Remember why (and who)

As many of us gather for parades, barbecues and festivities in honor of the many men and women -- past and present -- who toil day in and day out in hopes of a better life, let us not forget the 31 million who will be celebrating this Labor Day from the unemployment line.

Let us not forget that their burden is not theirs to carry alone. Let today serve as a reminder that the jobless are jobless through no fault of their own. They are casualties of the gravest recession since the Great Depression -- and they deserve our help.

They deserve a hand in the fight to get back to work. They deserve a decent paycheck -- not a meager unemployment benefit. They deserve to know where they'll be laying their head next month when the foreclosure notice shows up.

Neil also has some good historical posting for today.

Happy Labor Day (more in the sense of "Happy it's a paid federal holiday and we can sleep in!" than "Happy everything's super awesome on the labor front!").

From that socialist/communist hive of scum and villainy, the United States Department of Labor:

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. ... In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states---Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York---created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

But Tsk Tsk to Democratic President Grover Cleveland, who signed the bill only as an act of political make-up sex during election season after his tough tactics backfired during the Pullman strike. And to think I set up an Act Blue page for him.

Today we salute the working men and women of America.  All six of you.

Labor Day Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone is having a wonderful Labor Day weekend as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy takes a look at the positions of Chet Edwards and Bill Flores on energy, and finds it unlikely that leadership on the environment, clean energy, and climate change will come from Texas Congressional District 17. LoCS also covers the week in headlines.

WhosPlayin is watching the tax rate election for his local school district, where anonymous mailers are flying and things are not looking good for it to pass.

Libby Shaw is at again over at TexasKaos, exposing Republican puppetry of the rankest order. Who's pulling the strings? Check it out: Meet the GOP/Tea Party Billionaire Puppet Masters, Part 2.

This week at McBlogger, we take a look at Dick Armey and a really stupid fund manager who is pissy about finally being asked to pay the same taxes the rest of us pay.

Off the Kuff turned its attention to the state Senate this week, featuring interviews with state Sens. Rodney Ellis, John Whitmire, and Mario Gallegos.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders if anyone else is wary of the new ERCOT pricing scheme? Does anyone remember who the smartest guys in the room were?

Bay Area Houston believes that the Harris County voter registrar, Leo Vasquez, should resign before being indicted by the US Department of Justice.

The Harris County commissioners approved Clerk Beverly Kaufman's nearly $14 million emergency request for less than 25% of the necessary e-Slates to vote with, and she also included a rather large print order: 1.4 million paper ballots. PDiddie's Brains and Eggs has the details.

As Harris County Democrats draw a bead on the Republican attacks on legitimate voter registration drives and concern themselves with the county's response to the loss of all our voting machines in a fire, Neil at Texas Liberal had a brief Facebook exchange with Harris County Judge Ed Emmett on issues of election integrity.