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 Delta bluesman Bukka White. Enjoy!
Booker White - Aberdeen Mississippi Blues
“Never confuse movement with action.”
-- Ernest Hemingway
News and Opinion
The Root is Racism in America: Ferguson Activist Speaks Out on Police Abuses After Meeting Obama
Obama's Ferguson response will leave assault rifles and vehicles of war on American streets
Holder, in a speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, warned that if distrust between police and American citizens doesn’t change, it could “threaten the entire nation”. And Obama, in Washington, tried to assuade his many critics by saying, “There have been commissions before, there have been task forces, there have been conversations – and nothing happens. What I try to describe to people is why this time will be different.”
Why, then, as the White House finally released its report on the militarization of police, did it largely defend the variety of federal programs that funnel billions of dollars of weaponry and high-tech surveillance gear to local police every year? The report offered four milquetoast recommendations that included giving local police more money for body cameras and sensitivity training, while leaving every program – including the controversial Defense Department initiative known as 1033 that has sent assault rifles and armored mine-resistant vehicles to local cops – almost completely intact.
Obama said he wants to avoid building a “militarized culture” in police departments, yet his White House report claims all the militarization programs are “valuable” to law enforcement, without going into any detail of where that value has actually been shown. For example, when was the last time a local police officer drove over a fucking mine? ... The 19-page report spends about two pages on proposed recommendations for improving community policing and purchasing body-cams for police, and then 10 pages describing how the various federal funding programs to local police actually work – essentially defending the supposed extensive “oversight” mechanisms in place currently. The programs reviewed in the report includes scandalous “civil forfeiture” programs, which have allowed police to seize literally more than a billion dollars from citizens over the past decade – citizens who have never been charged with a crime. Civil forfeiture has recently been featured in a blistering Washington Post series and on John Oliver’s show for its deeply unfair practices, yet the White House report doesn’t offer anything about its various problems – just that it’s another valuable program for cops to exploit.
Obama resists demands to curtail police militarisation calling instead for improved officer training
Barack Obama has resisted calls to cancel or significantly curtail federal programs that transfer billions of dollars of military equipment to local police forces on Monday, choosing instead to focus on improving the training of officers given access to high-powered weapons and armoured vehicles previously used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The president’s decision to reform rather than terminate the controversial programs, which critics said had led to the militarisation of local law enforcement, was included among a number of proposed measures the White House released in the wake of protests across the country over the police shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson.
Obama plans to issue an executive order before the end of February 2015, directing federal agencies to improve the way in which local law enforcement agencies procure, audit and manage a giant stockpile loaned and purchased from the Pentagon. However, the White House said the programs would remain in place.
Obama is also separately calling for a $263m, three-year spending package to reform police departments across the country which, if approved by Congress, could lead to the purchase of an additional 50,000 lapel-mounted cameras to record police officers on the job.
Will Obama’s Police Reforms Bring Change? Admin Urged to Seize Political Momentum of Ferguson Moment
Washington Bails On Demilitarization After Ferguson
Lawmakers vowed changes to the Pentagon programs that deliver military-grade equipment to local police after images of cops climbing out of armored vehicles with military-grade weapons filtered out of Ferguson, Missouri, in August.
But months later, the chaotic 1033 program — which sends surplus military gear built for combat to local police forces with little oversight — hasn’t changed at all.
The 113th Congress will end without substantive changes to the program. The White House hasn’t announced the results of its policy review. The flow of billions in technology designed for the battlefield to local police forces will go on unabated. ...
Police groups rallied around 1033, scaring off many potential supporters, according to staff involved with moving the issue forward on the Hill. Police lobbyists argue that the equipment provided by 1033 keeps officers safe and keeps them prepared to deal with terrorist attacks and other threats.
“We got a lot of pushback we got from law enforcement,” said one Republican staffer involved in the militarization debate. The police lobby spread “misunderstanding” about the congressional efforts, which were by this point generally united in banning only the deadly equipment from 1033 while leaving the rest of the program largely in place.
The calendar moved into election season, and members grew skittish about putting controversial votes on the floor.
Chris Rock: 'When we talk about racial progress in America, it’s all nonsense'
Ahead of the release of his new film Top Five, the comedian Chris Rock has offered a wide-ranging critique of contemporary America with acerbic takedowns of the Republicans, race relations in the US and perceptions of Barack Obama’s presidency. ...
Speaking about Ferguson and the media reaction to the event, he said: “Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.” ...
“So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress,” he said.
“There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years … There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.”
Double standards? US preaches protest restraint abroad, fails to take own advice
Aid Agencies Temporarily Exit Afghanistan as Security Worsens
Several weeks of worse than usual attacks against targets inside the Afghan capital city of Kabul have several major aid agencies announcing that they are planning temporary withdrawals from the country. ...
Afghanistan has seen nearly as many aid workers killed this year as the whole rest of the world combined, and the perception of these groups working hand-in-hand with the NATO occupation has made them a target in a way they wouldn’t be in most warzones.
The problem of suspicion toward aid workers is compounded in Afghanistan by the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011, as it was revealed that his death was the result of a CIA plot in which they pretended to be vaccination workers in neighboring Pakistan to collect the DNA of locals and test them for potential terrorists.
Lebanese Authorities Detain Wife And Child of ISIS Leader Baghdadi
The Lebanese military has detained a wife of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi along with one of their children, officials said on Tuesday.
The two were arrested around 10 days ago while attempting to cross into the country from Syria, according to a number of local sources, including the Arabic language As-Safir daily, which reported that there had been "coordination with foreign intelligence agencies."
Military officials cited by the Associated Press confirmed the arrest and said the wife, a Syrian citizen, was detained with fake identification and was now being questioned.
Reports initially suggested that the child was a son, however a senior security official told Reuters it was actually a daughter and that DNA tests had been taken place to confirm Baghdadi was the father.
Iran Warplanes Target ISIS in Clearest Sign Yet of US Cooperation
When you see a warplane overhead in Iraq, and its backing Kurdish Peshmerga forces in a battle against ISIS, you automatically think of the United States. They are, after all, the one with hundreds of planes in the area doing that.
But a video released today shows that their “anti-ISIS coalition” isn’t the only ones, as an Iranian F-4 Phantom is seen backing Kurdish fighters in trying to retake a pair of lost towns.
That Iran is involved in the ISIS war is hardly news, but the use of a warplane in a traditional US role is a major story, as it is all-but-impossible that Iran would be doing so without direct coordination with the US.
U.S. Drones kill more people than ISIS: Chris Hedges
Israel Heads For Early Elections As Governing Coalition Collapses
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said Monday that it is “impossible to manage the country” with the current coalition, claiming that his own ministers were undermining him. The final break came after a fiery showdown between Netanyahu and Yair Lapid, Israel’s finance minister and head of the centrist Yesh Atid party.
Netanyahu was seeking to gain Lapid’s support for a number of contentious bills, chief among them a bill to declare Israel a “Jewish State.” While Israel’s Declaration of Independence already describes Israel as a Jewish State, the new bill is being touted by Netanyahu as necessary to establishing Israel’s national identity.
Critics say it is an unnecessary bill that will infuriate the country’s Palestinian citizens and fuel anti-democratic legislation.
Israeli newspapers all predicted a government collapse in the coming weeks, with two of the largest papers, Yediot Ahronot and Maariv, announcing that elections could be held as early as March 2015.
Russia to fall into recession amid sanctions and plunging oil price
Russia will fall into recession next year under the weight of western sanctions imposed over Ukraine and lower oil prices, the economy ministry warned.
Gross domestic product is expected to shrink by 0.8% in 2015, after the ministry sharply cut its earlier forecast of 1.2% growth.
Alexei Vedev, the Russian deputy economy minister, said: “We now assume that sanctions will remain in place throughout the whole of 2015. This for us means closed capital markets for the majority of Russian companies and banks, as well as unfavourable conditions for investment – uncertainty and a lack of security.”
The ministry also cut its forecast for the average oil price next year to $80 a barrel from $100 a barrel. Oil and gas are Russia’s main exports.
Occupy Central leaders say they will surrender to Hong Kong police
Three Hong Kong intellectuals who helped to spark the pro-democracy Occupy Central protests have disclosed plans to turn themselves into police and urged protesters to retreat.
In an emotional press conference on Tuesday, University of Hong Kong professor Benny Tai, sociologist Chan Kin-man and the Rev Chu Yiu-ming said they would turn themselves in at Hong Kong’s central police station on Wednesday afternoon to discourage further violence at the movement’s frontlines.
Tai urged student protesters to leave their encampments, which have paralysed some of the city’s most important thoroughfares for more than two months. “We can see that some frontline police officers seem to be out of control,” he said. “How much more violence will there be? Our call to retreat now is out of love for the occupiers. At this moment we should all protect ourselves and leave this very dangerous place.”
Earlier, the three released a statement that said: “To surrender is not to fail, it is a silent denunciation of a heartless government.”
Edward Snowden wins Swedish human rights award for NSA revelations
Whistleblower Edward Snowden received several standing ovations in the Swedish parliament after being given the Right Livelihood award for his revelations of the scale of state surveillance.
Snowden, who is in exile in Russia, addressed the parliament by video from Moscow. In a symbolic gesture, his family and supporters said no one picked up the award on his behalf in the hope that one day he might be free to travel to Sweden to receive it in person.
His father, Lon, who was in the chamber for what was an emotional ceremony, said: “I am thankful for the support of the Right Livelihood award and the Swedish parliament. The award will remain here in expectation that some time – sooner or later – he will come to Stockholm to accept the award.”
Snowden is wanted by the US on charges under the Espionage Act. His chances of a deal with the US justice department that would allow him to return home are slim and he may end up spending the rest of his days in Russia.
His supporters hope that a west European country such as Sweden might grant him asylum. Members of the Green party called for him to be given sanctuary in Sweden.
Snowden receives 'alternative Nobel Prize' 2014
Feds dig up law from 1789 to demand Apple, Google decrypt smartphones, slabs
Court documents have emerged showing just how far the Feds are willing to go to decrypt citizens' data. ... [The documents show] two cases where federal prosecutors have cited the All Writs Act – which was enacted in 1789 as part of the Judiciary Act – to force companies to decrypt information on gadgets.
The Act, which was signed into law by none other than George Washington and later revised in the 20th century, gives the courts the right to...
issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.
That's a pretty broad remit, but the Feds think it's just the thing to force Apple and others to break down privacy protections.
Last month, New York prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge that the ancient law could be used to force an unnamed smartphone manufacturer to help unlock a phone allegedly used in a credit card fraud case. ... In a second case, in the northern California federal court, prosecutors specifically named Apple in a similar case using the All Writs Act. Documents obtained by Ars Technica show federal law enforcement sought to get Apple to unlock an iPhone 5S as part of a criminal case.
Kim Dotcom Evades Jail Once Again In Ongoing Battle with the US
The United States' latest attempt to put founder of file-sharing site Megaupload Kim Dotcom behind bars has fizzled — for the time being — after the New Zealand-based entrepreneur walked free from an Auckland court Monday. ...
Ahead of Dotcom's extradition hearing scheduled for June 2015, authorities had attempted to revoke his bail, saying he was a flight risk and has breached his bail conditions by indirectly communicating with a Megaupload developer also being indicted by US authorities, according to NZ media.
But an Auckland District Court judge on Monday found no evidence Dotcom, a German émigré, was planning to escape before the extradition hearing. The judge did tighten up the terms of his bail, banning Dotcom from any helicopter or sea travel that is not on public transport. Dotcom must also now check in twice weekly with a local police station as part of his new bail conditions. ...
Dotcom ... said the attempts to have his bail revoked was an "example of harassment and bullying" by US and NZ authorities, according to local media.
US Military Personnel told to Hide Online Identity With Cartoons
Members of the U.S. military are being instructed to hide their identities on social media websites by replacing their profile images with cartoons or avatars.
A series of guidance documents have been circulated by the FBI among military units warning personnel and their families to conceal their faces when using sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. The warnings have apparently been prompted by concerns that Islamic State militants could use social media to identify targets in the United States.
The documents contain advice on how to ensure privacy online, and feature a series of social network “dos and don’ts.” They urge that military employees:
Avoid posting or tagging images of you or your family that clearly show your face. Select pictures taken at a distance, at an angle, or otherwise concealed. Never post smartphone photos, and don’t use your face as a profile photo. Instead, use cartoons or avatars.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature an article from the International Socialist Review of December 1914: "For Life" by Grace Ford, wife of class-war prisoner Richard Ford.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Congress Poised To Eliminate Key Tax Breaks For Middle Class, Provide Permanent Tax Breaks For Corporations
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has reached a compromise with House Republicans on a package of tax breaks that would permanently extend relief for big multinational corporations without providing breaks for middle or lower-income families, individuals with knowledge of the deal tell ThinkProgress.
Under the terms of the $444 billion agreement, lawmakers would phase out all tax breaks for clean energy and wind energy but would maintain fossil fuel subsidies. Expanded eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit would also end in 2017, even though the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that allowing the provisions to expire would push “16 million people in low-income working families, including 8 million children into — or deeper into — poverty.” The proposal would help students pay for college by making permanent the American Permanent Opportunity Tax Credit, a Democratic priority.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of the package would make permanent tax provisions that are intended to help businesses, including a research and development credit, small business expensing, and a reduction in the S-Corp recognition period for built-in gains tax.
The Evening Greens
Amid Receipt of 'Alternative Nobel,' McKibben Donates Prize Money to 350.org, Steps Down as Chair
In a letter on Tuesday morning sent from Stockholm, Sweden—where on Monday night he accepted a Right Livelihood Award on behalf of himself and the climate action group 350.org—the journalist turned activist Bill McKibben announced that in addition to donating the prize money to the group he co-founded with former students, he will also be stepping down as chair of the organization's board of directors.
"No one should run a board forever," said McKibben in a blog post on the 350.org website that also went out to supporters of the group. McKibben vowed to remain highly active in the organization, retaining a seat on the board and acting as a senior adviser. "Don’t worry," he told members. "I’ll still be there when the time comes to go to jail, or to march in the streets, or to celebrate the next big win on divestment."
Lima climate talks: EU and US at odds over legally binding emissions targets
EU says mandatory carbon emissions cuts should be set for all countries, whereas US wants individual countries to be free to adjust the scale and pace of reductions
The European Union (EU)’s delegation at the climate change conference in Lima has argued that legally binding cuts applying to all countries are necessary and should be adopted by 2015 and entered into force by 2020.
“The EU is of the mind that legally binding mitigation targets are the only way to provide the necessary long-term signal, the necessary confidence to the investors ... and provide credibility in the low carbon transition worldwide,” said Elina Bardram, head of the EU delegation at the conference, which opened on Monday. ...
It is the first time an EU official has publicly gone on the record on legally binding targets, stating the EU’s negotiating position at the Lima conference, which is intended to deliver the first draft of an accord to cut carbon emissions and stave off dangerous climate change. The accord is expected to be signed at a UN conference in Paris next year. ...
The EU’s stance is at odds with the US position which favours the ‘buffet option’, that would contain some legally binding elements but allow countries to determine the scale and pace of their emissions reductions, even if this this calls into question the aim of keeping temperature rises below 2C, the level that countries have agreed to limit warming to.
All Eyes Turn to India as UN Climate Talks Begin in Lima, Peru
Over three weeks in late October to early November, the world's three largest economies made new commitments to tackle climate change. The European Union announced it would drastically cut its carbon dioxide pollution by 2020 and, in a joint statement, the United States and China both said they would reign in their emissions by 2025 and 2030, respectively. ...
Now, as diplomats from 194 nations begin to meet on Monday in Lima, Peru for the annual UN climate negotiations, pressure has moved from the US and China to India — the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases — to step up and pledge to curb its fossil fuel consumption. ...
India has low per capita levels of greenhouse gas emissions, but boosting its economy and getting power to the estimated 300 million people living without electricity have been top priorities for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The International Energy Agency estimates that India's emissions will increase by 34 percent by 2020 and double by 2030. India, along with China, will account for half of the greenhouse gas emissions increase in the next 25 years. ...
"There have been a slew of announcements related to renewable energy in the last six months by the government, and the new ambition for renewable is indeed exciting," Abhishek Pratap, a senior campaigner for renewable energy at Greenpeace India, told VICE News. "Unfortunately the Indian economy is still heavily dependent on fossil fuel-based energy and there is as much interest in expanding coal power, even at the cost of India's largest contiguous tiger habitats."
Investigation Finds Dirty Coal Projects Being Financed by Climate Funds
Close to $1 billion in funds meant to finance global climate-mitigation projects is going toward the construction of power plants fired by coal—the biggest human source of carbon pollution—according to an Associated Press investigation.
The findings underscore the lack of rules designed to steer the United Nations' 'climate finance' initiative, through which rich countries funnel money to poor countries to help tackle global warming, Karl Ritter and Margie Mason wrote for the AP.
"The money for coal highlights one of the biggest problems in the UN-led effort to fight climate change: A lack of accountability," they pointed out. "Climate finance is critical to any global climate deal, and rich countries have pledged billions of dollars toward it in UN climate talks, which resume Monday in Lima, Peru. Yet there is no watchdog agency that ensures the money is spent in the most effective way. There's not even a common definition on what climate finance is."
The news outlet reported Monday that Japan, a top contributor of so-called climate finance, gave $958 million to help build three coal-fired plants in Indonesia—plants they said burn coal more efficiently than older facilities.
The Only Fracked Site in the United Kingdom Suffered Structural Failure
The UK's only hydraulically fractured shale gas well suffered a previously unreported structural failure, emails obtained by VICE News reveal.
The damage to the Preese Hall site in Lancashire, discovered earlier this year, was contained within the well and there is no evidence that it caused methane or fluids to leak into the atmosphere or surrounding rock formation. However, its public disclosure has prompted calls for the UK to rethink its fledgling fracking industry.
Green Party parliamentarian Caroline Lucas renewed calls for the UK to abandon fracking and told VICE News that the revelations "cast serious doubt" on the government's assurances of its safety.
A series of emails between the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) — the public body responsible for monitoring well integrity — and energy company Cuadrilla Resources from April 2014, released under freedom of information laws, detail what engineers have described to VICE News as a loss of wellbore integrity followed by measures to remediate. ...
The Preese Hall site is no longer operational. A decision had already been taken to abandon the well in December 2013 following two earthquakes in 2011, which scientists believe were caused by fracking at the site.
Drought-stricken California expects welcome rain but fears mudslides
Hopes for much-needed moisture but fears of mudflows marked California as a Pacific storm headed toward the drought-dry state.
Rain was expected to begin falling on Tuesday, although the timing of the heaviest downpours was variable, according to the National Weather Service.
Storm watches were posted for a large swath of the Sierra Nevada, where a huge amount of the state’s water supply is normally stored as snowpack. Significant accumulations were predicted but not enough to be a drought buster.
Any delight over the prospect of beneficial precipitation was tempered by concerns about the threat of debris flows from the many areas of California where wildfires have burned away vegetation that would keep soil stable.
A weak storm on Sunday was enough to block the Pacific Coast highway west of Malibu with a flow of mud from a section of the steep Santa Monica Mountains denuded by a 44-square-mile fire last year.
The muck was cleared but debris basins that overflowed were still full and will keep the highway from reopening anytime soon.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Rioting Elites and a Nation Built on the Rule of Lawlessness
Harry Reid, Tax Extender Basics, And A Suggestion For Senate Progressives
Revealed: victims of UK's cold war torture camp
Obama’s Empty Speech on Ferguson
How a ruby-red Texas town turned against fracking
DoE issues Title IX guidelines on single-sex classes
A Little Night Music
Bukka White - Bukka's Jitterbug Swing
Bukka White - Jelly Roll Blues
Booker White - Poor Boy Long Way from Home
Bukka White - Fixin To Die Blues
Booker (Bukka) White - Shake 'Em On Down
Bukka White - Old Lady Blues
Bukka White - Parchman Farm Blues
Bukka White - Got Sick And Tired
Bukka White - Special Steamline
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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