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 gospel singer, guitarist, songwriter and leader of the Staples Singers, Roebuck "Pops" Staples. Enjoy!
Staple Singers - Why Am I Treated So Bad
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
-- Harry S. Truman
News and Opinion
As Another Major Bank Avoids Jail, Occupy Wall Street Protester Cecily McMillan Gets 3-Month Term
Cecily McMillan didn't get off easy. Her case is a threat to the future of protest
On Monday, Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan was sentenced to three months in jail and five years of probation, after she faced down a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for her conviction of assaulting a police officer. Her supporters, unsurprisingly, feel the sentencing is excessive – especially given her testimony that the officer in question first grabbed her breast – but it's also clearer than ever that McMillan's conviction will have a chilling effect on the future of serious activism. ...
The threat of Cecily McMillan's possible punishment may become her legacy, not that she "got off easy" or, saddest of all, that she stood up and got everyone to listen in the first place. Indeed, many Occupy activists who got the attention of the police have been silenced by an unfair justice system – and their stories may never be heard at all.
Protesters are much less likely to participate in collective action if they know they can be arrested for oftentimes specious reasons, detained for long periods of time and then inconvenienced for months – even years – before they see a day in court. McMillan may have been one of the last Occupiers facing trial, but she was by no means the only immediate victim of police violence targeting protesters. ...
McMillan, in part by refusing to accept a plea deal and going to trial, became the face of what many New Yorkers wanted to ignore: that police were able to destroy and discredit OWS with their brutal tactics and a constant media drumbeat that the protestors themselves were to blame for the violence inflicted upon them.
Many postmortem diatribes have been written about "why Occupy Wall Street failed", and most of these explorations are simply an excuse to punch some hippies, by claiming that protesters were too disorganized and scatterbrained to affect real change. But these stories usually fail to contend with the overwhelming police brutality endured by OWS protesters and how effective that violence was in discouraging supporters – and, ultimately, in forcing them to dissolve and reorganize into other groups tackling economic and social inequality one piece at a time.
Data Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas
The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas.
According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government. Instead, the agency appears to have used access legally obtained in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to open a backdoor to the country’s cellular telephone network, enabling it to covertly record and store the “full-take audio” of every mobile call made to, from and within the Bahamas – and to replay those calls for up to a month.
SOMALGET is part of a broader NSA program called MYSTIC, which The Intercept has learned is being used to secretly monitor the telecommunications systems of the Bahamas and several other countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. But while MYSTIC scrapes mobile networks for so-called “metadata” – information that reveals the time, source, and destination of calls – SOMALGET is a cutting-edge tool that enables the NSA to vacuum up and store the actual content of every conversation in an entire country.
All told, the NSA is using MYSTIC to gather personal data on mobile calls placed in countries with a combined population of more than 250 million people. And according to classified documents, the agency is seeking funding to export the sweeping surveillance capability elsewhere.
The program raises profound questions about the nature and extent of American surveillance abroad. ... “The Bahamas is a stable democracy that shares democratic principles, personal freedoms, and rule of law with the United States,” the State Department concluded in a crime and safety report published last year. “There is little to no threat facing Americans from domestic (Bahamian) terrorism, war, or civil unrest.”
Snowden Docs Reveal NSA, DEA Teamed Up to Record Every Cell Phone Call in Bahamas
China reacts furiously to US cyber-espionage charges
China's foreign ministry summoned the US ambassador on Tuesday after the US indicted five Chinese military-affiliated hackers for stealing commercial secrets in an unprecedented cyber-espionage case.
China's foreign ministry called the allegations preposterous and accused the US of double standards. The assistant foreign minister, Zheng Zeguang, summoned the US ambassador, Max Baucus, to lodge a formal complaint, according to state media. The authorities in Beijing also suspended China's role in a joint anti-cybertheft group with Washington.
Zheng told Baucus that China would "take further action on the so-called charges", according to the official Xinhua news agency.
On Monday the US justice department accused China of stealing sensitive information from five US enterprises and a trade union. The FBI printed wanted posters accusing the People's Liberation Army (PLA) officials Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu and Gu Chunhui of a series of offences, including conspiring to commit computer fraud, aggravated identity theft and economic espionage.
Read this. It's an important perspective on the government's oppressive and indiscriminate use of its powers against citizens.
Secrets, lies and Snowden's email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit
My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation of surveillance equipment on my company's network.
My company, Lavabit, provided email services to 410,000 people – including Edward Snowden, according to news reports – and thrived by offering features specifically designed to protect the privacy and security of its customers. I had no choice but to consent to the installation of their device, which would hand the US government access to all of the messages – to and from all of my customers – as they travelled between their email accounts other providers on the Internet.
But that wasn't enough. The federal agents then claimed that their court order required me to surrender my company's private encryption keys, and I balked. What they said they needed were customer passwords – which were sent securely – so that they could access the plain-text versions of messages from customers using my company's encrypted storage feature. (The government would later claim they only made this demand because of my "noncompliance".) ...
What ensued was a flurry of legal proceedings that would last 38 days, ending not only my startup but also destroying, bit by bit, the very principle upon which I founded it – that we all have a right to personal privacy. ...
The problem here is technological: until any communication has been decrypted and the contents parsed, it is currently impossible for a surveillance device to determine which network connections belong to any given suspect. The government argued that, since the "inspection" of the data was to be carried out by a machine, they were exempt from the normal search-and-seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment.
More importantly for my case, the prosecution also argued that my users had no expectation of privacy, even though the service I provided – encryption – is designed for users' privacy.
No Apology, But CIA Vows to Stop Using Health Workers as Spies
Following international outcry from health professionals and a deadly polio epidemic in several countries, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has vowed to never again use fake vaccination campaigns or implement community health workers in their clandestine operations overseas.
In a letter to the deans of 12 public health schools in the U.S., President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco wrote: “I wanted to inform you that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) directed in August 2013 that the agency make no operational use of vaccination programs, which includes vaccination workers.” ...
In 2011, while trying to capture Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, the CIA employed a ruse in which vaccination teams where sent to scout the compound where the al-Qaeda leader was thought to be living. Following the raid by U.S. soldiers that ended with Bin Laden's death, and when it was discovered how the vaccination teams were a key part of the operation, anger and mistrust among Pakistanis —already skeptical of western-backed medical teams—fueled widespread violence against legitimate health workers trying to deliver vaccinations and other care.
Subsequent to that, polio rapidly spread in Pakistan and other countries.
Who are Hunter Biden's Ukrainian bosses?
The appointment of Joe Biden's son to the board of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma has raised eyebrows the world over. The names of the company's actual owners are being protected like state secrets.
Who does Hunter Biden really work for? It's the question the media has been asking since Wednesday (14.05.2014), when it was revealed that the son of the US vice president joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in April.
The former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski also sits on the company's board, but his photo only appeared on Burisma's website on Friday (16.05.2014), even though he joined the company in January. Then the president of Ukraine was still Viktor Yanukovych, with whom Kwasniewski had previously negotiated on behalf of the European Parliament to secure the release of imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The remaining board members include two Americans, two Cypriots, and four young Ukrainians, almost all of whom spent stints in Russia during their careers. The bulk of the company's management was replaced in 2013, and Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Center in Kyiv, says this may indicate a change in ownership. "It simply wasn't reported," he told DW. ...
Ukrainian media reports about Burisma reveal an impenetrable web of companies, most of which are registered in Cyprus. One name, Mykola Slotshevski, appears more than once. The 47-year-old is thought to have been the original owner of the company - at least until recently. ... In late 2013, Slotshevski denied that he owned Burisma, and an employee in his office reported that he sold the company - but no evidence of this has come to light yet.
Ballots or barricades for Ukraine voters?
Less than a week before Ukraine's presidential elections, it's still uncertain whether access to voting stations can be facilitated at all. The election commission in Kyiv has spoken of massive problems in the embattled east of the country.
Due to fighting between government troops and heavily-armed pro-Russian separatists, the government says many areas have not even been able to begin preparations for the election, with making it impossible to hold a fair vote in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The result? The Ukraine government warns that without decisive action from security forces, nearly two million voters could be prevented from voting.
Dollar Dive: China's economy soon to leave US far behind
Putin yet to seal gas deal on China visit, wins support on Ukraine
China and Russia failed to sign a $400 billion gas supply agreement on Tuesday, despite growing urgency for the Kremlin to seal a deal as it faces economic and political isolation in the West over the crisis in Ukraine.
Negotiators from both countries have been unable to bridge differences on price, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Shanghai, meaning that the contract was not signed on Tuesday as many in the industry had predicted.
But there is still a chance that the two sides could agree before Putin leaves China on Wednesday, or, more likely, in time for an economic forum in the Russian city of St. Petersburg later this week.
Despite disappointment so far over an energy deal seen as vital to both countries' long-term economic interests, Putin did receive a rare nod of support from Chinese President Xi Jinping over the Ukraine crisis.
In a statement issued after the two leaders met, Russia and China called for the de-escalation of tensions in Ukraine and for "peaceful, political ways to resolve existing problems." The countries also referred to the crisis as "domestic".
Libyan Military Splinters as Rivals Prepare for Civil War
The weekend takeover of Libya’s parliament by the leader of the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army and it’s head Gen. Khalifa Hifter has made an unstable situation much worse, and has the nation’s countless armed factions picking sides for what is shaping up to be a full-scale civil war.
Though Gen. Hifter’s Army is itself just another “irregular force,” parts of Libya’s actual military are rushing to his side, including the Special Forces, which endorsed Hifter’s “Operation Dignity” against Islamist MPs.
Libya’s Army Chief of Staff, which remains loyal to the government, appears to know it can’t win the fight alone, and has issued a call for the Islamist dominated militias to come to Tripoli to fight by their side to restore the power of Prime Minister Malteeq, whose government was in power for only a few hours before the coup.
Libya's ongoing violence: "This is what democracy looks like in the global south when it's exported by NATO"
Thai army chief urges rivals to talk after declaring martial law
Thailand's army declared martial law nationwide on Tuesday to restore order after six months of street protests that have left the country without a proper functioning government, but insisted the surprise intervention was not a military coup.
While troops patrolled parts of Bangkok and army spokesmen took to the airwaves, the caretaker government led by supporters of self-exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra said it was still running the country. ...
Twenty-eight people have been killed and 700 injured since the anti-government protests began in November last year.
The crisis is the latest installment of a near-decade-long power struggle between former telecoms tycoon Thaksin and the royalist establishment that has brought the country to the brink of recession and even raised fears of civil war. ...
Thailand has been stuck in political limbo since Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's younger sister, and nine of her ministers were dismissed on May 7 after a court found them guilty of abuse of power.
The military, which put down a pro-Thaksin protest movement in 2010, has staged numerous coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. The last one was in 2006 to oust Thaksin, who has lived abroad since 2008 but wields political influence and commands huge support among the poor.
Civil rights icon John Lewis denounces controversial Obama court nominee for Georgia
Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis on Monday denounced President Barack Obama’s effort to appoint a former defender of the Confederate flag to a federal judgeship in Georgia.
Lewis’ condemnation of Michael Boggs could be enough to sink his chances of being confirmed by the Senate.
Lewis, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, said Boggs’ record “is in direct opposition to everything I have stood for during my career.” Lewis also said that Boggs misrepresented his record in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I do not have a vote in the Senate, but if I did I would vote against the confirmation of Michael Boggs,” Lewis said in a written statement. ...
Civil rights groups have raised objections to Boggs’ record as a state legislator in Georgia from 2001 to 2004, including his vote to keep the Confederate emblem on the Georgia state flag.
Boggs also drew fire for his support of a bill to make public the names of abortion doctors and for backing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Too Big To Jail? Credit Suisse Bank Pleads Guilty to Decades of Tax Evasion, But Execs Avoid Prison
Credit Suisse pleads guilty to criminal charges in US tax evasion settlement
Credit Suisse Group has pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it helped Americans evade taxes, becoming the first bank in more than a decade to admit to a crime in the US. It will now pay a long-expected fine of $2.5bn (£1.5bn).
“This case shows that no financial institution no matter its size or global reach is above the law,” said the attorney general, Eric Holder. He said the years-long investigation had uncovered evidence of an “extensive and wide-ranging” conspiracy to hide taxes from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the bank’s involvement in it. ...
[Brady Dougan, Credit Suisse’s chief executive officer] said there had been “no material impact” on the bank’s business resulting from the heightened public attention and the bank would “now focus on the future and give our full attention to executing our strategy”. ...
The deal comes after a Senate panel in February concluded Credit Suisse recruited for over 22,000 US customers with assets of $10bn-$12bn, the vast majority of which were hidden from US authorities.
EU Commission charges HSBC, JPMorgan, Credit Agricole with rigging
European Union antitrust regulators charged Europe's biggest bank HSBC, U.S. peer JPMorgan and France's Credit Agricole on Tuesday with rigging financial benchmarks linked to the euro, exposing them to potential fines. ...
U.S. and European regulators have so far handed down some $6 billion in fines to 10 banks and brokerages for rigging the London interbank offered rate (Libor) and its euro cousin Euribor while prosecutors have also charged 16 men with fraud-related offences.
"The Commission has concerns that the three banks may have taken part in a collusive scheme which aimed at distorting the normal course of pricing components for euro interest rate derivatives," the EU competition authority said.
The three banks and ICAP, which refused to settle the case in December, could face penalties of up to 10 percent of their global turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
JPMorgan said the EU charges were without merit and that it would defend itself while Credit Agricole said it would examine the charge sheet. HSBC said it would defend itself vigorously.
The Evening Greens
New owner of railroad through Quebec town plans to ship crude oil again
The Wall Street firm that owns the railroad through Lac-Megantic, Quebec, is making plans to ship crude oil again through the lakside town devastated last summer by a fiery train derailment.
John Giles, the CEO of the newly created Central Maine & Quebec Railway, told the Associated Press on Friday that the company plans to spend $10 million upgrading the tracks during the next two years and hopes to resume crude oil shipments within 18 months.
“We have chosen not to handle crude oil and dangerous goods through the city until we’ve got the railroad infrastructure improved, and made more reliable,” Giles told the AP.
On July 6, 2013, 47 people were killed and much of the town’s center was destroyed when a 72-car train loaded with crude oil ran away unattended and derailed, igniting a massive inferno.
The rail carrier operating the train, the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, filed for bankruptcy after the derailment. In December, Fortress Investment Group, a New York buyout firm, bought the railroad’s assets in an auction for about $15 million.
Debate: Is Obama Doing Enough to Fight Climate Change?
San Francisco considers banning exports of coal and petcoke
At a hearing scheduled for Thursday, the San Francisco Environment Commission will consider a proposal to ban the bulk transportation of “hazardous fossil fuel materials,” such as coal and petroleum coke, within city limits. If the commission agrees, the proposal will be passed up to city and/or port leaders for further consideration. The proposed ban would also apply to crude oil, though crude exports are currently banned nationally — a ban that industry is fighting to overturn.
San Francisco isn’t acting alone in trying to stymie exports of coal and other fossil fuels to Asia. In February, the city’s lower-income neighbor, Oakland, rejected a bid by Bowie Resource Partners to use its port as a coal export terminal. And residents throughout the Pacific Northwest have been successfully campaigning against proposals to build hulking new coal terminals along their waterfronts.
Joshua Arce, president of the San Francisco Environment Commission, which advises city lawmakers, said West Coast cities and ports can work together to help bottle up the nation’s coal supplies and keep them in the ground, where they can do the climate and the environment no harm. He said they can also work to prevent petcoke, which is left behind after tar-sands oil from Canada is refined, from reaching export markets, where it can be burned to produce a filthy form of energy.
Airborne measurements confirm leaks from oil and gas operations
CIRES, NOAA study finds more methane, ozone precursors and benzene than estimated by regulators
During two days of intensive airborne measurements, oil and gas operations in Colorado’s Front Range leaked nearly three times as much methane, a greenhouse gas, as predicted based on inventory estimates, and seven times as much benzene, a regulated air toxic. Emissions of other chemicals that contribute to summertime ozone pollution were about twice as high as estimates, according to the new paper, accepted for publication in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
“These discrepancies are substantial,” said lead author Gabrielle Petron, an atmospheric scientist with NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Emission estimates or ‘inventories’ are the primary tool that policy makers and regulators use to evaluate air quality and climate impacts of various sources, including oil and gas sources. If they’re off, it’s important to know.”
Obama -- The 'Drill Baby Drill' President
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
The Big Telecoms Want to Force Your Favorite Websites into the Slow Lane
Why is it OK for mine operators to break the law?
Why Everything You've Read About Ukraine Is Wrong
Unconfused and Unrepentant
A Little Night Music
Pops Staples - Down In Mississippi
The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself/I'll Take You There
Pops Staples - Waiting for My Child
The Staple Singers - People Get Ready
Pop Staples - World In Motion
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Pops Staples - Nobody's Fault But Mine
Pops Staples - I Shall Not Be Moved
Pops Staples - Gotta Serve Somebody
Albert King, Pops Staples, & Steve Cropper - Tupelo
Pops Staples - Black Boy
Pops Staples - Jesus Is Going To Make Up (My Dying Bed)
Pops Staples - Grandma's Hands
The Band & The Staple Singers - The Weight
The Staple Singers - Freedom Highway
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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