Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

California Judge Out-Akins Todd Akins

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Dec. 14, 2012 10:57 AM PST

Newly revealed court documents in California show a Superior Court judge in Orange County was out-Akining Todd Akin way back in 2008.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the state agency dealing with judicial misconduct has reprimanded Superior Court Judge Derek G. Johnson for telling a woman she should have put up more of a fight against a former boyfriend who raped her:

"I'm not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something," the judge said, according to documents released Thursday. "If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage in inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case."

"That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasn’t necessarily willing, she didn't put up a fight."

The judge, who has been on the Orange County Superior Court since 2000, also declared the rape "technical," and not "a real, live criminal case."

Wow, so not only can women's bodies shut down a rapist's sperm to prevent a pregnancy (which is what Todd Akin claimed earlier this year), but now apparently it can actually stop the rape from happening at all.

This is actually more disturbing than Akin's comments, because the judge has the ability to determine things like how long a rapist stays in jail, or whether he even goes there in the first place.

I have no idea what happened to the poor woman in this case, whose ex-boyfriend apparently threatened to mutilate her with a hot screwdriver. But Judge Johnson is still on the bench.

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The World Bank's Climate Hypocrisy

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Dec. 14, 2012 4:13 AM PST

It's enough to give you whiplash. Last month, the World Bank put out a devastating new report on why 4 degrees Celsius of global warming "simply must not be allowed to occur." This month, the Bank is considering whether to provide financing for a new coal-fired power plant in Mongolia.

The World Bank Group's private funding arm, International Finance Corporation, is considering support for the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine project in the South Gobi Desert, a project that also includes a 750 megawatt coal plant. Mining giant Rio Tinto is behind the venture, which is expected to cost $13.2 billion. The power plant would be used to run the mining and processing operations at what has been billed as the "world's biggest new source of copper." As NPR has reported, mining is booming in Mongolia. This plant would only intensify that trend.

The Sierra Club, Mongolia-based Oyu Tolgoi Watch, the Bank Information Center, and several other groups blasted the bank in a release on Thursday, arguing that it needs to conduct a more thorough assessment of impacts and alternatives. They argue that the bank should delay consideration until that is completed.

The groups argue that, if this funding is approved, the World Bank would be violating its own criteria for screening coal projects with regard to their climate impacts. It would also violate IFC's performance standards on environmental and social sustainability, they argue.

While the groups cite concerns about access to water supplies and local nomadic herders, the climate concern is probably the biggest. The environmental impact assessment conducted for the coal plant doesn't seem to include any figures on how much carbon dioxide it would emit annually.

The World Bank has been criticized before for continuing to fund coal plants. The World Resources Institute issued a report a few weeks ago about coal plants that are currently proposed or under construction, and it notes that the World Bank "has actually increased lending for fossil fuel projects and coal plants in recent years." That includes $5.3 billion in funding for 29 new or expanding coal plants, as reporter Dave Levitan pointed out. And just last year, the bank's own internal inspector criticized it for not adequately evaluating carbon emissions before granting a $3.75 billion loan for a coal plant in South Africa.

I asked World Bank and IFC for comment on Oyu Tolgoi, but a spokesperson IFC said it would not be able to respond by press time. I'll update when and if they do.

Michigan Senate Passes "Abortion Mega-Bill"

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Dec. 13, 2012 1:27 PM PST

Michigan Republicans are going for broke this week, as the lame-duck session winds down in the state legislature. No sooner had state lawmakers successfully pushed through a new right-to-work bill when they advanced a grab bag of anti-abortion measures that has been called the "greatest assault on reproductive rights" in the state's history.

On Wednesday, the state Senate approved what has been called an "abortion mega-bill." HR 5711 includes measures requiring anyone providing more than 120 abortions per year to do so in facilities that meet the same standards as "ambulatory surgical centers"—a provision often referred to as "targeted regulation of abortion providers" (or TRAP), because they single out abortion providers for standards far stricter than other medical facilities. The building codes alone could shut down many abortion providers in the state.

Other provisions of the bill would require a doctor to be physically present to dispense the drugs used for a medication abortion, which would make it illegal to provide telemedicine abortions. It also implements new rules for the disposal of fetal remains that would require them to be treated like the body of a dead person, rather than treating them like other forms of medical waste.

The Michigan House already passed the original version of the bill, but the Senate amended it somewhat, and the House will vote on it again beofre the lame duck session wraps up. There's little doubt it will pass and be sent on to the desk of Gov. Rick Snyder (R).

Last week, the Michigan state Senate approved a separate bill that would allow doctors to decline to provide any care if they have a "moral objection" to doing so. The bill also allows employers to decline to cover any health care that it finds morally objectionable—like birth control. That measure advanced in a House committee this week but has yet to go to a vote in the full House.

Major News Outlets Give Fossil-Fuel-Funded Think Tanks a Free Platform

National newspapers publish anti-green-energy articles—without disclosing that the authors work for industry-backed groups, a new study finds.

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Dec. 13, 2012 4:03 AM PST

Robert Bryce has written op-eds for several major newspapers—which have failed to mention that he works for the fossil-fuel-backed Manhattan Institute.

The fossil fuel industry has long been a source of talking points and "studies" aimed at spreading doubt about climate change, and over the past few years, it has broadened its scope to undermine support for clean energy, as well. Often, this criticism is published in the form of articles in major media outlets—penned by employees of think tanks who don't disclose their groups' industry funding, a new study finds.

The Checks and Balances Project, a pro-clean-energy watchdog group, surveyed stories published over the past five years in 60 news outlets, including national and regional newspapers, the Associated Press, and Politico. Researchers found that only 6 percent of the stories disclosed the funding when they cited "experts" from those think tanks. Typically, the stories referred to the groups as "free-market" or "libertarian," without mentioning the dirty-energy support.

[Read the full article]

Care About Climate? Start Talking Like a Conservative

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Dec. 13, 2012 4:03 AM PST

It's considered dogma that conservatives just don't care that much about the environment, and that they think people who do are "radical luddites for whom economic considerations are practically irrelevant," as one conservative writer put it. But apparently the right does care about the environment—at least if you frame it in terms that resonate with them.

In a new paper published this week in Psychological Science, researchers from the University of California—Berkeley and Stanford found that most environmental messaging uses frames that liberals tend to find more engaging. Like previous studies, "The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes" found that liberals respond more to messaging about caring for other people or ensuring they are treated fairly. The study found that people who identify as politically conservatives respond better to messages that are about "preserving purity and sacredness."

The researchers conclude:

These results suggest that political polarization around environmental issues is not inevitable but can be reduced by crafting pro-environmental arguments that resonate with the values of American conservatives.

They note that this holds true for issues like global warming, where it often seems as if liberal and conservatives aren't even speaking the same language. The authors note that part of the reason there has been strong support for climate action among some evangelical Christians is that the leaders of that movement are framing it in terms that conservatives understand:

Many of these groups perceive environmental degradation as a desecration of the world God created and a contradiction of moral principles of purity and sanctity, which motivates adherents to take proenvironmental stances. More generally, most of the world’s religions emphasize humanity’s role as stewards of the earth charged with keeping pure and sacred God's creation.

Perhaps it's no surprise that terms like "purity" and "sanctity" are amenable to conservatives. Conservatives also seem to like those words when applied to sex, marriage, and abortion. In order to reach more people, environmental advocates should start approaching the issue in ways that more conservatives can identify with, as co-author Robb Willer, a social psychologist at Berkeley pointed out: "Reaching out to conservatives in a respectful and persuasive way is critical, because large numbers of Americans will need to support significant environment reforms if we are going to deal effectively with climate change, in particular."