Wither Investigative Journalism when print journalism dies?

Will the end mean the end of expensive investigative stories?: This article reviews the cost of dig deep journalism like the article soon to come out in the NYT on the euthanization of patients during Hurricane Katrina. Clara Jeffery (of MoJo) makes the case that this sort of story will have to die when "institutional reporting" (i.e., corporate media) dies. An odd place to find defense of behemoths like the New York Times, but pretty compelling. Her tally: $400,000 for this 2-year cover story--a price tag that "bloggers and commenters and citizen journalists can’t take on."

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Proposes "Scopes Monkey Trial" to Debunk Climate Change

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Proposes "Scopes Monkey Trial" to Debunk Climate Change: Stephen Colbert could not have done better. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the leading opponent of regulating carbon emissions, says it wants a public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. A Chamber official told the LA Times that the hearing would be 'the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st Century.'

The Chamber either forgot that the creationists lost that fight--the famous 1925 trial over the teaching of evolution, portrayed in Inherit the Wind, humiliated them--or it's attempting the boldest metaphor in the history of climate spin: creationists = climatologists.

Setting aside the fact that the nation's largest business lobby has supported plenty of dumb ideas, let's assume that this isn't really about science. Because there's no way that a half-competent judge is going to rule that 95 percent of climatologists are wrong. Remember the Supreme Court case? The one that said the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon?

No, what this is really about is false populism. Though it's evoking Scopes, the Chamber is actually calling for a 'public hearing,' a gathering that would surely be more akin to the recent healthcare town halls that were stacked with anti-government nutjobs. What fearmongering and demagaugery did for health care, it could do for climate change!

Or not. My bet is that 90 percent of the Bubbas who'd show up would also be creationists, the people discredited in the first Monkey Trial. Good luck with that, fellas!

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(Via MoJo Blogs and Articles.)

Access and the Internet

Access and the Internet: "Washington should pass legislation that would prohibit Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against content."

(Via NYT > Editorials.)

NewsTrust

NewsTrust: A site we should all know:

A site that uses reader ratings based on reliability and good journalism to call bullshit on stenography journalism.

Sanity from Glenn Greenwald on Torture Efficacy Claims

Greenwald's Salon Article:

Check this out for a very lucid critique of WaPo's recent editorial propped up by a house of (conservative) cards.

Majority Rule on Health Care Reform

Majority Rule on Health Care Reform: "The Democrats may have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy to enact health care reform this year."

(Via NYT > Editorials.)

Standing up

Audio from Student Conference on Socialism in SF:

Awesome stuff. Maybe I'll write more on it soon.

Why we need a new Geneva Convention

Over the last bunch of years, people have been looking to both legal precedent and treaties in order to attack or justify the United States' interrogation techniques. Because the way in which much war is waged these days (no uniforms, going after civilians, no national affiliation, etc.), the Geneva Conventions are unable to address the reality of modern warfare--terrorism. What we need is a new document that addresses such challenges, leaving no room to circumvent the law by creating categories of "enemy combatants," for instance.

The Importance of Sleep Deprivation

The Importance of Sleep Deprivation: "

Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan highlighted this passage from the 2007 OLC'opinion on interrogation techniques (PDF):Andrew writes that the 'interrogators seem to have had an affinity for sleep deprivation.' Indeed. That's probably because sleep deprivation was utterly central to America's torture program. It doesn't sound too bad when you just say it, right? Sleep deprivation? Everyone's pulled an all-nighter once or twice. A third of Americans don't get enough sleep. It's especially easy to play down sleep deprivation when you're someone like Joe 'they do it in fraternities' Scarborough. The reality of course, is totally different: fraternities don't keep you awake for up to 11 days, standing, in shackles, in solitary confinement, in diapers, on reduced, liquid rations. They don't kill you, either:'

In conjunction with other pressures... irregular sleep could have serious consequences. 'In December 2002, two detainees were killed' while incarcerated at a facility in Bagram, Afghanistan,' according to the Senate report. 'Investigators concluded that the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation combined with other mistreatment at the hands of Bagram personnel, caused or were direct contributing factors in the two homicides.'

You can learn a lot more about the CIA's use of sleep deprivation from this Spencer Ackerman article and this Wired piece. This quote (linked by Sullivan back in 2006) from'former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, who faced sleep deprivation in the Gulag, also hits home:

[A person subjected to sleep deprivation feels] wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire to sleep, to sleep just a little, not to get up, to lie, to rest, to forget ... Anyone who has experienced the desire knows that not even hunger or thirst are comparable it with it.

If starving prisoners is unacceptable, how can depriving them of sleep somehow be okay?

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(Via MoJo Blogs and Articles.)

The Torture Report

The Torture Report: "

The full text of the recently released torture report.

Replacing Senator Kennedy

Replacing Senator Kennedy: "Allowing the governor to appoint the next senator in Massachusetts would be undemocratic. They should keep the current system that allows voters to choose."

(Via NYT > Editorials.)

Holder Names Prosecutor: Progress or Whitewash?

Holder Names Prosecutor: Progress or Whitewash?: "Reaction to the C.I.A.'s detainees report and to the attorney general's appointment of a federal prosecutor to look into prisoner abuse."

(Via The Opinionator.)

Freedom from Fear: Why the 1st Amendment Trumps the 2nd Amendment

Freedom from Fear:

David Sirota (of Openleft.com fame) lays out the case against firearms at political rallies. Very insightful. Mentions the order of the amendments as well as the purpose behind the 1st Amendment--to protect citizens from fear of tyranny. My favorite quote: "the gun has been transformed from a sport and self-defense device into a tool of mass bullying".

In Reversal, U.S. Will Tell Red Cross Of Detainees

In Reversal, U.S. Will Tell Red Cross Of Detainees:

The U.S. military has quietly changed a key policy and is now notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross of the identities of militants secretly held in camps in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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(Via Top Stories.)

For Early Man, It Wasn't Easier Being Green

For Early Man, It Wasn't Easier Being Green: "

Researchers are rethinking the notion that hunter-gatherers lived in harmony with their environment. Archaeologist Torben Rick says indigenous people altered America's coastlines, thousands of years ago, to make their lives more comfortable.

» E-Mail This'''' » Add to Del.icio.us

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(Via Clippings.)

A Republic or a Democracy?

A Republic or a Democracy?: "Readers, and reactions to readers, on the Senate and the use of filibusters."

(Via The Opinionator.)

Filibuster Wanking

Filibuster Wanking: "

This is, I admit, just total blue sky wanking, but the whole healthcare reconciliation debate raises another question: what if Democrats got rid of the filibuster?

Basically, this is easy to do.' Without going into all the gory details, it just depends on having a friendly Senate chair declare the filibuster unconstitutional and having it sustained by a majority of the Senate.' So all you need is Joe Biden (the chair) and 51 Democrats to support him and the filibuster is history.

This would, obviously, be the end of Barack Obama's post-partisan unity act, and the next step would be for the opposition party to go ballistic and shut down the Senate.' That's what Dems would have done if Republicans had tried this, and it's what Republicans would do if Democrats try it.' At that point, either the Senate chair rams through rule changes that eliminate the various ways individual senators can halt business, or else it becomes a pure public relations battle.' So who would win?

Beats me.' But I don't think it would depend very much on the nature of the bill that touched things off.' It would depend on how the public felt when they learned — really learned — just how the Senate works and how wildly undemocratic it is.' I suspect most people don't really have a clue about this and would basically support a move to make it into a majoritarian institution.

On the other hand, the public is also generally repelled by exercises in pure power mongering, and there's no question that's what this would be.' So it's a tossup.' I wouldn't mind finding out, though.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, I know this isn't in the cards or anything.' But it's August.' Aside from death panels, things are slow.' Give me a break.

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(Via MoJo Blogs and Articles.)

Prison Cost Crisis Solved: Make the Inmates Pay

Prison Cost Crisis Solved: Make the Inmates Pay: "

Facing big budget cuts, hard-pressed state prison officials have come up with a new way of paying for operating costs: charging inmates for room and board, health care and other amenities, according to USA Today. The money generally comes from prisoners’ families, many of whom are extremely poor.

In Arizona's Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, Sheriff Joe Arpaio humiliates prisoners by making them wear pink underwear and forcing them to sleep outdoors in 100 degree heat. Reports USA Today: 'Earlier this year, he announced that inmates would be charged $1.25 per day for meals. His decision followed months of food strikes staged by convicts who complained of being fed green bologna and moldy bread.'

Below the jump, some other examples cited by the paper:

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*In Iowa's Des Moines County, where officials faced a $1.7 million budget hole this year, politicians considered charging prisoners for toilet paper—at a savings of $2,300 per year. The idea was ultimately dropped, after much derision.

*A New Jersey legislator introduced a bill similar to New York's, this one based on fees charged by the Camden County Correctional Facility, which bills prisoners $5 a day for room and board and $10 per day for infirmary stays—totaling an estimated $300,000 per year.

*In Virginia, Richmond's overcrowded city jail has begun charging $1 per day, hoping to earn as much as $200,000 a year. In Missouri's Taney County, home to Branson, the sheriff says charging inmates $45 per day will help pay for his new $27 million jail.

'The overwhelming number of people who end up in prison are poor,'' Elizabeth Alexander, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, told the paper.. 'The number of times in which these measures actually result in a lot of money coming in is very small.'

'It's the spouses, children and parents who pay the fees. They are the people who contribute to prisoners' canteen accounts,' said Sarah Geraghty of the Southern Center for Human Rights, which successfully opposed an effort earlier this year in Georgia to bill prisoners $40 per day.

A recent Vera Institute of Justice survey (pdf) of 33 states found that 23 have slashed funding for corrections this year, according to Stateline.org:

Corrections is the fifth-largest area of state spending after Medicaid, secondary education, higher education and transportation. State spending on prisons has swelled as the nation’s jail and prison population has climbed to 2.3 million people, or about one in every 100 adults. But grim budget realities are forcing state lawmakers’ hand.

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(Via MoJo Blogs and Articles.)

Mother Jones Responds to Fiji Water

Mother Jones Responds to Fiji Water: "

Fiji Water spokesman Rob Six has posted a response to our story at the company’s blog. Writer Anna Lenzer replies:

Six’s key points are the same he and other Fiji executives have repeatedly made, and which are reflected in detail in my story: Donating money for water access projects or kindergartens is laudable, and I discuss Fiji’s charitable projects in Fiji (despite numerous requests, Fiji wouldn’t disclose how much it spends on most of these projects). The piece also makes it clear that Fiji Water accounts for significant economic activity in Fiji, and company executives are quoted to that effect.

Six doesn't address the key questions raised in my Mother Jones story, from the polluting background of Fiji Water’s owners past and present, to the company’s decision to funnel assets through tax havens, to its silence on the human rights abuses of the Fijian government. My piece doesn’t argue that Fiji Water actively props up the regime, but that its silence amounts to acquiescence.

'We cannot and will not speak for the government,' Six writes. I didn't ask them to speak for the government, I asked them to comment on it. Though Fiji Water casts itself as a progressive, outspoken company in the US, it has a policy of not discussing Fiji’s regime ‘unless something really affects us,’ as Six was quoted in the story.

The regime clearly benefits from the company's global branding campaign characterizing Fiji as a 'paradise' where there is 'no word for stress.' Fiji's tourism agencies use Fiji Water as props in their promotional campaigns, and the company itself has publicized pictures of President Obama drinking Fiji Water. This is a point repeatedly made by international observers, including a UN official who in a recent commentary (titled 'Why Obama should stop drinking Fiji water’) called for sanctions on Fiji, and singled out Fiji Water as the one company with enough leverage to force the junta to budge. Yet the most pointed criticism the company has made of the regime was when it opposed a tax as 'draconian;' it has never used language like that to refer to the junta's human rights abuses.

It’s worth remembering that there aren’t very many countries ruled by military juntas today, and Americans prefer not to do business with those that are. We don't import Burma Water or Libya Water.

As to Six’ point that the company didn’t know I was in Fiji: I did contact Fiji Water before my trip, and Six mentioned that the company 'takes journalists to Fiji'; I'didn't follow up about joining such a junket. Despite news reports showing that Fiji wouldn’t cooperate with journalists who went there independently, I chose to do so and visited the factory on a public tour. I had planned to speak to Fiji Water’s local representatives, and to visit the surrounding villages, afterward. But it was at that point that I was arrested by Fijian police, interrogated about my plans to write about Fiji Water, and threatened with imprisonment and rape. After that incident, personnel at the US embassy strongly encouraged me not to visit the villages. I did discuss my trip to the islands with Six after I returned, and had extensive correspondence with him on numerous questions, many of which he has not addressed to this day, including:

- Why won't the company disclose the total amount of money that Fiji Water spends on its charity work? Do its charitable contributions come close to matching the 30 percent corporate tax rate it would be paying had it not been granted a tax holiday in Fiji since 1995?'

- Will Fiji Water owners Lynda and Stewart Resnick, who in the company’s PR materials contrast our tap water supply with the ‘living water’ found in their bottles, disclose the full volume of pesticides that their farming and flower companies use every year? Could limiting those inputs create better water here at home?

- Fiji touts its commitments to lighten its plastic bottle (which is twice as heavy as many competitors’) by 20 percent next year, to offset its carbon emissions by 120 percent, and to restore environmentally sensitive areas in Fiji, but its public statements never acknowledge that these projects are, in many cases, still on the drawing board or in the negotiating stages. Why?

Read Six' post after the jump.

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery are the Co-Editors of Mother Jones. You can follow them on Twitter here and here.

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From Fiji Water spokesperson Rob Six:

We strongly disagree with the author’s premise that because we are in business in Fiji somehow that legitimizes a military dictatorship.' We bought FIJI Water in November 2004, when Fiji was governed by a democratically elected government.' We cannot and will not speak for the government, but we will not back down from our commitment to the people, development, and communities of Fiji.

We consider Fiji our home and as such, we have dramatically increased our investment and resources over the past five years to play a valuable role in the advancement of Fiji.

It is true that Fiji is a poor country, but we believe that the private sector has a critical role to play to address the underserved areas of Fiji’s development, with special attention to economic opportunities, health, education, water and sanitation.

First, we employ nearly 350 Fijians in a rural part of Fiji with very little economic opportunity.' We are one of the highest paying employers in the country with an annual payroll of nearly $5 million; we provide health care and other fringe benefits; and we have created advancement opportunities for women.' There are also a number of smaller, entrepreneurial enterprises that have been created in the local region to supply our facility.

As an active member of the Fiji community, FIJI Water is committed to enabling positive change by means of social investment, capacity building, and sustainable development. It is important to us that we give back to the communities in which we work and live. We know that Fiji has tremendous potential because we see it realized at our factory every day.

Part of our investment in Fiji comes from royalty and trust payments paid each year that is a percentage of our total volume.' As we grow our business, we are able to contribute more in royalty payments.' In 2008 alone, we paid $1.3 million USD in royalties representing 1.5% of gross revenues of our Fijian company.' These payments have allowed us to bring clean drinking water to the surrounding villages, infrastructure projects like electrification, kindergartens, secondary schools, renovations of community halls and much-needed health care clinics.

In addition, in late 2007 we created the FIJI Water Foundation to serve as a vehicle for social investment around the islands of Fiji.' The Foundation has played a critical role in flood relief in Fiji, renovation of schools, and bringing much needed health care to rural villages.' We have also partnered with the Rotary Club and Pacific Water for Life to bring clean water to 100 communities in Fiji this year.' To date, FIJI Water Foundation has invested $600,000 USD, directly impacting more than 50,000 beneficiaries in 11 of Fiji’s 14 Provinces.' You can learn more about the specific projects we have funded at www.fijiwaterfoundation.org.

With respect to the environmental issues raised in the article, our commitments are quite clear and laid out in www.FIJIGreen.com.' We are the only bottled water company in the industry to publicly report its entire life cycle carbon emissions.' We are independently audited and report to the Carbon Disclosure Project.' And we are offsetting these emissions by 120%.

Land access issues are very delicate to negotiate in Fiji, but the Sovi Basin project remains on track and the 50,000 acres of the last remaining lowland rainforest in the South Pacific is protected now and through perpetuity from logging.' The project will pay the local villagers not to sell their timber rights to logging companies.' Deforestation of our tropical rainforests is one of the largest sources of carbon emissions.' Protecting the Sovi Basin is the equivalent of removing 2 million cars from the highway.

Our carbon offset project in Fiji includes replanting the rainforests that have been decimated to plant sugarcane fields.' Part of this effort includes planting native tree species, such as mango trees, to provide local villagers with a source of income.' We are proud to create projects that protect the environment as well as provide for a source of sustainable income for the local Fijians.

It’s unfortunate that the reporter did not have the opportunity to speak to any one of the thousands of local people whose lives have been impacted in a very positive way because of FIJI Water.' Had we known she was in Fiji, we would have been happy to escort her to any one of the 75 villages who have been a beneficiary of a clean water project sponsored by FIJI Water this year alone.' She could have visited one of the villages surrounding our plant to visit a kindergarten that was recently built or to meet a local Fijian who received a life-saving corrective heart surgery by a physician we brought to the island.

The real irony here is that the reporter suggests that buying FIJI Water somehow legitimizes a military dictatorship, when in fact the jobs, revenues, and community projects supported by FIJI Water are strong contributors to growth in the well-being of the Fijian people.

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(Via MoJo Blogs and Articles.)

A Century-Old Principle: Keep Corporate Money Out of Elections

A Century-Old Principle: Keep Corporate Money Out of Elections: "There are worrying signs that there may well be five votes on the Supreme Court to rule that the ban on corporate contributions violates the First Amendment."

(Via NYT > Editorials.)

Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428

Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428: "

In a Title VII action claiming that a city discriminated against white firefighter candidates for a promotion by discarding their test results based on a statistical racial disparity, summary judgment for Defendants is reversed where the city's action in discarding the tests violated Title VII, because a threshold showing of a significant statistical disparity is far from a strong basis in evidence that the city would have been liable under Title VII had it certified the test results.

Read Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428

Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.

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(Via SCOTUS Decisions.)

Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1. v. Redding

Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1. v. Redding: "

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action alleging an unlawful search of a student, the denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity is affirmed where the search of Plaintiff's underwear violated the Fourth Amendment because the facts did not give school officials reasonable suspicion to search her underwear.

Read Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1. v. Redding

Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

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(Via SCOTUS Decisions.)

Senate, Heal Thyself

Senate, Heal Thyself: "All sides are up in arms about health care, but maybe it's the legislative branch that needs fixing."

(Via The Opinionator.)