A closer view of the growing coal ash mountain in Perry County, Alabama
by Robert D. Bullard
It has been little over two weeks since environmental justice leaders in the South delivered an 11-point Call to Action plan for reform of EPA Region 4 — eight states in the southern United States (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee). Leaders from all across the region called for targeted enforcement to address environmental racism and pollution “hot spots” that pose disproportionate environmental health threats to low-income communities and communities of color.
Clearly, healthy places and healthy people are highly correlated, with the poorest of the poor within the region having the worst health and the most degraded environments. Race and class map closely with vulnerability.
One of the best indicators of an individual’s health is one’s street address, Zip Code, or neighborhood. More than 100 studies now link racism to worse health. More than 200 environmental studies have shown race and class disparities.
It is no accident that six of Forbes’ “Top 10 Unhealthiest States” in 2009 were found in Region 4. Mississippi was ranked the 50th unhealthiest state in 2009. Above Mississippi were Oklahoma (49th), Alabama (48th), Louisiana (47th), and South Carolina (46th), Nevada (45th), Tennessee (44th), Georgia (43rd), West Virginia (42nd), and Kentucky (41st).
The retail giant Wal-Mart is known for selling a wide variety of goods at relatively low prices, but they are about to set another benchmark, according to business news sites. The company is now the target of the largest employment discrimination case in U.S. business and legal history.
Six women filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart back in 2001, but the company fought vigorously to stop the class action suit from going through. Now, nearly a decade later, a federal appeals court in San Francisco has ruled the Wal-Mart case can finally go to trial.
To make matters worse for Wal-Mart, the court ruled that this class action lawsuit can include the claims of any woman who has worked at a Wal-Mart since 2001. Some have estimated this could amount to 1.5 million former employees, though Wal-Mart claims the number is closer to 500,000. Either way, Wal-Mart is at risk of losing billions and billions of dollars.
According to The New York Times, “The lawsuit… accuses the retailer of systematically paying women less than men, giving them smaller raises and offering women fewer opportunities for promotion. The plaintiffs stressed that while 65 percent of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees were women, only 33 percent of the company’s managers were.”
The High Court Ruled ‘Unwisely’ in Both Bush v. Gore in 2000 and Citizens United vs. FCC in 2009
Scott Pelley interviews Justice John Paul Stevens upon his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court after 35 years. He talks about the damage the court did to the institution and the country in both rulings.
Excerpts
Justice John Paul Stevens has shaped more American history than any Supreme Court justice alive. And for most of his 35 years on the court, he followed the usual tradition: declining to talk about his cases in interviews. As he prepared to retire, “60 Minutes” and correspondent Scott Pelley hoped he would overrule that custom and talk with us about the decisions that have changed our times.
It was Stevens who forced a showdown with President Bush over the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and Stevens who tried to stop the court from deciding the presidential election of 2000.
Thanksgiving is an apt time for those of us enjoying family and freedom to reflect about those being prosecuted in the United States primarily for political purposes.
Let’s examine the Justice Department’s crusades against former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Republican, and former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, his state’s leading Democrat.
They are among those in the nation’s two million under lock-and-key who are punished far out of proportion to any offense. Victims include Siegelman’s Alabama co-defendant Richard Scrushy, a Republican businessman and father of nine imprisoned on a seven-year term solely because he donated to Siegelman’s favorite non-profit in 1999 and 2000.
Recent developments in the Kerik and Siegelman/Scrushy cases last week underscore the Obama administration’s shameful efforts to torment defendants, their families and whistleblowers at vast taxpayer expense, thereby extending and covering up previous abuses.
THE BUNKER – The holidaze are upon us, folks, which means the news slows down — unless there is a terrorist attack, dog forbid, or a TVA coal ash blowout.
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Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark, aka the super hero Iron Man in this sequel to the 2008 blockbuster. RDJ, Paltrow, Cheadle and Rockwell are joined by Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Mickey Rourke as Whiplash. Jon Favreau once again takes up the directorial reins for Marvel’s armored avenger. It hit theaters in May, and cable on demand this month. Review to follow soon.
Klein Alleges U.S. Used ‘Shock’ Tactics to Privatize Public Sector
“The connections are daring in journalist Naomi Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine, but the result is convincing,” according to William S. Kowinski of the San Francisco Chronicle. “With a bold and brilliantly conceived thesis, skillfully and cogently threaded through more than 500 pages of trenchant writing, Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time. And because the pattern she exposes could govern our future as well, The Shock Doctrine could turn out to be among the most important books of the decade.”
While this book got a lot of attention during the final two years of the Bush administration, helping to get Barack Obama elected president, the film version is now out on cable TV for those who don’t buy and read books. In the aftermath of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf, perhaps the people of the South should finally embrace this thesis. Maybe the tea partiers should watch it. It would inform their anger and lead to more productive political action.
One for the archives. Bill Maher makes his point how dumb, ignorant and uneducated the majority of Americans are, and backs it up with facts. The people who dislike and hate Bill Maher, the pot smoking atheist comic, are the same people who belong to that category of ignorant, embarrassing dummies, according to this YouTube poster.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
