❖ Wal-Mart is #1 on the Fortune 500 list for the year.

❖ Emptywheel wonders why the White House won’t release the 6,000 page torture report from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

❖ The Archbishop of Tuxla Gutierrez (Mexico) says “abortion is much more serious than rape of children by priests.”

❖ Remember Colin Small, that Republican who discarded VA voter registration forms in a dumpster last year? He was “charged with 13 criminal counts including eight felony charges.” The felony charges were dropped yesterday. Why?

❖ A bill in the NC state senate would impose a tax penalty on “parents whose children register to vote at their college address”. It’s called the “Equalize Voter Rights” act.

❖ “Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and executive vice president of the National Association for Gun Rights, said that he was looking forward to November because it will be ‘time to hunt Democrats’.”

❖ Children born in AK, CA, HI, OR and WA between 1 to 16 weeks after the Fukushima meltdown were “28% more likely to suffer from congenital hypothyroidism” than were children born in those places a year earlier.

❖ The UN General Assembly has finally approved “the first global arms trade treaty by 154 votes to three [Iran, North Korea, Syria], with 23 abstentions” including Russia and China.

❖ Nourished by Austerity, “Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn goes global with political ambitions.”

❖ Big turn of the old revolving door as Mary Schapiro, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission joins Promontory Financial, whose founder says “Mary is an outstanding advocate for investors”. While others are expressing some–ahem–concern, Yves Smith lays it all out.

My great uncle was one of the original chemists of Monsanto… the boss had no money for the payroll and he paid them in shares… my great aunt had to work in a sweatshop for two years so that they could eat…. they all ended up rich. In those days there was a rotating board of directors, so every so often my relative, like the other original chemists, was chairman of the board…only in America, eh what? He was a lovely old guy, when I was a little kid.

News. News. News.

❖ Contrary to official denials, turns out Guantanamo Bay detainees were given injections of scopolamine, a so-called “truth drug”.

“The Marine Corps says it will court-martial two non-commissioned officers for allegedly urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters last year in Afghanistan and posing for unofficial photos with casualties.”

Links and links of news.

Good evening, Firepups! It’s yours truly with the news and hopes that a great weekend awaits you!

News from all over.