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 early blueswoman Ida Cox. Enjoy!
Ida Cox - Fore Day Creep
“The greatest threat to peace is the barrage of rightist propaganda portraying war as decent, honorable, and patriotic.”
-- Jeannette Rankin
News and Opinion
GCHQ’s Rainbow Lights: Exploiting Social Issues for Militarism and Imperialism
Over the weekend, the British surveillance agency GCHQ — the most extremist and invasive in the West — bathed its futuristic headquarters with rainbow-colored lights “as a symbol of the intelligence agency’s commitment to diversity” and to express solidarity with “International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.” GCHQ’s public affairs office proudly distributed the above photograph to media outlets. Referring to Alan Turing, the closeted-and-oppressed gay World War II British code-breaker just memorialized by an Oscar-nominated feature film, Prime Minister David Cameron’s office celebrated GCHQ’s inspirational lights:
This is all a stark illustration of what has become a deeply cynical but highly effective tactic. Support for institutions of militarism and policies of imperialism is now manufactured by parading them under the emotionally manipulative banners of progressive social causes.
The CIA loves this strategy. It now issues press releases hailing LGBT Pride Month and its “Agency Network of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Officers and Allies (ANGLE),” which “heralded the start of Pride Month by unveiling a photography exhibit at CIA Headquarters showcasing LGBT officers, allied employees, and their families.” Last month, the spy agency actually set up a recruiting tent at the Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade. Also last month, it summoned Maureen Dowd to Langley to interview female agents — ones whom the NYT columnist hailed as a “perky 69-year-old blond” and a mid-30s “chic analyst” — to produce a glowing portrait of “the C.I.A. sisterhood.” What Good Progressive could possibly view such such a pro-gay and feminist institution with disdain?
Neocons have long adeptly exploited this tactic and are among its pioneers. Before the invasion of Afghanistan, Americans were inundated with stories about the Taliban’s oppression of women: as though feminism was part of the cause of that war. To help justify the invasion of that country, the Bush State Department suddenly discovered its profound concern for the plight of “Afghan women and girls.” Some American feminist groups dutifully took up the cause as U.S. bombs were falling and U.S. soldiers were invading that country, as though it were some sort of War for Feminism and the Liberation of Afghan Women.
What Good Progressive could oppose a war like that? The fact that the U.S. not only refrained from invading, but lavishly supported, all sorts of regimes that were at least as repressive to women as the Taliban went unmentioned.
How an 85-Year-Old Nun, Activists Infiltrated Top U.S. Nuclear Site, Exposing Dangers & Urging Peace
Cronies Profited From Hillary's War
As Hillary Rodham Clinton embarks on her second presidential bid, [former Clinton fixer] Sidney Blumenthal’s service to the Clintons is again under the spotlight. Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a Republican who is leading the congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, plans to subpoena Mr. Blumenthal, 66, for a private transcribed interview. ...
But an examination by The Times suggests that Mr. Blumenthal’s involvement was more wide-ranging and more complicated than previously known, embodying the blurry lines between business, politics and philanthropy that have enriched and vexed the Clintons and their inner circle for years.
While advising Mrs. Clinton on Libya, Mr. Blumenthal, who had been barred from a State Department job by aides to President Obama, was also employed by her family’s philanthropy, the Clinton Foundation, to help with research, “message guidance” and the planning of commemorative events, according to foundation officials. During the same period, he also worked on and off as a paid consultant to Media Matters and American Bridge, organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government. The venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy.
The projects — creating floating hospitals to treat Libya’s war wounded and temporary housing for displaced people, and building schools — would have required State Department permits, but foundered before the business partners could seek official approval.
It is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton or the State Department knew of Mr. Blumenthal’s interest in pursuing business in Libya; a State Department spokesman declined to say. Many aspects of Mr. Blumenthal’s involvement in the planned Libyan venture remain unclear. He declined repeated requests to discuss it.
There's lots of good information in this article by Jason Leopold, here's a small taste:
The Watchdog, the Whistleblower, and the Secret CIA Torture Report
On June 9, 2010, a CIA employee working on a secret review of millions of pages of documents about the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program contacted the CIA's internal watchdog and filed a complaint. The employee had come to believe that the CIA's narrative about the efficacy of the program — a narrative put forward by not just CIA officials, but also then-President George W. Bush — was false.
The CIA employee made the discovery while she was working on the Panetta Review. Named for former CIA Director Leon Panetta, the Panetta Review is a series of documents that top Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee say corroborates the findings and conclusions of the landmark report they released last December about the CIA's detention and interrogation program — that the torture of detainees in the custody of the CIA failed to produce unique and valuable intelligence, and that it was far more brutal than the CIA let on. ...
The CIA employee told the agency's internal watchdog that intelligence about a "second wave" of attacks al Qaeda planned in Los Angeles after 9/11 was misattributed. Interrogators had long claimed they learned about the planned attacks from accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad after he was tortured. But in actuality, that intel came from another detainee: Majid Khan, currently the only legal US resident imprisoned at Guantanamo, according to documents from the CIA's Office of Inspector General (OIG). ...
The CIA claimed the intelligence that interrogators supposedly obtained from Muhammad thwarted the second wave of attacks and showed the effectiveness of the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by interrogators. But the fact that one of the CIA's own employees discovered that the information was collected from Khan while he was in the custody of a foreign government seems to support the Senate Intelligence Committee's conclusion that the program was mismanaged, and that the CIA provided an inaccurate portrayal to policymakers about the program's effectiveness.
Intelligence and US government officials told VICE News that the intel attributed to Muhammad after he was waterboarded — the intel the CIA employee discussed with the inspector general — had to with information that led to the capture of an alleged al Qaeda terrorist named Zubair. ... But details about Zubair were actually obtained using rapport-building techniques by interrogators working for a foreign government, the CIA employee told the inspector general. There are also numerous other examples in the Senate report of the CIA claiming intelligence was obtained from Muhammad when in reality it was obtained from Khan.
US Officials Leak Information About the ISIS Raid That’s More Sensitive Than Anything Snowden Ever Leaked
Over the weekend, the US government announced that special forces soldiers entered Syria to conduct a raid that killed an alleged leader of ISIS, Abu Sayyaf. In the process, anonymous US officials leaked classified information to the New York Times that’s much more sensitive than anything Edward Snowden ever revealed, and it serves as a prime example of the government’s hypocrisy when it comes to disclosures of secret information.
Here’s how the New York Times described how the US conducted this “successful” raid:
The raid came after weeks of surveillance of Abu Sayyaf, using information gleaned from a small but growing network of informants the C.I.A. and the Pentagon have painstakingly developed in Syria, as well as satellite imagery, drone reconnaissance and electronic eavesdropping, American officials said. The White House rejected initial reports from the region that attributed the raid to the forces of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
Read that carefully and pretend it was Snowden who leaked this information, instead of nameless Pentagon spokesmen. US officials would be screaming from the rooftops that he leaked extremely timely and sensitive intelligence (it was literally only hours old), that he will cause specific terrorists to change their communications behavior, and most importantly, he put the lives of informants at risk. (Note: none of Snowden’s leaks did any of these things.)
Yet despite the fact that the ISIS raid was discussed on all of the Sunday shows this week, no one brought up anything about this leak.
Push to write new war powers for Obama stalls in Congress
A move to write new war powers to authorize the Obama administration's 9-month-old battle against Islamic State militants has stalled in Congress. It might even be dead.
President Barack Obama doesn't seem to mind. And while lawmakers say they don't want to give up their check on a commander-in-chief's authority to use military might, they have little interest in having what would be the first war vote in Congress in 13 years. ...
After Obama ordered airstrikes in August over Iraq and in September over Syria against IS militants, lawmakers complained that he was justifying the action with dusty war powers written to authorize conflicts after 9/11. Today, there is hardly a word about it on Capitol Hill.
"I'm not optimistic. I wish I were," Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Associated Press. "The snag is there is no real political will or interest in doing it."
Saudi Arabia hiring executioners, beheading rates soar
Experts: U.S. claims Ramadi a mere setback are ‘delusional’
The Obama administration Monday called the fall of the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province to the Islamic State a temporary setback that Iraqi forces would reverse with U.S. support. Experts dismissed that assessment as ludicrous.
“Delusional, really, is the better word,” Ali Khedery, a former U.S. official who served as an adviser to five U.S. ambassadors to Iraq and three heads of U.S. Central Command, said of the administration’s statement. “It’s unbelievable, frankly. I now know what it’s like to have lived through Vietnam, I guess.”
Experts called the loss a stunning blow to the Iraqi government and U.S. strategy.
Ramadi’s fall, they said, brings every major population center in Anbar, which is Iraq’s largest province and accounts for one-third of its territory, under Islamic State control and moved its fighters much closer to Baghdad’s western suburbs, where the extremists command sympathy among minority Sunni Muslims.
“The fact that al-Anbar is all but entirely controlled by the Islamic State puts neighboring Baghdad and Karbala province increasingly within its reach of attack,” said an analysis by Zaineb al-Assam of IHS Country Risk, a London-based risk assessment company.
Iraq Shows That Preventive War Worsens Problems Diplomacy Can Solve
The war in Iraq was a failure of policy, not intelligence. The Bush administration decided to topple Saddam Hussein and then concocted a bogus case to justify war. Blaming bad intelligence is just a smokescreen the war’s architects and cheerleaders now employ to evade blame for the debacle. ...
The real “intelligence failure” is not heeding the lessons the Iraq war teaches. First, although military power is essential for protecting vital interests, it is a crude instrument that invariably produces unintended consequences (e.g., ISIS). Second, the U.S. military can defend our shores, destroy enemy armies and topple fragile governments, but it is largely useless for nation-building in distant foreign lands. When the U.S. attacks other countries and engages in social engineering afterwards, it ends up being resented if not hated by the people it sought to help. These realities explain why diplomacy is a better way to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, the conflict in Ukraine and other vexing international challenges.
After Iraq, anyone who still thinks preventive war can solve serious foreign policy problems has not been paying attention. And presidential candidates who are still confused about this issue are not qualified to be commander in chief.
Is America About to Make a Fatal Mistake in the South China Sea?
An already tense and dangerous situation in the South China Sea threatens to become even worse. The latest development focuses on reports that the United States is considering plans to initiate systematic military patrols with ships and planes in that volatile area. Without even waiting for confirmation that the reports are accurate, Beijing expressed its great displeasure regarding such a step.
If this actually comes to pass, Washington is about to deepen its involvement in a bitter, multi-sided territorial dispute. The underlying issues are murky and complex. Based on dubious interpretations of both history and international law, China claims an oceanic boundary that would convert some 80 percent of the South China Sea—and the small islands dotting itf—from international waters into Chinese territorial waters. Beijing has begun to enforce its claims with air and naval patrols and major reclamation projects to build serviceable artificial islands (in one case, even including an runway) from nearly submerged reefs. Several neighboring countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia, not only challenge Beijing’s claim, they assert significant territorial ambitions of their own. Vietnam has even commenced a more limited artificial island construction of its own. ...
Washington’s unsubtle backing of China’s rivals is encouraging them to take uncompromising stances that they may be incapable of enforcing without direct U.S. military involvement. That is especially true of the Philippines. Responding to prodding from its U.S. protector, Manila has announced ambitions to build a large naval base on its western coast near the disputed Spratly Islands to press its territorial claim there. Such a move would further escalate tensions.
Instead of becoming more deeply entangled in the South China Sea quarrel, the United States needs to take a step back. It is one thing to make clear to Beijing that Washington will never countenance China transforming 80 percent of that area into Chinese territorial waters. It is quite another matter to implicitly back rival claimants and become a military participant in the underlying feuds. Yet the United States has already done the former and seems poised to do the latter. Such a course is likely to exacerbate an already dangerous security environment, and perhaps even more worrisome, create the prospect of a direct military confrontation between the United States and China. Such an outcome would benefit no one.
Kiev forces shell Donetsk republic 29 times over past 24 hours
Kiev-controlled united have fired on the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) 29 times over the past 24 hours, a DPR Defence Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday, TASS reports.
"Over the past 24 hours the Ukrainian law enforcers have shelled the territory of DPR 29 times," the Donetsk news agency quotes him as saying. "Overnight alone, 19 incidents of shelling have been reported."
The DPR Defence Ministry points to an increase in the intensity of shelling from heavy weapons, which, according to the Minsk agreements, should be withdrawn from the separation line. In particular, over this period of time the Ukrainian side opened fire with 152-mm calibre guns six times. Also reported were 16 mortar attacks, five with tank guns, fire was opened twice with grenade launchers and small arms.
Civilian killed in intense Ukrainian army shelling of Donetsk despite ceasefire
At least one civilian has been killed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk after an army shell hit an apartment building amid intense fire on rebel positions. An RT correspondent says the city has seen one of its worst shellings in months. ...
The rise in violence in eastern Ukraine comes just days after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko vowed to “fight to the last drop of blood” against what he called “Russian aggressors” and called the internationally-recognized Minsk peace roadmap a “pseudo-peace” deal in an interview with the German TV channel ZDF. Earlier, Poroshenko’s official website quoted him as saying: “I have no doubt – we will free the [Donetsk] airport, because it is our land. And we will rebuild the airport.” ...
Poroshenko’s statement prompted reaction from both Moscow and Washington. While the Kremlin said it “clearly violated the Minsk agreements,” US Secretary of State John Kerry advised Poroshenko to “think twice” before reigniting the conflict.
The latest attack comes despite US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who is currently in Moscow on a Ukraine-centered visit, saying that “there is no indication from our own information or from my consultations in Kiev that anybody on the Ukrainian side, anybody in leadership…has any intention of launching new hostilities.”
Heh, in Macedonia people get appropriately pissed off when the government illegally wiretaps them.
Political Crisis in Macedonia Raises Fear of Ethnic Violence as Protests Flood Capital
Macedonia's political leaders failed to make headway on Monday during talks aimed at resolving the current political crisis in the small Balkan country. Despite an earlier joint pledge to respect the "values of democracy" and the "right to peaceful protests," ruling party and opposition leaders failed to compromise on a solution to end the unrest.
Protesters swarmed the streets of the Macedonian capital Skopje on Sunday, calling for Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to vacate office amid allegations that his government secretly recorded the telephone conversations of some 20,000 Macedonians — including politicians, religious leaders, and journalists. ...
Many fear the political unrest will revive enduring ethnic tensions between the Balkan nation's Macedonian majority and its Albanian minority, which makes up about one quarter of the country's 2.1 million population. ...
The current unrest comes just a few weeks after a deadly shootout between the police and ethnic Albanian gunmen in the northern town of Kumanovo, in which some 22 people — including 8 police officers and 14 members of an armed group — were killed and a further 37 officers were injured. ... The opposition has accused the government of fomenting ethnic discord, claiming that it had known about the rebels for a while and only decided to stage a violent intervention in order to rally Macedonian public opinion around the threat of Albanian nationalism.
Scheer and Hedges: They Know Everything About You
Vonderrit Myers Jr killing: no charges against off-duty white police officer
A prosecutor says no charges will be filed against an off-duty white police officer who shot and killed a black 18-year-old in October. ...
The police officer, who was not named in the report, was patrolling a neighbourhood near the Missouri Botanical Gardens as a security officer when he approached Myers.
The report says the officer had reason to suspect Myers was armed and a chase ensued.
UK inflation turns negative
Inflation in Britain has turned negative for the first time in more than half a century, giving a boost to household finances and bolstering expectations that interest rates will remain at a record low for the rest of this year.
The Office for National Statistics said its consumer price index measure of inflation was down 0.1% in April from a year ago. That compared with the inflation rate at zero in February and March. ...
The Bank of England had already forecast inflation would turn negativeat some point this year but predicted it would soon pick up again. Economists agree there is little reason to fear the UK will fall into outright deflation, as seen between 1921 and 1933, which is regarded as a sustained fall in the cost of living, not a temporary decline below zero.
Democrats clash over TPP fair trade deal
The Democratic civil war on the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal continued when Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warrenissued a scathing report on past American free trade agreements. The report claims: “The United States does not enforce the labour protections in its trade agreements.”
While many liberals deride the deal as containing insufficient labour and environmental protections and promoting further offshoring of American jobs, the Obama administration has hailed it as “the most progressive trade deal in history” and considers it to be one of the key goals of Obama’s last two years in the White House. ...
With dozens of amendments pending as well as other pressing bills on the NSA and the highway trust fund, the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has pledged to keep the Senate in session as long as necessary to pass trade legislation. The Kentucky Republican advised colleagues on Monday “against making any sort of travel arrangements [for the coming Memorial Day recess] until the path forward becomes clear”.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature continuing coverage of the Chicago Teamsters Strike.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Warren Whacks Obama on 'Broken Promises' of Corporate Trade Pacts
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took decisive aim at President Barack Obama's pending global trade pacts on Monday with the release of a new report, which argues that—despite pledges to the contrary—so-called "free trade" agreements have a record of undermining workers rights.
The 15-page staff report, Broken Promises: Decades of Failure to Enforce Labor Standards in Free Trade Agreements (pdf), contends that under previous agreements, the United States has repeatedly either failed to enforce or adopts unenforceable labor standards resulting in widespread labor-related human rights abuses.
"Supporters of past trade agreements have said again and again that these deals would include strong protections for workers, but assurances without strong enforcement are just empty promises," Senator Warren said in a press statement. "The facts show that, despite all the promises, these trade deals were just another tool to tilt the playing field in further of multinational corporations and against working families." ...
Citing analyses from the Government Accountability Office, the State Department, and the Department of Labor, that report charges that under Obama's watch, trade pacts have ushered in a host of abuses, from child labor to intimidation and violence against union organizers.
Hillary Clinton Paid by Jeb Bush’s Education Company
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received nearly a quarter of a million dollars last year for a speaking engagement on behalf of Academic Partnerships, a for-profit education company in which Jeb Bush held an ownership stake and on whose board he served. ...
In 2011, Bush joined Academic Partnerships as an investor and as a paid advisor. He helped the company host multiple conferences and has appeared in online videos encouraging others to consider the Academic Partnership business model. Though he did not share the stage with Clinton, Bush spoke at the same conference.
State Department Says Clinton Emails Won’t Be Released Until January 2016
The State Department said it doesn't intend to make public roughly 55,000 pages worth of emails that belong to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton until January 15, 2016, two weeks before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
Government lawyers disclosed the proposed date for the first time Monday night in court documents, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by VICE News last January, months before the controversy erupted over Clinton's use of private email to conduct official business during her tenure as Secretary of State. VICE News sought Clinton's emails and a wide range of other documents pertaining to her work as Secretary of State.
Last March, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said a review of Clinton's emails would "take months." But in a 13-page declaration filed in US District Court in Washington, DC Monday night, John Hackett, the State Department's FOIA chief, said the "intensive," time consuming task of reviewing the electronic communications will not be completed until the end of the year. ...
The declaration includes previously undisclosed details about the State Department's work on the Clinton emails. Hackett said the emails were turned over to the State Department by Clinton in "paper form in twelve bankers' boxes" last December.
NSA surveillance opposed by American voters from all parties, poll finds
With five days in the legislative calendar remaining before a pivotal aspect of the Patriot Act expires, a new poll shows widespread antipathy to mass surveillance, a sense of where the debate over the National Security Agency’s powers stands outside of Washington.
Commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union and carried out by the Global Strategy Group and G2 Public Strategies, the poll of 1,001 likely voters found broad opposition to government surveillance across partisan, ideological, age and gender divides.
Sixty percent of likely voters believe the Patriot Act ought to be modified, against 34% that favor its retention in its current form. ... Opposition to reauthorizing the Patriot Act without modification cuts against a bill by the GOP Senate leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The poll found 58% of Republicans favor modification, the subject of a rival bipartisan bill that recently passed the House, with only 36% of them favoring retention. Self-identified “very conservative” voters favor modification by a 59% to 34% margin.
The margins for Democrats are similar to those for Republicans. Independent voters, however, are even less enthusiastic about mass domestic surveillance: 71% want the Patriot Act modified, versus 22% who favor keeping it as it is, which pollster Greg Strimple called “intense”.
More than three-quarters of likely voters the poll interviewed opposed related aspects of current surveillance authorities and operations. Eighty-two percent are “concerned” about government collection and retention of their personal data. Eighty-three percent are concerned about government access to data stored by businesses without judicial orders, and 84% want the same judicial protections on their virtual data as exist for physical records on their property. The same percentage is concerned about government use of that data for non-counter-terrorism purposes.
The Evening Greens
WTO Ruling on Meat Labels Exemplifies Corporate Profits Trumping Democracy
In a decision food safety and consumer advocates are calling a blow to animal welfare, environmental standards, and democracy, the World Trade Organization on Monday ruled that U.S. labels on packaged meat indicating where cows, chicken or other animals were born, raised and slaughtered are in violation of international trade pacts because they place foreign imports at an economic disadvantage.
The WTO ruling—which is final and not subject to further appeal—is a seen as victory for the U.S. meat-packing industry, which has characterized the "country of origin labels" (COOL) as burdensome and repeatedly challenged them in court. But the decision was decried by critics who say it highlights the far-reaching implications of so-called "free trade" deals which allow multinational corporations and business interests to challenge domestic regulations that threaten their bottom line.
In this case, the WTO challenge was brought by Mexico and Canada, on behalf of their respective meat industries, against the U.S. government for violations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by arguing the U.S. labeling regime negatively impacted their ability to compete in the lucrative American market.
"This is just the latest example of how multinational companies use the global trade system to attack basic protections for U.S. consumers," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, in a statement responding to the ruling. "The meat industry has been trying – and failing – for years to get rid of COOL through the U.S. system, so it had to use unaccountable, unelected trade officials at the WTO to do its dirty work."
The rise and rise of the fossil fuel divestment movement
Since Bill McKibben’s climate movement 350.org launched its fossil fuel divestment campaign in 2012, more than 220 institutions – including universities, faith organisations, local authorities, pension funds and foundations – have committed to divesting from fossil fuels.
Syracuse University is the largest so far. It committed in April 2015 to divest its $1.18bn (£800m) endowment and to seek new investments in clean energy technologies. The decision came a year after Stanford University committed to move out of coal investments. ...
As the campaign has grown, it has become more global, with institutions divesting from Sweden to New Zealand to the Marshall islands in the Pacific. It has provoked reactions from those in power, with Australian prime minister lambasting the Australian National University’s divestment as a “stupid decision” last year.
The campaign was given a boost in April 2013 by the launch of a report by economist Nick Stern and thinktank Carbon Trackerwhich showed that overvaluation of fossil fuel reserves could be creating an investment bubble with the potential to plunge the world into deep financial crisis. It is estimated that if international agreements to avoid dangerous levels of climate change are heeded, two-thirds of fossil fuel reserves in the ground cannot be burned.
By Banning Fracking Bans, Texas Picks Gas Drillers over Local Democracy
In what environmental campaigners and the people of the small town of Denton, Texas are calling a clear example of fossil fuel interests trumping the will of local residents, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday signed HB 40 into law thereby undermining a local ordinance, approved overwhelmingly by voters during last year's election, which banned fracking in the community.
After receiving Abbott's signature, the new law became effective immediately and now forbids any Texas town or city from passing local limits or restrictions on any gas or oil drilling operations deemed "commercially reasonable" by private developers and state regulators. Though it applies to all municipalities across the state, the effort to pass the measure was largely seen as a way to combat the stunning victory by the people of Denton who made international news in November by approving their local anti-fracking ordinance in a politically right-wing state dominated by the fossil fuel industry.
In response to the law's passage on Monday, those who campaigned hardest for the Denton initiative called it a clear case of the fossil fuel industry using its political muscle to overpower the will of people in the name of profit.
"HB 40 was written by the oil and gas industry, for the oil and gas industry, to prevent voters from holding the oil and gas industry accountable for its impacts," said Sharon Wilson, a Texas organizer for the environmental advocacy group Earthworks. Wilson, who played a key role in getting Denton's fracking ban approved, continued, "It was the oil and gas industry’s contempt for impacted residents that pushed Denton voters to ban fracking in the first place. And now the oil and gas industry, through state lawmakers, has doubled down by showing every city in Texas that same contempt."
'Not For Sale': Foregoing $1 Billion Payout, First Nations Tribe Rejects LNG Project
Placing the well-being of the Earth above monetary interests, the Lax Kw’alaams First Nations tribe in British Columbia has rejected a $1 billion offer and voted against a proposed liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal.
In the third and definitive vote on the Pacific Northwest (PNW) LNG project last Tuesday, tribal members unanimously opposed the project, which would be located entirely within Lax Kw’alaams traditional territory on Lelu Island and the adjacent Flora Bank and required tribal consent before going forward.
"Our elders remind us that money is like so much dust that is quickly blown away in the wind," Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told the Globe and Mail, "but the land is forever."
In a press statement (pdf) following the vote, the tribe describes the potential threat to fisheries and the refusal by the government and PNW to impose sufficient environmental safeguards on the project, adding that there has been "indifference to the point of negligence or willful blindness, or both."
In exchange for their approval, PNW had offered the 3,600-member tribe a land swap as well as $1 billion in cash to be delivered over 40 years—which in total would have amounted to a payout of roughly $320,000 for each member.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
What the Snowden Files Say About the Osama Bin Laden Raid
The Infernal Cocktail Party Corruption of Washington’s Elite Media
The Misfire in Hersh's Big Bin Laden Story
Knowing what we've known all along...
Hat tip Jayraye:
NYPD Tries To Arrest 14-Year-Old Girl, Community Doesn’t Allow It!
A small but important detail
A Little Night Music
Ida Cox - Lawdy, Lawdy Blues
Ida Cox - Wild Women Don't Have the Blues
Ida Cox - Hard Time Blues
Ida Cox & Coleman Hawkins Quintet - Death Letter Blues
Ida Cox - One Hour Mama
Ida Cox - Bone Orchard Blues
Ida Cox - Coffin Blues
Ida Cox - Fogyism
Ida Cox - Last Mile Blues
Ida Cox- Mojo Hand Blues
Ida Cox- Blues Ain't Nothing' Else But!