Perino Can’t Explain Why Bush Administration Opposes Cluster Bomb Treaty
... THOMAS: Is the President going to sign the anti-cluster bomb treaty? Apparently this is –
PERINO: Right, this is a treaty that was passed out of the U.N. Security Council several months ago. We said then that, no, we would not be signing on to it. And so I think that the signing is actually — we did not participate in the passage of it, and therefore we’re not going to sign it either.
THOMAS: Why not?
PERINO: What I have forgotten is all the reasons why, and so I’ll get it for you. (Laughter.) ...
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/03/perino-cluster-bombs/Mukasey Says Obama May Have to Wait for Some Legal Opinions
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 4, 2008; Page A06
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey asserted yesterday that the "level of cooperation and communication is very high" between his team and the transition group for President-elect Barack Obama.
But the Justice Department's new leaders may not gain access to the Bush administration's most sensitive legal opinions until after the January inauguration, Mukasey told reporters in what could be his final news conference ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/03/AR2008120303380.html?hpid=topnewsFeds Set to Eliminate Water Regulations for Neurotoxin
By Brandon Keim December 03, 2008
6:07:49 PM
Among the Bush administration's final environmental legacies will be a decision to exempt perchlorate, a known neurotoxin found at unsafe levels in the drinking water of millions of Americans, from federal regulation.
The ruling, proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency in October, was supposed to be formalized on Monday. That deadline passed, but the agency expects to announce its decision by the year's end, before president-elect Barack Obama takes office. It could take years to reverse.
Critics accuse the EPA of ignoring expert advice and basing their decision on an abstract model of perchlorate exposure, rather than existing human data.
"We know that breast milk is widely contaminated with perchlorate, and we know that young children are especially vulnerable. We have really good human data. So why are they putting a model front-and-center?" said Anila Jacobs at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. "And they used a model that hasn't yet gone through the peer-review process" ...
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/feds-set-to-low.htmlGreenhouse gas emissions increase in US
By H. JOSEF HEBERT – 5 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The amount of U.S. greenhouse gases flowing into the atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, increased last year by 1.4 percent after a decline in 2006, the Energy Department reported Wednesday ...
The EIA said that in 2007 the United States produced 8 billion tons (7.28 billion metric tons) of greenhouse gases, compared to 7.9 billion (7.18 billion metric tons) in 2006. The tonnage, presented in terms of "carbon dioxide equivalent" also includes methane, nitrous oxides and a number of lesser greenhouse gases, although carbon dioxide accounted for nearly 83 percent of the releases ...
Last year, President Bush touted the 2006 reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as evidence that his largely voluntary efforts to address climate change was making headway as carbon dioxide releases dropped 1.3 percent between 2005 and 2006. And Bush also noted the continued drop in "carbon intensity" — carbon dioxide emission increases as related to economic growth — which has declined steadily since 1990.
But the EIA noted the reductions in 2006 simply reflected the year's warmer than normal winter which cut demand for fuel oil and natural gas, and a moderate summer that reduced demand for coal-generated electricity for air conditioners ...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g2WeeFw37TQV5hcs7bEp7RPXS5vAD94RH1201Paulose Penalty follows unprecedented politicization of Justice
By NICK COLEMAN, Star Tribune
Last update: December 3, 2008 - 9:01 PM
From the beginning, circumstances, including the clumsy whiting out of names on a hit list of prosecutors targeted for replacement by Bush operatives, suggested that Minnesota's veteran U.S. attorney, Tom Heffelfinger, was among the targets of a campaign to turn Justice into a Bush law office.
Heffelfinger, a moderate Republican, resigned and returned to private practice in time to escape the ax being sharpened for him in 2006. That opened the way for the appointment of Paulose, 32, who had herself installed in a fancy opera bouffe ceremony, but whose credentials were thin: She was a member of the hard-right Federalist Society, and a friend of the pious and political Monica Goodling, the Justice Department Dragon Lady with a penchant for promoting her friends to high places ...
Wednesday, the government's Office of Special Counsel put another nail in this reign of incompetence and petulance, releasing a finding that Paulose wrongly retaliated against her first assistant attorney, John Marti. He had reported to the appropriate authorities that Paulose routinely left classified reports on her desk, ignoring rules that required them to be safely secured. Paulose responded -- violating a law protecting employees who report wrongdoing -- by trying to remove Marti from his job. In the end, Marti accepted a demotion -- along with other top aides upset by Paulose's mercurial micromanaging style. Now, Marti will get back pay and a lump sum cash payment.
Call it a Paulose Penalty, the price for an experiment in Justice run by amateurs ...
http://www.startribune.com/local/35513919.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsXWhat about the ghost prisoners?
The men in Guantánamo represent fewer than 1% of the 27,000 prisoners being held by the US beyond the rule of law
Clive Stafford Smith
The Guardian, Thursday December 4 2008
In mid-2007 my mother sent me a George Bush Countdown Calendar. I have been tearing off the leaves, each with its quote from George W. That happy occasion, the final page, comes on January 20 2009.
Happy for most in Guantánamo Bay, that is. The people remaining there find themselves in three groups - some 40 who will be taken to the US for a trial (somewhat fairer, at least, than the current military commissions); 150 will simply go home (at last); and a final 60 refugees, many long since cleared for release, must hope that Obama spends some of his political capital to find them an asylum state.
Yet the justifiable joy at Obama's ascendancy must be tempered with the knowledge that Guantánamo always has been a diversionary tactic in the "war on terror". The 250 men there represent fewer than 1% of the 27,000 prisoners being held by the US beyond the rule of law. There is a reason why most people have never heard of the plight of these unfortunates - they are ghost prisoners in secret prisons ...
Many are in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a smattering end up in US detention in Bosnia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kosovo and in 21st-century "prison hulks" off Diego Garcia and Somalia. The most miserable are held in proxy prisons in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/04/guantanamo-bay-human-rights1Paulson weighing bailout's next US$350b
Reuters | Thursday, 04 December 2008
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is weighing whether to ask Congress for the remaining US$350 billion of the financial bailout fund, with White House aides approaching President-elect Barack Obama's transition team about the idea, an Obama aide has said.
"They reached out to us a couple of days ago," the Obama aide said, noting that during the transition, the administration has been keeping the Obama team informed about their decisions though it is "not a joint effort policywise."
"Our advice to them was to immediately start consulting the Hill leadership," said the aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A Treasury spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment ...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4782227a6026.htmlMukasey opposes prosecutions for torture advice
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Departing U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Wednesday that he saw no reason for prosecutions or for pardons for those who gave legal advice on the Bush administration's terrorism policies ...
http://theusdaily.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=597578&type=homeRoadless rule hurtling down Bush fast-track
Forest Service seeks to implement rule 4 days before Obama takes office
By David O. Williams 12/3/08 10:30 AM
The Bush administration appears to be charging even harder down the road to a new Colorado roadless rule despite a meeting of a U.S. Forest Service advisory group in Washington earlier this month that revealed numerous problems with the plan.
This is the Bush administration’s last chance to implement its vision of how to administer pristine forest and park land. While in the Senate, President-elect Obama opposed the Bush administration’s plans for roadless areas.
A top U.S. Department of Agriculture official reportedly told a Nov. 19 meeting of the U.S. Forest Service’s Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee (RACNAC) that the goal is to have a final Colorado roadless ruled published in the Federal Register by Jan. 16 ...
Smith and others have repeatedly objected to numerous exceptions for logging, oil and gas production and ski-area expansion in the Colorado roadless rule. The rule dictates the management practices for 4.4 million acres of public lands throughout the state that have been designated as essentially pristine and untrammeled by not only roads but development in general ...
http://coloradoindependent.com/16565/roadless-rule-hurtling-down-bush-fast-trackNewspaper Investigation Reveals Lax Enforcement of Child Labor Laws
by James Parks, Dec 3, 2008
On a typical day, more than 400 workers younger than 18 are hurt on the job in the United States and one is killed every 10 days. At the same time, the number of federal child labor investigations has declined by half since the Bush administration took office eight years ago.
In a two-part series last week, the Charlotte Observer revealed that employers are ignoring federal child labor laws and getting away with it. As part of its investigation, the Observer interviewed more than 20 current and former House of Raeford Farms workers who said the North Carolina-based poultry company often hired underage workers. Click here and here to read the series ...
The U.S. Labor Department has 750 investigators who look into both child labor and wage and hour complaints, 20 percent fewer than in 2001, according to Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Education and Labor subcommittee on Workforce Protections. Woolsey, who conducted hearings last September on child labor, has vowed to work with the incoming Obama administration to strengthen child labor laws and increase the number of inspectors.
The current laws have been loosely enforced at best, the Observer found. Under federal law, the maximum penalty for most child labor violations is $11,000, but in 2006 the average penalty was less than $1,000 ...
http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/12/03/newspaper-investigation-reveals-lax-enforcement-of-child-labor-laws
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