Bush makes another brilliant move - catering to the corporations with a slap in the face to disaster survivors!

President Bush yesterday suspended application of the federal law governing workers' pay on federal contracts in the Hurricane Katrina-damaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The action infuriated labor leaders and their Democratic supporters in Congress, who said it will lower wages and make it harder for union contractors to win bids.

The Davis-Bacon Act, passed in 1931 during the Great Depression, sets a minimum pay scale for workers on federal contracts by requiring contractors to pay the prevailing or average pay in the region. Suspension of the act will allow contractors to pay lower wages. Many Republicans have opposed Davis-Bacon, charging that it amounts to a taxpayer subsidy to unions.

The Almighty Dollar wins again.

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.
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As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

Senator Rick Santorum, R-Pa. has introduced a bill which would block federal weather information services from competing with the paid or advertiser-supported services of corporations such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel.

Santorum ... "said expanded federal services threaten the livelihoods of private weather companies."

"It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar products and services for free," Santorum said.

» Weather info could go dark

The government wants to make it more difficult for you to declare financial bankruptcy, no matter what the circumstances!

"Banks, credit card companies, and retailers have pushed since 1997 for a bill overhauling the bankruptcy laws. Consumer and civil rights groups and unions say the legislation is unfair to low-income working people, single mothers, minorities, and the elderly, and would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face mounting medical bills."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate was poised on Thursday to pass a bill curbing class action lawsuits after blocking attempts to weaken the measure.

The bill, sought by business and part of President Bush's drive to overhaul the legal system, would shift most class action lawsuits from state to federal courts, which have historically been less friendly to such cases.

Opponents, including many consumer and environmental groups and labor unions, fear that already overburdened federal courts won't take many of the cases, making it harder for ordinary citizens to hold big companies to account.

» ABC News: Senate Poised to Pass Class Action Suit Curbs

Lafky, a sugar mill worker and single mother in Bird Island, a farming community 90 miles west of St. Paul, became the first Minnesotan sued by name by the recording industry this week for allegedly downloading copyrighted music illegally.

The lawsuit has stunned Lafky, who earns $12 an hour and faces penalties that top $500,000. She says she can't even afford an offer by the record companies to settle the case for $4,000.

The ongoing music downloading war is being fought on one side by a $12 billion music industry that says it is steadily losing sales to online file sharing. On the other side, untold millions of people -- many of them too young to drive -- who have been downloading free music off file-sharing sites with odd names like Kazaa and Grokster and who are accusing the music industry of price gouging and strong-arm tactics.
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