Terrorist Attack Coming in Next 5 Years; Chambliss Wins Georgia Senate Seat; Bush Prevents Federal Employees From Joining Unions; Wal-Mart Sued for Black Friday Negligence.
Hey everybody. I’m Farron Cousins, and this is The Daily Left – your interactive source for progressive news and commentary. Thanks for joining me.
Today’s top story – According to a new report, the odds are showing that terrorists will hit the United States or somewhere else with a chemical or biological weapon sometime between right now, and possibly the year 2013. I hope that threat is not too vague for you. A bipartisan taskforce compiled the report, and said that the odds have increased thanks to threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling networks and the spread of weapons know-how. The panel called on Obama to take "decisive action" after he becomes president to reduce the threat of an attack with weapons of mass destruction. The report cited Pakistan as cause for serious concern because of terror networks that operate there, as well as the country's nuclear arsenal and history of political instability. The report calls for international action to secure unguarded nuclear weapons material, such as uranium and plutonium, and to step up efforts to disrupt smuggling networks that sell nuclear technology. And all this time I thought that Bush’s war on terror was making us safer and reducing the threat of terrorist attacks. At least that’s what Sean Hannity told me.
In other depressing news today, Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss has defeated Democrat Jim Martin in the state’s senate run off, which effectively prevents the Democrats in the Senate from being able to reach that allusive “magic 60.” However, given the fact that this was one of only two contests remaining to be decided, and the fact that Democrats only held 56 seats, it would have been impossible for them to reach the 60 without counting Independents, which are unpredictable. With 95% of precincts reporting, the Georgia Secretary of State's office last night showed Chambliss garnering 57.8% of the vote to Jim Martin’s 42.2%. This is a bit depressing, but the democrats do still have a strong majority in the Senate, and if they can pull just a few moderate republicans, and Joe Lieberman, to their side, they’ll have the necessary 60 votes to end filibusters.
Also today, President Bush had to get one more shot in at American unions before leaving office, which he did by issuing an executive order that prevents government employees at five different agencies from joining unions, if they are engaged in intelligence gathering, investigations and other national security work. Offices covered by the order employ about 8,600 people within the Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation and Treasury departments. About 900 of them are Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives workers who have chosen to participate in collective bargaining and will lose their negotiated work rules. These rules that the Bush Administration is taking away from them moderate their work hours, promotion schedule, and benefits. Executive Order 12171, issued by President Jimmy Carter in the 1979, allows the president to exclude workers engaged in national security from the Federal Labor-Management Relations Program. Bush's order marked the 12th amendment to the original order.
And finally today, two Wal-Mart customers are suing the retail giant for failing to keep them safe in the mad rush on Black Friday that ended up killing one store employee. Attorney Kenneth Mollins said Fritz Mesadieu and Jonathan Mesadieu were quote "literally carried from their position outside the store" and are now "suffering from pain in their neck and their back from being caught in that surge of people" that rushed into the Wal-Mart. Mollins went on to say that this was a preventable problem, and if the store had done simple things like put barriers up to spread out the line, incidents like this wouldn’t have happened. I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with him. Yes, Wal-Mart should have done a lot more to protect shoppers and their employees, but ultimately, the blame for these incidents lies with the American shoppers. These were people so greedy and so desperate to save a dollar that they didn’t care that they trampled and killed a fellow human being. So in addition to holding Wal-Mart accountable, they need to go after everyone who was in that line and charge them with negligence, and possibly even murder.
And that’s all I’ve got for you today. For those of you not watching this video on YouTube, we urge you to check out our page at
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RingofFireRadio.com . I’m Farron Cousins, and thanks for watching GoLeft TV – Citizens’ media on the rise.
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