Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist Francis "Scrapper" Blackwell. Enjoy!
Scrapper Blackwell - Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
“The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”
-- Charles de Gaulle
News and Opinion
My fellow Americans, welcome to pariah state status.
From Drones Abroad to Police Brutality at Home, UN Slams US Human Rights Record
With particular focus on police brutality, Human Rights Council member states issue scathing critique
The United States' human rights record faced fierce criticism on Monday during a hearing of the United Nations Human Rights Council, when a panel of more than 100 international leaders voiced concern over violations spanning from police brutality and the continued use of the death penalty to the torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison.
According to those present at the hearing in Geneva, Switzerland, the subject of police brutality against people of color and, more broadly, discrimination within the U.S. criminal justice system dominated the critique. Monday marked the United States' second Universal Periodic Review, a process created by the Human Rights Council to peer-review other member states.
As Alba Morales, who investigates the U.S. criminal justice system for the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch notes, the focus of the international delegates echoed the concerns of thousands of U.S. citizens who in recent months have expressed outrage over what they say is a racist and discriminatory system of justice.
Other areas of concern raised by UN member states included the "failure to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the continued use of the death penalty, the need for adequate protections for migrant workers and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples. Member states also called on the U.S. to end child labor, human trafficking and sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women and to lift restrictions on the use of foreign aid to provide safe abortion services for rape victims in conflict areas," Al Jazeera reports.
In addition, Pakistan Ambassador to the UN Zamir Akram raised issue with the illegal use of armed drones, calling for the U.S. to compensate innocent victims of drone strikes.
As Internal Docs Show Major Overreach, Why Is FBI Spying on Opponents of Keystone XL Pipeline?
Greatest Threat to Free Speech Comes Not From Terrorism, But From Those Claiming to Fight it
One of the most alarming examples of attempts to suppress free expression comes, not at all surprisingly, from the UK Government, which is currently agitating for new counter-terrorism powers “including plans for extremism disruption orders designed to restrict those trying to radicalize young people.” Here are the powers which the British Freedom Fighters and Democracy Protectors are seeking:
They would include a ban on broadcasting and a requirement to submit to the police in advance any proposed publication on the web and social media or in print. The bill will also contain plans for banning orders for extremist organisations which seek to undermine democracy or use hate speech in public places, but it will fall short of banning on the grounds of provoking hatred.
It will also contain new powers to close premises including mosques where extremists seek to influence others. The powers of the Charity Commission to root out charities that misappropriate funds towards extremism and terrorism will also be strengthened.
In essence, advocating any ideas or working for any political outcomes regarded by British politicians as “extremist” will not only be a crime, but can be physically banned in advance. Basking in his election victory, Prime Minister David Cameron unleashed this Orwellian decree to explain why new Thought Police powers are needed: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens ‘as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.'” It’s not enough for British subjects merely to “obey the law”; they must refrain from believing in or expressing ideas which Her Majesty’s Government dislikes. ...
The increasingly unhinged, Cheney-sounding governments of the UK, Australia, France, New Zealand and Canada — joining the U.S. — have a seemingly insatiable desire to curb freedoms in the name of protecting them: prosecuting people for Facebook postings critical of Western militarism or selling “radical” cable channels, imprisoning people for “radical” tweets, banning websites containing ideas they dislike, seeking (and obtaining) new powers of surveillance and detention for those people (usually though not exclusively Muslim citizens) who hold and espouse views deemed by these governments to be “radical.”
Scheer & Hedges: They Know Everything About You
US Congress to vote on bill banning NSA from bulk-collecting phone calls
Less than a week after a US appeals court delivered a stinging legal rebuke to the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of US phone data, the House of Representatives is set to vote on the most domestically controversial of Edward Snowden’s revelations.
Passage on a bipartisan basis is expected for the USA Freedom Act on Wednesday, a bill that seeks to stop the NSA from collecting the metadata of all US phone calls. The White House announced its support for the bill, which faces two-pronged opposition from civil libertarians who consider it insufficient and the GOP Senate leader who seeks to preserve the domestic surveillance.
Absent explicit congressional reauthorization, a controversial provision of the 2001 Patriot Act, known as Section 215, will end next month. ... Privacy advocates who oppose the USA Freedom Act consider the bill to squander the unique legislative opportunity afforded by Section 215’s expiration. “The disclosures of the last two years make clear that we need wholesale reform,” Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU argued last month..
An architect of the Patriot Act and the USA Freedom Act, Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner has argued that the Patriot Act never envisaged the undifferentiated mass collection of American phone records. Last week, his interpretation was bolstered by a three-judge panel that excoriated the NSA program as illegal on its face.
It's worth a click to check out the full article, there's too much worthy detail to excerpt here.
NSA reform is unavoidable. But it can be undermined if we aren't careful
Congress now has to reform NSA mass surveillance in the next two weeks – whether they like it or not.
Bolstered by a historic court of appeals opinion from last week that ruled much of NSA’s mass surveillance on Americans illegal, Congress is scrambling to pass a reform bill for the NSA before 1 June, when a key section of the Patriot Act, known as Section 215, will expire unless both houses vote to extend it. Now the only question is how far they’ll go. ...
It’s hard to understate the 2nd Circuit ruling’s sweeping nature: not only did the three judge panel declare the notorious phone metadata program unlawful, but all other still secret mass surveillance programs are now illegal as well. (For example, Senator Richard Burr curiously claimed last week on the Senate floor that the NSA is mining American IP addresses in bulk using the Patriot Act. When he was called out for seemingly making classified information public, his statements quickly disappeared from the official congressional record.)
It’s now virtually a foregone conclusion that a version of the USA Freedom Act – an NSA reform bill that has been re-written countless times over the past two years – will pass the House of Representatives by a large margin as early as Wednesday. While the bill is a milquetoast attempt to reform that’s been watered down since it was first introduced shortly after the Snowden leaks began in June 2013, most civil liberties experts agreed - at least before the 2nd Circuit ruling - the bill makes things better on the margins. It adds a little transparency and taking away the NSA’s vast phone database, but leaving it in the hands of the phone companies for the agency to continue to mine in secret.
The problem is that the USA Freedom Act is also a confusing conglomeration of vague clauses and definitions that some lawyers think could allow the NSA to twist and warp in secret to allow them to continue to abuse the privacy of the American people. Given the courts have already gutted the NSA’s convoluted legal arguments, Congress now needs to go much further and remove any doubt from USA Freedom’s language.
Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
The debate over the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records has reached a critical point after a federal appeals court last week ruled the practice illegal, dramatically raising the stakes for pending Congressional legislation that would fully or partially reinstate the program. An army of pundits promptly took to television screens, with many of them brushing off concerns about the surveillance. ...
But it’s often unclear just how financially cozy these pundits are with the surveillance state they defend, since they’re typically identified with titles that give no clues about their conflicts of interest. ... As one example of the opaque link between NSA money and punditry, take the words of Stewart Baker, who was general counsel to the NSA from 1992 through 1994. During a Senate committee hearing last summer on one of the reform bills now before Congress, the USA FREEDOM Act, which would partially limit mass surveillance of telephone metadata, Baker essentially said the bill would aid terrorists. ...
Baker has identified himself at various points as a former government official with the NSA and Department of Homeland Security and as a Washington, D.C. attorney. But the law firm at which Baker is a partner, Steptoe & Johnson, maintains a distinct role in the world of NSA contracting. At the time of his pro-NSA advocacy in 2013 and 2014, the company was registered to lobby on behalf of companies which have served as major NSA contractors, including Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Leidos and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). ...
Fox News Military Analyst Jack Keane appears regularly on the network to opine on national security issues. ... Since 2004, Keane has served as board member to General Dynamics, a firm that contracts with the NSA — as occasionally disclosed publicly, as in October 2014, in 2010, and in 2009. For his service as a board member, Keane has earned about a quarter of a million dollars a year in cash and stock awards. ...
In June of 2013, following the first Snowden disclosures, retired General Wesley Clark and former Central Intelligence Agency Chief James Woolsey cast aspersions on the whistleblower who brought the NSA’s privacy violations to light. ... The men are, and were at the time, advisors to Paladin Capital Group, an investment advisor and private equity firm whose Homeland Security Fund was set up about three months after the September 11 attacks to focus on defense and intelligence-related startups.
[For further examples of undisclosed influence, click the link. - js]
Warrantless airport seizure of laptop “cannot be justified,” judge rules
The US government's prosecution of a South Korean businessman accused of illegally selling technology used in aircraft and missiles to Iran was dealt a devastating blow by a federal judge. The judge ruled Friday that the authorities illegally seized the businessman's computer at Los Angeles International Airport as he was to board a flight home.
The authorities who were investigating Jae Shik Kim exercised the border exception rule that allows the authorities to seize and search goods and people—without court warrants—along the border and at airport international terminals. US District Court judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia noted that the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the issue of warrantless computer searches at an international border crossing, but she ruled (PDF) the government used Kim's flight home as an illegal pretext to seize his computer. Authorities then shipped it 150 miles south to San Diego where the hard drive was copied and examined for weeks, but the judge said the initial seizure "surely cannot be justified." ...
"The government points to its plenary authority to conduct warrantless searches at the border. It posits that a laptop computer is simply a 'container' that was examined pursuant to this authority, and it submits that the government’s unfettered right to search cargo at the border to protect the homeland is the beginning and end of the matter," the judge wrote. ...
Judge Berman Jackson questioned whether the border search exception should apply to laptops because they carry much more private information than, say, a briefcase. Judge Jackson cited last year's Supreme Court case, known as Riley, in which the justices ruled unanimously that the authorities generally may not search the mobile phones of those they arrest unless they have a court warrant.
Stephen Kim, Ex-State Department Official in Leak Case, Released from Prison
Stephen Kim, a former State Department official who last year pleaded guilty to leaking classified information about North Korea to a Fox News reporter, was released from prison today after 10 months of confinement.
The indictment and conviction of Kim, part of a crackdown by the Obama administration on leakers and whistleblowers, involved the government also accusing the reporter, James Rosen, of being a potential “co-conspirator” in the Espionage Act case. The government secretly collected emails Rosen exchanged with Kim in 2009 as well as records of their phone calls.
Germany gives huge amount of phone, text data to U.S.: report
Germany's BND intelligence agency sends mammoth amounts of phone and text data to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) each month, Die Zeit Online reported, highlighting the scale of spying cooperation which has unleashed a political row here.
Critics have accused Chancellor Angela Merkel's staff of giving the nod to the BND to help the NSA spy on European firms and officials. They also say officials lied about the prospects of a U.S.-German "no-spy deal" before the 2013 election.
Polls show the scandal is starting to hurt popular Merkel whose office is responsible for the oversight of intelligence. ...
"It is questionable as to whether this practice is covered by German laws," wrote Die Zeit, citing a BND official responsible for data protection.
Pentagon weighs sending planes, ships near disputed South China Sea reefs
The Pentagon is considering sending U.S. military aircraft and ships to assert freedom of navigation around rapidly growing Chinese-made artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter requested options that include sending aircraft and ships within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of reefs that China has been building up in the Spratly island chain, the official said.
Such a move would directly challenge Chinese efforts to expand its influence in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.
"We are considering how to demonstrate freedom of navigation in an area that is critical to world trade," the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that any options would need White House approval.
Carter's request was first reported earlier on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, which said one option was to fly Navy surveillance aircraft over the islands.
Iran General: 'Restraint Not Limitless' as Tensions Grow over Yemen War
Iran says it will not submit to Saudi or US threats over a cargo ship it says is carrying humanitarian aid
As the first full day of a tenuous ceasefire takes hold in Yemen, a top Iranian general has warned both the United States and Saudi Arabia against interferring with a cargo vessel, said to be carrying humanitarian aid, as it continued toward the coast of the war-torn nation.
U.S. and Saudi officials have said Tehran's sending of the ship, which is travelling under what the Iranians have called the "safeguard" of a naval escort, is provocative amid ongoing hostilities in Yemen, but Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, responded on Iran's state-operated Al-Alam television late Tuesday by saying that Iran would not be intimidated.
"I bluntly declare that the self-restraint of Islamic Republic of Iran is not limitless," Gen. Jazayeri was quoted as saying. "Both Saudi Arabia and its novice rulers, as well as the Americans and others, should be mindful that if they cause trouble for the Islamic Republic with regard to sending humanitarian aid to regional countries, it will spark a fire, the putting out of which would definitely be out of their hands."
On Tuesday, a senior Iranian commander said that Iran’s navy will protect the cargo ship on route to Yemen.
Former European leaders call for change in EU policy on Israel
A high-profile group of former European political leaders and diplomats has called for the urgent reassessment of EU policy on the question of a Palestinian state and has insisted Israel must be held to account for its actions in the occupied territories.
In a hard-hitting letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, the group – which includes former prime ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors also expresses serious doubts about the ability of the US to lead substantive negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
It charges that EU political and financial aid has achieved nothing but the “preservation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and imprisonment of Gaza”.
The group, known as the European Eminent Persons Group, argues that the re-election of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the head of a narrow rightwing coalition has made the issue even more pressing. ...
In a damning assessment of EU policy, which the authors say has “hidden” behind US leadership in an “unedifying” manner, the letter says: “Europe has yet to find an effective way of holding Israel to account for the way it maintains the occupation. It is time now to demonstrate to both parties how seriously European public opinion takes contraventions of international law, the perpetration of atrocities and the denial of established rights.”
The Islamic State's Biggest Threat to Jordan Isn't Violence — It's Economics
Some effects of militancy on Jordan's economy are hard to quantify: Earlier this year, IS issued a communiqué threatening to launch attacks in Jordan, and three weeks later, the US Embassy warned foreigners to stay away from malls in Amman. Others are more direct: Thousands of trucks carrying goods into and out of Jordan used to cross the borders with Iraq and Syria every day. Today, perhaps 50 trucks make the journey, thanks to the presence of IS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and a myriad of more moderate Syrian rebel militant groups that have effectively blocked many regional trade routes.
The result is a commercial trucking industry that has lost between $20 million and $30 million per day since the beginning of April. This, coupled with a shortage of critically needed natural resources due in part to IS attacks on transnational pipelines, has forced Jordan to increase its reliance on imports from countries like Saudi Arabia, China, and the US; the country's public debt now stands at more than $35 billion. With Jordanian economic output projections as grim as they are, its unclear when King Abdullah will be able to pay off the loans. ...
Jordan's troubles with Islamist militants began long before the horrific execution of Jordanian fighter pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh early this year; IS founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is alleged to have planned the 2005 Amman hotel bombings. And at least 2,000 similarly minded Jordanian nationals have left the country and joined IS and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria and Iraq. And the country's economy has been troubled for years. Standard and Poor's and Moody's each downgraded the country's financial outlook over the past half decade. Meanwhile, the government recently raised electricity tariffs and upped tax rates for many businesses; the Jordan Chamber of Commerce expects food prices could rise by as much as 20 percent this year.
The influx of 1.5 million Syrian and Iraqi refugees has also put massive strains on the economy, contributing to the increase in food prices - and in housing prices. The spike in living costs has contributed to what UNHCR head Antonio Guterres dubbed "host fatigue" at a recent UN Security Council meeting. ...
Yet it may be average Jordanian citizens who ultimately pose the biggest threat to Abdullah. The 2011 Arab Spring left Jordan relatively unchanged. But with skyrocketing costs of living combined with unpopular policy decisions both at home and abroad, the anger that spilled over so many other places in the Arab world four years ago may finally take hold.
War of words: Athens vs EU battle turns into 'Grexident'
Pakistan military officials admit defector's key role in Bin Laden operation
Two former senior Pakistan military officials told AFP on Tuesday that a ‘defector’ from country’s intelligence agency did assist the US in its hunt for Osama bin Laden but denied the two countries had officially worked together.
The officials' accounts came after the publication of a controversial news report by US journalist Seymour Hersh in which he claimed to have uncovered a ‘secret deal’ between Washington and Islamabad that reportedly resulted in the killing of Al-Qaeda chief in 2011.
The White House has flatly rejected Hersh's claims that Pakistan was told in advance about the May 2 special forces raid in Abbottabad.
Leaks Gain Credibility and Potential to Embarrass Egypt’s Leaders
For months, a steady trickle of leaked audio recordings has appeared to offer a rare chance to eavesdrop on embarrassing conversations among the inner circle of army generals around President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt.
Mr. Sisi and the generals can be heard laughing at their Persian Gulf patrons; pulling strings to manipulate the courts, the news media and neighboring countries; and stashing billions of dollars in special military accounts outside the control of the civilian government — if the recordings are accurate.
Now, some evidence has emerged to suggest they are. In three reports given to the British police, a respected audio forensics firm has found “moderately strong” evidence to authenticate Mr. Sisi’s voice on two recordings and the voice of a top general, Mamdouh Shaheen, on another. ...
One leak suggests just how minutely the generals appear to believe they can shape their own coverage. “There is a point that we want all of our media personalities on TV to debate,” General Kamel tells an associate: that any criticism of Mr. Sisi is a “shame” to the nation. ...
Mr. Sisi himself says in another leak that he wants to be seen as a man “on a nearly impossible mission” who is “carrying the responsibility of a country in an existential crisis,” an image that has indeed permeated his portrayal in the news media here. ...
In a recording that appears to precede the takeover, General Kamel discusses Emirati money in a bank account controlled by the generals for use in fomenting the calls for Mr. Morsi’s ouster.
“Sir, we will need 200 tomorrow from Tamarrod’s account — you know, the part from the U.A.E., which they transferred,” General Kamel tells Gen. Sedky Sobhy. Tamarrod, or Rebellion, was the ostensibly independent group agitating for Mr. Morsi’s early exit, and General Kamel clarifies that he means 200,000 Egyptian pounds — about $30,000 at the time.
Wisconsin Activists to Continue Protests After Cop Avoids Charges in Killing of Tony Robinson
No charges for Wisconsin police officer who killed unarmed teenager
The white officer who shot dead biracial 19 year-old Tony Robinson in Madison, Wisconsin will not face criminal charges it was announced on Tuesday, more than 10 weeks since the teenager’s death.
Following an inquiry by Wisconsin’s state division of criminal investigation [DCI], the Dane County district attorney Ismael Ozanne declined to prosecute Madison police officer Matt Kenny, who responded to a number of 911 calls on6 March reporting Robinson was acting erratically and had allegedly assaulted at least one person in the street outside his shared apartment. ...
“I conclude that this tragic and unfortunate event was the result of a lawful use of deadly police force and that no charges should be brought against Officer Kenny for the death of Tony Robinson,” Ozanne told reporters. ...
Toxicology reports revealed Robinson had taken hallucinogenic mushrooms, cannabis and Xanax.
Madison police and the Wisconsin state department of justice had provided scant details of the incident since then. Ozanne was handed the findings of the DCI investigation in early April. ...
During his tenure as District Attorney, which began in 2010, Ismael Ozanne has investigated seven fatal shootings by police, involving 13 officers. Ozanne has not brought charges in any of these cases, according to local news.
Under Wisconsin state legislation enacted in April 2014 all fatal incidents at the hands of police must be investigated by the DCI, an outside agency run by the Wisconsin department of justice. The Guardian has revealed that one of the senior DCI investigators involved in the Robinson case was previously a member of the Madison police force.
Tamir Rice killing: officials say 'majority' of investigation is complete
The investigation into the police killing of unarmed 12-year-old Tamir Rice is almost complete, the Cuyahoga County sheriff Clifford Pinkney announced on Tuesday.
Pinkney’s department took over the investigation of Rice’s death from the Cleveland police department in January.
The press briefing did not provide any new details or even an estimate of when the investigation might be completed.
“And while it would be politically expedient to impose an arbitrary deadline for the sake of integrity of the investigation, I am not willing to do that,” Pinkney said. “Of course, that does not mean this investigation should drag out beyond what is reasonable.”
This did not sit well with some of Rice’s family members, who had expected at least some explanation from the county sheriff as to why the investigation was taking so long.
“That was an update?” said Latonya Goldsby, Tamir Rice’s cousin, after the briefing. “Really?”
MOVE Bombing at 30: "Barbaric" 1985 Philadelphia Police Attack Killed 11 & Burned a Neighborhoo
Philadelphia's Osage Avenue police bombing, 30 years on: 'This story is a parable'
On 13 May 1985, Philadelphia police moved in to arrest four members of a radical black liberation group called Move – but a bungled raid left 11 people dead. Alan Yuhas revisits the only aerial bombing carried out by police on US soil
Sodden from the spray of fire hoses, terrified by the thousands of bullets fired above and the teargas floating into the cellar below, 13-year-old Michael Ward was hiding under a blanket when a police helicopter dropped a bomb on the roof of his west Philadelphia home.
The raid killed six adults and five children, destroyed more than 60 homes and left more than 250 people homeless. It stands as the only aerial bombing carried out by police on US soil.
The 30-year anniversary of the bombing of Osage Avenue will be commemorated without Ward, who was one of only two survivors of the disastrous assault. Instead professor Cornell West, author Alice Walker and others will give speeches and protesters will march down the crumbling, mostly abandoned block where the bombing took place, drawing ties between police brutality and institutional racism then and now. ...
District attorney Ed Rendell authorized arrest warrants and mayor Wilson Goode sent in police.
“Were we wanted for rape, robbery, murder? No, nothing,” Ramona Africa, the only living Move survivor of that day, told the Guardian. Africa linked the bombing to the recent police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garnerand Freddie Gray: “These people that take an oath that swear to protect, save lives – the cops don’t defend poor people, poor white, black, Latino people. They don’t defend us, they kill us. ...
The commission’s final report denounced the city from top to bottom. Police tactics were “grossly negligent” at best, the report found, and outrageous at worst: “Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable.” Police would not have done so, the commission noted with only one dissenter, “had the Move house and its occupants been situated in a comparable white neighborhood.”
“You Can Read My Notes? Not on Your Life!”: Top Democratic Senator Blasts Obama’s TPP Secrecy
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., today blasted the secrecy shrouding the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
“They said, well, it’s very transparent. Go down and look at it,” said Boxer on the floor of the Senate. “Let me tell you what you have to do to read this agreement. Follow this: you can only take a few of your staffers who happen to have a security clearance — because, God knows why, this is secure, this is classified. It has nothing to do with defense. It has nothing to do with going after ISIS.” ...
“Instead of standing in a corner, trying to figure out a way to bring a trade bill to the floor that doesn’t do anything for the middle class — that is held so secretively that you need to go down there and hand over your electronics and give up your right to take notes and bring them back to your office — they ought to come over here and figure out how to help the middle class,” Boxer said.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature more reporting from the testimony of Big Bill Haywood before the Commission on Industrial Relations.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Obamatrade deals with Asia and Europe in tatters after Senate vote
Barack Obama’s ambitions to pass sweeping new free trade agreements with Asia and Europe fell at the first hurdle on Tuesday as Senate Democrats put concerns about US manufacturing jobs ahead of arguments that the deals would boost global economic growth.
A vote to push through the bill failed as 45 senators voted against it, to 52 in favor. Obama needed 60 out of the 100 votes for it to pass.
Failure to secure so-called “fast track” negotiating authority from Congress leaves the president’s top legislative priority in tatters. ...
White House officials dismissed the Senate vote against fast tracking as a “procedural snafu” but without this crucial agreement from lawmakers to give the administration negotiating freedom, it is seen as highly unlikely that international diplomats can complete either of the two giant trade deals currently in negotiation: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The Senate fast-track legislation, known as Trade Promotion Authority or TPA, was facing even tougher opposition in the US House of Representatives.
The Evening Greens
Obama’s Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial
The Obama administration’s decision to give Shell Oil the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic shows why we may never win the fight against climate change. Even in this most extreme circumstance, no one seems able to stand up to the power of the fossil fuel industry. No one ever says no.
What’s most extreme here is the irresponsibility of Shell, now abetted by the White House. A quarter century ago, scientists warned that if we kept burning fossil fuel at current rates we’d melt the Arctic. The fossil fuel industry (and most everyone else in power) ignored those warnings, and what do you know: The Arctic is melting, to the extent that people now are planning to race yachts through the Northwest Passage, which until very recently required an icebreaker to navigate.
Mr. Obama — acting on his own, since these are all executive actions requiring nothing from Congress — has opened huge swaths of the Powder River basin to new coal mining. He’s still studying whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, though the country’s leading climate scientists have all told him it would be a disaster. And now he’s given Shell the green light, meaning that, as with Keystone, it will be up to the environmental movement to block the plan (“kayaktivists” plan to gather this weekend in Seattle’s harbor, trying to prevent Shell from basing its Arctic rigs there).
This is not climate denial of the Republican sort, where people simply pretend the science isn’t real. This is climate denial of the status quo sort, where people accept the science, and indeed make long speeches about the immorality of passing on a ruined world to our children. They just deny the meaning of the science, which is that we must keep carbon in the ground.
Lukewarmers – the third stage of climate denial, gambling on snake eyes
It’s the hottest trend in climate denial. Long gone are the days when people can publicly deny that the planet is warming or that humans are responsible without facing widespread mockery. Those who oppose taking serious action to curb global warming have mostly shifted to Stage 3 in the 5 stages of climate denial.
- Stage 1: Deny the problem exists
- Stage 2: Deny we’re the cause
- Stage 3: Deny it’s a problem
- Stage 4: Deny we can solve it
- Stage 5: It’s too late
Each of the 5 stages shares one main characteristic – all can be used to argue against efforts and policies to slow global warming. If the planet isn’t warming, or if we’re not causing it, or if it’s not a problem, or if we can’t solve it, or if it’s too late, in each case there’s no reason to implement climate policies. ...
“Lukewarmers” have emerged. This group believes that the climate is relatively insensitive to the increasing greenhouse effect, and hence that climate change will proceed slowly enough as to not be a serious concern in the near future. This group has also become known as “Luckwarmers,” because they essentially want to gamble our future on the small chance that the best possible case scenario will come to fruition.
Drilling Approved in Gulf Near Site of Deepwater Horizon Disaster
A new offshore drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico has gotten federal approval and is set to begin near the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and sent millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Atlantic Ocean in 2010.
According to Harper's Magazine, which first reported the news late Tuesday, the Bureau of Safety and Environment Enforcement approved a drilling permit on April 13 for the Louisiana-based LLOG Exploration Offshore LLC, which will drill for oil and gas in the deep-water Macondo reservoir, the site of the 2010 explosion. The agency previously approved the company's exploration plans in October after the Bureau of Ocean Management conducted an environmental review of the project.
LLOG will be the first company to attempt tapping those same reserves since BP's catastrophic effort.
PETA Says 'Pay To Play' Scheme Allows Circuses and Big Game Hunters to Import Endangered Animals
You might think that importing endangered species into the United States might be illegal. But you'd be wrong.
The US government grants some circuses and big game hunters permission to possess imperiled animals like elephants and rhinos, as well as their tusks, horns, or other parts, if they make donations to wildlife conservation groups. ...
PETA claims that FWS historically included circuses under an exemption for educational programs, which meant they weren't required to donate to conservation groups, even if they were using endangered Asian elephants in their shows. By 2011, the agency began telling circuses that they had to explain how their activities contributed to broader conservation efforts.
The circuses, PETA alleges, could fulfill those requirements by making a contribution to a conservation group protecting a given species — a rhino group or elephant protection organization, for example — or by contributing to anti-poaching efforts or scientific research.
The two circuses cited in the suit have received multiple animal welfare citations from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). One of the circuses, the Illinois-based Hawthorn Corporation, was cited over 100 times for abusing and neglecting its animals. In 2003, the USDA confiscated one of Hawthorn's elephants after it suffered chemical burns from standing in undiluted formaldehyde.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
It’s a Conspiracy! How to Discredit Seymour Hersh
The Vindication of Edward Snowden
Sterling Verdict Another Measure of Declining Government Credibility on Secrets
Obama’s Gulf Meeting Protocol: Shake Hands, Smile, Ignore Repression, Repeat
NYT Mag’s “must-read”: “The Great Democratic Crack-Up of 2016,” w/ commentary from Markos
Epistles from Dumbf*ckistan
Transgender women sue to donate plasma
A Little Night Music
Scrapper Blackwell - Blues Before Sunrise
Scrapper Blackwell - Kokomo Blues
Scrapper Blackwell - Whiskey Man Blues
Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell - Midnight Hour Blues
Scrapper Blackwell - "A" Blues
Scrapper Blackwell - Blue Day Blues
Leroy Carr And Scrapper Blackwell - Memphis Town
Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - Papa Wants A Cookie
Scrapper Blackwell - My Dream Blues (Black Bottom McPhail)
Scrapper Blackwell - Little Boy Blue
Scrapper Blackwell - Goin' Where The Monon Crosses The Yellow Dog
Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone
Scrapper Blackwell - Down In Black Bottom
Leroy Carr + Scrapper Blackwell - Longing For My Sugar
Scrapper Blackwell - My Old Pal Blues
Georgia Tom & Scrapper Blackwell - Mississippi Bottom Blues
Scrapper Blackwell - Penal Farm Blues
Brooks Berry + Scrapper Blackwell - My Man Is Studyin' Evil
Leroy Carr + Scrapper Blackwell - Naptown Stomp
Leroy Carr + Scrapper Blackwell - Papa's On The House Top
Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur - Papa's On The Housetop