PNN - Last Song of Summer

PNN - The Song of September featuring  Poet, Author and Editor Aria Ligi

Brook Hines - brings her keen POLITICAL Insights to this weeks News

Jeanine Molloff - Talks ST Louis Nuclear Dumpfire  Originalists or Textualists (hint its a lie)

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WAPO - EPA orders cleanup at St. Louis nuclear waste site.
What does it mean for the nation’s other toxic messes?

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday ordered a long-awaited cleanup of a Superfund site northwest of St. Louis, saying residents living near the landfill contaminated with World War II-era nuclear waste deserve action after waiting 27 years for federal regulators to issue a decision.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to partially excavate tons of radioactive material from the West Lake Landfill over five years — at an expected cost of $236 million to the liable companies — goes beyond a 2008 solution proposed by the George W. Bush administration to cover and monitor the waste.

“The people of the St. Louis region deserve clarity and answers,” Pruitt said in a statement Thursday. “I promised them an answer, and today I am making good on that commitment.” He added that he sought a remedy at the site that would “protect public health, comply with the law, and hold potentially responsible parties accountable.”
Thursday’s announcement also was intended to be Exhibit A in demonstrating Pruitt’s commitment to revitalizing the agency’s Superfund program, which includes the nation’s most polluted sites, by streamlining and accelerating cleanups. But it underscored how few Superfund sites have simple answers, though nearly all of them generate intense emotions.
“We were hoping for full, 100 percent excavation. But we know that would be difficult to accomplish,” said Dawn Chapman, a founder of Just Moms STL, an activist group that has long pushed for an extensive excavation with relocation of families near the landfill.
Chapman said her group views the outcome as a hard-fought victory but one that is far from guaranteed, given the public-comment and cleanup process likely to unfold over years. “We have to stay here and watch it and see it through,” she said. “I look ahead, and I see these other big battles coming. We’re not going to blink because you can’t. … We will continue to fight to get even more [radioactive waste] removed.”
Pruitt’s decision goes further than the action sought by Republic Services and Exelon, whose subsidiaries are responsible for the cleanup at West Lake along with the federal Department of Energy. The companies have argued that the agency’s own science shows capping the waste is the safer option and that excavating the toxic material could create serious public health risks.
While the $236 million price tag of the EPA plan is significantly higher than what the firms hoped to spend, it is well below the cost, projected at nearly $700 million, of a full excavation.
In a statement, Republic Services said it was “pleased that the EPA has finally ended decades of study and again is issuing a proposed plan for the site.” But the company cautioned that a final decision could take years.
What remains to be seen is whether the decision on West Lake represents how Pruitt is likely to approach other Superfund sites.
In recent months, Pruitt has promised aggressive Superfund cleanups and made a public show of butting heads with corporate interests — something he has rarely done on other issues during his first year at the EPA. Yet aside from creating a list of 21 targets needing “immediate and intense” attention, as well as forming a task force to recommend ways to expedite cleanups and “reduce the burden” on companies involved, Pruitt has explained very little about how he intends to deal with the hundreds of other toxic-waste sites around the country.
“What’s the plan for the other sites that aren’t on [Pruitt’s] priority list?” asked Nancy Loeb, director of the Environmental Advocacy Center at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. She said Pruitt’s decision at West Lake might be “a positive step” but added, “It raises the question of whether Superfund is being used to showcase a few projects without actually doing more to clean up contamination at all 1,300 sites.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has proposed cutting the Superfund program’s budget by 30 percent, or about $330 million annually. And while there are responsible companies that the EPA can legally force to pay for cleanups at many of the locations Pruitt has mentioned, many others are “orphan” sites where the polluters have gone bankrupt or are no longer legally liable for remedying the problem. At those, the federal government still shoulders most of the tab — and the pot of available dollars keeps shrinking.
“I am concerned about orphan sites across the country in the Superfund portfolio,” Pruitt told lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week. “I think there are greater challenges beyond money. But money matters in that side of our responsibilities.”
Pruitt highlighted West Lake early in his tenure at the EPA.
“The past administration honestly just didn’t pay attention to [it],” he said on a local radio show in April. “We’re going to get things done at West Lake. The days of talking are over.” In May, Pruitt took to television to say a plan was coming “very soon.”
Eight months have passed since then. But families in the shadow of West Lake, which was added to the Superfund program in 1990, are no strangers to waiting. The site’s 200 acres include not just the radioactive waste illegally dumped in 1973, but also a former sanitary landfill. Decomposing trash is smoldering underground in what scientists call a “subsurface burning event.” There are concerns about the fire reaching the radioactive waste, though the companies there have taken numerous steps to prevent that.
Over the years, residents have complained of quality-of-life and health problems, including a periodic stench in the air and anecdotal tales of cancers, autoimmune disorders and miscarriages in adjacent neighborhoods. At the same time, numerous air, water and soil tests from the EPA and other government agencies have shown no link to such conditions.
Pruitt’s plan will now be open for a period of public comment before it is finalized.

2 How Scott Pruitt turned the EPA into one of Trump’s most powerful tools
Since 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency has been embroiled in an enforcement battle with a Michigan-based company accused of modifying the state's largest coal-fired power plant without getting federal permits for a projected rise in pollution.
On Dec. 7, as the Supreme Court was considering whether to hear the case, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a memo that single-handedly reversed the agency's position. No longer would the EPA be "second-guessing" DTE Energy's emission projections. Rather, it would accept the firm's "intent" to manage its pollution without requiring an enforceable agreement — part of President Trump's broader push to reduce the "burden" on companies, he wrote.
The little-noticed episode offers a glimpse into how Pruitt has spent his first year running the EPA. In legal maneuvers and executive actions, in public speeches and closed-door meetings with industry groups, he has moved to shrink the agency's reach, alter its focus, and pause or reverse numerous environmental rules. The effect has been to steer the EPA in the direction sought by those being regulated.
Along the way, Pruitt has begun to dismantle former president Barack Obama's environmental legacy, halting the agency's efforts to combat climate change and to shift the nation away from its reliance on fossil fuels.
Such aggressiveness on issues from coal waste to vehicle emissions has made Pruitt one of Trump's most high-profile and consequential Cabinet members. It also has made him one of the most controversial.
Critics describe his short tenure as an assault on the agency's mission, its science and its employees.
We've spent 40 years putting together an apparatus to protect public health and the environment from a lot of different pollutants," said William Ruckelshaus, the EPA's first administrator, who led the agency under Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan. "He's pulling that whole apparatus down."
Yet, allies praise Pruitt for returning more power to individual states while scaling back what they see as the previous administration's regulatory excesses.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From an EPA Alum Contact

even though it is tempting to speak about the National Ocean Policy and Marine Spatial Planning issues I worked on while at EPA I cannot.  The results of an interview are unknown considering what is being done to try and reduce the number of EPA employees and eliminate federal laws intended to protect human health and the environment.

The public should be made aware that during the early 1900s the U.S. had a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was concerned enough about the environment to establish the Forest Service and first national park both of which led to more pro-environmental actions that endured WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, and more and also protected the nation’s national resources.  They should also be educated about the national outcry in the late 1960s for more environmental protection that resulted in the establishment of EPA and its initial/basic proposals that the U.S. Congress and president passed into the form of laws.

The activities listed above were the foundation(s) that resulted in more laws to protect citizens’ health and the nation’s environment.  Without laws to protect the environment the nation’s natural resources will not be sustained nor will future generations have the chance to benefit from them.  Without a sufficient amount of natural resources the nation’s economy will also be damaged and the U.S. will have to import more resources.
best regards,
XX

While at EPA I worked at HQ Office of Water on policy issues relative to marine protection, spatial applications to display marine protected areas, the Marine Boundary Working Group
(a subcommittee of the Federal Geographic Data Committee), coastal management issues, and more.  For many years I was the only employee in marine protection with a background in geography and GIS.  There probably is no Environmental Protection Specialist there now that came in and took my place.  Most of the employees were educated in biology and had little or no interest in geoscience

.

PNN - Better Sources / Better Methods

PNN - Better Sources Better Methods 

Brook Hines Senior Political Commentator Discusses Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9

We also bring these additional Special Guests :

* Artist Anna Maria Hernando multimedia artist from Boulder,
   she talks about her mixed media life.
*Our new correspondent - Jeanine Molloff Ferguson Activist + Progressive Journalist and author of the Amazon hit -  "The Silent Culling"
* We get an UPDATE from Nuclear Hotseat Producer / Host Libbe HaLevy
* Longtime Progressive Activist Edwin Enciso on Immigrant Rights in the TRUMP ERA
TUNE IN LIVE SUNDAY 7pm Eastern / 6pm Central / 4pm Pacific

Or anytime
Listen Now

NOTES ON FAHRENHEIT 11/9
1. Michigan's  Governance  Crisis
    Flint's Water Crisis
2. Grand Jestures as a POLITICAL ARGUEMENT
    Taking a Water TRUCK to the Governor's House
    JUST LIKE citizen Barack Taking a Swim in the Gulf
    after the COREXIT *MAGICALLY *DISAPPEARED*
     or Ostentatiously drinking a GLASS of Water
     in Flint while offering Assurances that
    "DRINKING A GLASS of WATER" (unidentified water twice)
    Was not a STUNT
     say it again - Not a STUNT 
*   SPRAYING THE YARD was not a STUNT
*   OFFERING THE GLASS OF WATER was not a STUNT
     Comparing TRUMP-Talking Points with Hitlers similar
     Talking Points was not a stunt it was a visual AID
3. Legionaires Disease -
   TAMPERING with THE reporting of the
    OFFICIAL LEAD LEVEL REPORTING
4. Unannounced Military SHOW-of-FORCE
    in FLINT
5. Let us SPECULATE on WHY Senator Sanders
    was "allowed to announce the results"
    of a CORRUPTED ELECTION RESULT
6. West Virgnia Teachers / Oklahoma Teachers
    illegal Strike
7. THE TACTICS of the West Virginia Candidate and
    the candidate from Flint and Occaiso-Cortez

Listen Now

My Review of Fahrenheit `11/9

Fahrenheit 11/9

Sisters and Brothers, I watched brother Michael Moore's movie, with the sad knowing eyes of an activist who has been in the struggle for 1/2 Century. I grew up in a town with a statue in its downtown streets to massacred workers who struck for a living wage a century ago and were shot in the street for the crime of defending their families.

I have no illusions about our struggles. I know about reservations and barrios and ghettos. I know about Nazis and Klansman and coppers that think that summary execution is justice. I know about pollution and nuclear waste in our rivers and streams and streets. I know about mine waste and factory farms and massive floating isles of plastic choking our vast oceans. Knowing all that I watched Michaels movie with knowing eyes.

Brother Moore’s Movie reminds us what's at stake, and reminds us we are not alone in the struggle. Reminds us that we have brave brothers and sisters who stand with us EVERYDAY.

YES, THE DECK IS STACKED AGAINST US.
BUT WE HAVE BRAVE SISTERS AND BROTHERS STANDING BESIDE US.

I WEEP FOR THE CHILDREN, I WEEP FOR THE BRAVE ONES WHO WILL NOT JUST LIE DOWN AND DIE.

I AM MADE STRONG! BY THE BRAVE CHILDREN OF PARKLAND!
I AM MADE STRONG BY THE BRAVE TEACHERS OF WEST VIRGINIA!
I AM MADE STRONG BY THE BRAVE BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO STAND UP IN FLINT!

AND I GIVE THANKS FOR THOSE BRAVE ONES WHO TAKE A KNEE IN SOLIDARITY!

GO SEE MICHAELS MOVIE - YOU WILL WEEP AND ALSO YOU WILL GET STRONGER!

Listen Now

PNN: Authors, Poets, and Playwrights

PNN:  Authors, Poets, and Playwrights

Amazing tales from:

* Dr. Johanna Neuman- Gilded Suffragists: When Wealthy Women became vested in Human Rights for Women.

* Rab Fulton - Scottish Poet and Story Teller from Galway, Ireland

* Dominic Windam - Poet / Educator from Northern England









Our Featured Political Analyst: Brook Hines
                   Producer/Editor: Rick Spisak

Tune In Anytime


The Complete Webcast Show

The PNN WEBCAST Authors, Poets, and Playwrights

Authors Full Interviews




Rab Fulton's Website

PNN - Float like a Butterfly Sting like an Activist

PNN - Float like a Butterfly Sting like an Activist
Our Guests:

Staci-Lee Sherwood - Butterflies & Turtles a wildlife activist who has been involved in wildlife issues for over a decade. She has been very involved in Turtles rescues over the years and has turned in an additional direction and she has turned her not inconsiderable skills to protecting pollinators.

LISTEN TO PNN

Kofi Hunt - Tampa/St. Petersburg Democratic Activist who has spent over a decade assisting progressive activists to maximize their impact.

Listen to PNN

Libbe Halevy - Radiation Activist Libbe has made it her focus of interest studying Nuclear Plants, and Nuclear Power dangers. The impact on the environment and helping people understand the health impact of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Waste storage and processing. She has a weekly podcast called the Nuclear Hotseat!  

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Brook Hines -  will give us an UPDATE on FLorida Democratic Politics

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PNN - Its a lot to LAKE

PNN Welcomes Sarah Heard County Commissioner / Paula Albright INDIVISIBLE Actisit and more to an Awesome Amazing Show

We welcome Martin County Commissioner Sarah Heard.  The fighting  County Commissioner who has opposed not all DEVELOPMENT but careless unhealthy thoughtless OVER-DEVELOPMENT. Listen to the GOOD SENSE OFFERED by this honest and TRUE CIVIL SERVANT! - (HINT SHE NEEDS OUR SUPPORT!!!)

Welcome heroic and powerful activist Paula Albright who is one of the powerful activist leaders of Indivisible Martin and an active voice in the LOCAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY - She arrives to give us an update on the GROUND LEVEL ACTIVISTS, who are opposing TRUMPTACIOUS POLICIES on UN-HEALTHCARE, ANTI-IMMIGRATION and ANTI-Environmental Actions by this current MIS-Administration.

LISTEN


====================================
Vulgar Volgans Volumizer

These “titilating tidbits” (the Carter page fisa request) is small potato pancakes in my opinion. It belies the universality and ubiquitous nature of surveillance.
While it stands a spicy “tidbit” apart from the holistic mosaic of spy-vs-spy in the vast gushing stream of corruption when a small time (between bankruptcies) New York crime family (the fambly CRUMP) who must’ve  had already been on everyone’s monitoring  ( us / European / Kremlin / Chinese) list simply from funneling and laundering Russian Oligarchs looted funds.
 If you can imagine for a second who was listening in as they try to suddenly up the ante and enter the BIG GAME (geo/political)  to imagine that any corporate entity “riding high” on Russian funds, wouldn’t already be on everyone’s radar ???  It is to laugh!
 That’s major league naive to the 10,000th power.
And when you picture young Jared (his dad already in prison) and the brain trust of the  “Donald spawn” entering negotiations to create a “secret back-channel” to the Kremlin by visiting the Russian embassy? WOW - a scenario to make Mel Brooks proud!
Alarums must’ve been sounding from OTTOWA TO AUSTRALIA AND FROM BERLIN TO BOTSWANA LAND!
EVERY junior grade spy from Poland to Polynesia was aware and rolling tape. And alarms were going off everywhere.
Do you think any less, in the more formal us/UK/Kremlin/tel Aviv/Beijing clandestine services ???
C’mon the pros must’ve been rolling on the floor to think Little Donnie Jr is going to OUTWIT the kids from Langley much less the kids working for any odd Nigerian Princeling - goat cheese!!  goat cheese!!
Now we’re getting notified that there was a FISA for Carter Page - I’m shocked???
 WHO COULD IMAGINE? Jeevus H - Ivanna’s poodles probably got an FBI FILE!
And while Manaforts spent the past decade strolling in an out of the eastern block, babysitting petty tyrants giving them a taste of “Reagan grade corruption”- GEEZ do you think he’s monitored???
Give me a break! Let the Vulgar Volgan Boatmen Sing!


LISTEN

Sent from an Unsecured Comm Device
===============================
Maria tells All
Immigration Hearing Testimony pits Jeff Seesesh against 18 month old Honduran waif in Chicago Courtroom Showdown: (Reuters:)
Argentinian Deaf Squads Testimony reeks HAVOC in Chicago Immigration Hearing to Lasting and Devastating Effect On Trumptacious Immigration Policy
Little Maria Graciela Otega Lucilianitante led the court, step by step through her cases exploration of the forces engaged in union suppression and ecological devastation throughout Central and South America.

No one expected the 18 month old to have such a detailed grasp of the legal niceties much less the onerous and cumbersome processes involved in subpoenas served across the Hemisphere yet little Maria Graciela Otega Lucilianitante kept them guessing.

While the child was still a little disoriented after her 8,000-mile flight from Bangalore to Karachi and then the overflight of the poles of Milwaukee and Minneapolis she was, despite being jet-lagged, capable of giving detailed and erudite testimony on behalf of her case last week in court.
Where she single-handedly masterminded and personally delivered her complex legal arguments outlining and refuting point by point the fallacies of the entire ATTORNEY GENERAL Jeffie Beauregard Seesesh, theory of IMMIGRATION LAW AND ITS ONEROUS AND DESPICABLE MISTREATMENT of ASYLUM SEEKERS.

The Seesesh legal team was forced to respond in the landmark hearings in Chicago Superior Court. Little Maria outlined in excruciating detail the historic impact of the sociological and economic forces that drove her parents and many other similarly situated villagers to seek asylum in the not so WELCOMING ARMS OF THE TRUMPTACEOUS PERIOD OF USA’s Immigration Policy.

The child called Witness after Witness from Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua to Ollie North (late of the Russian backed N.R.A) then after a recess for her nap and ZUMBA workout, later that same week, SHE ARRANGED for the court to receive testimony of several senior managers in United Fruit Company which she had flown in from Geneva and Paraguay, who then under OAF, Testified detailing the extensive links between US Anti-Union Activity and the Contra Assassination Squads used, to suppress indigenous people throughout Latin America.
But the real headlines in her case (WSJ/NYT) came with Henry Kissinger’s intriguing Testimony on the close “school ties” of the Reagan Administration to the Argentinian Deaf Squads.


LISTEN

Sent from an Unsecured Comm Device
By
RW Spisak
7/21/18



FROM Brooks Presentation

NOTE ON GRAYSON ATTACK ARTICLE
unfiltered = plain spoken
tired of his schtick = enthusiastically welcoming him back
bombastic = well spoken unafraid to mince words
firebrand = a man of convictions

Jewish = a religious man
he's mean = not a go along get along wishy-washy democrat
represented whistleblowers = understand a principled stand
brazenly attacked republicans = opposed republican blocking of the Obama healthcare plan
took Ben Bernanke to task for pro-wall street policies
sometimes has insulted Republicans - unafraid to speak his mind
VOTED - a most effective member of Congress
if the hood fits = plain spoken
not a moderate in defense of democratic values

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LISTEN

PNN - Bastille Day Poets - FREE YOUR MIMES

PNN - Bastille Day Poets - Free Your Mimes
Produced, Directed and Edited by RW Spisak.

Liz Matson - Idaho / Linda Middleton - Hawaii
Manny Blacksher - Ala / Aria Ligi San Francisco
Robert Cole & Susie Reynolds - Brittany, France
Brook Hines - Orlando/ Rick Spisak Producer / Poet - Stuart

Tune in Live Sunday (7/15/18)

7pm East/6pm Central / 4pm Pacific

Poets share their perspective on Liberte and Human Rights
LISTEN

DONATE TO SUPPORT PNN

I weep for the Children of the Terror Migration

I weep for the Children of the Terror Migration

And for our grandchildren and their children who will reap the awful fruits of 
these UGLY CRIMES AGAINST JUSTICE. 

To call these abuses a mockery of justice is insufficient, they remain a stain 
on every willing enabler of this American Injustice.
This remains an insult, a horrible grinding soul devouring disaster of Injustice. 
And our government our legal officials are inflicting this on babies, 
and on these lost and broken families. Calling these refugees, these babies “illegal” 
and applying a process of “zero tolerance” on these people with their 
pre-existing conditions of abuse is barbaric. 

WHICH, IT MUST BE STIPULATED arises solely and completely from American policies, 
American weapons and training, and American economic imperialism in Central 
and South America.

These tiny children standing alone in American courts of INJUSTICE are ONLY 
the pathetic tip of a HIDEOUS AND SHAMEFUL ICEBERG OF POLICY. 
They represent the first fruit of this terror-migration.

Our children and grandchildren will harvest the fruit of these abuses 
for a century yet to come.


Sent from an unsecured and monitored comm device 

To fall to bots on the social media battlefield 
and Social Media bots... Victorious?

Is this the future of the West’s once great Alliance?

Having failed to defeat the West on the battlefield in Berlin, in the Cold War, and in dozens of proxy wars. 
Then Russia watched their dragooned allies, from behind the rusted curtain flee merrily to NATO. 
And Europe’s economic embrace.

Are we now, to see the defeat of the western democracies via the checkbook
 and through corrupted electoral processes on the field of social media ? 

That and corrupted influence of the dyed blonde fool and his sycophants on the hill?

Turning away from Universal Literacy?

Turning away from Universal Literacy?

It was the AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT and it’s proponents who urged that every life is sacred, 
every human worthy of literacy, capable of its own agency, worthy to participate intelligently in its 
society.

Realizing that absent universal literacy there would be an underclass, an untouchable or “serf” peasant class 
who would continuously be put upon and victimized by an educated, empowered overclass.

I must remind the readers, this stood in full opposition to the arguments of class and monarchy, 
even the simple despotism that had crushed so many lives through the centuries. I can not argue 
that education and it’s flower literacy, especially SCIENTIFIC LITERACY- is wholly and enthusiastically 
embraced by all humanity. Looking at rates of literacy and recreational reading alone tells that sad tale.

But I would argue that dragging illiterates into an educational enrichment opportunity is a price well worth 
paying for a Society aiming at universal suffrage. A Society dependent on a bare minimum scientific literacy 
can make no claims of even simple humanity if they do not provide educational opportunities to every citizen, 
every human life. (Regardless of accidents of age, sex, race, place or conditions of birth).

Further I believe that a society turning away from universal suffrage and especially away from 
universal scientific and humane literacy will eventually find solid and compelling reasons to reduce, 
restrict and constrain literacy to a very narrow preselected class and that handful will embrace its authority 
and privilege and finally restore the monarchy and we will have returned to a new DARK AGES with its 
priest craft along with its ugly sisters ignorance and superstition. And it’s blood and brutality.

Advice to Would-be Media Influencers

Advice to Would-be Media Influencers

If you are asked to comment on the illustrious choice of the (former Bush Coup Enabler, former Ken Starr ghost writer, former Bush Administration Assistant to the Chief of Staff)
JUDGE. He who has been selected to Overturn... (that which shall go unmentioned.) [hint: starts with Roe V Wade]

Remember they (OUR GOVERNMENT, We?) are keeping track of all "media influencers" so your safest course (as a Media Influencer)  is to lavish hysterical unbridled praise on not just the judge, and it almost "goes without saying", on the Heroic and Olympian Judgment of the Golden Gift of the GOD-GIVEN Trumperium.

But I must add, that every effort must be made to - in the most ecstatic and fulsome terms, recognize such a glowing, incandescent even Promethean choice, of this the finest example of sober nonpartisan judicial leadership. ( services to W's coup in Florida, notwithstanding) , but I would think (still allowed?) that sustained histrionic and noisy groveling, and rending of garments when accompanied by slavish praise for the FEDERALIST VETTING PROCEDURE - is undoubtedly required to achieve even a minimally adequate level of sycophancy necessary to pass the TRUMPERIUM "TRUE-BELIEVER" LITMUS TEST.

STOPPING IN ANYWAY SHORT of an abject groveling genuflection, I think it probably safe to say (looking over both shoulders) absent that, there will be no federal DC judgeship for you ... my fine friend.

( passed along from an unnamed source, secreted away, at an undisclosed location, and TOTALLY off the record )


Sent from an unsecured com link

The New Good Neighbor Policy

The New Good Neighbor Policy

The corporations exist at the sufferance of civil society it was "assumed" in the past that the corner butcher 
or dry goods shop owner or car dealer who lived and prospered by the use of civic roads and infrastructure 
was compelled by native instinct to avoid shirking community norms and would not poison, or pollute 
or adulterate their products because the good city burghers would not tolerate such abuse from a 
fellow shopkeeper. (Now corporate entity) run by another villager to deal so imprudently with a neighbor 
and fellow villager.

As corporations or shop keepers got bigger so large so as to claim resources from many villagers, 
they have learned two diabolical skills - first playing fast and loose with international taxation loopholes 
(as in apple or microshaft or gargle)
"I'm not living here, for tax paying purposes" and because, playing tax bill "whack a mole" and chasing 
these international shopkeepers is a time consuming and expensive task.
(not to mention) How lobbyist cash "donations" is a strong disincentive for strict enforcement of shop keeper 
responsibility.

We can no longer afford to have these international scofflaws thrive and hide, who expect to be able 
to sell in this village, but claim to live "over there" (for tax responsibility purposes) While using all the 
infrastructure they need to do business (mail service, street lights, EMT, roads, bridges, power, police, 
all civil structures) in not just one but so many villages.

You say, These shopkeepers or corporations, or companies are people too? 

We need to say, an end to these tax responsibility scofflaws, they need to ante up in your town and mine. 
Also let me also add, when they poison our lakes, streams, rivers and air... no legal niceties should shield 
these bad shopkeepers and allow them to skirt a good neighbor's civic duty - 

You insist your four year old cleans up their mess - shouldn't these cross border shopkeepers should do less?

Bulwark of the Law

I interviewed a state attorney on this question (the 4th Amendment)  and asked "what is the constitutional basis 
for this behavior? 

Since we ostensibly have enshrined in the CONSTITUTION protection from UNREASONABLE SEARCHES 
AND SEIZURES?"

He laughed and said "the war on drugs!" (He winked here, because he thought I liked his joke) I was thinking 
about all those people, who's lives were stolen)

I said "regardless, when was the Constitution modified? I never heard anything about it. 
Did it happen while America wasn't looking? When our back was turned?" In W's felicitous phrase, 
"you gotta catapult the propaganda".

He laughed again, well he said in candor, "the forces of law&disorder (tm) profit by it TREMENDOUSLY! "
I said, "yes I realize all those goods (stolen from citizens) enrich law enforcement" but I continued,
 "you are an officer of the court, sworn to (hold up) uphold, the law, you're not supposed to sway
 in the political wind. You represent the citizens' protection, you are our bulwark of the law!"
He laughed and said, "you see. it's never been successfully challenged that's why!"

Sessions wants to increase seizures 7/18/17

PNN - Marty Baum Special - Water Is Life

Marty Baum, the Indian River Water Keeper  has asked us to help him mobilize
our WATER IS LIFE ACTIVISTS!

Marty is leading the Effort to Bring the LIGHT BRIGADE to the Roosevelt Bridge Friday  JUNE 28th, from 7:30-9pm

We need to get our WATER IS LIFE PEOPLE OUT ON THE BRIDGE Friday 6/28/18

The damage in Lake Okeechobee has spread out - out - out to the east and west and has spread its poison literally to the beach lining the shores of FLORIDA.

Mart has recorded a message that you must hear, and hearing that clarion call -
he wants us to JOIN HIM ON THE ROOSEVELT BRIDGE FRIDAY NIGHT

HE IS BRINGING HIS MESSAGE IN LIGHT! -

TUNE IN on PNN WEDNESDAY THURSDAY and FRIDAY
and Join Us on the Bridge Friday 6/28/18 at dark!

TUNE IN SPREAD THE WORD!

Solidarity & Peace
Rick Spisak New Director PNN

PNN - Exiles from Justice

PNN - Exiles from Justice (6/24/18)

PNN- Exiles from Justice - from border to border from the country side to the heart of the city
PNN Welcomes two marvelous guests who treat of Justice and inJustice from the RIO GRANDE to Pennsylvania.

Courtney Horne a Technologist and System analyst discusses the issues facing America's search for Justice.

Veverly Gary Attorney and ACLU Chapter Chair from the Treasure Coast Chapter discusses her perspective on the problems in Florida and makes suggestions on how we might improve the Justice available to all peoples in Florida Black, Brown and beige.
Brook Hines brings us her insight from the campaign trail and beyond.  Also bring Fred Barr.

Host and producer Rick Spisak discusses the danger of the presidents attack on the DIAPER DESPERADOES.
TUNE IN Live Sunday 7pm East / 6pm Central / 4pm Pacific

PNN - Listen Now

LETS LOOK AT SOME OTHER ISSUES of the Day:
* Science in Exile
* Plans to reduce Social Security
* Plans to allow more pollution in our air and water
* Plans to house more immigrants on Military bases
* Continued increases in suicides in the general population
* PLANS further our breaks with our allies in Europe and Canada
* The Terrible costs of the Trade War
* The Increases in deficits by the debt mesmerized republicans
* Dumpfster launches a trial balloon to dispense with hearings for asylum seekers?
* These immigrants are animals, the democrats care more about MS 13 than about Americans
* Its up to Congress LEGISLATION is the only Selection,
   then TRUMPTATION undercuts Congressional Action

Report: Up to 110 Million Americans Could Have PFAS-Contaminated Drinking Water
PFAS Tap Water Data Was Funded By Taxpayers But Kept Secret
Are PFAS chemicals in my water?
The EPA has not compiled and released all the information on PFAS contamination. You can use EWG’s Tap Water Database to search your zip code and learn if you rely on one of the approximately 200 water systems with contamination levels above the EPA’s reporting limit. But keep in mind, the EPA’s reporting limit is higher than a health-protective level. The EPA or the labs that did the water analysis have either discarded or are withholding the results of tests that indicate contamination, but are below the EPA reporting limits, so some data is NOT reflected in EWG’s Tap Water Database. Join EWG in calling on the EPA to release ALL the data..
What can I do if PFAS chemicals are found in my water?

To reduce or eliminate PFAS chemicals from your water, use either a reverse osmosis or activated carbon filter. Activated carbon filters will be less effective at removing the shorter chain replacement PFAS chemicals, but we don't know the extent of water contamination from replacement chemicals. You can access our water filter guide here.

Take action
It is outrageous that the public does not know the extent of PFAS contamination of drinking water. Stand with EWG and demand that the EPA immediately collects contamination data and releases it to the public.


More than 1,500 drinking water systems across the country may be contaminated with the nonstick chemicals PFOA and PFOS, and similar fluorine-based chemicals, a new EWG analysis shows. This groundbreaking finding comes the same day the Environmental Protection Agency is convening a summit to address PFAS chemicals – a class of toxic chemicals that includes PFOA and PFOS, and that are linked to cancer, thyroid disease, weakened immunity and other health problems.
From 2013 to 2015, the EPA mandated national testing for PFAS chemicals in public water systems, yet the full results of this testing, funded by taxpayers, were never made public. Water utilities with the highest concentrations of PFAS chemicals have been publicly identified. But the names of utilities with detectable PFAS contamination below the so-called reporting levels of 10 to 90 parts per trillion, or ppt, were not released. Millions of people were not informed that their water supply is contaminated with these chemicals.

The additional water systems with PFAS contamination likely serve tens of millions of people, and it is essential for people in those communities to be informed of this hazard. Eurofins Eaton Analytical, which analyzed a third of the nationwide water samples, found that 28 percent of the water utilities it tested contained PFAS chemicals at concentrations at or above 5 ppt. The percentage of samples with PFAS detections nearly doubled when the laboratory analyzed down to 2.5 ppt. Based on this data, EWG’s analysis suggests that up to 110 million Americans could have PFAS in their water.
This new research greatly exceeds EWG’s previous estimate of 16 million Americans being exposed to PFAS-contaminated water, as reported in the EWG’s national Tap Water Database.

Independent scientific assessments find that the safe level of exposure to PFAS chemicals is about 1 ppt – significantly below the reporting level set by the EPA.

Just over a week ago, Inside EPA and Politico broke news that the White House and the EPA attempted to bury a proposal from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that suggested exposure to Teflon and Scotchgard chemicals may be harmful at levels 10 times lower than what the EPA has publicly called safe. The full ATSDR proposal has not been made public, but the available information indicates the lower level was proposed because ATSDR accounted for harm to the immune system. This mirrors the more health protective approach New Jersey took in drafting its drinking water limits of 13 ppt for PFOS and 14 ppt for PFOA.
The full implications a lower safe exposure level would have are uncertain because the extent of national drinking water contamination is unknown. The uncertainty is largely due to the reporting value the EPA has previously used. PFAS detections below the reporting limits were kept secret, and may have never been recorded.

Today’s EPA summit on the PFAS contamination crisis carries no indication that the agency will take action. In fact, the public might expect the opposite result, given internal EPA emails showing that top aides to Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House officials attempted to suppress the ATSDR proposal, worrying the release of the study would be “a public relations nightmare” for the Trump administration.

EWG calls on the EPA, testing laboratories and drinking water utilities across that country that have PFAS testing results to make the information public immediately. Knowing the locations and extent of contamination is critical for cleaning up water supplies and making the case for regulation.
Secret PFAS contamination data

In the water testing mandated by the EPA under the third Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, or UCMR, 198 different water utilities had recorded detections of PFAS chemicals in amounts above the EPA reporting limit. But the reporting limits were very high, using 40 ppt for PFOS and 20 ppt for PFOA, though many labs have much more sensitive detection limits. Some analytical labs are able to detect amounts as small 2 ppt of PFAS chemicals in water.

Based on a reanalysis of the national dataset by Eurofins Eaton Analytical, a water testing lab that processed more than 30 percent of nationwide water samples, EWG estimated how many utilities would likely have contaminated water if the reporting values had been set lower. At a reporting limit of 5 ppt, an estimated 1,046 utilities could have tested positive. If all results down to 2.5 ppt were reported, we estimate that over 1,900 of the 4,920 water utilities tested in the United States would have reported contamination.

Using maps generated by Eurofins Eaton Analytical and the public UCMR results, we calculated the number of water utilities that the lab identified as having PFOA or PFOS in their water, without results being reported to the EPA. Some states such as New Jersey have done additionally water testing and have likely identified some, if not all, of the utilities that have PFAS chemicals in their water.

https://www.ewg.org/research/report-110-million-americans-could-have-pfas-contaminated-drinking-water#.WzASn_ZFyUl

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Louisiana and Minnesota Introduce Anti-Protest Bills Amid Fights Over Bayou Bridge and Enbridge Pipelines
Alleen Brown, Will Parrish
This week, the Louisiana House of Representatives introduced new legislation aimed at criminalizing the activities of groups protesting the extraction, burning, and transport of oil and gas. The bill is similar to a model created by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council. Indeed, in the wake of the massive protest movement at Standing Rock, which attempted to prevent completion of the Dakota Access pipeline, at least seven states have introduced or passed “critical infrastructure” legislation. Louisiana’s version comes as opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline have ramped up protest activities in the state, staging occupations and blockades aimed at halting construction of the project.
The legislation creates new crimes that would punish groups for “conspiring” to trespass on critical infrastructure sites and prescribes particularly harsh penalties for those whose ideas, if carried out, would disrupt the operations of such infrastructure. The definition of the term critical infrastructure would be amended to include pipelines and pipeline construction sites. The language of the bill reaches far beyond cases of property destruction and stands to net individuals who do not participate in or condone such activities.

The Louisiana bill, unlike the ALEC model, does not require that any disruption to a facility’s functioning take place for penalties to apply — an individual could face huge fines or prison time without ever having set foot on the property.

“This is ALEC-plus,” said Pamela Spees, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who is representing groups opposed to the Bayou Bridge project.

The proposed law appears to be designed to intimidate the array of groups working to halt construction of the 163-mile oil pipeline, which cuts through a sensitive wetland where Louisiana crawfish are harvested. The groups — including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Bold Louisiana, and the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper — have worked together despite varying goals that range from preserving sensitive habitats and lessening the impact of climate change to defending property rights and protecting the local crawfishing industry.

The Bayou Bridge pipeline shares the same parent company, Energy Transfer Partners, as the Dakota Access pipeline. Indeed, the two projects represent the northern and southern ends of a larger pipeline system.

“I think it shows how very deeply this industry has our state government by the throat,” Cherri Foytlin, a member of the indigenous women’s advisory council for the anti-Bayou Bridge L’eau Est La Vie (Water Is Life) Camp, said of the new legislation. “That they would sacrifice the citizens of South Louisiana, who are trying to protect their water, by criminalizing them over companies like Energy Transfer Partners.”

Mounting Restrictions on the Right to Protest
ALEC, which brings together corporations and right-wing legislators to draft industry-friendly policies, finalized its model “Critical Infrastructure Protection Act” in January based on a law passed in Oklahoma last spring, and since then, similar bills have been introduced in Iowa, Ohio, Wyoming, and Minnesota. Pennsylvania also introduced a critical infrastructure bill shortly after Oklahoma. In addition to ALEC, the nonpartisan Council of State Governments has also promoted the Oklahoma law on its list of “shared state legislation.”

The Iowa bill has passed both bodies of the state legislature and awaits final approval. The Ohio and Pennsylvania bills are pending, and the Wyoming bill passed the legislature before being vetoed by Gov. Matt Mead.

Minnesota’s bill, one of the newest, was introduced earlier this month. A committee of the state’s Republican-controlled House approved the bill on March 12, meaning it will soon go to a vote before the full House. The controversial Enbridge Line 3 pipeline awaits approval in the state, where it’s facing opposition from local tribes and environmental groups — some of which were also involved in fighting the Dakota Access pipeline.

The Minnesota bill appears to be aimed at those groups. Notably, it creates a felony for anyone who “recruits, trains, aids, advises, hires, counsels, or conspires with” an individual who causes significant damage to critical infrastructure such as pipelines. The penalties for such individuals or entities would be the same as those for the person who did the damage — up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. In the same vein, the law creates a misdemeanor for anyone who aids a person caught trespassing on a property containing critical infrastructure, and “vicarious liability” for any damage that occurs during the trespass. Versions of those items were also recommended by ALEC’s model.
The pipeline-related bills are part of a broader legislative crackdown on protest movements. According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, since Trump’s election, 31 states have considered bills meant to curb protest.

Minnesota lawmakers, for example, will also vote soon on a bill that creates a gross misdemeanor for anyone who interferes with freeway traffic or traffic on roadways near an airport. Additionally, it would increase the potential fine for anyone who interferes with vehicles and the potential jail sentence from 90 days to a year. The bill’s authors have described it as a response to protests that have blocked traffic in recent years, including those that erupted in 2015 after 24-year-old Jamar Clark was killed by Minneapolis police and in 2016 after a St. Anthony, Minnesota, officer shot and killed 32-year-old Philando Castile

“Where’s the Conspiracy Here?”
In Louisiana, the majority of members of the House — 64 out of 105 — have signed on as sponsors of the critical infrastructure bill. Its primary sponsor, Major Thibault of Pointe Coupee Parish, is a Democrat, as are eight co-sponsors. “I saw what happened in parts of the country like North Dakota. Oklahoma had some legislation, and this is kind of modeled after that,” he told The Intercept. According to data from FollowtheMoney.org, energy and natural resources companies are Thibault’s second leading campaign donor by sector.
Those convicted of “conspiring” to trespass on a pipeline site would be imprisoned for a maximum of five years, fined a maximum of $10,000, or both. If the conspirators’ plan involved disrupting the pipeline’s construction, they would be imprisoned for between six and 20 years, fined a maximum of $250,000, or both.

Those who actually succeed in disrupting the operations of a pipeline or construction site would actually face a lesser maximum fine, $25,000, than if they’d only conspired to do it and the same possible prison sentence, between six and 20 years. Courts would also have the ability to require offenders to pay the costs of any law enforcement response, as well as restitution to the property owner.

“Where’s the conspiracy here? Whose interests are being served? We’re already operating in a state where our regulatory agencies, we’ve seen, are not acting as independent regulators,” Spees said.
“It’s further confirmation that a complete overhaul of the system is going to be what’s required,” said Foytlin. “We will do what we have to do to protect our water, and if that means we can’t be on the pipeline route, then we’ll be in these politicians’ office, and we’ll be running against them and replacing them with people that can put families in Louisiana over the profits of a pipeline company.”


How to Turn Off Third-Party Data Access to Your Facebook Account - Gaius Publius:
Posted on March 30, 2018 by Yves Smith
Yves here.
While some of us have managed to stay far away from the personal data mining operation known as Facebook, some readers who have never been all that keen about Facebook point out that they can’t avoid having an account, since it’s the only way to participate in activities that are important to them, like their kids’ sports teams or local activist groups. This post gives advice as to how to lower your data bleed.
By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. GP article archive  here. Originally published at DownWithTyranny

Facebook has come under scrutiny lately for its role in passively giving data on 50 million of its users to Cambridge Analytica, a company that uses Facebook-type data to target and change electoral outcomes worldwide. (There’s more on the Cambridge Analytica story here and here. Note that Carole Cadwalladr is a co-author of both stories. Her reporting is one of the centers for information about this revelation.)

Cambridge Analytica got that Facebook data, not because Facebook gave it to them, but because Facebook’s policy on info-sharing allowed them to harvest it. Here’s how that was done (h/t Naked Capitalism; emphasis mine):

On March 17, The Observer of London and The New York Times announced that Cambridge Analytica, the London-based political and corporate consulting group, had harvested private data from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their consent. The data was collected through a Facebook-based quiz app called thisisyourdigitallife,

created by Aleksandr Kogan, a University of Cambridge psychologist who had requested and gained access to information from 270,000 Facebook members after they had agreed to use the app to undergo a personality test, for which they were paid through Kogan’s company, Global Science Research.

But as Christopher Wylie, a twenty-eight-year-old Canadian coder and data scientist and a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, stated in a video interview, the app could also collect all kinds of personal data from users, such as the content that they consulted, the information that they liked, and even the messages that they posted.
In addition, the app provided access to information on the profiles of the friends of each of those users who agreed to take the test, which enabled the collection of data from more than 50 million.
All this data was then shared by Kogan with Cambridge Analytica, which was working with Donald Trump’s election team and which allegedly used this data to target US voters with personalised political messages during the presidential campaign. As Wylie, told The Observer, “we built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons.”
Forget the Trump factor and consider simply the Cambridge Analytica app and how it operated.
People who agreed and were paid to use it gave up more information to the app than was disclosed to them. Part of what they unknowingly surrendered was information from the profiles of all of their Facebook friends. That’s how harvesting the data from 270,000 people became a hack, via the app, of data on 50 million, who gave no approval for this transfer.
Not also that the means by which the original data was acquired was a ruse. The company’s interest in its “personality test” — thisisyourdigitallife — was false. All they wanted was the data.
“Exactly How Facebook’s Infrastructure Was Designed to Work”
This is not an aberration; this is how Facebook is designed to work and the source of the great wealth of its founders and investors. These Facebook apps (the games you play, the “tests” you take, and so on) are designed specifically as data transfers.
When you play a game on Facebook, or take part in a “quiz” to see which Roman emperor you most resemble (or whatever), you may think you’re taking part in the “fun” of being on Facebook. In reality, you’re being used by the app makers, and Facebook is making money selling you and your data to them.
The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) puts it this way (again, my emphasis):
Over the weekend, it became clear that Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics company, got access to more than 50 million Facebook users’ data in 2014. The data was overwhelmingly collected, shared, and stored without user consent. The scale of this violation of user privacy reflects how Facebook’s terms of service and API [Application Programming Interface] were structured at the time. Make no mistake: this was not a data breach. This was exactly how Facebook’s infrastructure was designed to work.

The only way to fix this situation for yourself is to turn off the ability of Facebook’s “platform API” to send out your data. That means to anyone. You also have to turn off the ability to log into third-party sites using your Facebook account. That so-called “convenience” opens big holes.
Getting Between Zuckerberg and His Money
Below are the latest instructions for doing just that. But before we go there, pause to consider what Facebook is — a company that collects masses of data from billions of users, uses algorithms to analyze that data to get more information about its users, then (a) sells that datato third parties for any use they wish, generally manipulative ones; (b) sells access to its users and their data to third parties via games, apps and other means; and (c) uses that data for its own manipulative purposes if it so wishes.

ow To Turn Off Third-Party App Access to Your Data
Now the fix for your own account. You could, of course, just delete your Facebook account, but until Facebook is regulated, they’re going to keep the data you’ve already given them anyway. #DeleteFacebook is a good personal solution to the problem going forward, but it’s understandably not for everyone.
For those who choose not to do delete their Facebook account, here’s how, as of this writing, to eliminate access to your Facebook data by third-party apps. This comes from the EFF article linked above, but has been modified to reflect changes Facebook has already made since the controversy (what a mild term) erupted.
As the EFF piece warns, “Keep in mind that this disables ALL platform apps (like Farmville, Twitter, or Instagram) and you will not be able to log into sites using your Facebook login.”
Step 1. Click the pull-down arrow in the upper right corner of your Facebook page and select Settings. Then click Apps in the column on the left. (Or click here for a shortcut that takes you to the same place.)
Step 2. Remove your Facebook login from all apps currently using it by looking in the large blue box labeled “Logged in with Facebook,” clicking on the check box below each app name, then clicking Remove.
Explanation: The first large box below “App Settings” is labeled “Logged in with Facebook”. Listed are games, organizations and apps where your Facebook login is already your app login.
My suggestion, don’t ever use your Facebook login as a third-party login. Instead create a login that’s specific to that organization or app and tie nothing to your Facebook account.
When a game or other web-based app asks you to create an account or “sign in with Facebook or Twitter,” you’re handing over access to your account data if you choose the easier Facebook (or Twitter) option — just as those who took money from Cambridge Analytica did. Yes, you can limit this access, but (a) most people don’t, and (b) who knows if app or the organization behind it is doing just what Cambridge Analytica did?
Step 3. Now remove this permission generally. Under “Apps, Websites and Games” see if the setting is “turned on” or “turned off.” If it’s turned off, you’re done.
If it’s turned on, click the Edit button, then click Turn Off. You’re done.
Explanation: As Facebook reminds you, if you turn off this setting:
You won’t be able to log into apps or websites using Facebook
Apps and websites you’ve logged into with Facebook may delete your accounts and activity
You won’t be able to play some games on Facebook [Gameroom], and [some of] your gaming activity may be deleted
Your posts, photos and videos on Facebook that apps and websites have published may be deleted
You won’t be able to interact with or share content from other apps and websites on Facebook using social plugins such as the Share and Like buttons
You may miss the use of Share and Like buttons on websites, but that’s the price. As of this writing, they don’t separate the permissions associated with Share and Like buttons with Facebook’s Gameroom and third-party login permissions. You can always go to Facebook itself and Share or Like a web post.