For Whom Do You Lobby, Madame Secretary?

[Octafish]

Tom Gallagher brings up something missing from the tee vee and my weekend's noosepaper:

For Whom Do You Lobby, Madame Secretary?

by Tom Gallagher
Published on Friday, December 7, 2012 by Common Dreams

On the same day that we learned Michael Bloomberg would like Hillary Clinton to succeed him as New York City mayor, the Secretary of State was making modest headlines on her own: “Clinton lobbies for US firm in Czech nuclear bid.”

The company was Westinghouse which is trying to get the contract to build a nuclear power plant. At first blanch, the story made perfect sense since the State Department has gotten pretty thick with the Czech Foreign Affairs Ministry lately – to the point where our governments and Canada’s were the only three of the world’s 83 largest nations (those with populations over 10 million) to vote against U.N. non-member observer nation status for Palestine. But there was one thing off with the lobbying story – Westinghouse isn’t actually an American company.

Oh it was once, certainly. George Westinghouse did start it in Pennsylvania in 1886, but since 2006 the Japanese corporation Toshiba has been running it. They actually picked it up from British Nuclear Fuels Limited. You see, Westinghouse bought CBS in 1995, changed its own name to CBS in 1997 and sold Westinghouse, now a nuclear power company, to the Brits in 1999. If you have trouble following that, remember that, as Governor Romney so well reminded us, corporations are people and people do some funny things.

At any rate, the competition for what will be the Czech Republic’s biggest-ever energy contract appears to come from a Russian competitor, Atomstroyexport. At least we’re told it’s Russian – as you know, it can be hard to tell these days. Now the idea that it is tasked with running interference for American business has always been widely held in the State Department and the public has come to expect it. And you can see how those guys got in the groove of opposing all things Soviet during the Cold War and how this might easily translate into trying to keep the edge on the successor Russian government. But just what is the basis for lobbying for Toshiba? Who reaps the benefits? And why?

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/07

So. In this nuclear world of ours, a Japanese company owns an American name that our government is shilling for.

No wonder Assange and Manning are in trouble, let alone anyone who stands in the way of empire. Uh. I mean, "progress."

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. For some, the truth is greatly overrated. For some, having a big "D" and a certain gender is enough.

[Octafish]

4. Toshiba is a reminder of the relationship of money to loyalty - corporate, national, personal.

From (PDF) Curbing Illegal Transfers of Foreign-Developed Critical High Technology from CoCom Nations to
the Soviet Union: An Analysis of the ToshibaKongsberg Incident by Stephen D. Kelly...

"The Toshiba-Kongsberg sales substantially enhanced Soviet submarine technology and seriously damaged U.S. national security. The Soviet Union used the milling machines to produce quieter submarine propellers which have made their strategic nuclear submarines more difficult to track at sea."

[oasis]

19. I remember Toshiba was supposed to suffer a two year trade sanction penalty

Because it was such a serious offense. But, as I recall,Toshiba products just kept selling as usual.

[Octafish]

26. A Norwegian firm also prospered.

Money. It even forgives treason.

http://lubbers-line.blogspot.com/2005/10/toshiba-and-russian-espionage-again.html?m=1

FTNTTS: The Taming of the Screw

http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/anglesdangles/taming2.html

[Robb]

2. How many US jobs does Westinghouse maintain?

What other nongovernment entities compete with Westinghouse in the nuclear industry?

Why didn't GE buy Westinghouse when it could?

Barking up the wrong tree, I think.

[leftstreet]

3. Is this about 'national' interests or 'corporate' interests?

...and as the articles implies, is there any difference?

Is it Secretary of State or Secretary of Corporations?

[Octafish]

5. It's about jobs, really?

Last I read, Westinghouse was letting American workers go.

Getting back to the point of the OP, from a year back:

WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad

by Rania Khalek on June 23, 2011

One of the most significant scourges paralyzing our democracy is the merger of corporate power with elected and appointed government officials at the highest levels of office. Influence has a steep price-tag in American politics where politicians are bought and paid for with ever increasing campaign contributions from big business, essentially drowning out any and all voices advocating on behalf of the public interest.

Millions of dollars in campaign funding flooding Washington’s halls of power combined with tens of thousands of high-paid corporate lobbyists and a never-ending revolving door that allows corporate executives to shuffle between the public and private sectors has blurred the line between government agencies and private corporations.

This corporate dominance over government affairs helps to explain why we are plagued by a health-care system that lines the pockets of industry executives to the detriment of the sick; a war industry that causes insurmountable death and destruction to enrich weapons-makers and defense contractors; and a financial sector that violates the working class and poor to dole out billions of dollars in bonuses to Wall Street CEO’s.

The implications of this rapidly growing corporatism reach far beyond our borders and into the realm of American diplomacy, as in one case where efforts by US diplomats forced the minimum wage for beleaguered Haitian workers to remain below sweatshop levels.

In this context of corporate government corruption, one of WikiLeaks’ greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington’s diplomacy. Many of the WikiLeaks US embassy cables reveal the naked intervention by our ambassadorial staff in the business of foreign countries on behalf of US corporations. From mining companies in Peru to pharmaceutical companies in Ecuador, one WikiLeaks embassy cable after the next illuminates a pattern of US diplomats shilling for corporate interests abroad in the most underhanded and sleazy ways imaginable.

CONTINUED...

http://raniakhalek.com/2011/06/23/5-wikileaks-revelations-exposing-the-rapidly-growing-corporatism-dominating-american-diplomacy-abroad/

Talk about barking up the wrong tree.

[blm]

7. No surprise here.

.

[Octafish]

8. You got a long memory, blm.

War is big business. It's an insider's game. It's why we have so much secret government.

The last remaining enormous wads of cash in the Treasury are to be had for purchasing today's modern military industrial intel complex.



There's more than a trillion to be grabbed -- just for the Lockheed-Martin F-35.

Now keeping tabs on us -- people interested in using some of the nation's treasure for more peaceful purposes -- are for-hire spies. How do I know this? Julian Assange and Anonymous:

WikiLeaks' Stratfor Dump Lifts Lid on Intelligence-Industrial Complex

WikiLeaks' latest release, of hacked emails from Stratfor, shines light on the murky world of private intelligence-gathering

by Pratap Chatterjee
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 by The Guardian/UK

What price bad intelligence? Some 5m internal emails from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based company that brands itself as a "global intelligence" provider, were recently obtained by Anonymous, the hacker collective, and are being released in batches by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, starting Monday.

The most striking revelation from the latest disclosure is not simply the military-industrial complex that conspires to spy on citizens, activists and trouble-causers, but the extremely low quality of the information available to the highest bidder. Clients of the company include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, as well as US government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Marines.

SNIP...

Assange notes that Stratfor is also seeking to profit directly from this information by partnering in an apparent hedge-fund venture with Shea Morenz, a former Goldman Sachs managing director. He points to an August 2011 document, marked "DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS", from Stratfor CEO George Friedman, which says:

"What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-10?print

If it weren't for Anonymous and WikiLeaks, we probably wouldn't know about any of that.

It's no joke. It's no unimportant story. It's no boring history. Run by insiders, the secret government is key to making the system run on behalf of the few -- the 1-percent of 1-percent. Central to that is intelligence -- economically, politically and military useful information.

Which brings up the nation's purported free press, the only business mentioned by name in the entire United States Constitution, and how the organizations therein have miserably failed to feature prominently the sundry and myriad ways the insiders on Wall Street and their toadies in Washington do the work for Them.

The problem is systemic. The corruption is systemic.

Because it involves oversight of secret organizations -- the Pentagon, Homeland Security, CIA, etc -- Congress and the Administration often have no clue, let alone oversight, to what is happening because the corruption is marked "Top Secret."

Secret government also means We the People can't do our job as citizens, which is to hold them accountable and find the ones responsible in order to vote the crooks out and, it is hoped, the honest ones in.

With no citizen oversight, anything goes. And it doesn't stop.

Remember this fine fellow, US Navy fighter ace Randy "Duke" Cunningham?

Later a member of the United States Congress, he used his position to feather his nest, Big Time.



In his political career, Cunningham was a member of the Appropriations and Intelligence committees, and chaired the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence during the 109th Congress. He was considered a leading Republican expert on national security issues.

Currently, he's in USP Tuscon or another fine facility where he gets three squares, medical and dental.
He's due for release in a year or so. He'll be able to pick up his pension.

"The Duke Cunningham Act, also known as the Federal Pension Forfeiture Act, was introduced by U.S. Senator John F. Kerry in 2006. The bill would have denied pension benefits to any members of Congress convicted of bribery, conspiracy or perjury. The bill died in committee. (Source: The Press Enterprise)

Duke wasn't alone. He really was just one snake in a long line of snakes. Remember Dusty Foggo, Number 3 at CIA and close associate of CIA Director and former Congressman Porter Goss? Swells sitting atop the peak of political and military secrecy and power.

Unfortunately, when it comes to modern governance, no oversight means means the insiders are getting away with murder, and warmongering and treason and all the power that they bring. Appointed pretzeldent George W Bush on Valentine's Day 2007 put it in words: "Money trumps peace."

Secret government warmongering and war profiteering are systemic. Secret government is rotten to the core. What's more, in a democracy that once really was land of the free and home of the brave, secret government poses the greatest threat to true national security.

[hootinholler]

14. It's kind of odd how that investigation petered out

Even after ol Duke was 'cooperating.' IIRC a US Attorney got a sweetheart deal at a law firm in LA and everyone else kind of forgot about it or ended up so troubled they tragically took their own life in a garage in Florida.

Not unpredictable, but odd.

[Octafish]

24. US Attorney Carol Lam got fired by Karl Rove's body.

From our friends at BuzzFlash:

Why was U.S. Attorney Carol Lam Fired? Here are a Few Political Possibilities.

Tuesday, 20 March 2007 15:21
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

We know the fired U.S. Attorneys were booted for political reasons, but at this point there is simply no way to know exactly what those reasons were. For example, several possible explanations are floating around surrounding the ouster of ex-San Diego prosecutor Carol Lam. Here's a few:

Duke Cunningham Conviction
Lam was responsible for the investigation and conviction of disgraced Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Cunningham got eight years in federal prison for taking more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors just a few months before the midterm elections, a significant blow to the party.

Kyle Foggo Indictment
Lam didn't stop with Cunningham. Among the other indictments was Kyle Foggo, the third-ranking official in the CIA. Foggo was involved in corruption and bribery with the same defense contractor as Cunningham. The day after Lam notified the Justice Department that search warrants would be issued, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff wrote the following in an email:

"The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam ... leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her four-year term expires."

Rep. Jerry Lewis Investigation
The above email did not mention what the "real problem" was. While some stories tie it to Foggo, others tie it to the investigation of Rep. Lewis, the former chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee who was also tied by Lam into the Cunningham case. The email was sent the very day the New York Times identified that Lam had begun investigating Lewis.

Dick Cheney Implicated in Scandal
Lam may have been getting close to uncovering a possible role by Dick Cheney himself in the Cunningham case. Mitchell Wade, the convicted defense contractor involved in the scandal, got $140,000 from the White House on July 15, 2002 to provide Cheney with "office furniture and computers." It was his very first federal contract. Just two weeks later Wade bought a yacht for Cunningham for the price of exactly $140,000.

There are also a number of possible Cheney connections to the corrupt GOP types that Lam was prosecuting, including a politically and environmentally charged sewage treatment project in Tijuana to alleviate San Diego's growing need in this area.

Freak coincidence or illegal corruption conspiracy? You decide- Carol Lam can't because she was fired.

She appears to be the woman who loved justice too much for the Busheviks.

CONTINUED w LINKS...

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/1837-why-was-us-attorney-carol-lam-fired-here-are-a-few-political-possibilities-tell-us-what-you-think-the-reason-was

Thank you for remembering all what's worth remembering, hootinholler.

[hootinholler]

29. Oh, I was thinking of Debra Wong Yang

Who I've mentioned before, got a sweet deal to leave the Lewis case, which was a referral from Lam's prosecution of the Dukester: (Supporting Links at the link)

So, back to sunny SoCal, and Carol, possibly fired as punishment for Cunningham, who leads to the WH. Right before she left she delivered indictments of Foggo and Wilkes, and possibly turned over to the LA office A case regarding Rep. Jerry Lewis (an unfortunate but perhaps apt name) who has already lawyered up at Gibson Dunn, a big LA firm.

That case would have landed on the desk of Debra Wong Yang, the United States Attorney for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Now, Ol Debbie there, I don't think was on the enemies list, but, she did leave the office for private practice at (you might have guessed it) Gibson Dunn. She allegedly got a tidy signing bonus to the tune of $1.5 Mil.

But wait! There's More!

Douglas M. Fuchs will join the firm's Los Angeles office as of counsel (sic). Fuchs was previously an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of California, where he served as Deputy Chief of the Major Frauds Section. - Forbes

As a bonus, let me throw in this!

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is pleased to announce that Maurice Suh, the former Deputy Mayor of Homeland Security and Public Safety for the City of Los Angeles will join the firm as partner in the Los Angeles office.

Previously, Suh has served as the former Deputy Chief of the Public Corruption and Government Fraud Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles and was a partner at Howrey LLP. Suh will focus his practice at Gibson Dunn on complex commercial litigation, internal corporate investigations, and defense of government investigation and enforcement actions. Suh will also work with partner Robert Bonner, the former head of the Customs Department and a former federal judge, in the firm’s fast-growing homeland security practice.

[Octafish]

32. You are a marvel, Hootinholler.

The new stars' appointments and their complex un-follow throughs have all the fingerprints of a Texas conman. I've got a lot of new names to put in the BFEE Rolodex.

Going for the stones they chose to turn over, such as the now-paroled Brent R. Wilkes, they gave a pass to the monster that still roams free -- the Old Boy Network of systemic revolving door corruption that results from war profiteering.

From Corporate McPravda's POV: All is fair and balanced in Bartertown, as Jerry decided to retire this term. His legacy, however, lives on. As do the machinations of the secret team.

PS: Your Journal is a must-read, second to none. Thank you for taking the time to create a record from which we can learn and move forward.

[hootinholler]

39. I should dust off my file of notes

And do a reprise of all the Attorneys General that were affected in the purge.

The problem is going to be recognizing the new guard as the old guard expires. Poppy is in hospital for the last 3 weeks with a "cough" and I expect W is off somewhere drunk. Jeb is probably working towards a 2016 run, but other than him there aren't many on the radar.

I still think we need a social register to keep tabs on the up and coming's cronies. I expect your rolodex is quite full, wouldn't it be nice if you could cross check it with Jack Anderson's.

[Octafish]

40. Was Carol Lam Targeting The White House Prior To Her Firing?

Thankfully, she may've found a richer calling. Others have yet to find theirs, let alone their remains.

Was Carol Lam Targeting The White House Prior To Her Firing

By Faiz Shakir on Mar 19, 2007 at 1:52 pm

lamReferring to the Bush administration’s purge of former San Diego-based U.S. attorney Carol Lam, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned recently on the Senate floor whether she was let go because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful.”

The media reports this morning that among Lam’s politically powerful targets were former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). But there is evidence to believe that the White House may also have been on Lam’s target list. Here are the connections:

– Washington D.C. defense contractor Mitchell Wade pled guilty last February to paying then-California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes.

– Wade’s company MZM Inc. received its first federal contract from the White House. The contract, which ran from July 15 to August 15, 2002, stipulated that Wade be paid $140,000 to “provide office furniture and computers for Vice President Dick Cheney.”

– Two weeks later, on August 30, 2002, Wade purchased a yacht for $140,000 for Duke Cunningham. The boat’s name was later changed to the “Duke-Stir.” Said one party to the sale: “I knew then that somebody was going to go to jail for that…Duke looked at the boat, and Wade bought it — all in one day. Then they got on the boat and floated away.”

– According to Cunningham’s sentencing memorandum, the purchase price of the boat had been negotiated through a third-party earlier that summer, around the same time the White House contract was signed.

CONTINUED w/LINKS...

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/03/19/11209/carol-lam-white-house/?mobile=nc

PS: Remember the CIA, er FBI, retroactively classified Jack's files and cleaned them out from under the family.

"It's my father's legacy," said Kevin N. Anderson, a Salt Lake City lawyer and one of the columnist's nine children. "The government has always and continues to this day to abuse the secrecy stamp. My father's view was that the public is the employer of these government employees and has the right to know what they're up to."


http://archive.truthout.org/article/fbi-wants-jack-andersons-papers

[hootinholler]

41. That's news to me.

I knew they (the FBI) tried to bury Jack's papers, but I thought the family was successful in defending them.

As to Lam's target, I thought it was more the Naval Observatory (and Pentagon) than the White House, but in loose terms, I suppose it would have led there eventually.

I have to wonder how Poppy's cough is progressing.

ETA, Oh and if *I'm* a marvel, I can't think of words for what you are Der Fishie. Much respect and if you ever get over this way, I have some scotch to share.

[Robb]

18. It's OK to say "I don't know."

[Octafish]

20. Thanks for remind me, Robb. How many jobs does Westinghouse provide in the United States?

Why didn't GE buy Westinghouse when it could?

Please, do tell.

[Robb]

25. 9-10K, a little less than half of that in the nuke division.

Recall Toshiba got its 51% stake for $5.4 billion in 2006. Almost twice what GE was willing to pay -- and, IIRC, actually bid.

It was supposed to be a great deal, still -- $6-8 billion in promised China contracts alone would cover the cost of obtaining a majority stake. Less than a billion dollars in clean-up liabilities. And like $50 billion in future China work to chase after. Easy money.

But GE dropped out at half that. I wouldn't be the first to say it would've been as satisfying for GE to buy Westinghouse as it would be for Pepsi to buy Coca-Cola.

Yet Immelt bailed, even for the -- let's face it -- paltry sum of $5.4 billion. The next year Westinghouse inked the deal with China for four reactors -- they contracted six in 2007, the Westinghouse ones were the only to be built by a non-government-owned (e.g. private sector) company.

(French state-owned Areva got the gig on the other two, with Mitsubishi reactors. Mitsubishi bailed on the Westinghouse bidding around the same time GE did.)

Immelt meanwhile talked his board into focusing "development" money on US lobbying and European contracts, almost like he thought Asia was too risky. It was the China connections that made Westinghouse worth a dime, and GE walked away.

Toshiba signed the majority holding deal about two weeks after Chūetsu. Immelt took a $6 million bonus. And you think Japan's pulling the strings?

[Octafish]

35. Thank you! As many as 10,000 jobs?

Sumner Redstone must have thought nukes were on the way out. From what I understand, he kept MTV and dumped CBS and the nuclear business.

Regarding the selling price, it seems to have gone up in a bidding war. Nevertheless, British Nuclear Fuels Limited sold too soon and for too little, as China was jumping into the nuclear power game with both feet.

OTOH, getting one's foot in the door is the main point of the nuclear game, isn't it?

[antigop]

6. watch it, Octafish, or you will be called a "hater" or something. Thanks for that. nt

[Octafish]

9. What I hate is war and secret government.

They are most un-democratic, especially in regards to nuclear technology:

Japan’s Nuclear Industry: The CIA Link.

By Eleanor Warnock
June 1, 2012, 10:18 AM JST.
Wall Street Journal Blog

Tetsuo Arima, a researcher at Waseda University in Tokyo, told JRT he discovered in the U.S. National Archives a trove of declassified CIA files that showed how one man, Matsutaro Shoriki, was instrumental in jumpstarting Japan’s nascent nuclear industry.

Mr. Shoriki was many things: a Class A war criminal, the head of the Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan’s biggest-selling and most influential newspaper) and the founder of both the country’s first commercial broadcaster and the Tokyo Giants baseball team. Less well known, according to Mr. Arima, was that the media mogul worked with the CIA to promote nuclear power.

SNIP...

Mr. Shoriki, backed by the CIA, used his influence to publish articles in the Yomiuri that extolled the virtues of nuclear power, according to the documents found by Mr. Arima. Keen on remilitarizing Japan, Mr. Shoriki endorsed nuclear power in hopes its development would one day arm the country with the ability to make its own nuclear weapons, according to Mr. Arima. Mr. Shoriki’s behind-the-scenes push created a chain reaction in other media that eventually changed public opinion.

SNIP…

Mr. Shoriki, backed by the CIA, used his influence to publish articles in the Yomiuri that extolled the virtues of nuclear power, according to the documents found by Mr. Arima. Keen on remilitarizing Japan, Mr. Shoriki endorsed nuclear power in hopes its development would one day arm the country with the ability to make its own nuclear weapons, according to Mr. Arima. Mr. Shoriki’s behind-the-scenes push created a chain reaction in other media that eventually changed public opinion.

CONTINUED...

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/06/01/japans-nuclear-industry-the-cia-link/

PS: Thank you, antigop, for caring about who's who and what's what.

[antigop]

12. and thank you for your posts. I have learned a lot from them. nt

[Scuba]

10. K&R

[Octafish]

16. One thing trumps peace.

Money.

Toshiba to Buy Shaw's 20% of Westinghouse

By KANA INAGAKI
Wall Street Journal
Oct. 10, 2012

TOKYO—Toshiba Corp. 6502.TO -2.14% said Wednesday it will buy out Shaw Group Inc.'s SHAW 0.00% 20% stake in nuclear power-plant company Westinghouse Electric Co. for about ¥125 billion ($1.6 billion) and pursue the search for new investment partners.

The company said it would use cash on hand and loans to buy Shaw's entire stake in Westinghouse by January 2013. Following the news, Toshiba shares dropped as much as 4.4% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Toshiba earlier said it was in talks with various parties to sell some of its 67% stake in Westinghouse on the condition that it keep its stake in the U.S. unit above 50%. The planned sale is part of Toshiba's effort to make the nuclear-power business more globally competitive and to raise cash to sustain its financial standing.

In a statement, Toshiba said it would be open to talks with potential investors if the company can expect "to share long-term business prospects and strategies with partners, and secure positive synergies."

Westinghouse has been at the core of Toshiba's global nuclear-power business, which has encountered headwinds since last year's accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, to which the Japanese company supplied two reactors.

CONTINUED...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578047721238227476.html

The thing is, what nuke plants are really good for:

United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium

By Joseph Trento
on April 9th, 2012
National Security News Service

The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.

The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.

SNIP...

A year ago a natural disaster combined with a man-made tragedy decimated Northern Japan and came close to making Tokyo, a city of 30 million people, uninhabitable. Nuclear tragedies plague Japan’s modern history. It is the only nation in the world attacked with nuclear weapons. In March 2011, after a tsunami swept on shore, hydrogen explosions and the subsequent meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant spewed radiation across the region. Like the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan will face the aftermath for generations. A twelve-mile area around the site is considered uninhabitable. It is a national sacrifice zone.

How Japan ended up in this nuclear nightmare is a subject the National Security News Service has been investigating since 1991. We learned that Japan had a dual use nuclear program. The public program was to develop and provide unlimited energy for the country. But there was also a secret component, an undeclared nuclear weapons program that would allow Japan to amass enough nuclear material and technology to become a major nuclear power on short notice.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html

Thank you, Scuba, for caring about democracy and all the other important stuff.

[Mnemosyne]

11. What bullshit. Let them lobby on their own, WTF. Thanks Octafish. nt

[Octafish]

22. Ask Cass Sunstein, the nuclear lobby is a really interesting thing.

Look what their bosses report:

Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility

By ERIC LIPTON
The New York Times
Published: August 22, 2012

WASHINGTON — Early in the Obama administration, a lobbyist for the Illinois-based energy producer Exelon Corporation proudly called it “the president’s utility.” And it was not just because it delivers power to Barack Obama’s Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago.

SNIP...

Exelon’s efforts peaked in 2011, White House meeting records show. Mr. Rowe flew to Washington in March, and met with William M. Daley, then Mr. Obama’s chief of staff; Cass Sunstein, then the head of the White House office that oversees all federal regulations; Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Gina McCarthy, the agency’s top air pollution official. Exelon’s competitors were seeking extra time to comply with the rule, which the administration was under a court order to issue. Exelon and its industry allies argued against any extension.

SNIP...

In the weeks before the draft rule was issued, Exelon lobbyists attended two other White House meetings, records show, giving it greater White House access than any other company or environmental group trying to influence the outcome. The Exelon meetings included Mr. Sunstein, who supervised the process, while utilities arguing against the regulations also made their case, but to lower-level staff members, the records show.

SNIP...

“It is a huge mistake to associate the number of meetings with the ultimate product of the rule-making process,” said Mr. Sunstein, who resigned his post this month. “And I want to put ‘huge’ in bold letters.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/us/politics/ties-to-obama-aided-in-access-for-exelon-corporation.html

Demonstrating balance, fairness and objectivity and a blonde disregard for its advertisers' not infrequent felonies, NYT even brings in an expert on the subject from the American Enterprise Institute at the end.

My 2 cents on Mr Sunstein.

[Egalitarian Thug]

13. Who? The Senator from Tata? The same people she has always worked for. K&R n/t

[Octafish]

27. When it comes to promoting the nation's interest, odd how often it coincides with one's own.

Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/photos-news/Photos-DayInPictures/ClintondIndiavisit/Article4-433591.aspx



Then there's Jackson Stephens and the whole BCCI Thing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=977792&mesg_id=985500

[Egalitarian Thug]

33. Just a series of wild and random coincidences. Nobody could possibly be that clever. n/t

[LiberalLovinLug]

15. Thanks for this Octafish

And for the tip-o-the-hat to Assange, Manning and Wikileaks. There's a couple of anti-freedom of information chicken littles on here that work to diminish Wikileaks work.

[Octafish]

37. What has Wikileaks ever taught us?

A blast from the DU past that has relevance for today and tomorrow:

How often have we been told in world-weary tones that Wikileaks has revealed nothing new - especially by those who want to appear to be in the know? Here is an aide-mémoire of a few of the highest profile revelations.

by Ryan Gallagher
17 February 2011
OpenDemocracy.net

Since 2006, whistleblower website WikiLeaks has published a mass of information we would otherwise not have known. The leaks have exposed dubious procedures at Guantanamo Bay and detailed meticulously the Iraq War's unprecedented civilian death-toll. They have highlighted the dumping of toxic waste in Africa as well as revealed America's clandestine military actions in Yemen and Pakistan.

The sheer scope and significance of the revelations is shocking. Among them are great abuses of power, corruption, lies and war crimes. Yet there are still some who insist WikiLeaks has "told us nothing new". This collection, sourced from a range of publications across the web, illustrates nothing could be further from the truth. Here, if there is still a grain of doubt in your mind, is just some of what WikiLeaks has told us:

SNIP...

•The Obama administration worked with Republicans to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation into torture (see Mother Jones)

SNIP...

•More than 66,000 civilians suffered “violent deaths” in Iraq between 2004 and the end of 2009 (see the Telegraph)

CONTINUED with LINKS...

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/what-has-wikileaks-ever-taught-us-read-on

Gee. No wonder they want to shut up Assange and the Internet he rode in on.

PS: The picture above is of Jose Padilla in his sensory deprivation goggles.

PPS: You are most welcome, LiberalLovinLug! Thank you for caring about stuff like Democracy and the First Amendment and the future of the nation and planet.

[locks]

17. They circle the globe

For info on the Shaw group, BP and all the cover-ups of governments around the world and their control by corporations, including the US, read Greg Palast's Vultures' Picnic. Do we have anyone left in the administration, Congress, or the judicial who speaks for the little guy and is not owned by corporations?

[Egalitarian Thug]

34. Bernie Sanders. n/t

[Octafish]

38. The Cashberg

...is how Greg Palast put the situation. We just see a little bit of it sticking out, above the surface.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., got a look on the radar and stands with Palast as to how best avoid the disaster ahead:

A Hostile Takeover of our Country
Treasonous, Noxious, Thieving, Tyrannical


EXCERPT...

I have no problem characterizing these corporate-centric super-PACs as treasonous. We are now in a free fall toward old-fashioned oligarchy; noxious, thieving and tyrannical.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/rfk-jr-a-hostile-takeover-of-our-country-treasonous-noxious-thieving-tyrannical/

Thank you for knowing and caring, locks! Democracy works, were it not for the money.

[HiPointDem]

21. what good would it do to break up the soviet union if the satellites stay within the russian orbit?

[woo me with science]

23. K&R for more exposure

of what we are really dealing with.

[leveymg]

28. This stuff never gets old, and it never reaches its half-life. Not in our lifetime, anyway.

If you're not shopping, you're not a good American. Do your part. Pull your load. Learn to ignore.

[marmar]

30. k/r

[Trailrider1951]

31. Thank you Octafish

Your posts are MUCH appreciated. DU would be the poorer with out them......

[Le Taz Hot]

36. Kick

because it's a must-read.

[Overseas]

42. K&R. I didn't realize Westinghouse had been sold so long ago.