Duty to Warn
Two prominent labor organizations have sued the Bush administration for failing to protect nearly 20 million workers from job injuries. In 1999 the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed a rule requiring employers to pay for protective clothing, face shields, gloves and other equipment used by workers. But before the proposal became a standard Mr. Bush was elected to office. Since then, the Department of Labor has neglected to enact the standard and has consistently failed to ensure the safety of America’s working men and women.
The personal protective equipment (PPE) rule would require employers to pay for safety items that protect workers from job hazards. Many workers in the nation’s most dangerous industries, including meatpacking, poultry, and construction, who have high rates of injury, are forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of the failure of OSHA to implement the PPE rule. According to OSHA’s own figures, 400,000 workers have been injured and 50 have died owing to the lack of the PPE rule.
The personal protective equipment (PPE) rule would require employers to pay for safety items that protect workers from job hazards. Many workers in the nation’s most dangerous industries, including meatpacking, poultry, and construction, who have high rates of injury, are forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of the failure of OSHA to implement the PPE rule. According to OSHA’s own figures, 400,000 workers have been injured and 50 have died owing to the lack of the PPE rule.
“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. . .” from Beyond Vietnam speech, April 4th, 1967
I’m always personally touched when the King birthday holiday in January and the King April 4th assassination date come around. It was on that April 4th date in 1968 that I moved from concern about war and injustice to activism against them. His violent death motivated me to compose and post a petition to Congress that was signed by about half of the students at the college I was attending, Grinnell College in Iowa, before I sent it off to Washington, D.C. I’ve been active ever since on a wide range of issues.
I’m always personally touched when the King birthday holiday in January and the King April 4th assassination date come around. It was on that April 4th date in 1968 that I moved from concern about war and injustice to activism against them. His violent death motivated me to compose and post a petition to Congress that was signed by about half of the students at the college I was attending, Grinnell College in Iowa, before I sent it off to Washington, D.C. I’ve been active ever since on a wide range of issues.
"Two things only the people anxiously desire -- bread and circuses."
--Juvenal
Searching for masculine bliss incarnate?
Look no further than NFL football and its myriad machismo delights….
Fierce armor-clad gladiators applying wicked hits, battering each other relentlessly, engaging in bone-jarring collisions, and performing feats of near super-human athleticism….
Provocatively undressed cheerleaders manifesting our culture’s ideal of feminine perfection…..
Rivers of ice cold beer gushing forth to satiate our desire to numb the mind and lower inhibitions….
And lest we forget, the NFL provides us with “Man Law” to shield us from our long repressed anima, which is constantly poised to assail our grossly exaggerated masculinity ….
--Juvenal
Searching for masculine bliss incarnate?
Look no further than NFL football and its myriad machismo delights….
Fierce armor-clad gladiators applying wicked hits, battering each other relentlessly, engaging in bone-jarring collisions, and performing feats of near super-human athleticism….
Provocatively undressed cheerleaders manifesting our culture’s ideal of feminine perfection…..
Rivers of ice cold beer gushing forth to satiate our desire to numb the mind and lower inhibitions….
And lest we forget, the NFL provides us with “Man Law” to shield us from our long repressed anima, which is constantly poised to assail our grossly exaggerated masculinity ….
"Much of the government's behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."
BACKGROUND
For over 30 years I have sought justice from the United States Courts which have failed to provide me with any relief despite acknowledging numerous acts of Government misconduct. For example, after my trial, my lawyers issued Freedom of Information Act Requests ("FOIA") and discovered that the Government fabricated the ballistics evidence which it used at trial to argue that I shot the agents in cold blood. Once we revealed this egregious misconduct, the Government has had to admit on several occasions in open Court and before the Parole Commission that it could not prove I shot the agents and that it could not prove who shot the agents.
BACKGROUND
For over 30 years I have sought justice from the United States Courts which have failed to provide me with any relief despite acknowledging numerous acts of Government misconduct. For example, after my trial, my lawyers issued Freedom of Information Act Requests ("FOIA") and discovered that the Government fabricated the ballistics evidence which it used at trial to argue that I shot the agents in cold blood. Once we revealed this egregious misconduct, the Government has had to admit on several occasions in open Court and before the Parole Commission that it could not prove I shot the agents and that it could not prove who shot the agents.
As some people learned from the minimal and abusive media coverage, on December 8, 2006, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney introduced Articles of Impeachment (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/
node/16230) against President George W. Bush, making him the 10th president of the United States to face such action. Of course, McKinney was on her way out of office and thus more willing to challenge the Democratic Party leadership by upholding basic Constitutional principles.
Fewer people are aware that Congresswoman McKinney on December 27, 2006, entered into the Congressional Record (pages E2253 - 2255) extended remarks on impeachment that merit our close attention. Why would she do such a thing on her way out the door with no chance of reintroducing her bill in the new Congress? For one thing, she clearly would agree with the response Congressman John Conyers gave to Lewis Lapham when asked what he thought the point was of publishing a lengthy report laying out evidence of Bush's impeachable offenses. Conyers' response was: "to take away the excuse that we didn't know."
Fewer people are aware that Congresswoman McKinney on December 27, 2006, entered into the Congressional Record (pages E2253 - 2255) extended remarks on impeachment that merit our close attention. Why would she do such a thing on her way out the door with no chance of reintroducing her bill in the new Congress? For one thing, she clearly would agree with the response Congressman John Conyers gave to Lewis Lapham when asked what he thought the point was of publishing a lengthy report laying out evidence of Bush's impeachable offenses. Conyers' response was: "to take away the excuse that we didn't know."
This started out to be a reflection on my first year as voting integrity editor for OpEdNews. I do have a lot to say on that – just not right now. Instead, what's pushing itself forward in my mind is a piece on shopping. For anyone who knows me even superficially, this is very out of character. I hate shopping, even if the president has declared that it would be good for us and bad for the terrorists. I hate shopping so much that I look for any excuse not to do it. So what brings me to want to talk about it now?
Actually, what I really want to talk about are actions and consequences – a concept I've been stressing to my kids for the last two and a half decades. I'm a wholehearted subscriber to the theory, although that doesn't mean that following through is easy.
Actually, what I really want to talk about are actions and consequences – a concept I've been stressing to my kids for the last two and a half decades. I'm a wholehearted subscriber to the theory, although that doesn't mean that following through is easy.
The pardon of Richard Nixon by President Gerald Ford started this nation on the path that eventually gave us the Constitutional abuses of George W Bush. The current media frenzy supporting the pardon is both simplistic and illogical.
Ford pardoned Nixon before Nixon was brought to trial or convicted. The rule of law was ignored in favor of a double-standard where Presidents were not held accountable for law-breaking. The illegal activities of Nixon in the political sphere were an assault on American Democracy and should have been severely punished. Because of Ford’s outrageous pardon, Right-wing Republicans never understood how un-American the tactics of Nixon were. The current national Republican leadership is still Nixonian to their core!
Ford pardoned Nixon before Nixon was brought to trial or convicted. The rule of law was ignored in favor of a double-standard where Presidents were not held accountable for law-breaking. The illegal activities of Nixon in the political sphere were an assault on American Democracy and should have been severely punished. Because of Ford’s outrageous pardon, Right-wing Republicans never understood how un-American the tactics of Nixon were. The current national Republican leadership is still Nixonian to their core!
The year-end debate about the Iraq Study Group's unequivocal diagnosis of failure and its grim list of uncertain remedies is the real measure of the hopelessness of the mess America made. The ISG's 79 recommendations - some wise, some impolitic, some impossible - is itself a confession that all the choices are bad.
That's not the commission's fault: No one else has a persuasive idea either, least of all the president - the self-proclaimed decider - who started and ran this misbegotten war.
As Nick Carraway says about the privileged and insouciant Tom and Daisy at the end of "The Great Gatsby":
"They were careless people ... they smashed up things and creatures and then they retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made ...."
That's not the commission's fault: No one else has a persuasive idea either, least of all the president - the self-proclaimed decider - who started and ran this misbegotten war.
As Nick Carraway says about the privileged and insouciant Tom and Daisy at the end of "The Great Gatsby":
"They were careless people ... they smashed up things and creatures and then they retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made ...."
"If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone 'America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership'."
---Will Rogers
"It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them."
--Noam Chomsky
With the intensity of Dale Earnhardt, Jr vying for victory in the Daytona 500, America’s mainstream media outlets have been racing furiously to imbue the citizenry of the Empire with unusually large doses of heavily choreographed agitprop.
Another unindicted US war criminal has casually ridden off into a peaceful crimson sunset. In response, pundits, talking heads, reporters and various other infotainment personnel are working feverishly to perpetuate America’s collective delusion that we embody integrity, decency, and enlightened values.
---Will Rogers
"It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them."
--Noam Chomsky
With the intensity of Dale Earnhardt, Jr vying for victory in the Daytona 500, America’s mainstream media outlets have been racing furiously to imbue the citizenry of the Empire with unusually large doses of heavily choreographed agitprop.
Another unindicted US war criminal has casually ridden off into a peaceful crimson sunset. In response, pundits, talking heads, reporters and various other infotainment personnel are working feverishly to perpetuate America’s collective delusion that we embody integrity, decency, and enlightened values.
To fully grasp the allure of Barack Obama -- Democrat from Illinois and media sensation -- it helps to start with his two fellow senators from neighboring Indiana.
In 1996, Richard Lugar ran for president as a brainy, issue-oriented moderate and all around decent guy. He said back then that the voters had tired of the mud-throwing and cheap sound bites in Washington. "If they really want shouters and screamers," the dark-suited Lugar said, "then they'll vote for someone else."
Lugar lost the Republican nomination to Bob Dole, who then lost the election to Bill Clinton.
Indiana's junior senator, Democrat Evan Bayh, recently visited New Hampshire to weigh his prospects for a 2008 presidential run. He was flattened by crowds running to see Obama, and dropped out.
What was Obama saying that other centrists would not have? Absolutely nothing.
Obama talked about ending the nastiness in Washington and taking personal responsibility, and that government can't solve all problems -- platitudes emptied of all controversy. If anything, his colleagues from Indiana would surely have offered more exciting commentary.
In 1996, Richard Lugar ran for president as a brainy, issue-oriented moderate and all around decent guy. He said back then that the voters had tired of the mud-throwing and cheap sound bites in Washington. "If they really want shouters and screamers," the dark-suited Lugar said, "then they'll vote for someone else."
Lugar lost the Republican nomination to Bob Dole, who then lost the election to Bill Clinton.
Indiana's junior senator, Democrat Evan Bayh, recently visited New Hampshire to weigh his prospects for a 2008 presidential run. He was flattened by crowds running to see Obama, and dropped out.
What was Obama saying that other centrists would not have? Absolutely nothing.
Obama talked about ending the nastiness in Washington and taking personal responsibility, and that government can't solve all problems -- platitudes emptied of all controversy. If anything, his colleagues from Indiana would surely have offered more exciting commentary.