15 July 20
Jeffrey Toobin | The Halted Progress of Criminal-Justice Reform
Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker
Excerpt: "Prosecutors are charging protesters with federal crimes, exposing them to long prison sentences, in another example of the Justice Department's grotesque overreach under Attorney General William Barr."
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Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker
Excerpt: "Prosecutors are charging protesters with federal crimes, exposing them to long prison sentences, in another example of the Justice Department's grotesque overreach under Attorney General William Barr."
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Florida National Guard personnel direct vehicles at a coronavirus testing site at the Miami Beach Convention Center. (photo: Lynne Sladky/AP)
White House Urges National Guard Role in Coronavirus Data Gathering, Moves to Take CDC Out of Loop
Lena H. Sun and Amy Goldstein, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The Trump administration is asking governors to consider sending the National Guard to hospitals to help improve data collection about novel coronavirus patients, supplies and capacity, according to a letter, internal emails and officials familiar with the plans."
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Lena H. Sun and Amy Goldstein, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The Trump administration is asking governors to consider sending the National Guard to hospitals to help improve data collection about novel coronavirus patients, supplies and capacity, according to a letter, internal emails and officials familiar with the plans."
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Drivers lining up for virus testing in Los Angeles. More than a third of California's cases are in Los Angeles County. (photo: Jenna Schoenefeld/NYT)
5.4 Million Americans Lost Health Insurance in Pandemic, Study Finds
The New York Times
Excerpt: "The coronavirus pandemic stripped an estimated 5.4 million Americans of their health insurance between February and May, a stretch in which more adults became uninsured because of job losses than have ever lost coverage in a single year, according to a new analysis."
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The New York Times
Excerpt: "The coronavirus pandemic stripped an estimated 5.4 million Americans of their health insurance between February and May, a stretch in which more adults became uninsured because of job losses than have ever lost coverage in a single year, according to a new analysis."
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Irma Maldanado stands with Sussury her parrot and her dog in what is left of her home that was destroyed when Hurricane Maria passed through on September 27, 2017 in Corozal, Puerto Rico. (photo: Getty Images)
Trump Apparently Proposed 'Selling' Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria
Rachel Ramirez, Grist
Ramirez writes: "Ever since Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico in 2017, President Trump has expressed displeasure with the U.S. territory."
Rachel Ramirez, Grist
Ramirez writes: "Ever since Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico in 2017, President Trump has expressed displeasure with the U.S. territory."
After trying to limit recovery funds provided to the island last year, he finally signed a long-overdue disaster aid bill before taking to Twitter to declare himself the “best thing that ever happened” to Puerto Rico.
But before all that, the president tried to wash his hands of the island entirely. In an article published in The New York Times on Friday, Elaine C. Duke, a lifelong Republican who led the Department of Homeland Security for four months in 2017, recalled that during her tenure Trump floated the possibility of “selling” or “divesting” Puerto Rico as the island’s recovery from Hurricane Maria proved arduous.
“The president’s initial ideas were more of as a businessman, you know,” Duke told the Times. “Can we outsource the electricity? Can we sell the island? You know, or divest of that asset?”
The incident is hardly the first in which President Trump has worn his “businessman” hat in the Oval Office. Last August, the Wall Street Journal reported that the president, in conversation with top aides “with varying degrees of seriousness,” floated the idea of purchasing Greenland. The gigantic Arctic island, which is rapidly melting thanks to climate change, is a self-ruling part of Denmark and is definitely not for sale. Trump nevertheless apparently believed that Greenland could somehow be purchased. In fact, a 2019 New York Times article reported that a former official heard the president joke that he would be happy to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland.
Although Duke said the idea of “divesting” Puerto Rico was never seriously considered and discussed after the meeting in which Trump proposed it, her recollection underscores Trump’s reluctance to support the struggling U.S. territory in the aftermath of the disaster.
Duke told the Times that, as soon as Hurricane Maria began approaching the Caribbean, she argued that the administration should declare a state of emergency before the storm made landfall. But Mick Mulvaney, then the president’s budget director, rejected her request.
According to the Times, Duke recalled Mulvaney saying, “Quit being so emotional, Elaine, it’s not about the people, it’s about the money.” (Mulvaney denied making the comment.)
Despite natural disasters continuously wreaking havoc on the island, Trump has constantly sparred with Puerto Rican officials, accusing them of “poor leadership” and adding that residents weren’t doing enough to help themselves. The blame went both ways: A 2018 poll found more than half of Puerto Ricans felt that Trump and his administration had done a poor job responding to the island’s calamities.
As Puerto Rico continues to weather natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, the island is also suffering from the same global pandemic that has debilitated the mainland. And just as with his handling of the coronavirus outbreak, Trump has denied any wrongdoing or fault for the lackluster actions his administration has taken to aid Puerto Rico. In 2018, he called his disaster response an “incredible, unsung success.”
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The city of Tulsa, Okla., has begun a test excavation to determine if land on city-owned property is the site of a mass grave from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. (photo: 1921 Graves/City of Tulsa)
Excavation Begins for Possible Mass Grave From 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Brakkton Booker, NPR
Booker writes: "Nearly a century ago, Tulsa, Okla., was the site of one of the most brutal race massacres in U.S. history. As many as 300 African American residents were slaughtered by white mobs, and a section of the city known as Black Wall Street was reduced to ash."
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Brakkton Booker, NPR
Booker writes: "Nearly a century ago, Tulsa, Okla., was the site of one of the most brutal race massacres in U.S. history. As many as 300 African American residents were slaughtered by white mobs, and a section of the city known as Black Wall Street was reduced to ash."
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Offerings sit in front of a mural of the slain army specialist Vanessa Guillén painted on a wall in the south side of Fort Worth, Texas. (photo: LM Otero/AP)
'We Are Vanessa Guillén': Killing Puts Sexual Violence in US Military in Focus
Shilpa Jindia, Guardian UK
Jindia writes: "The disappearance and killing of soldier Vanessa Guillén has gripped Texas, and reignited widespread outrage over sexual violence in the US military and the failures of recent reforms to address it."
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Shilpa Jindia, Guardian UK
Jindia writes: "The disappearance and killing of soldier Vanessa Guillén has gripped Texas, and reignited widespread outrage over sexual violence in the US military and the failures of recent reforms to address it."
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Methane levels have hit a high. (photo: Grist)
Methane Levels Have Hit a Scary Record High, New Studies Say
Shannon Osaka, Grist
Osaka writes: "While the world has been focused on a global pandemic and widespread protests, another crisis is gathering in the atmosphere."
Shannon Osaka, Grist
Osaka writes: "While the world has been focused on a global pandemic and widespread protests, another crisis is gathering in the atmosphere."
And no, it isn’t carbon dioxide: It’s that other planet-warmer, methane, a colorless, odorless gas which traps 86 times as much heat as CO2. According to two new studies out Tuesday, a combination of agriculture and fossil fuel burning has boosted methane to a record-high 1,875 parts per billion in the atmosphere.
If unabated, the researchers warn, methane emissions could push the planet toward a world heated up by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, one of the worst-case scenarios for global warming.
In the race over how to lower global greenhouse gas emissions, methane — a carbon atom joined to four hydrogen atoms — is often left out of the conversation. It doesn’t hang around in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide; when released into the air, it only takes about 9 years for half of it to dissipate and turn into other molecules. (Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, takes around a century.) But methane is responsible for a quarter of the world’s global warming since 1750. Tamping it down will be crucial for mitigating climate change.
“It’s a mistake to ignore methane,” said Rob Jackson, professor of earth system science at Stanford University and a co-author of both studies. “If we can reduce methane emissions quickly, we could shave a half-a-degree Celsius off peak temperatures.”
The problem is that methane keeps rising. And rising. Starting in 2007, methane emissions started climbing fast, after remaining fairly stable for the previous seven years. But scientists couldn’t figure out exactly why.
“It’s embarrassing, honestly,” said Jackson.
Some blamed fracking. When fossil fuel companies force water and chemicals underground to extract natural gas, they run the risk of methane leaking into the air. And studies have shown that, at least in the United States, these leaks are far larger than the government has admitted. Others pointed to the belching of methane from tropical wetlands, which depends on changes in temperature and precipitation, or to thawing Arctic permafrost releasing tons of fossilized methane into the air.
The new papers, however, tell a somewhat simpler story. Jackson and his coauthors blame the sharp increase on increased fossil fuel use and agriculture gobbling up land. Cows burp out huge quantities of methane in the process of their digestion; bacteria living in flooded rice paddies also spew out the gas.
Part of the problem is that the global population has surged to 7.7 billion over the past two decades — and many of those people are also eating more meat. “There are a billion and a half more people on Earth than there were in 2000,” Jackson said. “Emissions have gone up because of extra mouths to feed.”
Fossil fuels also play a big role, not just through fracking. Any time oil, gas, and coal are extracted from the ground, there is a risk of methane spilling out of rock formations into the air. Methane emissions from coal mining, for example, increased globally from 29 million metric tons between 2000 and 2006 to a whopping 44 million metric tons in 2017.
And, while carbon dioxide emissions fell when much of the world was locked down earlier this year (only to bounce back as shelter-in-place orders lifted), Jackson said that it’s unlikely we’ll see anything similar from methane emissions. Most of the decreases in CO2 emissions came from the transportation sector, as people stopped driving their cars and taking international flights. But as agriculture gobbles up more land and people continue to heat their homes with natural gas, methane emissions have continued climbing.
If there’s a source of optimism in the two studies, it’s Europe, where changing diets and better agricultural practices have decreased the amount of methane exhaled from the land. And despite repeated warnings that thawing Arctic soils could release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere, researchers say that hasn’t happened — yet.
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