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 soul blues performers, Johnnie Taylor and Tyrone Davis. Enjoy!
Johnnie Taylor - Still Called The Blues
I can't run no more with that lawless crowd while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud and they're going to hear from me. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.
-- Leonard Cohen
News and Opinion
World's Most Evil and Lawless Institution? The Executive Branch of the U.S. Government
America has a secret. It is not discussed in polite company or at the dinner tables of the powerful, rich and famous.
Parents do not teach it to their children. Best-selling authors do not write about it. Politicians and government officials ignore it. Intellectuals avoid it. High school and college textbooks do not refer to it. TV pundits do not comment on it. Teachers do not teach it. Journalists from the nation's most highly regarded TV news shows, newspapers and magazines, do not report it. Columnists do not opine about it. Editorial writers do not editorialize about it. Religious leaders do not sermonize about it. Think tanks and professors do not study it. Lawyers do not litigate it and judges do not rule on it. ...
All told, U.S. Executive Branch leaders – Democrat and Republicans, conservative and liberal—have killed, wounded and made homeless well over 20 million human beings in the last 50 years, mostly civilians. ...
It is a matter of indisputable fact that the U.S. Executive Branch has over the past 50 years been responsible for bombing, shooting, burning alive with napalm, blowing up with cluster bombs, burying alive with 500-pound bombs, leveling homes and villages, torturing, assassinating and incarcerating without evidence more innocent civilians in more nations over a longer period of time than any other government on earth today. ...
The rationalizations by which even decent human beings allow themselves to ignore their leaders’ mass murder, e.g. that “these things always happen in war,” or “it’s the other side’s fault,” are just that: rationalizations that allow us to avoid our secret shame. Human civilization, through its body of international law, has defined which acts are both immoral and illegal even in times of war. And a citizen’s first responsibility is to oppose his or her own government’s crimes, not those of others.
US & NSA Accused of Criminal Privacy Violations in Dozens of Nations - Snowden Blowback
The right to privacy from electronic surveillance is granted in most national constitutions. This expectation of privacy has been declared a human right by the UN. It is a crime to collect it secretly.
It may be hard for Americans to wrap their minds around this concept because, in their case, human rights are not directly conferred upon them, constitutionally -- and can be suspended by the Executive Branch or the high court at any time, if it is deemed (often secretly) to be in the best interest of the "defense" of the nation.
Read that last sentence again.
You are living in that reality. The citizens of other nations are not. Their constitutions declare and affirm human rights that are specific to the 21st century issues.
Americans have have little expectation of general human rights, many of which were circumvented by the Patriot Act. But, right now, the rest rest of the world is dismayed and outraged that the US has illegally breached their sovereign laws to spy on their citizens and businesses.
The world regards what the NSA is doing as an international crime and a direct violation of their human rights. ...
The world is looking at an international crisis -- as a result of Edward Snowden's description of an illegal data theft "Process" -- perpetrated against their own citizens. The US is engaged in ongoing criminal activity against their sovereignty. And they are scrambling to put a stop to it.
The United States can no longer be trusted, never, ever again.
This is a watershed moment that changes everything. You are witnessing an epic geopolitical shift that will profoundly effect the United States standing throughout the world. It will certainly affect your future. ...
The United States has inadvertently declared itself to be a rogue, predatory Police State. When the story broke, officials in European capitals demanded immediate answers from their US counterparts and denounced the practice of secretly gathering digital information on Europeans as unacceptable, illegal and a serious violation of basic human rights.
There were heated and outraged discussions at the G-8 summit in Ireland. Eric Holder was flown to Brussels for questioning by the European Union. When Holder left, they were even more outraged. The Germans openly liken the United States actions to the actions of the Cold War-era Stasi.
NSA collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under Obama
The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata "every 90 days". A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011. ...
The internet metadata of the sort NSA collected for at least a decade details the accounts to which Americans sent emails and from which they received emails. It also details the internet protocol addresses (IP) used by people inside the United States when sending emails – information which can reflect their physical location. ... But while that specific program has ended, additional secret NSA documents seen by the Guardian show that some collection of Americans' online records continues today. ...
"The calls you make can reveal a lot, but now that so much of our lives are mediated by the internet, your IP [internet protocol] logs are really a real-time map of your brain: what are you reading about, what are you curious about, what personal ad are you responding to (with a dedicated email linked to that specific ad), what online discussions are you participating in, and how often?" said Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute.
"Seeing your IP logs – and especially feeding them through sophisticated analytic tools – is a way of getting inside your head that's in many ways on par with reading your diary," Sanchez added.
Ecuador can't grant Snowden asylum as he's not on its soil
Ecuador offers U.S. rights aid, waives trade benefits
Ecuador's leftist government thumbed its nose at Washington on Thursday by renouncing U.S. trade benefits and offering to pay for human rights training in America in response to pressure over asylum for former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
The angry response threatens a showdown between the two nations over Snowden, and may burnish President Rafael Correa's credentials to be the continent's principal challenger of U.S. power after the death of Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests," government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at a news conference.
In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to finance human rights training.
The funding would be destined to help "avoid violations of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity," Alvarado said. He said the amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade benefits.
"Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits," he said.
PRISM just prep for something bigger, hunt for undesirables on
NSA "Disappears" Its Own Fact Sheet on Spying Program
After public outing for posting false information, agency removes "fact sheet" from website
The NSA moved quickly to cover its tracks Tuesday after being publicly exposed for posting a false "fact sheet" on the Prism internet spying program that deceptively portrayed U.S. privacy protections as stronger than they actually are.
The public statement was initially published last week to quell widespread outrage at the NSA snooping program, exposed by The Guardian in early June. Facing heated questioning from Congress, chastisement from international governments, and deep anger from those caught in the vast spying dragnet, the NSA hoped to clear the air by illustrating the oversight and limits placed on internet snooping.
Yet, the fact sheet turned out to contain serious falsehoods, making what was already a highly secretive spying operation even more mysterious. ...
After the public exposure, NSA officials admitted that the document contained falsehoods.
US Chamber & NSA Have Common Ground
CIA cracks down on its own to stop leaks
CIA Director John Brennan is launching a new campaign aimed at pressuring CIA officers to keep the intelligence agency's secrets secret, after a series of leaks to the media.
In a memo to the CIA workforce this week, Brennan says the "Honor the Oath," campaign is intended to "reinforce our corporate culture of secrecy" through education and training. The Associated Press obtained the memo Wednesday, marked unclassified and for official use only.
DS Wright over at FDL writes:
For generations people have been saying that the CIA, mostly run by the elite and children of the elite, were gangsters for corporate capitalism. Now we know they view themselves more in a business context as well.
Antonin Scalia Misses the Days When It Was OK for Government Discriminate Against Gay People
Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the Supreme Court case that declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional is, as expected, fun reading. ... Scalia’s main point is that the court has no right to strike down DOMA. In doing so, Scalia says, the Supreme Court has overstepped its authority.
It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive. It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empowered to decide all constitutional questions, always and everywhere “primary” in its role.
The case could be made that this is sort of the only honest Originalist argument — there is nothing in the Constitution granting the Supreme Court the authority to determine the constitutionality of duly passed legislation, after all — but obviously this argument rather glaringly contradicts every single instance of Scalia voting to strike down a law. Indeed, it contradicts a decision the Supreme Court announced yesterday, in which the conservatives decided that a portion of the Voting Rights Act that they didn’t care for was unconstitutional because they didn’t care for it. But if Scalia wishes to recuse himself from all future cases involving constitutional questions, now that he has determined that Marbury v. Madison was improperly decided, I am not inclined to stop him.
The New Black: Documentary Film Explores Divisions in African-American Community Over LGBT Rights
Morsi Clings to Power as Millions Call for His Resignation
Egypt's embattled President Morsi appeared to be clinging to power in his televised address Wednesday evening, in which he refused widespread calls for his resignation while vowing to make 'quick' reforms.
A broad coalition of anti-Morsi demonstrators swarmed Cairo's Tahrir Square to demanding the quick ouster of a president charged with hoarding power and steamrolling human rights and democracy.
Egyptian state media also depicted protesters gathered outside of Cairo's defense ministry flying signs that demand: 'Out!"
Soldiers and military vehicles were deployed throughout Cairo after Egypt's massive Army vowed Sunday it would intervene if Egypt's 'unrest' continues.
The Greek Resistance
Portuguese Mobilize in General Strike to Fight Austerity
Public transportation systems came to a halt across Portugal on Thursday as labor unions and other austerity opponents took to the streets to protest government economic policies that they say are killing working people and social cohesion.
After years of cuts to public programs and worker benefits in the name of solving the economic crisis that has gripped Europe since 2008, the nation's largest labor unions say it is well past time for a new approach and that austerity has proved not only ineffective, but deeply destructive.
"These austerity policies punish the country, violate the people, penalize workers and pensioners, so the strike will be a cry of resistance to these policies," said Carlos Silva, leader of the 500,000 member UGT union.
Labor's argument, as Agence France-Presse reports, was also echoed by business leaders.
"The austerity plan for Portugal was a short-term response, applied as if it were the only one possible, but today given the results, no-one can be so irresponsible as to defend it, or even worse pursue it," said the nation's four main employer confederations in a joint statement.
Obama's Carbon Reduction Plan "Will Guarantee Global Warming Disaster"
Green Groups Celebrate Obama Speech, But For What?
Charmed by president's climate plan, the rhetorical loopholes—notably on Keystone XL—leave much to interpretation
Number one. Is it possible that the anti-Keystone XL movement counting victory on the controversial tar sands project prematurely?
And second. Have environmental groups more broadly been too friendly to President Obama in the aftermath of a mere speech, however welcome its rhetorical flourishes?
With a showering of praise from 'big green' groups like NRDC, Sierra Club, and Environment America—the last of which decided to launch an expensive 'thank you' TV ad for the president—is it possible that the environmental movement is easing off the pressure at exactly the moment they should be holding Obama's feet more firmly to the fire?
As Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said in his remarks about the speech, climate change "poses a near-existential threat to humanity," and presidential rhetoric—especially vague rhetoric—is simply too little and too late.
"We need a national mobilization – and indeed a worldwide mobilization – to transform rapidly from our fossil fuel-reliant past and present to a clean energy future," Weissman said. "We need a sense of urgency – indeed, emergency – massive investments, tough and specific standards and binding rules."
Though the president offered none of that, many groups were blasting praise to their memberships and heralding a new era of executive action.
Tar Sands Greenwash: Good News, Bad News
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
The World Says Yes to Snowden, No to Obama
Left behind by the DOMA ruling: Separate and unequal
D is for Deflation
A Little Night Music
Tyrone Davis - Can I Change My Mind
Tyrone Davis - If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time
Johnnie Taylor - Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone
Johnnie Taylor - Running Out Of Lies
Johnnie Taylor - Soul Heaven
Tyrone Davis - Is It Something You've Got?
Johnnie Taylor - Last Two Dollars
Johnnie Taylor - I Believe In You (You Believe In Me)
Johnnie Taylor - Woman across the river
Johnnie Taylor - Toe Hold
Johnny Taylor - Next Time
Johnny Taylor - Take Care Of Your Homework
Johnny Taylor - Mister Nobody is Somebody Now
Johnnie Taylor - Stop Doggin' Me Around
Johnnie Taylor - It's September
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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