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!
Tonight's music features the music of Dr. Isaiah Ross, a one man blues band best known for his fine harmonica playing and his early 1950's recordings on the Sun label.
Dr. Ross - Biscuit Baking Woman
"I've been told American drone strikes are "surgical" while attending Aspen Ideas Festival panels, interviewing delegates at the Democratic National Convention, and perusing reader emails after every time I write about the innocents killed and maimed in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
It is a triumph of propaganda. ...
[Surgeons] use a scalpel. Their cuts are precise down to the millimeter. Once in a great while there is a slip of the knife, a catastrophic mistake. In those cases, the surgeon is held accountable and the victim lavishly compensated. Oh, and there's one more thing about surgical procedures: while the person being cut into is occasionally victimized by a mistake, there is never a case where the scalpel is guided so imprecisely that it kills the dozen people standing around the operating table. For that reason, orderlies and family members don't cower in hospital halls terrified that a surgeon is going to arbitrarily kill them. And if he did, he'd be arrested for murder."
-- Conor Friedersdorf
News and Opinion
UN expert labels CIA tactic exposed by Bureau of Investigative Journalism ‘a war crime’
The UN’s expert on extrajudicial killings has described a tactic used by the CIA and first exposed by a Bureau investigation as ‘a war crime’.
Earlier this year the Bureau and the Sunday Times revealed the CIA was deliberately targeting rescuers and funeral-goers in its Pakistan drone strikes. Those controversial tactics have reportedly been revived.
Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur, told a meeting in Geneva on June 21: ’Reference should be made to a study earlier this year by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism… If civilian ‘rescuers’ are indeed being intentionally targeted, there is no doubt about the law: those strikes are a war crime.’
Judges to Review Constitutionality of NDAA Military Detention Legislation
Military’s Own Report Card Gives Afghan Surge an F
The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan ended last week. Conditions in Afghanistan are mostly worse than before it began.
That conclusion doesn’t come from anti-war advocates. It relies on data recently released by the NATO command in Afghanistan, known as ISAF, and acquired by Danger Room. According to most of the yardsticks chosen by the military — but not all — the surge in Afghanistan fell short of its stated goal: stopping the Taliban’s momentum.
Court declares 92 Occupy Chicago arrests unconstitutional
A judge in Cook County, Illinois on Thursday dismissed over 90 cases against Occupy Chicago activists on the grounds that they violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Judge Thomas Donnelly declared that the city’s park curfew law that was used to arrest activists in Grant Park last October was “unconstitutional both on its face and as applied and all complaints in this case are dismissed with prejudice,” according to the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
“The Occupy Chicago demonstrators were subject to constantly changing rules and regulations that ended in a directive that they had to be constantly moving in order to protest,” the judge explained in his 37-page opinion (PDF). “Viewed in isolation the rules and regulations appear reasonable, but viewed in the larger context of the Occupy movement’s presence in Chicago, they give rise to the inference that the City was attempting to discourage this particular protest.”
Expensive to Be Poor: Expenses Twice as Much as Income for Bottom 20% of US Households
A new study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics out today probably won’t get as much notice as their other report showing the US gained 386,000 jobs more than expected. However, this one shows a persistent problem in America, that it’s actually expensive to be poor.
The average individual in the lowest 20% of the income ladder had take-home pay of $10,074 and average expenses of $22,011. That’s more than double, and it makes being poor nearly impossible to manage. The story for the second and third quintiles weren’t much better, with their expenses roughly commensurate to their income, meaning they live paycheck-to-paycheck and save next to nothing. But the expenses-versus-income report for the poorest Americans is almost unreal.
The Huffington Post puts some of these numbers in context:
This percentage of households includes many retirees, who are presumably living off savings.
Many of these households may be spending more than they earn through some combination of loans from family and friends, credit cards, savings, and payday loans. The government helps a bit with an income tax credit: The average bottom-fifth household’s after-tax income is $269 higher than its before-tax income. The income accounted for includes welfare and Social Security benefits.
Sheila Bair against the world
American Banker’s Donna Borak has found the juiciest bits of Sheila Bair’s book yet — and it turns out to be buried in, of all places, the chapter on Basel III. Bair’s backstory to the September 2010 Basel III announcement is full of insider gossip and score-settling, and from reading Borak’s account I’d definitely class Bair as a dubiously reliable narrator. But her story is fascinating, all the same.
For one thing, Bair reveals, Tim Geithner involved himself quite deeply in Basel III negotiations. Bair can’t stand Geithner, and ascribes malign intent to everything he does. Geithner asks questions about Basel III without explicitly saying what his own opinion is? “It wasn’t clear whether Tim was trying to build consensus among the U.S. regulators or trying to stir the pot.” Geithner agrees to push for higher capital standards — exactly what Bair wanted all along? Well, that’s just his way of trying to marginalize her:
Bair Details Inside Story of Regulatory Clash Over Basel III
WASHINGTON — Sheila Bair, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., nearly succeeded in forcing the largest banks to hold at least 10% common equity capital as part of Basel III rules, but was stymied by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
[ ... ]
While the panel attempted to hash out an agreement, Bair said Geithner unexpectedly inserted himself into the discussions, calling a meeting in spring of 2010 to discuss the U.S. position even though Treasury was not part of the Basel Committee.
During that and further meetings, which included Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and central bank Gov. Daniel Tarullo, Bair said all three regulators were "uncomfortable" with Geithner's interference
[ ... ]
"Between the U.K. and Swiss delegations, most of the arguments that needed to be said were said. I just wish more of them had come from the U.S. delegation," Bair writes.
Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico Beg for an End to the Murderous War on Drugs
Wednesday's United Nations General Assembly session saw not one, not two, but three Latin American heads of state call on it to promote debate on alternatives to the war on drugs. The presidents of Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico all used their 15-minute addresses at the Assembly to call for exploring new paths.
Outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who has presided over a drug war that has left more than 55,000 people dead during his six-year term, told the General Assembly the UN should lead "a profound international debate" about ways to reduce drug trafficking and its consequences. The UN itself should do more to intervene if wealthy Western countries that consume "tons and tons of drugs" cannot bring their demand down.
The US and other drug consuming countries need to "evaluate with all sincerity, and honesty, if they have the will to reduce the consumption of drugs in a substantive manner," Calderon said. "If this consumption cannot be reduced, it is urgent that decisive actions be taken," he added, without clarification.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
"Won't Back Down" Presents a Ruling-Class Wet Dream: Teachers and Parents Working to Destroy Their Own Institutions
A Little Night Music
Dr. Isaiah Ross - Feel So Good
Doctor Ross - The Boogie Disease
Doctor Ross - Cat Squirrel
Dr Ross - Doctor Ross's Boogie
Doctor Ross - Thirty Two Twenty
Doctor Ross - The Sunnyland
Dr. Ross - Blues in the Night
Dr. Ross - Numbers Blues
Dr. Ross - chicago breakdown
Doctor Ross - Freight Train
Doctor Ross - Come back baby
Doctor Ross - Juke Box Boogie
Dr. Isaiah Ross - Mean Old World
Dr Ross - Baby please don't go
Dr Ross - My Black Name Is Ringing
Dr Ross - Shake My Hand
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We are a vibrant cluster of people who are creative, committed, energetic and awake. We are a community without any particular label drawn together in the pursuit of fresh ways to inform, debate, persuade, enlighten, and to act.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."
~ Aristotle
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