Monday Reads 5/6/13 Robert Reich and Eugene Robinson and Closure from a Kent State Family!

Robert Reich lays bare the methods by which the Republicans destroy the regulations they disagree with at Truthdig.....


The Hollowing Out of Government

The West, Texas, chemical and fertilizer plant where at least 15 were killed and more than 200 injured a few weeks ago hadn’t been fully inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 1985. (A partial inspection in 2011 had resulted in $5,250 in fines.)

OSHA and its state partners have a total of 2,200 inspectors charged with ensuring the safety of over more than 8 million workplaces employing 130 million workers. That comes to about one inspector for every 59,000 American workers.

There’s no way it can do its job with so few resources, but OSHA has been systematically hollowed out for the years under Republican administrations and congresses that have despised the agency since its inception

In effect, much of our nation’s worker safety laws and rules have been quietly repealed because there aren’t enough inspectors to enforce them.

 That’s been the Republican strategy in general: When they can’t directly repeal laws they don’t like, they repeal them indirectly by hollowing them out — denying funds to fully implement them, and reducing funds to enforce them Continue Reading

Eugene Robinson makes a great point unless the voters feel the pain resulting from the stupidness of the sequestration nobody's going to the bargaining table! Again from Truthdig:


Obama Goes Wobbly

President Obama had the opportunity this week to make an irresponsible Congress face the consequences of its own dumb actions. For reasons I cannot fathom, he took a pass.

Rather than use the veto pen that must be gathering dust in some Oval Office drawer, Obama signed legislation that cushions air travelers from the effects of the crude, cruel budget cuts known as the “sequester.” The Federal Aviation Administration is now allowed to shuffle funds around to avoid furloughing air traffic controllers—thus avoiding flight delays.

At his news conference Tuesday, Obama said he agreed to sign the measure because the alternative was to “impose a whole bunch of delays on passengers.” That’s true—and it’s precisely why the president should have vetoed this quick-fix bill.

Remember how we got here. Republicans in the House refused to compromise on a far-reaching budget deal, insisting there had to be deep spending cuts but no new revenue. Both sides agreed to a package of across-the-board cuts that were designed specifically to be unacceptable. This Damoclean sword was supposed to provide an incentive for reaching a comprehensive deal. But the gambit failed. Continue Reading

The other day was the anniversary of the killings of the students at Kent State. Here'sthe story of  one of the victims sister's quest to find closure....from AlterNet:

UN To Decide If J Edgar Hoover Killed the Kids 

Gwen Ifell and Oliver Stone are at Kent State this weekend to commemorate the May 4, 1970 shootings at the university which claimed 4 lives and wounded 9 others. The celebrities will share their thoughts on what happened 43 years ago as the university dedicates it's new May 4 visitor center. Among the visitors dropping by to hear them speak and scrutinize the new center is Laurel Krause, sister of Allison Krause, the 19 year old freshman honor student, who was killed that day by members of the Ohio National Guard. The soldiers shot her where she stood - 343 feet from away from them - on the campus lawn....

.....Laurel and the other members of the KSTT have a lot to say on what they believe has been a 43 year cover up and spin job. From the time headlines broke that called the shooting victims " bums" and portrayed them as an unwashed violent rabble of questionable morality until this year when the UN became the first governing body willing to dig a little deeper into the official story, Laurel has keenly remembered the details of the day her sister died.  at Kent State Continue Reading