The Hightower Report

GOP Blocks Mine Safety Efforts

Some members of Congress complain that they have a really tough job. Also, they say their hard work is not appreciated by the public and that they're really not paid enough.

Well, not to worry, Congress peoples, for I have the perfect cure for your job grievances: Become coal miners for a while.

Talk about hard work, bad conditions, poor pay, and unappreciative bosses! Then there's that irritating thing about being killed on the job.

You might remember that 29 miners were killed in April in a horrific explosion inside West Virginia's Upper Big Branch mine, owned by Massey Energy. Massey, a $2-billion-a-year giant, is notorious for putting its workers in inexcusably unsafe coal mines. Last year, it was cited for more than 500 safety violations – and it had just received two more citations at Upper Big Branch on the very day of the deadly explosion.

Such killings happen because coal corporations have used their campaign cash and lobbyists to make mine safety rules a cruel joke. After Massey's April explosion, however, public outrage prodded Congress to write tougher rules and put some teeth in safety enforcement.

Great! But wait – Senate Republicans have been sitting down on the job, refusing to move this life-and-death legislation to passage. Their shameful work stoppage was meant to stall any action until after the November elections. You see, wealthy mine owners poured money into this year's Republican efforts to win control of the Senate, in exchange for assurances that a GOP Senate would water down or kill these vital safety reforms.

What a disgrace! And they wonder why the public has no respect for them. I say that every soft-handed, pampered Congress critter who opposes these reforms should be sent to work in the mines for at least two years.

Pulp Nonfiction

One especially ugly word an author never wants to hear is: "pulp."

To pulp a book is not merely to remove it from sale but literally to destroy it, reducing the paper itself – and all of your words and thoughts – to a goopy chemical mash. I've had one of my books threatened with pulping even before it went on sale, so I can empathize with Anthony Shaffer, who has just had the first printing of his book gooped by a gang of goofy censors in the Pentagon.

Shaffer, a lieutenant colonel who served as an Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan, had written Operation Dark Heart, an unflattering assessment of America's military intelligence bureaucracy. Playing by the rules, Shaffer had dutifully submitted his manuscript to the Army prior to publication, getting its official approval in January to publish.

So 10,000 copies were printed and placed in a distribution warehouse, about 100 advance copies were sent to book reviewers, and Shaffer even received the endorsement of a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who hailed the memoir as "one terrific book."

But in July, the goofiness hit the fan. Someone in DIA began objecting to Shaffer's critique, and suddenly some 250 passages were deemed to contain military secrets. These so-called "secrets" were mostly well-known facts already published in news articles, on Wikipedia, and elsewhere. But Shaffer's permission to publish was abruptly retracted. The Pentagon brass then bought the 10,000 warehoused copies and, in the overbearing name of national security, had them pulped.

The pulping merely proves Shaffer's point about the heavy-handed stupidity of the military "intelligence" establishment. It also shows once again that the Pentagon brass has way too many of our tax dollars to play with.