Steven Greenstreet of the American News Project sent me this video report examining the role of the Mormon Church in the California Proposition 8 campaign.

Activists claim that money from the Mormon Church was the deciding factor in passing Proposition 8 in California – banning gay marriage. The church claims to have only spent a few thousand dollars on the campaign, but ANP has uncovered evidence that may expose a gaping hole in that claim. Also, the IRS forbids religious organizations from “substantially” lobbying for political legislation. Did the Mormon Church violate this law?

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From CNN:

In an overlooked YouTube video posted on Friday, a spokesman for Barack Obama said the president-elect is committed to ending the policy that bars openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. armed forces.

In a response to a question on the Web site Change.gov asking whether Obama would get rid of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “You don’t hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it’s ‘Yes.’”

Gibbs on Wednesday expanded on his answer, saying, “There are many challenges facing our nation now and the president-elect is focused first and foremost on jump-starting this economy.

“So not everything will get done in the beginning but he’s committed to following through” with ending the policy against being openly gay in the military.

The DADT policy, which dates from the Clinton era, bans military recruiters or authorities from asking someone about his or her sexual preference, but also prohibits a service member from revealing if he or she is gay. Frankly, Congress is the one responsible to lead the charge on this. In the 110th Congress, a bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, that would have implemented “a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” Congressman Meehan calls his bill to repeal the DADT ban the Military Readiness Enhancement Act. The bill would prohibit the military from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, and it would specifically authorize anyone separated for homosexuality, bisexuality or homosexual conduct to be allowed back into the military if they wish.

The bill had 149 co-sponsors, but it never came up for a full vote in the House. It has yet to be re-introduced in the new 111th Congress, which began last week. The bill requires 218 signatures to get it passed.

“The key here is to get bills that pass the House and the Senate, that we can get to President-elect Obama to sign, and I think that we can do that, certainly, the first year of the administration,” one of the co-sponsors, Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California, told CNN in November.

No one should expect an avalanche of change on day one. The important thing to note is that yes, don’t ask, don’t tell will be ended. And that’s cause for celebration.

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A report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats is causing a stir by including Mexico as one of two countries, the other is Pakistan, that “bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse”. From the El Paso Times:

The command’s “Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)” report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. “In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”

The U.S. Joint Forces Command, based in Norfolk, Va., is one of the Defense Departments combat commands that includes members of the different military service branches, active and reserves, as well as civilian and contract employees. One of its key roles is to help transform the U.S. military’s capabilities.

In the foreword, Marine Gen. J.N. Mattis, the USJFC commander, said “Predictions about the future are always risky … Regardless, if we do not try to forecast the future, there is no doubt that we will be caught off guard as we strive to protect this experiment in democracy that we call America.”

The report is one in a series focusing on Mexico’s internal security problems, mostly stemming from drug violence and drug corruption. In recent weeks, the Department of Homeland Security and former U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey issued similar alerts about Mexico.

Despite such reports, El Pasoan Veronica Callaghan, a border business leader, said she keeps running into people in the region who “are in denial about what is happening in Mexico.”

Last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon instructed his embassy and consular officials to promote a positive image of Mexico.

Mexico does indeed face daunting challenges. The drug violence in 2008 took 5,400 lives and Mexico will become a net importer of oil by 2012. So Mexico will go from earning foreign exchange from its petroleum to having to pay out for energy.

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That the “war on terror” has been riddled with errors is self-evident but the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, is saying something far different. The Foreign Secretary is saying that the use of the “war on terror” as a western rallying cry since the September 11 attacks has been a mistake that may have caused “more harm than good”. From the UK Guardian:

In an article in today’s Guardian, five days before the Bush administration leaves the White House, Miliband delivers a comprehensive critique of its defining mission, saying the war on terror was misconceived and that the west cannot “kill its way” out of the threats it faces.

British officials quietly stopped using the phrase “war on terror” in 2006, but this is the first time it has been comprehensively discarded in the most outspoken remarks on US counterterrorism strategy to date by a British minister.

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A sculpture celebrating the Czech presidency of the European Union has become embroiled in controversy. It features symbols of E.U. member countries — but Romania is represented as a Vampire theme park and Bulgaria is portrayed as a Turkish toilet system. Belgium, however, is a box of chocolates.

An art exhibit in the lobby of the European Council building in Brussels, sponsored by the Czech Presidency of the European Union, has triggered a heated debate about how EU member states see each other.

The artists who were invited were free to make their own choices, says the Czech EU Presidency.

From the Czech presidency’s announcement issued on Jan. 12:

Entropa: Stereotypes are Barriers to be Demolished

Today, the Czech Republic unveiled a modern art installation called ‘Entropa’ in the atrium of
the Justus Lipsius builiding of the EU Council in Brussels. The installation will remain in its stand-by mode until Thursday 15 January when it will ’start to live’ in the full regime. On that occasion a press conference will be held in the Justus Lipsius building in the presence of Alexandr Vondra, the Deputy Prime Minister for EU Affairs of the Czech Republic, and Milena Vicenová, the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the European Union, among others.

Entropa is the joint work of 27 artists, each one from a different Member State. Each object depicts one Member State using common stereotypes or prejudices. The Presidency commissioned the artists without any restrictions and they were free to create any object they liked.

‘Sculpture, and art more generally, can speak where words fail. In line with the Czech Presidency motto a ‘Europe without Barriers’, we gave the 27 artists the same opportunity to express themselves freely, as a proof that in today´s Europe there is no place for censorship,’ said Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra. ‘In return we got an uncommon yet common piece of art. I am confident in Europe´s open mind and capacity to appreciate
such a project.’

‘The freedom of art as an extension of the freedom of speech is the core value of democracy,’ said Milena Vicenová, the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the European Union. ‘There are many barriers to integration and cooperation in Europe. Stereotypes are such barriers. When we point out the stereotypes we begin demolishing
them. Making fun of prejudice destroys it most efficiently.’

The Czech Presidencys motto a ‘Europe without Barriers’ expresses the dedication to remove remaining obstacles to cooperation between the EU Member States. In particular obstacles to the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital. The Presidency notes that other barriers also hamper a fruitful cooperation between the European nations.

Oh, the irony. More from Fistful of Euros.

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Vermont’s Bernie Sanders questions Arne Duncan for Education Secretary.

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In the US, Vietnam has been largely out of public view in the three decades since the war. But during that time, Vietnam has gone through remarkable changes, and is now on the road to becoming an economic powerhouse.

Following a 2001 agreement with the U.S., trade between the countries has grown from $1.5 billion to $10 billion each year, and Vietnam has drawn many of the biggest U.S. firms.

But Vietnam also faces enormous challenges, with insufficient roads and infrastructure as well as significant inflation.

Worldfocus special correspondent Mark Litke and producer Ara Ayer travel to Vietnam, where an American Ford plant bustles outside of Hanoi.

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Caught in the global financial crisis to a degree perhaps only surpassed by Iceland, the normally tranquil small Baltic republic of Latvia erupted in violence overnight. Thousands of people massed in the Latvian capital, Riga, demanding snap elections and the resignation of the government in the face of a deepening economic crisis. The resentments quickly turned into a riot. Twenty-five people were injured and 106 were arrested.

Latvia’s fall is, indeed, a hard one. Credit growth had reached 78% in 2006. Riga property prices more than doubled since early 2005, driving prices in the old city above levels found in Berlin. Over 85% of all household and corporate debt in Latvia was contracted in foreign currencies, a proportion similar to Argentine dollar debt before the collapse of the peso peg in 2001. The current account deficit was 26% of GDP in the fourth quarter, the world’s highest. All thanks to lax regulations on the free flow of capital, one of the cornerstones of neo-liberal economic thought.

“The situation in Latvia bears a striking similarity to that in Iceland last year, only we would argue that Latvia is more exposed,” said Tim Ash, an economist at Bear Stearns warned in a report published in February 2008. Consider the moment now one of full exposure. Ah, the joys of the free flow of the capital. Riga 2009 is Buenos Aires 2001.

Discontent has been brewing since the country slid into recession and the government had to seek a £7.5 billion (approx $10.4 billion USD) rescue from the International Monetary Fund and European Union this past Fall. The Latvian economy shrank 4.2% in the third quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007 and official data showed the country as suffering the sharpest recession in the EU. That’s rather remarkable given the economic downturn in Iceland, Spain, Ireland and Belgium. According to the Latvia Central Bank, the economy is expected to shrink at least 5% and perhaps as much as 8% this year after the credit crunch stopped a consumer boom coupled with collapse of the country’s currency, the lats.

On November 8 of last year, the Latvian government was forced to rescue Parex by taking a 51% share — Parex is Latvia’s largest local bank and the country’s second-biggest after Swedish-owned Swedbank — for the symbolic sum of two lats (2.85 euros, 3.65 dollars). Then again, you’re essentially buying liabilities, not assets.

The move came after the Parex had lost 108 million lats in deposits. Parex’s boss blamed an exodus of customers attracted by Swedish state guarantees for Nordic rivals such as Swedbank and SEB, the country’s third-ranked bank. The government said it had acted to ward off a wider financial sector crisis in the Baltic state.

Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. Unemployment is running in the low teens, more than triple where it was a year ago. Additionally, Latvia’s Parliament also approved linked belt-tightening measures, notably deep budget cuts that slash state employees’ pay by up to 15%. This is, of course, the major worry facing global policy makers — how to tackle the deflationary pressure on wages (just as a reminder Governor Schwarzenegger just cut the wages of California state employees 10%).

Back in May 2007, the Fitch Rating Agency said this in a report:

“Cheap and plentiful capital inflows have fueled the economic boom Eastern Europe. This begs the question how well the region will cope in the event of a marked increase in risk aversion and tighteneing liquidity.”

Cross out Eastern Europe and substitute United States and the same is true. How well can the US cope in the event of a marked increase in risk aversion and tigtheneing liquity? Probably better than Latvia or Iceland but all I can say is be nice to your Chinese lenders, you owe them $40,000 per US household. Do you still think the free flow of capital is a good idea?

It’s time for a circumscribed approach. That is, free markets work best when rules and regulations are in place to moderate the tendency to excess.

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Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, is in Cairo to talk about a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. This is the latest move in regional and global diplomatic efforts to broker a truce, and end the war in Gaza that has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians and 23 Israelis.

Inside Story presenter Maryam Nemazee is joined by Hassan Issa, a former Egyptian ambassador to Israel; Alastair Crooke, a former European Union mediator in the Middle East and also by Jawad Al Hamad, director of the Middle East studies centre in Amman.

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