Lurker > FrndNhbrHdCEman

One of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On June 1, the EPA authorized a SNUR (Significant New Use Rule) which allows new products containing asbestos to be created on a case-by-case basis.

According to environmental advocates, this new rule gives chemical companies the upper hand in creating new uses for such harmful products in the United States. In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.

This news comes after the EPA reviewed its first batch of 10 chemicals under the 2016 amendment to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which required the agency to continually reevaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals to see whether they should face new restrictions or be removed from the market. The SNUR greenlights companies to use toxic chemicals like asbestos without thinking about how it will endanger people who are indirectly in contact with it.

Asbestos, once seen as a magical mineral, was widely used in building insulation up until it was banned in most countries in the 1970s. The U.S. is one of the only developed nations in the world that has placed significant restrictions on the substance without banning it completely. New data revealed that asbestos-related deaths now total nearly 40,000 annually, with lung cancer and mesothelioma being the most common illnesses in association with the toxin. That number could rise if new asbestos-containing products make their way into brand new buildings.

Healthy Building Network (HBN), an environmental advocacy group, recently told Fast Company that the fibrous material poses a major health risk for everyone exposed to it, including those who mine it, those who handle it in industrial facilities, as well as people near or inside renovation and construction projects where its being used. HBNs Board President Bill Walsh said that the chlor-alkali industry is the only industry in the country that still uses asbestos, reportedly importing about 480 tons of the carcinogen each year from Russia and Brazil.

Walsh also pointed out that chlorine-based plastics are commonly found in building-product materials and that virtually all asbestos in the U.S. is used in the industrial process to make chlorine. This includes PVC and vinyl plastics, which is largely found in the creation of pipes, tiles, flooring, adhesives, paints, and roofing products.

Though the EPA is easing its regulations against using harmful toxins like asbestos, it will largely be the responsibility of local and state governments, as well as companies and informed consumers to counter these federal moves. Walsh says its up to sustainable building-product manufacturers and ultimately, architects to pressure the market.

Architects really set the pace of design, in terms of aesthetics and materials that we like, he said. If they start to incorporate health-based criteria into their palette, it could really have an influence on what the manufacturers produce.

https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/
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HelIWithoutSin posted...

FrndNhbrHdCEman posted...

HelIWithoutSin posted...

and can't walk or bike because wild dogs will eat him.

Lmfao wat?

It's what he actually said. He can't walk or bike anywhere because there are vicious wild dogs everywhere.

Rememberin his topics makes this believable. Still crazy af.
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HelIWithoutSin posted...

and can't walk or bike because wild dogs will eat him.

Lmfao wat?
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edededdy posted...

CacciatoPart3 posted...

HelIWithoutSin posted...

Having trouble keeping up?

lol

Brutal.
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Ya know the father prolly figured you deuced the urinal an tryin to toss suspicion.
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CacciatoPart3 posted...

ninja_lootz posted...

Uh, this happened while Obama was president.

Did you read the article?

Course he didn't.

Metal_Mario99 posted...

FrndNhbrHdCEman posted...

Star_Spirit posted...

republicans. pure evil.

no, im not a leftie

In their minds: screw our kids. Literal and figurative in cases like these.

Leftists don't have a lot of ground to stand on when it comes to protecting children.

If ya have nothin to say just say it fam.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Blighboy posted...

Lefties are going to find a way to pin this on Trump despite the hundreds of drone strikes targeting children which occurred under Obama.

Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.

Common place here.
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Blighboy posted...

But 76% of the statements Hillary didn't make were lies.

She's a democrat. Repubs like Zeus would rather sink the ship like good rats.
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The Wagner private military company is connected to Evgeny Prigozhin who is referred to as Putins chef because companies close to him provided catering services to the Kremlin. They also received Ministry of Defense contracts worth several billion and delivered food to Moscow schools.

It became clear at the end of 2017 that Russian private military companies, including Wagner, had been sent to Africa, but then it was only known about their involvement in Sudan. The Bell, in turn, uncovered that Prigozhins companies appeared to have a commercial interest in that country right after last years negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev with Sudans president, Omar al-Bashir. A company believed to be related to Prigozhin, M Invest, signed a concession agreement for gold mining in Sudan (we wrote about this in detail here). At the same time, Wagners hired troops trained Sudanese military divisions, which was then confirmed by four people who spoke with The Bell, including individuals from rival private military companies. One of these said that Wagner employees are also training the CAR army.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in March a strengthening of national military structures in CAR and that Russia sent 5 military and 170 civilian instructors to that country, as well as a shipment of small arms this was all at the request of the president of the CAR, Faustin-Archange Touadra, and with the agreement of the UN Security Council.

The investigative group, Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), wrote that civil instructors might be from the Wagner private military company, and before that, this was also reported by several French media outlets.

In its statement, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not mention Wagner, but said that in its agreement with the CAR, Russia also is looking into the possibility of the joint development of natural resources in that country, and that several mining concessions had begun to be realized in 2018.

It is not clear if Prigozhins structures are behind these concessions. But, it is possible that the universal operation scheme was implemented before an agreement was signed about gold mining in Sudan, as Wagners troops were seen in Syria. Later, it became clear that Prigozhins structures agreed with the Syrian government to participate in the liberation, defense and development of local oil and gas fields. In exchange, the company would be given access to of the oil and gas produced on liberated territories. These agreements were agreed in final just before the bloody encounter of Wagner troops with U.S. forces in the oil and gas province of Deir ez-Zor, The Bell learned.

http://goo.gl/pDQktH
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Cont. -- ...by man behind Russias troll army.

Three Russian journalists died in the Central African Republic who were filming an investigation about Russian mercenary soldiers from the Wagner private military company in one of the worlds most dangerous countries. Wagners financial sponsor is believed to be Russian businessman, Evgeny Prigozhin, suspected of meddling in the U.S. elections. The Bell investigated what Prigozhins fighters are up to in Africa.

Orkhan Dzhemal was one of Russias best known war correspondents. At the beginning of the 2000s, he led the political department of Novaya Gazeta, and then was a reporter for Russian Newsweek and Izvestiya. Dzhemal reported from the wars in Georgia (he wrote a book about the war), Libya, Syria, and east Ukraine. Recently, the only publication which regularly featured Dzhemal was Echo Moscow; here are the recordings and transcripts of his last reports.

Alexander Rastorguev was a documentary film director. His most famous piece was the project Term () about the Russian protests of 2012, which was filmed together with former NTV journalist, Alexey Pivovarov, and documentary filmmaker, Pavel Kostomarov.

Kirill Radchenko was a freelance photographer, and photographs credited with his surname were published on the website of ANNA News, an information agency which covers the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. In 2017, he photographed events in Syria, where there was a civil war for many years. He was 33 years old.

The journalists trip was related to an investigation of the Wagner private military company, which was really actively involved in Africa. We will share everything that is known about this.

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Sure.
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Star_Spirit posted...

republicans. pure evil.

no, im not a leftie

In their minds: screw our kids. Literal and figurative in cases like these.
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He said Southwest Key and the Health and Human Services department, which is in charge of caring for immigrant youths, take every incident seriously "and there is a never ending process to improve care and standards."

ProPublica published a report in July saying police responded to at least 125 calls reporting sex offenses at shelters that primarily serve immigrant children since 2014. The report detailed a 2015 incident at a Tucson, Arizona, Southwest Key facility in which authorities said an employee touched a 15-year-old Honduran boy's penis from outside his clothing. The worker was fired and later convicted of molestation.

http://goo.gl/wQeVv4
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Federal authorities allege that a former youth care worker at a Phoenix-area facility for immigrant youths sexually abused eight teenage boys, one of several cases brought to light in recent weeks as thousands of immigrant children remain detained around the country. Court documents show Levian Pacheco faces several charges stemming from incidents that allegedly took place between August 2016 and July 2017 at a Southwest Key facility in Mesa.

The case was first reported by ProPublica. Authorities charge that Pacheco performed sex acts on two boys and touched six others, all between ages 15 to 17 at the time.

"One of the boys decided to speak up about what had happened to him, and then it was kind of a snowfall where another boy the roommate spoke up that it also happened to him," Michael Grabell, one of the ProPublica reporters who uncovered the details of abuse at the Southwest Key shelter, told CBS News.

Court documents also state that Pacheco is HIV-positive and that some of the teens opted to be tested for the virus.

Pacheco has pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations. His federal public defender has said in court documents that the government's allegations of the crimes committed by Pacheco include an "extraordinarily broad range of dates and lack of specificity."

"We are looking forward to defending Mr. Pacheco in court," attorney Benjamin Good said in an email to The Associated Press.

Grabell told CBS News that it's common for victims of abuse to be afraid to come forward. "Especially in this population, there is this fear that if you come forward and report abuse, it might affect your immigration case," he said.

The Department of Health and Human Services told CBS News that "any allegation of abuse of neglect is taken seriously... and appropriate action is taken."

The revelations Thursday came one day after police said another worker at a different Southwest Key facility, Fernando Magaz Negrete, is suspected of molesting a 14-year-old immigrant girl.

Authorities say Magaz Negrete kissed and fondled the girl in her bedroom on June 27 in an encounter witnessed by the girl's 16-year-old roommate. They said surveillance video shows Magaz Negrete, 32, approaching the bedroom several times throughout the night, though the bedroom itself was outside the camera's view.

Southwest Key fired Magaz Negrete. It was not clear if he is represented by an attorney.

The Texas-based nonprofit organization, the largest contracted by the U.S. government to house immigrant children, has come under scrutiny for its practices at its various shelters around the Southwest. Many of the over 2,000 children who were separated from their parents after crossing the border illegally have been held at Southwest Key facilities.

Following backlash over the Trump administration's child separation policy, officials defended the use of the detention facilities as safe spaces, CBS News correspondent Don Dahler reports.

"These shelters were never intended to be long-term group homes," Grabell told CBS News, "and we've heard from various officials, various psychologists that the longer the kids are in the shelter the more time there is for inappropriate relationships to develop."

The victims in the case against Pacheco were all unaccompanied minors and it's not clear if they had been separated from their parents or traveled to the U.S. alone, although the government was not widely separating families at the time of the incidents.

Southwest Key spokesman Jeff Eller said in an email that Pacheco was immediately suspended and police were called when allegations surfaced.

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P depressin it's sorta believable he gets his briefings in Dove chocolates.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-tariffs-eu-colorful-cards-2018-7

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reportedly used colorful cue cards to explain issues of global-trade policy to President Donald Trump during their meeting earlier this week.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday evening, Juncker and his team used the cards to simplify complex issues for the president as a means of getting their points across as effectively as possible.

The Journal's report says Juncker "flipped through" more than a dozen cards, which had minimal information on them, and all focused on a single issue. These included the automotive trade, and regulatory standards for medicines, the report added, saying that there were a maximum of three figures per card.

"We knew this wasn't an academic seminar," a senior EU official who was at the meeting told the Wall Street Journal. "It had to be very simple."

Trump and Juncker on Wednesday agreed to the beginnings of a deal that would end the previously growing trade tensions between the US and the EU.

During the meeting, the EU agreed to import more American soybeans and liquefied natural gas. Both sides agreed to work to decrease industrial tariffs and adjust regulations to allow US medical devices to be traded more easily in European markets.

"This was a very big day for free and fair trade," Trump said at a press conference after the pair's meeting.

The EU's use of flash cards is not without precedent. Trump is well-known for his distaste for lengthy documents, and is said to prefer single-page memos when deciding on policy.

In May 2017, a report from Reuters said that Trump likes "single-page memos and visual aids like maps, charts, graphs and photos." A source quoted by Reuters said aides also strategically put Trump's name into "as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he's mentioned."

Lmfao. "The Deal Maker" huh?
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Muscles posted...

I'm confused, so what changes? Does their vote get taken away if they took the money? Does the the law get reversed because fraud votes? Nothing at all because no one cares about corruption?

Nothing unless we make a scene. These reps know most voters on vote based on party lines with zero research.
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Zeus posted...

Well, at least she's alive. While former child stars tend to have their share of issues, she's also working in the music industry which is also known for substance abuse issues.

Zeus actin blas bout a subject he knows zilch about. Shocking y'all!
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DeltaBladeX posted...

TheCyborgNinja posted...

When those elected to represent the people choose to side with corporations, there should be a provision to hold a vote in their riding to have them beheaded. No trial, just mob rule. I guarantee these guys would straighten up and fly right after the first casualty.

The French had a good idea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_were_beheaded#French_Revolution

Vive la rvolution

Jen0125 posted...

i'm shocked. shocked, i say!

Lol.

Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

*sigh* Not surprising that a California politician has their hand in the bucket. Not voting for that guy in November. We need third party bad.

Dump his ass.
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Trump has started trade wars but, mercifully, not shooting wars. Aside from a few raids by Special Operations forces and the continuation of existing conflicts against the Islamic State and the Taliban, Trump has used force twice his ineffectual cruise missile attacks against Syria in 2017 and 2018 to punish Bashar al-Assad for his use of chemical weapons. These were precisely the kind of unbelievably small strikes that President Barack Obama contemplated in 2013 and that Trump criticized at the time.

It is, of course, a good thing that Trump is not turning out to be the warmonger that many feared he would be. But there is a real danger from having the president revealed as a BS artist, too: His threats carry less weight. That, ironically, makes it harder for him to achieve his objectives without resorting to force.

At one time it appeared that Trump would be able to implement Richard Nixons madman theory of international relations and scare other states into acquiescence more successfully than Nixon had done. But Trumps approach failed with North Korea, and there is no reason to think it will work with Iran. If past is prologue, maybe next year Trump will be claiming credit for averting war and praising Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as talented, funny, intelligent and a strong leader who loves his people. But what scares me is that, after so much bluster and braggadocio, to make his threats believable Trump may actually have to start carrying them out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-is-trying-to-change-the-subject-to-iran-lets-not-let-him/
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In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran. That was Donald Trump tweeting in 2011.
This was President Trump tweeting late Sunday night: To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

As usual, Trump is doing exactly what he accuses his opponents of doing, in this case wagging the dog.

This is part of a pattern. During a presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton accused Trump presciently of being a Russian puppet, he shot back: No, youre the puppet. The humiliation in Helsinki confirmed Clintons warning and explains Trumps rhetorical escalation against Iran.

Trump is clearly furious that he didnt get the credit he thinks he deserves for a GREAT meeting with Putin. Of course, not even his top aides know all of what was discussed or decided behind closed doors. All that the public saw was that Trump accepted Putins lies over the truth-telling of the U.S. intelligence community, and that he refused to criticize the Russian dictator for his many offenses including ongoing cyberattacks on the United States. Trumps subservience triggered a week of toxic headlines as criticism poured in from past intelligence officials. Former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. suggested that the Russians have something on Trump; former CIA director John Brennan judged the presidents performance nothing short of treasonous.

The next move was as predictable as Trump golfing at one of his resorts: He tried to change the subject. His first attempt, on Friday, was to tweet about his favorite controversy: National Football League players kneeling during the national anthem. His stern demand First time kneeling, out for game. Second time kneeling, out for season/no pay! did not generate the headlines he so transparently hoped for. Maybe he should have suggested guillotining for a third offense.

Try, try again. Hence his Sunday night threat against Iran. Coming from any other president, this out-of-the-blue, ALL-CAPS ultimatum would have led to suggestions that hes hitting the bottle. But for Trump the teetotaler, its just business as usual. This time, he got the worlds attention. I was actually planning to write Monday about Trump and Russia. Instead, Im writing about Trump and Iran. Far more important from Trumps perspective, the talk on cable news turned from Russia to Iran. Mission accomplished.

The problem for Trump is that the credibility of his threats is diminishing. Sure, he scared the world silly in the summer of 2017 by threatening to rain fire and fury on North Korea. But within a year, he was all but surrendering to Little Rocket Man legitimating and lavishly praising him on the world stage while stopping U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises in return for nothing but vague promises of denuclearization at some unspecified point in the future. The Post reports that even Trump recognizes that North Korea isnt living up to its bargain, even though he publicly claims that negotiations are going very well. (Good to know hes deceptive but not delusional.)

The president loves to bluff, but, like many bullies, he is actually a coward who is afraid of real conflict. When Trump picked John Bolton as his national security adviser in March, Kaitlan Collins of CNN reported that he made the ultra-hawk promise that he wouldnt start any wars. I heard something similar from my own sources. Bolton denied it, but the sentiments ring true, because Trump has turned out to be less bellicose than expected.

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Her brothers cute.
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Bulbasaur posted...

woah look at north carolina

https://imgur.com/i4gh29U

one of these things is not like the other

one of these things most definitely belong

No kiddin.
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Zeus posted...

XlaxJynx007 posted...

Zeus posted...

Full Throttle posted...

Do you think Racism is on the rise in America?

Not really, no. In fact, it's much less than it has been in the past. Even the Obama era's race riots seem small compared to the LA Riots under Clinton.

LA Riots happened when Bush Sr was president

Oh, was off by a year. I knew it was in the early 90s.

Ya get a ton wrong fam.
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Yellow posted...

In this case, if they have a D you might have to change their mind.
If they have an R, fat chance. I already tried.

Sad but true. GOP is a disgrace.
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WastelandCowboy posted...

I've done all I can. I emailed and called my district's representative and was just told that A) my sentiments and comments were noted and B) how misguided and misled I was about the FCC and their actions to undo the "restrictions imposed upon them by the Obama administration."

Corrupt middle-aged tools.

Keep it up. Any rep bought out I send daily emails an calls. Bein annoyin is all we got.
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Zeus posted...

Shit, I was going to make a comic book character named Dreamer so I guess that's dead now.

Lemme guess. Your chars story begin in Charlottesville with a torch.
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The House of Representatives is sitting on its hands instead of calling a vote to protect net neutrality. But those same members of Congress have had their hands in the pot of the anti-net neutrality telecommunications industry for years.

The net neutrality advocacy project BattleForTheNet.com on Monday released an updated interactive scorecard that compares where members of congress stand on a proposed net neutrality protection resolution with how much money they've taken from companies like AT&T and Comcast. BattleForTheNet.com is a joint initiative of progressive organizations Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press Action Fund.

"There's hardly a better example of classic corruption in Washington than members of congress voting against net neutrality when polls show that constituents overwhelmingly support it," Evan Greer, director of the internet advocacy organization Fight for the Future, told Mashable. "It's really important for voters to know where their representatives stand, but it's equally important to know why."

In May, the Senate passed a resolution to protect Obama-era net neutrality, undoing the repeal of those protections by the Trump administration's FCC. The legislation came via the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which is a statute that allows Congress to "revisit and reject," rulings by government agencies within a certain window of time, according to the Washington Post.

Now, members of the House of Representatives want to bring the resolution to a vote. But even with the support of every Democrat and one Republican in the House, it still falls short of the 218 signatures required to force a vote.

The House has until the end of the year to vote on the CRA, according to the office of Congressman Mike Doyle, who is the author of the petition.

That's where BattleForTheNet comes in. The organization released its updated scorecard to show where every member of Congress stands on the CRA. You can search by zip code for your specific representative, and see whether they've lent their support to the resolution, or not. [https://www.battleforthenet.com/scoreboard/]

For those against the CRA, the scorecard shows how much money they're taking from the telecommunications industry. The campaign contribution numbers are based on a 2017 report from The Verge, with data sourced by the Center for Responsive Politics.

For example, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), leads the House of Representatives as the top recipient of donations: he received over $1.6 million between 1989 and 2017. Walden is also the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and the former chairman of the subcommittee on Communications and Technology. He is against the CRA resolution.

Campaign donations do not necessarily correlate with a representative's stance on net neutrality, though. The telecoms industry donates to almost every member of congress including some top advocates for net neutrality, such as Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Mike Doyle. The scorecard does not show how much supporters of the CRA receive, but you can view the full list via The Verge.

But pairing the campaign donation data with CRA voting intentions is a powerful way to demonstrate how AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast continue to wield influence in Congress, despite consumer preference for strong net neutrality. This interactive tool can help net neutrality advocates draw up a battle plan as the pressure to bring the CRA to a vote bears down on Congress, and on advocates of the free and open internet everywhere.

https://mashable.com/2018/07/23/net-neutrality-cra-campaign-donations-scorecard/
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