White House puts warming threats on back burner

White House puts warming threats on back burner. It rejects the EPA staff’s findings on greenhouse gases and passes the issue on to the next president. By James Gerstenzang and Janet Wilson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers.

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Bush’s popularity is falling towards 20%; nothing can be done. Let’s face it, the Constitution needs to be amended to provide for the replacement of a failed President before the end of his term.

Most other democratic nations allow for “votes of no confidence,” and a new prime minister (probably from the other party or parties) can be brought in with a new cabinet to take over and move in a new direction.

Ralph Maughan


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  1. Jon Way Avatar

    “Let’s face it, the Constitution needs to be amended to provide for the replacement of a failed President before the end of his term.”
    I 100% agree. I can’t believe that this corrupt fool and his cabinet got re-elected – although who knows if they influenced that (both terms). Thank god I never voted for them… They even ran off McCain in 2000 primary.

  2. Monty Avatar

    Regardess of what “Bush & company” believe, it appears that the governors, venture captialists & others are reaching a “tipping point” on climate change. Of course, things would move faster if Obama & the senate & house could win a democratic majority so that they could pass meaningfull bills. For the first time, today, I even heard the Pope express concerns about earthly environmental degradation. It’s too bad that these issues were not acknowledged 30 years as the signs were there to read for all who cared to read them.

  3. kt Avatar
    kt

    Monty – The problems WERE acknowledged – including by Jimmy Carter. Then some of the same Repubs in power today helped amplify the Iranian hostage crisis. That enemy of the public good, Ronald Reagan, was elected and he symbolically dismantled the solar panels Carter had put up on the White House – and things have slid downhill from there – to the nadir of the current willfull ignorance and depravity of the current lot – Bush down to Secretary and Agency hacks like Kempthorne and Caswell.

  4. Monty Avatar

    kt: I agree! Reagan had a aircraft carrier named after him for allegedly winning the “cold war” when it would have been fitting & proper to have renamed the Exxon Valdes oil tanker the “Ronald Reagan”.

  5. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    Let’s face it–it’s probably better that Dubya does nothing on this issue, because its nearly certain he’d screw it up, just like he does everything else. In which case, he’d just be digging a deeper hole for Obama to deal with.

  6. Mike Avatar

    Worst. President. Ever.

  7. Dusty Rogue Avatar
    Dusty Rogue

    A friend from a former communist country said, back when the BushCo took office, “These guys are going to rape, pillage and steal from every country in the world and destroy the environmental conditions we need to survive, and they will never regret it or look back.”

    Looks like they were right…

  8. kim kaiser Avatar

    “Bush’s popularity is falling towards 20%; nothing can be done. Let’s face it, the Constitution needs to be amended to provide for the replacement of a failed President before the end of his term”

    his popularity was closer to 30 this morning,, 28% to be exact,,

    so why are we not putting the democratic lead congressional apporval numbers of 15,16 and 17 up there to compare,, remember,, this is the DEMOCRATIC congress,, gonna get us out of war,, get more jobs, stop this, stop that,, bullshit!!!!! they need to be kicked out just as well,,,,,amend the constitution for that as well

  9. JB Avatar
    JB

    Kim,

    The Democrats cannot “get us out of war” without 60 votes in the Senate–which they do not have. Moreover, some who caucus with the Democrats (i.e. Joe Lieberman) actually would not vote with the rest of the party on this issue. Thus, there really isn’t anything the Democrats can do except continue to criticize and put pressure on the White House.
    Most Americans don’t understand this and are expressing their frustration based on what they see as inactivity.

  10. Mike Avatar

    ++his popularity was closer to 30 this morning,, 28% to be exact,, ++

    Are you pulling our leg?

    ++
    so why are we not putting the democratic lead congressional apporval numbers of 15,16 and 17 up there to compare,, remember,, this is the DEMOCRATIC congress,, gonna get us out of war,, get more jobs, stop this, stop that,, bullshit!!!!! they need to be kicked out just as well,,,,,amend the constitution for that as well++

    Congress enver gets good approval ratings. This is largely because there is no real namerecognition with many people.

    But when a president is under 40%, and in the 20% range, that’s incredibly bad. The name recognition is there, so the ratings reflect the incredible incompetency of the administration.

    I would feel ashamed if I voted for this administration.

    Deeply ashamed.

  11. Ralph Maughan Avatar

    Mike is absolutely correct.

    The popularity of Congress almost never reaches even 45%. Comparing its popularity with that of any President is apples and oranges.

    Another reason is that no person speaks for Congress as a body. However, every President has a large team of PR folks trying to pump up his approval.

    Congressional Republicans speak for their party and they trash Congress if they think it helps them. The same is true of congressional Democrats.

    Having said this, I don’t think the current Congress is a very good one.

  12. Wyo Native Avatar
    Wyo Native

    Ralph, you and Mike have it perfectly right about comparing approval ratings.

    With that said though, this particular Congress has some interesting statistics.

    Typically like you said the overall aproval rating rarely, if ever gets much above 40%. This is generally due to the two party system. When polls are broke down to individual party support, the party that has majority control typically has a high approval rating by members of their party, and a low approval rating by the members of the minority party. This usually averages out to to be a somewhat low number.

    This particular Congress just recently recieved the lowest apporval rating in the 32 years of the Gallup Pole, 14%. Democrats actually gave congress a lower rating of 11% compared to Republicans 19%.

  13. Ralph Maughan Avatar

    Wyo Native,

    Those are amazing statistics.

    A lot of Democrats are deeply disappointed that their new majority in Congress failed to take on the President in a total way, such as try to impeach him, deny passage of a budget rather than let him have has way, etc.

    Their stance on the FISA bill could even threaten the election of Obama.

  14. kim kaiser Avatar

    Hey Mike,,

    here is what you need.. no i wasnt kidding,, you just accept what is written,!!!

    Here are the ratings,, i really dont care what the numbers say,, the platform the 06 congress ran on was

    1 out of iraq, NOW !!! they havent even gotten close,,

    you can try to justify your congressional approval/non approval however you want,, but they have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with all the big talk they made,, so if you want to continue to blow there horn, fine.. but you are only fooling yourselves.. just look at the attached bill that Ralph showed us on tester, baucus and the other one,, about the cattle subsidy,, and you feel good about this,, with power they should be able to barter and deal with few of the republicans,, obviously, they are not good at it or they would have shown better results,, they have folded like cheap paper sacks on almost EVERYTHING Bush has requested for 2 years,,,,,non of them have any spine,,

    AP-Ipsos 7/10-14/08 28 67 * -39
    .

    CBS/New York Times 7/7-14/08 28 65 7 -37
    .

    ABC/Washington Post 7/10-13/08 28 69 3 -41
    .

    Quinnipiac LV 7/8-13/08 26 67 6 -41
    .

    Newsweek 7/9-10/08 28 63 9 -35

  15. Wyo Native Avatar
    Wyo Native

    Ralph,

    That FISA flip flop by Obama sure was something else, even I was amazed by that one.

    I personally feal that one of the biggest factors concerning Congress’ apporval rating is Gasoline prices. Nanci Pelosi’s “Common Sense” approach to lowering gas prices from the $2.19 average when they took control in ’07 hasn’t worked out very well for them. Now the Repubs are beating the Drilling drum like no other and it’s starting to resonate in a vast majority of the public, especially when gas is now an average of $4.10.

    Energy is going to be the #1 issue in thisyear’s election; and the Dems “Tough Love” stance of Conservation and Windfall Profit Taxes are tough for the public to swallow.

Author

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

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