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 blues, r&b and soul musician Clarence Carter. Enjoy!
Clarence Carter - "Slip Away"
"Look, I can appreciate that it’s a tough decision to normalize relations with a police state whose police forces routinely murder civilians (and whose top political leaders have engaged in torture of prisoners with impunity), but Cuba did the right thing."
-- "Vin" from Manhattan
News and Opinion
CIA unlikely to penalise staff over search of Senate computers
Review panel investigating search of staffers from the intelligence committee will not recommend disciplining CIA officials
A panel investigating the CIA’s search of a computer network used by Senate staff will not recommend disciplining the agency officials involved in the incident, according to the New York Times. ...
The Times, citing current and former government officials, said the panel was likely to fault the CIA for missteps. But the newspaper said the decision not to recommend anyone for disciplinary action was likely to anger members of the intelligence committee, who have accused the agency of interfering with its investigation of agency wrongdoing.
CIA officials searched the Senate computers in late 2013, as the committee finalised its report on the agency’s handling of detainees. ...
Five CIA officials involved in the computer search have already been cited by the agency’s inspector general for the improper searches, but have defended their actions as lawful and at times ordered by CIA director John Brennan, the Times said.
CIA Gets Away with Torture Under the Rubric of the War on Terror
Abolishing the CIA
The shock resonating from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report isn’t due so much to the revelations themselves, grotesque as the details are, but to the fact that they’re now officially public. National spokespersons (except for Dick Cheney) can no longer deny, quite so glibly, that the United States is what it claims its enemies to be.
We’re responsible for the worst sort of abuses of our fellow human beings: A half-naked man freezes to death. A detainee is chained to the wall in a standing position for 17 days. The stories have no saving grace, not even “good intelligence.”
The Axis of Evil smiles, yawns: It’s home.
The question is, what do we do with this moment of national self-awareness? Beyond demanding the prosecution of high-level perps, how about really changing the game? I suggest reviving S. 126, a bill introduced into the U.S. Senate on Jan. 4, 1995 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, titled: Abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Abolish the agency that has secretly stirred up hell on earth. Its sins go far beyond torturing suspected terrorists. This agency, with its annual budget (in 2013) of nearly $15 billion, has covertly carried out the bidding of special economic and political interests since its founding, orchestrating, among much else, the overthrow of democratically elected, populist governments in Iran, Guatemala and Chile because the U.S. couldn’t control them. In each case, the regime that followed was darkly repressive, murderous; the blood of their victims is also on American hands.
The abolition of the CIA could be a conscious step in tearing our government out of the grip of the war consensus — this unelected force that feeds on perpetual global mistrust and hatred, the exact opposite of what true security requires.
Irony 101: Study Ethics with Legal Ace Who Sanctioned NSA Wiretapping, CIA Torture
The world is a confusing place and it’s hard for young people to answer complicated questions like these on their own. Fortunately, students at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, have Professor Robert Deitz to help them navigate the contemporary moral morass. “All of us are familiar with basic ethical notions,” he writes in the syllabus for his Spring 2015 course, Ethical Challenges in Public Policy. “We learn from childhood the idea that some conduct is right and other conduct is not right.”
How’d Deitz get so smart about ethics? He’s magna cum laude from Harvard (like President Obama) and then spent eights years as General Counsel at the National Security Agency, serving as the official Yes Man for General Michael Hayden, and after that three years as his Senior Councillor at the Central Intelligence Agency until 2009. At the former post Deitz rubber-stamped NSA surveillance. At the latter, he sought to derail an independent investigation by then-CIA Inspector General John Helgerson into the agency’s torture and rendition of terrorism suspects. ...
In his course syllabus Deitz (also author of “Congratulations — You Just Got Hired: Don’t Screw It Up”) promises that “ethical matters of current interest will be discussed in class.”
For example, during Week 11 Deitz will help students resolve the following questions:
“Should (may) the government lie? Specifically, should (may) the Executive lie to Congress? To the people? Are there degrees of governmental lying? Should (may) government lawyers be aggressive in their interpretations of law so as to find Executive programs and conduct lawful?”
Obama Signs Bill That Forbids Closing Gitmo, Insists He Will Ignore Provision
On Friday, President Obama signed yet another annual defense bill which explicitly forbids closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, leaving a pledge to close the site, made on his first day in office, unresolved. ...
Obama did accompany the signing with a statement insisting that anything he views as violation of his constitutional powers, which includes the Gitmo provision, would be ignored.
Yet the president has made statements to that effect with previous bills that also forbade closing the site, and has so far not actually made a serious effort to close the facility, and indeed has at times blamed Congress for not having done so.
Four Afghan Men Released From Guantánamo
Following the Pentagon's announcement on Saturday that it has repatriated four men incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay to Afghanistan, human rights advocates are urging the United States to release all who remain captive in the U.S. military prison "without delay."
Mohammad Zahir, 61, Khi Ali Gul, 51, Shawali Khan, 51, and Abdul Ghani, 42 were transferred to Afghan authorities on Friday, the Pentagon announced Saturday.
All of them were cleared for release in 2009.
The move was reportedly a delayed response to the request of new Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, who is strongly backed by the United States and recently signed the Bilateral Security Agreement, which locks in at least another decade of U.S. military entanglement in Afghanistan.
The four men are unlikely to face further incarceration in Afghanistan, according to a U.S. official cited by the New York Times.
Friday's repatriation means that 132 men—eight of them from Afghanistan—remain incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay without charges or fair trials.
"The Interview" Belittles North Korea, But is Film’s Backstory and U.S. Policy the Real Farce?
North Korea threatens US, claiming White House was involved in film plot
North Korea is threatening to retaliate against the US over a Hollywood film portraying the assassination of Kim Jong-un, saying it has “clear evidence” that Washington was heavily involved in devising the plot.
The stern but vague warnings come after Sony Pictures decided last week to cancel the release of The Interview following cyber-attacks and threats against the company. North Korea also said the US government was wrong to “recklessly” claim Pyongyang was behind the hacking. ...
Accusations the US government was involved in the film’s plot were issued by the North Korea’s powerful Policy National Defence Commission in a 1,600-word statement run on North Korea’s state news agency, KCNA. Amid the colourful phrasing typical of official North Korean statements – the US was referred to as “the cesspool of terrorism” while the storyline of The Interview was called “vicious and dastardly” – were warnings of unspecified retaliation over the comedy action film, which centres on a plan to kill the supreme leader.
FBI Steered Itself Toward Blaming North Korea for Sony Hack
... The infiltration went on for months before the hackers crashed the Sony Pictures systems, and knew a remarkable lot about the internal workings of their corporate networks. The early statements from the hackers made no mention of North Korea, or “The Interview.”
Indeed, it was only after the US started mentioning that as a possibility, and media outlets started speculating about it, that the hackers latched on to the North Korea excuse and started mentioning any problem with the movie.
Early on, Sony’s own security was seeing the incident as a probable inside job, with a disgruntled former employee almost certainly involved in laying the groundwork for the attack.
Sony only abandoned the “insider” theory after the FBI started pushing the idea of North Korea being responsible, and the movie being the instigating factor.
A Startling Admission By The Ferguson Prosecutor Could Restart The Case Against Darren Wilson
Ferguson prosecutor Bob McCulloch admitted that he presented evidence he knew to be false to the grand jury considering charges against Darren Wilson. In an interview with radio station KTRS on Friday, McCulloch said that he decided to present witnesses that were “clearly not telling the truth” to the grand jury. Specifically, McCulloch acknowledged he permitted a woman who “clearly wasn’t present when this occurred” to testify as an eyewitness to the grand jury for several hours. The woman, Sandra McElroy, testified that Michael Brown charged at Wilson “like a football player, head down,” supporting Wilson’s claim that he killed Brown in self-defense. ...
In intentionally presenting false testimony to the grand jury, McCulloch may have committed a serious ethical breach. Under the Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct, lawyers are prohibited from offering “evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.”
McCulloch justified his actions by asserting that the grand jury gave no credence at all to McElroy’s testimony. But this is speculation. Under Missouri law, the grand jury deliberations are secret and McCulloch is not allowed to be present.
A Missouri lawmaker, Karla May, called Friday for a legislative investigation of McCulloch’s conduct. May said that there is evidence to suggest that McCulloch “manipulated the grand jury process from the beginning to ensure that Officer Wilson would not be indicted.”
New York Police Declare Their Own Safety ‘Top Priority’
A Saturday incident in which a gunmen killed a pair of NYPD officers in Brooklyn has sent the department, the nation’s largest into a flurry of panic and outrage, and has police union leaders turning up the rhetoric on anybody and everybody the police don’t like. ...
To that end, police leaders are telling police that their top priority is “to ensure the safety of yourselves and your officers,” and that they should avoid making arrests “unless absolutely necessary.”
The detectives’ union is urging police to travel in threes, and to wear bulletproof vests at all times, while other police union leaders are talking up the idea that they are a “wartime” police department on a military footing.
The “enemy” in this war is clearly the public protesters critical of past police killings of unarmed civilians, and police demanded that all protests against them be halted for the time being.
Calls for Calm After NYPD Union Says Mayor, Protesters Have Blood on Their Hands for Cops’ Murder
Two NYPD cops get killed and 'wartime' police blame the protesters.
America’s nightmare of violence and racism got upended in New York City on Saturday with the shooting of a woman in Baltimore, the shooting of two cops in Brooklyn and the suicide of their suspected fleeing killer. ...
One person offering clear directives to the cops: Patrick Lynch, their union president, who asked them to sign an emotionally manipulative letter banning de Blasio from their hypothetical future funeral, and who actually said on Saturday night that there was “blood on their hands [of] those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protest … [blood] on the steps of city hall, in the office of the mayor”.
Yes, the cops blamed the protesters.
Wartime? These are the marching orders to the 35,000 armed members of the biggest police department in the United States. This is the message now sent to protesters around the nation who have been finding novel and peaceful forms of expression to resist oppression – who have been protesting in reaction to police violence, not causing it.
Milwaukee cop will not be charged in shooting of unarmed black man, says DA
A white former Milwaukee police officer who fatally shot a black man in a downtown park in April won’t face criminal charges, the county’s top prosecutor said on Monday.
The Milwaukee County district attorney, John Chisholm, said in an emailed press release that Christopher Manney will not be charged because he shot Dontre Hamilton in self-defense.
“This was a tragic incident for the Hamilton family and for the community,” Chisholm said in a statement. “But, based on all the evidence and analysis presented in this report, I come to the conclusion that Officer Manney’s use of force in this incident was justified self-defense and that defense cannot be reasonably overcome to establish a basis to charge Officer Manney with a crime.” ...
Manney shot 31-year-old Hamilton on 30 April after responding to a call for a welfare check on a man sleeping in the park. Manney said Hamilton resisted when he tried to frisk him. The two exchanged punches before Hamilton got a hold of Manney’s baton and hit him on the neck with it, the former officer has said. Manney then opened fire, hitting Hamilton 14 times.
Hamilton’s family said he suffered from schizophrenia and had recently stopped taking his medication.
Detroit tent city stands in stark contrast to resurgent downtown
Bankruptcy behind it, Detroit’s atmosphere swirls with the promise of better days. Charles Floyd Jones, however, can only hope that the city’s good fortune trickles down to him and the 10 other residents of a tent city that has sprouted in the shadow of a resurgent downtown where rental occupancy is close to full and restaurants and shops are doing brisk business.
Jones and others in this makeshift community of seven tents – believed to be the only tent city in Detroit – say they have nowhere else to go.
“By us being out of bankruptcy, they can see that you got people out here that’s struggling,” said Jones, 51.
The city’s homeless numbers swelled over the past decade as manufacturing and other jobs disappeared and homes were lost during the national foreclosure crisis. All told, about 16,200 of Detroit’s 680,000 residents – almost 2.4% – are believed to be living on the streets or in temporary shelters. That does not account for other types of homelessness, such as teens going from friend to friend and families living in motels.
DOJ Misses Another Opportunity to Go After Banks
In an agreement with a whistleblower that made possible much of the case against Bank of America that led to--it's disputed how much is real, but at least and $8 billion recovery from Bank of America, the whistleblower, Mr. O'Donnell, got $57 million. Alright?
Now, you might have thought that that would lead to a big press conference in which people thanked him for his work, first in trying to block the frauds at Countrywide and Bank of America, and then, when that didn't succeed, telling the government about the frauds and aiding them in the cases and achieving the only really litigation success they've had against a senior Bank of America official. But, of course, you'd be wrong.
So when this $57 million payment to the whistleblower was made, the Justice Department made no statements, offered no words of praise, no words of thanks, gave him no awards, and didn't use the opportunity to call on other whistleblowers to come forward, and to promise that this time the Justice Department would actually follow up in the prosecutions.
And, of course, all this is happening just after the terrible embarrassment of President Obama supporting the passage of the omnibus bill with the bailout giveaway to Citi that was drafted by Citi and was lobbied for both by city and JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon personally. So it was the perfect opportunity, as a PR matter, to put the administration on the side of the angels and against the frauds. But we have the consistent pattern--not only are there zero prosecutions--even today the Obama administration never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity to hold the banksters accountable.
This is well worth reading in full:
Greece’s radical left could kill off austerity in the EU
Another war looms in Europe: waged not with guns and tanks, but with financial markets and EU diktats. Austerity-ravaged Greece may well be on the verge of a general election that could bring to power a government unequivocally opposed to austerity. Momentous stuff: that has not happened in the six years of cuts and falling living standards that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers. ...
What misery has been inflicted on Greece. One in four of its people are out of work; poverty has surged from 23% before the crash to 40.5%; and research has demonstrated how key services such as health have been hammered by cuts, even as demand has risen. No wonder the country has experienced a political polarisation that has prompted comparisons with Weimar Germany. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn – which makes other European rightist movements look like fluffy liberals – at one point attracted up to 15% in the polls; though still a menace, its support has thankfully subsided to half that.
But unlike many other European societies – with the notable exceptions of Spain and Ireland – fury and despair with austerity has been channelled into the ranks of the populist left. After years on the fringes of Greek politics, Syriza only became a fully fledged party in 2012, and yet it won Greece’s elections to the European parliament earlier this year. The latest opinion polls give Syriza a substantial lead over the governing centre-right New Democracy party. A radical leftwing government could well assume power for the first time in the EU’s history.
After years of social ruin, Syriza is offering Greeks that precious thing: hope. Although it has shifted from demanding an immediate cancellation of debt, it is demanding a negotiated solution. It has conjured up the example of a European debt conference to wipe away a portion of the debt, as happened with Germany in 1953. Syriza’s manifesto proposes that repayment of debt could come through economic growth, rather than from budget cuts. It wants a European new deal backed up by an investment bank; an all-out war against the tax avoidance endemic in Greek society; an emergency employment programme; a raised minimum wage; and the restoration of collective bargaining. In alliance with anti-austerity forces such as Spain’s surging Podemos party, Syriza wants the EU to abandon crippling austerity policies in favour of quantitative easing and a growth-led recovery.
There’s one small catch: the determined opposition of the establishment in both Greece and the EU. ... The head of the bank of Greece has warned of “irreparable damage” to the economy if there is a change of course. Some form of coup – even if more subtle than that executed by the colonels in 1967 – cannot be ruled out. And then there’s the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, a man who hardly has an inspiring democratic mandate and is best known for questions over his former country’s tax avoidance policies, who has already made it clear that the Greek people should not vote the wrong way. ...
So 2015 could finally be the year when austerity meets its reckoning across the continent. Or it could be the year that a democratic challenge to economic madness was strangled to death. It is a game of high stakes in which the futures of millions of people could be decided.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature an article on the American Labor Union and industrial unionism. And also a collection of news stories on the ALU from the month of December 1904.
Tune in at 2pm!
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New York luxury building creates 'class separation' between tenants
Maple syrup heist: Quebec producers bounce back from sticky situation
Caroline Cyr is pointing out the security features installed to protect Quebec’s new “global strategic reserve facility” in Laurierville. The small village – which lies in a maple tree-covered snowscape off the main highway between Montreal and Quebec City – is home to the world’s biggest reserve of its kind – for maple syrup.
An 8ft-high fence and security system surrounds the reserve. Visitors must tap in a code to gain access. “We have exterior cameras,” says Cyr, pointing to the building’s extensive CCTV system. ... The producers – responsible for nearly 75% of the world’s supply of maple syrup – keep a vast back-up in a 235,000ft warehouse. The reserve was established more than a decade ago to ensure maple syrup, which is harvested in mid-winter, is available all year round. The warehouse, known as la forteresse du sirop d’érable – or the maple syrup fortress – has bank-like security features. ...
The fortress-like security measures are in response to one of the biggest thefts in Canadian history. Between 2011-12, the federation rented a facility with minimal security – before moving into their more permanent Laurierville home – and a gang of illegal market criminals used the opportunity to carry out an audacious heist.
Over the course of a year, they removed $18m of maple syrup from 6,000 barrels. The theft was discovered during a routine inspection – detection was not immediate because the barrels had been refilled with water.
Joe Cocker dies aged 70 after cancer battle
The Sheffield-born singer had a career lasting more than 40 years, with hits including You Are So Beautiful and Up Where We Belong.
His agent Barrie Marshall said Cocker, who died after battling lung cancer, was "simply unique". ...
Known for his gritty voice, Cocker - a former gas fitter - began his singing career in the pubs and clubs of Sheffield in the 1960s before hitting the big time.
He was propelled to pop stardom when his version of With A Little Help From My Friends reached number one in 1968.
He performed the song at the famous Woodstock Festival in New York state a year later.
The Evening Greens
Nicaragua to Break Ground on Massive Canal 'Scheme'
In the face of months of growing opposition and protests by local people, a Chinese firm on Monday will begin construction on a $50 billion project to link the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean that critics say will displace tens of thousands of people and bring untold environmental damage to the region.
One day ahead of the groundbreaking ceremony, dozens of furious Nicaraguans blockaded roads, stopping workers with the Hong Kong-based firm Hong Kong Nicaragua Development (HKND) from accessing the construction site. ...
The proposed canal is set to intersect Lake Nicaragua, known locally as Lake Cocibolca, sending cargo ships and tankers straight through the largest source of freshwater in Central America. Further, the canal is expected to displace tens of thousands of mostly rural and indigenous landholders and would likely devastate over 400,000 acres of rainforests and wetlands, which scientists say are critical to local and regional biodiversity conservation efforts. ...
The proposed canal, Hartmann says, disregards several of Nicaragua’s constitutional mandates—including indigenous peoples’ rights to autonomy and self-determination, and the right to collective ownership of communal and indivisible lands. Several indigenous groups have filed suit against the Ortega administration, alleging violations of constitutional and international rights, including the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Drone footage exposes US factory farm reality incl football-pitch sized 'cesspool'
Yosemite Falls come back to life thanks to California storms but drought persists
Yosemite National Park’s famous waterfalls are cascading down the valley’s towering cliffs despite one of the worst droughts in California’s history.
Thanks to a handful of December storms that have hit the dry state, Bridalveil, Cascade and Yosemite Falls are living up to their reputation as some of the most beautiful natural wonders in the country.
At 2,425 feet, Yosemite Falls is one of the tallest in North America and comprises three separate waterfalls: Upper Yosemite Fall, Middle Cascades and Lower Yosemite Fall. The National Park Service has a webcam that shows latest conditions at Yosemite Falls.
The falls were mostly dry in the summer months, but two major storms moved through California in the past few weeks providing some water in the extremely dry state.
Orangutan in Argentina zoo recognised by court as 'non-human person'
An orangutan held in an Argentinian zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary after a court recognised the ape as a “non-human person” unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported on Sunday.
Animal rights campaigners filed a habeas corpus petition – a document more typically used to challenge the legality of a person’s detention or imprisonment – in November on behalf of Sandra, a 29-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Buenos Aires zoo.
In a landmark ruling that could pave the way for more lawsuits, the Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights (Afada) argued the ape had sufficient cognitive functions and should not be treated as an object.
The court agreed Sandra, born into captivity in Germany before being transferred to Argentina two decades ago, deserved the basic rights of a “non-human person”.
“This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also for other sentient beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and scientific laboratories,” the daily La Nacion newspaper quoted Afada lawyer Paul Buompadre as saying.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
CIA Torture and the Imperialist Toolbox
Chris Hedges: Banning Dissent in the Name of Civility
President Obama Touts Partnership With Egypt's Military Regime: Yet Repression Continues Unabated
The NY Police Union’s Vile War with Mayor De Blasio
Chinese transgender community erupts into the public consciousness
A Little Night Music
Clarence Carter - Bad News
Clarence Carter - Patches
Clarence Carter - Too Weak To Fight
Clarence Carter - Getting The Bills But No Merchandise
Clarence Carter- Strokin'
Clarence Carter - Sixty Minute Man
Clarence Carter - I'd Rather Go Blind
Clarence Carter - Next to you
Clarence Carter - Snatching it back
Clarence Carter - The Court Room
Clarence Carter - Making Love (At The Dark End Of The Street)
Clarence Carter - The Feeling Is Right
Clarence Carter (w/Duane Allman) - The Road Of Love
Clarence Carter - Tell Daddy
Clarence Carter - Back door Santa
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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