Global

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A defrocked Buddhist monk, extradited from the U.S., received a 114-year prison sentence for fraud and money laundering while police raided some of Thailand's most important Buddhist temples, jailing monks and officials allegedly involved in a separate case of money laundering and kickbacks totaling $10 million.

Investigators are now hunting suspects in that $10 million case who reportedly fled to the U.S., England, Germany and elsewhere.

"This is the purge of a lifetime. Never have there been such high-profile arrests and so many prominent monks falling from grace," said Yale-educated constitutional law scholar Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang.

Thailand's biggest-ever investigation and crackdown against corruption among officials and senior orange-robed Buddhist monks comes amid widespread public dismay about some monks' behavior and lavish lifestyles.

We’ve been given a rare opportunity. While the United States military has slaughtered innocents by the hundreds of thousands in the Middle East over the past couple of decades, almost never have U.S. television viewers seen images of the victims, in particular images of them alive just moments before death rained down on them.

Now we have video footage of dozens of little boys on a bus less than an hour before U.S.-made Raytheon bombs murdered many of them, wounded others, and traumatized survivors.

There is almost unanimous agreement among climate scientists and organizations – that is, 97% of over 10,000 climate scientists and the various scientific organizations engaged in climate science research – that human beings have caused a dramatic increase in the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide released into Earth’s atmosphere since the pre-industrial era and that this is driving the climate catastrophe that continues to unfold. For the documentary evidence on this point see, for example, ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature’, ‘Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming’ and ‘Scientists Agree: Global Warming is Happening and Humans are the Primary Cause’.

I’m aware that Canada, unlike its southern neighbor in which I live, has just recently, ever so slightly, stood up to certain of the horrors of the Saudi government. I’m aware of the role Canada has played, albeit imperfectly, as refuge for people fleeing U.S. slavery and U.S. wars and general U.S. backwardness. I’m aware of how many times through history the United States has attacked Canada. I’m aware that just several yards in front of me as I sit in my outdoor office (the downtown mall of Charlottesville) a small army is gleefully creating a police state on the anniversary of a Nazi rally at which similar numbers of soldiers, similarly armed, stood by and watched fascist violence last year. I agree with Robin Williams’ characterization of Canada as a nice apartment over a meth lab.

– Campus Police call transcript, July 31, 2018,
as released by Smith College on August 3

Hear me out.

At least that’s the hope of those who elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, aka Peje, on a platform of sweeping out the corruption — a platform promoted in Obrador’s book, A New Hope for Mexico. That Barack Obama did not permanently decommission the word “hope” for credible electoral campaigns on this continent may be the least of the book’s surprises.

Secretary of State Jon Husted:

Ohio has a long and unfortunate history of election irregularities. In recent years millions of Ohio citizens have been purged from the voter rolls. Large numbers of electronic voting machines have yielded dubious results that indicate manipulation and hacking.

In light of this, a number of serious issues have arisen surrounding this year’s special election in the 12th Congressional District.

First, let us consider that Ohio, and U.S. elections in general, are undemocratic. They fail the basic tests of transparency by allowing private, partisan, for-profit companies to secretly program the computer voting machines.

In all seven counties that comprise the 12th Congressional District in Ohio, easily hackable Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines were used. Many of the counties used the notoriously rigged Diebold AccuVote TS touchscreen voting machines.

– Traditional Scottish prayer

Two years after Russia interfered in the American presidential campaign, the nation has done little to protect itself against a renewed effort to influence voters in the coming congressional midterm elections, according to lawmakers and independent analysts.

– Washington Post, August 1, 2018