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 Chicago blues harmonica player and singer Shakey Jake Harris. Enjoy!
Shakey Jake Harris - Roll Your Money Maker
“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”
-- Napoléon Bonaparte
News and Opinion
We're a year into the unofficial war against Isis with nothing to show for it
This Saturday marks one full year since the US military began its still-undeclared war against Islamic State that the government officials openly acknowledge will last indefinitely. What do we have to show for it? So far, billions of dollars have been spent, thousands of bombs have been dropped, hundreds of civilians have been killed and Isis is no weaker than it was last August, when the airstrikes began.
But don’t take it from me – that’s the conclusion of the US intelligence community itself. As the Associated Press reported a few days ago, the consensus view of the US intelligence agencies is that Isis is just as powerful as it was a year ago, and they can replace fighters faster than they are getting killed.
Like it does for every stagnant and endless war, this inconvenient fact will likely will only lead others to call for more killing, rather than an introspection on why continuing to bomb the same region for decades does not actually work. Perhaps we’re not firing missiles at a high enough rate, they’ll say, perhaps we need a full-scale ground invasion, or perhaps we need to kill more civilians to really damage the enemy (yes, this is an actual argument war mongers have been making). ...
For now, there are already plans to launch more drone strikes in Libya, increased air power in Syria and who knows what is in store for Iraq. What the next year will bring as US presidential candidates vie for who can be “tougher” against Isis is anyone’s guess. ...
One year on, we’re now seemingly farther away from Congressional authorization for this war than we’ve ever been. This time last year, there were a range of op-eds from legal experts across the political spectrum explaining that a sustained war against Isis is plainly illegal if Congress does not vote on it. Now, that’s virtually been forgotten. Most news organizations don’t bother bringing up the subject anymore, and even the nascent talk in Congress has all but evaporated.
White House Legal Justification for Syria War Nebulous as War Broadens
At one point, the Obama Administration wanted a Congressional authorization for their war against ISIS. They openly bragged about the vague language allowing them to do more or less anything, and never got Congress to agree. Still, the war continues. ... People are increasingly asking what the current justification is, particularly as the Syrian part of the war broadens, with more targets and more enemies. ...
When they’re attacking al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, the justification is the 2001 AUMF for the Afghan War, because it’s al-Qaeda. When they’re fighting ISIS, it’s sort of the same, on the grounds that ISIS is sort of al-Qaeda, even though they’re actually not.
Who is to blame for the rise of ISIL?
In this Head to Head special from Washington DC, Mehdi Hasan challenges retired Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, on the rise of ISIL, the War on Terror, torture, and how to deal with Iran.
Flynn was the former head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and a commander of J-SOC, the ghost military unit whose squads hunted Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan all the way to Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. With no panel or audience, we ask him whether the US is to blame for creating ISIL and whether the War on Terror has become a crusade.
White House legal strategy for ISIS fight gets blurry
President Obama has shifted his legal rationale for justifying military force to defend Syrian rebel forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as the prospect has increased that they could come into conflict with Syria’s government. ...
The administration now says it will also rely on Article II of the Constitution as the legal backing for air strikes against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s forces if Assad attacks the rebel groups. ...
Legal scholars said using Article II to justify defensive actions as protecting the rebel groups from Assad is a stretch.
“That means nothing. That’s pretty bad when you have to cite Article II…You have to be more specific than that,” said Louis Fisher, scholar in residence at the Constitution Project and former Congressional Research Service researcher.
He and other legal experts say Article II has been interpreted to allow a president to “repel sudden attack” against U.S. troops, the U.S.mainland, and its interests.
Using it to defend Syrian rebels would not fit under that previous interpretation, he said.
“Invoking Article II is question-begging,” agreed Stephen Vladeck, law professor at American University.
Vladeck said Article II has also been interpreted to allow the U.S. to defend its “assets.”
However, he said “by that logic any person or piece of military equipment used by anyone on a side of a conflict with which we agree is all of a sudden covered by Article II. And that cannot be right.”
Pentagon Rethinking Syrian Rebel Training Strategy
A year and $500 million later, the Pentagon finally introduced its first rebels into Syria. The plan was to create a faction of tens of thousands, a new pro-US rebel faction for Syria. The reality was 54 guys, who crossed into Syria and almost immediately were routed by al-Qaeda.
That’s got some in thePentagon rethinking things, with some downplaying the importance of a program once presented as the end-all, be-all strategy for winning in Syria. Others are suggesting they simply need to change a few things nad get the process going more efficiently.
No matter how much rethinking they’re doing, however, they’re not going to stop blowing hundreds of millions of dollars on the pipe dream of creating this force, and officials say two new classes of rebels have begun training as well. They didn’t indicate how many were in either class, however.
Oh no, there's not going to be any blowback attributable to aligning with Turkey in its war on
ISIS the Kurds...
US Consulate Hit As Multiple Attacks Rock Turkey
Violence flared in Turkey on Monday as gunmen opened fire on the US consulate in Istanbul, hours after a car bombing elsewhere in the city and the killing of five members of the security forces in the country's southeast.
The consulate attack began when two assailants, reported to be a man and a woman, shot at the building in the northern Sariyer district before fleeing when police returned fire. The woman has now been apprehended, according to local media.
Earlier, an explosive-laden vehicle was detonated at a police station in the Sultanbeyli area of the city, causing it to catch fire and partially collapse. At least ten people were injured in the blast, including three members of the police, state-run Anadolu Agency said, adding that militants later fired on officers at the scene, fatally wounding one officer. Police killed two of the gunmen in resultant clashes.
There have been no claims of responsibility for either attack and it is unclear if they are linked, but the violence comes after Turkey launched a two-pronged "war on terror" that officials say is focused on the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and so-called Islamic State (IS). The extreme left Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), which carried out a 2013 suicide bombing at the US Embassy in Ankara, has also been targeted in the campaign.
Father of Palestinian toddler killed in arson attack dies from injuries
Netanyahu and His Marionettes
Benjamin Netanyahu is laying siege to the Congress of the United States, not for the first time. He has thrown his voice and channeled his influence into the arena of American legislative politics, to abort the P5+1 nuclear settlement with Iran, which was signed on July 14 by the US, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia. The Israeli strong man's latest intervention is in keeping with the rest of his political career. Netanyahu owes all his importance and his success to actions that have been purely destructive.
He was first elected in 1996 on the wave of Israeli settler chauvinism that followed the signing of the Oslo Accords. His rise occurred in the wake of the assassination of his opponent, a courageous defender of the accords, Yitzhak Rabin. A public memorandum detailing the strategy for Netanyahu as leader of Israel was written by the neoconservative war propagandist Richard Perle, along with a small committee of others. The strategy document, "A Clean Break," called for Israel to free itself from the tedious demands of diplomacy once and for all, curtail its efforts to negotiate with Palestinians toward the creation of a state, and give up the idea of joining a neighborhood of nations in the Middle East. With American help, instead, Israel could stand alone as the dominant power, a position it should never compromise by bargaining for peace. To achieve this end, three countries had to be undermined, subdivided, or destroyed: Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
So far, things have gone roughly according to plan. Iraq and Syria are out of the picture -- the latter with considerable satisfaction to the people around Netanyahu. But Iran has continued to pose a stumbling block; and as early as 2008, Barack Obama's interest in lowering the terrorist threat to the US by calming the violence of the region was perceived by Netanyahu as a threat to his plan for dominance. ...
Meanwhile, 58 members of the US Congress have landed in Jerusalem, on a visit set to last from August 4 to August 10. Their trip was bought and paid for by the charitable arm of AIPAC. The lawmakers obeyed the command of Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit him instead of their own constituents in early August if they want support in the future by prominent Jewish donors. A gesture of more abject servility cannot be imagined. By agreeing to take the trip at this time -- so easy to decline if only for the perception of the thing -- these captive representatives have in effect declared their confidence in Netanyahu and their dependence on his favor. He will come back for more.
The Forces Behind Schumer's Rejection of Iran Deal
Progressives Disgusted After Sen. Schumer's 'Outrageous' Break on Iran Deal
Amid general disgust among progressives, the activist group MoveOn.org on Friday announced it would launch a "donor strike" against the Democratic Party over Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) break with colleagues and President Barack Obama over the Iran nuclear agreement, calling Schumer's opposition of the deal "outrageous and unacceptable."
Schumer, who is angling to take over as Senate Minority Leader following the scheduled retirement of Harry Reid next year, announced late Thursday that he would vote against the deal.
"I believe Iran will not change, and under this agreement it will be able to achieve its dual goals of eliminating sanctions while ultimately retaining its nuclear and non-nuclear power," he said.
MoveOn said Schumer's reasoning—which aligns with that of "Republican partisans and neoconservative ideologues"—is an attempt to "put the nation on a path to war" and must be met with decisive action. The organization, which raises funds for candidates it identifies as progressive, launched both a donor strike against lawmakers who oppose the deal and a call for Democrats in Congress to "find a new leader."
Bernie Sanders pushes back on Obama's comments on Iran deal opponents
The Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Sunday distanced himself from rhetoric used by Barack Obama to defend his controversial nuclear deal with Iran.
In an interview with CBS, Sanders pushed back on a statement Obama made in a speech at American University this week, that congressional opponents of the Iran deal were making common cause with Iranian hardliners including the Revolutionary Guard, an organization officially labeled as a terrorist group by the US government.
“I wouldn’t frame it that way,” said the independent Vermont senator. ...
Sanders also said while it was “easy to be critical of an agreement which is not perfect”, he saw the deal as the best alternative to the conflict he said was wanted by Republican critics of the deal who did not “remember the consequences of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
“The US has to negotiate with other countries, with Iran,” Sanders said. “The only alternative is war.”
Obama Hints Netanyahu's Interference in U.S. Affairs Is Unprecedented
President Barack Obama hinted on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's involvement in American politics following the Iran deal is without precedent.
In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, the president was asked if it was "appropriate of a foreign head of government to inject himself into an American affair.”
“I will let you ask Prime Minister Netanyahu that question," Obama responded, adding: "I don’t recall a similar example.”
No More Torture: World’s Largest Group of Psychologists Bans Role in National Security Interrogations
First Step for Reform: APA Votes to Bar Psychologists From Colluding in Torture
The American Psychological Association (APA) on Friday voted overwhelmingly to bar its members from participating in the interrogation of U.S. prisoners on foreign soil, officially ending the association's complicity in torture of detainees and taking the first step out of "the dark side."
All but one member of the APA's 173-person Council of Representatives voted to end the association's collusion with the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies in abusive interrogations as well as the so-called "noncoercive" kind now being carried out by the Obama administration.
Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib military psychologist Col. Larry James cast the sole dissenting vote. There were also seven abstentions and one recusal. ...
The vote was met with a standing ovation. The ban states that psychologists "shall not conduct, supervise, be in the presence of, or otherwise assist any national security interrogations for any military or intelligence entities, including private contractors working on their behalf, nor advise on conditions of confinement insofar as these might facilitate such an interrogation."
Facebook urged to tighten privacy settings after harvest of user data
Facebook has been urged to tighten its privacy settings after a software engineer was able to harvest data about thousands of users – simply by guessing their mobile numbers.
The developer obtained the names, profile pictures and locations of users who had linked their mobile number to their Facebook account but had chosen not to make it public.
Security experts said the loophole would allow hackers to build enormous databases of Facebook users for sale on internet black markets. “They should be attempting to prevent the widescale hoovering up of data, and I’m disappointed to hear that they appear to have failed on this occasion,” said Graham Cluley, a computer security analyst.
Reza Moaiandin, the software engineer who discovered the flaw, exploited a little-known privacy setting allowing anyone to find a Facebook user by typing their phone number into the social network.
By default, this Who can find me? setting is set to Everyone/public – meaning anyone can find another user by their mobile number. This is the default setting even if that user had chosen to withold their mobile number from their public profile.
Using a simple algorithm, Moaiandin generated tens of thousands of mobile numbers a second and then sent these numbers to Facebook’s application programming interface (API), a tool that allows developers to build apps linked to the social network. Within minutes, Facebook sent him scores of users’ profiles.
FBI called in after Texas police officer shoots dead unarmed 19-year-old
Texas police on Sunday were trying to figure out what prompted a black teenager to drive his car into a car dealership, and why a white police officer still in training shot the unarmed 19-year-old four times.
Christian Taylor became the latest unarmed black man to die at the hands of a white police officer after officials said he was seen on security surveillance tape vandalising cars at an auto dealership in Arlington.
Taylor was shot four times by Arlington police officer Brad Miller, 49, who was still undergoing training, police chief Will Johnson said on Saturday. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office found Taylor had gunshot wounds to the neck, chest and abdomen.
Johnson did not explain what led to what he described as a confrontation inside the car dealership building, which led Miller to open fire on Taylor while a second police officer used a Taser. The officers were not wearing body cameras.
Taylor’s brother Joshua, 23, said the family wanted details of what happened, calling the information from the police “blurry”.
Police Have Killed at Least 1,083 Americans Since Michael Brown's Death
A year ago today, a white police officer shot and killed a black teenager in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, catalyzing a firestorm of protests and re-animating national conversations on issues of race, policing, and violence in the US. ...
Since then, the rallies for justice have not abated, and neither have the number of deaths at the hands of police. At least 1,083 Americans have been killed by cop since August 9, 2014, according to comprehensive research and data collected by VICE News — an average of nearly three people a day.
While the bulk of those killed from August 2014 to August 2015 were white, black people per population were more than twice as likely to be killed by cops than any other race, the data showed. African Americans are also more than three times as likely to be killed by police than white people, according to the statistics.
Brown's death was a seminal moment in arousing US consciousness of structural racial bias in police departments around the country, and the grand jury's decision three months later not to indict Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who killed him, proved to many that that bias permeates every facet of the criminal justice system.
Michael Brown Sr urges protesters to step up efforts on shooting anniversary
Michael Brown’s father on Saturday urged the protest movement roused by the death of his son in Ferguson, Missouri, to intensify its efforts to reform the criminal justice system following the first anniversary of the fatal police shooting.
“I see things moving in a positive way, but I don’t see enough,” Michael Brown Sr said at the site of his son’s killing, as he prepared to lead a protest march. Brown went on to say black Americans should focus on “realising what we need to do to move forward as a people”. ...
The unity that broke out among disparate local groups in the days following his son’s death should be recaptured, Brown said.
“We all came together,” he said. “Every set that was out here, everybody who had problems with anybody – it squashed all of that. We just came together to make a movement, and that was beautiful.”
365 Days and 605 Armored Military Vehicles Later: Police Militarization a Year After Ferguson
Last August, Ferguson and Fallujah had a lot in common. Those protesting the death of Michael Brown were met with “armored vehicles, noise-based crowd-control devices, shotguns, M4 rifles like those used by forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, rubber-coated pellets and tear gas.” The scene looked more like a foreign warzone than a Midwestern American town, and no one could tell why local police were taking up arms against those they are sworn to protect and serve. ...
Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars expressed horror at the reality that they had been less heavily armed while on active duty abroad. President Obama reacted by saying “[t]here is a big difference between our military and our local law enforcement, and we don't want those lines blurred.” ...
President Obama issued Executive Order 13688 in January. The order created a federal interagency working group charged with investigating police militarization. As a result of the inquiry, the federal government is now banned from giving bayonets and grenade launchers to local police, but MRAPs are still in play. Granted, the working group has made it much more difficult to get an MRAP and a few other things. Now, police departments must establish community policing practices, training protocols, and have community approval in place before using federal resources to obtain some military equipment.
But what about holding police departments accountable for the 605 MRAPs already in circulation?
The Obama Administration should make the new requirements retroactive. If a police department wants to keep its MRAP, the local community should sign off. Additionally, anything that is now banned, like bayonets and grenade launchers, should be recalled. And Congress must pass legislation like the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Actso reforms are permanent.
Killing of Detroit Imam in 2009 Described As “Nothing Less Than a Cover-Up”
On October 28, 2009, dozens of heavily armed FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Dearborn, Michigan, to execute an arrest warrant against Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, and several other men, who had been accused of fencing stolen merchandise. What exactly happened next remains in dispute, but the raid resulted in Abdullah being shot more than 20 times and dying on the scene.
An FBI press release issued later that day said that Abdullah, an imam at a mosque on Detroit’s West Side, “did not surrender and fired [a] weapon. An exchange of gun fire followed and Abdullah was killed.” ...
Abdullah’s autopsy results — which showed not just bullet wounds, but also injuries inflicted by an FBI K-9 dog — and inflammatory comments made by FBI agents following his death, have contributed to continued outrage over Abdullah’s case and allegations that his death was an unjustified killing. ...
During the arrest raid, Abdullah suffered severe lacerations to his face and a broken jaw after he was mauled by a police dog. He was hit with over 20 bullets, and died at the scene. After the shooting, the lawsuit alleges, FBI agents sealed off the warehouse, preventing local law enforcement from entering the premises for at least an hour. The lawsuit further alleges that Abdullah was denied medical treatment, while the FBI K-9 that mauled him was airlifted to a local hospital to receive treatment for gunshot wounds.
The government later stated that the K-9 had been killed by shots fired from a gun by Abdullah, a claim disputed in the lawsuit, as well as by an eyewitness to the shooting, who has stated that Abdullah was unarmed. The witness, who was also arrested in the raid, states in the lawsuit that Abdullah was shot by FBI agents while he was laying prone and attempting to defend himself from the police dog. ...
For many in that community, the suspicion that Abdullah was killed while unarmed continues to linger. “The government never conducted any gunshot residue tests nor did they produce any physical evidence tying Abdullah to the gun that they later alleged was his,” Dawud Walid executive director of CAIR-Michigan, said. “The entire investigation and subsequent killing of Imam Abdullah was nothing less than a cover-up, and a fraud engineered on the part of the government.”
“They Pray to the Money”; House Republicans Decry Speaker John Boehner’s Lobbyist-Friendly Congress
Last week’s surprise bid by a group of House Republicans to oust Speaker John Boehner wasn’t about Boehner’s ideology, two members of the would-be rebellion said in a radio interview Thursday. It was about how Boehner uses congressional power to raise money over the interests of individual legislators.
“He’s not a policy leader. He’s a political leader. He knows how to raise money,” Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., told North Carolina radio host Tyler Cralle. “We have allowed the money to control policy in Washington, D.C.”
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., another lawmaker who tried to oust Boehner, said the media is wrong to portray the fight as the Tea Party versus the establishment, or some other ideological battle.
“The lobbyists in Washington, D.C. are not ideologues. They have no ideology,” Massie said with a laugh. Cralle suggested that lobbyists do believe in making money. “Well, that’s their god, too, that’s what they pray to, the money,” Massie said.
The fundamental issue, Massie continued, is about who has the power in Congress. Massie argued that the Founding Fathers never intended for the American people to be “represented by the moneyed class in Washington, D.C.”
Art & Protests at the Venice Biennale Highlight Labor Conditions, Climate Change and Austerity
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from Mother Jones: "Great brains never sell themselves for a smile to the pirates of nations."
Tune in at 2pm!
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Rednecks Symbolize Solidarity: W.Va. Mine Wars Museum Reclaims Union Identity
Workers in southern West Virginia’s coalfields have not received the recognition they deserve for their sacrifices in creating better working and living conditions for all Americans. But the tide is turning as the state’s rich history of militant labor union activity is attracting greater appreciation from a wider audience.
A group of West Virginia residents, tired of officials deliberately suppressing history of the state’s labor union movement, recently banded together to tell the story of how thousands of coal miners in the early 20th century united to fight a powerful industry. Their efforts resulted in the creation of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in the historic town of Matewan in Mingo County, W.Va. The museum, fresh off its grand opening in mid-May, offers visitors a captivating look at a series of sometimes violent battles that occurred in southern West Virginia’s coalfields.
The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum represents a form of what historian Chuck Keeney describes as “identity reclamation.” ... A perfect example of identity reclamation is the term “redneck” and how it was a symbol of solidarity and pride among miners during the mine wars. Redneck referred to the red bandanas that West Virginia miners wore around their necks. “If you said the word redneck in 1921, it was not a joke. It wasn’t a caricature. It was referring to violent rebels. It was referring to pro-union people,” Keeney said in an interview.
Matewan, separated from Kentucky by the Tug Fork River, offers a perfect setting for the museum. Easily accessible to visitors off the region’s main highway, Route 119, Matewan was the site of a famous gunfight that started between police chief, Sid Hatfield, a union sympathizer, and agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who would conduct the dirty work of the coal company bosses. The gunfight, known as the Battle of Matewan and recounted in John Sayle’s 1987 film Matewan, began along the train tracks outside the backdoor of the building that now houses the museum. Though Hatfield survived, the battle ended with the killing of 10 people.
Kim Kardashian Tweets Selfie With Armenian Genocide Flip-Flopper Hillary Clinton
Kim Kardashian’s father Robert was Armenian, and I was impressed when she traveled to Armenia with Kanye West in a blaze of publicity this past April 24 to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide. At the same time she wrote a piece for Time describing her father’s family’s escape from Armenia and her deep disappointment that Obama had broken his iron-clad promise to call what happened there genocide. ...
So I’m bummed out to see Kardashian kvelling about her selfie with Hillary Clinton at a Hollywood fundraiser Thursday night. Just like President Obama, Clinton has cynically abused the trust of Armenian Americans by calling it genocide when she was looking for votes, but not when it mattered.
While she was senator from New York, Clinton was a co-sponsor of a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. And when she ran for president in 2008 she issued this statement:
I believe the horrible events perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians constitute a clear case of genocide. … Our common morality and our nation’s credibility as a voice for human rights challenge us to ensure that the Armenian Genocide be recognized and remembered by the Congress and the President of the United States.
So Clinton knows exactly what happened. But once she became Secretary of State she turned on a dime, explaining in 2010 that she was “working very hard” to stop Congress from recognizing the genocide. She also said things like this in response to a question from her own employee at the State Department:
Q: Regarding the atrocities that happened in the beginning of the 20th century that some would label the Armenian genocide, I am wondering why it is that we do not recognize it as such … ?
CLINTON: [T]his has always been viewed, and I think properly so, as a matter of historical debate and conclusions rather than political. … [T]o try to use government power to resolve historical issues, I think, opens a door that is a very dangerous one to go through.
Bernie Sanders sidelined in Seattle as Black Lives Matter activists invade stage
The Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders was shoved aside by several Black Lives Matter activists and eventually had to leave an event in Seattle without giving his speech.
Sanders was just starting to address several thousand people gathered shoulder to shoulder at Westlake Park when two women took over the microphone. Organizers could not persuade the two to wait and agreed to give them a few minutes.
As Sanders stepped back the women spoke about Ferguson and the killing of Michael Brown and called for four minutes of silence.
When the crowd asked the activists to allow Sanders to speak, one activist called the crowd “white supremacist liberals”, according to event participants.
After waiting about 20 minutes Sanders himself was pushed away when he tried to take the microphone back. Instead he waved goodbye, left the stage with a raised fist salute and waded into the crowd. He shook hands and posed for photos with supporters for about 15 minutes and then left.
The rally at Westlake Park had been organized as a birthday celebration for social security, Medicare and Medicaid.
'Bringing People Together' Big Time as Sanders Attracts Tens of Thousands
Overflow crowd is estimated at nearly 30,000 people in Portland
It was by far the largest turnout for any presidential candidate this year, as nearly 30,000 people rallied in Portland, Oregon on Sunday evening for Bernie Sanders, filling the city's Moda Center to capacity with thousands more directed to overflow areas to watch the event on large screens.
"Whoa. This is an unbelievable turnout," said the U.S. senator and presidential candidate after taking the podium.
With a populist message and a continued upward trend in early state and national polling, Sanders has been breaking his own attendance records over recent weeks and months, attracting overflow crowds in liberal bastions like New England and the northwest, but also in more conservative states like Texas, New Orleans, and Arizona. ...
By contrast, as the Washington Post points out, the largest crowd yet attracted by Hillary Clinton's campaign was estimated at 5,500, which came at her formal New York kickoff event in June. None of the Republican candidates have seen crowds anywhere near what Sanders is getting.
Despite the ability of a few protesters to shut down an earlier campaign stop in Seattle on Saturday, the Sanders campaign continues to build traction with its far-reaching and inclusive populist message regarding economic inequality, social justice, and a broad call for a "political revolution" centered on getting big money out of politics, fighting corporate greed, and combating human-caused climate change. Additionally, Sanders has thus far gone further than other candidates in making criminal justice reform and racial inequities central issues of his platform.
Hat tip JayRaye:
Nurses Endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders for President
Noting his issues “align with nurses from top to bottom,” National Nurses United, the nation’s largest organization of nurses, today endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for President.
“Bernie Sanders has a proven track record of uncompromised activism and advocacy for working people, and a message that resonates with nurses, and, as we have all seen, tens of thousands of people across the country. He can talk about our issues as well as we can talk about our issues. We are proud to stand with him in his candidacy for President today,” said NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro.
NNU, which represents some 185,000 nurses from California to Florida, including nurses who live in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, becomes the first national union to endorse Sanders.
The Evening Greens
Durango, Colorado copes with 'orange nastiness' of toxic sludge river pollution
In the shadow of the jagged, 14,000-foot-plus San Juan mountain range sits the fertile valley where Jennifer James Wheeling grew up as part of a ranching family that has taken its lifeblood from the Animas River for decades. That water has been used to grow hay, sustain a grass-fed beef herd, and farm organically grown vegetables.
Now that water glows orange, filled with heavy metals and toxins that spewed from a gold mine near Silverton, Colorado, last Wednesday after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its contractor accidentally broke open a dam wall while investigating there.
“We got the call early in the morning and we shut down all our head gates, so none of it got into our fields or our ponds,” says Wheeling, who returned along with her siblings to James Ranch 15 years ago to work with their parents to grow their ranching and farming business. “They closed the [irrigation] ditch down but it’s not a sealable thing so it still leaked in and our own ditch has that orange nastiness all along it.”
That “orange nastiness” is a cocktail of cadmium, arsenic, lead, copper, manganese and other metals. The EPA released data Sunday revealing that it had released more than 3m gallons of the toxic sludge more than three times its original estimate – into Cement Creek, a tributary to the Animas River.
At their peak, arsenic levels were 300 times the normal level and lead was 3,500 times the normal level. Officials say those levels have dropped notably since the plume moved through the area.
The massive orange plume of that release has since moved downstream through the Animas Valley, into downtown Durango, and on through to New Mexico, where it has choked off the main water supply for farmers along the way, as well as the main drinking water supply for towns such as Aztec and Farmington plus the 27,000 square-mile Navajo Nation.
Police Kill Six Alleged Tiger Poachers in Bangladesh
Police have killed six suspected tiger poachers in the world's largest mangrove forest in southwestern Bangladesh, home to critically endangered Royal Bengal tigers.
The fierce gunfight took place in Khulna's Koyra Upazila area on Sunday, law enforcement officials confirmed, and came as Bangladesh launches a crackdown on poachers after a recent government survey found that there has been a drastic fall in the number of tigers.
Bangladeshi forest officials say the new estimate is more accurate because of the use of cameras. They and other experts say poaching is a major reason for the decline of the tiger population. Police chief Sarker said the Sundarbans, with its network of rivers and canals, had become a magnet for poacher gangs.
Shell Cuts Off ALEC, But Greenpeace Says PR Stunt Won't Save Arctic
Royal Dutch Shell on Friday announced that it would not renew its partnership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), citing the corporate lobbying organization's continued denial of climate change, in a move that environmental groups say does nothing to absolve the oil giant from its destructive business model.
"ALEC advocates for specific economic growth initiatives, but its stance on climate change is clearly inconsistent with our own," said Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith on Friday. "We have long recognized both the importance of the climate challenge and the critical role energy has in determining quality of life for people across the world. As part of an ongoing review of memberships and affiliations, we will be letting our association with ALEC lapse when the current contracted term ends early next year." ...
As Greenpeace spokesperson Travis Nichols said on Friday, "It’s a bad sign for the climate denial movement that ALEC’s rhetoric is too extreme even for a cynical exploitative corporation like Shell. It’s also clear that Shell’s ill-conceived Arctic drilling plan is causing a PR panic, but this move won’t fix Shell’s bad name."
"It's completely absurd for Shell to claim it wants to confront climate change while engaging in this destructive plan to drill in the Alaskan Arctic," Nichols continued.
Caribbean-bound tourists cancel holidays due to foul-smelling seaweed
Authorities across the Caribbean are releasing emergency funding to clean up piles of decaying seaweed so huge and pungent that tourists have cancelled summer beach holidays and lawmakers on Tobago have deemed it a “natural disaster”.
The picture-perfect beaches and turquoise waters that people expect from the Caribbean are increasingly being fouled by mats of plant matter that attract biting sand fleas and smell like rotten eggs.
Clumps of the brownish seaweed, known as sargassum, have long washed up on Caribbean coastlines, but researchers say the algae has exploded in extent and frequency in recent years. ...
There are various ideas about what is causing the seaweed boom that scientists say started in 2011, including warming ocean temperatures and changes in the ocean currents due to climate change. Some researchers believe it is primarily due to increased land-based nutrients and pollutants washing into the water, including nitrogen-heavy fertilisers and sewage waste that fuel the blooms.
Brian Lapointe, a sargassum expert at Florida Atlantic University, says that while the sargassum washing up in normal amounts has long been good for the Caribbean, severe influxes like those seen lately are “harmful algal blooms” because they can cause wipe out fish populations, foul the beach, harm tourism revenue and even cause coastal dead zones.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Going Bankrupt Like Trump Did Is for High Rollers, Not Homeowners
Psychologist’s Work for GCHQ Deception Unit Inflames Debate Among Peers
DeRay McKesson: Ferguson and beyond: how a new civil rights movement began – and won't end
How to Shoot Down a Drone
10 Steps to Wean US Foreign Policy Off Militarism
America's Empire of Bases
Chris Hedges: Evoking the Wrath of Nature
Live-blog/stream-New Endorsement/National Nurses United/ Sen. Sanders/Oakland
Bernie Sanders Speaks to National Nurses United Upon Receiving Union's Endorsement!
A Little Night Music
Shakey Jake and The All Stars - A Hard Road To Travel
Shakey Jake Harris - Huffin' and Puffin'
Shakey Jake Harris - Ragged and Dirty
Shakey Jake Harris - Mouth harp blues
Shakey Jake Harris - Still Your Fool
Shakey Jake Harris - You Spoiled Your Baby
Shakey Jake Harris - Gimme a smile
Magic Sam & Shakey Jake Harris - Leaving In The Morning
Shakey Jake Harris - Call Me If You Need Me
Magic Sam & Shakey Jake Harris - Juke
Shakey Jake Harris - Easy Baby
Shakey Jake Harris - Jake's Cha Cha
Shakey Jake Harris - Farther On Up The Road