With A Little Help From Our Friends

“A chance discovery at Rome’s busy Fiumicino Airport led anti-Mafia investigators to a huge black-market transaction in which Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into Iraq.” Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command.

More On Rep. Bob Ney

According to new court documents, former Rep. Bob Ney’s (R-OH) chief of staff Will Heaton was secretly recording conversations with his boss in order to facilitate a federal investigation. “Heaton taped numerous phone calls and wore a hidden wire to a 2 1/2 -hour, face-to-face meeting with Ney that provided ‘exceptionally important’ help to the FBI’s investigation of Abramoff.”

The Need For Unions

The questions raised on workplace safety and unionization rights are now more pressing than ever in the wake of continuing efforts to recover six workers trapped in the collapsed Crandall Canyon mine owned by Murray Energy Corp,in Utah. Despite unions ensuring that miners work in safe environments, President Bush has gone to lengths to gut workplace safety standards and union strength. While the exact cause of the mine collapse is currently under debate, the tragedy has raised important questions about the safety standards of the miners that have been neglected under the Bush administration. The Crandall Canyon mine, which employed non-union labor, has run up "a record of more than 300 safety violations, of which 118 were considered to be serious enough to cause injury or death." The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union is sharply critical of the mine's safety record. "If it were one of our union mines, we wouldn't allow the pattern to continue," said Bob Butero of the UMWA, noting that an effort to organize mine workers failed six or seven years ago. Mine owner Bob Murray (pictured)-- who yesterday boasted about his "non-union mine" -- is notorious among miners for his union-busting history. After 13 miners were trapped and killed in the Sago mine in West Virginia in early 2006, Murray attacked proposed state safety reforms as "seriously flawed, knee-jerk" reactions. In Ohio, he refused to hire union workers because of their "costly health and pension benefits"; in another operation, he paid his workers "less than $3 an hour." At a press briefing yesterday, Murray used a media appearance to criticize global warming proponents, and only later "emphasized that his heart and his priorities are with the trapped miners and their families." He urged the press to "not believe anything [the UMWA] says about the disaster." Mine safety standards have plummeted under the Bush administration. Last year, 40 miners were killed on the job, more than any year since 2001. Early in his administration, Bush appointed mining executive David Lauriski to head the Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA), who then rescinded "more than a half-dozen proposals intended to make coal miners' jobs safer." In 2006, Bush recess-appointed former Murray Energy executive Richard Stickler, whom the Senate had twice rejected because the mines he managed "incurred injury rates double the national average." In March 2007, the AFL-CIO warned that MSHA was "moving too slowly on mine safety" and that "another Sago [is] possible."The Utah tragedy "happened too soon" for reforms after Sago to be implemented, as "government-mandated changes involving communication and tracking equipment do not take effect until 2009." "Manufacturing delays" prevented the Utah mine from stockpiling the required four days of food, water and oxygen. "In all, the Bush administration abandoned or delayed implementation of 18 proposed safety rules that were in the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's regulatory pipeline in early 2001, a review of agency records shows." Nonetheless, Stickler believes that "no new laws or regulations are needed." Several of Bush's top regulatory appointments -- from Susan Dudley to Michael Baroody (who later withdrew his nomination) -- are industry allies who oppose stringent worker and consumer safety requirements. In April, a New York Times expose showed how the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, "charged with overseeing workplace safety," has placed safety "in the hands of industry." The agency "had killed dozens of existing and proposed regulations and delayed adopting others" by the end of 2001, and it has since "vowed to limit new rules and roll back what it considered cumbersome regulations that imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers." From opposing the Employee Free Choice Act to appointing "easily the most anti-worker labor board in history," the Bush administration has denied the right to organize to at least "8 million workers in 200 occupations."

Operation Yellow

Strange Days Indeed

These past few weeks have been strange days. Storms, political and otherwise, whipped across the landscape. And yet we go on. Sometimes just satisfied the winds have stopped blowing and breath that sigh of relief the damage happened to the other guy and not us.

The Akron Beacon Journal had a article a few weeks ago about some neighbors harassing another neighbor, who was a registered sex offender to the point where the police department encouraged him to press charges against his harassers. The neighbors say they are just protecting the children. The un-indicted criminal neighbors, are fearful they haven't been good parents and haven't taught their children that the monster does not always come in a scary disguise. The monster can come in a form as pretty as a beauty queen. It would be nice if, instead of going after those who have paid their debt to society, the neighbors went after the drug dealers; Those parents that serve alcohol to teenagers; The dead beat mom or dad that lives across the street; The welfare cheat or the drunk drivers or the speeders. Or better yet, if they just made sure none of those things were taking place in their own lives, imagine how nice their neighborhood could be to live in.

There will always people with the financial resources to quite literally get away with murder. Locally, we have former beauty queen Cynthia George as example "A", nationally we have former football hero OJ Simpson. Both went through the justice system. Both had their day in court. OJ actually went through both the criminal and the civil proceedings. OJ lost the civil case, he was found guilty of wrongful death. I wonder why his neighbors aren't placing pointed signs on their manicured lawns that read: Murderer lives there- He may do it again- Saw him with a young man and woman in his living room-. I wonder why his neighbors aren't scared for their lives and the lives of their children.

And what about the neighbors of Cynthia George? She was found guilty in a criminal case before being let loose on appeal. I haven't heard if she will go through the civil court. Who would want Cynthia George, a murderer for a neighbor? I guess the perk would be, if you are a neighbor of Cynthia's you would have a really nice house. But where is the outrage that a wealthy woman, convicted of murder, is now walking the same malls as us? What about the children? Maybe her neighbors too busy in the beauty salons to be worried their loved ones may fall victim to her wicked ways, and goodness why risk chipping a nail to place a sign in the yard warning passers by they just passed a evil doer's house.

Another notorious person has been back in the news: Nan Talese. She is the powerful editor and publisher that allowed author and liar James Frey to write A Million Little Pieces, and market it as a the truth, was in the news again, upset over her treatment on Oprah Winfrey. After Oprah confronted them about the fraud the committed with the book.
She still doesn't understand the harm she caused from robbing people of their money by telling them what they are buying is true story when it is lies. Even after being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion and even after reaching agreement to the outlines of an out court settlement that resulted from the class action lawsuit brought against her and James.

Cynthia, OJ, Nan and James, I wouldn't want to live next door to any of them. It is too bad there wasn't a law that required murderers and sneaky thieves who are let loose to register where they live their local law department. And require the local police department to post their address on the web. I would feel much, much safer knowing the address of the nearest convicted thief or murderer was in a neighborhood that was not my own.

Arming The Enemy

Akron Televangelist Rex Humbard 'Fighting for his Life'

Pioneering televangelist Rex Humbard is ''fighting for his life'' in a Florida hospital, according to his son, Rex Humbard Jr.

The former Akron minister, who will turn 88 Monday, broke his hip on July 23 and underwent total hip replacement, his son said. Complications followed.

The senior Humbard, who suffers from congestive heart failure, is being treated at JFK Hospital in Atlantis, Fla.

''Dad is fighting for his life now,'' his son said in an e-mail. ''Please keep him in your prayers.''

Humbard and his wife, Maude Aimee, 85, live in Lantana, Fla. Their four children have been with him daily at the hospital.

Humbard was the first evangelist to have a weekly nationwide program in America. His television ministry began in Akron in 1952. By the mid-1970s, 2,000 television channels carried his program. His Cathedral of Tomorrow in Cuyahoga Falls later became home to evangelist Ernest Angley's Grace Cathedral.

Thirty years ago, on Aug. 18, 1977, Humbard delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Elvis Presley.