OpEd: Why Isn't Elizabeth Warren Running Again?
by Jason Johnson
7/19/2015

....SNIP....Plus I'm sure Hillary pulled some sort of Jedi Mind Trick on Warren when they met privately last December, just to make sure the Massachusetts Senator didn't get any funny ideas about an insurgent campaign. However, when you actually get the chance to see Senator Warren in action, and you consider the paucity of talent and enthusiasm elicited by the current Democratic field, it really makes you wonder why she's choosing to sit this one out.



This hypothetical political scenario is due to seeing Senator Elizabeth Warren lay out an articulate, passionate, witty and ultimately memorable speech at the Netroots Nation convention in Phoenix Arizona. Netroots (think 'grassroots' plus 'internet') is a conference for progressive activists and online activists to meet up, network, share ideas and get inspired to do the often thankless job of community activism.

....SNIP....

It was, if anything a reverse of the old "silent majority" argument. While for years Republicans claimed that there was a vast silent majority that agreed with conservative principles but were just to busy being good Americans to vocalize their beliefs Warren argues that the majority are articulating a much more progressive opinion of policy but Congress just won't listen. It's an argument that has legs when you consider four red states voted to raise the minimum wage, and privately many Republicans are happy the Supreme Court didn't do away with Obamacare.



....SNIP....

Unfortunately as Senator Warren left the stage that fleeting moment was gone. The Progressive audience has to go back to convincing themselves that Bernie Sanders has a chance if they want liberal issues to be addressed.

Senator Warren will join the pantheon of great 'coulda, shoulda' run candidates like Governor Cuomo in 1992 or Colin Powell in 2000. Maybe she realizes that she can only be that candid with the Netroots audience. Maybe she just wants to stay in the Senate. Or maybe Hillary Clinton's mind games are that good. Regardless of the reason, America seems to be missing out on a special kind of message this election season, one that only the packed room at Netroots Nation got to experience.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/oped-why-isnt-elizabeth-warren-running-again-n394741

30 Things You Didn’t Know About Rivers
by
Peter Bosshard


The Nam Ou River in Laos.

1. Rivers are some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Rivers and lakes sustain more fish species than the sea even though they contain 600 times less water.

2. Rivers feed us. Freshwater fisheries currently sustain up to 550 million people on a fish-based diet.


Victoria Falls

3. Rivers are the cradles of our civilizations. Our most ancient cultures sprang up along rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Indus, and the Yellow.

4. Dams have fragmented two thirds of the world’s great rivers. They store about 7,000 cubic kilometers or one sixth of the water flowing in rivers.


Biya River, Russia

5. Rivers shape our planet and have created some of its most beautiful landscapes. Think of the Grand Canyon, the Iguaçu and the Victoria Falls!

6. We cry to Ol’ Man River, dance By the Rivers of Babylon, and waltz along the Blue Danube. Rivers have inspired great music around the world.


Elwha River, Washington

7. With a length of 6,853 kilometers, the Nile is the world’s longest river. With a mere 27 meters, the Reprua River in the Caucasus may be the shortest.

8. An estimated 10,000-20,000 freshwater species have been lost or are at risk. 37% of the world’s freshwater fish species – including 24 of 26 sturgeon species – are threatened by extinction.


The Colorado River, Grand Canyon

9. By depositing nutritious silt on floodplains and deltas, rivers have created our most fertile agricultural lands, from the Mekong Delta to California’s Central Valley.


Tellico River, North Carolina

10. Rivers sustain fish populations offshore. Because of the nutrients they carry to the sea, 80% of the world’s fish catch comes from continental shelves.


Cape Fear River, North Carolina

11. Rivers unite us. Some 276 rivers flow across more than one country, and their basins cover almost half the Earth’s land surface.

(12-30 at link)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/07/16/30-things-you-didnt-know-about-rivers

How Europe’s climate policies led to more U.S. trees being cut down


A logging truck loaded with freshly cut hardwoods enters the Enviva wood-pellet plant in Ahoskie, N.C. (Joby Warrick/The Washington Post)

.....But that claim is increasingly coming under challenge. A number of independent experts and scientific studies — including a new analysis released Tuesday — are casting doubt on a key argument used to justify the cutting of Southern forests to make fuel. In reality, these scientists say, Europe’s appetite for wood pellets could lead to more carbon pollution for decades to come, while also putting some of the East Coast’s most productive wildlife habitats at risk.

“From the point of view of what’s coming out of the smokestack, wood is worse than coal,” said William H. Schlesinger, the former dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and one of nearly 100 scientists to sign a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency last year asking for stricter guidelines on using biomass to generate electric power. “You release a lot of carbon in a short period of time, and it takes decades to pull that carbon back out of the atmosphere.”

...Facing mandates to cut back on coal, European governments are offering generous subsidies to utility companies that switch to biomass and other renewables. The price break makes wood pellets — easily twice as expensive per ton as coal — affordable. For formerly coal-dependent countries such as Britain, wood pellets are an especially attractive option because they can be burned in the country’s existing coal-fired power plants without significant modifications.

As a result, demand for wood pellets is soaring, particularly from the United States. U.S. exports of wood pellets doubled between 2012 and 2014, from 2 million tons to 4.4 million, and climate policies are expected to drive even higher increases over the next decade. After surpassing Canada in 2012, the United States “continues to be the largest wood pellet exporter in the world,” an April report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration stated.



VIEW GRAPHIC

...Environmental groups sharply contest Enviva’s claim that it predominantly uses tree waste. Photographs supplied by activists showed trucks entering an Ahoskie, N.C., plant loaded with mature trees. During a visit last week to the plant, a reporter also observed a steady stream of trucks entering the front gate, each hauling trailers stacked with up to 50 freshly cut tree trunks, many of them more than a foot in diameter....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/how-europes-climate-policies-have-led-to-more-trees-cut-down-in-the-us/2015/06/01/ab1a2d9e-060e-11e5-bc72-f3e16bf50bb6_story.html

Why Would 46 Senators Support Burning Trees for Electricity When It Contributes More to Climate Change Than Coal?
Published: July 10, 2015 | Authors: Lukas Ross | Ecowatch | News Report


Fudging the math to create the illusion of progress doesn’t actually keep carbon out of the atmosphere, and while these anti-science attacks are a familiar song from deniers, our climate champions should know better than to play along.


Chopping down trees and feeding them to power plants for electricity is a genuinely awful idea. Unfortunately, none of this stopped 46 senators from publicly endorsing the idea last week. Led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the group wrote a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy demanding that the agencies accept something that is clearly, demonstrably false: that biomass power is carbon neutral. While the letter was chock full of anti-science Senators like David Vitter (R-LA), others like Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) fancy themselves climate leaders and should know better.



The science is clear. Sending whole trees through the smokestacks of power plants is a terrible way to generate electricity. Even using rosy accounting assumptions, it could take at least 50 years to work-off the carbon debt and break even with coal, meaning that burning wood now puts extra emissions into the atmosphere at precisely the time when reductions are most important. At the end of the day it is simply an inefficient source of electricity, emitting 50 percent more carbon than coal generating the same amount of energy. Leaving trees alone and allowing them to function as natural carbon sinks is a much more effective way to mitigate climate change.

The troubling part is that the timing of this letter wasn’t an accident. Any day, the U.S. EPA is expected to release the final version of its Clean Power Plan, the rule designed to lower carbon emissions from power plants. It hurts biodiversity, belches toxic chemicals and contributes more to climate change than coal—all while masquerading as a source of clean “renewable” energy....

You know to worry when supposed climate champions are willing to line up with outright deniers in order to promulgate an industry myth. The letter contains loads of lawmakers who hate the EPA and want to sabotage the Clean Power Plan, including avowed climate deniers like Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV). Also on the list are senators like Cory Gardner (R-CO) who sometimes admit that climate change is real, but who avidly supports doing nothing about it.

On the other side of the spectrum, these deniers have some strange company. Sen. Jeff Merkley led the charge for the democrats, and he has lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters of 98 percent. He was joined by other high profile environmental champions like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Al Franken (D-MN), who boast lifetime scores of 89 and 93 percent respectively.

Really, the only thing these lawmakers have in common is a commitment to taking money from timber. Last November the industry poured more than $1.5 million into contested senate races, and unsurprisingly Merkley and Collins both did rather well with $40,399 and $35,250 each.

The senate isn’t the only place timber has been investing....

Read more here~
http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/07/10/why-would-46-senators-support-burning-trees-for-electricity-when-it-contributes-more-to-climate-change-than-coal/

Signatories of the letter include 46 U.S. Senators: Susan Collins (R-ME), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Roy Blunt (R-MI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), John Boozman (R-AR), Bob Casey (D-PA), Richard Burr (R-NC), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Al Franken (D-MN), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Tim Kaine (D-VA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Angus King (I-ME), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Steve Daines (R-MT), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Patty Murray (D-WA), Johnny Isaskson (R-GA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), David Perdue (R-GA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Rob Portman (R-OH), Jon Tester (D-MT), James Risch (R-ID), Mark Warner (D-VA), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Tim Scott (R-SC), John Thune (R-SD), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Pat Toomey (R-PA), David Vitter (R-LA), Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Goldman Sachs Could be Sued for Helping Hide Greece's Debts: Report
7/11/15



ATHENS: If Greece follows the advice of a former Goldman Sachs banker, the global investment banking firm could face legal action for helping hide the European country's debts through complex transactions, a media report said on Saturday.

Jaber George Jabbour, who formerly helped design the transactions known as “swaps”, has offered help to the Greek government in a formal letter saying that it could “right historical wrongs as part of (its) plan to reduce Greece’s debt”, British daily The Independent reported.

The Syrian-born banker, who advises indebted governments battling investment banks over expensive complex derivative trades that turned sour, has told the Greek government in a formal letter that it has a chance of clawing back some of the money it paid Goldman to secure its position in the eurozone.

Jabbour has in the past assisted Portugal in restructuring some complex trades, which later helped uncover a scandal that cost many senior political officials their jobs.

According to the daily, Goldman Sachs banker Antigone Loudiadis stitched the swaps together, which made about 2 percent of Greece’s debt disappear from its national accounts.

Goldman swapped debt issued by Greece in dollars and yen for euros which were priced at a historical exchange rate that made the debt look smaller than it actually was, the report added.

The country's membership of the euro in 2001 gave it access to billions of easy credit which it was then incapable of paying back, leading to its current crisis....

http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/Goldman-Sachs-Could-be-Sued-for-Helping-Hide-Greeces-Debts-Report/2015/07/11/article2914811.ece

... The banking giant made as much as $500 million from the transactions known as "swaps", which translated Greek debts issued in dollars and yens into euros, the British daily says. The figure is, however, disputed by Goldman, which refuses to state an exact number. The deals were prepared by Antigone Loudiadis, who reportedly received $12 million a year for the job.

Now Loudiadis’ former colleague, Jaber George Jabbour, who used to design swaps at Goldman, sent a formal letter to the Greek government, saying it could “right historical wrongs as part of [its] plan to reduce Greece’s debt,” the report says.

Jabbour, who now runs Ethos Capital Advisors, had successfully assisted Portugal in renegotiating trades made during the financial crisis, resulting in major compensations paid by London banks to the country and a parliamentary investigation in Portugal. He also helped expose the alleged mismanagement of Libyan national assets by Goldman Sachs and Société Générale that reportedly resulted in billions in losses....

Jabbour believes Goldman received unreasonable profits from the swap deals and the Greeks can seek compensation for that. He also believes evidence may be produced that the sole purpose of the transactions was to cover the size of the Greek national debt and facilitate further borrowings.

http://rt.com/business/273208-greece-goldman-debt-lawsuit/

IMF: Do this, or face another financial crisis
7/7/15

The U.S. government needs to implement greater financial reforms under the Dodd-Frank Act in order to address new risks, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday. (Tweet This)

"Regulatory reforms remain incomplete and the structure of oversight has scope to be strengthened along a number of dimensions," the IMF said. "The regulatory landscape remains fragmented resulting in gaps, overlaps, and the potential for delayed responses to emerging risks, and should be simplified over time."

The IMF added that while the 2010 enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the Financial Stability Oversight Council, has taken steps to avoid another crisis similar to the one in 2008, it is not equipped to deal with the risks posed by "new pockets of vulnerabilities" which have emerged since.

"Risks are elevated in the non-bank sector, where 'run' and 'redemption' risks are increasing as a result of leverage and maturity transformation, and deeply interconnected wholesale funding chains. Insurers have taken on greater market risk and could be faced with negative equity in a downside scenario," the report also said, adding that large banks are even more interconnected than they were in 2010.

Aditya Narain, the IMF's Capital Markets Department division chief in financial sector analysis, said in a conference call that "these recommendations need to be implemented to avoid another financial crisis."...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/imf-face-another-financial-crisis-143004892.html

Obama Won’t Let Some Mass Graves Stop the TPP
The Nation
7/10/15


It appears Malaysia will be given a free pass on human trafficking in order to protect the controversial trade deal.

When Congress finally passed fast-track trade authority last month, there was a major problem for President Obama and his trade negotiators: a provision of the bill forbid any fast-tracked trade deal from including countries on Tier 3 of the State Department’s human trafficking list.

That’s the worst classification the United States gives to countries in its Trafficking In Persons annual report, a status earned by countries like Zimbabwe, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and North Korea. Also on the list: Malaysia, one of the 12 potential signatories to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that is in the final round of negotiations this month.

Malaysia is home to many “outsourcing companies” that are, in reality, professional slaving operations: foreign workers, often refugees fleeing desperate situations in nearby countries like Burma, are recruited to the country with the promise of legitimate work but then subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The State Department and international human rights groups have routinely concluded the Malaysian government does very little to inhibit the traffickers’ operation.

...Instead, the Obama administration appears to have chosen another path that has shocked the human-rights community: It will simply reclassify Malaysia. Reuters has reported that when the Trafficking in Persons report comes out next week, Malaysia will no longer be a Tier 3 country.

There is essentially zero evidence Malaysia has done anything to earn this reclassification. Just two months ago, police found 139 mass graves along the Malaysian border that contained migrant workers that had been trafficked or held for ransom.

...Outrage also came Thursday from Representative Rosa DeLauro, a leading fast track and TPP opponent in the House. “The only reason to upgrade Malaysia to a tier two country is to bypass the ban that is currently in U.S. law,” she said in a statement. “President Obama and Secretary Kerry must do the right thing and not arbitrarily upgrade Malaysia as a means to secure the TPP. This is an irresponsible, unacceptable political game.”

....“I was shocked and I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think these things would happen,” said Human Rights Watch’s Sifton. “If it happened on House of Cards, I’d say ‘Oh, that’s not plausible.’”

http://www.thenation.com/article/obama-wont-let-some-mass-graves-stop-tpp/

Local Ohio Officials Petition Governor for Return of Their Right to Protect Citizens From Fracking
Friday, 10 July 2015
By Candice Bernd, Truthout | Report



More than 100 local Ohio officials, including mayors, county commissioners and city councilors, have issued a letter to Governor John Kasich petitioning him for the right to ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking) - or simply regulate drilling activities - within their own borders.

The letter, organized by Environment America, states:

Fracking … imposes particular burdens on local communities, from strained services to ruined roads. As with other extractive booms, the arrival and expansion of fracking operations has been correlated with a wide range of social problems, including increases in domestic violence, drug use, traffic accidents and civil disturbances. Other local impacts - such as water and soil contamination and reduced property values - are likely to persist long after the boom is gone, and we will be the ones left to pick up the pieces.

Local residents whose homes are adjacent to gas well sites live with nearly constant noise, light and air pollution, nonstop truck traffic and decreased property values. Local residents also face potential water and soil contamination, especially if well water is a resident's primary water source.

The call to restore local control comes after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the state expressly preempts cities' and counties' authority to regulate oil and gas drilling, effectively killing any Ohio municipality's ability to ban fracking. Ohio courts have dealt multiple blows to "home rule" authority for Ohio communities. Most recently, a Cuyahoga County judge upheld an earlier decision last week to dismiss a fracking ban in the Cleveland suburb of Broadview Heights....

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31808-local-ohio-officials-petition-governor-for-return-of-their-right-to-protect-citizens-from-fracking