Weekly Address: Credit Card Reform

President Obama calls for credit card reform legislation that he can sign by the end of this month:Americans know that they have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe.

But they also have a right to not get ripped off by the sudden rate hikes, unfair penalties, and hidden fees that have become all-too common in our credit card industry. You shouldn’t have to fear that any new credit card is going to come with strings attached, nor should you need a magnifying glass and a reference book to read a credit card application. And the abuses in our credit card industry have only multiplied in the midst of this recession, when Americans can least afford to bear an extra burden.

IMHO, as I wrote recently, economic recovery is impossible without credit card reform. I don't know the details of the House bill referred to by the President; we'll know how far-reaching it is by the degree of opposition by credit card companies once the bill reaches the Senate...

Police presence on the bayou...

Over at the New Orleans Ladder, Editilla takes on the Army Corps of Engineers $5 million contract with a PR firm...

Congrats to Helen Wheels for four years of Just Ain't Right...

David Letterman says that Dick Cheney "couldn't care less about American"...

When you've already made up your mind to oppose the President's Supreme Court nominee no matter who he or she might be, who do you call on to lead the charge? Why, a reactionary Southern senator who was a segregationist and who -- in his black hearts of black hearts -- probably still is...

Froma Harrop writes that Democrats have a golden opportunity to pass health care legislation with a meaningful public component:

Health-care insecurity sweeps the land. American businesses are panicked by their rising employee-insurance premiums. And in this era of Wall Street bailouts, Republicans' "free-market solutions" don't have the punch they once had. Democrats are in the saddle. They can push through a careful, rational design for health care and should do so...

Rushbo Stupidism of the Week:

One of the things -- can I give you a theory? Why -- people say, Why do they want to keep these inner city schools open? Why do they want to keep inner cities in the blight circumstances that they're in? Well, guess what happens to communities like that: People who can move out do. And what are you left with? A solid Democrat voter base.

It's all about votes. It's not about educating kids. It's all about turning as many cities into Detroit as they can. That's what it's about. There is no common sense reason in the world to close down a [charter] school where inner city minority kids are excelling. No reason, unless it posed as a threat to you. "Well, Rush, how would that pose a threat?" Well, educated people pose a threat to liberalism anyway...

R. I. P., Vern Gosdin. Lee Ballinger of Rock and Rap Confidential writes:

Fifteen years ago I went to see George Jones at some theater in the round in Orange County. I expected that George would mail it in. After all, on a live album from 1962 he's already mailing it in. I expected he would have a shit hot band of Nashville cats to make up for it. Well, George mailed it in. And his band sucked. It was still pretty damn good.

The opening act was Vern Gosdin. He was fighting for his right to be on that stage and he brought it. And his band was the one I thought George Jones would have. Was he better than George that night? Only in a formal sense. But the fact that I can even ask that question tells you what it was like.

This was no aberration. Vern Gosdin's album, If Jesus Came Tomorrow, What Then?, is one of the greatest expressions of religious music in the history of the human race. And nothing on that album tops such secular hits of his as "Chiseled in Stone," "That Just About Does It," or "Do You Believe Me Now."

Vern Gosdin, I believe in you.

Los Angeles Times obit here. Vern Gosdin singing "Chiseled In Stone":