Are the people finally coming to there senses?

In a CBS poll reported today the White House and Dubja are being rated at an all time low for just about everything that is important to Americans today. See www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/27/opinion/polls/main1350874.shtml for the details. But despite the fact that people are now finally seeing that we have a President that simply does not care about them, they still need to see that he does not care about their county in the same way that they do. For example the administration keeps pushing oil exploration in the few protected and fragile eco havens in America, despite the State of the Union cry to decrease our dependency on oil.

A case in point is the Red Desert in Wyoming (Cheney country, surprise surprise!) The following is a quote from the NRDC website on the threats to Yellowstone in general, and the Red Desert in particular:

"When the American buffalo rebounded from near-extinction and gray wolves returned to the wild, they found their refuge in the tawny grasslands and pine-covered ridges of Yellowstone National Park. When grizzly bears lost most of their habitat to logging and development, the northern Rockies provided them with the thousands of square miles of wild forests and meadows they needed to survive. Without the vast stretches of Rockies wilderness, where will the next species go to be replenished?

Despite these questions, the Bush administration is set on sacrificing more of the country's most cherished wild places to satisfy energy corporations. Wyoming's Red Desert, for instance, is slated for a massive oil and gas project even though it is an oasis of prime wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer, hawks and eagles. With its single-minded focus on leasing more public land for development, the administration also has announced plans to remove Yellowstone's grizzly bears from the Endangered Species List. NRDC will oppose this premature effort in court.

The Bush administration is now considering a proposal to expand the Smoky Canyon Mine, a phosphate mining operation, into the pristine Sage Creek and Meade Peak roadless areas of Idaho's Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Phosphate mining has already released dangerous amounts of toxic selenium into the streams, groundwater and soils of this region, threatening local drinking water supplies and jeopardizing the survival of imperiled Yellowstone cutthroat trout, as well as elk, mule deer and other wildlife. Expanding the mine would increase these pollution risks and set a dangerous precedent for other harmful development in the unspoiled wild forests of Greater Yellowstone."

Now more than ever we need to speak up, rally support and redirect our country to a path of preservation and protection, instead of the head long rush to destruction just to make Exxon and other oil companies even richer than they already are at our expense.