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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
      Members of Extinction Rebellion locked themselves to the group's pink boat, which was used to blockade the access road between the Ffos-y-Fran mine and its depot​ in South Wales on July 5, 2023.

      Extinction Rebellion Shuts Down UK Coal Mine Operating Without License

      "The authorities are missing in action," said one campaigner. "If they won't step in to stop illegal, planet-wrecking coal mining, we will."

      Jessica Corbett
      Jul 05, 2023

      On the heels of the world's two hottest days on record, U.K. climate activists on Wednesday shut down an open-cast coal mine in Wales that has been operating without a license since last summer.

      "We have today done what the Welsh government, the U.K. government, and the local council have failed to do—shut down the operations of the U.K.'s largest coal mine which has been operating without a license since September last year," Extinction Rebellion (XR) activist Marcus Bailie of Caerphilly said in a statement.

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