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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Texas guitarist, singer and songwriter Stevie Ray Vaughan. Enjoy!
Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King & Albert Collins - Texas Flood
“In the cabaret of globalization, the state shows itself as a table dancer that strips off everything until it is left with only the minimum indispensable garments: the repressive force.”
-- Subcomandante Marcos
News and Opinion
An Awkward Question for Robert Gates: Has the Deep State Taken Over?
One passage [of Robert Gates' memoir] struck me as more troubling and revealing than its author perhaps realizes. It concerns the Afghanistan policy review in 2009 and General Stanley McChrystal's surprise request for a substantial escalation of U.S. forces. The request "surprised the White House (and me) and provoked a debate that the White House didn't want," Gates wrote. "I think Obama and his advisers were incensed that the Department of Defense—specifically the uniformed military—had taken control of the policy process from them and threatened to run away with it."
Civilian control of U.S. foreign policy is rather important. So I can't help but marvel at the casual manner in which this former secretary of defense observes that the uniformed military did take control of the policy process with regard to Afghanistan, and implies that they had the capacity to "run away with" the policy process.
If true, isn't that cause for alarm? When insiders seem to take it for granted that the president isn't quite in charge, when even Obama himself frames his relationship with the NSA as one where he proposes that they rein themselves in, rather than ordering them to act within constraints he sets, what are those of us on the outside to think? ... The excerpt of Gates's memoir suggests that the Deep State's power, and the attendant weakness of the elected officials meant to control U.S. policy, is in fact a problem.
Intel Committee Publishes Fact-Free Press Release About Secret 'Damage' Assessments of NSA Leaks
House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers and his Democractic counterpart Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger published a press release today touting a classified Defense Department report alleging that Edward Snowden’s leaks—and by proxy, stories published by news organizations—threaten national security and “are likely to have lethal consequences for our troops in the field.”
Before going any further, let’s remember what the Washington Post reported just two weeks ago about the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper:
Clapper has said repeatedly in public that the leaks did great damage, but in private he has taken a more nuanced stance. A review of early damage assessments in previous espionage cases, he said in one closed-door briefing this fall, found that dire forecasts of harm were seldom borne out.
Now go back and read the press release closely. No specific examples are given, and you will notice virtually every sentence includes the word “could”—meaning real damage hasn’t actually occurred, and they are just saying it potentially could happen. And of course, the actual report is secret, so the two Congressmen are able to say whatever they wish about it, and it can’t be independently verified. (Rep. Mike Rogers also has a long history of not telling the truth.)
Congressmen Cooperate With Obama To Selectively Reveal Secret Report Info to Discredit Snowden
A Pentagon review has concluded that the disclosure of classified documents taken by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden could "gravely impact" America's national security and risk the lives of U.S. military personnel, and that leaks to journalists have already revealed sources and methods of intelligence operations to America's adversaries. At least, that's how two members of Congress who have read the classified report are characterizing its findings. But the lawmakers -- who are working in coordination with the Obama administration and are trying to counter the narrative that Snowden is a heroic whistleblower -- offered no specific examples to substantiate their claims. ...
A congressional staffer who is familiar with the report's findings said that the lawmakers chose to make some of its contents public in order to counter what they see as a false impression of Snowden as a principled whistleblower who disclosed abuses of power. ...
The staffer said that the administration approved the information that the lawmakers disclosed in advance.
EU report reveals massive scope of secret NSA surveillance
The report summarizes the findings from the past six months. On page 16, the text says that the recent revelations in the press by whistleblowers and journalists, together with the expert evidence given during the inquiry, have resulted in "compelling evidence of the existence of far-reaching, complex and highly technologically advanced systems designed by US and some Member States' intelligence services to collect, store and analyze communication and location data and metadata of all citizens around the world on an unprecedented scale and in an indiscriminate and non-suspicion-based manner." ...
The fight against terrorism, according to the committee's draft report, can "never in itself be a justification for untargeted, secret and sometimes even illegal mass surveillance programs." [British MEP from the group of Socialists and Social Democrats, Claude] Moraes and his fellow rapporteurs showed themselves unconvinced that the NSA's only goal is the fight against terrorism, as the US government has claimed. In their draft report, European politicians suspect that there are instead "other power motives," such as "political and economic espionage." ...
Moraes wrote that "privacy is not a luxury right, but the ... foundation stone of a free and democratic society." ...
During Thursday's session, MEPs repeated the call to halt negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the United States. But Kilian Froitzhuber from German-language blog netzpolitik.org said he doesn't believe that talks will be suspended. He told DW he was glad, however, to see that "in the draft report, the committee announces that the European Parliament won't sign any agreement that doesn't explicitly protect the civil liberties of European citizens."
Hedges and Binney on Obama NSA guidelines
Ron Wyden: the future of NSA programs is being determined now
Privacy advocates pressed Barack Obama to end the bulk collection of Americans’ communications data at a series of meetings at the White House on Thursday, seizing their final chance to convince him of the need for meaningful reform of sweeping surveillance practices.
A key US senator left one meeting at the White House with the impression that President Obama has yet to decide on specific reforms. “The debate is clearly fluid,” senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a longtime critic of bulk surveillance, told the Guardian after the meeting. “My sense is the president, and the administration, is wrestling with these issues,” Wyden said. ...
“What I’d say to Americans is that the future of these programs is being determined now,” Wyden said. “For those like me, who believe that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive, this is the time to weigh in.”
NSA makes final push to retain most mass surveillance powers
The National Security Agency and its allies are making a final public push to retain as much of their controversial mass surveillance powers as they can, before President Barack Obama’s forthcoming announcement about the future scope of US surveillance. ...
In a lengthy interview that aired on Friday on National Public Radio (NPR), the NSA’s top civilian official, the outgoing deputy director John C Inglis, said that the agency would cautiously “welcome” a public advocate to argue for privacy interests before the secret court which oversees surveillance. Such a measure is being promoted by some of the agency’s strongest legislative critics. ...
Expectations are high that Obama will follow the recommendations of a review group he set up, which suggested that the responsibility for the bulk domestic call records database should be transferred from the NSA to a third party, such as the phone companies. But Inglis said that would not necessarily mean the end of the program, provided any dataset held outside of NSA had “sufficient depth” and “sufficient breadth” over “the whole haystack” of call records going back for years, and provided “sufficient agility” to the NSA to search it.
That is the subject of a heated dispute between the NSA and privacy advocates at the White House this week. Civil libertarian groups want to ensure that the legal standards for NSA to access phone records are heightened, to prevent Americans not suspected of wrongdoing from being caught in surveillance dragnets, and that companies are not required to store data for longer than the 18-month average maximum in the industry.
Preventing Cops From Using Drones To Spy On You
Obama promises 'year of action' on poverty in White House speech
In a White House speech attended by Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the president fleshed out details of federal assistance for five newly-designated economic “promise zones” around the country. ...
Stung by data showing long-term unemployment and poverty continuing despite a broader economic recovery, the White House is planning to make social mobility the centrepiece of this year's State of the Union speech on January 28.
Obama also revealed plans to meet with business leaders this month to agree a deal to hire long-term unemployed workers and will make a trip to North Carolina on Wednesday to promote job growth in high-tech industries.
The flurry of activity remains limited in scope and is far from unprecedented, but it has coincided with a rare outbreak of political agreement among rival parties that it has become the most pressing issue facing America. ...
The five promise zones – in Philadelphia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Los Angeles and San Antonio – will receive priority access to existing federal support programmes and some additional staff, but tax breaks and new money will only be forthcoming if Congress agrees.
Obama’s cheap-labor “promise zone” fraud
In a White House speech Thursday promoting his supposed offensive against inequality, President Barack Obama will formally name five communities as so-called “promise zones.” The White House on Wednesday released a statement identifying impoverished neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Antonio, as well as Southeastern Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, as the first such zones. Another fifteen regions are to be designated in the coming months. ...
The counterposition of these paltry proposals to the last significant social reforms in the US, including Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps, only underscores the repudiation by the political establishment and both big business parties of social reform and their joint drive to dismantle the reforms of the past. Obama’s claims to be fighting inequality are belied not only by his past record, but by the further attacks on the working class he is presently pursuing.
The White House and the Democratic Party are cynically seeking to use the Christmas-time expiration of benefits for 1.3 million long-term unemployed workers, which they engineered by dropping an extension from the two-year budget deal they negotiated with the Republicans, to attack the Republicans and posture as advocates of working and poor people in advance of the 2014 midterm elections. The Democrats have already indicated they will agree to new social cuts elsewhere in exchange for Republican acceptance of a mere 90-day extension of the benefits. ...
This compares to the trillions of dollars handed over to the banks and corporations in the form of taxpayer bailouts and the tens of billions in monthly subsidies to the financial markets provided by the Federal Reserve Board. ... Meanwhile, Obama is proposing alongside his “promise zones” another $5 billion in tax incentives for businesses that take advantage of the poverty-wage labor being offered up.
After 20 Years of NAFTA Poverty, Lawmakers Move to Fast-Track TPP
On the heels of NAFTA's "20 years of regret" anniversary, U.S. lawmakers are aggressively pushing legislation to fast-track what has been called NAFTA on steroids: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Three powerful lawmakers —House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — announced legislation (pdf) Thursday that would allow the Obama administration to fast-track approval of this behemoth trade deal.
Known as "trade promotion authority," the legislation would allow the Obama administration to dodge deliberation and amendments from Congress.
Public Citizen summarizes:
Whether or not the president obtains the listed negotiating objectives, the bill would empower the president to sign a trade pact before Congress votes on it with a guarantee that the executive branch can write legislation to implement the pact and alter wide swaths of existing U.S. law and obtain both House and Senate votes within 90 days. That legislation is not subject to markup and amendment in committee, all amendments are forbidden during floor votes and a maximum of 20 hours of debate is permitted in the House and Senate.
The legislation is being advanced despite broad opposition from within Capitol Hill as well as social justice, labor, and environmental organizations.
[Petition:
Congress: don't put the Internet's future in the hands of slimy lobbyists. No "Fast Track" for the TPP!]
Concerns Continue Over Algerian Detainees ‘Forcibly Repatriated’ From Guantanamo
Even as President Barack Obama’s renewed efforts to shutter the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are now picking up speed, some close observers of the process are worried that the government is applying inadequate or imbalanced safeguards in deciding how to go about moving detainees cleared for transfer.
In particular, rights groups suggest that two transfers carried out over the past month appear to have violated international law. In early December, the Pentagon announced the repatriation of two Algerian men, Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane and Belkecem Bensayah, both of whom had formally requested that they not be sent back to Algeria. Ameziane in particular has stated that he feared persecution if he were to be repatriated, either from the government or from militant groups.
Legal advocates say any decision to go ahead with forced repatriations would have broken a widely accepted provision in international human rights law called non-refoulement, a concept that bars the transfer of individuals to any state where they may face persecution, particularly torture. ...
“This is a very serious breach on the part of the United States. The idea of non-refoulement offers specific protections against the possibility of torture, and clearly specifies that you cannot be returned to a country where you have fear of being persecuted or tortured.”
On Dec. 10, two U.N. special rapporteurs likewise warned that they were “deeply concerned” that the life of Ameziane, in particular, could be in danger. They also brushed aside a Pentagon statement that U.S. officials had received assurances from Algerian counterparts that the two men would not be harmed. The special rapporteurs noted that “diplomatic assurances are unreliable and ineffective in protecting against torture and ill-treatment.”
4 year-old Afghan boy shot and killed by US Marines
A four-year-old Afghan boy has been shot dead by US forces.
Afghan officials said on Friday that the boy had been accidently shot and killed in the latest violent incident to strain ties between the uneasy allies.
A spokesman for the governor of the southern province of Helmand told Reuters that US marines based in the province mistakenly shot the boy on Wednesday because visibility was poor.
"As the weather was dusty, the marine forces based there thought he was an enemy and opened fire. As result of mistaken fire, he was killed," the spokesman, Omar Zwak, said by telephone.
A spokesman for the Nato-led force said the matter would be investigated and that all possible measures were taken to avoid civilian casualties.
US 'tried to oust Hamid Karzai by manipulating Afghan elections'
The US government tried to oust the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, by manipulating elections in 2009, in what amounted to a "clumsy and failed putsch", the former defence secretary Robert Gates has been quoted as writing in his memoirs.
Karzai has long claimed that the US tried to manipulate the poll to remove him from office, while Washington insisted it was an impartial supporter of democracy. The revelations in Gates's account of his years in power, which is published next week and covers the war in Afghanistan, appear to vindicate the Afghan leader's suspicions.
The top US diplomat Richard Holbrooke supported Karzai's rivals in the hope of pushing the poll to a second round that the incumbent would lose, Foreign Policy magazine reported. ...
Holbrooke, who died in December 2010, was the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and played a key role in 2009 efforts to remove Karzai from power. He paid public lip-service to the idea of a level playing field, but was working behind the scenes to ensure the opposite, Gates writes: "Holbrooke was doing his best to bring about the defeat of Karzai… What he really wanted was to have enough credible candidates running to deny Karzai a majority in the election, thus forcing a runoff in which he could be defeated."
Tactics included advising candidates, attending their rallies and organising high-profile photo opportunities, the memoir claims. Karzai soon noticed the efforts, it adds.
I helped destroy Falluja in 2004. I won't be complicit again
I am having flashbacks to my time as a marine during the second siege of Falluja in 2004. Again, claims are being published that al-Qaida has taken over the city and that a heavy-handed military response is needed to take the city back from the control of terrorists.
The first time around, this claim proved to be false. The vast majority of the men we fought against in Falluja were locals, unaffiliated with al-Qaida, who were trying to expel the foreign occupiers from their country. There was a presence of al-Qaida in the city, but they played a minimal and marginal role in the fighting. The stories about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was said to be recruiting an army in Falluja, were wildly exaggerated. There is no evidence that Zarqawi ever even set foot in Falluja.
This week, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior's assertion that al-Qaida's affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has taken over half of Falluja is being parroted in headlines by almost every major media network. But again, it appears that the role of al-Qaida in Falluja is being exaggerated and used as a justification for a military assault on the city. ...
The violence began just over a week ago, when Iraqi security forces disbursed a protest camp in Falluja and arrested a politician who had been friendly to the protestors' goals. This camp was part of a non-violent protest movement – which took place mostly in Sunni cities, but was also receiving some support from the Shia community – that began a year ago. ...
The Iraqi government's recent actions in Falluja turned the non-violent movement violent. When the protest camp in Falluja was cleared, many of the protestors picked up arms and began fighting to expel the state security forces from their city. It was local, tribal people – people not affiliated with transnational jihadist movements – who have taken the lead in this fight against the Iraqi government.
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014): Poet-Playwright-Activist Who Shaped Revolutionary Politics, Black Culture
The Evening Greens
Disney does propaganda for the frackers:
Radio Disney's pro-fracking elementary school tour sparks outrage
An educational program funded by Ohio’s oil and gas industry and sponsored by Radio Disney has environmental activists — and some parents — up in arms over what they say is a hijacking of public education by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) interests, in a state sitting on billions of dollars’ worth of gas-rich shale.
The program, called Rocking in Ohio, went on a 26-stop tour of elementary schools and science centers across the state last month. It involves interactive demonstrations of how oil and gas pipelines work, and is led by three staffers from Radio Disney’s Cleveland branch. It is entirely funded by the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP), which gets its money from oil and gas companies.
Radio Disney, a nationwide network of radio stations aimed at kids, has said it will take the tour to other states if it deems the program successful. The company could not be reached for comment in time for the publication of this story.
West Virginia chemical spill hits water supplies
A chemical spill along a West Virginia river has resulted in a tap water ban for as many as 300,000 people, shutting down schools, bars and restaurants and forcing residents to queue at stores for bottled water.
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency for nine counties as a result of Thursday's spill of 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, a chemical used in the coal industry. The spill occurred along the Elk river in Charleston, the capital of the eastern US state. ...
The spill originated at Freedom Industries, a Charleston company, according to Laura Jordan, external affairs manager for West Virginia American Water.
It occurred right above the intake of the Kanawha Valley water treatment plant in Charleston – the largest in West Virginia – and affects 100,000 homes and businesses, or 250,000 to 300,000 people, Jordan said.
"It could be potentially harmful if swallowed and could potentially cause skin and eye irritation," she said.
Climate, Consumers, and Communities All at Risk If Crude Oil Export Ban is Lifted
Lifting the crude oil export ban is a terrible idea that endangers our communities, consumers, and the climate. Exporting US crude oil will immediately raise the price of oil in North America, raise profits for Big Oil, and thus increase dangerous drilling in our backyards and on our public lands. More drilling will mean more pipeline spills, more rail car explosions, and more poisoned land and water.
Only climate deniers such as the oil industry and their paid Representatives on Capitol Hill would propose lifting the crude oil export ban. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency warn, at least two thirds of existing proven global fossil fuel reserves need to be left in the ground. Much of the resource that would be unlocked by lifting the crude export ban is in fact still unproven. Lifting the oil export ban is simply climate denial in a new, and very dangerous, form.
The United States must not export its crude oil but should instead play a leading role in international efforts to stop new exploration for oil, coal, and gas that we cannot afford to burn, and to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
As Obama Holds Meetings, NSA Whistleblowers Warn Reforms to Preserve the Surveillance State
CDC: 27% of Trans women are HIV+
A Little Night Music
Albert Collins & Stevie Ray Vaughan - Frosty Live
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Pride And Joy
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Voodoo Chile
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Crossfire
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Scuttle Buttin'
Stevie Ray Vaughan + Johnny Copeland - Look At Little Sister
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - Cold Shot
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!
|