Could fracking make the Persian Gulf irrelevant?

Could fracking make the Persian Gulf irrelevant?

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Since November, the United States has replaced Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest producer of crude oil. It had already overtaken Russia as the leading producer of natural gas.

The emergence of the United States as a global energy superpower has a profound strategic impact that is raising expectations and concerns among America’s allies.
 
“This is something that is going to change not only the energy market in the world, but everything else,” said Jeppe Kofod, a Danish lawmaker who is drafting a report on the oil and gas revolution for NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly.

“It has huge political and geo-strategic implications,” Kofod told a recent meeting of legislators from the 28 alliance nations.

The lawmakers expressed concern America’s shift toward self-sufficiency in energy will weaken its strategic interest in the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf, while Europe remains dependent on oil and gas supplies from the region.

“This could have implications for NATO over the longer term,” Kofod’s draft report says. “The alliance is premised on the notion of shared security interests … a significant divergence in energy security perspectives could begin to erode this foundation.”
US oil imports fell below domestic production this year for the first time since the 1990s and now represent just 40 percent of demand. In addition, most of the imports come from other Western hemisphere producers. The United States imports over three-times more oil from Canada than it does from Saudi Arabia.

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Industry giant GE aims to improve fracking | Business & Technology | The Seattle Times

Industry giant GE aims to improve fracking | Business & Technology | The Seattle Times

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 PITTSBURGH —
One of America's corporate giants is investing billions of dollars in the new boom of oil and gas drilling, or fracking. General Electric Co. is opening a new laboratory in Oklahoma, buying up related companies, and placing a big bet that cutting-edge science will improve profits for clients and reduce the environmental and health effects of the boom.

"We like the oil and gas base because we see the need for resources for a long time to come," said Mark Little, a senior vice president. He said GE did "almost nothing" in oil and gas just over a decade ago but has invested more than $15 billion in the past few years.

GE doesn't drill wells or produce oil or gas, but Little said the complexity of the fracking boom plays into the company strengths. Wells are being drilled horizontally at great depths in a variety of formations all around the country, and that means each location may require different techniques.

Poll: Americans still oppose Obamacare

Poll: Americans still oppose Obamacare

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Is the government helping speculators manipulate grain futures?

Is the government helping speculators manipulate grain futures?

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While the activities of the Agriculture Department don’t always garner a lot of attention, a highly questionable decision it recently made to help wealthy speculators could, over time, cost anyone who buys food. But while the decision — a big win for high-frequency traders at the expense of farmers, food companies, and the public — is consequential, its effects have hardly been reported.

First, some history is in order. In 1905, a government statistician was caught leaking numbers related to the cotton crop. While Agriculture Department employees finalized statistics in a locked room, the informer would walk over to the window and raise or lower the blinds, depending on whether the forecast was above or below a predetermined figure. His accomplice outside would then dart off to trade on the information before it was publicly released. The duo netted several hundred thousand dollars this way until the scandal broke.
The government responded forcefully. President Roosevelt ordered his administration to launch a full investigation into the affair and to prosecute any official involved. The House and Senate both unanimously passed a bill making premature disclosure of agriculture statistics a crime. Nobody needed to argue that the scheme had inflated cotton prices or swindled the public. The issue was fairness. As Agriculture Secretary James Wilson wrote, “We take the ground here that nothing goes out unless it goes to the whole people. We have no favorites.”

In the century since, officials have heeded Wilson’s rule, often stringently; in the 1940s a New York Times reporter likened the protections to those around an atom bomb. Today elaborate security regimes continue to surround routine releases of government numbers on crops, as well as other figures like unemployment reports.

Up to 2 million march against Monsanto

Up to 2 million march against Monsanto click link snip Organizers say that two million people marched in protest against seed giant Monsanto in hundreds of rallies across the U.S. and in more than 50 other countries on Saturday. “March Against Monsanto” protesters say they wanted to call attention to the dangers posed by genetically modified food and the food giants that produce it. Founder and organizer Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities across 52 countries. Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds that are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits, or otherwise improve crop yields and increase the global food supply. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States today have been genetically modified. But some say genetically modified organisms can lead to serious health conditions and harm the environment. The use of GMOs has been a growing issue of contention in recent years, with health advocates pushing for mandatory labelling of genetically modified products even though the federal government and many scientists say the technology is safe.

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Illinois’ fracking and coal rush is a national crisis

Illinois’ fracking and coal rush is a national crisis

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Residents are also asking for concerned supporters to call members of Illinois’ legislature to vote against a bill that health expert Sandra Steingraber has denounced as unscientific and unsafe.

Over a half century ago, Nobel laureate William Faulkner confronted Southerners who quietly allowed the South to “wreck and ruin itself in less than a hundred years” with segregation and civil rights violations. He begged his fellow Southerners to “speak now against the day, when our Southern people who will resist to the last these inevitable changes in social relations, will, when they have been forced to accept what they at one time might have accepted with dignity and goodwill, will say: ‘Why didn’t someone tell us this before? Tell us this in time?’”

That time has come to speak now against the day in Illinois — and the nation is watching.

From water contamination to air pollution to earthquakes in one of the nation’s most deadly seismic zones — conferring with a U.S. Geological Survey, there is already a 90 percent chance that a magnitude 6 or 7 earthquake will occur in the New Madrid seismic area within the next 50 years — the unleashed fracking rush promises to leave southern Illinois in shambles.

If passed, Illinois’ so-called historic compromise of regulatory doublespeak — hailed by Gov. Quinn as “a new national standard for environmental protection and job creation potential” — will open the floodgates for similar fracking operations across the nation.

Not only fracking. Unleashed under the same illusory regulatory guise, Illinois is the midst of one of the biggest coal mining rushes and export pushes in the nation.

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Editorial: Mr. Nixon should veto the corporate welfare tax-cut bill ASAP : Stltoday

Editorial: Mr. Nixon should veto the corporate welfare tax-cut bill ASAP : Stltoday

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Result: The owners of a pass-through corporation eventually would be paying a Missouri income tax rate of 3.25 percent on their income; in some cases, the rate would be as low as 3.125 percent. The people who clean the office toilets will be paying 5.5 percent.

Even as the Legislature is bending over backward to give a break to pass-through companies, Congress has begun to realize that such firms have an unfair advantage over C-corporations that have to pay the 35 percent federal rate. With tax shelters, credits and other forms of legal tax evasion, few companies actually pay as much as the 35 percent rate, but it’s the thought that counts.

Pass-through owners argue that taxing their corporate income, and then turning around and taxing their personal income, amounts to double taxation. It does. That’s fair.

Corporations create multiple public costs that the individual taxes of their owners don’t begin to pay for. Like the rest of us, they’re protected by the most expensive military on earth. Their employees are educated in public schools. Their goods are shipped on public highways. Laws are enforced for them. Nearly all of the state and federal civil court systems exist to litigate their disputes. It goes on.

It simply makes no sense that they get a free (or cheaper) ride on income taxes. In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people when it comes to funding elections. They ought to be people when it comes to paying taxes, too.

Rachel Maddow Dan Rather IRS Scandal Fraught With Political Peril For Obama

Legislation would require annual consent for public employees' union dues deductions : News

Legislation would require annual consent for public employees' union dues deductions : News

click link and then call Nixon to veto

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Supporters claim the legislation will serve as a shield to protect workers’ paychecks from being pilfered for political activities they don’t agree with and will preserve their First Amendment rights.

“If you support the First Amendment, you should support this bill,” said Rep. Rick Brattin, R- Harrisonville.
But opponents claim the move is unnecessary and will affect how unions participate in the political process. They say the real intent is a calculated hit to organized labor.

“Instead of a job creation agenda, which they should have, they have an anti-worker agenda,” said Mike Louis, secretary treasurer of Missouri AFL-CIO.

Nixon, a Democrat, could veto the bill, but he hasn’t yet made his intentions public.

The measure passed the Republican-controlled House in an 85-69 vote — well below the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

In its original form, the legislation would have blocked public employee labor unions from automatically deducting fees from employees’ paychecks — even if workers gave their permission. But after an eight-hour filibuster on the paycheck deduction legislation in March, the GOP-controlled Senate passed a version that scaled back the proposal to requiring yearly consent

The bill includes an exemption for first responders such as firefighters and paramedics. It covers all public employee unions, including some state workers and local and regional government employees — among them the 35,000 members of the Missouri National Education Association.
House members defended the proposal on the floor Monday.

Biotech industry celebrates Monsanto's Supreme Court victory : Business

Biotech industry celebrates Monsanto's Supreme Court victory : Business

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“It confirmed, unanimously, that any product that’s capable of being replicated, either by planting by seed, or a bacterial cell line, or a preparation of DNA — that patent law applies, even if a product is replicable, in the same way it applies to widgets or cellphones,” said Hans Sauer, deputy general counsel for BIO, the biotechnology industry’s trade group. “If you want two, you have to buy two.”

Monsanto’s near-ubiquitous soybean technology allows plants to survive application of the herbicide glyphosate, which is sold under the Monsanto brand Roundup. Bowman, like the majority of American soybean growers, bought the soybeans every year from a dealer, thereby entering into a contract with Monsanto saying he agreed not to plant the offspring of those soybeans.

But Bowman, wanting to plant a second, late-season crop — a riskier crop — decided to try a cheaper route: He bought soybeans from a local grain elevator and planted those.

The soybeans sold at the grain elevator are only allowed to be sold for animal feed or food — not for replanting — and don’t require the purchaser to enter into an agreement. But Bowman planted them, then sprayed glyphosate. The plants that survived, he knew, were glyphosate-resistant, or Roundup Ready. In other words, they contained Monsanto’s patented genetically engineered traits. Bowman took those seeds and planted them the next year — and for the subsequent seven years.

INDIANA FARMER vs MONSANTO (I'M SHOCKED! SCOTUS SIDES WITH MONSANTO!)

Missouri legislature passes bill nullifying gun control laws | KMOV.com St. Louis

Missouri legislature passes bill nullifying gun control laws | KMOV.com St. Louis:

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Legislature has sent Gov. Jay Nixon a bill that would nullify federal gun control laws and allow designated school personnel to carry concealed weapons.

The measure passed 116-38 by the House on Wednesday would declare all federal laws regulating guns to be unenforceable within Missouri's borders.

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International Day Of Protest Against Monsanto & GMO Foods MAY 25, 2013

Fast food workers organize walkouts to protest low wages | ksdk.com

Fast food workers organize walkouts to protest low wages | ksdk.com:

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Surprise fast food strike planned in St. Louis

Surprise fast food strike planned in St. Louis

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For the third time in five weeks, non-union fast food workers in a major American city are headed out on strike. Starting at 5 p.m. Central Time today, dozens of employees plan to walk off the job in St. Louis,  following similar strikes in Chicago April 24, and in New York City on Nov. 29 and April 4. Like their counterparts in New York and Chicago, the St. Louis workers are demanding a $15 an hour wage, and the chance to form a union without intimidation.

“I just feel that if we don’t stand up now, it’s never going to happen,” said Tomecka Wilson, a 32-year-old who works for the seafood chain Captain D’s. “They’re making billions off of us making little to nothing. So they can afford to share a little bit more.”

Organizers expect 50 to 70 St. Louis workers to strike over the next 24 hours, including workers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Hardee’s and Domino’s. The strike got an early start this morning, when a group of workers at a Jimmy John’s went out on strike in protest over alleged humiliation by management: They say their boss required them to wear signs stating that they worked too slowly. “It’s clearly getting national traction,” said Ed Ott, a lecturer in labor studies for the City University of New York, consultant for unions, and board member of New York Communities for Change, the group spearheading fast food organizing in the nation’s largest city. “This is potentially the largest organizing drive in decades.”

Like the strikes by fast food workers in New York, and by a mix of fast food and retail workers in Chicago, the St. Louis campaign is backed by coalitions of unions and community organizing groups. The Service Employees International Union is a significant supporter of each of these campaigns, and of similar efforts elsewhere that have not yet gone public. According to organizers, last month’s strike in New York drew about 400 strikers, double the turnout from a previous strike in November. The Chicago strike drew about 300 (before that walkout, a leader of a group spearheading the effort had told Salon she expected 500).

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Death on the Job Report

Death on the Job Report

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As the Missouri legislature winds down and high-profile tragedies in the U.S. and worldwide are still fresh in our minds, a new report shows Missouri has a long way to go on workplace safety. According to “Death on the Job: The Toll ofNeglect,” released by the AFL-CIO on Tuesday, Missouri ranks 35^th in the nation in workplace safety.

Just one worker killed on the job is too many, but the report details 132 Missouri workers who went to work in 2011 and never made it back home. At a rate of 4.9 deaths per 100,000 workers, this puts Missouri behind 34 out of 50 states. Neighboring Arkansas and Kansas are among the worst states for workplace fatalities, along with North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. 

 http://stlactivisthub.blogspot.com/2013/05/hazardous-conditions-new-report-ranks.html

Gays Beware with Jesse Tyler Ferguson and George Takei from Jesse Tyler Ferguson, George Takei, Brad Goreski, lauren, DaddyReynolds, Funny Or Die, Deborah Tarica, Betsy Koch, and Ross Buran

Gays Beware with Jesse Tyler Ferguson and George Takei from Jesse Tyler Ferguson, George Takei, Brad Goreski, lauren, DaddyReynolds, Funny Or Die, Deborah Tarica, Betsy Koch, and Ross Buran:

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Peabody Energy extends employment of CEO Gregory Boyce : Business

Peabody Energy extends employment of CEO Gregory Boyce : Business

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Peabody Energy Corp. has extended the employment contract of its chairman and chief executive officer.
Gregory H. Boyce, scheduled to step down as chairman and CEO at the end of 2014, will remain with the St. Louis-based company an additional year as executive chairman — or at least until a successor is named, according to a company filing on Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

His compensation for 2014 will be unchanged regardless of whether his successor as CEO is appointed before the end of the year, according to the transition agreement between the company and Boyce, dated April 29.
For 2015, Boyce’s base salary will be cut to $900,000 from the current rate of $1,225,660 a year.

Scenic, struggling Southern Illinois braces for oil rush : Business

Scenic, struggling Southern Illinois braces for oil rush : Business

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 n Illinois, the industry is eyeing the New Albany Shale formation and could begin drilling as soon as this summer if the legislature passes regulations introduced in February. That’s not a problem for many people in Illinois counties where conventional oil and gas drilling has been going on for over a century.

“Where we operate now, people aren’t afraid,” said Brad Richards, executive vice president of the Illinois Oil and Gas Association, who says fracking is safe and concerns about its environmental impact overblown.

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California’s disappearing health care reform

California’s disappearing health care reform

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 California single payer health care bill this year. It disappeared.

This disappearance was no small thing. Single payer has actually passed both California legislative branches — twice — before being vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill hasn’t exactly been obscure, if only because its initial sponsor was Senator Sheila Kuehl, famous long ago as Zelda on the television show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Yet, where Vermont begins the year progressing toward its version of a single payer system and Pennsylvania unveils a study of how much money a similar system might save its people, the largest state in the union has no such legislative vehicle, despite the millions who will remain uncovered by “Obamacare” and reports of drastic health insurance rate increases to come.

The first indication of this astounding turn of events came when Senator Mark Leno, the bill’s sponsor since term limits ended Kuehl’s legislative career, informed supporters of his intention not to refile. As Don Bechler of the San Francisco-based Single Payer Now group recalls, “He said his colleagues had asked him, ‘What part of “No” don’t you understand?’”
The bill had failed the last two times Leno offered it in the Senate, and he suggested maybe it would be better if someone filed it in the Assembly instead.

Fracking ourselves to death in Pennsylvania

Fracking ourselves to death in Pennsylvania

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The process of “fracking” starts by drilling a mile or more vertically, then outward laterally into 500-million-year-old shale formations, the remains of oceans that once flowed over parts of North America. Millions of gallons of chemical and sand-laced water are then propelled into the ground at high pressures, fracturing the shale and forcing the methane it contains out. With the release of that gas come thousands of gallons of contaminated water. This “flowback” fluid contains the original fracking chemicals, plus heavy metals and radioactive material that also lay safely buried in the shale.

The industry that uses this technology calls its product “natural gas,” but there’s nothing natural about up-ending half a billion years of safe storage of methane and everything that surrounds it. It is, in fact, an act of ecological violence around which alien infrastructures — compressor stations that compact the gas for pipeline transport, ponds of contaminated flowback, flare stacks that burn off gas impurities, diesel trucks in quantity, thousands of miles of pipelines, and more — have metastasized across rural America, pumping carcinogens and toxins into water, air, and soil.

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District Information Center | United Steelworkers--Busload of USW Local 1899

District Information Center | United Steelworkers:
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Busload of USW Local 1899, 50 and District 7 SOAR Chapter 34-2 Members Support UMWA at St. Louis Rally

Submitted By Doug May

On Monday, April 29, 2013 a busload of Local 1899, 50 and District 7 SOAR Chapter 34-2  members attended another UMWA rally to show support for retirees of Patriot Coal (a spin-off from Peabody Coal). We joined thousands who are all supporting the United Mine Workers Union. Their President, Cecil Roberts' fire and brimstone speech in St. Louis, Mo. was well received by the energized crowd  who then marched to the Federal Courthouse, blocks away, as Patriot Coal begins their bankruptcy proceedings, attempting to eliminate 10,000 retirees healthcare in the process. Speakers included White House adviser Van Jones, CWA President and the Mine Workers of Australia President. 

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