Daily Archives: July 10, 2012

Greed and Corruption — No Comments
10
Jul 12

Feds: Operator knew of pipeline problems years before Michigan oil spill

The operator of an oil pipeline that cracked in 2010 and gushed nearly a million gallons of oil into a Michigan creek and river failed to make repairs and take appropriate action after recognizing structural problems several years earlier, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday.

The agency said Enbridge Inc. took more than 17 hours to shut down operations after the 30-inch-diameter pipeline ruptured and released crude oil into a wetland area near Marshall, Michigan, said NTSB Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman. The NTSB, which often investigates plane and bus crashes, also monitors pipeline accidents.

According to the NTSB, the incident was the largest oil spill in the Midwestern United States. Federal officials say cleanup costs have exceeded $800 million.

via Feds: Operator knew of pipeline problems years before Michigan oil spill – CNN.com.

War on Labor — 1 Comment
10
Jul 12

Obama’s record on outsourcing draws criticism from the left

The left from time to time shows some intestinal fortitude in speaking out against this fraud in the White House. Obama has gotten away with deceiving his supporters and party because of this notion that he is the lesser-of-two-evils. When in fact he is a pawn of the 1 percent. But it is still an uphill battle since so many can’t break away from the propaganda that Democrats are better than the Republicans:

While White House officials say they have been waiting on Congress to act, Obama’s critics, primarily on the political left, say he has repeatedly failed in other ways to protect American jobs from being moved overseas. They point to a range of actions they say he should have taken: confronting China, reining in unfettered trade and reworking a U.S. visa program that critics say ends up sending high-tech jobs abroad.

[...]“I think he has walked away from the campaign commitments,” said Scott, the institute’s director of trade and manufacturing policy research. “He has done far too little to improve U.S. trade.”

According to a study by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, large American companies in 2010 barely added any workers in the United States, increasing their numbers by 0.1 percent, while they expanded their foreign workforce by 1.5 percent. That was business as usual — between 2004 and 2010, the bureau reported, foreign affiliates hired 2 million workers while 600,000 were added by the companies at home.

Full article

War on Labor — No Comments
10
Jul 12

Deadly Black Lung Surges Back in Coal Country

How little things change in a society that puts profit over people. With the decline of unions big business can get away with ignoring worker safety and health:

In mid-century, when Marcum worked, dust filled the mines largely uncontrolled. Almost half of miners who worked at least 25 years contracted the disease. Amid strikes throughout the West Virginia coalfields, Congress made a promise in 1969: Mining companies would have to keep dust levels down, and black lung would be virtually eradicated.

[...]Men with lungs like the Marcums’ are not supposed to exist. In the hard-won 1969 law, Congress demanded that dust be controlled and new cases of disease be prevented. The idea was that, even if black lung didn’t disappear, there would be a small number of mild cases and virtually no one like Donald and James Marcum, said Dr. Donald Rasmussen, a pioneer in recognizing and diagnosing black lung.

“In 1969, I publicly proclaimed that the disease would go away before we learned more about it,” Rasmussen, now 84 and still diagnosing miners, said in a recent interview at his office in Beckley, W.Va. “I was dead wrong.”

Throughout the coalfields of Appalachia, in small community clinics and in government labs, it has become clear: Black lung is back.

The disease’s resurgence represents a failure to deliver on a 40-year-old pledge to miners in which few are blameless, an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and NPR has found. The system for monitoring dust levels is tailor-made for cheating, and mining companies haven’t been shy about doing so. Meanwhile, regulators often have neglected to enforce even these porous rules. Again and again, attempts at reform have failed.

Full article

Greed and Corruption — No Comments
10
Jul 12

Report: Some lose homes over as little as $400

The elderly and other vulnerable homeowners are losing their homes because they owe as little as a few hundred dollars in back taxes, according to a report from a consumer group.

Outdated state laws allow big banks and other investors to reap windfall profits by buying the houses for a pittance and reselling them, the National Consumer Law Center said in a report being released Tuesday.

Local governments can seize and sell a home if the owner falls behind on property taxes and fees. The process helps governments make ends meet at a time when low property values and the weak economy are squeezing tax revenue.

But tax debts as small as $400 can cause people to lose their homes because of arcane laws and misinformation among consumers, says John Rao, the report’s author and an attorney with NCLC.

The consequences are “devastating for individuals, families and communities,” Rao said. He said states should update laws so speculators can’t profit from misinformed homeowners and people who have difficulty managing their finances.

via Report: Some lose homes over as little as $400 – Yahoo! News.

Uncategorized — No Comments
10
Jul 12

Florida closes only tuberculosis hospital amid worst outbreak in 20 years

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/09/florida-closes-only-tuberculosis-hospital-amid-worst-outbreak-in-20-years/