Posted by admin on February 17, 2009 under Congress, Economy, Presidency, Science, news | 
Buried in the $800 Billion stimulus package is $8 Billion for high speed rail in the United States. It’s the most serious investment in commuter rail service in the nations history.
Additionally President Obama intends to ask for a further $1 Billion a year for high speed rail in his budget request to congress, starting with the 2010 budget.
High speed rail was one of Obama’s campaign pledges, speaking in Indiana during the campaign he said:
“The time is right now for us to start thinking about high-speed rail as an alternative to air transportation connecting all these cities. And think about what a great project that would be in terms of rebuilding America.”(Source)
Despite this campaign pledge apparently Congressional Republicans apparently overlooked the importance of High Speed Rail to the president as they tried to stymie all the major projects that the President was looking for such as building new schools, or modernizing the energy grid.
Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine and Specter of Pennsylvania, Republican moderates who had criticized Obama’s school construction program were more accepting of the rail funds, since the Northeast corridor is a major beneficiary of rail improvements.
Rahm Emanuel said of the rail provision, “the president wanted to have a signature issue in the bill, his commitment for the future.” (Source)
Posted by admin on January 8, 2009 under Economy, Environment, Politics |
Have you heard the one about the Great Depression? How it was “the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, not the economic polices of FDR,” that got the US out of the great depression? To hear them tell it, FDR made the depression worse. Pretty funny, huh?
George Will and the other Far Right Wingnuts have been telling that chestnut on Fox News a lot in the last few weeks. The problem is they’re not joking. They’re trying to re-write history, again.
They’re using spurious arguments and outright baldface lies to attack the economic policies of President Franklin Roosevelt, the man who lead us out of the greatest depression the U.S. has ever seen.(Source)(Source)(Source)(Source)
Ben Bernanke
“Only with the New Deal’s rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression.”
To hear these Wingnuts tell it putting starving people back to work in meaningful jobs that built the infrastructure of modern America, was a bad idea. Regulating banks and investment companies that had gone completely off the rails, that idea was to these poor deranged souls, nearly criminal.
But why are they attacking FDR now? Why attack an American icon, the man who brought us 40 hour work weeks, Social Security, the FDIC, , what’s the point of bashing him? The reason is clearly that they want to oppose the recovery efforts of President-Elect Obama, who’s crafting a New Deal like plan of his own to rebuild our economy and save the country.
So do their “arguments” have any merit at all? Not according to George W. Bush’s Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, “Only with the New Deal’s rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression.”(Source)
Daniel Gross, NYT Columnist and author put’s it this way:
“The financial infrastructure laid down by the government in the New Deal helped pave the way for the immense growth seen in America’s capital markets, banking system, credit industry, and housing markets over the past 70 years.” (Source)
George Will and the Republican political machine are using revisionist history in the most cynical way imaginable. They’re deliberately lying about the rescue plan for the economy, for their party’s own political gain. It’s so shockingly vile, that I wouldn’t have believed them capable of stooping so low.
They’re beating up FDR as a way to bash Obama. He’s too popular to attack directly, so by attacking the policies of FDR the Right Wing Noise Machine sets about undermining policies of a President who hasn’t even taken office yet.
Clearly there are no depths too low for them.
Posted by admin on December 28, 2008 under Economy, Humor, Internet, Politics |
Credit to Fukung.net where I found it, and Joe-KS.com where it apparently originated.
Posted by admin on under Crime, Economy, Environment, Internet, Sports, Weird, news |
In case you missed it on Dec- ember 21st a TVA levee wall burst in Oak Ridge, Ten- nessee. But it wasn’t water in the retention pond, but rather 1,000,000,000 gallons of coal ash sludge, a byproduct of coal fired power plant.
Initially TVA estimated the spill at about 350 million gallons, but had to up the spillage estimate to 1 billion gallons upon closer examination. The sludge spill roared downhill and reached depths of 6′ burying cars, porches and even downing power lines. (Source)
So what’s in a billion gallons of coal ash sludge? Well concentrated levels of mercury and arsenic, according to environmental experts. TVA experts claim there’s no danger to humans from the chemicals. This claim despite hundreds of fish turning up dead in nearby waters. (Source) Naturally many local residents aren’t too comforted by the TVA’s assurances.
The spill is working it’s way into the Tennessee River, the source of drinking water for 1 million Tennesseans. TVA has built a rock wall to try to stop the sludge from oozing in.
“You have acute problems we are dealing with today, but we’ll have chronic problems for a long time. This whole area has been devastated environmentally.” – Stephen Smith of CleanEnergy.org (Source)
