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 one of the Three Kings of the blues guitar, Albert King. Enjoy!
Albert King - Oh Pretty Woman
"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
-- Groucho Marx
News and Opinion
AP Files Suit For FBI's Refusal To Come Clean on 'Fake Reporter' Operations
Following public outrage expressed when it was first discovered last year, the Associated Press took legal action against the Department of Justice on Thursday for the FBI's failure to come clean about details surrounding its decision to impersonate an AP reporter as part of a covert investigation.
Along with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), AP filed the suit after the DOJ repeatedly refused to respect open records requests for documents related to the case.
The lawsuit argues that AP and the Reporters Committee "are statutorily entitled to disclosure of these records, which they seek so that they may inform the public about the nature and extent of the FBI’s impersonation of journalists and news organizations. Defendants have improperly withheld the records requested by Plaintiffs in violation of the law and in opposition to the public’s strong interest in obtaining information regarding a law enforcement practice that undermines both the credibility and independence of the news media."
As the RCFP recounts:
The lawsuit stems from an FBI operation in 2007, during which agents created and published a fake AP news story in order to trick a criminal suspect into downloading surveillance software onto his computer, software that enabled the Bureau to track the suspect's location.
When the FBI’s impersonation of the AP came to light in October of 2014, the Reporters Committee and 25 news organizations immediately sent a letter to the attorney general and FBI director calling it "unacceptable." AP also wrote to the attorney general protesting the FBI’s use of a fabricated AP news story "in the strongest possible terms."
As Common Dreamsreported at the time, FBI Director James Comey defended the agency's action. "That technique was proper and appropriate under Justice Department and [FBI] guidelines at the time," he said last year. "Today, the use of such an unusual technique would probably require higher level approvals than in 2007, but it would still be lawful and, in a rare case, appropriate."
Associated Press sues US govt over FBI fabrication of AP article
6 US Prisons May Soon House Guantanamo Detainees
In the coming weeks, the White House is expected to send Congress a final plan to "safely and responsibly" move dozens of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay to military and, possibly, federal prisons in the United States.
The move is part of President Barack Obama's pledge to shutter the 13-year-old detention facility, located on a remote part of the US Naval base in Cuba, before he leaves office. (The closing of Guantanamo would in some ways be symbolic; in 2011, Obama signed an executive order that made indefinite detention the law of the land.) Already, the plan has been met by fierce opposition by Republican lawmakers in Kansas and South Carolina, two states that are in the running to house detainees at military prisons located at Fort Leavenworth and the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston.
"A small team of DOD officials will travel to relevant facilities to assess those facilities, identifying the changes required to make those facilities suitable to house law-of-war detainees, to estimate the costs in making the changes necessary, and to estimate costs to operate the facilities thereafter," Ross said.
There are 116 detainees still being held at Guantanamo, 52 of whom have been cleared for release or transfer. The remainder includes so-called "forever prisoners" — those too dangerous to release, yet too difficult to prosecute before military commissions — and high-value detainees, like self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators, who have been targeted for prosecution for war crimes. ...
A GAO report, which was based on site visits to Guantanamo and DOD prisons, along with interviews the office conducted with Defense and Justice Department officials, identified six military facilities where detainees could be held: Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Virginia; Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston; Naval Consolidated Brig in Miramar, California; Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility in Washington state; and the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.
'I have become a body without a soul': 13 years detained in Guantánamo
Zaher Hamdoun is a 36-year-old Yemeni man who has been detained in Guantánamo without charge since he was 22, one of 116 prisoners still detained there six years after Obama promised to close the facility. After I visited him earlier this summer, he followed up with a letter filled with questions.
... Will Obama’s conscience weigh on him when he remembers that tens of human beings who have fathers, mothers, wives and children have been waiting here for over 13 years, and some of them died before even seeing their loved ones again? Will his conscience weigh on him and make him finally put an end to this matter? Or are we going to remain the victims of political conflicts, which we have nothing to do with?
At the rate prisoners reviews are going, the administration will not finish by the time Obama leaves office. Of those reviewed, most have been approved for transfer, but they continue to languish. They’ve been added to the administration’s long list of people waiting for release, most for years. ...
I have become a body without a soul. I breathe, eat and drink, but I don’t belong to the world of living creatures. I rather belong to another world, a world that is buried in a grave called Guantánamo. I fall asleep and then wake up to realize that my soul and my thoughts belong to that world I watch on television, or read about in books. That is all I can say about the ordeal I’ve been enduring.
Sweden and Ecuador to begin Julian Assange talks next week
Sweden will begin talks with Ecuador about Julian Assange on Monday, after Stockholm moved to break the deadlock over five-year-old rape allegations against him.
Sweden initially rejected a demand by Ecuador that the two countries establish a formal agreement on judicial cooperation before Swedish prosecutors could interrogate the WikiLeaks founder in Ecuador’s embassy in London, saying it did not negotiate bilateral treaties.
But this month the government agreed to talks specifically to address the stalemate over Assange, who claimed asylum in the embassy in 2012. ...
The political intervention by Sweden marks a new development in the case. Swedish politicians have, with very few exceptions, insisted they must not interfere, saying it is a purely judicial matter.
Water Being Used as Weapon of War in Syrian Conflict, UN Warns
The United Nations on Tuesday said it has reason to believe that groups in the Syrian conflict are using the country's scarce water supply as a weapon of war.
"There is increasing evidence that parties to the conflict are using water to achieve military and political gains," the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) declared in a press statement.
According to the group, up to five million Syrians across the country have experienced "long and sometimes deliberate interruptions to their water supplies." In the city of Aleppo, where fighting has reportedly "crippled" the main pumping station, some cuts have lasted over a month. ...
Worsening the impact of the shortages, the people of Syria have also endured a weeks-long heatwave, with temperatures recorded over 110°F.
The lack of water has driven Syrians from their homes into the war-torn streets. According to UNICEF, fighting killed at least three children in recent weeks while they were out collecting water in Aleppo.
Further, the group warns, the cuts have forced families in Damascus, Dera’a, Aleppo, and other areas to "have to rely on dirty water from unregulated and unprotected groundwater sources, exposing children in particular to the risk of contracting diarrhoea, typhoid, hepatitis, and other diseases."
Saudi Arabia's Troops Have Crossed Into Yemen for the First Time
Saudi forces have reportedly crossed the border into northern Yemen near a site where Houthi rebels have launched shelling attacks toward the kingdom.
The incursion marks the first time that Saudi Arabia's troops have entered Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition began an air campaign in March against the Houthis, who captured large swaths of Yemen earlier this year.
Footage showing the troops on the Yemeni side of the border with the Saudi province of Jizan emerged on Wednesday a day after authorities in Riyadh said a battle for the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital of Sanaa was imminent.
Forces aligned against the Houthis and their allied loyalists of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's former president, have made significant gains in recent weeks, expelling the rebels from the Southern port of Aden and pushing north toward strategic cities like Taiz, Yemen's third largest.
While Emirati special forces have reportedly taken part in some fighting in Yemen's south, Saudi soldiers have not, and the kingdom's commanders appeared loath to send their troops into conflict areas. Houthi rebels have repeatedly hit and in some cases killed Saudi forces guarding the border, however, and in one instance documented by a pro-Houthi television station, appeared to cross into Saudi territory.
Massive Protests Call for President to Resign as Corruption Scandal Hits Guatemala
The administration of Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has continued to waver. Following the arrest of the country's former vice president, and the filing of charges against Perez Molina, eight more members of the president's cabinet announced their resignations. Meanwhile, thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand Perez Molina's resignation.
Hundreds of businesses and schools across Guatemala chose to close or suspend classes on Thursday in solidarity with the movement demanding the president's resignation. The demands come after a UN Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala connected the president to a corruption ring within the Presidential Palace.
As of Thursday afternoon, the president had not been seen in over 72 hours.
Shock Doctrine: A Look at the Mass Privatization of NOLA Schools in Storm’s Wake & Its Effects Today
Greece's caretaker government sworn in with first female prime minister
Greece’s new caretaker government was sworn in on Friday as the country prepares early elections next month, the third time Greeks will go to the polls this year.
Vassiliki Thanou, a top judge and the country’s first female prime minister, will lead the country until the election, which is expected to take place on 20 September.
Her predecessor, Alexis Tsipras, stepped down last week following a rebellion by members of his leftwing Syriza party who objected to the conditions of Greece’s third international bailout.
The new cabinet may be in power for less than a month, but it will have to oversee the implementation of several austerity measures on which the new bailout depends.
Giorgos Houliarakis, an academic who was part of Greece’s negotiating team during the talks with its creditors, becomes finance minister, and the veteran diplomat Petros Moliviatis becomes foreign minister, a position he has held twice in the past.
When the Bank Robs You: Wells Fargo Contractors Allegedly Stole Family Heirlooms Rescued From Nazis
The few remaining defenders of the Obama administration’s failure to prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial crisis argue that the bankers’ actions were unethical but not criminal. President Obama himself has made this claim: “Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street … wasn’t illegal,” he told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes in December 2011.
The president might want to take this up with David Adier, who says he was victimized by Wells Fargo breaking and entering into his family’s home in Morris Township, New Jersey, and then committing property damage and theft. Burglary is a felony subject to prison time — if anybody but a bank does it.
Adier’s case is doubly disturbing because of what was taken: items his father retrieved from his family’s apartment in France before fleeing the Nazis in 1940, including a Kiddush cup, a Seder plate and a sewing machine used by his grandmother.
Adier has since filed suit against Wells Fargo. According to the complaint, Wells Fargo’s contractors deemed the house abandoned, despite explicit instructions that it was not. The house had been in Adier’s family for 40 years, Adier and his sister had grown up there, and Adier’s father had lived there until his death in August 2012. According to Adier, who lives 30 miles away in Bayonne, he missed two payments on the home’s mortgage over the next several months due to troubles with his small business. On November 29, 2012, Wells Fargo’s contractors illegally broke in for the first time. ...
Adier is not alone. Since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis in 2007, banks have hired contractors to inspect properties in foreclosure and determine whether they are abandoned. If they make that subjective determination — based on overgrown grass, or a broken window — they are authorized to enter the home, change the locks, and “trash-out” the property by removing all belongings.
Banks claim they must secure abandoned properties to protect their investment and fulfill responsibilities under state laws. But the contractors frequently get things wrong, illegally ransacking properties still inhabited by homeowners, spurring hundreds of lawsuits. “It’s happening at exactly the same rate” now as during the previous seven years, argues Adier’s attorney, Josh Denbeaux.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature news from Colorado: "John Lawson's Life Sentence Stayed by Colorado Supreme Court, May Get New Trial"
Tune in at 2pm!
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Striking Fear Into Corporate Hearts, Labor Board Hands Big Win to Workers
In what is being described as "one of the biggest labor decisions of the Obama administration," the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Thursday expanded its "joint-employer" standard, paving the way for unions to organize on a much broader scale—and striking fear into the hearts of corporations that have used previous labor laws to shift workplace responsibilities elsewhere.
While the ruling dealt specifically with a California waste-management company, observers said its implications could go much further. "McDonald's, Burger King and every other company that relies on a franchise business model just suffered the legal setback they've been fearing for years," wrote Huffington Post labor reporter Dave Jamieson on Thursday afternoon. ...
On Thursday, experts were quick to note how the decision could affect the fast-food industry, which has been under pressure from organized labor to raise wages and expand benefits.
"In the case of McDonald's, roughly 90 percent of its locations are actually run by franchisees, who are typically considered the workers' employers," HuffPo's Jamieson explained. "One of the main reasons companies choose to franchise or to outsource work to staffing agencies is to shift workplace responsibilities onto someone else. But if a fast-food brand or a hotel chain can be deemed a 'joint employer' along with the smaller company, it can be dragged into labor disputes and negotiations that it conveniently wouldn't have to worry about otherwise. In theory, such a precedent could even make it easier for workers to unionize as employees under the larger parent company."
And a statement from Kendall Fells, organizing director for the Fight for $15 movement, further indicated that the growing fast-food worker movement sees Thursday's ruling as a big win.
'Blind Spot': Progressives Demand Stronger Sanders Stance on Endless War, Pentagon Largesse
Something is seriously missing, say campaigners, when a candidate denounces corporate power and oligarchy without emphasizing militarism and perpetual war
Though otherwise impressed by his bold positions on economic inequality, climate change, and getting money out of politics, progressive campaigners on Thursday presented presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders with a demand that he take a much stronger position against U.S. militarism, endless war, and a bloated Pentagon budget that directly impedes the other social investments for which he so strongly advocates.
Organized by the online group RootsAction.org, a petition signed by more than 25,000 people—many of whom are actively supporting his campaign—was delivered to Sanders' campaign headquarters as a way to highlight the intersection of military spending and corporate power and to hold the candidate's feet to the fire on key issues of foreign policy.
The petition itself reads:
"Senator Sanders, we are enthusiastic about your presidential campaign’s strong challenge to corporate power and oligarchy. We urge you to speak out about how they are intertwined with militarism and ongoing war. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced what he called 'the madness of militarism,' and you should do the same. As you said in your speech to the SCLC, 'Now is not the time for thinking small.' Unwillingness to challenge the madness of militarism is thinking small."
...
Though the petition sent to Sanders on Thursday is clearly a challenge for the candidate to speak about specific issues he has tended to avoid, RootsAction co-founders Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen made it clear that even as they support the campaign for its populist core, there remain critical gaps in his platform and stump speeches they believe ought to be addressed more frequently and forcefully.
Solomon said his group launched its petition campaign because ongoing U.S. wars and huge military spending "continue to be deeply enmeshed with basic economic ills from upside-down priorities." Solomon cited data from the National Priorities Project which shows that 54 percent of the U.S. government’s current discretionary spending now goes to military purposes. "We sidestep these realities at our peril," he said.
Sanders Lead: Why is He Silent on U.S. Foreign Policy?
Koch-Heads Like The Donald's Big, Fat Wallet
After investing a sizable fortune into building a political machine that now rivals the size and budgets of both major political parties, the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are seeing some of their top operatives take jobs with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
The fact that many of Trump’s political positions are at odds with those of the Koch brothers does not seem to be a factor. ...
Some have suggested that Koch operatives have abandoned the industrialist billionaires simply for a higher paycheck. As the director of voter registration with Americans for Prosperity, Corey Lewandowski made $153,162, according to the last available nonprofit disclosure made public, for 2013. Now as a Trump staffer, Lewandowski is making $20,000 a month — or $240,000 a year. As the Wall Street Journal reported, that is “about 45% more than 2012 GOP nominee and multimillionaire Mitt Romney paid his senior staffers.” ...
Trump was not invited to the private fundraiser hosted by the Koch brothers last month at a retreat in Southern California, nor was he invited to the Americans for Prosperity “Defending the Dream” summit last weekend in Ohio. As many of Trump’s rivals headed to the California fundraiser, Trump tweeted: “I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?”
Canada's prime minister wants to make it harder for people to vote against him
Not confident of winning re-election on merit in October, he’s pushed through a series oflegal changes spearheaded by the perversely named Fair Elections Act. Harper’s front man for the task, the aptly titled democratic reform minister, Pierre Poilievre, brushed off critics, claiming the changes are “common sense”. But it’s more likely that, after winning by an uncomfortably small margin in the last election and, after nine years, having the distinct honor of the lowest job creation numbers since World War II and least economic growth since the1960s, Harper is making sure potential naysayers have a harder time accessing the polls.
The Fair Elections Act strips Elections Canada, the nonpartisan government body responsible for administering elections, of its authority to actively encourage citizens to vote – a matter, we’re told, that is the responsibility of political parties topromote. And on voting day, incumbent candidates and not Elections Canada will appoint polling supervisors. This hardly smells like democracy.
Then there is the muzzling of the chief electoral officer, restricting the role to speaking publicly on just five ‘safe’ topics such as ‘how to become a candidate’ and ‘how to cast a ballot’. Specifically removedis the role’s power to alert the public to problems during an election and to raise awareness of the electoral process, particularly to “persons and groups most likely to experience difficulties in exercising their democratic rights” as previously outlined in the Elections Act. No coincidence then that these very groups - indigenous peoples, the disabled, students living away from home and transients, are not traditionally Harper supporters. ...
Discouraging voter participation is one third of Harper’s equation to win at all costs. Another is to make it more difficult to investigate vote fraud and amendments, including cutting off Elections Canada’s investigations arm. It’s no coincidence that, after the last vote in 2011, a Conservative political consulting firm and party staffer were found guilty of making thousands of misleading, automated phone calls directing non-Conservative voters to the wrong polling stations.
The Evening Greens
Emails Show Koch Industries Backed Effort to Undermine Renewable Energy in Kansas
Emails and financial documents released by the University of Kansas on Thursday reveal earmarked funding from Koch Industries to develop research used to lobby against the state renewable energy standard.
On November 12, 2013, Art Hall, the director of the university’s Center for Applied Economics, emailed Koch Industries’ Laura Hands to discuss a grant from a Koch-controlled foundation to fund research on the Renewable Portfolio Standard.
Hall is the former chief economist for Koch Companies Public Sector, the lobbying subsidiary of Koch Industries, the largest privately owned company in America with a significant stake in oil refining, pipelines, gas production and coal. Hands is the current community affairs director at Koch Companies Public Sector.
The Koch money was part of an ongoing project Hall described as an effort to develop “intellectual products” to be used “as a tool in economic policy debates.” Hall’s center also provides special classes to teach about the virtues of capitalism. Koch-controlled foundations approved $40,000 for work that included the renewable energy standard, as well as at least $250,000 to the center in 2008 and $100,000 to the center in 2009.
California Climate change legislation approaches pivotal showdown with oil industry
With only a few days left in the current session of the California legislature, an aggressive political and public relations fight between the oil industry and top lawmakers over climate change legislation is moving into a final round.
At stake is the passage of far-reaching environmental bills that would fundamentally alter the way the state does business and deals with planet-warming pollution – but would likely also change the way everyday Californians travel, live and consume.
The proposed laws represent a Democratic push to curb emissions and promote clean energy that specifically targets “mobile” pollution from cars and other gas-burning vehicles.
Petroleum companies are warning that the lack of specific plans in the policies could lead to gas rationing, surcharges on minivans and trucks, and even government-imposed fines on driving habits, monitored via a vehicle’s onboard computer – big brother in the passenger seat.
Democratic leaders are calling these warnings “doomsday scenarios” that won’t happen.
One of the two main bills, SB 350, calls for a 50% reduction in petroleum use by vehicles by 2030, the equivalent of removing 36m cars and trucks from the road.
It also calls for 50% of the state’s electricity supply to be derived from renewable resources by that date, and 50% better energy efficiency in buildings through retrofits and upgrades.
McDonald's drops nuggets supplier after video shows animal cruelty
McDonald’s Corp and Tyson Foods both severed ties on Thursday with a Tennessee farm where workers were seen stabbing, beating and stomping on chickens in an undercover video shot by animal rights activists.
The videotape, which was unveiled by Mercy For Animals at a news conference in Los Angeles, depicts gruesome animal cruelty toward the birds at what the group said was T&S Farm in Dukedom, Tennessee, which was under contract to Tyson Foods.
Tyson supplies chicken meat to McDonald’s, the world’s biggest fast-food chain, for its McNuggets.
Without Permit or Warning, TransCanada Begins Energy East Project
An open letter was released today by 20 groups in New Brunswick opposed to TransCanada’s plans to begin drilling in the Bay of Fundy. The signatories cite a six-page document obtained outlining TransCanada’s work plans for exploratory borehole drilling related to the Saint John, New Brunswick terminal of the proposed Energy East pipeline. ...
Concerns enumerated in the open letter include potential impacts on nearby homes and roads, and on shorebirds and marine life. A recent study by the Conservation Council of New Brunswick found that the increased tanker traffic associated with Energy East would increase stress levels for the Bay of Fundy’s endangered North Atlantic right whales.
The letter also alleges the company has not received free, prior and informed consent from local Indigenous communities, noting “this shore and seabed is on unceded Wolastoq territory.”
The signatories say they were only informed of the drilling plans by “a last-minute release of a letter from TransCanada on August 25.”
Energy East would be the largest tar sands pipeline in North America, carrying an estimated 1.1 million barrels per day from Alberta to the Atlantic coast. The proposed mega-project has been one of the most hotly debated issues in the federal election campaign.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
3 reasons Bernie Sanders is now the Democratic front-runner
A Little Night Music
Albert King - Blues Power
Albert King - 1981 - Born Under A Bad Sign
Albert King Live - I'll Play The BLues For You
Albert King - "As The Years Go Passing By"
Albert King - Feel Like Breakin' Up Somebody's Home
Albert King - Walking The Back Streets And Crying
Albert King - Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven
Albert King - Angel Of Mercy
Albert King - Killing Floor
Albert King - Crosscut Saw
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Albert King - Texas Flood
BB King, Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan- The Sky is Crying
Albert King - Blues At Sunrise
Albert King live in Sweden 1980