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 guitarist and singer Andrew Brown. Enjoy!
Andrew Brown - Mary Jane
“There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America. Only law ensures that we never fall into that abyss—the abyss from which there is no return.”
-- James Bamford
News and Opinion
Court rules to keep classified ‘torture’ docs secret
A district court judge on Wednesday blocked an effort by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to force the CIA to turn over classified records about brutal interrogation programs the agency used to run.
While a 500-page declassified version of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s “torture report” was released last December, the full, 6,900-page version remains classified. So does a controversial set of CIA documents created as part of an internal review started by former Director Leon Panetta.
They will stay secret, a judge on the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia declared Wednesday.
The full version of the Senate Committee report is a document of Congress and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Judge James Boasberg wrote. ...
Meanwhile, the set of CIA documents — known as the “Panetta Review” — are similarly exempt from the law, since they are covered by FOIA exceptions for documents that might harm national security, are internal “deliberative” discussions and are protected by other laws.
NSA Planned to Hijack Google App Store to Hack Smartphones
The National Security Agency and its closest allies planned to hijack data links to Google and Samsung app stores to infect smartphones with spyware, a top-secret document reveals.
The surveillance project was launched by a joint electronic eavesdropping unit called the Network Tradecraft Advancement Team, which includes spies from each of the countries in the “Five Eyes” alliance — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.
The top-secret document, obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was published Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept. The document outlines a series of tactics that the NSA and its counterparts in the Five Eyes were working on during workshops held in Australia and Canada between November 2011 and February 2012.
The main purpose of the workshops was to find new ways to exploit smartphone technology for surveillance. The agencies used the Internet spying system XKEYSCORE to identify smartphone traffic flowing across Internet cables and then to track down smartphone connections to app marketplace servers operated by Samsung and Google. (Google declined to comment for this story. Samsung said it would not be commenting “at this time.”)
As part of a pilot project codenamed IRRITANT HORN, the agencies were developing a method to hack and hijack phone users’ connections to app stores so that they would be able to send malicious “implants” to targeted devices. The implants could then be used to collect data from the phones without their users noticing.
Aiming to Scare Congress into Authorization, NSA Claims Surveillance Program ‘Winding Down’
The news that the NSA is preparing to begin winding down their bulk surveillance program against Americans would be welcome to the general public, but it’s probably not true, and the claim is certainly not directed at us.
Rather, the Justice Department has issued a memo in which they claim the program will begin winding down over the weekend, carefully released to surveillance-friendly Congressmen.
Rand Paul ends marathon filibuster but fails to block Patriot Act
Rand Paul steps down after more than 10 hours in bid to halt the federal government’s collection of its citizens’ phone records
Two years after rising to national prominence with a 13-hour talking filibuster against drones, Rand Paul has made another marathon speech on the floor of the US Senate – only this time in a bid to halt the federal government’s mass surveillance of Americans’ phone records and to derail an extension of the Patriot Act.
Paul spent a total of 10 hours and 30 minutes on Wednesday calling for an end to the National Security Agency’s dragnet surveillance tactics, eating up one of just three legislative days remaining before lawmakers go on recess till 1 June – the same day that key provisions of the Patriot Act are due to expire.
But by stepping aside just before the clock struck midnight, Paul, at least for now, did not meaningfully affect the Senate schedule or block the Patriot Act from moving forward.
The Senate thus looked poised to return to business as usual on Thursday, with a packed two-day schedule that included advancing trade legislation, a highway funding bill and resolving the Patriot Act impasse.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has been pushing for a two-month extension of the Patriot Act in its current form – an approach that Paul and other senators who joined his talkathon deemed “unacceptable”.
Limits on government data collection inadequate, say 65% of Americans
In post-Snowden America, 65% of adults say that limits on the data government agencies can collect about them are not adequate, according to a new study.
A study by Pew Research found that only 6% of US adults were “very confident”, and 25% “somewhat confident”, that government agencies could keep their data private and secure. ...
Americans show a lack of trust in internet companies, with 76% of adults saying they were “not too confident” or “not at all confident” that details of their internet activity would remain private or secure with advertising companies.
Social media sites, search engines and video sites were equally distrusted, with 69%, 66% and 66% of adults saying they were not confident their data would remain private and secure in each respectively.
China warns US plane to leave airspace over disputed islands
China’s navy has issued multiple warnings to a US surveillance aircraft to leave the airspace over artificial islands Beijing is building to strengthen its claims over disputed territory in the South China Sea.
The messages, witnessed by a US TV crew aboard the P8-A Poseidon surveillance aircraft, came soon after the Pentagon said it was considering military patrols in the region and amid concerns that Chinese activity was raising the risk of a confrontation between Washington and Beijing.
CNN reported that a Chinese naval vessel issued eight warnings to the US plane on Wednesday, in an apparent effort to establish a no-fly zone near the artificial islands. When US pilots pointed out that they were flying through international airspace, an exasperated Chinese radio operator responded: “This is the Chinese navy … you go!”
The exchange is an indication of what could lie ahead if the US decides to send military aircraft and ships to the area, where China is locked in a battle of wills over ownership of reefs with the Philippines and several other countries. ...
Beijing says it will not stop reclamation work, with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, describing its sovereignty claims as “hard as a rock”.
Expanding Foothold, Islamic State Captures Syria’s Ancient Palmyra After Fall of Iraq’s Ramadi
In reversal, U.S. official admits Iraq troops reeling from Islamic State offensive
Iraq’s security forces are reeling from last week’s ferocious Islamic State takeover of the capital of Iraq’s largest province and must regroup before even thinking of staging a counterattack, a senior State Department official said Wednesday in the Obama administration’s most sober assessment to date of the battle.
U.S. officials are still “trying to piece together exactly what happened” when Iraqi forces retreated from Ramadi in Anbar province during the Islamic State offensive, said the official, who could not be further identified under the conditions of the briefing he gave reporters. He said the focus now is to “just basically hold together” the Iraqi army’s units that retreated at Ramadi.
The Ramadi outcome underscored how difficult defeating the Islamic State will be, the official said, repeating the Obama administration’s warning that it will require years of effort. ...
The Islamic State is also “better in every respect” than its precursor, al Qaida in Iraq, the official said, noting that the Ramadi campaign involved around 30 suicide car bombers, including 10 that each packed explosive power akin to the bomb that devastated the federal building in Oklahoma City 20 years ago.
“Nobody is kidding themselves about what ISIL was able to pull off last week,” the official said, using the government’s preferred acronym for the Islamic State.
That grave assessment was at odds with the message U.S. officials were flogging only two days earlier, when spokesmen at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon used the word “setback” to describe the Ramadi battle and insisted that the U.S.-led campaign was still moving in a “positive” direction
'Artifacts became extra source of funding for ISIS militants'
Isis 'controls 50% of Syria' after seizing historic city of Palmyra
Islamic State is thought to be holding sway over half of Syria’s landmass after its seizure of Palmyra, where it has reportedly begun massacring a rebellious tribe and faces no opposition to sacking the city’s ancient ruins.
“There are no forces to stop them [entering the ruins],” Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said. “But the important thing also is they now control 50% of Syria.”
Isis seized Palmyra on Wednesday night after a week-long siege that led to the collapse of forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad. The militants are drawing closer to his strongholds of Homs and Damascus and are severing supply lines to Deir Ezzor in the east, which faces an overpowering Isis crackdown. ...
The fall of the city raises questions about the fighting capability and cohesion of Assad’s remaining troops and allied militias, whose rapid collapse surprised observers, given their close proximity to supply lines and the strategic importance of Palmyra. ...
Palmyra is the second city to be seized by Isis in less than a week, after the militants routed Iraqi security forces in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province, highlighting the group’s resilience in the face of a US-led air campaign and the limits of its strategy.
GOP Lawmakers Rip Obama For Not Being Faithful Enough to Saudi Arabia
A growing chorus of Republican politicians are demanding that President Barack Obama respect and follow the agenda of Saudi Arabia, a country known for its export of Sunni extremist beliefs, brutal executions of petty criminals and religious heretics, and suppression of women’s rights.
From negotiations with Iran, to the ongoing Saudi bombing of Yemen, to issues of regional Middle East security, Republicans are insisting that the Saudis should be trusted. ...
In recent years, the Saudi embassy has stepped up its lobbying operation with particular focus on building relations with the Republican Party.
The Saudis have hired two Republican big data firms to help influence American policy; retained former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who leads a major Republican Super PAC, as a lobbyist; and coordinated the lobbying of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, a group that backs GOP demands for intervention in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad. In addition, agents of the Saudi government fund major Washington think tanks, trade associations, and employ a small army of public relation and law firms to exert influence.
The calls by Republicans to back Saudi Arabia are a dramatic shift from 2009, when conservatives reacted angrily when Obama merely bowed to King Abdullah.
US to Give Israel Massive Increase in Military Aid for Iran Deal
Israeli media are quoting officials familiar with the situation as saying there are quiet talks going on between the Obama Administration and Israel’s new far-right government on a “massive compensation” boost in military aid for Israel’s acquiescence on the civilian nuclear deal with Iran.
The deal is expected to be spun in the US and Israel as a huge boost in military aid to keep Israel’s “competitive advantage” over Saudi Arabia after that nation buys new US weapons, though Israel of course isn’t on particularly bad terms with the Saudis to begin with.
In return, Israel would be allowed to keep publicly complaining about the Iran deal, but would privately tone down their efforts to undermine the deal.
Iran agrees to inspections of Yemen-bound ship
An Iranian cargo ship with food and medicines for Yemen which the Saudi and US naval authorities had threatened to block on suspicion that it might be carrying weapons for Houthi militia has changed its route and will not go direct to the Yemeni port of Hodeida, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, told MEE in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
It will go first to Djibouti for inspection by United Nations staff, he said. Amir-Abdollahian's announcement removes the risk of a serious potential clash on the high seas, as a US warship has been shadowing the Iranian ship.
Only if there is a ceasefire around the Yemeni port of Hodeida and UN relief workers can deploy there will the ship, the "Iran Shahed", proceed to Hodeida, the deputy foreign minister added.
Israel rules out any payment to 'enemy' Iran
After a Swiss court reportedly ordered an Israeli oil firm to compensate Iran over a scrapped joint venture, Israel said Thursday that its laws prohibited any payment to "the enemy."
Iranian state news agency IRNA said Wednesday that the court had found Israel's Trans-Asian Oil (TAO) liable for payment of $1.1 billion to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
It said that NIOC and an Israeli company had signed an agreement in 1968 to transport Iranian oil to the Jewish state across the Red Sea.
But after the 1979 Islamic revolution which overthrew Iran's pro-Western shah, the new regime cancelled the contract because it did not recognise the Jewish state.
Former US official has epiphany and discovers the glaringly obvious:
US architect of Iran economic isolation warns sanctions could backfire
Former administration official predicts Washington’s favourite foreign policy tool will eventually be turned against the US
Richard Nephew, a former senior US official who was instrumental in constructing the global sanctions wall around Iran, is now warning that Washington’s fondness for sanctions as a foreign policy tool could have serious repercussions for the US.
Nephew is now at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs where he has produced a paper on The Future of International Sanctions in a Global Economy. It argues that the US, as the world’s sole superpower, has been able to exploit an asymmetric advantage in imposing economic sanctions, but that advantage is fast eroding and it is time to rethink:
As with the use of cyber warfare and drone strikes, the United States may find in the future that, having created a precedent that targeted sanctions are an appropriate response for all circumstances determined by the United States unilaterally, it is facing similar measures against its own companies, banks, and citizens. ...
Asymmetric tools work really well while they’re asymmetric and your power is greater than everyone else’s, but not so much in twenty, thirty, forty years time.
U.S. Releases Contents Of Bin Laden’s English-Language “Bookshelf”
The U.S. government this week is releasing the list of English-language texts that were recovered from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound after the U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader in 2011. ...
The list, embargoed until Wednesday morning and provided in advance to BuzzFeed News, includes volumes by Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist Noam Chomsky, former intelligence official and antiwar activist Michael Scheuer, conspiracy texts about 9/11 and the Illuminati, and a book by Bob Woodward. Bin Laden had these materials in digital files. The list also includes numerous materials about France, including information on France’s economy and defense, as well as materials that analysts think were probably used by other residents of the compound — including a suicide prevention manual. ...
“In terms of the materials that are there, some of the things that we’ve found to be of note were that bin Laden was probably an avid conspiracy theorist,” the senior intelligence official said in a phone call. “Of the 38 full-length English-language books he had in his possession, about half of them were conspiracy theory books” about the Illuminati, Freemasons, and other conspiracy topics. Texts listed on the “bookshelf” include Bloodlines of the Illuminati by the American conspiracy theorist Fritz Springmeier; The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 by the 9/11 conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin; and The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, a book by the Holocaust denier and anti-Semite Eustace Mullins.
The list also includes materials from congressional hearings about Project MKUltra, the so-called “mind control” program conducted by the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s. Also on the list: maps of Iranian nuclear sites.
Marcy Wheeler: The Bin Laden outrage nobody is talking about: What the government’s OBL “treasure trove” really reveals
The government has long claimed that the Bin Laden raid was an intelligence windfall. Now it's playing defense.
About 10 days ago, Seymour Hersh wrote a story claiming much of what the government has told us about the Osama bin Laden raid was false. Among other claims, Hersh said the government had exaggerated the “trove” of intelligence seized from bin Laden’s compound. “We were told at first,” Hersh quoted the primary source for his story, “that the Seals produced garbage bags of stuff and that the community is generating daily intelligence reports out of this stuff….But nothing has come of it.”
Wednesday morning, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released what it calls a “sizable tranche” of documents it explains were seized from the compound. That “sizable tranche” consists of just 409 documents, of which only 103 were previously considered classified. (That ODNI calls this to be “sizable” may support Hersh’s claim there was less information than claimed.)
Buzzfeed, which got advance release of the materials, emphasized the “conspiracy” texts bin Laden had. It quoted someone to whom they bizarrely gave anonymity, saying, “‘Of the 38 full-length English-language books he had in his possession, about half of them were conspiracy theory books’ about the Illuminati, Freemasons, and other conspiracy topics.” ...
ODNI had to invent 8 different categories, all of which consist partly of “English language books,” to be able to make the claim that half the “English language books” classified as “English language books” were conspiracy theories. ...
So America’s spooks have released a bizarrely-organized group of bin Laden materials, using a pre-embargo release to over-emphasize how much OBL wallowed in conspiracy theories (though he did do some of that), but they insist this is not an attempt to spin Seymour Hersh as a conspiracy theorist.
Obama’s police reform plans emphasize optics. Black lives matter much more.
President Obama announced his decision Monday to limit the flow of military-style weaponry to local police departments via the federal government. While the plan is receiving understandable praise, his comments were all too presidential. Meaning: he talked about optics.
“Law enforcement agencies should create policies and procedures for policing mass demonstrations…to minimize the appearance of a military operation,” said Obama.
In a short address, no word is extraneous, so let’s not let his use of “appearance” slide. The president was clearly referring to scenes from Ferguson and Baltimore that saw warrior cops, guns raised, projecting great clouds of tear gas at unarmed crowds. He’s not wrong that optics were critical here: these militarized images set Twitter ablaze. ...
The president’s comments, unwittingly or not, echo the words of James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling–the social scientists we can curse for introducing “broken windows” policing to the U.S. with an essay in The Atlantic in 1982. The idea, exuberantly embraced by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton throughout his career, saw the intensive criminalization of vandalism and petty crime under the pretext that this would foreclose escalations to violent crime. In practicality, it meant treating poor, black communities as always-already criminal. Wilson and Kelling noted that patrolling in broken windows policing was more about creating the feeling of security, rather than actually lowering crime. Obama’s similar focus on the “feeling” of safety around police shows a troubling disregard to the racist and violent recent history of a law enforcement ideology focused on producing affect, rather than addressing underlying problems. ...
But, of course, mitigating the optics of warrior cops does not eliminate the fury undergirding revolt; the violence was already there before the tear gas canisters flew and the tanks rolled up. The violence is the background context in which young black people get shot with impunity. Mike Brown was not killed by a grenade launcher, Darren Wilson had a handgun; it didn’t take a BearCat armored vehicle to snap Freddie Gray’s spine; Eric Garner was choked to death on a street corner by NYPD officers, no military-grade weaponry needed.
Matt Taibbi on Baltimore, Freddie Gray and How Legal System Covers Up Police Violence
Baltimore officer made Taser threat to witness who filmed Freddie Gray stop
Police lieutenant Brian Rice, who has been charged with manslaughter, shown on video taken by witness to crucial first stop made by the police van carrying Gray
The Baltimore police lieutenant charged with manslaughter over the death of Freddie Gray threatened to use his Taser on an eyewitness who filmed part of the crucial first stop made by a police van carrying the 25-year-old after he was arrested, according an investigation by the Baltimore Sun. ...
On Wednesday the Baltimore Sun interviewed the male eyewitness who filmed the video of the first stop, who did not want to be named, along with another eyewitness, 58-year-old Michelle Gross, and quoted from further extracts of the video that have not been broadcast.
According to this account of the first stop, Gross at some point shouted to Gray asking him if he was OK, but received no response. The anonymous eyewitness then called out to one of the officers, William Porter, to ask for a police supervisor to assist with the unfolding incident.
The anonymous witness said Porter gestured towards Lieutenant Brian Rice, the senior officer involved in the arrest, who then moved towards him with other officers.
The officers did not tell the man to stop filming, but Rice allegedly took out his Taser and threatened to use it if the witnesses did not disperse.
On 25 April, the Baltimore city police publicly released 16 surveillance camera videos related to the Gray incident, but the department’s YouTube channel now only features 15.
According to the Baltimore Sun, the video removed was from surveillance camera 2108, which captured parts of the van’s first stop.
Matt Taibbi: World’s Largest Banks Admit to Massive Global Financial Crimes, But Escape Jail (Again)
Latest Guilty Pleas Prove Big Bank Criminality 'Rampant,' But Jail Time Non-Existent
In the wake of Wednesday's announcement that five global financial institutions have agreed to plead guilty to multiple crimes and pay about $5.6 billion in penalties for manipulating foreign currencies and interest rates, corporate watchdogs are reiterating the call to 'break up the banks' in light of their ongoing malfeasance.
As with other recent settlements, Wednesday's news provides further evidence to those who say certain megabanks are still considered "too big to fail"—or criminal bankers to jail.
"There are two messages in today’s plea deal," said Public Citizen president Robert Weissman in a statement on Wednesday. "First, criminality is rampant on Wall Street. Second, the era of too-big-to-jail is alive and well. Even as they beat their chests announcing how tough they are, government regulators refuse to apply to the giant banks the same rules that apply to everyone else."
In announcing the settlement, Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the megabanks' crimes "a brazen display of collusion" that caused "pervasive harm."
Lynch declared: "Today’s historic resolutions are the latest in our ongoing efforts to investigate and prosecute financial crimes, and they serve as a stark reminder that this Department of Justice intends to vigorously prosecute all those who tilt the economic system in their favor; who subvert our marketplaces; and who enrich themselves at the expense of American consumers."
But as Weissman noted, "important questions remain about this plea deal," including:
Will individual executives be prosecuted? And did the DOJ charge the parent companies in this case to avoid triggering potential sanctions with real and significant business consequences for the banks, including charter revocation hearings? The public deserves answers to these questions. In that information is some insight into whether the government continues to protect the megabanks—those colloquially labeled “too big to jail.”
"What becomes clear is that regulators genuinely are afraid of enforcing the law when it comes to the megabanks," Weissman concludes. "As a result, and notwithstanding today's announcement and others like it, these banks are not deterred from violating the law—indeed, they are literally not subject to the same standards as other banks and other companies. A democratic society cannot tolerate having banks above the law. There's a solution to this problem: break them up."
Will your job get outsourced to a robot?
Decrying Corporate Greed, McDonald's Cooks and Cashiers Confront Shareholders
Calling for higher wages and fairer treatment, McDonald's cooks and cashiers will gather with progressive leaders on Wednesday and Thursday for large protests outside the company's shareholder meeting in Oak Brook, Illinois.
The two-day demonstration comes in the aftermath of the largest-ever strike to hit the fast-food industry—a 236-city walkout that included strikes and protests in 40 countries and 100 cities around the globe, from Amsterdam to Zurich—and just one day after the Los Angeles city council overwhelmingly passed its own minimum wage hike. ...
Last year, according to the Chicago Tribune, about 500 workers and community activists staged peaceful protests at the McDonald's annual meeting. On the first day, 138 people were arrested, including 101 workers, for trespassing.
This year's action is supposed to be even bigger.
"The anticipated jump in numbers reflects the growth of the movement and the expansion of the strategy during this past year," David Moberg writes at In These Times. "The movement has stirred up interest among workers far beyond fast foods, including student workers, adjunct teachers and retail workers. The number of people taking part in the national protests/strikes have grown as well."
Moberg adds: "But at the same time, the movement has focused very intently on one company, McDonald’s, since it is the biggest fast-food franchise company in the world and helps set global patterns.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature reporting on the testimony of Clarence Darrow before the Commission on Industrial Relations.
Tune in at 2pm!
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13 Democratic Corporate Whore Senators sell out again.
Senate votes to give Obama fast-track authority on Pacific Rim trade deal
President Obama’s bid to secure a broad trade deal with Pacific Rim nations cleared a major hurdle Thursday as the Senate voted to advance legislation that would give him expanded authority to complete the accord.
On a vote of 62 to 38, the measure for fast-track authority received just enough Democratic support to keep it moving, following a last-ditch lobbying effort by Obama and his top advisers. The fate of the legislation, known as the Trade Promotion Authority, hung in the balance for more than 30 minutes during the vote, as it remained shy of the 60 ayes needed to advance and as more than a dozen senators from both parties negotiated the last details of the legislation and side issues.
The TPA bill is now more likely to pass the Senate, possibly over the weekend, but supporters still must defeat a few amendments that administration officials say would draw a veto. The measure would then head for an uncertain fate in the House, where Democratic opposition to Obama’s trade agenda is deeper.
TPP Could 'Undermine Health of Web' Say 250+ Tech Companies and Digital Rights Groups
'We simply cannot allow our policymakers to use secret trade negotiations to make digital policy for the 21st century.'
More than 250 tech companies and digital rights organizations on Wednesday sent a joint letter to Congress, blasting the corporate-backed trade deal they say "actively silences the voices of Internet users, start-ups, and small tech companies...while undermining the health of the entire Web."
"The Fast Track...process actively silences the voices of Internet users, start-ups, and small tech companies while giving the biggest players even more power to set policy that benefits a few select companies while undermining the health of the entire Web," said Evan Greer, campaign director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future.
In particular, the letter expresses concerns about how the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership—which it notes goes "far beyond the scope of traditional trade policy"—would impact everything from net neutrality to online freedom of expression to digital innovation. ...
That such provisions have been crafted with minimal transparency should serve as a warning, said author and journalist Cory Doctorow, who declared: "Democracies make their laws in public, not in smoke-filled rooms. If TPP's backers truly believed that they were doing the people's work, they'd have invited the people into the room. The fact that they went to extreme, unprecedented measures to stop anyone from finding out what was going on—even going so far as to threaten Congress with jail if they spoke about it—tells you that this is something being done to Americans, not for Americans."
Presidential aspirant Martin O’Malley may have some explaining to do about his record as mayor and the hyper-agressive policing he brought to Baltimore.
During Martin O’Malley’s time as mayor (1999 to 2006), the crime rate in Baltimore dropped 16 percent while arrests rose dramatically, something his critics say was a result of heavy-handed “zero tolerance” policing tactics. In 2005, 108,447 people were arrested, or about one-sixth of the city’s population, according to the Washington Post. About two-thirds of those arrested were jailed for nonviolent offenses.
Critics of O’Malley, who has said he would run to the left of Hillary Clinton, say he helped create the police culture that has culminated in Freddie Gray’s death, and the unrest that followed.
“We still have men who are suffering from it today,” Marvin ‘Doc’ Cheathem, a past president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, which won a court settlement stemming from the city’s policing policies, told the Post. “The guy is good at talking, but a lot of us know the real story of the harm he brought to our city.”
Bishop Douglas Miles, a community leader, told the Post that O’Malley’s police department “set the tone for how the police department in Baltimore has reacted to poor and African American communities since then.”
“None of us are in favor of crime,” Miles said. “But we also recognized that you couldn’t correct the problem through wholesale arrests.”
To be fair, police brutality in Baltimore wasn’t created during O’Malley’s time in office. Back in 1942, 2,000 black residents marched from Baltimore to Annapolis to protest the fatal shooting of a black soldier by a white city cop.
The Evening Greens
'Nightmare' California oil spill damages rare coastal ecosystem
Cleanup crews scrambled to contain a nine-square-mile spill on a rural stretch of the California coastline on Wednesday, following a pipeline break that dumped up to 105,000 gallons of crude on land and into the ocean, blackening a popular state beach. ...
The cause of the leak has not been identified, Darren Palmer, the chairman and CEO of Plains All-American Pipeline, said, but shortly before the accident, he said, the company had “mechanical issues” with its pumping units. Until then, Palmer said, the pipeline had not malfunctioned since 1987, when it was built to carry processed crude from processing plants on the coast to refineries in Texas.
“We deeply regret that this incident has occurred at all,” Palmer said. “We apologize for the damage it has done to the environment. We apologize to the residents and visitors for the inconvenience it has caused, especially on this Memorial Day weekend.” ....
Environmentalists said this latest accident hit hard, because it is soiling the Gaviota coast, a rare Mediterranean-climate region where northern and southern plants and wildlife meet. There are only five such regions in the world, all of them located at the western edges of continents and all of them unique for their biological diversity.
Because it has not been urbanized, the Gaviota coast region, which stretches from Goleta to the northern boundary of the Vandenberg air force base, also has been viewed as the healthiest remaining coastal ecosystem in southern California – at least, until now.
Scientists Conclusively Link BP Oil Spill with Unprecedented Dolphin Die-Off
Scientists have for the first time made a conclusive link between the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and an unprecedented dolphin die-off along the Gulf's northern coast. ...
By comparing tissue samples from dead dolphins found along the northern Gulf of Mexico—including 22 from Louisiana's Barataria Bay, one of the most heavily oiled coastal areas in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster— with similar samples taken from dead dolphins found in the states that weren't within the BP oil footprint, the scientists discovered that stranded and dead bottlenose dolphins within the spill range had lung and adrenal lesions consistent with petroleum product exposure.
"Animals with adrenal insufficiency are less able to cope with additional stressors in their everyday lives," said Stephanie Venn-Watson, the study’s lead author and veterinary epidemiologist at the National Marine Mammal Foundation, "and when those stressors occur, they are more likely to die."
The dolphins in the spill-affected areas "had some of the most severe lung lesions I have seen in the over 13 years that I have been looking dead dolphin tissues from throughout the U.S.," added Kathleen Colegrove, the study’s lead veterinary pathologist based at the University of Illinois. Only 2 percent of reference dolphins had this lesion at all.
Nestle bottled water operations spark protests amid California drought
Petition carrying 500,000 signatures delivered to Sacramento and Los Angeles water bottling facilities as state suffers through fourth straight year of drought
Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of two Nestle bottling plants in California on Wednesday to deliver petitions demanding the company stop bottling operations in the drought-stricken state.
The petitions – carrying more than 500,000 signatures – were accepted by Nestle staff members at both the Sacramento and Los Angeles bottling plants, protesters said, as residents and activists chanted slogans like “Our water is not for sale” and “Water is a human right, don’t let Nestle win this fight.” ...
California has now entered its fourth consecutive year of drought, and residents of the state’s cities have been told to cut their consumption by as much as 36%.
“It is very disturbing and actually quite offensive that a foreign company is taking our water, bottling it and selling it back to us,” said Nick Rodnam, one protester at the Los Angeles plant, who launched one of the petitions on Change.org.
While Starbucks recently pulled its water bottling operations from the state on ethical grounds, Nestle and other companies like Walmart continue to source water for bottling in California, buying at the same rate as residents and selling at one hundred times the profit.
Giant Gas Pipeline Next to Nuclear Power Plant Could Cause a New York 'Fukishima,' Say Experts
Experts are claiming that a massive natural gas pipeline being constructed next to a major nuclear power plant in New York could cause a meltdown just 40 miles north of Manhattan.
The company Spectra Energy has started construction on a 42-inch-diameter pipeline that will pass only 105 feet from the 1970s-era Indian Point nuclear facility on the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York. The $1 billion pipeline would carry natural gas obtained via fracking from Appalachia to New England.
If this pipe ever exploded, it could damage two diesel fuel tanks and a switching station that provide power for the nuclear plant, said Paul Blanch, a retired engineer with decades of experience in nuclear safety who opposes the pipeline. Without power, engineers might not be able to shut down the Indian Point reactors to avert a major disaster.
"We would have a total loss of power and would wind up with exactly what happened at Fukushima," Blanch told VICE News. "Fukushima didn't melt down because of the tsunami. They melted down because they didn't have power." ...
A National Transportation Safety Board study published in January found that three large pipelines exploded in the United States in the previous five years. The worst was a 30-inch natural gas pipeline that ruptured in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno in 2010, engulfing a neighborhood in flames and killing eight.
A recent fire at Indian Point following the explosion of a transformer — the third transformer failure in eight years — has heightened concerns that safety measures and inspections are inadequate.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Revealed: BP's close ties with the UK government
The Last Defenders of the NSA
A Little Night Music
Andrew Brown - I Got News For You
Andrew Brown - You Made Me Suffer
Andrew Brown - You Better Stop
Andrew Brown - It's My Own Fault
Andrew Brown - Love Me
Andrew Brown - For Liz
Andrew Brown - Let's Get Together
Andrew Brown - If We Try