Welcome! "The Evening Blues - Weekend Edition" is a casual community diary (published Saturday & Sunday, 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 is brought to you by guest VJ NCTim and features English R&B musician, song writer and soul singer James Hunter. Enjoy!
“Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life - that to the white man is an 'unbroken wilderness.'
But for us there was no wilderness, nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly. Our faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings.
For us, the world was full of beauty; for the other, it was a place to be endured until he went to another world.
But we were wise. We knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard.”
Chief Luther Standing Bear
News and Opinion
Cheney on CIA interrogation: ‘I’d do it again in a minute’
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that, despite the backlash against harsh CIA interrogation tactics, he would authorize them again with no hesitation.
“It worked. It’s worked now for 13 years. We’ve avoided another mass casualty event against the United States,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’d do it again in a minute.”
Senate Democrats last week released a report that described interrogation tactics including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, rectal feedings and confinements in coffin-sized boxes for more than a week. Many have called the actions torture, saying that they violate international agreements, but Mr. Cheney maintained that the administration consulted with lawyers at the time and made sure not to cross that line.
“Torture to me is an American citizen on a cell phone making the last call to his four young daughters shortly before he burns to death on the upper floors of the World Trade Center on 9/11,” he said.
Dick Cheney insists 'rectal feeding' was for medical reasons, not torture
~Former US vice-president robustly defends CIA interrogation methods
~Republicans and intelligence community attack Senate report
~Come clean on British links to torture, UK MPs tell Senate
~Rectal rehydration and more: the CIA torture report’s grisliest findings
Dick Cheney, the former US vice-president who was at the forefront of the post-9/11 push towards aggressive interrogation techniques since denounced as torture, has defended the use of “rectal feeding” of terror suspects, claiming it was done for “medical reasons”.
In a combative interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Cheney was unrepentant about the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” that were deployed under his watch. He swatted away evidence contained in the Senate intelligence committee report into the CIA programme that a suspect later found to be innocent froze to death having been shackled naked to a cell wall, and that detainees were rectally infused with food, refusing to accept a torture definition for either example.
“Torture to me is an American citizen on a cell phone making a last call to his four young daughters shortly before he burns to death on the upper levels of the Trade Center in New York City on 9/11,” Cheney said.
“There’s a notion that there’s moral equivalence between what the terrorists did and what we do, and that’s absolutely not true. We were very careful to stay short of torture.”
Bush 'Intimately Involved' with CIA Torture, says Rove
Former President George W. Bush knew and was "intimately involved" in the CIA's practice of torture, former Bush adviser and Republican strategist Karl Rove confirmed on Fox News Sunday.
Despite arguments made in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's report that the CIA had not alerted Bush and other top about the extent of the abuses until 2006, Rove told the morning show: "He made the decision."
"He was presented, I believe, 12 techniques, he authorized the use of 10 of them, including waterboarding," Rove added.
The Senate report, released on Tuesday, documented such abuses as "rectal rehydration" and "water dousing," as well as threatening the kill or sexually abuse family members of detainees—acts which they committee said were beyond the scope of what it portrayed to congressional overseers and the Bush administration.
British intelligence pushes for more CIA torture info
British intelligence agencies have requested access to yet-unpublished parts of the CIA torture report, for information on Britain's in post-9/11 torture.
A powerful British parliamentary committee chairman said on Sunday, the committee will ask the United States to hand over blacked out parts of a report into the CIA, to try to establish whether British spies were complicit in torture or rendition.
London — A U.K. parliamentary panel wants access to information not made public in a U.S. Senate report that may pertain to Britain's role in the interrogation and rendition of terror suspects following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, told the BBC on Sunday that the panel investigating allegations of British involvement in torture would request access to the Senate's findings related to Britain.
Prime Minister David Cameron's office has acknowledged that some parts of the report were blacked out for national security reasons, but says none of it related to any alleged British involvement that in "activity that would be unlawful in the U.K." The requests for the material to be omitted from the executive summary published last week was made by British intelligence agencies to the CIA, rather than the government.
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA interrogations exposed years of misrepresentations that seem designed to boost the case for the effectiveness of brutal interrogations.
More reading: Senate torture report: six top findings
Yet no apology: CIA’s mistaken detention destroyed German man’s life
ULM, Germany — Khalid al Masri is a broken man today. A decade after the CIA snatched him by mistake, flew him half way around the world in secret, and questioned him as part of its detention and interrogation program, he’s yet to recover.
He’s abandoned his home. He no longer is part of the lives of his wife or children. Friends can’t find him. His attorneys can’t find him. German foreign intelligence will say only that he’s “somewhere in a western-leaning Arab nation.”
When his Ulm attorney and confidant Manfred Gnjidic last saw him, he was broke, unkempt, paranoid and completely alone. He’d been arrested twice and sent once to a psychiatric ward, once to jail. He was in deep need of psychological counseling but with no hope of the extensive help he needed.
Masri’s case is one of the 26 instances detailed in the Senate Intelligence Committee report where the CIA snared someone in its web of secret dungeons by mistake, realized its error after weeks or months of mistreatment and questioning, then let them go. But the report, made public Tuesday, does not recount what that mistake meant to al Masri’s life.
Judge orders sweeping 9/11 trial secrecy review
The judge overseeing the Sept. 11 mass murder trial has ordered prosecutors to go back and look at secrets sealed up in the court record to assess what the public can now see in light of this week’s revelations in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s so-called Torture Report.
The chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, declined to discuss the three-page order on Saturday — neither its substance nor its implications — because it was not yet made public.
But four attorneys who read it said the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, on Friday instructed the prosecution to carry out a sweeping review of more than two years of classified trial filings.
At issue is how much of the once-secret CIA interrogation and detention program can now be discussed in open court — and which classified filings can be unsealed — in the trial of the five men accused as conspiring to direct, train and finance the 19 hijackers who killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
The alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 49, and four other men were formally charged May 5, 2012, but their death-penalty prosecution has been slow moving in part because of a superstructure of secrecy built around what the CIA did to them in the three and four years before they were brought to this base in September 2006 for eventual trial.
US Congress passes contentious $1.1tn budget
The US Senate has completed congressional approval of a controversial $1.1tn (£700bn) federal budget which will now be sent to President Barack Obama to sign.
The Senate passed the bill by 56-40 in a late-night vote on Saturday.
The budget had been the subject of months of intense cross-party debate, with both Democrats and Republicans making concessions.
The bill avoids a government shutdown which could have started next week.
Republicans sought to pressurise President Obama into abandoning controversial new immigration plans by ensuring only partial funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
From January onwards, Republicans will hold a majority in both houses of Congress, which they will hope to use to block the adoption of President Obama's amnesty program for some illegal immigrants.
After day of tense wrangling, Senate passes $1.1 trillion ‘cromnibus’ bill
After a day of tense procedural maneuvering and partisan finger-pointing, the Senate approved a sweeping $1.1 trillion bill to fund most of the federal government through September 2015.
By a 56 to 40 vote, senators passed the so-called ‘Cromnibus’ legislation that the House of Representatives approved Thursday night. The bill now awaits President Barack Obama’s signature.
The government was poised to shut down at midnight Saturday, but senators earlier in the day passed a four-day stopgap measure by voice vote then reached a deal to clear a path for the ‘cromnibus’ for a final vote.
Still, Saturday’s chaos epitomized the 113th Congress, regarded as one of the least effective in U.S. history, a fiercely partisan body that waits until the final hours to pass must-do legislation
Just how did banks get that big win in Washington?
WASHINGTON — The rollback this week of a key part of Wall Street regulation adopted after the 2008 financial collapse caught much of Washington by surprise, creating an uproar among liberals who called it a payoff to big banks, threatening to derail a bipartisan budget agreement, and almost shutting down the government.
It was indeed the product of lobbying by the banks, which capped their long campaign this week with personal calls to Congress by the CEO of JPMorgan Chase.
But it should have been no surprise. It was in the works for more than a year. And it was supported by many Democrats. A bill doing just what this week’s provision does actually passed the House Financial Services Committee last year with 22 of 28 Democrats voting for it. The bill passed the entire House of Representatives with broad Democratic support.
“It passed the House, dude! With 70 votes from Dems,” said an aide to a key Democratic senator who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the party and the origin of the provision.
Yet when the House this week took up a $1.1 trillion budget bill needed to keep the government open when money ran out Thursday night, liberal Democrats rallied against the provision. They said it was sneaked in by Republicans doing Wall Street’s bidding.
EU says Ukraine 'government cleansing' law not in line with bloc’s principles
Ukraine’s recently passed law on lustration – the cleansing of government from past regimes’ officials – “does not live up to” European principles, according to the Venice Commission, the EU’s advisory body on constitutional matters.
The law, according to the president, is aimed at bringing the county's political system “in line with European standards,” but it has “several serious shortcomings,” the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission) has concluded.
The so-called “lustration law” adopted in October could see a million Ukrainian officials, including members of government, investigated, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk estimates. Introducing the legislation was one of the most vigorous demands of the Maidan protesters, who took part in overthrowing President Yanukovich a year ago.
The political cleansing spree has spilt into the streets in a wave of mob “trash lustrations,” with angry crowds attacking officials, beating them up and dumping them in trashcans.
Read more: Almost lynching’: Radicals attack Ukrainian officials, throw into trash bins
Open Letter to the World from a Blocked Ukrainian Parliamentarian
The following letter, written months ago but unfortunately unpublishable in the Ukrainian dictatorship that was imposed in February, was finally posted publicly at the Russian fortruss website on Sunday, December 14th, by Elena Bondarenko, a member of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party:
My friends, here is my declaration. I ask that you share it to the extent possible. If you can translate it into other languages, please do!
I, Elena Bondarenko, People’s Deputy from the Party of Regions, finding myself in opposition to the current power in Ukraine, wish to declare that this administration has resorted to direct threats of physical elimination of the opposition in Ukraine; has resorted to suspending the right of freedom of speech, in parliament and out, and is implicated in complicity in crimes not just against politicians, but even against their children. The everyday life of an opposition deputy is this: constant threats, unofficial ban from the airwaves, targeted persecution. Everyone who calls for peace is immediately branded as an enemy of the people, just as in 1930’s Germany, or in McCarthyite US.
A few days ago, Arseniy Avakov, the Minister of the Interior, an ardent adherent of the so-called Party of War of the Ukraine, said the following: “When Elena Bondarenko comes to the podium to speak, my hand automatically reaches for my gun.” This, I emphasize, are the words of a man entrusted with the supreme police power of the country. Further: exactly one week ago, Alexander Turchinov the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, deprived me of the right to speak from the podium as a member of the opposition Party of Regions, only for this: I declared “Any power that commissions its army to bomb its peaceful cities, is criminal.” After which, he magnanimously gave the radical parliamentarians the option to call for shooting the opposition. Considering that my car was shot at last year, when the extremists were already arming with weapons, [a fact on record with the police, on my complaint] such threats aimed at me must be taken seriously.
In Iraq, Sunni tribes pay heavy toll for joining fight against Islamic State
Leaders of Sunni tribes in Iraq who have joined the battle against the Islamic State say jihadist sleeper cells in their tribes are undermining their ability to fight back.
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Baghdad — Iraqi Sheikh Naim al-Gaood was awakened before dawn Thursday, with the grim news that Islamic State fighters had launched a fresh attack on his Sunni tribal area 120 miles northwest of Baghdad.
By nightfall, outmanned and outgunned by Islamic State (IS) forces, and with very little American or Iraqi government support, Mr. Gaood’s Albu Nimr tribe had lost control of 15 villages and seen dozens of its members taken prisoner.
The death of five more Albu Nimr fighters brought the tribe’s death toll this year to 744, he says, which includes some 500 slaughtered by IS in late October and early November.
That massacre was taken to be a clear message to Iraq’s embattled Sunni tribal leaders not to oppose the IS jihadists as they fight back against a growing array of adversaries seeking to undo the lightning gains of spring and summer.
Moe reading: How much do you know about the Islamic State?
Turkish journalists detained in police raids
At least 23 people detained in nationwide operation targeting media outlets linked to Erdogan critic.
Turkish police have raided media outlets linked to a US-based Muslim cleric and detained at least 23 people, including journalists and television producers, in a nationwide operation.
Though a former ally, the cleric Fethullah Gulen has been in an open conflict with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan since a graft investigation targeting the president's inner circle emerged a year ago.
The offices of the country's best-selling Zaman newspaper and Samanyolu television were raided on Sunday, marking an escalation in Erdogan's battle with Gulen.
The Anatolia news agency says a court issued a warrant to arrest 31 people and that 23 of them were detained in raids in Istanbul and other cities across Turkey on Sunday.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature Hellraisers Journal of Dec 15, 1914 will continue reporting on testimony given before the Commission on Industrial Relations, including that of Lt. Linderfelt, The Butcher of Ludlow, and Ed Doyle of District 15, UMWA..
Tune in at 2pm!
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Thousands march to protest against police brutality in major US cities
~More than 20 arrests in Boston; 3,500 march in Oakland
~Family members of black men killed by police address rallies
~‘Day of resistance’ protests – how the day unfolded
~Effigies of black lynching victims found hanging at Berkeley campus
Submitted by: enhdra lutris
Thousands of Americans took to the streets on Saturday in Washington, New York, and several other cities to protest recent grand jury decisions regarding the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers.
Grand jury decisions in Missouri, regarding the death of Michael Brown, and New York, regarding the death of Eric Garner, have unleashed a torrent of demonstrations across the country and hurled long-simmering tensions over racial injustice and police brutality into the national spotlight.
More than 20 people were arrested in Boston on Saturday, as hundreds gathered around the Massachusetts state capitol amid a heavy police presence. Largely peaceful protests took place in Chicago and Oakland.
The demonstrations were dubbed a “day of resistance”, against what protesters believe is rampant police brutality against people of color, especially young black men.
View video here.
Thousands in S.F., Oakland join Millions March protests
The events, dubbed Millions March, also took place in New York and Washington, D.C. They had been in the works for more than a week, in contrast to more spontaneous and often disruptive protests in recent days in the Bay Area.
The crowds here were passionate but peaceful, and at times almost festive, as marchers moved together, then rallied on the steps of public buildings. There were speeches calling for a sustained effort to push for improved racial conditions in the United States.
After nightfall, central Oakland again was the scene of confrontations between police and demonstrators, with at least 45 arrests and scattered vandalism. Windows were broken at several locations, including a Whole Foods Market and a Radio Shack. At least two small fires were set, one to a U.S. flag so that the flames showed FTP, the initials of the group that called for the evening protest.
But the crowds were much smaller than during the day, without the widespread damage and disruptions that marked protests earlier in the week. By 10:30 p.m., there was no sign on ongoing trouble.
OPEC chief urges oil investment despite low prices
Submitted by: enhydra lutris
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The secretary-general of OPEC on Sunday urged Gulf Arab nations to keep investing in oilfield development despite the plunge in crude prices and gave no indication the cartel was prepared to shift its strategy to halt the slide.
Oil prices have shed nearly half their value since late June, including a 4 percent tumble Friday that left benchmark U.S. oil prices at $57.81 a barrel — their lowest level since May of 2009, when the U.S. was still in recession.
Speaking at a forum in the Gulf commercial hub of Dubai, Abdullah al-Badri said continued investment by Gulf nations will help prevent a shortfall in oil supplies once demand picks back up.
Increased production by non-OPEC countries is adding to world supplies, but it is not enough to account for the steep decline over the past six months, al-Badri told reporters after speaking at the Arab Strategy Forum.
"We as an organization are assessing the situation to determine what the real reasons behind the decrease in oil prices are," he said.
U.S. stocks plunge again as oil rout continues
NEW YORK — A rout in oil prices shook financial markets Friday, pushing stocks to their worst weekly loss in 21/2 years.
The stock market fell sharply as investors worried that slumping oil demand is signaling that growth outside the U.S. is weaker than earlier thought. And while consumers and airlines will benefit from lower fuel prices, energy companies will see their earnings suffer. Some may even go out of business.
“In a nation like the U.S. [as well as] Europe and most of Asia, the benefits of falling oil outweigh the costs,” said Jeff Kleintop, Schwab’s chief global investment strategist. “The concern is that there’s something more to it, given such a sharp decline, that there’s something deeper here.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 33 points, or 1.6 percent, to 2,002.33. The index dropped 3.5 percent in the week, its biggest drop since May 2012. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 index fell 2.1 percent, taking their loss for the year to 16.5 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 315.51 points, or 1.8 percent, to 17,280.83. The Nasdaq composite dropped 54.57 points, or 1.2 percent, to 4,653.60.
The Week Elizabeth Warren Decided to Run for President
Or may have decided. We won’t know for a few months whether the Massachusetts senator will challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, but if she chooses to run, we’re going to look back at this week as a pivotal moment in Warren’s decision-making.
Warren has been waging two battles against mainstream Democrats over the past month in an attempt to reduce Wall Street’s influence within the party. Both of those battles hit inflection points this week. The first is over President Barack Obama’s nominee for the under secretary for Domestic Finance, the number three position at the Treasury Department. It’s rare for such a nomine to become a political issue, much less a political issue within a party. But that’s what has happened to Antonio Weiss, whom Obama nominated on November 12.
A week later, Warren came out vocally against Weiss, arguing that he was both unqualified for the job and another example of Democrats' filling senior government positions with people from Wall Street. “The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message,” she wrote in the Huffington Post. “It tells people that one—and only one—point of view will dominate economic policymaking. It tells people that whatever goes wrong in this economy, the Wall Street banks will be protected first. That's yet another advantage that Wall Street just doesn't need.”
On Tuesday, Warren took her criticism of Weiss’s nomination up a notch. Speaking at a conference on the Federal Reserve, Warren tore into Weiss’s qualifications and ripped her party for cozying up to Wall Street. Writing at this site, David Dayen argued that the speech was a direct attack on the Democratic establishment. “In the wake of another midterm wipeout,” he wrote, “the Democratic Party has been flailing around for some guiding principles, and Warren has seized on this moment to provide them.” During the week, a collection of Democratic senators—Joe Manchin, Jeanne Shaheen, and Al Franken, among others—announced that they opposed Weiss's nomination. Obama will need significant Republican support in the next Congress if Weiss is to be confirmed.
How Congress Secretly Just Legitimized Questionable NSA Mass Surveillance Tool
from the just-slipped-it-right-in dept
We recently noted that, despite it passing overwhelmingly, Congress quietly deleted a key bit of NSA reform that would have blocked the agency from using backdoors for surveillance. But this week something even more nefarious happened, and it likely would have gone almost entirely unnoticed if Rep. Justin Amash's staffers hadn't caught the details of a new provision quietly slipped into the Intelligence Authorization Act, which effectively "legitimized" the way the NSA conducts most of its mass surveillance.
For a while now, we've discussed executive order 12333, signed by President Ronald Reagan, which more or less gives the NSA unchecked authority to tap into any computer system not in the US. Over the summer, a former State Department official, John Napier Tye, basically blew the whistle on 12333 by noting that everyone focused on other NSA programs were missing the point. The NSA's surveillance is almost entirely done under this authority, which has no Congressional oversight. All those other programs we've been arguing about -- Section 215 of the Patriot Act or Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act -- are really nothing more than ways to backfill the data the NSA has been unable to access under 12333. In other words, these other programs are the distraction. 12333 is the ballgame, and it has no Congressional oversight at all. It's just a Presidential executive order.
Yet, what Amash and his staffers found is that a last minute change by the Senate Intelligence Committee to the bill effectively incorporated key parts of EO 12333 into law, allowing for "the acquisition, retention, and dissemination" of "nonpublic communications." Here's where those who slipped this bit into the law got sneaky. Recognizing that they might be called on it, they put it in with language noting that such information could only be held on to for five years -- and then claimed what they were really doing was putting a limit on data already collected:
Backers of the section argue it would actually limit to five years the amount of time communications data could be kept at intelligence agencies, certain exceptions permitting. But it is generally acknowledged that such data is already rarely kept beyond five years, which Amash characterized as a trade-off that "provides a novel statutory basis for the executive branch's capture and use of Americans' private communications."
"The provisions in the intel authorization appear to be an attempt by Congress to place statutory restrictions on the retention of information collected under Executive Order 12333, which is not subject to court oversight, has not been authorized by Congress, and raises serious privacy concerns," said Neema Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. "However, these restrictions are far from adequate, contain enormous loopholes, and notably completely exclude the information of non-U.S. persons."
Jerry Garcia’s love letters going up for auction
Two rare love letters from Grateful Dead lead singer Jerry Garcia to a female companion he met in the ’80s are going up for sale.
Garcia wrote the letters, which include a phone number and a sketch of the band performing at an amphitheater, to a former Vogue model he met at an Upper West Side party in 1980 during a run of shows at Radio City Music Hall.
The musician and the model had a two-year friendship, but were never intimate.
“He was a person who you felt you knew. Very easy to be with,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told Page Six.
After several meetings during tour gigs over the two years, a bashful Garcia wrote her a nervous letter: “I feel like it’s sort of our first ‘official’ communication somehow. I’ve been hoping we could get together ever since we first met at Al’s that winter nite so long ago (sigh) — I hope it doesn’t seem like I’ve been avoiding you, although I admit I’ve kind of been waiting for the opportunity (that is, the ‘right’ opportunity) for us to meet in some kind of neutral context that would be comfortable and relaxed and free of any pressure.”
Amazon Cries Foul Over FAA's Drone License Stalling
The FAA is moving at a snail's pace when it comes to the development of regulations for commercial drone operations, according to Amazon, while other countries that have air space concerns similar to those of the U.S. have been advancing at an impressive clip. "European air space may not be larger, but it is just as crowded on a density basis," noted Frost & Sullivan analyst Michael Blades.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration this week gave five licenses to four companies for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations -- that is, flying drones.
The drones will be used in aerial surveying, construction site monitoring, and inspecting oil rig flare stacks.
The news led Amazon to launch a media blitz about its attempts to get a license and to renew threats to take more of its drone testing outside of the U.S.
The firms that received licenses this week got them under Section 333, but Amazon is "involved in R&D, which is another angle, and so they should get an experimental authorization from us," FAA spokesperson Alison Duquette told the E-Commerce Times.
The Evening Greens
Weekend Edition Editor - Agathena
How climate is affecting wildlife. In a recent study it was found that wolves were not to blame for the decline of elk in the rocky mountain states.
Why Are Yellowstone's Elk Disappearing?
In the past 20 years, one population has fallen from tens of thousands of elk to just a few thousand. And every summer, when elk migrate into Yellowstone National Park, fewer calves are spotted in the herd Middleton studies.
n surrounding states, where elk hunting brings in millions of dollars annually, scientists, local officials and residents have reflexively pointed fingers at the only new predator on the landscape: Gray wolves, once hunted to near extinction in the Lower 48, were controversially reintroduced to the Greater Yellowstone area in the mid-1990s to resume their predatory role in the imbalanced ecosystem.
[...]
Most conservation biologists and locals assumed Middleton’s research would provide the evidence state and federal agencies needed to support controlling the problematic wolf populations in Wyoming. But Middleton’s observations and GPS data showed that elk rarely encountered wolves. And when they did, the elk didn’t run away or even stop chewing unless the wolves came within about half a mile. Most importantly, there was no correlation between the rate of wolf encounters and the decline of either elk pregnancy rates or their levels of body fat, which are crucial for surviving the cold winter.
But predation, even with bears included, didn’t explain elk’s low pregnancy rates. A changing climate, on the other hand, did. Severe droughts since 2000, possibly correlated with climate change, reduced grass production in the areas of the park where elk migrate in the summer. Elk were forced to consume immense quantities of nutrient-poor fodder to try and meet their caloric needs, but most females were still undernourished and therefore unable to conceive.
So wolves have been getting a bad rap for years and they have been slaughtered in several states. Wyoming had listed the wolf as a predator and permitted anyone to kill a limitless number on sight all year round. In September federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson put the wolves back on the endangered species list.
Protection for Wolves Is Restored in Wyoming
Her ruling requires that the wolves remain under federal protection until Wyoming officials devise an enforceable proposal to maintain their numbers.
Bonnie Rice, a senior representative for the Sierra Club’s Wild America campaign, said Judge Berman’s ruling recognized that Wyoming’s management plan had “very big flaws.”
“We think the court is right to require them to develop a plan that’s more science-based and doesn’t treat wolves as vermin in the majority of the state,” she said.
In the meantime, in Idaho, the Bureau of Land Management revoked a permit for a predator derby.
BLM Reverses Decision on Idaho Wolf Hunt
Idaho for Wildlife said it will simply hold the hunt on private lands like it did in 2013. The group offered $1,000 prizes for killing the biggest wolf and most coyotes.
Wolf kills in Idaho
2012 = 721
2013 = 550
"The Imperiled American Wolf"
Our new film, "The Imperiled American Wolf," explains the reasons wolves cannot be successfully managed by state wildlife agencies: not only do their methods ignore the core biology of how wolves hunt and breed, but their funding depends on hunting and trapping fees. In fact, current wolf management may actually lead to wolves' demise. Predator Defense and this film make a bold call for federal relisting of these important apex predators as endangered species.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Moyers, Taibbi, et al, are disgusted w/ "‘liberals’…nakedly whoring for big business…banks"
Which 32 Senate Democrats Just Sold You Out to Give Wall Street a CRomnibus Christmas?
A nation blind to their disgrace
Hellraisers Journal: "His voice forever hushed and still, Our singing, fighting brave Joe Hill!"
I Stand With President Obama
A Little Night Music
James Hunter - The Hard Way
James Hunter - Baby Dont' Do It
James Hunter - People Gonna Talk
James Hunter - Goldmine
James Hunter - Walk Away
James Hunter - Riot In My Heart
James Hunter - Strange But True
James Hunter - She's Got A Way
James Hunter - Tell Her
James Hunter - So They Say
James Hunter - No Smoke Without Fire
James Hunter - It's Easy To Say
James Hunter - It Ain't Funny
James Hunter - Class Act
James Hunter - Turn On Your Love Light
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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