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.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features early Memphis bluesman Frank Stokes and Mississippi delta bluesman Ishmon Bracey. Enjoy!
Frank Stokes - Chicken You Can Roost Behind the Moon
"The politicians always told us that the Cold War stand-off could only change by way of nuclear war. None of them believed that such systemic change was possible."
-- Lech Walesa
News and Opinion
Are You Ready To Fight Putin’s Russia?
As if Iraq, Syria, ISIS, Iran, Cuba, Yemen, Obama’s anti-China "pivot to Asia," and the Republican train wreckers who now control Congress aren’t enough, there’s a permanent taste for war among the Imperial City’s hawks, now ready to fight with your kids (never theirs) to teach that bastard Vladimir Putin a lesson and show him who’s boss. We did it to Grenada and Panama and we can do it again.
According to the think tankers, "The West has the capacity to stop Russia. The question is whether it has the will," sounding exactly like the blind and arrogant men who took us into Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Aside from the fact that, given Russia’s military backing, sending in weapons cannot defeat the Eastern Ukrainian separatists, and that we’ve never had any vital interest in Crimea or the Donbass region, what then? Our think tankers are banking on the delusion that Putin, no bargain he, but no Hitler – as Hillary Clinton once mindlessly blurted out, thereby cementing her hawkish credentials for the 2016 run – will cravenly commit to a settlement because of "defensive" weapons. If that doesn’t tame the feral Putin maybe our "Indispensable Nation’s" volunteer military, National Guard, Reserves, even conscripts? ...
The truth is US and NATO instigated the Ukrainian civil war by brazenly drawing ever closer to the Russian border. Unanswered is why Obama has exerted no control over Joe Biden, John Brennan and John Kerry’s alleged State department subordinate Victoria Nuland, all of whom spent time in secret negotiations with Kiev.
Mikhail Gorbachev, no friend of Putin, is adamantly opposed to shipping weapons to Ukraine. He has repeatedly said that in 1990 Bush senior promised him (never put into writing but never denied by the US) that, in return for allowing German unification to proceed and the former satellite states to go their own way, NATO would never approach Russia’s borders. A nation that had lost some 20 million civilians and soldiers after yet another western invasion, remains understandably sensitive about foreign armies camped on their doorstep. Those who dare to speak of this today are often smeared as Putin-lovers and worse.
Why are the U.S. and EU Split on Providing Lethal Aid to Ukraine?
At Munich Conference, US Hawks Press for Military Escalation Towards Russia
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) openly spars with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, signaling widening transatlantic divisions over strategy
At a security conference in Munich on Saturday, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) vigorously pressed for more western military backing of Ukraine and escalation towards Russia, openly clashing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and pointing towards a deepening transatlantic rift over strategy.
Addressing the conference on Saturday, Merkel declared, "I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily. I have to put it that bluntly."
"I understand the debate but I believe that more weapons will not lead to the progress Ukraine needs," added Merkel, who has pressed for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.
Graham lashed back at the chancellor, accusing her of turning her back on struggling ally Ukraine, as paraphrased by Reuters.
"At the end of the day, to our European friends, this is not working," said Graham. "You can go to Moscow until you turn blue in the face. Stand up to what is clearly a lie and a danger."
NATO Divided as US, Britain Oppose Ukraine Peace Efforts
The Munich security conference is showing NATO increasingly divided, in pretty stark terms, on the ongoing Ukraine Civil War, with British and US officials being more and more public in their objections to French and German efforts to broker a peace. ....
US General Philip Breedloveopenly talked about direct NATO involvementin Ukraine, saying the alliance shouldn’t preclude military escalation of the conflict. ...
France and Germany, however, see the war as undesirable, and are pushing Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko to reach a ceasefire with the rebels before the situation gets even more out of hand.
After the last ceasefire held for about three months, Ukraine launched a full-scale offensive on the rebels last month. The offensive went poorly, and now the rebels are taking more territory.
Susan Rice: U.S. Will Avoid Large-Scale Military Commitments Abroad
With just two years left, the Obama administration still has plenty of time for the administration to “shape out a much larger role for America in the world,” National Security Adviser Susan Rice said in Washington Friday, but that role in is likely to be fulfilled without sending large numbers of U.S. troops to war.
“We will always act to defend our country and its people, but we aim to avoid sending many thousands of ground forces into combat in hostile lands,” said Rice, speaking Friday at the Brookings Institute . ...
In her speech, a hoarse Rice leaned heavily on the administration’s 2015 National Security Strategy, a 29-page security strategy document released earlier in the day. She also made frequent use of buzz words like “strength,” “leadership,” and “values,” and applauded the administration — and America — for restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba, engineering a possible deal on climate change, gutting the Ruble, and forming a coalition to fight ISIS.
Merkel to meet Obama amid growing US scepticism over Ukraine peace talks
German and US leaders face potential split over arming of Ukrainian fighters to combat Russian-backed separatists
Angela Merkel and Barack Obama are under pressure to shore up western unity over the Ukraine crisis on Monday, amid growing US scepticism that European peace talks with Russia will succeed in deterring its continued military support for separatists.
The German chancellor will hold four hours of talks at the White House and a joint press conference on Monday as US calls for a tougher approach risk overshadowing continuing diplomatic efforts planned for Minsk on Wednesday.
Though appetite for arming Ukraine remains limited within the White House, calls have been growing elsewhere in the administration as well as in Congress for this to change, and Obama is expected to push for tougher economic penalties at the very least. ...
President Putin demanded on Monday that the Ukrainian government conduct direct talks with pro-Russian separatist rebels if there was to be any chance of agreeing a durable ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. ...
“The Ukrainian crisis was not caused by the Russian Federation,” said Putin in remarks posted on the Kremlin website. “It emerged in response to the attempts of the US and its western allies – who consider themselves ‘winners’ of the cold war – to impose their will everywhere.”
Vladimir Putin's Egypt visit sends message to US
Russian president Vladimir Putin flies to Cairo for a two-day visit on Monday, in a move nominally aimed at bolstering bilateral ties with Egypt that also allows both countries to send pointed messages to the US.
As Russian and western diplomats struggle to reach a peace deal over the conflict in Ukraine, Putin will spend Monday evening at Cairo’s opera house. In meetings on Tuesday, the day before the resumption of Ukraine peace talks, Putin is expected to hold discussions about ending the use of the US dollar in bilateral trade between Egypt and Russia. Collaboration between a Russian and Egyptian newspaper is also reported to be scheduled for discussion.
Analysts believe both sides, though interested in forming stronger relations, primarily seek to signal to the international community that their foreign policies are not to be dictated by others. In the middle of negotiations that have left him with few friends, Putin wants to show that he still has allies, said Ben Judah, a chronicler of Putin’s life, and the author of Fragile Empire, a book about Putin’s Russia.
“He’s making a show of highlighting how he’s not isolated,” said Judah, who noted how Putin has visited China and India when previously under pressure. “It’s also a way of undermining the US, since Cairo is piece of America’s imperium.
Chris Hedges: The Terror We Give Is the Terror We Get
We fire missiles from the sky that incinerate families huddled in their houses. They incinerate a pilot cowering in a cage. We torture hostages in our black sites and choke them to death by stuffing rags down their throats. They torture hostages in squalid hovels and behead them. We organize Shiite death squads to kill Sunnis. They organize Sunni death squads to kill Shiites. We produce high-budget films such as “American Sniper” to glorify our war crimes. They produce inspirational videos to glorify their twisted version of jihad.
The barbarism we condemn is the barbarism we commit. The line that separates us from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is technological, not moral. We are those we fight.
“From violence, only violence is born,” Primo Levi wrote, “following a pendular action that, as time goes by, rather than dying down, becomes more frenzied.”
The burning of the pilot, Jordanian Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh, by ISIS militants after his F-16 crashed near Raqqa, Syria, was as gruesome as anything devised for the Roman amphitheater. And it was meant to be. Death is the primary spectacle of war. If ISIS had fighter jets, missiles, drones and heavy artillery to bomb American cities there would be no need to light a captured pilot on fire; ISIS would be able to burn human beings, as we do, from several thousand feet up. But since ISIS is limited in its capacity for war it must broadcast to the world a miniature version of what we do to people in the Middle East. The ISIS process is cruder. The result is the same.
Terror is choreographed. Remember “Shock and Awe”? Terror must be seen and felt to be effective. Terror demands gruesome images. Terror must instill a paralyzing fear. Terror requires the agony of families. It requires mutilated corpses. It requires anguished appeals from helpless hostages and prisoners. Terror is a message sent back and forth in the twisted dialogue of war. Terror creates a whirlwind of rage, horror, shame, pain, disgust, pity, frustration and impotence. It consumes civilians and combatants. It elevates violence as the highest virtue, justified in the name of noble ideals. It unleashes a carnival of death and plunges a society into blood-drenched madness.
Exclusive: Freed CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou Says "I Would Do It All Again" to Expose Torture
Binyamin Netanyahu defiant over planned US Congress speech
Binyamin Netanyahu has reaffirmed his intention to address a joint session of the US Congress next month on the subject of Iranian nuclear talks, despite opposition in both Israel and the US.
At his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu made no mention of the tensions with Washington but insisted he would “do everything and will take any action to foil this bad and dangerous agreement that will place a heavy cloud over the future of the state of Israel and its security”.
Netanyahu has continued to object to any efforts by the P5+1 – the group of six world powers negotiating a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme – to strike a bargain that imposes restrictions on Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for lifting sanctions, arguing that anything short of wiping out its arsenal still leaves the Islamic republic with the capacity to produce nuclear weapons in a matter of time.
He also told a group of French-speaking Likud voters on Sunday night that he would go anywhere in the world where he was invited to speak about the Iranian threat, not just as an Israeli but as a leader of all Jews.
["Leader of all Jews?" Feh! Sounds like delusions of grandeur. - js]
According to a poll by Army Radio published on Monday, 47% of Israelis believe Netanyahu should cancel the speech, scheduled for 3 March, and 34% think he should go ahead with it. ... The Israeli opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, said the planned speech was a “strategic mistake” that would damage US-Israel relations, and in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper the rightwing columnist Ben Dror Yemini told Netanyahu: “You’re right but don’t go.”
The Meretz leader, Zahava Gal-On, has appealed to the central elections committee to ban the broadcast of Netanyahu’s speech in Israel because she claims it constitutes election propaganda.
Over 90% of Netanyahus' Campaign Contributions Come from the U.S.
South Africa’s Power Grid Is on the Brink of Collapse
South Africa is on high alert as a surge of power plant maintenance issues have led to a spike in enforced black-outs throughout the country, temporarily depriving millions of electricity and raising criticism of the government's failure to address a longstanding need for more energy infrastructure.
Eskom, the government-owned electricity company which supplies 95 percent of South Africa's electricity and 45 percent of electricity used by the African continent, has admitted that it is currently facing a "risk of collapse of its entire power network."
If that happened, South Africa and portions of surrounding countries could be submerged in darkness for upwards of two weeks.
The country's energy woes began in 2007, after the demand for energy by burgeoning industries like platinum and gold mining caught up with the country's decades-old power infrastructure and led to a series of uncontrolled blackouts.
But last November a coal silo collapsed at an Eskom power facility that contributes 10 percent of South Africa's energy and caused the site to lose 1,800 megawatts of its energy capacity.
Since then, Eskom has attempted to cool its stressed power plants through a process called "load shedding," in which electricity is denied to select regions of the country for hours each day on a rolling schedule.
Barbara Mikulski deserves some sort of award for catapulting the propaganda. What a sad caricature she has become.
DHS Leader Warns Budget Shutdown a Threat to National Security
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Jeh Johnson is predicting a national security calamity by the end of the month if Congress doesn’t push through funding for the DHS, claiming 30,000 workers will be furloughed. ...
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D – MD) is predicting attacks by “ghoulish, grim predators” if the DHS doesn’t get its funding by month’s end, and also predicted ports along the eastern seaboard could be shut down.
Ferguson alternative spring break offers college students chance to take action
Activist leaders in Missouri hoping to sign up 250 people for week of ‘community service and civic engagement’ as movement moves beyond protests and ‘die-ins’
College students are being urged to scrap plans for beer bongs on sunny beaches, in favour of a serious-minded spring break in Ferguson, the Missouri town that was roiled by protests and unrest following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old.
Six months after the death of Michael Brown, activist leaders in the St Louis suburb are looking to sign up 250 young people for a grittier week of “community service and civic engagement” including registering new voters, running food banks and cleaning up streets.
“Maybe there were some people who had planned to go down to Miami or Acapulco, and now see that there is something bigger,” said Patricia Bynes, a Democratic committeewoman for the town and a co-founder of the Ferguson alternative spring break programme.
Bynes said the week would not simply be a continuation of the protests that spread from the region in August to New York, California and elsewhere around the US. “The movement needs to be more than die-ins, more than ‘shutting it down’,” Bynes said.
Throwing Off Austerity's Hold in Greece, Syriza Pledges Allegiance to 'The Good of Society'
In a speech before the Greek Parliament on Sunday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made it clear that his Syriza government would not accept a continuation of the austerity measures imposed by outside forces as he formally announced Greece would refuse the next installment of a bailout package from foreign creditors. Instead, the newly-elected leader vowed, Greece would chart a new economic path ahead of upcoming negotiations that will put the ordinary people of Greece first ahead of bankers abroad and elite corruption at home.
“We only have one commitment: to serve the interests of our people, the good of society,” Tsipras announced as he explained that accepting the next loan tranche, a loan of €7 billion, from the so-called Troika—composed of the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund—would be tantamount to betrayal.
"We realise that negotiations [with foreign lenders] won’t be easy," Tsipras declared, "but we have faith in our struggle, because justice is on our side."
"The bailout failed," Tsipras declared in his much-anticipated address, but said his government's decision to break with the Troika's economic perscription was not only because they oppose the austerity ideologically, but because the measures have failed to provide the gains which were promised to result. The policies, he said, have failed the Greek people by every measure. "The Greek people gave a strong and clear mandate to immediately end austerity and change policies," he said. "Therefore the bailout was first canceled by its very own failure and its destructive results."
Heh, The Economist calls Wolfgang Schauble, "Europe’s foremost ayatollah of austerity." Heh
Even sorting out Greece’s debts may not be enough to repair the euro
WOLFGANG SCHÄUBLE, Germany’s flinty finance minister, summed it up neatly, if inadvertently. “Nobody is forcing anything on Greece,” he told reporters in Brussels. “But the obligations apply.” A day earlier Greek voters, chafing at those same obligations after many years of recession, had elected a government led by the anti-austerity Syriza party. Greece may have brought its problems upon itself. But after five years of control by a foreign “troika”—the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, which have enforced the terms of Greece’s bail-outs—it is not hard to see why some Greeks believe that plenty of nasty things have indeed been forced on them.
Mr Schäuble, Europe’s foremost ayatollah of austerity, may not have meant to highlight the tensions at the heart of the euro zone. But Greece has made them impossible to ignore. Working out how to redistribute the pain of reducing its huge debt burden is only a start. Yanis Varoufakis, the leather-jacketed new Greek finance minister spent the week touring Europe’s capitals in search of a deal, spraying sound bites and inspiring fashionistas. His proposals were vague, but a uniform refusal among Greece’s creditors to consider explicit debt write-offs led him to put forward ingenious schemes, including GDP-linked bonds (see Free Exchange), to engineer some relief in other ways. ...
If the economics of this latest iteration of the euro crisis are no thornier than before, the politics have turned into a veritable gorse bush. For all the tough talk of firewalls, EU officials are far from relaxed about the risk of Greece leaving the euro. Yet the more they offer Syriza, the more they risk undermining moderates elsewhere. This irritates centre-right governments in such countries as Spain and Portugal that have told their voters there is no alternative to austerity and reform; and it scares centre-left parties who stand to lose the most if voters turn to more radical alternatives. (Like many parties rooted in student hard-left politics, Syriza reserves its fiercest scorn for social democrats.) Some officials freely acknowledge that the dilemma is insoluble.
500 Greek families survive in ‘temporary camp’ with no power & running water for 15 years
Markets Unnerved by Greek Leader's Tough Talk on Bailout
Investors hammered Greece's markets Monday after the country's new government renewed a pledge to seek bailout debt forgiveness and dubbed the rescue package a "toxic fantasy" — comments that presage a clash with European lenders at high-stakes meetings this week. ...
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis dismissed the 240 billion euro ($270 billion) bailout packages crafted by Greece's lenders as a "toxic fantasy" that had always been doomed to fail.
"The time has come to say what officials admit when the microphones are turned off and say out in the open. ... At some point someone has to say 'No' and that role has fallen to us, little Greece," he told parliament. ...
Markets were hit after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in his inaugural speech in parliament late Sunday described his election pledge to seek debt restructuring as "irrevocable."
Prime Minister of Greece Will Not Prolong Bailout
Mr. Tsipras ... pledged to replace a hated unified property tax, which combines several levies, with a new tax on large property and to increase the tax-free threshold on annual income to €12,000 from the current €5,000. Cracking down on tax evasion and corruption were also underlined as priorities.
Immediate action will be taken, he said, to restore collective wage bargaining, bringing unions back into negotiations on workers’ salaries and working conditions. He also pledged to gradually restore the minimum wage to €751 a month from €586.
As a jab at Germany, which has been leading the austerity drive in Europe, Mr. Tsipras said it was Greece’s historical duty to seek war reparations and the repayment of a loan it was forced to make to Germany in World War II. ...
This week promises to be even tougher for Mr. Tsipras. His radical leftist coalition, with 162 lawmakers in the 300-seat Parliament, is expected to secure a confidence vote on Tuesday. But his foreign audience will be harder to win over. A day before Mr. Tsipras faces his European Union peers at a summit meeting on Thursday, Mr. Varoufakis will meet eurozone counterparts in Brussels and is certain to be pressed to seek an extension to Greece’s bailout. The International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, and the European Central Bank’s president, Mario Draghi, will also attend, increasing the pressure.
Greece, Beware Bureaucrats & Bankers Bearing Bailouts
Senate leader calls for US government's explanation in wake of HSBC leaks
Sherrod Brown, leading Democrat on Senate banking committee, asks for full explanation upon learning of allegations in biggest leak in banking history
A leading member of the Senate banking committee is calling on the US government to explain what action it took after receiving a massive cache of leaked data that revealed how the Swiss banking arm of HSBC, the world’s second-largest bank, helped wealthy customers conceal billions of dollars of assets.
The leaked files, which reveal how HSBC advised some clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, CBS 60 Minutes and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The files reveal how HSBC’s Swiss private bank colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from domestic tax authorities across the world and provided services to international criminals and other high-risk individuals. The Guardian has established the leaked data was shared with US regulators five years ago.
“I will be very interested to hear the government’s full explanation of its actions – or lack thereof – upon learning of these allegations in 2010,” said Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, the leading Democrat on the committee.
Referring to previous charges against HSBC, which were resolved in a landmark civil settlement in 2012, he added: “If the charges are true, the same institution that was first caught violating US sanction laws and laundering money for Mexican drug cartels could then escape accountability for promoting widespread evasion of US tax laws. I intend on pressing regulators, the IRS, and the DoJ for answers.” ...
The HSBC leak has sometimes been referred to as the “Lagarde List”, after the then French finance minister, Christine Largarde, who shared portions of the HSBC data with her counterpart in Greece. The Guardian has reviewed the list of US clients with accounts in HSBC’s private Swiss bank. They include prominent film directors, sports stars, hedge fund managers, retail magnates and major political donors. The HSBC files provide no indication as to whether US clients declared their assets to the IRS.
HSBC files: how secret Swiss account data detailing misconduct came to light
No 10 forced to defend PM's appointment of former HSBC boss as trade minister
Downing Street was forced to defend David Cameron’s appointment of a former HSBC chairman as trade minister in 2011, after revelations that the bank’s Swiss subsidiary helped wealthy customers avoid paying millions of dollars in tax and claims that the British tax authorities knew about it.
Cameron’s spokesman said Stephen Green, who served as trade minister from January 2011 to December 2013, had been an excellent appointment and that the prime minister had never discussed with him the allegations against HSBC.
The spokesman said he did not know whether any other minister was aware of the allegations, after files were sent to Britain’s tax authority, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), in 2010. The Treasury minister, David Gauke, has been ordered by the Speaker to make a statement to the Commons on Monday afternoon on what the government knew about the HSBC affair
'Ideology Gone Wild': Pro-Charter School Group Offers Philly $35M for Privatization
The national debate over so-called 'education reform' has come into sharp relief in Philadelphia, where a pro-charter, non-profit organization has offered the cash-strapped city school district up to $35 million to enroll an additional 15,000 students in new charter schools.
The one-time gift from the Philadelphia School Partnership (PSP), to be given over three years, would consist of up to $25 million for the district's charter costs and a separate $10 million "to pay for in-house turnaround efforts," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. ...
Mark Gleason, the executive director of the PSP, said he hopes the $35 million will "take the cost issue off the table for the district," clearing the way for the commission to approve the applications. ...
"We need to concentrate on restoring programs and services that have been taken from Philadelphia's schoolchildren," the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said in a statement. "Our schools need adequate, permanent and sustainable revenue, not one-time gimmicks that jeopardize the future of our schools." ...
"[O]pening the flood gates to new charters will harm students attending district-run schools," said PCCY executive director Donna Cooper said at the time. "District-run schools have too few teachers, shuttered libraries, and limited access to arts or a robust academic curriculum. Any action that increases charter cost to the district will cripple these schools."
And while Gleason and the PSP claim their multi-million-dollar offer would "take the cost issue off the table," the Philadelphia School District says it would cost as much as $500 million to enroll 15,000 more students in new charter schools—about 20 times more than the amount offered by the non-profit.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report on a speech given by Mother Jones in Jacksonville, Illinois, for the local Socialist organization.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Detroit man with marathon walking commute surprised with new car
A Detroit factory worker who has walked more than 20 miles (32 km) during his daily commute to work for a decade was surprised on Friday with a brand new car, donated by a suburban car dealership.
The unexpected gift is the latest in an outpouring of donations from supporters across the globe who, touched by James Robertson's plight, have raised more than $310,000 to help him buy a car.
Robertson has told the Detroit Free Press that his car broke down a decade ago and, making $10.55 an hour, he has been unable to save for a new one.
"I don't like it, I love it," said Robertson, 56, who appeared baffled as he sat behind the wheel of his 2015 red Ford Taurus. "If only my parents could see me now."
Robertson thought he was going to look at cars to purchase with Evan Leedy and Blake Pollock, who both helped coordinate the gift, worth an estimated $37,000.
Instead Robertson was greeted by reporters and a team of supporters who first learned of his marathon commute this week in a story that ran in the Sunday Detroit Free Press.
The story has since been widely shared on social media, and Robertson has been featured on national network news programs. The publicity has prompted a renewed discussion about reforming Metro Detroit's troubled public transportation system.
The Evening Greens
Tar Sands Activists Are Getting Visits From The FBI
Unexpected visitors have been dropping in on anti-oil activists in the United States — knocking on doors, calling, texting, contacting family members.
The visitors are federal agents.
Opponents of Canadian oil say they’ve been contacted by FBI investigators in several states following their involvement in protests that delayed northbound shipments of equipment to Canada’s oilsands.
A lawyer working with the protesters says he’s personally aware of a dozen people having been contacted in the northwestern U.S. and says the actual number is probably higher.
Larry Hildes says it’s been happening the last few months in Washington State, Oregon and Idaho. He says one person got a visit at work, after having already refused to answer questions.
“They appear to be interested in actions around the tarsands and the Keystone XL pipeline,” Hildes said in an interview.
“It’s always the same line: ‘We’re not doing criminal investigations, you’re not accused of any crime. But we’re trying to learn more about the movement.“’
He’s advised activists not to talk — and they mostly haven’t. That lack of communication has made it a little complicated to figure out what, exactly, the FBI is looking for.
President's Plan to Protect Arctic Ocean Won't Halt Oil Drilling (2/2)
Safety Is Life-or-Death, Say Refinery Strikers
Thousands of oil refinery workers are on strike over health and safety, demanding stronger measures to protect workers and surrounding communities from refinery hazards.
Workers cite outsourcing, short staffing, and forced overtime that produces dangerous fatigue—in a job where mistakes can be fatal.
Five days into the strike, Shell Oil, which leads the table for the employers, reportedly offered a settlement that the union’s bargaining team was considering, but by evening, the union had rejected the offer.
The Steelworkers represent 30,000 oil industry workers, at 63 refineries plus related oil terminals, pipelines, and petrochemical facilities. Together they produce 65 percent of the U.S.’s oil. ...
To lead this strike, which began February 1, the union selected nine strategic refineries in Texas, Kentucky, Washington, and California, where the strike would pack a special punch. Factors in the choice included particularly harsh employers and sites with strong member participation.
Five of the nine are in Texas, the U.S.’s top oil-producing state. Striking workers converged on Houston yesterday to protest outside Shell’s corporate headquarters. ...
The strike has garnered support from national environmental groups and activists such as Oil Change International and 350.org founder Bill McKibben, who recognize that workers advocating for their own safety are also protecting the public. Oil companies have a long, sordid record of causing spills and accidents by cost-cutting.
US Oil Workers' Historic Strike for Safety Spreads to More Plants
The biggest U.S. oil workers' strike in more than three decades just grew even larger, with two mid-western BP plants joining in the work stoppage to demand basic health and safety protections from some of the world's most powerful fossil fuel corporations.
The United Steelworkers announced Saturday that over 1,400 employees at two BP refineries—in Whiting, Indiana and Toledo, Ohio—have joined the 3,800 oil workers on strike at nine refineries in California, Kentucky, Texas and Washington. ...
"As we move towards a clean energy economy, there should be no throw-away communities and no throw-away workers," said environmental organization 350.org in a statement supporting the strikers.
Joe Uehlein from the Labor Network for Sustainability told Common Dreams, "All of this support from environmental groups being expressed is great and important and there should be more of it."
"Will it alter the long-term landscape of labor and environmental cooperation?" he asked. "I don't know. We need a common vision and strategy."
'Game-Changing March for Climate' as Californians Rise Up Against Fracking
Thousands of people from across California kicked off a march through Oakland on Saturday to demand that Governor Jerry Brown show "real climate leadership" by halting all fracking and shifting to 100 percent renewable energy in the state.
The demonstration brought together more than 100 grassroots groups, from labor to indigenous to environmental justice organizations, and is being billed as a a "game-changing moment for the climate movement in California." Ahead of the protest, organizers estimated it would exceed 10,000 people. ...
The mounting protests are inspired by New York's recent prohibition on fracking, which was won through grassroots pressure, and they come amid growing public anger that the fossil fuel industry continues to drill near schools, farms, and homes in the state, using and polluting water despite California's historic drought. ...
Pennie Opal Plant, organizer with the San Francisco - Bay Area chapter of Idle No More, told Common Dreams that the indigenous block of the protest kicked off with a ceremony to honor the land of the Ohlone people, where the march commenced. Native Americans, First Nations, and Pacific Islander people are leading the march, alongside others from the front-lines of the climate crisis, she explained.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Mearsheimer: Don't Arm Ukraine
When Silencing Dissent Isn’t News
Brian Williams and Baghdad Bob
My Wisconsin Adventure
A Little Night Music
Frank Stokes - I Got Mine
Pink Anderson - I got mine
Ry Cooder - I Got Mine
Ishmon Bracey - Leavin' Town Blues
Frank Stokes - Downtown Blues
Frank Stokes - Nehi Mama
Ishman Bracey - Saturday Blues
Ishman Bracy - Trouble Hearted Blues
Frank Stokes- I'm Going Away Blues
Frank Stokes- Memphis Rounders Blues
Ishman Bracy - Farish Street Rag
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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