Because the Republicans blocked funding for his environmental proposal? You're not very smart are you?

Dude. It's not an excuse. It's what literally happened. Read the damn article.

"Congress prevented the Interior Department from spending money to implement the wilderness policy. GOP lawmakers complained that the plan would circumvent Congress' authority and could be used to declare a vast swath of public land off-limits to oil-and-gas drilling. Republican governors in Utah, Alaska and Wyoming, filed suit to block the plan"

This thing you're so bummed to lose was a frigging Democratic proposal. The People took the House away from them last year. Witness the consequence.

Have you ever seen the kiddie bully prank, "why are you hitting yourself"? Do you blame yourself if that happens? There are plenty of things the Dems do dead wrong, but this isn't theirs. You can't stop it if you can't identify who's fucking hitting you.

You're a rightist? Nice one Freud.

Cry babies. It's always those evil other people who are to blame for what our party can't get done. Please.

they have money, they just don't want to spend it on something as frivolous as the environment. They would rather spend it on some fancy new weapons, surveillance equipment or hiring zombies to deconstruct the Constitution.

That's not how it works. There isn't a Republican in congress that would allow spending cuts to the military contractors that "influence" them to be reallocated to protecting the environment from the mining contractors that "influence" them. It would be a lose-lose proposition, and a complete non-starter in any budget negotiation.

The only place that Republicans would allow Democrats to reallocate money to environmental protection from is cuts in safety net programs. How do you sell "I saved the environment, but I kicked granny out of the nursing home?" I know - you can't.

We have to win the budget fight first, save Medicare, save Social Security, and wait out the rest of this session of congress before we get to see any meaningful increase in environmental protections. IF the voting public wakes up and votes for their own self interest.

Votes? Dem or Rep, you feel it makes a difference still? We voted by popular vote against Bush twice, did it matter? We got our guy this time and he proved it still doesn't matter. We only think we can get what we want from an election. We have run out of time, the people and planet can't wait for another pseudo-election full of false promises of change.

End the wars they are continuing?

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I think you're mistaken. The President is just one branch of three, and he can only lead where congress chooses to follow. Ever try to herd cats? If you want more done from your Executive, then we need to give him more help. Apathy gets you nowhere.

Jan, that's why Obama has already removed most of our troops from Iraq, and set a plan to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next month.

I'll believe it when it happens, as well as our getting out of Libya and not escalating war anywhere else, such as in Pakistan. And that alone will not ensure he will get my vote. It depends in a big way on the outcome of the Keystone XL pipeline decision. If that goes through, forget it. As it is his bowing down to Monsanto is not sitting well with me at all.

You are correct about apathy, but PLEASE explain to me how Bush was able to lead Congress so well when he has the reasoning capacity of a gerbil...oh wait, Cheney. Nonetheless, the question remains...the gerbil led us into two unjustified wars, and Obama can't even lead us out of one without leading us into another one. The key argument here is "where congress chooses to follow," and that seems to be the smell of money and power. So until the people impose a removal of their power, which will cut off their illicitly derived access to money. So what, we help our Executive by voting in better representatives...I'd be glad to if we could find any decent people running and then keep them decent once they got elected, but that seems to be a HUGE challenge.

Bush (Cheney) was able to lead congress into Afghanistan because of overwhelming public opinion that the Taliban all had to die after 9/11. That war may have been unavoidable under any president. Iraq required more lying, but Cheney's buddies in big oil greased all the skids they needed to in order to get their hands on Iraq's oilfields and stick the American (and British) taxpayers with the bill. So it wasn't so much leadership that got us into those wars, as it was a total lack of it.

So yes, vote out the current members of congress if we really want change. Just be careful who you vote for in their place, as the next person may be just as easy for corporations to buy.

And he is deploying more troops to Iraq in June. For what? Either we are at war there or we are not. But this issue of "winding it down" is costing American lives.

Thank you, you are quite correct.

I agree. The problem is how to clean it up. How to stop buying what they sell.

It sounds MUCH nicer than bribery.

The "BIG" difference my friend is politicians like Cheney, W, & drill baby drill Palin do not PRETEND to give a care about the Environment. I mean they will as much as come out and say they could care less if crude oil is pouring our of your faucet alls well if Haliburtons well.

Obama on the other hand gos around PRETENDING to be an environmentalist and Civil Libertarian when he is neither. I think the Progressives are SLOWLY waking to the fact that they have been sold a bill of goods. There is no doubt that McCain would have been as bad or worse, this is why we need to start taking good looks at third party candidates.

"Salazar's decision reverses an order issued in December to restore eligibility for wilderness protection to millions of acres of public lands. That policy overturned a Bush-era approach that opened some Western lands to commercial development. A budget deal approved by Congress prevented the Interior Department from spending money to implement the wilderness policy. GOP lawmakers complained that the plan would circumvent Congress' authority and could be used to declare a vast swath of public land off-limits to oil-and-gas drilling. Republican governors in Utah, Alaska and Wyoming, filed suit to block the plan, saying it would hurt their state's economies by taking federal lands off the table for mineral production and other uses."

Yeah fuck Obama. How dare he not stop his interior secretary from getting undermined by a party that opposes everything you care about but which you refuse to stand against?

Vote Third Party! Cause who fucking cares?

Ooh those powerful Republicans! They are so scary that they can get the Dems to throw the American people under the bus on most issues.

They didn't make the Dems do anything. They blocked funding in Congress and ended it straight up. Is even that too complex for you to understand?

But it's nice to see you here defending the fuckers who stopped the thing you pretend to care about and criticizing the only significant political power that stands against them. As usual.

We do have other parties, but in some states they can't get on the ballot. I was voting Green in San Diego, but sorry to say the candidates they had were not worth voting for. Don't know how it is now.

Ha! Lol! As if the Dems are the "only significant political power that stands against them." You don't get it. The only difference between the two parties is rhetoric.

Yes, and vice versa. Seems to be the disease of politics in general.

Isn't that the truth! I was trying to explain the health care debate to a lifelong republican voter who is being pushed off the health insurance roles because she is 64 and takes a couple of preventive medications. As we were talking I completely realized that the true problem rests in the democratic party. It was the democrats that stopped the public option. On the environment. My rep is a blue dog dem, Kurt Schrader. He is for environmental deregulation in favor of industry and free trade and he does not support the appointment of Elizabeth Warren. Yet when voting time comes around, third party candidates, who would actually fight for civil and environmental justice, do not have the funding to get the exposure they need. Canned media delivers only two parties and we truth seekers are the minority; seeking something better with our spare time.

Absolutely. It goes both ways.

I am with you there. Voting time sometimes leave me feeling empty.

My friends from Colorado warned me of the same thing.

Your friends were right, sam.

Well, Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican. We don't have many of either party who care enough to stand up for our environment because they see its connection to all other important issues.

Teddy Roosevelt great example, but that was 110 years ago.

Nixon created the EPA, but that was still 40 years ago.

Exactly, which makes my point. It was the Republicans fighting for this. They are no longer Republicans in the true sense. Republicans in this Congress are Fascists. All for the Corporate state at any expense and they need to be stood up to, not appeased.

They need to be voted out of Congress not symbolically fought against when they control part of the government by a President that can't get anything else done without their votes. Too bad people like you can't focus your anger on anything that matters. I see your campaign against Obama, but where's your campaign against the Republican congressmen who forced this?

Well said.

I think you misread Jan. She is not campaigning against Obama. She is promoting environmental awareness, food sustainability, and a return to commonsense policies that do not destroy the planet and poison the populations for short and long term economic gain. Obama is not standing for the environment in a way that truly protects the environment. I would say NAFTA is also very responsible for much of the new environmental pollution.

Where's yours? Where's your concern for the Earth? "People like you" need to stop being so judgemental and realize what is at stake here. I protested against Bush and the Republicans for EIGHT LONG YEARS and still am when I say STOP APPEASING THEM. Perhaps you should read the responses here. I am fair with my criticism regardless of party when it comes to this planet. More should be like that then we might have a better world, which is what my "campaign" is all about.

Yep, yep! voted up.

You're angry about something not going into effect that:

1) THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PROPOSED
2) THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PREVENTED

But you think it's non-partisan with plenty of blame to go around.

Useless.

And you're a party shill. More useless.

I get that you're angry, but I don't understand what you expected Obama to do differently here.

I expected something different from the status quo.

And voting me down doesn't change how I feel. Whoever it is.

The Affordable Care Act and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell ARE different from the status quo. Both of those changes are departures from decades of public policy.

You are correct that the emphasis has been on people, much ahead of plants, but we can't save everything at the same time.

I'm speaking about the bow down to the oil and coal lobby status quo. And just to state, without a sustainable environment, you won't have anything else left to "save."

So am I. Creating a sustainable environmental policy will cost energy companies, and probably taxpayers, shit loads of money. I believe it's money well spent, but there is absolutely no possible way to convince enough Republicans to allow that kind of policy change in this budget cycle. Politics is about perception, and it is damaging to the rest of your policies to pick a fight you know you have zero chance of winning.

Tell that to my grandchildren in the future when they ask why we didn't do something about biodistress and why their country is nothing more than a host for drillers to suck it dry... because politics was more important than a moral imperative. This is why I can't stand politics and would never want to be a part of it. Nothing but lies, excuses, one upping, grandstanding, egos, a** kissing and a** saving. It takes moral courage to stand up against this, and it is just something neither side seems to have regarding this.

The Affordable Care Act is a health insurance industry./big pharma bailout bill that actually made health care less affordable. It's a cruel joke on us.

Voted up. I am not sure they are so wily. It seems they have found someone who has come to them asking for a handout and they are oh so happy to oblige.