Of course. I don’t think anyone would or could argue that simply putting a species on the list will save it from extinction. Although I can see how it’s a nice straw man dodge for people who don’t want to recognize that the ESA has been very successful in saving many species from extinction or near extinction, including the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the Gray Wolf, the Grizzly Bear, the Whooping Crane and Winter Run Salmon.

Please tell me how refusing to put a species on the list, or making it harder to put species proven to be facing extinction on the list, accomplishes anything in the way of good environmental stewardship.

Read the article. Despite the fact that the bald eagle back has over 7000 nesting pairs in the United States, it was forced to be listed again because of only 50 nesting pairs in a certain part of Arizona. Does that make sense to you?

Read the article yourself. According to the article, the bald eagle was listed as threatened in the Arizona desert, not where the bird is thriving.

The clear point of the article, Jay, is that the Bush administration is once again using under-the-table bureaucratic maneuvering to circumvent the law. They’re ignoring–and in many cases, suppressing–the advice of government agency scientists (or crackpots, as you would have it) and denying that they’re doing so even when confronted with plain evidence.

If you don’t want to call that “destroying government,” you don’t have to. But if you’re going to call OW out for hyperbole, you might not want to engage in it yourself.

You’re assumption and that of the reporter would be incorrect.

Yeah, crazy fruity nutcakes who want add whatever they like to the list because they hate capitalism and America, and not because the species are in anyway in danger of extinction:

One consequence is that the current administration has the most emergency listings, which are issued when a species is on the very brink of extinction.

And some species have vanished. The Lake Sammamish kokanee, a landlocked sockeye salmon, went extinct in 2001 after being denied an emergency listing, and genetically pure Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits disappeared last year after Interior declined to protect critical habitat for the species.

Oh and writing that changes to classifying endangered species is an example of “destroying the government” is reason and reality? Cmon dude. If he doesn’t like the policy, he should write about it. But he chose instead to knee-jerk reactionary nonsense.

Read the article. Despite the fact that the bald eagle back has over 7000 nesting pairs in the United States, it was forced to be listed again because of only 50 nesting pairs in a certain part of Arizona. Does that make sense to you?

In this case “fruitcake” is con lingo for scientists.

Oh please. You clearly have no idea how easy it is to petition to have a species listed. And filing lawsuits is even easier on the ESA to get a particular species listed and plenty of times it is based on junk science.

There are groups that have filed suit against the Interior Department to get the polar bear designated as endangered species, despite the fact that the polar bear population has increased substantially over the last 35-40 years.

The ESA has trumped private property rights in many cases, often without just compensation. Do a search on it. See how people have been prevented from building homes, plowing fields, cutting trees, etc. The ESA’s definition of ‘harm’ is far too broad.

But to try and bring some sanity back to ESA statutes is to “destroy our government.” Apparently, Oliver is more concerned about “our government” than the constitutional protections that should be afforded to private property holders.

Ridiculous. Try coming up with an opposing argument based on reason and reality, not a statement of the most outlandish end-of-the-spectrum fantasy you can phrase.

If, for example, you support the right of citizens to bear arm, would you take at all seriously someone on the other side of the debate who says “Well, then I suppose any crackpot who wants one should have a right to own an ICBM.”?

You’re become an expert at histrionics.