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 Chicago bluesman J.B. Lenoir. Enjoy!
J.B. Lenoir with Freddy Below - The whale has swallowed me
“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.”
-- Edward W. Said
News and Opinion
Yemenis Are Taking Germany to Court Over US Drone Strikes
Relatives of Yemenis killed in a US drone attack are launching a court case today against the German government, in a landmark suit which could impede the CIA air strike program and impact international governments participating in the war on terror.
Faisal bin Ali Jaber and other members of his family will ask the German government to prevent the country from facilitating further drone strikes in Yemen, following allegations that the US Ramstein Air Base in the southwest of the country played a crucial role in a missile attack that killed five people in August 2012.
"Ramstein is unlawfully participating in a secret drone war in our country," said Jaber, whose brother-in-law and nephew and nephew were among those killed while the family gathered in an eastern Yemeni village for a wedding.
"I would like the German government to ultimately participate in a better, more productive, and less hurtful way of dealing with the problem of extremism that exists in Yemen, and for the court itself to hear how Ramstein airbase's role has a huge impact on our everyday lives in the village but also throughout Yemen."
Central to the case is the allegation, reported in a joint investigation between the Intercept website and Der Speigel magazine last April, that Ramstein plays a crucial role as a satellite station relaying communications between US operators in Nevada and drones in the Middle East. The US has permission to operate its site on German territory, but only if nothing done there violates German law — and some claim the US drone strikes constitute war crimes.
Relatives of those killed in Yemen strikes bring Germany to court
War Leaves Two-Thirds of Yemen without Water Access: Oxfam
As war continues to ravage Yemen, at least 16 million people—nearly two-thirds of the country's population—are now without access to clean water, a humanitarian crisis that threatens to escalate, Oxfam warned on Monday.
According to a statement released by the international aid group, "People are being forced to drink unsafe water as a result of the disintegration of local water systems, bringing the real risk of life-threatening illnesses, such as malaria, cholera, and diarrhea."
"Yemen's hospitals are in no condition to adequately cope with an outbreak of a water-borne disease," the organization stated.
In addition, the price of water that is trucked in from other areas has tripled, making it an unfeasible alternative for most Yemenis. Prior to the airstrike campaign, which began March 26, 2015, trucked water cost $9 in the western governorate of Al Hudaydah. It now costs $36.
Republicans' plans for Isis would drag us back into Iraq for another war
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of the groundwork being laid for US ground troops to return to Iraq for another indefinite war with no end game.
Republican presidential candidates (of which there now seem to be more than a dozen) have spent the past month ripping President Obama for his administration’s approach to the war against Isis, in which the US military has dropped tens of thousands of bombs, sent 3,000 troops back to Iraq, and killed over 12,000 people, all without any legal authorization. Predictably, the Republicans have no problem with the war technically being illegal, or the tens of thousands killed - only that we haven’t used more of our military weaponry yet. ...
The vague, bullshitt-y statements made by Republican candidates would be hilarious if it wasn’t possible that they’ll lead to more American soldiers dying in the coming years. ...
The most breathtakingly inhumane argument came from unnamed Iraqi and American military sources whose anonymous statements were dutifully printed by the New York Times: the reason Iraqi forces are losing ground to Isis is not because the Iraqi forces refuse to fight, but because the US is too afraid to kill civilians. Putting aside the fact that the US has already killed hundreds of civilians, asGlenn Greenwald pointed out, the idea that being willing to kill more civilians is key to victory is disturbing in the extreme.
Unfortunately, nothing much has changed since George Bush invaded Iraq years ago: the main controversy isn’t whether military engagement in the region is a smart strategy, but whether we should be only bombing the Middle East or also sending in ground troops. ... When we wake up eight years from now, still mired in Iraq – at a cost of countless more lives and millions of dollars – will anything be any different?
Fall of Ramadi betrays Obama administration's 'credibility gap'
Isis capture of Iraq city reveals contradictions in White House ‘happy talk’, reminding critics of Donald Rumsfeld downplaying Iraq occupation
The fall of Ramadi has not just exposed the weakness of Barack Obama’s nine-month war against the Islamic State. It has also exposed his administration to accusations of a growing credibility gap between optimistic White House pronouncements and the grim realities on the ground.
Iraq veterans, thinktank analysts and former US officials have begun drawing comparisons to Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon during the darkest days of the Iraq occupation. Then as now, some suspect the US is sacrificing a truthful description of the war to avoid pressure to escalate.
Israel Seeks Enormous Military Aid Hike Over Iran
Right now, the US gives Israel $3 billion in military aid annually, part of a package negotiated back in 2007. It was a 10-year package, and Israel is looking for a big bump for the next 10 years.
According to officials familiar with ongoing talks, the Netanyahu government wants $42-$45 billion over the 2018-2028 period, and that President Obama had already agreed to that level in principle.
That’s a 50% hike in aid, and that’s above and beyond the other military subsidies Congress is always slipping in bills. Israeli officials are also clear it doesn’t include the package they intend to demand on the Iran nuclear deal.
Israel Thanks Obama for Sabotaging Nuclear Nonproliferation Deal
The U.S. sabotage last week of an international agreement aimed at eradicating nuclear weapons stockpiles has been met mostly with alarm and frustration around the world—but gratitude from one key U.S. ally: Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally called U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday to thank the White House for leading the charge to block a final document that would have expanded the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—of which Israel is not a signatory.
Netanyahu conveyed "his appreciation to President Obama and to the secretary," an anonymous Israeli official told media outlets. "The United States kept its commitment to Israel by preventing a Middle East resolution that would single out Israel and ignore its security interests and the threats posed to it by an increasingly turbulent Middle East."
But Phyllis Bennis, senior fellow at Institute for Policy Studies, told Common Dreams on Tuesday, "It is appropriate for Israel to be singled out, as Israel is the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East." With an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, the Israeli government has repeatedly refused to publicly acknowledge its arsenal.
Bennis said the latest U.S. move "flies in the face of the statement recently made by Obama that the U.S. would have to at least consider changing its posture at the United Nations and reconsider its consistent protection of Israel at the United Nations. It's now clear that this is not seriously underway."
Julian Assange: Despite Congressional Standoff, NSA Has Secret Authority to Continue Spying Unabated
Mitch McConnell Will Do Just About Anything Not to Vindicate Edward Snowden
Senate Republican leaders managed to scrape up enough votes just past midnight Saturday morning to put off decisive action on the NSA’s bulk collection of American phone records until next Sunday, May 31.
But the hardliners — and make no mistake, they are taking an even harder and more absurd line than the NSA itself — have no endgame. ...
Why are McConnell and his gang “playing chicken,” as White House press secretary put it on Friday? Why create, as Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., accurately called it, a “manufactured crisis“?
Anybody paying attention knows it’s not a policy debate. The reasons McConnell and others cite for wanting to extend the program as is — despite the fact that it’s flatly illegal, essentially useless, and spectacularly invasive — are laughable. In fact, the compromise they’re willing to fight to the death to oppose was actually proposed by the NSA.
The issue is they just don’t want Snowden officially vindicated, by an act of Congress.
Ever since 9/11, the GOP has found huge political gain in exploiting national security fears. ... But this time, fear isn’t working, and dysfunction doesn’t get the job done. The Patriot Act provisions in question require an affirmative act of Congress to stay in place.
Obama and Rand Paul face off over the Patriot Act
President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged the Senate to renew National Security Agency surveillance powers before they expire at midnight Sunday, as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul vowed to keep working to block the Patriot Act and the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.
“This needs to get done,” Obama told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. ...
Paul said the House bill supported by Obama, under which the records would be kept by the phone companies instead of the government, doesn’t go far enough to stop the NSA from getting the data. He argued that Obama should be shutting down the bulk collection of phone records.
“Our founding fathers thought it was very important that warrants have an individual's name on it, that you couldn't have a warrant that said Verizon on it and collect all the records of all the people in America through one single warrant,” Paul said in a Tuesday appearance on “CBS This Morning.” “So I think I'm right in line with what the founders would have fought for.”
Privacy advocates oppose fresh Senate attempt to renew NSA spying powers
Legislation proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein in bid to avoid surveillance expiration this weekend rolls back key provisions of ambitious NSA reform bill
Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, a hawkish member of the intelligence committee, has proposed the new legislation to try to win over a handful of wavering Republicans who stood in the way of more ambitious reform efforts during a showdown last week.
But Feinstein’s bill, first reported by the Empty Wheel blog, rolls back a number of key provisions in the USA Freedom Act, which fell three senators short of the 60 needed to proceed in a 57-42 vote in the early hours of Friday morning, and may complicate rather than aid the painful process of building consensus. ...
Feinstein’s current proposed bill – presented as an update to the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) of 1978 – proposes an end to NSA bulk collection but contains various mandates for how phone companies would be required to store the data, something privacy advocates argue amounts to a re-creation of the NSA database in private hands.
Critics also point to the absence of reforms aimed at making the court approval process more transparent and accountable, and believe it is unlikely to attract support from reformers such as Democratic senator Ron Wyden and Republican Mike Lee. ...
Losing support from Democrats and Republicans on the civil liberties end of the spectrum while gaining the backing of only a handful of more moderate Republicans may make Feinstein’s bill just as hard, if not harder, to pass than the USA Freedom Act, which at least already has the overwhelming support of the House of Representatives.
As Julian Assange Faces Swedish Legal Setback, New Details Come to Light on U.S. Case Against Him
The Cleveland Mayor promises the DOJ that
this time the police will be all Officer Friendly...
Cleveland announces historic second settlement over chronic police abuse
Federal prosecutors have announced a settlement with Cleveland in which the city’s police department has agreed to take steps to correct a pattern of abusive behavior by officers.
The announcement makes Cleveland the first American city to have cut two such deals to rein in its police force. ...
Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson, who was first elected in 2005 in part on a promise to reform policing in the city and who now faces a recall petition based on what some Clevelanders say has been his failure to do so, did not mention the earlier settlement in an appearance Tuesday.
“This is a transformative time with the city of Cleveland division of police, but most important with the citizens of Cleveland,” Jackson said. “Today marks a new way of policing in the city of Cleveland, one built on a strong foundation of systemic change.
“At the end, we will have community policing as part of our DNA.”
'Before Ferguson was Albuquerque': six months after DoJ report, change is far off
As the Justice Department announces an agreement with Cleveland over police use of force, activists in New Mexico caution that promised reforms there have not been finalised months after Albuquerque reached a similar deal
Last October, the Albuquerque police department agreed to make fundamental changesfollowing the investigation, which looked into allegations of systematic brutality, unjustified shootings, incompetence and whitewashed internal investigations.
With police shootings under national scrutiny since last year’s events in Ferguson, Missouri, a settlement was announced on Tuesday between the US Department of Justice and Cleveland that will see the city’s police department take steps to correct a pattern of abusive behavior by officers, including being scrutinised by an independent monitor.
As with Cleveland, the Albuquerque agreement was prompted by a string of controversial incidents and calls for improvements in how police use force and interact with mentally ill people and the wider community.
But more than six months after Albuquerque and the DoJ announced they had reached a deal, and 13 months after the federal agency issued their damning report, activists caution that reforms have not been finalised and a fundamental shift in the police department’s culture remains a long way off.
Months before the agreement was struck between Albuquerque policeand the DoJ, the department committed to providing 100% of its field officers with crisis intervention training within 18 months.
But other changes will take several years, as the settlement’s enforcement is faced with legal and political challenges. The officers’ union mounted a legal challenge to the settlement, arguing they should be allowed to have input in proposed reforms. APD Forward, a group that calls itself a community coalition, is also seeking a stake in the process for civilians.
Julian Assange on the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Secretive Deal Isn’t About Trade, But Corporate Control
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from the Appeal to Reason: "Two Presidents: Roosevelt and Lincoln. Roosevelt and the Chicago Teamsters; Lincoln and the New York Workingmen."
Tune in at 2pm!
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Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill
Fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments, was only possible after lots of corporate money exchanged hands with senators. The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – the fast-tracking bill – by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close.
Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world’s most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts.
Using data from the Federal Election Commission, this chart shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate:
- Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes.
- The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.
- The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.
The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received.
Michael Bennet, Patty Murray, and Ron Wyden – all running for re-election in 2016 – received $105,900 between the three of them. Bennet, who comes from the more purple state of Colorado, got $53,700 in corporate campaign donations between January and March 2015, according to Channing’s research.
Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who is the former US trade representative, has been one of the loudest proponents of the TPP. He received $119,700 from 14 different corporations between January and March, most of which comes from donations from Goldman Sachs ($70,600), Pfizer ($15,700), and Procter & Gamble ($12,900). Portman is expected to run against former Ohio governor Ted Strickland in 2016 in one of the most politically competitive states in the country.
Michael Hudson: Fast Track for Whom?
Bernie Sanders formally launches run for president with attack on 'grotesque' level of inequality
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders formally launched his long-shot bid to unseat Hillary Clinton from the left on Tuesday in a Burlington, Vermont, park.
Sanders, a self-described “Democratic socialist”, will mount a populist campaign focused on income inequality, campaign finance reform and fighting climate change.
He told the crowd of flag waving attendees on the sunny shore of Lake Champlain, “Today, with your support and the support of millions of people throughout this country, we begin a political revolution to transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally.”
Sanders went on to say “There is something profoundly wrong when the top one-tenth of 1% owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90% and when 99% of all new income goes to the top 1%,” he said.
“This grotesque level of inequality is immoral. It is bad economics. It is unsustainable. This type of rigged economy is not what America is supposed to be about. … The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time and it is the great political issue of our time. And we will address it.”
Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton's State Department
Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States' oil-rich ally in the Middle East. ... In late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. At a press conference in Washington to announce the department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. ...
In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing -- the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 -- contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release. ...
Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. ... The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. ...
American defense contractors also donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and in some cases made personal payments to Bill Clinton for speaking engagements. Such firms and their subsidiaries were listed as contractors in $163 billion worth of Pentagon-negotiated deals that were authorized by the Clinton State Department between 2009 and 2012. ...
In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records. The Clinton Foundation publishes only a rough range of individual contributors’ donations, making a more precise accounting impossible.
The State Department Will Start Releasing Hillary Clinton's Emails June 30
Government lawyers asked a federal court judge Tuesday night to approve a new plan that will allow the State Department to start releasing the next batch of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's emails at the end of June.
The proposal was made in court papers in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit VICE News filed against the State Department last January for the former Secretary of State's emails and other documents.
The State Department's proposal calls for posting an undisclosed number of Clinton emails every 60 days, beginning June 30, on the State Department's website. Ryan James, an attorney representing VICE News in the Clinton FOIA case, said the 60-day production schedule is not frequent enough. He intends to seek rolling productions every two weeks.
"I applaud State's proposal to begin releasing Clinton's emails… but I do not believe that additional rolling productions every 60 days is sufficiently frequent to enable the public to engage in fully informed discussion about Secretary Clinton's leadership style and decisions while at the helm of the State Department," James said. "With the Court's leave, I intend to file a response… seeking rolling productions every 2 weeks beginning June 30, 2015 and ending no later than January 31, 2016 to ensure as much information as possible is accessible to the public as quickly as possible, and before caucusing begins February 1, 2016."
The Evening Greens
Where do you go after you've dutifully sold out every human being on earth for 30 pieces of silver? Through the corporate revolving door to collect more money, of course!
Sen. Mary Landrieu, After Pushing for Keystone XL, Joins TransCanada Lobbying Firm
The law firm Van Ness Feldman announced today that former Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who lost her reelection bid last year, will be joining the company to help run its lobbying division and focus on energy issues.
Landrieu joins the firm after pushing aggressively for energy-related policy goals that overlapped with Van Ness Feldman’s clients. In November of last year, Landrieu helped force a vote to approve the Keystone XL, the controversial tar sands pipeline owned by Transcanada, a firm represented by Van Ness Feldman.
Landrieu also worked to expedite the approval of liquified natural gas export terminals, another contentious issue. Landrieu sponsored legislation to expedite the LNG approval process and specifically pushed for individual projects, including the Sempra Cameron LNG facility in Louisiana. Van Ness Feldman has a large practice on LNG issues and lobbied for approval of several LNG export terminals, including the Sempra facility touted by Landrieu.
“I am proud to join Van Ness Feldman,” Landrieu said in a statement released by the firm. “I have always respected the firm and worked closely with them during my 18 years in the Senate,” she noted. “Their substantive and sophisticated approach to important public policy issues in the areas of energy, the environment and natural resources was a major factor in my decision-making process.”
Huge Pipeline Company Kinder Morgan Hired Off-Duty Cops to “Deter Protests” in Pennsylvania
Kinder Morgan, the self-proclaimed “largest energy infrastructure company in North America,” paid $50,000 for off-duty police officers from a Pennsylvania department to patrol a controversial gas pipeline construction site. The hiring came after a request from the corporation for uniformed officers that could “deter protests and prevent delays,” according to a report by Earth Island Journal’s Adam Federman.
What’s unique about the case is not that a corporation paid off-duty officers to protect oil and gas infrastructure — a common but rarely acknowledged practice — but that a document indicates that the explicit purpose of the police presence was to stymie dissent.
Federman published a May 2013 letter from Kinder Morgan’s manager of corporate security to the police chief of the Eastern Pike Regional Police Department, requesting use of its officers “to provide a visible presence in our construction areas to create a deterrent effect.” The corporation asked the department to monitor its Northeast Upgrade Project, an expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline, which would cut through environmentally sensitive areas of Pennsylvania. The officers were paid $54.80 per hour for their work.
The document adds, “Due to the controversial nature of the project Kinder Morgan has experienced protests from local activists who oppose the pipeline, which has resulted in costly delays. … The objective is for a uniformed officer to be seen frequently making spot checks of our construction areas and be available to respond should protesters attempt to block those sites.”
Some Californians have found a new drought scapegoat: immigration
Some people blame California’s enduring drought on the nut farmers. Others vent against those in Beverly Hills, who keep their estates green while neighbours in the flatlands turn off sprinklers under threat of heavy fines.
Now comes the latest, perhaps inevitable, scapegoat: immigration.
A group called Californians for Population Stabilization, which has courted controversy down the years, says it’s a matter of simple mathematics. The state now has nearly 40 million residents, 10 million or so more than it did 25 years ago, and a lot of the new arrivals are from other countries.
Therefore, they argue, it’s their fault. ...
No policymaker or environmental scientist is taking this line of argument terribly seriously – one climatologist told the Los Angeles Times bluntly it “didn’t fit the facts” – but it speaks to a growing anxiety among Californians of all income levels and political creeds that their way of life could be seriously threatened if it doesn’t start raining soon.
Just as environmentalist campaigners are inclined to blame water-bottling giants like Nestle, and cities competing for water resources with farmers are inclined to blame agriculture, anti-immigration campaigners are happy to use the drought as grist to a well-established mill.
With Local Democracy Squashed, Fracking to Resume in Texas Town
Less than two weeks after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation to prevent local municipalities from regulating a wide variety of drilling practices, fracking is set to resume in the city of Denton, where nearly 60 percent of voters banned the practice last November.
According to KERA News, "Vantage Energy plans to resume fracking operations at eight gas wells in the North Texas city on June 1, the Colorado-based operator has told city officials, and it plans to frack at least eight more wells later in the year—flouting the town's seven-month-long ban on the controversial technique of blasting apart shale to bolster petroleum production."
The new state law—House Bill 40—forbids the city from enforcing the ban, though Denton vowed in a press release to "continue to regulate other surface activities related to drilling operations per our existing oil and gas well drilling ordinance."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Why turning the Postal Service into a bank isn’t nearly as ridiculous as it sounds
Kiev’s Repression of Anti-Fascism in Odessa
That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
A Little Night Music
J.B. Lenoir And His African Hunch Rhythms- I Feel So Good
J.B.Lenoir - Slow Down
J.B.Lenoir - Alabama Blues
J.B. Lenoir - Born Dead
J.B. Lenoir - Talk to Your Daughter
J.B. Lenoir - Vietnam Blues
J.B Lenoir - The Mojo Boogie
J.B. Lenoir - Feelin' Good
J.B. Lenoir - Man Watch Your Woman
J.B. Lenoir - Oh Baby
J.B. Lenoir - Eisenhower Blues
J B Lenoir - Don't Dog Your Woman
J. B. Lenoir - People Are Meddling In Our Affairs
J.B Lenoir - Let's Roll
J.B. Lenoir - I've been down so long
J.B. Lenoir - Don't touch my head
J. B. Lenoir - The Voodoo
JB Lenoir - Natural Man
JB Lenoir & His African Hunch Rhythm - I Sing Um the Way I Feel
J.B Lenoir - I Don't Know