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 Delta blues piano player Sunnyland Slim. Enjoy!
Sunnyland Slim -- Come Home Baby
"The world organization debates disarmament in one room and, in the next room, moves the knights and pawns that make national arms imperative."
-- E. B. White
News and Opinion
This is a threat? Sign on the dotted line or we'll stop gunning down your citizens in night raids, stop having them tortured by CIA-trainees, etc.? Please don't throw me in dat briar patch!
US Threatens to End Afghan Occupation
With Afghan President Hamid Karzai still refusing to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) to keep US troops in Afghanistan through 2024 and beyond, National Security Advisor Susan Rice has been dispatched to reiterate US threats to end the occupation outright. ...
Karzai aides say they don’t take the threat seriously, and it’s no surprise. Despite President Obama repeatedly raising the “zero option” during talks with Karzai to try to get better terms out of him, the Pentagon has confirmed time and again that leaving isn’t even being considered.
Karzai tells Susan Rice of more demands for accord extending U.S. troop presence
KABUL — Efforts by the United States and Afghanistan to finalize a long-term security arrangement appeared on the brink of collapse Monday as Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a new set of demands, and the Obama administration said it would be forced to begin planning for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces at the end of 2014.
In a two-hour meeting here, Susan E. Rice, President Obama’s top national security adviser, told Karzai that if he failed to sign the bilateral security agreement by the end of this year, the United States would have “no choice” but to prepare for withdrawal, according to a statement by the National Security Council in Washington.
Karzai told Rice that he would sign only after the United States helps his government begin peace talks with the Taliban and agrees to release all 17 Afghan citizens being held in the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, according to Afghan and U.S. officials.
In addition to those new demands, the Afghan leader reiterated that he will not sign if “another [U.S.] soldier steps foot into an Afghan home,” Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi said. The United States has already promised to show “restraint” in “home entries” by U.S. troops and to carry them out only in conjunction with Afghan troops, but the tactic remains a part of U.S. operations against some insurgents here.
CIA Used Secret Gitmo Facility To Turn Prisoners Into Double Agents
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the CIA reportedly used a secret facility at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center to turn a handful of prisoners into double agents and then sent them home to help kill terrorists.
The program, which was carried out in a complex known as Penny Lane just a few hundred yards from the administrative offices at the prison, aided in the killing of “many” top al-Qaeda operatives, current and former U.S. officials told the Associated Press. ...
The CIA offered the prisoners freedom, safety for their families, and millions of dollars from the agency’s secret bank account, code-named Pledge, in return for spying for the U.S.
Some of the information provided by the released detainees was used to launch Predator drone strikes, an official said, while other double agents ultimately stopped providing information and lost contact with the CIA.
EU demands protection against U.S. data surveillance
The European Commission called on Tuesday for new protection for Europeans under United States' law against misuse of personal data, in an attempt to keep in check the U.S. surveillance revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said she wanted Washington to follow through on its promise to give all EU citizens the right to sue in the United States if their data is misused. "I have ... made clear that Europe expects to see the necessary legislative change in the U.S. sooner rather than later, and in any case before summer 2014," she said.
Reding's message was reinforced in a draft report obtained by Reuters that called for "very close attention by the EU" in monitoring data-exchange agreements given the "large-scale collection and processing of personal information under U.S. surveillance programs".
The remarks underline a growing sense of unease in Europe at a delicate moment in transatlantic relations, when the globe's two biggest economies seek a trade pact to deepen ties.
NSA mass surveillance has already been used for ordinary police work
The NSA has used its ubiquitous wiretapping for ordinary police work. It used mass surveillance to prevent the murder of an eccentric artist, according to the New York Times. This means that the final line has been crossed; once mass surveillance of ordinary people is used for everyday police work, we are past the event horizon to a surveillance dystopia.
In an article outlining the vast capabilities of the NSA, the New York Times drops this tidbit:
The spy agency’s station in Texas intercepted 478 emails while helping to foil a jihadist plot to kill a Swedish artist who had drawn pictures of the Prophet Muhammad.
However, the New York Times fails to elaborate on the immense importance of this fact. This means that the NSA went far, far beyond its mandate of “national security”, and used its mass surveillance – ubiquitous wiretapping, really – for ordinary police work.
While preventing the murder of a highly eccentric artist may be admirable in its own right, it does not nearly qualify for national security concerns, nor for preventing terrorism. ...
It’s important because it crosses the line we were promised would never, ever, be crossed – that the ubiquitous wiretapping would only be used for national security, and never for ordinary police work against citizens. Once that line is crossed, the wiretapping is used against the country’s own citizens.
Tim Berners Lee warns against abuse of privacy
Spies worry over "doomsday" cache stashed by ex-NSA contractor Snowden
British and U.S. intelligence officials say they are worried about a "doomsday" cache of highly classified, heavily encrypted material they believe former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has stored on a data cloud.
The cache contains documents generated by the NSA and other agencies and includes names of U.S. and allied intelligence personnel, seven current and former U.S. officials and other sources briefed on the matter said. ...
U.S. officials and other sources said only a small proportion of the classified material Snowden downloaded during stints as a contract systems administrator for NSA has been made public. Some Obama Administration officials have said privately that Snowden downloaded enough material to fuel two more years of news stories.
"The worst is yet to come," said one former U.S. official who follows the investigation closely.
The Administration Versus James Risen
On July 19, 2013, a 2-1 majority of the Fourth Circuit Court ruled that a subpoena for Pulitzer Prize-winning (awarded for the reporting at the center of this case) New York Times reporter James Risen's testimony about a source for his book, State of War, would be upheld. Later, the full court refused to review this decision. The court relied on a 1972 Supreme Court case, Branzburg v. Hayes, to find that the First Amendment protection of freedom of the press does not include any right to protect sources in a criminal case.
Judge Roger L. Gregory, a member of the court, wrote an informed dissent in the case in which he found good reason to support Risen, based in part on the ambiguities of the Branzburg decision and on common law. He noted that the book provided essential information about the CIA's inept attempts to find evidence of an Iranian nuclear program. This was especially important after bad evidence about an Iraqi nuclear program led to an unnecessary war. Gregory also found that the government has asserted only that these disclosures harmed national security but had presented no evidence of harm - based, of course, on claims of national security. ...
The Risen decision, if allowed to stand, will do great harm by impeding the ability of all reporters to inform us about government actions. Any promise of confidentiality by a reporter to a source will now be weighed against the possibility that the reporter will be compelled to testify and threatened with prison if he or she refuses. The government will be able to classify any embarrassing information with much more security that it will not be revealed.
Greenwald: Groups who question his ties to CAIR are helping government erode freedom
Glenn Greenwald, the civil rights attorney and journalist who helped reveal evidence that the U.S. was spying on its citizens and allies, said it’s crucial to safeguard the civil liberties of American Muslims to ensure the rights of all Americans.
Greenwald, who published a series of articles based on documents provided by former National Security Administration contractor Edward Snowden, served as the keynote speaker Nov. 16 at the annual “Faith in Freedom” banquet hosted by the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
He spoke to the group by video, rather than in person, citing concerns about possible attempts by American officials to prosecute him for his journalistic work.
The Middle East warmly welcomes Iran Deal, sees it as Step toward Denuclearizing Israel
[D]espite the fear-mongering and hysteria of Israeli politicians ... the general reaction in the region has been much more positive than the Likud government would have us believe. Moreover, far from there being an Israel-Arab consensus against the agreement, much of the Arab world welcomed the Iran deal and saw it as a first step toward getting nuclear weapons out of the Middle East altogether. That is, they are hoping that once Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is restructured as permanently peaceful, the United Nations Security Council will turn up pressure on Israel to give up its nuclear weapons. ...
[T]he Likud government of Netanyahu is completely isolated in its loud rejection of these negotiations. Virtually everyone else in the Middle East is positive, and most of the countries that count (by size and power) are absolutely enthusiastic. The degree of Israeli isolation is matched only by the extremeness of its rhetoric. One Israeli cabinet member who has read too much Tom Clancy warned of “suitcase bombs” provided by Iran to terrorist for use in Western cities. Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon and there aren’t any such things as suitcase bombs and no country has ever given away a nuclear weapon to anyone, let alone to a scruffy terrorist. And, again, Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon or any particular prospect of one. Israel in contrast has several hundred warheads and the means to deliver them, bombs that it developed sneakily and under false pretenses. And Israel routinely uses its nuclear stockpile to threaten or blackmail other countries (as with Ariel Sharon’s threats directed at Saddam Hussein’s Iraq).
Thousands block NATO convoy route to protest US drone strikes in Pakistan
Thousands of demonstrators protesting US drone strikes in Pakistan blocked a main road Saturday in the Peshawar province used to transport NATO supplies to and from Afghanistan.
The protest was led by the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which is led by Imran Khan, a former international cricketer now turned politician.
They were supported by their allies in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government and they were also joined by the Jamaat -i-Islami (JI) and the Awami Jamhoori Ittehad (AJIP) political parties.
“We will put pressure on America, and our protest will continue if drone attacks are not stopped,” Khan told reporters.
“We are here to give a clear message that now Pakistanis cannot remain silent over drone attacks,” said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a senior member of the PTI, addressing the protesters.
Starbucks union-buster is ironic winner after liberals push nuclear option
With GOP obstruction defeated, attorney who helped Starbucks get away with firing union activists headed to bench
When Senate Democrats curbed filibusters in a historic Thursday vote, unions were among the major winners. The D.C. Circuit Court, where Republican obstruction has maintained a conservative majority, has repeatedly rejected modest pro-labor moves by the National Labor Relations Board. And restricting filibusters on nominations could pave the way for future senators to rein in filibusters on legislation, which have bedeviled unions’ labor law reform efforts every time that Democrats controlled both Congress and the presidency. Unions have thus been at the forefront of recent efforts to secure filibuster reforms.
So it’s ironic that one of the most acute and immediate beneficiaries of those efforts will be Patricia Ann Millett, a woman who helped Starbucks stymie unions. Millett is one of three D.C. Circuit nominees tapped by President Obama and blocked by Republicans; after invoking the so-called nuclear option, the Senate voted 55-43 Thursday to move forward on Millett.
“I find it troubling, because Ms. Millett and her firm Akin Gump went well beyond what I consider the bounds of decency and morality in the very aggressive anti-union campaign they really designed and helped Starbucks carry out,” Daniel Gross, a founding member of the Starbucks Workers Union, told Salon. “The campaign that Ms. Millett and her firm architected and really co-led, and continues to co-lead with Starbucks, involved all of the scorched earth tactics which are starting to come to light more and more.” The White House, the AFL-CIO and Starbucks did not provide comment on Millett’s Starbucks work in response to Thursday inquiries. Akin Gump declined to comment.
As Wal-Mart Workers Plan Record Black Friday Protests, Study Says Retail Giant Can Afford Higher Pay
Wave of Black Friday Strikes Kicks Off as Walmart CEO Steps Down
Ahead of what is being called the largest day of action yet against Walmart on the upcoming Black Friday shopping extravaganza, a wave of strikes against the retail giant have already begun.
Workers in Miami, Florida and Brooklyn Center, Minnesota walked off the job Monday following actions in Tampa on Saturday and strikes in Sacramento, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and cities in Ohio earlier this month. ...
Protest organizers estimate that employees will boycott over 1,500 locations on Friday, disrupting what many call the 'largest shopping day of the year' to bring awareness to the company's culture of low pay and intimidation.
Amid the growing unrest, Walmart CEO Mike Duke announced his retirement Monday. According to reports, he is going to be replaced by veteran Walmart employee and CEO of Walmart International Doug McMillon.
Technology Didn't Kill Middle Class Jobs, Public Policy Did
A widely held view in elite circles is that the rapid rise in inequality in the United States over the last three decades is an unfortunate side-effect of technological progress. In this story, technology has had the effect of eliminating tens of millions of middle wage jobs for factory workers, bookkeepers, and similar occupations. ...
This story is comforting to elites, because it means that inequality is something that happened, not something they did. They won out because they had the skills and intelligence to succeed in a dynamic economy, whereas the huge mass of workers that are falling behind did not. ... That's a nice story, but the evidence doesn't support it. ... Since 2000, the increase in employment has occurred almost entirely in low-wage occupations. There has been a decline in relative employment for both workers in middle wage and high wage occupations. If this "occupational shift story" explained trends in wages we should expect to see sharply rising wages for retail clerks, custodians and other workers employed in low-paying occupations. ...
It is not difficult to identify other potential culprits – trade would certainly rank high on the list. A trade policy that quite deliberately puts factory workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while protecting doctors and other highly paid professionals, would be expected to redistribute income from the former to the latter.
The weakening of unions is likely also an important factor. The private sector unionization rate in the United States has shrunk from over 20% in the 1970s to less than 7% at present. In the same vein, the deregulation of major industries like airlines, telecommunications, and trucking has been another factor putting downward pressure on wages. The higher unemployment rates we have seen, not just in the last five years but in the last 35 years, compared with the early post-war decades, has also weakened the bargaining power of workers at the middle and bottom of the pay ladder.
The Evening Greens
Reverend Billy Faces Year in Prison for Protesting JPMorgan Chase’s Financing of Fossil Fuels
Drowning Kiribati
Kiribati is a flyspeck of a United Nations member state, a collection of 33 islands necklaced across the central Pacific. Thirty-two of the islands are low-lying atolls; the 33rd, called Banaba, is a raised coral island that long ago was strip-mined for its seabird-guano-derived phosphates. If scientists are correct, the ocean will swallow most of Kiribati before the end of the century, and perhaps much sooner than that. Water expands as it warms, and the oceans have lately received colossal quantities of melted ice. A recent study found that the oceans are absorbing heat 15 times faster than they have at any point during the past 10,000 years. Before the rising Pacific drowns these atolls, though, it will infiltrate, and irreversibly poison, their already inadequate supply of fresh water. The apocalypse could come even sooner for Kiribati if violent storms, of the sort that recently destroyed parts of the Philippines, strike its islands.
For all of these reasons, the 103,000 citizens of Kiribati may soon become refugees, perhaps the first mass movement of people fleeing the consequences of global warming rather than war or famine. ...
The government of Kiribati (pronounced KIR-e-bass, the local variant of Gilbert, which is what these islands were called under British rule) recently bought 6,000 acres of land in Fiji for a reported $9.6 million, to the apparent consternation of Fiji’s military rulers. Fiji has expressed no interest in absorbing the I-Kiribati, as the country’s people are known. A former president of Zambia, in south-central Africa, once offered Kiribati’s people land in his country, but then he died. No one else so far has volunteered to organize a rescue.
World's First Climate Refugee Rebuffed by New Zealand
A man from the low-lying island nation of Kiribati is told that sea-level rise does not pose risk to him and his family
A man from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, 37-year-old Ioane Teitiota, has been refused his bid to attain legal asylum status as one of the world's first climate refugees after a judge in New Zealand on Tuesday rebuffed his appeal.
Teitiota's ongoing legal challenge presents the case that rising sea levels caused by human-caused global warming have imperiled his ability to live in his home country.
Kiribati, with an average elevation of only 6.5 feet about sea level, is among the countries scientists say is most vulnerable to rising oceans and stronger storms, both of which increase as climate change continues to make its impact felt.
But according to Judge John Priestly, the refugee claim did not meet the country's legal standards for asylum.
"By returning to Kiribati, he would not suffer a sustained and systemic violation of his basic human rights such as the right to life...or the right to adequate food, clothing and housing," Priestley wrote in his ruling.
'Fracking - cowboy industry driven by greed with 'profit above all' mantra'
EPA may have underestimated U.S. methane emissions by 50 percent
U.S. emissions of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — could be significantly higher than indicated in estimates by the US Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new study published Monday.
The study found the EPA numbers could underestimate by as much as 50 percent the true amount of the gas being produced by the United States. ...
The researchers explained their figures differ from the government ones because of a difference in methodology.
The EPA, they explained, uses a “bottom-up” approach that multiplies amounts typically released, for example, by each cow, per unit of coal, or per unit of natural gas sold.
But in this new study, researchers took the opposite “top-down” approach, calculating how much methane is actually present in the atmosphere and then tracing it to its sources using meteorological and statistical analysis.
“When we measure methane gas at the atmospheric level, we’re seeing the cumulative effect of emissions that are happening at the surface across a very large region,” said Steven Wofsy, a Harvard professor and co-author of the PNAS study.
“That includes the sources that were part of the bottom-up inventories, but maybe also things they didn’t think to measure,” he explained.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Nearly 9 of 10 Low-Wage Workers Fear They Can’t Make Ends Meet
The Resurgence of Authoritarianism in Economically Beleaguered Greece: The Shaping of a Proto-Fascist State
Californians voting on transgender student rights seen as "unlikely"
A Little Night Music
Sunnyland Slim - Be Careful How You Vote
Sunnyland Slim - Tin Pan Alley
Sunnyland Slim - Shake It
Sunnyland Slim -- Woman I Ain't Gonna Drink No More Whiskey
It's You Baby (Sunnyland Slim, 1956)
Sunnyland Slim -- I'm Prison Bound
Sunnyland Slim - Going Back To Memphis
Sunnyland Slim Blues Band - You Used to Love Me
Sunnyland Slim - Brown Skin Woman
Sunnyland Slim - The Devil Is A Busy Man
Sunnyland Slim - She's Got A Thing Going On
Sunny Land Slim with Muddy Waters - Johnson Machine Gun
Sunnyland Slim - Highway 61
Sunnyland Slim with Mike Bloomfield - Sunnyland's Jump
Sunnyland Slim - I Am The Blues
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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