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 Chicago blues guitarist and harmonica player Louis Myers. Enjoy!
Louis Myers & The Aces - Sweet Home Chicago
I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. ...
Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people...or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos. Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part of it to us, do they?
-- George Carlin
News and Opinion
After Eric Holder Resigns, A Look at His Record on Bank Prosecutions
Eric Holder didn't send a single banker to jail for the mortgage crisis. Is that justice?
The telling sentence in NPR’s report that US attorney general Eric Holder plans to step down once a successor is confirmed came near the end of the story.
“Friends and former colleagues say Holder has made no decisions about his next professional perch,” NPR writes, “but they say it would be no surprise if he returned to the law firm Covington & Burling, where he spent years representing corporate clients.”
A large chunk of Covington & Burling’s corporate clients are mega-banks like JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America. Lanny Breuer, who ran the criminal division for Holder’s Justice Department, already returned to work there.
In March, Covington highlighted in marketing materials their award from the trade publication American Lawyer as “Litigation Department of the Year,” touting the law firm’s work in getting clients accused of financial fraud off with slap-on-the-wrist fines.
Covington, American Lawyer says, helps clients “get the best deal they can.”
Holder has a mixed legacy: excellent on civil and voting rights, bad on press freedom and transparency.
But if you want to understand what he did for the perpetrators of a cascade of financial fraud that blew up the nation’s economy in 2008, you only have to read that line from his former employer: he helped them “get the best deal they can.”
Eric Holder’s Complex Legacy: Voting Rights Advocate, Enemy of Press Freedom, Friend of Wall Street
James Comey - Asshole:
FBI Director Equates Protecting Personal Privacy with Lawlessness
James Comey says that moves by tech giants to offer encryption to customers allows cell phone users to "place themselves beyond the law."
FBI Director James Comey has responded to recent moves by tech giants Apple and Google to offer better encryption services on their handheld devices by suggesting that giving people the ability to protect their private communications from state law enforcement agencies is akin to lawlessness.
In recent weeks both companies have rolled out new software enhancements for their respective smartphones that make it harder for police or federal agents to obtain emails, photos, or call information that may be stored on the devices. The encryption is also designed to protect against fraud, theft, and other digital invasions. The move was widely applauded by privacy rights advocates, who in the wake of revelations about NSA surveillance practices on the U.S. population made possible by whistleblower Edward Snowden say that the American people are rightly concerned about the ways in which government agencies and law enforcement are using digital means to spy on their personal lives.
But in statements on Thursday, Comey criticized the companies. The head of the FBI said that his offices have already been in touch with Apple and Google to express the government's dismay and told reporters he could not understand why companies would “market something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.”
FBI blasts Apple, Google for locking police out of phones
FBI Director James B. Comey sharply criticized Apple and Google on Thursday for developing forms of smartphone encryption so secure that law enforcement officials cannot easily gain access to information stored on the devices — even when they have valid search warrants. ...
“There will come a day when it will matter a great deal to the lives of people . . . that we will be able to gain access” to such devices, Comey told reporters in a briefing. ... He said he could not understand why companies would “market something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.”
Comey’s remarks followed news last week that Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 8, is so thoroughly encrypted that the company is unable to unlock iPhones or iPads for police. Google, meanwhile, is moving to an automatic form of encryption for its newest version of Android operating system that the company also will not be able to unlock, though it will take longer for that new feature to reach most consumers.
Both companies declined to comment on Comey’s remarks. Apple has said that its new encryption is not intended to specifically hinder law enforcement but to improve device security against any potential intruder.
Lots more interesting detail at the link:
Ray McGovern Triumphs Over State Department
In 2011, at George Washington University during a public event where Clinton was speaking, McGovern stood up and turned his back to the stage. He did not say a word, or otherwise disrupt anything. University cops grabbed McGovern in a headlock and by his arms and dragged him out of the auditorium by force, their actions directed from the side by a man whose name is redacted from public records. ... The charges of disorderly conduct were dropped, McGovern was released and it was determined that he committed no crime.
State’s Diplomatic Security printed up an actual wanted poster citing McGovern’s “considerable amount of political activism” and “significant notoriety in the national media.” Diplomatic Security warned agents should USE CAUTION (their emphasis) when stopping McGovern and conducting the required “field interview.” The poster itself was classified as Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU), one of the multitude of pseudo-secret categories created following 9/11.
Subjects of BOLO alerts are considered potential threats to the Secretary of State. Their whereabouts are typically tracked to see if they will be in proximity of the Secretary. If Diplomatic Security sees one of the subjects nearby, they detain and question them. Other government agencies and local police are always notified. The alert is a standing directive that the subject be stopped and seized in the absence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause that he is committing an offense. ...
He sued, and won.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund took up the case pro bono on Ray’s behalf, suing the State Department. ... They sought, and won, an injunction against the State Department to stop the Be On the Look-Out alert against McGovern, and to force State to pro-actively advise other law enforcement agencies that it no longer stands.
This is what happens when you annoy or embarrass the Obama administration:
Barbara Lee Was Right in 2001. She’s Still Right Now.
It has been thirteen years since Congresswoman Barbara Lee cast her lonely vote against authorizing President Bush to launch what she warned could be an ill-defined and endless war. Days after she cast that vote, the California Democrat appeared before hundreds of students at Mills College in Oakland and was greeted for the first time by the chant, “Barbara Lee speaks for me.”
At time when media and political elites said Lee had isolated herself politically, she was embraced by Americans who questioned why Congress was not living up to its constitutionally defined responsibility to check and balance the tendency of executives to “blank check” powers for continual warmaking.
So it was, once more, on Tuesday evening, as television screens were filled with reports of airstrikes by the United States and its allies against targets in Syria. Lee appeared at the 2014 convention of National Nurses United in Las Vegas, where she was honored for her championship of peace and justice during the course of her congressional career.
When Lee came to the stage, a thousand nurses spontaneously began to chant, “Barbara Lee speaks for me.”
Lee was moved by the recognition, yet during a conversation Tuesday evening she told me that she and other members of Congress should have been in session on Capitol Hill. Instead of debating and voting on issues of war and peace, as the the Constitution requires, Congress fled Washington for the 2014 campaign trail.
Lee is blunt in arguing that this is simply wrong. ...
“I have called and will continue to call for a full congressional debate and vote on any military action, as required by the Constitution,” Lee continued. “The American people deserve a public debate on all the options to dismantle ISIS, including their costs and consequences to our national security and domestic priorities.”
CIA-vetted Syrian rebels battling Islamic State say airstrikes haven’t helped
In the skies over Syria, U.S. and Arab combat aircraft have bombed Islamic State targets 20 times since Tuesday. But on the ground, commanders for rebel groups that are part of a CIA-run program say they’ve pleaded in vain for arms, ammunition and even field rations so they can fight the same extremists.
Although they are among the few chosen to receive aid under the covert U.S. program, the commanders say the U.S. has done little to help them as they struggle to hold onto their main supply route from Turkey against a determined Islamic State offensive. ...
Rebel leaders say they’ve stopped the Islamic State’s advance and recaptured several villages. But no one is bragging, because they fear that after the Islamic State finishes its attack on the Kurdish Kobane region to the east, it will send reinforcements to the Aleppo front.
The stalemate north of Aleppo is the latest sign of the United States’ ambivalence toward forces that it is backing covertly already. None of the recent coalition strikes over Syria has targeted the Islamic State positions north of Aleppo.
There are now 10 groups fighting north of Aleppo, near the town of Mare, but the U.S. and its allies “offered very little ammunition support, no information, no air cover, and no collaboration in military plans and tactics – nothing,” said Col. Hassan Hamadi, who defected from the Syrian army and now heads the newly formed umbrella group Legion 5.
America’s New War in the Middle East
Rouhani: Western Intervention 'Put Blades in the Hands' of ISIS Extremists
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday criticized Western nations for sowing extremism in the Middle East and paving the way for the rise of the Islamic State (referred to as ISIS or ISIL) through military interventions and "strategic blunders."
"Certain intelligence agencies have put blades in the hands of mad men who now spare no one," said Rouhani in an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. "All those who have played a role in founding and supporting these terror groups must acknowledge their errors."
Rouhani directly criticized the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, declaring, democracy "cannot be transplanted from abroad."
Apparently, the new Iraqi Prime Minister doesn't think that Obama has us shaking in our boots sufficiently and he wants to help:
Iraqi PM Invents ISIS Subway Plot
When keeping foreign powers involved in a war on your behalf, you have to keep scaring them. Iraqi Prime Minister Hayder Abadi is trying his best, announcing an ISIS “plot” to attack an unspecified American subway, along with the one in Paris.
Abadi claimed an attack was “imminent” and that Iraqi intelligence had uncovered it and that he forwarded the intelligence to US officials. ... US officials say the whole thing is news to them, and they’ve seen no evidence of any such plot in either the United States or France, and have no credible information to back up the Iraqi premier’s allegations.
OK Mr. Abadi, amateur hour is over. Let the professionals show you how to create scary threats out of thin air...
Khorasan: The group that isn't
A few days ago I began to see news reports quoting US military and government officials talking up a group called Khorasan. This piqued my interest. In 14 years of covering this region this was a new name for me. Then the reports began to paint them as a shadowy super group of hardcore terrorists that are experimenting with technology and new, ever more fiendish ways of attacking civilians in the US. Then the group became the target of US airstrikes in Syria and suddenly the name was on every news outlet's lips. ...
I began to make some calls to contacts across the Middle East and South Asia. To say I drew a blank would be an understatement. Reactions ranged from a hearty laugh to confusion. The name was new. ...
Khorasan is almost certainly a term that the US government has coined. It's suitably exotic.... Khorasan doesn't have a flag, it doesn't have a media operation, or a brand name which people recognise. In short, it doesn't have the things that ISIL and other groups have, that turn them into a rallying call for others.
My guess, and this comes from talking to people across the spectrum, is that Khorasan is a term that may well have been coined by intelligence analysts that has been picked up by politicians and then an unquestioning US Media that has turned it into a group that should be feared. It's classic self-fulfilling prophecy theory. Call something a problem and eventually it will become a problem.
Khorasan: A name worthy of a James Bond villain and more than likely equally fictional.
Cameron holds out possibility of extending Isis air strikes to Syria
David Cameron has held out the possibility of extending British air strikes against the “psychopathic” forces of the Islamic State (Isis) from Iraq into Syria, saying there were no legal barriers to a change in the mission.
As he opened a lengthy Commons debate to approve British military action in Iraq with a warning that the campaign could last for years, the prime minister suggested he would be prepared to extend the military campaign without the initial approval of parliament in the event of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The prime minister, who was challenged by MPs across the house as he opened the debate ahead of a vote later on Friday afternoon, indicated that opposition from the Labour party had led the government to limit air strikes in the first place to targets in Iraq connected to Isis, also known as Isil.
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, confirmed that the party, whose support will be vital in ensuring the government wins the vote, had influenced the government’s approach when he said that air strikes in Syria would require a UN security council resolution.
The prime minister indicated, however, that there was no legal barrier to intervening in Syria when Alistair Burt, the former Middle East minister, asked him to arm the Free Syrian Army. Cameron said: “Let me address very directly this issue of Isil in Syria. I am very clear: Isil needs to be destroyed in Syria as well as Iraq. We support the action that the US and five Arab states have taken in Syria.”
Britain’s involvement in the new Iraq war is a doomed and dangerous gesture
Iraq has been chief bomb target for western electoral machismo since Bill Clinton’s “Monica Lewinsky” air strikes in 1998. They initiated a decade of mendacity. Saddam Hussein’s weapons arsenal was declared eliminated, then it was not. After killing hundreds of civilians, Tony Blair and his cabinet declared that Iraq still posed “an imminent threat to Britain”. The subsequent war was said to have installed freedom and democracy in that country, another untruth. As the Royal United Services Institute concluded in a recent survey, far “from reducing international terrorism … the 2003 invasion [of Iraq] had the effect of promoting it”.
Those demanding a resumption of the bombing should explain how things are different this time – or be guilty of willing mission creep. So far they could hardly be less convincing. An indication is their resort to adjectival hysteria, Isis being variously repulsive, genocidal, atrocious, monstrous, unspeakable, satanic. Everyone seems to accept that air strikes “alone” cannot win. Yet everyone also asserts that there is no question of following them with ground attacks, which is the essence of coordinated war. They are merely to “degrade Isis assets”, mostly by demolishing empty buildings at vast expense. They are sending “a message” to someone or other.
Cameron’s strategy is apparently to leave local Iraqi forces to deliver victory. That might be reasonable, given that they are the most expensively trained troops on earth. But they have shown themselves useless. They have been given intensive bombing cover by the Americans for seven weeks, and Isis is firmly in place. Meanwhile, Cameron refuses to hold his nose and form a tactically vital alliance with Assad of Syria and with the Iranians. He appears not to want to win.
If Britain intends victory, Cameron should do what George Bush and Tony Blair did last time in Iraq and go full tilt at the enemy with planes, troops, tanks and guns galore – and to hell with the consequences. There is no logistical hurdle. Baghdad is begging to have British troops fighting alongside his army. So why is Cameron tying his own hand behind his back? It looks suspiciously as if this is all for domestic consumption. The new Iraq war has no strategy, not even tactics. It is a show, a token, a pretence of a strut on the world stage.
US ‘Concerned’ by Russian Bomber Flights
Pacific Command head Admiral Samuel Locklear today said the Pentagon is growing increasingly concerned by Russian long-range bomber flights that move near the US air defense identification zone, calling it a return to “Cold War-style activity.”
Though couching the situation as a new and alarming situation, Russian bomber flights near US airspace are nothing new, and seems to happen a few times a year.
Whether those flights spark an expression of “alarm” or not depends on whether the Pentagon is pushing the idea of Russia as a potential military enemy.
Obama Blasts Brutality and Bullying, But Not by Israel
In his UN speech, replete with political double standards, US president avoided mentioning the killings and devastation caused by Israel with its relentless bombings and air strikes in Gaza
UNITED NATIONS - When U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday, he was outspoken in his criticism of Russia for bullying Ukraine, Syria for its brutality towards its own people, and terrorists of all political stripes for the death and destruction plaguing Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia.
But as the New York Times rightly pointed out, Obama made only a “fleeting” reference to Israel and Palestine in his 47-minute speech to the world body.
Nadia Hijab, executive director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, told IPS much of what Obama said about the “brutality” of the Assad regime in Syria and his criticism of “a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another” applies directly to Israel.
But he simply paid lip service to “the principle” that two states would make the region and the world more just without any indication of what the U.S. might do – or stop doing, she added.
Addressing the U.S. president directly, Hijab said: “Mr. Obama, the world would be a lot more just, if the U.S. just stopped footing the bill for Israel’s gross violations of human rights and international law.”
How Former Treasury Officials and the UAE Are Manipulating American Journalists
The tiny and very rich Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar has become a hostile target for two nations with significant influence in the U.S.: Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is furious over Qatar’s support for Palestinians generally and (allegedly) Hamas specifically, while the UAE is upset that Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (UAE supports the leaders of the military coup) and that Qatar funds Islamist rebels in Libya (UAE supports forces aligned with Ghadaffi). ...
This animosity has resulted in a new campaign in the west to demonize the Qataris as the key supporter of terrorism. The Israelis have chosen the direct approach of publicly accusing their new enemy in Doha of being terrorist supporters, while the UAE has opted for a more covert strategy: paying millions of dollars to a U.S. lobbying firm – composed of former high-ranking Treasury officials from both parties – to plant anti-Qatar stories with American journalists. That more subtle tactic has been remarkably successful, and shines important light on how easily political narratives in U.S. media discourse can be literally purchased.
This murky anti-Qatar campaign was first referenced by a New York Times article two weeks ago by David Kirkpatrick, which reported that “an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel” is seeking to depict Doha as “a godfather to terrorists everywhere” (Qatar vehemently denies the accusation). One critical component of that campaign was mentioned in passing:
The United Arab Emirates have retained an American consulting firm, Camstoll Group, staffed by several former United States Treasury Department officials. Its public disclosure forms, filed as a registered foreign agent, showed a pattern of conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of Qatar’s role in terrorist fund-raising.
How that process worked is fascinating, and its efficacy demonstrates how American public perceptions and media reports are manipulated with little difficulty.
A fascinating story, well worth a read:
Managing a Nightmare: The CIA Reveals How It Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb
Eighteen years after it was published, “Dark Alliance,” the San Jose Mercury News’s bombshell investigation into links between the cocaine trade, Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, and African American neighborhoods in California, remains one of the most explosive and controversial exposés in American journalism.
The 20,000-word series enraged black communities, prompted Congressional hearings, and became one of the first major national security stories in history to blow up online. It also sparked an aggressive backlash from the nation’s most powerful media outlets, which devoted considerable resources to discredit author Gary Webb’s reporting. Their efforts succeeded, costing Webb his career. On December 10, 2004, the journalist was found dead in his apartment, having ended his eight-year downfall with two .38-caliber bullets to the head.
These days, Webb is being cast in a more sympathetic light. He’s portrayed heroically in a major motion picture set to premiere nationwide next month. And documents newly released by the CIA provide fresh context to the “Dark Alliance” saga — information that paints an ugly portrait of the mainstream media at the time.
On September 18, the agency released a trove of documents spanning three decades of secret government operations. Culled from the agency’s in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence, the materials include a previously unreleased six-page article titled “Managing a Nightmare: CIA Public Affairs and the Drug Conspiracy Story.” Looking back on the weeks immediately following the publication of “Dark Alliance,” the document offers a unique window into the CIA’s internal reaction to what it called “a genuine public relations crisis” while revealing just how little the agency ultimately had to do to swiftly extinguish the public outcry. Thanks in part to what author Nicholas Dujmovic, a CIA Directorate of Intelligence staffer at the time of publication, describes as “a ground base of already productive relations with journalists,” the CIA’s Public Affairs officers watched with relief as the largest newspapers in the country rescued the agency from disaster, and, in the process, destroyed the reputation of an aggressive, award-winning reporter.
Thousands jailed in Uzbekistan on politically motivated charges
Uzbekistan has locked up thousands of people on politically motivated charges, with prisoners typically kept in abysmal conditions and subject to torture and ill treatment, Human Rights Watch said on Friday in a landmark new report on one of the world’s most repressive and secretive regimes.
The government of president Islam Karimov has jailed human rights activists, journalists, religious clerics and numerous other perceived critics, the report says. It profiles 34 victims, some of whom were kidnapped from abroad and locked up following sham trials.
Others wrongly behind bars include cultural figures, artists and entrepreneurs. Most were branded “enemies of the state” and jailed for nebulous offences such as “anti-constitutional activity” or “religious extremism”. The prisoners’ sentences are often extended arbitrarily for years, the report says.
The dossier is the fullest audit for a decade of the conditions inside Uzbekistan’s jails. It is based on 150 interviews with former detainees, relatives of serving prisoners and newly obtained court documents. It paints a bleak picture.
According to Human Rights Watch, at least 29 of the 34 prisoners have made credible allegations of torture or ill-treatment. They allege beatings with rubber truncheons or plastic bottles filled with water. Several complain of being given electric shocks and of hangings from wrists and ankles. Others say they have been subjected to threats of rape, sexual humiliation, and hurt to relatives. They were also denied food and water.
Ferguson protesters scuffle with police after apology to Brown family
Police and protesters clashed briefly in Ferguson just hours after the St Louis suburb’s police chief issued an apology to the family of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old who was fatally shot by a white police officer last month.
Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson appeared outside the police department in civilian clothes late Thursday to assure protesters that there would be changes in the wake of Brown’s killing, The St Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
“All those things that are causing mistrust are being evaluated and we are going to be making changes,” Jackson said.
The police chief started to march with protesters around 11pm Soon after, a scuffle broke out about 20ft behind the chief and one protester was arrested. The Post-Dispatch said at least three other protesters were arrested after another confrontation.
Ohio police given 'pep talk' on shooting scenarios ahead of Walmart encounter
The police officer who shot dead a young black man in a Walmart store in Ohio as he held an unloaded BB rifle had less than two weeks earlier received what prosecutors called a “pep talk” on how to deal aggressively with suspected gunmen.
Sean Williams and his colleagues in Beavercreek, a suburb of Dayton, were shown a slideshow invoking their loved ones and the massacres at Sandy Hook, Columbine and Virginia Tech while being trained on 23-24 July on confronting “active shooter situations”.
“If not you, then who?” officers were asked by the presentation, alongside a photograph of young students being led out of Sandy Hook elementary school in December 2012. A caption reminded the trainees that 20 children and five adults were killed before police arrived.
Williams shot dead John Crawford III 12 days later, after a 911 caller repeatedly said that Crawford was pointing a gun at Walmart customers, including children. Surveillance footage released on Thursday showed Crawford passing shoppers with the air rifle at his side.
A set of 11 slides from a presentation given to officers in the July session was made public by special prosecutor Mark Piepmeier, who presented the slides and other evidence to a grand jury in Greene County, which on Wednesday declined to indict Williams on criminal charges.
Father of Ohio man killed by police: my son might be alive if he were white
Speaking after a grand jury declined to indict the officer, who shot John Crawford III as he held an unloaded air rifle and spoke on his cellphone at the store in a suburb of Dayton, Crawford’s father said that his son might still be alive if he had not been black.
“I believe that had he been white, the tolerance level of the officer involved realistically would have probably been more favourable,” said John Crawford Jr, in an interview with the Guardian on Thursday.
“I think that he would have been given a better opportunity, a better chance,” said Crawford. “Realistically, for us to say there wasn’t some racial undertone would be frankly just untruthful.” Crawford also said that the 911 call about his son, which led to the shooting, would probably not have been made if a white man had been walking around the store with the BB rifle.
Footage released by prosecutors on Wednesday showed that Crawford was shot twice as he moved to run away from armed officers advancing up the aisle where he had been standing still for more than five minutes. The footage suggested that the 22-year-old was shot within one second of the officers rounding a corner into the aisle and shouting an order at him.
Michael Williams, an attorney for the Crawford family, told a press conference on Thursday that Crawford appeared distracted by his phone call and was not given enough time to respond to police orders. One customer who was standing in a nearby aisle has told him that he heard the officers “yell and shoot simultaneously”, Williams later told the Guardian. “They didn’t give this kid a chance,” said Williams. “They didn’t give him a chance.”
Check out this full article. The reaction of the community - and especially of the student protesters - gives me hope for the future.
US 'little rebels' protest against changes to history curriculum
Jefferson County, in the suburbs of Denver, is one of Colorado’s most populous counties, and is the largest school district in the state, with 84,000 students. “In general, school board meetings are pretty mundane,” said Jim Earley, whose three children attend Jefferson County schools.
That changed, he said, last November, following the election of the new school board in Jefferson County – one with a conservative majority of three: Julie Williams, John Newkirk and the board’s chairman, Ken Witt.
The new majority swiftly set about making enemies. They appointed a new superintendent, Dan McMinimee, in a process that many criticised as opaque; and also allocated funds to bail out two ailing charter schools. They took a hardline stance on teacher evaluations, choosing to count the results from the test of a new evaluation regime that teachers had been previously told would not be included. ...
The spark which ignited the tinderbox was a proposal written by one of the conservative majority on the school board, Julie Williams. In it, she calls for a review of the Advanced Placement history curriculum using the following set of criteria:
“Materials should promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”
Williams gave an interview with Colorado’s Channel 9 News in which she made a statement that has since become a rallying-cry for the students, parents and teachers protesting against the proposal: “I don’t think we should encourage our kids to be little rebels.” ...
In March, at a conference, the Republican National Committee adopted a resolution condemning the AP history course as a “radically revisionist” and anti-American view of history, and the Texas state board of education is moving ahead with plans which would effectively ban the AP history class outright, along with all other courses set above state level.
Devastating Drive-by Doctoring
Los Angeles hotel workers win $15 minimum wage after city council vote
Workers at big hotels in Los Angeles have won one of the highest minimum wages in the United States after a campaign by unions and civil rights groups.
The city council voted on Wednesday night to establish a minimum hourly wage of $15.37 for employees of hotels with more than 125 rooms, a decision expected to boost campaigns for better wages in other industries and cities.
Hotel workers in yellow T-shirts packed city hall and cheered as the council voted 12 to 3 for the ordinance, delivering a potentially landmark victory for the living wage movement and a defeat to business groups who warned of job losses.
“We’re thrilled that the city has passed such a historic ordinance,” said Ruth Dawson, a staff attorney and reproductive justice fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union of South California, which was part of the coalition lobbying for the measure.
Most of the affected workers – estimated to range in number from 5,300 to 13,500 – were women and many were mothers, so a living wage meant reproductive justice as well as economic, said Dawson. “We hope this decision will extend far beyond LA as an example.”
Amidst Economic Insecurity, Americans Can't Get Ahead
A new study shows that a majority of Americans have "a decidedly gloomy" economic outlook and have lost faith in the so-called American Dream.
According to the non-profit Public Religion Research Institute's 2014 American Values Survey, "Economic Insecurity, Rising Inequality, and Doubts About the Future," just 4 in 10 Americans say that the American Dream—the idea that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead—still holds true today. Nearly half (48 percent) of Americans believe that the American Dream once held true but does not anymore, while 7 percent say the American Dream was always an illusion. Most Americans (55 percent) believe that one of the biggest problems in the country is that not everyone is given an equal chance to succeed in life.
The survey finds that despite overall improvement in the U.S. economy since the Great Recession, 41 percent of Americans report high or moderate economic insecurity, with more than one-third saying that they or someone in their household had to reduce meals or cut back on food to save money over the course of the past year. Just 30 percent say the economy has improved over the last two years, with 35 percent saying it's gotten worse, and 33 percent believing it's stayed about the same.
The Evening Greens
Neil Young releases three versions of environmental protest song
Neil Young has released the first song from Storeytone, his upcoming orchestral album. Who’s Gonna Stand Up? (and Save the Earth) is available in three different versions, all free, and offered gratis to filmmaker activists trying to bring attention to climate change. ...
Besides the rousing chamber-rock rendition, two more recordings of Who’s Gonna Stand Up? have been posted on Young’s website as free downloads: an acoustic solo take, and a live version with Young backed by Crazy Horse. “I’m giving you permission to please use this music in videos, clips and communications, or in any way you see fit during this critical time,” Young writes. “I hope this music can assist you in the important work we do to reach out for understanding and action in the world.”
"We Deserve To Do More Than Just Survive": Marshall Islands Poet’s Plea to the U.N. Climate Summit
Study: Natural Gas Expansion Will Raise Emissions, Worsen Climate
Increased reliance on so-called 'bridge fuel' will worsen climate crisis by delaying shift to carbon-free renewable energy, research warns
A national shift to natural gas for power generation is no panacea for the climate crisis, new research finds.
In fact the study, published on Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, finds that treating natural gas as a so-called "bridge fuel" could actually make global warming worse by delaying the shift to carbon-free, renewable energy sources.
The study was undertaken by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and Stanford University and funded by the nonprofit organization Near Zero. The scientists asked experts for their estimates of natural gas supply curves, explained Dr. Christine Shearer, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California-Irvine, in a video abstract of the article. The researchers then input this data into an energy economic model to assess different future scenarios of natural gas production against varying potential climate policies, including: no climate policy, a moderate tax on carbon, and a "stringent" tax on carbon.
"We found that the increased use of natural gas for electricity will not significantly lower emissions, because gas competes not just with coal, but also with lower carbon sources of electricity such as renewables," said Shearer. "If we want to lower emissions and decarbonize the electricity sector, our studies and others suggest we need a price or cap on carbon."
In the video, Shearer concludes that "the biggest driver of emissions reductions" is the strength of the climate policies put in place.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
The west has no plan for winning the war against Isis – only avoiding defeat
Australia's New Anti-Terror Campaign Backfires Against Its Own Citizens
EEOC files first ever lawsuits against companies for discriminating against transgender employees.
Climate Marcher Sanders: Democratic Party or Third Party?
A Little Night Music
Louis Myers + Dave Myers ( The Aces) - The Aces Shuffle
Louis Myers - Short Haired Woman
Louis Myers - Woman Trouble
Louis Myers + The Aces - Take a Little Walk with Me
Louis Myers + The Aces - That's Allright
Louis Myers & The Aces - Just Whaling
Louis Myers - I'm A Southern Man
Louis Myers - Top Of The Harp & Bluesy
Louis Myers - Hello Stranger
Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith w/Louis Myers - Smokin' The Joint
Billy Boy Arnold & The Aces - She Fooled Me
Good Rockin' Charles & The Aces - Don't start me to talkin'
The Aces - You Are So Fine
Louis Myers & The Aces - Blues With A Feeling
Junior Wells (w/Louis Myers) - Cut That Out
Little Walter (w/Louis Myers) - Tell Me Mama
The Aces - Hide Away
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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