2024 August 21 « nuclear-news

How US Big Tech monopolies colonized the world: Welcome to neo-feudalism

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qf1wQ9QeaKM%3Fsi%3DVZnBiiGVSmyGNFRE

US Big Tech corporations are like the feudal landlords of medieval Europe. These Silicon Valley monopolies own the digital land that the global economy is built on, and are charging higher and higher rents to use their privatized infrastructure.

GeoPoliticalEconomy, By Ben Norton, 19 Aug 24

US Big Tech corporations have essentially colonized the world. In almost every country on Earth, the digital infrastructure upon which the modern economy was built is owned and controlled by a small handful of monopolies, based largely in Silicon Valley.

This system is looking more and more like neo-feudalism. Just as the feudal lords of medieval Europe owned all of the land and turned almost everyone else into serfs, who broke their backs producing food for their masters, the US Big Tech monopolies of the 21st century act as corporate feudal lords, controlling all of the digital land upon which the digital economy is based.

Every other company – not just small businesses, but even relatively large ones – must pay rent to these corporate feudal lords.

Amazon takes more than 50% of the revenue of the sellers on its platform, according to a study by the e-commerce intelligence firm Marketplace Pulse.

Amazon’s cut of vendor revenue steadily rose from roughly 35% in 2016 to just over half as of 2022.

In fact, Amazon basically sets prices in markets by using its infamous “buy box”. The platform removes the button if a user sells a product at a price higher than those offered on competing websites. The result: 82-90% of sales on Amazon end up using the buy box.

Neoclassical economists endlessly condemned the inefficiencies of the central planning of the Soviet Union, but apparently have little to say about the de facto price setting being done by neo-feudal corporate monopolies like Amazon.

A monopolist in the 20th century would have loved to control a country’s supply of, say, refrigerators. But the Big Tech monopolists of the 21st century go a step further and control all of the digital infrastructure needed to buy those fridges — from the internet itself to the software, cloud hosting, apps, payment systems, and even the delivery service.

These corporate neo-feudal lords don’t just dominate a single market or a few related ones; they control the marketplace. They can create and destroy entire markets.

Their monopolistic control extends well beyond just one country, to almost the entire world.

If a competitor does manage to create a product, US Big Tech monopolies can make it disappear.

Imagine you are an entrepreneur. You develop a product, make a website, and offer to sell it online. But then you search for it on Google, and it does not show up. Instead, Google promotes another, similar product in the search results.

This is not a hypothetical; this already happens.

Amazon does exactly the same: It promotes Amazon Prime products at the top of its search results. And when a product sells well, Amazon sometimes copies it, makes its own version, and threatens to put the original vendor out of business.

As Reuters reported in 2021, “A trove of internal Amazon documents reveals how the e-commerce giant ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoff goods and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines”. This happened in India, but vendors in other countries have accused Amazon of doing the same.

Toy salesman Molson Hart produced a fascinating documentary that illustrates Amazon’s dystopian monopoly power.

Amazon is more powerful than any 19th-century robber baron could have imagined. It charges exorbitant fees to vendors that sell goods on its platform (goods that Amazon had nothing to do with creating), and can copy their product and make its own version if it looks profitable.

This problem goes much deeper than Amazon. Apple, the largest company on Earth by market capitalization (with a $3.41 trillion market cap as of August 1, 2024), uses many of the same tactics as Amazon.

While Amazon extracts more than 50% of the revenue of the sellers who use its platform, it can at least try to justify this by arguing that these exorbitant fees include the costs of advertising and “fulfillment” (ie, storage, processing, delivery, etc.).

Apple, on the other hand, charges a staggering 30% fee on all purchases done in apps that are downloaded using the iOS store.

In other words, if a user of an iPhone, iPad, or Mac download an app for a third party through the App Store, Apple requires 30% rent for the business done by those other companies. This is despite the fact that Apple has nothing to do with that business. The other firms manage the commerce and maintain their apps; Apple is the neo-feudal lord demanding its tribute.

In an absolutely scandalous announcement in August, the crowd-funding website Patreon revealed in August that the neo-feudal corporate landlords at Apple are taking a 30% cut of all new memberships registered using the iOS app.

Apple is not providing any service, other than allowing people to download an app that it itself does not manage. All Apple does is host the app, nothing more. It is a digital landlord. But because it has a monopoly, Apple can take 30% of the revenue that creators on Patreon receive for all of our hard work…………………………………………………………………………………………..

It all started with Big Tech corporations first offering supposedly “free” services (which were paid for by selling users’ information). Those “free” platforms soon became monopolies, and were so deeply embedded into the economy that they became digital utilities, albeit privatized ones.

A 20th-century economy needed utilities like an electrical grid, water plants, sewage system, highways, etc. These natural monopolies should be publicly owned, provided by the state as public goods, in order to prevent rent-seeking by corporate landlords. (Of course, neoliberals have long sought to privatize these public utilities as well, and have had success in some countries — with inevitably disastrous results, like sky-high bills and sewage being dumped into the UK’s privatized water system.)

A 21st-century economy needs all of those basic utilities plus new digital infrastructure. But here’s the thing: all of the necessary digital infrastructure that our economies are built on is privatized! You have internet providers, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Apple Store, Play Store, Google, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.

Then there is the cloud infrastructure that apps and websites use, which is dominated by a few mostly US companies. Amazon Web Services (AWS) had 31% of global market share as of the first quarter of 2024, followed by 25% for Microsoft Azure, and 11% for Google Cloud……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

If you want to make a small business, you will almost certainly go bankrupt very quickly if you don’t use Amazon to sell your product; Apple’s App Store or Google Play Store to download your app; Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to market your good or service; or WhatsApp to make an order (especially in many Global South countries, where WhatsApp is more common than in the US). None of this is to even mention private ISPs for an internet connection, or private telecommunications companies that charge high data fees.

If your company makes an app that is not available in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, you might as well not exist. Good luck getting the vast majority of your customer base to download it…………………………………………………………………………………………..

These Big Tech monopolists are really digital landlords. They own the land upon which the rest of the digital economy is built. They are the 21st-century version of the feudal lords of Medieval Europe, who owned the land upon which serfs toiled.

Now these neo-feudal corporate landlords are charging more and more fees to use their “free” infrastructure.

This digital infrastructure should be nationalized and treated as a public good, like other basic utilities (which should also be nationalized if they have been privatized, which was increasingly the case in the neoliberal era).

This is global monopoly capitalism…………………………………………………………………………………….

Economist Yanis Varoufakis has referred to this system as “technofeudalism”, in his 2024 book with this title. Although I sometimes disagree with Varoufakis, especially in terms of his criticism of China, I do largely share his analysis of technofeudalism.

Varoufakis is also absolutely right that one of the factors driving Washington’s new cold war on Beijing is the desire by US Big Tech monopolies to destroy their only competitors, which happen to be Chinese. ………………………….

This observation by Varoufakis hits the nail on the head. Where I think he is wrong is in his claim that China, like the US, is becoming techno-feudal.

There is a fundamental distinction between the two: In the US, capital controls the state; in China, the state controls capital.

In China’s unique system, which it refers to as a socialist market economy and “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, roughly a third of GDP comes from massive state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which are concentrated in the most strategic sectors of the economy, such as banking, construction, infrastructure, transportation, and telecommunications.

While it is true that many technology companies in China are private on paper, the reality is much more complicated. The Chinese government has a powerful “golden share” (officially known as a “special management share”) in large firms, such as Alibaba and Tencent, which gives it veto power over important decisions.

Although these large technology companies may not be full state-owned, China’s socialist government ensures that they act in the interest of the country and the people, not simply wealthy shareholders.

The US system is exactly the opposite. Large corporations control the government, and create policy on behalf of wealthy shareholders.

The problem is not just that US corporate monopolies control markets; they create those markets themselves, through their control over digital infrastructure.

As Varoufakis has observed in his discussion of “cloud capital”, Amazon does not just dominate the market; it creates markets — and prevents any potential competitors from creating alternative markets………………………………………………

In the 21st century, the infrastructure of society itself has been privatized.

The solution is clear: the digital infrastructure upon which the modern economy is built must be nationalized and turned into public utilities, like water, electricity, and highways.

That said, the US government nationalizing Silicon Valley Big Tech companies does not solve the problem of the lack of digital sovereignty in other countries.

If Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta are nationalized, this would still mean the United States has enormous power over nations whose economies rely on this US-controlled digital infrastructure (which, again, is almost all nations everywhere, with the noble exception of China)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

This is a serious problem that should be debated worldwide. There are likely some potential creative solutions………….. https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/08/19/us-big-tech-monopolies-neo-feudalism/

August 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, politics international | Leave a comment

Japan: Removal of nuclear fuel remains in Fukushima will begin on August 22

the first step it will be the recovery of “a few grams” of spent fissile fuel from the plant’s nuclear reactor no. 2.

Large-scale removal of semi-melted fuel rods is expected to be undertaken early in the next decade

Tokyo, August 20 2024, https://www.agenzianova.com/en/news/Japan-the-removal-of-the-remains-of-nuclear-fuel-in-Fukushima-will-begin-on-August-22/

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), operator of the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, will begin on August 22 the delicate operations to recover the remains of nuclear fuel from the reactors damaged in the 2011 disaster. The company announced today that the first step it will be the recovery of “a few grams” of spent fissile fuel from the plant’s nuclear reactor no. 2. Plans call for the gradual expansion of operations to unit #3.

Large-scale removal of semi-melted fuel rods is expected to be undertaken early in the next decade. The removal of radioactive debris contained in the power plant’s reactors is considered the most difficult challenge in the process of decommissioning and disposing of the infrastructure, which was seriously damaged following the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit north-eastern Japan 12 years ago. In all, around 880 tonnes of radioactive debris will have to be removed from reactors number 1, 2 and 3 at the nuclear power plant.

August 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Nuclear power on the prairies is a green smokescreen.

By M. V. Ramana & Quinn Goranson, August 19th 2024, Canada’s National Observer https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/08/19/opinion/nuclear-power-prairies-green-smokescree

On April 2, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith declared on X (formerly Twitter) “we are encouraged and optimistic about the role small modular reactors (SMRs) can play” in the province’s plans to “achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.”

SMRs, for those who haven’t heard this buzzword, are theoretical nuclear reactor designs that aim to produce smaller amounts of electricity compared to the current reactor fleet in Canada. The dream of using small reactors to produce nuclear power dates back to the 1950s — and so has their record of failing commercially.

That optimism about SMRs will be costing taxpayers at least $600,000, which will fund the company, X-Energy’s research “into the possibility of integrating small modular reactors (SMRs) into Alberta’s electric grid.” This is on top of the $7 million offered by Alberta’s government in September 2023 to oil and gas producer Cenovus Energy to study how SMRs could be used in the oil sands.

Last August, Saskatchewan’s Crown Investments Corporation provided $479,000 to prepare local companies to take part in developing SMRs. Alberta and Saskatchewan also have a Memorandum of Understanding to “advance the development of nuclear power generation in support of both provinces’ need for affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity grids by 2050”.

What is odd about Alberta and Saskatchewan’s talk about carbon neutrality and sustainability is that, after Nunavut, these two provinces are most reliant on fossil fuels for their electricity; as of 2022, Alberta derived 81 per cent of its power from these sources; Saskatchewan was at 79 percent. In both provinces, emissions have increased more than 50 per cent above 1990 levels.

It would appear neither province is particularly interested in addressing climate change, but that is not surprising given their commitment to the fossil fuel industry. Globally, that industry has long obstructed transitioning to low-carbon energy sources, so as to continue profiting from their polluting activities.

Canadian companies have played their part too. Cenovus Energy, the beneficiary of the $7 million from Alberta, is among the four largest Canadian oil and gas companies that “demonstrate negative climate policy engagement,” and advocate for provincial government investment in offshore oil and gas development. It is also a part of the Pathways Alliance that academic scholars charge with greenwashing, in part because of its plans to use a problematic technology, carbon capture and storage, to achieve “net-zero emissions from oilsands operations by 2050.”

Carbon capture and storage is just one of the unproven technologies that the fossil fuel industry and its supporters use as part of their “climate pledges and green advertising.” Nuclear energy is another — especially when it involves new designs such as SMRs that have never been deployed in North America, or have failed commercially.

X-energy, the company that is to receive $600,000, is using a technology that has been tried out in Germany and the United States with no success. The last high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor built in the United States was shut down within a decade, producing, on average, only 15 per cent of what it could theoretically produce.

Even if one were to ignore these past failures, building nuclear reactors is slow and usually delayed. In Finland, construction of the Olkiluoto-3 reactor started in 2005, but it was first connected to the grid in 2022, a thirteen-year delay from the anticipated 2009.

Construction of Argentina’s CAREM small modular reactor started in February 2014 but it is not expected to start operating till at least the “end of 2027,” and most likely later. Both Finland and Argentina have established nuclear industries. Neither Alberta nor Saskatchewan possess any legislative capacity to regulate a nuclear industry.

What Alberta and Saskatchewan are indulging in through all these announcements and funding for small modular nuclear reactors is an obstructionist tactic to slow down the transition away from fossil fuels. Discussing nuclear technology shifts attention from present and projected GHG emissions, while enabling a ramp-up of fossil fuel reliance in the medium-term and delaying climate action into the long-term.

Floating the idea of adding futuristic SMR technology into the energy mix is one way to publicly appear to be committed to climate action, without doing anything tangible. Even if SMRs were to be deployed to supply energy in the tar sands, that does not address downstream emissions from burning the extracted fossil fuels.

Relying on new nuclear for emission reductions prevents phasing out fossil fuels at a pace necessary for the scientific consensus in favour of rapid and immediate decarbonization. An obstructionist focus on unproven technologies will not help.

Quinn Goranson is a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs with a specialization in environment, resources and energy. Goranson has experience working in research for multiple renewable energy organizations, including the CEDAR project, in environmental policy in the public sector, and as an environmental policy consultant internationally.

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is the author of The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India (Penguin Books, 2012) and “Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change” (Verso Books, 2024).

August 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Meta permanently bans media outlet The Cradle in latest attack on free speech

The Cradle, Mon, 19 Aug 2024, https://www.sott.net/article/494061-Meta-permanently-bans-media-outlet-The-Cradle-in-latest-attack-on-free-speech

On 16 August, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta permanently banned The Cradle from its social media platforms for allegedly violating community guidelines by “praising terrorist organizations” and engaging in “incitement to violence.”

“No one can see or find your account, and you can’t use it. All your information will be permanently deleted,” reads the message accompanying the ban on Instagram, where The Cradle had surpassed 107,000 followers and amassed millions of views.

“You cannot request another review of this decision,” the message ends, despite the fact the ban came with little warning or any chance for review.

Comment: For the West-Israel, any organisation that it deems to be an opponent can be categorised as ‘terrorist’, and supporting a group’s resistance to the West-Israel’s war of terror can be considered ‘incitement to violence’. Regardless of whether this targeted group’s resistance is considered legitimate under international law; for example: China tells ICJ Palestinians have ‘inalienable right to use armed force’ against Israeli occupation

The Cradle is an independent, journalist-owned news website that covers the geopolitics of West Asia from a West Asian perspective. Since 2021, the publication has made a name for itself by covering regional developments with the kind of breadth and depth – and nuance – that often go missing in mainstream corporate media.

Meta’s accusations of “praising terrorist organizations” and engaging in “incitement to violence” largely stem from posts and videos that relay information or quotes from West Asian resistance movements like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansarallah – who are an essential part of the news stories unfolding in a region on the precipice of a major war.

It is also essential to recognize that these are major West Asian political organizations that have deep institutional and civic roots within Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen and are part of the very fabric of these societies. They are represented in governance, run schools, hospitals, and utilities, and disperse salaries to millions of civilian workers.

Ironically, many of The Cradle’s Meta-flagged quotes on these organizations also come from Israeli and western officials:

“The intelligence information that Hezbollah has collected is accurate at the level of an advanced western intelligence organization, with observation capabilities, accurate intelligence gathering, and real-time documentation … There is almost no target in the north that Hezbollah cannot hit with over 50 percent success.” – Meta claims this two-month old post violated its guidelines, despite the quotes coming from Israeli journalists and officials.

Other posts that Meta claimed violated its rules included a reel on protesters breaking into an Elbit factory in the UK; a news headline image that reads “Israeli army approves plans for offensive on Lebanon“; and a quote from a Hamas official in Lebanon on how the “[Gaza] support fronts … achieved their goal.”

Although The Cradle had occasionally run afoul of Meta’s frustratingly unspecific community guidelines – which the publication always addressed immediately – matters appeared to come to a head following the 31 July assassination of Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh, when the company owned by US billionaire Mark Zuckerberg significantly tightened its grip on free speech.

In the days after Haniyeh’s assassination, Meta took down 10 posts from The Cradle’s Instagram account over 48 hours. These ranged from quotes by Hamas officials and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah condemning massacres in Gaza and the Israeli strikes in Tehran and Beirut, videos released by local resistance factions clashing with the Israeli army in Gaza, and even news headlines about Haniyeh.

One of the posts removed for violations was a headline that read, “Hamas calls for ‘day of rage’ following assassination of Haniyeh.” Another was a carousel of image quotes by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, addressing the assassinations in Beirut and Tehran, and a likely response.

Meta informed The Cradle for the first time in early August, “You could lose our account in the future if you kept violating Meta’s community guidelines.”

Days later, Meta issued its permanent ban, targeting The Cradle’s main Instagram account and a backup account that had not violated any of the company’s guidelines. Hours later, the company disabled The Cradle’s Facebook page, which was not directly linked to the Instagram account and was registered under a completely different email. Meta clarified in its message regarding permanently removing the backup account that it does not allow “creating another account after we’ve suspended yours.” The backup account was created before the suspension.
We believe that this serves as evidence that Meta was targeting The Cradle in its entirety.

The Cradle’s business account on Instagram was clearly identified from the onset as a ‘news website/media’ company.

Other news pages on Meta, such as Middle East Eye and Al Jazeera, post similar footage and content – videos released by Hamas and Hezbollah, for example – and appear free to do so without having their posts removed. The Cradle’s description of these posts has been strictly neutral throughout.

Comment: The difference is that The Cradle is much more explicit in revealing the lies, hypocrisy, and corruption. These other outlets tend to adopt analysis that is erroneously ‘balanced’.

August 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media | Leave a comment

Project 2025: The right-wing conspiracy to torpedo global climate action

Bethany Kozma, a former Trump-era USAID official, said that future appointees “will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.”

Bethany Kozma, a former Trump-era USAID official, said that future appointees “will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.”

Bulletin, By Michael E. Mann | August 16, 2024

Summer 2024 saw another round of devastating heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, and record-setting global temperatures. The window for averting a catastrophic 1.5 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) warming of the planet is rapidly closing. Can we meet this moment? I suppose it depends on whom you ask. For this is a tale of two worldviews.

In one—based on facts and evidence—environmental policy is motivated by science and reason, with the intent of advancing the common good and the sustainability of our civilization and our planet. The climate crisis is seen as the defining challenge of our time, demanding immediate and urgent action.

In the other—steeped in myth and conspiratorial ideation—environmental threats are an elaborate ruse perpetrated by scientists and politicians on the take, and environmental sustainability is a Trojan horse, a tool used by “globalists” to instill a new socialist world order. Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by environmental extremists.

Nothing better illustrates this yawning chasm in worldview than two deceptively similar-sounding projects known as the fact-based “Agenda 2030” and the conspiracy-rife “Project 2025.”

The first, “Agenda 2030,” is a United Nations program for Sustainable Development unanimously adopted by UN member nations on September 25, 2015. Agenda 2030 supports a set of 17 global Sustainable Development Goals, or “SDGs,” promoting “peace and prosperity for people and the planet” and the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of our civilization. Among its priorities are the health of the planet’s oceans and forests and the overriding threat of human-caused climate change.

I’ve contributed to the program personally. Back in 2018, I developed a free online course for the SDG Academy, which the UN describes as the “premier source of high-quality resources and guidance on education for the SDGs, with the mandate to enrich the field of sustainable development and advance Agenda 2030.” My course, which is still offered today (so far more than 35,000 people have taken it) is entitled “Climate Change: The Science and Global Impact.” Its stated purpose is that “we need to understand the science behind global warming to avoid the most damaging and irreversible climate change impacts on people and planet.”

So perhaps I’m a bit personally invested in Agenda 2030 and its mission to educate the public and policymakers about the climate crisis. But it is objectively disturbing to see that program attacked in such bad faith by the right. Representative of the assault is the plutocrat and dark money-funded Heritage Foundation, which has denounced Agenda 2030 as “hopelessly flawed from the start,” “replete with imprecise goals and targets,” “senseless, dreamy, and garbled,” and “[the] antithesis of a focused development strategy.” They insist, in fact, that “the US should call out the SDGs for their ineffectiveness and call for a re-evaluation of this failed endeavor.” Strong language. We’ll return to the Heritage Foundation and their role in all of this in a bit.

Agenda 2030, indeed, possesses all the elements despised by the bad actors who help manufacture and promote far-right conspiracy theories. Like the much-vilified Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Agenda 2030 operates under the auspices of the United Nations, feeding the fears of the “one world government,” right-wing fever swamp.

Its laudable goals of reducing poverty, hunger, and social inequality play into conservative fears of “socialism.” Its focus on environmental sustainability feeds the “watermelon” (green on the outside, red on the inside) framing that has for so long been used by conservative influencers seeking to weaponize their base against environmental action.

As a result, social media is now rife with the claim that Agenda 2030 is part of a left-wing global socialist plot against individual liberty and freedom, an excuse for even more pervasive and long-lasting pandemic-like lockdowns.

Now, let’s talk about “Project 2025,” a 900-page plan drafted by the aforementioned Heritage Foundation to implement a far-right policy agenda in the United States. If implemented—by a second Trump administration, for example—it would shrink the federal government, putting thousands of civil servants out of work. It would further expand the powers of the president. It would dismantle the Department of Education, impose massive tax cuts, and halt the sale of the abortion pill. It would cancel the National Weather Service and privatize all its meteorological data.

Project 2025 would gut the EPA, which is responsible for enforcement of environmental policies, and it would reverse the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that classified carbon dioxide as a pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. It would eliminate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which monitors changes in our atmosphere, oceans and climate. Project 2025 would eliminate clean energy loan programs at the Department of Energy and remove climate change—one of the greatest national security threats we face—from the National Security Council agenda. It supports more oil drilling in the environmentally sensitive Arctic and asserts that the government has an “obligation to develop vast oil and gas and coal resources.”

Trump and Project 2025 are inextricably linked in numerous ways. Project 2025 was written for Trump, by Trump affiliates, who will staff the various agencies in a prospective second term. Six of the report authors are former Trump cabinet officials. Trump’s vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, wrote the foreward for a book about it (Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America), written by Heritage Foundation president and Project 2025 brainchild Kevin Roberts. Roberts briefed Trump about Project 2025 during its nascent stages back in 2022 on a private flight to a Heritage Foundation conference where Trump went on to say that the effort would “lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”

ProPublica recently obtained more than 14 hours of videos from the Project 2025 Presidential Administration Academy, an online training archive to prepare incoming political appointees in a prospective Trump administration so they can hit the ground running from day one; 29 of the 36 speakers in the series are connected to Trump either through this campaign or his previous presidency. Among the instructions given in the academy, Bethany Kozma, a former Trump-era USAID official, said that future appointees “will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.”

Trump and his co-conspirators were obstructed by their own incompetence during his first term. That proved to be a saving grace from the standpoint of environmental and climate policy. The whole point of Project 2025 is to make sure they don’t repeat that mistake and instead, go in with a detailed, comprehensive blueprint that will allow them to fast track their agenda.

We face a planetary-scale threat in the form of a prospective Trump second term and a radicalized GOP intent on implementing, in Project 2025, the most extreme, anti-environmental policy agenda in American history. In all likelihood, it would mean the end of meaningful global climate action at this critical juncture. The fate of our planet quite literally hangs in the balance. It’s something for all Americans to think about as they prepare for the pivotal 2024 election. https://thebulletin.org/2024/08/project-2025-the-right-wing-conspiracy-to-torpedo-global-climate-action/

August 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change | Leave a comment

‘Strong record of supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship’: a look at Tim Walz’s votes on Palestine as a member of Congress

A review of Tim Walz’s time in Congress from 2007 to 2018 shows he supported multiple Israeli wars on Gaza, rejected the international consensus on the illegality of West Bank settlements, and opposed any unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.

Mondoweiss, By Nicolas Sawaya August 15, 2024

When Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her Vice-Presidential running mate, many viewed it as a win for pro-Palestine constituents of the Democratic party. Shapiro’s long history of pro-Israel positions and questionable ties to Israel, as well as his publicly inflammatory statements against Palestinians and their supporters, appeared to be key reasons Harris passed him over. But can Tim Walz be viewed as much better?

A review of Walz’s career shows that he can be fairly characterized as a reliable pro-Israel Democrat who has consistently voted for and taken positions in support of Israel. In fact, it is this very history that has led Israel lobby groups within the Democratic Party to celebrate Harris’s choice, which should give us all pause.

Walz in Congress

While Walz’s time as Minnesota governor has received much attention since it was announced he would become Harris’s running mate, it is actually his time in Congress that might shed the most light on how he will look to influence foreign policy from the executive branch. The record shows that during his career as a member of the House of Representatives between 2007 and 2018, Walz consistently voted in favor of pro-Israeli positions. In these years he supported every Israeli war on Gaza, rejected the international consensus on the illegality of settlements in the West Bank, and opposed any unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, preferring instead to pay lip service to a “negotiated peace” while Israel continued colonizing the West Bank unimpeded.

Walz on Gaza, 2009 – 2014

In fact, it is Walz’s support for previous assaults on Gaza that are among his most alarming votes………………………………………………………………………….

Walz as Governor

This brings us to the current day, where in his role as Minnesota governor, Walz has paid some lip service to Palestinian concerns, but maintained his staunch support for Israel and opposed legislative action to hold it accountable, even during a genocide………………………………………….

Walz on the Gaza Genocide

Walz made some encouraging remarks after the Minnesota Democratic primaries in March of this year ………………………………………

it is unlikely that these words of sympathy will actually translate to tangible actions that put pressure on the Netanyahu government to end their genocide in Gaza. Indeed, Walz hasn’t called for an arms embargo or sanctions on Israel (and Harris’ national security advisor Phil Gordon recently clarified that Harris “does not support an arms embargo”), or taken any other meaningful policy positions that would potentially result in an end to Israel’s mass slaughter.

……………………………………………………………………………….. Walz on a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli “conflict”

In early March of this year, in an interview with CNN, Walz said that he supports a “lasting two-state solution”, although he didn’t provide any details as to what that entailed. His voting record suggests the typical support for a “negotiated peace”, where Israel holds all the cards, and opposition to a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Indeed, on July 7, 2011, Walz voted Yea to H.Res. 268, which “opposes any attempt to establish or seek recognition of a Palestinian state outside of an agreement negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians”.

………………………………….It’s no surprise then, that Marc Mellman, President of Democratic Majority for Israel, praised Walz’s selection and said that he was “a proud pro-Israel Democrat with a strong record of supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship”, while the pro-Israel lobby J-Street (who had previously endorsed him), said that “we know the Harris-Walz team will stand up for our shared values, protect our community, and pursue smart, pro-Israel, pro-peace leadership abroad. We’re all in.” https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/strong-record-of-supporting-the-u-s-israel-relationship-a-look-at-tim-walzs-votes-on-palestine-as-a-member-of-congress/

August 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, USA | Leave a comment

The Risk of Bringing AI Discussions Into High-Level Nuclear Dialogues

Overly generalized discussions on the emerging technology may be unproductive or even undermine consensus to reduce nuclear risks at a time when such consensus is desperately needed.

by Lindsay Rand, August 19, 2024, https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2024/08/ai-nuclear-dialogue-risks-npt?lang=en

Last month, nuclear policymakers and experts convened in Geneva to prepare for a major conference to review the implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). At the meeting, calls for greater focus on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for nuclear policy pervaded diverse discussions. This echoes many recent pushes from within the nuclear policy community to consider emerging technologies in nuclear security–focused dialogues. However, diplomats should hesitate before trying to tackle the AI-nuclear convergence. Doing so in official, multilateral nuclear security dialogues risks being unproductive or even undermining consensus to reduce nuclear risks at a time when such consensus is desperately needed.

The level of interest in AI at the preparatory committee meeting isn’t surprising, given how much attention is being paid to the implications of AI for nuclear security and international security more broadly. Concerns range from increased speed of engagement, which could reduce human decisionmaking time, to automated target detection that could increase apprehension over second-strike survivability, or even increase propensity for escalation. In the United States, the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board recently published a report that examines AI’s potential impacts on arms control, nonproliferation, and verification, highlighting the lack of consensus around definitions and regulations to govern Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). Internationally, there have also been calls for the five nuclear weapon states (P5) to discuss AI in nuclear command and control at the P5 Process, a forum where the P5 discuss how to make progress toward meeting their obligations under the NPT. Observers have called for the P5 to issue a joint statement on the importance of preserving human responsibility in nuclear decisionmaking processes.

However, injecting AI into nuclear policy discussions at the diplomatic level presents potential pitfalls. The P5 process and NPT forums, such as preparatory committee meetings and the NPT Review Conference, are already fraught with challenges. Introducing the complexities of AI may divert attention from other critical nuclear policy issues, or even become linked to outstanding areas of disagreement in a way that further entrenches diplomatic roadblocks.

Before introducing discussions about AI into official nuclear security dialogues, policymakers should address the following questions: