Orion water test 2

By Linda Herridge

NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

For NASA’s new Orion spacecraft, part of getting ready for its first launch is getting ready for its first splashdown.

Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

After traveling 3,600 miles into space in December on the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1, Orion will return to Earth at a speed of 20,000 miles per hour and endure temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit before landing in the Pacific Ocean. For the team tasked with recovering it, that is where the work begins.

NASA and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin are teaming up with the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense's Human Space Flight Support Detachment 3 to test techniques for recovering Orion from the water during Underway Recovery Test (URT) 2, Aug. 1-4, off the coast of San Diego, California.

URT 2 will pick up where URT 1 left off. During that first underway recovery test in February, dynamic conditions caused activities to conclude before all of the test objectives were met. Since then, the team has been working on concepts that would allow them to safely recover Orion despite such conditions.

"During this test, the team will investigate alternative procedures and recovery methods," said Mike Generale, Orion Recovery Operations manager and Recovery Test director at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "One of the goals of the test is to have a primary and alternate means of recovering the Orion crew module for Exploration Flight Test-1 later this year."

The data gathered during Exploration Flight Test-1 will influence design decisions, validate existing computer models and innovative new approaches to space systems development, and reduce overall mission risks and costs for later Orion flights. The recovery of the vehicle is one of the things the flight will test, and the underway recovery tests prepare the combined NASA, Lockheed, and U.S. Navy team for the task.

For URT 2, the Orion test vehicle will be loaded into the well deck of the USS Anchorage (LPD 23), and the team will head out to sea, off the coast of San Diego, in search of sea conditions to support test needs. New support equipment developed for URT 2 will accompany the test vehicle.

New hardware includes an air bag system for the Crew Module Recovery Cradle and a load-distributing collar for placement around the crew module. The Prototype Laboratory at Kennedy designed a new device called the Line Load Attenuation Mechanical Assembly (LLAMA) that limits the tending-line forces for the Navy line handlers as Orion is guided into the ship's well deck.

Tending line snubbers, a kind of commercially available rubber shock absorbers sailors use for tending lines, also will be tested. In case the seas are too rough to secure the crew module in the recovery cradle and a contingency recovery is needed, a set of rubber bumpers were developed to provide a mat on the deck of the recovery ship for use. A lifting sling will be on hand for recovery by crane.

"Each of the new pieces of hardware will be evaluated for its relative merits, and the best solutions will be tested during URT 3 in September to discover the limits of their capabilities and suitability for Orion's Exploration Flight Test-1 in December," Generale said.


All of this testing ensures NASA can retrieve the Orion capsule safely because it helps the team understand how to adjust for various water conditions and contingency scenarios.

Fish death sentence

Delta tunnel plan called a fish death sentence by key group

Key environmental group issues scathing report on state's plan

Carolyn Jones

The state's plan to build a pair of 35-mile tunnels under the delta would cause the extinction of winter-run chinook salmon, steep declines in dozens of other species and devastate water quality in San Francisco Bay, an environmental group said Wednesday.

"This project would be a major step in the wrong direction," said Gary Bobker, policy analyst for the Bay Institute, which submitted its 250-page findings this week to the state Department of Water Resources as it updates its Bay Delta Conservation Plan. "Diverting more water from the delta is exactly what we need to stop doing if we're going to have a sustainable ecosystem."

The state's $25 billion plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta calls for two 40-foot-wide tunnels to carry water from the northern end of the delta to the pumps at the southern end. The purpose is to improve water flow throughout the 1,100-square-mile delta; reduce reliance on old, crumbling levees; and potentially increase water allocations to farms and consumers in Central and Southern California.

But, according to the Bay Institute and other environmental groups, the tunnels will leave northern parts of the delta saltier, warmer and with less water - a death sentence for migrating fish, they said. The tunnels would also alter the makeup of San Francisco Bay because less cold freshwater would reach the Golden Gate.

To make up for the loss of habitat, the plan calls for more than 50,000 acres of wetland restoration, including floodplain habitat for salmon near the Yolo Bypass.

But the new wetlands won't be enough to compensate for the change in water quality, Bobker said. The new wetlands may be a boon for birds, but the mostpressing need for salmon, sturgeon, longfin smelt and other fish is chilly water that flows from the Sierra snowpack to the Pacific, Bobker and his colleagues said.

'Circling the drain'

"These species are already circling the drain. They don't have 20 or 30 years for us to see what works," said Jon Rosenfield, a conservation biologist at the Bay Institute who also worked on the report. "All of the chinook salmon would be very much harmed by this. They'd all see declines."

A consultant working on the state's delta plan agreed Wednesday that the northern delta will be saltier, warmer and more stagnant in years to come. But that's largely due to climate change, not the tunnels, the consultant said.

In fact, the plan would improve conditions for salmon by reducing the number sucked into the pumps and providing better water circulation throughout the region, she said.

The impacts of climate change need to be addressed separately, she said. The Bureau of Reclamation, among other agencies, is looking at broader issues related to water supplies and global warming.

The delta plan is backed by Gov. Jerry Brown as well as dozens of water agencies, cities and farming groups, mostly in Southern California. They say it's critical to the state's economy to upgrade its aging water infrastructure and provide a more stable supply of water for farms and development in the central and southern parts of the state.

A few Bay Area groups are also in support, including the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which supplies San Jose and parts of Silicon Valley, and the Alameda County Water District, which serves Fremont, Newark and Union City.

They also view it as a solution to environmental problems, such as inadequate water circulation and the volume of fish that get sucked into the pumps.

Impacts called overblown

The Bay Institute's reading of the environmental impacts of the plan are overblown, said Nancy Vogel, spokeswoman for the Department of Water Resources. Water quality in San Francisco Bay would remain virtually unchanged, and salmon and other species should actually fare better than they do under the current conditions, she said.

"We wouldn't be doing this if it didn't benefit the salmon," she said. "And we've done extensive scientific analysis and concluded that the effects on San Francisco Bay would be minimal."

Dozens of environmental groups, water agencies and local governments filed responses to the delta plan's environmental impact report this week. The state will review the comments, update the report and eventually submit it to state and federal regulators who would issue the permits.

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance vehemently opposes the plan.

"This plan puts the estuary on a scaffold and the interests of south valley agriculture on a throne," said the group's director, Bill Jennings. "It's going to make the delta look like an Arkansas lake - warm water and no flow."

Longtime sport fisherman Doug Chance, a press operator from Antioch who was fishing from the Antioch pier Wednesday, said his cohorts from throughout Northern California are fighting the plan.

"The freshwater is already drying up. We used to catch catfish like crazy around here. Now we hardly ever see them," he said. "If they put these tunnels in, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if we started catching stingray and sharks up here. It's all messed up."

Death Toll Soars

Gaza Death Toll Soars As Israel Presses Offensive

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing international alarm over a rising civilian death toll in Gaza, said on Thursday he would not accept any ceasefire that stopped Israel completing the destruction of militants' infiltration tunnels.

The Israeli military estimated on Wednesday that accomplishing that task, already into its fourth week, would take several more days.

"We are determined to complete this mission, with or without a ceasefire," Netanyahu said in public remarks at a meeting of his full cabinet in Tel Aviv.

"I wont agree to any proposal that will not enable the Israeli military to finish this important task, for the sake of Israel's security."

Leaving open the option of widening a ground campaign in the Hamas Islamist-dominated Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said it had called up an additional 16,000 reservists. A military source said they would relieve a similar number of reserve soldiers being stood down.

Netanyahu's security cabinet on Wednesday approved continuing operations launched on July 8 in response to a surge of cross-border rocket attacks. Israel also sent a delegation to Egypt, which has been trying, with U.S. blessing, to broker a ceasefire.

Washington has also, however, allowed Israel to tap a local U.S. arms stockpile in the past few weeks to replenish its grenades and mortar rounds, a U.S. defense official said on Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who failed in a visit to the region last week to secure a ceasefire, voiced support for Israel's operations against the tunnels.

"No country can sit there and live with tunnels being dug under its border, out of which jump people who are carrying handcuffs and tranquilizer drugs in order to kidnap their citizens and hold them for ransom," Kerry said in an interview broadcast on Thursday by India's NDTV.

Gaza officials say at least 1,394 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the battered territory and nearly 7,000 wounded. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza clashes and more than 400 wounded. Three civilians have been killed by Palestinian shelling in Israel.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned on Wednesday the deaths of at least 15 Palestinians among thousands sheltering at a U.N.-run school. The United Nations said its initial assessment was that Israeli artillery shells hit the facility.

The United Nations' senior human rights official, Navi Pillay, said on Thursday that Israel has attacked homes, schools, hospitals, and U.N. premises in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Pillay said Israel's actions seemed to be in "deliberate defiance of obligations that international law imposes".

Israel said its forces were attacked by guerrillas near the school in northern Jabalya and had fired back. In another incident on Wednesday, 17 people were killed in nearby Shejaia by what Palestinian officials said was Israeli shelling of a produce market. The Israeli military said it was investigating.

"Such a massacre requires an earthquake-like response," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, whose group has kept up dozens of daily rocket launches deep into Israel. The Israelis have kept casualties from the salvoes low, using its Iron Dome air defense system to intercept them and air-raid sirens to send people to shelters.

In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, Israeli tank shells landed near another U.N.-run school and at least 30 people sheltering inside were wounded by shrapnel and shattered glass, witnesses and hospital officials said.

Rolling Israeli ground assaults on residential areas, preceded by mass warnings to evacuate, have displaced more than 200,000 of Gaza's 1.8 million Palestinians. The tiny territory's infrastructure is in ruins, with power and water outages.

Israel says it is trying to avoid civilian casualties and blames these on Hamas and other Palestinian factions dug in for urban combat.

Both sides have voiced openness to a truce, but their terms diverge dramatically. Israel wants Gaza stripped of infiltration tunnels and rocket stocks. Hamas rules that out, and seeks an end to a crippling Gaza blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt, which view the Palestinian Islamists as a security threat.

Major General Sami Turgeman, chief of Israeli forces in Gaza, said on Wednesday they were "but a few days away from destroying all the attack tunnels". The army said 32 of the secret passages had been found so far and half of them blown up.

Diplomacy to end the Gaza conflict is further complicated by the fact Israel and the United States shun Hamas as a terrorist group, while the go-betweens - Egypt, Qatar and Turkey - disagree on Gaza policy.

TUNNEL HUNT

In the absence of a deal, Israel has ordered its ground forces to focus on locating and destroying a warren of tunnels through which Hamas has menaced its southern towns and army bases.

"Progress has been satisfactory, and we are completing our treatment of the terror tunnels," Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Thursday. "During the fighting, soldiers are finding new tunnel shafts, and they are also being neutralized."

Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday by a booby trap detonated as they uncovered a tunnel shaft, the army said. Military losses are more than five times those from the last Gaza ground war, in 2008-2009, but Israeli opinion polls show strong public support for fighting on until Hamas is quelled.

Netanyahu faces intense pressure from abroad to stand his forces down. The United States and the U.N. Security Council have urged an immediate, unconditional ceasefire by both sides in Gaza to allow in humanitarian relief and for further talks on a more durable cessation of hostilities.

On Wednesday, the White House voiced worry at the deaths in Jabalya and other U.N.-run shelters shelled during the clashes.

"We are extremely concerned that thousands of internally displaced Palestinians who have been called on by the Israeli military to evacuate their homes are not safe in U.N.-designated shelters in Gaza," said National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.

"We also condemn those responsible for hiding weapons in United Nations facilities in Gaza," she said, referring to three cases in which the UNRWA aid agency reported rockets found at its schools.

Israel briefly observed a July 15 ceasefire proposed by Egypt, but Hamas continued attacks, saying its conditions had been ignored. Egyptian officials say they put together a revised truce plan this week that had been provisionally accepted by Israel, though Hamas was still undecided. 

Occupation

The Republican Occupation of Detroit

By Sally Kohn

It took him two tries, thwarting his state’s voters’ will, but Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder got his wish—a major city that is dead politically.

Detroit is no longer a city. Sure, it looks like a city. But that’s a façade. The oldest city in the Midwest—home of the first traffic light in America and the first urban freeway, the birthplace of Motown and the automobile and the ice cream soda—is now a ghost. Detroit, the place, is recovering—even thriving in some ways. But Detroit, the political entity, is dead.

In 2011, Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed into law Public Act 4, which gave the state the power to place cash-strapped cities and school districts under the control of state-appointed emergency managers. In 2012, Michigan voters overturned that law. But in 2013, Snyder signed a barely revised version of the emergency manager law—and then used it to take over Detroit.

So in the fall of 2013, Detroit voters went to the polls to elect a new mayor and City Council, but it didn’t matter. The powers of the mayor and City Council have effectively been suspended. Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, appointed by Snyder, has all the power and then some. A Democratic city that elected Democratic leaders is now controlled by the appointee of a Republican governor.

Or, to put it differently, Detroit—a majority African-American city—is now controlled by a governor elected by a majority of white voters in the state. It really doesn’t matter that Kevyn Orr, the state-appointed emergency manager, is black, nor that Mike Duggan, Detroit’s mayor, is white. What matters is that half of the state’s black population lives in Detroit. So through the state takeover, “half of black Michiganders have essentially lost the right to vote,” says Ife Kilimanjaro, co-director of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council.

Within this context, the water shut-offs in Detroit are more than just a human rights crisis but an existential one as well, with the state now literally shutting off the means of survival for hundreds of thousands of people in Detroit. And whether the temporary moratorium on shut-offs continues or not, the reality is that the crackdown on water bills is part of a master plan to shore up the finances of Detroit’s water and sewage department for privatization.

Why would any city want to privatize its water system? A report by Corporate Accountability International (CAI) shows that water privatization fairly universally leads to higher prices for cities and consumers and, in many cases, decreased efficiencies. In fact, the track record for water privatization is so abysmal that CAI found more than 20 American cities that had once privatized their water have taken back control of their systems since 2002. If water privatization is bad for the city of Detroit and its residents, who is it good for? Corporations. Which is where the state’s interest comes in.

Gov. Snyder has used his emergency management laws, versions one and two, to impose his conservative agenda across the state, including privatization. As Ned Resnikoff writes:

City agencies and entire school districts have been outsourced or privatized; public employees have been laid off in droves; municipalities have sold off vast swaths of public land; and city employee unions have seen their contracts whittled down to nothing. All of this was accomplished in the space of three and a half years. Michigan’s Emergency Manager system is what made it possible.

Snyder isn’t just using the emergency management excuse to take over democracy in Detroit and other communities. He’s also seizing their resources. Yet another example is Belle Isle, a gorgeous 982-acre gem floating in the Detroit River. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Belle Isle was the largest city-owned park in the United States—until this past October, when Orr and Snyder signed a deal to lease Belle Isle to the state until the year 2043. The Detroit City Council voted to reject the deal. Snyder and Orr went ahead anyway, under the authority of the emergency management law. Now attendance at the park is down and state policing— and allegations of harassment of Detroit residents — is up. Meanwhile the state is phasing in a fee for visitors to the island.

“There's nothing wrong with the city operating its own asset. Belle Isle is a significant treasure,” said Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson. Which raises the question in all of this — broke as it might be, Detroit still needs things like water and other public services. Private companies or the state can take them over, but that won’t change the bottom line unless these new overseers find a way to squeeze out more profit — for instance, jacking up rates or further cutting services. That’s simple math. The state, and its corporate beneficiaries, want to take over Detroit’s assets so they can bleed the people of Detroit for more profits. And there’s nothing the people of Detroit can do to stop it.

In the early 1900s, African Americans moved to Detroit to escape the inequality and injustice that persisted in the South. Much of the Detroit as we celebrate it in our national lore sprang from black political self-determination, economic leadership, and cultural expression. Plenty of dynamics conspired to dismantle Detroit’s greatness. But even bankrupt, struggling, falling apart, Detroit could still cling to its identity as a city—whatever price that meant in the past, whatever hope it held for the future. Now because of Snyder, even that is gone.

Conservatives hate

Why are conservatives afraid of Neil deGrasse Tyson?

By Matthew Fleischer

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has been the recipient of a seemingly bizarre political backlash — after the conservative magazine National Review penned a takedown cover story on the “Cosmos” host last week depicting him as a smug, intellectual bully.

The story struck many as odd given Tyson’s gentle, geeky presentation style. Comedian Bill Maher had Tyson on his HBO show over the weekend, trying to make sense of the backlash.

“You’re a scientist, and a black one, who’s smarter than [conservatives] are,” Maher quipped.

The line got laughs, but it’s worth remembering that Tyson served the George W. Bush administration as a member of the Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond in 2004. Conservatives have no problem harnessing Tyson’s intellect.

No, the danger Tyson brings to the political structure, as he gains an increasingly large foothold in the popular culture, is the threat of an informed populace.

“When you’re scientifically literate, the world looks different to you,” Tyson wrote in 2011. “It’s a particular way of questioning what you see and hear. When empowered by this state of mind, objective realities matter. These are the truths of the world that exist outside of whatever your belief system tells you.”

That may not sound radical, but the promise of a large, nerdy, young voting block that subscribes to Tyson’s sentiment is a threat to the political status quo — certainly Republicans, but Democrats as well.

Imagine if millions of young Tyson fans stopped searching for facts to confirm their personal biases, or ceased prioritizing using their education to leverage personal wealth, and instead sought the most sound solutions to identifiable problems for the betterment of the species. If the rising generation of young voters actually starts demanding rational, evidence-guided leadership, few in our current crop of elected officials would survive the political fallout.

Consider this: In 1995, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment — a nonpartisan panel of scientists and researchers assembled to offer objective technical guidance to Congress on scientifically complex issues — was stripped of all funding, effectively shutting it down. (Officially, it still exists on paper.) It has remained unfunded ever since. (Thanks, Newt Gingrich.) An attempt in May to provide a paltry $2.5 million to the office was stymied by House Republicans.

In a world where advanced technology has infiltrated nearly every corner of our lives — raising a litany of technical, ethical and legal challenges — our government is willfully scientifically illiterate.

The reason this status quo has been allowed to persist is that the general population isn’t much better. Conservatives continue to fight any attempts to combat climate change, while many liberals are refusing to vaccinate their children over fears of a nonexistent link to autism. It wouldn’t be hard to predict a liberal backlash against Tyson, similar to the one we’re seeing from conservatives, if he were to speak more prominently about his endorsement of genetically modified foods — one of the more scientifically unfounded banner arguments of the left.

Tyson is a threat to this cone of ignorance and self-interest. He’s a champion of knowledge and the human potential. He brings the fundamental belief that our species is destined for something greater than the interminable squabble between self-interested individuals and rival nations and dwindling resources — that our collective efforts can be applied to the pursuit of knowledge, ultimately paving the way for our exploration of the galaxy.

That’s a vision people can get behind. It’s also one that could potentially upend everything we know.

Next Court fight on birth control

This is the next one..

By Irin Carmon

Laura Grieneisen and Liz Miller have a lot in common. Both are graduate students in biology at the University of Notre Dame, where they share an office, a lab, and a research focus. Their work on bacteria in baboons takes them to Kenya for months on end.

Each wants to prevent pregnancy. Each was told by her doctor that her long stretches in the field would make her an excellent candidate for an intrauterine device, or the IUD.

That’s where their paths diverged.

Grieneisen was able to stay on her parents’ plan under the Affordable Care Act through age 26, so she got her IUD at no extra charge, just before turning 27 in July.

But Miller is 29, and gets her health care through the university. Her on-campus doctor was barred from even prescribing the IUD, she said, because of Notre Dame’s adherence to Catholic teaching against contraception. The doctor sent her off-campus for the prescription, but even then, Notre Dame’s insurance wouldn’t cover it.

The Obama administration has a plan in place to cover women like Miller, who want access to effective but expensive forms of contraception like the IUD but who are insured through institutions that oppose it. The so-called “accommodation” allows religiously-affiliated non-profits like Notre Dame to sign a form certifying their objection, after which the insurer will directly cover the cost of the contraception.

But in what promises to be the next big birth control fight after Hobby Lobby, that accommodation hasn’t satisfied Notre Dame – or over 100 other non-profit institutions suing the administration. They claim that signing the opt-out form also violates their religious liberty, because eventually, contraception is dispensed.
On July 3, a majority of Supreme Court justices apparently took that argument seriously, telling evangelical Wheaton College, one of the plaintiffs suing the government, that it didn’t have to sign the disputed opt-out form while the lawsuit proceeded. That infuriated the female justices, who pointed out that days earlier, in the Hobby Lobby decision, the majority had called that accommodation “a system that seeks to respect the religious liberty of religious nonprofit corporations while ensuring that the employees of these entities have precisely the same access to all FDA-approved contraceptives as employees of companies whose owners have no religious objections to providing such coverage.”

The Hobby Lobby decision found that closely held companies with sincere religious beliefs could refuse to comply with the ACA’s contraception requirement. The majority relied on the existence of the accommodation as proof the government had other ways to provide contraception that didn’t, in their view, burden the companies’ religious liberty.

The ultimate question of the opt-out form won’t be settled until the Supreme Court gives it a proper hearing on the merits. For now, Miller is out of luck. The Notre Dame-affiliated insurance company refused to cover an IUD or its insertion, which together cost at least a thousand dollars.

“That’s over half my monthly salary,” said Miller.

Both Miller and Grieneisen chose Notre Dame to conduct advanced research with world class professors in their field. But the fight over birth control has disillusioned them, and they’ve begun warning prospective students about the lack of contraceptive coverage.

Miller is now struggling to get a three-month hormonal pill supply before she goes in the field next month. To even get a prescription for the pill, Miller had to fudge the truth and say she needed it for medical reasons, not birth control.

“I think it’s a really sad situation,” Miller said, “when I have to lie to my doctor about what I need a medication for.”

All the religious non-profits suing over the contraceptive accommodation face the same conflict: Their fidelity to what they see as a religious mission and what they may owe their community members who don’t share that mission. And then there’s what the Obama administration wants: That under the ACA, every insured woman get access to effective, appropriate contraception without additional costs or hurdles.

Notre Dame isn’t just the most prominent of the litigants; it’s also the one most visibly torn between those competing camps.

“I understand that Notre Dame is a Catholic institution and that birth control is not part of their Catholic beliefs, but not all the people who work for them are Catholic, and they don’t share the same beliefs,” said Kayla O’Connor, a rising junior at the university.

“There’s this mentality that Notre Dame students aren’t having sex,” added O’Connor, who is also a peer educator in the Gender Relations Center. “And that’s not true. It’s a total lie. I think because there isn’t easy access to contraceptives, they aren’t having safe sex.”

The tug-of-war at Notre Dame has gone all the way to the top, to its board of trustees and its president, The Rev. John I. Jenkins, who worked with the Obama administration on creating the accommodation but is now suing over it.

The board includes Stephen J. Brogan, a managing partner at the global law firm Jones Day, which is representing Notre Dame and the other non-profits pro bono in the contraception lawsuits. And it includes Katie Washington, class of 2010 and Notre Dame’s first black valedictorian, who co-authored an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun with fellow medical students at Johns Hopkins University supporting the contraceptive coverage in the Affordable Care Act.

“We strongly disagree with any employer — religious or otherwise — that would refuse to provide full insurance coverage, including contraception, for its employees,” the authors, including Washington, wrote.
“As physicians in training, we see contraception as an essential component of effective primary care, not as a political line item in Washington or the Vatican.”

Washington’s presence on the Notre Dame board and her outspoken public stand on contraception has enraged the Sycamore Trust, a conservative alumni group that has taken on the mission of “protecting Notre Dame’s Catholic identity,” according to its website. The Sycamore Trust has called for Washington’s ouster from the board, along with over 1600 people, who identify as “alumni, spouses, parents, students, and friends of Notre Dame” who signed their petition. (There is a smaller counter-petition asking the university to “maintain diverse viewpoints.)

Washington’s board membership has “handed the government a loaded gun in its lawsuit,” by undermining the university’s commitment to Catholic teaching on contraception, the Sycamore Trust’s chair, Bill Dempsey, said.

“Why she would be appointed is a mystery to me,” Dempsey told msnbc, adding that if Notre Dame hadn’t known about the op-ed, “they didn’t do any vetting at all. If you just plug in ‘Katie Washington and contraception’ into Google, that just comes up.”

In 2011, another Notre Dame board member resigned after the Sycamore Trust drew attention to her donations to EMILY’s List, a group that elects pro-choice Democratic women.

Washington declined to comment, but Paul Browne, a spokesman for Notre Dame, defended the university’s decision to keep her on the board.

“We knew Katie Washington was a signatory to the letter in the Baltimore Sun before she was asked to serve on the board,” Browne said. “Like other dedicated trustees, Ms. Washington is not Catholic and does not necessarily adhere to all of church teachings. She is an outstanding young woman, a devoted alumna and an outstanding addition to the board to the three-year term reserved for young alumni.”

Strangely enough, Notre Dame actually signed the opt-out form after it lost the first rounds of its litigation over the accommodation. Had it refused to do so, it would have faced hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. But in a mind-bending twist, the university is now asking the courts to prevent it from signing a form it already signed.

Notre Dame was present at the creation of that very opt-out form. When the birth control accommodation was first announced in the wake of an outcry from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, President Jenkins called the compromise a “welcome step toward recognizing the freedom of religious institutions.” But when that statement ended up on the White House’s website alongside Planned Parenthood’s, the university asked for it to be taken down. And then Jenkins decided to file suit over it.

“It was a tough decision,” Jenkins told the National Catholic Reporter. “Many people in the [Obama] administration worked with us. In the end, I wasn’t comfortable with where it placed Notre Dame.”

Jenkins had already enraged the more conservative members of the Notre Dame community for welcoming Obama to campus as a commencement speaker in 2009. Obama’s appearance and honorary degree are listed as a grievance by the Sycamore Trust, along with “other unsettling events as The Vagina Monologues and The Queer Film Festival.”

The group also points to the hiring non-Catholic faculty as a dilution of the university’s identity. “It’s been the ambition to improve their reputation among the academic elite, and boost their US News ranking,” Dempsey told msnbc.

But there are also those on campus who believe that offering contraceptive coverage doesn’t violate broader Catholic principles, and that respecting the different choices of community members is consistent with those principles.

“We should ask not just, ‘what are my beliefs?’” said Cathleen Kaveny, a Catholic legal scholar at Boston College who until January taught at Notre Dame’s Law School, “but also, what do I owe the sincerely-held religious beliefs of others in network with me?”

On a February morning in Chicago, two out of three federal judges on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals hearing Notre Dame plead its case against signing the form were fast losing their patience.

“I don’t understand you,” Judge Richard Posner said testily. “You’ve got to claim the exemption…. So you have to notify the government. That’s the minimum.”

Arguing before the panel was attorney Matthew Kairis, a former Notre Dame football player and now a partner at the Jones Day firm.

Each time Kairis attempted to explain the university’s position – that the form would trigger contraceptive coverage, in violation of the university’s religious beliefs – Posner, a Reagan appointee, became more furious. He told Kairis to “stop fencing,” and to “stop babbling.”

Even the more even-keeled Judge David Hamilton, an Obama appointee, was perplexed.

“Until the last few weeks of this litigation propping up all over the country,” said Hamilton, “I can’t remember any other situation in which the accommodation itself was said to be a burden on free exercise. Can you point me to any other example in our legal history?”

Kairis could not.

Notre Dame had fared no better at the district court, where Judge Philip P. Simon had denied them their preliminary injunction, as the Seventh Circuit eventually would too.

“Notre Dame wants to eat its cake, and have it still, at the expense of Congress, administrative agencies, and the employees who will be affected,” Simon wrote in his decision.

He also noted that the university had dragged its heels for months before suing – after actually notifying its students they would be eligible for birth control through the accommodation – and then raced to demand an emergency injunction.

“Notre Dame has in many ways created its own emergency, and I am left to wonder why,” Simon wrote.
The Sycamore Trust also wondered, and it bemoaned Notre Dame’s trajectory.

“At the moment we have the depressing scenario of Notre Dame’s exciting vault into a leadership role in the Church’s defense of religious liberty followed by a disheartening and puzzling retreat, then a brief revival, and finally an unexplained decision that the university had said would be scandalous and collide with its religious beliefs,” the group wrote in a January bulletin.

That “unexplained decision” was to sign the opt-out form, since no court would give Notre Dame an injunction.

“We’re complying under protest,” Jenkins told dismayed community members at the time, according to a campus paper. He added, “Our complicity is not an evil so grave that we would compromise our conscience by going along….I don’t see this as a scandal because we are not giving out contraceptives.”

Jenkins’s decision alarmed the lawsuit’s champions, including some faculty members. They wondered whether forcing an even greater confrontation with the government would cause the Obama administration to back down entirely.

“Personally,” said Dempsey, “I think they should not have complied. It would have shown everybody, the courts and the Congress, how important this religious liberty issue was.”

Meanwhile, Notre Dame students are navigating a campus where Catholic positions on contraception and non-procreative sex officially prevail, even if that isn’t always borne out by their own realities.

“Just the availability in general of birth control on campus was atrocious, to be honest,” said Suzi Spitzer, a 2013 Notre Dame graduate. “You could look up and down all over the campus and you couldn’t find a box of condoms anywhere. I found that to be irresponsible, honestly, of the institution. I know a lot of people just didn’t use birth control.”

Even students who use birth control pills for non-contraceptive purposes say they have been stigmatized. Lindsay Marugg, then a Notre Dame senior, wrote in 2012 that she went on the pill after rupturing two ovarian cysts. “Even though I had chosen to wait until marriage to have sex, my birth control prescription earned me judgment from friends and nurses on campus,” Marugg wrote in the campus paper – to the point that, she wrote, she stopped taking the pills.

The environment is such that the three students who intervened in the university’s lawsuit on behalf of contraceptive coverage are identified only as Jane Does in court filings.

Gregory M. Lipper, senior litigation counsel at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is representing the students, said they wanted to remain anonymous partly because of “the general backlash we’ve seen affect all sorts of people who have spoken out,” including Sandra Fluke. “Students in a university,” Lipper added, “are in an especially vulnerable position.”

Others have chosen to publicly oppose Notre Dame’s lawsuit. “The university’s policies do not treat men and women as equally capable and trustworthy moral agents, and the university is going to court to defend that disparity,” Kathryn Pogin and Benjamin C. Rossi, both graduate students, wrote in a public letter to Jenkins in August 2012, objecting to the lawsuit.

In an interview, Pogin said of the university’s case, “It’s very difficult for me to make sense of claims that your religion is being burdened by someone else providing services that you don’t want to.”

Notre Dame’s interpretation of the contraception accommodation is not universal among Catholic universities. The University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, also Catholic, covers contraception and isn’t alone.
Others, such as Georgetown University – where Fluke was enrolled as a law student when she publicly spoke out about harm caused by the gaps in coverage – have signed the accommodation form that Notre Dame and others are suing over.

Nor has Notre Dame as an institution always stood strong against contraception. As Bridgette Dunlap, a lawyer who has written extensively on the Catholic institutions’ lawsuits, pointed out, the university was “for it before they were against it.” She noted that throughout the 1960s, Notre Dame held “Conferences on Population” that recommended government-funded family planning programs.

A group of Notre Dame scholars, including the head of the theology department, issued a statement in 1965 declaring that “in matters of public policy within a morally pluralistic society, Catholics, while rendering witness to their beliefs, need not for reasons of private morality oppose governmental programs of assistance in family limitation.”

Nonetheless, Notre Dame’s lawsuit appears to have the highest-placed champion of all: Pope Francis.

In January, the pope spoke to a delegation from Notre Dame, in remarks that were widely interpreted to refer to the contraceptive lawsuits. He stressed “the uncompromising witness of Catholic universities to the Church’s moral teaching, and the defense of her freedom, precisely in and through her institution,” and noted his “hope that the University of Notre Dame will continue to offer unambiguous testimony to this aspect of its foundational Catholic identity, especially in the face of efforts, from whatever quarter, to dilute that indispensable witness.”

In late July, the Obama administration said it would come up with an accommodation to the accommodation, presumably to cover members of those institutions that refuse to sign the opt-out form. But the outcry over the opt-out form raises the question of just what kind of compromise, short of no coverage of contraception at all, would suffice.

Said Browne, Notre Dame’s spokesman, “We are steadfastly pursuing the case.”

Oil refinery threatened by sea-level rise

Oil refinery threatened by sea-level rise, asks government to fix problem

By Ben Adler

I pointed out last week that the major oil companies are actually much more willing than Republican politicians to admit the reality of climate change. I offered a few explanations as to why, but left out an important one: If you’re in business, you simply cannot afford to ignore the effects of climate change. The oil industry in particular builds expensive infrastructure, and its scientists and engineers use the best available science to design, situate, and manage that infrastructure. After all, you cannot make smart plans to exploit newly accessible Arctic oil if you don’t admit that the polar ice cap is melting.

Here’s an ironic case in point, via the Sierra Club’s blog: An oil refinery in Delaware is asking taxpayers to pay for protecting it from rising sea levels. The refinery is on the waterfront, and rising tides and extreme storms could threaten it. The federal Coastal Zone Management Act provides grants to states for projects such as building out natural barriers, like dunes, to protect against storm surges. Delaware has such a program in place. And now the oil refinery, after contributing to climate change for more than 50 years , is coming with its hand out. Amy Roe, conservation chair of the Sierra Club’s Delaware chapter, writes:

In Delaware, severe storms are eroding the shoreline and affecting homes and businesses up and down the coast — including the business of an oil refinery. The functioning of the Delaware City Refining Company property just south of New Castle, a division of PBF Energy, is threatened by increasing extreme weather. In other words, climate disruption is hitting the doorstep of its source. 

The refinery has tried to get help, submitting an application with the Coastal Zone Management Act seeking shoreline protections due to “tidal encroachment” — which is one way of saying sea level rise. 

“The extent of the shoreline erosion has reached a point where facility infrastructure is at risk,” says the permit application from the company.

Roe goes on to argue that this facility is a particularly bad actor even by the standards of oil refineries since it is refining dirty tar sands oil. Moreover, its proposal could direct more storm surges toward Delaware City, the adjacent town.

Delaware City Refining Company and PBF did not respond to my messages requesting comment. But give credit where it’s due: What they lack in shame, they make up for in chutzpah. And at least they aren’t denying climate science!

Emergency border bill

Emergency border bill advances in the Senate

By Ramsey Cox

The Senate voted 63-33 to advance an emergency spending bill that would provide $2.7 billion in funding for the crisis at the border.

More than 10 Republicans joined Democrats in voting to end debate on the motion to proceed to the bill. Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), who are up for reelection in November, voted against proceeding to the bill.

The border bill includes $615 million in emergency funding to combat wildfires in the west and $225 million for Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense system, bringing the total cost of the legislation to more than $3.5 billion.

The House is moving forward with a rival border bill that would provide $659 million, with most of the money going toward border security rather than assistance for the detained children.

The House bill also contains changes to a 2008 immigration law that Democrats have rejected, raising the strong possibility that Congress could break for the August recess with the border funding up in the air.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he wants to provide funding to federal agencies before the August recess lest they run out of funds to provide legal services, housing and food to the children in detention.

The White House originally asked for $3.7 billion in funding, but the bill provides funding only for this year.
Republicans balked at that level of funding and accused Obama of asking for a “blank check” that fails to address the root causes of the immigration surge.

Senate Republicans have introduced several bills that they want to offer as amendments to the border measure.

Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) bill would amend a 2008 human trafficking law so that the children from Central America cannot seek refugee status. He said his bill would also allow their asylum hearings to be expedited so that they can be quickly deported.

"People are losing their lives," Cornyn said Wednesday. "It is the opposite of compassion to allow this loophole to exist."

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) bill includes similar language to Cornyn’s, but also bans the administration from spending money on its deferred action program. President Obama has issued an executive order to defer the deportation of “dreamers” — immigrant children who were brought to the United States by their parents illegally prior to 2007. Cruz has said he wants all of those children deported immediately.

With the parties divided over policy changes, congressional leaders have sought to gain the upper hand on the border issue before the recess.

Reid said Tuesday that he could use the House bill as a vehicle for the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill that passed last year. The House has refused to vote on that Senate-passed measure.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Reid was trying to tank the House bill.

Waste of time and money

Wisconsin Voter 

By Amie Parnes

President Obama asked Republicans to stop “hating” and “being mad all the time” during a Wednesday speech in Kansas City, Mo., focused on the economy.

The president accused GOP lawmakers of needlessly suing him, instead of doing their jobs. He said they should be more focused on the economy.

“They have not been that helpful,” Obama told a crowd in a local theater. “They have not been as constructive as I would have hoped and these actions come with a cost.”

The House is set to vote later on Wednesday on legislation authorizing a lawsuit against Obama over his use of executive actions, particularly to delay ObamaCare’s employer health insurance mandate.

Obama highlighted the administration's successes in boosting the economy, saying that his administration caused the bounce-back reflected in statistics released Wednesday that showed 4 percent growth in the second quarter.

He noted that the 6.1 percent unemployment rate is the lowest since September of 2008. But he blamed Republicans for preventing him for doing more for every day Americans.

“We could do so much more if Congress would come on and help out a little bit,” he added. “Stop being mad all the time. Stop. Stop just hating all the time. C'mon … I know they're not happy that I'm president but that's okay. I got a couple of years left. C'mon … then you can be mad at the next president.”

The president slapped the GOP for the lawsuit. “Instead of suing me for doing my job, I want Congress to do its job.”

Republicans have criticized the administration for holding back the economic recovery, and have ripped the White House for not backing any GOP jobs bills.

But Obama used his speech on Wednesday mostly to highlight the progress that has been made to keep the economy on the upswing during his administration. He pointed to the uptick in construction and manufacturing and even affordable healthcare.

It is a message Obama will likely continue to tout as a legacy item, White House aides say, should the economy continue to improve.

“We have fought back,” Obama said. “We have dusted ourselves off. … None of this is an accident. It's thanks to the decisions we made early on.”

Wisconsin Voters

Justice Dept. Files in Ohio, Wisconsin Voter Cases

By ERIC TUCKER

The Justice Department on Wednesday sided with challengers of voting laws in Wisconsin and Ohio, saying in court filings that measures in those states unfairly affect minority voters.

The department criticized a Wisconsin law that requires voters to present photo identification at the polls and an Ohio law that limits when voters can cast an early ballot. The court papers from the federal government are aimed at persuading judges that the laws, which are being challenged in court, are discriminatory and block access to the ballot box.

"These filings are necessary to confront the pernicious measures in Wisconsin and Ohio that would impose significant barriers to the most basic right of our democracy," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement, calling the laws the "latest, misguided attempts to fix a system that isn't broken."

The Justice Department has warned of legal actions against states after the Supreme Court last year wiped out the most powerful provision of the Voting Rights Act. That provision required select states with a history of discrimination in voting — mainly in the South — to receive Washington's approval before changing the way they hold elections.

Last year, the department sued Texas and North Carolina over measures in those states. But the government didn't use that approach in either Ohio or Wisconsin, instead submitting court filings joining with challengers who want the measures declared invalid. The court cases involve a section of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race.

The Wisconsin statute, signed into law in 2011 by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, was struck down in April by a federal judge as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. The case is now on appeal with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Justice Department on Wednesday submitted a brief calling the statute unlawful and arguing that its photo ID requirements unfairly burden minorities.

The state Supreme Court was expected to rule Thursday on a separate challenge to the law. For the law to take effect, Wisconsin officials would have to win in both state and federal courts.

Republican backers had argued that requiring voters to show ID would cut down on voter fraud and boost public confidence in the integrity of the election process. But opponents said concerns over voter fraud were overblown and not documented and the true intent of the law was to cut down on turnout among minorities and others more likely to vote Democratic.

The Justice Department brief in Ohio comes in a federal lawsuit filed in May by the state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, predominantly black churches and other groups including the Ohio Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The lawsuit specifically challenges two recent changes to the state's early voting rules. One is a directive from Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted that set uniform, early voting times that included limits on weekend and evening hours. The other is to a bill passed this year by the GOP-led General Assembly that shortens the period by six days when voters can cast an early ballot. Instead of 35 days, the early voting window would be 29. The law eliminates the days in which people could both register to vote and cast a ballot at the same time.

The groups argue that recent cuts to when early voting can take place will make it difficult for tens of thousands of residents to vote and will unfairly affect black voters, who, the groups say, are more likely to use weekend and evening hours to vote early in elections.

Husted and his fellow Republicans who dominate the Legislature in the key swing state have stressed that residents still have plenty of time to vote. They argue the changes help achieve fairness and consistency across the state's 88 counties and benefit boards of elections. 

Uninsured Now?

Where are California's Uninsured Now? Wave 2 of the Kaiser Family Foundation California Longitudinal Panel Survey

By Bianca DiJulio and Jamie Firth and Larry Levitt and Gary Claxton and Rachel Garfield and Mollyann Brodie

Last summer, just before the first open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) conducted a baseline survey of California’s uninsured nonelderly adult population. After the open enrollment period came to a close, we conducted a second survey with the same group of individuals who participated in the baseline (a longitudinal-panel survey) to find out whether they obtained coverage or remained uninsured and to explore the coverage choices people made, their experiences with open enrollment and their new insurance. Additional waves of the panel survey over the next two years will continue to track this same group of individuals to capture their changing attitudes and experiences. The surveys are designed and analyzed by researchers at KFF and the fieldwork costs associated with Wave 2 of the survey were paid for by The California Endowment.

California was an early adopter of the ACA and has been a leader in enrolling eligible residents in coverage through the two main avenues for expanding coverage under the law – Medi-Cal, the state Medicaid program, and Covered California, the new state marketplace where people can shop for insurance and access government subsidies to help pay for coverage.

This longitudinal panel study allows us to follow a large group of randomly selected uninsured Californians and assess how their insurance status changes over time to learn more about why or why not those changes occurred, and what gaining health insurance means for their daily lives without having to rely on respondents ability to report and recall details from months or years ago. By tracking a scientifically representative panel, we can quantify how widespread or limited certain problems or changes that may have been reported anecdotally actually were. Statistically representative narratives and stories from individual’s actual experiences can then be drawn from the sample to illuminate more accurately how the uninsured fare as the law is implemented in California.

Key Findings

Of those Californians who were uninsured prior to open enrollment, 58 percent now report having health insurance, which translates to about 3.4 million previously uninsured adult Californians who have gained coverage, and 42 percent say they remain uninsured.¹ The most common source of coverage was Medi-Cal with 25 percent of previously uninsured Californians reporting they are now covered by Medi-Cal. An additional 9 percent of California’s previously uninsured say they enrolled in a plan through Covered California, resulting in about a third reporting new coverage from the two sources most directly tied to the ACA. Twelve percent say they obtained coverage through an employer and 5 percent report enrolling in non-group plans outside of the Covered California Marketplace; some enrollment in these types of coverage may have been motivated by the ACA’s requirement to purchase insurance and some may be the result of normal movement within the marketplace.

Fifty-two percent of Hispanics who were previously uninsured report enrolling in coverage, a share that rises to 61 percent of Hispanics after excluding those who are likely to be ineligible for financial assistance through Covered California or Medi-Cal due to their immigration status.² And, over half of young adults age 19 to 34 (58 percent), those earning 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL) or less (54 percent), those earning greater than 138% and up to 400% FPL (61 percent),³ and those reporting fair or poor health (53 percent) report getting coverage since last summer. Outreach played a role in getting people covered — 69 percent of California’s previously uninsured who said they were contacted about signing up for health insurance since October 1st say they obtained coverage, compared to 52 percent of those that say they weren’t contacted.

Overall, after controlling for a number of demographic factors, the remaining uninsured are more likely to be male, undocumented immigrants, or people who have never had insurance, while those who are newly insured are more likely to be married, have been uninsured for less than two years, have a debilitating chronic condition or report being contacted about signing up for coverage.

California’s Newly Insured

• A majority of the newly insured say their plan is a good value for the amount they pay (73 percent) and report feeling well protected by their plan (64 percent). More newly insured report that gaining coverage has made them feel more financially secure than less (37 percent vs. 16 percent), but nearly half (46 percent) of those newly insured in plans other than through Medi-Cal say that paying for coverage is difficult.

• Getting coverage went smoothly for many newly insured, the majority of whom said it was easy to find the information they needed about enrolling (80 percent) and to sign up for coverage (76 percent). Six in 10 (60 percent) of those with coverage through Medi-Cal or Covered California say they had someone help them enroll.

• Among the newly insured, just over 4 in 10 (43 percent) say they visited the website during the open enrollment period, and the majority of them found their visit at least somewhat helpful. And, for those who ultimately enrolled in a Covered California plan, 72 percent say they visited the website, including just over half who say they found it helpful (55 percent).

• But some enrolling in Medi-Cal or Covered California report experiencing problems in confirming enrollment (29 percent and 42 percent, respectively) or determining if their income qualified them for Medi-Cal (19 percent) or financial assistance through Covered California (26 percent). Once enrolled, most newly insured report positive experiences with their plan so far (75 percent) and 43 percent say they have already visited a doctor or health provider.

• The newly insured are split on whether they attribute their new coverage to the ACA or not – 45 percent say they got insurance because of the law and 52 percent aren’t directly attributing their new coverage to the ACA and say it’s something they would have done anyway. But, looking at the two types of coverage that are most directly related to coverage expansions under the ACA, 60 percent of the newly insured (or 34 percent of previously uninsured Californians overall) say they enrolled in Medi-Cal or through Covered California.

• Most newly insured Hispanics say shopping was relatively easy. For those newly insured Hispanics who prefer to communicate in Spanish, nearly 9 in 10 (87 percent) say it was easy to find information in Spanish, including about two thirds (65 percent) who said it was very easy.

California’s Remaining Uninsured

• Many characteristics of the remaining uninsured indicate that they are a difficult to reach group with limited ties to health insurance. Nearly 4 in 10 (37 percent) say they have never had health insurance (compared to 20 percent who became insured) and an additional 45 percent say they have been uninsured for two or more years. Six in 10 (62 percent) are Hispanic, including 29 percent who are unable to take advantage of coverage expansions under the ACA due to their immigration status, and 70 percent of whom prefer to communicate in Spanish. In addition to those who are not eligible due to their immigration status, about 4 in 10 (39 percent) have incomes that put them in the group likely eligible for Medi-Cal and another quarter (24 percent) are likely eligible for financial assistance through Covered California.

• Roughly 7 in 10 (71 percent) of those who remain uninsured after the first open enrollment period say health insurance is something they need, but a third (34 percent) say cost remains a barrier to getting coverage.

• Just over a third (36 percent) of those who remain uninsured say they tried to get coverage but most say they did not enroll either due to the cost of coverage or difficulty completing the process.

• Nearly 6 in 10 (57 percent) of those still uninsured think they will get coverage later this year, though most (57 percent) of them are unsure where they might get it.

• Almost half of Hispanics who remain uninsured may not be eligible for coverage through Covered California or Medi-Cal under the ACA due to their immigration status, and just over half of remaining uninsured Hispanics (54 percent) are worried that enrolling in coverage would bring attention to their family’s immigration status. At the same time, Hispanics who remain uninsured largely feel that insurance is something they need (78 percent).

Newly Insured vs. Remaining Uninsured

Finally, in many areas examined in the survey differences exist between those who got insurance and those who remain uninsured. The majority of remaining uninsured don’t feel like they have enough information to understand how the ACA will impact them and their families (61 percent) whereas the majority of newly insured say they do (58 percent). The newly insured, including those who report ultimately getting coverage from a different source, were slightly more likely than the remaining uninsured to visit the Covered California website (43 percent vs. 30 percent) but while most of the newly insured report finding it helpful, most of those that remained uninsured said it was not helpful. More generally, the newly insured largely report positive experiences shopping for coverage and comparing plans, while the 36 percent of the remaining uninsured who tried said they had a hard time examining their options.

How Many Previously Uninsured Californians Got Covered?

Nearly 6 in 10 (58 percent), or approximately 3.4 million, previously uninsured adult Californians report obtaining health insurance since the start of open enrollment including 10 percent who say they have signed up but are waiting for coverage to start, while the remainder continued to go without health insurance (Figure 1). Fully a quarter of those uninsured prior to open enrollment report signing up for Medi-Cal while smaller shares report getting coverage through an employer (12 percent), a plan through Covered California (9 percent) and other non-group coverage (5 percent).

Under the Affordable Care Act, access to coverage in California was expanded primarily in two ways. Medi-Cal eligibility was broadened to include parents and adults without dependent children earning 138% FPL or less, two groups that had limited access to Medi-Cal coverage prior to the ACA. In addition, the Covered California Marketplace was developed as a place where people could shop and compare health insurance plans and access federal subsidies for health insurance. Outreach efforts and media coverage about the ACA may have encouraged some people who were previously eligible for coverage through Medi-Cal to obtain coverage, sometimes referred to as the “woodwork” effect. It is difficult to distinguish those who may already have been eligible for Medi-Cal from those who are newly eligible due to expanded eligibility under the ACA in this survey, but the combined enrollment of the newly insured in Medi-Cal and in plans through Covered California indicate that about a third (34 percent) of California’s previously uninsured got coverage through these ACA-related coverage options. In contrast, it is more typical for access to job-based insurance to shift frequently as people change jobs or become eligible after a waiting period, so some people may now have coverage through an employer because of normal movement in the insurance market, but others may have been motivated to enroll in an offer of coverage through an employer due to the ACA’s requirement to have insurance.

Figure 1

Which Previously Uninsured Californians Got Covered?

Rates of coverage among previously uninsured adult Californians are similar across age groups, income groups, and self-reported health status. For example, 58 percent of previously uninsured younger adults age 19 to 34 report getting insurance, similar to the share of middle-aged adults age 35 to 49 (55 percent) and the same as the share of near-elderly age 50 to 64 (58 percent). Reports of new coverage are also similar for those at different income levels. And, those reporting their health as fair or poor were just as likely to say they got insurance as Californians reporting being in at least good health (53 percent and 60 percent).

Prior to the coverage expansions under the ACA, Hispanics made up over half of the uninsured adult population in California and now over half of Hispanics (52 percent) who were previously uninsured report getting coverage (Figure 3), a share that is statistically similar to whites (61 percent). Still, concern over lagging enrollment among Hispanics in plans through Covered California warrants a closer look at new coverage rates among previously uninsured Hispanics. As many as a third of previously uninsured Hispanics may be ineligible for coverage through Medi-Cal or Covered California due to their immigration status.¹ Therefore, focusing only on previously uninsured Hispanics whose immigration status permits them to enroll in Medi-Cal or participate in Covered California, 61 percent are newly insured, the same share as newly insured whites.

Figure 3

But for other characteristics, rates of coverage vary widely. For example, college graduates are more likely to have gained coverage than those with less education. In addition, those who report having a debilitating chronic disease, disability, or handicap are more likely than those without to say they now have coverage, with almost 8 in 10 reporting they obtained health insurance since last summer (Figure 4).

Meanwhile, less than half of those who have spent their lifetime without insurance say they obtained coverage, a share that is 20 percentage points lower than those who say they have been insured at some point. Many in this group – 40 percent of those who say they have never had insurance – are undocumented immigrants who are ineligible for coverage through Medi-Cal or Covered California under the ACA. Still, it is notable that about 4 in 10 (43 percent) of previously uninsured Californians who report never having coverage before now report being insured. In addition, men were slightly less likely to report getting insurance than women (52 percent vs. 63 percent).

Figure 4

How much California’s uninsured knew about the law and what their view of it was before open enrollment are also factors that may contribute to some obtaining coverage. Those who were aware before open enrollment started of the requirement to obtain insurance, the Medi-Cal expansion, or the subsidies available to help people purchase insurance are somewhat more likely to say they now have insurance than those who were unaware of these key provisions. But, a similar share of those with favorable views of the law last summer report getting coverage as those who had unfavorable views (59 percent vs. 57 percent).

Outreach played a role in getting some people covered – 69 percent of California’s previously uninsured who said they were contacted about signing up for health insurance since October 1^st say they obtained coverage, compared to 52 percent of those that say they weren’t contacted. On the other hand, those that say they were encouraged by a family or friend to sign up for coverage are no more likely to report being newly insured than those who didn’t report the same encouragement (58 percent and 55 percent)

Many of these factors tend to overlap so to attempt to isolate the personal elements that best predict who was more likely to get insurance during this first open enrollment period, we conducted a regression analysis with demographic factors, relevant perceptions of the law, and outreach indicators. This analysis showed Californians who say they obtained insurance are more likely to report being married, having a debilitating chronic condition, having been uninsured for less than two years, and being contacted about getting coverage after controlling for a variety of demographic factors such as age, education, and income. On the other hand, the regression analysis also showed that Californians who reported remaining uninsured are more likely to be male, have never had insurance, or be undocumented immigrants. And, there are no differences by race/ethnicity after controlling for these demographics, particularly after controlling for immigration status and never having had coverage. Knowledge of key provisions or attitudes of the law going into open enrollment did not significantly predict enrollment after controlling for other characteristics.

As the open enrollment period came to a close in the spring, nearly 6 in 10 of California’s previously uninsured report gaining coverage, with the largest share (25 percent) reporting they got coverage through Medi-Cal. All told, about a third of California’s previously uninsured say they enrolled in the two types of coverage most directly tied to the ACA – Medi-Cal and plans through Covered California. Forty-two percent say they remain uninsured including 13 percent who are ineligible for Medi-Cal or Covered California due to their immigration status.

Future waves of the Kaiser Family Foundation California Longitudinal Panel Survey will continue to track this same, representative group of individuals who were uninsured before the major provisions of the ACA took effect to learn more about how people are using their coverage, their experiences finding health care providers and paying for care, and whether they shop for coverage during the next open enrollment period, remain in the same plan or become uninsured again. At the same time, future surveys will determine if some of the remaining uninsured from this wave of the survey gain coverage and what eventually brought them into the fold. They also will measure the extent to which perceived or actual barriers such as cost and immigration status keep others from getting health insurance and how those remaining uninsured fare. Returning to the same previously uninsured Californians at multiple points in time allows for a unique look at the views and experiences of this key group as they navigate new coverage options under the ACA and the changing health care system.

Hated Banks

America’s 10 Most Hated Banks

by Erika Eichelberger

If you put out a complaint box for customers of US banks and financial firms, you will get hundreds of thousands of complaints. That's what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—which was set up by Elizabeth Warren before she became a US senator—has discovered. And the bank that has drawn the most complaints is Bank of America. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Citibank were other top targets of consumer wrath.

In June 2012, the CFPB launched a consumer help center where Americans can lodge complaints against banks and financial institutions they believe are ripping them off. The information in the center's data base is public. So you can tell which Wall Street entities provoke the most gripes. Ranked by number of complaints, the top five most reviled institutions are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Equifax, which is a credit-reporting agency, JPMorgan Chase, and Citibank. Debt collectors, mortgage servicers, and student loan servicing companies also fall within the top 20. As of this weekend, consumers had filed over 265,000 complaints. Bank of America earned 38,833 complaints, Wells Fargo drew 26,055, and JPMorgan Chase was the subject of 20,057. Check it out:

These numbers show that bigger is not necessarily better. The number of complaints largely corresponds with the size of the bank. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo are the largest four US banks by assets. All other banks on the list above are among the 20 largest.

The majority of complaints targeting Bank of America—over 27,500 of them—concern mortgage practices, including foreclosure processing. In 2012, Bank of America, Citi, Chase, Wells Fargo, and Ally Bank—the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers—entered into a $25 billion settlement with 49 states and the federal government over the banks' use of faulty foreclosure documents. (Bank of America recently agreed to pay a fine of $16.6 million to the Treasury Department to settle allegations that it processed nearly $100,000 in transactions for drug traffickers between 2005 and 2009.)

Out of the 26,055 complaints filed against Wells Fargo—which is accused of directing minority borrowers into subprime loans in the lead-up to the financial crisis—close to 6,000 concerned issues consumers had with their checking or savings accounts, including complaints over fees and charges. In 2010, Wells was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to customers for manipulating debit card transactions in order to rack up overdraft fees.

About 5,100 of the consumer complaints about Citibank concerned mortgages and foreclosures. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice slapped a record penalty on Citi for violations on the investor side of the bank's mortgage business. The DOJ fined Citi $7 billion for telling investors that the toxic mortgage-backed securities it sold in the mid-2000s were high-quality.

Over 3,700 of the complaints against JPMorgan Chase concerned problems with consumer bank accounts, including disputed fees. Last September, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Chase to fork over $309 million to 2.1 million customers for charging them for services such as identity theft protection and fraud monitoring without obtaining consent.

Americans filed over 5,000 complaints with the consumer agency regarding debt collection, more than 27,000 over mortgage servicing practices, and north of 5,500 concerning student loan servicing.

Poverty

What’s the Matter with Kansas? Nothing a Renewed War on Poverty Can’t Fix

by Elaine Weiss and Tawny Stottlemeier

What’s the matter with Kansas? Quite a bit, according to Tavis Smiley. Starting with Governor Sam Brownback, who has been speaking out of one side of his mouth about morality, while at the same time passing a budget — “a moral document” — that denies more than 135,000 Kansas children who live in or near poverty sufficient food, safe shelter and solid schools. “It’s tragic,” Smiley said. “I think what he has done is shameful and disgraceful.”

Perhaps the most tragic thing that Governor Brownback has done is authorize tax breaks to the wealthiest Kansans that require drastic cuts to just about every state program that offers those living in poverty a decent shot at working their way out of it. His 2012 tax cuts rank among the largest ever enacted by a state: they reduce income taxes for the state’s richest earners by 25 percent, eliminate taxes on all business profits reported as individual income and have already cost the state $338 million in revenues.

Earlier this month, Smiley addressed the 2014 Kansas Conference on Poverty, and noted that the state is far from alone. Across the country, the Great Recession brought to a head decades of wage stagnation for working Americans and rapidly rising income inequality between the rich and the rest. The minimum wage hasn’t seen a raise since 2009, and it is now worth 23 percent less, in real dollars, than peak inflation-adjusted value in 1968. Nearly one in three Americans currently lives at, below, or near the poverty line, and concentrated poverty is on the rise. In 2009, the 400 richest Americans had more wealth than the 150 million people at the bottom.

But what went on in Kansas last week also reflects an important step in the right direction. Over 350 nurses, police officers, social workers, housing experts, educators, foundation and business leaders, and policy makers gathered in the state’s capitol to say “enough is enough.” We called out policies that contribute to rising income inequality and poverty. We connected the dots between poverty and poor educational outcomes, excessive incarceration, rising homelessness and many other social ills. We calculated their cost to budgets and human beings; we grappled with the reality that America pays far more for poverty than we would to substantially increase the minimum wage.

We watched Paycheck to Paycheck, an Emmy-nominated HBO documentary about Katrina Gilbert, a single mother of three struggling to secure her children’s future on a $9.49 per hour job at a nursing facility. We saw how Chattanooga’s high-quality, 24-7 child care facility, one of just three in the entire country, made that future at least a possibility. We were witness to Katrina’s inability to treat her chronic thyroid problem and a sinus infection until her Earned Income Tax Credit check arrived. “I’ve had a headache every day for months,” she noted, casually, as she left three prescriptions unfilled, because they were too expensive. We listened to her debate whether to use the remainder of that check to finalize her divorce or pay off her car. These are the kinds of “choices” that no American, especially one who works as incredibly hard as she does, should face.

Anti-poverty advocates in Kansas and across the country stand with Smiley in asserting that poverty is the defining issue of our time. It threatens the very foundations of our democracy. Children who are denied an equitable, enriching education have little chance of growing into the informed, engaged citizens who must lead our country. Adults who are consumed by the need to put food on their children’s plates and keep a roof over their heads cannot engage in the information-gathering and discourse needed to sustain that democracy. And the concentration of money, and power, in the hands of such a tiny fraction of our electorate drowns out their voices.

We share Smiley’s outrage at our national and state leaders’ refusal to see these realities, let alone address them. As he indignantly noted, “there is a highway into poverty in this country, but only a sidewalk out of it.” Our collective job is to reverse that reality, to make it hard to fall into poverty, but easy, with the right tools, to climb out.

It’s high time for a new War on Poverty. We can start by making sure that we all #TalkPoverty in our communities, our jobs, and our schools, every day. We can work toward an anti-poverty contract that addresses minimum wages, paid sick leave for all workers, affordable and safe childcare, ending child hunger, and ensuring that no one willing to work becomes destitute. And we can join Smiley in demanding that the next candidates for US President devote one of the three 2016 presidential debates – just 90 minutes of their time – to explaining how they will take part in this work. Smiley is right: “America is not yet as good as its promise.” It’s time for all of us to fight for that promise, before it’s too late.

Limit

U.S. to Israel: 'Limit civilian casualties' in Gaza

By Chelsea J. Carter, Karl Penhaul, John Vause and Josh Levs

An airstrike hits an open air market. An explosion rocks a school-turned-shelter. A booby-trapped tunnel explodes. These were among the scenes in Gaza in a more-than-three-week-old conflict that has left more than 1,300 people dead and even more wounded.

 

The violence between Israel's military and Palestinian militants played out Wednesday against a backdrop of another failed humanitarian cease-fire attempt, with militants firing rockets from Gaza into Israel and Israelis responding with airstrikes.

 

With more than 100 people, mostly civilians, reportedly killed Wednesday in the fighting, the United Nations and the United States demanded more be done to protect civilians.

A large part of the criticism has been leveled at Israel and its airstrikes, which have bombarded Gaza. Israel in turn has accused Hamas of hiding weapons, including rockets, in schools and launching attacks from near shelters.

More than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on July 8, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

The number of militants killed is unclear, but the United Nations estimates that 70% to 80% of the dead are civilians. Three more Israeli soldiers were killed Wednesday, bringing the total to 56 dead. Three civilians also have been killed in Israel.

While saying Israel has a right to defend itself, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz said, "We've also been very clear that Israel needs to do more to live up to its own standards to limit civilian casualties."

It was a sentiment echoed by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, who also said Israel is being put in a tough situation because "Hamas is hiding rockets in places to prevent the Israelis from going after them."

"So look, Hamas is taking steps here that put civilians at risk. But we do believe the Israelis need to do more," Harf told reporters during a briefing.

Chile, Peru, Brazil and Ecuador have pulled their ambassadors out of Tel Aviv to protest the Israeli offensive. A number of people were killed Wednesday when artillery hit a school being used as a shelter by some 3,000 Palestinians.

The United Nations blamed Israel for the attack, with U.N. spokesman Chris Gunness saying his group's initial assessment indicates Israeli artillery hit the school. The number of deaths was not immediately clear, Gunness said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said 20 were killed.

But Israel said a group of militants fired at Israeli soldiers from the vicinity, and the soldiers "responded by firing at the origin of the fire," a military spokesman said.

"If our forces were involved in a firefight, it's because Hamas has decided that it's open season on the U.N.," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN Wednesday.

At the same time, Hamas TV reported people were killed in shelling near a street market in northern Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry reported 17 people died. Israel has said errant Hamas rocket fire is responsible for some of the attacks in Gaza.

"More than 200 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Gaza since July 8. Palestinian terrorists fire from civilian areas and hit their own people," the IDF said on Twitter, along with videos that the military said show Hamas fighters launching attacks from inside homes, mosques, hospitals and schools.

The firing of rockets into Israel brought an early end to a four-hour "humanitarian window" Wednesday in Gaza.

In making the offer earlier in the day for the humanitarian cease-fire, Israel said the window would not apply to areas in which Israeli soldiers were already operating, and Israel would "respond to any attempt to exploit this window to harm" civilians or troops. It also told residents to stay away from areas they've been asked to evacuate.

Fighting raged in many areas of Gaza, with the Israel Defense Forces reporting three of its soldiers killed. The three died while uncovering a tunnel shaft in a home in southern Gaza. "The house and the tunnel were booby trapped with two explosive devices that were detonated," the IDF said.

Hamas said its fighters "lured a special Zionist unit which consisted of between 15 to 20 soldiers to a booby-trapped house with 12 IED canisters." Twenty-seven Israeli soldiers were wounded in several incidents Wednesday in Gaza, the IDF said.

More than 200,000 Palestinians are packing into 85 shelters across Gaza, Gunness said Wednesday, calling the situation a "human displacement crisis."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, announced on Twitter that Israel has sent into Gaza more than 4 million liters of diesel for the power station, 3 million liters of fuel and 800,000 liters of benzene for transportation, and 1.6 tons of gas for domestic use during the conflict.

Forty-three trucks "carrying over 750 tons of food, medicine & supplies" entered Gaza Wednesday from Israel, the ministry said. It provided information on how people can donate humanitarian supplies, and a contact at the Palestinian Customs Agency.