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 songwriter and guitarist from New Orleans, Earl King. Enjoy!
Earl King - It All Went Down The Drain
"If you want to know what the government is thinking, turn on the television."
-- Thomas Drake
News and Opinion
Twelve Years Later, US Media Still Can’t Get Iraqi WMD Story Right
This past fall The New York Times began publishing a powerful, ongoing series revealing the U.S. military’s mistreatment of soldiers who were exposed to decades-old chemical weapons during Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to The Times, between 2004 and 2011 U.S. troops stumbled across about 5,000 Iraqi chemical munitions of various types, and at least 17 American personnel, mostly bomb disposal experts, were wounded by them. All of the ordnance was manufactured by Iraq prior to the 1991 Gulf War, during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
Much of the conservative media has seized on the Times articles as long-awaited, sweet vindication of Bush’s case for war. According to Rush Limbaugh, it is now proven that “Saddam Hussein was doing and had done pretty much everything he was being accused of that justified that invasion.”
And the conservative glee is understandable: after all, Bush said Iraq had WMD, and here they are. Unfortunately for the right, however, they are just as wrong about this issue now as they were in 2003 — but for a peculiar, little-understood reason: Saddam Hussein was not trying to hide the chemical munitions found by the U.S. Just the opposite, in fact.
In an interview with The Intercept, Charles Duelfer, head of the CIA’s definitive post-war investigation of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, explained that “Saddam didn’t know he had it … This is stuff Iraqi leaders did not know was left lying around. It was not a militarily significant capability that they were, as a matter of national policy, hiding.”
It is long established that Iraq — with assistance from the U.S. and other Western countries — produced enormous quantities of chemical weapons during its eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s. After Iraq was expelled from Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations Security Council sent inspectors to ensure that Iraq disclosed and destroyed its entire chemical (and biological and nuclear) weapons programs.
Bringing the U.S. Torture Team Justice
Saudi Arabia Slams Iran for Urging Yemen Ceasefire
Saudi Arabian officials today expressed anger at regional ally Iran for urging a ceasefire in their ongoing war on Yemen, with Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal marveling that Iran would dare to call for an end to the fighting.
“We came to Yemen to help the legitimate authority,” insisted Faisal, adding that the Iranian government is “not in charge of Yemen” and thus has no say over whether or not the invasion continues. ...
Saudiofficials also issued a statement demanding Iran stop supporting the Houthis, though they offered no real evidence that such support is ongoing in the first place. The Saudis are keen at presenting the war as sectarian in nature, to ensure the support of Sunni Arab allies.
With Weapons Pouring In and Aid Locked Out, Yemeni Civilians 'Willfully Abandoned'
Two weeks of a Saudi Arabia-led bombardment and siege on the impoverished nation of Yemen has bred a profound humanitarian crisis—marked by hundreds of civilian deaths and worsening food and water shortages.
As the Saudi-led coalition blocks almost all food and medical aid from getting in, while bombing public infrastructure, residents and aid organizations warn that the worst is yet to come. ...
The United Nations estimates that 16 million out of 25 million people in Yemen were in need of humanitarian assistance before the fighting began. Yemen relies on imports for 90 percent of staple food items, including 100 percent of rice. ...
Meanwhile, civilian infrastructure—including markets, schools, medical facilities, power plants, and warehouses—is being targeted in attacks, the UN finds. There are also numerous reports emerging that the coalition is targeting food supply buildings with its bombings.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters on Thursday that civilians in Yemen are being "willfully abandoned." ...
Even with aid shut out, the United States is expediting weapons shipments in, helping coordinate the assault, and even refueling Saudi war planes for air strikes.
I guess Obama, Hillary and the R2P'ers can be rightfully proud of the great job they did in Libya. That regime change thing really worked out great.
Two Embassies in Libya Attacked, the Islamic State Claims Responsibility
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack at the Moroccan embassy in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, early on Monday morning, as well as a shooting outside South Korea's embassy hours earlier.
Two people were killed and another injured on Sunday in a drive-by shooting on a security post at the South Korean diplomatic mission. An explosive device was left in a bag at the gates of the Moroccan embassy — which is currently closed — and damaged vehicles nearby, though no injuries have been reported.
The attacks come on the eve of a decisive summit aimed at reconciling the two major factions which claim the right to govern the country. As they fight over who will rule the country, the Islamic State (IS) in Libya continues to assert itself, and remains the strongest branch of the organization outside of Syria and Iraq.
Netanyahu said to fear Iran will stick to deal once signed
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is concerned, rather ironically, that Iran will abide by the terms of a nuclear deal, thus diverting the world’s attention from its nuclear program, and ensuring that renewed sanctions and long-term monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear sites are made nearly impossible, two unnamed officials told Haaretz.
The officials, who were present in a cabinet meeting on April 3, said the prime minister was convinced the Islamic Republic would “keep to every letter in the agreement if indeed one is signed at the end of June,” the newspaper reported early Sunday
“Netanyahu said at the meeting that it would be impossible to catch the Iranians cheating simply because they will not break the agreement,” one official said.
Not Making Nukes Will Make New Sanctions Harder
The big problem [with an Iran nuclear deal] from the Israeli perspective is that this changes the status quo over the last 35 years, where new sanctions were easy and Israel could threaten to attack Iran all it wanted.
A 10-15 year deal means 10-15 years during which those Israeli threats will ring ever more hollow, where new sanctions will be all but impossible, and after Iran abides by the deal for this long, the civilian program will be all the harder to scare-monger over.
In recent years Netanyahu has tried to center his entire political career around hostility toward Iran, and his foreign policy is pretty much exclusively trying to convince the US of the need for a war against Iran. The rapprochement would effectively ruin all his hard work.
Iranians Are Much Talked About on Sunday Morning TV, But Never Heard From
Over the last couple months, the Sunday morning TV shows — NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face The Nation, ABC’s This Week, Fox’s News Sunday, and CNN’s State of the Union — have focused on a deal with Iran as one of their principal topics. In doing so, they have repeatedly given a platform to fanatical anti-Iran voices, including Israeli officials such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They have sycophantically interviewed officials from the U.S.-supported, anti-Iranian Gulf tyrannies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan; two weeks ago, Chuck Todd interviewed Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Adel Al-Jubeir. ...
Meanwhile, their “expert media panels” almost always feature the most extremist “pro-Israel,” anti-Iran American pundits such as Jeffrey Goldberg, who played a leading role in spreading false claims about Iraq under the guise of “reporting” (and only became more beloved and credible in DC for it), was dubbed Netanyahu’s “faithful stenographer” by New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, and even joined the Israeli military in his young adulthood. In 2014, Face the Nation interviewed Netanyahu five times and featured his “faithful stenographer,” Goldberg, three times; in 2015, the CBS show just last week interviewed Netanyahu and has already hosted Goldberg four times. ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos actually features supreme neocon propagandist Bill Kristol as a regular “ABC News Contributor” and has also interviewed Netanyahu. And that’s to say nothing of the “hawkish,” AIPAC-loyal and/or evangelical members of the U.S. Congress who are fanatically devoted to Israel and appear literally almost every week on these programs.
But as these shows “cover” the Iran deal, one thing is glaringly missing: Iranian voices. There has not been a single Iranian official recently interviewed by any of these Sunday morning shows. When I raised this issue on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, a Meet the Press senior editor, Shawna Thomas, said the show had “put in a request” with Iran for an interview, while MSNBC’s Chris Hayes also suggested that it can be difficult to secure interviews with Iranian government officials.
That may be, but even if it is difficult to obtain interviews with Iranian government officials, it is extremely easy to interview Iranian experts, scholars, journalists and other authoritative voices from Tehran. Last week, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez hosted a fascinating hour-long discussion about Iran with Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator for Iran who was Iran’s ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997, and now teaches at Princeton. Just this week, CNN International’s Christiane Amanpour interviewed Tehran University Professor Sadegh Zibakalam about Tehran’s views and actions in the Iran deal. Beyond those in Iran, there are Iranian-American groups and Iranian-American experts who actually speak Farsi who don’t see the world the way Jeffrey Goldberg and Lindsey Graham do. Outside the Sunday shows, Iranian officials have been interviewed occasionally by U.S. media figures. ...
Excluding the Iranian viewpoint ensures that these shows spew propaganda to the American public. Iran is talked about, almost always in demonic terms, but is almost never heard from. That means that these shows, which endlessly boast of their own “objectivity,” are in fact far more akin to state media.
Merkel Sells Nuclear-Capable Sub to Israel Without Consulting EU
Germany's Federal Security Council has approved the export of a fifth submarine to Israel.
It's the penultimate submarine promised to Israel by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and will be handed over by the company Thyssen Krupp. ...
Germany's Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) builds the new Air Independent Propulsion Dolphins and the decision to sell them has been criticized for two reasons. One, in that German taxpayers are shouldering a third of the cost. ...
Secondly, the vessels are reportedly capable of being equipped with nuclear weapons.
US History of Coup-Making Overshadows Obama's Outreach to Iran, Latin American Left
... In short, Obama’s diplomacy at the Summit of the Americas in part consisted of going around promising not to overthrow his fellow leaders, which would be faintly ridiculous if Washington hadn’t in fact intervened so much in neighbors’ affairs. ...
It is worth pointing out that one of the reasons Obama has difficulty in his negotiations with Iran is that its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, distrusts Washington because of its long history of intervention in Iran. The US along with its WWII allies invaded and occupied Iran in the 1940s; the allies overthrew the ruler, Reza Shah Pahlevi in 1941. The in 1953 the CIA conducted a coup against popular Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh because he led the nationalization of Iranian oil. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the US allied with Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who had invaded Iran in a wanton act of naked aggression in 1980. When Saddam used chemical weapons against Iranian troops, the US ran interference for Baghdad at the UN Security Council, ensuring that Baathist Iraq was not sanctioned for its war crimes against Iran.
So maybe Obama needs a sidebar with Khamenei to reassure him that Washington is not trying to overthrow him, either.
Russian Miracle: Ruble becomes world's best performing currency in 2015
South Carolina reflects on Walter Scott killing: ‘The flag of white supremacy still flies on our statehouse'
For Lonnie Randolph Jr, president of the South Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Scott’s fate can be attributed to five words: “We’ve never left the past.”
He compares the killing to that of George Stinney, the 14-year-old executed in South Carolina in 1944 during the Jim Crow era. The teenager was arrested, tried, convicted and executed within 81 days in a small town north of Charleston for the murder of two white girls. It was long argued that his confession had been forced and last year a judge eventually overturned the conviction. But it is a case that still haunts the state.
“It’s a manifestation of that attitude. A white man shot him in the back because he thought, ‘I’m not going to let him get away and the law will protect me’ because the laws have protected him in the past. They are similar in that a disrespect for human life is pervasive,” said Randolph.
He says the South Carolina Department of Corrections imprisons more than 13,000 black men, who account for 65% of the prison population. Yet African Americans make up only 28% of the state’s entire population. He notes that just one of the state’s seven congressmen is black. He argues that – as the country last week remembered the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, marking the end of the civil war – South Carolina remains one of only two states to fly the Confederate flag over its statehouse. “We still carry that baggage from 1865 today,” says Randolph. “That flag of division, the flag of hate, the flag of white supremacy is flying on our statehouse grounds.”
The sun began to set over North Charleston City Hall on Friday as a group of about 100 protesters stood by the front door holding a candlelit vigil for Scott. “How many of you here have been stopped by the police?” shouted a protester on a loudspeaker. Almost every black person there put their hands up. “Raise your hands if you think you were profiled,” he continues. Every hand stayed up.
The Nightly Show - For the Record - The Shooting of Walter Scott
Walter Scott shooting: officer laughs about adrenaline rush in recording
The police officer who killed Walter Scott in South Carolina laughed about the adrenaline rush he was feeling, in a conversation that offers a new insight into his mindset in the minutes after the shooting.
Patrolman Michael Slager made the remarks during a discussion with a senior officer after fatally shooting Scott in North Charleston on 5 April. A recording of their conversation was obtained by the Guardian.
“By the time you get home, it would probably be a good idea to kind of jot down your thoughts on what happened,” the senior officer said. “You know, once the adrenaline quits pumping.”
“It’s pumping,” Slager said, laughing. The senior officer replied: “Oh yeah. Oh yeah.”
The senior officer told Slager during the conversation to go home and relax, assuring him that he would not have to answer questions about the shooting for days.
Video Shows Cop Yell 'Fuck Your Breath' at Man Wounded by Shooting Deputy Claims Was Accidental
"Fuck your breath!"
That's what an officer from the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office can be heard yelling in a video that shows a wounded suspect being pinned to the ground in an April 2 incident where a 73-year-old deputy claims he accidentally fired his pistol instead of a Taser. The suspect, 44-year-old Eric Courtney Harris, later died as a result of his wounds.
Video of the incident was released Friday. Officials from the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office said at a press conference Friday that reserve deputy Robert Charles "Bob" Bates shot Harris after he mistook his gun for his Taser, according to the Tulsa World.
The video shows police chasing Harris and tackling him. Bates can be heard saying "Taser! Taser!" before shooting the gun. Bates then immediately dropped the gun and can be heard saying, "I shot him, I'm sorry."
Harris yells, "Oh shit, he shot me!" and tells the officers, "I'm losing my breath."
That's when an officer yells, "Fuck your breath!"
The other officers appear to make no attempt to treat Harris for the gunshot wound. They are shown holding Harris on the ground, handcuffing him, and telling him to "Shut the fuck up!"
[Click link above to see the video of police barbarity embedded in the article. - js]
Walter Scott: week by bloody week, my America is sliding back towards slavery
The history of law enforcement in the south is directly tied to the management and control of people of colour. In much of early America, enslaved people, Native Americans and other groups were managed and controlled by patrols that were deputised against them. We have forgotten that the murder of Walter Scott and many like him has its own genealogy. Michael Slager was working off a template as old as colonial America. How entitlement, privilege and white supremacy fade into the background depends on your lens, but without question these ingredients are at the roots of problem.
The “Slave Codes” (1640s-1865) and “Black Codes” after the Civil War have reared their heads again. These laws were employed to curtail resistance, free assembly, economic achievement and progressive action in black communities. A toxic combination of laws criminalising loitering, walking along railroad tracks, selling certain types of goods, meeting groups or protesting were established. While most people are familiar with Jim Crow laws, the Black Codes and the Slave Codes have a lot to reveal about what the future has in store.
In eight years of the Obama presidency, backlash politics and over-reach by law enforcement have sought to bring restrictions on voting rights and tougher policing for minor offences to the fore, all of which disproportionately affect people of colour and the poor. We are clearly sliding back towards slavery. Empowered with less accountability, law makers and law enforcement are enabling the newest forms of enslavement – mass incarceration, voter disfranchisement, terrorisation of communities through brutal policing and overreach and the slow strangling of policies that help women, the poor, the elderly and sexual minorities. Inasmuch as there are people of colour whose identities intersect with the other categories, it is especially important that we understand the effort against equality to be singular and comprehensive.
Greece defends bailout tactics as latest deadline looms
Greece has denied being intransigent in its dealings with eurozone officials, ahead of another crucial week for the cash-strapped country.
Greece’s finance ministry dismissed on Sunday a report by a German newspaper which reported that eurozone officials were “disappointed” by Greece’s failure to come up with plans for economic reforms at last week’s talks in Brussels.
The mood between Greece’s leftist government and its eurozone partners has remained tense during negotiations to determine whether or not the country qualifies for further financial aid from international lenders.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) cited officials at last week’s meeting as saying they were shocked by the lack of progress, and that the new Greek representative just asked where the money was – “like a taxi driver” – and insisted his country would soon be bankrupt.
Eurozone officials disagreed with this assessment, saying Athens was still able to meet its international obligations, and regarded its ability to pay public sector wages and pensions as a domestic problem, according to the report. They deplored Greece’s unwillingness to discuss cuts to public sector pensions.
The finance ministry in Athens hit back on Sunday, saying: “When the readers of FAS read the minutes … the newspaper will have difficulty justifying its headline and the content of its article. Such reports undermine the negotiation and Europe.”
The EuroDiVision Contest
Greece Releases Rare Footage of German Nazi Invasion
The Greek Ministry of Defense has published a video containing rare footage of the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II.
The release of the vintage clips, from the archive of the Greek War Museum, comes as Athens demands US$302 billion in war reparations, from the enforced loan the invaders imposed, and as compensation for the some 800,000 civilians deaths.
The footage shows emaciated men, women and children, streets reduced to rubble, and conveys of Nazi motorbikes and tanks.
“The agreement of 14 March 1942 foresaw that Greece paid to its occupiers 1.5 billion drachmas per month, a total of US$3.5 billion, according to the Dollar value of 1938. The current value of the enforced loan is 54 billion euro without the interest,” the video's voice over says, explaining that this loan was to blame for the starvation of some 300,000 Greeks in the capital city alone.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature an article from the International Socialist Review on the wretched conditions of the former strikers and their families in Colorado.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Report Reveals How Corporate Tax Dodgers Avoid Paying Their Fair Share—or Any Share At All
Pointing to egregious examples of Fortune 500 corporations "manipulating the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits," a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice makes a sharp case for corporate tax reform.
The 15 companies cited in the CTJ analysis represent a range of sectors within the U.S. economy, from toy maker Mattel to financial services corporation Prudential to broadcaster CBS to media giant Time Warner.
All told, the report reveals that the 15 companies paid no federal income tax on $23 billion in profits in 2014, and they paid almost no federal income tax on $107 billion in profits over the past five years. All but two received federal tax rebates in 2014, and almost all paid "exceedingly low" rates over five years. ...
As Chuck Collins noted in an op-ed published at Common Dreams on Friday, America's wealthiest individuals and companies are notorious for finding ways to minimize their tax burdens—including by hiding their money offshore.
"Global Financial Integrity, a financial watchdog agency, estimates that global corporations and wealthy individuals are hiding a total of over $21 trillion," Collins wrote.
But corporate tax avoidance goes beyond offshoring. CTJ's analysis shows that many businesses are exploiting tax breaks that "are, by and large, perfectly legal, and often have been on the books for decades."
For example, the report explains:
Jetblue, PG&E, PEPCO Holdings, and Ryder used accelerated depreciation, a tax break that allows companies to write off the cost of their capital investments much faster than these investments wear out, to dramatically reduce their tax rates. CTJ has estimated that closing the accelerated depreciation loophole could raise more than $428 billion over the next decade.
As Hillary Clinton Readies 2016 Presidential Run, Progressives Await Answers
While Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee, progressives in Washington are ready to challenge her stance on a range of populist issues, particularly over her economic legacy.
Al Jazeera writes:
[T]he widening gap between rich and poor has become the primary preoccupation for progressive activists, and the cause of economic populism has been championed by figures such as Warren and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as well as unsuccessful Democratic primary challengers from the left, including New York gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout and Chicago mayoral competitor Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia.
Clinton, whose own legacy and record is seen as more centrist and aligned with business interests, will have to navigate those strong political crosscurrents in her own party, even if she runs virtually unopposed. The former Senator from New York has collected millions of dollars in contributions from financial institutions throughout her political career and is perceived as being cozy with Wall Street.
Among the key issues are Clinton's stance on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the corporate-friendly trade deal which consumer watchdogs and liberals in Congress have slammed as "NAFTA on steroids."
She has also stayed silent on reform of the National Security Agency's mass surveillance programs and approval of the massive Keystone XL pipeline.
The Evening Greens
8 Things You Need to Know About Hillary Clinton and Climate Change
It’s strange to remember how bitterly divisive the 2008 Democratic presidential primary battle was. Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s platforms and ideological positioning were awfully similar. And on the chief difference between them — Obama’s less hawkish foreign policy — the victor wiped away that distinction by appointing Clinton as secretary of state. Now Clinton is expected to announce her candidacy on Sunday and is poised to coast through the 2016 Democratic primaries as her party’s prohibitive favorite. Would a Clinton presidency be essentially a third Obama term?
On climate change and energy, it seems the answer is yes. For better and for worse, Clinton’s record and stances are cut from the same cloth as Obama’s. Her close confidant and presumed campaign chair, John Podesta, served as an Obama advisor with a focus on climate policy. Like Obama and Podesta, Clinton certainly seems to appreciate the seriousness of the threat of catastrophic climate change and to strongly support domestic policies and international agreements to reduce carbon emissions. But, like Obama and Podesta, she subscribes to an all-of-the-above energy policy. She promotes domestic drilling for oil and natural gas, including through potentially dangerous fracking.
Oceans Facing Carbon Rates Which Spurred Mass Die-Off 250 Million Years Ago
In case you weren't already worried about the current and rapid acidification of the world's oceans, a new report by leading scientists finds that this very phenomenon is to blame for the worst mass extinction event the planet earth has ever seen—approximately 252 million years ago.
The findings, published this week in the journal Science by University of Edinburgh researchers, raise serious concerns about the implications of present-day acidification, driven by human-made climate change.
"Scientists have long suspected that an ocean acidification event occurred during the greatest mass extinction of all time, but direct evidence has been lacking until now," said lead author Dr. Matthew Clarkson in a statement. "This is a worrying finding, considering that we can already see an increase in ocean acidity today that is the result of human carbon emissions."
The paper looks at the culprit behind the Permo-Triassic Boundary mass extinction, which wiped out more than 90 percent of marine species and two-thirds of land animals, making it even more severe than the die-off of the dinosaurs. ...
As Dr. Rachel Wood of the University of Edinburgh told the Independent, "The important take-home message of this [report] is that the rate of increase of CO2 during the Permian mass extinction is about the same rate as the one to which we are exposing the ocean to today."
Experts Call Toxic Spill in Vancouver a 'Warning' Against Fossil Fuel Projects
In the wake of a toxic fuel spill in Vancouver's English Bay this week, criticism of the emergency response and questions over the potential impacts of a proposed tar sands pipeline expansion through the area came from climate and shipping experts alike.
Jessica Wilson, head of Greenpeace Canada's Arctic campaign, said on Thursday that the spill should serve as a warning against fossil fuel development in the area.
"Any oil spill is a disaster for marine life and for all those who depend on a healthy ecosystem," Wilson said. "While we don’t know how big this toxic spill is and the damage is still being tallied, we do know it pales in comparison with what could happen if new tar sands pipelines were built to the [British Columbia] coast or if Shell's Arctic drilling plans were to proceed."
Meanwhile, CBC News spoke with international shipping expert Joe Spears, who slammed the emergency response to the spill and said the disaster shows British Columbia's waters are not ready for increased oil tanker traffic.
Energy company Kinder Morgan has proposed building a second TransMountain pipeline to carry oil to the English Bay's Burrard inlet, where the spill began, which critics say would increase tanker traffic through B.C. waters.
"We've got to do better," Spears told CBC News. "This is a glimpse of the future. If we can't handle a small bunkering spill, how are we going to deal with a major tanker?"
Republican Senators Just Voted To Sell Off Your National Forests
“SA 838 is a budgetary amendment which backs support for and funding of state efforts to take over federal land. It was part of a larger debate over the 2016 fiscal year federal budget.
Introducing the amendment, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R, AK) stated, “When we have an opportunity to consider this amendment, a vote for it is really a vote in support of — as a priority of this Congress — comprehensive approaches to land policies to facilitate economic development, empower States and improve our conservation systems.”
The back story is that there’s ongoing, and potentially unconstitutional efforts taking place in Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Alaska and Idaho to see those states take possession of public land from the federal government, then allow the exploitation of their resources by private industry. ...
The senate’s budgetary amendment to support this privatization carries no legal weight — it’s not a law — but does signify a troubling level of support for the privatization of public land. ... Efforts to “reclaim” public land are financially support by special interest groups like ALEC and Americans For Prosperity. ALEC is primarily funded by ExxonMobil while Americans For Prosperity was founded by David and Charles Koch.
- Latest news and actions from environmental activists, NGOs, scientists, reporters and Daily Kos bloggers on Sundays at 4:30 PM Pacific
- Developing climate related news throughout the week
- ClimateDenierRoundup with links to top climate news weekday mornings at 8 AM Pacific
Hub home
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Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
License to Kill
The Nasty Blowback from America’s Wars
Neocons, R2Pers and Hypocrisy
Chris Hedges: For Nader, Defiance Is a Way of Life
Hat tip divineorder/gooderservice:
Medicare fix needs fixing
A Little Night Music
Earl King - The Things That I Used To Do
Earl King - Come On
Earl King - Trick Bag
Earl King - Those Lonely, Lonely Nights
Earl King, Dr. John, The Meters + Professor Longhair - Big Chief
Earl King - All My Love
Earl King - I'm Your Best Bet, Baby
Earl King - Time For The Sun To Rise
Earl King - Mother Told Me Not To Go
Earl King - Is Everything All Right
Earl King - Love Me Now
Earl King - We Are Just Friends
Earl Johnson (Earl King) - Have You Gone Crazy
Earl King - Baby You Can Get Your Gun
Earl King - Mr Bad Luck
Earl King - Always a First Time
Earl King - Seduction
Earl King - Street Parade
Earl King - It Hurts To Love Someone
Earl King - No City Like New Orleans
Earl King - Mama & Papa
Earl King - Beggin' at Your Mercy
Earl King - You Can Fly High
Earl King - Do the Grind
Earl King - Make A Better World
Earl King - I'll Take You Back Home
Earl King and Roomful of Blues
New Orleans Swamp - Soundstage 1974
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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