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 blues pianist Otis Spann. Enjoy!
Otis Spann - Spann's Blues
“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”
-- André Malraux
News and Opinion
Defense Attorneys Demand Release of Thousands of CIA Black Site Photos
A recently unearthed cache of photographs of CIA black sites is threatening to further complicate the proceedings of the 9/11 military commission as attorneys for the men detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility are demanding the release of the documents as evidence of the U.S. torture program.
U.S. officials told the Washington Post that the roughly 14,000 photographs were discovered earlier this year by military prosecutors reviewing documents on the intelligence agency's interrogation program ahead of the Senate Intelligence Committee report
The classified materials reportedly depict "external and internal shots of facilities where the CIA held al-Qaeda suspects after 9/11" —including the infamous "Salt Pit" in Afghanistan—as well as sites in Thailand, Poland, Lithuania, and Romania. While the images don't explicitly show the interrogations, there are pictures of naked detainees stripped naked for transport, as well as of torture devices, such as a waterboard and confinement boxes.
"If pictures from black sites exist," James Connell, who represents 9/11 defendant Ammar al-Baluchi said, "they are crime scene photographs."
"Why is it we are still learning about this stuff?" added Joe Margulies, attorney for Abu Zubaydah, who has been held for more than 12 years without ever being charged with a crime.
Hat tip OLinda:
The CIA Can’t Keep Its Drone Propaganda Straight
This week, one government intelligence agency, after patiently and methodically tracking a terrorist leader for months through precise electronic surveillance, successfully targeted him for death by drone. Also this week, a government intelligence agency eliminated a terrorist leader through a drone strike without even knowing the leader was present, basing its decision to use lethal force on sophisticated analysis of militants’ patterns of life.
Bizarrely, this was the same agency, and this was the same terrorist leader.
On Tuesday, hardly before the dust in Yemen had settled, Bloomberg’s Eli Lake and Josh Rogin, relying on information provided by anonymous sources, supplied the public with the first narrative. In this version, the CIA killed Nasir al-Wuhayshi, “general manager” of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, “by building a methodical case on his whereabouts over months from information collected through technical means.”
On Thursday, the Washington Post’s Greg Miller, also relying on information provided by anonymous officials, supplied the second narrative. In this version, al-Wuhayshi was dead not because the CIA had tracked him down but because the Obama administration had “eased” certain drone-strike guidelines in Yemen and permitted the CIA to carry out “signature strikes” — strikes that take place without the agency’s specific knowledge of the identities of the individuals marked for death.
Rarely do the rival motives of anonymous officials come so nakedly into view, and conflict, around a single event. One faction immediately tries to capitalize on the al-Wuhayshi strike as evidence of the CIA’s other-worldly tracking abilities, even in the fog of a confusing and fraught war in Yemen. At the same time, another faction exploits the same strike to make a public case for expanding the use of a controversial targeting technique that the Obama administration earlier said, in an effort to assuage public concerns about the lawfulness of the drone program, it would retire.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urges probe of Saudi strikes on UN compound in Yemen
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called for a full investigation after Saudi coalition air strikes hit a UN compound in Yemen.
A guard was injured when the office of the UN Development Programme in the southern city of Aden was hit on Sunday, causing serious damage, said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.
"The secretary-general urges a full investigation into this incident and that anyone found to be responsible for any breaches be held to account," said Haq.
Amid Warnings of Famine, Yemeni Civilians Trapped Inside Conflict with No End in Sight
Pentagon: A Year Into War, ISIS Remains a Potent Force
While Pentagon officials sought to emphasize the sheer amount of equipment they’ve destroyed in the last year, they also conceded that a solid year of war against ISIS hasleft the group in control of all of its major cities, and capable of mustering major attacks across the region.
The Pentagon may be underselling it, if anything, as while they hyped the Kurdish victory in the small north Syrian town of Tel Abyad, they neglected to mention the gains ISIS has made in Iraq in the past few months, most notably capturing the major city of Ramadi.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren also sought to downplay last week’s ISIS attack on Kobani, calling it a “limited incursion” that was quickly repelled by Kurdish forces. He did not mention that some 300 civilians were estimated to have been killed.
Egypt’s Power Struggle Intensifies with Killing of Prosecutor Behind Mass Jailings of Islamists
Egyptian president 'to change law to allow faster executions'
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, appears poised to further crack down on dissent after announcing he would fast-track the judicial process in the aftermath of the assassination of the country’s lead prosecutor.
On Tuesday, Sisi promised new laws that will allow Egyptian courts to speed up hearings, and appeared to suggest that the appeals process would be circumvented to guarantee the execution of those on death row.
Speaking at the funeral of Hisham Barakat, the state prosecutor killed in a car bomb on Monday, Sisi said: “The arm of justice is chained by the law. We’re not going to wait for this. We’re going to amend the law to allow us to implement justice as soon as possible.”
Repeating the words “the law, the law”, Sisi added: “If there is a death sentence, a death sentence shall be enforced.” According to the current process, a death sentence can only be enforced after lengthy appeals. But as Egypt has been without a sitting parliament for two years, Sisi – as the country’s sole elected official – can issue laws by decree. As a result, he may technically be able to change the speed at which executions can be completed. Legal experts believe he is already enacting authoritarian laws at a rate not seen in Egypt for 60 years.
U.S. Will Resume Sending Weapons to Bahrain Despite Ongoing Repression
The State Department announced it will lift its freeze on arms sales to the repressive government of Bahrain on Monday, despite the country’s myriad human rights abuses in recent years, including arbitrary detention of children, torture, restrictions for journalists and a brutal government crackdown on peaceful protestors in 2011. ...
Human rights groups were quick to criticize the decision. “There is no way to dress this up as a good move,” Brian Dooley, a program director at Human Rights First, said in a statement. “It’s bad for Bahrain, bad for the region, and bad for the United States.” Dooley said Obama should be “doing everything to stop sectarianism in the Middle East, rather than send more weapons to bolster a military drawn almost exclusively from Bahrain’s Sunni sect.”
Bahrain’s Sunni government rules a country where the majority of the population is Shiite.
Israel Mocks 'Freedom Flotilla' to Gaza, Says It 'Got Lost'
A Swedish ship bound for the Gaza Strip carrying 18 pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid was seized by Israeli forces early Monday morning.
Those on board the MV Marianne, part of Freedom Flotilla III — which departed from Greece on Saturday to protest and break through the maritime blockade near the Gaza Strip — included politicians, such as a former president of Tunisia, as well as activists and journalists from around the world.
Israeli military officials boarded the vessel and assumed control of it after the captain refused their requests to change course, according to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces. It adds the interception was "uneventful" and did not require the use of force. ...
The Freedom Flotilla III's latest attempt to break the blockade prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office to release an indignant letter to those on board.
"Welcome to Israel," it reads. "You seem to have gotten lost. Perhaps you meant to sail to a place not far from here — Syria, where Assad's army is slaughtering its people every day, and is supported by the murderous Iranian regime...you are welcome to transfer any humanitarian supplies for the Gaza Strip through Israel." He reportedly gave copies of the letter to military officials so they could distribute them by hand to those on board.
New WikiLeaks Documents Allege ‘Economic Espionage’ Against France By US and Allies
Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand stood to be big beneficiaries of America's alleged economic snooping on France, according to the newest raft of WikiLeaks documents.
The leaked documents reveal long-standing intelligence reports prepared by the National Security Agency (NSA) that chronicle strengths and weaknesses of France's economy and act as open invitations to intercept sensitive intelligence from French ministerial phone lines, WikiLeaks claims.
The intelligence reports are the second partof a document dump that has already hurt the relationship between Washington and Paris and prompted the American president to apologize to his French counterpart last week. ...
Monday's documents — one entitled: "France: Economic Developments" and the other "Foreign Contracts/Feasibility Studies/Negotiations" — show that the American spy agency was actively collecting information on French trade practices, tendering requirements, and international development plans along with its Five Eye partners (Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand), then putting it together in reports that would be shared inside the secretive intelligence alliance. ...
"The United States has been conducting economic espionage against France for more than a decade,"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement."The United States not only uses the results of this spying itself, but swaps these intercepts with the United Kingdom.
Friendly Spying: Wikileaks reveals NSA ‘economic espionage’ of French companies
French Newspaper Cites U.S. “Contempt” as Reason to Offer Snowden Asylum
France should respond to the U.S.’s “contempt” for its allies by giving Edward Snowden asylum, the leftist French daily newspaper Libération declared on Thursday.
France would send “a clear and useful message to Washington, by granting this bold whistleblower the asylum to which he is entitled,” editor Laurent Joffrin wrote (translated from the French) in an angry editorial titled “Un seul geste” — or “A single gesture.”
The editorial came just two days after Libération co-published a trove of documents obtained by WikiLeaks that recounted how the National Security Agency spied for years on the last three French presidents. (President Barack Obama spoke to French President Francois Hollande Wednesday and told him that — as of late 2013 — “we are not targeting and will not target the communications of the French President.”)
French Justice Minister Says Snowden and Assange Could Be Offered Asylum
French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira thinks National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange might be allowed to settle in France.
If France decides to offer them asylum, she would “absolutely not be surprised,” she told French news channel BFMTV on Thursday (translated from the French). She said it would be a “symbolic gesture.”
Taubira was asked about the NSA’s sweeping surveillance of three French presidents, disclosed by WikiLeaks this week, and called it an “unspeakable practice.”
As Greece Heads for Default, Voters Prepare to Vote in Pivotal Referendum on More Austerity
Greece on course to miss crucial debt repayment
Talk of a last-minute deal looks over-optimistic as Greece hours away from becoming the first developed nation to default on IMF
Greece is on course to miss a crucial debt repayment, amid a bitter row with creditors about who is to blame for the breakdown in talks on its eurozone future.
After five years of painful austerity and four months of wrangling with its creditors, Greece’s international bailout will come to an end on Tuesday, as a €1.6bn (£1.13bn) payment to the International Monetary Fund falls due.
Talk of a last-minute deal looked over-optimistic as it became clear that Greece’s creditors were not budging from the proposal offered to Athens last Friday before talks broke down.
US Hedge Funds Get Bailed Out If Greeks Pass Bailout Referendum
Greece Proposes Third Bailout
The Greek government has proposed a new Two-Year bailout programme, according to news breaking in Athens.
This two-year programme would be supplied under the European Stability Mechanism (Europe’s bailout fund)
And – crucially – would run alongside a debt restructuring. And it wouldn’t include the International Monetary Fund.
In a statement from Alexis Tsipras’s office, cited by Reuters, Greece says it is still at the negotiating table, and seeking “a viable solution, under the end, aimed at staying in the euro.”
This could be a very significant development, depending on how creditors react. Or it could be very swiftly shot down.
No word yet on how large this programme would be, though, let alone what conditions Greece is prepared to accept.
One important point -- this would not be an extension of the current bailout (which was made under the EFSF and expires at midnight) but a whole new programmme. That means a discussion of debt relief would be an option.
Greeks are rushing to Bitcoin
With bank doors slammed shut, frantic Greeks are turning to online trading platforms to see if the digital money Bitcoin is a better bet than the euro.
The world's largest Bitcoin exchanges tell CNNMoney they've seen a surge of business from Greece.
Ten times as many Greeks are registering to trade bitcoins on the German marketplace Bitcoin.de than usual, according to CEO Oliver Flaskaemper. Bitcoin trades from Greece have shot up 79% from their ten-week average on Bitstamp, the world's third-largest exchange.
Even trading platforms in China are getting interest. LakeBTC, headquartered in Shanghai, is seeing a 40% increase in visitors using computers in Greece.
'No to Austerity': Tens of Thousands Back Syriza at Rally in Athens
Tens of thousands gathered in Athens on Monday night, adding their voices to the ranks of the Syriza government officials and international observers who are urging Greek citizens to act boldly and reject the terms of an aid deal offered by Greece's austerity-loving international creditors. ...
Those who took to the streets in Athens on Monday night were largely in the anti-austerity camp. According to Reuters, "at least 20,000 defiant supporters of Alexis Tsipras' left-wing government packed the main avenue in front of parliament," many carrying banners that declared simply "No!" while others read, "Our lives do not belong to the lenders" and "Don't back down".
‘Greece not for sale’: PM Tsipras urges ‘no’ vote on Euro bailout referendum
Europe’s Attack on Greek Democracy
Why are European Union leaders resisting the referendum and refusing even to extend by a few days the June 30 deadline for Greece’s next payment to the IMF? Isn’t Europe all about democracy?
In January, Greece’s citizens voted for a government committed to ending austerity. If the government were simply fulfilling its campaign promises, it would already have rejected the proposal. But it wanted to give Greeks a chance to weigh in on this issue, so critical for their country’s future wellbeing.
That concern for popular legitimacy is incompatible with the politics of the eurozone, which was never a very democratic project. Most of its members’ governments did not seek their people’s approval to turn over their monetary sovereignty to the ECB. When Sweden’s did, Swedes said no. They understood that unemployment would rise if the country’s monetary policy were set by a central bank that focused single-mindedly on inflation (and also that there would be insufficient attention to financial stability). The economy would suffer, because the economic model underlying the eurozone was predicated on power relationships that disadvantaged workers.
And, sure enough, what we are seeing now, 16 years after the eurozone institutionalized those relationships, is the antithesis of democracy: Many European leaders want to see the end of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist government. After all, it is extremely inconvenient to have in Greece a government that is so opposed to the types of policies that have done so much to increase inequality in so many advanced countries, and that is so committed to curbing the unbridled power of wealth. They seem to believe that they can eventually bring down the Greek government by bullying it into accepting an agreement that contravenes its mandate.
Guaranteed government jobs would be a huge boon to the American worker — and deprive the rich of their power
Long-term unemployment is the scourge of modern economies. In a society where people take value from work, unemployment is destabilizing and degrading. A bout of long-term unemployment can permanently scar worker, leaving them with lower wages and fewer usable skills. Last year, Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker put forward a persuasive case for a return to full employment as the palliative to unemployment. But it’s increasingly clear the private sector cannot create full employment on its own. Even at the height of the Clinton boom, millions of African-Americans and low-skilled workers were jobless. To get full employment, progressives should embrace an idea that hasn’t surfaced recently in mainstream American political dialogue: a universal government job guarantee. ...
A government job guarantee has a long history in American politics. As Theda Skocpol notes in “Social Policy in The United States,” during the recession of the 1890s, the American Federation of Labor (which later merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations to form AFL-CIO), requested public works to abate the recession. They repeated these demands during the early 1900s, and after World War I demanded that “a nation that sent men into battle had a moral and political obligation to make sure they had jobs when they returned home.”
However, the AFL were opposed to government-sponsored unemployment insurance. Skocpol cites Alex Keyssar who writes that, “unionists stressed that public works programs were preferable to simple poor relief in three respects: They paid workers a living wage rather than a pittance; they permitted jobless men and women to avoid the demoralizing consequences of accepting charity; and they performed a useful public service.” However, over the past decade, the government hasn’t guaranteed jobs; instead ,conservative austerity policies have lead to millions of public sector jobs being cut. ...
A job guarantee could leverage two of the strengths of the progressive movement: electoral power at the federal and city level. A progressive President could direct money and projects to mayors, thereby ending the scourge of inner-city poverty that has plagued America for far too long. Progressives have a long history of creating more jobs, but havefailed to articulate an argument for why that is true. That is mainly because progressives have preferred an active monetary policy, rather than active fiscal policy, to boost employment. But voters struggle to understand monetary policy. On the other hand, they could understand a universal job guarantee. ...
The biggest opposition to a government job guarantee will almost certainly come from big business, and particularly the business-conservative wing of the Republican Party. This may seem surprising, since businesses would benefit from infrastructure and public works, as well as having a highly trained workforce. But this is to misunderstand what corporations seek: not profit, but power.
Economist Chris Dillow makes this argument, arguing that full employment would deprive business of political power by removing their mystical power over the “state of confidence.” If, in fact, the government can maintain full employment, it won’t have to kowtow to business on taxes, regulation and spending. There are also labor implications. If workers could chose to reject a private sector job knowing that a public sector job was available, business would actually have to make working conditions livable and pay a fair wage. This “reserve army of unemployed paupers,” as one economist called them, ensures that workers accept degradation on the job rather than suffer the horrifying fate of unemployment.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report on day four of the Convention of Industrial Unionists.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Venezuela's struggling socialists hold primaries for parliamentary vote
Venezuela's ruling socialists held primaries on Sunday ahead of December's parliamentary election they are forecast to lose due to a biting recession and discontent with the late Hugo Chavez's uncharismatic successor.
The South American country is suffering shortages of basic goods ranging from spare parts to milk and medicines, annual inflation possibly in the triple-digits, and unchecked violent crime.
Low-income "Chavistas" who benefit from oil-fueled social programs now also spend hours in queues for scarce goods and see their salaries gobbled up by roaring inflation. ...
The growing ranks of disillusioned ruling party supporters means the opposition has its strongest shot in over a decade at recouping the National Assembly in the Dec. 6 vote.
However, the opposition has struggled to articulate policy proposals and its often wealthy politicians fail to connect with normal Venezuelans. ...
To be sure, hardcore supporters who blame right-wing foes for engineering the economic crisis remain fiercely loyal.
Obama Could Fix Dark Money, But Would Rather Just Yell at Republicans About It
President Obama has been denouncing “dark money” since 2010, when he declared it “a threat to our democracy.” And he’s right to be concerned: Dark money — in the form of donations to politically active nonprofit organizations that do not have to disclose their donors — now amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars each election.
If he actually wanted to do something about it, he could — without any involvement by Congress. He could issue an executive order requiring corporations that do business with the federal government to disclose their dark money contributions and those by their top executives.
But last week, as 104 congresspeople and 26 senators urged him to do that, he used his spokesperson Eric Schultz to wave them off. “We believe Republicans should be taking steps to fix the campaign finance system, not trying to protect their ability to accept dark money,” Schultz said.
It’s hard to disagree with that. But it would be just as hard to disagree if a Republican spokesperson said, “We believe the Democratic president should be taking steps to fix the campaign finance system, not trying to protect his party’s ability to accept dark money.”
And so O'Malley shows his true colors as a fighter of progressives rather than a progressive fighter, doing his job to help the Democratic Party keep the primaries safe for Hillary:
Martin O’Malley Ad Hits Not Hillary Clinton — But Bernie Sanders?
Let’s say you’re running underdog Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley’s Super PAC. What’s the first order of business?
Could it be: Convincing voters he has a shot? Trying to chip away at the Hillary Clinton colossus?
Well, in the mixed-up world of presidential politics, where it’s sometimes not entirely clear whether candidates are running for president or jockeying for the vice presidential nod, O’Malley’s Super PAC on Thursday released an ad slamming not Hillary Clinton — but fellow underdog Bernie Sanders. ...
The O’Malley attack on Bernie appeared online only shortly after Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a close ally of the Hillary Clinton campaign, appeared on MSNBC this morning to bash Sanders. “I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he’s a socialist,” McCaskill said on MSNBC.
[As if McCaskill would recognize a socialist if one bit her on the ass. - js]
During the 2008 presidential election, O’Malley co-chaired the business-friendly Democratic Leadership Council, authoring an opinion column with Harold Ford to persuade his party not to drift too far to the left. He also served as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination
The Evening Greens
US supreme court strikes down Obama's EPA limits on mercury pollution
Justices invalidate new rules in move that could make Environmental Protection Agency more vulnerable to challenges to new regulations on carbon emissions
The US supreme court struck down new rules for America’s biggest air polluters on Monday, dealing a blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to set limits on the amount of mercury, arsenic and other toxins coal-fired power plants can spew into the air, lakes and rivers.
The 5-4 decision was a major setback to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and could leave the agency more vulnerable to legal challenges to its other new carbon pollution rules, from industries and Republican-led states.
The justices embraced the arguments from the industry and 21 Republican-led states that the EPA rules were prohibitively expensive and amounted to government overreach. ...
Monday’s decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, ruled that the EPA did not reasonably consider the cost factor when drafting the toxic air-pollution regulations.
The Clean Air Act had directed the EPA to create rules to regulate power plants for mercury and other toxic pollutants that were “appropriate and necessary”. ...
Scalia was joined in overturning the rule by the more conservative members of the bench, Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy . The dissent, written by Elena Kagan, was supported by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
Thousands massed in Rome in inter-religious support for Pope Francis' call for climate change action
Rome March Celebrate Pope's Call for Urgent Climate Action
People of faith, civil society groups, and communities affected by climate change marched together in Rome Sunday Jun. 28 to express gratitude to Pope Francis for the release of his Laudato Si encyclical on the environment, and call for bolder climate action by world leaders.
Under the banner of ‘One Earth One Family’, the march brought together Catholics and other Christians, followers of non-Christian faiths, environmentalists and people of goodwill. The march ended in St. Peter’s Square in time for the Pope’s weekly Angelus and blessing.
The celebratory march was animated by a musical band, a climate choir and colourful public artwork designed by artists from Italy and other countries, whose work played a major role in the People’s Climate March in New York City in September last year.
“As we stand at this critical juncture in addressing the climate crisis, we are particularly grateful to the Pope for releasing this encyclical as an awakening for the world to understand how climate change impacts people across all regions,” said Arianne Kassman, a climate activist from Papua New Guinea who took part in march to speak about the reality of climate change in the Pacific.
“The truth of the matter is that all of humanity needs to stand united in addressing the crisis of our times. Climate change is an issue for everyone with a moral conscience,” she added.
EPA's New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Print
When EPA’s long-awaited draft assessment on fracking and drinking water supplies was released, the oil and gas industry triumphantly focused on a headline-making sentence: “We did not find evidence of widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”
But for fracking’s backers, a sense of victory may prove to be fleeting.
EPA’s draft assessmentmade one thing clear: fracking has repeatedly contaminated drinking water supplies (a fact that the industry has long aggressively denied).
Indeed, the federal government’s recognition that fracking can contaminate drinking water supplies may prove to have opened the floodgates, especially since EPA called attention to major gaps in the official record, due in part to gag orders for landowners who settle contamination claims and in part because there simply hasn’t been enough testing to know how widespread problems have become.
And although it’s been less than a month since EPA’s draft assessment was released, the evidence on fracking’s impacts has continued to roll in.
A study in Texas’ Barnett shale found high levels of pollutants – volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, and known carcinogens – in many people’s drinking water, based on testing from over 500 water wells. The contaminants found were associated with the shale drilling industry, but the researchers cautioned it was too soon to say whether the industry actually caused the contamination.
But the association was strong, the researchers said. “In the counties where there is more unconventional oil and gas development, the chemicals are worse,” lead researcher Zachariah Hildenbrand told Inside Climate News. “They're in water in higher concentrations and more prevalent among the wells. As you get away from the drilling, water quality gets better. There's no doubt about it.” ...
And of course, since the assessment is only a draft, it is still open for public comment. Public meetings and teleconferences to discuss EPA's findings are scheduled for this fall.
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 Started Investigating the New York Times’ Warrantless Wiretapping Story
If execution by torture isn't 'cruel and unusual' punishment, what is?
White supremacists want a race war. They must not fight America's wars
Ukraine ceasefire: 'There is shooting all the time'
In the Warming Arctic Seas
A Gang of Wolves Comes for Greece
Sometimes rudeness is effective
A Little Night Music
Otis Spann - Blues Don't Like Nobody
Otis Spann - Walking The Blues
Otis Spann - T'Aint Nobody's Business If I Do
Otis Spann and Muddy Waters - Nobody Knows My Trouble & Cold, COld Feelin'
Otis Spann - Otis in the Dark
Otis Spann - Good Morning Mr. Blues
Otis Spann - 'Chicago Blues' and 'Nobody Knows Chicago Like I Do'
Otis Spann - Evil Ways
Otis Spann with Fleetwood Mac - She's Out of Sight
Otis Spann - Divin' Duck
Otis Spann - Riverside Blues
Muddy Waters & Otis Spann -- I Live the Life I Love
Otis Spann - Must Have Been The Devil
Otis Spann - Hungry Country Girl
Otis Spann - It Was a Big Thing (collage)
Otis Spann - She Needs Some Loving