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 bluesman Muddy Waters. Enjoy!
Muddy Waters - Manish Boy
"It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble."
-- Howard Baker
News and Opinion
A major component of Obama's "Let No Wealthy Or Powerful Person Face Consequences For Their Criminality" program is revealed:
Justice Department Watchdog Complains He's Been Curbed
The Justice Department’s internal watchdog said Thursday that his independence has been undermined by the department’s refusal to let him see information derived from wiretaps or national security letters without special permission.
The department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a 68-page opinion Thursday saying that Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz’s office should not be granted access to several different kinds of typically confidential material unless there is a clear law-enforcement or counterintelligence purpose — and that the department’s lawyers, not the inspector general’s, would make that determination.
That would appear to rule out many of the typical goals of oversight, such as rooting out fraud, incompetence, rule-breaking and cover-ups.
Homeland Security Chief Goes Off "Going Dark" Script, Says He Can See Plenty
In a rare departure from the doom-and-gloom talk from federal law enforcers about how encryption threatens their ability to identify and monitor terror suspects, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Thursday acknowledged that the government’s expanded surveillance capabilities are considerable. ...
FBI Director James Comey, who opened the annual Aspen conference on Wednesday night, warned that his agency is “going dark” because of the use of unbreakable end-to-end encryption. It’s an argument Comey has been making for months now.
Johnson’s comments were a reminder that authorities can see plenty.
“We have developed good capabilities to detect plotting, to detect efforts to do something bad in our homeland,” he said.
Heh, could this be the "British Bernie?"
Left-Winger's Surging Candidacy in UK Taps into Anti-Austerity Energy
Veteran UK politician Jeremy Corbyn, a 66-year-old left-winger whose stances against austerity, nuclear weapons, and war have been described as "uncompromising," is gathering steam ahead of upcoming Labour party leadership elections, according to new polling released this week.
A YouGov poll for the London Times suggests that in the final round of voting, the socialist Islington North MP would finish six points ahead of previous frontrunner Andy Burnham. The poll shows Corbyn as the first preference for 43 percent of party supporters. ...
The New York Times reports on Friday, Corbyn "got a big lift when Britain’s largest trade union, Unite, a crucial financial backer of the Labour Party, came out in strong support."
Corbyn upsets "the ruling elite," Unite leader Len McCluskey told the Times. "They try and rubbish it, they try to turn it into a joke, but secretly they will be worried sick that ordinary people are suddenly given something to inspire them and something to link onto."
For his part, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair—whose reign saw the Labour party dragged rightward and the country dragged into war—has warned, "You don't win from a traditional leftist position." Meanwhile, Blair's former adviser, John McTernan, told BBC Newsnight two of the other candidates should withdraw in favor of an "anyone but Corbyn" candidate. ...
According to the Guardian, Corbyn, "who opposed the decision to go to war in Iraq and has defied his party's whip 284 times since 2005, has often been at odds with the Labour leadership, but he insists that the party remains a comfortable home for his politics: '[The Labour party is] a mass organization and was founded by trade unions and socialists and provides the only viable option for serious political change in Britain'."
The Dangers of European Dis-Union
The near collapse of the Greek economy and the harsh austerity package forced on Athens by the European Union has led to increasing commentary in recent weeks on what the developments might mean for the “European project” – the one-time seemingly inevitable drive on the European continent for an “ever closer union” based on principles of economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity among EU member states. ...
In testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats on July 14 on the topic of “The European Union’s Future,” prominent American academic Stephen Walt said that the EU, despite its past achievements, now suffers from growing tensions and several self-inflicted wounds.
Walt called the decision to create the euro in 1999 “an enormous blunder,” which was done “for political rather than economic reasons.” The euro’s early critics have since been proven right, according to Walt, with the current crisis demonstrating that the EU lacks the political and institutional mechanisms needed to make a common currency work. ...
“Seven years have passed since the crisis hit, and the EU still lacks the political institutions needed to sustain a genuine currency union,” Walt writes. “If Greece eventually exits, its departure will demonstrate that the euro is not irreversible, and it will raise new doubts about its long-term prospects. If Greece stays in the currency union but cannot implement the herculean reforms now being demanded by its creditors, another crisis is inevitable.”
Guardian columnist Seumas Milne says it is a misnomer to even refer to the new set of financial assistance measures to Greece as a “bailout.” In reality, he writes, it is “the imposition of new debts to pay existing creditors,” which requires the Greeks to “hand over €50bn (£35bn) of public assets to an ‘independent’ privatisation fund.” In this way, it is more like a heist than a bailout.
SYRIZA's Thessaloniki Programme vs. Euro-Troika Austerity
Tsipras “now that I have unconditionally surrendered, I promise to lead the fight”.
Yeah, ok:
As far as my own code of values is concerned, the presence of the Left in the government is not in order to seek high office. It is the stronghold of the interests of our people! A stronghold for the protection of those who have been wronged! A stronghold for the large class fights against vested interests within the country!
As far as I am concerned, I have no intention of abandoning this stronghold. We will not become cowards, nor will we ignore our responsibilities, nor will we become apologists for lost fights. Because the only lost fights are those which never took place!
The fights lying ahead will be given with the same fighting spirit, the same faith in our strength, the same dignity and they will be fights which will be won.”
The Crisis In Europe Has Only Just Begun
This conflict has nothing to do with Greek debt or finances. Syriza’s strategy was based upon the rational assumption that the nation’s debt and recovery are being stifled by austerity. As we know from most any respected economist, Greece’s debt can never and will never be repaid. On the continent that prides itself as the cradle of the enlightenment, there should have been an amicable, lasting solution to Greece’s untenable financial situation. Greece has had to learn the hard way, that the EU is no longer a European project for peace, democracy and prosperity, but a German tool for hegemony.
This has been a conflict between a small European nation, led by a leftist government, attempting to reassert its autonomy under crushing German predominance. That may sound simplistic, but there is not much more to it. ...
The humanitarian disaster had reached dimensions that defy any definition of a “United Europe”. With the media’s obsession with the pseudo negotiations the fact that this was an existential decision for millions of Greeks was forgotten, many of whom stood at the edge of an abyss. This became clear as affected Greeks were asking how they were to pay for their insulin and if it would soon become unavailable due to the financial embargo that was being created. This was the terrorism that Yanis Varoufakis denounced. ...
Under German hegemony we are seeing heads of state removed by financial pressure (Italy and Greece), nations forced to take over debts from reckless private banks (Ireland and Spain) and Greece being pounded into submission and having its autonomy reduced to passing legislation dictated by Berlin. The Germany of today has little to do with Western European democracy, resembling more traditional German anti-democratic authoritarianism.
Lastly, no one seems to have really thought through what the “reforms” forced upon Greece will mean in practice. Up to now Greeks apparently were reluctant to pay taxes because hardly any one, especially the oligarchs, did so. To alter a nation’s attitude to taxation is a herculean task for a government at the best of times, a process that Yanis Varoufakis interestingly had initiated very early on. The imposition of a ridiculously high value added tax increase by Germany is nothing more than taxation without representation. Not paying ones taxes in Greece will become a patriotic act of resistance against the Germans and the troika. There can be no crdible political discourse from a politically disgraced Syriza, leaving coercion as the only alternative (Varoufakis knew why he resigned as finance minister and has voted against the German dictate). The Greek people clearly rejected the dictate that has been foisted upon them. They will not be supporting the so called “reforms”, especially as they simply cannot afford to do so.
The crisis in Greece and in Europe is not over, it is only just beginning.
Capitalism, Engineered Dependencies and the Eurozone
As fact and metaphor the ongoing crisis in Greece is the vanguard of broad social disintegration across the capitalist West. IMF Director Christine Lagarde is being put forward as the voice of reason calling for writing down Greece’s debt to manageable levels. But her actual public statements have paid deference to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s suggestion, a slight variation on Barack Obama’s mortgage ‘rescue’ packages, that maturities be extended but that people be left with debts far greater than they can reasonably pay. As attractive as permanent debt servitude might appear to those demanding it, it is a form of economic extraction, a transfer of economic production from nominal borrowers to banks and bankers. ...
The European ‘choice’ was of a monetary union with full understanding, brought into particular relief in hindsight, that it wasn’t a formal political or fiscal union. While there may have been, and most likely were, broader hopes for it, the monetary union created a specific set of economic relationships that are now in play. A monetary union grants political power to a central bank, in this case to the ECB. As with the Federal Reserve in the U.S., the ECB represents bankers’ interests as being in the broad public interest when they decidedly aren’t— they serve the powers-that-be in Europe’s particular configuration of finance capitalism. Until the European periphery comes to terms with what the monetary union really is there is little hope of economic resolution. And the grip that the union has on the periphery is being made binary, either total submission to the whims of the Troika or near-term economic ruin are the choices given. ...
Much as U.S. based industrial companies have long used the threat of mass firings to cow labor and reduce pressures for civic accountability, the threat of withdrawing from engineered dependencies— by metaphor, leaving displaced peasants to quickly recover an indigenous economy after property relations have been reconfigured to preclude the possibility, is the economic assertion of political power. The fact of social dependencies is contorted through capitalist competition into a relation of domination and repression— people can choose any form of government they wish as long as they show up to work on time, dress accordingly, limit conversations to approved topics and passively accept the dictates of their imperial masters. ...
Near-term technological considerations aside, the question that the Greeks and other peoples of the West may wish to ask is why banks and bankers whose livelihoods derive from the public grant to create and allocate money should be allowed to use it to rule the world? The quote from economist Joan Robinson that ‘The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by capitalism’ refers to precisely this type of engineered dependency, not to a natural state of the world. Was the intent of the European Union a partnership of equals then Syriza would have been granted a distinctive voice. With its mandate to remain within the union it is but another set of bodies warming the chairs at ‘negotiation’ tables listening to the dictates of the Troika.
The Mother of All Storms Builds Over Catalonia’s Independence
For the last six months, tensions between Madrid and Barcelona seemed to have subsided, as most of the attention of Spanish government, the media, and the public was diverted by the seemingly unstoppable rise of Pablo Iglesias’ anti-austerity party Podemos — a rise that has suddenly stopped.
Now it seems that what first appeared as reduced tensions between Madrid and Spain’s north-eastern province was merely the calm before the mother of all storms.
Last Friday the coalition of pro-independence parties in Catalonia announced a single list of candidates for regional elections scheduled for Sept. 27. They include the two main parties’ leaders, Artur Mas (Catalonia’s current premier) and Oriol Junqueras, as well as the leaders of the two grassroots movements Ómnium Cultural and the Catalan National Assembly. Also included on the list as a symbolic candidate is Pep Guardiola, the popular former coach of Barcelona Football Club and fervent Catalan separatist.
If the pro-independence coalition wins a majority of seats in September’s elections, it has pledged that it will unilaterally declare national independence within six months. Adding fuel to the fire is a new report just out from the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies that concludes that not only would the Catalan economy benefit from untethering itself from Spain, but the region would make a perfectly viable nation state – at least at an economic level.
At the political and social level, the obstacles are much greater – some might say insurmountable. If solutions aren’t found to these problems soon, Madrid’s spat with Catalonia could soon have ugly repercussions both within and far beyond Spanish borders. Some are even predicting that it could result in Catalonia’s expulsion or exit – AKA Catexit (no, seriously) — from the EU.
Freedom Rider: The Iran Deal Reality
The U.S. deal with Iran – based on assumptions about an Iranian nuclear weapons program that American intelligence agencies have twice concluded does not exist – allows the U.S. to concentrate on provoking Russia and China while continuing to threaten Iran with destruction. Global peace is no closer than before, since “America’s insistence on imperialism and control of other countries is the cause of every catastrophe.” ...
The deal was ultimately done because times change and Barack Obama had to choose who to fight and who to make up with. The need to counter Russia and China made continued enmity with Iran foolish. So did the desire to replace Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas with energy from Iran. Ever the imperialist, Obama realized that a deal was in America’s interests. ...
In making the case for his deal president Obama relies on repeating American lies that Iran is a state sponsor of terror and threatens other nations in the region but is now pacified. Of course the United States inflicts most of the terror in the Middle East, having destroyed Iraq and Libya and given strength to jihadists it claims to dislike. Syria hangs on after four years of devastation wrought by the United States and their gulf monarch allies, but Obama’s rationale for a deal with Iran always includes condemnations useful for internal propaganda purposes. ...
The corporate media and some easily fooled “liberals” hail the agreement as ending a threat of war when in fact any threat existed only because of America and Israel. ... Now Americans must watch as cynical and stupid presidential candidates out-do one another bragging about how quickly they would attack Iran. The agreement is significant in some ways, but changes nothing in others.
Regional War Escalates as Turkey Openly Bombs Targets Inside Syria
Proving that a larger regional war remains among the most significant threats of the protracted military campaign against the Islamic State (or ISIS), Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey confirmed on Monday that Turkish warplanes bombed several targets inside Syria on Monday.
According to the Associated Press:
Davutoglu said the airstrikes had "removed potential threats" to Turkey and targets were hit with "100 percent accuracy." He did not rule out further strikes, saying Turkey was determined to stave off all terror threats against it.
"This was not a point operation, this is a process," Davutoglu said. "It is not limited to one day or to one region... The slightest movement threatening Turkey will be retaliated against in the strongest way possible."
Turkish police on Friday launched a major operation against terror groups including IS, carrying out simultaneous raids in Istanbul and 12 provinces and detaining more than 290 people.
News that at least three Turkish F-16 fighters took off from the Diyarbakir air base in the southern part of the country to strike at ISIS is the first time Turkey itself has executed airstrikes against its neighbor since the conflict began and marks a potentially significant escalation in the conflict that pits the U.S. military and allied Gulf and European nations against the militant group that has taken over large swaths of both Syrian and Iraqi territory.
UK Police Confirm Ongoing Criminal Probe of Snowden Leak Journalists
A secretive British police investigation focusing on journalists working with Edward Snowden’s leaked documents remains ongoing two years since it was quietly launched, The Intercept can reveal.
London’s Metropolitan Police has admitted it is still carrying out the probe, which is being led by its counter-terrorism department, after previously refusing to confirm or deny its existence on the grounds that doing so could be “detrimental to national security.”
The disclosure was made by police in a letter sent to this reporter Tuesday, concluding a seven-month freedom of information battle that saw the London force repeatedly attempt to withhold basic details about the status of the case. It reversed its position this week only after an intervention from the Information Commissioner’s Office, the public body that enforces the U.K.’s freedom of information laws.
Following Snowden’s disclosures from the National Security Agency in 2013, the Metropolitan Police and a lawyer for the British government separately stated that a criminal investigation had been opened into the leaks. One of the London force’s most senior officers acknowledged during a parliamentary hearing that the investigation was looking at whether reporters at the Guardian had committed criminal offenses for their role in revealing secret surveillance operations exposed in the Snowden documents.
Ethiopia Claims US Precedent for Crackdown on Journalists
Early on July 9, guards in Kaliti prison in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia told Reeyot Alemu to pack up her bags. After four years in prison, she was going home.
Reeyot is one of six journalists, including two bloggers from the
Zone 9 blogging collective, released on July 8 and 9. Their only crime was exercising their right to free expression. The timing of the high-profile releases should come as no surprise given President Barack Obama’s forthcoming trip to Ethiopia.
Reeyot’s arrest in June 2011 – along with fellow journalist Woubshet Taye, who remains behind bars – marked the start of a spate of arrests of journalists, activists, and other peaceful dissenters under the country’s deeply flawed Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. Human Rights Watch and other groups had warned before the passage of the law in 2009 about the overly broad provisions relating to “terrorist acts” and “encouragement of terrorism,” as well as the provision for up to four months in pretrial detention.
As anticipated, the authorities repeatedly misused the provisions to give a legal veneer to their increasing clampdown on dissent.
The government has often brushed aside criticism of the anti-terrorism law, contending that it was largely inspired by similar legislation in key partner countries, notably the United Kingdom and the United States. ... Since 2009, the Ethiopian authorities have charged or convicted on trumped-up charges at least 13 other journalists, including a prominent government critic, Eskinder Nega, and four other bloggers from Zone 9. They continue to languish in prison.
In the meantime, away from the spotlight and the euphoria over the releases, the country’s courts continue to hand down sentences against peaceful dissent under the anti-terrorism law.
France approves 'Big Brother' surveillance powers despite UN concern
France’s highest authority on constitutional matters has approved a controversial bill that gives the state sweeping new powers to spy on citizens.
The constitutional council made only minor tweaks to the legislation that human rights and privacy campaigners as well as the United Nations have described as paving the way for “very intrusive” surveillance and state-approved eavesdropping and computer-hacking.
In a report published on Friday, the 18-strong United Nations Committee for Human Rights warned the surveillance powers granted to French intelligence agencies were “excessively broad”. ...
Other critics have labelled it the French “Big Brother” act, likening it to the tyrannical and sinister government surveillance in George Orwell’s novel 1984, calling it as a “historic decline in fundamental rights” and an attack on democracy. ...
The Socialist government justified the bill, which allows intelligence agencies to tap phones and emails and hack computers without permission from a judge, in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris in January, including at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher shop, that left 17 people dead.
The UN Shames Canada — Again — About the Same Human Rights Issues
The UN Human Rights Committee is shaming Canada for its human rights record, which hasn't improved much in the last decade.
On Thursday, the committee released its first review of Canada in 10 years — and the first ever under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The findings claim that the government has failed on a host of issues ranging from missing and murdered Aboriginal women, its treatment of refugees, to its overly broad anti-terror legislation, Bill C-51. ...
And what's striking about the 2015 report is how similar it is to the committee's last report on Canada that came out in 2006, when Liberal leader Paul Martin was in power.
"The State party should gather accurate statistical data throughout the country on violence against Aboriginal women, fully address the root causes of this phenomenon, including economic and social marginalization of Aboriginal women, and ensure their effective access to the justice system," the 2006 report said of the human rights situation at the time. Back then, the committee lambasted Canada for its overly broad Anti-Terrorism Act, which it said could be used to unfairly target people on political or religious grounds.
Ten years later, the committee is again criticizing Canada for its treatment of indigenous people, its counterterrorism measures, and excessive force used by police during protests.
42 Years Later, Officers Charged for Murder of Defiant Chilean Folk Singer
More than four decades after the Chilean military tortured and killed beloved folk singer, playwright, and social activist Victor Jara during the coup of General Augusto Pinochet, former officers allegedly involved in the murder are finally facing charges.
Judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza on Wednesday announced homicide and kidnapping charges against 10 former military officers, including former lieutenant Pedro Barrientos Nuñez, a resident of Florida who is seeking to avoid extradition to Chile. Four of the people indicted have already turned themselves in, and arrests are expected to follow. ...
Jara's widow, Joan Turner Jara, told reporters that the development offers a "message of hope," but she went further, saying "we’re pushing forward in demanding justice for Victor with the hope that justice will follow for everyone."
Over 40,000 people were tortured, murdered, or held as political prisoners during Pinochet's dictatorship, which lasted for decades and was backed by the United States.
[Unfortunately, Henry Kissinger will is not among those being sought for extradition. - js]
Sandra Bland’s Sister Responds to Suicide Allegations, Lawyer Says Waller County Withholding Details
Prosecutors Detail Sandra Bland Autopsy Report
Preliminary autopsy results released by the Waller County District Attorney's office Thursday claim Sandra Bland died as a result of suicide by hanging, backing up police allegations that she killed herself in her jail cell on July 13.
After a review by the medical examiner's office, Waller County Assistant District Attorney Warren Diepraam said no injuries were found on Bland's body that suggested a violent struggle. All injuries were consistent with strangulation, he said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
"The only injury that was found close to the hands were some lacerations or abrasions on her wrists, which are consistent with being handcuffed and struggling," he said. "There were no bite marks or other injuries on her face, on her lips, on her tongue, which would be consistent with a violent struggle." ...
Documents released Wednesday by the Waller County Sheriff's office reveal several inconsistencies in official documents purporting to show what Bland told authorities while in jail. In one document, Bland reportedly said she had previously attempted suicide after she lost a baby. Another form indicates the attempt happened in 2015, while another says 2014. One form indicates that Bland had suicidal thoughts in the past year, while another said she hadn't. It is still unclear as to why Bland was not on suicide watch while being held. Jailers who spoke with Bland when she was being booked said she seemed fine, and that no one thought she was at risk. ...
In a voicemail obtained by a Texas TV station Thursday, Bland can be heard asking, "How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this?" In the message, Bland says she's "still just at a loss for words honestly at this whole process."
"I Don’t Believe Sandy Committed Suicide": #BlackLivesMatter Co-Founders Speak Out on Sandra Bland
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature news from Bayonne Strike: Standard Oil Company claims, "The..situation is due entirely to the action of a few professional agitators."
Tune in at 2pm!
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The rapid success of Fight for $15: 'This is a trend that cannot be stopped'
When 200 New York restaurant workers walked out in the nation’s first-ever fast-food strike in late 2012, they were widely mocked for demanding minimum pay of $15 an hour, with some critics saying their demand was absurdly out of reach, akin to visiting Mars.
But this week a New York state panel appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo recommended establishing a $15 minimum wage for the state’s 180,000 fast-food workers. It was a landmark win for an unorthodox movement – the Fight for 15 – that is just two and a half years old.
“It’s huge,” said Kendall Fells, the Fight for 15’s chief organizer. “It’s hard to believe, going back to that first one-day strike, with people saying, ‘They’re crazy. This is stupid.’ And now you have Governor Cuomo stepping up to help raise wages for 180,000, people.”
Fells said the movement was intent on charging ahead and would continue to press McDonald’s, and other fast-food companies to adopt a $15 minimum, which suddenly appears more realistic now that a New York state board has recommended $15, to be phased in over three years in New York City and six years in the rest of the state. Moreover, it might grow harder for McDonald’s to resist such demands if New York’s move – which awaits formal approval by the state labor commissioner – demonstrates that fast-food restaurants can survive and perhaps even thrive paying more than twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. ...
“This is a trend that cannot be stopped,” said Gary Chaison, a usually subdued professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. “I think within five or 10 years almost every state in the country – maybe not Mississippi or Alabama – will have a $15 minimum wage.”
Worse Than TPP: Secret Economic Trade Deal Could Ruin Global Economy
Hillary Clinton's email could become a criminal matter – report
Hillary Clinton may face a criminal investigation by the Justice Department over her use of a private email address while she was secretary of state, according to a report.
The New York Times said late on Thursday that two inspectors general had asked for the investigation. ... Clinton ... turned over 55,000 pages of emails for release, comprising roughly 30,000 individual messages to the State Department, but deleted 32,000 more emails from her server, stating that they were personal in nature. The former secretary of state also maintained no email to or from her personal account contained classified information. According to the New York Times, government inspectors general identified hundreds of emails that potentially contained classified messages.
The decision on whether to move forward with an investigation lies with the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and carries risks for the Obama administration. Should an investigation go ahead it might turn up even more embarrassing information about Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. However, should the Justice Department decide not to investigate it could lead to accusations of a politically motivated cover-up in an election year.
NetRoots Nation Confrontation Wasn't About #BlackLivesMatter At All
NetRoots bills itself as “the largest gathering of the progressive movement” in this country. Unless you think the Democratic party IS the progressive movement, or that all “progressives” are Democrats, this is nonsense. ...
What it actually is, is the largest gathering of paid and wannabe paid Democratic party activists, Democratic candidates and Democratic campaign managers, of consultants and vendors to Democratic campaigns, and folks of all kinds who are part of the far-flung partisan and ostensibly “non-partisan” machinery that gears up every even numbered year to elect Democrats to local, state and national office. Some of them want to change the Democratic party from within, some of them want to take it as it is, but they're all committed to staying inside the Democratic tent, and to keeping you there as well. ...
High ranking Democrats who hand out money, whether through partisan campaigns or to ostensibly nonpartisan and/or nonprofit organizations are always on the lookout for new activist blood with catchy new hooks, for activists who'll say the things they will not say in the effort to turn out the black masses for that Big Black Vote. So if you're a black activist at NetRoots you really NEED to stand out, to get noticed by the people who can give you fellowships, grants, jobs, funding of all kinds, and a career.
Since Hillary is the all but inevitable Democratic nominee, confronting two minor white male candidates, demanding they “say her name” and come up with solutions that address white supremacy, structural racism and the runaway police state is pretty much a foolproof strategy to get noticed, and as Hillary did not attend NetRoots, they got to do it without antagonizing the Clinton camp. ...
It was about flying the #BlackLivesMatter flag to jockey for positions inside the machinery that is the Democratic party and its affiliates.
The Evening Greens
Nearly 20 Million People Were Displaced Last Year Because of Extreme Weather
Extreme natural disasters like floods, storms and earthquakes displaced nearly 20 million people in 2014, a new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has found.
Since 2008, an average of 26 million people have been forced to flee their homes every year, due to disasters brought on by natural hazards. That's equivalent to one person being displaced every second, the report said.
However, Mother Nature isn't the only factor to be blamed for the severity of the crisis. Often, the weather or earthquake isn't dangerous in and of itself, but when coupled with poor housing and or infrastructure in densely populated areas, can cause immense damage to life and property.
"A flood is not in itself a disaster, the catastrophic consequences happen when people are neither prepared nor protected when it hits," Jan Egeland, Secretary General of NRC, said in a statement. The NRC is an independent foundation focusing on protecting the rights of refugees and internally displaced people through aid distribution and advocacy.
People around the world are now sixty percent more likely to be displaced by a natural disaster than four decades ago. The reasons vary, but the authors said rapid urbanization and population growth in hazard-prone areas were the key drivers behind increased vulnerability.
'Corporate Influence Has Won': House Passes Anti-GMO Labeling Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed legislation that would block states from requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods, or GMOs—a move that consumer rights groups decried as corporate power defeating Americans' right to know what's in their food.
The bill, H.R. 1599—dubbed the “DARK Act” (Deny Americans the Right to Know) by its critics—passed 275-150. (Click here to see the roll call...)
It was backed by the food industry, including the Grocery Manufacturers Association and Monsanto Company, which have poured money into defeating GMO labeling initiatives.
Five Years After Michigan Oil Spill, Unfinished Business Remains
The EPA has yet to levy a Clean Water Act fine for the biggest inland oil spill in U.S. history. The agency has until July 25 to act.
Today the gently rolling Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan flows clear once again. There are few reminders that five years ago the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history turned 40 miles of the river black.
There is, however, a $100 million piece of unfinished business.
That's the scale of the fine the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may impose on Enbridge Inc., the Canadian pipeline company responsible for a 1 million gallon spill of highly toxic oil into the river in 2010. Under the Clean Water Act, the agency has until July 25—the fifth anniversary of the disaster—to levy punishment. ...
Federal law dictates that penalties must be imposed within five years of a Clean Water Act violation. But in cases like Enbridge's, it's not uncommon for negotiations to go beyond the statute of limitations, said Andy Levine, a former EPA attorney who is now in private practice in Philadelphia. Extending the deadline would indicate that the EPA and Enbridge want to keep the case out of court, where the dispute could drag on for years, he said.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
'I am Alena': life as a trans woman where survival means living as Christopher
How the NSA Is a Servant of Corporate Power
A Little Night Music
Muddy Waters - Feel Like Blowin' My Horn
Muddy Waters - Hoochie Coochie Man
Muddy Waters - Gypsy Woman
Muddy Waters - She's 19 Years Old
Muddy Waters - I Won't Go On
Muddy Waters - Young Fashioned Ways
Muddy Waters - Close To You
Muddy Waters - You Got to Take Sick and Die Some of These Days
Muddy Waters - I'm A King Bee
Muddy Waters - Gone to Main Street
Muddy Waters - Walkin' Thru The Park
Muddy Waters - Blow Wind Blow
Muddy Waters - My Fault
Muddy Waters - Good News
Muddy Waters - Stuff You Gotta Watch
Muddy Waters - Champagne & Reefer
Muddy Waters - You Can't Lose What Your Never Had
Muddy Waters - Sugar Sweet
Muddy Waters - Live Dortmund, Germany 29/10/1976
Muddy Waters Tribute 1997 Koko Taylor Keb Mo Buddy Guy Keith Richards Gregg Allman