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 guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Memphis Minnie. Enjoy!
Memphis Minnie - Me And My Chauffeur Blues
“Sometimes it's appropriate to scream at them.”
-- Dr. Helen Caldicott
News and Opinion
Greenwald: Is U.S. Exaggerating Threat to Embassies to Silence Critics of NSA Domestic Surveillance?
U.S. extends embassy closings; warnings renew debate over NSA data collection
Congressional supporters of the program, appearing on Sunday morning talk shows, said the latest rounds of warnings of unspecified threats showed that the programs were necessary, while detractors said there was no evidence linking the programs, particularly the massive collection of cell phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans, to the vague warnings of a possible terrorist attack.
Meanwhile, there were no reports of violence or unusual activity in any of the countries where the United States had kept its embassies and consulates closed when they would have ordinarily been open on Sunday. Nevertheless, the State Department announced that embassies and consulates in 16 countries would remain closed throughout the week." ...
An official who’d been briefed on the matter in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, told McClatchy that the embassy closings and travel advisory were the result of an intercepted communication between Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri in which Zawahiri gave “clear orders” to al-Wuhaysi, who was recently named al Qaida’s general manager, to carry out an attack.
Members of Congress denied access to basic information about NSA
Members of Congress have been repeatedly thwarted when attempting to learn basic information about the National Security Agency (NSA) and the secret FISA court which authorizes its activities, documents provided by two House members demonstrate.
From the beginning of the NSA controversy, the agency's defenders have insisted that Congress is aware of the disclosed programs and exercises robust supervision over them. "These programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate," President Obama said the day after the first story on NSA bulk collection of phone records was published in this space. "And if there are members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up."
But members of Congress, including those in Obama's party, have flatly denied knowing about them. On MSNBC on Wednesday night, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct) was asked by host Chris Hayes: "How much are you learning about what the government that you are charged with overseeing and holding accountable is doing from the newspaper and how much of this do you know?" The Senator's reply:
The revelations about the magnitude, the scope and scale of these surveillances, the metadata and the invasive actions surveillance of social media Web sites were indeed revelations to me."
NSA handing over non-terror intelligence
The National Security Agency is handing the Justice Department information, derived from its secret electronic eavesdropping programs, about suspected criminal activity unrelated to terrorism. ...
Current and former federal officials say the NSA limits non-terrorism referrals to serious criminal activity inadvertently detected during domestic and foreign surveillance. The NSA referrals apparently have included cases of suspected human trafficking, sexual abuse and overseas bribery by U.S.-based corporations or foreign corporate rivals that violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. ...
But some lawyers, particularly in the criminal defense community, see that process as constitutionally flawed.
"The NSA intercepts, whether they are mail covers, metadata or what have you, are in essence general warrants," said Harold Haddon, a prominent criminal defense attorney from Denver. Using information from those warrants as the basis for a criminal prosecution "is a bright-line Fourth Amendment violation," Haddon said, referring to the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Latest NSA leaks fall on deaf ears in Washington
FBI pressuring telecoms to install undisclosed surveillance technology
US law enforcement is quietly applying pressure on telecommunication companies to install technology that would provide them with user data, a strategy likely to expand government surveillance into areas where users do not know they are being monitored.
Hoping to expand the government’s ability to intercept pictures, text, chat logs, and other data in real time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought to convince online companies to install new, previously undisclosed software known as “port reader,” according to a CNET report.
Port reader is known as a “harvesting program” so all-encompassing that data carriers are “extra-cautious” about its use, said one former government official, who spoke to the technology website on the condition of anonymity.
The program, “an interception device by definition” that could present major privacy risks, has yet to be used on an industry-wide level and is reportedly only installed when an already existing network does not have the technological capability to direct users’ information into the hands of law enforcement.
'Read Constitution, not my email': Anti-snooping protests sweep US
U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans
A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.
The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.
German and US Spy Agencies Share Vast Metadata Trove
Leaked internal NSA reports written by US employees of the intelligence agency who either visited or worked alongside members of Germany's foreign intelligence agency—the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND—reveal a vast and "daily" exchange of surveillance data between the two 'partnered' spy states.
According to the documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and revealed Monday by German newspaper Der Spiegel, the BND rigged a comprehensive network of cables on abandoned NSA structures in the town of Bad Aibling, southeast of Munich, and "took over" the NSA's surveillance of radio and satellite communications from that site.
Despite this change, the BND reportedly shares their intercepts with the US spy agency "on a daily basis."
"Day after day and month after month, the BND passes on to the NSA massive amounts of connection data relating to the communications it had placed under surveillance. The so-called metadata—telephone numbers, email addresses, IP connections—then flow into the Americans' giant databases," Der Spiegel reports.
In Afghanistan, a second Guantanamo
Of all the challenges the United States faces as it winds down the Afghanistan war, the most difficult might be closing the prison nicknamed “The Second Guantanamo.”
The United States holds 67 non-Afghan prisoners there, including some described as hardened al-Qaeda operatives seized from around the world in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. More than a decade later, they’re still kept in the shadowy facility at Bagram air base outside Kabul.
Closing the facility presents many of the same problems the Obama administration has encountered in its attempt to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. Some U.S. officials argue that Bagram’s resolution is even more complicated — and more urgent. The U.S. government transferred the prison’s Afghan inmates to local authorities this year. But figuring out what to do with the foreign prisoners is proving to be an even bigger hurdle to shutting the American jail. ...
As at Guantanamo, U.S. officials have deemed a portion of the Bagram prisoners too much of a threat to send home to countries that can’t or won’t keep them locked up. Officials worry that it might not be possible to convict the men in U.S. courts, because evidence could be classified or seen as weak.
The Most Transparent Administration Ever Bucks Court To Hide Whether Military Is Still Training Latin American Human Rights Abusers At School of the Americas
From 1994-2004, the U.S. military, in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, disclosed the nationalities of the security forces it was training at the school. But soon after the feisty activists from School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) shed light on how the U.S. was training known human rights abusers from Latin America in 2004, the Department of Defense stopped telling the public who was attending the institution. It was a bid to keep the public from finding out whether the U.S. continued to facilitate human rights abuses in Latin America through that training, which would be a violation of U.S. law.
Now, the military is doubling down on that position and is embroiled in a court battle with SOAW over the disclosure of names of trainees at what is now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). (In 2001, after bad publicity was heaped on the institution, the school’s name was changed from School of the Americas to WHINSEC.)
Although a district court judge in California ruled that the DOD had to release the names, the court battle continues. The Obama administration still has not released the names, and is likely to appeal the judge’s decision, which could send the case to a higher court. The administration has already filed a “notice of appeal” to the judge’s decision but the district court proceedings are not yet over. Some outstanding issues—like the full scope of the DOD’s disclosure—remain unresolved, but the plaintiffs got most of what they wanted from the judge. And the district court’s order represented a major win for transparency advocates, as the judge rejected the government’s assertion that releasing the names of trainees would harm the U.S. “national interest,” a claim that usually wins the day.
The court dispute between SOAW and the Department of Defense is the activist group’s latest salvo in their effort to shine a light on the Georgia school, which has been responsible for training the perpetrators of a wide range of Latin American human rights abuses, from genocide in Guatemala to the killing of Jesuit priests in El Salvador. And the refusal of the military to release the names is yet another example of the Obama administration’s penchant for secrecy.
Turkish court jails former military chief for life over alleged ‘plot’ to overthrow government
A Turkish court on Monday sentenced a former military chief to life in prison and dozens of others including opposition members of parliament to long terms for plotting against the government, in a trial that has exposed deep divisions in the country.
Retired military chief of staff General Ilker Basbug was sentenced to life for his role in the “Ergenekon” conspiracy to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. ...
Prosecutors say an alleged network of secular nationalists, code-named Ergenekon, pursued extra-judicial killings and bombings in order to trigger a military coup, an example of the anti-democratic forces which Erdogan says his AK Party has fought to stamp out.
Critics, including the main opposition party, have said the charges were trumped up, aimed at stifling opposition and taming the secularist establishment which has long dominated Turkey. They say the judiciary has been subject to political influence in hearing the case.
Chicago Fires More than 2,000 School Staff as Crippling Cuts Deepen
San Francisco Strikes Blow to Wall Street: City May Now Get Its Own Public Bank
When the Occupiers took an interest in moving San Francisco’s money into a city-owned bank in 2011, it was chiefly on principle, in sympathy with the nationwide Move Your Money campaign. But recent scandals have transformed the move from a political statement into a matter of protecting the city’s deposits and reducing its debt burden. The chief roadblock to forming a municipal bank has been the concern that it was not allowed under state law, but a legal opinion issued by Deputy City Attorney Thomas J. Owen has now overcome that obstacle.
Establishing a city-owned San Francisco Bank is not a new idea. According to City Supervisor John Avalos, speaking at the Public Banking Institute conference in San Rafael in June, it has been on the table for over a decade. Recent interest was spurred by the Occupy movement, which adopted the proposal after Avalos presented it to an enthusiastic group of over 1000 protesters outside the Bank of America building in late 2011. ...
The law in question was California Government Code Section 23007, which prohibits a county from “giv[ing] or loan[ing] its credit to or in aid of any person or corporation.” The section has been interpreted as barring cities and counties from establishing municipal banks. But Deputy City Attorney Thomas J. Owen has now put that issue to rest in a written memorandum dated June 21, 2013.
A number of other California cities that have explored forming their own banks are also affected by this opinion. As of June 2008, 112 of California’s 478 cities are charter cities, including not only San Francisco but Los Angeles, Richmond, Oakland and Berkeley. A charter city is one governed by its own charter document rather than by local, state or national laws.
After a Pause, Walmart Strikes Back
In a coordinated purge, Walmart has lashed out against workers who walked out in early June.
Sixty have been fired or disciplined so far, said Brandon Garrett, a worker from Baker, Louisiana, who was fired June 28. About two dozen have been terminated.
The retaliation appears to be in response to the week-long strike by hundreds of store employees. Many took buses to the corporation’s home office in Bentonville, Arkansas, and brought their grievances to the annual shareholder meeting nearby.
The strike and “Ride for Respect” to Bentonville was the most ambitious action yet for the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart), a group of Walmart retail workers formed in 2011 with the support of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
The Evening Greens
Efficiency Drove U.S. Emissions Decline, Not Natural Gas, Study Says
Aggressive energy efficiency efforts by households, companies and motorists led to the decline in carbon dioxide emissions from energy use in the United States, according to a recent report. The controversial finding contradicts recent studies that say the power sector's shift away from coal to cheap natural gas caused the bulk of reductions.
U.S. emissions last year fell by 205 million metric tons, or 4 percent, from 2011 levels. CO2 Scorecard Group, a small environmental research organization, says that nearly half the decline came from energy-saving measures such as retrofits and smarter appliances in homes and offices, as well as from Americans driving fewer miles, and using more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Natural gas is responsible for only about one-quarter of last year's emissions drop, CO2 Scorecard Group asserts.
"Everybody started to believe that shale gas is driving all these CO2 reductions," said CO2 Scorecard chief executive Shakeb Afsah, an environmental economist and co-author of the study. After investigating, he said he and colleagues found that "the numbers just don't add up."
This could have been good news, but the original bill is now unrecognizable. Sen Boxer doesn't think she will sign it.
Ken Cook on Improving the Chemical Safety Improvement Act
The Chemical Safety Improvement Act, co-sponsored by Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and David Vitter (R-LA), was introduced earlier this year, shortly before Sen. Lautenberg passed away on June 5, 2013. Initially, the bill was heralded as a long overdue bipartisan effort to strengthen the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TOSCA). As public health historians David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz explained on Moyers & Company recently, the existing legislation allowed the EPA to test chemicals only after there was cause to believe they were dangerous. Of 84,000 registered industrial chemicals in the United States, only about 200 have been tested.
Two environmental organizations — the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the National Resource Defense Council — immediately opposed the bill. Many of the health protections included in Lautenberg’s original legislation, The Safe Chemicals Act — which they had supported — were missing in the Lautenberg-Vitter compromise bill. Since then, a growing number of environmental and legal groups have joined them in opposition.
Today, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is holding a hearing on the bill. Ken Cook, EWG’s president, is testifying (read his testimony) before the committee.
Click here for Moyers interview transcript.
This is a really interesting blog post that challenges the notions that war is an inevitable human behavior based upon competition for resources or the innate impulse of male aggression. It also suggests that since war based upon competition for scarce resources is not inevitable, that greens might want to soft-pedal arguments about climate change that suggest it makes war more likely as that may drive the public agenda to greater military spending rather than getting us off of fossil fuels.
Survey of Earliest Human Settlements Undermines Claim That War Has Deep Evolutionary Roots
Ferguson finds even more variability in the Near East. He notes that “the Western world’s first widespread, enduring social system of war” emerged almost 8,000 years ago in Anatolia, which overlaps modern-day Turkey and includes the legendary city of Troy. “This is the start of a system of war that flows down in a river of blood to the present,” Ferguson asserts.
But excavations in the Southern Levant–a region that includes modern Jordan, Syria, Israel and Palestine–tell a dramatically different story. Ferguson notes that hunter gatherers started settling in the Southern Levant 15,000 years ago, and populations surged after the emergence of agriculture there 11,000 years ago. But there is no significant evidence of warfare in the Southern Levant until about 5,500 years ago, when the region increasingly came under the influence of the emerging military empire of Egypt, according to Ferguson.
In other words, humans lived and thrived in the Southern Levant for roughly 10,000 years–a period that included population growth, climate shifts and environmental degradation, all of which are thought to be triggers of warfare—without waging war.
New TransCanada Pipeline Plan Dwarfs Keystone XL
TransCanada Corp. announced yesterday they will proceed with plans to create a pipeline capable of shipping 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and tar sands bitumen from western Canada to refineries and ports in Quebec and New Brunswick. Called "Energy East", this west-to-east pipeline would dwarf the oil delivery capacity of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline in the US (830,000 bpd).
The premiers of Alberta and New Brunswick declared Energy East a "nation building" pipeline. The pipeline will pass through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.
"This is an historic opportunity to connect the oil resources of western Canada to the consumers of eastern Canada, creating jobs, tax revenue and energy security for all Canadians for decades to come," said Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer, in a statement. ...
Eastern Canadian refineries are not outfitted to refine large quantities of bitumen. TransCanada has stated the Energy East project will involve shipping oil to "existing North American markets" but there is speculation Europe or Asia could be possible destinations for the pipeline's oil.
Company Responsible for Deadly Oil Train Crash Says It Won't Pay, TransCanada Pushes Pipeline Deal
Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an ‘emergency’
Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an “emergency” that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country’s nuclear watchdog said on Monday.
This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters. ...
It was not immediately clear how much of a threat the contaminated groundwater could pose. In the early weeks of the disaster, the Japanese government allowed Tepco to dump tens of thousands of metric tons of contaminated water into the Pacific in an emergency move.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Peter Van Buren, The Manning Trial Began on 9/11
The Great American Do-It-Yourself Retirement Fraud, Brought to You By Big Finance & Co.
Out and About in the Trans World
A Little Night Music
Memphis Minnie - Hoodoo Lady Blues
Memphis Minnie - I'm A Bad Luck Woman
Memphis Minnie - Kissing In The Dark
Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe - When The Levee Breaks
Memphis Minnie - Nothing In Rambling
Memphis Minnie - Black Rat Swing
Memphis Jug Band w/Memphis Minnie & Hattie Hart - Cocaine Habit Blues
Memphis Minnie - I Got To Make A Change Blues
Memphis Minnie - Down By The Riverside
Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe - Wild About My Stuff
Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe - North Memphis 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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