Despite clear evidence of illness from exposure to oil and dispersants, BP refuses to provide respirators to people cleaning up its disaster. Why? Because BP is afraid of the PR impact from images of people wearing this critical safety equipment in pictures and on TV. BP even threatened to fire workers who choose to wear their own. Firedoglake is joining with workers’ rights advocacy group American Rights at Work to petition BP – and government agencies like OSHA and the Department of Labor – to make BP provide respirators to protect cleanup workers in the Gulf of Mexico.

Stanley McChrystal, the guy in charge of winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, okayed this article, presumably intending it to win hearts and minds in the US.

And McChrystal presumably knows US culture better than he knows Afghanistan culture.

It’s now an article of faith among wingnuts that the administration’s actions regarding BP is more proof that Adolf Obamastalin is moving us one step closer to fascism, or communism, or something.

Americans overwhelmingly rank jobs and the economy as the most important challenge facing this country, according to a new CBS News/“New York Times” poll. The disconnect between the Washington elites, who have been swept up in deficit hysteria, and the rest of the country couldn’t be more stark.

The Rolling Stone article appears to be a McChrystal-led effort to shore up his tough guy cred. But the actual content of the story shows that tough guy cred won’t win you a war in Afghanistan.

The New York Times cites an anonymous source saying that Peter Orszag will step down as the head of the Office of Management and Budget.

Primary runoffs feature today in North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi. Utah also hosts a primary, but it is similar to a runoff, thanks to a dual convention/primary system that eliminates many candidates at the convention. Here’s a run-down of the races and expected outcomes.

Panic within the US government and military over the dire state of affairs in Afghanistan continues to escalate. First, in response to a constant drumbeat of failures on the military front, we had the obvious planting of the “discovery” of one three trillion dollars worth of mineral wealth in Afghanistan. Then, General David Petraeus passed out at the beginning of his Senate testimony on Afghanistan, delaying the hearing by a day. Today, however, the panic has hit its highest level yet, as General Stanley McChrystal has been summoned to Washington. The reason for McChrystal’s hurried trip to Washington, however, completely misses the mark, as he is being brought in to defend an upcoming article in Rolling Stone rather than the strategic situation in Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal and a coterie of aides in Afghanistan stepped out in a magazine profile in Rolling Stone, speaking of betrayal and mocking members of the Administration like Vice President Joe Biden. McChrystal also expresses “disappointment” over his first meeting with President Obama, and especially over the appointment of Karl Eikenberry as the top diplomat in Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s apology for his recent too-candid interview with Rolling Stone magazine — emailed to me and other reporters well before the Rolling Stone story dropped — suggests that he wasn’t trying to walk away from his command in a blaze of arrogance. But it’s on him to repair his relationship with his colleagues and his bosses.