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 St. Louis blues singer, guitarist and piano player . Enjoy!
Henry Townsend - Cairo Blues
"What's the never-fail universal apology?"
"'I was badly misinformed, I deeply regret the error, go fuck yourself with this bag of money.”
-- Scott Lynch
News and Opinion
After an errant drone strike in Yemen, Plausibly Deniable US Hush Money
Faisal bin Ali Jaber, 56, had come to [Washington to]talk about a painful subject: a CIA drone strike that had unleashed a barrage of Hellfire missiles on his rural village in southeastern Yemen, incinerating bodies and scattering severed legs, arms and a head by a nearby mosque.
Among those killed in the Aug. 29, 2012, strike — which provoked anti-U.S. protests in the village — were three suspected militants. But also dead were two of Jaber's innocent relatives: his nephew, 26, a local police officer; and his brother-in-law, 43, an imam who had publicly denounced the violence of al-Qaida just days before the strike.
Who would be held accountable for these deaths, Jaber, an official with Yemen's environmental protection agency, wanted to know. And who would compensate the families for their loss? ...
At 10 a.m. on July 8, Jaber told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview, he and a family member were invited to the headquarters of Yemen's National Security Bureau, an agency that works closely with the CIA.
A legal adviser met them there and said that "there was money awaiting us." ... Inside [a] bag was $100,000 in U.S. cash, "freshly minted" $100 bills wrapped in rubber bands, Jaber said. ... Six days later, $99,880 — $100,000 minus a small transfer fee — was wired from the Al-Omgy & Bros. Exchange Co. in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, to yet another member of Jaber's family in the region where the drone strike took place, according to a copy of the receipt from the money-exchange office obtained by Reprieve, a London-based international human rights group that is representing Jaber and that provided a copy to Yahoo News.
But Jaber is still not satisfied. "How can it be that money is given in this way, without any paperwork and in this secretive manner?" he said. "One thinks the U.S. believes it can silence the families of the victims with money" rather than "an apology [for the drone strike] and an explanation."
Doubt cast over US torture investigation as more CIA detainees come forward
More lawyers for men allegedly tortured by the CIA are coming forward to say that the major US criminal investigation into torture never interviewed their clients.
The Justice Department inquiry, concluded in 2012 without charging anyone involved in the CIA’s Bush-era network of secret prisons, is receiving new scrutiny thanks to a United Nations committee hearing in Geneva this week examining US compliance with international anti-torture law. ...
Two members of the UN committee, Jens Modvig of Denmark and George Tugushi of Georgia, wanted to know why Durham’s staff did not interview former CIA detainees, an issue exhumed by five Libyan men once held by the CIA who wrote to the committee affirming that no one conducting the inquiry ever spoke with them. The US will have an opportunity to respond in depth on Thursday.
Attorneys representing five other former CIA detainees, all of whom allege the agency was involved in their detention or rendition, now say Durham never interviewed their clients, either . One of them said he specifically suggested to Durham that he speak with his client.
Lawyers for Walid bin Attash, one of the co-defendants in a military tribunal for the 9/11 attacks, said that Durham did not interview their client. Bin Attash is one of several people held at Guantánamo Bay’s Camp 7, for “high-value” detainees once in CIA custody.
In a secret CIA prison, believed to be in Poland, Bin Attash’s captors placed a collar around his neck that they would use to “slam me against the walls of the interrogation room”, he told the International Committee of the Red Cross in a leaked report. He estimates that for days on end, his captors kept him standing, naked, chained to the ceiling.
This is really good, fairly extensive coverage of yesterday's US hearing in Geneva by the UN Committee Against Torture. It's well worth checking out:
From Guantanamo to Ferguson: America's Torture Record Comes Under Scrutiny
A US delegation to Geneva was grilled by the UN Committee Against Torture today on the country's record of inhuman and degrading treatment in contexts as wide-ranging as its detainee programs overseas, law enforcement practices at home, and its treatment of immigrants, inmates, and LGBT people — among others.
The delegation's appearance in Geneva was part of a two-day process to review US compliance with the Convention Against Torture, and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US ratified in 1994. ...
Many of the concerns were raised by some 70 representatives of US civil society, which submitted more than 65 alternative reports to the committee, many of them coordinated by the US Human Rights Network. ...
Human rights observers welcomed the delegation's reaffirmation that the convention against torture was not limited to US territory — as the Bush administration had argued in the past — but said the statements fell short of claiming torture was banned everywhere. ...
ACLU Human Rights Program Director Jamil Dakwar and others took issue with the reference to the Army Field Manual and specifically with its Appendix M, added in 2006, allowing interrogation techniques — such as sleep deprivation and extreme isolation — which are universally recognized as torture. These are not prohibited by Obama's executive order.
[There's much more than I can fairly extract here, check it out. - js]
The Making of Ferguson with Sherrilyn Ifill and Richard Rothstein
Oh looky, the flailing, failing Obama administration is cooking up a new strategy to go after ISIS. They're going to work on defeating ISIS' strongest, best equipped enemy in order to stop ISIS. What could possibly go wrong with that?
US Will Focus on Ousting Assad ‘to Defeat ISIS’
The Obama Administration today realized what everyone else has known for quite some time, that their strategy in the new ISIS war in simply not working. Unfortunately, they seem to be shifting toward even deeper escalation of the war, particularly in Syria.
Officials are now describing the “Iraq first, then Syria” strategy for destroying ISIS as “untenable,” and while continuing to present the war goal as the destruction of ISIS, they seem to be heading down the road of less direct conflict with them.
Instead, the new Syria strategy appears to be the military removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even though his forces are the major significant anti-ISIS force inside Syria, and officials now seem to believe that ousting Assad first and cobbling together a new regime from the non-existent “moderate” factions that the Pentagon is supposed to be creating, is the key to the war.
Senate Hawks Vow to Kill Any ‘Unacceptable’ Iran Deal
Not only is the ink not dry on the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran, but the agreement hasn’t even been reached yet. Still, that’s not stopping Congressional hawks from planning on how to kill it.
Sens. Robert Menendez (D – NJ) and Mark Kirk (R – IL), long-time opponents of the nuclear negotiations, are promising to kill any deal that they find “unacceptable,” which by all indications means any deal at all.
Russia's Pivotal Role in the Iranian Nuclear Agreement
Israeli Foreign Ministry says no intention to cooperate with UN Gaza probe
Ministry releases statement saying that it's already obvious the probe will find Israel guilty.
The Foreign Ministry officially announced on Wednesday that it has no intention of cooperating with a UN Human Rights Council probe into Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza this summer, known as Operation Protective Edge.
The probe is headed by Canadian legal expert William Schabas, who previously stated that he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be brought before the International Criminal Court on war crime charges.
Russian Bomber Patrols to Reach Gulf of Mexico
In a show of military muscle amid tensions with the West, Russia will send long-range strategic bombers on regular patrol missions across the globe, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, a top official said Wednesday.
The announcement by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu came as NATO's chief accused Russia of sending fresh troops and tanks into eastern Ukraine. ...
Moscow denied the allegation as unfounded, but Shoigu also said the dispute with the West over Ukraine would require Russia to beef up its forces in the Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula that Russia annexed in March.
Shoigu said Russian long-range bombers will conduct flights along Russian borders and over the Arctic Ocean. He said, "In the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico." ...
He said the Russian air force's long-range planes also will conduct "reconnaissance missions to monitor foreign powers' military activities and maritime communications."
The Pentagon Wants to Build Massive Flying Motherships for Drones
The Pentagon's most famous mad scientists have started asking around to see if anyone has any bright ideas about how to launch and recover drones from other aircraft in flight.
The recent announcement by DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — has resulted in a little cascade of nerdgasms shivering across the internet, particularly by those who are just a little too into The Avengers because of the movie's ginormous flying-ship-helicopter-base-carrier thing.
While the DARPA plans will have only the barest superficial resemblance to that violently improbable Hollywood vehicle, it's not all war porn and bullshit either. The concept gives us a peek into the Air Force's psyche.
The plan is create a big plane, like a bomber or transport — they specifically mention the B-52, B-1, and C-130 — to carry, launch, and recover much tinier drones with payloads of up to 100 pounds.
Domestic Drones Cometh: Report Exposes Rapid Expansion of Surveillance Flights
The U.S. government has quietly expanded its use of unmanned surveillance drones inside the country to the extent that now half of the nearly 2,000 mile border with Mexico is monitored by military drones that were once reserved for foreign battlefields, according to new reporting by the Associated Press.
The proliferation of domestic drones has long been a concern for those dismayed about how such weapons have been used in the warzones of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Defenders of civil liberty have said that the expanded use of surveillance drones for domestice purposes—including border patrol or local law enforcement—puts the nation on a slippery slope in which the normalization of such machines charts a worrying path towards a society constantly under watchful eyes from above.
The news agency cites government officials with direct knowledge of the program and reports that the secretive border patrol program—internall- referred to as operation "change detection"—has operated 10,000 or more drone missions over large, mostly remote sections of the U.S-Mexico border since it began with little or no public fanfare in March of 2013.
Race to revive NSA surveillance - USA Freedom Act
The major post-Edward Snowden legislation meant to constrain the National Security Agency received a new lease on life Wednesday when the Senate majority leader paved the way for the USA Freedom Act to receive a vote before the congressional session expires. ...
While privacy advocates and technology groups had championed the bill when it was introduced last fall, many revoked their support after compromises with the Obama administration and intelligence agencies expanded the definition of what data the government can collect.
The Senate version is considered by civil libertarians to be more protective of privacy than its House counterpart, though it will still permit the government to obtain thousands of “call detail records” off a single court warrant. ...
Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the bill’s Senate architect, had pressed Reid and the administration to take up the bill in the post-election Congress, known as a lame-duck session. ...
Congressional advocates of the bill, concerned about Senate inaction, recently warned that failure to pass the USA Freedom Act would prompt an expiration of a central surveillance authority in the Patriot Act, which the NSA has claimed justifies its bulk domestic phone records dragnet.
[Hmmm... a central surveillance authority in the Patriot Act would expire? Gosh it'd be just a shame if that happened... - js]
As Dems Punt Vote on Loretta Lynch, Admin Faces Pressure to Include Girls in "My Brother’s Keeper"
Sooprise, sooprise, sooprise - Cable lobbyist Tom Wheeler says "FCC you!" to Obama's wimpy, 11th hour plea for net neutrality. Heh, apparently he's feeling some pressure, though. Wheeler says that he is an agency now. I guess if a corporation can be a person, then a person can be an agency - what the heck!
Indicating Split, FCC Head Declares 'Independence' from Obama's Net Neutrality Stance
FCC chair Tom Wheeler meets with Internet industry heads hours after Obama voices support for net neutrality
The Obama-appointed chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has signaled that he will not likely back the president's recent stand on the issue of net neutrality, telling a group of Internet executives that, despite Obama's call to reclassify the Internet as a public utility, he is an "independent agency."
The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that the former telecom lobbyist and now chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, met with officials from a number of major Web companies, including Google, Yahoo, and Etsy on Monday—hours after the president announced his support for tougher Internet protections, including reclassification as a public utility.
"What you want is what everyone wants: an open Internet that doesn’t affect your business," Wheeler reportedly told the group, according to several unnamed officials who spoke to the Post.
"What I’ve got to figure out is how to split the baby," he added. According to the sources, Wheeler was "visibly frustrated" during the meeting and repeatedly reiterated, "I am an independent agency."
The interview with Alayne Fleischmann starts at about 12:35, however you might enjoy what precedes it, too.
Whistleblower Alayne Fleischmann (JP Morgan 'worst nightmare') talks to Max
US wealth inequality - top 0.1% worth as much as the bottom 90%
Wealth inequality in the US is at near record levels according to a new study by academics. Over the past three decades, the share of household wealth owned by the top 0.1% has increased from 7% to 22%. For the bottom 90% of families, a combination of rising debt, the collapse of the value of their assets during the financial crisis, and stagnant real wages have led to the erosion of wealth.
The research by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman [pdf] illustrates the evolution of wealth inequality over the last century. ... The average wealth of the bottom 90% of families is equal to $80,000 in 2012— the same level as in 1986. In contrast, the average wealth for the top 1% more than tripled between 1980 and 2012.
How College Debt Is Crushing a Generation
When will students and recent college graduates shake off the burden of increasingly higher student debt and demand a system that serves them instead of making them servants?
The amount of personal debt being accrued by college students in the nation's private and public colleges continues to rise at shocking rates with current graduates of four-year schools exiting with a national average of nearly $30,000 in loans to repay, according to a new report released Thursday. ...
Though told by society that the key to a bright and prosperous future is largely dependent on getting a degree, the new generation is becoming increasingly skeptical of that claim. According to the authors of this report: "While high school graduates are hard-pressed to find gainful employment with just a diploma, we see a new Catch-22 emerging: As the number of people attending college increases, the value of its education decreases. Some Millennials say 'a four-year college degree isn’t as valuable as it used to be,' but continue with their higher education in order to have a real chance in the job market."
Mexico Burns as Outrage over Student Disappearances Sparks Protests Against State-Backed Violence
Mexico’s President and First Lady Face Scandal Over Lavish 'White House' Mansion
What connects a gleaming all-white mansion, a bullet train that's yet to be built, and billions of dollars worth of business between Mexico and China?
The answer is a scandal that has unraveled around Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his wife this week, linking them all in a web that is casting an uncomfortable glare on Mexico's leader at a sensitive moment for the country.
At the heart of the allegations sits a huge house custom-built for the president and his first lady, Angelica Rivera Hurtado, and their combined family of six children. The mansion happens to be owned by a company linked to a consortium that had been awarded a multibillion-dollar contract to build a bullet train in central Mexico. ... [T]he house is in the name of Ingeniería Inmobiliaria del Centro, a subsidiary of Mexican company Grupo Higa. ...
Grupo Higa and Enrique Peña Nieto's administrations have been doing business for quite some time, the Aristegui Noticias report explains. ... According to the Aristegui report, the company made more than $500 million from the various projects given to them by Peña's state administration [when Nieto was governor of the state of Mexico, a heavily populated entity that partially wraps itself around Mexico City]. ...
One of Grupo Higa's subsidiaries, Constructora Teya, is part of a consortium that was awarded a $4.3 billion contract on November 3 to build a bullet train between Mexico City and Queretaro, a tranquil colonial city 160 miles north of the capital that is home to a significant base of industrial manufacturing.
New Orleans police routinely ignored rape cases, scathing report finds
In the latest blow to New Orleans’ troubled police department, a city inspector general’s report claims five detectives failed to do substantial investigation of more than 1,000 cases of sex crimes and child abuse — with one detective being cited for stating a belief that simple rape should not be considered a crime.
The report, released Wednesday, examined the detectives’ work between January 2011 and December 2013. It found the detectives filed follow-up reports for only 179 out of 1,290 sex crime cases. In particular, the report found that some cases of potentially abused children and rape victims went completely uninvestigated.
Police officials said the detectives have been transferred to patrol duty and are under further investigation. The police also said two supervisors who oversaw the detectives have been transferred. ...
The US Justice Department previously investigated the scandal-plagued police force and in 2012 the city agreed to a host of changes in its policies. Among the federal probe’s major findings were that the police force was rife with corruption and had numerous instances of excessive use of deadly force, discrimination and problems with its sex crimes unit. A federal monitor is overseeing compliance.
Ferguson authorities urge calm as anxiety mounts over pending grand jury decision
As the region braced for potential unrest if officer Darren Wilson is not indicted by a grand jury looking into the 9 August shooting, Charlie Dooley, the St Louis county executive, and Mayor Francis Slay of St Louis said that any protesters taking to the streets must remain peaceful.
“The tensions and the emotions are running high, but we will get through this,” Dooley said at a press conference. “We have some of the most challenging days ahead of us. The main reason we are here is to tell everybody take a deep breath, stand back, and calm down”.
Dooley said that his remarks, which came soon after Brown’s parents reiterated their own request for peaceful protests, were directed at residents reported to be stocking up on firearms in advance of the decision as well as at demonstrators.
Accusing social media users and reporters of “inflaming tensions and creating hysteria”, Dooley complained that the notion was taking hold that the area was “preparing for war”. Repeating his request for calm, he said: “Don’t buy into the hysteria”.
Action For Ferguson
The Evening Greens
Naomi Klein seems somewhat optimistic about the deal that Obama struck with China on carbon:
Some Very Initial Thoughts on the US-China Deal
Timing isn’t everything but it sure helps. After the mid-term elections, the mood in climate circles was getting pretty grim. We faced the prospect of a Republican-dominated House and Senate overturning emission controls, ramming through Keystone XL and elevating a climate denier (James Inhofe) to chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Already there was talk that upcoming UN climate negotiations were dead on arrival.
In this context, the US-China climate deal is a badly needed piece of good news. It signals that Barack Obama is willing to expend political capital fighting for his climate legacy. ...
Both governments are still failing to make climate policy in line with the severity of the crisis, and both are leaving the hardest work for their successors. As I argue in This Changes Everything, we cannot lower emissions in line with science without much deeper economic changes. But pledges matter because movements can harness them to win even more. ...
As I argue in the book, free trade deals and World Trade Organization rules are increasingly being used to undercut important climate policies, by blocking subsidies for renewable energy and other supports for the clean energy sector. The mindless expansion of cross-border trade also fuels carbon-intensive consumption and emissions growth, and NAFTA-style pacts bestow corporations with outrageous powers to challenge national policies at international tribunals. Climate objectives could yet be undermined by the US-China deal on high-tech goods, which still has to be approved by the WTO, or by a massive new regional trade agreement like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
[Bill McKibbin's tone is somewhat less optimistic, see here:
The Big US/China Climate Deal: What It Is, and What It Isn’t]
Senate Dems Put Keystone XL on the Table to Boost Landrieu
A political gambit by an endangered Senate Democrat broke loose long-stalled legislation to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline as the lame-duck Congress returned to a Capitol where results of last week's GOP blowout are still sinking in. ...
Landrieu is an underdog to win a fourth term in a runoff next month with GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy. She's a supporter of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline but was unable to win a vote on it, which has been a flash point in her race. Cassidy's version recently passed the House and GOP leaders immediately scheduled another vote on it for Thursday. ...
Senate passage of the bill as early as next Tuesday would force President Barack Obama to either sign it into law or veto the measure just weeks after a Democratic drubbing in midterm elections. ...
Both Republican and Democratic leaders signaled that Landrieu would get her vote, but it hardly seemed to begin a new era of cooperation. Pure politics was at play as Democrats sought to boost Landrieu's bid and Republicans favoring the pipeline were in no position to block a vote now.
Congress to vote on Keystone pipeline in high-stakes challenge to Obama
Less than 24 hours after Obama announced a deal with China to limit and reduce carbon emissions, Louisiana senator, Mary Landrieu took the Senate floor to call for unanimous consent for a vote on her bill to approve the pipeline. ...
Keystone has been a political hot potato for the Obama administration, which has repeatedly delayed a decision over approval of the pipe. It is not clear whether Obama would give the project his consent.
But renewed pressure over the pipeline, which has become a proxy in the political battle over climate change in the US, was the last thing the White House wanted on the day it announced its agreement with China, which previously had only ever pledged to reduce the rapid rate of growth in its emissions. China said on Wednesday it would cap its output by 2030, and also promised to increase its use of energy from zero-emission sources to 20% by 2030. ...
She was supported on the floor by three red-state Democrats who have long opposed Obama’s climate-change policy: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. All of them argued the message from the midterms was that voters wanted bipartisan action on issues such as Keystone.
[Heh, apparently "bipartisan" means "destroying the planet." - js]
Monsanto settles with farmers over discovery of GMO wheat in fields
Monsanto Co said on Wednesday it reached a settlement with US wheat farmers who sued the seed company over market disruption after unapproved genetically engineered wheat was discovered growing without oversight in Oregon.
Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” wheat, which was never approved by US regulators and which the company said it stopped testing a decade ago, was found growing in an Oregon farmer’s field in 2013. The company had said all the experimental grain was destroyed or stored away. ...
Monsanto did not admit liability, but agreed to pay $250,000 to wheat growers’ associations, including $100,000 to the National Wheat Foundation and $50,000 each to the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, the Oregon Wheat Growers’ League and the Idaho Grain Producers’ Association.
It will also pay $2.125m into a settlement fund for farmers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho who sold soft white wheat between 30 May 2013 and 30 November 2013.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
The Digital Hunt for Duqu, a Dangerous and Cunning U.S.-Israeli Spy Virus
Americans Support Mexico's Anti-Government Protests — As Long as They Stay in Mexico
America's on edge about the Ferguson grand jury decision. But justice is about what comes after that
Democrats Might Vote This Year to Approve the Keystone Pipeline. That Would Be Insanely Dumb.
A Little Night Music
Henry Townsend - I Asked Her If She Loved Me
Henry Townsend - Take a change
Henry James Townsend - Blind Girl Blues
Henry Townsend - All My Money's Gone
Henry Townsend - She's got a mean disposition
Henry Townsend - Heart Trouble
Henry Townsend - I Got Tired
Henry Townsend - Mistreated Blues
Henry Townsend - Buzz Buzz Buzz
Pinetop Sparks & Henry Townsend - Everyday I have the Blues
Henry Townsend - Talkin' guitar blues
Henry Townsend - Three G's Blues
Henry Townsend - Worry Blues
Henry Townsend - Heart Broken Man Blues
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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