SchwartzReport: South America Rising + New World Order II Meta-RECAP

01 Brazil, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 07 Health, 07 Venezuela, 08 Immigration, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

The America media, like a long chain of administrations, never really seems to understand the South American psyché, in all of its national complexity, nor what is going on there. So there is very little coverage or attention, and what there is trades in stereotypes and shallow commentary. In contrast I think the nations of our Southern Hemisphere, are undergoing an extraordinary transition, which constitutes one of the most interesting geopolitical developments going on. As you read this keep in mind Uruguay's recent legalization of marijuana.

Ecuador’s President Denounces Chevron As ‘Enemy of Our Country’
Agence France-Presse (France)

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2013/08/162013/08/16

Penguin: 4th Media on Fukushima – NIGHTMARE Gets Worse!

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude

The News is Bad: The Fukushima Nightmare Gets Worse

Just when it seemed things might be under control at Fukushima, we find they are worse than ever.

Immeasurably worse.

Massive quantities of radioactive liquids are now flowing through the shattered reactor site into the Pacific Ocean. And their make-up is far more lethal than the “mere” tritium that has dominated the headlines to date.

Tepco, the owner/operator–and one of the world’s biggest and most technologically advanced electric utilities–has all but admitted it cannot control the situation. Its shoddy performance has prompted former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Dale Klein to charge: “You don’t what you are doing.”

The Japanese government is stepping in. But there is no guarantee–or even likelihood–it will do any better.

In fact, there is no certainty as to what’s causing this out-of-control flow of death and destruction.

Some 16 months after three of the six reactors exploded at the Fukushima Daichi site, nobody can offer a definitive explanation of what is happening there or how to deal with it.

Continue reading “Penguin: 4th Media on Fukushima – NIGHTMARE Gets Worse!”

2013/08/162013/08/16

Marcus Aurelius: Unlawful Command Influence Compounded by Ignorance

03 Economy, Military

Article below and accompanying SECDEF memo are about a non-trivial, very high-stakes issue that threatens to destroy the military chain of command. Principal immediate causes are the actions of two separate Air Force three-staff commanders, one of them female, who exercised their lawful discretion as courtmartial convening authorities in accordance with Article 60 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. What they specifically did was set aside the sexual assault convictions of two Air Force officers, a lieutenant colonel and a captain. That led to several things, two of which are particularly important: the female three-star has had her career destroyed — her promotion to a four-star command position has been suspended indefinitely. Broader and worse, Senator Kristin Gillibrand (D-NY) is leading a Congressional crusade to take commanders out of the military justice loop, at least insofar as sexual assault cases are concerned. All of the attendant publicity led to POTUS making the statements attributed to him and to military judges taking the actions attributed to them; I have read at least one of the MJs' decisions — very tightly reasoned; senior JAGs I talk to say it's 100% spot on. This stuff is far from being over and, ultimately, Congressional action could jeopardize lives on some future battlefield.

SecArmy Letter 14 Aug 2013

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Wall Street Journal

BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
August 14, 2013

Hagel's Science of Logic

The secretary compounds Obama's unlawful command influence.

JAMES TARANTO

“I won't be in a policy-making position,” Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel memorably declared during his confirmation hearings in February. Six months later, Secretary Hagel is living up to that promise. He is engaged at the moment in a high-stakes effort at damage control–trying to unmake a mess that the commander in chief (along with Hagel's predecessor) made.

As this column noted, the New York Times reported on the problem last month:

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2013/08/15

Esam Al-Amin: Egypt’s Shameful Day — Bloodbath on the Nile

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

Esam Al-Amin is the author of The Arab Awakening Unveiled: Understanding Transformations and Revolutions in the Middle East. He can be contacted at alamin1919@gmail.com. follow him on Twitter: @al_arian1919.

COUNTERPUNCH

August 15, 2013

Egypt’s Shameful Day

Bloodbath on the Nile

In June 1967, it took Israeli forces only six hours to rout the Egyptian military and devastate its air force, inflicting the most humiliating defeat on the Arab world in the last half century. In the 1973 October war, the Egyptian army killed 2600 Israeli soldiers in 20 days of combat. Nearly forty years later, the Egyptian military turned its guns on its own citizens to much devastation: on August 14, it took the combined forces of Egypt’s army and police twelve hours to disperse tense of thousands of unarmed peaceful protesters in two sit-in camps in the eastern and western suburbs of Cairo. It was a determined effort by the July 3 coup leaders to not only defeat their political opponents, but also to strike a decisive blow to democracy and the rule of law in Egypt and across the Arab world.

Since June 28, Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have been camped out at these two sites, initially as a show of support to President Mohammad Morsi as he was being challenged by the opposition. But since he was deposed on July 3, the protesters have been demanding his return, the restoration of the suspended constitution, and the reinstatement of the dissolved parliament. For 48 days, the sit-ins and demonstrations across Egypt attracted millions of Morsi supporters as well as pro-democracy groups, who protested the coup’s nullification of their presidential and parliamentary votes and their ratification of the referendum on the new constitution.

An Obstinate Military Enabled by Liberal and Secular Forces and Western Powers

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2013/08/122013/08/12

SchwartzReport: Everything You “Know” About Drugs Is Wrong

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement

As Marijuana Prohibition begins to crumble, the ugly racist truth about the War on Drugs is beginning to come out.

Everything You Know About Drugs Is Wrong
TESSIE SWOPE CASTILLO – Salon

It’s not every day you read a book that blows the lid off of everything you’ve ever been taught about drugs, but Dr. Carl Hart’s recent work, ‘High Price,” does just that. Part memoir, part myth-buster, the fast-paced read details his journey from a violent Miami ghetto to the halls one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

At the heart of ‘High Price” is the argument that current U.S. drug policies are not only morally wrong, but scientifically wrong as well, a game of politics and fear-mongering in which our government sanctions the widespread prescription of certain drugs, while locking more than 1.5 million people behind bars each year for the use of others. If you’ve ever wondered why our nation pops OxyContin like candy, while its twin sister, heroin, evokes fears of driveling, strung-out junkies, High Price has an answer – just perhaps not the one you were expecting. I caught up with Hart to talk about the book, his career and how he thinks American drug policy needs to change.

What made you decide to write this book – and how did you decide to include personal stories in a book about the science of drugs?

Read full interview.

2013/08/10

Chuck Spinney: Newt Gingrich as Dr. Evil, Bill Clinton as Dr. Lesser [But Still Very] Evil

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Government

Jeff St. Claire and the late, and much missed, Alexander Cockburn have written an excellent and important history of how the democrats under Clinton sold out their heritage and, in effect, became the enablers of the Republicans in the construction of the emerging American police.

WEEKEND EDITION AUGUST 9-11, 2013

Welfare Reform and an Ever-Expanding Police State

The Origins of the Neoliberal War on the Poor

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Counterpunch

In November of 1994 two years of ramshackle government, breached pledges and the Clinton administration’s frequently manifested contempt for its traditional base, exacted their price. In the midterm elections Republicans seized control of both the House and the Senate for the first time since the Eisenhower era. The rout extended to governors’ mansions across the country, where the Republicans captured the majority of governorships for the first time in a quarter-century. Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House, became the nation’s political wunderkind.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Newt Gingrich as Dr. Evil, Bill Clinton as Dr. Lesser [But Still Very] Evil”

2013/08/06

Laurence Kotlikoff: Please Support the INFORM Act, Inter-Generational Fiscal Gap and Accounting Integrity

03 Economy, Ethics, Government

Dear Friends,

I write to ask you to join 11 Nobel Laureates in Economics, other leading economists, and former government officials in endorsing the INFORM ACT (Intergenerational Financial Obligations Reform Act) at www.theinformact.org.

All endorsements will be included in a letter to Congress, which is posted on the website, that will appear early this fall in a full-page ad in the New York Times.

The INFORM ACT, which I drafted in large part with the assistance of Alan Auerbach, requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to do fiscal gap and generational accounting on an annual basis and, upon request by Congress, to use these accounting methods to evaluate major pieces of proposed legislation.