The Receding Water Will Spread This Toxic Filth Around the Gulf and Eventually the World

from skippy the bush kangaroo (yes, he posts in all lower case letters, like e.e. cummings). To click on the links contained within the article, click on the article title. Skippy is raising money from blogtopia (yes! skippy coined that phrase!) and so far has raised over $10,000.

yes...it does get worse

...it seems that a toxic landfill site on which housing was built in central new orleans is now under floodwaters with the potential to pollute and contaminate portions of the gulf coast. despite the overwhelming international coverage of hurricane katrina's lethal attack on southern u.s. states, it is the current issue of solid waste & recycling magazine that unearthed an environmental hazard that has the potential of being an underwater love canal.

cnn and fox news have now been alerted.

something called the agriculture street landfill (asl) is located on a 95-acre site in central new orleans.

it is registered as a "superfund site" (whatever that is) on the federal government's national priorities list of highly contaminated sites requiring cleanup and containment. but nothing has been done.

...according to the editor of hazardous waste magazine, the asl site -- now under water -- will almost inevitably leach toxic effluent into the floodwaters, with the potential of inflicting unpredictable damage on the coast, and those that live there -- a possible environmental catastrophe. - toronto star

houses and buildings that were constructed in later years directly atop parts of the landfill. residents report unusual cancers and health problems and have lobbied for years to be relocated away from the old contaminated site, which contains not only municipal garbage, but buried industrial wastes such as what would be produced by service stations and dry cleaners, manufacturers or burning. the site was routinely sprayed with ddt in the 1940s and 50s and, in 1962, 300,000 cubic yards of excess fill were removed from asl because of ongoing subsurface fires. (the site was nicknamed "dante's inferno" because of the fires.)

the asl can be thought of a sort of love canal for new orleans -– and now it sits under water. - solid waste & recyling

a political problem was lurking behind the scientific numbers. nobody in the city or federal government wanted to take responsibility for the problem. the epa was overseeing the pollution problem, but the neighborhood was built on land the city had owned and polluted. It had been financed under a department of housing and urban development program. - nola.com

Lame Excuses

from the Los Angeles Times yesterday:

Bush's Hurricane Response a Disaster

Nearly five years ago, the Bush administration rode into office bearing its cynicism about government high, like a banner. ">Nearly five years ago, the Bush administration rode into office bearing its cynicism about government high, like a banner.

It promoted a massive tax cut as a way of "starving the beast" of federal government. President Bush traveled the country telling us that we were overdependent on the government for help with healthcare and retirement. To those wondering what resources might see them into old age, he advised: "a conservative mix of stocks and bonds."

New Orleans is, or should be, the graveyard of the conservative ideology that government is useless. An American city is reduced to Third World desperation as people who own nothing scrounge for necessities in a sea of waste and federal officials offer lame excuses about how their disaster plans would have worked fine had there not been, you know, a disaster. The president, at the head of a global power that can't get its own troops or supplies off their bases to reach the needful, whines, "The private sector needs to do its part."

How FUBAR is FEMA? Let me count the ways

from dailykos, via the florida blues blog. Hit the link to the original post to link to the stories (in bold, below) referenced.

FEMA is FUBAR

David of Daily Kos says to take a look at this list of stories he's rounded up about FEMA:

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations

FEMA turns away experienced firefighters

FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks

FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel

FEMA won't let Red Cross deliver food

FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans

David says: We know FEMA's budget and operations have been gutted. We know FEMA's currently run by a washed-up hack attorney who couldn't even get a job at Jacoby & Myers. But this is beyond outrageous. I am sure there are plenty more stories like this; I collected these in just ten minutes on Google News and DKos. Looking at this list, it would be hard to blame you if you thought FEMA actively wanted rescue and relief operations to fail.

Of course, that's not the case - but these ranks failures transcend even the corrupt indifference we've grown sadly accustomed to over the past five years. If there's any hope for the recovery efforts, it'll come from guys like Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré and Clinton-era FEMA director James Lee Witt, not criminal incompetents like Michael D. "Brownie" Brown.

More:

FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid

FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board

FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck

FEMA turns away generators (See entry from 3:32 P.M. by Ben Morris, Slidell mayor)

FEMA: "First Responders Urged Not To Respond"

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.

The Three Stooges review a five-day-old weather map for the benefit of cameras

You've got to click on the link to see the picture, because I'm a technical luddite and still don't know how to post pictures. It's one of the pictures taken during Operation Photo Op 1.0 (Friday), via firedoglake.com, via uggabugga:

More Useless Props for Guitarzan

The Three Stooges review a five-day-old weather map for the benefit of cameras. I guess Katrina was prettier then. Note African-American shoehorned into the picture, tail rotor of helicopter and all the bright, shiny colors.

Suppose anyone was lamenting what they should've been doing five days earlier when Katrina was still out over the Gulf of Mexico?

I'm thinking not.

Why were the Red Cross, Coast Guard, National Guard and Army helicopters there one day and gone the next?” “Who changed priorities?”

From the excellent site rawstory.com:

Lethal chaos: Professor describes scene at New Orleans hospital

A first-hand account of the New Orleans devastation from leading human rights attorney

Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley, best known for his work with Haitian pro-democracy activist Father Jean-Juste, spent some time speaking to Raw Story’s Jennifer Van Bergen about his experience inside New Orleans’s ground zero.

When the category-four Hurricane Katrina made landfall early last week, Bill Quigley was volunteering at Memorial Hospital, at the heart of what would be later described as the worst-hit area. His wife Debbie, a medical doctor at Memorial, was on duty that night.

**********

The power went out early Monday. The sickest patients, roughly seventy or so, were evacuated by helicopter Sunday. Not until Wednesday morning did more helicopters appear. Quigley and other volunteers tried to get the attention of the numerous helicopters they could see hovering over the city. The sickest patients were brought up eight flights of stairs in sheet slings to the roof. Some patients were kept on the roof as long as 24 hours.

**********

Quigley says they saw helicopters from the Red Cross, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and the Army. One Army helicopter, which the volunteers on the roof managed to “flag down” wouldn’t land and refused to take anyone, even those remaining critically ill patients, because “they were full with rescue workers and could only pick up individuals one at a time off of roofs, which they stated they had been doing all day.”

Instead, Quigley says the Army helicopter dropped some food supplies that turned out to be just three or four boxes with tin cans of Vienna sausages.

These were not enough to feed the patients, let alone the staff or volunteers. Food and water supplies were dwindling.

After that the helicopters never returned to Memorial Hospital.

“We couldn’t figure out why they didn’t come back,” Bill said.

Tulane University Hospital had been evacuated, Quigley heard, but those at Memorial “were left to die or get out as best they could.”

At least ten patients died while awaiting rescue workers. Many died because their life-sustaining medical treatment required electricity.

***********

Bill, tired and still dazed, wonders what happened.

“Why were the Red Cross, Coast Guard, National Guard and Army helicopters there one day and gone the next?” he opined. “Who changed priorities?”

The helicopters didn't return until Wednesday. Isn't that the same day Bush returned from his vacation? Did they stop the rescue so he could ride in on Air Force One, the cavalry, and lead the convoy through New Orleans?

Where George W. Bush Got His Compassionate Conservatism

Callous indifference begins at home:

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out "Very Well" for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans

NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

**********

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

"Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands -- and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry." -- John Lennon, at the royal variety concert in 1963.

12:52 p.m. update
PS. E&P actually ameliorated the quote from la Bush. What she said on the tape about New Orleans' newly destitute is: "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they want to stay" in Texas.

"As President Bush scurries back to the Gulf Coast"

I love the rat imagery! From the BBC:

Viewpoint: Has Katrina saved US media?

As President Bush scurries back to the Gulf Coast, it is clear that this is the greatest challenge to politics-as-usual in America since the fall of Richard Nixon in the 1970s.

Mr Bush's famed "folksy" style has failed to impress in this crisis
Then as now, good reporting lies at the heart of what is changing.

But unlike Watergate, "Katrinagate" was public service journalism ruthlessly exposing the truth on a live and continuous basis.

Instead of secretive "Deep Throat" meetings in car-parks, cameras captured the immediate reality of what was happening at the New Orleans Convention Center, making a mockery of the stalling and excuses being put forward by those in power.

Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina.

Today's Meme: Don't Criticize Until Disaster is Cleaned Up

Apparently this is Karl Rove's latest meme: Don't critize the government until Katrina is cleaned up. I have seen former presidents Clinton & Bush and several community leaders and talking heads trotting out this line. But they're wrong. The extreme incompetence cannot be ignored, because more will die if the most incompetent boobs -- the political hacks at the top of FEMA and elsewhere -- stay involved.

There is nothing wrong with criticizing the CURRENT MISTAKES being made by people running a disaster cleanup where there are still victims alive, waiting to be saved. It's called "constructive criticism". We're trying to help you understand how to do the job right!

Keeping out the NGOs is wrong. Not accepting international offers of aid is wrong. Not accepting public offers of aid, firemen, police, planes, doctors -- that's wrong. Requiring bureaucratic paperwork while human beings are dying for want of aid is WRONG. Delaying food shipments and suspending relief operations so the President can do photo-ops is wrong. And these are all decisions that have been made within the last 7 days by the federal officials running this disaster cleanup.

It is critical that Brown, Chertoff be removed IMMEDIATELY and replaced by experienced & competent disaster managers. (I'd like to remove Bush immediately as well, but that's not going to happen. And Cheney is probably in charge anyway.) Who ran the 9/11 cleanup? Send him to New Orleans. Do we really expect that the former head of the International Arabian Horse Association (Brown) is going to improve on the job? There are still people alive in the rubble. Send in a pro, send in someone from New York who knows how to bang heads and get things done. Put Bill Clinton in charge! Let BushI hold out the tin cup by himself. Do something. Send in more military with a broad authorization to do what it takes to get the job done.

But for any of these changes to take place, we have to first understand the enormity of the mistakes made by the people in charge. So I reject this meme. Criticizing the government at this juncture is patriotic. Saving lives is the priority, not making rich incompetent boobs feel better about their clusterfuck operation.

Broussard: I know what the body count is so far, but I won't horrify the nation

Via AmericaBlog, from WWL-TV's blog:

Broussard Warns of Massive Death Count

Broussard: I know what the body count is so far, but I won't horrify the nation

The World Press Gives George W. Bush a Grade of F-

Press dismay at Katrina chaos

Here's just one excerpt, from Spain's El Pais:

"Up until Monday, Bush was the president of the war in Iraq and 9/11. Today there are few doubts that he will also pass into history as the president who didn't know how to prevent the destruction of New Orleans and who abandoned its inhabitants to their fate for days. And the worst is yet to come."

Operation Photo Op, George W. Bush edition, 3.0

Found this on Surburban Guerrilla:

Bush visit halts food delivery

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.

I'd make this the basis of the second* Article of Impeachment in the Impeachment of George W. Bush.

George W. Bush has landed in Baton Rouge, LA for another day of Operation Photo Op. Pray that more don't die from this type of insanity this time.


* Here's the first Article of Impeachment.

"God, we hope it's no more than 10,000"

DEATH TOLL IN NEW ORLEANS

....A senior military commander on duty in New Orleans was no more optimistic.

"Maybe 3,000, maybe 5,000. God, we hope it's no more than 10,000," he told CNN.

Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

So say the people on the front lines:

An Angry 'Times-Picayune' Calls for Firing of FEMA Chief and Others in Open Letter to President On Sunday

Hurricane Katrina was a Political Epiphany

James Carroll
Katrina's truths

[The first epiphany is American poverty exposed.]

The spectacle of failure, how for days the government was powerless to help such people, only put on display how government was already failing them and everyone else. Here was Katrina's second main epiphany -- what it means that the United States, after a generation of tax-cutting and downsizing, has eviscerated the public sector's capacity for supporting the common good. The neglect of civic infrastructure, the destruction of social services, the abandonment of the safety net, the myth of ''privatization," the perverse idea, dating to the Reagan era, that government is the enemy: It all adds up to what we saw last week -- government not as the enemy, but as the incompetent, impotent bystander. The bystander-in-chief, of course, is George W. Bush, whose whining self-obsession perfectly embodies what America has done to itself.

One cannot see the devastated cities or that river of refugees or those harried National Guard soldiers without seeing something even more disturbing -- Katrina's third epiphany. This is what war looks like, and the harsh reality is that the United States has been the source of exactly such devastation elsewhere. Obliterated cities, populations pushed into refugee camps, young American soldiers overwhelmed by the impossibility of their mission -- this is Iraq today. Oil is part of the Gulf Coast story and part of Iraq's story, too. We are at war for oil, a war we cannot win. Four dollar gasoline. The truth is crashing over us, a tsunami of it.

James Carroll is an interesting guy. He was ordained as a priest in 1969, worked as chaplain at Boston University from 1972-1974 where he was also an antiwar protester, left the priesthood in 1974 and has been a writer ever since. His father, Joseph Carroll, was a lieutenant general in the Air Force who was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War, a top advisor to former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, and a key figure in the US Air Force bombing campaign in Vietnam. James Carroll has written an autobiography about his struggles with his father, entitled God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us, which received the 1996 National Book Award in nonfiction.

Operation Photo-Op Ramps Up Again

White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 - Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.

As a result, Americans watching television coverage of the disaster this weekend began to see, amid the destruction and suffering, some of the most prominent members of the administration - Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense; and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state - touring storm-damaged communities.

Mr. Bush is to return to Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday; his first visit, on Friday, left some Republicans cringing, in part because the president had little contact with residents left homeless.

The Gulf Coast is still the largest disaster on US soil and all they care about is saving their own political bacon. Disgusting.

Operation Photo Op, Laura Bush Edition, 2.0

The Frontlines of the American Refugee Crisis

From someone on the ground in Lafayette, Louisiana who was volunteering at the Cajundrome:

It actually couldn't have been a worse experience; a team of us were working to put up a website with directions to every Red Cross shelter in the region when we were evicted from the computer room by the Secret Service.

There's only one room in the Cajundome with telephones and internet access for refugees, and Laura Bush shut it down for eight hours (along with the food service rooms to the side and the women's showers). You may have seen it on CNN; apparently seven refugees were allowed back so Laura could help them in front of the cameras.

If you saw that footage, that's where I put in half my volunteer hours. Not knowing Bush was still back there later I tried to insist on being allowed back into the room to a "Red Cross" guy who must have been a Secret Service agent undercover. A hint for future Secret Service agents: The real Red Cross guys don't look like they want to break your legs for walking too close to the barricade, because they're too busy passing out food and helping people. They're also less likely to use phrases like "Stand fast, sir!"

Now, I know this is the sort of thing that happens whenever a VIP tours a disaster site, and maybe Laura Bush handing out that loaf of bread really will lead to an increase in donations. All I can say is, to have paralyzed a third of a day of operations at this stage of the game, it fucking well better. And I tried to position myself to say this to her in front of the television cameras too, but instead I only got a wave and a smile as she hurried past me.

7:10 a.m. update: Fixed broken link, thanks Big Daddy in comments

Shelter From the Storm

Mass. Governor Romney is on TV announcing that Massachusetts is planning to take in 2,500 Gulf Coast evacuees and housing them at the just closed Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod.

If a million people are displaced, if the 47 non-affected states split them equally, each state needs to take in more than 20,000 people, so this is just a start.

The Raw Truth

I am still in tears from watching this man on Meet the Press.

Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parish, being questioned by Tim Russert:

MR. BROUSSARD: ...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.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...

MR. BROUSSARD: 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 sakes, shut up and send us somebody.

1:45 p.m. update: As I read on another blog (can't remember which, now), this means that the mother of the Emergency Management Services Director in Jefferson Parish died on Friday -- during Operation Photo Op.

While Bush was posing in front of fake food distribution centers, faking levee repair, and shutting down helicopter rescue services in New Orleans for 8 hours, this man's poor mother drowned in a nursing home.

What if -- just try to imagine, what if -- Bush had spent the money and resources he spent on Operation Photo Op on sending rescuers to the SEVENTY-SIX nursing homes in New Orleans, many of which are flooded. Do you think the old folks in the nursing home were able to comply with the supposed "mandatory" evacuation? Did they even hear about it? Think about that every time you hear another moron from the media or the administration talking about the people who didn't "obey" the mandatory evacuation. The onus is on the government to evacuate those people, and they didn't. Bush was riding his bike, Cheney was fishing, Condi was shoe shopping, Rummy was destroying Iraq, Karl Rove was spinning, and the Corporate Media was in their usual prone position.

When Bush is impeached, this poor woman's death during Operation Photo Op should be the first Article of Impeachment.

Must Reads

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo: while thousands wither away in the heat without food or water

Spontaneous Arising: Mad Max Wears a Badge in New Orleans

Americablog: Bush faked levee repair for photo op yesterday

Political Animal: BEHIND THE CURTAIN

dailykos: Unforgivable

War and Piece: German TV reports

"How do you like having a president who at a time like this reminisces about getting drunk in New Orleans?"

KATRINA
While Bush fiddles, New Orleans dies

Jimmy Breslin:

He barely seemed to understand there was a hurricane for the first three days. He was in Coronado, outside San Diego, and in his speech, he managed to mention New Orleans, by saying that people should not return to their homes until rescue crews could do their work.

Nobody had to be told not to return to their homes because they don't have homes to return to, and no bus fare to go anywhere.

**********

Friday, showing up on the fifth day of a national tragedy, Bush made a little humorous aside about the times he was in New Orleans celebrating too much. Beautiful! If he tried to walk fifty yards he could have tripped over somebody's dead black grandmother under a blanket.

How do you like it? How do you like having a president who at a time like this reminisces about getting drunk in New Orleans? White boy with Daddy's money roaring at Mardi Gras in a town black for the rest of the year.

If whites were in trouble in New Orleans, trust that his government would have been there early and the aid massive.

**********

...Bush stands there, uncovered, without an American flag draped around him, as the most incompetent president we've ever had.

The horror of New Orleans in 2005 is a national disgrace.

M. Charles Bakst: Bush, Katrina and 9/11

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were a national disaster.

The horror of New Orleans in 2005 is a national disgrace.

As bad as 9/11 was -- the brutal shock that it was, as impossible to absorb as it was, to see the Twin Towers explode, to imagine the agony of humans incinerated -- coping with it still was easier in some ways than watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least in 2001 there were heroes, lots of them, notably New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the firefighters and police officers who nobly rushed into buildings to save lives, often at the expense of their own.

And, after a momentary stumble, President Bush stood tall. This was the man who went to Ground Zero and spoke defiantly of the terrorists. And who later spoke to Congress with steely confidence and grim determination and declared, "I will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging this struggle."

This nation, in grief and in purpose, was as united in those days as I have seen it. In that saddest of times, people were proud to be Americans.

This past week has been a national embarrassment.

George Bush, who once seemed so decisive and so inspiring, has never seemed smaller, more out of touch, more overwhelmed by the job. He had, of course, weakened himself by getting the country bogged down in Iraq in a war that may be impossible to win and seems irrelevant to the genuine threat from terrorists.

But it is much more than that.

In the crucible of New Orleans, Bush has symbolized all of the government officials at any level who failed to anticipate or act upon the dangers hurricanes in general and Katrina specifically posed to New Orleans and, certainly, bungled the response to the devastation that finally came. (How dismaying it was to read yesterday of a Red Cross official saying the U.S. Department of Homeland Security "has basically told us they don't want us -- our Red Cross folks -- in New Orleans because our presence would keep people from evacuating.")

America has become a laughingstock, to think that people could suffer here for days on rooftops or terraces or in a sports arena or convention center without rudimentary help like food or water, amid lawlessness and stench, surrounded by death.

I do not diminish the horrors that took place within the World Trade Center or the vividness of the sight of the buildings exploding and falling.

But in terms of faces and voices of individuals in anguish -- faces that you actually have seen and voices you have heard -- enduring misery, begging for aid, and feeling abandoned by their government -- New Orleans has presented the starker, more inexplicable tableau.

The news media have superbly conveyed this suffering. They have not as successfully forced government officials to account for the poor planning and slow reaction.

The New Orleans catastrophe is made uglier by the fact that most victims are black and poor. This is the reality of inner city life. Race and class. You may wonder if race and class explain the slowness of the federal response.

The most inspiring thing about this tragedy is to be found among the huge numbers of organizations and individuals who have been collecting money and supplies for hurricane relief -- it will be long needed -- in New Orleans and elsewhere. They represent the best impulse in the nation's character and they remind me of a notion I associate with Jimmy Carter. Wouldn't it be nice to have a government as good and decent as the American people?

M. Charles Bakst, The Journal's political columnist, can be reached by e-mail at mbakst [at] projo.com

'My Pet Goat' -- The Sequel: This time the president did not merely dither for seven minutes, but for three days, and his top aides followed suit.

'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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P.

Justice Rehnquist Has Died

Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies

May he rest in peace. Cancer is an awful thing.

Justice Rehnquist, the original legal oxymoron. Now we have Clarence Thomas who makes him look like a conservative piker.

Fox, CNN, Headline News, & MSNBC have all suspended their coverage of Lake George where more than 10,000 American citizens lie dead to report on this breaking news. Is there any truth to the rumor that Karl Rove did him in to get pictures of the disaster in New Orleans off the TV screens?

My heart sinks for my country. Bush gets to appoint another Supreme Court justice.

1:25 a.m. update: Steve Gilliard says, "Well, at least he wasn't eaten by alligators."

He didn't die in New Orleans.

As Always, the President's First Priority Was Saving Himself; It Was The Poor Who Were Left Behind to Drown

Frank Rich:

Falluja Floods the Superdome

AS the levees cracked open and ushered hell into New Orleans on Tuesday, President Bush once again chose to fly away from Washington, not toward it, while disaster struck. We can all enumerate the many differences between a natural catastrophe and a terrorist attack. But character doesn't change: it is immutable, and it is destiny.

As always, the president's first priority, the one that sped him from Crawford toward California, was saving himself: he had to combat the flood of record-low poll numbers that was as uncontrollable as the surging of Lake Pontchartrain. It was time, therefore, for another disingenuous pep talk, in which he would exploit the cataclysm that defined his first term, 9/11, even at the price of failing to recognize the emerging fiasco likely to engulf Term 2.

After dispatching Katrina with a few sentences of sanctimonious boilerplate ("our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens"), he turned to his more important task. The war in Iraq is World War II. George W. Bush is F.D.R. And anyone who refuses to stay his course is soft on terrorism and guilty of a pre-9/11 "mind-set of isolation and retreat." Yet even as Mr. Bush promised "victory" (a word used nine times in this speech on Tuesday), he was standing at the totemic scene of his failure. It was along this same San Diego coastline that he declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln more than two years ago. For this return engagement, The Washington Post reported, the president's stage managers made sure he was positioned so that another hulking aircraft carrier nearby would stay off-camera, lest anyone be reminded of that premature end of "major combat operations."

This administration would like us to forget a lot, starting with the simple fact that next Sunday is the fourth anniversary of the day we were attacked by Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Even before Katrina took command of the news, Sept. 11, 2005, was destined to be a half-forgotten occasion, distorted and sullied by a grotesquely inappropriate Pentagon-sponsored country music jamboree on the Mall. But hard as it is to reflect upon so much sorrow at once, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the real history surrounding 9/11; it is the Rosetta stone for what is happening now. If we are to pull ourselves out of the disasters of Katrina and Iraq alike, we must live in the real world, not the fantasyland of the administration's faith-based propaganda. Everything connects.

Though history is supposed to occur first as tragedy, then as farce, even at this early stage we can see that tragedy is being repeated once more as tragedy. From the president's administration's inattention to threats before 9/11 to his disappearing act on the day itself to the reckless blundering in the ill-planned war of choice that was 9/11's bastard offspring, Katrina is déjà vu with a vengeance.

**********

A visibly exasperated Shepard Smith [of Fox/Faux News], covering the story on the ground in Louisiana, went further still, tossing hand grenades of harsh reality into Bill O'Reilly's usually spin-shellacked "No Spin Zone." Among other hard facts, Mr. Smith noted "that the haves of this city, the movers and shakers of this city, evacuated the city either immediately before or immediately after the storm." What he didn't have to say, since it was visible to the entire world, was that it was the poor who were left behind to drown.

Qualifying for the FIFA World Cup is sweet. Doing it against your archrival is nirvana.

USA slam Mexico to reach Germany

Steve Ralston & Damarcus Beasley with the goals, MOTM was GOOOOOOOOOOOCH. Oguchi Onyewu owned Jared Borgetti, the alltime leading scorer for Mexico. The first Mexican to play in the English Premier League got schooled by our 23-year-old superstar in the making.

On to Germany!

11:00 p.m. update, I saw this on bigsoccer.com:

Borgetti got Onyewued.

It's About the Incompetence

Brownie the Crony

[From the Boston Herald] The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.

And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.

The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.

Here's the guy who should still have the job. At least the governor of Louisiana has had the good sense to bring him in:

Blanco Appoints Witt

Gov. Kathleen Blanco has appointed former FEMA Director James Lee Witt as a special adviser to help her manage the recovery and restoration efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Witt was FEMA director under former President Clinton, serving in that position from 1993-2001.

"My Hero Is a Bus Thief"

My hero is a bus thief

When I heard President Bush on Thursday morning call for "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this," it gave me shivers.

I know he wanted to send a tough message to thugs stealing guns, drugs and flat-panel televisions, holding up hospitals, shooting at helicopters.

But doesn't he realize he would be heard by the moral equivalent of school administrators?

These are people who suspend girls for bringing Midol in their purses or butter knives in their lunchboxes.

What would they do to a kid who steals a bus?

When he arrived at the Astrodome about 10 p.m. Wednesday, 20-year-old Jabbar Gibson modestly confessed that he had commandeered a school bus in New Orleans, then picked up about 70 passengers before heading out for the 13-hour trek to Houston.

Stealing a bus is a felony.

It's also an act of heroism.

There's something about the obliteration of a city and all its survival systems of social support and discipline that messes with moral norms.

"The Red Cross is Locked Out So They Can't Document the Atrocities"

Why the Red Cross is Locked Out and the People are Locked In

Crooks and Liars video of Geraldo Rivera and Shep Smith at the Convention Center reveals a big part of Team BushCo's disaster management strategy: lock down the cities so the hideous element isn't allowed to threaten the suburbs with invasion. And the Red Cross is locked out so they can't document the atrocities. They have a habit of doing that.

Of course, why didn't I think of that? Just like after Fallujah, the U.S. refused to let the International Red Cross in.

Despicable.

MSM Picks Up Red Cross Story

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food

As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

"Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders."

Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.

wkyc.com (Northeast Ohio): Few answers for thirsty, hungry in New Orleans

The American Red Cross, Salvation Army and other charitable organizations that typically are the first to respond to disaster sites with food and water have been kept out of the city.

“Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities,” said Gregg Tubbs, a spokesman for the American Red Cross. “The Red Cross can’t get in there. We can’t enter New Orleans against their orders.”

By LARRY WHEELER, Gannett News Service

(Contributing: GNS reporter Raju Chebium, in Metarie, La., and Dan Turner, The (Shreveport, La.) Times, in Baton Rouge, La.)

KCBI-TV (Idaho): Doctor says Red Cross should have been there

September 3, 2005 12:56 PM

The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS "Where is the Red Cross?"

A doctor at the airport in New Orleans posed that question today to an Associated Press reporter. The doctor, one of the first to set up a triage center at the airport, says he wishes the Red Cross had been there, since the organization has the expertise to set up that kind of facility. He said he hasn't seen any Red Cross presence there.

And the picture that emerges is a bleak one. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a surgeon who visted the airport today, says the hallways and floors are "filled," and that people are dying because the resources aren't there to treat them.

Donations pour in to aid groups for Katrina relief

By ADAM GELLER, The Associated Press

Published: Saturday, Sep. 3, 2005

But aid groups said their efforts were limited in important ways.

“We are not in New Orleans,” the Red Cross’ Dodge said. The federal Department of “Homeland Security has basically told us they don’t want us, our Red Cross folks, in New Orleans because our presence would keep people from evacuating.”

A spokesman for the federal agency said Friday that there is not an absolute policy barring relief groups from the entire city, but that its own efforts were taking precedence there.

“There may well be situations where it merits the Red Cross holding back while our personnel go in first,” said the spokesman, Russ Knocke. “But our priority is meeting the immediate life-saving and life-sustaining needs of those who’ve gone through a nightmare.”

Other groups also reported that they were not being allowed into the city. MAP International said it was working to send medical supplies to a New Orleans hospital, but that the shipment was being held up by a difficulty in getting the credentials needed for drivers to get through roadblocks set up by the National Guard.

Second Harvest said it had secured a warehouse between New Orleans and Baton Rogue, because its workers can’t get to their facility in New Orleans. But setting up operations was being complicated by shifting demands. “At this point we don’t know how many people are in need and where they are. Evacuees arrive at different places everyday,” Daly said.

Homeland Security SNAFU

Last night on ABC news they interviewed one of the truck drivers who was delivering a truck full of water to New Orleans. He said he loaded up in Texas on MONDAY and Homeland Security held him up from delivering until Friday.

Isaiah 41:17-18

When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

George W. Bush has forsaken New Orleans


Clusterfuck 3.0

Even Fox is Outraged

Horror Show

Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera were livid about the situation in NOLA as they appeared on H&C. When Hannity tried his usual spin job and said "let's get this in perspective," Smith chopped him off at the knees and started yelling at him saying, "This is perspective!" It was shocking.

[video links -- I don't have the bandwidth, click on the link above to view]

Geraldo who I'm no fan of was crying, holding a little child up to demonstrate the extremely inhumane conditions these people are forced to live under. Forced is the right word because they are locked in the dome by our government and can't leave. Troops are guarding the bridge.

This goes beyond political lines and it's as sad a situation as I've seen. Let's see all the happy politicians slap themselves on their backs after viewing this segment.

Homeland Security Keeping Red Cross Out of New Orleans

I just sent this as an email letter to the editor or news tip to about 10 newspapers:

Homeland Security is keeping NGOs out of New Orleans

If you go to the Red Cross website, they are saying that they are being kept OUT of New Orleans by the state Homeland Security Department, and that this is because if the Red Cross is there, people won't evacuate.

So, with no plan to evacuate tens of thousands of people, while starving & dehydrating them, in the Convention Center, in the Superdome, on I-10, under overpasses, in fields, Homeland Security has been keeping help out of New Orleans. People are dying of thirst, heat exhaustion, lack of medical care, and the Red Cross can't go in.

This is even posted on the Red Cross website. Here's the link: http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00. [...]

The Red Cross is getting the lion's share of charitable gifts, and they are being kept out of New Orleans by the insane bureaucrats of Homeland Security.

This is the worst, most incompetent relief effort in the history of the world. Hundreds if not thousands have perished unnecessarily. Shame, shame.

United States of Shame

United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

Who are we if we can't take care of our own?

Operation Photo Op Shuts Down Helicopter Relief Flights

A CRIMINAL INCOMPETENT IS OUR PRESIDENT

Thousands of people stranded in two swamped parishes south of New Orleans are just as desperate for supplies as those trapped in the city but can’t get the attention of federal disaster relief officials, their congressman said Friday.

And to make matters worse, says Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., he was unable to deliver that message to President Bush during his visit to New Orleans because the president’s security detail couldn’t clear him to board Air Force One.

After waiting 90 minutes Friday while a U.S. marshal using a satellite phone repeatedly tried, and failed, to contact Bush’s plane – located just 300 yards away at New Orleans’ Armstrong airport – a disgusted Melancon left.

**********

And for the entire time Bush was in the state, the congressman said, a ban on helicopter flights further stalled the delivery of food and supplies.

Do you think Bush will attend the funerals of the people he's killed with his murderous negligence? Nope, me neither.

Operation Photo-Op -- Laura Bush Edition

Evacuees at Cajundome wait for first lady, and for lunch

Couldn't have those refugees eating before the camermen got there.

As the first lady toured the Red Cross shelter at the Cajundome this morning, a line of evacuees waiting to eat their lunch trickled out the door of the Dome.

First lady Laura Bush arrived about midday to tour the shelter and meet evacuees.

By 12:50 p.m., the trays of food were still covered and hungry evacuees stood in line, holding empty plates. Rice, beans and jambalaya were on the menu. About that time, volunteers began rolling the carts of food into position to serve.

New Orleans is Burning and the Department of Homeland Security Won't Let the Forest Service Send Planes to Put Out The Fires

Forest Service offers planes to help fight fires

The Forest Service has offered fixed plane aircraft used to fight forest fires to help extinguish blazes in New Orleans, according to two congressional sources. But the sources said the planes, which can pour large amounts of water on fires, remained grounded in Missouri Friday because the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t authorized their use.

The department is overseeing federal hurricane relief and rescue operations.

"We’ve been asking them to request that the planes be used, but nothing has happened,” said one of the two congressional sources, both of whom asked to remain anonymous. The planes were offered by the Forest Service because of news reports that firefighters in New Orleans lacked adequate water pressure to fight a number of fires in the city.

There was no immediate comment from the Forest Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department, or the Department of Homeland Security.

Clusterfuck 2.0

National Guard BARS Red Cross from New Orleans

This is horrifying. The NGO that is receiving the lion's share of charitable contributions -- over 195 million as of today -- is BARRED from entering New Orleans. This is criminal. This is Nazi war crimes criminal. People have died, starvation, dehydration, heat exhaustion, because of this clusterfuck, brought to you by the worst President in the history of the United States of America, George W. Bush.

So if you've given money to the Red Cross, that money is not going to New Orleans. People are thirsty. People are starving. People are dying for lack of medicine, medical treatment, heat exhaustion. That's the story now. New Orleans is being wiped off the map by the Bush Administration.

Kos diary telling this story: Red Cross NEVER allowed into New Orleans.

I was wondering where the Red Cross was in all this. They were never mentioned. It was like they didn't exist. And, after yesterday's drama at the convention center, the Brown and Chertoff lies, the Red Cross was still MIA. Then, earlier today, I saw a note that the Red Cross was not allowed to enter NO. Hmm, that's doesn't make sense. This simmered for a couple hours.

So I called the Red Cross and asked them if its true....

And, to my surprise, the nice lady answering the phone said it was true and they told/asked/ordered not to enter NO. She then went right into her spiel about all the other work the Red Cross was doing across the region. I said that's nice, but I still didn't understand why they weren't in NO. To my amazement, she patiently explained it to me. I even called back to verify what she said. This time she asked if I was media, I said no, just a concerned and confused contributor.

So here goes: Homeland Security (her term, not mine) told the Red Cross DO NOT enter New Orleans and says this still now. And why, you may ask? Not Security. Not worker safety. Not lack of access. It was because people would be drawn to the Red Cross food and they wouldn't want to go to be evacuated. So I asked: "The people starving and dying at the convention center yesterday couldn't get Red Cross food and water because they would be drawn to the food at the convention center, where they were, and not want to be evacuated from the convention center where no evacuations were going on or planned and all the while they are dying". (Actually, it was a couple questions.) She went back into her spiel about all of the other good work they were doing. When I asked again, she said yes, that was true. She seem relieved to admit it.

In closing, I asked if she asked this question before since she was very familiar with the answer she gave. She said yes. And I promised another donation. Which they will get after this post.

So, the question for Bushies, why was the Red Cross banned from NO when they knew people were starving? Could it be they were saving the convention center rescue until Bush's visit today? It certainly seems like it. Doesn't it?

Red Cross National Affairs number (202-303-5551)

Official statement from the Red Cross:

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

Access 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.

In Massachusetts We'd Call This Yankee Ingenuity

A friend on a lawyer listserve sent me this story. This kid is definitely getting a pro bono lawyer. He found an abandoned bus in New Orleans, packed it with survivors, and drove it to the Astrodome. The reaction of the officials? They're going to charge him with theft. Unbelievable.

This kid is a hero. They should give him a medal. He evacuated 100 people faster than FEMA.

The link is to the video from the television story, followed by the transcript.


Taking refuge in the AstrodomeThursday, September 01, 2005 Updated: 07:55 PM

HOUSTON -- NEWSCHANNEL 5 crews were in Houston as some desperate refugees arrive in a stolen bus.

HOUSTON -- Thousands of refugees of Hurricane Katrina were transported to the Astrodome in Houston this week. In an extreme act of looting, one group actually stole a bus to escape ravaged areas in Louisiana.

About 100 people packed into the stolen bus. They were the first to enter the Houston Astrodome, but they weren't exactly welcomed.

The big yellow school bus wasn't expected or approved to pass through the stadium's gates. Randy Nathan, who was on the bus, said they were desperate to get out of town.

"If it werent for him right there," he said, "we'd still be in New Orleans underwater. He got the bus for us."

Eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson jumped aboard the bus as it sat abandoned on a street in New Orleans and took control.

"I just took the bus and drove all the way here...seven hours straight,' Gibson admitted. "I hadn't ever drove a bus."

The teen packed it full of complete strangers and drove to Houston. He beat thousands of evacuees slated to arrive there.

"It's better than being in New Orleans," said fellow passenger Albert McClaud, "we want to be somewhere where we're safe."

During a long and impatient delay, children popped their heads out of bus windows and mothers clutched their babies.

One 8-day-old infant spent the first days of his life surrounded by chaos. He's one of the many who are homeless and hungry.

Authorities eventually allowed the renegade passengers inside the dome.

But the 18-year-old who ensured their safety could find himself in a world of trouble for stealing the school bus.

"I dont care if I get blamed for it ," Gibson said, "as long as I saved my people."

Sixty legally chartered buses were expected to arrive in Houston throughout the night. Thousands of people will be calling the Astrodome "home," at least for now.

--------

Republicans National Disaster Plan: Repeal the Estate Tax and Cut Medicaid

Because we need fewer resources in times of national crisis.

My dad, the original congenital Democrat, was fond of this quote:

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H. L. Mencken

Because Republicans do and say things like this:

Priorities Posted by Matthew Yglesias Sept. 2, 2005

Yes it's despicable that faced with utter disaster George W. Bush's first impulse was to stay on vacation. But compare that to Pete Domenici who worries that with all this death and destruction it'll be hard to eliminate health care for poor people:

"This is a serious matter that calls into question all sorts of things," said Steve Bell, chief of staff to Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of a subcommittee that will handle much of the relief funding. "Do you think we're going to be able to pass substantial Medicaid cuts and Social Security reform in the middle of this? You can't put that much on the plate."

Poor baby. Bill Frist assures us later in the same article that estate tax repeal is still on the agenda. After all, it's not like anyone's foreseeing the need for spending on foreign wars or domestic disaster relief or anything like that in the near future.

Despite Katrina, Frist Will Call Vote on Estate Tax Repeal

Senate Finance Committee members were informed this morning that Sen. Bill Frist will move forward with a vote to permanently repeal the estate tax next week, likely on Tuesday, ThinkProgress has learned.

One stands in awe of Sen. Frist’s timing. Permanently repealing the estate tax would be a major blow to the nation’s charities. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has “found that the estate tax encourages wealthy individuals to donate considerably more to charity, since estate tax liability is reduced through donations made both during life and at death.” If there were no estate tax in 2000, for example, “charitable donations would have been between $13 billion to $25 billion lower than they actually were.”

As they did after 9/11 and during the lead-up to the Iraq war, conservatives have placed tax cuts for the most wealthy and well-off over the spirit of shared national sacrifice. What a stark contrast to the outpouring of generosity being shown by the American people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Lou Dobbs: Why Not Blame the (Black) New Orleans Mayor & Politicians?

I'm watching him on CNN, and he actually asked that question. Why aren't people blaming the black mayor of New Orleans? The black politicians?

Maybe because their houses are gone? Their resources were destroyed in the storm?

Did Lou blame the mayor of Homestead, Florida after Hurricane Andrew? For not taking care of it themselves?

Moron.

7:39 p.m. update: Now Anderson Cooper is going on and on about this foolish question, what about the black mayor of New Orleans, he asks Jesse Jackson. Isn't he responsible. More responsible than the massive federal government? FEMA who kept other responders out of New Orleans?

Bet he never asked whether George W. Bush was responsible for 9/11 on 9/16. He never asked that question, did he? Did anyone.

Double moron. The MSM reverts to their prostrate form.

Why Didn't the Camera Show the Shoes?

Condoleeza Rice just gave a State Department briefing. No one asked her about her shoe shopping while Americans died.

Picture of Condi hitting a Monty Python Broadway show this past Wednesday while people were dying in New Orleans

Federal Government Lies on TV

What was said vs. What was happening
The big disconnect on New Orleans
The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday. The sanitized view came from federal officials at news conferences and television appearances. But the official line was contradicted by grittier, more desperate views from the shelters and the streets.

These conflicting views came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others.

Just one example:

Hospital evacuations

[FEMA Director] Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations.

I just wish CNN would call these bald-faced lies and bald-faced liars, because that's all they are.

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".

Technical Issue

I have turned off comments because I have gotten several "Anonymous" posters trying to lead my readers to sites unknown. I must have gotten picked up by some syndication service.

I'll try to straighten this out next week.

Thousands Dead, More Dying Every Minute, Where Are The Networks?

A dailykos diary that hits home:

Where are the networks?

The tragedy in the southern gulf looks like it might be the greatest disaster in US history. The cable news has been 24/7 since before the storm. But where are NBC, CBS and ABC?

Is Dr. Phil really more important that tens of thousands of lives? Remember that the big 3 are the only "over the air" networks which is especially important in areas without power. Last night they showed football for god sakes.

After 9/11 it was a week of non-stop coverage.

Apocalypse Now

World stunned as US struggles with Katrina

But many have also been shocked by the images of disorder beamed around the world -- looters roaming the debris-strewn streets and thousands of people gathered in New Orleans waiting for the authorities to provide food, water and other aid.

"Anarchy in the USA" declared Britain's best-selling newspaper The Sun.

"Apocalypse Now" headlined Germany's Handelsblatt daily.

The pictures of the catastrophe -- which has killed hundreds and possibly thousands -- have evoked memories of crises in the world's poorest nations such as last year's tsunami in Asia, which left more than 230,000 people dead or missing.

But some view the response to those disasters more favorably than the lawless aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

"Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

Send Bush to the Superdome & Make it Five

Housing court judges have a punishment of last resort for landlords whose properties are filthy and unliveable: sentence them to stay there until it's cleaned up.

Bush should be sent to the Superdome until New Orleans is cleaned up.

A City's Open Wounds
A walk through New Orleans is an assault on the senses: distressing sights and smells, an odd quiet in a water-choked urban wasteland.

In two days at the Superdome, I saw four white people among the estimated 23,000 there.

Where's Dick Cheney?

Just wondering. Americablog is wondering, too: Is Cheney ill?

We know Condi has been called back to Washington from New York City, where she was booed at the Broadway show Spamalot, and yelled at by a sane American while shoe shopping during a national catastrophe.

Bush is on TV now, biting his lip, listening to the thanks of the Republican governors of Alabama & Mississippi. "Making progress every day", Haley Barbour just said. Channelling his inner George W. Bush, I guess. Now Barbour is talking about people who didn't leave. Check, second GOP talking point.

They all look high school kids on the stage giving a report.

This is pathetic. They should have used Air Force One to drop water & food.

Staggeringly Ineffectual

Department of Homeland Screw-Up
What is the Bush administration doing?

The Bush administration has been staggeringly ineffectual in its response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in New Orleans. Its failures are painful evidence of how far we have to go in developing the capability to respond rapidly to a mass-casualty disaster.

**********

How is it possible that with the fourth anniversary of 9/11 almost upon us, the federal government doesn't have in hand the capability to prepare for and then manage a large urban disaster, natural or man-made? In terms of the challenge to government, there is little difference between a terrorist attack that wounds many people and renders a significant portion of a city uninhabitable, and the fallout this week from the failure of one of New Orleans' major levees. Indeed, a terrorist could have chosen a levee for his target. Or a dirty-bomb attack in New Orleans could have caused the same sort of forced evacuation we are seeing and the widespread sickness that is likely to follow.

**********

Located only three hours from New Orleans is Fort Polk, home of the 4th Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, a light infantry unit with about 3,000 soldiers. Also at Fort Polk is the Joint Readiness Training Center, which prepares military units to respond rapidly to crises abroad. The 4th Brigade has been training for duty in Afghanistan. Why was it also not ready to take on a local disaster scenario in hurricane season? Or at the least, once the National Hurricane Center predicted that the eye of Katrina would come close to New Orleans, couldn't DHS have deployed the military to help shore up the levees?

And in the event of a WMD attack, when there would likely be no warning at all, what is DHS's contingency plan for moving into position the army or the marines to restore order and sustain life? In the wake of Katrina and the breached levee, the answer seems to be not much of one. In the wake of 9/11, that is worse than incomprehensible. It is unforgivable.

"What I'm seeing on TV now is a third-world country with a government unwilling or incompetent to fulfill its tasks."

Flood Relief: How it should be done

FEMA Director Mike Brown: "An unmitigated, total fucking disaster"

FEMA Dir. Mike Brown fired from prior job at Horse Assoc.

"An unmitigated, total fucking disaster." That's not a quote from Mike Brown, but rather, a quote describing him. And most disturbingly, it's not even a reference to his dismal performance as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This blunt critique was emailed to me from a regular reader who was apparently attracted to HorsesAss.org by her passion for politics and her love of Arabian horses.

I think I've told you that I'm into Arab horses. Well, for 3 years Michael Brown was hired and then fired by our IAHA, the International Arabian Horse Assoc. He was an unmitigated, total fucking disaster. I was shocked as hell when captain clueless put him in charge of FEMA a couple of years ago.

**********

Yes, that's right... the man responsible for directing federal relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sharpened his emergency management skills as the "Judges and Stewards Commissioner" for the International Arabian Horses Association... a position from which he was forced to resign in the face of mounting litigation and financial disarray.

And how did Mike Brown get his job?

Much was made at the time and since about the fact that James Lee Witt was the first head of FEMA who had a professional background in emergency and disaster management.

No one seems to dispute the fact that prior to 1993, the agency was a dumping ground for patronage hires. (The change was also furthered by a devastating 1992 GAO report.)

President Bush replaced Witt with Joe Allbaugh, whose main qualification was that he was one of the president's main political fixers from Texas.

When Allbaugh left FEMA in 2003 to cash in on the Iraqi contracts bonanza, he was replaced by Michael Brown. Allbaugh originally brought Brown to FEMA as General Counsel. His qualification was that they were college buddies.

When Allbaugh bailed, he apparently gave the top job to Brown.

Bush Administration Destroyed FEMA

Why is FEMA not responding to Katrina? Kevin Drum tells us:

Chronology

His conclusion:

So: A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS [Department of Homeland Security] was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.

Why New Orleans is Different Than Iraq

Because the dead and dying are Americans. Because it's happening on American soil. Because the news media is there.

I hate the MSM, but I've got to give them credit. Their wall-to-wall coverage is going to change a lot of people's opinions of George W. Bush. He can't give his talking points speeches ("Everything is beautiful, in its own way") and be believed while we are seeing live video feeds of the truth. American citizens are dying because his administration is utterly incompetent. Four days after the hurricane struck, and still no water, no food, no shelter, no major government presence in New Orleans.

There are no pictures of Bush's clusterfuck* in Iraq. He could get away with his lies there. This one's going to stick, and sink him.



*Cheese sandwich is out the window. Fuck's sake, this is a disaster.

Lake George

"Lake George" is what folks are calling New Orleans filled with water.

A Tragedy By Any Other Name

Bush Spent Levee Money in Iraq

Budget cuts delayed New Orleans flood control work

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday.

The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation's waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years.

"Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in," said Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who headed the engineering agency from 2001 to 2002.

GWB: The Blind Man

No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

**********

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

A Dearth of Answers

George W. Bush, interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America today:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will."

The Federal Government Mobilizes

Biloxi Newspaper Rips Relief Effort, Begs for Help

Yet where is the National Guard, why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in South Mississippi been pressed into service?

On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.

Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!

When asked why these young men were not being used to help in the recovery effort, our reporters were told that it would be pointless to send military personnel down to the beach to pick up debris.

Litter is the least of our problems. We need the president to back up his declaration of a disaster with a declaration of every man and woman under his command will do whatever is necessary to deal with that disaster.

Hurricane Updates You'll Never Hear

Someone emailed this to me, without attribution.

Subject: Hurricane updates the general public won't hear
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:07:40 +0000

While it happened, President Bush decided to ... continue his vacation, stopping by the Pueblo El Mirage RV and Golf Resort in El Mirage, California, to hawk his Medicare drug benefit plan. On Sunday, President Bush said, "I want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level who have taken this storm seriously." He's not one of them. Below, the Progress Report presents "How Not to Prepare for a Massive Hurricane," by President Bush, congressional conservatives, and their corporate special interest allies.

SLASH SPENDING ON HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS IN NEW ORLEANS: Two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that would have helped New Orleans prepare for such a disaster. The New Orleans branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered a "record $71.2 million" reduction in federal funding, a 44.2 percent reduction from its 2001 levels. Reports at the time said that thanks to the cuts, "major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. ... Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now." (Too bad Louisiana isn't a swing state. In the aftermath of Hurricane Frances -- and the run-up to the 2004 election -- the Bush administration awarded $31 million in disaster relief to Florida residents who didn't even experience hurricane damage.)

DESTROY NATURAL HURRICANE PROTECTIONS: The Gulf Coast wetlands form a "natural buffer that helps protect New Orleans from storms," slowing hurricanes down as they approach from sea. When he came into office, President Bush pledged to uphold the "no net loss" wetland policy his father initiated. He didn't keep his word. Bush rolled back tough wetland policies set by the Clinton administration, ordering federal agencies "to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands and an untold number of waterways nationwide." Last year, four environmental groups issued a joint report showing that administration policies had allowed "developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands." The result? New Orleans may be in even greater danger: "Studies show that if the wetlands keep vanishing over the next few decades, then you won't need a giant storm to devastate New Orleans -- a much weaker, more common kind of hurricane could destroy the city too."

GUT THE AGENCY TASKED WITH DEVELOPING HURRICANE RESPONSES: Forward-thinking federal plans with titles like "Issues and Options in Flood Hazards Management," "Floods: A National Policy Concern," and "A Framework for Flood Hazards Management" would be particularly valuable in a time of increasingly intense hurricanes. Unfortunately, the agency that used to produce them -- the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) -- was gutted by Gingrich conservatives several years ago. As Chris Mooney (who presciently warned of the need to bulk up hurricane defenses in New Orleans last May) noted yesterday, "If we ever return to science-based policymaking based on professionalism and expertise, rather than ideology, an office like OTA would be very useful in studying how best to save a city like New Orleans -- and how Congress might consider appropriating money to achieve this end."

SEND OUR FIRST RESPONDERS TO FIGHT A WAR OF CHOICE: National Guard and Reserve soldiers are typically on the front lines responding to disasters like Katrina -- that is, if they're not fighting in Iraq. Roughly 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is currently deployed in Iraq, where guardsmen and women make up about four of every 10 soldiers. Additionally, "Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators" used by the Louisiana Guard are also tied up abroad. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," Louisiana National Guard Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider told reporters earlier this month. "Recruitment is down dramatically, mostly because prospective recruits are worried about deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan or another country," the AP reported recently. "I used to be able to get about eight people a month," said National Guard 1st Sgt. Derick Young, a New Orleans recruiter. "Now, I'm lucky if I can get one."

HELP FUEL GLOBAL WARMING: Severe weather occurrences like hurricanes and heat waves already take hundreds of lives and cause millions in damages each year. As the Progress Report has noted, data increasingly suggest that human-induced global warming is making these phenomena more dangerous and extreme than ever. "The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service," science author Ross Gelbspan writes. "Its real name is global warming." AP reported recently on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis that shows that "major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific ... have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent" since the 1970s, trends that are "closely linked to increases in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during the same period." Yet just last week, as Katrina was gathering steam and looming over the Gulf, the Bush administration released new CAFE standards that actually encourage automakers to produce bigger, less fuel efficient vehicles, while preventing states from taking strong, progressive action to reverse global warming.

Cheese Sandwich George Bush

The news says George Bush will "tour" the devastation of Hurricane Katrina tomorrow.

Maybe he'll spit on those poor people from Air Force One, so they can get some water from his pathetic administration and their disgracefully poor disaster effort.

No water, no food, no shelter, no sanitation, no information. Those poor people have been abandoned by their government. Shame, shame.

Hurricane Global Warming

I hope the author doesn't mind, because I'm posting this article (published in August 30th) in its entirety:

Katrina's Real Name

The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.

When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming.

When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.

When a severe drought in the Midwest dropped water levels in the Missouri River to their lowest on record earlier this summer, the reason was global warming.

In July, when the worst drought on record triggered wildfires in Spain and Portugal and left water levels in France at their lowest in 30 years, the explanation was global warming.

When a lethal heat wave in Arizona kept temperatures above 110 degrees and killed more than 20 people in one week, the culprit was global warming.

And when the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) received 37 inches of rain in one day -- killing 1,000 people and disrupting the lives of 20 million others -- the villain was global warming.

As the atmosphere warms, it generates longer droughts, more-intense downpours, more-frequent heat waves, and more-severe storms.

Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.

The consequences are as heartbreaking as they are terrifying.

Unfortunately, very few people in America know the real name of Hurricane Katrina because the coal and oil industries have spent millions of dollars to keep the public in doubt about the issue.

The reason is simple: To allow the climate to stabilize requires humanity to cut its use of coal and oil by 70 percent. That, of course, threatens the survival of one of the largest commercial enterprises in history.

In 1995, public utility hearings in Minnesota found that the coal industry had paid more than $1 million to four scientists who were public dissenters on global warming. And ExxonMobil has spent more than $13 million since 1998 on an anti-global warming public relations and lobbying campaign.

In 2000, big oil and big coal scored their biggest electoral victory yet when President George W. Bush was elected president -- and subsequently took suggestions from the industry for his climate and energy policies.

As the pace of climate change accelerates, many researchers fear we have already entered a period of irreversible runaway climate change.

Against this background, the ignorance of the American public about global warming stands out as an indictment of the US media.

When the US press has bothered to cover the subject of global warming, it has focused almost exclusively on its political and diplomatic aspects and not on what the warming is doing to our agriculture, water supplies, plant and animal life, public health, and weather.

For years, the fossil fuel industry has lobbied the media to accord the same weight to a handful of global warming skeptics that it accords the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries reporting to the United Nations.

Today, with the science having become even more robust -- and the impacts as visible as the megastorm that covered much of the Gulf of Mexico -- the press bears a share of the guilt for our self-induced destruction with the oil and coal industries.

As a Bostonian, I am afraid that the coming winter will -- like last winter -- be unusually short and devastatingly severe. At the beginning of 2005, a deadly ice storm knocked out power to thousands of people in New England and dropped a record-setting 42.2 inches of snow on Boston.

The conventional name of the month was January. Its real name is global warming.

Ross Gelbspan is author of ''The Heat Is On" and ''Boiling Point."

© 2005 Boston Globe

Watch Out Big Daddy

Somebody warn that decadent den of iniquity, Hilton Head: The Christians are coming, the Christians are coming!

Strategizing a Christian coup d'etat: A group of believers wants to establish Scriptures-based government one city and county at a time.

GREENVILLE, S.C. — It began, as many road trips do, with a stop at Wal-Mart to buy a portable DVD player.

But Mario DiMartino was planning more than a weekend getaway. He, his wife and three children were embarking on a pilgrimage to South Carolina.

"I want to migrate and claim the gold of the Lord," said the 38-year-old oil company executive from Pennsylvania. "I want to replicate the statutes and the mores and the scriptures that the God of the Old Testament espoused to the world."

DiMartino, who drove here recently to look for a new home, is a member of Christian Exodus, a movement of politically active believers who hope to establish a government based upon Christian principles.

At a time when evangelicals are exerting influence on the national political stage — having helped secure President Bush's reelection — Christian Exodus believes that people of faith have failed to assert their moral agenda: Abortion is legal. School prayer is banned. There are limits on public displays of the Ten Commandments. Gays and lesbians can marry in Massachusetts.

Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff's offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state.

"We're going to force a constitutional crisis," said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003.

"If necessary," he said, "we will secede from the union."