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 boogie woogie piano player Pete Johnson. Enjoy!
Big Joe Turner - Pete Johnson 1938 ~ Roll 'Em Pete
“More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be all too real.”
-- Paul Krugman
News and Opinion
More Than 101 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have A Job
The jobs recovery is a complete and total myth. The percentage of the working age population in the United States that had a job in March 2013 was exactly the same as it was all the way back in March 2010. ... There are now more than 101 million working age Americans that do not have a job. But even though the employment level in the United States has consistently remained very low over the past three years, the Obama administration keeps telling us that unemployment is actually going down.
In fact, they tell us that the unemployment rate has declined from a peak of 10.0% all the way down to 7.6%. And they tell us that in March the unemployment rate fell by 0.1% even though only 88,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy. But it takes at least 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So how in the world are they coming up with these numbers? Well, the reality is that the entire decline in the unemployment rate over the past three years can be accounted for by the reduction in size of the labor force.
In other words, the Obama administration is getting unemployment to go down by pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed Americans simply do not want jobs anymore. We saw this once again in March. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 600,000 Americans dropped out of the labor market during that month alone. That pushed the labor force participation rate down to 63.3%, which is the lowest it has been in more than 30 years. So please don't believe the hype. The sad truth is that there has been no jobs recovery whatsoever.
If things were getting better, there would not be more than 101 million working age Americans without a job.
The BLS reports (for anyone that can read a graph or a chart) that under Mr. Obama, unemployment remains virtually unchanged, despite his statements to the contrary:
Social Security: Can Democrats Save Obama From Himself?
The plan to cut Social Security will destroy any hope of recovery
President Obama picked the very day that new job creation collapsed to propose a deflationary budget deal featuring cuts in Social Security and Medicare. This is perverse economics and worse politics, on several grounds.
The economy created just 88,000 jobs in March, down from close to 200,000 in other recent months, for one main reason: The January 2 budget deal and the March 1 sequester that hiked taxes on working people and cut public spending.
In the January deal, payroll taxes on working people were raised by some $120 billion. The more highly publicized tax hike on the top one percent raised less than $65 billion. The sequester added another $85 billion of budget cuts. The combined economic contraction will be about $270 billion this year, and according to the Congressional Budget Office the result will be to cut economic growth roughly in half.
But the deal that Obama is trying to coax the Republicans into accepting would cut the budget at this rate for an entire decade. The economics are just insane. There is no evidence that banks are waiting to lower interest rates (which are already rock bottom) or businesses waiting to invest, pending progress on a grand budget bargain. Businesses are hesitating to invest because customers don't have money in their pockets -- and a deflationary budget deal will only make the economy worse.
Who Will Save Social Security and Medicare?
The New York Times reports:
“President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget…”
Many liberals are scratching their heads in astonishment, asking “How could this happen?”
The truth is that every liberal and labor leader knew this was in the works for years; they just kept their mouths shut in the hope that Obama could successfully push the blame entirely on the Republicans. ...
Labor and liberal leaders kept quiet about this so they could push their members to vote for Obama in 2012. They also kept quiet in the fall of 2011 when Obama released his budget proposal that included hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
But hiding the most recent betrayal was next to impossible, and every liberal group is now suddenly “shocked” to see Obama officially and publicly on record to pursue the cuts.
Here's the most current list of signers of the Grayson-Takano congressional pledge to vote against cuts to Social Security and Medicare. From Gaius Publius at Americablog:
No Grand Bargain; Elderly Women Hit Hardest
The largest U.S. organization of registered nurses, National Nurses United (NNU), issued its strongest warning today: Cuts in Social Security and Medicare would do harm to America’s elderly and disabled, vulnerable populations whose resources already place them in the margins. NNU called upon lawmakers to withdraw from all considerations of these cuts. Although Social Security contributes nothing to the federal deficit, Congress could increase revenue for the Social Security trust fund by raising the payroll tax income limit.
“RNs see this as a very critical issue,” said Deborah Burger, RN and co-president of NNU. “Taking money away from Social Security and Medicare recipients will deal a severe blow to many who already cannot afford anything close to a decent standard of living. It is shameful to take away from elderly and disabled Americans.” ...
Especially vulnerable are elderly women. According to the National Women’s Law Center, a typical single elderly woman’s monthly benefits will be reduced by $56 at age 80 if proposed cuts become law. That’s equal to the cost of one week’s worth of food each month, reported the Center. Social Security represents virtually the only source of income for nearly 40 percent of women over 80, according to The Nation.
Campaign for America's Future digs up some interesting facts. For further reading on this and the 1%'s campaign to spread propaganda about Social Security, a diary that I wrote back before the elections has tons of information on the topic,"The 1% Want To Steal Your Social Security, President Obama Is Helping Them"
The 1983 “Leninist Strategy” Plan To Privatize Social Security
In 1983 a couple of conservative “think tanks” developed a step-by-step plan to privatize Social Security, for the benefit of “the banking industry and other business groups.” The plan describes a strategy to convince people that Social Security is going broke and that it is a “Ponzi scheme,” to undermine confidence in the program and lead people to accept that it needs “reform.” The plan outlines methods to “neutralize” opposition. The plan involves a smokescreen strategy of saying things to distract people from seeing what they are doing.
This strategy for attacking Social Security was spelled out in a 1983 document from the Cato Institute (previously named the Koch Foundation), with Heritage Foundation input. You can read the original document for yourself, it is titled Achieving A Leninist Strategy.
Recession Good for Profits
The golden revolving door has churned around again. As Matt Taibbi calls her, Wall Street's new SEC enabler has been confirmed by the Senate:
Senate confirms Mary Jo White as SEC Chairman
The Senate on Monday confirmed former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency tasked with policing Wall Street and writing new rules of the road for financial markets.
White received wide bipartisan support in the Senate thanks to her reputation as a tough former Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where she went after mobsters and terrorists.
What little criticism White has received so far has mostly been about her ties to Wall Street.
After working as a prosecutor, she became a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton where she represented high-profile clients, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, former Bank of America Corp CEO Ken Lewis, UBS AG and accounting giant Deloitte & Touche LLP.
Some, including Ohio Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown, have raised concerns that this "Wall Street bias" could harm the SEC, an agency that has been accused by some of striking weak settlements with Wall Street banks over their behavior during the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Thatcher Gave More Power to Finance
Clashes erupt as Britain grapples with Thatcher’s legacy
Britain wrestled Tuesday with violent passions ignited by the death of divisive former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, with critics of the “Iron Lady” clashing with police and supporters preparing to pay tribute to her in parliament.
World reaction was also divided with Pope Francis hailing her promotion of freedom but people in the pontiff’s homeland Argentina condemning Thatcher as a warmonger who prolonged the 1982 Falklands War for political ends.
Thatcher’s body was removed early Tuesday from the Ritz Hotel in London, where the first female leader of a Western democracy died aged 87, ahead of a ceremonial funeral that is expected to take place next week.
But Thatcher remained as polarising in death as she was in life, with six police injured at one of a number of parties that took place across the country to celebrate the death of a woman whose critics accuse of destroying British industry.
Maggie Thatcher - I Did It My Way
Keiser Report: Yobbish Lifestyles of Financial Arsonists
Germany welcomes southern Europe's best and brightest into its workforce
Young graduates from Greece, Spain and Portugal head north as home employment prospects remain bleak
Unemployment rates continue to break records in the eurozone, and there is little chance of an improvement this year. The crisis in the jobs market across Europe is hitting young people hardest, setting in motion new migratory patterns between Mediterranean countries and the north.
Germany stands out as an exception. Despite sluggish growth in the EU's largest economy, unemployment is steady: good news that won't fall on deaf ears. In the past two years, the net number of people entering Germany rose from 128,000 to 340,000. German businesses are drawing on a fresh source of cheap, qualified labour from Greece and Spain.
In the first nine months of 2012, 27,000 Spaniards, 26,300 Greeks and almost 10,000 Portuguese moved to Germany. The Germans have already found a name for them, neue Gastarbeiter (new guest workers), a throwback to the immigrants who flocked to West Germany in the 1960s, leaving their homes in Turkey and southern Europe to staff the machines of the economic miracle.
Bolivia without Hugo Chavez
Exclusive: Homeland Security deputy to quit; defended civilian Internet role
In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Jane Holl Lute, the sole deputy secretary at Homeland Security, said on Monday she would give notice this week and leave to pursue a role in international Internet affairs.
Lute said that she was leaving with the department on a strong footing in Internet matters, with its central role cemented by an executive order on cybersecurity issued by President Barack Obama in February.
The order directs the civilian Department of Homeland Security to steer improvements in protections for private industry, instead of giving the lead to the military's National Security Agency.
The preeminence of Homeland Security in patrolling the Internet is a big change from when Lute arrived there.
"The national narrative on cyber has evolved," she said. "It's not a war zone, and we certainly cannot manage it as if were a war zone. We're not going to manage it as if it were an intelligence program or one big law-enforcement operation."
Undercover Activist Details Secret Filming of Animal Abuse & Why "Ag-Gag" Laws May Force Him to Stop
Another Oil Pipeline Spill on the Weekend, Where’s the Media Attention?
While clean up continues on the Exxon oil spill in Arkansas, another oil pipeline burst was detected over the weekend – this time in Houston, Texas.
The Shell Oil owned pipeline burst was detected Friday by the US National Response Center and has dumped an estimated 30,000 gallons of oil into a waterway connected to the Gulf of Mexico (as if it needed any more oil dumped into it!).
Obama Approves Radical Radiation Cleanup Rollback
Civilian Cancer Deaths Expected to Skyrocket Following Radiological Incidents
Washington, DC — The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs. The final version, slated for Federal Register publication as soon as today, is a win for the nuclear industry which seeks what its proponents call a “new normal” for radiation exposure among the U.S population, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These guides govern evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.” ...
“This is a public health policy only Dr. Strangelove could embrace. If this typifies the environmental leadership we can expect from Ms. McCarthy, then EPA is in for a long, dirty slog,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the EPA package lacks a cogent rationale, is largely impenetrable and hinges on a series of euphemistic “weasel words.” “No compelling justification is offered for increasing the cancer deaths of Americans innocently exposed to corporate miscalculations several hundred-fold.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
5 Reasons Why Detroit Collision Works is the Most Important Hotel in America
Bill Black: “Wall Street Uses the Third Way to Lead its Assault on Social Security”
Exxon calls us liars
Poverty Spikes In America … While the Government Throws Money at the Super-Elite
House Dems who promise to vote No to benefit cuts like Chained CPI
In March, Worldwide Protests Gained Momentum
Transcide
A Little Night Music
Pete Johnson - Rocket Boogie
Pete Johnson - Basement boogie
Pete Johnson - Death Ray Boogie
Pete Johnson Piano & Sextet - Rocket Boogie 88
Pete Johnson - Let 'Em Jump
Pete Johnson Blues Trio - Barrelhouse Breakdown
Pete Johnson & Albert Ammons - Walkin' The Boogie
Pete Johnson & Albert Ammons - Boogie Woogie Man
Pete Johnson And His Boogie Woogie Boys - Lovin' Mama Blues
Pete Johnson - Atomic Boogie
Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons - Boogie Woogie Prayer
Albert Ammons / Meade "Lux" Lewis / Pete Johnson - Lady Be Good
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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