Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 7:00 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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
Tonight's music features Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachell and Hammie Nixon, who performed together on and off for many decades.
Yank Rachell + Sleepy John Estes - Mailman Blues
"The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy."
-- Paul Wellstone
News
Exhaustive Study Finds Global Elite Hiding Up to $32 Trillion in Offshore Accounts
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has published a
decision that should be very helpful to occupiers attempting to hold police authorities legally accountable for their often brutal and excessive use of force against peaceful protest:
Court rules police may be liable for pepper ball injuries -
The decision, stemming from a 2004 incident in which a student was injured by such a projectile, is a setback for officers fighting lawsuits by Occupy protesters.
Police officers may be held liable for injuring someone with a pepper ball intended to disperse a crowd, a federal appeals court decided Wednesday.
The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was a setback for police agencies defending themselves against lawsuits arising out of the Occupy movement. Students from UC Davis have sued police for dousing them with pepper spray, and UC Berkeley students have sued campus police for using batons during a protest. Oakland also has been sued by Occupy protesters.
Wednesday's ruling stemmed from an April 2004 incident in which UC Davis and city police tried to disperse a crowd at a party by shooting pepper balls, which break on impact and spray a powder akin to mace or pepper spray.
Pentagon plans $40m fiber optic cable from Guantanamo Bay to US mainland
The Pentagon plans to install a $40 million fiber optic cable between the US military jail at Guantanamo Bay and the US mainland, a spokesman said Thursday - an indication the facility will not close anytime soon.
The construction of a fiber optic link would greatly improve telecoms access for those living at the US military base in Cuba. Detention camps at the naval base currently house 169 inmates.
President Barack Obama had promised the detention center would be closed, but Congress has so far blocked any substantive measures.
Thank goodness! A Dem Senator stands up on his hind legs and does the right thing:
Lone Senator Blocks Renewal of NSA Wiretap Program
The Obama administration wanted a quick, no-questions-asked-or-answered renewal of broad electronic eavesdropping powers that largely legalized the Bush administration’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program. That’s despite President Barack Obama’s campaign promise to revisit and revise the rules to protect Americans’ rights.
Everything seemed to be going to plan after a Senate committee approved the re-authorization in secret last month.
But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has stepped in to stop the bill because the government refuses to say how often the spy powers are being used.
The CEO Plan to Steal Your Social Security and Medicare - By Dean Baker
Many people are following the presidential election closely with the idea that the outcome will have a major impact on national policy. However, according to Steven Pearlstein, a veteran Washington Post columnist and reporter, it may not matter who wins the election. In a column last week, Pearlstein told readers that the top executives of some of the country's largest companies are getting together to craft a budget package that they will try to push through Congress and get the president to sign. ...
Pearlstein openly acknowledges, this corporate coup is an end-run around the electorate. As corrupt as the political process may have become, at least we will get a vote in the election. Pearlstein's plotters are not inviting the rest of us into the conversation.
Many of the same folks who brought the economy to ruin just a few years ago are now going to come up with a plan that is supposed to set the budget and the economy on a forward path. At the center of their proposal are big cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans dismiss the uninsured, but what about the Democrats?
So the Republicans contend that the problem of the uninsured "is not the issue," but the Democrats have enacted a program that pretends to provide universal coverage when they are leaving 30 million uninsured. Who is being honest here? ...
During the political season, it is tempting for single payer supporters to select a party that might be more open to single payer, and then to support candidates of that party in the election. But top down doesn't work, as those who supported the Democrats can now see. The top rejected single payer.
We need a bottom up approach by joining together in coalitions, by educating the public, and by promoting grassroots efforts to bring a loud and clear single payer message to all would-be politicians, regardless of political affiliation.
Enbridge's Leaky Pipes
Enbridge Energy Partners LP shut an oil pipeline in Michigan after a leak near Sterling in the northern part of the state, the state police said. ...
Enbridge’s 30-inch Line 5, which has a capacity of 491,200 barrels a day, runs 645 miles from Superior, Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario, according to the company’s website.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Thirteen ways of looking at a clang bird
A Little Night Music
Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - American Folk Blues Festival
Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Careless Love
Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - I Aint Gonna Sell It
Yank Rachell - Tappin' That Thing
Yank Rachell - Up North Blues
Sleepy John Estes & Yank Rachell - Expressman Blues
Sleepy John Estes & Yank Rachell - You Shouldn't Do It
Sleepy John Estes - Drop Down Mama
Sleepy John Estes - Everybody Oughta Make A Change
Sleepy John Estes - Liquor Store Blues
Sleepy John Estes - Divin' Duck Blues
Sleepy John Estes - Someday Baby
Our luxuriously appointed new web site hand-crafted entirely out of interesting insights and occasional flashes of brilliance by monks in an 11th dimension monastery, will be launching in a neighborhood near you. Watch the skies or maybe just this space.
Just kiddin'.
Our development and testing work continues with a professional design that ensures quality, fluidity, and intuitive user participation.
"Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation."
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
|