Legislative riders target environmental protections
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 29th, 2011 4:35 am by HL
Legislative riders target environmental protections
For environmentalists, it was something to shout about. In a rare show of defiance, 37 House Republicans broke party ranks two days ago and voted with Democrats to strike an amendment from an appropriations bill that forbade the Fish and Wildlife Service from listing any new plant or animal as endangered.
In telephone calls and e-mails, environmentalists at groups such as the National Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife called the vote “historic” and “awesome” in surprised reactions.
But a long list of other amendments aimed at weakening environmental protections at the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency brought them back to Earth.
Lead birther Orly Taitz still on case, questioning Obama’s Social Security number
It seemed that President Obama’s release of his full birth certificate a couple of months ago — and his brutal skewering of Donald Trump at the White House correspondents dinner in May — completely took the air out of the “birther” movement.
Not so. None other than Orly Taitz , the Los Angeles lawyer, dentist and real estate agent, is still on the case, recently filing a Freedom of Information Act suit in federal court against Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue.
Taitz is looking for information that would prove that Obama’s Social Security number was from Connecticut, not Hawaii, and is therefore fraudulent.
Raymond Jefferson leaves Labor Department after ethics finding
A high-ranking Labor Department official appointed by President Obama to oversee a job-training program for veterans has resigned after an inspector general’s investigation found that he had violated federal procurement rules and ethics principles.
Raymond M. Jefferson, assistant secretary of the Labor Department’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, submitted his resignation Tuesday.
Jefferson engaged in “a pattern of conduct .?.?. which reflects a consistent disregard of federal procurement regulations, federal ethics rules and the proper stewardship of appropriated dollars,” according to the report from the Labor Department’s inspector general.
Michelle Bachmann still a ‘no’ on John Boehner’s debt plan
Rep. Michele Bachmann praised Republican leaders for advancing a plan to raise the national debt limit Thursday even as she reiterated that she would vote “no” on the proposal.
“I am committed to not raising the debt ceiling,” Bachmann said at a National Press Club luncheon, a few hours before a vote was scheduled to take place on House Speaker John A. Boehner’s bill. “Despite John Boehner’s best efforts, absolutely faithful efforts, to try to put a plan on the table, the problem goes back again to the president’s failure of leadership.”
