One area of spending that Americans from Left to Right are willing to cut is incarceration and the War on Drugs. According to a 2012 poll, 82% of Americans believe the country is losing the drug war, and a plurality say we should be spending less money on it. In another survey, voters overwhelmingly contend we should save money by shifting nonviolent offenders from prison to cheaper alternatives involving rehabilitation. Groups such as Right on Crime and Justice Fellowship demonstrate that many conservatives are now rethinking criminal justice policy. And of course, progressive organizations have long been beating that drum.

There is plenty of federal money to be saved. To start, President Obama’s latest budget contains $8.5 billion for prisons and detention. With about half of all federal inmates locked up explicitly for drug offenses (never mind for the collateral consequences of prohibition, including black market violence), that’s a hefty chunk of change being spent by the federal government on drug-related incarceration. Obama’s proposed budget also allocates $25.6 billion to fighting the drug war through law enforcement, interdiction, international operations, and other means. These are substantial federal investments in an approach to criminal justice that most Americans no longer believe in.

Counting state and local appropriations paints an even bleaker picture of our spending priorities. As of 2007 — the last year for which data is available — the United States spends a massive $228 billion annually on cops, courts, and corrections. Much of that money goes toward arresting, prosecuting, and locking up nonviolent offenders. As a result, our country has become the incarceration capital of the world. With less than 5% of the world’s population, we have nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners. That gives us the highest rate of incarceration and the highest number of prisoners — besting Russia, China, and all the rest.

Money aside, there is something fundamentally unfair about how our criminal laws are applied. Given that this year is the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, we would do well to reflect on the vast racial inequalities that have only gotten worse when it comes to the justice system. Consider that blacks, whites, and Latinos use and sell drugs at about the same rate. Yet people of color are far more likely to be arrested for drugs; once arrested, they’re more likely to be prosecuted; and once prosecuted, they get longer sentences. In all, two thirds of the people incarcerated for a drug offense are black or Latino even though those two groups make up less than a third of the U.S. population.

This trend of mass incarceration has had sweeping consequences. Millions of formerly incarcerated people have vastly diminished economic prospects. Millions of children have a parent behind bars. And people of color have borne the brunt of the unequal application of our nation’s criminal laws.

So as we figure out where to come up with more money for disaster relief, here’s one question we face: Would we rather spend billions on rebuilding lives and communities destroyed by natural disasters, or billions on a criminal justice system that is itself destroying lives and communities?

It’s not like taking money out of the justice system would be inherently bad for public safety. There are numerous cost-effective alternatives to mass incarceration that would free up money for things like disaster relief. Beyond Bars‘ new video, produced in partnership with the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, explores those options:

Policymakers hoping to find meaningful offsets to fund disaster aid or any other initiative will have look at three things: 1) Where there’s a lot of money, 2) where the spending is unjustifiable, and 3) where the politics and public opinion are conducive to allowing cuts, since there are very few areas in which that’s true. Mass incarceration and the drug war meet all three criteria. They just might be the only areas of spending that do.

Sen. Coburn and other politicians who insist on offsets for increases in spending should look anew at America’s approach to criminal justice. It’s perhaps our best option for making such cuts a reality.

Kate Green (Labour), MP for Stretford and Urmston and Shadow Minister of State for Equalities

Today the British House of Commons gave for a second time its overwhelming approval to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, voting 366 to 161 at the bill’s third reading.  In February, the same body overwhelmingly approved the bill by a vote of 400 to 175 at its second reading.

The bill, which would legalize marriage for same-sex couples in England and Wales, now moves to the House of Lords.

MPs debated several amendments both yesterday and today prior to the third reading vote.  The amendment receiving perhaps the most extensive debate today would have allowed Humanist groups to perform same-sex marriages (New Clause 15).  The amendment was withdrawn after the Secretary of State voiced technical concerns.  Amendment sponsors appeared committed to reintroducing into the House of Lords an updated version of the amendment which would address the concerns raised today.

Notably, today’s vote comes almost 25 years to the day after Parliament passed the shameful Section 28, which stated that “a local authority shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.  Section 28 was not repealed until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales.

Bill progress can be followed here.

Related:  British House of Commons Amends Same-Sex Marriage Bill

Gasland Part 2 continues documenting energy industry spin and climate change.

Gasland 2 screened yesterday in Normal, IL and DeSmogBlog was there to gain a sneak peak of the documentary set for a July 8 HBO national premiere.

Josh Fox’s documentary played at the Normal Theater, the second-ever screening since the film officially premiered on April 21 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. 

The movie builds on Fox’s Academy Award-nominated Gasland, further making the case of how the shale industry’s hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) boom is busting up peoples’ livelihoods, contaminating air and water, polluting democracy and serving as a “bridge fuel” only to propel us off the climate disruption cliff. 

A central theme and question of the film is, “Who gets to tell the story?” That is, industry PR pros and bought-off politicians utilizing the “tobacco playbook” and saying “the sky is pink,” or families directly injured by the industry? Fox explains how the industry has gamed the system, ensuring the communities have their voices drowned out. The Gasland films seek to tell some of the victims’ stories. 

Another theme is the bread and butter of following any big industry’s influence: following the money. In depicting the financial clout of Big Oil, Gasland 2 shows that the oil and gas industry has gone to the lengths of deploying warfare tactics – literally – on U.S. citizens to ram through its agenda. 

PSYOPs Use by Gas Industry PR Flacks Featured

Much of the content in Gasland 2 has also been covered on DeSmogBlog over the past few years.

Robert Howarth’s and Anthony Ingraffea’s prominent “Cornell Study” receives some good play in the film. Howarth and Ingraffea demonstrated that from cradle to grave, fracked gas has a more dangerous global warming effect than coal, a death knell to the “natural gas as a bridge fuel” meme. President Obama’s deployment of American Petroleum Institute “jobs” talking points for fracking is in there too.

Former head of the Dept. of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush and Republican Gov. of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, also takes a beating in the film. His appearance on “The Colbert Report” is righteously roasted, the same appearance in which he lied to U.S. citizens and declared he was “not a lobbyist” even though he was registered to lobby at that time for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Tailsman Terry the Fracosaurus,” which demonstrates the industy’s willingness to utilize propaganda on young children, receives a similar round of ridicule in Gasland 2. Fox also explains the oil industry’s use of Big Tobacco’s Playbook through interviews with Naomi Oreskes, author of Merchants of Doubt, a major theme of our coverage of both the shale gas industry and the Tea Party. 

Steve Lipsky, who was left in the dust by Range Resouces and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is one of the central characters of the film. The major villain of that tale is former PA Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who helped derail and censor the EPA’s fracking groundwater contamination study motivated by Lipsky’s water contamination in Weatherford, TX.

While the prospective shale gas export boom is covered in some depth in the film, so too is the concept of the government-industry revolving door, particularly as it pertains to Pennsylvania. The Public Accountability Initiative’s study “Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania” is featured in the film, a study we also covered.

Last but certainly not least, Gasland 2 devotes an entire section to the industry’s admitted use of psychological warfare tactics (PSYOPs) on U.S. citizens, as we first revealed in Nov. 2011.

The Houston PR conference referred to in the film is one I attended and covered in some depth. It was a gathering of industry public relations executives talking among friends about how to best manipulate mainstream media journalists, divide and conquer anti-fracking activists, and intimidate local communities to go along with fracking operations that endanger their health and drinking water.

Gasland 2 presents the audio of Range Resouces Director of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Matt Pitzarella revealing that Range hires PSYOPs Iraq War veterans to use their skills to pressure local communities. The film also features Anadarko Petroleum External Affairs Manager Matt Carmichael advising gas industry PR pros to read the Army “Counterinsurgency Field Manual” and “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” because “we are dealing with an insurgency.”

Both audio clips were obtained by Earthworks’ Sharon Wilson at the conference and provided to media by Earthworks and DeSmogBlog. CNBC first broke the story on Nov. 8, 2011.

Illinois Fracking Fight Wages On

A grim look into the United States’ austerity-driven future.

Three days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress passed a joint resolution called an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). You might remember it. In layman’s terms, it was a carte blanche for the Bush administration to go to war wherever it wanted, whenever it wanted, however it wanted, under the guise of fighting anyone who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the September 11th attackers, or “harbored” any terrorists or terror organizations connected to the attacks. That document, more than any other, launched the Global War on Terror or GWOT. President Obama long ago ditched the name and acronym, but he kept the global war.

And don’t expect that to change. On Thursday, Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Sheehan went before Congress and insisted that the Defense Department couldn’t be more “comfortable” with AUMF, as it was written, and that not a word should be altered or amended for changed circumstances. The Pentagon was so comfortable, in fact, that its officials foresee using that resolution to continue its drone-powered “dirty wars” in the Greater Middle East and Africa for years to come. “In my judgment,” Sheehan said, “this is going to go on for quite a while, yes, beyond the second term of the president… I think it’s at least 10 to 20 years.”

So there you have it. The military got its blank check for overseas wars, for sending out the drones and the special operations forces, and has no plans to change that before 2023, if not 2033. In other words, for at least the next decade, the GWOT, whatever label it’s given, will continue to be the central fixture of American foreign policy.  It’s not going anywhere. Today, TomDispatch regulars Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford of the invaluable National Priorities Project look at the “homeland” a decade into the future, as the effects of Congress’s austerity policies sink in. Put the two together and what a grim scene you have: a country investing in war in distant lands as it crumbles here at home. Andy Kroll

How America Became a Third World Country 
2013-2023 
By Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford

The streets are so much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks began closing down years ago. Some are already being subdivided and sold to the highest bidder. Reports on bridges crumbling or even collapsing are commonplace. The air in city after city hangs brown and heavy (and rates of childhood asthma and other lung diseases have shot up), because funding that would allow the enforcement of clean air standards by the Environmental Protection Agency is a distant memory. Public education has been cut to the bone, making good schools a luxury and, according to the Department of Education, two of every five students won’t graduate from high school.

It’s 2023 — and this is America 10 years after the first across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect.  They went on for a decade, making no exception for effective programs vital to America’s economic health that were already underfunded, like job training and infrastructure repairs. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Traveling back in time to 2013 — at the moment the sequester cuts began — no one knew what their impact would be, although nearly everyone across the political spectrum agreed that it would be bad. As it happened, the first signs of the unraveling which would, a decade later, leave the United States a third-world country, could be detected surprisingly quickly, only three months after the cuts began. In that brief time, a few government agencies, like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), after an uproar over flight delays, requested — and won — special relief.  Naturally, the Department of Defense, with a mere $568 billion to burn in its 2013 budget, also joined this elite list. On the other hand, critical spending for education, environmental protection, and scientific research was not spared, and in many communities the effect was felt remarkably soon.

Robust public investment had been a key to U.S. prosperity in the previous century. It was then considered a basic part of the social contract as well as of Economics 101. As just about everyone knew in those days, citizens paid taxes to fund worthy initiatives that the private sector wouldn’t adequately or efficiently supply. Roadways and scientific research were examples. In the post-World War II years, the country invested great sums of money in its interstate highways and what were widely considered the best education systems in the world, while research in well-funded government labs led to inventions like the Internet. The resulting world-class infrastructure, educated workforce, and technological revolution fed a robust private sector.

Austerity Fever

There is no gender marker on military identification cards, so it’s not an issue of being outed by any gender marker on it. But, it still was important to me — every other government database records my gender as female, and the DOD showing me as male just bothered me.

After making some preliminary telephone calls to the Department of the Navy, I was connected to Division 31D of the Navy Personnel Command (NAVPERS 31D) I was then told what the requirements are for changing one’s recorded gender with the DOD. In the process I found out the DOD directly processes all change of gender packages by transsexual retirees. However, transsexual retirees still does to submit their packages through the military service that they served in. So, since I served in the U.S. Navy, I had to submit my package to the DON.

After contacting NAVPERS 31D, I contacted folk at OutServe-SLDN, and asked them if they wanted me to test the system at the DOD in similar manner as I tested the system with the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) for the Veterans Administration (VA). I previously was the “test case” for NCTE on the VA on changing one’s recorded gender. Back in June of 2011, NCTE and the VA leadership agreed that transsexual people should be able to change their gender in the VA’s databases without a surgical letter. By using various forms of ID and personal documentation, I repeatedly tested the policy to find out what the “magic identification documents” the VA required to change gender. What I found out, and shared with NCTE was that the initial attempt to change VA policy on changing recorded gender didn’t achieve an easing of procedures to change one’s recorded gender. The VA and NCTE then went back to the drawing and fixed the problem — my testing of the system was the catalyst for creating a policy with a single procedure for changing one’s recorded gender at the VA.

So after contacting the OutServe-SLDN, they told me was that no one had ever documented for them that it was even possible to change one’s recorded gender with the DOD. Allyson Robinson, their executive director, and David McKean, their Legal and Public Policy Director, asked me just to follow the current procedures as outlined by NAVPERS 31D just to document one could actually change one’s gender with the Department of Defense, and then together we would publicize the results.

The main reason to publicize the results is so that other retired servicemembers would be aware of the procedures, and OutServe-SLDN could steer other retired servicemembers through the process I documented could be accomplished.

By documenting my change of recorded DOD gender, OutServe-SLDN and I secondarily 1.) wished to highlight that even though one could change one’s name and gender, that didn’t mean one could also update one’s DD214 (certificate of release or discharge from the military), 2.) wished to show that the policy was difficult and not in line with the recently streamlined policies for changing one’s recorded gender with the State Department (for passports) and the VA, and 3) and wished to emphasize that since former Secretary of Defense Panetta announced women are now going to be allowed to serve in combat and that as of in May of 2013 that DSM-V is no longer going to list transsexual people as disordered. We thought that publicizing that military retirees can change one’s recorded gender at DOD could be a tool to open up public dialogue on the kind of open military service for trans servicemembers — the same kind of open service for trans servicemembers that repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell afforded for lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers.

OutServe-SLDN and I looked at my change of recorded gender with the DOD as a tool to move the discussion forward on these issues. And on April 2nd, my documented gender was changed.

Others may believe I’m the first retired servicemember to change my recorded gender with the DOD, but I’m well aware that I’m not. For me, moving the dialogue forward towards trans people being able to change their DD214s; streamlining the policy for changing one’s recorded gender at the DOD; and helping open the dialogue towards open military service for trans servicemembers are goals I believe are well worth going public about my story to achieve those goals.

Simply put, I’m publicly joining the struggle for trans servicemembers’ and veterans’ ordinary equality, and I hope I’ve played a small part in the eventual achievement of that ordinary equality for trans people.

This is the count or specification under one of the charges that the government alleged Manning had committed:

SPECIFICATION 14: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, US Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 15 February 2010 and on or about 18 February 2010, having knowingly exceeded authorized access on a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network computer, and by means of such conduct having obtained information that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to an Executive Order or statute to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national defense or foreign relations, to wit: a classified Department of State cable titled “Reykjavik-13″, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, in violation of 18 US Code Section 1030(a) (1), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

According to Alexa O’Brien, he pled guilty to committing this lesser offense and not guilty to the greater offense on February 28, as follows:

…[G]uilty except the words and figures ’15 February 2010 and 18 February 2010′ substituting therefore the words and figures ’14 February 2010 and 15 February 2010′. Further excepting the words ‘knowingly exceeded authorized access’ substituting therefore the words ‘knowingly accessed’. Further excepting the words, ‘with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, in violation of 18 US Code Section 1030(a)(1),’. To the excepted words and figures, not guilty. To the substituted words and figures, guilty.

What that all means is that he did not plead guilty to “exceeding authorized access” or that he had reason to believe the information would be used “to the injury of the united states or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” He did not plead guilty to violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

The government has decided to accept the plea and not make a case that he did commit a violation of CFAA. Essentially, the prosecutors have accepted that he violated military codes, which he took an oath to follow, and are content.

Members of one of Occupy Wall Street’s offshoots, Occupy Our Homes, were arrested Monday and Tuesday demonstrating outside the headquarters of the Department of Justice in Washington.

According to Washington police the protesters attempted to enter the building.

About 100 protesters with groups called the Home Defenders League and Occupy Our Homes marched on the building about 2 p.m. Some set up tents on the lawn and sidewalk while others ran up to the building’s Constitution Avenue entrance.

According to D.C. police, 17 people were arrested. Ann C. Wilcox, an attorney who represents protesters, said several were tased during the scuffle. A D.C. police spokeswoman said D.C. police were not involved in the tasing. Federal law enforcement officials on the scene declined comment.

During the arrest tasers were used on protester Carmen Pittman who was arrested outside the Department of Justice.

Part of the reason for the protest at DOJ, according to activists, is to demonstrate strong opposition to comments Attorney General Eric Holder made regarding his inability to prosecute Wall Street banks due to the risks such a prosecution brings to the financial system. These statements were later characterized as Holder in effect saying some banks were Too Big To Jail and therefore corruption by Wall Street would continue indefinitely with the tacit sanction of the government.

Occupiers also cited the unjust fraudulent foreclosure settlement and continual foreclosures as grievances that led to the protest. The miniscule amount of money the banks paid is not only seen as comically inefficient at making victims whole but extremely ineffective in deterring future crimes. The banks escaped justice thanks to the Justice Department.

The Occupy Our Homes protest at DOJ is part of the Wall Street Accountability Week of Action.

The Republican and Independents who have heard the most about it disapprove of it the most strongly, while better informed Democrats are more likely to rally around the Obama administration.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident of reflexive partisan defensiveness. Many things Democrats once disapproved of under George W. Bush, like unauthorized military intervention, they support because Obama did it.

Bush engaged in many abuses of power but in some ways Obama may have done even more significant long-term damage by normalizing these abuses and giving them a bipartisan seal of approval. Obama has helped turn principled concerns into just another partisan fight.

Kim is believed by the government to have disclosed classified information to Rosen about North Korea. The FBI claims to have evidence that Rosen “solicited” information from Kim.

Special Agent Reginald B. Reyes of the FBI declared in an affidavit, “I believe there is probable cause to conclude that the contents of the wire and electronic communications pertaining to SUBJECT ACCOUNT are evidence, fruits and instrumentalities of criminal violations of 18 USC 793(d) (Unauthorized Disclosure of National Defense Information), and that there is probable cause to believe that the Reporter has committed or is committing a violation of 793(d), as an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator, to which the materials relate.” [italics added]

The argument that there was probable cause that Rosen violated 793(d)—a section of the Espionage Act—was used to obtain further access to records in Rosen’s email account from Google.

James Goodale, former general counsel of the New York Times, who argued the Pentagon Papers case, would likely find this conclusion to be incorrect. In his book, Fighting for the Press, he points out the government submitted a “memorandum of law” where they argued the Times had violated 793(d). This section is only supposed to apply to government employees.

However, there is another way to think about this legal interpretation: the FBI thinks Rosen made it possible for Kim to commit his crime and, without Rosen’s assistance, he would have never leaked classified information. [cont'd]

• Nationally, nearly half of all seniors (48%) live with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty threshold under the supplemental measure, compared to 34 percent under the official measure.³  The share of seniors with incomes below 200 percent of poverty is higher under the supplemental measure in every state than under the official measure.⁴
• Under the supplemental measure, at least two-fifths of seniors (40%) have incomes below 200 percent of poverty in 48 states and in DC; using the official measure, this is the case in only six states.
• At least half of seniors have incomes below 200 percent of poverty in 10 states and DC based on the supplemental measure: DC (59%); California (56%); Hawaii (55%); Georgia (54%); Louisiana, New York, Rhode Island, and Tennessee (52%); Florida and Mississippi (51%); and Arizona (50%).

Of course in light of this new data many elected officials in Washington, including President Obama, call for making the problem significantly worse by cutting Social Security benefits using the Chained-CPI.

It should be noted that even without cutting government programs this problem will likely get much worse in the future. The pension system has been steadily eroding for years, which should leave many Americans with insufficient income when they try to retire.