http://understandinggov.org Informing the Public; Improving Government Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:12:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Attorney General Robert Mukasey has worked hard to steady the Department of Justice following the rocky tenure of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.  But he has not jettisoned most of Gonzales's practices or people, leaving many DOJ reform advocates angry, according to Eric Lichtblau in the New York Times.  Is it ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/23/mukasey-at-justice-an-even-keel-vs-a-drifting-vessel/ In a burst of activity atypical for the Department of Labor, top officials are rushing to change rules about permissible exposure to toxins in the workplace, according to a report by Carol Leonnig in the Washington Post.  The Post stresses that "political appointees" at Labor are making the changes, locking ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/23/labor-working-with-industry-to-loosen-toxins-rules/ The Washington Post's Spencer S. Hsu takes stock of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's already panned plan to provide housing to disaster victims. The 87-page report was submitted to Congress and state disaster relief planners who immediately took aim. The emergency manager for the state of Florida zinged that "having ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/22/fema-disaster-relief-plan-still-disastrous/ Last night Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater Worldwide a/k/a the most cartoonishly evil corporation in the world, told the Associated Press that the mega-private security contractor...would no longer do private security. Instead, Blackwater would focus on winning government contracts for other military and diplomacy-related matters like aviation, training and logistics. Jackson's ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/22/blackwater-leaving-private-security-businessor-are-they/ The Washington Post's Annys Shin reports that the Food and Drug Administration found a jalapeno pepper in McAllen, Texas that has bacteria which can cause salmonella. The contaminated pepper was made in Mexico and sold by the small Texas company, Agricola Zaragosa. In May, the FDA warned that there was salmonella ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/22/feds-detain-jalapeno-pepper-in-texas/ The Washington Post's Carrie Johnson usually does an excellent job covering the myriad scandals at the Bush administration's Justice Dept. But her profile yesterday of Attorney General Michael Mukasey is far too gentle. Understanding Government is flagging the piece, because it does provide a nice summary of Mukasey's short but ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/21/whats-a-euphemism-for-partisan-hack/ The Wall Street Journal's Siobhan Hughes looks at a Congressional report that says the Bush administration was for regulating greenhouse gases before they were against it. Stephen Johnson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and fellow agency heads expressed support for curtailing the climate change-causing gases. But then Dick Cheney's office ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/21/cheney-oil-global-warmingand-jason-burnett/ The Washington Post's Walter Pincus reports that a pending CIA budget would give billions to something called the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. Mike McConnell, director of the CIA, has previously noted that it's not enough to respond to foreign and domestic cyber intruders after the fact--- the government needs to ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/21/bush-declares-preemptive-war-on-hackers/ The Washington Post's Spencer S. Hsu reports on the dramatic shift in U.S. immigration policy toward mass arrests of undocumented immigrant workers. Five years ago, the feds arrested 72 such workers. Already this year, though, the Dept. of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested 937 undocumented immigrants. In making ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/21/amid-scrutiny-immigration-officials-just-keep-arresting-people/ The New York Times' James Risen gets his hands on Pentagon and Congressional reports into mega-contractor KBR's faulty electric wiring of Iraq buildings. Apparently 283 electrical fires that destroyed or damaged military facilities have been the result of KBR wiring. Risen has been on this story for a while and he ... http://understandinggov.org/2008/07/18/war-contracting-gone-bad/