The FBI Launches an Investigation Into Chris Christie Withholding Sandy Relief Funds

Chris Christie and his Lt. Governor are now the subjects of a federal investigation …

The dominoes are starting to fall in the image of repugican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and 2016 repugican cabal presidential hopeful.
After Mayor Dawn Zimmer made stunning allegations on MSNBC last weekend that the Christie administration threatened to withhold Sandy Aid funds from her New Jersey town of Hoboken, U.S. Attorneys requested a Sunday meeting with her. The fact that this took place on a Sunday signified the seriousness of her allegations.
Thursday morning, NBC
reported that three sources with direct knowledge of the probe told them that the FBI has begun questioning witnesses about Zimmer’s allegations. They are investigating whether or not Christie’s Lt Governor and key aides threatened to only release the funds upon the Mayor’s approval of a development project for a Christie donor with close ties to a very influential Christie appointee. This is a separate investigation from Bridgegate.
Their sources told NBC that federal agents have already questioned Zimmer’s chief of staff, Dan Bryan, and her communications director Juan Melli, who “are among at least five witnesses who Zimmer told the FBI could confirm that she had previously told them about the conversation she says she had with Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno last May.”
The New York Times reports yet another witness who can verify that these accusations aren’t new:

A Hoboken city councilman, David Mello, said in an interview that Ms. Zimmer had also told him about the threat by Ms. Guadagno, a Republican. Mr. Mello, a Democrat, said he had been upset to hear about what he called “this quid pro quo ultimatum by the lieutenant governor.”

Ms. Guadagno had denied the allegations made by Mayor Zimmer, claiming they are illogical.
“Mayor Zimmer’s version of our conversation in May of 2013 is not only false, but is illogical and does not withstand scrutiny when all of the facts are examined.”
But even as she denied Zimmer’s allegations, evidence was already mounting to support Zimmer’s accusations, and the close ties between the developer and Christie, along with the corresponding failure to deliver but 1% of the requested Sandy Aid to a town flooded by 80% really doesn’t bode well. Furthermore, the developer in question, the Rockefeller Group, has been battling the residents who objected to what they seem to think is the developer’s attempts to get special treatment in a development project.
Remember, while repugicans try to convince the media that there’s nothing to see here because there’s no proof that Christie benefited personally or financially. Certainly some federal prosecutors agree with that assessment, as well, so there’s a lot of sound bites making the rounds this morning on that front. However, Chicago Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich was convicted for asking about a possible Cabinet post while discussing a Senate successor to Obama.
The two attorneys who both represented and prosecuted Blagojevich disagree with the assessment that this isn’t illegal, according to the North Jersey.com Ironically, the former assistant U. S. Attorney who prosecuted Blagojevich is also assisting in the NH state Legislature’s bridge investigation.
North Jersey reported:

Chicago defense attorney Sam Adam Jr., who represented former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in a corruption trial, disagreed with Hanly’s assessment.
Adam said aggressive prosecutors do not need an explicit benefit to bring a case, noting Blagojevich was convicted for asking about a possible Cabinet post in President Obama’s administration during discussions over appointing a successor to Obama in the U.S. Senate. The attorney assisting in the state Legislature’s bridge investigation, Reid Schar, is a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blagojevich.
“It does not have to be explicit any longer,” Adam said. “You don’t have to have a conversation where someone says, we’ll give you one if you do the other.”

Illegal or not, it is definitely an abuse of power and a most egregious one at that, given the circumstances of a town full of people desperate for aid after a huge super storm. It also completely destroys any notion of Chris Christie the bipartisan Sandy Aid man of the people. Here he is, looking like a petty bully who put people’s lives at risk in the politically motivated lane closure and again, turned his back on the people suffering after Sandy hit, in order to assist a donor and high level appointee.

Christie Scandal Grows As a Second Mayor Accuses Governor of Hurting Citizens for Revenge

Things are getting worse for Chris Christie by the day, as the mayor of Elizabeth, NJ has come forward to accuse the governor of closing down the state’s 4th largest DMV as an act of political revenge.
According to the Daily Mail,
Governor Chris Christie has been accused of exacting still more political revenge after his administration shut down the DMV office in a large New Jersey city three years ago – and Democratic politicians say it was because they opposed his tax policies and worked for his Election Day opponent.
‘He shut it down, plain and simple, and of course this was political,’ New Jersey state Assemblyman Joe Cryan told MailOnline of the Motor Vehicle Commission office in Elizabeth, the fourth-largest city in New Jersey. ‘This was complete retribution. … There was no other possible explanation for it.’
…

The closure of MVC offices in Elizabeth and two other towns came at the end of 2010, ten weeks after the governor’s office notified local officials that the decision had been made. Whispers had circulated around Trenton for months about a plan to consolidate locations, but insiders tell MailOnline that no one expected Elizabeth to be on the short list.
….
The decision to close his city’s MVC office, Bollwage said, came after a drawn-out legislative battle over annual increases on property tax rates.

What happened in Elizabeth is sounding a lot like what happened in Fort Lee and Hoboken. The message is clear. Anyone who opposes Chris Christie had better be prepared for the governor to misuse his power to get even. In Fort Lee, Christie caused traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge. In Hoboken, Sandy relief funds were withheld, and in Elizabeth a population that is largely poor and black lost their DMV after Democratic leaders opposed Christie’s property tax plan.
One incident can be explained away. Two incidents are a pattern. Three incidents represent intentional behavior. The more information that comes out about Christie and his administration, the harder it is to believe his, “I didn’t know nothin’ ’bout no Bridgegate excuses.” It is becoming clear that Bridgegate was just an example the way that Chris Christie operates.
Anyone who opposes Chris Christie in New Jersey faces retribution. This is not the record of a man who belongs in the White House. Heck, this isn’t the behavior of someone who is fit to be president. It is all falling apart for Chris Christie. His image is ruined. His brand is shattered, and each revelation makes it less likely that he will ever be president.

Ziggy

JP Morgan’s Frauds are Epic, Unprecedented in World History

Why aren't these banksters still breathing free air? 

Their air should be filtered through steel bars!

William Black is both a Professor of Law and Economics. He has a wealth of opinions on the politics of spying and Wall Street crime.
[...]
Professor Black is a former financial regulator and an expert in white collar crime.  What does the Professor think about the trouble JP Morgan Chase has been in over things such as the so-called London Whale trading losses, the selling of tainted mortgage bonds and being a conduit for convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff?  Just these three legal debacles alone have cost the bank nearly $23 billion in fines, restitution and trading losses in the last year.  
.
 Professor Black says, “CEO Jamie Dimon has presided over the largest financial crime spree in world history. . . . It depends on how you count it, but it is more than a dozen, and more in the range of 15 major felonies that either the United States investigators have found, state investigators have found or foreign governments have found.”  The Professor goes on to say, “JP Morgan’s frauds are epic in scale, unprecedented in world history. . . in these $23 billion we’re talking about, these are frauds that made Jamie Dimon and other senior officers incredibly wealthy by creating fictional income that led to very real bonuses.” 
[...]

JP Morgan’s Frauds are Epic, Unprecedented in World History - William Black

OWS Punches Walmart In the Gut By Leaking The Scripts Used to Keep Unions Out

The myth that Walmart doesn’t actively discourage employees from unionizing was dealt a blow today when Occupy Wall Street leaked the actual scripts Walmart uses to teach managers how to discourage employees from forming a union.

The Walmart company line has always been that the stores aren’t unionized, because employees don’t want a union. In 2011 Walmart’s Northeast Communications Director Steve Restivo said, “I think our associates, time and again, have recognized that it’s not a better deal for them. I think we’ve got a pretty good track record, and I can point to some examples, where our associates have turned down the opportunity to join a union, time and time again. I mean, the organizing effort is fairly aggressive. We have a clear and open line of communication with our associates. Our associates recognize that they appreciate that, and they know that the wages and benefits they receive are extremely competitive in the industry.”
The truth is that Walmart aggressively pressures and threatens employees to prevent them from unionizing. The proof of this behavior came today as Occupy Wall Street released the scripts that Walmart instructs their managers to use in order to keep the unions out.
Walmart expects their managers to be ministers of propaganda. It doesn’t matter that these stories aren’t true, and are riddled with anti-union lies. All that matters is that the unions are kept out.
The reason why Walmart wants to keep the unions out is because on average unionized employees earn 28% more than non-union employees. Union members earn an average of $4.95 more an hour than non-union employees. That equals and extra $10,300 a year, or enough to pull the average Walmart employee out of poverty.
One of Walmart’s favorite tactics if employees do vote to form a union is to close down. After butchers in Jacksonville, TX voted to unionize, Walmart announced that meat cutting would end at 180 stores. In 2004, after workers in Jonquiére, Quebec voted to become the first unionized Walmart in North America, Walmart closed the store.
Walmart is a serial violator of labor laws who most recently was busted by the NLRB for illegal retaliation against employees who were demanding higher wages and better working conditions. There is a reason why customers are fleeing Walmart for stores like Costco where employees earn a living wage. At a time when the gap between rich and poor has never been greater, many customers are refusing to shop at a chain whose business model is to pay their employees so little that they have to rely on food stamps. Walmart could pay their employees a living wage, but the Walton family has decided not to.
OWS hit Walmart hard by debunking one of the corporate giant’s biggest lies. Employees want to unionize, and soon Walmart will be faced with a choice. They are going to have to treat their employees better or risk collapse, because millions of Americans are tired of supporting the nation’s largest welfare recipients (the Walton family).

Ted Nugent Calls Obama a Chimpanzee and Subhuman Mongrel

Nugent said, "The gun debate is about good people having the individual right from god, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, to stop evil people.

My father, as I have related here on other occasions, was a racist. He didn’t much like Jews and he didn’t like blacks – but I can say this for him: he equally loathed what he called “white trash.” He taught us kids that there were different classes of people, white trash being, to his mind, the lowest of the low. I think he saw them as an embarrassment to that nebulous and often changing state of being called “white.” This “class” idea went contrary to my early egalitarian spirit, but in time, as I got out in the world and began to experience things for myself, I began to believe he might be right about that much at least. In his mind, these classifications of people were based not on birth or genetics but on upbringing and behavior. A person revealed himself in how he acted. I remember many profanity-laden “discourses” on the subject.
I do believe he thought people could “improve” themselves, though being a cynic, he probably considered such instances unlikely. Having grown up abandoned to an orphanage, he came by his cynicism honestly and I suspect now that he saw himself as evidence of this potential for upward mobility. And he did indeed change and even soften in some of his outlooks in time.
I would now go farther, and perhaps regress myself: I think Ted Nugent, who the other day in an interview with Guns.com (where else?), called President Barack Obama a “chimpanzee” and “subhuman mongrel,” actually proves my father’s point about classes of human beings.
See what you think:

I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America. I think America will be America again when Barack Obama, [Attorney General] Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, [Sen.] Dick Durbin, [former New York City Mayor] Michael Bloomberg and all of the liberal Democrats are in jail facing the just due punishment that their treasonous acts are clearly apparent.

Ted Nugent cannot, of course, point to any actual treasonous activities by the president, and there are, I believe, good reasons for this. Rather than simply dismiss Nugent as the douche he no doubt is, I would like to talk about these.
Cicero said “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
Ted Nugent is deficient on a number of levels. His education, for one. Now, while I understand we are all to some extent victims of our flawed educational system, which is more or less better or worse depending on the luck of the draw, a person can always overcome that deficit through reading, and, more importantly, thinking about what he has heard and read. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Ted Nugent might know that if he had heard of Socrates, but I find that unlikely because Ted Nugent quite clearly doesn’t care for being educated. If he did, he would not be so ignorant. In this day and age, there is simply no excuse for the levels of ignorance he demonstrates on an almost daily basis.
It’s breathtaking. Witness his answer to Guns.com’s request for Nugent to define himself:

The gun debate is about good people having the individual right from god, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, to stop evil people. If you find fault with that you’re on the side of the evil people — duh.

Duh. Indeed. This utterance at least explains how Nugent could think President Obama is guilty of treason.
I happen to think my third grader could do better. Not only does the Constitution not grant the right to people to “stop evil people,” it does not define who or what “evil people” might be. It grants, for the purposes of a well-ordered militia in the days before a standing army, the right to bear arms. Therefore, to the thinking of the Founding Fathers, an evil person is certainly not anyone who disagrees with you. Thus, while it is tempting, I cannot accuse Nugent of having the mentality of a third grader.
Perhaps not even a second grader. But his mentality and intellectual development is definitely childlike, and childish.
Abraham Lincoln said, “Achievement has no color.”
Nugent is also a bigot and a racist. Now, I should say here too that I was brought up to be both. I also overcame both. As I grew into adulthood, I started thinking for myself, always questioning my early, ingrained assumptions and preconceptions. Actually seeing and meeting and talking to people as opposed to simply being told about them by your parents, tends to have this effect on an open mind.
I came sooner rather than later to the belief that my parents were wrong on a number of levels, and this process of self improvement has continued all my life long. I am constantly having to re-adjust my thinking in light of new facts and I am proud of this fact. I can very much appreciate President Barack Obama’s emerging thoughts about marriage equality because if you’re worth the weight of your component parts, you will have experienced the same sort of evolution in thinking about the world around you. Change is not evil; it is good.
Nugent, quite clearly, has no more desire to overcome this moral deficit than he does his educational deficit. Unlike Socrates, he has not begun to examine his life. He is, to put it bluntly – as witnessed by his utterances in recent years – content to be a despicable and ignorant cracker, or “white trash” in my father’s words,. I could joke that perhaps the “Cat Scratch Fever” got to him, but this isn’t a joking matter, and I’m not willing to cut him the kind of slack that would make him a victim of circumstances beyond his control. No adult is a prisoner of his own ignorance. Nugent has it in his power to be a different person, a better person, but he chooses to be numbered among the dregs of society instead.
Anne Frank wrote, “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
I grew up very much admiring Anne Frank, but Anne Frank was wrong on this score. The Nazis were not really good at heart. Neither is Ted Nugent, who, in the essentials of his thinking, is only a haircut away from being a Nazi himself. But J.R.R. Tolkien was certainly right when he wrote, “There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
It is people like Anne Frank who make it worth writing for and it is people like Ted Nugent we are fighting against. The only problem with fighting against the Ted Nugents of this world is that we are left with the disagreeable task of dealing with ignorant hicks like Ted Nugent and the people they inspire. We can’t ignore them; they won’t go away quietly if we do.
Nugent laments that he has “failed to galvanize and prod” but there are those who hang on his every word, because it excuses their own failings as human beings. Misery, as they say, loves company. So, too, apparently, does ignorance.

The repugicans Are Using Charter Schools To Inject Religion Into Public Schools

There is a concerted effort in repugican-controlled states to use sketchy and horribly underperforming charter schools to inject an unhealthy dose of religion into science …

A plague is a widespread affliction or calamity with pervasive and serious consequences for its victims, and is often associated with a sudden destructive influx or injurious outbreak. America is suffering a widespread calamitous affliction that is having serious consequences for its victims, innocent bystanders, children, and the future of the nation. The Founding Fathers foresaw the plague coming and prescribed a simple remedy that 21^st Century repugicans have ignored, rejected, and shredded in an attempt to infect every adult in America. Over the past few years, repugicans in states have focused their energy on using the public school system, and taxpayer dollars, to poison children’s’ minds with fallacy and mythology disguised as science, and besides creating a generation of imbeciles, they are shredding the Constitution while the courts, the federal government, and parents stay silent out of fear of breaking America’s cardinal rule; do not challenge christian theocrats.
There is a concerted effort in repugican-controlled states to use sketchy and horribly underperforming charter schools to inject an un healthy dose of religion into science and history classes using funding for public schools. The practice is already underway in Louisiana with Arkansas and Indiana closing in on Texas as states blatantly violating the Constitution by shifting public money into Responsive Education Solutions, a group of publicly supported charter schools. Responsive Education Solutions currently has over 65 campuses with 17,000 students enrolled at a cost to taxpayers of more than $82 million in Texas alone. RES is expanding with 20 new campuses due to open in Texas in 2014 and taxpayers will be picking up the tab to teach the bible as science in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The problem with all charter schools is that they are run independently, but are still considered public schools because they are funded with taxpayer dollars. For a student enrolled in an RES charter school to pass biology they have to study “Knowledge Units,” workbooks that overtly and underhandedly discredit evidence-based science and teach creationism as science in public-school classrooms. Responsive Ed not only discredits science, the opening section of a workbook section on the origin of life plagiarizes the christian bible and states, “In the beginning, god created the Heavens and the Earth.” The so-called science curriculum also states emphatically that “scientists question the validity of the conclusions concerning the age of the Earth” to mislead students into believing there is serious scientific debate about the age of the Earth, the nature of the geological record, and validity of biological sciences.
It is well-acknowledged that the evidence that the Earth was formed between 4 and 5 billion years ago is overwhelming, but an entire generation of students in Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, and several other theocratic states will go into the world certain the Earth was blinked into existence 6,000 years ago by an all-powerful deity in need of beings to torment. The communications director for a watchdog organization monitoring the spread of theocracy, Dan Quinn, said that “These materials should raise a big red flag for any parent or school administrator. It’s bad enough that they promote the same discredited anti-evolution arguments that scientists debunked a long time ago. But the materials teach religious beliefs that the courts have repeatedly ruled have no place in a public school science classroom.” In Missouri, repugicans are proposing a law that eliminates the concept of a public school science classroom because science contradicts the christian bible.
According to National Center for Science Education (NCSE) deputy director Glenn Branch, “House Bill 1472 would eviscerate the teaching of biology in Missouri” because the repugican bill allows parents to pull their children from any science classes that teach the theory of evolution that will have far-reaching effects on several scientific disciplines. HB 1472 is co-sponsored by repugican theocrats Rick Brattin and Andy Koenig who are no strangers to authoring religious legislation disguised as science curriculum according to the NSCE. The two bible-thumpers have crafted several bills in the past that ordered teachers in all public learning institutions, including colleges and junior colleges, to give equal instructional time to the christian creation story as they do real science that fortunately have not yet been passed into law. Their House bill does the next best thing and effectively eliminates instruction in biological sciences, geological science, meteorological science, and astronomical sciences because they contradict the genesis story that the Earth, and indeed the Universe, is a little over 6,000 years old.
The idea of teaching biology, geology, or astronomy without acknowledging the Earth is over 6,000 years old is impossible according to a 2008 white paper that states, “Evolution inextricably pervades the biological sciences; it therefore pervades, or ought to pervade, biology education at the K-12 level. There simply is no alternative to learning about it; there is no substitute activity. A teacher who tries to present biology without mentioning evolution is like a director trying to produce Hamlet without casting the prince.” It is also true of geological science, history, and astronomy that are all dependent on the premise that the Earth is over 6,000 years old, but Missouri students, at least those in households that believe the christian bible is science and the law of the land, will forever remain steeped in superstition and mythos like aboriginal peoples cut off from civilization.
This repugican plot to infect the minds of America’s youth with religious instruction in public schools has been struck down in the courts time and time again as unconstitutional. That Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Indiana are using taxpayer money meant for public schools to fund bible instruction in charter schools is also unconstitutional and yet there is little outcry due to America’s unspoken 1^st commandment that “thou shalt not question Christians imposing religion on the population.” Forget that evolution is unquestioned and observable, or that the preponderance of scientists agree the Earth is between 4 and 5 billion years old, what is happening in southern-state charter schools is patently unconstitutional and despite court decisions ruling they are in violation of the Constitution they proceed as if the nation’s founding document is null and void. In the case of the Missouri legislation giving ignorant parents the right to restrict their children’s education to 6,000 year old mythos, there is no hope except for a court ruling to prevent America having to suffer another generation of superstitious aboriginals who will reproduce and continue America’s decline into a nation of imbeciles.
In Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana the courts, and voters, have a responsibility to disband the educational abomination known as charter schools (more on that later) and impose severe fines on groups like Responsive Education Solutions and force them to repay the tens-of millions of taxpayer dollars to real public schools that endeavor to educate students to compete in the 21^st century and not the Bronze Age. It is a travesty that although evolution is a fact, there is a large swathe of America, primarily across the South, that is inhabited by people who have not evolved beyond cave dwellers who are dumbfounded by science and cling to archaic beliefs repugicans are spreading like plague using taxpayer dollars and biblical legislation. They are violating the Constitution and flushing it like used toilet paper, creating a nation of idiots, and installing the christian bible as the law of the land with hardly a whimper from a population mortified of abridging the rights of repugican dominionists plaguing America with a christian theocracy

Daily Comic Relief

A Second Chemical Was Part of West Virginia Chemical Spill

How ELSE would you describe Freedom Industries?

The chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginia residents without usable water involved more chemicals than the company responsible had previously reported, officials revealed this week, leading the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to order that company to give a full accounting of the chemicals that had leaked into the Elk River.

The newly disclosed chemical appears to be somewhat less toxic than MCHM, the chemical initially identified, and it made up only a small part of the Jan. 9 spill. But the late disclosure outraged officials and citizens who had been hungry for reliable information.

“It is very disturbing that we are just now finding out about this new chemical, almost two weeks after the leak,” said West Virginia’s secretary of state, Natalie E. Tennant, in a statement on Wednesday. She called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to post its water test results online. “We must have confidence that the water coming out of our faucets is not going to make our families sick.”

A Second Chemical Was Part of West Virginia Chemical Spill, Company Reveals

Doubts About the Safety of West Virginia Drinking Water As repugicans Push Deregulation

As doubts remain about the safety of West Virginia drinking water, repugicans were so certain there are sufficient regulations to keep the water supply safe, they passed three…

The idea of clean, safe drinking water in West Virginia after Liberty Industries allowed 7,500 gallons of a toxic and little known chemical to leak into the Elk River is still not guaranteed for 300,000 residents. Although the last of the “do not use” bans were lifted last Saturday meaning all of West Virginia American Water’s customers were given the green light to use and drink their water, it is still unclear, and highly doubtful, that the water is safe to drink.
On Monday at a press conference, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin who said he is not a scientist told reporters that “It’s your decision, if you do not feel comfortable drinking or cooking with this water then use bottled water. I’m not going to say absolutely, 100 percent that everything is safe, but what I can say is if you do not feel comfortable, don’t use it.” If residents are wise, they will heed the coded warning in Tomblin’s statement because it is still unclear what exactly spilled into the river or whether or not proper tests have been conducted to identify all the toxic chemicals that were released. The chemical that Liberty Industries identified, crude MCHM, is a mixture of six chemicals, but only the pure form of the main ingredient has been studied and may not account for other chemicals that leaked into the river. Yesterday, West Virginia regulators ordered Freedom Industries to immediately disclose all materials involved in the recent spill that poisoned the water supply after the company admitted there was a second chemical that spilled into the Elk River.
According to West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Cabinet Secretary Randy Huffman, “Having this revelation so late in the game is completely unacceptable.   We have ordered Freedom to reveal any other information they have regarding the contents of the tank that leaked.” That Freedom Industries withheld vital information about the chemicals that spilled into the river is criminal and they need to be held accountable for concealing, until yesterday, the extent of the leak. That the West Virginia EPC “had to order them to provide such obvious information is indicative of the continued decline of their credibility” Huffman said in a statement. State regulators should have shut down the company immediately for failing to report the presence of the second chemical, but they likely lack the enforcement power and instead ordered them to disclose everything that leaked into the river by 4 p.m. yesterday.
Even though the water is allegedly safe to drink, the Centers for Disease Control warned pregnant women to drink bottled water until there were absolutely no detectable levels of MCHM in the water supply.  State officials and health care professionals recommended that small children not drink the water and that schools only use bottled water even after the water was deemed safe to consume. There is a very good reason for all West Virginians in the affected area to stay away from the poisoned water according to a former West Virginia coal miner, Joe Stanley, who said he has not been drinking the water for years.
Stanley knows why most of the water in and around coal mining country is toxic because he worked at West Virginia’s Marrowbone Coal Mine from 1981 to 1996 for Massey Energy. Massey is the company responsible for the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster in 2010 that killed 29 miners because company officials refused to listen to safety concerns from men working in the mines.  Stanley’s employment with Massey was terminated after a he demanded an official inquiry into which chemicals were being used in the mine after claims they were making mine workers get sick. Stanley said, “I watched the coal industry poison our water for years. Now they’re telling us not to drink the water? We’ve been dumping this stuff into unlined ponds and into old mines for years. This MCHM was just one of the chemicals we were told was highly toxic, but that we dumped it into old mine shafts and slurry ponds that seeped into groundwater for years.” Stanley’s claims are backed up by a 2012 Environmental Protection Agency assessment that identified 132 cases where coal-fired power plant waste damaged rivers, streams and lakes, and 123 where it tainted underground water sources according to an AP investigation.
It is important to remember that House Speaker John Boehner, recipient of more coal industry money than any House member, said “We have enough regulations on the books and what this administration ought to be doing is doing their jobs.” The repugicans have slashed EPA funding for inspections and enforcement by 20% over the past three years informing that it is repugicans who are preventing the EPA from “doing their jobs” and not the Obama Administration. In fact, repugicans were so certain there are sufficient regulations to keep the water supply safe, they passed three bills last Thursday to eliminate the EPA’s authority over states in addition to several riders neutering the environmental watchdog’s authority in the recent budget. According to a new poll, over half of the American people disagree with Boehner and repugican claims there are enough regulations in place to keep the water supply safe.
An unambiguous 51% of the poll’s respondents said the government should enforce more stringent regulations on companies that manufacture and store chemicals, and people who identified as repugican were more likely to not favor new regulations. Only 34% of Americans said they were “very confident” that the tap water in their area was safe to drink. House Democrats have asked repugicans to conduct hearings “to examine regulatory gaps in the nation’s toxic chemical control laws” to protect the water supply, but instead repugicans are voting on three measures to eliminate the EPA’s ability to inspect, enforce regulations, and protect the water supply.
Americans need to remember that just a little over two weeks ago repugicans offered their grand “job creation” plan that featured gutting regulations as the be all, end all method of putting Americans back to work. Their focus is not on creating jobs, or protecting America’s water supply, but giving the dirty energy industry, especially dirty coal, greater freedom to skirt environmental protections and poison the one resource humans cannot live without. To keep the campaign contributions flowing, Republicans are systematically eliminating the EPA’s inspection and enforcement ability evidenced by their votes to restrict the agency’s oversight and authority in the states, or use scare tactics to convince voters the EPA is an existential threat. The West Virginia miner, Joe Stanley, who warned “Don’t drink the water, just don’t do it,” showed what West Virginians hoping their water is safe to drink are up against when he held up the local Republican Senate candidate’s campaign sign that says, “SAVE COAL, END THE EPA.” At the current rate of deregulatory frenzy among Republicans, Americans in and around coal mines should read the sign as “SAVE COAL, END SAFE WATER.”

Calling it what it is ...

Say What ...

Top West Virginia official: 'We have to trust the science, even though there's no science to trust' .

When you follow politics, you inevitably encounter mind-bending idiocy and self-serving bullshit in heaping quantities. But the dangerous chemicals that have leached into West Virginia's water supply have produced an extraordinarily toxic combination of idiocy and bullshit that's remarkable even for our jaded age:

Karen Bowling, West Virginia's secretary of Health and Human Resources, said pregnant women who drank the water before being told to avoid it should contact their doctors. For the rest of the population, Bowling said she is confident the tap water is not harmful.

.
"It's understandable that people are concerned. I don't want to minimize anybody's feelings about an issue as sensitive as this," said Bowling, who said she drank the tap water after it was declared safe. "It's hard to instill confidence when there's little known about the chemical, but at the same time we have to trust in the science of what's happening."

Trust in the science-when you admit there is none? We don't even have toxicity data on the substance at issue in West Virgina, known as MCHM, because it was grandfathered in when Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act back in 1976, along with 62,000 other chemicals. It the 40 years since, the law still hasn't been updated, and we're still in the dark about MCHM, but West Virginia's top health official wants us to "trust in the science" anyway.

It's time for government to take a stronger hand in regulating ALL industry.

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Lebork and Jaslo, Poland

Steinsel, Luxembourg

Madrid, Teo, Malaga and Vigo, Spain

Liverpool, Maidenhead and London, England

Rouen, Cerny and Salon-De-Provence, France

Ivrea, Rome, Ravenna and Treviso, Italy

Riga, Latvia

Kiev and Zhovti Vody, Ukraine

Oslo and Bergen, Norway

Chelyabinsk, Ryazan, Moscow, Novosibirsk and Kazan, Russia

Copenhagen, Denmark

Frankfurt Am Main, Stuttgart, Sulzbach and Altstadt, Germany

Yerevan and Abovyan, Armenia

Bucharest, Romania

Zurich, Switzerland

Stockholm and Sollentuna, Sweden

Ruse, Bulgaria

Bratislava, Slovakia

Nokia, Finland

Belgrade, Serbia

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Asia 

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Jakarta, Medan and Semarang, Indonesia

Jitra, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka, Malaysia

Tehran, Mashhad and Shiraz, Iran

Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Mumbai, Madurai, Dehea Dun, Pondicherry and Bhubaneshwar, India

Port Louis, Mauritius

Beijing, China

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Pathum Thani and Bangkok, Thailand

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Africa 

Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa

Cairo, Egypt

Nairobi, Kenya

Harare, Zimbabwe

Pacific

Manila, Sampaloc and Makati, Philippines

Homebush, Australia

Today in History

1699		The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the war between Austria and the Turks.
1720		Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country's empire.
1788		A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia's national day.
1861		Louisiana secedes from the Union.
1863		President Lincoln names General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
1875		Pinkerton agents, hunting Jesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.
1885		General "Chinese" Gordon is killed on the palace steps in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists in Africa.
1924		Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.
1934		Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.
1942		American Expeditionary Force lands in Northern Ireland.
1943		The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma.
1964		Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.
1969		California is declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides.
2005		Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in an U.S. presidential cabinet.

Non Sequitur

The 10 Toughest Exams You Can Take

Up For A Challenge? 

We've all been there. You spend months - or even years - studying for an exam, only to turn over the question paper and discover that it has been written in an apparently alien language, discussing topics that have never even danced across one's memory.

However, after some profuse sweating and maybe a few tears, the mortal panic starts to subside and familiar words begin to drift into view; the brain whirs into life, and a torrent of crammed knowledge can finally be unburdened onto the paper. It's a terrifying enough process even when someone knows their subject, so we certainly don't envy the thousands of people that sit the world's hardest exams.

Did you know ...

The 4 creepiest ways corporate America is spying on you

The ancient antarctic trench (bigger than the grand canyon) is under miles of ice

That house repugicans are draining $600 million a week from the economy

The tea party is the 'petite bourgeoisie' face of corporate oligarchs

by Travis Gettys

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The Tea Party is just the popular face of corporate power in the United States, says political philosopher Noam Chomsky.
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"I wouldn't call them revolutionary," Chomsky said, dismissing a suggestion that the conservative political faction had anarchist characteristics.
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He told Radio VR during an interview posted online last week that he agreed with the conservative political analyst Norman Ornstein's characterization of the Tea Party.
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"He just described them as a radical insurgency opposed to rationality, to political compromise, to participation to a parliamentary system - in fact, with no positive goals themselves," Chomsky said.

[...]

"They're in favor of having the population subordinated to concentrated private power, which should have no limits," Chomsky said. "When they call themselves anti-government, that means they don't want government to limit the capacity of concentrated private power to dominate the society. That's very far from any anarchism."
[...]

Noam Chomsky: The tea party is the 'petite bourgeoisie' face of corporate oligarchs

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford curses in a jafaican accent when he's loaded

A video of Toronto Mayor Rob "Laughable Bumblefuck" Ford drunk and bellowing obscenities in a jafaican accent has surfaced. Ford, a luminously white and privileged man who was born into millions in a quiet suburb of Toronto, affects an embarrassing West Indian accent as he thunders to a captive audience at a west-end steak joint.
The subject of his rant was Toronto police chief Bill Blair, who instigated the long-running investigation into Ford's association with drug-dealers and gangsters, and which surfaced evidence that the mayor had smoked crack, driven drunk, and lied to the public and to council. In the video, Ford calls Blair "Cocksucking fucking Chief Blair."
He also says "bumbaclot." A lot.
When the scandal broke, Ford admitted to his drug use and swore he'd gone sober. But he told reporters who questioned him about this video that he was drunk, and that the events depicted in it were his "my personal life, with my personal friends, that's up to me. This really has nothing to do with you guys."

“I was with some friends and what I do in my personal life, with my personal friends, that’s up to me. This really has nothing to do with you guys,” Ford told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
The mayor wouldn’t address questions about his past claims that he quit drinking.
...The video could be damaging to Ford’s campaign for re-election, as he has staked his reputation to being clean and sober since November.
Ford “guaranteed” he has stopped drinking in interviews last year and told the CBC he had a “come to Jesus” moment about his drinking.

Oh, and there's a dancehall remix

Rob Ford video shows ‘drunk’ mayor rambling and swearing in Toronto restaurant