Correction: The defective battery chargers in the nation's missile silos have not all been replaced. But they're working on it.

original post:

A defective battery charger caused a fire at a nuclear missile silo near Cheyenne, Wyoming last spring, a mishap that is only now being reported "because of the complexity of the investigation." The fire burned for about two hours, finding as fuel (among $1 million of other property) a shotgun and a box of shotgun shells.

A shotgun is a standard security weapon at missile silos.

As formidable a security device as a shotgun might be in thwarting the theft of a Minuteman III missile, there was nobody at the launch site to fire the shotgun, or to save it from the fire. The launch site is unmanned. Five days passed before the Air Force noticed (while investigating a trouble light) that there had been a fire. How secure does that make you feel?

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Yesterday The Hill reported:

Democratic leaders are discussing a major reshuffling of Senate committee chairmanships, according to multiple sources, and the proposed changes include ousting Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) from his coveted chairmanship.

It would certainly feel good to do so:

Lieberman spokesman Marshall Witmann dismissed the speculation, saying Lieberman “is focused on doing all he can to elect John McCain as president rather than post-election Washington politics.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Um, that's sort of the point Marshall "Bull Spit" Wittman. But I think it would be a silly thing to do. Lieberman can do no harm on the Homeland Security Committee and he basically is a marginalized character already. Why give the Media some trumped up nonsense on Lieberman? Just ignore him. He's irrelevant now.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The NYTimes Ed Board approves of the slouching towards a new HOLC:

At a hearing on Thursday in the Senate Banking Committee, Sheila Bair, the chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, confirmed that the F.D.I.C. is working with the Treasury to streamline the reworking of troubled mortgages. The aim is to make the loans affordable over the long term so that borrowers can avoid foreclosure and keep their homes. Though details of the plan are not yet worked out, the outline calls for creating standardized criteria that would be used by mortgage servicers, the firms that handle collection and foreclosure proceedings for lenders and mortgage investors. Loans modified under the criteria would be eligible for a federal guarantee that would protect lenders and investors against default.

I welcome the recognition of the problem. I think these steps are clearly inadequate. A full blown new agency - a new HOLC, is necessary.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Not quite an apology, not exactly a mea culpa, but Alan Greenspan managed to confess that he was sorta kinda wrong while claiming to have done the best he could. Criminal defendants who make such a half-hearted attempt to accept responsibility during sentencing hearings usually wind up serving a long stretch in prison.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami" has engulfed financial markets and conceded that his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.

"Yes, I found a flaw," Greenspan said in response to a grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "That is precisely the reason I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." Greenspan said he was "partially" wrong in opposing regulation of derivatives and acknowledged that financial institutions didn't protect shareholders and investments as well as he expected.

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You might expect a convention of mortgage bankers to be a dull affair. Not this year.

[Karl] Rove, the Republican strategist and former adviser to President Bush, was accosted onstage during a convention panel here on Tuesday morning by a protester who tried to handcuff and arrest him “for treason.” Mr. Rove tried to elbow her away before she was taken offstage.

The protester unfortunately lacked any actual arrest authority.

To be fair, it seems that mortgage bankers could party with the best of them in years past. [more ...]

Fixing the nation's infrastructure will create jobs, save lives, and keep the economy moving.

One of every four bridges in the country is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and bringing them up to snuff will cost $140 billion, according to the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. America's drinking water infrastructure is woefully underfunded; the Congressional Budget Office says we must invest at least $11.6 billion over the next 20 years. Highway congestion costs us $78 billion annually through the 4.2 billion hours and 2.9 billion gallons of gasoline we waste each year, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. The list goes on.

Dave Demerjian finds both presidential candidates wanting in their commitment to infrastructure rehabilitation, although Barack Obama has been more attentive to the issue, and more specific in policy proposals, than John McCain. Demerjian believes both are too timid. He proposes a national infrastructure initiative modeled after the WPA. That seems at least as worthy an investment of taxpayer dollars as the financial industry bailout.

Ronald Brownstein, fearful that Democrats will emerge from the November elections with a president and large Democratic margins in the House and Senate, urges Democrats to abide by their duty to govern as if they were Reagan Republicans. This is because Americans are faithful to the ideology of Reagan and recognize that the New Deal represented a failure of ideas. Voters who send Obama to the White House are rejecting George Bush, not Reagan's belief that government is the problem.

The evidence in support of this fever dream goes unstated. Is it not more likely that the public supports Obama because he argues that a responsible government can act to improve the lives of its citizens? Isn't it possible that voters are tired of waiting for wealth to "trickle down" as Reagan-era economic theories (revived on steroids by Bush) promised? It is Reaganomics, not the New Deal, that represents a failure of ideology.

Today was a good day on Wall Street as the Dow gained over 900 points and 11% in value:

The markets made a comeback on Monday. Last week’s stock sell-off gave way to a big rally, with the Dow Jones industrial average having its largest-ever point gain. The surge came as countries around the world took steps to ease the financial crisis, ushering in a drastic reshaping of the banking industry even as doubts lingered about its long-term effects.

. . . At the close, the blue-chip index was up more than 935 points or 11.1 percent. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index surged 11.6 percent and the Nasdaq was up about the same. Stocks in Paris and Frankfurt had their biggest one-day gains ever. The rallies came after central banks flooded the financial system with billions of dollars in liquidity, throwing out the traditional financial playbook in favor of a series of moves that officials hoped would get banks lending again.

Hard to say if this has turned the corner on the crisis. Credit markets were NOT open today. And hard times are clearly ahead for the economy. Recovering a third of your loss is not exactly champagne time. More . .

I think the biggest thing that's missing in the Democratic Party is that we have lost the idea of the common good. That's what Franklin Delano Roosevelt was going with social security, he's saying look, this is the worst that's ever been in this country but we would get together and we will find the way to help our old people in this country get back on their feet . . . President [Bush] says "we have to get rid of that, we want to put you in the ownership society." What he means is that we want to put you out on your own and that's splitting again the idea of the common good.

-Rep. Jim McDermott, May 2005

Exhibiting the the typical Beltway view of helping ordinary Americans, Fred Hiatt and the WaPo Editorial Board misstate what a HOLC-type solution could do: [More....]

We are all Swedes now:

Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials. Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks’ balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones.

All kidding aside, this is a good approach for the Wall Street crisis (though it does not address the homeowner/mortgage crisis that underlies the economic problems). Paul Krugman writes:

A few days ago, I blogged about the progressive pledge:

In 2009 and beyond, I will be part of the movement that pushes Democrats to be bold progressives -- and that helps pass a bold progressive agenda into law."

Bold progressives will push Barack Obama and Democrats to press for help for Main Street, not just Wall Street. Specifically, bold progressives will press Barack Obama to adopt HOLC. Fake Bold Progressives will talk about being bold progressives and not say a word about HOLC.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Digby points to the part of the progressive blogosphere I want to be a part of:

[O]nline progressives are organizing around this concept:

Anyone with common sense will vote for Barack Obama and Democratic congressional candidates this November. But it's time for citizens to fight back and take this pledge -- will you join in signing it?

"In 2009 and beyond, I will be part of the movement that pushes Democrats to be bold progressives -- and that helps pass a bold progressive agenda into law."

Sign the pledge, and then follow through with it.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only