BREVITAS

OBAMALAND

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now strongly approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent strongly disapprove giving Obama a presidential approval index rating of –8. The president's approval index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week

ECO CLIPS

Tree Hugger - The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a new set of rules under the Clean Air Act that would require all U.S. flagged ocean-going vessels to meet stricter diesel engine and fuel standards, leading to cleaner air along the coasts of the US . . . . California's new law only applied up to 24 miles from the coasts (for legal reasons), and just for one state. But if the whole US has a uniform regulation that requires cleaner burning engines and fuels, it won't as easy to just ship around the regulation. This should make a real different (if it is enforced properly).. . . Just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760 million cars.

GREAT MOMENTS IN THE LAW

Philadelphia Inquirer - The Philadelphia School District is expected to formally settle an almost 40-year-old desegregation case. At a special meeting, the School Reform Commission is set to vote on a settlement for a lawsuit that at first sought to desegregate city schools, then focused on providing equal opportunities for minority students. The terms of the settlement were not clear yesterday.

SUSTAIN YOURSELF

Padosa is a site for small businesses seeking to become more sustainable and helping the planet to become likewise

WAR DEPARTMENT

Washington Post - Rep. Silvestre Reyes (Tex.), in a letter sent to House leadership, said that CIA officials "affirmatively lied" to the intelligence committee when recently notifying the panel about a classified matter. Reyes wrote that it was one of several recent instances in which the CIA has not fully informed the committee on other classified notifications.
His complaint echoed charges by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who on May 14 said the agency intentionally misled her in a 2002 briefing on interrogation techniques used against alleged terrorist detainees.
"This committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and [in at least one case] was affirmatively lied to," Reyes wrote.

JUSTICE & FREEDOM

We reported earlier on a 16 year old from North Carolina being held in prison for reasons the federal government wouldn't say. Now there's this news release: The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Indiana announced that a three-count indictment was returned against Ashton Lundeby for his role in Internet bomb and related threats directed to Purdue University, Indiana University/Purdue University at Fort Wayne, Ind., and numerous other educational institutions throughout the country. . . . Lundeby was ordered detained and remains in federal custody. Under federal law, juvenile proceedings are sealed. . . The indictment alleges an extensive conspiracy involving Lundeby and unnamed other individuals to transmit bomb threats through the internet. Lundeby, often using the pseudonym "Tyrone," and his co-conspirators used Voice Over Internet Protocol software to set up large-scale conference calls across the Internet. In addition, online computer gaming accounts were used so participants could listen and observe the police response in real-time. Lundeby and his associates charged fees to listen and observe. Lundeby and his associates used other software to disguise their true identities and the origin of the calls.

INDICATORS

From the Center for American Progress