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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features r&b and soul singer, songwriter and guitarist Curtis Mayfield. Enjoy!
Curtis Mayfield - We Got to Have Peace
“In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal.”
-- Edward Abbey
News and Opinion
Bradley Manning is down to "only" 90 years possible sentence from 136:
A Domestic Surveillance Scandal at the DEA? Agents Urged to Cover Up Use of NSA Intel in Drug Probes
The NSA is giving your phone records to the DEA. And the DEA is covering it up.
The Drug Enforcement Administration has been the recipient of multiple tips from the NSA. DEA officials in a highly secret office called the Special Operations Division are assigned to handle these incoming tips, according to Reuters. Tips from the NSA are added to a DEA database that includes “intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records.” This is problematic because it appears to break down the barrier between foreign counterterrorism investigations and ordinary domestic criminal investigations. ...
There’s another reason the DEA would rather not admit the involvement of NSA data in its investigations: It might lead to a constitutional challenge to the very law that gave rise to the evidence.
Earlier this year, a federal court said that if law enforcement agencies wanted to use NSA information in court, they had to say so beforehand and give the defendant a chance to contest the legality of the surveillance.
T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security
With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.
T.S.A. and local law enforcement officials say the teams are a critical component of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts, but some members of Congress, auditors at the Department of Homeland Security and civil liberties groups are sounding alarms. The teams are also raising hackles among passengers who call them unnecessary and intrusive.
“Our mandate is to provide security and counterterrorism operations for all high-risk transportation targets, not just airports and aviation,” said John S. Pistole, the administrator of the agency. “The VIPR teams are a big part of that.” ...
The teams, which are typically composed of federal air marshals, explosives experts and baggage inspectors, move through crowds with bomb-sniffing dogs, randomly stop passengers and ask security questions. There is usually a specially trained undercover plainclothes member who monitors crowds for suspicious behavior, said Kimberly F. Thompson, a T.S.A. spokeswoman. Some team members are former members of the military and police forces.
T.S.A. officials would not say if the VIPR teams had ever foiled a terrorist plot or thwarted any major threat to public safety, saying the information is classified.
In Bid for Tanks, NH Police Label Protest Groups 'Terrorists'
In a bid to bring armored vehicles to the small, capital city of Concord, New Hampshire, the local police department is trying to exploit peaceful activist groups such as Occupy New Hampshire and the libertarian Free State Project as "terror threats."
Through a right to know request, the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union (NHCLU)—as part of an ongoing project against the militarization of local law enforcement agencies—obtained a grant filed by the Concord Police Department requesting $258,000 from the Department of Homeland Security for an armored BearCat vehicle.
"The State of New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type," the grant states, adding that—with groups such as the "Free Staters" and Occupy NH active and presenting "daily challenges"—the "threat is real and here."
"It's far from clear to us why an armored vehicle would be necessary to address what are generally, by and large, non-violent movements that in fact provide little or no threat to the security of our state," said Devon Chaffee, executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.
Calling the police grant "absolutely false and absurd," Occupy NH points out that the group—better known for litter pick-ups and "too-polite political bird dogging"—has not been functioning since July of 2012 and has not had a "notable Occupy gathering since April of 2013."
Global terror alert inconsistent with U.S. portrayal of weakened al Qaida
The Obama administration’s sweeping response to an alleged al Qaida plot – closing diplomatic posts in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia – suggests a terrorist organization that’s capable of striking virtually anywhere, not the one U.S. officials have depicted as a group that’s near defeat.
Counterterrorism analysts said Monday that the U.S. government’s global response to a threat emanating from Yemen, home to al Qaida’s most active affiliate, was at odds with how dismissive President Barack Obama was in a speech in May, when he said that “not every collection of thugs that labels themselves as al Qaida will pose a credible threat to the United States.”
That was only one of a series of public statements by Obama and his Cabinet members that played down the capabilities of al Qaida-linked groups. For at least the past two years, the administration has sought to reassure Americans that al Qaida is “on the run,” while counterterrorism experts were warning about the semiautonomous affiliates that have wreaked havoc in North Africa, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
“The actions the administration is taking now are deeply inconsistent with the portrait of al Qaida strength the administration has been painting,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute.
'National Stasi Agency': Germans furious over intel sharing with NSA
Wikipedia: Effort To Change Description of Snowden From “Dissident” To “Traitor” Traced To U.S. Senate
The desperate efforts of Congress to change the public view of Edward Snowden appears to be continuing. This week someone in the Senate attempted to change the description of Snowden as a “dissident” to a “traitor” on Wikipedia. The White House and congressional leaders are clearly alarmed that many view Snowden as a whistleblower. The media groups like NPR previously yielded to pressure not to call Snowden a whistleblower and instead use the less flattering term “leaker.” However, that is not enough because it does not seem to have helped.
Snowden’s disclosures have embarrassed President Obama and congressional democrats, including Democratic members, who have been openly misleading the public about warrantless surveillance. While refusing to push for the prosecution of National Intelligence Chief James Clapper for perjury in earlier testimony, they are demanding that Snowden be tried as a traitor. These are politicians who know that optics are everything when spinning a scandal. It is essential for them to have Snowden referenced in the least flattering ways like “traitor” or “criminal” as opposed to “dissident” or “whistleblower.” ...
The attempt by the person in the Senate to change the description of Snowden was blocked by a keen eye of an editor. The person’s IP address was tracked back to the US Senate and the change was attempted one day after Snowden was granted political asylum in Russia.
The Most Important Court Case You May Never Have Heard Of
It has not made a lot of noise in the main stream media, but recently, an important case filed jointly by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the Department of Justice and the Obama Administration’s drone war was argued in front of Judge Rosemary Collyer. That case is Anwar Al-Aulaqi vs. Panetta, et al and it was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2012. You can find the filing here.
What makes this case so important is that it was filed on behalf of the estate of a 16-year-old American citizen who was killed by an American drone strike, along with other victims, in Yemen in 2011. Recently the United States Department of Justice presented a defense that is quite striking. ...
As the New York Times reported, the Obama administration’s Deputy Attorney General Brian Hauck first declared that courts have no right to oversee executive-branch decisions to extrajudicially assassinate Americans. He also insisted that the White House already provides adequate due process for those it kills, prompting federal judge Rosemary Collyer to point out that “the executive is not an effective check on the executive.” ... But perhaps the most important thing to know about this case is what the government is arguing about the law itself. In defending the administration, Hauck asserted that such suits should not be permitted because they “don’t want these counterterrorism officials distracted by the threat of litigation.”
'Gitmo gives terrorists powerful recruitment tool'
Please spare a good thought for Mr. Bush's health. With any luck he will live long enough to stand before a human rights court and answer for his war crimes.
George W. Bush hospitalized for heart operation
Former US President George W Bush has undergone heart surgery after doctors discovered a blockage in one of his arteries during an annual physical health check.
"The procedure was performed successfully this morning, without complication, at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital" in Dallas, Bush spokesperson Freddy Ford said in a statement made Tuesday morning.
Bush emerged from surgery “in high spirits” after the procedure was completed, Ford told the Associated Press.
According to Ford, the forty-third president of the United States underwent a stent procedure in which a supportive mesh tube was inserted into a heart vessel to improve blood flow after a blockage was discovered during a check-up at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas on Monday.
Greece's food crisis: families face going hungry during summer shutdown
Hunger is not a word that comes easily to Antonis Antakis. And at 28 Veikou Street, in the cramped confines of the Solidarity Club, it is not a word that is ever mentioned. But the fear of not having enough to eat is the force that propels those who stop here – and what keeps the tireless volunteers stacking rice, pasta and other dry goods that Greeks like Antakis take home.
"The truth is, if I didn't come here I wouldn't have the means to feed my children," said the recently widowed father-of-three, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Three years ago, when I was the boss and had two employees, the idea of going anywhere to collect food would have been inconceivable. Back then, I was earning €3,000 (£2,600) a month and the fridge was always full."
The task of ensuring that families like Antakis's are fed throughout the summer became more stark at the weekend as Greeks prepared to take their traditional summer break, affecting the provision of basic services like food distribution to the poor.
Ordinarily, the prospect of the Orthodox church – or any other charitable organisation – scaling back duties in August would have gone unnoticed. But in debt-stricken Greece it is impossible to ignore. Against a backdrop of record unemployment, and with the country ensnared in its worst crisis in modern times, hardship is surfacing in ways that few would ever have foreseen. Hunger and undernourishment are part of that spectre.
A Dream Foreclosed: As Obama Touts Recovery, New Book Reveals Racist Roots of Housing Crisis
Homeowner ‘protection’ is a peril
The House Financial Services Committee wants to give a new private company unprecedented control of land records, making an end run around state laws that protect New York homeowners from fraud.
Buried in the controversial new Protecting American Taxpayers and Homeowners (PATH) Act, a housing finance reform bill sponsored by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), is a plan for creating a National Mortgage Data Repository. The repository would essentially be a privately run recorder of deeds, with vast powers formerly held by states. ...
The bill, which was approved by the committee July 24 in a vote along party lines, insulates the repository from almost all legal challenges in state or federal courts. Should it become law, homeowners would find themselves essentially without legal recourse to contest errors in the repository. ...
On its face, the repository serves as a solution to the record-keeping mess created by big banks and their private mortgage registry, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS).
Eli Lilly is suing Canadians for $500 million dollars cause it didn't make enough profit
Last month, Eli Lilly, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in North America, filed a lawsuit against Canadian taxpayers for $500 million dollars. The basis of the suit? The $4.3 billion dollars Eli Lilly earned in profit in 2011 was not enough for the pharmaceutical giant.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a company can sue another NAFTA country if that nation’s laws affect its expected future profit. In this case, Eli Lilly is “losing profit” because Canadian regulators dared to act within Canadian laws and rightly denied patents on two of Eli Lilly’s expensive drugs. ...
This is the first attempt by a corporation to use the NAFTA clause to sue for lost profits. Corporations and governments around the world are watching this case, as this could open floodgates to more lawsuits against taxpayers because they are not making enough profits. Reports indicate that an American company may sue Canada for $250 million dollars because we are acting within our right and not letting it extract shale gas in Quebec.
Currently, the Canadian government is negotiating a number of other trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Canadian-China FIPA, behind closed doors. By filing this case, Eli Lilly may also be setting a precedent for companies in TPP and FIPA countries to sue us as well.
The Evening Greens
Nuclear plant spills radiation into Lake Michigan
Last summer, a leaky tank led to the shutdown of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan. So plant owner Entergy patched up the leak, fired back up the reactor, and hoped for the best.
Unfortunately, the best did not materialize.
The tank began leaking again. But no worries, thought the Einsteins at Entergy, it was only leaking a gallon a day. That was OK, they figured, because the NRC had allowed it to leak up to 38 gallons a day. As of Friday, they were still doing that whole “hoping for the best” thing.
But on Saturday the leaky drip turned into a gush, and all the hoping in the world couldn’t hold back the tide of spilling radioactive water. Nearly 80 gallons of water containing small amounts of radioactive tritium and possibly trace amounts of cobalt and cesium spewed into Lake Michigan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the AP.
Oil Companies Are Quietly Fracking the Seabed Off the California Coast
When we talk about fracking and its impacts on human health and the environment, we very often talk about groundwater. Can we somehow drill holes deep underground and blast apart bedrock with high pressure water—in solution with a long list of "bonus" chemicals—without contaminating the water table? It seems unlikely. And testing currently being performed off California's coast adds another layer to the contamination query—what if the entire operation takes place underwater, on the seabed, perhaps right near the site of a 1969 oil spill that unleashed 3 million barrels of crude into the ocean?
Granted there aren't too many homes with wells on the sea floor, but no one seems to be able to produce any actual research on potential harmful effects of fracking fluids on the undersea environment and, as with land-based fracking, any number of chemicals included in fracking activities remain top secret "trade secrets." What's more, regulators have exempted the chemicals used in offshore fracking from clean water laws. That means that the oil companies involved don't even have to pretend to care about the impacts of fracking fluids released during operations.
This sounds bad enough, but there's been an ugly veil of secrecy over offshore fracking operations near California as well, lifted somewhat only recently via hundreds of documents released by the federal government to the Associated Press. California coastal regulators didn't even know that fracking was occuring offshore, thanks to the activities occuring within what's technically federal jurisdiction. "It wasn't on our radar before, and now it is," Alison Dettmer, a deputy director of the California Coastal Commision, says in a statement. That's a fairly uncomfrotable notion: the EPA and oil companies working behind California's back on oil exploration with huge potential to harm that state's coastline waters.
Chevron to Pay $2 Million for 2012 Refinery Fire in Richmond, CA; 200 Arrested at Protest
Drought-Stricken New Mexico Farmers Drain Aquifer To Sell Water For Fracking
The bad news is that the terrible drought in New Mexico has led some farmers to sell their water to the oil and gas industry. The worse news is that many of them are actually pumping the water out of the aquifer to do so.
The worst news of all is that once the frackers get through tainting it with their witches’ brew of chemicals, that water often becomes unrecoverable — and then we have the possibility the used fracking water will end up contaminating even more of the groundwater. ...
While this drought will likely end at some point, climate change means droughts in the southwest are going to get longer, drier, and hotter. If we don’t reverse emissions trends very soon, the entire region is headed towards permanent Dust Bowl conditions.
The oil and gas industry apparently doesn’t care whether it helps destroy the entire water supply of New Mexico — as long as the groundwater supply lasts until they finish fracking the state. You’d think state officials would see the value for farmers and residents in sustainable water consumption given where the climate is headed.
Censored EPA PA Fracking Water Contamination Presentation Published for First Time
DeSmogBlog has obtained a copy of an Obama Administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fracking groundwater contamination PowerPoint presentation describing a then-forthcoming study's findings in Dimock, Pennsylvania.
The PowerPoint presentation reveals a clear link between hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for shale gas in Dimock and groundwater contamination, but was censored by the Obama Administration. Instead, the EPA issued an official desk statement in July 2012 - in the thick of election year - saying the water in Dimock was safe for consumption.
Titled "Isotech-Stable Isotype Analysis: Determinining the Origin of Methane and Its Effets on the Aquifer," the PowerPoint presentation concludes that in Cabot Oil and Gas' Dimock Gesford 2 well, "Drilling creates pathways, either temporary or permanent, that allows gas to migrate to the shallow aquifer near [the] surface...In some cases, these gases disrupt groundwater quality."
Other charts depict Cabot's Gesford 3 and 9 wells as doing much of the same, allowing methane to migrate up to aquifers to unprecedented levels - not coincidentally - coinciding with the wells being fracked. The PowerPoint's conclusions are damning.
RIP George Duke
Jazz fusion pioneer George Duke dies at 67
Keyboardist George Duke, one of the pioneers of the jazz fusion movement that merged jazz, rock and funk in the late 1960s and 1970s, died Monday night in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, his record label announced. He was 67.
In a career stretching over five decades, Duke collaborated with an array of other musicians, among them Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Barry Manilow, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Jarreau, Don Ellis, Cannonball Adderly, Nancy Wilson and Joe Williams.
Duke, who was born in San Rafael in Northern California, was one of the leading forces in bringing jazz and rock together, genres that not only were typically separate in the 1950s and early-'60s, but whose proponents often were philosophically at odds. Duke found the common ground between the styles.
George Duke - I love the blues she heard my cry
George Duke with Billy Cobham - Rush Hour
George Duke - Chariot
Frank Zappa - Eat That Question
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Taken
Great Lakes loons dying in record numbers from botulism outbreak spurred by ecological disturbance
White House taken to task over LGBT job protections
A Little Night Music
Curtis Mayfield - People Get Ready
Curtis Mayfield - Superfly
Curtis Mayfield - Diamond in the Back
Curtis Mayfield - Freddies Dead
Curtis Mayfield - We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue
Curtis Mayfield - Hard Times
The Impressions - Mighty Mighty (Spade & Whitey)
Curtis Mayfield - Pusherman
The Impressions - Gypsy Woman
The Impressions - Movin' On Up
The Impressions - Keep On Pushing
The Impressions - Its All Right
Curtis Mayfield - Fool For You
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!
|