I used to post the following to Kos & MyDD.  I've been doing this newsletter for the DC region for over 5 years and it now goes out to many lists.  Anyway, I'm still here on MyDD and I hope people in the DC region get something out of it.  I'll continue popsting it here if I get positive feedback.

This Bud is for Big Oil, War Profiteers & Europeans, Middle-Class Americans Lose Again

The takeover of American icon Anheuser-Busch by Belgian Brewer InBev, a company that barely anyone had heard of 5 years ago, is another example of how middle-class Americans are paying dearly for the failed war in Iraq.  Simply put, the result of the war is sky high oil prices, a major inflationary pressure, and the worst economy in a generation.  In the process the dollar has dropped like a stone.  Imagine what the real estate crash has done to home values in a world economic context -- given dropping property values and the dropping dollar, many homes have declined in the neighborhood of 50%, ouch!  Call me a whiner but it's the truth.

 
In the 1800s immigrants from Germany and other mid-European countries flocked to cities like Cincinnatti, Detroit, Milwaukee and St. Louis.  They built many things including built great breweries, like Blatz, Miller, Schlitz, Pabst, Falstaff and a thousand lesser ones.  The greatest brewery of them all was Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.  I went to high school just 10 blocks from the 100 square block Busch brewery complex in St. Louis.  If the breeze was just right, the smell of hops would blow in and engulf our classroom.  It was a reassuring smell.  It meant union jobs at solid middle class wages with great benefits that had been won thanks to strong unions and a paternalistic management.  Anheuser-Busch, then & now, was the cornerstone of St. Louis.  

Hamilton Jordan died today.

Washington DC "Shadow Senators", Sen. Paul Strauss & Sen. Michael Brown, have endorsed Barack Obama.  The endorsement was noted on page 9 of the print version of today's Washington Post, District local news section (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022701430_ 2.html).  The endorsement is noted at the very end of the story.  The shadow Senators are unpaid & elected by Washington "Taxation Without Representation" DC voters to lobby for voting rights & DC statehood.  "Shadow Senators" can't vote in the US Senate nor are they recognized by that body.  

Virginia doesn't really, really count because:

1. Too many black people -- they even once elected a African-American Governor.

2. Too many educated people.

3 living members of The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir & Mickey Hart will play at a "Deadheads for Obama" concert Monday at the Warfield in San Francisco.

John Edwards probably won't ever be President.  A lot of people who should be won't ever be President.  He will, however, be a key part of the politics of the future.  Barack Obama is going to need John Edwards to accomplish progressive change.  Imagine John Edwards as Attorney General stumping for the Coivil Liberties Resporation Act.  Imagine him and Vice President selling the country on National Health Insurance.