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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Eddy Clearwater

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues musician Eddy Clearwater. Enjoy!

^{Eddy Clearwater - Pretty Baby}

“Right, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realize they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners.”

-- David Mitchell

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News and Opinion

Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy

Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times Privacy Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists. It holds more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Each piece of information in this file represents the precise location of a single smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017. The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so. The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.

After spending months sifting through the data, tracking the movements of people across the country and speaking with dozens of data companies, technologists, lawyers and academics who study this field, we feel the same sense of alarm. In the cities that the data file covers, it tracks people from nearly every neighborhood and block, whether they live in mobile homes in Alexandria, Va., or luxury towers in Manhattan. ... If you lived in one of the cities the dataset covers and use apps that share your location — anything from weather apps to local news apps to coupon savers — you could be in there, too. If you could see the full trove, you might never use your phone the same way again.

The data reviewed by Times Opinion didn’t come from a telecom or giant tech company, nor did it come from a governmental surveillance operation. It originated from a location data company, one of dozens quietly collecting precise movements using software slipped onto mobile phone apps. You’ve probably never heard of most of the companies — and yet to anyone who has access to this data, your life is an open book. They can see the places you go every moment of the day, whom you meet with or spend the night with, where you pray, whether you visit a methadone clinic, a psychiatrist’s office or a massage parlor.

It doesn’t take much imagination to conjure the powers such always-on surveillance can provide an authoritarian regime like China’s. Within America’s own representative democracy, citizens would surely rise up in outrage if the government attempted to mandate that every person above the age of 12 carry a tracking device that revealed their location 24 hours a day. Yet, in the decade since Apple’s App Store was created, Americans have, app by app, consented to just such a system run by private companies. Now, as the decade ends, tens of millions of Americans, including many children, find themselves carrying spies in their pockets during the day and leaving them beside their beds at night — even though the corporations that control their data are far less accountable than the government would be. ...

Today, it’s perfectly legal to collect and sell all this information. In the United States, as in most of the world, no federal law limits what has become a vast and lucrative trade in human tracking. Only internal company policies and the decency of individual employees prevent those with access to the data from, say, stalking an estranged spouse or selling the evening commute of an intelligence officer to a hostile foreign power. Companies say the data is shared only with vetted partners. As a society, we’re choosing simply to take their word for that, displaying a blithe faith in corporate beneficence that we don’t extend to far less intrusive yet more heavily regulated industries. Even if these companies are acting with the soundest moral code imaginable, there’s ultimately no foolproof way they can secure the data from falling into the hands of a foreign security service. Closer to home, on a smaller yet no less troubling scale, there are often few protections to stop an individual analyst with access to such data from tracking an ex-lover or a victim of abuse.

UK-US treaty bans extradition of Assange, lawyer says

Lawyers for Julian Assange said on Thursday they will argue that the WikiLeaks founder cannot be sent from Britain to the United States to face spying charges because a treaty between the two countries bans extradition for political offences.

At London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court, his lawyer Edward Fitzgerald outlined some of the evidence Assange’s team will put forward at the full extradition hearing due to start on Feb. 24, saying they could call up to 21 witnesses to testify.

“We say that there is in the treaty a ban on being extradited for a political offence and these offences as framed and in substance are political offences,” he told the court.

Other arguments would feature medical evidence, public denunciations by leading U.S. political figures, and details from the case of Chelsea Manning, an ex-intelligence analyst who was convicted by a U.S. Army court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offences for leaking secret cables to WikiLeaks.

There would also be information from an investigation led by a Spanish judge into “revelations about bugging of conversations with his lawyers” during Assange’s long stay in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

US Will `Curb Malign Iranian Behavior' if It Doesn't Stop

The United States renewed its offer to engage in talks with Iran on Thursday but warned it will do everything in its power “to curb malign Iranian behavior” if Tehran continues to destabilize the Middle East. The U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, Kelly Craft, said the Trump administration also “rejects Iran’s use of nuclear brinkmanship to normalize its destabilizing behavior.”

She commented at a U.N. Security Council meeting on implementation of a resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and key world powers.

Iranian Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi called the U.S. offer of unconditional talks “disingenuous.” The U.S. wants to enter dialogue from a position of strength from maintaining sanctions and maximum pressure, “and not based on equal footing,” he said. “Iran does not negotiate under the threat of a sword,” Ravanchi said.

He said U.S. implementation of the council's 2015 resolution endorsing the international Iran nuclear deal “will pave the way for a genuine dialogue to start.”

Proposal for new prime minister fails to quell protests in Lebanon

Lebanon’s head of state has named a new prime minister in an effort to break a political deadlock that has paralysed the country and left it unable to deal with a dire financial crisis that threatens to sink its economy within weeks.

However, the designation of Hassan Diab, a former minister and university professor, failed to spark enthusiasm, exposing yet again the depths of divisions across the fractured political spectrum and among a public that has little faith in the stewardship of its leaders.

Diab was backed by the powerful militia-cum-political bloc Hezbollah and its main Christian ally. But other members of Lebanon’s fractured parliament fell in behind former ambassador to the UN and judge Nawaf Salam – a rare unaligned figure seen as a credible alternative to a political class that has been broadly rejected over nearly six weeks of nationwide protests.

If Diab’s designation is confirmed during a second round of consultations on Saturday, he will need to assemble a cabinet, the form of which is one of many disagreements fuelling the crisis.

New Parliament readies to vote on Johnson's Brexit agreement

Johnson revises EU bill to limit parliament's role in Brexit talks

Boris Johnson’s EU withdrawal agreement bill has been published, with protections on workers’ rights, unaccompanied refugee children and parliament’s say over the future relationship stripped out. MPs are expecting to vote on the EU withdrawal agreement bill for the first time in this parliament on Friday, as Johnson aims to rush it through its first stage before Christmas.

The new bill scraps or waters down a number of key protections that were in the last one published in October, when Johnson was trying to get the support of some backbench Labour MPs to get it through parliament. It removes an entire schedule that promised to protect workers’ rights, with the government suggesting this will now be dealt with in separate legislation.

Ministers will no longer be bound by the legislation to provide updates on the future trading relationship or to make sure parliament approves the government’s negotiating objectives. ...

In terms of additions, the bill introduces a clause to rule out an extension to the transitional period, and powers to let lower courts overrule judgments from the European court of justice. The bill overall hands much greater power to Johnson’s government to shape a harder Brexit without the checks and balances of parliament.

Backbench Labour MPs and some soft Brexit Tories had fought to get concessions into the previous versions of the bill, but Johnson no longer has any need for their votes as he has a majority of 80.

Israeli spyware allegedly used to target Pakistani officials' phones

The mobile phones of at least two dozen Pakistani government officials were allegedly targeted earlier this year with technology owned by the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, the Guardian has learned. Scores of Pakistani senior defence and intelligence officials were among those who could have been compromised, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The alleged targeting was discovered during an analysis of 1,400 people whose phones were the focus of hacking attempts in a two-week period earlier this year, according to the sources. All the suspected intrusions exploited a vulnerability in WhatsApp software that potentially allowed the users of the malware to access messages and data on the targets’ phones.

The discovery of the breach in May prompted WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, to file a lawsuit against NSO in October in which it accused the company of “unauthorised access and abuse” of its services.

McConnell and Pelosi set for showdown over next steps of Trump impeachment

As Washington awoke on Thursday to the realisation that it had impeached the third US president in American history, the capital remained racked with uncertainty about what will come next in an impeachment process defined by almost total partisanship and rancor.

The two most powerful figures in the US Capitol, the Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Republican majority leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, almost immediately engaged in a huge showdown over who will have control over the impending congressional impeachment trial of Donald Trump over his dealings with Ukraine.

On Thursday morning, McConnell took to the floor of the Senate to say the House had done something no other Congress has ever done — impeached a president who hasn’t “committed an actual crime”. He slammed Pelosi’s threat of delaying tactics. “House Democrats may be too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate,” he said. “Looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country, and second guessing whether they want to do the trial.” ...

In Ukraine, at the center of the impeachment battle after details emerged that Trump tried to pressure its president into investigating his political rival Joe Bidena spokesman for president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said impeachment was an “internal issue” and “Ukraine does not interfere in the internal affairs of any state”. Back in the US, such is the vast chasm now dividing the two main parties in Congress that even some Trump opponents have begun to call for the articles of impeachment to be withheld from the Senate indefinitely. That would leave Trump in a state of limbo, with the dark cloud of impeachment hanging over his head while investigations continued.

CNN FREAKS Over Support Drop For Impeachment

Tulsi Bucks Party & Votes Present On Partisan Impeachment w/Tulsi Gabbard

Trump Is Third Impeached President, But Tulsi Gabbard Now First Lawmaker in US History to Vote 'Present' on Key Question

On Wednesday night, Tulsi Gabbard became the first member of Congress in U.S. history to vote "present" on the question of impeaching a sitting president. "I am standing in the center and have decided to vote present," Gabbard said in a statement.

"I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing," Gabbard explained. "I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country."

For many Democrats, however, it was an untenable and unwise position for Gabbard—also running to become the party's presidential nominee—to take.

"I really think it was not a smart choice for her politically," said fellow House Democrat, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, during an interview on Democracy Now. "I thought that was very disappointing and, frankly, a cop out." Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as The Daily Beast reports, told reporters after the vote that "to not take a stand one way or another in a day of such grave consequence to this country is quite difficult. We're here to lead."

Instead of impeaching Trump, Gabbard has called for the president to be censured, an official rebuke by the House but devoid of tangible consequences. Her decision to vote "present" on the impeachment articles before the U.S. House, however, was historic. ...

Many Democratic voters and pundits were furious with Gabbard's position as the congresswoman's name, and the derisive hashtag #GabbardIsACoward, were both trending on social media Thursday morning.

Trump's approval rating increased, despite impeachment. Could that change?

McConnell Openly Signals GOP's Future Willingness for 'Endless Parade' of Meaningless Impeachment Efforts

What was issued as a warning could just as well be taken as a threat.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday morning openly signaled his party's willingness to engage in an "endless parade" of meaningless impeachment efforts against future Democratic presidents as he defended his insistence that there are no substantive grounds for Wednesday night's historic impeachment vote against President Donald Trump.

McConnell accused Democrats of carrying out a "slapdash impeachment" process in the House, and oddly—given the overtly partisan nature of the Bill Clinton impeachment process—called the Wednesday night's passage "the first purely partisan presidential impeachment since the wake of the civil war."

"Frankly, if either of these articles is blessed by the Senate, we could easily see the impeachment of every future president of either party," McConnell said. "Let me say that again: If the Senate blesses this historically low bar, we will invite the impeachment of every future president."

The Republican leader added that impeaching Trump would create a "toxic new precedent that will echo well into the future" and subsequently warned "an endless parade of impeachment trials" was likely to follow if Republicans do not get their way and the president was held to account for his alleged misconduct.

Keiser Report: Central Banks Will Push Gold Higher in 2020

Goldman Sachs 'close to $2bn settlement' over 1MDB scandal

Goldman Sachs is close to reaching a settlement of nearly $2bn (£1.5bn) with the US Department of Justice over the 1MDB corruption scandal, according to a report.

The Wall Street bank is said to be formulating a deal under which its Asian subsidiary, rather than the parent company, would pay a multibillion-dollar fine and admit guilt for having allegedly turned a blind eye while $4.5bn was looted from its client, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB.

The deal would also involve oversight from an independent monitor that would help reform the bank’s compliance rules, the Wall Street Journal reported. ...

About $4.5bn was allegedly looted from 1MDB in a fraud said to have involved the former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, the Malaysian financier Jho Low, and his associates. The funds were allegedly used to buy everything from yachts to artwork, and fund the production of Hollywood films including The Wolf of Wall Street.

Trump's food stamp cuts begin soon – and black Americans to be hardest hit

As Kyle Waide visited the Atlanta community food bank recently, where he is CEO, he ran into a woman who had recently lost her administrative job at a university. She was looking for work, she told him, but it was hard to find. She was struggling to get by. ...

Thousands in Atlanta like her are already struggling to make ends meet, even before the Trump administration scales back benefits to low-income Americans to the supplemental nutrition assistance program (Snap) as food stamps are known. Approximately 700,000 Americans will soon lose their benefits as the government tightens the regulations around stable work requirements for recipients, stretching the already scarce resources of the communities that Waide’s operation helps.

Those communities are often African American, raising the prospect that Trump’s move will put extra stress on minority families. Approximately one in three households using Snap benefits are African American. In general, African American households are more likely to experience food insecurity, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In 2016, Snap helped more than 13 million African American households put food on the table, according to data from the US agriculture department’s fiscal year 2016 Snap Households Characteristic data. ...

Alex Camardelle, senior policy analyst at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, says many of the 100,000 Georgians who are thought to be affected by the coming change will be African American. “We’re concerned that high levels of unemployment in certain areas of the state, despite an overall improvement in the unemployment numbers, is going to disproportionately impact black Georgians,” he says. Black Georgians, he adds, have an unemployment rate in the state that could be triple that of white residents, often because of additional barriers they face, like where they live, access to transportation and the difficulty of finding a job in a mandated period of time.

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“Wine Cave Full of Crystals”: Warren & Buttigieg Spar over Donors, But Poverty Is Left Out of Debate

Pete Buttigieg Stood by Police Officer Who Mocked and Profited From Eric Garner’s Final Plea of “I Can’t Breathe”

It was a sunny day in July 2014 when Eric Garner was killed. The 43-year-old African American man had been approached by New York City police officers on suspicion that he’d been selling loose cigarettes. ... An hour later, he was dead. ... The killing became a watershed moment in the fight for racial justice and Garner’s final words a rallying cry. The impact was felt all across the country, including in the small Indiana city of South Bend, where 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was serving his first term as mayor. The moment would test the young politician and leave some in his community feeling as though he’d come up short. ... His response to the reverberations of the Garner killing in South Bend, where he tried to chart a middle ground between calls for racial justice and denial of the problem, is another example of what critics say is his failure to understand — and tackle — systemic racism.

On December 13, 2014, just five months after Garner’s death, during its televised warmup for its game against Michigan, the Notre Dame women’s basketball team wore black T-shirts with the words “I Can’t Breathe” emblazoned across the front in big white letters. The ensuing, predictable controversy made it into the national news cycle. Following the game, Jason Barthel, a white police officer from the city of Mishawaka, began selling slogan tees of his own from his store, South Bend Uniform, which frequently did business with the city of South Bend, including a sale for $800 days before the basketball game. The shirts prominently featured a police badge over a thin blue line with the words “Breathe Easy” across the top and “Don’t Break the Law” on the bottom.

The shirts sparked outrage within the community and on social media. In a post on its Facebook page, South Bend Uniform tried to defuse some of the anger, explaining that “Breathe Easy” was actually “referring to knowing the police are there for you.” ... Barthel, meanwhile, told the media that he had wanted to inject the police perspective into the conversation that was sparked by the Notre Dame women’s team. ... “When you break the law, unfortunately, there’s going to be consequences, and some of them aren’t going to be pretty,” Barthel explained to the South Bend Tribune. “Unfortunately, that’s the reality.”

Three members of South Bend’s city council — including the body’s only two serving African American men — issued a statement with the president of the South Bend branch of the NAACP. The release condemned the shirts and requested that local vendors discontinue sales. It also had an ask for Buttigieg. “In the past, the City of South Bend has done business with one of these local vendors,” it read, referring to South Bend Uniform. “It is our hope that Mayor Buttigieg and Mayor Wood of Mishawaka will join us in unifying our communities and not support this dangerous message.”

The first-term mayor, however, did not weigh in immediately, allowing the controversy to grow. When he did speak out during a local news interview, it was not the response the statement’s writers had hoped for. Buttigieg asserted that the two sides of the controversy were really not that divided after all. “They’re being portrayed like they’re on two different sides, but they’re not even talking about the same thing,” he explained. “We’re talking about two different things. And one of those is the way that race is playing a role in our criminal justice system. And the other is about the safety of police officers who go out there every day and risk their lives. And I fear that we’re being led down this path that you have to choose between being pro-minority/pro-equal rights and pro-police.” The mayor’s remarks on the controversy did not reassure his constituents who had wanted to see Buttigieg distance himself from Barthel’s message.

Krystal and Saagar: Yang, Bernie expose hollowness of identity politics at the debate

After Telling Moderator Climate Question 'Misses the Mark,' Sanders Says Real Issue Is Will We 'Save the Planet for Our Children and Grandchildren'

Sen. Bernie Sanders received widespread applause during Thursday night's Democratic Party presidential debate when he challenged what he considered a flimsy question on the issue of the climate crisis and then offered a far-reaching critique about a global system in which trillions are spent on war and destruction but similar investments are not made to address the emergency of global heating.

After Tim Alberta, Politico's chief political correspondent and one of the debate moderators, asked candidates if they would support federal funding to relocate communities threatened by rising sea levels and flooding rivers, Sanders took issue with the premise of the question.

"With all due respect, Tim, your question misses the mark," Sanders said.

"It is not an issue of relocating people from towns," Sanders continued. "The issue now is whether we save the planet for our children and grandchildren. The issue, as you should know, what the scientists are telling us, is that they have underestimated the threat and severity of climate change. We're talking about the Paris Agreement—that's fine—it ain't enough."

Sanders continued by saying the nation must "declare a national emergency" and touted legislation he has proposed to do exactly that.

"The United States has got to lead the world, and maybe—just maybe—instead of spending $1.8 trillion a year, globally, on weapons of destruction," he continued, "maybe an American president (ie. Bernie Sanders) can lead the world. Instead of spending money to kill eachother, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy which is climate change."

Rejoining the Paris Agreement ain't enough.

The issue now is whether we save the planet for our children and grandchildren.

We need a Green New Deal. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/UFtTkH2z2w

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 20, 2019

Joe Biden Criticized at Democratic Debate over Iraq, Afghanistan Wars & Failure to Close Gitmo

Krystal Ball: Andrew Yang is the truth teller we need at the debate

The Impending Ruling Class Mental Breakdown and Riot

Up to now, the Democrat-friendly corporate media have been content to ignore Bernie Sanders, as if the man who only two years ago was the most popular politician in the country, doesn’t exist. But all hell will break loose among the ruling class and its servants if Sanders wins or places very well in the New Hampshire primary (February 11) and Iowa caucuses (February 3) – especially if Joe Biden does poorly, as expected, and leaves defense of the oligarchy in the untested, Black-unfriendly hands of Pete Buttigieg. Biden’s strength among Black voters – his ace in the South Carolina hole – will quickly dissipate if the Old Incarcerator loses his “electability” luster in the early contests. Most Black Biden supporters are not “centrists” in the white sense of the word, and favor Sanders or Warren as their second choice – and Sanders and Warren are winning big among Black voters under 40. Blacks make up a quarter of Democratic voters, and virtually none want Buttigieg as the nominee.

That’s why billionaire Michael Bloomberg has saturated the airwaves with his noxious face and voice, money-muscling into what has been shaping up as a four-person race (Sanders, Warren, Biden, Buttigieg) that could very well end with Sanders and Warren amassing enough combined delegates to put together a presidential ticket, thus frustrating a super-delegate dictation of the lineup. Bloomberg’s money is unlikely to alter this dynamic, as should be evident from polling early in the new year. The data will plunge the ruling class, its media and the whole servile entourage into a panic not experienced in the United States since at least the Great Depression. All “democratic” bets will be off, and the ensuing corporate cyclone of propaganda, mayhem and dirty tricks will make the preceding years of Russiagate look as wholesome and pristine as a grade school civics class. Bernie Sanders could wind up more vilified than Jeremy Corbyn. Or it could be much worse. A ruling class mental breakdown – an oligarchs’ riot, in which real institutions and people get broken -- under threat of a Sanders/Warren nomination is a much more dangerous prospect than four more years of Trump, an outcome that is also much preferred by the Lords of Capital and their corporate Democrat servants.

It is impossible to predict what the ruling class will do to keep the Race to the Bottom on track, since austerity is their only strategy for capitalism in decline. But it is absolutely clear – both here in the belly of the global superpower beast, and in the old empire on the Thames – that every bourgeois liberty is “on the table” for elimination when the oligarchs feel existentially threatened. If you think they went crazy over the election of Trump, an impulsive and undependable member of their own class, imagine what they will countenance when an austerity buster threatens to take leadership of the other half of the electoral duopoly, and then contest for the presidency.

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For the second day in a row, Australia has broken its hottest day in recorded history.

The nationwide average temperature on December 18 was 41.9°C (107.4°F) -- across an area the size of the U.S. -- that's unthinkable.

We are in a climate emergency. https://t.co/51A7s2Inps

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) December 19, 2019

See how they worry about climate change disasters:

Scott Morrison apologises for taking holiday during Australia's bushfire crisis

Scott Morrison has apologised for going on holiday while Australia is in the grip of an extended bushfire crisis and a record-breaking heatwave.

In a statement on Friday morning the prime minister explained he had brought forward his leave with his family due to the need to travel to Japan and India in January.

“I deeply regret any offence caused to any of the many Australians affected by the terrible bushfires by my taking leave with family at this time,” Morrison said.

Morrison later confirmed the holiday was in Hawaii, seeking to explain the trip’s secrecy by suggesting he had tried to give his daughters “a bit of a surprise” despite several reporters stating the prime minister’s office had denied reports he was in Hawaii after he and his family had arrived.

The holiday – which was due to conclude on Monday – will now be cut short, with Morrison expected back in Australia on Saturday.

Arsenic Blankets This Tiny Montana Town. Its Residents Are Asking the Supreme Court to Let Them Clean It Up.

Serge Myers used grow vegetables in his yard. But he doesn’t anymore. There’s too much arsenic in the soil. ... Myers lives on a Superfund site, the Environmental Protection Agency’s term for a highly polluted area, in Opportunity, Montana, a small factory town where many residents once worked for the industry responsible for polluting it. Every day for 75 years, the local copper plant’s nearly 600-foot smokestack pumped as much as 62 tons of arsenic into the air, seeping into the soil in an area the size of New York City. And for the past decade, Myers and about 100 other people in the town have fought the company responsible, Atlantic Richfield Co. or Arco, to do even more than what the EPA’s plan requires to clean up the mess.

Now the Supreme Court will decide whether the landowners can create their own plan for mopping up the arsenic and lead in the soil — and force the company to carry it out. The case, Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian, could affect how the EPA oversees the cleanup of hundreds of the most polluted sites in the country. Arco, a subsidiary of BP, says Myers and the other residents don’t have the power to force the company to change the EPA’s cleanup plan, which has been underway for more than 36 years. Plus, the company has already spent $470 million trying to bring the levels of arsenic in the soil down to EPA-mandated levels of 250 parts per million. “This would utterly destroy EPA’s whole design,” Arco’s lawyer Lisa Blatt said during arguments before the Supreme Court on Dec. 3.

But the residents of Opportunity and neighboring Crackerville say the company hasn’t done enough, and they’re tired of waiting: The area has been on the EPA’s list of highly polluted sites since 1983, and the residents of the tiny town are still dealing with dangerously high levels of lead and arsenic in their yards. They want their land restored to its original condition, before the plant doused it with pollutants, which would cost the company an additional $50 million. The landowners sued for the first time in Montana state court in 2008. Almost a decade later, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in their favor, but the company appealed. Now, the Supreme Court is considering whether the residents of Opportunity can force the company to adopt their plan to clean up their properties and whether that would conflict with the EPA’s cleanup of the area. For its part, Arco is arguing the EPA’s cleanup can’t be extended or curtailed under state law because federal law takes precedence.

European Countries Announce Plan to Phase Out Toxic PFAS Chemicals by 2030

Environmental officials from Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark today announced a plan to restrict all PFAS compounds under Europe’s chemical regulations framework. The announcement in Brussels came one day after the submission of a document to the European Commission that lays out a strategy to phase out most uses of PFAS compounds by 2030.

The 21-page document calls for Europe to eliminate all uses of PFAS that are not “essential” and to approach the chemicals as a group rather than individually. The report, titled “Elements for an EU-strategy for PFASs,” maps out a comprehensive attack on the chemicals that have contaminated water around the world, and conveys an urgency that has been largely lacking from the U.S. government. The document was created in response to a request from the European Commission’s Environmental Council in June and calls for “immediate action to cease the release and exposure of all PFASs as far as possible” on the grounds that there are huge health and monetary costs of not acting. It describes the chemicals that have been used to make firefighting foam, make-up, food packaging, and non-stick coatings, including Teflon, as extremely mobile in soil and water and warns that “PFASs will remain in the environment for ages.”

While in the U.S. a 3M executive recently told members of Congress that “the weight of scientific evidence has not established that PFOS, PFOA, or other PFAS cause adverse human health effects,” the European strategy document plainly acknowledges that the chemicals harm people. A section of the document headed “PFASs cause harm” lists developmental toxicity, effects on lipid metabolism, development of tumors in one or several organs, and immunotoxicity as “observed effects in laboratory animals after exposure to several PFASs.” The human health effects listed include impact on infant birth weights, increased risk for cancer, effects on the immune system and thyroid hormone disruption.

The strategy document also notes that the mobile and persistent compounds will be extremely expensive to clean up in the environment. The costs of removal of PFAS chemicals from drinking water and ground water in Europe has been estimated at 10 to 20 billion Euros over 20 years — a figure that does not include property loss or ecological damage, the document acknowledges, since “these could not be quantified.”

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Also of Interest

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

Selling the war: I helped craft the official lies in Afghanistan

The 12 Strongest Arguments That Douma Was A False Flag

John Kiriakou: James Comey’s Interview on Fox News Screams Out for Correction

National Democrats Have Endorsed Three Former Republicans in Key Senate Races

Corbyn’s Biggest Failure

PBS Taps Journalist With Anti-Sanders Bias to Help Moderate Debate

New York Fed’s Fake Borrowing Rates Raise Ghosts of Libor’s Fake Rates

Australia Keeps Smashing Heat Records as Fires Rage

World's oldest known fossil forest found in New York quarry

Democracy Now: Activists Demand a Migrant Justice Platform as Democratic Candidates Discuss Immigration in Debate

Democracy Now: As Democratic Field Gets Whiter, DNC Should “Press Pause” & Fix Process Shutting Out People of Color

Bernie, Warren, Pete Surrogate post-debate panel

Saagar Enjeti: Mayor Pete revealed to be a fraud by Bernie, Warren, Amy

Rising: Team Bernie Trolls Pete with wine cave t-shirts, Amy Klobuchar's big moment

Rising: Trump Campaign sees Bernie, Biden as the same. 'Both their policies are the same'

Rising: Did Biden just assure Trump's victory?

Rising: Debate winners and losers

WTF!? Meghan McCain Defends Tulsi’s Vote On Impeachment

A Conversation With Michael Moore, Plus Debate Bias, and The Horowitz Report | Useful Idiots

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A Little Night Music

Eddie Clearwater - A Real Good Time

Eddie Clearwater - Hey Bernadine

Eddy Clearwater - Ding Dong Daddy

Eddy Clearwater - Blues Hangout

Eddy Clearwater - Muddy Waters Goin' to Run Clear

Mud Morganfield - Jimmy Johnson - Eddy Clearwater - Young Fashioned Ways

Eddy Clearwater - Chicago Weather Woman

Eddie "the Chief" Clearwater - Cool Blues Walk

Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater - Messed Up World

Eddy Clearwater & Jimmy Dawkins - My Babe & Poison Ivy

Eddy Clearwater - I Wouldn't Lay My Guitar Down

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