Here it comes: the old one-two punch:

"The Bush administration announced on Friday that the basic Medicare premium would shoot up next year 13 percent, to $88.50 a month, mainly because of the increased use of doctors' services.
Many beneficiaries will pay an additional premium for the new prescription drug benefit, expected to average $32 a month. So the combined premiums for doctors' services, outpatient hospital care and prescription drugs will average slightly more than $120 a month."

People on Medicare get to look forward to a 13% rise in their rates added onto the cost of prescription drug benefits scheduled to kick in next January, and there's more, as we will see.

The forced march to managed care starts with the choosing of one's own method of execution this month. Big Pharma has been licking their chops in anticipation ever since Dear Leader rounded up the weakest and most vulnerable and gave B.P. a loaded gun to aim at their heads:

"Who is covered. Anybody who is eligible for Medicare or Medicaid. It will be voluntary for most people, but mandatory for roughly 6.4 million current beneficiaries who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare because of age, income or disability. They are obligated to enroll and may be penalized if they do not."

Talk about fish in a barrel. But what if the more fortunate consumers choose to opt out of the prescription benefit to save money? Whatever will B.P. do?

"Medicare profit will be crucial to Big Pharma. If many of the 43 million eligible Americans sign up during the coming year, the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit may reshape the whole business of drug development and marketing, buoy sagging stock prices, and affect thousands of local jobs.
But if people do not sign up or if premiums rise sharply, pharmaceutical profit may become a red flag again for patients and politicians looking to control costs. The industry managed to block price controls when the program was designed in 2003.
"As Medicare becomes an increasingly larger part of the budget, I don't see how that doesn't create pressure for greater management of prices," said Marc Benoff, Medicare expert at Cambridge Pharma Consultancy, a unit of IMS Health, an industry-monitoring firm."

Noted humanitiarian Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a research center that advocates free-market health policies (read: you're on your own sucker!), "predicted that the premium increase would 'create a political firestorm.':

"Some areas of the country are seriously overusing health care," Mrs. Turner said. "Everyone winds up paying the price for that. What do you do? Put more price controls into the Medicare program? That clearly has not worked. Consumers need more incentives and more power to manage the costs of their care."

Yeah, that's right. We've got people pulling their own teeth with pliers, and dying from entirely preventable diseases because they couldn't afford to go see a doctor, but all this wench sees is a problem on the "consumer" end. Just make it harder for them to get treatment, she reasons (as so many of her ilk, in and out of government, do), and all our troubles will vanish as the morning fog into the sunshiney noon. Well, guess what? We also all of us pay the price for the people who can't afford health care and end up in the hospital on life support. And it's a hell of a more expensive bill than that of a couple shots or a well-care diagnostic series. Do you think people like Turner and Bush and any of the other compassionate conservatives who jumped on this bandwagon ever had to endure a day without excellent health care? Ever went a day without food because they had to? Ever had to make a choice between seeing a doctor and paying the light bill? Please.

But there's another obstacle to fat fourth-quarter returns: dramatic increases in the cost of heating bills this winter, with estimates ranging from 70% higher in the Buffalo and Dayton areas area, to 29% higher in Massachusetts:

"The U.S. Energy Department has predicted that heating oil bills this winter in the Northeast will rise 30 percent, assuming average temperatures.
The National Energy Assistance Directors' Association is projecting an average heating oil bill of $1,541 this winter, and that was before the bad news of Hurricane Katrina hit the market.
The heating bill for customers using natural gas is likely to be even higher."

And don't forget the cost of food and other goods transported via fossil fuels, which have already risen. When I walked into my local supermarket a week after the hurricane hit, I found local peaches featured prominently at the entrance in a lovely display, for 2 pounds for $5. Whatta deal! 3 lb. bag of cheap-ass white onions? A dollar a pound! And during a trip across the state last weekend, I saw that people in the west were paying a full 50 cents less per gallon of gas than we here in Philly, despite the fact that we sit on a tank farm of Sunoco refineries, and have the lousy air to prove it. Gas is still averaging over $3.00 a gallon around my area. For some reason Big Oil thought it was a safe bet to really stick it to the mid-Atlantic, so much so that AAA (that knight errant for all things on four wheels) has called for an inquiry into the situation.

The effect of all this is bad enough for people who are able to work:

"(Kathleen Camilli, head of Camilli Economics in New York) adds a sober thought: We'd better hope higher prices get stuck at the input level. She holds little hope that wages could match a serious wave of price hikes.
If customer-support desks can be outsourced to Bangalore, India, and factory jobs to China, then surely there's a limit on how much an American worker can demand to make up for his higher cost of living. This is especially true of underskilled, nontech workers. The lower down the ladder the worker is, the more vulnerable he is.
Average hourly earnings in August rose 2.7% vs. a year earlier. So wages have nearly kept up with prices.
But the latest energy price surge will likely outstrip modest raises.
Also, Camilli says the CPI doesn't fully reflect local price changes.
Yes, prices are falling for a bunch of things: computers, cell phones, clothing. These are the items that can be made cheaply abroad by big companies that can employ innovations or economies of scale, like Dell, (DELL) Motorola (MOT) and Wal-Mart. (WMT)
But services are more shielded.
The barber on Main Street can't use cheap Chinese labor to offset skyrocketing energy costs. Likewise, his customers can't go overseas for a trim.
Either the barber raises his prices, eats the higher costs, or lays off a worker, like the guy who sweeps up. In reality, we're seeing a combination of all three of these options.
Camilli says this is the kind of data that the government misses."

But for the retired, or disabled, or just plain poor who often live on a knife edge, and who will be the ones forced to pick a plan this month, these are the kinds of things that make the difference between being able to eat or not.

Don't talk to me about the fabulous job Bush did covering his scat in New Orleans last week. Don't tell me about compassionate conservatism. I don't believe in conspiracy theories, and that's why this is not a conspiracy theory. This is a Final Solution.

Digby is kind enough to post a Wall Street Journal piece a friend sent him so ALL non-subscribing readers can have strokes. Dancing on the graves of those who died to provide them this opportunity, Republican zealots in Congress are crowing about enterprise zones, the murder of union representation, and wresting the legal system from those who might want to complain. Here's some of what gets these necrophiliacs hard:

"Just yesterday (the Bush administration) waived some affirmative-action rules for employers with federal contracts in the Gulf region."

Well, yes, because you know how hard it is to find blacks and Asians down there, and hell, you can hardly find women anywhere.

"Now, Republicans are working on legislation that would limit victims' right to sue, offer vouchers for displaced school children, lift some environment restrictions on new refineries and...Yesterday, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would offer sweeping protection against lawsuits to any person or organization that helps Katrina victims without compensation."

Last thing you want is for people to demand recompense for losing their loved ones or everything they own by suing the assholes who could have prevented it. And never mind that much of the damage caused by the hurricane was the result of the destruction of the wetlands barrier around NOLA thanks to a callous disregard for environmental concerns over the last 20 years. Who needs environmental restrictions when there's lots more money to be made by the people who won't have to live with the result? School vouchers? All the better to eliminate that nasty universal free education cancer that resulted in all these over-educated drones thinking they actually had the right to expect a decent living. And as for protection against lawsuits for those helping Katrina victims, think of the experiments that could be done? All those folks exposed to toxic chemicals and bacteria! Why, I'll bet the EPA would have a field day mining that rich vein of poor people! Just offer them a nice baby bib and a video camera.

""The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas to the Gulf Coast is white hot," says Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who leads the Republican Study Group, an influential caucus of conservative House members. "We want to turn the Gulf Coast into a magnet for free enterprise. The last thing we want is a federal city where New Orleans once was."
Many of the ideas under consideration have been pushed by the 40-member study group, which is circulating a list of "free-market solutions," including proposals to eliminate regulatory barriers to awarding federal funds to religious groups housing hurricane victims, waiving the estate tax for deaths in the storm-affected states; and making the entire region a "flat-tax free-enterprise zone."
Members of the group met in a closed session Tuesday night at the conservative Heritage Foundation headquarters here to map strategy. Edwin Meese, the former Reagan administration attorney general, has been actively involved."

That's right, you old fogeys who can remember his name...Edwin Meese, the Alberto Gonzales of the Reagan years, who gave his sound legal imprimatur Reagan's secret plan to sell weapons to Iran.No doubt he'll be useful here. This kind of weasel-work is right up his alley. Does anyone elese here think this sounds like some kind of vulturine star chamber?

And just in case you thought they learned anything from the spike in gasoline prices right after the hurricane, you can just disabuse yourself of that:

"Republicans, meanwhile, say they will also press for a new round of energy concessions, including incentives to rebuild and expand offshore drilling and clear the way for new refineries that were dropped from a 500-page energy bill that passed last month.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton of Texas and Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe are working on bills that would encourage refineries to build new plants and expand existing ones by rolling back environmental rules and making it easier for refineries to navigate regulatory channels in Washington."

Oh, those poor oil companies! All those bulging government subsidies and record-breaking profits, but it's never enough, is it? No, theyve got to be coaxed into making more money:

"The National Petrochemical & Refineries Association would like lawmakers to reduce the depreciation period from 10 years to five years in order to stimulate investment."

Because, you know, they're just so gun-shy about making investments in refinery-building, what with the fact that we're running out of product to refine and how the hell else are they going to maintain those profits unless they can convince the American taxpayer to keep throwing money down that black hole?

If they porked up this kind of deal to benefit the poor and infirm, reactionaries all over the map would be screaming about "responsibility" and "hand-holding" and how we're actually hurting the poor by helping them. But when it goes to a good cause--making money for those who already have it--why, no kickback is too outrageous, too shameful to propose.

An exciting weekend! More renovation...

And so to bed.

Of course, Karl Rove wasn't in charge of "rebuilding" Iraq. So maybe that was the problem.

The Los Angeles Times actually does some reporting, and it's deja vu all over again. All the signs of Yet Another Republican Clusterfuck are there. They just can't help themselves, can they?

No financial controls
(Continued on the Renovated Corrente)

Alert reader Jack sends a link to an interesting climate site, by scientists. Check out this brutal takedown of the corporate shills skeptical view on the "hockey stick".

In the spirit of the song, ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,’ I thought I’d change gears and talk about stuff that puts me in a good mood. Like a lot of people in Blogtopia, I’m a bit of a sci-fi geek and tend to waste my pretty mind mulling over things that haven’t happened yet, but might. And seeing as how I’m a blogger now, dammit, I can blog about anything I damn well please, even when it’s not about depressing fascist politics and crony murdering chickenhawks.

First up: something my sister says she’ll have to buy me for Christmas just to get me to shut up about it, the heads up display:

MicroOptical's viewers are the smallest, lightest head-up displays available today. They accept standard VGA, NTSC, PAL, RS170 and RS232 signals and weigh about 1 ounce. They project the information where you need it most — right in front of you. The careful attention to ergonomics in MicroOptical's designs make the viewers the most comfortable and useful viewing systems available anywhere.

MicroOptical's patented optical system gives the user the impression of a free-floating monitor. This unique optical system is what allows the user to maintain natural vision and awareness of the environment. The viewers are plug and play, ergonomic, and attach easily to prescription or safety eyewear.

One of the things I do hate about being poor is that it prevents me from buying neat toys like this. But I look forward to the time when the technology becomes cheap and common enough for a little guttersnipe like me to afford one. Eventually, I imagine we’ll even be able to move cursors with our line of sight, and click thru pages by blinking. Sci-fi writers have been on this for years, and I’m glad to see it become Sci-fact.

Next up: say it like Princess Leia with me: Help me, Bio-Fuel, you’re our only hope! I have a friend who actually makes this stuff, from ‘recycled’ fryer oil, in TX no less. Business is going gangbusters for him, and as we all tremble before the coming effects of Peak Oil, I take comfort that there are some who aren’t sitting around waiting for the gummint to make tomorrow happen. Here’s the money quote:

Both biodiesel and ethanol are clean, grow-your-own fuels that can be made on-site in small villages from renewable, locally available resources, for the most part using simple equipment that a village blacksmith can make and maintain.

I have this crazy dream of a Second Wave of American Heartland populism, and the heyday glory years of the Grange, in which farmers and local town governments and unemployed people come together and say, “Hey, you know what? We don’t need government subsidies, big corporate farming or to move to the cities to feed our families. We can make, sell, and subsist off of biofuels with the technology we’ve got right now!” followed by a wave of barn dances, bbq parties and Grapes of Wrath camaraderie for all (I did grow up in a farm town, after all). When people talk about American ingenuity, a future free from all the things progressives hate most, and opportunity for the little guy, I see biofuels as the easiest answer of them all. I know, there are serious transition issues to be dealt with, but watching my friend go from 0 to 60 with his own little lab and a buddy with some seed cash, I think those problems are not going to be as difficult as the Oil Industry shills, I mean mainstream media, has led us to believe.

Finally, I want to recommend to you all one of the greatest scientific minds writing fiction, fact and speculation/research today, Prof. Vernor Vinge. Not only is he totally cool (he responded to an email of mine once), he’s the author of award winning books and proponent of this totally cool idea, the Singularity:

I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence.
-snip-
What are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress, that progress will be much more rapid. In fact, there seems no reason why progress itself would not involve the creation of still more intelligent entities -- on a still-shorter time scale. The best analogy that I see is with the evolutionary past: Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work -- the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection. We humans have the ability to internalize the world and conduct "what if's" in our heads; we can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection. Now, by creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher speeds, we are entering a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals.

From the human point of view this change will be a throwing away of all the previous rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye, an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control. Developments that before were thought might only happen in "a million years" (if ever) will likely happen in the next century.

It’s not really as scary as it sounds. Or, it’s totally scary and will represent the merging of Humanity with the Godhead. Your choice. go read the whole paper, it's not long. This subject has been all the rage in sci-fi for about ten years now, with people like Dan Simmons, Ken MacLeod and practically every other ‘hard’ sci-fi writer taking a turn. But most simply, I look forward to a time when the very nature of our existence will be something completely different, something totally beyond our ability to predict from our current perspective, and one in which intelligence is freed from the limitations of ‘meatspace’ and set upon the Universe like a shining star.

OK, I’m a corny dreamer.

I’d like to leave you with a couple of book recommendations, if you’ve read them I’d love to hear about it in the comments. These are some of my favorite authors, and I’m sure I’ll write more on them again soon.

Macarthur Winner Octavia Butler, and her damning, prescient Parable of the Sower.

Ultrafeminist and unapologetic Sherri Tepper, for her equally far sighted Gibbon’s Decline and Fall.

Metahistorian vampire lover Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, from whom you can learn more history than ten undergraduate seminars, anything from the Saint Germain Chronicles.

I dedicate this post to my year old nephew, whom I love enough to have to believe will have a future, no matter what the Republicans may bring. Happy Birthday, Locutus.

Tweety Matthews just said "it's like reparations", twice, on his Sunday Morning Show, referring to the Federal money allocated for Katrina rebuilding. Everybody knows that code word: reparations for slavery, the 40 acres and a mule promised but not delivered to freed slaves during the Civil War which some black leaders have said should be paid to their descendents in cash.

Translation: "we're not going to just *give* money to these negroes, are we? What have they done to earn it? Just because a few bleeding hearts feel sorry for them? To compensate for some liberal guilt about race? Fuck that. Let's make sure the bulk of the gagillion dollars goes to nice, responsible corporations run by white Republicans."

The GOPigs have been shown a bountiful trough and they will do whatever it takes to make sure nobody else gets any of it. Especially not the victims of Katrina who have lost everything. Whatch this meme spread like runny hog slop throughout the wingnuttosphere and the elite opinion circles.

OK, I need some breakfast. The nausea is rising already.

Hey, who is this Mamet guy, anyhow? He sure can write! And you don't have to pay $49.95 to read him, either:

ONE NEEDS TO know but three words to play poker: call, raise or fold.

Fold means keep the money, I'm out of the hand; call means to match your opponents' bet. That leaves raise, which is the only way to win at poker. The raiser puts his opponent on the defensive, seizing the initiative. Initiative is only important if one wants to win.

In poker, one must have courage: the courage to bet, to back one's convictions, one's intuitions, one's understanding. There can be no victory without courage. The successful player must be willing to wager on likelihoods. Should he wait for absolutely risk-free certainty, he will win nothing, regardless of the cards he is dealt.

For example, take a player who has never acted with initiative — he has never raised, merely called. Now, at the end of the evening, he is dealt a royal flush. The hand, per se, is unbeatable, but the passive player has never acted aggressively; his current bet (on the sure thing) will signal to the other players that his hand is unbeatable, and they will fold.

His patient, passive quest for certainty has won nothing.

The Democrats, similarly, in their quest for a strategy that would alienate no voters, have given away the store, and they have given away the country.

Control of the initiative is control of the battle. In the alley, at the poker table or in politics. One must raise. The American public chose Bush over Kerry in 2004. How, the undecided electorate rightly wondered, could one believe that Kerry would stand up for America when he could not stand up to Bush? A possible response to the Swift boat veterans would have been: "I served. He didn't. I didn't bring up the subject, but, if all George Bush has to show for his time in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter."

This would have been a raise. Here the initiative has been seized, and the opponent must now fume and bluster and scream unfair. In combat, in politics, in poker, there is no certainty; there is only likelihood, and the likelihood is that aggression will prevail.

The Democrats are anteing away their time at the table. They may be bold and risk defeat, or be passive and ensure it.
(via LA Times)

Fold: Translation: Give Bush the benefit of the doubt.

"I'd rather get lockjaw than live in Houston."

David Freedman, General Manager WWOZ/New Orleans returns to the city and shares his observations:
9.15.2005:

All the while, the back office of my mind was in overdrive. Fugue-state rumination, mere opinion, sheer speculation. Background noise. The melody goes like this:

It seems to me this business of housing is going to loom large in the coming days. For instance, we have been told that water is still standing in 60% of the city. The forecast has recently been revised down from 80 days to 30 days for completion of the “unwatering” process. While the West Bank, Uptown, Bywater and the French Quarter will remain to remind us visually of New Orleans' rich heritage, perhaps as many as half the houses standing in water for two weeks (according to the mayor) that ss 30% of the houses in New Orleans would have to be torn down due to structural weakness.

What will they be replaced with?

There are at least 2 megacorp friends of the President friend, Joseph Albaugh, receiving multi-billion reconstruction contracts: Halliburton and the Shaw Group To even begin to match the artistry and craftsmanship, much less find the quality of building materials., with which these old houses were built, would add a considerable surcharge to the estimated 200 Billion dollars that Katrina restoration will cost (say 50 Billion for replacing New Orleans’ housing???). I doubt that any of the businesses getting these mega-contracts will have a column in their ledger for charm.

There will be every business incentive to cookie-cut standardized framing and sheetrock construction along with the usual suburban plastic franchises plopped onto freshly unfurled asphalt. The whiteflight visuals of Jefferson Parish may well advance to the western edge of Claiborne Avenue! And, one wonders, what kind of housing will be built? For home-owners or renters? Is there really going to be a substantial replacement of housing for the 200,000 souls that were bussed out of town to points unknown (to the bussees) all over the country? How many of THEM do you think will want to come back? Be able to come back? Have a home and job to come back to?

Our music, culture, and personality don't come from CD's, or even radio stations. They are only registers of the spirit of our people. Without our people, we will be no different than Atlanta or Houston. In fact, I hear that there is a developing c olony of musicians from New Orleans in Houston. It may well be that as the zone extending from the Bywater through Baton Rouge to Lafayette and Houston becomes more flavored with our spirit, the spirit of our people, the city of New Orleans may be diluted, osmotically turning into a place that might more appropriately be called New Orleansiana, or Coplandia-- land of the fast food franchise king, Al Copland, inventor of Popeye’s Chicken.

The battle lines will be drawn—those who care about restoring the charm of New Orleans as well as the physical infrastructure, and those who only see the bottom line. Who will get to decide? I understand that the national chapter of the American Institute of Architects met yesterday to address the issue. I have heard directly from the Urban Conservancy, and indirectly from the Historic National Trust. The mayor has just announced that he is appointing a commission of 8 blacks and 8 whites to determine the direction of the reconstruction effort in N ew Orleans. Who would he appoint? Would the suits make the city over in their own image? Or would free spirits still prevail? Someone wrote me that he had read a quote from a doctor in slate.com, who's been doing emergency work in the city and feeding his elderly neighbors who aren't evacuating. When asked if he shouldn't go to Houston at least to get a tetanus shot, he replied, "I'd rather get lockjaw than live in Houston."

Ever since 1803, since the French sold Louisiana to the United States, New Orleans has found a way to not embrace American culture. The city has often been called the northern capital of the Caribbean. But in the past 20 or so years, there have already been serious incursions of national culture into the city’s unique style. The change has been gradual but steady from locally owned-and-operated to non-indigenous and non-descript (read franchises, chain businesses and Los Vegas-based casinos). So many local icons a thing of the past: Schwegmann’s, D.H. Holmes, Katz & Besthoff, Krauss. Imagine Starbucks coming to the land of Morning Call and Café du Monde. Imaginee Clear Channel owning 7 or 8 of the most powerful radio signals in a city where radio was known for its great personalities—Groovy Gus, Doctor Daddy-o, Poppa Stoppa. National (or multi-national), franchise, commodity vs. local, mom-and-pop, personal and authentic. New Orleans might have been the last largest bastion of incipient, instinctive resistance.

[...]

Heading down St Claude almost as far as the Industrial Canal, the thing that struck me was that so many of the houses along the way seemed to be OK. They would not have to be torn down. In only three days we were able to drive along just about any major street in New Orleans except in the three terrible zones – Lakeview, Eastern New Orleans and below the Industrial Canal. These are the likely candidates for total tear down and rebuild.

Lakeview had been a picturesque neighborhood of modest bungalows built in the 50’s. We have been watching as property values sky-rocketed in New Orleans these past 10 years—after all New Orleans is surrounded by water, so you can’t just sprawl out as most American cities do. Instead, people have been buying up these picturesque bungalows and tearing them down so that they can build units twice as large. The lot sizes remain the same, so these two story McMansions built to all the edges of their tiny lots end up feeling like rich bullies moving into the neighborhood. Garish. Blocking the sun. Coplandia-vibe. So Katrina will only accelerate what was already happening to Lakeview.

[...]

Look, I know nothing about urban renewal, planning, housing, real estate, engineering, etc. These are just the ramblings of a longtime resident. I wish someone could tell me what it all means. At least, I have to say, that I left my tour of the city yesterday feeling a lot more optimistic than the day before. Many of New Orleans’s fine old houses will not have to be torn down. And the speed of recovery in the past three days is awesome.

Well, for what it's worth, i say ....long live "incipient, instinctive resistance"!

Full post...read it all here Blog #4 – We Begin to Emerge. (contains recent visit and observations with respect to conditions of specific environs/neighboorhoods of New Orleans).

More info and links from WWOZ:

Help for New Orleans Musicians: LINK
New Orleans Musicians List (Last Updated 9/17/05) ...list of New Orleans musicians & bands who are safe after the trials of Hurricane Katrina: LINK

Missing New Orleans Musicians - (Last Updated 9/17/05): LINK. This is a list of New Orleans musicians & bands whose whereabouts are still unkown to us. If you know the whereabouts of these musicians, please let us [WWOZ] know.

Freddie Alonzo
Glen David Andrews
Chuck Chaplin
Thais Clark
Paul Clement
Fran Comiskey
Barry Cowsill
Travlin' Dog Mike Frass
narvin and/or lil kimball
Irvan Perez
Jimmy Robinson
Betty Shirley
Peter Vee (Peter V. Carter)
Mark Whitaker

farmer note: Barry Cowsill (anyone remember the "Cowsill Family"? - eeeeks!..) is apparently ok and hiding out somewhere in NOLA.

Fats Domino is ok too.

But what about the YA/YA kids?:

Young New Orleans Artists and Their Storytelling Chairs (And How to YA/YA in Your Neighborhood): by Claudia Baker

.

*

Hurry Rapture
Come to daddy
Come to save America
Praises be to our sky daddy
He’s the bomb that’s on the bus

Millions waiting
For the Rapture
Maxing out their credit cards
Getting ready for a slaughter
God’s a killer you can trust

Armageddon
Final conflict
Turn the living to the dead
Mark it on your calendar
Naked Christians flying up

(chorus)
Naked Christians go to heaven
You can see it in their smiles
Naked Christians into heaven
Clothing left behind in piles
Naked Christians flying up
Up above the world so high
If you’re modest, you’re in trouble
Grab your nethers when you fly

Come on Jesus
Please come quickly
We don’t want to play no more
Praise to Jesus, please come quickly
You know full well how people talk

It’s a comfort
Just our knowing
That you carry a mean sword
Heaven sent this blood starts flowing
Death to all outside the flock

Armageddon
Final conflict
Turn the living to the dead
Mark it on your calendar
Naked Christians flying up

(chorus)
Naked Christians go to heaven
You can see it in their smiles
Naked Christians into heaven
Clothing left behind in piles
Naked Christians flying up
Up above the world so high
If you’re modest, you’re in trouble
Grab your nethers when you fly

Hurry Rapture
Come to daddy
Come to save America
Praises be to our sky daddy
He’s the bomb that’s on the bus

Millions waiting
For the Rapture
Maxing out their credit cards
Getting ready for a slaughter
God’s a killer you can trust

Armageddon
Final conflict
Turn the living to the dead
Mark it on your calendar
Naked Christians flying up

(chorus)
Naked Christians go to heaven
You can see it in their smiles
Naked Christians into heaven
Clothing left behind in piles
Naked Christians flying up
Up above the world so high
If you’re modest, you’re in trouble
Grab your nethers when you fly




+++

Originally posted July 18th, 2005 at Mortaljive. Cross posted at Correntewire.

+++

I needed a break from anger and sorrow, and so I flew into tomorrow...

+++

I just came across this little tidbit over at the Crack Den, via the Most Eloquent One:

"The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas to the Gulf Coast is white hot," says Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who leads the Republican Study Group, an influential caucus of conservative House members. "We want to turn the Gulf Coast into a magnet for free enterprise. The last thing we want is a federal city where New Orleans once was."

Translation: The desire to get in on the federal mother of all pork troughs is filling every Ranger and Pioneer pantsuit with a gigantic hard-on. We’re so happy all the niggers got washed out and won’t be able to protest as we take over their land and homes for pennies on the dollar, and turn around and rent it back to them in the finest tradition of corporate towns and migrant worker shanties everywhere. The last thing we want is a city where constitutional protections, environmental regulations and racial and socioeconomic integration exist. Yeee-haaaaw!

I humbly submit this prediction: NOLA will be rebuilt as a pitiful, soulless reincarnation of it’s former self, replete with shantytown ghettos for the working poor, who will only be allowed to resettle in numbers sufficient to service the influx of second-home owners and corporate developers who will take over the choice real estate at the expense of the taxpayer. In time, another major city will emerge as the center of Southern Black culture, and no one but unlettered suburbanites and old school segregationists will want to visit the ersatz Creole “culture” that will stand on the grave of old New Orleans.

But what I really wanted to talk about is beyond NOLA. People started watching this disaster long before Boosh did, and there were many predictions after the extent of the damage became clear that this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and people would wake up to the nightmare that is the Assministration. But as the announcements come in relating to the rebuilding, it’s clear that no matter how people feel, the media and our masters don’t really care- the disaster is about financial opportunity for the already rich.

I was dorking around and watching Moscow on the Hudson recently, and while I’m not arguing it’s a totally serious important major film, I was struck by the innocence and happiness the characters, immigrants for the most part, showed for life in this country, even life as a minimum wage worker. I suppose it’s still true today, if you come from a war zone or place of permanent poverty and political oppression, America probably feels really good. But what about those of us raised here? How well will we take the reduction of our constitutional protections and standards of living in the name of making another millionaire a billionaire? Watching the response to the Federal ‘response’ to the NOLA crisis, I admit I’m pretty depressed.

I suppose that people have come to accept that they have to work 10-12hr days, conform politically at work, avoid critical thinking and generally ignore the actual workings of their government to stay happy suburbanites (or whatever). I suppose the material rewards are satisfying to many people who make those choices, or that they’re too tired/glazed over by TV/substance abusing to care. Despite what a lot of good people have done, and a general solid attitude of genuine caring around the blogosphere, as an African-American I have to say I’m underwhelmed by the response to the NOLA victims. I’m certainly pissed off by the coverage, as much as I’ve been able to force myself to sit through, which smacks of racism on the best days and something even worse other times. But the disconnect is what really gets me. A crisis can strike anywhere, and despite the love Boosh has for his donors, I guarantee he cares nothing for even the upper-middle class. Even when they fellate him at Republican rallies or Potemkin photo ops, the contempt he has for the ‘little’ people is glaring and obvious for anyone to behold.

Someone gave me a book called Rich Dad’s Prophecy by one of these get rich retire early advisor/authors. Not really my cup of tea, but he does point out a lot of things that those of us who live in the lefty blogosphere have been talking about for the last five years. While I personally think he’s essentially cashing in on the culture of fear that’s developed over the last five years in this country, I’m somewhat heartened to see that its jacket indicates it’s a bestseller. The rhetoric in it is strong, the writing punchy and dire, and while its historical perspective is laughable and its confidence in “American ingenuity” equally a farce, if nothing else it puts some ideas into the mainstream consciousness that really, really need to be there.

My bottom line is a gloomy one. I don’t believe America will be able to take back the government from the hands of the cronies and anti constitutionalists currently running the show. I think a combination of factors, not limited to but including apathy, ignorance, federal and consumer debt, Peak Oil, environmental change and crisis, declining international support, and religious fanaticism have doomed this nation for at least the next 20 years. And frankly, I think white Boomers will go down selfishly, protecting their own interests while taking away the last regular political options for change from the rest of us as they age and demand more and more from a decreasingly productive national economy. My only question relates to the form this Grand Decline will take: fast or slow, with more or less violence, punctuated by uprisings or accepted with resignation.

If there are any newcomers or moderate readers of this blog, let this post be my warning to you, and for everyone else let it be an electronic kick in the ass that spurs you out of your ‘box’ thinking. Traditional political solutions just won’t cut it anymore. We’ve passed that point, perhaps even well before I started paying attention, and the time for discussion and passive action has passed. Progressives need to rethink the question “what can be done,” just as moderates need to rethink the priorities and positions they’ve held for so long. I’m not saying this because I want everyone to become a radical like me, I’m saying it because I honestly believe what’s coming will force us all to make some hard choices. Quoting from that book I mentioned:

But in just a few years, this very rich country became a poor, debt-ridden bankrupt nation with a weak currency. Money has left and so have the rich. Taxes are high and the currency has collapsed. Corruption is everywhere. If the problems are not solved, real anarchy could erupt.

(p. 113)

He’s speaking about Argentina, but it is possible the same words could be written about the US in a short time. And when the rich are gone, so too goes the capital in ‘capitalism’ that makes traditional political solutions viable.

This is a new millennium, and for the first time, a truly global society. Thanks to Boosh, the rest of the world is currently laughing at us with derision, pointing to us with hatred and/or rubbing their hands with glee at the future lack of dominance we’ll have over emerging markets. There will be no Marshall Plan for us when we fall. There is no Sky Father coming to save us, and the traditional ideas of opposition parties in government have been forgotten by our not-opposing “opposition” leadership.

I’ll post later on my own radical ideas for change, and admit they are unfinished and flawed. But I want people to think about the poor fleeing NOLA, and the lack of aid they have and will continue to (not) receive. Just as Ford once told New York city to “fuck off” in a time of crisis, so too will Bush and whomever comes after him tell states and municipalities as the problems outlined above form a perfect storm of their own. Even if you’re employed, financially solvent, in good standing in your community and materially comfortable, that can change- and quickly. It doesn’t take Mother Nature for this to happen, just the awesome force of your own belief in comforting ideology and false stability. Think about the thin veneer of civilization for a moment, and ask yourself how you would respond to chaos.

A couple weekends ago I went down to my neighborhood non-corporate video sto' and picked up a copy of Sin City from the rack.

Me: "I just need something to take my mind off the hurricane stuff, I've been watching it on cable all weekend. It's driving me insane."

Video Sto' Guy: "This is good. It's violent, but it's a fantasy..."

Me: "Perfect."

Maybe I'm a cornball, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The film is done in black and white (+red). This is supposed to make it look like the graphic novel, but it reminded me of film noir from the 30's and 40's.

Back then reality was black and white. The difference between good and evil was obvious. Fascists and Nazis on one side, the allies and the Reds on the other.

Then, after WWII, everything went Technicolor and reality was confusing. The Corporate Public Relations professionals started taking control of the minds of Americans, who were lost In a haze of cigarettes and Better Living Through Pill-Popping, getting fat off casseroles and imperial profits.

Read the exciting conclusion at The New and Mightier Corrente Building or at the Shysteeblog.

UPDATE (Heh, it's like "stop the presses". I've always wanted to say that.):

PS: My favorite movie of all time is also in black and white. Set in New Orleans and starring Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni and John Lurie, Down By Law is a sad and beautiful film. The opening sequence (shot by Wim Wender's old DP, Robby Muller) is an endless drive-by of the Crescent City's victorian slums with Tom Waits' "Jockey Full of Bourbon" in the background. Check it out. If it doesn't break your heart to see images of what Nawlins used to be and if you're able to stay awake through Jim Jarmusch's trademark meaningful pauses in dialogue, you'll be glad you did.

The Peace Rally last night on the lawn next to the National Constitution Center near Independence Hall ran a little late, simply because there were so many speakers trying to squeeze into the 2-hour timeframe, but it felt like it went quickly.

They said we were the largest crowd they had yet encountered on the tour, and though I'm not good at estimating that kind of thing, it seemed like there could have been 500, all told.

What I missed, having had to hoof it across the city to get there after right after work, was Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds-Brown reading the Resolution Against The War passed the day before by the Philadelphia City Council. Although she was the sponsor who introduced the resolution, it was co-sponsored by 12 other council members, including two Republicans. Here's what the website had to say about it:

"On the urging of members and friends of the Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour, the Philadelphia City Council voted today 16 to 1 for a Resolution calling on the federal government to "rapidly withdraw US troops from Iraq expeditiously." Following a Thursday morning caucus session in which Gold Star Families for Peace co-founder Celeste Zappala and other Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour members were introduced to council members..."

In addition to Cindy Sheehan's Gold Star Families for Peace members, other groups represented at the rally included Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace, and Military Families Speak Out. There were a wonderfully representative group of speakers, and some singer-songwriters who played and sang beautifully. Although the crowd spanned the age range, it seemed a bit on the older side. That will certainly change when the draft comes down. And, as so often happens with political activities like this, it was way too white. If this message is to start taking root and have resonance, outreach efforts have to be made more strenuously to link to and include minorities and their advocacy groups, especially since they are the ones doing a disproportionate amount of the fighting on the ground. But enough of that. It was inspiring, and I was glad I could be there. It lacked the carnival atmosphere that attends many such gatherings, but that was okay. Members of various groups circulated through the crowd handing out flyers and stickers, and the Iraq vets were selling IVAW T-shirts (I wanted one but at $20 I just couldn't spend the cash. I'll pick one up at the DC rally.) Further up, close to the speaker's platform were places to buy buttons and tour shirts. People stretched out on the grass, dogs rolled, babies cooed, bicycles served as impromptu chairs. Many threads ran through the speeches, not the least of which were calls for impeachment and rallying for attendance at the DC anti-war mobilization next Saturday. It was a night of strong rhetoric, much stronger than I had expected.

The speakers included (list leaves out a couple speakers I couldn't catch and the musicians who performed):

• Celeste Zappala, Philadelphia, PA, a co-founder with Sheehan of Gold Star Familes for Peace, whose son Sgt. Sherwood Baker was the first PA National Guardsman to die in combat since World War II, killed in Baghdad on April 26, 2004. Celeste is an articulate, eloquent speaker with an electrifying style coming straight out of her deep pain and anger. I saw her speak before, at the union hall with Al Franken during a MoveOn-sponsored election tour in 2004, and she had us all in tears. She was easily the best and most moving speaker there last night. (I also learned that night that she and her family are neighbors of my daughter's boyfriend, and her son Dante is one of his friends. Small, small world.)
• AFSCME District Council 47 President Tom Cronin spoke of union solidarity for the peace movement and the upcoming DC demonstration.
• Former City Councilman Angel Ortiz, Philadelphia's most famous unlicensed driver, roused the crowd with Bush epithets and his repeated cries to "Impeach Bush!" (Not the last time that was heard that night.)
• Bill Perry, Levittown PA, a member of Veterans for Peace and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who was a paratrooper during the Tet offensive in 1967 and 1968, spoke of the "karmic debt" he owes for what he did in Vietnam, and how the anti-war work he is doing now is part of that. He pointed the crowd to the afterdowningstreet.com site.
  
• Rabbi Art Waskow, Philadelphia, whose cries for "Shalom! Salaam! Peace!" rang out through the crowd. (Check out his piece on Frist, here.)
  
• Dante Zappala, son of Celeste and brother of Sherwood Baker, spoke about how his brother was killed (searching for WMDs), how divided the country is, and how embracing others' losses as our own is the key to finding common cause.
• Sherie Cohen, Philadelphia, sent a message from her dad, City Councilman David Cohen reiterating support for the resolution and calling on the crowd to pressure their representatives to end the war.
• Kellisa Stanley, Texas, whose husband at Fort Hood did a one-year tour of duty in Iraq and is scheduled for redeployment next year, said she had 2 exit strategies for the troops: "Boat. And plane." She spoke of the fear with which she lived while her husband was in Iraq, waiting with dread each day between 6 to 10 a.m., because those are the hours during which the military is allowed to deliver the news of a death to a soldier's family.
  
• Patrick Resta, Philadelphia, with Iraq Veterans Against the War, served as a combat medic from February to November, 2004. His aunt and uncle were killed in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. He wondered why a 28-yr. old friend in his platoon had to die when an explosion tore into his behicle because 1/2" sheets of plywood had been nailed into his Humvee instead of the armor that should have been there. He wondered, because as he said, there were plenty of armored Humvees---they were used to go to meetings and USO shows, but not for patrols. He talked of people dying because the paperwork needed to release them couldn't be done. He talked of his own fears and anger because he had to buy his own body armor; because he was issued a gas mask that was useless because it didn't fit; because just before going into combat he was issued a rifle he'd never held, never sighted or been able to prep.
  
• Vince George, West Virginia, of Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out, talked about being an Arab-American with a brother in the National Guard who was previously in Kosovo before being orderd up to Iraq. His "fascist gangsters" remark referencing Bushco got an especially heartfelt hand from the crowd. He, too, called for impeachment, saying the next election needs 11 seats taken back from the Republicans to get it done.
  
• Pat Bonner(sp?), PA, has a son in the PA National Guard who was sent to Egypt to police their elections. She wanted to know what we would think of having them come here to do the same to us. She was a firebrand, leveling war crimes charges at Bushco, and calling for revolution.
  
• Lietta Ruger, Washington state, with Military Families Speak Out, has a son in law and nephew in Germany who have served extended 15-month tours of duty in Iraq and are presently under “stop loss” orders. They are scheduled to deploy to Iraq this fall. She said we must always challenge a president to define the mission before jumping into war.
  
• Jeff Key, Alabama, a Marine reservist who served in Iraq in 2003, was easily the most charming and charismatic of the speakers. A friendly, almost puppy-like, young gay man, he spoke in a sweet drawl of the early idealism that led him to join the Marines, and finished up by pointing at the Liberty Bell on the other side of the street behind him, saying the first time he saw the layers of bulletproof plastic in which it was encased, he wondered where the bell was. "Then I saw it. It's kinda like America now...it's obscured, but I know it's still there somewhere."
  
• Beatriz Saldivar, Texas, a Gold Star Families for Peace member. Her nephew Daniel Torres was killed in action on February 4th, 2005 in Baygii, Iraq on his second tour of Iraq due to stop loss orders after an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) exploded and hit his unarmored Humvee. He left behind a pregnant fiancee whose baby is due this weekend.
  
• U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah, Philadelphia, spoke words of encouragement, and of how more and more folks are agreeing that we were miled into war with lies. He spoke of meeting Cassandra Bryan at Walter Reed hospital, where she was sent to recover after losing both legs in Iraq, and he spoke of the thousands of others severely injured.
• And finally, Cindy Sheehan herself. She told of her initial hesitancy in becoming an activist because "I thought one person can't make a difference. Then I said, 'If I can't make a difference, at least I'll know I tried. I can look at myself in the mirror, and tell my grandchildren that I tried.'" She spoke of "Bush's insane & moronic policies", and of the Bush chickenhawks, how they wouldn't risk dying for their country when they had a chance to, but now want to send others to again do their dying for them. She spoke about their "dangerous incompetence". She talked about the reasons put forth by Bushco for the war: Freedom & Democracy ("An Islamic constitution is not a democracy that takes rights away from women, that gives power to a puppet leadership"); and Keeping America Safer ("How did it make America safer to invade a country that was no threat to us? Why are their babies more important than our babies? Katerina proved that we're more vulnerable now because of this war").

Cindy finished as volunteers circulated through the crowd with candles for a candle-lighting ceremony at the end of the night, saying that "It's not about politics, or who's a Republican or Democrat. It's about flesh and blood. It's about life and death." She talked about the tour, and how they would end up in D.C. for the anti-war march, and invited the crowd to join them there. Jeff Key played taps as he had done in Crawford, while we stood in silence, remembering the dead and maimed.

When we disbanded, I felt good about my country. It's been a long time since that happened.

Editor's note: Special thanks to Monique Frugier for the photos.

(Crossposted at the new Correntewire.)

Modo seems to have had a religious conversion or something. Finally, she gets it... It be even more comforting to think that MoDo knows Bush is on the way down, and is starting to get in her licks now:

In a ruined city - still largely without power, stinking with piles of garbage and still 40 percent submerged; where people are foraging in the miasma and muck for food, corpses and the sentimental detritus of their lives; and where unbearably sad stories continue to spill out about hordes of evacuees who lost their homes and patients who died in hospitals without either electricity or rescuers - isn't it rather tasteless, not to mention a waste of energy, to haul in White House generators just to give the president a burnished skin tone and a prettified background?
(Times, A15)

Is that a question?

It would almost be worththe $49.95 to see MoDo stamping, with her stilletto heels, on ....

So, the Republican social engineering begins. They're going to house the Katrina exiles in fucking trailers, oh, I'm sorry, mobile homes, for the couple of years it will Halliburton to make its nut by turning New Orleans into a gated community for rich fucks. Gag. The only stench worse than mud-covered dead bodies is live Republican hypocrisy.

"President Bush acts to suspend Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, thereby slashing wages to poverty levels."

Look here and here and just Google this till you can't sit still and you write letters and you make noise. For those who didn't drown in the water Bush is fashioning a length of economic chains, the better to keep the lines straight. Damn him past the provinces of God.

+++

Hey there mister, got a job for you
Get yourself a hammer and some workin' shoes
Come down to the office, take a look around
You're gonna help to build us a brand new town

Hey there mister, there is work to be done
You'll sleep like a baby, you will rise with the sun
Carry that lumber, dig some holes
Don't get no mud on the boss's Rolls

(chorus)
Turn the clock back, we're on the run
It's 1930 and there's work to be done
Do the work
Do the work
Let's build America
Let's do the work
Do the work
If your heart is breaking, shake it off
We're the living, let's do the work

Hey, I know that guy, back from Iraq
Lost his friend in a sniper attack
Ready to help in his community
He has fought to keep us free

In his eyes I see the desert sky
Bombs going off just like the 4th of July
Got himself a job here for the minimum wage
He ain't yet 26 but he's showin' his age

(chorus)
Turn the clock back, we're on the run
It's 1930 and there's work to be done
Do the work
Do the work
Let's build America
Let's do the work
Do the work
If your heart is breaking, shake it off
We're the living, let's do the work

One day all the business' will open their doors
Filled with trinkets that sparkle in the happy stores
Ladies from Lafayette will wander by
Steppin' around that homeless guy

Make a movie of the moment, zoom on in
Take a look at the eyes of a veteran
There are many who washed up on the shore
Every day there are more and more

(chorus)
Turn the clock back, we're on the run
It's 1930 and there's work to be done
Do the work
Do the work
Let's build America
Let's do the work
Do the work
If your heart is breaking, shake it off
We're the living, let's do the work

+++

(Author's confession: I could not stop Randy Newman from influencing this song, no matter how hard I tried his "Good Old Boys" album, along with "Sail Away" would not let me be.)

Image of homeless migrant worker from here.

+++

he editors of our free press have decided that reporters can use anonymous sources, as long as the sources give a reason for being anonymous—giving rise to a literary micro-genre. I googled on “Spoke on condition of anonymity because” and got

1. Spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution (WaPo)

And many more at the renovated Corrente...

+++

I received the following e-mail from a friend who lived in New Orleans, who has maintained the tradition of Red Beans & Rice Mondays for a good, long time.

Hi
I will be cooking Red Beans and Rice at the Edendale Grill on Monday, the 19th, and perhaps every Monday for a while. The purpose is to raise money to send to the Musicians Relief fund, which takes care of New Orleans musicians, and their family's, needs.

http://www.denverpost.com/music/ci_3013501
http://www.wwoz.org/clinic/
http://www.jazzfoundation.org/new_orleans.php
http://jazz.about.com/od/grantsfoundations/a/nolahelp.htm

Come on down. It's a good cause. The money goes directly, without 'staff' expenses between your donation and the recipients. I had thought about doing this here at my house, but realized I could raise way more money there.

The Edendale opens at 5, but dinner will be served starting at 6, until around 10.
See you on Monday
Janet

The Edendale Grill is located in Silverlake, CA, just south of Hyperion and north of Glendale Blvd. It is in what had been a fire house for many decades. As this event will continue on consecutive Mondays, I think I have a new short-term tradition that will satisify my soul on many levels.

The vitals:

Edendale Grill
2838 Rowena Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90039

(323) 666-2000 tel.
(323) 666-2442 fax.

I hope to arrive around 6:30 or 7:00. Hope to see many, many faces there, and I hope to hear some good jazz too!

+++

Image from here.

+++

Speaking of activism, I'll be on hand at the Peace Rally this evening. From the time I was a little kid, I was never a joiner, and I hated clubs and organizations. But Bush has lit a fire under me like I've never felt, and I want to be heard, be seen, and be a force for change beyond this kvetching I do here and elsewhere. No, not everyone is cut out to march in the streets, and no, it isn't a condition for being a real activist and a good person. But it is something I feel in my soul to be what's right for me, and I will be becoming more and more of a street-fighting progressive in the months to come, because I'm so fucking mad I can't help it.

Stolen from PA For Democracy, for folks in the Philadelphia area:

The Bring Them Home Now Tour has launched three buses from Crawford, Texas, each carrying military and Gold Star families, veterans of the Iraq War and veterans of previous wars. These buses will travel different routes across the country, converging in Washington, DC on September 21, for the United for Peace and Justice Mobilization September 24th-26th.

11:30 AM--Gold Star Families award area AFL-CIO leaders for their work to end the war. AFL-CIO Headquarters, 22 South 22^nd Street. (More info: 215-945-3350 or 215-741-1980.)

5-7 PM--Rally for Peace at Independence Hall, 5th and market Sts., Philadelphia

Saturday, Sept. 17:

Noon to Evening--Camp Gold Star at Lemon Hill Park Meet with Gold Star Parents and Iraq Vets. (Latest info, call 610-832-7028)

For local info: 610-832-7028 - For tour info: http://www.bringthemhomenowtour.org/

Now that I have your attention, forget humor for a moment and come with me to the world of boring, serious reality.

Today I want to talk about my I’m a depressed, prone to heavy drinking slouch with no spirit for activism. Actually, I have spirit for activism in spades, just not of the traditional kind so much. Here’s a section from an entry on my favorite topic, electronic voting, from the people formerly known as Disinfopedia, now Source Watch:

"Whoever certified that code as secure should be fired," said Avi Rubin , technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins and co-author of the report. He is one of about 900 computer scientists in the U.S., including the founder of the GNU e-democracy project (who has now abandoned it due to unresolved concerns about inherent problems of voting electronically), who has issued grave warnings about voting by computer. In India, the protest has been even more widespread, as the ruling party has proceeded with automating the electoral process uniformly nation-wide - in a democracy of over one billion people, and few resources to challenge results.

According to the Post, "Rubin analyzed portions of Diebold software source code that was mistakenly left on a public Internet site and concluded that a teenager could manufacture "smart cards" and vote several times. Further, he said, insiders could program the machine to alter election results without detection. All machines had the same password hard-wired into the code. And in some instances, it was set at 1111, a number laughably easy to hack. Because there is no paper or electronic auditing system in the machine, there would be no way to reconstruct an actual vote, Rubin said."

In October 2003, Andrew Gumbel reported in the Independent (UK) that " Next year's US presidential election may be compromised by new voting machines that computer scientists believe are unreliable, poorly programmed and prone to tampering."

"An investigation published in today's Independent reveals tens of thousands of touch screen voting machines may be less reliable than the old punchcards, which famously stalled the presidential election in Florida in 2000, leaving the whole election open to international ridicule.

If you go to the link, all the important words are hyperlinked, and there’s a nice CV of text based info on the subject as well.

This post was prompted by the good people over Raw Story and BradBlog, who drop this little bomb of an interview:

In exclusive stunning admissions to The BRAD BLOG some 11 months after the 2004 Presidential Election, a "Diebold Insider" is now finally speaking out for the first time about the alarming security flaws within Diebold, Inc's electronic voting systems, software and machinery. The source is acknowledging that the company's "upper management" -- as well as "top government officials" -- were keenly aware of the "undocumented backdoor" in Diebold's main "GEM Central Tabulator" software well prior to the 2004 election. A branch of the Federal Government even posted a security warning on the Internet.

Pointing to a little-noticed "Cyber Security Alert" issued by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the source inside Diebold -- who "for the time being" is requesting anonymity due to a continuing sensitive relationship with the company -- is charging that Diebold's technicians, including at least one of its lead programmers, knew about the security flaw and that the company instructed them to keep quiet about it.

"Diebold threatened violators with immediate dismissal," the insider, who we'll call DIEB-THROAT, explained recently to The BRAD BLOG via email. "In 2005, after one newly hired member of Diebold's technical staff pointed out the security flaw, he was criticized and isolated."

In phone interviews, DIEB-THROAT confirmed that the matters were well known within the company, but that a "culture of fear" had been developed to assure that employees, including technicians, vendors and programmers kept those issues to themselves.

The "Cyber Security Alert" from US-CERT was issued in late August of 2004 and is still available online via the US-CERT website . The alert warns that "A vulnerability exists due to an undocumented backdoor account, which could [ sic: allow] a local or remote authenticated malicious user [ sic: to] modify votes."

Again, plenty of live links in the body of the text for your perusal.

Now, I’m prone to intense moments of CTism, and proudly don my chapeau de foil when I get going, usually after a couple of glasses of cheap Australian wine. But even when I’m serious, I can’t shake the feeling that something is very, very wrong with voting in this country. After all, even if most political discourse is a game, filled with rhetoric and nonsense designed to distract people from the real issues, you’d think politicians would at least care that the people they go to all that trouble to manipulate into voting for them will have those votes properly tabulated?

Well, the problem seems to me to be entirely one sided. I don’t want to reveal his name, as he was kind enough to promptly respond to my e-mail, but I had an exchange last year with one of Kerry’s “legal team” a professor at a top-ten university law school, about the OH results and other areas that were in question (at least in the minds of us following e-voting issues). He had written a nice op-ed in a leading national daily about OH, and while it was good to see this issue in print, the wording of the piece struck me as all together too timid, and basically not in anyway reflective of the seriousness of the problem or possibility it entailed for representative democracy. I said as much to him in the e-mail, and he responded that essentially, he and most members of Kerry’s team were “just learning about the problem” and didn’t really understand it very well.

There have been several bills introduced into the House relating to such ‘fixes’ as making electronic machines produce a paper trail, and other suggestions about how to increase the level of confidence people feel for computerized voting. Russ Holt has introduced at least two that I know of. Interestingly, there haven’t been any Republican co-sponors for these bills. Not that they’re into bipartisanship so much, but still, you’d think a couple of them would worry for a future day then Democrats were in power, and the system could be used against Republican interests. Yet that’s not a concern. Hmmmm.

Very simply, problems with electronic voting have become so widespread, and so well documented, that it’s an issue well beyond CT land and one that sits squarely in the mainstream. I can think of stories I’ve read, solid well researched pieces in major publications, detailing problems in CA, NC, TX, FL and of course OH. Click on the links provided so far and follow the rabbit hole, I promise you it goes very, very deep.

I have two points to make about what this means for 06. The first is that people concerned with this issue shouldn’t assume that the Republicans have a master computer hidden somewhere in Virginia that’s linked to every voting machine in the nation, and which they control with the push of a button. That may be true, but it’s probably not- a more subtle and more difficult to track method is being employed, I think. As many researchers on the issue have noted, vote tampering doesn’t have to happen everywhere, just a few strategically located precincts. One large precinct can turn the results for a whole region, and when there are a lot of votes to be tallied, it’s “more likely” that unusual results are statistical probabilities. It’s a very hard thing to do, even for computer experts and dedicated activists, to predict, observe and prove vote tampering in the areas in which it occurs- we just can’t know which the tamperers will choose.

Adjunct to this point is that the old-fashioned, time honored methods of vote tampering are also still a concern. One needn’t fuck with electronic vote tallies if one prevents people from voting in the first place. OH is the prime example here, where in 2004 thousands of people in urban areas and on college campuses were give insufficient numbers of voting machines, resulting in long lines and probably fewer (Democratic) votes. There are also ID scams, intimidation, voter ‘tests’ and all the other tricks that have been employed for decades, mainly to keep black people from voting but I’m sure still used today for anyone leaning left. So we have to remember not to underestimate those who’d prevent democratic representation from happening. They use lots of tricks, and fruadulent tallying of e-voting is only one way that can happen.

The second point I’d like to make is about the word “moot.” As in, everything else progressive and liberals do to get a Democratic majority in 06 is a complete waste of time until we have some kind of guarantee that votes will be counted. Now, I’m not naive enough to suggest we can have 100% of the votes counted and 100% of voters who want to vote voting. Shit, I’d settle for 87% at this point, and I know we’ve never had a truly free and fair election in the history of this country. But when one reviews the long, depressing list of races in 2000. 2002, and 2004 that had very questionable results, counting methods and/or verification procedures, it becomes obvious that if something isn’t done soon, we may as all start singing Deutschland Uber Alles and be done with it.

I am honestly puzzled, frightened and confused by the lack of Democratic leadership on this issue. Truly- even the most sold out corporate DINO hack has got to worry that his seat isn’t secure enough to prevent a more sold out more corporate Republican hack from taking his place. But they don’t. I don’t know if this is because the consultants are telling them the issue “doesn’t play in Peroria” or because it really is a giant conspiracy and the “opposition” is in on the game. But whatever the reason keeping them back, Democrats are beyond the level of Chamberlinesque stupidity and naiveté for not making this a central focus.

I was just reading about the leader of Jewish quarter in Lodz during WWII, Chiam Rumkowski. You may remember him, for his policies of “saving the body by cutting off a limb” in which he worked with the Nazis, and sent off some groups of Jews to the gas chambers in the hope that the rest could be spared. None were, and he himself was shipped off on the last train. I wonder if his Nazi masters laughed as he went.

No I don’t.

I’m not going to get into “what can be done” about the machines themselves, as there are too many issues I don’t fully understand. One I do: it’s probably already too late, assuming every Republican was personally visited by God today and had a change of heart and voted in favor of Holt’s bill, to replace the currently installed voting machines with ones that could be trusted, if there is such a thing. I vote in a small town in rural WI, and we used paper, pencils and a box guarded by two old ladies who play bridge with my mom. As far as I could tell, my vote was counted and it didn’t cost much to do so. In my opinion, this system could be employed everywhere, even in initiative heavy states, simply by reducing the number of people who vote in a single location. More places to vote, fewer people voting there, and paper and pencil that everyone can use. Don’t hand me that crap about the blind or otherwise disabled not being able to vote in this system- I worked in a group home for severely disabled people long enough to know that there are ways to protect their rights and people motivated to do so. Those people can help them vote, even as the rest of us accept that there’s nothing wrong with simplicity, especially in voting. IIRC, it’s how they do it in Canada, and results are in the same night.

Crap, this post got long, so I’ll wrap it up with this: every time you open your mouth to speak of politics, to your lover, family, coworkers and friends, and most especially when you talk to a politician or their representative, BRING UP THIS ISSUE. If you don’t, all the marches and letters and e-mails in the world aren’t going to make a rat’s ass worth of difference. There is literally no other issue more important than this in 06. I welcome suggestions and comments about how best to address this problem.

One thing is clear: the Democratic leadership isn’t doing shit about it. That leaves it in our hands. Don’t give yourself a future in which you look out from behind bars waiting your turn for the torture chamber, wishing desperately that you’d gotten off your fat ass back in 2005, when the last threads of democracy were still strong enough to have prevented its death.

What did it take to get this man's attention? Thousands of deaths, that's what. Four years, and one election cycle, after 9/11! Unbelievable? All too believable

Disaster planning must be a "national security priority," he said, while ordering the Homeland Security Department to undertake an immediate review of emergency plans in every major American city.

"Our cities must have clear and up-to-date plans for responding to natural disasters and disease outbreaks or a terrorist attack, for evacuating large numbers of people in an emergency and for providing the food and water and security they would need," Bush said.
(via AP)

And notice, not a word about doing a little prevention—like protecting America's port cities from loose nukes.

Hey, what are the odds the Republicans are actually going to fund this mandate? New York is still waiting for the rest of its 9/11 money!

According to the Grey Lady,

President Bush said three things last night that desperately needed to be said. He forthrightly acknowledged his responsibility for the egregious mishandling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He spoke clearly and candidly about race and poverty. And finally, he was clear about what would be needed to bring back the Gulf Coast and said the federal government would have to lead and pay for that effort.

Really? Let's go to the tape:

"Forthrightly acknowleg[ing] his responsibility":

I consider detailed emergency planning to be a national security priority. And therefore, I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to undertake an immediate review, in cooperation with local counterparts, of emergency plans in every major city in America. I also want to know all the facts about the government response to Hurricane Katrina. The storm involved a massive flood, a major supply and security operation, and an evacuation order affecting more than a million people.

Translation: I didn't do it.

"Speaking clearly and candidly about race":

That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.

Translation: It was broke when I got here.

What needs to be done:

And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely.

Translation: Taxpayers as-yet unborn will pay for all this. Now who wants some free pie?

Once again, as he did after 9/11, Mr. Bush has responded to disaster with disconcerting uncertainty, then risen to the occasion later. Once again, he has delivered a speech that will reassure many Americans that he understands the enormity of the event and the demands of leadership to come.

Yes, those Americans who think we found WMD in Iraq will be reassured. Also people who think they really won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

But there are plenty of reasons for concern. After 9/11, Mr. Bush responded not only with a stirring speech at the ruins of the World Trade Center and a principled response to the Taliban in Afghanistan. He also decided to invade Iraq, and he tried to do it on the cheap - with disastrous results, for which the country continues to pay every day.

Yes, that was the only problem: we didn't spend enough money to unnecessarily and mendaciously invade a country that had not attacked us.

This time, Mr. Bush must come up with a more coherent and well-organized follow-through.

Because, you know, a more incoherent, disorganized--not to mention dishonest and callous--follow-through would be something we really don't want to think about.

An unindicted co-conspirator sent me this. If you're planning to head for DC for the antiwar rally on the 24th, maybe leave a little early?

Drilling would devastate one of America's last great wild places. And, contrary to claims from the pro-drilling lobby, it would do nothing to alleviate high gas prices. Oil and gas from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge wouldn't hit the market for 10 years and even then would provide less than a one-year supply! Lawmakers plan to vote in just weeks on the Budget Reconciliation Act, which is widely expected to legalize harmful oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Activists from all over the country will rally in Washington on September 20 in support of the refuge. Sign up for the rally now or send a message to your Senators and Representative in Congress. This may be our last chance to save this special place. Will you help?

The caribou will thank you.

+++

The storm it was a coming up the whole damn coast
It caught us with our pants down, and turned us into toast
It broke down a few levees, a thing quite unforeseen
And the waters flooded into town, they flooded New Orleans

The government was set to go, was chomping at the bit
It made itself a pot of joe and lit a cigarette
It went outside in darkness and loaded up the truck
Then stood awhile and stretched a bit, before it passed the buck

The government came riding, true heros with a plan
They made the calls that mattered, they took a manly stand
They organized the rescue teams, and put them next to cops
They proved they were so talented at staging photo ops

The President he showed up, weary from his rest
All those days in Crawford had not left him at his best
He strode into the daylight, the hero of the town
He could not hear the clapping of the floaters all face down

The President admired the work of FEMA's number one
He joked about Trent Lott's house, his moment in the sun
It's just another party for the leader of the land
New Orleans lay in ruins while George Bush struck up the band

When history is written, when all is said and done
Remember all the good things, and all the good clean fun
The city will be built again, and jazz will fill the air
And Mardi Gras will walk on by with ghosts from everywhere

+++

(the voice I heard singing these lyrics belonged to Johnny Cash, a man eternal)

Image from here.

Crossposted at Correntewire and at Mortaljive.

+++

Snarfle. Sigh. Heaves bottle under bed.

It looks like even Bush's speech writers are deserting the ship. Or somebody read the speech to him wrong over His earpiece:

I am speaking to you from the city of New Orleans, nearly empty, still partly underwater, and waiting for life and hope to return.
(via AP)

Because if you read the actual words, "nearly empty," "partly underwater," and "waiting for life and hope to return" all apply to the subject of the sentence—Bush himself!

So, let's fill in a little context, striking out the subordinate clause:

I am speaking to you from the city of New Orleans, [my mind, heart, and soul] nearly empty, [the polls] still partly underwater, and waiting for life and hope to return [in the form of billions of dollars for Halliburton to loot].

Say, this project is going to go on for a long time, right? Who'll take bets on the idea that Bush is going to get a big-pay, no-show job reconstructing the New New Orleans? Say, at Halliburton?

UPDATE Egad, I just plowed through the thing. Did it seem as long as it reads?

Frederick Douglass said it (albeit in a different context):

Men in earnest don't fight with one hand, when they might fight with two, and a man drowning would not refuse to be saved even by a colored hand.

Bush finally sinks below 40% approval rating in 2 polls:

1. Ipsos-AP 39% overall approval, 59% disapproval; and
2. Newsweek 38% overall approval, 55% disapproval.

Ruy Texiera at Donkey Rising has more good news:

"Other polls report approval ratings that are exactly at 40 percent or only slightly above: Pew Research Center (40 percent in two different polls, September 6-7 and September 8-12); Zogby (41 percent); CBS News, Time/SRBI and Washington Post/ABC News (all at 42 percent). (Note that in the ABC poll, the 57 percent who disapprove of Bush’s job performance includes 45 percent who strongly disapprove, an amazing finding.)"

He concludes with a bit from E.J.Dionne that is simply heart-warming, but his own conclusion isn't bad either:

"So: the public now has a negative view of Bush’s job performance overall and in every area, including handling the war on terror, and has lost faith in Bush’s special qualities as a leader. What’s left? Not much. The bond between Bush and the American people has clearly been broken, perhaps irrevocably. An administration that was once defined in the public eye with competence and patriotism is now associated with cronyism and incompetence of the worst sort."

Too bad it took untold torment and needless deaths yet uncounted to get it through our thick skulls.

Because he enables torture, naturally!

I saw this by Nat Hentoff in (of all places) the Bucks County Courier Times print edition, but, for some reason, in, oh, the Times or anything:

[A] key decision on the president's view of his powers as commander in chief, Judge Roberts joined with two of his colleagues in the recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld; the ruling gave this and succeeding presidents the unreviewable power to bypass civilian courts -- and previous due-process protections of our military courts -- in the treatment of prisoners suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan has been a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for three years. He is now being put before a military commission (a process invented by the Bush administration), which prevents Hamdan from being in the room during crucial parts of the hearing. In addition, his attorney cannot see secret evidence against Hamdan. Moreover, the presiding officer can admit previous evidence extracted by torture. Most crucially, the final appeal is only to President Bush or his designee.

As Emily Bazelon -- a legal issues writer for Slate and contributing editor to Yale's Legal Affairs magazine -- emphasizes: "Roberts signed on to a blank-check grant of power to the Bush administration to try suspected terrorists without basic due-process protections."

Yet in Rasul et al v. Bush, the Supreme Court, in a 6-to-3 vote (with Sandra Day O'Connor in the majority) ruled on June 28, 2004, that noncitizens detained in Guantanamo Bay are entitled to due process before a neutral official body. However, in addition to the Bush military commissions denying the basic elements of due process, Hamdan's appeal brief to the Supreme Court by Georgetown University law professor Neil Katyal makes this telling point:

New York Times reporter Neil Lewis disclosed on Aug. 1, 2005, that some of the military prosecutors involved in Hamdan's proceedings were so concerned at its lack of fairness that they charged "the chief prosecutor had told his subordinates that the members of the military commission that would try the first four defendants (including Hamdan) would be 'handpicked' to ensure that all would be convicted."

In deciding this case, Judge Roberts also accepted "without reservation" the government's argument that strips U.S. detainees of the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners, which this country had ratified.

Jonathan Freiman, an expert appellate attorney involved in this case and a senior fellow at Yale Law School, points out that in this part of the ruling, Roberts disregarded "the plain text of the Constitution's Supremacy clause, which unambiguously states 'all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.'" Keep in mind, adds Freiman, the Geneva Conventions are a treaty that "binds this nation to the rest of the civilized world."

It's not surprising, therefore, that Yale Law School professor Oona Hathaway, a former clerk to Justice O'Connor, whom Roberts would replace, told The New York Times on July 24, 2005, that the elevation of Roberts "could recenter the court" in the direction of unchecked presidential powers.

The Hamdan decision goes far beyond the specific case itself. It also encompasses the abuses of prisoners, such as torture, beyond Guantanamo Bay -- ongoing crimes that Congress so far has refused to fully investigate up the chain of command.
(via Decatur Daily Democrat)

So much for all that crap about deference and humility and precedent and all that.

Roberts is a made man. I don't care how cute his kids are.

Say, wasn't Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that case that Roberts had not yet decided in Bush's favor, at the same time Bush was interviewing him for a job? Of course it was. Why then didn't Roberts recuse himself? The question answers itself, doesn't it?

So, Bush is going to have billions at Halliburton "folks" in Louisiana.

Reminds me of the kind of drunk Dad who rolls in, trashes the house, gropes the sitter, starts screaming abuse, and then crashes in front of a blasting TV while Mom and the kids hide out upstairs.

And in the morning he goes out and buys a whole lot of expensive gifts you don't really like to make up for it.

And acts like nothing's happened.

From Counterpunch comes a story authored by Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, who were in New Orelans attending an EMS conference at the time of Hurricane Katrina's arrival. Trapped in town for days, they at one point organized and made for the New Orleans Bridge, having been assured by local police that buses awaited them on the other side...

As we approached the bridge, armed sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions.

Let the games begin.

+++

Atrios points us to a discussion by Matt Yglesias over at Tapped, that like a lot of “mainstream” stuff I read, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

But in the back and forth about Hillary, and the war as an issue the dems should or shouldn’t ‘run on,’ I found myself having this thought. Bear with me as I get a little less cynical and think strategically.

First off, Hackett proved that with the right candidates, Dems can win (or come damn close to it) even in the Reddest zones of the country. And seeing as how this is OH we’re talking about, who even knows that he lost....but I’ll shelve that thinking for a moment. The point is that loud, angry, tough and pro-soldier/anti-war is a solid combination, one that will likely work in 06.

Now we have Katrina in the mix, and while that’s a crisis that ‘only’ affects poor black people, it’s still the case that people aren’t so happy to see an entire American city lost like Atlantis. That anger isn’t going to go away, however muted or buried under fresh seasons of American Idol it may become. The anger won’t go away because the bill for it will arrive right around the time that the teevee has caused most Americans’ eyes to glaze over with aspic-sugary layers of HDTV happiness. And while Joe Six Pack may not know what that bill is, he will know the bill that comes in the form of reduced unemployment benefits, higher real taxation, no medical coverage, floundering schools for his kids, and every other state or federal service that is cut to feed the twin horrors of Bush’s war to enrich Halliburton and the Disaster that funded Brown & Root. There’s that $4/gal gas thing too,. Which impacts those really unimportant things like food, AC/heating costs, getting to work, etc.

Anyway, I guess what I’m getting at is that for once, the political landscape will be so heavily in our favor as to be almost impossible for Bush’s opposition to lose. Note I say “opposition” and not “democrats.” The Democratic Party has yet to show that it’s an opposition party, beyond a few lonely voices in the CBC and the excellent Dr. Dean. But there’s still time for that to change. Whatever language Yglesias is accustomed to probably isn’t going to be helpful, that is, the language of Hillary and Lieberman and other insider types who love sucking 9-time loser consultant cock. Plain language, language filled with anger, passion, heck, even old fashioned patriotism, that cuts through the nonstop lies upon which at this point even the Dittoheads are choking.

I always said the man they feared most was Dean. And I always wondered why they tried to stick the angry label on him, what’s wrong with a little anger? I’ve since realized that it’s the one thing they can’t counter effectively, the thing they’re most afraid of, the thing that even the sheeple-murkin can relate to and enjoy. The thing that cuts through their happy-shiny-feel-good cowboy schtick, and keeps a base active and motivated.

If the dems where smart, and yes, I know most of the aren’t, they’d do a couple of things nonstop from now until 06.

-Get angry.
-Stay angry.
-Talk in plain, blunt terms about why they are angry.
-Use words like “lie,” and “cheat” and “steal” and “kill.” preferably in the same sentence as “rove” and “bush.” over and over and over.
-Drop the congressional ball and stand at the side of the field. Let the rethugs pass whatever they want, set up whichever crony they can find, hold all the dog-and-pony show hearings they’d like. Stay on message. “This nomination is a farce, because the nominee is a crony and a liar.” “This bill is nothing more than more money for Halliburton, which has already cheated American taxpayers out of $2.5Billion in a war based on lies.” Hold up a piece of proof while doing so.

And most importantly, don’t shy away from the camera. Call the Timmehs and Needras of the world “liars” to their faces- let them disprove it, mock them as they try. Put on a good show! And look like you’re having fun while doing it.

The Republicans have brought back fascism. To many, it looks mean and manly and fun and sexy all at the same time. But most people are also starting to feel a personal cost to this kind of game in government. It’s time to make our stand, the moon and stars are aligned, and what I’m proposing won’t require Americans to change from their conditioning from the last six years very much. As a product, it’ll feel new and fresh. As a strategy, it will entice new supporters to come out for the Democrats and old ones to get happy, active and confident again. Wins all around.

No, I don’t think any Dem of note will read this, follow it as advice, or care that I wrote it. But I felt like saying it.

+++

I pledge forbearance
To the clothtacular stars & stripes
Of the Omnivorous States of Plutocracy Heights
And to the lock-step Republicans
With cash in hands
Insatiable
Der obere Vater gewährt Wünsche*
With Liberty and Justice for people who can afford such perks
Ahem

+++

Now, class, let's turn to page 61 and find out why Adam liked the Velociraptors best...

+++

Crossposted at Mortaljive.

Image of Über Pater from here.

+++

*"The Upper Father Grants Wishes"

+++

Apologies to* XTC

Book Alert: Chris Mooney, much like the Ross Ice Shelf, has embarked on a world tour. Well, at least a book tour.

Leah wrote about Chris recently here, and covered his new book, The Republican War on Science, she wrote here, and got Corrente a mention on his website, no less.

He interviewed on the BBC 2 weeks ago, and impressed me so much I did some research on him and remarked on it here. Now he will be on Terry Gross' Fresh Air today, on those NPR/Public Radio stations that carry her show.

This is what Chris has to say about the impending interview:

"My interview with Terry Gross is slated to air tomorrow (Sept 15th). It appears that it will be paired with at least some commentary from GOP science policy spokesman Robert Walker. That should be interesting; I doubt Walker will be writing a love letter to the book."

Interesting at the very least.

As usual, the audio of the interview will be made available later today on the website linked here. As good a reason as any to keep supporting NPR and your local public radio.


Photo from Mooney website, taken by Saheli.

You know there are times when you really have to hand it to the Bush White House. They'll do and say absolutely anything to save their political bacon. Anything. They'll betray their own values, conservatism, fiscal responsibility, everything that they supposedly hold dear -- all to save their own asses.

Anyway, let's go ahead and recap the situation: Your administration has just badly bungled the response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster to the tune of (probably) more than a thousand dead. Predictably, poll numbers are dropping fast, nearing Nixonian low points. This president is likely to go down as the least popular on average since Herbert Hoover. Heck, I suspect Jimmy Carter was more popular probably on average than this guy has been.

So, here's your administration's "solution" to this political problem: Propose an enormous aid package to rebuild the Gulf Coast -- estimates I'm hearing now are on the order of $200B in addition to the $60B you've already appropriated. Look at that number again, folks. That's $260B more borrowed to pay for these projects. And you've hemmed your opponents in politically by doing this. Any criticism can be portrayed as unpatriotic and even (get this) "racist" (and I assure you it will be).

What will be the consequences of this "solution?": A deficit that will soon be consuming so much of our annual outlays that there will be no room for funding anything. This will lead to a deficit problem like we've never seen before I suspect. And then W will hand off this fiscal disaster to his successor and head off into the sunset.

Now, folks, don't get me wrong. I think this sort of program sounds like a good idea. I would just suggest that we actually figure out a way to actually pay for it. How about you? Why don't we roll back W's tax cuts and actually raise taxes on the rich folks a bit? If we did that, then we could afford this.

And who will benefit from this enormous aid package? Eventually, of course, the people of the Gulf Coast but the real winners will be the president's corporate cronies. Halliburton will be rolling in dough.

It'll cost two or three times as much as it would if we'd actually follow federal bidding guidelines but, hey, who wants to do that? Why, when you can enrich your corporate contributors, would you ever do that?

The sheer mendacity and amoral political opportunism behind this thing is absolutely amazing.

I really don't know what else to say. I'm at a loss.

Here’s some reading that will piss you off, if you care about things like money and fairness in government contracts and the rights of a sovereign people:

Similarly, a United Nations sanctioned audit concluded that about half of the $5 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds could not be accounted for because of poor financial controls, according to the "Development Fund of Iraq-Report of Factual Findings in connection with Disbursements from January 1, 2004 to 28 June 2004, by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, in September 2004

Until the summer of 2004, the CPA refused to release the names of companies that were awarded contracts paid for with Iraqi funds. Although information was available about US funded contracts, there was no public information available about companies paid with Iraqi money. In August 2004, information was finally made available for contracts valued at more than $5 million. But to this day, no details have been released about contracts worth less than $5 million.

An analysis of the data released in August 2004, showed that the CPA had awarded 85% of the contracts to US and UK firms. By contrast, Iraqi companies received a mere 2% of the contracts paid for with Iraqi funds.

and of course, the money quote:

But the fact remains that Halliburton received 60% of all contracts paid for with Iraqi money, even after it was proven time and time again that its projects involved fraud on every front, from paying over $6 million in kickbacks to a Kuwaiti contractor; to charging for three times as many meals as the company actually served to soldiers; to spending millions on laundry and monogrammed towels; to running up costs by driving empty trucks back and forth across Iraq; to leasing overpriced vehicles from Kuwaiti purchasing offices.

So the fact that the same people who brought you a ‘reconstructed’ iraq are going to bring you New New Orleans is very comforting, I’m sure. Especially to this young man.

Freedom isn't free. 21 just yesterday. Was once religious, no longer believe. God wouldn't allow such pain. The war is against religion, must stop it to defend the country. Almost in tears. Knee blown out. Chest. Scar. Fighting for brothers. Fighting with brothers. No one understands. honor. repeat. honor. Fighting for country. Captured. Razor. No air support when needed. Politics. Will fight for country. Children. Killed. Honor. Freedom. Fighting for country. No one understands. 14 months. Honor. Brothers. Dude, have a beer. Tag some pussy. Children. Backpacks. Ammunition. Fought for country, for freedom. Will end up in hell.

Some days, there just doesn’t seem to be anything to say to this hell we’re all living in. And I feel guilty even whining, I’m not the 21 year old in the bar going crazy or the starving Iraqi family watching billions meant for them get spent on the fat asses in the green zone.

But eventually, the party has to come to an end, right? Right?

Knowing that, the Fed is engaging in self-delusion when it relies on a measured-paced interest-rate policy to deal with a runaway debt bubble sourced globally. For the Fed, the debt bubble is already too big to burst. The only option is to keep feeding it, albeit at a slower pace. The measured-pace interest-rate policy is merely an attempt to slow the bubble's rate of expansion, not to stop it, much less to burst it. But a measured-paced interest-rate policy will not slow the economy enough for a soft landing. It will only prolong the bubble for a bigger bang at the end.

I'm going outside, where I will listen to the sound of the trees growing and the birds singing. It's something, and I need to clear the angry buzzing in my head.

Oliphant on L'Enfant's latest lesson learned.

I can't wait for Bush's speech tomorrow; I like gymnastics, and I'm hoping to Bush execute the Rovian Death Spiral.

NOTE Minor color and format tweaks here at the renovated Mighty Corrente Building based on your feedback, including one especially for alert reader pansypoo.

And so to bed.

Froomkin, once more... Is "lays the smackdown" the right expression? Again, how is it that Froomkin is still at large, walking the streets? Why hasn't he had an "accident," or been the target of a Republican slime operation? Could it be the worms are finally turning?

puzzling exchange between Bush and reporters in Bush's afternoon photo op.

"Asked about Mr. Brown's resignation after he toured a school in Mississippi on Monday afternoon, Mr. Bush declined to comment. He told reporters, 'Maybe you know something we don't know.'

"He pointedly brushed off questions about how Mr. Brown and the administration had handled the storm, saying 'don't ask me again' about the subject."

But, Stevenson writes: "Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, later told reporters aboard Air Force One on the trip back to Washington that Mr. Bush was informed on Monday morning of Mr. Brown's resignation but was not sure when asked about it whether the decision had been made public."

Several reporters and bloggers jumped on Bush's statement as an admission of ignorance -- and therefore as a symptom of his detachment. But in fact, it was more a symptom of his duplicity.
(via WaPo)

I guess Froomkin isn't looking for many dinner invitations from the Kewl Kidz ...

The Amazin' Froomkin (how is it even possible that the man is still at large) has some rather pointed questions for Dear Leader:

Bush hasn't taken more than a few questions at a time from the press corps in almost three and a half months -- since May 31.

But even in his short press availabilities, it would be worth trying to get meaningful answers about his state of mind. Because how he personally feels about the crisis and whether or not he shares the concerns of so many Americans is turning into a key issue. And ducking those sorts of questions is harder.

So here are some questions that might be more fruitful than others:

• Sir, what were your personal feelings when you first grasped the enormity of what had happened along the Gulf Coast? And about when was that?
• Sir, apparently many African Americans believe that the federal government was slow in rescuing people stranded in New Orleans because many of those people were black and poor. I know you've denied that was the case, but do you understand why they might feel that way?

And:

• Sir, you've said countless times that you don't govern based on the polls. But can you explain the polls? You are not a popular president anymore. How do you think that happened?
• Sir, it is increasingly said that you operate in a bubble, sealing yourself away from dissenting voices, and on those rare occasions that people tell you bad news, you yell at them. Doesn't that make it harder for you to make intelligent decisions?

(via WaPo)

Hard to add to that... Then again, readers?

We already saw Bush flawlessly execute The Incredible Triple Weasel:

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.
(via back)

And at the time, alert reader acorn asked us to give a "reasonable" example of what Bush could have said. The Democratic governor of Louisiana shows acorn how it's done:

"We all know that there were failures at every level of government: state, federal and local. At the state level, we must take a careful look at what went wrong and make sure it never happens again. The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility," Blanco told lawmakers in a special meeting of the Louisiana Legislature.
(via AP)

No verbal gymastics, no weaselingl

Four little words: "The buck stops here."

Why is it so hard for Bush to say that?

And yet I live...

When rules come up against reality, reality often finds humans to go up against the rules. We are reality. Make it happen. Save a life. Give. Open one more door than you might have. Give one more dollar. Turn your head away one less time. No, we don't get a break much these days. Breaks are over for awhile.

+++

Via Atrios.

+++

Crossposted at Mortaljive.

+++

Best line E.J. Dionne has ever written (emphasis mine):

Bush was, indeed, skilled in identifying enemies and rallying a nation already disposed to action. He failed to realize after Sept. 11 that it was not we who were lucky to have him as a leader, but he who was lucky to be president of a great country that understood the importance of standing together in the face of a grave foreign threat.

Indeed we did. But instead of being grateful to all of us for the ninety-plus percent of support we offered him, despite the deeply questionable way in which he attained the Presidency, this President and this presidency treated the citizenry of this democratic republic as a passive audience who should be grateful for the fine show, almost pageant-like, of supposed toughness and leadership they thought was all they owed to us, while we owed to them, in addition to eternal gratitude, total acceptance of anything and everything they wished to do, no questions to be asked, tolerated, and surely never answered. Not even how it was that 9/11 had happened.

If you haven't yet read Dionne's whole column, it's here.

For a fascinating gloss on our relentless quest to bring accountability to the shameless incompetence and corruption of this administration, don't miss Mark Schmitt's discussion at TMPCafe:

I think of Rove as looking at past presidencies and seeing them as weakened because they worried too much about consequences that didn't really matter, such as the judgment of history or short-term popularity. Bush 41 thought that he had to do something about the deficit, or there would be consequences. So he got drawn into the Andrews Air Force Base budget summit, which earned him a fight within his own party. But Rove recognizes that there's a lot you can get away with if you just act like you can get away with it, especially if you raise the stakes, and as a result he moves with much greater freedom. It seems to me that part of their genius is they've gotten rid of much of the "you just can't do that" mentality of politics, and stripped everything down to the bare essence of what they can get away with."

The whole post is a must-read, especially if we on the liberal/left are to succeed in taking advantage of this presidency's initial stumble in handling "Katrina," and hold them to account for the way they handle it's aftermath, not in some abstract manner, not by polls, but by convincing vast swathes of voters across the country that there is a better way to conduct democratic governance.

Julia and Sisyphus Shrugged are so excellent, so dead-on, with a style so crisp, edgy and pithy, it's sometimes difficult to link as often as I want to. Post-Katrina, her moral passion reaches the sublime. Go there and just start scrolling, and be sure not to miss this post or this one.

In a similar vein as that last post of Jullia's, don't miss Lance Mannion on what's behind the media's oddly variant takes on George W. Bush vs. Bill Clinton.

The Poor Man is playing with those Power Tools again, need I say more? Just click here.

As I warned you here, we're devoting ourselves in a series of posts to hyping Chris Mooney's just published, "THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE," except it's so good you can't really hype it. In subsequent posts we'll discuss why we think this book is so critical to organizing a cohesive movement to change control of congress in 2006, and why you'll want to read it, why you must read it, and why we all need to work to make the book a best-seller.

For now, I can report that Mooney has received a rave in Salon, and as fervent a pan at the NY Post, both require registration but both are worth a read.

Henry I. Miller, a physician and a Fellow at the Hoover Institute who established and headed the Office of Bio-Technology in the FDA from 1997 to 1994, is the attack-dog for the radical right, and his Post review is every bit as tiresome, sophomoric, and polemical as he unjustly claims Chris Mooney is being in his book.

In fact, the review fits the mold of argumentation that Mooney shows is common to much right-wing Republican rhetoric. Mooney's fundamental integrity is questioned, the evidence for which turns out to be the central thesis of his book, to wit, that though the left is not without sin in attempting to use and thereby abusing science, what has happened on the right, in the body of the Republican Party is something wholly other.

But Mooney's denials that there have been equivalent misdemeanors by the political left are wholly unconvincing. Like many critics of the Bush administration, he seems to have experienced an overnight epiphany about the importance of defensible science policy, and this raises doubt about his sincerity.

First, what Chris Mooney elucidates in his book are hardly misdemeanors, and second, after admitting exactly such minor criticisms of the Bush administration, Dr. Miller asserts that both President Clinton and Vice-President Gore were manic manipulators of the field of science in pursuit of their political goals:

Never has American government been burdened with such politically motivated, anti-science, anti-technology, anti-business, anti-social eco-babble as during the Clinton-Gore years.

In defense of that fulsome indictment, Miller offers no names, no examples, no specific incidents. Granted, this is a short review, but where, pray tell, if America suffered through eight years of such felonious folly, is the book about the "Democrat War On Science?"

Oh, and just in case you're overly impressed by that M.D and "Fellow" after Mr. Miller's name, here's an interesting discussion from The National Review online, circa June, 2004, about Al Gore's sanity, which I found genuinely revelatory:

It is now clear that Al Gore is insane," John Podhoretz wrote in his New York Post column last week, after Gore's recent anti-Bush administration tirades. "I don't mean that his policy ideas are insane, though many of them are. I mean that based on his behavior, conduct, mien and tone over the past two days, there is every reason to believe that Albert Gore Jr., desperately needs help. I think he needs medication, and I think that if he is already on medication, his doctors need to adjust it or change it entirely."

John is not a physician, but he's half right. Al Gore appears to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is not treatable with medications.

Consider the diagnostic criteria for this malady:

"A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts," as indicated by the following:

"a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)." Gore demonstrated his grandiosity repeatedly. Who can forget his notorious claim that he had been responsible for creating the Internet?

Ah, the precision of science and medicine; actually that screed fails as art, as writing, and most of it fails as fact.

We're not the only bloggers excited about this book; here's Amanda at Pandagon, Kevin Drum Henry at Crooked Timber.

Worth looking at, the webpage for the book, and here it is at Amazon.

+++

I saw God and Jesus
Walking into town
Both of them were packing
Both of them did frown

They were on a mission
To kill the sodomites
They stood outside The Puckered Hole
And then began to shout:

"What you boys are doing
With your penises just ain't right
A suckin' and a fuckin'
Morning, noon and night

It's time we put a stop to this
And for that we have a scheme:
Let's kill the elderly and poor
In evil New Orleans"

(chorus)
Drown them! Break them!
Shake them up and bake them!
Leave them in the water
So the meat falls off the bone
Glory unto Jesus
He sure casts a nasty stone
Hallelujah
He sure casts a nasty stone

It's really just a test of faith
When a Christian baby dies
Or when daddy gets his head blown off
Fighting those Arabian bad guys

But when a liberal or queer
Or mad abortionist
Is taken from this life of ours
You know that God is pissed

Nature is a bastard
And God's a bachelor plus
And if you're poor, too bad for you
Wave to Mary on the bus

(chorus)
Drown them! Break them!
Shake them up and bake them!
Leave them in the water
So the meat falls off the bone
Glory unto Jesus
He sure casts a nasty stone
Hallelujah
He sure casts a nasty stone

I saw God and Jesus
Walking into town
Both of them were packing
Both of them did frown

They were on a mission
To kill the sodomites
They stood outside The Puckered Hole
And then began to shout:

"What you boys are doing
With your penises just ain't right
A suckin' and a fuckin'
Morning, noon and night

It's time we put a stop to this
And for that we have a scheme:
Let's kill the elderly and poor
In evil New Orleans"

(chorus)
Drown them! Break them!
Shake them up and bake them!
Leave them in the water
So the meat falls off the bone
Glory unto Jesus
He sure casts a nasty stone
Hallelujah
He sure casts a nasty stone

+++

Image of enlightened Pat Robertson from here.

+++

Crossposted at Mortaljive.

+++

As usual, other people have beaten me to this story from Editor and Publisher. So I'm not only a poor speller, I'm slow. Sue me. But I just have to chime in on this one, for no other purpose than tossing in my hat in the game to Correctly Predict the Downfall of the Traditional Media. In this race we don't get ponies, but the sweet satisfaction of being right is almost enough.

I've been hearing about it for a while, but it seems the official date has been announced:

By Jay DeFoore

Published: September 13, 2005 1:40 PM ET


NEW YORK Come Monday, Sept. 19, fans of New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, and David Brooks will have to break out their credit cards. Sept. 19 is the launch date of TimesSelect, a new subscription service designed to diversify the newspaper's revenue stream beyond traditional Web site advertising.

The popular Op-Ed columnists are the main selling point behind the $49.95 a year subscription. (The service will be free for the paper's home delivery subscribers). The paper's news, features, editorials, and analysis will remain free, as will interactive graphics, multimedia, and video.

It's a strong possibility that the rest of the paper ("news, features, editorials, and analysis") could eventually become a service for fee as well. I'm no bean counter, but if they make any money off The Shrill One and MoDo in the first couple of quarters, I can see the pointy heads screaming to gate off the rest of the Grey Lady's linens.

The good folks at E&P, again beating me out of bed, also note that:

Early response in the blogosphere was not positive. One popular blogger, John Aravosis at Americablog, predicted what many fans of Times' columnist might do: "People will still get copies of the articles, they'll still email them around the Net, some Web sites will still republish the entire articles illegally, and we'll end up linking to those sites instead of the New York Times (it ain't illegal to link)."

He added, commenting on "free" falling: "If the Times' idea catches on, this really could be the beginning of the end of the current state of Internet news."

(And no, I'm not dating nor do I have any designs on John. Really.)

I'm going to violently disagree with everyone who can't imagine life without the Old Grey Ho on their virtual morning doorstep. For a couple of reasons, but mainly for the fact that only recently, for the first time in over three years I registered there, and then only because I was desperate to find a link to something I knew I'd read elsewhere but failed to bookmark (it proved a waste of time in the end).

I'm not arguing in favor of being an uninformed cretin. Nor do I believe that the NYT is a politically slanted, worthless, irresponsible, error-prone, rhetorical, unsubstantiated rumor mill and shill for the socially shallow and self-segregating elite who like to read their own words in a major publication every morning. But I do know that the good people on the Internet, people like you, dear reader, have beaten the NYT to the punch more times than I can count, to my direct benefit.

It's early and I'm new to this live-linky thing, but off the top of my head, I can make the following list of stories and info that the web has discussed and explored in depth before the NYT: Jeff Gannon, Bush's DD-214, Iraq's lack of WMD, the number of Iraqi dead, Hugo Chavez's epic struggle with someone who doesn't want him in office, why Hybrid is the greatest band of all time....that's probably enough for now. I could take up a dissertation's worth of space "proving" this point, but I'm going to be lazy this morning (I do have work for pay to do soon, forgive me) and just go with my gut that in the above cases, a search would easily locate a blog or indy source that dates coverage on these stories days or weeks before the Times.

Switching gears, everyone remembers Salon? I was really unhappy when Tom decided to take the Daou Report over there, while happy for him personally. Because like a lot of radical internet junkies, I simply won't be bothered with even a "free day pass" and whatever cookies and spyware go with that to read what I can get, albeit with slightly more effort, without such trickery elsewhere. I remember a recent discussion of Old-Timers from the Well, who sounded much like disillusioned Vietnam vets who'd left the VFW due to the influx of Bush loving morons from the AFL. What was once only to be found at Salon can now be found everywhere and for free, and as they Old Timers pointed out, paying for it was basically now only for the purpose of 'keeping out the riff raff.' One person noted that the Well currently has ~4K members, while Kos' boards get ~100K...daily.

There's also the issue of comment boards and rogue posting to consider. How many of us have come upon, yea, even posted ourselves, a story onto the boards which is later posted as a main page story on this or that blog? While it's always a concern (the recent SCOTUS case relating to blogs especially) that boards will become the "responsibility" of site authors, for now, it's still safe to cut and paste relevant sections from anywhere and let the rest of the world decide if they want to go to that site and pay, register, whatever. Free news on the internet isn't going to die until this changes. John's right to note that.

But I simply refuse to believe in something I think ultimately motivates the NTY and staff: that the Internet can be made to conform to "traditional" business models. They can tax it, regulate it, restrict it, redirect it, and otherwise make it a dangerous place for the conformist and citizen concerned with certain types of status, but what they can't do is stop that kid in Finland from posting what he wants. Just as they can't make me decide that paying for MoDo is a good use of my cash. Time and time again, information has actually lived up to the cliche "it wants to be free." While some free things have (almost) gone away, a motivated person can still skirt the law and acquire information without pay, usually with a few software modifications and some careful routing.

It's telling that they chose to put their Op-Ed people behind bars first. Hmmmm. Could it be because they know that in one sense, that's the only "original" content they have? That anyone with access to AFP, the AP and their local fishwrap basically can get the "news" without them? Or could it be because they understand their only power, a waning one at that, comes from the Celebrity Status of their heavy hitters? Perhaps this is why Judy "I'm Fucking Right" Miller is still such a cause for the editors. Mystique baby, myth and mystique. It surely can't be for her looks...

Anyway, as I said at the title: I don't care if they charge for some, all, or editions that fall on days that end in "y." I have other ideas about why avoiding the Times is actually good for one's mental health, but I'll let others comment upon that. In the end, what comes to mind is the little cartoon I once saw about the new and old media. A bunch of moss-munching brontosauruses standing together looking up in the sky, as a giant, earth-shattering meteor comes hurling down from the heavens.

The dinosaurs each wore the name of a major publication, "NYT," "CBS" etc. The meteor was labeled "the internet."

I ought to be trying to chew off a limb from Stealthy John Roberts right now, but I'm tired. All those people throwing champagne glasses into the fireplace up in the library of The Mighty Corrente Building, night after night... It keeps me tired.

But seriously. Haven't we learned never to give Bush the benefit of the doubt? That when we do, it's always worse than we ever imagined could be possible?

So, why should it be any different with Roberts? (Don't forget that when Roberts was in Reagan's Solicitor General's office, under Ken Starr of blessed memory, that he was a political appointee. That means that all of the claims of privilege are horseshit. In fact, horse-they-rode-in-on shit. So, um, could it be there's some reason why the Republicans won't release the Reagan papers? I mean, release the ones that Bush's lawyers haven't lost or censored....

Over at the renovated Mighty Corrente Building, What's your favorite example of Dear Leader's Verbal Gymastics? Besides the The Incredible Triple Weasel, I mean...

Remember—vote early and often!

NOTE Thanks to alert readers Tinfoil Hat Boy and Nick.

I kid you not!

If President George W. Bush thought appointment of new Federal Emergency Management Agency director David Paulison would end criticism of the agency’s questionable leadership he could find that thought buried under a mountain of duct tape.

Many career FEMA professionals consider Paulison a laughing stock because of his role in the “great duct tape controversy” of 2003.

It was then that Paulison, as director of FEMA’s preparedness division, recommended that Americans stock up on “plastic sheeting and duct tape” to prepare themselves for a possible biological, chemical or nuclear attack by terrorists.

Medical experts, emergency professionals and terrorism experts ridiculed Paulison’s suggestions as “absurd” and “useless,” saying such precautions would be useless and would also give Americans a false sense of security.

Nonetheless, sales of duct tape and plastic sheeting soared for the next few days.
(via Capitol Hill Blue)

Yes, history repeats itself. The first time as black farce; the second time as ... black farce.

But shouldn't it be duck tape?

As in duck pit?

As in lame duck pit?

I love the smell of slime removal in the afternoon...

Report Confirms that Louisiana Took Necessary and Timely Steps

+++

From Crooks & Liars.

+++

(via the Times.)

Wouldn't lemmings be more appropriate?

If you're running for your life, remembering to grab the deed to your house is rightly way down the priority list. And, it was said, the official government documents were stored in a basement and feared lost. Much dark suspicion has been rumbling about these matters. A bit of good news, which needs more publicity:

(via the entirely Pulitzer-worthy Times-Pickayune:)

Most of the property records in the basement of Orleans Parish Civil District Court are salvageable from flood waters and may be ready to use within the next few weeks, Custodian of Notorial Records Stephen Bruno said Monday.

Stored in the courthouse basement, which took on nearly a foot of water during Hurricane Katrina, moisture was the biggest enemy to property records. Abstractors -- those who conduct the title searches that must take place before a real estate transaction closes -- should have access to them within the next few weeks, Bruno said.

The records include titles, mortgages, conveyances, liens, wills and other documents.

Munters, the Swedish records restoration company hired to preserve the nearly 12 million pages of titles, liens, mortgages and other records, is putting the documents in freeze containers to dry out, Bruno said.

This is only the records for Orleans Parish, but that is the heart of the old lowtown. And Munters is one of the best in the business, so somebody there is on the ball. Yes, the best thing to do with papers which have gotten wet is to freeze them.

AP's editors help the Preznit out by writing the headline—except that the headline doesn't match what Bush actually said:

Bush Takes Full Responsiblity for Katrina Blunders
(via AP)

Interesting, if true. But read on:

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

Omigod! Bush just executed an incredible triple weasel—flawlessly!

Just look at those weasel words: (1)"To the extent," (2) "fully," and (3) "right"! What a performance! That man can spin! If I were on the judge's panel, I'd give it a 9.0, except I'd have to take off a couple tenths on style, for the ears, that narrowness between the eyes, and that weird lump on his back...

And kudos to the AP editors for helping Him out with that "fully" in the headline, that's not actually part of His remarks...

Of course, Bush and the Republicans believe that the Federal government's "job" is to hold still so they can drown it (back); trashed so it can't function (back). So by those standards, Bush can feel a great deal of pride in the "job" He's done...

Tea comes from books, which grow out of the heads of corpses. The fine weathered print is dried and placed in the folds of silences, then rolled onto vast, Korean slabs. Many children gather to watch the merchants trade their fingers for the cognizant herbs: they are drinking you as you drink them. A bell rings: Babs has farted in her tub, as per her routine. It is time for The Bad Magician to convert a few hours into steam, hot iron and mordant honey. The bell rings again, and off he goes.

Deep inside the compound, a rhino woman stamps her hooves against the tile floor, shattering her veins. The Bad Magician manifests in the dead air: he plays shadow puppets in the blind spot as the flood waters of The Big Easy break the Bush Family levee, spilling onto the floor, bleeding uphill and up the stairs. The smell offends god. Babs, finished with her bath, tweaks her beard and scrunches her face into that of a giant rat, tapping her hollow yellow fangs lightly against the mirror. Her gut descended, she rump-waddles towards the kitchen. The Bad Magician smells a very large rat.

"Tea?" says The Bad Magician to the gray-skinned rodent as she sprays her head with plastic cheese. "Tea, indeed," says Babs. The waters of New Orleans splash upwards in funnels, scale model twisters of the toxic juice propel the refreshment into their cups. Babs smiles and drops a turd onto one of her shoes. The pace quickens: sugar is eaten, biscuits are crumbled and forgotten, the tea is consumed until Babs catches a whiff of her own rotting insides, looks at The Bad Magician and tsk, tsk, tsks the Dark Inn Keeper. Trouble arrives stoned when the tongues split into differing factions. More trouble when Babs cuts open her rat stomach and out jumps the young George W. Bush, cradling a dead frog beneath his chin. "Tea?" asks The Bad Magician? "No," answers the beady-eyed boy, but the tea careened in a wild flight of air and arc, raining down and soaking the memory of George--the lights flicker, demons confess, and more rhinos trash the kitchen. Jesus called, sends his regrets, maybe some other time, does enjoy a nice tea now and again.

The waters recede, light pours in like razors, Babs devolves into a puddle of foam and tree stumps. The young George cuts his heart out and gives it to his mother. She spits it out. Sirens wail and gunshots are heard. The Bad Magician enjoys a good tea now and again, but takes advantage of an insect deity and clicks his way to Fargo, where the nights are already cold. Babs rolls over and vomits up hush puppys and beer, and is still. George wants mommy to be better. Be better, mommy. He will go out that day and cut a doctor. Bush opens his eyes and finds his teeth have become long and yellow, and his speech is hard to read. Karl Rove congeals on a plate as George asks where Babs has gone off to. He suspects his father has had her murdered.

Rove snaps his fingers. George blinks, stumbles, hits his head on the sink. Blood pools in the sink, turns black, hisses at George. A new day dawns.

+++

Image of rat's paw from here.

+++

Recently, a bunch of us got into it over on the comment boards at a favorite "gay" blog of mine, Americablog. Here's a comment made by one of the site's authors, a man I respect greatly and who I believe represents some of what's best in Blogtopia (whatever, Skippy).

Hold their noses? Sorry, I don't plan protests with wingnuts. And anyone who thinks this protest is about US imperialism in Cuba and Haiti (Haiti? We fucking saved Haiti) is a wingnut in my book. And worse, anyone who would join forces with ANSWER to do this protest is simply nuts. I'm not marching with the Che brigade, sorry - it's time we grew up as a party, we need to get rid of those with no backbone, but we also need to stop letting the kooks run our protests.

Get mad at me, fine, but that ain't my politics.
John Aravosis | 09.04.05 - 3:35 pm | #

Now, leaving aside the issues addressed in the original post and comments following, I want to point out a couple of ideas I had at the time. First off: even for those of us who are news junkies, as John obviously is (and a better man than I, for I believe he not only blogs, but works for pay at a full time job!), it's really, really hard for us to keep track of all the dead, dying and oppressed people around the globe. Which is fair: it's a big globe and people are very small and numerous. But I can't help but wonder, is it really that simple? Or is it the case that we're well, conditioned to care more about certain kinds of people? certain, fish-belly colored people in suits for example, who are very well represented on that shiny talking box in the living room?

In the spirit of combatting the impact of the HappyShinyTeeVee people in their war to keep you racist and stupid, and in helping out those folks who are currently experiencing Bush's form of "help," I want to direct your attention to this fine blog, where a fellow Hyde Parker has been doing an excellent round up of news and events on that poor, pitiable island known as Voodooland to most, and Haiti to some. To prove I'm really a happy, well adjusted person, here's some good news from that site:

by cntodd:
I just received the following e-mail 5 minutes ago from one of the Haiti lists I am on:

On Friday, September 9, American journalist Kevin Pina was arrested in Haiti, because he insisted on filming a search at the church of political prisoner Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste. A Haitian journalist, Jean Ristil, was arrested because he photographed Pina's arrest. Both spent the weekend in prison (articles about their arrests are below).

Thanks to a mobilization in Haiti, the US and throughout the world, pressure was put on the Haitian government to stop this political persecution. Thanks to attorney Mario Joseph of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, who represented Pina and Ristil, Judge Jean Paul Peres has released both journalists, with no further charges against them. Ristil was released early Monday, Pina was subjected to 3 and 1/2 hours of interrogation, and released just after 5 PM Haiti time.

I'm not sure if it's the lawyers, public outcry, bloggers or some combination, but it's good to know that at least this one time, journalists didn't have to get shot or imprisioned for bringing us the truth about Bush's policies. That's right, count me in the group that considers Haiti Bush's "little Iraq," where no matter which darkie is positied to be in charge, it's really Washington calling (for?) the shots.

The other point I wanted to make is about blogging itself. Now, before you slap your hand over your head and cry, "For Bloggity Blog's sake, not again!" I'll keep it simple. Because I think it's a pretty powerful point in itself. John at Americablog got a pretty serious smackdown from his readers over the issues brought up by the post itself, and a lot of knowledge got spread around really quickly. I've seen the same thing happen at most major blogs, from Eschaton to Gilly, DU to the Smirking Chimp. But what's so powerful, and so wonderful, and so amazingly liberal is the self-correcting nature of the blogoshpere when employed with reader comment sections. I'm not a newbie, and I suspect most of you reading aren't either, but I'm still and constantly amazed by what I learn from the comments. Not only "true facts," or even news before it breaks the 'mainstream' level of the big blogs, but, as John's own misstep demonstrates, how people are thinking and what the boundaries of those thoughts are, and thus the limits of the progressive media's reach.

Knowing that is both terrifying and inspirational to me.

Perhaps this is why so few of the major Right wing blogs have such comment boards. Andy 'Bareback' Sullivan and The Cornerites, are you listening?

Just so you know:

"I can do more than one thing at one time," the president assured Monday on the first of two planned visits this week to the Gulf Coast."

Whew! I was worried for a minute there. You see, what with all this disaster on the Gulf Coast---and now pressure from Iraq to attack Syria, and Americans reconsidering the wisdom of tying up all our money and manpower over there and thinking maybe a partial withdrawal might not be such a bad idea---with all this going on, Bush is getting a tad skittish.

No! he screeches, I can do more than one thing at a time (though previous experience might cast doubt on even the assertion that he can do one thing at a time):

"It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there wasn't enough troops here, just pure and simple."

Simply preposterous. Did he learn that word at Yale? But he goes on with this poignant plea:

"By the time I'm finished (being) president, I hope you'll realize that the government can do more than one thing at one time and individuals in the government can," Bush told reporters Monday as he wrapped up a tour of New Orleans and Gulfport, Miss. "If I'm focusing on the hurricane, I've got the capacity to focus on foreign policy and vice versa."

Focus. That's the ticket. It's just a matter of finding the right optometrist. In the meantime, our ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is pushing for either an outright attack on Syria, or another round of buffoonery with the United Nations. Can never have too many wars. Especially when the polls are looking so dire.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Operation Ceasefire
The Washington Monument
Constitution Avenue and 15th Street, SW
Washington, D.C.

A FREE MUSIC FESTIVAL TO STOP THE WAR IN IRAQ!

HOSTED BY JELLO BIAFRA feat. WAYNE KRAMER W/ THE BELLRAYS - THIEVERY CORPORATION - BOUNCING SOULS - LE TIGRE - THE COUP - STEVE EARLE - TED LEO + THE PHARMACISTS - HEAD-ROC

More info: Operation Ceasefire

*

What does F.E.M.A. stand for? Take the poll at the renovated Mighty Corrente Building.

UPDATE I've added some additional proposals from alert reader Anonymous (acorn, can it be you?!?!).

So remember! Vote early and often!

No, this is not another discussion of Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the WOT, or about the several lunatic decisions taken by the DOD under Bush regarding tactical nuclear weapons, the so-called bunker busters, or as the Washington Post reported over the weekend, about their preemptive use.

All that is bad enough on its own. But underlying that narrowly expansive go-it-alone foreign policy are the Republican wars here at home.

Interestingly, it's been the right wing of American politics itself, which let us face it, is who the current Republican party represents most consistently, that was the first to use the term "war" to address societal conflicts. (Johnson's War on Poverty, though controversial, did not declare war on anything that any group of Americans actively supported) The most current obvious example, the often used term "the culture wars," but the term "war" has also been used by the right to describe what they claim to perceive as attacks on their values, hence the war against Christians, against people of faith, against religion in the public square, against the free market, against moral values, and on and on.

There's no real contradiction here; from Newt Gingrich in his days as the sage of after hours Special Orders on C-Span, to apostate liberals like Charles Krauthammer and Mickey Kaus, to media analysts like Brent Bozell to conservative media stars like Ann Coulter to everyone at The Corner to the multiple strategists of the RNC to columnists like Michael Barone, John Leo, and the new-to-the-party John Tierney, to all the multiple representatives of the Christian right, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, et al, the charge has always been that it was they who were forced into an attack mode by a ruthless, powerful coalition of elitist liberals who control the universities, the press, and much of government bureaucracy (see state and federal employee unions).

Whether or not any of these people believe their own "bull" on this subject, their attempts to argue there exists a coherent left/liberal/Democratic movement, coordinated and institutionalized, that is constantly on the political attack in order to preserve a secular, internationalized, multi-culti America, have been shown by various writers, journalists (though fewer of those) and academics, to be pitifully lacking in evidence or credibility, despite the Herculean efforts of David Horowitz.

However, the push-back against liberalism, against the Democratic Party, against various intitutions that only decades ago had seemed completely mainstream, like public education for instance, and social security, the conscious attempts to shred the social safety net and redefine the social contract that emerged after World War 2, that rise of a hard-right conservatism, claiming to represent the center, but on the attack against every advance of freedom, democracy, civil rights begun in the sixties, the attacks on constitutional interpretations that date back to Theodore Roosevelt and FDR, all that does lend itself to the metaphor of war.

None of this is new to anyone reading this blog. However, only one journalist I'm aware of has had the insight and the confidence and the nerve to call what this Republican Party does when it's on the attack against inconvenient facts, inconvenient counter arguments, or inconvenient people, "war."

Chris Mooney succeeds in making the metaphor stick in his just published book, "THE REPUBLICAN WAR AGAINST SCIENCE," which, if you think about it for a moment, is a startling achievement.

We were lucky enough to get an advance copy of the book; Chris, a journalist who also blogs, was generous in his outreach to bloggers, and rightly so, because it's blogtopia (a phrase coined first by skippy, the bush kangaroo) that has the power to offer an important book like this the kind of support that is axiomatic for anything written by anyone on the right.

We had intended to review the book and discuss its importance just as Katrina hit. What we have to say about Chris's book has actually expanded watching the actions and inactions these first days of September. The time finally seems right, so for the rest of the week, we'll be talking about why this is such a terrific book, how it fits into the political struggle we all feel we're engaged it heading into 2006, and how and why we must all support it and its author.

You may think you know all there is to know about this subject, and clearly there's no mystery as to whether, or even how much we liked this book, but trust me, there is gold in it for those of us who are determined to take our country back from the right-wing extremists who don't represent the American mainstream and are determined to keep us divided to further their own political interests.

HEADS UP: Chris Mooney is scheduled to appear on tonight's Daily Show; don't miss it.

Spare a thought for his back breaking work:

Mike Brown, the subject of blistering criticism after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast and overwhelmed the government's response, quit Monday as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The White House moved quickly to replace him, installing a top agency official with three decades of firefighting experience as acting director.
(via AP)

Altogether now: A-w-w-w-w!

Yes, Mike "Heckuva Job" Brown transgressed the unwritten law: So they nailed his head to the floor.

Hey, and maybe someone could tell why Bush waited 'til after the Katrina clusterfuck to appoint a FEMA director with actual experience in emergencies, as opposed to one with experience judging Arabian horses?

Back to Republican governance: It's almost like they deliberately stress government to the breaking point, and then past it. Only when it breaks, and then only if anyone notices, do they fix what they broke to begin with. That's what happened with the Army in Iraq, and that's what happened with Katrina.

The only problem is, that there are people who's lives depend on government working—and in the case of disaster, that could be any of us.

Bush and his backers have bunkers and gated communities to retreat to. We don't. So when the Republicans break the government—they can kill us.

UPDATE Rushing to leave the house, I forgot to link back to Riggsveda's post on Republican governance here. "Elect us and we'll prove it," indeed.

Maybe it's because they're actually connected to the land they live on, more than people in cities are. That's why I've always felt that the "red" states aren't irrevocably so. (RDF is magnificent proof of this)

I've mentioned David Rossie, who writes in that area which those who live in NYCity often refer to as "upstate New York," which generally means anywhere in NY not in the city.

Courtesy of a Buzzflash link, we found this eye-poping piece by V.B. Price, a columnist for the Albuquerque Tribune. He had me at the headline, which caused an immediate rise in the number of my heartbeats per minute.

Depths of cruelty
How uncaring and brutally incompetent can right wing get?

And it only gets better from there:

The Bush administration couldn't get emergency relief to New Orleans for days after the endlessly predicted, catastrophic hurricane and flooding two weeks ago.

But close to 24 hours after the death of U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the White House, swamped in criticism over New Orleans, named John Roberts as its choice to fill Rehnquist's shoes.

In one case, planning was nonexistent, because the ruling party saw no political advantage to it. In the other, planning was meticulously precise, the political advantage being obvious to everyone.

Roberts is apparently one of those every-man-for-himself, women-and-children-last kind of Republican, the perfect judicial scissor-man to continue snipping away at the social safety net and its weakening strands of equality and freedom.

What happened in New Orleans is an unspeakable calamity of governmental carelessness, the most disgraceful consequence of decades of government-hating that anyone could have imagined.

And who's left to pick up the pieces? Certainly not the federal establishment, which is criminally useless and downright nauseating.

Who's left? Localities already heavily burdened with the sheer complexity of their back-breaking, federally dumped "unfunded mandates" covering most aspects of social life.

Who's left? Places like Albuquerque and New Mexico, which by the end of next week will be giving comfort and succor to as many as 500 Katrina refugees.

Amid the horror and fathomless disgust, New Mexico makes us all feel proud to be human beings and Americans again.

What a contrast! New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez met the first contingent of refugees arriving in Albuquerque, welcomed them and acknowledged the unprecedented enormity of their tragedy.

There's more, including an arrow that takes you to other V.P. Price columns.

Might be a thought to write to the paper, either by e or slow mail, to express your appreciation.

UPDATE: Alert reader, JayinABQ tells us in comments of a connection of interet in regards to Mr. Price.

Although I do have a lot to say about Katrina, I'm going to let all the rest of the blogoshpere take care of it for a while, being a day late and more than a dollar short in the excellent race to shame the mainstream media with breaking stories relating to the corruption and crisis it caused. When a story dominates the news cycle like Katrina has done, I always ask myself, "I wonder what else is going on in the world?"

hat tip to Unknownnews who found this Financial Times link:

President George W. Bush was handed a major victory on Friday in his effort to assert sweeping presidential powers in the war on terrorism as a US appeals court upheld his authority to imprison indefinitely a US citizen captured on American soil.

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Jos? Padilla, a suspected al-Qaeda operative who US officials say was planning to carry out a terrorist attack inside the US, could be detained as an ?enemy combatant? without any review by US civilian courts.

The detention of Mr Padilla has been sharply criticised by US civil liberties groups, who argue the president does not have the authority in the struggle with al-Qaeda to suspend the basic right of US citizens to a court hearing before they can be imprisoned.

But the court's ruling, written by Judge Michael Luttig, who is considered a potential Supreme Court nominee, said definitively that Mr Bush had been given such powers by the congressional declaration authorising military force following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

That resolution, the court said, provided the president all powers necessary and appropriate to protect American citizens from terrorist acts, including the power to detain committed enemies even if they are US citizens.

In the decision, the court relied heavily on a narrow Supreme Court ruling last year, which found that another American who was captured in Afghanistan, Yaser Esam Hamdi, could legally be held as an enemy combatant, though found the government had failed to follow all proper procedures for his detention. Following the ruling, Mr Hamdi was stripped of his citizenship and sent to Saudi Arabia.

The appeals court found that the same arguments gave the president the power to imprison Mr Padilla, who has been held in a military brig in South Carolina for three years, even though he was captured on US soil.

The appeals court correctly held that this case is legally indistinguishable from Hamdi, said Richard Samp, chief counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, a conservative advocacy group. Padilla should not be exempt from detention simply because he managed to elude capture and make his way to this country.

But Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said the issue would certainly be reviewed by the Supreme Court, where several judges have already expressed concern over Mr Padilla's detention.

This is the ultimate issue, because it deals with a US citizen apprehended within the territorial limits of the United States, he said. ?The fact that the federal courts are open for business militates strongly against open-ended detention.

There's a lot to be said here, and I encourage everyone to go read the whole FT article. But to my mind, the "years" of detention part is what bothers me the most. Except for the loony leftist blogosphere and some crazy attorneys who still think the Constitution is good for more than some Republican version of two-ply toilet paper, I wonder how many Murkins understand the implications of this case.

Here's some helpful writing by a guy who tends to breathe fire on this issue:

The government has no case against Jose Padilla, a hapless Chicago gang-banger who allegedly visited Pakistan before he was arrested at O'Hare airport 3 and a half years ago. He is simply an unwitting victim of circumstance; a convenient scapegoat for eviscerating the rule of law. The Bush administration has used its extraordinary influence in the media to demagogue the case and keep him locked-away without producing one shred of evidence against him. The entire affair has been a grotesque mockery of justice. The hard-right groups that engineered this plot know exactly where the fault-lines in American jurisprudence lie; in the inalienable protections of its citizens.

Padilla became the test-case for shattering the Bill of Rights with one withering blow. It has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectation.

We've been reading stories about people getting testy with the Veep, and recklessly trying to get actual photos of Katrina victims to the public, heck- there are even obvious terrorists warning us about possible biohazard disasters.

So basically, if Dear Leader decides these folks aren't Amurkin enough, he can lock them up and tell us all to just pray for them.

Well look at me. Sneaking in a Katrina post by the back door.

Thanks to everyone here at Corrente for giving me a place share my rants. It's good to be aboard.

The harvest is in, except for the pumpkins. Temperatures beginning to hit the upper 30’s and low 40’s means it won’t be long before the pumpkins are due. Canning and drying and baking time. All of this means you can’t go fifty miles in any direction without seeing folks selling bread and corn (roasted or not) and squash of every kind, and root crops, jams, and…

Just a gentle reminder that harvest time has traditionally been a time to come together, share, try to make a little money for the winter, gossip, exchange thoughts and politics, usually around a pickup truck or a booth at a fair or a community potluck. And pool up and send extra to those who need it.

I guess what I’m saying is back on the old hobby horse I’ve been riding:

--Support your local food producers

--Change hearts and minds one at a time, over time, as appropriate (whether at work or play, use the right tools for the job)

--If you’ve got extra, give it to them who don’t

--Use opportunities like harvest time to organize (there’ll be plenty of time over the winter to brood alone with book)

There’s a woman I know whose friends say that she’s trying to change the world one quilting bee at a time. She says that’s the only way she knows how. That, and her homemade jam, which I always buy too much of. A gentle, loving soul who still idolizes FDR. Although she does keep a shotgun in her truck. Nothing makes her angrier than the idea that anybody is poor, cold or hungry. Lawd help the corporate fatcat-turned politico who runs into her talking about a Plan for America who hasn’t given away homemade quilts or jam. Although she has never said it, picture a woman who grew up during the depression gently but firmly holding a shotgun on Dick Cheney, while he frantically learns how to put a quilt together.

Heh. Gotta go check the still. (Personal consumption only.)

(In a comment to farmer's post below, Leah says, "maybe we should made this a weekly thing we do on our own...roll back for readers what got said in the past compared to now, or in some cases hours later...". And oddly enough, I posted just such a piece on my site this morning. Here it is.)

In Paul Krugman's latest column this morning, he outlines some examples of Bush's deliberate seeding of important agencies with the kinds of destructive appointments guaranteed to bring those agencies down. Using FEMA as a starting place, he ticks them off, with examples: the EPA, FDA, CPB, and then on to the Treasury Department itself, and Homeland Security, two agencies you'd think even Bush would have a stake in preserving. He sums up at the end:

"The point is that Katrina should serve as a wakeup call, not just about FEMA, but about the executive branch as a whole. Everything I know suggests that it's in a sorry state - that an administration which doesn't treat governing seriously has created two, three, many FEMA's."

Doesn't treat governing seriously. That's the crux of it. Conservative satirist P.J. O'Rourke once cracked, "Republicans say, 'Government doesn't work. Elect us and we'll prove it.'" I would take the opposing view, and suggest that Bush has treated governing very seriously. Seriously in the sense that he is serious about destroying it as we have always known it.

And now his clusterfuck excuse for an infrastructure has made the point for O'Rourke and Krugman and me and many others, among them, William Greider. In a devastating article, "Rolling Back the 20th Century", written for The Nation back in April of 2003, Grieder described the long-term plans of the extreme right, and their yearning for the good old days of the McKinley era, the Gilded Age of robber barons, non-existent health and safety regs, and near-slave labor. Here he is, laying out the basic plan:

"§ Eliminate federal taxation of private capital, as the essential predicate for dismantling the progressive income tax. This will require a series of reform measures (one of them, repeal of the estate tax, already accomplished). Bush has proposed several others: elimination of the tax on stock dividends and establishment of new tax-sheltered personal savings accounts for the growing "investor class." Congress appears unwilling to swallow these, at least this year, but their introduction advances the education-agitation process. Future revenue would be harvested from a single-rate flat tax on wages or, better still, a stiff sales tax on consumption. Either way, labor gets taxed, but not capital. The 2003 Economic Report of the President, prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers, offers a primer on the advantages of a consumption tax and how it might work. Narrowing the tax base naturally encourages smaller government.

§ Gradually phase out the pension-fund retirement system as we know it, starting with Social Security privatization but moving eventually to breaking up the other large pools of retirement savings, even huge public-employee funds, and converting them into individualized accounts. Individuals will be rewarded for taking personal responsibility for their retirement with proposed "lifetime savings" accounts where capital is stored, forever tax-exempt. Unlike IRAs, which provide a tax deduction for contributions, wages are taxed upfront but permanently tax-sheltered when deposited as "lifetime" capital savings, including when the money is withdrawn and spent. Thus this new format inevitably threatens the present system, in which employers get a tax deduction for financing pension funds for their workers. The new alternative should eventually lead to repeal of the corporate tax deduction and thus relieve business enterprise of any incentive to finance pensions for employees. Everyone takes care of himself.

§ Withdraw the federal government from a direct role in housing, healthcare, assistance to the poor and many other long-established social priorities, first by dispersing program management to local and state governments or private operators, then by steadily paring down the federal government's financial commitment. If states choose to kill an aid program rather than pay for it themselves, that confirms that the program will not be missed. Any slack can be taken up by the private sector, philanthropy and especially religious institutions that teach social values grounded in faith.

§ Restore churches, families and private education to a more influential role in the nation's cultural life by giving them a significant new base of income--public money. When "school choice" tuitions are fully available to families, all taxpayers will be compelled to help pay for private school systems, both secular and religious, including Catholic parochial schools. As a result, public schools will likely lose some of their financial support, but their enrollments are expected to shrink anyway, as some families opt out. Although the core of Bush's "faith-based initiative" stalled in Congress, he is advancing it through new administrative rules. The voucher strategy faces many political hurdles, but the Supreme Court is out ahead, clearing away the constitutional objections.

§ Strengthen the hand of business enterprise against burdensome regulatory obligations, especially environmental protection, by introducing voluntary goals and "market-driven" solutions. These will locate the decision-making on how much progress is achievable within corporate managements rather than enforcement agencies (an approach also championed in this year's Economic Report). Down the road, when a more aggressive right-wing majority is secured for the Supreme Court, conservatives expect to throw a permanent collar around the regulatory state by enshrining a radical new constitutional doctrine. It would require government to compensate private property owners, including businesses, for new regulations that impose costs on them or injure their profitability, a formulation sure to guarantee far fewer regulations [see Greider, "The Right and US Trade Law," October 15, 2001].

§ Smash organized labor. Though unions have lost considerable influence, they remain a major obstacle to achieving the right's vision. Public-employee unions are formidable opponents on issues like privatization and school vouchers. Even the declining industrial unions still have the resources to mobilize a meaningful counterforce in politics. Above all, the labor movement embodies the progressives' instrument of power: collective action. The mobilizations of citizens in behalf of broad social demands are inimical to the right's vision of autonomous individuals, in charge of their own affairs and acting alone. Unions may be taken down by a thousand small cuts, like stripping "homeland security" workers of union protection. They will be more gravely weakened if pension funds, an enduring locus of labor power, are privatized."

In every instance outlined here, Bush has moved to make Grieder's nightmare a reality, and he has only just begun. Even now, his apologists on the right are minimizing the signifigance of the lives lost and the damage done down south, positioning Bush to arise from these ashes like the murdering phoenix he has been after every disaster his administration has overseen.

If you want to stop this man, if you want to fight back, it's crucial to expose this agenda at every turn, and to keep reminding people where their troubles are coming from, because we have seen how American amnesia has time and again aided these people in their short-term history rewrites.. It's very easy for people to see their local infrastructures disappear and their schools collapse, and then blame local and state officials for it. But in truth, it was the Bushco plan all along to strip the states and municipalities of funds, layer on financial responsibilities that once belonged to the fed, add unfunded mandates to increase the burden, and then turn around and point to their own tax breaks and crow about getting government off our backs, all the while breaking the bank with the spiralling debt of those tax breaks, their ongoing wars, and the huge subsidies they handed out like candy to their already sinfully wealthy corporate buddies.

All of which is calculated to wipe government as we once knew it off the face of the map, and render individuals powerless and ineffectual. Welcome to the Republican machine.

Bu$hCo's fabulous reality swindle

Dennis Roddy:

Bush on Sept. 13, 2001: "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our No. 1 priority and we will not rest until we find him."

Bush on March 3, 2002: "And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of this mission."

On Aug. 25 -- four days before a terrorist known as Katrina attacked the Gulf Coast -- Bush delivered a speech before the VFW in Salt Lake City. Five times he invoked Sept. 11, 2001, while justifying Iraq and the overall war on terror.

Bush said: "We're not yet safe. Terrorists in foreign lands still hope to attack our country. They still hope to kill our citizens. The lesson of Sept. 11, 2001, is that we must confront threats before they fully materialize."

Doubtless that is true, but the threats must be real, not fictions. And fiction can be avoided only by not combining facts in a way that create errors such as the notion that repeatedly invoking 9/11 in the same breath as Iraq will somehow establish an equivalence between bin Laden and Saddam, or the equally fatuous idea that claiming no one could have foreseen the failure of the New Orleans levees obscures the obligation this government had to rescue people, as if establishing a fact requires mere declaration and some mild persuasion.

This talent for conflating one thing with another to create alternative truths went into full bloom as the Gulf Coast turned into a swamp and people died for lack of a coordinated rescue.

The White House and Bush's apologists, stung by criticism that federal response was lacking, went in search of everything from the political registration of the New Orleans mayor to 100 school buses swamped in a lot, to shift blame for people stranded days after the storm.

They dealt with New Orleans the same way they dealt with Iraq. Confronted with inconvenient facts, they constructed an alternative narrative. When one reality doesn't suit, they retreat to the madrassas of Fox News and talk radio.

Two conflicting realities, fact and opinion, stand like Twin Towers of unreality, a ready target for the next enemy we misjudge and the history that will someday wonder how an empire could enwrap so much of the world and not comprehend what it embraced. - zing!

*

Today seems as appropriate a day as any, and perhaps more appropriate than most, to make what The Clash would call a public service announcement:

First, the Blog of Eight has expanded to the blog of Eleven. Alert readers MJS, chicagodyke, and shystee have graciously consented to help us drag George Bush back to the hellhole that spawned Him help us in our ceaseless efforts to bring a new tone to American political discourse. I'm so fucking proud I could We're very happy to welcome such fine writers.

And now we come to the reason I haven't posted a Goodnight Moon for a long while; I've had a job on the night shift.

Yes, we're throwing open the doors of the renovated Mighty Corrente Building for the first time. Here's MJS's first post (he's just returned from Louisiana).

Here are some of the features that—blogger's massive and continuing suckitude aside—make the move to a new site, and new software, a Good Thing.

Briefly, when we control our server, our software, and our content, we control our own destiny. Of course, in dreams begin responsibilities, and that means work, but it also means the power to do good: We can program the new site; it's built with CivicSpace and Drupal, and hosted at OpenSourceHost.

The renovated Mighty Corrente Building is not yet finished—there's still wiring hanging from the ceiling, the wet bar isn't fully installed, some of the glass in the greenhouses got shattered during a wild party, and so on.

But we think it's ready enough for you, alert readers, to take a look at. For a time, we'll maintain this site, and the new site, in parallel. But as soon as possible, we're going to throw away the blogspot crutch, and walk.

Readers, at the right side of the menu on the new site, you'll see a "Feedback" link. Please use it!

But be gentle. We're fragile flowers here at Corrente....

NOTE Everyone contributed to this effort. But I want to give a shout out to farmer for relentlessly butting heads with and hammering on me clarifying the requirements for the site (since no software project can proceed, let alone succeed, without a decent set of requirements); Xan for making the suggestion to look into CivicSpace; Leah for moral support (in all senses of the word "moral"); and alert readers Hobson (for layout advice) and especially Nick (for the beautiful logo).

Some rescue peopple; some rescue dogs:

The first major airlift of dogs from the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast left Louisiana on Sunday, carrying about 80 pets to new temporary homes in California.

The Continental Airlines flight from Baton Rouge, La., was chartered for about $50,000 by Texas oil tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, in a movement dubbed "Operation Pet Lift."
(via AP)

Oil baron and major Republican contributor Pickens rescued dogs.

Al Gore, of course, rescued people.

Just sayin'.

NOTE Just don't tell Santorum about a rescue flight for dogs; we don't want Ricky any more excitable than he already is.

Apparently not.

But never let it be said that the Republicans don't learn from bitter experience—This time, they haven't got the carrier in the background, and they didn't hang up any banners! Nice work from the advance men. Stellar craftsmanship. Hey, I hear they've got some openings over at FEMA...

Right, floods.

Here.

The higher the index, the closer the Rapture is.

So remember, for these guys, unlike normal people, what's bad is good.

A city destroyed and thousands dead from Katrina?

That's good, because it means the Rapture is closer!

It really is the perfect Republican alibi, isn't it? The greater the clusterfuck, the closer the Rapture.

The will of the God of your choice be done...

The Republican Noise Machine is cranking up the volume on yet another alibi for Bush. It's one of their favorites, and a real golden oldie. Wait for it—

Government is the problem!

They really have nothing new to say, do they? The party of ideas is all out of ideas; no wonder all the wingers are holding a ginormous cirlejerk about whether the memorial to Flight 93 is shaped like a croissant—oops, I meant an Islamic Crescent. They look at the corpses in the streets of New Orleans and have nothing to say. Nothing.

Just to get ever-so-thoughtful Republican uber-shill David "I'm writing as bad as I can" Brook's latest alibi for Bubble Boy on the record:

of course we need limited but energetic government. But liberals who think this disaster is going to set off a progressive revival need to explain how a comprehensive governmental failure is going to restore America's faith in big government.
(via Times)

Nice try, Dave. And you've got to admire the Republican Noise Machine, of which Brooks is such an important cog—they're real, um, pros. The intelligent design behind the ever-changing alibis is a masterful example of defense in depth. First, blame the locals. Didn't work. Then, blame bureaucracy. Didn't work. Then, blame Brownie, the sacrificial victim. Didn't work. Now, it's time to drop the Big One: the old Republican standby since morning again in America—blame government!

When it comes to accepting responsibility and accountability, these guys are truly at the toddler level, aren't they?

"Georgie, did you break the lamp?"

"No! I never touched it! Besides, when I touched it, it was already broken!" And so on to wearisome length.

Anyhow, to place the responsibility and accountability where it needs to be placed:

Katrina is not a failure of government. Katrina is a failure of the Republican goverance.

Of course, it does help to look at the facts. And Brooks, at least in his rhetoric, pays tribute to this Enlightenment notion. Brooks writes:

For the brutal fact is, government tends toward bureaucracy, which means elaborate paper flow but ineffective action. Government depends on planning, but planners can never really anticipate the inevitable complexity of events. And American government is inevitably divided and power is inevitably devolved.

Sounds plausible, right? But let's look at the Bush administration bureaucracy in action (from Newsweek's "Bush Blows It", back):

For most of those first few days, Bush was hearing what a good job the Feds were doing. Bush likes "metrics," numbers to measure performance, so the bureaucrats gave him reassuring statistics.

People told Bush what He wanted to hear? Who knew?

Why on earth would that be?

Could it be that people, by now, have had experience with what Bush wants, and give it to him? That people know whistleblowers are fired? That scientists who want to do science are fired? That everyone who was right about Iraq troop strength (a "metric") or about WMDs (another "metric") was fired? And that everyone who was wrong was promoted? And then given the Medal of Freedom? That people know that only Bush loyalists are rewarded—and that the test of loyalty is telling Bush what he wants to hear? (That's called drinking the Kool-Aid, back)

And could it be that because Bush populated FEMA with public relations flaks (see back for the details that would be amazing if we didn't know Bush so well) we have a government in name only?

A government that (like the C.P.A. in Iraq) has been so hollowed out and infested by Republican operatives and political appointees that it can no longer function? Can no longer function except to distribute billions of taxpayer largesse to politically connected corporations?

Sorry, Dave. Katrina was "government" in the same way that "A Night at The Opera" by the Marx Brothers is opera. Except that the results—for everyone but the kind of gods who like to pull wings off flies, and the kind of people who laugh alone at night—have been anything but as funny.

Katrina was not a failure of government.

Katrina was a failure of the Republican theory of governance; the theory of governance ("government is the problem") that the Bush administration, along with a generation of Republican ideologues, believed in and put into action with great energy and determination.

Remember what Mike "Heckuva Job" Brown said, before Bush had his feet nailed to the floor under his desk back in DC? "I don't want to alarm anyone that New Orleans is filling up like a bowl. That isn't happening."

"New Orleans not filling up like a bowl"? That was exactly what was happening! The blogs knew it before Brownie did! That's not a failure of government; that's a failure of Brown; that's a failure of Bush, who appointed Brown (you too, Whiney Joe); it's a failure of Bush's good friend, Allbaugh, who pimped Brown to Bush; it's a failure of the entire Bush administration, which didn't bring this fool to Bush's attention before the catastrophe happened; and it's a failure of the Republican theory of governance, since failure to react to catastrophe is exactly what you'd expect from people who believe that government is the problem and try to weaken it whenever they can (except where they can loot it).

"New Orleans filling up like a bowl." Remember what Grover Norquist said? He said he wants to make government so small he can drown it in a bathtub. Well, under Bush we have a government that's large in size, but puny in performance—so I bet that's good enough for Grover.

"New Orleans filling up like a bowl." Yes, Norquist, Bush, and thirty years of Republican governance have succeeded. They've won. They finally drowned the government.

Republican governance drowned in the "bowl" of New Orleans. Too hollowed out, too puny, to function. Republican governance drowned in the bowl of New Orleans, along with thousands of American dead abandoned by a government that was too hollowed out, too puny, too conflicted, too politicized, too ideological, and too in denial to rescue them.

You put people in charge of the government who want to drown it, sooner or later it's going to drown.

Now it has. It's going to up to the American people to decide whether a drowned government is the kind of government they want.

I'm betting Americans don't want a drowned government. And it's going to be up to what remains of the Democratic party to find a spine and fight and win on their behalf.

And if the Dems don't?

No more water. The fire next time.

UPDATE Thanks to The Daou Report for the link.

The Boy in the Bubble:

How Bush blew it
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got."

Bush, the governor later recalled, was reassuring. But the conversation was all a little vague. Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president. There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But [Bush], who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed.

[After the 17th Street level was breeched,] Bush was told at 5 a.m. Pacific Coast time [that the city was in serious trouble] and immediately decided to cut his vacation short. To his senior advisers, living in the insular presidential bubble, the mere act of lopping off a couple of presidential vacation days counts as a major event. ... Bush blithely proceeded with the rest of his schedule for the day, accepting a gift guitar at one event and pretending to riff like Tom Cruise in "Risky Business." ... The radio was reporting water nine feet deep at the corner of Napoleon and St. Charles streets.

The one federal agency that is supposed to handle disasters—FEMA—was dysfunctional. ... FEMA's boss, Bush's close friend Joe Allbaugh, quit when he lost his cabinet seat. (Now a consultant, Allbaugh was down on the Gulf Coast last week looking for contracts for his private clients.) Allbaugh replaced himself with his college buddy Mike Brown, whose last private-sector job (omitted from his official resume) had been supervising horse-show judges for the International Arabian Horse Association.

For most of those first few days, Bush was hearing what a good job the Feds were doing. Bush likes "metrics," numbers to measure performance, so the bureaucrats gave him reassuring statistics. At a press availability on Wednesday, Bush duly rattled them off: there were 400 trucks transporting 5.4 million meals and 13.4 million liters of water along with 3.4 million pounds of ice. Yet it was obvious to anyone watching TV that New Orleans had turned into a Third World hellhole.

The denial and the frustration finally collided aboard Air Force One on Friday. As the president's plane sat on the tarmac at New Orleans airport, a confrontation occurred that was described by one participant as "as blunt as you can get without the Secret Service getting involved." Governor Blanco was there, along with various congressmen and senators and Mayor Nagin (who took advantage of the opportunity to take a shower aboard the plane). One by one, the lawmakers listed their grievances as Bush listened. Rep. Bobby Jindal, whose district encompasses New Orleans, told of a sheriff who had called FEMA for assistance. According to Jindal, the sheriff was told to e-mail his request, "and the guy was sitting in a district underwater and with no electricity," Jindal said, incredulously. "How does that make any sense?" Jindal later told NEWSWEEK that "almost everybody" around the conference table had a similar story about how the federal response "just wasn't working." With each tale, "Bush just shook his head, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing," says Jindal, a conservative Republican and Bush appointee who lost a close race to Blanco. Repeatedly, the president turned to his aides and said, "Fix it."

A debate over "federalizing" the National Guard had been rattling in Washington for the previous three days. Normally, the Guard is under the control of the state governor, but the Feds can take over—if the governor asks them to. Nagin suggested that Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the Pentagon's on-scene commander, be put in charge. According to Senator Vitter, Bush turned to Governor Blanco and said, "Well, what do you think of that, Governor?" Blanco told Bush, "I'd rather talk to you about that privately." To which Nagin responded, "Well, why don't you do that now?"

The meeting broke up. Bush and Blanco disappeared to talk. More than a week later, there was still no agreement. Blanco didn't want to give up her authority, and Bush didn't press.

Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as "strangely surreal and almost detached." At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat.
(via Newsweek)

Aux duck pits, citoyens!

David Rossie is a an editorial writer/columnist for the Press and Sun Bulletin of Binghamton, NY, and if it weren't for "Common Dreams," which continues to pluck his excellent columns to republish on their site, I probably wouldn't know he exists.

I sure am glad I do. He's so much better than Kristof or Cohen, or so many of the other pseudo-liberals our great metropolitan papers have chosen to burden us with. Clear, uncompromising, liberal, with a great eye for what is worthy of ire, and on behalf of what values, Rossie speaks with both clarity and passion, two qualities our beloved republic has never been in greater need of.

This particular piece of writing is so fine, in part, because it points the way from comprehension of our present situation to the kind of action capable of changing it.

Remember the pictures. The bodies floating in the flood waters, the hunger-plagued children, the anguished mothers, the hopeless elderly, the heroic Coast Guard rescue teams. Remember them. Remember them as the city's slow recovery proceeds and the last presidential platitude has mercifully faded away.

Remember that this didn't happen in Haiti or Bangladesh or some other Third World backwater. It happened here. Remember why it happened and who allowed it to get as bad as it got. Remember it when the midterm elections come around a year from November. Keep all of it in mind, because those elections can be, must be, the first step toward reclaiming this once-proud nation's respectability.

The voters of this country made a tragic blunder in 2000 and they compounded it last year, and there is no forcing the genie back into the bottle. But the past does not have to be prologue. If the Democrats can somehow find a voice and an agenda, not to mention a spine, and recapture the House or Senate or both, they can at least slow if not halt the decline of this country toward a social level comparable to that of 17th century England.

The failure of FEMA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, in bringing relief to the stranded inhabitants of New Orleans and the failure of our detached-from-reality president once again to respond to a crisis in a timely manner, were so glaring that even the tame media could not ignore it.

Bush's grandstanding moment with the bullhorn in 2001, and the fact that we had been attacked by external forces bought him 3½ years of slack. But Katrina offered no such theatrical opportunity. Instead, we had to settle for the frat boy telling us how much fun he had in New Orleans before he became an even more carefree president, and how much he was looking forward to sitting on Trent Lott's new front porch.

You can read the rest here.

David Rossie is a good reason for checking in at "Common Dreams" on a regular basis.

Does it occur to anyone else that the refusal to fire Michael Brown has less to do with that vaunted Bush family loyality and more to do with a typical Rovian strategy, i.e., to provide an alternate target for those slings and arrows of outrageous, unearned misfortune being promulgated by the liberally-besotted MSM against the wholly innocent Bush administration?

Second question: If that is the case, should we be playing their game by continuing to pile on to the already overly cooked goose Michael Brown has become?

Just asking?

Any thoughts bloggers and commentators?

Third question, not necessarily related to the first two. Does anyone else think that Mr. Cheney looked diffrent in those pictures of him visiting the disaster areas? Did he looked bloated, as if he might be taking some sort of powerful medication, like steriods. I'm not trying to suggest anything other than that his absence might have been due to his on-going major health problems. Any medical personnel care to comment?

Bush, the words:

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."
(via WaPo)

Bush, the actions:

A German military plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of Hurricane Katrina was sent back by U.S. authorities, officials said Saturday.

The plane was turned away Thursday because it did not have the required authorization, a German government spokesman said.
(via AP)

Bush really is the anti-Teddy, isn't he?

Talk loudly, and carry a tiny dickM stick.

Wanker.

Remind me again what that stands for?

Tennesesee's own Al Gore does some good:

Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans, acting at the urging of a doctor who saved the life of the former vice president's son.

On Sept. 1, three days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Simon learned that Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore's son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989, was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

"The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute - food and water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital and ... corpses outside," Simon wrote.

Gore responded immediately, telephoning Kline and agreeing to underwrite the $50,000 each for the two flights, although Larry Flax, founder of California Pizza Kitchens, later pledged to pay for one of them.

"None of the airlines involved required a contract or any written guarantee of payment before sending their planes and volunteer crews," Simon wrote of the American Airlines flights. "One official said if Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them."
(via AP)

Nice to see how many members of the party of personal responsibility followed Al Gore's lead...

Oh, wait. That didn't happen?

If the New Orleans Krewes who run Mardi Gras are anything like the Philadelphia Mummers, they were vulnerable to Katrina. There will be clubhouses in which the costumes are stored, for example. (A sociologist would bury the beauty of the costumes and the relationships of the people under a dead phrase like "social capital," so let's not go there.)

Next year's Mardi Gras will be as good an indication of the civic health of the New New Orleans—if it's not run by the existing Krewes, are definitely not rich, and not Republican, not corporatist, then... Well, the terrorists will have won.

Readers, what's happened to the Krewes?

NOTE I've been Googling on Krewes, Katrina, Rex without result. Although Whole Foods has partnered with the Gumbo Krewe to bring $1 million in relief.

Last Sunday in the poor old, increasingly disintermediated Times, David Brooks shared his soft-core, treacly vision of a rebuilt New Orleans with us:

It has created as close to a blank slate as we get in human affairs, and given us a chance to rebuild a city that wasn't working. We need to be realistic about how much we can actually change human behavior, but it would be a double tragedy if we didn't take advantage of these unique circumstances to do something that could serve as a spur to antipoverty programs nationwide.
(via Times)

Let me have men about me who are fat...

Of course, Brooks is a winger shill, so his vision is very different from any vision that you, I, or most of the people of New Orleans would have. Republican Representative Baker brought Brook's gauzy dreams down to earth for us (though of course he did a Hastert, and quickly retracted his statement):

We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
(WSJ via Eric Umansky)

Translation: In the New New Orleans, there will be no poor people, and no black people! In fact, they're going to rebuild the French Quarter just like Disneyland: forced perspectives, and smaller scale. Only kidding!

But, praise the God of your choice, the Republican vision for the New New Orleans is coming true right now! We don't have to wait for it!

Yes, the mercenaries have arrived:

Reports are beginning to surface that New Orleans and environs are crawling with armed private commandos from Blackwater USA, the North Carolina-based security firm that has risen to prominence with its highly visible role in Iraq. The slide show at the top of this entry comes from their Web site.

A Georgia-based doctor and military veteran who blogs under the name Otter has been down in the disaster zone the last few days, and he has seen the private Blackwater security forces everywhere. He wrote yesterday from a police precinct house in New Orleans:

Blackwater Security is here--clean, well-equipped, and armed to the teeth.

The New York Times has seen them too:

No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

(More great work from the on-fire-lately Will Bunch Attytood, via Kos)

Bringing the war back home...

Gee, I wonder if the New, New Orleans is going to be rebuilt for the benefit of the poor, the black, the old, who had to flee; for the ordinary heroes who stayed and saved lives; for jazz, for gumbo, for the Krewes, for Commander's Palace—or for the benefit of the Republican rich fucks who fled, then hired armed guards, rushed back, and are busy seizing as much of the high ground as they can?

Hey, I've got an idea! A new city needs a new name. How about we honor the New New Orleans by naming it after the great man—the Great President—who made it all possible?

That's right—Bush Orleans!

Surely I can't be the first person to have this idea?

Tinfoil hat time, but I reread Délay's words this morning, and one word caught my eye:

[Not-yet-indicted] congressman [Délay] likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"
(via back)

Can you guess what the word was?

"Camp."

And I'm on not talking Susan Sontag here.

I've always thought that, even though we have plenty of football stadiums in this country, the Chilean experience—where the enemies of the regime were rounded up and held in soccer stadiums before being tortured, shot, or thrown for airplanes—could not be "happen here" because the sheer scale of this country would make the logistics very difficult.

So, I find some details about the Dome stories unsettling:

1. Concentration of marginalized people into sports arenas

2. Surrounding them with armed guards

3. Dedicated transport (not trains, as in Nazi Europe, but buses)

4. Use of "emergency powers" (next door to quasi-legal, arbitrary)

5. The cash cards (so botched) weren't electronic identity cards, or electronic ankle bracelets, but they'll figure that out next time.

Now, I'm not saying the motivation for the Domes was anything other than benign (though Bab's stone-cold comment on the "underprivileged" makes it very, very clear how marginalized the citizens in the domes were).

However, in some ways it's a blessing—not that this excuses the deaths and the loss—that the political hacks at FEMA were so feckless and clueless.

Because the techniques, the administrative and management skills required, to concentrate large numbers of marginalized people into, um, "camps" is the very last thing we would want Republicans to acquire. Because those skills, used for benevolent purposes this time, can be put to other purposes when the impulse is there—and if we take the Republicans at their word (see Orcinus), it will be. (This is yet another illustration of the "fight to the finish" concept; we may no longer be in "pendulum" mode.)

And please refer all comments containing the words "tinfoil hat" to The Department of No! They Would Never Do That!

NOTE In a way, this tinfoil hat scenario has an eerie parallel to Abu Ghraib. No matter our imperial sins in the past, and they are many, the techniques required to concentrate large numbers of captives in camps, and then to torture them, just aren't in the mainstream. "That's not what America is about." Because the chain of commmand hasn't yet had to write the manual on how to organize a torture camp, and so the perps screwed up. (O felix culpa!) The Stanford Effect (here) wasn't strong enough to suck the whole chain of command in, and the story got out. If history is allowed to judge Bush, as we all hope it is, I feel that destroying the very possibility of military honor by making the chain of command complicit in torture will be one of the gravest charges against him.

UPDATE Oh no (via Jesus's General)....

It didn't occur to me (though it should have) that Bush would use faith-based organizations to handle the logistics of filling the camps.... No matter how hard I try with these people, and I try very hard, I am never cynical or paranoid enough.

Put this one next to Bab's comment about Katrina "working very well" for the poor "underprivileged":

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's visit to Reliant Park this morning offered him a glimpse of what it's like to be living in shelter.

While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.

The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"

They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.
(Houston Chronicle via Raw Story)

What a sick fuck.

It really looks like Karen's stepping out of her role as a Bush enabler and winning her independence:

"People are seeing things that no one likes to see," Hughes said. "We've seen criminals try to prey on vulnerable people in the midst of a tragedy, and that's horrible."
(via Cox News ServiceGainesville)

At last! A White House insider has the courage to admit how Bush and the Republicans abused the country's trust after 9/11!

Wait, don't answer that:

Iraqi troops were ordered to reopen Baghdad airport yesterday after a British security company halted commercial flights in a pay dispute, cutting one of the country's few outside links.

The government threatened a showdown with Global Strategies Group, saying the London-based firm overstepped its powers when private guards shut the airport at dawn.
(via Guardian)

But now the story gets even curiouser:

The London-based company said it was forced to suspend operations because the transport ministry, which owns the airport, had not paid it for seven months.

A similar dispute in June shut the facility for two days.

Global has about 550 security staff, mostly Nepalese, American, British and Iraqi, manning what is in effect a fortress with a runway, a sprawl of concrete, razor wire and checkpoints.

Shortly after dawn the company said it would maintain security but there would be no flights, nor passengers allowed entry, until bills were settled. Military flights which have their own runway and facilities continued unaffected.

"Global has been in constant negotiations with senior members of the Iraqi government, which is currently not paying the company," said a statement.

"Once payment has been made by the client, Global will resume its work and thus allow normal air operations to resume."

The mercenaries haven't been paid? B-but, we're spending billions over there. So, where did the money go?

WaPo's Bigfeet weigh in. Their conclusion:

But all Americans, Democrats and Republicans, ought to hope that the administration will right itself sufficiently to oversee an effective recovery. And that's not just for the sake of Katrina's survivors. For the president to be rendered a lame duck more than three years before he leaves office would not serve the country well, at home or abroad.
(via AP)

Really? Why?

Guess it didn't give Bush the PR bounce he wanted. So they axed it.

The nation's relief agency said Friday it will discontinue its program to distribute debit cards worth up to $2,000 to hurricane victims, two days after hastily announcing the novel plan to provide quick relief.
(via AP)

Oh well.

Is it coincidence that Brown gets demoted and this plan gets axed now that Cheney's back from his vacation?

5:56 PM, Friday (these guys are so fucking predictable):

FEMA Director Brown Dumped
The administration dumped FEMA Director Michael Brown as commander of Hurricane Katrina relief operations Friday.
(via AP)

But wait! Brownie's not going to spend more time with his family, even though he did fake his resume (back)—he's still got his job!

The decision to order Brown back to Washington from Louisiana - he remains as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - marked the administration's latest attempt to assert leadership in the wake of the devastating storm and its aftermath, including the weakest public opinion polls of Bush's time in office.

So, wait a minute.

One day, Bush tells the nation Brownie's "doing a heckuva job," the next day, Brownie's out of a job.

I'm so confused! The only explanation I can think of is that Brownie's going back to DC to do an even better job!

Meanwhile, Brownie—surprise!—blames the press:

Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: "By the press, yes. By the president, no."

As for his plans, he said, "I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep.

"And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims."

Aaaw. Shed a tear for Brownie—emergency management is hard work!

Hey, maybe Brownie could help the victims by airdropping Mexican meals and margaritas into the Astrodome!

Vancouver Sun, 9/8/05, p. A6:

The team was also singled out for praise Wednesday by United States Ambassador David Wilkins, who gave Canada top marks for helping victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"Many countries have offered help. Nobody more so than Canada. You are at the top of the list and for that, we will always by grateful," Wilkins told the Vancouver Board of Trade....

"In times like this you learn who your friends are, and Canada is a dear friend."

Vancouver Sun, same day, p. C1:

United States Ambassador David Wilkins told Vancouver business leaders Wednesday there will be no end to the softwood lumber dispute until Canada agrees to negotiate a settlement....

"Friends negotiate, they don't retaliate," he said....

Asked why the U.S. was not willing to follow the latest NAFTA ruling that delivered a clear win to Canada,... Wilkins said the NAFTA ruling was based on a 2002 duty determination that has since been rewritten.

"Since then it was superceded by a 2004 ruling and that's the ruling we operate under," he said. "The point is this: It never ends."

The United States: we make the rules. We just don't play by them.

Perfect. Just perfect. They're all PR people!

t's not really all that surprising that the officials who run FEMA are stressing that all-important emergency response function: the public relations campaign. As it turns out, that's all they really have experience at doing.

Michael Brown was made the director after he was asked to resign from the International Arabian Horse Association, and the other top officials at FEMA don't exactly have impressive résumés in emergency management either. The Chicago Tribune reported on Wednesday that neither the acting deputy director, Patrick Rhode, nor the acting deputy chief of staff, Brooks Altshuler, came to FEMA with any previous experience in disaster management. Ditto for Scott Morris, the third in command until May.

Mr. Altshuler and Mr. Rhode had worked in the White House's Office of National Advance Operations. Those are the people who decide where the president [sic] will stand on stage and which loyal supporters will be permitted into the audience - and how many firefighters will be diverted from rescue duty to surround the president as he patrols the New Orleans airport trying to look busy. Mr. Morris was a press handler with the Bush presidential campaign. Previously, he worked for the company that produced Bush campaign commercials.
(via Times)

So, no wonder when these guys got some firefighters, their first thought was to use them for a Bush photo op.

That was their job.

Unbelievable? All too believable?

NOTE And why the fuck is this fine reporting on the Times editorial page? WTF? Where's the newsroom on this? Too busy taking expense account lunches with sources who lie them (and us), or what? WTF?

Politicizing:

Maybe I'm confused. Can someone tell me how else Bush can be held responsible and acountatable for the Katrina Clusterfuck other than through the political system? Because that's what "politicizing means." What other means would the Republicans suggest than "politicizing"? The power of prayer? Armed insurrection? Giant puppets? Help us out, here, Republicans! How would you hold our CEO President responsible and accountable for Katrina?

Finger pointing:

Ever read Zola's J'Accuse? Now that's fingerpointing. Until such time as we can develop a Vast Fingerpointing Machine that Zola's caliber, the Republicans and their shills should stop whining. They ain't seen nuthin' yet.

The Shrill One weighs in once again. After discussing the eerie and disturbing parallels between the two ginormous clusterfucks, Iraq and Katrina (back, he gets to the bottom line:

Why did the administration make the same mistakes twice? Because it paid no political price the first time.

Can the administration escape accountability again? Some of the tactics it has used to obscure its failure in Iraq won't be available this time. The reality of the catastrophe was right there on our TV's, although FEMA is now trying to prevent the media from showing pictures of the dead. And people who ask hard questions can't be accused of undermining the troops.

But the other factors that allowed the administration to evade responsibility for the mess in Iraq are still in place. The media will be tempted to revert to he-said-she-said stories rather than damning factual accounts. The effort to shift blame to state and local officials is under way. Smear campaigns against critics will start soon, if they haven't already. And raw political power will be used to block any independent investigation.

Will this be enough to let the administration get away with another failure? Let's hope not: if the administration isn't held accountable for what just happened, it will keep repeating its mistakes. Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff will receive presidential medals, and the next disaster will be even worse.
(via Paul Krugman in the Times)

History does repeat itself, doesn't it? First time as tragedy, second time as... Well, tragedy.

It really is a fight to the finish, isn't it?

Yep, it looks like Inerrant Boy is about to heave ol' Brownie over the side—resumé problems are always a prelude to, um, spending more time with the family:

WASHINGTON -- The official biography for Michael Brown, the beleaguered head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, contains a discrepancy about his background in emergency management, it was reported.

A 2001 press release on the White House Web site says that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing emergency services divisions."

Brown's official biography on the FEMA Web site says that his background in state and local government also includes serving as "an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" and as a city councilman.

But a former mayor of Edmond, Randel Shadid, told The Associated Press on Friday that Brown had been an assistant to the city manager. Shadid said Brown was never assistant city manager.

"I think there's a difference between the two positions," said Shadid. "I would think that is a discrepancy."

A 2001 press release on the White House Web site says that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing emergency services divisions."

Brown's official biography on the FEMA Web site says that his background in state and local government also includes serving as "an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" and as a city councilman.

But a former mayor of Edmond, Randel Shadid, told The Associated Press on Friday that Brown had been an assistant to the city manager. Shadid said Brown was never assistant city manager.

"I think there's a difference between the two positions," said Shadid. "I would think that is a discrepancy."
(via WaPo)

And Scott "Sucker MC" McClellan just gave "Brownie" the vote of confidence; always a prelude to dismissal:

McClellan said the White House's earlier statements that Brown retained the president's confidence remain true _ but he declined to state that confidence outright.

So, Brownie's committed the unforgivable sin: He made Bush look bad. Because otherwise, even through Katrina was a clusterfuck of ginormous proportions, Bush would have given Brownie the Medal of Freedom.

So, Brownnie's going to be the fall guy in the classic Bush strategery for evading accountability—Finger the underlings! Worked at Abu Ghraib!

And the case he is on is the one about keeping as much information about what really happened in the Katrina catastrophe away from the American people.

Honest to God:

As reported in the Washington Post:

The Republican National Committee sent allies a list of "talking points," including: "It's disappointing that while President Bush has focused his administration's entire efforts towards saving lives and helping the victims of Katrina, there are those who are using this tragedy to score cheap political points." (Link)

We kid you not.

The question is not who is pointing fingers, it is who is pointing fingers where and at whom and for what purpose.

As we used a few or our own fingers to point out yesterday, there is no lack of finger-pointing on behalf of this administration.

I'd like to add an addendum to that post. Both the state of LA and the New Orleans authorities, from the Mayor on down, have much to answer for. Exactly what is the issue. And we have insufficient information as of now to know. I am unable to vindicate anyone's decision not to allow the Red Cross to come into the city, but to lay the responsibility on a particular state official is to overlook the fact, as acknowledged by the Red Cross itself, that it is unable to provide its own logistics to enter a flooded city, nor is it able to provide its own security on the ground.

There are questions to be asked of the Red Cross as well. They work with FEMA, why didn't they request help air-lifting in water and supplies?

There may well be acceptable answers to these questions and others: why was the security so bad; how much looting was actually going on; what can one make of this persuasive and horrifying description of how local law enforcement interacted with hurricane survivors within the city? (sorry, don't remember where I got the link; Buzzflash, perhaps)

One aspect of the whole mess that has gone relatively unremarked upon is the complete breakdown in the system of communications between local, state, and Federal officials and first responders on the ground. This was a key area identified as problematic for national security after 9/11. On the basis of what we've seen for the last two weeks, nothing, I repeat, nothing, nada, niente, rien, zero, zede, bupkus, has been done in the way of solving that self-same communication problem. I'll have more on this subject over he weekend.

Also, come back later, or on the weekend for a preview of one coming Corrente attraction we think will be of interest, or to put it another way, you better damn well have an interest in this subject if you have any interest in taking your country back from the government-hating dolts who are presenting running every branch of it.

Anderson Cooper:

"All these politicians all this week are saying, 'Well, you know what? This is not the time to point fingers; this is not the time to, y'know, quibble about things.' Well, y'know what? When is the time? Because I'm happy to write it down in my engagement book and make an appointment. Because, to me, the time is now, when the world is watching." (source Daily Kos/Bill in Portland Maine)

*

"Hurricane Karma" yet?

New Orleans (AP) – With the destructive force of Hurricane W seemingly largely spent, a stunned America began this week to assess the damage and ask how it could possibly have happened in the first place.

Until it finally hit two weeks ago, W had been seen by most self-appointed experts mostly as an impressive, erratic, but generally harmless force, capable of inflicting apocalyptic damage on defenseless Third World countries, but not prone to do the same to the US.

That comforting illusion has now been shattered for all but the most blinkered souls.

With economic damages in the trillions of dollars and counting, and a cumulative death toll in the tens of thousands, it is now clear that W is the worst domestic disaster ever to strike the US. What makes it worse, say a legion of long-ignored critics, is that the destructive potential of Hurricane W was foreseeable years ago. They point to a long, increasingly destructive pattern of damage left by W everywhere it touched down, from its early years as a fluky offshoot of a larger Texan weather system, "El Pendejo," where it first appeared to stagger up and down the East Coast before drying out and gathering strength over Houston from a growing up draft of political hot air generated by a thousand point sources of toxic think tanks and noxious cable TV emissions. By the time W was done, dry oil wells and bankrupt companies formed a swath across the region. Still, W was written off as a local disturbance that would ultimately end up spending itself out in irrational baseball trades and pension fund scams.

Unbeknownst to those with intact defenses against infection from bovine fecal matter, however, these foul-smelling but seemingly innocuous phenomena were gradually eroding much of the country's skepticism and native common sense, which historically have buffered the country from periodic outbreaks of flummery and hogwash. Thus, when W finally struck in 2000, seizing Washington and quickly destroying its fiscal infrastructure, little natural protection remained.

What surprises so many now is how slow the country was to react even then. "It was like everyone had taken stupid pills," said one witness, who like others, tried in vain to get fellow countrymen to pay attention. Even after W had wound up contributing to the collapse of the World Trade Centers in New York, people refused to believe what was happening right before their eyes. Instead, many claimed that the real cause was "El Clenis," a rogue system thought to be behind countless, seemingly unrelated phenomena during the 1990s.

This was a fateful miscalculation. Misunderestimated by millions, W. was able to continue gathering strength from the very destruction he wreaked, whipping the atmosphere into a blinding combination of xenophobia, illusions of omnipotence, and astonishing short-sightedness that it then unleashed on the Middle East, destroying possibly forever what was once the cradle of civilization and bringing death and destruction to millions and plunging world energy markets into chaos. As a horrified world watched W stall over Iraq, it was thought that at least the worst was over, and that the US would dodge a bullet.

Why anyone thought that will be a question historians will ponder for generations.

Now, as people begin to dig out, the full extent of the damage is only just now coming into view. Gutted bureaucracies, empty coffers, blighted schools, and overstretched military forces, once hidden from view, now lie exposed, stretching as far as the eye can see. The long-neglected environment itself lies in ruins. The once-mighty dollar, already plunging as a result of W's four-year rampage, teeters on the brink.

Amidst the desolation, however, some bright spots shine forth. Rescuers report that a tiny elite have not just survived W., but seem to have thrived, through a combination of inherited wealth, tax shelters, and legalized looting. Even they, however, express doubts about the future of the country. When asked if they are staying to rebuild, one such survivor laughed. "If by 'rebuild', you mean 'cash in,' you bet. I'm long Halliburton for a cool $20 mil. Otherwise, are you nuts? It's off to the Caymans for us. But hey, thanks for all the tax cuts. They meant a lot."

[UPDATE:Sky TV picks up the story]:

We have the answer for you. Major Garrett.

No, he's not a military man, that's his actual name. He's a mainstream journo who always skewed a bit right, and today, openly so, as one of Fox News ace reporters. He's even written a book.

Stephen Hayes, you will remember, is one of those faux-journos hatched by various right-wing affrimative action programs. In his role as staff writer at The Weekly Standard, he wrote an article that purported to show that there were substantial ties between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein. It's title was "CASE CLOSED."

The story, highly detailed, in fact, tendentious to the point of being almost impossible to follow, was clearly based on a leak from the DOD, and within what seemed like only hours, most of the information carried in the story was denied by its institutional source, if not the specific leaker. We covered the initial dust-up here.

No problem that Hayes's closed case was immediately shown to be leaky, his book telling exactly the same story, "The Connection," was forthcoming on schedule, and Hayes has continued to push the story, as have other right-wing faux journos continued to pretend that its argument is founded on facts, in exactly the same way as both the President and Vice-President continue to talk as if Saddam Hussein has something to do with 9/11.

That's the falangist way; fashion a story, ignore all critiques of its logic and presented facts, and then constantly cite it in vicious attacks on what has already been established as historical fact, and anyone who dares to believe it..(See all major 20th century analyses of totalitarianism and propoganda from Orwell to Jacque Ellul.)

So, what was Major Garrett's big bombshell as reported yesterday, Sept 7, 2005 on Brit Hulme's Special Report?

Let Hugh Hewitt, on whose radio show Garrett made an appearance within minutes of appearing on Fox, tell you all about it, as reported on Radio Blogger, who provided this introduction to the transcript: (emphasis mine)

Explosive revelation by Fox News' Major Garrett.

On the Fox News Channel just a little while ago, Major Garrett, one of Fox's star reporters, and author of The Enduring Revolution, broke a very disturbing story for those on the left that want to play the blame game regarding the reaction to the Katrina.

Here's the gist of the bombshell:

HH: You just broke a pretty big story. I was watching up on the corner television in my studio, and it's headlined that the Red Cross was blocked from delivering supplies to the Superdome, Major Garrett. Tell us what you found out.

MG: Well, the Red Cross, Hugh, had pre-positioned a literal vanguard of trucks with water, food, blankets and hygiene items. They're not really big into medical response items, but those are the three biggies that we saw people at the New Orleans Superdome, and the convention center, needing most accutely. And all of us in America, I think, reasonably asked ourselves, geez. You know, I watch hurricanes all the time. And I see correspondents standing among rubble and refugees and evacuaees. But I always either see that Red Cross or Salvation Army truck nearby. Why don't I see that?

HH: And the answer is?

MG: The answer is the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, that is the state agency responsible for that state's homeland security, told the Red Cross explicitly, you cannot come.

HH: Now Major Garrett, on what day did they block the delivery? Do you know specifically?

MG: I am told by the Red Cross, immediately after the storm passed.

HH: Okay, so that would be on Monday afternoon.

MG: That would have been Monday or Tuesday. The exact time, the hour, I don't have. But clearly, they had an evacuee situation at the Superdome, and of course, people gravitated to the convention center on an ad hoc basis. They sort of invented that as another place to go, because they couldn't stand the conditions at the Superdome.

HH: Any doubt in the Red Cross' mind that they were ready to go, but they were blocked?

MG: No. Absolutely none. They are absolutely unequivocal on that point.

HH: And are they eager to get this story out there, because they are chagrined by the coverage that's been emanating from New Orleans?

MG: I think they are. I mean, and look. Every agency that is in the private sector, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Feed The Children, all the ones we typically see are aggrieved by all the crap that's being thrown around about the response to this hurricane, because they work hand and glove with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When FEMA is tarred and feathered, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are tarred and feathered, because they work on a cooperative basis. They feel they are being sullied by this reaction.

And what here is new or newsworthy, you may be asking yourself? As far as I can tell, it's the fact that Major Garrett got an interview with someone in the higher echelons of the American Red Cross.

Did we not know that the Red Cross, as it always does, prepositioned supplies all over the hurricane's likely target areas? Did we not know that they were prevented from delivering them by a combination of the intensity of the on-going damage in New Orleans, which extended into the second day after Katrina had moved on, and the lack of a mode to deliver supplies to those trapped in a city largely underwater? So, what has Major Garrett added to this narrative. Presumably, it's the fingering of the state government of LA as the ones responsible for all the went wrong in New Orleans by the Red Cross itself.

If you find yourself a bit surprised that an organization like the Red Cross, which works closely with both local, state and federal officials, would take sides so decisively, you might want to read this explanation they offer on their own website to the frequently asked question of where they were during those first days after Katrina hit.

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?


Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.

As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.

Let's do a little compare and contrast between this unexceptional explanation of the situation and what Garrett and Hewitt make of what those sources of Garrett's are supposed to have disclosed to him, (again, emphasis mine):

HH: (edit)Now Major Garrett, what about the Louisiana governor's office of Homeland Security. Have they responded to this charge by the Red Cross, which is a blockbuster charge?

MG: I have not been able to reach them yet. But, what they have said consistently is, and what they told the Red Cross, we don't want you to come in there, because we have evacuees that we want to get out. And if you come in, they're more likely to stay. So I want your listeners to follow me here. At the very moment that Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans was screaming where's the food, where's the water, it was over the overpass, and state officials were saying you can't come in.

HH: How long would it have taken to deliver those supplies, Major Garrett, into the Superdome and possibly the convention center?

MG: That is a more difficult question to answer than you might think. There were areas, obviously, as you approached the Superdome, that were difficult to get to, because of the flood waters. And as the Red Cross explained it to me, look. We don't have amphibious vehicles. We have trucks and ambulance type vehicles. In some cases, after the flood waters rose as high as they did, we would have needed, at minimal, the Louisiana National Guard to bring us in, or maybe something bigger and badder, from the Marines or Army-type vehicle. They're not sure about that. But remember, Hugh, we were transfixed, I know I was. I'm sure you were and your listeners were, by my colleague, Shep Smith, and others on that overpass.

HH: Right.

MG: ...saying, wait a minute. We drove here. It didn't take us anything to drive here.

HH: Right.

MG: Why can't people just come here?

HH: I also have to conclude from what you're telling me, Major Garrett, is that had they been allowed to deliver when they wanted to deliver, which is at least a little bit prior to the levee, or at least prior to the waters rising, the supplies would have been pre-positioned, and the relief...you know, the people in the Superdome, and possibly at the convention center, I want to come back to that, would have been spared the worst of their misery.

MG: They would have been spared the lack of food, water and hygiene. I don't think there's any doubt that they would not have been spared the indignity of having nor workable bathrooms in short order.

Here's a Red Cross official explaining just that point last Wednesday on Hardball:

MCCRUMMEN: Well, right now, people are in shelters. And we prefer hard structures like that that we can—that are easier to maintain than a tent city.

MATTHEWS: Right.

MCCRUMMEN: But I think the federal government and the Red Cross are working through some of those issues right now to ensure that people have safe places to stay.

MATTHEWS: Look at these people right now. We're just seeing this footage. It's depressing. Look at the age of some of these folk here. They're fragile to begin with.

What would—what would you like to be able to do in the next week, with the help that the money people give, to change that situation to a more hopeful situation?

MCCRUMMEN: We have got to ensure that those people that are vulnerable right now have safe places to stay, food to eat and life-sustaining things that the whole coordinated effort is trying to bring to them. That's what's most important right now.

MATTHEWS: Do you have helicopters?

MCCRUMMEN: Red Cross does not. But we rely on our partners to bring those to us when we need to get supplied in and out.

MATTHEWS: What's going on right now? If you want to give me—give me a visual picture right now of what the Red Cross is doing, now that you've got this $72 million pledged.

MCCRUMMEN: Right now—before the storms hit, we had things prepositioned all throughout this area, because we knew it was going to be bad. So, right now, we're moving that stuff and volunteer—disaster-trained volunteers into those affected areas to make sure that those people get what they need.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Tell me what you had ready to go.

MCCRUMMEN: We had millions of heater meals and cleanup kits and hygiene kits and the kinds of things that people are going to need just to survive for the next two, three days, until federal assistance can get there and until people can get through the bad infrastructure and get the things they need.

Granted, the discussion is less than pointed, given Matthews' chronic inability to conduct an interview with any entity more challenging than a mirror. Still, it's very clear that as of Wednesday, the Red Cross was kept from delivering needed supplies within New Orleans, and in particular to the Superdome and the Convention Center, by the lack of a means to do so, which would have to have been provided by either the state of LA or by the Federal government.

So, where's the story, where's the bombshell?

Oddly, as Hewitt and Garrett continue their colloquy, they seem to expose the threadbare nature of the story, except that they manage not to notice. (emphasis mine)

HH: Now Major Garrett, let's turn to the convention center, because this will be, in the aftermath...did the Red Cross have ready to go into the convention center the supplies that we're talking about as well?

MG: Sure. They could have gone to any location, provided that the water wasn't too high, and they got some assistance.

HH: Now, were they utterly dependent upon the Louisiana state officials to okay them?

MG: Yes.

HH: Because you know, they do work with FEMA. But is it your understanding that FEMA and the Red Cross and the other relief agencies must get tht state's okay to act?

MG: As the Red Cross told me, they said look. We are not state actors. We are not the Army. We are a private organziation. We work in cooperation with both FEMA and the state officials. But the state told us A) it's not safe, because the water is dangerous. And we're now learning how toxic the water is. B) there's a security situation, because they didn't have a handle on the violence on the ground. And C) and I think this is most importantly, they wanted to evacuate out. They didn't want people to stay.

And once again, can we ask, where is the story here, where the bombshell? No matter, if the substance makes no sense, Hewitt is on the case to push forward with this devastating indictment of everyone but Bush & co:

HH: Now off the record, will the Red Cross tell you what they think of Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin?

MG: No.

HH: Will they tell you what they think about FEMA director Brown?

MG: No.

HH: Will they tell you any...will they give any advice of how to make sure this doesn't happen again?

MG: Well, there is something, Hugh, that I think we have to be honest with ourselves about. New Orleans is a situation, because of its geography, utterly unique in America. We don't build cities in bowls, except there. This complicated the Red Cross efforts, and the FEMA efforts, from the start. In the mid-90's, the Red Cross opened a shelter in South Carolina that was eventually flooded. And there was a big controversy about that. After that, the Red Cross made a policy decision that it would never shelter, or seek to shelter, any evacuee from any hurricane, anywhere where flooding was likely to occur. High ground is where they were going to be, and where they were going to go. Well, that basically rules out all of New Orleans.

HH: Sure. Does the Red Cross, though, assist in evacuation, Major Garrett?

MG: Not under the state plan in Louisiana. And not very many other places, either, because again, the Red Cross is a responding private charity. It is not an evacuation charity. It does not assume, as you can well imagine, Hugh, the inevitable liability that would come with being in charge of evacuating.

HH: How senior are your sources at the Red Cross, Major Garrett?

MG: They're right next to Marty Evans, the president.

HH: So you have no doubt in your mind that they have...

MG: Oh, none. None. And I want to give credit to Bill O'Reilly, because he had Marty Evans on the O'Reilly Factor last night. And this is the first time Marty Evans said it. She said it on the O'Reilly Factor last night in a very sort of brief intro to her longer comments about dealing with the housing and other needs of the evacuees now. She said look. We were ready. We couldn't go in. They wouldn't let us in, and the interview continued. I developed it more fully today.

HH: And the 'they' are the Louisiana state officials?

MG: Right.

HH: Now any in the 'they'...is the New Orleans' mayor's staff involved as well? Or the New Orleans police department?

MG: Not that I'm aware of, because the decision was made and communicated to the Red Cross by the state department of Homeland Security and the state National Guard. Both of which report to the governor.

HH: Do they have any paper records of this communication?

MG: I did not ask that. It's a good question. I'll follow up with them.

HH: I sure would love to know that. And if you get it, send it to me. We'll put it up on the blog. Major Garrett, great story. Please keep us posted. Look forward to talking to you a lot in the next couple of weeks on this story. Thanks for breaking away from the Fox News Channel this afternoon.

Is it just me, or is it not so that either they're crazy, or we are. Or perhaps its a certain habit of mind.

Obviously none of what Garrett reported contradicts the main outlines of the story of who and what failed New Orleans. The local authorities continuously asked for Federal help because they didn't have the means to get what relief was there to the people who needed it. Blame enough to go around, but none of that speaks to the responsibility of the President and his administration.

That isn't stopping this bombshell from exploding all over the rightwing blogisphere. For a nice sampling you can take a look at The Corner here here,here,here, here,here,andhere

All comments that fill in more of the actual story as against this faux version of it are most welcome.

A Republican signs his own death sentence:

Rep. Randy Cunningham, a California Republican who also serves on the House Appropriations Committee, told Reuters after the meeting that conservatives fretted about the huge relief costs with "more storms (gathering off the southern coast), the Iraq war and health care" costs that are rapidly escalating for the federal government.

Cunningham said that none of those Republicans suggested scaling back costly tax-cut proposals they have advanced for the past few years. Instead, he said they urged the Bush administration to look at ways to save on Gulf Coast reconstruction by waiving rules requiring union laborers for upcoming federal contracts.
(via Yahoo)

And, like wasabi with sushi, you really should savor this at the same time.

When Brown left the iaha four years ago, he was, among other things, a failed former lawyer--a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn't attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job in the wake of charges of impropriety. At this point in his life, returning to his long-abandoned legal career would have been very difficult in the competitive Colorado legal market. Yet, within months of leaving the iaha, he was handed one of the top legal positions in the entire federal government: general counsel for a major federal agency. A year later, he was made its number-two official, and, a year after that, Bush appointed him director of fema.

It's bad enough when attorneys are named to government jobs for which their careers, no matter how distinguished, don't qualify them. But Brown wasn't a distinguished lawyer: He was hardly a lawyer at all. When he left the iaha, he was a 47-year-old with a very thin resumé and no job. Yet he was also what's known in the Mafia as a "connected guy." That such a person could end up in one of the federal government's most important positions tells you all you need to know about how the Bush administration works--or, rather, doesn't.
(via TNR -- registration required)

In-damn-deed.

UPDATE It turns out that OCU School of Law did become a member of the AALS in 2003. However, at the time of Brown's hiring in 2001, it was not a member.

I have e-mailed the author, Paul Campos of CU School of Law, and informed him of this.

This from alert reader Sonoma in comments:

I had long assumed there to be no such thing as a political finish fight in this country. That is, the hackneyed "pendulum" of democratic give-and-take would ulimately right the equally hackneyed "ship of state".

I never believed that, mind you, merely trusted that to be true.

That trust is gone, and for one reason.

By my lights, the country was Big Lied into waging war. I cannot fathom why those in congress have acquieced in that treason. I am stunned at their casual treachery to this country, to humanity. They lack the simple courage to speak a simple truth: there was no breakdown in intelligence gathering, the intelligence was cooked.

This is not the nation I once knew. Probably never was. I wish I could say I feel the wiser for that understanding, but I don't. Just disoriented, and deeply sad.

"Fight to the finish..."

It would be nice if some Beltway Dem, any Beltway Dem, would recognize what's going on and fight back—for the sake of the poor, the old, the black, the sick who died in New Orleans because of deliberate, considered decisions by the Republicans who will, quite shortly, begin to profit by the deaths. (Say, another reminder of Iraq, eh?)

Somebody else can make up the punchline for that one...

Because what I'm seeing is the similarities:

1. No accountability

2. No plannning

3. Missing equipment

4. Hiding the bodies

5. Muzzling the press

6. Political appointees running the show (FEMA/CPA)

7. Refusal to admit error

And if history is any guide:

7. Stifled investigations

8. Massive sole-source, no-bid contracts to Halliburton for the "rebuilding"

Did I miss anything?

... that would really make the Katrina Clusterfuck an act of God, right?

Oh, wait... A just and loving God wouldn't condemn thousands to die by drowning just because they were poor, black, sick, or old.

Right?

Two bits on FEMA:

First, from Mike Froomkin, a link to a post titled "I just got back from a FEMA Detainment Camp" by an author named Valhall, purporting to describe an evacuee camp set up by FEMA at a Baptist youth camp called Falls Church. He posted it hoping someone could prove it to be faked, but as he noted, and I concur, the behavior of FEMA's agents in these last days makes it all the more likely to be credible. Take a look at the text and photos, and maybe do a little digging on your own. At face value, I'd say it's probably real.

And second, an illuminating interview held this morning on NPR station WHYY's Radio Times with former FEMA Deputy Director George Haddow, who held the position under Clinton. He explains clearly what FEMA's responsibility is (to coordinate federal, state and local emergency services and to take the lead in situations of overwhelming disasters like Katrina), how Katrina should have been handled, how similar situations had been handled by his agency in the past, how state and local governments had been starved of funds and consequently cut back on emergency preparedness, and much more. He minces no words in assigning blame "all the way to the top." The interview will be available in archives later this afternoon, if you want to hear it.
UPDATE: The interview is up.

Someone (Andrew Sullivan?) said it's too bad this isn't a parliamentary system so we can have a vote of confidence on Bush. But you know at least 38% would be happy to keep him right where he is.

Josh Marshall has put up a really fine Katrina event timeline, and invites contributions/corrections. He also notes the information shutdown on NOLA being engineered by FEMA, and comes to this conclusion:

"Take a moment to note what's happening here: these are the marks of repressive government, which mixes inefficiency with authoritarianism. The crew that couldn't get key aid on the scene in time last week is coming in in force now. And one of the key missions appears to be cutting off public information about what's happening in the city.
This is a domestic, natural disaster. Absent specific cases where members of the press would interfere or get in the way of some particular clean up operation, or perhaps demolition work, there is simply no reason why credentialed members of the press should not be able to cover everything that is happening in that city.
Think about it."

Well, a certain core group of people in the country aren't thinking about it at all, and thanks to the news blackout underway, they probably won't have to. Editor & Publisher reveals this, from a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released yesterday:

"While 42% of respondents characterized Bush's response to the disaster as bad or terrible, 35% said it was good or great. Federal agencies got exactly the same marks. State and local officials fared only a little better--their response was described as bad or terrible by 35% and good or great by 37%.
Again, the views were strongly based on partisan leanings, with Republicans giving the president good grades on this issue by a 69% to 10% margin, while Democrats' views were precisely the opposite. But independents gave Bush a thumbs down by 47% to 29%.
Asked who was MOST responsible for the post-hurricane problems, 13% picked Bush, 18% said federal agencies, 25% selected state/local officials and 38% said no one was to blame.
Asked if top officials in federal agencies responsible for emergencies should be fired, 29% said yes, and 63% no. "

You read it right. "35% said it was good or great", and "38% said no one was to blame"! H.L. Mencken once said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, and P.T. Barnum said there was a sucker was born every minute, but neither of them may have ever fully grasped the utter meanness, domestic xenophobia, and fear-and-hate-fueled cruelty that currently underlays the American character. I used to think such people were the minority.

I know, now, that they are exactly who America is.


Originally posted at IMCT.

From The Medium Lobster:

"More importantly, one must recognize that there are limits to what powers the federal government should exercise in a crisis. Yes, it is the right and duty of the president to override state drug policy, to determine who can or cannot marry, to indefinitely detain citizens without due process and to torture and kill prisoners as he sees fit, but disaster relief is a matter that should be left to the states. Yes, the images of the drowned, the diseased, and the desperately dying drove much of the country to outrage, but how much more outraged would America have been if FEMA had fed the Superdome refugees without the full oversight and authorization of the State of Louisiana? Had the president sent rescue helicopters to evacuate New Orleans the day the levees burst, he might have saved thousands of lives, but he would also have overstepped his authority - and if there's one thing George W. Bush refuses to countenance, it is abuse of power."

And don't forget that it is also the right and duty of the president to intervene in a family matter when a life support decision has to be made, though for the folks in NOLA who were hoping for some life support---not so much.

Let's see...the court ordered the Schiavo feeding tube removed on Friday, March 18. And on Monday, March 21, Bush signed the bill to allow a federal court to review the case. That's 3 days. And this is what he said at the signing:

"Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected..."

Still working on that, are we George?

Oh, well. It's hard work, huh?

Oh, wait. That's Rehnquist's coffin.

I thought it was the coffin of a soldier who died in Iraq.

Or possibly a citizen who died in New Orleans.

Sorry.

Funny I'm not reading this on the front pages of Pravda on the Potomac or Izvestia on the Hudson. But then, it's so much more comfortable in the tank. It's warm and safe there:

We are in Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans. At the National Guard checkpoint, they are under orders to turn away all media. All of the reporters are turning they’re TV trucks around.
(Operation Flashlight via Kos)

So, what could it be they don't want us to see?

UPDATE Well, maybe this:

In the downtown business district here, on a dry stretch of Union Street, past the Omni Bank automated teller machine, across from a parking garage offering "early bird" rates: a corpse. Its feet jut from a damp blue tarp. Its knees rise in rigor mortis.

Night came, then this morning, then noon, and another sun beat down on a dead son of the Crescent City.

That a corpse lies on Union Street may not shock; in the wake of last week's hurricane, there are surely hundreds, probably thousands. What is remarkable is that on a downtown street in a major American city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable.
(The maybe not, for once, in the tank Times which finally has someone on the scene.

A corpse by an ATM machine, eh?

Hope someone drags it away soon. I need to use my debit card...

I don't think so. If Bush and the Republicans had anything in mind than the Rovian two-fer of a cheap payoff to their victims and a quick fix for their PR problems, they'd rework the Bankruptcy Bill for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans. (You too, Joe Biden D-MBNA):

Hurricane Katrina survivors whose finances are in shambles may not qualify for federal bankruptcy protection once a new law with tough eligibility restrictions takes effect Oct. 17.

And anyone who intends to file before the new standards take effect must overcome other Katrina complications such as injuries, being moved to out-of-state shelters, the loss of personal financial records and the closure of the five federal courthouses in hurricane-ravaged areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

The Consumer Federation of America and the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys want Congress to pass a one-year waiver of the new law's toughest provisions for victims whose financial problems were caused or aggravated by Katrina or other natural disasters.

The one-year period is important because most post-hurricane bankruptcy filings occur many months after the storm. "Reality starts sinking in," said Bradford Botes, a board member of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. "People can't make house payments. People can't make car payments or they missed those payments for a three- or four-month period and that's when foreclosures and repossession actions are initiated."

Democrats in Congress are drafting the legislation. They hope for bipartisan backing, but it's unclear whether Republican members, who strongly supported the tougher bankruptcy legislation, will favor the measure.

(via AP)

And I'm sure Bush and the Republicans will extend the right hand of good fellowship to this bipartisan effort...

Following up on Xan's post immediately below:

Dispossessed victims of Hurricane Katrina will receive debit cards good for $2,000 to spend on clothing and other immediate needs.

Michael Brown, the embattled director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said those eligible for the unprecedented debit cards would be permitted to use the money "for emergency supplies they need" such as clothing. "The concept is to get them some cash on hand which allows them, empowers them to make their own decisions about what do they need to have to repair their own lives," he said.
(via AP)

I guess Bush thinks money can win him respect....

Meanwhile, New Orleans has been sealed off from the press. I wonder why?

NOTE On the one hand, "empower them." On the other, "emergency supplies that they need." Anyone know of debit card technology that works only on clothing? (RIFDs?)

UPDATE Shut up and take the money, lady:

There are dead babies tied to poles and they're dragging us out and leaving the dead babies. That ain't right!" she screamed, waving her arms as she was directed onto a troop carrier truck.
(AP)

Business Week is reporting the following:

SEP. 7 12:56 P.M. ET The federal government plans to begin doling out debit cards worth $2,000 each to adult victims of Hurricane Katrina, The Associated Press has learned.

Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff descibed the plan in a conference call with state officials Wednesday morning. The unprecedented cash card program initially will benefit stranded people who have been moved to major rescue centers such as the Houston Astrodome.

"They are going to start issuing debit cards, $2,000 per adult, today (Wednesday) at the Astrodome," said Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

It's an AP piece, sourced to "a state official who was on the call who requested anonymity because the program has not been officially announced."

Hmm. Money straight into the hands of the people who need it. No contractors, no Haliburton....of course no mention of what financial institution is going to be in charge of this or what their rakeoff...er, I mean "service charge" is liable to be. Allowing for such quibbles though, it seems like such a good idea that I can't believe anybody in the Bush administration came up with it.

Which means it's probably a trial balloon. Potential pitfalls, anyone?

UPDATE So why the hell didn't they try this with the Iraqis? Would have been a hell of a lot cheaper!—Lambert

The one-paragraph, two-sentence definition of What's Wrong With These Idiots:

Words Speak Louder Than Actions

It's been the theme of the Bush administration all along. When your disaster relief agency is stacked with people whose former experience was doing campaign and PR work for Bush, it's no surprise that they define "disaster" as "stuff that makes George Bush look bad" and "disaster response" as "pictures of the preznit looking like he's doing stuff."

(sez Atrios of Eschaton)

Don't forget the many thousands displaced who are desperate to find their loved ones. Go here for more information, and please post that info on your blog if you have one. You'll never know whose life you may change by it.

Info on finding lost pets when I have it.

"Are we ready for the next major catastrophe?"--Morning Edition, 9/7/05.

Well, sure. They'll piss around with their thumbs up their asses (the tough go shopping, eh, Condi?) until a sufficient number of expendables are dead and dying that they can safely come in, survey the devastation they've allowed, and then blame "bureaucracy" and call out in high dudgeon for another "investigation."

Sam Rosenfeld at Tapped points up the shining paradigm of the Bush admin, and the ideology that underpins it:

"That’s the Bush approach in a nutshell -- make messes, then take credit for boldly tackling those messes. Exacerbate crises, and then expend maximum effort to reap the political rewards that are inherent to occupying the office to which the public instinctively turns in times of such crisis."

And just in case you thought it didn't have anything to do with deliberate genocide, Yglesias outlines the methodical destruction wrought by Bush on the nation's safety net, though his conclusion is rather lame: left and right should come together and compromise on a solution--give money to the poor AND deal with out-of-wedlock births. Please! Out-of-wedlock births have been steadily decreasing, while the gap between rich and poor has expanded steadily under Bush. Funny how the people who claim that throwing money at a problem never works are always the people who have enough money to throw at their own problems (like education for their kids.)

Money is for those who deserve it. The rest get after-the-fact, poseur "investigations".


UPDATE: Words fail me.

Katrina-whisperer Mike "Heck of a Job" Brown tells his employees that image is everything:

[Brown's memo on Aug. 29] told [FEMA] employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."
(via AP)

OK, finally we know what Brown's job was.

So now can't we fire him for not doing it?

Sorry for my absence. I am dismally bummed out about the demise of New Orleans. It was one of the favorite cities of my youth, as a budding young blues and jazz player wannabe and fan of Creole culture, and I have tried to make it back often since.

No more jazz in the park? No more Jazz and Heritage Festival? No more drinking and fishing and playing music along the levee and the streets? No more eating that fine, fine fiery food at the little dives along the lake, listening to Zydeco and drinking Dixie beers?

No more Mardi Gras? I’m not talking about the French Quarter. My favorite places were always the ones that are now drowned, my favorite crowd to hang out with the ones who are now dead or displaced, not the touristy joints (unless someone I had to see was gigging).

Shit, shit, shit. All gone. Because of an incompetent government.

And on Labor Day weekend, too, with the harvest starting to get in full swing. Let me tell you, aside from making plans to help with relief, it was a solemn day at the Union Hall. Even the picnic was no picnic.

Gotta get back to boots on the ground. Trying to raise money for the relief. Local public radio’s letting me on some. Trying to make sure this influences everyone’s ’06 voting plans. Hope everyone else is, too. Maybe New Orleans will rise again and we’ll run these smarmy scumsuckers out of office.

No, no. Wrong headline. Sorry about that.

Bush is going to investigate Katrina!

"What I intend to do is to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," Bush said.

"It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe. And the reason it's important is, is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm. And so I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong," Bush said.
(via LA Times)

"Over time," eh? That's rich.

Who wants to bet that "over time" means after the 2008 elections? (Not 2006, mind you, 2008). After all, Jebbie might run, and it would be really bad if the treatment (Red) Florida got was compared to the treatment (Blue) New Orleans got. People might start asking awkward questions, wondering if any Bush could really be "President of all the people" ....

It all comes down to President Shit Magnet's character, doesn't it?

Later in Biloxi, Miss., Bush tried to comfort two stunned women wandering their neighborhood clutching Hefty bags, looking in vain for something to salvage from the rubble of their home. [Bush] kept insisting they could find help at a Salvation Army center down the street, even after another bystander had informed him it had been destroyed.
(via Ap)

That's Inerrant Boy in a "nut" shell, isn't it?

1. He's wrong.

2. Other people tell Him He's wrong, and give the evidence.

3. He insists He's right.

Didn't work in the Iraq Clusterfuck (except for the 2002 midterms, of course), and it isn't working in the Katrina Clusterfuck either.

There's a wonderful post at Kos from a meteologist on how the effects of Katrina were absolutely predictable:

Everyone I know in meteorology understood that New Orleans was living on borrowed time. This scenario -- NOLA taking a direct hit from a major hurricane -- had been discussed ad infinitum in meteorology (and emergency management) circles for years as being one of the most (if not the most) deadly serious weather disasters America could ever face. Unfortunately, last weekend, New Orleans' time had run out.

We in the United States are lucky to be served by the most advanced government-run weather service on the globe

On the eve of Katrina's landfall, the professional forecasters at regional National Weather Service offices across the southeast and the agency's National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami gave dire warnings on what was sure to be a weather calamity that this county has not seen in over a century (since the Galveston, TX hurricane of 1900).

So, who wants to bet on how long it takes Bush to gut yet another science-driven agency?

And how wants to bet on how long it takes for Bush to blame "poor intelligence" from the NWS for the Katrina clusterfuck?

At uggabugga, Quiddity has a searing graphic timeline that puts the nail in the coffin Bushco slammed down on NOLA's undeserving poor.

From the new site, Katrina Refugees United:

"If you are a victim of Hurricane Katrina, register with this site to let the world know how to contact you. You can give as much detail as you'd like. Then anyone visiting refugeesunited.org can quickly find out how you are doing.

If you are looking for a victim in the Gulf Coast region, you can search for your loved one's name and location. In the very near future, you will be able to post your questions to this site so that your query will be visible to anyone visiting refugeesunited.org.

This site is designed to be a central collection point for information on anyone impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Tell everyone about refugeesunited.org. We're here to help."

If you have a blog, please post this info and the link to the site. Help get the word out so these folks can find their friends and families. No central record-keeping of names has yet been created, and currently many people are scattered all over the country, some unable to remember their own names, who have been separated from the people who care for them. Spread the word.


UPDATE: The Other Sarah has more news for those trying to locate loved ones-- there's also a link for the displaced at the Red Cross website, here. You can choose to register in English, Spanish, or if you're like Lambert, in French. Thanks, TOSarah!

At some point—tinfoil hat time—you have to wonder if FEMA was incompetent, or something far worse:

DURHAM -- A trio of Duke University sophomores say they drove to New Orleans late last week, posed as journalists to slip inside the hurricane-soaked city twice, and evacuated seven people who weren't receiving help from authorities.

The group, led by South Carolina native Sonny Byrd, say they also managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center, where they encountered scenes early Saturday evening that they say were disgraceful.

"We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai," said Hans Buder, who made the trip with his roommate Byrd and another student, David Hankla.

Buder's account -- told by cell phone Sunday evening as the trio neared Montgomery, Ala., on their way home -- chronicled a three-day odyssey that began when the students, angered by the news reports they were seeing on CNN, loaded up their car with bottled water and headed for the Gulf coast to see if they could lend a hand.

"Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out," Buder said. "They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don't want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere."

The first group included three women and a man. The students climbed into the front seats of the four-door Hyundai, and the evacuees filled the back seat. They left the city and headed back to Baton Rouge. There they deposited the man at the LSU medical center and took the women to dinner. The women later found shelter with relatives, and the students got about four hours' sleep inside the LSU chapel.
(via Durham Herald Sun)

It's almost as if a right-wing ideologue decided to create an object lesson that nobody should trust the government to help them... Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence, but still.

Seems that even Rove's awesomely efficient disinformation apparatus isn't going to be able to shift the blame to the local (Democratic) officials in New Orleans. (I mean, how clumsy is it to claim that Louisiana didn't claim a state of emergency in time when 5 seconds on Google shows they did, and it's a matter of public record"? These guys must be badly rattled.)

So, now the blame is being shifted again—to that old Republican standby, "red tape." You see, government is still the enemy!

Sen. Trent Lott berated both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and his own state's emergency management, MEMA, for being mired in red tape at a time of urgent need given the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina.

Lott said he has been trying to get FEMA to send 20,000 trailers "sitting in Atlanta" to the Mississippi coast, and he urged President Bush during a meeting Monday to intervene. He said FEMA has refused to ship the trailers until contracts are secured.

Lott said he appreciated Bush's visit, but stressed to the president the need to cut through the bureaucracy.
(via CNN)

Well, sure. But it's hard to hold "bureauracy" and "red tape" accountable, isb't it? Isn't Lott being just a little vague on that good old Republican standby, personal accountability? Or doesn't Lott believe that anyone is really in charge?

UPDATE Actually, the responsibility issue could even get worse. MyDD astutely points out:

Bush/Rove waited until five days after the disaster to authorize the dispatch of troops. What were they doing for the previous five days? The US had troops and food into Bande Ache, Sumatra within two days of the Tsunami. Are we to believe that for the first five days, Bush/Rove were just out of commission? Or that after 5 days, they finally got smoked out themselves?

I would say that regardless, the federal takeover of New Orleans is just beginning to play out...

Kinda makes you wonder about all those stories about FEMA actually turning away help. It's not just isolated incidents, but a pattern. Why would they do that?

Well, 99.99% do, except for the gang of spinning bitter enders in the West Wing:

ormer President Bill Clinton on Monday said the government "failed" the thousands of people who lived in coastal communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and said a federal investigation was warranted in due time.

"Our government failed those people in the beginning, and I take it now there is no dispute about it," Clinton told CNN. "One hundred percent of the people recognize that -- that it was a failure."

As with the 9/11 commission charged with looking at the events leading up to and after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Clinton suggested a bipartisan Katrina commission be formed. It would investigate what went wrong and determine "what is the best structure and what are the best personnel decisions" to make in emergency management, he said.
(via CNN)

Pass the popcorn!

NOTE I think it's super-tactful of Clinton not to mention who's in charge of all three branches of the federal government right now...

Thanks to alert reader Nick, via bloggy:

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.
(via Times)

Infants need formula maybe seven times a day.

Of course, we don't know that there was any formula "sitting in the trucks,""baking in the sun" for a whole day (though other Federal airlifted food has included formula)....

So we can't actually prove that Bush killed babies just for a photo op....

UPDATE And even if we could, I'm definitely NOT ANGRY about it.

Via Billmon, who is way too kind to him, we find David Broder sucking on the bones of the dead, cracking every last marrowy tidbit out of the political opportunity they afford for his hero:

"We cannot yet calculate the political fallout from Hurricane Katrina and its devastating human and economic consequences, but one thing seems certain: It makes the previous signs of political weakness for Bush, measured in record-low job approval ratings, instantly irrelevant and opens new opportunities for him to regain his standing with the public...for a president who believes that actions speak louder than words, this is an advantageous setting."

Yes, this is a magnificent opportunity for Bush to salvage his low ratings (isn't this the president who pays no attention to polls?), and Broder, who has been on the Bush team long lo these many years, says "Have at it!" He goes on to skewer the "fragmented" Congress, those puling, gutless punks, but notes that "...the president flew back from vacation to take command of the hurricane response..." Take command, did he? He didn't even know what the fuck time of day it was! He was led by the hand like the babyfied, spoiled brat he is, and told every step of the way how to respond. Hell, if he didn't have Karl Rove to pull his strings he'd likely still be back in Texas with his pud in his hand, beating off to fantasies of Cindy Sheehan.

In a new low, even for Broder, he write this with a straight face:

"The decline of oversight hearings on Capitol Hill reflects what many of the commentators called a loss of institutional pride in Congress. Majority Republicans see themselves first and foremost as members of the Bush team -- and do not want to make trouble by asking hard questions. Democrats find it more rewarding to raise campaign funds and cultivate their own constituencies."

Funny how everyone forgets people like Henry Waxman and John Conyers, isn't it? Just this week I got this in my e-mail from John:

"First, I have asked the Federal Trade Commission to study price gouging in the gasoline market...

Second, as Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, I plan to introduce legislation explicitly giving the federal government authority to pursue such price gouging actions -- price gouging is a national problem, and it warrants a national response...

Third, I am introducing a law to amend the Bankruptcy Code so that the most onerous provisions of the new law, scheduled to take effect October 17, do not inflict damage on the millions of victims of Hurricane Katrina and their families."

Yes, John Conyers, who everyone including Broder's colleague at the WaPo, Dana Milbank (hahahah, good one, Dana, you kill us) had such a good laugh at when the Bush-controlled Congress forced him to hold his inquiries into impeachment in some basement, and who tried to hold Bushco accountable for their deadly lies before the war. And Henry Waxman, who has fought the good fight against Bush on too many fronts to enumerate. But no one in the "grown-up press" pays any mind to these folks. No, people like Milbank laugh them off the radar, and then people like Broder cast aspersions at the entire political body because it's so easy to lie, lie, lie about it all and create the reality they want and because the whole country is so numb from bullshit that people have just stopped trying to winnow the wheat from the chaff.

They need to shut up and go down there. They need to shut up and do something worthwhile and useful for once in their pathetic, pampered lives. They need to stop talking about the political opportunities and take someone some food.

What's that fascist gangster enterprise we call "BushCo" pulling off while all our attention is on the Katrina disaster? We know for damn sure they're not putting any attention into that, except to lie, bluster, make false claims, divert blame and otherwise put all their efforts into the one project that matters to them, preserving and extending their power and looting the treasury to their benefit.

How's Plamegate coming along, Mr. Rove? Anybody heard from that little expeditionary force in Iraq lately? Who's in charge of ginning up more sympathy for tax cuts for the filthy rich (latest excuse: we need it to stimulate the economy, I guess so the FR can hire more refugees as house and field servants.)

You can no doubt think of more issues which seemed dreadfully important a week and a half ago, (damn, I almost forgot the no-voting-machines-without-paper-trails issue!) which we have dropped as unimportant compared to disaster relief. If we let our opposition collapse like Ponchartrain levees, we all know what will rush through the gaps.

Here's a question I haven't even heard asked: the '06 elections are barely a year away. The only two Democrats in the 5-member Louisiana House delegation represent--you guessed it--New Orleans. Think about that one for awhile.

Is this cold--"ooh, how can you think about tawdry politics when peee-pul are dyyyyy-ing?" Yeah, it probably is, at least when we do it. Tough shit.

(Below was written yesterday at my own site, when I really did think I could stop writing. Please, if you're reading this, tear yourself away from this computer and go outside, celebrate the holiday, be with the people you love, and tell them so. Because many of the folks down south can't, and many will never be able to again.)


I think I'm done blogging for a day or two (though you never know what madness may grip me.) The enormity of what has happened, and the immersion in it over the week, has overwhlemed me. I'm still trying to understand what reason the authorities had for preventing the Red Cross from entering NOLA and stopping the residents from leaving while hundreds died and thousands suffered. And I'm wondering, like many others, just where the hell Dick Cheney, the second-highest official in the land, has been while his country has suffered through the worst natural disaster in its history? According to the San Jose Mercury-News, he waited until Thursday to mosey back to DC from Wyoming, but if he's done or said anything since, I've yet to find it. Maybe he's busy making sure the KBR and Halliburton are getting everything they need for their reconstruction contract to rebuild after the hurricane?

Never forget this. Never. George Bush and the Republican machine created the underfunded, impotent, dumbass, stripped-out neoconservative Norquistized "government" that stood by with its hands in its pockets while thousands died. And it WILL be thousands. The horror stories have yet to begin (like Abu Ghraib, you haven't heard anything yet). Every time Bush asks for his way with one of his subversive, drown-it-in-the bathtub nominees, remember this. Everytime he comes forward with another bright idea to change the regulations on pollution, or twists the NIH to cook the science on global warning, or blows off the need for funds toward our deteriorating infrastructures in order to send money to a war we didn't need, or offers a Federalist Society anti-government bible-thumper for a judicial appointment, remember this. Everytime he tells you that we need to "stay the course" in Iraq and things couldn't be going better, remember this. Everytime you pull up to the pump and see that gas has gone up yet another 20 cents, and find the cost of produce at the store has gone through the roof because of trucking costs, and see that perishables everywhere are getting awfully high, and then everything else is going up as well except your paycheck, and realize you have to change you vacation plans and cut back on food and maybe Christmas won't be so generous this year, and then you start cutting back on everything else when the cost of heating your home hits the roof this winter while the energy companies get those subsidies from Bush's budget, and you wonder why the price-gouging at the gas station was allowed to go on so long, remember this.

Remember.

From the Times-Picayune, via Eschaton:

"Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach."

Do you want to know why? Because this is the age of laissez-faire government. The free market will determine how much aid goes to those in need, and the cost of gas will be determined by whatever the traffic can bear. The private sector knows best, and this government has become merely a spear-carrier and comfort woman to the CEOs of the world. And the private sector knows that the people imprisoned in the cauldron of New Orleans were the least of the consuming masses, and the least of assets to 4th quarter profits and bottom-line accounting. When government abdicates the very skeleton of its duties to private interests, are we surprised to find that even the most crucial, life-or-death things only get done if they balance positively against somebody's cost-benefit analysis? These are the people who brayed proudly how they were going to get rid of their own functions, then set about proving it time and again in Interior, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Housing. And now we are surprised that they sat on their hands while thousands died? This is their ideology in action. This is who and what they are. This is George Bush's gift to you.

I get annoyed listening to the press ask poor General Honore about the pathetic disaster effort of the last few days. It isn't his fault the administration and FEMA fucked it up so bad, so please just ask him for updates on what's going on right now.

Do you know who you should be asking these questions, even more than Chertoff or Brownie the Horse Man? How about President Bush? Ask him those questions! Why were people still dying on Friday during your visit, Mr. President? Why are you going back tomorrow to have more photo ops and potentially be one of the reasons that more people die, Mr. President?

As Greg Mitchell has put it, this is "My Pet Goat -- the Sequel":

While the 9/11 “My Pet Goat” episode was certainly illuminating, it’s not certain what might have worked out better that day had the president dropped the book and taken action. But his failure to grab the reins in the hurricane catastrophe for three days this week probably doomed hundreds, or more, to death.

This is not mere incompetence, but dereliction of duty. The press should call it by its proper name.
(via E&P)

In-damn-deedy.

And he should be asked about it.

Now.

Hmmmm...

(via Edmonton Journal)

U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney has postponed his visit to Alberta in order to tend to duties at home in the wake of hurricane Katrina.

Marisa Etmanski, spokeswoman for Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, says the White House contacted Klein's office Saturday.

Cheney had planned to visit Alberta on Thursday and Friday, stopping first in Calgary and then visiting Fort McMurray and touring the oilsands.

Etmanski said Klein's reaction to Cheney's change of plans was nothing but understanding.

And His Vice Dear Leaderliness has done precisely what in the way of "duties" since Katrina hit? Yeah, I know, he "issued a statement" (which turned out to be from a spokeswoman); supposedly stood up with Dear Leader at that strangely militaristic press appearance yesterday (I sure never saw him on camera live) and there was one (still) photo of him and Rove and some other flunky, which for all we know could have been taken months ago.

Weekend at Bernie's, anyone? Or is Lynn Cheney's lesser known other novel (The Body Politic) the story we're watching play out here?

[updated with link to novel review at Salon. Warning: unflattering litcrit ahead.]

Okay, now that I have your attention...

Somebody on one of the bobblehead shows (Chris Matthews I think) just said that they were "setting up" a "plan" to search for the remaining survivors in town. Don't remember details but it involved the troops available making up a grid with GPS location tags to make sure they hit every house, blah blah blah.

There isn't TIME for that, dammit! This, today, Sunday, is just about the very last chance these people have--the crippled, the elderly, the immobile, the diabetic, the ones who said to their healthier youngsters "You leave me what you can and go save yourselves. Come back for me when you can."

And it can be done now. You get the NO municipal garbage collection fleet, every employee and every vehicle. They already know where every house and apartment is because they have been doing pickups there for years.

Every one leads a task force of outsiders who don't know the town. They go block by block and search every house. This frees up the helicopters to work only in the areas flooded too deep for any sort of wheeled vehicle, even ones with as high a draft as a garbage trick, to get into.

And a stock of body bags with every vehicle too. It sure wouldn't be any further indignity to the lost to get their last ride out on a garbage truck.

I'm done for awhile. I can't stand it.

UPDATE: So I lied. Make me the president. On Meet the Press just now Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard broke down and cried, cried so hard I cried with him, as he described the repeated promises made, day after day through the whole week, to an old lady in a nursing home begging for help, who finally drowned on Friday because no one came. FEMA had told them everyday that help would arive, and everyday it did not. He told about how, early in the week, FEMA turned back water sent by WalMart, diesel fuel brought by the Coast Guard, and shut off their emergency communications lines, which the sheriff had to repair and then place armed guards near to stop further shut offs.

(I guess lying isn't the sole qualification to be president anymore. Now it has to be mass murder. Or isit genocide-by-ommission?)

UPDATE 2: Think Progress has the pix and transcript of the interview with Broussard here, and Crooks and Liars has the video. I defy you to watch this and not weep. Here's part of the transcript:

"I want to give you one last story and I’ll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For god’s sakes, just shut up and send us somebody."

God damn George Bush. God damn him to hell.

diddle v. 1. Slang. To cheat; swindle. 2. Computer Science. To fabricate, change, or otherwise manipulate (data) illegally. [Perhaps akin to Old English dydrian, to deceive, or from variant of dialectal doodle, fool, simpleton; akin to Low German dudeldopp.]

diddle v. 3. Slang To waste time:
(from The American Heritage Dictionary)


What follows below is excerpted from Edgar Allan Poe's 1850 essay titled "Diddling". Given the the pathetic, hapless, dithering, and just plain speakin' altogether incompetent response from the Bu$hGov Mismanagement Holding Company - to the horrific ordeal(s) following hurricane Katrina - I thought it necessary to reproduce some of Poe's observations here. Likewise, given the recent thouroughly pointless bleatings and sociopathic pantings from some of the easily frightened intellectually stunted growth occupying various damp pee-soaked corners of the Rightwing-o-sphere,... see:

The Sad State of the Righty Blogosphere

Do These People Live On My Planet?

An Open Letter To The Other "Other America"

... I also figger'd Edgar Allan's contribution to diddler explication and identification would provide a useful field guide of sorts. Not only for you there my articulate intelligent well groomed alert bong-water drinking sin-soaked French Quarter homo-hugging gasoline scrimping anti-Murican God-hating moonbat readers. All 15 of you; and you know who you are. But I also post this bulletin (a kind of mirror so to speak) for the aid and benefit of whatever distressed specimen of bedraggled self-absorbed go-getter reactionary right-wing sooper-dood hurrion might chance to flutter into the room seeking some further guidance or larnin' experience or simply respite from the ruthless storm swept seas of neoconservatarian idiocy. It's not easy being a poor put-upon seasick Bourbon soaked Bu$hCo spinnaker set adrift on a salty churning ocean of grinning diddle drenched GOP idiocy these days. Ya know.

DIDDLING
Considered as One of the Exact Sciences
by Edgar Allan Poe - 1850

Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin.

Minuteness:–Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a small scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper at sight. Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation, he then, at once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes what we term "financier." This latter word conveys the diddling idea in every respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may thus be regarded as a banker in petto–a "financial operation," as a diddle at Brobdignag. The one is to the other, as Homer to "Flaccus"–as a Mastodon to a mouse–as the tail of a comet to that of a pig.

Interest:–Your diddler is guided by self-interest. He scorns to diddle for the mere sake of the diddle. He has an object in view- his pocket–and yours. He regards always the main chance. He looks to Number One. You are Number Two, and must look to yourself.

Perseverance:–Your diddler perseveres. He is not readily discouraged. Should even the banks break, he cares nothing about it. He steadily pursues his end, and

Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto
["the old dog will never learn new tricks" ~ Sermonum Q. Horati Flacci Liber Secundus]

so he never lets go of his game.

Ingenuity:–Your diddler is ingenious. He has constructiveness large. He understands plot. He invents and circumvents. Were he not Alexander he would be Diogenes. Were he not a diddler, he would be a maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.

Audacity:–Your diddler is audacious.–He is a bold man. He carries the war into Africa. He conquers all by assault. He would not fear the daggers of Frey Herren. With a little more prudence Dick Turpin would have made a good diddler; with a trifle less blarney, Daniel O'Connell; with a pound or two more brains Charles the Twelfth.

Nonchalance:–Your diddler is nonchalant. He is not at all nervous. He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a flurry. He is never put out–unless put out of doors. He is cool–cool as a cucumber. He is calm–"calm as a smile from Lady Bury." He is easy- easy as an old glove, or the damsels of ancient Baiae.

Originality:–Your diddler is original–conscientiously so. His thoughts are his own. He would scorn to employ those of another. A stale trick is his aversion. He would return a purse, I am sure, upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal diddle.

Impertinence.–Your diddler is impertinent. He swaggers. He sets his arms a-kimbo. He thrusts. his hands in his trowsers' pockets. He sneers in your face. He treads on your corns. He eats your dinner, he drinks your wine, he borrows your money, he pulls your nose, he kicks your poodle, and he kisses your wife.

Grin:–Your true diddler winds up all with a grin. But this nobody sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is done–when his allotted labors are accomplished–at night in his own closet, and altogether for his own private entertainment. He goes home. He locks his door. He divests himself of his clothes. He puts out his candle. He gets into bed. He places his head upon the pillow. All this done, and your diddler grins. This is no hypothesis. It is a matter of course. I reason a priori, and a diddle would be no diddle without a grin.

Hail diddle diddle, Dear Leader did fiddle, as New Orleans became a lagoon.

*

From alert reader, "The Other Sarah," this response to quoted comments in this Riggsveda post found at the website of Jane Gault regarding the general unworthiness of those victims of "Katrina," who failed to evacuate New Orleans, by choice, as dictated by their bad race and worse culture, struck me as requiring wider circulation.

"The average poor person in America owns a car."

Not in New Orleans.
Bicycles can be hard to come by.
I've never seen a city quite like it.
The mass transit actually works, because people depend upon the system to get to their schools, their jobs, their homes, their groceries.

I weep for what I saw last summer in New Orleans -- and I never thought I would weep over New Orleans, because it wasn't a romantic place, a glamorous place, a lovely place, I saw there; it was a downtown in poor repair, its populace beleaguered by the heat and humidity of the banks of the Mississippi in the middle of summer.

I weep for the woman walking along behind her seeing-eye dog -- I bet they didn't get out.

I weep for the horses pulling the carriages along Jackson Square. I bet they didn't get out.

I weep for the white tigers at the Audubon Zoo, and the nudibranchs in the Aquarium of the Americas. I know they didn't get out.

I weep for the downtown library -- a haven for the homeless, walking distance away from Morrial Center (about halfway between there and the Superdome) surrounded by the loveliest of giant live oaks.

I weep for the riverbank wildlife drowned and displaced.

I weep for the children; the old, the sick, the broke, the strays, the pups and cats and livestock -- chickens, they used to have downtown -- far more than I ever could be moved to weep for the Hotel Intercontinental; the building I will miss is the National Park dedicated to jazz, with its living-room-size auditorium where a gentle genius played beguiling piano for two hours that stiflingly hot afternoon. I don't weep for Emeril's -- but for the little Mexican restaurant two blocks down, where I got the best fajitas of my life about eight hours after I busted my ankle last summer in New Orleans ... and now I wish I had stayed away, because then all I'd feel is the distant anguish that comes from watching TV.

The price we all pay for the narrow majority that elected this moron is beyond bearing now. The butcher's bill in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama will dwarf the numbers of dead Saddam gassed.

We haven't yet begun to imagine the toll -- depression, disease, displacement, dehydration, lack of medical care, lack of sanitation, lack of clean drinking water in the blistering hell of a tropical seaside disaster zone ...

and these morons celebrate.

May the God whose vengeance they're always chortling over other people meeting still be pissed when they die.
The Other Sarah | 09.02.05 - 9:39 pm | #

May all the Gods stay pissed; in any case, I intend to find comfort in my uncertain knowledge that such sentiments doom their holders to burn in hell for all eternity.

**************************************************************************************

EDITOR'S NOTE: If The Other Sarah is referring to THE oft-mentioned gassing of the Kurds, with a death toll of approximately 20,000, the Gods forbid, we may be looking at the horror of a death toll number which exceeds that total. However, Saddam's total murder rate must also include a huge purge carried out among the Shia as punishment for an attempt to unseat Saddam, and an additional 100,000 Shia, who answered GWBush's call to rise up against Saddam immediately after the first Gulf War.

On the other hand, the response of both the Reagan and the first Bush administration to Saddam's horrors is roughly equivalent to the response, thus far, of this Bush administration to the wrath of the intelligently designed hurricane known as "Katrina."

"WASHINGTON - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday evening at his home in suburban Virginia, said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg." - see: Associated Press

*

"...when we act, we create our own reality," - "And while you're studying that reality, we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ~ White House "senior adviser" explaining Bu$hCo modi operandi to Ron Suskind.

Meanwhile; lifelike talking "news" appliance Neal Cavuto creates his own FoxNoise saleable reality despite disturbing evidence to the contrary - via archy

Elsewhere: via CNN, "The big disconnect on New Orleans The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version"

And it looks like Cindy Sheehan might not be the only one with a question for His Serene Hang Looseness Prince Pompus Acephalous:

"Why is it that the most powerful country on the face of the Earth takes so long to help so many sick and so many elderly people?" he asked.

"Why? That's all I want to ask President Bush." - BBC

Uh oh... another skeery question for the Dear Poser. That should send the White House squirearchy scurrying for the panic rooms.

*

Damn, this is good. You'll need a cigarette for after.

Direct aid ~ Via Bob Geiger at Yellow Dog Blog:

Our sisters at BlondeSense are takin' it to the streets and delivering goods straight to people in Louisiana... And I don't mean sending money -- Joanna (Anntichrist S Coulter) of BlondeSense blog has been shopping for supplies and delivering them to shelters in Baton Rouge which are severely running out of supplies. She also plans to get to New Orleans by Monday to work with Habitat for Humanity and deliver more supplies personally to various shelters. [more details, read full post HERE]

Go see Joannie in Looziani (Anntichrist S Coulter) at BlondeSense

New Orleans, as I've said, will always be my home, no matter where I lay my head. St. Bernard Projects, the 8th Ward, the 9th Ward, Irish Channel, Broadmoor... I've lived in all of those neighborhoods and more,...

*

Dangle an apple in front of a starving man, and then snatch it away:

"Buses taking Hurricane Katrina victims far from the squalor of the Superdome stopped rolling early Saturday. As many as 5,000 people remained in the stadium and could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air National Guard..."We were rolling," Capt. Jean Clark said. "If the buses had kept coming, we would have this whole place cleaned out already or pretty close to it."

In the meantime, medical staff has been evacuated out of the Superdome, and the place looks like a landfill hit by a tornado. People are saying they have to find boxes to go in when they need to relieve themselves. No one knew why the buses stopped coming, but if the following tidbit is any clue, we can guess, rightly or wrongly, what might be going on:

"At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.
"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.
The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, near the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome."

In the meantime, fires are raging along the waterfront amidst a city flooded with toxic and flammable substances, and the hydrants are dry. The people still trapped there are being imprisoned by the authorities, who couldn't be bothered to communicate meaningfully with them up till now, except to make sure they knew they couldn't leave town by walking out.

Maybe he didn't care enough to shore up the levees in NOLA, but Bush certainly pays attention when it's time to stick a finger in the dike and stem a flood of negative opinion. Bush has held fewer press conferences than any other president, and yet:

"Hoping to turn the tide of opinion in his favor, Bush spoke four times publicly on Friday."

That would be because in his prideful, control-freak way, he has been rejecting or deflecting aid offers left and right, and when the whole world heard him say (4 days after the hurricane hit):

"I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it. You know we would love help, but we're going to take care of our own business as well, and there's no doubt in my mind we'll succeed."

they heard him say, "Thanks but no thanks"---something on a par with his "Bring 'em on!" routine. So it's hard work, you know, putting out all those PR fires (evidently harder than putting out fires in NOLA). Gotta get up there, face the music, shuck and jive and look pained and hope somebody buys the routine.

To which the mayor most eloquently responded:

"I don’t want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don’t do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can’t even count.
"Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country."

But make sure the rich and the white get first dibs.

Stuck at home by the gas prices over a long weekend? Want to do a little Citizen Journamalising?

Go here: Lenin's Tomb.

No, I am not suggesting a quick vacation to Moscow. This site, evidently run by a Brit, has got a spectacular catch on something I haven't seen anywhere else (other than the Atrios comment thread where alert citizen Pooleside provided this link.)

It seems that a Baton Rouge company called IEM Inc. got a half-million dollar FEMA contract to devise and run the emergency services plan for a catastrophic hurricane striking New Orleans. I think it is may not be entirely premature to to say this idea may have had some shortcomings.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of discovery! Lenin's Tomb has the links to the press releases. From there google your little hearts out. Track the names of management and find their ties to the Bush/Cheney '00 and '04 campaigns, because as we've clearly seen that's how the regime judges one's qualifications for contracts like this.

And since a half a mil seems just a tad inadequate for even a plan for a response to a disaster on this scale, see what other siphons they may have had dipped in the gummint money pool. Tentacles everywhere, me hearties...

(Yeah, I'm gonna be working on this too, but I have other projects running concurrently and can't give it full time for awhile. And this needs speed before all the links suddenly go all 404 on us.)

It's interesting...I can remember a time when these folks actually talked with people in the left blogosphere -- not block their readers. Believe it or not, I used to occasionally have contact with Jane Galt and Clayton Cramer.

But when their pet war turned out to be a disaster based on lies they had peddled, they stopped talking to us at all. I noticed all my conservative readers vanished from my other blog in the summer of 2003 as Iraq slid into chaos and it became obvious that liberals were right about everything regarding the war.

And things haven't gotten better for them since then. Now their president is on schedule to be less popular than Herbert Hoover and the verdict of history is going to be harsh. The big question raised by historians in the future is going to be "How did this turkey get a second term?"

I suspect watching their president completely bungle and screw up a disaster to the tune of letting thousands die is just more than they can handle. It's the last indignity for them. So look for them to come up with the lamest weirdest arguments ("the poor people in New Orleans had cars!") to try and exonerate their president and clear their own guilty consciences.

But they know the truth -- even if they won't admit it.

Thanks to Kos community member highacidity, via eRobin:

From the weblog of the objectivistly-named Jane Galt, here is the worst of American reaction to the New Orleans disaster in a nutshell. Below find samplings of statements that reveal a seemingly bottomless capacity for churlish, selfish, callous, racist cruelty by self-congratulatory blog barnacles who coolly watch the NOLA tragedy play out from the comforts of their dry, food-filled, proudly right-wing homes. I believe many of them may fancy themselves a tad intellectual, and hard-nosedly so. The poverty of their arguments demonstrates otherwise. And as none of them lay claim to any sort of humanitarian compassion, you won't be surprised to find it absent here. Hold on to your lunch:

“…it is more tragic when someone dies because they have nowhere to go, than when only their own bullheaded stupidity is to blame.”

As Clayton Cramer points out: the average poor American owns a car.

Poverty likely prevented some people in New Orleans from evacuating, but the majority of people still there CHOSE to be there.

In the US, the vast majority of people who are poor are poor because they CHOOSE to be poor. I recall a Cato or Heritage paper showing that something like 75% of all people living below the poverty line would be lifted above it if they just worked 40 hours a week on average.”

“What I can't understand is why they couldn't be bothered to take the bus or just walk over to the Superdome, where there was an organized attempt to help them out. They had 48 hours to gather up what they could carry and move to a shelter.

And how could anyone in New Orleans fail to grasp the problem so completely that they didn't even bother to stockpile a couple day's worth of drinking water? I couldn't believe it when I saw victim after victim going by on TV saying, "we haven't had anything to drink since the storm hit".

“But what if there really IS a correlation between race and a tendency to amoral, selfish, violent behavior? Wouldn't it be suicidal to ignore it just because it is unpleasant that life might actually be ordered that way?

I just feel sorry for any white people left in that city. I saw video of some white tourists walking aimlessly, dragging their suitcases behind them, looking for help. They said they hadn't seen any police. What a nightmare...white people abandoned in a lawless city full of black people with no police in sight, and no firearms to protect themselves. You can talk all you want about how awful it is to be a racist, but they are the ones who are finding out firsthand the brutal realities of race in this country.”

“Compassion for the victims of this disaster is all well and good but sooner or latter we are going to need to address the moral hazard we create by federalizing disaster relief.”

I see no moral, pragmatic, or constitutional argument to justify 99.9% of the social programs created in the 20th century, and I would repeal them with a snap of my fingers if I could.”

“It seems to me that the poor should have had the EASIEST time leaving. They don't need to pay for an extended leave from their home, they could have just packed a few belongings and walked away to start over somewhere else. What did they have to lose?

When the wealthy evacuate, they leave behind nice houses, expensive cars, possibly pets that they treat as members of the family, valuable jewelry, family heirlooms, etc. This makes it emotionally difficult for wealthy people to leave. But by definition, the poor do not have this burden: they either rent their homes, or they are in public housing; their cars are practically junk anyway; and they don't have any valuable possessions. This is what it means to be poor. These people could just pick up their few belongings, buy a one-way bus ticket to any city and be poor there. Supposing they even had jobs in NO, it's not like minimum wage jobs are hard to come by.”

If you've managed to keep your gorge down up to this point, you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. Notice how frequently they couch immoral concepts in language using the word "moral"? Their master's voice. And of course, that cozy "This is what it means to be poor", coming from someone who probably never went hungry a day in his life. I don't know where these people live, but it's not in my America.

Originally posted at IMCT.

And where are those evangelical churches through all this horror in Louisiana? Where are all those bastards who are so eager to jump on their white horses for all the little 8-celled eggs and the Terri Schiavos? What do they think about REAL human suffering? Has anyone heard anything from them, other than that this was God's retribution for the sins of the city? Anything of comfort, of substance, in a public forum?

And where's that damned fabulous new Pope everyone was creaming their jeans over? What, he can't jump on a plane and make an appearance, shame the president into some action, comfort the people of one of the most Catholic cities in the world, grease the wheels of the relief system a little and say a blessing or two? What the hell is the point of having him around?

UPDATE: Now this is exactly what I'm talking about (via Atrios)---

"Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.
The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.
“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."
The New Orleans pastor is adamant. Christians, he says, need to confront sin. "It's time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won't have to deal with that wickedness," he says.
Believers, he says, are God's "authorized representatives on the face of the Earth" and should say they "don't want unrighteous men in office," for example. In addition, he says Christians should not hesitate to voice their opinions about such things as abortion, prayer, and homosexual marriage. "We don't want a Supreme Court that is going to say it's all right to kill little boys and girls, ... it's all right to take prayer out of schools, and it's all right to legalize sodomy, opening the door for same-sex marriage and all of that.”"

"don't want unrighteous men in office"? Hahahahahahahah!!! I'm in hell.

As I discovered yesterday in one of my classes, a number of folks in this country don't realize that the Hurricane Katrina disaster is WORSE than 9/11. There likely was much more property damage (by a longshot) than on 9/11 and, unfortunately, I suspect this disaster very well may have cost more lives than the number who perished on 9/11.

The worst part of it is that this disaster was genuinely preventable. If the administration had simply followed the blueprint of levee improvements proposed by the Corps of Engineers, the disaster might not have happened or at least wouldn't have been as bad. If they had followed James Lee Witt's FEMA disaster plan for a hurricane strike on New Orleans, the government would've at least been able to bring aid to the people there much more quickly. But, no, W and the boys were just too damned busy turning Witt's commendable disaster response agency into a Gilded-Age-style governmental patronage backwater.

Heck, if W and the boys had just gotten off their asses and started sending aid toward New Orleans even before the hurricane went through, many of the losses could've been prevented. Of course, W didn't have time for all of this since he was on vacation for the last five weeks. I mean, you gotta have priorities, right?

The big elephant in the room that the folks in the White House simply don't want to talk about is the fact that the Iraq War has made the loss of life in New Orleans much worse. The fact that personnel and equipment that could've been moved into position much more quickly is now in Iraq has made many realize that W's war of choice may very well have cost as many lives in New Orleans this week as it has soldiers in Iraq in the last two years. (I wonder, should we start adding those deaths to the Iraq War death toll?)

And this, folks, is perhaps the most damning thing. This is the best George W. Bush's government can do to protect you right now. This is apparently the very best they can do. This is a helluva way to take care of "homeland security," huh? The guard units that are supposed to help us all in these situations are thousands of miles away and the agency that is supposed to be in charge of such matters is politicized to the point of incompetence. What happens if there is another disaster in the next few weeks or months? What the heck will happen then? Anything? I shudder at the thought.

I can tell that people in the usually subservient media are beginning to get fed up, whether it's Jack Cafferty or Anderson Cooper or even Rush's girlfriend, Daryn Kagan, who criticized the president's photo op this morning on the air. There are even people now beginning to ask why there were all those helicopters sitting behind Bush in the photo op this morning in Alabama. These folks wonder why those helicopters aren't being used to help pluck people off roofs in New Orleans instead of serving as props for yet another useless damned presidential photo op.

If there is any justice in this world, W will take a helluva hit politically. W has now presided over two major disasters in his presidency, both of which were to some degree preventable (although this one much more so than 9/11). In both cases, he and his administration dropped the ball and thousands died as a result.

And please, please, please, for the love of God stop effing saying things like "voting doesn't matter" or "my vote doesn't count" or believing that elections don't have circumstances because the last four plus years have shown that they most certainly do.

Don't you think we have enough carnage now to definitively prove that to be the case?

UPDATE Jack Cafferty apparently agrees:

Cafferty: Wolf, the war in Iraq is part of the problem in New Orleans. The Boston Globe reporting today that National Guard units across the country have about half their usual equipment. Everything from helicopters, trucks, humvees, weapons available to them. All the rest of the stuff has been sent off to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are 78000 National Guard troops who are now deployed in those overseas war zones. Even the hardest hit states have 40% of their National Guard troops in Irraq right now. What happens if there's a terrorist attack tomorrow or a massive eearthquake in southern California? How would the nation respond? It's a frightening thought. The question is this - if we're to stay the course in Iraq should we bring the national guard troops home and institute a draft?

(Link via Atrios)

At least these lovely individuals didn't get linked, like Pat "Jesus Says Take 'im Out" Robertson's "Operation Blessings" did, on the White House donations website:

(via WaPo's Brian Krebs)

Suspicious Web pages supposedly raising money for Gulf Coast relief efforts keep springing up about as fast as authorities can shut them down. The latest are www.hurricanekatrinapics.com, www.hurricanekatrinarelief.com and www.katrinadamage.com, all of which ask for Paypal donations but do not make any claims that the money collected will benefit any relief organizations.

All three sites are registered to a company in New Orleans called Ideas Inc., which according to a LexisNexis search is owned by a guy named Bruce C. Henry. The latest records yielded by the search indicate its charter was revoked by the Louisiana secretary of state several years ago. I am told the handlers over at the SANS Internet Storm Center are working to get this site and several others like it shuttered. I am happy to report that all of the sites we mentioned in yesterday's post have been closed down.

It takes a village to stomp a weasel. Stomp liberally on anyplace you see linking to these folks.

If you'd like a clue as to why the NOLA castaways would take pot shots at the cops, read Salon's description of the difference between their situations.

Via Hullabaloo.

I have a question for you.

Yes, my life is complete. The "Bush fiddles while New Orleans drowns" meme actually propagated into one of Girl Reporter Lizzie Bumiller's fluff pieces.

Sweet!

AP's headline over Jennifer Loven's story: Bush Acknowledges Problems With Federal Disaster Relief Effort!

Except that's not what happened. Loven's quotes are taken from this transsript. Generously billed by AP as a "press conference," the actual context is "remarks to the press," i.e. the sort of one-way, no-questions photo-op on the way to the helicopter that Bush loves so much.

[BUSH] A lot of people working hard to help those who've been affected. And I want to thank the people for their efforts. The results are not acceptable.

Funny, I don't hear Bush acknowleding any responsibility....

I'm heading down there right now. I'm looking forward to talking to the people on the ground.

What, you mean this can't be handled from Hellmouth Crawford, TX ?
Does Bush not trust his own chain of command, or—say it isn't so—could this trip be just an extended photo op?

Yeah, it's my guess that Rove has decided that Bush needs to stand on top of a second pile of rubble. Watch for the photo of someone handing him a hard hat with a flag on it.

I want to assure the people of the affected areas and this country that we'll deploy the assets necessary to get the situation under control, to get the help to the people who've been affected, and that we're beginning long-term planning to help those who have been displaced, as well as long-term planning to help rebuild the communities that have been affected.

"Rebuild the communities..." Say, I bet that "Blame New Orleans" meme (back) is going to die like a switch got thrown...

But "long-term planning", eh? Funny how I don't hear anything about money...

And funny, I still don't hear Bush taking any responsibility...

I'm looking forward to my trip down there and looking forward to thanking those on the ground and looking forward to assure people that we'll get on top of this situation and we're going to help people who need help.

Gosh, I hate to point this out, but the time to get "on top of this situation" was before the disaster happened. Too little, too late. As usual.

Any sign of Bush taking responsibility here? Didn't think so.

Thank you. That's it.

Yeah, "that's it" alright. Bush doesn't want to take questions. I wonder why?

NOTE Anyone see this on TV? I wonder what Bush's body language was like. In the text itself, the langauge is wierdly corporate; it's as if Bush is quoting from half-remembered MBA papers; "deploy assets," "long term planning," "affected areas,"
"the situation" ... A very flat affect.

So Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, has unleashed the troops with orders to "shoot to kill". Does this sound like an American leader addressing a problem affecting Americans?

""These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded," (the governor) said on Thursday night of one group of 300 National Guard troops being deployed here after recent duty in Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will."

Before going one sentence further, remember that, along with the very real violence being carried out by opportunists and criminals, there are also many people involved in the "looting" who have been abandoned to their own devices for all intents and purposes, and who are simply trying to survive.

The last time U.S. troops opened fire on their own citizens was May 4, 1970 at Kent State in Ohio. 28 Guardsmen fired about 65 rounds into the crowd of unarmed kids, killing 4, wounding 9, and putting one, Dean Kahler, in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Though widely condemned in liberal circles, this incident was not only excused, but heartily celebrated by Americans across the country, who wrote an incredible array of poison pen letters to local papers praising the actions of the Guard.

Now we have a situation of nearly incomprehensible proportion, where criminals and madmen roam New Orleans' hellish streets, preying on the weak and desperate and traumatized, and reportedly shooting at rescue workers and authorities. (How much of the bungled and indefensible rescue effort has been truly hindered by them, and how much they are being used to smoke-screen the incompetence of those efforts, may never be known. And let's leave aside for another day the question of how much of a problem the shootings would have been in a country that didn't push deadly weapon ownership like a bad drug and make guns available on practically every corner.) But those who have been driven to "loot" by the failures of emergency measures they expected to depend on, those who have gone days without food or water, can all too easily become lumped in with the criminals, especially by strangers who wade into the midst of the situation with every expectation of being attacked. When faced with this scenario, can we expect the troops to be able to make the distinction? I don't know; I'm asking.

The parallels to Iraq are becoming almost mythical. A civilian populace in despair, trying to survive under appalling conditions, is being driven to manage its existence at the most primitive of levels. The behaviors they display, arising naturally out of those conditions, appear savage and uncivilized to their liberators, and this alienation makes it easier to keep a wall up against empathy. When you stop being able to empathize with a group it's a short step to demonizing them, or in this case, lumping the good in with the bad. As in Iraq, every civilian becomes a potential enemy, a combatant, and fair game.

If the kids at Kent State could be demonized sufficiently to, not just exonerate, but celebrate their killers' actions, how much easier will it be to do so to the hurricane victims of New Orleans, who are already being tarred with blame for not leaving, for living where they did, and for just being there, period? Michael "Not Responsible" Brown of FEMA says they should have just gotten out. The humanitarians over at NRO's The Corner have pitched the rum idea to eliminate federal flood insurance subsidies because people just need to take responsiblity for their actions. Never mind that it would leave NOLA's poor, who live by the water because in that crazy town it's the only affordable real estate, utterly homeless and bereft of everything they ever had.

Leaving aside the lessons we've failed to learn in Iraq on how to handle civilian populations under disasterous conditions, how will it play in Peoria if and when our own streets begin to resemble Baghdad's? When a nation's military is turned on its own people, we know it has descended into tyranny. But how long will Americans be content to excuse even this?

Originally posted at IMCT.

From the front page of the NYTimes comes this picture of New Orleans' latest hell:

"The explosion was in a chemical storage facility near the Mississippi River, Lt. Michael Francis of the Harbor Police was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. A series of smaller blasts followed and then acrid, black smoke hundreds of feet high. The vibrations were felt all the way downtown. "

I wondered when this part of it would start. Check out Chris Mooney's prescient description of the events now playing out, written 4 months ago:

"In the event of a slow-moving Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane (with winds up to or exceeding 155 miles per hour), it's possible that only those crow's nests would remain above the water level. Such a storm, plowing over the lake, could generate a 20-foot surge that would easily overwhelm the levees of New Orleans, which only protect against a hybrid Category 2 or Category 3 storm (with winds up to about 110 miles per hour and a storm surge up to 12 feet). Soon the geographical "bowl" of the Crescent City would fill up with the waters of the lake, leaving those unable to evacuate with little option but to cluster on rooftops -- terrain they would have to share with hungry rats, fire ants, nutria, snakes, and perhaps alligators. The water itself would become a festering stew of sewage, gasoline, refinery chemicals, and debris...

A direct hit from a powerful hurricane on New Orleans could furnish perhaps the largest natural catastrophe ever experienced on U.S. soil. Some estimates suggest that well over 25,000 non-evacuees could die. Many more would be stranded, and successful evacuees would have nowhere to return to. Damages could run as high as $100 billion. In the wake of such a tragedy, some may even question the wisdom of trying to rebuild the city at all. And to hear hurricane experts like Louisiana State University's Ivor van Heerden tell it, it's only a matter of time before the "big one" hits.

Currently, pretty much every long-term trend cuts against the safety of New Orleans. Levees are subsiding; coastal wetlands (which can slow storm surges) are continually disappearing; and sea levels are rising. And then there's global warming -- a warmer world with warmer ocean temperatures should theoretically experience worse hurricanes. Most importantly, the Atlantic Ocean appears to have entered an active hurricane cycle, with the potential to fling storms at the Gulf Coast for years to come. This puts New Orleans on the vanguard among U.S. coastal cities (including New York) that will have to think hard about their growing vulnerabilities in the coming years. The process of deciding how to save an entire coastal metropolis has begun, but the discussion has largely been confined to experts, and not nearly broad or ambitious enough yet."

Chris was on the BBC this morning, talking about New Orleans. But this isn't the time for laying blame, is it? Not the time to play politics. Not the time to wag fingers. Thank God for the clear vision of James Wolcott.

No, this is not a post about peanut butter.

skippy, my absolutely favorite bush kangaroo, responded so smartly to my recent post bemoaning George W.'s incredible statement that "No one anticipated the breaching of the levees," that I thought it needed wider currency.

look, nobody could know that they'd use airplanes as missiles either.

and who could predict that a permanent tax cut for the upper 1% would result in the biggest deficit in history?

and nobody ever foresaw iraq falling into civil war once saddam was taken out.

really, what do you expect? leadership?

by the way, cnn is already on the case of (is the guy's name forchetti?) the guy who said in 2001 that this would happen without more fortification of the levees.

If anyone has any info on who this guy is, please let us know in comments; googling that name didn't give me the answer.

Okay, so here's "the skippy challenge" issued to liberal/left bloggers and commenters to meet skippy's personal $100 contribution to the Red Cross in the name of all we hold dear as Americans, especially our bonds to one another. Unlike Hugh Hewitt, skippy will acknowledge you by name in his blog, and as the challenge has progressed, skippy has made clear that sliding scale contributions are acceptable for those with lesser incomes to no incomes. To find out more, click here, and then scroll up; lots of great stuff by skippy and his crew to look at and read.

A great concept and the graphic to express is to be found at Agitprop; this is one you won't want to miss; the link is courtesy of The Heretik, who has all manner of current stuff you should check out.

Mustang Bobby, blogging at "Bark, Bark, Woof,Woof," has a wonderful post analyzing Bush's first speech upon returning to Washington.

We need to remember speeches like this one, and those other of his sayings not part of one those prepared speeches that feature soaring, if empty rhetoric. Come to think of it, this administration has accumulated an astonishing number of pithy, quotable idiocies, most of which have turned out to be lies, and even when not, unhelpful and foolish. If anyone is up for starting a list, well, that's what comment threads are for.

Subject: Prof. Larry Schweikart, University of Dayton. For more on pedagogue Schweikart's latest adventures in discourse see Lambert's post below titled Katrina: Republicans to cities—Go die!.

Professor Larry is apparently quite the piper when it comes to tootling about the Freeperkorp forums like some kind of merry minstrel of free market tough love. See, it's like this: Don Larry frequently holds forth in Freeper creeperville as one "LS" ("Since Feb 4, 1998") and you can read his latest timely ventilations here: LS/Larry Schweikart

Entries include such momentous (and educational) twinkles of smirking repartee as the following exchange - (emphasis below is mine) - with Larry responding to a comment made by someone called "GnuHere"; who observes:

To: LS
Painful as it is, I tuned into the Today show for a few minutes - Carl Quintanilla (sp?) used the phrase "I have to be careful here" (presumably about how he reported the looting and lawlessness, especially not mentioning anyone's race) at least 3 times when reporting from NO about the looting, and he looked very scared.

24 posted on 09/01/2005 7:31:31 AM PDT by GnuHere
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]

Because, ya know, mention of "anyone's race" was certainly not evident in any of the recent reporting on unfolding events in New Orleans. Cheery Professor Schweikart (aka: LS) responds:

To: GnuHere
Bwa-hahahah. I can just see this guy: "Katie, the ni . . . . ,er, make that the LOOTERS are everywhere."

29 posted on 09/01/2005 8:01:05 AM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies ] here

"the ni . . . . ,er", I don't git it... oh! wait!... Bwa-hahahaha Larry! LOL!!! ... you are like sooooo crafty! Such a cheeky - and politically incorrect - wag! And oh my so very clever. Why I'll bet you're just a regular safety deposit box full of yucks aren't ya? A real cut-up farceur. A regular main attraction at all the snooty-best financially dressed U of D cocktail affairs. I betchya are.

Jeezis...where do they incubate and hatch these pretentious overstuffed elitist right-wing assholes anyway? Don't answer that. Anyway... here's another recent master Larryism (on public safety. Namely flood prevention):

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?
Posted by LS to goldstategop
On News/Activism 08/31/2005 9:10:51 AM PDT · 36 of 148

True: but it's not OUR job to do the "prevention." It's the job of the idiots who live there. I live in a tornado zone, so we will not buy a house without a basement. That would be stupid. I don't expect the feds to subsidize my basement purchase.

Well, yes, of course... I don't suppose someone in, say Vermont, should have to "do" Larry's private basement. Or even subsidize the particulars of prince Larry's various smarter personal "prevention" needs neither. But, as we all must take note, the imaginary public subsidization of lord Larry's personal basement facility somewhere in the vicinity of Dayton Ohio, is, in this case, of course, according to Larry, the equivalent of protecting an entire city of several hundred thousand human beings from the flood waters of the Mississippi Delta. Yes. It all makes sense.

See, it's like this, if all those old people and stupid little children born and raised in the soupy swamps of Nahlins' would come to their senses and purchase their own twenty four foot flood levees - or basements in a tornado hot zone (like, for instance, right next door to Larry) - then the dark stormy clouds roiling above each and every misfortunate soul today would simply disperse like a puff of oily blue smoke carried aloft in a new born breeze and the great mysterious invisible hand would poke a blessed finger down from the free market firmament and touch us all golden. And all the puppies and kitties would sudenly find themselves wearing brand new rhinestone collars too! Yes siree bub. At least as far as Larry and his merry band of laissez faire mystics are concerned. In fact, I'll bet that if the University of Dayton (the "private institution" from which Mr. Larry draws his comfotable gains) didn't accept all that pesky federal funding why Larry boy could probably afford to dig himself two or three or four basements.

Maybe even sell one of em' to one of those poor people from New Orleans who at this very moment might be in the market for a nice dry cellar! Or two! And heck, maybe Larry would even have some big crisp piles of snappy tax free Ben Franklins left over to launch his own private NOAA-style weather satellite into orbit and construct his very own personal privatized tornado early warning siren system right up there on the peak of his own very private flat-tax rooftop. Just as Mr. Larry, master and prophet of his own fabulous Larryland, would want it. Afterall, all a man needs is a solid basement and a cushy job at a major private university within easy driving distance and a good early warning tornado system over his fuzzy wuzzy head and, well, a few other little things, and there ya have it!

Hail, I'll bet the fabulous flat-tax-lander professor could even construct hisself an entire multilinked underground basement realm complete with an underground interstate transportation subway system and telecommunications grid and his own private internets. Even a personal mint for printing real Larry dollars!. All just for Mr Larry and his chosen basement saavy tribe mind you.

And should the occasional rogue tornado happen to scrape one of Dayton's lowly local public elementary schools from the surface of the earth, well, ho-hum. If the miserable tax looting bastards who depend upon such godless fascist arrangements are nice to lord Larry and his privateer heroes maybe the sovereign Larry and his kindred buds will be right there too - emerging on the spot - chipping in like good neighborly self interested sorts to help build a brand new schoolhouse brick by homemade brick with their own bare knuckles and personal gas fired homemade brick kilns. And other up from the bootstrap resource resovoirs of fabulous go-getter design.

Need a little flood "prevention" along the Ohio River? No problemo!...build your own levee! Complete financing available with real Larryland dollars of course! Oh. Yeah. Sure. For surely Mr. Larry's dreams of a shining Larryland on the Stillwater just south of interstate 70 would all come to fruitation if it weren't for all that taxpayer subsidized boodle being squirreled off and lavished on those silly "ni....,er", make that... LOOTERS" in some slough in Louisiana. Jeepers Larry, life is so unfair isn't it? Boo-hoo what's a freewheelin' pennypinch gasconade from Dayton to do!

In any case, keep pragmatic professor Larry Schweikart in mind next Spring when some cyclonic F-4 monster comes roaring down on Larryland. Just south of interstate 70. In the "With God, all things are possible state". Bwa-hahahaha!

More about Professor "LS" Larry including photo (cached "Yorktown University" page)

*

[I started this post yesterday, and, as will sometimes happen when dealing with wingers, the ginormous vacuity and self-assuredness of the argumentation, and the sheer virulence of the memes, boggled even my Enlightenment super-powers of evidence and reasoning. Yet in only 24 hours, the Republican Noise Machine has catapulted the "Blame New Orleans" meme all the way from the lunatic fringe (meet Professor Larry, uber-Patriot, below) to House Speaker Denny Hastert (and you always thought Hastert wasn't one of the thugs).]

So, let's watch the Republican Noise Machine in action, shall we? Katrina's got nothing on them when it comes to blowing hot air, eh? Starting yesterday:

Here's a beauty from Editor and Publisher. Of Will Bunch's research on how Bush paid for the war in Iraq by defunding flood control in New Orleans, thereby causing the breach of the 17th Street levee:

You've Got to be Kidding

This is truly an assinine [sic] column. The idea that I should be taxed to pay for the development of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans because I choose to live in a "hurricane-free" state like Ohio is absurd. It's even more absurd to think that because we spend money that is legitimate by constitutional standards -- for national defense against terrorists in Iraq -- we "don't have enough" for levee projects. I didn't see the residents of New Orleans kicking in privately for massive levee construction. How about this? You live in a hurricane zone, "you takes your chances"? Your "tax" for living in a temperate climate with a view of the ocean may well be that you get a hurricane every so often, just as it is California's burden to deal with earthquakes, mudslides, and fires because they want to live in near-perfect weather year round.

Stop blaming Bush and get a clue.

Prof. Larry Schweikart
University of Dayton
(via E&P)

So who is Professor Larry ? Here he is in full cry, flogging his new book:

That’s why I think the modern so-called “left” in fact greatly resembles the Nazis: they are anti-religious (unless it is their state, secular religion of “man” or Gaia); they are anti-Semitic; they hate freedom; and they are ruthless in their speech and behavior codes.

So ruthless they don't control any branch of the Federal Government....

Well, obviously Professor Larry has drunk deep of the Kool-Aid. Attempting to engage him using Enlightenment tools would be quixotic. But let's saddle up and ride. And we'll make it easy for him by leaving the cheap shots aside.

Leave aside the fact that New Orleans has existed for longer than the United States has, let alone Ohio. Leave aside the fact that New Orleans is a major port city, handles massive grain shipments, and has oil and gas refineries galone—and that the people who work for those businesses have to live where the jobs are. Leave aside that lots of working people just can't sell the house, pack up, and leave—especially if they'd be leaving family behind. And leave aside the fact that the break in the levee at 17th Street would not have happened if Bush hadn't cut the funding for maintaining it. Or if the Republicans had spent some of the $200 billion they spent on highway pork on projects that would, you know, save lives. (Black, poor, sick, and old lives, to be sure, so presumably insufficiently blessed by God—but heck, aren't they citizens too?)

And leave aside the fact that Bush is creaming off oil royalties (back) that Louisiana itself could have used for the flood control Bush is denying them.

And let's leave aside the fact that the magic of the market hasn't sorted out a full professor who can't spell "asinine" correctly. Shoot, I thought all the freepi learned to spell that word at their mothers' knee. I mean, they'd need to, right?

Here's the fact that Professor "Spell Me 'Assinine'" Larry is missing. It's a fact that's wa-a-a-y over in Europe, so I can see how the good Professor would be ignorant of it, but still, here it is:

The Netherlands.

A remarkable aspect of the Netherlands is the flatness of the country. About half of its surface area is less than 1 m above sea level, and large parts of [the Netherlands] are actually below sea level (see map showing these areas). An extensive range of dikes and dunes protect these areas from flooding. Numerous massive pumping stations keep the ground water level in check.
(Wikipedia)

Gosh, sound familiar? Of course, the Netherlands needs to maintain those dikes and pumping stations, they actually have to spend money, but it's a civil engineering project, and if the Netherlands can do it in Europe, so can this great country in Louisiana.

And why should we? Leave aside the French Quarter, jazz, the food, the fact that the people of New Orleans are American citizens who want and need our help—unlike, to pick a random example, many of the citizens of Baghdad.

Do it because it's profitable. The Netherlands has a $481.1 billion (2004 est.) economy. Just like New Orleans has always been profitable.

Surely even a winger hack like Professor Larry can understand that? Apparently not. But if Professor Larry weren't so busy tossing sandbags into the widening breach in Bush's credibility, he might have had time to do a little thinking. Maybe, who knows, some research. We should be so lucky.

By noon today, the fact-free yet extremely virulent "Blame New Orleans" meme had spread all the way from the fringe to the corridors of power, and House Speaker Denny Hastert weighed in:

WASHINGTON House Speaker Dennis Hastert says it makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild New Orleans, which is seven feet under sea level.
(via KIFY)

Right. Except the Netherlands is below sea level and has a $480 billion economy. Pop goes another Republican meme!

And then this zinger:

"[HASTERT] It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed."
(via AP)

All class, these Republicans. All heart. [sniff] 'S beautiful...

But we need to be very clear about what Professor Larry, Hastert, and the rest of the wingers pushing this meme are really saying here.

To do that, let's perform a simple mental substitution and replace this "natural disaster" with another kind of disaster.

When you hear "flood" think "loose nuke," and ask yourselves what the Republicans would say if a loose nuke in a shipping container took out Philly, instead of a flood taking out New Orleans?

1. Would the Republicans blame Philly for not protecting itself against a loose nuke? [In a heartbeat]

2. Would the Republicans blame the citizens of Philly [or New York, or Boston, or Seattle, or San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or even Houston] for living in an area that was vulnerable to nuclear attack by terrorists? [Bien sur!]

3. Would the Republicans be willing to spend "their" tax dollars to clean up and rebuild Philly after a nuclear attack, or would they prefer to "bulldoze" it? [Don't be silly! They already stiffed New York out of billions of 9/11 money!]

So, if you live near a port city in a blue state, or know, or love someone who does, Bush and the Republicans are telling you, too, "Go die," just as they have already told the citizens of New Orleans (back)

And remember:

4. The Republicans are the ones who made us vulnerable. Just as the Republicans paved the way to disaster in New Orleans, so the Republicans are paving the way for disaster with loose nukes. The Republicans haven't protected the ports at all, and Bush's war of choice in Iraq is a training ground for urban warfare, and has made terrorism worse.. The Republicans really have painted a target on our backs—while they stand clucking outside the line of fire and congratulating each other on their courage (as usual).

And what New Orleans shows is that after they put us in danger, the Republicans will do nothing, nothing to protect us.

Why would they? We're not the base. We should go die.

And they did, they did.

After some obligatory balancing, AP's Ron Fournier points out the obvious:

Just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress finally approved $42.2 million, less than half of the agency's request.

Yet the lawmakers and Bush agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-laden highway bill that included more than 6,000 pet projects for lawmakers. Congress spent money on dust control for Arkansas roads, a warehouse on the Erie Canal and a $231 million bridge to a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

How could Washington spend $231 million on a bridge to nowhere — and not find $42 million for hurricane and flood projects in New Orleans? It's a matter of power and politics.
(via AP)

Ah, priorities, priorities....

Cash dollars, cash dollars....

Can't trust the Republicans with your money, can you?

And every Republican with blood on one hand because of Iraq now has blood on both hands because of that highway bill—with $286.4 billion they probably could have raised the entire city of New Orleans above sea level...

Pat Holt of the Christian Science Monitor actually says this out loud:

The question of controlling information has arisen again in connection with the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee reasonably want to know what Judge Roberts did and what views he expressed during his service in the Reagan administration. While Bush professes full cooperation with the Senate Judiciary Committee, including its Democratic members, he has been careful about which documents from these periods of Roberts' career are made available. A great many documents have been supplied, but some have been withheld. Many of those that have been supplied have large sections blacked out. The Bush executive order says these redactions should be made on the basis of national security considerations, but in the end they come down to subjective judgments by the incumbent president or his White House staff.

In the name of protecting national security,
President Bush has arrogated to himself and to all his successors (unless one of them should be sufficiently public-spirited to change it) the power to control which presidential papers going back to George Washington can be made public. One must ask: Why would Bush be moved to do this?

A cynical, but possibly true, explanation is to protect Reagan and his vice president - the current president's father - from disclosure of the full truth about the Iran-contra scandal, which possibly contained grounds for another impeachment.
(via Christian Science Monitor)

Never forget that Roberts was a political appointee in the Solicitor General's office; a "made man," as Atrios says. If there were any legal opinions that Reagan and his bucket of warm spit, Bush the First, wanted, and then wanted to disavow, Roberts would have been the go-to guy. Say, on whether Reagan, or Bush I, could be impeached over Iran-Contra; and what evidence to bury so they couldn't be.

Remember that odd insistence, at the very beginning of the Roberts nomination fight, on a non-sensical claim of attorney client privilege (back) between Roberts and the President? Hmmm.....

Alert reader Julia connects the dots.

Good question, alert reader Karlsfini.

The answer is: Taking care of business (as usual)!

Cheney's raising money:

Vice President Dick Cheney will host a major fundraiser for Sen. Jim Talent in September as the Missouri Republican gears up for a challenge from Democratic state Auditor Claire McCaskill.
(via Columbia Tribune)

And Cheney's putting plan B into action, since that Iraq thing hasn't worked out so well—preparing to tell Canada they'd better give us their oil before we just take it:

The White House confirmed Tuesday afternoon that American Vice-President Dick Cheney is coming to visit Fort McMurray’s oilsands on Sept. 9.
“The vice-president’s visit to Fort McMurray’s oilsands facilities will be a component of the trip, which will provide the opportunity to discuss energy security and available resources,” White House spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride, told Today Tuesday.
(via Fort McMurray Today)

Oddly, though, "Cheney" and "Katrina" don't appear in any searches I've done.

Could it be Bush is handling this one all by Himself?

That would explain a lot, wouldn't it....

No surprise there:

There will be no large-scale shifting of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan to help with disaster relief in Louisiana and Mississippi, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said Thursday.

Most Americans identify the National Guard with providing emergency services during natural disasters. But over the past three years, numerous Guard units have been sent to Iraq to fight alongside regular forces.

A brigade of roughly 5,000 soldiers from the Louisiana National Guard watched the disaster unfold on television, as they finished their nearly yearlong deployment on Camp Liberty, west of Baghdad.

(via Globe and Mail)

See Scott run! Run, run, run! See Scott dodge! Dodge, dodge, dodge:

Jessica, go ahead.

Q Scott, since the briefing started, I've gotten a number of emails from people saying that correspondents who've been in Baghdad and New Orleans say Baghdad feels safer to operate in; people saying that it's absolute chaos in the streets; message boards on the Internet are going crazy. They're frustrated that you're deflecting this to FEMA. Is the White House properly, adequately concerned? And can you tell us --

MR. McCLELLAN: Deflecting what to FEMA?

Q You're deflecting all specifics to the FEMA briefing.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm not. I've given you some updates, but they are the ones who are in charge of operational aspects on the ground. And the Department of Homeland Security is in charge of the operational aspects from Washington, D.C. And they're pulling together officials that will have the most updated information to you. So your characterization is just wrong, Jessica. Jessica, go ahead.
(via White House transcript)

Oooh, that's a good one.

Talk to the poeple who are "in charge of the operational aspects on the ground."

Translation: We don't know what the fuck's going on.

You're poor, maybe sick,maybe old, have no car, can't buy gas, can't get on the Greyhound, let alone a train or a plane.

How, exactly, are you going to evacuate New Orleans if Bush isn't there to help you with some kind of disaster plan?

The answer is, you're not going to be able to leave. So you're going to stay put, and maybe die. Says a New Orleans police officer:

[The ones who could not leave] were poor folks mostly; most are blacks. It's not through any fault of their own [they could not leave]."
(via Independent)

And if you survive, and you're thirsty and starving, what are you going to do? You could wait for Bush to get it together, but after three or four days... You're going to do what you must:

The residents admitted they had been taking items from any stores they could find, but they insisted they were only taking essentials - food, water and nappies for their children. "The police have let us take the necessities," said Hazel Hollins, 54, a hotel worker.

One emergency official agreed that many so-called "looters" were only taking essentials. Speaking on a local radio station, Tad Troxler, the director of emergency planning for the western suburb of St Charles' parish, said there were "reports from law enforcement of people looting ... stealing beer trucks. But when you hear the stories from these families and they tell you they have just had to get a vehicle to get out of New Orleans, it seems different."

Bush put you in this spot when he cut the funding for the levees, sent the Guard to Iraq, and packed FEMA with political hacks who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

And now Bush does nothing, so you do what you must to feed yourself and maybe save your family.

So what does Bush do? He threatens to shoot you.

Who gives a shit? Bush already tried to kill you once...

Impeach.
Impeach.
Impeach.

P.S. Impeach.

Every time.

Every time.

Every time you think the man can't reach a new low, He defies expectations:

Still, Bush told ABC-TV: "I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it."
(via AP)

The guy just reeks of class, doesn't he?

NOTE Of course, given how Bush has trashed our currency, we might all be better off they didn't give us dollars. Eh?

Read this. Read it all. Then tell me he shouldn't be impeached.

And I don't mean all those desperate people waiting for help in New Orleans.

I mean our President. I suppose one could substitute "clueless" for "helpless," but in the end they pretty much come to the same thing.

I didn't think I'd be writing this kind of post. For myself, I'm corny enough to feel that you only got one President, and when he's leading the nation in the context of a national tragedy, you give him the benefit of the doubt.

So, although I thought it was perfectly all right to bring up issues that attach themselves to a category 5 hurricane hitting a major city and causing the failure of the levees that are supposed to keep it from becoming uninhabitable, issues like the cutting of funds previously earmarked for defending against that possiblity; my impulse was to refrain from language that puts the fault for this particlar happening directly on the shoulders of the President; we can't be sure if the full funds had been appropriated, "Katrina" wouldn't have triumphed.

And the matter of the levees and whether they have turned out to be the right answer for New Orleans is a question in itself.

Then, this morning, listening to NPR, I heard a voice that could only have been George W. Bush's say something to the effect that "nobody could have anticipated the breaching of the levees." Nobody could have anticipated the breaching of the levees? Truth to tell, he might have only said "nobody anticipated the breaching of the levees," but that's just as bad.

It will be poetic justice if either version becomes the final mantra of this Bush administration. "No one anticipated the breaching of the levees."

How disconnected from reality does a President have to be to be able to make either statement? People have been anticipating the flooding of New Orleans for years now, and the role of hurricanes in several possible scenarios of destruction have become almost rampant since that hurricane named "Andrew" hit Florida.

Are we really dealing here with a President who thinks that shutting his eyes, putting his thumbs in his ears and stamping his feet will make unpleasant facts go away. Is that the true meaning of "staying the course?"

Not that anyone on the right would deign to actually look at an actual episode of NOW with Bill Moyers, but in September of 2002, NOW did a two part series examining the issue of New Orleans and hurricanes.

The Mississippi River delta is disappearing. One of America's most vibrant and productive ecological regions is slipping into the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate. Every year, a chunk of land nearly as big as Manhattan crumbles and washes away. As it erodes, it not only threatens one of the country's most abundant fisheries and a vital home for wildlife, but it imperils the nation's energy supply. And, as the coast of Louisiana continues to slip away, tens of thousands of lives are at risk from devastating hurricanes. The crisis in the delta could reach catastrophic levels in the next few decades, with far-reaching environmental, human, and economic consequences.

NOW presents the story of the disappearing delta in two parts: "Losing Ground," uncovers how one of the biggest civil engineering projects in U.S. history — the leveeing of the Mississippi River — has brought Louisiana and the nation to the brink of what could be the most costly environmental disaster in history.

"The City in a Bowl," NOW with Bill Moyers returns to the Mississippi River delta to examine another ominous effect of this crisis — the risk that a massive hurricane could drown New Orleans gets worse every single year.

My memory of this was jogged by reader Hobson in comments.

Here's a short selection from the transcript of "Losing Ground."

ZWERDLING: The US Army took over the job in the late 1800s and every time they thought they'd conquered nature, the Mississippi River proved them wrong. So the Army's Corps of Engineers built more walls, and they built them higher. It's been one of the biggest engineering projects in history. Today, the Army manages more than two thousand miles of levees, and they've finally won the war — they've stopped the flooding in Louisiana.

OLIVER HOUCK: And so the project was, from an engineering point of view, brilliant, brilliant. From an environmental standpoint, it was a disaster. And it was a disaster because all of that bed load, all of that material that had built south Louisiana for thousands of years, now was thrown away like a waste product into the deep Gulf. And Louisiana was poised like a patient in a hospital. It was put on a starvation diet. It wasn't killed it was just made weak and susceptible to attack. And in about the 1930's the attack came.

ZWERDLING: That 'attack' was the oil and gas boom. All the big companies flocked here. They ripped up the wetlands to get to the energy underneath.

edit

ZWERDLING: Back then, hardly anybody realized the consequences and the whole country got the benefits. The companies sold us energy, the Army kept homes in Louisiana dry. But Reed says now we know the price: the wetlands are sinking into the Gulf.

And the link to New Orleans and its levees? From the transcript of "City In A Bowl:"

DANIEL ZWERDLING: The American Red Cross lists the worst natural disasters that might strike America. They worry about earthquakes in California, and tropical storms in Florida. But they say the biggest catastrophe could be a hurricane hitting New Orleans.

People have known for centuries that they picked a risky spot to build this city. In fact, some of the first French settlers wanted to abandon it.

The biggest river on the continent snakes around it. Most of the land here is below sea level. And every time people tried to expand the city, the Mississippi promptly flooded it.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Why did people stay here? I'm, it became obvious very, very quickly after the French came that this was a really lousy place to live.

OLIVER HOUCK: They made a lot of money. They made a lot of money because they were the transfer point for all the shipping that came out of the belly of the country and went to France and went to South America and went to England and all of the ships coming in, you had to pass by New Orleans.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: So they launched what's become one of the biggest construction projects in history. To protect their investments. As of today, the us arm has built 2000 miles of levees to stop the Mississippi from flooding. And until recently, scientists thought that these walls of soil and concrete and steel had made New Orleans safe. They never dreamed that the levees would come back to haunt them.

OLIVER HOUCK: So the irony of history and the evolution of the problem has been that we've been like one of those old citadels in an adventure story, defended ourselves against the enemy that we knew, which was the river. But to the rear and to the flank was this other threat that we're only beginning now to appreciate, and it may be too late to prevent.

Both transcripts and the background information NOW always includes about subjects it tackles are well worth reading.

MJS of MortalJive has a surprising and fascinating analysis of what makes our President...woof.

NOW TO THE HELPING:

MoveOn is launching a web-based emergency national housing drive to connect empty beds with people who need shelter while reclamation of disaster struck areas goes forward. Naturally, the most useful offers must come from people who live relatively near the disaster areas. A reasonable driving distance is being defined as 300 miles.

MoveOn is setting up a website, hurricanehousing.org

From an email signed by Noah Weiner:

But no matter where you live, your housing could still make a world of difference to a person or family in need, so please offer what you can.

The process is simple:

You can sign up to become a host by posting a description of whatever housing you have available, along with contact information. You can change or remove your offer at any time.

Hurricane victims, local and national relief organizations, friends and relatives can search the site for housing. We'll do everything we can to get your offers where they are needed most. Many shelters actually already have Internet access, but folks without 'net access can still make use of the site through case workers and family members.

Hurricane victims or relief agencies will contact hosts and together decide if it's a good match and make the necessary travel arrangements. The host's address is not released until a particular match is agreed on.

If hosting doesn't work for you, please consider donating to the Red Cross to help with the enormous tasks of rescue and recovery. You can give online at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=859

As progressives, we share a core belief that we are all in this together, and today is an important chance to put that idea to work. There are thousands of families who have just lost everything and need a place to stay dry. Let's do what we can to help.

http://www.hurricanehousing.org

Thanks for being there when it matters most.

That pretty much seems to say it all.

While Condi searches for her new Ferragamos...

(via LA Times)

Fats Domino was missing today, days after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, said his longtime agent, Al Embry.

Embry told The Associated Press that he hadn't been able to contact Domino since talking to him Sunday evening by phone... The 77-year-old R&B legend, whose real name is Antoine Domino, told Embry that he planned to stay at his New Orleans house with his wife, Rosemary, and their daughter.

What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.
(via Gawker)

I'm not sure if the word "insensitive" quite covers it, huh folks?

What could be going through the mind of the shooter?

“The evacuation of stranded hurricane victims from New Orleans' Superdome stadium has been disrupted after shots were fired at a rescue helicopter.
A spokesman for the Louisiana ambulance service told the BBC the crowd had grown unruly and he was concerned for the safety of his staff.”

Maybe it’s this:

“During the storm, more than 9,000 people took shelter at the Superdome, but the numbers have swelled to 20,000 and conditions there have sharply deteriorated.
The heat, humidity and sanitary conditions are reported to be unbearable, and people are crowding onto the stadium's concourse to avoid the stench…

The tens of thousands of people who are still in New Orleans are desperate to leave, the BBC's Alistair Leithead reports from the Louisiana city.
There is no electricity, and people who have lost everything are struggling to find food and clean water.”

Shooting the very people coming to your aid seems utterly insane, as has much of the behavior of the victims since Katrina began the devastation of New Orleans. The apparently savage and self-destructive behavior exhibited by the looters puzzled many at first, but though reports of opportunists stealing everything from cars and guns to prescription drugs may make us recoil, not everyone engaged in stealing or other acts are bad.

Many of the looters are just people bereft of even the most essential things---food, clean water, baby diapers, life-saving medications---who have gone days without them---and who saw a chance to stay alive and took it.

With his usual empathic compassion, Bush whips out the Stern Daddy persona that his sycophants seem to find so comforting:

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law," Bush said, 'Whether it's looting or price-gouging or insurance fraud."

Trapped in the city, waiting for days on rooftops or forced back inside flooded buildings without lights or air conditioning by an unenforceable curfew, surrounded by death, sewage, stench and chaos, many of them must be driven half-mad with grief and fear. Who knows how many people have been attacked, raped, even murdered, by the marauding bands of vultures that have been roaming the streets, and how do you tell who is coming to help you and who might hurt you after awhile? Traumatized, left for days by a broken system that can’t adequately respond thanks to the financial and logistical crippling George Bush has given it, and unsure when they will be rescued, if ever, they have taken the same actions most of us would have if we were stuck in the same situation. And who’s to say that the mind doesn’t begin to cloud after all this, that after days of paranoia and trauma, you don’t become a little unhinged and just need to strike out at someone, anyone? Personally, I wouldn't hesitate a moment to break into a pharmacy for the meds my child needed, or into a store for food, water, or shoes that weren't soaked into muck.

Not much seems to have been written about this so far, but look for a goodly amount in the near future, as more people are brought out and the stories they tell become common knowledge. We won’t have just a massive reconstruction task ahead of us; we will have the repair and reconstruction of thousands of human beings, as well.

So many tragedies swirl around us that it becomes incomprehensible, impossible to hold it all in the front of the mind. While the trauma and hell of Katrina's aftermath plays out down south, it's easy to forget the 953 who just died in a meaningless stampede on a bridge in Iraq; or the 1 year anniversary being marked in Russia of the cruel murders of the schoolchildren in Beslan.

If you are looking for a way to break through the sense of helplessness that so often comes with overwhelmingly bad news, the Red Cross is looking for volunteers for any numbers of positions, including those in Disaster Services, and in hurricane relief. Their websites must be being hit pretty hard now, because they are slow, so be patient.

The word has come down for state employees in PA, at least: you can go, if you want. From a recently released memo that came to my attention today:

"The Red Cross is currently offering a four hour training course in disaster relief by which participants will be certified as disaster relief volunteers for the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina. The Red Cross is requiring a commitment from these participants to perform the disaster relief work for three weeks. (E)mployees who are certified by the Red Cross as a result of this training may be released if operationally feasible and may use civil leave for the disaster relief work."

I'm still chasing down further info, but by navigating the Red Cross website I put together this much, at least. Go here. Click on "Emergency & Safety" in the drop-down window on the upper left. Put in your zip code and the distance you are willing to travel (if you want to help down south, you will eventually be able to volunteer for national disasters once you have located a local agency that will train you). A list will come up, from which you can choose.

More on this if I learn more.

(NOTE: Some of what follows you will have read elsewhere, including in the posts at this site. That's on purpose. These are things that need repeated again and again, until they begin to penetrate the thick force field of pride and defensiveness that has so far kept Americans from admitting that they elected a thumb-sucking moral imbecile, and from cutting their losses. This needs to be said over and over, it needs to be on every weblog and in every news organ. Again and again. And again.)

As the horrors of New Orleans begin to mount, one thing seems clear:

George Bush has their blood on his hands.

And before you dismiss this as just another liberal hatefest speech, consider the following, from the February 7, 2005 issue of New Orleans CityBusiness:

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has identified millions of dollars in flood and hurricane protection projects in the New Orleans district.
Chances are, though, most projects will not be funded in the president's 2006 fiscal year budget to be released today.
In general, funding for construction has been on a downward trend for the past several years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the New Orleans Corps' programs management branch.
In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures.
Demma said NOC expects its construction budget to be slashed again this year, which means local construction companies won't receive work from the Corps and residents won't see any new hurricane protection projects...

Unfunded projects include widening drainage canals, flood- proofing bridges and building pumping stations in Orleans and Jefferson parishes. The Corps also wants to build levees in unprotected areas on the West Bank.
Demma does not expect the Corps to award many more projects before fiscal year 2005 ends...

The most urgent work being delayed by funding shortfalls involves levee construction on the West Bank.
The West Bank doesn't have the first level of protection completed. So, that's the really critical one, Demma said."

Now scroll 6 months ahead, to these words from the mayor of NOLA:

""We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said in calling for an all-out evacuation of the city's remaining residents. Asked how many died, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

From yesterday's Kansas City Star:

"“We’ve lost our city,” said Marc Morial, a former New Orleans mayor who is president of the National Urban League. “I fear it’s potentially like Pompeii.”"

Could the damage and deaths have been prevented, or at least seriously curtailed? Yes, and not only by better preparation; a larger force of rescue operations might have made a difference, had they existed. From yesterday's Washington Post:

"National Guard officials in the states acknowledged that the scale of the destruction is stretching the limits of available manpower while placing another extraordinary demand on their troops -- most of whom have already served tours in Iraq or Afghanistan or in homeland defense missions since 2001."

Mississippi has over 4000 troops in Iraq, or 40% of its Guard force. Louisiana has 3000 over there. Many of the exhausted troops that are here and available have just finished their rotations over there.

Will Bunch did an excellent job of pulling the sources and quotes together to draw a picture of a President and Congress more interested in sending money to a bogus war than "protecting the homeland":

"At least nine articles in the
Times-
Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars...

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed."

Bunch noted that:

"One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach."

Bush's absurd funding of Homeland Security projects has been criticized before (sending the same amount of money to the barren plains of Wyoming as to the target-rich states of New Jersey and New York, failing to require protective measures for chemical and nulcear facilities), but his castration of the very agency created to deal with emergencies like the New Orleans disaster is less noticed. In a recent Washington Post column, Eric Holderman, director of Washington state's King County Office of Emergency Management, outlined the birth and history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, its absorption into the newly-created Homeland Security department, and then blasted Bush for "destroying" it:

"This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.
FEMA will be survived by state and local emergency management offices, which are confused about how they fit into the national picture. That's because the focus of the national effort remains terrorism, even if the Department of Homeland Security still talks about "all-hazards preparedness." Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the "homeland security" mission. Our "all-hazards" approaches have been decimated by the administration's preoccupation with terrorism."

Note that just last night on ABC, Elizabeth Vargas, reporting from NOLA, wondered why FEMA and many other government interventions talked up so much by spokesmen were "nowhere to be seen". It would be inaccurate to paint the agency as doing nothing; that's not true. What with much of the money and manpower that would have gone to averting this disaster misallocated or simply no longer there, FEMA is doing the best it can. And it has sent out the call for people to send cash contibutions to organizations like the Red Cross, Second Harvest, and an array of church groups. But maybe if Bush hadn't come up with the bright idea to divest it of it's true purpose and instead put it in charge of the concentration camps, it would have been able to take action sooner and in a more meaningful way.

Now it and every other remnant of Bush's ragtag domestic emergency contingent, is scrambling to put fingers in a dike that's already long since busted wide open.

If you want to know who their killer is, George, look in the mirror.

UPDATE: The NYTimes gets it:

"While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?
It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal."

Change that to none.

UPDATE 2: NPR News just played Bush's fatuous "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" speech, and followed up immediately with a "but the Times-Picayune had reported for years..." one-two punch that tore a big hole in that lie. The word is spreading.


Crossposted at IMCT.