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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 jazz trombonist and bandleader Jack Teagarden. Enjoy!
Jack Teagarden - St. James Infirmary
“The mistake you make, don't you see,is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can't. One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing.”
-― George Orwell
News and Opinion
Ex-CIA Analyst on Snowden and Calling Journalists Terrorists
JAY: David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's partner, the British government is now accusing of essentially being a terrorist. They actually use those words. You could then extend that to Glenn Greenwald himself. What they're doing now is not only fingering the person who does the leaks, but they're fingering journalists. They'e essentially criminalizing journalism.
MCGOVERN: Why did they call Miranda a terrorist? Shock value, pure and simple. Now, in the Third Reich, they could have just blown up all those books. No, they chose to burn them. Okay? They could have just ignored the MacBook Pros because they didn't have anything on it. No, they chose to sledgehammer them. Okay? This is all a very draconian sort of on-steroids effort by the British government to go one better from the United States. They don't have a First Amendment. They can do what they want.
...
JAY: I mentioned at the beginning Glenn Greenwald's partner had been called a terrorist in the U.K. And Glenn makes a very important point in one of his articles--and I think Glenn's been very brave not only in how he's reported on all this, but also in terms of how he's followed up and analyzed the situation--but how much of--. A recent--a poll that came out a couple of months ago shows now that a majority of Americans think that the government's going too far in terms of invading people's privacy. About the same number think that Snowden's a whistleblower and deserves protection as think he's a traitor. But Greenwald has pointed out that people that identify as moderate or conservative Democrats actually support the NSA more than many Republicans and certain libertarians and liberal Democrats. But it's the core base of Obama supporters who are--been the most vigorous in supporting the NSA and President Obama on all this intelligence gathering. And what do you make of this kind of specific role that Obama and that section of the Democratic Party has played in helping get kind of liberal opinion that in theory would have been against all this on board?
MCGOVERN: It's unconscionable and it's real. Okay? I've learned a lot over the last decade, and that is politics overcomes all other considerations. When John Conyers refused to impeach President Bush, that to me was the key point, because once they decide to go along with that out of the provincial aim to win big in the next election, which they did, you know, once you make compromises like that, once you defy the Constitution of the United States, which provided that he should be impeached--and I told John Conyers, I said, person-to-person, you know, you're responsible. Why don't you do it? And he says, because we won't win as big in November. That's what he said. So once people don't take their constitutional duty seriously, as some of us are, then it's a slippery slope.
Let Me Stress How Shocking These NSA Revelations Are
There are probably three major alternative explanations to Obama’s actions with respect to the NSA. I list them in ascending order of plausibility:
1. As you say, Obama’s behavior could “suggest that he doesn’t grasp [the gravity of the situation] as clearly as he should. Or recognize the lasting stain it threatens to leave on his record.” This despite his having taught constitutional law, having campaigned against such NSA abuses, and despite his own recent statements regarding the need for the war on terrorism to end.
2. The Intelligence-Industrial Complex has grown so powerful and pervasive that it constitutes a state within a state. This would be consistent with Obama’s supposedly not having been briefed for nearly five years about intelligence operations against allied leaders. The implications of this alternative are substantial, to say the least.
3. Consistent with unitary executive theory as well as the formal chain of command, Obama really is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing. Accordingly, his not having been briefed on potentially embarrassing details of ongoing operations is consistent with the need for “plausible deniability,” a policy which has been more-or-less observed by presidents since the Eisenhower administration. His statements on civil liberties are conscious political signals to keep his base on board, and are common with sitting presidents.
At some point it is wise to ascribe adult levels of understanding to the principal actors in this drama, no matter how impenetrable their deeper motives.
This is snark. It's making fun of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, for this
stupid utterance. I just thought I ought to make that clear.
Rep. Mike Rogers Angrily Defends Bathroom Spycam
Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) was defiant today in the face of accusations that he had installed a small digital camera in the women's bathroom in his office at the Capitol.
"This is just politics," said the ten-term Congressman. "I would argue the fact that we haven't had any women come forward with any specificity arguing that their privacy has been violated, clearly indicates, in ten years, clearly indicates that something must be doing right. Somebody must be doing something exactly right."
When reporters asked how women would know to complain — the spycam, funded by the government, was expertly hidden — Rogers asserted that was the point. "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated," said Rogers.
Big Brother’s Loyal Sister: How Dianne Feinstein Is Betraying Civil Liberties
Ever since the first big revelations about the National Security Agency five months ago, Dianne Feinstein has been in overdrive to defend the surveillance state. As chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she generates an abundance of fog, weasel words, anti-whistleblower slander and bogus notions of reform – while methodically stabbing civil liberties in the back.
Feinstein’s powerful service to Big Brother, reaching new heights in recent months, is just getting started. She’s hard at work to muddy all the waters of public discourse she can – striving to protect the NSA from real legislative remedies while serving as a key political enabler for President Obama’s shameless abuse of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. ...
Days ago, taking it from the top of the NSA’s main talking points, Feinstein led off a San Francisco Chronicleop-ed piece with 9/11 fear-mongering. "The Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States was highly organized and sophisticated and designed to strike at the heart of the American economy and government," she wrote, and quickly added: "We know that terrorists remain determined to kill Americans and our allies."
From there, Senator Feinstein praised the NSA’s "call-records program" and then insisted: "This is not a surveillance program." (Paging Mr. Orwell.)
Feinstein’s essay – touting her new bill, the "FISA Improvements Act," which she just pushed through the Senate Intelligence Committee – claimed that the legislation will "bridge the gap between preventing terrorism and protecting civil liberties." But as Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Trevor Timm writes, the bill actually "codifies some of the NSA’s worst practices, would be a huge setback for everyone’s privacy, and it would permanently entrench the NSA’s collection of every phone record held by U.S. telecoms."
With Wins for de Blasio, Minimum Wage and Tea Party Losses, Voters Signal Rejection of Austerity
Bill de Blasio wins by a landslide to become New York City mayor
New York voters elected their first Democratic mayor for 20 years on Tuesday, picking Bill de Blasio to lead the city out of the unprecedented three-term reign of billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg. ...
Delivering his victory speech in the Park Slope neighbourhood of Brooklyn where he lives, De Blasio sought to temper expectations that were sky-high after his repeated campaign pledges to unite New York's "two cities" – those of the haves and the have-nots.
"Let me be clear, our work, all of our work, is really just beginning," he said. "We have no illusions about the task that lies ahead. Tackling inequality isn't easy. It never has been and it never will be. The challenges we face have been decades in the making, and the problems we sought to address will not be solved overnight. But make no mistake, the city has chosen a progressive path and tonight we set forward together on it, together as one city." ...
De Blasio based his campaign on a portrayal of New York's "two cities". He has promised to expand pre-kindergarten and after-school programs by raising taxes on high earners. It remains to be seen if De Blasio will be able to raise taxes, however, which requires approval from New York State in Albany.
Why National Democrats Rolled Over for Chris Christie
If Gov. Chris Christie wins reelection Tuesday by even a fraction of the margin predicted by New Jersey pollsters, he’ll owe his easy victory to one group in particular—national Democrats, who all but ignored his race against Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono.
From President Obama, who twice toured New Jersey with Christie after Hurricane Sandy and then failed to endorse Christie’s challenger, to the Democratic National Committee, which sent just one staffer to the state to fortify local efforts, to major donors and high-profile party leaders such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, powerful Democrats have stayed on the sidelines in the blue state contest that top brass deemed a loser from the start.
National Democrats stand by the decision not to play seriously in New Jersey, according to several who spoke with The Daily Beast. The calculation was two-fold, they said. First, the money required just to land a punch on Christie in the pricey New York and Philadelphia media markets could fund an entire campaign somewhere or sometime else when a Democrat had a chance of winning.
“When you have someone this powerful and this popular, you shrug it off and wait for the next one,” a top Democratic donor said of Christie. “It’s not worth the financial investment to try to take him down or out.”
Christie's 31%
31 percent.
That's the number of the night, people.
That's the percentage of self-identified "liberals" that voted for Chris Christie, essentially endorsing the idea that he should run for president of the United States, since that was the real purpose of the New Jersey gubernatorial election yesterday. ... No, as soon as it was determined by the strategic geniuses in the Democratic party that Barbara Buono would be fed to the woodchipper -- and good on her for calling the duplicitous bastards on it last night -- the only issue in the election became whether or not you think Chris Christie should run for president. And 31 percent of the liberals who voted assented to that proposition. ...
There is no reason on god's earth why a self-identified liberal would vote for Chris Christie. He's a tool of the ascendant oligarchy, awful on women's rights, terrible on infrastructure, very high on union-busting, and a short-tempered, thin-skinned bully into the bargain. ... Because of that number, and because he also got 32 percent of the overall Democratic vote, the Christie '16 narrative is now set in stone. He's the Obamist candidate who can bring folks together.
Buono delivers blistering concession speech, attacking Garden State Democrats
In a concession speech delivered less than an hour after polls closed, State Sen. Barbara Buono went after a state Democratic party that offered her little help in her campaign.
She thanked supporters who “withstood the onslaught of betrayal from our own political party,” and she chafed at New Jersey’s “good old boy machine politics.” ...
Buono endured repeated slights during her campaign from Democrats around the state. More than 50 elected Democrats publicly endorsed Christie and few others offered much support to Buono, a longtime legislator from Middlesex County.
She also received little help from the state’s Democratic political bosses, whom she railed against in her speech.
“The Democratic political bosses, some elected and some not, made a deal with this governor,” she said. “They didn’t do it for the state. They did it out of a desire to help themselves.”
Russell Brand is making sense some more; this is well worth reading in full:
Russell Brand: we deserve more from our democratic system
I've had an incredible week since I spoke from the heart, some would say via my arse, on Paxman. ... The people who liked the interview said it was because I'd articulated what they were thinking. I recognise this. God knows I'd love to think the attention was about me but I said nothing new or original, it was the expression of the knowledge that democracy is irrelevant that resonated. As long as the priorities of those in government remain the interests of big business, rather than the people they were elected to serve, the impact of voting is negligible and it is our responsibility to be more active if we want real change. ...
The only reason to vote is if the vote represents power or change. I don't think it does. I fervently believe that we deserve more from our democratic system than the few derisory tit-bits tossed from the carousel of the mighty, when they hop a few inches left or right. The lazily duplicitous servants of The City expect us to gratefully participate in what amounts to little more than a political hokey cokey where every four years we get to choose what colour tie the liar who leads us wears.
Obviously there has been some criticism of my outburst ... Some people say I'm a hypocrite because I've got money now. When I was poor and I complained about inequality people said I was bitter, now I'm rich and I complain about inequality they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm beginning to think they just don't want inequality on the agenda because it is a real problem that needs to be addressed. ... Most of the people who criticized me have a vested interest in the maintenance of the system. They say the system works. What they mean is "the system works for me".
The less privileged among us are already living in the apocalypse, the thousands of street sleepers in our country, the refugees and the exploited underclass across our planet daily confront what we would regard as the end of the world. No money, no home, no friends, no support, no hand of friendship reaching out, just acculturated and inculcated condemnation. ...
If we all collude and collaborate together we can design a new system that makes the current one obsolete. The reality is there are alternatives. That is the terrifying truth that the media, government and big business work so hard to conceal. ... This is a journey we can all go on together, all of us. We can include everyone and fear no one. A system that serves the planet and the people. I'd vote for that.
This transatlantic trade deal is a full-frontal assault on democracy
The purpose of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is to remove the regulatory differences between the US and European nations. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. But I left out the most important issue: the remarkable ability it would grant big business to sue the living daylights out of governments which try to defend their citizens. It would allow a secretive panel of corporate lawyers to overrule the will of parliament and destroy our legal protections. Yet the defenders of our sovereignty say nothing.
The mechanism through which this is achieved is known as investor-state dispute settlement. It's already being used in many parts of the world to kill regulations protecting people and the living planet. ...
[C]ompanies ... are using the investor-state dispute rules embedded in trade treaties signed by the countries they are suing. The rules are enforced by panels which have none of the safeguards we expect in our own courts. The hearings are held in secret. The judges are corporate lawyers, many of whom work for companies of the kind whose cases they hear. Citizens and communities affected by their decisions have no legal standing. There is no right of appeal on the merits of the case. Yet they can overthrow the sovereignty of parliaments and the rulings of supreme courts.
You don't believe it? Here's what one of the judges on these tribunals says about his work. "When I wake up at night and think about arbitration, it never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all ... Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament."
In the US, Less Food for the Most Hungry
Deep cuts in food aid for poor people in the United States are poised to bring higher demands on charities and food pantries across the country that provide food to families in need – and which are already overstretched.
“How are people going to feed their families?” Earle Eldridge, a volunteer at St. Anthony Catholic Church’s food pantry in Washington, told IPS on Monday. “We’re becoming a country where the government cuts such essential things as food, and we don’t know how people are going to survive.” ...
“Ever since the beginning of the recession, people have been coming to us because they’re not making the money they were supposed to be making,” Elaine Schaller, another volunteer at the church, told IPS. “But lower incomes also mean fewer donations, and that is quite problematic as we rely on donations for most of our distributions.”
Indeed, the depressed economic situation currently affecting the country exposes the larger and indirect implications of the cuts. As people have less money, they’re also less likely to make donations to distribution centres, which means food pantries are likely to be even tighter in the months to come, Schaller says.
Bombing Food Stamps; Feeding Bombs
Beginning Nov. 1, food stamp cutbacks mean $36 per month less for a family of four.
Public ‘servants’ like Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan and Democratic former President Bill Clinton point to the failure of poverty programs to end poverty, and then slash those program budgets or abolish them altogether. Clinton’s actions did away with Aid to Families with Dependent Children in a fell swoop he dubbed “welfare reform.”
Meanwhile, the chronic test failure of anti-missile rockets never results in budget cuts, but is called reason enough for more funding. The latest miss by the “missile defense” project occurred July 5 over the Pacific, adding to a near perfect record of total flops or faked hits. The rocket business is one welfare program that is never declared fraudulent or wasteful except by scientists, honest think tanks and military watchdog groups. ...
Still, spending for BMD [ballistic missile defense] over three decades totals about $200 billion — $130 billion by 2000, according to the Center for Strategic & Budget Assessments — and about $10 billion every year since then. Last March, President Obama announced another $1 billion in funding to add 14 new “interceptor” missile pads to the 26 already deployed in Fort Greely, Alaska. ...
The same Congressional budget cutters who call for “small” government have insured that useless military boondoggles in their districts stay big—even while providing fewer jobs per $billion spent than any other sector of expenditure. As [Baltimore Sun blogger Terry] Munson said, “If we used some of that money to feed hungry children and educate those who need it most … Congressional reps might be compelled to find support among real voters and not just corporations seeking government handouts.”
Jeremy Scahill "First Obama Authorized Drone Strike In Yemen Killed 36 Women & Children!"
Obama denies he made a promise that was videotaped two dozen times
Despite more than two-dozen video recordings showing otherwise, President Obama said that he never promised Americans they’d be able to keep their health care plans under the Affordable Care Act.
Speaking to supporters in Washington on Monday, Obama claimed that in the past, he said, “You could keep [your plan] if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed.”
However, the Daily Caller reports that there are at least 29 videos showing the president leaving out the crucial words, “if it hasn’t changed.” Instead, he unambiguously stated numerous times that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.”
Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that some White House officials were worried about making such a pledge, but that ultimately the administration decided to move forward with it.
“Simplification and ease of explanation were a premium, and that was true throughout the process,” Jon Favreau, formerly Obama’s senior speech writer, told the paper.
Lizard People Rule the World
In 1991, a once well-respected BBC sportscaster named David Icke revealed that, according to a psychic, he was a healer who’d been sent to Earth with a purpose, and warned that tidal waves and earthquakes would soon destroy the world. Icke continued to develop his conspiracy theories, publishing a number of books with the central idea that the world is controlled by a secret group of shape-shifting “reptilian humanoids” also known as lizard people. According to the results of a Public Policy Polling survey published this week, 12 million Americans believe this is true. Thanks to the handy blog Lizardpersonornot.com, those 12 million people no longer have to wonder which world leaders are secretly reptilian. “Lindsay [sic] Graham is clearly a lizard person,” this blog asserts.
First Wall Street Criminal Confession in a Generation...Still No One in Jail
Ireland Has Been Attacked and Dominated by Outside Powers for Centuries -- Now It's the Banks
The Irish have a long history of being tyrannized, exploited, and oppressed—from the forced conversion to Christianity in the Dark Ages, to slave trading of the natives in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the mid-nineteenth century “potato famine” that was really a holocaust. The British got Ireland’s food exports, while at least one million Irish died from starvation and related diseases, and another million or more emigrated.
Today, Ireland is under a different sort of tyranny, one imposed by the banks and the troika—the EU, ECB and IMF. The oppressors have demanded austerity and more austerity, forcing the public to pick up the tab for bills incurred by profligate private bankers. ...
Five years of austerity has not restored confidence in Ireland’s banks. In fact the banks themselves are packing up and leaving. On October 31st, RTE.ie reported that Danske Bank Ireland was closing its personal and business banking, only days after ACCBank announced it was handing back its banking license; and Ulster Bank’s future in Ireland remains unclear. ...
Ireland could fix its budget problems by leaving the Eurozone, repudiating its blanket bank guarantee as “odious” (obtained by fraud and under duress), and issuing its own national currency. The currency could then be used to fund infrastructure and restore social services, putting the Irish back to work.
Short of leaving the Eurozone, Ireland could reduce its interest burden and expand local credit by forming publicly-owned banks, on the model of the Bank of North Dakota. The newly-formed Public Banking Forum of Ireland is pursuing that option. In Wales, which has also been exploited for its coal, mobilizing for a public bank is being organized by the Arian Cymru ‘BERW’ (Banking and Economic Regeneration Wales).
Assad Advisor: With political will, Syrian crisis over in 2 weeks
The Evening Greens
David Suzuki's Fukushima Warning Is Dire And Scary
David Suzuki has issued a scary warning about Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, saying that if it falls in a future earthquake, it's "bye bye Japan" and the entire west coast of North America should be evacuated.
"Three out of the four plants were destroyed in the earthquake and in the tsunami. The fourth one has been so badly damaged that the fear is, if there's another earthquake of a seven or above that, that building will go and then all hell breaks loose.
"I have seen a paper which says that if in fact the fourth plant goes under in an earthquake and those rods are exposed, it's bye bye Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate," he said.
Ill. attorney general suing Koch firm over mounds of refinery waste
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is suing one of the companies piling up huge mounds of refinery waste on Chicago's Southeast Side, adding new legal pressure to stop black clouds of dust from blowing into surrounding neighborhoods.
In a complaint filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, Madigan accused KCBX Terminals [a company controlled by Charles and David Koch] of repeatedly violating state law by allowing lung-damaging particulate matter to swirl off piles of petroleum coke and coal along the Calumet River.
The lawsuit follows months of complaints from residents in the East Side and South Deering neighborhoods who say the noxious clouds often are so thick they are forced to stay inside with their windows closed. ...
All of the petroleum coke from a nearby BP refinery is stored by KCBX ... BP is completing work on new equipment that will turn its Whiting refinery on Lake Michigan into the world's second-largest source of petroleum coke, also known as petcoke. BP expects to produce more than 2.2 million tons a year at Whiting, up from about 700,000 tons before the refinery was overhauled to process oil from the tar sands region of Alberta.
Other Koch companies sell high-carbon, high-sulfur petcoke for use as industrial fuel, often in countries with more lenient environmental laws. The largest independent petcoke marketer in the U.S., Oxbow Corp., is owned by William Koch, brother of Charles and David.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Let's End NSA Mass Surveillance - Not Legalize It!
I Can’t Believe Terry McAuliffe Is Going to Be Governor of Virginia
There Once Was a Time When the Super-Rich Needed a Middle Class to Be Successful -- Not Any More
Chris Christie’s demented “you people” movement: The right’s school-for-cash obsession
A Little Night Music
Jack Teagarden - Basin Street Blues
Jack Teagarden - Wolverine Blues
Louis Armstrong & His Allstars/Jack Teagarden - Ain't Misbehavin'
Jack Teagarden - Mis'ry And The Blues
Paul Whiteman with Jack Teagarden - Aunt Hagar's Blues
Jack Teagarden - The Blues
Jack Teagarden - Strut Miss Lizzie
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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