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Hoping to gain new ground after an Election Day disappointment, a group of tech experts who worked with President Barack Obama are banding together to give progressive political candidates a bit of a digital upgrade.

The effort is called Higher Ground Labs, and it aims to invest in new political technologies so that progressive office-seekers at the state and federal levels can tap the same Silicon Valley-style tools that helped Obama and other nationally inclined Democrats win past races.

To Betsy Hoover, a former director of digital organizing for Obamas 2012 team, the problem is that presidential campaigns invest the greatest time and effort into technology to reach and persuade voters but that technology typically dies after the election season ends. Even so, their software can be difficult to adapt to down-ballot candidates, who are seeking to run for Congress or their local state House.

Trouble is, its those campaigns that need new digital resources the most especially at a time when Republicans control both houses of Congress as well as 32 state legislatures. Thats why Hoover, like many in the Democratic Party, is hoping Higher Ground Labs can cover some of the gap by investing in early-stage businesses working at the intersection of politics and technology. That way, she said, these tools exist outside of campaign structures so that every campaign can use them.

The ecosystem around political technology is broken, Hoover told Recode in an interview on Sunday. We lack the political capital, the mentorship and the network effect that so many industries benefit from, so we want to be part of that ecosystem.

Joining her as founders of Higher Ground Labs are Shomik Dutta, who had served on Obamas 2008 and 2012 campaigns and advised the FCC, and Andrew McLaughlin, a former deputy chief technology officer for Obama who also has held key roles at Google, Medium and Tumblr.

So far, theyve got $1 million in capital commitments, though Hoover, a founding partner at the political consulting firm 270 Strategies, wont say who provided the funding. Still, the group says it has already put some cash toward a startup called Deck, which tries to generate election turnout scores for voters in congressional districts, then forecasts election outcomes.

The board advising Higher Ground Labs, meanwhile, is plucked right from the roster of Obamas two White House tours. The list includes Jeremy Bird, Obamas 2012 field director; Jon Favreau, Obamas speechwriter turned podcaster; Greg Nelson, a former aide on the National Economic Council; and Michael Slaby, the chief technology officer for Obamas 2008 bid.

Hoover stressed the groups decision to launch Higher Ground Labs "was not dependent on our outcome in November. But she said that Donald Trumps surprise election victory certainly has galvanized progressive activists and campaigners across the country, who are launching political efforts of their own.

Theres Swing Left, for example, an online platform that targets its efforts on unseating Republican members of Congress in toss-up districts. Just last week, Swing Left raised about $500,000 in 24 hours a large sum for a grassroots push, but a small one in politics to challenge Republican House lawmakers who voted to scrap Obamacare. Others include Tech for Campaigns, a Bay Area-based effort that tries to match tech engineers with down-ballot progressive candidates in need of some expertise.

Much of this work is happening outside of official Democratic Party headquarters, however, which Hoover sees as a good thing. The [partys] committees have a reasonable role to play here, she said. But, she added: If you look at other industries, we would never ask for that.

Rather, we say innovation happens everywhere, and the best ideas bubble up, Hoover continued. We believe in seeding creative, new ideas, and we should take the same approach in politics.

See original here:
A group of Obama veterans are banding together to invest in tech that can help Democrats win - Recode

Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department are overhauling a slew of outside advisory boards that inform how their agencies assess the science underpinning policies,the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the federal government evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is reviewing the charter and charge of more than 200 advisory boards, committees and otherentities both within and outside his department. EPA and Interior officials began informing current members of the move Friday, and notifications continued over the weekend.

Pruitts move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), which advises EPAs prime scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity, and addresses important scientific questions. All of the people being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.

EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email that no one has been fired or terminated and that Pruitt had simply decided to bring in fresh advisers. The agency informed the outside academics on Friday that their terms would not be renewed.

Were not going to rubber-stamp the last administrations appointees. Instead, they should participate in the same open competitive process as the rest of the applicant pool, Freire said. This approach is what was always intended for the board, and were making a clean break with the last administrations approach.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, says he is not convinced carbon dioxide from human activity is the main driver of climate change and wants Congress to weigh in on whether CO2 should be regulated. (Reuters)

[EPA website removes climate science site from public view after two decades]

Separately, Zinke has postponed all outside committees as he reviews their composition and work. The review will effectively freeze the work of the Bureau of Land Managements 38 resource advisory councils, along with other panels focused on a sweep of issues, from one assessing the threat of invasive species to the science technical advisory panel for AlaskasNorth Slope.

The Secretary is committed to restoring trust in the Departments decision-making and that begins with institutionalizing state and local input and ongoing collaboration, particularly in communities surrounding public lands, Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said by email Monday. As the Department concludes its review in the weeks ahead, agencies will notice future meetings to ensure that the Department continues to get the benefit of the views of local communities in all decision-making on public land management.

Greg Zimmerman, deputy director of the non-partisan advocacy group Center for Western Priorities, said in an interview that it just doesnt make any sense they would be canceling meetings as they do this analysis. BLMs regional advisory councils include officials from the energy and outdoor recreation industry as well as scientists and conservationists, Zimmerman added. The only reasonable explanation is they dont want to be hearing from these folks.

The moves came as a surprise to the agencies outside advisers, with several of them taking to Twitter to announce their suspensions.

John Peter Thompson, who chairs Interiors Invasive Species Advisory Panel, tweeted Monday that he had been notified that all activities are suspended subject to review by Depart of Interior.

Members of EPAs Board of Scientific Counselors had been informed twice in January, before President Barack Obama left office, and then more recently by EPA career staff members that they would be kept on for another term, adding to their confusion.

I was kind of shocked to receive this news, Robert Richardson, an ecological economist and anassociate professor in Michigan State UniversitysDepartment of Community Sustainability, said in an interview Sunday.

Richardson, who on Saturday tweeted, Today, I was Trumped, said that he was at the end of an initial three-year term but that members traditionally have served twosuch stints.Ive never heard of any circumstance where someone didnt serve two consecutive terms, he said, adding that the dismissals gave him great concern that objective science is being marginalized in this administration.

Courtney Flint, a professor of natural resource sociology at Utah State University who had served one term on the board, said in an email that she was also surprised to learn that her term would not be renewed, particularly since I was told that such a renewal was expected. But she added, In the broader view, I suppose it is the prerogative of this administration to set the goals of federal agencies and to appoint members to advisory boards.

[EPA just buried its climate site for kids]

Ryan Jackson, Pruitts chief of staff, noted in an email that all the board members whose terms are not being renewed could reapply for their positions. Im not quite sure why some EPA career staff simply get angry by us opening up the process, he said. It seems unprofessional to me.

Yet Terry F. Yosie, who directed EPAs Science Advisory Board from 1981 to 1988,noted in an email that theBoard of Scientific Counselors does not report directly to the administrator or his office. Its quite extraordinary that such a body would receive this level of attention by the Administrators office, he said.

And Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, expressed concern and said he hoped Pruitt reconsidered his decision. Academic scientists play a critical role in informing policy with scientific research results at every level, including the federal government, he said.

Pruitt is planning a much broader overhaul of how the agency conducts its scientific analysis, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Pruitt has been meeting with academics to talk about the matter and putting thought into which areas of investigation warrant attention from the agencys scientific advisers.

The agency may consider industry scientific expertsfor some of the board positions as long as these appointments do not pose a conflict of interest, Freire said.

Conservatives have complained for years about EPAs approach to science, including the input it receives from outside scientific bodies. Both the Board of Scientific Counselors and the 47-member Scientific Advisory Board have come under criticism for bolstering the cause for greater federal regulation.

A majority of the members of the Board of Scientific Counselors have terms expiring this fiscal year, along with the terms of 12 members of the Scientific Advisory Board. GOP lawmakers have frequently criticized the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)a committee within the Scientific Advisory Boardfor its recommendation that the EPA impose much stricter curbs on smog-forming ozone. The seven-person panel, which is charged under theClean Air Act to review the scientific basis of all ambient air quality standards, is legally required to have a medical doctor and a member of the National Academy of Sciences as members.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who questions the link between human activity and climate change and has several former aides now working for Pruitt, said in an interview earlier this year that under the new administration, theyre going to have to start dealing with science, and not rigged science.

House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) held a hearing on the issue in February, arguing that the Scientific Advisory Board should be expanded to include more non-academics. The panel, which was established in 1978, is primarily made up of academic scientists and other experts who review EPAs research to ensure that the regulations the agency undertakes have a sound scientific basis.

The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government, Smith said at the time. The conflict of interest here is clear.

In a budget proposal obtained by The Washington Post last month, the panels operating budget is slated for an 84 percent cut or $542,000 for fiscal 2018. That money typically covers travel and other expenses for outside experts who attend the boards public meetings.

The document said the budget cut reflects an anticipated lower number of peer reviews.

Joe Arvai, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board who directs the University of Michigans Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, said in an email that Pruitt and his colleagues should keep in mind that the boards membership, just like its standing and ad hoc panels, already includes credible scientists from industry and that its work on agency rulemaking is open to public viewing and comment. So, if diversity of thought andtransparencyare the administrators concerns, his worries are misplaced because the SAB already has these bases covered.

So, if you ask me, his moves over the weekendas well as the House bill to reform the SAB areattempts to use the SAB as a political toy, Arvai said. Bymaking these moves, the administrator and members of the House can pander to the presidents base by looking like theyre getting tough on all thosepesky liberal scientists. But, all else being equal, nothing fundamentally changes about how the SAB operates.

Chris Mooney contributed to this report.

More from Energy & Environment:

Scientists are conspicuously missing from Trumps government

Trumps signs order at EPA to dismantle environmental protections

New EPA documents reveal even deeper proposed cuts to staff and programs

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Washington Post reporter Dennis Brady talks with Mustafa Ali, a former EPA environmental justice leader who served more than two decades with the agency, to discuss the consequences of President Trump's budget proposal. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post)

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EPA dismisses half of key board's scientific advisers; Interior suspends more than 200 advisory panels - Washington Post

CreditIllustration by Tom Bachtell

A year ago, during the Democratic Presidential-primary debate in Flint, Michigan, Senator Bernie Sanders was railing against the crooks on Wall Street when he turned to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and said, One of us has a super PAC. One of us has raised fifteen million dollars from Wall Street for that super PAC. One of us has given speeches on Wall Street for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Clinton had a ready response: If you were going to be in some way distrusted or dismissed about whether you can take on Wall Street if you ever took money, President Obama took more money from Wall Street in the 2008 campaign than anybody ever had! Obama had still stood up to Wall Street, she said, and so would she. But there was a problem with that argument: although Barack Obamas two campaigns had raised about twenty-five million dollars from Wall Street, he had not personally received large fees from the industry. Meanwhile, since 2001, Hillary and Bill Clintons paid speeches had earned them a hundred and fifty-three million dollars.

Obama may yet catch up. Last week, it was reported that, having returned from sailing around Tahiti with friends, he would embark on the working stage of his post-Presidency by giving a speech for which the financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald would pay him four hundred thousand dollars. During his time in the White House, Obama made his share of mistakes, but he worked hard. While enduring insults about his family and his citizenship, he won landmark progressive victoriesincluding the expansion of health-care access to millions of Americansall without a hint of sordidness or scandal, and then he campaigned tirelessly for Clinton. He deserves a comfortable retirement. But isnt that what the joint book deal that he and Michelle Obama recently signed, for a reported sixty-five million dollars, is supposed to provide? For that matter, what should a post-Presidency provide? A reason that Obama has been criticized for the Cantor Fitzgerald fee may be not that he would take the money but that he would do so before his identity outside the White House has been solidly defined. Now almost the first thing that the public is learning about this next stage in his life is the one thing they think they already know about politicians: they are financially beholden to corporate interests.

Obama will not run for office again. And, unless the Obamas have learned nothing from the Clintons experience, his decision to accept the speaking fee should finally put to rest any notions that Michelle might run. Still, one hopes, and Obama has said, that he is not done with public life. Last month, in Chicago, he talked about wanting to inspire young people to feel good about politics as a profession. He might consider how the financial decisions he makes in the next few years could compromise that goal, and others. He is committed to working with Eric Holder, the former Attorney General, in the battle over congressional redistricting, which will require fund-raising for state campaigns.

Obama has also begun accepting money from donors like John Doerr, the venture capitalist, and Reid Hoffman, of LinkedIn, for the Obama Presidential Center. The design for the twenty-one-acre library-and-museum complex, on the South Side of Chicago, was revealed last week, at an event near the site. Obama announced that he and Michelle would donate two million dollars to a youth-jobs program, and emphasized that, while other Presidential libraries had involved retrospective ego-tripping, his would look forward. According to the Times, the fund-raising target is eight hundred million dollars, to cover construction costs and the initial endowment. The modern imperative for a former President to collect cash for a monument to himself as soon as he leaves office allows little respite from the culture of political financing. The minute you stop being pharaoh, you have to start building a pyramid.

Until quite recently, it was considered perfectly proper for a former President to trade his conversation and his companionship for a check. Jimmy Carter, who eschewed personal enrichment in favor of quietly effecting humanitarian advances around the world, was viewed as an outlier. Yet, if the tradition was ever a healthy one for our democracy, voters no longer seem to see it that way. Russian hackers may have been a factor in Hillary Clintons defeat, but so were a number of Americans who believed that the Clintons had sold their independence. The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA recently commissioned a study of voters in Wisconsin and Michigan who had chosen Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016, and found that thirty per cent had voted not for Trump but against Clinton. Many also distrusted the Democrats economic allegiances. The G.O.P., meanwhile, was short on elder statesmen who had enough credibility with its populist wing to halt the lurch toward a demagogue who said that all politicians were crooks, and that he knew it because he had bribed them himself.

Obama may feel that hes had enough of this kind of headache, but the fact is that his party still needs him. If he could just hand over the reins to successors with national reputations and, crucially, the ability to articulate what the Democratic Party stands for, it would be fine for him to focus on his own projects until the next time hes called on to give a Convention speech. The Democratic field, however, is in a state of unproductive entropy, in part because the Party has not resolved the divisions and the contradictions that drew younger voters, in particular, to Sanders. The list of potential standard-bearers includes everyone from Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, who will be in their seventies in 2020, to traditional machine politicians, like Andrew Cuomo and Terry McAuliffe, and younger senators, such as Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, and Chris Murphy, who as yet lack the constituencies and the institutional support that they will need in order to succeed on the national level. But, if any of them are standing on a primary-debate stage in 2020, they are going to have to offer better answers than the ones Clinton gave in Flint.

Her campaign was full of confidence after that debate, but Sanders, in an upset, won the Michigan primary, and Clinton went on to lose the state, narrowly, to Trump. Many observers wondered why the candidate hadnt done more polling, or deployed a better field operation, or, at least, made better use of a surrogate who would have been a great asset there: President Barack Obama. Maybe next time.

Read more here:
Obama's Life Post-Presidency - The New Yorker

CHICAGO The best thing about President Barack Obamas historic presidency is that its over. We can now look back on it and him in far fonder terms than it was experienced live.

After the news about Obamas upcoming $400,000 speech at a health care conference sponsored by the Wall Street financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called the gig distasteful. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she was troubled.

The terms fat cats and hypocrite were bandied about, and newspaper op-ed pages chimed in with delightfully colorful headlines like $400,000 for an Obama speech: Tacky but not corrupt, from the Los Angeles Times.

It was fun to watch the opposite-day dueling op-eds at the major papers. The Wall Street Journals editorial board declared: Let the man make a buck, as long as he pays the top marginal rate, while The New York Times editorial board grimly mourned that it was disheartening that a man whose historic candidacy was premised on a moral examination of politics now joins almost every modern president in cashing in.

But in total, even his less ardent fans have to be thinking: Awwwwwwww, leave Obama alone, already!

This is why fewer and fewer good, smart people of modest means will grow up dreaming of becoming president: Not only does every aspect of your life get skewered and put through a funhouse mirror, but after youve served your country even your former supporters will have the long knives out for you should you want to cash in on your incredibly unique experience.

But more so than that, peoples disgust at Obamas new opportunities to make a living speaks of a pervasive bias against those with high ambitions and who happen to be minorities.

Most high-achieving minorities grew up with hard-core parents who drummed into them the idea that in order to succeed in America they had to be not twice, but three or four times as good academically, in their work ethic and in their behavior as their white peers.

There was no wiggle room you were either undeniably better or you had to prepare to take a back seat to people whose names typically were easier to pronounce or spell.

So, yes, what Im saying is that even if liberals dont understand it, criticizing President Obama for failing their purity test of not turning down a big payday for doing what he does best speechifying is, if not exactly racist, then at least a harmful double-standard.

By all accounts, most modern former presidents parlay their time in office into lucrative speaking engagements, book deals and other options. Why should Obama be held to a different set of rules?

People who otherwise wouldnt blink an eye at a rapper, an actor or an athlete making millions seem to think that Obama should be above financial incentives and, in fact, should give away his experience and expertise.

Speak, Obama, speak. Just not for money, wrote Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, in The Guardian.

Stunning.

Just imagine if all experts and all who excelled at their disciplines were expected to provide their knowledge for free. For one, no one would ever pay for a newspaper or a book again.

Trevor Noah, the host of Comedy Centrals The Daily Show, put it best: So, the first black president must also be the first one to not take money afterwards? No, no, no, no, no, my friend. He cant be the first of everything.

Noah threw it into perspective why should Obama be the one to break the mold of making money after the presidency? After all, he didnt forge it. Why isnt the expectation that there should be a first white president to not take the money?

Go on and break the mold of having to be so much better, saintlier and humbler than your predecessors and peers, President Obama. Feel free to dispense with the silly double- and higher standards that minority firsts are held to.

You will be making a very big statement one that has the capacity to set a precedent that even after theyve proved themselves, firsts dont have to forever be at least twice as good as everyone else.

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Cepeda: Must Obama be more saintly than his predecessors? - The Mercury News

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Posted: May 07, 2017 12:01 AM

President Obama didnt just leave his military assets sitting in the garagehe set them to playing useless global warming games. Recently I reviewed the U.S. Navys planning documents from 20082015. Its no fault of the Navys, but they were directed to accept the IPCCs overheated claims of parboiled disaster as ultimate truth.

Thus, the Navy planned that many of their naval bases would be put out of action by rapid sea level rise and far stronger storms, just as the calamity criers predicted. They were told to expect an ice-free Arctic swarming with Russias subs and undersea miners. New trade though the suddenly ice-free Northwest Passage would require more Coast Guard cutters and more icebreakers. Fuel prices would soar, making biofuels crucial to our military. Meanwhile, the ships would have to rescue hundreds of thousands of people from sinking islands and failed coastal states like Somalia.

Now that Barack Obama has resigned his commission as Commander in Chief, however, his militarys global warming plans have been overtakenby new technologies, by unforeseen weather, and by radical political changes.

The Navys weather guys must have known back in 2008 about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is the cause of the pause (though the alarmists wont admit the cause is natural--and predictable. The PDO was recognized in 1996 by two fisheries experts exploring the decline of the salmon in the Columbia River. The researchers found that when the salmon declined in the Columbia River, they were abundant in the Gulf of Alaska, and vice versa. The PDO thus massively shifts the currents and sea surface temperatures in the Navys biggest bathtub the Pacific every 30 years.

After the Pacific shifts warm again in another dozen years, well get a solar sunspot minimum that will drop earths thermometers well below even todays non-warming levels. Coupled with the pause that would give us a full century of non-warming. Who knew? But most of us doubted.

Obamas Green Navy declared a culture of energy efficiency, including LED light bulbs in the ships, and sailing on one engine while the other propellers blades were set to minimize drag. The Navy said this draglining was meant to increase time at the action site between refuelings, but Obamas demand for a Greener Military was the real decision factor. We might even thank Obama for pushing one actually useful gimmickinstalling stern flaps on the vessels to improve water flow efficiency (like those rear spoilers on sports cars).

The Navys cleverest Green PR gimmick the Great Green Fleet it sent to sea in 2016. It was a carrier strike force keyed by a nuclear aircraft carrier and surrounded by nuclear submarines and hybrid-electric ships with beef tallow mixed into their marine diesel. Its aircraft flew (briefly) on 100-per-cent-renewable fuel from plant material and algae. Some of the aircraft fuel may have been camelina oil, a very expensive relative of mustard seed now grown in Montanamainly for cosmetic cream. Some of this camelina oil cost the Navy almost $30 per barrel, against less than $4 for marine diesel. Amazingly, the Naval Petroleum Reserve has no camelina oil. How would we scale up camelina production in the event of a sudden enemy attack?

Today, of course, the U.S. Navy is drawing up an entirely new set of plansbased on cheap and abundant fossil fuels, costly biofuels and the normal storms at sea expected during a global warming like this one. (Storms are vastly worse during the little ice ages.) And of course there is still a tiny annual rise in sea levels due to the moderate ice-melt of the Modern Warming. (The massive glaciers of the Ice Age are long gone and the sea has already risen nearly 400 feet since.) The rate of sea level rise has not increased during the last century.

The Coast Guard has not yet orders extra icebreakers to shepherd merchant ships through a sun-warmed Northwest Passage. However, a 70,000-ton cruise liner, the Crystal Serenity, recently sailed successfully from Seward, Alaska, through the Arctic Sea to New York. (It paid for its own privately-owned icebreaker.)

Neither Obama, the UN nor the U.S. Navy ever imagined a whole 21st century with no rise in temperatures, but that now seems the most likely scenario.

As baseball great Yogi Berra famously said, Its hard to predict, especially about the future.

Michigan Targets Parents in Genital Mutilation Investigation

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Obama Steered America's Navy Off Course - Townhall