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 Blues shouter and one of the inventors of Rock and Roll, Big Joe Turner. Enjoy!
Big Joe Turner - If you remember
“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.”
-- Herbert Marcuse
News and Opinion
The Liberal Elite has Betrayed the People They Claim to Defend
Utah ISP owner describes the NSA 'black box' that spied on his customers
After publishing a detailed list of government orders [his] company [XMission] has received, CEO Pete Ashdown has offered some clues as to what happens when an internet service provider is forced to comply with a FISA surveillance order.
Speaking to Buzzfeed, Ashdown says that an order he received in 2010 — the only one he says his company was unable to turn down — required him to install equipment allowing the FBI and NSA to directly monitor one of his customers. The hardware took the form of "a little box in our systems room that was capturing all the traffic to this customer. Everything they were sending and receiving," he explains. ...
Other small ISPs have fought back against government orders, such as FBI-issued National Security Letters. ... But most of this opposition happens in the dark, since ISP owners receiving such orders are usually restrained by gag orders preventing them from publicly acknowledging the demands. In 2010, Nicholas Merrill, the owner of a small ISP called Calyx, had a gag order partially removed after years of litigation, making him one of the only people to have successfully done so.
Revealed: Germany 'prolific partner' of NSA, Merkel denies knowledge
Your Daily Irony Supplement
During a Senate conformation hearing this week, [Samantha] Power promised to stand up against "repressive regimes" and said that meant "contesting the crackdown on civil society being carried out in countries like Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela".
The CIA's Imported Torture Operation Haunts Poland
Poland is the only country with an active investigation into US secret jails
Bounded by the Freedom of Information Act, Polish Airspace authorities have revealed that at least 11 CIA aircrafts landed at Szymany, and some of their passengers stayed on in Poland. The European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) was not informed about those flights.
From Szymany the prisoners were driven to a nearby intelligence academy in Stare Kiejkuty, where the CIA had a separated facility. In 2006, a few months after Poland was first identified as having hosted a secret CIA prison, Polish ombudsman Janusz Kochanowski visited the CIA villa – only to see that its chambers have been freshly renovated.
According to a U.S. intelligence source quoted by The New York Times, the prison in Poland was the most important of the CIA’s black sites, where terror suspects were subjected to interrogation techniques that would not be legal in the United States. The source claimed that Poland was picked mostly because “Polish intelligence officials were eager to cooperate.”
Two other European countries with known but unconfirmed black sites are Romania and Lithuania; the rest were in Asia and North Africa.
Leaked Pakistani report confirms high civilian death toll in CIA drone strikes
A secret document obtained by the Bureau reveals for the first time the Pakistan government’s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties.
The United States has consistently claimed only a tiny number of non-combatants have been killed in drone attacks in Pakistan – despite research by the Bureau and others suggesting that over 400 civilians may have died in the nine-year campaign.
The internal document shows Pakistani officials too found that CIA drone strikes were killing a significant number of civilians – and have been aware of those deaths for many years.
Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes outlined in the document, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated to be civilian victims, 94 of those are said to be children.
Here Come the Drone Wars in America -- The Public vs. Overzealous Police
Recently, outgoing director of the FBI Robert Mueller revealed that his agency has used drones to conduct surveillance in the United States. Mueller's casual admission serves as an opportune moment for drone enthusiasts: introducing the FBI's domestic drone programme with nonchalance, he swung wide the door on which drooling police departments have long been banging. ...
Senator Dianne Feinstein pressed Mueller on the privacy risks drones pose to US citizens, but the FBI director needed only to reassure her that his agency had used drones in a "narrowly focused" way in order to quell any qualms the California Senator and Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee might have had. Hardly a champion of the public's right to privacy, however, Feinstein distinguishes herself as one of the most vocal opponents of transparency as well as a leader of the government's war on whistleblowers. ...
"Troubling that Feinstein notes Americans' privacy concerns regarding drones, but the[n] has never seen - or apparently requested - the FBI's privacy limitations that exist to address those concerns," Micah Zenko of the Council of Foreign Relations noted on his blog on June 21.
But the notion that simply writing up and codifying a set of regulations for the domestic use of drones would be a silver bullet that adequately addresses privacy and Fourth Amendment concerns is a dubious one: police departments operate with near total impunity and very little transparency. With no accountability, rules have little meaning - as any grieving family member of someone extra-judicially shot and killed by the police will attest.
Cornel West: Obama’s Response to Trayvon Martin Case Belies Failure to Challenge "New Jim Crow"
US Treasury Secretary to Greece: Stick with Austerity
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew urged Greece on Sunday to continue its crushing austerity policies "to ensure prosperity and growth for generations to come." ...
Lew emailed his comments to the media Sunday: “We know that Greece has passed through a very difficult period of adjustment and reform. We recognize the difficult decisions and shared sacrifices of the last few years, as well as the challenges that remain. The road ahead is still challenging. Continued reform will be essential to laying the foundation for sustained growth.” ...
According to The Greek Reporter: "The U.S. is keen on making sure Greece stays in the Eurozone at all costs so that there are no ripple effects that would upset Wall Street and American banks."
Austerity Axe: More Greek jobs to be cut for intl lenders' sake
School Districts, Charter Schools Save Money By Impoverishing Support Staff
At the end of the 2012-2013 school year, two of America’s largest school districts, Chicago and Philadelphia, closed a total of 73 public schools between the two cities. Thousands of employees were laid off, including many food service, janitorial and security workers. In Philadelphia alone, 1,202 safety staffers who prevent violence when students aren’t in class, were laid off.
These cutbacks are only the latest instances of a sustained effort to cut costs by eliminating unionized positions in public schools either by hiring support staff through private entities—like Aramark or Sodhexo—or by replacing traditional schools with charters, which are usually aren’t covered by a school district’s union contracts. There’s a vast difference between working in an unionized public school district and working in an unorganized school of any kind. For employees, non-teacher positions at non-union schools usually means little job or retirement security, limited (if any) health insurance, sick leave, vacations, and much lower pay.
Censoring Howard Zinn: Former Indiana Gov. Tried to Remove "A People’s History" From State Schools
Third World America
Another Pennsylvania Wastewater Treatment Plant Accused of Illegally Disposing Radioactive Fracking Waste
A Pennsylvania industrial wastewater treatment plant has been illegally accepting oil and gas wastewater and polluting the Allegheny river with radioactive waste and other pollutants, according to an environmental group which announced today that it is suing the plant.
“Waste Treatment Corporation has been illegally discharging oil and gas wastewater since at least 2003, and continues to discharge such wastewater without authorization under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Streams Law,” the notice of intent to sue delivered by Clean Water Action reads.
Many pollutants associated with oil and gas drilling – including chlorides, bromides, strontium and magnesium – were discovered immediately downstream of the plant’s discharge pipe in Warren, PA, state regulators discovered in January of this year. Upstream of the plant, those same contaminants were found at levels 1 percent or less than those downstream, or were not present at all.
State officials also discovered that the sediments immediately downstream from the plant were tainted with high levels of radium-226, radium-228 and uranium. Those particular radioactive elements are known to be found at especially levels in wastewater from Marcellus shale gas drilling and fracking, and state regulators have warned that the radioactive materials would tend to accumulate in river sediment downstream from plants accepting Marcellus waste.
Obama Got It Entirely Wrong Says Josh Fox
BP's Attempt to Avoid Gulf Victim Payments Blocked by Judge
In a "harsh retort," a US federal judge has blocked attempts Friday by oil giant British Petroleum (BP) to temporarily suspend payments to victims of the 2010 Gulf oil spill—their latest effort to evade accountability and compensation for their role in a disaster which continues to plague both gulf residents and ecosystems alike.
BP filed an emergency temporary injunction Tuesday which claimed they are being forced to pay "hundreds of millions of dollars in inflated settlements" and asked to suspend further payments until an independent investigation of the claims administrator's office has been completed.
US district judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing the civil case against BP, scolded the company for what he said were "offensive" personal attacks against claims administrator Patrick Juneau—particularly comments made by BP CEO Patrick Dudley, who on Thursday complained to CNBC that the claim procedures had been "hijacked."
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Is America a Free Country?
27 Dreamy Campers That Will Make You Want To Drop Everything For The Open Road
Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard?
Burmese police condemned for using torture against gays and transwomen
The Travesty And "The Insanity of Not Having a Financial Transaction Tax"
Google Holds Fundraiser for James Inhofe
Democracy Convention, Madison, WI
A Little Night Music
Big Joe Turner - Shake, Rattle & Roll
Big Joe Turner - Feelin' Happy
Big Joe Turner - Juke Joint Blues
Big Joe Turner - Boogie Woogie Country Girl
Big Joe Turner - I Hear You Knockin'
Big Joe Turner - Oke-She-Moke-She-Pop
Big Joe Turner + Elmore James - TV Mama
Big Joe Turner - Watch That Jive
Big Joe Turner + Pete Johnson - Roll 'Em Pete
Big Joe Turner - Corrine Corrina
Big Joe Turner - Piney Brown Blues
Joe Turner - Jumpin' At The Jubilee
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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