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 bluesman Eddie Taylor. Enjoy!
Eddie Taylor with the Aces - Wreck on the Highway
"Be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards."
-- Aeschines
News and Opinion
TSA Checklist Exposed: "Suspicious Signs" Include Throat Clearing, Whistling & "Exaggerated Yawning"
TSA’s Secret Behavior Checklist to Spot Terrorists
Fidgeting, whistling, sweaty palms. Add one point each. Arrogance, a cold penetrating stare, and rigid posture, two points. ...
The checklist is part of TSA’s controversial program to identify potential terrorists based on behaviors that it thinks indicate stress or deception — known as the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT. The program employs specially trained officers, known as Behavior Detection Officers, to watch and interact with passengers going through screening. ...
The checklist ranges from the mind-numbingly obvious, like “appears to be in disguise,” which is worth three points, to the downright dubious, like a bobbing Adam’s apple. Many indicators, like “trembling” and “arriving late for flight,” appear to confirm allegations that the program picks out signs and emotions that are common to many people who fly. ...
Since its introduction in 2007, the SPOT program has attracted controversy for the lack of science supporting it. In 2013, the Government Accountability Office found that there was no evidence to back up the idea that “behavioral indicators … can be used to identify persons who may pose a risk to aviation security.” After analyzing hundreds of scientific studies, the GAO concluded that “the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is the same as or slightly better than chance.”
Deployment of Controversial Urban Sensor System Aided by Aggressive Lobbying
“Is NYC’s new gunshot detection system recording private conversations?” asks Fusion in a recent story about ShotSpotter, a sensor technology currently being set up in the Bronx and Brooklyn.
ShotSpotter sensors use microphone and satellite technology to detect, locate and report gunshots to police. Critics worry that the microphones are prone to false alarms, and more troubling, appear to vacuum up street-level conversations in the neighborhoods where it has been installed. Evidence from conversations recorded by ShotSpotter microphones has been used to prosecute criminals in court.
While questions linger for watchdog and privacy groups about the use of ShotSpotter technology, an aggressive lobbying campaign has helped ensure the devices have been deployed in over 90 cities across the country.
This is a longish but must-read article. Here's a taste:
Don’t See Evil
As it turns out, the national security state has been involved with Google from the very beginning: even in those fabled grad school days when Google was nothing but a research project, as investigative reporter Nafeez Ahmed has shown. Founder Sergey Brin’s work at Stanford University on what would later become Google received funding and even oversight from the CIA and the Pentagon through a program created to seed and incubate technology research that could later prove useful for information warfare. ...
Google’s dominance of the online ad market is one source of its potential gatekeeping power. If a web site running its ads contains content that Google or its friends in the government find objectionable, it can simply pull its ads unless and until the content is removed: as long as it comes up with an excuse convincing enough to keep it from looking bad.
This may be what Google is doing right now to Antiwar.com, a long-running and popular daily news and commentary site that is strongly critical of US foreign policy.
On the morning of March 18, Eric Garris, founder and webmaster of the site, received a form email from Google AdSense informing him that all of Antiwar.com’s Google ads had been disabled. The reason given was that one of the site’s pages with ads on it displayed images that violated AdSense’s policy against “violent or disturbing content, including sites with gory text or images.” ...
They were the famous images of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib US military prison in Iraq. ...
War journalism and anti-war activism cannot be effectively pursued without war photography. This is true because such imagery conveys vital public information, and because one of the most effective ways of turning people against war is to vividly show them its horrors. Furthermore, independent web sites that cover war with small budgets and large traffic depend on ad revenue. So Google pulling ads on all of the AdSense customers who publish war photography amounts to a massive, debilitating boycott of independent online war journalism and anti-war activism.
NYT Publishes Call to Bomb Iran
If two major newspapers in, say, Russia published major articles openly advocating the unprovoked bombing of a country, say, Israel, the U.S. government and news media would be aflame with denunciations about “aggression,” “criminality,” “madness,” and “behavior not fitting the Twenty-first Century.”
But when the newspapers are American – the New York Times and the Washington Post – and the target country is Iran, no one in the U.S. government and media bats an eye. These inflammatory articles – these incitements to murder and violation of international law – are considered just normal discussion in the Land of Exceptionalism.
On Thursday, the New York Times printed an op-ed that urged the bombing of Iran as an alternative to reaching a diplomatic agreement that would sharply curtail Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that it was used only for peaceful purposes. The Post published a similar “we-must-bomb-Iran” op-ed two weeks ago.
The Times’ article by John Bolton, a neocon scholar from the American Enterprise Institute, was entitled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” It followed the Post’s op-ed by Joshua Muravchik, formerly at AEI and now a fellow at the neocon-dominated School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. [For more on that piece, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocon Admits Plan to Bomb Iran.”]
Both articles called on the United States to mount a sustained bombing campaign against Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities and to promote “regime change” in Tehran. Ironically, these “scholars” rationalized their calls for unprovoked aggression against Iran under the theory that Iran is an aggressive state, although Iran has not invaded another country for centuries.
Confused? Shiites in Iraq armed by US, Shiites in Yemen bombed with US help
Saudi Arabia's Airstrikes in Yemen Are Fuelling the Gulf's Fire
Arab intervention in Yemen risks entrenching Sunni-Shia divide and handing a victory to Isis
Foreign states that go to war in Yemen usually come to regret it. The Saudi-led military intervention so far involves only air strikes, but a ground assault may follow. The code name for the action is Operation Decisive Storm, which is probably an indication of what Saudi Arabia and its allies would like to happen in Yemen, rather than what will actually occur.
In practice, a decisive outcome is the least likely prospect for Yemen, just as it has long been in Iraq and Afghanistan. A political feature common to all three countries is that power is divided between so many players it is impossible to defeat or placate them all for very long. Saudi Arabia is backing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi but the humiliating speed of his defeat shows his lack of organised support.
The threat of further intervention by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council may be intended to redress the balance of power in Yemen and prevent the Houthis winning a total victory. But Saudi actions and those of the Sunni coalition will be self-fulfilling if the Houthis – never previously full proxies of Iran – find themselves fighting a war in which they are dependent on Iranian financial, political and military backing.
Likewise, the Houthis, as members of the Zaidi sect, were not always seen by Shia in other countries as part of their religious community. But by leading a Sunni coalition Saudi Arabia will internationalise the Yemen conflict and emphasise its sectarian Sunni-Shia dimension.
The US position becomes even more convoluted. Washington had sought to portray its campaign in Yemen against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a success. Drone attacks were supposedly wiping out important AQAP operatives, but the humiliating end result of America’s covert war in Yemen came last week when US Special Operations personnel blew up their heavy equipment and fled the country for the US base at Djibouti. AQAP is becoming a stronger force as the shock troops of the Sunni.
Iraqi army weighs cost of U.S.-led strikes in Tikrit as militiamen leave
Since U.S. planes joined the battle to retake Tikrit last week, commanders here say the strikes have killed top Islamic State leaders and reduced the capacity of the militants to move. However, the decision to call in strikes is also a gamble — because it has drastically reduced the manpower of pro-government forces.
Some Shiite militiamen have drawn back from the fight to protest U.S. involvement. While that may suit the American commanders, who do not wish to be seen giving air cover to Iranian-backed paramilitary groups, Iraqi officers on the ground are struggling to plug the gap while negotiations take place to persuade the militiamen to return to the battle. ...
Their withdrawal gives the regular armed forces a chance to assert themselves in a battle from which they have largely been excluded. But Iraqi commanders are evidently not happy about the extent of the pullback. As a Shiite sheik visited Saturday from southern Iraq, one army commander implored him to persuade militiamen to say. ...
The army is reliant on the manpower brought by what has become known in Iraq as the “popular mobilization.” It is a term that originated last summer to describe the tens of thousands of volunteers who answered a religious call to fight, but it has largely come to refer to Shiite militias. ...
An Iranian commander who was advising the militias here, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, has returned to Iran, according to official photographs released by the Iranian leadership.
Saudi Coalition Rejects Diplomacy, Readies Long War in Yemen
The United Nations has loaded the last of its staff in Yemen quietly onto airplanes, sending them to safety in Ethiopia, and capping their failed effort to start peace talks in the war-torn country.
There is no room for peace talks now, it seems, with Saudi Arabia and its allies so decidedly in favor of a full-scale war against the Shi’ite Houthis, and leaving no room open for a settlement.
For the Saudis, there is no middle ground, and democratic reform is not the goal. The only goal for the war is to reinstall General Hadi, Yemen’s dictator from early 2012 until his resignation in January, back into power.
Arab Leaders Agree to Create Joint Military Force to Counter 'Unprecedented Unrest'
As the conflict in Yemen continues to escalate, and Syria, Libya, and Iraq plunge steadily deeper in chaos, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi announced Sunday that the Arab League has agreed to create a "joint Arab military force" to battle militant groups and insurgencies across the Middle East.
Sisi made the announcement during the Arab League summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, a resort town on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian security officials told the Associated Press the force could consist of 40,000 troops with backing from jet fighters and warships.
The Arab League, an often-fractious regional organization whose 22 member states include Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, has sought to create a joint military force since the signing of a rarely used joint defense agreement 65 years ago, according to the AP.
The actual formation and deployment of the fighting force is expected to take months. Chiefs of staff for the different nations are scheduled to present their plan for the force to the Arab League's Joint Defense Council in three months, the AP reported.
No End in Sight for America's Longest War
As President Obama slows US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, former State Department official Matthew Hoh says this will only intensify the violence and perpetuate the war
Nuclear Threat Escalating Beyond Political Rhetoric
As a new cold war between the United States and Russia picks up steam, the nuclear threat is in danger of escalating – perhaps far beyond political rhetoric. ...
In a recent cover story, the London Economist is unequivocally pessimistic: “A quarter of a century after the end of the cold war, the world faces a growing threat of nuclear conflict.”
Twenty-five years after the Soviet collapse, it said, the world is entering a new nuclear age.
“Nuclear strategy has become a cockpit of rogue regimes and regional foes jostling with the five original nuclear weapons powers (the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia), whose own dealings are infected by suspicion and rivalry.” ...
The Economist also pointed out that every nuclear power is spending “lavishly to upgrade its atomic arsenal.”
Russia’s defence budget has increased by over 50 percent since 2007, a third of it earmarked for nuclear weapons: twice the share of France.
China is investing in submarines and mobile missile batteries while the United States is seeking Congressional approval for 350 billion dollars for the modernization of its nuclear arsenal.
Iran Nuclear Talks Near Deadline Amid "Air of Inevitability Combined with Tremendous Uncertainty"
Iran nuclear talks: brinkmanship in Lausanne as deadline looms
With less than two days to go before an end-of-March deadline for agreeing a political framework to contain Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief, the atmosphere in Lausanne has taken on the nervous edge of an endgame.
The negotiations are still stalled within sight of the finishing line. There are many issues up in the air in Lausanne, but diplomats here say they believe most would resolve themselves if a couple of obstinate problems could be overcome.
Those central problems are the extent to which Iran would be allowed to carry out research and development on new centrifuge models in the last years of a deal, and – the stickiest problem by far – the lifting of UN security council sanctions.
A third problem seems to have been largely resolved in the past few days. Iran wanted to keep some centrifuges spinning at its underground enrichment plant in Fordow. The six powers negotiating with Tehran proposed a compromise in which a few hundred centrifuges spin but do not process uranium. They would purify other elements used for medical and scientific purposes.
The R&D issue has only been half-resolved. Iran has accepted strict limits on its development of new superefficient centrifuges during the first 10 years of a deal, but after that there are differences. The six-nation group wants restrictions to extend for a further five years, wary that new centrifuges could drastically reduce Iran’s breakout time (the period it would need to build a bomb, should it make that decision). Iran rejects such prolonged curbs on its centrifuge development, saying it would render the country dependent on foreign technology. ...
“The core difference is on the UN security council sanctions,” said one western diplomat in Lausanne. “The UN security council resolutions have special meaning for them.”
Israel’s Netanyahu jumps Shark with “Iran-Lausanne-Yemen” axis barb
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, no longer allowed to sit at the adult table because of his past food fights, has been reduced, as Haaretz observed, to whining from the sidelines. Now he is complaining about an “Iran-Lausanne-Yemen” axis.
The negotiations between Iran and the P5 + 1 (the five permenent members of teh UN Security Council plus Germany) have come down to the wire. Diplomats want a final deal by close of business Tuesdays. Last minute complications have predictably arisen, but from all accounts a deal is plausible, though not yet a sure thing. ...
Netanyahu opposes this deal because it would leave Iran with the right to enrich uranium and a distant break-out capacity. He wants Iran to be forced to mothball its uranium enrichment program entirely, a demand that is completely unrealistic short of a US invasion and occupation of that country (which is 2.5 times as populous as Iraq and much bigger geographically).
Netanyahu resents Israel having been pushed out of its occupied territory in Lebanon by the Iran-backed Hizbullah. As a Greater Israel expansionist, he wants the state to be completely unconstrained, as the only nuclear-armed power in the region. ...
It is because Netanyahu as a militarist wants to be able to be brutal to his neighbors with no fear of being curbed.
And, it is because Netanyahu desperately wants to take the world’s eyes off the creeping Israeli colonization and annexation of Palestinian property in the West Bank.
'Bibi Always Finds a Way': Residents of Israel's Har Homa Settlement Say Building Freeze Won't Last
Typically, it is the Jewish outposts built well beyond the so-called "green-line" — such as Beit El and Eli — that attract most international attention, criticized for impeding any peace deal that might result in an independent Palestinian state. But Hagit Ofran, head of settlement watch at Israeli NGO Peace Now, warns that Har Homa, sandwiched between Bethlehem and the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, is one of the "biggest obstacles" to a two-state solution. "Any viable Palestinian state has to have its capital in east Jerusalem. Har Homa is a block to that which will be very hard to resolve," she told VICE News.
Har Homa's residents are a mix of secular and religious Israelis, and many cite economic reasons for living in the settlement. Yet despite much talk of housing prices, a "shared belief" in the Zionist project is also central to the community, said Rabbi Shlomo Goldstein, who described the settlers as a "human wall that stops Jerusalem from being divided."
Certainly, it is no coincidence that Netanyahu chose Har Homa to deliver a controversial election eve speech in which he warned that Jerusalem would be turned into a second "Hamastan," in a bid to rally right wing voters behind his lagging Likud party. ...
Development of Har Homa began in earnest during the late 1990s when the prime minister, then in his first term in office, gave the green light to the project. Since then, the once dusty and barren hilltop between Bethlehem and east Jerusalem has been transformed into a home for around 25,000 people, with five elementary schools, three medical centers, and a dozen kindergartens. ...
Activists, who point to the prime minister's long-running relationship with the settlement, say that the speech was not a sudden swerve in Netanyahu's policy but rather an exposure of his true stance. "The elections have pushed him to say this in a very public way that has attracted a lot of international attention, but it's not new. Before it was done by the back door, he would say we don't support building more settlements whilst they were being built, but now there's no room for misinterpretation," said Peace Now's Ofran. The NGO recently published a report showing that settlement building had reached a 10-year high under Netanyahu's leadership, with ground broken on 3,100 homes in 2014. ...
Real estate agent Eliko Zeevi says, "The Americans are always trying to stop building here... but Bibi always finds a way. He's good for business."
The Sale of US Reaper Drones to Australia Could Provoke Regional Tensions
The sale of United States reaper drones has the potential to inflame regional tensions for their allies, according to a policy analyst for possibly their newest buyer — the Australian government. ...
In February, the US approved reaper drones for export, opening the market to a small group of close allies. Australia has reportedly already sent military personnel to start training on the platform at American air force bases in Nevada and New Mexico.
The only country outside the US with armed reaper drones is currently the United Kingdom. It has been recently reported, however, that Australia will try to buy eight reaper drones. The price tag for each has been estimated at between Australian $12-20 million ($9-15m).
But the arrival of the world's premier armed drone system could lead Australia's neighbors to fear "CIA-type drone operations over their territory, blowing up terror training camps," according to Andrew Davies of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the country's government-funded defense think tank.
Davies, director of research at ASPI, told VICE News: "There's no reason an armed drone is any more or less threatening than an armed F-111 fighter bomber. But they [drones] are associated with the way the US uses them in places like Yemen and Pakistan without the concurrence of those governments.
Drone Proliferation: Three Things to Know
The spread of drone technology, which does not place human pilots at risk, could lead some states to opt for lethal force more often. If other countries use drones similar to the way the United States has done in recent years, "we are likely to see states carrying out cross-border attacks less discriminately," says Kreps. ... Washington should reflect on the precedent it is setting and clarify its targeted killings policy for other countries to consider, she adds.
Inquiry Launched into New Zealand Mass Surveillance
New Zealand’s spy agency watchdog is launching an investigation into the scope of the country’s secret surveillance operations following a series of reports from The Intercept and its partners.
On Thursday, Cheryl Gwyn, New Zealand’s inspector-general of intelligence and security, announced that she would be opening an inquiry after receiving complaints about spying being conducted in the South Pacific by eavesdropping agency Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB.
In a press release, Gwyn’s office said: “The complaints follow recent public allegations about GCSB activities. The complaints, and these public allegations, raise wider questions regarding the collection, retention and sharing of communications data.” ...
John Key, New Zealand’s prime minister, last year claimed that “there has never been any mass surveillance and New Zealand has not gathered mass information and provided it to international agencies.”
However, after The Intercept’s recent reports, former GCSB chief Bruce Ferguson admitted that the agency had been engaged in “mass collection” of data and said it was “mission impossible” to eliminate New Zealand citizens’ communications from being vacuumed up.
Greece to turn to Russia for economic help
The Greek government reportedly plans to negotiate a possible reduction in gas prices from Russia and the lifting of the embargo on certain types of Greek products.
Relief from the food embargo would particularly cover fresh fruit, reported Der Spiegel on Sunday.
It will be put to the Russian government by Greece’s Industrial Reform Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and Syriza MP Thanasis Petrakos during their two-day visit to Moscow on March 30 and 31. ...
On March 30, the Greek delegation will meet with Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak and the head of Gazprom Aleksey Miller. Gazprom currently controls almost 70 percent of the Greek gas market.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is planning a visit to Russia on April 8 to meet President Putin. Meanwhile, the European Union is concerned about the possibility of a rapprochement between Moscow and Athens, as Greece has said it could seek financial support from Russia and China if it is denied aid from the European Union.
Germany says Greece must flesh out reforms to unlock aid
Greece's biggest creditor Germany said on Monday that the euro zone would give Athens no further financial aid until it has a more detailed list of reforms and some are enacted into law, adding to scepticism over plans presented last week. ...
There was no immediate reaction from Athens on whether a new list of reforms would be submitted ahead of an address by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in parliament on Monday on the status of negotiations with lenders. ...
That package targets a primary budget surplus of 1.5 pct of national output this year - compared to a previous target of 3 percent in Greece's EU/IMF 240 billion euros (176 billion pounds) bailout - and growth of 1.4 percent in 2015, down from the bailout target of 2.9 percent, a government official said.
Greece has also not given up on its aim to renegotiate its debt to render it manageable, its deputy finance minister said.
"The solutions are known - either there will be a haircut or it will be extended, or (repayment) will be linked to an increase in output or exports, or there will be lower interest rates," Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas told financial daily Naftemporiki.
In Response to Ferguson Lawsuit, Missouri Police to Restrain Tear Gas Use on Protesters
Police to cut back on weapons meant to 'chill' racial justice movement in settlement with Ferguson activists
Three police agencies in Missouri agreed on Thursday to cut back on the use of tear gas as a means of crowd control, in response to a lawsuit brought by six protesters from the city of Ferguson.
U.S. district judge Carol Jackson dismissedthe lawsuit on Thursday at the request of both sides after the settlement was reached. Jackson, however, will supervise for compliance until January 1, 2018.
The restraining order will require police to give "reasonable" warning before deploying the chemical weapon on protesters. The lawsuit was brought against the St. Louis Police, the St. Louis County Police, and the Missouri Highway Patrol.
How a traffic stop left a Michigan man beaten, bloodied and bitter at police
Floyd Dent never felt pain like he did the night of 28 January.
At about 10pm, the Detroit native says he went to visit a blind friend in the neighboring city of Inkster, to deliver a bottle of Rémy Martin and a 40oz of Bud Ice. He stayed for a few minutes, then left to drive home.
Moments later, a police cruiser behind him flipped on its overhead lights. According to a police report on the incident, Dent, 57, had failed to use a traffic signal and disregarded a stop sign. He continued to drive at roughly the same speed for about three-quarters of a mile, to a well-lit area where he says he felt comfortable. There, near an old police station, he pulled to the side of the road. ...
Dent opened his door and put both his hands out of the window.
“I wanted to let them know I’m unarmed,” he told the Guardian.
But officer William Melendez – believing Dent was reaching for a gun – approached with firearm drawn. What happened next was captured on a patrol car camera. ...
At a later hearing, Melendez testified that even before any traffic violation occurred, he planned to investigate Dent simply because he had stopped to visit someone in a part of Inkster known for problems with drugs.
Dent says he spent two days in hospital for a fractured left orbital, blood on the brain and four broken ribs. ...
Over nearly two decades, Melendez has been named as a defendant in a dozen federal lawsuits, accused of planting evidence, wrongfully killing unarmed civilians, falsifying police reports and conducting illegal arrests. Some suits were settled out of court. Others were dismissed.
Thousands Protest Austerity in Brussels
Demonstrators call for Belgian government to tackle fraud and enact higher taxes on the rich
For the second day in a row, thousands of demonstrators and trade union activists protested in the streets of Brussels on Monday, calling for an alternative to the Belgian government's austerity measures.
According to the Associated Press, those participating in Monday's rally "braved hail and winds as they demanded the right-wing government change course and make sure the brunt of the austerity is borne by the wealthy."
Calling for higher taxes on the rich, notably on capital gains, and tougher action to tackle fraud, the protesters specifically "targeted measures by the business-friendly government of Prime Minister Charles Michel such as cuts in public sector pay, the extension in working hours and restrictions to social services," AP reports.
Up to 7,000 people were expected to take place in strikes across the country Monday.
Monday's demonstration follows one that took place on Sunday, where an estimated 20,000 protesters from various cities rallied against social injustice.
Upset by Warren, U.S. banks threaten to cut off political graft to Democrats
Big Wall Street banks are so upset with U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said.
Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party's tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week.
Bank officials said the idea of withholding donations was not discussed at a meeting of the four banks in Washington but it has been raised in one-on-one conversations between representatives of some of them. However, there was no agreement on coordinating any action, and each bank is making its own decision, they said.
The amount of money at stake, a maximum of $15,000 per bank, means the gesture is symbolic rather than material ...
The tensions are a sign that the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis - the bank bailouts and the fights over financial reforms to rein in Wall Street - are still a factor in the 2016 elections.
Citigroup has decided to withhold donations for now to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee over concerns that Senate Democrats could give Warren and lawmakers who share her views more power, sources inside the bank told Reuters.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature the news of a visit by Mother Jones to Leavenworth Prison.
Tune in at 2pm!
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A little something that I ran across in my weekend surfing:
Excerpt from the 1892 Omaha Platform of the Populist Party:
The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of those, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires. ...
A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. If not met and overthrown at once it forebodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of an absolute despotism.
We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. ... They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives, and children on the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to secure corruption funds from the millionaires.
Students and Parents Rally Against Cuomo's Billionaire-Backed Education Scheme
Parents, teachers, and students from across the state flooded the streets of Manhattan on Saturday to call out Governor Andrew Cuomo for selling out the public school system.
"Wall Street got a bailout. Public schools were sold out," was the message as protesters rallied, surrounded by NYPD barricades, outside Cuomo's 3rd Avenue office building. The group is calling on the state government to fully fund public schools, limit high-stakes testing, support struggling schools, fairly evaluate teachers, and stop the expansion of charter schools.
Organized by a coalition of groups, the demonstration included former progressive gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout, as well as other members of the Hedge Clippers—a recently founded campaign, backed by Teachout, as well as the American Federation of Teachers, and other prominent labor and community groups.
According to the group's site, the Hedge Clippers seek to "expose the mechanisms hedge funds and billionaires use to influence government and politics in order to expand their wealth, influence and power" by calling out the politicians who do their bidding.
O'Malley tries on progressive hat:
Taking Aim at Clinton, Former Maryland Governor Says Presidency 'Not a Crown'
Taking direct aim at likely 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton—in a nod to his own presidential aspirations—former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley on Sunday said that what the country needs most now is "new perspective" and "new leadership."
"Let's be honest here," O'Malley toldABC's George Stephanopoulos on This Week. "The presidency of the United States is not some crown to be passed between two families. It is an awesome and sacred trust to be earned and exercised on behalf of the American people."
In recent months, O'Malley has been testing the waters in Iowa and New Hampshire with talking points that include some of the progressive community's biggest criticisms of the former Secretary of State.
"[W]e need a president who is on our side, a president who is willing to take on powerful, wealthy, special interests in order restore that sort of American economy where wherever you start on the earnings spectrum, you can get ahead through your hard work," O'Malley said Sunday. "That's not the economy we have today."
The Evening Greens
UN green climate fund can be spent on coal-fired power generation
Rules agreed a meeting of fund’s board described by Friends of the Earth as ‘like a torture convention that does not forbid torture’
The UN fund to help developing countries fight climate change can be spent on coal-fired power plants – the most polluting form of electricity generation – under rules agreed at a board meeting.
The green climate fund (GCF) refused an explicit ban on fossil fuel projects at the contentious meeting in Songdo, South Korea, last week.
“It’s like a torture convention that doesn’t forbid torture,” said Karen Orenstein, a campaigner for Friends of the Earth US who was at the meeting. “Honestly it should be a no-brainer at this point.”
The fund was set up as part of the ongoing UN climate negotiations to help developing countries finance clean energy and measures to help adapt to climate change. ...
With no clear rules on climate finance, much of the funds can be channelled to dirty energy, campaigners say.
Rick Scott's dumb "cimate change" gag order
Global warming and drought are turning the Golden State brown
There’s a rapidly growing body of scientific research finding that California is in the midst of its worst drought in over a millennium, global warming has made the drought worse, and decades-long mega-droughts could become the norm in the state later this century. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) by scientists at Stanford University adds to this bleak picture for the Golden State. ...
California’s worst droughts have historically happened in years that are both dry and hot. While humans may or may not be influencing the amount of rain falling in the state, we are indisputably making it hotter. If we could flip coins representing precipitation and temperature each year, the first could come up wet or dry, but humans are weighting the second such that it will increasingly come up hot. This will make conditions like those that caused California’s current record-breaking drought return more often as the planet keeps warming.
The PNAS paper summarizes the significance of these findings.
California ranks first in the United States in population, economic activity, and agricultural value. The state is currently experiencing a record-setting drought, which has led to acute water shortages, groundwater overdraft, critically low streamflow, and enhanced wildfire risk ... we find that human emissions have increased the probability that low-precipitation years are also warm, suggesting that anthropogenic warming is increasing the probability of the co-occurring warm–dry conditions that have created the current California drought.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Passphrases That You Can Memorize — But That Even the NSA Can’t Guess
The Saudi-Iran powerplay behind the Yemen conflict
U.S. Nerve Gas Hit Our Own Troops in Iraq
Israel: The Stark Truth
Chris Hedges: No One Is Free Until All Are Free
Up-Following
A Little Night Music
Eddie Taylor - Bad Boy
Eddie Taylor Band - Peavine Blues
Eddie Taylor - Ride 'Em On Down
Eddie Taylor - Stop Breaking Down
Eddie Taylor - I'm Gonna Love You
Eddie Taylor - Big Town Playboy
Eddie Taylor - Peach Tree Blues
Eddie Taylor - I'm Sittin' Here Thinkin'
Eddie Taylor - Knockin' At Your Door
Floyd Jones and Eddie Taylor - Dark Road
Eddie Taylor - Jackson Town
Eddie Taylor - Seems like a million years
Eddie Taylor - Train Fare Home
Eddie Taylor - My Little Machine
Eddie 'Playboy' Taylor - You Don't Love Me
Eddie Taylor - I'm A Country Boy
Eddie Taylor in Antone's - Home of the Blues
It's National Pie Day!
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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.
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