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 blues and r&b guitarist Robert Ward. Enjoy!
Robert Ward & Ry Cooder - Your Love Is Real
“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror. ”
-- George W. Bush
News and Opinion
Iraq War Now Being Fought By People Who Were Just Kids When It Started
Last week, the Pentagon announced the death of the first American serviceman in the war against ISIS. Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Neal was killed in what was described as a “non-combat incident” in Iraq, making him the first American to die in “Operation Inherent Resolve” – America’s latest military excursion into that country.
Cpl. Neal was only 19 years old. He would have only been eight at the outset of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and merely six on 9/11 – a child at the time of both these events. The fact that he ended up losing his life in Iraq is on one hand tragic, and on the other completely absurd.
The tragedy here is that a young man with a long future ahead of him ended up dying in a distant country before even reaching the age of twenty. The absurdity is that men such as him are still losing their lives as a result of still-inexplicable decisions made over a decade ago. The Iraq War never ended, but now it’s being fought by men who were just children when it started. Walter Lippman once said, “I don’t think old men ought to promote wars for young men to fight.” In our time, old men have been promoting wars that kids would ultimately end up fighting. ...
[I]t is stunning to remember the statements of those who assured us over a decade ago that the war in Iraq would take “weeks rather than months” to bring to its completion. The more cautious and conservative among them gave us an absolute maximum estimate of “five months” before we could go back to normalcy, and start watching America-friendly democracies begin to bloom across the Middle East. If this prediction had been in any way honest or correct, Cpl. Sean Neal may have been sitting in a college classroom today rather than lying in a flag-draped coffin on a military flight back home. Alas, it wasn’t.
Syria providing military support to Kurds in battle against ISIS, local media says
Damascus has provided military support to Kurdish forces to help them battle Islamic State, Syrian media have reported. The move would mean President Bashar Assad and his Western enemies could be backing the same forces against Islamist militants.
The main Syrian Kurdish party, which has repeatedly denied that it has cooperated with the Damascus government, described the report as propaganda.
Assad has mostly left the Syrian Kurds to their own devices and ceded control of some Kurdish areas in Syria to Kurdish militants while focusing his firepower on insurgents fighting to unseat him.
Kurds in Syria complain of years of marginalization under Assad but also fear Sunni Muslim militants.
New Islamic State video challenges Western version of battle for Kobani
The Islamic State posted a video Monday in which a captured British photojournalist, shown in an embattled Syrian town on the border with Turkey, denied that the fanatical group was retreating before a Syrian Kurdish militia backed by U.S. airstrikes and arms supplies. ...
The video was aimed at discrediting media reports that the Islamic State had been driven from the town of Kobani after a weeks-long assault against a Syrian Kurdish militia, known by the Kurdish acronym YPG, aided by U.S. airdrops of arms and ammunition and U.S. airstrikes that at times have been intense.
“Despite continual American air strikes which so far have cost nearly half a billion dollars in total, the mujahideen have pushed deep into the heart of the city,” said Cantlie, 43, using the Arabic word for holy warriors. “The battle for Kobani is coming to an end.”
Cantlie acknowledged that the airstrikes had forced some Islamic State commanders not to use tanks and other heavy armor “as they’d have liked.” But he denied that they’d broken off their push into the city. Instead, they’d adjusted their tactics and were now moving house-to-house with light arms.
“The mujahideen are just mopping up now, street to street and building to building. You can occasionally hear sporadic gunfire in the background as a result of those operations. But contrary to what the Western media would have you believe, it is not an all-out battle here now,” he said. “It is nearly over, as you can hear.”
Attack on Canadian Parliament Fuels "Anti-Terror" Laws, Ignoring Ties to Mental Illness, Drug Abuse
'Lone Wolf' Terrorist Acts Will Be Used to Justify the Surveillance State
When Nidal Hassan, the US Army psychiatrist turned jihadist, shot dead 13 people and injured more than 30 at Food Hood in 2009, his act was not officially deemed one of terror. The Department of Defense controversially classified the mass shooting as a case of "workplace violence"; Hassan had acted alone and could not be linked to any terror groups. Individual actors, it seemed, could not carry out terrorist acts.
Had the massacre taken place today, would it perhaps have been differently designated? We are, after all, in the era of "lone wolf" terror attacks.
The 24-hour news cycle is never shy to proclaim new "waves," "frontiers," and "faces" of terrorism. Accordingly, following a hatchet attack on NYPD officers and a shooting on Canada's Parliament Hill, the "lone wolf" has been discursively established as the domestic terror threat du jour. New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton called the hatchet attack "a terrorist attack, certainly"; Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the same of the shooting that left a soldier dead.
The phenomenon of individuals committing violent and murderous acts in the name of an ideology is nothing new in the US. The FBI's Operation Lone Wolf investigated white supremacists encouraging autonomous violent acts in the 1990s. Why, then, are we seeing pundits and politicians newly focus on the "lone wolf" category? There's no simple answer, but we can at the very least see that the old binary, distinguishing terror as the act of networked groups versus lone madman mass killings — a distinction that has tacitly undergirded post-9/11 conceptions of terrorism — doesn't serve the latest iteration of the war on terror.
[Why are we seeing the obsessive media wurlitzer focus on "lone wolf" actions? Perhaps it's because there aren't any acts of mass terror to focus on to keep the citizenry jangled up on fear of evil, swarthy terrists. - js]
Nuclear Agreement with Iran May Become Midterm Election Fodder in Congress
How congressional hawks plan to kill Obama’s Iran deal
Negotiations with Iran over the future of its nuclear program have not even concluded yet some members of Congress are preparing to manufacture a political crisis over a deal. Their beef? President Barack Obama may initially bypass Congress and suspend sanctions imposed on Iran to make a deal possible and only later ask lawmakers to end them permanently when it is determined that Iran has complied fully with its obligations under the deal.
Of course, many of the lawmakers complaining about the potential presidential end run voted to give him the right to waive sanctions when they passed sanctions legislation in 2010 and 2011. And, of course, only Congress can lift the sanctions permanently, so there wouldn’t be any circumventing to begin with.
So what’s really going on?
It’s very simple: If you prefer war with Iran over a deal with Iran – even one that would prevent it from building a bomb — your best and possibly last opportunity to kill the deal is immediately after the nuclear talks have concluded. That’s when distrust of Iran’s intentions will remain pervasive and when its commitment to carry out its side of the deal will still have to be demonstrated. Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pursued this tactic in January after an interim agreement was reached in November last year.
In the middle is the Obama administration, which is seeking a path that would make the deal durable by offering Tehran reversible economic relief at the outset of the deal with a promise to make it permanent once Iran has fully delivered on its end of the bargain.
And that is precisely what congressional opponents fear: Obama’s strategy will persuade the Iranians to accept significant limits to their nuclear program, allow inspectors to roam its nuclear facilities and cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency on compliance — paving the way for a final nuclear deal and permanent sanctions relief for Iran. Such a scenario would undermine congressional opposition because the Iranians would be allowed to prove over at least the course of a year that they are a trustworthy partner living up to their commitments under the deal. A vote soon after a deal is struck in November would keep distrust alive.
US questions Netanyahu's commitment to peace
The US State Department said Monday that recent Israeli actions are not reflective of an administration pursuing peace. During the daily press briefing, spokesperson Jen Psaki stressed that Israel must lower tensions and take the proper steps towards living in peace.
"We view settlement activity as illegitimate and unequivocally oppose unilateral steps that prejudge the future of Jerusalem," she said.
The State Department expressed concerns following reports of expedited construction beyond the Green Line. Psaki told journalists that the US is in high-level contact with the Israeli embassy to receive more information about the proposed move.
US: Israeli settlements an obstacle to peace
With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiling yet another massive settlement expansion in occupied East Jerusalem, US officials are openly expressing doubts about his commitment to the stalled peace process. ...
Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly warned Netanyahu about the expansion over the weekend, as State Department officials say he made it clear that US opposition to any expansions had not changed.
EU officials also said the plans raise “serious questions” about whether Israel was even interested in negotiated peace. The Israeli government’s answer seems to be that they want to be officially “interested” in peace, so long as it doesn’t require them to do anything that might lead toward a peace deal, or to stop doing anything that might prevent such a pact.
Jerusalem Tensions Escalate As Netanyahu Pushes Settlement Expansion
Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police continued through the weekend in East Jerusalem, where tensions have been on the rise for weeks as Israeli officials push to expand settlement and infrastructure construction in the occupied section of the city and the occupied West Bank.
Protests intensified after Israeli forces shot and killed 14-year-old Orwa Abd al-Wahhab Hammad, a Palestinian-American, at a Friday protest in Silwad, a village near Ramallah.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it "managed to prevent an attack" when it fired on the boy as he prepared to throw a Molotov cocktail — which is a version of events that Palestinian officials deny. The boy's relatives in New Orleans said the IDF responds with fire to children throwing rocks. ...
Jerusalem residents described the latest round of violence as the most severe during the wave of clashes that has gripped the city in the last several months.
[I]gnoring Israel's growing isolation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he is fast-tracking the construction of 1,000 more homes for Israeli Jews in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
He also announced new roads and development projects in the occupied West Bank.
Feds identify suspected 'second leaker' for Snowden reporters
The FBI has identified an employee of a federal contracting firm suspected of being the so-called "second leaker" who turned over sensitive documents about the U.S. government's terrorist watch list to a journalist closely associated with ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, according to law enforcement and intelligence sources who have been briefed on the case.
The FBI recently executed a search of the suspect's home, and federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia have opened up a criminal investigation into the matter, the sources said. ...
The case in question involves an Aug. 5 story published by The Intercept, an investigative website co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who first published sensitive NSA documents obtained from Snowden.
Headlined "Barack Obama's Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers," the story cited a classified government document showing that nearly half the people on the U.S. government's master terrorist screening database had "no recognized terrorist affiliation."
The story, co-authored by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux, was accompanied by a document "obtained from a source in the intelligence community" providing details about the watch-listing system that were dated as late as August 2013, months after Snowden fled to Hong Kong and revealed himself as the leaker of thousands of top secret documents from the NSA.
Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.
In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations.
The number of requests, contained in a 2014 audit of the surveillance program by the Postal Service’s inspector general, shows that the surveillance program is more extensive than previously disclosed and that oversight protecting Americans from potential abuses is lax.
The audit, along with interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, offers one of the first detailed looks at the scope of the program, which has played an important role in the nation’s vast surveillance effort since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The audit, which was reported on earlier by Politico, found that in many cases the Postal Service approved requests to monitor an individual’s mail without adequately describing the reason or having proper written authorization. ...
The Postal Service also uses a program called Mail Imaging, in which its computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail sent in the United States. The program’s primary purpose is to process the mail, but in some cases it is also used as a surveillance system that allows law enforcement agencies to request stored images of mail sent to and received by people they are investigating.
Child poverty up in more than half of developed world since 2008
Child poverty has increased in 23 countries in the developed world since the start of the global recession in 2008, potentially trapping a generation in a life of material deprivation and reduced prospects.
A report by Unicef says the number of children entering poverty during the recession is 2.6 million greater than the number who have been lifted out of it. “The longer these children remain trapped in the cycle of poverty, the harder it will be for them to escape,” it says in Children of Recession: the Impact of the Economic Crisis on Child Wellbeing in Rich Countries.
Greece and Iceland have seen the biggest percentage increases in child poverty since 2008, followed by Latvia, Croatia and Ireland. The proportion of children living in poverty in the UK has increased from 24% to 25.6%.
[As regards the US, the report reveals the following:
"In the United States, where extreme child poverty has increased more in this downturn than during the recession of 1982, social safety net measures provided important support to poor working families but were less effective for the extreme poor without jobs. Child poverty has increased in 34 out of 50 states since the start of the crisis. In 2012, 24.2 million children were living in poverty, a net increase of 1.7 million from 2008." - js]
Treacherous DLC/Blue Dog Democrats to get their comeuppance for betraying the people?
GOP Hits Social Security-Cutting Dems with negative ad barrage: Who Could’ve Seen It Coming?
Who could’ve seen it coming?
Progressives could be forgiven for developing something of a Cassandra complex when it comes to the Democratic Party’s economic stances. Here’s the latest case in point:
The Washington Post and Politico have warned us that Republicans, led by Karl Rove’s dark-money outfit, are attacking Democratic candidates for supporting the “bipartisan” cuts to Social Security that were all the rage in Washington for a few years.
Amid what the Post’s Lori Montgomery calls “charges of hypocrisy,” Democrats like Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina are being slammed for supporting increases in the retirement age and cuts to future benefits. Adding insult to injury, Republican ads are mocking the once-revered, supposedly “bipartisan” Simpson-Bowles deficit proposal as a “controversial plan” that “raises the retirement age.”
Hedges & Wolin (4/8) - Can Capitalism & Democracy Coexist?
Detroit lawyer closes bankruptcy trial: 'The city needs all the help it can get'
An attorney for the city of Detroit told a federal bankruptcy judge on Monday that the city’s survival depended on the approval of a plan that would right decades of irresponsible city management, a tumbling economy and systemic population loss.
“Detroit needs all the relief it can get from this court,” Bruce Bennett told judge Steven Rhodes. If Rhodes does not approve the city’s plan next week, Bennett said Detroit’s “situation would get worse and worse. No one would come here.”
The closing arguments in what is the largest chapter 9 bankruptcy case for a US municipality stretched all day Monday, representing the final phase of an often contentious saga for Detroit involving financial creditors and pension groups representing public workers clamoring before Rhodes to say they are owed more than originally stipulated in the city exit plan.
On Monday, Bennett said the city had reached deals with most of its major creditors, particularly the final holdouts: Financial Guaranty Insurance Co and Syncora Guarantee Inc. One aspect of the latest wrangling involves making the creditors allies in the city’s future. FGIC, for example, was guaranteed the lead role in a redevelopment of a downtown riverfront site, which was formerly the home of the Joe Lewis Arena. The bond insurer says it is owed about $1bn by the city. ...
Rhodes must decide this week if the city’s so-called “plan of adjustment” is feasible and fair to all parties. He said he will announce his ruling 2pm on 7 November.
Calls mount for Missouri to stay execution of inmate 'abandoned' by lawyers
Fifteen former federal and state judges have called for a stay of execution for Mark Christeson, a Missouri death row inmate who is set to be executed on Wednesday, arguing that the prisoner has in effect been abandoned by his own court-appointed lawyers.
Christeson, 35, will be judicially killed by lethal injection at 12.01am on Wednesday, barring a last-minute stay of execution. He is the only death row inmate in Missouri to have been denied a habeas review of his case – a crucial stage in the legal process that allows a prisoner to challenge his death sentence in the federal courts.
The legal record shows that the two public defense lawyers who have represented Christeson at the federal review stage missed a key deadline to file his petition. As a result, the prisoner was told he was not entitled to have his case looked at again because his request had been made in an “untimely” manner – thus destroying his last major hope of having his sentence overturned before execution.
The spotlight is now falling on his two Missouri-based lawyers, Eric Butts from St Louis and Philip Horwitz from Chesterfield. Not only did they file the petition 117 days late, they only met the prisoner for the first time more than a month after the April 2005 deadline had passed. ...
The judges are scathing about the decision, upheld by several courts, to refuse to grant Christeson a habeas review, despite evidence that his legal representation was seriously flawed. “Cases, including this one,” the judges write, “are falling through the cracks of the system. And when the stakes are this high, such failures unacceptably threaten the very legitimacy of the judicial process.”
The Bushes, Led by W., Rally to Make Jeb ‘45’
When Jeb Bush decides whether to run for president, there will be no family meeting à la Mitt Romney, no gathering at Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport to go over the pros and cons. “I don’t think it’ll be like a big internal straw poll,” said his son, Jeb Bush Jr.
But if there were, the results of the poll are pretty much in. As Mr. Bush nears a decision to become the third member of his storied family to seek the presidency, the extended Bush clan and its attendant network, albeit with one prominent exception, are largely rallying behind the prospect and pulling the old machine out of the closet.
“No question,” Jeb Jr. said in an interview, “people are getting fired up about it — donors and people who have been around the political process for a while, people he’s known in Tallahassee when he was governor. The family, we’re geared up either way.” Most important, he added, his mother, Columba, the prospective candidate’s politics-averse wife, has given her assent. ...
Just six years ago, at the end of the last tumultuous Bush presidency, this would have been all but unthinkable. But President Obama’s troubles, the internal divisions of the Republican Party, a newfound nostalgia for the first Bush presidency and a modest softening of views about the second have changed the dynamics enough to make plausible another Bush candidacy. And while Jeb Bush wants to run as his own man, invariably this is a family with something to prove.
Easing the blues for down-and-out artists
The Evening Greens
'It Is Not Hopeless,' says World's Chief Climate Scientist
"It is not hopeless."
That was the key message delivered in Copenhagen on Monday by Rajendra Pachauri, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as the agency met to finalize the findings and language of its pending Synthesis Report, the last installment of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), designed to provide the world's policymakers with a comprehensive scientific assessment of the risks of human-caused global warming and climate change.
"The Synthesis Report will provide the roadmap by which policymakers will hopefully find their way to a global agreement to finally reverse course on climate change," said Pachauri. "It gives us the knowledge to make informed choices, the knowledge to build a brighter, more sustainable future. It enhances our vital understanding of the rationale for action—and the serious implications for inaction."
What was critical for world leaders, policymakers and the global public at large to understand, he said, was that though it won't be easy to avert the worse impacts of the world's changing climate, it is possible.
"A great deal of work and tall hurdles lie ahead. But it can be done. We still have time to build a better, more sustainable world. We still have time to avoid the most serious impacts of climate change," he said. "But we have precious little of that time."
Japanese Officials Vote to Reopen Nuclear Power Plant, Despite Volcanic Warnings
Local officials have voted to reopen a nuclear plant in Japan, despite warnings of increased volcanic activity in the region from scientists.
The decision comes despite a warning on Friday that Japan’s Seismological Agency had documented an increase of activity in the Ioyama volcano, located 40 miles away from the power station.
The Japanese government ordered the closure of all nuclear power plants and begun importing expensive fossil fuels to make up the shortfall following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, in which three nuclear reactors went into meltdown after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami.
The Satsumasendai city council overwhelmingly approved of proposals to open the Sendai plant, which is one of the chief employers on Kyushu, the most south-westerly of Japan’s islands. Sendai will become the first Japanese nuclear plant to reopen in since 2011. ...
The Sendai plant is also situated only 31 miles from Mount Sakurajima, an extremely active volcano which erupts on a regular basis.
Shell Wants Five More Years to Carry Out Arctic Plunder
Shell has urged the Obama administration to give it five more years to fulfill its quest for Arctic oil, citing the $6 billion the oil giant has already invested in the effort and circumstances it said were beyond its control.
Shell made the request in a letter (pdf) dated July 2014 and made public Monday by ocean conservation group Oceana.
Peter Slaiby, Vice President of Shell Alaska, writes in the letter to the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSSE) that "despite Shell's best efforts and demonstrated diligence, circumstances beyond Shell's control have prevented, and are continuing to prevent, Shell from completing even the first exploration well" in either of its Chukchi or Beaufort Sea lease holdings. ...
The letter does not include reference to the company's series of mishaps which environmental groups said was indication of the risks of drilling in the fragile area.
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The letter states that "the few short annual drilling seasons that remain are inadequate to make up for the many years that Shell has lost largely due to circumstances beyond Shells' control."
Oceana said Shell was asking for unwarranted rule-bending.
Hunters In Maine Are Legally Baiting Bears With Donuts — But Perhaps For Not Much Longer
A single ballot question in Maine has hunters, biologists, animal rights' activists, and local businesses at odds as the debate over three bear-hunting tactics — baiting, hounding, and trapping — moves to a vote on Nov. 4.
But the lines between the parties are not so clear. The State Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has sided with the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, stating that the practices help to control Maine's bear population, the largest in the country, and reduce conflicts between humans and wild bears. Some hunters, though, have joined the movement supporting the ballot, arguing that the tactics are unsportsmanlike and give hunters an unfair advantage over the bears.
The most controversial tactic has proven to be baiting, a practice in which hunters use high-calorie human foods, such as molasses or donuts, to draw bears to a specific location to be shot, sometimes beginning up to 30 days before hunting season opens.
"Baiting is the absolute worst thing you can do if you're trying to keep a stable bear population and minimize nuisance complaints," Katie Hansberry, of Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting (MFBH), told VICE News. "The hunters that are part of this coalition don't even consider it hunting because there's such an unfair advantage."
Monsanto, BigAg Spend Millions Fighting Colorado, Oregon Ballot Measures to Label GMO Foods
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Job brokers steal wages and entrap Indian tech workers in US
America’s great terrorist mystery: When our allies and enemies engage in the same “evil”
Annie Lennox on feminism, gay and transgender
World Beard and Moustache Championships
A Little Night Music
Robert Ward & Ry Cooder - Forgive Me Darling
Ohio Untouchables (w/Robert Ward) - Forgive me Darling
Robert Ward - Your Love Is Real
Robert Ward - My Love Is Strictly Reserved For You
Robert Ward - I'm Gonna Cry A River
Robert Ward - Your Love Is Amazing
Robert Ward - I Will Fear No Evil
Ohio Untouchables-I'm Tired
Robert Ward - Potato Soup
Ohio Untouchables (Robert Ward) - Hot Stuff
Robert Ward - You Ought To Stop It
Robert Ward + Wilson Pickett - Let's Kiss and Make Up
Wilson Pickett w/Ohio Untouchables - Swim
Robert Ward - Blessings
Robert Ward - Black Bottom
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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