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 piano player Little Johnny Jones and Delta blues pianist Willie Love. Enjoy!
Little Johnny Jones - Chicago Blues
“Journalism largely consists in saying "Lord Jones is dead" to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.”
-- G.K. Chesterton
News and Opinion
On Media Outlets That Continue to Describe Unknown Drone Victims As “Militants”
It has been more than two years since The New York Times revealed that “Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties” of his drone strikes which “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants . . . . unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” The paper noted that “this counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths,” and even quoted CIA officials as deeply “troubled” by this decision: “One called it ‘guilt by association’ that has led to ‘deceptive’ estimates of civilian casualties. ‘It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants. They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.’”
But what bothered even some intelligence officials with the agency carrying out the strikes seemed of no concern whatsoever to most major media outlets. As I documented days after the Times article, most large western media outlets continued to describe completely unknown victims of U.S. drone attacks as “militants” – even though they (a) had no idea who those victims were or what they had done and (b) were well-aware by that point that the term had been “re-defined” by the Obama administration into Alice in Wonderland-level nonsense.
Like the U.S. drone program itself, this deceitful media practice continues unabated. “Drone strike kills at least four suspected militants in northwest Pakistan,” a Reuters headline asserted last week. The headline chosen by ABC News, publishing an AP report, was even more definitive: “US Drone in Northwest Pakistan Kills 6 Militants.” In July, The Wall Street Journal‘s headline claimed: “U.S. Drone Strike Kills Five Militants in Pakistan’s North Waziristan.” Sometimes they will turn over their headlines to “officials,” as this AP report from July did: “Officials: US drone kills 7 militants in Pakistan.” ...
It’s certainly true that reporting is extremely difficult in those places where U.S. drone strikes are most common. But that’s all the more reason to exercise caution when making claims about who the victims are. Instead, these media outlets reflexively adopt the extremely dubious claims of U.S. officials and those of allied governments (such as Yemen and Pakistan) about the identity of the victims. That practice, standing alone, is indefensible enough as pro-government stenography, but the fact that it continues even two years after the NYT revealed that the U.S. government has formally adopted a completely propagandistic definition of “militant” makes this behavior willfully misleading.
No Debate: Antiwar Voices Absent from Corporate TV News Ahead of U.S. Attacks on Iraq & Syria
Free Syrian Army abandons Aleppo, leader flees to Turkey
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the recognized armed opposition group against the Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has ceased its resistance in Aleppo, Syria’s second biggest city, withdrawing its 14,000 militia from the city, a ranking Turkish security source told the Hürriyet Daily News on Nov. 17.
“Its leader Jamal Marouf has fled to Turkey,” confirmed the source, who asked not to be named. “He is currently being hosted and protected by the Turkish state.” ...
As a result, the FSA has lost control over the Bab al-Hawa border gate (opposite from Turkey’s Cilvegözü in Reyhanlı), which is now being held by a weak coalition of smaller groups led by Ahrar al-Sham.
The source said some of the weaponry delivered to the FSA by the U.S.-led coalition in its fight against both Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria might have fallen into the hands of Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra, the Syria branch of al-Qaeda.
Amid Growing US War Failures, Officials Mock ISIS ‘Midgets’
The US war against ISIS couldn’t be going much worse. ISIS continues to gain in Iraq, despite soaring US ground deployments into the nation, and the Syria air war has backfired so badly it has wiped out most of the US allies, and brought al-Qaeda, once an ISIS rival, into a partnership with them.
The administration has tried alliances, they’ve tried escalations, they’re tried everything. Now, they’ve fallen back to name-calling, with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey mocking ISIS as a “bunch of midgets.”
Dempsey claimed the war was starting to turn in America’s favor, despite all indications to the contrary, though he conceded that the war is still going to take “several years.”
Mossad-Backed Jundallah Pledges Support for ISIS
In a statement today Jundallah, a high-profile Balochistan-based Islamist faction, announced that it is pledging loyalty to ISIS, and will back “whatever plans they have” going forward. The move follows reports from the Associated Press last week that the group’s leadership was meeting with ISIS members.
Jundallah is primarily a Balochistan separatist group, active in both Pakistan’s far west and in southeastern Iran. In recent years, the group’s attacks have mostly centered on Iran, and there is evidence they have been backed by Israel’s Mossad in doing so.
Jundallah was originally an ally of al-Qaeda, but had a falling out with them in 2003. The group then started getting funding from what they claimed were CIA agents, and there was ample evidence at the time that it was the US funding them.
It did not turn out to be the case, however. Rather, Jundallah was being funding in US currency by men with US passports who were actually Israeli spies, in what was seen as an attempt to frame the US for the backing of terror attacks inside Iran.
US and Iranian negotiators in crunch nuclear talks
Speaking to journalists on his arrival at Vienna airport on Tuesday, Mohammad Javad Zarif said that after nine months of increasingly intense negotiations an agreement was still possible, but Tehran would not be to blame if the talks collapsed.
“If, because of excessive demands by the other side we don’t get a result, then the world will understand that the Islamic Republic sought a solution, a compromise and a constructive agreement and that it will not renounce its rights and the greatness of the nation,” Zarif said.
The remarks illustrated the rising tensions as the talks approach a deadline next Monday. Differences have narrowed considerably over the last nine months, but as the number of outstanding issues has shrunk, the differences over them have sharpened.
The remaining issues revolve around the uranium enrichment capacity that Iran would be allowed and how fast sanctions would be lifted in return for Tehran’s acceptance of curbs on its nuclear programme. The Associated Press quoted diplomats as saying the US would accept an enrichment programme with 4,500 centrifuges, but that Iran was prepared to accept a cut from 10,200 to 8,000. At the lower figure, it would take Iran nearly a year to make a nuclear warhead, if it decided to do so. At the higher figure it would theoretically take four or five months.
On sanctions, the west was prepared to offer temporary suspension of some by US presidential waiver and the unblocking of frozen Iranian funds. Tehran wants the immediate lifting of major banking and oil sanctions.
Haaretz obtains full document of EU-proposed sanctions against Israel
An internal European Union document on proposed sanctions against Israel, which Haaretz obtained in its entirety on Monday, reveals new details on the suggestions being made in the internal discussions among EU member states that have been taking place in Brussels. Among the options under consideration are measures against European companies that work in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. ...
High-ranking European diplomats who were involved in discussions about the document told Haaretz that work on the topic began on September 11. The EU’s Political and Security Committee in Brussels, which is made up of the ambassadors of the EU’s 28 member states, gave the committee of experts on Middle Eastern affairs – which is known in EU jargon as the Mashreq-Maghreb Working Party, or MaMa for short – the task of drafting a document containing the response measures to acts by the Israeli government that are liable to make the two-state solution an impossibility. ...
“A large group of member states pushed for this move after the failure of the talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and after the war in Gaza,” the European diplomats said.
“Several states, including some that are considered great friends of Israel, are the ones who conceived the move and are now hiding behind the EU’s foreign service so that it can act as the bad cop.”
The senior European diplomats said the document was written after a mandate was received from the political echelon of all 28 member states. “This is not a case in which eurocrats in Brussels are working against Israel on their own,” the European diplomats said. “This is a sign that a great deal of anger and frustration exist in the member states. In recent months there were meetings of European foreign ministers in which ministers, who are considered extremely close to Israel, spoke in the most critical way against the policies of Netanyahu’s government.”
Putin's Warships Head to Philippine Sea for Target Practice in Latest Show of Military Might
Russian President Vladimir Putin may have left this weekend's G20 summit in Brisbane early, but his warships stuck around.
A battle group of four Russian ships including the heavily armed destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov and the guided missile cruiser Varyag had accompanied Putin's visit in international waters off the Australian coast. After Putin announced he was leaving early on Sunday to get some sleep — Western leaders reportedly browbeat him for as long as eight hours over Russian support for eastern Ukraine's rebels — the battle group joined up with another guided missile cruiser and destroyer in the Philippine Sea, where they tracked Russian submarines posing as the enemy and fired artillery at floating targets.
The ships' maneuvers near Australia and target practice near the Philippines, both of which are staunch US allies, were the Russian military's latest show of strength following expansive air exercises over the North, Black and Baltic seas and a reported incursion by a submarine in the Stockholm archipelago last month that sparked a 10-day "Hunt for the Reds in October." A growing number of Russian military encounters around the globe points to what analysts call a new era of Cold War-style brinkmanship, with the Kremlin apparently attempting to deter a growing NATO and US military presence in eastern and northern Europe in response to the Ukraine crisis.
At the heart of the threat lies Russia's still-potent nuclear capability. Last week, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Russia would increase the number of long-range bomber flights and, in an unprecedented move, send them as far as the Gulf of Mexico.
Putin says west is provoking Russia into new cold war as ‘spies’ deported
Vladimir Putin has suggested to a German interviewer that the west is provoking Russia into a new cold war. The airing of the interview, which was recorded by the German channel ARD in Vladivostok last week, followed Russia’s tit-for-tat expulsions of German and Polish diplomats, as well as the deportation of a Latvian accused of spying.
Asked whether the accusatory rhetoric between Moscow and Washington and a noticeable increase in Russian displays of military strength near western countries points to a new cold war, Putin said two rounds of Nato expansion in central and eastern Europe had been “significant geopolitical game changers” that forced Russia to respond.
Moscow resumed strategic aviation flights abroad several years ago in response to US nuclear bomber flights to areas near Russia that had continued after the cold war, he added.
“Nato and the United States have military bases scattered all over the globe, including in areas close to our borders, and their number is growing,” Putin said. “Moreover, just recently it was decided to deploy special operations forces, again in close proximity to our borders. You have mentioned various [Russian] exercises, flights, ship movements and so on. Is all of this going on? Yes, it is indeed.”
G20 Summit Failed to Seriously Address Global Problems
Colombia Reacts With Alarm and Speculation as FARC Peace Talks Suspended
Colombia's president has suspended peace negotiations to end the 50-year civil war with FARC guerrilla fighters, saying that the rebels kidnapped army general Rubén Darío Alzate this weekend.
The decision by President Juan Manuel Santos — heralded as the leader most eager to forge a treaty with the group in Colombia's history — has prompted a flurry of support by politicians and leading newspapers, who criticized FARC's continued attacks during the past two years of peace talks. ...
The lack of ceasefire helped prompt the kidnapping, University of Cartagena's director of peace and displacement studies Rosa Jimenez explained. "Situations like this... happen because the dialogues continue in the middle of the conflict without suspending hostilities of the actors," Jimenez told VICE News. ...
She said Santos' decision was a way to test FARC's commitment to the treaty, which could fall apart if FARC does not return the missing general "unconditionally," Bogota think tank director Jorge Restrepo told the Economist.
And to some controversial peace opponents — like former President Alvaro Uribe — Santos' announcement came as a pleasant surprise. Uribe, who has argued that FARC is a "terrorist" group that must be defeated by force, heralded Santos' decision as evidence that the negotiations will fail.
Return of the Ferguson War Zone? Missouri Enacts State of Emergency Ahead of Mike Brown Grand Jury
From the "Profiles in Courage" Department:
Ferguson: Mo. Governor ducks taking responsibility for policing protests
Jay Nixon falters when asked to say who is in charge of maintaining order after grand jury gives Michael Brown death ruling
Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri on Monday refused to take personal responsibility for the policing of protests in Ferguson, hours after declaring a state of emergency and authorising the national guard to return to the city where an unarmed black 18-year-old was shot dead.
Asked after his announcement “does the buck ultimately stop with you when it comes to how any protests are policed?”, Nixon gave a faltering response lasting almost 90 seconds and declined to accept authority over potential unrest following an imminent grand jury decision.
“I just will have to say I don’t spend a tremendous amount of time personalising this vis-a-vis me,” he said. Asked subsequently to explain who ultimately was in charge, Nixon declined or was unable to identify any one person or agency that had control.
Anonymous takes over Ku Klux Klan's Twitter account
The KKK began a war of intimidation by threatening to use lethal force against Ferguson protesters and handing out flyers in the St Louis area.
The group of hackers launched Operation KKK, using #OpKKK to respond to the white supremacist group’s online posts. Operation KKK revealed the identities of Klan members in the St Louis area.
The KKK responded with retweets and mocked Anonymous’s challenges: “Our Kommunity is not at all scared of the threats from anonymous. Just try us. You’ll regret it. #WhitePrideWorldWide.”
Anonymous replied in true vigilante style on Sunday, by taking control of the KKK Twitter account and replacing the logo with its own.
The FBI vs. Martin Luther King: Inside J. Edgar Hoover’s "Suicide Letter" to Civil Rights Leader
California Tells Court It Can’t Release Inmates Early Because It Would Lose Cheap Prison Labor
Out of California’s years-long litigation over reducing the population of prisons deemed unconstitutionally overcrowded by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, another obstacle to addressing the U.S. epidemic of mass incarceration has emerged: The utility of cheap prison labor.
In recent filings, lawyers for the state have resisted court orders that they expand parole programs, reasoning not that releasing inmates early is logistically impossible or would threaten public safety, but instead that prisons won’t have enough minimum security inmates left to perform inmate jobs.
The dispute culminated Friday, when a three-judge federal panel ordered California to expand an early parole program. California now has no choice but to broaden a program known as 2-for-1 credits that gives inmates who meet certain milestones the opportunity to have their sentences reduced. But California’s objections raise troubling questions about whether prison labor creates perverse incentives to keep inmates in prison even when they don’t need to be there.
The debate centers around an expansive state program to have inmates fight wildfires. California is one of several states that employs prison labor to fight wildfires. And it has the largest such program, as the state’s wildfire problem rapidly expands arguably because of climate change. By employing prison inmates who are paid less than $2 per day, the state saves some $1 billion, according to a recent BuzzFeed feature of the practice. California relies upon that labor source, and only certain classes of nonviolent inmates charged with lower level offenses are eligible for the selective program.
Keiser Report: Big Problem? Regulators!
Matt Stoller: Lobbying Used to Be a Crime: A Review of Zephyr Teachout’s New Book on the Secret History of Corruption in America
If there’s one way to summarize Zephyr Teachout’s extraordinary book Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United, it is that today we are living in Benjamin Franklin’s dystopia. Her basic contention, which is not unfamiliar to most of us in sentiment if not in detail, is that the modern Supreme Court has engaged in a revolutionary reinterpretation of corruption and therefore in American political life. This outlook, written by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in the famous Citizens United case, understands and celebrates America as a brutal and Hobbesian competitive struggle among self-interested actors attempting to use money to gain personal benefits in the public sphere. ...
Teachout points out something fairly obvious, but not recognized today—the theoretical underpinning of the American revolution was that a corrupt government had no legitimacy to govern. The debates they had—Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, and people in the culture at large—reflected a divide between political philosophers Thomas Hobbes versus Baron de Montesquieu. Hobbes’s vision, echoed today among the Chicago school’s law and economics scholars, was that corruption as a concept made no sense. Life was a brutal competition among selfish actors. In such a paradigm, a revolution would simply be a question of raw power, rather than any set of principles.
The founders roundly repudiated this view, adopting Montesquieu’s arguments that there is such a thing as a public interest and that people could orient themselves around it given sufficient personal virtue and adequate structural incentives to do so. ...
In her discussion of the 19th century robber baron era, she includes the critical yet forgotten law of 19th century lobbying. Lobbying today is considered a Constitutionally protected free speech activity, an unfortunate but necessarily tolerated side effect of the First Amendment. That, however, is a relatively recent legal status.
In the 19th century, lobbying was perceived as an illegitimate and inherently corrupt activity, a betrayal of one’s own citizenship. ... It was only in the post-World War II era that courts began carving out a First Amendment right on lobbying. Lobbying in the post-war administrative state was a necessity, and the increasing expense of public campaigns suggested that restrictions were necessary. But in 1976, the Supreme Court ushered in the modern Hobbesian view of political economy with its ruling in Buckley vs. Valeo. This case invalidated restrictions on campaign spending, and began the reinterpretation of corruption to simply mean quid pro quo bribery. The court argued that spending on elections in a First Amendment right, though the government had a valid anti-corruption interest in limiting speech. Contribution limits were valid, but spending limits were not. Post Buckley, the only limits on campaign spending became corruption-based, so scholars and lawyers began defining their policy preferences in terms of corruption, twisting and warping the term.
The Evening Greens
Thanks, Obama! Hope you enjoy DC's water after your policies lead to its pollution. Oh, but you probably only drink the finest bottled water, anyway.
Fracking to be allowed in largest national forest on US east coast
Over the objection of environmental groups and Virginia’s governor, a federal management plan released on Tuesday will allow a form of natural gas drilling known as fracking to occur in parts of the largest national forest on the east coast.
The US Forest Service originally planned to ban fracking in the 1.1m-acre George Washington National Forest, but energy companies cried foul after a draft of the plan was released in 2011. It would have been the first outright ban on the practice in a national forest.
“We think we’ve ended up in a much better place, which is we are allowing oil and gas drilling,” Robert Bonnie, the US Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary for natural resources and environment, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.
“From a policy perspective, the Forest Service allows fracking on forest lands throughout the country. We didn’t want to make a policy decision or change policy related to fracking. This decision is about where it’s appropriate to do oil and gas leasing.” ...
Under the new plan, which is subject to appeal, drilling will only be permitted on 167,000 acres where there are existing private mineral rights and on about 10,000 acres that are already leased to oil and gas companies. The leased acreage is in Highland County, while the private mineral rights are scattered throughout the forest. Many local government officials near the forest objected to allowing any drilling, and in September, Governor Terry McAuliffe told the inaugural meeting of a climate change panel that he would not allow fracking in the forest as long as he was governor.
Revealed: Keystone company's PR blitz to safeguard its backup plan
The company behind the Keystone XL project is engaged in a “perpetual campaign” that would involve putting “intelligent” pressure on opponents and mobilising public support for an entirely Canadian alternative, bypassing Barack Obama and pipeline opposition in the US.
Hours before a Senate vote to force US approval of the Keystone pipeline, the industry playbook to squash opposition to the alternative has been exposed in documents made available to the Guardian.
In the five strategy documents, made available to the Guardian by the campaign group Greenpeace, representatives from public relations giant Edelman’s offices in Calgary propose an exhaustive strategy to push through the Energy East project including mobilisation of third-party supporters and opposition research against pipeline opponents. ...
In the wake of the Keystone XL opposition and a pipeline spill in 2010 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, oil industry projects now face “permanent, persuasive, nimble and well-funded opposition groups”, in Edelman’s words.
But the documents say the oil industry and public relations firms have developed an effective strategy to beat back those opponents through online organising.
Industry mobilised a million activists and generated more than 500,000 pro-Keystone comments during the public comment period, one of the documents says.
They advise: “Add layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources” ... “Third-party voices must also be identified, recruited and heard to build an echo chamber of aligned voices.
Edelman also offers “detailed background research on key opposition groups” such as Council of Canadians, Equiterre, the David Suzuki Foundation, Avaaz and Ecology Ottawa. The research would use public records, financial disclosures, legal databases and social media.
Japan cuts Antarctic whale quota after UN court ruling
Japan has unveiled a plan to kill 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean next year as part of its push to resume whaling following a legal setback instigated by Australia.
The plan, released by the Japanese government on Tuesday, sets out a 12-year program that would result in the slaughter of a total of 3,996 whales. The whales will be hunted in a vast sweep of Antarctic waters, including ocean claimed by Australia.
The 333 annual figure is a sharp reduction in the previous quota Japan awarded itself last year, when it aimed to take 855 minke whales, 50 humpback whales and 10 fin whales. Japan ended up harpooning far fewer than this amount, however, due to the disruptive tactics of anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd.
Japan suspended its annual whale hunt following an adverse ruling at the international court of justice in March. The case brought by Australia and supported by New Zealand successfully argued that Japan’s program was not scientific and was simply a façade for commercial whaling.
However, Japan has committed to starting a new whaling program in the Southern Ocean at the end of 2015.
Canaries in the Arctic: New Study Shows Stunning Polar Bear Decline
According to a new study published in the current issue of Ecological Applications, the polar bear population in eastern Alaska and western Canada has declined approximately 40 percent in recent years.
The investigation, conducted by a team of researchers from the U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS), Environment Canada, and other groups, found that the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population (one of just two polar bear populations in the U.S.) has dropped to just 900 bears, a severe decline since the last estimate in 2006 that documented more than 1,500 bears.
In addition, just two of 80 polar bear cubs that the international team tracked between 2004 and 2007 survived, according to Jeff Bromaghin, USGS research statistician and lead author of the study. Normally about half of the cubs live.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Is Texas Getting Ready to Kill An Innocent Man?
Introducing the Pentagon's New 'Third Offset Strategy': Welcoming Your New Robot Overlords
Letting the Neocons Lead
Ten Illegal Police Actions to Watch for in Ferguson
There's Been HOW Many Pipeline Spills in Alberta in The Last Four Months??
Google’s secret NSA alliance: The terrifying deals between Silicon Valley and the security state
Remembering the Neglected and Harassed
A Little Night Music
Little Johnny Jones - Doin the Best I Can
Little Johnny Jones - I May Be Wrong
Little Johnny Jones - Dirty By The Dozen
Little Johnny Jones - Big town Playboy
Little Johnny Jones - Shelby County Blues
Little Johnny Jones - Worried Life Blues
Little Johnny Jones - Hoy Hoy
Willie Love - V8 Ford
Willie Love & his Three Aces - Feed My Body To The Fishes
Willie Love - Little Car Blues
Willie Love & his Three Aces - 21 Minutes To 9
Willie Love & his Three Aces - Everybody's Fishing/My Own Boogie
Willie Love & his Three Aces - Shady Lane Blues
Willie Love & his Three Aces - Nelson Street Blues
Willie Love & his Three Aces - Shout, Brother, Shout
Willie Love & his Three Aces - Vanity Dresser Boogie/Seventy Four Blues
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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