Spain's King

Spain's King Juan Carlos to abdicate

Monarch says he is proud of country's transition to democracy but son Felipe has the maturity to 'open a new era of hope'

By Ashifa Kassam

After 39 years on the throne, King Juan Carlos of Spain will abdicate in favour of his son Crown Prince Felipe, the king said in a televised address on Monday.

Hours after the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, broke the news, the king explained his decision on Spanish television and radio. He highlighted his pride in the "transformation of Spain" and the "tremendous amount achieved by all" since the country's transition into democracy.

"Today, when I look back, I cannot help but feel pride and gratitude towards all of you," he said.

The decision to step down, he said, was made after his 76th birthday in January. His son Felipe, he assured Spaniards, "has the maturity, preparation, and sense of responsibility necessary to assume the title of head of state and open a new era of hope which combines the experience and momentum of a new generation."

Once one of the world's most popular monarchs, more recently Juan Carlos has been plagued by a series of scandals that have sent his popularity plummeting. A poll by El Mundo last year found that nearly two-thirds of Spaniards thought the king should abdicate.

In contrast, Prince Felipe, a former Olympic yachtsman, has come out relatively unscathed. Frequently photographed while taking their two daughters to school or at shopping malls, Felipe and his wife Letizia Ortiz - a former television news anchor - have cultivated an image of leading a relatively modest lifestyle.

Fluent in English, French and Catalan along with Spanish, Felipe studied for a year in Canada before undertaking three years of military training in Spain's army, navy and air force academy. A law degree in Madrid soon followed, as well as a Masters in international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, DC

"His goal, his only goal, is to serve Spain. It has been deeply ingrained in him that he must be the country's main servant," his mother Queen Sofia once said.

The poll showing rising public support for Juan Carlos to abdicate was a stunning reversal for a leader who in 2012, had earned the approval of almost 80% of Spaniards. Taking the throne just two days after the death of Franco in 1975, Juan Carlos won the respect of Spaniards by steering the country from dictatorship to democracy, including foiling a coup attempt in 1981.

But as Spain fell into financial crisis, the king's standing sank. A particularly low point came when it was revealed that he had taken a luxurious trip to Botswana to hunt elephants, just weeks after telling a reporter that he was so distraught about the growing ranks of the unemployed that he was having trouble sleeping.

The royal family's image was further tarnished by a long-running corruption investigation into the king's daughter, Princess Cristina, and her husband Iñaki Urdangarin.

Many, particularly young Spaniards, began to see the king as part of Spain's problems, drawing parallels between him and the economic and political powers that had driven the country into the economic crisis. While the king's approval rating dropped steadily, that of his son Felipe remained stable at around 66%, leading many to suggest that the monarchy would be better off if the king abdicated.

In Monday's announcement, Rajoy praised Juan Carlos, calling him a "tireless defender of our interests". He added: "I'm convinced this is the best moment for change."

Spain is now expected to change its constitution to make sure Felipe's first-born daughter Leonor can succeed him.

The royal family has said its wants the change to ensure she is next in line to the throne in the event that Felipe's wife gets pregnant again and gives birth to a boy, who would become monarch under the current constitution.

Analysts say that could open the door to political negotiations for additional proposed constitutional changes, including demands by the leading opposition Socialist Party to grant Catalonia more autonomy or special financial benefits to ease separatist feelings.

Artur Mas, the president of Catalonia, declared that the king's abdication would not derail his plans to hold the vote asking Catalans whether they want to secede from Spain. "We have a date with our future on 9 November," Mas told reporters after the king gave his speech.

Rajoy's government must now pass a law creating a legal mechanism for Felipe's assumption of power, which will then allow Juan Carlos to set a date for his formal abdication.

Unequal Society

Toward the Total Paralysis of an Unequal Society

By Paul Buchheit

The severing of our society into a plutocracy and a peasantry is so far along that statistics almost cease to have meaning. But the facts have to be told, to help explain the sickening sense that we're becoming a nation without a middle class, paralyzed by the inequality deniers and excuse makers who refuse to admit there's something wrong with their free-market capitalist system. The extremes are becoming almost intolerable.

1. A Broken System of Compensation: The Combined Salaries of 350,000 Pre-School Teachers is Less Than That of Five Hedge Fund Managers

Pre-school teaching may be our nation's most important job. Numerous studies show that with pre-school, all children achieve more and earn more through adulthood, with the most disadvantaged benefiting the most.

Hedge fund managers, at the other extreme, are likely to bet on mortgages to fail or on food prices to rise.

It's a frightening commentary on our value system that the total income of over a third of a million pre-school teachers is less than the combined income of just five big-money speculators.

2. Diminishing Support for Society: The 1% Made More from their Investments in 2013 than the Entire Cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Safety Net

America's wealth grew by almost $9 trillion in 2013. The richest 1% own 34 percent of the wealth (Table 6 here or Table 2 here), or about $3 trillion of the 2013 gain.

That is far more than the budget for Social Security ($860 billion), Medicare ($524 billion), Medicaid ($304 billion), and the entire safety net ($286 billion for SNAP, WIC [Women, Infants, Children], Child Nutrition, Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Housing).

3. Capital's Long-Term Dominance of Labor: Since 1900, a Dollar of Labor has Grown to $127, a Dollar of Stocks to $1,247

There's a good reason why the super-rich are cleaning up in the stock market. Thomas Piketty explains that, barring war or depression, the return on capital far outpaces economic growth, causing average workers without a stock portfolio to drop further and further behind. A look at stock market growth over 114 years (Page 60) confirms that a dollar of capital is now worth ten times more than a dollar of labor value.

In recent years, the gains from continued worker productivity have gone to the 10% of Americans who own almost 90 percent of all stocks excluding pensions (which are fast disappearing).

4. The Walmartization of America: A Few Super-Rich at the Top, then Everyone Else

Just like at Walmart, a few big moneymakers are ruling over a great majority of increasingly low-income workers. Low-wage jobs ($7.69 to $13.83 per hour) made up 1/5 of the jobs lost to the recession, but accounted for nearly 3/5 of the jobs regained during the recovery. And it's getting worse. Nine out of ten of the fastest-growing occupations are considered low-wage, generally not requiring a college degree.

The descent into Walmart-like employment is disproportionately hurting minorities. In 2013, an astonishing 55.9 percent of employed black recent college graduates were underemployed, working in an occupation that typically does not require a four-year college degree.

At the other end of the Walmartization, families in the top 5% made anywhere from $300,000 to $40 million -- in just one year.

5. Toward Third-World Status: Our Shrinking Middle Class Gets a Smaller Cut of National Wealth than Anywhere except China and India

From a global perspective, we're becoming the type of country that we used to dismiss as "third-world." Among developed and fast-rising nations only the middle classes of China and India get a smaller cut of their country's wealth than in the United States. Both of them are rapidly catching up to us.

Antidote

Thomas Piketty recommends a global wealth tax to help reverse inequality. But a financial transaction tax (also called speculation tax or Robin Hood tax) would be easier to implement, more efficiently regulated, and a source of massive revenues at little cost to financial traders.

Whatever method we choose, progressive thinkers in the U.S. and around the world will need to unite on a single cause, much as the Tea Party did in its crusade against government. We can't afford to disagree among ourselves as paralysis sets in.

GOP plan

GOP plans to pay for 1 year of highway funds with 10 years of postal service cuts

By Curtis Tate

With the federal highway trust fund set to run out of cash in August, House Republicans are circulating a proposal to pay for a one-year extension by cutting back most U.S. mail delivery to five days a week.

The highway fund, which pays for highway and transit projects in all 50 states, is supported by a federal motor fuels tax that Congress hasn’t increased in more than 20 years and never indexed to inflation. Increased construction costs as well as higher fuel efficiency have eroded its buying power.

Rather than raise the tax or find some other stable source of revenue, Congress has borrowed $54 billion in general funds since 2008. The House Transportation Committee projects that as much as $15 billion would be needed to extend the highway fund for just one year.

The Republican proposal would eliminate the delivery of first class and bulk mail on Saturdays. Packages, priority and express mail deliveries would continue, and post offices would stay open on Saturdays. The plan would save $10 billion over 10 years _ funds that would help offset a one-year extension of surface transportation programs.

House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Whip Kevin McCarthy noted in a memo to GOP members that the postal service overhaul was supported by both the House majority and the Obama administration anyway.

“We firmly believe that this is the best way to ensure continued funding of highway projects in a fiscally responsible manner that implements a needed structural reform to a growing federal liability,” they wrote. But some Democrats called the plan highway robbery.

“If House Republicans want to prevent a taxpayer bailout of the Postal Service, they should focus on passing comprehensive postal reform legislation, not shirking the responsibility of making tough decisions regarding the future of our nation’s infrastructure,” said Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat who said he prefers long-term solutions for both the postal service and the highway fund.

States actually plan their transportation projects for five or six years at a time, not just one. And states depend on the federal program to reimburse them for 52 percent of their highway and bridge investments, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.

Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Trucking Associations strongly support increasing the gasoline tax, but neither their traditional Republican allies in Congress nor the Obama administration have committed to it.

Backlash

Fearing Rising Backlash, NRA Urges Gun Activists to Stand Down

By Mark Follman

Fat stupid 'Merican'

The last couple of months have been rough for proponents of open-carry gun laws. No fewer than seven restaurant chains have taken a stand against firearms being brought to their businesses, after activists in Texas conducted provocative demonstrations in which they toted semi-automatic rifles into various eateries. Texas law allows rifles (though not handguns) to be carried on display in public, but some patrons and employees were unnerved and angered by the demonstrations, and a national group advocating for reforms, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, pressured the companies using social media campaigns. After Mother Jones published videos of the gun activists in action, Sonic and Chili's Grill & Bar became the latest to officially reject guns on their premises.

There has also been a particularly dark side to the story of the gun activists: As I first reported in mid May, members of Open Carry Texas and their allies have used vicious tactics against people who disagree with them, including bullying and degrading women. Just last week they harassed a Marine veteran, pursuing him through the streets of Fort Worth on Memorial Day.

Evidently the National Rifle Association has come to realize that none of this is good for business. In an extraordinary move on Friday, the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action—the organization's powerful lobbying arm in Washington—issued a lengthy statement seeking to distinguish between "responsible behavior" and "legal mandates." It told the Texas gun activists in no uncertain terms to stand down.

"As gun owners, whether or not our decisions are dictated by the law, we are still accountable for them," the statement began. "If we exercise poor judgment, our decisions will have consequences…such as turning an undecided voter into an antigun voter because of causing that person fear or offense." The NRA praised the "robust gun culture" of Texas—which recently has loosened laws as aggressively as any state—but then laid into those Texans "who have crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness."

Recently, demonstrators have been showing up in various public places, including coffee shops and fast food restaurants, openly toting a variety of tactical long guns. Unlicensed open carry of handguns is legal in about half the U.S. states, and it is relatively common and uncontroversial in some places. 

Yet while unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms. 

Let's not mince words, not only is it rare, it's downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one's cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.

The problem has been on the NRA's radar at least since April. In a roundtable discussion hosted by a Texas podcaster on April 28, Charles Cotton, a long-serving member of the NRA board of directors based in Houston, and Alice Tripp, lobbyist and legislative director for the Texas State Rifle Association (TSRA), squared off with CJ Grisham, the founder and president of Open Carry Texas. Cotton and Tripp, who have both been deeply involved in passing pro-gun laws in Texas for many years, warned Grisham that his group's demonstrations were causing them major grief with their allies in the capitol.

"We do control a massive number of votes," Cotton pointed out.

"I'm in the capitol three times a week," Tripp added. "Every [lawmaker's] office I went into today asked me, 'Can't you do something to stop the rifle demonstrations?'" One lawmaker told Tripp that he'd gotten a phone call from the Republican mayor of Arlington—the site of several provocative open-carry incidents—who'd been "absolutely incensed." The demonstrations were seriously harming the overall mission to ease gun laws further, she said.

Grisham, whose group sees its demonstrations as a means to legalizing the open carrying of handguns in Texas, was having none of it. "I would like to vehemently disagree," he said. He went off about "the two major foes" of his organization, the "ultraliberal gun control bullies" of Moms Demand Action—and gun-rights defenders who don't go far enough. "When you've got the TSRA and the NRA basically coming down on us for standing up for our rights, that's where our problem is," he said. "Because now you guys are siding with Moms Demand Action."

"CJ, when you make a statement like 'We align ourselves with Moms Who Demand Action,' or whatever the hell their name is, those are fighting words," Cotton replied with growing exasperation. "You alienate the people that can get this done."

He continued: "The New Black Panthers did exactly what you folks are doing. They marched on the convention center during the Republican convention here in Houston [with] their rifles and shotguns...No arrests were made, but the legislative response was, 'We're going to stop this.'" State law was watered down in the next session as a result, Cotton said, freeing local governments to ban the possession of firearms under some circumstances.

"They might not like our methods, but our methods are working," Grisham told me in a recent conversation with regard to the NRA's pushback. "We're out there educating people on the street. We're showing them firsthand that you can see a gun out on the street or at a restaurant and it's not going to shoot you. I'm not going to let Open Carry Texas be beholden to anyone that doesn't get our mission."

For the NRA, furthering its agenda in state capitols may not be the biggest concern at this point. In light of the recent corporate backlash, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick proposed late last week that the war over gun policy may now be fought more in the crucible of the free market. The battleground has grown to include retailers: An open-carry rally at a Home Depot in suburban Fort Worth on Saturday drew roughly 150 armed citizens as well as some withering criticism, according to the Dallas Morning News. Home Depot, whose owner is deeply conservative, signaled that it was fine with the demonstration.

But other corporations are growing nervous and moving proactively to prevent gun activists from putting their brands in the crosshairs, says Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action. A large restaurant chain and a major retailer, she told me, "have reached out to us to discuss what policies they could put in place to keep gun extremists out of their businesses." (She asked that the two companies not be identified due to the sensitivity of the discussions.) "Gun extremists believe that when a company is silent they tacitly support open carry, which clearly isn't the case."

It may be that a broader cultural shift—or at least a strategic one—is stirring within the gun lobby. In its statement on Friday, the NRA also cracked open the door to so-called "smart guns," which aim to improve safety through innovative technological features. Historically the NRA has vigorously opposed them as yet another catalyst for dubious government overreach, but now says: "In principle, the idea would seem to have merit, at least in some circumstances." That pivot comes not long after a businesswoman in California and a gun dealer in Maryland spoke out about harassment and death threats for trying to sell the cutting-edge weapons.

The NRA has also backtracked recently from its long-held stance against laws meant to disarm domestic abusers—a major factor in gun violence against women—by quietly supporting recent such legislation in states including Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The NRA's ability to wield outsized political control may now be starting to change, too—at least with some of the hardcore base to which it has long catered. On Sunday, Open Carry Texas dismissed the criticism of its tactics: "The NRA has lost its relevance and sided with the gun control extremists and their lapdog media," the group tweeted, adding, "We don't fight for rights at the discretion of the NRA."

Prisoner Trade

Prisoner Trade Yields Rare View Into the Taliban

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and CARLOTTA GALL 

The freeing of five senior Taliban figures in exchange for the American soldier, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, has offered both a rare insight into the insurgent group’s inner workings and a diplomatic first in the long Afghan war: a negotiated agreement between the highest levels of the American government and the pinnacle of the Taliban command.

Representatives of both sides played down the idea that the exchange, long seen as a crucial prelude to any broader talks, might breathe new life into the effort to engage the Taliban in a peace effort. But the complex swap showed “each side that the other can deliver,” said one senior American official close to the effort. And it gave both the Taliban leadership and the Obama administration important political symbols.

For the Taliban, the delivery of five of its most prominent figures to freedom in Qatar was the culmination of years of effort to secure the men’s release and to receive legitimacy on an international stage. And it seemingly answered questions about whether the group’s reclusive leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, was still in charge of its disparate factions, demonstrating “that there was a span in control that went through the representatives in Doha, to the Taliban command, and to the individuals who were holding him, presumably somewhere in Pakistan,” the American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss Sergeant Bergdahl’s release.

For the Obama administration, too, the exchange was an important achievement: the prospect of Sergeant Bergdahl’s return to his family in Idaho after nearly five years as a hostage of the Taliban struck a humanitarian and emotional note for an administration trying to wind down the war.

But the exchange also set up a new conflict between President Obama and Republican lawmakers, who argued that the administration should not have set the prisoners free from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp without congressional approval, and that the released men would strengthen the group even as American troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The five were all high-level Taliban members, in their mid-to-late forties, with prominent political or military careers dating back before the American invasion. Counterterrorism experts described the men as effectively gray beards, and unlikely to go back to active fighting. But a concern held by some of those experts and many American officials, including some senior military officers, is that the men will give a boost to the Taliban and provide the leadership with proof of its cohesiveness.

The most important figure is Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, 47, a founding member of the Taliban and a confidant of Mullah Omar. He was the governor of Herat Province in western Afghanistan when the Taliban ruled, and is viewed by many officials in the Afghan government as a reasonable figure and possible interlocutor for future talks.

Mullah Mohammad Fazl, also known as Mullah Fazel Mazloom, was the deputy defense minister and commander of all Taliban troops in northern Afghanistan at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A short, thickset man with a reputation for cruelty, he is accused by human rights organizations and his opponents of presiding over the massacres of Shiite and Tajik Sunni Muslims across parts of central and northern Afghanistan.

Trapped with thousands of his Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan under the American bombing campaign in 2001, he surrendered to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, along with the Taliban governor of Balkh Province, Mullah Norullah Noori, who was also released Saturday.

The other two detainees, Abdul Haq Wasiq, the Taliban’s former deputy minister of intelligence, and Mohammad Nabi Omari, a former high-level Taliban security official, were both detained after reaching out to American officials after the invasion in an offer to help the new power in their country, officials said.

Though the released men have played no role in the renewed Taliban insurgency during their incarceration, many in the Taliban put a high premium on getting the five men back. That included members of the Haqqani militant network, who have claimed loyalty to Mullah Omar even though they carry out independent operations, and who were the people holding Sergeant Bergdahl.

“The Haqqanis will get kudos for being seen to deliver something for the movement,” said Michael Semple, an Afghanistan expert and former adviser to the European Union Mission in Kabul. “They can say, ‘We are Taliban, and we are integral to the movement.’ ”

On Sunday, Mullah Omar himself broke a long silence to hail the men’s return, saying it brought the insurgents “closer to the harbor of victory.”

The exchange was also proof the Taliban’s diplomatic outpost in Qatar, considered dormant since peace talks fell through last year, still had an active role to play. The deal was negotiated by Taliban representatives in Doha, and mediated by Qatari officials. On Sunday, news reports showed the five released men being embraced by their comrades in Doha.

Even as the five were first being released on Saturday, at nearly the same moment, 18 Taliban fighters handed Sergeant Bergdahl to a group of American Special Operations soldiers at a rendezvous in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan. Senior Defense Department officials said that the leader of the American team was in direct and nearly constant communication with his Taliban counterpart in the minutes before the meeting.

But even as the exchange represented a diplomatic breakthrough that had been elusive since its initial proposal three years ago, officials with the Taliban and the Obama administration signaled that broader talks would not necessarily be the result. The Taliban, for their part, had long said that the freedom of their prisoners was the only point they would negotiate for.

“This is a fairly narrow deal with a fairly precise and time limited set of quid pro quos,” the American official said. The talks that led to the exchange focused exclusively on the prisoners because the “Taliban weren’t willing to talk to us about these issues.”

And, with the Afghan government playing no active role in the swap, “We ourselves weren’t prepared to talk about a peace agreement for Afghanistan because that is something the Afghans themselves have to work out,” the official said. “We’re prepared to facilitate to help advance that, but we’re not prepared to substitute for them.”

The deal also risked conferring the kind of legitimacy on the Taliban leadership that American officials have sought to avoid, and that has prompted President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to repeatedly voice suspicion of the intentions of the Americans and the Taliban in talking.

“I have heard that the Taliban leaders are very happy today because they saw dealing with the American as a sign of legitimacy,” said Syed Akbar Agha, a former Taliban commander who now lives in Kabul.

“Many groups in the Taliban have opposed talking to the Americans,” Mr. Agha said. “But it has been proven that the leaders in Quetta and Qatar have control over all the guys and that is why they were able to do this.”

The idea of an exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl took shape in 2011 as American diplomats, aided by German intelligence, made their first contacts with the Taliban negotiators. The plan was for the swap to lead to a Taliban statement disassociating themselves from Al Qaeda and renouncing any links to international terrorism, while agreeing to enter a dialogue with the Afghan people.

Senior American officials said that a crucial part of the peace process would also be for the Taliban to acknowledge the elected Afghan government’s legitimacy and the importance of elections. But the idea ran into immediate objections from several senior officials inside the administration as well as on Capitol Hill. Many feared that the Taliban would be too dangerous, and that even if they were sitting in Qatar, they would have the ability to communicate and run operations.

Those criticisms continued on Sunday, as congressional Republicans said they would hold hearings on the matter.

“These are the hardest of the hard core,” Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican and the most famous former prisoner of war now in Congress, said Sunday on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.” “These are the highest high-risk people.”

Mr. McCain noted that when the administration first raised the possibility of a transfer, “There was a bipartisan opposition to that. But obviously, what’s done is done.”

Carbon emissions

New EPA rule would seek to cut carbon emissions 30% by 2030

By Neela Banerjee

The Obama administration will seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants 30% from 2005 levels by 2030, potentially one of the biggest steps any country has taken to confront climate change, people familiar with the plan said Sunday.

Seen as the linchpin of President Obama's climate campaign and a key part of his domestic policy legacy, the proposed power plant rule would set state-specific targets for carbon dioxide reductions and let local officials decide how best to meet the goals.

The proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is intended to limit air pollution by carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and drives global warming.

The complex rule, which will be officially announced Monday, faces a yearlong comment and review period. It is certain to spark a high-stakes legal and political battle that will echo through the November midterm election and beyond.

Opponents — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the mining industry and congressional Republicans and Democrats from coal-producing states — have already lined up against it. Critics labeled it government overreach that would do little to reduce climate change while costing tens of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

"Now the president is once again looking to do through regulation what he couldn't accomplish through legislation. But myself and others are sounding the real alarm of how the president's plan will be dangerous for our economy and future job opportunities," said Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), citing a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report that estimated the rule could cost the economy $50 billion annually.

But environmental groups and other administration allies applauded the proposal as crucial to efforts to cut the single greatest source of greenhouse gases. Power plants account for an estimated 40% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the country.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who took part in a conference call with Obama and other key officials late Sunday, praised the plan because it gives states and regions flexibility to meet the emission targets.

"This allows economies to adjust and transform over time in a very aggressive way but a very realistic way," said Schatz, who has made climate change a signature issue since he joined the Senate in 2012.

"This is becoming a consensus, rational position for people of all parties across the country," Schatz said.
"Republicans are on the wrong side of history here. That's going to become clear not just over the long run but over the next couple of elections."

The rule would allow states to offset their carbon emissions by developing other parts of the power grid, including greater energy efficiency or increased use of renewable energy, such as wind and solar.

"The reality of it is that we will have to build and invest in renewables," said Lisa Bonnett, director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

The 30% cut will be based on 2005 emission levels, which were 10% higher than in 2012. The decline stems from the recent boom in cleaner-burning natural gas, which has displaced a great deal of coal as a fuel source.

In addition, different states would have different targets, based on their fuel mix. States that burn a lot of coal would begin their reductions from a higher emissions level than those that burn natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide.

Because the rule has not been officially issued, the 30% reduction could be one of several options the EPA presents for public comment, environmentalists said. Obama telephoned a group of Senate and House Democrats to thank them for their support in advance of Monday's announcement by Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA.

If enacted, the rule would make good on a pledge Obama made last year to tackle climate change through his executive authority in the face of congressional inaction on the issue.

Domestic opponents of unilateral U.S. action argue that climate change is a global problem that requires emissions cuts from all major polluters, especially newly industrializing giants China, India and Brazil. The rule's backers say a strong curb on greenhouse gas emissions could give U.S. negotiators more leverage at the next major United Nations meeting to address climate change, scheduled for 2015 in Paris.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said an ambitious U.S. carbon standard would lead to "stronger agreements for similar reductions from China, India and Brazil." Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, seemed to agree.

"The decision by President Obama to launch plans to more tightly regulate emissions from power plants will send a good signal to nations everywhere that one of the world's biggest emitters is taking the future of the planet and its people seriously," she said in a statement. "I fully expect action by the United States to spur others in taking concrete action."

Obama pledged after he was first elected that, by 2020, the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions 17% from 2005 levels.

But in mid-2010, Congress defeated an ambitious package of "cap and trade" climate change measures that would have imposed deep cuts on the production of greenhouse gases.

Since then, nearly all congressional Republicans and some Democrats from fossil-fuel-producing states have denied that human activity is behind the rapid warming of the planet. As a result, the White House retooled its climate strategy in the second term to bypass Congress with piecemeal measures. Although the carbon standard is the most sweeping, it's not the first.

In September, the EPA proposed rules to curtail greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. The stringent limits, which will be completed in January, would all but ensure a halt in new construction of coal-fired plants.

This year, the administration announced tougher fuel economy standards for heavy-duty, long-haul trucks that complement existing fuel efficiency rules for cars and light trucks.

Free American Prisoner Of War

There Is Already A Big Backlash Against The Deal To Free An American Prisoner Of War

By Michael B. Kelley

Last week the Obama administration traded five Taliban commanders detainees in Guantanamo Bay for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the only American prisoner of war.

The backlash has been swift, especially from 28-year-old's fellow soldiers.

On June 30th, 2009, Bergdahl reportedly walked off a U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan with nothing but water, a knife, a digital camera and his diary.

He was captured almost immediately, spurring a search that cost U.S. soldiers their lives: At one point, his battalion suffered six fatalities in three-weeks.

There were previous indications that Bergdahl might desert: The home-schooled Idaho native had told a fellow soldier: "If this deployment is lame, I'm just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan," according to report by Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone.

Once he arrived at the Paktika outpost, Bergdahl reportedly "spent more time with the Afghans than he did with his platoon." And in emails he sent to his parents, Bergdahl seemed completely disillusioned with the war effort.

At the time, one Obama administration official told Hastings: "We don't give a shit why he left. He's an American soldier. We want to bring him home."

Two Republican lawmakers have accused the president of breaking the law by approving the swap of Gitmo detainees before notifying Congress. The administration agreed that they bypassed legal requirements, citing "unique and exigent circumstances" as justification.

Now that Bergdahl's home, many of his fellow soldiers are venting their anger.

"He walked off," Baggett, a member of Bergdahl's company, told Jake Tapper of CNN. "Nobody knows if he defected or he's a traitor or he was kidnapped. What I do know is he was there to protect us and instead he decided to defer from America and go and do his own thing. I don't know why he decided to do that, but we spend so much of our resources and some of those resources were soldiers' lives."

Former Sgt. Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl's platoon when he went missing, put it bluntly: "I don't understand why we're trading prisoners at Gitmo for somebody who deserted during a time of war, which is an act of treason," Vierkant told CNN.

Another soldier who was on the ground during the search wrote a scathing blog post about the deal:
"The latest news of 5 GITMO detainee transfers for this kid’s life left me nauseated. From everything I was receiving, Haqqani never expected to get any of the prisoners, let alone 5 of some of the most highly valued targets we had in holding. The US negotiators had fallen for the bluff … the threat of killing the kid. ...

The deal that has been made is a slap in the face to every American soldier alive and dead that has served this country with honor. Bowe Bergdahl is a traitor. He willingly left his post and his fellow soldiers to go on a spiritual stroll in Afghanistan, convert to Islam and ultimately join up with the Taliban … and in so doing cost us the lives of great soldiers who were tasked with finding him."

The counterargument, as laid out by Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor, is that prisoner swaps are part of ending wars and America's only POW is now home.

Caught a dragon

The space station has caught a dragon. Specifically, in mid-April, the International Space Station captured the unmanned SpaceX Dragon capsule sent to resupply the orbiting outpost. Pictured above, the station's Canadarm2 had just grabbed the commercial spaceship. The Dragon capsule was filled with over 5000 lbs (2260 kilos) of supplies and experiments to be used by the current band of six ISS astronauts that compose Expedition 39, as well as the six astronauts that compose Expedition 40. After docking with the ISS, the Dragon capsule was unloaded and eventually released, splashing down> in the Pacific Ocean on May 18. The current Expedition 40 crew, now complete, will apply themselves to many tasks including the deployment of the Napor-mini RSA experiment which will use phased array radar and a small optical telescope to monitor possible emergency situations on the Earth below.

Abell 36

The gorgeous, gaseous shroud of a dying sunlike star, planetary nebula Abell 36 lies a mere 800 light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. At that distance it spans over 1.5 light-years in this sharp telescopic view. Shrugging off its outer layers, the nebula's central star is contracting and becoming hotter, evolving towards a final white dwarf phase. In fact, in Abell 36, the central star is estimated to have a surface temperature of over 73,000 K, compared to the Sun's present 6,000 K temperature. As a result, the intensely hot star is much brighter in ultraviolet light, compared to its visual appearance here. The invisible ultraviolet light ionizes hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the nebula and ultimately powers the beautiful visible light glow.

Orion Heat Shield Attached

The world’s largest heat shield, measuring 16.5 feet in diameter, has been successfully attached to the Orion spacecraft. The heat shield is made from a single seamless piece of Avcoat ablator. It will be tested on Orion’s first flight in December 2014 as it protects the spacecraft from temperatures reaching 4000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The uncrewed flight, dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1(EFT-1), will test the spacecraft for eventual missions that will send astronauts to an asteroid and eventually Mars. EFT-1 will launch an uncrewed Orion capsule 3,600 miles into space for a four-hour mission to test several of its most critical systems. After making two orbits, Orion will return to Earth at almost 20,000 miles per hour, before its parachutes slow it down for a landing in the Pacific Ocean.