Their rights, our lives He roared right past me with an AR-15 flag on the back of his motorcycle. Then he turned off Capitol Way into the State Capitol grounds. I decided to follow him. There were about 2000 mainly white guys with rifles on their backs or draped down…
Posts published by “Dan Leahy”
Dan Deering, President Olympia Master Builders/ Affordable Housing Council 1211 State Avenue NE Olympia, Washington 98506 Re: Advocacy: “Getting Down and Dirty” Dear President Deering, I am writing for two reasons. First, I wish to know who is responsible for a mailer sent from the “Affordable Housing Council of…
Governor Inslee has 60 days to approve or reject an application by the Tesoro oil company to build the nation’s largest crude oil export terminal on the Columbia River at the Port of Vancouver. Over the past four years, a potent, on-the-ground coalition led by the SW Sierra Club and…
A book by Daniel Ellsberg. (Bloomsbury, 2017) We are very lucky in this state The Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (WPSR) began a campaign last year to abolish all nuclear weapons globally and prevent nuclear war. They initiated this campaign as President Obama authorized a trillion dollar program to rebuild…
October, a month by month chronicle of the Russian revolt from February 1917 to October 1917, starts off with this quote: “One need not be a prophet to foretell that the present order of things will have to disappear.” I believe the present order of things is in fact disappearing.…
(Review of the book by Joshua Green, Penguin Press, 2017) This book is about Steve Bannon’s role in the election of Donald Trump. It’s an insider’s election travelogue yet it reveals some dynamics that remain important even though the election is over and Bannon is back at Breitbart News. Bannon: …
A majority of the Olympia City Council positions are up for election this year. Three of those four positions have a primary. The Thurston County Elections Office will mail your voter pamphlet to you on July 5th. On July 12th, they will mail your primary ballot to you. In the…
General H.R. McMaster National Security Adviser Executive Office of the President 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 2006 Dear General McMaster: I just finished your book, Dereliction of Duty. Your book was a courageous indictment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) for their refusal to give President Johnson…
On March 16, 2017, the Office of Management and Budget released President Trump’s document entitled, “American First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again.” In the chart below, I’ve listed by federal department those programs that this budget has identified for elimination. These eliminations totally $54 billion dollars is…
A Preliminary Report The core of my first Budget Blueprint is the rebuilding of our Nation’s military without adding to our Federal deficit. There is a $54 billion increase in defense spending in 2018 that is offset by targeted reductions elsewhere. – President Donald Trump. (America First: A Budget Blueprint…
Independent agencies proposed for elimination US Interagency Council on Homelessness (1987) Established in 1987 to coordinate 19 federal agencies’ response and create national partnership to end homelessness. With a $3.5 million budget and 20 staff (2016), implement 2010 strategic plan, “Opening Doors,” to provide affordable housing and sustainable employment for 550,000 without shelter each night in the US.…
This is my effort to understand the meaning and direction of the Trump Administration, based primarily on his cabinet nominations and executive office appointments. I’m doing this as part of an effort by many others to look for organizing strategies that might preserve some form of democratic life in the…
Dear Friends, Family and WIP: I leave for the US tomorrow, Sunday. I’ve been in Salonica just over a month. All my time here has been as a volunteer in the Elpida Refugee Center, working mainly in the communal kitchen or in the food distribution center. A 14th century Byzantine scholar wrote…
In her book, A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution, Samar Yazbek describes how in Syria the mosque became an instrument and embodiment of the power needed by opponents of the Assad Regime — somewhat similar to the role played by the church in our Civil Rights…
Stopping the refugees One of the main factors cited for the June 24 vote by UK citizens to leave the European Union (EU) was the feeling that neither the EU nor the UK could manage the flow of immigrants into the EU. Given the EU’s incompetent, ad hoc, and often…
Those killed–28 males,10 females and two unidentified persons–were generally young. Male victims had an average age of 29 and females had an average age of 31. Twenty-five of the males were 25 years old or younger. Five of the ten females were 25 years old or younger. Three were 60…
This is a speech Dan gave before the Washington State Council of Fighters' Educational Convention in Spokane on April 20, 2016....
An Irish-American friend of mine wrote to me after the Paris attacks suggesting that the problem was Muslims who don’t want to assimilate, unlike the Irish that came to America. I don’t think it is about Muslims who refuse to assimilate. It is about our refusal to stop destroying states.…
Does Francis offer a safe harbor? The last time I read an encyclical I was a teenager attending St. Edward’s Seminary in Kenmore, Washington. The encyclical was called Rerum Novarum, written by Pope Leo the XIII in 1891. The priests told us about Leo since we were going to be…
In April, 2015, thanks to a public records request by the Columbia River Keeper, Washingtonians learned of crude oil refinery proposed on the Columbia River at the Port of Longview. The documents made available by the Columbia River Keeper include 1) an overview of the refinery project (headed “Riverside Refining…
Longview citizens ask port commissioners to “decline to sign” agreement with Haven It’s an all too familiar scene here in Washington State as yet another fracked product from North Dakota wants access to our public ports. This time it’s a special meeting at the Cowlitz County Expo Center in Longview,…
It’s clear this state of ours is in trouble. We have a governor and legislature refusing to fund basic education even in the face of a contempt order from the Washington State Supreme Court. At the same time, the governor and the legislature refuse to face the fundamental threat to…
Dan Leahy on what it is and what it’s not Roughly sixty-million gallons of volatile crude oil passes through Washington every week, and over a million gallons of crude oil was spilled from trains in North America in 2013, more than the previous 30 years combined. Numerous explosions also occurred,…
State sees oil train risks as acceptable Over the next several months, Governor Inslee is inviting the public to focus their attention on this Department of Ecology report leading to support for legislative proposals by March 1, 2015. The question is whether the public should accept his invitation to help…