by Ken Ward Jr.

via Report: Power plants ‘not making a dent’ in mercury emissions « Coal Tattoo.

Hypocrite extraordinaire

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care — admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada’s single-payer system.

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. “And I think now, isn’t that ironic?”

The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada’s health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and ‘death-panel’-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.

Officials at several hospitals in that area declined to give out information on patient visits.

How this for a f***ing Republican hypocrite? Oh I guess that is redundant.

JDR

Patriot Coal Co. said late Friday that it had closed its Federal No. 2 Mine in north-central West Virginia again because of bad gas readings in a sealed area of the mine.

In a news release, the company said:

Patriot Coal Corporation today reported that it has temporarily suspended active mining operations at the Federal No. 2 mine near Fairview, West Virginia. Mining operations ceased after one measurement in an abandoned area of the mine was found to be out of compliance during routine testing in accordance with the mine’s ventilation plan. As a result, the Company is making further refinements to its ventilation plan to address these conditions. The Company intends to review these refinements with the U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety & Health Administration as soon as possible in order to resume production at the mine.

Mine managers at Federal No. 2 are the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation into allegations of faked methane tests inside sealed areas, and complaints from one foreman that he was forced to ignore explosive methane readings in sealed areas.

via Federal No. 2 Mine shut down again « Coal Tattoo.

I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.

I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.

I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that’s been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.

And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don’t need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do.

Now, don’t get too giddy with excitement over my offer, because you and I are going to be up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week and I am going to get you pumped up for battle every single day (see photo). Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me:

“THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED ME, NOT THE REPUBLICANS, TO RUN THE COUNTRY! I AM IN CHARGE! I WILL ORDER ALL OBSTRUCTIONISTS OUTTA MY WAY! IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DON’T LIKE WHAT I’M DOING THEY CAN THROW MY ASS OUT IN 2012. IN THE MEANTIME, I CALL THE SHOTS ON THEIR BEHALF! NOW, CONGRESS, DROP AND GIVE ME 50!!”

Then we will put on our jogging sweats and run up to Capitol Hill. We will take names, kick butts, and then take some more names. If we have to give a few noogies or half-nelson’s, then so be it. In our pockets we will have a piece of paper to show the pansy Dems just how much they won by in 2008 — and the poll results that show the majority of Americans oppose the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and want the bankers punished. Like drill sergeants, we will get right up in their faces and ask them, “WHAT PART OF THE PUBLIC MANDATE DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND, SOLDIER?!! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!”

I know this is the job Rahm Emanuel was supposed to be doing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have always admired Rahm Emanuel (if you don’t count his getting NAFTA pushed through Congress in the ’90s which destroyed towns like Flint, Michigan. I know, picky-picky.). He is what we needed for a long time — a no-apologies, take-no-prisoners fighting machine. Someone who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and pound the right wing into submission. Far from being the foul-mouthed bully he has been portrayed as, Rahm is the one who BEAT UP the bullies to protect us from them.

That’s certainly what he did in 2006. After six long, miserable years of the middle-class getting slaughtered and the poor being flushed down the toilet, Rahm Emanuel took on the job of returning Congress to the Democrats. No one believed it could be done.

But he did it. Big time. He put the fear of God into the party of Rush and Newt. They had never been so scared. More importantly, though, he instilled a sense of hope in the Democrats that they could actually score the mother of all hat tricks in 2008 — and with you, an African American no less, in the pole position!

It worked. The Darkness ended. The vast majority of nation wept with joy on the night of the election (those who weren’t weeping went out and bought a record number of guns and ammo). Unlike the last president, you didn’t “win” by 537 votes in Florida (although Gore won the popular vote by a half-million), you beat McCain nationally by 9,522,083 votes! The House Democrats got a walloping 79-vote margin. The Senate Dems would caucus with a supermajority of 60 votes unheard of in over 30 years. The wars would now end. America would have universal health care. Wall Street and the banks would, at the very least, be reined in. Hardworking citizens would not be thrown out of their homes. It was supposed to be the dawning of a new age.

But the Republicans were not going to go quietly into the night. You see, instead of having just one Rahm Emanuel, they are ALL Rahm Emanuels. That’s why they usually win. Unlike most Democrats, they are relentless and unstoppable. When they believe in something (which is usually themselves and the K Street job they hope to be rewarded with someday), they’ll fight for it till the death. They are loyal to a fault to each other (they were never able to denounce Bush, even though they knew he was destroying the party). They dig their heels in deep no matter what. If you exiled them to a lone chunk of melting polar ice cap, they would keep insisting that it was just a normal “January thaw,” even as the frigid Arctic waters rose above their God-fearing necks (“See what I mean — this water is COLD! What ‘global *warming*’?! Adam and Eve rode dinos…aagghh!!… gulp gulp gulp”).

We thought we were all done with this craziness, but we were mistaken. Like a beast that you just can’t cage, the Republicans convinced not only the media, but YOU and your fellow Dems, that 59 votes was a *minority*! Precious time was lost trying to reach a “consensus” and trying to be “bipartisan.”

Well, you and the Democrats have been in charge now for over a year and not one banking regulation has been reinstated. We don’t have universal health care. The war in Afghanistan has escalated. And tens of thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs and be thrown out of their homes. For most of us, it’s just simply no longer good enough that Bush is gone. Woo hoo. Bush is gone. Yippee. That hasn’t created one new friggin’ job.

You’re such a good guy, Mr. President. You came to Washington with your hand extended to the Republicans and they just chopped it off. You wanted to be respectful and they decided that they were going to say “no” to everything you suggested. Yet, you kept on saying you still believed in bipartisanship.

Well, if you really want bipartisanship, just go ahead and let the Republicans win in November. Then you’ll get all the bipartisanship you want.

Let me be clear about one thing: The Democrats on Election Day 2010 are going to get an ass-whoopin’ of biblical proportions if things don’t change right now. And after the new Republican majority takes over, they, along with a few conservative Democrats in Congress, will get to bipartisanly impeach you for being a socialist and a citizen of Kenya. How nice to see both sides of the aisle working together again!

And the brief window we had to fix this country will be gone.

Gone.

Gone, baby, gone.

I don’t know what your team has been up to, but they haven’t served you well. And Rahm, poor Rahm, has turned into a fighter — not of Republicans, but of the left. He called those of us who want universal health care “f***ing retarded.” Look, I don’t know if Rahm is the problem or if it’s Gibbs or Axelrod or any of the other great people we owe a debt of thanks to for getting you elected. All I know is that whatever is fueling your White House it’s now running on fumes. Time to shake things up! Time to bring me in to get you pumped up every morning! Go Barack! Yay Obama! Fight, Team, Fight!

I’m packed and ready to come to D.C. tomorrow. If it helps, you won’t really be losing Rahm entirely because I’ll be bringing his brother with me — my agent, Ari Emanuel. Man, you should see HIM negotiate a deal! Have you ever wanted to see Mitch McConnell walking around Capitol Hill carrying his own head in his hands after it’s just been handed to him by the infamous Ari? Oh, baby, it won’t be pretty — but boy will it be sweet!

What say you, Barack? Me and you against the world! Yes we can! It’ll be fun — and we may just get something done. Whaddaya got to lose? Hope?

Retardedly yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Just to give you an idea of the new style I’ll be bringing with me, when a cornhole like Sen. Ben Nelson tries to hold you up next time, this is what I will tell him in order to get his vote: “You’ve got exactly 30 seconds to rescind your demand or I will personally make sure that Nebraska doesn’t get one more federal dollar for the rest of Obama’s term. And then I will let everyone in your state know that you wear Sooner panties, backwards. NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 50!”

via President Obama: Replace Rahm with Me …an open letter from Michael Moore | MichaelMoore.com.

More than 1 million acres of Appalachia have already been destroyed. An estimated 1,200 miles of headwater streams have been buried under tons of mining wastes. Over 500 mountains have been permanently scarred. Homes have been ruined and drinking water supplies contaminated. It is time to end this especially destructive method of coal mining.
Our bill, the Appalachia Restoration Act, will make clear that mining wastes cannot be dumped into our streams, smothering them and sending plumes of toxic run-off into groundwater systems. This Cardin-Alexander legislation amends the Clean Water Act, specifically preventing the so-called “excess spoil” of mining wastes from entering our streams and rivers. This simple legislation will restore the Clean Water Act to its original purpose. In doing so, it will stop the wholesale destruction of some of America’s most beautiful and ecologically significant regions. Mountaintop mining produces less than five percent of the coal mined in the United States.

Complete story – Jeff Biggers: Green Concert of the Year: Dave Matthews Headlines Music Bash to End Mountaintop Removal.

West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller today is introducing legislation seeking to delay — for two years — any federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Rockefeller says his bill aims to give Congress:

… The time it needs to address an issue as complicated and expansive as our energy future … Congress, not the EPA, must be the ideal decision-maker on such a challenging issue.

West Virginia’s senator previously joined the charge against any effort by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse emissions, something the U.S. Supreme Court has said EPA clearly has the authority (the obligation, actually, if you bother to read EPA’s endangerment finding) to do.

Rockefeller’s legislation is available online here, as is a previous letter from the senator to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Jackson’s reply. Rockefeller said:

Two weeks ago, I sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson challenging EPA’s potential regulation of greenhouse gases. Administrator Jackson responded quickly and showed some willingness to move the agency’s timetable for regulation to the end of 2010.  This is a positive change and good progress, but I am concerned it may not be enough time. We must set this delay in stone and give Congress enough time to consider a comprehensive energy bill to develop the clean coal technologies we need.  At a time when so many people are hurting, we need to put decisions about clean coal and our energy future into the hands of the people and their elected representatives, not a federal environmental agency.

Of course, the problem with what Rockefeller is doing is that the House of Representatives has already passed climate change legislation — a bill that the United Mine Workers of America union said provides a “remarkable” amount of “clean coal” money and ensures “the future of coal will be intact.”

But that hasn’t stopped Reps. Nick J. Rahall and Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., from introducing companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

Politically, many progressive voices in the coal industry — including American Electric Power and the United Mine Workers — have pointed to the threat of EPA action on greenhouse gases as a strong reason for Congress itself to act. Without that threat of EPA rules hanging over its head, will Congress step up and do something?

Odd, isn’t it, that the background materials issued by Rockefeller’s office on this legislation didn’t include any draft of the senator’s own plan to actually do something about climate change, rather than just delay for the sake of the coal industry?

After sneakingly signing the Patriot Act Extension Obama sneaks away

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation’s main counterterrorism law, the Patriot Act.

Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday without Obama’s signature Saturday.

The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government’s ability to monitor Americans in the name of national security.

Three sections of the Patriot Act that stay in force will:

_Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.

_Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.

_Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Obama’s signature comes after the House voted 315 to 97 Thursday to extend the measure.

The Senate also approved the measure, with privacy protections cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government’s authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.

Renewing the patriot does not comply with the  Democratic Party Platform which Barack Obama promised to follow and which states

Reclaiming Our Constitution and Our Liberties
As we combat terrorism, we must not sacrifice the American values we are fighting to protect. In recent years, we’ve seen an Administration put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. The Democratic Party rejects this dichotomy. We will restore our constitutional traditions, and recover our nation’s founding commitment to liberty under law.

We support constitutional protections and judicial oversight on any surveillance program involving Americans. We will review the current Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. We reject illegal wiretapping of American citizens, wherever they live.

We reject the use of national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.

We reject the tracking of citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war.

We reject torture. We reject sweeping claims of “inherent” presidential power. We will revisit the Patriot Act and overturn unconstitutional executive decisions issued during the past eight  years.

We will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine duly enacted law.

And we will ensure that law-abiding Americans of any origin, including Arab-Americans and Muslim- Americans, do not become the scapegoats of national security fears.

We believe that our Constitution, our courts, our institutions, and our traditions work. In its operations overseas, while claiming to spread freedom throughout the world, the current Administration has tragically helped give rise to a new generation of potential adversaries who threaten to make America less secure.

We will provide our intelligence and law enforcement
agencies with the tools to hunt down and take out terrorists without undermining our Constitution, our freedom, and our privacy.
To build a freer and safer world, we will lead in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of  the American people.

We will not ship away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in faroff countries, or detain without trial or charge prisoners who can and should be brought to justice for their crimes, or maintain a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.

We will respect the time-honored principle of habeas corpus, the seven century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own detention that was recently reaffirmed by our Supreme Court.

We will close the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, the location of so many of the worst constitutional abuses in recent years.

With these necessary changes, the attention of the world will be directed where it belongs: on what terrorists have done to us, not on how we treat suspects.

We recognize what leaders on the front lines of the struggle against terrorism have long known:  to win this fight, we must maintain the moral high ground. When millions around the world see America living up to its highest ideals, we win friends and allies in this struggle for our safety and our lives, and our enemies lose ground.

For our Judiciary, we will select and confirm judges who are men and women of unquestionable talent and character, who firmly respect the rule of law, who listen to and are respectful of different points of view, and who represent the diversity of America. We support the appointment of judges who respect our system of checks and balances and the separation of power among the Executive Branch, Congress, and the Judiciary–and who understand that the
Constitution protects not only the powerful, but also the disadvantaged and the powerless.
Our Constitution is not a nuisance. It is the foundation of our democracy. It makes freedom and self-governance possible, and helps to protect our security. The Democratic Party will restore our Constitution to its proper place in our government and return our Nation to our best traditions–including our commitment to government by law.

via The Associated Press

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very like to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

He’s sitting in the Southern Regional Jail, in Beaver, West Virginia, on charges of trespassing and obstruction, a $5,000 cash bond riding above his head, a contempt of court charge, in defiance of a temporary restraining order staring him in the face.

Sounds like all is going as planned for 55-year-old Kentucky-native Mike Roselle, the legendary environmental activist.

Occupying the offices of Marfork Coal Company on February 18th, Roselle and two other activists delivered a warrant for the citizen’s arrest of the Massey subsidiary president in violation of the West Virginia State Code §61-3E-10 for “wanton endangerment involving destructive devices, explosive materials or incendiary devices.”

Complete Story -  Jeff Biggers: Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Mike Roselle.

What’s the matter with the Democrats in the Midwest and the challenge of coal?

Have they turned their backs on the great American pastoral and our devastated coalfield communities and gobbled up the hook-line-and-sinker of Big Coal public relations shams and Big Coal lobby money?

Instead of making false promises of more boom-bust jobs in a heavily mechanized industry—strip mining strips jobs, using explosives and bulldozers instead of miners–why aren’t Midwest Democrats recognizing the huge boom in the clean energy market and helping coalfield communities get their fair share of the clean energy jobs, and the investment funds?

Why aren’t they advocating for a G.I. Bill for coal miners and former coal miners, to get education and retraining, and help launch the weatherization programs with electricians, plumbers, construction workers, or massive reforestation programs with the same bulldozer drivers? Why aren’t we setting up a manufacturing base to build solar panels and wind turbines–not just use them?

Makes me wanna holler–hey, have any of you “coal-state” senators or representatives ever been to the coalfields, sat across the table of a farmer displaced by longwall mining, listen to the wheeze of a coal miner plagued with black lung, toured a stream that runs black with toxic coal waste, or counted the number of boarded up homes and businesses in the boom-bust coal towns?

Lord have mercy: Have any of you ever been in a scratch-back coal mine or stood at the lunar expanse of a strip mine?

At a meeting in Springfield, Illinois last week, I stood and watched farmers weep, recounting the loss of their beloved lands and farms–and their health–to strip-mining and longwall mining, and the unregulated dumping of coal slurry and waste in their aquifers.

This was the message I received from this crowd of Americans on the frontlines of the coalfields:

“We don’t need no stinkin’ coal mining jobs. We want our fair share of the clean energy investment funds and green jobs. We want a just transition for the small ranks of coal miners and our boarded-up coal mining communities, who continue to live in some of the poorest areas in the nation, despite the billions of dollars of wealth that has been mined and hauled away. And after 200 years of shouldering the burden of our country’s boom-bust coal cycles, we’d like to develop a sustainable economy.”

As some Midwestern Democrats turn their backs on the reality of climate destabilization and petitioning the EPA to lower greenhouse gases limits, their coalfield districts are literally burning–or sinking or getting stripped into despair.

Consider these little coal nuggets of truth:

Mercury Emissions: Here in Illinois, deadly mercury emissions from coal-fired plants INCREASED seven percent last year, while they decrease in other places in the nation.

Black Lung Disease: Despite the fact that it was first diagnosed in 1831, black lung disease continues to kill three coal miners daily, even in 2010. And taxpayers, due to defaults on loans by Big Coal companies, are picking up the tab.

Poverty and Health Care Crisis: Not only did the National Academy of Scientists recently find that the external costs of coal rack up a bill over of $60 billion, but the stranglehold of Big Coal on our coalfield communities has prevented any diversification of our economies, and led to mind-boggling levels of poverty and ailing health.

Jeff Biggers: What’s the Matter With Midwestern Democrats and Coal?.