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 an early woman blues and jazz singer sometimes called "The Mother of the Blues," Gertrude "Ma" Rainey. Enjoy!
Ma Rainey
“Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed.”
-- Chuck Palahniuk
News and Opinion
NSA Phone Record Collection 'Beyond Orwellian,' ACLU Says
The Obama administration's seizure of millions of phone Verizon phone records under a secret court order is "alarming" and "beyond Orwellian," an American Civil Liberties Union official said Wednesday. ...
“From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming," Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement. "It’s a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents. It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies.”
NSA Whistleblowers: "All U.S. Citizens" Targeted By Surveillance Program, Not Just Verizon Customers
Verizon Case Offers Glimpse of Vast N.S.A. Surveillance
[Hat tip to Bobswern - thank you very large Bob!]
Responding to the disclosure on Wednesday night of a highly classified court order to a subsidiary of Verizon Communications seeking all of its customers’ communications logs, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Democrat and Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said the order appeared to be a routine reauthorization as part of a broader program that lawmakers have long known about.
“As far as I know, this is an exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years,” Ms. Feinstein said, adding that it was carried out by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore, it is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress.”
Obama administration defends Verizon records order
The Obama administration is defending itself against charges it secretly obtained records for Verizon phone calls made in the United States, arguing that the policy is a vital tool in monitoring terrorists and has the approval of “all three branches of government,” according to a senior administration official. ...
Several news outlets reported in 2006 that the Bush administration was compiling a massive database of Americans’ long-distance and international calls. Some telecom companies denied they were taking part in the program, but Bush administration officials never denied the broad outlines of the story. Some officials pointed to court rulings saying Americans had no privacy interest in information such as the numbers dialed on a phone.
It had not previously been confirmed that the Obama administration was conducting similar broad surveillance of calling patterns. However, in 2008 Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to give explicit legal authority to aspects of the program President George W. Bush initiated without requiring a future blessing from lawmakers.
Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama opposed the legislation during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton. However, he reversed course shortly after clinching the nomination and voted for a modified version of the bill.
Verizon Treason: US govt seizes millions of call records at FBI's request
DOJ Will 'Very Likely' Investigate Guardian NSA Leak
Glenn Greenwald reported in The Guardian Wednesday night that the NSA is indiscriminately collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers under a top-secret U.S. court order, a major scoop detailing the extent of domestic surveillance that comes amid increasing civil liberties concerns and controversial leak investigations involving the Associated Press and Fox News
On Thursday’s "Morning Joe," New York City Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson asked if Greenwald would be investigated and suggested the White House would face many questions about the Guardian story.
“They may not be prepared to answer that question,” Wolfson said. “But given what happened with Fox, given what happened with AP, that will be a very hot topic today.”
Williams, a well-sourced reporter who just interviewed Attorney General Eric Holder last night about the leak investigations, jumped in with an answer.
“I was told last night: definitely there will be a leak investigation,” he said.
However, a senior administration official told The Huffington Post Thursday morning that it's premature to suggest an investigation is certain to take place.
“There’s been no referral yet from the intelligence community,” the official said.
Wake Up, America: You're Letting Your Privacy Slip Away
Mark this news, America. It is yet another wake-up call.
"The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April," Glenn Greenwald reports. ...
How is it tolerated by the American people?
That's the most pressing question. The civic negligence required to reach this point is the thing that most disappoints me about my fellow citizens, who ought to throw out every last member of Congress complicit in the metastasizing surveillance state. I am serious. Look up your representative. In a letter or phone call, demand they take a stand against this, on penalty of you voting against them in a primary or general.
That's how change happens when the president who promised it turns out to have lied.
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Twitter, Spies & Looters: Erdogan blames 'foreign agents' for Turkey riots
Turkish police arrest 25 people for using social media to call for protest
Turkish police on Wednesday arrested 25 people they accused of using Twitter and social media to stoke anti-government sentiment during protests that have engulfed the country.
Police in Turkey's third city of Izmir said the suspects had been detained for "spreading untrue information" and inciting people to join demonstrations, the state-run agency reported. They were rounded up on Tuesday night. Izmir, in western Turkey, has been the scene of violent clashes between riot police and protesters.
The authorities appear to have taken their cue from Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who denounced Twitter as a "menace to society", adding: "The best examples of lies can be found there." Turkey's state-run media ignored the protests, at least at first, instead screening documentaries on Hitler and penguins.
Issuing Set of Demands, Turkish Uprising Shows No Let Up
Turkish activists engaged in nationwide protest against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have released a set of demands on Wednesday in a move that shows the movement has gained political confidence as a result of the surge in support it has received.
As reported by local news outlets, the demands are as follows:
- Gezi Park should remain as a park with no construction permitted on its grounds
- The Atatürk Culture Center should not be demolished;
- Law enforcement officers who have escalated the violence should be investigated and removed from office
- The use of pepper gas should be banned;
- All protesters under custody should be unconditionally released;
- All obstacles preventing freedom of expression should be lifted.
Meanwhile, the protest movement gained additional support on Wednesday as some of the country's most powerful trade unions staged protests in the capital city of Ankara in solidarity with Gezi and anti-Erdogan activists.
Today is Day 120 of the Guantanamo prisoner's hunger strike; it's also Day 21 since the President said, “to the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries.”
124 More Guards Head to Guantanamo to 'Help' With Solitary Confinement, Force-Feeding of Prisoners
The U.S. Southern Command said Wednesday it has requested additional guards for the prison camps at Guantánamo, with the goal of reaching a 2,000-strong staff at the detention center of 166 captives.
Part of the reason is the ongoing hunger strike that has most prisoners under lockdown. As of Wednesday, the Pentagon had 1,831 troops and civilians assigned to the prison, including 15 extra public-affairs troops training 20 replacements.
“When you go to single cell, that takes more people,” said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, the prison spokesman, who reported Wednesday night that 124 reinforcements from the Texas-based 591st Military Police Co. arrive at Guantánamo on Saturday.
Top Obama appointees using secret email accounts
Some of President Barack Obama’s political appointees are using secret government email accounts to conduct official business, The Associated Press found, a practice that complicates agencies’ legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails under public records requests and congressional inquiries.
White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday acknowledged the practice and said it made eminent sense for Cabinet secretaries and other high-profile officials to have what he called alternative email accounts that wouldn’t fill with unwanted messages. Carney said all their email accounts, public and otherwise, were subject to congressional oversight and requests by citizens under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
‘‘There’s nothing secret,’’ Carney said.
The AP reviewed hundreds of pages of government emails released under the federal open records law and couldn’t independently find instances when material from any of the secret accounts it identified was turned over. Congressional oversight committees told the AP they were unfamiliar with the few nonpublic government addresses that AP identified so far, including one for Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Health and Human Services Department.
Judge's Death Penalty Remarks Show Racial Bias
A federal appellate judge from Texas is facing a judicial misconduct complaint over comments she made regarding race and the death penalty during a speech.
According to a complaint filed Tuesday by civil rights groups, ethicists and a legal aid organization, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edith Jones allegedly said during a February event at the University of Pennsylvania Law School that “racial groups like African-Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime,” and that they get involved in more violent and “heinous” crimes than people of other ethnicities. ...
At the February event, she also reportedly said that Mexican nationals would rather be in a Texas prison than in a prison in their home country. The complaint also takes issue with comments the judge reportedly made criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s prohibition on executing the mentally retarded. ...
Among those who filed the complaint are the NAACP, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program, which is funded by and represents Mexico in cases where its foreign nationals face capital murder charges in the U.S. It was filed with the 5th Circuit Court’s chief judge, who would decide whether to refer the case to a judicial council made up of 5th Circuit and district court judges. Because Jones is a former chief judge of the 5th Circuit, the group asked that its complaint be transferred to another circuit court for review.
Obama-Backed Trans-Pacific Partnership Expands Corporate Lawsuits Against Nations for Lost Profits
Cancer Clinics Sequestration: Obama Administration Tells Congress It Can't Stop The Cuts
The federal government does not have the power to stop federal budget sequestration cuts to cancer treatments for certain Medicare patients, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has told Congress.
The declaration, in a June 3 letter from the federal agency to Congress and obtained by The Huffington Post, is a setback to lawmakers hoping the Department of Health and Human Services could use budgetary authority to ease one of the harshest effects of sequestration. It also forces Congress to give renewed consideration to a bill to replace those specific cuts or to broader legislation to replace the sequester's across-the-board budget reductions.
Since the passage of sequestration in March, numerous cancer clinics have begun turning away Medicare patients because of the prohibitive cost of administering chemotherapy drugs. Those patients have been left to find treatment at local hospitals or to travel long distances for care.
Prime Minister Points To His Own Party To Justify Prison Expansion
With the arrest of Conservative senator Patrick Brazeau, and Conservative Mike Duffy in the middle of tax fraud allegations, the Prime Minister reiterated the need for more prisons during a session in the House of Commons.
“Honourable Mister Speaker, the opposition decries my calls for more prisons in Canada, citing a supposed dwindling crime rate, but I submit to you that Canada is swarming with criminals. Just take a look a my caucus,” the PM appealed.
One Liberal MP declared his statement to be “outrageous,” whereas the NDP were strangely quiet on the issue.
IMF admits: we failed to realise the damage austerity would do to Greece
The International Monetary Fund admitted it had failed to realise the damage austerity would do to Greece as the Washington-based organisation catalogued mistakes made during the bailout of the stricken eurozone country.
In an assessment of the rescue conducted jointly with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European commission, the IMF said it had been forced to override its normal rules for providing financial assistance in order to put money into Greece.
Fund officials had severe doubts about whether Greece's debt would be sustainable even after the first bailout was provided in May 2010 and only agreed to the plan because of fears of contagion.
While it succeeded in keeping Greece in the eurozone, the report admitted the bailout included notable failures.
"Market confidence was not restored, the banking system lost 30% of its deposits and the economy encountered a much deeper than expected recession with exceptionally high unemployment."
Fracking Creates Water Scarcity Issues in Michigan
Concerns about the impact to local groundwater by massive water use—on a scale never before seen in Michigan fracking operations—are coming to a head, as the plan for Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. to use 8.4 million gallons of water to fracture a single well has been stymied by a lack of water on site.
Instead, the company is trucking water—nearly 1 million gallons of it in just one week—from the City of Kalkaska’s water system to meet its needs. This one fracking operation today is using more water than Kalkaska is using for all its needs over the same time period. ...
The permit issued by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) authorized one water well on the site. The estimated water required for the gas/oil well was 8.4 million gallons. That compares to about 10,000 gallons used to complete or “stimulate” wells in the traditional way—a massive increase in consumptive water use by the fracking industry compared to the past. ...
“If the citizens of Michigan knew corporations were destroying hundreds of millions of gallons of Michigan water—water that is supposedly protected by government for use by all of us—they would be opposing this new kind of completion technique,” stated Paul Brady, a local resident and leading contributor of respectmyplanet.org. “These deep shale unconventional wells are using massive amounts of water without adequate testing and solid data on aquifer capacity.”
Brady noted that the new fracking methods permanently remove water from Michigan’s watersheds. It is polluted with chemicals, shoved deep into the ground and never returned to the water cycle.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Monsanto GMO Science Now Being Rejected By The NY Times
BREAKING: Massive Domestic Spying Revealed = Exactly What My NSA Whistleblower Clients Warned About
Reporting From Reykjavik #2: Beware of Pirates
No Warrant, No Problem: How the Government Can Still Get Your Digital Data
JPMorgan To Lose $842 Million In Toxic Ala. Sewer Deal
Legislative progress in Delaware, Puerto Rico and Arizona - Updated with Video by AG Beau Biden
Since Trayvon Martin Was Shot, About 480 Blacks Have Been Murdered in Chicago
NSA also scooping up your internet activity
A Little Night Music
Ma Rainey - 'Ma' Rainey's Black Bottom
Ma Rainey - Booze And Blues
Louis Armstrong & Ma Rainey - See See Rider Blues
Ma" Rainey - Prove it on me Blues
Ma Rainey - Deep Moaning Blues
Ma Rainey - Countin The Blues
Ma Rainey - Shave 'Em Dry Blues
'Ma' Rainey - Trust No Man
Ma Rainey - Jelly Bean Blues
Ma Rainey - Oh Papa Blues
Ma Rainey - Bo-Weavil Blues
Ma Rainey - Black Cat Hoot Owl Blues
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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