Did Barack Obama just call out Mike Rogers?

by: ImagineReality

Thu Oct 30, 2008 at 20:58:49 PM CDT

(Yes, he did. Yes, we can - promoted by herding old cats)

From Rachel Maddow's interview tonight with Barack Obama. I couldn't think of a better example of what Barack talks about, than Mike Rogers and Tull Chemical.

Rachel: Are there Homeland Security vulnerabilities that you think are fixable in ways that would also be good for the Economy?

Barack: Well you mentioned one, I think the electricity grid I think is important, I think that Chemical plant security is another. Where the chemical industry has been resistant to mandates when it comes to hardening their sites. But you know what? If you've got a chemical plant that threatens a hundred thousand or a million people in New Jersey, uh, we better have some say in terms of how serious they are about guarding that industry.

ImagineReality :: Did Barack Obama just call out Mike Rogers?

Rachel: Why wouldn't that have been fixed already?

Barack: Well I think it's a classic example of special interest lobbying. There has been resistance from the chemical industry, and it is this, again ideological predisposition that regulation is always bad, so stay out of the marketplace. Well, look, I am a strong believer in the free market, I am a strong believer in capitolism. But I am also a strong believer that there are some common goods, air, our water, making sure people are safe.

Could he be talking about places like Tull Corporation in Oxford, Alabama which creates the super poison Compound 1080?

That super poison has resulted in the death of 1000s of dogs in New Zealand. I don't think Mike Rogers and his contributor from Tull Corporation are up to code, either literally or ethically. From Huffington Post

And in a head-scratching case of "how'd that get there?" a bottle of Tull's Compound 1080 was discovered by the Iraq Study Group during their search for Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons in Iraq in 2003. If taking money from a donor whose poison was found in the hands of Hussein's regime wasn't troubling enough, Wigley's contribution to Roger's personal PAC was made shortly after a bill to ban Compound 1080 was introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) to the House Agriculture Committee, on which (you guessed it), Mike Rogers sits.

Much more in my previous post Mike Rogers' Chemical Weapons Scandal

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Did Barack Obama just call out Mike Rogers? | 2 comments

This is scary stuff (4.00 / 1)

The chemical produced in that shack (Compound 1080) is a Class I Toxin. It is colorless, odorless and easily dissolved in water. There is no antidote and 1 teaspoon can kill 100 people. How bad is it?

Once exposed, victims of 1080 poisoning die slowly. Symptoms are not immediate—they being to appear half an hour or more after exposure and may last from hours to days. Symptoms typically include a cycle of repeated vomiting, involuntary hyperextension of the limbs, convulsions, and collapse. Victims can also experience heightened anxiety, hallucination, intense pain, and deep depression. Compound 1080 is so potent that animals eating tainted carcasses—even months after that animal has died—can succumb to secondary poisoning.
...
In 1972 President Nixon issued Executive Order 11643 banning the use of poisons to control predators on Federal lands. Shortly thereafter, the EPA issued PR Notice 72-2 that cancelled all registered predator control uses of sodium fluoroacetate, sodium cyanide, and strychnine. Despite the ban, pre-1972 stockpiles were never recalled or destroyed and this poison is still illegally used today to kill wolves, coyotes, and eagles.

Richard Nixon banned it! Now that's bad.

And the only place in America this stuff is manufactured is in that shack next to a creek (!) in Alabama's 3rd Congressional District -- and incumbent Mike Rogers set up a PAC whose only individual donor is the guy who owns the Compound 1080 plant. Smell something fishy? Rogers ought to be thinking about the safety of the people who live near Tull Chemical and downstream of Tull Chemical and pushing to enact legislation to outlaw manufacture of Compound 1080 instead of letting in languish in his committee.

BTW, weren't there several more photographs of the Tull Chemical shack in another recent diary? Please provide a link if you know where they were.

Work harder and work smarter!

by: mooncat @ Thu Oct 30, 2008 at 23:13:17 PM CDT

I haven't seen one.. I got more info though (4.00 / 1)

I've got a firsthand account though, WARNING SENSITIVE VIEWERS should not watch the videos. I have a dog so I haven't even watched them through. I certainly don't want to see one die..:

I have filed complaints with ADEM and the FBI about the place and I have been trying to do what I can to help Mr. Fahy from Predator Defense and I even took pictures and video for Clyde Graf (in New Zealand) trying to help him with his next documentary about how 1080 is used in New Zealand; it is truly horrible stuff. This is only place in the world that makes Compound 1080; it is supposed to be in the list of the top ten most lethal agents on the planet and it was the only thing ever found in Iraq that qualified as a weapon of mass destruction. It has been talked up around here and they wrote about it in the Anniston Star and in Left In Alabama too. I have also written to the World Wildlife Fund, the League of Conversation Voters (which added it to their newsletter), the Sierra Club, stop1080poison.com, the Animal Planet, and even PETA trying to get someone to help me; some wrote back, most ignored me, some added me to their lists to ask for donations. You would not believe what an awful place Tull Chemicals is either. It is located in an old run down moldy shack right on Snow Creek; the place has a hole in the roof that you could crawl through and it is less than ½ mile from the biggest shopping area in town. It looks like it is on a septic tank too.

Now Mike Rogers told the people that he thought rural Wal-Mart’s were potential terrorist targets but he seems to be okay with this dump, located near AL-21, US-78, US-431, and I-20, having no practical security that I can see (I walked around this place for days taking pictures for over an hour at a time and no one asked me about it). I don’t see any cameras, there is an alarm sign but the fence is so loose on one side you can crawl under it and the hole in the roof is big enough to get in there. Given what they make it seems to me a terrorist would be more interested in this place than a store. It also has about 200 empty but sealed methanol barrels stacked up against the warehouse side of the building; seems to me if you blew it up at the right time you could dust half the town with the stuff they make in there. By the way, there is no cure for it once you have been poisoned and it does not take much to do in a person. I guess my point is that it would be easy to get in there, get hold of some of that stuff, and be gone in any of several different directions; that seems more of a threat than throwing a bomb at a Wal-Mart. That is why I went to the FBI and complained about this place. Of course he is not breaking the law and so they can’t do anything to him but they were nice and listened to my concerns. The bad part is that it looks like Rogers is trying to work to kill the ban on 1080. If you see what this stuff does you will likely think they should have shut this place down yesterday.

" This video is of Clyde Graf; the man I have tried to help in New Zealand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yJSvAe8SXw

This one shows a dog dying from 1080: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlC3yLShuRI"

by: ImagineReality @ Thu Oct 30, 2008 at 23:42:37 PM CDT

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