Edwards Statement On The Growing Threat To
America's Families Posed By "Unsafe Trade"

post from John Edwards for President: Full-site Feed on 03 August 2007 02:47:00 PM. © John Edwards for President: Full-site Feed

Edwards: Fisher-Price Toy Recall Highlights Need for New Steps To Safeguard Children From The Importation Of Unsafe Toys Or Goods

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – In the wake of a flurry of safety recalls of imported toys and other goods, particularly from China, Sen. John Edwards called on leaders in Washington to take immediate steps to reduce the growing risk posed by unsafe trade and ensure the health and welfare of American consumers. This week, for example, Fisher-Price issued a recall over concerns that imported toys, mostly from China, were tainted with levels of lead far above U.S. standards - thereby posing a serious health risk to America's children.

Senator Edwards will unveil new ways steps to protect American families from dangerous imports in his major policy speech this Monday, August 6th, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Today, Edwards released the following statement calling for strengthening the laws that protect America's children and families.

"The recall of Fisher-Price toys highlights the need for smarter, safer trade and consumer protection policies in this country. I've talked about what we have to do to make food safer. Now with nearly 80 percent of children's toys made in China, we need to strengthen our ability to ensure the safety of products designed for our children's hands. We need tougher penalties for safety violations and we need to look at solutions like third-party testing of imported toys. At the same time we need to put the Consumer Product Safety Commission back on the side of consumers—instead of having their travel bought and paid for by the industries they are supposed to regulate."

Recent incidents and reports that highlight the need for smarter, safer policies include:

July 2007: Fisher-Price recalls 967,000 plastic pre-school toys tainted with high levels of lead, made by a Chinese vendor.
June 2007: Approximately 900,000 tubes of Chinese toothpaste containing a poison used in some antifreeze products
June 2007: As many as 450,000 tires made in China were recalled after evidence that they could be subject to tread separation-- a problem that led to the nation's largest tire recall in 2000.
June 2007: The FDA issued an alert challenging imports of farm- raised seafood from China, after testing repeatedly found contamination from carcinogens and antibiotics.
June 2007: 1.5 million "Thomas & Friends" made in China are recalled because of toxic lead surface paint.
May 2007: A Chicago Tribune analysis of all lead recalls in the past 30 years since lead paint was banned in the U.S. finds the vast majority of 133 recalls involved Chinese-manufactured products.
March 2007: An estimated 3,500 pets died after eating pet food contaminated with melamine in China
March 2007: 21,000 Sky Ranger toy airplanes made in China are recalled after at least 45 explode in the vicinity of children.
February 2007: Hasbro recalls 1 million Easy-Bake ovens made in China; 77 children report burns after getting hands or fingers stuck.

Read The Full Article:
http://johnedwards.com/news/headlines/20070803-unsafe-trade/

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Fresh Thread

post from Eschaton on 03 August 2007 02:45:00 PM. © Eschaton

Enjoy.

Read The Full Article:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_29_archive.html#5547199363125438215

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First Question For YKos "Ask The Leaders" Forum:
Why Did You Cave In On FISA

post from TalkLeft on 03 August 2007 02:40:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Tomorrow morning is the Yearly Kos "Ask The Leaders" Forum where the Democratic Congressional Leadership will meet with the 1,500 progressive bloggers convening in Chicago. The first question they should be asked is why are they caving on FISA? Rachel Perrone reports by e-mail:

Congress could vote as early as TODAY on a bill that many of them haven't even read. According to the most recent proposal we've seen, the new language would permit warrantless wiretapping of Americans so long as they believe the person on the other end of the line is in a foreign country, and/or that the foreign person is the target of the wiretap. I believe - but am not 100% sure - it also contains a six-month sunset provision - which, we know, worked out so well in the case of the PATRIOT Act.
Democrats are preparing to cave on warrantless wiretapping simply because they're afraid of being branded soft on terrorism. Whateverhappened to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?" Well, if that's the case, we ought to be petrified right about now, because it seems the sole motive on the Hill these days is fear. Well, politics and fear.
It goes without saying that this whole situation is about politics, not real surveillance needs. We're hearing that Democrats had hammered out a deal last night with Director of National Intelligence but had that deal voided by the White House. Why? The White House seems bound and determined to take the most confrontational, hard-line approach possible - civil liberties be damned.

Incredible.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime/~3/140392966/39721

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Tune into YK2007 with Ustream

post from Daily Kos on 03 August 2007 02:38:45 PM. © Daily Kos

Be with us virtually, with Ustream feeds:

Watch the Yearly Kos Convention page featuring Ustream.

Or the Ustream.tv page featuring the Yearly Kos Convention.

Your choice. We're diverse.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/140392832/5351

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Obama v. Clinton

post from Ezra Klein on 03 August 2007 02:33:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

I tend to think Kevin's wrong that there aren't actual differences between Obama and Clinton on foreign policy. It's entirely true that their statements, if read for meaning rather than tone, don't reveal much in the way of daylight between...[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/obama-v-clinton.html

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That Whirring Sound You Hear

post from Firedoglake on 03 August 2007 02:30:50 PM. © Firedoglake

(Graphic courtesy of Mike McIntee: mmcintee@mac.com.)…is longtime local Republican operative and paid GOP campaign blogger Michael Brodkorb spinning so hard he could be a rotary engine. He’s trying to preemptively protect his fellow anti-tax[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/08/03/that-whirring-sound-you-hear/

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Media Revelations From YearlyKos: Bloggers
Aren’t ‘Chaotic,’ Carry Political ‘Clout’

post from Think Progress on 03 August 2007 02:25:00 PM. © Think Progress

sears As you may have noticed, blogging has been lighter than usual the past few days. ThinkProgress is in Chicago for the second annual YearlyKos conference, with more than 1,200 bloggers, blog readers, activists, politicians, journalists, and other progressives.

Much of the media coverage hasn’t been especially earth-shattering, focusing on the same themes they wrote about last year: 1) many liberal bloggers don’t fit into the stereotypes the media has created, 2) liberal bloggers are respected (and feared) by politicians, and 3) liberal bloggers disagree about stuff. Some highlights so far:

U.S. News and World Report, Cyberactivists Are A Must-See For Candidates: The prominence of the upcoming event, which features 200 speakers and is expected to draw crowds of more than 1,400, may be a wake-up call for the less Internet-savvy organizations and candidates.
‘Net Roots’ Event Becomes Democrats’ Other Natinoal Convention: There is no one leader, the name of the convention notwithstanding, and it’s a disparate, unorganized community that’s almost impossible to categorize. While the leading bloggers are in their 20s and 30s, the rank-and-file are older, in their 40s and 50s.
New York Magazine, Dispatches From The YearlyKos Convention: No one naked around here. No chaos at YearlyKos. No “sweet smell of marijuana,” as the straight papers used to refer to it. No demands for revolution. No denunciations of bourgeois democracy. The Democratic National Committee Chairman is listened to respectfully and cheered enthusiastically.
Seattle Post Intelligencer, “Net Roots” Activists Carry Political Weight: It’s earnest enough to be a little amusing, but these are serious people intent on taking back their country, with the dream of an America run not through Washington, D.C., spin, but with active participation by the governed.
Chicago Tribune, YearlyKos Forum A Magnet For Bloggers And Pols: And anyone who doubts blogger clout should consider this: seven presidential candidates, the two top congressional leaders and the Democratic Party’s chairman will all stop by to pay their respects.

MoJoBlog, Gristmill, DCist, and Ezra have updates from some of the conference’s panel sessions.

View photos from the conference HERE and watch the sessions HERE.

UPDATE: Devilstower at DailyKos has more.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/03/yearlykos-2007/

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Put the brakes on FISA

Are you kidding me?

Bush: Congress must stay put, pass new terror surveillance law

Associated Press
Aug. 3, 2007 09:30 AM
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Friday that Congress must stay in session until it approves legislation modernizing a U.S. law governing eavesdropping on foreigners.

I'll make this quick. Congress is busy, and so am I.

There is no reason in the world why this Congress should vote on a FISA bill before they've even been able to decide the very basic issue of whether or not the Attorney General of the United States has been lying to them about some of the very activities addressed by this bill.

It's nuts.

Forget that they're prepared to let charges of contempt of Congress float in the ether, unresolved, while they're out on their break. Although the issues behind those particular episodes of contempt are on the surface, unconnected, they are indicative of a Congress that is still feeling its way in dealing with what is really a very extraordinary situation. We can all understand that. We can register impatience with it, but we understand it.

How is it, though, that this same Congress could then find the resolution to act with such dispatch on a FISA bill that's largely gone unread, even as they're plagued by serious doubts about the fitness of the Attorney General to continue in office because they suspect he has been lying to them about the "administration's" domestic spying activities?

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/140384150/64941

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We were once an honorable nation

When Tom Tancredo stood up in a coffee shop in Iowa and told the two dozen or so collected diners that he believed the U.S. should respond to an attack by Islamic extremists by bombing Mecca, it wasn't just the surrealistic ramblings of a politician with no concern of human ...

Read The Full Article:
http://www.williamkwolfrum.com/?p=713

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