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 r&b singer and guitarist Barbara Lynn. Enjoy!
Barbara Lynn - It's Better To Have It
“You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”
-- Marian Wright Edelman
News and Opinion
The Historic Roots of Homan Square, Chicago's CIA-Style Black Site
The Chicago Police Department didn't need the War on Terror to teach it to violate civil rights.
Police brutality in the wake of Ferguson is often framed in terms of militarization. Once upon a time, the narrative goes, law enforcement in American cities focused on community policing and non-violent methods. Then there was 9/11 and the War on Terror. Anti-terror money was funneled into police departments, which purchased or received military-grade equipment and were corrupted by the example of Abu Ghraib and a general domestic environment of paranoia.
This narrative informs the (excellent, horrifying) new report from Spencer Ackerman on a CIA-style black site* run by the Chicago Police Department (CPD)—an "off-the-books interrogation compound" where suspects are restrained, denied access to legal counsel, and sometimes beaten. ... Ackerman and Siska aren't wrong here; Chicago policing does echo Abu Ghraib, and using torture overseas can affect domestic law enforcement. But the causality is confused. The CPD didn't need, and doesn't need, the War on Terror to teach it to violate civil rights. It's had decades of practice already (as Ackerman acknowledges.) The problem is not that the War on Terror is bleeding into domestic policing, but rather that the War on Terror and domestic policing are part of a single, vicious whole, in which tactics and ideologies are shared between military, police, and the public, allowing for state torture and violence both at home and overseas. ...
When we act like police needed to go to Iraq to learn to torture, we forget our own history of lynching. When we say that 9/11 frightened us into civil liberties abuses, we forget that the American South, less than 200 years back, was one giant prison camp—a vast, unaccountable, antebellum Homan Square. For that matter Charles Graner, one of the guards who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, formerly worked at a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institute. Guards there were accused of beating and sexually humiliating inmates. If Abu Ghraib has come to the United States, it's only because the United States first went to Abu Ghraib. ...
Hopefully Ackerman's report leads CPD to close the Homan Square site. But even if it does, the police in Chicago will undoubtedly continue to beat, torture, and hold people (especially people of color) without lawyers. Police brutality and impunity weren't invented on 9/11, and they weren't brought here from anywhere else. If we want a different kind of policing, we need to acknowledge the history, and the brutal Americanness, of the policing we've got.
Justice Dept. Seeks Overhaul of Ferguson Police over Systemic Racial Bias
Feds: Ferguson Preys Viciously on Black Residents
Police in Ferguson, Missouri have presided over a predatory system of entrenched racism, economic exploitation and constitutional rights violations stretching back several years, according to a long-awaited Department of Justice investigation released Wednesday. The scathing 102-page report paints a portrait of a vicious environment in which Ferguson’s black residents are disproportionately mired in municipal court fines — frequently resulting from dubious traffic stops — in order to generate revenue for the St. Louis suburb and routinely subjected to excessive use of force. ...
The report took aim at five distinct areas: the Ferguson Police Department’s exploitation of citizens as a source of revenue, police practices, the municipality’s court system, racial bias and community distrust. In each area, the police department in Ferguson was found to be an abysmal failure in which interlocking abuses and perverse incentives have eroded constitutional rights.
The report tells the story of a city where, under the color of law enforcement, demands for revenue have been coupled with racial discrimination, resulting in disastrous conclusions for the city’s black residents. ...
“Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs,” the report stated. “This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community.”
For those familiar with law enforcement in St. Louis County, the report reflected a confirmation of longstanding problems. “This report tells us something we already know,” said Montague Simmons, chair of the St. Louis nonprofit Organization for Black Struggle. “The question we should be asking is what do we do with it? Do we dismantle the racist police state, and disband the Ferguson the Police Department? Or do we learn nothing and keep on with the same thing.”
Holder’s DOJ stopped short of calling for the wholesale disbanding of Ferguson’s police department.
Ferguson Police Official Fired for Racist Emails Revealed by Scathing DOJ Report
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said Wednesday that a police official has been fired and two others placed on administrative leave pending an investigation of several racist emails revealed by a scathing Department of Justice (DOJ) report that detailed how the city has routinely violated the constitutional rights of its black residents. ...
Tom Jackson, Ferguson's chief of police, was conspicuously absent during Knowles' address and was not available for comment Wednesday. The DOJ's report described a pattern of routinely abhorrent behavior by Jackson's department, with officers seemingly more concerned about generating revenue for the city than impartially enforcing the law.
"Many officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Ferguson's predominantly African American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue," the DOJ report said.
The DOJ said Ferguson's municipal court operates "not with the primary goal of administering justice or protecting the rights of the accused, but of maximizing revenue." The report also said the municipal court used the city's police force "as a collection agency."
The DOJ noted that, in its budget for the 2013 fiscal year, Ferguson budgeted for fines and fees to yield $2.11 million in revenue. The court exceeded that target, collecting $2.46 million. Most of that money came from Ferguson's largely disadvantaged African American residents, with city officials reportedly sometimes helping their white friends and colleagues get tickets dismissed.
Michael Brown's Family to File Lawsuit Against Ferguson, Officer
Attorneys for the family of Michael Brown announced Thursday they are filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Ferguson, Missouri and Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed the unarmed black 18-year-old last August. ...
"We are officially in the process of formulating a civil case that we anticipate will be filed shortly on behalf of the family," said Anthony Gray, one of the family's attorneys, during a press conference Thursday. ...
Another attorney for the Brown family, Daryl Parks, said during the press conference that the Justice Department has "accepted [Wilson's] self-defense. We do not accept his self-defense."
Attica’s Ghosts: New Calls to Close Site of Prison Revolt After Guards Avoid Jail for Brutal Abuse
The warmongering fools in the White House continue their sabre-rattling at Russia:
Obama to send US troops into more countries surrounding Russia
WASHINGTON — The US military's plans to send troops into Romania and Bulgaria as a deterrence to Russian aggression could expand to include Hungary, the Czech Republic and Russia's southern neighbor, Georgia, according to a US Army official spearheading the effort.
Exercises between US troops with Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, which began last April, will expand through the summer, said Col. Michael Foster, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vincenza, Italy. The exercises are part of the US Army Europe-led land force assurance training mission, known as Operation Atlantic Resolve — now expanded into "north" and "south" components.
"So by the end of the summer, you could very well see an operation that stretches from the Baltics all the way down to the Black Sea," Foster said, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here on Monday. "As you connect countries, there is almost a line of US troops."
The 173rd this week will also be sending nearly a battalion's worth of soldiers to the Ukraine to train troops from its national guard, considered separate from Atlantic Resolve, Foster said, "but certainly tied into deterring Russian aggression."
Gen. Dempsey: US Should Send Arms to Ukraine
Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey expressed support for providing “lethal aid”to the Ukrainian military for the ongoing civil war.
Dempsey’s call for new arms shipments is in spite of a ceasefire that was reached weeks ago in Minsk, but reflects Pentagon desires to insinuate themselves more directly in the Ukrainian Civil War, even if that means restarting it.
Rebranding: US May Look to al-Qaeda Faction as New ‘Moderate’ Allies in Syria
The dissolution of the Hazm Movement, one of the last US-armed “moderate” rebel factions in northern Syria, has created a paucity of factions for the US to throw weapons at, at a time when the Pentagon is talking up the creation of a huge moderate force.
Enter al-Qaeda? It’s hard to imagine, but Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper is insisting now that moderates are “anyone who is not affiliated with ISIS,” and that the only obstacle to arming such groups are the international rules of law.
There are ways around that too though. Al-Qaeda’s Syria faction, Jabhat al-Nusra, is being courted by Qatar to publicly distance itself from al-Qaeda’s parent leadership as a way to get around international bans on funding al-Qaeda.
Iran nuclear talks 'very close' to a deal, as Netanyahu brings negotiators together
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif said a deal was “very close”, telling NBC that he and his team were prepared to carry on working through the Persian New Year celebration of Nowruz starting on March 21. Zarif’s American counterpart, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, emerged from their ten hours of talks in Montreux, Switzerland, with more of a focus on the half of the glass still empty, warning: “There are still significant gaps and important choices that need to be made.” ...
However, Kerry and Zarif were on the same page when it came to rejecting Binyamin Netanyahu’s contribution to the debate with his barnstorming speech to the US Congress on Tuesday. Zarif repeatedly referred to it as “hysteria”. Kerry, arriving in Saudi Arabia to brief Gulf Arabs on progress, scarcely bothered to veil his disregard for the Israeli prime minister’s views. ...
On his return to Israel from his controversial raid on Washington, Netanyahu claimed to have offered a “practical alternative” to the current western negotiating strategy. This seems to refer to his claim that increased pressure in the form of sanctions would force more concessions from Iran.
White House to Netanyahu: You created the crisis, you fix it
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress is over and the applause has faded, but the crisis in relations between Israel and the United States is still on, perhaps even more so than before.
Senior U.S. officials made clear after the speech that the White House sees Netanyahu as the one who created the current crisis, and so if he is reelected, the responsibility for repairing the breach will be his.
During his address to the convention of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Monday, as well as during his speech to the joint session of Congress, Netanyahu tried to send signals of calm and reconciliation in U.S. President Barack Obama’s direction. Nevertheless, senior White House officials considered the attempts too little, too late. Obama’s associates seem to have identified a Netanyahu behavior pattern – first he attacks and creates a crisis, then he rolls his eyes and praises Obama publicly. ...
Although White House officials don’t say so explicitly, they seem to imply that one way to repair the relations between Netanyahu and Obama would be to replace Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer. The latter is seen as an instigator who concocted Netanyahu’s Congress speech behind Obama’s back with John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. ...
If Netanyahu wishes to work with the White House, he’ll have no choice but to replace his protégé Dermer, who is seen by the Obama administration as persona non grata, even if they don’t say so publicly.
“The prime minister, who is elected, is the one who decides who is the Israeli ambassador to Washington. It is clear to us that Dermer prioritized his relations with Congress over his relations with the administration,” an American official said.
Netanyahu blew it: How he misunderstood Congress & inadvertently ruined his own goals
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had two goals for his address to Congress. The first was to boost his chances for reelection in a couple of weeks by showing off his sway abroad. I am not enough of an expert in Israeli politics to know if this will work on net, but the controversy that it sparked might cut against whatever gains it made. The second goal, however, was to lobby Congress to use its power to sabotage a nuclear deal with Iran. On this count, he’s failed, because he critically misunderstands how American politics works.
If Netanyahu hadn’t thrown himself into the situation — perhaps that was impossible for him, given his ego — he might have gotten his desired results out of Congress. Had Netanyahu not gone so out of his way to attack the Obama administration, Congress may not have reverted to the partisan posture on two Iran-related bills that had looked like they had a decent chance of making their way into law.
Israel has a lot of friends in Congress. Have you heard? There are many, many Democrats willing to do exactly what Israel wants at any time. Perhaps the only way that Israel can screw this up is to launch a direct, overt assault on the head of the Democratic party. Israel’s hold on Congress is not so strong that Democratic members will choose Israel over their own president.
And that’s what Netanyahu has made them do: rush to the defense of President Obama, even if they had been willing to diverge from his foreign policy approach.
Netanyahu Speech Flops As Democratic Senators Withdraw Their Support For Iran Bill
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress continues to backfire, as key Democratic senators have withdrawn their support for a Senate bill that would have reviewed any nuclear agreement with Iran.
The Washington Post reported:
If Hill Republicans thought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday address would build broad support for having Congress review any nuclear deal with Iran, they thought wrong.
By the end of the day Tuesday, key Democratic senators had pulled their support for just such a bill after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced he was fast-tracking the legislation, bringing it to the Senate floor for debate as soon as next week, short-circuiting committee deliberations that Democrats say are necessary to perfect it.
Sen. Bob Menendez announced on the Senate floor last night that he was pulling his support for the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. ... Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) who was a co-sponsor of the bill said, “As a co-sponsor of this important bipartisan bill, I believe the effort by the Republican leadership to force the bill to the floor prior to full committee consideration is contrary to the important interests at stake.
Jihadi John Unmasked: Did U.K. Security Agencies Play a Role in ISIS Militant’s Radicalization?
US Left Out as Iran-Backed Forces Advance on Iraq’s Tikrit
With a harsh dispute between Iraq’s Defense Ministry and the Pentagon over the Mosul offensive, the Iraqi military decided to go with an invasion of Tikrit without any US involvement, and without any consultation with the US.
It’s one of the biggest offensives yet against ISIS-held territory, but Iraq isn’t going it alone. Rather, it seems, Iran is taking a key role in the offensive, with artillery on the ground and Shi’ite militias that are close to the Iranian government leading the charge.
Iraq: pro-government forces struggle to topple Isis in Tikrit
An offensive to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq led by pro-government militia, appears to have slowed, with fighters struggling to uproot Islamic State (Isis) militants battling to retain control of one of their major bastions in the country.
Led by Shia militias and backed by the Iraqi army and tribal fighters, the forces planned a three-pronged assault on the centre of the city conquered by Isis in a lightning advance last summer. ...
The operation to reclaim Tikrit was launched earlier this week and is a key test for the Iraqi government and the popular militias, known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, which have been at the forefront of the fight against Isis.
Their leading role in the battles has raised concerns of further alienating the Sunni community, which has been at odds with the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. Reports have emerged in recent months of revenge attacks against civilians in areas retaken from Isis.
Just as Iraq has decided that it's a little tired of Americans bullying, bombing and shooting them - Americans seem to be thinking that it's time for another round of bullying, bombing and shooting Iraqis.
The propaganda is working:
America’s war fever is rising: How fear & bloodlust are bringing Americans together
Has the whole world gone crazy?
I was feeling this way already, but the latest poll from Quinnipiac University has pushed my anxiety to a new level. According to Quinnipiac, a robust 62 percent of registered voters in the United States hold the opinion that sending American men and women to kill and be killed in Syria and Iraq is something their government should do. In fact, despite the politics of our time being largely known for discord and division, Quinnipiac finds that the wisdom of launching another ground war in Iraq — the third in 30 years — is one policy question about which nearly all Americans agree. Sixty-eight percent of men are into it; 57 percent of women are all-aboard; 73 percent of Republicans are a go; and 60 percent of independents, as well as 53 percent of Democrats, are right there with them.
The unanimity goes even deeper. Sixty-four percent of 18-34 year-olds want to send troops back again, and 66 percent of 35-54 year-olds agree. The least gung-ho age group, respondents aged 55 and up, are only marginally less enthusiastic, with 59 percent registering their support. As you might expect, there’s also a remarkable degree of conformity when it comes to how various Americans view the ISIS threat, and how they expect U.S. troops would fare in a full-scale war against the paramilitary group. Sixty-seven percent of all registered voters see ISIS as a “major” threat to the “security” of the U.S., and 69 percent say they’re either “very confident” or “somewhat confident” that a war against ISIS is one America would win.
Of course, none of this is to say that Americans have entirely forgotten the almost 10 years their armed forces recently spent fighting and dying in Iraq. They remember them well; it’s just that they’ve drawn from the experience some odd conclusions. When asked by Quinnipiac, a majority — 53 percent, to be precise — said that their chief worry concerning another major war in Iraq is that the U.S. might “not go far enough” in taking the fight to ISIS. Quite likely, many of them believe that ISIS would not be a problem today if the U.S. hadn’t exited the country during President Obama’s first term. Quite likely, few of these Americans understand that ISIS is the spawn of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a group that did not exist in the country until after the Americans showed up.
Will #SisiLeaks be Egypt's Watergate for Abdel Fatah al-Sisi?
Recordings allegedly implicate Egypt’s president in judicial interference, secret bank transfers from other countries and a conspiracy against Mohamed Morsi
It is Egypt’s version of the Watergate scandal: a series of recordings that implicate a president – in this case, former army chief Abdel Fatah al-Sisi – and his staff in a series of wrongdoings. Or at least it would be, if it could be proved that the #SisiLeaks, as they’re known online, came from Sisi’s office. And if many people in Egypt cared.
On the face of it, people should care. The leaked conversations have been released online in dribs and drabs over the past few months by an Islamist channel in Turkey, perhaps dampening their impact. But if taken in their entirety, and if true – the government denies it – they offer a damning vision of a corrupt cabal at the head of the Egyptian regime.
Allegedly mostly recorded in the office of Sisi’s chief of staff during the first half of 2014, they purport to offer an unusually rich account of how his regime wields dangerous and unconstitutional power over the country’s judicial system and its media, and which had a secret hand in the nominally grassroots campaign to unseat ex-president Mohamed Morsi. ...
The leaks have neither brought down the government nor threaten to. This is partly due to who is broadcasting them. The recordings are circulated by Mekameleen, a Turkey-based Islamist television channel whose allegiances make it, for many pro-regime Egyptians, a less-than-credible source. ...
Real or not, many Egyptians may also be neither surprised nor bothered by their content. “Believe it or not, no one is upset about them,” said another talkshow host, Ibrahim Eissa, late last year. “In their opinion, [Morsi’s] Muslim Brotherhood is a gang of terrorists and there is nothing wrong with detaining Morsi.”
Rescue Efforts Continue After Blast Kills Over 30 at Ukraine Coal Mine
Rescue efforts at Zasyadko coal mine in rebel-held Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, resumed this morning as workers tried to locate a final miner still missing after a blast more than 1,000 meters below ground. In the 24 hours after Wednesday's explosion the death toll slowly climbed, and reaching 32 by 10am local time on Thursday. At least 200 men were evacuated from the pits immediately after the incident with scores requiring hospital treatment.
Nearly a year of bitter fighting between pro-Russia rebel forces and Kiev government troops has killed more than 6,000 people in Ukraine's east. On Wednesday afternoon, however, rebel authorities confirmed that this blast was likely caused by an underground methane explosion and not connected to the artillery war that has raged across the city in recent months.
Safety standards in Ukraine's unprofitable state mines have long been poor and the wages for workers low. In 2007, three separate accidents at Zasyadko killed 162 workers, including 101 in one single incident. This facility is considered to be particularly dangerous and vulnerable due to high levels of underground methane. A statement on rebel-held media DAN News described the mine as the "most dangerous in Ukraine." In 2000, an accidental blast at Barakova mine, in neighboring Luhansk Oblast, killed 80.
Apparently USAID is even worse at doing the job its name implies than it is at
running covert programs to destabilize governments that the government doesn't like. Can we shut USAID down now?
How the US Plan to Build Houses for Displaced Haitians Became an Epic Boondoggle
After the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in January 2010, the US government responded with an ambitious plan to build 15,000 new houses in the country. But the ensuing program to put roofs over the heads of displaced Haitians has included a boondoggle of epic proportions at one $35 million housing development, where shoddy construction practices and faulty sewage systems are currently the subject of an ongoing investigation.
On February 3, the US-based company Thor Construction was suspended from receiving government contracts because of its work in Haiti. Another contractor with close ties to the Haitian president has so far escaped punishment.
As the relief effort's flagship housing project comes under increased scrutiny, interviews with involved parties and an analysis of contract documents, independent reports, and congressional testimony reveals that the problem is far from a simple case of contractor malfeasance. Rather, USAID, the government agency responsible for administering foreign civilian aid, simply failed to provide meaningful oversight of its contractors and ensure adequate results for US-taxpayer financed projects.
[If you enjoy stories about waste, fraud and abuse coupled with government agencies that seem criminally bewildered about how to perform their jobs, click the link and read on, this story is mind-blowing. - js]
Petraeus Plea Deal Shows Double-Standard in U.S. Government's Prosecution of Leakers
Recently released CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou and investigative reporter Marcy Wheeler respond to the plea deal received by General David Petraeus for leaking highly classified documents to his mistress
New Zealand spying on Pacific allies for 'Five Eyes' and NSA, Snowden files show
New Zealand is spying indiscriminately on its allies in the Pacific region and sharing the information with the US and the other “Five Eyes” alliance states, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The secret papers, published by the New Zealand Herald, show that the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) collects phone calls and internet communications in bulk in the region at its Waihopai Station intercept facility in the South Island.
Since a 2009 upgrade, Waihopai has been capable of “full take” collection of both content and metadata intercepted by satellite, the documents showed. The data is then channelled into the XKeyscore database run by the US National Security Agency, where it also becomes available to agencies in each of the “Five Eyes” countries: the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Andrew Little, the leader of the NZ opposition Labour party, said that while he accepted the need for security agencies to protect national interests, he was “stunned at the breadth of the information that’s been collected”. ...
The NZ prime minister, John Key, refused to comment on the specific revelations, saying via a spokesperson: “The Snowden documents were taken some time ago and many are old, out of date, and we can’t discount that some of what is being put forward may even be fabricated.” ...
“Where we gather intelligence, particularly if a friend is involved, it isn’t to harm that country,” he said.
“It’s often to support or assist them.”
Return to Cuba or die: healthcare woes ended this refugee's American Dream
“We advise you to return to Cuba if you don’t want to die”. That was the message Julian Esnart Wilson, a Cuban refugee living in the United States, was given by a congressional staffer he had reached out to for help. A debilitating illness and lack of health care coverage were about to end his American Dream, less than a year after he had arrived in the country. ...
He had disclosed to the interviewer at the United States Interests Section in Havana that he had been diagnosed with cirrhosis in 2007, and had received a liver transplant. He made a point of raising concerns about his condition. He asked how the US healthcare system worked, saying that in Cuba he received quarterly checkups and free medication. “The official looked at me with a sweet smile and said the medicine would be expensive.
It wasn’t long before the medicine from Cuba ran out. Medicaid covered new prescriptions in Florida, but he soon hit another roadblock: after having tapped out the kindness of acquaintances who let him sleep on their beds and couches, Esnart had to move to Port Arthur, Texas, the only other state where he knew someone who might take him in. That was last November.
When he went to refill his medications at a local pharmacy, he learned he wasn’t covered in Port Arthur. “The pharmacist told me every state’s system is totally independent; my insurance from Florida wouldn’t work in Texas.” Esnart applied for Medicaid in his new state, but was denied.
How could a country with so many resources charge $5,000 or more per month for medications when impoverished Cuba dispensed them for free?
He is one of the millions in the US who are uninsured and whose lives risk being ruined as a result of inaccessible and unaffordable health care.
Unlike many other immigrants, Esnart has a country to return to that provides free healthcare. He just needs to raise enough money to return home, before it’s too late.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature an update on the continuing efforts of the Republican ex-governor, James Peabody, to hang on to power by having Governor Alva Adams, Democrat of Colorado, unseated.
Tune in at 2pm!
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The Demolition of Workers’ Comp
Over the past decade, state after state has been dismantling America’s workers’ comp system with disastrous consequences for many of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer serious injuries at work each year, a ProPublica and NPR investigation has found.
The cutbacks have been so drastic in some places that they virtually guarantee injured workers will plummet into poverty. Workers often battle insurance companies for years to get the surgeries, prescriptions and basic help their doctors recommend. ...
The changes, often passed under the banner of “reform,” have been pushed by big businesses and insurance companies on the false premise that costs are out of control.
In fact, employers are paying the lowest rates for workers’ comp insurance since the 1970s. And in 2013, insurers had their most profitable year in over a decade, bringing in a hefty 18 percent return.
All the while, employers have found someone else to foot the bill for workplace accidents: American taxpayers, who shell out tens of billions of dollars a year through Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare and Medicaid for lost wages and medical costs not covered by workers’ comp.
[Lots of great detail in the article, click the link for the sad story. - js]
Here's an excerpt from an interesting interview with David Graeber (anarchist/activist/Occupier) about his new book on state bureaucracy:
David Graeber explains the life-sapping reality of bureaucratic life
Q: Why is it the case that laissez-faire policy creates bureaucracy?
A: Part of the reason is because in fact what we call the market is not really the market.
First of all, we have this idea that the market is a thing that just happens. This is the debate in the 19th century: market relations creeped up within feudalism and then it overthrew [feudalism]. So gradually the market is just the natural expression of human freedom; and since it regulates itself, it will gradually displace everything else and bring about a free society. Libertarians still think this.
In fact, if you look at what actually happens historically, this is just not true. Self-regulating markets were basically created with government intervention. It was a political project. Certain assumptions of how these things work just aren’t true. People don’t do wage labor if they have any choice, historically, for example. So in order to get a docile labor force, you have to create police and [a] large apparatus to ensure that the people you kick off the land actually will get the kinds of jobs you want them to … this is the very beginning of creating a market.
Basically, we assume that market relations are natural, but you need a huge institutional structure to make people behave the way that economists say they are “supposed” to behave. So, for example, think about the way the consumer market works. The market is supposed to work on grounds of pure competition. Nobody has moral ties to each other other than to obey the rules. But, on the other hand, people are supposed to do anything they can to get as much as possible off the other guy — but won’t simply steal the stuff or shoot the person.
Historically, that’s just silly; if you don’t care at all about a guy, you might as well steal his stuff. In fact, they’re encouraging people to act essentially how most human societies, historically, treated their enemies — but to still never resort to violence, trickery or theft. Obviously that’s not going to happen. You can only do that if you set up a very strictly enforced police force. That’s just one example.
Reform Within the Euro-Zone is a Delusion for Greece
The Evening Greens
One of the biggest banks in the Middle East is betting on solar power
The National Bank of Abu Dhabi found that "cost is no longer a reason not to proceed with renewables"
The Gulf States may have been built on oil, but their future is going to be in solar.
The opportunity is enormous, the technology exists and, according to a new report from the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, “cost is no longer a reason not to proceed with renewables.” ...
Even oil prices as low as U.S. $10 per barrel, the report finds, can’t compete with Dubai’s latest large scale solar project. It references a recent report from Deutsche Bank predicting that solar will be at grid parity in 80 percent of the world in just two years — and notes that it’s already cheaper than grid energy in 42 of the 50 largest U.S. cities. More than half of the money currently pouring into new energy capacity is going to renewables, it finds, as will most of the U.S. $48 trillion in energy investment needed over the next two decades.
Christie’s oily Exxon Deal: “The smell was terrible, but the stench this deal gives off is worse”
Both Exxon and the Christie Administration refuse to comment on their reported deal to settle $9 billion in environmental claims for decades of oil spills and toxic dumping by the oil giant for just $250 million dollars, or 3 cents on the dollar. ... The settlement was first leaked to the New York Times yet still has not been made public.
Environmentalists and local elected officials, who had been tracking the litigation closely, expressed outrage over the deal which was widely expected to yield the state billions of dollars. “I grew up in the Bayway section of Elizabeth. The smell there was terrible but the stench this deal gives off is worse,” said State Senator Ray Lesniak during an interview. “$250 million dollars is just two weeks of profit for Exxon.”
For over a decade the state’s attorneys general under four governors, including Christie, aggressively pursued Exxon Mobil. Back in 2008 a state court judge ruled in the state’s favor holding Exxon-Mobil liable for the massive contamination of 1,500 acres in Hudson and Union counties. All that remained was to determine how much the state would be compensated.
Lesniak says New York Times reports that Governor Christie’s Chief Counsel Christopher Porrino directly intervened in the settlement, big footing Acting Attorney General John Hoffman, raises serious questions. “How do you turn a $8.9 billion damage claim, with liability already admitted, 11 years of litigation and $100 million of expert fees into a $250 million settlement?,” Lesniak asked in a statement. ...
For Jeff Tittel with the New Jersey Sierra Club, Exxon’s track record of donating to the Republican Governors Association, which Governor Christie chaired, raises serious ethical concerns that should be brought to the court’s attention. According to the Center For Responsive Politicsin 2014 Exxon donated $750,000 to the Republican Governor’s Association. Other major energy sector donors included the Koch brothers Koch Industries which gave Christie’s RGA $4.25 million dollars.
More California Oil Industry Wastewater Injection Wells Shut Down Over Fears Of Groundwater Contamination
The latest in the ongoing investigation into California regulators’ failure to protect residents from toxic oil industry waste streams has led to the closure of 12 more underground injection wells. The 12 wells that were shut down this week are all in the Central Valley region, ground zero for oil production in the state.
California has roughly 50,000 underground injection wells. State officials are investigating just over 2,500 of them to determine whether or not they are injecting toxic chemical-laden oil industry wastewater into aquifers containing usable water (or at least potentially usable water) that should have been protected under the Safe Drinking Water Act. ...
Prompted by an inquiry by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2011, state officials shut down 11 wastewater injection wells last year over similar concerns that they were polluting badly needed sources of water in a time of prolonged drought. It was later confirmed that 9 of those wells were in fact pumping wastewater into protected aquifers—some 3 billion gallons of wastewater, by one estimate.
Since then, the fallout has continued at a rapid pace, with a new revelation coming seemingly every other month. In just the past few months, for instance, the scope of the problem has ballooned from hundreds of injection wells allowed to dump oil industry wastewater into protected aquifers to thousands more wells permitted to inject fluids from “enhanced oil recovery” techniques such as acidization and cyclic steam injection into protected aquifers.
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 “Snowden is Ready to Come Home!” Story: a Case Study in Typical Media Deceit
Shot in the chest, racially abused: tales of police discrimination in Ferguson
Cops Kill More Americans Than Wars, And Our “New Normal” Economy Kills More Americans Than Cops
Future Shocked and the Emergent Future
On Waiting
A Little Night Music
Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose A Good Thing
Barbara Lynn - What'd I Say?
Barbara Lynn - Good Woman
Barbara Lynn - I'd rather go blind
Barbara Lynn - You're Gonna Need Me
Barbara Lynn - Nice & Easy
Barbara Lynn - Oh Baby
Barbara Lynn - This Is The Thanks I Get
Barbara Lynn - You Don't Have To Go
Eli "Paperboy" Reed & Barbara Lynn - You Left The Water Running
Barbara Lynn - You Don't Sleep At Night
Barbara Lynn - Don't Pretend
Barbara Lynn - Until I'm free
Barbara Lynn - You're Losing Me
Barbara Lynn - Why Can't You Love Me
Barbara Lynn - I've Taken All I'm Gonna Take
Barbara Lynn - Let Her Knock Herself Out Baby
Barbara Lynn - Second Fiddle Girl
Barbara Lynn - Money
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