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it's been just over a week since BushCo™ announced that federal agencies would be barred from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats that are required under the Endangered Species Act, so l guess it's not unexpected that they'd eviscerate the environmental policies some more before they leave...more below the fold

this could be interesting:

McCain, Obama & Rick Warren - The "Purpose-Driven Debate":

...tonight, we will see Barack Obama and John McCain on stage together for the first time this political season.

Brought together by the best-selling author and pastor of the fourth largest church in the U.S., pastor Rick Warren will talk to both candidates tonight for about an hour each.

The focus is on faith... questions will focus on how the candidates lead and make decisions and will cover five topics: leadership, stewardship, worldview, compassion issues, and their vision for America.

The format is somewhat similar to a game show...One candidate in a soundproof bubble (or room) while the other candidate is on stage.   Obama is up first and then McCain.  The order was determined by a coin-flip.

They will be asked the same questions and their personal life is on the table because "character matters," Warren said.

cs monitor

l understand that following the conclusion of mccain's session, they'll both be on stage together...the contrast should be striking.

the "debate" is scheduled to be aired live by kdoc, faux news, and cnn. and can be viewed via live webcast from 5 - 7 pm/pdt.

we shall see.

If you could ask the Democrats any question during the convention, what would it be? the dncc has announced an "america's town hall" program running monday thru wednesday evenings the week of the convention:

As part of its commitment to throw open the doors to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) today announced that Americans from across the country will have the opportunity to have their questions answered live from the Convention floor through "America's Town Hall," an interactive dialogue designed to bring more people into the Convention.

Monday through Wednesday of Convention week, the Convention program will feature a nightly segment in which elected leaders, national policy experts and other Convention speakers will respond to voters on topics including how to change politics as usual, fix our economy, make America safer and restore our nation's standing in the world.

"As Barack Obama has said, this is not our Convention - this is America's Convention," said Governor Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "And now, at a critical moment in our history, Americans will have their concerns addressed, challenges listened to and their questions answered live by our country's leaders. We want Americans to be at the center of this Convention, and `America's Town Hall' will allow us to do just that."

Starting today, text and video questions can be submitted online at america's town hall through Wednesday, August 27, though participants are encouraged to submit their questions as early as possible. A variety of questions will be answered live from the Convention floor in front of thousands of delegates in the Convention hall, millions of Americans watching the Convention at home on television and millions more watching online. In addition, elected leaders and policy experts will also answer questions online during Convention week at www.DemConvention.com.

h/t PoliticsWest)

ask anything. l asked about their plans for the restoration of our constitutional rights and the rule of law.

chimpy's decidered that federal agencies shouldn't be hampered by those pesky, "back door" attempts to use the Endangered Species Act as a cudgel to prevent the harvesting of forests, construction of dams, highways, mines and all sorts of other things that may cause further harm endangered animals and plants. under the new guidelines, released [leaked] yesterday, federal agencies will be allowed to decide for themselves whether construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

Under the proposaed rules, the government agencies will no longer be required to consult with independent scientists about the effect of new projects on wildlife.

the administration also contends that these changes don't require the approval of congress.

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All week I've read your emails, seen your comments online, and heard your phone calls.  You don't want the flawed FISA bill to become law.  I hear you and I wanted to let you know that I'm going to do everything in my power to stop this bill.
Much as I would like to I can't respond to each one of you individually so I've decided to respond online via video. I'd appreciate if you would take a moment to watch and pass it along to your friends and family or anyone you know that cares about preserving our right to privacy.

 

Thank you all for standing with me and speaking out about stopping the FISA bill.  It's going to be an uphill battle but your words of support are a constant reminder of why this particular battle is worth waging.

Sincerely,

Russ Feingold
United States Senator

contact your senator...again if you already have, and harry reid as well as obama's senate office and express your feelings regarding the importance of this issue.

he and dodd need all the support they can get.

today the RATpublican'ts in the senate killed a bill that would have placed a windfall profits tax on the profits of the largest oil companies...the legislation was turned back by a 51-43 vote.

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house passes fisa without retroactive immunity, 213-197. 11 dems crossed over and voted nay. via tpm keep the pressure on until the senate gets onboard.

the chimperor keeps lying and threatening to veto the bill unless he gets everything he wants, and what he wants is carte blanche to continue his illegal spying and the RATpublican faithful blindly follow along behind by refusing to participate in the process until the 11th hour, where they have pulled a procedural ploy and requested a rare closed [secret] session to debate the fisa legislation. the same opportunity that they derided back in february when it was proposed by a group of liberal democrats led by Intelligence Comm. member Rush Holt (D-NJ):

Boehner's spokesman, Kevin Smith, derided the secret session proposal as a stalling tactic.

"There are clear rules and procedures for how Congress handles classified information," Smith said. "This nonsense is nothing more than another stalling tactic from a bunch of liberals who don't want to give our intelligence officials all the tools they need to keep America safe."

the request was granted by speaker pelosi, and a 1 hour debate will be held in secret session tonight, with the vote scheduled for tomorrow morning. this closed session is something that happens very rarely in the house:

Secret sessions are fairly rare, according to the House Historian's Office. Since 1830, the House has met behind doors only three times; 1979, 1980 and 1983.

so far, the democratic leadership has continued to offer the RATs one opportunity after another to participate in an open and bipartisan <gag> manner, and have received nothing in return.

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long story short, the supremes have refused to hear the ACLU's challenge to the NSA's warrantless wiretapping, without comment.

the importance of this decision, which puts an end to the legal challenge, in relation to the FISA statute, especially the teleCON immunity provision, is smartly summed up by Glenn Greenwald:

... This decision does mean, however, that EFF's pending lawsuits in San Francisco against AT&T, Verizon and the other telecoms are now the sole remaining vehicle for finding out what the Bush administration actually did when spying on Americans for years without warrants, and as importantly, is the last hope for obtaining a judicial ruling as to whether the President broke the law and violated the Constitution when doing so. If Jay Rockefeller and Dick Cheney have their way and retroactive amnesty is granted to these telecoms, those lawsuits will be forever dismissed and Americans will remain indefinitely in the dark about how our own Government spied on us, and will forever lose the opportunity to have a court rule whether the Government broke the law and violated our Constitutional rights...

the house will be back in session next week, and the full court media onslaught is already underway.

chimpy, from his saturday radio address, leading the way:

"At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning a new attack on America."

contact your Representative... Senator...Speaker Pelosi...and Majority Leader Reid    

Update [2008-2-12 13:23:36 by dada]: the FISA Betrayal in the senate is complete and now it's up to the people's house to uphold the rule of law.

contact your representative, speaker pelosi, and sign the FDL Petition to Tell House Members to Stand Firm Behind the RESTORE Act!

yeah, yeah...l know...l've become a one trick pony...but it'll be a great trick if we can pull it off, and it wouldn't have even come to this juncture without a loud and consistent outcry

the senate will vote on the amendments to the fisa bill tomorrow, tuesday, and it doesn't look promising at the moment.

as Glenn Greenwald put it today:

The telecom amnesty debate is controversial but it is not complicated. The Government asked telecoms to break numerous federal laws in exchange for profit. Some telecoms refused to do so and others -- such as AT&T and Verizon -- agreed to break the law for years. Which behavior do we want to encourage and reward -- (a) telecoms which turned down the substantial government contracts to enable warrantless spying on Americans because doing so was illegal, or (b) the telecoms which purposely broke our laws by allowing illegal government spying on Americans? How can that even be a debatable question?

As the Senate votes on amnesty tomorrow, the only real question is whether telecoms which broke our laws should be accountable in a court of law for their illegal behavior (the way things are supposed to work in a country that lives under the rule of law) or whether Congress, lavishly funded by this industry, will pass a law that has no purpose other than to give them the retroactive license to break our country's laws with impunity.

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CREDO action, part of the Working Assets, is making it easy to contact your senators and urging them to support the Dodd-Feingold amendment stripping the retroactive amensty from the bill under consideration. click the link above to send this message, or one of your own:

I'm writing you today to urge you to vote for the Dodd-Feingold amendment to pull retroactive amnesty for the telecom companies out of the wiretapping legislation currently under consideration.  If that amendment is not approved, I ask that you vote against the entire bill.

The rule of law is important to me, and I hope it is to you as well.  Both the Bush Administration and the big telecom companies knew that FISA was the law of the land when they started eavesdropping without the warrants required under FISA.  Retroactively granting amnesty for these violations would make a mockery of the principle that no one is above the law...

additional contact information for the other senators, such as reid, feinstein, HERE, that includes phone, fax and web contact info.

free fax services, if you so choose are available at FreeFax, eFax, and faxzero.

for more options and details see Christy Hardin Smith's (fdl)
article at alternet, and BooMan's excellent FISA: What to Ask of Your Senators.

let's light those phone lines and fill up the inboxes, shall we.

lTMF'sA

Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.

Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
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"The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."...

say what! "first use to prevent the use"...mindnumbing orwellian doublespeak; and there's more...

US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

click screen for message

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