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.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features boogie woogie and jump blues pianist Sammy Price. Enjoy!
Sammy Price Septet - One O'Clock Jump
"The last time this country was taxed by an elite group that didn't represent them, there was a revolution and they threw those people out. That is what you should do on this occasion."
-- Russell Brand
News and Opinion
Obama Knew Arming Rebels Was Useless, But Did It Anyway
What’s worse: Launching a disastrous military campaign under false pretenses to achieve goals you wrongly believe are attainable? Or launching a disastrous military campaign you know is doomed in order to help your party win an election?
I ask in light of today’s New York Times story about how President Obama asked the CIA a while back whether arming rebel forces – pretty much the agency’s signature strategy — had ever worked in the past.
He was told that it almost never has.
But then in June, once the political pressure for intervention in Syria got too great, he did just that — sending weapons to rebels fighting the Syrian military.
Yes: He knew better, but he did it anyway. ...
Obama could have leveled with the American public and said: Look, there’s not much we can do to help over there. Pretty much everything my best people have come up with only makes things worse. If there’s a solution at all, it’s for the Saudis and the Iranians and the Turks to make this their problem.
But that probably would have been cast by the elite media — not to mention Fox News — as surrender, costing the Democrats another few House and Senate races.
So it wasn’t even a possibility.
Bush also certainly saw – and exploited — the political upside of being a war president.
But he didn’t let loose the dogs of war simply because his political operatives told him it would poll well.
Obama to dump old Free Syrian Army and build new one
John Allen, the retired Marine general in charge of coordinating the U.S.-led coalition’s response to the Islamic State, confirmed Wednesday what Syrian rebel commanders have complained about for months – that the United States is ditching the old Free Syrian Army and building its own local ground force to use primarily in the fight against the Islamist extremists.
“At this point, there is not formal coordination with the FSA,” Allen told reporters at the State Department.
That was perhaps the bluntest answer yet to the question of how existing Syrian rebel forces might fit into the U.S. strategy to fight the Islamic State. Allen said the United States’ intent is to start from scratch in creating a home-grown, moderate counterweight to the Islamic State. ...
This time, Allen said, the United States and its allies will work to strengthen the political opposition and make sure it’s tied to “a credible field force” that will have undergone an intense vetting process.
“It’s not going to happen immediately,” Allen said. “We’re working to establish the training sites now, and we’ll ultimately go through a vetting process and beginning to bring the trainers and the fighters in to begin to build that force out.”
U.S. Will Fail In Attempt to Create Proxy Army in Syria
'... [T]here are no military solutions. This is what President Obama has said over and over again, and it's the one right thing that he has been consistent about in his rhetoric, and it's the one thing he has consistently violated in his actions.
There are no military solutions here. And claiming that there are, trying to use military solutions, is inevitably going to fail. It will fail dramatically if it's only airstrikes. It will fail even more dramatically if it is airstrikes plus U.S. ground forces. There are no military solutions.
And the political solutions that are necessary are not yet being put in place, because all of the focus is going towards the military, despite the claim that the military actions are only one part and we're really working on the diplomacy, the military actions are preventing any serious diplomatic move from going forward. ...
[E]very time the U.S. goes in with airstrikes in support of the Kurds and the Shia against ISIS, it's seen by Sunnis as one more airstrike against Sunnis, and it's going to undermine any possibility of changing the politics."
C.I.A. A Disaster Factory For Decades Yet Here We Go Again
Obama says that Operation Eternal Quagmire doesn't need no stinkin' authorization from Congress
White House says expired War Powers timetable irrelevant to Isis campaign
The White House on Wednesday said a timetable that expired over a week ago limiting its ability to continue a war unauthorized by Congress does not apply to the operation against the Islamic State (Isis) militant group.
The 1973 War Powers Resolution holds that presidents have a 60-day window to conduct hostilities without an act of Congress blessing the conflict. Absent such an explicit authorization, wars are supposed to lose their legal force.
The White House repeatedly cited the War Powers Resolution throughout the summer, as it notified Congress about troop deployments and airstrikes that inaugurated the war. Initial troop deployments for the war began in mid-June, although some legal scholars doubted that the ostensibly non-combat deployments started the clock.
7 October marked 60 days after US warplanes began bombing Isis positions in Iraq. The newest war – officially christened Operation Inherent Resolve by the US military on Wednesday – now includes attacks on Isis targets in Syria and is expected to last for years.
But according to the White House, a pair of 2001 and 2002 congressional resolutions, known as Authorizations to Use Military Force (AUMF), satisfy the War Powers Resolution’s requirement for a “specific authorization” from the US legislature.
Siege Possible as ISIS Nears Strategic Town in Iraq
BAGHDAD — Fighters from the Islamic State were mustering with tanks, armored vehicles and heavy weapons on Wednesday near a strategically located rural town about 25 miles west of Baghdad in the embattled province of Anbar, local officials said.
The militants were approaching the town from three directions — north, west and east — through surrounding farmland, and they appeared to be preparing a siege, the officials said. ...
Islamic State has tried twice in the past month to lay siege to Amariyat al-Falluja, about 10 miles south of Falluja, but the Iraqi police and military, in collaboration with members of the Albu Esa tribe, blocked their advance.
Conquering Amariyat al-Falluja would not put Islamic State closer to the capital; the group has occupied an area farther to the east, within about 12 miles of Baghdad International Airport, for several months.
But controlling the area would give the fighters a strategic advantage over an important transportation corridor that follows the Euphrates River and connects two Islamic State strongholds: the city of Falluja, which the group has controlled since the beginning of the year, and a region in northern Babil Province, south of the capital, where they have held ground since the summer.
Kurdish refugees receive ‘frosty welcome’
Saudi Arabia Beheaded 59 People So Far This Year — But Hardly Anyone is Talking About It
The string of beheadings of American and British hostages at the hands of the Islamic State has drawn horror and intense media scrutiny the world over, redoubling international determination to defeat the extremist group. ...
Since January of this year, 59 people have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia under the country's antiquated legal system based primarily around sharia law.
Last month saw Saudi Arabia behead at least 8 people — twice the number of Western hostages who have so far featured in IS's barbaric execution videos. In August those executed by Riyadh were sentenced to death for crimes such as apostasy, adultery and "sorcery." In one case, four members of the same family were executed for "receiving large quantities of hashish," a sentence imposed, according to Amnesty International, on the basis of "forced confessions extracted through torture."
The human rights group has reported a "disturbing surge" in executions in the kingdom. Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program, said that many are executed for petty crimes, highlighting the frequent and seemingly casual imposition of such sentences. ...
However, as an oil rich Western ally seen as key to the US-led offensive against IS, there remains little hope, at least within the short term, of large scale international condemnation.
Noam Chomsky: Growing Number of Nations Distancing Themselves From Israel's 'Explicitly Criminal Actions'
Noam Chomsky said Tuesday that recent votes in Europe to recognize Palestinian statehood show growing actions by populations to distance themselves from Israel's "criminal actions." The noted noted linguist, author, and critic of U.S. empire added that continued fossil fuel extraction is destroying a future that would allow decent human existence.
Chomsky made the comments to press at the United Nations headquarters ahead of a lecture he was giving on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. ...
Though the UK vote was symbolic, "it does affect British policy," he said. "It's another indication of the way the populations in Europe and also in the United States to an extent [...] want to distance themselves from the actions that Israel is taking, which are very explicitly criminal actions—there is no question about it."
"They want to distance themselves from those actions, both their criminality and their brutality," he said. In every more democratic society, he added, "sooner or later attitudes of the population can—they may not but they can—influence the direction of policy if there is effort and engagement in that direction."
Yemeni Man Sues Germany for Role in US Drone Killings of Civilians
A Yemeni man who lost two family members to a U.S. drone strike is suing the German government for its role in the attacks through its hosting of a U.S. military installation—Ramstein Air Base— which is critical to the covert drone war.
"Were it not for the help of Germany and Ramstein, men like my brother-in-law and nephew might still be alive today," said Faisal bin Ali Jaber, who has traveled to Germany to levy the suit, with representation from international legal charity Reprieve and the European Center for Constitutional Human Rights. "It is quite simple: without Germany, U.S. drones would not fly."
He explained, "I am here to ask that the German people and Parliament be told the full extent of what is happening in their country, and that the German government stop Ramstein being used to help the U.S.’s illegal and devastating drone war in my country."
German media outlets documented last year that Ramstein plays a key role in covert U.S. drone wars. According to Reprieve, Ramstein "is the crucial connector for all data transfer between the US and Yemeni air space. The data—which enables the pilots in the US to operate the drones in real time—is transferred via fiber optic cable from the U.S. to Germany and the Air Base Ramstein. From there the data is transmitted through a satellite-relay-station to the drone which is started by technicians at the US military base in Djibouti."
Russell Brand's Revolution
Outsourcing Public Services: Governors Push Privatization, With Disastrous Results
Governors across the country have outsourced important public services to private firms with high-powered lobbyists, mostly with disastrous results, according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Media and Democracy's "Outsourcing America Exposed" project.
"While large corporations are the winners in this scenario, all too often taxpayers are the losers when transparency, accountability and the public interest are sold out to for-profit firms," reads the report, titled Pay to Prey: Governors Facilitate the Predatory Outsourcing of Public Services (pdf).
Pay to Prey details boondoggles from Pennsylvania, where Governor Tom Corbett "outsourced millions of dollars in state legal contracts to outside law firms (including one that later defended his unconstitutional voter ID bill) that are among his biggest campaign contributors;" Ohio, where Governor John Kasich’s "privatized economic development agency has failed to deliver promised jobs, but is receiving a huge stream of funds from Ohio liquor sales;" and Florida, where Governor Rick Scott "championed initiatives to drug test state employees and welfare recipients, benefiting his drug testing company;" along with those in other four other states.
Supreme Court Lets Abortion Clinics Reopen, Easing Crisis of Access in Texas
#SolidarityWithTeachers: Philly Educators, Students, Parents Take to the Streets
Hundreds of teachers, students, parents, and union leaders are expected to attend a massive rally in Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon, protesting the recent cancellation of the teachers' union contract and imposition of health care costs on educators.
The demonstration will take place at 4 p.m. outside a meeting of the state's School Reform Commission (SRC), which last week voted quietly and unanimously to terminate the contract, a move many see as openly hostile to the union and to the city's public education system in general.
Labor leaders weighed general strike over Philadelphia SRC action
Outraged by the School Reform Commission's decision to cancel its collective bargaining agreement with Philadelphia public school teachers, city labor leaders contemplated calling for a general strike.
In two meetings, last Thursday and Sunday, labor leaders debated the wisdom of asking members of all area unions - laborers, electricians, communications workers, janitors, nurses, bus drivers, city employees - to walk off their jobs to protest the SRC's decision. ...
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, told the group that he wanted to exhaust legal remedies first.
And the leaders decided to await the outcome of the Nov. 4 gubernatorial election. Democratic candidate Tom Wolf has said he supports returning Philadelphia's schools to local control. The SRC is a state board.
"After a thorough vetting, we decided to go out and get Tom Wolf elected" governor, Dougherty said.
The only 'outside agitators' left in Ferguson are the white cops who don't live here
“Outside agitator” rhetoric is far from new. In 1964, in the midst of Freedom Summer, Mississippi governor Ross Barnett called workers organizing voter registration drives “outside agitators”. ... And though the specter of “outside agitators” was first raised by the Ferguson police, it is now articulated by people from both sides of the political divide. Conservatives use it to shift attention away from police brutality and state repression and focus instead on a few individuals they claim are inciting violence. Liberals, on the other hand, are legitimately concerned for the livelihood of Ferguson residents and their community.
But liberals’ allegiance to nonviolence renders the very idea of an “outside agitator” anathema. As a result, the peaceful protestor-outside agitator binary is used by those in power – across party lines – to legitimize state violence, perpetuate criminal stereotypes and, ultimately, prevent the possibility of a wider movement against police brutality, state repression and anti-black state violence.
If those in power can turn the youth and seasoned elders, pastors and paralegals who gathered in Ferguson this weekend into scary “outside agitators”, then the push to end police brutality will never grow beyond Ferguson. ... The real question is not who belongs in Ferguson physically, but rather, who belongs in the fight that Ferguson now represents politically – that is, the struggle against police brutality and anti-black state violence. ...
The bullets that ended Michael Brown’s life emerged from the same system of anti-black violence that ends the futures of millions of black girls and boys across the US – be it through our failing school system, the growing prison industrial complex or any of the other structures of racial hierarchy that continually and systemically oppress black America. As long as we allow the narrative of white supremacy to define the limits and possibilities of our resistance, we’ve already lost. ...
Within the gaze of white supremacy, all black people are potential “outside agitators”.
But through the eyes of black folk, from Ferguson to Flatbush, the real “outsider agitators” are the police officers who don’t live here but come in to “agitate” black people. The real “outside agitators” are the political leaders who work against our right freedom and justice. They have truly “agitated” black America.
Hong Kong Government Says It Is Ready for Talks With Protesters, Again
Hong Kong's government is now ready to begin talks as early as next week with pro-democracy protesters, its chief executive said on Thursday, a day after a video of police officers beating an unarmed activist stirred further outrage on the city's streets.
CY Leung made the announcement during a live press conference, saying that officials had via the use of mediators been negotiating with students over the course of the last week. ...
The protests are aimed at overturning rules imposed by the Chinese government which would allow only candidates pre-screened by Hong Kong's largely pro-Beijing establishment to run in the 2017 elections, despite an earlier promise of a free vote in the Special Autonomous Region (SAR). Many believe that Beijing will use the screening process to push through its own preferred candidates.
"Over the last few days, including this morning through third parties, we expressed a wish to the students that we would like to start a dialogue to discuss universal suffrage as soon as we can and hopefully within the following week", Leung told reporters.
The Evening Greens
Failing Humans and Planet, EPA Greenlights 'Agent Orange' Herbicide
Ignoring the concerns of scientists, doctors, food safety advocates, environmentalists, and more than half a million U.S. citizens, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday issued their final approval for what has been dubbed Dow AgroSciences' 'Agent Orange' herbicide.
In a press statement, the agrochemical giant said that their Enlist Duo herbicide is now registered for use on Dow Enlist-brand genetically engineered corn and soy crops, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved less than a month ago.
The herbicide is made from a combination of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, and 2,4-D, a component of the toxic Agent Orange herbicide used during the Vietnam War, which has been linked to numerous health issues including increased risks of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson's and immune system problems.
Organic advocates and environmental groups were quick to condemn the move, saying that the use of Enlist Duo will threaten the health of humans and environment, promote the expanded use of genetically modified seeds (or GMOs) and spur the growth of more herbicide-resistant weeds.
Eyes of Nye - GM foods
Ohio Earthquakes Directly Connected to Fracking, Research Shows
Fracking triggered hundreds of small earthquakes along a previously unmapped fault in eastern Ohio late last year, according to a new study to be published in the journal Seismological Research Letters.
Looking at data from National Science Foundation seismographs located near fracking sites, scientists from Instrumental Software Technologies, Inc. (ISTI) and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) were able to make direct connections between at least 400 small "micro-earthquakes" and nearby fracking operations. ...
"The earthquakes started shortly after fracking started on the wells and ended about two months after fracking ended," lead author Paul Friberg, of ISTI, told The Weather Channel. "There are no seismologists who have reviewed our work who think they were unconnected."
Lockheed announces breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.
Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed’s secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.
Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters.
In a statement, the company, the Pentagon’s largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Islamic State Insurgent Cells Cause Death and Discrimination Behind Iraq's Front Lines
With so many issues off the agenda, no wonder the midterms are a turn-off
Bashing Obama to Make Way for Hillary
NATO’s games with Ukraine bring world to 5 minutes before nuclear midnight - Stephen Cohen
Henry A. Giroux | Beyond Orwellian Nightmares and Neoliberal Authoritarianism
A Little Night Music
Sammy Price - Boogie Woogie French Style
Sammy Price - Low Down Blues
Denis Pogin, Sammy Price - The Swiss Boogie
Sammy Price and The K&K Dixie Band - Please Don't Talk About Me
Sammy Price - Boogin' With Big Sid
Sammy Price - Two Piano Boogie
Sam Price Quintet - Levee
Sam Price and his Texas Blusicians - The Goon Drag
Sam Price - Tishomingo
Sammy Price - Moanin' the Blues
Sammy Price - Trouble In Mind
Sammy Price & His Texas Blusicians - Do You Dig My Jive
Sammy Price - All Teeed Up
Teddy Buckner, Don Byas, Sammy Price 1958 Cannes - Blues in b-flat
Sammy Price - Honky Tonk Caboose
It's National Pie Day!
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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.
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