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 and r&b saxophone player Noble "Thin Man" Watts. Enjoy!
Noble Watts - Jookin'
“[T]here is both an intrinsic and instrumental value to privacy. Intrinsically, privacy is precious to the extent that it is a component of a liberty. Part of citizenship in a free society is the expectation that one's personal affairs and physical person are inviolable so long as one remains within the law. A robust concept of freedom includes the freedom from constant and intrusive government surveillance of one's life. From this perspective, Fourth Amendment violations are objectionable for the simple fact that the government is doing something it has no licence to do–that is, invading the privacy of a law-abiding citizen by monitoring her daily activities and laying hands on her person without any evidence of wrongdoing.
Privacy is also instrumental in nature. This aspect of the right highlights the pernicious effects, rather than the inherent illegitimacy, of intrusive, suspicionless surveillance. For example, encroachments on individual privacy undermine democratic institutions by chilling free speech. When citizens–especially those espousing unpopular viewpoints–are aware that the intimate details of their personal lives are pervasively monitored by government, or even that they could be singled out for discriminatory treatment by government officials as a result of their First Amendment expressive activities, they are less likely to freely express their dissident views.”
-- John W. Whitehead
News and Opinion
Court rules warrantless cellphone tracking not illegal search
Investigators do not need search warrants to obtain cellphone tower records in criminal cases, federal court rules
Investigators do not need a search warrant to obtain cellphone tower location records in criminal prosecutions, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a closely watched case involving the rules for changing technology.
The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, overturning a three-judge panel of the same court, concluded that authorities properly got 67 days' worth of records from MetroPCS for Miami robbery suspect Quartavious Davis using a court order with a lower burden of proof.
In its 9-2 decision, the 11th Circuit decided Davis had no expectation of privacy regarding historical records establishing his location near certain cellphone towers. The records were key evidence used to convict Davis of a string of armed robberies, leading to a 162-year prison sentence.
In fact, Circuit Judge Frank M. Hull wrote for the majority, it's clear that cellphone users in today's society understand how companies collect data about calls and that cell towers are a key part of that. ...
Two judges dissented, contending the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause and a search warrant for such records and some judges in the majority agreed in separate opinions that the U.S. Supreme Court should make the ultimate decision. Davis’ attorney David O. Markus said the dissent could provide a "roadmap" for a likely appeal to the high court.
Snowden Docs: NSA Technology Lets Gov’t Generate Transcripts of Private Phone Calls
Why the USA Freedom Act Is Both Desperately Important and Laughably Pathetic
The key reform in the USA Freedom Act, Times reporters Peter Baker and David E. Sanger now pointed out, was an idea “suggested to President Obama in 2013 by Gen. Keith B. Alexander, then the N.S.A. director, who saw the change as a way for the president to respond to criticism without losing programs the N.S.A. deemed more vital.” ...
Tapping data lines that go in and out of the U.S., grabbing personal information without a warrant from major content providers like Facebook and Yahoo — no worries.
Sweeping up all non-U.S. content possible — sometimes an entire country’s phone calls at a time. Breaking encryption. Installing malware. Hacking Sim cards. Tracking cellphones. No problem.
Spying on porn habits. Sharing raw intelligence on Americans with Israel. It happens.
Installing shunts on the fiber optic cables that are the backbone of the Internet. Breaking into cell networks. Tapping private links between data centers. S’alright.
Allowing secret laws developed on the fly by a rubber-stamp secret court that the Intelligence Community still doesn’t level with. Spy chiefs who want to “collect it all.” Cost of doing business.
Extraordinary new abilities — like automated transcription of phone calls — that Congress never anticipated, may not even know about, and certainly never establish rules for. Love it or leave it, baby.
The USA Freedom Act is like a surgeon talking about taking a small tumor off of a much larger one. Would you recommend against such surgery, if that was the only one the surgeon was even willing to contemplate?
That’s the bind some pivotal privacy groups find themselves in. Access, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are among those who say yes, it’s better than nothing. Demand Progress and the ACLU say it’s worse.
Why I Was Targeted by the CIA - John Kiriakou
'Send Us Back': Former Guantanamo Detainees Are Camping Out at the US Embassy in Uruguay
Former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were accepted with much fanfare as refugees in Uruguay are now openly rejecting their host and camping out in front of the US Embassy.
They've set up the camp in the capital of Montevideo and say that if Uruguay and the US can't improve their living conditions, they should be returned to "Guantanamo, Syria, or anywhere else," one of the refugees said. ...
The six refugees are demanding better housing and the ability to bring their families to live with them from elsewhere, in order to lead "normal lives." ...
"For 13 years, we were unjustly detained by the US government, and now they should make sure that we have a normal life," the refugees wrote on the site they launched. "They cannot ignore their responsibilities, they should help us with housing, and financial support." ...
In response, Marie Harf, spokeswoman for the US State Department, said in a briefing on April 30 that the US "has no obligation of providing a compensation" to the former detainees.
This is an excellent article, well worth reading in full:
What we can learn from Judith Miller’s rehab tour
Judith Miller’s publicity campaign for her new book (The Story: A Reporter’s Journey) which has taken her from the Wall Street Journal to numerous television interviews, has been an instructive and engaging media spectacle.
She has shown characteristic passion and energy in attempting to defend her journalistic reputation after being pummeled during her final years at The New York Times for, among other things, writing persuasively that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction ...
She has made sporadic efforts before to defend her reporting. But now she’s employing an important element in the modern method of obfuscation and confusion. Waiting several years after the events, she tries to take advantage of fading memories, especially involving detailed and complicated matters.
Time and complexity are the best friends of a determined distorter of events. ...
This has produced some commentary around the question of what a journalist’s obligations are when fed hard-to-verify information by people with an agenda.The issue in her case is, however, much more simple. It doesn’t involve whether she or any reporter could fact-check the claims of her sources. What Miller appeared to do was make a Mephistophelian journalist’s bargain with officials and sources that went like this: Bring your assertions to me first. In exchange for the notoriety I will achieve I will place them in The Times without careful examination or scrutiny.
Jon Stewart Rips Apart Judith Miller Over Iraq Reporting: You Pushed Us Into ‘Devastating’ Mistake
U.S. military personnel have been convicted of $50 million worth of crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan
U.S. Army Specialist Stephanie Charboneau sat at the center of a complex trucking network in Forward Operating Base Fenty, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, that daily distributed tens of thousands of gallons of what soldiers called “liquid gold”: the refined petroleum that fueled the international coalition’s thirsty vehicles, planes, and generators. ...
She began an affair with a civilian, Jonathan Hightower, who worked for a Pentagon contractor that distributed fuel from Fenty, and one day in March 2010, he told her about “this thing going on” at other U.S. military bases around Afghanistan, she recalled in a recent telephone interview.
Soldiers were selling the U.S. military’s fuel to Afghan locals on the side, and pocketing the proceeds. When Hightower suggested they start doing the same, Charboneau said, she agreed.
In so doing, Charboneau contributed to thefts by U.S. military personnel of at least $15 million worth of fuel since the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. And eventually she became one of at least 115 enlisted personnel and military officers convicted since 2005 of committing theft, bribery, and contract rigging crimes valued at $52 million during their deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a comprehensive tally of court records by the Center for Public Integrity.
Many of these crimes grew out of shortcomings in the military’s management of the deployments that experts say are still present: A heavy dependence on cash transactions, a hasty award process for high-value contracts, loose and harried oversight within the ranks, and a regional culture of corruption that proved seductive to the American troops transplanted there. ...
Additional crimes by military personnel are still under investigation, and some court records remain partly under seal. The magnitude of additional losses from fraud, waste, and abuse by contractors, civilians, and allied foreign soldiers in Afghanistan has never been tallied, but officials probing such crimes say the total is in the billions of dollars.
Yemen rebels fire into Saudi Arabia, killing at least 3
Yemen's rebels fired rockets and mortars into Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, killing at least three people and purportedly capturing five soldiers in an attack showing the insurgents' ability to launch assaults despite weeks of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting them.
Saudi Arabia's national airline cancelled flights into the border area of Najran as schools closed early amid the attack, the first by the rebels, known as Houthis, to target a civilian area in the kingdom since the start of the airstrikes late March. Meanwhile, hundreds of families fled the southern Yemeni city of Aden after the Houthis advanced into their neighborhoods, firing indiscriminately as they took over surrounding, towering mountains. ...
The Saudi-led coalition began bombing the Houthi rebels and their allies on March 26 in support of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's embattled government. The airstrikes and fighting on the ground have killed hundreds and displaced at least 300,000 Yemenis.
Hezbollah Vows Attacks on al-Qaeda Along Syria Border
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah today vowed that there would soon be a new campaignby his militia against al-Qaeda faction Jabhat al-Nusra, centering around the Qalamoun mountain range on the Lebanon-Syria border.
Nusra and its allies have pushed into Qalamoun in a big way over the last several days, overrunning several Syrian Army and Hezbollah posts in the area. Hezbollah’s Syrian base of operations is in the border town of al-Zabadani.
Jordan Shifts Policy, Fearing al-Qaeda’s Growth in Syria
Under heavy pressure from the US, and with an eye on regime change, the Jordanian government has long backed various Syrian rebel factions, allowing them to establish a foothold along their mutual border
In theory this was supposed to boost US-armed factions like the Free Syrian Army (FSA), though Jordan is increasingly seeing the primary beneficiaries of this as al-Qaeda and other Islamist factions, and is looking to cut ties with the rebels and shift toward a focus on stemming Islamist growth. ...
Jordan is the latest in a line of nations that originally put all their eggs into the regime change basket in Syria, only to find themselves facing growing threats from new Islamist factions that have ended up being the chief beneficiaries of this policy.
"Kill Anything": Israeli Soldiers Say Gaza Atrocities Came from Orders for Indiscriminate Fire
US's Dark History in Philippines Casts Shadow Over Defense Pact
In April of 2014, President Barack Obama visited the Philippines and witnessed the signing of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which is currently languishing in the hands of the Philippines Supreme Court, between the US Ambassador to the Philippines, Philip Goldberg, and the Philippine Defense Secretary, Voltaire Gazman. The agreement promised greater integration between American and Filipino forces, training and modernization for the latter, and perhaps the most significant of all, the right of the US to operate out of eight Filipino Army facilities spread across the nation.
This last clause was what landed the EDCA in court. Numerous Filipinos still equate American bases with imperialism, recalling both the bloody conquest of the islands during the Philippine-American War of 1899 to 1902, and, much more recently, the unwavering US support for dictator Ferdinand Marcos' rule by martial law from 1972 to 1986.
Three separate petitions were filed in opposition to the EDCA, and their common argument challenged the constitutionality of the deal. In particular it questions the right of the Philippines President Benigno Aquino III — the son of Benigno Aquino Jr (whose assassination played a part in Marcos' ouster) and Corazon Aquino (who replaced Marcos as President of the Philippines) — to unilaterally alter the existing 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and 1998 Philippines-United States Visiting Forces Agreement by agreeing to the provisions of the EDCA without the approval of the Philippine Senate.
The idea of allowing US forces to operate out of bases in the Philippines, even at facilities still nominally owned and operated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, is still controversial. Indeed, an effigy of Obama was burned last year among demonstrations decrying American imperialism.
ven though the Philippine Supreme Court heard arguments for the case back in November of 2014, more than five months later they have yet to render a verdict. Court watchers in the Philippines suggest that a decision may be issued in June.
NATO’s ‘Largest Ever’ Sub Wargames Add to Tensions With Russia
While griping about tensions with Russia, NATO is once again dramatically ratcheting up the sense of unease along the Russian frontier, with what they are calling their “largest ever” submarine wargames just off Russian waters. ...
Yet this is the latest in a long series of massive NATO exercises deliberately set up along the Russian frontier, and while officials keep claiming it is the Russians behaving aggressively, it seems that NATO is the one demonstrating bellicosity.
Police brutality and total impunity Obama style...
DEA Can’t Tell Senate How Detained Student Was Left to Drink Own Urine to Survive
During an obscure Senate hearing on Tuesday morning, lawmakers vented their frustrations with the Drug Enforcement Administration for failing to answer questions about an incident that saw a man almost die of dehydration while in its custody. ...
On April 20, 2012, Chong was detained by DEA agents during a drug raid on a friend’s house in San Diego. The 23-year-old university student cooperated with agents during an interrogation, and was told that he would soon be free to go, only to be handcuffed with his hands behind his back and left in a small holding cell for five days without food or water. When he was finally discovered, Chong was suffering from near-kidney failure and hypothermia and in need of serious medical attention.
A Justice Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation released last June shed additional light on Chong’s maddening de facto sentence — often served in complete darkness. He told investigators he was forced to drink his own urine and at one point attempted suicide. ...
Senator Grassley, who called the findings “shocking,” had last August sent a 19-question letter to DEA administrator Michele Leonhart.
“It’s been now eight months — I still don’t have a response from DEA to these questions,” Sen. Grassley said on Tuesday. He asked DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator of Drug Diversion Joseph Rannazzisi to commit the agency to responding to his inquiry by the end of the month.
DEA issues reprimands to agents over college student left in cell for five days
Justice Department and others criticise US Drug Enforcement Administration for light punishments that also included suspensions up to seven days
The US Drug Enforcement Administration issued reprimands and suspensions of up to seven days to agents involved in detaining a college student who was handcuffed and forgotten in a cell for five days – punishments that drew criticism from the Justice Department and others for being too light.
The Justice Department, which oversees the DEA, said it was concerned the penalties might be inadequate and underscored the need for a broad review of the DEA’s disciplinary practices.
A Justice Department inspector general report last year found several DEA employees saw or heard Daniel Chong in his cell at the agency’s San Diego office in April 2012 but did nothing because they assumed someone else was responsible.
Chong, then a 23-year-old student at University of California, San Diego, survived without food or water, drinking his urine, defecating in his cell and carving a farewell message to his mother on his arm with broken glass.
News of the discipline came two weeks after the DEA’s embattled chief, Michele Leonhart, announced plans to retire amid pressure from members of Congress who questioned her handling of misconduct allegations against agents.
Police Unions' Defense of 'Bad Cops' Draws Criticism in Brutality Debate
The Baltimore police union representing the six officers charged in Freddie Gray's death drew criticism this week when it began collecting donations for the officers' living and legal expenses and tweeting the hashtag #BlueLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter, a play on the phrase Black Lives Matter used by protesters to condemn police brutality against African Americans.
The Fraternal Order of Police in Baltimore had their GoFundMe page shut down over the weekend for violating the company's ban on collecting money for those charged with serious crimes, but tweeted out other ways that supporters could donate to the cops. ...
"Police unions are much like police chiefs. When an an officer is caught doing a very bad thing, they start to circle the wagons," Cheryl Dorsey, a retired Los Angeles Police Department Sergeant and member of the group National Coalition of Law Enforcement Officers for Justice, Reform and Accountability, told VICE News. "That's their job, that's their story. They stick to it no matter how nonsensical it is and how much it insults our sensibilities, no matter how unreasonable it is to a reasonable person." ...
"They're not showing up as honest brokers and honest stakeholders in conversations about how we make our communities safer," Rashad Robinson, leader of the black advocacy organization ColorOfChange said. "It's incredibly counterproductive when you see situations that are so blatant and so clear and lives and families have been destroyed and you have this institution that has no interest in honest pursuit of the truth."
Did States Attorney Mosby Overcharge the Six Baltimore Police?
Freddie Gray officer threatened to kill himself and ex-partner's husband, court document alleges
Baltimore lieutenant Brian Rice, who has been charged with manslaughter over Gray’s death, was disciplined over incidents and twice had guns confiscated
The Baltimore police lieutenant charged with the manslaughter of Freddie Gray allegedly threatened to kill himself and the husband of his former partner, during incidents that led to him being disciplined and twice having his guns confiscated.
Brian Rice, who pursued and arrested Gray after the 25-year-old “caught his eye” on 12 April, was reportedly given an administrative suspension after being hospitalised for a mental health evaluation when he warned he was preparing to shoot himself in April 2012.
Rice, 41, also received an internal discipline when a judge granted a temporary restraining order against him after a request from Andrew McAleer, the husband of Karyn McAleer, who is the mother of Rice’s young son and a fellow Baltimore police officer. Rice has been married to and divorced from two further women, according to court records.
A sharply critical 10-page complaint against Rice, which Andrew McAleer filed to a court in Maryland in January 2013, is being published in full for the first time by the Guardian. It details what McAleer, a Baltimore firefighter, described as a “pattern of intimidation and violence” by the officer.
Rice was released on bail after being charged with manslaughter, assault, misconduct and false imprisonment following an inquiry into Gray’s death on 19 April.
In Baltimore, a tale of two transparencies
In the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death from a spinal injury sustained while in the custody of Baltimore police officers, the department did something unusual: It allowed a reporter for The Baltimore Sun to observe the work of the task force investigating Gray’s death.
At the same time, a more common scenario was playing out: A coalition of news organizations demanding that police respond to requests for records related to the Gray case was being stonewalled. ...
The Associated Press reported on May 1, a day before George’s story broke, “Nearly two weeks after Gray’s death, the public still doesn’t know much more than it did on Day One.” The AP story noted that the Baltimore Police Department refused to release the report on Gray’s death that it submitted to the state attorney’s office, and the police commissioner declined to answer questions about it.
Frustrated, a coalition of news organizations—including The Associated Press, The Baltimore Sun, The New York Times, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and three Baltimore broadcast affiliates—on April 30 sent a letter to the BPD public information officer, to address the department’s “failure to respond to several requests for documents … submitted … over the past few weeks” under the Maryland public records law.
Some records may properly be exempt from disclosure. But the letter rightly notes that “the public and the news media have the right to inspect a police record unless the statute exempts it”—and that certain records (e.g., of arrests, 911 tapes, and call logs) don’t fall within any statutory exemption, and those must be released immediately.
The attorney who wrote the letter, Nathan E. Siegel of the firm Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, told me that as of late Monday night, the BPD had not responded.
Baltimore mayor calls for federal investigation into police
The mayor called on federal investigators Wednesday to look into whether this city's beleaguered police department uses a pattern of excessive force or discriminatory policing.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said even though complaints of excessive force and lawsuits alleging misconduct are down over the last few years, "we all know that Baltimore has a fractured relationship with community."
The mayor's request came a day after new Attorney General Loretta Lynch visited the city. The mayor said Lynch understands the urgency of her request. ...
Baltimore City Council President Jack Young has been calling for such an investigation since October, said his spokesman Lester Davis.
"The only way we're going to get the kind of lasting and meaningful reforms that are going to produce results is through a full-scale civil-rights investigation," Davis said.
It pays (billions in free government money) to be connected:
Corinthian Colleges Secretly Funded D.C. Think Tanks, Dark Money Election Efforts
The spectacular crash of Corinthian Colleges after years of systematically deceiving thousands of students into enrolling into low-quality, high-cost education programs has once again raised questions about how the for-profit college industry staved off stronger rules governing the $1.4 billion per year in federal loans that helped keep Corinthian afloat.
Some hints emerged today in the giant chain’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware. It shows that Corinthian made secret payments to an array of political consultants, think tanks and political dark money groups. ...
The filing doesn’t list amounts, but shows that Corinthian made payments to Crossroads G.P.S., a group co-founded by Karl Rove. ... Corinthian’s creditor list includes: TheGroup DC LLC, a public affairs firm founded by Art Collins, an advisor to Barack Obama’s 2008 election; Stanton Communications Inc., a firm that specializes in “crisis management”; and Strategic Partnerships LLC, a Virginia-based public affairs company founded by Kenneth Smith, a former Reagan administration advisor who now serves as the president of Jobs for America’s Graduates, Inc. ...
The listing reveals a number of payments to influential D.C. groups that have battled regulations on the for-profit college industry. The U.S. Chamber of Commere is listed multiple times as a Corinthian creditor. The Chamber has run campaign advertisements on behalf of opponents of the Department of Education’s “gainful employment” regulation, which would measure the performance of vocational programs. The Chamber made defeating the rules a top priority.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit that helps corporate interests draft model legislation, is listed as a creditor. ... Another gainful employment regulation opponent, the American Enterprise Institute, is listed as a Corinthian creditor. ... Payments are listed for current and previous board members to Corinthian, including former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Urban League President Marc Morial, and Sharon Robinson, president and chief executive officer of the non-profit American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Payments are also listed directly to the Panetta Institute and Morial’s National Urban League.
Missouri lawmakers vote to remove thousands from state welfare program
Missouri lawmakers voted on Tuesday to remove several thousand families from a welfare program by imposing shorter time limits for people to receive the benefits, overriding a veto by the state’s Democratic governor.
The new law will reduce Missouri’s lifetime limit for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance program from five years to three years and nine months, starting in January. The law also imposes stricter work requirements.
The Republican-led house voted 113-42 to override Governor Jay Nixon’s veto, largely along party lines. The senate voted 25-9 to override the veto on Monday.
Shortly after the vote, Nixon announced that he had vetoed another Republican-backed bill paring back the social safety net. That bill would reduce the duration of unemployment rates from the current 20 weeks to as few as 13 weeks by linking the length to the state’s unemployment rate.
Third Year of Korea FTA Data Released, Show Failure of Obama’s Last ‘More Exports, More Jobs’ Trade Pact Promises, Further Burdening Fast Track Prospects
Trade Deficit With Korea Balloons 104 Percent as Exports Fall and Imports Surge Under Korea Pact Used as TPP Template
Today’s release of U.S. government trade data covering the full first three years of the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement (FTA) reveals that the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has more than doubled. In addition, today’s U.S. Census Bureau data show Korea FTA outcomes that are the opposite of the Obama administration’s “more exports, more jobs” promise for that pact, which it is now repeating with respect to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as it tries to persuade Congress to delegate Fast Track authority for the TPP.
U.S. goods exports to Korea have dropped 6 percent, or $2.7 billion, under the Korea FTA’s first three years, while goods imports from Korea have surged 19 percent, or $11.3 billion (comparing the deal’s third year to the year before implementation). As a result, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has swelled 104 percent, or more than $14 billion. The trade deficit increase equates to the loss of more than 93,000 American jobs in the first three years of the Korea FTA, counting both exports and imports, according to the trade-jobs ratio that the Obama administration used to project gains from the deal.
“As if the odds for Fast Track were not already long enough, with most House Democrats and many GOP members stating opposition, today’s unveiling of a job-killing trade deficit surge under the Korea FTA puts a few more nails in Fast Track’s coffin,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Who’s going to buy the argument about Fast Track and the TPP creating ‘more exports and more jobs’ when Obama’s only major trade deal, used as the TPP template, was sold under that very slogan and yet has done the opposite?” ...
The administration has tried to deflect attention from the failure of its Korea FTA by claiming that its poor performance has been caused by economic stagnation in Korea. However, Korea’s economy has grown during each year of the Korea FTA, while U.S. exports to Korea have not.
As Wealth Gap Grows, 60 Percent of Americans Say Lopsided Distribution 'Unfair'
As the gap between the rich and poor in the U.S. continues to grow with more and more wealth being held by fewer people, 63 percent of Americans say that this distribution is unfair, according to a new Gallup survey (pdf) published Monday.
Additionally, 52 percent of respondents say that the problem of inequality should be solved with "heavy taxes on the rich," a proportion that has risen from 45 percent since Gallup first began asking that question in 1998.
Based on the response to both questions, Gallup concludes that roughly half (46%) of all Americans are "strong redistributionists," and thus believe that the government should have a hand in shifting the disproportionate distribution of wealth away from the top one-percent of earners.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from the Chicago Day Book: Mrs. Lawson speaks out regarding the life sentence handed down to her husband, John R Lawson.
Tune in at 2pm!
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'TPP Will Be Great,' Say People Who Crashed Global Economy in 2008
As billionaire class and financial elites push corporate-friendly pact, new data shows empty promises and 'job-killing' reality of previous agreements
Even as millions and millions of Americans—represented by thousands of labor, environmental, family farm, consumer, faith, Internet freedom and other advocacy organizations—continue to stand firmly in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, those backing the TPP, including President Obama and a large majority of the Republican caucus, still have two dedicated demographic groups pledging their allegiance to the cause and arguing the so-called "free trade agreement (FTA)" would be good for average workers and the economy overall: billionaires and Wall Street titans.
As Zach Carter of the Huffington Post reports:
Last week, dozens of New York City's power elite signed a letter to the state's congressional delegation, urging lawmakers to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership now in negotiations. Democrats in Congress largely oppose the TPP, and Republican leaders have said they don't have the votes needed to pass it without Democratic support.
But while Obama has struggled to win over members of his own party -- he has been publicly feuding with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) -- wealthy CEOs probably aren't the ideal pitchmen to skeptical Democrats. Even if their letter hails the TPP as "a catalyst for creating new jobs in the United States" that will benefit "American workers in a broad range of industries."
Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch signed the letter. So did Steven Schwarzman, who once compared the prospect of raising taxes on private equity magnates like himself to Hitler's invasion of Poland. John Paulson, the Republican mega-donor who made a fortune betting against the housing market with Goldman Sachs, is also a signee. So is vulture investor Wilbur Ross, who spent six figures to support GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 and has backed such conservative hardliners as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.).
Other signatories include real estate billionaire Jerry Speyer, who recently attended a $100,000-per-person fundraiser to bolster former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's White House hopes. The host of that event, private equity kingpin Henry Kravis, also signed.
'Too Big to Exist': Sanders Introduces Bill to Break Up Big Banks
If passed, bill would give Treasury Secretary a year to break up institutions bailed out in financial crisis
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who in April announced his candidacy for president for the 2016 election, on Wednesday will introduce a bill to break up the country's biggest banks—just a day after the Senate passed a Republican budget that takes aim at many progressive issues.
Under the proposal, called the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act, regulators on the Financial Stability Oversight Council would compile a list of institutions which say they are so large that their collapse could trigger an economic crisis—otherwise known as "too big to fail."
The Treasury Secretary would then have a year from the bill's passing to break them up.
"If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist," Sanders said Tuesday. "No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis."
The firms on that list would also be banned from using customer money to make "risky or speculative activities on the financial market," Reuters reports.
Dean Baker: "Globalization" Was Policy, Not Something That Happened
E.J. Dionne and Harold Meyerson both had interesting columns in the Post this morning, but they suffer from the same major error. Both note the loss of manufacturing jobs and downward pressure on the wages of non-college educated workers due to effects of trade. But both speak of this as being the result of a natural process of globalization.
This is wrong. The downward pressure on wages was the deliberate outcome of government policies designed to put U.S. manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. This was a conscious choice. Our trade deals could have been designed to put our doctors and lawyers in direct competition with much lower paid professionals in the developing world. ...
The big difference is that doctors and lawyers have much more power than autoworkers and textile workers, therefore the politicians won't consider subjecting them to international competition. However that is no reason for columnists not to talk about this fact.
More generally, the heavy hand of government is all over the upward redistribution of the last three and a half decades. We have a Federal Reserve Board that has repeatedly raised interest rates to keep workers from getting jobs and bargaining power. A tax system that directly and explicitly subsidizes many people getting high six or even seven-figure salaries at universities, hospitals, and private charities and foundations. We have government subsidies for too big to fail banks.
The Evening Greens
Drought forces California into first mandatory rules to save water
California has adopted its first rules for mandatory cuts in urban water use as a catastrophic drought enters its fourth year.
The emergency regulations, which require some communities to trim water use by as much as 36%, were approved unanimously on Tuesday by the state water resources control board weeks after the Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, stood in a drying meadow and ordered statewide rationing.
“This is a community crisis,” said the water resources board chairwoman, Felicia Marcus. “We want to get this as right as we can.”
The rules, which will be reviewed by state legal advisers before being implemented, require cutbacks of 4% to 36%. Communities that use the most water will be asked to take the deepest cuts.
Urban users will be hit hardest even though they use only 20% of water.
The state’s massive agricultural sector, which the Public Policy Institute of California says uses 80% of human-related consumption, has been exempted.
In Blow to Tar Sands Industry, Liberal Party Sweeps Alberta Elections
In historic shake-up, Canadian voters overwhelming back party that promised higher corporate taxes and less support for pipelines
In what some say is a clear rebuke of Big Oil dominance in the region, voters in Alberta, Canada on Tuesday overwhelming backed the liberal New Democratic Party, ousting the tar sands industry-friendly Progressive Conservatives led by outgoing Premier Jim Prentice.
Alberta is frequently referred to as "Canada's most conservative province," and the Progressive Conservative Party, known as the Tories, have held power there for the past 44 years. ...
Notley had campaigned on promises to boost corporate taxes, scale back support for pipeline projects, and phase out coal power more quickly.
The shake-up comes amid scrutiny over the Alberta government's failure to collect billions in resource revenue from oil and gas development, which has deprived province taxpayers from their fair share of profits from the region's dominant industry. Notley has sworn to review the government's current royalty policy over objections from the energy industry.
Charles Koch Admits Climate Change is Happening, Then Denies the Problem
As the nation warily watches every Republican presidential candidate kiss the ring of billionaire donor Charles Koch for a shot at his network's $300,000,000 pool of presidential cash, Charles Koch did something unusual. Last week's USA Today interview with Charles Koch noted his shifting opinion on what he calls climate change “hysteria:”
For the record, Koch says this of climate change: “You can plausibly say that CO2 has contributed” to the planet's warming, but he sees “no evidence” to support “this theory that it's going to be catastrophic.”
TransCanada Keystone 1 Pipeline Suffered Major Corrosion Only Two Years In Operation, 95% Worn In One Spot
Documents obtained by DeSmogBlog reveal an alarming rate of corrosion to parts of TransCanada's Keystone 1 pipeline. A mandatory inspection test revealed a section of the pipeline's wall had corroded 95%, leaving it paper-thin in one area (one-third the thickness of a dime) and dangerously thin in three other places, leading TransCanada to immediately shut it down. The cause of the corrosion is being kept from the public by federal regulators and TransCanada.
“It is highly unusual for a pipeline not yet two years old to experience such deep corrosion issues,” Evan Vokes, a former TransCanada pipeline engineer-turned-whistleblower, told DeSmogBlog. “Something very severe happened that the public needs to know about.”
When TransCanada shut the line down, the company and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) told the press that the shutdown was due to “possible safety Issues.” And although an engineer from PHMSA was sent to the site where TransCanada was digging up the pipeline in Missouri, no further information has been made available publicly.
Only after DeSmogBlog made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to PHMSA in August 2013 — which the agency partially responded to this April — was the information revealing the pipeline had deeply corroded in multiple spots exposed. The documents also disclosed a plan to check for a possible spill where the corrosion was detected.
However, documents explaining what caused the corrosion and findings concerning a possible spill were not included in response to DeSmogBlog's request. According to PHMSA spokesman Damon Hill, documents that might impact an ongoing compliance review the agency is conducting of TransCanada were withheld.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
How the NSA Converts Spoken Words Into Searchable Text
Government Says Company Part-Owned by Feinstein’s Husband Abuses Post Office Contract
Chelsea Manning: We're citizens, not subjects. We have the right to criticize government without fear
John Kiriakou: Letter to Loretto
OSHA partners with NCTE re: transgender worker safety
A Little Night Music
Noble Watts - F.L.A.
Noble "Thin Man" Watts - Hot Tamales
June Bateman/Noble Watts - I Don't Wanta
Noble Watts - Hard Times
June Bateman/Noble Watts - Possum Belly Overalls
Noble Watts - Flap Jack
Noble Watts - Teen scene
Noble Watts - The Creep
Noble Watts - Florida Shake
Noble Watts - Thingamajig
Noble "Thin Man" Watts - Midnite Flight
Noble "Thin Man" Watts & His Ryhthm Sparks - The Slide
Noble Watts - Pig Ears and Rice/Mashing potatoes
Noble Watts - Blast Off
Noble Watts - Noble's Theme
Noble Watts - 1994
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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