Replies to post #60122 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[OrangeFluffyCat]

There's absolutely NO excuse for not having secured the nation's voting system. It is unforgiveable. If the voters had common sense they'd refuse to elect any of the people who were in power. They chose not to secure the system. And well-knowing all that would lead to. Dereliction of the most basic of duties. The US government is thoroughly inept, and corrupt, with no desire to change.

[Rick Faurot]

Muddying The Waters
Ed Hopkins
August 17, 2004
The Bush administration issued a quiet, unpublicized directive to the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers not to enforce existing Clean Water Act protections. The motive? Removing the barrier businesses face when developing wetlands. In an utterly duplicitous move, Bush now touts the decision as a plan to set aside new wetland areas. Sierra Club environmental expert Ed Hopkins says Bush is hoping no one noticed—but they have.

Ed Hopkins is environmental quality director for the Sierra Club.

The Bush administration knows that Americans, including tens of millions of hunters and anglers, place a high value on protecting wetlands and water quality. Yet the administration also wants to satisfy the demands of oil, mining and development interests for relief from “pesky” Clean Water Act requirements. Using a little political ingenuity, the Bush administration has found a way to balance these competing interests—it simply instructed federal agencies not to enforce longstanding clean water protections, while staging campaign photo-ops to symbolize its “commitment” to wetlands and clean water.

Many organizations that represent hunters and anglers, typically considered a core constituency for the Bush administration, have seen through the charade. But the general public remains largely unaware that the administration’s disingenuous maneuver threatens to strip clean water protections from up to 20 million acres of wetlands, as well as other vital waters.

The administration began its clean water strategy in January 2003 with a new policy directing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers not to enforce Clean Water Act protections for so-called “isolated” wetlands and small streams without first obtaining permission from headquarters in Washington, DC. If the federal agencies do not seek headquarters’ permission, then, by default, the waters are no longer protected.

The pretext for this initiative was a Supreme Court decision in January 2001, which held that the Corps of Engineers could not protect intrastate, isolated and non-navigable waters solely on the basis that migratory birds use these waters. The administration’s directive, however, went far beyond the Court’s narrow ruling by undermining protections for waters used as drinking water sources and for irrigation, recreation and industrial purposes, as well as wildlife habitat.

This new policy allows developers to pave wetlands and industries to dump waste in headwater streams without meeting any federal requirements. If these waters are destroyed or polluted, the effects will be felt on downstream waters and drinking water supplies. The potential impact to wetlands alone is staggering—the EPA estimated that this initiative could threaten up to 20 million acres in the United States, about a fifth of our remaining wetlands outside of Alaska.

Every region of the country contains unique types of aquatic ecosystems threatened by the administration’s directive. These wetlands, ponds, lakes and streams support a wide variety of life, supply clean drinking water, sustain imperiled species, provide natural flood control and perform a host of other functions important to both human and wildlife communities. They are also an important part of our natural and cultural heritage.

How is the Bush administration implementing this directive? A recent report based on responses to Freedom of Information Act requests by the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Wildlife Federation shows that Corps districts around the country are denying protection to a diverse array of waters ranging from an 86-acre lake to a 150-mile-long river, to a 4000-acre tract of wetlands and a 70-mile-long canal. The report offers more than a dozen case studies of how the administration’s policy has allowed destruction of our waters. (The report, Reckless Abandon: How the Bush Administration Is Exposing America’s Waters To Harm , is available at http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanwater/recklessabandon.)

With this directive not to enforce the Clean Water Act in place, quietly but effectively freeing polluters and developers from the Clean Water Act, it was time to reassure the public that the Bush administration is, indeed, committed to clean water.

So President Bush celebrated Earth Day 2004 at a wetland in Maine by announcing a new wetlands policy. Going beyond the “no net loss” of wetlands policy that his father set forth—but which the nation has yet to achieve—President Bush set a goal to increase wetlands in America by three million acres over the next five years, relying largely on voluntary incentive programs which, ironically, the administration has actually targeted for funding cuts.

President Bush hopes that no one will remember that he exchanged Clean Water Act protections more than 20 million acres of wetlands for an unlikely plan to create or restore three million acres.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/muddying_the_waters.php

[yayaa]

Someone call the UN, They're not corrupt. Oil for food went well

[sideeki]

An Honest Vote: Too Much to Ask? (6 Letters)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/18/opinion/l18voting.html

Published: August 18, 2004


To the Editor:

Paul Krugman ("Saving the Vote," column, Aug. 17) and Bob Herbert ("Suppress the Vote?," column, Aug. 16) write about the dangers to our democracy from unverifiable paperless electronic voting machines and the recent intimidation of African-American volunteers in Florida who get out the vote.

Jimmy Carter has served as an independent election observer in many countries, including the recall referendum in Venezuela last Sunday. In January 2001, when asked about Florida's system, he said, "If we were invited to go into a foreign country to monitor the election, and they had similar election standards and procedures, we would refuse to participate at all."

We have the will and the money to wage a questionable war, but do we have the will and the money to ensure an honest election in November?

Evelyn Chorush
Houston, Aug. 17, 2004

•

To the Editor:

The possibility that my vote may be counted toward an unintended candidate is the issue. The voting machines are just the vehicle.

Dysfunctional or rigged machines enable a form of theft and should be viewed as a crime rather than just a technological boo-boo.

That any government would shrug at this potential tells me that it has no regard for the individual vote or, chillingly, that the fix is in.

Harold House
Westhampton, N.Y., Aug. 17, 2004

•

To the Editor:

It is ridiculous that federal elections can be hijacked by states with uncheckable voting machines.

I understand that each state is allowed to create its own election procedures, but there is nothing wrong with requiring that certain standards be met by every state in order to participate in federal elections.

Congress should enact mandatory minimum federal guidelines for elections and voting machines. If those guidelines aren't met, the votes don't count. This may disenfranchise Floridians, but that would be fairer than punishing the nation for the failure of a state.

Gretchen S. Adamek
East Hartford, Conn., Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

There is nothing more important right now to the American people than the integrity of the fall election. As a Florida voter, I am doubly concerned. I believe that the 2000 election was stolen in this state, and I do not, as Paul Krugman put it, fear "sounding conspiracy-minded" (column, Aug. 17).

I live in Sarasota County, which will offer voters only two options: to vote using the unreliable and vulnerable electronic machines that leave no paper trail or to use an absentee ballot. I encourage voters everywhere faced with the same choice to vote absentee.

Jonathan Winer
Sarasota, Fla., Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

Paul Krugman says the coming election may be "suspect" if paperless voting machines are used.

What's to be done? State Democratic parties must sue in court to stop the use of these machines on the basis of the mounting, widespread evidence of their unreliability, and they must do so now. Any further delay will surely result in a lost election.

Ron Cohen
Waltham, Mass., Aug. 17, 2004

•

To the Editor:

One should question the motivation of state authorities' interrogating elderly African-American voters in Florida, as described by Bob Herbert (column, Aug. 16).

Why is it that Gov. Jeb Bush and his administration are so intensely scrutinizing would-be supporters of John Kerry this year but showed so little heart four years ago for investigating potential voter fraud and coercion that may have allowed his brother to be declared the victor?

When the recurring stories of electronic voting machine irregularities in Florida are added to this, it paints an even uglier picture of that state than the aftermath images of the hurricane.

James Quigley
East Orange, N.J., Aug. 16, 2004