Tag Archives: virginia

Jim Webb Just Dropped Out of the Democratic Race and Feels Great About It

by BrendanOtis Posted on October 20, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb announced on Tuesday afternoon that he’s no longer running for president as a Democrat. Whether he’s still running for president at all is still an open question.

The announcement for his press conference said that Webb was considering running as independent. He didn’t explicitly commit to such a run on Tuesday, saying only that he would spend the coming weeks trying to assess potential support. “I am not going away. I am thinking through all of my options,” he told reporters at the National Press Club. But he insisted that he’d not only be able to raise more money and earn more support as an independent, but that he could beat current front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. “If we ran an independent race that worked and got traction, I honestly could see us beating both of them,” he said. Craig Crawford, Webb’s spokesman, told CNN that he expects Webb to make a decision on whether he’ll make an independent bid for the presidency “by the holidays.”

Continue Reading »

Continued – 

Jim Webb Just Dropped Out of the Democratic Race and Feels Great About It

Posted in Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Jim Webb Just Dropped Out of the Democratic Race and Feels Great About It

Jim Webb and the Curse of the 2008 Vice Presidential Candidates

by DelphiaPak Posted on October 20, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) dropped out of the Democratic presidential race on Tuesday but left open the possibility of running next year as an independent. Webb has been many things—decorated Vietnam vet, boxer, Navy secretary, author, senator—but for a few months in 2008 (until he took his own name out of consideration), he was also a popular choice to be Barack Obama’s running mate. Webb, as the Wall Street Journal put it, was “the sort of Democrat who can offer strong defense credentials, as well as a centrist, pro-gun appeal to white voters in an upper South state.”

And maybe that’s where he went wrong. Seven years later, almost every individual floated as potential Republican or Democratic vice presidential choice in 2008 is either out of politics or on their way out. Consider John McCain’s choices:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal: Currently touting his strong tied-for-fifth-place showing in the Iowa polls.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: Resigned during her first term, now writing occasionally viral Facebook posts.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman: Retired to become a lobbyist.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty: Couldn’t beat Michele Bachmann, now a lobbyist.

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor: Lost his primary to this guy.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: Skiing, probably?

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge: Running a global security firm.

Or Obama’s:

Indiana Sen.Evan Bayh: Retired to become a lobbyist.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius: Resigned from her post as secretary of health and human services after a calamitous HealthCare.gov rollout.

Texas Rep. Chet Edwards: Lost his seat in 2010.

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden: It’s complicated.

The only exception to the Curse of 2008 is then-Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who went on to replace Webb in the Senate and is currently considered a possible vice presidential candidate on the Democratic side. (Hillary Clinton was famously not considered, which perhaps explains her bright presidential prospects in 2016.)

The lesson, as always, is to never do anything ambitious.

Jump to original:  

Jim Webb and the Curse of the 2008 Vice Presidential Candidates

Posted in Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Jim Webb and the Curse of the 2008 Vice Presidential Candidates

Jim Webb Is Considering Running as an Independent

by Steven Posted on October 19, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The race for the Democratic nomination may have already claimed its first victim—sort of. Jim Webb’s campaign announced on Monday evening that the former Virginia senator will hold a press conference tomorrow—probably—to discuss “his candidacy, the campaign and his views of the political parties in the current election cycle.” According to Webb’s campaign, he’s considering a run as an independent.

Webb’s lukewarm views on the Democrats aren’t much of a secret. Though he ran for Senate as a Democrat, he’s a former Republican who served in the Reagan administration. At last week’s debate, he said he ran for president as a Democrat because it’s “the party that gives people who otherwise have no voice in the corridors of power a voice.” But for him, America’s truly voiceless people are poor rural whites like his own family. That means he clashes with the party’s mainstream over major issues like gun control, affirmative action, and environmental regulation. Neither his views on those issues nor his frequent demands for more speaking time went over particularly well at the debate.

Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a longtime advisor and friend of Webb, says Webb’s sometimes petulant debate performance was likely the “culmination” of the candidate’s anger at being sidelined by the party. “I think the frustration that Jim showed on the stage the other night, I think it had built up over a long time,” says Saunders, who’s not playing a role in Webb’s presidential campaign. But he also casts an independent run as a matter of Webb’s principles. “‘Duty, honor, country’ is what it’s about it, and he thinks this is the best thing for him to do.”

But if running as an independent gives Webb more freedom to say what he likes, there’s no evidence he’ll be able to do much with that freedom. Webb has no campaign offices in Iowa or New Hampshire, raised the second least of any active presidential candidate during the last quarter (we’re not counting barely-there former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore for these purposes), and is still polling at only 1 percent after the debate last week.

“Jim’s no dummy,” Saunders says. “He know’s it going to be tough, I’m sure.”

Originally from:

Jim Webb Is Considering Running as an Independent

Posted in Anchor, Casio, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Jim Webb Is Considering Running as an Independent

Heroin’s Death Toll Reaches Another Gruesome Landmark

by MellissCawthorn Posted on October 16, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

For the first time in Virginia’s history, more people died last year from overdoses on heroin and prescription opioids than from automobile accidents. The state joins 35 others that have seen heroin and opioid deaths eclipse traffic deaths, in an alarming trend that has begun to draw attention on the presidential campaign trail.

In 2014, 728 people succumbed to heroin or opioid-related overdoses, compared to 700 people who died in car crashes. A year earlier, the statistical comparison was flipped, with the highway death toll in Virginia at 741, compared to 661 deaths from drug overdoses. The year before that, in 2012, the numbers were even more skewed toward automobile accidents, as 750 traffic deaths trumped the 504 drug overdoses in the state.

As the rate of traffic deaths drops—those 700 deaths are the fewest in a decade—the heroin overdose rate continues to climb. According to the office of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, fatal heroin and prescription drug overdoses have increased by 57% in the last five years alone.

“This heroin and prescription drug epidemic is a public health issue, a public safety and law enforcement issue, and most importantly, it’s a family issue,” Herring’s office stated in a press release last week. “The rising and tragic death toll adds a dose of reality and a sense of urgency to our efforts and those of our local, state and federal partners.”

The rise in fatal overdoses is not limited to Virginia. In 36 states and Washington, DC, more people are dying from drug overdoses than from traffic incidents. According to the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, more than 2 million Americans abuse prescription drugs, and the number of new heroin users has doubled in the past seven years. As opiates prescribed by physicians have become more expensive, people have turned to heroin, a cheaper option with similar effects. The Center for Disease Control reports that heroin deaths quadrupled between 2000 and 2013.

“They are addicted to prescription opiates because they are essentially the same chemical with the same effect on the brain as heroin,” CDC director Frieden said at a press conference in July. “Heroin costs roughly 5 times less than prescription opiates on the street.”

Although heroin and opioid deaths are climbing at an alarming rate, less than one percent of the US population abuses heroin, according to the CDC. That figure, however, does not include people in the military, homeless people, or prison inmates, so the true number may be higher.

Presidential candidates have had to field questions about the growing trend while on the campaign trail. At an August public forum in New Hampshire, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton expressed surprise at the prevalence of the problem.

“I have to confess—I was surprised,” Clinton said. “I did not expect that I would hear about drug abuse and substance abuse and other such challenges everywhere I went.”

In May, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill designed to stymie substance abuse, and a week later expressed his frustration at what he considered a correctable issue. “This is a treatable problem,” Christie said. “And we need to be talking about it and treating it like an illness, and not like some moral failure.”

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, whose daughter died in 2009 after years of drug and alcohol abuse, argued against imprisoning people for their drug problems. “Drug addition shouldn’t be criminalized,” Fiorina told a group of reporters during a conference call in May. “We need to treat it appropriately.”

Read More:

Heroin’s Death Toll Reaches Another Gruesome Landmark

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, Landmark, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Heroin’s Death Toll Reaches Another Gruesome Landmark

These Striking Photos Will Change the Way the Way You Look at Coal Country

by MadisonMilerum Posted on October 1, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In the many years Stacy Krantiz has been documenting life in Appalachia, as seen in her ongoing project, As it was Give(n) to Me, she has deftly navigated the minefield that comes with photographing in this often misrepresented part of the county. At least since Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the 1941 book by writer James Agee and photographer Walter Evans that chronicled the lives of poverty-stricken sharecroppers in the South, residents have rightfully complained about how outsiders have portrayed them in photographs—nothing short of a kind of visual openmouthed gawking and pointing. By living with her subjects, Krantiz challenges and plays with common stereotypes of the beautiful hill region of southern Ohio, West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. Kranitz’s photos show her living it up with the subjects of her photos, deeply embedded, fully embraced, sometimes even appearing in the images herself. She photographs as a member of the family, showing the good and the beautiful, along with the bad and the ugly. Nothing to hide.

Drawing on these sensibilities, Kranitz shot in and around Mingo County, West Virginia, for Mother Jones, to provide a sense of what life is really like in Don Blankenship’s backyard.

Cheerleaders prepare before the first football game of the season at Mingo Central High School, home of the Miners.

A former Massey-run mountaintop removal mining site in West Virginia. The tiny patch of grass at the top of the mountain is a cemetery to which families have fought to have regular, safe access. Stacy Kranitz/SouthWings

A poster for R. T. “Tommy” Blankenship, candidate for the Knox District Member School Board in Buchanan County, Virginia

Part of a new mural in downtown Matewan, West Virginia, depicting life in the coal mines

Vernon Haltom of Coal River Mountain watch, photographed at the Kayford Mountain strip mine, once operated by Massey Energy

Left: Mingo Central High School cheerleaders and marching band. Right: Alpha Resources, the company that absorbed Massey Energy, donated the land for the new school on top of an old surface mining site.

Left: Mingo Central High School marching band and football team. Right: Mingo Central High replaced Don Blankenship’s old high school in Matewan, which was closed due to a declining population.

A memorial for the 29 miners killed in the Upper Big Branch mine disaster

Former Massey employees and active UMWA 1440 union members Butch Collins (left) and Charles “Hawkeye” Dixon. They are sitting outside the union hall in downtown Matewan.

“These guys are sitting maybe 500 feet from where the gas station/beer store run by Blankenship’s mother used to be. His brother lives in a home right across the street from the old store and in sight from this hangout spot. The town of DeLorme is super tiny and these guys just hang out and drink in this same spot everyday. Just 50 feet away are the train tracks with coal trains running by and 10 feet behind them is the Tug Fork River that marks the border of Kentucky. They all grew up going to the Blankenship’s store and everyone in town knows his brother. They say he is a nice guy.” –Stacy Kranitz

A store in Racine, West Virginia, in Boone county, sells reflective clothing for miners along with t-shirts, flags, stickers, and other items.

A portrait of Wilma Lee Steele, a board member of the Mine Wars Museum in Matewan

After church in Matewan, West Virginia

A river baptism on the border of Kentucky and Virginia. The church that performed the baptism is located in Stopover, Kentucky, where Blankenship was born.

A grocery store called Family Foods in Freeborn, Kentucky, just down the road from the gas station Blankenship’s mother ran in Delorme. The owners told Kranitz that they are not likely to be able to keep the family-run business open after the latest round of coal company bankruptcies, buyouts, and layoffs. They plan to close around the New Year. The next closest grocery store is almost an hour away.

Ellen Hatfield and Vera Hankins work on a mural depicting coal miners in an underground mine. The mural is part of the “Turn This Town Around” grant that also supported the Mine Wars museum. It is across the street from the union in downtown Matewan.

Jacob Knabb shows off his tattoo of West Virginia, with an X marking Boone county, a historic coal county with many former Massey workers. His father and grandfather worked in coal. His father was recently laid off. Jacob left West Virginia after college and now lives in Chicago.

Underground shift workers from a dog mine near Feds Creek, Kentucky. Dog mines are independent and small operations nestled between the big corporate mines.

A man in downtown Madison, West Virginia, in Boone County

Men at an overlook in Pikeville, Kentucky, staring at the cut-through project, one of the largest civil-engineering projects in the western hemisphere, constructed from 1973 to 1987. Nearly 18 million cubic yards of earth were removed from the Peach Orchard Mountain, rerouting a fork of the Big Sandy River as well as rail lines and the highway. The cut-through project was initiated to relocate the railroad and eliminate the coal dust in the community.

See the original post:  

These Striking Photos Will Change the Way the Way You Look at Coal Country

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Oster, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on These Striking Photos Will Change the Way the Way You Look at Coal Country

Sexual Violence on Campus Is Even Worse Than We Thought

by Claudia58Q Posted on September 22, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The Association of American Universities released findings Monday from one of the largest-ever surveys on college sexual violence—comprising more than 150,000 students across 27 colleges—and they paint a bleak picture of sexual assault on college campuses.

The survey asked students whether they had experienced events ranging from sexual touching to forcible penetration. If they answered affirmatively, they were asked follow-up questions about the circumstances and the event’s aftermath, including whether they reported the incident to law enforcement or a campus authority. Some scenarios that appeared in the survey fit the legal definitions for rape and sexual battery, while others involved incidents that universities typically consider to be sexual misconduct. Other questions measured attitudes toward campus sexual assault and how often students intervened when they observed potentially risky situations.

Here are a few takeaways:

More than 1 in 5 undergraduate women are victims of sexual assault. The AAU’s findings suggest sexual-assault rates are slightly higher than the widely cited yet disputed statistic that 1 in 5 college women are victims of sexual assault. According to the survey, 23 percent of female respondents said they experienced nonconsensual sexual contact due to physical force, under the threat of physical force, or while they were incapacitated by drugs or alcohol. Among seniors nearing graduation, that number rises to 1 in 3.
In the last academic year alone, 11 percent of respondents said they experienced nonconsensual sexual contact. That’s around 16,500 students across the 27 institutions.
First-year students are are the most vulnerable to sexual assault. Sixteen percent of freshman women said they experienced sexual contact under physical force or incapacitation.
The vast majority of students don’t report sexual assault or misconduct. While most victims said they confided in a friend, family member or someone else, only 26 percent of students who experienced forcible penetration filed an official report. More than half of those victims said they didn’t consider the event serious enough to go to the authorities, while one-third of said they were “embarrassed, ashamed, or that it would be too emotionally difficult.” Others said they “did not think anything would be done about it.” Students were much more likely to report certain kinds of events than others, with reports filed by 28 percent of stalking victims but only 5 percent of those who experienced unwanted sexual touching while they were incapacitated by drugs or alcohol.â&#128;&#139;
Transgender and gender-nonconforming students experience sexual assault and misconduct at higher rates than their peers. These students comprised 1.5 percent of survey respondents, but nearly 40 percent of seniors identifying with this group said they had experienced nonconsensual sexual contact in college, compared to a third of senior women. They’re also less likely to believe the university will conduct a fair investigation or take their reports seriously.
Response rates were low. About 19 percent of students across the 27 universities chose to respond to the online survey, which was conducted during a three-week period in April. The survey notes that nonvictims may be less likely to participate, skewing incidence rates slightly upward. Still, final participation rates were well below the the rates of similar studies.

At least 12 of the colleges that released results on Monday are currently facing federal scrutiny from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights for their handling of sexual-assault cases under federal Title IX standards. Several universities on the list have been found in violation of Title IX, including the University of Virginia, Harvard University, Yale University, and Michigan State University.

Given a range of responses across institutions, the study’s authors caution against generalizing the results on a national scale. As Slate points out, the researchers declined to explain the variation in sexual-assault rates or students’ attitudes at different institutions. “The analyses did not find a clear explanation for why there is such wide variation,” the authors write. “Some university characteristics, such as size, were correlated with certain outcomes. But the correlation is not particularly strong.”

This post has been updated.

See original article:

Sexual Violence on Campus Is Even Worse Than We Thought

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sexual Violence on Campus Is Even Worse Than We Thought

WTF, Volkswagen?

by ErnestiGarber Posted on September 20, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Friday I saw a bunch of headlines about Volkswagen facing possibly huge fines for violating EPA rules. There have been a lot of headlines like this recently, so I sort of shrugged and moved on.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I actually read a couple of the stories and realized what Volkswagen had actually done. Once I did, words failed me. So let’s just hand the mike to Mark Kleiman:

The story reads like the most paranoid anti-corporate fantasy, until you get to the line where the firm admits what it did….In the VW case, code was written into the engine-control software to detect the pattern of pedal and steering operations characteristic of an emissions test. Then, and only then, the car’s emissions-control machinery would kick in. Once the test was over, the software noticed that, too, and returned to normal — that is to say, illegally and dangerously dirty — operations, at about 40x the permitted — and advertised — level of nitrous oxide emissions.

Now just think about the depth of corporate depravity involved. This wasn’t one rogue engineer or engineering group at work. People up and down the chain had to be party to the crime. And note that the conspiracy held together for six years, and was finally broken not by an internal leak but by the work of outside scientists at the University of West Virginia.

In a nutshell: a whole range of VW and Audi “clean diesel” models were spewing immense amounts of nitrous oxide—a precursor to ozone formation—into the air we breathe. But if you took one of these cars in for a smog check, its engine-control software temporarily put it into a special mode that would pass the test. As soon as the test was over, the engine returned to its smog-spewing ways.

This goes far beyond most safety issues with cars. Whether we like it or not, car manufacturers always face tradeoffs between cost and safety. Having those conversations is a normal part of engineering life. Even in infamous case like the Pinto gas tank, what you have is a normal conversation that went way overboard. As bad as it is, it’s understandable that stuff like this happens occasionally.

But that’s not what this is. There was no cost involved. In fact, writing the code to do this cost Volkswagen money. Nor was it something that took place just among a small group of product managers with bad incentives. This was coldly premeditated. It required substantial testing to make it work right. It happened across not just different models, but across two different nameplates. It lasted for six years until it was discovered. And it was done not as a tradeoff of some kind, but solely to make the car peppier during test drives so that VW could sell more diesel models.

How far up does this go? It’s hard to believe it doesn’t go up pretty far. And it must have left behind a significant paper trail. So what’s next? Given the calculated nature of the crime, and the fact that it almost certainly killed people, Kleiman doesn’t think civil fines are enough:

When people conspire to commit a crime that harms the health of untold numbers of people, shouldn’t criminal charges at least be considered? And not only against the company, but against every official in it who can be shown to have known about the conspiracy….The most horrible thing about this case is that very few if any of the people involved will have lost any sleep over their guilt in making sick people sicker (and killing some of them) and none will lose face among their friends and neighbors. Even if some are found guilty of felonies, life won’t be nearly as bad for them as it is for someone who gets caught committing burglary: someone whose contribution to human suffering can’t hold a candle to what the VW conspirators pulled off.

In Georgia, a CEO is about to go to jail for a long time—maybe for life—because he approved the sale of tainted peanuts across state lines. The result was a nationwide salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds and killed nine people. The CEO’s brother and a quality control manager at the plant also face prison time.

Did VW’s actions sicken hundreds and kill at least nine people? A quick swag suggests that VW emitted about 3,000 excess tons of nitrous oxide in Southern California alone over the past six years, which may have caused as many as a dozen or more incremental deaths. If we can put a peanut CEO in prison for this, why not an auto CEO?

Visit site: 

WTF, Volkswagen?

Posted in alo, Casio, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on WTF, Volkswagen?

Trump: "This Isn’t a Gun Problem, This Is a Mental Problem."

by ThanhTorrence Posted on August 27, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A day after two journalists in Virginia were fatally shot on live television, Donald Trump is rejecting calls to strengthen gun control laws. Instead, he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo today that mental health issues are to blame for gun violence in America. This isn’t a gun problem, this is a mental problem,” the presidential hopeful said.

“You’re not going to get rid of all guns,” Trump added. “I know one thing: If you try to do it, the bad guys would have them. And the good folks would abide by the laws but be hopeless.” The real state mogul defended the Second Amendment, which he said he was “very much into.”

Trump’s opposition to stricter gun legislation in favor of focusing on mental health problems is not new. But many experts argue such thinking is flawed. “Consider that between 2001 and 2010, there were nearly 120,000 gun-related homicides…Few were perpetrated by people with mental illness,” psychiatry professor Richard A. Friedman wrote in the New York Times after the Newtown shooting in 2012.

Trump is just one of the 2016 candidates to weigh in following the murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward on Wednesday morning. Speaking at a press conference in Iowa, Hillary Clinton told reporters that she was “stricken” by the shooting. “We have got to do something about gun violence in America,” Clinton said. “And I will take it on.”

Speaking to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Wednesday night, the father of one of the victims vowed to fight for increased gun control measures. “Whatever it takes to get gun legislation, to shame people, to shame legislators into doing something about closing loopholes and background checks and making sure crazy people don’t get guns,” Andy Parker said.

See the original post: 

Trump: "This Isn’t a Gun Problem, This Is a Mental Problem."

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump: "This Isn’t a Gun Problem, This Is a Mental Problem."

The pork industry is full of this drug you’ve never heard of

by HannahLombardo Posted on August 14, 2015

Pork Roids

The pork industry is full of this drug you’ve never heard of

By on 14 Aug 2015commentsShare

Like little kids trying to show you their karate moves, food labels will do anything to get your attention. They’ll scream “organic,” “all-natural,” “grass-fed,” “hormone-free,” “antibiotic-free,” “free-range,” “farm-raised,” “fresh,” “pasture-raised,” or whatever else marketers think will elicit happy thoughts of animals frolicking on sunlit farms. And now, thanks to one Virginia farmer, there’s “no ractopamine.”

What’s ractopamine, you ask? According to NPR, it’s basically FDA-approved pork roids, and conventional pig farmers use it all the time to pork up their chops. It’s not a hormone (those are illegal in pig farming), but it does help ole’ Wilber and Babe pack on the pounds. Here’s more from NPR:

Most pigs in America get this drug, because it’s extremely effective. It’s a “beta agonist” and has effects that are similar to adrenaline. It gets a pig to put on more muscle, instead of fat, and also put on weight more quickly. That’s money in the farmer’s pocket: According to some experts, it adds two or three dollars of income per pig.

But David Meren of Tendergrass Farms just got approval from the USDA to stick this label on his pasture-raised pork: “no ractopamine — a beta-agonist growth promotant.”

The FDA approved ractopamine back in 1999, but there have been some reports of animals suffering under the drug, according to NPR. And other countries, including Russia, China, and those in the European Union, have yet to deem the drug safe for consumption. China has even demanded that all pork imported from the U.S. be ractopamine-free — a problem for conventional pig farmers like David Hardin, who spoke with NPR about the issue:

Hardin says that farmers are divided about how to respond to China’s demands. Some farmers don’t want to abandon ractopamine as a matter of principle. Using it, they point out, means cheaper pork for consumers and less stress on the environment (because pigs on ractopamine don’t need as much feed, and don’t produce as much manure.)

Other farmers, he says, are ready to follow the signals of the market. If consumers are willing to pay more for pork labeled “ractopamine-free,” that’s how they’ll raise their pigs.

Grist just spent a whole month talking about the ethics and sustainability of meat-eating. Needless to say, we didn’t solve the myriad problems of today’s meat industry, but one thing’s for sure: Food labels shouldn’t have to try so hard to show us their karate moves. And they wouldn’t have to if we just acted like responsible adults who… damn — I don’t know how to tie off this metaphor.

Source:
A Muscle Drug For Pigs Comes Out Of The Shadows

, NPR.

Share

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

A Grist Special Series

Oceans 15


How catching big waves helped turn this pro surfer into a conservationistRamon Navarro first came to the sea with his fisherman rather, found his own place on it as a surfer, and now fights to protect the coastline he loves.


What seafood is OK to eat, anyway? Ask an expertWhen it comes to sustainable seafood, you could say director of Seafood Watch Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly is the ultimate arbiter of taste.

Get Grist in your inbox

Advertisement

Visit source: 

The pork industry is full of this drug you’ve never heard of

Posted in Anchor, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, organic, Radius, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The pork industry is full of this drug you’ve never heard of

Bobby Jindal Thinks the IRS Shouldn’t Be Used to Target Political Enemies, Except For His

by PennyPalazzi Posted on August 7, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Appearing at the #KidsTable GOP presidential debate on Thursday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal vowed that if he were elected president, he would use every agency he could think of to hound Planned Parenthood out of business—even the agency Jindal has blasted for allegedly targeting conservative opponents of President Obama.

“Planned Parenthood had better hope that Hillary Clinton wins this election,” Jindal said, “because I guarantee you, under President Jindal, January 2017, the Department of Justice, and IRS, and everybody else that we can send from the federal government, will be going into Planned Parenthood.”

Jindal’s campaign promise to use the Internal Revenue Service to attack a nonprofit he disagrees with might be surprising to anyone familiar with his past comments about the IRS’ screening of politically active nonprofits, which included a number of small conservative and tea party groups. In January 2013, speaking to a group of Virginia Republicans, Jindal had a starkly different take on using the IRS to pursue political opponents.

“Anyone who is participating in the targeting of Americans for our political beliefs…anybody who knew about it, anybody who cynically looked the other way, anybody under whose watch this occurred, they need to be fired and they need to be fired immediately!” Jindal told the crowd.

But he didn’t stop there.

“You cannot take the freedom of law-abiding citizens, law abiding-Americans, whether you disagree with them or not, and keep your own freedom, when you do that, you go to jail!”

Source article – 

Bobby Jindal Thinks the IRS Shouldn’t Be Used to Target Political Enemies, Except For His

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Bobby Jindal Thinks the IRS Shouldn’t Be Used to Target Political Enemies, Except For His