Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, 7 January 2014
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STORIES:
Weather Whiplash: As Polar Vortex Brings Deep Freeze, Is Extreme Weather Linked to Climate Change?
Record cold temperatures are being recorded across the Midwest and Eastern United States again today as a so-called polar vortex of dense, frigid air has descended as far south as Texas and Florida. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures are 20 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit below average in parts of Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nebraska. In Brimson, Minnesota, the temperature fell to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Fargo, North Dakota, recorded temperatures as low as 32 degrees below zero. In Illinois, motorists are being urged to stay off the roads for a second day, and schools remain closed in Chicago and other cities. In New York, the temperature dropped by nearly 50 degrees over a few hours on Monday. We are joined by Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In Brimson, Minnesota, the temperature fell to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Fargo, North Dakota, recorded temperatures as low as 32 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. In Illinois, motorists are being urged to stay off the roads for a second day. Schools remain closed in Chicago and other cities. Here in New York, the temperature dropped nearly 50 degrees over a few hours on Monday. Central Park has just hit an all-time low for January 7th at 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The previous record was set back in 1896.
The cause? Well, it’s called a polar vortex, a dense frigid air that’s descended as far south as Texas and Florida. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures are 20 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit below average in parts of Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nebraska.
To talk more about the record cold and the connection between the polar vortex and climate change, we’re joined by Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground. He’s joining us from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
First, Jeff, what’s the temperature in Ann Arbor?
JEFF MASTERS: It’s about 14 below zero, 20 mile-an-hour winds, and that goes for a wind chill about 40 below zero.
AMY GOODMAN: How unusual is that?
JEFF MASTERS: It doesn’t happen very often. The last time we saw conditions this cold was back in 1994.
AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us what an Arctic vortex is.
JEFF MASTERS: Sure. It’s a situation you see every winter over the Arctic. I mean, you’ve got 24-hour darkness up there, and the cold air tends to build and build and build because of the lack of sunlight. And when you get all that cold air up there, it tends to drive stronger winds. And those winds blow counterclockwise around the pole in a vortex, and those winds tend to isolate that cold air from the rest of the world. And so, that cold air can stay cold, and when that happens to slosh over where we are, boy, we sure notice it.
AMY GOODMAN: Here in New York, we’re not only talking about record cold, but yesterday it was more than 50 degrees warmer. It dropped 50 degrees in a matter of hours. How unusual is this?
JEFF MASTERS: Yeah, that’s pretty rare to go a 50-degree change in one day. I mean, back on Sunday, you had airplanes sliding off runways, and then it was 55 on Monday, and now you’re down at 4 degrees, which, like you said, is a record low. That’s some serious weather whiplash. You don’t see the things oscillate that extremely very often.
AMY GOODMAN: Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, bashed the media for its coverage of the polar vortex, saying reporters are using the recent cold snap to push their global warming, quote, "agenda." This is what he had to say.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: So, ladies and gentlemen, we are having a record-breaking cold snap in many parts of the country. And right on schedule, right on schedule, the media have to come up with a way to make it sound like it’s completely unprecedented, because they’ve got to find a way to attach this to the global warming agenda. And they have. It’s called the polar vortex, the dreaded polar vortex. Do you know what the polar vortex is? Have you ever heard of it? Well, they just created it for this week. And it’s—of course, you can’t—actually, there is a piece. I’ve got a piece in the stack that actually makes the case that all of this frigid, chilling cold is due to global warming, strange as it may sound, it says. Other wackos are saying it’s a great example of climate change. But regardless, the agenda is that we’re responsible. We are causing it. We have to pay the price.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Rush Limbaugh. Jeff Masters, your response?
JEFF MASTERS: It’s good for entertainment, but you don’t go to Rush Limbaugh for science. I mean, the polar vortex has been around forever. It’s just the media happened to latch onto it this week. I don’t know why, but it sure did kind of snowball. It’s been around—you know, I’ve been talking about the polar vortex for years. It’s just funny that it got out in the media the way it did this week.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, but talk about this, because all over Fox and other places, you have this mocking and the derision: "See, global warming can’t possibly be related to what’s happening." So explain how it can. How can the Earth getting hotter relate to such cold weather?
JEFF MASTERS: Yeah, this is a one-in-20-year type of cold weather event, which you expect to see grow less common as the planet heats up. I mean, the planet has heated up about a degree and a half Fahrenheit over the last 130 years, and you expect these one-in-20-year events to maybe occur one-in-30 years. But they’re still going to happen.
OK, now counterbalancing the fact that we would expect to see these events grow less common due to the fact the planet is warming up is, well, maybe, if we alter circulation patterns in such a way where the polar vortex now will slip southwards more often, then you could counterbalance that. And there is some evidence over the last few years that the jet stream has been doing something we haven’t seen before, at least not as often. Normally those winds blow straight west to east, with a little bit of waviness to it, but now we’re seeing more extreme excursions in the jet stream, where you get these big bulges, these high-pressure ridges on one side, and then low pressure dipping far to the south—very unusual to see these sort of contortions like we’ve had in recent years. And there is evidence that possibly Arctic sea ice loss could cause that sort of jet stream behavior.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what the drunk jet stream is?
JEFF MASTERS: Yeah. Well, normally the jet blows, like I said, straight west to east, but when the winds slow down in the jet stream, now they tend to wander around a little more. They’re not constrained to flow in this kind of tight, narrow ribbon so much. Now they can do kind of these big meandering loops. And when you reduce the temperature difference between the Equator and the poles, you tend to slow down the winds of the jet stream, and you tend to allow this sort of meandering behavior. And this difference in temperature between the Equators and the poles has been growing less and less in recent years because we’ve been losing so much Arctic sea ice. That allows the sun to shine more intensely up there, because now you’re exposing open water, which is dark, absorbs more sunlight, heats up the area, melts more ice, in kind of a vicious cycle, and increases the warmth even more. So, all this kind of makes sense that it could be the fact that warming in the Arctic is altering jet stream behavior.
AMY GOODMAN: We hear descriptions of how—what happens to skin when it’s exposed to such cold. Jeff, can you talk more about that?
JEFF MASTERS: Yeah. Where I am, in Detroit here, 40 below zero wind chill, if you expose your skin to that kind of extreme low temperature, you’re asking for frostbite in just a minute or two. You really shouldn’t go out and expose your flesh to that kind of extreme condition.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you, overall, give us a round-up of extreme weather in 2013?
JEFF MASTERS: 2013, if you talk globally, we had $40 billion weather disasters, which ties a record for the most we’ve ever seen. Now, the actual dollar losses from those events was, oh, near average. We didn’t have a single like Hurricane Sandy or a single drought of 2012, which was a tens of billions of dollars type of loss event. But that kind of a $40 billion sort of year for these events does make me say, "Wow, you know, that was a pretty extreme year," even though we didn’t have a major La Niña event or an El Niño event, which tends to drive sort of an increase in extreme weather events. So, it’s hard to quantify extreme weather. We don’t have very good ways to do it. We don’t have data that goes back in time long enough. But certainly, by that measure, by the number of billion-dollar disasters, it was a very extreme year.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m looking at a piece from ThinkProgress by Emily Atkin. She says, "On Sunday night, a reporter for The Weather Channel stood in a Minnesota snowstorm, talking about local efforts to move homeless children into heated shelters. 'How cold is it supposed to get?' the anchor, back in the studio, asked. The reporter replied: 'Colder than Mars.' Indeed, recent temperatures across the U.S. have been Mars-like." Jeff Masters?
JEFF MASTERS: Yeah, I mean, North America is pretty amazing for its ability to create some very intense cold. All that 24-hour darkness over northern Canada makes for some very cold air masses, and when they spill south, you can get temperatures colder than Mars, if you pick a very warm day on Mars near the equator.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Jeff. Now we are going to move into, at least in New York, much, much warmer weather this weekend.
JEFF MASTERS: Yeah, you’re going to be up in the 40s, above-average temperatures, 5 to 10 degrees above average. Weather whiplash at work again.
AMY GOODMAN: Weather whiplash. Jeff Masters, thanks so much for being with us. Stay warm. Director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, joining us from Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
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From Funding Climate Deniers to Shadowy Groups, Koch Brothers Network Spent $400 Million in 2012
The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics have just published an exposé revealing how a labyrinth of 17 tax-exempt groups and limited liability companies tied to the billionaire Koch Brothers raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign. The staggering amount is equivalent to the combined spending of all unions in state, federal and local races — it dwarfs nearly all other sources of political spending in 2012. The groups were designed to help conceal the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats. For more, we are joined by Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, and publisher of PRWatch.org and ALECExposed.org.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show with an in-depth look at one of the biggest political operations in the country: a vast network of politically active nonprofit groups funded by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and other conservative donors. The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics have just published an exposé called "Koch-Backed Political Coalition, Designed to Shield Donors, Raised $400 Million in 2012." It reveals how a labyrinth of 17 tax-exempt groups and limited liability companies raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign. The staggering amount is equivalent to the combined spending of all unions in state, federal and local races. It dwarfs nearly all other sources of political spending in 2012. The groups were designed to help conceal the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats.
A Koch Industries and the Koch brothers’ spokesman, Robert Tappan, provided a statement to The Washington Post that read in part, quote, "This type of activity is undertaken by individual donors and organizations on all ends of the political spectrum—on the left, the middle, and the right. In many situations, the law does not compel disclosure of donors to various causes and organizations," he said.
Well, for more, we go to Madison, Wisconsin where we’re joined by Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of PRWatch.org and ALECExposed.org.
Lisa Graves, welcome back to Democracy Now! How cold is it in Madison, Wisconsin, Lisa?
LISA GRAVES: It’s 17 degrees below here this morning in Madison without the wind chill. So it’s quite cold here, but it’s not as hot as it is in Australia, where they’ve got huge—a huge drought underway, so it’s hard to know where to be.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, in a funny way, I would like to start there, in a place that isn’t so funny, actually, the whole issue of extreme weather. This is something you have looked at. If you could talk about the Koch brothers and the whole issue of climate change and climate change denial?
LISA GRAVES: Well, there’s been tremendous work by Greenpeace and DeSmogBlog and others, who have taken a very close look at who’s funding climate denial, who are the companies or individuals who are funding groups that are pushing out the idea that climate change is a hoax and that extreme changes in weather are nothing to worry about. And those studies have indicated that a lot of that money has come from Big Oil, as you might imagine, that includes money from Exxon, money from various Koch family enterprises or philanthropies, along with others. And so, when you look at the groups that are putting out information trying to say that climate change isn’t happening or that you shouldn’t worry about it, a lot of those groups have received funding, at least in part, by some of these Big Oil interests or the CEOs and foundations that are connected with some of these Big Oil and Big Coal interests, like the Kochs.
AMY GOODMAN: Lisa Graves, where does the Kochs’ wealth come from?
LISA GRAVES: The Koch brothers have grown their family business, Koch Industries, over the last several decades, over the last three or four decades, into a multibillion-dollar operation. It’s largely built on oil and gas and pipelines, but it’s expanded to include the purchase of Georgia-Pacific paper mills and paper products. It’s a global enterprise. They also have an extraordinary amount of wealth that has been obtained through trading in derivatives and through energy derivatives, as well as other sorts of energy futures.
And one of the things that is most stunning that we’ve seen this past year is a study that indicates that their wealth has skyrocketed over the last five years. As most people’s wealth in this country has stagnated or plummeted, the wealth of the Koch brothers has increased. They’re two of the richest billionaires in the world. And one of the little-known facts is that Koch Public Sector, their lobbying arm, lobbied against the Wall Street reforms of derivatives, more regulation of derivatives.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to get your reaction to the Washington Post report by Matea Gold, "Koch-Backed Political Coalition, Designed to Shield Donors, Raised $400 Million in 2012." Why don’t you go through, first of all, this whole issue of shielding donors, not knowing where the money is coming from that is affecting elections all over the country?
LISA GRAVES: Well, it’s been a long-standing practice in the United States for ordinary charities, like the Red Cross or others, to have anonymous donors, to have donors that are not disclosed to a charity. But what we’re seeing is really a growth in the amount of money that’s going to what are known as C4 nonprofits. C4s are tax-exempt, but the donations to them are not a tax deduction. And we’ve seen an enormous rise in the activity of C4 political—or, C4 organizations that are really political, that are running ads in our elections.
And what this really important story in The Washington Post reveals is this network that’s been created that spent more than $400 million—that’s, you know, a half-a-billion dollars—during largely the 2012 elections, and no one even knew the names of some of the groups that were behind it, let alone the individuals who were funding it. And so, this fall, just a few months ago, we learned that there was a thing called Freedom Partners, that was stocked with Koch-connected staffers—people from Koch Industries or from the Koch charities, from other Koch operations, were either on the board or on the staff of this entity—that it was doling out, you know, well over $100 million, over $200 million, really, to an array of groups, and that those groups were—a lot of those groups were running ads in the elections. Those ads were so-called issue ads, but they were plainly designed to influence the outcome of the election, in my opinion.
AMY GOODMAN: In this, Matea Gold writes, "The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors."
She goes on to say, "The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups aimed at stopping what its financiers view as government overreach. Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations."
So, explain how this cloaking is done.
LISA GRAVES: Well, it’s quite clear that the Koch brothers, in their semi-annual retreats at posh resorts like in Colorado and other places, have been gathering together billionaires and millionaires to help fund these sorts of operations. And this is the product of those efforts. And so, it’s the Koch brothers and their cronies, is one way to think about it. And what has been assembled, in part through the leadership of Koch operatives, is a really complex maze of groups, as The Washington Post reports. I don’t think that you’d see something like this outside of usually a John Grisham novel or some sort of a really complicated fictional scheme where you see a number of—a number of limited liability corporations that have an alphabet soup set of names, just initials that you can’t really decipher. No one knows who controls, who are the principals or the leaders of those limited liability corporations. Money is being passed from Freedom Partners and other of these Koch-connected enterprises into these limited liability corporations, and the money is sent out to some of these other groups, like CPPR that operated out of—operates out of Arizona.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s newly—
LISA GRAVES: And then those groups in turn give money to other groups.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s newly being talked about, what the—the Arizona connection.
LISA GRAVES: That’s right. So, you have a group that describes itself as being for protecting patients’ rights, the Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights, that has been led by Sean Noble. It was implicated in the California campaign finance investigation this past year, which led to a record $1 million fine, one of the largest fines in U.S. history, for the way the money was passed, and people didn’t know where the money came from. That was both through CPPR and another group, ARL, out of Arizona.
CPPR has now been—is now one of the groups that we see has been giving money to Wisconsin during the 2012 election year, as well. And in Wisconsin, there’s an ongoing criminal investigation, known as a John Doe investigation, into some of the groups that may have received some of this money, although it’s not clear—it’s very secret. But one of the group leaders, Eric O’Keefe, here in Wisconsin, he went to The Wall Street Journal, it appears, and spoke with them about the investigation and subpoenas that were issued to some of these nonprofit groups in Wisconsin that were running ads. But that’s just a part here in Wisconsin.
Nationally, you know, what you see are the way these groups, and the way The Washington Post describes them, as focused on particular constituents, whether it’s the Christian Coalition constituency or the Latino constituency or the youth constituency, and running a lot of ads. And so, I’m not suggesting that there’s criminal or civil violations here. I think the campaign finance system is plainly broken. I think this illustrates how broken the law has become in the wake of the judicial activists on the Supreme Court in that Citizens United decision. And I think Congress ought to investigate it. Congress has the right to investigate whether our elections have integrity or not, how people are attempting to influence the outcome of the elections. And I think that they ought to be investigating this and trying to help impose reforms to protect the integrity of our elections, which I think have really been undermined by all of this dark money flowing in directly to groups who are running ads to influence our elections.
AMY GOODMAN: Last month, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow drew attention to how Florida State University allowed Charles Koch to buy influence over its faculty hiring process.
RACHEL MADDOW: In 2011, the Tampa Bay Times discovered that Florida State’s Economics Department had quietly cut a deal with a billionaire to essentially give that billionaire control over who the department hires. In exchange for money, that guy gets veto power over who the university hires to teach. Quote: "A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new [department] program. ... The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it’s not happy with the faculty’s choice or if the hires don’t meet 'objectives' set by Koch during annual evaluations."
Forget naming rights to the stadium or whatever. Conservative billionaire Charles Koch purchased hiring rights for the faculty at Florida State’s Economics Department. And, yes, Florida State has the word "State" in its name because it is a public university. And, yes, it is objectively insane that the state of Florida allowed that to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: That was MSNBC host Rachel Maddow talking about Florida State University. Lisa Graves?
LISA GRAVES: Well, that’s not surprising. The Kochs have a reputation for really trying to ensure that they have a return on their investment and trying to ensure that the money there spent gets results. After the 2012 election and the failure of Romney to win that race, there was a lot of handwringing among Republican or right-wing circles, and one of the Kochs was quoted talking about how they needed to review the money that was spent and basically see what worked and see what didn’t, which is interesting, because the Kochs have talked about this as really a First Amendment issue. Their spokesperson has talked about this as the necessity of secrecy and protecting First Amendment rights.
But in this country, for more than 40 years, we’ve had a history of trying to ensure transparency in our elections. That’s why it’s called "dark money," because money that’s meant to benefit candidates, that is given to candidates or to political action committees or to parties, is supposed to be disclosed, so the American people know who’s trying to influence their candidates, who’s trying to help buy those seats, and who might wield incredible influence on elected politicians. And that’s why the money is supposed to be—supposed to be open. But through the Supreme Court’s decisions and—in Citizens United and other cases, there’s been a proliferation of these nonprofit groups that are actively engaged in influencing the election without necessarily saying vote for or against this person, and that money has been secretized.
AMY GOODMAN: Lisa—
LISA GRAVES: More money was spent than ever before in 2012.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave—
LISA GRAVES: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. I want to thank you for being with us. Stay warm, if you can. Lisa Graves is executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy.
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Court Ruling on Gay Marriage Ban Makes Utah an Unlikely New Front in Struggle for LGBT Equality
Nearly 1,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot in Utah since a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage late last month. The ruling by District Judge Robert Shelby had been the first to overturn a state’s gay marriage ban since the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions against the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s same-sex marriage ban last June. Over the past few weeks, Utah courthouses have been the scenes of jubilation for LGBT couples and the movement for marriage equality. But those unions are now in limbo. On Monday, the Supreme Court granted Utah’s request to block same-sex marriages while the ruling is appealed. The case now goes before a federal appeals court in Denver, but many expect it to find its way to the Supreme Court. A Supreme Court decision could have major repercussions across the country: If Utah’s ban is overturned, the same could happen for same-sex marriage bans in nearly 30 other states. We are joined from Utah by Derek Kitchen and Moudi Sbeity, one of three couples who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Nearly a thousand same-sex couples have tied the knot in Utah since a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage late last month. The ruling by District Judge Robert Shelby had been the first to overturn a state’s gay marriage ban since the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions against the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s same-sex marriage ban last June. Over the past few weeks, Utah courthouses have been the scenes of jubilation for LGBT couples and the movement for marriage equality. These are two of the newlyweds.
DENNIS OWENS: You know, I don’t think it’ll change day-to-day life for us, obviously, but it is nice to know that there’s some formal recognition for the relationship we have created over the last 18 years. It’s just a nice way to sort of commemorate the relationship that we share.
PENNY KIRBY: And just to have this opportunity, in Utah, in our home state, because we could have gone to California, we could have gone to another state, but we’re Utahns, and that is huge—that’s huge. We’re pioneers. I mean, you know, it’s so awesome.
AMY GOODMAN: But those unions and many others in Utah are now in limbo. On Monday, the Supreme Court granted Utah’s request to block same-sex marriages while the ruling is appealed. The case now goes before a federal appeals court in Denver, but many expect it to find its way to the Supreme Court. A Supreme Court decision could have major repercussions across the country: If Utah’s ban is overturned, the same could happen for same-sex marriage bans in nearly 30 other states.
Joining us now from Utah are Derek Kitchen and Moudi Sbeity. They are one of three couples who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Derek, let’s begin with you. Explain what’s just happened in Utah.
DEREK KITCHEN: Well, yesterday we had the Supreme Court put a stay on Robert—Judge Robert Shelby’s decision to allow same-sex marriage in our state. So, we have about 1,300 couples that are in what our attorney general called legal limbo. And then we have an untold number of gay couples in the state that cannot get married for the foreseeable future.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Moudi, you and Derek are not married. There was that opening where a thousand people did get married. Why did you decide not to at that time? And how does that allow you to be a plaintiff in this lawsuit?
MOUDI SBEITY: Well, when we first heard of the ruling, we were in our kitchen working, and so we were in no position to drop everything and rush down. We did have about three or four other days to go down and get a license, but we were not so much interested in that as in the fact that we had the opportunity to get married whenever we pleased. We wanted to do it more traditionally, if we can say, with a ceremony and our family and friends. And then the Supreme Court granted Utah its stay. But I don’t think that we will go on like this for a long time.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain the mood in Utah right now in the gay, lesbian, the LGBT community, Derek.
DEREK KITCHEN: You know, we’re in the process of building, I don’t know, kind of a compassionate coalition of workers here that are trying to get a huge public outreach campaign going to kind of educate those members of our society that may be on the fence or not so sure what it means to have gay marriage in Utah. There was a sense of jubilation for the 17 days that marriages were allowed in our state. As of yesterday, there was a somewhat sense of defeat, but I do believe that in the end this is going to just add momentum to our cause and really kind of just, you know, light the fire beneath everybody. So, it’s going to be good.
AMY GOODMAN: You have a Middle Eastern foods business, and you were giving out baba ghanoush to folks who were getting married?
MOUDI SBEITY: We were actually handing out hummus. But, yes—
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you for correcting the record.
MOUDI SBEITY: Yeah, OK. We do have a Middle Eastern food business in Salt Lake where we package and sell Middle Eastern food through grocery stores.
DEREK KITCHEN: But yeah, we—when people were waiting out in line on December 23rd, the Monday after the ruling, we went out and handed food to people waiting in line. And, you know, that day, there were people waiting blocks around—I think they married, you know, over 400 people just in Salt Lake County alone on that day. So, you know, this kind of underscores the mood among our community around the Christmas time. So, it’s been fun.
AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, a group called the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association held what they called an uprising against same-sex marriage in their state. Speaker Richard Mack, a former sheriff from Graham County, Arizona, called on law enforcement officials to prevent gay marriages in Utah.
RICHARD MACK: The people of Utah have rights, too, not just the homosexuals. The homosexuals are shoving their agenda down our throats. The way you take back freedom in America is one county at a time. And the sheriffs need to defend the county clerks in saying, "No, we’re not going to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals."
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response, Derek, to this.
DEREK KITCHEN: I think there’s something to be said about freedom here. And this is—we have to consider our freedom, as well. We desire to be married. This is a civil marriage issue, so this has nothing to do with religions. We’re not—we’re not lining up at the Mormon church to get married. So I do believe that in the end, as far as liberty goes, we are on the winning side. And, you know, I do—it’s unfortunate that they—you know, that they are upset about this, but, you know, they can’t really take away rights from us that we deserve.
AMY GOODMAN: Moudi, I wanted to ask about the theory that is being used to challenge same-sex marriage in Utah, the idea that banning same-sex marriage encourages diversity in parenting, you know, having a man and a woman be the parents.
MOUDI SBEITY: Right. You know, there have been a lot of studies debunking that theory. I am of the belief that a child needs parents who can love and nurture them. I am not in a position to change anybody’s mind about what they believe. All that we ask is that they leave us to our own beliefs and our own family. There are hundreds of family types out there, and we cannot all go out there and make sure that they conform to our standards.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you plan to—how do you want to get married in Utah?
MOUDI SBEITY: Well, I think we were planning on a farmers’ market wedding, because we spend most of our time with the farmers’ market. And we were planning something for this coming October, but with the Supreme Court stay, that may not happen, although I do believe that our appeals process will be speedy.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, of course—and you, Derek?
DEREK KITCHEN: I was just going to say, to add onto Moudi’s point, I do believe that we will be through the 10th Circuit in March. And depending on what they decide, that could be escalated up to the Supreme Court. And we are hoping for a ruling that could affect other states. So, you know, we’re in it for the long run. And if that means putting our marriage on hold, then that’s what that means.
AMY GOODMAN: And that stay appeal would be made to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the—who is assigned to oversight of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, is that right? Any words that you’d like to—
DEREK KITCHEN: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: If you could address her now, what would you have to say, Derek and Moudi?
DEREK KITCHEN: You know, we’re just here to respect the process. I understand that they didn’t really offer an opinion on the case, and that’s totally respectable. I think we will wait to make our case to the Supreme Court in full later on in the future.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Derek Kitchen and Moudi Sbeity, I want to thank you very much for being with us, plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging Utah’s anti-gay marriage law.
DEREK KITCHEN: Thank you.
MOUDI SBEITY: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. It is cold in many parts of the United States today, record freezing weather. It dropped more than 50 degrees here in New York in just a few hours. Recorded in Central Park, I think, was 5 degrees today, a record low in history. When we come back, we’ll look at how global warming could be linked to such record cold. Stay with us.
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From Sandy to Haiyan, Year of Extreme Weather Brings More Coverage of Climate Change
A new survey of global climate change coverage in 2013 has found a 30 percent increase in the number of mainstream news articles and editorials on the topic. The website The Daily Climate compiles such stories on a daily basis, and their results showed that for the first time since 2009 there was an increase in global warming reporting. Some 24,000 reports were filed on the topic last year compared to about 18,000 the year before, in 2012. Reuters, the Associated Press and The Guardian each filed more than 1,000 stories. The New York Times was the only major publication to see its climate coverage drop in 2013. Meanwhile, the climate coverage on Fox News continued to feature pundits who argue climate change is a hoax. We’re joined by Peter Dykstra, publisher of The Daily Climate, which just published its annual survey and found that "Climate coverage soared in 2013, spurred by energy, and weather." Dykstra is a former journalist, spending 17 years at CNN where he covered the environment and weather.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a new survey of global climate change coverage in 2013 that found a 30 percent increase in the number of mainstream news articles and editorials on the topic. The website The Daily Climate compiles such stories on a daily basis, and their results showed that for the first time since 2009 there was an increase in global warming reporting. Some 24,000 reports were filed on the topic last year compared to about 18,000 the year before, in 2012. Reuters news agency, the Associated Press and The Guardian each filed more than a thousand stories. The New York Times was the only major publication to see its climate coverage drop in 2013.
Meanwhile, the climate coverage on Fox News continued to feature pundits who argue climate change is a hoax. This is Fox & Friends regular Donald Trump speaking on the show on Monday.
DONALD TRUMP: This whole global warming hoax—you know, one of the great things and—if you notice the way the press—they call them tourists, but all of those people on the ship in Antarctic—Antarctica, that got caught in the ice—you know, the ice is massive there. They started off in an area that didn’t have so much ice, and like within a period of four or five days, they had miles and miles, and they were surrounded by it. Well, they were global warming scientists.
BRIAN KILMEADE: That’s right.
DONALD TRUMP: Now, the media is not saying that. They’re calling them tourists, because it doesn’t play well to say they’re global warming scientists. But they were going there to study global warming. And this winter is brutal. I mean, I’m in New York right now. The airports were closed. Everything is closed. It’s freezing. We haven’t had a winter like this in a long time. And, by the way, forget about New York, everywhere—
BRIAN KILMEADE: Yeah.
DONALD TRUMP: It’s freezing all over the country. You look at places like Texas, they’re setting record lows, and Oklahoma, where they never had problems, they have snow.
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Sure.
DONALD TRUMP: So, what’s gone on? And it’s not the—the hoax doesn’t bother me, if it didn’t mean anything.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Now, what do you mean, hoax?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, it’s a hoax. I think the scientists are having a lot of fun. It was—I wouldn’t say started, you know, just like Al Gore started the Internet. He’s the one that really is the big proponent. The problem we’re doing is we’re making our manufacturing, our factories and other things—we’re making them non-competitive to other countries. And if you look at what’s going on in China, if you look at what’s going on in India, they’re not spending 10 cents on their factories.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Exactly.
DONALD TRUMP: And then we’re supposed to compete.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Right.
DONALD TRUMP: And you can’t compete when you can’t use fuel.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Fox News regular, real estate magnate Donald Trump, speaking Monday on Fox & Friends.
For more on the media’s coverage of climate change, we’re joined by Peter Dykstra, publisher of DailyClimate.org, which just published its annual survey and found that climate coverage soared in 2013, spurred by energy and weather. He’s joining us via Democracy Now! video stream from Conyers, Georgia, near Atlanta, which, like much of the country, is facing severely cold temperatures right now. Dykstra himself is a former journalist. He spent 17 years at CNN, where he covered the environment and weather, now also the publisher of EnvironmentalHealthNews.org.
Welcome to Democracy Now! So, just what is the weather like where you are right now, Peter?
PETER DYKSTRA: Hi, Amy. It’s an honor to follow Donald Trump. But it’s, I think, about 9 or 10 degrees here, which is not the worst I’ve seen in Georgia in my 20 years here, but [inaudible] cold.
AMY GOODMAN: But it’s cold. So talk about what you found. And maybe you’d like to respond to Donald Trump.
PETER DYKSTRA: If I must. You know, looking at the weather on a specific day or a specific couple of days and making a decree about climate change is nonsense. The only people who believe that are the people who never paid attention or respect to the science in the first place. And the Donald is a poster child for that. I don’t know if I have much more to add about that.
In terms of coverage, though, climate coverage is broadening. It’s not just the science and predictions about what might happen in 20 years, but it’s stuff that’s in our faces and happening right now. It’s all of the alternative energy news, even fracking news, which we’ve seen a huge increase in this year. And climate news is finding its way into other journalism niches—in food stories, when drought causes huge problems with the food supply and for farmers; in security stories, when the polar—the Arctic ice cap melts, and you have countries jostling for position for resources and military position in the Arctic. It’s not just niche journalism anymore, and that’s really where we see this growth.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, the massive coverage now of weather—everywhere on every network, and so many people are tuning in for it—you rarely see any kind of connection between the meteorologists on television talking about the weather, how cold it is, how you have to bundle up or stay inside, and the issue of climate change.
PETER DYKSTRA: Well, whether it’s a specific cold snap or a specific heat wave, the science tells us that you can’t draw a smoking gun conclusion to what’s happening with long-term climate change. But it is time, with all of the bizarre weather we’ve seen around the world, including now, including the cold weather, including the tragic storm in the Philippines, the record heat in Australia, it’s time to start making connections. And TV, in its failure to cover this, is not just a special case. I think they’re a bit more toward a basket case now. There just is no backbone in television news, whether it’s the traditional networks or cable news, for talking about climate change in a serious and responsible way.
AMY GOODMAN: Why? What is preventing them from making that connection? Because doing the occasional special, that might be great, investigative and really hit the mark, is not the same as when people are hungry for news and, you know, how to protect themselves and what to wear every day, when it sinks into the consciousness, when it’s part of the daily conversation. These are supposedly meteorologists on television, right? They are educated to do this.
PETER DYKSTRA: Most meteorologists went—got degrees in meteorology, so they’re technically scientists. And in local TV, or even in network TV, they’re close to the only representatives of trained science in television today. I think the issue goes deeper, though. People see controversy around climate change. They see a huge portion of the country that really, really wants to ignore the science and deny that climate change is happening. And they’re afraid of offending that segment of their audience. I know from my experience at CNN that they were terrified of driving viewers to Fox by talking seriously about climate change.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is the role of the advertisers in all of this? Because, of course, you’re taking on the oil industry, the coal industry.
PETER DYKSTRA: Well, I would ask people, sometime soon, watch a half-hour of network news one of the next few evenings. What you won’t see, in all likelihood, is serious discussion of climate change. What you will see are one or two or three commercials from the oil and coal industry talking about generating jobs and keeping the lights lit and keeping America prosperous and keeping us away from foreign oil. And there’s no smoking gun to say that all that money coming in from oil and coal ads is impacting things editorially, but that’s another question to start asking broadcasters. There’s a massive, irresponsible journalistic failure in broadcasting. It’s not nearly as bad in print or wire or web, but in broadcast news, at the network level on TV, there’s just a complete failure to cover this adequately. And at the same time, there’s a huge revenue stream from the people who would dearly love to see this topic ignored.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Dykstra, can you talk about The New York Times, which last year dismantled its environmental reporting pod and ended its Green blog?
PETER DYKSTRA: The Times took a slight dip this year. Actually, the dip wasn’t as big as I expected, as a lot of people expected. Just about a year ago, they shut down their environment desk. They no longer have a full-time environment editor. The reporters there don’t have a champion and a backstop on environmental stories. A few months after that, they shut down their Green blog, which is one of the main outlooks. I want to be clear about this: There is still an enormous amount of reporting talent focused on this issue and some very good work being done at The New York Times. In quantity, it was slightly less this year. What bothers me most about shutting down the environment desk, getting rid of the editor, shutting down the blog, is that if you’re an up-and-coming ambitious reporter in a place like The New York Times, and you see them shut down the desk, get rid of the editor and shut down the blog, you’re going to get a very clear message that it’s not a good career move to focus on environment stories. And I’m afraid the Times leadership is sending that message to its own staff.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you left, Peter Dykstra, CNN. Why did you leave and start up DailyClimate.org, and why are you focusing on the environment in this way?
PETER DYKSTRA: I left because they told me to go. CNN decided to get rid of its entire structure for reporting on science and environment—there are still a few meteorologists there—just a little over five years ago. Daily Climate and Environment Health News were here quite a while before I came on the scene. I’ve been doing this for about two-and-a-half years. What we do is produce original journalism. And, you know, the silver lining in the toxic cloud of the state of journalism now is that there’s a lot of really good, talented journalists out there available, because they don’t have their newspaper jobs anymore. We’ve taken some of the cream of the crop, some of the best, most experienced environment reporters. We’ve put them to work. We also aggregate anywhere from 150 to 200 environment and climate stories from around the world every day and make them available for free to anybody at our websites, ehn.org and DailyClimate.org.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Peter Dykstra, for being with us, publisher of two environmental news websites, DailyClimate.org, which just published its annual survey and found climate coverage soared in 2013, spurred by energy and weather. Dykstra is also publisher of EnvironmentalHealthNews.org , former award-winning executive producer at CNN, where he covered the environment and weather.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’re going to talk about the Koch brothers and their impact on the 2012 elections. Stay with us.
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HEADLINES:
Peace Activists Admit to Role in FBI Burglary That Exposed COINTELPRO
One of the great mysteries of the Vietnam War era has been solved. In 1971, a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and lifted files that helped reveal the FBI’s elaborate program of illegally spying on political groups. The documents, given to journalists at the time, provided the first hints of a secret counter intelligence program, or COINTELPRO, the FBI’s secret program to infiltrate, monitor and disrupt social movements. The burglars called themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. They were never caught. But decades later, a number of them are coming forward for the first time. The idea for the burglary came from William Davidon, a physics professor and leader of civil disobedience against the Vietnam War. Davidon died last year. Also involved were a social worker named Bob Williamson and John and Bonnie Raines, a married couple with children. Convinced the FBI was infiltrating peace groups, they hatched a plan to stage the break-in on the night of a major championship boxing match. Another of the burglars, Keith Forsyth, described his motivation in a video produced by Retro Report.
Keith Forsyth: "Once I got over the shock of thinking that this was the nuttiest thing I’d ever heard in my life, I’m like, this is a great idea, because we’re not going to make any allegations; we’re going to take their own paperwork, signed by their own people, including J. Edgar Hoover, and give it to the newspapers. So, let’s see you argue with that. I definitely see parallels between [Edward] Snowden’s case and our case. What we revealed changed public opinion, which is why the laws were changed. If revealing ourselves is going to get people arguing with each other about what the FBI did then and what the NSA is doing now, I think that’s a good thing."
Forsyth was arrested in a separate action months after the burglary by a group of FBI agents who were monitoring the raid of a draft office in Camden, New Jersey. Bob Williamson was also arrested. Their role in the burglary, however, was not revealed until now. Ahead of the burglary, Bonnie Raines cased the office while posing as a college student. While there, she confirmed the office did not have a security system. Raines describes her role in the video.
Bonnie Raines: "I was to call the office and make an appointment as a Swarthmore student doing research on opportunities for women in the FBI. So they gave me an appointment. I tried to disguise myself as best I could, and I went to say goodbye, and I acted confused about where the door was, and that gave me a chance then to check out both rooms and know where the file cabinets were."
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover assigned nearly 200 agents to investigate the burglary –- in particular, they were told to hunt for the mysterious college girl who had come to the office. But the case was closed when the statute of limitations expired five years later. The story is told in a new book by Betty Medsger, a former Washington Post reporter who received the documents from the burglars. Three other burglars have chosen to remain anonymous.
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Record Cold Temperatures Envelop United States
Record cold temperatures are blasting the Midwest and Eastern United States again today as a so-called polar vortex has descended as far south as Texas and Florida. In Chicago, it was negative 16 degrees Fahrenheit Monday, or as low as negative 42 with the wind chill. In northern Minnesota, it was negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit — that is the actual air temperature, not the wind chill. Here in New York, the temperatures plunged roughly 50 degrees in a matter of hours.
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U.S. Accelerates Military Shipments to Iraq
The United States is ramping up its delivery of military equipment to help Iraq battle militants who have overrun parts of Anbar province, including the city of Fallujah. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the United States would deliver Hellfire missiles and surveillance drones as part of a "holistic" strategy to oust the militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Jay Carney: "Now, this situation remains fluid, and it’s too early to tell or make conclusions about it. But we’re accelerating our foreign military sales deliveries and are looking to provide an additional shipment of Hellfire missiles as early as this spring. These missiles are one small element of that holistic -– excuse me -– strategy, but they have been proven effective at denying ISIL the safe haven zones that it has sought to establish in western Iraq."
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Israel Approves New Settlements After Kerry’s Visit
Israel has given final approval to a new round of settlements in the occupied West Bank as Secretary of State John Kerry wrapped up his visit to the region Monday. The plan includes 272 apartments in two different settlements. Israel had reportedly held off on announcing new settlements in order to avoid embarrassing Kerry during his visit. Meanwhile, thousands of African migrants gathered in Tel Aviv for a third day today to protest Israel’s indefinite detention policies and demand asylum and work rights.
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U.N.: Half of Central African Republic Needs Aid
The United Nations is warning conditions in Central African Republic are rapidly deteriorating with nearly one million people now displaced by sectarian violence. Heavy fighting erupted last month between Christian militias and Muslim rebels who had seized power in a coup in March. Jeffrey Feltman, U.N. under-secretary-general for political affairs, said more than 750 people have been confirmed dead in the capital Bangui alone. He warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis.
Jeffrey Feltman: "According to the latest information, approximately 2.2 million people in the CAR need humanitarian assistance –- close to half the population of the country. One in every two inhabitants of Bangui have sought refuge outside their homes. Their numbers are estimated at approximately 513,000 of whom 100,000 are at a makeshift camp at the airport."
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Supreme Court Halts Same-Sex Marriages in Utah
The Supreme Court has halted same-sex marriages in Utah. Nearly 1,000 LGBT couples have gotten married since a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage late last month. But Monday’s decision puts those unions in limbo, while Utah defends the ban before an appeals court. The case could end up before the Supreme Court.
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Chicago Gun Ban Struck Down by Judge
A federal judge has struck down Chicago’s ban on handgun sales. The 2010 measure banned gun shops within the city and barred gun owners from leaving home with their weapons. U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang ruled the ordinance went too far. The number of murders in Chicago has dropped to the lowest level in half a century, but Chicago still leads the country in homicides, with more than 400 committed last year.
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Senate Confirms Yellen as 1st Woman to Chair Federal Reserve
The Senate has confirmed Janet Yellen as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, replacing Ben Bernanke. Senators voted 56 to 26 to confirm Yellen, with 11 Republicans joining Democrats in her favor. Yellen is the first woman to head the central bank in its 100-year history.
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Liz Cheney Abandons Bid for Wyoming Senate Seat
Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has abandoned her plan to run for the Republican Senate nomination in Wyoming, citing "serious health issues" in her family. A recent poll showed incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi had a 52-point lead over Cheney. Her campaign was marred in part by a public spat over same-sex marriage with her sister Mary, who is a lesbian and married.
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Texas Hospital Keeps Brain-Dead Woman on Life Support Because She is Pregnant
In Texas, a hospital is keeping a brain-dead woman on life support against the wishes of her family because she is pregnant. Marlise Munoz collapsed in late November, likely because of a blood clot in her lungs. At the time she was 14 weeks pregnant, a stage when the fetus is months away from viability. Doctors say Munoz has no brain activity. But the hospital in Fort Worth is citing a Texas law they say forbids removing a pregnant woman from life support. The woman’s husband, Erick Munoz, told a local ABC station his wife explicitly told him she never wanted to be on life support.
Erick Munoz: "We talked about it. We were both paramedics. We’ve seen things out in the field, and we both knew that we didn’t want to be on life support. You’ve reached a point where, you know, you wish your wife’s body would stop."
Despite her family’s pleas, the hospital reportedly plans to keep Munoz on life support for the next several weeks until the fetus is potentially viable. At least a dozen states have statutes that force women to stay on life support against their previous directives if they are pregnant.
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Steubenville Rapist Released After Less Than a Year in Juvenile Prison
A former high school football player who raped a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, has been released from juvenile prison less than a year after his conviction. Ma’lik Richmond received a year-long sentence last March. A second teenager convicted in the case, Trent Mays, is serving a two-year sentence. The case drew national attention following the emergence of images and social media postings from the night of the attack.
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Trial Opens for SAC Manager Accused of Record Insider Trading Scheme
Jury selection begins today in the trial of a former hedge fund employee accused of orchestrating the largest insider trading scheme in U.S. history. Mathew Martoma, a former portfolio manager for SAC Capital, is charged with conducting illegal trades based on inside information about the development of an Alzheimer’s drug. Prosecutors say the scheme earned SAC Capital $276 million in profits and averted losses. Last year, SAC Capital, which is owned by billionaire Steven Cohen, agreed to plead guilty to fraud and pay a record $1.8 billion to settle charges of "systematic insider trading."
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Former FCC Chair Joins Secretive Carlyle Group
The former head of the Federal Communications Commission is starting a new job at the secretive private equity firm the Carlyle Group. Nicknamed "the Ex-President’s Club," Carlyle’s roster has included a long list of powerful figures, including both Bush presidents. Carlyle owns a majority stake in Booz Allen Hamilton, the military contractor that employed Edward Snowden. Julius Genachowski, who led the FCC for four years under President Obama, will serve as a managing director and partner, specializing in telecommunications.
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