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 early r&b singer and bandleader Tiny Bradshaw. Enjoy!
Tiny Bradshaw - I'm gonna have myself a ball
“Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.”
-- Honoré de Balzac
News and Opinion
White House Tries to Prevent Judge From Ruling on Surveillance Efforts
The Obama administration moved late Friday to prevent a federal judge in California from ruling on the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance programs authorized during the Bush administration, telling a court that recent disclosures about National Security Agency spying were not enough to undermine its claim that litigating the case would jeopardize state secrets.
In a set of filings in the two long-running cases in the Northern District of California, the government acknowledged for the first time that the N.S.A. started systematically collecting data about Americans’ emails and phone calls in 2001, alongside its program of wiretapping certain calls without warrants. The government had long argued that disclosure of these and other secrets would put the country at risk if they came out in court.
But the government said that despite recent leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, that made public a fuller scope of the surveillance and data collection programs put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks, sensitive secrets remained at risk in any courtroom discussion of their details — like whether the plaintiffs were targets of intelligence collection or whether particular telecommunications providers like AT&T and Verizon had helped the agency.
So, [James Clapper, for the government] said, he was continuing to assert the state secrets privilege, which allows the government to seek to block information from being used in court even if that means the case must be dismissed. The Justice Department wants the judge to dismiss the matter without ruling on whether the programs violated the First or Fourth Amendment.
Despite Releasing New NSA Information, Government Still Tries to Block Groundbreaking EFF Case
U.S. government intelligence officials late last night released some previously secret declarations submitted to the court in Jewel v. NSA — EFF's long-running case challenging the NSA's domestic surveillance program – plus a companion case, Shubert v. Obama. The documents were released pursuant to the court’s order.
Surprisingly, in these documents and in the brief filed with them, the government continues to claim that plaintiffs cannot prove they were surveilled without state secrets and that therefore, a court cannot rule on the legality or constitutionality of the surveillance. For example, despite the fact that these activities are discussed every day in news outlets around the world and even in the president’s recent press conference, the government states broadly that information that may relate to Plaintiffs' claims that the "NSA indiscriminately intercepts the content of communications, and their claims regarding the NSA's bulk collection of ... metadata" is still a state secret.
"The government seems to be trying to reset the clock to before June 2013 or even December 2005," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "But the American people know that their communications are being swept up by the government under various NSA programs. The government’s attempt to block true judicial review of its mass, untargeted collection of content and metadata by pretending that the basic facts about how the spying affects the American people are still secret is both outrageous and disappointing."
I'm an Internet Company, I'm the Government
NSA Paid Security Firm $10 Million to Keep Encryption Weak
As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.
Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.
BBC News - Obama hints at rethink on NSA spying
'We Should Be Thanking Snowden': Obama Forced to Consider NSA Reforms
President Barack Obama claimed in his end-of-the-year press conference on Friday that he will consider his NSA review board's suggestions for limited reforms—a development that many say reflects the shift in public debate sparked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Yet, Obama refused to touch the topic of amnesty for Snowden, claiming that public discussion of government spying could have occurred without his revelations, and continuing his vigorous defense of the unpopular mass surveillance programs.
“The president said that we could have had this important debate without Snowden, but no one seriously believes we would have," said Ben Wizner, Snowden's attorney, in an interview with The Guardian: "And now that a federal court and the president’s own review panel have agreed that the NSA’s activities are illegal and unwise, we should be thanking Snowden, not prosecuting him.”
Saying he will not make a final decision until January, Obama indicated he will consider halting the widely criticized NSA practice of mass collecting data on nearly every phone call made to and within the United States. Yet, he suggested that he might require private phone companies to collect the data instead.
Freedom Rider: Edward Snowden: Person of the Year
”Snowden is a living litmus test for people who claim to be progressives or supporters of our constitutional rights.”
There is not very much democracy left in America, a country which endlessly brags about how democratic it is. Every now and again we are pleasantly surprised when the people and their interests are served instead of the 1% and their factotums in government. Those moments are few and far between but when they take place it is always because an individual decides to take on the system directly. In 2013 Edward Snowden was the person who risked his freedom to tell every human being with access to modern communications that they were under United States government surveillance. ...
Black media pundits have happily joined the Obama administration attack against Snowden. Most famously, Melissa Harris-Perry and Joy Anne Reid showed a willingness to throw Snowden, Wikileaks and the first amendment all under a bus so that Obama might be protected. Snowden is a living litmus test for people who claim to be progressives or supporters of our constitutional rights. There is now a sharply drawn line in the sand and we have Snowden to thank for it.
Ironically it was a conservative activist, Larry Klayman, whose suit was heard by judge Leon. Klayman argues that Obama is not an American citizen among other fringe right wing theories. He has long been a gadfly to Democratic presidents but his standing on the political spectrum shouldn’t be an issue. If Melissa Harris-Perry, Joy Anne Reid and their MSNBC colleagues were as progressive as they claim, they would have brought a suit against the president. Of course that kind of activism and careers in corporate media don’t mix. ...
Edward Snowden succeeded where Chelsea Manning failed. Manning was caught and has succeeded only because the harsh treatment meted out against him shows the depravity of our government. Snowden has beaten the Bush/Obama administration at its own game and in so doing has given people another reason to be hopeful. That impact alone makes him the Person of the Year.
Tone-Deaf at the Listening Post
It might be an occupational hazard, but NSA officials continue to talk about the threat environment as if they've been frozen in amber since 2002. To them, the world looks increasingly unsafe. Syria is the next Pakistan, China is augmenting its capabilities to launch a financial war on the United States, and the next terrorist attack on American soil is right around the corner. They could very well be correct -- except that the American public has become inured to such warnings over the past decade, and their response has been to tell politicians to focus on things at home and leave the rest of the world alone. A strategy of "trust us, the world is an unsafe place" won't resonate now the way it did in the immediate wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The NSA's attitude toward the press is, well, disturbing. There were repeated complaints about the ways in which recent reportage of the NSA was warped or lacking context. To be fair, this kind of griping is a staple of officials across the entire federal government. Some of the NSA folks went further, however. One official accused some media outlets of "intentionally misleading the American people," which is a pretty serious accusation. This official also hoped that the Obama administration would crack down on these reporters, saying, "I have some reforms for the First Amendment." I honestly do not know whether that last statement was a joke or not. Either way, it's not funny.
Snowden ally Appelbaum claims his Berlin apartment was invaded
Berlin resident and US national Jacob Appelbaum told Saturday's edition of the "Berliner Zeitung" daily that he believed he was under surveillance in the German capital. Appelbaum told the paper that somebody had broken into his apartment and used his computer in his absence.
"When I flew away for an appointment, I installed four alarm systems in my apartment," Appelbaum told the paper after discussing other situations which he said made him feel uneasy. "When I returned, three of them had been turned off. The fourth, however, had registered that somebody was in my flat - although I'm the only one with a key. And some of my effects, whose positions I carefully note, were indeed askew. My computers had been turned on and off."
He told the Berliner Zeitung that his experiences in Berlin might at first appear to be coincidence, but said that "when you start keeping track, their frequency does become striking."
Appelbaum accused the US security services of practicing a policy of subversion or disruptiveness similar to that in the former Communist East Germany.
U.S. intelligence, GPS bomb kits help Colombia kill rebels
The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 former and current U.S. and Colombian officials.
The secret assistance, which also includes substantial eavesdropping help from the National Security Agency, is funded through a multibillion-dollar black budget. It is not a part of the public $9 billion package of mostly U.S. military aid called Plan Colombia, which began in 2000.
The previously undisclosed CIA program was authorized by President George W. Bush in the early 2000s and has continued under President Obama, according to U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic officials. ... In March 2008, according to nine U.S. and Colombian officials, the Colombian Air Force, with tacit U.S. approval, launched U.S.-made smart bombs across the border into Ecuador to kill a senior FARC leader, Raul Reyes. The indirect U.S. role in that attack has not been previously disclosed.
Black Budget: US govt clueless about missing Pentagon $trillions
Freed Gitmo Detainee: 'We Were Subjected to Meticulous, Daily Torture'
Upon his return to Sudan after 11 years of incarceration at the hands of the U.S. military in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a frail 52-year-old Ibrahim Idris declared at a Thursday press conference in Khartoum that detainess at the prison "have been subjected to meticulous, daily torture with punishment," with 'double' the abuse for those who participated in the hunger strike. ...
Idris returned to Sudan on Thursday with fellow detainee and 51-year-old Sudanese citizen Noor Othman Mohammed—who was reportedly unable to attend the press conference because he was receiving medical treatment in a hospital.
Idris, who suffers from mental and physical illness, spent much of his incarceration in a psychiatric facility, held without ever being charged with a crime. His release to Sudan came years after he was cleared for transfer, in a prison where over half of the inmates have already been approved for release.
Ongoing Gitmo Hunger-Strike Spurs Prison to Impose Media Blockade
US military aircraft hit in S. Sudan
Four U.S. troops were wounded on Saturday after their aircraft took hostile fire while they were en route to evacuate U.S. citizens from South Sudan, U.S. Africa Command reported.
“As the aircraft, three CV-22 Ospreys, were approaching the town [of Bor] they were fired on by small arms fire by unknown forces,” AFRICOM said in a statement. “All three aircraft sustained damage during the engagement.”
The aircraft landed in Entebbe, Uganda, where the wounded were transferred to a C-17 and flown to Nairobi, Kenya, for treatment, AFRICOM said. All four servicemembers were in stable condition, the statement said.
Russia signs deal to forgive $29 billion of Cuba's Soviet-era debt
Russia and Cuba have quietly signed an agreement to write off 90 percent of Cuba's $32 billion debt to the defunct Soviet Union, a deal that ends a 20-year squabble and opens the way for more investment and trade, Russian and European diplomats said.
The two sides announced an agreement to settle the debt dispute earlier this year and finalized the deal in Moscow in October. It would have Cuba pay $3.2 billion over 10 years in exchange for Russia forgiving the rest of a $32 billion debt - $20 billion plus service and interest, the diplomats said.
It must still be approved by the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.
Negotiations on the form in which Cuba will pay the remaining debt are ongoing, the diplomats said, as even $320 million per year represents a large sum for the cash-strapped country, which has labored under a U.S. economic embargo for decades.
Cuba's total export earnings are around $18 billion, including tourism and medical and educational services.
In No One We Trust
[F]or our economy and society to function, participants must trust that the system is reasonably fair. Trust between individuals is usually reciprocal. But if I think that you are cheating me, it is more likely that I will retaliate, and try to cheat you. (These notions have been well developed in a branch of economics called the “theory of repeated games.”) When Americans see a tax system that taxes the wealthiest at a fraction of what they pay, they feel that they are fools to play along. All the more so when the wealthiest are able to move profits off shore. The fact that this can be done without breaking the law simply shows Americans that the financial and legal systems are designed by and for the rich.
As the trust deficit persists, a deeper rot takes hold: Attitudes and norms begin to change. When no one is trustworthy, it will be only fools who trust. The concept of fairness itself is eroded. A study published last year by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the upper classes are more likely to engage in what has traditionally been considered unethical behavior. Perhaps this is the only way for some to reconcile their worldview with their outlandish financial success, often achieved through actions that reveal a kind of moral deprivation. ...
Economic inequality, political inequality, and an inequality-promoting legal system all mutually reinforce one another. We get a legal system that provides privileges to the rich and powerful. Occasionally, individual egregious behavior is punished (Bernard L. Madoff comes to mind); but none of those who headed our mighty banks are held accountable.
Sawant fires first volley in Seattle minimum wage debate
SEATTLE -- She's yet to take office as Seattle's first socialist City Councilmember, but Kshama Sawant is already rattling the ranks with a new minimum wage mandate.
Sawant says she isn't ready to offer many details, but her bold plan has plenty of small businesses worried. ...
Sawant won a city council seat on a promise to boost pay to $15 an hour throughout Seattle. The outspoken socialist is wasting no time getting started.
"This cannot happen over a decade or so," Sawant said. "This has to happen as soon as possible."
Lies and War - David Swanson on Reality Asserts Itself 1
What Drives War? - David Swanson on Reality Asserts Itself 2
Are There Just Wars? - David Swanson on Reality Asserts Itself 3
The Evening Greens
Berliners Still Fighting to Pull the Plug on Coal-Fired Utility
Citizens in Berlin are fighting to democratize and decentralize the city's energy system, and they've found an unlikely model—in Sacramento, Calif.
BERLIN, Germany—A decision 90 years ago by the people of Sacramento, Calif. to oust a private electric company and start a government-owned utility has been the unlikely inspiration for Berliners trying to wrest control of Germany's largest grid from a coal-fired utility.
While little known in America, the creation of Sacramento's Municipal Utility District was the model for a November referendum to give Berlin a municipal utility that would pump more clean energy into the grid. The 1923 vote in Sacramento helped the California city build a rare, green record—constructing the nation's first big solar plant, voting to shut down a nuclear reactor and approving a goal of slashing climate-changing emissions by 90 percent by 2050.
"Sacramento stopped nuclear with direct elections," said Stefan Taschner, spokesperson for Energietisch, the group behind the push to take over Berlin's grid. It provides the "best example of democratic control."
Berlin's referendum failed by a tiny margin—but it's not the end of the story. The contract to operate the grid expires at the end of next year, and the near-approval sent a strong message to the mayor and other officials that the city should buy the contract. The referendum needed 25 percent of Berlin's 2.5 million registered voters to pass; it missed that mark by less than 1 percent.
U.S. Congressmen Refuse to Address Keystone XL Southern Half Spill Concerns
DeSmogBlog contacted more than three dozen members of the U.S. Congress representing both political parties to get their take on Public Citizen's alarming findings in its November investigation (including dents, metal that had to be patched up and pipeline segments labeled "junk"), but got little in the way of substantive responses.
Set to open for business on January 22, approved via an Executive Order by President Barack Obama in March 2012 and rebranded the "Gulf Coast Pipeline Project" by TransCanada, the southern half of the pipeline has garnered far less media coverage than its U.S.-Canada border-crossing brother to the north, Keystone XL's northern half.
Over two dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter to President Obama on December 12 expressing concern over the conflicts-of-interest in the U.S. State Department's environmental review process for the northern half of the line.
But none of them would comment on concerns with the southern half of the line raised in the Public Citizen report after multiple queries via e-mail from DeSmogBlog.
Port City Secures Six-Month Moratorium on OilSands Exports
The city of South Portland, Maine banned the export of oilsands crude from local port facilities this week.
Portland, the suburban community of 25,000 is the Atlantic terminal of the Portland Montreal Pipe Line, which currently carries millions of barrels of oil from the coast to refineries in Montreal. The city council is currently seeking to draft a law that would ban Portland Pipe Line Corp. from using Portland facilities to move western crude to the eastern seaboard. ...
South Portland isn’t the only city council willing to stand up to oil companies that put profits before environmental stewardship.
In Vancouver, British Columbia earlier this month, Mayor Gregor Robertson tabled a motion for city council to intervene in coming National Energy Board meetings about the proposed expansion of the Kinder Morgan Transmountain Pipeline.
The mayor decided to speak out after a federal report found that Canada’s spill response system was not adequate to the current level of tanker traffic.
In Northern Gateway Pipeline Decision, Money Trumped All Else
An independent Canadian federal panel on Thursday approved Enbridge's proposal to build a new pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the British Columbia coast, a significant gain in the industry's long campaign to find export markets for the nation's abundant but carbon-heavy form of crude oil.
The panel set 209 conditions on the project as a way to overcome environmental and safety concerns. Even that, it said, would not guarantee that there would be no environmental harm.
But its central message was that the economic interest in building the line was paramount—"that Canadians will be better off with this project than without it."
"We are of the view that opening Pacific Basin markets is important to the Canadian economy and society," the panel declared. "Societal and economic benefits can be expected from the project.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
James Clapper Claims Publicly Acknowledged Details Are State Secrets While Boasting of Transparency
Anonymous US Officials Lie About Drone Attack on Wedding Convoy in Yemen
“PBS Drops a Bombshell on the Federal Reserve’s 100th Birthday Party,” by Pam Martens
Christmas in the trenches – The Christmas truce of 1914
Seattle WA, Photo Diary
Kicking Back at Kochs et al Over Keystone XL
A Little Night Music
Tiny Bradshaw- Free For All
Tiny Bradshaw - The Train Kept A'Rollin'
Tiny Bradshaw - Mailman's Sack
Tiny Bradshaw - Soft
Tiny Bradshaw - Bradshaw Boogie
Tiny Bradshaw - Well Oh Well
Tiny Bradshaw - Bride and Groom Boogie
Tiny Bradshaw - Heavy Juice
Tiny Bradshaw And His Orchestra - Gravy Train
Tiny Bradshaw & Sylvester Austin - Ping Pong
Tiny Bradshaw - I'm A Hi-Ballin' Daddy
Tiny Bradshaw & his Orchestra - Boodie Green
Tiny Bradshaw - The Blues Came Pouring Down
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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