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 evening's music features jazz pianist and composer Oscar Peterson. Enjoy!
Oscar Peterson - Boogie Blues Etude
“I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin...”
-- Malcolm X
News and Opinion
I'm not up on pop culture, so I have no idea who this guy is, but I recommend watching this video in full. He's on to something:
Russell Brand May Have Started a Revolution Last Night
Taxpayers To Help Pay JPMorgan’s Fine For Causing 2008 Financial Crisis
Feeling generous? You should because you are about to help pay for JPMorgan’s $13 billion fine for causing the 2008 financial crisis. According to tax experts the money JPMorgan will be paying to the government ($9 billion) and to wronged customers ($4 billion) can be written off as a “business expense.” In other words, JPMorgan may be sticking the taxpayers with the bill.
Justice Department Misrepresents JP Morgan Settlement
The settlement between JPMorgan Chase and the Justice Department has been reported at $13 billion, for charges that Chase sold toxic mortgage-backed securities that fueled the financial crisis of 2008.
The reported $13 billion amount is a misrepresentation of the actual figure by the Justice Department and has “nothing to do with mortgage-backed securities,” said former financial regulator Bill Black.
“That's only one of what are reportedly nine different areas of fraud by JPMorgan that are the subject of this settlement. And that means that the Justice Department is giving up the ability to prosecute, apparently, in eight of these nine areas,” said Black.
Black also says the bank will be able to reduce the fine by approximately $7 billion through payment reductions and tax deduction.
“Roughly it's a $6 billion deal,” said Black. “That still, of course, is a large number, but compared to how much wealth was extracted by the senior officers and directors, it's actually not that big a deal, and compared to the losses they caused to the world through these frauds that drove the financial crisis, it's actually a pittance.”
JPMorgan can still face criminal charges despite the deal with the Justice Department.
New York has more homeless than it has in decades
The Coalition for the Homeless, a leading advocate for homeless people in the city and the state, says that these numbers have not been seen in New York since the Great Depression. ... [I]t’s inescapably true that there are far more homeless people in the city today than there have been since “modern homelessness” (as experts refer to it) began, back in the nineteen-seventies. ...
[D]uring the twelve years of the Bloomberg administration, the number of homeless people has gone through the roof they do not have. There are now two hundred and thirty-six homeless shelters in the city. Imagine Yankee Stadium almost four-fifths full of homeless families; about eighteen thousand adults in families in New York City were homeless as of January, 2013, and more than twenty-one thousand children. The C.F.H. says that during Bloomberg’s twelve years the number of homeless families went up by seventy-three per cent. One child out of every hundred children in the city is homeless.
The number of homeless single adults is up, too, but more of them are in programs than used to be, and some have taken to living underground, in subway tunnels and other places out of sight. Homeless individuals who do frequent the streets may have a philosophical streak they share with passersby, and of course they sometimes panhandle. Homeless families, by contrast, have fewer problems of mental illness and substance abuse, and they mostly stay off the street. If you are living on the street and you have children, they are more likely to be taken away and put in foster care.
Six feet under as a retirement plan?
The retirement picture is alarming at best. And now it has come to this: In its annual retirement study of middle-income Americans (income of $25,000 to $100,000), Wells Fargo asked participants if they expect to work until they die. ... Thirty-seven percent of middle-income Americans surveyed by Wells Fargo said they have that expectation. The finding translates to just under two in five Americans who believe they will never be able to retire.
Wells included the question based on a larger trend exposed when participants have been asked how many expect to work until they are at least 80. That number was at 34 percent in this year's survey, a significant rise from 25 percent two years ago. It's been on a steady rise, too, up from 30 percent in 2012.
If 80 is the new 60, as a recent UBS "Investor Watch" report proclaimed, it's looking like six feet under is the new 65 for a significant percentage of Americans.
Beware the Corporate Democrats when they talk about "pension reform"
Less than a year ago, the Wall Street Journal alerted its national readership to what was happening in the tiny state of Rhode Island. In a story headlined “Small State Gets Big Pension Push,” the paper noted that the state’s “rollback of public-employee retirement benefits has turned (it) into a national battleground over pensions.” With the help of billionaire former Enron trader John Arnold and his partnership with the Pew Charitable Trusts, conservative ideologues and Wall Street profiteers who engineered Rhode Island’s big pension cuts were looking to export those “reforms” to other states. Now, after two huge revelations in the last few days, we know more about what that means in practice – we know the kind of corruption and damage the “reforms” mean for taxpayers and retirees, and we know what kind of new muscle is behind the effort to bring that corruption and destruction to other states.
The first set of revelations comes from a detailed forensic analysis of Rhode Island’s pension system by Forbes columnist and former SEC investigator Edward Siedle. Commissioned by groups representing public pensioners in the Ocean State, the data-driven analysis ends up reading like a criminal indictment of the speculator-turned-State-Treasurer Gina Raimondo (D), who is now cheerily touted by the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party as a rising star. Raimondo has received such billing from corporatist Democrats in no small part because of her role in helping turn her state’s pension fund into a private profit center. Indeed, in 2012, this Wall Street-funded Democrat joined with Arnold to champion specific pension reforms that simultaneously slash guaranteed retirement income and give a disproportionate amount of retiree money to the hedge fund industry, thus enriching Raimondo’s old pals in the financial industry. According to Siedle’s report, they also potentially enrich Raimondo personally.
A "de-Americanized" world is coming. Max Keiser snarks as the corporate-government elites scurry off to give tribute and pledge fealty to the prospective new master of the universe.
Debtoholics Anonymous
Who Buys the Spies? The Hidden Corporate Cash Behind America’s Out-of-Control National Surveillance State
As the storm over surveillance broke, we were completing a statistical analysis of campaign contributions in 2012, using an entirely new dataset that we constructed from the raw material provided by the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenues Service (which compiles contributions from so-called “527”s). In light of what has transpired, our quantitative analysis of presidential election funding invites closer scrutiny, particularly of the finding that we had already settled upon as perhaps most important: In sharp contrast to endlessly repeated claims that big business was deeply suspicious of the President, our statistical results show that a large and powerful bloc of “industries of the future” – telecommunications, high tech, computers, and software – showed essentially equal or higher percentages of support for the President in 2012 than they did for Romney.
Though documenting the claim would take us far beyond this post, we believe that the emergence of these new industries is a key factor in transforming the old National Security State into its new, even more sinister twenty-first century model. They are not the only important influence in that transformation, of course. These would include not only 9/11, but the rapid growth of the rest of the homeland security “industry,” including private prison companies and many other non-obvious players focused on data collection in particular domains, such as the vast infrastructure built out to service and support U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The policy of macroeconomic austerity, which made privatization of the old National Security State so seductively attractive to policymakers under pressure to cut government expenditures, has also played a significant role.
But the point that our findings document is perhaps most instructive of all. Many of the firms and industries at the heart of this Orwellian creation have strong ties to the Democrats. Bush and Cheney may have invented it, but national Democratic leaders are full-fledged players in this 21st century National Surveillance State and the interest group pressures that now help to sustain its defenders in Washington work just as powerfully on Democrats as on Republicans.
NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts
The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The confidential memo reveals that the NSA encourages senior officials in its "customer" departments, such the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their "Rolodexes" so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.
The document notes that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.
The revelation is set to add to mounting diplomatic tensions between the US and its allies, after the German chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday accused the US of tapping her mobile phone.
After Merkel's allegations became public, White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications. But that failed to quell the row, as officials in Berlin quickly pointed out that the US did not deny monitoring the phone in the past.
Defense Counsel to Military Commission Judge: The Government Can’t Have It Both Ways
In yesterday’s pre-trial motions proceedings in the 9/11 military commissions case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants, defense attorneys argued that the U.S. government cannot block the defendants from telling their stories of torture while also pursuing the death penalty against them. ...
As some of the defense attorneys have noted, the desire to prevent evidence of wrongdoing from coming to light is one big reason that the government is trying defendants before military commissions at Gitmo, rather than in U.S. federal courts, which have a proven track record of successfully handling terrorism prosecutions. But article 13 of the Convention prohibits the U.S. from classifying information in order to cover up evidence of torture and related war crimes. ...
But why does a violation of CAT even matter in these proceedings? The link, the attorneys explained, is that by prohibiting the defendants from vindicating their rights under CAT, the gag order also prohibits defense counsel from doing the job that is required of them in a death penalty case: investigating and presenting any and all mitigating evidence. If they can’t do this, they say, then the judge must either dismiss the charges or, at the very least, take the death penalty off the table.
September 11 terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay prison injured in CIA custody
Medical records show that a September 11 terror suspect sustained a head injury while being held and interrogated by the CIA that has triggered lasting health problems, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, who is among five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged with plotting the 2001 attacks on US soil, told medics at the US prison that he suffered auditory hallucinations, vision problems, memory loss and delusions caused by the injury, attorney James Connell told a pretrial hearing.
The hearing was called to determine whether the 9/11 defendants are able to appropriately report claims of mistreatment, a right guaranteed under the UN Convention against Torture, during the three years that followed their 2003 arrest.
They were held in the CIA’s network of overseas prisons during that period and subjected to special interrogation techniques their lawyers call torture.
The newly released medical report, dated September 2006, described “mistreatment” that took place “several years earlier,” Connell said. He did not confirm how the head injury happened.
Connell said the government took no action after Ali made his claim of mistreatment.
White House Meeting With Congress On Iran Thursday, May Ask For Delay In Sanctions
The White House has asked senior Congressional committee staff to come to a briefing tomorrow in which staffers expect they will be asked to delay a new Iran sanctions bill, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
The source said senior committee staff from at least the Senate Foreign Relations and Banking committees have been asked to come to a meeting in the White House situation room on Thursday. The staff will be briefed by Phil Gordon, the National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf region, and according to the source will be encouraged to delay an Iran sanctions bill that is due to be marked up next week.
Fisk:
How the Sunni-Shia schism is dividing the world
The Muslim world’s historic – and deeply tragic – chasm between Sunni and Shia Islam is having worldwide repercussions. Syria’s civil war, America’s craven alliance with the Sunni Gulf autocracies, and Sunni (as well as Israeli) suspicions of Shia Iran are affecting even the work of the United Nations.
Saudi Arabia’s petulant refusal last week to take its place among non-voting members of the Security Council, an unprecedented step by any UN member, was intended to express the dictatorial monarchy’s displeasure with Washington’s refusal to bomb Syria after the use of chemical weapons in Damascus – but it also represented Saudi fears that Barack Obama might respond to Iranian overtures for better relations with the West. ...
Hatred of the Shia/Alawite Syrian regime, an unquenchable suspicion of Shia Iran’s nuclear plans and a general fear of Shia expansion is turning the unelected Sunni Arab monarchies into proxy allies of the Israeli state they have often sworn to destroy. Hardly, one imagines, the kind of notion that Prince Bandar wishes to publicise.
Furthermore, America’s latest contribution to Middle East “peace” could be the sale of $10.8bn worth of missiles and arms to Sunni Saudi Arabia and the equally Sunni United Arab Emirates, including GBU-39 bombs – the weapons cutely called “bunker-busters” – which they could use against Shia Iran. Israel, of course, possesses the very same armaments.
Whether the hapless Mr Kerry – whose risible promise of an “unbelievably small” attack on Syria made him the laughing stock of the Middle East – understands the degree to which he is committing his country to the Sunni side in Islam’s oldest conflict is the subject of much debate in the Arab world.
Andrew Bacevich exposes one of my pet peeves, the warmongers in the press, punditry and public offices' use of the term "isolationist" to berate those that oppose America's obsession with military interventions:
Always and Everywhere: The New York Times and the Enduring 'Threat' of Isolationism
The abiding defect of U.S. foreign policy? It’s isolationism, my friend. Purporting to steer clear of war, isolationism fosters it. Isolationism impedes the spread of democracy. It inhibits trade and therefore prosperity. It allows evildoers to get away with murder. Isolationists prevent the United States from accomplishing its providentially assigned global mission. Wean the American people from their persistent inclination to look inward and who knows what wonders our leaders will accomplish.
The United States has been at war for well over a decade now, with U.S. attacks and excursions in distant lands having become as commonplace as floods and forest fires. Yet during the recent debate over Syria, the absence of popular enthusiasm for opening up another active front evoked expressions of concern in Washington that Americans were once more turning their backs on the world.
As he was proclaiming the imperative of punishing the government of Bashar al-Assad, Secretary of State John Kerry also chided skeptical members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “this is not the time for armchair isolationism.” Commentators keen to have a go at the Syrian autocrat wasted little time in expanding on Kerry’s theme. ...
In fact, from the day of its founding down to the present, the United States has never turned its back on the world. Isolationism owes its storied history to its value as a rhetorical device, deployed to discredit anyone opposing an action or commitment (usually involving military forces) that others happen to favor. ... For this very reason, the term isolationism is not likely to disappear from American political discourse anytime soon. It’s too useful. Indeed, employ this verbal cudgel to castigate your opponents and your chances of gaining entrée to the nation’s most prestigious publications improve appreciably. Warn about the revival of isolationism and your prospects of making the grade as a pundit or candidate for high office suddenly brighten. This is the great thing about using isolationists as punching bags: it makes actual thought unnecessary. All that’s required to posture as a font of wisdom is the brainless recycling of clichés, half-truths, and bromides.
'It couldn't be worse': Friends cross guns as war breaches every home in Syria
Training of Syrian insurgents steps up in Saudi Arabia
Free Syrian Army (FSA) units are receiving intensive training from US Marine Corps personnel in Saudi Arabia, a senior FSA source has told IHS Jane's .
The source said the United States and Saudi Arabia have agreed to train around 1,500 insurgents. The programme began a few months ago and most of the personnel will be trained by the end of 2013.
Coalition to Congress: Don't Fast-Track the TPP
'Given the administration's complete lack of transparency in negotiating the TPP, it is vitally important that democratically elected representatives are at least given the opportunity to conduct a review and push for fixes,' write groups
Slamming the Obama administration's "complete lack of transparency in negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)" trade agreement, a coalition of public interest groups urged members of Congress to reject the president's request for the ability to fast-track the deal.
Last month, Obama said he would be pushing for Trade Promotion Authority—legislation that would allow him to fast-track trade agreements by giving Congress a yes or no vote but taking away powers to amend ... The authority would prevent congressional ability to push for fixes to what Politico described as "the biggest free-trade deal in history — a pact involving 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, dwarfing NAFTA — and remaking global trade policy for a generation," and what Public Citizen's Lori Wallach described bluntly as "NAFTA on steroids."
Link to letter opposing fast-track authority.
UC Davis pepper-spraying cop gets $38K for disability claim
Former UC Davis officer John Pike, famous for casually pepper spraying a group of students in the face during a 2011 protest, was awarded a $38,000 settlement for psychiatric injuries for the way he was treated afterwards. Pike, who was eventually fired, filed a workers compensation claim this summer.
That means that Pike, who walked up to a group of sitting, passive students and pepper sprayed their faces, will get a comparable compensation from the university to that awarded to the students he targeted. UC Davis has also settled with the students actually targeted by Pike's pepper spray, agreeing to pay out $1 million total to 21 plaintiffs. That breaks down to a bit less per student than Pike himself will get: $30,000 per plaintiff, plus a $250,000 sum for their lawyers to split and a handful of other delegated portions of the award. The university also formally apologized as part of the settlement. Pike's settlement includes $5,700 in legal fees for his lawyer in the case.
Pike was eligible for worker's comp from the incident after a psychiatrist found that the former officer has a "moderate" disability, ABC affiliate KXTV explains. He claimed to have "suffered depression and anxiety over the way he was treated in the wake of the incident," they note.
The Evening Greens
Wall Street Demands Answers From Fossil Fuel Producers on 'Unburnable' Carbon
A well-heeled coalition of investors is asking top fossil fuel companies to calculate the risks of plowing billions into new oil, gas and coal projects. They fear that carbon emission limits and slowing demand will turn them into bad investments that leave investors worse off.
The requests, contained in letters sent to 45 companies last month, are part of an initiative aimed at persuading oil producers and others to rein in their quest to stockpile more carbon energy. They hope to do so by tapping into growing concerns that climate policies and market factors could prevent companies from selling all of their reserves of fossil fuels, which are still growing fast.
Companies with large amounts of such "unburnable" carbon resources could see their stock prices slashed, clobbering the value of investment portfolios that hold the shares. By one estimate, as much as 30 percent of the value of some of the world’s stock exchanges is in proven fossil reserves.
Documents Raise Important Questions About Tesoro's Pipeline Spill in North Dakota
Documents from an open records request by Greenpeace have uncovered that Tesoro, a fracking giant based in San Antonio possibly knew their pipeline was dangerously weak.
Tesoro ran tests on the pipeline that ruptured more than 2 weeks before the spill was discovered.
A robot, known as a "smart pig," detected weaknesses in the pipeline on September 10 and 11. Tesoro claims that they did not have ample time to digest the data before the spill, but Tesoro employees on the ground tell a different story. Furthermore, once the pipeline spill was discovered, Tesoro dispatched crews to check two other sites on the pipeline for leaks, indicating they were aware of potential fail points in the pipeline. See the documents uncovered by Greenpeace here.
... [W]hen the spill was finally reported to the authorities, the quarter inch hole had already released hundreds of thousands of gallons, enough to make the Teoro spill the largest in North Dakota history. When Tesoro did report the spill, it did not report it through the proper channels. This caused confusion with state officials, and helped keep the spill out of the public eye for weeks. ...
In North Dakota, the Department of Health oversees environmental crimes such as Tesoro’s spill. Documents obtained by Greenpeace show a close relationship between regulators for the Department of Health, the North Dakota body responsible for overseeing Tesoro, and the company itself. Regulators for North Dakota’s DOH helped Tesoro call the police on people investigating the spill, and helped Tesoro “keep the problem in North Dakota,” by trying to contain leaked information.
What's Behind Surging Ozone Pollution in Texas? Study to Weigh Role of Fracking in Health Hazard
When ozone pollution skyrocketed in the tiny town of Boulder, Wyo., in 2008, it was relatively easy to identify the culprit as oil and gas drilling, the only major industry in the rural area.
Today, a similar situation in San Antonio, Texas, will be more difficult to resolve. The city has violated federal ozone standards dozens of times since 2008, but with so much industrial activity in and around the city—including the Eagle Ford shale drilling boom south of San Antonio—local officials are waiting for the results of a state-funded study to pinpoint the source of the pollution.
San Antonio's ozone problem is so serious that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could designate the city a nonattainment area for ozone, a hazardous air pollutant that can cause serious respiratory problems. If that happens, the growing city would likely be saddled with additional air quality regulations, including stricter pollution controls on vehicles and industrial plants. ...
The ozone study will include an emission inventory of all pollution sources in the region. The final report, due in December, is expected to determine how much of the problem is caused by drilling in the Eagle Ford, arguably the nation's largest oil and gas development.
Texas ‘safari club’ auctioning chance to kill rhino in the name of conservation
A Texas hunting group will auction off the opportunity to kill a member of the endangered black rhino species, arguing that the money raised will be used to fund conservation efforts.
The Dallas Observer reported on Wednesday that the Dallas Safari Club (DSC) has obtained permission from both the Namibian government and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to auction off the special permit during its January 2014 convention.
Only 5,055 rhinos are still living in the wild, with about 1,800 of them in Namibia.
WV Frack Waste: Poorly Monitored, Much Stays Underground
West Virginia's Marcellus wells leave huge quantities of fracking fluid underground, and the industry's use of water and waste production is very poorly monitored, according to a new report to state lawmakers. ...
"Marcellus wells are injecting about 5 million gallons per well of fracking fluid," he said. "Only about 8 percent returns to the surface." ... Hansen's research indicates reporting laws are largely unenforced.
"Operators are supposed to report to the DEP within a year," he said, "but what we found is that only about 35 percent had reported their water withdrawals and their waste generation."
The wells also produce huge amounts of underground brine, which contains salt and some natural toxins. Unlike other states, Hansen said, West Virginia doesn't require the drillers to report how much brine they produce or what they do with it.
Rally Against Mass Surveillance
October 26th, 2013 in Washington, D.C.
Right now the NSA is spying on everyone's personal communications, and they’re operating without any meaningful oversight. Since the Snowden leaks started, more than 569,000 people from all walks of life have signed the StopWatching.us petition telling the U.S. Congress that we want them to rein in the NSA.
On October 26th, the 12th anniversary of the signing of the US Patriot Act, we're taking the next step and holding the largest rally yet against NSA surveillance. We’ll be handing the half-million petitions to Congress to remind them that they work for us -- and we won’t tolerate mass surveillance any longer.
StopWatching.us is a coalition of more than 100 public advocacy organizations and companies from across the political spectrum.
Click here for more information
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Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
A Day at the Park
Obama’s Remarks on the ACA Rollout Debacle: From Selling Hope and Change to Hawking Insurance
NSA Disinformation: There's No Evidence That Massive Data Collection Thwarts Terror Attacks
A Little Night Music
Oscar Peterson - Cakewalk
Oscar Peterson & Count Basie - Jumpin' At The Woodside
Oscar Peterson - Eight Bar Boogie Blues
Keith Emerson & Oscar Peterson - Honky Tonky Train
Ray Charles & Oscar Peterson - Blues for Scotia
Oscar Peterson Trio - A Gal In Gallico
Oscar Peterson - Take the A-train
Stuff Smith & Oscar Peterson - Things Ain't What They Used to Be
Oscar Peterson - C Jam
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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