You forgot Veteran.
“There is a lot more to this union action than meets the eye.
The Longview port is also a coal terminal. Right now, the coal is on hold for a permit paperwork violation.
While the Longview coal terminal is on hold, SSA, the company that is protesting the grain shipments from Longview, are pushing hard for a terminal of their own in Whatcom County, in a special economic zone that will have little to no local oversight. That terminal will be a “Gateway” terminal. In case you aren't familiar with Gateways, they are part of the UN Agenda 21 Wildlands project. They are also what Patty Murray's bill, S.942 are intended to fund. You know, the multi-modal infrastructure projects that Obama keeps saying that we need? Anyway, the only real profit on coal is in the terminals and SSA wants it all.
SSA is fully owned by CARRIX, the largest cargo handling company in the world. Goldman Sachs is the majority stockholder of CARRIX. The rail company that will carry the cargo to the Gateway terminal is BNSF, Warren Buffet's company and the coal is owned by Peabody, from the Powder River Basin. It's sub-bituminous coal supposedly headed to China, except that China says that no one should count on them for any long term purchase contracts.
The pressure to build this terminal has come straight from the White House. Richard Trumka, as the former head of the United Mine Workers, wants this badly, but the project may be running into some problems.
Oh, and did I mention that the husband of the WA State Senator, Patty Murray, has been a life time employee of SSA?
There is so much more to this story than what I have written here. It has torn the Democrat party in two, the unions vs the environmentalists and has caused problems for the GOP, who were tight with the Building and Industry people and were supporting a Democrat project for the alleged jobs.
Oh, there's more. As I mentioned, the pressure for the state officials to facilitate this Gateway Terminal came straight from the White House and it is widely thought that in exchange for her co-operation, the outgoing Democrat Governor, Christine Gregoire will be offered a seat on the NLRB.
I already mentioned that WA State Senator, Patty Murray's, husband is a lifetime employee of SSA, but I forgot to mention that the other Senator, Maria Cantwell, who was a founding member of the Apollo Alliance and big supporter of the Sierra Club, worked to facilitate the approval of a receiving terminal to be built in China and operated by SSA.
....and that is really just an introduction to what has been happening on the left coast, while Obama’s EPA tried to shut down all the coal fired power plants on the East Coast. I am so glad that SSA got arrogant and stepped over the line so that the whole country could get a look at what is happening on the West Coast.”
Can anyone substantiate these claims? Seems incredible, like some sort of movie plot (starring Matt Damon, of course.)