Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features r&b and soul singer Otis Clay. Enjoy!
The BO-KEYS featuring OTIS CLAY - Got To Get Back
“Standards only move in one direction. At the beginning of the world, standards were established and they've been slipping ever since.”
-- Edward Stevenson
News and Opinion
Obama Secretly Loosened Standards for Drone Killings in Pakistan
While publicly vaunting drone strike reforms allegedly aimed at minimizing civilian deaths, President Barack Obama secretly loosened the standards for covert attacks in Pakistan, likely paving the way for the killing and wounding of an unknown number of non-combatants, the Wall Street Journal revealed Sunday. ...
The new reporting sheds light on the Presidential Policy Guidelines (pdf), which were announced by Obama in May 2013 and allegedly impose the requirement that "before lethal action may be taken," U.S. forces are required to attain "near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed." Furthermore, the policy states that the U.S. "will use lethal force only against a target that poses a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons."
However, according to the Wall Street Journal's reporting, Pakistan was exempted from these alleged reforms. Journalist Adam Entous writes:
Under a classified addendum to the directive approved by Mr. Obama, however, the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan was exempted from the “imminent threat” requirement, at least until U.S. forces completed their pullout from Afghanistan.
The exemption in the case of Pakistan means that the CIA can do signature strikes and more targeted drone attacks on militant leaders who have been identified without collecting specific evidence that the target poses an imminent threat to the U.S. Being part of the al Qaeda core in Pakistan is justification enough in the Obama administration’s eyes.
Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, told Common Dreams that Pakistan is not the only country exempted from supposed drone reforms. "This is part of a pattern where the administration announces reforms to drone strike policy that never happen or were eviscerated through exemption, or reversed," said Naiman.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Launches Campaign to Stop Killer Robots After Winning Ban on Landmines
The Key War on Terror Propaganda Tool: Only Western Victims Are Acknowledged
In all the years I’ve been writing about Obama’s drone killings, yesterday featured by far the most widespread critical discussion in U.S. establishment journalism circles. This long-suppressed but crucial fact about drones was actually trumpeted as the lead headline on the front page of The New York Times yesterday:
"U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes"
The reason for the unusually intense, largely critical coverage of drone killings yesterday is obvious: the victims of this strike were Western and non-Muslim, and therefore were seen as actually human. ...
When there is an attack by a Muslim on Westerners in Paris, Sydney, Ottawa, Fort Hood or Boston, we are deluged with grief-inducing accounts of the victims. We learn their names and their extinguished life aspirations, see their pictures, hear from their grieving relatives, watch ceremonies honoring their lives and mourning their deaths, launch campaigns to memorialize them. Our side’s victims aren’t just humanized by our media, but are publicly grieved as martyrs. ...
To see how systematically the U.S. dehumanizes foreign Muslims, just think about that above-posted New York Times drone headline. The full headline is even more descriptive:
"Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die"
This “uncomfortable truth” has been obvious for so long. So often, the U.S. government shoots missiles at buildings, cars and homes outside of “battlefields” without having any idea who it will kill. Despite this fact — that not even the government itself knows who it is killing — the U.S. media routinely and reflexively describes victims of U.S. drone strikes as “militants.” Democrats and progressives, who to their eternal disgrace overwhelmingly support Obama’s drone killing program, will declare “we are killing The Terrorists!” to justify all of this even though the Obama administration itself, let alone these cheering progressives, have no idea who their government just killed.
How can people killed by the U.S. government regularly be described as “militants” or “terrorists” when nobody has any idea who they are? Part of it is classic authoritarianism: My government says the people they are killing are Terrorists, so therefore, they are Terrorists.
Inside Obama's drone panopticon: a secret machine with no accountability
Thanks to Obama’s rare admission on Thursday, the realities of what are commonly known as “signature strikes” are belatedly and partially on display. Signature strikes, a key aspect for years of what the administration likes to call its “targeted killing” program, permit the CIA and JSOC to kill without requiring them to know who they kill. ...
An apparatus of official secrecy, built over decades and zealously enforced by Obama, prevents meaningful open scrutiny of the strikes. No one outside the administration knows how many drone strikes are signature strikes. There is no requirement that the CIA or JSOC account for their strikes, nor to provide an estimate of how many people they kill, nor even how they define legally critical terms like “combatant”, terrorist “affiliate” or “leader”. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing an obstinate administration to compel disclosure of some of the most basic information there is about a program that has killed thousands of people. ....
Civilian deaths in signature strikes do not operate quite like the “collateral damage” familiar from earlier wars. It is one thing for US bombs and missiles to miss their targets or to hit facilities that, at the time of the strike, no longer have their targets in them. It is another for them to hit targets absent prior confirmation that the target is an enemy as a matter of policy. ...
The Obama administration considers the real alternatives to drone strikes to be the unpalatable options of grueling ground wars or passive acceptance of terrorism. Then it congratulates itself for picking the wise, ethical and responsible choice of killing people without knowing who they are. ...
No Obama official involved in drone strikes has ever been disciplined: not only are Brennan and director of national intelligence James Clapper entrenched in their jobs, David Barron, one of the lawyers who told Obama he could kill a US citizen without trial as a first resort, now has a federal judgeship.
Nobel Laureates Call on "Militaristic" United States to Renew Pledge to Protect Human Rights
White House Pushes to Keep Power to Shut Down Cellphone Networks
Obama Desperate to Avoid Oversight on Secret, Self-Granted Power
In 2005, amid reports that the London subway bombers had used cellphones as detonators, the White House secretly established the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 303, which granted the government the ability to unilaterally shut down all cellphone service in an area of its choosing when it feels it needs to.
The details of the procedure are still not public, and a series of lawsuits aiming to at the very least get the basics of how the law even theoretically works have faced massive official opposition, with the White House and DHS desperate to avoid anyoversight. ...
In 2011, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system used the kill switch to shut off all cellphone services in several stations specifically to try to prevent organization of a public protest there.
The administration argues that even letting the public know the basic outline of the policy would itself be a threat to national security.
U.S. needs to stop fomenting violence in Yemen
Despite reports indicating that Washington has been attempting to quietly persuade the Saudis to curb their bombing, actions speak louder than words. The Obama administration has been supplying intelligence for the campaign, has moved eleven warships to the waters off of Yemen in a show of support for the Saudi-led effort, and has expedited arms shipments to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. Seemingly without irony, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest then charged that Iran was continuing “to supply arms to one party to that dispute so that the violence can continue.”
In Washington, the civil war in Yemen is being framed as a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, with the Houthi rebels supposedly beholden to Iran and the ousted government evidently loyal to the Saudis. This is utterly simplistic. The origins and grievances of the war are many, but Yemen has long been plagued by its own fissures, endemic corruption and abysmal governance. Iran’s influence in Yemen is limited. “It remains our assessment that Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen,” a spokeswoman for the National Security Council recently admitted to The Huffington Post.
The only sensible action for the United States is to change its course entirely. Washington’s assistance to Saudi Arabia will escalate this conflict and further inflame a volatile region.
Saudis Broaden Air Assault on Yemen
Warplanes of the Saudi-led military coalition bombed targets in the Yemeni capital on Sunday for the first time since Saudi officials said they were shifting the focus of their campaign against a Yemeni rebel group toward political negotiations and humanitarian relief.
Also on Sunday, at least seven people were killed and dozens wounded in escalating violence in the southern city of Taiz, which was emerging as the latest lethal flash point in Yemen’s civil war.
In addition to the bombings in Sana, the capital, which struck a military base and the presidential palace, the coalition carried out airstrikes in several other provinces, suggesting a broadening, rather than a scaling back, of the monthlong Saudi air offensive against Houthi rebels.
Despite vague talk of negotiations last week, there was little sign that any of the combatants in Yemen’s conflict were preparing to halt the fighting. Rather, the violence heightened in recent days as it became more apparent that the warring parties were locked in a standoff, with the Saudis insisting that the Houthis retreat and the Houthis demanding an unconditional end to the airstrikes.
Israel says air strike on Syrian border was targeting militants
Israel’s military said on Sunday it launched an air strike on its border with Syria after spotting militants carrying a bomb in the Israeli-held Golan Heights.
The military said it carried out the strike after troops saw “a group of armed terrorists” approach the border with an explosive intended to target Israeli troops. It said that Israeli aircraft “targeted the squad, preventing the attack.”
It did not offer a casualty figure for the strike. Iran’s state-run, English-language satellite news channel Press TV later reported four people had been killed in an Israeli air strike in the Golan Heights, without elaborating.
Putin says US helped North Caucasus separatists against Russia in the 2000s
Putin said Russian intelligence agencies had intercepted calls between the separatists and US intelligence based in Azerbaijan during the early 2000s, proving that Washington was helping the insurgents. ...
Following a disastrous war in the 1990s, Russia fought Islamic insurgents in Chechnya and neighboring regions in the volatile North Caucasus.
“They were actually helping them, even with transportation,” Putin said.
Putin said he raised the issue with then-US President George W Bush, who promised Putin he would “kick the ass” of the intelligence officers in question. But in the end, Putin said the Russian intelligence agency FSB received a letter from their “American counterparts” who asserted their right to “support all opposition forces in Russia”, including the Islamic separatists in the Caucasus.
Putin also expressed his fears that the west wishes Russia harm as he recalled how some world leaders told him they would not mind Russia’s possible disintegration.
Ex- Guantanamo detainees keep up protest in Uruguay
Four former Guantanamo Bay prisoners protested for a third day Sunday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Uruguay, saying Washington should provide them with housing and financial support because of their prolonged incarceration. ...
In a statement Sunday on the men's website, they said they are demanding support from the U.S government because Uruguay is a poor country that has offered them a home and backing. The men get $600 (15,000 pesos) a month from Uruguay's government which also provides a house for the six to share.
"They can't leave their errors to other people, they should help us with houses and financial support," the men said in the statement, referring to the U.S. government "We think that it is the least they could do" given what they called their unjust detention at Guantanamo.
NSA releases coloring book to save face
US used German spooks to snoop on EU defence industry
Germany's BND spy agency spied on European politicians and enterprises at the behest of the NSA for over a decade.
Der Spiegel reports (in German) that for years the NSA sent its counterparts at the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst – Germany's Federal Intelligence Service) thousands of so-called selectors – IP addresses, emails, and mobile phone numbers – it wanted targeted for online surveillance.
The selectors included referred to European politicians and European aerospace and defence firms, including the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) and Eurocopter.
BND workers picked up on this anomalous targeting – which had nothing to do with a bilateral US-Germany agreement signed in 2002 to pool efforts in combating global terrorism – and have been complaining about it since at least 2008.
Yet it was only when the Edward Snowden revelations began in 2013 that German spy bosses began questioning the practice, which fits more closely with the profile of economic espionage.
An estimated 800,000 selectors were passed from the NSA to the BND in total over the years. A post-Snowden internal probe concluded that at least 2,000 of these various spying requests were contrary to either German or wider EU interests.
The BND helped the NSA with spying on European ministers and enterprises, without anyone in the German parliament being aware of this.
Petraeus Gets Leniency for Leaking — And Risen’s CIA Source Should Too, His Lawyers Say
Lawyers for Jeffrey Sterling, convicted earlier this year of leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen, urged today that Sterling “not receive a different form of justice” than David Petraeus, the former general and CIA director who has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for leaking classified information to his biographer. ...
Sterling’s lawyers, Edward MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack, filed their sentencing memorandum today, arguing that their client “should be treated no more harshly than any other person who has been charged and convicted of ‘leaking’ to the press.” In addition to Petraeus, they cited the cases of John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who was sentenced to 30 months in prison, and Stephen Kim, who received a 13-month sentence. Unlike Petraeus, Kiriakou and Kim, who reached plea agreements, Sterling took his case to a jury. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 11.
“He should be treated similarly to others convicted for the same crimes and not singled out for a long prison sentence because he elected to exercise his right to trial,” the lawyers stated. “[T]he court cannot turn a blind eye to the positions the government has taken in similar cases.”
Two Killed in Burundi as Thousands Protest President’s Plan to Run for Third Term
Police in Burundi killed two protesters and left another in a coma during violent clashes that erupted Sunday after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term in office despite a two-term limit set by the country's constitution.
Thousands joined protests in the country's capital, Bujumbura, where they were met by riot police firing water cannons, tear gas, and live ammo to disperse the crowds, according to the BBC. Video footage showed police severely beating one protestor with their batons, and charging at another group with their riot shields up.
A People Expunged: Marking the 100th Anniversary of Armenian Genocide amid Ongoing Turkish Denials
What Obama’s Refusal to Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide Tells Us About the U.S. — and the Rest of the World
What happened is a historical fact, and it shouldn’t be difficult to get presidents and prime ministers to say, “Today we remember the Armenian Genocide.” But it’s almost impossible, especially in the U.S. — because Turkey has made Armenian Genocide denial part of its national identity, and we’re dependent on Turkey’s support for our broader mideast policies.
During Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, he explicitly promised that “as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.” Samantha Power, author of A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide and now Obama’s ambassador to the U.N., recorded a video urging Armenian Americans to support him because he would acknowledge the genocide: “I know [Obama] very well and he’s a person of incredible integrity. … He’s a true friend of the Armenian people, an acknowledger of the history … he’s a person who can actually be trusted.”
Obama’s commitment was quietly removed from his website sometime after December 2010, and this Armenian Remembrance Day, he broke his promise for the seventh year in a row. ...
Likewise, Israel has long relied on an alliance with Turkey, and has always refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. In 2001, the director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem stated that Shimon Peres had “entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian Genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust.”
This is not hyperbole. In fact, American and Israeli denial of the Armenian Genocide often uses exactly the same language as Iranian denial of the Holocaust.
Same-sex marriage: US supreme court has few choices but to 'end the debate'
The highest court in the United States on Tuesday will hear arguments in one of the last major undecided civil rights struggles in American history – whether same-sex marriage is a constitutional right – but this particular landmark case for equality may already be open and shut.
The US supreme court has a reputation for being contrarian and unpredictable. Its key swing votes are often shrouded in mystery until decisions arrive at the end of each term.
Constitutional lawyers, however, are confident enough in the imminent future of nationwide marriage equality to insist that anything less would require an extraordinarily complex – even unprecedented – reading in stark contrast with the court’s recent history and occasionally overt political leanings.
Between the clever way the cases have been set up and the overwhelming pressure to answer to public demand, the end of state gay marriage bans is not just inevitable, court watchers say – the nine justices may be left with no other choice.
In order to rule against the gay couples and their children bringing the challenge, a majority of the justices would have to conclude that marriage is not a fundamental right with respect to straight couples, according to University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone. The judges would also have to decide that there is no legal animus to state laws that limit who can get married – and that laws disadvantaging LGBT citizens are not suspect under the equal protection clause of the US constitution’s 14th amendment.
The state still controls women's bodies. Especially brown and black ones
The US has a long history of policing women’s bodies and their reproductive choices, especially if they are poor, women of color, or sexual minorities. These experiences are often overlooked in discussions about women’s health, despite the fact that they uniquely reveal just how discriminatory, uninformed and troubling state interference in reproductive health is.
Disadvantaged women have been disproportionately affected by social and criminal justice policies that explicitly restrict reproductive freedom. Judges in some states, for example, have given women convicted of drug abuse or child abuse the option of taking Norplant, a contraceptive implant for birth control that can only be removed by a doctor, instead of serving jail time. Even as recent as March 2015, state and national bills have offered women on welfare significant financial incentives to use long-term birth control methods. For many, these contraception choices are not actually “choices” and have been shown to be harmful to their health. ...
The Hyde Amendment, passed in 1976, also discriminates against poor women and women of color. Hyde prohibited Medicaid from covering abortion services, although one in 10 women of reproductive age in the US use Medicaid. According to Thurgood Marshall’s dissent in the 1980 Harris v McRae decision, Hyde was “designed to deprive poor and minority women of the constitutional right to choose abortion”. Even today, Medicaid coverage for abortion is limited and only applies when the pregnancy is a result of rape, incest, or if the women’s life is endangered. And now, under the Affordable Care Act, the Marketplace plans either prohibit or provide limited abortion services in about half the states. ...
Access to reproductive health care has long been a battle for all women, but for those who are poor or from minority communities, the number of reproductive health barriers is multiplied by state sanctioned discrimination. If we are to secure universal reproductive health care for all, we must listen to the stories and experiences from the margins. Without a full picture of how the state controls women’s bodies, we will not be able to successfully fight for change.
Not Fit to Rule
Elites are incapable of making cities safe, dealing with chronic poverty and unemployment, and facing up to economic stagnation and climate change - their only answer is war
Chris Hedges: Rise of the New Black Radicals
The almost daily murders of young black men and women by police in the United States—a crisis undiminished by the protests of groups such as Black Lives Matter and by the empty rhetoric of black political elites—have given birth to a new young black militant.
This militant, rising off the bloody streets of cities such as Ferguson, Mo., understands that the beast is not simply white supremacy, chronic poverty and the many faces of racism but the destructive energy of corporate capitalism. This militant has given up on electoral politics, the courts and legislative reform, loathes the corporate press and rejects established black leaders such as Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Michael Eric Dyson. This militant believes it is only in the streets and in acts of civil disobedience that change is possible. And given the refusal of the corporate state to address the mounting suffering of the poor and working poor, draconian state repression and indiscriminate use of lethal state violence against unarmed people of color, I think the new black radical is right. It will be a long, hot and violent summer.
The world’s hundreds of millions of disenfranchised youths—in America this group is dominated by the black and brown underclass—come out of the surplus labor created by our system of corporate neofeudalism. These young men and women have been discarded as human refuse and are preyed upon by a legal system that criminalizes poverty. In the United States they constitute the bulk of the 2.3 million human beings locked in jails and prisons. The discontent in Ferguson, Athens, Cairo, Madrid and Ayotzinapa is one discontent. And the emerging revolt, although it comes in many colors, speaks many languages and has many belief systems, is united around a common enemy. Bonds of solidarity and consciousness are swiftly uniting the wretched of the earth against our corporate masters.
Corporate power, which knows what is coming, has put in place sophisticated systems of control that include militarized police, elaborate propaganda campaigns that seek to make us fearful and therefore passive, wholesale surveillance of every citizen and a court system that has stripped legal protection from the poor and any who dissent. The masses are to be kept in bondage. But the masses, especially the young, understand the game. There is a word for what is bubbling up from below—revolution. It can’t begin soon enough.
Baltimore: Protesters smash cars, clash with police
Mourners pay respects to Freddie Gray after night of violence in Baltimore
Mourners filed for hours past the coffin of Freddie Gray in Baltimore on Sunday as they paid respects following a night of violent protests.
All afternoon, a steady stream of people entered the funeral home for a wake for the 25-year-old black man who died a week after an encounter with police left him with grave spinal injuries. ...
Earlier, JM Giordano — a photo editor at Baltimore’s City Paper — said police beat him as he covered one of the protests in west Baltimore. A video posted to the newspaper’s website Sunday shows at least two police officers in riot gear hitting and kicking Giordano as the person filming screams: “He’s a photographer! He’s press!”
Sait Serkan Gurbuz, a photographer with Reuters, said police detained him as he was shooting photographs of the scuffle. He declined to comment further. A statement from Reuters said police also cited Gurbuz for failure to obey orders.
“We hope that the department will dismiss the citation and, going forward, respect the First Amendment right of the press to lawfully take images in the public interest,” Reuters said.
Wisconsin police billboard features officer who shot two people in 10 days
Amidst national tension over perceived police brutality, Kenosha, Wisconsin, a city of roughly 100,000 on the shores of Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago, has come into focus.
The Kenosha Professional Police Association (KPPA) posted a billboard thanking the community for its support. Some residents question the message behind the ad. It features Pablo Torres, a young officer who shot two people within a 10-day period in March. In the second shooting, Torres killed 26-year-old Aaron Siler.
Police have said the shooting occurred after a chase, when Torres was confronted with a weapon. ... The investigation is ongoing. ...
The Kenosha News called for the billboard to come down, and said: “The billboard, and events such as the Back the Badge rally in Pennoyer Park on Saturday, may be intended as support for law enforcement and appreciation for that support, but they could also be seen as attempts to intimidate people who might criticize the police.”
Another local outlet reported that Torres’s record shows nine citizen complaints for excessive use of force and seven departmental reprimands, including improper chase and failing to appear in court.
On Eve of Non-Proliferation Conference, 'Clarion Call' for Nuke-Free World
One day before global stakeholders began a month-long meeting to review progress on the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a broad coalition of civil society groups delivered eight million petition signatures to United Nations officials, calling for swifter action toward the complete elimination of the world's nuclear arsenals.
Marking the start of the conference, the Peace and Planet Mobilization—an umbrella group endorsed by more than 300 environmental, racial justice, anti-war, and organizations in 20 countries—convened over the weekend in New York City, for its own International Peace & Planet Conference for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World; an interfaith convocation attended by Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and Shinto religious leaders; and a rally with over 7,500 peace, justice and environmental activists.
Big Bank 'Crime of the Century' Results in Guess What? No Jail Time for Anyone
While corporate watchdogs hailed the record $2.5 billion settlement paid by Deutsche Bank to U.S. and U.K. authorities for its rate-rigging role in the massive LIBOR scandal, some noted that the fine—while large—suggests that some institutions are still considered "too big to jail."
Authorities announced Thursday that Germany's biggest bank would pay $2.5 billion in penalties, a record for cases involving interest rate fraud, which have already targeted banking behemoths like Barclays and UBS. Officials said the wrongdoing at Deutsche Bank lasted from 2005 to 2011 and touched employees in London, Frankfurt, New York, and Tokyo.
"Law enforcers found repeated examples of manipulation as they investigated the bank," said Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate in Public Citizen's Congress Watch Division, on Thursday.
"For example, they discovered pervasive fraudulent practices where traders gave false information about rates at which they borrowed or loaned money with other banks," he said. "That established false benchmarks on which other rates were based. That harms average Americans when they agree to mortgages. Law enforcers also found that Deutsche Bank withheld and even destroyed information about the investigation. Yet, surprisingly, despite the severity of these offenses, the government concluded that these crimes should be punished only through a financial penalty."
Bartlett continued: "This settlement, which involves no jail time for any traders, seems out of sync with the problems identified. To make matters worse, many of the traders responsible for the frauds remain employed at Deutsche Bank. The DOJ claims that it may still prosecute individuals, and we hope it will pursue such work. To date, some traders at other firms such as Rabobank have been convicted, but no senior officers of any of the banks involved in the LIBOR case have faced charges."
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature news from Colorado: Charles Snyder, former union member testifies that John Lawson ordered striking miners to "shoot to kill." Snyder denies being paid by coal operators.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Elizabeth Warren Tells Obama To Put Up Or Shut Up On Trade
Progressive Democrats have been hoping to see a showdown between Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton for years. Instead, they're getting a public feud between the senator from Massachusetts and President Barack Obama.
Obama accused Warren and congressional Democrats on Friday of being "dishonest" and spreading "misinformation" about the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a trade pact the administration is negotiating among 12 nations. The overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress oppose TPP, while Republican leaders support it. ....
On Saturday, Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) responded with a letter essentially telling Obama to put up or shut up. ... Warren and Brown appeared particularly miffed at being accused of lying.
"We respectfully suggest that characterizing the assessments of labor unions, journalists, Members of Congress, and others who disagree with your approach to transparency on trade issues as 'dishonest' is both untrue and unlikely to serve the best interests of the American people," the letter reads. ...
The Warren-Brown letter also includes a subtly vicious Democrat-on-Democrat dig, suggesting that Obama's trade transparency record is worse than that of former President George W. Bush. They note that Bush published the full negotiation texts of a major free trade deal with Latin America several months before Congress had to vote on giving the deal fast track benefits. The Obama administration has resisted calls to follow suit with TPP.
"What was true then remains true now," the letter reads. "The American people should be allowed to weigh in on the facts of the TPP before Members of Congress are asked to voluntarily reduce our ability to amend, shape, or block any trade deal."
TPP Proponents Close to Clinton Remain Optimistic About Her Support
Although Hillary Clinton went into great detail extolling the virtures of President Obama’s proposed trade agreements while serving as secretary of state, as a candidate for president Clinton has only offered vague statements about her current position on the deals.
So how would a President Clinton decide on the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership? On Wednesday, White House spokesperson Eric Schultz said he had not “seen anything to suggest any distance” between Clinton’s position and the Obama administration on the deals. And trade consultants close to Clinton remain optimistic about her support. ...
In New Hampshire, Clinton recently said, “Any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security.” She has also mentioned that she would like to see currency manipulation as a key part of the deal. ...
As a candidate for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama harshly criticized NAFTA on the campaign trail, claiming he would move to renegotiate the pact as president. Yet, reporters later uncovered evidence that Obama’s aides had met privately with Canadian officials to tell them that Obama’s rhetoric was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.”
Clinton Foundation admits 'mistakes' on how it listed foreign donations
The Clinton Foundation issued a statement on Sunday in which it admitted it “made mistakes” over the listing of donations from foreign governments on its tax forms. At the same time, the author of a forthcoming book, which alleges that donors to the family’s interests may have received government favours , called for an urgent investigation.
Barely into her run for the White House in 2016, Hillary Clinton is already engulfed in controversy over donations, political influence and transparency.
The Evening Greens
Shell No! Seattle Activists Rally Against Plan Fueling 'Pathological Addiction to Fossil Fuels'
Hundreds of climate activists rallied in Seattle on Sunday to say "Shell No!" to the oil giant's Arctic plans and to protest the city being home to Shell's Arctic drilling rig.
Among the groups hosting the action were Greenpeace USA, the Washington State chapter of the Sierra Club, Gabriela Seattle, and Rising Tide Seattle.
Among those speaking at the rally in Myrtle Edwards Park was Greenpeace Executive Director Annie Leonard, who commended her hometown's people power, saying that "in Seattle, we know how to come together and stand up to corporate power run amok," later adding that "we want to raise our voices not our sea levels." ...
She said that the battle over Shell at the terminal "is emblematic of a much bigger battle that our country is in the midst of, and it is a battle to determine which trajectory we are going to take... It is about what kind of future we want, and, very importantly, who gets to decide...We want the better future," she said.
Shell lobbied to undermine EU renewables targets, documents reveal
Shell successfully lobbied to undermine European renewable energy targets ahead of a key agreement on emissions cuts reached in October last year, newly released documents reveal.
At the time of the deal European commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, said: “This package is very good news for our fight against climate change.” Adding: “No player in the world is as ambitious as the EU.”
But it now appears that a key part of the agreement – which was championed by the UK government – was proposed by a Shell lobbyist as early as October 2011. ...
Shell argued that a market-led strategy of gas expansion would save Europe €500bn (£358bn) in its transition to a low carbon energy system, compared to an approach centred on renewables. “Gas is good for Europe, and Europe is good at gas,” the firm’s upstream executive director, Malcolm Brinded wrote in a five-page letter to Barroso. ...
Shell is the sixth biggest lobbyist in Brussels, spending between €4.25-4.5m a year lobbying the EU institutions, according to the bloc’s transparency register.
Like shale oil, solar power is shaking up global energy
One by one, Japan is turning off the lights at the giant oil-fired power plants that propelled it to the ranks of the world's top industrialised nations. With nuclear power in the doldrums after the Fukushima disaster, it's solar energy that is becoming the alternative.
Solar power is set to become profitable in Japan as early as this quarter, according to the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF), freeing it from the need for government subsidies and making it the last of the G7 economies where the technology has become economically viable.
Japan is now one of the world's four largest markets for solar panels and a large number of power plants are coming onstream, including two giant arrays over water in Kato City and a $1.1 billion solar farm being built on a salt field in Okayama, both west of Osaka.
"Solar has come of age in Japan and from now on will be replacing imported imported uranium and fossil fuels," said Tomas Kåberger, executive board chairman of JREF.
"In trying to protect their fossil fuel and nuclear (plants), Japan's electric power companies can only delay developments here," he said, referring to the 10 regional monopolies that have dominated electricity production since the 1950s.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
At home with the world's last male northern white rhinoceros
Embracing the Saudi War on Yemen
A Little Night Music
Otis Clay - She's About A Mover
Otis Clay with Dave Specter - This Time I'm Gone For Good
Otis Clay - I Can Take You To Heaven Tonight
Otis Clay - Precious Precious
Otis Clay - Trying To Live My Life Without You
Otis Clay - A Nickel And A Nail
Otis Clay - (live w/interview)
Otis Clay - Do Right Woman,Do Right Man
Otis Clay - Brand New Thing
Otis Clay - Hard Working Woman
Otis Clay - Pouring Water on a Drowning Man
Otis Clay - Piece Of My Heart
Otis Clay - That's How It Is (When You're In Love)
Otis Clay - I Don't Know What To Do
Otis Clay - Got To Find A Way
Otis Clay - Leave me and my woman alone
Otis Clay - Three Is A Crowd
Otis Clay - Wild Horses
Otis Clay - I Keep On Toiling (When The Gates Swing Open)
Otis Clay - Is It Over
Good Lovin' - Otis Clay
Otis Clay - I Testify
Otis Clay & Johnny Rawls: Turn Back The Hands of Time
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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