Safety Wars

Safety Wars: Cornell — Accountability Is Necessary, Prevention Takes More In this 33-minute Safety Wars episode, host Jim examines the Cornell sexual assault case — dubbed the "Cornell Seven" — through a safety-investigation and human-organizational-performance (HOP) lens. Drawing on a Slate article by consultant Hannah Scotland, Pulsel argues that punishment alone won't prevent the next catastrop...

September 30 Hijacks, Hazmat, and Half-Truths In this September 30 episode, host Jim covers the heroic Israeli plumber who landed a hijacked Flydubai flight after learning controls from a TV show, drawing parallels to post-9/11 aviation vigilance. He reports that OSHA's 2026 penalty inflation adjustment is canceled due to a federal funding lapse that prevented BLS from releasing required October d...

This episode covers OSHA's citation of a Florida pipeline contractor after a fatal struck-by incident, willful lockout/tagout violations at a New Jersey car wash, and $65 million in community college training grants. Jim shares personal stories about noise survey failures at a warehouse that led to costly settlements, and an indoor air quality audit that debunked a cancer cluster at a law firm. Th...

Jim from Safety Wars covers soaring diesel prices, Trump's UN speech on Iran, and rising tanker insurance in the Strait of Hormuz. EPA updates include $82 million for San Francisco Bay watersheds, lead cleanups in Indiana and Montana, and a Clean Air Act settlement in Puerto Rico. For National Preparedness Month, Jim dives deep into disaster readiness: water storage strategies, emergency food and...

Methylene Chloride, Muddy Rivers, and Diesel Spikes **Summary:** Jim  is back from Vermont where he's working an EPA hazardous waste cleanup near the Beetlejuice filming location. The episode dives into the Fifth Circuit's overturning of EPA's methylene chloride rule, explaining why odor is an unreliable warning for the carcinogenic paint stripper and why air sampling—not your nose—should guide wo...

On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Jim Poesl of Safety Wars shares his personal experience witnessing the attacks from Hoboken, then examines their lasting safety and policy legacy. He recounts the chaotic Ground Zero recovery, the lack of respirators, and Christine Todd Whitman's EPA assurances that the air was safe—despite warnings from industrial hygienist Jeffrey Olcott. Jim questions accountabi...

Star Trek at 60: The Final Frontier Is Us This episode of Safety Wars opens with Jim reflecting on attending the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, NY for the franchise's 60th anniversary. He shares a written tribute arguing Star Trek was never really about space — it was about humanity's potential for cooperation over conquest. Drawing on a 2010 fan survey and the show's diverse c...

Safety Wars 9-3-2026 When We Fail to Watch Out for Each Other Jim opens Safety Wars discussing the Lindsay Clancy postpartum mental health trial, arguing society readily condemns individual mental health crises while ignoring the ~5,000 annual workplace deaths caused by negligent leaders. He connects this to broader failures in caring for coworkers, wives, and family. News segments cover an Iran-U...

This episode of Safety Wars opens with disaster preparedness tips for National Preparedness Month, covering assessing hazards, building emergency plans, and stocking 72–96 hours of supplies at home and work. A quick news roundup follows, touching on US-Iran tensions, the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong's guilty plea, Nepal's landslide death toll, and NASA's newly launched...

 Safety Wars – August 26, 2026 (Simple Sabotage Edition): How Saboteurs Hide in Plain Sight at Work Jim Poesl opens with FSN Radio News: Meta's $18B child-safety settlement with 29 states, Canada's retaliatory tariffs on the US, Prince Harry and Meghan's return to Britain, and new US sanctions on Iran. He then digs into RFK Jr.'s public clash with PA Governor Shapiro over measles deaths and vaccin...

Safety Wars 8-25-2026 Dolly's Legacy, OSHA's Deadly Kettle Fines This episode of Safety Words opens with a tribute to Dolly Parton, who passed away at 80, highlighting her advocacy for literacy and education. The show then covers international news: US Treasury sanctions targeting entities tied to Iranian oil smuggling and nuclear procurement, Pakistan's efforts to broker US-Iran peace talks, and...

Safety Wars 8-19-2026 AI Data Centers, Flock Cameras, and the War on Common Sense Summary: This episode of Safety Wars covers a wide-ranging mix of safety culture, tech policy, and current events. Jim opens with disclaimers and housekeeping before discussing how to handle difficult or psychopathic personalities in the workplace—stressing immediate, professional responses rather than escalating to...

**Summary:** This episode of Safety Wars opens with a call to speak up—both in society and on the job—before diving into news headlines covering Iran-U.S. tensions, the Meta youth mental health trial, and Ukraine's drone strikes on Moscow. The host then shifts to the core theme: safety professionals often become "victims of their own success," letting bullying or intimidation from workers go unadd...

Summary: This Safety Wars episode covers Trump's executive order overhauling childhood vaccine recommendations, splitting the MMR shot into three doses and cutting recommended vaccines from 18 to 11. Only six vaccines retain full recommendations. Critics like Senator Bill Cassidy call the order unscientific and dangerous, while the White House cites comparisons to peer nations. The host revisits a...

Title: Who Enforced the Pandemic? COVID-19 Accountability and the Safety Professionals Left Behind Summary: Jim Poesl examines Dr. Fauci's Senate hearing on COVID-19, where he invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times despite a federal pardon. Rather than pursuing "pain for pain," Jim argues real accountability requires harder questions about evidence, authority, and decision-making. He critiques how...

Summary: In this special live episode, Jimmy Poesl reacts to Dr. Fauci's Senate testimony, where Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment despite having immunity and a pardon. Poesl argues safety professionals were unfairly blamed for enforcing pandemic policies they didn't create, damaging trust between workers and safety staff. He critiques how COVID communication ignored established respira...

Jim opens Safety Wars with legal disclaimers before riffing on simulation theory, prompted by a Safety FM symposium with Todd Conklin, Nick Weatherly, and Jay Allen, exploring manipulation, behavior-based safety vs. human/organizational performance, and coincidences suggesting we're "living in a simulation." He covers Supreme Court security concerns tied to threats against justices, then transitio...

Safety Wars 7-9-2026  Safety Wars Recap: Paperwork, Fitness Tests, and Flock Cameras Jim  opens Safety Wars with disclaimers on OSHA/EPA citations, then covers severe flooding in the Northeast, including the washed-out Palisades Parkway near West Point — a reminder to know local roads and have backup routes. The main segment focuses on safety paperwork, invoking Marshall McLuhan's idea that "the m...

Safety Wars 7-8-2026 Safe+Sound Week, HHS News and the Presidential Fitness Test Returns im opens this July 8th episode of Safety Words with a legal disclaimer about citations and news sourcing, then previews Monday's live Reality Shift event in Orlando featuring Nick Weatherly, Todd Conklin, and Jay Allen. He highlights OSHA's Safe+Sound Week (August 10-16), detailing program challenges and benef...

Whale Rescue, Building Collapse & the "Missing Middle": Safety Wars Breaks Down This Week's Wildest Headlines Jim kicks off with a wild story from his home turf in New Jersey — Carteret firefighters had to be rescued after their Marine Unit boat was struck and sunk by a surfacing whale near the Arthur Kill. He riffs on the irony that whales and even pods of them are now returning to waters he...

Safety Wars Live 6-30-2026 Monsanto v. Darnell, Birthright Citizenship, and Why Demographics Are Destiny On this episode of Safety Wars Jim opens with a legal deep-dive into Monsanto Company v. Darnell , a Supreme Court decision (6-3, opinion by Kavanaugh) holding that federal FIFRA labeling requirements preempt Missouri state tort claims requiring Roundup cancer warnings, since the EPA had approv...

Summary: In this episode of Safety Wars, host Jim opens with a personal note about his son's middle school moving-up ceremony before diving into the week's regulatory news. He covers a Department of Labor consent order requiring three Maine sports bars to pay over $51,000 in back wages for wage and child labor violations, and a $1.73 million recovery for 1,666 workers at a Ford EV battery plant wh...

Safety in Context — Explaining the "Why" to Build Compliance In this episode of Safety Wars, Jim  opens with reflections on a Father's Day baseball tournament before diving into a core safety philosophy: the critical importance of explaining the "why" behind safety rules. Using real-world examples — a fatal confined space incident at the Valero refinery in Delaware, mercury vapor exposure on job s...

In this episode of Safety Wars, host Jim opens with personal reflections — marking four years since his father's passing and celebrating his Aunt Sophie's 90th birthday. He then dives into a Wall Street Journal story about a fermented food diet sweeping through Trump's cabinet, including RFK Jr., JD Vance, and others swearing by sauerkraut and grass-fed meat for dramatic health results. Jim pivots...