GOP tries to block Obama from meeting pledge on US terror trials

Economist Alan Simpson joins Andrea Mitchell to talk about if the opportunity for a grand bargain is back on the table in the wake of all of the president's recent bipartisan bread breaking.

By Michael O'Brien, Political Reporter, NBC News
Republicans have lashed out against the Obama administration’s decision to bring a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden to New York City for trial, a high-profile move that would help the president follow through on one of his earliest campaign pledges.
One of the unmet promises from President Barack Obama’s first term involved closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and bringing suspects to the continental United States for trial.
Related: Bin Laden’s son-in-law pleads not guilty to terror charge in New York
Two days after his first inauguration, the president signed an executive order calling for the closure of the military prison. But bipartisan resistance from lawmakers, who feared trials for terror suspects on domestic soil, scuttled efforts to shutter Guantanamo, leaving prisoners and detainees in legal limbo.

Four years later, Guantanamo remains in operation, and military tribunals – 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial is ongoing – continue at the naval base in Cuba. But the Obama administration’s decision to arraign a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, in federal court on Friday in New York marked maybe its most high-profile example of working to shift terror prosecutions to civilian courts.

Osama bin Laden's spokesman and son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Gaith, was arrested in Jordan by U.S. intelligence officials and has been brought to New York to face terrorism-related charges. NBC foreign correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin joins Morning Joe to discuss why this is significant and why some are saying this shouldn't be happening in New York City.

And already, Republicans are mounting stiff resistance to the move.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who on Thursday took to the Senate floor to defend Obama’s prerogatives in waging drone strikes, vowed to fight the administration’s decision to bring Abu Ghaith to New York.
"The American people and their representatives in Congress have been clear that they do not want foreign members of al Qaeda brought to the United States,” he said in a statement. “The Obama administration's decision to try Abu Ghaith in a New York district court clearly contravenes the will of the American people. This decision by the Obama administration will not go unchallenged."

The issue of Guantanamo is one on which Republicans have built a rare political advantage over Obama on an issue of foreign policy. Their dogged opposition to terror trials on U.S. soil has won over a handful of Democrats, thereby stymying the administration’s ability to execute one of the president’s first official orders.

And following Abu Ghaith’s “not guilty” plea this morning to charges of plotting to kill Americans, Republicans have piled on in short order.

“What has not changed since the issuance of the president's executive orders is that terrorists working to attack the United States are enemy combatants, and if captured should be placed in military custody where they can be interrogated,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. “The decision of the president to import Sulaiman Abu Ghaith into the United States solely for civilian prosecution makes little sense, and reveals, yet again, a stubborn refusal to avoid holding additional terrorists at the secure facility at Guantanamo Bay despite the circumstances.”

Added Republican Rep. Peter King, the New York congressman who’s been vocally critical of terror trials in New York: "While a federal court trial of Abu Ghaith in lower Manhattan would not present the same security issues as a trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, I strongly believe as a matter of policy that military tribunals are the proper venue for enemy combatants. If the Abu Ghaith trial does go forward in federal court it must not be used as a precedent for future enemy combatants who should be tried at Guantanamo."
With Congress out of town, few Democrats have chimed in on the Abu Ghaith decision; he was only extradited on Thursday. Several Democrats, like Manhattan Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., have in the past been vocally supportive of civilian trials in New York.
"I support the government bringing this prosecution in civilian court and expect that the federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York will successfully prosecute Abu Ghaith and put him away for the rest of his life," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate intelligence panel, said in a statement. She has previously supported trials for terror suspects in the United States. "The bottom line is the federal criminal court system works. Hundreds of international terrorists have been convicted in our federal courts since 9/11 and are locked away in heavily fortified federal prisons."

J. Scott Applewhite / APSen. John McCain, R-Ariz. speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 7, 2013, as he leaves a GOP policy meeting.
Deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest, though, used Friday’s briefing with reporters to push back against criticism of the move.
“The intelligence community agrees that the best way to protect our national security interests is to prosecute Abu Ghaith in an Article III court,” Earnest said, later adding: “This is somebody who's going to be held accountable for his crimes and will be done -- and that will be done in accordance with the laws and values of this country, and it will be done so in a pretty efficient way.”

'This is our offer': Ryan debuts budget that would balance in a decade 

By Michael O'Brien, Luke Russert and Frank Thorp, NBC News

Republicans on Tuesday debuted their full 2014 budget, an ambitious proposal that would seek to balance the budget within a decade, but which is also almost certain to never become law.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the Republican budget chief and 2012 vice presidential nominee, called his third budget an "invitation" to President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats to begin bargaining toward a deal to balance the budget.

"This is not only a responsible, reasonable, balanced plan," Ryan said, "it's also an invitation. This is an invitation to the president of the United States, to the Senate Democrats to come together to fix these problems."

Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan details his fiscal plan that includes a two-bracket tax structure.

But just as Obama has made new overtures to Ryan and other Capitol Hill Republicans in hopes of breaking the fiscal logjam in Congress, Ryan produced a new budget that offers up few concessions to Democrats, and doubles down upon many of the policies on which Republicans campaigned during last fall's election.

The new Ryan budget calls for repealing Obama's signature health care reform law, and sweeping changes to Medicare for anyone under the age of 54 -- familiar policies for which Republicans have aggressively pushed during the last two years. The budget's goal would be to eliminate all but two income tax brackets, one at 10 percent and the other at 25 percent; it would raise no new revenue through taxes, cutting against the president's own demands for additional revenue.

Click here for the full text of the budget (.pdf)

 

  Fy 14 Budget by Peggy Satterfield

"While the House Republican budget aims to reduce the deficit, the math just doesn't add up," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

But the White House stopped short of waging a blistering assault on the Ryan plan, offering a glimmer of hope that bipartisanship might still eventually carry the day.

"While the president disagrees with the House Republican approach, we all agree we need to leave a better future for our children," Carney said. "The president will continue to work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to grow the economy and cut the deficit in a balanced way."

Still, Ryan defended the generally unflinching conservatism of his budget.

"That means we surrender our principles? That means we stop believing in what we believe in?" he asked at a press conference to debut his proposals. "Elections do have consequences ... This is our offer, this is our vision."

Must-Read Op-Eds: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is expected plans to introduce a plan to overhaul Medicare and Medicaid, and Mika Brzezinski reads from Ryan's latest WSJ column on the issue.

The GOP proposal comes amid new overtures by Obama to Republicans in Congress. The president had lunch last week with Ryan, and dinner with a group of GOP senators. Obama will address House and Senate Republicans separately this week, marking a pivot in his strategy toward vexing fiscal issues following bruising battles over the fiscal cliff during the first two months of this year.

Related: Ryan plan sparks budget battle

This latest GOP plan -- the third authored by Ryan since Republicans retook the House in 2010 -- is the opening salvo in a spring full of budget battles, culminating in the mid-May expiration of the nation's borrowing authority. Congress authorized a suspension of the debt limit through that deadline, but made it contingent upon the House and Senate each passing their own budget. (Republicans have repeatedly needled Senate Democrats for failing to pass a budget in recent years.)

"I hate to break the suspense, but their budget won't balance—ever," Ryan wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. "We House Republicans have done our part … Now we invite the president and Senate Democrats to join in the effort."

Mandel Ngan / Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan makes his way to the West Wing on March 7, 2013 for a lunch with President Barack Obama.

Ryan's blueprint claims to achieve $4.6 trillion in savings over through 2023, and steadily reduce government spending as a share of gross domestic product in the meantime. In his op-ed, Ryan asserted the reforms could boost gross national product by as much as 1.7 percent. Ryan's previous plan projected a balanced budget outside of ten years. But the plan also relies on savings accrued from two plans which Republicans had staunchly opposed: the new taxes on the wealthy in the Jan. 1 fiscal cliff deal, and the $715 billion in savings from cuts to Medicare providers as part of Obama's health care reform law. 

Of the new taxes, Ryan said that Republicans were "not going to re-fight the past." When pressed as to how that principle squares with his budget's goal of repealing Obamacare, Ryan pivoted, and said that the health reform law would be so onerous, that the eventual GOP replacement would be an improvement.

It would achieve its goal through a series of sweeping reforms, most of which are unlikely to survive the Democratic Senate or a presidential veto threat.

Ryan's budget again seeks changes to Medicare, namely by establishing an exchange of private plans (including traditional Medicare) from which seniors could choose, with the assistance of a premium support voucher. The plan would apply for those under the age of 54 — a threshold one year younger than past Ryan proposals — and also employ means-testing, in which wealthier seniors pay a higher share of their premiums.

The Ryan budget also calls for repealing the health care reform law (though it would leave in place savings from cuts in payments to medical providers, a component against which Ryan and Mitt Romney railed during last fall's campaign).
The campaign also focused heavily on Ryan's past budgets, as Obama and Democratic candidates downballot railed against similar proposed changes to entitlement programs. Those attacks offered a vivid illustration of the political difficulties in putting such aggressive reform plans to paper. That experience helped inform the GOP's demand that Democrats produce their own alternative budget, through which Republican staffers will surely comb to exploit politically.
Ryan's own budget isn't short on additional conservative prescriptions, either. The 2014 budget calls for sweeping tax reform, with a goal of cutting the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent, and simplifying the income tax into two brackets. The tax cuts would be financed by closing loopholes and deductions in the tax code.

The Republican budget will also touch upon other social programs. It would block-grant Medicaid to states, and allow states more flexibility, too, in implementing welfare programs. Ryan's plan would also freeze the current maximum support for students awarded as Pell Grants, a popular program with students (and young voters) that Obama had expanded in his first term.

The proposals, as a whole, amount to a deeply conservative set of proposals offered against the backdrop of new hopes for bipartisan fiscal talks in Washington.

Obama's renewed outreach — and Republicans' relatively warm reception of it — has stoked the embers of hope that lawmakers may finally reach the kind of grand fiscal deal that has eluded them during the past few years. As Ryan unveils his new budget, Obama's own reaction could either preserve these renewed hopes, or allow them to wither after just a few days.

To that end, Obama was set to speak to House Republicans on Wednesday, and Senate Republicans on Thursday. He was also scheduled to give an interview to ABC News on Tuesday, which could be his first on-camera reactions to Ryan's new proposal.

From Rome to Africa: Meet the 20 men who could be pope 

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News


As the papal conclave begins in Rome, wrapped in mystery and secrecy, there is no indication that the 115 cardinals will be deciding between just a couple of front-runners in choosing a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

Milan's Cardinal Angelo Scola and Brazil's Cardinal Odilo Scherer are names that keep cropping up on the lists of papabili, but NBC News Vatican analyst George Weigel says no fewer than 20 men could get votes when balloting starts Tuesday in the Sistine Chapel.They come from the traditional bastions of Italy, from growth areas like sub-Saharan Africa, even from the United States. Only time — and a puff of white smoke — will reveal which one will emerge as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

Here, in alphabetical order, are the princes of the church who Weigel says could be considered for the top job:

AFP - Getty Images

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco

Angelo Bagnasco: The archbishop of Genoa, he also heads the influential conference of Italian bishops. Considered an intellectual heavyweight with a teaching background in metaphysics, he was described as a "pragmatic centrist" by the National Catholic Reporter. Bagnasco, 70, received death threats after hard-line remarks against same-sex marriages in 2007.

AP

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio

Jorge Mario Bergoglio: The archbishop of Buenos Aires is the Argentine-born son of an Italian railway worker. Seen as a compassionate conservative, he reportedly came in second during the 2005 balloting that ultimately elected Benedict XVI. The 76-year-old Jesuit prizes simplicity and humility and would encourage priests to do shoe-leather evangelization, his biographer says.

AFP - Getty Images

Cardinal Giuseppe Betori

Giuseppe Betori: The archbishop of Florence, he has been a cardinal for just a year. As secretary-general of the Italian bishops conference, he "built a reputation for himself as a 'bridge builder' in relations between the Vatican and the Italian government," the Italian daily La Stampa reported. Betori, 66, survived a 2011 assassination attempt by an emotionally disturbed person.

Getty Images

Cardinal Thomas Collins

Thomas Collins: The archbishop of Toronto was made a cardinal last year. A biblical scholar, he told an Italian newspaper that the biggest challenge facing the church is persecution in an increasingly secular society. Known for his media savvy and rousing sermons, Collins, 66, helped investigate the sex-abuse crisis in Ireland and sits on a Vatican council on education.

AP

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Timothy Dolan: The ebullient archbishop of New York is among the best-known cardinals in America and heads the important U.S. bishops conference. Dolan, 69, doesn't run from political controversy or the cameras. The Vatican has been impressed with his dynamic style, conservative chops and missionary zeal, but others may be wary of his effervescence.

AP

Cardinal Dominik Duka

Dominik Duka: Talk about a dramatic back story: the archbishop of Prague was forced to work secretly as a priest during 15 years of Communist rule — spending his days as a designer in a factory — and was even jailed for a year during an anti-religion crackdown. Duka, 66, has been active in getting church property returned in a nation where secularism reigns.

Reuters

Cardinal Willem Eijk

Willem Eijk: The archbishop of Utrecht in the Netherlands has two doctorates — one in medicine, one in philosophy — and is considered an expert on bioethics. Eijk, 59, issued a strong apology in 2011 after a commission found the Dutch church had bungled sex-abuse allegations in past decades.

Reuters

Cardinal Peter Erdo

Peter Erdo: The archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest in Hungary "has been on the ecclesiastical fast track his entire career," the National Catholic Reporter says. A canon lawyer, Erdo, 60, heads Europe's Catholic bishops and sits on key Vatican committees. In Budapest, he was known for encouraging lay missionaries to visit every home in a parish to invite the lapsed back to the church.

Getty Images

Cardinal Sean O'Malley

Sean O'Malley: The archbishop of Boston wears sandals and a hooded Capuchin monk's cassock and says he doesn't expect to trade them in for red shoes and white robes. But O'Malley, 68, has gotten high marks for his cleanup of Boston's sex-abuse mess and heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' high-profile pro-life committee.

Getty Images

Cardinal John Onaiyekan

John Onaiyekan: The archbishop of Abuja in Nigeria was hailed as "the Timothy Dolan of Africa" by the National Catholic Reporter for his big personality. Onaiyekan, 69, also has intellectual and moral heft and successfully pushed for Democratic elections in his homeland. "There's nothing to stop an African from being the pope," he said in Rome last week.

Getty Images

Cardinal Marc Ouellet

Marc Ouellet: The former archbishop of Quebec and current head of the powerful Congregation for Bishops, this Canadian cardinal is on many conclave short lists. A scholarly theologian who is fluent in six languages, Ouellet, 68, has plenty of experience in Latin America, where he taught, and the Vatican, where he essentially serves as a staff director.

Getty Images

Cardinal George Pell

George Pell: The son of pub owners, the archbishop of Sydney is seen as a straight-talking conservative with fans in the Vatican hierarchy. Pell, 71, raised eyebrows when he questioned Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI's decision to resign and suggested he was a better theologian than leader. He gets poor marks from sex-abuse victims' groups.

AFP - Getty Images

Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith

Albert Malcolm Ranjith: The archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, he has strong Vatican ties and was close to Pope Benedict XVI. But the National Catholic Reporter said that Ranjith, 65, may be too traditional; he's against taking communion in the hand and is a fan of the Latin Mass.

AFP - Getty Images

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri

Leonardo Sandri: He was born in Argentina and worked as a parish priest there, but Sandri, 69, spent years trotting the globe as a Vatican diplomat. From 2000 to 2007, he was the Vatican chief of staff and he now serves as prefect for the Congregation for Eastern Churches. He's well-liked but may be seen as a better No. 2 than pope.

AP

Cardinal Robert Sarah

Robert Sarah: The former archbishop of Conakry, Guinea, Sarah, 67, now heads Cor Unum, the Vatican's charitable arm. He's described as progressive on social justice issues and very conservative on hot-button topics like gays, contraception and abortion. Despite his Roman credentials, he isn't seen as a mover and shaker.

Reuters

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn

Christoph Schonborn: The archbishop of Vienna is "the closest thing to a wild card this time around," the National Catholic Reporter said. One of the more moderate candidates, Schonborn, 68, made waves a few years ago when he criticized powerful Cardinal Angelo Sodano for blocking a sex-abuse investigation. He comes from a noble family and speaks seven languages.

AFP - Getty Images

Cardinal Angelo Scola

Angelo Scola: More than one list of papbili has Scola, 71, at the top. He headed the church in Venice, is now the archbishop of Milan, and has ties to the influential and conservative group Communion and Liberation. He's an expert in bioethics and has worked extensively on Catholic-Muslim relations. But he may lack the charisma to seal the deal.

AFP - Getty Images

Cardinal Odilo Scherer

Odilo Scherer: Born in Brazil to German immigrants, Scherer is archbishop of Sao Paulo but has solid Roman experience from his time as prefect at the Congregation for Bishops. The 63-year-old takes the subway to work and is active on Twitter. He's got moderate-conservative credentials but Catholicism is being challenged by Protestant churches on his home turf.

Reuters

Cardinal Luis Tagle

Luis Tagle: The archbishop of Manila has charisma, a preaching style that brings people to tears, social-media know-how and ties to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. But Tagle is only 55 years old and became a cardinal just four months ago so Asia's rising star might have to wait until the next conclave.

AFP - Getty Images

Cardinal Peter Turkson

Peter Turkson: The former archbishop of Ghana now heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Energetic and easy-going, Turkson, 64, has talked openly about the possibility of becoming pope — too openly, perhaps. He also lost points for clumsily screening a controversial video on Muslims at a Vatican synod, suggesting he may not be spotlight-ready.

The Associated Press, Reuters and the National Catholic Reporter contributed to this report

There's a growing tension between those who seek institutional tradition and those who want to move the Catholic Church forward and re-energize its ranks. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

Related:


Conclave smoke signals a bit of a gray area

Leading Asian papal candidate: An easy smile, but hardly a reformer

Alessandra Tarantino / APPhilippine Cardinal Luis Antonio "Chito" Tagle arrives for a meeting at the Vatican on Wednesday.

By Ian Williams, correspondent, NBC NewsMANILA, Philippines -- On the face of it Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio "Chito" Tagle has a lot going for him as a contender for pope. He's young: At 55, the second youngest of the cardinals. He sings and preaches on television, and has 120,000 followers on Facebook.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has named him among the three "least worst" papal candidates because of the way he has spoken out on sex abuse by members of the clergy.
He speaks fluent Italian, English and Tagalog, and his French and Latin are said to pretty good too. The National Catholic Reporter recently called him "an effective missionary and communicator," and described him as the face of a "dynamic and relatively angst-free form of Catholicism."

He became something of a protégé of Pope Benedict, and if elected would be Asia's first pope.

Before getting carried away, though, it is worth looking at what he has been doing with those communication skills and the state of Catholic Church here in the Philippines.

It is locked in a fierce battle with the government over social reform, in what has become a struggle for hearts and minds in a country where for centuries the church wielded enormous and almost unchallenged power.

Four-fifths of the Philippines' 104 million people are Catholic, and the country has one of the highest birth rates in Asia.

The most recent dispute was over a law to help the country's poorest women gain access to birth control and introduce sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers. It was finally passed by parliament late last year after being stalled for a decade by opposition from the church.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippine declared that "contraception is corruption!" and that the moral fiber of the nation was at risk.

Critics say the Church's doctrinaire attitude has for decades been the biggest single drag on social and economic development in the Philippines, where the U.N. estimates that half the country's 3.4 million annual pregnancies are unintended, and improved maternal health care would save hundreds of pregnancy-related deaths every year.

A large banner opposing the law still hangs on Manila Cathedral, and the Catholic groups are mobilizing for forthcoming senate elections, where they intend to target senators who supported the legislation.

The passing of what's called the Reproductive Health Act was a severe blow to an institution that had commanded almost unwavering support.

Suddenly it is no longer taboo to defy the church, and President Benigno Aquino III has vowed to press on with changes, with reformers urging him to liberalize abortion and divorce laws.

Surprisingly, the coverage of the conclave by the Philippine media has been very low key, though that could change if it drags on and Tagle is seen as having a serious chance.There is nothing Filipinos like more than seeing one of their own making a big impact on the global stage. One young woman even described the battle for the papacy as rather like watching Filipino boxing sensation Manny Pacquiao in one of his international prize fights, and feeling the same sense of pride.
On the face of it, there's a big difference between the boxing ring and the Sistine Chapel, yet both require some pretty deft footwork.

And Tagle, with his easy smile and disarming charm, will be a key player, even if he is regarded as an outside bet for the crown.

But his is not the easy charm of a social reformer. Far from it. And reformers here in Manila fear that in the knockabout world of Philippine politics, a strong performance by Tagle in Rome could strengthen the hand of conservatives at home fighting what many regard as much-needed reforms.

Related

'Total lockdown': Vatican preps security for papal conclave

'The will of God is not entirely clear': Cardinal hints at tough task facing church

Cardinals locked up until one emerges as pope

his afternoon, 115 cardinals will file into the Sistine Chapel to begin discussions on who among them will be the next pope. NBC's Lester Holt reports and Claudio Lavagna, NBC's Rome correspondent, and Father Robert Barron discuss the decision-making process.

By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News


VATICAN CITY – The conclave to begin choosing the next pope got under way Tuesday, after Roman Catholic cardinals swore oaths of secrecy and the Sistine Chapel's doors were shut.With their hand on a Bible, the 115 “princes of the church” pledged in Latin to never reveal details of the papal conclave - with the threat of ex-communication for anyone breaching ancient canonical law.
Outside the Vatican, there were cheers from onlookers gathered in front of giant television screens in St. Peter's Square when American Cardinal Timothy Dolan took his oath.
At 5:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. ET) the Latin words "extra omnes” – everyone out – gave the signal for all the officials and assistants to leave the chapel.

"They're on their own now," said NBC News Vatican expert George Weigel, referring to the total isolation demanded by church rules.

None of the 115 will be seen or heard, nor will they have any contact with the outside world, until they have chosen a successor to Benedict XVI, who abdicated on Feb. 28.

The word "conclave" comes from the Latin meaning "with key". It is a church tradition that began in 1268 when local officials became so fed up with the lack of a decision among cardinals - they had deliberated for more than two years - that they locked them away with limited food and water to encourage a result.

When the voting finally begins Tuesday, there will be one ballot, followed by two every morning and two every afternoon until someone gets two-thirds of the votes.

Earlier, thousands of pilgrims and tourists waited in line to get inside St. Peter's Basilica for a special pre-conclave Mass with the cardinals.

Alastair Jamieson / NBC NewsLois Girten, 55, from Austin, Texas, was among those waiting in line to get inside the pre-conclave Mass.

The “Mass Pro Eligendo Pontifice” began at 10 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET) in front of a congregation of worshippers who were waiting outside in St. Peter's Square for tickets allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

“It’s in the air! You really feel it,” said Lois Girten, 55, from Austin, Texas, who secured a last-minute place on a two-week pilgrimage to Rome through a cancellation.“It’s God’s gift that I’m in Rome just as the conclave takes place. I’m almost speechless with excitement, it’s a real treat for me.” 
Several thousand visitors were allowed in to take part in the service, according to Religion News Service correspondent Alessandro Speciale inside the basilica.
'Noble mission'In his homily, cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, told the congregation: “My brothers, let us pray that the Lord will grant us a pontiff who will embrace this noble mission with a generous heart.”

At night, cardinals will walk or be taken by minibus the short distance to the modest rooms in Casa Santa Marta, which John Paul II had built in 1996.

Slideshow: Electing a pope

Andrew Medichini / AP

Cardinals from around the world gather in the Vatican to elect the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Such is the importance of secrecy that Vatican officials have installed jamming devices to prevent the use of cellphones by cardinals or hidden microphones by anyone wanting to hear their deliberations.

Although there is no definitive favorite to take the helm, cardinals have been holding a series of General Congregations in recent days to discuss the qualities they would like to see in their new leader.

No conclave has lasted more than five days in the past century, with most finishing within two or three days. Pope Benedict was elected within barely 24 hours in 2005 after just four rounds of voting.Benedict triggered the election last month with his unexpected decision to abdicate because of his increasingly frail health -- the first pontiff to step down in six centuries.

He leaves his successor a sea of troubles -- including seemingly never-ending sex-abuse scandals, rivalry and strife inside the Vatican bureaucracy, a shortage of priests and a rise of secularism in its European strongholds.

Residents of Byron, Maine, reject bid to force people to own guns

Herb Swanson / EPA
Residents of Byron, Maine, vote against a proposal that each household be required to own a firearm.
By Sarah Mahoney, Reuters

BYRON, Maine -- Voters in a small Maine town unanimously rejected a proposal on Monday that would have required every household to own a firearm and ammunition.

More than 60 residents of Byron, Maine, packed into the tiny Coos Canyon Schoolhouse and quickly voted to make the symbolic measure the first order of business during the town's annual meeting.

After a brief discussion, residents elected to skip debate and vote. Not even Bruce Simmons, the resident who originally came up with the proposal, voted to support it.

Backers said the point of the measure, which was considered unenforceable, was to send a message to state and federal lawmakers trying to pass gun control laws.

"I feel we accomplished what we set out to do and I hope we will wake this town up," Simmons said. "We made a statement to the federal government that they can't take our guns away."

Herb Swanson / EPA
Philip Paquette, a Byron resident opposed to forcing people to own guns, put up signs urging people to vote against the proposal, which was unanimously defeated.

Selectman David Noyes, who told the group he opposed the requirement, said he was relieved the question was dispatched so quickly so the town of about 140 people could move on to other pressing matters.

Even if the measure had passed, Maine law bars municipalities from legislating on firearms.

The December shooting rampage that left 20 first-graders and six adults dead at a Connecticut elementary school has re-ignited the national debate over guns.

In response, some states have been prompted to tighten gun laws, while other states have sought to keep federal gun measures from being applied within their borders.

Byron is not the only U.S. town to mull such a measure. Last week, selectmen in the Maine town of Sabattus, about 60 miles from Byron, voted against putting a similar proposal before town residents.

In Georgia, a city leader in Nelson has proposed an ordinance calling on every head of household to have a gun as a way to keep crime down in the city of 1,300 residents, which employs only a single police officer.

The Nelson city council is expected to vote on the gun ownership ordinance on April 1.

Related:


A gun for every home? Maine town to vote on mandatory firearm ownership

NRA executive accuses Obama of gun 'charade'

Police chiefs, sheriff's divided over gun control

Baby dies after being shot five times as dad changes diaper

By Emily Florez and Courtney Copenhagen, NBCChicago.com

A 6-month-old baby has died after she was shot Monday while her father was changing her diaper.

After several surgeries, Jonylah Watkins passed away Tuesday morning, Chicago Pastor Corey Brooks confirmed.

Jonylah's father, identified by family members as 28-year-old Jonathan Watkins, is in stable condition. He was changing the little girl's diaper on the front passenger seat of the family van when the shooting occurred, police said.

"The city of Chicago should be outraged that a 6-month-old baby could be shot and killed in our city," Brooks said. "It's horrific."

Jonylah and Watkins were both taken to hospitals in critical condition after shots rang out at about 12:45 p.m. Monday on the 6500 block of South Maryland Avenue. Watkins was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Jonylah was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital.

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said the incident has "very strong gang overtones" and the father, who has an extensive criminal history, was the intended target. Police are pursuing several angles, McCarthy said.

"This is another tragedy, because no child, certainly not an infant, should be a victim of gun violence," McCarthy told reporters Tuesday.

Brooks said the baby's mother, Judy Young, is distraught and in a lot of pain. "We're going to find who did this and make sure they are brought to justice," he said. "We're not going to be afraid. We're going to take back our neighborhood."

Police are still looking for the shooter, who ran up from behind Watkins, fired, and then took off to a nearby blue conversion van, department spokesman John Mirabelli said. Bullets struck Jonathan Watkins in the buttocks and on the right side of his face. His young daughter was hit five times: in the thigh, shoulder, lung, liver and bowels, the family later said.

Witnesses reported hearing at least 10 gunshots.

"I just heard like a lot of shots and skid marks, so that's when I ran to the corner," said Patricia McGowan, who lives near the scene but was at a salon at the time gunfire rang out. "There is always gunshots and crime in the neighborhood, always drug activity in the neighborhood. ... It's heartbreaking. We're looking for a place to move out immediately because that could have easily been me coming from the bus."

Police said Jonathan Watkins has known gang affiliations.

The baby's grandmother, Mary Young, said her daughter and Watkins were just recently married. Judy Young was grazed by a bullet in the knee about seven months ago, she said, while Jonylah was still in the womb.

Pastor Brooks has offered a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the little girl's shooter. Brooks gained notoriety last year for camping out on the roof of a south side motel in an effort to raise money for a community center.

Earlier Monday, Chicago police Supt. Garry McCarthy touted progress in his department's efforts against crime. Shooting incidents in the city are down 19 percent year-over-year, he said.

"This is a sobering reality we have a lot of work to do even though we're making progress," McCarthy said Tuesday.

• 

CPAC 2013: The young conservatives to watch
Abby Borovitz
2:08 PM on 03/09/2013

CPAC rising stars, Saratoga Springs, Utah, Mayor Mia Love (R) pictured at the Republican National Convention in 2012, and Florida state House Speaker Will Weatherford (L) performing a video parody of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” (Photo by Eric Thayer/Reuters;Phil Sears/AP)

The 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) kicks off in five days and is shaping up as a who’s who of Republican conservatives. After facing a post-election identity crisis following a November trouncing at the polls, this year’s conference theme is looking ahead—“America’s Future: The Next Generation Of Conservatives.” Dividing the GOP’s recent past from the future might not be a bad thing for conservatives considering a recent Gallup poll that shows only 28% of those surveyed identify themselves as Republicans.

Big names like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Donald Trump are set to speak at the conference, but there were several notable snubs on the invite list. Once known as conservative darlings of the Republican Party, Govs. Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell were not invited to participate in the event.

So who are some of those conservatives that will help shape the future of the GOP? In honor of the 40th anniversary of CPAC, the conservative conference is highlighting those who were born around the time CPAC was first started.

“We are thrilled to welcome these young elected leaders to the CPAC stage,” said American Conservative Union Chairman Al Cardenas in a statement, “as they represent the bright future of the conservative movement.”

Here are our top five CPAC 2013 “bright future of the conservative movement” ones to watch:

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford—At just 33-years-old, Weatherford is following the footsteps of Sen. Marco Rubio in serving as one of the youngest House speakers in Florida’s history. The ACU named Weatherford a “Conservative All-Star” in 2012 for scoring 100% on the organization’s legislative ratings. Weatherford has been a vocal critic of Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s move to expand Medicaid rolls under the Affordable Care Act—even after realizing thathis own family once benefited from the program in paying their medical bills.

Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon, left, R-Lawton, speaks to the media at a legislative forum. (Photo by Sue Ogrocki/AP)

Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon—Speaker Shannon is the first African-American Republican to be a state speaker in Oklahoma, and the youngest speaker in the state’s history. After being asked to speak at CPAC Shannon said, “I’m humbled to have been asked to participate in this conference, but mostly, I’m excited to highlight the conservative pro-growth agenda we’re pursuing in the Oklahoma Legislature this year.”

Sarasota Springs Mayor Mia Love—Sarasota Springs Mayor Love, of Utah, made her way onto the national scene after being tapped for a high-profile speaking slot during the Republican National Convention in 2012. Love, a Mormon and first-generation U.S. citizen whose family is from Haiti, lost a tight race for Congress in 2012. At the National Review Summit in Washington in January she said, “We need to remind everyone that the GOP was originally formed to end slavery…We’re trying to end slavery from the federal government.”

Former Republican congressional candidate from Utah, Mia Love, speaks at a gun rights rally and march at the Utah State Capitol on March 2, 2013 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

Connecticut State Senator Art Linares—Prior to becoming state senator, Art Linares co-founded a Middletown-based commercial solar energy company. In 2010, he took a sabbatical from his company to work for Sen. Marco Rubio, another CPAC speaker this year. He later returned to Connecticut to run for state Senate where he won in a tight race last fall.

New York state Rep. Nicole Malliotakis—Malliotakis is a rising star in the world of conservative New York politics. She is the daughter of immigrants—her father is from Greece, her mother from Cuba. She was the first Hispanic lawmaker to represent New York City’s Staten Island.

Another notable speaker at CPAC 2013 is U.S. Representative Sean Duffy, R-Wis., and his wife and fellow conservative activist Rachel Campos-Duffy, who will host a “Real World” conversation about current events in order to attract the younger generation towards the conservative conference.

Celebrating Sunshine Week 2013

by Gavin Baker
Mar 7, 2013

Sunshine Week, a nationwide initiative highlighting the importance of open government and accountability, will be held this year from March 10-16. Created by journalists in 2002, Sunshine Week is designed to educate people on their right to access public information in understandable, user-friendly formats to participate more effectively in democracy and to use such information to protect and improve their communities.

Sunshine Week coincides with James Madison's birthday on March 16. Madison is considered the "Founding Father of Freedom of Information."

During the week, news media, government officials, educational institutions, libraries, nonprofit organizations, individuals, and anyone with an interest in open and transparent government can take part in a variety of events and activities. Shedding new light on the latest developments in freedom of government information, these events will include conferences, panel discussions, and workshops. Here are some notable events that will take place in Washington, D.C., throughout the week:

Monday, March 11

The Department of Justice will celebrate significant improvements in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) mandatory practices over the last four years. At 10 a.m., Acting Associate Attorney General Tony West and agency representatives will spotlight examples of success achieved by a number of agencies in areas addressed by the Justice Department's FOIA guidelines.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), together with the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), will host two back-to-back events at the National Archives. At 1 p.m., Archivist David Ferriero and OGIS Director Miriam Nisbet will discuss the importance of FOIA and display the original Freedom of Information Act, which celebrates its 47th birthday this year. At 1:45 p.m., agency staff will demonstrate FOIAonline, a new multi-agency FOIA portal designed to streamline the FOIA process for both agencies and requesters.

Tuesday, March 12

The Center for Effective Government and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) will host two panel discussions beginning at 1 p.m. on the consistent implementation of open government policies and the reduction of national security-related secrecy. The panels will feature open government experts, administration officials, and congressional staff. Click for more details and to RSVP for this free event.

The Congressional Transparency Caucus is hosting a panel focusing on recent progress on FOIA reform and what more needs to be done to improve public access to government records, at 3 p.m. in Room 2203 of the Rayburn House Office Building. This event will bring together FOIA experts including OGIS Director Miriam Nisbet; Rick Blum, Coordinator at the Sunshine in Government Initiative; Gavin Baker, Open Government Policy Analyst at the Center for Effective Government; and Richard Pollock, Investigative Reporter at the Washington Examiner. The discussion will be moderated by the Sunlight Foundation’s Policy Counsel, Daniel Schuman.

Wednesday, March 13

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) will put together two panel discussions at the George Washington University Law School from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The discussions will examine whether the government is justified in keeping secret the opinions drawn up by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to justify policies including extraordinary rendition, the use of torture, and the killing of Americans abroad.

At 10 a.m. the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing looking at the OPEN Government Act and freedom of information issues in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The Center for Effective Government's Director of Open Government Policy, Sean Moulton, will testify. Government witnesses will include Melanie Pustay, director of the Office of Information Policy at the Department of Justice, and OGIS Director Miriam Nisbet.

The D.C. Open Government Coalition will present its second annual DC Open Government Summit from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and will share results of its recent survey of meetings across dozens of D.C. boards and commissions to see if they complied with open government guidelines. The summit will convene such experts as Robert Spagnoletti, chairman of the newly established Board of Ethics and Government Accountability; D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D); and David Zvenyach, general counsel to the D.C. Council.

Celebrating Open Government and Sunshine Week 2013

Published on Mar 8, 2013

March 10-16 is Sunshine Week 2013, where groups from around the country celebrate the important achievments in open government and discuss what more needs to be done to foster transparency at all levels of government.

Read more at http://www.pogo.org

Thursday, March 14

The Brennan Center for Justice presents a panel discussion on the future of classification reform and the broader implications for our national security system. Panelists will include Nancy Soderberg, chair of the Public Interest Declassification Board; J. William Leonard, former Director of the Information Security Oversight Office; Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy; and Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. The discussion will take place at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from noon to 1:30 p.m.

The Cato Institute is hosting a two-day Wikipedia and Legislative Data Workshop that explores ways of using legislative data to enhance Wikipedia. The first session, from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., is designed for people of all technical skill levels and will cover Wikipedia editing and policy. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop. Friday's daylong workshop will convene experts in government transparency and Wikipedia editorial processes and decisions.

The National Press Club will offer a panel discussion, moderated by Club president Rick Dunham (of theHouston Chronicle), on how to use FOIA to obtain information in the course of investigative work. Panelists include Randy Rabinowitz, Director of Regulatory Policy for the Center for Effective Government; Charles Babcock, Editor at Bloomberg News; and Bill Allison, Editorial Director at the Sunlight Foundation.

Friday, March 15

The First Amendment Center, OpenTheGovernment.org, the Project On Government Oversight, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will celebrate the 15th annual Freedom of Information Dayat the Newseum. Several experts, including the Center for Effective Government's Director of Open Government Policy, Sean Moulton, will discuss open government issues such as fiscal transparency, FOIA, and disclosure of special interest influence. During the event, the American Library Association will announce the recipient of the 2013 James Madison Award that honors individuals protecting and promoting public access to government information.

Monday, March 18

The Collaboration on Government Secrecy at American University's Washington College of Law will host its sixth annual celebration of Freedom of Information Day. From 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., leading experts will discuss issues including the legislative outlook for open government and the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Milner v. Department of the Navy.

Anastasia Postnikova contributed to this blog post.

Where Is Everybody?: Why It’s So Tough to Get Your Head Around Climate Change

By Tom EngelhardtMarch 10th, 2013 3:04 PM
Crossposted from TomDispatch

Two Sundays ago, I traveled to the nation’s capital to attend what was billed as “the largest climate rally in history” and I haven’t been able to get the experience -- or a question that haunted me -- out of my mind. Where was everybody?

First, though, the obvious weather irony: climate change didn’t exactly come out in support of that rally. In the midst of the warmest years and some of the warmest winters on record, the demonstration, which focused on stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline -- it will bring tar-sands oil, some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-richest energy available from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast -- was the coldest I’ve ever attended. I thought I’d lose a few fingers and toes while listening to the hour-plus of speakers, including Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, who were theoretically warming the crowd up for its march around the (other) White House.

And I also experienced a moment of deep disappointment. When I arrived early at the spot in front of the Washington Monument on the National Mall where we were to assemble, my heart sank. It looked like only a few thousand protestors were gathering for what had been billed as a monster event. I had taken it for granted that I would be adding one small, aging body (and voice) to a vast crowd at a propitious moment to pressure Barack Obama to become the climate-change president he hasn’t been. After all, he has a decision to make that’s his alone: whether or not to allow that pipeline to be built. Nixing it would help keep a potentially significant contributor to climate change, those Albertan tar sands, in the ground. In other words, I hoped to play my tiny part in preserving a half-decent future for this planet, my children, and my new grandson.

Sixty environmental and other organizations were backing the demonstration, including the Sierra Club with itshundreds of thousands of members. Given what was potentially at stake, it never crossed my mind that the turnout wouldn’t be substantial. In fact, on that frigid day, lots of demonstrators did turn up. Evidently, they knew the dirty little secret of such events: that much talk would precede a modest amount of walking and inventive slogan shouting. So they arrived -- poured in actually -- late, and in real numbers.

In the end, the organizers estimated attendance at somewhere in the 35,000-50,000 range. Media reports varied between the usual “thousands,” generically used to describe (or, if you’re in a conspiratorial frame of mind, minimize) any demonstration, and tens of thousands. I have no way of estimating myself, but certainly the crowd was, in the end, sizeable, as well as young, enthusiastic, and loud. It made itself heard passing the White House. Not that President Obama was there to hear anything. He was then on a golf course in the Florida warmthteeing up with “a pair of Texans who are key oil, gas, and pipeline players.” That seemed to catch another kind of climate-change reality of our moment and strongly hinted at the strength of the forces any such movement is up against. In the meantime, Keystone builder TransCanada was ominously completing the already green-lighted first half of the Texas-Oklahoma leg of its prospective future pipeline.

In the end, I felt genuine satisfaction at having been there, but given what was at stake, given Frankenstorm Sandy, the devastating Midwestern drought and record southwestern fires of 2012, the Snowmageddon winter storm that had recently dropped 40 inches of the white stuff on Hamden, Connecticut, the blistering spring and summer of 2012, the fast-melting Arctic sea ice, and the fact that last year broke all heat records for the continental United States, given the build-up of billion-dollar weather disasters in recent years, and the growing emphasis on “extreme weather” events on the national TV news, shouldn’t hundreds of thousands have been there? After all, I’ve been in antiwar demonstrations in which at least that many marched and in 1982, I found myself in my hometown in a crowd of a million demonstrating against the possibility of a world-ending nuclear war. Is climate change a less important issue?

“There Is No Planet B”

While protesting that Sunday, I noted one slogan on a number of hand-made signs that struck me as the most pointed (and poignant) of the march: “There is no planet B.” It seemed to sum up what was potentially at stake: a planet to live reasonably comfortably on. You really can’t get much more basic than that, which is why hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, should have been out in the streets demanding that our leaders begin to attend to climate change before it’s quite literally too late.

After all, to my mind, climate change, global warming, extreme weather -- call it what you will -- is the obvious deal-breaker in human, if not planetary, history. Everything but nuclear catastrophe pales by comparison, no matter the disaster: 9/11, 70,000 dead in Syria, failed wars, the grimmest of dictatorships, movements of hope that don’t deliver -- all of that’s familiar history. Those are the sorts of situations where you can try again, differently, or future generations can and maybe do far better. All of it involves human beings who need to be dealt with or human structures that need to be changed. While any of them may be the definition of “the worst of times,” they are also the definition of hope.

Nature and the weather are another matter (even if it’s humanity that, by burning of fossil fuels at increasingly staggering rates, has created its own Frankenstein's monster out of the natural world). Climate change is clearly something new in our experience. Even in its relatively early but visibly intensifying stages, it threatens to be the singular event in human history, because unlike every other disaster we can imagine (except a full-scale nuclear war or, as has happened in the planet’s past, a large meteorite or asteroid impact), it alone will alter the basis for life on this planet.

Raise the planet’s temperature by three to six degrees Celsius, as various well-respected scientific types and groups are now suggesting might happen by century’s end (and possibly throw in some more heat thanks to the melting of the permafrost in the north), and if you live in a city on a coastline, you'd better watch out. And that only begins to suggest the problems humanity will face.

The world, at best, will be a distinctly poorer, less comfortable place for us (and from there the scenarios only get uglier).

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m no scientist. I doubt I’d even be considered scientifically literate (though I try). But the scientific consensus on the subject of climate change seems striking enough to me, and what’s happening around us is no less striking as a confirmation that our world is changing -- and remarkably quickly at that. Whether you read about melting glaciers, the melting Greenland ice shield, melting Arctic waters, melting permafrost,acidifying oceans, intensifying storms, greater desertification, wilder wild fires, or so many other allied subjects, doesn’t it always seem that the rates of bad news are on the rise and the word “record” is usually lurking somewhere in the vicinity?

So I continue to wonder, given our situation on this planet, given our future and that of our children and grandchildren, where is everybody?

Can You Organize Against the Apocalypse?

Don’t for a second think that I have some magic answer to that question. Still, as it’s been on my mind, here’s an attempt to lay out at least some of the possible factors, micro to macro, that might have limited the size of that crowd two Sundays ago and perhaps might tend to limit the size of any climate-change crowd, as well as the mobilizing possibilities that lie in the disaster awaiting us.

Outreach: Yes, there were at least 60 groups involved, but how much outreach was there really? Many people I know hadn’t heard a thing about the event. And while climate change has been on the human agenda for a while now, a real movement to deal with what’s happening to us is in its absolute infancy. There is so much outreach and so much education that still needs to be done.

The slowness of movements: It’s easy to forget how long it can take for movements of change to grow, for their messages to cohere, penetrate, and begin to make sense or seem meaningful to large numbers of people in terms of their everyday lives. Despite its obvious long-term destructive power, for many reasons (see below) climate change might prove a particularly difficult issue to link to our everyday lives in ways that mobilize rather than demobilize us. On a similarly difficult issue, the nuclear movement, it took literally decades to grow to that million-person march, and even early anti-Vietnam War protests were smaller than the recent Keystone demo.

Politics: Attitudes toward climate change have largely polarized along left-right lines, so that the issue seems politically ghettoized at the moment (though there was a time when Republicans of some stature were concerned about the subject). To my mind, it’s part of the insanity of our moment that the preservation of our planet as we have known it, which should be the great conservative issue of our era, is now pure poison on the right. Even American paleo-conservatives, who are willing to make common cause on American war policy with left anti-imperial types, won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. When this begins to change, you’ll know something of significance is happening.

Enemies: Here’s a factor it’s easy to ignore, but no one should. Giant energy companies and energy-connected right-wing billionaires have for years now been funneling staggering amounts of money into a network of right-wing think tanks and websites dedicated to creating doubts about climate change and promoting climate denial. In the latest revelation about the well-financed climate-denial movement, the British Guardian reports that between 2002 and 2010, $120 million dollars was shuttled, “using a secretive funding route,” into “more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change.” It all came from conservative billionaires (and not just the Koch brothers) who were guaranteed total anonymity. And it “helped build a vast network of think tanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarizing ‘wedge issue’ for hardcore conservatives.” The funders of this “movement” and their minions should, of course, be disqualified on the spot. They are almost all identified with and profit from the very fossil fuels that climate-change scientists say are heating up the planet. But they -- and a few outlier scientific types they’ve scrounged up -- provide the “balance,” the “two sides,” that the mainstream media adores. And they play upon the arcane nature of Science itself to intimidate the rest of us.

Science: When you have a bad boss, or your country is ruled by a dictator, or your bank cheats you, it’s within your everyday experience. You have some body of personal knowledge to draw on to understand the situation. You are personally offended. But Science? For most of us, the very word is intimidating. It means what we didn’t understand in school and gave up understanding long ago. To grasp climate change means teaching yourself Science with no professors in sight. Filling the knowledge bank you don’t have on your own. It’s daunting. Oh yes, the Ice-Albedo feedback loop. Sure thing. If the boss, the bank, the dictator takes your home, you get it. If Superstorm Sandy turns your home into rubble, what you get is an argument. What you need is an education to know just what role “climate change” might have played in making that storm worse, or whether it played any role at all. Similarly, you need an education to grasp the dangers of those tar sands from Canada. It can be overwhelming. Doubts are continually raised (see “enemies”), the natural variability of the weather makes climate change easier to dismiss, and sometimes, when Science takes the lead, it’s easier just to duck.

Nature: Science is bad enough; now, throw in Nature. How many of us still live on farms? How many of us still live in “the wilderness”? Isn’t Nature what we catch on the Discovery Channel? Isn’t it what we pay a lot of money to drop in on briefly and ogle while on vacation? In our everyday lives, most of us are, in some way, no longer a part of this natural world of “ours” -- not at least until drought strikes your region, or that “record wildfire” approaches your community, or that bear/coyote/skunk/puma stumbles into your (urban or suburban) neck of the woods. Connecting with Nature, no less imagining the changing natural state of a planet going haywire (along with the likelihood of mass, climate-changed induced extinctions) is again not exactly an easy thing to do; it’s not what comes “naturally” to us.

Blame: Any movement needs a target. But this isn’t the Arab Spring. Climate change is not Hosni Mubarak. This isn’t the Occupy moment. Climate change is not simply “Wall Street” or the 1%. It’s not simply the Obama administration, a polarized Congress filled with energy-company-supported climate ignorers and deniers, or the Chinese leadership that’s exploiting coal for all its worth, or the Canadian government that abandonedthe Kyoto treaty and supports that tar-sands pipeline, or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has put its money where its mouth is in American electoral politics when it comes to climate change. Yes, the giant energy companies, which are making historic profits off our burning planet, couldn’t be worse news or more culpable. The oil billionaires are a disaster, and so on. Still, targets are almost too plentiful and confusing. There are indeed villains, but so many of them! And what, after all, about the rest of us who lend a hand in burning fossil fuels as if there were no tomorrow? What about our consumer way of life to which all of us are, to one degree or another, addicted, and which has been a model for the rest of the world. Who then is the enemy? What exactly is to be done? In other words, there is an amorphousness to who’s aiding and abetting climate change that can make the targeting on which any movement thrives difficult.

The future: In the environmental movement, there is some serious discussion about why it’s so hard for climate change to gain traction among the public (and in the media). It’s sometimes said that the culprit is our brains, which weren’t set up, in an evolutionary sense, to deal with a problem that won’t deliver its full whammy for perhaps close to a century or more. Actually, I wonder about this. I would argue, based on the historical record, that our brains are well enough equipped to face distant futures and their problems. In fact, I think it’s a reasonable proposition that if you can’t imagine the future, if you can’t imagine building something not just for yourself but for your children or the children of others and of future generations, then you probably can’t build a movement at all. All movements, even those intent on preserving the past, are in some sense future-oriented.

The apocalypse: Here’s the thing, though. It’s difficult to organize for or even against a future that you can’t imagine yourself and those children and future generations in. The thought of world-ending events may simply close down our operative imaginations. The end of the world may be popular in fiction, but in everyday life, I suspect, the apocalypse is the version of the future that it’s hardest to mobilize around. If the prospect is that it’s already hopeless, that the suffering is going to be largely down the line, that we’re all going down anyway, and the planet will simply be destroyed, well, why bother? Why not focus on what matters to you now and forget the rest? This is where denial, the almost involuntary turning away from unpalatable futures that seem beyond our power or ability to alter, comes into play. If the future is essentially over before it begins, then better to ignore it and go about your still palatable enough daily life.

Putting Your Money on Climate Change

Add all these factors (and others I’ve probably ignored) together and perhaps it’s a miracle that so many people turned out in Washington two weekends ago. As we’ve already learned in this nuclear age of ours, it’s quite possible for a grid of exterminationism, a sense of hopelessness about the distant future, to descend upon us almost unnoticed. That grid in no way stops you from thinking about your own life in the present, or even about the immediate future, about, say, getting married, having a child, making a living, but it’s crippling when it comes to mobilizing for a different future.

I’ve always believed that some of the vaunted organizing power and energy of the famed Sixties came from the fact that, in 1963, the superpowers achieved an agreement on the testing of nuclear weapons that sent them underground and more or less out of consciousness. The last end-of-the-world films of that era appeared in 1964, just as bomb-shelter and civil defense programs were heading for the graveyard. By 1969, the National Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy had even eliminated "nuclear" from its own name. Without necessarily being aware of it, many (especially among the young), I suspect, felt their energies liberated from a paralyzing sense of doom. You no longer had to think about scenarios in which the two Cold War superpowers would destroy the planet. It made almost anything seem possible. For a brief period before the Reagan presidency raised such fears again, you could look to the future with a sense of hope, which was exhilarating.

Can there be any doubt that, to steal a phrase from that era, the personal is indeed political? On the other hand, the apocalypse, particularly an apocalypse that features Science and Nature in its starring roles, seems anything but personal or stoppable -- unless you’re a farmer and a pipeline filled with a particularly nasty version of oil runs right through your nearest aquifer. The real issue here is how to make climate change personal in a way that doesn’t simply cause us to shut down.

One of the cleverer approaches to climate change has been that of Bill McKibben, the man who organized 350.org. In a determined fashion, he’s been breaking the overwhelming nature of climate change down into some of its component parts that can be grasped, focused on, and organized around. Stopping the Keystone XL pipeline and encouraging students to lobby to make their schools divest from big fossil fuel companies are examples of his approach.

More generally, climate change is, in fact, becoming more personal by the year. In the “extreme weather,” which so regularly leads the TV news, its effects are coming closer to us all. Increasing numbers of us know, in our hearts, that it’s the real deal. And no, it doesn’t have to be the apocalypse either. The planet itself, of course, will survive and, given a few hundred thousand or even a few million years, will recover and once again be a thriving place of some unknown sort. As for humanity, we’re a clever enough species. Sooner or later, we will undoubtedly figure out how to survive as well, but the questions are: How many of us? On what terms? In what kind of degraded state? And what can we do soon to mitigate climate change’s worst future effects?

Perhaps a modern, post-religious version of seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal’s famous bet is what’s needed. He argued that it was in the interest of those who remained in doubt about God to place a wager on His existence. As he pointed out, with such a bet, if you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing.

Something somewhat analogous might be said of climate change. Perhaps it’s time to put your wager on the reality of climate change, on its paramount importance to us and our children and our children’s children, and to bet as well that your efforts (and those of others) will in the end make enough of a difference. Then, if you win, humanity wins everything; if you lose, well, there will be hell to pay.