AUSTIN, Texas -- When, in future, you find yourself wondering, "Whatever happened to the Constitution?" you will want to go back and look at June 8, 2004. That was the day the attorney general of the United States -- a.k.a. "the nation's top law enforcement officer" -- refused to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with his department's memos concerning torture.

        In order to justify torture, these memos declare that the president is bound by neither U.S. law nor international treaties. We have put ourselves on the same moral level as Saddam Hussein, the only difference being quantity. Quite literally, the president may as well wear a crown -- forget that "no man is above the law" jazz. We used to talk about "the imperial presidency" under Nixon, but this is the real thing.

        The Pentagon's legal staff concurred in this incredible conclusion. In a report printed by The Wall Street Journal, "Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department. ...

Last month, over 800 people asked their Senators to prevent the U.S. Department of Energy from shirking its responsibilities for cleaning up its nuclear waste sites. The Department of Energy wants to cover the sites with cement and abandon the nuclear waste in aging, leaking tanks, turning nuclear waste sites that should be cleaned up into radioactive waste dumps.

Now we've started an online petition that will be sent to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner asking them to drop this proposal because it would threaten our water with severe contamination and hamper radioactive cleanup throughout the country.

Please take a moment to sign this online petition and make sure nuclear waste is properly cleaned up. Then, ask your family and friends to help by forwarding this e-mail to them.

To take action, click on this link: pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=181&id4=OHFreep

Background

AUSTIN, Texas -- As Lily Tomlin observed, "No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up." But as Con Ed used to say, dig we must. Courtesy of David Sirota at the americanprogress.org website, we find the following matches between word and deed:

        Just before Memorial Day, Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi said, "Our active military respond better to Republicans" because of "the tremendous support that President Bush has provided for our military and our veterans." The same day, the White House announced plans for massive cuts in veterans' health care for 2006.

        Last January, Bush praised veterans during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The same day, 164,000 veterans were told the White House was "immediately cutting off their access to the VA health care system."

        My favorite in this category was the short-lived plan to charge soldiers wounded in Iraq for their meals when they got to American military hospitals. The plan mercifully died a-borning after it hit the newspapers.

Please take a moment to register your concern for protecting the Big Darby Creek, a national scenic waterway. It is a treasure of our natural landscape threatened by unplanned urban development.

#9 Most Endangered: Big Darby Creek (from AmRivers Action Center)

Your voice is needed to protect Big Darby Creek from the impacts of sprawling development around Columbus, Ohio!

Despite its close proximity to Columbus, Big Darby Creek – one of our nation’s “Scenic Rivers” – has managed to escape many impacts of urban sprawl. That may be about to change. Unless state and local governments adopt and enforce river-conscious land use planning in the Big Darby watershed, one of the highest quality streams left in the Midwest may become just another polluted, flood-prone urban ditch.

Take action and tell the Ohio EPA to insist on adequate stream quality protection measures. Ask them to set aside more of the watershed’s land in its natural state and insist on “low impact development” techniques to minimize stormwater runoff to the Big Darby. Send your letter today!