George W. Bush the “anti-government” President, himself. (Technically, he didn’t appoint himself, the Supreme Court did.)

Who the hell would sign up for a five month gig in the worst administration to ever disgrace Washington?

Resume building?

Sounds like they are gettin’ ready to pull another fast one….

Excellent question.

Yes! Just imagine that job listed on a lobbyists resume! It’s a lottery win!

Virtually all Bush’s cabinet choices were tasked with undermining if not dismantling their respective departments. Gonzalez may be the winner but Gale Norton has to be near the top. I ran across this tidbit in her Wikipedia bio.

Retiring from her position as Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton landed a lavish position in Royal Dutch Shell Oil company as their Law Advisor, drawing further critics from the environmentalists due to her prior pro-developmentalist position regarding oil drilling and national forests.

speaking of top posts

Several sources at the RNC told FOX News that in the last 36 hours, senior McCain advisers and aides have told RNC officials that McCain “got the message” last week that choosing a running mate who supports abortion rights would not be helpful.

Snowflake babies across this nation wonder why they have been forsaken.

for a top regulatory post at the Department of Energy… (who is) …”naturally and philosophically opposed to regulation.”

ah, another day of the worst administration in U.S. history.

(yawn)

note to self: It’ll be over soon….

“naturally and philosophically opposed to regulation.”

the narative against these “regulations are bad” is simple;

“regulations don’t grow from whole cloth, they were in almost all cases put into place BECAUSE an industry refused to pay their own bills, they wanted US to pay their bills for them

for instance, industry was pouring asma into my kids air and refused to clean up their crap, we had to make them pay their own bills BECAUSE they refuse, THAT IS WHY NIXON CREATED THE EPA

for instance, manufacturers were dumping their cancer in my wifes water and they refused to clean up their crap, THAT’S why we regulated them, they wanted ME AND YOU to pay THEIR BILLS and I will NOT let them steal middle class assets like that”

“now every ONCE IN A WHILE, a regulation is counter productive, when that happens we REVISIT a regulation and see what the solutions are to HELP productivity, we DO NOT SIMPLY ELIMINATE regulations whole cloth because a business don’t want to pay their bills”

that’s the way to frame the discussion in terms that are hard to debate against

It’ll never be over. Our grandchildren will be asking us how it could ever happen? We’ll have to talk about it until death!

OT but Maddow has TV show. Nine PM following KO. Yippee

yeah -over soon- and the cowboy prez will head back to Highland Park, Texas to write his memoirs..

Course he REALLY wanted ta go ta Crawford and clear brush daily- but he says that Laura won’t let him be a real man.

John Yoo in the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice.

“Why yes, you *can* do all manner of mean, nasty, horrible, no-good things to detainees, as long as you didn’t mean to maim, disfigure, severely hurt, or even kill them. Don’t worry about that quaint little piece of paper from Geneva and ratified by the US Senate. But don’t tell anyone I said so — it’s a secret.”

[OT@mooondancer: Maddow got a TV show?! You just made my day.]

OT - bad news?

As Delaware Sen. Joe Biden left his home a few minutes ago, golf clubs in tow, he was asked where he was going to be on Saturday.

Biden replied, “Here” and pointed down to his driveway.

As he pulled out of the driveway in the driver’s seat of his car he then said to the press gathered near his gate, “You guys have better things to do. I’m not the guy.”

crap.

If it really *is* down to a choice between Kaine and Bayh, you can wake me up on November 5. I don’t know that I can bear to watch.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....76323.aspx

In answer to your last question, I’d have to say Chao at Labor.

Former coal/mining/oil/ firm VP J Steven Griles as Deputy Secretary of Interior…overseeing some Federal agencies charged with enforcing enviro laws and overseeing leasing of Federal lands to coal/mining/oil companies?

J Steven - before he went to prison - literally oversaw the anihiliation of his own portfolio: he helped ram through the “definition of fill” that redefined “mountaintop removal” in which whole valleys are buried as “fill” not requiring additional Federal permitting: cause it didn’t affect the streams at the bottom of the buried valleys enough to matter, don’cha know.

So how did a process mandated by a federal judge “to minimize, to the maximum extent practicable, the adverse environmental effects” from mountaintop removal become a vehicle for industry?

Two words: Steven Griles. Never heard of him? You’re not supposed to. Steven Griles is one of industry’s moles within the Bush administration. Before coming to work as deputy secretary of the Interior, Griles was one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, with a long list of energy-industry clients, including the National Mining Association and several of the country’s largest coal companies.

On August 1, 2001, Griles signed a “statement of disqualification,” promising to stay clear of issues involving his former clients. Despite that promise, according to his own appointment calendar (obtained by environmental groups through the Freedom of Information Act), Griles met repeatedly with coal companies while the administration worked on the mountaintop-removal issue.

Griles has denied discussing the “fill rule” in any of those meetings. But on August 4, 2001 — three days after signing his recusal letter — he gave a speech beforethe West Virginia Coal Association, reassuring members that “we will fix the federal rules very soon on water and spoil placement.”

Two months later, Griles sent a letter to the EPA and other agencies drafting the EIS, complaining that they were not doing enough to safeguard the future of mountaintop removal and instructing them to “focus on centralizing and streamlining coal mine permitting.”

How’s that for anihilation!

(Griles’ buddies at the DOI went for the anihil-twofer: asked for only five months in the Federal pen. The judge gave J Steven ten.)

Let’s close this entry with a contest: Besides Hutto, which officials are the most egregious examples of Bush appointees bent on the annihilation or nullification of their own portfolios?

Wouldn’t it be easier to name those who haven’t, although I can’t think of any?

I agree - Mrs McConnell and she ain’t done yet

Hey - wouldn’t an Assistant Sec post require Senate confirmation? With the Senate controlled by the other party, the opposition can just block the appointment, right?

Harry will honor a hold placed by one of his own Dem Seantors, right?

oh, wait….

Well, she did say “most egregious.” Take it as a challenge. *g*

Wouldn’t it be easier to name those who haven’t, although I can’t think of any?

Well, if it was *easy*, it wouldn’t be much of a contest, now would it? *g*

maybe we could call it “The Diogenes Project”?

Is anyone holding down the fort at the senate? Thought they adjourned until Sept. in which case

Anti-Regulation Crusader Shortlisted for Regulatory Post at DOE

Well, that’s par for the course

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaDelhvtQ98

P.S. How to know if someone is a sociopath

http://swiftspeech.blogspot.co.....opath.html

dkos is reporting a strong rumor that it will be Sibelius, emphasis on rumor.

In my scandals list, I have the following entries for this category:

105, 106, 145, 153, 157, 162, 172, 176, 206, 231, 232, 235, 236, 237, 243, 244, 279, 285, 309, 374.

See, there’s the challenge - whittle away!

Sweet!

I love Rachel!

Why Now ??? -

everyone pls recall it was DOE tech data on the infamous aluminum tubes that had Cheney’s depends in a twist

What’s-her-name at CPSC. You know, the pro-manufacturer head of consumer protection…
Lead in toys, Date-rape-drug precursor in Aqua-Dots, Rat poison in pet food…

FunnyD

Since (I guess) we’re expected to buttress our choices with links, here one:

GAO Proves Chao Dogging It at Labor
“The fish rots from the head.”

As you know, we’ve been on Elaine Chao’s butt for years (no pun intended), slamming her for turning the Labor Dept from an agency mandated to help employees into an agency that tells corporations how they can fire workers legally, what to do to keep unions out, and so on. We’ve been able to find very little that she’s ever done for workers in this country, and what little we’ve found she did because she was forced to, either by Congress or the Courts.

They go on to quote two recent GAO reports, a sample:

The Government Accountability Office sharply criticizes the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department in two reports to be issued on Tuesday, saying it mishandled many overtime and minimum-wage complaints and delayed investigating hundreds of cases for a year or more.

Well in terms of regulation there is

105. Susan E. Dudley made administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. Dudley who doesn’t believe in regulation except in extreme cases when the “market fails” was named to this powerful regulatory post in a recess appointment on April 4, 2007.

This one didn’t go through but it’s one of my favorites.

157. Michael Baroody who was Executive Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers a powerful K Street lobbying group was nominated by Bush on March 1, 2007 to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission. NAM has sought to limit or even eliminate corporate liability for unsafe products and environmental practices. NAM decided to give Baroody a $150,000 extraordinary payment on his way out the door. It is hard to say whether this is simply a further conflict of interest or just straightforward bribery. On May 23, 2007, Baroody withdrew his nomination, one day before the beginning of hearings.

Stephen Johnson at EPA, Lurita Doan at GSA, Alberto Gonzales at DOJ, John Bolton as UN Ambassador, going after the low hanging fruit here.

Another solid post from the ever solid Lindsay B.

FDL gets better and better. With Lindsay here, FDL haver outdone even their high performance to date.

Keep those diggs coming in so that Lindsay gets the highest exposure (and FDL, of course).

Forgot to mention: perfect graphic. No surprisae, coming from talented photographer Beyerstein.

CT is gonna faint when he hears the Maddow news…*G*

for the question: who is.. Margaret Spelling?

Phoenix Woman has a http://firedoglake.com/2008/08.....more-30405 up on the main FDL page for your edification!

Don’t you have this “It’s bloody well about time!” feeling? :-)))) Best piece of news that’s come down the pike in a long while.

oh Lindsay, we are gonna need a weighted scoring system like Olympic Gymnastics

Requiring Two Panels

Panel A Judges -

Requirements - per Lindsay’s criteria above

Difficulty ? slim congressional confirmation margin or recess appt ?

Connections crony ? length of time in portfolio industry

Panel B Judges

Execution how much measurable havoc wrought in the shortest amount of time ?

Artistic Expression deaths or painful suffering involved ?, how much public cash did you burn through ? were cookies, racist halloween costumes or commissioned portraits involved ?

otherwise folks like Alfonso Jackson, Julie Myers, and Dr Gerberding don’t stand a chance

New PW at fdl