Columnists

I urge Senator Dianne Feinstein (D. CA) to expedite the release of the Senate Torture Report before she loses her position as Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Once the Republicans take over the Committee, I fear the Torture Report will never see the light of day or if it does, it will be so heavily redacted by the CIA as to render it of little use to the public. The Torture Report has been approved for public release. The public has a right to know. -more-

One hundred sixty eight years ago this past July, two British warships—HMS Erebus and HMS Terror—sailed north into Baffin Bay, bound on a mission to navigate the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. It would be the last that the 19^th century world would see of Sir John Franklin and his 128 crewmembers.

But the Arctic that swallowed the 1845 Franklin expedition is disappearing, its vast ice sheets thinning, its frozen straits thawing. And once again, ships are headed north, not on voyages of discovery—the northern passages across Canada and Russia are well known today—but to stake a claim in the globe’s last great race for resources and trade routes. How that contest plays out has much to do with the flawed legacies of World War II, which may go a long way toward determining whether the arctic will become a theater of cooperation or yet another dangerous friction point. In the words of former NATO commander, U.S. Admiral James G. Stavridis, an “icy slope toward a zone of competition, or worse, a zone of conflict.”

There is a great deal at stake. -more-

There’s a rough consensus about why Democrats were pulverized in the midterm elections: losing Democratic candidates didn’t have a succinct positive message. To understand this problem, it’s informative to dissect the campaigns of three incumbent Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2014: Al Franken, Jeanne Shaheen, and Mark Udall. -more-

Aside from the "war on drugs" begun as far back as Richard Nixon and in spite of its hypocrisy as well as its draconianism, I do not believe that illegal drugs, alcohol, and appetite suppressants are good for persons with mental illness. -more-

Some more thoughts on the 2014 Oakland mayoral election before we move into the Mayor Libby Schaaf era:

Congratulations to Ms. Schaaf, not only for her victory, but also for running a campaign that did not bend the rules or outright cheat to win, at least as far as I can see. I'll probably have more to say about that campaign at a later time, but for now that's enough and-in my thinking-a lot.

Congratulations, as well, to Mayor Jean Quan for the graciousness she showed in defeat. Unlike former State Senator Don Perata, who continues to publicly pout about the results of the 2010 mayoral election, Ms. Quan did not make excuses for her defeat or put the blame on ranked choice voting. That, along with the mayor's decision to join Ms. Schaaf in a joint post-election press conference, will go along way towards assuaging the bitterness among her followers that inevitably results from a hard-fought election contest. -more-