For those of you who have fought to make sure the US Government would take aggressive action on the environment, fear not the Bureau of Land Management has heard your cries!

We are led to believe that the zeitgeist is beginning to shift in regards to global warming and political attitudes toward the ecosystem as a whole. First, Democratic candidates were promising to run carbon-neutral campaigns, the GOP nominee delivers a major address on climate change, and more recently, the Evil Empire itself, the Bush administration, said we need to start taking care of our nation’s polar bears. There is a growing environmental enlightenment throughout the American political spectrum.

Which has obviously got some paleo-Republicans in a tizzy...

Yesterday’s news about the Interior Department’s finally listing polar bears as a threatened species seemed to cause hardly a ripple on the pond of public concern. And why should it at a time many are suffering from "concern fatigue"? Some are expending so much mental energy on the Democratic presidential primaries that they have heart for little else. Even wars, the economy, and a global food crisis have taken a temporary backseat to concern about the cataclysmic natural disasters in Myanmar and China.

It doesn’t take a political pundit to see that the military junta in Myanmar makes the Bush administration’s response to Katrina look not so bad, but the junta’s fatally botched response does bring back our own memories of needless suffering along our own Gulf coast. And, Myanmar calls attention to of John McCain’s now-resigned lobbyist advisors who was paid to make the junta look good.

Our hearts may not be in the story about the polar bears, but our heads better be because they are our planet’s "canaries in the mine."  We dare not let our concern fatigue allow us bypass this story pass for at least two reasons.

The US Department of the Interior has just announced that it will list the polar bear as "Threatened Species" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

But what the heck does that mean for oil exploration in Alaska? Surely Bush and Cheney are still hell bent on drilling for black gold up there.

In honor of Mother Earth, today we will celebrate one of the unknown Bush Sycophant/Crony/Underling/Minion Obfuscators charged with the toil of "protecting" our dear mother.

May the SCUM-O Team proudly introduce Julie A. MacDonald.

I have been wondering how California is subject to so much wildfire damage when wildfires occur in California on such a regular basis, so I started doing a little research.   Apparently, our wonderful government is all over the problem.  Not.

For example, the USGS, National Forest Service are in the midst of a ten year study to monitor trends in wildfire burn severity in order to provide a data base to the various agencies charged with preventing wildfires.   Apparently, Smokey Bear has been hibernating, because even this baseline effort did not commence unti 2004 and is not scheduled to conclude until 2011.  You can read all about it, here:

http://www.mtbs.gov/

I love the smell of environmental lawsuits in the morning....

Hello all, I posted this story on my blog a few days ago. I have since posted a large update and further explanation. I will give you some info here and if you would like to read the full story please go to my blog.

Cross-posted at www.wiseass.org

Gordon Smith played politics by subverting conservation laws and destroying endangered salmon simply to win re-election. In order to secure rural southern-Oregon votes in the last election cycle, Smith and the Bush administration over-rode water level policies and violated the law, specifically the Endangered Species Act, in order to appease agricultural interests in southern-Oregon. Forgoing proposed plans which could and should have avoided the crisis by creating a permanent solution such as buying out farmers willing to sell and subsidizing area farms impacted by the drought in order to save salmon runs and the fishing industry, Karl Rove and Gordon Smith instead looked to polls and overturned the science. The result...?

The largest fish-kill in the region's history!

One of the key players in the Abramoff/Republican Corruption Scandal is in Washington DC tonight. He was there for the bribes, the payoffs, the secret deals between Jack and the Bush White House. He benefited from the crimes and did his part to further the GOP Criminal Conspiracy.

He is an architect of the system of human trafficking and abuse that has flourished on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) for over 25 years. The sweatshops, forced prostitution, money laundering, gambling, graft, corruption and incompetence that have become synonymous with the rogue US Territory in the Western Pacific are all by-products of his criminal career.

His name is Benigno R. (Ben) Fitial. He is the Governor of the CNMI. Jack and Tom got him the gig.

Can we arrest him now?  

To the jump...

[Crossposted at Loaded Orygun, the Oregon journal of politics and culture...]

The Klamath water controversy that flared in 2001 and 2002 and goes on to this day has become something of a national story, most vividly wrapped inside a devastatingly precise indictment of Dick Cheney's term as Vice President. Jason Leopold's story that we looked over on Monday reminded everyone of Karl Rove's intervention and subsequent airy clearing of wrongdoing by the Interior IG (fedora doff to Bill at P3, noble work). Now Darlene Hooley has asked for an investigation into Cheney's role--it has truly been a shitty week for that guy, and I hope it continues and also he suddenly can't shake the hiccups. Hah.

{jump}

Is the Department of Justice Scandal making an impact within the very places where "justice" is supposed to be meted out?   While the sentencing of J. Steven Griles was widely reported yesterday, most articles missed a critical point.  A poorly reported comment by the Judge at the J.Steven Griles sentencing is quite remarkable.

Yesterday, J. Steven Griles, former second-ranking criminal in the Department of the Interior, was sentenced to ten months in prison, five years probation and a $30,000 fine.  Griles is the most senior level grunt in the Administration to draw jail time for his ties to lobbyist, Jack Arbamoff.  

I didn't see mention of this today and thought those interested in the Jack Abramoff scandal might like to know that Gail Norton's onetime top assistant at Interior J. Steven Griles just got 10 months in jail for lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with Abramoff.  More after the jump.

This blog was previously posted at Gail Jonas's blog, "Thinking Out Loud."  It's being reposted here in light of teacherken's diary (on the recommended list)about mountain top removal in Appalachia.  Griles is responsible for allowing this destructive practice to become widespread.

"This week  [March 25, 2007], the former No. 2 official in the Interior Department, Steven Griles, has admitted to lying. He is the 10th person -- and the second high-level Bush administration official to face criminal charges in the continuing Justice Department investigation into Abramoff's lobbying activities.

"I’ve kept my eye on Griles for years; he’s anathema to environmentalists. While in Interior Department, he continued to have ties to energy and mining companies that were once his lobbying clients, the same companies he was charged with overseeing.

"There’s a good description of why Griles is facing incarceration in the March 24 Washington Post, Ex-Official At Interior Hid His Ties to Abramoff.

"However, I offer you an exclusive story about Steven Griles from someone who worked for him, my friend, Janie, an attorney who now lives in Ukiah, California.

More below.

Let me repeat this:

It’s The Corruption, Stupid

That is what we need to understand if we wish to end the War in Iraq, stop George W. Bush, elect a Democrat as President in 2008 and increase our margins in the House, Senate and State Capitals across our Nation.

Corruption is the tipping point!

This should be a simple concept to grasp after the 2006 midterms.

It isn’t.

Some folks seem be too Stupid to get this simple concept.

And by Stupid, I mean the elected Democrats, DLC types, DC-based consultants, lobbyists and even some of our Candidates for President, who seem committed to switching the Republican Culture of Corruption for a Democratic Culture of Corruption.  

We have to stop them. We need to keep corruption front and center.

We have to act now. We need a netroots drumbeat that gets loud, persistent and intense until Real Lobbying reform is passed.

Without it, everything else fails.

To the Jump...

The George W. Bush administration has been very, very, very... very bad for America.  It has done many, many, many... many things that have harmed this country greatly.  

We must elect a Democrat President in 2008!!

Two species have gone extinct while waiting for protection under the Endangered Species Act from the Bush administration. The two are the Hawaiian haha plant and the summer run of the Lake Sammamish Kokonee salmon (click on links to see pics of the species).

Both went extinct because the Bush administration refused to act even after being urged to by scientists and citizens worried about their fates.

Bush has protected fewer species (57) under the Endangered Species Act than any other administration in history (Clinton protected 512 and the first Bush administration 234). Indeed, May 9 marks one year since they've protected any endangered species, the first time that's happened since the Interior Department was run by anti-environment extremist James Watt.

Another one bites the dust. While this one is not a household name, Julie MacDonald was no less corrupt and has decided that she just can't take the heat anymore.