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.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago bluesman John Primer. Enjoy!
John Primer - Pay The Price
A fool's paradise is better than none.
-- Anonymous
News and Opinion
Congress Pursues Deal on Phone Data Collection in Rare Talks During Recess
Senior lawmakers are scrambling this week in rare recess negotiations to agree on a face-saving change to legislation that would rein in the National Security Agency’s dragnet of phone records, with time running out on some of the government’s domestic surveillance authority.
Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said a series of phone calls and staff meetings over the weeklong Memorial Day break should be enough to reach agreement on changes to the USA Freedom Act. Three senators need to be won over for the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act, which has already been approved by the House and would change the post-Sept. 11 Patriot Act’s provision that the N.S.A. has used to sweep up phone records in bulk. ...
Even face-saving changes will be difficult. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and one of the authors of the House bill, said the demands of Senate Republicans were “a lot of nonsense.” Democrats and many libertarian-minded Republicans would rather allow any eavesdropping authority to lapse than to give in.
Scaremongering about the Patriot Act Sunset
In a last-ditch effort to scare lawmakers into preserving unpopular and much-abused surveillance authorities, the Senate Republican leadership and some intelligence officials are warning that allowing Section 215 of the Patriot Act to sunset would compromise national security. (One particularly crass example from Senator Lindsey Graham: “Anyone who neuters this program is going to be partially responsible for the next attack.”) ...
First, there’s no evidence that the call-records program is effective in any meaningful sense of the word. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which reviewed classified files, “could not identify a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.” The President’s Review Group, which also reviewed classified files, determined that the call-records program had “not [been] essential to preventing attacks,” and that, to the extent the program had contributed to terrorism investigations, the records in question “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner” using targeted demands. ...
Second, there’s no evidence that other forms of collection under Section 215 have been any more effective. If intelligence officials could cite instances in which collection under Section 215 had been crucial to terrorism investigations, you can be sure they would have cited them by now. ...
Third, the sunset of Section 215 wouldn’t affect the government’s ability to conduct targeted investigations of terrorist threats. This is because the government has many other tools that allow it to collect the same kinds of things that it can collect under Section 215.
US Kneejerk Support for Israeli Nukes Torpedoes UN Disarmament Talks
After four weeks of negotiations, a revised UN treaty on nuclear disarmament has been torpedoed by the United States, leaving the issue of global disarmament dead in the water for the next five years. Non-nuclear states are furious at Washington and also fearful that in the absence of an agreement, nuclear proliferation will now march on. Moreover, they are upset at the slow pace of reduction of numbers of nuclear weapons by nuclear-armed states such as the US and Russia.
The US vetoed the document because it contained a clause requiring Israel to meet with Arab neighbors and to participate in talks leading to the making of the Middle East a nuclear free zone. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a substantial nuclear arsenal, which it hides in plain sight by refusing to talk about it. UN-mandated negotiations with Egypt and other Arab states could have forced Israel to admit its nuclear stockpile and begin reducing it. ...
In running interference for Israel’s estimated 400 warheads, the US has made the world a more dangerous place. It has sacrificed a general revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty for the sake of protecting Tel Aviv’s nukes– which are themselves driving the Middle East arms race.
Chris Hedges: Our Mania for Hope Is a Curse
The naive belief that history is linear, that moral progress accompanies technical progress, is a form of collective self-delusion. It cripples our capacity for radical action and lulls us into a false sense of security. Those who cling to the myth of human progress, who believe that the world inevitably moves toward a higher material and moral state, are held captive by power. Only those who accept the very real possibility of dystopia, of the rise of a ruthless corporate totalitarianism, buttressed by the most terrifying security and surveillance apparatus in human history, are likely to carry out the self-sacrifice necessary for revolt.
The yearning for positivism that pervades our corporate culture ignores human nature and human history. But to challenge it, to state the obvious fact that things are getting worse, and may soon get much worse, is to be tossed out of the circle of magical thinking that defines American and much of Western culture. The left is as infected with this mania for hope as the right. It is a mania that obscures reality even as global capitalism disintegrates and the ecosystem unravels, potentially dooming us all.
The 19th century theorist Louis-Auguste Blanqui, unlike nearly all of his contemporaries, dismissed the belief, central to Karl Marx, that human history is a linear progression toward equality and greater morality. He warned that this absurd positivism is the lie perpetrated by oppressors: “All atrocities of the victor, the long series of his attacks are coldly transformed into constant, inevitable evolution, like that of nature. ... But the sequence of human things is not inevitable like that of the universe. It can be changed at any moment.” He foresaw that scientific and technological advancement, rather than being a harbinger of progress, could be “a terrible weapon in the hands of Capital against Work and Thought.” And in a day when few others did so, he decried the despoiling of the natural world. “The axe fells, nobody replants. There is no concern for the future’s ill health.” ...
Blanqui understood that history has long periods of cultural barrenness and brutal repression. The fall of the Roman Empire, for example, led to misery throughout Europe during the Dark Ages, roughly from the sixth through the 13th centuries. There was a loss of technical knowledge (one prominent example being how to build and maintain aqueducts), and a cultural and intellectual impoverishment led to a vast historical amnesia that blotted out the greatest thinkers and artists of the classical world. None of this loss was regained until the 14th century when Europe saw the beginning of the Renaissance, a development made possible largely by the cultural flourishing of Islam, which through translating Aristotle into Arabic and other intellectual accomplishments kept alive the knowledge and wisdom of the past. The Dark Ages were marked by arbitrary rule, incessant wars, insecurity, anarchy and terror. And I see nothing to prevent the rise of a new Dark Age if we do not abolish the corporate state. Indeed, the longer the corporate state holds power the more likely a new Dark Age becomes. To trust in some mythical force called progress to save us is to become passive before corporate power. The people alone can defy these forces. And fate and history do not ensure our victory.
300,000 Celebrate Beatification of Salvadoran Archbishop Romero, 35 Years After U.S.-Backed Murder
Far from facing the truth, the US is telling new lies about Iraq
The troops may have left, but the fallout from the conflict lingers in the American polity, clinging to its elites like stale cigarette smoke to an Aran sweater – it stinks, and they just can’t shake it. Not only did it trip Jeb up, it remains the abiding, shameful legacy of his brother George Bush’s administration. And, as Jeb hinted, it dogged Clinton during her 2008 presidential bid, too.
Back then, she claimed if she’d known what George Bush would do with the authority to go to war (ie go to war with it) she would never have given it to him. That didn’t fly. Now she concedes her vote was an unqualified “mistake”. ...
Jeb’s mistake is that he picked the wrong lie. It’s simply not true that “almost everybody” who saw the intelligence backed the war – 133 representatives and 23 senators opposed it. Nonetheless, his rationale – worthy of any hapless teenager – that he would have done it because everybody else was doing it has more integrity than most. ...
Opposing the war in 2003 struck those with more ambition than principle as a career-ending act of folly. The administration was selling lies; but they were willing buyers. ...
Broadly speaking, the public was of the same mindset. The most important single factor shaping Americans’ opinions about any war is not American casualties, foreign casualties or even expense, but whether they think America will win, says Christopher Gelpi, a political science professor at Duke University who specialises in public attitudes to US foreign policy. Sure enough, on the eve of the invasion two thirds of Americans backed it and a slim majority said they’d supported it without a UN resolution. Support grew once the bombing started and only soured once it was clear no victory was in sight.
America got the war it wanted; it just wasn’t the war it expected.
Iran Blames US for Ramadi Loss: US Has No Will to Fight ISIS
There is little denying that the war against ISIS is going poorly, and everyone is looking for a scapegoat. Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Ash Carter placed the blame squarely on Iraq’s military, saying they simply aren’t willing to fight.
Iranian officials are feeling the loss of Ramadi too, but instead of blaming the Iraqis are placing the fault on America’s doorstep, with Gen. Qassim Suleimani declaring the US “has no will to fight” against ISIS and was leaving everything up to them and the Iraqis.
Gen. Suleimani’s comments were clearly meant to contrast to Carter’s own, and he added that the US “didn’t do a damn thing” to stop ISIS’ advance in Ramadi.
Iraq launches counterattack against Isis near Ramadi
Iraq has announced the launch of a military operation to drive Islamic State out of the western Anbar province, where the extremists captured the provincial capital, Ramadi, this month.
Iraqi state TV reported the start of the operation, in which troops will be backed by Shia and Sunni paramilitary forces, but did not provide further details.
A spokesman for Iraq’s Shia militias said the operation will “not last for a long time” and that Iraqi forces have surrounded the provincial capital, Ramadi, from three sides.
Ahmed al-Assadi, who is also a member of parliament, told reporters that new weapons are being used in the battle “that will surprise the enemy”.
Isis began to seize large parts of Anbar from early 2014. The fall of Ramadi marked a major defeat for Iraqi forces, which had been making steady progress against the extremists over the past year with the help of US-led air strikes.
NYT Trumpets U.S. Restraint against ISIS, Ignores Hundreds of Civilian Deaths
The New York Times this morning has an extraordinary article claiming that the U.S. is being hampered in its war against ISIS because of its extreme – even excessive – concern for civilians. “American officials say they are not striking significant — and obvious — Islamic State targets out of fear that the attacks will accidentally kill civilians,” reporter Eric Schmitt says. ...
But there’s one rather glaring omission in this article: the many hundreds of civilian deaths likely caused by the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria. Yet the only reference to civilian deaths are two, ones which the U.S. government last week admitted: “the military’s Central Command on Thursday announced the results of an inquiry into the deaths of two children in Syria in November, saying they were most likely killed by an American airstrike,” adding that “a handful of other attacks are under investigation.”
Completely absent is the abundant evidence from independent monitoring groups documenting hundreds of civilian deaths. Writing in Global Post last month, Richard Hall noted that while “in areas of Syria and Iraq held by the Islamic State, verifying civilian casualties is difficult,” there is strong evidence [that] suggests civilians are dying in the coalition’s airstrikes.”
Among that evidence is the data compiled by Airworks.org, a group of independent journalists with extensive experience reporting on that region. Last week, the group reported:
To May 13th 2015, between 587 and 734 civilian non-combatant fatalities had been reported from 95 separate incidents, in both Iraq and Syria.
Of these it is our provisional view – based on available reports – that between 370-465 civilian non-combatants have been killed in incidents likely to have been conducted by the coalition.
A further 130-145 claimed deaths attributed to coalition airstrikes are poorly reported or are single-sourced, while an additional 85-125 reported fatalities resulted from contested events (for example, claims that the Iraq military might instead have been responsible.)
In addition, 140 or more ‘friendly fire’ deaths of allied ground forces have been attributed to the coalition, with varying levels of certainty.
Taking Responsibility for Drone Killings- President Obama and the Fog of War
When President Barack Obama apologized on April 23 to the families of Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, an American and an Italian, both hostages killed in a drone attack in Pakistan in January, he blamed their tragic deaths on the “fog of war.” ...
The term “fog of war,” Nebel des Krieges in German, was introduced by the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz in 1832, to describe the uncertainty experienced by commanders and soldiers on the battlefield. It is often used to explain or excuse “friendly fire” and other unintended deaths in the heat and confusion of combat. The term raises vivid images of chaos and ambiguity. Fog of war describes incredible noise and trauma, volleys of bullets and artillery shells, bone jarring explosions, screams of the wounded, orders shouted out and countermanded, vision limited and distorted by clouds of gas, smoke and debris.
War itself is a crime and war is hell, and in its fog soldiers can suffer from emotional, sensory and physical overload. In the fog of war, fatigued past the point of endurance and fearful both for their own lives and for those of their comrades, soldiers must often make split second decisions of life and death. In such deplorable conditions, it is unavoidable that “mistakes — sometimes deadly mistakes — can occur.”
But Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto were not killed in the fog of war. They were not killed in war at all, not in any way war has been understood until now. They were killed in a country where the United States is not at war. No one was fighting at the compound where they died. The soldiers who fired the missiles that killed these two men were thousands of miles away in the United States and in no danger, even if anyone were firing back. These soldiers watched the compound go up in smoke under their missiles, but they did not hear the explosion nor the cries of the wounded, nor were they subjected to the concussion of its blast. That night, as the night before this attack, it can be assumed that they slept at home in their own beds.
The president attests that those missiles were fired only after “hundreds of hours of surveillance” were carefully studied by defense and intelligence analysts. The decision that lead to the deaths of Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto was not reached in the crucible of combat but in the comfort and safety of offices and conference rooms. Their line of sight was not clouded by smoke and debris but was enhanced by the most advanced “Gorgon Stare” surveillance technology of the Reaper drones. ...
The “cruel and bitter truth” is actually that Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto were not killed in a “counterterrorism effort” at all, but in an act of terrorism by the United States government. They died in a gangland style hit that went awry. Killed in a high-tech drive-by shooting, they are victims of negligent homicide at best, if not of outright murder.
Houthis suffer first serious setback in south Yemen fighting: residents
Local Sunni Muslim militia ejected Shi'ite Houthi rebels from much of the southern Yemeni city of Dalea on Monday, residents and combatants said, inflicting the first significant setback on the Iranian-backed rebels in two months of civil war. ...
After two months of fighting in which much of Dalea has been destroyed, Sunni fighters on Monday turned the tide by seizing a key military base and the main security directorate in the city, militia sources and local residents said. Twelve Sunni fighters and 40 Houthi rebels were killed, they said.
Apple and Google Just Attended a Confidential Spy Summit in a Remote English Mansion
At an 18th-century mansion in England’s countryside last week, current and former spy chiefs from seven countries faced off with representatives from tech giants Apple and Google to discuss government surveillance in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks. ...
Among an extraordinary list of attendees were a host of current or former heads from spy agencies such as the CIA and British electronic surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Other current or former top spooks from Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Sweden were also in attendance. Google, Apple, and telecommunications company Vodafone sent some of their senior policy and legal staff to the discussions. And a handful of academics and journalists were also present.
According to an event program obtained by The Intercept, questions on the agenda included: “Are we being misled by the term ‘mass surveillance’?” “Is spying on allies/friends/potential adversaries inevitable if there is a perceived national security interest?” “Who should authorize intrusive intelligence operations such as interception?” “What should be the nature of the security relationship between intelligence agencies and private sector providers, especially when they may in any case be cooperating against cyber threats in general?” And, “How much should the press disclose about intelligence activity?” ...
In the aftermath of Snowden revelations showing extensive Internet surveillance perpetrated by British and American spies and their allies, Google and other companies have reportedly become more resistant to government data requests. Google engineers were outraged by some of the disclosures and openly sent a “fuck you” to the surveillance agencies while hardening Google’s security. Meanwhile, Apple has expanded the range of data that’s encrypted by default on iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers, and CEO Tim Cook has vowed never to give the government access to Apple servers, stating “we all have a right to privacy.” But the Ditchley event is a sign that, behind the scenes at least, a dialogue is beginning to open up between the tech giants and the spy agencies post-Snowden, and relations may be thawing.
Spanish Shift: Minor parties shine, ruling PP fades, 'two-party system dying'
Pushing New Economic and Political Vision, Left Surges in Spanish Elections
Local elections across Spain on Sunday saw the further rise of left-wing parties and candidates as an ongoing populist push from below resulted in the worst performance of the ruling People's Party in a generation.
Fueled by the street-level support that began with the indignados movement in the wake of the 2008 financial crash and other recent successes by the newly-formed Podemos party at the national level, Sunday's municipal elections revealed Spanish voters continue to be compelled by the anti-austerity and pro-democracy agenda of the left. Demanding a new economic and political vision, an assortment of left-leaning and more centrist parties have now put a serious dent in the hold on power currently enjoyed by the PP-controlled government and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. ...
The New York Times notes that while the PP won the most votes overall, the ruling party is "set to lose its parliamentary majorities in most, if not all, of the country’s provinces." If, as expected, the various left-wing parties can form coalitions with one another, they may have the ability to unseat the conservatives in key areas, including in the nation's two largest cities, Madrid and Barcelona.
Default Looms in Greece
More media consolidation on the way...
Charter Communications to acquire Time Warner Cable for $55.3bn
Charter Communications, the fourth largest cable provider in the US, has announced it is buying Time Warner Cable, the country’s second largest cable company, in a $55.3bn deal that will create a new giant in the cable industry and a close rival to Comcast, Time Warner’s last suitor.
It is a deal that has been rumored ever since regulators, spurred by activists, torpedoed a merger between Time Warner and Comcast last month. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) immediately announced it would look at the proposed transaction, and the deal faces some of the same problems, as well as new ones of its own.
As part of the transaction, Charter also will merge with small operator Bright House Networks. The combined companies would have 24 million customers compared to Comcast’s 27 million. The company would be renamed New Charter.
But some analysts are skeptical that a deal will be done. Comcast’s courting of Time Warner collapsed after a year of intense criticism from activists concerned about the impact of consolidation on consumers. BTIG’s Rich Greenfield has argued that this merger could face many of the issues the scuppered Comcast’s bid had to deal with.
137 Shots, No Convictions: Cleveland Cop Acquitted in Killing of Unarmed African-American Pair
Cleveland reaches deal with justice department over police use of force
The justice department and the city of Cleveland have reportedly reached a settlement over a DoJ report that said the city’s “chaotic and dangerous” police used “excessive and unreasonable force”.
A senior federal law enforcement official confirmed the deal on Monday, the Associated Press said, with details expected to be announced later in the week.
The news came two days after a judge found Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo not guilty in the deaths of the two unarmed African American people who were in a car at which he and other officers fired 137 shots in November 2012. Brelo fired 49 shots, 15 while he was standing on the hood of the car.
The justice department investigated Cleveland police following a series of high-profile incidents, including the deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in the case for which Brelo was the only officer tried.
The withering report also detailed incidents such as Cleveland officers using a Taser on a man who was strapped to an ambulance gurney and “firing their guns at people who do not pose an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury”.
'This is Straight Murder': Protests Sweep City Following Cleveland Acquittal
After a white police officer in Cleveland, Ohio was acquitted on Saturday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man and woman in 2012, protests against racism and police brutality spread throughout the city as activists called for justice.
Police in riot gear arrested multiple protesters marching peacefully through the streets of Cleveland, where the shooting took place. Activists chanted, "No justice, no peace" outside of the courthouse where the officer was cleared of voluntary manslaughter and felonious assault.
The trial had been closely watched as a growing civil rights movement swept the country. The officer, Michael Brelo, and 10 other officers fired 137 shots at Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams after a 20-minute car chase, with Brelo climbing onto the hood of Russell's car and delivering 15 shots at close range.
Brelo later claimed he was in fear for his life, believing Russell and Williams had a weapon.
Neither of them did. ...
At least 71 protesters were reportedlyarrested overnight, including a crime reporter, who detailed his experience in an op-ed for cleveland.com.
"Soon I was joined by another group of protesters," the reporter, Kris Wernowsky, wrotein his account. "A couple of white guys, but mostly young black men whose only crime seemed to be failing to get out of the street when police asked them to move."
Advocates Say Black Women Left Out of Freddie Gray Conversation
America cannot lock its poor in debtor's prisons to fund its police departments
In 2010, the ACLU found that courts across the nation regularly deny Americans proper consideration of their financial position and throw them into jail over fines they could never hope to pay. As a result, local jails nationwide have transformed into modern-day “debtors’ prisons” overcrowded with indigent people whose only punishable offense is being poor. The effects are devastating.
This growing phenomenon funnels poor Americans into the criminal justice system with sentences that disrupt their lives, too often trapping them in a damning cycle of poverty and incarceration that far outlasts their initial conviction. These practices have a disparate impact on communities of color in the United States. ...
Local courts and municipalities – reliant on fines and fees as a source of revenue – are adopting increasingly aggressive collection practices. This was the case in DeKalb County, where county policymakers enlisted a for-profit company for the specific purpose of targeting those too poor to pay fines on sentencing day. And a report released in March by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division found that municipal courts in Ferguson, Missouri, prioritized revenue above fair administration of justice and imposed undue burdens on residents living in or near poverty, perpetuating and exacerbating racial and economic inequality in the community.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from the Chicago Broad Ax: "Crimes, Murder and all kinds of lawlessness continues to follow in the wake of the Teamsters Strike."
Tune in at 2pm!
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Cantwell Delivers Howler to Explain Vote on Trade Bill, Pointed Stenography Ensues
Sen. Maria Cantwell engaged in a very public maneuver on the Senate floor Thursday, withholding her vote in favor of the big trade bill until she got assurances that there would be a vote on renewing the Export-Import Bank.
Afterward, explaining the fervency of her support for the Ex-Im Bank, she told such a howler that even the Capitol press corps, not empowered to actually call a senator a liar, made sure to offer readers the opportunity to reach that conclusion on their own.
The Democrat from Washington state, where Boeing is the single largest employer, said her support for the Ex-Im — often called the “Bank of Boeing” because fully $8 billion of the bank’s $12 billion in annual loan guarantees support the international sales of its jetliners — wasn’t inspired by the aerospace giant, but by small businesses in her state, like one in Yakima that exports music stands. ...
The Ex-Im bank finances about one-third of Boeing deliveries — 123 jetliners in 2013 alone. A recent study found that “An astounding 66 percent of the bank’s portfolio of loan guarantees was awarded to Boeing during FY 2013.”
Media Executives Are Salivating Over Big Money Flooding the 2016 Election Cycle
At least one small slice of the American public looks forward to the non-stop, sleazy political advertisements set to inundate viewers during the 2016 elections: media executives and their investors.
Peter Liguori, the chief executive of Tribune Company, said earlier this month that the next presidential campaign presents “enormous opportunity” for advertising sales. Speaking at a conference hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase, Liguori, whose company owns television stations, referenced Super PAC spending as a key factor for why he thinks Tribune Co. political advertising revenue will rocket from $115 million in 2012 to about $200 million for the 2016 campaign cycle. ...
In 2012, Les Moonves, president and chief executive of CBS, memorably said, “Super PACs may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS.”
His views appear unchanged. In a February investor call, Moonves predicted “strong growth with the help of political spending,” particularly on television. He added dryly, “looking ahead, the 2016 presidential election is right around the corner and, thank God, the rancor has already begun.” ...
The New York Times and Bloomberg have chronicled the rising political revenue to broadcast media companies, a trend accelerated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which effectively removed limits on individual, corporate and union spending. A single station in Columbus, Ohio, for example, “grossed about $50 million in advertising [in 2012], of which at least $20 million was attributed to campaign spending,” according to the Times. And the 2016 campaign cycle is expected to be the first time digital advertising alone will reach $1 billion, making big money groups a lucrative source of revenue for online publications.
The Evening Greens
Animals rescued from California oil spill
Prosecutors Consider Criminal Charges in Santa Barbara Pipeline Break
Prosecutors may pursue criminal charges against the company responsible for a pipeline breach that spilled 105,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean and onto the coastline in one of California's most ecologically sensitive regions.
The May 19 pipeline spill at Santa Barbara County's Refugio State Beach has killed fish and left seabirds, seals, and other wildlife coated in thick black oil as clean-up crews have worked around the clock to try to stem the oil's environmental impact. ...
The 11-mile pipeline, called Line 901, is owned and operated by the Texas-based company Plains All America Pipeline (PAAP), and is just one section of the company's 18,900-mile pipeline network, which criss-crosses 46 US states. ...
Environmental advocates say the company has a poor track record when it comes to pipeline safety. The Center for Biological Diversity says the US government initiated 20 enforcement actions against PAAP since 2006, mostly involving corrosion control and maintenance problems, and was fined $115,600 for two violations in 2009.
Since 2006 the company has been responsible for 223 accidents that spilled a total of 864,300 gallons of hazardous liquids, the AP reported, citing federal records. Federal regulators have taken action against the company 25 times, during which the company paid $32 million in damages, the AP said.
Shell boss endorses warnings about fossil fuels and climate change
Ben van Beurden, the chief executive of Shell, has endorsed warnings that the world’s fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned unless some way is found to capture their carbon emissions. ... And in an admission that the growing opposition to Shell’s controversial search for oil in the Arctic was putting increasing pressure on him, van Beurden admitted he had gone on a “personal journey” to justify the decision to drill.
The Shell boss said he accepted the general premise contained in independent studies that have concluded that dangerous levels of global warming above 2C will occur unless CO2 is buried or reserves are kept in the ground. “We cannot burn all the hydrocarbon resources we have on the planet in an unmitigated way and not expect to have a CO2 loading in the atmosphere that is often being linked to the 2C scenario,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
“I am absolutely convinced that without a policy that will really enable and realise CCS (carbon capture and storage) on a large scale, we are not going to be able to stay within that CO2 emission budget.” ...
Shell is engaged in a number of CCS projects: one at Peterhead in Scotland and another designed to reduce carbon emissions at a tar sand project in Alberta, Canada. The company also claims to be one of the largest renewable energy companies in the world despite spending annually less than $1bn on green schemes out of a total $33bn capital expenditure budget.
Van Beurden insisted that he had his hands tied from investing more heavily in renewables or CCS because they would not produce the high financial returns that investors had been used to from oil and gas. “I would lose my job over it if I just threw a few billions away [on CCS] … CCS is essential for society and ... is ultimately important for our company, but listen, I have great difficulty to have shareholders focus on the quarter after next.”
Oil company bosses' bonuses linked to $1tn spending on extracting fossil fuels
ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, Total and BP pour funding into projects to unlock oil reserves – despite scientists warning they will lead to climate change disaster
Bosses at the world’s big five oil companies have been showered with bonus payouts linked to a $1tn (£650bn) crescendo of spending on fossil fuel exploration and extraction over nine years, according to Guardian analysis of company reports.
The unprecedented push to bring untapped reserves into production, and to exploit new and undiscovered fields, involves some of the most complex feats of engineering ever attempted. It also reflects how confident Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, Total and BP are that demand will remain high for decades to come.
The big oil groups are pressing ahead with investments despite the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimating that two-thirds of proven fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground to prevent the earth from warming 2C above pre-industrial levels – a proposed temperature limit beyond which scientists warn of spiralling and irreversible climate change.
Multi-billion-dollar capital projects amount to huge, long-term bets by the big five that exorbitant costs associated with unlocking hydrocarbon reserves in some of the most inaccessible locations on the planet can eventually be recouped and converted into profits.
Texas storms: flooding had 'tsunami-type power', says governor
Texas governor Greg Abbott has expanded the emergency disaster zone in his state, adding 24 counties to a list of 13 affected by storms and flooding. Three people were reported dead and 12 missing as Oklahoma was also hit hard, while a tornado left 13 dead in a Mexican town just beyond the border.
Abbott said the damage caused by flash floods in central Texas was “absolutely devastating” and had been caused by “relentless, tsunami-type power”.
The 12 people missing were from two families staying together in one house in Wimberley Valley, in Texas. Bert Cobb, a Hays County judge, said witnesses reported seeing the house pushed off its foundations by rushing water. He said only pieces of the house had been found, and that one person rescued from the home told workers about the other people inside.
At least 2,000 Texas residents were forced out of their homes. The central part of the state was particularly hard hit, especially San Marcos and Wimberley, near the Blanco river – which was measured at 40ft, the highest it had reached since 2010.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Vetoes Major Criminal Justice Reform Bills
The climate change fight cannot be won with white liberal America alone
America on Memorial Day: Heavily armed, dangerous, unstable
Failure of Review Conference Brings World Close to Nuclear Cataclysm, Warn Activists
Gaius Publius: “Hillary, TPP, the World of Money, and the Center for American Progress”
Sometimes life gets too hard
A Little Night Music
John Primer - I Called My Baby
John Primer & Friends - The Blues Had a Baby and They Named it Rock and Roll
John Primer - You Don't Have To Go
John Primer - I Held My Baby Last Night
John Primer - Hideaway
John Primer - They Call Me John Primer
John Primer - The Clock
John Primer - Somebody Have Mercy
John Primer - Just My Imagination
John Primer - Going Back To Mississippi
John Primer - Pretty Women
John Primer - Sad Sad Day
John Primer - Sunnyland Train
John Primer - Mannish Boy
John Primer - Just Like I Treat You
John Primer & Trickbag - Before You Accuse Me
John Primer - Double Trouble
John Primer - Red Hot Mama
Billy Branch & John Primer - Sugar Sweet