When Government Breaks Down

Here are just a few stories I've collected over merely the past week, the little outrages that aren't as substantial as, say, killing over a million Iraqis in an unnecessary war or leaving 47 million without health insurance or torturing prisoners at Guantanamo. But they provide shocks to the conscience nonetheless.

• The Department of Labor is rushing to make rules that would make it tougher for the government agency to regulate the amount of chemicals and toxins in the workplace.

• The Wage And Hour division of the Labor Department has been charged by the GAO with delaying and misplacing hundreds of overtime and minimum-wage complaints from individuals being shortchanged.

• Fifteen percent of all women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who have visited a VA facility have tested positive for sexual trauma through rape, assault or harrassment.

• An immigrant was handcuffed while giving birth in jail and separated from her infant within two days and she continued her imprisonment.

• In Louisiana, Baron Pikes was tasered nine times and killed after failing to comply swiftly enough with police demands. He wasn't resisting arrest, he just didn't comply fast enough.

• Supplies designed to go to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were massively undercounted due to a math error, resulting in a reduction of $70 million worth of aid.

• Pentagon auditors, whose role is to conduct oversight over government military contracts, were pressured by superiors to produce reports favorable to the contractors and shielding them from wrongdoing and overbilling, according to a GAO report. And at that time, the Air Force was spending counterterrorism funds on comfort capsules that can spirit them around the world in the height of luxury.

Now mind you, this is simply a partial list of the last week or so. This kind of venality, callousness and contempt for anyone but the rich and connected has characterized the last eight years. Corporations are to be protected instead of the poor. Authority is to be demanded but assaults on the downtrodden tolerated. Regulations are eliminated and help for the needy denied. This has become America in the first decade of the 21st century - an authoritarian kleptocracy. The level of rot is so great that the next President won't be able to get at all of it. Remember that these are just some of the LESSER stories.