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 evenings music features blues, soul, gospel and r&b singer and piano player Aretha Franklin - "The Queen of Soul." Enjoy!
Aretha Franklin - Evil Gal Blues
“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”
-- Thomas Jefferson
News and Opinion
The Grand Betrayal has Arrived
Cut Social Security & Veterans' Benefits? Cut the Pentagon Instead
Say what you want about President Obama's proposal to cut Social Security and veterans' benefits with the "chained CPI." He did accomplish one thing for liberals that they often have a hard time doing on their own.
He united them - in opposition to his proposal.
Since Friday, the following groups, among others, have contacted me expressing outrage about and pledging to vigorously oppose the President's proposal: the AFL-CIO, MoveOn, Progressive Campaign Change Committee, CREDO Action, Americans for Democratic Action, Democracy for America. Some of these groups are explicitly threatening primary challenges to any Congressional Democrat who supports the President's proposal.
But that's not all we have to celebrate. If, like most Americans, you prefer to cut what Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has called the "bloated" Pentagon budget instead of cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits, you have even more reason to rejoice.
Because at this political juncture, everyone in America who says "no cuts to Social Security or veterans' benefits" is effectively saying "cut the bloated Pentagon budget," whether they do so explicitly or not. If the "grand bargain" is killed and Social Security and veterans' benefits are spared - apparently these are all the same political event - then the Pentagon budget will be cut instead.
And that means that at long last, we're effectively having the "guns vs. butter" debate in the United States that we have been so long denied.
Obama Fully Embraces Austerity with Cuts to Social Security and Medicare
When Billy Tauzin (ex-congressman PHRMA lobbyist) got together with Obama for a little chat about Obamacare, he must have swung one hell of a deal for the pharmaceutical industry.
Remember back in 2008 when a big-talking candidate put in black and white that he would "Allow Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug prices."
At what point do unfulfilled promises qualify for consideration as lies?
Medicare Uncovered: What’s not on the table
Negotiating the price of drugs would save billions. Why don’t we talk about it?
The leaks from the White House and the circulation of pre-budget talking points on Friday made it clear that fixes to Medicare will come from cutting benefits to seniors and disabled people. For the last several months, certain politicians have been building support for options that could involve raising the eligibility age, making more people pay higher premiums, and changing the way Medigap policies work so they would be prohibited from covering as much. Such proposals would require beneficiaries to have more “skin in the game,” as the wonks often put it. In other words, it would make them pay more for their care. The goal: Prompt them to use fewer medical services by making them pay more out-of-pocket.
Late last month, in a New York Times piece titled “Medicare Shift May Lead Way to Budget Pact,” reporters Jackie Calmes and Robert Pear signaled that “President Obama and Congressional Republicans have quietly raised the idea of broad systemic changes to Medicare that could produce significant savings.” Now it looks like those cuts are really on the table and will affect millions of beneficiaries.
What’s not on the table? Here’s one thing: a requirement that drug makers negotiate prices with the government for the drugs used by Medicare beneficiaries, an option that accounts for drugs costing far less in other countries. Taking such a step would make drug companies contribute to shoring up Medicare.
Hey now! Here's something we could sure as hell save some money on. Each Gitmo prisoner is costing us $800,000 per year! Close that damned torture facility Obama!
Golden Cage: US blows $800k per Gitmo inmate each year
Guantánamo Officials Release Names of Prisoners Tortured by Force Feeding
The US military at Guantánamo Bay prison has released information about hunger striking prisoners being force-fed, acknowledging that the military detention center is partaking in an activity considered by many as a form of torture. ...
The process of force feeding involves the insertion of a rubber tube through the prisoner's nostril through which a liquid nutrient mix is pumped. Criminal defense attorney Marjorie Cohn shares this account by Guantánamo detainee Yousef Al Shehri, detailed in a statement by attorney Julia Tarver:
Yousef was the second detainee to have an NG [nasal gastric] tube inserted into his nose and pushed all the way down his throat and into his stomach, a procedure which caused him great pain. Yousef was given no anesthesia or sedative for the procedure; instead, two soldiers restrained him - one holding his chin while the other held him back by his hair, and a medical staff member forcefully inserted the tube in his nose and down his throat. Much blood came out of his nose. Yousef said he could not speak for two days after the procedure; he said he felt like a piece of metal was inside of him. He said he could not sleep because of the severe pain.
When Yousef and others "vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like 'look what your religion has brought you,'" Tarver wrote.
She notes that the feeding continued for two weeks and, after pausing for a few days, the guards began to insert larger, thicker tubes— "the thickness of a finger." According to Tarver, these tubes "were viewed by the detainees as objects of torture."
Neverending Iraq: '10 years longer than we expected'
Obama’s drone war kills ‘others,’ not just al Qaida leaders
The administration has said that strikes by the CIA’s missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones are authorized only against “specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting “imminent” violent attacks on Americans. ...
Copies of the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by McClatchy, however, show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere to those standards. ...
Micah Zenko, an expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, a bipartisan foreign policy think tank, who closely follows the target killing program, said McClatchy’s findings indicate that the administration is “misleading the public about the scope of who can legitimately be targeted.”
The documents also show that drone operators weren’t always certain who they were killing despite the administration’s guarantees of the accuracy of the CIA’s targeting intelligence and its assertions that civilian casualties have been “exceedingly rare.”
The Way of the Knife: NYT’s Mark Mazzetti on the CIA’s Post-9/11 Move From Spying to Assassinations
New Evidence That Team Obama Misled Us About the Drone War
Official speeches are crafted to give the impression that we're mostly targeting Al Qaeda members. We're not.
The Obama Administration is deliberately misleading Americans about the drone war it is waging in Pakistan. Can anyone read the McClatchy Newspapers summary of top secret intelligence reports and continue to deny that? Set aside the morality and effectiveness of the C.I.A.'s targeted killing program. Isn't it important for Congress and the people to know the truth about the War on Terrorism? Many Americans remain furious that the Bush Administration gave Iraq War speeches that elided inconvenient truths and implied facts that turned out to be fictions. Is the objection merely that the Iraq War turned out badly? Or is misleading Congress and the public itself problematic, especially when the subject is as serious as killing people in foreign countries?
To justify frequent drone strikes that regularly kill innocent people, risk serving as a terrorist recruiting tool, and terrorize whole communities understandably averse to drones buzzing above their homes, Obama Administration officials give the impression that Al Qaeda terrorists are the main targets. As it turns out, they haven't just helped hide the fact that the Bush Administration kicked off America's drone campaign in Pakistan by killing someone at the request of Pakistan's government -- as Jonathan S. Landay explains, Obama officials have misled us about their own behavior. "Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified 'other' militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan's rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show," he reports.
The misleading rhetoric includes words spoken by President Obama himself. ...
The appropriate response, when a president is caught misleading the country about a war he's waging, is more scrutiny. There's no telling what else the Obama Administration is hiding. It is the job of Congress to find out, and the prerogative of Americans to know the nature of killing done on their behalf.
'WikiLeaks Project K sleeping danger to US PR'
A year after presiding over the brutal repression of a non-violent people's movement, a movement whose economic equality agenda and movement tactics are a legacy of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama decides to celebrate the role that music played in the "civil rights era," which is apparently over as far as Obama is concerned:
Obama celebrates role Memphis soul music played in advancing civil rights at White House concert
US President Barack Obama paid homage to Memphis soul and the role the music style played in advancing civil rights at a star-studded White House concert celebrating the genre.
“In the sixties and seventies, Memphis knew its share of division and discord and injustice,” Obama recalled on Tuesday. It was in the Tennessee city in 1968 that civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
But soul music “tried to bridge those divides — to create a little harmony with harmony,” said the president, who walked on stage to the dulcet strains not of traditional presidential anthem “Hail to the Chief” but of “Green Onions,” a well-known instrumental tune by Booker T. and the MG’s.
City Settles Lawsuit Over The Destruction of the Occupy Wall Street Library
In an agreement announced today, the City of New York will pay more than $365,000 to settle a lawsuit bought by people whose property was destroyed when the New York Police Department raided Zuccotti Park and evicted Occupy Wall Street on November 15, 2001.
Occupy Wall Street had brought the suit against the city over the destruction of the People's Library, a collection of about 5,500 donated books that formed a central part of the community that sprung up for two months in the park. In the eviction, many of the books were completely destroyed, and others were so badly damaged as to be unusable. Occupy Wall Street claimed $47,000 in damages, all of which the city agreed to pay today.
On top of the damage claims, the city will also pay $186,350 in fees and costs to Occupy Wall Street's lawyers.
French trade unions battle against labour law
Clock ticking on Cyprus deal
Bailout tension rises as panicked politicians warn island could be just weeks away from running out of money
Highlighting the tiny nation's overnight transition from prosperity to penury, panic-stricken officials have said it is imperative a controversial €10bn (£8.5bn) bailout is approved by EU parliaments and sealed with international lenders by 24 April.
If an agreement is not reached by then – and bailout funds are not in place to replenish dried up coffers – President Nicos Anastasiades' administration will face the daunting prospect of being unable to pay state salaries and pensions. ...
With the sheer scale of the losses sinking in – and anger at the perceived inequity of the deal also mounting – there is growing debate as to whether the EU's most easterly member would be better off leaving the bloc.
Local fury intensified on Tuesday when it was revealed in parliament that tens of millions of euros in cash had been withdrawn from Cypriot banks in the weeks running up to the bailout.
Youth power may swing Venezuela vote
'Eat-In' Protesters Call Out Obama's Broken Promise to Label GMOs
Food justice advocates gather at FDA on Monday, decry administration's ties to biotechnology firms
Food justice advocates gathered in front of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety on Monday to demand all genetically modified products (GMOs) be clearly labeled, and to call out the administration's ties to the biotechnology industry.
Over 100 protesters, food advocates, students, farmers, and several groups including Food Democracy Now!, Food & Water Watch and the Organic Consumers Association, joined the "Eat-in" in which a GMO-free "stone soup" was served and protesters heard from a range of speakers who called for the labeling of GMO foods and an end to the revolving door between Washington and the biotech industry, RT reports.
For instance, Michael Taylor, former Vice President of Public Policy at biotech giant and major GMO producer Monsanto, is now a Deputy Commissioner for the FDA.
Hat tip Cassiodorus:
Kansas Sustainable Development Ban Proposed By State Legislator
A Kansas legislator who last year led an effort to condemn the United Nations' sustainability agenda now wants to ban sustainability.
State Rep. Dennis Hedke (R-Wichita) has introduced legislation that would ban Kansas state and local governments from spending public funds on sustainable development, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The move comes as conservative state lawmakers around the country -- led by the John Birch Society -- have introduced similar legislation to ban the implementation of the U.N. sustainability plan, known as Agenda 21. Hedke, who has ties to the oil and gas industry, did not directly mention Agenda 21 in his bill, but last year the lawmaker spearheaded a charge for legislators to speak out against the sustainable development initiative.
Court ruling: Obama administration overlooked fracking risks
The Obama administration has broken the law, issuing oil leases across California without examining the risks of fracking. A federal judge ruled that the administration has “completely ignored” environmental concerns upon issuing the leases.
In response to a lawsuit filed by environmentalist groups, US Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal ruled that the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the law by distributing oil drilling rights before reviewing the potential risks associated with fracking. ...
While the ruling highlights the flaws of the Obama administration, it is largely viewed as a landmark victory by environmentalists who have been fighting against the procedures they fear might harm the environment.
“It’s the first federal court opinion we’re aware of that explicitly holds that federal agencies have to analyze the environmental impacts of fracking when carrying out an oil and gas leasing program,” Brendan Cummings, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, which was involved in filing the lawsuit, told Reuters.
“This is an important decision that recognizes the significant risks that fracking poses to California’s land, air and water,” Cummings told Bloomberg News in a separate e-mail. “In an era of dangerous climate change, the federal government should not be leasing public land for extreme forms of fossil fuel extraction.”
Will the environmental movement stand up and make some noise about this dreadful appointment that Obama has put forward? Paging Bill McKibben:
Ties That Bind: Ernest Moniz, Keystone XL Contractor, American Petroleum Institute and Fracked Gas Exports
Congress will review the Obama Administration's nomination of Ernest Moniz for Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) in hearings that start today, April 9.
Moniz has come under fire for his outspoken support of nuclear power, hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for shale gas and the overarching "all-of-the-above" energy policy advocated by both President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent in the last election, Mitt Romney.
Watchdogs have also discovered that Moniz has worked as a long-time corporate consultant for BP. He has also received the "frackademic" label for his time spent at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At his MIT job, Moniz regularly accepted millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry to sponsor studies under the auspices of The MIT Energy Initiative, which has received over $145 million over its seven-year history from the oil and gas industry.
Moniz backs natural gas 'revolution'
President Barack Obama's choice to lead the Energy Department pledged to increase use of natural gas Tuesday as a way to combat climate change even as the nation seeks to boost domestic energy production. ...
A recent study commissioned by the Energy Department concluded that exporting natural gas would benefit the U.S. economy even if it led to higher domestic prices for the fuel. ...
Many U.S. energy companies are hoping to take advantage of the natural gas boom by exporting liquefied natural gas to Europe and Asia, where prices are far higher. Nearly two dozen applications have been filed to export liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to countries that do not have free trade agreements with the United States.
Soapbox
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Chilling Facts About Retirement in America That Should Make Obama Tremble Before Cutting Social Security and Medicare
Obama Moves Forward with Cutting Social Security and Medicare as We Lecture Europe Otherwise
Housing Victories, from Atlanta to Detroit to Minneapolis
Hell No! No Grand Bargain Liveblog 2014 Budget press conference
Hell No! No Grand Bargain: Are We At War With Our Own Neoliberals? [125 Votes In!]
Hell No! “Progressives Rage...Over Plan to Cut Social Security” (Pt. 1 of 2)
Hell No! Pam Martens: “Progressives Rage...Over Plan to Cut Social Security…” (Pt. 2 of 2)
Hell No! There's No Way to Vote Against Goldman Sachs
Hell No! Hands Off Social Security - This Has Gotten Personal
A Little Night Music
Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)
Aretha Franklin - Respect
Aretha Franklin - Think (Vocal Mix)
Aretha Franklin - Think
Aretha Franklin - Spirit In The Dark
Aretha Franklin - Dr. Feelgood
Aretha Franklin - Don't Play That Song
Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools
Aretha Franklin - Do Right Woman
Aretha Franklin - Today I Sing The Blues
Aretha Franklin - Night Time is the Right Time
Aretha Franklin - Drown In My Own Tears
Aretha Franklin - Natural Woman
Spanish Harlem - Aretha Franklin
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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