GMO plight of the butterflies

Monarch butterflies

By Carolyn Lochhead)

The news keeps getting worse on the catastrophic decline of Monarch butterflies, now approaching a potential point of no return.

The decline has been blamed on several factors, including drought, deforestation of habitat in Mexico and a cold snap last spring in Texas. But a big reason identified definitively by entomologists is the use of genetically engineered (GMO) crops on 170 million acres along the Monarch’s migration path through the Midwest.

Corn and soybeans that have been genetically modified to resist Monsanto’s trademark Round Up herbicide have allowed farmers to use the herbicide to kill weeds very efficiently, including the milkweed that is a host plant for the Monarch. The disappearance of milkweed is a major cause of the Monarch’s decline.

In addition to destroying Monarch habitat, use of GMO crops and their accompanying herbicides have sped the evolution of so-called superweeds that are impervious to the herbicides. The Obama administration said this month that it favors approval of new crops genetically engineered to tolerate more lethal 1940s-era herbicides to attack the superweed problem. This could establish another herbicide treadmill that ecologists said will encourage the evolution of even more vigorous weeds.

Ecologists and environmentalists urge a return to more ecologically sound farming practices such as the use of cover crops and crop rotations, but this is unlikely to happen on a broad scale, given the entrenchment of genetically engineered corn and soybeans in the Midwest. Almost all these crops are genetically engineered.

Drought

Two Images Tell the Tale of California’s Terrifying Drought

California is experiencing an epic drought. Paul Rogers reports for the San Jose Mercury News that some communities could actually run out of water in the next few months if the Golden State doesn’t get some rain:

In some communities, wells are running dry. In others, reservoirs are nearly empty. Some have long-running problems that predate the drought. 

The water systems, all in rural areas, serve from 39 to 11,000 residents. They range from the tiny Lompico County Water District in Santa Cruz County to districts that serve the cities of Healdsburg and Cloverdale in Sonoma County.
And it could get a lot worse. 

“As the drought goes on, there will be more that probably show up on the list,” said Dave Mazzera, acting drinking-water division chief for the state Department of Public Health.
Most of the affected water districts have so few customers that they can’t charge enough money to pay for backup water supplies or repair failing equipment, leaving them more vulnerable to drought than large urban areas.

California accounts for almost 12 percent of the nation’s agricultural production. As the PBS NewsHour put it, the dry spell “could mean bad news at the grocery store.”

At i09, Annalee Newitz offers two satellite images that show how dry it is. The first was taken a few days ago. The second shows the same territory last year. Newitz writes, “Note the radically different snow cover, and how the valley areas are a barren brown instead of a deep green.”

NO MORE TRADE DEALS...

Obama’s SOTU Didn’t Mention the TPP – Is the Trade Consensus Breaking? 

by Joshua Holland

For 30 years, a bipartisan consensus supported one corporate trade agreement after another that helped hollow out America’s middle class. But if this year’s State of the Union address is any indication, that consensus, if not dead, has become gravely ill.

Last night, Obama hardly mentioned trade. He didn’t name the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) — two mega-trade deals that his administration has pushed in past years.

Obama’s only reference to trade was almost pro forma – it seemed like a throwaway line included only because a president has to say something about trade. Here are the two times “trade” appeared in his speech:

When 98 percent of our exporters are small businesses, new trade partnerships with Europe and the Asia-Pacific will help them create more jobs. We need to work together on tools like bipartisan trade promotion authority to protect our workers, protect our environment, and open new markets to new goods stamped “Made in the USA.”

All very vague. Contrast that with his 2013 State of the Union address:

To boost American exports, support American jobs and level the playing field in the growing markets of Asia, we intend to complete negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership. And tonight, I’m announcing that we will launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union — because trade that is fair and free across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs.

A year earlier, Obama used three paragraphs of his speech to tout trade deals he’d signed with Korea, Panama and Colombia, and promised to enforce the terms of existing agreements with “countries like China.”

Of course, a more robust call for completing new trade deals would have been incredibly discordant in a speech ostensibly focused on rising inequality and limited social mobility. As Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch (with whom we recently spoke about the TPP) wrote, “Economists of all stripes agree that US trade policy has been one of the major contributors to growing US income inequality.”

There really is no disagreement about that — the only debate is about the degree of the effect. A study published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics — an early supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on which TPP is modeled — estimated that as much as 39 percent of the observed growth in US wage inequality is attributable to trade trends. Other studies have posited greater and lesser contributions.

But the president’s speech was also a reflection of how difficult his campaign to push TPP and TTIP through Congress has become. At a time when the public is increasingly suspicious of allowing corporate lobbyists to write binding treaties behind closed doors, a speech designed in large part to help Obama recover from a rocky 2013 was no place to talk about the supposed wonders of these deals.

It appears, at least for the rest of Obama’s term, that the bipartisan consensus on trade is running the other way. A hundred and fifty-one Democrats on Capitol Hill signed a letter promising to oppose “fast track” trade authority (without which these deals would be all but impossible to finalize). At the same time, the tea party wing of the Republican Party has dubbed the TPP “Obamatrade,” and is warning, in the words of one “analyst” on the Tea Party News Network, that TPP is a “weapon aimed straight at our Constitution, straight at our sovereignty and straight at Christians around the world.”

That the tide may be turning should come as little surprise. Advocates for the TPP and TTIP are making the exact same promises that those who championed NAFTA made in the early 1990s, and none of them have come to fruition in the 20 years since it was ratified.

State of the Union

Your Turn: The State of the Union

by Karin Kamp

While political pundits have been busy broadcasting their views on President Obama’s State of the Union address, we wanted to know what regular Americans thought of his speech last night. For that, we turned to our Facebook page, where close to 3,000 people weighed in when we asked for feedback.


A central theme that emerged from Obama’s speech was his call for the government to work on behalf of all Americans, along with his pledge to work independently of Congress if need be. “Let’s make this a year of action,” Obama said. “That’s what most Americans want — for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations.” That moment clearly resonated with our community, who expressed anger at the gridlock in Washington. As Melodie Milhoan put it: “[Obama] did a great job reminding Congress that they are supposed to represent the American people.”

On one issue after another, Obama’s promised to go it alone if Congress refused to work with him, which drew praise from some who felt that without cooperation from lawmakers, the president had no other choice. Debra Fraser wrote: ” I truly hope he uses his executive power to bypass the obstructionists in Congress.” But others were concerned that Obama’s confrontational tone — threatening to veto new Iran sanctions, warning against future votes against his health-care law and demanding action on a series of economic measures — sounded like a power grab.

As expected, Obama spoke about inequality, and when he did, a number of people re-posted his statements, especially this one: “No one who works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty.”The president was applauded for issuing an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour. And others were enthusiastic when Obama called on American companies to raise the minimum wage. As Robin Cook Wooten put it: “SAY YES! Give America a raise! Yes Yes Yes!” Parthena Rodriguez used Obama’s “easy to remember” wage increase as a chance to take a swipe at legislatures. “$10.10 sounds like a perfect wage for Congress.”

While inequality was billed as central to the president’s speech, some felt Obama didn’t delve deeply enough into the issue, such as Ann J Wyly who wrote: “There was not enough on inequality and the reasons why it has gotten so out of hand.”


While the president got the thumbs up for acknowledging that “climate change is a fact,” his push for natural gas was a major disappointment, with scores raising concerns about fracking. Here’s what Amy Ward Brimmer had to say: “You can’t say climate change is real and then promote dangerous fracking for fossil fuels.” And this from Mark Hackler: “He scored some cheap political points by calling out the Republicans on climate change, but he only gets real points if he cancels the [Keystone] pipeline.”

The president called for collaboration on the bipartisan trade promotion authority, which is expected to pave the way for the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), angering many. Jerry Ryberg wrote: “This corporate power-grab would NOT create good jobs, just the opposite. These “trade deals” have never been anything but a net job loss, and a bigger trade deficit for America.”

What was missing? According to our community, quite a bit on major issues including campaign finance reform — which Scoutie McScouterson said was at the “heart of our dysfunction” — as well as the West Virginia water spill, the Keystone pipeline, FISA, NASA, drug sentencing laws, workers’ rights and more.

The single sentence devoted to the National Security Agency, in which the president said he would reform America’s surveillance programs to ensure that the privacy of ordinary people is not violated, fell short for some.

While the president did say he intended to keep trying to stop “more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters and our shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook,” several people said they would have liked to have heard much more on gun control.

Overall, there was much positive feedback on Obama’s State of the Union address, with some going as far as saying it was one of the president’s best speeches yet. In fact, a number of people said Obama displayed the energy that helped him get elected in the first place. “This was the Obama I voted for, positive and demonstrative,” said Marna Lister and Nick Vukson, “I remember again why I voted for him.”

But not everyone was feeling optimistic following the speech, as Jonathan R. Espinal comment illustrates, “Gilded words that fall short on actually delivering what they promise.” And this from Corbin Fowler: “The State of the Union is awful for many Americans, and it will take a lot more than a good speech to remove the main problem: a political system wholly corrupted by big pockets. The major problems facing our society’s future, and the future of human civilization are being ignored. Fiddling while the planet burns.”

Do Something

If Congress Hears From Americans Living in Poverty, Will They Do Something About It?

by Greg Kaufmann

Recently, at the Social Mobility Summit at the Brookings Institution, Representative Paul Ryan declared the War on Poverty a failure. He went on to announce: “Later this year I plan on saying a whole lot more about this subject. But before I lay out any policy prescriptions for poor families, I need to hear more from the real experts — the families themselves.”


He had an opportunity to do just that when Amy Treptow visited Washington, DC, as the winner of the 50th Anniversary of the War on Poverty Storyteller Contest, sponsored by the Half in Ten campaign and the Coalition on Human Needs. The contest was part of the Our American Story project, which connects people who have experienced poverty with political leaders, media, and advocacy organizations — an ongoing effort to raise the visibility of those who don’t have a high-profile lobby representing their interests during policy debates. (Full disclosure: I am an adviser to the Half in Ten campaign.)

Treptow visited the nation’s capital to share her story with journalists and policymakers. She met with her representative, Mark Pocan; Representative Barbara Lee; and Paul Ryan, whose staff contacted her to set up a meeting.

When Treptow showed up to meet with Ryan, he suggested they take a photo in the corridor in front of the flag where Treptow could tell him a little about herself.

“I let him know that I had become a single mother unexpectedly, and that through the help of Medicaid, Section 8 food stamps and the West CAP [job training] program I was able to get back on my feet, be self-sufficient and own a home again,” she says. “I told him it was important to protect programs that help people.”

“Republicans aren’t against all of those things, despite what you might have heard,” Treptow says Ryan told her.

They snapped the photographs and the congressman said he had to head to his next appointment. Treptow was disappointed. She had heard that Ryan wants to speak with people who have experienced poverty firsthand.

“I was right there,” she says. “He didn’t ask me to elaborate on a single thing. If he’s really thinking about how these programs are working for people, he could have asked something. But I shared as much of my story as I could — whether he chooses to listen or not.”

Treptow’s story is indeed a compelling one. A veteran of the Navy, she says that just six years ago she had “a very good life” with her then-husband and two children in a house that they owned. The family’s income allowed her to stop working full-time as a first grade teacher. She taught reading at the school for three hours a day, worked as a substitute teacher and did a lot of volunteer work.

“But then my life drastically and instantly changed,” she says.

Treptow’s husband left without warning, and she found herself alone with her two children.

“It was terrifying,” she says. “I was worried I was going to be homeless.”

Treptow waited for a year to receive Section 8 housing assistance. (She notes that many people wait for much longer.) She turned to food stamps and Medicaid, and applied for 110 full-time teaching positions to no avail. She continued to work as a substitute and part-time reading teacher, earning approximately $15,000 a year—well below the poverty line for a family of three.

“The district hadn’t hired in several years,” she says. “I knew I needed to go back to school to make myself more valuable to a district so I could obtain a full-time job with benefits.”

Her caseworker referred her to the West CAP community action agency in Glenwood City, Wisc. The agency offers a program for low-income adults who work at least 20 hours per week; it helps them gain additional skills to obtain a living wage job with health benefits.

To be admitted to the program, Treptow had to demonstrate that becoming certified as a reading specialist would boost her chances at a full-time teaching position. She found job postings online and submitted them to the agency. A professor at University of Wisconsin-Stout also wrote her a letter of recommendation. Treptow was accepted into the program, which then covered a portion of her tuition and textbooks.

With the help of West CAP’s $2,076 investment in her, Treptow received her certification and now earns nearly $40,000 and health benefits teaching mostly low-income children to read.

“I work with students in first through fifth grades who need intense intervention to increase their overall reading skills,” says Treptow.

In order to support her family and pay off her student loans, Treptow works two additional jobs — in the afterschool program and at an athletic field house on Saturdays. She once again owns her home.

Treptow enjoyed her time speaking with Congressman Pocan — whose congressional district shares Rock County with Ryan’s district.

“He was very welcoming,” she says. “We talked for about 15 minutes or so.”

Pocan called her story “inspirational” and read it into the Congressional Record on the floor of the House of Representatives. Treptow says that was important to her.

“I was very hesitant to come to DC,” she says. “I hadn’t shared my story with my colleagues because of the negative stereotypes about people who receive public assistance. But this made me feel better about what I’ve been through, and that these kinds of stories need to be heard by politicians, if there is a chance of these safety net programs continuing.”

Representative Lee is someone who frequently shares with her colleagues the stories of ordinary Americans who are struggling. In fact, Treptow sat in the House Gallery as Lee spoke on the floor of a constituent whose children were benefitting from Head Start. Treptow says she had “read up on” the congresswoman prior to her visit and wasn’t surprised that they connected with one another when they met.

“Because she had been in the same shoes as me,” said Treptow. “I admire her — where she has been and where she is now. And not only that, she fights for where she has been and what she believes makes a difference.… These are the people we need in Congress, not people who just want to cut everything.”
Treptow hopes that the media and policymakers will keep telling the stories of the millions of people who turn to our safety net programs to “move forward, or get out of poverty — to have a better life.”

“If it’s just a couple of stories here and there, people see it as an exception and the negative stereotypes continue,” she says. “But if it’s story after story after story — that makes a difference. We need that now.

Because if you take those safety net programs away, then what’s going to happen?”

Cold today, Hotter tomorrow

It May Be Cold Outside, but Planet Earth Is Getting Hotter

by Chris Mooney

This week, the Central, Southern and Eastern US have all experienced yet another bout of frigid cold and snow, one that left motorists in the Atlanta area stranded in their cars overnight. Freezing air from the Arctic has been an all-too-frequent visitor this month, and with this latest arrival we’ve seen record-low daily temperatures for Detroit (minus-9 degrees), Grand Rapids, Mich. (minus-9 degrees) and Lubbock, Texas (7 degrees), among other locations, according to Weather Underground.

There’s no denying that it’s cold out; and once again, that’s prompting anecdotal claims that somehow, global warming is in question. Yet it’s important to bear in mind that just because you’re freezing — or even have seen a new daily record-low temperature in the particular place where you live — that doesn’t mean that what’s happening to you accurately reflects what’s happening to the planet overall, or even to the United States.

So how do you avoid this particularly annoying kind of weather-induced cluelessness? Rather than thinking with your gut about cold temperatures, try thinking with your (or, science’s) statistics.

Consider: If global warming is not happening, then scientists say that the planet ought to be breaking just as many hot temperature records as cold temperature records overall. In a warming climate, however, you would naturally break more hot records than cold records over time. So what kind of climate do we live in?

According to data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the US has set 1,347 daily low temperature records so far in January 2014, and tied another 304, for a total of 1,651. (A daily record refers to the highest or lowest temperature recorded in a particular place on a particular day of the year, as opposed to an all-time record, which is the highest or lowest temperature ever recorded in that place on any day.) When it comes to daily highs, by contrast, there have been only 489 new records and 237 tied records (many of them in the West and in Alaska), for a total of 726. (These records are updated regularly; our results are based on a search conducted this week.)

So based on just this month alone, record lows are indeed outpacing record highs. The data are clear:
We’ve had a very cold month.

Yet if you zoom out and examine the long-term trend, things look different. In a 2009 paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, for instance, a team of climate and weather researchers analyzed the ratio of daily hot records to daily cold records from 1950 to 2006, with a careful sampling of overall weather station data. The result? They found that the ratio of hot records to cold records has been rising since the 1970s, and by the 2000s stood at about 2-to-1. That’s precisely what you’d expect to see if global warming is happening. Here’s a visualization of their results:

That study only runs through 2006, however. So can we bring it up to date?

The Weather Channel’s Guy Walton, a coauthor on the paper cited above, keeps a regular tally of NCDC weather records, and emails out his compilation to interested parties. One limitation is that according to Walton, this approach does not control for different weather station ages or other complicating factors. In other words, these data are not as carefully scrubbed as those used in the peer-reviewed study above.

Nonetheless, based on Walton’s latest analysis of the data, the decade of the 2000s saw 312,746 daily record highs, compared with only 156,494 daily record lows, for a roughly 2-1 ratio overall. And if you consider the 2010s so far, Walton’s data show 91,383 daily record highs, compared with only 38,881 record lows, for a ratio that is well over 2-to-1.

So in sum: January has been a cold month for the United States. But it’s not reflective of the recent past, nor of what’s expected over the long term.

Enceladus

What does the surface of Saturn's ice-spewing moon Enceladus look like? To help find out, the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn was sent soaring past the cryovolcanic moon and even right through one of Enceladus' ice plumes. Cassini closed to about 52 kilometers during this close encounter.

The above unprocessed image was taken looking down from the north, from about 30,000 kilometers away. Visible are at least two types of terrain. The first type of terrain has more craters than occur near Enceladus' South Pole. The other type of terrain has few craters but many ridges and grooves that may have been created by surface-shifting tectonic activity.

 Exogeologists are currently poring over this and other Cassini images to better understand the moon's patch-work surface, its unusual ice-geysers, and its potential to support life. Cassini is scheduled to fly by Enceladus at least nine more times, including an even closer pass of just 25 kilometers.

NGC 2264

This interstellar beast is formed of cosmic dust and gas interacting with the energetic light and winds from hot young stars. The shape, visual texture, and color, combine to give the region the popular name Fox Fur Nebula. The characteristic blue glow on the left is dust reflecting light from the bright star S Mon, just beyond the left edge of the image. Mottled pink and brown areas are a combination of the cosmic dust and reddish emission from ionized hydrogen gas. S Mon is part of a young open cluster of stars, NGC 2264, located about 2,500 light years away toward the constellation of Monoceros, just north of the Cone Nebula.

Trifid nebula as scene by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE

A storm of stars is brewing in the Trifid nebula, as seen in this view from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The stellar nursery, where baby stars are bursting into being, is the yellow-and-orange object dominating the picture. Yellow bars in the nebula appear to cut a cavity into three sections, hence the name Trifid nebula.

Colors in this image represent different wavelengths of infrared light detected by WISE. The main green cloud is made up of hydrogen gas. Within this cloud is the Trifid nebula, where radiation and winds from massive stars have blown a cavity into the surrounding dust and gas, and presumably triggered the birth of new generations of stars. Dust glows in infrared light, so the three lines that make up the Trifid, while appearing dark in visible-light views, are bright when seen by WISE.

The blue stars scattered around the picture are older, and they lie between Earth and the Trifid nebula. The baby stars in the Trifid will eventually look similar to those foreground stars. The red cloud at upper right is gas heated by a group of very young stars.

The Trifid nebula is located 5,400 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.


Blue represents light emitted at 3.4-micron wavelengths, and cyan (blue-green) represents 4.6 microns, both of which come mainly from hot stars. Relatively cooler objects, such as the dust of the nebula, appear green and red. Green represents 12-micron light and red, 22-micron light.

My personal Fox News nightmare

My personal Fox News nightmare: Inside a month of self-induced torture

I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Here's what happened when I watched 3 hours of Fox every day for a month

By John Haggerty

One October evening, in the midst of the 2013 government shutdown, I watched Bill O’Reilly work himself into something of a state. He sat at his desk, his hands palms upward, fingers slightly curved, as if cupping something in them. “I want Hagel.” he said, staring into the camera. “I want Hagel. I want him.” A casual observer might interpret this moment as O’Reilly expressing his fierce but tender desire for Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense. More experienced O’Reilly viewers, however, will recognize it as a signal that the unfortunate Hagel had plummeted downward in O’Reilly’s estimation from pinhead to evildoer. (There are only three kinds of people in Bill O’Reilly’s world: good hardworking Americans, pinheads—people who are not actually malevolent but who are too stupid to understand the way the world really works—and evildoers.)

I know these things about O’Reilly because, for the entire month of October, I watched Fox News for approximately three hours every day, while at the same time strictly abstaining from any other sources of information about current events. The reason I engaged in this self-induced Fox News torture was that it had become clear that the right-wing media in general, and Fox News in particular, were constructing an alternate reality than the one I live in. Fox is, of course, a great driver of public opinion.

On this occasion, in which the government shutdown had resulted in death benefits not being paid to the families of soldiers killed in action, the problem was so egregious to O’Reilly that it could not possibly result from pinheadedness. No, instead there must have been heinous forces at work, and one of the devil’s minions was Chuck Hagel.

Bill O’Reilly, it should be noted, is a man whose mind is entirely undarkened by doubt. I have seen him refuse even to consider the arguments of a Notre Dame theology professor who took exception to his interpretation of the life and message of Jesus. When Juan Williams told him that Jonathan Gruber from MIT had calculated that 80 percent of American citizens would find their health insurance unchanged under Obamacare, O’Reilly responded, “I don’t believe that for a second…That’s what some pinhead says. That’s not a fact.”

Doubt, as well as its cousins ambiguity, complexity, subtlety and nuance, are simply not welcome on O’Reilly’s show. Voltaire said, “To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.” Bill O’Reilly, I imagine, would think that Voltaire was a pinhead.

A 2007 study found that in the 2000 presidential election, “Republicans gained 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points in the towns that broadcast Fox News.” The study’s estimates “imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 28 percent of its viewers to vote Republican, depending on the audience measure.” In addition to being influential, I also learned that Fox News is an extremely poor source of information about current events.

But its influence seems to far exceed the ability to sway a few votes one way or another. Fox and its friends seem to have become so influential and all-encompassing that it is actually creating an entirely separate version of reality in the minds of its most loyal viewers, one that with increasing frequency doesn’t match reality.

Perhaps the most startling pieces of evidence of this came Nov. 6, 2012, the evening of the presidential election. At about 11:25 Eastern Standard Time, Fox called Ohio, and therefore the election at large, for Barack Obama. Remarkably, Karl Rove, Bush campaign adviser and Fox News contributor, stated that Fox’s decision was premature and that it was irresponsible for the network to have made it. For over 30 minutes he continued to argue this point with news anchors Brett Baier and Megyn Kelly along with Fox’s own statisticians. The Fox News establishment, though it selects and covers stories with an eye toward advancing a right-wing agenda, is generally forced to recognize some indisputable facts, like vote counts.

Rove, on the other hand, who provides political commentary, which makes up over two-thirds of their content, felt no such restriction. Finally, after one last arithmetic salvo from him attempting to demonstrate that the outcome was still in doubt, the exasperated Kelly said, “Is this just math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”

After my initial amusement at this episode, I began to find the whole thing alarming. Karl Rove is, by all accounts, a smart man. How could he and so many of his colleagues on the right have been so thoroughly, so publicly, so humiliatingly wrong? The theory I eventually arrived at was that the right-wing infosphere had become so large and self-referential that people like Rove were seduced by its alternate view of reality.

What then, I wondered, would happen to someone like me, someone who has abandoned the Democratic Party because it is not progressive enough, who thinks that Barack Obama is, politically, very similar to Richard Nixon but without the personality disorders, someone who is literally a card-carrying member of the ACLU—in short, a member of the evil cabal that Fox News guests routinely rail against?

Thus, on Oct. 1, 2013, I sat down on my couch and, armed with nothing but a remote, vowed to consume three hours of Fox News programming a day for an entire month, while strictly abstaining from any other sources of information about current events. I couldn’t sample all of Fox’s wares, of course, but after looking at its lineup, I chose three shows to concentrate on—”Fox & Friends,” because it seemed like it might be representative of the network’s populist, aw-shucks conservatism; Shep Smith’s News Hour, because Smith has a reputation as being the straightest shooter of the Fox anchors; and, of course, the network’s browbeater-in-chief, Bill O’Reilly.

One of the first things I noticed was how similar all of the on-air personalities were. The men come in a variety of ages and weights, but are almost exclusively white, and almost all seem coated with a film of weary exasperation at the antics of the enemies of our nation. Shep Smith seems to be the exception to this. In contrast, he comes across as refreshingly candid and good-humored, and doesn’t indulge in the sort of winking innuendo that passes for news on much of the rest of the network. Within a few days of the commencement of my Fox project, I developed a fervent, Stockholm syndrome-style crush on Shep Smith. (The women of Fox are attractive, which is not an unusual requirement for female TV personalities, but they are dramatically, disproportionately blond and share a particular ebullience.)

The quintessence of the Fox News style is found on “Fox & Friends.” It is the network’s morning show, a competitor to “Good Morning America” and “Today.” It features three hosts, Steve Doocy, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Brian Kilmeade. Doocy seems to be the brains of the three, a blond 50-ish man with a long face who is always ready with a sarcastic smile or an eye roll at the sad state of political affairs. Hasselbeck seems as if she might be too nice for the role in which she is cast. She has only a few go-to facial expressions—compassionate concern (generally reserved for children), an angry moue that comes off more as a petulant pout, and a bright smile that she occasionally tries to repurpose, Doocy-style, into one of outraged disbelief. She can’t quite pull the latter off, however, and the effect is sort of disturbing, resembling a fear/aggression response more than anything else. Kilmead plays the part of the dumb little brother, often starting sentences with, “What I don’t get …” He handles all of the sports stories, and there is something behind his small, close-set eyes that makes me think that he once spent a lot of time pushing the heads of nerdy classmates into toilets.

As the days went by, I began to get comfortable with my cast of characters, and for a while things seemed to be going pretty swimmingly. As a liberal I was skeptical of the Fox version of events, and the news coverage tends to be fairly monochromatic, but I otherwise felt on top of things. Or I did, that is, until Oct. 9.

The government was shut down on Oct. 1, and this monopolized Fox’s coverage, but in a very strange way. Since the shutdown was the result of Republican action, there seemed to be a very strong editorial slant aimed at minimizing the suffering caused by it. On much of the network they referred to the event as the “Senate slimdown,” presumably because everybody thinks a slimdown is a good thing, and if you don’t, well, it’s the Senate’s fault. And the network in general had a variety of experts and think tank denizens paraded across its sets assuring us all that the slimdown was actually beneficial, or at least without any discernible consequences. Except, of course, to the veterans, but that was Obama’s and Hagel’s fault.

I, on the other hand, was not so sure of the salubrious effects of turning the entire federal government off on a whim, and the constant drumbeat of cheery shutdown news began to make me—and I admit this freely—a little bit paranoid. Which brings me back to Oct. 9.

That morning, one of the “Fox & Friends” headlines—quick stories that merit only a few second’s mention—was that “that salmonella outbreak” had become so severe that furloughed CDC workers were being recalled to help deal with it. My eyes widened in surprise. What? A salmonella outbreak? I had been watching Fox News for an average of three hours a day for eight days, and this was the very first I had heard of it. I was even more disturbed by the casual tone of it all, as if they had been discussing it for weeks, and I had just missed it. My first—and perhaps slightly fevered—thought was that the network had soft-pedaled the story because they didn’t want to give the impression that furloughing a bunch of agricultural inspectors might have been a bad idea.

It was at that moment that I realized that Fox was simply not telling me things—things that, arguably, might be good for me to know. Such as, just to pick an example, that eating a certain brand of chicken might cause me illness or death, and that the problem was sufficiently dire that government employees were being recalled to work without pay to deal with it. It was a very disturbing moment, and I immediately began to wonder what other matters Fox had chosen to keep me in the dark about.

Perhaps it’s time to discuss ignorance. One of the interesting things about Fox News, one of the things I hadn’t anticipated upon entering into this venture, was how little actual news the network disseminates. There is a lot of national political coverage, most of this devoted to the damage that Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are inflicting on our country. Beyond that, however, Fox stays true to its Rupert Murdochian tabloid roots. There is plenty of coverage of police chases and freak accidents, but very little else in the way of substantive stories.

Given the statistics about Fox’s conservative influence and the way it misleads its viewers, I think it is fair to classify much of what it does as propaganda. My liberal cynicism seemed to render me immune to that — their O’Reilly-style hectoring eliciting a few laughs, but doing little to change my worldview. But Fox, as I came to discover, indulges in another form of opinion creation. Let’s call this the propaganda of ignorance. By choosing which stories to cover, and, perhaps more important, which stories to ignore, Fox is able to advance its political agenda in a much more subtle and insidious way.

I think that some of my fascination with the news comes from a basic fearfulness, a neurotic belief that the world is a threatening place, but that if I know enough about what is going on, I will be able to avoid the most horrific of disasters.

But now I was aware of Fox’s role as a purveyor, not only of right-wing information but of right-wing ignorance, and I began to examine my mind for things that I hadn’t gotten any information about in the past month. The most notable items that were missing, I realized, were people from other countries and poverty. Aside from the times when picturesque destruction video was available, there was essentially no coverage of foreign affairs. On the poverty side, programs like food stamps and welfare were generally referred to as handouts, and the only time poor people were mentioned was when they were a source of malfeasance. One prominent “Fox & Friends” story, for example, cited a woman who, because of a computer glitch, managed to buy $700 worth of food on a food stamp debit card with a balance of $.47.

The effect of this is interesting. Even in my short time watching Fox I found poverty fading from my mind as a problem. I was surprised one day when, during a discussion of deficit reduction (something that they talk about almost constantly), I found myself nodding in agreement that there was room to cut social programs that had already been radically slashed. Fox couldn’t convince me to care about the issues they are obsessed with (Obama’s treachery and the deficit, mostly), but by simply failing to mention a topic like income inequality, it managed to make me stop caring about the things it would prefer that I ignore.

I have an optimistic view of Americans. I think we are basically a kind and generous people—that if we are confronted with suffering, we are willing to act, even to sacrifice our own interests, in order to alleviate it. Perhaps, I began to think, we are not becoming progressively crueler and more callous, as it sometimes appears. Perhaps we have simply forgotten about the suffering all around us because we haven’t been reminded of it lately.

But even beyond this, the idea that Fox might not be keeping me in the loop on important stories began to seem more and more ominous. In my defense, early October 2013 was a time of significant turmoil in the United States. One of the two major political parties had decided, for reasons that appeared to be unclear even to them, to shut down the federal government. Worse yet, a deadline was fast approaching in which that same political party might decide to cause our country to default on its debts. This had never happened before, so it was not at all clear what the effect of such a thing would be. It was almost certain, however, that it would be very, very bad. In the worst case, one might expect severe social disruptions—runaway inflation, bank failures, even riots.

The idea that the country might be speeding toward this potential disaster, and that my only source of information about what was happening was the spotty and unreliable Fox News, began to prey on my imagination.

After mulling this over for a few days, I decided to broach the subject with my wife. She had been acting as the firewall between me and any news but Fox. She had also, in the past, shown a certain zeal for the enforcement of the arbitrary rules of my previous nonfiction ventures. What if, I began to wonder, she, in concert with Fox, was concealing something really big from me?

“So,” I began tentatively, “we should talk about the sorts of things that would make me stop doing this Fox News story.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” My mind was full of shadowy catastrophes that might be, at that very moment, playing themselves out just over the horizon. “You know, big things.” There was a palpable silence. The conversation, I realized, had already gone seriously awry. I thought for a few moments. “Like something that might make us think about hoarding food.”

She was watching me out of the corner of her eye, in the way that one might keep track of a shouting person on the street. “OK,” she finally said. “I’ll let you know when it’s time to start hoarding food.”

On Oct. 17, the shutdown was lifted, and Fox switched coverage to something closer to its normal mode of operation. At this point, I made a second discovery—I began to find Fox News extremely dull. Its one-note coverage of events, its simplistic interpretations of people’s motives, its attraction to the lurid, all began to make the network seem tedious in the extreme. And then there is the outrage.

Fox is a network founded on outrage. There is a constant barrage of stories of righteous people wronged by the forces of evil, usually in the form of government. A cheerleading squad was forced to terminate its fundraising carwash because of water pollution concerns, a school board asked teachers to stop forcing their children to sing overtly Christian carols, there is an increasing level of anti-Christian rhetoric in the military (Fox is also, by the way, a very Christian network)—the list of abuses perpetrated on the hardworking patriots of this country seems never-ending.

I will admit that I too am something of an outrage addict. I find myself drawn to websites and stories that will stoke my ideas that there is a great right-wing cabal out there attempting to destroy the American way of life. In a way, I suppose my beliefs are just a mirror image of those flogged endlessly on Fox.

But in the end, I am not a Fox viewer. To the Fox audience, I fear that I am one of “them” rather than one of “us.” And unable to join them in their self-righteous, unifying anger, Fox News left me behind.

The government, the economy and even the Affordable Care Act survived October 2013, and I lived through a whole month of nothing but Fox. I am discovering lingering effects, however. I find myself much more skeptical of news outlets—all of them. Having seen the way in which Fox, in both obvious and subtle ways, constructs an information framework that supports its political views, I look for similar editorial decisions everywhere, even in information sources I trust. And I am much more careful about my outrage. Yes, the world is full of outrageous things—acts of astonishing dishonesty. But outrage, or, I should say, other people’s outrage is really, really tedious.

Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,” and I don’t regret the time I spent among the Foxians. I still believe that what the network does, and the way it does it is deeply damaging to our society—but I think I understand the Fox universe much more clearly. And if, as a result, I wind up being more skeptical of my own certainty and less apt to bore people with my anger, then it was time well spent.

On the final day of my vigil, Fox had one extra surprise for me. As I tuned in to my last episode of “The O’Reilly Factor,” I realized that I was going to miss Bill just a little bit. If nothing else, Bill O’Reilly seems to offer a sense of permanence, something dependable and constant in a world of increasingly rapid and often disturbing change. Tomorrow the tides will ebb and flow, the sun will rise, and Bill O’Reilly will be pissed off about something. I settled back on my couch and let it all wash over me. “We are in the twilight zone.

America has entered another dimension,” he began, and I gave out a small, satisfied sigh. Take me home, Bill, take me home.

They call it NEWS...

Fox News contributor busted again for pushing fake story about persecution of Christians

By By Travis Gettys

A Fox News correspondent has been busted again for pushing a one-sided story claiming religious persecution of Christians.

Todd Starnes helped promote a story about a California first-grader who allegedly was not allowed to give a one-minute presentation about her family’s Christmas tradition because it included religious references.

As Right Wing Watch has reported, this is not the first time Starnes has been caught pushing poorly sourced stories claiming religious discrimination.

The girl had planned to tell classmates at a Temecula elementary school about her family placing an ornament to represent the Star of Bethlehem atop their Christmas tree, as many families do, and recite a short Bible verse about its meaning, Starnes reported.

He quoted an Advocates for Faith and Family attorney who claimed the girl’s teacher ordered her to take a seat Dec. 19 and wouldn’t allow her to finish.

“The disapproval and hostility that Christian students have come to experience in our nation’s public schools has become epidemic,” said attorney Robert Tyler, warning the family might sue if the school district didn’t apologize and change its policies on religious expression.

The article included a statement from the school district, which confirmed it was investigating the claim, and statements by the principal paraphrased by the girl’s mother.

Starnes did not, however, include any statements from the teacher or the principal, who were compelled to release their own after the story was picked up by religious groups and publications.

“Over the past week, I have received countless phone calls and 126 mean-spirited emails from across the country as a result of the claims that the Advocates of Faith and Freedom have made against one of my teachers, the school district, and myself,” said Principal Ami Paradise. “These claims are simply not true.”

Other targets of Starnes’ poorly sourced reporting have reported similar harassment.
The girl was the only student who read from a prepared statement during a brief sharing exercise intended to improve students’ public speaking skills, the teacher said, and she asked her to cut short the statement due to limited time.

The teacher denies telling the girl to sit down, instead allowing her to take one question from another student.
“At no time did I ever tell the student that she could not read the bottom section [of her statement] because it was a Bible verse nor did she ask if she could finish,” said teacher Tammy Williams. “I never told her to ‘Stop right there!’ or ‘Go take your seat!’ or reprimand her in front of the class for sharing from the Bible. It just did not happen.”

Paradise said she met with the following day with the girl’s parents, who were upset because they thought she was unable to finish her presentation because of its biblical content.

The principal said neither parent claimed bullying or humiliation by teachers, which she said was made up by the religious legal group, and she has not heard from the parents since presenting her findings about the incident Dec. 24 to the school board.

Paradise said she stood behind the teacher, and both she and Williams complained that Tyler and his group had misrepresented the incident and damaged their reputations.

“What saddens me is that this story was twisted into lies and brought to the media,” Williams said. “I have never sat down and discussed this directly with the family or the student. I am instead being used to push an agenda for the Advocates for Faith and Freedom.”

Update: Advocates for Faith and Freedom did not responded to a request seeking comment on the educators’ statements.

Chris Christie Noose is Tightening

No Smoking Guns Yet, But the Noose is Tightening Around Chris Christie

By Kevin Drum

The New York Times is pretty clearly expending a lot of resources on the various Chris Christie scandals. So far they haven't produced any smoking guns, but they're sure digging up some stuff that doesn't look good for Team Christie. First up is a look at the Christie political team, which was apparently obsessed with winning votes in Democratic-leaning towns. This wasn't because the votes themselves were all that critical to Christie's 2012 reelection campaign, but because winning in these places "would validate the governor’s argument that he would be the most broadly appealing Republican choice for president in 2016":

Staff members in the governor’s office created tabbed and color-coded dossiers on the mayors of each town — who their friends and enemies were, the policies and projects that were dear to them — that were bound in notebooks for the governor to review in his S.U.V. between events. Officially known as “intergovernmental affairs,” the operation was a key element of the permanent campaign that allowed Mr. Christie to win twice in a largely Democratic state. It was led by Bill Stepien, his two-time campaign manager and deputy chief of staff, and then by Bridget Anne Kelly, who succeeded him in his role in the governor’s office.

....By many accounts, the person in the front office who handled most of the politics was Mr. Stepien.....He mapped out the list of mini-Ohios and mini-Floridas where Mr. Christie might win what they called “persuadable voters.”....Those 100 or so towns would receive special attention — state aid, help from the Port Authority, a town-hall-style session with Mr. Christie — in hopes that by the time the governor ran for a second term, he would have friends there; even if local officials did not endorse him, they would not be working for his Democratic opponent.

The point of this piece is to demonstrate three things.

First, winning votes in cities like Fort Lee really was important to the Christie team.

Second, they were pretty ruthless about going after those votes.

Third, Christie himself met regularly with his team to discuss their tactics in minute detail. The strong inference is that (a) Shutting down lanes on the George Washington Bridge to intimidate a mayor who wasn't playing ball was right up their alley, and (b) if they did this, Christie almost certainly knew about it.

The story doesn't contain even a speck of proof that Christie had anything to do with the bridge closure. But it sure paints a suggestive picture. There's obviously more to come on this.

The second piece ran on Wednesday, and it's about Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer's claim that the Christie administration held up flood aid from Hurricane Sandy unless she approved a redevelopment project supported by Christie. However, Wednesday's story starts with an anecdote about a more recent flooding:

[Zimmer] dashed off a letter to Gov. Chris Christie, imploring him to help with Hoboken’s “ongoing flooding emergency,” and attached photos of cars in water up to their hoods. She was due to meet the next day with officials of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, when she hoped to talk about protecting Hoboken from the next catastrophic deluge to come. 

But according to newly obtained emails sent among the participants, the first topic of discussion on the agenda was “review of concepts for flood control measures at Rockefeller property,” a reference to a billion-dollar office complex proposed at the north end of town. The developer, the Rockefeller Group, which had long been trying to gain approval from local officials, sent two executives, two lobbyists and an engineer to the meeting.

A few days after this meeting, Zimmer had her famous chat in the parking lot of a Shop-Rite supermarket with lieutenant governor Kim Guadagno. Zimmer alleges that Guadagno told her she needed to "move forward" with the Rockefeller project if she wanted Hoboken to receive any further hurricane aid.

Again, there's no smoking gun here, just a detailed look at the lobbying behind the Hoboken project and how much pressure Christie and his allies brought to bear on it. It doesn't prove anything, but it certainly makes Zimmer's allegations more plausible. And this stuff is already hurting Christie badly. A new ABC News poll shows that Christie has "gone from a 32-point net positive rating last summer to a 5-point net negative now — never a comfortable place for a public figure."

It's pretty obvious that stories like these are going to keep dripping out. The Times has several reporters assigned to bird dog this story, and once the New Jersey legislature starts subpoenaing people, there's going to be continuing grist for an endless succession of lurid headlines. By themselves, neither of these stories moves the bar much. But as a harbinger of things to come, they're pretty ominous for Christie. Buckle up.

Executive Orders

The unilateral president?

By Erik Voeten

In Tuesday night’s State of the Union address President Obama highlighted his desire to “go it alone” more often through executive orders. The comment dismayed some commentators and politicians, who are even talking about taking court action against such moves. In the words of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.):

“I think it’s unfortunate. I think it’s divisive and, quite frankly, borderline unconstitutional on many of those issues. I understand the [legislative] process takes long and can be frustrating, but I think it truly undermines the republic.”

And Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.):

“We continue to erode the whole notion of the rule of law. To the extent that he continues to move unilaterally without the consent of Congress, I think it doesn’t sit well with a message of unity.”

Eric Posner, at the University of Chicago, provides some useful context. So far, the president has been less prolific in his use of executive orders than past presidents. He could add a good 10 executive orders a year before he reaches the annual averages of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. That doesn’t mean that each individual executive order is constitutional or a good idea. Yet, it is nonetheless striking that in an era with so much talk about Congressional obstructionism, executive orders have been used less often than in the recent past.

Experts warn ‘flushing’ might not have worked

Chemicals may still remain in plumbing systems after spill

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The "flushing" recommended by the Tomblin administration and West Virginia American Water might not have effectively eliminated Crude MCHM and other toxic chemicals from plumbing systems in homes and businesses, experts are warning. MCHM from the Jan. 9 Freedom Industries leak into the Elk River might be stuck inside pipes and hot-water tanks, and experts are concerned that the chemical also could be breaking down into other toxic materials that have yet to be fully identified.

By Ken Ward Jr.- David Gutman

The "flushing" recommended by the Tomblin administration and West Virginia American Water might not have effectively eliminated Crude MCHM and other toxic chemicals from plumbing systems in homes and businesses, experts are warning.

MCHM from the Jan. 9 Freedom Industries leak into the Elk River might be stuck inside pipes and hot-water tanks, and experts are concerned that the chemical also could be breaking down into other toxic materials that have yet to be fully identified.

Scott Simonton, a Marshall University environmental engineer, told a legislative committee Wednesday that he found cancer-causing formaldehyde -- which he said is one possible breakdown product from the chemical -- in one local water sample and that the continued lack of data on the chemicals that leaked into the Elk is very concerning.

"It's frightening, it really is frightening," said Simonton, who is a member of the state Environmental Quality Board and also consults for at least one local law firm that's filed suit over the leak. "What we know scares us -- and we know there's a lot more we don't know."

Early Wednesday evening, the state Department of Health and Human Resources issued a statement that called Simonton's comments regarding formaldehyde "totally unfounded" and said his testimony "does not speak to the health and safety of West Virginians."

Dr. Letitia Tierney, commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health, said Wednesday evening that the chemists the state had consulted with all said the formaldehyde could not have come from the MCHM.

"Our experts are all in agreement that it's unlikely that his findings are in any way related to the chemical spill," she said. "It's already in our environment."

Tierney and Elizabeth Scharman, director of the West Virginia Poison Center, questioned Simonton's methodology, saying that he hasn't released multiple samples, the lab he used, how his sample was collected or other details. They also said Simonton had not made attempts to contact them.

"People shouldn't just take the statement of, 'Oh we found formaldehyde in the water,' and have that be a scary statement in itself," Scharman said. "What we're trying to let people know is that formaldehyde can be found in the water and it can be found in the air, and just put that in perspective."

Tierney said formaldehyde is not something they test for because it is created and breaks down naturally and dissolves quickly.

"Formaldehyde is naturally produced in very small amounts in our bodies as part of our normal, everyday metabolism and causes no harm," Tierney's statement said. "It can also be found in the air that we breathe at home and at work, in the food we eat, and in some products that we put on our skin."

Wednesday morning, Simonton told a joint legislative committee on water resources that his family is still not drinking or cooking with tap water, two weeks after the water company and government officials said it is safe for all uses.

"Your level of what risk you will accept is up to you," Simonton said. "I can only tell you what mine is, and I'm not drinking the water. The formaldehyde had me personally a little freaked out."

Sen. John Unger, chairman of the legislative water committee, summed up Simonton's findings. "I think we're in a little bit of shock because of this," said Unger, D-Berkeley.

Andrew Whelton, an environmental engineer from the University of South Alabama, drove to West Virginia after the leak. He and his team of researchers have been taking water samples and helping residents complete the flushing process, but with a different set of guidelines than the state and West Virginia American recommended.

For example, Whelton emphasizes that residents should open their windows during the flushing process and use ceiling or floor fans to push chemical fumes outside.

Whelton also suggests shutting off hot-water tanks before flushing because chemicals in the water will evaporate faster into your home or workplace from hot water than from cold.

In an interview, Whelton said it's crucial that officials begin testing and sampling inside people's homes to determine the level of contamination of plumbing systems and what to do about it.

"I can't believe they aren't doing this," Whelton said. "These issues aren't being addressed. The long-term consequences of this spill are not being addressed."

The latest estimates made public by the state Department of Environmental Protection are that 10,000 gallons of Crude MCHM leaked from a storage tank at Freedom's Etowah Terminal, just 1.5 miles upstream from West Virginia American's regional intake, which provides drinking water to 300,000 people.
The main ingredient in Crude MCHM is another chemical, called 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol. Simonton noted, though, that methanol also is one of its main components. Methanol can break down into formaldehyde, he said.

Tierney, however, said the state's experts have concluded that MCHM cannot be broken down into formaldehyde unless it is heated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scharman added that, although information on the health and long-term effects of the chemical is still limited, the state has much better information on its chemical makeup and how it breaks down.

Simonton said he found traces of formaldehyde in water samples taken from the Vandalia Grille, in downtown Charleston.

Kevin Thompson, an attorney who retained Simonton as an expert witness for a leak lawsuit, said the sample taken at the Vandalia Grille five days after the leak found 32 parts per billion of formaldehyde. He said that one sample is the only one of dozens his team took that they has been received, so far.

Formaldehyde is found in food and in common consumer products, such as cigarettes, cosmetics and wrinkle-free clothing. It can enter your body by inhalation, ingestion or if your skin comes into contact with liquids containing formaldehyde, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The ATSDR said the risks of formaldehyde are "low" at 10 parts per billion. The agency said the risks of irritation from formaldehyde are "medium" at 100 parts per billion.

After Simonton's testimony about formaldehyde, West Virginia American Water issued a statement that said, "It is misleading and irresponsible to voice opinions on potential health impacts to residents of this community without all of the facts.

"Procedures for water analysis are carefully prescribed, outlined and certified," the water company statement said. "West Virginia American Water will continue working with governmental health and environmental professionals and, in conjunction with these professionals, we and public health agencies will make public any reliable, scientifically sound information relating to risks to public health, if any."

In his testimony, Simonton also said he is still concerned with the 1 part per million standard for Crude MCHM that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said is safe in water for everyone except pregnant women.

The vast majority of the most recent test results posted by the state Division of Homeland Security show a "not detected" level of Crude MCHM in water samples. The state has said it can detect the chemical down to 10 parts per billion, although officials in Louisville, Ky., have said their tests can detect the chemical at concentrations down to 1 part per billion.

Scharman said that is just the nature of testing.

"For any test that we do," she said, "different labs have different lower thresholds, so you can always find a level that can test just slightly under."

In a letter sent Tuesday to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., West Virginia American Water President Jeff McIntyre emphasized that the most recent testing using the state's method has shown "non-detectable levels of MCHM in multiple pressure zones, accounting for approximately 85 percent of our local service area.

"In remaining areas where testing results are above the non-detectable limit, they are still extremely low and only a fraction of the CDC-established 1 ppm health-protective limit," McIntyre wrote.

Last week, Adjutant Gen. James Hoyer of the West Virginia National Guard said the Guard had done some testing in hospitals but had no plans to test in individual homes or businesses.

"I'd have Guardsmen on duty for the rest of my career," Hoyer said.

The water company also has said it has no plans to provide customers with home testing of their tap water.
In his legislative testimony Wednesday, Simonton stressed what other outside public-health officials have already made clear: Little is known about the chemicals involved in the leak.

"We don't know what happens to this stuff once it gets into the environment," he said. "What happens when it reacts with makeup or soap or shampoo or anything else that we come into contact with everyday?"

He also said the flushing period recommended by West Virginia American and state officials wasn't enough and that the chemical is sticking to pipes in the system.

Starting Jan. 13, water company officials and the state began a weeklong process of lifting broad "do not use" orders for sections of the nine-county area impacted by the MCHM leak. After the order was lifted, residents were advised to run their hot water for 15 minutes, their cold water for 5 minutes, and their outside faucets for 5 minutes to flush the chemical from their homes.

But since then, residents have continued to complain that the black-licorice smell of the chemical is lingering, especially in their hot water.

State officials, in announcing their guidance for flushing, rejected an earlier recommendation from the ATSDR that residents be advised to flush their plumbing systems until the chemical odor is gone.

Simonton said people have flushed for hours and hours, and the odor still remains.

"We know the stuff is sticking," he said. "Exactly where it is or how it's happening is unclear right now."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had said in internal documents that flushing the chemicals out of the system "may require a fairly prolonged time to complete," perhaps two to three weeks.

In a letter sent Monday to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Tomblin acknowledged that the public lacks faith in the safety of the region's water supply.

"Despite the best efforts of the company and government many people no longer view their tap water as safe and are continuing to demand bottled water to meet their potable water needs," the governor wrote to FEMA Regional Director MaryAnn Tierney. "It is impossible to predict when this will change, if ever."

Live With Parents

More 27-Year-Olds Live With Parents Than Roommates

By Katy Waldman

A recently published study from the Department of Education casts new light on the State of the 27-Year-Old Today. The report, which in 2002 began following roughly 15,000 young men and women from their sophomore year in high school through their mid-20s, draws a picture of educated, debt-saddled young adults, more than half of whom are in some kind of committed relationship. It shows, incredibly, that around 10 percent of 27-year-olds feel they have already fulfilled their career goals. (Dear Lord—either these Americans have set scanty goals or that is a lot of leaning in.) But perhaps the most surprising factoid is this:

There are more men and women at age 27 living with their parents than with roommates.

According to the study's authors:

Overall percentages for all 2002 sophomores as of 2012 were as follows: 19 percent were living alone, 42 percent were living with a spouse or partner, 10 percent were living with roommate(s), 23 percent were living with their parents, and 6 percent had some other arrangement.

So, granted, the plurality of 27-year-olds have shacked up with a romantic partner—and, the report says, this pattern holds across all levels of educational attainment. But among all participants except bachelor’s degree holders, who were slightly more likely to be living alone than with mom and dad, the parental nest was a close second. And, again, everyone was more likely to live with their folks than with roommates. Pop quiz! Is this because:

1. Roommates are at best one of the world’s great Russian roulette games, and at worst a plague upon humanity?
2. Millennials are victims of a coddling culture of self-esteem, broken-winged, suffocated by the poisonous comforts of suspended adolescence?
3. The Great Recession made it impossible for many 27-year-olds to afford rent?

I know which choice seems right to me. The study finds that almost 80 percent of 27-year-olds are in debt, whether from student loans, credit cards, or mortgages; since 2009, 40 percent have been unemployed; more than 85 percent describe their finances as either “somewhat stressful” or “extremely stressful”; and in 2010, as the Atlantic’s Jordan Weissmann pointed out, they were more likely to be earning less than $15,000 from work than they were to be earning more than $40,000.

When I lived with my parents (lo those many years ago—two years), the arrangement was more than convenience—it was necessity. Getting a paying job helped. But I am already anticipating the “millennials are shiftless bums” spin on this data and preparing my personal, indignant defense: I have never received a participation trophy for a sport in my life, nor do I know many 26-year-olds who have. Though I am grateful that my parents were willing and able to let me live with them, my sojourn at home wasn't about my reluctance to leave the nest. It was about, on some level, having a place to sleep while I blundered through the job search. Or having a place to blunder while I slept through the job search. In any case, thanks, Mom and Dad.

Republicans Just Won the Food Stamp War

Congress is set to approve $9 billion in cuts to the food stamp program even as a record number of Americans live in poverty.

By Erika Eichelberger

On Wednesday morning, Republicans won a years-long battle over whether to slash or spare food stamps when the House passed the farm bill, a $500 billion piece of legislation that funds nutrition and agriculture programs for the next five years.

The farm bill has been delayed for more than two years because of a fight over cuts to the food stamp program, which is called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Last June, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) forced a vote on a bill that would have cut $20 billion from SNAP. But conservatives said the cuts were not deep enough, Democrats said they were far too deep, and the bill failed, 234-195. That September, House Republicans drafted new legislation slashing $40 billion from the food stamp program. That bill passed the House with Republican votes only. After months of negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate, which wanted much lower cuts of around $4 billion, the House finally passed a farm bill 251-166 Wednesday that contains a "compromise" $9 billion in reductions to the food stamp program.

Both the Senate and President Barack Obama are expected to approve the legislation.

Here's why the compromise level of cuts is a Republican win: In addition to the $9 billion in food stamp cuts in this five-year farm bill, another $11 billion will be slashed over three years as stimulus funding for the program expires. The first $5 billion of that stimulus money expired in October; the rest will disappear by 2016. In the months since the first $5 billion in stimulus funding was cut, food pantries have been struggling to provide enough food for the hungry. Poverty remains at record high levels, and three job applicants compete for every job opening.

And yet, despite the $5 billion in cuts that already happened and the guarantee of $6 billion more, Republicans succeeded in getting their Democratic peers to cut food stamps further. This is the first time in history that a Democratic Senate has even proposed cutting the program. Now the upper chamber is expected to pass cuts twice the level it approved last year.

"It's a net loss for Democrats," Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tells Mother Jones. "It's absolutely a GOP win," agrees a House Democratic aide.

How did the GOP do it? In November, Dems said that Boehner was interfering with House-Senate negotiations on the farm bill, rejecting proposed legislation that contained shallower food stamps cuts. (Boehner's office denies this.)

But Dems deserve much of the blame, the Democratic aide says. Last year, House liberals were scheming to get progressives to vote against any farm bill that contained SNAP cuts. The idea was that if enough progressives voted no along with the House conservatives who think the cuts are too low, Democrats could defeat the bill. In that case, food stamp funding would be preserved at current levels. A "$9 billion [cut] is too much…It hits in the gut," Rep. Gwen Moore (R-Wis.) told Mother Jones earlier this month.

When the final bill came up for a vote in the House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus advised its 76 members to vote against the bill. But not enough Dems voted to block the cuts. One hundred three Democrats voted against the farm bill, but 89 voted in favor. If 43 more Democrats had voted no, the farm bill would have failed. "Dems are…complicit in changing [the] law, when they could just [block the bill] and let that status quo continue," the Democratic aide says.

Democrats in the House and Senate agreed to cut nutrition aid for poor Americans because they "have shifted to the right on SNAP politically," the staffer adds. "If Dems were as absolutist as the tea party, this bill would be dead on arrival and SNAP would continue as is."

But the assault on the food stamp program "could have been much, much worse," argues Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. Stacy Dean, the vice president for food assistance policy at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), agrees. Democrats succeeded in stripping many draconian GOP provisions from the bill. Republicans wanted to impose new work requirements on food stamp recipients; allow states to require drug testing for food stamps beneficiaries; ban ex-felons from ever receiving nutrition aid; and award states financial incentives to kick people off the program. None of those measures were in the final legislation, Dean notes.

The cuts to the food stamp program come from closing a loophole that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed needed to be addressed. A household's level of monthly food stamps benefits is determined by how much disposable income a family has after rent, utilities, and other expenses are deducted. Some states allow beneficiaries to deduct a standard utility charge from their income if they qualify for a federal heating aid program called the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, even if they only receive a few dollars per year in heating aid. The arrangement results in about 850,000 households getting a utility deduction that is much larger than their actual utility bill. Because the deduction makes these families' disposable income appear to be lower than it actually is, they get more food stamp money each month. The farm bill that passed the House on Wednesday saves $9 billion by closing that loophole.

The savings from closing the heating aid loophole could have been returned to the food stamp program. Instead, Republicans succeeded in prodding Dems to accept $9 billion in new cuts on top of the $11 billion in expiring stimulus funds. That extra $9 billion in cuts means that close to a million households will see their benefits slashed by about $90 a month—enough to pay for a week's worth of cheap groceries for a family of four.

Spy Chiefs

Senators grill spy chiefs, accuse them of lies

By Sean Cockerham

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/29/216283/senators-grill-spy-chiefs-accuse.html#storylink=cpy

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee lambasted the nation’s top intelligence chiefs on Wednesday, complaining of lies about gathering the phone records of Americans and failing to cooperate with Congress in an investigation of the CIA’s controversial interrogation programs.

Committee members grilled Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan at the first intelligence committee hearing since President Barack Obama proposed reforms to the spy program.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told them an ongoing “culture of misinformation” has undermined the public’s trust in America’s intelligence leadership.

“That trust has been seriously undermined by senior officials’ reckless reliance on secret interpretations of the law and battered by years of misleading and deceptive statements senior officials made to the American people,” Wyden said.

He said the deception didn’t help the fight against terror, but instead hid bad policy choices and violations of civil liberties. Wyden singled out Clapper’s testimony to Congress last March that the National Security Agency does not collect data on millions of Americans, an assertion proved false by leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Clapper has since apologized, suggesting he misspoke. But five members of Congress, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., called this week for the White House to fire Clapper for misleading Congress.

Clapper didn’t address the charges of deception Wednesday. But he told the Senate panel that Snowden’s leaks have damaged national security and exposed intelligence collection methods to terrorists.

“Snowden claims he’s won and that his mission is accomplished,” Clapper said. “If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed, in order to prevent even more damage to U.S. security.”

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Susan Collins of Maine agreed that Snowden’s disclosures put America at greater threat of attack, and they suggested the leaks could endanger members of the military.
“What really bothers me sometimes is these romanticized notions about who Edward Snowden is and what he’s done to this country,” Rubio said.

Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Mark Udall of Colorado criticized Brennan, the CIA chief. They said Brennan is failing to cooperate with the Intelligence Committee’s probe of the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program. It included secret prisons and techniques such as waterboarding often equated with torture.

“Recent efforts undertaken by the CIA, including but not limited to inaccurate public statements about the committee study, are meant to intimidate, deflect and thwart legitimate oversight,” said Heinrich.

Heinrich said the Senate Intelligence Committee should declassify and release the 6,300-page report it prepared on the program. The highly critical report alleges the CIA misled lawmakers about the value of the information produced by the interrogation technique.

The CIA has disputed the findings. But Brennan said Wednesday that he “vehemently disagrees” with the charge the CIA has not cooperated with the Senate probe.

Udall pressed Brennan on an internal report the CIA did of the program under former agency chief Leon Panetta. The findings weren’t given to the Senate committee as it investigated.

Brennan wouldn’t say if the CIA’s internal report conflicts with what the agency told the Senate Intelligence Committee. He suggested that discussion involved classified information and would need to happen behind closed doors.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/29/216283/senators-grill-spy-chiefs-accuse.html#storylink=cpy

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity and aluminum wheels

The team operating NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is considering a path across a small sand dune to reach a favorable route to science destinations.

A favorable route would skirt some terrain with sharp rocks considered more likely to poke holes in the rover's aluminum wheels.

While the team has been assessing ways to reduce wear and tear to the wheels, Curiosity has made progress toward a next site for drilling a rock sample and also toward its long-term destination: geological layers exposed on slopes of Mount Sharp. The rover has driven into a mapping quadrant that includes a candidate site for drilling. Meanwhile, testing on Earth is validating capabilities for drilling into rocks on slopes the rover will likely encounter on Mount Sharp.

Curiosity has driven 865 feet (264.7 meters) since Jan. 1, for a total odometry of 3.04 miles (4.89 kilometers) since its August 2012 landing.

Accumulation of punctures and rips in the wheels accelerated in the fourth quarter of 2013. Among the responses to that development, the team now drives the rover with added precautions, thoroughly checks the condition of Curiosity's wheels frequently, and is evaluating routes and driving methods that could avoid some wheel damage.

A dune about 3 feet (1 meter) high spans the gap between two scarps that might be a gateway to a southwestward route over relatively smooth ground. Curiosity is approaching the site, "Dingo Gap," from the southeast. The team is using images from the rover to assess whether to cross the dune.

"The decision hasn't been made yet, but it is prudent to go check," said Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., project manager for Curiosity. "We'll take a peek over the dune into the valley immediately to the west to see whether the terrain looks as good as the analysis of orbital images implies." The orbital images come from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Other routes have also been evaluated for getting Curiosity from the rover's current location to a candidate drilling site called "KMS-9." That site lies about half a mile (800 meters) away by straight line, but considerably farther by any of the driving routes assessed. Characteristics seen in orbital imagery of the site appeal to Curiosity's science team. "At KMS-9, we see three terrain types exposed and a relatively dust-free surface," said science team collaborator Katie Stack of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Before Curiosity's landing inside Gale Crater, the mission's science team used images from orbit to map terrain types in a grid of 140 square quadrants, each about 0.9 mile (1.5 kilometers) wide. Curiosity landed in the "Yellowknife" quadrant and subsequently crossed parts of quadrants called "Mawson" and "Coeymans." This month, it entered the "Kimberley" quadrant, home of KMS-9.

Stack said, "This area is appealing because we can see terrain units unlike any that Curiosity has visited so far. One unit has striations all oriented in a similar direction. Another is smooth, without striations. We don't know yet what they are. The big draw is exploration and seeing new things."

Science investigations have continued along with recent drives. One rock examined on Jan. 15, "Harrison," revealed linear crystals with feldspar-rich composition.

To prepare for destinations farther ahead, engineers are using a test rover at JPL to check the rover's ability to tolerate slight slippage on slopes while using its drill. With the drill bit in a rock, tests simulating slips of up to about 2 inches (5 centimeters) have not caused damage.

"These tests are building confidence for operations we are likely to use when Curiosity is on the slopes of Mount Sharp," said JPL's Daniel Limonadi, systems engineering leader for surface sampling with the rover's arm.

Other testing at JPL is evaluating possible driving techniques that might help reduce the rate of wheel punctures, such as driving backwards or using four-wheel drive instead of six-wheel drive. Some of the wheel damage may result from the force of rear wheels pushing middle or front wheels against sharp rocks, rather than simply the weight of the rover driving over the rocks.

"An analogy is when you are rolling your wheeled luggage over a curb, you can feel the difference between trying to push it over the curb or pull it over the curb," said JPL's Richard Rainen, mechanical engineering team leader for Curiosity.


While continuing to evaluate routes and driving techniques, Curiosity's team will add some weekend and evening shifts in February to enable planning more drives than would otherwise be possible.