I am in town for a week to visit with my family here in Louisiana and am curious to see if there was evidence of the BP tragedy in my hometown. What I do find is very interesting and consistent with a place that lives with the tangible possibility of danger and excitement on a seasonal basis. The two seasons that come to mind are hurricane and Mardi Gras.

George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and was appointed president by the conservative U.S. Supreme Court. A sanctimonious pundit class tells us it is crabby, unpatriotic and uncivil to dwell upon that bit of history. But questions of legitimacy (“does he really belong here?”) have dogged Barack Obama since he won the [...]

I’ve seen people variously describe the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe as “Obama’s Katrina” or “Obama’s 9/11,” but neither of those entirely works for me as a parallel. True, the government was woefully unprepared and ineffectual in 2001 and 2005 too, but that was because Bush was the worst president ever, not because industry lobbyists crusaded to cripple FEMA and airport security. Bush’s incompetence left the door to tragedy wide open, and Katrina and al Qaeda breezed right through it.

We’ve already heard grumblings from El Rushbo and the wingosphere that the BP oil spill is “Obama’s Katrina” — but Mike Pence busted out an even fresher take on that today.

No one political operative, no matter how powerful, brilliant, or stupid, can destroy a political party. The elected Republicans who were in power when they caused or failed to respond correctly to our country’s most serious disasters are the people who destroyed the party.

Late last Wednesday, there was a blockbuster court ruling that got lost in the healthcare and oversight hearing onslaught. However, the decision by Eastern District of Louisiana Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. In Re: Katrina Canal Breaches Consolidated Litigation case is a game changer with immense and far reaching ramifications.

American journalists who questioned President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize have lost their already tenuous tether to reality. They need to quit sucking the helium of right-wing nuts and come back to down to the streets of the real with us.