Welcome! "The Evening Blues - Weekend Edition" is a casual community diary (published Saturday & Sunday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features singer, songwriter, older brother of Stevie Ray Vaughn and a great blues, blues rock guitarist in his own right Jimmie Vaughn. Jimmie is famous not only as Stevie Ray's brother, but also as the lead guitarist for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Tonight's music will focus on Jimmie's solo career that began in the early 90's, with a couple of Stevie Ray/Jimmie tracks thrown in from their album they cut together Enjoy!
Jimmie Vaughan - Six Strings Down
Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life—that to the white man is an "unbroken wilderness."
But for us there was no wilderness, nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly. Our faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings.
For us, the world was full of beauty; for the other, it was a place to be endured until he went to another world.
But we were wise. We knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard.
Chief Luther Standing Bear
News and Opinion
#Gitmo2Chicago: protests target police 'black site'
Homan Square abuse allegations encircle mayor Rahm Emanuel as Anonymous, Occupy and Black Lives Matter take to social media and streets beyond Chicago
The Chicago police facility Homan Square was becoming the focus of an organized protest movement this weekend, as the hacktivist collective Anonymous and organizers associated with the Black Lives Matter movement seized on allegations of unconstitutional abuse at the secretive warehouse.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former top adviser to Barack Obama suddenly facing a runoff for re-election, remained at the political fulcrum of a mounting campaign both on social media and the streets of Chicago, where demonstrations were planned for Saturday outside what coordinated campaigners described as mirroring a CIA “black site”.
Organizer Travis McDermott said Saturday’s “Shut Down Homan Square” protest was one of several being planned as far away as Los Angeles.
“Hopefully with the presence we expect to have, that will put a little bit of pressure to say, ‘Hey, look – this isn’t going to go away,’” he said.
'I sat in that place for three days, man': Chicagoans detail abusive confinement inside police 'black site'
*Four black men recall prolonged shackling and off-the-books interrogation
*Lawyers: ‘majority of abuse’ at Homan Square focuses on minority Americans
*Black Lives Matter movement backs protests amid pressure for federal inquiry
A Chicago man says he was confined for three days – shackled, interrogated and fed only twice, his whereabouts unknown – inside the police “black site” at the epicentre of public outcry over allegations of abuse said to focus on minority citizens.
Four black Chicagoans have now come forward to the Guardian detailing off-the-books ordeals at the facility, including another who describes being detained in “a big cage” with his wrists cuffed to a bench so he couldn’t move.
The Guardian has now interviewed six people about their detention at the Homan Square police warehouse. With striking consistency, all have described extensive detentions without benefit of legal counsel or public notice of where they were.
The first-hand accounts of two white protesters who “disappeared” at the police warehouse in 2012 set off political and civil-rights outrage this week, and multiple protests have now been scheduled by organizers including the Black Lives Matter movement.
U.S.-led coalition launches air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq, Syria
(Reuters) - A U.S.-led coalition launched 11 air strikes in Iraq and nine in Syria since early Friday against Islamic State militants, the Combined Joint Task Force said.
Four of the strikes in Syria hit Islamic State positions near the border town of Kobani, the task force said in a statement on Saturday. In Iraq, the coalition launched four strikes near the town of al Asad and three near Mosul.
Austrian man sentenced for posting ISIS atrocities on Facebook
A court in Vienna has handed a six-month conditional sentence to a young man who posted images of Islamic State atrocities and propaganda to his Facebook page.
The man's name has not been made public; he has only been described as a 20-year-old Kurdish male from Vienna, Austria, Press Agency reported.
The man was among 13 people arrested by police at the end of November due to links with Mirsad O, and Islamic preacher from the Austrian capital who is accused of radicalizing youths and recruiting them to fight for the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria.
Security was heightened around the courtroom during the trial; eight armed guards with balaclavas covering their faces were stationed outside.
The young man was sentenced for posting images of decapitated and impaled heads and other atrocities committed by IS jihadists in Syria and Iraq on his Facebook page.
The gruesome pictures were accompanied by approving comments from the owner of the account.
Netanyahu's 'scaremongering' will not stop nuclear deal, says Iranian official
Mohammad Javad Zarif said Israeli leader’s speech to the US Congress next week will not undermine world powers’ efforts to reach final nuclear deal
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator said on Saturday that “scaremongering” by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t stop the Islamic Republic and world powers from reaching a final nuclear deal.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the world should not allow the hard-line Israeli leader to undermine peace. He was referring to Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress next week on the emerging nuclear deal that he considers dangerous.
“Through scaremongering, falsification, propaganda and creating a false atmosphere even inside other countries, [Israel] is attempting to prevent peace,” Zarif told reporters during a joint news conference with his Italian counterpart, Paolo Gentiloni. “I believe that these attempts are in vain and should not impede reaching a [nuclear] agreement.”
In his sharpest criticism yet, Netanyahu said earlier this week that world powers “have given up” on stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons in ongoing negotiations. Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as threatening its very existence.
Boris Nemtsov murder prompts Putin 'justice' pledge
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will do everything possible to bring to justice those who committed the "vile and cynical" murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.
In a telegram to Mr Nemtsov's mother, published on the Kremlin website, Mr Putin offered condolences and praised Mr Nemtsov's openness and honesty.
Mr Nemtsov was shot four times in the back on a bridge near the Kremlin.
Western leaders demanded a transparent investigation into the killing.
In the telegram to Mr Nemtsov's 86-year-old mother, Dina Eydman, Mr Putin said: "We will do everything to ensure that the perpetrators of this vile and cynical crime and those who stand behind them are properly punished."
Everything will be done to punish those behind ‘vile’ murder of Nemtsov - Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised that everything will be done to punish those responsible for the organization and execution of the murder of opposition politician, Boris Nemtsov.
“Everything will be done for the organizers and executors of this vile and cynical murder to receive the punishment they deserve," the statement on the Russian President’s official website said.
Boris Nemtsov, a veteran opposition figure in Russia, was gunned down in a drive-by attack in central Moscow overnight Friday.
The murder, which happened just away from the Kremlin, triggered worldwide condemnation and calls to bring the killers to justice.
US State Department Admits Russia had Nothing to Gain from Killing Boris Nemtsov
Which leaves exactly who as a possible suspect? Cui bono?
February 28, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) Perhaps believing by virtue of having admitted the murder of Russian opposition member Boris Nemtsov in Russia's capital of Moscow Friday evening in no way served the Russian government's best interests, the US State Department believes it can deflect guilt from being shifted towards its direction.
Indeed, the US State Department through its Voice of America media network - chaired by the US Secretary of State himself - would state in an online article titled, "Could Nemtsov Threaten Putin in Death as in Life?," that (emphasis added):
With the murder of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, gunned down on a Moscow street, the fiercest critic of President Vladimir Putin has been removed from the political stage. But it remains to be seen whether, in death as in life, Nemtsov will remain a threat to Putin’s rule.
Already, city authorities have approved a mass march for up to 50,000 people in central Moscow on Sunday. The march, expected to be far larger than the scheduled protest rally it replaces, will provide a powerful platform for Kremlin critics who suspect a government hand in Nemtsov’s death.
Even officials in Putin’s government seem to sense the danger that the former first deputy prime minister’s martyrdom might pose, hinting darkly that Friday night's drive-by shooting may have been an deliberate "provocation" ahead of the planned weekend rally.
While this logic has clearly not escaped the US State Department's media network, it stops short of clearly implicating the Russian opposition and its foreign backers (the US State Department itself) as the chief suspects in Nemtsov's murder - though the article clearly states only the opposition (and in turn, their foreign sponsors) stood to benefit from his death.
Former MI6 chief warns over Russian threat
John Sawers says defence spending needs to increase to counter Vladimir Putin’s actions and Europe needs to find a new way to coexist with Russia
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Russia has become a greater threat to Britain, and defence spending needs to increase to counter Vladimir Putin’s actions, the former MI6 chief has warned.
Sir John Sawers, who stepped down in 2014 after five years of running the Secret Intelligence Service, said the threat posed by Moscow was “not necessarily directly to the UK but to countries around its periphery”.
“The real problem is how we live with a Russia which feels very exposed. Putin’s actions are ones of a leader who believes his own security is at stake,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday.
Russia kept reminding the west that it had nuclear weapons, Sawers said, and it remained on the same level as the US in that regard. “We don’t want to have a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 where we got to the brink of nuclear war. We need to be able to address this through increased dialogue.”
He said: “Europe and Russia are not converging with one another so we’re going to have to find a new way to coexist with Russia. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that Russia is on a path to democracy because it isn’t.”
Egyptian court declares Hamas a 'terrorist' group
Palestinian organisation accused of aiding armed groups who have waged string of deadly attacks in Egypt's Sinai region.
An Egyptian court has branded Hamas a "terrorist" organisation, weeks after the Palestinian movement's armed wing was given the same designation.
A judicial source told AFP news agency that the court issued the verdict on Saturday, a ruling seen as keeping with a systematic crackdown on Islamist groups by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The verdict resulted from two separate private suits filed by two lawyers against the de facto rulers of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri denounced the court ruling. "The Egyptian court decision...is shocking, critical and targets the Palestinian people and Palestinian resistance forces," he said.
Mexico president hails capture of drug lord Servando 'La Tuta' Gomez
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Mexican police have captured the country's most wanted drug lord, Servando "La Tuta" Gomez.
Mr Gomez, leader of the Knights Templar drug cartel, was arrested in Morelia in Michoacan state without a shot fired.
He was taken to Mexico City, where he was paraded before television cameras, before being flown by helicopter to a maximum security prison.
President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote on Twitter that the rule of law had been strengthened because of the arrest.
Police said they located him by following one of his messengers, part of a close network providing him with food and clothing.
Pegida UK falls flat: Newcastle counter-demo outnumbers anti-Islamists by 5-to-1
Fewer than 300 people turned up in Newcastle for the first-ever rally of anti-Islamist group Pegida in the UK, while at least 1,500 gathered to protest the demo, just hundreds of yards away.
“We are here because nobody else who should be talking about the problems in this country is talking about them,” said Pegida’s keynote speaker, Paul Weston, from the far-right Liberty GB party, to an audience that mostly comprised white middle-aged men holding Union Jacks.
“Although there are moderate Muslims in the country, Islam is not a religion of peace.”
To uncoordinated cheers from the wind-battered crowd, speakers aired their grievances against Muslims, citing UK-raised ISIS recruits, such as executioner Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, and the failure of police and local government in Rotherham to investigate Pakistani gangs that groomed hundreds of girls over a period of more than 15 years.
Leaked spy documents reveal plot to kill African Union head
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The African Union chairwoman is "safe and sound," the organization said on Thursday, after leaked intelligence documents revealed a 2012 plot to assassinate her.
South African and Ethiopian spies intercepted a plot to kill Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma soon after she was elected as head of the African Union in October 2012, according to leaked classified documents published by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian newspaper.
The AU leadership was "most grateful" that countries had co-operated to save the South African's life at the time, the regional organization said in its statement.
An "unnamed state" was behind the plot against Dlamini-Zuma that was supposed to take place in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where the African Union is headquartered, according to the documents from that time. Ethiopian spies suspected Sudan of being behind the plot, but found no reports of action against Sudan, Al-Jazeera reported.
China's central bank cuts rates again to boost economy
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
BEIJING (AP) — China's central bank cut interest rates for the second time in three months Saturday, adding to signs the country's leaders are worried the economic slowdown is deepening too sharply.
The People's Bank of China announced a rate cut on one-year loans by commercial banks by 0.25 percentage point to 5.35 percent. The interest rate paid on a one-year deposit was lowered by 0.25 point to 2.50 percent.
Rates were last cut on Nov. 22. The new rates take effect Sunday.
Last year, China's economic growth fell to 7.4 percent — the lowest since 1990. It is expected to decline further this year, and a steep economic decline can raise the risk of politically dangerous job losses.
The latest round of cuts follow a string of tax reductions and other measures aimed at propping up growth. The government cut business taxes last week and has announced a pay hike for civil servants.
Poland's 'Barbie' candidate dashes hope for left's revival
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's main left-wing party was once a major player. It helped bring Poland into the European Union, sent troops to Iraq and let the CIA operate a secret prison for terror suspects.
Today the Democratic Left Alliance — heir to the Cold War-era's Communists — is fighting for its very existence. Corruption scandals and a failure to inspire young voters have eroded its standing, leaving Poland's political scene without a viable center-left party.
With presidential and parliamentary elections coming up this year, the left-wing party's leader, Leszek Miller, has gambled on an unknown and untested presidential candidate to reverse the party's sharp decline: Magdalena Ogorek, a 36-year-old former bit-part actress and TV presenter with striking good looks — whom some Poles dub a "Barbie" candidate. While Ogorek has a doctorate in history, she has virtually no political experience.
The 68-year-old Miller says he is counting on her youth and energy to attract new voters to the party, whose ranks include many former communists like himself — a major factor in the party's decline in this young, Western-looking democracy.
So far the tactic seems to be backfiring. Ogorek has attracted the praise of Playboy and other men's magazines thanks to her looks, but many Poles, even the party's traditional supporters, say Miller has made the party look foolish by choosing an unknown candidate without political experience to compete for the prestigious position, a job once held by Solidarity founder Lech Walesa.
Wisconsinites Rally to Stop ‘Right-to-Work’ Bill
'I am not a terrorist' is common theme at Saturday's protest against 'right to work' bill.
On Saturday, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO is rallying thousands of workers from around the state at the state capitol against the impending adoption of the law that would ban private sector workers from being required to join a union or pay dues.
The Wisconsin AFL-CIO says the protesters will also demand an apology from Governor Scott Walker after he said fighting against 100,000 protesters during the Act 10 debates in 2011 prepared him to battle terrorists as president. Walker made the comment at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday.
Late Wednesday night, the Wisconsin Republican-led state Senate voted 17–15 to advance a "right to work" bill that has been widely criticized as harmful to the working families of the state. Thousands rallied in Madison outside the Wisconsin Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday in opposition to the legislation.
The bill would make Wisconsin the 25th state to adopt a so-called "right-to-work" law. It is supported by Governor Scott Walker, a likely GOP presidential candidate.
Congress averts security agency shutdown with one-week spending fix
The US House of Representatives gave final approval on Friday to a one-week stopgap spending bill for the domestic security agency, averting a partial shutdown with just hours to spare before a midnight deadline.
After a chaotic day that featured an embarrassing rebuke to Republican House Speaker John Boehner from angry conservatives, the House voted 357-60 to keep the lights on at the Department of Homeland Security for at least one more week.
The Senate had already passed the one-week extension a few hours earlier. President Barack Obama was expected to quickly sign it.
The dizzying twists and turns in the days-long political battle raised fresh questions about Boehner's ability to manage his caucus of restive conservatives and the prospects for legislative achievement in the new, Republican-run Congress.
NSA spying program renewed ahead of congressional showdown
A federal court has renewed a National Security Agency program allowing for the bulk collection of Americans' phone records, highlighting a battle between the White House and Congress to reform the nature of mass surveillance in the country.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) gave a green light to the government to let the US telephone metadata collection program continue until June 1, when the provisions in the Patriot Act legalizing the practice will expire.
At that point, lawmakers will have the option of reauthorizing the law, allowing it to expire or replace it altogether.
Under the current program, the NSA can gather phone metadata, including call duration, location, and who called who and when, although the actual content of the phone conversations is off limits.
EPA sued over shrinking monarch butterfly population
A leading environmental group has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, accusing regulators of dismissing dangers about a certain chemical used in herbicides, including Monsanto’s widely used Roundup.
The lawsuit, filed Friday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in federal district court in New York, argues that an ingredient in the herbicide – glyphosate – has had devastating effects on monarch butterflies, causing the population to halve in seven years.
Glyphosate destroys milkweed, the only food consumed by monarch butterflies in their migration. The lawsuit states that federal law requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure that the pesticides it approves will not cause “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife.” The suit alleges the agency never considered glyphosate’s impacts on monarchs.
A year ago, the NRDC and other environmental groups submitted a petition to the EPA asking them to review a large body of scientific evidence showing the effects of glyphosates, but the EPA did not respond to the petition.
Rejection of NSA whistleblower’s retaliation claim draws criticism
WASHINGTON — Thomas Drake became a symbol of the dangers whistleblowers face when they help journalists and Congress investigate wrongdoing at intelligence agencies. He claims he was subjected to a decade of retaliation by the National Security Agency that culminated in his being charged with espionage.
But when the Pentagon Inspector General’s Office opened an inquiry into the former senior NSA official’s allegations of retaliation in 2012, it looked at only two of the 10 years detailed in his account, according to a recently released Pentagon summary of the probe, before finding no evidence of retaliation. That finding ended Drake’s four-year effort to return to government service.
Whistleblower advocates say Drake’s experience, spelled out in a document McClatchy obtained this month through the Freedom of Information Act, underscores the problem that intelligence and defense workers face in bringing malfeasance to the surface. The agencies that are supposed to crack down on retaliation are not up to the task, especially when the alleged wrongdoing involves classified information, they charge.
“This report epitomizes the utter lack of protection for national security whistleblowers,” said Jesselyn Radack, Drake’s attorney. “This is a pathetic, anemic excuse for an investigation.”
ExxonMobil admits $1bn lost from anti-Russia sanctions
The contracts with Russia’s biggest oil company Rosneft damaged by the West’s anti-Russian sanctions have cost ExxonMobil $1 billion, the company said in its annual report.
“In 2014, the European Union and United States imposed sanctions relating to the Russian energy sector. In compliance with the sanctions and all general and specific licenses, prohibited activities involving offshore Russia in the Black Sea, Arctic regions, and onshore western Siberia have been wound down. The Corporation's maximum exposure to loss from these joint ventures as of December 31, 2014, is $1.0 billion,” the report said.
Rosneft and ExxonMobil established projects to conduct exploration and research activities in 2013 and 2014. The European Union and United States imposed sanctions relating to the Russian energy sector in 2014, prohibiting any activities that involve offshore work in the Russian Black Sea and Arctic regions, and onshore in western Siberia.
The two companies began an exploration project in the Kara Sea in August despite the sanctions. Oil reserves in the Kara Sea could be as high as 13 billion tons, which is more than in the Gulf of Mexico or the whole of Saudi Arabia.
Majority of Americans Agree Fighting Climate Change a 'Moral Obligation'
New poll shows majority of Americans believe human activity causes rising greenhouse gases and that people are ethically responsible to address it
A majority of Americans believe they are "morally obligated" to fight climate change, a new poll by Reuters/IPSOS has found.
Of the 2,827 people surveyed in the poll, 66 percent said world leaders are ethically bound to reduce carbon emissions, while 72 percent believed that responsibility lay with themselves as well. In addition, 64 percent believe that rising greenhouse gases, which drive climate change, are caused by human activity.
The poll was conducted to parse the impact of moral language in the climate debate and the results suggest that an ethics-based appeal to address environmental issues may be the key to shifting the debate on the topic.
"When climate change is viewed through a moral lens it has broader appeal," Eric Sapp, executive director of the American Values Network, a grassroots organization that mobilizes faith-based communities on politics and policy issues, told Reuters.
Earth Has Now Had 30 Straight Years of Record Monthly Temperatures
If you’re younger than 30, you’ve never experienced a month in which the average surface temperature of the Earth was below average.
Each month, the US National Climatic Data Center calculates Earth’s average surface temperature using temperature measurements that cover the Earth’s surface. Then, another average is calculated for each month of the year for the twentieth century, 1901-2000. For each month, this gives one number representative of the entire century. Subtract this overall 1900s monthly average—which for February is 53.9F (12.1C)—from each individual month’s temperature and you’ve got the anomaly: that is, the difference from the average.
The last month that was at or below that 1900s average was February 1985. Ronald Reagan had just started his second presidential term and Foreigner had the number one single with “I want to know what love is.”
These temperature observations make it clear the new normal will be systematically rising temperatures, not the stability of the last 100 years. The traditional definition of climate is the 30-year average of weather. The fact that—once the official records are in for February 2015—it will have been 30 years since a month was below average is an important measure that the climate has changed.
Robert Scheer: On Civil Liberties, Obama’s ‘Probably the Worst President We’ve Had’
On civil liberties and transparency, President Obama “makes George W. Bush and Richard Nixon look good by comparison,” Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer told Salon writer Elias Isquith in an interview about Scheer’s new book, “They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy.”
At one point in the interview, Scheer says of Obama’s record on civil liberties, “He’s probably the worst president that we’ve had in our history. ...”
To Isquith’s question, “What made you want to write this book?” Scheer answered:
I think the Internet is the best and worst of worlds. I love it. I edit an Internet publication and it’s been very liberating, and yet it has the seeds of very vicious surveillance and destruction of privacy. I’ve been concerned about this for some time. I think it was 1999 — I worked on a special issue of Yahoo Internet Life — and this is before 9/11 — which was warning that the government was already in the business of mining this data. It seemed to me we were indeed entering a brave new world that we were barely comprehending.
That has accelerated since 9/11 dramatically, not only because the government had license to grab this material in the name of making us safer, but also because computers are faster and the ability to store data has much expanded and the amount that people turn over freely and easily now is astounding. I think I used my thumbprint about 10 times already this morning just trying to make my iPhone 6 Plus work. If any government anywhere in the world had required you to give your thumbprint every time you did anything it would be considered the most invasive totalitarian society. We’ve accepted as normal a degree of intrusion that would have been astounding any time in history, and we do it because we’re thinking in terms of consumer sovereignty as a main expression of our freedom; we want the convenience of picking that restaurant or what-have-you.
This SCOTUS destroyed America: How Citizens United is ruining more than our elections
Thanks to Anthony Kennedy, the decision responsible for our new oligarchy has made Washington even more grotesque
In the years since conservative Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s landmark Citizens United v. FEC decision gave wealthy interests the political power they’d apparently lacked, the media has mostly been interested in how the ruling was affecting elections. On the presidential level, the consensus, at least among political scientists, is that the impact has been marginal. But in less rarefied air, like the grubby environs of Congressional campaigns or the sometimes sordid realm of state and municipal politics, the consequences of the ruling have been substantial. It is quite likely that dozens of state governments in the U.S. will reflect Kennedy’s vision — as well as that of the Koch brothers — for decades to come.
What has gone less-examined, however, is the role that dark money — which is spending by groups that are supposedly devoted to “social welfare,” and that consequently don’t have to reveal their donors — has played since 2010 in the crafting of legislation. This is somewhat odd, in retrospect, since the ostensible point of winning an election, after all, is to legislate. But perhaps the political and media class’s lack of attention to the new reality of sausage-making can be attributed to a campaign-finance version of climate change fatalism. One can gaze up at only so many seemingly insurmountable obstacles before wondering if one’s time would be better spent coming to terms with giving up.
And make no mistake: The reality of lawmaking in post-Citizens United Washington is enough to make even the most stalwart campaign finance reformers wonder if their advocacy and organizing is little more than professionalized windmill tilting. As the Huffington Post showed this week in a lengthy, impressive and profoundly dispiriting report, the walls separating the interests of the wealthy from the legislative process that a century of reformers fought to build have been leveled. They were never as lofty or sturdy as reformers would have wished, of course. But they now exist as little more than rubble and dust.
One of the things the report from HuffPo’s Paul Blumenthal and Ryan Grim makes clear is the way Citizens United’s pernicious effect on lawmaking is at once deliberately opaque and ploddingly simple. To take one of the many examples of now-kosher corruption they detail as a case in point, look at the story of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) and the 2014 election. Blumenthal and Grim note that PCI is lucky enough to have two former aides to Speaker of the House John Boehner on its lobbying team. Even better for PCI, the trade group had the foresight to donate significant chunks of money as of late to pro-Republican outside groups: $185,000 since 2012, they report.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature an article by Ralph Chaplin from the International Socialist Review: "A Hunger 'Riot' in Chicago."
Tune in at 2pm!
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Despite U.N. Treaties, War Against Drugs a Losing Battle
As the call for the decriminalization of drugs steadily picks up steam worldwide, a new study by a British charity concludes there has been no significant reduction in the global use of illicit drugs since the creation of three key U.N. anti-drug conventions, the first of which came into force over half a century ago.
“Illicit drugs are now purer, cheaper, and more widely used than ever,” says the report, titled Casualties of War: How the War on Drugs is Harming the World’s Poorest, released Thursday by the London-based Health Poverty Action.
The study also cites an opinion poll that shows more than eight in 10 Britons believe the war on drugs cannot be won. And over half favor legalizing or decriminalizing at least some illicit drugs.
The international treaties to curb drug trafficking include the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
Kansas Senate passes bill easing prosecution of teachers for distributing ‘harmful material’
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
A bill making it easier to prosecute teachers and school administrators for distributing materials deemed harmful to minors passed the Kansas Senate on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 56, which passed 26-14, removes a provision from current statute that protects schools against such prosecution. It keeps the protection in place for universities, museums and libraries.
Opponents say the bill would allow teachers to be prosecuted for teaching controversial works of literature or about human biology.
Sen. Tom Hawk, a Manhattan Democrat and a former school administrator, said that as a lifelong educator, he could not support the bill, which he viewed as having a chilling effect on teachers.
Newsom already has $700,000 on hand to run for governor
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Just 10 days into his 2018 run for governor, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has collected over $700,000 in contributions, including donations from some of the Bay Area’s top tech luminaries, according to the campaign finance reports on file with the California secretary of state’s office.
Newsom’s exploratory committee reported maximum contributions — $28,200 each for the primary and the general election — from Salesforce.com founder and philanthropist Marc Benioff; Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer; her husband, investor Zachary Bogue; former Apple CEO John Scully; and his wife, Regina. Also giving the maximum were Westfield CEO Peter Lowy; Rakshpaal Dogra, co-CEO of the football division of Relativity Sports; Tao Capital Partners Managing Director Joseph Pritzker; Nicholas Pritzker, the firm’s director of strategic planning; and Aileen Getty of Los Angles.
The documents on file with the California secretary of state, which include all contributions of $5,000 or more until Feb. 26, also reported a $5,000 contribution from both Susie Tompkins Buell — the co-founder of the Esprit de Corps clothing company and one of the nation’s most generous Democratic donors — and her husband, Mark Buell.
“It’s a necessarily great start on a long journey,” said Dan Newman, a partner of SCN Strategies of San Francisco, Newsom’s political advisers. “The reality of running in a state this size, for better or worse, is that you need a tremendous amount of resources to talk to voters — especially with the history of self-funders who’ve popped up in every single California gubernatorial race for the past 20 years,” he said.
You scratch my back: Rats recognize kindness, repay favors
Humans have long used the behavior of rats to personify the worst qualities in their fellow man. When it comes to acts of kindness, however, it turns out the much maligned creature is willing to repay favors to its fellow rodents.
The study, published this week in the journal Biology Letters, was set up to observe an ever elusive concept in the animal kingdom – the principle of direct reciprocity.
According to Michael Taborsky, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland who helped carry out the experiment, the practice is in fact so rare that this is the first time it has ever been scientifically observed in non-humans.
Along with his Swiss colleague Vassilissa Dolivo, the team brought together 20 female wild-type Norwegian rats. During the experiment, the team used pieces of banana as attractive awards, and pieces of carrots as less attractive rewards.
The rats were able to deliver one of these morsels to another rat in an enclosure by pulling a stick. After some time, the rat on the receiving end would begin to differentiate between the quality of its helper based on the type of food it received.
Congress Is Poised to Introduce a Bill to Fast Track TPP so It's Time to Act Now
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are stalling while the White House assures its trading partners that this secret trade agreement won't be amended when it comes back to Congress for ratification after the President signs the deal. That's why the Executive is scrambling to get its allies in Congress to pass Fast Track. If they succeed, the U.S. Trade Representative can block remaining opportunities for the examination of the TPP's provisions by lawmakers who could ensure that this secret deal does not contain expansive copyright rules that would lock the U.S. into broken copyright rules that are already in bad need of reform.
The Fast Track bill is likely going to be introduced as early as next week—so it's time to speak out now. Congress needs to hear from their constituents that we expect them to hold the White House accountable for the TPP's restrictive digital policies. Unless this opaque, undemocratic process is fixed, and state officials uphold the interests of users rather than trampling our rights, we have no choice but to fight trade deals like the TPP.
You can get in touch with your elected representatives and call on them to oppose Fast Track trade authority for the TPP and other secretive, anti-user trade deals. We have also created a new tool for Twitter users to ask three key congressional leaders to come out against Fast Track. They are Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and Rep. Steny Hoyer. Here's why we are targeting these three Congress members in particular.
Target #1: Sen. Ron Wyden
Sen. Wyden is one of the leading defenders of users' rights and a staunch fighter for the free and open Internet in Congress. For the past several years, he has been one of the most outspoken lawmakers denouncing the secretive TPP negotiations, and has consistently raised concerns about the agreement's threat to users. As Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, where the Senate bill will be introduced, he has a significant amount of influence over the outcome of Fast Track. We need to call on him to continue to stand with users and fight back against any version of this bill that does not address critical problems in the trade negotiation process.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
The big melt: Antarctica's retreating ice may re-shape Earth
Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans. As the ice sheets slowly thaw, water pours into the sea — 130 billion tons of ice (118 billion metric tons) per year for the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations. That's the weight of more than 356,000 Empire State Buildings, enough ice melt to fill more than 1.3 million Olympic swimming pools. And the melting is accelerating.
In the worst case scenario, Antarctica's melt could push sea levels up 10 feet (3 meters) worldwide in a century or two, recurving heavily populated coastlines.
Parts of Antarctica are melting so rapidly it has become "ground zero of global climate change without a doubt," said Harvard geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica.
Here on the Antarctic peninsula, where the continent is warming the fastest because the land sticks out in the warmer ocean, 49 billion tons of ice (nearly 45 billion metric tons) are lost each year, according to NASA. The water warms from below, causing the ice to retreat on to land, and then the warmer air takes over. Temperatures rose 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) in the last half century, much faster than Earth's average, said Ricardo Jana, a glaciologist for the Chilean Antarctic Institute.
Brazil detains alleged deforestation king of Amazon
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil has detained a land-grabber thought to be the Amazon’s single biggest deforester, the country’s environmental protection agency said.
The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources said Ezequiel Antonio Castanha, who was detained Saturday in the state of Para, operated a network that illegally seized federal lands, clear-cut them and sold them to cattle grazers.
The agency blames the network for 20 percent of the deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon in recent years, though the statement issued Monday did not provide the estimated scale of the devastation.
It quoted the agency’s head of environmental protection, Luciano Evaristo, as saying he hopes Castanha’s arrest will “contribute significantly to controlling deforestation in the region.”
Castanha will face charges including illegal deforestation and money laundering, and could be sentenced to up to 46 years in prison, the statement said.
Ban to the World’s Largest Factory Vessel Seen as Positive
Santiago, February 9, 2015. The international marine conservation organization, Oceana, positively valued that the latest meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO), held in Oakland, New Zealand, included the factory vessel Pacific Andes, commonly known as Lafayette, in the list of fishing vessels engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) operations. Lafayette will be banned from fishing while it remains on that list.
“Lafayette is a flagship of ocean depredation at the global level. The fact that its operations are now subject to an effective ban is a great step forward. We must continue strengthening organizations like the SPRFMO to guarantee the sustainability of cross-border fishing resources”, stated Alex Muñoz, Executive Director with Oceana.
The company Pacific Andes International Holding built this ship in 2008 with an investment of over US$1 billion, transforming an old oil tanker into the world’s largest fishing vessel. This now Peruvian-flagged vessel –which has changed flags on many occasions to elude enforcement– operates as a mother ship that transports the catches of other trawlers it carries inside. Subsequently, it classifies the catch, processes and freezes fish on board, and takes the product to different markets. Lafayette is considered a threat to marine habitat conservation since –as evidenced during the SPRFMO meeting– it has been constantly engaged in IUU fishing. Experts have estimated that if this vessel operated on a daily basis, it would have the technical capacity to process 547,000 tons of fish every year.
For the first time since it was created in 2006, the SPRFMO drafted a list of IUU vessels. In this report, in addition to Lafayette, the Russian-flagged Aurora was included. Both vessels, as stated by the technical organization, will remain in the list until monetary sanctions are materialized, which should be enforced by the states of Russia and Peru.
Agricultural insecticides pose a global risk to surface water bodies
Streams within approximately 40% of the global land surface are at risk from the application of insecticides. These were the results from the first global map to be modeled on insecticide runoff to surface waters, which has just been published in the journal Environmental Pollution by researchers from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Koblenz-Landau together with the University of Milan, Aarhus University and Aachen University. According to the publication, particularly streams in the Mediterranean, the USA, Central America and Southeast Asia are at risk.
Unlike other chemicals, agricultural pesticides are intentionally applied to the environment to help farmers control insects, weeds and other potentially harmful pests threatening agricultural production. They can therefore affect land ecosystems but also surface waters from runoff. According to estimates, ca. 4 million tons of agricultural pesticides are applied annually, equating to an average of 0.27 kilograms per hectare of the global land surface. "We know from earlier investigations for example that pesticides can reduce the biodiversity of invertebrates in freshwater ecosystems by up to 42 percent and that we can expect an increased application of pesticides as a result of climate change", explains Prof. Dr. Matthias Liess from the UFZ, who was recently appointed to a term of five years on the scientific advisory board "National Action Plan on Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products" where he advises the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Liess warns of an increase in the application of pesticides in many developing countries as farmers increasingly switch from traditionally extensive agricultural practices to more intensive ones. Until now the global extent of the potential water pollution from the application of insecticides has remained largely unknown.
The international team of scientists therefore came up with a global model with a raster of ca. ten kilometres, into which agricultural data from FAO and land use data from NASA among other data were entered. Annual average temperatures and monthly maximum precipitation measurements from around 77,000 weather stations were also taken into account. Following that, the researchers then estimated the so-called runoff potential (RP), in other words the amount of insecticides that enters streams and rivers through the rainwater from agricultural land. "In this respect, daily rainfall intensity, terrain slope, and insecticide application rate play an equally important role as well as the crops cultivated", explains junior professor Dr. Ralf B. Schäfer from the University of Koblenz-Landau. "In order to test such complex models, we therefore carried out control measurements of insecticide contamination in freshwater ecosystems from four different regions".
China bans carved ivory imports
China has established a one-year ban on imports of carved African elephant ivory.
Conservationists say the move, effective immediately, sends an important signal, but alone won't be enough to slow elephant poaching.
"This announcement is an encouraging signal that the Chinese government is ratcheting down the import of African elephant ivory into the country," said Iris Ho, director of wildlife for Humane Society International, in a statement. "We are hopeful that more meaningful actions are being considered by the leadership and relevant government agencies of China that will further strengthen the country’s efforts on combating the elephant poaching and ivory trafficking crisis. We also encourage China and other countries to permanently ban domestic ivory trade and destroy all confiscated ivory stockpiles."
"China’s decision to ban ivory imports for a full year could be a real victory in helping to reduce poaching and wildlife trafficking depending on how the ban is enforced. But, China has ample stockpiles of ivory that it can still release into the legal market while the ban is in place. The domestic market those stockpiles create needs to be limited for real change to take place," added Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This is an important step in the right direction. And more still needs to be done to restrict the sale – and reduce demand for – elephant ivory in China, the United States, and around the world. Until we cut off people’s desire for ivory, elephants will continue to die."
Carved ivory represents a fraction of China's elephant ivory imports. Much of the ivory brought into the country is smuggled illegally.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Making Sense of Obama’s Foreign Policy
Gorbachev: Killing Could Have Been A Provocation, Aimed At “Destabilizing The Situation In The Country, At Heightening Confrontation” With The West
The Kiev Snipers: Everyone Agrees That They Fired On BOTH SIDES
Feel Like Your Life Has Become Monetized? You’re Not Alone
Why Famous People Lie About Combat
Economist Mark Blyth: Continued Austerity Will Be Catastrophic for Greece and Europe
MI-5’s Jihadi John: How British Intelligence Primed Both Sides Of The Terror War
Hellraisers Journal: New York Times Reports Miners of Colorado Are Destitute & JDR Jr Will Aid Them
Parables, revisited
A Little Night Music
Jimmie Vaughan - Motorhead
Jimmie Vaughan - The Pleasure's All Mine
Jimmie Vaughan - Tilt A Whirl
Jimmie Vaughan - I Ain't Never
Jimmie Vaughan - Roll Roll Roll
Jimmie Vaughan - Boom Bapa Boom
Jimmie Vaughan - Dirty Girl
Jimmy Vaughan - "Robbin' Me Blind"
Jimmie Vaughan - Out of the Shadows
Jimmie Vaughan - Cried Like a Baby
Jimmie Vaughan - Shackles On Me
Stevie Ray & Jimmie Vaughan - White Boots
Stevie Ray & Jimmie Vaughan - Hillbillies From Outer Space
Jimmie Vaughan & Omar Kent Dykes - On The Jimmy Reed Highway
Jimmie Vaughan - I Miss You so
Jimmie Vaughan - RM blues
Jimmie Vaughan - Wheel of Fortune
Jimmie Vaughan & Omar Kent Dykes - Big Boss Man
Jimmie Vaughan - Why,Why,Why
Jimmie Vaughan - The Ironic Twist
Jimmie Vaughan - Flamenco Dancer
Jimmie Vaughan - Lost In You
Jimmie Vaughan - Greenbacks