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 blues guitarist and singer Hubert Sumlin. Enjoy!
Hubert Sumlin/ Eric Clapton/ Robert Cray/ Jimmie Vaughan - Killing Floor
"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."
-- George W. Bush
News and Opinion
The media treats Dick Cheney like the royals on vacation. He should be in jail
It’s been less than one week since the US Senate released its devastating report on CIA torture and criminality, but if you turned on the television Sunday morning, it looked frighteningly like the year 2002. Virtually all the Sunday talk shows led off not with those who documented the CIA’s depravity, or the victims of such abuse, or those who objected to torture when it wasn’t fashionable to do so. Instead, they instead continued to pump up the former Bush administration architects of this illegal program, so they could once be given a platform to defend it.
The US news media has treated Dick Cheney and Michael Hayden better in interviews this week than they treat British royalty on an American vacation.
It was rather fitting that it was NBC’s Meet the Press giving Cheney so much time to defend the US government’s torturing of innocent people on Sunday. This is, after all, the same hour of television during which Cheney first announced the Bush administration would work from “the dark side” after 9/11, foreshadowing the CIA’s torture regime that was exposed in all its depraved detail last week. This is the same venerated news show on which Cheney originally pushed the fake al-Qaida link to Saddam Hussein that led to the Iraq war, based on false evidence that the Senate confirmed last week was partly extracted through torture.
But Cheney, whose former communications director once openly admitted that Meet the Press was the go-to PR platform for his most brazen lies, really outdid himself this Sunday. Saying that Dick Cheney is unrepentant for torture would be the understatement of the week – but, hey, it’s only Monday morning.
Beyond saying he’d do it all over again, the former vice-president was asked about the almost 25% of the detainees in the CIA torture program who were later declared innocent. He has no remorse. Cheney said:
I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective. And our objective is to get the guys who did 9/11 and it is to avoid another attack against the United States. I was prepared and we did.
Gitmo Lawyer: “The Torture Pervades Everything”
Abd al Rahim al Nashiri is on trial at Guantanamo Bay as the alleged mastermind of the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. If convicted, Nashiri could face execution. ...
Richard Kammen, one of Nashiri’s lawyers and a specialist in capital cases, told The Intercept that “the torture pervades everything.” He spoke to us about the Senate report and its impact on his client’s defense. This interview has been edited for clarity and condensed. ...
The Intercept: How do these details of his torture shape your defense?
Kammen: The government has said that they want to enter in the evidence a statement Nashiri provided to what they call the FBI “clean team.”
Meaning the interrogators did not use brutal techniques to get that statement. So the prosecution wants to use what they believe to be an incriminating statement that did not result from torture.
Yes. What we know happened is the CIA brought Nashiri to Guantanamo in September 2006 [editor’s note: when the CIA’s black site program was acknowledged by President Bush. The Senate report confirms that Nashiri had been held at Guantanamo before, in a black site there.] In January 2007, the FBI interviewed him for three or four days. It’s our view that that the statement he gave to the FBI is not voluntary. You can’t torture a guy for four years and then stop for six months and say, OK, let’s go with that.
The other way in which it will effect the guilt/innocence piece is the government has now said they want to use hearsay from people in Yemen who were alleged conspirators in the case, which were in our view derived from statements made by Nashiri and others under torture.
CIA 'torture Report': Agency Conduct Was Driven by Pressure to Link Iraq to al-Qaeda Following 9/11
Telling evidence about the motives of the CIA in instituting its torture programme comes in a report on detainee abuse issued by the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2009. It cited a former US Army psychiatrist, Major Charles Burney, who had been stationed at Guantanamo Bay, as saying interrogators were compelled to give priority to one line of questioning.
“A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq,” he said. When interrogators failed to do this “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results”.
This explanation is confirmed by an unnamed former senior US intelligence officer familiar with the interrogations, who told the McClatchy news agency that there were two reasons “why these interrogations were so persistent and why extreme methods were used”. One was fear there might be a second attack by al-Qaeda. He added that “for most of 2002 and into 2003, [Vice-President Dick] Cheney and [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq.”
On being told repeatedly by the CIA that there was no reliable intelligence about such links, Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld insisted harsher methods be used. The officer said: “There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people to push harder.”
What "Both Sides" Are Ignoring: Torture Did Work... to Produce Iraq War
The truth is that torture did work, but not the way its defenders claim. It worked to produce justifications for policies the establishment wanted, like the Iraq war. This is actually tacitly acknowledged in the report -- or one should say, it's buried in it. Footnote 857 of the report is about Ibn Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured in Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. invasion and was interrogated by the FBI. He told them all he knew, but then the CIA rendered him to the brutal Mubarak regime in Egypt, in effect outsourcing their torture. From the footnote:
"Ibn Shaykh al-Libi reported while in [censored: 'Egyptian'] custody that Iraq was supporting al-Qa'ida and providing assistance with chemical and biological weapons. Some of this information was cited by Secretary Powell in his speech at the United Nations, and was used as a justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ibn Shaykh al-Libi recanted the claim after he was rendered to CIA custody on February [censored], 2003, claiming that he had been tortured by the [censored, likely 'Egyptians'], and only told them what he assessed they wanted to hear. For more more details, see Volume III." Of course, Volume III has not been made public.
So, while CIA head John Brennan now says it's "unknowable" if torture lead to information that actually saved lives, it's provable that torture lead to information that helped lead to war and destroyed lives.
Nor was al-Libi the only one tortured to try to make the case for war. Many have reported that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaeda detainees repeatedly -- Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times -- but few give the exact timing and context: The were so tortured in August 2002 and March 2003 respectively -- the beginning and end of the Bush administrations push for the invasion of Iraq.
The cost of allowing an intelligence agency run wild, without even minimal legal restraints
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. ...
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. ...
On Oct. 9, 2007, the Senate report said, the CIA informed the Senate Intelligence Committee that it had “lacked sufficient basis to render and detain al Masri” and that the judgment by operations officers that al Masri was associated with terrorists who posed a threat to U.S. interests “was not supported by available intelligence.”
That finding was never made public, however, and there were no consequences for those who made the mistakes. The Senate report notes that the CIA argued against punitive action because “[t]he Director strongly believes that mistakes should be expected in a business filled with uncertainty and that, when they result from performance that meets reasonable standards, CIA leadership must stand behind the officers who make them.”
Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union, represented al Masri in his U.S. case, and still represents him in a case pending before Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He said every American should pay attention to al Masri’s case because it’s a perfect example of the cost of allowing an intelligence agency run wild, without even minimal legal restraints.
Proposed Senate Bill Would Make Future CIA Torture Prosecutable
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press today, Sen. Ron Wyden (D – OR) a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has promised to introduce a new bill next year which would make any future incidents of CIA torture prosecutable.
Sen. Wyden expressed concern that in CIA Director John Brennan’s Thursday defense of past torture, he left open the possibility that the CIA would do so again in the future.
Torture and the Truth
... It remains to be seen, though, whether the report will spur lasting reform. Darius Rejali, a professor of political science at Reed College and an expert on torture regimes, doubts that it will. For one thing, despite McCain’s testimony, torture is becoming just another partisan issue. This wasn’t always the case—it was Ronald Reagan who signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture, in 1988. But polls show both a growing acceptance of the practice and a widening divide along party lines. “It’s becoming a lot like the death penalty,” Rejali said. ...
Obama has made plain in his public statements and in his executive orders that torture, which is how he forthrightly labelled the program, was unacceptable. But, in leaving matters to the Senate, he left the truth open to debate. He further complicated things by appointing John Brennan to run the C.I.A., even though Brennan, as a top officer in the agency, had worked closely with George Tenet, the director during the worst excesses of the program. Last Thursday, in a rare press conference, Brennan called the C.I.A.’s past practices “abhorrent” but declined to say that they amounted to torture, undercutting Obama. Democrats called for Brennan and other C.I.A. personnel to be “purged.” Senator Mark Udall, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, said, “If there is no moral leadership from the White House, what’s to stop the next White House and C.I.A. director from supporting torture?”
Rejali, who has studied the tension between torture and democracy around the world, says that “there’s a five- or six-year window for any kind of accountability. We’re now past that window. The two sides are entrenched.” Without a mutual acknowledgment of the mistakes made, and some form of accountability, he warned, another reversion to torture may be difficult to prevent: “Nothing predicts future behavior as much as past impunity.”
Guantánamo hearing to focus on FBI infiltration, Pentagon says
FBI efforts to infiltrate defense teams will top the agenda when a US military court hearing for suspects in the September 11 attacks starts on Monday, the first such proceeding since a Senate report on CIA torture was released last week.
The two-day pre-trial hearing at the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, will focus on the extent of Federal Bureau of Investigation intrusion into defense teams, according to the docket on a Pentagon website.
Judge James Pohl, an army colonel, ruled in July that no conflict of interest arose for defense attorneys from the FBI approaching a security officer for a defense team. The allegations surfaced in April, further delaying a complex, slow-moving case.
Lawyers for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects want Pohl to determine the extent of FBI contact with defense team members.
“Otherwise, we can’t dispel the idea we’re being watched, which chills the ability to conduct a defense,” said David Nevin, the lead counsel for Mohammed.
The Defense Department website shows a flurry of secret filings in recent days, including from a special Justice Department team appointed to investigate the FBI’s role.
Palestinian president presses for UN vote on Israeli withdrawal
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is pushing for a vote in the United Nations security council – as early as Wednesday – on a resolution calling for a deadline to end the 47-year-long Israeli occupation.
The move, disclosed late on Sunday night by the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, comes as Israel’s prime minister vowed to reject any attempt to set a deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders or a timeline for ending the occupation.
Binyamin Netanyahu’s comments came as he flew to Rome for a meeting with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, to discuss Palestinian moves at the UN. Kerry will later meet with Arab foreign ministers and Erekat in London.
The push to hold a vote on Wednesday comes during a period of intense diplomatic negotiations over two rival draft texts for a resolution. The first, sponsored by Jordan at the behest of the Palestinians – envisages setting a November 2016 deadline for ending the occupation. The rival proposal, drawn up by France, would only set a deadline for an end to negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Kerry’s sudden involvement in talks around the resolution is being seen as an attempt to manage a process the US fears could raise already high tensions and in which according to one quoted official it sees only “bad scenarios”.
Russian rouble plummets after US Congress passes tough sanctions bill
The threat of new US sanctions on Russia has sent the country’s currency, the rouble, to a record low of 63 roubles per dollar.
The rouble started the day at a previous record low of 59 roubles to each dollar.
After Russian markets closed last week, the US Congress unanimously passed a bill setting out tougher sanctions on Moscow and authorising the supply of lethal weapons to the Ukraine. ...
The threat of tough US sanctions further weakens a currency that was already struggling. Russia’s central bank said on Monday it had conducted $478m worth of currency market interventions on 11 December.
The Russian central bank has spent a total of $6bn defending the rouble’s value just this month, with nearly daily action. ...
The potential congressional sanctions, however, seem to have kicked Moscow into action. On Saturday, one day ahead of a meeting between the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, Russia warned that “undoubtedly, we will not be able to leave this without a response”.
US marine charged with killing Filipino transgender woman
Prosecutors in the Philippines have filed murder charges against a US marine accused of killing a Filipino transgender woman in a case that has fanned anti-American sentiment.
Prosecutors found probable cause against Pte First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton and decided that he used “treachery, abuse of superior authority and cruelty” against his alleged victim, lead prosecutor Emilie Fe delos Santos told a televised briefing.
“You can see the kind of cruelty she endured, the injuries she sustained,” Delos Santos said. “We believe we have a strong case.” Pemberton will not be allowed to post bail, she said. Murder is punishable by up to 40 years in jail.
Jennifer Laude, a 26-year-old transgender woman also known as Jeffrey, was found dead on 2 October in a hotel, in the port city of Olongapo. She was discovered half-naked in a bathroom with marks of strangulation on her neck, according to police. Laude died from asphyxia by drowning, according to a police autopsy.
“This is not an ordinary murder. This is heinous because she was beaten up,” the Laude family lawyer, Harry Roque, told reporters.
The myth of democracy – exposed
It was a sneak attack. As the stream of borrowed money that funds the Regime was threatened with a (temporary yet embarrassing) cutoff, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Oceania), inserted what Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) calls a "novel" provision into H.R. 4681, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 – one "that for the first time statutorily authorizes spying on U.S. citizens without legal process."
H.R. 4681 is now the law of the land – and the implications are ominous.
Previous legislation, including the PATRIOT Act, at least attempted to create a halo of "legality" around the Surveillance State by requiring some procedural folderol prior to despoiling the contents of our email in-boxes. That this ritual was to occur in secret, with the "court" 98.9 percent certain to take the government’s side, is beside the point – the point being that all pretenses have been dropped. The idea that the government must answer in court to the charge that it is overstepping its constitutional authority has been overthrown – and with it our old republic. Citizens have become subjects – and all with the stroke of a pen. ...
The irrefutable evidence for this is contained in section 309 of H.R. 4681. As Amash points out:
"To be clear, Sec. 309 provides the first statutory authority for the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of US persons’ private communications obtained without legal process such as a court order or a subpoena. The administration currently may conduct such surveillance under a claim of executive authority, such as E.O. 12333. However, Congress never has approved of using executive authority in that way to capture and use Americans’ private telephone records, electronic communications, or cloud data."
Microsoft lawyer prepares to take on US government
Imagine this scenario. German police investigating a press leak descend on Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. They serve a warrant to seize a bundle of private letters a US reporter is storing in a safe deposit box at a bank branch in Manhattan. The bank complies and orders the branch manager to open the reporter’s box and fax the private letters to the Stadtpolizei.
Uproar! The US would be outraged at the bypassing of bilateral agreements and flouting of its citizen’s rights. And yet this is exactly what the US government is ordering Microsoft to do, according to the software giant’s general counsel, Brad Smith. ...
Now he is spearheading Microsoft’s fight against US government demands for access to emails from a Microsoft customer which are currently sitting on a server in Dublin, Ireland, as part of a narcotics investigation. Earlier this year, a US court ruled that Microsoft should hand the data over. Microsoft declined to comply, voluntarily entering into contempt.
Last week Microsoft filed its appeal: “The power to embark on unilateral law enforcement incursions into a foreign sovereign country – directly or indirectly – has profound foreign policy consequences. Worse still, it threatens the privacy of US citizens,” the company said in court documents.
Operation Socialist: The Inside Story of How British Spies Hacked Belgium’s Largest Telco
Based on new documents from the Snowden archive and interviews with sources familiar with the malware investigation at Belgacom, The Intercept and its partners have established that the attack on Belgacom was more aggressive and far-reaching than previously thought. It occurred in stages between 2010 and 2011, each time penetrating deeper into Belgacom’s systems, eventually compromising the very core of the company’s networks. ...
Publicly, Belgacom has played down the extent of the compromise, insisting that only its internal systems were breached and that customers’ data was never found to have been at risk. But secret GCHQ documents show the agency gained access far beyond Belgacom’s internal employee computers and was able to grab encrypted and unencrypted streams of private communications handled by the company.
Belgacom invested several million dollars in its efforts to clean-up its systems and beef-up its security after the attack. However, The Intercept has learned that sources familiar with the malware investigation at the company are uncomfortable with how the clean-up operation was handled—and they believe parts of the GCHQ malware were never fully removed.
Sharpton-Led March Alienates Youth Activists
Video shows John Crawford's girlfriend aggressively questioned after Ohio police shot him dead in Walmart
Police aggressively questioned the tearful girlfriend of a young black man they had just shot dead as he held a BB gun in an Ohio supermarket – accusing her of lying, threatening her with jail, and suggesting that she was high on drugs.
Tasha Thomas was reduced to swearing on the lives of her relatives that John Crawford III had not been carrying a firearm when they entered the Walmart in Beavercreek, near Dayton, to buy crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars on the evening of 5 August.
“You lie to me and you might be on your way to jail,” detective Rodney Curd told Thomas, as she wept and repeatedly offered to take a lie-detector test. After more than an hour and a half of questioning and statement-taking, Curd finally told Thomas that Crawford, 22, had died.
“As a result of his actions, he is gone,” said the detective, as she slumped in her chair and cried.
Crawford had been shot by police officer Sean Williams, after a customer called 911 and claimed the 22-year-old was pointing a gun at passersby. Surveillance footage released later showed Crawford picking up the BB rifle from a shelf, wandering the aisles and occasionally swinging the gun at his side while he spoke on his cellphone to his ex-girlfriend.
Black Youth-Organized Millions March NYC Draws Tens of Thousands in Movement’s Biggest Protest Yet
Videos Show Massive Protests Against Police Killings Across the US
In New York, tens of thousands of people took to the streets for hours until they reached NYPD's headquarters. An impressive time-lapse video shows a bird's-eye view of the sea of protesters flowing up 6th Avenue at the corner of 29th Street.
National Lawyers Guild Challenges NYPD On Use of Sound Cannons Against Peaceful Protesters
The New York Police Department is being challenged by legal advocates for what they say was the department's use of untested, unregulated military-grade sound cannons during civil rights marches in Manhattan earlier this month.
In a letter (pdf) sent to the office letter Police Commissioner Bill Bratton on Friday, the National Lawyers Guild said the department's use of long range acoustic devices (LRADs) against peaceful street protesters violated numerous constitutional amendments. The group demanded a safety review of the device and public release of guidelines over how and under what circumstances they could be deployed.
Videos of officers using the LRADs surfaced on December 4 and 5 during marches that came after a grand jury's failure to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of Eric Garner. Crowds can be seen dispersing quickly as loud, shrill, repetitive beeps ring out in short blasts over and over.
The police department claimed it had used the device as a loudspeaker to make announcements to the crowd. However, as the New York City chapter of the NLG pointed out in its letter to the Commissioner's office, LRADs are designed to "modify behavior, and force compliance, by hurting people... technology that is designed to induce individual compliance through human discomfort and pain cannot be defined solely as a communication tool."
Initially developed as a sound weapon for the military, the LRAD's so-called "deterrent tone" is meant to hit human hearing at its most sensitive levels. As Amnesty International explains, "LRADs can pose serious health risks which range from temporary pain, loss of balance and eardrum rupture, to permanent hearing damage."
US supreme court blocks Arizona from enforcing abortion restrictions
The US supreme court is refusing to allow Arizona to enforce stringent restrictions on medical abortions while a challenge to those rules plays out in lower courts.
The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that blocked rules that regulate where and how women can take drugs that induce abortion. The rules also would prohibit the use of the abortion medications after the seventh week of pregnancy instead of the ninth.
Planned Parenthood was among abortion providers that challenged the rules in federal court. The San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals prevented the state from putting them in place during the legal challenge. Similar laws are in effect in North Dakota, Ohio and Texas. The Oklahoma supreme court struck down the restrictions in that state.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a December 16, 1904 Colorado Supreme Court decision which threw out votes in a Denver precinct and sets precedent which might be applied to other precincts and hand control of the Legislature over to Republicans.
Tune in at 2pm!
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One good thing in the Cromnibus bill:
Congress Halted the War on Medical Marijuana Last Night
Congress made history yesterday. With a 56-40 bipartisan vote, the Senate approved a sweeping $1.1 trillion spending package that will keep keep the government running through the next fiscal year. But beyond avoiding another government shutdown, the bill includes an amendment that will effectively block the Department of Justice from arresting or prosecuting anyone who sells or uses medical marijuana in the 32 states that currently have some type of medical pot law on the books.
The so-called "cromnibus" bill — which still requires President Barack Obama's signature before it officially becomes the law of the land — will likely affect several pending federal criminal cases, and almost certainly make DEA raids of law-abiding dispensaries a thing of the past. The legislation also stands to derail civil asset forfeiture cases in California, where federal prosecutors have used the tactic in attempt to shutter dispensaries in the Bay Area and Orange County. ...
The language specifically blocks the use of DOJ funds to "prevent [medical marijuana states] from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana."
According to Americans for Safe Access, the Obama administration has spent roughly $300 million on enforcement in medical marijuana states since the president took office.
The Evening Greens
Earth faces sixth ‘great extinction’ with 41% of amphibians set to go the way of the dodo
A stark depiction of the threat hanging over the world’s mammals, reptiles, amphibians and other life forms has been published by the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. A special analysis carried out by the journal indicates that a staggering 41% of all amphibians on the planet now face extinction while 26% of mammal species and 13% of birds are similarly threatened.
Many species are already critically endangered and close to extinction, including the Sumatran elephant, Amur leopard and mountain gorilla. But also in danger of vanishing from the wild, it now appears, are animals that are currently rated as merely being endangered: bonobos, bluefin tuna and loggerhead turtles, for example.
In each case, the finger of blame points directly at human activities. The continuing spread of agriculture is destroying millions of hectares of wild habitats every year, leaving animals without homes, while the introduction of invasive species, often helped by humans, is also devastating native populations. At the same time, pollution and overfishing are destroying marine ecosystems. ...
In the end, however, the data indicate that the world is heading inexorably towards a mass extinction – which is defined as one involving a loss of 75% of species or more. This could arrive in less than a hundred years or could take a thousand, depending on extinction rates.
The Earth has gone through only five previous great extinctions, all caused by geological or astronomical events. (The Cretaceous-Jurassic extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was triggered by an asteroid striking Earth, for example.) The coming great extinction will be the work of Homo sapiens, however.
Emissions-Cutting Deal Reached at COP 20 Lima, But Will It Help Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change?
Hat tip Agathena:
Down to the wire – Was the Lima decision better than nothing?
(LIMA) - As you likely have heard, the COP20 talks wrapped earlier this morning at around 3:30 AM. The deal was done in seconds following the break for countries to review a new text tabled by the President just before midnight. He then suspended the session to give parties an hour to read the new draft. The final ADP decision is four pages long. It should be understood not as a new “deal” for the climate, but as a 12-month work plan leading to COP21.
The new text bent in a few critical places to reflect the over-whelming concern from developing countries that the Lima decision not be allowed to weaken the 1992 framework convention. It improved language about taking action before 2020 and meeting all previous pledges to reduce emissions.
That said, it is still a weak text.
After an hour to read and consider it, the President, Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal called the plenary back to order and then (within seconds) announced he saw consensus in the room and the text was adopted. Wild applause ensued, while climate activists reacted with shock and dismay.
However, on balance, I think the Lima decision is better than nothing. The threat from the US that it might pull out of the talks and find some other forum to negotiate climate action was chilling though subtle. Maybe it was all the more chilling for its subtlety. We need to keep the multilateral process moving forward. This text does that, but without the momentum we need.
Between now and next year at COP21 we need to keep a focus on the climate. ... And above all else, we need to make sure that climate change is an election issue.
UN Climate Change Talks Reach Agreement to Curb Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Diplomats left Lima on a "fresh wave of positivity towards Paris with a range of key decisions agreed and action-agendas launched," said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN's climate change organization.
But critics said the the outcome was weak and woefully inadequate in averting a two degrees Celsius rise in temperature compared to the pre-Industrial Age — a level of warming that many scientists say could bring about dangerous levels of sea-level rise and more frequent, extreme weather events.
After two weeks of haggling over the small print, the draft text was the "lowest common denominator," Tasneem Essop of the World Wildlife Fund told VICE News. ...
A primary bone of contention was a demand by developing countries that richer nations fairly share the burdens of cutting their emissions and paying for poor countries' transition to cleaner energy sources and preparing for the impacts of a warmer planet.
Developed countries, such as the United States and the European Union, wanted all countries to make emissions cuts as well as lock in official audits of each country's progress on cutting carbon dioxide pollution.
China and India refused, however, arguing that agreeing to cut their emissions too severely would endanger their efforts at reducing poverty.
Though as talks wore into the wee hours of the morning, a linguistic maneuver successfully brought about China's support for the draft text. Negotiators changed the single word "shall" to "may" with respect to each country's obligation to report its levels of achieved emissions cuts.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
#MillionsMarchNYC was MASSIVE. Brooklyn Bridge? #ShutItDown
Angela Davis: ‘There is an unbroken line of police violence in the US that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery’
The Charmed Life of a CIA Torturer: How Fate Diverged for Matthew Zirbel, aka CIA Officer 1, and Gul Rahman
Ten years on, a survivor’s fear of torture doesn’t go away
Freezing cells and sleep deprivation: the brutal conditions migrants still face after capture
Dresden police brace for march of the ‘pinstriped Nazis’
New York expands health care coverage for transgender people
A Little Night Music
Hubert Sumlin - Come On In My House
Hubert Sumlin w/Billy Branch - You Can't Change Me
Hubert Sumlin - Sometimes I'm Right
Hubert Sumlin with Sunnyland Slim - Come On Home Baby
Hubert Sumlin - Down the Dusty Road
Hubert Sumlin & Mighty Sam McClain - A soul that's been abused
Hubert Sumlin - I'm Your Baby
Hubert Sumlin, James Cotton & BHTM - Wang Dang Doodle
Hubert Sumlin, David Johansen, Charlie Musselwhite - Smokestack Lightning
The Nighthawks with Hubert Sumlin - Spoonful
Hubert Sumlin - Chunky
Hubert Sumlin - You Got to Help Me
Hubert Sumlin - I Love
Hubert Sumlin - Being a musician
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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