So, is that what happened? No. There was a party line vote because the politics of the USA are divisive and not bipartisan. Are the best people in office? It doesn't look like it to me. There are a bunch of partisans that don't really do any work, except, line up their votes against each other. No one is doing the work of governance.
By Isabelle Chapman
A predawn phone call woke Ron Bledsoe (click here) with a jolt. It was his supervisor telling him to come in,
Bledsoe dressed and drove an hour to the power plant, near Kingston, Tennessee, where he worked. He arrived at a shocking sight: A mountain of coal ash covering the road and a set of railroad tracks. It looked like the surface of the moon, he recalled....
...Coal ash, an umbrella term for the residue that’s left over when utilities burn coal, is one of the United States’ largest kinds of industrial waste. It contains metals — such as lead, mercury, chromium, selenium, cadmium and arsenic — that never biodegrade. Studies have shown these contaminants are dangerous to humans and have linked some to cancer, lung disease and birth defects....
...About 400 miles southwest of Kingston, a coal ash lagoon — which holds almost four times as much sludge as what spilled in Tennessee — is sitting in the Mobile–Tensaw Delta, one of the most biodiverse areas of the United States, with flora and fauna not known to exist anywhere else on Earth. Environmentalists, community members and scientists fear the pond could someday unleash a Kingston-like catastrophe on southern Alabama and say leaving the coal ash in the delta is shortsighted and dangerous.
...About 400 miles southwest of Kingston, a coal ash lagoon — which holds almost four times as much sludge as what spilled in Tennessee — is sitting in the Mobile–Tensaw Delta, one of the most biodiverse areas of the United States, with flora and fauna not known to exist anywhere else on Earth. Environmentalists, community members and scientists fear the pond could someday unleash a Kingston-like catastrophe on southern Alabama and say leaving the coal ash in the delta is shortsighted and dangerous.
“We’ve got an A-bomb up the river,” John Howard, who lives in Mobile County and said he has been fishing in southern Alabama for decades, said. “It’s just waiting to happen.”...
This is called an economy. It is a leisure economy, but, leisure economies are a good for people. The US Travel Association seems to think Americans should be using all their vacation days every year (click here).
By Watt Key
One Saturday in May, a traffic jam of boats converges upon a handful of river camps up in the Mobile Delta for the Poker Run.
The fishing camps that host the Poker Run (click here) are overrun with visitors on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. This particular camp flies the event’s logo, with a High Flying Chickasaw on a banner right under the American flag for all party-goers to see.
At some point, you may have noticed someone in passing wearing a ball cap displaying a hand over a triangle. The hand is closed except for the thumb and pointer finger, which are extended straight out. On one day a year, the Saturday just before Mother’s Day, you can also find several swamp camps, miles deep into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, flying a flag with the same sign. This hand signal is called the “High Flying Chickasaw, ” and the triangle represents the “Delta.” It’s the logo for the annual High Flying Chickasaw Poker Run, perhaps the most unusual party you’ll ever attend.
Kendall Dexter started the Poker Run in 2010, and it’s been going strong ever since. The event results in the busiest day of the year for the most remote area of Alabama, luring 50 or more boats into the swamps of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta for a day of adventure and socializing with a crowd that is about as diverse as they come. Kendall is one of the owners of Runamuck, a swamp camp four miles north of the Causeway. The Poker Run is his way of showing off an area that’s been special to him since he was a boy....
