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 Texas bluesman and guitarist Mance Lipscomb. Enjoy!
Mance Lipscomb - Take Me Back + Goin' Down Slow
“At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. If our own time were any different, that would be remarkable. As far as I can tell it isn't.”
-- Paul Graham
News and Opinion
Robert Fisk on Syria’s Civil War, Chemical Weapons "Theater" & Obama’s Backing of Israeli Strikes
Israeli Bombing of Syria and Moral Relativism
On Sunday, Israel dropped massive bombs near Damascus, ones which the New York Times, quoting residents, originally reported (then evidently deleted) resulted in explosions "more massive than anything the residents of the city. . . have witnessed during more than two years of war." The Jerusalem Post this morning quoted "a senior Syrian military source" as claiming that "Israel used depleted uranium shells", though that is not confirmed. The NYT cited a "high-ranking Syrian military official" who said the bombs "struck several critical military facilities in some of the country's most tightly secured and strategic areas" and killed "dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace", while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that "at least 42 soldiers were killed in the strikes, and another 100 who would usually be at the targeted sites remain unaccounted for."
Israeli defenders claim that its air attack targeted weapons provided by Iran that would have ended up in the hands of Hezbollah. Obama officials quickly told media outlets that "the administration is fully supportive of Israel's airstrikes." Indeed, Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy noted: "Keep in mind the Israelis are using weapons supplied by us." There is, needless to say, virtually no condemnation of the Israeli assault in US media or political circles. At this point, the only question is how many minutes will elapse before Congress reflexively adopts a near-unanimous or unanimous resolution effusively praising Israel for the attack and unqualifiedly endorsing all past and future attacks as well.
Because people who cheer for military action by their side like to pretend that they're something more than primitive "might-makes-right" tribalists, the claim is being hauled out that Israel's actions are justified by the "principle" that it has the right to defend itself from foreign weapons in the hands of hostile forces. But is that really a "principle" that anyone would apply consistently, as opposed to a typically concocted ad hoc claim to justify whatever the US and Israel do? ...
If Syria this week attacks a US military base on US soil and incidentally kills some American civilians (as Nidal Hasan did), and then cites as justification the fact that the US has been aiding Syrian rebels, would any establishment US journalist or political official argue that this was remotely justified? Or what if Syria bombed Qatar or Saudi Arabia on the same ground: would any US national figure defend the bombing as well within Syria's rights given those nation's arming of its rebels?
Israel's Syria Strategy to Weaken Hezbollah and Profit from Chaos
Jeremy Scahill about Obama's JSOC
Air Force Chief of Sexual-Assault Prevention Arrested on Sexual Battery Charges
How serious is the Air Force’s sexual assault epidemic? Yesterday, police in northern Virginia arrested the Air Force’s chief of sexual-assault prevention — for sexual assault.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, was “arrested and charged with sexual battery,” according to the Arlington, Virginia police department. According to the arrest report, Krusinski drunkenly “approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks.” ...
The office Krusinski ran “reinforces the Air Force’s commitment to eliminate incidents of sexual assault through awareness and prevention training, education, victim advocacy, response, reporting and accountability,” according to its website. “The Air Force promotes sensitive care and confidential reporting for victims of sexual assault and accountability for those who commit these crimes.” ...
“If these allegations are true, this is one more example on a long list of how fundamentally broken the military justice system and culture are,” emailed Nancy Parrish, the president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group for the survivors of military sexual assault. “The idea that the head of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office could be arrested for sexual assault indicates the depth of the problem. It’s outrageous.”
Wall Street Still Runs The Show
One might think that with the wave of scandals that have rocked the banking industry in the last several months, from HSBC money laundering to drug cartels, to the lies perpetuated in the JP Morgan London Whale trades, that politicians might have some sense of shame about continuing to deregulate on behalf of the banks. One might think that even if they are captured completely by their true bosses--Wall Street--that politically, they would have enough sense to go easy, lay low, and not carry the water for the banks so soon after this deluge of scandals.
You'd be wrong.
This Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee will be reviewing nine bills that gut many of the reforms passed to regulate derivatives on Wall St in 2010. These bills vary in the specifics of their aims, but all effectively make profits easier for Wall Street, often at the expense of the American public. ...
But by far the most egregious of these bills is HR 992. Currently, banks can hold three kinds of derivatives in the same accounts as depositor funds--those that enjoy FDIC insurance. HR 992 would expand this to allow banks to hold ANY kind of derivative, with one exception (a structured swap, which is defined in the bill), in the insured depository.
The reason this is a problem is because derivatives are senior in bankruptcy. In the event a big bank went under, hedge funds sitting on the other side of trades with the bank would get money paid back to them first. If the hedge funds and other companies the bank traded derivatives with (what is technically called a “counterparty”) exhausted the funds set aside to insure the regular depositors (those with checking and savings accounts), the FDIC would have to 1) sell assets from the failed bank to raise money, and 2) try and fight to get back some of this money from the derivatives counterparties. If that didn’t work, the Treasury would step in and give a loan to the failed bank for 5 years--which essentially is a bailout. Banks want to hold their derivatives in the insured account because it makes it cheaper for them. HR 992 at its heart is about making the cost of doing business cheaper for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.
How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment
It’s easy to believe the worst is over in the economic downturn. But for African-Americans, the pain continues — over 13 percent of black workers are unemployed, nearly twice the national average. And that’s not a new development: regardless of the economy, job prospects for African-Americans have long been significantly worse than for the country as a whole.
The most obvious explanation for this entrenched disparity is racial discrimination. But in my research I have found a somewhat different culprit: favoritism. Getting an inside edge by using help from family and friends is a powerful, hidden force driving inequality in the United States.
Such favoritism has a strong racial component. Through such seemingly innocuous networking, white Americans tend to help other whites, because social resources are concentrated among whites. If African-Americans are not part of the same networks, they will have a harder time finding decent jobs.
The mechanism that reproduces inequality, in other words, may be inclusion more than exclusion. And while exclusion or discrimination is illegal, inclusion or favoritism is not — meaning it can be more insidious and largely immune to legal challenges.
Could Automatic Cuts to Meals-on-Wheels End up Costing More instead of Less?
Although budget cuts are popular in Congress right now, especially among Republicans who support the budget sequester that indiscriminately hacks $85 billion in domestic government spending, sometimes a spending cut is really a spending increase, especially when those in charge of the cutting fail to understand the value of the goods or services no longer being purchased. ...
Ironically, the argument that such so-called “shared sacrifice” is necessary to achieve fiscal balance took a major hit last week when a study by the Center for Effective Government showed that the sequester cuts to Meals on Wheels programs could cost taxpayers far more than they save. The $10 million “savings” on MOW will be dwarfed by at least $489 million per year in increased spending on Medicaid caused by the cuts, according to the report.
The reason for this is that Meals on Wheels saves money by helping clients live at home instead of in more expensive nursing homes. In fact, the Administration on Aging found recently that about “92% [of clients] say Meals on Wheels means they can continue to live in their own home.” As MOW clients tend to be poor, their nursing home bills are paid by Medicaid, at an average annual cost of $57,878. When seniors receive home care, in contrast, the cost to Medicaid is about $15,371 per year, or $42,507 less than nursing home care.
Mississippi to Execute Willie Manning Tonight After Rejecting DNA Tests & FBI’s Admission of Error
Willie Manning, Mississippi Death Row Inmate, Denied DNA Test; Execution Set For Tuesday
Convicted double murderer Willie Jerome Manning, who has been on death row for nearly two decades, is set to be executed Tuesday, after being denied a DNA test that could save him from the execution chamber, the New York Times reports.
In a 5-to-4 decision in April, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that there was "conclusive, overwhelming evidence of guilty" and that DNA tests would not "preclude his participation in the crimes," according to the Times.
But in a dissenting opinion Justice James W. Kitchens argued that "whatever potential harm the denial seeks to avert is surely outweighed by the benefits of ensuring justice by the scientific analysis of all the trace evidence."
Dov Fox of the Georgetown University Law Center says that "no physical evidence has ever linked Manning to the crime."
Apparently the people of France are not immune to "buyer's remorse," when their lying politicians (much like our lying politicians) make promises of change that they do not keep:
Crowds flood Paris to decry Hollande
Japanese Movement Against TPP Growing
Alaska watches as Canada considers shipping tar sands oil across Arctic Ocean
Is Alaska nearing the day when large oil tankers will sail by its Arctic shoreline, carrying Canadian tar sands oil to foreign markets? The provincial government of Alberta is toying with the idea, sinking money into a study to find out if an Arctic shipping plan makes more sense than moving its oil through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Lower 48, or pipelines west or east through Canada. ...
The Canadian pipeline would run from Alberta's tar sands, north through the Mackenzie River Valley, to the Arctic coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk, where the oil would be shipped on tanker vessels to Asia or Europe, according to the CBC News. The proposal, still very much in its infancy, is being considered while regulatory approval for the Keystone XL pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast remains in limbo and other proposed pipelines heading to British Columbia or toward Quebec face their own obstacles.
The sea-faring alternative would be a nightmarish specter for environmentalists who have long argued the Arctic is too fragile, too valuable, to risk a major industry mishap.
Western black rhino declared extinct
Africa's western black rhino is now officially extinct according the latest review of animals and plants by the world's largest conservation network.
The subspecies of the black rhino -- which is classified as "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species -- was last seen in western Africa in 2006.
The IUCN warns that other rhinos could follow saying Africa's northern white rhino is "teetering on the brink of extinction" while Asia's Javan rhino is "making its last stand" due to continued poaching and lack of conservation.
"In the case of the western black rhino and the northern white rhino the situation could have had very different results if the suggested conservation measures had been implemented," Simon Stuart, chair of the IUCN species survival commission said in a statement.
Rangers band together to protect National Parks from oil and gas drilling
A new organization comprised of National Park Rangers introduced itself to the country, Monday. Park Rangers for Our Lands (PROL), the brainchild of leader Ranger Ellis Richard, will work to create public awareness of the threats America’s current drilling policies pose to National Parks.
Richards created the organization after hearing numerous stories from rangers serving in western parks of how oil and gas drilling is encroaching on these protected lands. PROL’s primary goal is to inform people about the threat National Parks are under from the impacts of oil and gas drilling, and urge the federal government to adopt a more balanced approach to drilling. ...
National Parks generate $30.1 billion in economic activity each year. Western states have seen public outcry rise in recent years in response to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) decisions to lease land near and adjacent to parks for oil and gas drilling. In 2013, Colorado BLM proposed oil and gas leasing on thousands of acres next to Dinosaur National Monument, including land next to its visitor center. The state office also proposed oil and gas leasing near Mesa Verde National Park, which is already experiencing diminished air quality as a result of existing drilling.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Transwoman denied service at bridal store in Canada
Shift Change (Documentary on Worker Cooperatives)
A Little Night Music
Mance Lipscomb - Jack of Spades
Mance Lipscomb - Ella Speed
Mance Lipscomb - Alcohol Blues
Mance Lipscomb - Can I Do Something
Mance Lipscomb - Big Boss Man
Mance Lipscomb - Sugar Babe
Mance Lipscomb - Charley James
Mance Lipscomb - Corina Corina
Mance Lipscomb - Baby Please Don't Go
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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