Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/07/03/the_crumbling_case_against_dsk_258609.html
Sunday 3 July 2011
The Fix: John Ensign to retire in 2012
Nevada Sen. John Ensign (R) will retire rather than seek reelection in 2012, he announced Monday afternoon. The decision brings to an end a tumultuous several years that saw him go from one of the party's rising stars to persona non grata.
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2chambers: It's the economy (and the deficit, and the gas prices), stupid
A Gallup poll released Thursday shows that the number of Americans citing economic issues as the country's most important problem has reached a 12-month high, with the percentages of Americans concerned about the federal deficit and gas prices also spiking.
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Daily Kos Elections Weekend Digest
Wisconsin: Dems on cusp of big wins in Senate recall effort.
As we now move past the halfway point in 2011, we get a surprisingly data-heavy week for the early summer months, especially in an off year. Multiple states get looked at this week, including some surprising presidential numbers in Texas and Alaska, two states that are classically considered to be "red states."
We also got our latest look at the recall effort in the Wisconsin state Senate, as Daily Kos asked our polling partners at PPP to take a look at where races stood in three recalls of Republican officeholders. The news, on balance, is pretty darned good.
And, as always, there is much, much more:
- Democrats have to be pleasantly surprised about where they stand in a trio of high-profile open-seat Senate races, and one equally important open-seat Gubernatorial race. Just for funsies, one decidedly low-profile House race gets polled, as well.
- Is Michele Bachmann really on the move? A couple of pollsters confirm it, at least to some extent.
- We get updates in the money chase for two 2011 races, and both provide good news for the Democrats.
All this (and more!) as we stock up on the burgers and the fireworks in this holiday weekend edition of the digest.
Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/9tZngSZdRWA/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Weekend-Digest
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White House moving to repair troubled relationship with Cabinet
News this week of the first departure of a Cabinet secretary from the Obama administration comes amid a wide-ranging effort under the new chief of staff, William M. Daley, to repair badly frayed relations between the White House and the Cabinet.
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More revelations about Upper Big Branch mine explosion
Photo: Mine Safety and Health Administration
The New York Times reports that:
In a presentation in Beaver, W. Va., Mr. Stricklin offered a stinging indictment of Massey practices, saying the federal investigation by more than 100 people had been able to rule out the company?s assertion that the explosion on April 5, 2010, happened because of an event beyond its control: a huge inundation of gas.His findings matched those of the earlier report, conducted by a former federal mine safety chief, Davitt McAteer, which said that coal dust had been allowed to accumulate, spreading what had been a small ignition of methane through the mine and creating the deadliest mine blast in 40 years. ?We are further along than this just being our theory,? Mr. Stricklin said. ?This is our conclusion.?
Stricklin, the Mine Safety and Health Administration's administrator for coal, showed examples of how safety hazards noted on the mine's internal books were absent on the official reports seen by the government. The NYT notes that two people have been indicted for lying; those, however, are relatively low-level management. Senior management up to former CEO Don Blankenship haven't been indicted, though they were certainly responsible for the overall corporate culture of disregard for safety.
Also,
Massey managers appeared to have pressured workers to omit dangerous conditions from the official books, Mr. Stricklin said, a finding that echoed Mr. McAteer?s conclusion that workers who tried to report risks were intimidated.One fact seemed to buttress that conclusion: In the years leading up to the explosion, the federal mining watchdog received just one phone call on its anonymous safety hot line from a worker in the mine.
At the time of the explosion, Meteor Blades explained how unions can both make mines safer and lead to more citations for safety violations:
In fact, union mines may have a higher number of citations for safety violations than non-union mines. That is because union inspectors accompany Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors when they check out a mine. They are far less likely to pass over problem situations than are inspectors who are being pressed by company officials to finish up and get out of their hair so they can get back to digging. Union inspectors seek those citations because they want to prevent injury and death.
Workers have somewhere other than an anonymous tipline to go to with their safety concerns, and more assurance that those concerns will be heeded. That's just one of the reasons union mines are safer?and safer they are. A recent study by Stanford Law professor Alison Morantz found that:
My best estimates imply that overall, unionization predicts about a 17-33% drop in traumatic injuries and about a 33-72% drop in fatalities. However, unionization is also associated with higher total and non-traumatic injuries, suggesting that injury reporting practices differ substantially between union and nonunion mines. Unionization?s attenuating effect on the predicted frequency of traumatic injuries seems to have grown since the mid 1990s.
None of this brings back the 29 miners. But seeing just how far companies will go in putting profit over safety highlights the need not just for more aggressive government regulation and oversight of mine (and other workplace) safety, but for a workforce empowered to protect its own safety.
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Saturday 2 July 2011
Republicans push for investigation of Supreme Court Justice Kagan on Affordable Care Act
This is what Justice Elena Kagan might call chutzpah.
WASHINGTON ? Michele Bachmann is one of 49 House Republicans asking the House Judiciary Committee to investigate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan?s role in crafting a legal defense of President Obama?s health care law, warning such work could bar her from participating in deciding legal challenges to the law when they reaches the court.In a letter to the ranking committee members, the Republicans write, ?recently released Department of Justice documents indicate that Justice Kagan actively participated with her Obama Administration colleagues in formulating a defense? of the law. Kagan served as solicitor general, the administration?s top lawyer, prior to her appointment on the court. She has recused herself from hearing many cases because of her earlier participation in them.
That's the Republican response, apparently, to the increasingly serious scandal of Justice Clarence Thomas, and the calls from Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy for an investigation into those scandals.
Central to those scandals is the ongoing friendship between the Thomases and Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow, detailed a few weeks ago by the New York Times. That friendship has proved quite lucrative to Thomas and his wife Ginni, including $500,000 to allow Thomas?s wife to start a Tea Party group. A Tea Party group, Liberty Central, that has fought the Affordable Care Act. There's also the issue of the "$15,000 in payments from an anti-health care lobbying firm" Ginni Thomas started.
That would be called a major conflict of interest by anybody but Republicans. They are, of course, trying to cloud this scandal by throwing suspicion on Justice Kagan with this frivolous attack.
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