Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
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 evenings music features R&B singer, songwriter and record producer Smokey Robinson, best known for his association with Motown records.
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - I second that emotion
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
-- Henry David Thoreau
News and Opinion
A Racial Entitlement? Supreme Court Threatens Voting Rights Act, One of Civil Rights Era’s Key Gains
As President Obama unveiled a statue of Rosa Parks at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered overturning a key achievement of the civil rights movement: the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Signed in 1965 by President L. Johnson, the law requires several states and counties with a history of racial discrimination to clear election-related changes with the federal government. While the Supreme Court’s four liberal justices appeared willing to back the Voting Rights Act, conservative justices were much more critical. Justice Antonin Scalia described the law as a "perpetuation of racial entitlement."
How Do You Steal A Dream?
The Economy is Booming, but for Whom?
The mainstream narrative continues to tell us that the economy is hurting, that we must continue to sacrifice in these tough economic times. Don’t believe this narrative, it is a lie! The economy is booming, only you and I and the rest of the average working people no longer get to share its spoils. As Warren Buffet famously said, “There is class warfare, and my class is winning.”
The economy is only struggling for those of us who are unfortunate enough to be in the 99%. The world of the 1% is unbelievably lavish. Life hasn’t been this great for the rich since the 1920’s, prior to the great depression and FDR’s pesky New Deal. Coincidentally, the last time income inequality was this bad in America, was in the 1920’s.
For those fortunate enough to reap all of the economic gains, the world is their oyster. Meanwhile, the rest of us are told that we should be thankful for our jobs, that we should never raise questions at work, because someone else will do our job without complaining so much about the lack of benefits, the lack of wages or the harsh working conditions.
FDR’s New Deal helped create a foundation upon which the American middle class was built. But the American people didn’t just elect FDR and hoped for him to make changes; they mobilized en masse and forced FDR to implement these changes. They didn’t just hope for FDR to be their savior, they took action. They struck their workplaces, they sat down and shut down the assembly lines. There was even real fear of a possible communist revolution if workers didn’t get a better deal. This forced FDR’s hand.
US Defense Budget Boom vs Social Cuts
Bob Woodward Embodies US Political Culture in a Single Outburst
Washington's most celebrated journalist hails the values of militarism, lawlessness, and presidential omnipotence
That the Obama administration might actually honor the budget cuts mandated by a law enacted by Congress and signed by Obama infuriates Bob Woodward, Washington's most celebrated journalist. He appeared this week on the "Morning Joe" program to excoriate Obama for withholding a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf, saying:
"Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying 'Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document?' Or George W Bush saying, 'You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need' or even Bill Clinton saying, 'You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein's intelligence headquarters,' as he did when Clinton was president, because of some budget document.
"Under the Constitution, the president is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, I can't do what I need to do to protect the country. That's a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time."
All of this, of course, is pure pretense. Is it even remotely plausible that Obama is refraining from engaging in military action he believes is necessary out of some sort of quaint deference to the law? Please. This is a president who continued to wage war, in Libya, not merely without Congressional authorization, but even after Congress expressly voted against its authorization. This is a president who has repeatedly argued that he has the right to kill anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, not only due to Congressional authorization but also his own Commander-in-Chief powers. If Obama really wanted to deploy that second aircraft carrier, he would do so, knowing that journalists like Bob Woodward and members of both parties would cheer him. This is just a flamboyant political stunt designed to dramatize how those Big, Bad Republicans are leaving us all exposed and vulnerable with sequestration cuts.
But whatever Obama's motives might be, the fact is that what we call "law" really does require some cuts in military spending. To refuse to do so would be to assert powers not even most monarchs have: to break the law at will. Woodward is right about one point: not only would prior presidents have been willing to do this, this is exactly what they did. Indeed, George Bush's entire presidency was explicitly predicated on the theory that the president has the power to break the law at will whenever he deems that doing so promotes national security. That America's most celebrated journalist not only supports this, but demands that all presidents follow this model of lawlessness, is telling indeed.
The Obama administration wants the sequester to hurt immediately so the public will clamor for its reversal
Barring the biggest Washington miracle since Dolly Madison ferreted paintings out of a burning White House in 1812, sequestration—the automatic, across-the-board cuts to defense, discretionary and certain health programs totaling $85 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, and $1.176 trillion over the next decade—will take effect March 1. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that these cuts will cost 750,000 jobs in 2013, and reduce gross domestic product for 2013 by up to 0.5%. The effects stand to be disastrous: that much is clear. But when it comes to the politics of the sequester—and the gamesmanship involved—very little is as it seems.
The White House has over the past month consistently given the impression that the president’s hands are tied, that the sequester—if not averted—will simply ripple through affected government agencies with no exceptions, and that the cuts will quickly hit hard in every state, with the administration powerless to stop the madness.
This isn’t quite true. ...
When faced with closures of national parks, shutdowns of government offices, delays in needed services like the disposition of federal benefits, and long lines at the airport due to a reduction in TSA personnel and air traffic controllers, the thinking goes, perhaps Congress will get moving on a less painful solution. ...
Unfortunately for this plan, the picayune clockwork of government is likely to get in the way. A combination of complex budget rules, sequestration limits, and the ordinary instincts of agency heads may slow down the effects of the sequester and leave the public with the mistaken impression—for a crucial couple of months—that austerity doesn’t really bite.
Majority FM podcast - David Dayen: The Age of Austerity
David Dayen, explained how sequester cuts will impact the economy, how long it will take to feel the Sequester, the politics of the sequester, why the local media is doing a better job covering the sequester, the teachable moment the Obama Administration is missing, why a government shutdown maybe the best anti austerity strategy and how will the media cover budget cuts.
Remember: Sequestration was Obama’s Idea
The Obama administration has been very skillful in framing itself as the good guy in the latest looming fiscal disaster, this time under the heading of “sequestration.” ... Disaster capitalism is manifesting itself as disaster governance, and President Obama is fully complicit in the corporate-imposed charade. Indeed, Obama is most culpable for infecting the nation with austerity fever. ...
From the moment in January of 2009 when Obama served notice that Social Security and all other entitlements would be put on the chopping block, he became the chief mover and shaker for so-called entitlement reform. He created the model for austerity, through his Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission. It was Simpson-Bowles that provided the basis for the massive cuts offered by President Obama in 2011. When the Republicans balked at even a modest tax increase for the rich, it was the White House National Economic Council Director, the corporate deal-maker Gene Sperling, who came up with the sequestration scheme, which was timed to explode right after the 2012 elections. The idea was to make every popular constituency in the country scream – and accept the inevitability of massive entitlement cuts. ...
These waves of austerity crises were not inevitable, but they are the inevitable result of President Obama’s calculated statements and actions since Election Day 2008. The Republicans are his partners, not his opponents. The closest thing he has to an opposition – at least on paper – is the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose two co-chairs introduced a bill that would turn the austerity juggernaut on its head. It’s called the Balancing Act of 2013, and would replace all of the sequestration cuts with new revenues, and then add a $276 billion stimulus to the economy. Needless to say, the progressive bill will get nowhere, not just because of Republican opposition, but because the top Democrat, Barack Obama, wants to go down in history as the smart austerity president.
Pentagon forced to release documents on WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning
The US Army published dozens of documents online Wednesday in the case of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning, after media outlets and other groups had criticized a lack of transparency. ...
Among the organizations that demanded access to the pre-trial documents were The Washington Post, CNN and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which all said they had been prevented from informing the public about the case. ...
In federal civilian court, similar types of documents are nearly always made public.
Even in the military commissions at the Guantanamo detention facility, where pre-trial hearings in the case against the 9/11 plotters are being heard, military lawyers have made such documents available.
On Wednesday, 84 court orders and rulings were released in the Manning case, including a partial transcription of a deposition made by Manning.
White House stonewalling drone investigation say congressmen from both sides of the aisle
US lawmakers have accused the White House of rebuffing their inquiries into CIA drone bombing raids abroad and vowed to assert more congressional oversight over the secretive drone war.
Both Republicans and Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday denounced President Barack Obama’s administration for refusing to share key documents or details of the killings by armed, robotic aircraft.
“The need for oversight is clear,” said Representative John Conyers, a Democrat and normally a staunch ally of the Obama administration.
Conyers and other members of the committee said it was unacceptable that the Attorney General, Eric Holder, or other officials from the Justice Department declined an invitation to appear at the hearing devoted to the drone campaign.
“I don’t think the attorney general of the United States can decline to come before this committee on a subject that is so clearly within our jurisdiction,” Conyers said.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has asked the administration for a chance to review memos that outline the legal basis for killing Americans overseas suspected of having links to Al-Qaeda. But their requests have been mostly denied so far.
Occupy godfather Stephane Hessel dies at 95
Stéphane Hessel, 'Combatant for Justice and Freedom' and Inspiration for Indignados
Stéphane Hessel, inspiration for the Spanish indignados movement, later paralleled with Occupy Wall Street, died in Paris on Tuesday night. He was 95.
Hessel, Kim Willsher writes in an obituary in the Guardian, achieved, "his worldwide celebrity at the age of 93, when a political pamphlet he wrote became a bestselling publishing sensation and inspired global protest and the Occupy Wall Street movement."
Millions of copies of his pamphlet Time for Outrage have been sold worldwide.
Why Does the US Chamber of Commerce Want to Train or Replace Your Elected School Board, If They Haven't Already?
There's a not-so-secret campaign underway to privatize public education, an effort that is making unprecedented progress under the administration of Barack Obama. How is such a thing possible? Public education is supposedly a matter of local government, in the hands of thousands of school boards across the country, most of them chosen by local voters?
The representatives of corporations, billionaires, Wall Street speculators, along with their right wing foundations and political tentacles like the US Chamber of Commerce, all of whom aim to privatize education have been allowed to embed themselves in the supposedly impartial processes which evaluate and accredit schools and school systems. From these completely unaccountable positions, they are able to create convenient “crises” at will by making spurious and anonymous accusations against elected local school board members, and threatening to withdraw the accreditation of individual schools and entire districts. When such threats are made, a mayor or governor can appoint extra school board members or as in Georgia this week, replace school board members the voters have chosen with his own pro-privatization flunkies.
Here's how it works. The federal Department of Education is forbidden to tell local school districts precisely what they can and cannot do or teach. But the Department of Education officially recognizes privately owned and operated “accreditation agencies” to decide whether a school, a school board or a school system are up to snuff. There are 6 of these accreditation agencies covering the 50 states, and three of these covering more than 20 states are under the umbrella of something called Advanc-Ed. Being “private” and not-fpr-profit that Advanc-Ed's processes, educational policies, judgment calls and the rest are completely immune to public scrutiny. ...
The Obama administration has allowed these unaccountable forces unprecedented access to federal levers of power. It was the Broad Foundation's consultants, along with the Walton Family and Gates and others, who actually wrote Race To The Top's voluminous guidelines, as well as many of the state level proposals that won the lion's share of funds under the program. ...
Congress did not approve Race To The Top, and its attendant wave of teacher firings, school closings and the like. But it's federal policy and it's happening. Lots of Obama apologists excuse his supposed inability to get good things done with the claim that Republicans in the Congress and the media block him. But the lack of a majority in Congress hasn't stopped him from doing some perfectly horrible things, like Race To The Top. The role of privately owned, pro-privatization entities in school accreditation is an object lesson in how the most powerful office in the world can reach around Congress if it wants to, and enforce its will (and the will of the charter school sugar daddies) upon hundreds of local boards of education and hundreds of poor communities across the country.
"Is 'Supercop' William Bratton the Answer to Oakland's Police Problem?"
A.F.L.-C.I.O. Backs Keystone Oil Pipeline, if Indirectly
The A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s largest federation of unions, has issued an apparent endorsement of the Keystone XL oil pipeline — apparent because it enthusiastically called for expanding the nation’s pipeline system, without specifically mentioning Keystone.
And while some union leaders said the federation’s stance stopped short of an official endorsement, the nation’s building trades unions — eager for the thousands of jobs the pipeline would create — issued a statement saying the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s stance was a clear endorsement of the Keystone pipeline.
The labor federation’s embrace of the pipeline, even with some ambiguity, will give President Obama some political cover as he weighs whether to approve the pipeline, which would carry more than 700,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil each day to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.
Chesapeake, Encana sued in civil antitrust action
A major Michigan landowner is suing Chesapeake Energy Corp and Encana Corp, alleging that the two energy giants colluded to rig bids for oil and gas rights in 2010.
Northstar Energy, which owns nearly 10,000 acres in Michigan's Utica-Collingwood oil and gas shale formation, filed the lawsuit against Chesapeake and Canadian firm Encana in Michigan federal court Friday.
The suit follows a series of Reuters investigations last year which triggered civil and criminal probes of Chesapeake, the second-largest U.S. producer of natural gas. In June, Reuters reported that Chesapeake and Encana, Canada's largest gas producer, worked to suppress land prices in Michigan three years ago.
Reuters quoted from internal Chesapeake emails that show top executives of the two companies traded proposals to divide bidding responsibilities for nine private landowners and counties in Michigan.
Northstar was one of the private landowners discussed.
100,000 Gallon Fracking Waste Spill In West Virginia Tributary of Ohio River, Source Of Drinking Water For Millions
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection had inspectors on the scene southeast of Wheeling in Marshall County, near the small town of Dallas over the weekend.
Nearly 100,000 gallons leaked from a pit used to store fracking waste outside Wheeling, and the bulk of it flowed downhill into a nearby creek. ...
A local university professor said the Big Wheeling Creek feeds into the Ohio River, which is a source of drinking water for millions of people.
When asked if there will be an impact to water intake, Wheeling Jesuit University Professor Ben Stout said, "I don't think so, but I am glad the Wheeling water intake is upstream from Wheeling Creek."
Majority Report 1/30/13: Will Potter - How Gov & Corps Target Eco Activists
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Occupy the SEC Sues Fed, SEC, OCC, CFTC, FDIC, Treasury Due To Failure To Implement Volcker Rule
Why Isn't Closing 129 Chicago Public Schools National News?
Gitmo trials designed by Bush, implemented by Obama, inspired by Kafka
The AUMF Fallacy
What If Your Classroom Misbehavior Had Led To An Arrest?
A Little Night Music
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - You really got a hold on me
Smokey Robinson - The Tracks Of My Tears Live
Smokey Robinson - The Tears of a Clown
Jennifer Hudson and Smokey Robinson - People Get Ready
Smokey Robinson - What's So Good About Goodbye
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Mickey's Monkey
Smokey Robinson 'You Really Got A Hold Of Me & Don't Know Why Featuring Eric Clapton
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Going To A Go-Go
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - I Don't Blame You At All
smokey robinson & the miracles - i gotta dance to keep from crying
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Shop Around
Motown at 50: My Girl
Smokey Robinson - My Girl
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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