Separate blue states from red states

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Does that mean they are somehow are getting around OSHA standards and don't conduct safety training, perform safety inspections, and don't issue personal protective equipment (PPE)? I know they sure hold our feet to the fire when it comes to ANYTHING having to do with safety.

You know they are a joke.Friend worked on a oil rig,the small kind like here in Ar,maybe a double,the rig fell over and the employes went out and barked the trees up where it looked like the support lines would be,just so they could keep OSHA from shutting them down.
You work a gubment job,of course they are strict.Maybe monitor you for paper cuts in the rest room.

/\ OSHA isn't infallible but I have a hard time imagining an aluminum or chemical plant being able to get away with not providing safety measures. When I was a kid my old man worked in a chemical plant (and it wasn't a gubmint job). Some of the people there were bitching about the chemicals making their snot turn colors but at the same time they would not wear the respirators that for a fact WERE provided to each employee. They were abundant enough even for the old man to snag one to bring home for me play with. The first time I put it on the old man said I looked like a wasp.

I'm not OSHA so I'm not going in there to inspect.Its possible they are not wearing the respirators,but it's hot in there and maybe they take then off to be more comfortable,not a good ideal.But no one cares what happens here,when I lived in SoArk the small town near me,Chidester,(featured in the Scorsese movie Box Car Bertha),the constable used to set the town dump on fire every Sunday,yes,nothing smells better on Sunday morning than burning plastic wafting thru the community.There was a major explosion in The Area,that's its name,in East Camden at a plant that made flares,Traco or Traycore,not sure of the spelling.Well,someone sparked and blew the place up from hell to breakfast.A few died and a few were horribly burned.I really doubt Arkansas workers are high on OSHA's list.Lots of other weird stories from there about mutated deer with two noses.General Dynamics and the former Aerojet are out there,it's a strange place with lots of abandoned thick concrete walls with radiation signs on them.Out in the middle of the swamps,easy to get lost.
I hear the same horror stories from people who worked petroleum refineries in LA.Lake Charles is an area that has been screwed by industry.You get a job,than get sick from it years later.

/\ I don't know how long ago that was but workplace safety has come a long way.

That's possible,most of the stories are from people my age or slightly older.Some are in a bad way from what happened.They deserve the disability they get.My bio mom gets a occasional asbestos check,lots of people got sick from that,and it was everywhere.
Don't know if you ever lived in a paper mill town,but the one they had in Camden,Ar would eat the paint off cars.Workers had to drive thru a car wash when they left or you would have a rust bucket in a few years.But what kept it out of the air?You could smell it everywhere,sulfury,like cabbage.Now the fish isn't safe to eat below there,dioxin.Then the hazardous waste incinerator in Texarkana,If I remember right they tried to burn radioactive materials.
Then the superfund sites......I could go on,but the poorer Southern states were just a dumping ground for years,people so desperate for jobs that no one noticed the or cared what was happening.Similar to the coal miners in Appalachia.

/\ I can't say I've had the honor of living near a paper mill. The coastal lowlands of Georgia and S. Carolina have a nasty smell like a salty fart if you can imagine that. Some attribute it to the paper mills and/or the tidal swamps. It's raunchy and I don't think I'd want to live there if I could help it.

I was going by the discussion in the Larry King episode that I linked to. It's just after the 2-minute mark. On re-watching it, I'm not 100% sure that Larry King was referring to Bush Sr. when he paraphrased "the president" saying 'Well, I'm basically for it. I want to see the side agreements, I want to hear what the unions object to, and then I'll come back and let you know.' The reason that I'm uncertain is that earlier King referred to Gore as the "vice president" (rather than vice president-elect), and then to Clinton as "Governor - now President-Elect Clinton." The interview that King paraphrased would have been shot in October 1992, but I haven't found it yet. Finding that would clear it up.



True. But I also remember some aggressive smears by left-leaning commentators on public radio, even though Perot supported a gas tax and other policies that Democrats often favor. I think that both sides were scared of him.

^ this

It is also the whole reason why Abraham Lincoln went through with the Civil War in the first place. Yes, he was known as the president who freed the slaves, but he thought that the idea of a divided America could not exist at all. Or in other words that the unity of America is perpetual, and can not be broken. If we start to think that the US can survive in factions is when we are truly doomed as a nation. Despite our differences in politics we're all connected as ONE united nation, and can not survive divided.

There is no free health care in America, except for those who are in the best unions--and even there, there are deductibles to pay.

^ This kind of statement amazes me. Here in MN, we had years of debate about the ACA, but nobody seemed to notice until after it passed that we had a very good program for the poor all along. (MinnesotaCare) One of my friends who was a barista was on it, and it covered her newborn as well. There are often no premiums (depends on need). I have no personal experience with them, but both CA and WA seemed to have something similar.

Minnesota Public Radio makes a big deal of presenting themselves as intellectual, but it took a Canadian guest in an unrelated MPR debate to point out that Europe doesn't have a universal health care system either. (If you listen to public radio anywhere in the US, you probably listen to MPR content.)

Then good for Minnesota's medical plan.

Well yes, that's because Europe isn't a country. Several European countries do, though increasingly they exclude immigrants.

Are those immigrants paying into the system in large enough numbers to pay for the services rendered to all of them?

I'm pretty aware of that. (I have family in continental Europe.) But as a loose federation, the EU is comparable to the early United States. Its revenue is based on payments from member states rather than direct taxing authority - the same system that existed in the US under the Articles of Confederation. It lacks a military, which the Continental Congress had, but it has free trade, free travel (including for work and residence) and something similar to the Bill of Rights:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_o ... pean_Union



They're also going through the same states' rights struggle that the US has been engaged in for so many years. Some people want to centralize power in Brussels, and others don't. The trade-offs are pretty much the same. You might gain stability, but you become liable for other states' screw-ups.

The Articles of Confederation? Then the American far right ought to be tickled pink over them!