Bad Deeds for 9-26-2007

US State Department Meddling in Investigation and Instructing Blackwater to Withhold Information – The US State Department is preventing a House committee from disclosing information that could “embarrass” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki regarding an investigation of alleged corruption within his government. State also is meddling in a related investigation of private security firm Blackwater, which has come under fire this month after a Sept. 16 shooting involving armed guards employed by the firm in which 11 Iraqis were killed. State Department officials explained that any information about corruption within the Maliki government must be treated as classified because public discussions could undermine U.S. relations with the Maliki government.

Bush Used Bogus Terror Threat To Scare Up Votes For FISA Bill – The president stooped to a new low by using a bogus terror threat that specifically targeted Capitol Hill to manipulate members of Congress just hours before a crucial vote on the FISA bill last August. According to Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Terrorism Risk Assessment, the Bush administration knowingly used bogus intelligence to make lawmakers believe there was the chance of an imminent attack on the U.S. Capitol, thus frightening them into passing the temporary expansion of his powers to spy on Americans under the FISA act.

In 2004, Dan Rather (and CBS) went AWOL – Newly unearthed records reveal that, in 2004, when Americans were in the midst of a brutal electoral battle over whether to reelect a president posing as a war hero, a commanding US reporter, Dan Rather, went AWOL. Just three months before the election, Rather had a story that might have changed the outcome of that razor-close race. We now know that Dan cut a back-room deal to shut his mouth, grab his ankles, and let his network retract a story he knew to be absolutely true.

During the Vietnam war, the Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, arranged for George W. to get into the Air Guard rather than go to Vietnam. In 1997, Governor George W. Bush overruled his state’s Lottery director and gave a billion-dollar contract to a company tied to Barnes. Barnes received a cool fee of $23 million from the contractor.

The Death of American News – After a long and painful illness, American news has finally succumbed to disease. Things have been going downhill for years, and there’s plenty of blame to go around, to be sure. But here’s a snapshot.

The Bush administration has burned so many diplomatic bridges that it can’t find an African country willing to host its new African Command Center for U.S. military operations – There are 46 countries in Africa; more than in any other continent in the world. And yet, even among some of the poorest countries of the world who would surely reap economic benefits from a large military base, we could find not a single taker. Until now that is. Yes, AFRICOM has finally found a home: the African nation of Germany.

CNBC host Jim Cramer Says Bust the United Auto Workers Union; there’s no real reasons to make cars here – CNBC host Jim Cramer has a message for the hard-working men and women of the United Auto Workers Union currently on strike: sit down, shut up and be happy with less so GM execs can stay rich. Today on Hardball, Cramer does his best tough guy act, fortunately Ross Eisenbrey, Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute is there to bring some sanity to the set. Eisenbrey reminds Cramer that the UAW strike is about keeping jobs in America and that this war against the working class isn’t just about unions, it’s happening to non-union workers as well.

Matthews: ” Do you see a future five, ten years from now where we don’t have an auto industry in this country, Jim Cramer?”

Cramer: “If you don’t break the UAW we won’t. There’s no real reasons to make cars here.”

White House Against Protecting Workers From Exposure to the Flavoring Chemical Diacetyl – The White House today took what may be a lone stand against the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, a bill the House may vote on as soon as Wednesday. It would require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to publish standards regulating worker exposure to diacetyl, a flavoring chemical used in microwave popcorn and other foods that can cause bronchiolitis obliterans, or “popcorn lung.”

Regards,

Jim