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 lap-steel playing Texas bluesman Sonny Rhodes. Enjoy!
Sonny Rhodes - Black Cat Bone
"There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
News and Opinion
Ukraine peace deal signed, opens way for early election
Ukraine opposition leaders signed an EU-mediated peace deal with President Viktor Yanukovich on Friday, aiming to end a violent standoff that has left dozens dead and opening the way for a early presidential election this year.
Russian-backed Yanukovich – under pressure to quit from the mass demonstrations in Kiev – earlier offered a series of concessions to his pro-European opponents, including a national unity government and constitutional change to reduce his powers, as well as the presidential vote.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the deal provided for the creation of a national unity government and an early presidential election this year, although no date had been set. The vote had been due in March 2015. ...
“There are no steps that we should not take to restore peace in Ukraine,” Yanukovich said when announcing his concessions before the deal was signed. “I announce that I am initiating early elections.”
Yanukovich said Ukraine would revert to a previous constitution under which parliament had greater control over the make-up of the government, including the prime minister. ...
Earlier, a Polish foreign ministry spokesman said a council of protesters occupying Kiev’s Independence Square, which is also known as the Maidan, had backed the agreement.
Sinister Illusions: Masking Tragedy in Ukraine
Speaking at a summit in Mexico, Obama unilaterally declared that Ukraine should overturn the results of its democratic election in 2010 (which most observers said was generally "fair and free" -- perhaps more "fair and free" than national elections in, say, the United States, where losing candidates are sometimes wont to take power anyway, and where whole states dispossess or actively discourage millions of free citizens from voting). ...
Now, this is not a defense of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's government. It is, by all accounts, a highly corrupt enterprise given to insider deals for well-connected elites who influence government policy for their own benefit. I guess this might be a reason for overthrowing a democratically elected government with an armed uprising supported by foreign countries, but I would be careful about espousing this as a general rule if I were an American president. The old saw about stones and glass houses comes to mind.
The reality (if anyone cares about such a thing) is that the situation in Ukraine is complex. Opposition forces have a legitimate beef against a corrupt and heavy-handed government. The Kremlin is obviously trying to manipulate events and policies in Ukraine, just the United States is doing. (Obama's remarks on this topic are comedy gold: "Our approach in the United States is not to see [this] as some cold war chessboard in which we’re in competition with Russia. Our goal is to make sure that the people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their future." Yes, as long as they make the right decisions, unlike in 2010, when they voted for the wrong person.) Ukraine is polarized along several different lines -- political, ethnic, historical, religious, linguistic -- but these lines are not clear-cut, and often intersect, intermingle, are in flux. The pull away from Russia's orbit is strong in many people; the desire to retain close relations to Russia is equally strong in others. (Although any attempt by Russia to quash Ukraine's independence would likely unite all factions in resistance.) ... The opposition itself is not a monolith of moral rectitude; one of its driving forces is an ultra-nationalist faction that happily harks back to Ukraine's fascist collaborators with Nazi invaders and spouts vile anti-Semitic rhetoric. It is likely that the ultra-nationalists are chiefly behind the opposition's turn toward violent resistance, overshadowing the young, moderate, West-yearning, anti-corruption factions that have been the face of the uprising thus far.
And the fact is, not a single one of the Western governments now denouncing Ukraine for its repression would have tolerated a similar situation. Try to imagine thousands of, say, Tea Partiers, having declared that the elected government of Barack Obama was too corrupt and illegitimate to stand, setting up an armed camp in the middle of Washington, occupying the Treasury Building and Justice Department for months on end, while meeting with Chinese and Russian leaders, who then begin demanding a 'transitional government' be installed in the White House. What would be the government's reaction? There is no doubt that it would make even Yanukovych's brutal assault this week look like a Sunday School picnic.
Violence in the streets as Venezuelan security forces clash with students
Venezuelan security forces and demonstrators faced off in streets blocked by burning barricades in several provincial cities on Thursday as protests escalated against President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.
At least five people have died since the unrest turned violent last week, with scores of injuries and arrests.
The demonstrators, mostly students, blame the government for violent crime, high inflation, product shortages and alleged repression of opponents. They want Maduro to resign.
In middle-class areas of Caracas overnight, security forces fired teargas and bullets, chasing youths who threw Molotov cocktails and blocked streets with burning trash.
It was one of the worst bouts of violence the capital has seen in nearly three weeks of unrest across Venezuela, and trouble also flared in other urban centers.
Venezuela Beyond the Protests: The Revolution is Here to Stay
For those of you unfamiliar with Venezuelan issues, don’t let the title of this article fool you. The revolution referred to is not what most media outlets are showing taking place today in Caracas, with protestors calling for the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The revolution that is here to stay is the Bolivarian Revolution, which began in 1998 when Hugo Chavez was first elected president and has subsequently transformed the mega oil producing nation into a socially-focused, progressive country with a grassroots government. Demonstrations taking place over the past few days in Venezuela are attempts to undermine and destroy that transformation in order to return power to the hands of the elite who ruled the nation previously for over 40 years.
Those protesting do not represent Venezuela’s vast working class majority that struggled to overcome the oppressive exclusion they were subjected to during administrations before Chavez. The youth taking to the streets today in Caracas and other cities throughout the country, hiding their faces behind masks and balaclavas, destroying public buildings, vehicles, burning garbage, violently blocking transit and throwing rocks and molotov cocktails at security forces are being driven by extremist right-wing interests from Venezuela’s wealthiest sector. Led by hardline neoconservatives, Leopoldo Lopez, Henrique Capriles and Maria Corina Machado – who come from three of the wealthiest families in Venezuela, the 1% of the 1% - the protesters seek not to revindicate their basic fundamental rights, or gain access to free healthcare or education, all of which are guaranteed by the state, thanks to Chavez, but rather are attempting to spiral the country into a state of ungovernability that would justify an international intervention leading to regime change.
Chavez’s election was a huge blow to Washington and the powerful interests in the United States that wanted control over Venezuela’s oil reserves – the largest on the planet. In April 2002, the Bush administration backed a coup d’etat to overthrow Chavez, led by the very same elite that had been in power before. ... After Chavez was kidnapped on April 11, 2002 and set to be assassinated, the wealthy businessmen behind the coup took power and imposed a dictatorship. All democratic institutions were dissolved, including the legistature and the supreme court. ... Leading efforts to overthrow Chavez were the very same three who today call for their supporters to take to the streets to force current President Nicolas Maduro from power. Leopoldo Lopez and Henrique Capriles were both mayors of two of Caracas’ wealthiest municipalities during the 2002 coup – Chacao and Baruta, while Maria Corina Machado was a close ally of Pedro Carmona, the wealthy businessman who proclaimed himself dictator during Chavez’s brief ouster.
All three have been major recipients of US funding and political support for their endeavors to overthrow Chavez, and now Maduro. The US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its offshoots, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) provided start-up funds for Machado’s NGO Sumate, and Capriles’ and Lopez’s right-wing party Primero Justicia. When Lopez split from Primero Justicia in 2010 to form his own party, Voluntad Popular, it was bankrolled by US dollars.
Most Venezuelans want peace in their country and a majority continue to support the current government. The opposition has failed to present an alternative platform or agenda beyond regime change, and their continued dependence on US funding and support – even this year Obama included $5 million in the 2014 Foreign Operations Budget for opposition groups in Venezuela – is a ongoing sign of their weakness. As a State Department cable from the US Embassy in Caracas, published by Wikileaks, explained in March 2009, “Without our continued assistance, it is possible that the organizations we helped create...could be forced to close...Our funding will provide those organizations a much-needed lifeline”.
Meet Venezuela's Opposition Leader: Front Man for the Oligarchs Sidelined by Hugo Chave
So far, US and international media has generally portrayed Lopez as an outspoken “maverick,”alluding only in passing to his oligarchic pedigree and hardline right-wing politics. Lopez has been involved in coup attempts that aimed to oust Hugo Chavez since the late president was first elected. Lopez’s leadership of the current round of protests after a hard fought election won by Chavez’s successor, President Nicolas Maduro, appears to be an extension of those efforts.
I wrote about Lopez in my investigation of Thor Halvorssen and his Potemkin Village-like Human Rights Foundation. Halvorssen is a former right-wing campus activist who has leveraged his fortune to establish a political empire advancing a transparently neoconservative agenda behind the patina of human rights. ...
Besides being the son of a CIA asset who channeled money from Venezuelan oligarchs to the Nicaraguan Contras, Halvorssen happens to be Lopez’s first cousin — Leopoldo is the son of Thor’s oil executive aunt. Through his human rights apparatus, he has played a critical role in marketing Lopez to an international audience. ...
Lopez is the son of a former oil executive — Halvorssen’s aunt — who allegedly funnelled profits from the state-run oil company into his new political party, leading to corruption charges that placed his political ambitions in peril, as the Associated Press reported in February (“Leopoldo Lopez, Opponent Of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Faces Corruption Charges In Venezuela”).
Described by the US embassy in Venezuela as “vindictive, and power-hungry” but also as “a necessity,” Lopez received large sums of financial support from the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy.
Complaint at World Court Alleges NATO Members Complicit in War Crimes for Aiding US
Lawyers with the British human rights organization Reprieve filed a legal complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) Wednesday documenting the experiences of Pakistani anti-drone activist Kareem Khan and other drone strike victims and accusing NATO allied states of war crimes by helping to facilitate the United States’ covert drone program in Pakistan. ...
Attorney’s from Reprieve worked with UK-based barristers and human rights solicitors at The Hague to file a legal complaint based on recent revelations that NATO member-states, including the UK, Germany and Australia, support US drone strikes by sharing intelligence. The complaint argues that since these countries are signatories to the Rome Statute, they are under the jurisdiction of the World Court and can be investigated for war crimes. The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, however.
The prosecutor’s office at the ICC, in a November 2013 report on the prosecutor’s preliminary examination into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, found that "war crimes and crimes against humanity were and, continue to be, committed in Afghanistan." Prosecutors indicated they would examine whether the Afghan government has taken sufficient measures to investigate and prosecute the crimes before moving to open a formal investigation. Afghanistan signed the Rome Statute in 2003.
According to Jennifer Gibson, a staff attorney at Reprieve, the complaint argues that since the drones are being flown out from bases in Afghanistan, the ICC has territorial jurisdiction over the drone strikes occurring in Pakistan and that the prosecutor’s office should include the drone strikes in their considerations about whether to open a formal investigation in Afghanistan.
Drone Report: US Must Account for 'Turning Wedding Into a Funeral'
A U.S. drone strike on a recent wedding procession in Yemen — that left 12 people dead and at least 15 wounded — raises serious doubts about the Obama administration's claim that so-called targeted killings do not harm civilians, charged Human Rights Watch in a report released Thursday.
Entitled A Wedding That Became a Funeral: US Drone Attack on Marriage Procession in Yemen, the 28-page report demands that the U.S. government investigate the incident and publicly account for any slaughter of civilians or violation of international law.
“The U.S. refusal to explain a deadly attack on a marriage procession raises critical questions about the administration’s compliance with its own targeted killing policy,” said Letta Tayler, senior terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “All Yemenis, especially the families of the dead and wounded, deserve to know why this wedding procession became a funeral.”
The report decribes in harrowing detail the December 12th, 2013 launch of four hellfire missiles at a wedding procession near the city of Rad’a.
U.S. Drone Strike in Yemen Killed as Many as 12 Civilians
New Details of Attack on Yemeni Wedding Prompt More Demands Obama Explain Drone Policy
A new report on the U.S. drone missile strike that killed 12 members of a Yemeni wedding convoy has renewed calls for the Obama administration to make public its own investigations into the incident — and explain how such strikes are consistent with international laws of war.
The detailed, 28-page report from Human Rights Watch describes conflicting accounts of the December 12 attack, but nevertheless concludes that some, if not all, of the victims may have been civilians.
The laws of war prohibit attacks on civilians that are not discriminate or attacks that cause civilian loss disproportionate to the expected military advantage.
The report also calls on the U.S. government to explain how the attack could possibly have complied with the new policies President Obama announced in May 2013, and repeated less than three months before the wedding strike, that he had “limited the use of drones so they target only those who pose a continuing, imminent threat to the United States where capture is not feasible, and there is a near certainty of no civilian casualties.”
Lithuania investigates allegations of hidden CIA ‘black site’ jail
Lithuanian prosecutors said Thursday they have opened an investigation into claims that a Saudi terror suspect was held in an alleged secret CIA jail in the Baltic state.
The probe concerns the “possible illegal transportation of persons across the state border”, Vilnius prosecutors said in a statement.
The decision marked a turnaround for Lithuania, which previously refused to probe allegations that 45-year-old Mustafa al-Hawsawi was imprisoned at a secret US Central Intelligence Agency jail there between 2004 and 2006.
A Vilnius court said in January that prosecutors should ask the United States for testimony from Guantanamo detainee Hawsawi before making a final decision on whether to pursue his case.
Human rights activists welcomed the move by prosecutors Thursday, saying it could set an example for other countries facing allegations of hosting secret CIA jails.
US psychologists renew push for ban on assisting military interrogations
Enraged by the US professional psychologists association’s decision not to censure a colleague involved in torture at Guantánamo Bay, members of the association’s legislative body are planning a push to return the issue to its agenda during a biannual meeting that begins Friday.
Members of the council of representatives of the American Psychological Association (APA) acknowledge that adding to the agenda a proposed ban on the giving of professional support to military interrogations is an uphill struggle, and one that reopens a bitter internal debate they have thus far lost.
Still, members told the Guardian on Thursday that they nevertheless planned to introduce a resolution that would enforce a 2008 vote preventing psychologists from participating in military interrogations.
“APA is being perceived publicly as aloof to or not concerned enough about the torture issue,” said Scott Churchill, a University of Dallas psychologist who has served on the council of representatives since 2010.
During a three-day meeting that kicks off on Friday, Churchill plans to introduce a resolution that he described as a “proactive step” toward getting the APA to enforce a ban on torture that many members perceive to be insufficiently strong.
Documents Reveal NSA and GCHQ Efforts to Destroy Assange And Track Wikileaks Supporters
FCC Proposes Toothless Rules in Fight for Net Neutrality
Following an announcement by the Federal Communications Commission that it will issue new rules in the coming months to protect an open internet, communications advocates are crying foul, saying the FCC's promises are largely toothless and the agency has the power to do far more.
The FCC announcement follows a ruling in a federal court last month in favor of broadband companies who said Net Neutrality rules enforced by the FCC are illegal. The ruling was slammed by internet advocates who said it "gives commercial companies the astounding legal authority to block internet traffic, give preferential treatment to certain internet services or applications, and steer users to or away from certain web sites based on their own commercial interests.”
In response, one month later, the FCC has said that it will not appeal the ruling, but will in exchange use powers under the Telecommunications Act to propose new rules that would theoretically continue to protect internet users and providers from being overcharged and abused by broadband companies.
The Monstrous Merger of Comcast and Time Warner Must Be Stopped - Now
Comcast has announced it intends to merge with Time Warner Cable, joining together the largest and second-largest cable and broadband providers in the country. The merger must be approved by both the Justice Department and the FCC. Given the financial and political power of Comcast, and the Obama administration’s miserable record of protecting the public interest, the time to speak out and organize is now.
“This is just such a far-reaching deal, it should be dead on arrival when it gets to the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission for approval,” Michael Copps told me days after the merger announcement. Copps was a commissioner on the FCC from 2001 to 2011, one of the longest-serving commissioners in the agency’s history. Now he leads the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause. “This is the whole shooting match,” he said. “It’s broadband. It’s broadcast. It’s content. It’s distribution. It’s the medium and the message. It’s telecom, and it’s media, too.” ...
Copps is not the only former FCC commissioner with an opinion on the merger. Meredith Attwell Baker served briefly there, from 2009 to 2011. President Barack Obama appointed Baker, a Republican, to maintain the traditional party balance on the FCC. Baker was a big supporter of the Comcast-NBCU merger. It surprised many, however, when she abruptly resigned her FCC commission seat to go work for - you guessed it - Comcast. She was named senior vice president for governmental affairs for NBCU, just four months after voting to approve the merger.
As for the regulators, the news website Republic Report revealed that the head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, William Baer, was a lawyer representing NBC during the merger with Comcast, and Maureen Ohlhausen, a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, provided legal counsel for Comcast before joining the commission. If you wonder how President Obama feels about the issue, look at who he appointed to be the new chairperson of the FCC: Tom Wheeler, who was for years a top lobbyist for both the cable and wireless industries.
Bowing to seniors, liberals, Obama ditches bitter deficit medicine
In a bow to politics both in Washington and in midterm elections, President Barack Obama will propose a new budget that would increase spending on popular programs and drop a plan to slow the growth of Social Security benefits that had angered his party’s base.
Obama’s budget, to be unveiled on March 4, will urge $56 billion in new spending split between the Pentagon and domestic initiatives such as early childhood education, jobs training and help for manufacturing that are popular to Democratic voters. All would be financed by tax increases or other offsets, making them unlikely to pass Congress but still a ready tool for Democratic candidates to use in congressional elections this fall.
At the same time, Obama will drop from his budget a year-old proposal to trim benefit increases for Social Security recipients and veterans. The offer always was paired with a demand that the wealthy pay higher taxes, but Republicans never agreed to that. Obama was left with no deal with the right, and a left flank angered that he even offered to curb entitlement growth. Instead, the left cheered Thursday and predicted an energized party base heading into the elections.
Majority of Irish voters support legal marriage for LGBT couples – poll
An overwhelming majority of Ireland's electorate will back the introduction of gay marriage in the one-time Catholic Church dominated Republic.
A new opinion poll shows that only just under 20% of voters will oppose introducing same sex marriage into the Irish constitution.
More than three-quarters of voters say they support marriage equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in a proposed referendum by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition.
The survey by the Red C opinion poll firm for Irish public broadcaster RTÉ and The Sunday Business Post found that 76% would be in favour of allowing LGBT couples to legally marry in the Irish Republic. Around 5% of voters were undecided and 19% opposed the law reform.
The Evening Greens
It still isn’t over: The polar vortex is about to hit for the third time
Dammit, where'd i put my scarf?
NAFTA leaders put saving monarch butterfly on trade pact’s agenda
The monarch, which has seen its numbers plunge in recent years, arose as a topic when President Enrique Pena Nieto hosted President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a meeting Wednesday to review the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created the world’s largest trade zone 20 years ago.
“We have agreed to conserve the monarch butterfly as an emblematic species of North America which unites our three countries,” Pena Nieto told business leaders who’d gathered for the one-day summit in the industrial city of Toluca, about 40 miles west of Mexico City.
In a final statement, amid weighty pronouncements on energy, immigration, border security and job creation, the monarch butterfly earned its place.
“Our governments will establish a working group to ensure the conservation of the monarch butterfly, a species that symbolizes our association,” the statement said.
Silencing the Scientist: Tyrone Hayes on Being Targeted By Herbicide Firm Syngenta
Peabody Energy Faces Popular Revolt at Illinois EPA Coal Hearing
Last night, at an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency hearing about a water quality permit for the expansion of a Peabody Energy strip mine in Rocky Branch, IL, local residents made it clear that they've had enough of the coal industry's destructive presence in their community. ...
Peabody had already started clearcutting the area intended to become its Rocky Branch Mine, just south of the Cottage Grove strip mine, but federal regulators stepped in and ordered Peadody to stop logging immedately because it was being done in violation of the law.
It's unclear what, if any, benefits Peabody can offer the residents of Rocky Branch should its strip mine be allowed to expand. No jobs are expected to be created, and the state already loses an estimated $20 million annually to support the coal industry.
Citizen action to hold coal companies and regulators accountable is more important than ever in Illinois, as the coal industry does not seem to be waning in the state. Even while coal is losing market share across the country and renewable energies like wind power are rapidly achieving cost parity (in fact, wind is already cheaper than coal in Iowa, Illinois' neighbor), Illinois just received a $1 billion grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue the controversial "clean coal" project FutureGen.
Federal study says oil sands toxins are leaching into groundwater, Athabasca River
New federal research has strongly backed suspicions that toxic chemicals from Alberta’s vast oil sands tailings ponds are leaching into groundwater and seeping into the Athabasca River.
Leakage from oil sands tailings ponds, which now cover 176 square kilometres, has long been an issue. Industry has acknowledged that seepage can occur, and previous studies using models have estimated it at 6.5-million litres a day from a single pond.
The soil around the developments contains many chemicals from naturally occurring bitumen deposits, and scientists have never able to separate them from contaminants released by industry.
The current Environment Canada study, accepted for publication in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, used new technology to discover that the mix of chemicals is slightly different between the two sources. That discovery, made using a $1.6-million piece of equipment purchased in 2010 to help answer such questions, allows scientists to actually fingerprint chemicals and trace them back to where they came from.
“Differentiation of natural from [tailings water] sources was apparent,” says the study.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Plowshares Sentencing Shows US Government Afraid of Peace Activists
Local Resistance to the NDAA Amps Up, Spans Political Spectrum
New study calls for improved medical care for transgender patients
Very worth your while:
The World Through Vladimir Putin’s Eyes
A Little Night Music
Sonny Rhodes - Life's Rainbow
Sonny Rhodes - If the Blues Fits, Wear It
Sonny Rhodes - You Better Stop
Sonny Rhodes & The Texas Twisters - House Without Love
Sonny Rhodes - Ain't no Blues in Town
Sonny Rhodes w/Big Nancy - The Sky Is Cryin'
Sonny Rhodes - Honey Do Woman
Sonny Rhodes - It's Not Funny Any More
Sonny Rhodes - Blues is my religion
Sonny Rhodes - Finding Out For Myself
Sonny Rhodes - The Bloodstone Beat
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.
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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