George W. Bush and his cronies “Dead-eye” Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Phil Gramm, to name a few, have had a few shining years to run America right into the ground, haven’t they?
Inheriting a country at peace, with a budget in the black and employment and job creation at all time highs, they slowly and deliberately altered it into a country with two wars, huge budget deficits, unemployment at 7% and rising and news of massive layoffs coming in daily.
And a few people got as rich as Croesus, and a few more people went below the poverty line.
And you’d think that that would be enough, wouldn’t you?
But I guess not. Not with news today out of the Associated Press that Bush’s people in the Department of the Interior are feverishly working to rewrite the rules that govern how public officials can decide whether a species is endangered or not.
At present, when you want to build a dam or a highway you have to clear it with biologists, experts in species population renewal, who will either OK or not OK the funding for the project, or even alter the project to ensure the survival of endangered species.
Interior Department people are trying to rewrite the rules so that governments can essentially skip that step.
Interior Department people are also trying to rewrite the rules, and bar federal agencies from deciding whether to build coal-fired power plants based on how much green house gases the plants will produce, how that will affect global temperatures and therefore how those temperatures will affect endangered species habitats (ahem . . . polar bears).
It seems that the “Greening of George Bush” was something of a palliative. Something to keep the environmentalists at bay. Bush never did come around, did he? He was just waiting for this time to rewrite the rules and make it that much harder for Barack Obama to govern.
I know, in 60 days our National Nightmare will be over. I’m just a little concerned though. There are many, many busy, busy hands working right now behind the scenes in Washington. It’s as if my house were infested with Formosan termites, out of sight, but you know that there is damage being done and nothing can be done about it until it is perhaps too late.
Inheriting a country at peace, with a budget in the black and employment and job creation at all time highs, they slowly and deliberately altered it into a country with two wars, huge budget deficits, unemployment at 7% and rising and news of massive layoffs coming in daily.
And a few people got as rich as Croesus, and a few more people went below the poverty line.
And you’d think that that would be enough, wouldn’t you?
But I guess not. Not with news today out of the Associated Press that Bush’s people in the Department of the Interior are feverishly working to rewrite the rules that govern how public officials can decide whether a species is endangered or not.
At present, when you want to build a dam or a highway you have to clear it with biologists, experts in species population renewal, who will either OK or not OK the funding for the project, or even alter the project to ensure the survival of endangered species.
Interior Department people are trying to rewrite the rules so that governments can essentially skip that step.
Interior Department people are also trying to rewrite the rules, and bar federal agencies from deciding whether to build coal-fired power plants based on how much green house gases the plants will produce, how that will affect global temperatures and therefore how those temperatures will affect endangered species habitats (ahem . . . polar bears).
It seems that the “Greening of George Bush” was something of a palliative. Something to keep the environmentalists at bay. Bush never did come around, did he? He was just waiting for this time to rewrite the rules and make it that much harder for Barack Obama to govern.
I know, in 60 days our National Nightmare will be over. I’m just a little concerned though. There are many, many busy, busy hands working right now behind the scenes in Washington. It’s as if my house were infested with Formosan termites, out of sight, but you know that there is damage being done and nothing can be done about it until it is perhaps too late.
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