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Posts published by “Dan Leahy”

Visit to a gun rally

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…

“Getting Down and Dirty” – A letter to the president of Olympia Master Builders

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…

Books | The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear Planner

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…

Revolutionary Ecology | October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

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.…

Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency

(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: …

2017 Olympia City Council Primary Elections, August 1st

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…

Open letter to General H.R. McMaster

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…

Proposed program eliminations by federal department

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…

President Trump’s “targeted reductions” and our Thurston County communities

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…

Are you feeling safe?

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.…

A New Political Order

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…

Fridays from A Woman in the Crossfire

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…

An update from the War Zone

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…

June 12, 2016: 40 people killed by gun violence (not including Orlando)

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…

A letter from Ireland to an American friend

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.…

Any pope in a storm

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…

Can Longview oil refinery pass due diligence? An examination of the companies and individuals behind the dubious proposal

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…

Propane company propositions Longview port

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,…

How to stop an oil train: Looking back to construct a social movement

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…

Inslee’s Oil Transportation “Safety” Act

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,…