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 jazz and blues trumpeter Hot Lips Page. Enjoy!
Hot Lips Page - Rockin' At Ryans
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
-- Winston S. Churchill
News and Opinion
Netanyahu’s Spying Denials Contradicted by Secret NSA Documents
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday vehemently denied a Wall Street Journal report, leaked by the Obama White House, that Israel spied on U.S. negotiations with Iran and then fed the intelligence to Congressional Republicans. His office’s denial was categorical and absolute, extending beyond this specific story to U.S.-targeted spying generally, claiming: “The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies.” ...
Israel’s claim is not only incredible on its face. It is also squarely contradicted by top-secret NSA documents, which state that Israel targets the U.S. government for invasive electronic surveillance, and does so more aggressively and threateningly than almost any other country in the world. Indeed, so concerted and aggressive are Israeli efforts against the U.S. that some key U.S. government documents — including the top secret 2013 intelligence budget — list Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service. ...
Previously reported stories on Israeli spying, by themselves, leave no doubt how false Netanyahu’s statement is. A Der Spiegel article from last fall revealed that “Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East peace negotiations.” A Le Monde article described how NSA documents strongly suggest that a massive computer hack of the French presidential palace in 2012 was likely carried about by the Israelis. A 2014 article from Newsweek’s Jeff Stein revealed that when it comes to surveillance, “the Jewish state’s primary target” is “America’s industrial and technical secrets” and that “Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly.”
Congress Totally Cool With Israel Spying on U.S. Officials Negotiating With Iran
Mossad reportedly listened in to nuclear talks and used the information to lobby Capitol Hill. Democrats and Republican greeted the news with a big shrug.
Israel is spying on the U.S.-Iranian nuclear talks? No problem, key Democrats and Republicans in Congress say. It’s just part of the game.
“I don’t look at Israel or any nation directly affected by the Iranian program wanting deeply to know what’s going on in the negotiations—I just don’t look at that as spying,” Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said. “Their deep existential interest in such a deal, that they would try to figure out anything that they could, that they would have an opinion on it… I don’t find any of that that controversial.” ...
Of course, the White House only found out about this because it too was spying—on Israel.
But if lawmakers were upset by this turn of events, they weren’t showing it Tuesday. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, for one, joked that he was more concerned that Israeli intelligence hadn’t shared what they learned with him.
“One of my reactions was, why haven’t they been coming up here sharing information with me? I mean Israel. I haven’t had any of them coming up and talking with me about where the deal is, so I was kind of wondering who it was they were meeting with. I kind of feel left out, if you know what I’m saying,” Corker said.
If anything, lawmakers said they were perturbed that the Israelis were being accused of spying—not that they did any actual surveillance. Learning the details of the nuclear talk, lawmakers argued, was less like “spying” and more like information gathering.
It's OK to leak government secrets - as long as it benefits politicians
When it comes to classified information, some leaks are more equal than others. If you are a whistleblower like Edward Snowden, who tells the press about illegal, immoral or embarrassing government actions, you will face jail time. But it’s often another story for US government officials leaking information for their own political benefit. ...
Consider a government leak that ran in the New York Times on Monday. The article was about 300 of Hillary Clinton’s now notorious State Department emails, which had been hidden away on her private server for years and were turned over to Congress as part of the never-ending Benghazi investigation. “Four senior government officials” described the content of her emails to New York Times journalists in minute detail “on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize their access to secret information”.
Surely the Obama administration will promptly root out and prosecute those leakers, right? ... But those emails supposedly clear Clinton of any wrongdoing in the Benghazi affair, which likely makes the leak in the administration’s interest.
But that disclosure was nothing compared to what appeared in the Wall Street Journal a day later, in the wake of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s underhanded attempts to derail a nuclear deal with Iran. The Journal reported on Tuesday that not only did Israel spy on Americans negotiating with Iran, but they gave that information to Republicans in Congress, in an attempt to scuttle the deal.
How does the US know this? Well, according to the Journal and its government sources, the US itself intercepted communications between Israeli officials that discussed information that could have only come from the US-Iran talks. The disclosure of this fact sounds exactly like the vaunted “sources and methods” - i.e. how the US conducts surveillance and gets intelligence - that the government continually claims is the most sensitive information they have. It’s why they claim Edward Snowden belongs in jail for decades. So while it’s apparently unacceptable to leak details about surveillance that affects ordinary citizens’ privacy, its OK for officials to do so for their own political benefit - and no one raises an eyebrow.
Endless War: As U.S. Strikes Tikrit & Delays Afghan Pullout, "War on Terror" Toll Tops 1.3 Million
Iran-Saudi proxy war in Yemen explodes into region-wide crisis
Like a ticking timebomb left unattended for too long, Yemen’s undeclared civil war has suddenly exploded into a region-wide crisis that will have far-reaching, unpredictable international consequences, not least for Britain and the US.
The conflict, spreading outwards like a poison cloud from the key southern battleground around Aden, pits Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Muslim power, plus what remains of Yemen’s government against northern-based Houthi rebels, who are covertly backed by Shia Muslim Iran. ...
The so-called Houthi rebels, also known as Ansar Allah (the Supporters of God), belong to the Zaidi sect, a relatively obscure branch of Shia Islam. Formed by members of the northern al-Houthi clan, the group was originally known as Believing Youth and began life in the early 1990s as a revivalist theological movement reportedly teaching peaceful co-existence.
The group was radicalised by the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Anti-American demonstrations brought the group into conflict with the government of the then president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. In 2004, it launched a fully-fledged insurgency. ...
The fact that the Saudis have given the name “Storm of Resolve” to their air operation in Yemen recalls another big joint operation involving US and Saudi ground forces, Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 war to drive Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
The Saudi decision to unveil the international coalition in Washington suggests that the Obama administration, rather than the normally risk-averse regime in Riyadh, may be the driving force behind the intervention. ...
In another regional theatre of war, the Americans find themselves fighting on the same side as the Iranians, using their air power to support Iranian-backed Shia militia attacking Islamic State forces in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. ... Incongruous, too, is the prospect of John Kerry, the US secretary of state, meeting his Iranian counterpart this week in Lausanne to try to seal a nuclear deal with Tehran at the same time as the two countries take drastically opposite sides over Yemen. By dramatising the confrontation with Iran, the Saudis may be sending a not so oblique message to Washington that the nuclear deal, which they oppose, is dangerous and that Tehran is not to be trusted.
Iran warns of bloodshed as Saudi-led forces bomb Yemen
Saudi airstrikes on Shia rebels in Yemen have triggered a furious reaction from regional rival Iran, with top officials warning that military action could spill into other countries.
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday said that a coalition consisting of 10 countries, including members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), had begun airstrikes at 2am local time on Thursday, targeting Houthi positions in the capital, Sanaa.
The Houthi-run health ministry in Sanaa said that at least 18 civilians were killed and 24 others were wounded in the Saudi-led attacks on the capital. ...
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the air strikes would lead only to greater loss of life.
"Military action from outside of Yemen against its territorial integrity and its people will have no other result than more bloodshed and more deaths," he told the Iranian-owned Al-Alam television channel.
"We have always warned countries from the region and the West to be careful and not enter shortsighted games and not go in the same direction as al-Qaeda and Daesh," he added, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. ...
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Sanaa, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Al Bukhaiti called the military action a declaration of war on Yemen, adding that reports alleging a Houthi leader, Mohamed Ali Al Houthi, had been injured were false.
Saudi Arabia starts bombing Yemen
US establishing a joint planning cell with Saudi Arabia in Yemen
Iran's foreign ministry said airstrikes in Yemen are a "dangerous step" Thursday, after Saudi Arabia launched the strikes against Shiite rebel positions in the crisis-hit country.
The Saudi offensive launched Wednesday, supported by nine regional allies, as the country pledged to protect its neighbor from Iran-backed Shiite rebels. ...
The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network has reported that Saudi Arabia has also deployed 150,000 troops and 100 fighter jets. ...
In a statement Wednesday, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said: "While U.S. forces are not taking direct military action in Yemen in support of this effort, we are establishing a joint planning cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate U.S. military and intelligence support."
White House defends Yemen strategy as Iran-backed rebels surge
White House press secretary Josh Earnest says the success of U.S. foreign policy in Yemen should not be assessed in relation to the success or the stability of the country’s government, noting that the Middle Eastern nation — the region’s poorest — has long been in a “chaotic situation.” ...
Pressed on the administration’s earlier assessment that Yemen was a “model” for successful counterterrorism strategies, Earnest said the U.S. still has the capacity to strike when necessary against extremists within the country. ...
Yemen’s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, reportedly fled the country on Wednesday as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels moved in on the government’s de facto capital of Aden and Saudi Arabia led airstrikes against the Shiite insurgents, who have seized much of the country in recent months. ...
President Hadi took power after the ouster of longtime leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, who lost Saudi Arabia’s backing as “Arab Spring” protests swept Yemen in 2011 and 2012. Saleh’s allies have joined forces with the Houthi rebels.
Israel's Seizure of Palestinian Taxes Sparks Economic Devastation, Mounting Resistance
Palestinian officials warn economy is teetering and government is close to default
As Israel continues to withhold $130 million a month in revenue from the Palestinian Authority, officials warn that the West Bank's already choked economy is teetering over the edge, with most public employees facing salary cuts of 40 percent or more and the government close to default.
"We have informed the Palestinian Authority that we have reached the limits permitted to them, or are about to get there, and that banks will not be able to continue to fund it," Palestinian central bank Governor Jihad al-Wazir told Reuters on Wednesday. ...
Israel froze the tax revenue in early January in retaliation for the PA's formal application to join the International Criminal Court. Since then, it has withheld over $500 million. These funds account for approximately two thirds of the PA's budget and are used to pay tens of thousands of public employees, according to Haaretz.
In response, Palestinians are reinvigorating a boycott of Israeli companies, specifically targetingTnuva, Elite, Strauss Osem, Prigat, and Jafora. This escalation is a "first step against arbitrary Israeli procedure," according to a statement from the Palestinian Farmers' Union. While not a new tactic, reports indicate that the latest boycott marks an escalation, with Palestinians taking the step of confiscating and dumping Israeli goods.
A remarkably sane call for decreasing military spending by diminishing the mission of the military and ceasing to engage it in projects that have no military solution.
Your Money at War Everywhere
President Obama and Senator John McCain, who have clashed on almost every conceivable issue, do agree on one thing: the Pentagon needs more money. Obama wants to raise the Pentagon’s budget for fiscal year 2016 by $35 billion more than the caps that exist under current law allow. McCain wants to see Obama his $35 billion and raise him $17 billion more. Last week, the House and Senate Budget Committees attempted to meet Obama’s demands by pressing to pour tens of billions of additional dollars into the uncapped supplemental war budget.
What will this new avalanche of cash be used for? A major ground war in Iraq? Bombing the Assad regime in Syria? A permanent troop presence in Afghanistan? More likely, the bulk of the funds will be wielded simply to take pressure off the Pentagon’s base budget so it can continue to pay for staggeringly expensive projects like the F-35 combat aircraft and a new generation of ballistic missile submarines. Whether the enthusiastic budgeteers in the end succeed in this particular maneuver to create a massive Pentagon slush fund, the effort represents a troubling development for anyone who thinks that Pentagon spending is already out of hand.
Mind you, such funds would be added not just to a Pentagon budget already running at half-a-trillion dollars annually, but to the actual national security budget, which is undoubtedly close to twice that. It includes items like work on nuclear weapons tucked away at the Department of Energy, that Pentagon supplementary war budget, the black budget of the Intelligence Community, and war-related expenditures in the budgets of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security.
Despite the jaw-dropping resources available to the national security state, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Martin Dempsey recently claimed that, without significant additional infusions of cash, the U.S. military won’t be able to “execute the strategy” with which it has been tasked. As it happens, Dempsey’s remark unintentionally points the way to a dramatically different approach to what’s still called “defense spending.” Instead of seeking yet more of it, perhaps it’s time for the Pentagon to abandon its costly and counterproductive military strategy of “covering the globe.”
Have You Seen Our Military Gear? NCIS Hunts Bomb Spotting Tech Sold on eBay, Craiglist
The Pentagon lost track of sensitive equipment from a $750 million program to help U.S. soldiers spot roadside bombs–and some of it wound up for sale on eBay, Craigslist and other websites, according to a Navy intelligence document obtained by The Intercept.
The missing equipment includes thermal optic imaging and night vision devices that were supplied to U.S. forces to help locate improvised explosive devices, the leading killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, as well as related threats. “Since 2009, some of this advanced hardware has been reported as missing and is actively being sold or discussed on the global market on a variety of websites,” says an intelligence brief by the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service and its Multiple Threat Alert Center.
The March 12, 2014 document is titled “Diversion and Illegal Sales of Restricted USG Optical Systems” and is marked For Official Use Only. It lists thirteen websites where the military equipment was listed for sale, including Craigslist, eBay, texasguntalk.com and sportfishermen.com, among others. “Items have been marketed as sporting goods; hunting equipment; bird-watching equipment and camping supplies,” the report notes.
The report went on to state that “more than 32,000 pieces of equipment were issued” under the program, and the items “are NOT for civilian use and are controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.” The devices went missing because the military units had poor control over equipment distributed to them, according to the intelligence brief.
Colombian Report on US Military’s Child Rapes Not Newsworthy to US News Outlets
An 800-page independent report commissioned by the US-friendly Colombian government and the radical left rebel group FARC found that US military soldiers and contractors had sexually abused at least 54 children in Colombia between 2003 and 2007 and, in all cases, the rapists were never punished–either in Colombia or stateside–due to American military personnel being immune from prosecution under diplomatic immunity agreements between the two countries. ...
Thus far, however, these explosive claims seem to have received zero coverage in the general US press, despite having been reported on Venezuela’s Telesur (3/23/15), the British tabloid Daily Mail (3/24/15) and Russian RT (3/25/15).
But why? These aren’t fringe claims, nor can the government of American ally Colombia be dismissed as a peddler of Bolivarian propaganda. ...
As UK authorities and NATO officials stress the importance of clamping down on “false Russian” narratives in the media, perhaps our own media could stop providing a shining example as to why such anti-Western narratives are so often the only outlet for certain ugly truths.
Latest Assault on Net Neutrality Launched at Telecom Industry-Funded Think Tank
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., last week addressed the Free State Foundation to announce his new plan to undermine recently enacted net neutrality rules by going after the funding of the Federal Communications Commission, the agency behind the decision.
The FCC’s approach to net neutrality represents “potential untenable rules and regulatory overreach that will hurt consumers,” said Walden, the chair of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, speaking at the foundation’s annual Telecom Policy Conference. Walden outlined a plan to limit FCC appropriations, cap its other revenue sources, and change the hiring process for the FCC’s inspector general. ...
Walden’s choice of venue is telling. ... The Free State Foundation, founded by Randolph May, a former telecommunications attorney in Washington, D.C., describes itself as “an independent, non-profit free market-oriented think tank.” Consumer advocates have long complained that the foundation routinely lobbies on behalf of telecom industry positions. The group, in addition to working against net neutrality regulations, has pushed to block municipal broadband choices for consumers and heavily promoted major industry mergers, including the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal.
Leave Facebook if you don't want to be snooped on, warns EU
European Commission admits Safe Harbour framework cannot ensure privacy of EU citizens’ data when sent to the US by American internet firms
The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts if they want to keep information private from US security services, finding that current Safe Harbour legislation does not protect citizen’s data.
The comments were made by EC attorney Bernhard Schima in a case brought by privacy campaigner Maximilian Schrems, looking at whether the data of EU citizens should be considered safe if sent to the US in a post-Snowden revelation landscape. ...
The case, dubbed “the Facebook data privacy case”, concerns the current Safe Harbour framework, which covers the transmission of EU citizens’ data across the Atlantic to the US. Without the framework, it is against EU law to transmit private data outside of the EU. The case collects complaints lodged against Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Microsoft-owned Skype and Yahoo.
Schrems maintains that companies operating inside the EU should not be allowed to transfer data to the US under Safe Harbour protections – which state that US data protection rules are adequate if information is passed by companies on a “self-certify” basis – because the US no longer qualifies for such a status.
The case argues that the US government’s Prism data collection programme, revealed by Edward Snowden in the NSA files, which sees EU citizens’ data held by US companies passed on to US intelligence agencies, breaches the EU’s Data Protection Directive “adequacy” standard for privacy protection, meaning that the Safe Harbour framework no longer applies.
Resistance Mounts to Stephen Harper's Secret Police Bill
Unarmed black man shot dead by police in Atlanta: witnesses question excessive force
A police officer who shot dead an unarmed black veteran outside Atlanta might not have needed to use lethal force, multiple witnesses have told an investigator working for the victim’s family.
Anthony Hill, a 27-year old US air force veteran who had served in Afghanistan and had bipolar disorder, was killed by DeKalb County police department officer Mark Olsen on 9 March.
Olsen was responding to a 911 call about a man who was naked, had banged on his neighbors’ doors, and had crawled around the Heights of Chamblee apartment complex in the Atlanta suburb of Chamblee. ...
According to what multiple witnesses told to a private investigator, Olsen was approximately 180ft away from Hill when the two first made contact. ... Olsen, who did not ask about Hill’s mental health, proceeded to fire at the veteran, while Hill walked toward him at a “brisk” pace, according to witnesses. Hill was unarmed at the time of his death, authorities later found.
“He’s disrobed, so it’s blatantly apparent that he is not carrying nor concealing a weapon,” Chestnut told the Associated Press. “He’s not saying anything to the officer, so he’s not threatening the officer. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever for that officer to even draw his firearm, let alone use it.”
Why is U.S. Voter Turnout So Low?
Unlikely Bedfellows From Cory Booker to Newt Gingrich Unite in DC to Reform Prisons
A summit on mass incarceration is bringing together odd bedfellows from across the political spectrum on Thursday — for what organizers hope will be a "bipartisan breakthrough of massive proportions" that will make criminal justice reform a priority for policymakers at the federal level.
Organizers and speakers include as varied a bunch imaginable in Washington, ranging from Democratic Senator Cory Booker to former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, as well as Koch Industries representatives and leading civil rights organizations. ...
The movement for prison reform has gained momentum over the last several years, largely thanks to the effort of liberal advocates — but more conservative lawmakers, especially at the state level, have also jumped on board to push changes to a system that incarcerates one in 100 Americans and costs taxpayers billions every year.
"What we are doing right now in criminal justice violates the core principles of both political parties," said Jones. "The right is very concerned about individual liberty and limited government; on the left we talk a lot about racial and social justice."
While the motivations bringing them to the table vary, many political and business leaders of opposing ideologies and party lines seem to agree the status quo is both unjust and untenable.
US Supply Chain Tainted by Slave-Caught Fish
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report on how the January Conference of Industrial Unionists was organized.
Tune in at 2pm!
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This really should be read in full. It is totally excellent:
What Rahm Emanuel can learn from crazy lefties
In an interview with The New York Times, an Emanuel adviser sneered at left-wing critics and their political aspirations in classic "Rahmbo" fashion:
"Unless they get the crazy lefty money machine going nationally, it’s not going to matter that there’s a resurgent left," said an adviser to Mr. Emanuel who did not want to speak publicly about strategy. "The liberals at Heartland Cafe in Rogers Park can think great thoughts and read poetry for Chuy, but nothing else will happen." The New York Times
The adviser is probably right about the money. Politics is an expensive business, and fundraising is an inescapable part of the job. There isn't a lot of money flowing to the crazy left wing, which is why Garcia is being so colossally outspent.
However, there is another side to this story. Emanuel's deep strategic weaknesses on policy and politics are a direct result of his predilection for bashing the left. And his predicament is indicative of a major problem with American liberalism. By foreclosing the kind of egalitarian policy that is necessary to improve the fortunes of most people in an age of stark inequality, and by repeatedly denying itself an anchor in the left, the Democratic Party has sowed the seeds of its current political difficulties. ...
Rahm Emanuel is a cynical, mean-spirited politician who unquestionably would have fit right in with the liberal red-baiters of the '50s. As such, he has found himself in trouble. Just like Andrew Cuomo, he expected to sail to re-election on a massive tide of political fundraising, but faced a strong challenger who came seemingly out of nowhere.
And like Cuomo, Emanuel may well win. But his national aspirations are fading fast. It turns out money can only do so much to obscure a politician's failure to materially improve the lives of his constituents.
The Evening Greens
Why Is Climate Denier David Koch on the Board of Top Science Museums? Letter Urges Cutting of Ties
Smithsonian Stands By Wildly Misleading Climate Change Exhibit Paid For By Kochs
The Smithsonian risks damaging its reputation by having a polluter-funded science denier on the payroll and a wildly misleading Koch-funded exhibit that downplays the risks posed by human-caused climate change. It’s time for the world’s self-proclaimed “largest museum and research complex,” to live up to its mission — and its own climate statement — and cut ties with the anti-science, pro-pollution crowd.
Last month, a New York Times exposé revealed that Dr. Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, “has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers.” ... During this period, Soon has advanced a repeatedly-debunked theory arguing that humans are not the primary cause of global warming. In October, the Smithsonian itself put out a climate statement, which makes clear that such a view is simply anti-scientific. ...
Even more shocking, the Smithsonian repeatedly signed off on contracts (viewable here) with Southern Company Services — a coal company and long-time funder of science denial — requiring the Smithsonian to provide the coal utility “advanced written copy of proposed publications … for comment and input.”
But what may be most shocking of all is that the Smithsonian hasn’t fixed the misleading evolution exhibit at its National Museum of Natural History, which thoroughly whitewashes the dangers of modern-day climate change. This “Hall of Human Origins” was made possible by a $15 million grant from billionaire polluter David Koch. It has now been five years since Climate Progress exposed the myriad flaws in the exhibit, a story the New Yorker and others picked up.
The US Coal Industry Is Shuttering Mines and Its Market Value Is Plummeting, Says a New Study
While coal is still the single biggest fuel in US power plants, its share of the market has dropped from more than 50 percent of electric production in 2000 to less than 40 percent last year. Production has dropped to levels not seen since the early 1990s, according to US Department of Energy figures.
The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a financial think-tank that focuses on the risks posed by climate change, estimates that US coal use peaked in 2007 and that more than 260 mines closed between 2001 and 2013. Since 2009, the market value of the US coal sector has dropped by 76 percent, the report found. ...
The hydraulic fracturing boom has produced a flood of cheap, cleaner-burning natural gas. New environmental regulations aimed at reining in carbon emissions and pollutants like mercury are putting the squeeze on utilities. Renewable power sources like wind and solar are also cutting into the electric market. Even one of the bright spots for the industry — the boom in coal-fired power plants in rapidly industrializing China and India — has dimmed as those countries seek cleaner alternatives or tap domestic coal supplies.
"It's costing the industry more to use coal, and the other options becoming more inexpensive make it hard to justify," Andrew Ricci, editor of Levick Energy and a former aide to a coal-country congressman, said. ...
The Sierra Club's Nicole Ghio was the co-author of a report last week that found the global boom in coal-fired power plants over the past decade appears to have peaked. Two out of every three units planned since 2012 have been shelved, while the amount of coal-fired capacity in the United States and Europe has been shrinking, the report concluded — and Ghio said that's bound to cloud the industry's prospects.
"Coal is a very risky investment," she said. "But the number of projects that are still in the works is way too much for us to stay below two degrees."
Leaders of European cities make pledge to tackle climate change
Leaders and representatives of 30 European cities will gather in Paris on Thursday to declare their commitment to “clean” policies to fight climate change.
Officials will also sign a declaration agreeing to use their collective purchasing power – estimated at around €10bn (£7.4bn) a year – to buy eco-friendly. ...
In a joint statement signed by 26 European mayors, including London’s Boris Johnson, city representatives said they hoped combining forces to favour green and low-carbon industries for procurement contracts would have a “leverage effect on the private sector that very often aligns its own requirements with the public sector”.
'Monsanto's Dream': Pro-GMO DARK Act Comes to Congress
The battle over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, reached the U.S. capital on Wednesday when news broke that Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo will reintroduce a bill that blocks states from requiring GMO labeling.
The legislation, dubbed by critics the Deny Americans the Right-to-Know or DARK Act, grants the Secretary of Health and Human Services sole authority to mandate GMO labeling and sets forth particular standards for any label that contains claims that GMOs were or were not used in the production of the food— hampering any attempts by the Food and Drug Administration to pass legislation on the federal level.
Further, the bill preempts any local or state requirement and thus would overturn existing laws in Vermont, Connecticut and Maine, which critics say is a direct attack on state sovereignty. ...
Calling the legislation "Monsanto's dream bill," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of food safety watchdog Food & Water Watch, wrote Wednesday: "Apparently the wave of state-level progress towards labeling GMOs rankled the giant companies that sell GMOs or make processed food out of them, so their trade association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, decided to cut them off from the get-go by orchestrating federal legislation to block the states from getting in the labeling game."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
How Privatization Degrades Our Daily Lives
Study shows humans are evolving faster than previously thought
Award-winner Heidi Levine's images of Gaza – in pictures
Journalists Who Hate Whistleblowers
Action: The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease
Papers to Pee bills fail in Kentucky and Florida
A Little Night Music
Hot Lips Page - Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You
Hot Lips Page & His Band - Lafayette
Hot Lips Page - The Devil's Kiss
Pearl Bailey & Hot Lips Page - The Hucklebuck
Pearl Bailey & Hot Lips Page - Baby It's Cold Outside
Hot Lips Page - Last Call For Alcohol
Hot Lips Page - The Lady In Bed
Hot Lips Page & His Band - Skull Duggery
Hot Lips Page & the V-disc Allstars - The Sheik Of Araby
Hot Lips Page - Page Mr Trumpet
Hot Lips Page - Harlem Rumbain' the Blues
Hot Lips Page - The Cadillac Song
Hot Lips Page's Swing Seven - Uncle Sam Blues
Hot Lips Page’s Swing Seven - Dance of the Tambourine
Hot Lips Page - I Got An Uncle In Harlem
Hot Lips Page and His Orchestra - King Jungle
Hot Lips Page - Miss Larceny Blues
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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