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 blues and boogie woogie piano player and singer from Louisiana, The Swamp Boogie Queen Katie Webster. Enjoy!
Katie Webster & Gatemouth Brown - Every Day I Have The Blues
“If we are to violate the Constitution, will the people submit to our unauthorized acts? Sir, they ought not to submit; they would deserve the chains that these measures are forging for them. The country will swarm with informers, spies, delators and all the odious reptile tribe that breed in the sunshine of a despotic power ... Do not let us be told, Sir, that we excite a fervour against foreign aggression only to establish a tyranny at home; that [...] we are absurd enough to call ourselves ‘free and enlightened’ while we advocate principles that would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity and establish a code compared to which the ordeal is wise and the trial by battle is merciful and just."
-- Edward Livingston
News and Opinion
Digital privacy? Fuggedaboutit!
How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle
AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.
The company targeted by the intelligence agencies, Gemalto, is a multinational firm incorporated in the Netherlands that makes the chips used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards. Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers around the world. The company operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. One of its three global headquarters is in Austin, Texas and it has a large factory in Pennsylvania. ...
With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless provider’s network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt. ...
Additionally, the spy agency targeted unnamed cellular companies’ core networks, giving it access to “sales staff machines for customer information and network engineers machines for network maps.” GCHQ also claimed the ability to manipulate the billing servers of cell companies to “suppress” charges in an effort to conceal the spy agency’s secret actions against an individual’s phone. Most significantly, GCHQ also penetrated “authentication servers,” allowing it to decrypt data and voice communications between a targeted individual’s phone and his or her telecom provider’s network. A note accompanying the slide asserted that the spy agency was “very happy with the data so far and [was] working through the vast quantity of product.”
NSA & British GCHQ Hacked SIM Card Maker to Steal Encryption Keys to Spy on Billions of Cellphones
UK Admits to Unlawful Surveillance of Torture Victims
In a landmark admission, the U.K. government conceded on Wednesday that British intelligence agencies have been illegally spying on private communications between lawyers and clients for the past five years.
According to the Guardian, the government's admission that it violated human rights law is "a severe embarrassment." ...
The announcement follows several recent legal developments in the high-profile torture case of Libyan political activist Abdelhakim Belhadj, one of the surveillance targets.
Belhadj is suing several British intelligence agencies—including MI-5 and MI-6—for their alleged role, along with the CIA, in his and his wife's rendition, imprisonment, and torture by then-Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi's forces, from 2004 to 2010. His wife, Fatima Boudchar, was pregnant at the time of their kidnapping.
In October, Britain's Court of Appeal ruled that Belhadj's case must be heard, despite attempts by the U.K. government to throw the case out on the grounds that it might damage the country's diplomatic relations with the U.S.
A month later, the government was forced to disclose secret GCHQ, MI-6, and MI-5 policies advising intelligence staff to "target the communications of lawyers" and use legally privileged material "just like any other item of intelligence."
U.S. Official: American Forces May Help Iraq Retake Mosul
Iraqi military forces backed by U.S. airstrikes and possibly American ground troops could launch an assault to wrest control of the city of Mosul from ISIS as early as April, a senior U.S. official told NBC News on Thursday.
As many as 20,000 Iraqi military and Kurdish forces could be involved in the operation to retake Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, said the official with the military's Central Command (CENTCOM). If needed, U.S. ground forces - including special operations and forward air controllers - could be involved, too, the official said.
President Obama has said he would be willing to authorize the limited use of such ground forces if necessary.
US Ground Troops Likely to Join Iraq’s Attack on Mosul
Despite official denials, the US war on ISIS has been careening toward another ground war in both Iraq and Syria. The latest reports suggest the ground component of this war could be very soon to beginning.
In recent weeks the US has been massing a large number of combat troops in Kuwait for just such an eventuality, and within the next couple of months seems to have a ready-made excuse for launching the ground war they’ve repeatedly “ruled out.”
The US war strategy for months has been basically laying out different pitfalls that could “force” them to launch a ground war in response, including putting 320 lightly armed troops on the front line in Anbar Province as “trainers,” waiting for them to get attacked so they’d have to be rescued by more ground troops.
Keiser Report: Global Market For Conflict
The Draft Dodgers of Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine — Roman has been dodging the draft for almost a month now.
A longtime political activist and accountant in Lviv, in western Ukraine, he no longer lives where he’s registered at his parents’ house in a small village outside the city, so he wasn’t there when the local draft board tried to serve him notice on Jan. 16. ... Roman, 24, who declined to give his last name for fear of being tracked down, never showed up for the required medical examination. “I am against every war, but especially this war, because it’s meaningless,” said Roman, who has been staying in an apartment in Lviv that belongs to his wife’s relatives. “I think this conflict was created artificially. The Ukrainian mass media helped this along by spreading this patriotic hysteria.”
Desperate for manpower in its standoff with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, which has lasted some 10 months and killed at least 5,600, the Ukrainian military early this year reinstituted a general draft, giving itself the power to conscript young men between the ages of 20 and 27. But a huge number of Ukrainians, like Roman, are reportedly avoiding service, either because they’re disturbed by the prospect of fighting their fellow countrymen in the rebel ranks, are against the war in principle, or because they are simply afraid to go. Although no exact figures on the number of those avoiding conscription are available, it could be as many as tens of thousands: The military said in September that during partial mobilizations in 13 regions in 2014, 85,792 of those summoned didn’t report to their draft offices and 9,969 were proven to be illegally avoiding service.
Now young men with views like Roman’s are on the run as the government tries to stem a rash of reported draft dodging and is cracking down on anti-war sentiments. Last week, high-profile journalist Ruslan Kotsaba was detained on charges of treason and espionage after he spoke out against mobilization. Days later, President Petro Poroshenko announced that the security service had “detained 19 active critics of mobilization” for their “anti-Ukrainian activity.” New regulations reportedly in the works could soon prevent those eligible from service for going abroad or even leaving their home regions without permission.
Roman, for his part, is nervous. This month, worried that his arguments against the war would attract the attention of the authorities, Roman deleted all the posts on his Facebook page.
Russia starts sending gas to east Ukraine rebel zone
Russia's Gazprom on Thursday started supplying gas directly to the rebel-controlled area in east Ukraine after pro-Moscow separatist leaders said Kiev had cut supplies, the company's chief said. ...
The leader of the separatists' self-proclaimed Lugansk people's republic, Gennady Tsypkalov, confirmed to RIA Novosti that an agreement had been reached with Russia.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a government meeting earlier Thursday Russia could deliver "humanitarian aid in the form of gas supplies" to the separatist-controlled territories and ordered the energy ministry to coordinate this with Gazprom.
Ukraine's pro-Russian separatists said Kiev had ceased gas supplies suddenly, without warning. They said they wanted access to Russian gas.
Naftogaz, Ukraine's national gas company, confirmed the cut-off, and said it was due to pipeline damage caused by fighting.
Mayor of Caracas Arrested After Venezuelan Government Alleges US-Led Coup Plot
The mayor of Venezuela's capital, Caracas, has been arrested security forces amid allegations he was involved in a coup plot directed by the United States.
Long reviled by the leftist government and its supporters, Mayor Antonio Ledezma is one of the most vocal opponents of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), founded by the late Hugo Chávez and now led by President Nicolás Maduro. His arrest stirred outrage among his allies, who gathered in Plaza Venezuela on Thursday night in protest at an arrest they branded politically motivated, and accused the government of dragging him the mayor out of his offices like "a dog." ...
On February 12, an ex-air force general and several other people were arrested for allegedly planning a coup. The government said 11 soldiers, two opposition politicians and a businessman had been implicated in the plot.
On Thursday, the United States swiftly denied its involvement in any coup attempt, and noted that despite the ongoing war of words between Washington and Caracas, the pair maintained close trading relations.
Mass brawl in Turkish parliament over controversial police bill
The Turkish parliament descended into fresh chaos on Thursday with lawmakers exchanging punches for a second time over a controversial bill to boost police powers against protesters, local media reported.
Ruling party and opposition lawmakers engaged in fisticuffs while one MP fell down the stairs as parliament was about to begin a debate on the so-called homeland security bill, the private Dogan news agency reported. ...
Turkey’s opposition fears the bill, introduced by the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) government, will effectively create a police state under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Malcolm X Remembered 50 Years After 1965 Assassination
Pasco, Washington shooting: police will not say how many bullets fired at unarmed man
Officers investigating fatal shooting of Antonio Zambrano-Montes concede for the first time that three officers involved in shooting opened fire
Police investigating the fatal shooting of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, a Hispanic man shot dead by officers in Pasco, Washington, have declined to reveal how many bullets were fired at the unarmed 35-year-old, despite assuring reporters they have accounted for all the rounds discharged during the fatal incident.
At a press conference on Thursday, Sgt Ken Lattin of Kennewick police, the spokesman for the special investigative unit (SIU) of neighboring forces investigating the incident, conceded for the first time that all three officers involved in the shooting had opened fire. He would not reveal how many rounds were discharged, arguing the medical examiner’s office would disclose the tally at a later date.
Zambrano-Montes was killed in a volley of fire last week at a busy intersection in Pasco. Police say the Mexican national was throwing rocks at traffic and officers just before the shooting. Video footage depicting the incident appears to show him running away from police and then raising his arms before turning towards the three officers. He is then shot dead. Community members, police reform advocates and the Mexican foreign ministry have argued the use of force against Zambrano-Montes was grossly unjustified.
A Clinton Scandal Ignites Before Hillary Is Even Officially a CandidateLast Monday, the Guardian newspaper, the BBC, the French newspaper, Le Monde and dozens of other news outlets disclosed that the Swiss banking unit of the global behemoth bank, HSBC, had assisted the ultra rich in hiding assets and providing advice on how to evade domestic tax authorities. ...
That news broke on Monday, February 9. The Clinton bombshell came the next day, Tuesday, February 10, when the Guardian reported that seven clients of the Swiss HSBC bank had cumulatively donated $81 million to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation – a nonprofit that runs the Clinton Global Initiative, the Clinton Presidential Library and numerous other programs. ...
Two of the donors listed in the leaked files are raising eyebrows. According to the Guardian report, one of the donors who had a Swiss HSBC account is Jeffrey Epstein, “the wealthy financier who was jailed for 13 months in 2008 for soliciting sex with underage girls.” Another, reports the Guardian, was Denise Rich, the ex-wife of the now deceased Marc Rich, who fled the U.S. after being indicted for tax evasion, fraud and racketeering and then received a highly controversial pardon by President Clinton just hours before he left office.
On the heels of the Guardian’s report last week comes news in the Wall Street Journal this morning that the Clinton Foundation is also accepting donations from foreign governments. ... According to the Journal, Saudi Arabia had donated between $10 and $25 million since 1999 to the Clinton Foundation with a portion of that coming in 2014. ... Other recent foreign government donors include the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Australia, Germany and the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development agency of Canada, a government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline, according to the Journal report.
Eurogroup might not oppose Grexit
The European Union’s largest countries may have had enough of the new Greek government’s demands, the Maltese finance minister has told MaltaToday, suggesting that they will not stop Greece from leaving the eurozone.
With little more than a week before its €240 billion bailout expires, leaving the Greek government cash-strapped and its banks at risk of being cut off from ECB credit, Greece could be forced to leave the single European currency.
“I think they’ve now reached a point where they will tell Greece ‘if you really want to leave, leave’,” finance minister Edward Scicluna told MaltaToday.
“And I think they mean it because Germany, the Netherlands and others will be hard and they will insist that Greece repays back the solidarity shown by the member states by respecting the conditions,” Scicluna said.
Germany rejected a Greek request for a six-month extension to its eurozone loan programme.
Alexis Tsipras’s government wanted the extension instead of the renewal of the existing deal, which comes with tough austerity conditions.
European finance ministers meet tomorrow Friday in Brussels to discuss a letter by Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. Tomorrow’s vote on the Greek proposals must be unanimous.
Greece and eurozone finance ministers reach deal
Eurozone finance ministers reached an agreement tonight to extend heavily indebted Greece's financial rescue by four months, officials on both sides said.
"It's done. For four months," one said.
An agreement removes the immediate risk of Greece running out of money next month and possibly being forced out of the single currency area.
Eurozone officials said the accord required Greece to submit by Monday a letter to the Eurogroup listing all the policy measures it planned to take during the remainder of the bailout period, to ensure they complied with conditions.
Officials said an outline deal was reached in preparatory talks involving the Greek and German finance ministers, as well as the managing director of the IMF.
It was then agreed by the full 19-member Eurogroup, ending weeks of uncertainty.
Walmart Wage Raise a Win For Workers, Yet Falls Short of Their Demands
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature the story of a converted scab.
Tune in at 2pm!
|
Wal-Mart’s wage hikes come after years of fighting in court
After years of fending off critics over a policy of paying many of its employees as little as the law permits, the discount retailing behemoth is finally raising its minimum wage, for 500,000 employees, or less than a quarter of its global workforce of 2.2 million.
Wal-Mart has been fighting in court with its employees over wages for over a decade. In a regulatory filing in December, the company said a class-action lawsuit commenced in March 2002, alleging the company failed to pay employees for all hours worked, and prevented them from taking their full meal and rest breaks. In November 2007, a judge entered a final judgment for Wal-Mart to pay $188 million, but the company had been appealing that decision since then.
And in November of 2013, the company took heat for staging a food drive, effectively asking its employees to help feed other employees at Thanksgiving.
Wal-Mart said its new wage policy is costing $1 billion, which is 0.8% of the total revenue it took in during the latest quarter.
The Evening Greens
Climbers Can No Longer Scale a Section of Mount Everest Because of Climate Change
After last year's deadly avalanche on the slopes of Mount Everest, authorities in Nepal have ordered climbers to shift their route away from the scene of the snowslide.
Instead of hugging the western shoulder of the rugged Khumbu Icefall, the new path authorized by the body that regulates operations on the world's highest peak will take climbers through the middle of the icefall. The idea is to leave climbers less exposed to the kind of avalanche that killed 16 Sherpa guides in April 2014 — a risk that could become more common as Himalayan glaciers retreat in the face of a changing climate. ...
The Himalayan peaks of Everest and its sisters are sometimes called Asia's water towers. The same snows that pose such a risk to mountaineers are a hydrological storehouse for the continent, but it's been losing a bit of its stock every year.
"Things are changing, that's for sure, the glacier environment, the glacier dynamics — it's all changing," Jeffrey Kargel, a University of Arizona geologist, who has conducted regular studies on glaciers near Everest, told VICE News.
In 2014, a Chinese study found the glaciers atop Everest had shrunk by about 10 percent over the past four decades. A multinational study the year before put the figure at around 13 percent over 50 years and found the mountain's snowline was 180 meters (585 feet) above where it had been in the early 1960s.
Toxic Waste Spill in North Carolina: Coal Ash
Clinton Foundation Receiving Millions From Proponents of Keystone XL
Green groups say revelation raises questions about industry influence over likely 2016 presidential candidate
Fossil fuel corporations and a Canadian trade agency that has promoted the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline have donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, which is jointly run by Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea.
Climate campaigners say that the payments raise concerns about industry influence on Hillary Clinton, a likely 2016 presidential candidate who has so far remained mum on her position on the tar sands pipeline, despite a call from 30 environmental organizations—issued over a year ago—urging her to take a stand against it. ...
According to a voluntary disclosure from the Foundation, in 2014 the not-for-profit received between $250,000 and $500,000 from Canada's Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development department, which has pressed for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The agency's own website states that one of its priorities is to "Deepen commercial relations with the United States through support for innovation and foreign investment and promote Canada as a stable and secure source of energy and energy technology, such as the Keystone XL initiative."
This Canadian agency is not the only donor aligned with big oil.
Numerous fossil fuel giants sent direct payments to the foundation in 2014, including Exxon Mobil Corp., which donated up to $5 million, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., BP, ConocoPhillips Co., Chesapeake Energy Corp., Citgo Petroleum Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp, the Hill reported.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Our embarrassing, servile media: Does the New York Times just print everything the government tells it?
Janet Yellen Walks a High Wire Greased With Oil
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: popular president mired in political turmoil
The Great Drone Contradiction
It’s Time to Kick Germany Out of the Eurozone
Greece Should Not Give In to Germany’s Bullying
How a Snowdenista Kept the NSA Leaker Hidden in a Moscow Airport
Yes, Eric Holder Does Do the Intelligence Community’s Bidding in Leak Prosecutions
When Chapters Collide: a mash-up
A Little Night Music
Katie Webster - I'm Bad
BB King & Katie Webster - Since I Met You Baby
Katie Webster - Pussycat Moan
Katie Webster - Boogie Woogie
Katie Webster - Two-fisted mama
Katie Webster - Those lonely, lonely nights
Katie Webster - Bo Jenkins
Katie Webster - Black Satin
Katie Webster - Hoo Wee Sweet Daddy
Katie Webster - On The Run
Katie Webster & Songettes - Sea Of Love
Katie Webster - The Love You Save May Be Your Own
Katie Webster - Too Much Sugar for a Dime
Katie Webster - Hard lovin' mama
Katie Webster - Baby Come On
Katie Webster - Voodoo 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!
|