“We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.” —FDR,...
Federal Agencies
NObama! No Cuts to Social Security, Medicare;
“Arguing about How to Defuse a Huge Ticking Bomb”
Burn-it-Down Nihilism Spreads Among Tea-Infused House Republicans [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] * “From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.” —Diderot House Republicans laughed a former George H. W. Bush economist out of the room on Monday when he tried to warn...
2001 Bush Tax Cuts: Where the Deficit Began
Those intrepid researchers at Think Progress have dug up a headline from Aug. 1, 2001—almost exactly 10 years ago—that shows the long-bleeding fiscal damage done by the Bush tax cuts. Only six months into his first term, after George W. Bush inherited a budget surplus...
“High Popalorum” and “Low Popahirum”: Huey P. Long on the Difference between Democrats and Republicans
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MKb35NK0F0&feature=related * While we’re either gnawing our knuckles or blissfully unaware there’s a debt ceiling hostage crisis now in its —th week . . . While the putatively Democratic President again invites the Republican House...
To Save New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Morganza Spillway Is Opened; Only 2nd Opening Since 1954
“The President of the Mississippi River Commission Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh has directed the New Orleans District Commander Col. Ed Fleming to be prepared to operate the Morganza Floodway within 24 hours. The operation will include the deliberate and slow opening of...
Mad Tea Party with Chainsaws and Clowns
“From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.” —Denis Diderot (1713–1784) “I love gridlock. I think we’re better off when we’re gridlocked because we’re not passing things.” —Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Feb. 2010 * Amid all the talk and worry of a Shutdown...
A Failure to Communicate—Not a Failure to Govern
[ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] Not Good (at All), But Could Have Been Worse A party that governs well but communicates poorly was set back by a party that obstructs well but is more interested in holding power than in governing. What could have been a hideous wipeout...
When Harry Met a Cover-Up:
Shearer Talks about “The Big Uneasy”
* [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] We sat down recently with Harry Shearer—that is, we sat down and e-mailed him some questions, and he sat down and wrote some thoughtful replies—to talk about his new film The Big Uneasy, which tells the real story of why New Orleans...
Celebrity Sighting: Levees Not War Meets FEMA’s Fugate
Tomorrow we’ll post some comments on President Obama’s remarks at Xavier University on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. But first, allow us to babble excitedly about the public-safety-and-disaster geek’s idea of a celebrity sighting: After all the...
Disarmament Experts Clarify Film’s Position on Nuclear Power
Last week we reviewed the excellent new documentary Countdown to Zero, released in late July, just in time for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries (Aug. 6 and 9). While we praised Countdown and hope everyone will see it, we had some questions about the film’s...
Hiroshima, 65 Years On: “Countdown to Zero”
Today, August 6, is the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Nagasaki was nuked on Aug. 9. The bombs killed some 90,000 to 160,000 in Hiroshima and some 60,000 to 80,000 in Nagasaki, with half the deaths occurring in the first day, even the...
What Happens When You Call OSHA, White House
Before we tell about the fun we had today phoning OSHA, sweet OSHA, we wanted to mention our recent and more enjoyable phone experience with Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a 400,000-member grassroots organization that is behind...
FDR, Treehugger-in-Chief, Inspires Hopes for Coastal Conservation Corps
This past weekend we went to the 7th annual Roosevelt Reading Festival at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, that featured 21 authors of such works as FDR’s Alphabet Soup: New Deal America 1932–1939 (Tonya Bolden), Beyond...
“Happy Days Are Here Again”
Uplifted by the happy oyster video (below), we’re off to Hyde Park, New York, on Saturday 6/19 (taking a train, naturally!) for the seventh annual Roosevelt Reading Festival at the FDR Presidential Library—free and open to the public. The keynote address will be given...
From the Oval Office, Promises for Gulf Coast Restoration, MMS Rehab
We’ll look at the energy aspects of President Obama’s Tuesday Oval Office address “in the coming days” (as he might say). Meanwhile, we want to focus on two of the most promising elements of the president’s remarks (text here). First, about three minutes in, he...
Notes for Tonight’s Oval Office Script
Very briefly, what we’re hoping to hear in the president’s address is a strong commitment to progressive energy legislation—the best of the Kerry-Lieberman and Waxman-Markey bills currently in Congress. (Here are some good, sensible specifics proposed by the Center...
Unmanned Drones in U.S. Airspace? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
File under “OMG! WTF?” We took our eyes off the BP oil cam just long enough to see this headline : “Feds Under Pressure to Open U.S. Skies to Drones.” The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry...
BP Oil Flood Brought to You by U.S. Supreme Court?
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] Let’s play what-if: Would the BP Oil Flood have happened if the Rehnquist Supreme Court in its Bush v. Gore ruling had not stopped the state of Florida’s vote-counting? We think maybe not. We think it’s not too far a stretch to say that the...
“Something Called ‘Volcano Monitoring’ ”
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] “[The Democrats’ stimulus] legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes . . . $140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’ Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of...
“Kill the Bill” vs. “Stop the War”: A Tale of Two Protests
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] Has anyone besides us found it kind of odd that there’s been so much “fire and brimstone” about the health care reform bill compared to Bush’s Iraq War? The first thing we’ll say about the violence and threats following Congress’s passage...