Worker's Rights

For the third week in a row, the Sunday shows go 0-for-3 for the Watchdog.

Sen. John Warner was not asked on Meet The Press if his thin proposal, to reduce troop levels in Iraq from 160,000 to 155,000, would signal a desire to continue an indefinite occupation.

Instead, Warner was able to say unchallenged: "it would send a signal to the Iraqi government that matches [President Bush's] words. His words being, 'We’re not going to be there forever.'"

Sen. John Cornyn was not asked on ABC's This Week to account for his comment last year that we have "about another four to six months to get this right" in Iraq.

And Fox News Sunday did not even bring up mine safety issues with Sen. Mitch McConnell, despite his ties to Crandall Canyon owner Bob Murray.

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Air America's Sam Seder is off this Sunday, so we won't have our usual on-air Weekend Watchdog segment. But that shouldn't stop us from keeping the pressure on the Sunday TV shows to ask the tough questions.

Add your own questions in the comment thread. Contact information for the shows is below, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked.

For Sen. John Warner, R-Va. (NBC's Meet The Press): This week, you proposed reducing our troops level in Iraq by 5,000 to send a "strong signal" to neighboring countries that "we're not going to stay there forever."

But that would only reduce our troop level from 160,000 to 155,000, higher than the troop level was before the surge.

Wouldn't that send the opposite signal, that we don't mean what we say and we do plan to permanently occupy Iraq? more »

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Three lives are lost and counting in the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah. The flamboyant, camera-hogging mine owner, Bob Murray, has called this a "once in a lifetime" accident, like a car crushed by a boulder suddenly dislodged. These horrors happen.

Yes, but when we add one plus one plus one, we don't call three an accident. We call it a product, a sum, the result. And the Utah disaster wasn't random; it is the product of conditions just waiting to be added up. more »

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A federally-imposed reporting requirement goes into effect today that is a transparent attempt by the Bush administration to intimidate union activists and hamper union activity. The tactic is to do to unions what conservatives complain liberals do to businesses: Bog them down in needless paperwork.

The rule would require thousands of shop stewards and others union volunteers to file a detailed financial disclosure form to the Department of Labor, which would then post the form on the Internet. The form in question is known as the "LM-30," formally the Labor Organization Officer and Employee Report. The final ruling was published in the Federal Register on July 2. more »

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