The men who made the intentional decision to murder my father are long dead; the men and women who today are plotting to render much of our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us…
Thom, I am sad that you lost your father this way; the pain is clearly still fresh in. your essay. Thank you for sharing your personal story.
I lost my beloved husband to hormonal cancer at 63 years old. He had lived downwind of the early nuclear tests in Las Cruces NM, and his mother, step-father, aunt, and uncle died from the same cancer; The government and the industry totally ignored all of them. In the book, American Ground Zero, "Carole Gallagher has penetrated the veil of official secrecy and anonymity to document the incredible untold story of the Americans whose misfortune it was to live downwind of the nuclear detonations - those citizens described in a top-secret Atomic Energy Commission memo as "a low-use segment of the population" - and of civilian workers and military personnel exposed to radiation at the Nevada Test Site. The above ground nuclear testing was "the most prodigiously reckless program of scientific experimentation in United States history,"
Asbestos, oil, nuclear fallout, tobacco, pesticides and on and on. They poison the world for profit instead of using some of that profit to produce clean products. We're all, in a sense, "low-use segments of the population." And that money? Goes to the autocratic likes of the Koch industry and others who buy our government with it. There's a reason one of the biggest targets of the GOP (after women) is the EPA.
Hope you had a lawyer. Environmental laws may/may not cover.
It takes insiders to come forward. I heard some whistleblower cases there.
I was in Vietnam, 1966-1967. Who knew, but all of us were exposed to agent orange. The way it was handled is that long after the fact, the VA recognized it as a disease. Same with many other occupational exposures, like beryllium, asbestos, etc. Same with burn pits. Many of the complainants in my Defense Base Act and War Hazards Act cases alleged "Iraqui crud" or something similar, but this was before the burn pit legislation became law.
I was involved in similar situations in Pa in the early '70s. I represented a township downwind and down river from Shippensport, the oldest commercial reactor. This was before the EPA regs went into effect.
I did not have a lawyer. I was grief stricken and didn't even consider it. My friend's husband died from Agent Orange. She DID have a lawyer and was compensated, still getting medical care as one of the benefits. Thank you for the work you have done to help people victimized in this way.
Again the wealthiest Americans are the dirtiest Americans w no regard or care for ruining our world and our people. Selfish Greed doesn’t begin to qualify the attitude of these people . And the outraged survivors of the deaths from their policies are run through the mill by these countries. Donal Trumps ‘ drill baby drill’ is indicative of his arrogance and ignorance.
My late husband joined the Army at 17 and tested well. He was sent to work at Los Alamos regarding nuclear power . This was in 1951. After the Korean War he used the GI bill to go to college and on to medical school. He practiced as a radiologist for many years , so that too may be a factor . He had lung cancer that was treated surgically , and a year later pancreatic cancer. Six weeks from diagnosis , he died. He was 61 yo.
My father who was in the Navy in WW II , in the South Pacific , died the same week , two days before my husband .
He had suffered from lung Cancer and died from COPD. He was 68 yo .
Now to be fair , in addition to this ,
both had been smokers . Both had quit years before their diagnosis.
I never thought to look for recompense of any kind from the government . Probably because I determined with other mitigating factors , they would make it about his “poor choices”.
I know my mother, received approximately 75,000 from the government .
All of these illnesses were caused by the refusal to even consider ramifications from all these substances . Which is how America has been raised.
To not mess with the wealthiest perpetrators of these crimes. It’s time to call this profound killing corruption out .
It won’t happen quickly they allocate legal fees as part of their process.
It will require masses of people to get together to oppose these criminals .
I tested my DNA with all three main commercial companies. 23andme was the first to produce health reports that give a propensity for various diseases. In most I have no variants, and could expect to live to over 100, however I screwed he goose, by smoking. Started when I was 12, drew my last inhale at age 69.
My genetic report said that I was immune to lung cancer UNLESS I hatd smoked within the last 10 years. I quit when I was 69, 9 years, not 10, before I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Immunotherapy (Keytruda) bought me a few years, I am sweating a recurrence at the moment.
I blame myself, and being weak to succumb to peer pressure when I was 12, it was the hardest habit to quit, and only possible because of Nicorette lozenges.
I Also saw all of those ghastly anti smoking commercials, and still didn't stop, the addiction was that strong.
My wife's brother died two years ago from throat and mouth cancer, he didn't smoke but he chewed tobacco. He wasn't a red neck, grew up and spent his entire life in the Bay area of California, but was into square dancing.
I also served in Vietnam from 67-68, all over country, and to my knowledge never was sprayed or exposed to agent orange. I kept getting notices from VA, about filing a claim, but it also required that I report for a physical and annual check ups at a VA hospital, and I didn't live near one.
My cancer, my fault, had an opportunity to quit, didn't, and paying the price, thankfully allopathic medicine has given me an extended lease on life, and to date, no pain at all.
However I stood death watch on an uncle who died of Hodgkins disease, contracted from Benzene doing field work in a Texaco refinery. Horrible death, 180 lb hunk down to a 90 lb skeleton that was nothing but open sores and smelled of death.
I would not have been opposed, but I just didn't think of it, to be honest. I'm not sure how I could have proved his cancer was caused by the tests. I didn't have much insight to his family, as they had all been gone long before we married.
There is a fund for the victims. I contacted Kinzinger while he was still in office, but as per his usual, I didn't get a call back. I found about the fund from the National Geographic magazine.
I assume that I am an agent orange victim but I got VA benefits long ago, I am lazy and I never applied.
I'm pretty sure that I am the lone survivor from my units. I used to be in a group but got kicked off Facebook.... I'm in a DNC veterans' discussion group and as recently as last night participated in a discussion. It's incredible how many people are unaware they are entitled to benefits.
I am so sorry for this happening to. your family. There is a segment of our society that believes money is everything and that those without it are disfavored by God. All of us are expendable to their "greater good." This is a convenient belief for generational-controlled wealth. As Bonaparte said, "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." The rich even believe they have scriptural backing:
"For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. — Matthew 25:29, RSV. I tell you, that to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." — Luke 19:26, RSV.
There is a reason this political bit was inserted by those men who determined what the biblical cannon would be. The apologists say the "have more" is about spiritual qualities, but that view is generally ignored. The prosperity gospel grifters use it as justification for their perversion of Yeshua's teachings. They will tell you it is "God's favor" that gives them their many mansions, their jets and their luxury lifestyles, ignoring what Yeshua had to say about rich people.
What happened to us long ago. I'm sorry for your loss. Your comment triggered the memories. I couldn't take the time from work to grieve at the time. Of course I had no paid time as an RN.
I’m asking this with a facetious tone, but . . . Rein in Charles KKKoch? Exxon and the likes of Rex Tillerson? Exxon is quite a money gouger—2023 CEO pay rose 52% last year . . . I’d just love it if we nationalized Oil & Gas, but that kind of money is behind a full-on, fascist takeover of this democracy. America isn’t “letting them” do anything—they are seizing the government and pulling the strings as we speak.
CEO pay in this country is an obscenity that needs to be reined in by government control and the stock market along with shell companies that float IPOs to get crooks like the Orange menace off the hook.
Nationalize oil and gas? Look what they did to Venezuela when Hugo Chavez had the bright idea that Venezuela Gas belong to Venezuela, they tried coups, sanctions and forced Venezuela to go to Russia and Iran for help, and now we are flooded with privileged middle class, "refugees" seeking to regain the life style they enjoyed at the expense of the peasants.
I am not familiar with the situation in Britain. What did it do for Britain. Assuming the "it" was nationalizing oil and gas. I was not aware that Britain nationalized oil and gas, as far as I know Britisch Petroleum or as it names itself today .. BP is a privately owned corporation.
It worked well for Britain until Margaret Thatcher-the Reagan-styled fascist privatized the industry. What is key is that Britain is NOT a part of OPEC and they don’t have to deal with inflated pricing of OPEC imports. Their oil/gas comes from the North Sea, etc.
Thanks Dawna. Unfortunately the Saudi's and Emirates not only control OPEC, but are major shareholders in Exxon, and also own most of our oil refineries in cancer Alley (the Gulf coast from Mississippi, to Galveston, Texas including the largest oil refinery in the U.S.
Further the U.S. produces more oil than it consumes, yet it imports oil, because Exxon exports our refined oil to foreign markets. It is about international trade.Without international trade, the price of oil per barrel cannot be manipulated by the Saudi's and Emirates.
oil is the tool used to control the world and bring nations and empires to their knees, one reason that global warming will continue, now at a geometic pace.
We know that the world and the U.S. is pestered by apocalyptic or end time Christians, who believe that the faithful will be raptured while the rest of us are "doomed" as left overs.
Islam has a similar prophecy, but regardless, the kaffir, the infidel will eat each other, and in the end Islam will triumph.
If I were Muslim I would end with Thanks be to Allah Alhamdulillah , for blessing Muslims with so much oil. They already have the kaffir crawling on their knees, for crumbs of green.
This is the second time today that I point out that it is also a national security and economic issue that may/may not be fixed. It pisses me off, especially when I just paid my taxes, that I am subsidizing entities like BIG OIL. Big oil fixes prices via OPEC, a foreign entity and their primary backer, Saudi Arabia, controls the largest oil refineries in the US and companies like Exxon. High energy prices support Russian aggression in the Ukraine, in our elections, and Iran's proxy wars.
The Rockefeller family knew this and tried to take on the Saudis years ago, but lost.
I live in CA, have rooftop solar and drive a plug-in hybrid car. We have done and continue to do every thing we can to cut our reliance on fossil fuels. But, the fossil fuel industry has more power and more money than we do, so when they win...we lose.
Gov Newsom has not been a champion of solar or of renewables. He talks a good talk but we had to fight like hell to save the NEM1 payback scale for sending energy we generate to the grid. Anyone putting solar on their rooftop after April 2023 are on NEM3 (which is being challenged in court) for a lower payback. Many solar companies went bankrupt and up to 70K jobs were lost when the corrupted California Public Utilities Commissioners, all appointed by Gov Newsom, passed NEM3, cutting solar subsidies as requested by the fossil fuel industry.
PG&E has had two rate increases this year with requests for one or two further increases this year in the CPUC pipleline. Consumers testify online, in person and via calling in to CPUC meetings to no avail. We Never Win Over The Fossil Fuel Industry. You can get more info on solar in CA at www,solarrights.org.
Thank you for this information about Newsom's behavior. I also have solar panels, drive a hybrid, do most of my cooking on an induction plate (instead of my gas stove) and have cut plastic use out of my life almost entirely (plastics and synthetic clothing are made primarily from fracked gas). In the meanwhile, Congress is rolling back Biden's temporary ban on exporting liquid natural gas (LGN) and plans for developing massive new oil and gas fields are underway. Efforts of ordinary citizens are eclipsed - but we have to keep on working at it and trying to recruit others into the effort. I for one am proud to be "woke" about climate!
We traded out our gas stove for an induction stove top, too. Did the same with plastic...there's a great sustainable store not far from where I live, use laundry sheets made in the USA so no more plastic jugs, bottles of shampoo/conditioner, dishwasher pellets and dishwashing bars are fabulous. We are making a difference...every little bit helps.
Great. I like the laundry sheets and DW pellets too. But I'm still using Safe Choice Body Wash and Shampoo in gallon jugs with a reusable pump. I'm hoping they'll make tablets to dissolve in the gallon jugs! The soap lasts a very long time (it's not dilute). Vinegar in old spray bottles and tablets for all purpose cleaners in same for cleaning. One can only live one's values, regardless of what other people do. On this website I have some articles on a blog: climatefriendlylifestyle.substack.org. It's free, of course! Spreading the word is the aim.
I read an article where Newsome supported the voters having the right to decide if Trump was on the Colorado ballot? Have lost a lot of faith in him when he veers from the Constitution. Are there any FDR liberals out there?
Money talks and politicians walk in California. A single payor health bill has been sitting on the desk of the Leader of the Assembly, When I first heard of it, the Leader was a Democrat and he wouldn't advance the bill to the floor for a vote, despite the fact that it was approved in a referendum, now Gavin is standing in the way of solar
My opinion of Gavin just took a nose dive.
Two decades ago when ENRON was responsible for rolling black outs and extortive rates,
Diane Feinstein pleaded with ENRON to stop it and lower rates. Pleaded mind you We are reduced to government pleading with a corporation.
I haven’t thought about Enron in years. The Young Guns took over the Houston office and turned the enterprise into a stock market fiasco . . . At least, back then, there were serious consequences for the fraud and theft. Look at the tRump-Kushner deal with “truth social” and “Digital World Acquisition” a “blank check company”. WTF! ! ! The whole thing is a fraud . . .
Back in 2001.I sold the house I was living in to buy another. The house across the street was a rental and it's tenants were a bunch of young adults who partied all of the time and blasted the music so loud we couldn't even watch TV.
One of first persons who had interest, backed out because her entire retirement and investment account was wrapped up in ENRON Funds whom she had worked for. overnight she was penniless with no retirement account, pretty rough in your 50's
Roger on the Kushner fraud, on top of that he is in cahoots with the Israeli right, for beach front condo's on the shoreline in Gaza. The right wing in Israel is already selling plots in Gaza, it is a scam of course. The phukwits don't even live in the real world. It will never happen.
If Trump wins the election. I can guarantee that the administration will put their weight behind the project.
The only solution to that problem is secularization, no more religion. Arabs abandon Quran and hadiths and Jews abandon the Pentateuch and Talmud.
So long as religion rules the roost (and I mean the world) there will be no peace on earth.
The crap in Europe and Russia is dependent on religious beliefs, be it Orthodox christianity or Islam.
Christianity in America has brought us cultural strife and the party of Trump.
Get rid of religion, which as an excuse for the bad behavior of mankind, and we can deal with greed and the strive for power.
As Thom opened Today's Daily Take with "the men and women who today are plotting to render much of our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us," I would also add that they still retain their SCOTUS spawned powers of corporate personhood that enable them to continue this insanity. The IMF regularly publishes a report (found at https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies) that details the millions of human lives shortened by their products every year, and the trillions of dollars that the fossil fuel plutocrats foist upon the world's citizens in subsidies to pay for the damage caused by their pollution to our health and infrastructure. Stop their ability to bribe and otherwise coerce our public sector decision-makers by replacing bad ones with good ones or it's only going to get worse.
We subsidize some of their workers with the earned income tax credits already. Let's just let them take over the entire national Treasury! Oh that's right, they are trying.
Companies take it for granted that they can simply pollute into the nearest river to the ocean and pretend that nothing is wrong. Free disposal of their waste is a given for them. With such thinking why would they think of people as any different? Until all costs are part of the economy and the direction of betterment of the people is a given we are all going to pay for their expenses as we do for oil.
Willful murder for profit--not just ignorance of the effects--has been going on for a long time. In 1924 the oil companies were warned about putting lead into gasoline to reduce engine knocking. By then it was known that this was a toxic poison, leading to brain and nerve damage. In fact, it soon killed several people in a refinery accident. Their response was to confuse urine and blood testing of workers to obscure their actual exposure levels and to flat out lie for many years. Even in the 1970s they were trying to bribe geologists to cover up their findings of high lead levels in soils near highways.
And incidentally the US still gives something like $20 billion in annual subsidies to the oil companies. As the Wizard of Id once said, "The king practices the Golden Rule. Those with the gold make the rules."
I’m a retired climate scientist, so I’m more than a bit invested in this issue. Blame the FFCs, for sure, but given the US’ capitalistic culture of shareholder value above all else—including human lives—it’s obvious that the real culprits are our elected leaders in Washington. The only way we’ll see meaningful reform is if—when—Democrats win all three branches of President, Senate, and House. Anything short of that and it’s going to be “same old, same old.” Vote for change.
Our massive human overpopulation demands long distance travel on a daily basis, so autos, even as we did well on street cars before the auto giants destroyed those to force us into autos.
Money madness, fear, contempt for those working beneath us, or for the sake of making you feel like you're somebody of value while you hate yourself at the same time? A belief in survival of the fittest, I win, you lose, motivates some of us. It's time for some deep diving into our habitual thoughts and feelings and it seems to be happening already. A great series my wife and I just finished watching, called, Designated Survivor, on Netflix, starring Keifer Sutherland is only one of many thought-provoking shows on TV. There are many great writers producing insightful work and it's great to see.
Being and creation: are we all in this together? Are we partners in evolution? What do you think?
Smoking is a vicious addiction . The hardest thing I ever quit . Blaming ourselves for being foolish when we start these habits as kids is moot . We’re not dealing with a ‘ full deck ‘ when we’re young . So we pay a large price for not knowing what the future is w these substances. But active addiction doesn’t allow us clarity about reality . So I hope things are ok for you , but please don’t beat yourself up . It sure doesn’t help .
OT again: I want to get ahead of the news. I just heard that ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the bombing in Moscow.
The K stands for Khorosan, the historic name for Persian, which the Mullahs named Iran.
So it was ISIS or DAESH of Khorosan that is behind the bombing. They must have figured out, as I did, that Putin was behind the Oct 7th attack on Israel. After all it was Putin's birthday.
And ISIS is Sunni Islam, and a salafist ideology in competition with Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, also Sunni, both are what Americans would call fundamentalist or originalist, but there is no such thing in Islam, only irtidads and murtads, deviants who stray from the teachings of Muhammad and the prophets, including extracting great wealth, consorting with the kaffirs (kufr's or infidels).
ISIS-K has already struck inside Iran.
This is an interesting turn of events. popcorn anyone, sound like an internal struggle between Shia and Sunni Islam. HAMAS is not Shia it is Sunni, but it is allied with Hezbollah, both have dependencies on Shia Iran, who was behind Oct 7th in the form of logistics, planning , training and organization.
There is no way HAMAS came up with this on their own, it takes a state actor, with lots of resources, experience, training and planning, and that is Iran. The missiles and arms, not to mention the powered gliders weren't built in Gaza, neither was the propellant and launchers. It takes industrial machining to build and launch missiles, much less thousands of them.
What can we do? Of course, vote blue every time. My Republican senators don’t care, so not worth calling them. If electric car companies lowered prices so more people can afford it, that would be great. However, MAGA Musk wouldn’t help with that. Even Texas’ AG is suing not to get another train in the Austin area which would alleviate traffic and fuel use.
AND they colluded with the car companies to sell everyone a big truck or SUV. When Congress had them testify together it was quite apparent to me they LOVE working together. A portion of the public has always wanted small gas efficient cars. The American companies quit making them for a while and still have very few on the market.
New vehicle regulations came out Tuesday with more to come. We have to force efficiency on both of these industries. The methane release by fossil fuel facilities is an outrage. They are killing our planet and us. Yet, we have to MAKE THEM even try a little not to.
Thank you EPA and President Biden for smacking them around---keep punching!
Sorry, Thom, for your father's and your families' suffering. As for who's responsible for the fossil fuel burning that's rapidly taking us to 3.0 degC air temp increase by 2027, we the sheeple "consumers" of fossil fuels and their endless by-products are responsible, not the producers or the ubiquitous "Big Brother government. It's basic Econ 101: supply and demand. No demand, no supply.
Responsible? A lot of this goes back to Standard Oil, starting in Pennsyltucky and Ohio. Rockefeller developed the concept of the trust. Made gasoline and oil products the major energy commodity.
When I was a kid Donora Pa had a "black rain" and your Cuyahoga River, less than 90 miles from my home town, repeatedly caught on fire. At night, we could see and smell the steel ovens burning in Youngstown 20 miles away. Statistics show reduced life expectancies, high rates of respiratory illness.
Electric cars were feasible as early as the turn of the 20th century. The oil industry put them out of business and later destroyed the #1 and #2 stocks on the NYSE, the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads, Manufacturers like the Big 3 and oil companies had interlocking boards of directors. Oil magnates dominated economics. Andrew K. Mellon, a/k/a Gulf Oil, Amco Aluminum, was Secretary of the Treasury during the Roaring 20s. Made sure nobody would be as wealthy as his family.
As I said above OPEC and the Saudis are complicit. California has targeted domestic oil companies: "Big Oil’s lies and cover ups have caused ongoing climate disasters that have imposed billions of dollars of costs on Californians. We should not have to foot the bill alone while oil companies profit."
The suit demands that oil companies pay their fair share for:
*Recovery efforts from climate change-induced superstorms and wildfires;
*Protecting people from the health impacts of extreme heat;
*Managing dwindling water supplies in extreme drought;
*Fortifying infrastructure and homes against sea level rise and coastal and inland flooding.
the Feds, with the goal of shutting them down over five to ten years. Part of that process should include using the profits generated to pay to mitigate further harmful effects, such as those costs the California suit lists. Some of the profits should be used to improve public transportation and subsidize electric vehicle purchases for consumers, as well as grants, specifically for rural communities, to purchase electric vehicles.
The Public has to take the initiative and do their due diligence to be informed voters. I encourage reading—even though, I know, some of these books are ponderous. It’s still worth it.
But right-wingers prefer the emotional REACTIVE messaging—they don’t want to think critically; they want sound bites that simplify issues and express their personal, negative feelings. They want to FEEL self-righteous, like they have a bead on reality just because they surround themselves with like-minded Ignorants. And Deplorables love the elevation of their worst traits, as if it makes them acceptable to be low life’s. Glamorization of Low Life’s—just look at the tRump Family of Horrors.
Yes indeed, "some" members being wealthy, entitled individuals far removed from the 99%. God forbid anyone should deign to voice any criticism of the powerful.
Thom, I am sad that you lost your father this way; the pain is clearly still fresh in. your essay. Thank you for sharing your personal story.
I lost my beloved husband to hormonal cancer at 63 years old. He had lived downwind of the early nuclear tests in Las Cruces NM, and his mother, step-father, aunt, and uncle died from the same cancer; The government and the industry totally ignored all of them. In the book, American Ground Zero, "Carole Gallagher has penetrated the veil of official secrecy and anonymity to document the incredible untold story of the Americans whose misfortune it was to live downwind of the nuclear detonations - those citizens described in a top-secret Atomic Energy Commission memo as "a low-use segment of the population" - and of civilian workers and military personnel exposed to radiation at the Nevada Test Site. The above ground nuclear testing was "the most prodigiously reckless program of scientific experimentation in United States history,"
Asbestos, oil, nuclear fallout, tobacco, pesticides and on and on. They poison the world for profit instead of using some of that profit to produce clean products. We're all, in a sense, "low-use segments of the population." And that money? Goes to the autocratic likes of the Koch industry and others who buy our government with it. There's a reason one of the biggest targets of the GOP (after women) is the EPA.
Hope you had a lawyer. Environmental laws may/may not cover.
It takes insiders to come forward. I heard some whistleblower cases there.
I was in Vietnam, 1966-1967. Who knew, but all of us were exposed to agent orange. The way it was handled is that long after the fact, the VA recognized it as a disease. Same with many other occupational exposures, like beryllium, asbestos, etc. Same with burn pits. Many of the complainants in my Defense Base Act and War Hazards Act cases alleged "Iraqui crud" or something similar, but this was before the burn pit legislation became law.
I was involved in similar situations in Pa in the early '70s. I represented a township downwind and down river from Shippensport, the oldest commercial reactor. This was before the EPA regs went into effect.
I did not have a lawyer. I was grief stricken and didn't even consider it. My friend's husband died from Agent Orange. She DID have a lawyer and was compensated, still getting medical care as one of the benefits. Thank you for the work you have done to help people victimized in this way.
Again the wealthiest Americans are the dirtiest Americans w no regard or care for ruining our world and our people. Selfish Greed doesn’t begin to qualify the attitude of these people . And the outraged survivors of the deaths from their policies are run through the mill by these countries. Donal Trumps ‘ drill baby drill’ is indicative of his arrogance and ignorance.
My late husband joined the Army at 17 and tested well. He was sent to work at Los Alamos regarding nuclear power . This was in 1951. After the Korean War he used the GI bill to go to college and on to medical school. He practiced as a radiologist for many years , so that too may be a factor . He had lung cancer that was treated surgically , and a year later pancreatic cancer. Six weeks from diagnosis , he died. He was 61 yo.
My father who was in the Navy in WW II , in the South Pacific , died the same week , two days before my husband .
He had suffered from lung Cancer and died from COPD. He was 68 yo .
Now to be fair , in addition to this ,
both had been smokers . Both had quit years before their diagnosis.
I never thought to look for recompense of any kind from the government . Probably because I determined with other mitigating factors , they would make it about his “poor choices”.
I know my mother, received approximately 75,000 from the government .
All of these illnesses were caused by the refusal to even consider ramifications from all these substances . Which is how America has been raised.
To not mess with the wealthiest perpetrators of these crimes. It’s time to call this profound killing corruption out .
It won’t happen quickly they allocate legal fees as part of their process.
It will require masses of people to get together to oppose these criminals .
But it must be done.
Trump will get right on that, /s, right after Garland.
I tested my DNA with all three main commercial companies. 23andme was the first to produce health reports that give a propensity for various diseases. In most I have no variants, and could expect to live to over 100, however I screwed he goose, by smoking. Started when I was 12, drew my last inhale at age 69.
My genetic report said that I was immune to lung cancer UNLESS I hatd smoked within the last 10 years. I quit when I was 69, 9 years, not 10, before I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Immunotherapy (Keytruda) bought me a few years, I am sweating a recurrence at the moment.
I blame myself, and being weak to succumb to peer pressure when I was 12, it was the hardest habit to quit, and only possible because of Nicorette lozenges.
I Also saw all of those ghastly anti smoking commercials, and still didn't stop, the addiction was that strong.
My wife's brother died two years ago from throat and mouth cancer, he didn't smoke but he chewed tobacco. He wasn't a red neck, grew up and spent his entire life in the Bay area of California, but was into square dancing.
I also served in Vietnam from 67-68, all over country, and to my knowledge never was sprayed or exposed to agent orange. I kept getting notices from VA, about filing a claim, but it also required that I report for a physical and annual check ups at a VA hospital, and I didn't live near one.
My cancer, my fault, had an opportunity to quit, didn't, and paying the price, thankfully allopathic medicine has given me an extended lease on life, and to date, no pain at all.
However I stood death watch on an uncle who died of Hodgkins disease, contracted from Benzene doing field work in a Texaco refinery. Horrible death, 180 lb hunk down to a 90 lb skeleton that was nothing but open sores and smelled of death.
I was impartial for 30 years. Called balls and strikes. Took 'em as I found them.
My home town is 20 miles from East Palestine, Ohio. Can't believe that victims oppose representation. 80% are MAGATs.
Ideology "Trumps" common sense and self interest. Just look at the billions of believers in the world, be it secular or sectarian.
I would not have been opposed, but I just didn't think of it, to be honest. I'm not sure how I could have proved his cancer was caused by the tests. I didn't have much insight to his family, as they had all been gone long before we married.
Not only did they have the train wreck but are down wind and river from the same nuclear reactor. https://www.wfmj.com/story/28828503/firstenergy-shuts-down-nuclear-reactor-near-east-liverpool
Fools, you can't save people from themselves, can you?
Wow. Sounds like you are on top of this stuff.
There is a fund for the victims. I contacted Kinzinger while he was still in office, but as per his usual, I didn't get a call back. I found about the fund from the National Geographic magazine.
I assume that I am an agent orange victim but I got VA benefits long ago, I am lazy and I never applied.
I'm pretty sure that I am the lone survivor from my units. I used to be in a group but got kicked off Facebook.... I'm in a DNC veterans' discussion group and as recently as last night participated in a discussion. It's incredible how many people are unaware they are entitled to benefits.
Everyone I encountered who had been in Viet Nam before 1967 is dead or dying of chronic illness. What a travesty.
Whistle blowers have the life expectancy a little better than a machine gunner in combat.
Very dangerous, they always "commit Suicide" like the recent John Barnett, Boeing's whistle blower, almost as dangerous as going against Putin.
I don't think that he is representative.
Check out the SEC payments, https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower/pressreleases
I know Daniel, I was just mentioning the latest whistleblower "suicide" about as dangerous as a cell tower repairman.
Are you aware that the US Gov't carried out nearly 1,000 such above ground nuclear tests over a decade or more and in NV?
I am so sorry for this happening to. your family. There is a segment of our society that believes money is everything and that those without it are disfavored by God. All of us are expendable to their "greater good." This is a convenient belief for generational-controlled wealth. As Bonaparte said, "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." The rich even believe they have scriptural backing:
"For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. — Matthew 25:29, RSV. I tell you, that to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." — Luke 19:26, RSV.
There is a reason this political bit was inserted by those men who determined what the biblical cannon would be. The apologists say the "have more" is about spiritual qualities, but that view is generally ignored. The prosperity gospel grifters use it as justification for their perversion of Yeshua's teachings. They will tell you it is "God's favor" that gives them their many mansions, their jets and their luxury lifestyles, ignoring what Yeshua had to say about rich people.
What happened to us long ago. I'm sorry for your loss. Your comment triggered the memories. I couldn't take the time from work to grieve at the time. Of course I had no paid time as an RN.
I’m asking this with a facetious tone, but . . . Rein in Charles KKKoch? Exxon and the likes of Rex Tillerson? Exxon is quite a money gouger—2023 CEO pay rose 52% last year . . . I’d just love it if we nationalized Oil & Gas, but that kind of money is behind a full-on, fascist takeover of this democracy. America isn’t “letting them” do anything—they are seizing the government and pulling the strings as we speak.
CEO pay in this country is an obscenity that needs to be reined in by government control and the stock market along with shell companies that float IPOs to get crooks like the Orange menace off the hook.
Nationalize oil and gas? Look what they did to Venezuela when Hugo Chavez had the bright idea that Venezuela Gas belong to Venezuela, they tried coups, sanctions and forced Venezuela to go to Russia and Iran for help, and now we are flooded with privileged middle class, "refugees" seeking to regain the life style they enjoyed at the expense of the peasants.
Look what it did for Britain.
I am not familiar with the situation in Britain. What did it do for Britain. Assuming the "it" was nationalizing oil and gas. I was not aware that Britain nationalized oil and gas, as far as I know Britisch Petroleum or as it names itself today .. BP is a privately owned corporation.
It worked well for Britain until Margaret Thatcher-the Reagan-styled fascist privatized the industry. What is key is that Britain is NOT a part of OPEC and they don’t have to deal with inflated pricing of OPEC imports. Their oil/gas comes from the North Sea, etc.
Thanks Dawna. Unfortunately the Saudi's and Emirates not only control OPEC, but are major shareholders in Exxon, and also own most of our oil refineries in cancer Alley (the Gulf coast from Mississippi, to Galveston, Texas including the largest oil refinery in the U.S.
Further the U.S. produces more oil than it consumes, yet it imports oil, because Exxon exports our refined oil to foreign markets. It is about international trade.Without international trade, the price of oil per barrel cannot be manipulated by the Saudi's and Emirates.
oil is the tool used to control the world and bring nations and empires to their knees, one reason that global warming will continue, now at a geometic pace.
We know that the world and the U.S. is pestered by apocalyptic or end time Christians, who believe that the faithful will be raptured while the rest of us are "doomed" as left overs.
Islam has a similar prophecy, but regardless, the kaffir, the infidel will eat each other, and in the end Islam will triumph.
If I were Muslim I would end with Thanks be to Allah Alhamdulillah , for blessing Muslims with so much oil. They already have the kaffir crawling on their knees, for crumbs of green.
We've discussed this many times. California is on the job. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/09/16/people-of-the-state-of-california-v-big-oil/
Other states plan to follow.
This is the second time today that I point out that it is also a national security and economic issue that may/may not be fixed. It pisses me off, especially when I just paid my taxes, that I am subsidizing entities like BIG OIL. Big oil fixes prices via OPEC, a foreign entity and their primary backer, Saudi Arabia, controls the largest oil refineries in the US and companies like Exxon. High energy prices support Russian aggression in the Ukraine, in our elections, and Iran's proxy wars.
The Rockefeller family knew this and tried to take on the Saudis years ago, but lost.
I live in CA, have rooftop solar and drive a plug-in hybrid car. We have done and continue to do every thing we can to cut our reliance on fossil fuels. But, the fossil fuel industry has more power and more money than we do, so when they win...we lose.
Gov Newsom has not been a champion of solar or of renewables. He talks a good talk but we had to fight like hell to save the NEM1 payback scale for sending energy we generate to the grid. Anyone putting solar on their rooftop after April 2023 are on NEM3 (which is being challenged in court) for a lower payback. Many solar companies went bankrupt and up to 70K jobs were lost when the corrupted California Public Utilities Commissioners, all appointed by Gov Newsom, passed NEM3, cutting solar subsidies as requested by the fossil fuel industry.
PG&E has had two rate increases this year with requests for one or two further increases this year in the CPUC pipleline. Consumers testify online, in person and via calling in to CPUC meetings to no avail. We Never Win Over The Fossil Fuel Industry. You can get more info on solar in CA at www,solarrights.org.
Thank you for this information about Newsom's behavior. I also have solar panels, drive a hybrid, do most of my cooking on an induction plate (instead of my gas stove) and have cut plastic use out of my life almost entirely (plastics and synthetic clothing are made primarily from fracked gas). In the meanwhile, Congress is rolling back Biden's temporary ban on exporting liquid natural gas (LGN) and plans for developing massive new oil and gas fields are underway. Efforts of ordinary citizens are eclipsed - but we have to keep on working at it and trying to recruit others into the effort. I for one am proud to be "woke" about climate!
We traded out our gas stove for an induction stove top, too. Did the same with plastic...there's a great sustainable store not far from where I live, use laundry sheets made in the USA so no more plastic jugs, bottles of shampoo/conditioner, dishwasher pellets and dishwashing bars are fabulous. We are making a difference...every little bit helps.
Great. I like the laundry sheets and DW pellets too. But I'm still using Safe Choice Body Wash and Shampoo in gallon jugs with a reusable pump. I'm hoping they'll make tablets to dissolve in the gallon jugs! The soap lasts a very long time (it's not dilute). Vinegar in old spray bottles and tablets for all purpose cleaners in same for cleaning. One can only live one's values, regardless of what other people do. On this website I have some articles on a blog: climatefriendlylifestyle.substack.org. It's free, of course! Spreading the word is the aim.
I read an article where Newsome supported the voters having the right to decide if Trump was on the Colorado ballot? Have lost a lot of faith in him when he veers from the Constitution. Are there any FDR liberals out there?
Money talks and politicians walk in California. A single payor health bill has been sitting on the desk of the Leader of the Assembly, When I first heard of it, the Leader was a Democrat and he wouldn't advance the bill to the floor for a vote, despite the fact that it was approved in a referendum, now Gavin is standing in the way of solar
My opinion of Gavin just took a nose dive.
Two decades ago when ENRON was responsible for rolling black outs and extortive rates,
Diane Feinstein pleaded with ENRON to stop it and lower rates. Pleaded mind you We are reduced to government pleading with a corporation.
I haven’t thought about Enron in years. The Young Guns took over the Houston office and turned the enterprise into a stock market fiasco . . . At least, back then, there were serious consequences for the fraud and theft. Look at the tRump-Kushner deal with “truth social” and “Digital World Acquisition” a “blank check company”. WTF! ! ! The whole thing is a fraud . . .
Back in 2001.I sold the house I was living in to buy another. The house across the street was a rental and it's tenants were a bunch of young adults who partied all of the time and blasted the music so loud we couldn't even watch TV.
One of first persons who had interest, backed out because her entire retirement and investment account was wrapped up in ENRON Funds whom she had worked for. overnight she was penniless with no retirement account, pretty rough in your 50's
Roger on the Kushner fraud, on top of that he is in cahoots with the Israeli right, for beach front condo's on the shoreline in Gaza. The right wing in Israel is already selling plots in Gaza, it is a scam of course. The phukwits don't even live in the real world. It will never happen.
If Trump wins the election. I can guarantee that the administration will put their weight behind the project.
The only solution to that problem is secularization, no more religion. Arabs abandon Quran and hadiths and Jews abandon the Pentateuch and Talmud.
So long as religion rules the roost (and I mean the world) there will be no peace on earth.
The crap in Europe and Russia is dependent on religious beliefs, be it Orthodox christianity or Islam.
Christianity in America has brought us cultural strife and the party of Trump.
Get rid of religion, which as an excuse for the bad behavior of mankind, and we can deal with greed and the strive for power.
As Thom opened Today's Daily Take with "the men and women who today are plotting to render much of our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us," I would also add that they still retain their SCOTUS spawned powers of corporate personhood that enable them to continue this insanity. The IMF regularly publishes a report (found at https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies) that details the millions of human lives shortened by their products every year, and the trillions of dollars that the fossil fuel plutocrats foist upon the world's citizens in subsidies to pay for the damage caused by their pollution to our health and infrastructure. Stop their ability to bribe and otherwise coerce our public sector decision-makers by replacing bad ones with good ones or it's only going to get worse.
We subsidize some of their workers with the earned income tax credits already. Let's just let them take over the entire national Treasury! Oh that's right, they are trying.
Companies take it for granted that they can simply pollute into the nearest river to the ocean and pretend that nothing is wrong. Free disposal of their waste is a given for them. With such thinking why would they think of people as any different? Until all costs are part of the economy and the direction of betterment of the people is a given we are all going to pay for their expenses as we do for oil.
Willful murder for profit--not just ignorance of the effects--has been going on for a long time. In 1924 the oil companies were warned about putting lead into gasoline to reduce engine knocking. By then it was known that this was a toxic poison, leading to brain and nerve damage. In fact, it soon killed several people in a refinery accident. Their response was to confuse urine and blood testing of workers to obscure their actual exposure levels and to flat out lie for many years. Even in the 1970s they were trying to bribe geologists to cover up their findings of high lead levels in soils near highways.
And incidentally the US still gives something like $20 billion in annual subsidies to the oil companies. As the Wizard of Id once said, "The king practices the Golden Rule. Those with the gold make the rules."
I’m a retired climate scientist, so I’m more than a bit invested in this issue. Blame the FFCs, for sure, but given the US’ capitalistic culture of shareholder value above all else—including human lives—it’s obvious that the real culprits are our elected leaders in Washington. The only way we’ll see meaningful reform is if—when—Democrats win all three branches of President, Senate, and House. Anything short of that and it’s going to be “same old, same old.” Vote for change.
Our massive human overpopulation demands long distance travel on a daily basis, so autos, even as we did well on street cars before the auto giants destroyed those to force us into autos.
Money madness, fear, contempt for those working beneath us, or for the sake of making you feel like you're somebody of value while you hate yourself at the same time? A belief in survival of the fittest, I win, you lose, motivates some of us. It's time for some deep diving into our habitual thoughts and feelings and it seems to be happening already. A great series my wife and I just finished watching, called, Designated Survivor, on Netflix, starring Keifer Sutherland is only one of many thought-provoking shows on TV. There are many great writers producing insightful work and it's great to see.
Being and creation: are we all in this together? Are we partners in evolution? What do you think?
Smoking is a vicious addiction . The hardest thing I ever quit . Blaming ourselves for being foolish when we start these habits as kids is moot . We’re not dealing with a ‘ full deck ‘ when we’re young . So we pay a large price for not knowing what the future is w these substances. But active addiction doesn’t allow us clarity about reality . So I hope things are ok for you , but please don’t beat yourself up . It sure doesn’t help .
OT again: I want to get ahead of the news. I just heard that ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the bombing in Moscow.
The K stands for Khorosan, the historic name for Persian, which the Mullahs named Iran.
So it was ISIS or DAESH of Khorosan that is behind the bombing. They must have figured out, as I did, that Putin was behind the Oct 7th attack on Israel. After all it was Putin's birthday.
And ISIS is Sunni Islam, and a salafist ideology in competition with Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, also Sunni, both are what Americans would call fundamentalist or originalist, but there is no such thing in Islam, only irtidads and murtads, deviants who stray from the teachings of Muhammad and the prophets, including extracting great wealth, consorting with the kaffirs (kufr's or infidels).
ISIS-K has already struck inside Iran.
This is an interesting turn of events. popcorn anyone, sound like an internal struggle between Shia and Sunni Islam. HAMAS is not Shia it is Sunni, but it is allied with Hezbollah, both have dependencies on Shia Iran, who was behind Oct 7th in the form of logistics, planning , training and organization.
There is no way HAMAS came up with this on their own, it takes a state actor, with lots of resources, experience, training and planning, and that is Iran. The missiles and arms, not to mention the powered gliders weren't built in Gaza, neither was the propellant and launchers. It takes industrial machining to build and launch missiles, much less thousands of them.
What can we do? Of course, vote blue every time. My Republican senators don’t care, so not worth calling them. If electric car companies lowered prices so more people can afford it, that would be great. However, MAGA Musk wouldn’t help with that. Even Texas’ AG is suing not to get another train in the Austin area which would alleviate traffic and fuel use.
What did they know and when did they know it?
AND they colluded with the car companies to sell everyone a big truck or SUV. When Congress had them testify together it was quite apparent to me they LOVE working together. A portion of the public has always wanted small gas efficient cars. The American companies quit making them for a while and still have very few on the market.
New vehicle regulations came out Tuesday with more to come. We have to force efficiency on both of these industries. The methane release by fossil fuel facilities is an outrage. They are killing our planet and us. Yet, we have to MAKE THEM even try a little not to.
Thank you EPA and President Biden for smacking them around---keep punching!
Sorry, Thom, for your father's and your families' suffering. As for who's responsible for the fossil fuel burning that's rapidly taking us to 3.0 degC air temp increase by 2027, we the sheeple "consumers" of fossil fuels and their endless by-products are responsible, not the producers or the ubiquitous "Big Brother government. It's basic Econ 101: supply and demand. No demand, no supply.
Responsible? A lot of this goes back to Standard Oil, starting in Pennsyltucky and Ohio. Rockefeller developed the concept of the trust. Made gasoline and oil products the major energy commodity.
When I was a kid Donora Pa had a "black rain" and your Cuyahoga River, less than 90 miles from my home town, repeatedly caught on fire. At night, we could see and smell the steel ovens burning in Youngstown 20 miles away. Statistics show reduced life expectancies, high rates of respiratory illness.
Electric cars were feasible as early as the turn of the 20th century. The oil industry put them out of business and later destroyed the #1 and #2 stocks on the NYSE, the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads, Manufacturers like the Big 3 and oil companies had interlocking boards of directors. Oil magnates dominated economics. Andrew K. Mellon, a/k/a Gulf Oil, Amco Aluminum, was Secretary of the Treasury during the Roaring 20s. Made sure nobody would be as wealthy as his family.
As I said above OPEC and the Saudis are complicit. California has targeted domestic oil companies: "Big Oil’s lies and cover ups have caused ongoing climate disasters that have imposed billions of dollars of costs on Californians. We should not have to foot the bill alone while oil companies profit."
The suit demands that oil companies pay their fair share for:
*Recovery efforts from climate change-induced superstorms and wildfires;
*Protecting people from the health impacts of extreme heat;
*Managing dwindling water supplies in extreme drought;
*Fortifying infrastructure and homes against sea level rise and coastal and inland flooding.
I agree FFC should be nationalized by
the Feds, with the goal of shutting them down over five to ten years. Part of that process should include using the profits generated to pay to mitigate further harmful effects, such as those costs the California suit lists. Some of the profits should be used to improve public transportation and subsidize electric vehicle purchases for consumers, as well as grants, specifically for rural communities, to purchase electric vehicles.
Oh I’m so sure of that , right after he joins the Monastery.
The Public has to take the initiative and do their due diligence to be informed voters. I encourage reading—even though, I know, some of these books are ponderous. It’s still worth it.
But right-wingers prefer the emotional REACTIVE messaging—they don’t want to think critically; they want sound bites that simplify issues and express their personal, negative feelings. They want to FEEL self-righteous, like they have a bead on reality just because they surround themselves with like-minded Ignorants. And Deplorables love the elevation of their worst traits, as if it makes them acceptable to be low life’s. Glamorization of Low Life’s—just look at the tRump Family of Horrors.
Yes indeed, "some" members being wealthy, entitled individuals far removed from the 99%. God forbid anyone should deign to voice any criticism of the powerful.