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, r&b and rock and roll singer and songwriter Billy "The Kid" Emerson. Enjoy!
Billy The Kid Emerson - Do The Chicken/Don't Be Careless
“I can make more generals, but horses cost money.”
-- Abraham Lincoln
News and Opinion
Still Leading Pack, US Arms Exporters Extract Increasing Profits From Foreign Conflict Zones
As the number-one exporter of major arms world-wide, the United States is extracting ever-increasing profits from the global rise in war and military escalation, a new study by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) finds.
Between 2010 and 2014, global conventional weapons transfers jumped 16 percent as compared to 2005-2009, the researchers found.
The U.S. alone accounted for 31 percent of international weapons exports from 2010 to 2014. During this time the U.S. was the world's top supplier, delivering "major weapons to at least 94 recipients," the study finds.
Researchers note that American weapons exporters are casting a wide net that reaches far beyond the U.S. military.
"The [U.S.] has long seen arms exports as a major foreign policy and security tool, but in recent years exports are increasingly needed to help the U.S. arms industry maintain production levels at a time of decreasing U.S. military expenditure," said Dr. Aude Fleurant, director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Program," in a press statement.
As conflict and tensions sweep the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions, these markets are booming.
Hat tip Don midwest. What's good for American business comes at a horrible cost for the rest of the world:
Worse than ISIL: Iraq’s US-caused Public Health Catastrophe
The Iraqi people, once the envy of the Arab world for their outstanding educational and health-care systems, have been reduced to a nation of refugees, flung across the Middle East. U.S.-created thugs are axing Iraq’s historical heritage into pieces. The Iraqi health system continues to disintegrate as doctors flee and supplies dwindle. Maternal-child health, which is an indicator of a nation’s overall health, has plummeted in Iraq and is now among the worst in the world. ...
Decades of U.S. coups, invasions, and debilitating sanctions has brought large sections of the Middle East to the brink of a total collapse. In Iraq after the Gulf War, thirteen years of sanctions killed over half a million Iraqi children while unknown numbers of children suffered irreversible developmental, physical, and mental damage. Recent declassified information reveals that the harmful public health consequences of sanctions were fully known to the American perpetrators. ...
Lesson learned: the U.S. presence in Iraq was synonymous with societal death. As in previous occupations, the U.S. created a power vacuum and spurred opposition to its occupation, thus causing to coalesce the most barbaric forces in the area. The trained killers of al-Qaeda and ISIL have smothered civil society in Iraq and Syria. Public discourse has all but vanished. Through constant battering from the United States and its allies, a growing mass of the Middle East has been transformed into a starving, terrified population. This population is constantly driven from one burning border to the next, from the grip of one brutish gang to the next.
A Double Standard on Leaks? As Whistleblowers Jailed, Petraeus Escapes Prison & Advises White House
CIA Director Describes How the U.S. Outsources Terror Interrogations
In rare remarks about a sensitive issue, the director of the CIA confirmed today that the U.S. government works with foreign intelligence agencies to capture and jointly interrogate suspected terrorists.
“There are places throughout the world where CIA has worked with other intelligence services and has been able to bring people into custody and engage in the debriefings of these individuals … through our liaison partners, and sometimes there are joint debriefings that take place as well,” said John Brennan, the CIA director, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Brennan’s remarks confirm what journalists have long reported: that the Obama administration sometimes helps other countries do the dirty work of snatching and interrogating terror suspects — keeping the U.S. at arm’s length from operations that are ethically and legally dubious. ...
The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill and others have detailed cases during the Obama administration in which terror suspects were held in foreign custody at the behest of the U.S. In 2011, Scahill reported for The Nation on a secret prison in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. Though officially run by the Somali government, Scahill wrote, “US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners” at the facility.
Swedish Prosecutor in Julian Assange's Case Retreats; US Continues Espionage Investigation
U.S. Omits Iran and Hezbollah From Terror Threat List
An annual security assessment presented to the U.S. Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, has excluded Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah from its list of terror threats to U.S. interests, despite both being consistently included as threats in previous years.
The unclassified report, issued by Clapper on February 26 and entitled the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities, was published by the Times of Israel amid Israeli concerns that Iran was omitted simply because of Tehran’s efforts to combat ISIS.
In a previous report from January 2014, Clapper included Iran and Hezbollah in the ‘Terrorism’ section, writing that both “continue to directly threaten the interests of U.S. allies. Hizballah [sic] has increased its global terrorist activity in recent years to a level that we have not seen since the 1990s”. Iran was also given its own sub-heading in the ‘Terrorism’ section of such assessments in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Yet in the latest report, Clapper omits both Iran and Hezbollah from this section, only mentioning the Shiite Muslim militant group once in reference to the threat it faces from radical Sunni groups - such as ISIS and the al-Nusra Front - on Lebanon’s borders. In regard to Iran, the report names it as both a cyber and regional threat to the U.S. because of its support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
However, the report speaks of Tehran’s assistance in preventing “ISIL [another term for ISIS] from gaining large swaths of additional territory” in Iraq. It adds that the Islamic Republic has “intentions to dampen sectarianism, build responsive partners, and deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia”.
Iraq Halts Tikrit Offensive, Leaving ISIS in Control
Over the weekend, no progress was made on the Iraqi invasion of the ISIS-held city of Tikrit, presenting the delay as simply waiting for “reinforcements.” Today, officials confirmed theoffensive has been halted outright, with no timetable for another attempt at taking the city.
It is the second time Iraq has tried to retake Tikrit from ISIS, the first being in June. On both occasions, Iraqi officials were claiming imminent victory right up to the point where they called the offensive halted.
Israel votes: 4th term or end of Netanyahu era?
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Disavows Two-State Solution to Woo Far-Right Voters
In a desperate bid to win far-right votes on the eve of neck-and-neck elections in Israel, embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a surprise announcement on Monday rescinding his 2009 pledge to support a two-state solution to his country's impasse with Palestinians.
"I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel," Netanyahu said in an interview published by the website NRG, an outlet associated with the pro-settler newspaper Makor Rishon and funded by billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. "The left has buried its head in the sand time after time and ignores this, but we are realistic and understand."
When asked if he meant that a Palestinian state would not be established if he remained in power, the Likud Party leader replied in the affirmative.
While critics of Netanyahu's period in office note that his expansion of Jewish settlement construction in disputed land has always reflected a disinclination to deal honestly with the prospect of a Palestinian state, Monday's remarks are the sharpest indication that he has abandoned the pledge he delivered in 2009. ...
Netanyahu was already seen as having flip-flopped on the two-state issue earlier this month after his Likud Party released a statement attributed to the prime minister saying that the establishment of a Palestinian state was no longer relevant to the reality in the region.
If reelected, Netanyahu vows massive settlement expansion in E.Jerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday that if reelected he will build thousands of settler homes in Arab east Jerusalem to prevent future concessions to the Palestinians.
Speaking ahead of Tuesday's general election on a whistlestop tour of Har Homa, a contentious settlement neighbourhood of annexed east Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed he would never allow the Palestinians to establish a capital in the city's eastern sector. ...
"We will continue to build in Jerusalem, we will add thousands of housing units, and in the face of all the (international) pressure, we will persist and continue to develop our eternal capital," he added.
Israel seized Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
This is a pretty good primer on Israeli elections, for those interested in that sort of thing it's worth reading in full:
How Israel's Next Government Will Be Decided
Israelis do not directly elect their prime minister. They vote for party lists, which state candidates in numerical order, and seats are then awarded on a proportional basis.
The Israeli Knesset has a total of 120 seats. To form a government, any party or coalition must hold at least 61 seats. Yet no single party has ever won more than 56, so a coalition has always been required. The President of Israel, currently Reuven Rivlin, asks the party deemed most likely to form a functioning coalition to head the next government.
So, the party that garners the most votes isn't necessarily entitled to a position in the ruling government.
On 12th Anniversary of Rachel Corrie's Death, Renewed Calls for Justice
Twelve years since their daughter Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer while nonviolently protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes, Cindy and Craig Corrie on Monday said they are still seeking justice and answers regarding her death.
The anniversary comes just a month after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Israeli Ministry of Defense had no liability for Rachel's death. However, Rachel's family on Monday paid a visit to the U.S. Senate and State Department to warn lawmakers of the dangerous precedent set by the ruling, which now places all citizens, journalists, and human rights observers in occupied Palestine at great risk.
Rachel was crushed to death at age 23 on March 16, 2003, by an Israeli military Caterpillar D9R bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza. She was in Gaza working as a human rights observer and was protesting the impending demolition of the home of a Palestinian family.
After a lengthy legal battle and repeated calls for investigation by activists, supporters, as well as both the Bush and Obama administrations, the Israeli Supreme Court on February 12 of this year upheld a lower court ruling that said Rachel was killed in a "war activity" for which the state bears no liability under Israeli law.
That verdict, Cindy Corrie told Huff Post Live on Monday, says the Israeli military can operate with impunity in the Gaza strip. "The court is reflecting the will of the Israeli Knesset making it impossible for any legal action to be brought against the Israeli military for any action," she said.
Activists commemorating Rachel Corrie's death attacked by Israeli military in West Bank
Two Palestinians were arrested by Israeli troops on Sunday during clashes at an event in a West Bank village to mark the 12th anniversary of the death of US activist Rachel Corrie. ...
The participants planted about 40 olive trees in the threatened lands of Qariyut, which is surrounded by many Israeli settlements and outposts.
Photographs of Corrie were hung on the newly planted trees, alongside pictures of other international activists killed or injured while involved in solidarity action in Palestine. These included Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist who was kidnapped and killed in the Gaza Strip in April 2011; British activist Thomas Hurndall, shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in January 2004; and Tristan Anderson, a US citizen who was critically injured in March 2009 after being shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas grenade by Israeli Border Police following a protest against the separation wall in the West Bank village of Ni’ilin. ...
A group of Israeli soldiers managed to surround the Palestinians after they came through the village, firing live bullets in the air in order to repress the activity. They attempted to arrest many Palestinians but some women from the village were able to prevent some of the arrests. The Israeli soldiers arrested one Palestinian who fell unconscious while running away.
Villagers and activists tried to convince soldiers to release him and demanded a Palestinian ambulance, but the soldiers refused. They also prevented Palestinian medics from treating him on the spot.
Ukraine unveils draft bills on rebel autonomy
Ukraine on Monday said it will vote this week on bills granting separatist areas in the east special status in line with a February peace deal, as one soldier died in continuing sporadic clashes. ...
The bills state that rebel-controlled areas in Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the east will attain their "special status" -- giving preference to Russian language and possibly increased cooperation with Russia -- only after holding elections in accordance with Ukrainian law and under international observation.
All armed groups and weapons would also have to disarm or leave Ukraine, and Ukrainian media be allowed to operate in the region, the text of the bill said.
Kiev was obligated under the terms of the Minsk ceasefire to officially recognise the special status of the areas controlled by the self-declared "people's republics" of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The ceasefire deal, which went into effect on February 15, gave Ukraine one month to demarcate the special territories and begin discussions about local elections.
In the draft bills, the area in question is demarcated by Ukraine's state border with Russia in the east, the Azov Sea in the south and the frontline between Kiev's forces and the separatists as defined by the Minsk agreements.
Brazil in crisis mode as ruling party sees public trust rapidly dissolving
The bad news just keeps coming for Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. On Monday, the treasurer of the ruling Workers’ Party was formerly charged with corruption. The day before, enormous anti-government demonstrations filled the streets of more than 160 cities. The economy is faltering, inflation is rising and poverty reduction is at risk of stalling.
Her cabinet are in crisis mode, but they are hamstrung by a fractious legislature and a debilitating scandal at the state-run oil firm Petrobras, which has led to investigations of 34 sitting politicians, including the speakers of both houses of Congress. Just five months into her second term, this is posing difficult questions not just for the president, but for her party — and for Brazil’s 30-year-old democracy. ... Rousseff, who was chairwoman of the Petrobras board when much of the wrongdoing took place, is also under pressure. Although she is not under investigation and has denied knowledge of the corruption, members of the public are not convinced. ...
t was a shock for the Workers’ Party, which rose to power through mass mobilisations, but now appears to have lost the streets. Pro-government rallies called by trade unions two days earlier attracted only a tiny fraction of this interest. In São Paulo, the turnout was around 10,000. In central Rio, it was probably less than 1,000.
This was a sad echo of the early years of this century, when the first Workers’ Party President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva drew vast crowds to his campaigns, including students, social activists, union members, and anyone hopeful of change. In the past four years under Rousseff, however, the party has increasingly struggled to mobilise even the rank-and-file. The radical left has grown disillusioned by the compromises and failed promises of more than a decade in power, a burgeoning corruption scandal at the state-run oil firm Petrobras has paralysed the petrochemical and construction industries, choking job creation, and many former supporters who benefited from interventionist social programmes have started to fear they will slip back toward poverty as a result of the worsening economy.
Greece Scrambles to Find Cash Ahead of $2 Billion Payment Deadline
Greece will begin debating measures to boost liquidity as the cash-starved country braces for more than 2 billion euros ($2.12 billion) in debt payments Friday.
Unable to access bailout funding and locked out of capital markets, the government will outline emergency plans to parliament later Tuesday that includes incentives for tax delinquents to pay up before March 27, when Greece needs money for monthly salaries and pensions.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government is burning through cash while trying to get creditors -- euro area member states, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- to release more money from a 240 billion-euro bailout program. Euro-area finance ministry officials will hold a call Tuesday to discuss Greece’s deteriorating finances, according to two European officials who asked not to be identified because the talk hasn’t been publicized. ...
The government’s revenue-boosting plan also requires pension funds and public entities to invest reserves held at the Bank of Greece in government securities and repurchase agreements, and transfers 556 million euros from the country’s bank recapitalization fund to the state. A vote on the measures is scheduled for Wednesday.
Greece’s authoritative Ta Nea is reporting that prime minister Alexis Tsipras has accepted an invitation from Russian president Vladimir Putin to visit Moscow on April 8th.
It comes as the US top diplomat Victoria Nuland holds talks in Athens today amid mounting concerns that a financial collapse of Greece could push the country into Russia’s orbit. Nuland is expected to meet Tsipras at 6pm local time (4pm GMT)
Moscow has said that it would seriously study a Greek request for financial help if ever asked.
A Deadly U-Turn: Did Miriam Carey Need to Die After Wrong Car Move at White House Checkpoint?
Missouri to execute intellectually disabled man barring last-minute stay
In 1972, Cecil Clayton was working on a log in a lumberyard in Purdy, Missouri, when a piece of wood broke off the saw mill and struck him in the head. It pierced his skull, sending shards of bone deep into his brain, and in the process of saving his life surgeons were forced to remove a fifth of his frontal lobe – a vital area that controls judgment, inhibition and impulsive behavior.
The accident had a devastating impact. A man who before it occurred had been a teetotal devoted husband and father of five, who preached and sang the gospel in his own ministry, developed severe memory loss and despair, sank into alcoholism and split from his wife, had hallucinations and displayed bouts of violent rage.
Twenty-four years after the accident he shot and killed a Purdy police officer, Christopher Castetter. When he was arrested, Clayton displayed signs of confusion, saying of his victim that “he shouldn’t have smarted off to me”, yet adding “but I don’t know because I wasn’t out there.”
Under the constitution of the United States it is forbidden to execute anyone who is insane and incapable of understanding the fact of his impending death and the reason for it. Under separate but equally clear rulings, it is also prohibited to execute an intellectually disabled prisoner.
Yet at 6pm on Tuesday Missouri time, barring last-minute intervention, Clayton – a man who as a result of losing part of his brain has been deemed by a succession of medical experts to be insane and intellectually disabled – will be put to death by lethal injection. Attempts by his lawyers to have the execution delayed have so far failed, with the Missouri supreme court refusing even to allow a hearing into the inmate’s mental condition to consider whether he is entitled to protection under the eighth amendment of the US constitution that debars “cruel and unusual punishment”.
NYPD officers who edited “Eric Garner” Wikipedia page won’t face punishment
The pair of New York police officers responsible for editing Wikipedia entries on controversial cases of police brutality will not be seriously punished, according to reports from DNA Info. The entries edited include the “Death of Eric Garner,” “Sean Bell shooting incident,” “Shooting of Amadou Diallo” and “Stop-and-Frisk in New York City.”
“Two officers, who have been identified, were using department equipment to access Wikipedia and make entries,” said Commissioner Bill Bratton at a press conference on Monday. “I don’t anticipate any punishment, quite frankly.”
Chicago mayoral debate gets testy over city's finances and public schools
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel aggressively dissected his re-election challenger’s record and platform on Monday in the first head-to-head televised debate before next month’s runoff election, but Cook County commissioner Jesús García came back at the former White House chief of staff with questions about the city’s financial problems and violence. ...
García said Emanuel hasn’t done enough to address crime. While crime overall has dropped, there was spike in homicides during part of Emanuel’s first term. García accused Emanuel of focusing on benefiting companies and campaign donors. “The mayor is out of touch,” said García. ...
During the debate, Emanuel didn’t counter a charge from García – who has enjoyed support from unions and minority voters – that Emanuel had once worked against immigration reform.
Emanuel has worked hard to appeal to voters in minority neighborhoods, particularly around the schools issue. Tense contract negotiations in 2012 led to the city’s first teachers’ strike in 25 years, and the following year he pushed to close nearly 50 neighborhood schools. The vast majority of Chicago public school students are black and Latino.
García’s campaign – built on his contacts from years as a community organizer and local politician – has backing from the Chicago Teachers Union and top African American leaders, including the Rev Jesse Jackson. Minorities – in particular black voters – make up most of Chicago’s population and will be crucial to the outcome.
García has also pushed for an elected school board. Chicago voters supported the idea with a nonbinding referendum last month.
He has said that Emanuel’s focus on downtown, luring businesses and special funds, has left the city’s neighborhoods behind.
An excellent article by David Dayen:
“Not true and they knew it”: What Rahm Emanuel’s Wall Street craze cost Chicago
The city of Chicago and its public school system could recoup potentially billions of dollars in overpayments from complicated, unjust deals inked with Wall Street banks, if they pursued legal action or demanded enforcement from federal regulators. But Rahm Emanuel, the current mayor, has refused to chase this opportunity, despite the city’s drastic fiscal outlook and the effect on citizens. By contrast, his opponent in the April 7 mayoral run-off election, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, appears far more likely to take action against a powerful financial sector Emanuel has relied on for campaign contributions.
Beginning over a decade ago, Wall Street banks sold municipalities, school districts, water systems and public hospitals across the country on obscure financial instruments, pitching them as a way to borrow more cheaply than plain-vanilla municipal bonds. But just as homeowners were swindled into loans they couldn’t afford during the housing bubble, local governments suffered a similar fate. ...
A growing group of public interest activists, lawyers and experts believe that Wall Street violated securities laws by failing to disclose risks on these instruments. ... Chicago was a serial user of this type of exotic borrowing. ... ReFund America estimates that the City of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools have already paid $1.2 billion on swaps, and roughly $106 million annually since 2008. ... Like an underwater homeowner, cities cannot refinance the swaps: the only way out is to pay termination fees, which represent the net present value of all future payments. Wall Street basically lied to Chicago and other cities to trap them, with no escape from the predatory terms.
But advocates list several remedies. First, cities could sue the banks, alleging misrepresentation under state and federal “fair dealing” rules. Illinois state law does not apply any statute of limitations on cities filing claims, so everything Chicago financed would be applicable. Chicago could also file an arbitration claim with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which handles disputes over market integrity rules for public finance. ... Finally, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has authority to enforce fair dealing rules against Wall Street banks, disgorging their ill-gotten gains to affected borrowers. Chicago could pressure the SEC to finally undertake an enforcement action on behalf of borrowers, the same way they have on behalf of investors. ...
Emanuel has publicly stated that it’s simply too late to recoup any money from bad swap deals, because “there’s a thing called a contract.” Of course, ReFund America’s Saqib Bhatti and his colleagues allege there was a breach of contract, which can trigger legal remedies. In addition, “the same administration so quick to say a contract’s a contract was quick to throw the teachers’ contract out the window when they had a chance,” Bhatti said, referring to a bruising 2012 city teacher’s strike and Emanuel’s proposal to cut retirement benefits. “To them, a deal’s a deal except when it’s not.”
Hat tip Don midwest:
Spanish company tops list of US corporate welfare hogs
How much welfare Uncle Sam provides companies has long been one of the great mysteries of taxpayer spending. Like a secret underground river, boodles have flowed out of the Treasury and into corporate bank accounts without notice. ... The federal government has quietly doled out $68 billion through 137 government giveaway programs since 2000, according to a new database built by a nonprofit research organization, Good Jobs First. It identified more than 164,000 gifts of taxpayer money to companies. You can look up company names, subsidy programs and other freebies at the Subsidy Tracker 3.0 website.
A report the organization released today, “Uncle Sam’s Favorite Corporations,” shows that big businesses raked in two-thirds of the welfare.
The most surprising and tantalizing finding is the identity of the biggest known recipient of federal welfare. That dubious honor belongs to Iberdrola, a Spanish energy company with a reputation for awful service and admissions of incompetence. It collected $2.1 billion of welfare on a $5.4 billion investment in U.S. wind farms from coast to coast. ...
Who would have known that the $1.8 million of federal cash given to the Union Tank Car Co. actually benefits Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which owns a controlling interest in the firm? In all, Buffett companies collected welfare from 11 programs totaling $179 million. ... Because of Phil Mattera, Good Jobs’ research director, we now know that 726 companies that collected $838 million in federal welfare were subsidiaries of General Electric, which also pocketed $533 million in state and local welfare.
That two of the most profitable firms in America dine at a taxpayer-financed buffet should alarm those who feel they are too heavily taxed or who believe in personal responsibility. After all, if Buffet’s company, with pretax profits of $28 billion last year, and GE, with $17 billion of pretax profits, cannot get by without welfare, who can?
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature news from Colorado: Peabody succeeds in hanging onto power. Governor Alva Adams, although elected by large majority of the vote, is unseated.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Obama's TPP Sales Pitch Echoes Broken NAFTA Promises
House Democrats angry over Obama’s classified trade meeting
House Democrats are criticizing President Obama's administration for holding a classified briefing on trade with top administration officials, saying it's an attempt to push a trade program in secret.
Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman will meet with House Democrats on Wednesday in a classified briefing to discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Members will be allowed to attend the briefing on the proposed trade pact with 12 Latin American and Asian countries with one staff member who possesses an “active Secret-level or high clearance” compliant with House security rules. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told The Hill that the administration is being “needlessly secretive.”
“Even now, when they are finally beginning to share details of the proposed deal with members of Congress, they are denying us the ability to consult with our staff or discuss details of the agreement with experts,” DeLauro told The Hill.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) condemned the classified briefing.
“Making it classified further ensures that, even if we accidentally learn something, we cannot share it. What is USTR working so hard to hide? What is the specific legal basis for all this senseless secrecy?” Doggett said to The Hill.
“Open trade should begin with open access,” Doggett said. “Members expected to vote on trade deals should be able to read the unredacted negotiating text.”
Lawmakers Say TPP Meetings Classified To Keep Americans in the Dark
Democratic lawmaker says tightly-controlled briefings on Trans-Pacific Partnership deal are aimed at keeping US constituents ignorant about what's at stake
Lawmakers in Congress who remain wary of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement are raising further objections this week to the degree of secrecy surrounding briefings on the deal, with some arguing that the main reason at least one meeting has been registered "classified" is to help keep the American public ignorant about giveaways to corporate interests and its long-term implications. ...
"I'm not happy about it," Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) told the Huffington Post, referring to the briefing with Froman and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez on Wednesday. The meeting—focused on the section of the TPP that deals with the controversial 'Investor-State Dispute Settlement' (ISDS) mechanism—has been labeled "classified," so that lawmakers and any of their staff who attend will be barred, under threat of punishment, of revealing what they learn with constituents or outside experts.
According to Grayson, putting Wednesday's ISDS briefing in a classified setting "is part of a multi-year campaign of deception and destruction. Why do we classify information? It's to keep sensitive information out of the hands of foreign governments. In this case, foreign governments already have this information. They're the people the administration is negotiating with. The only purpose of classifying this information is to keep it from the American people."
And Rep. Rosa DeLauro added, "If the TPP would be as good for American jobs as they claim, there should be nothing to hide."
A couple of tunes to go with the wearing of the green:
Skibbereen
Paddy's Lamentation
The Evening Greens
Thousands of snow geese fall dead from sky in Idaho
Avian cholera is suspected in the deaths of at least 2,000 snow geese that fell dead from the sky in Idaho while migrating to nesting grounds on the northern coast of Alaska, wildlife managers said Monday.
Dozens of Idaho Department of Fish and Game workers and volunteers at the weekend retrieved and incinerated carcasses of snow geese found near bodies of water and a wildlife management area in the eastern part of the state, said agency spokesman Gregg Losinski.
Avian cholera is believed to be the culprit in the deaths mostly because of the way the birds died, he said.
“Basically, they just fell out of the sky,” said Losinski.
He said biologists were awaiting results from a state wildlife lab to confirm the birds died of the highly contagious disease, which is caused by bacteria that can survive in soil and water for up to four months.
US Oil Pipeline Industry Quietly Building Network That 'Dwarfs Keystone'
Despite public opposition that has so far blocked the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, the fossil fuels industry has successfully—and quietly—expanded the nation's domestic oil network by installing thousands of miles of pipeline across the country, according to new reporting by the Associated Press.
"Overall, the network has increased by almost a quarter in the last decade," the AP reports. "And the work dwarfs Keystone. About 3.3 million barrels per day of capacity have been added since 2012 alone—five times more oil than the Canada-to-Texas Keystone line could carry if it's ever built."
While the Keystone project is still in limbo, the petroleum industry has "pushed relentlessly everywhere else to get oil to market more efficiently, and its adversaries have been unable to stop other major pipelines," writes AP journalist Henry Jackson.
DOT quietly floats overhaul for aging U.S. oil pipeline network
Almost two years after an Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline split open and sent Canadian crude flowing through a neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark., federal regulators have quietly proposed a sweeping rewrite of oil pipeline safety rules.
If the proposal is finalized in its current form, as much as 95 percent of the U.S. pipelines that carry crude, gasoline and other liquids -- 182,000 miles -- would be subject to the new rules and about half the system may have to undergo extensive tests to prove it can operate safely, according to information from the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The plan, known as the Hazardous Liquids Integrity Verification Process, is an implicit acknowledgment that some of the oil industry's testing technology isn't sophisticated enough to detect cracks or corrosion in time to prevent a pipeline's failure. And for the first time since PHMSA was created, it may wind up telling companies they have to replace certain aging pipelines.
The oil and pipeline industries are already lobbying against the idea, saying PHMSA has overstepped its legal mandate. The types of tests that PHMSA wants to require are expensive and in some cases do more damage than they prevent, said John Stoody, vice president of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. ...
The U.S. pipeline network is showing its age. Half of the oil and liquids pipelines in the country were built before 1970, according to PHMSA, and companies are continually reversing pipelines to serve new markets or converting pipelines to carry new products.
PHMSA hasn't done much to publicize the pipeline safety proposal and hasn't published either a proposed rule or an advance notice of a proposed rulemaking. Nothing about the Hazardous Liquids Integrity Verification Process appears during a routine search of the agency's website. EnergyWire obtained a PowerPoint presentation and other documents about the proposal from DOT's regulatory docket.
PHMSA declined to make any of its officials available for interviews over a five-day period and wouldn't answer written questions on the record -- even though the agency has already briefed two oil industry trade associations about the proposal.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Wolves in eastern Oregon are returning home — and it's started a culture war
Palestinian Grassroots Resistance to Occupation Growing
The Real Irish-American Story Not Taught in Schools
America For Sale
A life less ordinary
A Little Night Music
Billy "The Kid" Emerson - Crazy 'Bout An Automobile
Ry Cooder - Crazy 'Bout An Automobile
Billy 'the Kid' Emerson - When it rains, it really pours
Snooks Eaglin - When It Rains It Pours
Billy ´The Kid´ Emerson - Red Hot
Billy Lee Riley - Red Hot
Red Hot - Robert Gordon Link Wray
Billy (The Kid) Emerson - Move Baby Move
Billy "The Kid" Emerson - If Lovin' Is Believing
Billy (The Kid) Emerson - I never get enough
Billy (The Kid) Emerson - The Woodchuck
Billy "The Kid" Emerson - You Never Miss The Water
Billy The Kid Emerson - Satisfied
Billy The Kid Emerson - I'll Get You, Too
A Dancin' Whippersnapper - Billy "The Kid" Emerson
Billy The Kid Emerson - Cherry Pie
Billy The Kid Emerson - The Snuggle
Billy The Kid Emerson - Tomorrow Never Comes
Billy The Kid Emerson - Apron Strings
Billy The Kid Emerson - Um Hum, My Baby
Billy Emerson - Aunt Molly
Billy The Kid Emerson - Little Fine Healthy Thing
Billy The Kid Emerson - Shim Sham Shimmy
Billy The Kid Emerson - Holy Mackerel Baby
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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