Church & State Magazine:  From Radioactive Clergy To Media Inquisitions, Religion Was A Hot Topic In This Year’s Race For The White House

The role of religion in the presidential campaign tops the 2008 “Top Ten” list of top church-state stories, according to the editors of Church & State…

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While it falls within scope of number 1 on Church & State’s list, my personal favorite religious moment of the 2008 presidential campaign came during the opening prayer of a McCain campaign rally:

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Did that dude just call God a pussy?

Reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps would address unemployment & facilitate infrastructure renewal.

In his weekly radio/YouTube address,  Barack Obama declared infrastructure renewal a major priority for his incoming administration.  The President Elect is fully aware that there exists an historic example of a proven mechanism to carry out such a task.  One that could employ millions while performing sorely needed repairs.

The Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) was the most popular program of the New Deal.  The federal program was created during FDR’s first hundred days, and was actually his second go-round with the concept.  His first was as Governor of New York.

The legacy of the CCC is quite remarkable.  From 1933 to 1942, “FDR’s ‘Peace’ Army” planted billions of trees, built roads, and other public structures.  In the process of doing their work the Corps also laid the foundations for modern conservation efforts, forest fire fighting & prevention, and flood abatement.

CCC Pillow Cover

The CCC was not without its critics in the 1930s, and Obama will face opposition should he revive the institution or something like it.  Labor organizations did not care for the $30 per month wage, of which $25 was automatically sent home to the workers’ families.  Other critics took issue with the militaristic overtones of the Corps lifestyle.

Both of the above points of contention never amounted to anything, and they are completely beside the point when it comes to our present economic predicament.  There are elements of the historical example that could be kept while others are discarded or improved.  Instead of employing high school dropouts, teaching them to read at the localities where they happened to be stationed, a new CCC could be directed at high school graduates with the promise of a college education as an incentive.

That’s just one example.  However, if Obama is to follow Roosevelt’s example he’ll need to act fast.  FDR acknowledged that the CCC wouldn’t have made it past the Congress if it weren’t for the dire state of the economy combined with a particularly passionate honeymoon period following his election.

Oh, wait…  That sounds about right.  Go for it, Barack.

Soviet Strategic Forces Went on Alert Three Times during September-October 1962 Because of Apprehension over Cuban Situation, Top Secret Codeword History of National Security Agency Shows

From The National Security Archive, 14 November 2008 post by Mathew Aid:

Forty-six years ago, a month before the Cuban Missile crisis, Soviet leaders put their strategic forces on their “highest readiness stage since the beginning of the Cold War,” according to a newly declassified internal history of the National Security Agency published today for the first time by the National Security Archive…

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As George W. Bush prepares to leave office, he and his staff appear to be attempting to rewrite history to cast him in a more favorable light — but it seems that history may have the last laugh.

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The most comprehensive guide to the Bush administration’s failures is a new list compiled by the Center for Public Integrity.

From The Raw Story, 10 December 2008 post, by Muriel Kane:

…Working from government investigations, news stories, and suggestions from experts and government employees, the team compiled a list of 250 failures, which it then narrowed down to just 128 “that attracted bipartisan criticism and had major impacts on the lives of ordinary Americans.”

The results of the investigation, which are summarized at CPI’s PaperTrail blog and presented in full at its Broken Government project, are stunning in their scope even for those who have been following the scandals of the last eight years.

According to the CPI, “Some of these problems were in place well before George W. Bush’s inauguration, but were exacerbated by his policies or worsened by his administration’s actions (or inactions). Many of the failings are tied to Bush appointees who appear to have been selected primarily on the basis of ideology and loyalty, rather than competence.”…

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Rachel Maddow takes aim at George W. Bush’s history re-writing efforts.

Maddow aptly assesses that the ‘Bush Legacy Project’ is on a fools errand.  Thanks, in part, to the “Google Machine” and the “Internets,” it will be extremely difficult for the  administration to polish the turd that was the Bush presidency.

Rachel is such a gem.  If you’ve got about ten minutes to spare, view the below clip.

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