tip of the iceberg

The big news is that the pressure is on for President Obama to reverse himself and start looking into the allegations of law breaking by the Bush administration:

Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Fox News Sunday called it a “big problem.” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, on “This Week” on ABC, agreed that the secrecy “could be illegal” and demanded an inquiry.

Mr. Obama said this weekend that he had asked his staff members to review the mass killing of prisoners in Afghanistan by local forces allied with the United States as it toppled the Taliban regime there. The New York Times reported Saturday that the Bush administration had blocked investigations of the matter.

This is a very interesting read and should make all American workers worry:

The last thing America's workers need is another economic kick in the groin, but the Bush labor board may soon deliver what could be its lowest blow yet.

In a series of pending cases known as Kentucky River, the Bush board could strip what remains of federal labor law protections from hundreds of thousands-perhaps millions-of workers whose jobs include even minor, incidental or occasional supervisory duties. The pending cases involve charge nurses in a hospital and a nursing home and lead workers in a manufacturing plant, but these workers could be just the tip of the iceberg.

The Bush National Labor Relations Board is easily the most anti-worker labor board in history, but even against this sorry backdrop, the scope of what they now are contemplating is breathtaking.

The consequences of bad labor board rulings in these cases have the potential to strip coverage in every nook and cranny of the workforce and create innumerable new opportunities for mischief by employers bent on denying workers' their fundamental human right to form a union. Long established collective bargaining relationships will also unravel, as employers emboldened by the NLRB's rulings assert that they no longer have a duty under federal labor law to recognize or bargain with their employees' unions. It will be back to the law of the jungle in industries like health care, where disruptions from labor disputes became so severe in the early 1970s that Congress passed special legislation to bring employees of private non-profit hospitals under federal labor law coverage.

You can read the rest of it here.