By Reece Rushing
The Center For American Progress

A long read but well worth the time, as Mr. Rushing lays out his case for more evidence of the incompetency of George W. Bush as his administration’s appointments of worthless cronies and the appalling record of Americans safety regarding our infrastructure (Minnesota Bridge collapse), pollution, the environment and food safety standards. - JS

Introduction

The collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah serves as a tragic reminder of the risks faced by mine workers across the country every day. Among industrial sectors, the mining industry has the second highest rate of workplace fatalities. Last year, 47 coal miners were killed on the job, the most in more than a decade, including 12 at the Sago Mine in West Virginia.

Mine workers deserve a government that is on their side. But under the conservative ideology of the Bush administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has become more responsive to mine operators seeking to avoid oversight than to the safety of miners.

Shortly after taking office, President Bush appointed David Lauriski, a longtime coal industry executive, as head of MSHA. Under Lauriski’s leadership, MSHA moved to weaken a host of health and safety standards and scale back penalties for violations. In 2005, Lauriski resigned from his position shortly after the Labor Department’s inspector general found that MSHA management had improperly awarded no-bid contracts.

Lauriski was replaced by controversial recess-appointment Richard Stickler, also a former coal industry executive, who as head of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety earned a reputation for going easy on industry violators of mine safety standards. At a confirmation hearing following the Sago tragedy, Stickler called safety standards in place at the time of the accident “adequate.”

Congress subsequently passed the MINER Act to address deficiencies exposed at Sago and protect miners in emergency situations. But Stickler has shown little urgency in implementing the law’s safety measures, which seek to ensure that miners who are trapped underground are able to communicate with the surface, can be quickly and readily located by rescue teams, and have breathable air and access to “refuges” where they can await rescue. As Crandall Canyon makes clear, mines are still far from meeting these objectives.

read more HERE

by Larry C Johnson
cross posted from No Quarter

America and the world are entering an extremely dangerous and volatile period and it will be up to senior U.S. military officials and members of Congress to stop the rush to a new war with Iran. The evidence is alarming and disturbing and today’s speech by President Bush before the Veteran’s of Foreign War should not be dismissed as mere political posturing. According to AFP:

US President George W. Bush branded the Islamic Republic “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” citing its backing of Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Shiite fighters killing US troops in Iraq.

“And Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,” he told the American Legion veterans group.

Bush’s claims are disingenuous and dishonest.
The causus belli for the war in Bushworld consists of terrorism, attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Let me address these in order.

Terrorism

It is true that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. However, while Iran has American blood on its hands, Al Qaeda-a Sunni movement-not Iran has killed more Americans in terrorist attacks. Nonetheless, Iran pioneered the use of terrorism as an extension of its foreign policy towards the United States. Iran, at a minimum, had a direct role in two attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon in the 1980s, the kidnapping and murder of CIA Chief William Buckley, the kidnapping and murder of U.S. Marine Colonel Rich Higgins, the execution on board TWA 847 of U.S. Navy Diver Robert Stethem, and the bombing of the U.S. military housing complex in Dharan, Saudi Arabia in June 1996. And it paid what price? Nothing of any consequence. President Ronald Reagan, President George Bush Senior, and President Bill Clinton failed to mount a credible response to these attacks. One could argue that Iran could assume it can attack the United States without fear of retaliation.

read more HERE

By Philip Weiss
New York Magazine

He hides, but craves attention. He is prurient and prudish, powerful and paranoid, an icon of the right who seems obsessed with making Hillary Clinton our next president. And he has America caught in the grip of his contradictions.

My mission is to find Matt Drudge, and I-m failing. I-ve e-mailed the author of the Drudge Report countless times and written letters to him at the two places he owns in Miami to say I-m coming to town and want to talk, but when I check into my hotel there’s no note from him at the desk. It’s late Sunday night, and I turn on his weekly radio show in the room. Drudge is on his favorite theme, surveillance cameras everywhere, his belief that Google wants to spy on us and pass it all on to the government. At such times, Drudge comes off as a hunted man. “I just don-t want to be watched when I-m visiting the Lincoln Memorial, going through Penn Station, or walking down Hollywood Boulevard. So many cameras everywhere. And now you start feeding that into some kind of database and start linking it up with a Fascist company like Google? This is a serious issue. And it’s not given serious consideration-when it is a total transformation of our society and our liberties. What gives you a right? Why are you watching me? People say, well, what do you have to hide, Drudge? What do you have to hide? You know what? The burden should be on them. I think I have a right not to be watched.”

I call in to the show a few times: 1-866-4-drudge. Busy. You can often hear Drudge at his keyboard even as he’s on air, so I drop him another e-mail with a clever headline like something on the Drudge Report. Then the next morning I go round to his two addresses. It’s breaking my word. I-d e-mailed Drudge, “Not Stalking You; Coming to Miami,” because I know how feverish he is about the prying press. When Lindsay Lohan had her accident in Beverly Hills in May, Drudge said it was caused by violent “stalkerazzi.” He said, “That’s probably why she was drunk and higher than a kite … because she has no life and no privacy … they create their villains and then they report on them.” Not that this philosophy keeps Drudge from posting paparazzi pictures on the Drudge Report, or milking the Paris Hilton drama.

read more HERE

This great graphic is from Louisiana blogger Suspect Device. (Thanks to Blue Gal for the tip.)

The Washington Post has an interactive multimedia section that shows past and current photos of the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. They also report:
Read more »

Sometimes you hear the squeak of a hinge when someone steps out of the closet. Then there are those times when the entire door gets booted down!

Of course this is going to be a photo-op for Rudy! I don’t think, since he announced his intentions to run for president, that he’s not brought up 9/11 during any of his many speech engagements. Hell! According to Rudy, he spent more time at ground zero than anyone else!

But, we must give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he has been attending the ground zero ceremonies every year since that tragic day. It will be interesting, though, to see the fancy footwork at play this year. Oh, he’ll work the ceremony. He’ll work it good!

Some balk at Giuliani role in 9/11 ceremony

Questions over appropriateness now that he’s a GOP presidential candidate

Each year since Sept. 11, 2001, Rudolph W. Giuliani has spoken at New York City’s commemorations of the attacks. At past ceremonies he has read off the names of some of the dead, given readings by Lincoln and Churchill, and recited poetry.

This year Mr. Giuliani is no longer just the former mayor who led New York in the wake of the attacks, but a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. So when the city announced that Mr. Giuliani would speak next month at the sixth anniversary of the attacks, some relatives of people who died on Sept. 11 said they were dismayed, some because they feared his presence might inject politics into the event and others because they had been critical of him in the past.

“I think it’s disgraceful that he’s going to be there,” said James Riches, a deputy fire chief who lost his son Jimmy in the attacks, and who said that he faulted Mr. Giuliani as not giving firefighters the proper equipment before or after the attacks. “It’s a photo-op for him.”

Michael Cooper, The New York Times

Source: MSNBC.com

And no doubt, against the will of the American people, he’ll get it.

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

The request — which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said.

More at the Washington Post

Did he just come right out and say we’re going to attack Iran?

From Bush’s speech to the American Legion yesterday:

Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people. Members of the Qods Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons, including sophisticated IEDs. And with the assistance of Hezbollah, they’ve provided training for these violent forces inside of Iraq. Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian’supplied munitions have increased in the last few months — despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq.

Some say Iran’s leaders are not aware of what members of their own regime are doing. Others say Iran’s leaders are actively seeking to provoke the West. Either way, they cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities. (Applause.)

Continue reading at SFBayview

From the Financial Times:

Fresh turbulence hit financial markets on Tuesday as warning signs mounted for the US housing market and fears about the fallout from the crisis in credit markets drove volatility.

Sentiment darkened on the news that Federal Reserve policymakers had acknowledged that deteriorating financial conditions “might require a policy response” even before it moved to staunch a liquidity crisis by lowering the rate at which it lends to banks.

The S&P 500 suffered its worst day for three weeks, falling by about 2.3 per cent while investors fled to the safety of treasuries. The dollar fell Y1.5 against the yen to Y114.3, close to its low for the year.

New figures suggested an acceleration in house price depreciation while consumer confidence suffered its worst fall since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

by Jennifer Loven
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS - President Bush said Tuesday he wanted to celebrate the spirit of New Orleans. He chose to do so with Leah Chase, considered this proud, still’struggling city’s Queen of Creole, known as much for her famous cooking as her warm personality.

The president and his wife, Laura, dined with about two dozen others at her restaurant, Dooky Chase, a landmark eatery that was once a gathering place for civil rights leaders and has become famous for traditional Creole cooking. Around the large square table with Bush, federal, state and local officials mixed with athletes, artists, developers and others.

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees was at the table, as was musician Irvin Mayfield, for a long list of dishes such as crab soup, grilled redfish, shrimp Clemenceau, chicken with oyster dressing and jambalaya.

Bush called them all “quiet heroes who have helped bring optimism and hope to New Orleans” after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina two years ago Wednesday. He saluted Chase and her husband, Dooky Chase II, who have renovated the restaurant with its elegant dining rooms, impressive art collection and brilliantly colored walls and plan to finally reopen from the storm’s damage in a couple of weeks.

“I know you would want me to say that the food here is about as good as anyplace here in New Orleans,” Bush said. “I will say it.”

The president and his wife are to spend Wednesday’s anniversary at a New Orleans charter school and a community center down the Gulf Coast in Bay St. Louis, Miss. It is Bush’s 15th visit to the region since the storm but only his second since last year’s anniversary, as the issue has moved further off the president’s radar.

read more HERE

United Press International

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Aug. 29 (UPI) — A newborn boy rescued after his mother allegedly tried to flush him down a toilet at the fast-food restaurant where she worked was expected to survive.

The premature infant, born at about 32 weeks gestation, was listed in critical-but’stable condition Tuesday, The Kansas City Star reported.

The 20-year-old McDonald’s employee gave birth in the restaurant women’s room Monday afternoon, police said. Someone called an ambulance and when paramedics arrived she allegedly told them she had “flushed three times but it would not go down,” the newspaper said.

A paramedic then found the baby face down in the water with no pulse and not breathing. He and his partner revived the child.

Police said the mother told the ambulance crew she didn’t know she was pregnant or that she had given birth. But police said they had learned she previously told friends she was pregnant.

Girls Gone Wild………. and Mom couldn’t keep up with them! (never thought I’d see the day) I’ll tell you what. Chicago is one of the coolest cities on earth. It just is…….

Our server was down yesterday. Thanks to Buck for time spent finding out what was wrong. All’s good now…..back up and running. Well……maybe not running….I’m crawling after 5 days with the wild bunch……but we’re back.

“Since I Lost My Baby”
The Temptations