July 27, 2021

She Blew The Whistle On Military Sexual Assault, Then Came Under Investigation

Amy Braley-Franck, who has a hearing this week on her two-year suspension, says more needs to be done for victims.

Nick Turse
July 26 2021, 5:30 p.m.

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION has made combating sexual assault in the military a major policy goal. In January, as his first directive in office, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum calling on senior Pentagon leaders and top generals to “battle enemies within the ranks” with the aim of wiping out the “scourge of sexual assault.”

From 2013 to 2019, that was also Amy Braley-Franck’s mission — advocating for victims of sexual crimes within the military. A day after she informed a top general about widespread mishandling of sexual assault cases, however, she was suspended from duty and has been ever since.

“The military is its own society, as stated by Justice William Rehnquist, and those that speak outside the approved narrative are shunned,” Braley-Franck told The Intercept.

Braley-Franck has been a high-profile whistleblower, bringing the issue of sexual assault and command abuses to public attention, from the Senate Armed Services Committee to “CBS This Morning.” She even played a role in the Biden administration’s signature effort at curbing sexual misconduct in the armed forces: a recent report that recommends radical reform of the military justice system.

For close to two years, though, Braley-Franck has been suspended from her role as an Army sexual assault prevention and response victim advocate. She sees the suspension, at the hands of a general she was serving under, as a clear case of retaliation. On Tuesday, she has a hearing about a grievance she filed with the Army to resolve the issue.

https://theintercept.com/2021/07/26/military-sexual-assault-whistleblower-suspension/

July 26, 2021

The Harms of Infrastructure Privatization: A Step Backward in Progressive Policymaking

JULY 26, 2021

By Joseph Stiglitz

This week, the White House and congressional negotiators are working to hammer out a bipartisan infrastructure framework—one component of the Biden administration’s laser focus on upgrading crumbling infrastructure and making essential, long-overdue public investments that would be of enormous benefit to the country.

As always, however, the devil is in the details.

Specifically, the bipartisan framework lists several items as “proposed financing sources for new investment,” including public-private partnerships (P3s) and asset recycling. These proposals should be a cause for concern.

In many cases, such measures are back doors to privatization—with public funds paying for projects controlled by unaccountable private firms whose primary motive is to increase their own profits.

These kinds of proposals represent a misguided reversion to a neoliberal framework that has, for decades, widened economic inequality, prioritized extractive corporate power over people, and hollowed out our public capacity.

https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2021/07/26/the-harms-of-infrastructure-privatization-a-step-backward-in-progressive-policymaking/

Brief Biography of Joseph E. Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. A recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979), he is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and a former member and chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers. In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 2001 and received that university's highest academic rank (university professor) in 2003. In 2011 Stiglitz was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Known for his pioneering work on asymmetric information, Stiglitz's work focuses on income distribution, risk, corporate governance, public policy, macroeconomics and globalization. He is the author of numerous books, and several bestsellers. His most recent titles are People, Power, and Profits, Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy, Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited, The Euro and Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy.

https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/bio

July 24, 2021

Legal Brief From Mississippi AG Calls for Supreme Court to Undo Abortion Rights

( grrrrrrrrr )

BY
Chris Walker, Truthout
PUBLISHED
July 23, 2021

The state of Mississippi, in an upcoming legal battle over a restrictive abortion law it passed just a few years ago, is formally asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn its ruling in Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that protected the right to access abortion services across the entirety of the country.

The Court is set to hear arguments in the fall over the legality of the state’s 15-week abortion ban, which lower courts have ruled unconstitutional. Mississippi Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch, in filing a legal brief for the case this week, is urging justices to overrule the nearly-50-year precedent that protects abortion rights.

Roe v. Wade, along with other Supreme Court opinions protecting abortion access, “are unprincipled decisions that have damaged the democratic process, poisoned our national discourse, plagued the law — and, in doing so, harmed this Court,” Fitch’s legal brief reads.

“Mississippi has stunningly asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe and every other abortion rights decision in the last five decades,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a statement responding to the legal filing made on Thursday. “Today’s brief reveals the extreme and regressive strategy, not just of this law, but of the avalanche of abortion bans and restrictions that are being passed across the country. Their goal is for the Supreme Court to take away our right to control our own bodies and our own futures — not just in Mississippi, but everywhere.”

https://truthout.org/articles/legal-brief-from-mississippi-ag-calls-for-supreme-court-to-undo-abortion-rights/

July 24, 2021

The Upside-Down Doctor

( Fraud is not a crime? )


June 2021

Joe Mercola is a doctor at war with medicine. His take on the pandemic is a lucrative, conspiratorial fever dream

Dr. Joe Mercola, an osteopathic physician who has made an impressive fortune selling supplements through his online store, has a new book out about the COVID-19 pandemic, a book which he co-authored with Ronnie Cummins, an organic food crusader. This book, as well as Mercola’s decades of peddling health misinformation on the Internet, exemplifies the dangerous blind spot of the wellness movement. Health gurus are not in the business of public health; they rise to fame by framing health as a personal choice and by selling immune boosters that have earned, they wrongfully claim, a scientific seal of approval.

Mercola’s conspiratorial take on COVID-19 is monumentally wrong, but the upside-down world he paints with his alarming words is based on real concerns. Mercola invites the already leery reader to follow him down a very deep rabbit hole.


The book’s black cover, devoid of imagery, is used as a minimalist canvas for its interminable title: The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal: Why We Must Unite in a Global Movement for Health and Freedom. Amazon currently lists it as the #1 best-seller in its “Political Freedom” category.

Summarizing the book is, in effect, summarizing the misinformation surrounding COVID-19. In short, Mercola and Cummins argue that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and its escape was capitalized on by every cabal, government, and corporation you can think of to scare people into looking away while they stole most of the world’s financial resources for themselves. None of the diagnostic tests, treatments, or public health measures can be trusted; rather, the disease is mild and protection is afforded to smart people who have no health conditions, eat the right food, and load themselves up with the right supplements.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health-pseudoscience/upside-down-doctor

July 23, 2021

Medicare for All Rallies in 50 Cities Show Big Support for Universal Health Care

Members of National Nurses United union members wave "Medicare for All" signs during a rally in front of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in Washington, D.C, calling for "Medicare for All" on April 29, 2019.

BY
C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout
PUBLISHED
July 23, 2021

The United States is one of the richest countries in the world, yet its poverty rates are higher and its safety nets are far weaker than those of other industrialized nations. It is also the only large rich country without universal health care. In fact, as Noam Chomsky argued in Truthout, the U.S. health system is an “international scandal.”

Why is the U.S. an outlier with regard to health care? What keeps the country from adopting a universal health care system, which most Americans have supported for many years now? And what exactly is Medicare for All? On the eve of scheduled marches and rallies in support of Medicare for All, led by various organizations such as the Sunrise Movement, Physicians for a National Health Program, the Democratic Socialists of America and concerned citizens throughout the country, the interview below with Peter S. Arno, a leading health expert, sheds light on some key questions about the state of health care in the United States.

Peter S. Arno is senior fellow and director of health policy research at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and a senior fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance. Among his many works is his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, Against the Odds: The Story of AIDS Drug Development, Politics & Profits.


C.J. Polychroniou: U.S. health care is widely regarded as an outlier, with higher costs and worse outcomes than other countries. Why are health care expenditures in the U.S. significantly higher than those of other industrialized countries? And how do we explain poor health outcomes, including life expectancy, compared to most European nations?

https://truthout.org/articles/medicare-for-all-rallies-in-50-cities-show-big-support-for-universal-health-care/

July 23, 2021

Military Justice Reform Adopted Into Annual Defense Bill

The entirety of Sen. Gillibrand’s bill has landed in the NDAA. But supporters worry that the political hurdles are far from over.

BY AMELIA POLLARD JULY 23, 2021

After nearly a decade of wrestling with the political whims of the military’s version of #MeToo, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) military justice reform bill has secured another potential path to ratification by making its way into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA is a must-pass policy measure typically adopted in December. But it’s also a notorious target for political deals, and can be unreliable ground for even popular measures.

Gillibrand has worked diligently on legislation that would bring all non-military felonies out of the traditional chain-of-command process and have them pursued by independent prosecutors. The legislation was triggered by a high-profile epidemic of sexual assault in the military, where victims struggled to bring their assaulters to justice.

Despite securing an impressive 66 co-sponsors for the bill this legislative session, Gillibrand and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who teamed up to rally support, still faced a block on the Senate floor, ultimately preventing a stand-alone vote. As the Prospect reported last month, that block came in an unexpected form: from Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI).

https://prospect.org/politics/military-justice-reform-adopted-into-annual-defense-bill/

July 23, 2021

Eight Months Later, A Vigilante Shooting Over A Trump Sign Divides Topeka

Two white men in Kansas shot into a car of Latino teenagers and went home. Almost a year later, neither shooter is in custody.

Akela Lacy

July 22 2021


GRAINY BLACK-AND-WHITE security footage shows a backyard with a shed and a modest deck framed on either side by statuettes of a dog and an owl. Lights glow in the distance from neighboring homes, street lamps, and passing cars. It’s a quiet night — Halloween 2020.

Several minutes into the video, a light on the side of the shed flashes on, and four people run by. One appears to be limping slightly. A woman walks out of the house onto the deck, looking in the direction of the running figures. Abruptly, she turns and goes back into the house. A minute or so passes. The shed light turns back on as two figures run through the frame in the opposite direction. The woman runs across the yard to open the shed door, and the video ends.

The woman didn’t know it at the time, but she had witnessed the aftermath of a shooting. Earlier that night in Topeka, Kansas, two men — then-39-year-old Army veteran and Walmart employee Robert Sinner and his then-34-year-old brother, Justin — had confronted a car full of five teenagers they thought took a Donald Trump sign from a used auto lot near their house. The Sinners live around the corner from the car dealership; the day before the shooting, the owner of the lot, Rick Wright, told them that the teenagers had been repeatedly taking his Trump sign.

It appears that the Sinners were expecting a conflict when they approached the teenagers the next evening. According to court filings, they claim that they noticed a group of people “behind their house” trying to steal the Trump sign. The Sinners were armed with a handgun and a rifle when they approached the car, according to a police report, and when the boys tried to drive off, the men started shooting. They fired more than 30 shots, continuing after the car had driven away and putting one of the boys in the intensive care unit for 10 days with a bullet in his back. A crash followed, and two other boys were taken to the emergency room with gunshot wounds. The Sinners claimed that the boys had tried to run them over and clipped Justin with the side of the car.

https://theintercept.com/2021/07/22/topeka-shooting-halloween-trump-sign/

July 21, 2021

Anti-Trust VICTORY For Progressives, Kanter Nomination Deals Another BLOW To Silicon Valley

The Hill
1.21M subscribers
Ryan Grim and Rachel Bovard react to President Biden's nomination of Jonathan Kanter to lead antitrust at the DOJ. They also discuss the arrest of Trump ally, Thomas Barrack, for lobbying then-President Trump on behalf of the UAE.

July 21, 2021

How the US military got rich from Afghanistan

( Recall how Trump sold himself as the change/anti-war candidate? Another lie some still believe )

From Korea onwards, falloffs in spending have lasted little longer than the parades for returning troops

July 19, 2021

FROM THE MAGAZINE
Written by
Andrew Cockburn


The departure of American troops from Afghanistan is being lamented (or hailed — see the Chinese press, passim) as a defeat. But this is a shortsighted attitude, at least from the point of view of the US military and the multitude of interested parties who feed at its trough. For them, the whole adventure has been a thumping success, as measured in the trillions of taxpayer dollars that have flowed through their budgets and profits over the two decades in which they successfully maintained the operation.

The truth of this was forcefully brought home to me once by a friend of mine who, as a mid-level staffer, attended a conclave of senior generals discussing Donald Trump’s Afghan mini-surge back in 2018. As he related the conversation, they were unanimous that the move would make absolutely no difference to the war, ‘but,’ they happily agreed, ‘it will do us good at budget time’.

Years before, Col. John Boyd, the former Air Force fighter pilot who famously conceived and expounded a comprehensive theory of human conflict, had pointed out that there was no contradiction between the military’s professed mission and its seeming indifference to combat success. ‘People say the Pentagon does not have a strategy,’ he said. ‘They are wrong. The Pentagon does have a strategy. It is: “Don’t interrupt the money flow, add to it.”’

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/pentagon-rich-afghanistan-military-budget/

July 21, 2021

Secret NYPD Document Teaches Cops To Illegally Raid Sealed Records

Police are running roughshod over a half-century-old law preventing access to the sealed arrest records of 3.5 million people.

Nick Pinto
July 21 2021, 8:00 a.m.

THE NEW YORK Police Department has been training its officers to break a long-standing law that bars police from snooping in the sealed arrest records of millions of innocent people, according to court papers filed in a lawsuit last week.

The news comes in a class-action lawsuit concerning the police department’s practice of flouting a state law designed to protect people from discrimination, harassment, and further legal consequences over old arrests that didn’t result in a conviction. The Bronx Defenders, a public defense organization, brought the legal action against New York City and the NYPD.

Defense lawyers in New York say they regularly find NYPD printouts of their clients’ old sealed arrests in prosecutors’ paperwork, and police sources often leak the sealed arrest histories of people killed by police and political enemies to the media. The leak of Eric Garner’s sealed arrest history after he was killed by police in 2014, for example, is now the subject of a judicial inquiry.

The flouting of the records law results in the perpetuation of a racist regime of harassment in which bad arrests lead to more bad arrests, a “garbage-in, garbage-out” cycle, said Niji Jain, a lawyer with the Bronx Defenders’ impact litigation practice and one of the attorneys on the case.

https://theintercept.com/2021/07/21/nypd-secret-training-sealed-arrest-records/