Washington's Losing Your Overtime Pay & Your Tax Dollars -- But Keeping Track of You

Longer Hours, Less Pay. The President and Congress are on vacation, just in time for overtime pay to disappear for lots of Americans. Somewhere between 100,000 and 6 million people will see their overtime pay start to disappear on Monday. The wide number comes from which side you believe. The President’s people say the lower number. Unions say the bigger number. The Bush administration says it’ll actually mean overtime for 1.3 million more workers. But corporations who want to pay less overtime are the plan’s biggest backers. You do the math. (FOX News)

Hey, They Couldn’t find Any WMDs Either. So are you surprised that Uncle Sam can't find $8.8 billion (with a “B”) of taxpayer money he spent in Iraq? An audit shows that cash from USAID disappeared like wind in the desert after bureaucrats turned it over to some Iraqi ministries. (FOX News)

Big Brother’s Corporate Little Brothers. Companies, associations, and other groups are providing a lot of information about you to Uncle Sam. It’s the rise of what some call the “surveillance-industrial complex.” (MSNBC)

Making the List. A clerical error is blamed for Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) winding up on an airline ‘no-fly’ list. The lists are supposed to screen people who pose a terrorist threat. Kennedy had to make three phone calls to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to get the matter cleared up – something a Senator can do, but you and I couldn’t if we wind up on the list, and lot of innocent people are. And how secure is the Homeland, really, if they make Ted Kennedy drive instead of fly? (Miami-Herald)

Ma Bell has Already Won. Detroit’s FBI office has been without a working terrorism tip line for three years. The toll free number is listed, but just doesn’t work. (WashTimes)

Fueling Failure. Oil prices could hover around the $50 a barrel mark for months. That could grease the slippery slope into a worldwide recession. It’s already blamed in part for the sluggish recovery here. (WashPost)

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines. Yellowstone National Park. The name symbolizes America’s natural treasures. A place to get away from civilization. Now, the National Park Service proposes to allow 750 snowmobiles per day in Yellowstone National Park. Just what everyone enjoying nature needs – the sounds of racing motors. Makes you think of rush hour. No word yet on whether Congress and the White House will allow 750 boom boxes blaring rap music per day into their halls. Seems only fair. (NYT)

Think SUVs are Safe? Drive or ride in an SUV and get into a wreck – you're 11% more likely to be injured or die than if you had been riding in a passenger car. This is the largest safety gap yet between cars and “short buses.” (NYT)

The Bureaucrats have Already Won. A 61-year-old city worker in Florida was fired for moving his mother out of Hurricane Charley’s path. James Gesicki was just a year away from retiring. But he decided it was important to get his 81-year-old mother out of a mandatory evacuation zone. That was no excuse for his bosses who handed him a pink slip. (St Petersburg Times)