Black Lung on the Rise; Excessive Mining and Corporate Malfeasance to Blame


For decades—at least until the big economic crash of 2008—the country has grown increasingly fond of the conservative narrative that claims that the only reason the majority of government regulation exists is because liberals are all secret communists who want to regulate corporations out of business just to do so. Regulations are seen as unnecessary for any purpose other than to clip profits, and the actual reasons behind most regulation—safety, human rights, environment—are minimized or outright denied with claims liberals are making it up as part of an anti-corporate agenda. There are a handful of leftists who reject any kind of regulation, no matter how useful otherwise, that doesn’t serve the purpose of clipping corporate profits (they’ve been loud in the aftermath of the ACA decision), but they’re a tiny minority. The reality is that most of us want government regulation not because we love “Big Government” or have some secret agenda, but simply because we think that corporations’ right to do business ends where the rest of our noses begin.

Unfortunately, this big-government-is-out-to-get-us narrative seems to go a long way towards explaining why, as reported by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity, black lung is rapidly on the rise amongst coal miners, a generation after it was optimistically believed it could be stomped out completely.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/10/bl...sance-to-blame/

Florida accused of concealing worst tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years


The state of Florida has been struggling for months with what the Centers for Disease Control describe as the worst tuberculosis outbreak in the United States in twenty years.

Although a CDC report went out to state health officials in April encouraging them to take concerted action, the warning went largely unnoticed and nothing has been done. The public did not even learn of the outbreak until June, after a man with an active case of TB was spotted in a Jacksonville soup kitchen.

The Palm Beach Post has managed to obtain records on the outbreak and the CDC report, though only after weeks of repeated requests. These documents should have been freely available under Florida’s Sunshine Law.

According to the Post, the coverup began as early as last February, “when Duval County Health Department officials felt so overwhelmed by the sudden spike in tuberculosis that they asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to become involved. Believing the outbreak affected only their underclass, the health officials made a conscious decision not to not tell the public, repeating a decision they had made in 2008, when the same strain had appeared in an assisted living home for people with schizophrenia.”

That decision now appears to have gone terribly awry, partly because the disease appears to have already spread into the general population but also because just nine days before the CDC warning was issued, Florida Governor Rick Scott had signed a bill downsizing the state’s Department of Health and closing the A.G. Holley State Hospital that had treated the most difficult tuberculosis cases for over 60 years.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/08/fl...ak-in-20-years/

Scranton, Pa., slashes workers' pay to minimum wage

Unions representing civil servants in the city of Scranton, Pa., are girding for battle after the mayor announced recently that he would be cutting pay for police, firefighters, garbage collectors and other public workers to minimum wage.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...nimum-wage?lite

So much for public unions not needing the right to bargin. IF I'm a cop or fireman I'm not running into a burning building or shooting it out with crooks for mim.wage.

Walmart firings linked to anti-union intimidation campaign


Walmart is facing accusations that the company is engaged in a bold and illegal campaign to stamp out union activity after firing five employees in recent months who were involved in a group organizing the company’s workers.

Although the company says that the terminations are unrelated to any employees’ organizing activity, OUR Walmart – which receives funding and support from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union – argues that the pattern points to an emerging strategy to break the organization’s command structure and intimidate workers.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/26/walmart-firings-linked-to-anti-union-intimidation-campaign/

Walmart can't offer those "low prices" that devastate local economies if they are unionized.

Isn't it strange that as the percent of people working for those bad unions[ that drive off good paying jobs] falls, the U.S. standard of living is falling in the world and the countries passing us have big unions.

Topcat don't use logic it will give some people an embolism.

I've noticed that some folks here don't seem to be able to look at what is happening now and look to the past and see what happened in the past when it was like this. Oh well They are the ones that will have to live for many years with those choices.

Voter ID critics: Politicians are manipulating the system for their own benefit


It is becoming clear that the wave of new voter ID laws set to take effect in this year’s elections will disproportionately disenfranchise the old and the young, the poor and minorities. It has also been widely alleged that these laws are intended to do precisely that in order to give the Republican Party an electoral edge.

PBS’s Bill Moyers spoke about these accusations on Friday with Keesha Gaskins and Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice, which recently issued a report titled “The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification.”

“You saw laws like this all across the country,” Waldman began. “And it was sudden. There was no wave of voter fraud. There was no crisis being dealt with. It was just, unfortunately, a shift in who controlled these state legislatures. That’s what happened starting in 2011. … Minutes after they gained ascendancy. It wouldn’t be the first time in American history for politicians to manipulate the system for their own benefit.”

“This is all about politics,” Gaskins noted. “Seeing the real push of dollars into the election, and understanding … that someone might be able to write a big check, but they still only have one vote. … When these votes come under attack by this level of partisan gamesmanship, it’s completely inappropriate and antithetical to our history. … This is a real issue of real Americans, and really being able to access and be self-determinative in how we’re governed. ”

“What we see when we look at these highly restrictive voter ID laws,” she continued, “is they actually end up cherry picking voters, allowing politicians to choose who votes rather than letting the voters choose their politicians. … Our studies have shown us that there are — that 18 percent of senior citizens over 65, that 25 percent of African Americans, that a high percentage of young people all lack these strict kinds of government issued photo IDs.”

Gaskins went on to say that ten million Americans live more than ten miles away from an office that issues photo IDs, that half a million of those lack cars, that public transportation is often inadequate, especially in rural areas, and that the offices may not be open at times when people holding full-time jobs can get to them.

Waldman further explained that even though there may be no charge for the ID card itself, “the underlying documents that you need to get your free ID cost money. And they actually cost more in current dollars than the poll tax did when it was declared unconstitutional in the 1960s.”

He suggested that the solution is for the country to move “toward a system of modernized voter registration, where the government, the state governments, said we have a computerized list, and if you’re eligible to vote, you’re 18, you’re a citizen, you’re eligible, you’re on that roll permanently. … Would add up to 65 million people to the rolls. It would cost less. And for people who are really worried about fraud, it addresses that potential as well.”

“I keep at this because of my core belief that it can get better,” Gaskins concluded, “and that we as Americans have these rights, and we’ve got to keep striving for that.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/03/vo...ir-own-benefit/