Sunday, December 29, 2013

Accidental tax break saves wealthiest Americans $100B : Business

Accidental tax break saves wealthiest Americans $100B : Business

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y shuffling his company stock in and out of more than 30 trusts, he’s given at least $7.9 billion to his heirs while legally avoiding about $2.8 billion in U.S. gift taxes since 2010, according to calculations based on data in Adelson’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Hundreds of executives have used the technique, SEC filings show. These tax shelters may have cost the federal government more than $100 billion since 2000, says Richard Covey, the lawyer who pioneered the maneuver. That’s equivalent to about one-third of all estate and gift taxes the U.S. has collected since th

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accidental?

Four years after passage of Obamacare, health care system remains in crisis : News

Four years after passage of Obamacare, health care system remains in crisis : News

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CONTROLLING MEDICAL COSTS

Health care spending gobbled up about $2.9 trillion in 2013. By 2023, it is likely to rise to $5.5 trillion, an increase of 90 percent over the decade, according to the Commonwealth Fund.

“There is broad evidence that much of that excess spending is wasteful,” the fund’s report states.

Stuart Guterman, the fund’s executive director, said the United States spends nearly $9,000 a year per person on health care, more than twice as much as either France or Sweden, countries that offer universal health care for its citizens.

“Better care in the end is the best way to get to lower-cost care,” he said.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Paul Ryan lectures the pope

Paul Ryan lectures the pope

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When 1.3 million Americans lose their unemployment benefits on Saturday, they can thank Rep. Paul Ryan. He took the lead in negotiating a bipartisan budget deal with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, and on behalf of his party, held the line against continuing extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.

Sure, a lot of Republicans share blame with Ryan. But he deserves extra-special (negative) credit for the deal, because he has lately had the audacity to depict himself as the new face of “compassionate conservatism,” insisting Republicans must pay attention to the problems of the poor. Friends say the man who once worshipped Ayn Rand now takes Pope Francis as his moral role model. Except he can’t help treating his new role model with arrogance and contempt.

Press Release -- Protect Your Legal Health in 2014 With a Legal Check Up

Press Release -- Protect Your Legal Health in 2014 With a Legal Check Up

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Protect Your Legal Health in 2014 With a Legal Check Up

With the New Year upon us, now is a good time to consider a legal check-up to prevent larger and possibly more expensive problems in the future. Here are some legal checkpoints to consider prepared by the attorneys at Legal Services:

P Reach an understanding. Do not sign a document unless you understand it, agree to it, and receive a photocopy of what you signed (after both parties have signed it).

P Consider future needs. Prepare a durable power of attorney so your family knows your wishes regarding medical treatment in the event you become incapacitated. A form is available on the Missouri Bar website www.mobar.org

P Ignorance is not bliss. Do notignore credit problems. If you are behind on mortgage, credit card or other loan payments, contact your creditor or lender.

P   Be inquisitive. Ask questions and demand answers, especially when closing on a mortgage.

P Avoid title trouble.Do not sign an automobile contract without seeing a title first. Remember: A car purchase can only be completed by transferring the title and delivering it to the buyer.

1.3 million losing unemployment benefits Saturday : Business

1.3 million losing unemployment benefits Saturday : Business

Editorial: Missouri makes it easier to vote. Wait ... what? : Stltoday

Editorial: Missouri makes it easier to vote. Wait ... what? : Stltoday

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Mr. Kander’s new website, (www.sos.mo.gov/votemissouri) allows voters to either update their existing registration if they’ve moved, or start the process from scratch.

“In this day and age, people just expect a certain amount of convenience whether they are dealing with state government or anything else,” Mr. Kander told us.

Legal authority for the new website, which will accept electronic signatures as legally valid, actually comes from a state law passed in 2003.

That was a different era in Missouri. Leading Republicans actually advocated for early voting a decade ago. They included then-Secretary of State Matt Blunt and then-House Speaker Catherine Hanaway.

Tea Party Happily Uses Poster Mocking Them In Popular Video Game

Friday, December 27, 2013

'Concierge Doctor' Latest Perk For The Wealthy

wonder if obamacare picks this up? I am sure it is tax deductable

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

All in the Family S2 E13 Christmas Day at the Bunkers

yes, a black santa

How to ruin Christmas: A holiday guide to arguing with conservative relatives

How to ruin Christmas: A holiday guide to arguing with conservative relatives

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But let’s think about these duck guys, this Robertson family with the television show that millions of people watch. Maybe this is the north enforcing its cultural hegemony at the expense of an innocent southern man, tarred as a bigot and kicked off his own television show just for saying what he thinks. But if you are southern, maybe you should think some more about the Robertsons and their television show and what message it sends to the rest of the country.

The Robertson family is a gang of college-educated millionaires pretending to be backwoods hillbillies. The beards and camo are literally costumes. Before they had a television show they were clean-shaven yuppies in polo shirts and cargo shorts. The Robertsons are performing a pantomime of southernness, and it is making them even richer than they were before. They are performing for a nationwide audience that is probably not mostly southern, and that is definitely not mostly rural and southern. No one on reality television — especially in this era, when it’s more staged than ever — is being their authentic self. That’s not in and of itself a problem; entertainment is entertainment. But the Duck Dynasty guys are essentially doing a hillbilly minstrel act, filmed and aired by a network jointly owned by the Hearst Corporation and Disney. Maybe that doesn’t offend you. But for much of America, these people are the most prominent modern representatives of white southernness, and the duck guy just confirmed for them the stereotype that white southerners are bible-thumping bigots with twisted racist delusions.

Monday, December 23, 2013

10 worst right-wing moments of the week — sitting “Duck” edition

10 worst right-wing moments of the week — sitting “Duck” edition

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3. Rick Santorum delivers unhinged, illogical rant about nationalized healthcare.

We may need to run this excerpt from a Rick Santorum speech in its somewhat cleaned up entirety, because we’re still trying to make sense of it. But it seems very ominous. It is about that death-deliverer, government-subsidized healthcare. Even the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher, was too frightened to take it on. And she was so tough. That’s how scary it is! Then there is this leap of logic that has us scratching our now totally terrified heads. Because if you get sick, and you don’t have healthcare, you die. (Question: So, why isn’t that an argument for providing healthcare to more people?) And, as if dying weren’t bad enough, you also don’t get to vote if you die. So the whole system is rigged, because only living people can vote. And only living people can get healthcare. See?

Here’s Uncle Ricky to explain:
If we have a system where the government is going to be the principal provider of health care for the country, we’re done. Because then, you are dependent on the government for your life and your health…When Thatcher ran for prime minister she said — remember this, this is the Iron Lady — she said, ‘The British national health care system is safe in my hands.’ She wasn’t going to take on health care, because she knew once you have people getting free health care from the government, you can’t take it away from them. And the reason is because most people don’t get sick, and so free health care is just that, free health care, until you get sick. Then, if you get sick and you don’t get health care, you die and you don’t vote. It’s actually a pretty clever system. Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you. That’s how it works.

Happy Holidays from the USW

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Technology is winning the war on coal

Technology is winning the war on coal

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Regulators now want to make CCS more alluring. New rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandate that any new coal-fired power plant willrequire at least part of its CO2 pollution to be captured and stored. The levels in the proposal would allow 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity produced to be emitted, the amount of gas spewed by the average new power plant burning natural gas. (Of course, to truly combat climate change, even that pollution would have to be captured and stored.)

The question now relates to whether the technology is ready for wide deployment. “It is happening now,” argues Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, a point backed up by a Congressional Research Service report from October and the new Kemper power plant. In fact, that facility is the first large-scale effort to move CCS beyond the scale of demonstration projects. The 550-megawatt coal-gasification power plant, fitted with CCS, is scheduled for completion in 2014. “It’s a monster,” says Moniz, who recently toured the site.

Fox News Busted For War On Christmas Hypocrisy

Tea Party Patriot Arrested For (NSFW)

BP strikes oil in the Gulf of Mexico

BP strikes oil in the Gulf of Mexico

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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Jamie Dimon’s perp walk: Why it could be this year’s Christmas miracle

Jamie Dimon’s perp walk: Why it could be this year’s Christmas miracle

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The crowd waited impatiently outside 270 Park Avenue, corporate headquarters of JPMorgan Chase. Photographers readied their cameras. Then, the murmuring grew into a low roar. There was CEO Jamie Dimon, accompanied by two FBI agents. His hands were tied behind his back, held together by handcuffs. As flashbulbs popped, the agents guided Dimon into an awaiting vehicle, and drove off to take him into police custody.

Christmas miracle? It doesn’t have to be. Even putting aside the rap sheet of crimes committed by JPMorgan Chase over the past several years for which its CEO can be said to be ultimately responsible, just a week ago, Jamie Dimon explicitly violated a federal statute that carries a prison sentence. That he’s a free man today, with no fear of prosecution, doesn’t only speak to our two-tiered system of justice in America. It should color our perceptions of new rules and regulations that supposedly “get tough” on the financial industry, as we recognize that any law is only as strong as the individuals who enforce them.

note;  would be happy to provide lad with soap on a rope if he gets to jail

7 ways to shut down a climate change denier

7 ways to shut down a climate change denier

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It is virtually impossible to disprove accusations of giant global conspiracies to those already convinced of them (can anyone prove that the Freemasons and the Roswell aliens aren’t involved, too?). Let it therefore be noted that the magnitude of this hypothetical conspiracy would need to encompass many thousands of uncontroversial publications and respected scientists from around the world,Carbon Dioxide and Climate,” by Gilbert N. Plass, from Scientific American in July 1959.) It is also one so powerful that it has co-opted the official positions of dozens of scientific organizations including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics and the American Meteorological Society.

If there were a massive conspiracy to defraud the world on climate (and to what end?), surely the thousands of e-mails and other files stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and distributed by hackers on November 20 would bear proof of it. So far, however, none has emerged. Most of the few statements that critics claim as evidence of malfeasance seem to have more innocent explanations that make sense in the context of scientists conversing privately and informally. It is deplorable if any of the scientists involved did prove to manipulate data dishonestly or thwart Freedom of Information requests; however, it is currently unclear whether that ultimately happened. What is missing is any clear indication of a widespread attempt to falsify and coordinate findings on a scale that could hold together a global cabal or significantly distort the record on climate change.

Inequality Why are the rich getting richer

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Chemicals linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer found at fracking sites

Chemicals linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer found at fracking sites

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Wal-Mart’s dirty partners pay up: Fired workers win thousands

Wal-Mart’s dirty partners pay up: Fired workers win thousands

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snip


Days after Wal-Mart warehouse workers in California announced a $4.7 million settlement over alleged stolen wages, workers fired from the retail giant’s top U.S. distribution center announced a new Labor Board settlement over allegations their activism cost them their jobs.

“We knew our rights, but the Walmart contractors running the warehouse didn’t care and fired us illegally,” ex-employee Mike Compton said in an e-mailed statement. “Now they have to pay us thousands of dollars and they should think twice before going after warehouse workers organizing!” Wal-Mart did not immediately respond to an early morning inquiry.

Wal-Mart’s contractor at the warehouse, Schneider, sent Salon a one-sentence statement: “It is in the best interest of our associates and the company to settle these charges, end the distraction, and focus on what we do best: moving freight for our customer.”

Shocking Number Of Legislatures Calling For End Of Money In Politics - W...

'60 Minutes' Blasted For NSA Piece

Worst corporate handout ever: How the government funds abusive tycoons

Worst corporate handout ever: How the government funds abusive tycoons

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“Many of the most flagrant violators of workplace safety and wage laws are also recipients of large federal contracts,” states the HELP report, “Acting Responsibly? Federal Contractors Frequently Put Workers’ Lives and Livelihoods at Risk.”

The authors contend that an existing database created under the the Clean Contracting Act of 2008 fails to capture “many incidents of misconduct,” citing examples including the deaths of a worker “swept into an industrial dryer” at Cintas Corp., two workers killed in an explosion at a ship company owned by ST Engineering Limited, and seven workers in the Anacortes, Wash., refinery of the Fortune 100 petroleum company Tesoro. The HELP report states that Tesoro “received $463 million in federal contracts in fiscal year 2012,” and that the $2.4 million initial penalty safety assessed against it ranks — along with initial penalties assessed against 17 other contractors — among the largest assessed between 2007 and 2012. A 2010 report from the Government Accountability Office found that 15 contractors with citations for federal labor law violations had collectively received $6 billion in government contracts in fiscal 2009.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Ed Schultz doubles down: “I am not gonna get bamboozled by reporters”

Ed Schultz doubles down: “I am not gonna get bamboozled by reporters”

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For a second consecutive day, MSNBC primetime host Ed Schultz used his national radio show Friday to criticize coverage of his handling of an NBC labor dispute, but did not specifically address alleged union-busting by an NBC Universal-owned company.

“I am sorry for those of you that do believe in the big red head,” Schultz told listeners at the start of the show, “that you have to put up with some lies and deception on Twitter.”

Schultz has drawn harsh tweets since Salon printed a Thursday morning story about labor strife at the NBC Universal-owned Peacock Productions, where a unionization vote covering about a hundred workers was held but a corporate legal challenge has kept the ballots from being counted. Alleging “a textbook anti-union campaign that you would see at companies like Wal-Mart,” the Writers Guild of America – East has asked five primetime MSNBC hosts to publicly support the campaign. None so far have, though several people who were in the room told Salon that Chris Hayes held a private meeting with workers and union staff. Asked Tuesday about the campaign, Schultz e-mailed Salon, “Moveon.org has never been an ally of Ed Schultz, why should I help you with a story? Give me a reason.” He did not respond to a follow-up, or to a series of subsequent inquiries.

Corporate Democrats freak out over Elizabeth Warren threat

Corporate Democrats freak out over Elizabeth Warren threat

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Ignore the not-so-hidden sexism in that comment, and consider for a second what’s really going on here.
Jim Kessler and the corporate Democrat “moderate” types who support Third Way are absolutely terrified. They’re terrified that Elizabeth Warren and her supporters will upend the stranglehold they’ve had on Democratic politics since the Clinton era.

So now they’ve joined Republicans in declaring an all-out war on her and everything she stands for.
Warren has said that she won’t run for President in 2016, but that doesn’t really matter. Because even if she makes good on her promise to fill out her Senate term, Warren’s message and her supporters will continue to threaten what the Democratic establishment sees as an easy road to a second Clinton presidency.
So make no mistake about it—that Wall Street Journal editorial was just the start of a big multi-year smear campaign against progressives who might represent a threat to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

And here’s the thing—those establishment Democrats know that Elizabeth Warren is spot-on when it comes to policy issues.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

War On Christmas Ad - Real or Parody?

Look at the stats: America resembles a poor country

Look at the stats: America resembles a poor country

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America has become a RINO: rich in name only. By every measure, we look like a broken banana republic. Not a single U.S. city is included in the world’s top 10 most livable cities. Only one U.S. airport makes the list of the top 100 in the world. Our roads, schools and bridges are falling apart, and our trains—none of them high-speed—are running off their tracks. Our high school students are rated 30th in math, and some 30 countries have longer life expectancy and lower rates of infant mortality. The only things America is number one in these days are the number of incarcerated citizens per capita and adult onset diabetes.
Three decades of trickledown economics; the monopolization, privatization and deregulation of industry; and the destruction of labor protection has resulted in 50 million Americans living in abject poverty, while 400 individuals own more than one-half of the nation’s wealth. As the four Walmart heirs enjoy a higher net worth than the bottom 40 percent, our nation’s sense of food insecurity is more on par with developing countries like Indonesia and Tanzania than with OECD nations like Australia and Canada. In fact, the percentage of Americans who say they could not afford the food needed to feed their families at some point in the last year is three times that of Germany, more than twice than Italy and Canada.
The destruction of labor has been so 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Wis. trucker faces sentencing in Koch cyberattack

Wis. trucker faces sentencing in Koch cyberattack

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A Wisconsin truck driver who joined a cyberattack on Wichita-based Koch Industries will learn his fate for the onslaught that briefly took the company's website offline.
Eric Rosol, of Black Creek, Wis., faced sentencing Monday in U.S. District Court in Wichita on one misdemeanor count of accessing a protected computer.
Prosecutors agreed in Rosol's plea deal to recommend a sentence at the low end of federal guidelines.
Koch's website was offline for about 15 minutes during the February 2011 attack organized by the hacking group Anonymous.
The parties agreed the direct loss to Koch was less than $5,000. But Koch contends it spent $183,000 for a consulting group when it learned of the planned attack.

SNAP: Myths vs. Facts

Fast food CEOs exploit despicable tax loophole

Fast food CEOs exploit despicable tax loophole

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A 20-year-old tax loophole netted top fast food chains an extra $64 million over the past two years, according to a new study released days before fast food workers plan the largest U.S. strike in the industry’s history.

“This is a perverse loophole that encourages excessive executive compensation …” said Sarah Anderson, who directs the Global Economy Project of the progressive Institute for Policy Studies. “Taxpayers absolutely should not be subsidizing runaway CEO pay.”

Anderson’s new IPS paper, “Fast Food CEOs Rake in Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay,” tallies the tax savings fast food corporations have reaped from “performance pay” language in federal law. Two decades ago, when Congress placed a $1 million cap on the amount of executive pay that could be tax-deductible, lawmakers created an exception for so-called performance pay. “This loophole quickly led to an explosion of ‘performance-based’ compensation, particularly stock options,” writes Anderson, which “encourages executives to carry out short-sighted, reckless actions aimed at boosting stock prices in order to inflate the value of their own options.” Rather than serving to “align the interests of executives and shareholders,” argues Anderson, instead “boards often respond to declining share prices by doling out huge new options grants with lower exercise prices” for undeserving execs. She notes that Goldman Sachs paid out 10 times as many stock options after the 2008 crash than it had the year before.

A Nightmare on Wall Street

Electoral Map Could be Tougher for GOP in 2016

Bernie Sanders Says He Is Considering 2016 Presidential Run

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Senators blast Wal-Mart “trampling” workers’ rights as dozens of activists are arrested on Black Friday

Senators blast Wal-Mart “trampling” workers’ rights as dozens of activists are arrested on Black Friday

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At least 55 total people have been arrested in Black Friday Wal-Mart protests, according to organizers. Those arrests, which came amid a statement of support from a handful of congressional Democrats and plans for 1,500 total protests, took place at civil disobedience actions in Ontario, California; Arlington, Virginia; Chicago; Dallas; and Secaucus, New Jersey. Arrests were also expected at mid-day demonstrations in St. Paul, Sacramento, and Seattle, and at a Bay Area rally at 3 PM PST.

“I have to look at my ancestors, and those who joined in civil rights marches, walks, sit-ins, and they did civil disobediences for us,” Chicago employee Myron Byrd told Salon prior to being arrested. He said his reaction when watching arrests at a prior protest was “Wow, this reminds me of the sit-in days – you know, when my mom and them used to talk about in the sixties.” Byrd added that the action was “for the workers who may stand, and most of them [who] cannot stand. I’m sacrificing myself along with others to do this to show Wal-Mart that hey, I’m not afraid, they not afraid, we not afraid.”

Protesters at Ferguson Walmart want better pay for store's workers : Business

Protesters at Ferguson Walmart want better pay for store's workers : Business

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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

5 ways electric cars could be safer than gasoline powered ones

5 ways electric cars could be safer than gasoline powered ones
 
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But there are reasons to think that lithium ion battery vehicles could be even safer than gasoline ones.
Gasoline is concentrated in a single large tank. The flammable liquid electrolyte that burns in battery fires is contained in small packages. That provides more opportunities for protecting the electrolyte and slowing the spread of a fire if one of them has a problem. The recent fires in the Tesla Model S were contained in the front part of the car.

You don’t have to refuel batteries, so there’s no pumping of flammable liquids.

Electric cars have far fewer moving parts than gasoline ones, so there will be fewer things to break down. A large share of the  fires in conventional cars are the result of the failure of mechanical parts.
During normal operation, you don’t set fire to the electrolytes in batteries. But gasoline engines operate by deliberately exposing gasoline to a spark. The engines run hot. It’s a tricky mix to manage.

China Tests it's First Unmanned Stealth Drone!

Monday, November 25, 2013

“They are trying to destroy my life”: Chevron’s legal war on its harshest critic

“They are trying to destroy my life”: Chevron’s legal war on its harshest critic

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snip


Gowen and Keker, of course, are clearly on Donziger’s side; you’d expect them to blast Chevron. But some independent observers also have expressed concern about Chevron’s legal tactics. Most worrisome is Chevron’s use of RICO — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — against Dongizer. RICO is used most commonly to prosecute mafia figures. Some lawyers and legal scholars say that employing RICO against a plaintiff attorney could set a dangerous precedent.

Susan Bozorgi, a Miami-based criminal defense lawyer, told Newsweek that she worries about what it will mean if Chevron wins: “[RICO] was meant to be used against the mob. The danger about a case like this is that it could send a message to a lawyer who wants to take up a cause for an underdog that Big Brother, the big corporate entity, is going to start coming after you for criminal conduct.”

UC-Hastings law professor Roht-Arriaza said to me: “I’m not a RICO expert, but I don’t know of any case that involves the behavior of companies abroad, where the company has turned around and sued under RICO. Chevron has been sued before, but they haven’t done this, even when it looked like things weren’t going well for them.” She continued: “It’s interesting the number of levels on which Chevron is fighting back. They are not only doing this, they are also bringing all of these arbitration cases, basically trying to say that the Ecuadorian court shouldn’t have brought any judgment.”

Poll: Most Americans don’t know what the frack fracking is

Poll: Most Americans don’t know what the frack fracking is

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Fracking: Is it the key to U.S. energy independence; an environmental plague contaminating groundwater, polluting the air and even causing earthquakes; or just a funny word?
Most Americans don’t have an opinion, according to a study by researchers from Oregon State, George Mason and Yale. And the majority of those questioned — 58 percent — said they know “nothing at all” about fracking.

The data’s derived from a 2012 survey, which sampled over 1,000 Americans to gauge public understanding of issues surrounding climate change. Only 9 percent of respondents said they’d heard “a lot” about fracking, 7 percent said they’d heard of some of the potential environmental impacts and 3 percent were aware of the positive economic and energy supply impacts.

Another 58 percent majority of respondents had no opinion of their stance on the controversy surrounding fracking. Those who did were pretty evenly split, with 22 percent in favor and 20 percent opposed. The older people got, the more likely they were to support the process, as were people with higher levels of education. People who were more informed about fracking itself, however, were more likely to be against it, as were women and people with “more egalitarian worldviews.” Reading newspapers was associated with opposition to fracking, while watching TV news was associated with support.

Friday, November 22, 2013

The Wall Street Code (Marije Meerman, VPRO)

The Big Fix - BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Cover up

Starbucks union-buster is ironic winner after liberals push nuclear option

Starbucks union-buster is ironic winner after liberals push nuclear option

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snip


When Senate Democrats curbed filibusters in a historic Thursday vote, unions were among the major winners. The D.C. Circuit Court, where Republican obstruction has maintained a conservative majority, has repeatedly rejected modest pro-labor moves by the National Labor Relations Board. And restricting filibusters on nominations could pave the way for future senators to rein in filibusters on legislation, which have bedeviled unions’ labor law reform efforts every time that Democrats controlled both Congress and the presidency. Unions have thus been at the forefront of recent efforts to secure filibuster reforms.

So it’s ironic that one of the most acute and immediate beneficiaries of those efforts will be Patricia Ann Millett, a woman who helped Starbucks stymie unions. Millett is one of three D.C. Circuit nominees tapped by President Obama and blocked by Republicans; after invoking the so-called nuclear option, the Senate voted 55-43 Thursday to move forward on Millett.

“I find it troubling, because Ms. Millett and her firm Akin Gump went well beyond what I consider the bounds of decency and morality in the very aggressive anti-union campaign they really designed and helped Starbucks carry out,” Daniel Gross, a founding member of the Starbucks Workers Union, told Salon. “The campaign that Ms. Millett and her firm architected and really co-led, and continues to co-lead with Starbucks, involved all of the scorched earth tactics which are starting to come to light more and more.” The White House, the AFL-CIO and Starbucks did not provide comment on Millett’s Starbucks work in response to Thursday inquiries. Akin Gump declined to comment.

WALMART'S FOOD DRIVE - Tell Walmart: Decent Pay, Not Hand Outs

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

1983 Reform: Social Security Benefits Were Cut by 19 Percent

1983 Reform: Social Security Benefits Were Cut by 19 Percent

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note:  looks like history going to repeat



  • First, the 1983 reforms didn’t only reduce benefits; they also increased taxes, by covering newly hired federal workers and non-profit associations, accelerating tax increases already on the books, prohibiting state/local workers from leaving the system, and so on.

  • Second, while benefits in any given month will be lower in the future than they would have been under 1983 rules, that doesn’t mean they’d be lower in real terms.

  • Third, future retirees will live longer than those in the past did, so while they may receive somewhat lower replacement rates than in the past, they’ll collect them over longer retirements.

  • - See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/1983-reform-social-security-benefits-were-cut-by-19-percent/#sthash.V1wEfI5W.dpuf



  • First, the 1983 reforms didn’t only reduce benefits; they also increased taxes, by covering newly hired federal workers and non-profit associations, accelerating tax increases already on the books, prohibiting state/local workers from leaving the system, and so on.

  • Second, while benefits in any given month will be lower in the future than they would have been under 1983 rules, that doesn’t mean they’d be lower in real terms.

  • Third, future retirees will live longer than those in the past did, so while they may receive somewhat lower replacement rates than in the past, they’ll collect them over longer retirements.

  • - See more at: http://healthblog.ncpa.org/1983-reform-social-security-benefits-were-cut-by-19-percent/#sthash.V1wEfI5W.dpuf

    Elizabeth Warren: EXPAND Social Security benefits

    If I Were Obama - Cenk Reacts To Obamacare Trouble

    Corruption On Steroids - Koch Brothers Spend Record Cash

    Friday, November 15, 2013

    What Secret Message Is Hiding In The Wendy's Logo?

    Car Runs For 100 Years Without Refueling - The Thorium Car

    Obamacare Website Model Was Bullied

    Sorry, Tea Party: Most red-state Americans believe global warming is real

    Sorry, Tea Party: Most red-state Americans believe global warming is real

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    A vocal minority of climate deniers are giving politicians the wrong impression of what their constituents think about climate change, a new study found. Despite the common perception that opinions vary across different parts of the country, survey data analyzed by Jon Krosnick at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment establishes that the vast majority of Americans are in agreement with the scientific consensus on global warming.

    When asked, “What is your personal opinion? Do you think that the world’s temperature probably has been going up over the past 100 years, or do you think this probably has not been happening?” the vast majority of Americans confirmed that, yes, it’s been getting hotter (as shown in the above map).

    According to Krosnick, legislatures in Washington often base their impressions of what their constituents are thinking on emails, phone calls and conversations with individual people, while few conduct polling about climate-related issues. Looking at data collected from almost 20,000 people between 2006 and 2013, he found that those individuals don’t accurately represent public opinion in even the reddest of red states. He presented his findings yesterday morning to the congressional Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change in Washington, D.C.

    The majority of respondents in every state surveyed also said they believe that global warming was caused by humans, agreeing with 97 percent of scientists:

    Friday, November 8, 2013

    Exxon “disappointed” with $2.7 million fine for Arkansas pipeline spill

    Exxon “disappointed” with $2.7 million fine for Arkansas pipeline spill

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    A report commissioned by Exxon identified the root cause of the failure as hook-shaped cracks along the seams of the pipe, which was manufactured in the 1940s. Those cracks come from an outdated welding process not used since the 1970s, but they can still be found on thousands of miles of pipelines across the U.S.

    In a notice released Wednesday, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said Exxon should have known the pipe would be susceptible to seam failure because the company detected problems in 1991, 2005 and 2006.

    Exxon didn’t retest the pipeline often enough and didn’t focus on sections that run near homes and drinking-water sources, the agency said, adding that the company didn’t act quickly enough on anomalies in the pipe found in 2010

    .
    An Exxon spokesman said it was disappointed with the fine, calling PHMSA’s analysis flawed.


    Monday, November 4, 2013

    Paul Krugman: Germany harming global economic recovery

    Paul Krugman: Germany harming global economic recovery

    click link

    GOP’s humiliating new predicament: Why it may have to fund the law it hates!

    GOP’s humiliating new predicament: Why it may have to fund the law it hates!

    click link

    snip


    Republicans know that as time goes on, the constituency of new Affordable Care Act beneficiaries will grow, and eventually cross a point of no return past which “repeal,” in the sense that they’ve been promising conservatives they will “repeal Obamacare,” will become impossible. After all, Republicans are in the midst of proving how politically dangerous it is to pass laws that result in people losing their health insurance.
    They understand the attraction of government benefits as well as anyone, which explains why they’re attacking the law so aggressively in the early days of its enrollment period, before coverage kicks in on Jan. 1, and while its botched rollout is preventing hundreds of thousands of people from completing applications for insurance.

    If the Obama administration manages to fix Healthcare.gov pretty quickly, then the story will change after the new year and Republicans will have to undertake an awkward political reversal.

    At the same time, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that in most of the country, the Affordable Care Act rollout has been a fiasco. It’s probably the case, actually, that even if the errors get corrected quickly, the salient facts about the past month and the coming weeks — the failure of the federally facilitated exchanges, the millions of cancellation notices — will loom large over the program, particularly on the right, well into next year.

    Obamacare: National Website Disaster!


    Memo to SEC: Make corporations disclose political contributions!

    Memo to SEC: Make corporations disclose political contributions!

    click link

    snip


    According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who delivered the opinion for the Court, “With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.”

    The problem with this particular assumption, which economists call perfect information, is that corporations are, surprise surprise, not legally obligated to share information on political spending with their shareholders or the public. In August 2011, a group of high-profile law professors filed a petition with the Securities and Exchange Commission, calling on the agency to require public companies to disclose what corporate resources they spend on political activities because “most political spending remains opaque to investors in most publicly traded companies.”

    Why do companies spend money on politics? The answer seems obvious: they want to generate profits. They are seeking advantages like reduced trade barriers, government contracts, easier regulatory inspections, and lower tax rates. For more on this point, see my colleague Tom Ferguson’s recent paper with Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen, which reveals how “Too Big to Fail” Wall Street firms and telecom companies have captured the GOP and the Democrats, respectively. (As an aside, isn’t it odd that the same companies orchestrating the expansion of the surveillance state are so concerned about their own privacy?)

    Maggie Fox - The Price of Carbon Pollution


    Saturday, November 2, 2013

    Wednesday, October 30, 2013

    Devils Dust



    amazing australian worker's occupational exposure story

    Bill Parscrell during hearing

    http://www.youtube.com/v/9owwg1LALxk?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&feature=share&autoplay=1&showinfo=1&attribution_tag=JOiqeBNx5dgTec4aMSNqWg

    “Rate shock”: The GOP’s shameful new Obamacare lie

    “Rate shock”: The GOP’s shameful new Obamacare lie

    click link

    snip


    If you’re a healthcare reform supporter and have found yourself arguing with a conservative about Obamacare this week you’ve probably been confronted with three different but related complaints.
    1. Millions of people with individual market healthcare coverage are getting cancellation notices from their insurers.
    2. People who got those notices are now experiencing “rate shock.”
    3. President Obama thus lied to the public when he claimed, repeatedly, that under Obamacare “if you like your coverage, you can keep it.”
    In a way it’s a healthy development for conservatives because for the first time they’re actually reacting to real testimonials from real people, instead of just regurgitating some derp they invented or read on Drudge.
    As always, though, the point of the complaints isn’t to address and rectify problems, but rather to deploy them as subterfuge to wreck the entire reform edifice.

    Here’s how they fool the Tea Party: GOP votes to disapprove of selves

    Here’s how they fool the Tea Party: GOP votes to disapprove of selves

    click link

    snip

    The face-saving “resolution to disapprove” measure seems to derive from a a 2011 McConnell idea that would have preserved the debt limit as a grandstanding ploy without actually risking default. In McConnell’s plan, the president would be allowed to increase debt limit a little bit at a time, and the Congress would then vote on whether to disapprove of the raises or not. It’s actually pretty brilliant politics, as it would have done two things:
    • Forced President Obama to raise the debt limit, which is always politically unpopular, three times in one (election) year.
    • Allowed every single Republican in Congress to vote against raising the debt limit without worrying that the U.S. would actually default.
    Naturally, McConnell’s plan was declared rank RINOism and it went nowhere. This was in part because some conservatives believed that the plan removed the possibility of extracting massive concessions in exchange for raising the limit, but also because there simply are a lot of conservatives who oppose raising the limit at all, ever. The result of not listening to McConnell: Republicans had to vote to raise the debt limit anyway, conservatives now feel betrayed, right-wing Senate primary challenges are more likely, and non-far-right voters have more reason to be scared of allowing Republicans to govern.

    Rand Paul Stole A Speech...From Wikipedia?!

    http://www.youtube.com/v/WCqKmQs0Bpk?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=cf6szGDooJ4YBECiVlgOhQ

    Tuesday, October 29, 2013

    The Coming Food Stamp Cut Will Hit 900,000 Veterans

    The Coming Food Stamp Cut Will Hit 900,000 Veterans: The country's veterans face challenges in the job market and disproportionate homelessness, so they will be even more impacted by cuts.
     click link

    snip

    Benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, will automatically drop come Friday thanks to the loss of additional funds from the 2009 stimulus bill. That cut will hit about 900,000 of the country’s veterans, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
    “Nationwide, in any given month, a total of 900,000 veterans nationwide lived in households that relied on SNAP to provide food for their families in 2011,” CBPP writes. The number varies state to state, with over 100,000 veterans in households that rely on the benefits in Florida and Texas each.

    Over 10 Percent Of America’s Largest Companies Pay Zero Percent Tax Rates

    Over 10 Percent Of America’s Largest Companies Pay Zero Percent Tax Rates

    click link

     ke on October 25, 2013 at 2:06 pm
    corporate flag
    Among companies listed on the S&P 500, almost one in nine paid an effective tax rate of zero percent — or even lower — over the past year, according to an analysis by USA Today.

    There are 57 separate companies listed on the index that paid a zero percent rate from the past year. Those companies include both household names like Verizon and News Corp. and lesser-known corporate giants like the data storage manufacturer Seagate (market value $15.9 billion) and Public Storage (market value $29.5 billion). Many of the companies USA Today identified in its analysis as paying negative rates make the list because they lost money, but several were profitable. Previous analyses have shown that the typical corporation pays a lower effective tax rate than most middle-class families, and a far lower one than the statutory corporate tax rate against which business interests disingenuously rail.

    Amber Tamblyn and David Cross- Gynotician

    Scotland Bans Gas Vehicles, Adopts Electric (By 2050)

    Monday, October 28, 2013

    The 12 hardest-to-avoid chemicals that mess with our hormones

    The 12 hardest-to-avoid chemicals that mess with our hormones

    click link

    snip

     BPA: The synthetic hormone was banned from baby bottles and sippy cups, but can still sometimes be found in the lining of food cans, on receipt paper and in polycarbonate plastics -- those labeled with recycling #7.

    note:  canco folks used bpa in processes

    Will Obama block the Keystone Pipeline or just keep bending?

    Will Obama block the Keystone Pipeline or just keep bending?

    click link

    snip


    The history of oil spills and accidents offers a virtual guarantee that some of that oil will surely make its way into the fields and aquifers of the Great Plains as those tar sands flow south.  The greater and more daunting assurance is this, however: everything that reaches the refineries on the Gulf Coast will, sooner or later, spill into the atmosphere in the form of carbon, driving climate change to new heights.


    In June, President Obama said that the building of the full pipeline — on which he alone has the ultimate thumbs up or thumbs down — would be approved only if “it doesn’t significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”  By that standard, it’s as close to a no-brainer as you can get.

    Republicans’ new anti-Obamacare tactic: Class war

    Republicans’ new anti-Obamacare tactic: Class war

    click link

    snip


    Get this: Late last week the government announced that its online health insurance marketplace — an e-commerce portal for millions of uninsured people in 36 states — would soon be working, and some people were very upset about it.

    You read that right. There are actually a lot of people working in politics who want the technical problems that have plagued these marketplaces to persist, so that uninsured people remain unable to purchase coverage.

    And here’s a modest prediction: If the marketplaces don’t begin work by about the end of November, these same people will pretend to be extremely concerned for the well-being of the marketplace’s intended consumers, but they’ll actually be extremely pleased that those consumers will be locked out of it.
    The right’s reaction to Healthcare.gov’s troubled rollout, and now to the prospect that it will be fixed before it becomes an existential liability to the Affordable Care Act writ large reveals much more than the fact that conservatives really, really hate Obamacare.

    Saturday, October 26, 2013

    Krugman: Deficit scolds “literally have no idea what they’re talking about”

    Krugman: Deficit scolds “literally have no idea what they’re talking about”

    click link

    snip


    Noting the continued endurance of low levels of inflation and low interest rates, which should contradict the expectations of anyone buying into the looming fiscal catastrophe narrative, Krugman ridicules his opponents for having been so wrong for so long, seemingly without ever giving their beliefs a second thought. “It’s actually awesome, in a way, to realize how long cries of looming disaster have filled our airwaves and op-ed pages,” Krugman writes. He then goes on to cite an Alan Greenspan op-ed in this vein, one that was written nearly three and a half years ago, but that for all intents and purposes could have been published just yesterday.

    “So the next time you see some serious-looking man in a suit declaring that we’re teetering on the precipice of fiscal doom, don’t be afraid,” Krugman concludes. “He and his friends have been wrong about everything so far, and they literally have no idea what they’re talking about.”

    Thursday, October 24, 2013

    6 reasons privatization often ends in disaster

    6 reasons privatization often ends in disaster

    click link

    snip


    1. The Profit Motive Moves Most of the Money to the Top
    The federal Medicare Administrator made $170,000 in 2010. The president of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas made over ten times as much in 2012. Stephen J. Hemsley, the CEO of United Health Group, made almost 300 times as much in one year, $48 million, most of it from company stock.

    In part because of such inequities in compensation, our private health care system is the most expensive system in the developed world. The price of common surgeries is anywhere from three to ten times higher in the U.S. than in Great Britain, Canada, France, or Germany. Two of the documented examples: an $8,000 special stress test for which Medicare would have paid $554; and a $60,000 gall bladder operation, for which a private insurance company was willing to pay $2,000.

    Medicare, on the other hand, which is largely without the profit motive and the competing sources of billing, is efficiently run, for all eligible Americans. According to the Council for Affordable Health Insurance and other sources, medical administrative costs are much higher for private insurance than for Medicare.

    Next stop, impeachment? GOP intransigence is here to stay

    Next stop, impeachment? GOP intransigence is here to stay

    click link

    snip


    You don’t have to rely on mere anecdote, either. Public opinion polling has shown repeatedly that Republican voters value prefer politicians who will make an ideological stand over those they perceive as more willing to bite the bullet and strike a compromise. A September Gallup poll, for example, found that while only 25 percent of adults said it was more important for a politician to “stick to beliefs,” that number ballooned to 33 percent for conservatives and 36 percent for Republicans. A January Pew poll, too, found that while 59 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Independents chose politicians who would make compromises with the other side, only 36 percent of Republicans did the same. 

    So when Republicans threaten armageddon rather than compromise on their fundamental beliefs — and make no mistake, opposition to Obamacare has indeed become a fundamental GOP belief — it’s not an example of the system breaking down. It’s not a case of the Koch brothers thwarting the general will. It’s not about a bunch of crazy politicians acting like spoiled children. It’s something that’s arguably much scarier than that. It’s democracy in action, ensuring that for today, tomorrow, and well into the future, the fever that’s consumed Barack Obama’s presidency, and the nation with it, will not break.

    Ann Coulter Is Stunningly Stupid

    Monday, October 21, 2013

    How the Unions support climate change & ObamaCare

    New health policies will expose many to higher premiums, more risk : News

    New health policies will expose many to higher premiums, more risk : News

    click link

    snip


    Thanks to government subsidies, many St. Louis-area residents will be able to afford health insurance for the first time, beginning in 2014. But the insurance they’ll be able to buy will offer a limited range of options.

    This trend toward less value is not only happening on the new health insurance marketplaces, also known as health exchanges, in Missouri, Illinois and other states, but also on the “open market,” where health policies have traditionally been sold.

    In 2014, experts say, health care consumers are likely to face higher monthly premiums and more financial risk as deductibles and out-of-pocket limits rise.

    The sticker shock will be greatest for those who already have individual insurance policies and don’t qualify for subsidies.

    Compared to the health plans available now, many consumers also will be paying more next year for coverage that offers fewer choices of physicians and hospitals.

    “Deductibles are going up. Premiums are going up. (Provider) networks are getting tighter,” said Vincent Blair, a health insurance broker in Webster Groves.\

    ----------
    note:  forced retired from canco and were I working, I would strike of state of my insurance.  

    Saturday, October 19, 2013

    Yes, conservatives, please oust Mitch McConnell

    Yes, conservatives, please oust Mitch McConnell

    click link

    snip


    These days, angry conservatives seem to get much more excited about campaigns to punish insufficiently conservative Republicans than they do about campaigns to actually defeat Democrats. This is maybe the result of Obama’s reelection, because most Republican losses in the modern era are followed by angry calls for the party to be more conservative. One of the most prominent of the groups currently capitalizing on the fervor is the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that has made a lot of money shouting fantasies about killing

    Obamacare. Now they are going to spend some of that money on defeating Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which is a very silly thing for conservatives to spend money on.

    Oh, but they hate McConnell. Conservatives hate McConnell so, so much. Erick Erickson, a reliable indicator of the mind-set of the “shout harder and we’ll win!” caucus, is sending the Senate Conservatives Fund money “to help with their fight.” The Senate Conservatives Fund has already been running ads attacking him for not defunding Obamacare, so endorsing his challenger is really just the logical next step.

    Most of the ways in which the apocalyptic death-cult activist arm of the conservative movement is sabotaging the Republican Party will only be apparent in the medium-term future. Thanks to our political system’s two-party bias, methods of House district-drawing, and the demographics of midterm and statewide electorates, the party will remain competitive for a while even as the percentage of Americans who despise Republicans grows. Stuff like the shutdown and default threat probably doesn’t threaten Republican control of the House that much. Sometimes, though, conservatives try to take immediate action to lessen the actual power of their party. This is one of those times.

    No, the “system” didn’t cause the shutdown — it was extreme GOP nuts!

    No, the “system” didn’t cause the shutdown — it was extreme GOP nuts!

    click link

    snip


    OK, everyone: Stop trying to figure out how to fix the system in order to prevent future government shutdowns. It’s not the system that’s the problem; it’s the broken Republican Party. If your reform isn’t about that, then good or bad, it’s just not relevant to the current situation.

    Yes, I’m looking at you, Paul “get rid of the filibuster” Starr. And you, Ryan “bring back earmarks” Lizza. And a whole bunch of people who think the California top-two primary is the right ticket – Reid Wilson, Adam Nagourney, Amy Walters. Oh, and then there’s a whole bunch of people who just believe Madisonian institutions aren’t up to it. There’s more, both in those items and elsewhere. And some of the proposed reforms are great ideas (I like earmarks), even though some of them, such as changing primary election rules, not so much.

    But the main thing is that none of these reforms, good or bad, have very much to do with the actual problem that caused the shutdown, which is a broken, dysfunctional Republican Party.
    Is divided government the problem? Ever since 1955, we’ve had divided government more often than not. Beginning in 1981, there’s only been unified government in 1993-1994, 2003-2006 (plus a small sliver of 2001), and 2009-2010. And yet: despite all that divided government, there have only been extended government shutdowns three times, twice in 1995-1996 and then this month. Only in 2011, and again this month if we count it, has the debt limit deadline really been threatened. It’s not divided government.

    20 Questions You Have About Obamacare But Are Too Afraid To Ask

    20 Questions You Have About Obamacare But Are Too Afraid To Ask: Wondering what exactly October 1 means for you? Not sure why everyone is talking about October 1 in the first place? Get all your questions answered here.

    click link

    check out estimate calculator 

    Thanks To Obamacare, Oregon Cut Its Unsinsured Population By 10 Percent Over The Past Two Weeks

    Thanks To Obamacare, Oregon Cut Its Unsinsured Population By 10 Percent Over The Past Two Weeks: 56,000 new people have signed up for Oregon's Medicaid program so far this month. Most of them wouldn't be eligible for coverage without Obamacare.

    click link

    snip

     lp-Ressler on October 17, 2013 at 4:32 pm
    oregon
    Over the past two weeks, Oregon has signed up so many low-income residents for health coverage that the state has cut its uninsured population by 10 percent, according to state health officials. The majority of those people are newly eligible for public insurance plans thanks to Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid program.
    The Oregon Health Plan — which is what the state calls its Medicaid-funded program for poor residents — has enrolled 56,000 new people this month. State officials credit those high numbers to a fast-track enrollment system that allows people to easily sign up. More than 250,000 food stamp recipients in the state received a notice informing them that they’ve become eligible for the Oregon Health Plan, and explaining that they can either make a phone call or fill out a form in order to complete the enrollment process.
    “This is tremendous news for the thousands of Oregonians anxious to get access to quality, affordable health care,” Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) said in a statement. “We still have a ways to go, but in reducing our uninsured rate by 10 percent in just two weeks, we’re showing what’s possible when a state is committed to fundamentally changing the health care system to provide better access, better health and lower costs.”

    -------note

    some states are going whole hog for program, others is unknown.  Missouri?  hillbillies in Jeff city the reason

    North Dakota Landowners Sue Fossil Fuel Companies Over Wasted Natural Gas

    North Dakota Landowners Sue Fossil Fuel Companies Over Wasted Natural Gas: Nearly 30 percent of natural gas drilled in North Dakota is intentionally burned off, resulting in a loss of $1 billion and greenhouse gases emissions equivalent to nearly one million new cars on the road. Now, some North Dakota landowners are fighting back.

    click link

    snip


    Nearly 30 percent of natural gas drilled in North Dakota is intentionally burned off, or flared, resulting in an approximately $1 billion loss, and releasing greenhouse gases equivalent to nearly one million new cars on the road. Now, some North Dakota landowners are fighting back.

    Mineral owners from multiple states are suing ten oil and gas companies for millions of dollars in lost royalties for flared natural gas. They claim companies are burning off more gas than is allowed by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, disposing of valuable resources mineral owners should be getting paid for.

    The cases filed Wednesday sought class-action certification, and an amount in damages to be determined by trial, based on future flaring and flaring that occurred in for the six years prior.

    What You Can Get For The Price Of A Shutdown

    What You Can Get For The Price Of A Shutdown: The shutdown may be over, but the cost can't be erased.

    click link

    snip

    overt on October 17, 2013 at 9:48 am
    Budget BattleThe shutdown may have ended when President Obama signed a deal late on Wednesday, but some of the consequences will stay with us. Standard & Poor’s has estimated that the shutdown cost the economy $24 billion.
    That’s not a small amount of money. How does that stack up against other big expenditures? Here’s just a sampling of what else costs that much:

    Blunt lone Republican from Mo. congressional delegation to vote for federal budget measure - Seymour Tribune

    Blunt lone Republican from Mo. congressional delegation to vote for federal budget measure - Seymour Tribune

    click link

    snip


    "It's clear that the government spends too much, it borrows too much," Blunt said. "Those really have to be the two main targets after yesterday's vote, and it's time we got back to the business of debating priorities and setting those priorities and having some process that works."

    Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and Missouri's two House Democrats voted for the legislation. All six Missouri Republicans in the House voted against it.

    U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler said the compromise did not relieve affects from the federal health care law or address the national debt.

    "I could not in good faith support a plan that continues to hurt Americans through its unfair health insurance mandates and raises America's credit card limit while failing to relieve future generations of our enormous burden of debt," she sai----

    -------
    note:  one hopes hillbillies proud to have cutoff aid to women and children, let dead soldiers families go without and shut down the government.  so much for civilized savages in our society 

    Thursday, October 17, 2013

    GOP’s huge Tea Party mess has only just begun

    GOP’s huge Tea Party mess has only just begun

    click link

    snip


    Last night, Republicans stood aside as Congress increased the debt limit and reopened the government. In return, they got nothing. Or more accurately, they got something that already existed, and gave Democrats something they’d been blocking for months.

    The deal Harry Reid struck with Mitch McConnell includes a formal negotiation over the federal government, which GOP senators and various House Republicans have objected to since the spring. In exchange, Republicans got a redundant measure to assure Obamacare’s existing income verification mechanisms are actually verifying beneficiary incomes (for a less bullish take on this measure, see David Dayen’s take here).
    It’s a fig leaf, minus the properties that allow it to conceal anyone’s nether regions. A fig leaf with the chlorophyll sapped out of it. Republicans can spin it among themselves as a Democratic concession, but they can’t rightly look back at the ruin of the past month, and the content of the deal, and expect that they can extort unreciprocated concessions from Democrats next time around.

    Boehner to Tea Party: Shut Yourself Down - Bloomberg

    Boehner to Tea Party: Shut Yourself Down - Bloomberg:

    click link snip  "“Thank you, Mr. President. Signed, John Boehner.”

    Deep beneath the year-round tan, the Camel Ultra Lights and the merlot, there beats a grateful heart. Somebody had to take on the Tea Party that has turned Boehner’s tenure as House speaker into a living hell.

    Too bad for Republicans, that someone was a Democrat rather than one of their own, which would have signaled that the party is fit to govern. By calling the bluff of a tiny band of burn-the-place-down Tea Party activists leading their colleagues over domestic (the government shutdown) and global (the debt ceiling) cliffs, Barack Obama exposed the fact that they didn’t come to Washington to fix anything, only to tear everything but air-traffic control down."

    'via Blog this'

    Wednesday, October 16, 2013

    “Once-in-a-decade” typhoon could make everything at Fukushima even worse

    “Once-in-a-decade” typhoon could make everything at Fukushima even worse

    click link

    snip

    Heavy rain, flooding and gale warnings have been issued for Tokyo as Typhoon Wipha makes its way across the Pacific. But while the capital is preparing for the storm to make landfall Wednesday morning, the real concern is where it’s headed next: 130 miles northeast, near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

    A major storm like Wipha’s shaping up to be, warns Climate Central, “likely would complicate cleanup efforts, or possibly pose an even greater danger to the facility”:

    Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at WeatherBell Analytics, a private forecasting firm, told Climate Central that the storm poses a “huge flood potential” for the Fukushima area. “Deep convection on the westward flank of the storm . . . plus the topography of Japan means heavy rain for the coastline regardless of the Typhoon’s track,” he said in an email message. “Wipha is extra-large size-wise,” Maue said, predicting it will grow and strengthen as it makes its closest pass to Japan, aided by strong jet stream winds in the upper atmosphere.

    Tuesday, October 15, 2013

    Get Your GOP Hands Off My Medicare | Leo W. Gerard

    Get Your GOP Hands Off My Medicare | Leo W. Gerard:


    click link

    snip

    At first, the GOP and Tea Party thought it was all good. They hate the government, so shutting it down was fun for them. They hate the Affordable Care Act, so plotting extortion to destroy it was a kick for them.
    But then, stuff started going wrong for them.
    The American people didn't like the government shutdown. They wanted their national parks open. They wanted their food inspected and salmonella outbreaks stopped. They wanted all World War II veterans to regain easy access to the monument dedicated to them. They wanted the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan to be flown to meet flag-draped caskets.
    Businessmen and women were angry too. The indefinite shutdown created uncertainty and cut profits. More than 800,000 furloughed federal workers weren't spending money on Main Street. Untold millions weren't visiting national parks and monuments, and thus weren't spending at local hotels and restaurants. Businesses couldn't get federally guaranteed loans.
    While Americans weren't happy with politicians in general, they blamed Republicans in particular. The GOP favorability rating dropped ten percentage points in a month to the lowest for either party since Gallup began asking the question in 1992.
    By contrast, the Affordable Care Act seemed to get high favorability ratings. After the exchanges opened on Oct. 1, high demand caused delays and crashes on the web site where the uninsured could sign up for coverage.

    Friday, October 11, 2013

    Peabody, union settle dispute over retiree health funding : Business

    Peabody, union settle dispute over retiree health funding : Business

    click link


    Hundreds of retired miners and their dependents also sent handwritten letters to the bankruptcy judge describing the hardships they faced if health benefits were discontinued or diminished as part of Patriot’s reorganization.
    And the union sued Peabody and Arch in a Charleston, W.Va., federal court a year ago, seeking to force the companies to fund retiree health benefits. A judge dismissed the lawsuit last month.

    Patriot and its creditors also won bankruptcy court approval to investigate Peabody and Arch to determine whether the divestitures of subsidiaries constituted a “fraudulent transfer” under bankruptcy law.

    The union said the settlement with Peabody and Patriot represents a big step forward in efforts to provide health care funding for thousands of retirees.

    But Roberts called on Arch Coal to “step up and meet its obligations to retirees” and said the union would “encourage the company to do so in the coming days.”

    Roberts also said the settlement doesn’t provide enough funding to maintain health care for retirees in perpetuity, and the union is asking Congress to pass legislation that would provide long-term health benefits under the Coal Act.

    Niger Delta oil spills: the real cost of crude

    Pipeline leak spills 20,600 barrels near Tioga - Williston Herald: News

    Pipeline leak spills 20,600 barrels near Tioga - Williston Herald: News

    click link

    snip


    Pipeline leak spills 20,600 barrels near Tioga

    Jerry Burnes | Posted: Thursday, October 10, 2013 12:01 pm
    A leaking pipeline has spilled an estimated 20,600 barrels of oil near Tioga, a leak that was originally reported by Tesoro Logistics on Sept. 29.

    Kris Roberts, environmental geologist with the North Dakota Department of Health Division of Water Quality, told the Williston Herald on Thursday the leak was caused by a hole that deteriorated in the side of the pipe. He added it isn't known how long oil was leaking, which is still under investigation.
    Roberts said the Bakken crude came to the surface on Sept. 29 and was reported to all the needed agencies on Sept. 30. Tesoro was given permission to burn the surface layer of 750 barrels in order to excavate the land to reach the pipeline.

    Roberts said the company plugged and clamped the lead as a temporary fix and determined there was a “very porous” and permeable soil down to 10 feet, which is where the company ran into a 40-60-foot pocket of clay.

    “No water, surface water or ground water was impacted,” Roberts said. “They installed monitoring wells to ensure there is no impact now or that there is going to be one.”

    Tesoro also dug several recovery trenches to vacuum the oil off and as of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, the company had recovered an additional 1,165 barrels, not including the original 750.

    The company also retained Antea USA, formerly Delta Environmental, of the Twin Cities to develop a remediation program that will be submitted and reviewed by the Department of Health. Roberts said the Environmental Protection Agency was updated Thursday morning but is not involved in the investigation because ground and surface water wasn't involved.

    WV MetroNews – UMWA, Patriot, and Peabody settle long dispute

    WV MetroNews – UMWA, Patriot, and Peabody settle long dispute

    click link

    snip

    “Peabody has continued to fund healthcare benefits for retirees during Patriot’s bankruptcy proceedings,” said Alexander C. Schoch, Peabody Energy’s executive vice president and chief legal officer. “We are pleased to resolve the uncertainty among Patriot retirees by providing substantial funding for the newly established Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA). Future healthcare benefits for Patriot retirees will now be determined by managers of the new VEBA.”

    Under terms of the settlement, Peabody will provide $310 million to fund the VEBA over the next four years. The agreement terminated Peabody’s contractual obligation to certain retirees of Patriot. Additionally the healthcare of those retirees will also be funded in the future by the VEBA.
    Patriot will contribute $15 million into the fund next year and $60 million over the next three years. Union officials said production-based royalty payments from Patriot will also be paid into the fund.