ALJAZEERA:  International powers have agreed that a transitional government should be set up in Syria to end the bloodshed there, but left open the question of what part President Bashar al-Assad might play in the process… 

Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, said he was “delighted” with the result as it meant no foreign solution was being imposed on Syria.

The Syrian government or opposition were both not represented…  (more)

FATHERS AND CHILDREN COALITION:  The judge went ballistic because he assumed, among other things, that pastor Hage published an artile in the local on-line news outlet, PutnamLIVE.com, about Judge Watkins’ late payments to the condominium where he lives. The judge was wrong: it was the publisher of PutnamLIVE, who wrote the article, entirely on his own volition. Judge Watkins screams at the pastor, “I will personally make sure that you will never see a free day in your life! You are going to jail!” While the pastor is silent, the Judge repeatedly screams, “Shut up!” 

What makes it different this time, is that there is a video of this Judge’s abuse of power. (Now you know why New York Courts guard themselves from cameras in the courtroom, as if video cameras were machine guns aimed straight at them.) He acts like a sadistic tyrant, enjoying unlimited power to abuse a litigant. He makes these threats before starting the proceeding, probably mistakenly assuming that the video is not on until he begins the proceeding “officially.”

In addition to screaming at pastor Art Hage, Putnam Family Law Judge William M. “Chip” Watkins III will have to answer why he ordered Paul D. Bentley, one of the minister’s parishioners, out of the courthouse…  (more)

For the truth about what LGH does in the community, visit http://bit.ly/NLtSvk

CNN    With convicted serial child sex abuser Jerry Sandusky behind bars, new questions are surfacing about what Penn State officials knew about a 2001 incident involving the former assistant football coach’s encounter with a boy in the shower — and whether they covered up the incident…

The messages indicate former Penn State President Graham Spanier and two other former university officials knew they had a problem with Sandusky after a 2001 shower incident, but apparently first decided to handle it using a “humane” approach before contacting outside authorities whose job it is to investigate suspected abuse…

“As Governor Tom Corbett stated, ‘If we were going to do this case, we had to have the best possible case to go against somebody like Mr. Sandusky who was … loved by everybody. Carried out of the football stadium on the shoulders of his football team. How can anybody say there must be something wrong with him?’” the lawyers’ statement read, citing Corbett’s remarks in a June 25 article by The Patriot News…  (more)

EDITOR:  This article includes much new information.  We recommend reading in its entirety.

By Slava Tsukerman

One of the most famous in Russia annual public events – Alye Parusa (“Scarlet Sails”) Festival took place last week in St. Petersburg. The event is highly popular for spectacular fireworks and a massive show celebrating the end of the high school year.

The celebration was attended by about 60 thousand graduates and their parents. According to the official reports about 2 million tourists visited the city during the celebration. Vice Governor of St. Petersburg Vasily Kichedzi, boasted: “ St. Petersburg is one of the rare cities in Russia that can produce such an event. Many regions try to, I don’t want to offend anybody, but nobody else is able to do it.”

The Scarlet Sails Festival is unique to St. Petersburg; not inferior, by officials’ opinion, to the best world shows. Here is the the official reel, promoting last year Scarlet Sails festival.

The festival is named after one of the most popular Russian children book – the story of a Cinderella like girl named Asol, whose prince comes to save her on a brig with the scarlet sails. In the 1960s the book achieved top cult status among Russian youth. In 1961 the film adaptation of it was made, and in the 1969 the Festival was created.

This year as always the event included: a ship with scarlet sails, proudly gliding along the Neva River; unique light shows and fireworks; music, especially composed for the festive evening.

Performances of many stars were held simultaneously on the largest squares of the city. Large screens were erected in the squares to simultaneously show all the various events.  This combined the effect of many thousands of participants and viewers of all the shows in all locations.

According to some reports, 60 thousand people had rehearsed a dance and executed it in the Palace Square – the largest square of the city. The organisers are planning to get this ‘Flash Mob’ in the Guinness Book of Records.

There is a lot of excitement about the event in the official Russian media.

The Russian Internet coverage of Scarlet Sails Festival differs.

Some bloggers state that it was better not to go out into the street at the night of the festival. It seemed that the town has been occupied by nasty aliens: everybody shouted, used foul language, sipped beer straight from bottles, throwing bags of potato chips, cigarette butts and apple cores under feet, openly and shamelessly urinating on each other in a fan like way. There was a suffocating smell of urine in every alleyway.  There is a common unhappiness among the poor concerning costs of the “Extravaganza”. According to reports, the yearly cost often comes to more than 10 million dollars.

The Palace Square in the morning after the Festival. The high school graduate on the ground is not dead. He is drunk.

DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE:  Colombia’s Constitutional Court today approved the government’s proposal to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cocaine and marijuana for personal use. Anyone caught with less than 20 grams of marijuana or one gram of cocaine for personal use may receive physical or psychological treatment depending on their state of consumption, but may not be prosecuted or detained, the court ruled.

Colombia is part of a growing trend in Latin America. Last week, the government of Uruguay announced that it will submit a proposal to legalize marijuana under government-controlled regulation and sale, making it the first country in the world where the state would sell marijuana directly to its citizens. The proposal was drafted by Uruguayan President José Mujica and his staff and requires parliamentary approval before being enacted.

Statement from Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance:

“Today’s judicial ruling in Colombia represents yet another important step in the growing political and judicial movement in Latin America and Europe to stop treating people who consume drugs as criminals worthy of incarceration. It is consistent with prior rulings by Colombian courts before former president Álvaro Uribe sought to undermine them, and also with rulings by the Supreme Court of Argentina in 2009 and other courts in the region. The Colombian Constitutional Court’s decision is obviously most important in Colombia, where it represents both a powerful repudiation of former president Uribe’s push to criminalize people who use drugs and a victory for President Juan Manuel Santos’ call for a new direction in drug policy.  

“Most decriminalization initiatives in Latin America, however, are being proposed and enacted not by courts but by presidents and national legislatures. In addition to President Santos, Guatemala’s new president, Otto Pérez Molina, is an advocate of decriminalization as are – in various ways and to different degrees – the presidents of Costa Rica, Uruguay, Ecuador and Argentina. Some Latin American countries, it should be pointed out, never criminalized drug possession in the first place. This trend follows in the footsteps of European reforms since the 1990s. Portugal, which decriminalized drug possession in 2001, stands out as a model.

“Decriminalizing drug possession appears to have little impact on levels of illicit drug use. Its principal impacts are reducing arrests of drug users, especially those who are young and/or members of minority groups; reducing opportunities for low level police corruption; allowing police to focus on more serious crimes; reducing criminal justice system costs; and better enabling individuals, families, communities and local governments to deal with addiction as a health rather than criminal issue.

“The United States clearly lags far behind Europe and Latin America in ending the criminalization of drug possession. Momentum for reform is growing with respect to decriminalization of marijuana possession, with Massachusetts reducing penalties in 2008, California in 2010, Connecticut in 2011 and Rhode Island earlier this year. All states, however, treat possession of other illegal drugs as a crime. Thirteen states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government currently treat possession of drugs for personal use as a misdemeanor, with penalties of up to a year in jail. The remaining thirty-seven states treat possession of cocaine, heroin and other drugs as a felony, with penalties than can include many years in prison.”

THE AMERICAN PROSPECT…The lineup of the justices shows how adept Roberts is at building alliances. On the commerce-power issue, he allied with the four conservatives. On the taxing-power issue, he added his vote to the four moderate liberals. On the Medicaid issue, he summed the four conservative votes to forbid the Medicaid expansion altogether, with his own vote and that of the two newest Justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, for the more limited “no total cutoff” rule.

Until today, some observers had suggested that this is really the Kennedy Court, dominated by the swing-voting Sphinx of Sacramento. But Kennedy today was an angry loser. It is now unquestionably the Roberts Court. He has taken the Court out of the line of fire in 2012, which underlines, for those who watch these things, how important the next election will be for the direction of constitutional doctrine.

Obama won a battle today. But Roberts is planning a long campaign, which will go on long after Obama has left office.   (more)

REUTERS:  Germany’s parliament resoundingly approved the euro zone’s permanent bailout scheme and new budget rules on Friday, but legal hurdles remain and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s concessions to euro zone partners Italy and Spain may make those harder to overcome.

The outcome of the vote was never seriously in doubt after opposition parties agreed to back the budget rules, or “fiscal compact”, in return for growth and job creation measures. Merkel needed their support to get a required two-thirds majority…

Merkel had returned for the debates and the vote from a European Union summit in Brussels that agreed to give the euro zone’s bailout funds more flexibility to stabilise bond markets and to directly recapitalise banks in the future…  (more) 

EDITOR:   Another band-aid that will not solve the euro problem but will postpone a crisis for years?  Months?  Weeks?  Or days?

WALL STREET JOURNAL:  The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency filed formal doping charges against former professional cyclist Lance Armstrong, a move that could cost him some or all of his seven Tour de France titles.

Mr. Armstrong has 10 days to respond to USADA’s official charging letter, which was sent Thursday evening, to decide whether to contest the charges. If he does, the case will be argued in front of an independent arbitration panel of three people. To prove its case, USADA would have to convince two arbitrators that the allegations are true.

Robert Luskin, an attorney for Mr. Armstrong, said Friday the decision to charge Mr. Armstrong with doping violations is “wrong” and “baseless.” He said the charges are the result of the agency’s “toxic obsession with Lance Armstrong” and that there “is not one shred of credible evidence” to support them. … (more)

NEWSMAX:  … Holder, who heads the Justice Department, was cited on Thursday for contempt of Congress by the Republican-led House of Representatives. The mostly partisan vote of 255-67 marked the first time a sitting attorney general and presidential cabinet member was cited for contempt by the full House. More than 100 Democrats walked out in protest and refused to vote.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, Holder’s deputy said that the attorney general properly withheld the documents under “executive privilege,” which allows President Barack Obama to keep private documents on internal government discussions.

“The department will not bring the Congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general,” said Deputy Attorney General James Cole…  (more)