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 Mississippi Delta blues singer and member of the Mississippi Sheiks, Sam Chatmon. Enjoy!
Sam Chatmon - Make Me A Pallet On the Floor
"If we do not end war — war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything."
-- H.G. Wells
News and Opinion
“What did thousands of dead Americans get us?” Before granting war powers, let’s see where the last two got us
The president’s freshly minted National Security Strategy is first and foremost self-congratulatory and disconnected from reality. It reads like what could be the introduction to a sequel to the president’s “The Audacity of Hope,” which he could title “I Did My Best Under the Circumstances.” ...
Are we living in a safer world with a more peaceful and prosperous Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya? Isn’t there, as some experts have posited, a possible casual link between the way we prosecuted the war on terror so far, and the proliferation of violence so much of the world is still living with today? ...
So just what did several thousand dead Americans, and at least tens of thousands of civilian casualties, plus a couple of trillion dollars get us?
Even as the president says we are heading “home” from Iraq and Afghanistan records are being set for the numbers of killed and wounded civilians caught in these seething pits of sectarian violence we’ve left behind. The U.N. reported last month that for 2014 in Iraq more than 12,000 civilians were killed in the deadliest year for noncombatants since 2008. In Afghanistan the U.N. Assistance Mission there said close to 3,200 civilians were killed and more than 6,400 wounded, the deadliest year since the conflict started.
In the president’s 29-page National Security Strategy there is no mention of the fact that after thousands of lost American and Iraqi lives, and hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, the Iraqi state we stood up came close to collapsing after a near-death experience at the hands of ISIL, a threat the U.S. did not see coming. Now, ever so quietly, the Obama administration is sending U.S. troops back in to Iraq. ...
While details of how the president plans on using his refreshed war powers are still vague, the price tag is not. In the president’s proposed FY 2016 budget he calls for ending the so-called sequester that Congress approved back in 2011 when it pledged that, if it could not make sufficient progress on deficit reduction, the federal government would face across-the-board robo-budget cuts on all discretionary spending, both domestic and military. ...
As the White House and Congress get down to negotiating the budget, odds are the president’s lofty plans for new funding for things like Head Start and upward mobility for struggling households the “recovery” left behind will fall by the wayside. No doubt the new defense spending and end of sequester for the Pentagon will be hailed as a shining example of a great triumph of bipartisanship between the White House and the Republican Congress.
What Was Missing from Obama's Anti-Terrorism Speech
HEDGES: But Prashad says this is only the first step in unveiling the true reason for extremism in the Middle East, which in large part is a reaction to the ongoing violence and occupation that Western and Saudi forces have brought to the region.
PRASHAD: If it's not about Islam, then what is it? What is the nature of this conflict? To get into that, you have to talk about the way this is both somewhat about Islam and not about Islam. This is about geopolitics. This is about a very long-term process that got underway in the 1950s and '60s, when the United States and the Saudis together decided to push back against Arab nationalism, to push back against communism, particularly in Iraq and it Syria. And they proposed a platform called the World Muslim League, formed formally in the early 1960s and 1962, which fought back against the idea that nationalism or communism were indeed authentic for the Arab lands. They argued at that time the only authentic political and moral compass for Arab people was Islam. And it was the kind of Islam that the Saudis put forward.
So this has been a long trend, which the Saudis have taken leadership in. The Americans have backed them to the health and continue to back them.
So it's true it's important that Mr. Obama say this is not about Islam, because the answer to ISIS is not going to be found either in the Quran or in starting a religious war.
HEDGES: Prashad says that as long as the U.S. government refuses to acknowledge its role in destabilizing the Middle East, groups like the Islamic State will continue to sprout and grow in reaction to the West.
PRASHAD: If he's to be truly honest to the way in which these groups have emerged, you have to understand the role that U.S. and Saudi politics has played in this region. This role goes through the antipathy to the Iranian Revolution, the long war that the West and the Saudis backed when they pushed Iraq to go to war against Iran, the very debilitating and horrible sanctions regime that destroyed Iraq in the 1990s, of course the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. And it's not just Iraq. Is the role the Saudis have played in destabilizing any rational regime in the region. And I'm thinking here of in Yemen, where there was, again, a left-wing government; it had to be destabilized. In Sudan, which had been the largest communist party in Africa, that had to be destabilized. And the Saudis played a leading role with complete backing from the United States in pushing out the forces of the left on behalf of their very strange and parochial version of Islam. So Obama is right, but he's only half right.
Leaked cables show Netanyahu’s Iran bomb claim contradicted by Mossad
Binyamin Netanyahu’s dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document.
It is part of a cache of hundreds of dossiers, files and cables from the world’s major intelligence services – one of the biggest spy leaks in recent times.
Brandishing a cartoon of a bomb with a red line to illustrate his point, the Israeli prime minister warned the UN in New York that Iran would be able to build nuclear weapons the following year and called for action to halt the process.
But in a secret report shared with South Africa a few weeks later, Israel’s intelligence agency concluded that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”. The report highlights the gulf between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and the assessments of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment.
As Netanyahu Tries to Stop U.S.-Iran Deal, Leaked Cables Show Israeli Spies Reject His Nuke Claims
Russia offers to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Iran
Russia has reportedly offered to sell Iran powerful and advanced anti-aircraft missiles in a deal that could have an impact on nuclear talks approaching a deadline next month.
Sergei Chemezov, head of the Russian state arms conglomerate Rostec, was quoted by the Tass news agency as saying the firm was willing to supply Tehran with Antey-2500 missiles with the capability of intercepting and destroying ballistic and cruise missiles as well as aircraft. Chemezov said Tehran was considering the offer. ...
The planned sale of a less sophisticated and shorter-range surface-to-air missile system, the S-300, was cancelled in 2010 after concerted Israeli and US pressure on Moscow. But since then Vladimir Putin has returned to the presidency in place of the more conciliatory Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow’s relations with the west have dramatically worsened over the Ukraine conflict, and the sharp drop in the oil price together with western sanctions have left Moscow increasingly desperate to find new sources of foreign currency. Russian arms sales last year generated $13bn (£8.4bn).
Chaos in Libya Provides Fertile Ground for Islamic State Propaganda
In the past week, the self-proclaimed Islamic State terror group has targeted a new front well outside of its core area of influence in Syria and Iraq, extending the reach of its violent ideology to Libya — where the country's political instability has allowed radical militants an opening to exploit the unrest. ...
The Islamic State's leaders appear to have taken a keen interest in Libya's developing front, which relieves them of some of the pressure they are facing from a US-led coalition of Western and Arab governments and offers a strategic gateway to North Africa and Europe. But the group's Libyan ascent seems to be more a re-branding of Islamist militias that were already there, aided by the return of fighters from Syria and Iraq, than a formal extension of its reach into new territory.
"There have always been jihadist groups in Libya," Frederic Werhey, an expert on Libyan politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told VICE News. "What has happened is that ISIS has exploited and moved into the vacuum created by the civil war," he added, referring to the Islamic State by an alternative name. ...
In January, a notable supporter of the group who claims to be in Libya shared a manifesto on a jihadi forum, describing the country as a "strategic gateway" for the Islamic State. Though not an official edict of the Islamic State, the document appears to reflect its leadership's vision.
"Libya, by the permission of God, is the key to Egypt, the key to Tunisia, Sudan, Mali, Algeria and Niger too," he wrote. "It is the anchor from which can be reached Africa and the Islamic Maghreb."
After Isis: Kurds and Arabs return to old lives and new tensions
When Shvan, who is a Kurd, returned home to Zumar in north-west Iraq and saw his property had been reduced to rubble, he found an empty house belonging to an Arab and moved his family in.
Now, life is gradually returning to the town, which was seized by Islamic State in August 2014 then captured by Kurdish forces with coalition air cover in October. ... But it will prove harder to repair relations between Kurds and Arabs in what was a mixed town. Zumar shows how the demography of northern Iraq is changing in the aftermath of the Isis incursion and Kurdish and Shia counterattacks, turning neighbour against neighbour and redrawing the map.
Zumar is located in the disputed territories to which both the Kurds and the Iraqi government in Baghdad lay claim. Before Isis came, the town was under the control of Iraqi federal authorities. Now the Kurds are in charge, and they have no intention of letting go. ...
Only Kurdish residents are returning to the bombed-out town and, like Shvan, those whose homes were destroyed are taking the houses of Arabs they accuse of helping Isis overrun it. Shvan said the house he now lives in belonged to an Arab who joined the militants and went with them to their self-proclaimed caliphate when he was forced to flee.
When the Kurdish peshmerga forces advanced on Zumar in mid-October, the entire Arab population of the town left for areas under Isis control, including Mosul.
“Whether the Arabs should come back or not is up to Kurdish authorities, but I personally don’t want them to return,” said Kurdish resident Mohammad Abdulrahman. “There is no trust between us any more. They took our belongings, plundered our homes and destroyed them.”
Ukrainian army refuses to start withdrawing heavy weapons
Both the government troops and the separatists agreed during the weekend to pull their big guns 25 to 70 kilometers (15 to 43 miles) back, depending on the type of the weapon, thus creating a buffer zone. However, Ukrainian military spokesman Anatoliy Stelmakh told reporters on Monday that the move will not start before rebel attacks stop completely, in accordance with the conditions of the truce.
Stelmakh said there were two artillery attacks overnight and although this is significantly fewer than in previous days, "as long as firing on Ukrainian military positions continues, it's not possible to talk about a pullback."
Kyiv is only willing to start pulling back its heavy weapons once there has been a total cessation of firing for a whole day, according to army sources.
Rebels begin heavy weapon withdrawl, Kiev refuses to abide by Minsk ceasefire agreement
One of the most important aspects of the Minsk ceasefire for eastern Ukraine was the removal of heavy weapons from the front lines. Both sides were a bit slow in getting this going, with the rebels just finally starting the pullback over the weekend.
The two sides were supposed to do the pullbacks within two weeks of the ceasefire, and the rebels were about a week in when they began. That’s far better than the Ukrainian military, however, which is now refusing to pull weapons out at all.
The army is claiming that the rare skirmishes ongoing in the nation’s east justify them keeping their military assets on the front lines, even though that’s the opposite of what the ceasefire deal said.
NSA director defends plan to maintain 'backdoors' into technology companies
The National Security Agency director, Mike Rogers, on Monday sought to calm a chorus of doubts about the government’s plans to maintain built-in access to data held by US technology companies, saying such “backdoors” would not be harmful to privacy, would not fatally compromise encryption and would not ruin international markets for US technology products.
Rogers mounted an elaborate defense of Barack Obama’s evolving cybersecurity strategy in an appearance before an audience of cryptographers, tech company security officers and national security reporters at the New America Foundation in Washington. In an hour-long question-and-answer session, Rogers said a cyber-attack against Sony pictures by North Korea last year showed the urgency and difficulty of defending against potential cyber threats. ...
For most of the appearance, however, Rogers was on the defensive, at pains to explain how legal or technological protections could be put in place to ensure that government access to the data of US technology companies would not result in abuse by intelligence agencies. The White House is trying to broker a deal with companies such as Apple, Yahoo and Google, to ensure holes in encryption for the government to access mobile data, cloud computing and other data. ...
US technology companies have bridled at government pressure to introduce weaknesses in encryption systems in order to ensure government access to data streams, and technical experts have warned that there is no way to create a “backdoor” in an encryption system without summarily compromising it. An appearance by Obama at a cybersecurity conference at Stanford University last week to tout cooperation between the government and US tech companies was upstaged by an impassioned speech by Apple;s chief executive, Tim Cook, who warned of the “dire consequences” of sacrificing the right to online privacy.
Glenn Greenwald blasts Hillary Clinton: “The ultimate guardian of bipartisan status quo corruption”
Asked during a Reddit Q & Ahow citizens could ensure that surveillance is front-and-center in next year’s elections, Greenwald responded that the key obstacle to a genuine debate on such issues is “bipartisan consensus.”
“When the leadership of both parties join together – as they so often do, despite the myths to the contrary – those issues disappear from mainstream public debate,” Greenwald wrote, noting that President Obama, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and House Speaker John Boehner joined forces to block legislation killing the NSA’s metadata program after whistleblower Edward Snowden laid bare the scale of the agency’s surveillance operations.
That legislation, Greenwald pointed out, was introduced by Tea Party conservative Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) and liberal stalwart Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), underscoring that the debate boils down more to “insider v. outsider” than Democrats versus Republicans. What’s needed, he argued, is for leaders of one of the major parties to commit to making NSA reform a political issue.
“That’s why the Dem efforts to hand Hillary Clinton the nomination without contest are so depressing,” Greenwald continued. “She’s the ultimate guardian of bipartisan status quo corruption, and no debate will happen if she’s the nominee against some standard Romney/Bush-type GOP candidate. Some genuine dissenting force is crucial.”
Cenk Uygur on Hilary's gulf stream of cash if she wins the White House
Senate vote to pass DHS funding defeated as immigration dispute escalates
Democrats have seized on terrorist threats against a Minnesota shopping mall as the latest reason for Republicans to abandon their showdown over homeland security funding, as a fourth attempt to break their deadlock descended into increasingly bitter political clashes.
Despite a day of mounting warnings about the consequences of letting funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expire on Friday without a new finance bill in place, both parties appeared as far apart as ever on their underlying dispute over immigration reform.
A procedural vote in the Senate to move forward with DHS funding legislation, which requires 60 senators to overcome the threat of a filibuster, was defeated by 47 votes to 46.
Warnings of US Vulnerability to Terror Attacks During DHS Shutdown Might Be 'Playing Politics'
A video released by Somali militant group al Shabaab this weekend threatening terror attacks against shopping malls in the West boosted claims by the Obama administration that a possible government shutdown this week could leave the United States vulnerable to such attacks. ...
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson responded to the threat over the weekend, saying that shoppers should be vigilant, but he also used the video as a warning to politicians who are edging closer to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, saying that counterterrorism operations would be affected. ... DHS funding will run out on Friday unless Congress votes on a new budget for the department. ...
Obama also invoked national security when speaking about the threat of a DHS shutdown at a meeting with the National Governors Association at the White House on Monday. "We can't afford to play politics with our national security," he told governors from across the US.
Terror experts say, however, that Johnson's statements may also be more the result of politics than actual vulnerability to terrorism.
"Most of the high-priority counterterrorism policies and initiatives aren't going to get impacted by a temporary shutdown," Stuart Gottlieb, professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, told VICE News. "They're on special funding. It's not like you shutdown the government and the NSA stops spying and drones stop shooting things down. They're not going to leave high-priority and counterterrorism initiatives totally unfunded."
Israel Denies Flooding of Gaza Despite Palestinian Accusations
Hundreds of Palestinians were forced to evacuate their homes in the Gaza Strip over the weekend after water levels in the Gaza Valley rose up to almost 10 feet — floods which have led to accusations from Palestinians and a denial of responsibility from Israeli officials.
The Gaza Ministry of Interior is blaming Israel for the floods that forced residents to flee parts of the UN-run refugee camp of al Bureji and the neighborhood of al Zahra, which are both in the middle of the strip. ...
Israeli officials categorically denied they were to blame while speaking to VICE News on Monday. ...
Gaza is prone to flooding, which is a problem only exacerbated by chronic fuel shortages that make it difficult to pump out excess water.
Over the past few days, the strip has been pounded by a heavy storm and freezing temperatures — a major issue for more than 110,000 residents that remain homeless following the war that ravaged the region this summer.
Reconstruction has all but stalled there, and Palestinian and UN officials have repeatedly warned that the situation in the strip has become dangerously unsustainable.
"I do expect another round of violence to come from the lack of reconstruction and reconciliation," Omar Shaban, director of the Gaza-based independent think tank PalThink for Strategic Studies, told VICE News in January. "Things are not going in the right direction."
Israeli Settlement Building Soared 40% in 2014
It probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise for anyone whose been keeping track of the news out of Israel, but Peace Nowis reporting that settlement construction soaring in the occupied West Bank in 2014. ...
Peace Now says 3,100 units began construction in 2014, and 4,485 others were tendered, a 40% increase over 2013 and the “record high for at least a decade.”
Nearly 10% of the construction, 287, were illegal even under Israeli law, though Netanyahu has generally not enforced the regulations on illegal settlement expansion.
Revolt at "Ritmo": Dire Conditions in For-Profit Texas Immigration Jail Spark Prisoner Uprising
Inmates Temporarily Seize Control of South Texas Prison
Inmates at an immigration detention center in Raymondville, Texas seized control of the facility over the weekend, setting off a standoff with federal authorities.
The inmates, mostly undocumented immigrants, used pipes as weapons, though there are only minor injuries reported thus far, according to The Associated Press. In addition, there were reports of fires being set inside the center’s Kevlar tents. Officials, to no avail, used tear gas and other forms of so-called non-lethal force to squash the revolt. ... The detention center is run by Management & Training Corp., a Utah-based private contractor. ...
The facility has a notorious history — despite it being only nine years old. In 2011, PBS’s Frontline featured the facility in the documentary “Lost In Detention.” ...
It appears, however, the problems have continued. Last year the ACLU released a report on Willacy that proved prescient. “One man told us that fellow prisoners had threatened to burn the tents but rationalized, “What’s the point?” the report said. “Prisoners are bored, listless, and frustrated by the conditions, and the atmosphere, they say, is tense and could escalate at any time.” The ACLU report went on to catalog various complaints from inmates at Willacy, including cramped living conditions, little privacy, overflowing toilets, lack of water and inadequate medical treatment. A local newspaper in Texas reported that rioting inmates complained “they weren’t getting the medical care they needed.”
A Look Back At The Violence In Ferguson
The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden 'black site'
The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.
The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.
Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:
- Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
- Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
- Shackling for prolonged periods.
- Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
- Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.
At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.
The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. While those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square – said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage – trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown.
Unlike a precinct, no one taken to Homan Square is said to be booked. Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts. Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside.
[also see bobswern's excellent diary on this topic: The Guardian: “The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden 'black site'”]
Pasco police shooting: Trayvon Martin lawyer takes up case in push for federal investigation
The high-profile civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, will now act on behalf of the parents of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, an unarmed Mexican national shot dead by police in Pasco, Washington, strengthening the calls for a federal investigation into the death. ...
Crump told the Guardian he believed that the shooting represented an “intersection between what happened to Michael Brown in Ferguson [who was shot dead by police officer Darren Wilson] and Eric Garner in Staten Island [who was killed after being placed in a banned chokehold by police]”.
“The young people are protesting because they believe that he [Zambrano-Montes] put his hands up … just like Michael Brown did in Ferguson, and then you have the video, like you have in Eric Garner’s matter, where you see the last few, graphic moments of his life come to an end,” Crump said.
The incident is currently being examined by a Special Investigative Unit (SIU) comprising 15 officers from four neighbouring police forces. The SIU has provided scant information on the status of the investigation, and is currently directing all media inquiries to a weekly press conference due to be held again on Thursday. The FBI are currently monitoring the SIU investigation and the Franklin County coroner has pledged to instigate an inquest into the death after the SIU has concluded, meaning evidence will be seen by a jury of six who will make a non-binding decision on the lawfulness of the killing.
Crump said Zambrano-Montes’s family would be calling on the federal Justice Department to instigate a “complete and thorough” investigation into the case. “They want the truth to be shown,” he said.
Rodney Reed: Texas appeals court grants stay of execution
A Texas court has issued a stay of execution for Rodney Reed 10 days before he was scheduled to be put to death for a murder he insists he did not commit.
In a 6-2 verdict on Monday that was a response to an appeal filed by Reed’s lawyers, the Texas court of criminal appeals stayed the lethal injection that had been set down for 5 March. The court did not explain its decision. Reed’s attorneys argued they had new evidence proving his innocence and showing that the prosecution in the original trial presented false and misleading testimony. They are also calling for more DNA testing. ...
Reed has been on death row for nearly 17 years. “We’re extremely relieved that the court has stayed Mr Reed’s execution so there will be proper consideration of the powerful new evidence of his innocence. We are also optimistic that this will give us the opportunity to finally conduct DNA testing that could prove who actually committed the crime,” said Bryce Benjet, a staff attorney with the Innocence Project.
Damning Report Accuses France’s Largest Banks of 'Profiting From Hunger'
Oxfam says some of France's biggest banks have failed to make good on a promise to stop speculative agricultural commodity trading — a practice the anti-poverty NGO says has pushed up food prices and led to food insecurity in developing countries.
In a damning new report published Monday, Oxfam says several financial institutions — including French banking giants BNP Paribas, Société Générale, and Crédit Agricole/LCL — have backpedalled on an earlier commitment to stop gambling on food prices. ...
"Unfortunately, it's obvious that these promises were outweighed by the desire to make a profit," the report's author, Clara Jamart, a food security advocacy officer for Oxfam France, said in a statement. According to Jamart, the funds assigned to agricultural speculation have increased significantly over the last two years, climbing from 2.5 million euros ($2.9 million) in 2013 to 3.5 million euros ($4 million) in 2015.
Oxfam applauded Crédit Agricole/LCL, France's second-largest bank, for closing down three funds that allowed clients to speculate on agricultural commodities. The organization also said that the Société Générale has become more transparent about its practices — despite being the worst offender when it came to "profiting from hunger."
The NGO noted that BNP Paribas, France's largest bank, had not followed through on its earlier commitment, and that another bank, the BPCE group — which never agreed to change its ways in the first place — has been allocating even more funds to crop market speculation.
Eurozone Approves Greece Bailout Overhaul Plan
BRUSSELS — Eurozone finance ministers on Tuesday approved Greek proposals aimed at easing the hardships created by a huge international bailout, extending that program by four more months.
The decision by the finance ministers means “national procedures for extension of the Greek programme can begin,” Valdis Dombrovskis, a vice president at the European Commission, wrote on his Twitter account.
The reworking of the bailout program by the new Greek government included pledges to take a disciplined approach to budgets, spending and tax collection, while remaining committed to easing the “humanitarian crisis” caused by years of economic hardship and high unemployment. ...
In a statement, the so-called Eurogroup of finance ministers from the 19 countries that use the euro said they approved the Greek proposals in an afternoon conference call, after having consulted with Greece’s other major lenders, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
“The institutions provided us with their first view that they consider this list of measures to be sufficiently comprehensive to be a valid starting point,” the Eurogroup wrote. ...
The deal to extend the country’s bailout program with European creditors by four months is subject to the approval of the Greek Parliament, where some members of Mr. Tsipras’s radical-left Syriza party have called the plan a capitulation after the party’s anti-austerity campaign promises.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature the story of how Mrs. Mary Jones became known as Mother Jones.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Michael Hudson, recommended - there's a full transcript at the link if you don't want to sit through the video.
European Banks vs. Greek Labour
HUDSON: Because what's at issue really is a class war. It's not so much Germany versus Greece, as the papers say. It's really the war of the banks against labor. And it's a continuation of Thatcherism and neoliberalism.
The problem isn't simply that the troika wants Greece to balance the budget; it wanted Greece to balance the budget by lowering wages and by imposing austerity on the labor force. But instead, the terms in which Varoufakis has suggested balancing the budget are to impose austerity on the financial class, on the tycoons, on the tax dodgers. And he said, okay, instead of lowering pensions to the workers, instead of shrinking the domestic market, instead of pursuing a self-defeating austerity, we're going to raise two and a half billion from the powerful Greek tycoons. We're going to collect the back taxes that they have. We're going to crack down on illegal smuggling of oil and the other networks and on the real estate owners that have been avoiding taxes, because the Greek upper classes have become notorious for tax dodging.
Well, this has infuriated the banks, because it turns out the finance ministers of Europe are not all in favor of balancing the budget if it has to be balanced by taxing the rich, because the banks know that whatever taxes the rich are able to avoid ends up being paid to the banks. So now the gloves are off and the class war is sort of back. Originally, Varoufakis thought he was negotiating with the troika, that is, with the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the Euro Council. But instead they said, no, no, you're negotiating with the finance ministers. And the finance ministers in Europe are very much like Tim Geithner in the United States. They're lobbyists for the big banks.
The Eurogroup noose tightens around Greece
On most issues, the Eurogroup's extortion--delivered with typical take-it-or-leave-it contempt for the suffering and opposition of the people of Greece--prevailed.
The Greek government is allowed to come up with a program of measures to meet the targets established under the so-called Memorandum--the commonly used name for the terms accepted by the Greek government five years ago in return for the financial rescue organized by the "Troika" of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.
But the Troika--though that despised name is no longer used--will have veto power over those proposals. Varoufakis has a deadline of February 23 to put forward the government's plan. There is media speculation that the Eurogroup ministers will press their advantage and demand still more, setting up another showdown.
A further commitment by the SYRIZA government "to refrain from any rollback of measures and unilateral changes to the policies and structural reforms that would negatively impact fiscal targets, economic recovery or financial stability" is also subject to being "assessed by the institutions."
Thus, many of the immediate measures that SYRIZA had vowed to carry out once in power, regardless of negotiations with the Troika--restore the previous minimum wage of 751 euros a month, stop and reverse the privatization of state enterprises and agencies, provide free electricity and food subsidies for 300,000 poor households--could be shut down by the "institutions," if the government does attempt to carry them out. ...
The alternative to complying with Eurogroup blackmail would have been accepting a Greek default and likely exit from the euro currency, returning to the drachma. Most people in Greece would prefer to stay with the euro, and not for sentimental reasons. The economic impact of "Grexit" on ordinary people would be devastating, leading to an immediate currency devaluation that would make workers' wages--for those who have jobs and actually receive wages--worth less, not to mention depriving the government of resources needed for the most basic programs.
But the question is whether staying with the euro has an even greater cost. The last weeks of negotiations with the Eurogroup make it clear that Greece will only be tolerated in the eurozone if it follows the dictates of Europe's bankers and bosses and submits to the tyranny of their bureaucrats with veto power over every aspect of government policy.
Greece struggles to address its tax evasion problem
The new government of Greece, led by Alexis Tsipras, has promised to tackle tax evasion. It hopes this strategy will yield €3bn ($3.4bn) in the coming months in order to cover part of the cost of its €12bn Thessaloniki anti-austerity programme. This would entail various measures – a gradual increase in the minimum wage to reach €750, an extra month’s income for pensioners receiving less than €700 a month, and various welfare benefits – to help the most vulnerable members of the community.
“If this government thinks it can change the system in a few weeks it is underestimating how complicated it is to collect tax in Greece,” says Haris Theoharis, narrowly elected to parliament for the centrist To Potami party. Between January 2013 and June 2014 he was secretary general for public revenue, a job imposed on the then conservative New Democracy government by the country’s creditors, increasingly irritated by slow progress against fraud and tax dodging.
“In Greece more than two-thirds of the population – private- and public-sector employees – pay tax in the normal way, because it is deducted at source,” Theoharis explains. “The problem is that it’s still too easy for contractors, people in the professions and some big companies not to declare all or part of their earnings.”
He claims the state misses out on between €10bn and €20bn in revenue. Direct and indirect taxation should bring in an average of €50bn a year.
“Even with a low estimate of the amount lost – say €5bn a year – you can see that if we’d been able to collect €5bn more over the past 12 years, that would make €60bn. In other words there would be no debt problem,” says Tryfon Alexiadis, deputy head of the tax collectors’ union, close to Tsipras’s Syriza party.
Money: The Great Corrupter - David Harvey
Alaska becomes third US state to legalise recreational marijuana use
Alaska has made smoking, growing and owning small amounts of marijuana legal, becoming the third US state to decriminalise the recreational use of the drug.
The Republican-leaning state, which narrowly passed the measure in November, on Tuesday followed similar moves by Colorado and Washington states, reflecting a rapidly shifting legal landscape for the drug. It remains illegal under federal law.
Anyone aged 21 or older can now possess up to an ounce of marijuana in Alaska and can grow up to six marijuana plants, three of which can be flowering.
Smoking in public and buying and selling the drug remains illegal – though private exchanges are allowed if money is not involved
The Evening Greens
These New York towns want to frack so bad, they’re literally threatening to secede
15 New York towns have threatened to secede from the state and join Pennsylvania two months after Governor Andrew Cuomo banned fracking. The towns, known collectively as the Upstate New York Towns Association, are situated on top of the Marcellus Shale, a rich source of natural gas that neighboring states have profited greatly from. The Association is now researching whether or not secession would be feasible, and considering the difference in taxes, workers comp, unemployment and health insurance.
“The Southern Tier is desolate,” said James Finch, supervisor for Conklin, a small town south of Binghampton. “We have no jobs and no income. The richest resource we have is in the ground.” ...
In reality, the likelihood that the towns will secede is low– the move requires legislative approval from New York and Pennsylvania, in addition to the federal government.
Following New Rules, Groups Say Only 'Safe' Arctic Drilling Is 'No Drilling'
Environmentalists are sounding the alarm after the Obama administrationunveiled the first-ever guidelines for drilling in the Arctic.
Released by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on Friday, the proposed guidelines are being touted as a protective measure to "ensure that future exploratory drilling activities on the U.S. Arctic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) are done safely and responsibly, subject to strong and proven operational standards."
However, as green groups were quick to note, the best way to prevent a catastrophic oil spill from threatening the dangerous and pristine waters of the Arctic is to issue an outright drilling ban in that region.
"There is no such thing as safe or responsible offshore drilling in the Arctic, and the federal government knows it," said Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Marissa Knodel. According to the government's own environmental analysis, one lease sale in the Chukchi sea poses a 75 percent chance of a large oil spill, with no effective method for cleaning up or containing it.
Fuel-hauling bomb trains could derail at 10 a year according to government report
The federal government predicts that trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year over the next two decades, causing more than $4 billion in damage and possibly killing hundreds of people if an accident happens in a densely populated part of the U.S.
The projection comes from a previously unreported analysis by the Department of Transportation that reviewed the risks of moving vast quantities of both fuels across the nation and through major cities. ...
The volume of flammable liquids transported by rail has risen dramatically over the last decade, driven mostly by the oil shale boom in North Dakota and Montana. This year, rails are expected to move nearly 900,000 car loads of oil and ethanol in tankers. Each can hold 30,000 gallons of fuel.
Based on past accident trends, anticipated shipping volumes and known ethanol and crude rail routes, the analysis predicted about 15 derailments in 2015, declining to about five a year by 2034.
The 207 total derailments over the two-decade period would cause $4.5 billion in damage, according to the analysis, which predicts 10 "higher consequence events" causing more extensive damage and potential fatalities.
US Offering Its 'Assistance' to Push GMOs on Africa
The U.S. government and multinational corporations have capitalized on African nations' voids in regulatory frameworks to push genetically modified (GM) crops, standing to gain lucrative corporate profits while decimating food sovereignty, a new report states.
Released Monday from the African Centre for Biosafety and commissioned by environmental network Friends of the Earth International, Who benefits from GM crops? The expansion of agribusiness interests in Africa through biosafety policy (pdf) looks at how U.S. interests have used the mantra of addressing food security to push these crops despite local opposition.
"The U.S., the world's top producer of GM crops, is seeking new markets for American GM crops in Africa," stated report author Haidee Swanby. "The U.S. administration's strategy consists of assisting African nations to produce biosafety laws that promote agribusiness interests instead of protecting Africans from the potential threats of GM crops."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
US prisons outsource inmate healthcare to private companies. My son died in their care
Spy Cables: Abbas and Israel ally against 2009 UN probe
“People are really getting angry”: How Bernie Sanders just electrified Iowa — and what it means for ’16
Reading the Greek Deal Correctly
Weavemother background
From Don midwest:
What’s Wrong with the Economy—and with Economics?
A Little Night Music
Sam Chatmon - Sittin' on top of the World
Sam Chatmon - Who's Gonna Love You Tonight?
Sam Chatmon - God Dont Like Ugly
Sam Chatmon - Corrina
Sam Chatmon - The Preacher and the Bear
Sam Chatmon - Cold Blooded Murderer
Sam Chatmon - Let's Get Drunk Again
Sam Chatmon - Prowling Groundhog
Sam Chatmon - Blues
Sam Chatmon: Careless Love
Mississippi Sheiks - The World Is Going Wrong
Mississippi Sheiks - I am the Devil
Mississippi Sheiks - Honey babe let the deal go down
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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