Dear Friends,

The anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have come and gone. The weekend surrounding those two anniversaries was filled with activities commemorating the events. In Hiroshima it was the first time ever that the U.S. Government sent a representative to attend the ceremonies to mark the moment the first atomic bomb was dropped.

There were also other events around the world commemorating the atomic bombings. Some, such as the From Hiroshima to Hope Lantern Floating Ceremony at Seattle’s (Washington State) Green Lake involved brought people together to remember and honor all who died in the atomic bombings (as well as all who have died in wars).

This year marked the 65^th anniversary of the days the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6^th and August 9^th, 1945. Over 55,000 people from 73 countries attended the record-breaking ceremonies, including a US representative, incredibly, for the first time in history.

ABC News tells the story of a survivor named Mikiso Iwasa in the aftermath of the Hiroshima boming:

Mikiso Iwasa says August 6th, 1945 began like any other day. “It was a hot summer day, and the cicadas were singing,” said Iwasa. Then the sound changed.

“We heard the sound…from the north and the children screamed. It’s a plane! It’s a plane!,” he recalled.

The Prague Project compiled this hilarious chart in response to the über right-wing Heritage Foundation’s claims that “the list of experts [against New START] is large”:

One of the most egregious arguments peddled by New START proponents is that no reasonable arms control expert is opposed to New START. That is blatantly false. Americans deserve honesty in this debate…

The graph speaks for itself. They also offered this brief analysis:

Over Seventy former high-level government officials and senior military officers have come out in support of New START.  In addition, every administration official supported the treaty, from Hillary Clinton, to Bob Gates, and, representing the entire uniformed military, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry announced his decision this week to delay the vote on the New START treaty until mid-September. The delay has a lot to do with partisan obstructionism and Republican demands for even more money for nuclear modernization. Kerry has just 6 weeks to secure enough Republican votes to pass New START.

In his press release (for some reason not available online), Senator Kerry explained that he chose to delay the vote in order to gather bipartisan support for the treaty:

In the New START debate, the right continues to play fast and loose with the facts after a recently released report showed that Russia kept its side of the bargain in the original START arms reduction treaty.

Last Wednesday, the Start Department released the unclassified version of the compliance report for the expired START I treaty. The report clearly states that Russia kept up its end of the treaty:

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine were in compliance with the START strategic offensive arms (SOA) central limits for the 15-year term of the Treaty.

The report notes that a few minor questions linger. But after interviewing Rose Gottemoeller, chief US negotiator of the New START treaty, The Cable reports that Russia is certainly not guilty of “cheating” on START I: