Hurricane Sandy hits the East Coast, causing flight delays across the U.S. and even internationally. Plus, why has climate change been absent from both Obama and Romney's political campaigns? Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal joins us to talk about his PBS Frontline special about the power and influence of Super PACs, then we speak with David Maraniss about his new biography “Barack Obama: The Story”, and much more.
Flight delays due to Hurricane Sandy ripple across the globe
The worst of Storm Sandy isn’t expected to hit New York until this evening but it’s already disrupting travel across the country and even internationally. KPCC’s Sanden Totten joins us live from LAX.
Will Hurricane Sandy have an impact on the upcoming election?
President Obama cancelled his campaign plans because of the storm, he was expected to attend events with former President Bill Clinton in Florida and Ohio today. Instead, Mr. Clinton will appear with Vice President Biden.
Meanwhile, the Romney campaign is sticking to their schedule, with appearances today in Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin. but the election may be just about the last thing on the minds of millions of people dealing with the approach of Hurricane Sandy.
The coming superstorm presents both some pitfalls and some opportunities for the candidates. Molly Ball, political reporter for The Atlantic, joins the show.
For all the hot air, little of substance on climate change in Presidential race
Climate change peaked as a campaign issue around the August political conventions. In Charlotte, President Obama acknowledged its existence.
“Yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet, because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They're a threat to our children's future.”
In Tampa, Governor Romney brought up climate science too…so that he could mock his opponent and dismiss the issue.
“President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans,” he began, pausing to mug for a long laugh,”…and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”
Two thirds of American voters say climate change is an important problem. But we have heard little about what Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would do about it.
After the conventions, hundreds of thousands of activists signed petitions pleading with the candidates to seriously discuss climate change. That hasn’t happened. (Climatesilence.org continues to gather names, and support.)
Obama and Romney agree with most scientists that climate change exists, and that human activity contributes to it. But they also seem to think that saying more than that is a bad idea.
And it wasn’t just the campaigns that stayed away from it. After the second presidential debate, its moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley, suggested that the issue is second-tier.
“Climate change, I had that question for all of you climate change people. We just, we knew that the economy was still the main thing,” Crowley said to her fellow CNN reporters, including Dana Bash.
Of course, the economy was a big deal four years ago, too, but the Obama and McCain campaigns did talk about climate change then.
Joe Romm is the editor of the influential blog Climate Progress, and the author of a new book about the persuasive power of language. He says over the past four years, the rise of the Tea Party and climate denial among many Republicans have pushed climate politics to the margins.
“You have this remarkable ratcheting up,” Romm says, “of what I call the disinformation campaign from conservative media outlets and fossil fuel companies attacking anybody that does talk about climate science and creating a counterproductive environment for intelligent discussions of this crucial issue.”
So Mitt Romney risks angering his base if he talks about climate change, and President Obama may not want to stir that hornet’s nest.
California Republican strategist Jonathan Wilcox says the tough economy is an added complication. For example, he says it would be impossible for the president to talk about steps he might want the country to take to address climate change.
“You want to say I’m for higher gas prices, I’m for smaller cars, and I’m for higher fuel bills so we can get people to use less,” Wilcox says. “That is not a mainstream position. If you prevail you’re going to do it only in a partisan political environment.”
California-based Democratic political consultant Darry Sragow also says that climate change is a losing issue for both candidates. He believes the only way to talk about climate policies like cutting carbon emissions is to sidle up to the subject.
“The way to start the conversation is we need to end our dependence on oil especially foreign oil Because that gets the heads nodding yes.”
For a few minutes in the second debate, it seemed as if that might be happening, when the candidates were asked about gas prices and started talking about energy independence.
Mitt Romney called for “more drilling, more permits and licenses,” and referenced the proposed KeystoneXL pipeline project, saying, “We're going to bring that pipeline in from Canada. How in the world the president said no to that pipeline, I will never know.”
A few minutes later, Barack Obama argued that he has done more than Romney credits him for, when it comes to exploiting domestic fossil fuels. “We've opened up public lands,” the President said. “We're actually drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration.”
Environmentalists are unhappy that the president has chosen to emphasize his similarities with Romney on domestic oil and gas exploration. They want him to spend more time touting his support for such things as tailpipe emissions regulations and clean energy investments.
Brad Johnson, a spokesman and campaigner for ClimateSilence.org, says the broader public needs to demand discussion of the issue.
“This is a problem that confronts all of us. And it is all of our responsibility to understand and take responsibility for this silence. Once the American public makes a determination that something’s important, politicians follow.”
Some experts think it’s not so bad that the campaigns have pretty much ignored climate change. They say that good policymaking is hard in such a polarized environment. That’s the view of Dino Falaschetti, the executive director and an economist at Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center, a think tank that promotes a free-market approach to environment issues.
“You’d have to have the political support to implement the policy so you’d have to find the sweet spot between what is good economics and what is good politics,” Falaschetti says. “And that is frequently a very difficult sweet spot to find.”
So political polarization has kept climate change largely out of the presidential campaign. And given the huge chasm between Democrats and Republicans on the issue, it’s far from clear that climate will get much attention after the election, regardless of who wins on November sixth.
Can the severity of Hurricane Sandy be linked to climate change?
While politicians are staying mostly mum on climate change, Hurricane Sandy has a lot of folks talking about the topic and wondering whether global warming is to blame for the imminent uber-storm.
100 demonstrators affiliated with the environmental activist organization 350.org gathered yesterday on Times Square to make a statement about the storm and climate change.
But can this super storm really be linked to climate change? For more on this, we're joined by Jyotika Virmani, associate director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography.
Voters supportive of local measures for schools, but skeptical of statewide solutions
Next Tuesday, Californians will decide if they trust state government to spend their money wisely on public schools when they vote on two statewide tax initiatives, Props. 30 and 38. Public opinion polls show most Californians believe education needs help, but neither of the measures is earning majority support.
The California Report explores why voters are more likely to favor local school tax initiatives.
Kai Ryssdal and Frontline investigate the 'Big Money' of Super PACs
Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal teams up with PBS’s Frontline to investigate how independent groups are funneling millions of dollars into issue campaigns aimed at swaying elections.
Take Two talks to Ryssdal about why the state of Montana has become the heart of the campaign finance fight.
Interview Highlights:
On the staggering amount of money ($9 billion) being spent on elections this year:
“The reason we’re seeing all this money is because of a case in the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago called Citizens United, which basically said companies and labor unions are free to spend as much money as they want on politics, independent of candidates and campaigns. So they can’t coordinate. But they can use union treasuries, they can use corporate treasuries, and they can spend as much as they want. So that’s where all the money is coming from.”
On the difference between a Super PAC’s and 501(c)(4)s:
“I think the key difference, at least for the purposes of our story, was that when you have a Super PAC, they have to register with the Federal Election Commission and they have to disclose their donors. These groups called 501(c)(4)s, they’re technically called ‘social welfare’ groups, they don’t have to tell anybody where they’re getting their money. And what’s happening now, is a lot of this money that’s coming in through this Citizens United case is going to these 501(c)(4)s. So we don’t know where a lot of this money that’s fueling politics in this election cycle specifically is coming from.”
On why Ryssdal chose to focus on the states of Montana:
“We went to Montana for two reasons. The first is that there is a U.S. Senate race there between John Tester, the democratic incumbent, and Denny Rehberg, the Republican challenger, he’s currently the congressman for Montana - they only have one. That Senate race could determine the fate of the entire U.S. Senate come election day. The other reason we went is that there is a lot of money going into Montana, into state and local races there, and they have one of the toughest - had I should say, one of the toughest anti-corruption laws, one of the toughest campaign finance laws in the country. And we wanted to see in essence whether these 501(c)(4) groups and all this outside money was being used to coordinate, in other words not independently being spent on campaigns.”
On Ryssdal’s interview with a conservative lawyer from Indiana, Jim Bopp who is known as the father of Citizen’s United:
“It was his legal theories that got Citizens United to the Supreme Court. He didn’t argue it but it is his baby. He is a guy who is obviously very Republican as you said, he’s conservative, he believes fundamentally that there should be no limits on money in politics in America. He says, and this is actually a good point, you guys always talk about outside groups influencing politics, well how can you have outside groups in politics. That’s what they are. That’s what we do. We participate in the political process. And if you limit the ability of people to participate in the political process by limiting what they can spend, that’s unconstitutional - we’ve got this thing called the First Amendment.”
More on Jim Bopp:
“His vision is that once Congressional incumbents realize all this money that’s going to these 501(c)(4) groups that we talked about, all this secret money, these incumbents, these members of Congress are going to say wait a second, we want that money. We don’t want to be lost in the message of these 501(c)(4)s. We want to be able to control the money and they’re going to lift campaign finance restrictions.
On how the people of Montana are feeling:
“They have a spirit of independence, and these people do not want outside interference. They don’t want people telling them who to vote for, they don’t want outside money coming in influencing their elections. They operate in a different news and political environment than people in Washington or L.A. or New York or San Francisco. They just don’t want people messing with their stuff.”
On a group called Western Tradition Partnering(WTP):
“Western Tradition Partnering (WTP) is group operating at the state and local level, out in the western United States, its operating in Colorado and Montana. And they went after John Ward, this guy you mentioned, he’s a Republican, they are a Republican group. But John Ward was not conservative enough for them. The focus of our report whether or not WTP was taking undisclosed cash, that is to say it’s a 501(c)(4), so were they taking this money that we don’t know the source of and using it to influence elections, which generally speaking they are not allowed to do.”
On tracking down WTP and other 501(c)(4) groups for Frontline:
“I tried to get these guys on the phone. I tried to get people from WTP on the phone and they wouldn’t talk to me. And Rick Young, my producer, said let’s do this, let’s just pull over on the side of the road and you’ll just call them and we’ll put the camera on you. These guys hung up on me or they wouldn’t answer. It was just fascinating. And then, we got to Washington and we tried to track down a different 501(c)(4) group and it dead ends in a PO Box in a UPS store on M Street in Washington DC. It’s a shell game, but it’s not a game - that’s the thing. I mean, this stuff is fundamentally important and the lesson, I think, out of this story is that the Supreme Court has decided that for now this kind of influence and money in politics is okay.”
On the evidence Ryssdal uncovered detailing an illegal coordination between the 501(c)(4), WTP, and a campaign:
“What we have in these boxes, and investigators from the state of Montana and the Montana attorney general’s office agrees with us, is evidence of coordination. We have financial documents. We have campaign documents. We have information that only candidates and their wives would know.”
On where these documents came from:
“These documents were stolen from a car in Denver, Colorado. They were then found in a meth house by a known meth addict, who had been living on the streets since he was eleven years old. He found them and got them to a lawyer in Denver, whose wife was a state Senator in Colorado. That guy, that lawyer then mailed them to Montana.”
On Ryssdal’s final interview with Trevor Potter, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission:
“We sat him [Potter] down and we showed him some of these documents and he said, ‘you know what, as a former official of the election commission, this makes me want to know more. This makes me want to dig into it and discover whether the corruption that the Supreme Court says, money and politics does not bring, is actually present. This seems to be,’ Trevor Potter said, ‘corruption and evidence of it.’”
Author David Maraniss on 'Barack Obama: The Story'
Today, Bill Clinton joins President Obama on the campaign trail in Florida and Ohio. David Maraniss, who’s written the definitive biography on both men, joins us in studio to talk about his latest book, “Barack Obama: The Story.”
Guest:
David Maraniss, author of "Barack Obama: The Story" (Simon & Schuster); journalist and author, currently serving as an associate-editor for The Washington Post. He received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1993 for his coverage of then-candidate Bill Clinton during the 1992 United States presidential election.
Props To You: Prop 36 seeks to ease three strikes law for non-violent criminals
California’s “three strikes law” is one of the toughest sentencing laws in the country. It puts habitual criminals away for 25-years-to-life sentences.
But Prop 36 would tweak the law to keep non-violent or non-serious crimes from putting someone away for life. It’s polling well and is expected to pass.
We’ll look at what that means for California’s prison system.
Support for three strikes laws waning as prison costs rise
There are 23 other states that have three-strikes laws on the books, but as the national crime rate goes down and prison costs go up, support for these hard line laws is dropping not just in California, but across the country
Many states are now taking a hard look at whether "tough on crime" policies have gone too far.
Adam Gelb is the director of the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew Center on the States.
Fed agencies investigating CVS pharmacies for wrongly refilling prescriptions
The U.S. Justice Department is now investigating claims that CVS pharmacies wrongly refilled prescriptions and charged insurance companies without the knowledge of customers. The practice may be widespread among pharmacies like Target, Walgreens and Rite Aid as well.
The L.A. Times’ David Lazarus joins the show to discuss his recent reporting on the pressure pharmacists face to refill patient prescriptions without their permission.
Supreme Court defies Hurricane Sandy, hears cases on copyright law and wiretapping
Hurricane Sandy has virtually shut down DC. Federal government offices, schools, the Metro - all closed.
But you know where it's business as usual? The Supreme Court.
This morning, the court heard oral arguments on government wiretapping of suspected terrorists and the case of a USC grad student accused of breaking copyright law.
First - the wiretapping case: A group of lawyers, human-rights activists and journalists in contact with potential surveillance targets argue they have the right to challenge the practice because they may be getting swept up in the surveillance, too.
But the government counters that these lawyers and activists have no grounds to pursue lawsuits because they don't even know for sure if they're being monitored.
The other case justices heard this morning involved a Thai national named Supap Kirtsaeng and the publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Kirtsaeng came to the US to study at Cornell and USC, and to help pay for his tuition, he imported textbooks produced by John Wiley & Sons for the Thai market. The books were virtually identical to those sold in the US, but much cheaper.
In the US, we re-sell things all the time - at yard sales, ebay, Amazon. But John Wiley & Sons and other content makers like movie and music producers say they should be allowed to sell products for lower prices in poorer countries without worrying about the items being imported to the US for a profit.
The justices will make decisions on these cases next year.
Just in case you're wondering, the Supreme Court doesn't plan to keep on defying Sandy. Tuesday's arguments have been moved to Thursday.
Baseball superfans reflect on the outcome of the World Series
The San Francisco Giants last night closed out the World Series in a spectacular way: A four-game sweep over the Detroit Tigers.
The series ended in a showdown between Giants relief pitcher Sergio Romo and Tigers' power hitter Miguel Cabrera. The Giants came back from a shaky performance in the playoffs to win their second World Series in three years.
For more we're joined again in the studio by two Los Angeles superfans: Actor Ric Salinas bleeds orange for the Giants and writer RJ Smith is a diehard Detroit Tigers fans.