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 r&b singer Otis Redding. Enjoy!
Otis Redding - Satisfaction
"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
-- The Campaigning Barack Obama, 2007
News and Opinion
Obama’s Betrayal of the Constitution
President Obama’s declaration of war against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria marks a decisive break in the American constitutional tradition. Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.
Mr. Bush gained explicit congressional consent for his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In contrast, the Obama administration has not even published a legal opinion attempting to justify the president’s assertion of unilateral war-making authority. This is because no serious opinion can be written.
This became clear when White House officials briefed reporters before Mr. Obama’s speech to the nation on Wednesday evening. They said a war against ISIS was justified by Congress’s authorization of force against Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that no new approval was needed.
But the 2001 authorization for the use of military force does not apply here. That resolution — scaled back from what Mr. Bush initially wanted — extended only to nations and organizations that “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the 9/11 attacks. ...
Not only was ISIS created long after 2001, but Al Qaeda publicly disavowed it earlier this year. It is Al Qaeda’s competitor, not its affiliate. ...
In taking this step, Mr. Obama is not only betraying the electoral majorities who twice voted him into office on his promise to end Bush-era abuses of executive authority. He is also betraying the Constitution he swore to uphold.
New York Times sees the Fnords! Shocking! Shocking, I tell you!!!
Struggling to Gauge ISIS Threat, Even as U.S. Prepares to Act
[A]s President Obama prepares to send the United States on what could be a yearslong military campaign against the militant group, American intelligence agencies have concluded that it poses no immediate threat to the United States. Some officials and terrorism experts believe that the actual danger posed by ISIS has been distorted in hours of television punditry and alarmist statements by politicians, and that there has been little substantive public debate about the unintended consequences of expanding American military action in the Middle East.
Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department’s top counterterrorism adviser during Mr. Obama’s first term, said the public discussion about the ISIS threat has been a “farce,” with “members of the cabinet and top military officers all over the place describing the threat in lurid terms that are not justified.”
“It’s hard to imagine a better indication of the ability of elected officials and TV talking heads to spin the public into a panic, with claims that the nation is honeycombed with sleeper cells, that operatives are streaming across the border into Texas or that the group will soon be spraying Ebola virus on mass transit systems — all on the basis of no corroborated information,” said Mr. Benjamin, who is now a scholar at Dartmouth College.
"Insanity": CodePink’s Medea Benjamin on Obama Plan to Bomb Syria, Expand Iraq Attacks
Obama is picking his targets in Iraq and Syria while missing the point
Now here is Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 largely because he promised to end the Iraq war, back for another bite at the apple. A small bite — since Obama’s aversion to large-scale intervention on the ground will largely restrict the U. S. effort to aerial bombardment supplemented with a bit of advice and equipment. ...
Even if Obama cobbles together a plan to destroy the Islamic State, the problems bedeviling the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East more broadly won’t be going away anytime soon.
Destroying what Obama calls the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant won’t create an effective and legitimate Iraqi state. It won’t restore the possibility of a democratic Egypt. It won’t dissuade Saudi Arabia from funding jihadists. It won’t pull Libya back from the brink of anarchy. It won’t end the Syrian civil war. It won’t bring peace and harmony to Somalia and Yemen. It won’t persuade the Taliban to lay down their arms in Afghanistan. It won’t end the perpetual crisis of Pakistan. It certainly won’t resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
All the military power in the world won’t solve those problems. Obama knows that. Yet he is allowing himself to be drawn back into the very war that he once correctly denounced as stupid and unnecessary — mostly because he and his advisers don’t know what else to do. Bombing has become his administration’s default option.
Rudderless and without a compass, the American ship of state continues to drift, guns blazing.
James Foley on the Dehumanization of War: Acclaimed Filmmaker Haskell Wexler Shares 2012 Interview
Government Threatened Foley Family Over Ransom Payments, Mother of Slain Journalist Says
Obama administration officials repeatedly threatened the family of murdered journalist James Foley that they might face criminal charges for supporting terrorism if they paid ransom to the ISIS killers who ultimately beheaded their son, his mother and brother said this week.
"We were told that several times and we took it as a threat and it was appalling," Foley's mother Diane told ABC News in an interview.
She said the warnings over the summer came primarily from a highly decorated military officer serving on the White House's National Security Council staff, which five outraged current and former officials with direct knowledge of the Foley case also recounted to ABC News in recent weeks. ...
"It was an utterly idiotic thing to do that came across as if he had the compassion of an anvil," said a former official who has advised the family.
"He had no business speaking about legal issues he was unqualified to discuss," a current official said of the military officer at the NSC, who has no background in the law.
[Also: see bobswern's diary on this topic. -js]
Vetted ‘Moderate’ Syria Rebels Commander: We’re Allied With ISIS
While the Obama Administration presents its ultimate goal in Syria as propping up “vetted, moderate rebels” as an alternative to ISIS, those self-same rebels are increasingly allying themselves outright with ISIS.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the most endorsed faction from the US perspective, is eagerly attaching itself to ISIS, with FSA commander Bassel Idriss admitting he regularly collaborates with ISIS in attacking Assad government forces along the Syria-Lebanon border.
Fighting at the border crossing in Qalamoun is a joint FSA-ISIS operation, and Abu Fidaa, the head of the local Revolutionary Council, says that a “very large number” of FSA fighters have joined ISIS outright.
Ignore what you preach? US to bomb Syria without Damascus' approval
Isis air strikes: Obama's plan condemned by Syria, Russia and Iran
The Syrian government and its close allies in Moscow and Tehran warned Barack Obama that an offensive against Islamic State (Isis) within Syria would violate international law yesterday, hours after the US president announced that he was authorising an open-ended campaign of air strikes against militants on both sides of the border with Iraq.
Syrian opposition groups welcomed Obama's announcement and called for heavy weapons to fight the "terror" of Isis and Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia and nine other Arab states pledged to back the US plan "as appropriate". ...
But long-standing international divisions over Syria were starkly highlighed in the hours after the speech. Iran's foreign ministry said that "the so-called international coalition to fight the Isil [Islamic State] group ... is shrouded in serious ambiguities and there are severe misgivings about its determination to sincerely fight the root causes of terrorism."
Russia said it would not support any military action without a UN resolution authorising it. "The US president has spoken directly about the possibility of strikes by the US armed forces against Isil positions in Syria without the consent of the legitimate government," said a spokesman. "This step, in the absence of a UN security council decision, would be an act of aggression, a gross violation of international law." China said that the world should fight terror but that national sovereignty must be respected.
In Damascus, the Assad government warned against US raids. "Any action of any kind without the consent of the Syrian government would be an attack on Syria," said the national reconciliation minister, Ali Haidar.
Neocons Revive Syria ‘Regime Change’ Plan
In his national address Wednesday, Obama said he will order U.S. air attacks across Syria’s border without any coordination with the Syrian government, a proposition that Damascus has denounced as a violation of its sovereignty. Thus, the argument will surely soon be heard in Washington that Assad’s government must be removed as a military prerequisite so the attacks on ISIS can proceed. Otherwise, there could be a threat to U.S. aircraft from Syria’s air defenses.
That would get the neocons back on their original track of forcing “regime change” in countries seen as hostile to Israel. The first target was Iraq with Syria and Iran to follow. The goal was to deprive Israel’s close-in enemies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, of crucial support. The neocon vision got knocked off track when Bush’s Iraq War derailed and the American people balked at the idea of extending the conflict to Syria and Iran.
But the neocons never gave up on their vision. They simply kept at it, clinging to key positions inside Official Washington and recruiting “liberal interventionists” to the “regime change” cause. The neocons remained focused on Syria and Iran with hopes of getting U.S. bombing campaigns going against both countries.
Israel ‘Concerned’ US War on ISIS Will Temper Hostility Toward Iran
The Israeli cabinet position of “strategy affairs minister” is primarily meant to focus around planning for a war with Iran. It’s a full time job, and it mostly involves pushing the US to threaten Iran more often.
The current minister, Yuval Steinitz, is at the forefront of Israeli officials expressing “concern” tonight at the new US war on ISIS, which they see as potentially getting in the way of long-term US hostility toward Iran.
Israel's Deadly Attacks on Gaza Schools Constitute War Crimes: Human Rights Watch
Israel's military attacks on United Nations schools in Gaza that were sheltering thousands of displaced people slaughtered dozens of civilians "in violation of the laws of war," Human Rights Watch declared in a report released Thursday.
The humanitarian organization investigated three separate attacks on such schools that occurred in late July and early August, which together killed 45 people, 17 of them children. “Israel has offered no convincing explanation for these attacks on schools where people had gone for protection and the resulting carnage,” said Fred Abrahams, special adviser at Human Rights Watch. ...
While the Israeli military claims to have launched an investigation of itself to "examine exceptional incidents" during the bombardment of Gaza, the Human Rights Watch report notes, "Previous inquiries by the Israeli military of alleged war crimes committed by its forces have not met international standards for credible, impartial and independent investigations." The report urges rigorous investigations of the assaults on UN schools and other Israeli attacks on civilians by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
The Untold Story of the Shejaiya Massacre in Gaza: A Former Israel Soldier Speaks Out
Israeli intelligence veterans refuse to serve in Palestinian territories
Forty-three veterans of one of Israel’s most secretive military intelligence units – many of them still active reservists – have signed a public letter refusing to serve in operations involving the occupied Palestinian territories because of the widespread surveillance of innocent residents.
The signatories include officers, former instructors and senior NCOs from the country’s equivalent of America’s NSA or Britain’s GCHQ, known as Unit 8200 – or in Hebrew as Yehida Shmoneh-Matayim.
They allege that the “all-encompassing” intelligence the unit gathers on Palestinians – much of it concerning innocent people – is used for “political persecution” and to create divisions in Palestinian society.
The largest intelligence unit in the Israeli military, Unit 8200 intercepts electronic communications including email, phone calls and social media in addition to targeting military and diplomatic traffic.
The signatories say, however, that a large part of their work was unrelated to Israel’s security or defence, but appeared designed to perpetuate the occupation by “infiltrating” and “controlling” all aspects of Palestinian life.
Israeli officer indicted in beating of U.S. teen during Arab protests
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities have indicted a police officer whose severe beating of a Palestinian American teenager was caught on video and drew expressions of concern from the State Department and President Barack Obama.
Charges were brought Wednesday against the border policeman, whose identity was concealed by a gag order. ...
According to the indictment, Tariq Khdeir, 15, was masked with an Arab head scarf and was holding a slingshot. After pinning him to the ground, the officer was joined by a colleague, who cuffed the teenager’s hands behind his back.
Once Khdeir was subdued, “the accused beat him with fists and kicks to the head, face, shoulders and upper body when the plaintiff did not resist arrest,” the indictment says, adding that the teenager was beaten senseless.
As the two officers dragged Khdeir away, the officer kicked him again in the stomach and face, according to the indictment. ...
The video of the beating and images of Tariq Khdeir's swollen face went viral on the Internet. ... The officer was suspended for 15 days during an investigation by the Justice Ministry, and was charged in the indictment with “assault that caused bodily harm,” an offense punishable by up to three years in prison.
Well now, here's a sign that America's team in Kiev is working from western democratic values:
Ukraine Security Services Break Into Newspaper Office, Shut Down Website
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) broke into the office of a Kiev-based digital newspaper on Thursday, physically trapping reporters and ultimately shutting down the website.
Vesti News's editor-in-chief Igor Guzhva wrote on his Facebook page Thursday that the news outlet had been raided by SBU, according to a translation by Russia Today. The SBU reportedly took all servers, kept staffers in a "hot corridor" and shut down the website completely.
Secret Surveillance Battle Between Yahoo and the U.S. Government Revealed
In 2007, Yahoo fought back against the government’s demand for information on certain overseas customers, saying that the request was over-broad and violated the constitution.
Yahoo’s challenge ultimately failed, knocked down by both the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, which oversees secret government spying) and its review court. The company then became one of the first to hand over information to the NSA’s PRISM program, which allowed the government access to records of internet users’ chats, emails, and search histories, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. The targeted user was supposed to be foreign, but U.S. communications could still be swept up in the effort. Google, YouTube, AOL, and Skype were also among the companies that provided communications data to PRISM. According to the Washington Post, the government used the FISC court’s decision in the Yahoo case to pressure those others to comply.
In a statement on the company tumblr, Yahoo’s general counsel wrote that the government at one point threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 per day if it did not release the data.
[DNI document dump here.]
Judge says U.S. doesn’t have to reveal cost of Guantanamo’s secret Camp 7
A federal judge agreed Thursday that the Pentagon does not have to reveal how much was paid to build the crumbling, secret Camp 7 at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, rejecting a Miami Herald bid to make the number public.
U.S. District Judge Berryl Howell in Washington, D.C., said that the document that contained the figure had been properly classified and denied a request from The Herald’s Carol Rosenberg that it be made public.
In a making her decision, Howell relied on a secret filing from the Defense Department that neither Rosenberg nor her attorneys were allowed to see.
Camp 7 is the secret prison facility at Guantanamo where alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 14 other former CIA captives called “high value detainees” are held. ...
Rosenberg said she was disappointed in the judge’s decision. “It seems odd to me that after the U.S. Army furnished Congress with the cost of a new Camp 7, we the people can’t know what we paid for the old one,” she said.
In Scotland, everybody's talking about it
The independence issue has provoked the most intense political debate in Scotland's modern history – possibly since the doomed Jacobite uprising of 1745.
In streets, pubs and meeting halls from the Highlands and Islands to deprived, shabby neighbourhoods of post-industrial cities, young and old have been talking about it for months and months. South of the border in England, it barely registered until a few weeks ago. ...
Scottish newspapers are filled with letters every day – the Scotsman ran six-full pages on Wednesday – and social media has been a battleground. Bookshops have tables of books and pamphlets setting out the arguments for and against.
"It's exciting – people had been feeling like they can't make a difference for a long time until now because we've been governed by parties we didn't choose," said Kirsty Law, 24, who works in a music store specializing in Scottish folk.
The debate being played out in the media by the political leadership has now zeroed in on economic and financial issues, specifically what currency an independent Scotland would have and what big business might do.
But the discourse among the general public has often been about the wider political concepts of nationhood as well as matters such as education and nuclear weapons.
"It's mainly to do with democracy. I don't think Scotland is in a democratic position. Scotland has different needs to England and we'd be better off running ourselves and having more say in our future," said Law.
"Independence won't necessarily solve all Scotland's problems but it would give us the power to try to solve them."
Catalans rally for independence referendum from Spain
Thousands of Catalans have rallied in Barcelona, Spain, demanding the right to hold a referendum on independence.
Participants, waving Catalan flags and wearing the flag's red and yellow colours, stood in a V-shape formation, indicating their desire for a vote.
Protesters were energised by Scotland's forthcoming independence referendum - and many also waved the Scottish flag.
The regional government has called a referendum for 9 November. The Spanish government says the vote is illegal.
"We want to decide our future. We don't understand why that is constantly denied," Victor Panyella, a professor taking part in the rally, told Reuters.
Ana Melendez, another participant, told the BBC she was "jealous" of Scotland, which has a referendum on independence from the rest of the United Kingdom on 18 September.
A Night of Violence in Santiago as Coup Anniversary Exposes Chile's Unhealed Wounds
41 years to the day after the military coup that began Chile's long and bloody dictatorship, protesters clashed with police in the capital on Thursday in a night of fury that exposed the wounds still festering in the South American country.
Riots consumed at least seven districts in Santiago overnight on Thursday, as the anniversary of the September 11, 1973 coup by General Augusto Pinochet against leftist president Salvador Allende exposed the divisions that linger on between those who supported the right-wing regime and those who emphatically reject its legacy. ...
The anniversary of the coup, sometimes referred to as Chile's 9/11, always generates tensions and violence is common. More than 3,000 people were killed or "disappeared" as the junta sought to wipe out political opposition, and many thousands more were thrown in the regime's jails.
Chile's approach to dealing with its dark past has been fraught with controversy. Many Chileans are enraged by an amnesty law that continues to protect perpetrators of abuses under the regime, while others argue that prosecutions would only revive old agonies. ...
On Thursday, the country's center-left president, Michelle Bachelet, whose father was killed by the regime and who was herself tortured, urged the congress to finally repeal the amnesty law, eight years after a motion to scrap it was introduced.
"In democracy, Chile has not lost its memory and has not forgotten its persecuted, executed and missing arrested children," she said at a ceremony to mark the anniversary. "Neither has (Chile) forgotten the wounds that continue causing pain."
‘Money-out-of-Politics’ Amendment Ignored
An important debate is underway in the United States Senate this week, but if you are, like most, a casual consumer of the news, you probably wouldn’t have heard about it. This is no indictment of your news-gathering habits, but rather of what passes for mass communication in modern America, in other words, the mainstream media’s systematic suppression of important information.
Then again, perhaps that is too harsh. In a week dominated by saturation coverage of leaked video of NFL player Ray Rice’s domestic violence, the iPhone 6 hitting the market and a possible new war being launched by President Obama, in-depth coverage of an arcane debate in the Senate might be too much to ask. ...
The ignored debate is on a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution – the 28th in its history – that would empower Congress to restrict campaign financing and spending in an effort to rein in the deep-pocketed oligarchs who have been spending billions of dollars in recent years to influence electoral outcomes. ...
Despite the media blackout, there appears to be widespread public support for the measure. According to a recent survey of likely voters in 12 states with close Senate races, a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United is supported by an overwhelming majority of 73 percent to 24 percent, support that cuts across party lines.
American Politics as a Billionaire’s Playground
Think of this as the year that democracy of, by, and for the billionaires shall not perish from the Earth -- not when we’re on a new electoral playing field in a political world in which distinctions are no longer made between unlimited money and unlimited speech. ... We’re still almost two months from the midterm elections in which the Republicans already have the House of Representatives essentially wrapped up and ads for Senate races are zipping onto TV screens in “battleground states” at a dizzying pace. ...
“Outside groups” have already spent $120 million on TV ads alone, more than half that sum coming from those dark-money groups that don’t have to let anyone know who their contributors are. At the top of that shadowy list are six outfits linked to David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers from Wichita. Together, those groups have already sent a mind-spinning 44,000 ads into the politico-sphere in those battleground states, and the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity (AFP) leads the pack with 27,000 of them. In the end, AFP alone is expected to put $125 million into this year’s midterm elections, a figure that should take your breath away and yet that’s only a start.
Sheldon Adelson, of casino fame, may, for example, put $100 million of his $31.6 billion fortune into this campaign season, shuttling much of it through dark-money outfits, including AFP. On the liberal side of the spectrum, environmentalist and billionaire Tom Steyer has pledged to sink $50 million into campaigns to promote candidates ready to act on global warming (though there is little question that, in the billionaire sweepstakes, the right-wing ones are going to outspend the liberal ones, and Republicans outspend Democrats).
Argentina enacts law restructuring government debt
Argentina's Congress has approved legislation to restructure the country's debt and sidestep a US court ruling that recently pushed the government into its second default in 13 years.
After a 16-hour debate, the lower house of Congress voted 134-99 in favour of the bill early on Thursday. The measure had already passed the Senate, and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner formally enacted it later in the day, calling it a "historic event".
"Argentina wants to pay, can pay and is going to pay all its debts to all bondholders," Fernández said.
The measure would let Argentina's government pay bondholders locally to skirt the US financial system, which is bound by the US court order restricting Argentina's repayments.
US supreme court to review same-sex marriage petitions from five states
The US supreme court will review seven same-sex marriage petitions at the end of the month, according to docket filings updated on Wednesday.
This private review on 29 September will help determine which, if any, of the same-sex marriage cases the court will hear oral arguments on in the term which begins in October.
Dozens of same-sex marriage cases have trickled through lower courts since the supreme court overturned part of the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma). The seven petitions represent five cases in as many states.
States, corporations and religious groups have filed briefs asking the nation’s highest court to weigh in on the two central issues raised by these cases: whether a state can ban same-sex marriage in its own state and whether a state must then recognize same-sex marriages performed lawfully out of state.
Legal experts say the court could be pushed to accept a case if a circuit court breaks the streak of rulings declaring state bans on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.
The Evening Greens
A big legal step forward:
Judge Cleared ‘Necessity’ Defense for Use in Climate Trial for the First Time
Even before a prosecutor in Massachusetts dropped criminal and conspiracy charges against climate activists for blocking a coal shipment with a lobster boat, the judge in the case broke new ground in favor of the foes of fossil fuels. For the first time in the U.S. climate fight, he cleared the way to use "necessity" as a defense in the courtroom.
State District Judge Joseph Macy in Fall River, Massachusetts, found the defendants could call expert witnesses to justify the violation of the law in order to protect citizens from the impacts of global warming, and to argue they had no legal alternative. His findings carry legal implications for future acts of civil disobedience, climate activists and lawyers say, and may even have had a direct impact on the outcome of this case. ...
The activists were planning to plead guilty to all charges, but argue they acted out of necessity. Using the necessity defense requires that defendants prove they faced clear and imminent danger, in this case global warming, and expected their actions to reduce or eliminate the threat. They also must have had no legal alternative. Civil rights and HIV/AIDS activists have used the strategy successfully, as have a few environmentalists fighting to close hazardous pollution sites. Until last week, it hadn't been cleared for any climate civil disobedience trial, according to legal authorities.
Pawa, the defense attorney, proposed to call four expert witnesses to support the claim: James Hansen, a climate scientist; Bill McKibben, an environmental writer-turned-activist and founder of 350.org; Matthias Ruth, a climate policy and modeling expert at Northeastern University; and David Bookbinder, a legal authority on the Clean Air Act.
Judge Macy initially rejected McKibben and Bookbinder as expert witnesses during a pretrial hearing Friday, but after a break and further argument by Pawa, he approved their participation. This cleared the way for the defendants to deploy the necessity strategy, Pawa said. Macy also rejected a prosecution motion to take the issue to a court of appeals, which could have delayed the trial by six months to a year and forced the defense to abandon the strategy.
Greenland 2014: Follow the Water
Canada PM to skip UN climate summit
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper won't be attending the United Nations climate summit in New York this month.
Harper is the latest among top leaders to reveal he will not be attending the day-long summit, which is meant to build momentum for the Paris 2015 talks where countries will work to sign a global pact on greenhouse gas emissions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will miss the summit as well.
North America Can Say Goodbye to Half its Birds if Rising GHG Emissions Aren’t Stopped
An alarming new study published Tuesday by the National Audubon Society says that almost half the bird species in the continental United States and Canada are already threatened by climate change.
The study — Audubon’s Birds and Climate Change Report — finds that 126 species will lose more than 50 per cent of their current ranges by mid-century with no possibility of relocating if global warming continues at its current pace.
“A further 188 species face more than 50 per cent range loss by 2080 but may be able to make up some of this loss if they are able to colonize new areas,” an accompanying media release says. “These 314 species include many not previously considered at risk. The report indicates that numerous extinctions are likely if global temperature increases are not stopped.”
“It’s a punch in the gut. The greatest threat our birds face today is global warming,” Audubon Chief Scientist Gary Langham, who led the investigation, said in the media release.
“That’s our unequivocal conclusion after seven years of painstakingly careful and thorough research. Global warming threatens the basic fabric of life on which birds — and the rest of us — depend, and we have to act quickly and decisively if we are going to avoid catastrophe for them and for us.”
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
1.2% of the GDP. That's all it would take to green the economy
Ali Soufan: The sad legacy of 9/11: Isis and al-Qaida are stronger than ever
ABC: Journalist Foley's Family Threatened w/Prosecution, Repeatedly, by WH If They Paid ISIS' Ransom
Government Sought to Punish Yahoo for Challenging Surveillance Orders
Study estimates 24000 transgender people will be disenfranchised by Voter ID
A Little Night Music
Otis Redding - Cigarettes and Coffee
Otis Redding - Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa
Otis Redding - Hard To Handle
Otis Redding - I Got Dreams To Remember
Otis Redding - Any Ole Way
Otis Redding - Sitting on the dock of the bay
Otis Redding - 634-5789
Otis Redding - A Change Is Gonna Come
Otis Redding - Call Me Mr Pitiful
Otis Redding - Nobody's fault but mine
Otis Redding - Shake
Otis Redding - R E S P E C T
Otis Redding & Friends Stax Volt Revue (1967)
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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