The following letter has been faxed to the White House (202-456-2461). Please see below for a letter faxed to leaders in the House and Senate urging an override of the president’s veto. (The House has done it! 361 to 54—ninety votes more than needed to override.) Please see our ‘Political Action’ page for fax and phone numbers of the White House and Senate. Help us press for a Congressional override of the president’s veto—it would be a first. We’re halfway there. Thank you.
Climate change is a central concern here at Levees Not War—it keeps us up late at night. The reasons are obvious: As we’ve said before, even Category 5–strength flood protection is useless if global warming raises sea levels by 10 or 20 feet or more, as scientists have warned may happen in this century. (See ‘Swiftly Melting Planet 2007,’ several posts down.) The trend can be slowed, and eventually reversed, by massive coordinated—and sustained—effort.
Deputy administrator Vice Admiral Harvey E. Johnson praised his “very smoothly, very efficiently performing team.” (For the sake of the Californians, we hope he’s right.) “And so I think what you’re seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership, none of which were present in Katrina.” (Thanks for reminding us.)
Congressional Budget Office figures released Wednesday, Oct. 24, estimate that total spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “and other activities related to the war on terrorism” may amount to between $1.2 trillion and $1.7 trillion through fiscal year 2017. Counting interest (we’re fighting on borrowed money), the costs over the next decade could reach $2.4 trillion. The costs may go higher. Iraq alone accounts for $1.9 trillion, including about $564 million in interest. This latest estimate is more than 40 times higher than the Bush administration’s initial (2003) estimates of about $50 billion. The CBO’s projection assumes that 75,000 troops will still be in Iraq ten years from now.
The Arctic ice cap normally melts to some extent every summer, but it’s been melting at alarming rates in recent years. The sea ice extends only about half as far as it did 50 years ago, and the Arctic has lost about one-third of its area since satellite measurements began about the mid-1970s.
Yes, we’re interested in that. The president held a press conference this morning, Oct. 17. He said this: . . . we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems...
The Friends of the Times-Picayune fund-raiser last night at the Time-Life Building on Avenue of the Americas was quite a success—and a taste of home, with dee-licious hors d’oeuvres and music by Henry Butler (classic in his purple suit) and Davell Crawford. Mr. John Huey of Time Inc. welcomed everyone and pledged that Time will keep the spotlight on New Orleans and vicinity.
Sullivan and Marty Lederman at Balkinization have fittingly harsh judgments on what today’s New York Times article “Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations” tells us about the Bush Justice Department’s blind eye toward torture. (“A place of inspiration” is how former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales described DOJ.) Lederman, who worked many years at Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, writes:
John Nichols of The Nation reports that on Thursday the Senate voted 94–1 to raise the federal debt limit by $850 billion (now up to $9.815 trillion) and to grant the White House at least $9 billion in new war funding and more. (See Nichols’s article in full below.) Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold was the only senator to vote against the measure. Senators Clinton, Obama, Biden, McCain, and Brownback—all presidential candidates who, says Nichols, “are more involved in campaigning than governing”—did not vote. Feingold said: