Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues piano player Eurreal "Little Brother" Montgomery. Enjoy!
Little Brother Montgomery - Vicksburg Blues
"The white man's victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder."
-- Ida B. Wells
News and Opinion
Obama's Secret Elite Interrogation Squad May Not Be So Elite -- And Might Be Doomed
When President Barack Obama took office, he promised to overhaul the nation's process for interrogating terror suspects. His solution: the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, a small interagency outfit that would use non-coercive methods and the latest psychological research to interrogate America's most-wanted terrorists -- all behind a veil of secrecy. ...
But six years on, the Obama administration’s elite interrogation force is on shaky ground. U.S. officials and outside critics question the effectiveness of its interrogators, whether they're following their own training, and whether they can continue to rely on psychological research to help break suspects. ... Obama's limited reforms to how American detains, interrogates and prosecutes suspected terrorists are ad-hoc and fragile. His successor could scrap most of them -- the HIG included -- with the stroke of a pen. ...
Perhaps the biggest mystery surrounding the HIG is whether its interrogators are any good.
HIG staffers aren't always the expert, elite interrogators Obama envisioned. Certain intelligence shops would prefer to keep their top interrogators to themselves, these sources argue, which means the HIG gets whoever's left. U.S. intelligence agencies sometimes interrogate the same detainees the HIG questions -- and claim better results. ...
A third U.S. official familiar with the HIG recalled an instance when, during a training exercise, one of the recruits based his assessment of a detainee on a self-described "gut instinct."
Afterward, the official asked the recruit what his background was.
“He said prior to joining DIA, he was an infantryman," the official recalled. "He had never been an interrogator, never had experience as an interrogator."
Several sources told similar stories about HIG recruits.
"They may or may not have some experience when they arrive at that assignment," a fourth official said.
But after a week of interrogation training, they’ll be eligible to join the Obama administration’s A-Team.
Once a recruit is assigned to the HIG, the formal interrogation training required to become one of Obama’s elite interrogators is completing the HIG’s weeklong Core Interrogation and Interview Course, sources said. ...
Congress and the White House have expressed little interest in whether the HIG's interrogators are qualified and whether their training is effective. Despite its fledgling status, and nearly a decade of international outrage over the CIA’s now-defunct torture program, no one in Washington seems particularly concerned with monitoring the new guard’s activities.
Evil but Stupid
The Obama Administration has been deeply invested in the fantasy of the war on terror’s end from its earliest days in office. In effect, it has attempted to do away with the idea that the country is conducting a war, technically subject to public approval via the legislative branch, and has put in place the hazier notion of a potentially endless chain of discrete war-resembling events overseen by a reluctant executive. In 2009, the administration asked the Pentagon to stop using the phrase “Global War on Terror,” favoring “Overseas Contingency Operations” instead, recasting the war as a series of ad hoc skirmishes. And five months after the Abbottabad raid, Obama announced that all American troops would be removed from Iraq. (The Senate voted down a proposal to bring Congress’s authorization of the war to an end, however, and in any case, Obama left thousands of private military contractors in the country. This June, Obama quietly signed off on a plan to send 450 “advisers” back to Iraq to fight ISIS.)
The US is a country engaged in an endless global war that never feels like one. The government prefers to refuse to acknowledge this war; much of the media follows suit. In this respect, bin Laden’s killing is only the most notable instance of the open fabrications and legalistic half-truths that we’ve come to accept as inevitable parts of our public discourse. ...
The advantage to conducting a war that doesn’t feel like a war is that the President — and the executive branch — continues to accrue more and more unaccountable power. Obama, the erstwhile antiwar candidate, came into a presidency whose powers were dramatically enhanced by his predecessor, thanks to Vice President Cheney’s belief that the executive had to regain the dignity lost in Watergate. Obama has been Uriah Heep–like in his professions of humility over the capacity of American war-making, but even as he has drawn down forces in one country, he has prosecuted smaller-scale wars in Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and Libya, to say nothing of the continuing maneuvers in Afghanistan and Iraq and the enhanced NATO presence along the border with Russia. He does not make major speeches to the public about these wars, nor does he let Congress decide whether to fight them. Meanwhile he reminds the public that he consults books by Augustine and Aquinas for guidance — as if turning to theology to justify murder would somehow be reassuring.
The more we forget the wars Obama conducts, the better he is able to conduct them. Obama knows that a basic skepticism toward American imperial ambitions, the great achievement of the Sixties, still inheres in the republic. Though the Bush Administration drummed up a frenzy of nationalism to prepare for the invasion of Iraq, it was only two years later that the public mood soured on the war and its rationalizations. (By contrast, a majority of the public did not oppose the Vietnam War until 1969, some eight years after Kennedy first sent in advisers.) And yet it cannot be said that there is, or has been for a long time, anything resembling an antiwar movement in the country. The streets are empty, and media discussion of the current war has largely been limited to “how to fight ISIS” or whether Obama’s strategy is all wrong — rather than whether we should be conducting a war at all, whether the empire itself ought to be dismantled.
Beheaded Syrian scholar refused to lead Isis to hidden Palmyra antiquities
Islamic State militants beheaded a renowned antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his mutilated body on a column in a main square of the historic site because he apparently refused to reveal where valuable artefacts had been moved for safekeeping.
The brutal murder of Khaled al-Asaad, 82, is the latest atrocity perpetrated by the jihadi group, which has captured a third of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a “caliphate” on the territory it controls. It has also highlighted Isis’s habit of looting and selling antiquities to fund its activities – as well as destroying them.
Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said Asaad’s family had informed him that the scholar, who worked for more than 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra, was killed by Isis on Tuesday.
Asaad had been held for over a month before being murdered. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said he had learned from a Syrian source that the archaeologist had been interrogated by Isis about the location of treasures from Palmyra and had been executed when he refused to cooperate.
US Sends More Advisers, Munitions for Saudi War on Yemen
US involvement is growing, with the number of Pentagon advisers sent to Saudi Arabia more than doubled to 45 now, and regular shipments of munitions and in-air refueling of bombers serving as the main US contributions to the war effort against Yemeni Shi’ites.
Officials say that the advisory role includes helping the Saudis pick out which targets to attack, a particularly damning admission given the enormous civilian death toll from the Saudi airstrikes against residential areas nationwide.
The Pentagon is insisting, by way of an explanation, that they aren’t “responsible” for any specific strikes that happen in Yemen, so even though they provided the bombs, fueled the planes, and picked the targets, those deaths are somehow not their fault.
US-Created Syrian Rebel Faction Eyes Fight Against Assad
The massively expensive and massively unsuccessful US training program in Syria continues to go off the rails today, as members of the group, which is called either “Division 30″ or the “New Syrian Forces’ depending on who is talking about them, look to pick a fight with the Assad government .
Now the “secular” US rebels are endorsing al-Qaeda publicly, declaring themselves to support the other “holy warriors” in the civil war, and in an interview today with CNN,openly talk about their desire to go after the Assad government,irrespective of US wishes.
Why is Israel’s nuclear arsenal not mentioned in Iran deal debate?
There’s one major issue that President Barack Obama, his supporters and his critics assiduously have avoided as they battle over the deal designed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons: Israel’s own nuclear arsenal.
An open secret for decades, the Israeli stockpile is estimated at some 80-100 warheads, though Israel refuses to confirm or deny its existence under a policy of deliberate ambiguity. The arsenal was developed as the ultimate guarantor of the Jewish state’s survival against threats from its hostile neighborhood. ...
“I refer to it (Israel’s arsenal) as the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” said Avner Cohen, an Israeli-American academic who’s written several ground-breaking histories of the Israeli nuclear program. “In all the discussion about Iran and Israel, one must keep in mind that Israel has been a well-established nuclear weapons state for 40 years. It has a very strong, credible deterrent that Iran doesn’t have.”
Cohen, an Iran deal supporter, also believes that it’s difficult to understand Israeli leaders’ fervent opposition to the accord – especially Netanyahu’s unprecedented interference in domestic U.S. politics – without understanding that they’re worried about maintaining an undeclared nuclear monopoly they’ve enjoyed for decades.
“Part of the 800-pound gorilla missing in the debate is an indication of Israel’s true interest,” said Cohen, a professor of nonproliferation studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Calif. “Israel’s primary but unstated interest is to keep its own nuclear monopoly, in other words, not to allow anyone else (in the region) to have the bomb, not to allow anyone else to even get close to the bomb. The Israelis are concerned that the nuclear deal with Iran effectively provides Iran certain international legitimacy for being a special nuclear status, and the Israelis dont like it.”
Chelsea Manning Found Guilty Over 'Contraband' — But Won’t Face Solitary Confinement
Chelsea Manning, the former US Army soldier who received a 35-year sentence in military prison for providing classified documents to WikiLeaks, has been found guilty again, this time for possessing unapproved reading material and expired toothpaste.
According to a tweet sent from Manning's official account, she was found guilty on all four charges she faced, but will avoid the indefinite solitary confinement that she reportedly could have received as a possible punishment.
Manning, 25, is being held at the Army's Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas. The latest charges stemmed from the discovery of an expired tube of anti-cavity toothpaste in her cell following a routine inspection. Because the toothpaste was expired, Manning faced charges for "medicine misuse," which Nancy Hollander, the attorney working on Manning's appeal, decried as "utterly ridiculous."
Setting 'Concerning Precedent,' US Army Finds Manning Guilty of Bogus Charges
"When I spoke to Chelsea earlier today she wanted to convey the message to supporters that she is so thankful for the thousands of people from around the world who let the government know that we are watching and scrutinizing what happens to her behind prison walls," said Chase Strangio, Manning's attorney at the ACLU. "It was no doubt this support that kept her out of solitary confinement."
"But the fact that Chelsea had to face today’s four-hour Disciplinary Board without counsel, and will now be punished for daring to share her voice, sets a concerning precedent for the remaining decades of her incarceration," Strangio continued.
"No one should have to face the lingering threat of solitary confinement for reading and writing about the conditions we encounter in the world," the attorney added. "Chelsea’s voice is critical to our public discourse about government accountability and trans justice and we can only preserve it if we stay vigilant in our advocacy on her behalf."
Here's a taste of an interesting interview with Laura Poitras to whet your appetite:
Laura Poitras Discusses Suing the U.S. Government, Hillary Clinton’s ‘Crazy’ Email Blunder
Let’s talk about your blockbuster AT&T/NSA story in the Times. Since it came from the Snowden documents, how long had that been gestating?
That was a story that I first approached the Times about a while ago, and the kudos goes to the reporting partners at ProPublica and the Times, as well as Henrik Moltke, who I work with. The story had been reported out for about six months, but it’s a story that I knew needed to be told before that. It deals with Special Source Operations, or the NSA’s relationships with its partners, so those partners include corporations like AT&T, second party, and third party. [The NSA is] very careful with the language in not naming these partners, so you have to do a lot of digging. Everything is written in codenames, and you have to look at which open source reporting can be done to match up with the documents. ProPublica did great research into AT&T’s relationship with the UN. The UN pays AT&T. ...
Are we going to see more revelations from the Snowden documents, and how many more documents are there to sift through?
There’s a still a source who, although he’s come forward, I have journalistic obligation in terms of source protection, so the number of documents falls into things I can’t answer. But there’s a lot more reporting to do, I’ll say. I’m sympathetic to people who say they wish more would come out, but it’s just really hard to scale. ...
Speaking of candidates, you’re big on encryption, so I’m curious how you feel about the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
I think a former Secretary of State having government diplomatic emails on her personal server is a really frightening precedent. I think it’s crazy. In terms of basic security, who is managing that server? And how is it possible? Everybody who was emailing her knew that it was not going to a .gov email address, so why was this not a story in all the years she was Secretary of State? And the idea that she had to delete 30,000 emails because they had… her yoga schedule in them? I can’t buy this.
Undercover Police Have Regularly Spied On Black Lives Matter Activists in New York
Documents obtained by The Intercept confirm that undercover police officers attended numerous Black Lives Matter protests in New York City between December 2014 and February 2015. The documents also show that police in New York have monitored activists, tracking their movements and keeping individual photos of them on file.
The nearly 300 documents, released by the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Metro-North Railroad, reveal more on-the-ground surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists than previous reports have shown, conducted by a coalition of MTA counterterrorism agents and undercover police in conjunction with NYPD intelligence officers.
This appears to be the first documented proof of the frequent presence of undercover police at Black Lives Matter protests in the city of New York, though many activists have suspected their presence since mass protests erupted there last year over a grand jury’s decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, a police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner.
The protest surveillance and use of undercover officers raises questions over whether New York-area law enforcement agencies are potentially criminalizing the exercise of free speech and treating activists like terrorist threats. Critics say the police files seem to document a response vastly disproportionate to the level of law breaking associated with the protests.
Jeb Bush: NSA needs broader powers to combat 'evildoers'
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat "evildoers." ...
The former Florida governor said Congress should revisit its changes to the Patriot Act, and he dismissed concerns from civil libertarians who say the program violated citizens' constitutionally protected privacy rights.
"There's a place to find common ground between personal civil liberties and NSA doing its job," Bush said. "I think the balance has actually gone the wrong way."
Albuquerque Cops Charged with 2nd Degree Murder in Shooting of Homeless Schizophrenic Man
Two Albuquerque cops will face charges of second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and battery in connection with the March 2014 shooting death of homeless man James Boyd, a New Mexico judge decided today.
Preliminary hearing arguments came to a close on Tuesday and the judge ruled that former Detective Keith Sandy and Officer Dominique Perez will stand trial for the killing of the schizophrenic 38-year-old, according to NBC. Boyd's death was captured in a graphic video recorded by a camera on one of the officer's lapels. The footage went viral, prompting outrage and turmoil across New Mexico that culminated with clashes between protesters and riot police with tear gas.
Sandy and Perez responded to a report that a mentally ill homeless man was illegally camping out in the wilderness. Boyd was reportedly brandishing two pocket knives when the officers arrived on the scene. The video shows Boyd standing uphill from the officers, surrounded by scrubby New Mexico terrain. One of the officers says "Do it," before opening fire. Then, with Boyd already lying on the ground, the officers fire a few more rounds into his body. ...
According to the Albuquerque Journal, Sandy and Perez are the first officers in the city to face charges as a result of an on-duty fatal shooting in at least 50 years.
Katrina killings: judge orders new trial over police shootings after hurricane
Five former New Orleans police officers deserve a new trial on charges connected to the deadly shootings of unarmed people amid the chaos following hurricane Katrina, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, upholding a judge’s 2013 decision.
Four of the men are charged in the shootings at the Danziger Bridge on 4 September 2005, a week after hurricane Katrina hit and levee failures led to catastrophic flooding. A fifth ex-cop is charged in the cover-up, which fell apart as federal investigators bore down. ...
Police said the officers were responding to a report of other officers down when they came under fire. Police also said one of the men, Ronald Madison, was reaching for a gun. Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man and James Brissette, 19, were killed.
All five men were convicted in 2011. Former officer Robert Faulcon was sentenced to 65 years in prison; former sergeants Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius, 40 years; former officer Anthony Villavaso was given 38, and former Sergeant Arthur “Archie” Kaufman, six. Kaufman was released on bond in 2013. The others remain jailed.
In 2013, US District Judge Kurt Engelhardt ruled they deserved a new trial because prosecutors’ anonymous online postings tainted the judicial process. A three-judge panel of the fifth US circuit court of appeals upheld that decision.
"Failure Factories": How a Florida School District Wrecked Schools for Black Students
Asian shares plunge to two-year lows as China stocks continue to fall
Asian shares on Wednesday struggled at two-year lows after Chinese stocks extended their fall, stoking fears about the stability of China’s economy.
The Shanghai Composite Index retreated 3.9% a day after worries that the central bank could be in no hurry to ease policy further pushed it down 6.1%. The plunge dented hopes of Chinese share markets stabilising after Beijing effectively pulled out all the stops to stem the rout.
Greenspan Imagines Better, Alternate Universe in Which Greenspan Was Not Fed Chair
Alan Greenspan, the policy failure whose tenure at the Federal Reserve helped create the conditions for the largest financial crisis in nearly a century, was inexplicably given a major newspaper platform on Monday to opine about regulation, which he ideologically abhors.
So it came as a surprise to read the second paragraph of his Financial Times op-ed, wishfully describing an alternative history of 2008, if only there had been robust regulation.
“What the 2008 crisis exposed was a fragile underpinning of a highly leveraged financial system,” Greenspan writes. “Had bank capital been adequate and fraud statutes been more vigorously enforced, the crisis would very likely have been a financial episode of only passing consequence.”
Greenspan must have temporarily forgotten that he had the power to accomplish both of these priorities as Fed chair. ...
Greenspan famously did none of this during the inflating of the housing bubble from 2002 to 2006, instead extolling the virtues of adjustable-rate loans and mortgage securitization, even as fellow Fed governors and the FBI publicly warned about looming fraud. The responsibility for vigorously enforcing fraud statutes, then, fell to Greenspan, and he ignored it.
Greek infrastructure goes on sale as Germany approves €86 bln bailout
Greece is for Sale – and Everything Must Go
I've just had sight of thelatest privatisation plan for Greece. It's been issued by something called the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund –the vehicle supervised by the European institutions, which has been tasked with selling off an eye-watering €50 billion of Greece's ‘valuable assets’. ...
Fourteen regional airports, flying into top tourist hubs, have already gone to a German company, but don’t panic because stock in Athens airport is still on the table, as well as Athens' old airport which is up for a 99 year lease for redevelopment as a tourism and business centre.
Piraeus and Thessaloniki ports are up for sale – the former case has caused the chief executive to resign and industrial action has begun. A gas transmission system looks likely to be sold to the government of Azerbaijan, but there’s still a power and electricity company, the postal service, a transport utility which allows trains and buses to run, the country’s main telecommunications company, a 648 km motorway, and a significant holding in the leading oil refiner, which covers approximately two-thirds of the country’s refining capacity.
Holdings in Thessaloniki and Athens water are both on sale – though public protest has ensured that 50% plus 1 share remains in state hands. Nonetheless, the sale will mean that market logic will dictate the future of these water and sewerage monopolies. Finally there are pockets of land, including tourist and sports developments, throughout Greece. ...
Why does this matter? First because makes no sense to sell off valuable assets in the middle of Europe’s worst depression in 70 years. Those industries could generate revenues to help the Greek government rebuild the economy. In fact, the vast majority of the funds raised will go back to the creditors in debt repayments, and to the recapitalisation of Greek banks.
So the privatisations aren’t to do with helping Greece. The beneficiaries are corporations from around the world, though eyebrows are particularly being raised at the number of European companies – from German airport operators and phone companies to French railways – who are getting their hands on Greece’s economy. Not to mention the European investment banks and legal firms who are making a fast buck along the way. The self-interest of European governments in forcing these policies on Greece leaves a particularly unpleasant flavour.
David Cay Johnston: 21 Questions for Trump on Kickbacks, Busting Unions, the Mob & Corporate Welfare
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from the International Socialist Review: "The Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World, Lays Strong Foundation"
Tune in at 2pm!
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How to Get Low-Wage Workers Into the Middle Class
Underwritten by the Service Employees International Union, the Fight for 15 has not only focused a national spotlight on the issue of low-wage work, but accomplished more than many thought possible just a few years ago. The campaign and its allies have gotten Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York to adopt a $15 minimum wage and Chicago and Kansas City a $13 wage— not to mention more modest increases in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and other cities and states. SEIU leaders say that the Fight for 15’s efforts have yielded raises for over 8 million U.S. workers. (By contrast, SEIU has 1.8 million members.) ...
Some fast-food workers in Seattle, Los Angeles, or New York might conclude that they don’t need a union once they start getting $15 an hour, but failing to unionize might prevent them from winning further wage increases and improvements in years to come—perhaps in the form of legislation for paid sick days or maternity leave. And if the nation’s labor unions continue to weaken and slide into irrelevance, it is doubtful that newfangled advocacy groups that fight on unaffiliated workers’ behalf, even highly effective ones such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers or Domestic Workers United, would begin to have the finances, lobbying clout, or organizing muscle to get cities and states to embrace a $13 or $15 minimum wage. In years to come, new progressive, pro-worker groups or movements might form—perhaps some group resembling Acorn—that would champion a higher minimum wage, but again it is questionable how effective such a group would be without a strong, viable labor movement to provide it political and financial support.
If the SEIU can come up with a way to unionize a franchising giant like McDonald’s, it would be a watershed for organized labor—and could create a replicable strategy for lifting hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of low-wage workers.
Without unionized workers in the fast-food chains, SEIU has sought to exert pressure on McDonald’s from a variety of angles. For instance, it played an instrumental role in getting the European Union to investigate McDonald’s avoiding over $1 billion in taxes by steering royalty payments to a tiny Luxembourg-based subsidiary. The SEIU also helped persuade Brazil’s two largest union federations to sue McDonald’s biggest franchisee in Latin America, accusing it of wage theft and unsanitary conditions, charges that could merit fines of up to 30 percent of annual sales. This week a Brazilian union asked prosecutors to investigate whether that giant franchisee has committed large-scale fraud and whether it has dodged more than $100 million in taxes through accounting tricks and setting up a tax haven in the British Virgin Islands.
The SEIU is exerting all this pressure—and hints at more such pressure—in the hope of getting McDonald’s (and perhaps other fast-food companies) to sit down and talk. McDonald’s has declined the invitation. In April, the SEIU’s president, Mary Kay Henry, said, “We will see as the movement grows how we can get these employers to the table. We feel very encouraged that there will at some point be a breakthrough.”
When Black Lives Matter Met Clinton: Activists Speak Out on Challenging Candidate over Crime Record
Hillary Clinton: alleged classified emails simply 'disagreement between agencies'
Hillary Clinton has again defended herself against suggestions of misconduct in her use of a private email server as secretary of state, dismissing the issue in a press conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
“The facts are stubborn. What I did was legally permitted,” Clinton said. “Whether it was a personal account or a government account I did not send classified material and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified.”
Last week Clinton gave her private server to the FBI “in order to be as cooperative as possible” as the agency and other intelligence officials investigate whether the server posed a security risk. Investigators have flagged 305 emails for further review in case they contain classified information, and an inspector general has identified two emails with “top secret” information.
Clinton insisted that no materials were marked as such, though her emails show some messages she wrote were censored by the State Department for national security reasons before they were publicly released. She said that the dispute was largely between government agencies over timing and classification protocols.
Jeb Bush Got $1.3M Job At Lehman After Florida Shifted Pension Cash To Bank
For Florida taxpayers, the move by the administration of then-Gov. Jeb Bush to forge a relationship with Lehman Brothers would ultimately prove disastrous. Transactions in 2005 and 2006 put the Wall Street investment bank in charge of some $250 million worth of pension funds for Florida cops, teachers and firefighters. Lehman would capture more than $5 million in fees on these deals, while gaining additional contracts to manage another $1.2 billion of Florida's money. Then, in the fall of 2008, Lehman collapsed into bankruptcy, leaving Florida facing up to $1 billion in losses.
But for Jeb Bush personally, his enduring relationship with Lehman would prove lucrative. In 2007, just as he left office, Bush secured a job as a Lehman consultant for $1.3 million a year, Bloomberg reported.
Weeks after Bush took the Lehman job, the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) -- a three-member body that makes investment decisions about state pension funds and whose ranks had recently included one Jeb Bush -- gave Lehman additional business: SBA purchased $842 million worth of separate investments in Lehman’s mortgage-backed securities. Over the course of the year, the SBA would shift an additional $420 million of pension money into the same fund in which the state had begun investing under Bush.
In short, during Bush’s first year working for Lehman, his former colleagues in Tallahassee, the state capital, moved vast sums of Florida pension money into the doomed Wall Street investment bank, even as warnings about its financial troubles began to emerge.
Canadian government faces widening corruption scandal as election looms
Opposition says bribery and fraud trial of Conservative senator has revealed top staff in prime minister Stephen Harper’s office tried to keep lid on expenses affair
Canada’s main opposition party has called for federal police to probe whether members of the prime minister’s office were involved in a bribery and expenses affair that has engulfed the ruling Conservatives.
The scandal, which first erupted in 2013, is threatening to dominate the campaign ahead of a 19 October election where Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are bidding to pull off a rare fourth consecutive victory.
Senator Mike Duffy, an ex-Harper ally, is charged with bribery and fraud in relation to C$90,000 (£44,000/US$69,000) of expenses he claimed.
The official opposition New Democrats said revelations from Duffy’s trial showed far more top aides than initially thought were involved in attempts to quell the scandal.
The affair, with its talk of backroom deals and secret payments, could damage a Conservative party that came to power in 2006 vowing to clean up politics.
The Evening Greens
Canada Might Start Dumping Nuclear Waste Near the US Border - A Mile From Lake Huron
A Canadian plan to build an underground nuclear waste dump less than a mile from Lake Huron is getting unfriendly attention from US lawmakers, who are trying to force the Obama administration to invoke a 106-year-old treaty against its northern neighbor.
Though a Canadian review panel declared that the proposed Deep Geologic Repository will have "no significant adverse effects on the Great Lakes," opponents wonder why a site so close to the world's largest freshwater system was chosen. ... The project would bury 7 million cubic feet worth of low and intermediate level nuclear waste — including contaminated mop heads, paper towels, floor sweepings, but also filters and reactor components — 2,230 feet underground. Ontario Power Generation, which operates two nuclear power plants in Canada's most populous province, has chosen a site just north of the lakefront town of Kincardine, after getting approval from the municipality.
Last week, Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters announced that they will introduce the Stop Nuclear Waste by Our Lakes Act. The law will call on the US State Department to invoke the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty and demand a binational review of the project by the International Joint Commission, a body that mediates boundary disputes. Representative Dan Kildee of Michigan will introduce a similar bill in the House. ...
The State Department seems to agree. A department representative told VICE News that, along with the US Environmental Protection Agency, they are participating in the Canadian review process, which they consider "the appropriate channel for providing US input on this proposal." They said they have no plans to call for the binational review the senators are demanding.
Newly Exposed Methane Threat Trumps Latest 'False Solution' on Emissions
Previously overlooked natural gas gathering facilities spewing as much methane as 37 coal-fired power plants
Environmental groups are raising flags over what they say is another "false solution" as the Obama administration on Tuesday put forth its new proposed methane emissions rules.
Meanwhile, a new study revealed that those very emissions are in fact "substantially higher" than official estimates, adding to the growing body of evidence showing that the proliferation of natural gas—even if "capped"—will only exacerbate climate change.
The study, led by researchers at Colorado State University and published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found that natural gas gathering facilities lose about 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year, amounting to roughly eight times more than previous estimates used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The facilities, which collect from multiple wells before distributing the gas to power plants and homes, have been overlooked by previous emission surveys. "Yet," notes Mark Brownstein, vice president in the Environmental Defense Fund's Climate and Energy Program, "they may be the largest methane source in the oil and gas supply chain."
The newly identified emissions "would increase total emissions from the natural gas supply chain in EPA’s current Greenhouse Gas Inventory by approximately 25 percent if added to the tally," Brownstein notes.
Further, the emitted methane "packs the same 20-year climate impact as 37 coal-fired power plants," and is said to be 87 times as potent as carbon dioxide.
Tony Abbott and Co. Declare War on 'Vigilante' Green Groups
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, described this week by author and activist Naomi Klein as a "climate villain," is cracking down further on environmental groups—and democracy itself—by seeking to repeal a section of the country's conservation law that allows green groups to mount legal challenges to environmental approvals.
The move is described by the Sydney Morning Herald as a response to the controversial decision that stopped Australia's largest coal project—Adani's Carmichael coal mine—in its tracks. ... The successful challenge, brought by a small environmental group, was decried by Abbott as "legal sabotage." Attorney General and Senator George Brandis, who will take the repeal amendments to Parliament this week, said the country's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as it currently stands had encouraged cases of "vigilante litigation" and he was "appalled" by the Adani decision. ...
But Lenore Taylor, the Guardian's Australia political editor, put it another way: "When an environment group successfully uses 16 year-old national environmental laws to delay a project, the Abbott government tries to change the law to prevent them from ever doing it again."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Why Bernie Sanders Should Add a Job Guarantee to His Policy Agenda
The Short, Hard Life Of Freddie Gray
Maryland Judge Rules Public Has Right To Information On Dangerous Oil Trains
“You’ve Got to Cozy Up”: More Politicians Admitting That Money Controls Politics
Trumping the Federal Debt without Playing the Default Card
Who’s the Real Troublemaker in the Middle East?
Barack Obama: The Nobel Peace Prize Winner Who’s Bombed 7 Countries
4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?
Trump's Biggest Lie: "I'm the Biggest Warmonger"
MyTransHealth
A Little Night Music
Little Brother Montgomery - Hesitation Blues
Little Brother Montgomery - No Special Rider Blues
Little Brother Montgomery - Michigan Water Blues
Little Brother Montgomery - Doctor, Write Me A Prescription for the Blues
Little Brother Montgomery - Riverside Boogie
Little Brother Montgomery - First Time I Met The Blues
Little Brother Montgomery - Louisiana Blues Part 2
Little Brother Montgomery - Farish Street Jive
Little Brother Montgomery - Tasty Blues
Little Brother Montgomery w/Creole George Guesnon - Goodbye Good Luck To You
Little Brother Montgomery - Crescent City Blues
Little Brother Montgomery -- Prisoner Bound Blues
Little Brother Montgomery - Mama,You Don't Mean Me No Good
Little Brother Montgomery & Edith Wilson - The Same Dog That Bit You
Little Brother Montgomery - Hard, Oh Lord
Little Brother Montgomery - Little Brother Boogie
Little Brother Montgomery - Cow Cow Blues
Chuck Leavell - No Special Rider