"Who's Minding The Store?"

On Friday, PBS' The Newshour [1] caught up with our old friend Nancy Nord, the toy industry's good friend heading up your Consumer Product Safety Commission.

And she was in full corporate hack mode, spinning like a top:

Toys are one of safest products in the American marketplace. And the toys on the shelves this year, right now, have gone through more inspections and more testing than in any years past. So, parents, I think, can shop with confidence this year.

Which sounded particularly ridiculous, since the news piece began with a New Hampshire activist who had found lead, asbestos, cadmium and mercury in toys she purchased, yet could not even get a response to her findings from Nord's agency.

The Newshour also featured Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage, described what the toxic toys scandal says about the need our effective government in the globalized economy:

[Nord] was the head of the agency for two years. Its budget went down to the lowest levels ever. The staffing went down to the lowest levels ever, and this taking place at a time when we have gone from a national economy with national producers to a global economy with 80 percent of our toys coming from China.

And the segment included our hit YouTube video, starring Barbie, Ken [2] and their bout with lead poisoning.

The Newshour piece ends by rhetorically asking: "Who's minding the store?" Being all "fair and balanced," PBS wouldn't directly answer.

But it's indisputable that Nord, carrying out the principles of conservative government, has worked on behalf on the corporate interest and not the public interest. Despite the belated recalls, toxic toys remain on the shelves while Nord pretends everything is safe.

You can watch the Newshour segment by clicking here. [3]