 |
|
this looks very populist
Posted on: November 30, 2016 at 10:15:48 CT
dont remember MU
Posts:
5216
Member For:
21.02 yrs
Level:
User
M.O.B. Votes:
0
draining the swamp and refilling it with young garlic soup, frog legs and buckets o f Moet Chandon.
You might want to acquaint yourself with the details of the Sago Mine Disaster. In 2006, there was a methane explosion in an under-regulated and extraordinarily dangerous coal mine in Upshur County, West Virginia. Thirteen miners were trapped underground. Only one of them survived. The other 12 waited for a rescue that never came, partly because the country's mine rescue system was threadbare and underfunded. They died waiting. As The Charleston News-Gazette explained:
During the Clinton administration, from 1993 to 2000, there was not a single coal-mining disaster, defined by MSHA as an incident that claims five or more worker lives. Early in the Bush administration, on Sept. 23, 2001, 13 miners died in an explosion at the Jim Walter Resources No. 5 Mine near Brookwood, Alabama. The deaths brought calls for improvements in coal-mine safety, but Brookwood was soon forgotten, as the terrorist attacks two weeks earlier in New York and Washington, D.C., took over the national stage. The Bush administration's response was for its first MSHA chief, longtime coal company official Dave Lauriski, to move quickly to drop several agency efforts for new or improved mine safety and health rules. Tony Oppegard, a former MSHA staffer and longtime mine safety attorney in Kentucky, blames Sago and the string of disasters that followed at least partly on the move by MSHA under Bush to focus on a more industry-friendly "compliance assistance" approach. The Bush approach also slashed MSHA's budget, leaving the agency short on staff to the point that legally mandated inspections went undone.
Strange how that always works out, isn't it?
I mention this because, at the time of the explosion, the Secretary of Labor, under whose authority lay the Mine Health and Safety Administration, was Elaine Chao. Prior to the Sago disaster, she'd cut more than 100 mine safety inspections. Even so, the Sago mine had been tagged with 208 safety violations in 2005, more than half of them regarded as serious. The company that owned the mine was fined a whopping $24,374 in the year before the explosion. Elaine Chao is now the nominee to be Secretary of Transportation.
At the time of the disaster, and during the time when even the spavined inspection system flashed red that the mine was a time bomb, the Sago mine was owned by a corporate chop-shop artist named Wilbur Ross, whose speciality was buying up troubled companies and making himself rich by selling off the bones. In 2004, Ross picked up Horizon Natural Resources, which had thrown itself into bankruptcy and, in doing so, had relieved itself of the burden of paying for the health benefits promised to its employees, many of whom were suffering from black lung disease. As CBS reported:
Miners had called for Howard to require Horizon to honor the labor contracts to protect their health care and retirement benefits. They said it was unfair that a bankruptcy judge had the authority to allow companies to shed medical costs and retiree benefits to make them more attractive to potential buyers. Newcoal LLC, formed by New York billionaire Wilbur L. Ross and four other investors, and several other companies have expressed an interest in buying Horizon's nonunion properties. However, no one has made an offer on any of Horizon's six union operations in Illinois, Kentucky and West Virginia, said Jim Morris, Horizon's vice president for business development. Morris said financial obligations related to union contracts and the union's retirement plan made them unattractive to potential buyers. The company's assets are scheduled to be auctioned at 9 a.m. EDT on Aug. 17 at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza in Cincinnati, Ohio.
So Ross picked up the properties for a song in 2005. When the Sago mine blew up a year later, Ross didn't even bother to travel to West Virginia, but he cut a check for $2 million to be shared by the families of the 13 victims of the disaster. In 2006, Ross unloaded the company that owned the Sago mine. Miners were laid off by the truckload. Ten years later, Donald Trump carried Upshur County with almost 76 percent of the vote, and Wilbur Ross is now the nominee to be Secretary of Commerce.
Populism!
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a51099/trump-romney-dinner/
Edited by dont remember at 10:16:41 on 11/30/16
You might want to acquaint yourself with the details of the Sago Mine Disaster. In 2006, there was a methane explosion in an under-regulated and extraordinarily dangerous coal mine in Upshur County, West Virginia. Thirteen miners were trapped underground. Only one of them survived. The other 12 waited for a rescue that never came, partly because the country's mine rescue system was threadbare and underfunded. They died waiting. As The Charleston News-Gazette explained:
During the Clinton administration, from 1993 to 2000, there was not a single coal-mining disaster, defined by MSHA as an incident that claims five or more worker lives. Early in the Bush administration, on Sept. 23, 2001, 13 miners died in an explosion at the Jim Walter Resources No. 5 Mine near Brookwood, Alabama. The deaths brought calls for improvements in coal-mine safety, but Brookwood was soon forgotten, as the terrorist attacks two weeks earlier in New York and Washington, D.C., took over the national stage. The Bush administration's response was for its first MSHA chief, longtime coal company official Dave Lauriski, to move quickly to drop several agency efforts for new or improved mine safety and health rules. Tony Oppegard, a former MSHA staffer and longtime mine safety attorney in Kentucky, blames Sago and the string of disasters that followed at least partly on the move by MSHA under Bush to focus on a more industry-friendly "compliance assistance" approach. The Bush approach also slashed MSHA's budget, leaving the agency short on staff to the point that legally mandated inspections went undone.
Strange how that always works out, isn't it?
I mention this because, at the time of the explosion, the Secretary of Labor, under whose authority lay the Mine Health and Safety Administration, was Elaine Chao. Prior to the Sago disaster, she'd cut more than 100 mine safety inspections. Even so, the Sago mine had been tagged with 208 safety violations in 2005, more than half of them regarded as serious. The company that owned the mine was fined a whopping $24,374 in the year before the explosion. Elaine Chao is now the nominee to be Secretary of Transportation.
At the time of the disaster, and during the time when even the spavined inspection system flashed red that the mine was a time bomb, the Sago mine was owned by a corporate chop-shop artist named Wilbur Ross, whose speciality was buying up troubled companies and making himself rich by selling off the bones. In 2004, Ross picked up Horizon Natural Resources, which had thrown itself into bankruptcy and, in doing so, had relieved itself of the burden of paying for the health benefits promised to its employees, many of whom were suffering from black lung disease. As CBS reported:
Miners had called for Howard to require Horizon to honor the labor contracts to protect their health care and retirement benefits. They said it was unfair that a bankruptcy judge had the authority to allow companies to shed medical costs and retiree benefits to make them more attractive to potential buyers. Newcoal LLC, formed by New York billionaire Wilbur L. Ross and four other investors, and several other companies have expressed an interest in buying Horizon's nonunion properties. However, no one has made an offer on any of Horizon's six union operations in Illinois, Kentucky and West Virginia, said Jim Morris, Horizon's vice president for business development. Morris said financial obligations related to union contracts and the union's retirement plan made them unattractive to potential buyers. The company's assets are scheduled to be auctioned at 9 a.m. EDT on Aug. 17 at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza in Cincinnati, Ohio.
So Ross picked up the properties for a song in 2005. When the Sago mine blew up a year later, Ross didn't even bother to travel to West Virginia, but he cut a check for $2 million to be shared by the families of the 13 victims of the disaster. In 2006, Ross unloaded the company that owned the Sago mine. Miners were laid off by the truckload. Ten years later, Donald Trump carried Upshur County with almost 76 percent of the vote, and Wilbur Ross is now the nominee to be Secretary of Commerce.
Populism!
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a51099/trump-romney-dinner/
Edited by dont remember at 10:16:41 on 11/30/16
Please explain why this message is being reported.
MESSAGE THREAD
this looks very populist - dont remember MU - 11/30 10:15:48
-