Edward _

The first time Labor Secretary Elaine Chao tried to overhaul the country’s Fair Labor Standards Act, there was a bit of squawking (1.5 million e-mails, letters, faxes and made phone calls to the White House, the Department of Labor and Congress…and not all of them from me either). So—her boss being up for re-election this year—she rolled up her sleeves, put in some long hours, and took another stab at it. And now, in the fine tradition of the Bush II administration, it’s much, much better…at least in Orwellian terms.

“Today, workers win. The department’s new rules guarantee and strengthen overtime rights for more American workers than ever before,” said Secretary Chao.

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After two years of delays and having lost two rounds in lower courts, Cheney is about to face the final test in his quest to keep private his records of work on a national energy strategy.

Cheney Secrecy Case Goes to High Court

The executive branch’s argument in this battle is that forced disclosure of confidential records intrudes on a president’s power to get truthful advice. The questions (pdf file) they’re asking the Supreme Court to answer are

Whether the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. 1, §§ 1 et seq., can be construed, consistent with the Constitution, principles of separation of powers, and this Court’s decisions governing judicial review of Executive Branch actions, to authorize broad discovery of the process by which the Vice President and other senior advisors gathered information to advise the President on important national policy matters, based solely on an unsupported allegation in a complaint that the advisory group was not constituted as the President expressly directed and the advisory group itself reported.

and

Whether the court of appeals had mandamus or appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s unprecedented discovery orders in this litigation.

The argument of the groups pressing the matter, Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club, is that the public should be able to see what influence energy industries had in outlining our national energy policy.

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I wish I had a first-hand account of yesterday’s march to share with you (feel free to use this as an open thread to share your experiences if you were there). I’ve attended previous marches in Washington focussed on preserving a woman’s right to choose, but didn’t attend this one. It sounds like I missed quite an event:

Massive March in Support of Abortion Rights

The turnout was among the largest seen in a city with a fabled history for such gatherings. Authorities no longer offer official crowd estimates, but various police sources informally estimated the throng at between 500,000 and 800,000 in the mile-long stretch of green space between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

Perhaps most significant about the gathering (which included the usual mix of politicians, celebrities, and true believers) was the focus on “mobilizing a new generation of women to the fight.”

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Note: if you’re allergic to conspiracy theories, I don’t recommend this posting

I have an acquaintance I love discussing politics with. I’ll call him Dr. V. A self-made multimillionaire with a quickly growing international banking business (he’s opening five new European offices this year alone, I believe), Dr. V collects advanced degrees and classic electric rock-and-roll guitars. Dr. V also has what I’ll generously term a “vivid imagination.” (Look up “conspiracy theorist” in the dictionary and you’ll find his photo.)

We’ll meet socially every month or two and eventually find ourselves free to bring up politics, and normally he’s chock full of outlandish predictions. He’ll usually begin “So, what have you learned recently?” in a slightly insulting tone that suggests I have potential as a protege. I refrain from bringing up the predictions he made that didn’t come true (that leads to mindnumbing tangents), but he’s right far more often than he’s wrong. Right after 9/11, he predicted both the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions more or less exactly the way they happened. Some of his other predictions are too wacky (or scary) to share, but at a party this past Saturday night he outlined a doozy. I’ll call it “The Chaos Theory.”

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According to reports of what’s in Bob Woodward’s new book “Plan of Attack,” Secretary of State Colin Powell was a reluctant team player in the invasion of Iraq:

Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned President Bush about the potential negative consequences of a war, citing what Mr. Powell privately called the “you break it, you own it” rule of military action, according to a new book.

“You’re sure?” Mr. Powell is quoted as asking Mr. Bush in the Oval Office on Jan. 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go forward. “You understand the consequences,” he is said to have stated in a half-question. “You know you’re going to be owning this place?”

I watched with disbelief as Powell, the member of Bush’s administration I’ve always held in the highest regard, made the case for invading Iraq before the United Nations. Not that I knew he was doing so against his best judgement, per se, but from a source very close to Powell, I’ve known for some time he had no intention of serving in a second Bush administration (despite his insisting otherwise publically).

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair is in the US for talks with President Bush. Expected to be on the agenda are the need for a new UN resolution (which they seem to agree on); concern over hardline tactics in Iraq (which they are expected to disagree about somewhat); and Bush’s support of Sharon’s plan (which by many accounts may have really pissed the PM off).

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