Month: October 2005

cross posted at my blog.

Before the ink was even dry on Halliburton’s no-bid contracts to rebuild the Katrina-ravaged Gulf of Mexico, shrubya also mandated suspension of the Davis-Bacon act, which amounts to suspending minimum wage requirements.

The  Davis-Bacon Act as amended, requires that each contract over $2,000 to which the United States or the District of Columbia is a party for the construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works shall contain a clause setting forth the minimum wages to be paid to various classes of laborers and mechanics employed under the contract.

<span style=”font-weight:bold;”>Under the provisions of the Act, contractors or their subcontractors are to pay workers employed directly upon the site of the work no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits paid on projects of a similar character.</span&gt The Davis-Bacon Act directs the Secretary of Labor to determine such local prevailing wage rates.

In addition to the Davis-Bacon Act itself, Congress has added prevailing wage provisions to approximately 60 statutes which assist construction projects through grants, loans, loan guarantees, and insurance. These “related Acts” involve construction in such areas as transportation, housing, air and water pollution reduction, and health. If a construction project is funded or assisted under more than one Federal statute, the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage provisions may apply to the project if any of the applicable statutes require payment of Davis-Bacon wage rates.

That’s right – we still can’t entertain the notion of repealing tax-cuts for the rich or re-instating the dividends tax.  No; the only way to keep these reconstruction costs managable is to screw the workers out of living wages.  Could anything fly more in the face of the trickle-down justification for such tax-cuts?

Thankfully, Congressman George Miller (D-CA) has taken action.  Shorty after shrubya issued his proclamation, Miller introduced a bill to overturn it; but it has languished in the House since then.  Surprise, surprise.  But Miller has also found a little-used statute that enables the Dem House leadership to force a vote on his bill.

Now, Miller is finally able to force a vote in the House on the wage cut issue.  Miller today introduced a Joint Resolution under the 1976 National Emergencies Act, which provides for fast track action by Congress when the President unilaterally suspends a law, as he did with Davis-Bacon. Although the National Emergencies Act is nearly 30 years old, this is the first time that a lawmaker has ever invoked its fast track procedures. By law, Congress must act on Miller’s Joint Resolution within 15 calendar days – in this case, by November 4.

So, you heard the man!  We have until Nov. 4th – roughly two weeks – to call/email/write/fax our Congress members to make sure they support Miller’s proposal to reinstate Davis-Bacon.  And letters to the editor are great, too, provided you actually write them, of course.

Now if we could just get someone to introduce “Anti-profiteering” legislation…but God forbid we dip into Halliburton’s profits for the good of the commonwealth.  Or something.

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By Larry Johnson

Tired of the drum beat of bad news surrounding TreasonGate and the outing of CIA officer Valerie Wilson. How about some good news from Iraq? Sorry, nothing to report. Before you remind me about the apparent success of the recent election, keep reading.

……………………………….. Biography: Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world. Further bio details. More links below the fold.

The delusional happiness reflected in Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s remarks this week to Congress about the so-called progress in Iraq ignores hard facts that point to a debacle. The international media appears to be finally catching on that the Washington spin about the purple thumb as a sign of democratic progress is pure nonsense. It is true that more people in Iraq voted in this election than last January. What Rice and other folks out of touch with reality ignore is that the increased number of Sunnis who voted came out to defeat the constitution. Unfortunately, the fix was in. Vote fraud was rampant. U.S. TV crews caught one Shia on tape casting seven yes votes. That’s sort of an old style American politics a la Chicago’s Daley machine–you know, vote early, vote often. And, results are now, once again, being withheld to “investigate” the irregularities.

Here is a bold prediction: The Constitution will pass and Shia politicians will have a lock on the new Government of Iraq. Consequently, the civil war currently underway will escalate. … Continued BELOW:

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By the time Shonda* was 10 her life was already a mess. She was failing in school, constantly in fights, and had run into trouble with the police a couple of times. Being an African American girl in an urban area, it wasn’t difficult to guess where she was heading. Her home life was one trauma after another. Dad regularly beat up Mom and more than once it had been serious enough to send her to the hospital. Shonda was angry, scared and out of control.

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The United States has locked most of our most caring people into the least effective and stupidest organizations possible: Non-profit social service agencies.  These agencies seem good, since they do good things like deliver hot meals, pass out bags of surplus food and pat themselves on the back all the time.  But the reality is that most non-profits aren’t good, they’re just “not bad.”

Non-profits are primarily patronage and public relations programs.  They are also a kind of outsourcing initiative, with non-profits saving money by doing work that should be done by higher paid and better benefited government employees.  As patronage and public relations programs, non-profits are very effective.  A big part of what they do is link politicians to people who care about issues, by inviting the pols to thank you galas, ribbon cuttings and other p.r. events.  Non-profits spend a great deal of their time and resources gathering money – which positions them as key nodes in the fund raising networks that politicians depend on.

Cross posted: Political Porn

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The Evil Legacy of the Tylenol poisoner. Some older readers may recall that there was a time when one bought a bottle of aspirin, or a jar of mustard, went home, opened it and accessed the contents. 25 years or so ago, some idiot put cyanide in some bottles of Tylenol, and since then, every damn product you buy requires you to use a blowtorch and chainsaw to get through 99 levels of seals, bubble plastic, and assorted detritus, thus giving fuel to the theory that the Tylenol poisoner was in fact a covert operative paid by the waste management industry.

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