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Another day, another internal Bush administration memo suggesting that regulatory agencies aren't doing their jobs:

An official administration guidance document on wetlands policy is
undermining enforcement of the Clean Water Act, said a March 4 memo
written by the Environmental Protection Agency's chief enforcement officer.

The memo by Granta Y. Nakayama, EPA's assistant administrator for
enforcement and compliance assurance, was obtained by the advocacy
group Greenpeace
and released yesterday by two House Democratic committee chairmen. It
highlights the confusion that has afflicted federal wetlands
protections since a 2006 Supreme Court decision.

The decision in question is Rapanos v. United States, a rather technical case in which the Supreme Court ruled that four Michigan wetlands that lie adjacent to drainage ditches (as opposed to natural bodies of water) didn't necessarily fall under the purview of the Clean Water Act. This illustrates one potential pitfall of case-by-case judicial incrementalism: It can be really confusing! Justice Kennedy, whose wrote a concurring opinion and cast the deciding vote in Rapanos, didn't give much guidance as to what types of wetlands the CWA reaches. The administration, to no one's great surprise, has construed Kennedy's opinion in a manner that exempts as many wetlands as possible. This seems like the kind of area where Congress, if it disagrees with the administration's take, might want to step in and pass legislation clarifying the scope of the CWA.

–Josh Patashnik 

It’s official. Barack Obama has voted for the FISA Amendments Act. It’s Senate roll call vote 168, registered by the Library of Congress.

Don’t know what the FISA Amendments Act is? Think Big Brother. Think Total Information Awareness. Think about the Soviet Union, with its network of government spies keeping people never sure whether they were being watched.

The FISA Amendments Act gives the President, through the Attorney General, the ability to establish programs to spy on the American people that are not approved by any court, even the FISA court. There’s no search warrant, and no evidence of any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing required. The Attorney General just gets to send out his spies, and the only person who can declare the Attorney General’s spy programs to be illegal is the Attorney General himself.

What kind of spying does this enable? You name it. Eavesdropping on your telephone calls. Scanning your emails. Recording your text messages. Searching your house while you’re away and planting bugs in every room. Because the FISA Amendments Act gives the Attorney General the power to unilaterally declare whether a spy operation is legal, the FISA Amendments Act gives the Attorney General the power to break any law that restricts government spying, and declare the spying to be legal anyway. No judge, not even a FISA judge, can stop it from taking place.

Kids: Maybe you’re not aware of the dark history of what the “Justice” Department can do when it’s given the power to abuse the law. Go look up one name: Google “J. Edgar Hoover”. Have fun. Explore the world of unrestrained government power - only now with the latest computer technology to ramp it up!

Barack Obama voted for the kind of government spying that was used to persecute Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.

Obama lied. The government spied.

Here’s the kicker: You John McCain, Barack Obama’s Republican presidential rival?

John McCain did not vote for the FISA Amendments Act. John McCain decided to abstain. John McCain has a better record on the FISA Amendments Act than Barack Obama.

Change? Oh, this is change, all right.

Associated Press (h/t RawStory):

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — Nudists have sued for the right to let it all hang out after officials said they would crack down on those going au naturel at a beach in a popular state park.

The Naturist Action Committee filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court Wednesday against the State Department of Parks and Recreation. The suit claims the agency should have sought public comment before banning nudity at the 1,000-foot beach starting after Labor Day.

Park officials say they have followed procedure and were forced to ban bare flesh after an increase in complaints from clothed beachgoers.

The big question here: is it right for the city or county to restrict their choice to frolic sans pants when their tax dollars paid for the park as well?  How exactly does nudity infringe on the rights of other park goers more so than say smokey bar-b-que’s or wearing plaid with stripes?

And imagine how popular Merlin Olsen park would be…

-Jason

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080710/D91R4LR00.html

Jul 10, 1:42 PM (ET)

By JENNIFER LOVEN

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush signed a bill Thursday that overhauls rules about government eavesdropping and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the U.S. spy on Americans in suspected terrorism cases.

He called it “landmark legislation that is vital to the security of our people.”

Bush signed the measure in a Rose Garden ceremony a day after the Senate sent it to him, following nearly a year of debate in the Democratic-led Congress over surveillance rules and the warrantless wiretapping program Bush initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was a battle that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks and Democrats’ fears of being portrayed as weak when it comes to protecting the country.

Its passage was a major victory for Bush, an unpopular lame-duck president who nevertheless has been able to prevail over Congress on most issues of national security and intelligence disputes.

Bush said the 9/11 attack “changed our country forever” and taught the intelligence community that it must know who America’s enemies are talking to and what they are saying.

“In the aftermath of 9/11,” Bush said, “few would have imagined that we would be standing here seven years later without another attack on American soil. The fact that the terrorists have failed to strike our shores again does not mean that our enemies have given up.”

Even before Bush signed the legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would challenge the new law in court.

The president said the bill gives the government anti-terror tools it needs without compromising Americans’ civil liberties.

Bush was joined at the ceremony by Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and more than a dozen members of Congress.
–
A triple espresso, please…

In “a troubling sign of global warming,” European scientists say that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica appears to be breaking up. The European Space Agency said yesterday that satellite images show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is “hanging by its last thread,” which could “put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk.”

“The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.” The EPA will announce today that it will instead “seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her fellow House Democratic leaders “took a hard line Thursday against opening up restricted areas to oil production.” She “said the government must first press oil companies to explore the federal land they have already leased.”

A secret report by the International Red Cross concluded last year that the CIA’s interrogation methods for high-level detainees “constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book by New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer. The report found that the methods used on al Qaeda figure Abu Zubaydah were “categorically” torture.

On the trail today: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will hold a women-only forum in Hudson, WI. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will attend a town hall meeting in Dayton, OH, at Stivers High school. (more…)