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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist Jimmy Johnson. Enjoy!
Jimmy Johnson - I'm A Jockey/In The Midnight Hour
"It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth."
-- John Steinbeck
News and Opinion
The Mysterious Case of Prisoner 212
Researchers and reporters had long counted the total number of prisoners who cycled through Guantanamo at 779, but the Senate intelligence committee’s report on CIA torture revealed that there was one more previously unknown detainee. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, also known as prisoner 212, was held at a secret black site at Guantanamo Bay, according to the report, bringing the total number of detainees to 780. ...
More than a single digit change in the tally, al-Libi’s hitherto unknown presence at Guantanamo underscores how much remains unknown about the total number of detainees and their fates. The Senate report includes a list of 119 men– a rare official disclosure of the individuals held and in many cases tortured by the CIA. Only a fraction of those had previously been acknowledged as CIA detainees, though journalists and human rights groups had pieced together the population of prisoners from disclosures about Guantanamo, leaked documents, and court proceedings. ...
The black sites in the Senate report are identified by color code names, but journalists and human rights groups quickly identified them. As the Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg first noted, the report confirms that al-Libi was at one of Guantanamo’s black sites—“Maroon” and “Indigo” in the report. Al-Libi was secreted away from Guantanamo in 2004 along with four other so-called high value detainees, before the Supreme Court determined that prisoners at the naval base had the right to challenge their detention.
Disappearing those detainees gave the CIA leeway to continue secret interrogations outside the view of any court system. Al-Libi ultimately ended up in prison in Libya, where he died in 2009. ...
According to the Intercept’s research, there are still 50 former CIA prisoners named by Senate investigators whose fates are unknown, and who have not, to our knowledge, spoken to the media or human rights groups.
Should You Condemn the CIA for Torture If You Don't Condemn the Iraq War?
US to Hike Private Mercenaries in Iraq Amid Expanding War, Says Senior Official
The U.S. government is preparing to hike the number of private mercenary forces in Iraq, as part of the expanding war in that country and neighboring Syria, an anonymous senior U.S. official told Reuters.
There are currently at least 1,800 private contractors in Iraq, and the official said it is not immediately clear how many additional mercenaries will be sent, according to Reuters.
Nonetheless, journalists Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart note, the plan to boost numbers "underscores Obama's growing commitment in Iraq. When U.S. troops and diplomats venture into war zones, contractors tend to follow, doing jobs once handled by the military itself."
The mercenary forces will add to the approximately 1,750 U.S. troops currently in Iraq, a number that is slated to climb past 3,000 after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered more deployments last week.
U.S. Inaction Killed Hostage Kassig, Says Lawyer
In early October, New York lawyer Stanley Cohen found himself at the forefront of a private effort to negotiate the release of Islamic State captive Abdul-Rahman (Peter) Kassig, documented in a recent report by The Guardian. Cohen, whose past legal clients have included members of Hamas and Hezbollah, used his extensive contacts in the region to help arrange a promising dialogue between a prominent Jordan-based Salafi Islamist scholar and his counterpart in Islamic State. ...
While he lacked connections with Islamic State itself, Cohen was able to reach out to Jordan-based Islamist scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, and convince him to open discussions with Turki Binali, a one-time protege of Maqdisi’s who had since turned radical and joined with I.S. The goal of the dialogue was to free Kassig and create an agreement that would preclude further executions of Western hostages at the hands of Islamic State. This, in turn, would be achieved by convincing Binali, one of the most prominent religious authorities within I.S., to officially forswear execution tactics. ...
The negotiations showed promise and succeeded in temporarily forestalling Kassig’s execution. But they ultimately faltered after Jordanian police suddenly arrested Maqdisi on October 27th on a charge of “incitement“, purportedly for an online blog post he had written before negotiations began that had characterized the bombing campaign against Islamic State as a “crusade”.
With the arrest of the main interlocutor seeking Kassig’s release, Cohen’s backchannel to Islamic State was severed. Kassig is believed to have been executed not long after, on November 16.
Speaking to The Intercept over the past week, Cohen alleged that the U.S. government prioritized political considerations over the well being of Kassig and other hostages and declined to take steps within its power to secure his safety.
Merry Christmas! The NSA's gift is a list of all the times it wrongly spied on you
If you want to release something no one will pay attention to, what time's better than Christmas Eve? At least, that appeared to be the National Security Agency's thinking. Last night, the NSA released reports detailing all the times they've illegally spied on American citizens. Ho ho ho!
The heavily-redacted documents were released in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act. Many of these privacy violations have been previously reported on, but these documents show new specifics. A series of annual and quarterly reports from 2001 through the second quarter of 2013 are now available for perusal, and they cover some of the NSA's greatest hits: stalking potential romantic partners, a practice apparently so common it's been nicknamed LOVEINT; erroneously targeting US citizens for spying; database queries that returned queries on US citizens who weren't targeted; storage of data on servers "not authorized" to hold it; and access by people without security clearance to — well, to something; the specifics were redacted. ...
Congress has considered restrictions on the agency's authority, but hasn't acted to do anything about illegal spying on its citizens. The US Senate voted down the USA Freedom Act in November; the bill would have ended the controversial phone record metadata collection by the NSA, though it didn't roll back any of the NSA's broad surveillance powers.
Evil torturers catch a break: How America got distracted from a national travesty
The United States is in real trouble when the story about the hacking into Sony Pictures computers and their decision to pull an inane comedy totally big foots the deeply troubling Senate Intelligence Committee’s study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
Talk about using the holidays to flush bad news. Between the salacious internal Sony emails, the Obama administration’s watershed reset of U.S.-Cuban relations, and Christmas the average American will not get reporting on the fine print in the Senate Committee report nor a full analysis of the ambiguous CIA response.
In this case the devil really is in the details. For years the public was told the torture techniques saved lives, prevented additional terror attacks and helped lead to the capture of Osama bin Laden. Not so, says the Senate report, which goes on to chronicle years of obfuscation, deceit and deception by a CIA that was hell-bent on covering its tracks. Now the CIA is saying it is “unknowable” if the torture techniques produced results.
Even well into the Obama administration the Agency continued to go to the extraordinary steps of hacking into the Senate Committee’s computers. The Agency’s track record already includes the covert destruction in 2005 of 92 videos of detainee interrogations, which would have been critical to congressional investigators. In 2010 a federal special prosecutor declined to prosecute. ...
The 500-plus pages of the Senate Committee report that was publicly released is less than 10 percent of the more than 6,000 pages compiled by the panel’s investigators, the remainder of which remains classified. No telling when we will get to read it. Consider that the full text of the Vietnam era Pentagon Papers did not see the full light of day until 2011.
New Talks Aimed at Ending Ukraine Conflict Underway
Over 4,700 people have been killed, over 10,000 wounded, and more than one million displaced in the conflict so far.
The talks involve representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and are taking place in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. ...
On Tuesday, Ukraine took a step towards NATO membership when its parliament voted to drop the country's 'non-aligned' status. Russia denounced that move, with Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov telling Russian news agency Interfax: "NATO countries pushed Kiev to this counterproductive decision, trying to turn Ukraine into a front line of confrontation with Russia."
The Liberal Idiocy on Russia/Ukraine
Instead of dealing with what actually happened in Ukraine, U.S. pundits and politicians – from conservative to liberal – have bought into a fantasy version of events in which the coup-makers all wore white hats and the elected president and his eastern Ukrainian supporters – along with Putin – all wore black hats.
But there are, as always, rhetorical differences across the U.S. partisan liberal-conservative divide. On Ukraine, the American Right urges an escalation of military tensions against Russia while chiding President Barack Obama for weakness (when compared with Putin’s toughness) – and liberals cheer on Obama’s supposed success in driving the Russian economy into a painful recession while accusing the Right of having a man-crush on Putin.
This liberal “theme” of jabbing the Right for its alleged love of Putin takes the Right’s comments about his forcefulness out of context, simply to score a political point. But the Right-loves-Putin charge has become all the rage with the likes of Paul Krugman, Thomas L. Friedman and other liberals who are bubbling with joy over the economic suffering being inflicted on the people of Russia and presumably eastern Ukraine.
Arrests as Hong Kong protests return
Hong Kong police said they arrested another 37 people as pro-democracy protesters returned to the streets in a second night of resurgent demonstrations demanding genuine elections for the city’s chief executive.
The police said in a statement that protesters blocked five roads over Thursday night in the Mong Kok neighborhood and disobeyed police orders to disperse. Those arrested were aged from 13 to 76. ...
The Facebook page of a pro-democracy activist group called Hong Kong Shield said that over the two nights protesters sang politically themed songs and held the umbrellas that have become a symbol of their movement. Some in the crowd wore red Santa Claus hats and chanted “I want true democracy” in Cantonese.
NYPD Arrests Six In New York Over Alleged Threats to Police
A total of six New Yorkers have been arrested for threatening police officers since the ambush shooting of two NYPD cops in Brooklyn on Saturday. On Thursday, Reuters reported two further arrests were made relating to alleged threats against police officers.
Sergeant Carlos Nieves said that the six arrestees have been charged with making terror threats or making false 911 calls. One of the latest suspects, 41-year-old Tyrone Melville, was arrested Wednesday after allegedly calling the precinct of slain officer Rafael Ramos and asking if the bullets had been removed from the dead officer's head so "he could kill more cops." Melville was charged with making terroristic threats and aggravated harassment.
A second individual arrested Wednesday, 26-year-old Jose Maldonado, was charged with making terrorist threats after reportedly posting to Facebook threats to kill police officers, which included posting pictures of weapons. He reportedly told cops that he'd "had a little too much to drink" when he posted the comments.
Ferguson, NYC, Milwaukee: Protests Erupt as Officer Cleared in Killing of Unarmed Dontre Hamilton
Grand Jury Clears Houston Officer in Killing of Unarmed Black Man
A grand jury on Tuesday cleared a Houston police officer for the fatal shooting of Jordan Baker in January.
Juventino Castro will not be charged for killing 26-year-old Baker, who was unarmed, in a decision that comes amid growing civil rights protests against police racism and brutality.
Castro was off duty at the time of the shooting, but was in uniform as a private security officer. He claimed Baker had charged at him during a confrontation.
Baker's death, as well as the jury's decision, echo the similar cases of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Dontre Hamilton, all unarmed black men killed in violent encounters with police officers who were subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing.
St Louis protests after police shooting of black teenager Antonio Martin
Demonstrators took to the streets for a second night after a white police officer in Berkeley, Missouri, killed a black 18-year-old who police said pointed a gun at him.
Dozens of protesters held a vigil late Wednesday at the gas station in the St Louis suburb where Antonio Martin was shot, and they briefly blocked traffic on Interstate 170 during a march before returning to the station. Berkeley Police Chief Frank McCall told KMOV-TV that six to eight people were arrested.
Later, about 75 people staged a peaceful protest early Christmas morning outside of a nearby church, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Police in riot gear were present. ...
Unlike in the death of Brown, who was unarmed and whose shooting was not captured on video, Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins said Wednesday that surveillance footage appeared to show Martin pulling a gun on the unidentified 34-year-old officer who questioned him and another man about a theft at a convenience store. ...
Taurean Russell, co-founder of Hands Up United, asked if police had any reason to question Martin in the first place. Mistrust of police remains high among blacks, many of whom are weary of harassment, said Russell, who is black.
St Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar did not provide more details Wednesday about the theft Martin was being asked about.
Hundreds of Thousands Call on FCC to Halt 'Disastrous Merger'
Critics of the proposed Comcast buyout of Time Warner Cable are flooding the Federal Communications Commissions, calling on the government office to shut down this "disastrous merger."
In addition to the thousands of individuals who voiced their opposition to the $45 billion media mega-merger, over 600,000 comments were submitted by advocacy groups Common Cause and Consumers Union ahead of the public comment period deadline Tuesday.
"Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to this disastrous merger," said Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for Consumers Union in a recent press statement. "They know that combining two companies with terrible track records for providing lousy service at high prices will make an already bad situation worse. We need more competition to give consumers real choices, not an even bigger Comcast that will dominate the market and be even less responsive to its customers’ needs." ...
Despite the end of the comment period, a resolution is still weeks away. On Monday, the FCC announced it is delaying its internal review after discovering that more than 7,000 Time Warner Cable documents were not properly handed over to the agency.
Bernie Sanders Announces Deadline on Presidential Decision
'I don't want to do it unless we can win this thing,' Sanders told Associated Press.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) announced Friday that he will decide by March if he will enter the 2016 presidential race—and whether he'll run on a Democrat or Independent platform.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Sanders said his nomination would be more than a political game. "I don't want to do it unless I can do it well," he said. "I don't want to do it unless we can win this thing."
Sanders said he would make a "gut decision" about running and acknowledged that Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would be his primary opponent.
Although Sanders is a socialist, his views on many issues regularly align with Senate Democrats. Still, he has criticized his colleagues in the past for their weaker approach to issues he sees as particularly dire, such as the income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform.
In an interview with C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program in November, Sanders attributed the Republican midterm sweep of the Senate to lackluster campaigns on the Democrat side, stating, "I think many of the Democratic candidates did not run on an agenda which resonated with working people."
Wage Activists Hit UK Retailers With Tag Switch for Living Wage
UK retailers enjoying the pre-Christmas rush were hit by a number of undercover activists calling for them to increase pay this year. The biggest retailers in the country have seen their labels disappear from merchandise and replaced with calls to pay their staff a living wage.
The actions started early in December, and activists are hoping they will continue well into the New Year sales. It comes as politicians and the public are waking up to the inconvenient truth that millions of people across the UK earn their living by working long hours in dead-end, low-wage jobs — and some of the worst offenders are the UK's most successful and profitable retail chains. ...
In the Croydon area of south London, a group of young activists who are part of the Citizens UK network got together to switch labels in Primark, Debenhams, Sports Direct, and Marks and Spencer. ...
As the Christmas rush pushed profits, bonuses, and shares merrily up for the lucky few reaping the benefits at the top end of the pay scale, activists are hoping company executives will share some festive cheer and stop scrooging on pay for those working the long, arduous hours that earn these gains.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature two stories from Life and Labor, the official journal of the Women's Trade Union League: one on organizing efforts of Boston office cleaners, and the other on women working the night shift in New York.
Tune in at 2pm!
|
Wall Street Had a Merry Christmas. The New Year’s Still Up For Grabs.
They’re calling it a “Christmas gift” for Wall Street. Last week the Federal Reserve announced that it’s giving U.S. banks yet another extension on the “Volcker Rule” provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. As a result of this latest decision, banks won’t have to comply until mid-2017.
The Dodd-Frank bill was passed in 2010.
Banks wanted a delay because they claimed they needed the time to prepare. Does anybody really think the nation’s largest and most powerful financial institutions need seven years to restructure the casino-like aspect of their operations? ... What’s really going on? For one thing, every year that the rule is delayed is another year the banks can maximize their earnings. But the game may be even deeper than that. The Fed delay makes a kind of sense – if you believe Congress plans to revoke the Volcker Rule altogether.
It’s almost as if Wall Street’s been expecting a break all along – but then, maybe it has. After all, instead of shoring up Dodd-Frank by restoring Glass-Steagall and breaking up too-big-to-fail banks, lawmakers have looked the other way. The Fed and other regulators have routinely dragged their feet on the rule-making that accompanies a law like Dodd-Frank. The Justice Department has ignored overwhelming evidence of banker criminality and given a free pass to lawbreakers on Wall Street.
And this month Congress ran the same game it’s used in the past: It attached a corporate-friendly provision to a “must pass” bill, using the implicit threat of a shutdown and the shallow reporting of a compliant news media to slip its machinations past the American people. ...
If you want a dark glimpse of the coming year for this holiday season, the “cronybus” deal points its bony finger toward 2015 like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee … and thy economy.
The New Robber Barons
How a Top Obama Crony Moved From Idaho To a $2 Million Washington Estate
Raised in Idaho by a single mother, Messina moved to Washington in 1995, in his mid-20s, to take a job as a legislative aide for Max Baucus, the conservative Democratic senator from Montana (now ambassador to China). Baucus supported George W. Bush-era personal and corporate tax cuts, and other policies favored by the Wall Street firms, pharmaceutical companies, and lobbyists, from whom he raised so much money.
Up until 2002, Messina was still largely unknown. But that year, when managing Baucus’s Senate re-election campaign, he released one of the more homophobic ads of modern political times. ... This sort of scumminess put Messina on the map in Democratic circles. ...
In 2008, Messina joined Obama’s presidential campaign and after the inauguration was named as a deputy chief of staff under the awful Rahm Emanuel. One of his first jobs was to salvage Timothy Geithner’s confirmation as Treasury Secretary, which was endangered due to tax irregularities. The fact that Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was in charge of Geithner’s confirmation made Messina’s job a lot easier. ...
Three years later, Messina’s star had risen even further — he was in charge of Obama’s 2012 reelection. ... Last year, Messina immediately hit pay dirt by opening a consulting firm called The Messina Group. ... He’s been retained by, among many others, the American Gaming Association and British Conservative Party leader David Cameron. ... Messina also had a $15,000-a-month consulting agreement with the Democratic National Committee and various other gigs with Obama-linked groups. He’s also chair of Priorities USA, the super PAC that raised $85 million for Obama’s reelection and now is drumming up cash for Hillary Clinton.
And then there’s the money he’s raking in for speaking engagements at the American Petroleum Institute and at an energy industry conference in Azerbaijan, whose president was compared in a Wikileak-ed cable to Michael Corleone. His fee is reportedly $50,000, but that’s a bargain to get his insights on topics like “The Moneyball President: How the Obama Reelection Campaign Handled Its Business—and Why It Matters for Yours.”
[There's more. If you want to know where those $3 contributions go, click the link. -js]
Keiser Report: Remove money from politics! W/Russell Brand
The Evening Greens
Critical Glaciers Melting Under 'Continuous Warming'
Following comprehensive survey, Chinese researchers warn drinking sources may dry up in much of Asia
Glaciers in China are disappearing quickly, an environmental institute in Lanzhou confirmed on Wednesday.
Scientists with the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute conducted a lengthy survey of southern glaciers, which provide vital drinking water to India, and found that their total geographic area had decreased by 13 percent since 2002.
In the immediate future, the melting glaciers may release some amount of water, Liu Shiyin, who led the survey, told Science magazine. But any short-term effects "will be exhausted when glaciers disappear under a continuous warming," Liu said.
New Jersey Poised to Pass Legislation That Would Speed Water Privatization
A bill awaiting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's signature will make privatizing municipal water systems easier and let "corporate profits replace meeting the needs of consumers and the environment," critics charge.
The legislation in question is the "Water Infrastructure Protection Act," which passed the Senate 21-16 on Thursday. The measure is sponsored by Republican Senator Joe Kyrillos and Democratic Senator Paul Sarlo.
The Herald reports that sales of municipal water systems to private entities would be fast-tracked because the bill would eliminate "a mandatory public vote on such deals and reduc[e] oversight of the sale price by the state Board of Public Utilities."
Worldwide Coal Production Continues to Grow
There is no war on coal--neither the International Energy Agency (IEA) nor the Obama administration plan to reduce coal production, despite commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Elizabeth Warren’s real beef with Antonio Weiss: What her fight against him is actually about
The Greek WWII Hero and EU Parliamentarian Who Nearly Blew Up Winston Churchill 70 Christmases Ago
FBI warned Year Ago of impending Malware Attacks—But Didn’t Share Info with Sony
No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony
Selling ‘Peace Groups’ on US-Led Wars
America’s fear of black rage: Why tragic NYPD shootings are so misunderstood
A Little Child Shall Lead Them: Compassion Revisited
bobswern is on fire, see the next two posts if you haven't already:
Guardian: DoJ may use “color of law” statute in Brown, Garner, Crawford, Hamilton cases
“LEAKED: Secret Negotiations to Let Big Brother Go Global”
A Little Night Music
Jimmy Johnson Blues Band - As the years go passing by
Jimmy Johnson - My Baby By My Side
Jimmy Johnson - Sky is Crying
Jimmy Johnson - I Need Some Easy Money
Jimmy Johnson - Black Night
Jimmy Johnson - You Don't Know What Love Is
Jimmy Johnson - My own fault
Jimmy Johnson - Serves Me Right To Suffer
Jimmy Johnson - Somebody Loan Me A Dime
Syl & Jimmy Johnson - Ashes In My Ashtray
Jimmy Johnson - I Have The Same Old Blues
Jimmy Johnson - Take Five
The Jimmy Johnson Blues Band - Your Turn to Cry
Jimmy Dawkins & Jimmy Johnson - Are You Ready
Jimmy Johnson - The Twelve Bar 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!
|