Green Options » Bush

Billionaires for Wealthcare Reinvent Guerilla Musical Theatre

Rhonda Winter — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:47:10 +0000

CNN highlights the Billionaires for Wealthcare enthusiastically singing the praises of a public option, as they entertained unsuspecting attendees at a health insurance conference in Washington DC last week. Wolf Blitzer and Jeanne Moos discuss the increasingly popular use of guerilla musical theatre across the nation. Cleverly orchestrated performances and mini-musicals seem to have become much more popular with folks now than rabid screaming teabaggers.

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Arctic Seal Threatened By Global Warming Denied Protection By Obama Administration

Rhishja Larson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:53:43 +0000

The spotted seal, a sea ice-dependent Arctic species, has been denied Endangered Species Act protection by the Obama Administration.

Disappointment: The Center for Biological Diversity has announced that the Obama administration denied Endangered Species Act protection for the spotted seal, a species whose habitat is rapidly melting away due to global warming.

Read more of this story »

Billionaires for Wealth Care Proclaim: Let Them Eat Advil!

Rhonda Winter — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:48:50 +0000

Billionaires for Wealth Care have created this rousing anthem to satirically support our nation’s for-profit health care industries. The group was counter-protesting at last week’s teabagger anti-health care reform 9/12 rally in Washington D.C. (which was funded by major health insurance corporations). The Billionaires were dressed in top hats, tuxedos and evening gowns, and carried placards like: “Fight Socialism—End Medicare Now!” and “Let Them Eat Advil!”.

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

According to the Billionaires’ website they are:

A grassroots network of health insurance CEOs, HMO lobbyists, talk-show hosts, and others profiting off of our broken health care system. We are not a political, religious or even particularly well-organized group. We’re simple folk, thrilled profiteers pouring out of our corner offices to dance on the grave of “Change.” We’ll do whatever it takes to ensure another decade where your pain is our gain. After all, when it comes to health care, if we ain’t broke, why fix it?

Read more of this story »

Obama Declassifies Spy Satellite Images Revealing Climate Change Devastation Bush Tried to Hide

Jennifer Lance — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:27:30 +0000

Images that were kept secret under President Bush have just been declassified by the Obama administration. These images reveal what scientists have predicted: “In recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.” The Guardian reports:

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.

Read more of this story »

Interior Upholds Bush-Era BLM Lease Sale

Ruedigar Matthes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:49:13 +0000

July 15 marked the day that would have nullified another Bush-era act in regards to the environment. It would have been a day for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Wilderness Society to cheer. It would have been a day that released around 15,000 acres of sensitive land from the firing squad of oil and gas development. It would have been. But it wasn’t.

Read more of this story »

Breaths of Fresh Air: Bush-Era Pollution Waivers Rejected By Courts

Ruedigar Matthes — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:04:14 +0000

Power plants play a huge role in emitting pollutants that make up the ozone. This pollution browns and blackens our horizons. We call it smog. Smog has been linked to premature deaths, thousands of emergency room visits, and tens of thousands of asthma attacks each year. Pollution in the ozone is particularly dangerous to small children and the elderly, who are often warned to stay indoors on days with poor air quality due to pollutants.

Not only are the pollutants spewed out by power plants bad for our health, but they contain greenhouse gases that have been linked with climate change; thus they are killing the world as we know it as well.

Read more of this story »

Where Exactly Does Obama Stand on the War on Drugs?

Jennifer Lance — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:21:29 +0000

Many rumors have been circulating regarding President Obama’s stance on illegal drug use.

Some drug reform advocates hope the president will legalize marijuana; some critics think he will continue the failed policies of the Bush administration in Latin America.

The President’s actual stance on drug policy falls somewhere in between. On Whitehouse.gov, Obama states:

With escalating violence along our Southwest border and far too many suffering from the disease of addiction here at home, never has it been more important to have a national drug control strategy guided by sound principles of public safety and public health. We must demonstrate to our international partners, the criminal organizations threatening to undermine stability and the rule of law in those nations, and the American people, that we take seriously our responsibility to reduce drug use in the United States.

Read more of this story »

Obama Rocks Gallup Environmental Poll

Amanda Peterka — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:21:46 +0000

President Barack Obama scored a big one in a Gallup Poll conducted in the middle of March. According to the results, which were released yesterday, 79 percent of Americans think that he will do a good job in handling environmental issues, compared to the 51 percent that George W. Bush received eight years ago at the start of his presidency.

Read more of this story »

(Street) Sign of the Times

Joe Mohr — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:22:43 +0000

Stuck in traffic the other day and surrounded by an army of traffic cameras, I was forced to pay closer attention to the street signs at a busy intersection. It was at this intersection where I saw this sign and thought that it really defines our present situation. “Left Turn” referring to the political/social change in direction that our country has taken. And, “Yield on Green” referring to the fact that we are now stopping (or atleast slowing down) to consider the impact our actions have on our planet.

Just thought I’d share my thoughts…

…oh and, if there were a street sign for the last 8 years it might’ve been:

or…

Torture Memos Set to Music

Rhonda Winter — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:47:40 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Jonathan Mann, the brilliant creator of Rock Cookie Bottom, composes a song every single day. Today’s gem simply relates some of the horrific twisted language in the Bush administration’s morally reprehensible and illegal torture memos. It is an incredibly powerful song, but makes me a little queasy every time I hear it. One of the most empowering local actions any of us can undertake is to speak out loudly against injustice wherever we see it.

Perhaps we can look forward to “Torture Memos”, the musical?

Former President Bush to Receive Environmental “Nobel Prize”

Amiel Blajchman — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:27:13 +0000

In a special announcement, former President George W. Bush will be honoured as the 2009 recipient of the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Protecting the Environment. Bush was nominated for his 2006 decision to declare a remote chain of islands in Hawaii as a national monument. In making his announcement, Bush said “It’s larger than 46 of our 50 states, and more than seven times larger than all our national marine sanctuaries combined. This is a big deal”.

Read more of this story »

Rebuilding Iraq Also Means Reviving Its Damaged Marshlands

Alex Felsinger — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:03:49 +0000

Iraq’s marshlands are the largest wetland habitat in the Middle East, but years of damming, drainage, and pollution have rendered the area inadequate for the survival of the area’s plants, animals, and humans.

Untold numbers of people, many of whom living in extreme poverty, have been displaced by the drying marshlands. After initial improvements after the expulsion of Saddam Husein’s regime, water levels have shrunk down to below 2003 levels due to drought, causing many who returned to the area to leave.

Read more of this story »

Oil Shale: Saving Grace or Environmental Catastrophe?

Lisa Wojnovich — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:49:13 +0000

Did you know that the Rocky Mountains contain more oil than Saudi Arabia? Most people don’t. The problem is that, unlike the easily accessed and processed oceans of liquid oil under Middle Eastern sands, the Rocky Mountains’ petroleum is found in rocks called oil shale. Oil shale, which must be mined, is a type of sedimentary rock that releases oil when heated in specific types of chemical processes. The problem, according to environmental groups, is that producing energy from oil shale is even less environmentally friendly than using normal, liquid oil or even coal.

Read more of this story »

To Drill or Not to Drill?

Lisa Wojnovich — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:35:11 +0000

Late in the Bush administration, the president lifted an executive order banning offshore drilling. A few months later, facing skyrocketing gas prices, Congress allowed a congressional moratorium, dating back to 1982, to lapse. Offshore drilling has been blatantly polarizing national politics ever since.

Read more of this story »

Obama Freezes Pending Bush Regulations, Good News for Wolves

Andrew Williams — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:13:13 +0000

In one of his first moves upon taking office, President Obama has ordered a freeze on all new or pending regulations from the Bush administration. The bold action could delay, and possibly even prevent, the removal of gray wolves from endangered species lists in more than a dozen states.

In a memorandum released by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Obama has informed all department and agency heads that “…no proposed or final regulation should be sent to the Office of Federal Register for publication unless and until it has been reviewed and approved by a department or agency head appointed or designated by the President after noon on January 20, 2009.”

According to Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, the hiatus will give President Obama and new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar the chance to reconsider the Bush administration’s plans to remove wolves from the endangered species list.

Read more of this story »

Obama Criticizes Bush’s Response to Katrina on New White House Website

Jennifer Lance — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:45:49 +0000

Out with the old and in with the new! Following Obama’s inauguration, change is already underway. From halting tribunals at Guantanamo Bay to accelerating the drawdown of troops in Iraq, Obama is wasting no time as the United States’ 44th president.

The “new era of responsibility” expressed in Obama’s Inaugural Speech extends to the past, particularly criticizing George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina on the new White House website.

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration’s “unconscionable ineptitude” in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

President Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

Read more of this story »

Bush’s 11th Hour Regulations Put On Hiatus by Obama

Michael A. Weber — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:38:11 +0000

Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44^th President of the United States of America today. As one of the first moves of his presidency, he has suspended all of former-President George Bush’s midnight regulations. The order was issued by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel directly following the swearing in of Obama.

The regulations will not go into effect until Obama has had a chance to review their legality. Hopefully, this will undo some of the damage Bush attempted to leave our country with, such as his permitting coal companies to dump waste near rivers and oil companies to drill without reviewing the endangered species act.

Read more of this story »

Hansen’s Grim Warning to Obama: You Have Only 4 Years Left to Save the Earth

Jennifer Lance — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:27:15 +0000

Four years, aka one presidential term, is all the time Obama has to save the Earth according to NASA scientist James Hansen.

Hansen testified to Congress over twenty years ago alerting the world that climate change was under way. Five presidential terms later, Obama is left with a crisis of epic proportion. Hansen warns:

Read more of this story »

Keith Olbermann on George Bush: 8 Years in 8 Minutes [video]

Jennifer Lance — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:27:41 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Bush Delivers Five Final Blows to the Environment

Michael A. Weber — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:15:56 +0000

Though President Bush remains in office for only two more weeks, he has left a final trail of devastation to cement his legacy in place. From gutting the endangered species act to allowing toxic waste to flow freely, Bush is pushing 11^th hour executive orders at a potentially record setting pace.

His list of last minute domestic atrocities is not limited to the environment, but many of his most egregious final offenses are those that spoil sensitive habitat and natural resources. This list is merely a sample of Bush’s midnight regulations, along with what is being done to stop him. Here are George Bush’s top five most disgraceful efforts to ruin our environment once more.

5) Actual pine woods to be replaced with a suburb named “Pine Woods”. Plum Creek Timber, the nation’s largest private landowner, has crafted a back door deal with the Bush administration to allow them to pave over logging roads and develop the previously inaccessible land. Local forest agencies are furious about the back door deal, which is being finalized this week. It might not be too late to stop it, so call 1-800-832-1355 and tell Forest Service director (and former timber industry lobbyist) to stop opening up our forests for development.

Read more of this story »