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 from Louisiana, one of the blues piano players that shaped the Chicago blues, Henry Gray. Enjoy!
Henry Gray, Kid Ramos & Lynwood Slim - Early in the Morning, What'd I Say
“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
-- H.L. Mencken
News and Opinion
Immediately After Launching Effort to Scuttle Iran Deal, Senator Tom Cotton to Meet with Defense Contractors
In an open letter organized by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., 47 Senate Republicans today warned the leaders of Iran that any nuclear deal reached with President Barack Obama could expire as soon as he leaves office.
Tomorrow, 24 hours later, Cotton will appear at an “Off the Record and strictly Non-Attribution” event with the National Defense Industrial Association, a lobbying and professional group for defense contractors. ...
Cotton strongly advocates higher defense spending and a more aggressive foreign policy. As The New Republic’s David Ramsey noted, “Pick a topic — Syria, Iran, Russia, ISIS, drones, NSA snooping — and Cotton can be found at the hawkish outer edge of the debate…During his senate campaign, he told a tele-townhall that ISIS and Mexican drug cartels joining forces to attack Arkansas was an ‘urgent problem.'”
Obama denounces Republican letter on Iran nuclear talks
White House accuses senators of making common cause with Iranian hardliners, while Tehran expresses surprise at Republican tactics
The Obama administration has reacted furiously to an open letter to Iran from Republican senators aimed at derailing nuclear negotiations. The White House accused them of seeking to circumvent the constitution and trigger a “rush to war”.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, also poured derision on the Republican letter in a statement expressing astonishment that members of Congress would seek to undermine a US administration by writing directly to a foreign power, and suggesting that the letter’s authors had much to learn about international and even US law.
However, the sharpest reaction to Monday’s open letter came from the White House. President Obama accused its 47 Republican signatories of “wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran”.
The US vice-president, Joseph Biden, said the letter, drafted by Tom Cotton, a freshman senator from Arkansas, was “expressly designed to undercut a sitting president in the midst of sensitive international negotiations”. ...
Many commentators noted that the letter, like the Republican invitation to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to address Congress last week without consulting the White House, marked a dramatic break from the tradition that partisan politics should “stop at the water’s edge” and not spread into critical US defence and security policy abroad.
White House & Republican senators clash over nuke letter to Iran
Israel’s Defense Minister Accuses English-Speakers of Plotting Against the Government
Hawkish Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon on Sunday accused "English-speakers" of plotting against the government in the run-up to the country's parliamentary election, drawing criticism from leftist movements and other opponents.
Yaalon made the statement at an event at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyaon just ten days before the March 17 elections. ... "There is an unprecedented campaign here to encourage left-wing and Arab voters [to go to the polls]," Yaalon told the crowd gathered at the private university for his talk. "And English-speakers are the ones who are doing it."
Yaalon's accusation echoes a similar claim made by Netanyahu earlier this month that "very powerful organizations with foreign funding in the tens of millions of shekels" are trying to "topple the Likud" and comes just days after thousands of Israelis attended an anti-government rally on Saturday.
Saturday's protest brought around 35,000 Israelis to Tel Aviv's central Rabin Square under the banner, "Israel Wants Change." High-ranking former security service officials speaking at the event condemned Netanyahu's policies as "frightening" and accused him of creating an "apartheid" society. Attendees at the event from across the political spectrum expressed differing concerns, ranging from the high cost of living to the stagnated peace negotiations with the Palestinians, but all agreed that Netanyahu should not get a fourth mandate to lead the country. ...
Israel's election is currently a neck-and-neck race with polls showing just a couple of seats separating Netanyahu's Likud and the Zionist Union a center-left alliance of Hatnuah and the Labor Party.
Hamas offers long-term calm in exchange for end of blockade
Hamas recently sent a series of messages to Israel indicating interest in a long-term ceasefire lasting for several years, in exchange for an end to the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, sources told The Times of Israel.
Senior Hamas officials met with Western diplomats about the ceasefire, and also reached a number of understandings about the character of the ceasefire, also known as a tahdiyya.
During the talks, Hamas officials emphasized that they were willing to agree on a ceasefire of at least five years (though some sources said the offer was for 15 years), during which time all military activities “above and below ground” from both parties would end. At the same time, the blockade on Gaza would be removed, including restrictions on exports, and Israel would allow the construction of a seaport and an airport.
State Dept: We Expect Next Israeli Govt to Support Two-State Solution
Comments Come as Likud Brags About Undermining Two-State Solution
In what appears to be a laughable case of wishful thinking, the US State Department today insisted that they expect whoever wins next week’s Israeli election will form a government “committed to a two-state solution.”
The comments come after a weekend statement from Likud, Israel’s current ruling party, quoting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring past support for a two-state solution null and void, and Likud officials bragging that Netanyahu had undermined Palestinian statehood throughout his political career.
Netanyahu’s officeis denying the quotes, though Likud is his party, and they continue to distribute the statement among synagogues in the lead up to the election, hoping to get votes on a platform opposed to Palestinian statehood.
Palestine govt slams Israeli FM beheading remarks, says they're no different from ISIS
East Ukraine rebel fighters have withdrawn weapons, says Ukraine president
The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, says pro-Russia rebels have withdrawn a significant amount of weaponry from the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, three weeks after a ceasefire deal was struck.
Attacks have fallen significantly, but accusations of continued violence on both sides show the fragility of the peace accord agreed in Minsk last month, which calls for the withdrawal of heavy weapons from frontlines.
“There is a ceasefire, or there isn’t. It depends on how you look at it, Poroshenko said in a televised interview. “We can say that we managed to halt the offensive drive of the aggressor.”
“Ukraine has withdrawn the lion’s share of its rocket and heavy artillery systems. The Russian-backed fighters have also withdrawn a significant amount.”
While the Minsk agreements have been broadly observed along the frontlines in the past two weeks, Kiev has accused the rebels of continuing to fire on government positions and using the truce to regroup and rearm for a further offensive, a charge the rebels deny.
US Sends Armored Vehicles, 3,000 Troops to Baltics - Pentagon Says Move Targets Russia
Some 3,000 US ground troops along withover 100 US armored vehicles, heavy equipment and attack helicopters, have been deployed to the Baltic state of Latvia for exercises.
NATO is trumpeting the operation, which spans Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, as Operation Atlantic Resolve, and Pentagon officials say the operation is targeted at neighboring Russia.
No Legal Redress for Victim of 'Kafkaesque Nightmare' at Guantanamo
A Syrian man lost his legal bid on Monday to seek damages from the United States for the torture he suffered at the hands of U.S. authorities during his seven years at Guantanamo that continued a "Kafkaesque nightmare."
The setback for Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al-Janko is a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday (pdf) to decline to review an appeals court ruling in January 2014that he could not sue for the torture he experienced at the offshore prison because of the Military Commissions Act (MCA).
The MCA states: "No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination."
The high court's decision leaves that ruling in place.
This is a really interesting commentary by Cory Doctorow, worth reading in full. Here's a taste:
Technology should be used to create social mobility – not to spy on citizens
Why spy? That’s the several-million pound question, in the wake of the Snowden revelations. Why would the US continue to wiretap its entire population, given that the only “terrorism” they caught with it was a single attempt to send a small amount of money to Al Shabab?
One obvious answer is: because they can. Spying is cheap, and cheaper every day. ... IT has been responsible for a 2-3 order of magnitude productivity gain in surveillance efficiency. The Stasi used an army to surveil a nation; the NSA uses a battalion to surveil a planet.
Spying, especially domestic spying, is an aspect of what the Santa Fe Institute economist Samuel Bowles calls guard labour: work that is done to stabilise property relationships, especially the property belonging to the rich.
The amount a state needs to expend on guard labour is a function of how much legitimacy the state holds in its population’s reckoning. ... When coercion gets cheaper, the point at which it makes “economic sense” to allow social mobility moves further along the curve. The evidence for this is in the thing mass surveillance does best, which is not catching terrorists, but disrupting legitimate political opposition, from Occupy to the RCMP’s classification of “anti-petroleum” activists as a threat to national security. ...
Why spy? Because it’s cheaper than playing fair. Our networks have given the edge to the elites, and unless we seize the means of information, we are headed for a long age of IT-powered feudalism, where property is the exclusive domain of the super-rich, where your surveillance-supercharged Internet of Things treats you as a tenant-farmer of your life, subject to a licence agreement instead of a constitution.
The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple’s Secrets
Researchers working with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple’s iPhones and iPads, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Intercept.
The security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements at a secret annual gathering, called the “Jamboree,” where attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a year before the first iPhone was released.
By targeting essential security keys used to encrypt data stored on Apple’s devices, the researchers have sought to thwart the company’s attempts to provide mobile security to hundreds of millions of Apple customers across the globe. Studying both “physical” and “non-invasive” techniques, U.S. government-sponsored research has been aimed at discovering ways to decrypt and ultimately penetrate Apple’s encrypted firmware. This could enable spies to plant malicious code on Apple devices and seek out potential vulnerabilities in other parts of the iPhone and iPad currently masked by encryption. ...
“If U.S. products are OK to target, that’s news to me,” says Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University’s Information Security Institute. “Tearing apart the products of U.S. manufacturers and potentially putting backdoors in software distributed by unknowing developers all seems to be going a bit beyond ‘targeting bad guys.’ It may be a means to an end, but it’s a hell of a means.” ...
The Jamboree was held at a Lockheed Martin facility inside an executive office park in northern Virginia. Lockheed is one of the largest defense contractors in the world; its tentacles stretch into every aspect of U.S. national security and intelligence. The company is akin to a privatized wing of the U.S. national security state — more than 80 percent of its total revenue comes from the U.S. government. Lockheed also owns Sandia Labs, which is funded by the U.S. government, whose researchers have presented Apple findings at the CIA conference.
Wikipedia to file lawsuit against NSA and US Department of Justice
Wikipedia will take legal action against the National Security Agency and the US Department of Justice challenging the government’s mass surveillance programme.
The lawsuit, to be filed on Tuesday, alleges that the NSA’s mass surveillance of internet traffic in the United States – often called “Upstream” surveillance – violates the US constitution’s first amendment, which protects freedom of speech and association, and the fourth amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. ...
“By tapping the backbone of the internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy,” Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation wrote in a blog post.
“Wikipedia is founded on the freedoms of expression, inquiry, and information. By violating our users’ privacy, the NSA is threatening the intellectual freedom that is central to people’s ability to create and understand knowledge.“
Stop Spying on Wikipedia Users
Today, we’re filing a lawsuit against the National Security Agency to protect the rights of the 500 million people who use Wikipedia every month. We’re doing so because a fundamental pillar of democracy is at stake: the free exchange of knowledge and ideas. ...
The notion that the N.S.A. is monitoring Wikipedia’s users is not, unfortunately, a stretch of the imagination. One of the documents revealed by the whistle-blower Edward J. Snowden specifically identified Wikipedia as a target for surveillance, alongside several other major websites like CNN.com, Gmail and Facebook. The leaked slide from a classified PowerPoint presentation declared that monitoring these sites could allow N.S.A. analysts to learn “nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet.”
The harm to Wikimedia and the hundreds of millions of people who visit our websites is clear: Pervasive surveillance has a chilling effect. It stifles freedom of expression and the free exchange of knowledge that Wikimedia was designed to enable.
During the 2011 Arab uprisings, Wikipedia users collaborated to create articles that helped educate the world about what was happening. Continuing cooperation between American and Egyptian intelligence services is well established; the director of Egypt’s main spy agency under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi boasted in 2013 that he was “in constant contact” with the Central Intelligence Agency.
So imagine, now, a Wikipedia user in Egypt who wants to edit a page about government opposition or discuss it with fellow editors. If that user knows the N.S.A. is routinely combing through her contributions to Wikipedia, and possibly sharing information with her government, she will surely be less likely to add her knowledge or have that conversation, for fear of reprisal.
And then imagine this decision playing out in the minds of thousands of would-be contributors in other countries. That represents a loss for everyone who uses Wikipedia and the Internet — not just fellow editors, but hundreds of millions of readers in the United States and around the world.
Venezuela sanctions: Maduro fumes at 'imperialists' as Obama increases sanctions
Venezuela called its highest-ranking diplomat in Washington back to Caracas in a further escalation of tensions as the Obama administration imposed sanctions on members of the government of President Nicolás Maduro, who promised to retaliate against the “imperialist elite” in the US.
Monday’s announcement that Maximilien Sánchez Arveláiz would return to Caracas, came as the US ratcheted up its diplomatic row with Venezuela, declaring the country a national security threat and expanding targeted sanctions to an additional seven top government officials.
In an executive order issued by Barack Obama, the White House said the situation in Venezuela posed an “extraordinary threat” to US national security.
The declaration of Venezuela as a threat to US national security is the first step towards imposing wider sanctions against the South American country, which sits on the world’s largest oil reserves and is a major supplier to the United States.
Cuba throws weight behind Venezuela in row with US
Cuba rallied behind Venezuela on Tuesday, offering its closest ally "unconditional support" after US President Barack Obama authorized new sanctions against officials of the turbulent South American oil producer. ...
Cuba joins other leftist regional governments in closing ranks with Caracas in the deepening US-Venezuela row. ...
Ecuador's Foreign Minister warned Monday that the Southern American bloc UNASUR would not allow foreign intervention or a coup in Venezuela.
The European Union said Tuesday it has no plans to follow the US lead and impose sanctions on Venezuela. ...
"No one has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state or to declare, without foundation, someone a threat to national security," Cuba said.
"How is Venezuela a threat to America? A thousand miles away, without strategic weapons or having the means or staff to plot against the American constitutional order, the declaration sounds barely credible," the Havana statement said.
Deadline Looms As Greece Haggles with Euro-Creditors Over Bailout Terms
The newly elected Greek government and its international creditors are preparing for a turbulent period of negotiations starting in Brussels Wednesday, when technical groups will scrutinize the terms of the $270 billion bailout plan Greece has been receiving in installments since 2010. ...
A possible agreement between Greece and the Eurozone in April could release the next round of installments that Greece needs to repay its debtors. Some observers argue that requiring Greece to pay off the entirety of the loans could result in negative economic and political repercussions, including the possibility that Greece would leave the Eurozone.
Greece's Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera over the weekend that he and other members of his government are not "attached to our posts."
"If needed, if we encounter implacability, we will resort to the Greek people either through elections or a referendum," he said in what some read as a veiled threat to leave the Eurozone.
German conservative says Greece better off outside euro zone
A leading lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc has described a Greek exit from the euro zone as a "great opportunity" for the country to bolster its economy, in the latest sign that German sentiment towards a so-called "Grexit" is shifting.
Peter Ramsauer, a former transport minister under Merkel and chairman of the economic affairs committee in the German parliament, wrote in top-selling German daily Bild on Monday that more muddling through with Greece made little sense.
Although no longer a member of the government, Ramsauer is arguably the most prominent politician in Merkel's camp to come out in favour of Greece leaving the euro zone.
"By leaving the euro zone, as Finance Minister (Wolfgang) Schaeuble has suggested, the country could make itself competitive again from a currency perspective with a new drachma," Ramsauer, a member of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), wrote in Bild.
Martin Luther King III: Don’t Idolize My Father, Embrace His Ideals of Freedom, Justice and Equality
Ferguson judge behind aggressive fines policy resigns as city's court system seized
A judge in Ferguson, Missouri, who is accused of running a modern-day debtors’ prison while fixing traffic tickets for himself and owing $170,000 in unpaid taxes, resigned on Monday as state authorities seized control of the city’s court system.
Ronald J Brockmeyer stepped down as Ferguson’s municipal court judge after Missouri’s supreme court ordered that all the court’s cases be transferred to the St Louis County circuit court, according to a source who was not authorised to speak publicly about the decision.
Under the same ruling, Judge Roy L Richter of the Missouri court of appeals will be assigned to the county’s circuit court, where he will hear all of Ferguson’s municipal court cases “to help restore public trust and confidence” in the system. ...
Brockmeyer, 70, was singled out by investigators as a driving force behind Ferguson’s strategy of using its municipal court to generate revenues aggressively. Investigators found that Brockmeyer had boasted of creating a range of new court fines, “many of which are widely considered abusive and may be unlawful”.
Wisconsin students protest police shooting of unarmed Madison teenager
Hundreds of Wisconsin high school and university students left their classrooms and occupied the state capitol building on Monday to protest about the fatal police shooting of unarmed black teenager Tony Robinson, who was killed by a white Madison police officer last week.
The protesters held signs bearing the hallmarks of the national movement against police brutality that has erupted following the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson in August 2014, and chanted “Hands up, don’t shoot!”
Wisconsin teen shot dead by police had anxiety and depression, files show
An unarmed biracial man fatally shot by a white police officer tended to be an impulsive risk-taker and faced a choice between a middle-class lifestyle and the gang world, according to court documents related to his conviction in 2014.
The file connected to 19-year-old Tony Robinson’s conviction last year for armed robbery shows he was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder and anxiety and depression. The documents were contained in a report by a state Department of Corrections agent.
Madison police officer Matt Kenny shot Robinson on Friday evening while investigating a call that the young man was jumping in and out of traffic and had assaulted someone. The officer heard a disturbance and forced his way into an apartment where Robinson had gone. Authorities said Kenny fired after Robinson assaulted him.
The shooting is the latest in a series of police-involved shootings to spark racially tinged demonstrations, including in Ferguson, Missouri, where officer Darren Wilson shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in August. That shooting sparked weeks of unrest.
The Associated Press had described Robinson as black based on police descriptions of him as African American. But at a news conference Monday, family members repeatedly emphasized that he embraced a biracial identity from having a white mother and black father.
Atlanta-area police shoot dead unarmed and naked African American man
A white, Atlanta-area police officer shot dead a naked and unarmed African American man acting erratically in his apartment complex and who was possibly suffering from a mental illness, the county police chief said.
A Dekalb County police officer responded to a caller who said a man was “acting deranged, knocking on doors, and crawling around on the ground naked,” on Monday around 1pm local time, county police chief Cedric Alexander told reporters.
The officer encountered the man, who was not wearing any clothes, in the parking lot, Alexander said at a conference published online by local broadcaster Fox 5.
Alexander said the man ran at the officer, who backed up and ordered the person to stop before shooting him twice. Police did not find a weapon at the scene, he said.
Alexander said the officer, who had been with the department for seven years, was equipped with a taser at the time of the shooting.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a first-hand account from a miner who survived the Layland Mine Disaster and was rescued with 41 others after four days and nights of entombment in an airtight chamber "with a line of brattice works three deep on either side of them."
Tune in at 2pm!
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So-Called Right to Work Legislation Only Possible Under Total Corporate Control
Wisconsin ’right-to-work’ critic will expand company in Minnesota
The owner of a Wisconsin company invited to move to Minnesota in protest of its new "right-to-work" law says he plans to at least expand in the Gopher State -- provided enough contracts come his way to support the business.
James Hoffman, owner of Black River Falls-based Hoffman Construction Co., which works mostly on highway construction projects, said his current plans are to more than double the size of his Lakeville office by the end of the year.
Hoffman said Monday night that the reason is twofold: he believes the right-to-work law will ultimately cost his company money, and he sees Minnesota’s proposal to increase transportation funding as offering greater business opportunities. ...
In late February, Hoffman testified before the Wisconsin Legislature against the business-backed bill, saying it would create tension among his employees and would be an "unproductive distraction for our company."
On Monday, Hoffman said the law will make it more difficult to gain skilled workers, which he depends on when calculating productivity in his bids.
"If I don’t get as productive a worker, it will ultimately cost me more. ... In my opinion, there will be no savings to the owner, and no savings to the DOT in the long run," Hoffman said.
The Evening Greens
Chemical Spill in Houston Channel Brings 'Uncertainty and Fear' to Local Residents
An unknown quantity of dangerous chemicals spilled into the Houston Ship Channel on Monday after two 600-foot ships collided in foggy conditions, raising alarm among nearby residents who have suffered repeated hazards in this highly industrialized area.
One of the ships involved in the collision was carrying hundreds of thousands of gallons of MBTE (Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether), a highly-flammable gasoline additive with a strong odor, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that MTBE is a potential carcinogen for humans.
While there were no direct injuries reported from the collision, it was not immediately clear what the long-term impacts will be. The National Transportation Safety Board announced Monday it is sending a team to investigate the accident.
The Houston Channel is a major conduit connecting the Houston Port with the Gulf of Mexico. Surrounded by numerous refineries, and not far from oil fields, the channel handles bulk transport of petrochemicals and other products.
Nearby residents and environmental organizations have repeatedly raised concerns about the harmful impacts of frequent spills on human health, wildlife, and the marine ecosystem. The Healthy Port Communities Coalition released a statement Monday calling on "Houston's petrochemical giants to act now to protect their neighbors."
Not so fast, Shell
Royal Dutch Shell has insisted that it is going to press ahead this year with its plans to continue its high cost, high risk hunt for oil in the U.S. Arctic Ocean this year (aka the world’s most obvious unburnable carbon).
While its plan still rests on some outstanding permits from the federal government that have been highly contentious, Shell has kept busy making plans to ensure it can press play immediately if it gets a federal stamp of approval. This has included a secretly negotiated deal to park their Arctic drilling fleet at the Port of Seattle. ...
To be clear, the problem with Shell’s Arctic fleet is that it is the infrastructure to hunt for oil that we simply cannot afford to burnif we want any hope for a safe climate (not to mention the incredibly high risksof Arctic drilling, especially for a company whose Arctic track record reads like a bad joke). A recent study published in Nature was definitive: Arctic oil is off limits. It is 100% unburnable. We are living in a time when we know from conclusive science that somewhere around ¾ of the fossil fuels we already know about have to stay underground. How then can it possibly be justifiable to go out and keeping looking for more? ...
The Port Authority has the power to rescind the Shell lease, and just yesterday the Mayor and Council responded to public outcry and internal concerns and called for a review of Shell’s docking permits. This followed a lawsuit filed last week by a coalition of environmental organizations against the Port’s decision.
Exxon Wants $1 Million Fine for 2011 Yellowstone Oil Spill Reduced Again
The challenge by the world's second-most-valuable company reinforces its reputation for protracted legal fights over penalties and court judgments.
More than three and a half years after an ExxonMobil pipeline spilled 63,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River, the world's second-most-valuable company is still fighting regulators over being assessed a $1 million fine.
Exxon last month attacked the legal underpinnings of the government's case, which stems from the July 2011 rupture of the Silvertip Pipeline near Laurel, Mont. The oil giant argued that it complied with federal regulations and that pipeline regulators overstepped their authority in interpreting the legal requirements. It also said that all but one of the violations should be dropped and that the government should, at a minimum, "significantly reduce" the penalties. ...
Earlier this year, the Yellowstone River was fouled by another oil pipeline break. This time it was the Poplar Pipeline, which ruptured near Glendive, Mont., and sent more than 30,000 gallons of oil into the river. The cause of the Jan. 17 spill is still under investigation, but the pipeline was found to be uncovered and unprotected at the time of the break—as was Exxon’s Silvertip pipeline.
The current fine of $1.045 million for the Silvertip spill has already been lowered once. The original penalty of $1.7 million was reduced after Exxon appealed the proposed fine and argued its case in a July 2013 closed hearing. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)’s final order, made public in January, removed one of the violations and included the smaller fine.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Republicans are mad about Hillary Clinton's emails. So pass FOIA reform
Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands by Richard Sakwa review – an unrivalled account
Washington should reject Netanyahu’s propaganda
Dividing the Pie: Cuba’s Ration System After 50 Years
Army discharge policy: Changing while remaining the same
A Little Night Music
Henry Gray - Gray's Bounce
Henry Gray & The Cats - Sweet home Chicago
San Diego Blues Festival - 2012 - Henry Gray
Henry Gray - That Ain't Right
Henry Gray - Mean Old World
Henry Gray - It Ain't No Use
Henry Gray - That Ain't Right
Henry Gray - Can't Last Too Long
Henry Gray - Matchbox Blues
Henry Gray - Watch Yourself
Henry Gray - Worried Life Blues
Henry Gray - How Could You Do It
Henry Gray - Showers Of Rain
Henry Gray - Blues Won't Let Me Rest
Henry Gray - Mojo Boogie
Henry Gray - Talking About You
Henry Gray - Everybody's Fishin'
Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Henry Gray with Howlin' Wolf Band - Little Red Rooster
Henry Gray - I'm A Lucky Lucky Man
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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