Prepare for Swell Saturday

Super Tuesday was really super this year, with 22 separate state primaries and caucuses – many by more than one political party. Still, super sometimes got felt kind of overwhelming, as it was very difficult to keep up with the results of each state’s competition, once they all got moving later into the evening.

A more realistic sort of excitement will be available to us this Saturday, which won’t be super, but it sure will be swell. Let’s call them the Swell Saturday primaries. Four states will have primaries or caucuses this Saturday. The primaries will be in Louisiana, for Democrats and Republicans alike. Republican caucuses will be held across Kansas, where Barack Obama won handily over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. Democratic caucuses will take place in Nebraska. The state of Washington will have caucuses for Democrats and Republicans.

If you’ve got the attention span to last beyond the super glitz of Super Tuesday, Swell Saturday may well be worth your time. Tune in, America.

Mary Landrieu Gets Rightfully Slammed On Ethics

We call ourselves the Progressive States Directory, and so a lot of people might think that means that we’re a pro-Democratic site. That would be a mistake. Being a progressive and being a Democrat are often not the same thing. These days, progressives often need to struggle against right wing Democrats as much as they need to struggle against right wing Republicans.

Senator Mary Landrieu, from Louisiana, is a good example of a Democratic politician who routinely betrays progressive principles. Earlier, we wrote about the vote Landrieu made to kill fuel efficiency, favoring big oil corporations instead.

Now, Landrieu’s in trouble again, and for siding with Republican moneyed interests, just as before. This time, Senator Landrieu has been caught in the middle of a deal that looks an awful lot like a bribe. She got a specially arranged fundraising event and thirty thousand dollars in campaign donations. The man who arranged the donations and the fundraising event got two million dollars in business for his company in an earmark specially arranged by Mary Landrieu.

That’s dirty politics, and it doesn’t matter that Mary Landrieu is a Democrat. Democrats don’t get a free pass from us on ethics, and when it comes to Landrieu’s voting record in the Senate, Landrieu is more Republican than some Republicans.

Two Louisiana Democrats Join GOP To Kill Fuel Efficiency

The Louisiana Democratic Party felt a shiver of shame on Friday, as two Louisiana Democrats in Congress voted to help the Republicans to help kill the Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act.
The law would have increased the average fuel efficiency of American automobiles to 35 miles per gallon of gasoline. It also would have increased the amount of clean, green energy sources for America’s electrical power grid. In doing so, the law would have saved Americans about 40 billion dollars every year.

Representative Charlie Melancon and Senator Mary Landrieu are Democrats – at least in name. Yet, they joined with the GOP to vote against fuel efficiency and clean electrical energy. Landrieu and Melancon voted to preserve the filthy petroleum energy policies that led to the monster Hurricane Katrina, and its massive oil slicks.

When they voted against the Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act Landrieu and Melancon chose to serve big oil corporations rather than the ordinary people of Louisiana.

Right Wing Democrats And Republicans Impoverish Louisana

The problem Louisianans have is that, when it comes to politics, they don’t usually have more choice than to pick between a right wing Republican and a right wing Democrat. In Louisiana, both political parties hew to the right, and both political parties are plagued with corruption. That’s why, in Louisiana, it’s especially important for voters to pay attention to the policies promoted by a political candidate, and not just the party label that candidate carries.

A right wing candidate, for example, will promote the trickle down economics that provide subsidies to corporations and tax write-offs to the wealthy while failing to help the working families who are truly in need. Right wingers believe that welfare is only for the wealthy, and that the poor will only stop being poor when all government anti-poverty programs are destroyed.

Progressives, on the other hand, see quite clearly that the right wing economic approach is a path to disaster – just the sort of economic disaster that Louisiana is suffering from. Whereas states that had the wisdom to vote against George W. Bush are enjoying relative success in the effort to contain poverty, Louisiana has a poverty rate that is above the national average. About one in five residents of Louisiana are living in poverty.

Take a look at Louisiana’s children, and the news gets worse. More than one in four children in Louisiana are living in poverty.

Right wing economic policy has not worked in Louisiana. In fact, it’s kept huge numbers of people living in poverty. In 2008, Louisiana has the chance to live under a new kind of national leadership. If a progressive President is elected to the White House, Louisiana will finally have the chance to appeal to a leader who understands that fighting poverty requires investment, not neglect.

Shreveport Endangered by Nuclear Weapons

Yesterday, it was revealed that, last month, a B-52 took an unauthorized flight, carrying live nuclear weapons mounted on cruise missiles ready to be fired, from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport. Those nuclear weapons were flown over the homes of tens of thousands of people’s homes in Lousiana even before they reached Shreveport.

The commander apparently did not even bother to check whether the nuclear weapons had been loaded on the missiles. Had there been an accident, or the decision to test fire one of those missiles, Shreveport might be nothing more than a smoking, blasted pile of radioactive rubble.

The incident is a reminder of the constant threat all Americans are placed under because of the insistence of our own government that it be allowed to keep a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. As the recent unauthorized flight of nuclear weapons over American communities shows, we cannot be protected from human error on the part of the people who are entrusted to keep America’s nuclear weapons from threatening the American people.

The wise course of action is to disarm. No nation on earth ought to have nuclear weapons, and that includes the United States of America.