Just something I read recently...

[Roy Pitchford]

He has carried out his promises where it mattered least, and failed to do so where it mattered most...He brought about a certain amount of hasty reform of our banking and investment system; the problem is by no means solved and requires careful study in order that the much needed real re-form may some day be accomplished.

On the negative side he has failed to reduce the cost of federal government, to balance the budget, to maintain a "sound currency," to take government out of business, or to maintain the fundamental principles of the American order. He has led us into an orgy of wild spending undreamed of prior to his administration, "piled commission on commission and bureau on bureau," and set up, or tried to set up, a federal dictatorship over all the various factors that affect the lives of our citizens. He has flouted the Constitution which he swore an oath to support. He has made a laughing stock of the sanctity of our national promises. And he has done all this in the name of an emergency which, if it ever did justify such actions, certainly justifies them no longer.

[Bill Call]

Just a guess:

Written about Franklin Roosevelt?

[ryan costa]

what is bigger in the budget this year?

[Roy Pitchford]

what is bigger in the budget this year?

Super Bowl commercial spending.

[Jim DeVito]

Are you / tea part folk against the census?

[ryan costa]

Was he protesting the Truman Committee?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Com ... _Committee

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0302-24.htm

which committees, agencies, and commissions would you like to abolish?

[Roy Pitchford]

Bill is right, it was written about FDR. I was waiting for someone to start complaining about me bashing Obama again.

This is an excerpt from the book 'Hellbent for Election' written in 1935 as a case against FDR's New Deal.
I'm only a few pages in, but it discusses the promises made by FDR before the election and the promises made by the socialist candidate Norman Thomas. FDR seems to have fulfilled more of the socialist's promises than his own.

[ryan costa]

FDR's policies left most Americans better off.
a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage.

Good work FDR.

FDR's left most southern white americans better off.
Built enough market making infrastructure in the south for them to go on to become the new Republicans voter base.
Without the New Deal, southern states would still be like Developing Countries.

[Stephen Eisel]

Are you / tea part folk against the census?

I left the Earl Grey Tea Party for a better tea party.. Prunella Mulberry Chrysanthemum Granule rocks!

[Ahmie Yeung]

Are you / tea part folk against the census?

I left the Earl Grey Tea Party for a better tea party.. Prunella Mulberry Chrysanthemum Granule rocks!

Chinese tea?!? COMMUNIST!!!

Seriously, my in-laws love that stuff.

And on-topic, I knew from the first few sentences that the quote was talking about FDR. Not gonna get any complaints out of me as the child of a Baby Boomer - my mom's generation had it pretty darn good being born right after FDR's administration and with his policies in full swing for much of their formative years until they all became Regan supporters and screwed it for my generation. My 2nd son is named Delano after FDR. Republicans and other rightists really can just skip by my house when they're looking for signatures and such

[Roy Pitchford]

Humor me a little: What FDR policies do you love so much?

[Ahmie Yeung]

A bit hard to answer that since so many of them have been eroded so drastically from before I was old enough to personally benefit from them.

Particularly interesting to me, in a historical view sense, were aspects of the WPA, especially less well known ones like the ones with artists and people conducting interviews to document what had been only oral history.

Pretty happy that FDIC is there (tho he wasn't responsible for this, I know, but it happened during his administration)... wouldn't mind seeing several parts of Glass-Steagall back into law, either.

SSA is generally a good thing that has prevented a lot of vulnerable people from falling into abject poverty, pretty glad it's there for my parents even though I suspect that there won't be much left when I'm old enough to collect on it - but that last bit is not FDR's fault.

Being a household where every fully employed member is a union member, we're pretty happy about the National Labor Relations Act (though I do agree with people who complain that the current form of unions is pretty much as bad as what they were originally formed to fight against, on balance they have been better for workers and we have suffered as a society, particularly our middle class, as they have weakened and disappeared in the last 20-30 years).

I also think his Fireside Chats were pretty darn brilliant on several levels. Obama is kinda trying to do something similar I think with his use of YouTube, but IMO he's doing it too frequently with a population that has so many more distractions and so much less "free" time (especially since FDR was addressing households in a time when very few women were employed, so even if the husband was at work when it was broadcast, the wife might catch it and relay the information to him. We've got a bunch of tired parents in our middle class right now that really want nothing more than to just shut down and unwind when they get home, Obama doing weekly YouTube videos was a bit over-much to keep up with, even for us with a "mom at home" household).

Really, though, the deciding factor with naming a son after FDR has to do with the fact that I'm physically challenged and respect what he accomplished in a time when most people with physical challenges had many more barriers to their participation in public life than we do now. I would have named my firstborn after him instead of my secondborn, but I was spending a lot of time around a family with a rather bratty child named Delaney while I was pregnant the first time and didn't want that child's personality somehow rubbing off on my unborn son any more than just exposure to that family did

FWIW, Liam (my firstborn) is short for William and partially named after Clinton (as well as several other Williams we have known, including the professor whose class my husband and I met in). Clinton was president when my husband and I met, and he was the first presidental candidate I ever met (when he was campaigning in 1993 and came to Parma Perogies - I got to shake his hand then) and voted for (his second term, I was under 18 when he ran the first time). If the child I'm now pregnant with is a boy, he will be named Lincoln - in honor of the emancipation work he did and his bravery in standing up for his convictions, as well as his ability to change his mind when he found he had been proven wrong. If this is a boy, that will be rather ironic with what other activities I've been involved in since before his conception and through this pregnancy (see my posts on the 6-elementary configuration school discussions if that made absolutely no sense).


Ahmie

[Ahmie Yeung]

Oh, and no, we have no intention of ever naming a son Barack, Hussein, or Obama. Nothing against the current president, just couldn't do that to a half-white/half-Chinese child.

And if we ever have a daughter, she will be named after female members of my family (the kids have Chinese names as middle names and my husband's family has a tradition going back 29 generations for that so they don't get named after members of his side of the family). The boys get presidential names because there are no male names in my family that we care to carry on (either because they're about as bad as saddling a child with the name Barack Hussein Obama - sorry dearly departed Uncle Norvin - or because they're way too common and already over-used in the family to the point of confusion when one of the names are called out, or because we just don't really respect the way the guy has lived his life enough to honor his memory with naming a child after him). I'm not likely to run out of underused female names from my family before we stop having kids at this point anyway. At this point we may only have one more after the current pregnancy (I want 5, hubby is looking persuadable on a 4th but has consistently said no on a 5th).

[Stephen Eisel]

Chinese tea?!? COMMUNIST!!!

LOL

The Chinese tea is just the tip of the iceberg for me, Chinese herbs, acupuncture, and religion.. I am a Communist