Issue 67
A topic. All topics.
Water
Attacks on drinking water nobody will attribute on the record, and allocation under scarcity.
What the record shows
Hackers targeted municipal water systems in at least 7 states, the FBI says, and later reporting put the number at 12. Minnesota alone reported more than 30 affected community water systems. United States intelligence agencies suspect Iran, according to the Washington Post; the president said at a Cabinet meeting on 31 July that Minnesota was behind it and that there was no Iranian cyberattack, a claim with no evidence behind it. No agency has attributed the attacks on the record.
In mid-August Lake Powell sat roughly 30 feet above the elevation at which the Glen Canyon Dam turbines stop generating power, on a river serving more than 40 million people. In Puerto Rico, the Guardian reported, dam levels fell below the threshold needed to supply about half a million people, and rotating 48-hour shutoffs left more than 180,000 homes without potable water; nearly 60% of treated water is lost to bad meters, unauthorized use and leaking mains, per a 2019 engineering assessment.
The Fifth Circuit has declined to treat safe water as a constitutional right. On 4 September it ruled 10 to 5 against residents of Jackson, Mississippi, who alleged the city knowingly let them drink lead-contaminated water. Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that the deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe any deeply rooted constitutional right. Clean water is a protected right in at least 9 states.
Standing summary, carried forward and rewritten as the coverage moves. Every claim is sourced either to a dated edition below or to the named body that made the finding.
14 editions
Issue 38
The Rule Is Not the Safeguard. Enforcement Is.
Issue 37
The War Became a Price, and the Price Walked Into an Election
Issue 32
The Iran War Is Arriving as a Price, Not a Front
Issue 30
The War's Second Front Is Economic, and the Bill Is Arriving at Home
Issue 24
Coercion Is the Policy, and the Bond Market Is the Only Thing Refusing It
Issue 17
Nobody Repealed the Rules. They Routed Around Them.
Issue 15
Past the Point It Can Hold
Issue 9
The Promise Was Only Worth the Pressure Behind It
Issue 8
The Senate Traded Away Its Leverage on the Way Out the Door
Issue 6
Money Bought Almost Everything on Wednesday, and Lost Michigan by a Point
Issue 4
Change the Accounting, Keep the Thing
Issue 2
Someone Decides What Counts as a Threat, and Someone Else Pays for It
Issue 1