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 and multi-instrumentalist David Bromberg. David Bromberg plays bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll and makes instruments. Enjoy!
David Bromberg - Young Westley
Our land is everything to us. I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember that our grandfathers paid for it with their lives.
John Wooden Legs, Cheyenne
News and Opinion
Native Americans protest Chief Wahoo logo at Cleveland Indians home opener
Native American groups have protested the Indians’ grinning, red-faced logo for years, but the cries for change are only growing in volume
The Cleveland Indians started their 100th season this year as a team with a moniker and logo that many consider demeaning to Native Americans, and while many fans attending Friday’s home opener were celebrating with their beloved Chief Wahoo gear, there were about 50 protestors outside the stadium who seemed even more livid and aggressive about their disgust with team nickname than in previous opening day protests.
For several hours, as thousands of fans walked past the protestors on their way to the stadium gates, demonstrators with bullhorns chanted “Your outfits are racist, stop wearing red faces!” and “Where’s your bedsheet?” to the fans, many of whom were wearing clothing adorned with the grinning Chief Wahoo, what one writer once called “the only professional sports logo in the Western world that caricaturizes a race of people”.
Small groups of Native Americans have been protesting on opening day outside the stadium in Cleveland for the past 20 years or so, mostly to fan and local media indifference. But Friday’s demonstration was bigger and more vocal according to most observers. Whether that is because the Washington football team is coming under fire for its own controversial nickname, or the increased minority protest over police shootings in recent months, there was more of an air of anger and resentment toward the fans wearing Chief Wahoo, rather than protests in the past that had emphasized more persuasion and reasons to change the team name and the logo.
Philip Yenyo, executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio, said the protest movement over the team’s name and logos have been going on for years, but they have been getting the same answers and mots of tiring of it. “All we hear is that this is the team’s tradition, and it is that way because it has always been that way,” he said. “Their reason we have it is because we always have. That’s not good enough.”
US Increases Intelligence-Sharing With Saudi Arabia Over Yemen Strikes
U.S. ups 'sensitive' intelligence-sharing with Saudis to help them get 'better sense of the battlefield,' while aid groups describe disaster on the ground in Yemen
The U.S. is once again increasing its intelligence-sharing with Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom expand its air campaign in Yemen, U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday.
"We have opened up the aperture a bit wider with what we are sharing with our Saudi partners," one official said. "We are helping them get a better sense of the battlefield and the state of play with the Houthi forces."
The Saudi military began its aerial assault on Yemen in late March in coordination with 10 other Gulf Arab allies, as well as the U.S., when civil unrest between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels threatened to boil over. Weeks of relentless bombings and air strikes have contributed to what the Red Cross calleda "catastrophic" situation in Yemen, with civilian deaths already in the hundreds and food and water shortages worsening.
The U.S. has backed the Saudi air strikes in Yemen since they began, with the White House authorizing"logistical and intelligence support" the day after the operation was confirmed from the ground in Sana'a.
'Nobody will help us evacuate:' Americans urge Washington to help flee Yemen war
Submitted by: dharmasyd
As the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen continue and the fighting on the ground intensifies, US citizens stuck in Yemen have lashed out at Washington for ignoring their pleas for help as they try to leave the war-torn country.
Aerial bombardment and street battles have become a daily reality for people in Yemen. “We hear a few bombings a day. It’s very scary right now,” Arwa Al-Iraine, a US citizen trapped in Yemen told RT.
“Nobody will help us evacuate. The reply [of the US government] was an automated message that they do not have any evacuation plans. Basically we are left on our own.”
Another US citizen Shamsan Mansoob stranded in the strife-stricken country hit out at Washington, saying that “we never heard anything from them.” He told RT that his family - a pregnant wife and his son – couldn’t even leave the war zone as “there is no gas at the stations.”
Two Iranian military officers captured in Yemen
Yemen militiamen say the Iranians were from an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. If true, this could deepen tensions between Tehran and Riyadh, who are vying for influence in the Middle East.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Aden, Yemen — Local militiamen in the southern Yemeni city of Aden said they captured two Iranian military officers advising Houthi rebels, during fighting on Friday evening.
Tehran has strongly denied providing any military support for Houthi fighters, whose advances have drawn Saudi-led air strikes in a campaign dubbed "Decisive Storm."
If confirmed, the presence of two Iranian officers, whom the local militiamen said were from an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, would deepen tensions between Tehran and Riyadh, who are vying for influence in the Middle East.
Three sources in the city's anti-Houthi local militias said the Iranians, identified as a colonel and a captain, were seized in two different districts rocked by heavy gun battles.
Iranians Are Much Talked About on Sunday Morning TV, But Never Heard From
Submitted by: NCTim
Sunday morning news television is where Washington sets its media agenda for the week and, more importantly, defines its narrow range of conventional, acceptable viewpoints. It’s where the Serious People go to spout their orthodoxies and, through the illusion of “tough questioning,” disseminate DC-approved bipartisan narratives. Other than the New York Times front page, Sunday morning TV was the favorite tool of choice for Bush officials and neocon media stars to propagandize the public about Iraq; Dick Cheney’s media aide, Catherine Martin, noted in a memo that the Tim-Russert-hosted Meet the Press lets Cheney “control message,” and she testified at the Lewis Libby trial that, as a result, “I suggested we put the vice president on Meet the Press, which was a tactic we often used. It’s our best format.”
Over the last couple months, the Sunday morning TV shows – NBC‘s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face The Nation, ABC’s This Week, Fox’s News Sunday, and CNN’s State of the Union – have focused on a deal with Iran as one of their principal topics. In doing so, they have repeatedly given a platform to fanatical anti-Iran voices, including Israeli officials such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They have sycophantically interviewed officials from the U.S.-supported, anti-Iranian Gulf tyrannies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan; two weeks ago, Chuck Todd interviewed Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Adel Al-Jubeir and didn’t utter a word about extreme Saudi repression, but actually did ask this “question”:
Chuck Todd:
What is the, do you believe the United States need yo do more to support the Saudis right now? Have you done enough? Or do you think they're doing everything that we've been doing for years and years?
ADEL AL-JUBEIR:
Are the foot rubs we Americans are giving to you to your liking, Mr. Saudi Ambassador, or do you feel that we must make them more vigorous? In the last three weeks alone, Meet the Press has interviewed the Israeli Prime Minister, the Saudi Ambassador, and the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.
Syria: America's Democratic Terrorists?
April 10, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Making headlines recently has been Al Qaeda's temporary seizure of the city of Idlib, in Idlib province, northern Syria. The embattled city lies just miles from NATO-member Turkey's borders. With the Syrian Arab Army controlling the south of Idlib, it is clear that militants based in and supplied via Turkey took part in the operation, leading the Syrian government itself to accuse the NATO member of directly supporting Al Qaeda.
Reuters in its article, "Syrian military source alleges Turkish role in Idlib offensive," noted:
A Syrian military source accused Turkey on Monday of helping Islamist rebels to stage an assault on Idlib, a provincial capital which fighters seized at the weekend.
The source declined to comment on the situation in Idlib, citing security considerations, but a monitoring group has confirmed the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and allies now control Idlib and said the Syrian air force bombed the city on Monday.
For years, prominent Western papers, including the New York Times in their report, "C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition," have admitted that Turkey (as well as Jordan to the south) has harbored militants throughout the duration of the conflict, and has even hosted the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies as they armed, trained, and coordinated with militants bound for Syria. It is a coincidence, we are expected to believe, that now Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al Nusra just so happens to be strongest in regions bordering Turkey, and its Arab accomplice, Jordan.
Neocons, R2Pers and Hypocrisy
Submitted by: dharmasyd
By Robert Parry
Sometimes I’m challenged over my linking belligerent neoconservatives with “liberal interventionists” who justify U.S. military invasions under the “humanitarian” banner of “responsibility to protect” – or R2P – meaning to intervene in war-torn countries to stop the killing of civilians, like the 1994 slaughter in Rwanda.
And, most people would agree that there are extraordinary situations in which the timely arrival of an external military force might prevent genocide or other atrocities, which was one of the intended functions of the United Nations. But my overall impression of R2Pers is that many are careerist hypocrites who voice selective outrage that provides cover for the U.S. and its allies to do pretty much whatever they wish.
Though one can’t generalize about an entire group – since some R2Pers act much more consistently than others – many of the most prominent ones operate opportunistically, depending how the dominant narrative is going and where the power interests lie.
So, while many R2Pers were eager to seek war against the Syrian government when it cracked down on both peaceful and violent opponents in 2011 – and especially after a mysterious Sarin gas attack in 2013 – many of the star R2Pers went silent when Israel bombarded Gaza in 2008-09 and again in 2014.
New Breakaway Republic Tries to Form in Ukraine to Join Donetsk and Luhansk Republics
A group of residents in the region of Odessa, one of Ukraine’s largest cities, is trying to break away from the Ukrainian government that was formed after the coup in Kiev in February 2014.
As the first anniversary approaches of the 2 May 2014 massacre by U.S.-backed Ukrainian Government thugs against pamphleteers in Odessa’s Trade Unions Building, who had opposed the 22 February 2014 U.S. coup in Ukraine, there has been forming in Odessa a movement for complete independence from the U.S.-coup-imposed Ukrainian regime. Ukraine’s U.S.-imposed regime’s response is to crush this incipient movement before word of its existence can even get out to the rest of the world.
That May 2nd massacre sparked Ukraine’s civil war, by terrifying all Ukrainians who respected Russian culture and who considered themselves to be part of it (and such Ukrainians dominated the southeastern half of Ukraine). It showed them that the rabidly anti-Russian, pro-nazi regime which had recently been installed by the U.S., was seeking nothing less than their own destruction. (The scenes from it, and testimony from its witnesses, were absolutely horrific.) Throughout the entire southeastern half of Ukraine’s territory, the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Obama’s coup overthrew, had received large majority electoral support, as a consequence of which, Ukraine’s southeastern half became — after Obama’s anti-Russian coup — a tinderbox for civil war, and for potential separation from the northwestern, nazi-tolerant (often even overtly pro-Hitler), half of Ukraine.
Thus, on April 7th, an announcement by P.S. Kovalenko was made of some courageous individuals who on April 6th were attempting to establish the Odessa People’s Republic. The headline was: “Odessa People’s Republic declared its independence and secession from Ukraine.” This was a naive thing for them to do, publicly and without any military, opposing a heavily armed nazi regime, as they are doing.
French military intelligence rules out ‘Russian invasion plans’ for Ukraine
France’s intelligence chief has questioned NATO’s claims of Russia preparing to attack Ukraine as their agents failed to spot any activities signaling this - either before or after the crisis began.
A statement by the chief of France’s military intelligence,
General Christophe Gomart, was published on the National Assembly’s website.
“NATO announced that the Russians were about to invade Ukraine. But, according to French intelligence, there is nothing to corroborate this hypothesis – we determined that the Russians were deploying neither command posts nor logistical facilities, including field hospitals, needed for a military incursion,” General Gomart told a parliamentary hearing.
NATO’s top brass has been incanting mantras about a “Russian invasion” ever since the crisis in Ukraine began a year ago. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as his predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen, have lashed at Russia on numerous occasions, claiming that the Russian military is present on the ground in Ukraine, but failing to provide evidence supporting these claims.
Middle East political rivalries stoke dangerous sectarianism
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Beirut (AFP) - Across the Middle East, fierce rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran is heightening sectarian tensions, even in conflicts that analysts say are primarily political.
Riyadh and Tehran adhere to different branches of Islam and have often backed members of their own sect in regional conflicts.
But analysts say their rivalry is driven largely by politics, with sectarian sentiment more a useful -- if dangerous -- tool.
Sectarian rhetoric is on display most explicitly in the language used by militant groups.
Obama-Castro Talks Expected as Summit Gets Underway
Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro met in Panama for the first high-level negotiations between U.S. and Cuba in more than 50 years, but challenges ahead are 'huge'
U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro broke the ice at the historic Summit of the Americas in Panama on Saturday with a handshake, marking their first encounter since a thawing of relations in December.
Talks between the two leaders are expected to begin Saturday to chart a more cooperative future between the U.S. and Cuba. It is also the first time Cuba will be attending the summit in its 21-year history. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the importance of Castro's attendance on Saturday.
"The presence here today of President Raul Castro of Cuba embodies a longing expressed by many in the region," Ban said.
As the Associated Press explains, the challenges facing Obama in the negotiations "are huge."
AP continues:
The U.S. embargo on Cuba, which Obama has talked about possibly dismantling as part of the rapprochement, has long been an obstacle to closer ties with Latin America, where mistrust of the U.S. runs deep following a history of support for coups and military dictatorships.
Obama also touted a decision to request from Congress $1 billion in aid for Central America to speed up development that aims to make streets there safer and reduce the flow of migrants to the U.S.
Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Overview
"China represents and will remain the most significant competitor to the United States for decades to come. As such, the need for a more coherent U.S. response to increasing Chinese power is long overdue," write CFR Senior Fellow Robert D. Blackwill and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Associate Ashley J. Tellis in a new Council Special Report, Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China.
"Because the American effort to 'integrate' China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia—and could result in a consequential challenge to American power globally—Washington needs a new grand strategy toward China that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy."
The authors argue that such a strategy is designed to limit the dangers that China's geoeconomic and military power pose to U.S. national interests in Asia and globally, even as the United States and its allies maintain diplomatic and economic interactions with China.
India stranded as region readies for Iran’s surge
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The Wall Street Journal reporttoday with an Islamabad dateline quoting local officials that China is willing to build the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline doesn’t come as surprise. But the apparent finality about what has been up until now in the realm of intelligent speculation signifies a tectonic shift in the politics of the region.
The expected dismantling of the sanctions regime against Iran is triggering reverberations in regional politics and the IP gas pipeline project is evidence of it. Tehran, Islamabad and Beijing are positioning themselves to tap into the new vistas opened by Iran’s integration into the international community.
The IP pipeline eminently qualifies to become part of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, with the underpinning provided by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and China’s Silk Road Fund. There is a strong likelihood that the pipeline will get extended to China along the so-called Economic Corridor that is being planned via the Karakorum.
Conceivably, Iran will welcome an extension of the IP pipeline into China, which, in political terms, would make Beijing a ‘stakeholder’ in the Iran-Pakistan relationship and in turn help stabilize that troubled relationship. A China-Pakistan-Iran strategic axis built on shared concerns of regional stability has far-reaching implications for an entire arc of countries stretching from the Persian Gulf through Afghanistan and Central Asia to China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
Six Parties Hold Talks to Consider Constitutional Reform in Myanmar
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Myanmar’s major political players held their first day of six-party talks on constitutional reform, a peace agreement and the upcoming national elections on Friday at the presidential palace, and agreed to hold their next round of discussions before parliament resumes on May 11.
The six participants—President Thein Sein, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, speaker of the lower house of parliament Shwe Man, speaker of the upper house Khin Aung Myint, military commander-in-chief Senior General Ming Aung Hlaing, and ethnic representative Aye Maung—met in the capital Naypyidaw to discuss the report from the Parliamentary Constitutional Amendment Implementation Committee, consisting of 31 lawmakers.
They agreed to amend the constitution enacted in 2008 when a military junta ruled the country, presidential spokesman Ye Htut told RFA’s Myanmar Service.
“We discussed what we could implement before the coming elections and set a time frame for next talks,” he said. “We will discuss the details of amending the constitution in the next talks.”
Maduro gives US eye-poke in visit to 1989 invasion monument
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
PANAMA CITY (AP) — Nicolas Maduro had barely gotten off his plane at the Summit of the Americas on Friday before he gave a symbolic poke in the eye to Washington, paying a visit to a monument honoring victims of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.
A crowd of several hundred, many of them government supporters flown in from Venezuela, greeted the socialist leader at the memorial in the poor downtown neighborhood of El Chorrillo, which saw the heaviest fighting during the invasion. "Maduro, stick it to the Yankee!" they chanted.
Maduro said he would personally deliver to President Barack Obama the victims' petition demanding the U.S. apologize for the military incursion that removed dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega and compensate families who lost loved ones.
"Never again a U.S. invasion in Latin America," Maduro said.
This is how the oligarchy wins: Money, politics, and the perils of part-time lawmakers
There are many reasons for our broken system. One surprising one: Our lawmakers are getting ripped off
In recent years, many political scientists have released eye-opening data suggesting that policymakers simply aren’t very responsive to low- and middle-income Americans. There are likely many reasons for this — partially owing to voter participation, partially owing to differences in education and very likely owing to the influence of money over politics. However, one other important factor that generally goes under the radar is legislative professionalism.
A professionalized legislature differs from a citizen legislature in several ways: Professional legislatures generally meet for a more extended period of time and are paid enough that they do not have other careers. Professional legislators have larger staffs, more money to research policy and more time to deliberate and hold hearings. Professionalized legislatures also tend to attract politicians interested in working their way to higher levels of government.
In a recent segment, John Oliver addressed the absurdity of state legislatures — and the concerns about professionalism he raises are important. As I’ve noted elsewhere, income inequality is shaped enormously at the state level. This influence has only increased in recent years, as the federal government has become more gridlocked. In a new study, Elizabeth Rigby and Megan Hatch estimate that If states had adopted more liberal policies, the increase in inequality (as measured by the Gini Coefficient) would have been 60 percent smaller — and the share going to the top 1 percent would have been halved. Inequality at the state level also has implications for representation; Patrick Flavin finds that inequality of income is one of the most important predictors of inequality of representation. New evidence suggests that differences in legislature structure at the state level have important implications for representation.
In an influential study, Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips examined 39 policies in eight broad issue areas. They calculated the congruence of public opinion and government policy for each issue. Congruence is a measure of how responsive policymakers are to public opinion: a low congruence indicates that legislators aren’t very responsive, a high congruence indicates they are. Congruence ranges from a low of 6 percent on bilingual education to a high of 86 percent on legalizing state lotteries. The researchers also found that while state governments are “generally responsive” to public opinion, they also “effectively translate majority opinion into policy only about half the time. […] This is true even when majority are large and when salience is high.”
Report Reveals How Corporate Tax Dodgers Avoid Paying Their Fair Share—or Any Share At All
Bernie Sanders declares: 'At a time when we have massive wealth and income inequality, and when corporate profits are soaring, it is an outrage that many large, profitable corporations paid nothing in federal income taxes last year.'
Submitted by: NCTim
Pointing to egregious examples of Fortune 500 corporations "manipulating the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits," a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice makes a sharp case for corporate tax reform.
The 15 companies cited in the CTJ analysis represent a range of sectors within the U.S. economy, from toy maker Mattel to financial services corporation Prudential to broadcaster CBS to media giant Time Warner.
All told, the report reveals that the 15 companies paid no federal income tax on $23 billion in profits in 2014, and they paid almost no federal income tax on $107 billion in profits over the past five years. All but two received federal tax rebates in 2014, and almost all paid "exceedingly low" rates over five years.
"These 15 corporations' tax situations shed light on the widespread nature of corporate tax avoidance," Citizens for Tax Justice declared.
Interactive map: US police have killed at least 5,600 people since 2000
Submitted by: NCTim
Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice are just a few of the thousands of people killed by law enforcement in the past 15 years.
Vox's Anand Katakam created an interactive map with data from Fatal Encounters, a nonprofit trying to build a national database of police killings. It shows some of the deaths by law enforcement since 2000:
View interactive map here.
A huge majority of the more than 5,600 deaths on the map are from gunshots, which is hardly surprising given that guns are so deadly compared to other tools used by police. There are also a lot of noticeable fatalities from vehicle crashes, stun guns, and asphyxiations. In some cases, people died from stab wounds, medical emergencies, and what's called "suicide by cop," when someone commits suicide by baiting a police officer into using deadly force.
The data is far from perfect. Some of it is incomplete, with details about a victim's race, age, and other factors sometimes missing. D. Brian Burghart, head of Fatal Encounters, estimates that his organization's collection of reports from the public, media, and FBI only captures about 35 percent of total police killings.
Californian sheriff suspends 10 officers over beating of horseman
(Reuters) - A Californian sheriff has suspended 10 officers involved in the videotaped beating of a suspect who appeared to have surrendered and was lying on the ground after making a failed getaway attempt on horseback.
John McMahon, sheriff of San Bernardino County, said at a news conference on Friday he was "disturbed and troubled" by what he saw in the footage, shot from a KNBC-TV news helipcopter on Thursday near the town of Apple Valley, east of Los Angeles.
"It appears to be excessive to me based on what I saw in the video," he said of the force used in restraining the suspect, Francis Pusok, 30, after the man had already been shot by a Taser stun gun and was splayed face down on the ground.
The FBI said it had opened an investigation into the incident and the results would be referred to federal prosecutors, the San Bernardino Sun newspaper reported.
Killer Cops Boost Body Count in War on Black America
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival....” – Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852
“When President Obama insists that racism is not, and has never been, ‘endemic’ to this country, he is simply identifying himself as an active participant in the ongoing slaughter.”
The United States produced a bumper crop of what Billie Holiday would call “Strange Fruit,” in March: at least 111 bodies, the majority of them unarmed men of color, shot down by police in the blood-fertilized streets of American cities. If one just counts the unarmed victims, that’s a rate of about two extrajudicial executions per day, roughly twice the “one every 28 hours” cited by the Malcolm X Grassroots Network’s 2012 report, Operation Ghetto Storm.
Yet, in the same month, President Obama declared Venezuela a threat to the national security of the United States, based largely on the death of 14 “dissidents” during a period of anti-government disturbances back in 2014. Many of the dead were pro-government activists killed by “dissidents.” By contrast, Philadelphia police have been shooting an average of one person a week for the last eight years, the overwhelming majority of them Black and brown, according to a new U.S. Justice Department report. As Frederick Douglass said, “for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”
All across the country, the granting of impunity for the perpetrators of summary execution of Black men, women and children is “everyday practice” – now certified as “best practice” by Attorney General Eric Holder, who claims court precedents preclude prosecution of killer cops except under the most extreme conditions. (See “It’s Not the Law – but Prosecutors – That Give Immunity to Killer Cops,” December 10, 2014.)
AIIB, BRICS Development Bank and an Emerging World
Germany is a founding member as France. So is Luxemburg, even Great Britain. Putin’s Russia and India are also among the founders. To the surprise of many, so is the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an institution that until now has been a pillar of the dollar system. We are talking about China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or AIIB. The question is whether the AIIB is on its way to become the seed crystal of a new monetary order that could replace the destructive influence of the dollar? Or will it be infected by Trojans like the UK and the IMF? The answer could well shape the architecture of a new world in which the dollar and its bloated debt structures no longer dictate to the entire world what their economic policies shall be.
In October 2014, China announced it was creating a new international bank to finance major infrastructure projects across Asia. The prime driver for China was to finance their New Silk Road high-speed Eurasian rail and also sea infrastructure projects and the refusal of the United States to agree to major IMF voting reform that would give China and other emerging economic nations more say. Beijing announced they will give $50 billion to start the new bank. At the time, Washington and most of the rest of the world ignored the bank, while the Obama Administration attacked the AIIB for possibly lacking transparency or sufficient concern for environmental risks, patent diversions from the reality, namely, that the AIIB represents a strategic threat to continued American global dollar hegemony.
Washington’s well-aimed shot in the foot
The Obama Administration, by fiercely opposing it when the UK, Australia, Japan and other core US allies indicated interest in joining the AIIB, now have royally shot themselves in both feet. Today, as of the March 31 deadline, more than 40 nations have joined with China’s new banks as Founding Members. The bank now threatens to rival the IMF, World Bank and the related Asian Development Bank as a long-term creditor able to attract capital to major infrastructure investment across Eurasia and perhaps beyond. Those three public banks are all derived from the US’ postwar Bretton Woods Treaty and all three are controlled tightly by Washington to the advantage of the dollar and of US interests.
Now it’s not as if China is sneaking behind the back of their dear friends in Washington. In 2010 China, Brazil and other fast-developing countries won an agreement on reform of the IMF that would have doubled the funds available to the IMF in return for a greater voting weight for countries such as China, Russia, India and Brazil and other economies which were not even on the map in 1944 in terms of relative economic size. The proposal won 77% of the share votes of all IMF member countries.
Exceptional Hypocrisy: The Defining Principle of America’s Foreign Policy
In the Bizarro universe inhabited by the western mainstream media, elite opinion makers and professional mouthpieces have completely abandoned fact-based journalism in favor of outright gaslighting and propaganda dissemination in its questionable coverage of American foreign policy. Russia has decisively displaced ISIS as America’s Public Enemy #1 for the moment, as evidenced by the avalanche of sensationalist articles accusing Putin of nuclear warmongering. Fanciful speculation is routinely passed off as serious political analysis, serving to distract the discourse with frivolous insinuations of Putin’s alleged personality defects. Dissenting opinions are ruthlessly excluded from the official story, making it easy for the casual news consumer to mistake cynical groupthink for objective reality.
Scripting Russia’s Villainous Character Development In Real Time
According to the official narrative, the Americans are the reluctant enforcers of human rights as Putin recklessly pushes for nuclear war. In this latest revision, France and Germany reprise their roles as the spineless and unprincipled allies who refuse to defend Ukrainian democracy because of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
To make the case that Russia is lurching towards diplomatic belligerence, much hay has been made regarding the revision of Russia’s military doctrine:
“Although the revised Russian military doctrine in December 2014 is not new in its allowance of tactical nuclear weapons in the case of a conventional attack that “threatens the very existence” of the Russian state, given the strengthening of Russia’s narrative regarding its own perceived encirclement by NATO, such threats are potentially open to more dangerous interpretation.” Sarah Lain, IB Times
Vatican suspected of rejecting gay French ambassador
Vatican has not responded to nomination of Laurent Stéfanini, a senior diplomat described as an exemplary candidate in the Italian press
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The Vatican has been dragging its feet on the approval of France’s ambassador to the Holy See, raising suspicions that it has effectively rejected the nomination of Laurent Stéfanini because he is gay.
The Vatican declined to comment on speculation about the delay.
Stéfanini, a 55-year-old practising Catholic, has been described in the Italian press as an exemplary candidate and a man of “exceptional culture”. He is a senior diplomat and chief of protocol in the French government of François Hollande.
His nomination was put forward in January but the Vatican has not responded, usually an indication that the potential ambassador has been rejected. Reports in the French and Italian press suggested the decision was clearly connected to Stéfanini being gay.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature a report from Chicago Day Book on the appearance of the IWW organizer, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, in that city to speak to the men and women who work for wages.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Montana House Republicans break ranks to pass Medicaid expansion
For many Republicans, the move to expand access to Medicaid amounts to an endorsement of Obamacare, but states like Montana that refused federal funding have been under pressure to reconsider that decision.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
A contentious legislative battle in Montana ended this week, after the state's GOP-controlled House voted to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid to the working poor – a feature of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, that Republicans had vigorously opposed.
A House committee originally voted down the measure to expand the access to Medicaid, but supporters succeeded in using procedural rules to bring the bill to the floor on Thursday. Thirteen GOP moderates broke with party leadership to back the measure, which passed 54 to 46.
Now the House and Senate must reconcile one amendment before the legislation lands on the desk of Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, who is expected to sign the bill into law.
But while this latest decision may appear to be a victory for those urging all states to accept federal dollars for Medicaid expansion, the harshness of the debate marked how controversial the issue remains here and in other conservative states.
US Plans New Offshore Drilling Rules, But Questions Remain
Obama administration reportedly planning new rules on offshore oil and gas operations to prevent future spills like 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, but environmentalists unconvinced
The U.S. is set to announce new regulations on offshore oil and gas drilling as an increased safeguard against disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to reportsfrom Obama administration officials who spoke to the New York Times on Friday.
The announcement, which could come as soon as Monday, is set to be timed with the five-year anniversary of the spill, which killed 11 people and poured millions of barrels of oil into the ocean.
However, environmental organizations remained unconvinced, particularly as the new rules follow President Barack Obama's stated support of expanded drilling operations in the Arctic and Atlantic.
Bob Deans, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told the Times, "Industry and government have taken measures over the past five years to reduce some of the risk in what is an inherently dangerous operation at sea. That's a far cry from saying it's safe. And the last thing we need is to expose Atlantic or Arctic waters to a BP-style blowout."
Dogs trained to detect prostate cancer with more than 90% accuracy
The ability of two German shepherds to identify the most common form of cancer in British men has sparked hopes of finding a practical application
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Hopes that man’s best friend can help medics detect prostate cancer have been boosted by research suggesting that trained German shepherd dogs can sniff out the chemicals linked to the disease from urine samples with remarkable accuracy.
The reliability rate reported by an Italy-based team in the Journal of Urology comes from the latest of several studies stretching back decades and raises the prospect of canines’ sense of smell helping doctors identify a number of human cancers and infectious diseases.
The two female dogs sniffed urine samples from 900 men, 360 with prostate cancer and 540 without. Both animals were right in well over 90% of cases.
The paper’s authors, from the Humanitas Clinical and Research Centre in Milan and other institutes, admitted further work is needed to determine just how valuable the dogs’ skill might be in identifying, in daily practice, the signs of prostate cancer.
Jesus went to hell: The Christian history churches would rather not acknowledge
Prior to his resurrection, Christ descended to the underworld -- a paradox most churches prefer not to confront
“It was Saturday that Jesus Christ went to Hell.”
This is one phrase that Christians, whether mainline or evangelical, Catholic or Protestant, will likely not hear from the pulpit this week. And yet the story of Christ’s descent to the underworld has deep roots in tradition.
The fourth century Apostle’s Creed tells us that following his crucifixion, but before his resurrection, Jesus “descended to the dead.” The Athanasian Creed of at least a century later is more explicit, Christ “descended into hell.” Depending on context and translation Jesus either journeyed to Sheol, Hades, or Hell. But allowing for differences in language Christianity held—and technically still holds as a central tenet—the view that Jesus spent the gap between his death and resurrection “harrowing” Hell, that is journeying to the underworld to liberate the imprisoned souls of the Hebrew patriarchs who had been imprisoned there since their deaths.
Contemporary congregations will often translate “hell” into a more palatable “death” or “the grave.” There is something unseemly in the idea of Jesus among the murders, rapists, fornicators and heretics of Hell. And yet it was central to Christological accounts of salvation for two millennia that God Himself be present in the lowest rung of creation to justify redemption for all mankind.
Holy Saturday was a day in which God was not in His heaven, but rather in his Hell.
Smartphones could be used as earthquake early-warning systems
Smartphone sensors could be used in the future to give officials a five-second warning if a major earthquake is set to strike. It may not seem much, but it would allow enough time to sound alarms and shut off gas lines, potentially saving numerous lives.
The research was conducted by the US Geological survey and if it is crowdsourced, they could bring the technology to fruition.
Finely tuned scientific instruments such as the seismograph are used to predict big earthquakes in countries like Mexico and Japan. But researchers at the US Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and Carnegie Mellon University were curious about how data and sensors used in GPS or fitness trackers on smartphones could help in developing an early warning system for earthquakes.
USGS' Benjamin Brooks told New Scientist that GPS sensors can identity where you are standing, but they also log a sudden lurch in one direction. He thinks that this information could indicate a seismic shift and could be helpful in predicting the precious moments leading up to potential disaster.
‘Go to Mars’ and drop the asteroid mission, NASA advisors say
The NASA Advisory Council is advising the space agency that its Solar Electric Propulsion project will be best demonstrated collecting geological samples from one of Mars’ moons instead of landing on an asteroid
The recommendation came at the conclusion of its meeting on Friday and involved a unanimous vote. The council's decision is just a recommendation and gives the space agency time to study all possible options.
"If this technology is designed to go to Mars and back, let's send it to Mars and back," said Steve Squyres, chairman of the advisory council, according to chron.com
NASA says it is seeking ways to reduce costs and extend its missions into the solar system. Its Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) project is creating ways to use a less conventional propellant and make use of the abundant solar energy available in space.
Website chronicles China’s massive effort to control Internet content
BEIJING — The Chinese Communist Party operates out of a vast walled-off compound, known as Zhongnanhai, near Beijing’s Forbidden City. It is here that party leaders oversee the Great Firewall – China’s 24-hour control of the Internet.
Some 5,900 miles away, in a cottage in Berkeley, Calif., the staff of China Digital Times tries to poke holes in the Great Firewall. Every day, they collect, translate and publish many of the censorship directives the party sends to state media. They aggregate breaking news deemed “sensitive” by China’s rulers and highlight the codewords Chinese people invent to get around the censors.
“There is no way you could take all these critical voices and party directives and put them together on one website in China. It would be taken down immediately,” said Xiao Qiang, chief editor of China Digital Times and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “But outside the Great Firewall you can do that. And that is what we do.”
Since Xiao founded China Digital Times in 2003, it has become a go-to site for English speakers wanting to keep up with China’s Internet and its 640 million “netizens.”
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Mercury levels in Arctic birds found increasing over the past 130 years
Alarm bells are ringing for Arctic wildlife with the discovery that mercury levels in the feathers of ivory gulls have increased almost 50-fold.
University of Saskatchewan biologists studied the feathers of museum specimens spanning a 130-year period. Lead researcher Dr Alex Bond told BBC News, “We’re concerned because the mercury’s going up but their diet hasn’t changed over the 130 years we’ve studied. It’s gone up 45 times, which is twice the average for an animal species in the Arctic.”
Scientists believe the increase in mercury pollutants could partially explain the rapid decrease in population. Ivory gull populations in Canada have decreased by more than 80 per cent since the 1980s, leading to them being officially recognised as endangered in Canada. Numbers of the birds are also falling elsewhere — the International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the gull as “Near Threatened”.
Mercury pollution is expected to continue to rise particularly at high latitudes due to increasing emissions and global change.
Photosynthesis upgrade proposed to raise crop yields
Supercomputers and genetic engineering could help boost crops’ ability to convert sunlight into energy and tackle looming food shortages, according to a team of researchers.
Photosynthesis is far from its theoretical maximum efficiency, say the authors of a paper in Cell, published on 26 March. They say that supercomputing advances could allow scientists to model every stage in the process and identify bottlenecks in improving plant growth.
But the authors add that far more science spending is needed to increase yields through these sophisticated genetic manipulations, which include refining the photosynthesis process.
“Anything we discover in the lab now won’t be in a farmer’s field for 20 to 30 years,” says lead author Stephen Long, a plant biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in the United States. “If we discover we have a crisis then, it’s already too late.”
Neonicotinoids Responsible for Pollinator Declines Worldwide
USDA researchers have identified the neonicotinoid insecticide clothianidin as a likely contributor to monarch butterfly declines in North America.
The USDA research is published in the journal Science of Nature and was published online on 3rd April (Pecenka and Lundgren 2015).
Monarch butterfly populations (Danaus Plexippus) have declined precipitously in North America in the last twenty years. This decline has commonly been linked to loss of milkweeds (Asclepias species) from farmer's fields.
Monarch caterpillars are dependent on milkweeds. The ability of farmers to kill them with the Monsanto herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) has therefore led to this herbicide being considered as a major contributor to the decline of the monarch butterfly.
Analysing the lifecycle of today's mobile phone
It is estimated that in 2014 over two billion mobile phones were sold worldwide. Of these, over one billion were estimated to be smartphones. It is also estimated that a massive 87% of the world’s population now use mobile phones. These are staggering figures, but how many of us have ever stopped to think of where our precious mobile phones came from and what happens to them once we discard them for a newer model?
Each year millions of mobile phones are produced in the world and an equal number are disposed of. In the vast majority of cases these discarded phones work perfectly well. However, like all technological products these days, phones have a built-in technological obsolescence (we demand the latest model or the latest upgrade) as well as a built in aesthetic obsolescence (we demand the latest style or design).
In spite of their extremely small size and simplicity of look, mobile phones are immensely complex pieces of technology with many, many components. If we stop to think about it for a moment all of these products need sourcing: the raw materials needed to produce them need extracting from the ground, these need to manufactured into working parts which are then assembled into the final phone. The phone then has a ‘life’ when it’s in our hands. Eventually it ‘dies’ when we abandon it. On average, we only tend to keep our phones for a maximum period of eighteen months before we decide to upgrade them.
For most of us placing an unwanted phone into the rubbish is the end of the matter, but what happens to our old phone once we have got rid of it? For many phones their life ends in landfill sites, and it is currently estimated that an astonishing 150,000,000 are trashed each year globally. Perhaps more optimistically, at least as many mobile phones are recycled, their valuable parts recovered and transformed into parts for new phones. However, this fact isn’t as good as it first might appear. This is because the majority of phones that are sent for recycling end up in the developing countries of the world where recycling methods are hazardous and safe recycling methods are not used. This fact not only poses a serious danger to those working on the recycling of mobile phone parts but also constitutes an extreme danger to the environments of these areas of the world where the dangerous materials used in mobile phone production can easily leak into the earth, groundwater and the atmosphere when incinerated.
New strategy will help save declining ape population
The number of gorillas and chimpanzees in Central Africa continues to decline due to poaching, habitat loss and disease according to a new plan published by WWF, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Wildlife Conservation Society and partners.
The strategy, “Regional Action Plan for the Conservation of Western Lowland Gorillas and Central Chimpanzees 2015-2025”—outlines the growing number of threats to these great apes across six range countries, including gaps in law enforcement and the threats by well-connected traffickers seeking to supply the illegal commercial market.
While national and international laws protect the critically endangered western lowland gorilla and the endangered central chimpanzee, the report found that across six countries nearly 80 percent of great apes live outside of protected areas.
“Central African governments have demonstrated increased willingness to protect the dwindling populations of gorillas and chimpanzees," said David Greer, WWF’s Great Apes Programme Manager. “Now bold steps are needed to ensure that existing wildlife laws are upheld and that weak governance, which results in widespread impunity for wildlife traffickers, is eliminated, to give great apes the opportunity to survive and thrive.”
More than 130 dolphins beach in Japan
More than 130 melon-headed whales, a member of the dolphin family usually found in the deep ocean, beached in Japan on Friday, sparking frantic efforts by locals and coastguards to save them.
Rescuers were battling to stop the creatures' skin from drying out as they lay on a beach about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Tokyo, while some were being carried in slings back towards the ocean.
Television footage showed several animals from the large pod had been badly cut, with many having deep gashes on their skin.
An AFP journalist at the scene said that despite efforts to get the dolphins into the water, some were being pushed back onto the beach by the tide soon after they had been released.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
How a Broken Tail Light Can Be a Death Sentence in America
Ex-Lobbyists for Spies Are Overseeing Government Spying
Data and Goliath
Scapegoat Economics 2015
The Media's Failure With the Biggest Story in the World
Hellraisers Journal: Josephine Conger of Appeal to Reason Spends a Day in Chicago's Juvenile Court
Your NeoLib Nightmare
EEOC rules for equality again
A Little Night Music
David Bromberg - Danger Man
David Bromberg - Summer Wages
David Bromberg - Travelling Man
David Bromberg - Statesboro Blues / Church Bell Blues
David Bromberg - The New Lee Highway Blues
David Bromberg - Whoopee Ti Yi Yo
David Bromberg - I Like to Sleep Late in the Morning
David Bromberg - Will Not Be Your Fool
David Bromberg - The Holdup
David Bromberg - Mr. Bojangles
David Bromberg - Demon In Disguise
David Bromberg - Suffer to Sing the Blues
David Bromberg - Stealin'
David Bromberg - Bullfrog Blues
David Bromberg - Sharon
David Bromberg - Beware, Brother Beware
David Bromberg - I Want To Go Home
David Bromberg - Medley: Sally Goodin' / Old Joe Clark / Wheel Hoss
David Bromberg - Sammy's Song
David Bromberg - Nobody's Fault But Mine
David Bromberg - Diamond Lil
David Bromberg - Dallas Rag / Maple Leaf Rag
David Bromberg - Midnight On The Water
David Bromberg - Main Street Moan