CNN’s report on coal ash was welcome attention from a national news outlet for the people near Little Blue Run. But the coverage left a mis-impression and was neither objective nor without bias as CNN often claims. The coal industry is one of CNN’s sponsors, and their commercial airing during the report is tantamount to a rebuttal of the claims of the citizens harmed by the industry. Not only is the commercial inaccurate propaganda; the industry perspective is furthered by the reporting. Some of CNN’s news report was wrong or uninformed. Opinion was given as fact, and worse, it was the opinion of the sponsor. It cannot be considered objective journalism to report on a story when one of the parties is a supporting it financially. In fact, After the Press considers the very idea of objectivity to be false and misleading. After the Press does not claim to be objective and instead provides the views of Paul Joffe, whose opinions are clearly stated. Little Blue Run is a coal ash dump owned by First Energy. The company promised the residents back in the ’70s that it would build a retention pond that they could use for boating and recreation — just like the one shown in the Clean Coal commercial. At this time there is no operational Clean Coal technology. Coal contains small amounts of heavy metals like selenium, cadmium, arsenic, and lead. When coal is burned, whatever doesn’t burn is left over, and it’s called fly ash. Heavy metals don’t burn, so they are concentrated in the fly ash. In creating Little Blue Run, the waste dump, First Energy mixes the ash with water and pumps it through a large pipe to a valley that they bought in rural Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The flow of ash-water filled up an entire farming valley on the border between those two states, and a dam was built to hold back the ash mud. No liner was installed to keep the heavy metals from percolating into the water table and poisoning local wells. As the water evaporates from the top of the dump, the ash forms a dry layer. The ash is called fly ash because it is very light and will blow away in a wind; however, no cap was installed to keep that from happening. A similar fly ash dam-dump collapsed in Kingston, Tennessee, leading to a violent poisonous flood. There was another “waste impoundment” flood in Hungary outside a copper factory. CNN’s report followed the Hungarian collapse, which was covered briefly on the same program. However, again, CNN is sponsored by the coal industry’s trade association: “The Coalition for Clean Coal”, which promotes the fiction that new technology makes burning coal clean. In reality First Energy won’t even use old technology to clean up their toxic waste dump. The air around the plant is so toxic that it pits car paint. First Energy’s answer to that is paying for paint jobs on local cars.
Carl Paladino Candidate for Governor of New York state weighs in on the technique called “Hydro-Fracking” or hydraulically fracturing a natural gas bearing layer of rock using water and chemicals. This technique can contaminate ground water. He agrees it’s risky but thinks it’s OK as long as it is not done in the watershed on New York City.
This video exposes a confidential report on a secret experiment called “DEEP SPILL” carried out by the US government and a group of oil companies including BP in the year 2000. One of the conclusions was that the most toxic part of the oil would be caught in the water unable to be recovered. Was it a surprise that most of the oil from the BP well stayed in the Gulf of Mexico, at depth, in clouds of small particles? It may have been to us but it shouldn’t have been to BP or MMS (the government agency whose job it is to regulate deep water drilling). It also should have come as no surprise to NOAA (the government agency that regulates anything in the sea around the U.S.) All of those institutions did deny the first reports of the clouds when they were found by the Pelican research vessel and the University of Missisippi’s Dr. Ray Highsmith and his crew. But they must have known because MMS and the oil companies paid for, and conducted an experiment off the coast of Norway in 2000 to see what would happen in a deepwater oil well blowout. Remember all that “this is a new problem” you heard on television? Well the study showed that the oil would not all rise to the surface to be collected but would tend to form cloud layers of neutrally buoyant particles that might be the most toxic part of the oil.
Here’s a direct quote from the report:
“This is important information, because the water-soluble compounds are generally the most toxic ones when exposed to marine biota. The results from these measurements show that the rising of the oil through the water column represents a kind of a “stripping” process of some of the most toxic compounds in the oil. The end result is therefore that a portion of the most toxic compounds is left in the water column.”
MEMPHIS, TN -- A standoff over allegations of electronic voting fraud in a Memphis, Tennessee election has voters concerned and lawyers up in arms — but where is the media? Oh, they’re here. We know because the bus just passed them. They’re in Memphis to visit a construction site for a new mosque.
Meanwhile in Shelby County, candidate for Sheriff Randy Wade is claiming his election night victory was stolen from him due to vote tampering. Election fraud expert Bev Harris claimed, “This is the most brutal voter disenfranchisement and election tampering case we have witnessed yet.” Allegations of fraud have spread to at least ten candidates in Memphis as election auditors are refused any and all access to the Diebold voting machine results.
The problems with the Diebold/ESS invisible-voting machines are too numerous to mention and the problems with the election in Memphis are better described by Bev Harris’s website, Black Box Voting.
There is no other way to put it — the American voting system has fallen apart. It’s not happening, it has already happened. What we witnessed in Memphis was emblematic of a bigger-picture problem. In July alone, allegations and convictions of vote fraud arose throughout the country in dozens of different locations. It has become disturbingly commonplace, and dangerously under-reported.
The only other investigation we’ve seen into the Memphis vote fraud story was this on-scene TV news spot by local ABC affiliate News Channel 3. The sense of frustration and outrage is palpable. We also direct you to The Brad Blog, which also gave the story some much-needed in-depth coverage.
