Some things went terribly wrong

After waiting for hours in the rain, in the middle of the night we learned that 12 of 13 missing West Virginia coal miners lost their lives after all. Someone had mistakenly told the waiting families that the missing men were alive. The facts are stark. The mine was not safe to enter after it had been temporarily closed, because someting went terribly wrong. It appears there was an explosion soon after that very experienced crew back on their very dangerous jobs.
The families and all those who grieve the deaths will, somehow, be forced to take in that awful reality, after believing for a time that all their loved ones had miraculously survived. The mistaken communication was awful, but, as I have listened to the news conference information, understandable. The losses are horrible. The dashing of their hopes must have been horrible also. Reuters reports that,

Joy gave way to grief and anger on Wednesday when a West Virginia coal town learned that 12 of 13 miners trapped in a mine explosion had died, three hours after friends and family were mistakenly told that all but one had survived. One man survived Monday's blast and entrapment at the Sago mine in central West Virginia. He was hospitalized in critical condition.
"I feel that we were lied to all along," said Anne Meridith, whose father died in the incident.
News of the 12 deaths came hours after church bells pealed and friends and family of the miners celebrated when word spread that 12 miners had survived. West Virginia's governor said there were indications within 20 minutes the initial report of 12 survivors was wrong. Friends and family were not told for about three hours.

My frustration with reporters at the news conference is their intense concentration on the communication mess-up rather than the loss of life. They miss the whole point at times and the questioning goes terribly wrong. I know they have a job to do, but their questions can be so ham-handed and shallow that I wonder what on earth must they be thinking. I sometimes think that they are competing to be "The One" to somehow fix blame on officials doing the best they could with no rest and the extremely limited information they had at the moment.

In the midst of the grief, the shock and anger associated with this tragedy, these "things that went terribly wrong, " the course of the story will move along. In varying degrees things have gone terribly wrong at the mine will change. The investigation to determine what went wrong will reach its conclusions. The brand new company running this mine will get on its feet, or not. The family members will make their ways as best they can with precious few resources. The town will pull together, share what they can and support each other. Lawyers will join clients for the inevitable lawsuits. Coal miners who need the money, or who love the work and the proud tradition, will throw the dice and go back down the shafts.

In the midst of this story of such widely varying needs and experiences, I hope that the living who remain will find strength, solace and eventually perspective. Twelve men died in the remote hills and hollows of Appalachia, and my heart goes out to all whose lives have been turned upside down as a result.

Tags: Coal Mines news headlines journalism industrial safety energy

Vice-Presidential/Presidential vs. Congressional Power

IMPERIAL?
Today on MSNBC, on the Imus in the Morning radio show, Newsweek reporter and pundit, Jonathan Alter, discussed what many are calling the "imperial presidency, " a phrase originated by Arthur Schlessinger.
The Newsweek magazine's January 9 issue features an article entitled "Full Speed Ahead," by Evan Thomas and Daniel Klaidman. Thomas appeared on "Meet the Press" New Year's Day. Heading the story is a great Newsweek photo , with the caption reads, "President Bush with Vice President Cheney in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on September 11, 2001."

The heart of the question centers on the now often used blogger phrase to describe our current president, "King George." To quote from the Newsweek article,

Only after the crisis ebbs does the debate begin over the proper means and ends,
and by then the people and their representatives are often shocked to find what the president has done in the name of protecting them. More than four years after September 11, America finds itself debating some of the oldest issues in our history: how to balance liberty and security, how much power we should cede to the White House and whether what the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. dubbed "The Imperial Presidency" amid Watergate is a good thing, a bad thing or something in between. That the war on terror is unconventional and seemingly endless adds to the difficulty and raises the stakes.

This DailyKos discussion "Was Bush Wiretapping the Kerry Campaign?," a short post and 353 (current count) comments, illustrates why so many of us on the left are worried. The thread itself is often painful and hilarious, as usual with Kossacks. But this is not just a blogger or an academic question. There is so much opportunity for King's mischief that thoughtful people just cannot resist speculation.

Kos makes a good point with this quote, "Imperial presidency" monicker unfair to emperors," on Steve Chapman's editorial in the Chicago Tribune.

The concept of an imperial presidency started rather early in the Bush administration. Bruce Shapiro, wrote an article for Salon.com called, "Restoring the Imperial Presidency," on June 17, 2003. It is worth a click just to see an old 1975 BW photo of Cheney and Rumsfeld at a news conference at (their) Nixon Whitehouse. To quote from this rather prescient story,

The Bush administration rivals the Nixon White House when it comes to secrecy
and unchecked power, with John Ashcroft as our modern-day John Mitchell.
- - - - - - - - - -By Bruce Shapiro

June 17, 2002
They are not exactly young, these two men in the photograph, but they are trying for rakish in a '70s way -- modified Elvis sideburns, hair falling below the ear -- pushing outward the boundaries of hipness in a Republican White House.
Recently I found myself contemplating this photo, taken shortly after the Watergate scandal forced President Nixon from office. The two would-be hipsters -- Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney -- were aides to the new president, Gerald Ford. At that time Rumsfeld and Cheney were persuading Ford to veto one of the most important Watergate-inspired reforms, an enhanced Freedom of Information Act, designed to guarantee public and media scrutiny of the FBI and other agencies. FOIA, the two aides warned, would take too much power from the executive branch. Ford indeed vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode the veto and the FOIA became the law of the land -- at least until last October, when Attorney General John Ashcroft fulfilled Cheney and Rumsfeld's three-decade-old wish by pledging to fight any FOIA request that comes over the transom.

With the political aftershocks of Sept. 11 only now beginning to be felt in Washington, it's especially important to recall the real lessons of Watergate. Thirty years on, it is easy to forget that "Watergate" was really misleading shorthand: It was shorthand not only for the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters and Nixon's subsequent coverup of campaign shenanigans, but also for a vast array of domestic spying and other executive-branch abuses, which the Nixon crew perfected but did not invent.
It is fashionable now to blame Watergate on Nixon's paranoia and rogue personality. But the crimes of Watergate grew directly from the kind of unchecked presidential powers now sought by the Bush administration both at home and abroad. FBI spying on political rallies and religious communities? The White House plumbers practiced their tradecraft breaking into the psychiatric records of dissident Defense department analyst Daniel Ellsberg. The "enemies list" grew from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's decades of spying on religious, civil rights and peace groups.

Maureen Dowd's (unfortunately Times Select -I don't have the money) column today is blistering about this question. Headlined, "Stewing since the Ford years: Dick Cheney and Donald Russfeld have produced the most pumped-up executive branch ever seen." I quote from my own paper,

We start the New Year with the same old fear: Dick Cheney. . . Checks, balances,
warrants, civil liberties--they're all so 20th century. Historians must now regard the light transitional tenure of Gerald Ford as the Petri dish of this darkly transformational presidency.

Consider this: When Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, supported by Ford, pushed a plan to have the government develop alternative sources of energy and reduce our dependence on oil and Saudi Arabia, guess who helped scotch it?

Dick Cheney. Then and now, the man is a menace.

I reiterate what I said in my post yesterday. The time has come to investigate. "It was gratifying to know that legislators, our elected watchdogs, were very concerned about the practice of warrentless domestic surveillance from very early on. CNN reported on 12/19/05 that there are some congressional leaders who are interested in investigating the NSA spying program."

Tags: Bush Cheney domestic surveillance NSA Imperial Presidency

The time has come to investigate

The question of who gets to define our patriotism: alive and well in 2006
This story does not seem to be going away easily. Our current president asserts that he has the right to order that information be collected about us without the legally required court protection for civil liberties. New revelations appear almost every day about how widespread the recently practice of spying on American citizens has become, and many of us are still very uncomfortable.
Yesterday The Washington Post reported that NSA gave several other agencies the information that had been collected for cross-checking. The article begins,

Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said. The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.

This domestic surveillance story broke a few weeks ago and the furor has not yet died down. The ACLU has just purchased a full page ad in the New York Times. They have also called on Attorney General Gonzales to appoint a Special Counsel on NSA Domestic Spying.

It was gratifying to know that legislators, our elected watchdogs, were very concerned about the practice of warrentless domestic surveillance from very early on. CNN reported on 12/19/05 that there are some congressional leaders who are interested in investigating the NSA spying program. To quote,

Democratic House leaders called Sunday for an independent panel to investigate the legality of a program President Bush authorized that allows warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, according to a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
"We believe that the President must have the best possible intelligence to protect the American people, but that intelligence must be produced in a manner consistent with our Constitution and our laws, and in a manner that reflects our values as a nation," the letter says.

Sending a letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert were: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Minority Whip Steny Hoyer; John Conyers, ranking member on House Judiciary Committee; and Henry Waxman, ranking member on House Committee on Government Reform.

It is vital that these legislators understand that people all over the United States support them in their calls for an investigation. The combination of support for those who want to do the right thing, to pressure on those who do not, is the only thing that will assure that it happens.

You can contact any of the above House Members at this First.gov legislative site. And don't forget to contact your own representative at this easy site. Write to them even if they do not belong to your party, by the way, particularly if they seem to be resistant to congressional oversight of this matter.
You can contact any of the following senators, who have also spoken out, at this First.gov site.
They include, but are not limited to: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada; Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin; Senator Carl Levin, D-Michigan, a member of the Intelligence Committee, who said,

. . . it is possible the president's action was illegal, but that should be determined
through hearings. "But I don't want to prejudge whether the president broke the
law," the Michigan Democrat said on "Meet The Press." "We need an explanation.
We need it fast. The American public is entitled to the protections of the law."

Also speaking out were: Senator Charles Schumer, D-New York, Senator Joseph Biden, D-Maryland, and Senator Barbara Boxer, D-California, has called on Senator Specter to hold these hearings ahead of the Alito confirmation hearings. Senator Diane Feinstein, D-California's floor statement is carried on Yuba.net. And here I quote from the Detroit News about her view,

"If this article is accurate, it calls into question the integrity and credibility of our nation's commitment to the rule of law," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the intelligence and judiciary committees.

Top Republicans also called for hearings, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, member of Judiciary Committee, was quoted by CNN,

"We have to resolve the issue to show Americans we are nation of law not outcomes," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on CBS' "Face The Nation."
"I would like to see the intelligence committee look into it." "There is a theme here that is a bit disturbing," the Judiciary Committee member said.
"If you allow him [Bush] to make findings, he becomes the court. You can't allow him or others to play the role of the court because then others adopt that model when they hold our troops."

Senator John McCain, quoted by CNN said that,

. . . if the matter goes to a congressional panel that the intelligence community
should investigate. "You've got to be very careful about putting into the open situation" sensitive information "that would be helpful to al Qaeda," he said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said that he would call congressional hearings as soon as possible. Quoting from CNN,

Warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens is "wrong, and it can't be condoned at all," he said. In 2002, according to former officials familiar with the policy, Bush signed an executive order granting new surveillance powers to the National Security Agency -- the branch of the U.S. intelligence services responsible for international eavesdropping, and whose very existence was long denied by the government.
"I want to know precisely what they did: how NSA utilized their technical equipment, whose conversations they overheard, how many conversations they overheard, what they did with the material, what purported justification there was ... and we will go from there," Specter said.

Here is an easy e-mail portal for contacting your own senator as well as any of the national legislative leaders listed above.

Here are just two of the many formally organized efforts to get congress to investigate domestic spying:

1. Electronic Frontiers Foundation 12/22/05 - "Take Action: Demand that Congress Investigate the Bush Administration's Illegal Wiretapping.
2. Act for Change, "Congress: Investigate Bush's Illegal Domestic Spying" tools for actually getting involved with e-mails, etc.
   

Excellent reference: Bruce Schneier's blog, 12/21/05 - "The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power"

Tags: security domestic surveillance Congress Bush administration civil liberties right to privacy

Picking up on Predictions

Several species of plants and animals, that could be protected for very little money, face being wiped off the face of the earth. The BBC highlights a conservation coalition's list of 800 species that are highly endangered. Though far from our consciousness these living things live with us on a shrinking planet, and we are more and more interconnected. These species can, in a way, be seen as our "canaries in the coal mine," warnings about dangers that will come more close to home if we continue to ignore the fragility of our global environment.

When there is warning that something bad might happen, it is sometimes possible to act to prevent a predicted event from coming true. The beginning of a New Year is the time when we often look forward with either dread or anticipation to happenings that may affect our future lives. Here is my shot at picking up on a few realities that may have a bearing on issues in which I have an interest.

Robert Tanner for AP lists a number of new state laws starting today that may indicate what people will be most concerned about in 2006. Among the issues highlighted by these new laws are:

• Identity theft and misuse of personal information (Illinois, New Jersey, Virginia, Minnesota)
• Restrictions on sex offenders (Michigan)
• Limits on paparazzi (California)
• Health care (Missouri, Nevada, Wisconsin)
• "Clean" elections (Oregon, Connecticut)
• Human trafficking (Illinois)
• Pressure on illegal immigrants (Virginia)
• Highway safety (Oregon Florida, Tennessee)
• Tax cuts (Oklahoma, New York, Florida, Nevada, West Virginia)
• Ethics of politicians, limits on lobbyists (Florida)

Tom DeLay's troubles will not be over soon. It looks like lobbyist Jack Abramoff will soon plead guilty and begin to talk about his clients. And Mr. DeLay will not be returning to the House Leadership

An organization with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay was funded largely by corporations associated with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing tax records and quoting former associates of the group.
Tax records, other documents and interviews bring into question the purpose of the U.S. Family Network, which functioned mostly by collecting funds from domestic and foreign businesses whose interests coincided with DeLay's activities while he was serving as House majority whip from 1995 to 2002, and as majority leader from 2002 until the end of September, the paper wrote.

It looks like our current president will be focusing on the U.S. economy and Iraq elections as so-called "good news" early in 2006. In his most recent radio address, according to Reuters,

President George W. Bush wound down a difficult year plagued by instability in Iraq and political scandal in Washington by citing progress toward democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and a strong U.S. economy. In his weekly radio address on Saturday, New Year's Eve, Bush said "2005 has been a year of strong progress toward a freer, more peaceful world and a more prosperous America."
But it was a year in which Bush faced sharp criticism for his handling of the Iraq war, methods for fighting terrorism, and the administration's slow response to Hurricane Katrina.
Bush, who advocates spreading democracy in the Middle East, praised the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pledged that the United States would not abandon the two countries.

I predict that our current President will be confronted by an increasingly energized Congressional coalition (very loose) of conservative Republicans and exorcised Democrats as he exercises his "robust" executive style of rule. In recent months he has been forced to back down on issues which he intially declared as nonnegotiable. This pattern will continue, particularly in the area of national security and conduct of the so-called war on terrorism. But I believe he will have a victory with the successful appointment of Judge Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court.

In a subsequent post I will tackle predictions about the midterm elections.

Tags: 2006 predictions politics state law endangered species