The mainstream media, including the NY Times, wrote about the U.S. government’s formerly secret report disclosing that a “safe haven” had been created for certain Nazis and collaborators following the end of WWII.

But it took a lawsuit by the National Security Archive, and a leak by a former official, to make the full document public, despite the Obama’s administration’s pledge to be “transparent”. The NSA has links to various documents, including its original request, the lawsuit, and the redacted version of the report originally turned over by the government, as well as to the full uncensored report.

There’s another new report, this one by the Council on Foreign Relations, that I’m just taking a look at.

…a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) warns of the potential national security implications of a dysfunctional Congress. “Congress’s inability to tackle tough problems, both domestic and international, has serious national security consequences, in part because it leads the world to question U.S. global leadership,” argues CFR Vice President of Washington Initiatives Kay King. “When Congress fails to perform, national security suffers thanks to ill-considered policies, delayed or inadequate resources, and insufficient personnel,” she adds.

I was interested to see that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Hawaiian Electric’s corporate debt to near “junk” status, while the company’s chief financial officer just bought 2,000 shares, apparently somehwhat confident about the future.

Meanwhile, the environmental group Friends of the Earth has called on Congress to eliminate the tax break for ethanol production and use.

“This is a wasteful subsidy that benefits Big Oil at the expense of taxpayers and the environment. Congress must end it this year,” said Kate McMahon, biofuels campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth. “There’s nothing ‘green’ about corn ethanol beyond the color of the tax dollars Congress hands out to corporations producing and blending it. This lame duck should not lay the rotten egg of another big, wasteful handout to industry by extending the corn ethanol subsidy.”

The VEETC has long been opposed by Friends of the Earth and a diverse coalition of groups. It gives billions of tax dollars each year to gasoline companies like BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell for blending ethanol into consumer-level fuel—despite a federal mandate that already requires them to do so. This year alone, the subsidy cost taxpayers $5.4 billion dollars, and the amount is set to increase if the credit does not expire on December 31.

Hawaii has tried mightily to jump on the ethanol bandwagon, so the environmental push-back has local relevance.

Speaking of environmental groups, check out this brief history of Hawaii environmental groups, with focus on Life of the Land. Thanks to Henry Curtis and Larry Geller’s Disappeared News for giving this wider circulation.