Minority Whipping

The Good Old Days, Celebrating the Good Old Days (photo courtesy HuffPo)

WaPo: Trent Lott Elected Minority Whip

WaPo's 'The Fix': Mississippi Senator Rises Again

Or, as a commenter at Fark.com put it:

Trent Lott selected as Senate Minority Whip, because if there's one thing that Trent Lott likes, it's whipping minorities.

I saw this comment on Eschaton, who also dug up Lott's prior statements about his love for Strom Thurmond.

I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

Katrina Aftermath, Still a Struggle Against Incompetence and Corruption

Dead bodies are still being recovered in New Orleans, seven months later:

NYTimes: In Attics and Rubble, More Bodies and Questions

The bodies of storm victims are still being discovered in New Orleans — in March alone there were nine, along with one skull. Skeletonized or half-eaten by animals, with leathery, hardened skin or missing limbs, the bodies are lodged in piles of rubble, dangling from rafters or lying face down, arms outstretched on parlor floors. Many of them, like Ms. Blanchard, were overlooked in initial searches.

A landlord in the Lakeview section put a "for sale" sign outside a house, unaware that his tenant's body was in the attic. Two weeks ago, searchers in the Lower Ninth Ward found a girl, believed to be about 6, wearing a blue backpack. Nearby, they found part of a man who the authorities believe might have been trying to save her.

[On Friday, contractors found a body in the attic of a home in the Gentilly neighborhood that had been searched twice before, officials said.]

In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, there were grotesque images of bodies left in plain sight. Officials in Louisiana recovered more than 1,200 bodies, but the process, hamstrung by money shortages and red tape, never really ended.

In the Lower Ninth Ward, where unstable houses make searching dangerous, a plan to use cadaver dogs alongside demolition crews was delayed by lawsuits and community protests against the bulldozing. In the rest of the city, the absence of neighbors and social networks meant that some residents languished and died unnoticed. Many of the families of the missing were far from home, rendered helpless by distance and preoccupied with their own survival.

[]

In October and November, the special operations team of the New Orleans Fire Department searched the Lower Ninth Ward for remains until they ran out of overtime money.

Half a dozen officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency rebuffed requests to pay the bill, said Chief Steve Glynn, the team commander. When reporters inquired, FEMA officials said the required paperwork had not been filed.

While FEMA couldn't find the money to find and bury the dead, they made sure to pad the coffers of rich contractors:

Times-Picayune: Senators grill corps, FEMA
Hearing details waste in relief spending

Testimony at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing Monday in New Orleans showed that in the matter of the Katrina cleanup, taxpayers got taken to the cleaners.

[]

[T]he hearing also revealed in stark terms how the poor level of federal preparation and response carried more than an economic punch. As the questions from the elected officials gained momentum, it became clear that two themes especially bothered the Louisiana contingent. One was that, for all of the state's storied corruption and the defense its officials had to mount that relief money would not be squandered in Louisiana, the lion's share of waste occurred under the federal watch.

The second theme is that tens of millions of dollars were frittered away in layers of subcontractors. What Washington and the nation need to realize, the Louisiana contingent argued, is the totals bandied about as earmarked for relief are, in fact, grotesquely inflated by misspending.

Insurance companies are also preying on the weak and defenseless. Tort reform advocate Trent Lott is using the tort system he so hates to prove insurance companies are cheating homeowners in the hurricane zone:

AP: Lott Lawyer: State Farm Destroying Papers

Zach Scruggs, one of Lott's attorneys, says his client has a "good faith belief" that several State Farm employees in Biloxi are destroying engineering reports that gave conflicting conclusions about whether wind or water was responsible for storm damage.

Like thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners, Lott's claim was denied because State Farm concluded that Katrina's flood water demolished his beach-front Pascagoula home. State Farm says its policies do not cover damage from rising water, including wind-driven water.

But lawyers for the Mississippi Republican claim Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm has routinely pressured its engineers to alter "favorable" reports that initially blamed damage on hurricane's wind, which the company's policies cover.

A State Farm spokesman said Monday he couldn't immediately comment on Scruggs' allegations.

Lott's allegations come on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Kiln, Miss., couple who claimed they had obtained copies of conflicting reports prepared by State Farm's engineers on what damaged their home. They said one report traced the destruction to Katrina's winds while a later report said flooding was the culprit.

In response, State Farm spokesman Phil Supple had said the second report was the only one the engineering firm sent to State Farm's claims office.

In an interview Monday, Scruggs said corporate "whistleblowers" who are cooperating with Lott's attorneys have provided evidence that State Farm employees are destroying or moving those "initial favorable" engineering reports.

There Must Be an Independent Investigation

From the Huffington Post, via the Smirking Chimp:

Bob Cesca: 'George W. Bush investigates II: Beyond Superdome'

We're supposed to believe that Bush has accepted responsibility for the unnatural aspects of the disaster (on the federal side... where there were mistakes made... and there might not have been... sorta kinda... not really) but when it comes to being held accountable, can this group be trusted to run the investigatory show? To put it in terms all senators will understand: the steroid dealers are intending to investigate the Major League juicers.....

But let's wait and see what the White House and the Republicans come up with by way of a commission. My money is on the investigation taking place on Trent Lott's rebuilt front porch. The commissioners will be Lott, Cheney, and Sean Hannity, and the research materials will be nothing more than the tokens from an old Clue board game.

And if there's anything at all damning uncovered in this Republican-controlled "independent" commission, we won't see it until after the midterms -- kind of the same way the 9/11 Commission finally released its full report... yesterday.

One of the hallmarks of the Rove Regime is to postpone or delay all investigations into its reign of lies until sufficient time has elapsed to dull the nation's horror.

Remember Condoleeza's sing-songy rendition of the title of the August 6, 2001 briefing Bush received telling him Bin Laden was coming? "Bin Laden determined to strike inside US", she trilled. Imagine if we had learned of that document's existence in October of 2001, when Americans still cried every day thinking about September 11th.

Will we allow the Republicans to postpone the day of reckoning once again, so we can hear Ms. Rice's rendition of the National Weather Service's August 28th warning? La la la la, MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS....WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS, la la la la.

Americablog has provided the telephone numbers of the 54 Republican Senators who voted against the independent investigation. Call 'em and ask why.

ACTION ALERT: Call the US Senate - Ask GOP Senators why they hate America?

Trent Lott Jumps Off Bush's Sinking Ship

Cut the red tape, Lott says
Criticizes FEMA for holding up 20,000 trailers 'sitting in Atlanta'

POPLARVILLE, Mississippi (CNN) -- 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.

"FEMA and MEMA need to be saying, 'Yes' to Mississippi's needs, not, 'No.," the former majority leader said in a written statement.

"Mississippians are homeless, hungry and hurting."

Guess George W. Bush won't enjoy sitting on Trent Lott's rebuilt front porch quite so much.

Bush Pledges to Rebuild Trent Lott's House

President Bush Hits the Scene, Giving Hope to... Uh, Trent Lott

"The good news," said the president, "is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's gong to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Yes, he actually said that. Way to look on the bright side, Mr. President. "Fantastic!"

Of course, Trent Lott owns another house.

Bloggers are calling Bush's tour today "Operation Photo-Op".