Tomato Safety Only The Latest Product Safety Crisis For The Bush Administration

The potentionally fatal salmonella outbreak among some types of tomatoes that has sickened hundreds and left some hospitalized across the U.S. is only the latest consumer product safety crisis to hit the nation since the Bush Administration has sought to weaken consumer product safety and protections. The Bush Administration has most often appointed former lobbyists or executives of various industry groups to head consumer safety positions and posts, or sought to weaken product safety or consumer protection in many areas to cut regulation costs for some business groups, espicially those with strong lobby efforts or that were large political donation contributors.

The latest public health crisis with tomatoes has been complicated by agriculture industry lobbyists who opposed mandatory point of origin food labels on products like tomatoes, instead relying on a sometimes voluntary sticker labeling of some tomatoes. All of this has greatly complicated the Bush Administration's proindustry and consumer safety weakend FDA to find the specific farm, brand or nation from which the salmonella contaminated tomatoes originated. In fact, the FDA now claims that it may never know the source of the contaminated tomatoes, because the important consumer safety agency has become so weakened during the Bush years. Many important consumer safety agencies can now be better characterized as advocates for industry than for the safety of the consumer during the Bush Administration years.

And unfortunately this is not the first time that American consumers have been injured or killed during the Bush Administration agenda of weakening product inspections, safety or consumer protections. The federal CPSC has but one toy safety inspector for the entire nation, which has contributed to lead contaminated paint problems with some imported toys. Thousands of consumers have sent reports to the CPSC that they were either injured or sometimes killed by some unsafe products, however the Bush Administration appointed, Nancy Nord, a former executive of the Eastman Kodak Company, one of the nation's very worst corporate polluters, to head the CPSC, and under Nord's leadership, few consumer complaint's of product injuries are investigated or followed up. Nord has had a long record of undermining consumer safety regulations both as a corporate attorney and as a lobbyist or spokesperson for some of the nation's worst corporate polluter industry groups and as the Director For Consumer Affairs for the antiregulation U.S. Chamber Of Commerce.

Last year, there were many deaths of pets due to contaminated pet food that contained a plastic-type additive that originated from some Chinese producers. And there were other serious health problems when E coli contaminated lettuce and spinach sickened many Americans across the nation. In fact, during the Bush Administration years, far more Americans have been sickened, injured or killed by unsafe products and bacteria contaminated food than during the administration of any president in recent history since consumer safety and product protections became an important government priority.

The Bush Administration has concerned itself with cutting government regulations and the thin line of safety that keeps the American food supply safe. The result has been a harvest of consumer injuries and deaths.

Jurors In Florida Sell Their Votes For A Book Deal

TAMPA TRIBUNE writer Daniel Ruth noted one of the most corrupt jury trial cases ever held in Florida last week on his newspaper's blog when juror's returned all guilty verdicts and badgered other jurors who supported acquital into supporting all guilty verdicts so that they could profit from a business arrangement to write a book about the trial. By returning all guilty verdicts, the book deal would have more value. If there was an acquital, then the book deal would be nearly worthless, hurting the business arrangement prospects by the enterprising jurors who sought to turn their jury experience into a lucrative business venture.

All of this has happened with the backdrop of the Bush Administration's very own Justice Department preparing a number of election year politically moltivated court cases dealing with hot button issues close to the heart of Christian right voters, including followers of Rev. John Hagee and other John McCain supporters that include issues dealing with obscenity, abortion and Gay rights. In the Tampa, Florida case, an California adult filmmaker, Paul Little, was put on trial for supposedly sending five allegedly obscene DVDs into the conservative Florida community and violating their local community standards. Apparently jurors in Tampa object to dirty movies, but have no ethical problems with selling their vote on a jury for the sake of a book deal.

Paul Little's films are mostly real low budget films, many shot at his own home with Little playing a middle aged man wearing a cowboy hat who plays a character, Max Hardcore, who has brutish wild sex with hardened female porn actresses. But with a huge number of adult websites on the Internet, the federal obscenity trial of this single trashy filmmaker at random appears to be an attempt by the Bush Administration to hang some head on a wall as a trophy to brag about to social conservative voters.

Little was simply selectively prosecuted at random. And further, the misconduct of the jurors have made this trial a complete mockery of justice. However, the judge in the case, another Bush Administration appointee, allowed Little to be charged for mailing obscenity into Florida, even though Little only produced the films, although it was actually a third party distributor who was granted immunity from prosecution to testify that actually shipped the five DVD films to Tampa. Further, a major important standard of the established Supreme Court "Miller Test" that something can only be found obscene when "taken as a whole" was not followed, and the Bush Administration's own handpicked federal prosecutors were allowed by the presiding judge to only play a few select portions of Little's films in court, not allowing the defense team to prove that as a whole the films do not meet obscenity standards by playing each film in question in it's entirety to the jury.

After the trial, a crying woman juror, asked to hug Little, and stated that she supported acquital on all charges as did the Jury foreman and some other jury members, but that they were pressured by the other jury members who supported the guilty verdicts so that they could profit from their book deal business arrangement. As one small concession, the jury did not allow the government to seize Little's home, which is the only property he is likely to have left after the government takes everything he owns under federal forfeiture laws. The jurors who supported acquital all stated that they didn't much care for Little's films, but he has the right to produce poor quality movies with offensive content in a supposedly free country with a Bill Of Rights.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is back hard at work, daily working to undermine the nation's Constitution and the Bill Of Rights before the upcoming election, working to fire up right wing Christian conservative voters by using the nation's courts for kangarooo court show trials on hot button religious right issues to fire up their voter base to maximize November election turnout. In a normal year, a controversial trashy filmmaker like Paul Little would probably simply be ignored. In an election year, the poor fellow faces 50 years in prison, $5 million in fines, and forfeiture of any business property to the government. Such is the state of justice in America with Bush at the helm. And corrupt juries seek to make money by making business arangements to write books about trials that they are supposed to independently judge and use pressure against ethical jurors concerned with preservation of the Bill Of Rights and concern for not sending an innocent man to prison.

Paul Little is certainly no Mother Teresa. He is an opportunist with perhaps very little personal dignity or ethics on how to make a buck. But then again, his jurors were little more than ruthless opportunists as well, making business plans to profit from their jury trial experience. You might even be inclined to say that Little was judged by a true "jury of his own peers", in the words of TAMPA TRIBUNE writer, Daniel Ruth.

Little certainly has some good grounds to appeal his convictions, but with many courts presided over by more Bush appointed judges, Little's prospects to overturn his guilty verdicts are virtually impossible unless the jury corruption and other issues meet with the ears of a sympathetic judge who actually independently judges a case and is not just some religious right sock puppet of George Bush.

If you have no values whatsoever, and are only looking to earn a little extra summer income, then you just might consider becoming a juror, and then profiting from writing a book about the trial like the corrupt jurors in Tampa. But ethical citizens should be rightly disgusted at this justice for sale and a blow to freedom of expression and the Bill Of Rights.

Rasmussen Notes Increase In Number Of Liberal Voters

One big political shift among voters this year is a new trend noted by Rasmussen that finds the percentage of liberals has increased from 17% up to 25% this year, while the percentage of conservative voters has roughly remained constant at 36%, with another 37% who view themselves as political moderates. All of this leaves the moderate voters as the voters who will decide the 2008 election, and will certainly shape up as areas where both Barack Obama and John McCain will attempt to frame issues to appeal to this voter block as well as to frame issues to hold their own philosophical allies.

John McCain can be expected to highlight his antiabortion views when it benefits him among conservative audiences, while Barack Obama will find issues to solifify his liberal support such as opposition to the Iraq War Both candidates will almost certainly seek to find economic issues that transcend political philosophy to lure in voters such as moderates as well.

Some Conservatives Blaming Minimum Wage Earners For Biggest Unemployment Increase In 22 Years

Some conservatives are now advancing what has to be the most absurd and worst possible explanation of the root causes for the huge unemployment uptick that was the worst in 22 years. They are unbelievably actually blaming minimum wage earners of all people, and totally ignoring the huge hyperinflation in fuel prices that has completely destabilized the econmy, creating unemployment as sales drop in retailers as a response to a huge shift in the economy towards buying power directed at affording gas and heating oil.

This is absolutely the very worst explanation I've ever heard for the sudden increase in unemployment related to the economic slowdown hitting the United States which is entirely related to the 40% price increase in oil since just Jan 1, 2008. First of all, even the economic stimulus tax rebate checks program is based on the idea that if the consumer public has more money to spend, then it will filter all through the economy and eventually filter back to Washington. Even Senator Obama is proposing a $1,000 middle class tax cut to boost the economy back towards recovery. And increases in the minimum wage also helps to increase consumer buying power, however the rapid hyperinflation in oil prices has taken many lower wage income earners out of the market economy who are now spending far less at neighborhood businesses and instead using the money to purchase gas or heating oil.

Too much of the economy is becoming centralized in the energy segment, which has rapidly taken capital for all other segments of the economy resulting in slower sales and hence job layoffs. I've owned enough businesses in my lifetime to have seen this cycle played out several times with recessions, however this oil based recession is an entirely a new variation on recessions. This recession is characterized by hyperinflation in energy prices, a ripple effect of inflation in food and all other products that require truck transport. A gallon of diesel fuel is now at the $5 level in the United States, compared to Mexico where the government subsidizes the diesel to a $2 a gallon price. In fact, many world economies subsidize oil prices to create economic stability and growth, unlike the U.S.

China for example is experiencing some of the world's fastest economic growth while the American economy is rolling backwards. The government keeps price controls on oil, and instead offers a subsidy to the oil producers to help them cope with raw oil commodity price increases. In April, for example, CHINA PETROLEUM AND CHEMICAL CORPORATION received a $1 billion dollar($7.1 billion yuan) government subsidy.

Better wages in the U.S. have nothing to do with big uptick in unemployment. The huge inflation in oil prices in the United States diverting billions and billions of dollars from all other segments of the ecomony in lost consumer spending has everything to do with big jump in unemployment as slower sales in many businesses result in job layoffs creating a cycle of recession that only feeds on itself.

Conservatives like to oppose things like decent wages or government price controls. Fair enough. But the U.S. is now suffering a great economic slowdown due to this directionless political philosophy that ignores the necessary reality of at least some government planning and direction of the economy in order to promote stability. Like an ostrich with it's head stuck in the sand, some just can't seem to comprehend that part of the role of government is to help offer at least some management to the economy and prevent crisis situations. Even the average housewife manages her family budget or economy, unlike the government. And further, pathetic conservative explanations blaming small minimum wage increases for increased unemployment will certainly play very poorly with most November voters, only driving millions towards voting for change of the White House and some in Congress. John McCain certainly won't win election if he advances such outrageous explanations. Lower wage earners are a victim of the huge hyperinflation in oil prices, not a cause of any unemployment uptick.

There's No Ford In The Future For American Labor

At one time the United States had a great many automobile makes including Essex, Packard, Desoto, Franklin, Durant, DuPont and hundreds more brands. But even steel industry tycoon Henry J Kaiser proved with the failure of his Kaiser brand of automobiles that only lasted from 1947-1955, even a great deal of money was no guarantee success in the automobile business. By the mid-1960's, only General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, American Motors, Checker and Studebaker survived. After 1988, only General Motors, Ford and Chrysler survived, and Chrysler soon became a German owned firm for a number of years, leaving only two surviving American firms, GM and Ford. More and more the surviving American automobile brands are outsourcing production to labor cheap nations such as Mexico to cut costs and to phase out high paying American union wage and benefit jobs.

Being a surviving player in the automobile industry involves ever-increasing huge costs to meet consumer and government demands for high mileage, safety, design and quality. As late as 1970, a small firm like American Motors was able to design and build the Gremlin for a mere $6 milllion dollars by using much of the existing tooling technology from the $40 million dollar Hornet project. Today, totally new cars can run $1 billion dollars on up in tooling and production costs. And new technology such as hybrid or fuel cell technology has swallowed-up billions in corporate costs, sometimes with few good resulta to show for the high research costs.

While Japanese carmakers like Toyota and Honda, and South Korean brand, Hyundai have been able to make a decent profit by building automobiles generally in right-to-work states in the U.S. with few members of the UAW employed, GM and Ford have been seeking to layoff or buyout the contracts of American union workers to avoid higher labor union wage jobs, health or retirement benefits. Ford is planning to build a new small car, the Fiesta in Mexico in order to cut American labor costs. The car is already being produced by Ford in China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Venezuela in order to cut labor costs. More and more, the management vision of American automobile companies does not include using American labor. American automobile company executives tend to earn 50 times the wages of their Japanse or South Korean counterparts. Japanese and South Korean automobile CEOs are concerned about selling a lot of cars. American automobile executives are concerned with making a lot of money for themselves.

Despite a great deal of personal faults, Henry Ford Sr. built his Ford Motor Company on a vision of hiring many African Americans who moved North to avoid the even worst segregation and racism found in the South. Ford even build schools to teach these African American how to read and write, in order to create an educated workforce. Ford was instrumental in moving many Michigan area African Americans into an educated middle class, moving them up significantly from their often lower income and economic discrimination roots. And although, Henry Ford was very antiunion, and even hired thugs to physically assault those who were part of any early unionizing attempts, the Ford Motor Company did manage to create a huge class economic advancement for many. But the modern vision for American automobile companies doesn't seem to include anyone beyond a few CEOs earning a huge salary, while supposedly saving the company from economic destruction, while foreign competitors seem to prosper with far lower CEO salaries.

It seems the American automobile management vision of economic survival is now often based more and more on outsourcing of jobs to labor cheap nations, while expecting the American public to still buy the products. The Henry Ford vision to create an educated and highly paid American middle class able to afford the products it sells has given way it seems to a "Nero" complex by some automobile executives to get whatever they can before the whole thing burns down. The future of the surviving American automobile brands seems less and less to include American workers.

Bush's Union-Busting Revolving Door Problem

When Bush nominated labor law attorney Robert Battista to become the chairman of the NLRB(National Labor Relations Board)in 2002, Bush knew full well that Battista would help tip the NLRB against working people and the labor unions who support them in labor conflicts. Then in 2006, Democrats won back Senate control, and Senator Edward Kennedy opposed the renomination of Battista for second term after Battista took away union representation from some Supervisory workers(Oakwood Health Care), put restrictions on unions using Emails to communicate with their members in the workplace, made it very difficult for illegally-fired employees to receive their back pay, allowed employers to practice job discrimination against any person seeking employment who supports labor unions and made it more difficult to form unions through majority sign-up of workkers, and other antiworker and antiunion decisions.

When Battista realized that he was unlikely to win a second term after his four years of antiworker and antilabor union decisions, he withdrew from consideration for a second term. Now in typical Washington revolving door fashion, Battista has taken a job as an attorney at the antilabor union law firm of Littler Mendelson, and is now able to profit from his background of work at the NLRB and use his inside knowledge of loopholes in NLRB regulations to help employers destroy labor unions or prevent new unions from forming at their company.

The Battista tale involves all of the rotten aspects of Bush's Washington, a revolving door system where Bush Administration insiders are able to quit one job with the government, and turn right around and use their inside knowledge of the system to turn a profit with outside employers who hire them because of their background. And with so many workers hurting financially because of the poor economy, Battista is in a very good position to hurt the ability of workers to join labor unions and get better pay, health benefits. job security and retirement benefits, by being able to market his inside knowledge of the NLRB to union-busting clients.

The Washington revolving door system does indeed take a real human toll.

We've Been Here Before

In many remarkable ways, the ongoing battle of Hillary Clnton and Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic nomination is way too similiar to the 1972 battle between George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey. In 1972, George McGovern was attracting the votes of young antiwar voters, while Humphrey's major base of support was the older, more traditional, if not more conservative Democrats.

McGovern was leading in delegates by 929 to 760 for Humphrey just before the pivotal June California winner-take-all primary, which had 271 delegates at stake. McGovern needed just over 1,500 delegates to capture the nomination. After losing the California primary to McGovern, Humphrey continued to press his case all the way to the Democratic convention's rules committee, hoping to change California's winner-take-all primary rule. Only after losing in the rules committee, did Humphrey withdraw from his run for the presidency, some of his delegates supporting the nominee McGovern, and others supporting an 11th hour failed effort by neoconservative Washington Senator Henry Jackson.

2008 is looking very similiar. Clinton has attracted largely the same sort of more traditional, if not more conservative Democrats that Humphrey once attracted. And Obama is creating the same sort of excitement among young voters, many antiwar, that George McGovern once attracted. And it was an accepted 2008 DNC rule to not seat the Michigan and Florida delegates as a penalty for holding their primary too early, although a Republican governor in Florida was responsible, just like the tough California winner-take-all rule. Since Clinton is behind in delegates she would like to have the DNC rules committee change the rules on Florida and Michigan, which would move up the number of required delegates needed to win the nomination from 2,026 to 2,210. If half of the delgates are seated, the number would move up to 2,118. This is very similiar to the Humphrey effort to change the California winner-take-all primary rule after the primary did not turn out in his favor.

Not only are there these similiar events to 1972 in 2008, but a divided Democratic Party had many more traditional Democrats refuse to support McGovern in the general election. Many Humphrey voters helped to re-elect Republican Richard Nixon who was offering a "stay the course" path on the Vietnam War.

McGovern was a change candidate, Nixon was the status quo candidate. McGovern was the end-the-war candidate, Nixon the stay-the-course candidate.

1972 has many lessons for 2008. A divided Democratic Party cannot win. Both major Democratic candidates need to come together with strong support or a divided party fails in the general election.