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 two Tennessean bluesmen. From Memphis, Robert Wilkins and from Brownsville Hammie Nixon. Enjoy!
Rev. Robert Wilkins - In Heaven, Sitting Down
“Equality of opportunity is not enough. Unless we create an environment where everyone is guaranteed some minimum capabilities through some guarantee of minimum income, education, and healthcare, we cannot say that we have fair competition. When some people have to run a 100 metre race with sandbags on their legs, the fact that no one is allowed to have a head start does not make the race fair. Equality of opportunity is absolutely necessary but not sufficient in building a genuinely fair and efficient society.”
-- Ha-Joon Chang
News and Opinion
Voting Rights Remain Under Attack 50 Years After the Bloody Sunday March in Selma
Holder and Obama mark Selma events with call for voting rights protections
Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the historic Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama on Sunday to reprise one of the most powerful acts of the civil rights era.
But memorializing history was not the only order of the day, attorney general Eric Holder said in a speech inside the church. In a message that appeared to be coordinated with a pre-recorded television interview by President Barack Obama, Holder attacked a 2013 supreme court decision that invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act as he called for a new national push for protections for minority voters.
This year’s march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Holder said, was a symbolic call to finish the work of the original demonstration of 7 March 1965, “Bloody Sunday”, which set the stage for the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Police estimated the crowd crossing the bridge on Sunday at 15-20,000.
“Let me be clear,” Holder said. “While the court’s [2013] decision removed one of the Justice Department’s most effective tools, we remain undaunted and undeterred in our pursuit of a meaningful right to vote for every eligible American.”
In his interview, Obama – who spoke in Selma on Saturday – told CBS he was troubled by photo ID requirements to vote and said the government needed a revitalized Voting Rights Act to prevent ballot box discrimination, the Associated Press reported.
The Worst Supreme Court for Civil Rights Since 1857: Alabama’s First Black Federal Judge Speaks Out
From Below: Campaign Aims to Foster Popular Uprising Against Crisis of Inequality
'We live in a time of profound crisis, a time where virtually everywhere, nearly all systems and institutions fundamental to society — political, economic, social and religious — at best fail to meet people’s needs and at worst cause widespread suffering.'
As the nation commemorates the fifty years that have passed since the height of the Civil Rights struggle that marked the 1960s as a time of historic progress in U.S. history, a diverse coalition of advocacy groups, faith-based organizations, and prominent justice and anti-poverty activists are joining forces to endorse the idea of a new broad-based movement to tackle the ills of racial discrimination, ecological degradation, and economic inequality that persist in contemporary society.
Borrowing the name of the well-known and anti-poverty and social justice campaign initiated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1968, this new coalition is voicing support for what they call a 'New Poor People's Campaign' which will aim to fight back against a range of inter-connected societal ills — including "an unfair police and prison system, cuts to public education, the denial of Medicaid expansion, unsafe working conditions and unfair wages, ecological devastation and the dangerous pollution of their communities, and renewed attacks on voting rights."
It’s Not Just Ferguson - Cities nationwide are criminalizing black people to pay the bills.
The Department of Justice confirmed yesterday what many of Ferguson’s residents have been saying, and protesting against, for months: the city racks up millions of dollars each year in fines and court fees by illegally harassing its black population. What the federal government did not say, however, is that the practice of criminalizing black people to raise money for police and court systems is not rare; local governments across the country have been doing it for years—ironically, to offset the spiraling costs of the incarceration boom of the past three decades. ...
As Nusrat Choudhury said in an ACLU statement back in January, “the vicious cycle of linking racial profiling and debtors prisons,” occurs nationally and “in the process, poor people—disproportionately people of color—and their families suffer from the collateral impacts of jailing on employment, and housing.” ...
Many of the laws that states now use to impose court fees and fines were passed in the 1990s and early 2000’s. “Jurisdictions began to look for sources of funding to support their criminal justice systems,” explains Alexes Harris, a sociologist at the University of Washington who is researching the topic now. “As a result of…hyper-incarceration that began in the mid-1970’s, systems of government could no longer afford what they were doing. Essentially, policy makers decided to shift the burden of the costs of prosecution, incarceration and criminal justice management onto the backs of the people it processed.”
While the court fees and fines generate revenue, Harris argues they are also about social control. “The legal justification for creating layers and layers of policies that allow courts to assess fines and fees from traffic tickets to misdemeanors to felony offenses is that jurisdictions need money to run their systems of justice. But in practice—in effect—the system turns into a strict system of control, and this control is over poor people.”
In Trip to Selma, Michael Brown’s Mother Calls for Elimination of Ferguson Police Dept.
Protests Continue After Fatal Police Shooting of Unarmed Black Teen In Madison, Wisconsin
The chant "Black lives matter," that has echoed from coast to coast in the wake of several police killings of unarmed black men in recent months, was once again heard this weekend in Madison, Wisconsin, where protesters gathered in anger after officers fatally shot an unarmed teen.
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval begged the community to act with restraint following the death of 19-year-old Tony Robinson, who was shot in his apartment by a police officer who had forced his way into the teen's house following reports of a disturbance inside.
Madison police shooting offers stark reminder that city's race issues run deep
On Friday evening, Lorien Carter spoke to a crowd in front of the building in Madison, Wisconsin where her nephew, Anthony Terrell Robinson, was earlier shot and killed by a police officer, Matt Kenny.
She said: “Here in our little bubble of Madison, WI … I want y’all to know, that for minorities, we are [in one of] the top five worst places to live. But we are [also in one of the] three happiest cities to be in. So who is it happy for?”
Carter’s words evoked not only the bitterness of losing a young man too soon, but also well-documented disparities affecting Madison’s African American community. For many, Robinson’s death was a harsh reminder that their city is not the progressive utopia it sometimes styles itself to be. ...
In 2013, a report by Race to Equity, an initiative run by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, found that in 2011, 80% of youths in juvenile detention facilities in Dane County, where Madison is located, were African American. They represented only 9% of the county’s population. The report also noted that African American youths were arrested six times more often than their white counterparts.
A 2007 report from a national nonprofit, the Justice Policy Institute, ranked Dane County third in the nation in racial disparities for drug-related crimes.
We’re All Spies Now: CIA Director Announces Major Restructuring
The director of the CIA announced this week a major overhaul of the agency’s organizational structure ending the traditional separation between spies and analysts, while also creating a new division to handle cyberwarfare.
Director John Brennan officially announced the restructure to agency employees on Friday. Thousands of spies and CIA analysts will be reassigned to new posts, marking one of the most significant changes to the agency’s core structure in its 67-year history.
“Never has the need for the full and unfettered integration of our capabilities been greater,” Brennan said in a declassified statement to his employees.
Under the new model, spies and analysts will be integrated and assigned to 10 new mission centers, which, according to Brennan, “will bring the full range of operational, analytic, support, technical, and digital personnel and capabilities to bear on the nation’s most pressing security issues and interests.” Describing the new mission centers, Brennan said, “Assistant Directors will be accountable for integrating and advancing the mission — in all of its various forms — and for overall mission accomplishment in their respective geographic or functional area.”
The reorganization will allow the CIA to “cover the entire universe, regionally and functionally,” Brennan told reporters in a briefing earlier in the week.
Under the Radar, Big Media Internet Giants Get Massive Access to Everything About You
Last Thursday was widely viewed as a victory for “Internet Freedom” and a blow to a “corporatized” Internet as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) endorsed a historic public utility framework for Network Neutrality (NN). It took the intervention of President Obama last year, who called for “the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality,” to dramatically transform the FCC’s plans. Its chairman, Thomas Wheeler, a former cable and telecom lobbyist, had previously been ambivalent about endorsing strong utility-like regulations. But feeling the pressure, especially from the president, he became a “born again” NN champion, leading the agency to endorse “strong, sustainable rules to protect the Open Internet.”
But the next day, the Obama White House took another approach to Internet Freedom, handing the leading online companies, including Google, Facebook, and their Fortune-type advertising clients, a major political victory. The administration released its long-awaited “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” legislation. The bill enables the most powerful corporations and their trade associations to greatly determine what American privacy rights will be. By giving further control over how data are gathered and used online, the administration basically ceded more clout to a corporate elite that will be able to effectively decide how the Internet and digital applications operate, today and in the near future. ...
Under the proposed Obama plan, Google, Facebook and other data-gathering companies would be allowed to determine the rules. Through a scheme the White House calls a “multi-stakeholder” process, industry-dominated meetings—with consumer and privacy groups vastly outnumbered and out-resourced—would develop so-called self-regulatory “codes of conduct” to govern how the U.S. treats data collection and privacy. ... The administration’s bill also strips away the power of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which now acts as the leading federal watchdog on privacy. Instead of empowering the FTC to develop national rules that enable individuals to make their own privacy decisions, the bill forces the agency to quickly review (in as little as 90 days) the proposed stakeholder codes—with little effective power to reject them. Companies become largely immune to FTC oversight and enforcement when they agree to abide by the self-regulatory policies their lobbyists basically wrote.
Without US Backing, Iraqi Troops Near Tikrit
On Friday, Iraqi troops reached the small town of Dour, on the outskirts of Tikrit, putting them closer to the city that is their intended target. So far, the offensive even against this town is going painfully slowly.
Officials are still reporting “advances” in the fighting, but are only to the center of al-Dour by Sunday evening, while snipers and improvised explosives are keeping the ground troops from making major moves.
The Tikrit offensive is a huge undertaking for the Iraqi military, and it is being done with the aid of both Iranian artillery backing and large amounts of Shi’ite militia fighters.
How Iran's Fight Against ISIS in Iraq Helps American Interests
Likud Statement: Netanyahu Rules Out Two-State Solution
Faced with growing criticism from the far-right over a reported peace deal proposal, Israeli ruling party Likud issued a statement nationwide to synagogues in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuruled out thetwo-state solution.
“Any evacuated territory will be overtaken by radical Islam and terror groups backed by Iran. Therefore there will be no withdrawals and no concessions. It’s just not relevant,” the statement read.
The Likud statement went on to say that Netanyahu’s 2009 declaration of support for a two-state solution was “annulled” adding that Netanyahu’s entire political career “is the struggle against the establishment of the Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu denies report he's backed off two-state solution
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office denied reports on Sunday he has backed away from a 2009 commitment to seek a two-state peaceful solution with the Palestinians.
A statement by Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party widely reported by Israeli media said he had said that a speech he gave six years ago agreeing for the first time to Palestinian statehood as a solution to decades of conflict was now "irrelevant."
Netanyahu "never said such a thing," his office said in a statement responding to the reports.
The party's statement, apparently issued by hardliners, said Netanyahu had also suggested "there would be no withdrawals or concessions, that this is simply irrelevant," referring to swapping any occupied land for peace.
Estimated 50,000 Rally Against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv
Tens of thousands of Israelis rallied against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling government in the nation's capital of Tel Aviv on Saturday night as they decried the leader's domestic policies and called for a peace agreement with the Palestinians who live in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Government estimates put the rally at 40,000, but organizers and local media outlets expressed certainty the number was more than 50,000 people.
Less than two weeks from national elections on March 17, the protest rally held in Yitzhak Rabin Square is the largest showing of late from the nation's left-leaning and more-centrist forces who criticize Netanyahu (known by his nickname 'Bibi') for the way his far-right Likud Party has ruled in recent years.
Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine
It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding.
On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery" having been sent to the Donbass. "What is clear," Breedlove said, "is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day."
German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.
The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." ... It is the tone of Breedlove's announcements that makes Berlin uneasy. False claims and exaggerated accounts, warned a top German official during a recent meeting on Ukraine, have put NATO -- and by extension, the entire West -- in danger of losing its credibility. ... Berlin sources also say that it has become conspicuous that Breedlove's controversial statements are often made just as a step forward has been made in the difficult negotiations aimed at a political resolution.
US Puts Ukraine Training Operation on Hold Because of Ceasefire
Having spent the last several months hyping their intended military training operation in Ukraine, US military officials in Europe are now confirming the plan is indefinitely on hold.
“The US government would like to see the Minsk agreement fulfilled,” a Pentagon statement said by way of an explanation, adding that the military “is prepared to carry out the mission if and when our government decides to move forward.”
Chechen Officer Admits Guilt In Opposition Leader Nemtsov's Murder
One of two men accused of taking part in the murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has admitted his guilt, a Moscow judge said.
Two reported natives of Russia's restive Chechnya republic, Zaur Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev, were charged on Sunday with involvement in the murder of Nemtsov, who was shot four times in the back within sight of the Kremlin on February 27.
Judge Natalia Mushnikova said at a hearing that Dadayev had confessed.
"Dadayev's involvement in committing this crime is confirmed by, apart from his own confession, the totality of evidence gathered as part of this criminal case," Mushnikova told the court.
In the defendant's cage, Gubashev covered his face with pieces of paper and said he was not guilty.
Three other men—Ramzan Bakhayev, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov and Gubashev's brother Shagid—were also detained as suspects in the case but have not been charged. They also denied they had any part in the crime, but investigators "have evidence they were involved," a representative told Russia's Interfax news agency.
Islamic State Killings Pit Japan's Right Against Left in Battle Over Pacifist Constitution
The brutal beheadings of Japanese nationals Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa by the Islamic State (IS) in January have shocked the island nation and lent momentum to an effort to expand the limitations imposed on its constitution and military after its defeat by the United States in World War II. ...
Leftists in Japan fear that the incident will encourage a departure from the country's pacifist constitution, whose Article 9 states that "the Japanese people forever renounce… the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes." Right-wingers, meanwhile, see an opportunity to allow Japan to assert itself as a truly sovereign state.
For nearly 70 years, Article 9 was understood to grant Japan the right of self-defense at home while forbidding military action overseas. Last July, Abe and his cabinet re-interpreted the provision to accommodate the right of "collective self-defense," allowing it to aid allies who are under attack if the situation threatens Japan's welfare while leaving the stated conditions under which this would be put into effect vague and confusing.
Japanese pacifists who were upset by the reinterpretation criticized Abe's government for the maneuver, which required only the support of the prime minister's cabinet appointees. But the dispute has continued as Abe's government prepares to present Japan's parliament with a set of bills whose approval would implement the philosophical change.
Greece threatens new elections if eurozone rejects planned reforms
Greece’s anti-austerity government has raised the spectre of further political strife in the crisis-plagued country by saying it will consider calling a referendum, or fresh elections, if its eurozone partners reject proposed reforms from Athens.
Racheting up the pressure ahead of a crucial meeting of his eurozone counterparts on Monday, the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, said the leftist-led government would hold a plebiscite on fiscal policy if faced with deadlock.
“We are not attached to our posts. If needed, if we encounter implacability, we will resort to the Greek people either through elections or a referendum,” he told Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera in an interview on Sunday.
Varoufakis was the second high-ranking official in as many days to suggest the possibility of a referendum being held. On Saturday, Panos Kammenos, who heads the government’s junior partner in office, the small, rightwing Independent Greeks party, said such a ballot could be a “possible response” to protracted disagreement with creditor bodies propping up Greece’s debt-stricken economy. ...
“The country is at war with lenders,” warned the interior minister, Nikos Voutsis, giving voice to the increasingly combative sentiments now colouring relations with creditors. “Every month the leash is getting tighter for us. But we are not going to proceed in this war like happy scouts ready to follow bailout policies.”
Anarchists Occupy Syriza Party Headquarters
Dozens of anarchists stormed the offices of Greece's ruling party Sunday to demonstrate in solidarity with prisoners currently staging a hunger strike against poor conditions in the country's maximum-security prisons.
Around 50 protesters rushed into the radical left-wing SYRIZA party headquarters in Athens' Koumoundourou Square, temporarily occupying several floors. ...
The anarchists' list of demands included the abolition of a number of anti-terrorist laws and controversial "C-type" cells, which house convicted terrorists, many of whom are militant anarchists, and other "dangerous" prisoners deemed ineligible for parole or furloughs. Members of groups such as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are also held in these types of cells.
Activists and prisoners have long called for the elimination of C-type cells, where inmates' contact with lawyers and family is severely restricted. ...
Sunday's occupation, which lasted several hours, forced staff to leave the office temporarily, AFP reported. The Syriza party reportedly did not call police, and it is unclear whether protesters left of their own accord or were forcibly removed.
U.S. Workers Returning to Labor Force with Part-time Jobs and Stagnant Wages
Economist Richard Wolff discusses the latest unemployment figures and says the raising of interest rates by the Federal Reserve during a weak recovery would be disastrous for our heavily indebted society
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report on the reaction of A. F. of L. officials to the upcoming convention of industrial unionist: "The scheme is regarded...generally as a movement to form a national labor organization based upon the principles of socialism, antagonistic to the federation."
Tune in at 2pm!
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'There is an Alternative': Progressive Caucus Puts Forth Worker-First Trade Vision
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) charges that since implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, "the U.S. has lost millions of jobs in key sectors like manufacturing, wages have stagnated, and the standard of living for working families has dropped." Current trade deals up for negotiation, such as the TPP and the equally troubling Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe, offer the American people more of the same, the progressive lawmakers say. ...
Among other things, the Caucus's proposed model calls for:
- Fast Track authority "to be replaced with a process appropriate to today's expansive trade agreements," one that embraces transparency and gives Congress a "robust role" in developing trade policy.
- Meaningful labor protections "that are easily understood by unionists in partner nations, and properly enforced."
- Legally binding obligations for partner nations to adopt, maintain, implement, and strengthen domestic environmental laws and policies.
- Affordable access to essential medicines.
- Elevation of consumer rights above corporate well-being.
In addition, the CPC would terminate the creation of a private court system for foreign investors, strengthen trade adjustment assistance, and prohibit currency manipulation.
http://www.theguardian.com/...
Raúl M Grijalva and Keith Ellison : Workers need a fair shake in trade agreements.
The United States is currently negotiating with eleven other nations to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – one of the biggest trade deals in history – which will set the standard for international trade deals for decades to come. America faces a clear choice: will we continue the job-killing policies of recent deals, or will we create a new model for trade that puts working families first?
We in Congress don’t precisely know, because the rules governing negotiations mean we don’t have access to full draft texts and staff cannot be present when we see individual sections. We also cannot provide negotiating objectives for the US Trade Representative. The administration’s request for “fast track” authority is a request for Congress to rubber-stamp a text that more than 500 corporate representatives were able to see and influence.
Progressives believe that it’s possible to negotiate a trade agreement that doesn’t replicate the mistakes of the past – one which instead creates a new model for trade and promotes balanced growth for the global economy. But doing so requires that we rethink the old model of secret negotiations, backroom deals with industry and toothless side agreements on labor, the environment and other issues intrinsic to fair trade but deemed tangential to free trade. ...
The US has lost millions of jobs and wages have stagnated here at home and around the world since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 20 years ago. But NAFTA isn’t unique: despite provisions to protect workers’ rights in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), for instance, labor violations persist in partner nations. An agreement with South Korea (KORUS) went into effect in 2012; two years later, the drop in average monthly exports of agricultural products displaced 46,600 American workers. All the recent trade agreements have contributed to a ballooning trade deficit, with the drop in exports crippling American manufacturing. ...
As a global leader, the United States has a unique opportunity to shape the future of global trade agreements, so it is imperative that we get the rules right to strengthen global trading systems. The US must stop using trade agreements as investment deals for the world’s wealthiest corporations and instead prioritize higher wages, safer work and environmental standards and a healthier world economy. Trade agreements should improve the bottom lines of all Americans, not just of American corporations – or else we shouldn’t enter into them at all.
Not Guilty: Flood Wall Street Protesters Vindicated By Manhattan Court
In a ruling on Thursday hailed as a vindication, a Manhattan court has determined ten climate activists "not guilty" on charges related to a thousands-strong climate protest that "flooded Wall Street" in New York City's financial district in September of last year.
Over 100 people—including one dressed as a polar bear—were arrested at the civil disobedience, which took direct aim at the role of capitalism in driving global warming and overall planetary destruction. Timed to coincide with a United Nations summit of heads of state and corporate leaders, the direct action followed the People's Climate March, which featured over 400,000 participants and was led by communities from the front-lines of the climate crisis. ...
According to a statement from protesters, New York City Criminal Court Judge Robert Mandelbaum ruled that the dispersal order issued by the New York Police Department constituted an unlawful violation of demonstrators' First Amendment rights.
Going beyond the "not guilty" ruling, however, Mandelbaum also took judicial notice of the fact that climate change is real, human-made, and requires drastic action. Defense Attorney Martin Stolar said that this acknowledgment is "unprecedented and has significance for future litigation involving climate change."
The Evening Greens
Wisconsin Tribes and Environmentalists Put a Halt to a $1.5 Billion Iron Ore Mine Project
Ben Connors steered through the fog. At the end of a hot, summer afternoon, ripe wild rice kernels fell before him into the bottom of a canoe. Just upstream from Connors, a company called Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) proposed to blast and dig a 1,000-foot hole in the ground in order to tap iron ore deposits, a $1.5 billion dollar projects. While some welcomed the promise of jobs, others worried it would threaten the fragile rice sloughs, as well as the headwaters of Lake Superior — home to 10 percent of the world's fresh water.
After three years of heated argument over the project, the company announced last week that it is closing its office in Hurley, Wisconsin — effectively putting the mine on hold. This is welcome news to local activists at the Harvest Education Learning Project, who for two Wisconsin winters have camped outside in protest. It's also good tidings for the Wisconsin Federation of Tribes, who brought the local fight to the federal level last summer when they asked the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the mine under the auspices of the Clean Water Act.
In a public statement last week, GTAC president Bill Williams cited EPA regulations as the primary reason for the company's about-face. He also said that the mining location turned out to have more wetlands than the company had initially foreseen. "It's unfortunate that the federal requirements for mitigating wetlands make it cost-prohibitive for Gogebic to move forward at this time," Williams said.
Although the mine may be halted, GTAC's legacy in Wisconsin will remain. Governor Scott Walker came under fire last year when documents revealed the degree of GTAC's campaign contributions. The filings show that the company contributed $700,000 to the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which in turn supported Walker and his Republican allies.
When asked by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel if the contributions were part of some "pay-to-play scheme," Walker said he was unaware of the funds. But shortly after his re-election, Walker said he was "thrilled" to pass a revision of Wisconsin's state mining laws. The new non-ferrous mining law,signed by the governor in 2013, significantly weakened environmental protections, eliminated the need for public hearings, and allowed GTAC to pay taxes based on profit, not on the amount of ore removed. The only chance the public had to speak out against the changes in state law was at a hearing overseen by Senator Tom Tiffany,who had received $74,000 in campaign funding from mining interests.
Bomb Train Roulette? Latest Derailment in Ontario Is Fourth in Four Weeks
A train carrying crude oil that derailed in northern Ontario on Saturday—which resulted in numerous overturned cars catching fire and oil spilling into a local waterway— is the fourth such accident in North America in as many weeks.
The train, owned by the Canadian National Railway Co., was passing over a bridge above the Makami River near the town of Gogama, Ontario when the derailment occurred, sending thirty-five cars off the tracks, at least five of which ended up in the water. A large fire and huge black clouds of smoke followed.
The CBC reports the train was 94 cars long and all were tanker cars carrying crude oil from Alberta. ...
Since February 14, there have been three other fiery oil train derailments in North America, including another in Ontario and two in the U.S., one in West Virginia on February 16 and the other last Thursday in Illinois.
Florida banned state workers from using term 'climate change'
‘Global warming’ and ‘sustainability’ among phrases allegedly barred at state’s Department of Environmental Protection, investigative report finds
Officials with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the agency in charge of setting conservation policy and enforcing environmental laws in the state, issued directives in 2011 barring thousands of employees from using the phrases “climate change” and “global warming”, according to a bombshell report by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR).
The report ties the alleged policy, which is described as “unwritten”, to the election of Republican governor Rick Scott and his appointment of a new department director that year. Scott, who was re-elected last November, has declined to say whether he believes in climate change caused by human activity. ...
According to the employees’ accounts, the ban left damaging holes in everything from educational material published by the agency to training programs to annual reports on the environment that could be used to set energy and business policy.
Oil & gas execs ‘pressured’ Oklahoma geologists not to reveal fracking-quakes link
Newly-obtained emails reveal that Oklahoma geologists were pressured by oil industry big-shots not to push on with their assessments of possible links between earthquakes in the state and hydraulic fracturing industry, most often referred to as fracking.
More than a year since a sharp spike in earthquakes in the region, which coincided with fracking for oil and gas, the Oklahoma Geological Survey say there might be a possible link. The rise resulted in magnitude 3 earthquakes almost twice daily on average – three times as many as in disaster-prone California.
But after the body issued a joint statement with the USGS in October 2013, saying that "activities such as wastewater disposal" could be a “contributing factor to the increase in earthquakes,” oil execs started to panic, according to newly-obtained emails by EnergyWire.
This allegedly led to the OGS avoiding mentioning that the lion’s share of earthquakes in the region was man-made.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
Documents Shine Light on Shadowy New Zealand Surveillance Base
How will everything change under climate change?
Brandon
A Little Night Music
Hammie Nixon - The Judge, He Pleaded (Viola Lee Blues)
Robert Wilkins - That's No Way To Get Along
Robert Wilkins - I'll Go With Her
Robert Wilkins - Rolling Stone
Hammie Nixon & Napoleon Strickland
Hammie Nixon - Im Going Home
Robert Wilkins - New Stock Yard Blues
Rev. Robert Wilkins - Don't You Let Nobody Turn You Round
Yank Rachell + Hammie Nixon - When My Baby Comes Back Home
Hammie Nixon & Son Bonds - Trouble Trouble Blues
Hammie Nixon + Sleepy John Estes - Drop Down Mama
Rev. Robert Wilkins - Holy Ghost Train
Robert Wilkins - Fallin' Down Blues
Rev Robert Wilkins - Prodigal Son
Hammie Nixon - Bottle Up and Go
Hammie Nixon + Sleepy John Estes - Stop That Thing
Hammie Nixon - Down South Blues
Hammie Nixon + Sleepy John Estes - Someday Baby Blues
Hammie Nixon + Sleepy John Estes - I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More
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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