There's still time for Bush-bashing on the evening newscasts. On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, investigative reporter Lisa Myers forwarded the anti-Bush complaints of Robert Redford and the left-wing group OMB Watch. They harshly opposed any attempt by Team Bush to deregulate in the last days.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: In politics, they actually call it the midnight hour. It's when presidents announce pardons and last-minute changes to regulations. That's exactly what's going on right now in the Bush West Wing. We have a closer look tonight from our senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers.
LISA MYERS: The flurry of midnight maneuvers would open two million acres of Western wilderness in three states to oil shale development, lease pristine areas alongside national parks in Utah for oil drilling, and loosen pollution controls near national parks. And that's just a few of the last-minute moves that infuriate environmentalists, such as actor-director Robert Redford.
ROBERT REDFORD (listed as Natural Resources Defense Council): What kind of investment is that for our children, their children and theirs, to have all of our great monuments and some of the greatest places on the face of the earth destroyed for short-term benefits?
MYERS: President Bush is by no means the first president to lock in his own policies as the clock nears midnight. Every outgoing president since Carter has done it. Bill Clinton issued 26,000 pages of rules in his final days.
JERRY BRITO (Mercatus Center, George Mason University): The end of the presidency, he's really unaccountable. He can do things that are politically unpopular.
The Mercatus Center is a more conservative think tank, and Brito's statement sounds nonpartisan (if a little exaggerated.) Then Myers sits down with OMB Watch at a computer terminal and publicizes their claims:
MATT MADIA (OMB Watch): These are the among the most controversial ones.
MYERS: Matt Madia says Bush's new rules mostly reduce oversight and favor business. Some would allow the government to build dams and projects without consulting the agency in charge of protecting endangered species, broaden the authority of health care workers and hospitals to refuse to provide family planning services, and loosen restrictions on how many hours a trucker can drive.
Mr. MADIA: Once these rules take effect, they really have the force of law; and to reverse that, it could take years for the Obama administration to accomplish.
MYERS: Democrats are trying to figure out which rules the new president can undo quickly when he takes office in January. As for President Bush, his spokesman insists that all of these rules have been carefully vetted and are not being rushed through. Lisa Myers, NBC News, Washington.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.
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This very interview was one
November 30, 2008 - 09:45 ET by msh1973This very interview was one of the topics at the dinner table on Thanksgiving. My husband's aunt (who is a hippie from the 60's) totally agrees with Redford. Energy independence is not an option for her, because it would ruin the environment. We had to change the subject quickly because she was getting very angry.
Sacrifice to the "god of the environment"
November 30, 2008 - 09:52 ET by allanfYes let's look at what industrialization as wrought:
But there are many emotional people who want to sacrifice to that "environmental god" much as the Mayans sacrificed to ensure the sun would continue to rise.
I honestly believe
November 30, 2008 - 15:58 ET by ahusserthese eco-nuts would like all, but a select few, of humans to be erased from the earth.
Most IMO of these so called environmentalist are extremely delusional and prone to magical thinking. It has become some kind of religion without any rationality attached. We as a civilization would pretty cease to exist in short order if the oil, gas, and electricity was gone. One has to only go back a hundred years to see the effects of no sanitation or modern medicine. No AC, thousands of tons of manure in the streets, constant epidemics of one sort or another etc. These folks need to get their heads out of their you know what and read a little about what primitive living conditions really means.
Change: When the winds of change blow hard enough, the most trivial of things can become deadly projectiles. From a Poster
THis is not bias, this is Robert Redford lying.
November 30, 2008 - 10:02 ET by JWFto have all of our great monuments and some of the greatest places on the face of the earth destroyed
Oh bull, no one is proposing drilling in Lincoln's head at Mount Rushmore or removing the Washington memorial to put in a drill rig.
Having a drill rig visible while you are strolling around in a national park IS NOT DESTRUCTION.
We have destroyed, actually destroyed, millions of acres to let humans live, farm, transverse across, and build businesses on. It is called human progress. We will destroy millions more with the so called alternative energies. It takes a lot of land to build solar collectors and wind farms, and a lot more land to bring the electricity to the places humans actually reside.
Robert Redass and his ilk need a nice tall glass of shut the hell up while they are being pounded with cluebats.
Sincerely,
a Veteran of a 1000 psychic wars.
PS: There is a farm behind my house, it used to be prairie land hundreds of years ago. You don't see me whining about the view on NBC. I appreciate the farmer for the yummy corn he provides the prehamburger cows.
What Rachel Carson has Wrought
November 30, 2008 - 10:02 ET by allanfA case can be made that the environmentalists have cost lives. The banning of DDT alone is responsible for untold deaths from Malaria.
I'd argue that
November 30, 2008 - 13:49 ET by fitzfongI'd argue that eco-parasites like Rachel Carson and Robert Redford have not only cost lives, but they have served as the proximate cause of the current economic crisis. Their actions to hinder any energy production (e.g. drilling for oil, nuclear energy, etc.) at a time when worldwide demand drove the costs of energy...and as a result shipping costs, airline travel costs, food costs, etc. to record levels...are the unspoken symptoms that led to families having less money to spend on essentials, less money to put back into the economy and less money to pay for their mortgages. The financial collapse followed. Eco-Marxists like Robert Redford are the scum of the earth, but they become part of a protected class because the media and the "education" lobby portray them as caring citizens who want what's best for the earth and "the children". Self-described "environmentalists" are frivolous luxuries in good economic times and borderline treasonous parasites in times like these.
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -Ronald Reagan
fitzfong.blogspot.com
fitz...Great post!
November 30, 2008 - 17:30 ET by PrairieSkyYou summed it up perfectly.
Redford and his band of misguided twit eco-friends are definitely part of the problem. When he first became involved in eco and enviro issues decades back, my first thought was "great!"... An entertainer that actually uses his celebrity to try to do something useful for the greater good.
But as the years went on, it became very clear that his way of thinking was so radical and devoid of most reason, that my initial admiration for him in this regard is now long gone. Redford just makes things up now when he feels the need to try to shore up his looney, radical ideas when he has no facts to back him up...(SOP for leftists).
Simply put, I think he's nuts...
"...peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever." President Ronald Reagan~ January 20, 1981
This argument....
November 30, 2008 - 10:54 ET by gregfaheythat we can't drill because oil is "dirty" and will somehow destroy everything in the perimeter is getting old.
It's basically an insult to American ingenuity to suggest we can't do it because we are unrestrained land-rapists.
The Republicans need to counter this ridiculous argument with that. We are a "can do" country able to overcome obstacles. Yet, the left would have everyone believe that American workers and technology are unable to do this.
Redford is ensconced in Utah with vast land holdings and doesn't want his little kingdom disturbed. You know, like Ted Kennedy doesn't want to have windfarms where he can see them.
Americans CAN drill offshore and yes, Utah or anywhere and do it right and clean. To suggest otherwise is insulting.
Dastardly Deregulation
November 30, 2008 - 11:00 ET by P. AaronRobert Redford has his. He just thinks that others getting a chance at 'theirs' is what's wrong. The movies he starred in added to Redford's quality of life yet he is determined to undermine the unapproved masses a chance at theirs.
This guy has no idea what wanton environmental destruction is. But if Redford had his way and forced all of humanity back to the cave. He would soon see discards, evironmental destruction, species depletion, filth and pollution on a scale that he is not now capable of imagining.
I am sure Redford
December 1, 2008 - 00:57 ET by ahussertravelled widely. He must have seen that mose humans live in severe poverty, that these places probably have more significant destruction of the environment than we, living in a technologically advanced and relatively wealthy nation, do. It takes wealth to clean up and provide the means to "scrub" industrial processes of dangerous waste and pollution. These controls, laws, regulations drive up the cost of doing business but our environment is safer and cleaner than most in this world. But these things carry a price and the price is loss of industry and jobs to other less regulated countries.
Change: When the winds of change blow hard enough, the most trivial of things can become deadly projectiles. From a Poster
Hypocrites
November 30, 2008 - 11:15 ET by NiftySwellI am tired of the save the environment for our children excuse. If the left were so concerned about our children then they would be just as concerned with not burdening future generations with debt. The environment recovers in every single case and doesnt have a use for what we extract...but the debt just gets worse. When the US debt equals the US worth and the treasury cannot get a foreign nation to give us a loan to build a road people will elect politicians that will strip mine every square inch of the country if it means funds for a power plant or a water treatment plant for survival. Ultimately, they will be the reason for the environment going to hell and I hope history reflects that. Not allowing us to use our own resources when every country in the world is does not make us stronger- it weakens us causing us to rack up debt to buy foreign energy and resources much of it funded by the same foreign interests whose lax environmental. labor, and monetary policies are taking advantage of the wholesale deal the liberal interests in this country give them. It has to be a scheme to weaken the US, the only country left that gives a damn about right or wrong in the world. Imagine the only superpower left is China...does anyone see them sending ships to help 3rd world tsunami victims or giving money to earthquake victims in countries they have no $$ interest in? Take a look at the world food bank numbers or the World Aids funding the US gives more than all other countries combined, yet all liberals and foreign countries can do is find reasons to weaken them further.
If the left...
November 30, 2008 - 14:41 ET by littlemissmuffinIf the left is SO concerned with saving the planet for our children, why are they PRO-ABORTION????????
"If we conservatives moved to those seven non-existent States, the government couldn’t find us and tax us to death!"
They are not concerned.
December 1, 2008 - 00:55 ET by ahusserOn the contrary, I think radical environmentalism has become an anti-human religion that wishes the extinction of most of the human race (except for a select few million or so of them of course). So that "Mother Earth (Gaia) can heal and the select few can live in peaceful harmony with nature (you know like native americans did, and other indigenous peoples around the world).
Change: When the winds of change blow hard enough, the most trivial of things can become deadly projectiles. From a Poster
Redford is slowly morphing
November 30, 2008 - 18:39 ET by celatorRedford is slowly morphing into Nurse Cratchett. Wish he'd buy a toupe that didn't look like orange lettuce.
Better Looking Than Redford!
November 30, 2008 - 20:32 ET by Kirk TurnerI have prayed for years that one day I might be better looking than Robert Redford, and that day has arrived!!! It only took thirty years, but slow and steady wins the race. From the look of Redford, he's been fast and furious.
The best thing I ever saw
December 1, 2008 - 10:05 ET by misterbee241The best thing I ever saw Redford in was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Too bad Redford isnt more like Sundance. By that I mean a man with backbone and integrity.