped to promote powerful social bonds and cooperative behaviors in species as diverse as ants, geese, elk, and human beings.

In championing the evolutionary importance of love and cooperation in the flourishing of life, Wilson is not just revolutionizing biology. He is also venturing into territory usually occupied by religion. But, like Berry, Wilson argues that we need a story that cuts across traditional boundaries between fields to present a new, integral vision. “Science and religion are two of the most potent forces on Earth,” Wilson asserts, “and they should come together to save the Creation.”

At its heart, the new story that Wilson and Berry advocate is actually a very old one. Indigenous spiritual traditions taught that all beings are our relatives long before the science of ecology “discovered” the seamless web of life that binds humans to other creatures. “The world is alive, everything has spirit, has standing, has the right to be recognized,” proclaims Anishinaabe activist and former Green Party candidate for vice president Winona LaDuke.

“One of our fundamental teachings is that in all our actions we consider the impact it will have on seven generations,” LaDuke told an audience at the University of Ottawa in 2012. “Think about what it would mean to have a worldview that could last a thousand years, instead of the current corporate mindset that can’t see beyond the next quarterly earnings statement.”

When LaDuke speaks of Native values, people sometimes ask her what relevance these have for us today. She answers that the respect for the sacredness of nature that inspired people to live in harmony with their environment for millennia is not a relic of the past. It is a roadmap for living lightly on the Earth that we desperately need in a time of climate change.

This ethic has spread beyond the reservation into religiously inspired communities, like Genesis Farm, founded by the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, New Jersey. Set on ancestral Lenape lands amidst wooded hills and wetlands and within view of the Delaware Water Gap, Genesis has served for the last quarter century as an environmental learning center and working biodynamic farm grounded in Berry’s vision.

I spoke to the community’s founder Sister Miriam MacGillis, a friend and student of Berry, in a room studded with satellite images of the farm and its bioregion. MacGillis told me that she underwent decades of struggle trying to reconcile Berry’s 13-billion-year vision of an evolutionary cosmos with the ultimately incompatible biblical teachings that “creation is finished: Humans were made, history began, there was the fall, and history will end with the apocalypse.” She says, “The pictures I had of God were too small, too parochial, too much a reflection of the ways humans think. We made God in our image!”

Taking the long view fundamentally transforms the basis for environmental action, says MacGillis: “We need to realize that we are the universe in the form of the human. We are not just on Earth to do good ecological things. That is where the religious perspective takes us with the stewardship model—take care of it; it’s holy because God made it. That hasn’t worked real well … The idea of stewardship is too small, it’s too human-centered, like we can do that. It’s really the opposite. Earth is taking total care of us.”

Genesis Farm has propagated these ideas through its Earth Literacy training, which has now spread to many places throughout the world. Their work is a small part of a larger greening of religion, says Yale religious scholar Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-creator with Brian Swimme of Journey of the Universe, an exhilarating trek through time and space portraying an evolutionary universe.

Tucker expects that the upcoming encyclical on climate change and the environment that Pope Francis will issue in early 2015 will be “a game changer” for Catholics. She adds that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has also been outspoken, labeling crimes against the natural world “a sin.” The Dalai Lama, for his part, has been speaking about the importance of safeguarding the environment based on Buddhism’s sense of the profound interdependence of all life. China has recently enshrined in its constitution the need for a new ecological civilization rooted in Confucian values, which preach the harmony between humans, Earth, and Heaven.

“All civilizations have drawn on the wisdom traditions that have gotten people through death, tragedy, destruction, immense despair,” says Tucker, adding that we are currently in a perilous rite of passage. “We will need all of the world’s religions to help as well as a shared sense of an evolutionary story to get us through this.”

Hall thruster

Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center are advancing the propulsion system that will propel the first ever mission to redirect an asteroid for astronauts to explore in the 2020s.  NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission will test a number of new capabilities, like advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP), needed for future astronaut expeditions into deep space, including to Mars.

The Hall thruster is part of an SEP system that uses 10 times less propellant than equivalent chemical rockets. In a recent test, engineers from Glenn and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, using a Glenn vacuum chamber to simulate the space environment, successfully tested a new, higher power Hall thruster design, which is more efficient and has longer life. “We proved that this thruster can process three times the power of previous designs and increase efficiency by 50 percent,” said Dan Herman, Electric Propulsion Subsystem lead.

Hall thrusters trap electrons in a magnetic field and use them to ionize the onboard propellant. The magnetic field also generates an electric field that accelerates the charged ions creating an exhaust plume of plasma that pushes the spacecraft forward. This method delivers cost-effective, safe and highly efficient in-space propulsion for long duration missions. In addition to propelling an asteroid mission, this new thruster could be used to send large amounts of cargo, habitats and other architectures in support of human missions to Mars.

Talking or Walking?

On Conservatives and Poverty: Talking the Talk or Walking the Walk?

by Rebecca Vallas

Prominent conservatives sure have been talking the talk about poverty and inequality these days.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) famously took a “poverty tour,” earning himself no shortage of praise as a supposed anti-poverty crusader. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has waxed eloquent about what he calls “opportunity inequality.” And former Governor Jeb Bush devoted his first major policy speech as a presidential candidate to the so-called “opportunity gap.”

This sudden concern for struggling families has reached the highest levels of Congressional Republican leadership. In January, in a joint interview on 60 Minutes, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) worried aloud about the growing gap between rich and poor. Senator McConnell even characterized the economic recovery following the Great Recession as a “top of the income recovery,” expressing dismay that “middle- and lower-income Americans are about $3,000 a year worse off than they were when [President Obama] came to office.”

Conservatives’ about-face on inequality, wage stagnation, and how hard it is to get ahead is no doubt newsworthy — particularly following Mitt Romney’s fatally tone-deaf remarks about “the 47 percent.” (Romney himself even performed a dramatic U-turn on the subject earlier this year.) So it’s hardly surprising that it’s garnered a great deal of media coverage of late.

But in marveling at how conservatives seem to have found religion on poverty, inequality, and the plight of the working and middle class, we must not lose sight of the other half of the story — their policies.

It’s not like we don’t have plenty of evidence as to what they really stand for. In addition to their voting records (check out the Shriver Center’s poverty scorecard to see how Members of Congress voted last year on minimum wage, paid leave, and other key policies that support working families), we have their budgets — the clearest statement of their priorities for the country.

As my colleagues Melissa Boteach, Anna Chu, and I wrote earlier this month, if the House and Senate majorities were serious about expanding opportunity and tackling poverty and inequality, their budgets would include job-creating investments in research and infrastructure, as well as policies such as raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, and universal pre-K — not to mention protecting and strengthening key safety net programs such as nutrition assistance and Medicaid.

Yet while Rep. Ryan may spend a lot of time talking about poverty and opportunity, year after year as Chair of the House Budget Committee, his budgets got two-thirds of their cuts from vital programs that help keep struggling families afloat—such as nutrition assistance, housing assistance, and Medicaid — all to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

And despite their newfound talking points on economic opportunity, the House and Senate majorities last week released Fiscal Year 2016 budgets that were just more of the same: deep cuts to nutrition assistance and Medicaid; repeal of the Affordable Care Act; cuts to job training, Pell Grants, Head Start, and more — all to once again protect tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

Remarkably, these policies are printed within the budget proposals alongside grand statements of concern for working and middle class families — e.g. “The economy is not working for many Americans. A lot of people are struggling to keep up or are being left behind altogether.” It makes for a glaring if inadvertent juxtaposition even within the budget documents themselves.

In another recent head-on collision between rhetoric and reality, Jeb Bush last week publicly stated his opposition to the federal minimum wage, barely a month after his speech on the “opportunity gap.” (You read that right: he didn’t just oppose raising the federal minimum wage, he said he opposes having one at all. Sen. Marco Rubio has made similar statements.)

With both parties talking about poverty and inequality these days — and a presidential campaign that is likely to focus on these issues just around the corner — it’s more important than ever to remind our political leaders that actions speak louder than words. Citizens and the media need to look past rhetoric — no matter how pretty it sounds — and focus on voting records, budgets, and policy positions.

That’s where we will find the truth.

Revenge of sorts...

Satanic Reverses: Religious Exceptions Are a Real Win for Devil Worshippers

Behold the demonic spawn of the crumbling church-state divide!

By Stephanie Mencimer

Last May, the Supreme Court decided in favor of Christians asserting their right to open town meetings with prayers. An unintended consequence of this and other recent court rulings knocking holes in the wall between church and state is that Satanists, pagans, and pranksters have eagerly embraced their newfound right to express their spiritual beliefs on public time and property:

Two days after the Supreme Court's decision, a newly converted Satanist started asking towns in Florida if he could open town meetings with a prayer to his "Dude in Charge." (So far, without luck.)

In September, an "agnostic pagan pantheist" opened a county commission meeting in Escambia County, Florida, with a two-and-a-half-minute chant invoking the elements and four directions. ("Powers of Air! We invoke and call you/Golden Eagle of the Dawn, Star-seeker, Whirlwind.")

After a judge ruled in September that religious pamphlets could be handed out in public schools in Orange County, Florida, the Satanic Temple published The Satan­ic Children's Big Book of Activities, a coloring book that includes a connect-the-dots pentagram.

In December, a chapter of the Satanic Temple was allowed to display a fallen angel in the Capitol of (where else?) Florida, alongside a holiday display by Flying Spaghetti Monster-worshipping Pastafarians and a Festivus pole made of beer cans.

Also at Christmastime, Satanists in Detroit set up a "Snaketivity Scene" on the lawn of the Michigan Capitol. A Republican lawmaker who set up a competing nativity scene insisted, "I'm not afraid of the snake people. I'm sure that Jesus Christ is not afraid."

The Satanic Temple has commissioned a nearly nine-foot-tall bronzed statue of a Baphomet, a goat-headed idol seated on a throne before two children, which it plans to erect in the Oklahoma Capitol. The building already has an enormous copy of the Ten Commandments that's being challenged by the ACLU.

Dione and Enceladus

A dual view of Saturn's icy moon Rhea marks the return of NASA's Cassini spacecraft to the realm of the planet's icy satellites. This follows nearly two years during which the spacecraft's orbits carried it high above the planet's poles. Those paths limited the mission's ability to encounter the moons, apart from regular flybys of Titan.


Cassini's orbit will remain nearly equatorial for the remainder of 2015, during which the spacecraft will have four close encounters with Titan, two with Dione and three with the geyser-moon, Enceladus.


The two views of Rhea were taken about an hour-and-a-half apart on Feb. 9, 2015, when Cassini was about 30,000 to 50,000 miles (50,000 to 80,000 kilometers) away from the moon. Cassini officially began its new set of equatorial orbits on March 16.



The views show an expanded range of colors from those visible to human eyes in order to highlight subtle color variations across Rhea's surface. In natural color, the moon's surface is fairly uniform. The image at right represents the highest-resolution color view of Rhea released to date.

March 30, 2015

Nixon-in-China Moment

Rand Paul and the Kock Brothers Are Having a Nixon-in-China Moment

by David Weigel

The question had to be asked, and Van Jones was there to ask it: How would the Kock brothers get rich from prison reform? How would bipartisan criminal justice reform – the cause that had brought Jones together with dozens of organizers for an all-day Washington summit – add to the bottom line?

“Are they gonna make a billion dollars off of this?” asked Jones of Mark Holden, the general counsel of Kock Industries.

“Or are they going to invest a billion dollars?” asked Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress.

Holden was not being ambushed. This was a conversation between people who’d been working together for months, designed to allay the fears of Jones's and Tanden's allies on the left. The news that Charles Kock would invest in criminal justice reform was broken by his hometown paper and explained in a Politico column. The news that the Kocks would collaborate with CAP in the new Coalition for Public Safety was reported on the front page of the New York Times. And plenty of people in the audience were still nervous about the Kocks’ political influence.

Holden decided to be wry.

“There are four Kock brothers,” said Holden. “I work for two of them. I can’t speak for the others.”

The audience, a mixture of political activists, reformed ex-cons, authors and academics, laughed and applauded. Later, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shared the stage with Jones as former prisoners talked about how they’d re-made their lives with education and second chances. Jones even apologized on behalf of the Republicans who had sent video messages in lieu of personal appearances: “Because the Democrats don’t run this town, they had the time to come.”

Coverage of the bipartisan reform movement has followed the same narrative for months, of “sworn enemies” singing around the campfire. Organizers have played that up, booking right/left allies together to promote the project, and making sure that the media meets the Republicans who are un-doing decades of harsh penalties that their voters asked for in the first place. It wouldn’t be news if Democrats did this. It’s news when the other party does.

In the last few months, that narrative has shifted. The Republicans who control Congress and most of the states are taking a larger role in the reform push. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who has co-sponsored a series of reform bills, is giving talks to black audiences that draw scores of reporters.

More than the possibly pernicious influence of the Kock brothers, some Democrats worry that their thunder is being stolen. “One of the great ironies for me, having spent all this time on criminal justice reform, is how the Democrats have basically ceded this incredibly important issue to the Republicans,” former Virginia Senator Jim Webb told Vox’s Ezra Klein this month. “Rand Paul's the guy who's been running with it.”

A spokesman for Webb didn’t respond to a question from Bloomberg, and he did not appear at the bipartisan summit. He was not invited to speak. Had he been, he’d have proven himself right. More than a few attendees said that they’d started to trust the GOP over the Democrats when it came to undoing bad law.

“My job has kind of changed my view on politics,” said Brian McKinney, who served a jail sentence for marijuana possession. He now works at Pigeonly, a start-up that makes it easier and cheaper for inmates to communicate with the world outside. “In my personal experience, Republicans are better at dealing with this than Democrats. We don’t have any problems in Texas. We have problems in California. We don’t have any problems in Florida. When I saw that Kock Industries was getting involved I said: They’re going to do more to affect positive change over the next 20 years than anybody.”

Rand Paul wasn’t at the conference, either – spokesman Doug Stafford explained that he was tied up with Senate budget votes – but Republicans got a good hearing. Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, delivered a video message promising “to look at what happens in our prisons and upon release to stop the endless cycle of criminality.” Utah Senator Mike Lee delivered a video recap of his work on prison reform, which he’d met with the White House to talk over.

In his own remarks, Attorney General Eric Holder made a joking reference to the Republican intransigence that was keeping him in office, then shared the results of a Bureau of Justice Assistance report that promoted Republican-run Georgia as a model for reform, with prison admissions falling eight percent in three years. Later, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal teared up as he discussed the drama of watching people graduate from drug rehab programs, and how he’d signed an executive order preventing anyone who applied for state jobs from having to declare whether they’d been convicted of a crime.

“I disagree with him about 90 percent of the time,” said Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, of Deal. “I got arrested in his office last year, protesting, asking him to expand Medicaid. But I went over to him the other day to thank him for his leadership on this issue. You can tell it’s meaningful to him.”

How meaningful was it to Democrats? Many of them trekked in for the conference, including New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. But former NAACP president Ben Jealous, who is considering a Senate bid in Maryland, said that moderate Democrats remained too scared of their shadows to become reform leaders.

“Go back and look at Hillary Clinton in 2008,” said Jealous. “Every other Democrat running for president was saying, look, not only do we need to cut the disparity for crack/cocaine sentencing, we need to have retroactivity. It’s not fair for someone who sold two rocks to do more time than someone who sold half a kilo of powder. She was the only one who said no to retroactivity.”

As of March 26, there was no Hillary Clinton campaign, and no one to say what her current policy was on reform. That might worry Democrats. “People understand the price of having cowardly friends,” said Jealous. “There’s a quote from Martin Luther King, in the Letter from Birmingham Jail, about how his biggest problem wasn’t the bigots. It was the moderates. And we’re back to that.”

The less-than-moderate Republicans would be happy to lead. Gingrich insisted that “every 2016 Republican candidate, and the Democratic nominee” would come around to the reform position. He saw criminal justice reform as akin to welfare reform – impossible, until it was inevitable. And Gingrich didn’t think that Bill Clinton’s tough-on-crime triangulation, or Hillary Clinton’s feints at the same policies, would inform a 2016 campaign.

“The Clintons are very practical people,” he said. “They will get – and Bill will get instantly – why this makes sense. That’s sort of a nice competition. Instead of seeing which of you can be the party of obstruction, you’re competing to be the party of reform.”

If there’s a competition, Democrats might be a lap behind. In the panel with Holden and Tanden, Jones asked if the Republicans had abandoned an issue that used to win elections for them – “they Willie-Horton’ed us” – for one that would win the elections of the future. Why should Democrats team up with them, and share credit?

“Aren’t you just throwing the Democratic Party down the stairs?” Jones asked.

“Politics is secondary to making positive change for people,” said Tanden.

April 13 launch

Marco Rubio looks to April 13 Miami launch

The Florida senator is eyeing the iconic Freedom Tower, a landmark for Cuban immigrants.

By Alex Isenstadt and Marc Caputo

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is strongly considering launching his presidential campaign April 13 at the Freedom Tower, a historic Miami landmark known as the “Ellis Island of the South,” according to Republicans familiar with his thinking.

From its name to its history — it once served as a U.S. clearinghouse for Cuban exiles fleeing Fidel Castro — Miami’s Mediterranean-style Freedom Tower underscores the themes of Rubio’s political career and his likely campaign. He’s a first-generation son of immigrants who has sought to make the American dream synonymous with his biography.

Rubio’s possible April 13 launch date was first reported by The Tampa Bay Times. However, the Miami Heat plays against the Orlando Magic that evening at American Airlines Arena, which sits right across Biscayne Boulevard — raising the prospect of a traffic nightmare. And the Freedom Tower hasn’t yet been secured by Rubio’s Washington-based team, which will inspect it this week to see if it’s the right venue.

They’re also considering other locations, which have yet to surface publicly.

Rubio would be the third Republican to formally enter the field. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz launched his campaign during an appearance March 23 at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is expected to announce his bid at Louisville’s Galt House Hotel on April 7. Democrat Hillary Clinton is also likely to officially launch her 2016 effort soon.

Rubio’s advisers are closely monitoring Clinton’s possible announcement date in an attempt to ensure the Florida senator can own the news cycle.

Rubio was last at the Freedom Tower on Feb. 9 to celebrate graduates of a small business program funded by Goldman Sachs at Miami-Dade College, which owns the Freedom Tower.

“The American dream isn’t about how much money you make or about how much you own. The American dream is about being happy,” Rubio told the packed room at the building. “Anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything. You can dream big.”

The Freedom Tower, which has signified different phases of the city’s history, vividly symbolizes that promise of America that Rubio frequently speaks about. It was completed in 1925 and served as the headquarters for the Miami News, which moved out in 1957. After Castro rose to power, the federal government used the tower as an office to process exiles fleeing the dictatorship.

Today, it’s controlled by Miami-Dade College and is used as a museum, a gathering place for announcements about Cuba and a U.S. Department of State “media hub” to broadcast and discuss Latin American policy.

“This is Miami’s signature building. It symbolizes the city’s history,” Miami-Dade College President Eduardo Padron told POLITICO.

A few days after Rubio last spoke at the Freedom Tower in February, he made a high-profile appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, where he stressed that his interest in politics is rooted in his background as the child of Cuban immigrants who “came with no money, no connections” — an implied contrast with Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who have faced criticism for the dynastic nature of their candidacies.

“The only reason I want to be in public service,” Rubio said, “is because I believe I owe a debt to America.”

Rubio told the story of his parents’ emigration from Cuba in a well-received speech to the 2012 Republican National Convention before a nationwide television audience.

The Miami venue, located in the backyard of both Rubio and Bush, serves as a reminder of the overlapping circles surrounding the two candidates. Bush donated to Rubio’s first run for elective office, a West Miami city commission seat in 1998, and introduced Rubio at his election night party in 2010 when he defeated Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist.

Alex Conant, a Rubio spokesman, said the campaign would soon make public a location and time for an announcement. “We’ll lock it in early next week and let everyone know,” he wrote in an email.

Hawks Upset

G.O.P. Hawks Upset With Bush After Baker Speech on Israel

By Nicholas Confessore and Maggie Haberman

The warnings trickled in soon after an announcement began circulating last month that James A. Baker III, the former diplomat who is now a foreign policy adviser to Jeb Bush, would be a featured speaker at a conference hosted by J Street, the liberal pro-Israel advocacy organization.

It could be problematic, conservative donors and Israel hawks told Mr. Bush’s team, if Mr. Baker spoke at the event, according to three people briefed on the discussions.

But Mr. Bush’s team ultimately concluded that Mr. Baker, a former secretary of state and a longtime Bush family friend, was not someone they could pressure. And in the days since Mr. Baker’s speech — in which he criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for failing to work harder for Mideast peace — the criticism from Republicans has only intensified.

The perceived breach presents a new and potentially significant obstacle for Mr. Bush as he seeks to lock up prohibitive support of the Republican donor class for his presidential campaign.

Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul and a powerful donor to Republican “super PACs,” is among those who have expressed concerns to Mr. Bush’s friends and allies, several of them said. Mr. Adelson is said to be incensed over Mr. Baker’s comments and the lack of pressure put on him by the Bush team before his address — a significant concern, given that Mr. Adelson has the resources to pour tens of millions of dollars into the Republican presidential primary.

But the flare-up could thrust Mr. Bush into conflict with some of the most hawkish voices in his party, including some leading Republican donors, and a constituency determined to demonstrate its strength in the primary.

“A few months ago, people I speak to thought Jeb Bush was the guy. That’s changed,” said Morton A. Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, a conservative pro-Israel organization.

Mr. Bush has responded to the criticism carefully. His spokesman issued statements criticizing J Street ahead of the speech. On Wednesday, after the speech, Mr. Bush wrote an opinion article for the National Review criticizing President Obama’s handling of nuclear talks with Iran. But he declined to disavow Mr. Baker even as he described the J Street appearance, in a television interview, as not “appropriate.”

A spokesman for Mr. Adelson did not respond to requests for comment.

Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bush, said in an email in response to questions about the lingering concerns that the likely candidate “publicly and privately has expressed that he has a great deal of respect for Secretary Baker and his accomplishments, but he thinks J Street is wrong and their actions undermine the safety and security of our close ally, Israel.”

She added that he consults with a number of foreign policy advisers and said, “Governor Bush’s support for Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu is unwavering, and he believes it’s critically important our two nations work seamlessly to achieve peace in the region.”

The tension has created awkwardness for some longtime Bush allies who are also active in pro-Israel groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition, which is principally funded by Mr. Adelson. In interviews or e-mails, several played down the disagreements, echoing the fledgling Bush campaign’s argument that Mr. Baker is an accomplished statesman and only one of a dozen foreign policy advisers to Mr. Bush.

Surprise!

Surprise! Another Christian Terrorist

By Dean Obeidallah

Did you hear about the man who entered New Orleans’ airport with explosives and a machete? No? Well, you would have if he’d been Muslim.

A Muslim American man carrying a duffel bag that holds six homemade explosives, a machete, and poison spray travels to a major U.S. airport. The man enters the airport, approaches the TSA security checkpoint, and then sprays two TSA officers with the poison. He then grabs his machete and chases another TSA officer with it.

This Muslim man is then shot and killed by the police. After the incident, a search of the attacker’s car by the police reveals it contained acetylene and oxygen tanks, two substances that, when mixed together, will yield a powerful explosive.

If this scenario occurred, there’s zero doubt that this would be called a terrorist attack. Zero. It would make headlines across the country and world, and we would see wall-to-wall cable news coverage for days. And, of course, certain right-wing media outlets, many conservative politicians, and Bill Maher would use this event as another excuse to stoke the flames of hate toward Muslims.

Well, last Friday night, this exact event took place at the New Orleans airport—that is, except for one factual difference: The attacker was not Muslim. Consequently, you might be reading about this brazen assault for the first time here, although this incident did receive a smattering of media coverage over the weekend.

The man who commited this attack was Richard White, a 63-year-old former Army serviceman who has long been retired and living on Social Security and disability checks. He was reportedly a devout Jehovah’s Witness.

Given the facts that a man armed with explosives and weapons traveled to an airport and only attacked federal officers, you would think that the word “terrorism” would at least come up as a possibility, right?  But it’s not even mentioned.

Instead, law enforcement was quick to chalk this incident up to the attacker’s alleged “mental health issues.” That was pretty amazing police work considering this conclusion came within hours of the attack. There was no mention by police that they had even explored whether White had issues with the federal government stemming from his military service, if there was any evidence he held anti-government views, etc.

Perhaps Mr. White truly was mentally ill. Interviews with his neighbors, however, don’t even give us a hint that he had mental problems. Rather they described White as a “meek” and “kind” man who a few had spoken to just days before the incident and everything seemed fine. You would think these neighbors would at least note that White had a history of mental illness if it was so apparent.

Now I’m not saying definitively that I believe Mr. White was a terrorist. My point is twofold. One is that if White had been a Muslim, the investigation into his motivation by the media and maybe even the police would have essentially been over once his faith had been ascertained. If a Muslim does anything wrong, it’s assumed to be terrorism. (Apparently we Muslims can’t be mentally ill.)

In contrast, when a non-Muslim engages in a violent attack, even on federal government employees, law enforcement and the media immediately look to the person’s mental history, not possible terrorist motivations.

No wonder so many parrot the line, “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” When the press uses the word terrorism only in connection with the actions of Muslims, the average person would assume that’s the case. However, as I have written about before, in recent years overwhelmingly the terrorist attacks in United States and Europe have been committed by non-Muslims.

My second point is that this could have in fact been act of terrorism. White clearly targeted only the TSA officers. He didn’t assault others in the airport, such as the passengers waiting on line at the security checkpoint. And for those unfamiliar, there has been a great deal of animus directed at the TSA by some conservatives and libertarians. Simply Google the words “stop the TSA” and you will see pages of articles denouncing the TSA as an organization hell bent on depriving Americans of our liberty.

For example, Alex Jones’ Infowars website is filled with anti-TSA articles claiming that the TSA’s goal is not to prevent terrorism but to “harass” travelers and get into “our pants.” Glen Beck warned in the past that the TSA was potentially becoming President Obama’s “private army” with the goal being to take away our liberties.

And in 2012, Senator Rand Paul lashed out against the TSA for what he viewed as the agency’s improper treatment of him. In fact after the incident, Paul penned an op-ed denouncing the TSA, writing that “it is infuriating that this agency feels entitled to revoke our civil liberties while doing little to keep us safe.”

Even more alarmingly, the attacks on the TSA have not been limited to words. In October 2012, Paul Ciancia traveled to LAX, where he took out a rifle from his bag and shot two TSA officers, killing one. Ciancia had written anti-government tracts in the past and was—to little media fanfare—actually charged months later with an act of terrorism.

Given this climate, how can the police not even mention that they investigated the possibility of terrorism and ruled it out? I spoke with Colonel Fortunato, the spokesperson for Jefferson County Sherriff’s Office, which is the agency in charge of the investigation. Fortunato explained that due to state law, they couldn’t release any additional information regarding White’s mental illness or reveal information regarding any treatment he may or may not have undergone.

When I asked Fortunato if they had investigated White’s digital footprint to ascertain whether he had visited any anti-government websites or had searched his residence to see if he possessed an anti-government literature or made or written anti-government statements, he gave me what sounded like a boiler plate response that the investigation has revealed no affiliation to any outside groups. Fortunato expressed his confidence that White had acted alone and that no ties to any terror groups. But he added that we will never truly know what motivated White given he died before being questioned.

But part of me actually believes that there are some in the media and law enforcement who prefer to use the term terrorism only when it applies to a Muslim.

Why? Because it’s easy to do. Muslims are viewed by many as the “other,” not as fellow Americans. But discussing domestic terrorism carried out by fellow Americans is at best, uncomfortable, and at worst, undermines the narrative that some in our country have a vested interest in advancing.

I’m not sure what will change this mindset, but if we want to truly keep Americans safe, law enforcement and the media need to understand that terrorism is not just a Muslim thing.

Wannabes

White House Wannabes Drawing 2016 Battle Lines In Furious Money Chase

By Paul Blumenthal

The 2016 presidential election’s “invisible primary” is in full swing as Republican candidates tour the country looking to secure donors for their real or potential campaigns and their super PACs.

“They’re all beating the bush as you’d expect,” said David Herro, a wealthy Chicago-based investor who has contributed $1.5 million to Republican super PACs since 2010.

It’s “way too early” to pick a candidate, according to Herro, but he does know which ones he won’t be backing. “I certainly don’t want any of these extreme people,” Herro said, listing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who announced his presidential run on Monday, and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

While Herro may not have chosen a candidate yet, many other big-time donors to Republican presidential aspirants have. Though only limited details on those donors have leaked, the GOP primary campaign is already shaping up to be a clash between distinct groups of billionaires and millionaires.

The financiers, lobbyists and longtime major party donors are largely supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Newer big-money donors aligned with the increasingly influential political machine run by the billionaire Koch brothers and those affiliated with more-conservative groups like the Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund are lining up behind Cruz and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The divide is evident in a review of super PAC contributions made so far by donors publicly associated with a 2016 candidate.

For their part, the presidential wannabes are aiming to attract support from those most amenable to their policy positions, whether it’s the right-wing bomb throwing of Cruz or the apostasies of Bush on issues like education and immigration.

Bush, who is only “actively exploring” running for president, is garnering donations for his Right to Rise Super PAC from Wall Street private equity investors Henry Kravis, Alexander Navab and Ken Mehlman, who attended a $100,000-per-person event in New York that brought in at least $4 million. Chicago-based financiers Muneer Satter, Craig Duchossois, Ron Gidwitz and John Canning have all contributed to Bush’s nascent campaign. Florida investor Mike Fernandez said that he would cut a $1 million check to the Bush super PAC as part of a multimillion-dollar fundraiser he hosted for the former governor.

Over the past three federal elections, these Bush backers all gave to mainstream Republican Party groups like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future and the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is linked to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

On Wednesday, Jeb Bush was joined by his older brother, former President George W. Bush, at a fundraiser in Dallas. Attendees included such longtime Bush family backers -- and hefty super PAC check-writers -- as natural gas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, beer distributor John Nau, real estate developer Woody Hunt and oil producer Trevor Rees-Jones. The foursome were major supporters of the 2012 Senate campaign of Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, combining to give $475,000 to the pro-Dewhurst super PAC Texas Conservatives Fund. The establishment favorite lost to Ted Cruz, however, in an expensive runoff contest.

Now, Cruz is gunning for Bush in the race for their party’s presidential nomination. He's doing that with help from some of the same donors who lifted him into the Senate.

When Cruz ran in 2012, he received massive outside support from the ultra-conservative Club for Growth. A thorn in the side of the GOP establishment, the group regularly strives to elect the more conservative Republican in primary elections. It spent $5.5 million to help Cruz defeat Dewhurst, more than it has spent on any other race before or since.

Those hosting or scheduled to appear at fundraisers for Cruz since his Monday entrance into the White House race include some big Club for Growth donors. Immediately following his presidential announcement, the senator flew to New York, where he attended a fundraiser hosted by Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of hedge fund executive Bob Mercer. The daughter, who manages her family’s charitable foundation, has given only $15,000 to the Club for Growth’s super PAC, but her father, who has not yet declared for a 2016 candidate, has been a top electoral donor with $1.75 million contributed since 2010.

On March 31, Cruz will be the guest of honor at a Texas fundraiser where Club for Growth donors like Steven Pfeifer, Terrence Murphree, Graham Whaling, William Langston and Windi Grimes will be in attendance.

Those already backing Cruz have also supported various sectarian conservative groups causing headaches for the party over the past few years. They've donated to the super PACs affiliated with FreedomWorks, Senate Conservatives Fund and Tea Party Patriots.

These three groups and the Club for Growth intervened in numerous primary campaigns to challenge incumbents over the past three elections. One or more of them backed primary candidates against then-incumbent Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Richard Lugar (Ind.), John Cornyn (Texas), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Bob Bennett (Utah).

In nearly every case, Bush-backing donors were on the other side. Pro-Bush donors in Texas funded a super PAC called Texans for a Conservative Majority to help Cornyn beat back a challenge from hyper-conservative Rep. Steve Stockman in 2014. Lobbyist Richard Hohlt, a Bush supporter, gave $15,000 to Indiana Values SuperPAC, a pro-Lugar group, in 2012. And many Bush donors contributed liberally to both the pro-McConnell Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and the pro-Cochran Mississippi Conservatives super PACs in 2014.

Balancing atop this donor divide, though, is Scott Walker. Thanks to his frontal assault on labor unions, the greatest perceived enemy of the wealthy conservative donor class, and the three very expensive elections he has survived in the past five years, the Wisconsin governor has built relationships with nearly every major conservative donor in the country. His known big-money supporters range from financial industry billionaires to private business owners to tea party activists, albeit with an emphasis on those involved in the political empire of Charles and David Koch.

Speaking recently in New Hampshire, Walker indicated how he leans, however -- and it's not toward the establishment side.

“What we’re hoping going forward are not donors of obligation but donors of passion, people who are passionate about the reforms we bring to the table,” Walker said.

Donors to Freedom Partners Action Fund, the main super PAC of the Kochs, are already some of the biggest backers of Walker’s pre-presidential campaign. Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks, who wrote a $1 million check to the Koch group in 2014, is in Walker’s corner. So is Minnesota-based cable television broadcaster Stanley Hubbard, who gave $450,000 to Freedom Partners and is actively recruiting donors to give to Walker’s campaign.

Hendricks, the owner of the largest roofing supply company in the country, told Bloomberg that she was being courted by nearly every Republican presidential aspirant but, “If [Walker] goes out here and he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s going to be the person that I will support.”

Walker is currently raising money for a political nonprofit called Our American Revival, which can receive unlimited campaign contributions. It has attracted contributions from Hubbard and many others.

Among those is Chicago-based hedge fund executive Ken Griffin. While he's said he has not decided which 2016 candidate to ultimately back, he has written a $100,000 check to Walker’s group. Griffin, who once publicly mused that billionaires like himself have “insufficient influence” in politics, is a more mainstream Republican donor, having given millions to American Crossroads, Restore Our Future and Ending Spending Action Fund, the super PAC founded by TD Ameritrade billionaire Joe Ricketts. At the same time, Griffin is a more recent entrant to political giving with less direct connection to the old fundraising networks.

On the tea party side, Walker supporter Andy Miller, a Tennessee health care venture capitalist, previously gave more than $100,000 to a super PAC supporting Joe Carr, last year's tea party challenger to incumbent Sen. Alexander. Miller, chairman and executive director of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, has also donated to Tea Party Patriots and USA PAC, a super PAC that attempted to oust Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) in the 2012 primary election.

Many big fish are still on the loose -- casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and vulture capitalist Paul Singer, among them -- and other expected GOP candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) look to hook at least one donor willing to write large super PAC checks. They will have to move fast as the wealthy are already sorting out their loyalties.

Expense Rules

After Schock Scandal, House Will Review Expense Rules

The House Administration Committee will study the way members are allowed to use their office budgets.

By Rachel Roubein

The House Administration Committee said Friday it will review its rules governing members' official expenses, just days after Rep. Aaron Schock resigned amid a wave of allegations about the Illinois Republican's travel and use of office funds.

The committee announced it would evaluate and review the chamber's standards and procedures in an effort to clarify both. The bipartisan examination—led by Reps. Rodney Davis and Zoe Lofgren—includes exploring ways to strengthen the regulations over members' official expenses as well as creating additional opportunities to educate members on how to comply with these rules.

"Each member of this House takes an oath of office and promises to be the caretaker and champion for their congressional seat. This is an immense and sacred responsibility that should be considered in a bipartisan way, and it will be," said Rep. Candice Miller, the Administration Committee's chairwoman. "The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement—and our group of members is committed to finding solutions."

Though the committee didn't mention Schock, the Friday announcement comes a little more than a week after Schock's resignation, effective March 31. For the Illinois Republican, the downfall started with a February Washington Post report detailing Schock's Downton Abbey-themed office, which a decorator (at least initially) designed for free. It spiraled when Politico reported that Schock had allegedly employed a personal photographer, chartered private planes and had stays in five-star resorts. And afterward, National Journal reported Schock brought a nonstaffer on an official trip to India, which an outside group paid for and the lawmaker failed to disclose.

Now, the committee will conduct its review to ensure the rules make sense and members understand them.

"We have a great responsibility as members of Congress to be good stewards of taxpayers' dollars," Davis, an Illinois Republican, said, "and I look forward to working with my colleagues to make understanding and complying with House rules and regulations as seamless as possible."

Dark Money Disclosure

Montana House Endorses Bill to Require Dark Money Disclosure

Kalispell Republican goes against GOP caucus to usher measure through

By Tristan Scott

Following two hours of debate, a barrage of failed amendments and yet another example of the intraparty rift among GOP lawmakers, the Montana House endorsed a bill to require so-called “dark money” groups to disclose donor sources and campaign spending.

House members voted 51-49 to endorse Senate Bill 289 while passing just one of 16 Republican amendments in a narrow vote that saw a coalition of all 41 Democrats and 10 moderate Republicans unite to endorse Senate Bill 289, sponsored by Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip.

Rep. Frank Garner, R-Kalispell, defected from the ranks of Republican leadership and the majority of the caucus to argue for the measure, at several points holding up an illustration of marionette strings attached to the Capitol building to illustrate the powerful influence of outside interest groups, and saying Montanans deserve to know the identity of “the hands on the puppet strings.”

Garner repeatedly stood up and resisted the Republican-introduced amendments to water down the measure, standing firm even as he described it as a difficult stance.

“This is not an easy thing to do, to stand up in front of my caucus today in disagreement with some of the people I have such great respect for. But I believe this is right. That is the legacy I want to leave, one of fairness, one of disclosure,” Garner said.

Senate Bill 289 aims to shed light on anonymous money that began flowing into elections after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The court held that it is unconstitutional to prohibit corporations from making political expenditures if the money is not given directly to a candidate.

The measure would require newly defined groups to publicize reports on political donations and expenditures if they spend money supporting or opposing candidates or ballot issues.

House Minority Leader Chuck Hunter praised the efforts of Gov. Steve Bullock, for whom the bill is a top priority. Bullock actively promoted campaign finance disclosure as the state attorney general and as governor teamed up with Anknety to pass the measure.

“In the four terms I have been here I think this rises to the level of importance the way few bills do,” Hunter said. “It’s about disclosure, pure and simple. It’s about letting folks know who is influencing our government.”

“Ultimately it’s important to our democracy because honesty and transparency are important to our democracy,” he added.

Rep. Rob Cook, R-Conrad, was the lone lawmaker to offer a successful set of amendments, including reining in ads that resemble newspapers and allowing candidates to refrain from disclosing in-kind personal service contributions provided by a political party.

Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, tried adding 10 amendments and questioned whether the governor’s signature would only come if the bill came without amendments. Others said blasting the measure to the floor was not an ideal process under which to pass a major bill.

Republican Rep. Wendy McKamey of Great Falls said the bill is one of the most important of the session but that she’d be voting against it.

“This is probably the most important thing we are going to be voting on,” she said. “To say it is a dark money bill, that is a boogie man term.”

The coalition of Democrats and the moderate Republicans also endured criticism from hardline conservatives because they sent the bill to the House Business and Labor Committee instead of the House State Administration Committee, where election bills are normally assigned. Then earlier this week, the same coalition blasted SB289 out of committee before it acted on it and sent the measure directly to the floor.

Republicans also criticized Bullock for bringing the bill while he raises “dark money” as the current chair of the Democratic Governors Association, a national organization working to get more Democratic governors elected. Bullock has said the DGA won’t spend any dark money to influence elections while he’s chair.

But Garner concluded by saying the bill would make Montana elections fairer and more transparent and “provide a place full of light where darkness dare not tread.”

“The future of our elections are in our hands,” he said.