Oct 01, 2008 -- Fight the Right-Wing Wackos Links of the Day.

** Human Rights Campaign **
How would you expect top officials in the administration to prepare for a Senate hearing? By reviewing studies and data, or going to the movies?

If you picked the latter, apparently, you'd be right.

Last week at a Senate hearing on equal family benefits for LGBT federal workers, the Bush Administration's Howard Weizmann cited the plot of the Adam Sandler movie "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," about two men who pretend to be gay, as evidence the program would be scammed.

What next? Education policy drawn on the wisdom of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"?

The American people deserve policies based on facts, fairness, and logic, not fictional scenarios designed to sell a ticket and get a laugh. Using a Hollywood comedy to justify opposing fair compensation is a new low even for this administration.

The day after the hearing, Weizmann was still at it, telling the Washington Post his "Chuck and Larry" example "is not farfetched." Click here to remind him that lowbrow Hollywood comedies are meant to get a laugh, not drive policy decisions.

Tell Mr. Weizmann public policy shouldn't be based on Hollywood comedies.

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** Center for Biological Diversity **
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced devastating changes to the Endangered Species Act, signaling the end of protection for thousands of imperiled species.

The new regulations would:

- Exempt thousands of federal activities from review under the Endangered Species Act;
- Eliminate checks and balances of independent oversight;
- Limit which effects can be considered harmful;
- Prevent consideration of a project’s contribution to global warming;
- Set an inadequate 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project in the instances when they are invited to participate – or else the project gets an automatic green light;
- Enable large-scale projects to go unreviewed by dividing them into hundreds of small projects.

We must stop Kempthorne from fatally crippling our nation’s most successful wildlife law.

Tell Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne what you think of his destruction of the Endangered Species Act.

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** Save Biogems **

If the Bush administration gets its way, Wyoming's spectacular Fortification Creek Area will soon be sacrificed to a massive drilling scheme.

We need your immediate action to halt this destructive plan in its tracks. The deadline for submitting comments on the plan is October 7!

Please go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction
right away and tell the Bureau of Land Management to reject this proposal, which would allow as many as 600 coalbed methane wells in the heart of Wyoming's remaining wildlands.

The Fortification Creek Area -- containing over 42,000 acres of public wildlands -- represents the last pristine oasis in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, which is already blanketed by coalbed methane wells.

Most importantly, the Fortification Creek region provides critical winter range and calving grounds for an isolated prairie elk herd of only 230 animals. If adopted, the Bush administration's plan has the potential to decimate the entire elk population.

The Fortification Creek Area is also home to pronghorn, bobcats, mountain lions, and over 200 species of migratory birds. Opening these lands to gas drilling would spoil a pristine water source for wildlife, cause irreversible soil and vegetation damage, and destroy outdoor recreational opportunities.

Please go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction
and urge Bush administration officials to protect Wyoming's Fortification Creek Area before these pristine wildlands are lost forever.