Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 875

February 3, 2016

Will Exxon pay for years of polluting and climate denialism?

For the past few months, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been investigating ExxonMobil to determine if the world's largest publicly traded international oil and gas company lied to the public or investors about the risks of climate change to its future business, based on the firm’s own internal studies. In November, Schneiderman issued a subpoena demanding a wide range of documents, including emails and financial documents. The New York Times reported that the inquiry “would include a period of at least a decade during which ExxonMobil funded outside groups that sought to undermine climate science, even as its in-house scientists were outlining the potential consequences — and uncertainties — to company executives." Kenneth P. Cohen, the company's vice president for public affairs, vehemently denied the accusations. “We unequivocally reject the allegations that ExxonMobil has suppressed climate change research.” He added that the company had "funded mainstream climate science since the 1970s, had published dozens of scientific papers on the topic and had disclosed climate risks to investors. California’s AG, Kamala D. Harris, launched a similar investigation, suggesting that other states may follow Schneiderman’s lead, possibly expanding the probe into other fossil fuel companies. Several high-profile current and former lawmakers, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Al Gore, have called for criminal investigations based on the media reports. The growing inquiry has been compared to the lawsuits that have bedeviled tobacco companies, which concealed from the public research about the health effects of smoking cigarettes in the 1950s and '60s. “This could open up years of litigation and settlements in the same way that tobacco litigation did, also spearheaded by attorneys general,” said Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. “In some ways, the theory is similar — that the public was misled about something dangerous to health. Whether the same smoking guns will emerge, we don’t know yet.” I had a chance to ask Katherine Sawyer, international organizer at Corporate Accountability International, a Boston-based non-profit, about Schneiderman’s investigation and what it might mean for Exxon and the fossil fuel industry in general. Since the investigation isn’t public, it remains unclear what exactly Attorney General Schneiderman hopes to find in the reams of documents he ordered Exxon to produce. What exactly is he looking for? Could there be a smoking gun? What he’s looking for is proof that Exxon knew about the catastrophic dangers of climate change and chose to suppress that science — proof that the corporation made the purposeful and calculated decision to hide the truth. In addition, the investigation will look at whether or not Exxon properly notified its investors of the business risks associated with climate change. In other words, did Exxon let its investors know that climate change will inevitably hurt its business or did it seek to obscure the truth? In an op-ed piece in the Guardian, climate activist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben slammed Exxon, saying that "no corporation has ever done anything this big or bad." Do you agree that the climate impact of Exxon's alleged duplicity, if proven, make it the worst case of corporate malfeasance ever? If it’s not the worst, it’s certainly close. The implications of Exxon and the rest of the industry’s denial and deception will have real life-and-death consequences for millions upon millions of people around the world. Certainly, the lies and deception of many industries, from Big Tobacco to Big Food, have had serious and deadly health consequences, but none will have such irreversible, global consequences for entire populations, communities and even countries. Because of inaction on climate change caused by polluters and climate denial, entire populations will need to be relocated and their cultures will likely be wiped out. It’s truly hard to overstate the impact of Exxon’s denial campaign on the future of people and our planet. Alan Jeffers, an ExxonMobil media relations manager, explained the company’s position regarding claims that it has been funding climate research to the Washington Post: “We were engaged with funding public policy groups on policy issues, not on science,” he said, adding, “We made our position known on some climate policies that made us unpopular with environmental activists, and they tried to position that as us funding climate denial. And that’s just not accurate.” Does the defense they are mounting — that they are funding policy issues rather than science — sound at all reasonable? No, it doesn’t. And I’ll tell you why. First, we know for a fact that Exxon, directly and through front groups, has funded junk science and climate denial. That’s not up for debate. Second, you don’t need to be a scientist to know that you need a good understanding of climate science for sound climate policy. The idea that climate policy can somehow be separated from climate science only passes the smell test if you hold your nose. This affair has drawn comparisons to the tobacco industry concealing research into the health effects of smoking. Elliott Negin of the Union of Concerned Scientists points out that the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “like a number of other fossil fuel industry-funded groups…cut its teeth fronting for the tobacco industry in the 1990s to stave off tighter government regulation,” noting that CEI is “the very same think tank that reassured Americans back in 2006 that global warming is nothing to worry about in a TV commercial praising the benefits of carbon dioxide.” Do you think this is a fair comparison? Absolutely. Right now the fossil fuel industry is in a very similar place to where the tobacco industry was in the late 1980s to early '90s. Just as Big Tobacco before it, the fossil fuel industry will continue to deny wrongdoing and peddle its deadly product while willfully deceiving the public — all in the name of profit. Another key comparison to draw between the tobacco industry and the fossil fuel industry is the role that they play interfering in policymaking. Tobacco-control policy is insulated from the tobacco industry in the U.N. because governments recognized the inherent conflict of interest in the tobacco industry having any say in public health policymaking. Right now, a global coalition is organizing to implement a similar provision within climate policy in order to ensure that policymaking reflects the needs of people and the planet, not corporate bottom lines. Exxon acknowledged that it wasn’t a good idea to finance research and campaigns that cast doubt on the scientific consensus regarding climate change; in 2007, the company said it would cut off such financial support. That practice “deserved no prizes for good corporate citizenship,” wrote the Bloomberg View editorial board, also pointing out that “failing to be a good corporate citizen isn't lying, and isn’t a crime.” If Schneiderman’s investigation fails to lead to criminal charges, what will its ultimate impact be, if any? Even if Exxon is found to be innocent, does the inquiry have implications on a larger scale, say, for the global climate change movement or public awareness in general? This is truly one of those cases where the journey could be more valuable than the destination. This investigation could uncover internal documents and more deceit and lies, which could help to further shift public opinion and compel decision-makers around the world to action. In addition, more states seem to be hopping on board. A couple weeks ago the governor of Vermont urged his state to divest from ExxonMobil and also coal, and the attorney general of California just opened an investigation into Exxon. So, regardless of the outcome in New York, we’re witnessing the tipping point for the fossil fuel industry’s social license. The Bloomberg View editorial board slammed Schneiderman’s case, characterizing it as a “dangerous crusade.” Here’s what they said:

On the face of it, the company's research on climate change and its previous public positions on climate policy not only fail to amount to fraud, they aren't even necessarily at odds.... [E]ngaging in scientific research and public advocacy shouldn't be crimes in a free country. Using the criminal law to shame and encumber companies that do so is a dangerous arrogation of power.

Is the Bloomberg View editorial board being a corporate apologist, or does it have any valid points? The only dangerous arrogation of power here is that of Exxon and the rest of the fossil fuel industry controlling and eroding climate policy discussion around the globe by funding denialism to create doubt where there is actually scientific consensus. Not only did this denial hoodwink the media, it — along with millions in campaign contributions — co-opted our policymakers and subverted any attempts to take action. There’s plenty of blame to go around and our elected officials have certainly failed to act collectively. But it’s short-sighted and overly simplistic to absolve those pulling the purse strings of Congress from any guilt. It is the very forces of the fossil fuel industry (and the groups it funds) that have rendered Congress inert and in some cases regressive on climate policy. The parallels between Big Tobacco and Big Oil don’t end with the doubt and denial they both excelled at propagating; they extend to the health effects of their products. People died (and continue to die) because of Big Tobacco lies and manipulation, and people are dying because of climate change. Those who knew of these deadly effects and actively undermined attempts to curb them must be held responsible. Before Schneiderman issued his subpoena to Exxon, InsideClimate News published the first installment of an exposé revealing that the company knew its primary product contributed to global warming. Writing about the exposé in the New Yorker, Bill McKibben noted the lack of media coverage of the story. Has the American media failed to give climate change the proper coverage? Are Americans tired of hearing about climate change? How enraged can the public really be at yet another possible instance of corporate abuse? The mainstream media enabled (and in some cases supported) the false debate over climate science to go on for far too long and that’s what Americans are tired of hearing. Polling shows that across the political spectrum, people are worried about climate change as a global issue. One of the biggest challenges we face in the U.S. is that most Americans have been insulated from the effects of climate change. But in the last few years, that has changed. More and more American lives and ways of life are under threat by changing and more aggressive weather and rising sea levels. When the pieces are put together for people that Exxon knew the truth, buried it, and these are the consequences — people grow more and more outraged. Beyond legal actions taken by government officials such as Schneiderman, what can the media and the public do — or do better — to prevent the kind of long-term corporate abuse in which Exxon may have engaged? For climate change, the biggest thing we need to do globally is protect climate policymaking at every level from interference by the fossil fuel industry. We need to expose and challenge this interference directly, and pass strong regulations at all levels to prevent it. Moneyed oil, coal and gas interests are the reason we are still creating pipelines, export terminals and mines in the year 2016 when we know we need to immediately begin phasing out the use of fossil fuels. As Kevin Allison and Ben Kellerman of Reuters point out, “Several oil groups now use internal carbon pricing for their assets, brag about renewable energy investments and are disclosing more information about the effects of climate change on their business — often in response to concerted shareholder demands.” How meaningful are these kinds of changes? How much of the oil industry’s shift toward increased transparency and investment in renewable energy signal a larger move toward a low-carbon future, and how much is simply greenwashing? This is greenwashing in its purest form. Fundamentally, their business models are predicated on the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. Anything done on the fringe — like transparency and renewable investment — is just a distraction. In addition, many of the same corporations are still investing enormous funds in front groups and trade associations deeply involved in climate denialism. An important thing to acknowledge here is that much of what the fossil fuel industry and other emissions-intensive industries have done to “green” up their businesses is meant to stave off the political will to more strictly regulate emissions at the national and international levels. We see this with every industry facing imminent regulation — from tobacco to food to fossil fuels — the pattern is the same: as the clamp of regulation tightens, these industries position themselves closer to the policymaking process and decision-makers using such voluntary initiatives to prove their “sincerity” in finding a solution. But, in reality, they use that seat at the table to stave off regulation by arguing that the industry is 1) already taking action; and 2) more effective than the government in finding a solution. According to Gallup, Americans’ view of the oil and gas industry is generally negative. Would Exxon’s guilt, if proven, significantly affect public opinion of the industry as a whole? Or will the impact be felt primarily by Exxon? I think it will impact the industry as a whole. Americans are realizing that this is an industry at odds with protecting people from climate catastrophe. Exxon’s misdeeds and potential guilt will, and should, reflect on the entire industry. And perhaps more importantly, there could be consequences for other oil corporations. As we saw with Big Tobacco, the entire industry was implicated and had to face the consequences. I’m going to ask you to look into your crystal ball. Do you think Exxon will be found guilty of lying to the public and/or shareholders and face criminal charges? If so, what kind of sentence or penalty will be levied? There are certainly numerous opinions on the success of the New York and California investigations, but again, what’s most important is what these investigations could tell us that we don’t already know. Lawsuits resulting from the investigations into the tobacco industry changed the industry forever and confirmed what the public health community had suspected for decades: The industry was not only lying, it was actively involved in a campaign of denial and deceit. What advice would you give to AG Schneiderman regarding his investigation into Exxon, or to other attorneys generals in other states contemplating similar inquiries? Don’t let the industry intimidate or mislead you. There are billions of dollars of profit at stake for ExxonMobil and they have proven time and time again that they will stop at nothing to get it. Reynard Loki is AlterNet's environment and food editor. Follow him on Twitter @reynardloki. Email him at reynard@alternet.org.

On the face of it, the company's research on climate change and its previous public positions on climate policy not only fail to amount to fraud, they aren't even necessarily at odds.... [E]ngaging in scientific research and public advocacy shouldn't be crimes in a free country. Using the criminal law to shame and encumber companies that do so is a dangerous arrogation of power.

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Published on February 03, 2016 15:57

One sniff is all it takes: Scented household products may be hazardous to our health

For Joyce Miller, one sniff of scented laundry detergent can trigger an asthma attack. “What happens is I feel like someone is standing on my chest,” says the 57-year-old professor of library science in upstate New York. “It’s almost like a choking feeling – pressure and choking. And then the coughing starts,” she said. Miller is among the many Americans sensitive to “fragrance,” the cryptic ingredient added to thousands of products, from cleaning supplies to toiletries. The term encompasses thousands of combinations of chemicals that give consumer goods their pleasant odors. But specific chemicals in any given product rarely are disclosed to consumers. For decades, fragrance makers have insisted on treating their recipes as trade secrets, even as complaints about negative health effects have become more common. A 2009 study, for example, found that more than a quarter of Americans were irritated by the smell of scented products on other people while 19 percent experienced headaches or breathing difficulties from air fresheners. The industry, with estimated global sales of $40 billion per year, says that it ensures the safety of fragrances through a rigorous system of self-regulation administered by its trade group, the International Fragrance Association. But a tiny women’s advocacy organization in Missoula, Mont., recently outlined what it says are troubling flaws in the industry’s science as well as scores of toxic chemicals used in its mixtures. The industry association’s North American branch declined to speak to FairWarning about the findings. Chemical giant BASF, an association member, also declined comment. Calls to four other members – Phoenix Aromas & Essential Oils, Premier Specialties, Flavor & Fragrance Specialties Inc., and Bedoukian Research – were not returned. “There’s a real kind of state of ignorance on the part of scientists, on the part of researchers, on the part of consumers, on what is in fragrance and how safe fragrances are for your health,” said Alexandra Scranton, the director of science and research at Women’s Voices for the Earth, a nonprofit seeking to eliminate toxic chemicals that predominately affect women. “We were trying to pick apart the claim that the industry is making that they are ensuring the safety of fragrance.” Questions about the safety of fragrances are not new. A 2005 California law, the California Safe Cosmetics Act, requires cosmetics manufacturers to report any products that contain ingredients known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. The data is posted on a website at safecosmetics.cdph.ca.gov. However, the public database does not list ingredients identified as trade secrets, including fragrances. The program also has met with complaints from experts that some cosmetics firms failed to report their ingredients. At the federal level, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Products Safety Commission have limited oversight of fragrances. The FDA, which has authority over cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients, doesn’t require cosmetics makers to prove their products or ingredients are safe before putting them on the market. It’s up to the agency to prove harm before a product can be pulled from the shelves. The FDA also requires cosmetics to list their ingredients, but allows a trade secret exemption for chemicals deemed to be fragrance or flavor. Meanwhile, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has authority over other scented products, such as laundry detergents and air fresheners. The commission, however, does not have an active program to screen fragrances. “Government has failed to provide a real regulator,” which is a problem, said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C. “There are plenty of examples of where counting on the good graces of industry has wound up being a mistake,” he said. In 2008, Women’s Voices began pressing the industry to reveal the specific ingredients. Two years later, the International Fragrance Association posted on its website a list of some 3,000 chemicals used by its members. Late last year, Women’s Voices published a review of those chemicals, finding that a large number of them appear on official lists of hazardous chemicals, or are banned or restricted in consumer products. For example, a comprehensive classification of chemical hazards adopted by the United Nations tags 1,175 chemicals on the fragrance list with the word “warning” and labels another 190 fragrance chemicals as a “danger,” according to Women’s Voices. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classifies seven fragrance chemicals as possible carcinogens in humans, the organization said. Fifteen chemicals on the fragrance association’s list are barred from use in cosmetics in the European Union, Women’s Voices said. Scranton, who authored the Women’s Voices study, is careful to note that the industry’s list gives no indication of how much these chemicals are used, making it difficult to know if consumers are in actual danger. “When I see styrene (a possible carcinogen) on the list of chemicals in fragrance, that’s a red flag,” she said. “Is it only used very, very rarely, in very small amounts? Possibly, and maybe it’s not as much of a problem. Is it used in every fragrance that you come across? Then it’s going to be a problem.” In a brief paper available on its website, the fragrance association touts the industry’s ability, through self regulation, to ensure “the highest levels of safety of fragranced products.” It says the industry can adapt to new scientific findings “more quickly and efficiently through self-regulation as opposed to diverse legislation in different countries on different continents.” The industry association works with its research arm, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, to produce standards that it says are based on science. Women’s Voices, however, says there are several shortcomings in the system. For one, the group maintains that the vast majority of scientific studies exploring fragrance safety are produced by fragrance houses themselves, or the industry’s research institute. Rarely are these studies published or even peer reviewed, the organization says. No one is independently reviewing laboratory practices or levels of significance, or ensuring “that the results of these studies have not been manipulated,” Women’s Voices says. Over the last year, the European Commission Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety reviewed studies by the research institute and repeatedly noted failings in the institute’s methods, including incomplete data and invalid protocols. Women’s Voices also says that an independent expert panel that reviews the industry’s research bases its safety opinions on information curated by the fragrance industry itself. The expert panel meets in secret and no transcripts or meeting minutes are publicly available, Women’s Voices said. “The Research Institute for Fragrance Materials is like a black box,” said Janet Nudelman, the director of program and policy for the Breast Cancer Fund and the director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “They attempt to assure the public that they have the safety of fragrance chemicals under control, that they’re looking at all of the safety data regarding fragrance chemicals. But none of their safety studies are publicly available.” The industry has either banned or restricted the use of 186 substances in fragrance products. But Women’s Voices says the industry does little to ensure that its standards are actually being followed. The fragrance industry has not commented directly on Women’s Voices’ research, but a few days after the organization released its report in November, the research institute put out a statement saying “the industry is committed to addressing consumers’ interests through a continuous health and environmental safety review.” The industry, however, remains opposed to greater transparency of its ingredients. In California, the industry association has opposed Assembly Bill 708, by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat, which would require cleaning products to disclose their ingredients on their product labels. In a letter, the industry said it was worried about counterfeiters. “It would be very helpful if companies could list on labels the chemicals that they use for their fragrances,” said Miller, the professor from the Glens Falls area of New York who suffers from fragrance sensitivity. “Fragrance is not just some pretty concept. It actually can be a fairly nasty combination of chemicals,” she said.

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Published on February 03, 2016 00:45

This is how the U.S.-led coalition investigates itself when accused of killing civilians

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Civilians are being killed by US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. That is not in question: the Pentagon has admitted to it and expressed regret. The scale of the killings, however, is in question.

To date, the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State has acknowledged killing just 22 civilians during Operation Inherent Resolve, as the campaign is known. Independent monitoring groups put the toll much higher. Airwars, an organization that tracks reports of civilian casualties, says coalition airstrikes have probably killed between 862 and 1,116 civilians during the campaign so far.

One of the reasons for this discrepancy is the manner in which the US coalition investigates reports of civilian deaths. GlobalPost’s own reporting reveals some uncomfortable truths about just how cursory some of these investigations can be. In two examples detailed below, basic information provided by GlobalPost led the coalition to revisit allegations it had previously denied.

The coalition has a team of “several” individuals dedicated to investigating possible civilian casualties caused by its airstrikes, a Pentagon spokesman told GlobalPost. That small team is responsible for investigating the unintended consequences to civilians of the more than 35,000 bombs and missiles that have been deployed during the campaign over the last 16 months.

The initial reports of a fatality can come from anywhere: contacts on the ground in Syria and Iraq, open source material, or information from other US government departments.

“We consider all types and sources of information provided to us including US government organizations, the State Department, other organizations such as human rights documentation groups, and nongovernment organizations, possible witnesses, family members, and even anonymous reports posted to Twitter,” a coalition spokesperson said.

In order for the coalition to launch a full investigation — which is typically exhaustive — the team must first determine if the reports have enough “credibility” to warrant it. Most reports never make it past that so-called “credibility check.” To date, the coalition has only declassified full investigations into two incidents of civilian deaths: One series of bombings in Harim, Syria on Nov. 5 and 6 of last year that “likely resulted in the deaths of two civilian children,” and another on March 13, 2015 near al Hatra, Iraq that “likely resulted in the deaths of four civilians.” (The coalition has admitted killing civilians in five other incidents, but the reports have not yet been made public).

The two declassified investigations — 76 and 59 pages long respectively — are signed off by a major general of the US Army and a lieutenant general of the US Air Force. They include the testimony of the pilots and ground crew involved in the strikes, and take into account outside sources and open source information.

The problem lies in getting to the stage where reports of civilian casualties are investigated properly. The vast majority of allegations are deemed not credible by the coalition very early on because of the way in which airstrikes are logged and subsequently checked. The locations of many strikes are often tied to the nearest large town or city; if a report comes of a civilian casualty in a village and the name of that village doesn’t appear in the coalition’s records, it is often deemed not credible. The coalition appears to make little effort to discover the location of a village if it does not appear in its records.

The following two examples investigated by GlobalPost — recounted in detail here — illustrate how easy it is for the coalition to dismiss reports of civilian casualties. In both examples the coalition initially denied there were airstrikes in the area of the reported civilian casualties. But after GlobalPost provided more detailed information about locations, the coalition said they would review the incidents.

AL GHARRA

The first example comes from the small village of al Gharra, at the foot of Mount Abdul-Aziz, about 25 miles west of Hasaka city in northeastern Syria. Ismail al-Hassan, 55, was killed in what his son said was a coalition airstrike on the village on May 6. You can read about the report in detail here.

A coalition report on airstrikes in the area for May 6 and 7 reads, “Near Al Hasakah, four airstrikes struck one large and two small ISIL tactical units, destroying 12 ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL trench system and an ISIL vehicle.”

Suspecting that one of those strikes might have been the one that killed al Hassan, GlobalPost contacted the coalition by email to ask for the location of the attacks. A coalition spokesman said he could not provide any more information than was publicly available.

GlobalPost asked whether the coalition targeted either al Gharra or al Gharba — another spelling used for the village name — or anywhere on Mount Abdul-Aziz (or Mount Kezwan, as it is called in Kurdish). The spokesman said they could find no record of striking near the town of Al Gharra/al Gharba, or Mount Abdul-Aziz/Mount Kezwan.

Over the course of several emails, the coalition denied — or said it did not have records of — conducting airstrikes on Mount Abdul-Aziz.

It was only when GlobalPost provided testimony from the son of a civilian victim, comments from a Kurdish commander crediting US airstrikes as instrumental in their capture of the mountain, and video of the offensiveshowing what appeared to be smoke from an airstrike, that the coalition agreed to review the incident.

AL KHAN

Attempts to discover whether the coalition was responsible for the second airstrike investigated by GlobalPost played out in a similar way. As with al Gharra, this incident occurred in a small village near al Hasaka. According to the witness interviewed by GlobalPost, coalition airstrikes struck the village in the early hours of Dec. 7, killing dozens of civilians.

The coalition said it had previously carried out a credibility assessment on the strike in al Khan after reports of civilian casualties emerged, among them a report by McClatchy.

The coalition’s report for that day said that a number of airstrikes were carried out “near al Hawl.” GlobalPost provided segments of testimony from a witness to the strike, and asked whether the village of al Khan had been targeted. The coalition responded: “We conducted a credibility assessment on the allegation of civilian casualties near al Khan Dec. 7, 2015. Since the coalition did not conduct airstrikes near al Khan on Dec. 7, 2015, there was no investigation conducted.”

On this occasion, the coalition disclosed the location of the airstrikes it carried out on Dec. 7 — showing them to be south of al Hawl. According to a local activist group that reported from the scene of the strike, the village of al Khan sits about 10 miles southwest of al Hawl — in the same area the coalition said strikes had occurred.

After GlobalPost provided this additional information, the coalition said it would “consider your updated information regarding this allegation, as with any allegation we receive, and we will review it with any information we have about the incident.”

***

The coalition’s response to the two incidents illustrates how without very specific information about the location of alleged civilian casualties, most claims don’t make it past the credibility check.

On both occasions the coalition initially denied hitting the villages, but appeared to be basing those conclusions on a cursory search in their records for the names of the small hamlets. Even Mount Abdul-Aziz — 50 miles from end to end, and which allies on the ground said was captured with the backing of US airstrikes — did not appear when the coalition searched its records.

There are other reasons the coalition will choose not to investigate an allegation. One of the most common is simply “lack of sufficient evidence” — a phrase that is used even when the opposite appears to be true.

A report logged on Oct. 17, 2014 cites the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as the source. The group, which has a network of sources on the ground across Syria, reported the death of a number of civilians as the result of a coalition strike on an oil facility in Khasham, Syria. Local activists reportedly named four of the victims, saying they were fuel tank drivers. The incident was subject to a credibility assessment, but it did not make it to the investigation stage. The coalition notes in its assessment that a strike did take place on the facility on Oct. 16, but reported that aircrews "did not observe any personnel on their targeting pod prior to weapon release." It concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” to determine civilian casualties. So it was never fully investigated.

In other cases, reports of civilian deaths are deemed not credible without explanation. One report, the initial source of which was a freelance journalist who posted a picture of a partially destroyed house on Twitter, came on Jan. 22, 2015 in Ninevah province, Iraq. The coalition’s credibility assessment notes that a total of 32 targets were struck in the province on Jan. 21 and 22, six of which involved striking buildings. “Initial assessment is that only 2 strikes possible for this allegation (one was engaged by UAV, both has UAV coverage)” the coalition notes.

But like so many others, the coalition’s assessment closes with the words: “Not credible. No further inquiry required.” There is no further explanation in the coalition’s check.

In response to GlobalPost's findings, a coalition spokesman said: "We take every civilian casualty allegation seriously and look into every one we receive."

They added: "It’s important to note that the current environment on the ground in Iraq and Syria makes investigating allegations extremely challenging. Traditional investigation methods, such as interviewing witnesses and examining the site, are not typically available. In some cases, no assessment is made until additional information can be obtained; however, such allegations continue to be tracked. Additionally, a closed allegation can be reopened at any time if additional information related to the strike becomes available."

Chris Woods, the founder of Airwars who has dealt more closely with the coalition than perhaps any other journalist, thinks the problem may be one of the military’s investigative ability, rather than an attempt to cover anything up.

“I think this is often more cockup than conspiracy. Quite often the UK or France will report airstrikes on a particular day at a particular location — while in its own reporting the coalition makes no mention at all of those cities or towns. But then what's often being summarized is perhaps dozens of munitions releases at multiple locations, compressed into a handful of more media-friendly reports of 'airstrikes.'”

The result is that Americans are led to believe that the air campaign in Syria and Iraq can be waged shedding very few innocent lives.

The initial reports of a fatality can come from anywhere: contacts on the ground in Syria and Iraq, open source material, or information from other US government departments.

AL GHARRA

Over the course of several emails, the coalition denied — or said it did not have records of — conducting airstrikes on Mount Abdul-Aziz.

AL KHAN

The coalition said it had previously carried out a credibility assessment on the strike in al Khan after reports of civilian casualties emerged, among them a report by McClatchy.

***

But like so many others, the coalition’s assessment closes with the words: “Not credible. No further inquiry required.” There is no further explanation in the coalition’s check.

In response to GlobalPost's findings, a coalition spokesman said: "We take every civilian casualty allegation seriously and look into every one we receive."

The result is that Americans are led to believe that the air campaign in Syria and Iraq can be waged shedding very few innocent lives.

The initial reports of a fatality can come from anywhere: contacts on the ground in Syria and Iraq, open source material, or information from other US government departments.

AL GHARRA

Over the course of several emails, the coalition denied — or said it did not have records of — conducting airstrikes on Mount Abdul-Aziz.

AL KHAN

The coalition said it had previously carried out a credibility assessment on the strike in al Khan after reports of civilian casualties emerged, among them a report by McClatchy.

***

But like so many others, the coalition’s assessment closes with the words: “Not credible. No further inquiry required.” There is no further explanation in the coalition’s check.

In response to GlobalPost's findings, a coalition spokesman said: "We take every civilian casualty allegation seriously and look into every one we receive."

The result is that Americans are led to believe that the air campaign in Syria and Iraq can be waged shedding very few innocent lives.

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Published on February 03, 2016 00:15

Robert Reich: Bernie Sanders is the only candidate of change

In 2008, when then-Senator Barack Obama promised progressive change if elected President, his primary opponent, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, derided him. “The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,” she said, sarcastically, adding “I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. Fast forward eight years. "I wish that we could elect a Democratic president who could wave a magic wand and say, ‘We shall do this, and we shall do that,’” Clinton said recently in response to Bernie Sanders’s proposals. "That ain’t the real world we’re living in.“ So what’s possible in “the real world we’re living in?” There are two dominant views about how presidents accomplish fundamental change. The first might be called the “deal-maker-in-chief,” by which presidents threaten or buy off powerful opponents. Barack Obama got the Affordable Care Act this way – gaining the support of the pharmaceutical industry, for example, by promising them far more business and guaranteeing that Medicare wouldn’t use its vast bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices. But such deals can be expensive to the public (the tab for the pharmaceutical exemption is about $16 billion a year), and they don’t really change the allocation of power. They just allow powerful interests to cash in. The costs of such deals in “the world we’re living in” are likely to be even higher now. Powerful interests are more powerful than ever thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens Uniteddecision opening the floodgates to big money. Which takes us to the second view about how presidents accomplish big things that powerful interests don’t want: by mobilizing the public to demand them and penalize politicians who don’t heed those demands. Teddy Roosevelt got a progressive income tax, limits on corporate campaign contributions, regulation of foods and drugs, and the dissolution of giant trusts – not because he was a great dealmaker but because he added fuel to growing public demands for such changes. It was at a point in American history similar to our own. Giant corporations and a handful of wealthy people dominated American democracy. The lackeys of the “robber barons” literally placed sacks of cash on the desks of pliant legislators. The American public was angry and frustrated. Roosevelt channeled that anger and frustration into support of initiatives that altered the structure of power in America. He used the office of the president – his “bully pulpit,” as he called it – to galvanize political action. Could Hillary Clinton do the same? Could Bernie Sanders? Clinton fashions her prospective presidency as a continuation of Obama’s. Surely Obama understood the importance of mobilizing the public against the moneyed interests. After all, he had once been a community organizer. After the 2008 election he even turned his election campaign into a new organization called “Organizing for America” (now dubbed “Organizing for Action”), explicitly designed to harness his grassroots support. So why did Obama end up relying more on deal-making than public mobilization? Because he thought he needed big money for his 2012 campaign. Despite OFA’s public claims (in mailings, it promised to secure the “future of the progressive movement”), it morphed into a top-down campaign organization to raise big money. In the interim, Citizens United had freed “independent” groups like OFA to raise almost unlimited funds, but retained limits on the size of contributions to formal political parties. That’s the heart of problem. No candidate or president can mobilize the public against the dominance of the moneyed interests while being dependent on their money. And no candidate or president can hope to break the connection between wealth and power without mobilizing the public. (A personal note: A few years ago OFA wanted to screen around America the movie Jake Kornbluth and I did about widening inequality, called “Inequality for All” – but only on condition we delete two minutes identifying big Democratic donors. We refused. They wouldn’t show it.) In short, “the real world we’re living in” right now won’t allow fundamental change of the sort we need. It takes a movement. Such a movement is at the heart of the Sanders campaign. The passion that’s fueling it isn’t really about Bernie Sanders. Had Elizabeth Warren run, the same passion would be there for her. It’s about standing up to the moneyed interests and restoring our democracy.

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Published on February 03, 2016 00:00

February 2, 2016

Even when Hillary wins, she loses: In Iowa, I saw plenty of excitement for Clinton, too — but Sanders’ surge is still the big news

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic caucus in Iowa last night by a very slim margin. It is not a state demographically friendly to Clinton and it is exceptionally and unusually kind to Bernie Sanders. Forty-three percent of likely democratic caucus-goers identify as socialists, as Sanders has. Clinton overcame that and the historic structural bias against women and won. For the first time in the history of the caucus, a woman won. Though Clinton is often portrayed as “more of the same” and “establishment,” as opposed to the "exciting" socialism of Sanders, there is in fact nothing the same or establishment about that victory. In fact, how close we are in this country to having the first woman as the presidential nominee of one of the two major political parties is, after 240 years of the republic and 44 male presidents, a revolution. Even Sanders supporters should see this is an important step forward for women and girls, for feminists, and indeed for the entire country. The Democratic campaign I spent the last few days on the ground in Iowa observing is strikingly different than the curated images of the campaigns and narrative that the media continues to advance. It’s not all young people “feeling the Bern” and all bougie feminists rooting for Hillary. One millennial working for Clinton is Jackson Menner in Des Moines, who might be mistaken at first glance for a Bernie Bro. His Twitter feed is full of photos of Clinton and the high-profile supporters who came out for her in Iowa: Madeleine Albright, Gabby Giffords and civil rights hero John Lewis. Lewis canvassed to get out the caucus for Hillary in Davenport yesterday, telling campaign workers that being involved in Clinton’s campaign meant “you're getting into good trouble, necessary trouble." The reality is that many distinctions between Clinton and Sanders are more subtle than “establishment” vs. “rebel” — and for certain, all feminists are not aligned with her, nor are all young voters aligned with him. As a feminist, Hillary’s victory is heartwarming to me, and it’s good to be warm in Iowa as the blizzard rolls in today. Hillary is hit often for being wonky, for not being folksy and for not being likable enough — the curse of being the smartest girl in the class. Sanders is praised for being irascible, for disregarding convention and having messy hair and wearing a fairly inexpensive suit. The eye of the needle we allow women candidates to thread is perhaps impossibly narrow. I don’t believe that electing any woman just for the sake of gender would be a good idea — but I do believe that electing a progressive Democrat who is a woman, like Hillary Clinton is, is an important move for feminists. And for certain it seemed important to many of the people on the ground in Iowa working for Clinton. Volunteers from around the state were joined by many who came in from out of state at their own expense to work for her not just because she is a woman, but yes, in part because of that. I asked Quinn Symond of Mason City, Iowa, a volunteer who runs the “Iowa for Bernie” Twitter account, if he is a feminist. He wanted to know, “Can I be honest without being slaughtered?” “As a single dad I've felt the sting of unequal rights for men,” said Symond. “I do not like words like ‘feminism.’” Yet some Iowa feminists stand strongly in support of Sen. Sanders. One is 51-year-old Laura Hubka of Riceville. “I think as a feminist that these issues are more important to me: healthcare, equal pay and family leave,” she told me. “That is something that Bernie talked about for many years and has stood for his entire career,” Hubka added. “I do not hate Hillary, and though I know she has stood by on these issues, I see that money coming in from Wall Street and big pharma. I know that there will be expectations from Secretary Clinton. Not all those expectations will be in my favor as a woman.” Here in Iowa, 57 percent of the Democratic caucus voters were women. Of those, about 55 percent voted for Hillary. Many women were visibly moved by meeting Clinton and by the power of having a woman so close to becoming the nominee and by the centuries of history she is changing. I talked to women grinning from ear to ear, women choking back tears, little girls with awestruck looks on their faces as they stared at Clinton, or later recalled seeing her. In 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro was the nominee for vice president and lost, they told us, “Don’t worry, now that that’s happened, more women will be in these positions and by the turn of the century we’ll have a woman president. It’s all going to change now.” Thirty-two years later, maybe it finally is. In an essay here in Salon after the 2012 election, I lamented our lack of excitement about the possibility of electing a woman, writing that “electing a woman advances the nation in many of the same ways that electing Obama did. It changes what girls and women see in the mirror. It changes what we think about when we think about women. We add president to the list of associations with the word along with all those commonplace associations: wife, mother, entertainer, bitch. It changes our notion of what power and leadership are.” Why aren’t we more excited about that? Or are we? At Clinton’s victory celebration at Drake University in Des Moines last night, the people cheering in their “I’m With Her” T-shirts let their excitement be known. The popular media seems more interested in covering how “exciting” the campaign of Bernie Sanders is, now that he and Hillary almost tied in Iowa. But isn’t the nomination of a woman moving within reach exciting, too? And should excitement be a political metric? Whose excitement? Does the media really mean young, mostly white people’s excitement? After all, white men don’t run the table anymore. Excitement over Hillary’s support from groups as varied as Planned Parenthood, workers’ unions, LGBT rights groups and disability rights advocates is downplayed. Meanwhile, the circus has left Iowa for New Hampshire. Here in Des Moines, we are waiting for snow to start falling on Groundhog Day. The media is clearing out. Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire is the face of the country, and it does seem wrong that we lead our Democratic nominating process with white Iowa and white New Hampshire. Iowa and New Hampshire matter so much because of how the media narrative is shaped coming out of those contests. But we should be crafting a better, more inclusive narrative, no matter whom we support — a narrative inclusive of race, class and gender. A narrative we can all be excited about.

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Published on February 02, 2016 16:00

The blood sport of Iowa: A squeaker victory, losers who “win” and the mainstream media’s bizarre caucus narrative

It was getting on toward 2 o’clock on Tuesday morning after the bewildering Iowa caucuses, so I can’t be too sure about anything. As the TV coverage wound down into nothingness, Chris Matthews of MSNBC became increasingly disgruntled about the lack of clear winners and losers in the Hawkeye State, at least in the Democratic photo finish between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Getting to hear the losers make concession speeches is what makes our democracy exciting, he insisted. Iowa in 2016, according to the Matthews worldview, was not exciting. “This was just vague,” he muttered. He may actually have said, “Democracy is vague.” I hope he did. But Matthews looked even more than usual as if he had been sitting on a venomous sea creature for three hours and the toxin was slowly paralyzing his brain. He was pretty difficult to understand and quite likely I am projecting that marvelous observation, which would easily be the most profound thing he has ever said. Brian Williams leapt in with one of those one-word questions that make him the most puckish news anchor ever (in his mind): “Unsatisfying?” And then Rachel Maddow flooded the zone with super-engaged freshman seminar personality: Gosh, she thought it was very exciting that Clinton and Sanders had finished in such a dead heat that people were arguing over whether coin flips and untended precincts had affected the outcome. (Probably not. But also: What outcome?) But the moment was one of those tiny “tells” where you see something that ought to be obvious. (When we observe the observable, in Joan Didion’s famous phrase.) Democracy is indeed vague, more so than Chris Matthews consciously observes. Its vagueness is not random or without purpose. One might describe democracy, as practiced in the United States at present, as a deliberately vague process meant to obfuscate the machineries of politics and power. When the third-place finisher in an arcane electoral procedure held in 99 Corn Belt counties is the night’s big winner on one side, while the big winner on the other side is the overwhelming favorite who squeaked out a statistically insignificant victory over a left-wing insurgent, it begins to look as if winning and losing are questions of theological exegesis, rather than matters of fact. It goes without saying that someone like Matthews is only in it for the blood sport, the hurly-burly, the endless pseudo-analytical debate about tactics and strategy and who’s up and who’s down. He barely pretends to care about outcomes or policy. But for him to admit that what he really likes is watching someone lose, seeing those rare moments of honesty and vulnerability (as he put it) in which the manufactured personalities of electoral politics have to go onstage and eat crow — or eat something with the same number of letters as “crow” — was revealing and oddly affecting. I’m picking on Chris Matthews here because he’s such a glorious manifestation of what’s wrong with political journalism, and in the Tuesday small hours he came off more than a little like a high school football coach in 1986, explaining that soccer will never catch on in America because there are so many ties. (Yes, footy fans, I know the term is actually “draws.”) But that doesn’t mean he’s alone on this, or even wrong. I remember Mitt Romney’s brief and agonized concession speech from 2012, in which it became clear that he had actually drunk the “unskewed polls” Kool-Aid, and believed he was going to win, far better than I remember whatever Obama said. John McCain’s 2008 speech, against the slightly surreal context of some palm-frond plaza in suburban Phoenix, was one of his best moments as a public speaker. (Of course I remember the spectacle of Obama in Grant Park, but not the words that came out of his mouth.) Hell, I can remember standing there in awestruck teenage horror when Jimmy Carter delivered his concession speech from the White House while it was still daylight outside in suburban California. I remember my dad’s behemoth color TV from Montgomery Ward, whose picture dissolved into indecipherable lines and blotches if you got within 18 inches of the screen. I remember the backyard pool (heated to 76 degrees year round) dappled in November afternoon light while I tried to reckon with the inconceivable fact that the retired movie actor loathed and mocked by my parents and all their friends has been overwhelmingly elected president. Actually, no — most of that is imagination. I’m not sure where I was that afternoon, but I remember the frozen expression on Carter’s face and my own emotions of terror and despair as if it all happened yesterday. So, yeah — we are storytelling animals who crave moments of hubris, catharsis and crisis. (There’s a reason those words stretch back to antiquity.) Politics is packaged and delivered as unscripted or semi-scripted human drama, and we delight in seeing the mighty brought low, whether that means Don Juan dragged down to hell, Superman enfeebled by Kryptonite or Mitt Romney weepily telling us that his wife would have made “a great first lady.” (Go back and look at it! Throwing shade on Michelle Obama while losing was the consummate Romney douche move, up there with that dog on the roof of the car.) In what may be the masterstroke of English literature, Milton begins “Paradise Lost” with the greatest concession speech of all time, in which Satan faces the scale of his downfall from the “happy Realms of Light” into endless torture and “darkness visible” (“If thou beest he; but O how fall’n! how chang’d”) and vows to keep on fighting a war he can never win. Matthews is right that Donald Trump’s relatively gracious Iowa speech on Tuesday night, after losing a caucus he expected to win (but had previously expected to lose), made the billionaire populist appear more human than at any time in recent memory. If that was a gratifying moment in dramatic terms, it was also a dangerous crack in the Trumpian façade, a glitch in the software package driving his idiot-Nietzschean persona. Those of us who sit behind computers and write about this stuff have said over and over again that something was the beginning of the end of Donald Trump, and so far we have been wrong. But losing and playing humble about it — in effect, playing by the Chris Matthews rules of politics as theater — is a major blow to the notion that Trump is special and different and unstoppable. If I were advising Trump on strategy and branding, I would tell him to steer the hell away from “more human” and go full Miltonic Satan, although admittedly I might not put it that way. Trump’s supporters don’t want him to say nice things about Ted Cruz and put a happy spin on a disappointing second-place finish. They want “the inconquerable Will,/ And study of revenge, immortal hate,/ And courage never to submit or yield.” Trump’s true nemesis is the irritatingly angelic visage of Marco Rubio looming up behind him, not the alien entity who actually won in Iowa. Ted Cruz has variously been described as the villain of a movie whose hero is a dog and as a third-grader whose mom bought his clothes out of the Sears catalog. In either case the people who don’t love him hate him worse than plague rats or Hillary Clinton or socialism, and this week’s glorious victory is likely to be the high point of his political career. As for the diminutive College Republican twerp who just gave the most exuberant third-place victory speech in political history, that sound you heard was the “mainstream conservative” movement coalescing around Marco Rubio with a soft wet thunk, like a bag of dog crap hitting the weird old rich guy’s front door. If Rubio can win in New Hampshire or manage a close second — and Granite State voters are known for such switchbacks — it will suddenly be as if the Trump moment had never happened and the Koch brothers’ Sun King-like reign over the Republican Party had never been threatened. As for the lack of clarity when it comes to winning and losing on the Democratic side — well, it’s all a matter of perspective, am I right? For leftists and liberals, the choice between Clinton and Sanders comes down to what you make of America’s broken system in the 21st century and whether you think it needs minor repair or an engine overhaul. Who you believe won Iowa reflects a similar division. If I were explaining European soccer to Coach Matthews in 1986, I would tell him that draws are almost never neutral outcomes. For an underdog playing on the road, they can be inspirational breakthroughs, not to mention unexpected points in the standings. If you are Manchester United or Real Madrid playing at home — which pretty well describes Hillary Clinton’s situation in Iowa — a draw falls somewhere between disappointment and disaster. Clinton has now been declared the victor in Iowa, albeit by an inconsequential margin. (Not that that is likely to stop the tides and eddies of social-media disputation.) In objective terms, that hardly matters. Indeed, it hardly counts as a fact. But it immediately becomes a central plot element in the Chris Matthews media narrative, evidence that Clinton goes into New Hampshire with “momentum” or, to put it another way, that Man U did not actually draw at home against an obscure provincial opponent. If I were really feeling cynical about this whole spectacle — heaven forfend! — I would say that the pseudo-fact of Clinton’s Iowa victory was not just politically helpful but ideologically necessary. It serves both to bolster and conceal another observable but widely ignored fact, which is that the Democratic Party’s nominating process has little to do with democracy.It was getting on toward 2 o’clock on Tuesday morning after the bewildering Iowa caucuses, so I can’t be too sure about anything. As the TV coverage wound down into nothingness, Chris Matthews of MSNBC became increasingly disgruntled about the lack of clear winners and losers in the Hawkeye State, at least in the Democratic photo finish between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Getting to hear the losers make concession speeches is what makes our democracy exciting, he insisted. Iowa in 2016, according to the Matthews worldview, was not exciting. “This was just vague,” he muttered. He may actually have said, “Democracy is vague.” I hope he did. But Matthews looked even more than usual as if he had been sitting on a venomous sea creature for three hours and the toxin was slowly paralyzing his brain. He was pretty difficult to understand and quite likely I am projecting that marvelous observation, which would easily be the most profound thing he has ever said. Brian Williams leapt in with one of those one-word questions that make him the most puckish news anchor ever (in his mind): “Unsatisfying?” And then Rachel Maddow flooded the zone with super-engaged freshman seminar personality: Gosh, she thought it was very exciting that Clinton and Sanders had finished in such a dead heat that people were arguing over whether coin flips and untended precincts had affected the outcome. (Probably not. But also: What outcome?) But the moment was one of those tiny “tells” where you see something that ought to be obvious. (When we observe the observable, in Joan Didion’s famous phrase.) Democracy is indeed vague, more so than Chris Matthews consciously observes. Its vagueness is not random or without purpose. One might describe democracy, as practiced in the United States at present, as a deliberately vague process meant to obfuscate the machineries of politics and power. When the third-place finisher in an arcane electoral procedure held in 99 Corn Belt counties is the night’s big winner on one side, while the big winner on the other side is the overwhelming favorite who squeaked out a statistically insignificant victory over a left-wing insurgent, it begins to look as if winning and losing are questions of theological exegesis, rather than matters of fact. It goes without saying that someone like Matthews is only in it for the blood sport, the hurly-burly, the endless pseudo-analytical debate about tactics and strategy and who’s up and who’s down. He barely pretends to care about outcomes or policy. But for him to admit that what he really likes is watching someone lose, seeing those rare moments of honesty and vulnerability (as he put it) in which the manufactured personalities of electoral politics have to go onstage and eat crow — or eat something with the same number of letters as “crow” — was revealing and oddly affecting. I’m picking on Chris Matthews here because he’s such a glorious manifestation of what’s wrong with political journalism, and in the Tuesday small hours he came off more than a little like a high school football coach in 1986, explaining that soccer will never catch on in America because there are so many ties. (Yes, footy fans, I know the term is actually “draws.”) But that doesn’t mean he’s alone on this, or even wrong. I remember Mitt Romney’s brief and agonized concession speech from 2012, in which it became clear that he had actually drunk the “unskewed polls” Kool-Aid, and believed he was going to win, far better than I remember whatever Obama said. John McCain’s 2008 speech, against the slightly surreal context of some palm-frond plaza in suburban Phoenix, was one of his best moments as a public speaker. (Of course I remember the spectacle of Obama in Grant Park, but not the words that came out of his mouth.) Hell, I can remember standing there in awestruck teenage horror when Jimmy Carter delivered his concession speech from the White House while it was still daylight outside in suburban California. I remember my dad’s behemoth color TV from Montgomery Ward, whose picture dissolved into indecipherable lines and blotches if you got within 18 inches of the screen. I remember the backyard pool (heated to 76 degrees year round) dappled in November afternoon light while I tried to reckon with the inconceivable fact that the retired movie actor loathed and mocked by my parents and all their friends has been overwhelmingly elected president. Actually, no — most of that is imagination. I’m not sure where I was that afternoon, but I remember the frozen expression on Carter’s face and my own emotions of terror and despair as if it all happened yesterday. So, yeah — we are storytelling animals who crave moments of hubris, catharsis and crisis. (There’s a reason those words stretch back to antiquity.) Politics is packaged and delivered as unscripted or semi-scripted human drama, and we delight in seeing the mighty brought low, whether that means Don Juan dragged down to hell, Superman enfeebled by Kryptonite or Mitt Romney weepily telling us that his wife would have made “a great first lady.” (Go back and look at it! Throwing shade on Michelle Obama while losing was the consummate Romney douche move, up there with that dog on the roof of the car.) In what may be the masterstroke of English literature, Milton begins “Paradise Lost” with the greatest concession speech of all time, in which Satan faces the scale of his downfall from the “happy Realms of Light” into endless torture and “darkness visible” (“If thou beest he; but O how fall’n! how chang’d”) and vows to keep on fighting a war he can never win. Matthews is right that Donald Trump’s relatively gracious Iowa speech on Tuesday night, after losing a caucus he expected to win (but had previously expected to lose), made the billionaire populist appear more human than at any time in recent memory. If that was a gratifying moment in dramatic terms, it was also a dangerous crack in the Trumpian façade, a glitch in the software package driving his idiot-Nietzschean persona. Those of us who sit behind computers and write about this stuff have said over and over again that something was the beginning of the end of Donald Trump, and so far we have been wrong. But losing and playing humble about it — in effect, playing by the Chris Matthews rules of politics as theater — is a major blow to the notion that Trump is special and different and unstoppable. If I were advising Trump on strategy and branding, I would tell him to steer the hell away from “more human” and go full Miltonic Satan, although admittedly I might not put it that way. Trump’s supporters don’t want him to say nice things about Ted Cruz and put a happy spin on a disappointing second-place finish. They want “the inconquerable Will,/ And study of revenge, immortal hate,/ And courage never to submit or yield.” Trump’s true nemesis is the irritatingly angelic visage of Marco Rubio looming up behind him, not the alien entity who actually won in Iowa. Ted Cruz has variously been described as the villain of a movie whose hero is a dog and as a third-grader whose mom bought his clothes out of the Sears catalog. In either case the people who don’t love him hate him worse than plague rats or Hillary Clinton or socialism, and this week’s glorious victory is likely to be the high point of his political career. As for the diminutive College Republican twerp who just gave the most exuberant third-place victory speech in political history, that sound you heard was the “mainstream conservative” movement coalescing around Marco Rubio with a soft wet thunk, like a bag of dog crap hitting the weird old rich guy’s front door. If Rubio can win in New Hampshire or manage a close second — and Granite State voters are known for such switchbacks — it will suddenly be as if the Trump moment had never happened and the Koch brothers’ Sun King-like reign over the Republican Party had never been threatened. As for the lack of clarity when it comes to winning and losing on the Democratic side — well, it’s all a matter of perspective, am I right? For leftists and liberals, the choice between Clinton and Sanders comes down to what you make of America’s broken system in the 21st century and whether you think it needs minor repair or an engine overhaul. Who you believe won Iowa reflects a similar division. If I were explaining European soccer to Coach Matthews in 1986, I would tell him that draws are almost never neutral outcomes. For an underdog playing on the road, they can be inspirational breakthroughs, not to mention unexpected points in the standings. If you are Manchester United or Real Madrid playing at home — which pretty well describes Hillary Clinton’s situation in Iowa — a draw falls somewhere between disappointment and disaster. Clinton has now been declared the victor in Iowa, albeit by an inconsequential margin. (Not that that is likely to stop the tides and eddies of social-media disputation.) In objective terms, that hardly matters. Indeed, it hardly counts as a fact. But it immediately becomes a central plot element in the Chris Matthews media narrative, evidence that Clinton goes into New Hampshire with “momentum” or, to put it another way, that Man U did not actually draw at home against an obscure provincial opponent. If I were really feeling cynical about this whole spectacle — heaven forfend! — I would say that the pseudo-fact of Clinton’s Iowa victory was not just politically helpful but ideologically necessary. It serves both to bolster and conceal another observable but widely ignored fact, which is that the Democratic Party’s nominating process has little to do with democracy.

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Published on February 02, 2016 16:00

Rooney Mara can’t win for “Carol”: Even in the best supporting actress Oscar race, men’s stories matter more

The Vikanderssance is upon us. After winning best supporting actress prizes at the Critics Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild awards, Swedish actress Alicia Vikander looks poised to repeat on Oscar night for her performance in “The Danish Girl.” (Note: Due to category confusion, she was placed in lead at the Globes, where she lost to Brie Larson for “Room.”) The 28-year-old plays Gerda Wegener, the wife of trans painter Lili Elbe (cisgender actor Eddie Redmayne), the first person to ever undergo gender confirmation surgery in the 1930s. Between her acclaimed roles in “Ex Machina,” “Testament of Youth” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” Vikander had quite a 2015, and she isn’t slowing down any time soon. This year, Vikander will be featured in the fifth entry in the Bourne franchise (featuring Matt Damon’s return to the action series) and Derek Cianfrance’s “The Light Between Oceans,” co-starring her current beau, Irish actor Michael Fassbender. But what’s notable about Vikander’s awards dominance is that this wasn’t supposed to be her Oscar year. After winning the best actress prize at Cannes, Rooney Mara (“Carol”) was poised to sweep the season (in the supporting actress category, at least). As recently as a few weeks ago, Mara was considered the front-runner in the race on Oscar predictor websites like Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby. On Jan. 11, just three days before this year’s Academy Awards nominations were announced, pundits favored Rooney Mara in the supporting actress race by 11 points. Of course, something unusual happened that morning: Mara’s film was left out of the best picture category, while her director (Todd Haynes) was omitted from best director consideration. It seems that Rooney Mara may follow by being passed over on Oscar night. While Mara’s altered fortunes might be seen as a result of her film’s shocking snub (thus, losing momentum in the face), the actress’s falling star is more likely indicative of the academy’s male-centric politics. In the past 25 years of the best supporting actress category, a surprising pattern emerges among winners. Everyone knows the old myth that pregnant women win supporting trophies (see: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rachel Weisz), but there’s a much simpler trick to winning a trophy: Get cast opposite a man. Since Whoopi Goldberg won her first Oscar for “Ghost” in 1990, 19 best supporting actress winners took home a trophy for supporting a male lead. These include Rachel Weisz in “The Constant Gardener” (playing Ralph Fiennes’ romantic interest) and Mira Sorvino for “Mighty Aphrodite” (paired up with Woody Allen). Only six winners—Anna Paquin, Angelina Jolie, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, Mo’nique, and Octavia Spencer—won for performances where their chief screen partner was a woman. Two examples, however, require further examination. Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson play the title characters in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” but Penelope Cruz trades a majority of her lines with Javier Bardem, who plays her husband. You could argue Beyoncé is the lead in “Dreamgirls,” but Jamie Foxx gets top billing on the movie’s poster, as well as IMDb. In these cases, ownership of the narrative is implicit—and somewhat debatable. Hey, maybe you think Jimmy “Thunder” Early is the secret protagonist of “Dreamgirls.” (I’d be willing to hear it.) Most of the time, however, the fact that these are men’s movies is so obvious that it’s on the box. Examples include “Shakespeare in Love,” “Pollock,” “Michael Clayton” and even “Boyhood”—which makes it clear that the film isn’t about Patricia Arquette’s journey. The title refers to her son. Why does sharing the screen with a man mean Oscar gold? It’s not just because there are simply more roles available to women who might be the only prominent female character in the film (see: Marisa Tomei, Kim Basinger), but because the academy gives men’s stories more weight. If an actress’s performance is in service of a man’s story, it’s more likely to be taken seriously. After all, not a single one of last year’s best picture nominees boasted a female lead. But as Autostraddle’s Heather Hogan explains, “Carol” poses a challenge to that system, precisely because it dismisses its male characters at every turn. They are depicted as “bumbling, fumbling, entitled” oafs who stand in the way of its central couple’s blossoming queer happiness. After Therese (Rooney Mara) abandons her clueless ex (played by Jake Lacy, cinema’s Baxter-in-residence) to run off with Carol (Cate Blanchett), her older paramour asks if Therese regrets it. “No, I haven’t thought about him all day!” she exclaims with ecstasy. “The joke’s on Richard, and men everywhere who feel entitled to a world that revolves around their whims,” Hogan writes. “Unfortunately, encouraging women to forget men isn’t a great strategy when you’re trying to convince an organization historically dominated by masculinity to acknowledge your genius.” According to Hogan, numerous men have even walked out of the screening she’s attended. If Hogan suggests that the “end of men” ethos in “Carol” led to the film being all but ignored by an Academy Awards voting body that’s 76 percent male and predominantly over 60, Mara’s performance is unlikely to fare any better with the same group—despite being one of the most critically lauded of the year. After all, Alicia Vikander’s performance (on top of being very good) is the exact type of thing the academy loves: a long-suffering wife who sacrifices everything for her partner. These roles have been a favorite of the Oscars for years—from Jennifer Connelly’s award-winning turn in “A Beautiful Mind” to Felicity Jones’ best actress nomination last year as Jane Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.” But while no one can say the incredibly talented Vikander didn’t work her ass off for it, there’s a reason that she wasn’t nominated for her far, far superior performance in “Ex Machina.” Alex Garland’s film is a boldly feminist sci-fi thriller in which a female sex robot (Vikander) turns on her chauvinistic creator (Oscar Isaac of “The Force Awakens), who created her to be expendable. Vikander’s amazing performance got nods at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, but the Oscars favored her more conventional role. The message is fairly clear. The academy doesn’t like movies that challenge the patriarchy—or that suggest queer women can fall in love all on their own, thank you, without needing a man to validate the importance of their story. Love might conquer all, but clearly it’s no match for the academy.The Vikanderssance is upon us. After winning best supporting actress prizes at the Critics Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild awards, Swedish actress Alicia Vikander looks poised to repeat on Oscar night for her performance in “The Danish Girl.” (Note: Due to category confusion, she was placed in lead at the Globes, where she lost to Brie Larson for “Room.”) The 28-year-old plays Gerda Wegener, the wife of trans painter Lili Elbe (cisgender actor Eddie Redmayne), the first person to ever undergo gender confirmation surgery in the 1930s. Between her acclaimed roles in “Ex Machina,” “Testament of Youth” and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” Vikander had quite a 2015, and she isn’t slowing down any time soon. This year, Vikander will be featured in the fifth entry in the Bourne franchise (featuring Matt Damon’s return to the action series) and Derek Cianfrance’s “The Light Between Oceans,” co-starring her current beau, Irish actor Michael Fassbender. But what’s notable about Vikander’s awards dominance is that this wasn’t supposed to be her Oscar year. After winning the best actress prize at Cannes, Rooney Mara (“Carol”) was poised to sweep the season (in the supporting actress category, at least). As recently as a few weeks ago, Mara was considered the front-runner in the race on Oscar predictor websites like Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby. On Jan. 11, just three days before this year’s Academy Awards nominations were announced, pundits favored Rooney Mara in the supporting actress race by 11 points. Of course, something unusual happened that morning: Mara’s film was left out of the best picture category, while her director (Todd Haynes) was omitted from best director consideration. It seems that Rooney Mara may follow by being passed over on Oscar night. While Mara’s altered fortunes might be seen as a result of her film’s shocking snub (thus, losing momentum in the face), the actress’s falling star is more likely indicative of the academy’s male-centric politics. In the past 25 years of the best supporting actress category, a surprising pattern emerges among winners. Everyone knows the old myth that pregnant women win supporting trophies (see: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rachel Weisz), but there’s a much simpler trick to winning a trophy: Get cast opposite a man. Since Whoopi Goldberg won her first Oscar for “Ghost” in 1990, 19 best supporting actress winners took home a trophy for supporting a male lead. These include Rachel Weisz in “The Constant Gardener” (playing Ralph Fiennes’ romantic interest) and Mira Sorvino for “Mighty Aphrodite” (paired up with Woody Allen). Only six winners—Anna Paquin, Angelina Jolie, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, Mo’nique, and Octavia Spencer—won for performances where their chief screen partner was a woman. Two examples, however, require further examination. Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson play the title characters in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” but Penelope Cruz trades a majority of her lines with Javier Bardem, who plays her husband. You could argue Beyoncé is the lead in “Dreamgirls,” but Jamie Foxx gets top billing on the movie’s poster, as well as IMDb. In these cases, ownership of the narrative is implicit—and somewhat debatable. Hey, maybe you think Jimmy “Thunder” Early is the secret protagonist of “Dreamgirls.” (I’d be willing to hear it.) Most of the time, however, the fact that these are men’s movies is so obvious that it’s on the box. Examples include “Shakespeare in Love,” “Pollock,” “Michael Clayton” and even “Boyhood”—which makes it clear that the film isn’t about Patricia Arquette’s journey. The title refers to her son. Why does sharing the screen with a man mean Oscar gold? It’s not just because there are simply more roles available to women who might be the only prominent female character in the film (see: Marisa Tomei, Kim Basinger), but because the academy gives men’s stories more weight. If an actress’s performance is in service of a man’s story, it’s more likely to be taken seriously. After all, not a single one of last year’s best picture nominees boasted a female lead. But as Autostraddle’s Heather Hogan explains, “Carol” poses a challenge to that system, precisely because it dismisses its male characters at every turn. They are depicted as “bumbling, fumbling, entitled” oafs who stand in the way of its central couple’s blossoming queer happiness. After Therese (Rooney Mara) abandons her clueless ex (played by Jake Lacy, cinema’s Baxter-in-residence) to run off with Carol (Cate Blanchett), her older paramour asks if Therese regrets it. “No, I haven’t thought about him all day!” she exclaims with ecstasy. “The joke’s on Richard, and men everywhere who feel entitled to a world that revolves around their whims,” Hogan writes. “Unfortunately, encouraging women to forget men isn’t a great strategy when you’re trying to convince an organization historically dominated by masculinity to acknowledge your genius.” According to Hogan, numerous men have even walked out of the screening she’s attended. If Hogan suggests that the “end of men” ethos in “Carol” led to the film being all but ignored by an Academy Awards voting body that’s 76 percent male and predominantly over 60, Mara’s performance is unlikely to fare any better with the same group—despite being one of the most critically lauded of the year. After all, Alicia Vikander’s performance (on top of being very good) is the exact type of thing the academy loves: a long-suffering wife who sacrifices everything for her partner. These roles have been a favorite of the Oscars for years—from Jennifer Connelly’s award-winning turn in “A Beautiful Mind” to Felicity Jones’ best actress nomination last year as Jane Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.” But while no one can say the incredibly talented Vikander didn’t work her ass off for it, there’s a reason that she wasn’t nominated for her far, far superior performance in “Ex Machina.” Alex Garland’s film is a boldly feminist sci-fi thriller in which a female sex robot (Vikander) turns on her chauvinistic creator (Oscar Isaac of “The Force Awakens), who created her to be expendable. Vikander’s amazing performance got nods at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, but the Oscars favored her more conventional role. The message is fairly clear. The academy doesn’t like movies that challenge the patriarchy—or that suggest queer women can fall in love all on their own, thank you, without needing a man to validate the importance of their story. Love might conquer all, but clearly it’s no match for the academy.

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Published on February 02, 2016 15:59

“Stop putting people in jail for a plant”: Republican millennials take on cannabis laws

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance...It goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." —Abraham Lincoln

The only thing surprising about the rising wave of Republican support for the loosening of cannabis laws is that it's taken this long. Ever since conservative stalwarts like Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley famously declared prohibition to be antithetical to conservative values, the intellectual cover has been available to young Republicans, but only in the last decade did their support swing sharply upward. Even as leaders in the national Grand Old Party like Jason Chaffetz make threats against the District of Columbia's loosening of cannabis laws by saying “move forward at your own peril,” a recent poll found that 63 percent of young Republicans of the millennial generation support marijuana legalization. I found a ready example of a pro-legalization Republican at the Drug Policy Alliance conference recently in DC when I met Jason Vaughn of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition (RAMP), a pro-life gay Texan and the only known paid Republican activist for cannabis legalization. Vaughn's start in the movement began after David Simpson, the state representative in Texas who wrote the Christian case for drug law reform, introduced a bill for full legalization with no restrictions, the so-called “tomato bill.” Vaughn's first exposure to the nuts and bolts of legislation fascinated him and he sat down with Simpson to learn more. Vaughn explained that “because I worked in various pro-life legislation but had always been supportive of cannabis, I had been quiet because I didn't want it to ruin my other life. But then David Simpson made a comment that I now use all the time: 'Pray that the legislators will have the faith of their convictions instead of the fear of their constituents.'” This phrase gave Vaughn the impetus to write, "A Pro-Life Defense of Marijuana Legalization," an essay that went viral and got him invited to several cannabis panels. He impressed the audiences with his knowledge of the legislative bill and caught the eye of someone with RAMP. They soon hired him to be their membership coordinator. At this Republican cannabis legalization organization, Vaughn got to work with their founder, Ann Lee, a powerhouse octogenarian activist and mother of Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University. Inspired by her wheelchair-bound son, she now tells fellow Lone Star Republicans to "Just say grow." She makes quite a stir at the drug conferences, an outspoken grandmother helping to lead the conservative wing of the cannabis movement. As she told the Washington Post, “It disturbs me greatly that Republicans would distort the principles of small government, fiscal responsibility and personal liberty in such a way that they could support the failed principle of marijuana prohibition any longer.” This Drug Policy Alliance conference was Jason Vaughn's first of this kind. His sign read Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition, which prompted remarks from the left-leaning attendees like, “Normally I hate Republicans, but I'm glad you guys are here.” Such comments are a reminder that close-minded partisanship exists on both sides of the aisle and that this movement is more diverse than just liberals and medical patients. Money against prohibition flows in from sources as far apart on the political spectrum as George Soros and the Koch brothers. As Vaughn observes, “People don't realize how vast it is. If they only pay attention to a certain media that leans a certain way, either right or left, you'll miss the other side.” Vaughn's first field of ministry began by working at a drug recovery center. “Marijuana was not the reason for anybody to be there. Alcohol was considered the gateway, but the black market is the real gateway drug. A market principle is that if I'm going to Walmart, it's their job and duty to try and to get me to buy me other things. That's a basic principle. A drug dealer will act in the exact same manner.” One of the points he's found that most resonates with fellow conservatives is that the black markets cause our communities to be more unsafe. In addition, there are negative consequences like the rise of spice, the synthetic cannabinoid(s) increasingly seen at harm reduction centers across the country as well as often being used as a hammer by city cops looking to clear streets in a manner similar to the enforcement of the crack laws. As Vaughn repeats often, “Stop putting people in jail for a plant.” “Most people want some form of restriction on who gets access to medical marijuana but we believe in medical freedom and doctor-patient rights.” He believes the easiest bill to pass in his state's current political climate would be a clear and easy piece of legislation allowing moderate medical access and a decriminalization of possession with $100 fines that steadily increase until a third strike sends the violator to jail. RAMP wants to go further than that by advocating for full legalization. However, in the fisticuffs of state politics, “when you're talking about bills, what actually matters is what voters actually show up.” Usually that's only 10 percent of the potential electorate — so with only 5 percent support, you can probably get a bill through. Most representatives in Texas don't need to worry about the general election because gerrymandering already decided that part. “You only care who votes in your primary and some people are crazy," Vaughn says. "We have a candidate being attacked because at 18, he posted on a forum about wanting a smoke buddy. He will still win handily because he's the second most conservative candidate in Texas, but it shows we still have long way to go.” In a state where a joint can land you a 180-day sentence, many conservative politicians agree that the cannabis restrictions represent a misuse of government resources and are patently offensive to civil rights. But even with 55 percent support within the state for some kind of loosening of the laws, most Republican politicians will still only state their agreement behind closed doors. Within the party, there is a split between the libertarians of the Tea Party, who stand against any increases in government regulations and the more mainstream Republicans — liberal by Texas standards but quite conservative compared to the rest of the country — who want to combat any drug problems with more laws. The more centrist wing of the Republican Party is more resistant on the cannabis issue. Basically, they would rather duck the whole mess. “That's the real difference between the wings of the party: those who want to do something versus do nothing," says Vaughn. Vaughn defines the Tea Party members like himself as those who sees the very best example of a politician as one who does nothing, because “you piss off the least number of people when you do nothing.” It's the ranking Tea Party members of the state legislature who introduced the “hands-off” decriminalization and legalization bills — though these never got to the floor for a vote. But more than the politics within the party, it's the generational gap that looms large. The bedrock conservative principles of small government and personal freedom undergird much of the young conservative support for loosening cannabis restrictions, but they're muzzled by the old-guard Republicans and the state party's official position of no change on the drug laws. Vaughn sees much more of a united front within the younger generation because in the elders, there exists a much more heated adversarial air with conservatives on the opposite side of the party getting smeared with pejoratives like RINO (Republican in name only). But among the young people, “you could be moderate or crazy conservative like me but we're all still seen as Republicans.” There's the shared notion that “we're just more accepting of people with diverse ideas being Republicans. If you're a young Republican, you like debating and hearing different viewpoints. I don't see that as much among my liberal friends. They can be much more in the box and intolerant of disagreement while the young Republicans like debating and freedom of thought.” RAMP is not allowed to endorse specific politicians, but members can share their views and be involved at the state and local level to change the conversation though sometimes their tactics differ from fellow travelers. For instance, Dallas was considering a cite and release program which Vaughn calls, “a step in the right direction though fines for this offense are still ridiculous. So NORML comes out and has a parade covered in pot leaves.” You can almost hear him shaking his head over the phone. “I have no problem with this. You do you. But it's all about propaganda and this is not the way to convince the ones in the middle.” Instead, his Young Republicans group in Denton hosts a fajita night for all the local police officers. “We want to have a good conversation with our police officers on a range of issues so we start off that conversation with respect. That's what you need to create real change. If you start off by yelling, it's done already. We went and sat down with leadership of NAACP, on who we disagree on a number of issues, and we have a respectful conversation.” Vaughn has his own personal vision of what legalization should look like. “I would want a tomato bill," he said. "First off, because parents should be in charge of their children and knowing what they're consuming. With laws like 21 to drink alcohol or 18 to smoke tobacco — as stupid as cigarettes are, that's not the government's job. That's a parental issue. Or to see the laws written county by county. The local community gets to decide how to structure that. Here, we still have dry counties and looking at the alcohol boards, you can see that it's easy to manipulate for favoritism. The biggest thing I'm against is a big new government agency making these kinds of decisions. I'm generally against all government control. Let's not expand that. But again, I'll take what I can get that gets me to the point that people aren't getting locked up.” The recent polls see an upward tracking similar to that seen in attitudes toward homosexuality, and according to Vaughn, overall it's hard to find people who don't support some form of decriminalization because they do not think people should go to jail for marijuana. The general mindset is that the current laws are not working and in his activism, Vaughn has found the most effective tactic to be the emphasis on safer communities. “We are literally funding cartels, gangs and the police state," he says. "We're funding crime by making marijuana illegal. We're asking people to go into the dark and we're making smoking a plant very dangerous. We have a lot of grandparents and this point really resonates with them. There are free market issues, medical freedom and other constitutional sensibilities but mainly, it's coming down to keeping your kid safe and the fact that prohibition makes the world a lot more dangerous.” So Vaughn reveals the generational divide looming in the Republican Party over the social issues of individual liberty while the two wings of the GOP struggle over tactics moving forward. Wasting government resources on prosecution on the medical or recreational use of a widely grown plant stinks of everything that conservatism stands firmly against: the protection of individual freedom, the overreach of federal agency and the power of laissez faire capitalism. As the younger generation of Republicans come to their senses after the decades of blind stupidity in the war on weed, activists like Jason Vaughn lead the struggle toward a bright new day. Lex Pelger is a writer, scientist and Shulginist. Read his work at lexpelger.com.

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Published on February 02, 2016 15:58

Ted Cruz’s radical supporters: He won Iowa on the back of the scariest Bible-thumpers in the business

Ted Cruz's victory in Iowa doesn't mean he'll get the nomination — history shows the Republican caucus in that state is a poor predictor of eventual outcome — but for the religious right, especially the most skin-crawlingly creepy folks in the religious right, Cruz's edging Donald Trump out at the polls represents a huge victory. Because Monday night meant that while their influence might seem to be on the decline, the religious right proved, once again, that they are still a powerful force on the right. Unfortunately, the Republican Party will still have to pay tribute to the nasty crews that use Jesus as a cover to push their lifelong obsession with controlling other people's sex lives, especially if those people are female or queer. A lot of attention has been paid to Trump's oversized ego, but Cruz's may be even worse. While Trump likes to portray himself as a "winner," Cruz clawed his way to victory in Iowa by implying — well, more than implying — that he's a religious messiah, a prophet who is the next best thing to the second coming of Jesus. While denouncing Barack Obama for his supposed "messiah complex," Cruz has been suggesting that he is the real deal, and that he will win because "the body of Christ" will "rise up to pull us back from the abyss." Cruz has been portraying his campaign, in fact, as a religious war in which the true believers will assert themselves as the rightful rulers of this nation. "Strap on the full armor of God, get ready for the attacks that are coming," he told supporters, who are treated more like believers, at a campaign stop in Iowa. Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, has gone even further in suggesting that his son is quite literally God's emissary sent to turn America into a Christian nation (which tends to be defined as a nation that keeps heavy tabs on what you're doing with your genitals, instead of one that makes sure there's enough loaves and fishes for everyone). In an interview on Glenn Beck's show, the senior Cruz and Beck both pushed this notion that Cruz is a prophetic figure come to save us all. "Everybody was born for a reason," Beck told Rafael Cruz, while sitting in — no joke — a replica of the Oval Office built for his show. "As I learned your story and saw the fruit of that story, now in your son, I am more and more convinced in the hand of divine providence." "Oh, absolutely," Cruz replied. Who doesn't want to be the father of the messiah? The last one was literally God himself, after all. This Jesus-walks act of Ted Cruz's worked like a charm, as Cruz sucked up a veritable rogue's gallery of every creepy straight guy who claims he loves Jesus but has his eyes fixed firmly on the crotches of America. As Cruz noted in his victory speech Monday night, Bob Vander Plaats and Rep. Steve King are national co-chairs for his campaign. King, of course, is a notoriously loony right wing nut who has argued that legalizing same-sex marriage means people will now marry lawnmowers and has equated undocumented immigration with the Holocaust. Vander Plaats, who heads up Iowa's religious right behemoth, the Family Leader , has argued that his interpretation of "God's law" should trump the actual laws of our country, that gay marriage will lead to parents marrying their children, and that Vladimir Putin was right to sign a law criminalizing those who speak out for gay rights. Right before the caucus, Cruz launched "Pro-Lifers for Cruz," a group that is also a magnet for the most radical elements of the Christian right. It's chaired by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a group that is so virulently anti-gay that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has declared it a hate group. Troy Newman, the head of Operation Rescue, is on the board as well. Newman is beyond a radical anti-choicer, a man who believe that abortion doctors should be executed and women who abort pregnancies, which is about 30 percent of American women by age 45, should be jailed for murder. Newman's single-minded obsession with abortion has led him to blame everything from the California drought to HIV to 9/11 on the fact that we have legal abortion. Cruz also enjoys the support of David Barton, a powerful crank who rose in the ranks of the religious right by feeding the masses totally false but pleasing stories about American history, designed to create the illusion that our country was basically formed as a theocracy. Barton's willingness to lie and deceive on behalf of this claim is truly breath-taking, as the SPLC demonstrates:

Another Barton whopper is his repeated claim that John Adams supported religious control of the U.S. government. To make that point, Barton quoted the following Adams passage: “There is no authority, civil or religious — there can be no legitimate government — but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it — all without it is rebellion and perdition or, in more orthodox words, damnation.” But Barton conveniently omits the next part of the quote, in which Adams makes it crystal clear he is mocking those with this belief.

Barton loves to do things like claim the Bible forbids progressive income taxes or the capital gains tax, or that Jesus forbade the minimum wage. Which we should care about because, in his opinion, what he thinks Jesus said should be treated as law, since he rejects out of hand the facts and history (and the First Amendment's clear meaning) that show this is a secular nation. And so on and so forth. Cruz has been rolling out a dizzying array of endorsements of the absolute worst of the religious right, which was enough to help push him over the top in Iowa. None of this means that Cruz will be the eventual nominee. But, as history shows, campaigns like his — and like Mike Huckabee's and Rick Santorum's in the past — show that the fire-breathing fundies have a lot of political power. This, in turn, means that the Republican Party will still feel obliged to pay fealty to those who believe that it's the government's solemn, Jesus-instructed duty to punish you for having sex outside of their very narrow prescription of what it should look like (straight, married, only for procreation). If there was one good thing to come out of Trump's candidacy, it was that his apparent pull with evangelical voters suggested that the single-minded obsession with the underpants of America was finally starting to fade on the right. But the fact that Iowa voters, who are heavily evangelical, broke at the last minute to support the guy who is supported by the sex police shows that we are not quite done with these lunatics. Which is something they'll be happy to remind party leaders of, even if Cruz eventually loses the nomination.Ted Cruz's victory in Iowa doesn't mean he'll get the nomination — history shows the Republican caucus in that state is a poor predictor of eventual outcome — but for the religious right, especially the most skin-crawlingly creepy folks in the religious right, Cruz's edging Donald Trump out at the polls represents a huge victory. Because Monday night meant that while their influence might seem to be on the decline, the religious right proved, once again, that they are still a powerful force on the right. Unfortunately, the Republican Party will still have to pay tribute to the nasty crews that use Jesus as a cover to push their lifelong obsession with controlling other people's sex lives, especially if those people are female or queer. A lot of attention has been paid to Trump's oversized ego, but Cruz's may be even worse. While Trump likes to portray himself as a "winner," Cruz clawed his way to victory in Iowa by implying — well, more than implying — that he's a religious messiah, a prophet who is the next best thing to the second coming of Jesus. While denouncing Barack Obama for his supposed "messiah complex," Cruz has been suggesting that he is the real deal, and that he will win because "the body of Christ" will "rise up to pull us back from the abyss." Cruz has been portraying his campaign, in fact, as a religious war in which the true believers will assert themselves as the rightful rulers of this nation. "Strap on the full armor of God, get ready for the attacks that are coming," he told supporters, who are treated more like believers, at a campaign stop in Iowa. Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, has gone even further in suggesting that his son is quite literally God's emissary sent to turn America into a Christian nation (which tends to be defined as a nation that keeps heavy tabs on what you're doing with your genitals, instead of one that makes sure there's enough loaves and fishes for everyone). In an interview on Glenn Beck's show, the senior Cruz and Beck both pushed this notion that Cruz is a prophetic figure come to save us all. "Everybody was born for a reason," Beck told Rafael Cruz, while sitting in — no joke — a replica of the Oval Office built for his show. "As I learned your story and saw the fruit of that story, now in your son, I am more and more convinced in the hand of divine providence." "Oh, absolutely," Cruz replied. Who doesn't want to be the father of the messiah? The last one was literally God himself, after all. This Jesus-walks act of Ted Cruz's worked like a charm, as Cruz sucked up a veritable rogue's gallery of every creepy straight guy who claims he loves Jesus but has his eyes fixed firmly on the crotches of America. As Cruz noted in his victory speech Monday night, Bob Vander Plaats and Rep. Steve King are national co-chairs for his campaign. King, of course, is a notoriously loony right wing nut who has argued that legalizing same-sex marriage means people will now marry lawnmowers and has equated undocumented immigration with the Holocaust. Vander Plaats, who heads up Iowa's religious right behemoth, the Family Leader , has argued that his interpretation of "God's law" should trump the actual laws of our country, that gay marriage will lead to parents marrying their children, and that Vladimir Putin was right to sign a law criminalizing those who speak out for gay rights. Right before the caucus, Cruz launched "Pro-Lifers for Cruz," a group that is also a magnet for the most radical elements of the Christian right. It's chaired by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a group that is so virulently anti-gay that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has declared it a hate group. Troy Newman, the head of Operation Rescue, is on the board as well. Newman is beyond a radical anti-choicer, a man who believe that abortion doctors should be executed and women who abort pregnancies, which is about 30 percent of American women by age 45, should be jailed for murder. Newman's single-minded obsession with abortion has led him to blame everything from the California drought to HIV to 9/11 on the fact that we have legal abortion. Cruz also enjoys the support of David Barton, a powerful crank who rose in the ranks of the religious right by feeding the masses totally false but pleasing stories about American history, designed to create the illusion that our country was basically formed as a theocracy. Barton's willingness to lie and deceive on behalf of this claim is truly breath-taking, as the SPLC demonstrates:

Another Barton whopper is his repeated claim that John Adams supported religious control of the U.S. government. To make that point, Barton quoted the following Adams passage: “There is no authority, civil or religious — there can be no legitimate government — but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it — all without it is rebellion and perdition or, in more orthodox words, damnation.” But Barton conveniently omits the next part of the quote, in which Adams makes it crystal clear he is mocking those with this belief.

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Published on February 02, 2016 14:17

Sanders’ supporters cry foul over “Coingate”: Controversy over coin tosses that made Clinton “winner” in Iowa

The results of the first caucus in the U.S. presidential primary election came down not to actual votes, but to a coin toss — or, rather, to multiple coin tosses. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had a virtual tie in the Iowa caucus Monday night. With 99 percent of precincts reported, there was just a 0.2 percent difference; Sanders had 49.6 percent of statewide delegate equivalents, and Clinton had 49.8 percent. The Iowa Democratic Party said the results were "the closest in Iowa Democratic caucus history." Because they were tied, in order to determine who would get the delegates, coin tosses were reportedly held in at least seven precincts. https://twitter.com/FernandoPeinado/s... There were two coin tosses in Des Moines and four more in Ames, Newton, West Branch and Davenport, the Des Moines Register reported. Clinton won all of these. Another video, which the Des Moines Register did not report on, also emerged, showing a seventh coin toss in Johnson County. Sanders won what appears to be just this one. Clinton reportedly won six out of the seven coin tosses. This assured her several more delegates to the Democratic Party's county conventions, of which there are thousands that are selected from the state's 1,681 precincts in order to determine who gets statewide delegate equivalents. Clinton ultimately got 700.59 state delegate equivalents, while Sanders got 696.82 state delegate equivalents, a mere 3.77 point difference, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. In other words, although six is a small fraction of the thousands of overall county delegates, these coin tosses — all of which Clinton reportedly won, despite the low probability — may have pushed her over the edge, giving her the extra statewide delegate equivalents that granted her an additional Iowa delegate. Clinton ended up getting just one more Iowa delegate, with 22 to Sanders' 21. Even before all the precincts were reported, the characteristically confident Clinton campaign had immediately declared victory. The Sanders campaign, on the other hand, has not conceded, and is requesting a recount, the Associated Press reported. Because of the incredibly close results and the very low probability of Clinton winning all of these coin tosses, Sanders' supporters have raised suspicions. Others have accused the Iowa caucus of manipulation and foul play. Salon reached out to John Allen Paulos, the prominent mathematician and author of "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences," requesting a comment on the controversy. "It does arouse a little suspicion — about the six consecutive wins for Clinton, about the way the flips took place, and about the 60 missing attendees. Can't say more now," he said. In Ames, Clinton was awarded county delegates based on a coin toss only after 60 caucus participants suddenly disappeared, for unknown reasons. Moreover, a widely circulated video uploaded to C-SPAN alleges that Clinton supporters committed voter fraud in Polk County, Iowa. The post claims that the video shows the caucus chair and Clinton precinct captain not conducting an actual count of Clinton supporters and deliberately misleading the caucus. Mere hours after being uploaded, the C-SPAN post had hundreds of thousands of views. These circumstances led critics on social media to jokingly use the hashtags #coingate, #coinspiracy and #coinghazi. https://twitter.com/AndyGrewal/status... https://twitter.com/MadisonAlise23/st... https://twitter.com/oneillmahoney/sta... https://twitter.com/AlexCl4rk/status/... https://twitter.com/Minifig81/status/... https://twitter.com/moxyfruvous/statu... https://twitter.com/singernews/status... https://twitter.com/JimmyJazz1968/sta... Coin Toss Gives Hillary Victory in Iowa, Cruz Just Beats Trump