Think Progress

August 2007 Progress Reports

• Civil Rights: Breaking Down Barriers, August 10, 2007
  Yesterday, LogoOnline and Human Rights Campaign (HRC) hosted a Democratic presidential candidate forum focusing specifically on the issue of gay rights. The forum, moderated in part by HRC President Joe Solmonese and lesbian singer Melissa Etheridge,
• Economy: Bush's Budget Games, August 9, 2007
  Yesterday, after meeting with his economic advisers at the Treasury Department, President Bush "vowed to veto spending bills that exceed his targets" for the fiscal year 2008 federal budget while accusing congressional leaders "of plotting the largest tax increase in history to fund an additional $205 billion in discretionary spending over five years."
• Labor: Tragedy At A Non-Union Mine, August 8, 2007
  Yesterday, the AFL-CIO held a forum for Democratic presidential candidates in Chicago, allowing working men and women to ask the candidates questions on issues that affect working families. The issues posed were so gripping that commentators said they could "change American political history."
• Energy: Independence From Fossilized Ideas, August 7, 2007
  After six years of rhetorical puffery from President Bush about making the United States "less dependent on foreign oil," the new leadership of the 110th Congress took the initiative last weekend and passed a pair of "far-reaching," forward-looking energy bills that "will increase the use of renewable energy, reduce America's dependence on foreign sources of energy, and decrease global warming pollution."
• National Security: Congressional Capitulation On Spying, August 6, 2007
  For the past several months, the White House has been aggressively pressuring Congress to expand the administration's spying powers and update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).