Cheney Celebrates Earth Day By Breathing Oxygen

WASHINGTON, DC—At a special Earth Day event Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney inhaled his first-ever breath of oxygen. “I am…proud to stand before you today and…breathe in the same gas used by…millions of Americans,” said a wheezing and gasping Cheney, whose body is accustomed to compounds of chlorine and sulfur dioxide. “One breath, however, is enough for me. I’m glad the stuff will be out of the atmosphere forever in a few decades.” Cheney then left the press conference to attend a cardiac health awareness dinner, where he feasted on human hearts.

the CASE: Campaign for America’s Future Pro vs Con Series

You think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s ‘free.’

Guaranteeing affordable health care choices for all will require some tax revenues?$50 to 100 billion per year depending on the plan?plus modest contributions from companies and individuals. But it will save us $1 trillion in health care spending. We?ll be able to slash administrative costs, emphasize preventative care, reduce emergency room visits and cut down on unnecessary procedures with electronic medical records. more pro vs con >>

The Obama FISA Flop

B’Man: What will it take for Dems to realize that he took them for a ride?

Glenn Greenwald continues to evaluate an obvious flip-flop from “Mr Change” on his backing of this FISA legislation and what is apparently a move to attract right-leaning folks to the total consternation of those who voted for him in the Primaries.

In his article Obama Advisor Greg Craig: Adding Insult to Injury, Glenn shows the blatant turn-around on this issue over the past year and how the explanations now are not only false, but by all appearances, downright lies.

In today’s New York Times, James Risen — who won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing Bush’s illegal NSA spying program — has an article reporting on Obama supporters who are criticizing Obama for his FISA reversal and who are attempting to defeat the bill which Obama supports. The article quotes Jane Hamsher, Markos Moulitsas and myself and features the very innovative effort by Obama supporters to use his campaign’s social networking tools to urge Obama to oppose the FISA bill (more on that campaign here). For his article, Risen spoke with Obama adviser Greg Craig, a partner at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, and this is what Craig told Risen:

Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer who advises the Obama campaign, said Tuesday in an interview that Mr. Obama had decided to support the compromise FISA legislation only after concluding it was the best deal possible.”This was a deliberative process, and not something that was shooting from the hip,” Mr. Craig said. “Obviously, there was an element of what’s possible here. But he concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.”

Craig’s statement is flat-out false. FISA — enacted in 1978 and amended many times to accommodate modern communications technology — has no expiration date. The Protect America Act, which Congress enacted last August to legalize warrantless eavesdropping on Americas, had a 6-month sunset provision and thus already expired back in February, restoring FISA as the governing law. Thus, if Congress does nothing now, FISA will continue indefinitely to govern the Government’s power to spy on the communications of Americans. It doesn’t expire. What Craig said in defense of Obama is just wrong.

B’Man: These people are truly scrambling, trying to cover Obama’s tracks. Thing is, this is a total capitulation of him on this issue, as Glenn points out further down into his article:

Back in August, when he was seeking the Democratic nomination, Obama voted against the Protect America Act. Therefore, had Obama had his way, there never would have been any PAA in the first place, and therefore, there never would have been any PAA orders possible. Having voted against the PAA last August, how can Obama now claim that he considers it important that the PAA orders not expire? How can he be eager to avoid the expiration of surveillance orders which he opposed authorizing in the first place?

I asked Craig that question several times and received completely incoherent replies, after which he started insisting that he already answered me and had nothing else to add (he then changed the subject to talk about the “improvements” the current bill achieves over the Rockefeller Senate bill). The fact is that there is no answer. In the past, Obama has opposed the type of warrantless eavesdropping which those PAA orders authorize. He’s repeatedly said that the FISA court works and there’s no need to authorize eavesdropping without individual warrants. None of that can be reconciled with his current claim that he supports this FISA “compromise” because National Security requires that those PAA orders not expire and that there be massive changes to FISA. It’s just as simple as that.

B’Man: Ah, but Glenn, aren’t we supposed to just “believe” that Mr Obama is only slightly rubbing up close to the illegal activities, so that he can bring havoc when he is the president? That Keith Olbermann is correct, that we should elect Barack at any cost, because McCain would be much worse? Hell, why don’t we just let Bush pass a presidential declaration that he will stay on for a few more years, because he really has good things planned…

Am I the only redneck on the planet that wants to know the truth and is NOT ok with them lying to me and the country? Really? I’m the ONLY one?

Truth would require that he actually, eh, tell the truth. Just come out and say it. Don’t lie.

It’s bad enough that Obama is supporting a new warrantless eavesdropping scheme. They should just candidly admit that he changed his position rather than feeding incoherent and insultingly false rationalizations to the public — whereby they throw around the terms “National Security” and “balance” enough times and hope that nobody notices or cares that what they’re saying makes no sense. One of the strengths of the Obama campaign has been a willingness to have adult discussions about complex political issues, assume a fair amount of rationality and intelligence on the part of the voting public, and avoid manipulative, obfuscating sloganeering like this. It’s just adding insult to injury to resort to nonsensical justifications of the type Craig put into the New York Times today.

Just to get a flavor for how fundamental a reversal is Obama’s FISA position, here is what Obama said back in February when accepting Chris Dodd’s endorsement:

We know it’s time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd’s candidacy, and I share his passion for restoring the balance between the security we demand and the civil liberties that we cherish.The American people must be able to trust that their president values principle over politics, and justice over unchecked power. I’ve been proud to stand with Senator Dodd in his fight against retroactive immunity for the telecommunications industry. Secrecy and special interests must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens — and set an example to the world — that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient. Because in America –- no one is above the law.

Here is what he said back in January:

Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.

No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people — not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed. . . .

A grassroots movement of Americans has pushed this issue to the forefront. You have come together across this country. You have called upon our leaders to adhere to the Constitution. You have sent a message to the halls of power that the American people will not permit the abuse of power — and demanded that we reclaim our core values by restoring the rule of law.

It’s time for Washington to hear your voices, and to act. I share your commitment to this cause, and will stand with you in the fights to come.

And obviously, his vow last October to “support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies” can’t be reconciled with his vow to “support” such a bill now…

…The issue is that Obama has repeatedly, over the course of the last year, made emphatic commitments and clear statements about his own core political values that are completely irreconcilable with his support for the FISA bill. It’s possible to recognize that someone is just a “politician” and still trust that they’re essentially telling you the truth about what they think and what they’ll do. One hard-core Obama supporter explains that here.

As I said, it’s bad enough that this is being done. Eventually, the sting of what Obama and Democrats generally have done will diminish somewhat for many people. But for those who have sat by watching the Bush administration and its followers exploit complexities over spying issues in order to issue one false claim after the next to justify Bush’s lawbreaking, having the Obama campaign issue factually false and/or incoherent explanations to justify Obama’s conduct only makes matters worse, not better.

B’Man: It is not only bad enough that he does these things, then tries to slither away from previous statements, it is exactly what we have had for 7 + years and is time to stop. Maybe this is a blessing, if people will pay attention.

The fact is that neither of the “Big Two” are anything but lying shift-changers. America is too stupid to realize you are being led to slaughter, even by your precious Barack.

Baaa

Water Conservation Gone Wild

Conservation Group Condemns Waterboarding As Wasteful

WASHINGTON—National Water Watch, a Washington-based conservation group, criticized the government’s use of waterboarding Monday, calling the practice of stuffing a cloth into a detainee’s mouth, immobilizing him, and pouring water over his face and body to simulate the sensation of drowning “a tragic waste of resources.” “The idea that the United States could condone the despicable act of squandering several pitchers of water is shameful,” NWW spokesman Gregory Hammil said. “It is amoral, unconscionable, and in direct opposition to all internationally recognized water- saving techniques.” Hammil recommended the government switch to more eco-friendly means of enhanced interrogation, such as waterboarding with a return-hose device in order to reuse old water, or simply beating suspected terrorists to a bloody pulp.

B’Man: Speaking of waterboarding and fat asses like me, evmonk has a post up at The Largest Minority showing Christopher Hitchens lasting all of 15 seconds on a waterboard exercise.

A New Vision For Refrigeration

http://www.ted.com

Adam Grosser talks about a project to build a refrigerator that works without electricity — to bring the vital tool to villages and clinics worldwide. Tweaking some old technology, he’s come up with a system that works.

U.S. auto sales fall amid slowing economy, high gas prices.

The CBS Evening News (7/1, lead story, 3:15, Couric) reported, “The American auto industry is feeling tonight like it just got run over.” Tuesday’s figures “show[ed] General Motors (GM) down more than 18 percent in June, Toyota down more than 21 percent, Ford nearly 28 percent. And Chrysler, sales plunged nearly 36 percent.”

NBC Nightly News (7/1, lead story, 3:30, Williams) attributed the fall in auto sales to “the combination of a down economy and sky-high gas prices.”

ABC World News (7/1, story 2, 1:15, Gibson) called the figures “terrible” and “the worst numbers in 15 years” for the automakers.

On the front page of its Business Day section, the New York Times (7/2, C1, Vlasic) adds, “With the drop last month of more than 18 percent, automakers now expect to sell well below 15 million new vehicles this year,” which is “far fewer than the norm this decade of more than 16 million vehicles a year.”

On the front page of its Business section, the Washington Post (7/1, D1, Weissmann) notes that “Toyota’s surprising falloff — some believed that the company was poised this month to overtake [GM] as the top automaker — strongly suggests that the auto industry’s problems are spreading beyond Detroit’s troubled Big Three.” Each of them “is restructuring to reduce the crippling costs of worker pensions and health benefits.”

“In May, GM saw its lead over Toyota shrink to fewer than 10,000 vehicles.” Although “[s]ome analysts had expected Toyota to surpass GM in June monthly sales,…strong sales of cars such as the compact Chevy Cobalt and midsize Chevy Malibu, up 22 percent and 73 percent, respectively, helped hold off the Japanese giant,” the Los Angeles Times (7/2, Bensinger) noted.

According to the Wall Street Journal (7/2, B3, Linebaugh, et al.), “U.S. auto sales tumbled” in June, which is “typically a strong month,” with “sales of trucks and sports-utility vehicles continu[ing] to fall and automakers [running] short of the fuel-efficient vehicles like compacts and hybrids that consumers are flocking to.”

According to USA Today (7/2, Carty), “June auto sales weren’t as bad as some predicted, but the situation facing the automakers remains grim. … Once gas prices topped $3.50 a gallon, the automakers said, the shift away from gas guzzlers accelerated.”

“[M]anufacturers failed to adapt to a shift in demand to more fuel-efficient cars,” the AFP (7/2) points out.

The AP (7/2, Krisher, Durbin) adds that “Ford has been trying to raise output of the lone factory near Detroit that makes the Focus compact, but still couldn’t meet demand this month. Both GM and Ford have announced plans for new subcompacts, but it will take at least two years to gear up factories for the new products.”

Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor (7/2, Trumbull) notes, shares of GM “are trading at prices last seen in the 1950s, their value cut in half in just eight weeks. Ford and Chrysler are in even worse shape,” according to analysts. “The sobering implication: The Big Three may have to become the Big Two, and even survivors will have a tough road ahead.” While “[b]ankruptcy is not a near-term threat,…the three carmakers are fast burning through cash reserves.”

Bloomberg (7/2, Ohnsman, Bensinger) reports that “Honda Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Corp. increased June U.S. sales amid an industry decline, leading Asia-based automakers to outsell” Detroit’s Big Three “for a second straight month.”

NPR ’s (7/2) Morning Edition, BusinessWeek (7/2, Henry), Forbes (7/2, Marcus), the Detroit Free Press (7/1, Webster), and the Detroit News (7/2, Hoffman, et al.) also cover the story.

B’Man: I hate it for you, guys, but you have been raking in huge profits for years. You have fought higher mileage standards all along. You fight each and every saftey issue that is brought up. But the biggest issue is that you milked the petro-chemical dependence for all it is worth, disregarding alternative fuels and electric cars to continue your and their massive profits.

Have your chickens come home to roost?

Bush Urges Expanded Drilling Of Alaskan Wildlife

WASHINGTON, DC—Following a recent ruling by a U.S. District Court that blocked the sale of 1.7 million acres of federally protected caribou, President Bush urged Congress Tuesday to pass an appropriations bill that would enable expanded drilling of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s animals.

“There are over 100 billion tons of untapped, domestic wildlife lying beneath, on, and above the surface of Alaska’s North Slope region,” said Bush during a White House press conference. “We have an obligation not only to our society, but to future generations, to begin drilling these polar bears, grizzlies, harbor porpoises, Roosevelt elks, sea otters, muskrats, and snowshoe hares immediately.”

According to Secretary Of The Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who recently toured the Lake Teshekpuk area with a team of bio-mineralogists, one in four animals drilled in early tests have shown positive yield.

“We can achieve our goal without disturbing the delicate balance of the ecosystem,” said Kempthorne, looking on as rig operators took exploratory core samples of 20 bearded seals in order to gauge the mammals’ interior density. “But if the government opens up the nearly 200 species of birds, fish, and marine and land mammals to public drilling, the U.S. would be capable of churning out over 9.3 billion barrels of wildlife each year—more than three times the amount we currently drill.”

Wildlife prospectors in other parts of Alaska applaud Bush’s position, saying that, if funding is increased, drillers will be able to tap larger, higher-yield animals such as grizzly bears and musk oxen.

“The technology is there, but there’s little economic incentive to drill anything larger than timber wolves,” said Cal Fowler, an independent prospector and former wildcat driller. “With more federal money we can invest in necessary hardware, such as more durable annular diamond-impregnated drill bits, which can bore two-inch diameter holes deep through a solid bull-walrus midsection in seconds.”

Workers near Alaska’s Lake Teshekpuk take a core sample from a grizzly bear cub.

Drill foremen have already begun digging shallow exploratory holes through the surface flesh of over 5 million animals to provide workspace for the drillers and their equipment. Once this step is complete, an electrical generator powered by a large diesel engine will plunge rotating carbide-steel-tipped drill bits through the animal, boring through the skin, bone, or blubber at speeds of up to 6,500 rpm. The drillers will then guide the direction of the borehole using top-drive rotary steerable wellbores, which allow them to drill through targeted areas in the wildlife with incredible precision.

Walking through a field of steadily pumping Canada lynx, Fowler defended wildlife drilling as “one of the most environmentally responsible methods of drilling,” saying that it is a renewable resource, and the ecologically sensitive wildlife refuge is almost completely unaffected since pre-existing environmental laws ensure that the drilling of individual animals will not damage the environment.

Energy giant ExxonMobil has already begun to widen its wildlife-drilling efforts in response to the Bush Administration’s stance.

“We have set up an offshore production platform capable of efficiently extracting over 15,000 Arctic grayling fish from the Beaufort Sea each day, and then drilling them,” ExxonMobil Chief Engineer For Wildlife Drilling Operations Frank Salinas said. “And advances in horizontal directional drilling may soon allow us to simultaneously drill through two arctic foxes three miles apart.”

“It’s an exciting time to be in the wildlife-drilling field,” Salinas added.

Bush’s call for more wildlife drilling has come under fire by alternate wildlife-use advocates, who call his policy shortsighted.

“The administration should be encouraging research into viable new technologies,” said Sylvia Hermann, chairman of Advocates For Cleaner-Burning Fauna. “The energy produced by solar generators could be used to incinerate vast herds of moose, even in the coldest winter months. Wind-produced electricity could electrocute Beluga whales in their own habitats, with no need for offshore drilling, and hydroelectric dams could be used to drown grizzly bears. Perhaps one day geothermic heat could be harnessed to broil entire wildlife-rich regions alive.”

Continued Hermann, “It’s vital that we preserve the arctic wildlife so that our children, and our children’s children, will still have animals to drill when they grow up.”

The Bush administration is also proposing the creation of a Strategic Wildlife Preserve, a series of 15-million-cubic-meter above-ground tanks that would store an emergency supply of over 700 million tightly packed animals.

Happy July 2nd!! Hip- Hip-Hooray!

Happy July 2nd!! Hip- Hip-Hooray! Today we celebrate the greatest day in our national history. Sound ridiculous? Not to John Adams, who in 1776 wrote to his wife, Abigail: “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” At least he got the pomp and parade part right. We can’t fault Adams for failing to realize that the legislative act creating independence would be supplanted by the Declaration of Independence (though when we read those soaring phrases about self-evident truths, we can be glad that it did). So, I propose we make July 2 a national holiday to celebrate the Founders for some of their greatest but least appreciated attributes — their mistakes. Consider the Declaration of Independence itself. As the recent HBO docudrama “John Adams” amusingly captured, Thomas Jefferson squirmed in his chair as his draft was read, debated and, ultimately, edited. The Virginian thought that the revisions, including the deletion of a passage blaming King George lll for the evil of American slavery, were a mutilation. He was, of course, wrong. Less well known is that Jefferson disliked the idea of a permanent constitution, thinking it would become a “dead hand of the past” weighing on future generations. He proposed that the Constitution expire every 19 years so that a new one, more attuned to current issues, could be written. Fortunately, James Madison persuaded him not to pursue the idea. Yet Madison himself, the father of the Constitution, was not always right. Dismissing bills of rights as mere “parchment barriers,” he argued against their inclusion at the Constitutional Convention, although he later changed his mind and, as a member of the House, proposed amending the Constitution to include a bill of rights. The Bill of Rights as we know it also is not what was initially proposed. The original first two amendments, one of which concerned the number of constituents each member of Congress had and one regarding congressmen’s salaries, were never ratified by the states. What we think of today as our First Amendment freedoms were actually third on the list. John Adams also offered up the occasional harebrained idea. Believing that government officials needed titles to preserve their dignity, he proposed that America’s first president be known as “His Highness the President of the United States of America, and Protector of Their Liberties.” (Thankfully, the House of Representatives rejected the proposal, though an unofficial title, “His Rotundity,” was bestowed on Adams.) A truism during the early years of the Revolution was that “where annual elections end, tyranny begins.” At this point in our quadrennial spectacle of electing a president, though, I suspect few in this country would support making the campaign an annual process. Fortunately for us, experience convinced many of our forefathers that longer terms might yield greater stability. Then again, some founders cared too much for stability. The first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, proposed that Senate and presidential terms be for life. He often complained that the Constitution did not create a powerful enough national government, calling the document “frail and worthless fabric.” He was hardly alone in failing to recognize its value: Historians estimate that more than half the country opposed ratifying the Constitution. Luckily for us, the Founders knew that they were still figuring things out. “Experiment” was the word they frequently used to describe their handiwork, with all that it implies about wrong paths and false starts. As we honor our nation’s birth and those who worked to bring it about, we should include some veneration for their willingness to experiment and, just occasionally, get things wrong.