Water Supplier Veolia Sues Companies For Dumping PFA’s:
Investor-owned drinking water supplier Veolia has filed a lawsuit against nine companies, alleging they are responsible for contaminating Delaware drinking water sources with toxic PFAS chemicals.
The so-called “forever chemicals” don’t break down in the environment and have been linked to serious health problems, including some cancers.
The lawsuit, filed in Delaware Superior Court, alleges the companies failed to take measures to prevent PFAS from entering the waterways that Veolia relies on to provide drinking water to 100,000 New Castle County residents.
“Each of the Defendants reasonably should have known that they were releasing potentially toxic PFAS into the environment through their operations and use of PFAS at several industrial sites throughout Delaware, but the Defendants failed to take any or sufficient actions to remedy such harm or to disclose the risks to regulators, Veolia, or the Delaware public,” the lawsuit reads.
Ametek, Inc.; Syensqo Speciality Polymers, USA, LLC (formally known as Solvay Speciality Polymers USA, LLC.); Solvay Solexis, Inc.; Niche Polymer LLC; Marshallton Reality Holdings LLC; Westchester Plastics, LLC; Coherent Corp.; FMC Corporation; and Edlon Inc.
Rep. Ortega Charged With Misdemeanor:
The Delaware Department of Justice charged Rep. Josue Ortega (D-Wilmington) with offensive touching, a misdemeanor, months after the Delaware State Police began investigating the lawmaker on claims he punched a woman in the face.
A DSP spokesperson confirmed the Wilmington legislator turned himself in on Thursday, Aug. 6, at the Troop 6 headquarters on Kirkwood Highway.
Though the incident occurred in May, it did not gain much public attention until mid-June. A Facebook user, who appears to be the victim, publicly posted that Ortega had punched her and that it had occurred in front of her 3-year-old child. She added photos to the post that raised concerns.
Leaders within the House of Representatives also launched a confidential Ethics Committee investigation into the matter in mid-June.
The committee held a closed-door meeting in July, though lawmakers did not explicitly say whether the meeting was about their investigation into Ortega.
House Majority Leader Kerri Evelyn-Harris (D-Dover), who chairs the Ethics Committee, said that while she cannot comment on any open investigations, the committee intends to issue a statement at the end of its review.
Thanks for sharing–nothing.
Wanna Buy A Used Plane? $464 mill in no-bid contracts:
Starting last fall, the Department of Homeland Security spent $464 million on a no-bid contract to buy 10 used airplanes from a firm in Northern Virginia.
That was an enormous price tag, but the department said it had no time to consider other offers. The planes were needed urgently for deportation flights.
But since then, the department has barely used this new fleet — for deportations, or anything else.
Three of the aircraft are luxury business jets. Just months after acquiring them, the department sought to loan or lease two to other agencies, including one for the use of F.B.I. director Kash Patel, according to a letter to the department sent Wednesday by top Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The other seven are older Boeing 737 passenger jets, which the government has left parked at an airport in Lake Charles, La., for months at a time. An internal government document, obtained by The New York Times, said the agency did not have the staff necessary to operate them.
Oh. Can’t make this stuff up.
The contract also illuminated a broader trend within the second Trump administration: no-bid contracts awarded to people with connections to Mr. Trump or his cabinet secretaries. The company that received this contract, Daedalus Aviation Corporation, is led by a chairman who had donated to a political committee supporting the previous Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem.
Absolute corruption.
Idle thought. The worst thing about Daily Kos is Kos.
One Election Day Loser–Prediction Markets and the bettors:
An earlier iteration of political prediction markets were a thing back in the aughts. But as they’ve returned in a slicker, more highly capitalized form in the last few years, there’s been a growing argument that they’re not only predictive about political races and possibly as good as polls but actually better than polls. This has always struck me as not only wrong but a category logical error.
Needless to say, after these two races where polls were consistently wrong by double digits, it might seem hard to make an argument that they’re better. But that’s not the argument. The issue is that these supposed wisdom of crowds (or perhaps inside information) data markets are really just emanations of the polls. So what me and my data pals were watching last night was that Kalshi and Polymarket were close to certain that Hong was the winner last night until the first results started coming in, at which point the Hong contract collapsed. But the real reveal was that Hong and Crowley wildly oscillated back and forth over the course of the night. And that only really made sense if you were moving your money on the latest headlines or the topline number on the results sights. In other words, it all pretty clearly showed that the betters (sorry, investors … lol) were buying on the basis of the polls. Once it was clear that the polls were wildly off, they were completely adrift. The markets “knew” they were very wrong and were starved of data for how to get right.
The oscillating back and forth was, again, the tell. The reason I mostly ignore the topline results and certainly the media accounts on election nights and focus on these number crunchers is that if you are good with numbers and have access to historical and regional data you can get a good sense of what’s happening very early. So for instance, Candidate A may be up by 20 points in initial results early in the evening. But you might be able to see that in key districts or counties that have most of their votes in, Candidate A simply isn’t getting the numbers they need. Watching the oscillations of the betting markets last night, it was clear the big traders weren’t even making much use of this somewhat technical but hardly secret information. Once they lost the polling signal, they didn’t seem able to get access to the available results signal that was there for the taking.
Hey, man, I know this is not my best Open Thread ever. Pretty sure I’ve got Covid, gonna take the test now.
What do you want to talk about?
