[Mine and Health Safety Administrator Richard Stickler] used to be a mining executive who - according to various media reports - ran mines which had several fatalities and “…an incident rate that was often twice the national average.”
Well, I’d say that qualifies him! Certainly other Bush appointees—Brownie, Rummy, Cheney—put the “execute” in executive at far, far higher rates than average.
Also coming to light, is the fact that Stickler’s nomination to head the mine administration was twice rejected by congress and rejected when republicans were still in charge. Rejected reportedly by senators who were concerned about Stickler’s safety record when he operated mines.
Stickler was too much even for the Congressional Republicans?!
After his nomination was twice rejected by the Senate, President Bush gave Richard Stickler the mine safety job with a recess appointment.
Well, that’s the benefit of Bush working under The Theory Of We Get To Do Whatever The Fuck
We Want. He gets to do whatever the fuck he wants. Move along, people, move along. “We” need the coal, and it’s only the little people who die.
NOTE If Stickler’s corporation killed people, it should have been given the corporate death penalty.
Front page
Drowned in a bathtub
Katrina: They knew there were problems with the levees. They did nothing. The worst came to pass. And Brownie cocked it up even worse.
Minneapolis bridge (not comparing it to NOLA): They knew it could collapse. Tim Pawlenty bullied and vetoed to prevent raising taxes to deal with crumbling infrastructure.
How about former lobbyists turned political appointees?
Mine and Health Safety Administrator Richard Stickler (see lambert’s post above).
The completely unqualified wife of Michael Chertoff, Julie L. Myers, recess appointed to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security
Member of the Federal Election Commission? how about a recess appointment of former Fulton County, Ga., Republican chairman Hans von Spakovsky who is “widely viewed as a key player in two disputed Justice
Department decisions to overrule career staff in voting rights cases.”
Daniel Pipes as a a Member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace.
Lead counsel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration? Daniel Troy, a former drug-company lobbyist
#2 position with the Interior Department? former energy lobbyist, J. Steven Griles
Deputy Undersecretary of the USDA Charles Lambert? Natch, he was a lobbyist for the Cattlemen’s Association. Famously argued against labeling that would give consumers useful information in avoiding mad cow.
“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead
How could they know?
Not only did “they” know the Minneapolis bridge could collapse, the Dept. of Transportation (run by the Lt. Governor), reversed a decision to implement preventive measures last winter because of the expense (info courtesy of startribune.com). Of course the first public words out of Gov. Pawlenty’s mouth were something along the lines of, “We had no idea there was a problem.” Bush is scheduled to make his second Minneapolis visit since the collapse tomorrow. You can’t say they didn’t learn the lessons of NOLA—act concerned and deflect the blame.
"No one could have predicted..."
… that the bridge would collapse.
Of course, they did, and it did.
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
watching civilization corrode and disappear is never
fun. that’s what we’ve got here. you can’t sustain high civilization and at the same time 1) drain the treasury and credit standing of the entire nation 2) blow it all on things that don’t put the money back into “the” economy 3) spend what’s left on “government” comprised of cronies and incompetents.
you know, what i really want to do right now is slap a republican upside the haid. somebody has to do the work, or the job won’t get done. when everyone is a pig at the trough and no one an ant in the field, eventually winter comes and everybody starves. everybody.
(our alien insect masters excluded of course; if it comes to that they’ll just drain our blood)
Don't you love that his name is "Stickler?"
CD, well said.
Tinfoil Hat Boy, great list.
good catch, lambert
should we add to the questions to be posed to Democratic presidential candidates - How thorough will you be in asking for the resignation of all Bush appointees when you take office?