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 zydeco musician Boozoo Chavis. Enjoy!
Boozoo Chavis - Paper In My Shoe
"The sheer casualness with which Obama yesterday called for a new AUMF is reflective of how central, how commonplace, violence and militarism are in the U.S.’s imperial management of the world. That some citizens of that same country devote themselves primarily if not exclusively to denouncing the violence and savagery of others is a testament to how powerful and self-blinding tribalism is as a human drive."
-- Glenn Greenwald
News and Opinion
Matt Taibbi and Bank Whistleblower on How JPMorgan Chase Helped Wreck the Economy, Avoid Prosecution
There's too much here to abstract, here's a teaser:
The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare
Alayne Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.
Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank's mortgage operations.
Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she's kept her mouth shut since then. ... Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it's not exactly news that the country's biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That's why the more important part of Fleischmann's story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.
She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. "Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way," Fleischmann says.
Underwriting the Next Housing Crisis
Seven years after the housing bubble burst, federal regulators backed away this month from the tougher mortgage-underwriting standards that the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 had directed them to develop. New standards were supposed to raise the quality of the “prime” mortgages that get packaged and sold to investors; instead, they will have the opposite effect.
Responding to the law, federal regulators proposed tough new standards in 2011, but after bipartisan outcries from Congress and fierce lobbying by interested parties, including community activists, the Obama administration and the real estate and banking industries — all eager to increase home sales — the standards have been watered down. The regulators had wanted a down payment of 20 percent, a good credit record and a maximum debt-to-income ratio of 36 percent. But under pressure, they dropped the down payment and good-credit requirements and agreed to a debt-to-income limit as high as 43 percent.
The regulators believe that lower underwriting standards promote homeownership and make mortgages and homes more affordable. The facts, however, show that the opposite is true.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, down payments were 10 to 20 percent. The homeownership rate was 64 percent — about where it is now — and nearly 90 percent of housing markets were considered affordable (that is, home prices were no more than three times family income). By 2011 only 50 percent were considered affordable, and by 2014, just 36 percent — even though down payments as low as 5 percent are now common.
How could this be? Consider this: If the required down payment for a mortgage is 10 percent, a potential home buyer with $10,000 can purchase a $100,000 home. But if the down payment is dropped to 5 percent, the same buyer can purchase a $200,000 home. The buyer is taking more risk by borrowing more, but can afford to bid more.
In other words, low underwriting standards — especially low down payments — drive housing prices up, making them less affordable for low- and moderate-income buyers, while also inducing would-be homeowners to take more risk.
Fools & Their Money
The Justice Department Wants Wider Hacking Authorities for the FBI
Privacy and technology groups are sounding the alarm on an obscure government rule with major implications for law enforcement hacking.
Hiding behind the nondescript title “Proposed Amendment to Rule 41″ of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is a dangerous increase in authority for federal investigators to use invasive hacking techniques to spy on computers and access data, according to testimony submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and others to a regulatory panel in Washington, D.C., yesterday.
The rule change would allow law enforcement agents to get warrants to search and seize electronic materials from any jurisdiction, “if the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means” or in the case where a network of infected computers spreads across multiple districts.
“The likely effect would be for far more remote searches of far more machines,” said Joe Hall of the Center for Democracy and Technology. The ACLU described it as “a game changer in degrading online security [that] could green light systemic constitutional violations.”
FBI agent impersonated reporter for bomb investigation, director reveals
Director James Comey expands on revelations of how agency created fake news story, as Associated Press condemns ‘misappropriation of trusted name’
FBI director James Comey says an agent impersonated an Associated Press reporter during a 2007 criminal investigation, a ruse the news organization says could undermine its credibility.
In a letter Thursday to the New York Times, Comey said the agent “portrayed himself as an employee of the Associated Press” to help catch a 15-year-old suspect accused of making bomb threats at a high school near Olympia, Washington. It was publicized last week that the FBI forged an AP story during its investigation, but Comey’s letter revealed the agency went further and had an agent actually pretend to be a reporter for the wire service. ...
“That technique was proper and appropriate under Justice Department and FBI guidelines at the time. Today, the use of such an unusual technique would probably require higher-level approvals than in 2007, but it would still be lawful and, in a rare case, appropriate,” Comey wrote.
Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP, said the FBI’s actions were “unacceptable”.
British Spies Are Free to Target Lawyers and Journalists
British spies have been granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to newly released documents.
On Thursday, a series of previously classified policies confirmed for the first time that the U.K.’s top surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters (pictured above) has advised its employees: “You may in principle target the communications of lawyers.”
The U.K.’s other major security and intelligence agencies—MI5 and MI6—have adopted similar policies, the documents show. The guidelines also appear to permit surveillance of journalists and others deemed to work in “sensitive professions” handling confidential information.
The documents were made public as a result of a legal case brought against the British government by Libyan families who allege that they were subjected to extraordinary rendition and torture in a joint British-American operation that took place in 2004. After revelations about mass surveillance from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden last year, the families launched another case alleging that their communications with lawyers at human rights group Reprieve may have been spied on by the government, hindering their ability to receive a fair trial.
In a statement on Thursday, Reprieve’s legal director Cori Crider said that the new disclosures raised “troubling implications for the whole British justice system” and questioned how frequently the government had used its spy powers for unfair advantage in court. ...
In the U.S., the NSA has also been caught spying on lawyers.
If America is going to reveal the truth about torture, Obama must end Gitmo’s cover-up court
When the Senate’s long delayed torture report is finally released – if the new, Republican-controlled Senate releases it at all – the international conversation will rightly focus on the CIA torture program’s stunning strategic and moral failures, and the impunity granted so far to its architects. But the findings of the report, some of which have already been disclosed, should also force a conversation about the military commissions at Guantánamo, because those commissions are designed to mask the very conduct that the report condemns.
When President Bush created the military commissions, their purpose was to ensure the conviction of detainees on the basis of evidence obtained through torture. The due process enshrined in our constitution was essentially replaced by a kangaroo court: the military obstructed defendants’ access to counsel; it restricted their ability to see the evidence against them; and prosecutors were allowed to introduce hearsay evidence as well as statements obtained through coercion and torture. ...
While the commissions’ rules have since been reformed in some important ways by Congress and the Obama administration, justice at Guantánamo remains warped by the America’s legacy of torture. Continuing arbitrary rules and procedures, for instance, all but guarantee the conviction and execution of the five 9/11 defendants awaiting trial, all while allowing the government to keep secret the barbaric torture methods the CIA used on prisoners in secret detention centres. ...
Torture is so endemic to the prosecutions undertaken by the US military commissions that the military designed and built a special courtroom just to limit any outside access to unredacted testimony given at the commission: court and legal observers are relegated to “censorship chambers” attached to the courtroom, where they can only view the proceedings behind soundproof glass with a 40-second audio delay.
And just to make certain that no one will hear if the defendants or their lawyers mention torture outright, the military judge and commission’s security officer have a button to unilaterally cut that audio feed when they believe discussion might veer into dangerous territory. When the government can silence the truth about its own crimes in a single click, it’s the very negation of justice.
There's a lot more good information in this article than can be fairly excerpted. It's worth a full read.
The Senate Report on CIA Torture Is About to Reignite Debate Over the Killing of Osama Bin Laden
According to the Congressional Record, the report is divided into three volumes with different focuses: a comprehensive history of the interrogation program; the value of the intelligence it revealed; and the claims about its nature and effectiveness made by the CIA to Congress, the Justice Department, and the media. ... Although the Senate Intelligence Committee's report scrutinizes both Bush's talking points and public comments by other top officials in his administration about the efficacy of the program, it does not hold them responsible for sanctioning it. However, people familiar with the report told VICE News that the executive summary of the Senate report includes a lengthy history of the program that explicitly states the program was authorized in September 2001 through a directive known as a presidential finding.
To back up its findings, the summary of the Senate report focuses on "efficacy" and aims to answer, once and for all, the question that has been the subject of fierce partisan debate in the US since 9/11: Does torture work?
The report does so by reviewing 20 cases of high-value detainees who were interrogated at secret black site prisons in Europe. The value of the intelligence they provided to interrogators was frequently cited by the CIA to prove that the program was effective.
"It's irrelevant whether torture 'worked,'" said Zeke Johnson, a spokesman for Amnesty International. "We don't ask about the efficacy, for example, of genocide or rape. Torture is immoral and always illegal. The US government must disclose the full truth about the torture program, ensure justice for victims, and end impunity."
The Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that in all 20 cases, the program was ineffective. And in a handful of those cases, it finds that the CIA was more brutal than was previously known.
Republicans Take Senate, Likely To Push For More War -- War That Will Never End
Washington is at war in the Middle East. So what is new? Unfortunately, pressure for military intervention will grow with Republican control of the Senate. That body’s most war-happy members, such as John McCain, will enjoy increased influence.
The result of any new conflicts likely will be similar as before. America will be intervening again in a few years to try to clean up the mess it is creating today. And then going to war a few years after that for the same reason.
The U.S. is not bombing the Islamic State out of necessity. Rather, Washington is acting in response to past mistakes. ISIL exists only because the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. That action grew out of George H.W. Bush’s first war against Baghdad. Which was tied to American support for Saddam Hussein against Iran the previous decade. Which grew out of the Iranian revolution, whose victors targeted Washington because of its backing for the ousted Shah of Iran.
Thus, Americans are paying the price for decisions to meddle in the Middle East made decades ago. Yet a Greek Chorus of those most responsible for today’s failed policies loudly demands that the U.S. again intervene. ...
Yet the fact that bombing ISIL is bad policy is not the most important reason to oppose doing so. More fundamental is the fact that American policymakers have so often gotten the Middle East wrong, intervening arrogantly and maladroitly, creating more problems than they solved. The latter often turned into perceived crises, spurring new rounds of intervention, repeating the process. Again and again.
Oh looky, we're back to chasing an imaginary terrorist group again:
Khorasan group back in US crosshairs as air strikes hit non-Isis targets in Syria
The latest round of US air strikes in Syria were focused exclusively on an offshoot of al-Qaida and did not target the Islamic State militant group at all, the US military confirmed on Thursday, raising questions about a new expansion of the war.
A strike late on Wednesday, in Syria’s north-western Idlib province, is believed to have killed a French national, David “Daoud” Drugeon, a suspected bombmaker for the Khorasan group. Khorasan, which US intelligence officials have claimed is an al-Qaida external operations arm, has not been targeted by the US since the first day of air strikes in Syria in September.
The US Central Command said it used bombers, fighter jets and drones to hit five Khorasan vehicles and buildings near the city of Sarmada, said to be “meeting and staging areas, IED-making facilities and training facilities”. It did not confirm Drugeon’s death, instead saying it was still assessing the impact of the strikes.
While nothing about Khorasan is independently known or verified, US officials assert that it is a cell of Afghans and Pakistanis within al-Qaeda’s Syrian proxy, the Nusra Front. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria’s civil war, claimed that US air strikes also hit a headquarters for a Nusra-aligned militant group, Ahrar al-Sham.
US: ‘Khorasan’ Targets Were Planning Attack in West
Following up on reports earlier today of a US drone strike which are suspected to have killed a 24-year-old French member of al-Qaeda in northwest Syria, Central Command has confirmed a series of such attacks.
The targets were nominally dubbed “Khorasan” by Centcom, though of course it is widely believed Khorasan as such does not exist and that the term was invented by the US for its attacks on al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria.
Obama pens secret letter to Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei as nuclear deadline looms
A secret letter sent by Barack Obama to Iran’s religious and political leader suggested that diplomacy between the two adversaries over the nuclear issue might presage a broader rapprochement, despite the Obama administration’s denials.
The letter, penned in October and sent to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reportedly referenced a shared interest between the US and Iran in combatting Islamic State (Isis) militants in Iraq and Syria.
White House officials did not dispute the authenticity of the letter, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, but would not discuss its contents.
Cementing an agreement with Iran to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon is the Obama administration’s highest diplomatic priority. It faces enormous opposition in Congress, where legislators of both parties consider the outreach to be a naive folly – opposition that may prove fatal now that both legislative chambers are controlled by the Republican party.
But the administration has repeatedly stated that the nuclear talks, the first sustained and overt diplomacy between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, are a discrete endeavor that do not necessarily herald a wholesale thaw in the relationship.
Ukraine says Russian military column has entered east of country
A column of 32 tanks, 16 howitzer artillery systems and trucks carrying ammunition and fighters has crossed into eastern Ukraine from Russia, the Kiev military said on Friday.
“The deployment continues of military equipment and Russian mercenaries to the frontlines,” spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a televised briefing referring to Thursday’s cross-border incursion.
Nato said it has seen an increase in Russian troops and equipment along the Ukraine border was looking into the reports. “We are aware of the reports of Russian troops and tanks crossing the border between Ukraine and Russia,” a Nato military officer told Reuters. “If this crossing into Ukraine is confirmed it would be further evidence of Russia’s aggression and direct involvement in destabilising Ukraine.”
The report of a new Russian movement of armour across the border follows a charge on Thursday by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine that Kiev government forces had launched a new offensive - which Kiev immediately denied.
Rouble crashes as Russian economy teeters on brink of recession
Russia’s economic difficulties intensified on Friday as the beleaguered rouble crashed during morning trading, stoking fears that the country was on the verge of a full-blown currency crisis reminiscent of the 1990s.
The rouble has fallen steadily in recent months amid rising tensions with the west, but it took a dramatic downward lurch earlier this week, plunging more than 10% in 48 hours.
The instability of currency is reviving uncomfortable memories among Russian people, many of whom suffered after the country’s default in 1998 when savings were wiped out and queues formed at exchange points as the rouble was dramatically devalued amid spiralling inflation.
Economic problems in Russia even threaten to undermine the power base of the president, Vladimir Putin, who has built his political reputation on a promise of stability, the restoration of Russia’s great power status and rising living standards. He has made few public comments about the rouble since declines began to accelerate last month.
As the rouble dropped on Thursday there was a growing physical shortage of dollars and euros in Moscow’s banks and exchange points, according to Russian media.
Hedges & Wolin: Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist? (8/8)
US unemployment rate falls to lowest level since 2008
The US unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2008 on Friday, in a move hailed as a sign of progress by economists despite 9 million people remaining out of work.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said that the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%, as employers added 214,000 jobs in October. The average monthly gain in the past year was 222,000 . The industries that added the most jobs were “food services and drinking places, retail trade, and health care” the BLS said.
In its report, the BLS said that the number of unemployed has fallen by 1.2 million this year and the number of long-term unemployed has fallen by 1.1 million.
Long-term unemployment is a persistent problem in the US that has vexed even top economists. “There is debate about why long-term unemployment remains so high,” Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said in a speech in April.
The October jobs report says 2.9 million Americans have been without jobs for 27 weeks or more, which accounts for 32% of all the unemployed people in the country.
Unemployment virtually unchanged since Obama took office
'Not Enemy Combatants': Organizers Seek Safe Protests Ahead of Ferguson Grand Jury Announcement
A coalition of approximately 50 local organizations in Ferguson, Missouri on Thursday asked city officials to give them two days' advance notice of the grand jury's announcement of their decision in the Michael Brown case, allowing organizers time to prepare for a public reaction.
The jury has been considering whether Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson should face charges for the August 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Brown, who was unarmed. Ed Magee, a spokesperson for the prosecutor's office, said the request was "being considered."
The Don't Shoot Coalition, which includes anti-war activists, black empowerment organizations, clergy, and other local workers and representatives, also proposed rules of engagement for police that include a de-militarized response to the protests. The proposal asks that officers leave behind their armored tanks, rubber bullets, and tear gas, and only put on riot gear as a last resort.
"If Officer Wilson is not indicted, we will do our part to try to de-escalate violence without de-escalating action," said coalition co-chair Michael T. McPhearson, executive director of Veterans For Peace.
Police should "allow for free assembly and expression, treating protesters as citizens and not 'enemy combatants,'" the proposal states. "Excessive force and other forms of police misconduct will not be tolerated.... Intimidation and harassment of protesters will not be tolerated."
Boehner warns of 'big trouble' if Obama forces through immigration reform
The Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, has warned Barack Obama he is “inviting big trouble” by using his presidential authority to reform the immigration system, setting the scene for the first major collision between the parties after the midterm elections.
Striking an uncompromising tone at his first press conference since a wave of Republican congressional victories on Tuesday, Boehner said there would be “no chance” of legislation to mend the country’s immigration system if the president acted alone.
“When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself,” he said. “He’s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.”
The White House responded to Boehner’s comments by insisting that the president was undeterred, and would pursue “common sense and substantive” executive action on immigration. On Wednesday, the president pledged to take that action before the end of the year.
Bipartisan Corporate Establishment Turns Back Challengers, Strengthens Hold on Congress
DC insiders and corporatists have increased their hold over the House and the Senate. It took a joint, bipartisan effort, but the effort paid off on election day. Bad for corporate Democrats, who sacrificed their numbers for the cause, but good for the Corporate Congressional Coalition (hereby the "CCC") as a whole. ...
I earlier identified Obama's four high-priority legacy items as:
▪ Health care “reform” — a privatized alternative to Medicare expansion
▪ A “Grand Bargain” in which social insurance benefits are rolled back
▪ Plentiful oil & gas, and passage of the Keystone pipeline
▪ Passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement
He accomplished the first as his first major legislative effort. The second was stymied when back-bench Republicans joined with House progressives and refused many times to approve it. On the third, Obama is indeed giving us "plentiful oil & gas" despite a great show of caring about trying to begin to start the ball rolling on climate fixes. On the fourth, TPP is stalled.
Look for Obama's unfulfilled dreams — Grand Bargain, Keystone pipeline approval, TPP corporate empowerment masked as a "trade agreement" — to come back alive, thanks to the strengthened corporate Congress. Will Obama find himself "forced" (by collegiality?) to sign them?
If he does, he'll get a four-point legacy "sweep," as I count them. Mission accomplished. On to his next task...
The Evening Greens
This is an excellent and informative article, worth reading in full.
What's the environmental impact of modern war?
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has called on nations to do more to protect the environment from the devastation of war.
“The environment has long been a silent casualty of war and armed conflict. From the contamination of land and the destruction of forests to the plunder of natural resources and the collapse of management systems, the environmental consequences of war are often widespread and devastating,” said Ban in a statement for the UN’s International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict on Thursday. ...
According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, only 11 countries in the world are not involved in any conflict – despite this being “the most peaceful century in human history”. Even in relatively peaceful countries the forces assembled to maintain security consume vast resources with relative impunity. But in war, the environment suffers from neglect, exploitation, human desperation and deliberate abuse on a terrible scale.
During the first Gulf War, the US bombed Iraq with 340 tonnes of missiles containing depleted uranium. Mac Skelton, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, has conducted extensive field work in Iraq on the increased rate of radiation-related cancers, which has been linked to the shells used by the US and UK militaries.
Skelton and others suggest the radiation from these weapons has poisoned the soil and water of Iraq, making the environment carcinogenic. ... But Skelton says the most serious environmental damage caused to Iraq over the course of the past 24 years of war and pariahood has been the systematic destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure. The bombing campaign during 1991 destroyed the aparatus of society, including the systems that supported the environment.
Catherine Lutz, a professor on war and its impacts at the Watson Institute for International Studies says the images of 630 burning oil wells, torched by the retreating Iraqi army in Kuwait in 1991, advertised the inherent ‘ecocide’ of war. But this type of destruction is “the tip of the iceberg”, she says. In the military “the environment goes out the window even outside of war,” she says.
The maintenance of standing armies just to counter the threat of war exerts enormous strain on environmental resources.
Forget What Smokey the Bear Told You
These days, say scientists, we no longer live in Smokey the Bear's black-and-white world where humans can put a stop to catastrophic forest fires.
According to a study published in Nature on Thursday, while the knee-jerk reaction to fight wildfires head-on is important and necessary in many cases, it's not a sufficient strategy for protecting communities from the conflagrations that are blackening an increasing amount of the world's forests. People around the world who live in what's called the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) — those natural areas prone to wildfires where human settlement has also taken root — must learn to expect periodic fires and live alongside them. ...
Pivoting away from fire suppression towards measures for adapting to fire will be necessary, say the researchers, as climate change threatens longer and hotter fire seasons and more people begin to live in wildland areas.
The National Wildlife Federation projects that the overall area burned will double by late this century across 11 western states if the average summertime temperature increases 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit.
How Will the Midterms Affect Climate Change & Fracking Policy?
Illinois lawmakers approve fracking rules, clearing way for oil and gas drilling
CHICAGO — Illinois lawmakers signed off Thursday on long-awaited rules regulating high-volume oil and gas drilling, clearing the way for companies to get "fracking" permits and unleash what they hope will be an energy boom in the southern part of the state.
But a number of key details were not disclosed including how the state plans to fund the hiring of new workers to oversee the practice. ... The final rules must be submitted to the Secretary of State to be published by Nov. 15.
The secretive approval process set off alarm bells with environmental activists, who say they have no idea what changes were made to the draft of regulations released by the department in late August.
"We are sure many changes benefiting industry have been made behind closed doors without scientific review," said Annette McMichael, spokeswoman for Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
How Many Muslim Countries Has the U.S. Bombed Or Occupied Since 1980?
How a Pakistani Village Found and Sold a Crashed American Drone
Pentagon Aims to Copy Israel Tactics on Civilian Deaths in War
Israel’s Annexation Plan for Palestine
Transgender Awareness
A Little Night Music
Boozoo Chavis - Johnny Billy Goat
Boozoo Chavis - Zydeco Hee-Haw
Boozoo Chavis - Goin' to The Zydeco
Boozoo Chavis - Lula Lula Don't You Go To Bingo
Boozoo Chavis - I'm Going to the Country to Get Me a Mojo Hand
Boozoo Chavis - Sassy One-Step
Boozoo Chavis - I'm Ready Me
Boozoo Chavis - Motor Dude Special
Boozoo Chavis - Dance All Night
Boozoo Chavis - Ramble
Boozoo Chavis - Boozoo Stomp
Boozoo Chavis - Keep Your Dress Tail Down
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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