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 New Orleans Piano wizard Professor Longhair. Enjoy!
Professor Longhair w/The Meters - Tipitina
“Political impotence is finished. Today is the beginning of the orgasm. All the people, I promise you, will feel the orgasm of next year's presidential election.”
-- Vladimir Zhirinovsky
News and Opinion
On Verge of Victory, Europe's Ascendant Left Declares "Subservience is Over"
Joining together ahead of Greek elections, leaders of Syriza and Podemos signal their unified fight against austerity will extend beyond national borders
Syriza and Podemos have become the mouthpiece of the anti-austerity movement in southern Europe while Tsipras and Iglesias have emerged as key political leaders who emerged from the grassroots, street-level protest movements which rose in opposition to the severe economic policies imposed by elite forces following the financial crisis that began in 2008. In relatively short time, both Syriza and Podemos went from being non-existent political entities to standing on the doorstep of taking power.
With national elections in Greece just days away, and Syriza's polling numbers only improving, Alexis Tsipras announced that his party is prepared to "overthrow" the status quo and vowed to implement swift changes to undo the austerity policies—imposed at the behest of foreign creditors and attached to a bailout package offered by the European Central Bank and the IMF—that have left the Greek economy in tatters. Standing before the large crowd, Tsipras announced that by Monday, "[Greece's] national humiliation will be over. We will finish with orders from abroad."
Syriza's answer to austerity, he continued, would be this: "The bailout is over. Blackmail is over. Subservience is over."
Greece’s solidarity movement: ‘it’s a whole new model – and it’s working’
Citizen-run health clinics, food centres, kitchens and legal aid hubs have sprung up to fill the gaps left by austerity – and now look set to play a bigger role under a Syriza government
Along with a dozen other medics including a GP, a brace of pharmacists, a paediatrician, a psychologist, an orthopaedic surgeon, a gynaecologist, a cardiologist and a dentist or two, Olga Kesidou, an ear, nose and throat specialist, spends a day a week at this busy but cheerful clinic half an hour’s drive from central Athens, treating patients who otherwise would not get to see a doctor. Others in the group accept uninsured patients in their private surgeries.
“We couldn’t just stand by and watch so many people, whole families, being excluded from public healthcare,” Kesidou said. “In Greece now, if you’re out of work for a year, you lose your social security. That’s an awful lot of people without access to what should be a basic right. If we didn’t react, we couldn’t look at ourselves in the mirror. It’s solidarity.”
The Peristeri health centre is one of 40 that have sprung up around Greece since the end of mass anti-austerity protests in 2011. Using donated drugs – state medicine reimbursements have been slashed by half, so even patients with insurance are now paying 70% more for their drugs – and medical equipment (Peristeri’s ultrasound scanner came from a German aid group, its children’s vaccines from France), the 16 clinics in the Greater Athens area alone treat more than 30,000 patients a month.
The clinics in turn are part of a far larger and avowedly political movement of well over 400 citizen-run groups – food solidarity centres, social kitchens, cooperatives, “without middlemen” distribution networks for fresh produce, legal aid hubs, education classes – that has emerged in response to the near-collapse of Greece’s welfare state, and has more than doubled in size in the past three years. ...
As well as helping people in difficulty, Giovanopoulos said, Greece’s solidarity movement was fostering “almost a different sense of what politics should be – a politics from the bottom up, that starts with real people’s needs. It’s a practical critique of the empty, top-down, representational politics our traditional parties practise. It’s kind of a whole new model, actually. And it’s working.”
It also looks set to play a more formalised role in Greece’s future under what polls predict will be a Syriza-led government from next week. When they were first elected in 2012, the radical left party’s 72 MPs voted to give 20% of their monthly salary to a solidarity fund that would help finance Solidarity for All. (Many help further; several have transferred their entitlement to free telephone calls to a local project). The party says the movement can serve both as an example and a platform for the social change it wants to bring about.
The SYRIZA Challenge in Greece
Saudi Arabia’s Tyrant King Misremembered as Man of Peace
After nearly 20 years as de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah ibn-Abdulaziz al-Saud died last night at the age of 90. Abdullah, who took power after his predecessor King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, ruled as absolute monarch of a country which protected American interests but also sowed strife and extremism throughout the Middle East and the world.
In a statement last night Senator John McCain eulogized Abdullah as “a vocal advocate for peace, speaking out against violence in the Middle East”. John Kerry described the late monarch as “a brave partner in fighting violent extremism” and “a proponent of peace”. Not to be outdone, Vice President Joe Biden released a statement mourning Abdullah and announced that he would be personally leading a presidential delegation to offer condolences on his passing.
It’s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publiclyflogs dissidents and beheads people for sorcery wins such glowing praise from American officials. ... While granting that Abdullah might be considered a relative moderate within the brazenly anachronistic House of Saud, the fact remains that he presided for two decades over a regime which engaged in wanton human rights abuses, instrumentalized religious chauvinism, and played a hugely counterrevolutionary role in regional politics.
Remembering Saudi’s King Abdullah: "He Was Not a Benevolent Dictator, He Was a Dictator"
This is an excellent background article, here's a teaser:
How Al Qaeda’s Biggest Enemy Took Over Yemen (and Why the U.S. Government Is Unlikely to Support Them)
Sanaa – Yemeni President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, his prime minister and entire government cabinet resigned en masse today, just 24 hours after Houthi rebels occupied the presidential compound in Sanaa. The resignations give unprecedented power to the Houthis, a Shiite minority from the country’s isolated northern highlands.
The political crisis also opens the door to an all-out war over control of the Yemeni capital, involving Sunni political factions and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. The conflict could also draw in Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran.
The streets in Yemen’s capital are now a maze of checkpoints, a few still manned by government forces wearing military uniforms, but most these days are controlled by Houthis. Unlike government forces, the Houthis are typically dressed in tribal garb–a shawl wrapped around their face and a skirt known as a ma’awaz.
Armed with AK-47s, the Houthis are primarily looking for members of AQAP.
The Houthis, however, are quickly proving that the old adage, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” is not always true. While they are bitter enemies of AQAP, the Houthis manning the checkpoints often adorn their AK-47s with stickers bearing the group’s motto: “Death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.”
For the West, this labyrinth of Yemeni politics underscores the complexity of trying to find a reliable ally to fight Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate, which claimed credit for the deadly attack earlier this month against the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. While the U.S. government had continued to back Hadi as a close partner in the war on terror, it’s the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, who have been battling AQAP on the streets of Sanaa.
Hailed as U.S. Counterterrorism Model in Middle East, Yemen Teeters on the Brink of Collapse
Yemen Chaos Throws a Wrench in US Drone War
The Obama Administration had pretty much unconditional support from the Saleh government in Yemen throughout its early years, going to the trouble of covering up botched airstrikes for them.
When long-time dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh faced growing unrest, the US orchestrated the “election” of another military strongman, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in a single-candidate election in 2012. Since then, Hadi’s been the go-to guy for rubber stamping US airstrikes.
The US backed dictators of a country constantly being pounded by US drones aren’t near as stable as officials had hoped, however, and amid growing chaos, Hadi resigned on Thursday, throwing the drone campaign into uncertainty.
President Obama has been keen to claim at least nominal support for his drone wars from seated governments, and while he’s stretched that a bit in Pakistan (claiming “tacit” approval in the face of growing public condemnations), if there is no Yemeni government, there can be no approval.
Obama to Netanyahu: Stop pushing Congress toward new sanctions on Iran
U.S. President Barack Obama has demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stop encouraging U.S. senators and congressmen to advance new sanctions legislation against Iran.
A senior American official, who asked to remain anonymous due to the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, said Obama gave Netanyahu this message during a telephone call on Monday, January 12.
Obama stressed to Netanyahu that he is seeking to reach an agreement with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons and assure the international community in a verifiable fashion that Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, the official added. But new sanctions legislation is liable to sabotage the negotiations that Obama and five other countries are conducting with Iran, the president said. He told the Israeli leader that should such legislation pass Congress, he intends to veto it.
Obama also warned Netanyahu not to meddle in the battle he is waging against Congress over the sanctions legislation, the official said. This warning was issued more than a week before Speaker of the House John Boehner publicly invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress. Netanyahu’s address, which will take place at the height of the battle between Obama and the Republican-controlled Congress, is expected to focus on the Iranian nuclear issue and what he sees as the need to ratchet up the pressure on the Iran.
At Netanyahu’s behest, both Israeli Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer and members of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, have been urging members of Congress in recent weeks to advance legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran. Netanyahu has also urged new sanctions on Iran in all his meetings with American legislators, including his meeting earlier this week with a delegation headed by Republican Senator John McCain.
The White House is well aware of the efforts Netanyahu and Dermer have been making to advance sanctions legislation, as senior Republican legislators have made no effort to hide them. One senior Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, who has visited Israel twice in recent weeks, has been particularly outspoken. In a joint statement issued at the start of a meeting between Graham and Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on December 29, Netanyahu declared on camera that new sanctions on Iran are needed. Graham then responded, also on camera, that Congress “will follow your lead” on the Iranian issue, and that new sanctions legislation would be brought to a vote soon.
Tzipi Livni says Netanyahu leading country into 'diplomatic isolation'
Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been accused by senior opposition figure Tzipi Livni of leading the country into “crisis and diplomatic isolation”, amid growing criticism of his handling of relations with the US.
The comments by the former justice minister and lead negotiator in the peace process with the Palestinians came after it was revealed that Barack Obama would not meet with Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister’s visit to address Congress in March.
The planned trip, which was orchestrated by congressional Republicans in clear breach of protocol by a visiting foreign head of state, has provoked fury inside the US administration, not least because the White House was not notified before its announcement. ...
Netanyahu’s invitation to Congress by Republican House speaker John Boehner – two weeks before Israel goes to the polls – has attracted fierce criticism from US officials off the record, a cool reception from the State Department in public, and sceptical commentary from Israeli columnists who have accused Netanyahu of engineering the speech to further his struggling election prospects.
“We thought we’ve seen everything,” the senior American official was quoted in Haaretz as saying. “But Bibi managed to surprise even us. There are things you simply don’t do. He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.”
Rebels in Donetsk keep on the attack as war of words intensifies
Rebels in Donetsk have said they plan to stay on the attack against Kiev’s forces, as the Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed “criminal orders” from the Ukrainian government for increased violence in the east of the country.
“There will be no more ceasefires,” said rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko at a meeting with students, a day after an attack on a trolleybus in Donetsk left up to 13 dead. Zakharchenko said Ukraine was currently mobilising recruits and had been planning a new assault.
“We took the decision not to wait for the Ukrainian army to attack. We will attack them until we have reached the borders of the former Donetsk region,” said Zakharchenko, indicating an area that includes a number of towns currently under Ukrainian control, including the port city of Mariupol.
The UN human rights office says the conflict in eastern Ukraine has now left 5,000 people dead, including 262 in the past nine days alone.
France's Far-Right Struggles to Maintain a United Front After Paris Attacks
France's far-right Front National party (FN) landed in hot water last week when one of its representatives uploaded a video titled "France is at war" to YouTube.
Filmed by Aymeric Chauprade, a member of the European Parliament in Brussels and the FN's diplomatic advisor, the video equates "global Islam" to the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany.
Chauprade also alluded to "a fifth column" of Islamist militants operating on French soil who might "at any moment turn against us," because for them "allegiance to Islam is more important than allegiance to France." ...
Marine Le Pen, leader of the FN, removed Chauprade from his post as the head of the party's delegation at the European Parliament on Thursday. Earlier in the week Le Pen fired Chauprade from his advisory post over his comments.
Chauprade's video was uploaded on January 15 without party approval, and Le Pen sent out a statement to FN officials, urging them not to relay the video for "legal reasons."
But many party members appear to have defied the order. Le Pen's niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen ignored her aunt's request and reposted the video on her Twitter account on Tuesday. Marine's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the FN and remains the party's honorary president, also spoke out in support of Chauprade.
Michael Brown's family considers suing Darren Wilson in absence of charges
Lawyer says possibility is ‘always on the table’ after reports that officer who shot teenager won’t face federal civil rights charges
The family of Michael Brown is considering a civil suit against the police officer who shot him in the wake of news that a Department of Justice investigation is preparing to recommend no civil rights charges be brought against the officer.
Anthony Gray, an attorney representing the Brown family, confirmed that the family is considering a civil suit against Darren Wilson, the police officer whose fatal shooting of Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, led to protests last year.
“That is an option that is available,” Gray said. “They have not made a decision to move forward at this point, [but] that is an option that is always on the table.”
Officials are said to have told the New York Times and CNN that after federal investigators interviewed more than 200 people, analysed cellphone audio and video evidence and examined Wilson’s clothing and gun, the department would publish a memo stating that no action should be taken against him. ...
The federal investigation into Wilson would have needed to prove that Wilson intended to violate Brown’s civil rights; it was widely expected among protesters and supporters of Wilson to return no charges.
"A Systemic Failure": New Calls for Reform as Feds Rule Out Civil Rights Charges for Darren Wilson
Campaigners call for state investigation into fatal New Jersey police shooting
National police reform advocates have called for a state investigation into the fatal police shooting of Jerame Reid, a 36 year-old black man who was confronted by two officers – one white and one black – during an initially routine traffic stop.
“Local officials should not handle incidents such as this,” the Rev Al Sharpton said in a statement on Thursday, echoing similar calls from local leaders to give the investigation to the state attorney general.
On Wednesday, the South Jersey Times obtained and published footage from the dashboard camera of a Bridgeton, New Jersey, police patrol car. Protesters took to the streets on Wednesday night. ...
Little information has been released by the city or prosecutor’s office, even as the town has come under increasing scrutiny following the video’s release. ... According to New Jersey law, a grand jury must be held unless the “undisputed facts” show the use of force was justified. ...
The case simmered for three weeks until the release of the dashboard camera video, which happened only after a formal request by the South Jersey Times.
Barrett Brown Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison After Reporting on Hacked Private Intelligence Firms
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a look at a bitter wrangling at the United Mine Worker's Convention in which John Mitchell is accused of driving Mother Jones out of the organization, and John Mitchell's response.
Tune in at 2pm!
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New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward targeted for gentrification: 'It's going to feel like it belongs to the rich'
The Lower Ninth Ward, is still not back. Most blocks have few houses and lots of weeds. There’s no grocery store, only one school – opened last year – and no pharmacy (though one is coming soon, the first retail store opened in the area since Katrina). In the year 2000, 14,008 people lived in the Lower Ninth Ward. By 2010, there were fewer than 3,000 residents.
But the neighborhood could now be getting something almost no one expected: condos. ...
The site has become a symbol for the “new” New Orleans – and all that old residents perceive as wrong with it. The city, like many major metropolises, is gentrifying. In once-predominantly black and majority poor neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward, white millennials are flocking. Gentrification has caused tension in nearly every major US city, but perhaps nowhere as much as in New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina created the opportunity for it to happen all at once: displacing tens of thousands, shaking a deeply rooted culture to its core, and freeing up cheap real estate for new residents and developers. When the city started coming back, people noticed it was coming back different than before the storm – whiter, less rooted in its heritage and somehow seemingly even more indifferent to its poorest residents than it had been.
The neighborhood has always had a conflicted relationship with the city: it is cut off by an industrial canal and unserviced by most public transportation. Many feel New Orleans prefers to ignore the neighborhood’s inhabitants. But those who live here are fiercely attached to it – since the end of slavery the ward has been a haven for African Americans and until Katrina had one of the highest percentages of black homeownership in the city.
Residents say while potholes and street lamps in the Lower Ninth Ward and other low-income neighborhoods go unfixed, and while people who were here before Katrina struggle to maintain their damaged homes with little city help, the city has refocused its energy on attracting rich outsiders and corporations. It is now one of the fastest-growing cities in the US.
The Evening Greens
Ruptured Yellowstone Oil Pipeline Was Built With Faulty Welding in 1950s
The aging Poplar Pipeline that spilled oil into the Yellowstone River in Montana on Saturday was built with pipe made using faulty welding techniques, and its owner has had a series of spills on the line. These two factors put the pipeline at a higher risk for problems.
First, the pipeline's owner, Bridger Pipeline LLC, has had nearly double the number of incidents per mile of pipe than the average company with pipelines carrying oil, gas or other hazardous liquids over the last six years, according to data compiled by the Pipeline Safety Trust. Federal records suggest that most of Bridger's incidents occurred on the Poplar line and were preventable.
Second, more than a third of the pipeline's steel segments were fused in the early 1950s using low-frequency electric resistance welds (LF-ERW), according to a recent federal filing by Bridger. Company spokesman Bill Salvin said the segment under the river was replaced in the late 1960's or early 1970's, but he didn't know what type of pipe was used.
Pipe that was made before 1970 using the LF-ERW method is considered more vulnerable to cracks and dangerous imperfections along the lengthwise seams. The same faulty manufacturing method set the stage for ExxonMobil's 2013 Pegasus oil spill in Arkansas. With heightened vigilance and careful operation, pipeline companies can safely operate those lines, according to pipeline experts.
The cause of the Poplar Pipeline spill is not yet known, so it's unclear if manufacturing flaws or some other preventable condition played a role. Parts of the Yellowstone River are covered with ice up to two feet thick, a factor that has hindered clean-up efforts and will likely delay removal and inspection of the failed pipe.
"The second major spill in the Yellowstone River in just four years raises our concern about building the Keystone XL pipeline," Scott Bosse, Northern Rockies director for American Rivers, said in a statement. "This latest incident should serve as a stark reminder that there is no completely safe way to transport oil over long distances."
Senate Set to Vote on Keystone XL Next Week
Following a tense night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved to limit debate on legislation to green-light the Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline, setting up a final vote next week.
Senators stayed at the Capitol past midnight Thursday as McConnell swiftly moved to table a series of Democratic amendments to the pipeline bill, which has now been under debate in the Senate since the new Congress convened at the start of the month.
Minutes before midnight, McConnell filed cloture on the underlying bill, a procedural move that will trigger an additional 30 hours of debate before a final vote.
The Environmental Protection Agency Funded Diesel Experiments on Children
A conservative environmental law group with a history of criticizing the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), launched a new attack on the agency this week, releasing a trove of documents showing that the EPA experimented on young children with diesel fuel.
The Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), previously called the American Traditions Institute, is a political advocacy group with ties to the energy industry*. It has used public records laws liberally in the past to criticize climate scientists from environmental organizations like the EPA, the Sierra Club, and others.
The group used open public records laws to gather and then publish 172 pages of grant applications, progress reports, and research findings that shows that the EPA and National Institutes of Health funded studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of Southern California (USC), in which child volunteers were exposed to diesel soot particles. ...
For the research, the doctors administered a nasal spray containing "soot from a diesel truck (diesel exhaust particles)," according to consent forms signed by volunteers. The volunteers would then come back the next day and the researchers would test their nasal fluid to measure their response to the soot. The goal was to understand how adults and children reacted to diesel soot, according to the documents.
"The highest amount of particles you may be given is equal to two days' average urban exposure in Los Angeles," Diaz-Sanchez explained on the consent form. "This is less than you would receive from passing behind a diesel bus as it starts its engine."
E&E Legal condemned the way the researchers characterized the exposure to diesel, saying: "Despite that the EPA concluded inhaling diesel exhaust can cause death within hours and that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) concluded there is no safe exposure to diesel exhaust, the USC/UCLA researchers sprayed diesel exhaust up the noses of 20 children age 10 to 15 years of age."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Compare and Contrast: Obama’s Reaction to the Deaths of King Abdullah and Hugo Chávez
Chutzpah Squared: Bibi and Boehner
Message to the UK: The Fracking Bridge is Already Burning
Don’t Believe What the Government Says About Barrett Brown
Despondency
A Little Night Music
Professor Longhair - Big Chief
Professor Longhair - I'm Movin' On
Professor Longhair - Walk Your Blues Away
Professor Longhair - Go To The Mardi Gras
Dr. John Talks about Professor Longhair
Professor Longhair - Tell Me Pretty Baby
Professor Longhair - Every Day I Have The Blues
Professor Longhair - Jambalaya
Professor Longhair - Bald Head
Professor Longhair - Her Mind Has Gone
Professor Longhair - In The Night
Professor Longhair - The Mess Around
Professor Longhair - 501 Boogie
Professor Longhair - They Call Me Doctor Professor
Professor Longhair - How Long Has That Train Been Gone?
Professor Longhair - Rockin' Pneumonia
Professor Longhair - Mean Ol' World
Professor Longhair - Junco Partner
Professor Longhair - Nice Jazz Festival 1979
Dr. John – Memories Of Professor Longhair
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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