Error message

Deprecated function: Array and string offset access syntax with curly braces is deprecated in include_once() (line 20 of /home/caucusni/public_html/includes/file.phar.inc).

The Evening Blues - 12-11-25

Submitted by joe shikspack on Thu, 12/11/2025 - 3:29pm


eb1pt12

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Ruth Brown

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b singer Ruth Brown. Enjoy!

Ruth Brown - Hey Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean

"All war propaganda consists, in the last resort, in substituting diabolical abstractions for human beings. Similarly, those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder."

-- Aldous Huxley

News and Opinion

New York Times Wants The US Military Built Up For War With China

Just as the United States hits its first official trillion-dollar annual military budget, the New York Times editorial board has published an article which argues that the US is going to need to increase military funding to prepare for a major war with China.

The article is titled “Overmatched: Why the U.S. Military Must Reinvent Itself,” and to be clear it is an editorial, not an op-ed, meaning it represents the position of the newspaper itself rather than solely that of the authors.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows that The New York Times has supported every American war throughout its entire history, because The New York Times is a war propaganda firm disguised as a news outlet. But it is surprising how brazen they are about it in this particular case.

The article opens with graphics I saw one commenter describe as “Mussolini-core” because of their conspicuously fascistic aesthetic, accompanied by three lines of text in all-caps which reads as follows:

“AMERICA’S MILITARY HAS DEFENDED THE FREE WORLD FOR 80 YEARS.

OUR DOMINANCE IS FADING.

RIVALS KNOW THIS AND ARE BUILDING TO DEFEAT US.”


The narrative that the US war machine has “defended the free world” during its period of post-world war global dominance is itself insane empire propaganda. Washington has abused, tyrannized and starved the world at levels unrivaled by any other power during that period while spearheading the theft of hundreds of trillions of dollars from the global south via imperialist extraction. The US empire has not been defending any “free world”, it has been actively obstructing its emergence.

The actual text of the article opens with another whopper, with the first sentence reading, “President Xi Jinping of China has ordered his armed forces to be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027.”

This is straight-up state propaganda. The New York Times editorial board is here uncritically parroting a completely unsubstantiated claim the US intelligence cartel has been making for years, which Xi Jinping explicitly denies. While it is Beijing’s official position that Taiwan will eventually be reunited with the mainland, not one shred of evidence has ever been presented to the public for the 2027 timeline. It’s a US government assertion being reported as verified fact by the nation’s “paper of record”.

And it doesn’t get any better from there. The Times cites a Pentagon assessment that the US would lose a hot war with China over Taiwan as evidence of “a decades-long decline in America’s ability to win a long war with a major power,” arguing that this is a major problem because “a strong America has been crucial to a world in which freedom and prosperity are far more common than at nearly any other point in human history.”

“This is the first of a series of editorials examining what’s gone wrong with the U.S. military — technologically, bureaucratically, culturally, politically and strategically — and how we can create a relevant and effective force that can deter wars whenever possible and win them wherever necessary,” The New York Times tells us.


The Times argues that the US needs to reshape its military to defeat China in a war, or to win a war with Russia if they attack a NATO member, saying “Evidence suggests that Moscow may already be testing ways to do this, including by cutting the undersea cables on which NATO forces depend.”

The “evidence” the Times cites for this claim is a hyperlink to a January article titled “Norway Seizes Russian-Crewed Ship Suspected of Cutting an Undersea Cable,” completely ignoring the fact that Norway released that ship shortly thereafter when it was unable to find any evidence linking it to the event, and completely ignoring reports that US and European intelligence had concluded that the undersea cable damage was the result of an accident rather than sabotage.

And then, of course, comes the call for more military funding.

“In the short term, the transformation of the American military may require additional spending, primarily to rebuild our industrial base. As a share of the economy, defense spending today — about 3.4 percent of G.D.P. — remains near its lowest level in more than 80 years, even after Mr. Trump’s recent increases,” the Times writes, adding that US allies should also be pressured to ramp up spending on the war machine.

“A more secure world will almost certainly require more military commitment from allies like Canada, Japan and Europe, which have long relied on American taxpayers to bankroll their protection,” the authors write, saying “China’s industrial capacity can only be met by pooling the resources of allies and partners around the world to balance and contain Beijing’s increasing influence.”

Of course the idea that perhaps the United States should avoid fighting a hot war with China right off the coast of its own mainland never enters the discussion. The suggestion that it’s insane to support waging full-scale wars with nuclear-armed great powers to secure US planetary domination never comes up. It’s just taken as a given that pouring wealth and resources into preparations for a nuclear-age world war is the only normal option on the table.

But that’s the New York Times for you. It’s been run by the same family since the late 1800s and it’s been advancing the information interests of rich and powerful imperialists ever since. It’s a militarist smut rag that somehow found its way into unearned respectability, and it deserves to be treated as such. The sooner it ceases to exist, the better.

Hamas proposes long-term ceasefire if Israel fully withdraws from Gaza

Hamas has told mediators that it is prepared to freeze all offensive operations against Israel from Gaza for up to a decade, and it is prepared to bury its weapons, if Israeli forces fully withdraw from the enclave, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the discussions told Middle East Eye.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the offer was presented to Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo last week. The offer represents what he described as a substantive move by Hamas intended to give momentum to the next phase of the ceasefire negotiations.

"Hamas is offering a guarantee that no weapon will be fired from Gaza against Israel, and it will do that by burying the weapons," the official said. "It offered to establish a hudna (a term used in Islamic tradition to describe a long-term truce) for seven to ten years between Gaza and Israel, and Hamas will not use the weapons."

According to the official, the hudna would be guaranteed by the mediating states, who would act as guarantors of compliance. He said the weapons would be concealed, and that the mediators would directly supervise the commitments made by Hamas. "During this period Gaza will be busy with itself," the official said, referring to reconstruction and internal governance after more than two years of devastating war, displacement and siege.

Hamas has until now refused to hand over its weapons except under the authority of a democratically elected leadership of a fully sovereign Palestinian state. The movement has repeatedly stated that its armed campaign against Israel would only end once the occupation of Palestinian land ends.

"Slower Form of Death": Despite Ceasefire, Israel Keeps Killing in Gaza as Winter Storm Floods Tents

UNRWA: No fully-functioning hospitals left in Gaza

No second phase of Gaza truce if Israel continues violations: Hamas

Hamas has said that the Gaza ceasefire plan cannot proceed to its second phase as long as Israeli "violations" persist and called on mediators to pressure Israel to respect the agreement.

Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran on Tuesday accused Israel of failing to respect the Gaza ceasefire deal, noting that under its terms, Israel should have reopened the Rafah crossing with Egypt and increased the volume of aid entering the territory.

He urged the US-led mediators to pressure Israel "to complete the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement".

The ceasefire, in effect since October 10, halted Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, but it remains fragile as Israel continues its violations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he expects the second phase of the deal to begin soon, but Badran said it could not start "as long as the occupation (Israel) continues its violations". The ministry says since the ceasefire came into effect, 377 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks.

Russia Carves Deeper into Ukraine /Lt Col Daniel Davis

Ukraine war: Trump criticises European leaders on eve of crunch coalition meeting

Leaders of the “coalition of the willing” group of nations will hold a video call about the Ukraine war on Thursday as Donald Trump voiced impatience with European allies and put US involvement in further talks in doubt, saying they risked “wasting time”. Amid chaotic American efforts to push through a peace deal, the US president said on Wednesday night: “We discussed Ukraine in pretty strong words”, when asked about an earlier phone call with British prime minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz The US president added that the Europeans wanted to hold fresh talks this weekend but warned that they risked “wasting time”.

“I think we had some little disputes about people, and we’re going to see how it turns out. And we said, before we go to a meeting, we want to know some things,” Trump said. “They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with. We don’t want to be wasting time”.

A British readout of the call said that all leaders agreed it was a “critical moment” and “intensive work on the peace plan is continuing and will continue in the coming days.” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will be on Thursday’s call, along with Starmer, Macron and Merz, who had a meeting in Downing Street on Monday. They will be joined by numerous other leaders of nations supporting Ukraine.

Zelenskyy, was expected to hand over a revised version of a peace plan to US negotiators on Wednesday before the call with leaders and officials from about 30 countries.

UK Banks Warn Starmer Asset Seizure Plan Illegal; Kiev Energy Close To Collapse; Siversk Huiliapole

Venezuela war would be illegal, it would be madness, but that's characteristic of Trump

US Flies Two Fighter Jets Deep Into Gulf of Venezuela in Closest Approach to Country’s Coast

Two US Navy F/A-18 fighter jets were spotted by flight trackers on Tuesday flying deep inside the Gulf of Venezuela, a body of water surrounded by Venezuelan territory on three sides, marking the latest US provocation amid threats of a potential regime change war aimed at ousting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. ...


A US military official confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday that the US sent two fighter jets into the Gulf of Venezuela, a significant escalation that the official framed as a “routine training flight.” The official declined to say whether or not the F/A-18s were armed.

According to a report from The War Zone, a pair of Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets were also flying north of the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, and an MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drone flew farther out in the Caribbean. “The combination of F/A-18s and EA-18Gs, with the latter flying in a standoff position, is exactly what one would expect to see during actual strikes on targets in Venezuela,” the report said.

Trump SEIZES Oil Tanker As Venezuela REGIME CHANGE Looms

US forces seize oil tanker off Venezuela coast

US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro. The US president confirmed the operation on Wednesday, saying: “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela – a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually.”

“It was seized for a very good reason,” Trump added, declining to say who owned the vessel.

Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, posted footage of the seizure on X. The grainy, unclassified 45-second video shows US forces landing on the tanker from a helicopter. In an accompanying statement, Bondi said the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the US Coast Guard, with support from the Department of Defense, had “executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”.

She said the tanker had been sanctioned by the US for “multiple years” due to its “involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations”.

Venezuela’s government made no immediate comment on the seizure – but speaking at a rally in Caracas, Maduro urged citizens to act like “warriors” and be ready “to smash the teeth of the North American empire if necessary”.

Tanker attacks & Pirates of the Caribbean

Venezuela says US oil tanker seizure 'act of international piracy'

Venezuela’s government has responded to the US seizure of an oil tanker off its coast, saying it “constitutes a blatant theft and an act of international piracy”.

The statement, reported by AP, continued:

Under these circumstances, the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed … It has always been about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people.”


COL. Douglas Macgregor : Why Threaten Venezuela?

Pentagon Weighed Sending Boat Strike Survivors to Salvadoran Prison to Avoid Defending Bombings in Court

Pentagon officials asked about sending survivors of US boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador in a bid to keep them out of American courts—where the Trump administration's high seas extrajudicial killing spree would be subject to legal scrutiny.

New details published Tuesday by the New York Times revealed that attorneys at the US Department of Defense inquired about whether two survivors of an October 16 strike on a boat allegedly smuggling drugs in the southern Caribbean could be sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where the Trump administration has shipped ihundreds of mostly Venezuelan victims of its mass deportation campaign.

The prison—the centerpiece of right-wing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s war on crime—has been plagued by allegations of torture and other abuse.

One Trump administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Times that State Department lawyers were "stunned" by the query. The two boat strike survivors were ultimately returned to Colombia and Ecuador, their home countries.

Other unnamed officials told the newspaper that repatriations—either to survivors' home countries or to third nations—would become the administration's default plan for dealing with anyone who lived through the US attacks.

The goal, the officials said, was to avoid trying boat strike survivors in US courts, where the discovery process would compel the Trump administration—which has offered no concrete evidence to support its claims that the targeted vessels were carrying drugs—to provide legal justification for attacks that experts say are illegal.

The Pentagon's inquiry followed a September 2 "double-tap" strike on a vessel carrying 11 passengers. Two men survived the initial bombing but were killed in a second strike. Since then, at least 76 other people have been killed in 23 boat strikes reported by the Trump administration.

In addition to the two men who initially survived the September 2 strike and the two repatriated survivors of the October 16 attack, one other person who lived through a boat bombing was left adrift at sea and is presumed dead.

Some observers have noted similarities between the Trump administration's goal of keeping boat strike survivors out of US courtrooms and War on Terror policies and practices—first implemented during the George W. Bush administration—such as extraordinary rendition, the use of Central Intelligence Agency "black sites," and imprisonment of terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba—designed to circumvent the law.

While the Trump administration previously sent migrants captured during its crackdown to Guantánamo, sending boat strike survivors to the lockup allow their lawyers to sue for habeas corpus, a right granted by the US Supreme Court in its 2008 Boumediene v. Bush decision.

The Trump administration has revived the term "unlawful enemy combatant"—which was used by the Bush administration to classify people caught up in the War on Terror in a way that skirts the law—to apply to boat strike survivors. The Pentagon has also called such survivors "distressed mariners," a term that normally applies to civilians stranded at sea.

“If we’re in a war, they should be using the term ‘shipwrecked survivors,’” Mark Nevitt, a former Navy lawyer who is now a law professor at Emory University, told the Times. “My theory is they might not want to get into the messy issues involving detention and habeas corpus lawsuits.”

Relatives of men killed in the strikes, as well as officials in Venezuela and Colombia, say that at least some of the victims were fishermen who were not linked to the illicit drug trade. One expert said last month that even in cases of vessels that were involved in drug trafficking, the bombings were "the equivalent of straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”

Even if the men targeted in the boat strikes were running drugs, "the appropriate response is to interdict the boats and arrest the occupants for prosecution," former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said Wednesday.

"The rules governing law enforcement prohibit lethal force except as a last resort to stop an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury," he added, "which the boats do not present."

War Budget Tops $1.5 TRILLION With NDAA Set For Passage

Gen Zine: DIY publications find new life as a form of resistance against Trump

Zines have made a resurgence in recent months as communities seek to share information, such as how to protect one another from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or how to resist the Trump administration outside No Kings protests. Just this week, 404 Media announced it is printing a 16-page zine that includes their reporting on ICE. People of all ages, from all regions, are making, printing and distributing zines on the streets, in libraries and at local gathering spots.

Zine-makers and enthusiasts say that people are likely embracing the pen-and-paper medium again due to social media censorship, surveillance, doxing and the alleged suppression of certain topics on algorithms.

“There’s a freedom people are craving because they’re feeling so constrained, surveilled and, frankly, threatened in so many other spheres that exist,” said Mariame Kaba, the co-founder of the Black Zine Fair in Brooklyn, who has been making zines since the 1980s. “You can print it cheaply, copy it, and make it into something, then you can give them out by the thousands to people in your community. There’s no barrier to entry, and that makes a difference.” ...

Zine-folding parties have also become popular in recent months. After ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago in September, resident Emily Hilleren saw local social media posts where people packaged whistles with the Pilsen Arts and Community House’s zine about warding off ICE, called Form a Crowd, Stay Loud. Hilleren started gathering friends at a local bar called Nighthawk to fold the zines and pair them with whistles. Soon, the bar promoted the events via social media, and other Chicago bars began asking Hilleren to host folding parties for them. She’s hosted seven events around the city – most to capacity – and has helped people organize two others. ...

Though people often associate zines with gen X, younger generations – who have grown up with social media and cellphones – are turning to zines to inform and for solace amid the current political landscape. After ICE raids and protests erupted in Los Angeles earlier this year, 16-year-old Victoria Echerikuahperi hosted a healing zine workshop for raid victims and has continued to lead youth zine events around the city under her stage name, DJ Mariposa. “There’s no right or wrong way to do it, and people could get their creativity out,” she said. “A lot of people were thanking me and were happy, because, yes, writing about political things is heavy, but it’s also like a release, knowing that this zine could be helpful to someone, or this could open someone’s eyes.”

Judge blocks Trump administration’s deployment of national guard troops in Los Angeles

A US judge on Wednesday morning blocked the deployment by the federal government of national guard troops in Los Angeles and ordered the guard returned to the control of the California governor, a court filing showed. The Trump administration is being challenged in federal court over its authority and rationale for continuing to maintain command over the national guard troops it deployed to the city earlier this year.

In a historically rare move, the Trump administration federalized California’s national guard in June, dispatching about 4,000 troops in response to protests in the city over immigration raids, despite opposition from the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who quickly filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state. Newsom called the move unprecedented and illegal, and the case has been unfolding in the courts for months.

On Wednesday, the US district judge Charles Breyer rejected the Trump administration’s claim that recent protests against aggressive enforcement by the federal immigration authorities amounted to a rebellion. The federal government had argued that the incidents legally justified the extraordinary step of taking federal control of state national guard units against the wishes of a state governor, the office that typically controls such troops, and sending them onto the streets of LA.

During a hearing in San Francisco last Friday, Breyer had appeared skeptical of the federal government’s case and, specifically, argued that the situation in Los Angeles had changed since the troops were first deployed, questioning whether the administration could command the state’s national guard indefinitely. California had asked the judge to issue a preliminary injunction in order to return control of the remaining national guard troops in Los Angeles to the state, on which Breyer ruled on Wednesday. He had previously declared that the deployment was illegal.

Palantir CEO BUGS OUT On Stage in BIZARRE Rant

New DHS Database Suggests That Less Than 5% of Those Arrested by ICE Are the ‘Worst of the Worst’

In response to criticism of its aggressive and often lawless "mass deportation" campaign—which has entailed sweeping raids by masked agents, the use of squalid detention centers rife with torture, overt racial profiling, and the near-total abrogation of due process—the Trump administration has often fallen back on a familiar refrain: that the immigrants it targets are "the worst of the worst" dangerous criminals.

Immigration data published throughout the second Trump administration has already undermined this claim. Last month, David J. Bier of the Cato Institute published new data showing that between October 1 and November 15, only 5% of those booked into ICE detention had violent criminal convictions, while 73% had no convictions at all. It mirrored previous data published by Cato in June, which showed that 65% arrested had no criminal convictions of any kind, while 93% had no violent convictions.

Justice Department data published last month, meanwhile, showed that of the at least 614 people snatched up in the Operation Midway Blitz crackdown in Chicago, just 16 had criminal records of any kind.

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security published its own "Worst of the Worst" database seeking to reverse the narrative, but it seems to have done the opposite.

"DHS has launched WOW.DHS.GOV for Americans to see the criminal illegal aliens that we are arresting, what crimes they committed, and what communities we removed them from," read a post from the agency on social media.

The post leads to a website containing the names, photos, and nationalities of those arrested by ICE. It also lists alleged past criminal convictions. In many cases, the only documentation of the allegations, if any is provided at all, is a DHS press release rather than official court records.

"Under Secretary [Kristi] Noem's leadership, the hardworking men and women of DHS and ICE are fulfilling President Trump's promise and carrying out mass deportations—starting with the worst of the worst—including the illegal aliens you see here," a header on the website reads.

Among those listed are people who DHS says have been convicted of heinous crimes, ranging from attempted murder to child abduction to domestic battery.

But the database contains just 9,738 total people, a tiny fraction of the more than 220,000 ICE data says the agency arrested between January 21 and October 15.

"So DHS is implicitly admitting that less than 5% of the people it arrests are people they believe are 'the worst of the worst,'" said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

Moreover, even some of those listed among the "Worst of the Worst" have only nonviolent offenses to their name, like drug possession, shoplifting, or disorderly conduct.

Reichlin-Melnick also noted that while immigration law does not require a criminal conviction for a person to be removed, "it matters because the administration talks as if these cases are the majority."

"There are definitely bad people on there who deserve deportation, but plenty of others on the list have nothing worse than a misdemeanor," he said. “If the administration were to actually focus its resources on people who were serious public safety threats or fugitives, there would be less of an outcry. But data shows that the big focus has been on boosting numbers by going after people no previous administration, Republican or Democrat, prioritized.”

Trump launches $1m ‘gold card’ visa scheme amid immigration crackdown

Donald Trump launched a new program that will allow wealthy foreign individuals to buy a US “golden visa” for $1m, and trailed a “platinum” version for $5m. “A direct path to Citizenship for all qualified and vetted people. SO EXCITING! Our Great American Companies can finally keep their invaluable Talent,” Trump wrote on Wednesday on social media.

An official government webpage promises US residency “in record time” with the new “Trump Gold Card” – once applicants have paid a $15,000 processing fee to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), passed a background check and paid up $1m.

Per a September executive order, individuals are required to pay $1m, while businesses sponsoring employees are required to pay $2m. Firms then need to pay a 1% annual maintenance fee of $20,000, and a 5% transfer fee of $100,000 each time they want to switch the visa from one employee to another. The program comes as the Trump administration devotes significant resources to deporting millions of undocumented immigrants. The gold card program has already faced heavy criticism by seemingly contradicting the US’s traditional reputation as a refuge for the hardworking poor.

A “Trump Platinum Card” is also “coming soon”, according to the official website. This card will allow holders to spend up to 270 days in the US without being subject to US taxes on non-US income. It will cost $5m. ...

Trump signed an executive order in September announcing the official launch of the gold card. When the program was first reported in February, the price for a visa was $5m. The discounted price tag may give the card a competitive edge compared with similar “pay to jump the line” programs in other countries. For example, New Zealand’s new golden visa program costs nearly $3m (US dollars), but managed to attract strong interest from wealthy Americans following Trump’s re-election.

Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson: Is America Going Bankrupt Sooner Than We Think?

Fed cuts interest rates by a quarter point amid apparent split over US economy

The US Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it was cutting interest rates by a quarter point for the third time this year, as the embattled central bank appeared split over how best to manage the US economy.

The Fed chair, Jerome Powell, has emphasized unity within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the board of Fed leaders that sets interest rates. But the nine-to-three vote to lower rates to a range of 3.5% to 3.75% was divisive among the committee that tends to vote in unanimity.

The split highlights the overall uncertainty within the Fed as the US economy absorbs major economic shakeups, including tariffs, changes to the labor force from Trump’s immigration crackdown and massive government cuts. ...

New projections from officials suggest hesitance to cut rates further next year, a refusal that could further rifts between the Fed and the White House. In a press conference on Wednesday, Powell said the Fed was trying to balance “significant downside risks” in the jobs market with inflationary pressures from Trump’s tariffs that are “pretty clear to see”.


the horse race


Dems FLIP Miami After Latino Revolt


the evening greens

Montana youth activists who won landmark climate case push for court enforcement

The young Montanans who scored a landmark triumph in the lawsuit Held v Montana are calling on the state’s highest court to enforce that victory. In a groundbreaking legal decision in August 2023, a Montana judge ruled in favor of 16 youth plaintiffs who had accused state officials of violating their constitutional rights by promoting fossil fuels. The state’s supreme court affirmed the judge’s findings in late 2024. But state lawmakers have since violated her ruling, enshrining new laws this year that contradict it, argue 13 of the 16 plaintiffs in a petition filed on Wednesday.

“These new policies mean the state is going to just continue to act in a way that will increase greenhouse gasses which during the Held case were shown to be disproportionately harming youth,” said Rikki Held, the 24-year-old lead petitioner who was also the named plaintiff in the earlier lawsuit. “It means we’ll continue down a path we already know and have proven is detrimental.”

The Held decision stated that state laws limiting state agencies’ ability to consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts during environmental reviews are unconstitutional. It also said that though the climate crisis is a global issue, Montana bears responsibility to address the harms that are being caused by greenhouse gas emissions within the state. “The decision confirmed that laws which put blinders on agencies during environmental reviews are unconstitutional,” said Nate Bellinger, supervising staff attorney at Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit law firm that filed the petition in Held v Montana. “But now the state is essentially re-blindering agencies.”

During the 2025 Montana legislative session, the new challenge says, elected leaders passed a law prohibiting the state from adopting air quality standards more stringent than those incorporated in the federal Clean Air Act. It’s a “complete inversion” where the federal standards will serve as a cap on regulation instead of a floor, Bellinger said. The legislature also amended the state’s Environmental Policy Act, naming just six climate warming gases for the state to inventory while conducting environmental reviews of energy projects. It also dictated that upstream and downstream emissions – or those resulting from transporting fossil fuels or out-of-state combustion of the fuels produced in Montana – should not be incorporated in the analysis, even though agencies used to consider these impacts.

In an “even more egregious” provision, said Bellinger, lawmakers explicitly barred state agencies from using the resulting information about pollution to condition or deny permits for those proposals. “Those provisions are unconstitutional,” Bellinger said. The petition names the state of Montana, as well as its governor, Greg Gianforte, and the department of environmental quality, as defendants.

Synthetic chemicals in food system creating health burden of $2.2tn a year, report finds

Scientists have issued an urgent warning that some of the synthetic chemicals that help underpin the current food system are driving increased rates of cancer, neurodevelopmental conditions and infertility, while degrading the foundations of global agriculture. The health burden from phthalates, bisphenols, pesticides and Pfas “forever chemicals” amounts to up to $2.2tn a year – roughly as much as the profits of the world’s 100 largest publicly listed companies, according to the report published on Wednesday.

Most ecosystem damage remains unpriced, they say, but even a narrow accounting of ecological impacts, taking into account agricultural losses and meeting water safety standards for Pfas and pesticides, implies a further cost of $640bn. There are also potential consequences for human demographics, with the report concluding that if exposure to endocrine disruptors such as bisphenols and phthalates persists at current rates, there could be between 200 million and 700 million fewer births between 2025 and 2100.

The report is the work of dozens of scientists from organisations including the Institute of Preventive Health, the Center for Environmental Health, Chemsec, and various universities in the US and UK, including the University of Sussex and Duke University. It was led by a core team from Systemiq, a company that invests in enterprises aimed at fulfilling the UN sustainable development goals and the Paris agreement on climate change.

The authors said they had focused on the four chemical types examined because “they are among the most prevalent and best studied worldwide, with robust evidence of harm to human and ecological health”.

Trump ADMITS Tariffs Raising Americans’ Prices! Proposes Bailout!

EU proposes loosening rules on AI gigafactories in green rollback

Datacentres, AI gigafactories and affordable housing may be exempt from mandatory environmental impact assessments in the EU under a proposal that advances the European Commission’s rollback of green rules. The latest in a series of packages to cut red tape calls for permitting processes for critical projects to be sped up and reducing the scope of environmental reporting rules for businesses.

The proposed overhaul would expand the list of strategic sectors to count datacentres, in line with the EU’s ambitions to become a global leader in AI, and affordable housing, to improve labour mobility. Member states would be free to decide whether such projects should be subject to environmental impact assessments.

Other parts of the simplification plan include repealing a hazardous chemical database that lists “substances of concern in products”; removing requirements on EU polluters to have authorised representatives in member states where they sell their products; and pushing the need for environmental management systems in farms and industry from the level of plants to that of companies.

Jessika Roswall, the environment and water commissioner, said: “Make no mistake: this is not a dilution of our environmental rules. However, we must adapt to a rapidly changing world.” The commission estimates its proposals, which were not accompanied by a formal impact assessment, will save companies €1bn a year.

Green groups described the plans as part of “a broader pattern of attack” that is dismantling European environmental policy and undermining democratic accountability, and warned of its indirect costs to human health and nature.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Jonathan Cook: The Filton Show Trial of Palestine Action

'In Trump we trust': Arab states frustrated with stalled Gaza plan

Israel Escalates Airstrikes in Southern Lebanon, Hitting Multiple Towns

Venezuela & U.S. Imperialism in Latin America

Marco Rubio, Forever-War Maker

Record numbers of Ukrainians desert army amid losses to Russia

U.S. Requires Social Strip-Search On Entry

We Are All Somalia

Government As Helper vs. Government As Regulator

Former Bolivian president Luis Arce reportedly detained by police

Humans made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, discovery in Suffolk suggests

Erika Kirk Accuses Candace Owens Of “Attacking My Family!”

A Little Night Music

Ruth Brown - I Don't Know

Ruth Brown - Wild wild young men

Ruth Brown - This Little Girl's Gone Rockin'

Ruth Brown - Teardrops From My Eyes

Ruth Brown - Sweet Baby of Mine

Ruth Brown - Mambo Baby

Ruth Brown - Lucky Lips

Ruth Brown - 5-10-15 Hours

Ruth Brown - Good Day For The Blues

Tags: 
The Evening Blues
Open Thread
Ruth Brown
Share
up
3 users have voted.

Comments

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 12/11/2025 - 6:32pm
QMS's picture

.
Rather doubt the US public sees the reasoning behind it?
Could be the trumpet Waterloo. Double down on stoopid.
If at first you don't fail, just keep trying ..

Thanks for the EB's joe!

up
1 user has voted.
—

Zionism is a social disease