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 New Orleans guitarist and singer Snooks Eaglin. Enjoy!
Snooks Eaglin & Poppa Funk's Boys - Come On
"Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction."
-- Barack Obama
News and Opinion
Former Pinochet Officer, Investigated for Torture and Murder, Taught at Pentagon
'His hiring undermines our moral authority on both human rights and in the war on terror,' says former intelligence officer
A former member of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's brutal regime taught at the Pentagon's top university for 13 years, despite repeated complaints from his colleagues about his past as a torturer and murderer of political dissidents in the South American nation.
Jaime Garcia Covarrubias is charged in Santiago with leading the executions of seven people in 1973 following a U.S.-backed coup, allegations which the U.S. State and Defense Departments were aware of when they renewed his visa and allowed him to keep teaching at the National Defense University's William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, according to a McClatchy investigation.
At Firedoglake, investigative journalist Kevin Gosztola writes:
Attention to Covarrubias' employment at the National Defense University (NDU) comes just after State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki maintained during a press briefing the US has a "long-standing policy" to not support coups. She suggested the U.S. "does not support political transitions by nonconstitutional means." They must be "peaceful and legal."
Garcia Covarrubias has been in Chile since January 2014, after an investigative judge ordered him to return to his home country for the duration of the inquiry into his role in the 1973 killings and the extent of his involvement in the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) spy agency.
Major nations hold talks on ending U.N. sanctions on Iran
Major world powers have begun talks about a United Nations Security Council resolution to lift U.N. sanctions on Iran if a nuclear agreement is struck with Tehran, a step that could make it harder for the U.S. Congress to undo a deal, Western officials said.
The talks between Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — the five permanent members of the Security Council — plus Germany and Iran, are taking place ahead of difficult negotiations that resume next week over constricting Iran's nuclear ability.
Some eight U.N. resolutions - four of them imposing sanctions - ban Iran from uranium enrichment and other sensitive atomic work and bar it from buying and selling atomic technology and anything linked to ballistic missiles. There is also a U.N. arms embargo.
Iran sees their removal as crucial as U.N. measures are a legal basis for more stringent U.S. and European Union measures to be enforced. The U.S. and EU often cite violations of the U.N. ban on enrichment and other sensitive nuclear work as justification for imposing additional penalties on Iran. ...
A Security Council resolution on a nuclear deal with Iran could be legally binding, say Western diplomatic officials. That could complicate and possibly undercut future attempts by Republicans in Washington to unravel an agreement.
Sen. Corker: UN vote on Iran deal would be an 'affront' to Americans
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Thursday in a letter to President Obama that any effort to get the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to approve a nuclear deal with Iran would be "a direct affront to the American people."
The letter comes a day after Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers any deal reached with Iran to roll back its nuclear program that Congress would not be able to modify would not be "legally binding." ...
Kerry's comments came in response to a letter signed by 47 Senate Republicans warning Iran that any deal it makes could be annulled by the next president and be modified by Congress.
Corker said reports that the administration is contemplating taking the agreement to the UNSC to make it internationally binding while issuing a veto threat on his bill that would allow Congress to approve the deal would also "undermine Congress's appropriate role."
The Real Story Behind the Republicans’ Iran Letter
The “open letter” from Senator Tom Cotton and 46 other Republican Senators to the leadership of Iran, which even Republicans themselves admit was aimed at encouraging Iranian opponents of the nuclear negotiations to argue that the United States cannot be counted on to keep the bargain, has created a new political firestorm. It has been harshly denounced by Democratic loyalists as “stunning” and “appalling”, and critics have accused the signers of the letter of being “treasonous” for allegedly violating a law forbidding citizens from negotiating with a foreign power.
But the response to the letter has primarily distracted public attention from the real issue it raises: how the big funders of the Likud Party in Israel control Congressional actions on Iran.
The infamous letter is a ham-handed effort by Republican supporters of the Netanyahu government to blow up the nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran. ... What Cotton and his Republican colleagues were doing was not negotiating with a foreign government but trying to influence the outcome of negotiations in the interest of a foreign government. The premise of the Senate Republican reflected in the letter – that Iran must not be allowed to have any enrichment capacity whatever – did not appear spontaneously. The views that Cotton and the other Republicans have espoused on Iran were the product of assiduous lobbying by Israeli agents of influence using the inducement of promises of election funding and the threat of support for the members’ opponents in future elections.
AIPAC apparently supported the letter, but there may be more to the story. Senator Cotton Just happens to be a protégé of neoconservative political kingpin Bill Kristol, whose Emergency Committee on Israel gave him nearly a million dollars late in his 2014 Senate campaign and guaranteed that Cotton would have the support of the four biggest funders of major anti-Iran organizations. ... So the real story behind the letter from Cotton and his Republican colleagues is how the enforcers of Likudist policy on Iran used an ambitious young Republican politician to try to provoke a breakdown in the Iran nuclear negotiations. The issue it raises is a far more serious issue than the Logan Act, but thus far major news organizations have steered clear of that story.
Will the 47 Diplomacy Saboteurs Have Democratic Enablers?
The main drama in terms of practical consequences is still all about Senate Democrats, not about Senate Republicans. Without at least six Senate Democrats supporting them, Republicans cannot pass anti-diplomacy legislation in the Senate. Without at least thirteen Senate Democrats supporting them, Republicans cannot override a Presidential veto of anti-diplomacy legislation. Without the support of a substantial group of Senate Democrats, Republicans cannot blow up the talks. The key question in the wake of the unprecedented controversy around the Netanyahu anti-diplomacy speech to Congress and the Republicans' open letter to Iran is: which Senate Democrats will reward the Republicans who did these things by helping them try to blow up diplomacy? ...
Since January 1, fifteen Senate Democrats (counting Angus King of Maine as a Democrat) have done at least one of three things that signaled that in certain circumstances, they might make common cause with Republicans to blow up diplomacy, although they would not necessarily do so. Ten signed the January Menendez letter promising that they would not vote yes on new sanctions before March 24, but threatening to do so afterwards; eight co-sponsored the Kirk-Menendez bill imposing new sanctions on Iran in violation of the interim deal, and seven have co-sponsored the Corker-Menendez "Congressional delay and review" bill, currently considered the main Senate vehicle for trying blow up the talks.
Here are the 15 Democrats who have signaled since January 1 that they might help Republicans undermine the President and blow up diplomacy:
Bennet, Michael F. [D-CO]: Corker-Menendez
Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez
Cardin, Ben [D-MD]: Menendez 10
Casey, Robert P., Jr. [D-PA]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez
Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez
Donnelly, Joe [D-IN]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez, Corker-Menendez
Heitkamp, Heidi [D-ND]: Corker-Menendez
Kaine, Tim [D-VA]: Corker-Menendez
King, Angus S., Jr. [I-ME]: Corker-Menendez
Manchin, Joe, III [D-WV]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez
Menendez, Robert [D-NJ]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez, Corker-Menendez
Nelson, Bill [D-FL]: Corker-Menendez
Peters, Gary C. [D-MI]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez
Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY]: Menendez 10, Kirk-Menendez
Stabenow, Debbie [D-MI]: Menendez 10
Netanyahu begins final push to cling to power in Israeli election
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has launched a last-minute media blitz to convince voters he should stay in office as he continues to lose ground to his party’s main challenger – the Zionist Union – led by Yitzhak Herzog.
The last polls in the election campaign, published on Friday, suggested Herzog’s party was continuing to creep ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud, with its two-seat lead a week ago doubling to four. ...
The top-selling Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonot showed Likud’s main challenger, the Zionist Union coalition, winning 26 of the 120 seats in parliament against 22 for Netanyahu’s party. ...
With evidence that Netanyahu has failed to inspire his political base, the media strategy seems designed to scare wavering Likud voters – or those considering voting for another party – to turn out on Tuesday.
Ukraine Faces Two Fronts: Military and Economy
German officials: U.S. statements of Russian involvement in the Ukraine "dangerous propaganda"
A diplomatic divide between the United States and Germany over the extent of Russian military involvement in Ukraine and how to respond to it threatens to hinder hopes of providing greater support to the beleaguered nation. ...
German officials, including some in Merkel’s office, have recently referred to U.S. statements of Russian involvement in the Ukraine fighting as “dangerous propaganda,” and the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel went so far as to ask: “Do the Americans want to sabotage the European mediation attempts in Ukraine led by Chancellor Merkel?”
All sides agree that Russia is supporting the separatists, something a NATO official stressed in responding to German frustrations, saying that there’s “broad agreement on the overall situation.”
But Germans and other Europeans are concerned that U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove – the NATO supreme allied commander, Europe – and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for Europe, have been exaggerating the extent of Russian involvement in the conflict.
Numerous German news reports also have noted a vast difference between the number of Russian troops that European NATO members have estimated are in Ukraine’s conflicted Donbas region and what American NATO commanders have announced. It’s 600, according to the Europeans, versus the 12,000 to 20,000 estimated by U.S. commanders.
Syrian rights group says U.S., allies have ‘killed more than 100’ civilians in airstrikes
A leading Syrian opposition human rights group on Wednesday charged that the U.S.-led coalition has been responsible for the deaths of more than 100 civilians since it began bombing Islamic State targets in September and demanded that the U.S. Central Command carry out “a serious investigation” and stop issuing denials.
More than half those killed, 51, died on Dec. 28,when U.S. aircraft struck a building housing an Islamic State prison in the northern Syria town of Al Bab, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said.
In addition, the group said that 29 civilians have died in the bombing campaign against oil refineries, many of them primitive operations run by local families to eke out a living in a war zone that receives little or no humanitarian aid.
The network’s report said the total number of confirmed civilian deaths since the U.S. began bombing Syria on Sept. 23 was 103, including 11 children and 11 women. Sixty-three of the deaths occurred since Dec. 14. The network’s report included witness statements.
“Regrettably the alliance forces’ Central Command denies that civilians have been killed by alliance forces,” despite photographic and video evidence, the names of the victims and statements from victims’ families, the group’s director, Fadel Abdul Ghani, said in the report’s introduction.
“There should be serious pursuit and investigation to hold the responsible accountable” and to compensate families of the victims so as to distinguish the U.S.-led alliance from “the lines of totalitarian dictatorships.”
Freezing and Fighting for Aid: Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
The al Qaeda Files: Bin Laden Documents Reveal a Struggling Organization
Palm oil cultivation in West Africa, climate change, and how to kill Americans more effectively than cigarettes. These were the issues on Osama bin Laden’s mind in his final years as he struggled to direct the terrorist group’s activities from his hideout in Pakistan, according to newly released files retrieved from the compound where he was killed.
Direct communications between the al Qaeda leader and his inner circle were entered as evidence in a terrorism trial recently concluded in Brooklyn, New York, effectively doubling the amount of publicly available documents recovered from bin Laden’s final hideout. Together the newly disclosed documents paint a picture of a man who, despite being holed up for years in his high-walled compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, maintained a hands-on role managing al Qaeda in the face of a crippling “espionage war” and mounting bureaucratic obstacles. ...
Totaling more than 150 pages, the documents include communications between bin Laden, his chief of external operations, his general manager and others connected with the group. They reveal al Qaeda’s frustrated efforts to carry out overseas attacks.
In a handwritten letter scrawled on crumpled notebook paper, bin Laden’s chief of external operations admitted losing contact with operatives sent to carry out attacks in Britain, Russia and Europe. He cited shortcomings in the commitment of his personnel, communications challenges, lack of necessary travel documents and a failure to execute operations as key problems. ...
The newly disclosed documents reflect bin Laden’s acute attention to operational security, revealing the al Qaeda leader was aware of his adversaries’ electronic surveillance capabilities years before Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations. “[J]ust because something can be encrypted doesn’t make it suitable for use,” bin Laden wrote. “As you know, this science is not ours and is not our invention. That means we do not know much about it. Based on this, I see that sending any dangerous matter via encrypted email is a risky thing.”
Swedish prosecutors ready to question Assange in London
Julian Assange set to be questioned by Swedish prosecutors in London
Swedish prosecutors are expected to question Julian Assange in his London refuge after the lead prosecutor bowed to pressure from his lawyers, Swedish legal opinion and the courts to attempt to break the deadlock in the case.
Marianne Ny, who heads the investigation into accusations of rape and sexual molestation against the WikiLeaks founder, on Friday lodged a request with Assange’s lawyers to interrogate him in London and take a DNA sample – the first sign of movement in the case that has been deadlocked for nearly three years.
The prosecutor will ask the UK government and Ecuador for permission to carry out an interrogation at Ecuador’s embassy in London, where Assange has been staying since August 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, from which he fears being handed over to the US to face espionage charges.
Assange’s lawyer said Assange welcomed the development but was irritated it had taken so long.
Assange has been wanted in Sweden since the accusations were made against him in August 2010. The British Foreign Office said in November it would welcome a request by the Swedish prosecutor to question Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy. Ecuador’s government has also repeatedly stated that it approves of such a step.
US Senate committee advances cybersecurity bill in secret session
Bipartisan group of senators vote 14 to 1 on Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act as lone dissenter calls measure ‘a surveillance bill by another name’
The Senate intelligence committee advanced a priority bill for the National Security Agency on Thursday afternoon, approving long-stalled cybersecurity legislation that civil libertarians consider the latest pathway for surveillance abuse.
The vote on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, 14 to 1, occurred in a secret session inside the Hart Senate office building. Democrat Ron Wyden was the dissenter, calling the measure “a surveillance bill by another name”.
The bill’s bipartisan advocates consider it a prophylactic measure against catastrophic data theft, particularly in light of recent large-scale hacking of Sony, Target, Home Depot and other companies.
Private companies could share customer data “in a voluntary capacity” with the government, Senator Richard Burr, the committee chairman said, “so that we bring the full strength of the federal government to identifying and recommending what anybody else in the United States should adopt”.
Privacy advocates consider the bill to provide a new avenue for the NSA to access consumer and financial data, once laundered through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the initial public repository for the desired private-sector information. Campaigners consider the emphasis placed by the bill’s backers on DHS’s role to be a misleading way of downplaying NSA access to win congressional support.
Data and Goliath: Bruce Schneier on the Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
This is a good article by Robert Parry, here's a taste:
How ‘Free Markets’ Defame ‘Democracy’
The one common thread in modern U.S. foreign policy is an insistence on “free market” solutions to the world’s problems. That is, unless you’re lucky enough to live in a First World ally of the United States or your country is too big to bully.
So, if you’re in France or Canada or – for that matter – China, you can have generous health and educational services and build a modern infrastructure. But if you’re a Third World country or otherwise vulnerable – like, say, Ukraine or Venezuela – Official Washington insists that you shred your social safety net and give free reign to private investors.
If you’re good and accept this “free market” domination, you become, by the U.S. definition, a “democracy” – even if doing so goes against the wishes of most of your citizens. In other words, it doesn’t matter what most voters want; they must accept the “magic of the market” to be deemed a “democracy.”
Thus, in today’s U.S. parlance, “democracy” has come to mean almost the opposite of what it classically meant. Rather than rule by a majority of the people, you have rule by “the market,” which usually translates into rule by local oligarchs, rich foreigners and global banks.
Governments that don’t follow these rules – by instead shaping their societies to address the needs of average citizens – are deemed “not free,” thus making them targets of U.S.-funded “non-governmental organizations,” which train activists, pay journalists and coordinate business groups to organize an opposition to get rid of these “un-democratic” governments.
If a leader seeks to defend his or her nation’s sovereignty by such means as requiring these NGOs to register as “foreign agents,” the offending government is accused of violating “human rights” and becomes a candidate for more aggressive “regime change.”
Currently, one of the big U.S. complaints against Russia is that it requires foreign-funded NGOs that seek to influence policy decisions to register as “foreign agents.” The New York Times and other Western publications have cited this 2012 law as proof that Russia has become a dictatorship, while ignoring the fact that the Russians modeled their legislation after a U.S. law known as the “Foreign Agent Registration Act.”
HSBC's Swiss private bank: French prosecutor formally requests trial
The French financial state prosecutor has requested that HSBC’s Swiss private bank be sent to criminal trial over a suspected tax-dodging scheme for wealthy customers.
The recommendation follows a lengthy investigation by local magistrates into alleged tax fraud involving 3,000 French taxpayers and is a procedural step that brings the Swiss banking arm one step closer to a possible trial in France.
Le Monde reported that HSBC refused a plea deal that would have avoided a trial. It said HSBC would have had to pay a €1.4bn fine as part of that deal.
HSBC has admitted failings in compliance and controls in its Swiss bank and faces investigation by US authorities and an inquiry by British MPs after reports that it helped customers conceal millions of dollars of assets in a period up to 2007.
Cases against specific clients of the Swiss bank are already in progress in France.
The German government is discussing whether Greece should be cut from Europe like a "gangrenous limb"
Even without the heat of official negotiations, relations between Athens and Berlin are getting more sour by the day. The latest example comes from Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's finance minister.
When pressed by Austrian reporters on whether there could be a "Grexident" — an accidental series of events that could lead to Greece's leaving the euro — Schaeuble said Greece's future would be determined by Greek authorities "and since we do not know exactly what the authorities in Greece will do, we can not rule it out."
Other German government officials are discussing whether Greece might be "amputated" from Europe like a "gangrenous limb," according to the Financial Times. Greece's official position is that it will stay in the euro, so Athens most likely will not appreciate the intervention.
Germany's Schaeuble says can't rule out 'Grexident'
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Thursday the onus was on Greece to help itself and he could not rule out an accidental exit of the country from the euro zone.
"As the responsibility, the possibility to decide what happens only lies with Greece, and because we don't exactly know what those in charge in Greece are doing, we can't rule it out," Schaeuble told Austrian broadcaster ORF when asked about the prospect of a "Grexident".
Why Was an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Tracking a Black Lives Matter Protest?
Members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force tracked the time and location of a Black Lives Matter protest last December at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, email obtained by The Intercept shows.
The email from David S. Langfellow, a St. Paul police officer and member of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, informs a fellow task force member from the Bloomington police that “CHS just confirmed the MOA protest I was taking to you about today, for the 20th of DEC @ 1400 hours.” CHS is a law enforcement acronym for “confidential human source.”
Jeffrey VanNest, an FBI special agent and Joint Terrorism Task Force supervisor at the FBI’s Minneapolis office, was CC’d on the email. ... According to an FBI spokesman, Langfellow’s Confidential Human Source was “a tipster with whom Mr. Langfellow is familiar” who contacted him “after the tipster had discovered some information while on Facebook” that “some individuals may engage in vandalism” at the Mall of America protest. Upon receiving the email, Bloomington police officer and task force member Benjamin Mansur forwarded it to Bloomington’s then-deputy police chief Rick Hart, adding “Looks like it’s going to be the 20th…” It was then forwarded to all Bloomington police command staff. There is no mention of potential vandalism anywhere in the email chain, and no vandalism occurred at the Mall of America protest. ...
“Clearly it’s inappropriate to be using the Joint Terrorist Task Force to monitor activists [and] the use of a CHS seems extremely inappropriate,” said Michael German, a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and former special agent with the FBI. “The fact that they’re spending resources in this manner reflects poor leadership and is something that they should really take a hard look at.”
The FBI has been criticized in the recent past for its actions regarding domestic advocacy groups. A 2010 report by the Department of Justice Inspector General found the FBI opened investigations connected to organizations such as Greenpeace and the Catholic Worker movement that classified possible “trespassing or vandalism” as domestic terrorism cases. The report also found the FBI’s National Press Office “made false and misleading statements” when questioned by the media about documents obtained by public records requests.
When police killed Tony Robinson, they revealed a much less liberal Madison
When most people think of Madison, Wisconsin, they probably don’t think of it as a place where state violence is made manifest against black and brown people. But the death of Tony Robinson, the black teenager who was shot and killed last week by a white police officer, Matt Kenny, is hopefully starting to change that.
There have always been two Madisons, and state violence directly, consistently and disproportionately impacts one. One Madison is known for its history of leftist protest, from student and anti-war movements in the 1960s to labor protests against Scott Walker in the present day. It is also perceived as one of the best places to live in America for some people, frequently topping quality-of-life lists for its public schools, the availability of fresh and local food and its incredible bike paths.
That Madison obscures the reality of the other one: our city has the worst racial economic disparities in the entire United States of America. A 2013 study of Dane County (where Madison is located) confirmed what black residents experience in their daily lives: 75% of black children in the county live in poverty, compared to 5% of white children. black adults are 11 times more likely to be arrested than white adults, and black youth are 15 times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts. Dane County has a black population of about 6-7%; the Dane County Jail has a Black population of 48%.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature two poems written to honor Mother Jones, one from the United Mine Workers Journal and the other from the Appeal to Reason.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Should McDonald’s & Monsanto Have the Same Rights as People? A Debate on Corporate Personhood
Astroturf “Progressive” Support for the TPP – Meet “270 Solutions”
270 Strategies Says It’s “Progressive” To Be Pro-TPP
We got onto this story originally because 270 Strategies is part of a new campaign to get TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership, the next NAFTA-style trade agreement) passed. Obama wants it (badly), Pelosi is iffy at best about it, and all of the corporate-bought (through campaign “contributions”) members of Congress are ready to vote for it.
But there’s opposition as well. Against TPP are real progressives, most or all labor unions, most citizens who know anything about it or about NAFTA (a surprisingly large group), and many Republicans who don’t want to cede more power to the “Kenyan” in the White House. (Why’s that an issue? Because to pass TPP, Congress first has to pass “Fast Track” legislation, which neuters Congress’s role in the process. That mean the “Kenyan” wins in the minds of Tea Party legislators.) ...
Most people get that NAFTA was, to put it bluntly, a screw job for workers, that all the promises of new American jobs were lies, or at best, tales told by willing and well-rewarded dupes. That jury came in years ago. (If you don’t believe me, test it. Ask anyone you know, of any flavor of left or right, what they think of NAFTA.) It’s proponents needed a new angle, a new way to increase support and divide opposition. This, apparently, is that angle — “TPP, progressives support it too.”
Selling TPP as “progressive” is a stretch, but it’s an interesting move. It creates and leverages confusion on the left, and by dividing the left, attempts to finesse support for Fast Track, to sneak it past the finish line. Say “job killer” and the left is united against. Say “progressive” and “groundbreaking” and some on the left may be intrigued, may even be interested, may even be flattered enough to be tempted to agree.
The Evening Greens
Line 61, the Oil Pipeline That Will Dwarf Keystone XL
Many Americans have heard of the Keystone XL pipeline. Few have heard of Line 61.
Operated by Canadian energy firm Enbridge, Line 61 currently runs 560,000 barrels of tar sands oil a day between Superior, Wisconsin — where it connects to some of Enbridge's Canadian oil lines — and Pontiac, Illinois. This year, however, Enbridge hopes to continue the expansion of the line's capacity until it can eventually carry up to 1.2 million barrels per day — a 30 percent higher capacity than Keystone.
Last month, President Barack Obama vetoed a bill approving construction of Keystone in order to allow a lengthy State Department review to be completed. But because Line 61 doesn't cross an international border, it doesn't require the same kind of approval.
In many respects, the intense focus on Keystone — from both proponents and opponents — is symbolic. Canadian tar sands oil will be extracted and transported to the US whether or not Keystone's construction is approved. For starters, oil trains are able to transport oil when pipelines are unavailable. (While the size of the average pipeline spill is much greater than an oil train spill — pipelines transport far more oil — trains tend to have accidents more often. In the past month, four oil trains have derailed in Canada and the US.) Second and more significantly, there are pipeline alternatives to Keystone that are proposed or already exist. Like Line 61.
But despite the fact that Line 61 is poised to dwarf Keystone, and despite the fact it carries the same tar sands crude oil — it's been linked to increased pipeline corrosiveness due to the higher temperatures at which it's transported — Line 61 has received almost no national news coverage.
US and Chinese companies dominate list of most-polluting coal plants
Warren Buffet-owned Berkshire Hathaway on list of top 25 companies with least efficient and oldest ‘sub-critical’ coal power plants
The 100 global power companies most at risk from growing pressure to shut highly polluting coal plants have been revealed in a new report from Oxford University.
Chinese companies dominate the top of the ranking but US companies, including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, occupy 10 of the top 25 places.
The analysis, produced to help investors assess the risk of major financial losses, also found French energy giant GDF Suez was third in the list of most polluting coal station fleets in the world.
Coal currently provides 40% of the world’s electricity and three-quarters of this is produced by the most-polluting, least-efficient and oldest “sub-critical” coal-fired power stations. The International Energy Agency calculates that one in four of these sub-critical plants must close within five years, if the world’s governments are to keep their pledge to limit global warming to 2C.
Starving Sea Lions Washing Ashore by the Hundreds in California
By the time Wendy Leeds reached him, the sea lion pup had little hope of surviving.
Like more than 1,450 other sea lions that have washed up on California beaches this year, in what animal experts call a growing crisis for the animal, this 8-month-old pup was starving, stranded and hundreds of miles from a mother who still needed to nurse him and teach him to hunt and feed. Ribs jutted from his velveteen coat.
The pup had lain on the beach for hours, becoming the target of an aggressive dog before managing to wriggle onto the deck of a million-dollar oceanfront home, where the owner shielded him with an umbrella and called animal control. In came Ms. Leeds, an animal-care expert at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, which like other California rescue centers is being inundated with calls about lost, emaciated sea lions.
“It’s getting crazy,” she said.
Experts suspect that unusually warm waters are driving fish and other food away from the coastal islands where sea lions breed and wean their young. As the mothers spend time away from the islands hunting for food, hundreds of starving pups are swimming away from home and flopping ashore from San Diego to San Francisco.
This year is the third in five years that scientists have seen such large numbers of strandings. Researchers say they worry about the long-term consequences of climate change and rising ocean temperatures on a sea lion population that has evolved over thousands of years to breed almost exclusively on the Channel Islands, relying on circulating flows of Pacific upwellings to bring anchovies, sardines and other prey.
“The environment is changing too rapidly,” said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service who found that pups on the Channel Islands were 44 percent underweight. “Their life history is so much slower that it’s not keeping up.”
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Congress passed the Logan Act in 1799 banning unauthorised communication intended to influence a foreign government but no one has ever been prosecuted
GOP’s New Foreign Policy Hero Is a Surveillance-Loving Interventionist Nightmare
Nuland’s Mastery of Ukraine Propaganda
Bank Stress Test Results at 4:30 Today: Will the Fed Whistle Past the Graveyard?
#WeJustNeedToPee, #Occupotty, #TransLivesMatter
A Little Night Music
Snooks Eaglin with George Porter Jr. - Red Beans
Snooks Eaglin with George Porter Jr. - I Just Cried Oh
Snooks Eaglin with George Porter Jr.- Lipstick Traces
Snooks Eaglin with George Porter Jr.- Baby Please
Snooks Eaglin - St. James Infirmary
Snooks Eaglin - San-Ho-Zay
Snooks Eaglin - Nine Pound Steel
Snooks Eaglin - One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer
Snooks Eaglin - Is It True
Snooks Eaglin - I hear you knockin'
Snooks Eaglin - Lucille
Snooks Eaglin - Down Yonder
Snooks Eaglin - I Get the Blues When It Rains
Snooks Eaglin - West Side Baby
Snooks Eaglin - That Same Old Train
Snooks Eaglin - Pretty Girls Everywhere
Snooks Eaglin - Wella Wella Baby-La
Snooks Eaglin - Nine Pound Steel
Snooks Eaglin - Travellin' Mood
Snooks Eaglin: Recorded At Storyville Jazz Hall
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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