There's a new scandal every day and Americans are quickly losing trust in all levels of elected officials and their appointed cronies. In this atmosphere, progressives need to be repeating a quote from former SCOTUS Justice Louis Brandeis: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

While this idiom may not technically be true (sunlight will not cleanse your kitchen tabletops or toilet seats), it is deeply meaningful.  To protect us from corruption all we truly need is unfettered acces to see how our institutions work.  

However even in the midst of stonewalling multiple investigations, the Bush administration has found time to limit public access to vital information even further. This time its the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI).  Follow below the fold to find out what this is, why it matters and what you can do within five minutes to take action.

I'm watching the live Bush speech on CNN now- a speech to the Officer's Wives of something.

Bush just pulled out this gem - (paraphrased, not quoted)

Sounds like a pretty valid criticism of Bush himself.

Sorry for the brevity of this diary, but sometimes this administration leaves me clueless and speechless. anyone catch the actual quote?

I just sent the following to Arlen Specter via email and snail mail.  If any of you live in PA or other states that have Senators on the Judiciary Committe, I urge you to send similar requests. (NY and DE kossacks, I'm looking in your direction- contact Schumer and Biden. VT, MA, WI, IL, and CA kossacks, your wonderful Democratic Senators also sit on the committee.)

Letter below the fold:

There's been a lot of discussion on this site and elsewhere about the strategy that Senate Democrats used to vote for or against John Roberts.  Senate minority leader Harry Reid, one of the first to announce he would be voting no, explained why he wasn't calling for all Democrats to follow: "You can only go to the well so many times. This (Roberts vote) isn't a time I wanted to do that."  That is an astute quote, Reid wants to follow Kenny Rogers' advice and "know when to hold them, know when to fold them."  

However if there ever was a time to call for a party line vote, Reid missed it a week and a half ago when the Senate voted to overturn Bush's weakened rule on mercury emissions.  It would have been both a policy and a political triumph to overturn the Bush rule, reduce mercury emissions (which end up in our waterways, our fish, and then our bodies) and a concrete way to stop the harmful Bush agenda.

Sunday was an eventful day: the four year anniversary of 9/11/01, the beginning of the NFL season, and the Freedom March and Concert for a failing regime in DC. Here in Pittsburgh we were lucky enough to have the Gold Star Families for Peace and the Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour stop by with a rally and a candlelight vigil march, and over a thousand people showed up during the day.

 photos below the fold

On tonight's Sinclair News, shown on my local Fox affiliate, I heard a new talking point shifting blame towards local authorities.  

The lead segment focused on how Dems are blaming Bush and FEMA.  The "reporter" pointed out that state rules call for school busses to be used in evacuations for those with no other transportation.  But the buses went unused and got flooded.  This is the first I've heard of this.  

Next they said that the mayor was overwhelmed and lashed out at the federal government in an angry radio interview.  Then they interviewed a Democratic strategist to really reinforce how we're all using this tragedy to bash Bush.  The story didn't have one f'ing word though, to try to actually prove the competence of the federal response to Katrina.

One productive thing that the recent split in the AFL-CIO already produced was a newfound interest in the labor movement. Sure, it only lasted a week, and the only reason the mainstream media latched onto the story was because it involved unions fighting with each other, but still for a few days the labor movement was featured on the front page of the paper.

So it seems like as a good a year as any to remind people of something that your boss probably doesn't want you to know: today is not labor day.  The creation of the first Monday as Labor Day was another step by corporate bosses and the  government to defuse and derail the nascent progressive socialist movement that existed in this country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

   A brief history below the fold.

[A few weeks ago I posted a similar diary, but it wasn't written well and I didn't make my point clearly. Dick Durbin's comment on Meet the Press this morning inspired me to have another go at it.]

This morning on Meet the Press, Sen. Dick Durbin, while speaking about nomination hearings for Judge John Roberts was asked about his personal shift on abortion issues.  As a Congressman he was pro-life, but now is pro-choice, and says that if a potential SCOTUS Justice wanted to overturn Roe, that would indicate he or she was outside the political mainstream.  Here is what the Senior Senator from Illinois said about his change in position:

  more below the fold

Buried today on the back page of the business section of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Law Would Facilitate Recognition of Unions":

There is no discussion in this pathetic excuse of an article- or elsewhere in the MSM- of why current and potential union members feel that the Employee Free Choice Act is necessary.

-continued below-

OK, so why is marijuana illegal?

We've heard all sorts of different reasons:

• Marijuana causes aberrant behavior and lack of motivation
  
• Weed is harmful and has no therapeutic value
  
• Pot use leads to use of other drugs
  
• Buying grass supports violent criminals, and even terrorists

However when the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that the federal government can trump state law and prosecute medicinal marijuana users, they didn't rely on any of those reasons.  They ruled this way because homegrown marijuana would lessen demand for illegaly sold marijuana, presumably cutting into the profits of career criminals and terrorist networks.