First Door on the Left

SAN FRANCISCO, July 31 — Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean on Thursday unveiled an environmental plan that would increase use of renewable resources, push automakers to improve fuel efficiency and strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency.

Two days after presenting his economic plan in Iowa, the former Vermont governor delivered the first major environmental address of his campaign and criticized President Bush’s record during a speech in San Francisco.

“We can take America back from those who care more about returning a favor to a friend than about creating a sensible environmental and energy policy,” Dean told an audience of about 400 supporters and environmental activists. He denounced Bush Administration programs such as the “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” initiatives as “Orwellian doublespeak.”

Under Dean’s plan, 20 percent of the nation’s electricity supply would have to come from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020. He would create incentives to develop hydrogen-powered vehicles, design more energy-efficient SUV’s and increase use of ethanol, a renewable fuel produced from agricultural waste.

“Conservation, principally through efficiency improvements, has to be a centerpiece of our national energy policy,” Dean said.

But in a proposal certain to upset automakers in key electoral states such as Michigan, Dean suggested requiring automakers to establish a fuel efficiency standard of 40 miles per gallon by 2015. The current requirement is 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 20.7 for trucks.

During his nearly 12 years as governor, Dean had a sometimes strained relationship with environmental leaders because he frequently sided with the business community in development disputes.

In his speech, Dean said he would elevate the Environmental Protection Agency to Cabinet level, tighten controls on air pollution and provide more funding for enforcement of environmental laws.

“We’ll ensure that the agencies created to oversee our precious environmental and natural resources aren’t co-opted by the very forces they’re supposed to be guarding against,” Dean said.

Dean called for “livable communities” by strengthening downtowns while protecting wild and open spaces. As governor of Vermont, he signed a law that targeted incentives and a variety of grants to developments that were established in the state’s downtowns and village centers.

Dean said would insist that the United States participate in international environmental agreements, such as the Kyoto global warming treaty. He said environmental standards should become a key element of the country’s foreign trade agreements.

“The United States must lead the world in addressing the serious long-term challenges facing the planet,” Dean said.

Environmental activists who listened to the speech were encouraged by Dean’s views on key environmental issues.

“We’re thrilled the governor came out strong on the environment,” said Larry Fahn, president of the Sierra Club, which is still deciding which candidate to endorse. “We’re thrilled that all the candidates are starting to realize that the Bush Administration is vulnerable on this issue.”

“He gets the environmental issues most important to me as a mother and a Californian,” said Betsy Rosenberg, co-founder of San Francisco-based Don’t Be Fueled, which advocates for cleaner and safer vehicles. “I think Howard Dean really walks the eco-talk. I think he really gets it.”

The full text of Governor Dean’s speech can be found here.

Let’s face it, most people get their news and form their opinions from reading the headlines. That’s why, when this headline appeared — “First public gay high school to open in NYC” — you started hearing and reading things like “There’s those homos again, demanding special treatment” and “They say want equal rights, but what they really want is special rights.”

Sometimes, you have to make time to get beyond the headline.

“The Harvey Milk High School will enroll about 100 students and open in a newly renovated building in the fall. It is named after San Francisco’s first openly gay city supervisor, who was assassinated in 1978.”

I can flat out guarantee you that there are a lot more than 100 gay students in New York City’s public school system. So why are only 100 kids going to be attending classes at Harvey Milk?

“I think everybody feels that it’s a good idea because some of the kids who are gays and lesbians have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. “It lets them get an education without having to worry.”

The kids who will be attending classes at Harvey Milk are the kids who, without this opportunity, would probably have not completed high school. They are the kids who were bullied, harassed and beaten in their former schools. These kids deserve a chance at an education in an environment where they are not constantly in fear for their safety. Unfortunately, our public schools do not have the funds or personnel (and in some cases, the desire) to provide that environment.

One third of all teen suicides are gay kids. Given that gay people comprise 10% (a liberal estimate) of the population, that’s a fairly disproportionate ratio.

So when people say things like this — “Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there gay math? This is wrong,” Long said. “There’s no reason these children should be treated separately.” — they really need to take a few minutes and read beyond the headlines.

“As they say in Texas, the President is all hat and no cattle.”

Howard Dean used that line in his speech yesterday before the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union in Des Moines, IA.

I’ve lived in Texas now going on 30 years, and I have never heard that line before. Guess maybe I need to get out more! Great line, though, and it couldn’t be more fitting.

In his speech, Governor Dean laid out his vision for economic growth and job creation. The full text of the speech can be found here.

Today, Governor Dean is in San Francisco, where he will give a speech outlining his plan for the environment. I posted a preview of that speech in one of yesterday’s entries.

by Samantha Bennett

You live next door to a clean-cut, quiet guy. He never plays loud music or throws raucous parties. He doesn’t gossip over the fence, just smiles politely and offers you some tomatoes. His lawn is cared-for, his house is neat as a pin and you get the feeling he doesn’t always lock his front door. He wears Dockers. You hardly know he’s there.

And then one day you discover that he has pot in his basement, spends his weekends at peace marches and that guy you’ve seen mowing the yard is his spouse.

Allow me to introduce Canada.

The Canadians are so quiet that you may have forgotten they’re up there, but they’ve been busy doing some surprising things. It’s like discovering that the mice you are dimly aware of in your attic have been building an espresso machine.

(Click on the headline to read the rest of the article.)

Know what else is cool about Canada? No George Bush. No Tom DeLay. No Rush Limbaugh. No Michael Savage. Shall I go on?

Surely Americans will not be stupid enough to elect George Bush next year, but in the unlikely event that they are, Canada will experience a sudden surge in immigration.

I hope they’re ready for us!

Despite vigorous efforts, the U.S. government has been unsuccessful so far in finding key senior Iraqi scientists to support its prewar claims that former president Saddam Hussein was pursuing an aggressive program to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, according to senior administration officials and members of Congress who have been briefed recently on the subject.

The sources said four senior scientists and more than a dozen at lower levels who worked for the Iraqi government have been interviewed by U.S. officials under the direction of the CIA. Some scientists have been arrested and held for months, others have made deals in return for information and at least one has agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq.

No matter the circumstances, all of the scientists interviewed have denied that Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program or developed and hidden chemical or biological weapons since United Nations inspectors left in 1998. Several key Iraqi officials questioned the significance of evidence cited by the Bush administration to suggest that Hussein was stepping up efforts to develop new weapons of mass destruction programs.

There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Yet Mr. Bush is still determined that he will find some…

Bush indicated yesterday that he still expects evidence of weapons of mass destruction to surface in Iraq. He said Kay described a complex process that includes the need to “analyze the mounds of evidence, literally the miles of documents that we have uncovered.”

“It’s going to take awhile, and I’m confident the truth will come out,” Bush said.

Why? Because he knows that when he admits the truth, he is also going to have to admit that he caused the deaths of hundreds of America’s young men and women and thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians for a lie. He knows that he is going to have to live with that for the rest of his life, and he also knows that it will be the end of his presidency.

Mr. Bush is not the most intelligent man in the world, but even he is going to have to acknowledge the truth eventually.

Be sure to click on the headline and read the entire article. I am amazed at how we are treating the former Iraqi officials who have come forward to help us find the truth. My country just is not supposed to do things like that.

This is no longer the country in which I grew up. This is no longer the country I was taught to love. I hope it’s not too late to get my country back.

The Founding Fathers wanted this democracy to last forever because they understood that mere empires come and go.

To that end, they established an intricate system of historic checks and balances to make sure the sort of tyranny they’d just fought to defeat never rose up again. They gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to guarantee our freedoms.

Americans would never have a king, but instead a popularly elected President, and they’d always be free to openly express their opinions, especially about the government and its policies. The people would be the master of their own rulers. It was a unique experiment in liberty which evolved and endured for more than two centuries, until one day in November 2000.

The Founding Fathers never figured on the Imperial Presidency of George W. Bush, and his court-appointed “Government of the neo-cons, by the neo-cons, and for the neo-cons.” A self-righteous minority of ruthless profiteering ideological extremists was never supposed to dominate all three independent branches of the American Democracy. It’s in your old high school civics book. Look it up.

(snip)

Let’s face it. It’s becoming very clear that Dick Cheney and his ilk are really running the show. To be charitable, Mr. Bush, were he the son of anyone other than George Herbert Walker Bush of Midland, Texas, who got him a legacy admission to Yale, would be lucky to rise to middle management at Wal-Mart.

As more of the blood of our brave, believing, faithful kids irrigates the fields of Babylon, a lot of folks are starting to ask some very untidy questions. We’ve sent our best young people to fight and die for oil in Iraq, while many of their young families at home subsisted on food stamps, and got screwed out of a child income tax credit that Mr. Bush gladly gave other Americans.

We now have the best Government corporate money can buy, and that’s the problem. The people behind Enron and WorldCom and Halliburton are encamped along the Potomac and fully in charge. It’s good the folks who fought for and set up this country are all dead. An hour watching America today as reported by Fox News would kill them anyhow.

If any of this bothers you, the solution is available 66 weeks from now. Get organized. The people who don’t care and never bother to vote must be motivated to go to the polls. If we give the neo-cons four more years, the Canadians will have to fortify the border to keep all of the impoverished refugees out.

This is no longer about liberal or conservative, or party, or ideology. If the American people want a country to come home to, they’d better take it back for themselves.

You know it’s all true. Click on the headline to read the full article. The little bit I’ve quoted above is just a preview.