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 Chicago blues and boogie-woogie piano player Jimmy "Papa" Yancey. Enjoy!
Jimmy Yancey - Rolling The Stone
You oughta mind your own business, leave other people alone.
You got six months to run your business, six months to leave mine alone.
-- Snooky Pryor
News and Opinion
FBI violated its own rules while spying on Keystone XL opponents
- Houston investigation amounted to ‘substantial non-compliance’ of rules
- Internal memo labels pipeline opponents as ‘environmental extremists’
- FBI failed to get approval before it opened files on protesters in Texas
The FBI breached its own internal rules when it spied on campaigners against the Keystone XL pipeline, failing to get approval before it cultivated informants and opened files on individuals protesting against the construction of the pipeline in Texas, documents reveal.
Internal agency documents show for the first time how FBI agents have been closely monitoring anti-Keystone activists, in violation of guidelines designed to prevent the agency from becoming unduly involved in sensitive political issues. ...
The documents reveal that one FBI investigation, run from its Houston field office, amounted to “substantial non-compliance” of Department of Justice rules that govern how the agency should handle sensitive matters.
One FBI memo, which set out the rationale for investigating campaigners in the Houston area, touted the economic advantages of the pipeline while labelling its opponents “environmental extremists”.
“Many of these extremists believe the debates over pollution, protection of wildlife, safety, and property rights have been overshadowed by the promise of jobs and cheaper oil prices,” the FBI document states. “The Keystone pipeline, as part of the oil and natural gas industry, is vital to the security and economy of the United States.” ...
The FBI files appear to suggest the Houston branch of the investigation was opened in early 2013, several months after a high-level strategy meeting between the agency and TransCanada, the company building the pipeline.
Environmental activists affiliated with the group were committed to peaceful civil disobedience that can involve minor infractions of law, such as trespass. But they had no history of violent or serious crime.
Reid to McConnell on NSA Bulk Surveillance: “You Can’t Reauthorize Something That’s Illegal”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Monday used last week’s appellate court ruling that NSA bulk collection of call records is illegal to bash his Republican counterpart for wanting to keep it going through 2020.
“My friend, the Majority Leader, keeps talking about extending the program for five and a half years,” Reid said from the floor of the Senate, referencing Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “How can you reauthorize something that’s illegal?” Reid asked. “You can’t. You shouldn’t.” ...
Reid offered an alternative Monday, saying that McConnell should seek to advance the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would end the bulk collection of metadata from domestic phone companies. He pointed out that a version of the bill passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in April by a 25 – 2 vote, and predicted that the legislation would be advanced by a full House vote this week.
Rand Paul and Ron Wyden to work together to block Patriot Act renewal
Senators from Kentucky and Oregon launch bipartisan filibuster to prevent a vote on extending the law without amendment
Key provisions of the controversial legislation, including one which allows bulk collection of phone data by the NSA, are set to expire at the end of June. Many Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans support reforming the Patriot Act through the passing of the USA Freedom Act. However, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has been pushing to renew the Patriot Act without amendment.
Although it is unlikely that any clean reauthorization of the Patriot Act would receive a majority in the House of Representatives, the threatened filibuster by Paul and Wyden,first reported by Buzzfeed, would make it impossible for McConnell to even get a vote on extending the Patriot Act. Wyden’s office confirmed the planned filibuster to the Guardian.
Exclusive: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Speaks Out Upon Sentencing to 3.5 Years in Prison
CIA’s Jeffrey Sterling Sentenced to 42 Months for Leaking to New York Times Journalist
Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent convicted of sharing classified information with a New York Times reporter, was sentenced today to three and a half years in prison, a significantly shorter term than had been expected.
Sterling’s lawyers had asked the judge not to abide by sentencing guidelines calling for 19 to 24 years behind bars. They argued Sterling should be treated with the same leniency shown to former Gen. David Petraeus, who was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and avoid prison after admitting to leaking classified information to his biographer and then-girlfriend, Paula Broadwell. Sterling’s lawyers also pointed to the case of former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who was recently released from jail after a 30-month sentence for disclosing the name of a covert agent to a reporter, and to the 13-month-sentence handed down to Stephen Kim, who pleaded guilty to talking about a classified document with a Fox News reporter. ...
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema seemed to agree.
“To put you at ease, the guidelines are too high,” Brinkema said as the sentencing hearing got underway, glancing at Sterling and his lawyers, Ed MacMahon and Barry Pollack.
She went on to say that Sterling’s case was similar to Kiriakou’s, for which she had also been the presiding judge, because both involved the disclosure of the identity of an intelligence agent. She said Sterling should serve more time because Kiriakou had pleaded guilty whereas Sterling pleaded innocent and was found guilty by a jury. Brinkema added that “a clear message” had to be sent to people in the intelligence community that a price will be paid for revealing the identities of intelligence agents and assets, though she also said, in what appeared to be a reference to Petraeus not serving any prison time, that the judicial system had to be fair.
Speaking to the media after the hearing, Pollack said, “We think (the jury) got it wrong. That said, the judge today got it right. She looked at all of the good work Jeffrey Sterling had done throughout his life and gave him a fair sentence under the circumstances. Today closes a sad chapter in a long saga.”
Hersh Tells CNN’s Chris Cuomo ‘Not Out on Limb’ with bin Laden Story
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh appeared on CNN’s “New Day” this morning and host Chris Cuomo had Hersh defend his major story in the London Review of Books on lies President Barack Obama’s administration reportedly told about the killing of Osama bin Laden. ...
Cuomo claimed on air that Hersh had leaned heavily on one anonymous source. Hersh took issue with that characterization.
On sources for his story, he argued, “It’s very tough for guys still inside to get quoted extensively. And there are other people—America uses an awful lot of retired CIA people, military people in the War on Terror. And there are other people, who have retired with a great deal of information. So, it’s much easier to quote some of them than somebody on active duty.”
NBC: Pakistani official helped the US find Osama bin Laden, not a courier
The CIA discovered Osama bin Laden’s location from a Pakistani intelligence official before the American Special Forces raid that killed the al Qaeda leader, NBC News reports.
A Special Forces operator told the network that the government used a cover story to assert that bin Laden’s courier tipped off the CIA in order to protect the identity of the Pakistani official who gave up the information. The military official added that Pakistani intelligence was hiding bin Laden in the country.
The news comes just one day after a controversial report from journalist Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books alleged that a Pakistani intelligence official gave up bin Laden’s location to the CIA.
Seymour Hersh Details Explosive Story on Bin Laden Killing & Responds to White House, Media Backlash
Claim: Sy Hersh’s bin Laden Story Is True — But Old News
R.J. Hillhouse, a former professor, Fulbright fellow and novelist whose writing on intelligence and military outsourcing has appeared in the Washington Post and New York Times, made the same main assertions in 2011 about the death of Osama bin Laden as Seymour Hersh’s new story in the London Review of Books — apparently based on different sources than those used by Hersh.
Bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011. Three months later, on August 7, Hillhouse posted a story on her blog “The Spy Who Billed Me” stating that (1) the U.S. did not learn about bin Laden’s location from tracking an al Qaeda courier, but from a member of the Pakistani intelligence service who wanted to collect the $25 million reward the U.S. had offered for bin Laden; (2) Saudi Arabia was paying Pakistan to keep bin Laden under the equivalent of house arrest; (3) Pakistan was pressured by the U.S. to stand down its military to allow the U.S. raid to proceed unhindered; and (4) the U.S. had planned to claim that bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but was forced to abandon this when one of the Navy SEAL helicopters crashed. ...
Hillhouse also claims that one of her sources told her a particular detail that she did not include in 2011 because she could not confirm it: that the Navy SEALs threw bin Laden’s body out of the helicopter while traveling over the Hindu Kush mountains from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Hersh’s story includes an assertion from his main source that “during the helicopter flight back to Jalalabad, some body parts were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains.” While this seems bizarre in retrospect, it would be plausible if the SEALs had believed at the time that the Obama administration planned to say publicly that bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike.
Hillhouse believes that “Everything that [Hersh] has said has been spot on” but “You can’t help but notice that everything he is saying in the story, which is true, was first broken by me.”
Assad’s Loss Could Be ISIS’s Gain, US Officials Warn
US officials have often tried to present the war on ISIS and the war for regime change in Syria as separate things, and have insisted they could work simultaneously to undermine both Assad and ISIS.
In reality, the US simply doesn’t have any meaningful allies left in Syria, and they’re desperate to the point of trying to create a new rebel faction just so they have someone to back.
And despite admitting a huge problem with their current strategy, Gen. Martin Dempsey insists US policy toward Syria won’t change, and they’ll remain hostile to both ISIS and Assad at the same time.
Early IMF loan repayment could prove costly
Greece orders handover of 750m euros to IMF
Greece's cash-strapped government has begun the transfer of €750m (£544m, $834m) in debt interest to the International Monetary Fund.
The move was carried out as eurozone finance ministers met in Brussels in a bid to unlock the final €7.2bn tranche of Greece's €240bn EU/IMF bailout.
Ministers said Greece had made "progress" but more work was needed.
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said the country faced a cash crisis within a "couple of weeks".
Russia Invites Greece To Join BRICS Bank As Greek Financial Crisis Deepens
Russia on Monday invited Greece to become the sixth member of the new regional bank for the BRICS countries that include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The invitation was extended during a phone conversation between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a government source.
Tsipras, who reportedly called the invitation a “pleasant surprise,” said Athens would consider the option and formally discuss it with other officials of the BRICS countries at an upcoming economic summit in Russia in June, according to the source. ...
The latest move comes as Greece’s ruling left-wing Syriza party announced Sunday that it would make tougher demands upon the country's European creditors. "We have agreed on a tougher strategy to stop making compromises. We were unified and we have a spring our step once again," a Greek financial official said, according to the Telegraph.
Greece’s creditors from the eurozone and the IMF had demanded austerity reforms, including pension cuts, privatizations and an end to collective bargaining, as necessary conditions for Greece to gain access to bailout funds.
Police Torture Victims Earn Historic Reparations Deal
Nine Georgia officers fired in wake of man's death in police custody
A Georgia sheriff’s department has fired nine deputies on Friday in the wake of a college student’s death in police custody on New Year’s Day.
Matthew Ajibade, 22, died in an isolation cell on 1 January after an altercation with deputies. Officials said officers also used a taser on Ajibade, who has a history of mental illness. ...
Sheriff’s department spokesperson Gena Bilbo said the deputies were let go for several reasons, including committing policy violations, not being forthcoming in the investigation and standing by and not doing what they should have done.
The office also said on Friday that is has changed its booking process so that onsite medical personnel will be notified immediately if someone who needs medication is booked. It has also changed its procedures for the use of Tasers and use of force policies.
George Zimmerman wounded in Florida shooting incident
George Zimmerman was involved in a shooting incident in Florida on Monday afternoon, police say.
Zimmerman, who became infamous for shooting dead 17-year-old Trayvon Martin while on a security patrol of a housing complex in 2012, was reportedly slightly wounded in the latest incident. ...
The shooting may have been related to an “ongoing dispute” between Zimmerman and another person, according to Lake Mary’s police chief, Steve Bracknell.
Amid TPP Fight, El Salvador Mining Case Shows Danger of Corporate Tribunals
In a case illustrating the dangers of corporate-friendly provisions buried in trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secret tribunal is on the brink of issuing a ruling any day that that could force the Central American country of El Salvador to pay $301 million to a Canadian-Australian gold-mining firm.
OceanaGold, which purchased the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining in 2013, is suing El Salvador—the most water-stressed country in the region—for an amount equivalent to 5 percent of its gross domestic product for refusing to grant it a permit to put a gold mine into operation.
El Salvador's government says the mining company never complied with the minimum legal requirements for obtaining a permit. In addition, there are serious concerns about the social and environmental impacts of mining in a nation where more than 90 percent of the surface water supply is already contaminated, and more than 50 percent of the 6.3 million people depend on one fragile watershed for drinking water.
Since purchasing Pacific Rim in 2013, Australia's OceanaGold has "stubbornly continued with the case," according to a press release from MiningWatch Canada. The company claims that under the Central American Free Trade Agreement, it has the right to sue the Salvadoran government for passing a law that threatens its bottom line.
"The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (a little-known World Bank-based tribunal) suit, taking place far beyond any democratic process or court system, aims to put a chill on important project and policy making decisions related to large-scale mining in El Salvador," according to the MiningWatch statement. "In particular, a proposed legislated ban on mining has been stalled in the Salvadoran legislature for years. Meanwhile, mining-affected communities lack access to justice for the harms that they have faced. Neither are their appeals on human rights and environmental grounds considered relevant in the strictly commercial ICSID tribunal system."
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature reporting from Washington D. C. on testimony of Big Bill Haywood before the Commission on Industrial Relations.
Tune in at 2pm!
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David Dayen takes Obama's lies about TPP and lays them out without a lily. This is an excellent piece, too rich in detail to abstract here. Here's the intro to get your clicker interested in heading over to read the piece:
The 10 biggest lies you’ve been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Today, the Senate makes a critical test vote on the Obama Administration’s trade agenda, kicking off a process that the White House hopes to end with the signing of an agreement between 12 nations called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In preparation for this vote, President Obama has been deliberately antagonizing his critics, mostly liberal Democrats. Senator Elizabeth Warren is “a politician, like everybody else,” Obama said Friday to Yahoo News, who has “got a voice that she wants to get out there,” framing her concerns as insincere self-aggrandizement. Those concerns, Obama added, are “absolutely wrong.”
This is not the first time that Obama and his aides have depicted opposition on trade as deliberate misinformation designed to stir up a left-leaning political base, or generate campaign contributions; my favorite is the claim that Warren is merely trying to energize a non-existent Presidential campaign.
It’s beneath the dignity of the Presidency to so aggressively paint opponents as not just wrong on the facts, but hiding the truth on purpose. Warren has responded without using the same indecorous tactics. Unfortunately, I don’t have the same self-control. So by way of response, here are ten moments where the President or his subordinates have lied – call it “misled” or “offered half-truths” or whatever; but I’m in an ornery mood so let’s just say lied – about his trade agenda.
Democrats defy White House on trade pact
In a stern rebuke to President Barack Obama, Senate Democrats rebelled against his trade initiative on Tuesday afternoon and voted against even opening debate on the bill.
Democrats have demanded additional worker protections before they would consider voting to approve fast-track trade powers for the president. Shortly ahead of the vote, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rejected the demands, insisting he would not make any guarantees beyond a vote on the fast-track bill.
The ensuing Democratic filibuster sank the legislation on the Senate floor, 52-45, with 60 needed to pass. Trade proponents in both parties vowed to try to put the pieces back together, but with little more than a week before a Memorial Day recess and several expiring laws still to be addressed, the immediate future of Obama’s trade agenda is uncertain.
The delicate flowers of Wall Street: Financial titans warn Hillary to be mindful of their feelings
Wall Street tycoons advise Democrats that the UK elections show people hate it when you say mean things about banks
There is no commodity more precious, more delicate, more vulnerable to lasting and irreparable harm than the feelings of a Wall Street executive. The titans of the financial industry have faced zero criminal liability for nearly destroying the economy in 2008, they still enjoy unrivaled influence over the policy platforms of both major political parties, and no one except Bernie Sanders even considers making a run for the president without hitting up the hedge fund managers for donations. Life is very, very good for the rich and powerful. But it isn’t quite good enough, in their view, largely because certain politicians are apt to say unflattering things about Wall Street.
Politico reported yesterday that, in the aftermath of the Tories’ unexpected rout of Labour in last week’s elections in the United Kingdom, Wall Street executives are warning Hillary Clinton and other Democrats that if they keep it up with the populism, then they’re going to meet the same fate as freshly resigned Labour Party leader Ed Miliband:
These bankers and their ideological supporters say if likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton keeps tacking to the left on Wall Street issues — as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, other progressive Democrats and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are demanding — she could wind up facing the same fate.
“[Prime Minister David] Cameron embraced the role of the financial sector in growing the U.K. economy and creating jobs, never once criticizing hedge funds, banks or the wealthy,” said a top executive at one of Wall Street’s largest firms. “Miliband ran against hedge funds and bankers, promising bonus and mansion taxes and lost big. Is that a lesson for Hillary as well?”
Is it? IS IT??? A few months ago we were told that the kings of Wall Street were none too perturbed with Hillary Clinton’s populist rhetoric because they largely understood that she has to say such things to win the Democratic nomination. In the meantime, they’d keep funneling cash to her campaign and trust that she wouldn’t make life too difficult for them once in office. Now that a politician somewhere in the world has lost badly while campaigning on a platform to attack inequality, they’re seizing the opportunity to make the case that populism is bad and that average people, deep down, carry the fire for hedge fund managers and recoil at the prospect of slightly higher tax rates on unearned wealth.
Keiser Report: Don’t Stop ‘Banker Bashing’!
The Evening Greens
'Climate Denial, Plain and Simple': Feds Approve Shell's Arctic Drilling Plan
"Not only does it put the Arctic's pristine landscapes at a huge risk for oil spills and industrial development but it's utterly incompatible with President Obama's rhetoric to address the climate crisis."
The Obama administration has given conditional approval to Shell to start drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic this summer, dealing a major blow to environmentalists who have sought to protect the vulnerable Beaufort and Chuchki Seas from fossil fuel exploration.
Environmental activists have long warned that there is no way to fully protect against the dangers of offshore drilling, particularly in areas that are hard to reach by emergency vessels. Not only does fossil fuel exploration harm endangered species which rely on the Arctic's pristine ecosystems to survive, but an accident in those remote waters could be more devastating than the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill which killed 11 workers and poured millions of barrels of oil into the Atlantic Ocean, activists say. ...
Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement on Monday:
The Interior Department bent over backward to rush Shell’s permit through the regulatory process so it could move its drillships into the Arctic this summer. Considering Shell ran its drillship aground in Alaska in 2012, it’s hard to fathom how the federal government can rationalize rubber-stamping Shell’s second try at Arctic drilling.
Arctic drilling is a step in the exact wrong direction. Scientists tell us that if we want to avoid the worst effects of climate change, we need to keep Arctic oil in the ground. Arctic drilling gives us a 75 percent chance of an oil spill and a 100 percent chance of climate catastrophe. Interior should send Shell packing.
Dear Oil Industry: Secretary Moniz Seeks Arctic Advice from Petrol Profiteers
Back in October 2013, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz had penned a letter to the NPC, opening with a reflection on what it might take to build “a clean energy economy,” “tackle the issues of climate change” and “protect our environment.” And since a “core component” of the Obama’s administration policy for the Arctic includes “responsibly developing Arctic oil and gas,” Moniz wanted the NPC’s suggestions on how to do that.
The result was a several-hundred-page document titled “Arctic Potential: Realizing the Promise of U.S. Arctic Oil and Gas Resources.” The gist: any risks associated with extracting offshore oil in remote Arctic waters are manageable using “existing, field-proven technology.” Also, the U.S. should lengthen the drilling season and lease durations so that it’s easier to start making money.
You might assume the NPC is an industry lobbying group. But as explained last week, the National Petroleum Council is one of hundreds of “federal advisory committees.” Such committees aren’t always dominated by industry, but the NPC certainly is: it’s member-funded and its 210 members are largely drawn from the fossil fuel business.
US taxpayers subsidising world's biggest fossil fuel companies
The world’s biggest and most profitable fossil fuel companies are receiving huge and rising subsidies from US taxpayers, a practice slammed as absurd by a presidential candidate given the threat of climate change.
A Guardian investigation of three specific projects, run by Shell, ExxonMobil and Marathon Petroleum, has revealed that the subsidises were all granted by politicians who received significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
The Guardian has found that:
- A proposed Shell petrochemical refinery in Pennsylvania is in line for $1.6bn (£1bn) in state subsidy, according to a deal struck in 2012 when the company made an annual profit of $26.8bn.
- ExxonMobil’s upgrades to its Baton Rouge refinery in Louisiana are benefitting from $119m of state subsidy, with the support starting in 2011, when the company made a $41bn profit.
- A jobs subsidy scheme worth $78m to Marathon Petroleum in Ohio began in 2011, when the company made $2.4bn in profit.
“At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive taxpayer subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies’ already enormous profits,” said senator Bernie Sanders, who announced on 30 April he is running for president.
Walmart found to be sourcing bottled water from drought-stricken California
Walmart is the latest company found to be sourcing its bottled water from drought-stricken California, as state residents push for greater regulation of the bottling industry.
Starbucks was moved to alter its bottling practices in California last week and Mount Shasta community members are fighting the opening of a major bottling plant by California-based company Crystal Geyser. Then on Friday, an investigation by CBS13 in Sacramento found that Walmart’s bottled water comes from the Sacramento municipal water supply. ...
“It’s only logical that as the governor has asked all Californians to reduce their water consumption that he holds extractive industries like bottled water companies to the same standard, yet he hasn’t asked anything of them,” said Adam Scow, the California director of Food & Water Watch, which is calling for a moratorium on bottling water.
There is little oversight or monitoring of bottling plants in the state, which are also operated by major corporations including Nestle, Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
What Edward Snowden Said At The Nordic Media Festival
Canada has failed to protect indigenous women from violence, says UN official
Bombard England with Scottish books to save the UK
James Bamford: Why NSA surveillance is worse than you’ve ever imagined
The courts stood up to NSA mass surveillance. Now Congress must act
Should We Relitigate the Iraq War in the 2016 Campaign? You Bet We Should
Yemen’s War Is Redrawing the Middle East’s Fault Lines
Miley Cyrus? Really?
A Little Night Music
Jimmy Yancey - Yancey Stomp
Jimmy Yancey - I Love To Hear My Baby Call My Name
Jimmy Yancey - Five O'Clock Blues
Jimmy Yancey - The Rocks
Jimmy Yancey and Mama Yancey - Pallet on the Floor
Jimmy Yancey - P.L.K Special
Jimmy Yancey - Slow and Easy Blues
Jimmy Yancey - White Sox Stomp
Jimmy Yancey - Yancey Special
Jimmy Yancey - Mournful Blues
Jimmy Yancey - Shave 'Em Dry
Jimmy and Mama Yancey - How Long Blues
Jimmy Yancey - Janie's Joys
'Mama' Estelle and Jimmy Yancey - Santa Fe Blues
Jimmy yancey + Meade Lux Lewis - Yancey's Bugle Call
Jimmy Yancey - The Mellow Blues
Jimmy Yancey - Steady Rock Blues
Jimmy Yancey - Beezum Blues