If there’s one thing we know for a fact, it’s that Nikki Haley cares deeply about women’s issues and gender equality. And by “cares deeply,” I mean “doesn’t give a single shit.”
Archives for 2012
Thirty Years In Reverse
And, as with all the other ways in which this nation is moving in reverse, cases of black lung in WV, VA, and KY are soaring to levels not seen since the 70’s:
A joint investigation by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) has found that McCowan is not alone. Incidence of the disease that steals the breath of coal miners doubled in the last decade, according to data analyzed by epidemiologist Scott Laney at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
Cases of the worst stage of the disease have quadrupled since the 1980s in a triangular region of Appalachia stretching from eastern Kentucky through southern West Virginia and into southwestern Virginia.
Black lung experts and mine safety advocates have warned of the resurgence of the disease since 1995. New reporting by CPI and NPR reveals the extent to which federal regulators and the mining industry failed to protect coal miners in the intervening years.
Why is this happening? You know the drill- underfunded inspectors, lax regulations, and industry power to dilute the rules and penalties:
From the very beginning, miners reported “irregularities” in controlling coal mine dust, says Donald Rasmussen, 84, a pulmonologist in Beckley, W.Va. Rasmussen says he’s tested 40,000 coal miners for black lung in the last 50 years.
“So many miners will say, ‘If you think the dust is controlled you’re crazy,’ ” he says.
Measuring coal mine dust is key to preventing overexposure. Excess dust can trigger citations, fines and even slowdowns in coal production. Mining companies enforce their own compliance by taking and reporting mine dust samples. Federal mine inspectors also test for excessive dust.
But NPR and CPI have found widespread and persistent gaming of the system designed to measure and control exposure.
Richard Allen, a federal mine inspector underground when the 1969 law first took effect, says he remembers a strange question from a Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) investigator about a carpet’s color in a coal mine manager’s office.
“It was blue and [MSHA was finding] little blue fibers in each [mine dust] sample,” Allen says. “[Investigators] cross-referenced the fibers in these samples to that carpet and found that he was sampling in his office” and not deep inside the mine.
This is a great two piece story from NPR, and I would highly recommend listening to both pieces.
Starving Kids to Feed Monsanto
More on the Republican vision for America:
The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is putting their version of the Farm Bill up for a vote this week in the House Agriculture Committee. The bill provides record levels of spending—an eye-popping $9.5 billion over 10 years—for an entirely new agribusiness subsidy under the guise of crop insurance. The bill finally ends the antiquated and highly suspect crop subsidies to help pay for the massive new crop insurance program, yet the bill slashes $16 billion from one of the most effective antipoverty programs in our nation, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to fund the new insurance spending.
A cut of this magnitude means that at least 2 million families will lose access to the program. All told, about 1 billion fewer meals will be available to low-income families each year—meals that are a bargain for taxpayers at about a $1.60 a meal—as well as a basic responsibility for our society.
With nearly 45 million Americans relying on this program—85 percent of whom are living on incomes below the federal poverty line of $23,350 for a family of four—this cut is a cruel move that deprives our most needy fellow citizens of the most basic “hand up” to better themselves and their families. What’s more, cuts of this magnitude could have real consequences for our nascent economic recovery, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which calculates that each dollar of supplemental nutrition assistance benefits create $1.79 in increased economic activity.
You all get on me for saying stuff like this, but I believe it. With what we know they are doing, and what we see them doing, and what we know they want to do, quite simply anyone who votes for a Republican at this point is simply a sociopath. I don’t know how much clearer it can get- here they are pushing a bill that sends billions in corporate welfare to companies that don’t need it (and probably don’t pay taxes, either), and doing it on the backs of the poor.
If that isn’t the behavior of a sociopath, I do not know what is. And there is so much evidence of this kind of behavior that rank and file Republicans simply don’t get a pass- they know what is going on. Especially all those “respectable Republicans” out there blogging. You know who you are. This is your team.
More Democrats Like This, Please
Sherrod Brown tells Democrats to grow a spine and fight to end the tax cuts on the rich:
Sherrod Brown, who is in a competitive race in Ohio, flatly stated that the President’s proposal is right on the substance and on the politics.
“This is simply restoring the tax levels from years ago on two percent of taxpayers,” Brown told me. “I don’t know why some Democrats are queasy. Possibly they think it’s better messaging if the cutoff is $1 million. Elected officials at this level know a lot of people who make $300,000. We generally don’t spend enough time with people who make $30,000.”
“But I think the president is right here,” Brown continued. “The American public thinks that if you make a quarter million dollars, you’re doing really well. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be shouting this from the rooftops.”
“I think independents will see this exactly as the president does — that people making that much can afford to pay a little more,” Brown said.
Here is Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley explaining why his state raised taxes on the rich to pay for necessary services:
Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, gave an impassioned defense of his approach to mayors from across the state who gathered here at the end of last month at the annual convention of the Maryland Municipal League.
“Without any anger, and without any meanness, and without any fear, let’s ask one another in these critical months ahead and years ahead: how much less do we think would be good for our state?” Mr. O’Malley asked. “How much less do we think would be good for our country? How much less education would be good for our children? How many fewer college degrees would make our state or our country more competitive? How much less research and development would be good for the innovation economy that we have an obligation and a responsibility, a duty and an imperative, to embrace? How many fewer hungry Maryland kids can we afford to feed? Progress is a choice: we can decide whether to make the tough choices necessary to invest in our shared future and move forward together. Or we can be the first generation of Marylanders to give our children a lesser quality of life with fewer opportunities.”
Now that wasn’t very hard, was it Democrats? More pols like these two.
And the Robbery Continues
While the Republicans in Congress are coming for your health care and social security, their friends in the “free market” are busy gutting your pension:
A new law will let companies contribute billions of dollars less to their workers’ pension funds, raising concerns about weakening the plans that millions of Americans count on for retirement.
But with many companies already freezing or getting rid of pension plans, many critics are reluctant to force the issue.
Some expect the changes, passed by Congress last month and signed Friday by President Barack Obama, to have little impact on the nation’s enormous $1.9 trillion in estimated pension fund assets. And it is more important, they suggest, to avoid giving employers a new reason to limit or jettison remaining pension benefits by forcing them to contribute more than they say they can manage.
The equation underscores a harsh reality for unions, consumer advocates and others who normally go to the mat for workers and retirees: When it comes to battling over pensions, the fragile economy of 2012 gives the business community a lot of leverage.
Ask yourself- why would blue dogs and Republicans decide that private businesses don’t need to fund their pension plans, but the Postal Service has to have every penny for YEARS TO COME accounted for? Oh, and meanwhile:
Chronically weak stock markets and record low bond yields have pushed company pension deficits in the United States and Britain sharply higher, adding to the burden of retirees living longer than ever before, reports said on Tuesday.
In the United States the aggregate deficit of S&P 1500 companies grew $59 billion in the first half of the year to $543 billion, consultancy Mercer said.
Corporate America is sitting on total liabilities of $2.09 trillion against total assets of $1.55 trillion, Mercer added.
HOOCOODANODE?
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Kimberlin Saga
If your head doesn’t hurt by the end of this, there is something wrong with you. The “swatting” style incidents are still horrible, but overall, it seems like this basically boils down to a lot of really self-important and obnoxious people who karmically and comically deserve each other. And if it keeps Malkin off Graeme Frost’s front porch, all the better.
*** Update ***
Right link is up now.
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Gotta run for shelter, gotta run for shade
Scorching temperatures in June’s second half helped the continental United States break its record for the hottest first six months in a calendar year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Monday.
The last 12 months also have been the warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1895, narrowly beating the previous 12-month period that ended in May 2012.
Jim Newell finds the explanation for all of this:
WILL: How do we explain the heat? One word: summer. I grew up in central Illinois in a house that had air conditioning. What is so unusual about this? . . . We’re having some hot weather. Get over it.
The winger response to climate change often puts me in mind of one of my all-time favorite BJ comments:
I imagine 500 years ago, the Aztec ruler-to-be assured his subjects “I believe in Tlaloc. I have always believed in Tlaloc. I believe in motherhood, Tlaloc, and infant sacrifice, all the traditional values. When we get a drought, tradition teaches us that we must flay a ritual sacrificial victim alive and perform a sacred dance in his bleeding skin, and I believe in those traditional family values…”
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