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“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

-- Stephen Jay Gould

News and Opinion

Argentina: two ex-Ford executives convicted in torture case

Two former executives of a local Ford Motor Co plant have been convicted for human rights crimes over the abduction and torture of company workers during Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship in a historic judgment. Although nearly 1,000 former military officers have been imprisoned over crimes committed under military rule, Tuesday’s verdict in a Buenos Aires court marked the first time executives of a foreign company have been convicted.

Former Ford executive Pedro Müller, 86, and Héctor Sibila, 90, a former Ford security manager, were sentenced to 10 and 12 years, respectively, for the kidnapping and torture of 24 employees at Ford’s General Pacheco plant outside Argentina’s capital city. Testimony at the trial showed the executives provided the military with lists, addresses and photo IDs of workers they wanted arrested and even provided space for an illegal detention centre at the plant where the abductees could be interrogated. “The company acted in a coordinated manner with the military,” the prosecution alleged. Former army general Santiago Riveros, who oversaw repression in the General Pacheco area, was convicted to 15 years for the same crimes committed at the Ford plant. ...

The trial got under way last December in a tribunal packed with former employees of the General Pacheco plant. ... “The majority were kidnapped right off the assembly line,” said Tomás Ojea Quintana, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the start of the trial. “They were taken by rifle-toting military officers and paraded before the other workers so they could see what happened to their union representatives. This created an atmosphere of terror in the workplace that prevented any wage or working condition complaints.” The kidnapped employees were immediately fired by the company, sometimes while they were still being tortured on the plant’s premises, according to testimony. ...

The plaintiffs may still try to sue Ford in US federal courts, one of their lawyers told Reuters. Ford Argentina said in a statement it was not part of the case and had participated fully with local prosecutors. Ford officials in the US could not immediately be reached for comment. ... “It is clear that Ford Motor Company had control of the Argentinian subsidiary during the 70s. Therefore, there is a direct responsibility of Ford Motor Company and that might give us the possibility to bring the case to the US courts,” he told Reuters.

Macron’s appeal to French from behind gold desk leaves gilets jaunes unimpressed

It was the most important TV appearance of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency: the 40-year-old former banker had to prove to an angry nation that he was not an arrogant “president of the rich” and that he understood ordinary French people’s struggle to make ends meet. Yet Macron’s choice to deliver his prerecorded speech on social inequality from one of the most opulent and golden rooms in the luxurious, 365-room Élysée Palace was not lost on gilets jaunes protesters who have been occupying protest barricades on rural roundabouts. ...

Macron chose to announce his measures aimed at calming the gilets jaunes protests by speaking from the traditional presidential office known as the salon doré, with its gold decorations. He sat behind the large antique desk that has been used by all presidents since Charles de Gaulle and is the most valuable piece of furniture in the gilded palace. At the edge of the frame was a golden cockerel, the symbol of France, between golden lamps, and three carefully placed antique books. Behind him, just to the right of a pair of ornate gold leaf doors, were the French and European flags. ...

The 13-minute address had to prove the pro-business Macron understood the “real world” of protesters. There had been outrage among gilets jaunes when an MP from Macron’s party, La République En Marche, was recently unable to state the minimum wage on TV or when a cabinet minister trying to show the gulf between the working poor and the political elite appeared to complain that Paris dinners cost “€200 without wine”. ...

“He doesn’t live in the real world” is a common refrain on the barricades, where Macron is likened to a monarch. It remains to be seen whether an appearance from a gilded room in an 18th-century palace will change people’s minds.

Why French Protestors Have 70% Approval From Citizens

Egypt bans yellow vest sales as French protesters reject Macron’s concessions

The bloody Egyptian dictatorship of General Abdel Fattah al Sisi is banning the sale of yellow vests, as protests spread internationally in sympathy with the movement against French President Emmanuel Macron. This came as “yellow vest” protesters in France rejected Macron’s offer of concessions in an attempt to placate the growing movement.

The Sisi dictatorship is terrified that growing working class anger in Egypt and across North Africa could erupt around “yellow vest” protests like those in France. Cairo retailers contacted by AP said police ordered them not to sell the vests until after the protests on January 25 of next year—the eighth anniversary of the 2011 revolution that toppled the hated dictator Hosni Mubarak. Since it took power in 2013 in a bloody military coup, the Sisi regime has banned such protests and sent riot police to beat or kill anyone who defied the ban.

“The police came here a few days back and told us to stop selling them. We asked why, they said they were acting on instructions,” one retailer told AP. Another said, “They seem not to want anyone to do what they are doing in France.” ...

Sisi is reportedly a close friend of former French President François Hollande, and French Internet spying firms are deeply implicated in surveillance of the Egyptian population and the identification of individuals via Internet and social media to be arrested and tortured. Despite their best efforts, however, bread riots, textile workers strikes and protests against Sisi’s privatizations and food subsidy cuts have repeatedly shaken Egypt in the last two years.

Senate to Vote on Yemen War Challenge on Wednesday

With no signs of action on the Yemen War Powers Act challenge in the first couple of days this week, Wednesday is looking to be the start of the effort in earnest. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has confirmed he will be pushing the “motion to proceed,” which will start the floor debate, and ultimately the vote on the bill itself.

The bill would mandate the US to end its involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which was never authorized by Congress. Last week, the Senate voted in favor of allowing a full floor debate and vote on the matter. ...

Those wishing to call their senators should do so very soon before the matter comes up for vote. You can do this by calling the Capitol switchboard at (202)224-3121 or by finding individual contact information here.

Nicolás Maduro accuses White House of direct role in assassination attempt

Venezuela’s embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, has accused the White House of playing a direct role in an attempt to assassinate him and claimed “ultra-right locos” within Brazil’s incoming government were plotting to invade his country.

At a press conference in the presidential Miraflores palace in Caracas, Maduro said he had “no doubt” that the US government had ordered and authorized the botched strike against him last August with explosive-laden drones and continued to plot against him. He offered no evidence to support the allegations.

Maduro claimed the US hoped to install a rightwing dictatorship in Venezuela and accused the US media of waging an “incessant” media campaign against his government in order to justify a foreign military intervention in Venezuela.

The US national security adviser, John Bolton, had personally hatched a plan “to fill Venezuela with violence”, Maduro alleged, urging Donald Trump to abandon the supposed conspiracy and turn away from “conflict and confrontation”.

In November Bolton described Venezuela as part of a Latin American “troika of tyranny” that had “finally met its match”.

DNC Threatens Press Freedom - Wikileaks Pushes Back Hard

Julian Assange: No Surrender

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange appears to be one step closer to forcible removal from Ecuador's London Embassy, most likely to be extradited to the US to face charges in the Eastern District Court of Virginia, which is commonly known as “the espionage court.” If UK police have to go in and remove him by force that will of course demonstrate the brutality of the state in the Gandhian tradition.

The US and UK governments may nevertheless be in a hurry to get hold of him however they can, with Theresa May's Tory government so close to collapse and Jeremy Corbyn's Labor Party so close to power. Given all that Corbyn has said about protecting journalists who take risks to reveal the truth about power, it's hard to imagine him extraditing Assange in response to US demands, even though refusal would no doubt damage the longstanding Anglo-American alliance.

“Ecuador Envivo” reports that Ecuador's new ambassador to the UK has “very clear instructions” regarding Assange, who has been an asylee in the embassy for the past six years. And that the government said Assange's asylum has been detrimental to its relationship with the UK and could further damage trade relations between the two countries.

Supporters of Assange met last Friday evening on an international online video conference about his worsening situation. Consortium News Editor Joe Lauria said that he does not expect Assange to leave the embassy of his own volition. Stefania Maurizi, Italian “La Republica” journalist and longtime Wikileaks publishing partner, told Lauria that she was able to see Assange about 10 days ago, and that he's not planning to come out on his own, no matter what they do to him.

UK PM May facing 'no confidence' vote over Brexit deal

Brexit in chaos as Tory MPs trigger vote of no confidence in Theresa May

Conservative MPs have triggered a vote of no confidence in Theresa May, plunging the Brexit process into chaos as Tory colleagues indicated they no longer had faith in the prime minister to deliver the deal. Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, has received at least 48 letters from Conservative MPs calling for a vote of no confidence in May. Under party rules, a contest is triggered if 15% of Conservative MPs write to the chair of the committee of Tory backbenchers.

A ballot will be held on Wednesday evening between 6pm and 8pm, Brady said, with votes counted “immediately afterwards and an announcement will be made as soon as possible”. Sources said an announcement could be made by 10pm.

If she is effectively sacked after the ballot, a contest could take up to six weeks to complete. On Tuesday night, ministers warned that such a successful challenge would mean that article 50 might have to be suspended.

Google CEO Hammered by Members of Congress on China Censorship Plan

Google CEO Sundar Pichai came under fire from lawmakers on Tuesday over the company’s secretive plan to launch a censored search engine in China. During a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee, Pichai faced sustained questions over the China plan, known as Dragonfly, which would blacklist broad categories of information about democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.

The hearing began with an opening statement from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who said launching a censored search engine in China would “strengthen China’s system of surveillance and repression.” McCarthy questioned whether it was the role of American companies to be “instruments of freedom or instruments of control.” ...

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., told Pichai that the Dragonfly plan seemed to be “completely inconsistent” with Google’s recently launched artificial intelligence principles, which state that the company will not “design or deploy” technologies whose purpose “contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”

“It’s hard to imagine you could operate in the Chinese market under the current government framework and maintain a commitment to universal values, such as freedom of expression and personal privacy,” Cicilline said.

Pichai repeatedly insisted that Dragonfly was an “internal effort” and that Google currently had “no plans to launch a search service in China.” Asked to confirm that the company would not launch “a tool for surveillance and censorship in China,” Pichai declined to answer, instead saying that he was committed to “providing users with information, and so we always — we think it’s ideal to explore possibilities. ... Pichai’s claim that the company does not have a plan to launch the search engine in China contradicted a leaked transcript from a private meeting inside the company. In the transcript, the company’s search chief Ben Gomes discussed an aim to roll out the service between January and April 2019.

Mexico’s Solution to the Border Crisis

With President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatening to shut down the government if he doesn’t get his wall, it’s good that someone in a position of authority actually has a workable solution to the migrant crisis festering on the Mexican border with the U.S.

The day after Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office as Mexico’s president on Dec. 1, his foreign minister flew to Washington to propose a $20 billion development plan to make Central America a place for people to stay rather than flee. Three-quarters of the money would help create jobs and fight poverty. The rest would pay for border control and law enforcement. The plan would be funded by Mexico, the U.S. and the three Central American that produce the most refugees and migrants, according to the size of their economies. The U.S. would pay most, which seems just given the decades of support—including millions in military assistance and police training—that Washington offered corrupt, anti-democratic dictators who oversaw the impoverishment of Central America. In addition, the U.S. backed the 2009 coup in Honduras that has directly led to an influx of refugees streaming towards the U.S. border.

At last there is a plan that addresses the causes, and not just the symptoms of Central America’s migrant and refugee crisis: poverty, unemployment, drug trafficking, gang violence, police corruption, the world’s highest murder rates. At last an implicit assertion that the U.S. bears some responsibility—and arguably the largest share—for the unlivable conditions of many Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans appears to be at hand. Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s new foreign minister, met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington on Dec. 1 as thousands of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were marooned in Tijuana and other locations on the Mexican side of the border. Ebrard compared Mexico’s proposal with the Marshall Plan, the 1948–51 program to rebuild Europe. In this case, however, the U.S. would spend far less. ...

The State Department said little in its official response, merely acknowledging the two nations’ “shared commitment to address our common challenges and opportunities.” Ebrard said only, “I thank him [Pompeo] for his attitude and respect toward the new administration of President López Obrador.” Translation: Ebrard seems to have gotten nowhere. No surprise since the Trump administration has threatened to cut aid to Central American nations that don’t stop the flow of migrants northward. But that flow won’t stop until the conditions causing it are alleviated. But Central American nations need help to do that.

Something New Is Happening in the House: Progressives Are Winning Internal Fights

For years in the House of Representatives, a simple majority was all that was needed to pass legislation — unless that bill included a tax increase. In that case, it required a three-fifths majority, thanks to a rule implemented by former Speaker Newt Gingrich after the 1994 Republican wave. After Democrats swept the midterms this November, party leaders suggested that they would reform the rule. Under Democratic rule, a supermajority would only be needed for tax increases that affected the bottom 80 percent of earners.

But fiscal policy has become a flashpoint in the ongoing struggle between the party’s center and its progressive wing, and the left pushed back. The new policy was an improvement, the Congressional Progressive Caucus argued, but would still handcuff the party’s agenda in a number of ways, blocking some tax policies aimed at the rich that may incidentally implicate a handful of regular people and making passage of core progressive priorities like “Medicare for All” difficult.

On Tuesday, the Progressive Caucus announced on Twitter that the new rule had been defeated.

We are pleased to announce that the Rules Package for the 116th Congress will not include the 3/5 supermajority tax provision promoted by House Republicans in recent years. https://t.co/4Be05Awv5j

— Progressive Caucus (@USProgressives) December 11, 2018

Democratic leaders had put the supermajority requirement into a rules package that will be voted on January 3, the first day of the new Congress. ...

Still outstanding is another rules provision regarding requiring “pay-as-you-go” offsets. That concept, which Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi has been promoting for some time, would mandate that all new spending is offset with budget cuts or tax increases. Progressives have similarly grumbled at that, again arguing that it would handcuff a bold agenda. Especially given the complete lack of interest from Republicans in deficit reduction policies, it would create a one-way ratchet, constraining the activist impulses of liberal policymakers while giving conservatives free rein to blow giant holes in the tax code.

Why a historic strike by Chicago charter school teachers matters

It’s a story and a strike that should worry the ultra-rich Wall Street investor and Silicon Valley entrepreneur-types who have taken aim at public education in recent years, looking to turn education into a commodity – especially through the expansion of non-union charter schools – while trying to starve the public education system. Acero charter teachers went on the first charter school teacher strike in US history last week. They declared victory, on Sunday claiming a number of key concessions from school management. It seems unlikely that the Acero teachers successfully taking on their bosses, the billionaire-backed corporate education reform model, and the broader context of austerity in America through striking will stay confined to Chicago.

For decades, the wealthy have tried very hard to turn public schools into profit-making enterprises. Charter schools are a central mechanism for that privatization agenda, mainly because unlike public schools, few charters are unionized. No unions means no contracts mandating raises for time worked and education completed, decent pensions and healthcare, due process for firing teachers, and no organized power for teachers – keeping teacher compensation low and eliminating a key barrier, organized teachers, to using the education system to get rich. ...

The Chicago Teachers Union claims that Acero teachers make 30% less than their peers in district-run schools. ... Wage parity with district-run schools was a central demand at the bargaining table. Also demanded by Acero teachers were smaller class sizes (the CTU and management agreed to lower the cap on class sizes from 32 to 30) and strong language to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials out of the mostly Latino schools.

The strike will be a powerful example for other charter teachers around the country, whose conditions aren’t much different from Acero’s. A 2016-2017 study found only 11% of charter educators are unionized. Nationally, charter teachers earn far less than traditional public school teachers. If other charter teachers look at the Acero example and see a way to close their pay gap between regular public schools and wrest some power out of the hands of charter operators, they could embrace teachers unions and militant actions like strikes. Without such a pliant, cheap workforce, education privatizers could lose their incentive to keep spreading charters.

Jury recommends Charlottesville neo-Nazi James Fields be sentenced to life in prison

James Alex Fields, the young neo-Nazi convicted of first-degree murder for killing Heather Heyer during last year’s violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

After about four hours of deliberating, a jury on Tuesday returned their sentencing recommendations to Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore, who will now decide Fields’ fate. Jurors recommended life in prison and an additional 419 years and fines of $480,000. Judges in Virginia often accept jury's recommendations, and Moore said he'll hold a sentencing hearing for Fields on March 19. ...

The first-degree murder charge, by itself, carried a prison sentence of 20 years to life in prison. The cumulative minimum sentence of all ten charges he was convicted on was 136 years.

Separately, Fields is also facing 29 counts of federal hate crime charges, and prosecutors have not ruled out seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.

Jazmine Headley to be released from Rikers after she was arrested while holding infant son

Jazmine Headley, the young mother whose Friday arrest went viral after New York City police officers swarmed her and her infant son in a public services office, will be released from Rikers Island without bail after she was held there for five days. On Tuesday morning, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez dropped charges stemming from the incident, saying in a statement on Twitter that he was “horrified by the violence depicted in the video and immediately opened an investigation into this case.”

Headley was arrested at the Human Resources Administration office in Brooklyn on Friday after she sat down on the floor in the crowded facility, where she had been waiting for hours. She was told to stand up by a security officer, grew upset, and was arrested moments later. In the video of her arrest, which was recorded by a bystander, police officers are seen attempting to rip her 1-year-old son away from her as she lies on the ground crying out for them to stop, screaming, “You’re hurting my son.”

She spent five days in jail over the incident, which inspired outrage across the city and prompted high-profile New Yorkers like Mayor Bill de Blasio to call for her immediate release and an investigation into the arrest. But she stayed behind bars at Rikers for five days.

Vermont man takes revenge on town board with a 700-pound statue of a middle finger

A Vermont man was so incensed by his town's zoning regulations that he erected a 700-pound statue giving officials the middle finger — and lit it with floodlights so they would always be reminded of his feelings toward them.

Ted Pelkey’s decade-long feud with local officials reached spiteful new heights Nov. 30, when he installed the statue on a high pole in his front yard, along Route 128, after his request to relocate his monofilament cleaning and truck repair business from a nearby town to his own property was denied. Pelkey said officials won’t let him build the garage simply because they don’t like him, and he thought a middle finger was just the right response. ...

But while Pelkey couldn’t legally build a garage, he does have the legal right to flip off town officials for all eternity. Though billboards are banned in Vermont, Pelkey’s middle finger is protected because it isn’t advertising a business or service. Furthermore, the middle finger is a gesture that is generally protected by the First Amendment, so Pelkey’s $4,000 statue seems to fall under the category of “public art.”

A man in Westford, VT spent $4K to build a giant middle finger on a platform in protest against the town for continuously denying his permit to build an 8,000 square foot building on his own property.
There is nothing the town or police can do about it as he's breaking no laws pic.twitter.com/6OiVHa3FLA

— Dawgsontop (@dawgsontop2017) December 11, 2018

Courts likely to strike down Republican lame-duck power grabs, experts say

Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina suffered stinging losses in November, but the parties aren’t transferring power quietly, or at all in some cases. On the way out the door, “lame-duck” state legislatures are bringing in last-minute laws that will strip power from incoming Democrats, gut voter-approved ballot initiatives, or otherwise undermine the election results. But some legal experts say the most alarming legislation the Republicans have passed is unconstitutional and unlikely to survive outraged Democrats’ legal challenges. Among other issues, they contend many of the Republican laws blur the constitutionally mandated separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

“One of the fundamental principles of the American constitutional system is that the legislature is not the whole government,” said Richard Primus, a professor of law at the University of Michigan. “The point of the constitutional system is that no decision-making system gets to act for the whole political community – the powers are separated.”

Still, Michigan Republicans are pushing through a bill that would strip authority over campaign finance from the Democratic secretary of state-elect. (The state previously hit the bill’s Republican author with multiple campaign finance violations.) The Michigan and Wisconsin legislatures are also granting themselves power to intervene in lawsuits over their unpopular laws, weakening incoming Democratic attorneys general. And last week the Wisconsin legislature passed laws that take power from the incoming Democratic governor, Tony Evers. ...

Democrats’ chances in the state supreme courts are usually much better when they have a favorable partisan makeup. In North Carolina, liberals hold a 4-3 advantage, but in Michigan and Wisconsin conservatives hold 4-3 majorities. However, conservative judges have ruled against the party’s wishes in Michigan, and in Wisconsin Madison-based attorney Lester Pines said Republicans were “sorely mistaken” if they believe “the supreme court is in its back pocket”.

Bernie Sanders Backers Battle DNC in 11th Circuit

A group of Bernie Sanders supporters faced off against the Democratic National Committee before an 11th Circuit panel Tuesday, fighting to resurrect their claims that the committee shafted them by favoring Hillary Clinton over Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary. The Sanders supporters urged the Atlanta-based federal appeals court, which held hearings in Miami on Tuesday, to revive a lawsuit in which they accused the DNC of shrugging off Sanders as a presidential candidate and diverting resources to help Clinton win the party’s nomination for president.

Dismissed last year in the Southern District of Florida, the lawsuit attempted to demonstrate the alleged Clinton favoritism by citing internal DNC emails, which had been stolen by hackers and released on WikiLeaks. U.S.intelligence agencies have since linked the hack back to Russian agents involved in an election-meddling operation. ...

On appeal Tuesday in the 11th Circuit, the plaintiffs’ attorney Jared Beck argued the DNC is trying to sidestep liability by portraying itself as an abstract entity without a duty to its donors. Beck reasserted one of the case’s central premises: that political donors relied upon the DNC’s supposed commitment to neutrality when making their donations. The lawsuit seeks class certification on behalf of Sanders campaign donors, DNC donors, and Democratic Party members in general. Counts for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence and violations of a Washington, D.C. deceptive trade code are among the causes of action.

During oral arguments, U.S .Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan seemed skeptical that certain counts in the lawsuit could proceed with respect to the Sanders donors’ alleged damages. The judge said it would be a stretch to show causation between those damages and the actions of the DNC, given that the DNC is an entity separate from the organization that accepted the donations – the Sanders campaign. Judge Jordan further expressed reservations about the Sanders backers asking the court to hold that a political party has a fiduciary duty to its donors. ...

During Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Jordan indicated that the lower court may have conflated the merits of the case with standing to sue. As he pointed out, the case was dismissed early in the pleading stage, when the court is generally obligated to give a plaintiff’s allegations the benefit of the doubt. Judge Jordan pressed the DNC’s legal counsel to concede that the court should consider on the merits whether the donors’ contributions were made in reliance on the committee’s public assertions of impartiality. But Spiva, the DNC’s lawyer, wouldn’t buckle. In a serpentine exchange with the judge, he refused to acknowledge that the donors’ alleged losses represented a cognizable injury in federal court.

U.S. & Other Big Polluters Obstruct U.N. Climate Talks, Stalling Efforts to Reduce Carbon Emissions

US accused of obstructing talks at UN climate change summit

The United States and other high carbon dioxide-emitting developed countries are deliberately frustrating the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, Vanuatu’s foreign minister has said. His warning came as Pacific and Indian ocean states warned they faced annihilation if a global climate “rule book” could not brokered.

In a bruising speech before ministers and heads of state, Vanuatu’s foreign minister, Ralph Regenvanu, singled out the US as he excoriated major CO2-emitting developed countries for deliberately hindering negotiations.

“It pains me deeply to have watched the people of the United States and other developed countries across the globe suffering the devastating impacts of climate-induced tragedies, while their professional negotiators are here at COP24 putting red lines through any mention of loss and damage in the Paris guidelines and square brackets around any possibility for truthfully and accurately reporting progress against humanity’s most existential threat,” he said.

Regenvanu said the countries most responsible for climate change were now frustrating efforts to counter it.

'An Indication of What's Coming': Melting at North and South Poles Worse Than Previously Thought

As the Trump administration tries to undermine the COP 24 climate talks in Poland, new U.S. government data shows that ice melt at both of the planet's poles—driven by rising air and ocean temperatures resulting from human-caused global warming—is worse than previously thought.

The latest annual Arctic Report Card from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that over the past three decades, a "stunning" 95 percent of northern region's the oldest, thickest ice has disappeared.

Wow. New numbers show that 95% of the oldest, thickest ice in the Arctic is now gone.https://t.co/eVeoEG9Hcg

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) December 11, 2018

As the Washington Post reported:

The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears but, in the long term, perhaps for the pace of global warming itself.

The oldest ice can be thought of as a kind of glue that holds the Arctic together and, through its relative permanence, helps keep the Arctic cold even in long summers...

If the Arctic begins to experience entirely ice-free summers, scientists say, the planet will warm even more, as the dark ocean water absorbs large amounts of solar heating that used to be deflected by the cover of ice.

"The Arctic is an indication of what's coming to the rest of the globe," noted Walt Meier, a sea ice expert at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). And while the timeline is uncertain, the region appears on-track to experience an ice-free summer.

Meanwhile, at the world's southern pole, as the Guardian reported, NASA researchers have discovered that "a group of glaciers spanning an eighth of the East Antarctica coastline are being melted by the warming seas." This region, the newspaper noted, "stores a vast amount of ice, which, if lost, would in the long-term raise global sea level by tens of meters and drown coastal settlements around the world."

Climate Scientist: World’s Richest Must Radically Change Lifestyles to Prevent Global Catastrophe

In Early Holiday 'Gift to Polluters,' Trump Guts Protections for 60 Percent of Nation's Streams, Wetlands, and Waterways

Sixty percent of U.S. waterways will be at risk for pollution from corporate giants, critics say, following the Trump administration's announcement Tuesday that it will roll back an Obama-era water rule meant to protect Americans' drinking water and all the waterways that flow into it.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the Obama administration's 2015 Waters of the U.S. rule (WOTUS) rule would be redefined and no longer protect many of the nation's streams and wetlands.

"This is an early Christmas gift to polluters and a lump of coal for everyone else," said Bob Irvin, president of the national advocacy group American Rivers. "Too many people are living with unsafe drinking water. Low-income communities, indigenous peoples, and communities of color are hit hardest by pollution and river degradation."

Under the Trump administration's proposal, which Common Dreams reported as imminent last week, streams that flow only after rainfall or snowfall will no longer be protected from pollution by developers, agricultural companies, and the fossil fuel industry. Wetlands that are not connected to larger waterways will also not be protected, with developers potentially able to pave over those water bodies.

Also of Interest

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

Freedom Rider: Yellow Vests Show the Way

Vladimir Putin Outmaneuvers the U.S. Yet Again

Can a New Political Party Save America From Itself?

Hillary Clinton 2020 is Malcolm X’s American Nightmare on Steroids

As climate change bites in America’s midwest, farmers are desperate to ring the alarm

How Native American tribes are bringing back the bison from brink of extinction

Lyon's festival of lights: before and after – in pictures

A Little Night Music

Dale Hawkins - Back To School Blues

Dale Hawkins - Lonely Nights

Dale Hawkins - Susie Q

Dale Hawkins w/Roy Buchanan - My Babe

Dale Hawkins - Tornado

Dale Hawkins - Teenage Dolly

Dale Hawkins - Boogie Chillen'

Dale Hawkins - Number Nine Train

Dale Hawkins - Worried About You Baby