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 April Fools music. Enjoy!
Little Walter - Just Your Fool
“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”
-- George W. Bush
News and Opinion
Sadly, I don't think that this warmongering idiot who has become Secretary of Defense Offense intended his remarks quoted here as an April fools prank:
Defense Secretary: Nuclear Deal Won’t Preclude US Attack on Iran
In a highly controversial open letter earlier this month, a number of Senate Republicans warned Iran against signing a nuclear deal with President Obama, arguing the US couldn’t be trusted to keep the deal. They didn’t know how right they were.
Today, US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter sought to downplay the Iran talks, during remarks at Syracuse University, saying thedeal wouldn’t have any impact on a potential US military strike on Iran.
“One of my jobs is to make sure all options are on the table,” Carter said, insisting that the US would reserve the right to attack Iran at any time even if the nuclear deal is reached.
Iran and world powers miss nuclear deal deadline, talks go on
Iran nuclear negotiators have reached broad understanding, says UK
Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has said negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks in Switzerland have reached “a broad framework of understanding”, but that details still have to be agreed.
Hammond was speaking after the negotiations missed a midnight deadline to produce a preliminary accord on the main issues in dispute in Iran’s nuclear programme. After breaking off in the early hours of the morning, talks among foreign ministers and senior diplomats resumed on Wednesday.
“I think we have a broad framework of understanding but there are still some key issues that have to be worked through,” the foreign secretary told a group of British broadcasters.
“Some of them are quite detailed and technical so there is still quite a lot of work to do, but we are on it now and we’ll keep going at it.”
He added: “We have made significant progress over the last few days but it has been slow going. We decided to break last night because some of the staff had been working through the previous night. We wanted people to be fresh as we tackle the last few isssues that remain.
Operation Decisive Storm in Yemen May Not Be So Decisive
Patrick Cockburn says wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya are escalating, intensifying and cross-infecting each other, and the contradictory positions the US faces gives the IS an advantage
Palestinian Authority becomes member of international criminal court
Move is welcomed by activists as opportunity to bring accountability to years of conflict between Palestinians and Israel
The Palestinian Authority completed its journey to formal membership of international criminal court on Wednesday following a low-key ceremony at the Hague headquarters of the global institution of last resort.
The move could open the way for Israelis to be prosecuted for war crimes - despite Israel not being a member - and it also allows the prosecution of Palestinian militants, including those from Hamas, who now fall under the court’s jurisdiction.
International justice activists hailed the occasion as an opportunity to bring accountability after years of conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, but Palestinians backed away from earlier threats to introduce a raft of complaints on formally becoming the court’s 123rd member.
Instead they will wait for the outcome of a preliminary investigation launched by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, initiated when the Palestinian Authority acceded to the court’s governing Rome statute 90 days ago.
The decision not to press ahead immediately with cases has been seen by observers as a way of avoiding an immediate conflict with the US Congress, which has the authority to freeze US aid to the Palestinian Authority should it pursue its own cases.
Obama Personally Tells the Egyptian Dictator that U.S. Will Again Send Weapons (and Cash) to his Regime
Yesterday, the Egyptian regime announced it was prosecuting witnesses who say they saw a police officer murder an unarmed poet and activist during a demonstration, the latest in a long line of brutal human rights abuses that includes imprisoning journalists, prosecuting LGBT citizens, and mass executions of protesters. Last June, Human Rights Watch said that Egyptian “security forces have carried out mass arrests and torture that harken back to the darkest days of former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.”
Today, the White House announced that during a telephone call with Egyptian despot Abdelfattah al-Sisi, President Obama personally lifted the freeze on transferring weapons to the regime, and also affirmed that the $1.3 billion in military aid will continue unimpeded. ...
The move comes as the U.S. is also heavily supporting the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, also involving some of the region’s worst tyrants (also known as: the U.S.’s closest allies). So the U.S. is, as usual, standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the region’s most oppressive regimes, whose survival at least partially depends on the abundant U.S. largesse they receive, once again provoking that age-old mystery: Why do they hate us?
Mexico Quietly Placed Archives Related to Its 'Dirty War' Under Lock and Key
Mexico's government has silently implemented a law blocking public access to archival documents related to the country's Guerra Sucia, or Dirty War, which left thousands of political dissidents, students, and activists dead or disappeared in the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s.
The Dirty War was a period of low-intensity internal conflict between the ruling Institutionalized Revolutionary Party (PRI) and leftist guerrilla movements, which surged during the PRI's more than 70 years in power.
The most notable result of this civilian insurgency was the 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre. The Mexican military opened fire on protesting students, teachers, and passersby, killing hundreds — the official death toll was never definitively determined and remains unknown.
The Dirty War archive was sealed this year as a delayed result of the 2012 Federal Law of Archives, which reclassified these historic documents as "confidential." The controversial move further obfuscates the details that surround a dark period in Mexican history marked by unofficial military operations aimed at wiping out insurgent guerrillas and their leaders, which continue to be muddied.
Greece’s Russia Overtures Seen as Sideshow by Merkel, Hollande
Germany and France view Greece’s overtures toward Russia as a sideshow and won’t be drawn into a debate on the matter, three government officials said.
That strategy stems from Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande’s belief that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ talks with President Vladimir Putin are not likely to yield significant aid -- especially given Russia’s own economic woes -- and are more political theater than any real geopolitical shift, said the officials, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations.
Merkel has signaled repeatedly she wants Greece to remain in the euro, partly to avoid a perception of European weakness as Russia challenges the continent’s post-Cold War order. While she and Hollande are closely watching what develops, they’re publicly shrugging off Tsipras’s trip to Moscow next week, while talks with European partners on Greece’s bailout stall.
Yanis Varoufakis: “Greece Will Adopt the Bitcoin If Eurogroup Doesn’t Give Us a Deal”
While Greece’s lenders are pushing the Greek government to accept their terms in order to allocate funds so the country will not go bankrupt, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis seems to have another ace up his sleeve. The second top thinker in the world according to prospect magazine surprised even his closest aides at a secret meeting when he said “We ‘ve had enough, we ‘ll run on Bitcoin.”
Sources very close to Greece’s minister of finance told Greek Reporter that today Yanis Varoufakis held a top secret meeting with high-ranking finance ministry officials to prepare them in case negotiations at the upcoming Eurogroup fail. The anonymous source noted that everybody in the room was staring at each other when Varoufakis – also a prominent blogger – said “We ‘ll go to Bitcoin, we will be ahead of all the world economies and although it may be painful in the beginning, Greece’s economy will thrive in the long term.”
The Greek Finance Minister went on to explain what is the cryptocurrency and how it will be implemented into Greeks’ day to day life by using a special mini computerized card with a chip. All citizens will carry the card as an electronic wallet. The card will be distributed for free to all Greek citizens via the local tax offices but it will also be available for purchase at the country’s entry points for 45 euros, or 0,20 Bitcoin each. The sale of the card to tourists is expected to be another form of revenue for cash-strapped Greece.
“This is the smartest move to beat corruption and tax evasion, all transactions will be recorded to the Greek Ministry of Finance new secure and dedicated Bitcoin servers and we ‘ll be able to track transanctions at any given moment,” said Varoufakis defending his decision.
Net neutrality emails raise suspicions
A number of messages to lawmakers purporting to be from average constituents who oppose the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules don’t appear to have come from people within their districts, according to the company that manages the technology for some House members.
The notes have identical wording to those organized by a group called American Commitment, which is led by Phil Kerpen, a former top aide at the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity.
On Monday, American Commitment boasted that it helped direct more than 1.6 million messages earlier this month from more than half a million voters to members of the House and Senate. Some of the messages encouraged lawmakers to defund the FCC’s new rules requiring Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally.
The flood of traffic seemed to raise some lawmakers’ eyebrows, including Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California, whose office soon determined some of the messages had come from constituents who didn’t recall sending them. ...
“This is identity theft, but instead of impersonating for financial gain, the originators of this theft are striking at the heart of our representative democracy,” Speier said.
Indiana Scrambles to Contain Growing Corporate, Public Outcry over Anti-LGBT "Religious Freedom" Law
The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act was Drafted to be Extreme
Sec. 5. As used in this chapter, ‘exercise of religion’ includes any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.
“Religion” is undefined. The goal of Section 5 is to take the most extreme position possible. “Religion” is whatever the individual decides. The precepts of that religion are whatever the individual decides. Those precepts do not have to bear any relationship to the actual precepts of any organized religion. The precept does not have to be one that a believer is required to follow, indeed, it can be a view that the leaders of the faith reject. There is no requirement that the “belief” be sincere or that there be any record of the individual having held such a belief.
The Indiana Act does not mention people who are LGBT. It is far broader than that. Any person in Indiana can invent a “religious” “belief.” That “belief” could be that one should not associate with, touch, speak to, see, or serve any characteristic one can imagine – race, color, gender, nationality, age, eye-color, progressives, or the left-handed. The focus on LGBT is because the purpose of the law is to encourage discrimination against LGBT and because Indiana has no law barring discrimination against LGBT.
The law’s ultra-vague standard and the ability of a person in Indiana to sue before any judge they choose seeking a judicial declaration that they have a right to deny service to someone because he or she was LGBT or a Muslim encourages judge shopping. Finding a justice of the peace who is a proud homophobe in rural Indiana should be a piece of cake.
Arkansas passes Indiana-style 'religious freedom' bill criticised as anti-gay
State ratifies Religious Freedom Restoration Act that critics see as a way to discriminate against gay and lesbian people under the guise of religious freedom
The Arkansas state legislature has passed an Indiana-style religious freedom bill Democrats say “authorizes discrimination”, defying international outrage that hours earlier forced the governor of Indiana to walk back a similar law decried by the world’s leading companies and LGBT activists as anti-gay.
Despite heated debate among Arkansas’ legislators, who acknowledged increasing public anger brewing over such religious freedom laws sweeping statehouses, the Republican-dominated House passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on Tuesday. Whether or not Republican governor Asa Hutchinson signs the bill, also known as HB1228 or RFRA, it is likely to go into effect within the week.
How Hobby Lobby Paved the Way for the Current Rush of Religious Freedom Laws
A total of 15 states across the US could follow Indiana's lead in enacting broad "religious freedom" laws this legislative session, despite the intense blowback and backtracking now occurring in Indiana. ...
While unrest continues to brew in Indiana, however, lawmakers in Arkansas could vote on a Religious Freedom Restoration Act of their own as early as Thursday. And a proposal in North Carolina has been introduced into both the House and Senate of the state legislature there.
Those three states join 13 others that have introduced RFRA legislation in 2015, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Many supporters of the RFRA bills in those states say they are merely joining 20 other states around the country that have RFRA laws on their books, and are following a template created when Congress, with bipartisan support, passed the federal RFRA in 1993. ...
But some legal experts say that claim is dubious, given the timing of all the new RFRA laws being introduced. The sudden rush to pass state RFRA laws has more to do with the Supreme Court's 2014 decision on Hobby Lobby, in which companies were allowed religious exemptions, than it does with the reasons the federal law was passed, they said. ...
"Hobby Lobby was the first time [corporate protections] were made available, so they've been using RFRA to shield companies from providing birth control and other objections, and to allow corporations to discriminate against LGBT people," Boston College law professor Kari E. Hong said.
Corporate Lobby Spends $600,000 to Demote Chief Justice as Criminal Probe of Walker Campaign Looms
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), Wisconsin's premier lobby for corporate tax breaks and low wage jobs, has unleashed a $600,000 ad blitz to strip Wisconsin's independent Chief Justice of her title just as the court prepares to take up the "John Doe" criminal probe of Scott Walker and the special interest groups that defended him against recall in 2012.
WMC's spending in the recall campaigns is one of key issues in the case. The case will be be considered in secret without oral arguments by Wisconsin's Supreme Court whose conservative majority was elected by WMC.
You can’t make this stuff up. ...
In the John Doe investigation which has gotten little attention outside the state, a bipartisan group of prosecutors allege that the Walker campaign illegally coordinated fundraising and expenditures with Wisconsin Club for Growth (WiCFG) and WMC during the 2011 and 2012 recall campaigns. While coordination between candidate campaign committees and independent groups is prohibited, WiCFG director R.J. Johnson was also Walker's campaign manager when the state faced a series of nine recall races after the passage of the 2011 union-busting Act 10 legislation. Representatives of the Walker campaign or the dark money groups could face civil or criminal liability if prosecutors find that they conspired to evade campaign finance disclosure requirements and contribution limits. (The U.S. Department of Justice recently settled a criminal campaign coordination case in Virginia.) In his run for the White House, Walker continues to exhibit total disregard for campaign finance law, says the Campaign Legal Center in a complaint filed before the FEC this week.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature an article by Mother Jones written for the (WFM) Miners' Magazine: "Fashionable Society Scored."
Tune in at 2pm!
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Seattle workers hail 'historic moment' as city sets course for $15 minimum wage
By 2017, all workers in the city of Seattle will earn $15 an hour – after a long battle by city workers who felt they weren’t getting a fair deal
Nearly 40,000 low-wage workers will get an instant pay rise on Wednesday, when Seattle begins to phase in a landmark $15 minimum wage law that was passed amid controversy last year.
Beginning April 1, the minimum wage for an employer with more than 500 employees rises from just over $9 to $11 per hour; for smaller employers, it becomes $10 per hour.
Over the next few years, stepped increases in the minimum wage will continue, until all workers in the city of Seattle earn at least $15 an hour by 1 January 2017, more than double the federal minimum wage. ...
One of the most vocal campaigners for the $15 minimum wage has been Kshama Sawant, an Occupy Wall Street activist and social justice campaigner, who was elected to Seattle city council in 2013 on a socialist platform. ...
“Initially, big business had no intention of giving in at all,” Sawant said. “Then, they had to make huge concessions, because the public opinion shifted so dramatically in favour of a fight against income inequality.
“This is a testament to how much the public mood has changed since Occupy.”
assertions-in-the-jamie-dimon-cover-story-in-barrons/">5 Truly Crazy Assertions in the Jamie Dimon Cover Story
Barron’s should have published its gushing cover story on Jamie Dimon’s stewardship of JPMorgan today – as an April Fool’s joke.
The nation’s largest bank is operating under a deferred prosecution agreement until at least next January for two felony counts it received in the Madoff swindle, the largest Ponzi scheme in history. It’s under a current criminal investigation over potential rigging of the foreign exchange markets with the New York Times reporting on February 10 that federal prosecutors had informed JPMorgan and three other banks “that they must enter guilty pleas to settle the cases.” Barron’s sister publication, the Wall Street Journal, reported on February 24 that JPMorgan is one of the 10 banks being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for potential rigging of gold and other precious metals.
Against that backdrop, Barron’s comes up with this: JPMorgan is “Back on Top.” Back on top of what – its serial crime spree?
The Evening Greens
Chorus of Outrage as Obama Administration Approves Arctic Drilling for Shell Oil
Department of the Interior ignoring its own report on threat to climate, say environmental groups
Environmental activists expressed shock and outrage on Tuesday after the U.S. Department of the Interior upheld a 2008 lease sale on the Arctic's Chuchki Sea, opening the door for continued oil exploration in a region long eyed for drilling by Shell Corporation and increasingly strained under the effects of climate change.
The decision opens up 30 million acres in the Chuchki Sea to fossil fuel exploration and drilling, a move which state and national green groups called "unconscionable." ...
In January 2014, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Interior Department had violated the law when it sold those 2008 leases—a deal that came about during George W. Bush's presidency, but was upheld two years later by the Obama administration.
The 2014 decision ordered the Interior Department to reconsider the leases. A month later, the department admitted that drilling in the Chucki Sea was likely to have devastating consequences, with a spill risk of 75 percent or more.
Here's How Much Obama Says the US Will Cut Carbon Pollution
In a document submitted to the United Nations on Tuesday, the Obama administration committed the United States to lowering greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 30 percent in the next 10 years. ...
Global temperatures have already risen nearly 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and because of the inertia of the Earth's climate system nearly another degree Celsius of warming is likely to occur even if global emissions are drastically cut in the next several years.
And that has some concerned that the level of commitment from the United States, as well as other leading emitters, remains inadequate to hold off dangerous levels of warming. ...
Meena Raman of the Third World Network said: "This is a proposal for more drought, more devastated fish stocks, and more wars over water. The US proposal is an ingredient in a recipe for disaster."
Guardian Media Group to divest its £800m fund from fossil fuels
The Guardian Media Group (GMG) is to sell all the fossil fuel assets in its investment fund of over £800m, making it the largest yet known to pull out of coal, oil and gas companies.
The decision was justified on both financial and ethical grounds, said Neil Berkett, GMG chair: “It is a hard-nosed business decision, but it is influenced by the values of our organisation. It is a holistic decision taking into account all of those things.”
Berkett said fossil fuel assets had performed relatively poorly in recent years and were threatened by future climate change action, while an ethical fund already held by GMG had been a “stellar” performer and renewable energy was growing strongly. “This means we can adopt socially responsible investment criteria without putting at risk the core purpose of GMG’s investment funds: to generate long-term returns that guarantee the financial future and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity,” he said.
In Another Divestment Victory, Syracuse University Goes Fossil Free
Joining a rapidly expanding international network of institutions seeking to de-fund the industries driving global warming, Syracuse University on Tuesday announced it would divest its $1.8 billion endowment from coal mining and fossil fuel companies.
In a press release, the private research university based in central New Yorkexplained: "This commitment means that Syracuse will not directly invest in publicly traded companies whose primary business is extraction of fossil fuels. The university will also direct its external investment managers to take every step possible to prohibit investments in these public companies as well."
In addition, the university said it would "continue to seek additional investments through its endowment in companies that are developing new technology related to solar energy, biofuels, and advanced recycling."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Yemen’s Houthis Are No Iran Proxy
Hat tip mimi:
Geopolitical Tremors: America, Nuclear Talks and the New Middle East
Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs
A Little Night Music
James Cotton - How Long Can A Fool Go Wrong
Ray Charles - A fool for you
Aretha Franklin - Chain Of Fools
Elmore James - I Was A Fool
Willie Mabon - You're A Fool
Roy Gaines - The Worlds Biggest Fool
Bobby Blue Bland - I Pity The Fool
Solomon Burke - When She Touches Me
Otis Redding - Mr. Pitiful
Ricky Allen - Going Or Coming
Jay Mcshann - Hootie's Ignorant Oil
Charles Brown - Fool's Paradise
Sista Monica Parker - I Been Bamboozled
Rufus Thomas - I think i made a boo boo
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - A Man Is Nothing but A Fool
David Bromberg - Will Not Be Your Fool
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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