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1 -Current application of qualified immunity arose in response to, solves for, excessive litigation.
2 -Wurman, Ilan, from the Stanford Law School, “Qualified Immunity and Statutory Interpretation”, 2013, Seattle University Law Review, http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2227andcontext=sulr
3 -The Glick test posed a challenge for plaintiffs. It is difficult to prove that an officer acted maliciously and without good faith. Because many instances of force may be excessive but very few will truly “shock the conscience,” Glick was an effective bar to recovery. Graham v. Connor 16—the decision that changed the standard for all excessive force cases—demonstrates these propositions.
4 -In Graham, the plaintiff (Graham) had his friend take him to a store to resolve a blood sugar problem.17 Because the line in the store was too long, he ran out of the store back to his friend.18 Officers who saw him grew suspicious and detained him while another officer went to investigate.19 The officers refused his friend’s request to give him orange juice, though Graham was manifestly having some reaction.20 When they learned that nothing was wrong the officers drove Graham home, but Graham had by then “sustained a broken foot, cuts on his wrists, a bruised forehead, . . . an injured shoulder, and developed a loud ringing in his right ear that continues to this day.”21
5 -Few who read the Court’s full opinion can doubt that the officers acted excessively and unreasonably. Of course, they probably did not intend to act unreasonably, but surely they should have known better? Under Glick that question hardly matters: even if their acts were unreasonable, they were not acting maliciously or sadistically, and they were acting on a good faith belief that Graham may have committed a crime at the store he had hastily exited.
6 -That is exactly what the district court, relying on Glick, found in Graham. 22 The trial had even proceeded to a jury, but the district judge granted the officers’ motion for a directed verdict.23 Graham did not have a claim as a matter of law because the court found that the use of force was “‘appropriate under the circumstances,’ that ‘there was no discernable injury inflicted,’ and that the force used ‘was not applied maliciously or sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm,’ but in ‘a good faith effort to maintain or restore order in the face of a potentially explosive situation.’”24
7 -The Supreme Court reversed and held that all excessive force cases arising out of arrests or investigatory stops must be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment, the proper textual home for them.25 The Court eliminated the subjective components of the excessive-force inquiry in favor of an objective multi-factor test to determine the reasonableness of the application of force. The proper application of the test requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including 1 the severity of the crime at issue, 2 whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and 3 whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.26
8 -This is an explicitly objective test, with no reference to subjective intent.27 This test opened the floodgates to plaintiffs litigating excessive force claims against police officers. Those floodgates were promptly reclosed by the application of the Court’s reinvented qualified immunity doctrine.
9 -B. Qualified Immunity: A Mess in the Circuits
10 -Qualified immunity had already been established as a doctrine divorced from the common law at this point.28 The Court held in Saucier v. Katz29 that in excessive force cases qualified immunity requires, as a first step, an inquiry into whether a cognizable constitutional violation has occurred and thus a determination of whether excessive force was used under the Graham standard.30 Then, as a second step, the courts must determine whether it was “clearly established” at the time that the particular use of force was unconstitutional.31
11 -Excessive litigation kills tech innovation.
12 -Kirk 6, Executive Director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, 3-24-6 (Michael, http://www.aipla. org/Content/ContentGroups/Legislative_Action/109th_Congress/Testimony5/ImmigrationBillSenatorSpecter.pdf)
13 -I am writing to you on behalf of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) regarding the pending immigration reform legislation that would transfer jurisdiction over immigration appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. We believe that such broadening of the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction would seriously hinder the court’s ability to render high quality, timely decisions on patent appeals from district courts, and patent and trademark appeals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This runs directly counter to the present efforts of Congress to otherwise reform and improve this nation’s patent system. We take no position on other specific elements of the legislation or on the underlying need for immigration reform. Our concern focuses solely on the proposed shift in appellate jurisdiction, which we believe will do more harm than good. AIPLA is a national bar association whose approximately 16,000 members are primarily lawyers in private and corporate practice, in government service, and in the academic community. AIPLA represents a wide and diverse spectrum of individuals, companies, and institutions involved directly or indirectly in the practice of patent, trademark, copyright, and unfair competition law, as well as other fields of law affecting intellectual property. Our members represent both owners and users of intellectual property, and have a keen interest in an efficient federal judicial system. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was established in 1982 after more than a decade of deliberate study and Congressional consideration. The Hruska Commission (chaired by Senator Roman Hruska) conducted a study lasting nearly three years before recommending to Congress the establishment of a national appeals court to consider patent cases. It took two Administrations, several Congresses, and a number of hearings in both the House and Senate before legislation establishing the Federal Circuit was finally enacted. Over the past 26 years the Court, through its thoughtful and deliberate opinions, has made great progress in providing stability and consistency in the patent law. Removing immigration appeals from the general jurisdiction of the twelve regional Courts of Appeals and centralizing it in the Federal Circuit is an enormous change. Leaving aside the impact, both pro and con, on the affected litigants, the Federal Circuit is simply not equipped to undertake the more than 12,000 requests for review of deportation orders that twelve courts now share each year. The Federal Circuit currently has no expertise or experience in the field of immigration law. While the legislation envisions adding three judges to the twelve currently on the Court, we have serious concerns whether this increase will be adequate. Judge Posner has calculated that, even with the three additional judges proposed in the legislation, each of the fifteen Federal Circuit judges would be responsible for about 820 immigration cases per year, on the average—an incredibly large number that we believe will have a significant adverse impact on the remainder of the court’s docket. It seems inevitable that the proposed legislation will have a dramatic, negative impact on Federal Circuit decisions in patent cases and appeals from the USPTO. Such an increased caseload will necessarily delay decisions in these appeals, which in turn will cause uncertainty over patent and trademark rights and interfere with business investments in technological innovation. Beyond mere delay, the Federal Circuit's ability to issue consistent, predictable opinions in patent cases will be complicated by an increase in the number of judges. If conflicts in panel opinions increase, the inefficient and often contentious en banc process will have to be used more often, further adding to the overall burden on the court. Business can effectively deal with decisions, positive or negative, but it cannot deal with protracted uncertainty caused by inconsistent opinions or long delays in judicial review. Demand for reform of the patent system has been the topic of considerable public debate of late. Congress held extensive hearings on this subject last year, and more are scheduled in coming weeks. The House is currently considering legislation that would dramatically change the patent statute, and we understand that patent reform legislation may soon be introduced in the Senate as well. It would be unfortunate for Congress to inadvertently compound the challenges facing the patent system by weakening the ability of the Federal Circuit to give timely and consistent consideration to patent cases.
14 -Innovation solves great power war
15 -Taylor 4 – Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mark, “The Politics of Technological Change: International Relations versus Domestic Institutions,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 4/1/2004, http://www.scribd.com/doc/46554792/Taylor) //RGP
16 -I. Introduction Technological innovation is of central importance to the study of international relations (IR), affecting almost every aspect of the sub-field. First and foremost, a nation’s technological capability has a significant effect on its economic growth, industrial might, and military prowess; therefore relative national technological capabilities necessarily influence the balance of power between states, and hence have a role in calculations of war and alliance formation. Second, technology and innovative capacity also determine a nation’s trade profile, affecting which products it will import and export, as well as where multinational corporations will base their production facilities. Third, insofar as innovation-driven economic growth both attracts investment and produces surplus capital, a nation’s technological ability will also affect international financial flows and who has power over them. Thus, in broad theoretical terms, technological change is important to the study of IR because of its overall implications for both the relative and absolute power of states. And if theory alone does not convince, then history also tells us that nations on the technological ascent generally experience a corresponding and dramatic change in their global stature and influence, such as Britain during the first industrial revolution, the United States and Germany during the second industrial revolution, and Japan during the twentieth century. Conversely, great powers which fail to maintain their place at the technological frontier generally drift and fade from influence on international scene. This is not to suggest that technological innovation alone determines international politics, but rather that shifts in both relative and absolute technological capability have a major impact on international relations, and therefore need to be better understood by IR scholars. Indeed, the importance of technological innovation to international relations is seldom disputed by IR theorists. Technology is rarely the sole or overriding causal variable in any given IR theory, but a broad overview of the major theoretical debates reveals the ubiquity of technological causality. For example, from Waltz to Posen, almost all Realists have a place for technology in their explanations of international politics. At the very least, they describe it as an essential part of the distribution of material capabilities across nations, or an indirect source of military doctrine. And for some, like Gilpin quoted above, technology is the very cornerstone of great power domination, and its transfer the main vehicle by which war and change occur in world politics. Jervis tells us that the balance of offensive and defensive military technology affects the incentives for war. Walt agrees, arguing that technological change can alter a state’s aggregate power, and thereby affect both alliance formation and the international balance of threats. Liberals are less directly concerned with technological change, but they must admit that by raising or lowering the costs of using force, technological progress affects the rational attractiveness of international cooperation and regimes. Technology also lowers information and transactions costs and thus increases the applicability of international institutions, a cornerstone of Liberal IR theory. And in fostering flows of trade, finance, and information, technological change can lead to Keohane’s interdependence or Thomas Friedman et al’s globalization. Meanwhile, over at the “third debate”, Constructivists cover the causal spectrum on the issue, from Katzenstein’s “cultural norms” which shape security concerns and thereby affect technological innovation; to Wendt’s “stripped down technological determinism” in which technology inevitably drives nations to form a world state. However most Constructivists seem to favor Wendt, arguing that new technology changes people’s identities within society, and sometimes even creates new cross-national constituencies, thereby affecting international politics. Of course, Marxists tend to see technology as determining all social relations and the entire course of history, though they describe mankind’s major fault lines as running between economic classes rather than nation-states. Finally, Buzan and Little remind us that without advances in the technologies of transportation, communication, production, and war, international systems would not exist in the first place.
17 -Perception of inaction against securities fraud undermines confidence ~-~~-~- crushes the global economy
18 -Lerach 2 (William, fmr. partner, Milbreg Weiss Bershad Hynes and Lerach LLP, “ENRON: LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Plundering America: How American Investors Got Taken for Trillions by Corporate Insiders~-~-The Rise of the New Corporate Kleptocracy,” 8 Stan. J.L. Bus. and Fin. 69, LexisNexis
19 -What happened was quite the opposite. Within a few years after corporate and Wall Street interests got Congress to pass the 1995 Act, "the chickens came home to roost." n28 As night follows day, after these powerful interests achieved their goal of *79 curtailing the ability of investors to hold them accountable for securities fraud, there has been a massive upsurge in securities fraud. The results are clear for all to see. Every metric to measure fraud in our markets soared. Financial scandal after financial scandal~-~-accounting restatement after accounting restatement~-~-surfaced. The huge market bubble burst, leaving investors holding a multi-trillion dollar bag, lay-offs sky-rocketed, the IPO window all but closed, and capital formation collapsed. Reality has overtaken deceit. While there have always been high-profile financial frauds~-~-Equity Funding, U.S. Financial, National Student Marketing, Penn Square Bank and Miniscribe come to mind~-~-these were isolated instances. Even the savings-and-loan scandals of the 1980s were confined to that industry. Historically, our public-company accounting has been of high quality and one of the major factors that has led to investor confidence in our markets, making them the envy of the world and helping to fuel the strong capital formation and economic growth we enjoyed for years. n29 Over the past several years, important changes in our financial markets occurred which, exacerbated by the negative consequences of the late 1990s legislative bonanza for corporate and financial interests, contributed to the massive increase in financial fraud we have witnessed. Over 9,000 new public companies were created by the IPO boom of the 1980s-1990s. Many of these new companies were smaller, high-tech or bio-tech companies where the pressure to show earnings growth was intense. Others were dot-com enterprises which had no earnings and were under pressure to show revenue increases~-~-or create apparent profits by using so-called "pro forma" accounting to generate financial results which Generally Accepted Accounting Principles would never sanction. However dubious these enterprises may have been as public companies, bringing them public generated billions in fees for the investment bankers and gargantuan returns to venture capital investors~-~-as well as making countless instant corporate insider multi-millionaires of people who had never even run a business before. But now each of these *80 companies was a public company, subject to all the pressures inherent on public companies to meet the revenue and earnings growth forecasts necessary to support a high stock price valuation. Executive compensation also changed. Executives now got cash bonuses only if earnings reached preset targets or the company's stock hit targeted prices. They received gigantic stock options, not to hold for the long term, but rather to exercise and sell each quarter, in a trading window that opened a day or two after the company reported its quarterly numbers. Also during the 1990s, the amounts paid to accounting firms by their corporate clients for consulting services skyrocketed, and the profitability of the huge accounting firms increasingly came to depend on their high-margin consulting fees from their audit clients, creating powerful incentives for these so-called "watchdogs" to accommodate their corporate clients. These were important structural changes that altered the type of public companies that dominated our financial markets, the relationship of the auditors to their corporate clients and the incentives that shape the behavior of corporate executives and their professional assistors. This explosion of new "high-growth" public companies, plus an executive-compensation system based on meeting predetermined earnings and stock-price appreciation targets, with stock options to be exercised and sold quarterly, created very powerful incentives to falsify results. This was exacerbated by executives' knowledge that markets, increasingly dominated by momentum investors, would instantly crush stocks for missing the "whisper" earnings numbers by just a penny or two. Add to this that it turned out that the supposedly "independent" accountants were routinely violating independence rules while pocketing lavish consulting payments that outweighed their audit fees many times over. While all of this was going on, Congress via the 1995 and 1998 Acts and several courts~-~-via a series of anti-investor decisions implementing these Acts~-~-were curtailing investor rights and remedies more severely than at any time since the enactment of the 1933 and 1934 Acts, n30 a toxic mixture in the making. *81 These factors created a "race to the bottom" in financial reporting that undermined the integrity of public-company financial reports which is essential to informed investor decisions, investor confidence in our markets, and the efficient allocation of capital to honest entrepreneurs whose efforts will create long-term economic job growth and positive investor returns. n31 Remember, Adam Smith's invisible hand guides us all. When there was so much to be gained by those who create the financial results of public companies by meeting expectations~-~-and so much to be lost by missing them~-~-we should not be surprised that corporate managers and their professional assistors yielded to temptation~-~-especially when their legal responsibility and accountability had been drastically curtailed. Under these circumstances, it is not hard to see the temptation to manipulate reported results - especially when the efficient market (it's really a ruthless market) would savage a stock for the slightest earnings disappointment. It is not as if Congress was not warned. Consumer, labor, and investor groups testified that the drastic cutback on investor protections and remedies for securities fraud embodied in the 1995 Act, and reduction of corporate executives' and securities professionals' accountability for misconduct that would follow, would inevitably result in an increase in securities fraud and investor losses. They told Congress this would impair investor confidence, harm capital formation and our economy. The 1995 Act was opposed by major consumer, worker, and investor groups. The vast majority of America's newspapers also editorialized against the 1995 Act. They warned that it would grant those best positioned to profit from stock inflation a license to lie and would result in a massive upsurge of fraudulent conduct and investor losses. *82 A review of these editorials is telling. How accurate their warnings and predictions were. Two bills before Congress reveal how reckless the Republicans have become in their zeal to reduce regulation. The bills~-~-which would "reform" laws governing securities firms and banks~-~-go far beyond their stated purpose of ending frivolous litigation. What they would actually do is insulate corporate officials who commit fraud from legal challenge by their victims. The securities bill would erect a nearly insurmountable barrier to suing officials who peddle recklessly false information. It would block suits against accountants, lawyers and other professionals who look the other way when the companies they serve mislead investors. The high-sounding Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 . . . might come to be remembered as legislation that steeply tilted the playing field against investors. n32 "The bill . . . would bar . . . charges of fraud against those who make false projections . . . . By granting "safe harbor" to all statements of a "forward-looking" nature, it essentially tells companies . . . . Go ahead, lie about the future . . . you can fleece investors in any way that your imagination allows." n33 Gone, if these bills ever become law, is the uniquely American system of open, accessible civil justice . . . Gone, too, would be vital rights of ordinary Americans to seek redress against fraudulent securities hucksters. . . . The "Securities Litigation Reform Act" is a gift to the boiler-room crowd in the securities profession. It would raise the standards of evidence required to bring fraud cases to court while lowering the standards of professional conduct considered legally fraudulent. n34 "Companies and their agents could make false "projections" and "estimates" of future performance, even if they were deliberate lies, without fear of lawsuits by those defrauded." n35 Talk about a twist of fate. Rep. Christopher Cox, a California Republican, wrote a tough, aggressive bill on securities-law reform, which passed the House of Representatives in March. If it becomes law, investors who think they've been defrauded will find it incredibly hard to bring a class-action lawsuit to recoup their loss. Just two months after his bill passed Cox found himself tagged by just such a suit, brought by some victims of the noxious *83 First Pension fraud. In a second suit last week, First Pension's court-appointed receiver charged Cox, among others, with contributing to the hoax. n36 How, in the light of overwhelming consumer, labor and investor group opposition and widespread editorial warnings, could this special-interest legislation have possibly been enacted? In truth, the fault lies not with the corporate and financial interests that used their financial and political power to get this legislation. After all, they were only exercising their First Amendment rights to advance their interests. Nor does it really lie with the likes of Senators Domenici, Gramm, Bennett, D'Amato n37 and their ilk, who were just doing the bidding of their corporate and financial supporters. The real responsibility lies with those in positions of public trust who defaulted, who gave in and even actively assisted these special interests to help get this legislation passed when they were in a position~-~-and had a responsibility~-~-to stop it. Notable among those who defaulted was then SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, the quintessential man of Wall Street who became the first Chairman in history to support legislation curtailing investor protections against securities fraud. n38 Levitt *84 often bragged how he had dined every month with corporate executives to hear their views. n39 It is unfortunate he never dined with victims of securities fraud to listen to their plight. While the Levitt of late has become a prominent critic of financial abuse, in truth, he abandoned the investors he was supposed to protect when the corporate and financial interests besieged Congress in 1994-1995 and again in 1998. n40 As the new Republican Congress arrived in Washington, the SEC~-~-the investor protection agency~-~-was in the hands of only two Commissioners~-~-with three seats vacant. Clinton, paralyzed by his recent election rebuke, failed to fill the empty seats. Thus, it remained for the Chairman, former Wall Street executive Levitt, and the only commissioner, Steve Wallman, an attorney who represented the Business Roundtable, to protect investors from the new, pro-corporate Congressional onslaught that was shaping up. Instead of fighting for investors, Levitt and Wallman actually helped the corporate community and its new Republican Congress pass the most damaging assault on investor protection since the federal securities laws came into being. Next comes Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a senior Democrat on the Banking Committee and the Chairman of the Democratic Party. n41 A purported progressive, n42 Dodd energetically championed the accounting firms and insurance and Wall Street interests, i.e., his contribution base, which all benefited so *85 handsomely from his efforts in making the attempt to gut the securities laws appear to be "bipartisan." n43 He actually led the veto override efforts to enact the 1995 Act~-~-challenging his own party's President~-~-blind to all the warnings of the frauds to come. This is a cautionary tale of how money and power and the promise of lucrative post-Beltway staff jobs can produce special interest legislation that harms America's workers and investors~-~-and in the end all of us. F. The "Cop on the Beat" Sleeps Also in the mix here was the failure of the SEC~-~-the supposed "cop on the beat"~-~-to do its job. Despite some public "jawboning" and an aggressive public-relations program casting former SEC Chairman Levitt as an investor's champion, n44 after the SEC was turned over to that alumnus of Wall Street, the SEC was anything but aggressive in cracking down on financial manipulation and insider trading by corporate executives. n45 Until recently, the SEC was headed by a lawyer who, while in *86 private practice, championed passage of the 1995 Act and represented the big accounting firms, Wall Street banks, and some of the corporations which are among those whose credibility has been tarnished and are under regulatory scrutiny. n46 He even wrote an article telling them how to cover their tracks by destroying incriminating evidence before anyone has sued them. n47 According to Forbes, in October, 2000 video cameras recorded Pitt giving a seminar for in-house corporate counsel and saying that chief financial officers whose e-mails detail too-cozy conversations with analysts about earnings estimates should "destroy" the incriminating messages "because somebody is going to find this, and it will probably be the SEC when they investigate." n48 Incredibly, this new head of the SEC early on signaled he wanted a "gentler" relationship with the accounting profession and that his SEC might actually seek to further restrict corporate liability for false forecasts. n49 In a belated response to the upsurge in corporate fraud, Pitt put forth what are at best meek proposals. For instance, Pitt recently had the SEC require corporate CEOs and CFOs to "swear" that their corporate financial results are accurate. n50 But the securities laws have required CEOs and CFOs to prepare and file accurate financial reports for public companies for sixty-eight years! CEOs and CFOs have had to sign corporate 10-Ks and 10-Qs for years. Wilfully filing false financial statements has long been a felony, subject to a prison term, since 1934. n51 And do you doubt that Enron's, WorldCom's, Adelphia's, Dynegy's, Qwest's, RiteAid's, and Global Crossing's CEOs and CFOs would have so sworn, if they had not been previously exposed. This would be humorous, if it weren't so sad. n52 *87 It now is clear that the worst stock market debacle in the history of postwar America did not just happen by chance or by the greed of the masses (although they were invaluable participants, as the sucker always is) but happened in large part because of conspiracy, greed in high places, incredible ignorance by those in high places, and a federal regulatory failure of unique proportions . . . . . . In the Internet/high-tech boom, completely worthless companies, with no prospect of earnings, were flogged insanely by the very people who should have been labeling them as unsound, the "analysts" and "market gurus" of the big investment banks. Companies that existed as no more than dreams and fantasies were touted as multi-billion dollar entities by people and investment houses whose job was to defend against exactly such viruses. What happened did not happen by accident, and a full accounting is owed to the people who were fleeced. n53 G. Pro-Corporate Courts Protect Fraudsters The courts are also responsible. For instance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers the high-tech and venture-capital havens of California (the Silicon Valley) and Washington (the Silicon Forest), which pushed so hard for the 1995 Act, was once a progressive court with a reputation for protecting investors. n54 Yet since the 1995 Act it has thrown 18 consecutive securities fraud suits by investors out of court. Eighteen times in a row, using the 1995 Act, the Ninth Circuit has sided with corporate interests and closed the courthouse door to defrauded investors. Not one complaint out of 18 upheld or permitted to go forward! It all started with the Ninth Circuit's 2-1 In re Silicon Graphics decision in 1999, n55 one of the first to interpret the 1995 Act's elevated pleading standard which laid out a roadmap for judges who wanted to use that pleading standard to bar defrauded investors from pursuing any remedy and thus insulate corporate fraudsters from liability. n56 That precedent has resulted in an unbroken string of *88 follow-on affirmances of dismissals of securities class action suits by the Ninth Circuit n57 and the dismissal of scores of cases in the lower courts in the Ninth Circuit where judges are bound to follow Silicon Graphics. Given the current revelations of the gross frauds that have infested our securities markets in recent years, is it really reasonable to conclude that investors who sued in the Ninth Circuit have been unable to plead a securities fraud case in sufficient detail eighteen times in a row? The conduct of some judges in using the 1995 Act to block valid securities suits has contributed to the attitude of executive arrogance that led to the upsurge in corporate fraud. Can you imagine the stockholder fraud suits filed against WorldCom and Ebbers n58 in March 2000 and against Tyco and Kozlowski n59 in December 1999 alleging securities fraud were thrown out of court by federal judges? These were detailed complaints setting forth major frauds. Their allegations were true. Yet judges used the 1995 Act to throw these cases out of court, denying damaged investors any remedy and allowing these very serious frauds to continue~-~-ultimately inflicting far greater harm on investors. A shareholder suit against Oracle and Larry Ellison, where Ellison sold off 900 million dollars of stock just a few weeks before Oracle revealed financial reversals and the stock collapsed, was also dismissed. n60 These are not isolated examples. Many other procorporate judges have repeatedly used the 1995 Act to protect dishonest corporate executives who falsify financial statements while insider trading and bar innocent investors from court. n61 *89 Forbes, one of the most probusiness and anti-lawyer publications in our Country, was scandalized by the dismissal of the WorldCom suit. It wrote: Over a year ago a raft of former WorldCom employees gave statements outlining a scandalous litany of misdeeds~-~-deliberately understating costs, hiding bad debt, backdating contracts to book orders earlier than accounting rules allow. But it appears that WorldCom's directors never followed up to investigate the allegations . . . They should have. The alleged chicanery served to falsify hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and sales to give a veneer of stability and strength to WorldCom. The unheeded accusations first emerged in June 2001 n62 with the filing of a shareholder lawsuit against WorldCom in federal court on its home turf, Jackson, Miss. The complaint was backed by 100 interviews with former WorldCom employees and related parties. The allegations were startling in their breadth and detail. In smacking down the class action, the judge decreed: "The numbers are so large, the stakes were so high, and the fall of the dollar value of WorldCom stock so precipitous, that the reader reacts by thinking that there must have been some corporate misbehavior . . . However, after a thorough examination, it becomes apparent that the Complaint is a classic example of 'puzzle pleading,'" or using an onrush of "cross-references and repetition" in lieu of real substance. n63 Judge Barbour was an ideal adjudicator for the home team . . . Barbour and his family reside in a state where WorldCom was the biggest source of local pride and a major supplier of high-paying jobs. Mississippi is undergoing a highly charged tort reform battle, with Republicans squarely on the side of curtailing shareholder lawsuits. A Reagan appointee to the bench . . . Barbour is a first cousin and former law partner of Haley Barbour, former Republican National Committee chairman and now a high-powered Washington lobbyist mulling a run for Mississippi governor . . . . *90 More intriguing still, Judge Barbour's second cousin, Henry Barbour, is the campaign chairman for U.S. Representative Charles W. (Chip) Pickering. The Mississippi Republican was the largest congressional recipient of contributions from MCI, WorldCom and related individuals, receiving $ 83,750 from 1989 to 2002. n64 With judicial protection like this, it is no wonder corporate executives became emboldened and misbehaved~-~-and investors ended up damaged and dismayed! Investors realize that purchasing securities entails risks, including the risk of loss. But if victims of securities fraud perceive that they have lost a fair chance to hold perpetrators legally responsible, that has to contribute to undermining investor confidence. n65 If corporate executives realize they can get away with it they will be all the more emboldened to try to do so. The truth is, in the last half of the 1990s, Congress, the SEC and several courts caved in to the corporate and financial interests and badly impaired the investor protections historically provided by our federal securities laws. n66 As a *91 result, the integrity of public~-~-company financial reporting and disclosure practices became severely undermined at the very time the IPO boom and the greatest bull market in history roared on~-~-attracting all-time record levels of pension funds' and individuals' investment of retirement savings monies. These investors got creamed. Over 14 trillion dollars was lost in just over two years~-~-a lot of that due to fraud.
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21 -Economic decline causes nuclear war
22 -Tønnesson 15 (Stein, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Leader of the East Asia Peace program at Uppsala university, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International Area Studies Review, Volume 18, Number 3, p. 297—311
23 -Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
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1 -NOVDEC - DA - Court Clog
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1 -Belief that police are under attack inspires right wing backlash, spurs militia recruitment
2 -Blue, 16, Miranda Blue, July 8, 2016, “Oath Keepers Calls For Establishment Of Militias In Response To Dallas Ambush” Right Wing Watch
3 - http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/oath-keepers-calls-for-establishment-of-militias-in-response-to-dallas-ambush/
4 -Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, responded today to last night’s sniper ambush of police officers near a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas by calling for “patriotic Americans” to “go armed at all times” and “reestablish the militia system.” Rhodes wrote on the Oath Keepers website that the shooting was the product of “the Marxist agenda to divide and conquer along racial lines and inspire blind hatred against all police, and against this nation in general,” warning that it would be used to “further militarize” the police and “trample on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Tying the shooting in Dallas to the attack on an Orlando gay nightclub by an ISIS-inspired terrorist, Rhodes wrote that what “is now needed, more than ever, is the reestablishment of the militia of the people, trained, equipped and organized in each town, to defend against what is now clearly a ‘Tet Offensive’ American style.” “Therefore, I call on all Oath Keepers, and all patriotic Americans, to come to the aid of their local police, and to the aid of their communities, and unite and coordinate in mutual defense against this orchestrated campaign of Marxist terrorism, which is the modern version of the wave of terrorism we saw in the late 60s and early 70s by the Marxist Weather Underground and related groups (who also frequently targeted police), along with the closely related Jihadist terrorism offensive, with Orlando being merely the latest in an ongoing wave of attacks. What is now needed, more than ever, is the reestablishment of the militia of the people, trained, equipped and organized in each town, to defend against what is now clearly a “Tet Offensive” American style, as Navy SEAL veteran Matt Bracken warned. While we work to reestablish that militia system, you must go armed at all times, and be prepared, at all times, to defend your community against these Marxist terrorists as well as their Islamist terror allies. Remember, they are in league, and you are their common enemy and their common targets. The power elites who control, aid, abet and fund these terrorists will attempt to use these attacks to further destroy what little is left of our Constitution, but the one thing they do not want, and the one thing they truly fear, is for We the People, who are still armed, to come together and restore the militia of the several states. And the elites’ terrorist proxies among the Marxists and Islamacists also fear such a revitalization and restoration. So, let’s do what our enemies all fear most. Let us resurrect and restore the militia system of this nation, which the Founders told us is necessary for the security of a free state, and which must consist of ALL of the able bodied citizens of your community. It is time to finally get down to doing what is necessary. It starts with you and your neighbors coming together, now, to address this grave threat, and for you to lead them toward the only constitutional solution – the revitalization of the militia.”
5 -Turns case—right-wing militia groups threaten minority groups and critical infrastructure, including power grids
6 -Potok, 16, Mark Potok, United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and University of Chicago, February 17, 2016, “The Year in Hate and Extremism”, Southern Poverty Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2016/year-hate-and-extremism
7 -The number of hate and antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups grew last year, and terrorist attacks and radical plots proliferated. Charleston. Chattanooga. Colorado Springs. In these towns and dozens of other communities around the nation, 2015 was a year marked by extraordinary violence from domestic extremists — a year of living dangerously. Antigovernment militiamen, white supremacists, abortion foes, domestic Islamist radicals, neo-Nazis and lovers of the Confederate battle flag targeted police, government officials, black churchgoers, Muslims, Jews, schoolchildren, Marines, abortion providers, members of the Black Lives Matter protest movement, and even drug dealers. They laid plans to attack courthouses, banks, festivals, funerals, schools, mosques, churches, synagogues, clinics, water treatment plants and power grids. They used firearms, bombs, C-4 plastic explosives, knives and grenades; one of them, a murderous Klansman, was convicted of trying to build a death ray. The armed violence was accompanied by rabid and often racist denunciations of Muslims, LGBT activists and others — incendiary rhetoric led by a number of mainstream political figures and amplified by a lowing herd of their enablers in the right-wing media. Reacting to demographic changes in the U.S., immigration, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Islamist atrocities, these people fostered a sense of polarization and anger in this country that may be unmatched since the political upheavals of 1968. When it comes to mainstream politics, the hardcore radical right typically says a pox on both their houses. Not this time. Donald Trump’s demonizing statements about Latinos and Muslims have electrified the radical right, leading to glowing endorsements from white nationalist leaders such as Jared Taylor and former Klansman David Duke. White supremacist forums are awash with electoral joy, having dubbed Trump their “Glorious Leader.” And Trump has repaid the compliments, retweeting hate posts and spreading their false statistics on black-on-white crime. In the midst of these developments, hate groups continued to flourish. The number of groups on the American radical right, according to the latest count by the Southern Poverty Law Center, expanded from 784 in 2014 to 892 in 2015 — a 14 increase. The increase in hate groups was not even across extremist sectors. The hardest core sectors of the white supremacist movement—white nationalists, neo-Nazis and racist skinheads—actually declined somewhat, a reflection, perhaps, that hate in the mainstream had absorbed some of the hate on the fringes But there were significant increases in Klan as well as black separatist groups. Klan chapters grew from 72 in 2014 to 190 last year, invigorated by the 364 pro-Confederate battle flag rallies that took place after South Carolina took down the battle flag from its Capitol grounds following the June massacre of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist flag enthusiast in Charleston, S.C. Rallies in favor of the battle flag were held in 26 states — concentrated, but by no means limited to the South — and reflected widespread white anger that the tide in the country was turning against them. On the opposite end of the political spectrum, black separatist hate groups also grew, going from 113 chapters in 2014 to 180 last year. The growth was fueled largely by the explosion of anger fostered by highly publicized incidents of police shootings of black men. But unlike activists for racial justice such as those in the Black Lives Matter movement, the black separatist groups did not stop at demands for police reforms and an end to structural racism. Instead, they typically demonized all whites, gays, and, in particular, Jews. Just as the number of hate groups rose by 14 in 2015, so did the number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment “Patriot” groups, going from 874 in 2014 to 998 last year. The growth was fueled by the euphoria felt in antigovernment circles after armed activists forced federal officials to back down at gunpoint from seizing cattle at Cliven Bundy’s ranch to pay his grazing fees. So emboldened were activists by the failure of the federal government to arrest anyone following their “victory” at the Bundy ranch that armed men, led by Bundy’s son, began occupying a wildlife refugee in Oregon in January 2016 as a protest against federal land ownership in the West. The 2015 hate group count almost certainly understates the true size of the American radical right. White supremacists are increasingly opting to operate mainly online, where the danger of public exposure and embarrassment is far lower, where younger people tend to gather, and where it requires virtually no effort or cost to join in the conversation. The major hate forum Stormfront now has more than 300,000 members, and the site has been adding about 25,000 registered users annually for several years — the size of a small city. The milieu of the web is an ideal one for “lone wolves” — terrorists who operate on their own and are radicalized online. Dylann Roof is the perfect example. His journey began with absorbing propaganda about black-on-white crime from the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group that enjoyed the attention of Republican lawmakers in the 1990s, and ended with the June massacre in Charleston. Like increasing numbers in white supremacist circles, Roof was convinced after drinking radical-right Kool-Aid on the Internet claiming that white people worldwide were the targets of genocide. Violence Hits a New Peak Last year brought more domestic political violence, both from the American radical right and from American jihadists, than the nation has seen in many years (see timeline of violence, below). According to a year-end report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “domestic extremist killers” slew more people in 2015 than in any year since 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing left 168 men, women and children dead. Counting both political and other violence from extremists, the ADL said “a minimum of 52 people in the United States were killed by adherents of domestic extremist movements in the past 12 months.” Another tally, by the respected New America Foundation, found that by year’s end, 45 people in America had been killed in “violent jihadist attacks” since the Al Qaeda massacre of Sept. 11, 2001, just short of the 48 people killed in the same 14-year period in “far right wing attacks.” (Unlike the ADL, the foundation does not count non-political violence by extremists.) A Timeline: The Year In Domestic Terror The impact of terrorism goes far beyond the body count. Violence motivated by racial, ethnic or religious animus fractures society along its most fragile fault lines, and sends shock waves through entire targeted communities. More hatred and fear, particularly of diversity, are often the response. Several political figures have harnessed that fear, calling for bans on mosques, Muslim immigrants and refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East. And terror can breed hate crimes, as evidenced by a string of physical attacks on mosques and Muslims, particularly after a jihadist couple in San Bernardino, Calif., murdered 14 people in December. From start to finish, the year 2015 was remarkable for its terrorist violence, the penetration of the radical right and its conspiracy theories into mainstream politics, and the boost far-right ideas and groups received from pandering politicians like Donald Trump. And the situation appears likely to get worse, not better, as the country continues to come to terms with its increasing diversity. .
8 -Turns case—grid failure cause massive starvation and structural violence.
9 -Lewis 14 (Patrice Lewis is a freelance writer. WND Commentary: “If the grid fails, will you die?” published May 23rd, 2014 accessed June 26th, 2015. http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/if-the-grid-fails-will-you-die/)
10 -It seems too many people are flippant or dismissive of the potential hardships. “An electromagnetic pulse is a joke and would be minor at best,” notes one person. “I say that because most people know how to survive without all the modern conveniences.” Or, “We’d go back to the 1800s. Big deal. People lived just fine in the 1800s.” I’m not here to argue about the odds of an EMP taking out the grid. I’m not going to discuss the technicalities of Faraday cages or the hardening of electronics. I’m here to state that if you think life in America without electricity will merely revert us to pioneer days, you are dead wrong (no pun intended, I hope). We wouldn’t regress to the 1800s; we would regress to the 1100s or earlier. Life would become a bitter, brutal struggle for survival. Society thrived in the 1800s for four very simple reasons: 1) a non-electric infrastructure already existed; 2) people had the skills, knowledge and tools to make do; 3) our population levels were far lower, and most people lived rural and raised a significant portion of their own food; and 4) there were relatively few people who didn’t earn their way. To be blunt, if you didn’t work, you seldom ate. Those who couldn’t work (the disabled, the elderly, etc.) were cared for by family members or charitable institutions. There were no other options. These conditions no longer exist. Homes do not come equipped with outhouses, hand water pumps and a trained horse stabled in the back. Many people don’t have the faintest clue how to cook from scratch, much less grow or raise their own food. Eighty percent of Americans live in cities and are fed by less than 2 percent of the population, which means farmers must mass-produce food for shipments to cities. And there are far too many people on multi-generational entitlement programs who literally know no other lifestyle except an endless cycle of EBT cards and welfare payments. Additionally, the interconnectivity that exists in today’s society is complex beyond belief. It’s been proven again and again that a single weak link can bring down the whole chain. A trucker’s strike or a massive storm at one end of the country can mean interrupted food deliveries at the other end. Even the most humble object – a pencil, for example – has a pedigree of such unimaginable complexity that its manufacture requires the cooperation of millions, and not one single person on the planet knows how to make one from start to finish. Read this essay to see what I mean. How much more complex would it be to rebuild a fallen electrical grid than a pencil? And yet some people claim that a grid-down situation will be a minor inconvenience. They think that because they line-dry their clothes and have a few tomatoes on their patio, that they’ll be able to survive a situation in which all services cease. They think food production and distribution is somehow independent of fuel and electricity. In fact, it’s intimately connected. Ever try to till a 3,500-acre wheat field by horse-drawn plow? Shut off power and you shut off food. Period. Some people contemptuously dismiss the hardships that would ensue after grid-down by noting that we already posses the know-how for technological and medical advances. We know how to treat or cure illness and injury. We know how to provide electrical power. We know how to make engines. Therefore, it will be easy to rebuild America’s infrastructure in the event of a grid-down situation. And these people are right – we do possess the knowledge. What we would lack is the infrastructure to rebuild the infrastructure. We lack the stop-gap services that would allow engineers and manufacturers to rebuild society without facing starvation first. And if the people with the specialized knowledge to rebuild die off in the interim before the infrastructure gets rebuilt, then where will we be? America’s connectivity, more than anything else, will cripple our society should the power fail. It’s all well and good for a surgeon to have the knowledge of how to operate on a cancerous tumor, but if sterile scalpels and anesthesia and dressings and other surgical accouterments are not available, the surgeon’s abilities regress almost to the point of a tribal witch doctor by the lack of infrastructure, services and supplies.
11 -Causes global wars and instability
12 -Femia 12 (Francesco and Caitlin Werrell, Write for The Center For Climate and Security, When National Climate Disasters Go Global: On Drought, Food, And Global Insecurity, July, Accessed Online at Think Progress)
13 -
14 -The security implications of food price spikes
15 -What we’ve also seen is that spikes in world food prices have increased the likelihood of instability and riots. In some instances, crop failure in one part of the world associated with instability halfway around the globe, can contribute to serious diplomatic crises between the U.S. and its allies, as occurred with Egypt, and could conceivably result in U.S. military involvement.
16 -This is part of a larger phenomenon Dr. Troy Sternberg calls “the globalization of hazards,” where natural hazards in one region can have a significant impact on regions halfway across the globe. This is not to say that the current U.S. drought will necessarily lead to unrest. However, it is not unprecedented for droughts, and other climatic events that damage crop production, to do so.
17 -Collective impact of crop failure across the globe
18 -It is also important to consider that the drought and crop failures in the U.S. are not happening in isolation. In recent years, extreme hot and dry weather has forced Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to reduce their harvest forecasts (and two studies explicitly link the devastating Russian heat wave of 2010 to climate change). European Union wheat yields this year will be smaller, in part, because Spain is suffering from the second worst drought in fifty years. North and South Korea are facing the worst drought in a century. Shifts in glacial melt and rainfall are threatening crops in Pakistan. The proliferation of locusts throughout West Africa is threatening household food security. Recent floods in Japan, India and Bangladesh are threatening rice crops. Argentina’s soy crops were severely depleted because of a shortage of rain. And in Mali, drought combined with other factors led to a major humanitarian disaster in the region. The list goes on.
19 -Many of these conditions are record-setting, or the worst of their kind in decades and sometimes centuries. And climate projections threaten to make matters worse. What this means is that it is possible that the global food market is about to witness an unusual amount of stress. It is not entirely clear if the market is prepared for it, or even if nations have the capacity to adequately respond.
20 -Impact on U.S. assistance and diplomacy
21 -Food, for better or worse, is also used as a form of diplomacy. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Food for Peace program has sent 106 million metric tons to the hungry of the world, feeding billions of people and saving countless lives. The program depends on the unparalleled productivity of American farmers and the American agricultural system. Without this vast system there would be no Food for Peace program, or any of the other food assistance programs either run by the U.S. government, or heavily supported by the U.S. such as the UN’s World Food Program.
22 -On average, American food aid provides 60 percent of the world’s food aid, feeding millions of desperately hungry people every year. This means that in addition to facing an increasing risk from lower crop and animal stock yields and global food market shocks, the U.S. may also be limiting its ability to respond rapidly to global disasters, including global food crises. This is bad news for the global poor, and for U.S. diplomacy.
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1 -2016-11-20 15:01:19.0
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1 -San Marino ED
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1 -NOVDEC - DA - Militias
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1 -CP: The United States federal government should mandate a community based implementation of the California AB 65 and California AB 66 plan for police body cameras including but not limited to mandates to assume criminal activity if police fail to use or tamper with cameras, protect civilian rights to film, and use special prosecutors to try police officers. The full list of mandates and links to the two California bills are below.
2 -That increases accountability, transparency, and prosecution of police misconduct
3 -Friedman et al 15 - Andrew Friedman, Brian Kettenring, and Ana Maria Archila, Co-Executive Directors, The Center for Popular Democracy, Alana Greer, Community Justice Project; Alyssa Aguilera, VOCAL NY; Anthony Newby, Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change; Bill Henry, Baltimore City Council; Brendan Roediger, Arch City Defenders; Bukky Gbadesgesin, Organization for Black Struggle; Curtis Sails, Coalition 4 Justice; Dante Barry, Million Hoodies; Deray McKesson, WeTheProtestors; Jackie Byers, Black Organizing Project; James Hayes, Ohio Student Association; Je Ordower, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment; Jennifer Epps-Addison, Wisconsin Jobs Now; John Chasno , Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression; Jose Lopez, Make the Road NY; Justin Hansford, St. Louis University School of Law; Kassandra Frederique, Drug Policy Alliance; Kim McGill, Youth 4 Justice; Lynn Lewis, Picture the Homeless; Meena Jagannath, Community Justice Project; Nahal Zamani, Center for Constitutional Rights; Opal Tometi, Black Alliance for Justice Immigration; Paolo Harris, Ingoma Foundation; Patrisse Cullors, Dignity and Power Now/Coalition to End Sheri ’s Violence in L.A. Jails; Pete White, Los Angeles Community Action Network; Rachel Herzing, Critical Resistance; Ralikh Hayes, Baltimore BLOC; Sco Roberts, Advancement Project; Tara Hu man, Open Society Institute Baltimore; Thenjiwe McHarris, US Human Rights Network, and Valantina Amalraj, Columbia Law School: June 2015(“Building Momentum from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Promoting Justice” The Center for Popular Democracy Available at http://www.justiceinpolicing.com/docs/JusticeInPolicing.pdf Accessed on 11/15/16)IG
4 -Body cameras have become the most popular political response to recent incidents of police misconduct and brutality. There is much debate about the e ectiveness and desirability of body worn cameras by community groups and advocates. Some communities and many elected o - cials believe that if properly regulated, body-worn cameras for police o cers may be a tool to increase accountability, transparency, and collect evidence of police misconduct. Communities must decide whether these potential bene ts outweigh privacy and other concerns, such as police misuse. Additionally, communities must be involved in the development of departmental protocols to shape when body cameras are mandated for use. If community members advocate for a body cameras, the policy should include a community agreed upon provision outlining when cameras must be activated and a provision applying a presumption of police misconduct if footage is unavailable (when it was supposed to be recorded).
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1 -NOVDEC - CP - Body Cameras
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1 -Armenia’s nuclear power is key to relations with Russia
2 -http://arka.am/en/news/economy/levitin_armenia_s_nuclear_power_plant_enables_armenia_and_russia_to_step_up_their_cooperation_in_ene/
3 -Arka ‘15
4 -YEREVAN, October 15. /ARKA/. Armenia’s nuclear power plant in Metsamor enables Armenia and Russia to step up their cooperation in energy sector, Igor Levitin, the Russian president’s advisor who long years led the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission, said Saturday in Yerevan. “Our relations in this area very firm, and there is a good potential for developing them by using atomic energy,” he said answering ARKA News Agency’s question. Leviting said that Armenia can generate more electric power by using new technologies in the atomic energy. He said the two countries’ presidents gave appropriate instructions to the ministers when they met earlier this year. Armenia plans to build a new unit for the NPP which is expected to be commissioned in 2019-2020. In order to attract foreign investors, the Armenian parliament in 2006 abolished the state monopoly on ownership of new nuclear power units. The Armenian Metsamor nuclear power plant is located some 30 kilometers west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230 light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995. Armenian authorities said they will build a new nuclear power plant to replace the aging facility. The new plant is supposed to operate at twice the capacity of the Soviet-constructed facility. Metsamor currently generates some 40 percent of Armenia's electricity. But the government has yet to attract funding for the project that was estimated by a U.S.-funded feasibility study to cost at as much as $5 billion.
5 -Relations are on the brink now – they’re key to manage Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – energy’s the key internal link
6 -Anna Nemtsova 16 (Anna Nemtsova, ) In Nagorno-Karabakh, a Bloody New War With Putin on Both Sides, Daily Beast 4-4-2016 AT
7 -Armenia's relationship with Russia was tested this year, despite that Armenia joined Russia's Eurasian Union and received financial assistance and weapons deliveries from Moscow. In January, a Russian soldier killed an entire Armenian family in Giumri. Moscow eventually allowed the Armenian government to conduct its own trial of the soldier, but not before igniting protests across Armenia and raising anti-Russia sentiments. Protests later sprang up in Yerevan against a price hike for electricity demanded by a Russia company. Although the protesters claimed their discontent was only with social issues, Russian politicians were visibly worried that the protest would turn to overall discontent with Armenia's pro-Russia stance. Armenia's economy, hurt by Russia's economic decline in the face of Western sanctions, also declined, which has further enflamed domestic anger. Moreover, Armenia and the European Union started to work on a new cooperation agreement, which could also cause some problems with Moscow by complicating its standoff with the West. Empowering Russia-based Armenian politicians amenable to Moscow's interests would certainly benefit Russia's negotiations with Sarkisian's government, especially on another, more important issue: Nagorno-Karabakh. Stratfor recently noted numerous efforts on Azerbaijan's part to change an existing status quo regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Usually, small-scale clashes along the contact line that define the conflict result in mostly Armenian casualties and loss of military equipment. However, Yerevan suspects that a recent Russian-Azerbaijani diplomatic rapprochement might lead Russia to allegedly agree to a possible change of this status quo. Several theories have been propounded, from withdrawing Armenian forces from the seven regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, to the placement of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — the Russia-led military bloc — peacekeepers. But Armenia's political elite, predominantly made up of politicians originating from Nagorno-Karabakh (like Sarkisian), has staunchly objected to any of these scenarios. Thus it may not be entirely coincidental that Yerevan, following the alleged Russian-Azerbaijani talks, decided to ramp up its forces along the contact line as well as to overtly criticize the CSTO. Moreover, Armenian leaders even threatened that in case of an Azerbaijani military attack, Yerevan would consider recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state, which would make placing any peacekeepers there virtually impossible. The Kremlin's decision to overtly support Russia-based Armenians is a direct response to Moscow's challenges with the Armenian government. More important, Russia's overall strategy of isolating the former Soviet state to keep it dependent is part of its grand design to maintain a grip on the entire former Soviet periphery. Since the collapse of the pro-Russia government in Ukraine in 2014 and the conflicts and regional political maneuvers that followed, Russia has feared the loss of this sphere of influence to the West. Hence, losing clout in Armenia, even to a non-Western country such as Iran, let alone Europe, risks putting another dent in Russia's weakened buffer zone. So in the long term, pro-Russia figures such as Karapetian and Abrahamian are likely to play important role in Armenian politics. The influence of Russian companies in Armenia's energy sector will have equally strategic repercussions, limiting the country's ability to become a transit country for Iranian exports and increasing its dependence on Russia.
8 -
9 -Failure to manage the conflict causes a proxy war in the Caucasus
10 -Anna Nemtsova 16 (Anna Nemtsova, ) In Nagorno-Karabakh, a Bloody New War With Putin on Both Sides, Daily Beast 4-4-2016 AT
11 -MOSCOW — Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that became breakaway republic backed by Armenia in all spheres of life, has been living in a not-quite-frozen state of war since 1994. Every schoolboy in the mountainous little republic has grown up knowing that after graduation he will put on a uniform and join the military to police the unstable cease-fire. The republic’s 150,000 people, mostly ethnic Armenians, remember rockets destroying apartment buildings in the fighting more than 20 years ago, and have long feared that their worst nightmare of full-scale war would return. Now it looks like it has. The war woke up on Saturday night with both sides of the front using armored vehicles, battle tanks, and aviation, launching multiple rockets, and shooting artillery at each other. Over 30 people were killed and dozens wounded in the worst combat in the last two decades. The regional implications are hard to miss. Armenia is one of Russia’s closest allies and Turkey immediately backed up Azerbaijan at a time when relations between Moscow and Ankara are bitter and vindictive. Given the war in Syria, where Russia and Turkey back opposing sides, and Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November, the current eruption between Armenia and Azerbaijan is even more geopolitically dangerous than two decades ago. On the eve of violent clashes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan were attending the Nuclear Summit in Washington, but obviously had no chance to shake hands and make peace to prevent the tragedy. Among the first victims of the latest violent clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh were children: a 12 year old boy, Vaginak Grigorian, was killed in the cross fire by one of Azerbaijan’s Grad multiple-rocket launchers, the Armenian papers reported; two more children were wounded among dozens of civilian victims. On Monday, the Karabakh ministry of defense claimed its forces had destroyed 19 of Azerbaijan’s tanks, and posted dreadful images on Twitter of buildings shelled the night before, of burned vehicles, of dead bodies, and of victims covered in blood. The Armenian government claimed that a bus with Armenian volunteers going to Karabakh was hit by an Azerbaijani drone. Five volunteers were killed. Azerbaijan meanwhile reported on dozens of casualties. It would be hard to overstate the dependence of the Armenian contingent on Moscow. Nagorno-Karabakh’s officials told The Daily Beast in interviews last summer that neither Armenia nor Nagorno-Karabakh could survive without Russia’s support in the conflict with Azerbaijan. In 2014 Armenia joined Vladimir Putin’s dream project, the Eurasian Economic Union, together with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Armenian military doctrine holds that Russia is the guarantor of the country’s military security, and in the last few years Russia equipped its military bases in Armenian Gyumri and Erebuni with MiG-29 fighters, Mi-24 helicopters, as well as with more than 70 tanks, armored vehicles and artillery systems. Last December, Russia delivered new helicopters to its aviation base in Erebuni. In February Moscow announced it was selling $200 million worth of arms to Armenia. But, here’s the rub: at the same time, Russia sold hundreds of tanks to Armenia’s long time enemy, Azerbaijan. Last year the contracts for Russian military exports to Azerbaijan included armored vehicles, artillery and mortar systems. While in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, many wondered what else they had to do to prove their loyalty and devotion to the Kremlin, in Moscow it was clear that President Putin needed Azerbaijan as Russia’s ally, too, especially as relations between Russia and Turkey worsened. There are many reasons it’s not in the Kremlin’s interest to lose Azerbaijan’s friendship. In 2014 Russia’s Rosneft and Azerbaijan’s Socar oil companies created a joint venture to explore oil and gas fields together in both countries, and Azerbaijan’s exports to Russia have been growing. Experts both in Moscow and in Baku believe that president Putin would do almost anything to avoid a full-scale conflict between Russia and Azerbaijan. “Putin cannot afford to lose Azerbaijan, he would do everything to negotiate the peace for Nagorno-Karabakh now,” an independent political analyst, Dmitriy Oreshkin, told The Daily Beast on Monday. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was planning to visit Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, this week, while Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev planned to visit Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Many in Yerevan wish that U.S. President Barack Obama had managed somehow to play a peacemaker’s role in Washington last week to prevent the escalation of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. That was not to be. But, as Armenian parliament member Tevan Poghosyna told The Daily Beast, “If the international community does not manage to stop the war now, several countries might be involved in the conflict, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan supporting Azerbaijan and Russia, we hope, supporting Armenia.” Another descent into chaos and proxy war is, to be sure, the last thing the world needs right now.This is also an alt cause to the relations advantage
12 -Causes a full-scale US-Russia war
13 -Friedman 9 George, Fall. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of STRATFOR, Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. “The Coming Conflict With Russia,” Journal of International Security Affairs No 17, http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2009/17/friedman.php
14 -The Caucasus serves as the boundary between Russian and Turkish power, and has historically been a flash point between the two empires. It was also a flash point during the Cold War. The Turkish–Soviet border ran through the Caucasus, with the Soviet side consisting of three separate republics: Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, all now independent. The Caucasus also ran north into the Russian Federation itself, including into the Muslim areas of Dagestan and, most important, Chechnya, where a guerrilla war against Russian domination raged after the fall of Communism. From a purely defensive point of view, the precise boundaries of Russian and Turkish influence don’t matter, so long as both are based somewhere in the Caucasus. The rugged terrain makes defense relatively easy. Should the Russians lose their position in the Caucasus altogether and be pushed north into the lowlands, however, Russia’s position would become difficult. With the gap between Ukraine and Kazakhstan only a few hundred miles wide, Russia would be in strategic trouble. This is the reason the Russians are so unwilling to compromise on Chechnya. The southern part of Chechnya is deep in the northern Caucasus. If that were lost, the entire Russian position would unravel. Given a choice, the Russians would prefer to be anchored farther south, in Georgia. Armenia is already an ally of Russia. If Georgia were Russian, Moscow’s entire position would be much more stable. Controlling Chechnya is indispensable. Reabsorbing Georgia is desirable. Holding Azerbaijan does not provide a strategic advantage—but the Russians would not mind having it as a buffer with the Iranians. Russia’s position here is not intolerable, but Georgia, not incidentally closely allied with the United States, is a tempting target, as was seen in the August 2008 conflict. The situation in the Caucasus is not only difficult to understand but also difficult to deal with. The Soviet Union actually managed to solve the complexity by incorporating all these countries after World War I and ruthlessly suppressing their autonomy. It is impossible for Russia to be indifferent to the region now or in the future—unless it is prepared to lose its position in the Caucasus. Therefore, the Russians can be expected to reassert their position, most likely starting with Georgia. And since the United States sees Georgia as a strategic asset, Russia’s reassertion there will lead to confrontation with the United States. Unless the Chechen rebellion completely disappears, the Russians will have to move south, then isolate the rebellion and nail down their position in the mountains. There are two powers that will not want this to happen. The United States is one, and the other is Turkey. Americans will see Russian domination of Georgia as undermining their position in the region. The Turks will see this as energizing the Armenians and returning the Russian army in force to their borders. The Russians will become more convinced of the need to act because of this resistance. A duel in the Caucasus will be the likely result.
15 -Russia war=extinction
16 -Barrett et al 13—PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, Fellow in the RAND Stanton Nuclear Security Fellows Program, and Director of Research at Global Catastrophic Risk Institute—AND Seth Baum, PhD in Geography from Pennsylvania State University, Research Scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, and Executive Director of Global Catastrophic Risk Institute—AND Kelly Hostetler, BS in Political Science from Columbia and Research Assistant at Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (Anthony, 24 June 2013, “Analyzing and Reducing the Risks of Inadvertent Nuclear War Between the United States and Russia,” Science and Global Security: The Technical Basis for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation Initiatives, Volume 21, Issue 2, Taylor and Francis)
17 -
18 -War involving significant fractions of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, which are by far the largest of any nations, could have globally catastrophic effects such as severely reducing food production for years, 1 potentially leading to collapse of modern civilization worldwide, and even the extinction of humanity. 2 Nuclear war between the United States and Russia could occur by various routes, including accidental or unauthorized launch; deliberate first attack by one nation; and inadvertent attack. In an accidental or unauthorized launch or detonation, system safeguards or procedures to maintain control over nuclear weapons fail in such a way that a nuclear weapon or missile launches or explodes without direction from leaders. In a deliberate first attack, the attacking nation decides to attack based on accurate information about the state of affairs. In an inadvertent attack, the attacking nation mistakenly concludes that it is under attack and launches nuclear weapons in what it believes is a counterattack. 3 (Brinkmanship strategies incorporate elements of all of the above, in that they involve intentional manipulation of risks from otherwise accidental or inadvertent launches. 4 ) Over the years, nuclear strategy was aimed primarily at minimizing risks of intentional attack through development of deterrence capabilities, and numerous measures also were taken to reduce probabilities of accidents, unauthorized attack, and inadvertent war. For purposes of deterrence, both U.S. and Soviet/Russian forces have maintained significant capabilities to have some forces survive a first attack by the other side and to launch a subsequent counter-attack. However, concerns about the extreme disruptions that a first attack would cause in the other side's forces and command-and-control capabilities led to both sides’ development of capabilities to detect a first attack and launch a counter-attack before suffering damage from the first attack. 5 Many people believe that with the end of the Cold War and with improved relations between the United States and Russia, the risk of East-West nuclear war was significantly reduced. 6 However, it also has been argued that inadvertent nuclear war between the United States and Russia has continued to present a substantial risk. 7 While the United States and Russia are not actively threatening each other with war, they have remained ready to launch nuclear missiles in response to indications of attack. 8 False indicators of nuclear attack could be caused in several ways. First, a wide range of events have already been mistakenly interpreted as indicators of attack, including weather phenomena, a faulty computer chip, wild animal activity, and control-room training tapes loaded at the wrong time. 9 Second, terrorist groups or other actors might cause attacks on either the United States or Russia that resemble some kind of nuclear attack by the other nation by actions such as exploding a stolen or improvised nuclear bomb, 10 especially if such an event occurs during a crisis between the United States and Russia. 11 A variety of nuclear terrorism scenarios are possible. 12 Al Qaeda has sought to obtain or construct nuclear weapons and to use them against the United States. 13 Other methods could involve attempts to circumvent nuclear weapon launch control safeguards or exploit holes in their security. 14 It has long been argued that the probability of inadvertent nuclear war is significantly higher during U.S.–Russian crisis conditions, 15 with the Cuban Missile Crisis being a prime historical example. It is possible that U.S.–Russian relations will significantly deteriorate in the future, increasing nuclear tensions. There are a variety of ways for a third party to raise tensions between the United States and Russia, making one or both nations more likely to misinterpret events as attacks. 16
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1 -Nuclear shut down will have a huge fiscal impact – nuclear energy constitutes a massive portion of Armenian exports and domestic power production
2 -ENPI 13 (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument, “ARMENIA: COUNTRY STRATEGY PAPER,” 2007-2013, https://eeas.europa.eu/enp/pdf/pdf/country/enpi_csp_armenia_en.pdf)
3 -Decommissioning of the Medzamor nuclear power plant will have significant fiscal implications. Despite longstanding international requests to close down Medzamor, the power plant continues to cover 40 of Armenia's electricity consumption. The international community remains worried because this type of nuclear power plants cannot be upgraded to current safety levels and because Medzamor is located in a highly seismic zone. The GoA has now decided to build an even bigger new nuclear power plant in the same area when Medzamor is decommissioned. In the EU’s view it remains doubtful whether such action is needed in order to generate sufficient replacement capacity. The country has developed enough alternative energy sources to replace the 400 Megawatt currently stemming from Medzamor. Current Armenian ideas go however towards export of energy. Armenia's external trade remains very low and little diversified (main exports are base metals and precious stones) in spite of Armenia being a WTO member since 2003 and benefiting from the EU’s GSP. Improvements in this regard should be pursued as a matter of priority. The current account deficit decreased slightly to about 4 of GDP in 2005. The current account and debt position is sustainable. The EU is Armenia’s main trade partner, accounting for 46.5 of Armenia's exports and 28.2 of its imports. EU-Armenia trade has been growing over the last five years, but similarly to Armenia's trade with the world in general, it is still very low and nondiversified. Exports to and imports from the EU increased to about € 416 million and €528 million, respectively, in 2005.
4 -
5 -Armenia econ weak
6 -Gadimova 16 Nazrin Gadimova, Armenia on edge of economic collapse," Azer News, 3/1/2016 AZ
7 -Extremely unstable socio-economic situation in Armenia would be better described as a decay of the country. Various international organizations make unfavorable forecasts regarding the economic situation that Armenia faced. The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) analysts expect deterioration of Armenia's balance of payments in 2016. This was noted in the “CIS Macromonitor” report published by analysts of the EDB. “The possible deterioration of the payments balance is linked with the expansion of foreign trade deficit due to reduced exports and increased imports in monthly terms. During this period, there was recorded return to the trend of depreciating dram, which was intensified by strengthening of the dollar on world markets,” EBD analysts believe. Probably, under the influence of the foreign trade and the current account deficit expansion, as well as further cheapening of dram and increased short-term external debt, the payments balance could deteriorate, the report says. Earlier during the discussions over the state budget at the country’s parliament, many opposition parliamentarians have predicted the collapse of the country. MP Mger Shakhgeldian claimed that the economic growth index shown in the draft budget is not sufficient to ensure the development and competitiveness of Armenia in the region. He said the GDP growth of 2.2 percent in general should not be considered as a growth for a country like Armenia, because this growth cannot lead to any positive effects.
8 -
9 -It's key to their economy – past growth proves and Russia is funding repairs/fortifications to the site now
10 -NTI 15 Nuclear Threat Initiative, "Fact Sheet: Armenia," July 2015 AZ
11 -There are two known nuclear research facilities in Armenia: the Yerevan Institute of Physics and the Analitsark Research Facility in Gyumri. 2 Neither houses fissile material. Armenia has one nuclear power plant, Metsamor, (also known as the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant), which contains two VVER-440 reactor units and produces approximately 40 of the country's electricity. 3 Unit 1 went critical in 1976 and Unit 2 in 1980. 4 Both units were shut down after the 1988 earthquake. Unit 1 is permanently out of operation, while Unit 2 was re-commissioned in 1995. 5 The re-opening of Unit 2 played a crucial role during the period of economic recovery following Armenia's independence by providing Armenia with surplus power capacity. 6 While the government had planned to close the unit by 2017, it decided in October 2012 to extend the life of the old reactor for another ten years. 7 In March 2014, the Armenian government approved a plan to extend the plant's operational lifespan further until 2026 with repairs to be made beginning in 2017. 8 These repairs will be funded by the Russian Federation, which has offered Armenia a grant of $30 million and a loan of $270 million to complete the necessary work. 9 The Russian Federation supplies the nuclear fuel necessary for Metsamor's operation under a 2003 agreement between Moscow and Yerevan that ceded management of the plant to Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems (UES). 10
12 -
13 -Economic collapse causes competition for resources and instability that triggers hotspots around the globe – co-opts all other causes of war
14 -Harris and Burrows 9 Mathew, PhD European History @ Cambridge, counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and Jennifer is a member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis” http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/twq/v32i2/f_0016178_13952.pdf Increased Potential for Global Conflict
15 -Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample Revisiting the Future opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change would be steadier. In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the international agenda. Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most dangerous capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of descendants of long established groups_inheriting organizational structures, command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks_and newly emergent collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack. The lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises. 36 Types of conflict that the world continues to experience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups and modernization efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more dog-eat-dog world.
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1 +Armenia’s nuclear power is key to relations with Russia
2 +http://arka.am/en/news/economy/levitin_armenia_s_nuclear_power_plant_enables_armenia_and_russia_to_step_up_their_cooperation_in_ene/
3 +Arka ‘15
4 +YEREVAN, October 15. /ARKA/. Armenia’s nuclear power plant in Metsamor enables Armenia and Russia to step up their cooperation in energy sector, Igor Levitin, the Russian president’s advisor who long years led the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission, said Saturday in Yerevan. “Our relations in this area very firm, and there is a good potential for developing them by using atomic energy,” he said answering ARKA News Agency’s question. Leviting said that Armenia can generate more electric power by using new technologies in the atomic energy. He said the two countries’ presidents gave appropriate instructions to the ministers when they met earlier this year. Armenia plans to build a new unit for the NPP which is expected to be commissioned in 2019-2020. In order to attract foreign investors, the Armenian parliament in 2006 abolished the state monopoly on ownership of new nuclear power units. The Armenian Metsamor nuclear power plant is located some 30 kilometers west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230 light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995. Armenian authorities said they will build a new nuclear power plant to replace the aging facility. The new plant is supposed to operate at twice the capacity of the Soviet-constructed facility. Metsamor currently generates some 40 percent of Armenia's electricity. But the government has yet to attract funding for the project that was estimated by a U.S.-funded feasibility study to cost at as much as $5 billion.
5 +Relations are on the brink now – they’re key to manage Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – energy’s the key internal link
6 +Anna Nemtsova 16 (Anna Nemtsova, ) In Nagorno-Karabakh, a Bloody New War With Putin on Both Sides, Daily Beast 4-4-2016 AT
7 +Armenia's relationship with Russia was tested this year, despite that Armenia joined Russia's Eurasian Union and received financial assistance and weapons deliveries from Moscow. In January, a Russian soldier killed an entire Armenian family in Giumri. Moscow eventually allowed the Armenian government to conduct its own trial of the soldier, but not before igniting protests across Armenia and raising anti-Russia sentiments. Protests later sprang up in Yerevan against a price hike for electricity demanded by a Russia company. Although the protesters claimed their discontent was only with social issues, Russian politicians were visibly worried that the protest would turn to overall discontent with Armenia's pro-Russia stance. Armenia's economy, hurt by Russia's economic decline in the face of Western sanctions, also declined, which has further enflamed domestic anger. Moreover, Armenia and the European Union started to work on a new cooperation agreement, which could also cause some problems with Moscow by complicating its standoff with the West. Empowering Russia-based Armenian politicians amenable to Moscow's interests would certainly benefit Russia's negotiations with Sarkisian's government, especially on another, more important issue: Nagorno-Karabakh. Stratfor recently noted numerous efforts on Azerbaijan's part to change an existing status quo regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Usually, small-scale clashes along the contact line that define the conflict result in mostly Armenian casualties and loss of military equipment. However, Yerevan suspects that a recent Russian-Azerbaijani diplomatic rapprochement might lead Russia to allegedly agree to a possible change of this status quo. Several theories have been propounded, from withdrawing Armenian forces from the seven regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, to the placement of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — the Russia-led military bloc — peacekeepers. But Armenia's political elite, predominantly made up of politicians originating from Nagorno-Karabakh (like Sarkisian), has staunchly objected to any of these scenarios. Thus it may not be entirely coincidental that Yerevan, following the alleged Russian-Azerbaijani talks, decided to ramp up its forces along the contact line as well as to overtly criticize the CSTO. Moreover, Armenian leaders even threatened that in case of an Azerbaijani military attack, Yerevan would consider recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state, which would make placing any peacekeepers there virtually impossible. The Kremlin's decision to overtly support Russia-based Armenians is a direct response to Moscow's challenges with the Armenian government. More important, Russia's overall strategy of isolating the former Soviet state to keep it dependent is part of its grand design to maintain a grip on the entire former Soviet periphery. Since the collapse of the pro-Russia government in Ukraine in 2014 and the conflicts and regional political maneuvers that followed, Russia has feared the loss of this sphere of influence to the West. Hence, losing clout in Armenia, even to a non-Western country such as Iran, let alone Europe, risks putting another dent in Russia's weakened buffer zone. So in the long term, pro-Russia figures such as Karapetian and Abrahamian are likely to play important role in Armenian politics. The influence of Russian companies in Armenia's energy sector will have equally strategic repercussions, limiting the country's ability to become a transit country for Iranian exports and increasing its dependence on Russia.
8 +
9 +Failure to manage the conflict causes a proxy war in the Caucasus
10 +Anna Nemtsova 16 (Anna Nemtsova, ) In Nagorno-Karabakh, a Bloody New War With Putin on Both Sides, Daily Beast 4-4-2016 AT
11 +MOSCOW — Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that became breakaway republic backed by Armenia in all spheres of life, has been living in a not-quite-frozen state of war since 1994. Every schoolboy in the mountainous little republic has grown up knowing that after graduation he will put on a uniform and join the military to police the unstable cease-fire. The republic’s 150,000 people, mostly ethnic Armenians, remember rockets destroying apartment buildings in the fighting more than 20 years ago, and have long feared that their worst nightmare of full-scale war would return. Now it looks like it has. The war woke up on Saturday night with both sides of the front using armored vehicles, battle tanks, and aviation, launching multiple rockets, and shooting artillery at each other. Over 30 people were killed and dozens wounded in the worst combat in the last two decades. The regional implications are hard to miss. Armenia is one of Russia’s closest allies and Turkey immediately backed up Azerbaijan at a time when relations between Moscow and Ankara are bitter and vindictive. Given the war in Syria, where Russia and Turkey back opposing sides, and Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November, the current eruption between Armenia and Azerbaijan is even more geopolitically dangerous than two decades ago. On the eve of violent clashes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan were attending the Nuclear Summit in Washington, but obviously had no chance to shake hands and make peace to prevent the tragedy. Among the first victims of the latest violent clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh were children: a 12 year old boy, Vaginak Grigorian, was killed in the cross fire by one of Azerbaijan’s Grad multiple-rocket launchers, the Armenian papers reported; two more children were wounded among dozens of civilian victims. On Monday, the Karabakh ministry of defense claimed its forces had destroyed 19 of Azerbaijan’s tanks, and posted dreadful images on Twitter of buildings shelled the night before, of burned vehicles, of dead bodies, and of victims covered in blood. The Armenian government claimed that a bus with Armenian volunteers going to Karabakh was hit by an Azerbaijani drone. Five volunteers were killed. Azerbaijan meanwhile reported on dozens of casualties. It would be hard to overstate the dependence of the Armenian contingent on Moscow. Nagorno-Karabakh’s officials told The Daily Beast in interviews last summer that neither Armenia nor Nagorno-Karabakh could survive without Russia’s support in the conflict with Azerbaijan. In 2014 Armenia joined Vladimir Putin’s dream project, the Eurasian Economic Union, together with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Armenian military doctrine holds that Russia is the guarantor of the country’s military security, and in the last few years Russia equipped its military bases in Armenian Gyumri and Erebuni with MiG-29 fighters, Mi-24 helicopters, as well as with more than 70 tanks, armored vehicles and artillery systems. Last December, Russia delivered new helicopters to its aviation base in Erebuni. In February Moscow announced it was selling $200 million worth of arms to Armenia. But, here’s the rub: at the same time, Russia sold hundreds of tanks to Armenia’s long time enemy, Azerbaijan. Last year the contracts for Russian military exports to Azerbaijan included armored vehicles, artillery and mortar systems. While in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, many wondered what else they had to do to prove their loyalty and devotion to the Kremlin, in Moscow it was clear that President Putin needed Azerbaijan as Russia’s ally, too, especially as relations between Russia and Turkey worsened. There are many reasons it’s not in the Kremlin’s interest to lose Azerbaijan’s friendship. In 2014 Russia’s Rosneft and Azerbaijan’s Socar oil companies created a joint venture to explore oil and gas fields together in both countries, and Azerbaijan’s exports to Russia have been growing. Experts both in Moscow and in Baku believe that president Putin would do almost anything to avoid a full-scale conflict between Russia and Azerbaijan. “Putin cannot afford to lose Azerbaijan, he would do everything to negotiate the peace for Nagorno-Karabakh now,” an independent political analyst, Dmitriy Oreshkin, told The Daily Beast on Monday. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was planning to visit Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, this week, while Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev planned to visit Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Many in Yerevan wish that U.S. President Barack Obama had managed somehow to play a peacemaker’s role in Washington last week to prevent the escalation of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. That was not to be. But, as Armenian parliament member Tevan Poghosyna told The Daily Beast, “If the international community does not manage to stop the war now, several countries might be involved in the conflict, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan supporting Azerbaijan and Russia, we hope, supporting Armenia.” Another descent into chaos and proxy war is, to be sure, the last thing the world needs right now.This is also an alt cause to the relations advantage
12 +Causes a full-scale US-Russia war
13 +Friedman 9 George, Fall. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of STRATFOR, Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. “The Coming Conflict With Russia,” Journal of International Security Affairs No 17, http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2009/17/friedman.php
14 +The Caucasus serves as the boundary between Russian and Turkish power, and has historically been a flash point between the two empires. It was also a flash point during the Cold War. The Turkish–Soviet border ran through the Caucasus, with the Soviet side consisting of three separate republics: Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, all now independent. The Caucasus also ran north into the Russian Federation itself, including into the Muslim areas of Dagestan and, most important, Chechnya, where a guerrilla war against Russian domination raged after the fall of Communism. From a purely defensive point of view, the precise boundaries of Russian and Turkish influence don’t matter, so long as both are based somewhere in the Caucasus. The rugged terrain makes defense relatively easy. Should the Russians lose their position in the Caucasus altogether and be pushed north into the lowlands, however, Russia’s position would become difficult. With the gap between Ukraine and Kazakhstan only a few hundred miles wide, Russia would be in strategic trouble. This is the reason the Russians are so unwilling to compromise on Chechnya. The southern part of Chechnya is deep in the northern Caucasus. If that were lost, the entire Russian position would unravel. Given a choice, the Russians would prefer to be anchored farther south, in Georgia. Armenia is already an ally of Russia. If Georgia were Russian, Moscow’s entire position would be much more stable. Controlling Chechnya is indispensable. Reabsorbing Georgia is desirable. Holding Azerbaijan does not provide a strategic advantage—but the Russians would not mind having it as a buffer with the Iranians. Russia’s position here is not intolerable, but Georgia, not incidentally closely allied with the United States, is a tempting target, as was seen in the August 2008 conflict. The situation in the Caucasus is not only difficult to understand but also difficult to deal with. The Soviet Union actually managed to solve the complexity by incorporating all these countries after World War I and ruthlessly suppressing their autonomy. It is impossible for Russia to be indifferent to the region now or in the future—unless it is prepared to lose its position in the Caucasus. Therefore, the Russians can be expected to reassert their position, most likely starting with Georgia. And since the United States sees Georgia as a strategic asset, Russia’s reassertion there will lead to confrontation with the United States. Unless the Chechen rebellion completely disappears, the Russians will have to move south, then isolate the rebellion and nail down their position in the mountains. There are two powers that will not want this to happen. The United States is one, and the other is Turkey. Americans will see Russian domination of Georgia as undermining their position in the region. The Turks will see this as energizing the Armenians and returning the Russian army in force to their borders. The Russians will become more convinced of the need to act because of this resistance. A duel in the Caucasus will be the likely result.
15 +Russia war=extinction
16 +Barrett et al 13—PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, Fellow in the RAND Stanton Nuclear Security Fellows Program, and Director of Research at Global Catastrophic Risk Institute—AND Seth Baum, PhD in Geography from Pennsylvania State University, Research Scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, and Executive Director of Global Catastrophic Risk Institute—AND Kelly Hostetler, BS in Political Science from Columbia and Research Assistant at Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (Anthony, 24 June 2013, “Analyzing and Reducing the Risks of Inadvertent Nuclear War Between the United States and Russia,” Science and Global Security: The Technical Basis for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation Initiatives, Volume 21, Issue 2, Taylor and Francis)
17 +
18 +War involving significant fractions of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, which are by far the largest of any nations, could have globally catastrophic effects such as severely reducing food production for years, 1 potentially leading to collapse of modern civilization worldwide, and even the extinction of humanity. 2 Nuclear war between the United States and Russia could occur by various routes, including accidental or unauthorized launch; deliberate first attack by one nation; and inadvertent attack. In an accidental or unauthorized launch or detonation, system safeguards or procedures to maintain control over nuclear weapons fail in such a way that a nuclear weapon or missile launches or explodes without direction from leaders. In a deliberate first attack, the attacking nation decides to attack based on accurate information about the state of affairs. In an inadvertent attack, the attacking nation mistakenly concludes that it is under attack and launches nuclear weapons in what it believes is a counterattack. 3 (Brinkmanship strategies incorporate elements of all of the above, in that they involve intentional manipulation of risks from otherwise accidental or inadvertent launches. 4 ) Over the years, nuclear strategy was aimed primarily at minimizing risks of intentional attack through development of deterrence capabilities, and numerous measures also were taken to reduce probabilities of accidents, unauthorized attack, and inadvertent war. For purposes of deterrence, both U.S. and Soviet/Russian forces have maintained significant capabilities to have some forces survive a first attack by the other side and to launch a subsequent counter-attack. However, concerns about the extreme disruptions that a first attack would cause in the other side's forces and command-and-control capabilities led to both sides’ development of capabilities to detect a first attack and launch a counter-attack before suffering damage from the first attack. 5 Many people believe that with the end of the Cold War and with improved relations between the United States and Russia, the risk of East-West nuclear war was significantly reduced. 6 However, it also has been argued that inadvertent nuclear war between the United States and Russia has continued to present a substantial risk. 7 While the United States and Russia are not actively threatening each other with war, they have remained ready to launch nuclear missiles in response to indications of attack. 8 False indicators of nuclear attack could be caused in several ways. First, a wide range of events have already been mistakenly interpreted as indicators of attack, including weather phenomena, a faulty computer chip, wild animal activity, and control-room training tapes loaded at the wrong time. 9 Second, terrorist groups or other actors might cause attacks on either the United States or Russia that resemble some kind of nuclear attack by the other nation by actions such as exploding a stolen or improvised nuclear bomb, 10 especially if such an event occurs during a crisis between the United States and Russia. 11 A variety of nuclear terrorism scenarios are possible. 12 Al Qaeda has sought to obtain or construct nuclear weapons and to use them against the United States. 13 Other methods could involve attempts to circumvent nuclear weapon launch control safeguards or exploit holes in their security. 14 It has long been argued that the probability of inadvertent nuclear war is significantly higher during U.S.–Russian crisis conditions, 15 with the Cuban Missile Crisis being a prime historical example. It is possible that U.S.–Russian relations will significantly deteriorate in the future, increasing nuclear tensions. There are a variety of ways for a third party to raise tensions between the United States and Russia, making one or both nations more likely to misinterpret events as attacks. 16
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1 +Nuclear shut down will have a huge fiscal impact – nuclear energy constitutes a massive portion of Armenian exports and domestic power production
2 +ENPI 13 (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument, “ARMENIA: COUNTRY STRATEGY PAPER,” 2007-2013, https://eeas.europa.eu/enp/pdf/pdf/country/enpi_csp_armenia_en.pdf)
3 +Decommissioning of the Medzamor nuclear power plant will have significant fiscal implications. Despite longstanding international requests to close down Medzamor, the power plant continues to cover 40 of Armenia's electricity consumption. The international community remains worried because this type of nuclear power plants cannot be upgraded to current safety levels and because Medzamor is located in a highly seismic zone. The GoA has now decided to build an even bigger new nuclear power plant in the same area when Medzamor is decommissioned. In the EU’s view it remains doubtful whether such action is needed in order to generate sufficient replacement capacity. The country has developed enough alternative energy sources to replace the 400 Megawatt currently stemming from Medzamor. Current Armenian ideas go however towards export of energy. Armenia's external trade remains very low and little diversified (main exports are base metals and precious stones) in spite of Armenia being a WTO member since 2003 and benefiting from the EU’s GSP. Improvements in this regard should be pursued as a matter of priority. The current account deficit decreased slightly to about 4 of GDP in 2005. The current account and debt position is sustainable. The EU is Armenia’s main trade partner, accounting for 46.5 of Armenia's exports and 28.2 of its imports. EU-Armenia trade has been growing over the last five years, but similarly to Armenia's trade with the world in general, it is still very low and nondiversified. Exports to and imports from the EU increased to about € 416 million and €528 million, respectively, in 2005.
4 +
5 +Armenia econ weak
6 +Gadimova 16 Nazrin Gadimova, Armenia on edge of economic collapse," Azer News, 3/1/2016 AZ
7 +Extremely unstable socio-economic situation in Armenia would be better described as a decay of the country. Various international organizations make unfavorable forecasts regarding the economic situation that Armenia faced. The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) analysts expect deterioration of Armenia's balance of payments in 2016. This was noted in the “CIS Macromonitor” report published by analysts of the EDB. “The possible deterioration of the payments balance is linked with the expansion of foreign trade deficit due to reduced exports and increased imports in monthly terms. During this period, there was recorded return to the trend of depreciating dram, which was intensified by strengthening of the dollar on world markets,” EBD analysts believe. Probably, under the influence of the foreign trade and the current account deficit expansion, as well as further cheapening of dram and increased short-term external debt, the payments balance could deteriorate, the report says. Earlier during the discussions over the state budget at the country’s parliament, many opposition parliamentarians have predicted the collapse of the country. MP Mger Shakhgeldian claimed that the economic growth index shown in the draft budget is not sufficient to ensure the development and competitiveness of Armenia in the region. He said the GDP growth of 2.2 percent in general should not be considered as a growth for a country like Armenia, because this growth cannot lead to any positive effects.
8 +
9 +It's key to their economy – past growth proves and Russia is funding repairs/fortifications to the site now
10 +NTI 15 Nuclear Threat Initiative, "Fact Sheet: Armenia," July 2015 AZ
11 +There are two known nuclear research facilities in Armenia: the Yerevan Institute of Physics and the Analitsark Research Facility in Gyumri. 2 Neither houses fissile material. Armenia has one nuclear power plant, Metsamor, (also known as the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant), which contains two VVER-440 reactor units and produces approximately 40 of the country's electricity. 3 Unit 1 went critical in 1976 and Unit 2 in 1980. 4 Both units were shut down after the 1988 earthquake. Unit 1 is permanently out of operation, while Unit 2 was re-commissioned in 1995. 5 The re-opening of Unit 2 played a crucial role during the period of economic recovery following Armenia's independence by providing Armenia with surplus power capacity. 6 While the government had planned to close the unit by 2017, it decided in October 2012 to extend the life of the old reactor for another ten years. 7 In March 2014, the Armenian government approved a plan to extend the plant's operational lifespan further until 2026 with repairs to be made beginning in 2017. 8 These repairs will be funded by the Russian Federation, which has offered Armenia a grant of $30 million and a loan of $270 million to complete the necessary work. 9 The Russian Federation supplies the nuclear fuel necessary for Metsamor's operation under a 2003 agreement between Moscow and Yerevan that ceded management of the plant to Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems (UES). 10
12 +
13 +Economic collapse causes competition for resources and instability that triggers hotspots around the globe – co-opts all other causes of war
14 +Harris and Burrows 9 Mathew, PhD European History @ Cambridge, counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and Jennifer is a member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis” http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/twq/v32i2/f_0016178_13952.pdf Increased Potential for Global Conflict
15 +Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample Revisiting the Future opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change would be steadier. In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the international agenda. Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most dangerous capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of descendants of long established groups_inheriting organizational structures, command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks_and newly emergent collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack. The lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises. 36 Types of conflict that the world continues to experience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups and modernization efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more dog-eat-dog world.
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1 +Current application of qualified immunity arose in response to, solves for, excessive litigation.
2 +Wurman, Ilan, from the Stanford Law School, “Qualified Immunity and Statutory Interpretation”, 2013, Seattle University Law Review, http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2227andcontext=sulr
3 +The Glick test posed a challenge for plaintiffs. It is difficult to prove that an officer acted maliciously and without good faith. Because many instances of force may be excessive but very few will truly “shock the conscience,” Glick was an effective bar to recovery. Graham v. Connor 16—the decision that changed the standard for all excessive force cases—demonstrates these propositions.
4 +In Graham, the plaintiff (Graham) had his friend take him to a store to resolve a blood sugar problem.17 Because the line in the store was too long, he ran out of the store back to his friend.18 Officers who saw him grew suspicious and detained him while another officer went to investigate.19 The officers refused his friend’s request to give him orange juice, though Graham was manifestly having some reaction.20 When they learned that nothing was wrong the officers drove Graham home, but Graham had by then “sustained a broken foot, cuts on his wrists, a bruised forehead, . . . an injured shoulder, and developed a loud ringing in his right ear that continues to this day.”21
5 +Few who read the Court’s full opinion can doubt that the officers acted excessively and unreasonably. Of course, they probably did not intend to act unreasonably, but surely they should have known better? Under Glick that question hardly matters: even if their acts were unreasonable, they were not acting maliciously or sadistically, and they were acting on a good faith belief that Graham may have committed a crime at the store he had hastily exited.
6 +That is exactly what the district court, relying on Glick, found in Graham. 22 The trial had even proceeded to a jury, but the district judge granted the officers’ motion for a directed verdict.23 Graham did not have a claim as a matter of law because the court found that the use of force was “‘appropriate under the circumstances,’ that ‘there was no discernable injury inflicted,’ and that the force used ‘was not applied maliciously or sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm,’ but in ‘a good faith effort to maintain or restore order in the face of a potentially explosive situation.’”24
7 +The Supreme Court reversed and held that all excessive force cases arising out of arrests or investigatory stops must be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment, the proper textual home for them.25 The Court eliminated the subjective components of the excessive-force inquiry in favor of an objective multi-factor test to determine the reasonableness of the application of force. The proper application of the test requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including 1 the severity of the crime at issue, 2 whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and 3 whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.26
8 +This is an explicitly objective test, with no reference to subjective intent.27 This test opened the floodgates to plaintiffs litigating excessive force claims against police officers. Those floodgates were promptly reclosed by the application of the Court’s reinvented qualified immunity doctrine.
9 +B. Qualified Immunity: A Mess in the Circuits
10 +Qualified immunity had already been established as a doctrine divorced from the common law at this point.28 The Court held in Saucier v. Katz29 that in excessive force cases qualified immunity requires, as a first step, an inquiry into whether a cognizable constitutional violation has occurred and thus a determination of whether excessive force was used under the Graham standard.30 Then, as a second step, the courts must determine whether it was “clearly established” at the time that the particular use of force was unconstitutional.31
11 +Excessive litigation kills tech innovation.
12 +Kirk 6, Executive Director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, 3-24-6 (Michael, http://www.aipla. org/Content/ContentGroups/Legislative_Action/109th_Congress/Testimony5/ImmigrationBillSenatorSpecter.pdf)
13 +I am writing to you on behalf of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) regarding the pending immigration reform legislation that would transfer jurisdiction over immigration appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. We believe that such broadening of the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction would seriously hinder the court’s ability to render high quality, timely decisions on patent appeals from district courts, and patent and trademark appeals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This runs directly counter to the present efforts of Congress to otherwise reform and improve this nation’s patent system. We take no position on other specific elements of the legislation or on the underlying need for immigration reform. Our concern focuses solely on the proposed shift in appellate jurisdiction, which we believe will do more harm than good. AIPLA is a national bar association whose approximately 16,000 members are primarily lawyers in private and corporate practice, in government service, and in the academic community. AIPLA represents a wide and diverse spectrum of individuals, companies, and institutions involved directly or indirectly in the practice of patent, trademark, copyright, and unfair competition law, as well as other fields of law affecting intellectual property. Our members represent both owners and users of intellectual property, and have a keen interest in an efficient federal judicial system. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was established in 1982 after more than a decade of deliberate study and Congressional consideration. The Hruska Commission (chaired by Senator Roman Hruska) conducted a study lasting nearly three years before recommending to Congress the establishment of a national appeals court to consider patent cases. It took two Administrations, several Congresses, and a number of hearings in both the House and Senate before legislation establishing the Federal Circuit was finally enacted. Over the past 26 years the Court, through its thoughtful and deliberate opinions, has made great progress in providing stability and consistency in the patent law. Removing immigration appeals from the general jurisdiction of the twelve regional Courts of Appeals and centralizing it in the Federal Circuit is an enormous change. Leaving aside the impact, both pro and con, on the affected litigants, the Federal Circuit is simply not equipped to undertake the more than 12,000 requests for review of deportation orders that twelve courts now share each year. The Federal Circuit currently has no expertise or experience in the field of immigration law. While the legislation envisions adding three judges to the twelve currently on the Court, we have serious concerns whether this increase will be adequate. Judge Posner has calculated that, even with the three additional judges proposed in the legislation, each of the fifteen Federal Circuit judges would be responsible for about 820 immigration cases per year, on the average—an incredibly large number that we believe will have a significant adverse impact on the remainder of the court’s docket. It seems inevitable that the proposed legislation will have a dramatic, negative impact on Federal Circuit decisions in patent cases and appeals from the USPTO. Such an increased caseload will necessarily delay decisions in these appeals, which in turn will cause uncertainty over patent and trademark rights and interfere with business investments in technological innovation. Beyond mere delay, the Federal Circuit's ability to issue consistent, predictable opinions in patent cases will be complicated by an increase in the number of judges. If conflicts in panel opinions increase, the inefficient and often contentious en banc process will have to be used more often, further adding to the overall burden on the court. Business can effectively deal with decisions, positive or negative, but it cannot deal with protracted uncertainty caused by inconsistent opinions or long delays in judicial review. Demand for reform of the patent system has been the topic of considerable public debate of late. Congress held extensive hearings on this subject last year, and more are scheduled in coming weeks. The House is currently considering legislation that would dramatically change the patent statute, and we understand that patent reform legislation may soon be introduced in the Senate as well. It would be unfortunate for Congress to inadvertently compound the challenges facing the patent system by weakening the ability of the Federal Circuit to give timely and consistent consideration to patent cases.
14 +Innovation solves great power war
15 +Taylor 4 – Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mark, “The Politics of Technological Change: International Relations versus Domestic Institutions,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 4/1/2004, http://www.scribd.com/doc/46554792/Taylor) //RGP
16 +I. Introduction Technological innovation is of central importance to the study of international relations (IR), affecting almost every aspect of the sub-field. First and foremost, a nation’s technological capability has a significant effect on its economic growth, industrial might, and military prowess; therefore relative national technological capabilities necessarily influence the balance of power between states, and hence have a role in calculations of war and alliance formation. Second, technology and innovative capacity also determine a nation’s trade profile, affecting which products it will import and export, as well as where multinational corporations will base their production facilities. Third, insofar as innovation-driven economic growth both attracts investment and produces surplus capital, a nation’s technological ability will also affect international financial flows and who has power over them. Thus, in broad theoretical terms, technological change is important to the study of IR because of its overall implications for both the relative and absolute power of states. And if theory alone does not convince, then history also tells us that nations on the technological ascent generally experience a corresponding and dramatic change in their global stature and influence, such as Britain during the first industrial revolution, the United States and Germany during the second industrial revolution, and Japan during the twentieth century. Conversely, great powers which fail to maintain their place at the technological frontier generally drift and fade from influence on international scene. This is not to suggest that technological innovation alone determines international politics, but rather that shifts in both relative and absolute technological capability have a major impact on international relations, and therefore need to be better understood by IR scholars. Indeed, the importance of technological innovation to international relations is seldom disputed by IR theorists. Technology is rarely the sole or overriding causal variable in any given IR theory, but a broad overview of the major theoretical debates reveals the ubiquity of technological causality. For example, from Waltz to Posen, almost all Realists have a place for technology in their explanations of international politics. At the very least, they describe it as an essential part of the distribution of material capabilities across nations, or an indirect source of military doctrine. And for some, like Gilpin quoted above, technology is the very cornerstone of great power domination, and its transfer the main vehicle by which war and change occur in world politics. Jervis tells us that the balance of offensive and defensive military technology affects the incentives for war. Walt agrees, arguing that technological change can alter a state’s aggregate power, and thereby affect both alliance formation and the international balance of threats. Liberals are less directly concerned with technological change, but they must admit that by raising or lowering the costs of using force, technological progress affects the rational attractiveness of international cooperation and regimes. Technology also lowers information and transactions costs and thus increases the applicability of international institutions, a cornerstone of Liberal IR theory. And in fostering flows of trade, finance, and information, technological change can lead to Keohane’s interdependence or Thomas Friedman et al’s globalization. Meanwhile, over at the “third debate”, Constructivists cover the causal spectrum on the issue, from Katzenstein’s “cultural norms” which shape security concerns and thereby affect technological innovation; to Wendt’s “stripped down technological determinism” in which technology inevitably drives nations to form a world state. However most Constructivists seem to favor Wendt, arguing that new technology changes people’s identities within society, and sometimes even creates new cross-national constituencies, thereby affecting international politics. Of course, Marxists tend to see technology as determining all social relations and the entire course of history, though they describe mankind’s major fault lines as running between economic classes rather than nation-states. Finally, Buzan and Little remind us that without advances in the technologies of transportation, communication, production, and war, international systems would not exist in the first place.
17 +Perception of inaction against securities fraud undermines confidence ~-~-- crushes the global economy
18 +Lerach 2 (William, fmr. partner, Milbreg Weiss Bershad Hynes and Lerach LLP, “ENRON: LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Plundering America: How American Investors Got Taken for Trillions by Corporate Insiders~-~-The Rise of the New Corporate Kleptocracy,” 8 Stan. J.L. Bus. and Fin. 69, LexisNexis
19 +What happened was quite the opposite. Within a few years after corporate and Wall Street interests got Congress to pass the 1995 Act, "the chickens came home to roost." n28 As night follows day, after these powerful interests achieved their goal of *79 curtailing the ability of investors to hold them accountable for securities fraud, there has been a massive upsurge in securities fraud. The results are clear for all to see. Every metric to measure fraud in our markets soared. Financial scandal after financial scandal~-~-accounting restatement after accounting restatement~-~-surfaced. The huge market bubble burst, leaving investors holding a multi-trillion dollar bag, lay-offs sky-rocketed, the IPO window all but closed, and capital formation collapsed. Reality has overtaken deceit. While there have always been high-profile financial frauds~-~-Equity Funding, U.S. Financial, National Student Marketing, Penn Square Bank and Miniscribe come to mind~-~-these were isolated instances. Even the savings-and-loan scandals of the 1980s were confined to that industry. Historically, our public-company accounting has been of high quality and one of the major factors that has led to investor confidence in our markets, making them the envy of the world and helping to fuel the strong capital formation and economic growth we enjoyed for years. n29 Over the past several years, important changes in our financial markets occurred which, exacerbated by the negative consequences of the late 1990s legislative bonanza for corporate and financial interests, contributed to the massive increase in financial fraud we have witnessed. Over 9,000 new public companies were created by the IPO boom of the 1980s-1990s. Many of these new companies were smaller, high-tech or bio-tech companies where the pressure to show earnings growth was intense. Others were dot-com enterprises which had no earnings and were under pressure to show revenue increases~-~-or create apparent profits by using so-called "pro forma" accounting to generate financial results which Generally Accepted Accounting Principles would never sanction. However dubious these enterprises may have been as public companies, bringing them public generated billions in fees for the investment bankers and gargantuan returns to venture capital investors~-~-as well as making countless instant corporate insider multi-millionaires of people who had never even run a business before. But now each of these *80 companies was a public company, subject to all the pressures inherent on public companies to meet the revenue and earnings growth forecasts necessary to support a high stock price valuation. Executive compensation also changed. Executives now got cash bonuses only if earnings reached preset targets or the company's stock hit targeted prices. They received gigantic stock options, not to hold for the long term, but rather to exercise and sell each quarter, in a trading window that opened a day or two after the company reported its quarterly numbers. Also during the 1990s, the amounts paid to accounting firms by their corporate clients for consulting services skyrocketed, and the profitability of the huge accounting firms increasingly came to depend on their high-margin consulting fees from their audit clients, creating powerful incentives for these so-called "watchdogs" to accommodate their corporate clients. These were important structural changes that altered the type of public companies that dominated our financial markets, the relationship of the auditors to their corporate clients and the incentives that shape the behavior of corporate executives and their professional assistors. This explosion of new "high-growth" public companies, plus an executive-compensation system based on meeting predetermined earnings and stock-price appreciation targets, with stock options to be exercised and sold quarterly, created very powerful incentives to falsify results. This was exacerbated by executives' knowledge that markets, increasingly dominated by momentum investors, would instantly crush stocks for missing the "whisper" earnings numbers by just a penny or two. Add to this that it turned out that the supposedly "independent" accountants were routinely violating independence rules while pocketing lavish consulting payments that outweighed their audit fees many times over. While all of this was going on, Congress via the 1995 and 1998 Acts and several courts~-~-via a series of anti-investor decisions implementing these Acts~-~-were curtailing investor rights and remedies more severely than at any time since the enactment of the 1933 and 1934 Acts, n30 a toxic mixture in the making. *81 These factors created a "race to the bottom" in financial reporting that undermined the integrity of public-company financial reports which is essential to informed investor decisions, investor confidence in our markets, and the efficient allocation of capital to honest entrepreneurs whose efforts will create long-term economic job growth and positive investor returns. n31 Remember, Adam Smith's invisible hand guides us all. When there was so much to be gained by those who create the financial results of public companies by meeting expectations~-~-and so much to be lost by missing them~-~-we should not be surprised that corporate managers and their professional assistors yielded to temptation~-~-especially when their legal responsibility and accountability had been drastically curtailed. Under these circumstances, it is not hard to see the temptation to manipulate reported results - especially when the efficient market (it's really a ruthless market) would savage a stock for the slightest earnings disappointment. It is not as if Congress was not warned. Consumer, labor, and investor groups testified that the drastic cutback on investor protections and remedies for securities fraud embodied in the 1995 Act, and reduction of corporate executives' and securities professionals' accountability for misconduct that would follow, would inevitably result in an increase in securities fraud and investor losses. They told Congress this would impair investor confidence, harm capital formation and our economy. The 1995 Act was opposed by major consumer, worker, and investor groups. The vast majority of America's newspapers also editorialized against the 1995 Act. They warned that it would grant those best positioned to profit from stock inflation a license to lie and would result in a massive upsurge of fraudulent conduct and investor losses. *82 A review of these editorials is telling. How accurate their warnings and predictions were. Two bills before Congress reveal how reckless the Republicans have become in their zeal to reduce regulation. The bills~-~-which would "reform" laws governing securities firms and banks~-~-go far beyond their stated purpose of ending frivolous litigation. What they would actually do is insulate corporate officials who commit fraud from legal challenge by their victims. The securities bill would erect a nearly insurmountable barrier to suing officials who peddle recklessly false information. It would block suits against accountants, lawyers and other professionals who look the other way when the companies they serve mislead investors. The high-sounding Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 . . . might come to be remembered as legislation that steeply tilted the playing field against investors. n32 "The bill . . . would bar . . . charges of fraud against those who make false projections . . . . By granting "safe harbor" to all statements of a "forward-looking" nature, it essentially tells companies . . . . Go ahead, lie about the future . . . you can fleece investors in any way that your imagination allows." n33 Gone, if these bills ever become law, is the uniquely American system of open, accessible civil justice . . . Gone, too, would be vital rights of ordinary Americans to seek redress against fraudulent securities hucksters. . . . The "Securities Litigation Reform Act" is a gift to the boiler-room crowd in the securities profession. It would raise the standards of evidence required to bring fraud cases to court while lowering the standards of professional conduct considered legally fraudulent. n34 "Companies and their agents could make false "projections" and "estimates" of future performance, even if they were deliberate lies, without fear of lawsuits by those defrauded." n35 Talk about a twist of fate. Rep. Christopher Cox, a California Republican, wrote a tough, aggressive bill on securities-law reform, which passed the House of Representatives in March. If it becomes law, investors who think they've been defrauded will find it incredibly hard to bring a class-action lawsuit to recoup their loss. Just two months after his bill passed Cox found himself tagged by just such a suit, brought by some victims of the noxious *83 First Pension fraud. In a second suit last week, First Pension's court-appointed receiver charged Cox, among others, with contributing to the hoax. n36 How, in the light of overwhelming consumer, labor and investor group opposition and widespread editorial warnings, could this special-interest legislation have possibly been enacted? In truth, the fault lies not with the corporate and financial interests that used their financial and political power to get this legislation. After all, they were only exercising their First Amendment rights to advance their interests. Nor does it really lie with the likes of Senators Domenici, Gramm, Bennett, D'Amato n37 and their ilk, who were just doing the bidding of their corporate and financial supporters. The real responsibility lies with those in positions of public trust who defaulted, who gave in and even actively assisted these special interests to help get this legislation passed when they were in a position~-~-and had a responsibility~-~-to stop it. Notable among those who defaulted was then SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, the quintessential man of Wall Street who became the first Chairman in history to support legislation curtailing investor protections against securities fraud. n38 Levitt *84 often bragged how he had dined every month with corporate executives to hear their views. n39 It is unfortunate he never dined with victims of securities fraud to listen to their plight. While the Levitt of late has become a prominent critic of financial abuse, in truth, he abandoned the investors he was supposed to protect when the corporate and financial interests besieged Congress in 1994-1995 and again in 1998. n40 As the new Republican Congress arrived in Washington, the SEC~-~-the investor protection agency~-~-was in the hands of only two Commissioners~-~-with three seats vacant. Clinton, paralyzed by his recent election rebuke, failed to fill the empty seats. Thus, it remained for the Chairman, former Wall Street executive Levitt, and the only commissioner, Steve Wallman, an attorney who represented the Business Roundtable, to protect investors from the new, pro-corporate Congressional onslaught that was shaping up. Instead of fighting for investors, Levitt and Wallman actually helped the corporate community and its new Republican Congress pass the most damaging assault on investor protection since the federal securities laws came into being. Next comes Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a senior Democrat on the Banking Committee and the Chairman of the Democratic Party. n41 A purported progressive, n42 Dodd energetically championed the accounting firms and insurance and Wall Street interests, i.e., his contribution base, which all benefited so *85 handsomely from his efforts in making the attempt to gut the securities laws appear to be "bipartisan." n43 He actually led the veto override efforts to enact the 1995 Act~-~-challenging his own party's President~-~-blind to all the warnings of the frauds to come. This is a cautionary tale of how money and power and the promise of lucrative post-Beltway staff jobs can produce special interest legislation that harms America's workers and investors~-~-and in the end all of us. F. The "Cop on the Beat" Sleeps Also in the mix here was the failure of the SEC~-~-the supposed "cop on the beat"~-~-to do its job. Despite some public "jawboning" and an aggressive public-relations program casting former SEC Chairman Levitt as an investor's champion, n44 after the SEC was turned over to that alumnus of Wall Street, the SEC was anything but aggressive in cracking down on financial manipulation and insider trading by corporate executives. n45 Until recently, the SEC was headed by a lawyer who, while in *86 private practice, championed passage of the 1995 Act and represented the big accounting firms, Wall Street banks, and some of the corporations which are among those whose credibility has been tarnished and are under regulatory scrutiny. n46 He even wrote an article telling them how to cover their tracks by destroying incriminating evidence before anyone has sued them. n47 According to Forbes, in October, 2000 video cameras recorded Pitt giving a seminar for in-house corporate counsel and saying that chief financial officers whose e-mails detail too-cozy conversations with analysts about earnings estimates should "destroy" the incriminating messages "because somebody is going to find this, and it will probably be the SEC when they investigate." n48 Incredibly, this new head of the SEC early on signaled he wanted a "gentler" relationship with the accounting profession and that his SEC might actually seek to further restrict corporate liability for false forecasts. n49 In a belated response to the upsurge in corporate fraud, Pitt put forth what are at best meek proposals. For instance, Pitt recently had the SEC require corporate CEOs and CFOs to "swear" that their corporate financial results are accurate. n50 But the securities laws have required CEOs and CFOs to prepare and file accurate financial reports for public companies for sixty-eight years! CEOs and CFOs have had to sign corporate 10-Ks and 10-Qs for years. Wilfully filing false financial statements has long been a felony, subject to a prison term, since 1934. n51 And do you doubt that Enron's, WorldCom's, Adelphia's, Dynegy's, Qwest's, RiteAid's, and Global Crossing's CEOs and CFOs would have so sworn, if they had not been previously exposed. This would be humorous, if it weren't so sad. n52 *87 It now is clear that the worst stock market debacle in the history of postwar America did not just happen by chance or by the greed of the masses (although they were invaluable participants, as the sucker always is) but happened in large part because of conspiracy, greed in high places, incredible ignorance by those in high places, and a federal regulatory failure of unique proportions . . . . . . In the Internet/high-tech boom, completely worthless companies, with no prospect of earnings, were flogged insanely by the very people who should have been labeling them as unsound, the "analysts" and "market gurus" of the big investment banks. Companies that existed as no more than dreams and fantasies were touted as multi-billion dollar entities by people and investment houses whose job was to defend against exactly such viruses. What happened did not happen by accident, and a full accounting is owed to the people who were fleeced. n53 G. Pro-Corporate Courts Protect Fraudsters The courts are also responsible. For instance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers the high-tech and venture-capital havens of California (the Silicon Valley) and Washington (the Silicon Forest), which pushed so hard for the 1995 Act, was once a progressive court with a reputation for protecting investors. n54 Yet since the 1995 Act it has thrown 18 consecutive securities fraud suits by investors out of court. Eighteen times in a row, using the 1995 Act, the Ninth Circuit has sided with corporate interests and closed the courthouse door to defrauded investors. Not one complaint out of 18 upheld or permitted to go forward! It all started with the Ninth Circuit's 2-1 In re Silicon Graphics decision in 1999, n55 one of the first to interpret the 1995 Act's elevated pleading standard which laid out a roadmap for judges who wanted to use that pleading standard to bar defrauded investors from pursuing any remedy and thus insulate corporate fraudsters from liability. n56 That precedent has resulted in an unbroken string of *88 follow-on affirmances of dismissals of securities class action suits by the Ninth Circuit n57 and the dismissal of scores of cases in the lower courts in the Ninth Circuit where judges are bound to follow Silicon Graphics. Given the current revelations of the gross frauds that have infested our securities markets in recent years, is it really reasonable to conclude that investors who sued in the Ninth Circuit have been unable to plead a securities fraud case in sufficient detail eighteen times in a row? The conduct of some judges in using the 1995 Act to block valid securities suits has contributed to the attitude of executive arrogance that led to the upsurge in corporate fraud. Can you imagine the stockholder fraud suits filed against WorldCom and Ebbers n58 in March 2000 and against Tyco and Kozlowski n59 in December 1999 alleging securities fraud were thrown out of court by federal judges? These were detailed complaints setting forth major frauds. Their allegations were true. Yet judges used the 1995 Act to throw these cases out of court, denying damaged investors any remedy and allowing these very serious frauds to continue~-~-ultimately inflicting far greater harm on investors. A shareholder suit against Oracle and Larry Ellison, where Ellison sold off 900 million dollars of stock just a few weeks before Oracle revealed financial reversals and the stock collapsed, was also dismissed. n60 These are not isolated examples. Many other procorporate judges have repeatedly used the 1995 Act to protect dishonest corporate executives who falsify financial statements while insider trading and bar innocent investors from court. n61 *89 Forbes, one of the most probusiness and anti-lawyer publications in our Country, was scandalized by the dismissal of the WorldCom suit. It wrote: Over a year ago a raft of former WorldCom employees gave statements outlining a scandalous litany of misdeeds~-~-deliberately understating costs, hiding bad debt, backdating contracts to book orders earlier than accounting rules allow. But it appears that WorldCom's directors never followed up to investigate the allegations . . . They should have. The alleged chicanery served to falsify hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and sales to give a veneer of stability and strength to WorldCom. The unheeded accusations first emerged in June 2001 n62 with the filing of a shareholder lawsuit against WorldCom in federal court on its home turf, Jackson, Miss. The complaint was backed by 100 interviews with former WorldCom employees and related parties. The allegations were startling in their breadth and detail. In smacking down the class action, the judge decreed: "The numbers are so large, the stakes were so high, and the fall of the dollar value of WorldCom stock so precipitous, that the reader reacts by thinking that there must have been some corporate misbehavior . . . However, after a thorough examination, it becomes apparent that the Complaint is a classic example of 'puzzle pleading,'" or using an onrush of "cross-references and repetition" in lieu of real substance. n63 Judge Barbour was an ideal adjudicator for the home team . . . Barbour and his family reside in a state where WorldCom was the biggest source of local pride and a major supplier of high-paying jobs. Mississippi is undergoing a highly charged tort reform battle, with Republicans squarely on the side of curtailing shareholder lawsuits. A Reagan appointee to the bench . . . Barbour is a first cousin and former law partner of Haley Barbour, former Republican National Committee chairman and now a high-powered Washington lobbyist mulling a run for Mississippi governor . . . . *90 More intriguing still, Judge Barbour's second cousin, Henry Barbour, is the campaign chairman for U.S. Representative Charles W. (Chip) Pickering. The Mississippi Republican was the largest congressional recipient of contributions from MCI, WorldCom and related individuals, receiving $ 83,750 from 1989 to 2002. n64 With judicial protection like this, it is no wonder corporate executives became emboldened and misbehaved~-~-and investors ended up damaged and dismayed! Investors realize that purchasing securities entails risks, including the risk of loss. But if victims of securities fraud perceive that they have lost a fair chance to hold perpetrators legally responsible, that has to contribute to undermining investor confidence. n65 If corporate executives realize they can get away with it they will be all the more emboldened to try to do so. The truth is, in the last half of the 1990s, Congress, the SEC and several courts caved in to the corporate and financial interests and badly impaired the investor protections historically provided by our federal securities laws. n66 As a *91 result, the integrity of public~-~-company financial reporting and disclosure practices became severely undermined at the very time the IPO boom and the greatest bull market in history roared on~-~-attracting all-time record levels of pension funds' and individuals' investment of retirement savings monies. These investors got creamed. Over 14 trillion dollars was lost in just over two years~-~-a lot of that due to fraud.
20 +
21 +Economic decline causes nuclear war
22 +Tønnesson 15 (Stein, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Leader of the East Asia Peace program at Uppsala university, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International Area Studies Review, Volume 18, Number 3, p. 297—311
23 +Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
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1 +Belief that police are under attack inspires right wing backlash, spurs militia recruitment
2 +Blue, 16, Miranda Blue, July 8, 2016, “Oath Keepers Calls For Establishment Of Militias In Response To Dallas Ambush” Right Wing Watch
3 + http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/oath-keepers-calls-for-establishment-of-militias-in-response-to-dallas-ambush/
4 +Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, responded today to last night’s sniper ambush of police officers near a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas by calling for “patriotic Americans” to “go armed at all times” and “reestablish the militia system.” Rhodes wrote on the Oath Keepers website that the shooting was the product of “the Marxist agenda to divide and conquer along racial lines and inspire blind hatred against all police, and against this nation in general,” warning that it would be used to “further militarize” the police and “trample on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Tying the shooting in Dallas to the attack on an Orlando gay nightclub by an ISIS-inspired terrorist, Rhodes wrote that what “is now needed, more than ever, is the reestablishment of the militia of the people, trained, equipped and organized in each town, to defend against what is now clearly a ‘Tet Offensive’ American style.” “Therefore, I call on all Oath Keepers, and all patriotic Americans, to come to the aid of their local police, and to the aid of their communities, and unite and coordinate in mutual defense against this orchestrated campaign of Marxist terrorism, which is the modern version of the wave of terrorism we saw in the late 60s and early 70s by the Marxist Weather Underground and related groups (who also frequently targeted police), along with the closely related Jihadist terrorism offensive, with Orlando being merely the latest in an ongoing wave of attacks. What is now needed, more than ever, is the reestablishment of the militia of the people, trained, equipped and organized in each town, to defend against what is now clearly a “Tet Offensive” American style, as Navy SEAL veteran Matt Bracken warned. While we work to reestablish that militia system, you must go armed at all times, and be prepared, at all times, to defend your community against these Marxist terrorists as well as their Islamist terror allies. Remember, they are in league, and you are their common enemy and their common targets. The power elites who control, aid, abet and fund these terrorists will attempt to use these attacks to further destroy what little is left of our Constitution, but the one thing they do not want, and the one thing they truly fear, is for We the People, who are still armed, to come together and restore the militia of the several states. And the elites’ terrorist proxies among the Marxists and Islamacists also fear such a revitalization and restoration. So, let’s do what our enemies all fear most. Let us resurrect and restore the militia system of this nation, which the Founders told us is necessary for the security of a free state, and which must consist of ALL of the able bodied citizens of your community. It is time to finally get down to doing what is necessary. It starts with you and your neighbors coming together, now, to address this grave threat, and for you to lead them toward the only constitutional solution – the revitalization of the militia.”
5 +Turns case—right-wing militia groups threaten minority groups and critical infrastructure, including power grids
6 +Potok, 16, Mark Potok, United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and University of Chicago, February 17, 2016, “The Year in Hate and Extremism”, Southern Poverty Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2016/year-hate-and-extremism
7 +The number of hate and antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups grew last year, and terrorist attacks and radical plots proliferated. Charleston. Chattanooga. Colorado Springs. In these towns and dozens of other communities around the nation, 2015 was a year marked by extraordinary violence from domestic extremists — a year of living dangerously. Antigovernment militiamen, white supremacists, abortion foes, domestic Islamist radicals, neo-Nazis and lovers of the Confederate battle flag targeted police, government officials, black churchgoers, Muslims, Jews, schoolchildren, Marines, abortion providers, members of the Black Lives Matter protest movement, and even drug dealers. They laid plans to attack courthouses, banks, festivals, funerals, schools, mosques, churches, synagogues, clinics, water treatment plants and power grids. They used firearms, bombs, C-4 plastic explosives, knives and grenades; one of them, a murderous Klansman, was convicted of trying to build a death ray. The armed violence was accompanied by rabid and often racist denunciations of Muslims, LGBT activists and others — incendiary rhetoric led by a number of mainstream political figures and amplified by a lowing herd of their enablers in the right-wing media. Reacting to demographic changes in the U.S., immigration, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Islamist atrocities, these people fostered a sense of polarization and anger in this country that may be unmatched since the political upheavals of 1968. When it comes to mainstream politics, the hardcore radical right typically says a pox on both their houses. Not this time. Donald Trump’s demonizing statements about Latinos and Muslims have electrified the radical right, leading to glowing endorsements from white nationalist leaders such as Jared Taylor and former Klansman David Duke. White supremacist forums are awash with electoral joy, having dubbed Trump their “Glorious Leader.” And Trump has repaid the compliments, retweeting hate posts and spreading their false statistics on black-on-white crime. In the midst of these developments, hate groups continued to flourish. The number of groups on the American radical right, according to the latest count by the Southern Poverty Law Center, expanded from 784 in 2014 to 892 in 2015 — a 14 increase. The increase in hate groups was not even across extremist sectors. The hardest core sectors of the white supremacist movement—white nationalists, neo-Nazis and racist skinheads—actually declined somewhat, a reflection, perhaps, that hate in the mainstream had absorbed some of the hate on the fringes But there were significant increases in Klan as well as black separatist groups. Klan chapters grew from 72 in 2014 to 190 last year, invigorated by the 364 pro-Confederate battle flag rallies that took place after South Carolina took down the battle flag from its Capitol grounds following the June massacre of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist flag enthusiast in Charleston, S.C. Rallies in favor of the battle flag were held in 26 states — concentrated, but by no means limited to the South — and reflected widespread white anger that the tide in the country was turning against them. On the opposite end of the political spectrum, black separatist hate groups also grew, going from 113 chapters in 2014 to 180 last year. The growth was fueled largely by the explosion of anger fostered by highly publicized incidents of police shootings of black men. But unlike activists for racial justice such as those in the Black Lives Matter movement, the black separatist groups did not stop at demands for police reforms and an end to structural racism. Instead, they typically demonized all whites, gays, and, in particular, Jews. Just as the number of hate groups rose by 14 in 2015, so did the number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment “Patriot” groups, going from 874 in 2014 to 998 last year. The growth was fueled by the euphoria felt in antigovernment circles after armed activists forced federal officials to back down at gunpoint from seizing cattle at Cliven Bundy’s ranch to pay his grazing fees. So emboldened were activists by the failure of the federal government to arrest anyone following their “victory” at the Bundy ranch that armed men, led by Bundy’s son, began occupying a wildlife refugee in Oregon in January 2016 as a protest against federal land ownership in the West. The 2015 hate group count almost certainly understates the true size of the American radical right. White supremacists are increasingly opting to operate mainly online, where the danger of public exposure and embarrassment is far lower, where younger people tend to gather, and where it requires virtually no effort or cost to join in the conversation. The major hate forum Stormfront now has more than 300,000 members, and the site has been adding about 25,000 registered users annually for several years — the size of a small city. The milieu of the web is an ideal one for “lone wolves” — terrorists who operate on their own and are radicalized online. Dylann Roof is the perfect example. His journey began with absorbing propaganda about black-on-white crime from the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group that enjoyed the attention of Republican lawmakers in the 1990s, and ended with the June massacre in Charleston. Like increasing numbers in white supremacist circles, Roof was convinced after drinking radical-right Kool-Aid on the Internet claiming that white people worldwide were the targets of genocide. Violence Hits a New Peak Last year brought more domestic political violence, both from the American radical right and from American jihadists, than the nation has seen in many years (see timeline of violence, below). According to a year-end report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “domestic extremist killers” slew more people in 2015 than in any year since 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing left 168 men, women and children dead. Counting both political and other violence from extremists, the ADL said “a minimum of 52 people in the United States were killed by adherents of domestic extremist movements in the past 12 months.” Another tally, by the respected New America Foundation, found that by year’s end, 45 people in America had been killed in “violent jihadist attacks” since the Al Qaeda massacre of Sept. 11, 2001, just short of the 48 people killed in the same 14-year period in “far right wing attacks.” (Unlike the ADL, the foundation does not count non-political violence by extremists.) A Timeline: The Year In Domestic Terror The impact of terrorism goes far beyond the body count. Violence motivated by racial, ethnic or religious animus fractures society along its most fragile fault lines, and sends shock waves through entire targeted communities. More hatred and fear, particularly of diversity, are often the response. Several political figures have harnessed that fear, calling for bans on mosques, Muslim immigrants and refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East. And terror can breed hate crimes, as evidenced by a string of physical attacks on mosques and Muslims, particularly after a jihadist couple in San Bernardino, Calif., murdered 14 people in December. From start to finish, the year 2015 was remarkable for its terrorist violence, the penetration of the radical right and its conspiracy theories into mainstream politics, and the boost far-right ideas and groups received from pandering politicians like Donald Trump. And the situation appears likely to get worse, not better, as the country continues to come to terms with its increasing diversity. .
8 +Turns case—grid failure cause massive starvation and structural violence.
9 +Lewis 14 (Patrice Lewis is a freelance writer. WND Commentary: “If the grid fails, will you die?” published May 23rd, 2014 accessed June 26th, 2015. http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/if-the-grid-fails-will-you-die/)
10 +It seems too many people are flippant or dismissive of the potential hardships. “An electromagnetic pulse is a joke and would be minor at best,” notes one person. “I say that because most people know how to survive without all the modern conveniences.” Or, “We’d go back to the 1800s. Big deal. People lived just fine in the 1800s.” I’m not here to argue about the odds of an EMP taking out the grid. I’m not going to discuss the technicalities of Faraday cages or the hardening of electronics. I’m here to state that if you think life in America without electricity will merely revert us to pioneer days, you are dead wrong (no pun intended, I hope). We wouldn’t regress to the 1800s; we would regress to the 1100s or earlier. Life would become a bitter, brutal struggle for survival. Society thrived in the 1800s for four very simple reasons: 1) a non-electric infrastructure already existed; 2) people had the skills, knowledge and tools to make do; 3) our population levels were far lower, and most people lived rural and raised a significant portion of their own food; and 4) there were relatively few people who didn’t earn their way. To be blunt, if you didn’t work, you seldom ate. Those who couldn’t work (the disabled, the elderly, etc.) were cared for by family members or charitable institutions. There were no other options. These conditions no longer exist. Homes do not come equipped with outhouses, hand water pumps and a trained horse stabled in the back. Many people don’t have the faintest clue how to cook from scratch, much less grow or raise their own food. Eighty percent of Americans live in cities and are fed by less than 2 percent of the population, which means farmers must mass-produce food for shipments to cities. And there are far too many people on multi-generational entitlement programs who literally know no other lifestyle except an endless cycle of EBT cards and welfare payments. Additionally, the interconnectivity that exists in today’s society is complex beyond belief. It’s been proven again and again that a single weak link can bring down the whole chain. A trucker’s strike or a massive storm at one end of the country can mean interrupted food deliveries at the other end. Even the most humble object – a pencil, for example – has a pedigree of such unimaginable complexity that its manufacture requires the cooperation of millions, and not one single person on the planet knows how to make one from start to finish. Read this essay to see what I mean. How much more complex would it be to rebuild a fallen electrical grid than a pencil? And yet some people claim that a grid-down situation will be a minor inconvenience. They think that because they line-dry their clothes and have a few tomatoes on their patio, that they’ll be able to survive a situation in which all services cease. They think food production and distribution is somehow independent of fuel and electricity. In fact, it’s intimately connected. Ever try to till a 3,500-acre wheat field by horse-drawn plow? Shut off power and you shut off food. Period. Some people contemptuously dismiss the hardships that would ensue after grid-down by noting that we already posses the know-how for technological and medical advances. We know how to treat or cure illness and injury. We know how to provide electrical power. We know how to make engines. Therefore, it will be easy to rebuild America’s infrastructure in the event of a grid-down situation. And these people are right – we do possess the knowledge. What we would lack is the infrastructure to rebuild the infrastructure. We lack the stop-gap services that would allow engineers and manufacturers to rebuild society without facing starvation first. And if the people with the specialized knowledge to rebuild die off in the interim before the infrastructure gets rebuilt, then where will we be? America’s connectivity, more than anything else, will cripple our society should the power fail. It’s all well and good for a surgeon to have the knowledge of how to operate on a cancerous tumor, but if sterile scalpels and anesthesia and dressings and other surgical accouterments are not available, the surgeon’s abilities regress almost to the point of a tribal witch doctor by the lack of infrastructure, services and supplies.
11 +Causes global wars and instability
12 +Femia 12 (Francesco and Caitlin Werrell, Write for The Center For Climate and Security, When National Climate Disasters Go Global: On Drought, Food, And Global Insecurity, July, Accessed Online at Think Progress)
13 +
14 +The security implications of food price spikes
15 +What we’ve also seen is that spikes in world food prices have increased the likelihood of instability and riots. In some instances, crop failure in one part of the world associated with instability halfway around the globe, can contribute to serious diplomatic crises between the U.S. and its allies, as occurred with Egypt, and could conceivably result in U.S. military involvement.
16 +This is part of a larger phenomenon Dr. Troy Sternberg calls “the globalization of hazards,” where natural hazards in one region can have a significant impact on regions halfway across the globe. This is not to say that the current U.S. drought will necessarily lead to unrest. However, it is not unprecedented for droughts, and other climatic events that damage crop production, to do so.
17 +Collective impact of crop failure across the globe
18 +It is also important to consider that the drought and crop failures in the U.S. are not happening in isolation. In recent years, extreme hot and dry weather has forced Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to reduce their harvest forecasts (and two studies explicitly link the devastating Russian heat wave of 2010 to climate change). European Union wheat yields this year will be smaller, in part, because Spain is suffering from the second worst drought in fifty years. North and South Korea are facing the worst drought in a century. Shifts in glacial melt and rainfall are threatening crops in Pakistan. The proliferation of locusts throughout West Africa is threatening household food security. Recent floods in Japan, India and Bangladesh are threatening rice crops. Argentina’s soy crops were severely depleted because of a shortage of rain. And in Mali, drought combined with other factors led to a major humanitarian disaster in the region. The list goes on.
19 +Many of these conditions are record-setting, or the worst of their kind in decades and sometimes centuries. And climate projections threaten to make matters worse. What this means is that it is possible that the global food market is about to witness an unusual amount of stress. It is not entirely clear if the market is prepared for it, or even if nations have the capacity to adequately respond.
20 +Impact on U.S. assistance and diplomacy
21 +Food, for better or worse, is also used as a form of diplomacy. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Food for Peace program has sent 106 million metric tons to the hungry of the world, feeding billions of people and saving countless lives. The program depends on the unparalleled productivity of American farmers and the American agricultural system. Without this vast system there would be no Food for Peace program, or any of the other food assistance programs either run by the U.S. government, or heavily supported by the U.S. such as the UN’s World Food Program.
22 +On average, American food aid provides 60 percent of the world’s food aid, feeding millions of desperately hungry people every year. This means that in addition to facing an increasing risk from lower crop and animal stock yields and global food market shocks, the U.S. may also be limiting its ability to respond rapidly to global disasters, including global food crises. This is bad news for the global poor, and for U.S. diplomacy.
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1 +Damus
Caselist.CitesClass[12]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,4 @@
1 +CP: The United States federal government should mandate a community based implementation of the California AB 65 and California AB 66 plan for police body cameras including but not limited to mandates to assume criminal activity if police fail to use or tamper with cameras, protect civilian rights to film, and use special prosecutors to try police officers. The full list of mandates and links to the two California bills are below.
2 +That increases accountability, transparency, and prosecution of police misconduct
3 +Friedman et al 15 - Andrew Friedman, Brian Kettenring, and Ana Maria Archila, Co-Executive Directors, The Center for Popular Democracy, Alana Greer, Community Justice Project; Alyssa Aguilera, VOCAL NY; Anthony Newby, Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change; Bill Henry, Baltimore City Council; Brendan Roediger, Arch City Defenders; Bukky Gbadesgesin, Organization for Black Struggle; Curtis Sails, Coalition 4 Justice; Dante Barry, Million Hoodies; Deray McKesson, WeTheProtestors; Jackie Byers, Black Organizing Project; James Hayes, Ohio Student Association; Je Ordower, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment; Jennifer Epps-Addison, Wisconsin Jobs Now; John Chasno , Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression; Jose Lopez, Make the Road NY; Justin Hansford, St. Louis University School of Law; Kassandra Frederique, Drug Policy Alliance; Kim McGill, Youth 4 Justice; Lynn Lewis, Picture the Homeless; Meena Jagannath, Community Justice Project; Nahal Zamani, Center for Constitutional Rights; Opal Tometi, Black Alliance for Justice Immigration; Paolo Harris, Ingoma Foundation; Patrisse Cullors, Dignity and Power Now/Coalition to End Sheri ’s Violence in L.A. Jails; Pete White, Los Angeles Community Action Network; Rachel Herzing, Critical Resistance; Ralikh Hayes, Baltimore BLOC; Sco Roberts, Advancement Project; Tara Hu man, Open Society Institute Baltimore; Thenjiwe McHarris, US Human Rights Network, and Valantina Amalraj, Columbia Law School: June 2015(“Building Momentum from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Promoting Justice” The Center for Popular Democracy Available at http://www.justiceinpolicing.com/docs/JusticeInPolicing.pdf Accessed on 11/15/16)IG
4 +Body cameras have become the most popular political response to recent incidents of police misconduct and brutality. There is much debate about the e ectiveness and desirability of body worn cameras by community groups and advocates. Some communities and many elected o - cials believe that if properly regulated, body-worn cameras for police o cers may be a tool to increase accountability, transparency, and collect evidence of police misconduct. Communities must decide whether these potential bene ts outweigh privacy and other concerns, such as police misuse. Additionally, communities must be involved in the development of departmental protocols to shape when body cameras are mandated for use. If community members advocate for a body cameras, the policy should include a community agreed upon provision outlining when cameras must be activated and a provision applying a presumption of police misconduct if footage is unavailable (when it was supposed to be recorded).
EntryDate
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1 +2016-11-06 21:34:03.0
Opponent
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1 +San Marino ED
ParentRound
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +7
Round
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +2
Team
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +Palos Verdes Gaur Neg
Title
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +Body Cameras
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +Damus
Caselist.RoundClass[6]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +8,9
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +2016-10-16 15:21:39.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +Srikar Pyda
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +Strake VL
Round
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +3
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +St Marks
Caselist.RoundClass[7]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +10,11,12
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +2016-11-06 21:34:00.0
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +San Marino ED
Round
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +2
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
1 +Damus

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