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      Ed Shepard, waits for customers at his gas station in downtown Welch, a town in McDowell County, West Virginia in 2011.

      Could the Left Actually Win Back 'Trump Country' in West Virginia?

      Richard Eskow
      Oct 08, 2023

      I spoke with Troy Miller, executive producer of the Zero Hour, in his capacity as a member of the Executive Committee of the West Virginia Democratic Party. We discussed the party’s recent adoption of an updated version of FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights.

      Could it revive their political fortunes? Here’s a clue, from something I wrote several years ago and never published. It concerns McDowell County, WV, the state’s poorest county, which I researched as Bernie Sander’s speechwriter for a speech he gave there in 2016.

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      Opinion
      A man stands with electrodes on his chest as a doctor examines him.

      Mine Workers Speak Out for Tougher Black Lung Regulations

      The most common sentiment in each of the 23 comments at a recent public hearing was that a new proposed rule is a necessary first step, but MSHA must continue to strengthen its provisions to truly help the miners who need it most.

      Kim Kelly
      Aug 21, 2023

      At 9:00 am sharp on August 10, a small phalanx of smiling, well-coiffed elderly women began herding a crowd of several dozen people into the auditorium of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beckley, West Virginia. Among the crowd were former coal miners and their spouses, lawyers, pulmonologists, black lung clinic staff, environmental activists, local media, union representatives, and concerned citizens—all there to attend a public hearing for a new proposed rule from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, that seeks to limit silica exposure in the nation’s coal mines to 50 micrograms per cubic meter, down from 100.

      I was there too, both to document the proceedings and offer my own brief testimony. I have been following this rule’s progression since I began reporting on the black lung epidemic last year, and was thrilled to see it finally enter the public comment portion. As I found in my recent investigation for In These Times, black lung now afflicts more than 1 in 8 coal miners in Kentucky and West Virginia who have been working underground for 20-24 years, up from one in 30 a decade ago. Younger miners—those who have spent only 15-19 years underground—are becoming sicker with pulmonary massive fibrosis, the most severe form of the disease. As I wrote then, workers in their 30s and 40s are now making their way to the same black lung clinics that served their parents and grandparents, and fighting the same battles against red tape and corporate malfeasance to win black lung benefits. And it is all completely preventable.

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      Opinion
      black lung
      Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship

      'Poster Boy for Malevolent Big Business' Indicted Over Fatal Coal Mine Disaster

      Former Massey Energy CEO Blankenship could face 31 years in prison for his actions that led to and followed the Upper Big Branch disaster

      Andrea Germanos
      Nov 14, 2014

      Don Blankenship, the former CEO of coal giant Massey Energy, faces up to 31 years in prison after a federal grand jury indicted him Thursday on four criminal charges related to the worst coal mine disaster in decades.

      Twenty-nine workers were killed in an explosion at the non-union Upper Big Branch (UBB) Mine near Montcoal, West Virginia in April 2010.

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