Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 297

Blue is not a race

(Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer)

Last month, the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA), a major New York City police union, released a video entitled “Blue Racism.” The video quotes Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, to argue that police are discriminated against based upon their membership in the “blue” race.

“I’m a minority, as this strange form of racism continues to engulf the country,” the video states. “Because I am blue, increasingly, I am vilified. They don’t even label me based on being African-American, Latino, Asian, Caucasian and so on. They tend to see an even broader stereotype through an even more racist lens. When they look at me, they see blue.”

To be clear, “blue” is not an oppressed racial group — but in the current political context, this claim holds power. The claim of blue racism forms part of a broader strategy that frames the police as victims of violent discrimination, rather than the black and brown communities they claim to serve and protect.

Law enforcement and conservative politicians can use the language of “blue racism” to justify impunity for police officers in the face of continued police brutality and hostility to racial justice activists. The Trump Administration’s racist rhetoric and actions condoning police violence lends credibility to the argument that the police are a marginalized group that need to protect themselves — possibly using deadly force.

The premise of “Blue Racism” cannot be separated from the Trump Administration’s August 28 decision to give police military equipment that had been prohibited by the Obama Administration. Attorney General Jeff Sessions described these weapons — such as armored vehicles, grenade launchers and bayonets — as “lifesaving gear.” President Trump has also made clear that the nation’s highest office approves of police brutality. At a July speech to law enforcement officials in Long Island, Trump instructed officers to be cavalier in their interactions with civilians. “Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody — don’t hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, O.K.?”

These comments drew laughter and cheers from the assembled crowd.

Under Sessions’ leadership, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has begun ramping up racist policing and drug war policies based on secret recommendations from an (also secret) law enforcement committee. Sessions has already instructed prosecutors to return to mandatory minimum sentencing and seek the lengthiest sentences in drug cases. He has also instructed law enforcement to increase their use of civil asset forfeiture, through which cops can seize property and cash from suspects, regardless of whether they have been charged with any crime. At the height of the War on Drugs, police often used directives such as these as justification to brutalize black and brown communities. Now claims of “blue racism” may be used to justify violence as a means of self-defense. 

America’s history of racist policing adds another level of irony to the claim made in “Blue Racism” that “racism of any kind will never be tolerated.”

American police have always prioritized some lives over others — this racial bias was revealed most recently when examining the disparity between policing strategies during the “alt-right” gathering in Charlottesville and any one of scores of Black Lives Matter protests. Although it was no surprise that the neo-Nazis who congregated last month in Charlottesville were heavily armed, police were unprepared to protect the public from deadly violence and repeatedly stood by as white supremacists beat counter-protesters. In contrast, police have cracked down on racial justice protests, where viral images of police in military gear intimidating unarmed protesters (in Ferguson and beyond) are all too common.

In recent years, police forces across the country have drawn protest and outrage over anti-black police killings, and the NYPD is no exception to the rule. In October 2016, NYPD officers fatally shot Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old mentally ill black woman. Police were called for mental health support, but instead, one of the responding officers shot Danner, claiming she was armed with a wooden bat. The officer responsible has since been charged with murder, a rare decision lambasted by the SBA. In 2014, NYPD officers used an illegal chokehold to kill Eric Garner, an unarmed asthmatic black man whose refrain of “I can’t breathe” became a rallying-cry for Black Lives Matter.

Anti-black police violence is not just a recent phenomenon. In 1984, the NYPD fatally shot Eleanor Bumpurs, a black woman in her 60s, in the course of attempting to evict her from her apartment for unpaid rent. Rodney King’s severe beating by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, and the following impunity for officers responsible, famously spurred widespread protests.

The NYPD has been widely criticized for systemic racial discrimination — namely its racial profiling and stop-and-frisk practices. Across New York City, the vast majority of police stops since 2002 have been of black or Latinx individuals, and nine out of ten folks stopped were released with no further action. In 2016, 52 percent of those stopped were black, 29 percent were Latinx and 10 percent were white. In 2013, Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices were so discriminatory as to be unconstitutional.

This is not the first time police have tried to define themselves as an endangered group. The SBA’s charges of blue racism follow on the heels of a spate of “blue lives matter” bills that have sprung up across the country, as a backlash against the Movement for Black Lives’ efforts to develop greater police accountability. Last year, Louisiana became the first state to pass such a bill, which treats attacks on police officers as a hate crime. Similar legislation has popped up in at least 14 states, including New York, with the second bill passing into law in Kentucky earlier this year.

The claims upon which “blue lives matter” legislation rest are inaccurate and misleading. In March, Jim Pasco from the Fraternal Order of Police (America’s most powerful police union), told the Huffington Post that targeted police violence is “growing at exponential rates.” The number of fatal shootings of police officers did rise significantly in 2016 to 64, as compared to 41 in 2015. Yet there were 73 fatal police shootings in 2011, and the number of violent police deaths last year was still lower than the average for the past ten years, according to NPR.

In reality, police officers are already amongst the most legally protected groups, and Blue Lives Matter constitutes political posturing. At the root of “blue racism” campaigns are a ploy to turn the table on peaceful Black Lives Matter activists, blaming them for inciting violence against police officers. This can both reduce public sympathy for the burgeoning movement and justify increased levels of police violence against activists and the communities they aim to protect.

For the SBA and others who do not understand the meaning of race, I will try to lay it out. It is true that race is a social construct and racial groups change over time — meaning that there is not a static definition of what constitutes a race. For instance, in the U.S. we generally consider all people with African ancestry to be black or African-American, regardless of how much European or other ancestry they have. Yet in countries such as South Africa, people with these same roots can be classified as “colored,” which places them a step above black people in the country’s racial hierarchy. While race is a social construct, that does not make it any less powerful — race functions as one of the central axes upon which our society systematically favors some (white people) and oppresses others (people of color).

Police are not a historically or contemporarily disenfranchised group. In fact, the impunity with which police officers have killed black people with no legal repercussions — such as Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, Mike Brown and Tanisha Anderson — shows that police are actually systemically privileged in our society so as to operate outside laws by which most of us must abide.

In recent months, our national government has endorsed police brutality, gifted police forces with military weapons, and ramped up policies abused by police forces to racially profile black and brown folks. These same policies are used as justification for police brutality and fatal violence. Police have failed to protect racial justice activists from neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, while they harshly cracked down on Black Lives Matter protests with the same military equipment Trump is returning to them. Meanwhile, the NYPD and police forces across the country are labeling themselves as casualties of “blue racism” that exceeds the real racism experienced by actual racial groups — framing police as the true victims in need of protection. This is all part of the same strategy — and we should not underestimate the grave threat posed by this empowerment of police impunity and racist violence.

Fox News hires Laura Ingraham to host primetime show

(Credit: AP)

After weeks of speculation, Fox News announced Monday that the network is hiring Laura Ingraham to host a nightly commentary show.

The Ingraham hire is noteworthy in that it signals that the news channel is betting on a more populist brand of conservatism, as opposed to the more elitist flavor favored by Republicans prior to the emergence of Donald Trump on the political scene in 2015.

Ingraham’s program will air at 10pm Eastern Time, following shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, both of whom generally align themselves with the president’s politics. Both Carlson and Ingraham were some of the earliest right-leaning commentators to express support for Trump during the GOP presidential primaries.

The addition of Ingraham to the network’s prime-time lineup marks the first time in Fox News history that two of its high-profile evening shows will be hosted by women. Martha MacCallum currently anchors “The Story” at 7pm Eastern Time.

Ingraham has been a fixture on Fox News since 2007, when she was hired to do a weekly segment called “The Ingraham Angle” on the former program of Bill O’Reilly, Fox News’ former star who was ousted from the network in April. Ingraham’s new show will bear the same name as her old segment.

“Martha, Tucker and Sean have proven that they understand the pulse of America across the political and the cultural spectrum,” Ingraham said in a statement. “I look forward to informing and entertaining the audience and introducing new voices to the conversation.”

Ingraham has hosted a talk radio show since 2001 and will continue to do so, according to Fox News representatives. Though not as well-known as other right-wing radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, Ingraham has attracted her share of controversy for making offensive statements directed towards certain groups, particularly Muslims.

In June, she claimed in a segment on “Fox and Friends” that Europeans were risking their lives by allowing Muslim immigrants and refugees into the continent.

“Now the price they have to pay for multiculturalism is the risk that you’re walking on the sidewalk and a man will — or a woman, will purposefully mow you down,” she said. “And then while you’re maybe finishing your cappuccino in a cafe, or having a drink, someone will put a knife to your throat and slit it with the attempt, perhaps, to behead you.”

Ingraham has also taken criticism for her views on sexual minorities. In 1997, her former faculty adviser at Dartmouth College claimed that “she went so far as to avoid a local eatery where she feared the waiters were homosexual.”

Ingraham has since reversed or clarified some of her positions on homosexuality. After her brother Curtis came out as gay, Ingraham claimed to support domestic partnership arrangements.

Ingraham remains resolutely opposed to transgender rights, however. Last year, during the debate over gendered bathrooms, Ingraham promoted the myth that straight men would seek to use restroom facilities for women, and sarcastically said that “everyone” would start wearing sanitary garments instead of using public toilets.

“I think a lot of people are going to be walking around with just Depends on from now on,” she said. “They’re just not going to use the bathroom. Adult diapers, diapers for everybody.”

The announcement of Ingraham’s television landing puts an end to speculation surrounding her career. Columnist Matt Drudge had been promoting the idea of a Fox News show for Ingraham for some time without effect. Last month, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard reported that Ingraham was considering running against Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine in 2018. Ingraham was also floated as a possible press secretary to President Trump before he took office.

While known for her staunchly right-wing viewpoints, Ingraham has occasionally commingled with people from outside her ideological spectrum — such as when she dated former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann.

Scaramucci suggests Tom Brady didn’t go to White House because Gisele is jealous of Ivanka

Anthony Scaramucci (Credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci continues to employ the same big, boisterous mouth that made his term in the administration of President Trump so very memorable and so very, very short.

Today, while making a guest appearance on the web show of gossip website TMZ, the Mooch intimated that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady skipped an April team visit to the White House in honor of its Super Bowl win because maybe — just maybe — the player’s supermodel wife, Gisele Bündchen, was concerned he might run off with First Daughter Ivanka Trump. Yeah.

Under grilling from TMZ boss Harvey Levin, Scaramucci, who was not employed by the White House at the time of the Patriots’ visit, said “Somebody should ask Gisele why Tom Brady didn’t show up at the championship party.”

When Levin pressed Scaramucci for details as to why one should ask the supermodel, Scaramucci fumbled through a roundabout explanation. “You know, my guess is, is that that — uh — you know, that there could be some — ah — which is typical, I mean there could be jealousy there, protection and possession of Tom Brady and, and she probably didn’t want him to go.”

Levin, to his credit, tried to nailed down exactly what Scaramucci was trying to intimate through his words and hand gestures. “Protecting from what?” he asked. The Mooch replied: “I just, just think she’s possessive of him, they probably have a great relationship, and she probably didn’t want him there.”

Again, pressed to explain why that matters, the Mooch offered this: “I don’t know, maybe there was a relationship between him and Ivanka at some point, I have no idea, I don’t know the real reason . . . I’m not one of you guys, I’m not an investigative journalist who snoops around on these people, I have no idea.”

When asked why he brought up Ivanka — who has been married for eight years — Scaramucci said “Maybe it wasn’t her, maybe it was somebody else. I don’t know. I just think there’s a possession there that, you know, caused a rub.”

See for yourself:

Gosh, there’s so much here. Rumors that Bündchen, who is purportedly liberal in her politics, did not want Brady to join the event cropped up almost the moment he failed to show at the White House in April. At the time, his representatives claimed that the quarterback was attending to “family matters.”

We should mention Brady and Trump have spoken about their longtime friendship, though the quarterback’s political statements about the president and his campaign are often contradictory and hard to interpret. Bündchen’s statements on the matter are far more emphatic. It should also be noted that many of his teammates also chose not to make the trip for their own reasons.

Nowhere in a very brief and cursory look at even semi-reliable sources is there any mention of a previous relationship between Brady and the president’s daughter. That said, Mr. Trump did tell Playboy in 2004 that he felt the two “would make a great combination.”

More than anything else, the moment demonstrates what Scaramucci — whose credibility is only slightly north of nil — was and is: A fully New York-styled PR huckster used to selling unattributed stories about bold-type names to Page Six with a “I dunno, could be,” a “you, know, I heard that,” or a “not for nothin’, I’m just sayin’.” In short, he was this president’s perfect pitchman, a mirror of the man himself. They must miss each other.

“I would’ve never stood for it”: Hillary Clinton “won’t rule out” contesting Trump’s election

Hillary Clinton (Credit: AP/Matt Rourke)

On Monday, as part of her post-election tour for her new book “What Happened,” Hillary Clinton appeared on a radio interview with host Terry Gross on WHYY’s “Fresh Air,” in which she found herself in a peculiar role-reversal with her former rival Donald Trump. In her most incendiary comments since the election, Clinton admitted that she would not rule out questioning the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s victory if the investigation into election meddling reveals that Russia’s “interference in the election is even deeper than we know now.”

“No, I wouldn’t rule it out,” Clinton responded when pressed by Gross.

Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta, appeared on Monday before one of the Senate committees leading an investigation on Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 election. Today, the former secretary of state expressly left open the possibility of a formal challenge of the results:

Let me just put it this way, if I had lost the popular vote but won the electoral college and in my first day as president the intelligence community came to me and said, “The Russians influenced the election,” I would’ve never stood for it. Even though it might’ve advantaged me, I would’ve said, “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.” I would’ve set up an independent commission with subpoena power and everything else.

Clinton quickly made clear that such a challenge would create an extremely uncertain situation and is wholly unlikely. After noting that there have been “scholars” and “academics” who argue challenging the results would be possible, Clinton dismissed the idea: “I just don’t think we have a mechanism.”

Clinton, of course, won the popular vote in November by nearly 3 million votes, but fell short in the Electoral College vote count. Clinton argued during the campaign that questioning the integrity of the presidential election outcome constituted a “direct threat” to U.S. democracy, while Trump repeatedly insisted the system was “rigged” against him.

I know Secretary Clinton is trying to sell books but this is wildly irresponsible and she should be ashamed. https://t.co/TL5KYhfwsn

— Cory Gardner (@SenCoryGardner) September 18, 2017

In her interview with Gross, Clinton went on to compare the American election to the recent presidential election in Kenya, the results of which were tossed out over irregularities. Clinton noted that the data analysis firm that worked for Kenyan incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta is connected to Trump allies including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon.

You know, the Kenya election was just overturned and really what’s interesting about that — and I hope somebody writes about it, Terry — the Kenyan election was also a project of Cambridge Analytica, the data company owned by the Mercer family that was instrumental in the Brexit vote.

There’s now an investigation going on in the U.K., because of the use of data and the weaponization of information. They were involved in the Trump campaign after he got the nomination, and I think that part of what happened is Mercer said to Trump, We’ll help you, but you have to take Bannon as your campaign chief. You’ve got to take Kellyanne Conway and these other people who are basically Mercer protégées.

And so we know that there was this connection. So what happened in Kenya, which I’m only beginning to delve into, is that the Supreme Court there said there are so many really unanswered and problematic questions, we’re going to throw the election out and re-do it. We have no such provision in our country. And usually we don’t need it.

You can listen to the full interview here.  

Vietnam: Who was right about what went wrong – and why it matters in Afghanistan

(Credit: AP Photo/File)

The ghosts of the Vietnam War no doubt hovered over a recently assembled conclave of President Donald Trump’s advisers as they deliberated over the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

In the Vietnam era, as today, the United States found itself engulfed in a seemingly never-ending war with mounting costs, unclear goals and few signs of success. In both Vietnam and Afghanistan, successive presidents faced much the same options: Withdraw, decisively escalate or do just enough to avoid losing. Like his predecessors in both wars, Trump chose the middle path – incremental escalation with no clear exit plan. Although Trump called it a “plan for victory,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson candidly admitted that the additional American troops will likely do little more than “stabilize the situation.”

How can we to explain the seeming preference of U.S. presidents for muddling through – whether in Afghanistan or, 50 years ago, in Vietnam? This has been a central question in a course on the Vietnam War that I have offered for the past 30 years. In it, we look for answers in a fascinating debate among former officials that emerged in the late stages of the war.

Down a slippery slope

Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger offered one point of view in his 1967 book “The Bitter Harvest.” A onetime adviser to John F. Kennedy, Schlesinger compared Vietnam to a quagmire: The first step into a quagmire inexorably draws one down a slippery slope. Schlesinger argued that officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations stumbled blindly into Vietnam without understanding where the U.S. commitment would lead. Escalation proceeded through a series of small steps, none of which seemed terribly consequential. Each succeeding step was taken in the optimistic belief that a little more effort – a bit more aid, a few more troops, a slight intensification of the bombing – would turn things around by signaling American resolve to stay the course. Faced with this prospect, the reasoning went, the North Vietnamese communists would sue for peace on American terms.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in 1951.

Wikipedia

These flawed expectations, Schlesinger argued, arose from a decision-making system characterized by “ignorance, misjudgment and muddle.” A dysfunctional bureaucracy fed presidents misleading and overly rosy intelligence. The Vietnam War debacle, in other words, arose from inadvertence and folly.

Just don’t lose

In separate pieces, this interpretation of what went wrong was challenged by Daniel Ellsberg and Leslie Gelb. Both Gelb and Ellsberg had formerly served as Defense Department officials during the 1960s, and both helped to compile the famous “Pentagon Papers.”

Gelb and Ellsberg reached similar conclusions about the sources of U.S. policy toward Vietnam. Ellsberg argued that policymakers during the Kennedy and early Johnson administrations followed two rules:

Do not lose South Vietnam to communism, and
Do not involve the U.S. in a large-scale ground war in Asia.

Each rule drew upon recent precedent. The “loss” of China to communism in 1949 led to charges that Democrats were “soft on communism” and a wave of McCarthyite hysteria at home. On the other hand, the public would also not tolerate another ground war similar to the unpopular Korean engagement.

Dan Ellsberg in 1971.

AP

The perceived domestic political costs of either extreme – withdrawal or unrestrained escalation – steered Kennedy and Johnson toward the middle. As long as feasible, each president did enough to avoid losing South Vietnam but shunned the direct commitment of U.S. troops that military advisers insisted would be necessary to bring victory.

By 1965, the deteriorating political and military situation in South Vietnam cut this middle ground from beneath Johnson’s feet. The minimum necessary to stave off defeat now required the commitment of American combat troops. Even once this line had been crossed, however, troops were introduced in a gradual manner and Johnson balked at imposing higher taxes to pay for the war.

As Kennedy and Johnson anticipated, public support for the war waned as U.S. casualties mounted. Richard Nixon responded to these domestic pressures by undertaking “Vietnamization,” which gradually reduced American troop levels even while prolonging U.S. efforts to stave off a communist victory.

Ellsberg refers to this as a “stalemate machine.” Policymakers acted in a calculated manner to avoid losing for as long as possible, but understood that their policies could not bring victory. Stalemate was a conscious choice rather than a product of overoptimism or miscalculation.

Leslie Gelb at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on July 24, 1971.

AP Photo/Jim Palmer

While echoing Ellsberg’s account of the domestic constraints on U.S. policy, Gelb added two sets of international constraints. Withdrawal was ruled out because policymakers believed in the domino theory, which predicted that the loss of South Vietnam would set off a cascade of communist victories throughout Southeast Asia. They also feared that the U.S. would lose credibility with its allies if we failed to put up a fight in South Vietnam. For these reasons, as well as fears of a right-wing backlash, Kennedy and Johnson were unwilling to walk away from Vietnam.

Yet Kennedy and Johnson also feared the international risks of major escalation, Gelb argued. An invasion of North Vietnam raised the possibility that either China or the Soviet Union would intervene more directly or retaliate against U.S. interests elsewhere in the world. In an age of nuclear weapons, the U.S. preferred to keep the Vietnam conflict limited and to minimize the risks of superpower war.

From Vietnam to Afghanistan

Gelb and Ellsberg rejected Schlesinger’s argument that policymakers were overly optimistic and lacking in foresight. Rather, they saw policymakers as generally pessimistic, recognizing that the next step along the ladder of escalation would not be sufficient and that future steps would be necessary just to maintain a stalemate. With victory viewed as infeasible, presidents chose stalemate as the least bad among a set of terrible options. Presidents had no clear exit strategy, other than the hope that the enemy would weary of the conflict or that the problem could be passed along to the next president.

Instead of blaming bureaucratic bumbling, Gelb argues that “the system worked.” The bureaucrats did exactly what top policymakers asked them to do: Avoid losing Vietnam for more than a decade. The problem lay rather in the underlying assumption – never questioned – that Vietnam was a vital interest of the United States.

Who was right?

I’d contend that Gelb and Ellsberg make a more convincing case than Schlesinger. Muddling through offered presidents a politically safer short-run alternative to withdrawal or major escalation.

A similar dynamic appears at work in the U.S. approach to Afghanistan, where Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump have each accepted stalemate over the riskier options of retreat or decisive escalation. Against an entrenched Taliban insurgency, U.S. policy has been driven by the need to stave off the collapse of weak local partners rather than the pursuit or expectation of military victory. Even President Barack Obama’s surge in Afghanistan provided fewer than half the troops requested by the military. On the other hand, Obama later retreated from his own stated deadline for total withdrawal, opting to leave 11,000 troops in place. Now Trump has also reneged from previous pledges to disengage from Afghanistan, instead sending additional troops.

It may be that the logic of the stalemate machine is built into the very concept of limited war. Or that it is a predictable consequence of how presidents manage the constraints posed by American politics. In any case, the histories of U.S. military involvements in Vietnam and Afghanistan should serve as warnings to future presidents who might be tempted to again jump onto the treadmill of perpetual war.

David Skidmore, Professor of Political Science, Drake University

There’s another threat coming from Harvey and Irma

(Credit: AP)

Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes viewed through a microscope in Broward County, Florida, in June 2016.

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

Even as the floodwaters from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma begin to recede, significant but less obvious health threats remain. The standing water the storms have left behind will almost certainly cause an explosion of the mosquito population.

In addition to the already difficult task of recovery, the affected areas will need to stem the mosquito population growth to avoid the potential for a disease outbreak.

As experts with diverse research and government experience, we believe mosquito prevention and control measures must be given high priority and incorporated into long-term hurricane recovery operations.

Why the disease threat is worse now

Eleven cases of Zika have been confirmed this year in the Houston area alone, although none of these were locally transmitted, and Florida has reported 33 symptomatic cases. Zika virus is a disease spread to humans primarily through the bite of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The infection often occurs without causing any symptoms.

In the continental United States, the two areas where Aedes aegypti have the most favorable climates to thrive are exactly southeastern Texas and south Florida.

The greatest threat posed by Zika is the risk of infection among pregnant women. Previous outbreaks of the disease have shown there is an association between Zika infection during pregnancy and babies born with microcephaly. The birth of infants with incomplete brain development creates a long-term public health challenge that extends far beyond the immediate outbreak.

Although the current number of confirmed cases of Zika in Florida and Texas is not large, the growth of the Aedes aegypti mosquito greatly increases the chance the disease will begin to spread. Each case of Zika presents the opportunity for the disease to begin circulating in the local mosquito population.

While Zika is the greatest concern, dengue fever, Chikungunya virus and yellow fever are also spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. In all cases, of course, the disease must be present in an area for mosquitoes to transfer it, but like Zika, dengue fever is already present in Texas and Florida. Since Houston and Miami are both large international hubs, it is possible for almost any vector-borne disease to be introduced by travelers.

The breeding ground for mosquitoes is not actually the large, sometimes deep blanket of floodwaters, most of which recedes fairly quickly. Small bodies of left-behind water, such as that in a dog’s water bowl, become ideal breeding areas. Unless these breeding sites are emptied, there could be tens of thousands of new breeding grounds in the cities of Houston and Miami alone.

Two men evacuate a home in Houston on Sept. 4, 2017.

AP Photo/David J. Phillip

This presents a special kind of public health challenge in the wake of the storms. In some areas, people may not return to their homes for a long time. Government and response agencies must figure out a way to eliminate standing water in order to prevent mosquito breeding grounds.

However, almost all of the breeding grounds will be on private property, with no one present to either dump the waters or authorize the government to do so. Moreover, Houston is home to more than half a million undocumented immigrants, who may not be likely to cooperate with authorities, even if they are in their homes, for fear of prosecution or deportation.

Prevention and control strategies

Vaccines and antivirals are not available to prevent or treat Zika and other mosquito-borne viral diseases, such as dengue fever and Chikungunya virus. There is a licensed vaccine for yellow fever, but vaccines will be in short supply if outbreaks occur.

The U.S. Air Force Reserve began aerial spraying of Dibrom (also called Naled) in Harris County, home to Houston, on September 14. Florida was already spraying Dibrom before the storms. The goal of aerial spraying is to reduce the mosquito burden to prevent mosquito-borne disease and to also to allow recovery work to move forward. In some areas, mosquitoes occur in such large numbers that they occur in swarms, which prevent recovery workers from carrying out crucial repairs.

The EPA rates the chemical safe for humans, especially because it is sprayed in very low volumes, where a single person or animal is unlikely to come into contact with enough of the chemical for it to have substantial side effects, while it kills adult mosquitoes on contact. The known side effects are mild. As with any chemical spraying, however, it is possible only in limited amounts and so alone cannot stem the mosquito population growth.

A C-130 Hercules fuels up at Grand Forks Air Force Base, Grand Forks, N.D., before flying an anti-mosquito mission similar to those underway after recent hurricanes.

Airman 1st Class Zachiah Roberson/US Air Force File Photo, CC BY-SA

Pesticide use for large community-wide aerial spraying is also controversial, and aerial spraying will have only a modest effect on the disease carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in any case. The Aedes aegypti as a species has adapted closely to human habitats, particularly cities, where aerial sprays do not reach well and their eggs can survive for months. In fact, the areas of Harris County that authorities are spraying do not include most of the city of Houston.

Aerial spraying is thus only a partial solution. While spraying is necessary to curb the adult population of mosquitoes, it cannot do so in urban area and it does not prevent further breeding. Dumping the water that creates breeding grounds is crucial to successfully curbing the risk of a disease outbreak, but it, too, is insufficient by itself.

Former CDC chief Tom Frieden.

Albert H. Teich/www.shutterstock.com

Dr. Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, once said that “Zika and other diseases spread by Aedes aegypti are really not controllable with current technologies.”

Academic research, university extension services, public health institutions and government working in tandem to develop new tools to combat the growing threat of vector-borne diseases — all are crucial to the recovery in Texas and Florida, and to better prepare for hurricanes in the future.

Christine Crudo Blackburn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University ; Gerald W. Parker, Associate Dean For Global One Health, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences; and Director, Pandemic and Biosecurity Policy Program, Scowcroft Institute for International Affairs, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University , and Morten Wendelbo, Policy Sciences Lecturer, Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University

 

Don’t buy Apple’s new iPhone. Fix your old one

iPhone 8, iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus (Credit: Getty/Justin Sullivan)

You, savvy internet reader, have likely noticed that Apple released a new iPhone. We’ll admit: It sure is pretty! But should you buy it?

Watch our video, above, and read on for more details.

Apple has sold 1.2 billion iPhones since it launched the first model 10 years ago, which means the company has emitted as much as 100 million tons of CO2 extracting, refining, manufacturing, shipping, and powering phones like the one you are probably reading this on. To cut down on that colossal footprint, we should all be trying to keep these resource-intensive devices in circulation as long as possible. Here’s how to make your smartphone last much longer.

For one thing, keep it from breaking. That means you should use a protective case, keep it dry, and make some simple changes to preserve battery life as long as possible.

If your phone does break, you can fix it! The company iFixit makes guides and tools to help you make your own repairs. (Note: We did this! If we can, you probably can. But know that it takes some elbow grease and comes with a risk of causing extra damage, so there’s no shame in taking your phone to a professional who will repair it for you instead.)

If your phone is truly broken — or it’s just time for that shiny new one — sell it to someone who will use it well. The market for second-hand phones is strong, which is good news for you ($$$$). And even a busted phone contains parts that may be useful for refurbishing other phones or devices, so make sure it ends up in the hands of a responsible recycler. Apple has made efforts to improve the way it recycles its own devices, but a lot of the valuable parts it collects end up shredded to protect proprietary information.

How solar power can protect the U.S. military from threats to the electric grid

(Credit: AP/Reed Saxon)

As the U.S. military increases its use of drones in surveillance and combat overseas, the danger posed by a threat back at home grows. Many drone flights are piloted by soldiers located in the U.S., even when the drones are flying over Yemen or Iraq or Syria. Those pilots and their control systems depend on the American electricity grid — large, complex, interconnected and very vulnerable to attack.

Without electricity from civilian power plants, the most advanced military in world history could be crippled. The U.S. Department of Energy has begged for new authority to defend against weaknesses in the grid in a nearly 500-page comprehensive study issued in January 2017 warning that it’s only a matter of time before the grid fails, due to disaster or attack. A new study by a team I led reveals the three ways American military bases’ electrical power sources are threatened, and shows how the U.S. military could take advantage of solar power to significantly improve national security.

A triple threat

The first threat to the electricity grid comes from nature. Severe weather disasters resulting in power outages cause between US$25 billion and $70 billion in the U.S. each year — and that’s average years, not those including increasingly frequent major storms, like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

The second type of threat is from traditional acts of crime or terrorism, such as bombing or sabotage. For example, a 2013 sniper attack on a Pacific Gas and Electric substation in California disabled 17 transformers supplying power to Silicon Valley. In what the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission called “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred,” the attacker — who may have been an insider — fired about 100 rounds of .30-caliber rifle ammunition into the radiators of 17 electricity transformers over the course of 19 minutes. The electronics overheated and shut down. Fortunately, power company engineers managed to keep the lights on in Silicon Valley by routing power from other sources.

The third threat is from cyberspace. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security responded to approximately 200 “cyber incidents” across critical infrastructure sectors, nearly half of which attacked the electrical grid. A major breach in the electric system could cost as much as $1 trillion. And China, Russia and North Korea are all trying to break into the grid, potentially to disrupt the U.S. electricity supply the way Russia has in Ukraine in recent years. The security firm Symantec recently warned that hackers have already gained direct access to the electric grid.

A major grid failure, thanks to nature or malicious humans, could easily outstrip the ability of generators and fuel supplies to fill the gaps. Rebuilding or replacing large numbers of damaged transformers could take months or even years: Fixing just 17 of them after the 2013 attack in California cost roughly $100 million and took 27 days.

It wouldn’t just be homes and businesses waiting for the lights to come back on: Military bases, too, would be in the dark.

Securing the ability to fight

U.S. national security requires that the military have electricity even during a long-term blackout for other parts of society or the country. Fortunately, there is a solution that addresses all three types of threat to the electric grid at once: distributed power generation.

In a sense, stationing diesel-fueled generators outside key buildings to provide emergency power is a start down this path. But fuel supply lines can be disrupted too, so renewable energy is best for a long-lasting solution. Solar photovoltaic systems, which generate electricity directly from sunlight, are best because they are easy to maintain, can be located almost anywhere and don’t need to be refueled.

The U.S. military is already working toward this goal. Congress has decided that military facilities must get 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. To meet that requirement, also by 2025, the department wants to be able to generate 3 gigawatts of renewable power every year. (A nuclear power plant operating at peak capacity produces about 1 gigawatt.)

Much more to be done

These steps are in the right direction but are not enough to relieve the threat. Only a few military bases have installed solar panel systems, which generally cover only part of their loads. Most military bases remain unprotected against long-term interruption of electrical power.

In our study, we found that the 3 GW goal by 2025 is far short of the real need: About 17 GW of solar-generating capacity would be enough to fortify the U.S. military domestically. And more is needed to protect overseas bases, which are vulnerable because other countries’ civilian electricity grids are as vulnerable as those in the U.S.

This is an enormous need for solar capacity: Only in 2015, after years of effort and investment, did the U.S. as a whole reach 20 GW of solar-generating capacity. And while our study found that the work will cost around $42 billion, it will save as much as $2 billion a year in electricity bills the military now pays to civilian suppliers.

Companies already serving the military are ready and able to do the work. For example, Lockheed Martin, a major defense contractor, has built a demonstration system at Fort Bliss in Texas with a 120-kilowatt solar array and a 300-kilowatt energy storage system. The equipment is connected together — and to buildings it serves — in what is called a “microgrid,” which is normally connected to the regular commercial power grid but can be disconnected and become self-sustaining when disaster strikes.

To truly secure the U.S. military, every base will need this kind of system — supersized, including both rooftop and ground-based solar arrays. The costs are manageable — and the solar panels are largely one-time costs. In fact, we found that the military could generate all of its electricity from distributed renewable sources by 2025 using these types of microgrids — which would provide energy reliability and decrease costs. And it would largely eliminate a major group of very real threats to national security.

Sitting too long can kill you, and exercise won’t help

(Credit: Syda Productions via Shutterstock)

In 1960, approximately 50 percent of U.S. jobs required heavy to moderate physical activity. Today, that number stands at just 20 percent, meaning approximately 80 percent of jobs are almost wholly sedentary or demand minimal physical exertion. The vast majority of us spend the bulk of our workdays being mostly immobile, glued to our chairs and desks. That inactivity is part of why we’ve become one of the fattest nations in the world. Obesity is connected to a number of health risks, but there are far greater consequences to our stationary lives. A new study finds that regularly sitting for hours on end can ultimately lead to premature death, and those potentially lethal effects can’t be countered with frequent exercise.

Researchers from Columbia, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center looked at data collected from nearly 8,000 adults over the age of 45 from around the U.S. Using “hip-mounted activity monitors,” researchers were able to accurately gauge how long participants were active each day, versus the amount of time they spent seated. Over the course of four years, 340 study participants died. Columbia University researchers concluded that “those with the greatest amount of sedentary time—more than 13 hours per day—and who frequently had sedentary bouts of at least 60 to 90 consecutive minutes had a nearly twofold increase in death risk compared with those who had the least total sedentary time and the shortest sedentary bouts.” Researchers also determined that “those who frequently sat in stretches less than 30 minutes had a 55 percent lower risk of death compared to people who usually sat for more than 30 minutes at a stretch,” according to CNN. Too much sitting was directly related to “all-cause mortality”—that is, dying of any fatal cause—regardless of age, race, sex, body mass index or exercise habits.

This isn’t the first study to conclude that spending a lot of time seated is hazardous to your health. Previous studies have linked excessive sitting with ailments that run the gamut from merely annoying to lethal, including foggy brain, heart disease, colon, breast and endometrial cancer, walking impairment, and organ damage. These new findings suggest that not only is sitting bad in the cumulative long term, but the amount of uninterrupted sitting in any stretch could have deleterious effects.

“We found that there wasn’t a threshold or cutoff where one’s risk for death dramatically increased,” Diaz told CNN. “To give you a specific number, those who sat for more than 13 hours per day had a two-fold (or 200 percent) greater risk of death compared to those who sat for less than about 11 hours per day.”

There are still questions about why, but in an interview with CNN, Columbia University Medical Center scientist and study lead Keith Diaz suggested a possible negative correlation between inactivity and skeletal muscles, “which require fuel to operate and take in glucose from our blood.” The outlet points out that “when we’re inactive for extended periods, our body is continually exposed to higher blood glucose levels, which can lead to a host of health problems.”

Though the study needs additional research to be considered conclusive, it does offer insights on the way our contemporary lifestyles are bad for our well-being. Being chained to a desk all day, after spending hours sitting in a car or on public transport, then transitioning into a couch potato at night ups the ante for health consequences. Age is often directly related to the amount of inactivity, which means getting older requires greater vigilance about physical activity. What’s more, it’s less the sitting factor itself that concerns researchers than the inactivity issue. Asked by CNN if a standing desk might be the panacea to what ails office workers, Diaz suggests it’s not that easy.

“[T]here is limited evidence to suggest that standing is a healthier alternative to sitting,” he told CNN, emphasizing that breaks must incorporate movement.

Diaz and his team suggest that while there’s useful information to extrapolate from the new study and its predecessors, vague ideas about how to apply those lessons only go so far. “This would be like telling someone to just exercise without telling them how.”

Instead, Diaz hopes that the study findings may ultimately help health organizations create specific advisories to prevent unhealthy sitting behaviors.

“We think a more specific guideline could read something like, ‘For every 30 consecutive minutes of sitting, stand up and move/walk for five minutes at a brisk pace to reduce the health risks from sitting,'” Diaz told CNN, noting the newest findings bring “us a step closer to such guidelines.”

Who’s behind fossil fuel extraction? It’s not just Republicans

(Credit: AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

Like the sections of pipe they are assembled from, pipelines with names like Algonquin, Dominion and Kinder Morgan/TCG CT Expansion are interconnected, and affect a long string of communities crisscrossing the country. The 2.5 million miles of oil and natural gas pipelines frequently leak and rupture, a 2012 ProPublica investigation found.

The pipeline aggregation enacted by the past and current administrations represents a clear shift in societal priorities: US communities and regions are no long the secure recipients of outside energy but instead are subjected to extractive exploitation on their own home ground — with few avenues for citizen protection.

The interests of the oil, gas and pipeline industries are connected — and so are the related problems that all of us face. No matter where fossil fuels are extracted, carried, refined, exported or used, the need to avoid contamination and deter climate change connects all people. It’s no longer about just one community’s backyard. And to stall climate change and contamination, people need to connect the dots.

How did fossil fuel development become so pervasive? Let’s take a look at a few milestones that, in recent years, have deepened the pattern of relentless extraction.

The Keystone pipeline and the Keystone clone

Many environmentally concerned citizens remember climate scientist James Hansen’s famous warning that proceeding with the Keystone XL pipeline would be “game over for the environment.” That’s why former President Obama’s 2015 decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline was celebrated as a major environmental victory. It was thought to be “game over” for the Keystone XL — but did Obama’s ban actually put an end to the pipeline? Not really.

The powerful public opposition to Keystone XL had taught the gas and oil industry (and their government allies) something. Giving a single name to over 3,000 miles of pipeline furnished environmentalists with a broad and brand-able organizing target. After the Keystone XL defeat, the industry figured out a way to get their pipelines built by doing just the opposite. Instead of going big, they went small. What journalist Steve Horn of DeSmogBlog calls “the Keystone XL Clones” were a series of pipelines, designed and put into place to do exactly the same thing as the seemingly nixed Keystone XL — carry tar sands down to the Gulf Coast refineries, owned by Koch Industries.

Using a relatively new regulatory workaround called Nationwide Permit 12, enacted in 2011 under the Obama administration, pipeline companies were allowed to break “pipelines into different pieces, calling each piece a different name, rather than one gigantic name, in order to connect all those pieces and carry that oil,” Horn said in an interview on my radio program, Connect the Dots. Nationwide Permit 12s were supposed to be applicable to half an acre (or smaller) sized pipeline segments. But according to Horn, “large pipelines, thousands of half acre projects, are coupled together and approved through scores of Permit 12s in order to avoid public transparency.”

Conferred by the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Nationwide Permit 12 has been used many times, including for the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline and for the Gulf Coast pipeline. Most famously, it permitted Energy Transfer Partners, the builders of the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), to cross Lake Oahe, the move that sparked the 2016 Standing Rock protests.

“This is the longest pipeline under a river in the US,” said Sara Jumping Eagle, an Oglala tribal member, Standing Rock Reservation resident, pediatrician and plaintiff in a current lawsuit that contends that the Dakota Access pipeline should cease operation.

Indigenous communities first heard that the DAPL pipeline was to be built under their water and food source, Lake Oahe, when surveyors came to the region, Jumping Eagle said. Next, “the company came and made a presentation. They already had a plan to build it there without having consulted the tribes beforehand.”

The pipeline is monitored electronically from Texas, and most existing leaks in water or on land were identified by local farmers or residents, not by the far-away technology. While the company assured that no leakage would occur, it planned to use safety monitors that “have not worked in the past,” says Jumping Eagle.

“We know that DAPL has already leaked in South Dakota before even going into full use — so, it’s just a matter of time before this pipeline leaks. And if and when it does, the Lakota nations that depend directly on the Missouri River water have no guarantee that we could still live in this area,” Jumping Eagle said. “The federal government has abdicated their responsibility for our public health. There is no guarantee that the glass of water I am giving to my daughter is free from benzene or other chemicals used in the fracking and oil industry.”

From the outset, environmental groups opposed Permit 12 because it bypassed the traditional environmental impact statements (EIS) required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the past, the EPA, the Department of the Interior, and other relevant agencies were required to write up a lengthy document outlining the environmental impacts of all pipeline projects.

As opposed to the typical several-hundred-page document, a Permit 12 is “typically three to four pages,” Horn said in our Connect the Dots interview. It undergoes far less scrutiny, and takes citizens out of the process. “You don’t have to do public hearings, there is no public commenting period, and basically it’s an under-the-radar way to approve pipelines,” he added.

Jumping Eagle told me, “The Army Corps of Engineers claims that they sent the tribe emails, but an email that gives you due notice does not replace prior consultation and consent.”

On a policy level, the Obama administration’s advancement of Permit 12 gutted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which was enacted in 1970 under Richard Nixon, who in his 1970 State of the Union Address spoke of the need that NEPA was developed to meet:

“The great question . . .  is shall we make peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, our land and our water? . . .  Clean air, clean water, open spaces – these should once again be the birthright of every American . . . The price tag is high. Through our years of past carelessness, we have incurred a debt to nature. Now that debt is being called.”

NEPA’s preamble states the aim:

To declare national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.

Normalizing the use of Permit 12 circumvented NEPA. The failure to do a complete EIS has already resulted in environmental infringements. For example, Dakota Access now faces allegations of misconduct filed by the North Dakota Public Service Commission. According to a Commission memorandum, “There were a number of deficiencies and possible violations.” Whatever the Commission’s eventual decision, potential fines for these violations won’t exceed $200,000.

Although much of the public was not paying close attention to Obama’s pro-fossil-fuel policy decisions, several media outlets reported that Obama clearly signaled his pro-gas and oil industry policy intentions during his 2012 re-election campaign. At a stop in Cushing, Oklahoma, the president famously stood before massive pipes, and signed an executive order to expedite permitting for pipelines and other related infrastructure.

“Obama’s Worst Speech Ever,” was how Joe Romm, founding editor of Climate Progress, characterized the speech. He quotes the former president:

Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some.

Rolling Stone called the speech “a crushing defeat for enviros and clean energy activists.”

The de facto use of Nationwide Permit 12 by executive order under Obama was just a start. This regulatory bypass was something the oil and gas industry sought to codify into law. Over the course of the next several years, Horn noted, “ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), American Petroleum Institute (API), Koch Industries, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many others” had lobbied for a bill that would permanently instate the permit bypass. This bypass was ultimately enacted through legislation — within a highway construction bill.

Climate champions?

President Obama signed the Koch-backed bill that sped up permitting on December 4, 2015 – just eight days before he signed the Paris Climate Accord.

Though many see the Paris Accord as Obama’s shining moment for the environment, the plan to speed the construction of fossil fuel infrastructures cast a shadow over the US’s well-publicized but halfhearted participation in the agreement. Moreover, although the Paris Accord was significant, it contains no enforcement mechanisms: There are no penalties for breaching provisions.

As Trump stood poised to withdraw the US from the Paris Accord in May, New York Senator Charles Schumer spoke out. “If the United States were to un-sign the agreement, all of the progress in combatting climate change would be undone in one fell swoop,” Schumer said.

Obama’s signing of the Paris Accord and Trump’s exiting the same agreement (in June 2017) certainly expressed different intentions: to protect climate on the one hand, and to deny that need on the other. However, throughout the Obama administration, the steady expansion of fossil fuel development and infrastructures proceeded apace — and it continues to do so under Trump.

It’s a cautionary tale for these dire days, when many are eager to pin their hopes on the next self-styled climate hero — even with evidence that some would-be good guys (like Obama) have found themselves compelled to push fossil-fuel-friendly policies.

Back home in New York, Schumer isn’t showing much enthusiasm for climate leadership. Since 2014, New York constituents have urged the senator to oppose the Algonquin Incremental Market Pipeline  (AIM), a high-gauge gas pipeline that runs through Indian Point, a nuclear power plant with a poor safety record. Due to the documented incidence of pipeline explosions cited earlier, AIM poses a risk to 20 million people in the New York Metro area, while also releasing methane, the major contributor to climate change. The Federal Energy Commission (FERC), which regulates interstate pipelines, is funded by the pipeline industry  —  with a poor record of accountability for environmental concerns. Schumer recently voted in two new nominees to FERC, described by The Hill as “an energy aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky., and . . . a Pennsylvania utilities regulator.”

Similarly, although the New York Times recently hailed California Gov. Jerry Brown “as the nation’s de facto negotiator with the world on the environment,” Brown’s record is mixed. With well-known family ties to and donor support from the gas and oil industry, Brown, “has not spoken out against fracking, much less banned it,” journalist Mark Hertsgaard points out.

Environmental groups were also highly critical of Brown’s recently signed cap-and-trade bill for lifting “several suggestions near-verbatim from an industry Wishlist — drafted by a law firm contracted by the Western States Petroleum Association — of proposals for how to continue the cap-and-trade program,” writes Kate Aronoff of In These Times.

Moreover, the purchase of carbon offsets, the basis for the bill, allows “a polluter like Chevron . . . [to] continue polluting as usual, or even process tar sands and thus increase its emissions. Offsets let polluters off the hook while allowing pollution hotspots to perpetuate, condemning communities like mine to decades more of toxic pollution,” writes Michelle Chan in AlterNet.

“One of the things about the Democrats is that they talk out of both sides of their mouth,” says longtime climate activist Nancy Romer, who is on the steering committee of the People’s Climate Movement-New York. “They act as though they are defending the climate, and meanwhile they facilitate the fossil fuel industry. The Republicans are just all out for the fossil fuel industry. Period.”

It is becoming ever clearer that protecting the climate will require holding elected officials on both sides of the aisle accountable.