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 guitarist Pee Wee Crayton. Enjoy!
Pee Wee Crayton - Blues After Hours
"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
-- C.S. Lewis
News and Opinion
CIA finds itself blameless in agency’s search of computers used by Senate investigators
An internal CIA panel concluded in a report released Wednesday that agency employees should not be punished for their roles in secretly searching computers used by Senate investigators, a move that was denounced by lawmakers last year as an assault on congressional oversight and a potential breach of the Constitution.
Rejecting the findings of previous inquiries into the matter, the CIA review group found that the agency employees’ actions were “reasonable in light of their responsibilities to manage an unprecedented computer system” set up for Senate aides involved in a multiyear probe of the CIA’s treatment of terrorism suspects.
The agency panel, which was led by former U.S. senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), cited a lack of clear ground rules between the CIA and the Senate, and it faulted CIA workers for missteps including reading e-mails of congressional investigators.
But while such transgressions were “clearly inappropriate,” Bayh said in a statement released by the CIA, they “did not reflect malfeasance, bad faith, or the intention to gain improper access” to sensitive Senate material.
The findings are at odds with the conclusions reached by the CIA’s inspector general in a separate review last year and were quickly dismissed by lawmakers including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who led the investigation of the interrogation program.
Did Gitmo "Suicides" Cover Up Murder? U.S. Sgt. Speaks Out on Deaths & Prison’s Secret CIA Site
Probably should be entitled, "French display penchant for muddled thinking about revenge after blowback reaches home country."
French Lawmakers Vote Overwhelmingly to Continue Attacking the Islamic State
France's parliament voted Tuesday to extend the country's involvement in the US-led military campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. Lawmakers from the French National Assembly and Senate voted almost unanimously to continue Operation Chammal — a series of airstrikes on IS targets in Iraq that began in September 2014 — following a rousing speech by Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
Speaking Wednesday aboard the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier during his annual New Year's address to the French armed forces, President Francois Hollande said the vessel was poised to travel to the Middle East and "might conduct operations in Iraq." The 42,000-ton, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier set sail yesterday from the southern French of port of Toulon, and will travel through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. It is expected to reach the Persian Gulf by early February. The deployment — dubbed Operation Arromanches — is scheduled to last until at least May.
...
"Defeating the jihadist armies on their own soil cuts off the supply of terrorism on our home soil," said Bruno Le Roux, a leader of France's Socialist party.
In his speech Wednesday aboard the Charles de Gaulle, Hollande condemned the international community's slow reaction to the crisis in Syria. "I continue to regret the fact that the international community did not act in the required time to stop the massacres in Syria, and prevent extremists from gaining even more ground," he said. "France was ready. The orders had been given, the systems were in place. Another route was chosen. We are now seeing what that led to."
Does Fox News Terrorise Us? - Russell Brand
Paris is a warning: there is no insulation from our wars
The absurdity was there for all to see at the “Je suis Charlie” demonstration in Paris on Sunday. A march supposedly to defend freedom of expression was led by serried ranks of warmongers and autocrats: from Nato war leaders and Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu to Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egypt’s foreign minister, who between them have jailed, killed and flogged any number of journalists while staging massacres and interventions that have left hundreds of thousands dead, bombing TV stations from Serbia to Afghanistan as they go.
The scene was beyond satire. But it also highlighted the central role of the war on terror in the Paris atrocities, and how the serried ranks are likely to use them for their own ends. Of course, the cocktail of causes and motivations for the attacks are complex: from an inheritance of savage colonial brutality in Algeria via poverty, racism, criminality and takfiri jihadist ideology.
But without the war waged by western powers, including France, to bring to heel and reoccupy the Arab and Muslim world, last week’s attacks clearly wouldn’t have taken place. That war on terror has lasted 13 years – even if attempts to control the region long predate it – unleashing brutality and destruction on a vast scale.
It’s what the killers say themselves. The Kouachi brothers were radicalised by the Iraq war and trained in Yemen by al-Qaida. Cherif Kouachi insisted the attacks had been carried out in revenge for the “children of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria”. Ahmed Coulibaly said they were a response to France’s attacks on Isis, while claiming the supermarket slaughter was revenge for the deaths of Muslims in Palestine.
The former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who led opposition to the Iraq war, this week described Isis as the “deformed child” of western policy. The west’s wars in the Muslim world “always nourish new wars” and “terrorism among us”, he wrote, while “we simplify” these conflicts “by seeing only the Islamist symptom”.
He’s right – but he’s not one of the serried ranks who will use the latest attacks to justify more military intervention. Given what has taken place over the past decade, Europeans are fortunate that terrorist outrages have been relatively rare. But a price has been paid in loss of freedoms, growing antisemitism and rampant Islamophobia. So long as we allow this war to continue indefinitely, the threats will grow. In a globalised world, there’s no insulation. What happens there ends up happening here too.
Paris Attacks: Rage of the Dispossessed
Pope Francis: there are limits to freedom of expression
Pope Francis has said there are limits to freedom of expression and that following the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris “one cannot make fun of faith”.
On a plane from Sri Lanka to the Philippines, the largest Catholic majority country in Asia, the pope said freedom of speech was a fundamental human right but “every religion has its dignity”.
Asked about the attack that killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo – targeted because it had printed depictions of the prophet Muhammad – he said: “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.
“There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity … in freedom of expression there are limits.”
He gestured to Alberto Gasparri, who organises papal trips and was standing by his side, and added: “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”
[Heh, I wonder what happened to that "turn the other cheek" stuff? - js]
Cautioning against provocation he said the right to liberty of expression came with the obligation to speak for “the common good”.
Cold, dark & hungry: Gaza suffers through winter, 'conditions catastrophic'
Increase taxes to stop defense cuts?
The new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is taking a bold stand for a Republican and fifth-generation Texan who represents one of the most conservative districts in the country: He’s not ruling out tax hikes as part of a deal to avert sequestration.
Rep. Mac Thornberry isn’t advocating higher taxes — he’s just acknowledging the reality that President Barack Obama will demand some new revenues be paired with entitlement cuts championed by Republicans as part of any deal to avert the automatic spending cuts set to return next fiscal year.
“I’m pretty much open to any solution that would fix sequestration,” Thornberry said in a wide-ranging interview, making clear he believes “the taxpayers of this country have been taxed enough” but that a compromise could be necessary to spare the military further budget pain.
US to ease restrictions on travel to Cuba
Cuba will open to the US far faster than predicted thanks to details announced by the Obama administration Thursday morning that will dramatically relax travel and trade restrictions.
Under the new rules a large number of travelers will now be eligible to visit the nation, and will be able to bring $400 worth of goods back to the United States. In Cuba, they will be allowed to use American credit and debit cards for the first time. Americans will be able to send up to $2,000 every three months to Cubans, up from $500 under the current policy.
Women on Waves: Meet the Dutch Physician Who Defied Abortion Bans by Bringing Her Clinic to the Sea
One in three Americans believe police 'routinely lie', poll finds
While most Americans approve of the work being done by their local police, nearly a third feel that some officers “routinely lie to serve their own interests,” a survey released on Thursday by Reuters and the Ipsos polling organization showed.
The number rises to 45% among African Americans.
The findings come as scrutiny on police has been heightened in recent months by the killing of unarmed blacks by white officers, which has raised questions about police treatment of racial minorities. ...
Nearly 70% of African-American respondents believe that police target minorities.
Oh looky, Obama is having another populist moment:
Arguing for Faster Internet, Obama Goes to Bat for Municipal Broadband
In what advocates of locally-owned and operated broadband networks are calling "a great moment for the principle of local self-reliance," President Obama has announced his intention to fight back against efforts by the telecommunications industry to block the building or improvement of municipal internet networks.
Citing places like Cedar Falls in Iowa, Tennesse's Chattanooga, and Lafayette, Lousiana—cities "which have Internet speeds nearly 100 times faster than the national average and deliver it at an affordable price"—Obama said it is time to end corporate opposition to the intitatives that have made such powerful and more democratically-controlled networks possible.
"In too many places across America, some big companies are doing everything they can to keep out competitors," Obama said in a video statement. "Today I am saying we are going to change that. Enough is enough."
Alongside his announcement, the White House presented afact sheet outlining the municipal broadband initiative and a new report (pdf) authored by the National Economic Council and Council of Economic Advisers which examines the success stories of "community-based broadband" projects.
It’s not just Fox News: How liberal apologists torpedoed change, helped make the Democrats safe for Wall Street
As the Obama administration enters its seventh year, let us examine one of the era’s greatest peculiarities: That one of the most cherished rallying points of the president’s supporters is the idea of the president’s powerlessness. ...
[T]he pundit fixation on Obama’s powerlessness goes back many years. Where it has always found its strongest expression is among a satisfied stratum of centrist commentators—people who are well pleased with the president’s record and who are determined to slap down liberals who find fault in Obama’s leadership. The purveyors of this fascinating species of political disgust always depict the dispute in the same way, with hard-headed men of science (i.e., themselves) facing off against dizzy idealists who cluelessly rallied to Obama’s talk of hope and change back in 2008. ...
[I]t’s hard to square the extreme fatalism implied in most of these apologetic exercises with the liberal tradition of a confident faith in the public sector. In their deepest recesses, all these wised-up alibis for Obama’s cautious and appeasement-minded approach to governance raise a bleak but unstated question: If the obstacles to progress are really this insuperable—if the Washington game is really so completely and hermetically rigged that even a president is rendered mute and impassive by it—then why bother with the illusion that political change is possible at all? ...
The notion that Democrats might have agency is shocking, I know, since it means they bear some responsibility for our unhappy situation. However, once you acknowledge that it might be true, it occurs to you that this simple and direct explanation might also be the key to all kinds of Democratic betrayals and failures over the years, from the embrace of NAFTA to the abandonment of the Employee Free Choice Act. Maybe these episodes weren’t failures at all. Maybe it’s time we confronted the possibility that these disasters unfolded the way they did because Democratic leaders wanted them to work out that way.
How Regressive Local Taxes Are Rewarding the Rich
Here's something nearly every state in the nation has in common: a regressive state tax system that is exacerbating the wealth divide.
So finds the newest edition of Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).
The organization looked at sales and excise taxes, property taxes and income taxes across all 50 states, and found that, on average, the poorest 20 percent of households pay more than double (10.9 percent) the effective tax rate paid by the top 1 percent (5.4 percent).
States' heavy reliance on consumption (sales and excise) taxes to generate revenue contributes to a "fundamentally unfair" system by which lower- and middle-income households pay a greater percentage of their income, the report states.
The organization placed on its Terrible 10 list the states that have the greatest gap between tax rates for low- and upper-income households—Washington, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arizona, Kansas and Indiana. Washington state has the dubious distinction of being ranked with the most unfair state and local tax system in the country, as it taxes the poorest residents at 16.8 percent but the top 1 percent just 2.4 percent.
Eight Reports Show Big Money Dominates Post-Citizens United Landscape
Five years after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision helped unleash unprecedented amounts of outside spending in U.S. elections, a coalition of major pro-democracy groups came together for the first time on Wednesday to release eight separate reports examining outsized corporate influence, the proliferation of dark money, and the corrupting role of money in politics.
"There’s no denying it," the clean elections group Public Campaign declared. "Big money in elections is getting bigger and the increased cost of elections is fueled by a shrinking handful of America’s wealthiest individuals."
Ian Vandewalker, who authored the Brennan Center for Justice's report, said: "The post-Citizens United numbers paint a daunting picture: Outside money driven mostly by a few wealthy donors now surpasses even spending by candidates themselves in tight races, giving those donors a level of election influence unprecedented in modern American history. At the same time, the rise of dark-money and single-candidate groups threaten two longstanding cornerstones of money in politics regulation, transparency and contribution limits. Congress, the president, and federal agencies all should seize opportunities to make reforms improving transparency and boosting the power of small donors."
Hat tip Don midwest:
The TTIP trade deal will throw equality before the law on the corporate bonfire
The TTIP is widely described as a trade agreement. But while in the past trade agreements sought to address protectionism, now they seek to address protection. In other words, once they promoted free trade by removing trade taxes (tariffs); now they promote the interests of transnational capital by downgrading the defence of human health, the natural world, labour rights, and the poor and vulnerable from predatory corporate practices.
The proposed treaty has been described by the eminent professor of governance Colin Crouch as “post-democracy in its purest form”. Post-democracy refers to our neutron-bomb politics, in which the old structures, such as elections and parliaments, remain standing, but are uninhabited by political power. Power has shifted to other forums, unamenable to public challenge: “small, private circles where political elites do deals with corporate lobbies”.
Investor-state dispute settlement – ISDS – means allowing corporations to sue governments over laws that might affect their profits. The tobacco company Philip Morris is currently suing Australia and Uruguay, under similar treaties, for their attempts to discourage smoking. It describes the UK’s proposed rules on plain packaging as “unlawful”: if TTIP goes ahead, expect a challenge.
Corporations can use the courts to defend their interests. But under current treaties, ISDS lets them apply instead to offshore tribunals operating in secret, without such basic safeguards as judicial review and rights of appeal. As Crouch notes, this is not just post-democracy, but “post-law”. ...
There is only one possible justification for a separate judicial system: a failure by existing courts to fairly arbitrate businesses’ legal claims. So which judicial systems in the US or EU treat corporations unfairly?
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report on the alarming numbers of women near starvation in New York City.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Hmmm... what is that smell... could it be deflation?
U.S. producer prices post biggest drop in more than three years
U.S. producer prices in December recorded their biggest fall in more than three years on tumbling energy costs while underlying inflation pressures were tame, a cautionary note for the Federal Reserve as it ponders its next step on monetary policy.
Other data on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits increased to a four-month high last week. ...
Inflation is running below the Fed's 2 percent target. Consumer inflation data on Friday is expected to show price pressures remaining muted in December.
Big Retail Sales Miss for December Dents Theory that Consumers Will Spend Gas Savings
Mr. Market is having a major sad today largely as a result of disappointing retail sales figures for December, a 0.9% fall, well below the median forecast of analysts suveyed by Bloomberg of a fall of 0.1% and lower than the most bearish forecast of 0.5%. ... We’ve ben skeptical of the theory that lower oil prices would be a boon for the economy. The argument has been that consumers would spend their savings elsewhere. As Ilargi has pointed out, all that does in shift consumption from one category to another. It does not lead to a net increase in spending. ...
It isn’t simply that the states that showed big job creation gains were all the energy producing states. It’s also that the jobs in the energy industry are moderate to high skill, highly paid work. And the knock-on of increased construction work is also well paid. The likely slowing/stoppage of hiring net in the energy sector as a result of the oil price plunge, combined with the addition of mainly McJobs elsewhere, may be the big culprit in the mystery of the last jobs report: increased hiring but lower average wages.
Moreover, there’s a bigger backdrop that no one seems to be factoring in: that the press is full of stories of pensions being slashed. ... So the idea that near record low household debt service costs bodes well for economic growth (ie, they have more room to spend and even lever up more) ignores how much the economy has changed, in terms of job stability and quality and retirement prospects. That means much greater pressures to save.
Laura Poitras' Documentary 'CitizenFour' Nominated for Oscar
The documentary film directed by Laura Poitras, Citizenfour, which chronicles the impacts of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's decision to entrust journalists with some of the U.S. spy agency's most deeply-held secrets has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. ...
Announced Thursday morning from Hollywood, the Oscar nomination—which also named Poitras' co-producers Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky—was greeted enthusiastically by fellow journalists and filmmakers as well as supporters from across the world.
The Evening Greens
Does climate change exist? The Senate is about to let us know
Congress is to vote on whether climate change is real. Seriously.
The measure, which will come up in the debate about the Keystone XL pipeline, will ask the Senate to vote on whether climate change is real, caused by human activities, and has already caused devastating problems in the US and around the world.
It is intended to force Republicans who deny the existence of climate change – and they are a majority in Congress – to own their anti-science positions, said Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont, bringing the amendment. ...
Sanders’s amendment has no chance of passage in the Republican-controlled Congress – and he acknowledges that is not the point.
Indeed, when Sanders first introduced the bill in the Senate energy committee last week, one of his fellow Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, objected to the final clause urging the US to get off fossil fuels and move towards a clean energy economy.
But it promises to produce some embarrassing footage from the Senate floor as Republicans try to align the party leadership’s position on climate change with the scientific community – and indeed much of the world outside the United States.
Keystone XL Pipeline Runs the Risk of Becoming a "Stranded Asset"
Members of Congress Want to Remove the Gray Wolf From the Endangered Species Act
Gray wolves have a storied past in the United States, once numbering in the millions. Hunting and the destruction of their wilderness habitats pushed them to near-extinction. Federal protections in the 1970s brought them them back from the brink.
In the last two years, a combination of legislative and legal actions have heightened debate over the extent to which gray wolves should receive federal endangered species protections. In December, a federal judge overturned a US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision to remove gray wolves in the western Great Lakes Region from the Endangered Species Act.
Now, in response, a Wisconsin Congressman is sponsoring legislation to return management of gray wolves back to the state regulators in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wyoming. The bill, which has been drafted but has yet to be introduced, would delist the approximately 4,000 wolves in the region and allow them to be hunted. ...
Representative Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota, Republican Representative Dan Benishek of Michigan, and Republican Representative Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming are co-sponsors of Ribble's legislation. ...
Ranchers in Montana and other states with resurgent wolf populations say wolves often kill their livestock, cutting into often slim profit margins. ...
A report from the USDA's National Agriculture Statistics Service, which uses self-reported data from cattle producers, found that wolves were responsible for the death of 8,100 head of cattle in 2010, or about 0.2 percent of all reported cattle deaths. Dogs killed 21,800 cattle that year.
Dirty Water Is Leading to Obesity and Diabetes in California
A lack of access to clean drinking water in rural California farm communities is leading residents to turn to sugary drinks and soda, contributing to obesity and Type 2 diabetes, researchers said in a new policy paper.
The report, from the University of California Davis Center for Poverty Research, finds that many agricultural immigrant communities in California's Central Valley have difficulty obtaining clean, drinkable water. And even in those that do have clean water, a persistent belief in the contamination of water leads individuals to buy alternatives, including soda and other sugar-heavy drinks.
"The prevalence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in California is higher among low-income minority populations than white affluent populations. A combination of environmental factors, including a lack of access to healthy foods and nutrition education — and safe drinking water — likely contribute to these disparities," the team wrote. "Decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is key to preventing obesity and nutrition-related chronic disease."
According to information provided by the Community Water Center, the San Joaquin Valley, which is part of the Central Valley, has the highest rates of drinking water contamination and the greatest number of public water systems with contaminant violations in the state. The water supply is tainted with nitrates, arsenic, coliform bacteria, pesticides, disinfectant byproducts, and uranium, according to the group, which attributes the contaminants to fertilizers, pesticides, large-scale animal feed operations, and mining.
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 Fault, Dear Voter, Lies Not in Our Stars, But in Our Democrats — Thomas Frank Adds His Voice
Japan and China: Building Up or Backing Down Over Disputed Islands?
Native American Tribe in California Announces Plan to Grow Medical Marijuana
The Revenge of the CIA: Scapegoating Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling
Is Keystone Still Viable Amid Low Oil Prices?
Hat tip Don midwest:
In Wake of Charlie Hebdo, We Must Challenge Insanity of Nuclear Power
Ketchup Soup
A Little Night Music
Pee Wee Crayton - Huckle Boogie
Pee Wee Crayton - Texas Hop
Pee Wee Crayton - Money Tree
Pee Wee Crayton - Blues At Daybreak & Come On Baby
Pee Wee Crayton - When I'm Wrong I'm Wrong
Pee Wee Crayton - Rockin' The Blues
Pee Wee Crayton - You Know-Yeah
Pee Wee Crayton - Let the Good Times Roll
Pee Wee Crayton - The Telephone Is Ringing
Pee Wee Crayton - Red Rose Boogie, Medley
Pee Wee Crayton - But On The Other Hand
Pee Wee Crayton - Poppa Stoppa
Pee Wee Crayton - Dizzy
Pee Wee Crayton - Running Wild
Pee Wee Crayton - My Kind Of Woman
Pee Wee Crayton - Don't Go
Pee Wee Crayton - E.T. Blues
Pee Wee Crayton - Change Your Way Of Lovin'
Pee Wee Crayton - Every Night
Pee Wee Crayton - When Darkness Falls
Pee Wee Crayton - Hillbilly Blues
Pee Wee Crayton, I got news for you
Pee Wee Crayton - Head´n Home
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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