A story on NPR's Morning Edition today held an interesting nugget of information on Colorado's possible role in how a President Barack Obama would respond to the growing humanitarian and legal crisis at the controversial U.S. detention camp on Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Say you were a blogger and had written, oh, say, 20 or more stories on issues related to the use of Monsanto's rBST in milk. And say each time you wrote about the issue, for example, that the Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture had created a fake consumer committee to assess milk labeling, you were asked: "So what's the story with rBST / rBGH?"

How do you explain why rBST in milk is a problem? Now there is an easy way to explain it all.

Not just pretty good! Absolutely great! God's gift! According to Citi / Abertis Infraestructuras - the two companies who have formed a partnership to lease the PA Turnpike. And I am assuming that, given all the press releases and the hyper-aggressive marketing by these two, the benefit goes to Citi / Abertis.

It is just amazing what these guys are doing to sell the public on this lease!

Only a true chickenhawk president and his chickenhawk advisors could have brought the US military so low. The story is just pouring out from GAO this week in report after report. Yep! It's the shame ol' shame'ol!

It is all to easy to bash government agencies reflexively. So I want to make it clear that, in my view, all federal agencies are struggling now as a result of Bush administration mismanagement and malmanagement. But well before Bush was elected, these agencies that regulate the workplace have all been underfunded, year after year, and subject to attacks by judges who refused to enforce the law, a subject I discussed in a multi-part series last year. link to part I

That said,

What a change in oversight hearings when you have a Democratic majority. Pre-2007, all was well in workplace safety - or at least given the dearth of legislative notice you would think that. But now?

It seems as if there is a hearing every week or two, or even less. Just a couple days ago, I reported on a hearing on Under-Reporting Workplace Injuries and Illnesses.

Which are worse, the provisions included in the new FISA Amendments Act or the ones that aren't there but should be?

An investigative report by Naomi Zeveloff at The Colorado Independent:

Two months after a mass raid of a polygamist Mormon compound in Texas piqued the nation's interest, a similar sect in southern Colorado is flourishing — and in fact some speculate that the tiny town of Westcliffe in southwest Colorado may become the next polygamist nerve center in the United States. A compound there already hosts an estimated 30 members of the breakaway Mormon sect, and an aide to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has already shelled out more than $1 million for nearly 200 acres of land nearby.

The House Education and Labor Committee last week held a hearing on the underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses and issued a well-researched report on the same subject. There are a number of reasons workplace injuries and illnesses are underreported, and this study discusses them. But among them, I want to pay attention first to willful actions by the Bush administration to prevent reporting and actions to prevent injuries and then to a brief overview of key points.

This is the third of a series of three posts concerning the three GAO reports on privacy rights released June 18. The first post, which lays out the background, may be found here.

This is the second of two posts discussing the new GAO reports on how the federal government is protecting our privacy. The first report may be found here. It provides an overview of the relevant laws that affect privacy and makes recommendations for legal reform. This report examines how agencies interpret and apply those laws.

On Wednesday, June 18, 2008, GAO released three reports concerning how agencies are protecting privacy rights. These reports were issued April 19, May 30, and June 18 but not released to the public until June 18. There can be various reasons for such a delay, but one reason appears to be strong agency objections to the results of the two delayed reports.

Last month I reported on court actions that were taking away our rights to protections from unsafe food, drugs, products, and medical care in a three-part series and one follow-up piece. The links are at the end of this piece, but if you want that background, feel free to be a bottom-reader. As I said in those pieces: This is huge.

Now Senator Patrick Leahy has taken action to address this miscarriage of justice / Bush Supreme Court power grab / payback to industry.

Now that more than a week has passed since Tim Russert died, it's time to look objectively at whether or not he really was such a great "journalist", if he was even a journalist at all.

If you go to MediaMatters.org and look up Russert, over 540 items come up. Most of these are examples of Russert's distortions, dishonesty, and downright bad "journalism".

[Cross-posted with permission from the Disaster Accountability Blog]

Yesterday, the Washington Post timidly reported that floods in Iowa and other Midwestern states may not be "natural" disasters . However, scientists have long warned that worsening floods are the predictable result of human intervention - of floodplains covered with impermeable concrete and stripped of vegetation; of river channels forced up and out of their beds by constricting artificial levees; of sprawling development offering more victims to raging rivers. The article's thesis is neither new nor controversial, but the story does include a revelation that deserves immediate, national attention.

Last summer, I attended a meeting of Forest Serice personel, anglers, local elected officials and residents concerned about the destructive impacts of Off-Road Vehicles (ORVs). A local woman, particularly upset with ORVs in her neck of the woods, explained, accurately, that ORVs rip off vegetation that holds the soil in place, they hardend the soil thereby increasing the speed at which water ran out of the forest further increasing erosion. The streams near ORV areas were being filled with sediment and local fish populations were being impacted. Some local homes were even in danger of flooding from the ORV use! She had much to add. It was clear that she had spent alot of time out on the land observing the very destructive erosive impacts of ORVs.

It was then that a member of the county commission make a shocking statement: "But...ORVs don't cause erosion. Water does!"

So, I found myself equally shocked the other day when I heard a man on the radio say that the destruction of the native midwestern ecosystem had nothing to do with the flooding.

'It's the water!!'

What Republicans and a few weak-kneed Democrats have been calling a "compromise" on the (still secret) FISA bill isn't really a compromise. Whatever Bond, Rockefeller, and Hoyer eventually do produce, it's certain to be a de facto reward to telecoms for violating the law and simultaneously conspiring to conceal the Bush administration's violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In fact, the whole purpose of retroactive immunity is to thwart lawsuits that threaten to expose the details of the Republican administration's lawlessness.

So let's stop calling it a "compromise" when all it does is compromise the integrity of Congress.

An op-ed by Colleen M. Kelley, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, highlights the need for legislation that gives government workers better protections from retaliation for reporting violations of law.

The fear of retaliation is real. In a survey by the Office of Personnel Management of its own employees, only 51 percent said they felt they could safely disclose a suspected violation of law, rule or regulation without fear of reprisal. It is startling that half of OPM’s employees do not feel safe when making a disclosure covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act. (Federal Times)

Excerpts from the minutes of an Oct. 2, 2002 meeting between Jonathan Fredman, chief counsel of the CIA Counter-terrorism Center, and top staff at Guantanamo prison including the chief counsel, Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, and David Becker:

LTC Beaver We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] is around. It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques. We must have the support of the DOD.

Becker We have had many reports from Bagram about sleep deprivation being used.

LTC Beaver True, but officially it is not happening. It is not being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern...

Don’t be fooled, amigos. All this talk about offshore oil drilling and the price of gas and the pump is a bunch of BS.

The oil and gas industry, buoyed by their Right-Wing minions are on a coordinated and well-thought out mission to end the twenty-six year old moratorium on off-shore oil and gas drilling. The goal? To at once embarrass Barack Obama, take down the Congressional Democrats, increase corporate profit and further drive up the price of energy.

(Cross-posted from Daily Kos) U.S. District Judge Kollar-Kotelly ruled today that the White House's Office of Administration does not have to release documents regarding White House e-mail practices. The judge's decision is available in its entirety (as a PDF file) here. At the same time, Judge Kollar-Kotelly dismissed the complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. (Order, PDF]

Just because you haven't heard much lately about the Monsanto campaign to take away our right to know how our milk is produced does not mean nothing is happening. In fact, in recent months, in state after state, Monsanto is continuing to push.

This time the state is New York. If you are in New York and want to know whether your milk comes from cows who are not given artificial hormones, then you need to get your comments in immediately. Details below.

Three years ago, we let you know the dangers of Blogging at Work? What you need to know

Here are the results from a new study on how U.S. companies treat employee email. The full report covers Europe as well. All I can say is: "It’s an e-jungle out there!"

This may be the most important - and telling - two lines ever in a GAO report on the Global War on Terrorism - out this afternoon:

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We requested comments from DOD, but none were provided.

Well, it's only a report about the taxpayers' dollars and how they are being spent . . . and how the GWOT is progressing.

Up today at GAO two new studies on our food supply and our international supply chains.

Want to know the hit to the bottom line if an employee gets AIDS? OSHA has a new e-toy you can play with.

Among the most popular sports in the US is making fun at the incompetence of public workers. The default position, drilled into us by the Far Right, is that government can do nothing right.

But the next time you blame government, think again. That government worker or agency you blame is more likely a private enterprise.

From the Dept of I'm Losing Faith in the American Public:

Check out the lame-o book recommendations from a recent poll conducted by Zogby International.

Monsanto is in this picture, as in all things. The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists just awarded John Henshaw one of its highest awards for promoting workplace safety. Of the reasons for this award, they said:

Yesterday evening John McCain gave a speech near New Orleans with the goal of seizing Barack Obama's limelight and grabbing some of the mantle of 'change' for himself.

The Republican nominee-in-waiting plans to draw contrasts with Obama on a range of issues and argue that the Democrat offers the wrong kind of change while he offers the right kind. An advertising campaign is expected to reinforce that message in the coming weeks.

Many have commented about the obnoxious message and the equally unpleasant manner in which McCain delivered that message. Some have also pointed out how the episode highlights McCain's lack of judgment; it was an act of hybris to ask voters to compare his own negative and ad hominem speech to Obama's gracious and positive one on the very day the latter clinched his party's nomination.

The cringe-worthy material is so abundant however that few have noted the stunning hypocrisy on McCain's part. John McCain has a stark record of ignoring NOLA and opposing substantive disaster-relief legislation for two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina - right up until the spring of this year. And yet it is New Orleans that he chooses to use as his backdrop when he wishes to portray himself as the true candidate of "change".

Barack Obama had an earnest chat with Joe Lieberman on the margin of the Senate floor today, with reporters craning their necks trying to catch the exchange. Looks like the party's presumptive nominee gave the ankle-biter from Connecticut something close to a dressing down.

You may or may not have heard the gripping reports NPR's Daniel Zwerdling did in 2004 of detainee abuse. Now that is a guy who knows what reporting is all about. You can find them here. Today GAO released a brief report on ICE's treatment of detainees.

First the glossary:

The Department of State’s (State) Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program’s objectives are to provide partner nations with counterterrorism training and equipment, improve bilateral ties, and increase respect for human rights. State’s Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT) provides policy guidance and its Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Office of Antiterrorism, Assistance (DS/T/ATA), manages program operations.

The US Solicitor General coming down on the side of the weak, sick, and poor? Yes, it's true..

A team of psychologists, retired intelligence professionals, and ethicists are preparing a casebook on interrogation ethics and have asked for help in getting out the word to anyone who might be willing to contribute information about military interrogations, including the role played by psychologists. The Interrogation Ethics Casebook is a project of the End Torture Committee of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and a really important step in the process of eliminating torture.

One of those working on the project is Dr. Donald Soeken. Dr. Soeken is well-known for his efforts to stop a government practice of orchestrating abusive psychiatric examinations as retaliation against whistleblowers. Below, with his permission is a more detailed description of the casebook project, along with contact information, from the Integrity International website.

Longtime unbossed readers will know that highway privatization has been one of our themes. They will remember the 2005 Roads Scholars series (with a link on the right column) that revealed the existence of a noncompete agreement as part of the Denver E-470 deal and laid out issues commonly part of highway privatization. Over the years since then, we have returned to this issue, and now it's time to look at Pennsylvania and the Turnpike privatization deal.