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.

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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."

Another Prediction Gone to Cheese Sandwich

A blast from the past:

Rumsfeld: Iraqis Free to Form Own Gov't as Long as It is Not an Iranian-Style Theocracy

WASHINGTON - Iraqis will be free to form their own government as long as it is not an Iranian-style theocracy, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

"If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

I found this little gem at Al Franken's Air America blog.

US Soccer Hall of Fame Inductions Monday

I'm headed to upstate New York today to go to the US Soccer Hall of Fame inductions with Coach Mom on Monday. Last year we got to see the greatest player in the history of American soccer, Michelle Akers, inducted along with Eric Wynalda and Paul Caligiuri. Hopefully the Hall will do a better job this year. For unknown reasons (I suspect because of her gender) the Hall inducted her first, instead of last, as would be customary for the two-time World Cup winner named the FIFA "Player of the Century" in 2000. If they're smart, John Harkes, former captain of the US National Team, the first American to play in Wembley Stadium, the first American to play in the UEFA Cup, the first American to play in the FA Cup, will be inducted last.

And a little bonus, Freddie Adu, he of the million dollar Nike contract, has returned from injury and is expected to play in the Hall of Fame game. My first chance to see the young phenom. So far he's more famous for his contract than his play, but as I keep saying to Coach Mom, he's only 16, give him a little time. She's more annoyed with the hype than the player. Do you know that when you attend US Men's National Team games, the only t-shirts for sale with players names on them are Donovan, Beasley and Adu? Adu, who's never been capped? Personally, I think they better lay in a supply of Gooch t-shirts, because Oguchi Onyewu is going to be the US hero of the 2006 World Cup.

Together again, forever
Former World Cup teammates to be enshrined by Soccer Hall on Monday; Adu expected to playfor D.C. United in annual Hall of Fame Game

SOCCER HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE PROFILES

Soccer Hall seeking permanent spot on calendar for inductions

Heads of the Class
Hall of Fame Induction Monday

The "New" Reefer Madness

I agree with John Tierney's take on the federal government's "Reefer Madness", even though I know this column is part of Tierney's continuing attempt to save Rush Limbaugh's cheese sandwich* when his Oxycontin case comes to trial.

Marijuana Pipe Dreams

When the Supreme Court ruled in June that states could not legalize marijuana for medical uses, Justice Stephen Breyer voted with the majority. But during oral arguments, he suggested an alternative way for patients to get it: let the federal Food and Drug Administration decide if marijuana should be a prescription drug.

"Medicine by regulation is better than medicine by referendum," he said. In theory, that sounds reasonable. But what if the officials doing the regulation are afflicted with a bad case of Reefer Madness?

**********

[Dr. Lyle Craker has been denied an FDA permit to grow marijuana for research purposes.] There are precedents for his request, because researchers already get supplies of other drugs - like heroin, LSD and Ecstasy - from independent laboratories licensed to make them. But researchers who want marijuana have only one legal source: a crop grown in Mississippi and dispensed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Scientists say they need an alternative partly because the government's marijuana is of such poor quality - too many seeds and stems - and partly because the federal officials are so loath to give it out for research into its medical benefits.

Discovering benefits, after all, would undermine the great anti-marijuana campaign that has taken hold in Washington. Marijuana is deemed to be such a powerful "gateway" to other drugs that it's become the top priority in the federal drug war, much to the puzzlement of many scientists, not to mention the police officers who see a lot of worse drugs on the streets.

People with glaucoma and AIDS have sworn by the efficacy of marijuana, and there have been studies by state health departments showing that smoking marijuana is especially good at controlling nausea. Scientists would like to test these effects, but they can't do good studies until they get good marijuana.

*I have taken a vow to replace all curse words with the phrase "cheese sandwich."

Traitor Karl

How long before Traitor Karl is brought before the bar of justice?

The Rove Clock

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer News

Montana's governor eyes coal to solve U.S. fuel costs

HELENA, Montana (Reuters) - Montana's governor wants to solve America's rising energy costs using a technology discovered in Germany 80 years ago that converts coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel.

But with U.S. crude oil now hitting more than double that price, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan is getting more attention across the country and some analysts are taking him very seriously.

Montana is "sitting on more energy than they have in the Middle East," Schweitzer told Reuters in an interview this week.

"I am leading this country in this desire and demand to convert coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. We can do it in Montana for $1 per gallon," he said.

"We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now."

The governor estimated the cost of producing a barrel of oil through the Fischer-Tropsch method at $32, and said that with its 120 billion tons of coal -- a little less than a third of the U.S total -- Montana could supply the entire United States with its aviation, gas and diesel fuel for 40 years without creating environmental damage.

An entry level Fischer-Tropsch plant producing 22,000 barrels a day would cost about $1.5 billion, he said.

You gotta love a Democrat willing to call oil producers "sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks." Plain-speaking Democratic governors have a future on the national stage. Schweitzer for President.

He's Got 'Em Eating Out of His Hand

Corporate media, bought, paid for, and well fed:

Bush's Secret Dinner -- With the Press

About 50 members of the White House press corps accepted President Bush's invitation last night to come over to his house in Crawford, eat his food, drink his booze, hang around the pool and schmooze with him -- while promising not to tell anyone what he said afterward.

It's something of a Bush tradition, a way of saying thank you to journalists for whom an extended stay in the Crawford area is anything but a vacation.

And in spite of all the recent press demands for senior administration officials to stay on the record more often, the press corps can't resist an offer of face time with the president, pretty much no matter what the conditions.

Nevertheless, I'm told that several reporters expressed squeamishness about last night's event, particularly as the press-pool vans drove by antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" site. And later, a small handful watched askance as the rest fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved.

Journalism is dead. Long live the Corporate Media.

Liberal Media Discovers Dave Rossie

He's on the Smirking Chimp today:

Peaceful siege makes chicken hawks squawk

It's vintage Dave Rossie. Here is his conclusion:

It's not just the chicken hawks who have overreacted. Mary deJullis, a columnist for the Muskogee (Oklahoma) Phoenix, visited Camp Sheehan and witnessed this incident when the squire's convoy rolled by on the way to a GOP fundraiser on the afternoon of Aug. 12 with a Secret Service escort:

"A helicopter flew overhead lower than others we were accustomed to. The helicopter had an agent riding outside with a weapon trained on us, but once the motorcade passed he moved on as well. The motorcade went by us twice, very fast, and a few of the vehicles had rifles pointed out open windows, I was thankful no one made any sudden moves."

This is what we've come to in the land of the free. Rather than continue camping in Crawford, Sheehan would be better off getting in shape and practicing for next year's Tour de France. Win that and she gets her interview with the great man. Guaranteed.

Meanwhile, let's see which happens first, a Bush/Sheehan meeting, or the first Democratic member of Congress to show up at Camp Casey in support of Cindy Sheehan.

Don't hold your breath waiting for either one to happen.

Good News

Feminism has made women less likely to be murdered

I found this at Body and Soul.

$250,000 Bail For a 12-Year Old?

$250,000 Bail Set in Boston for Boy, 12, Found With Gun

I saw this headline on the front page of the Boston Globe this morning and thought to myself, "The judge is white, and the kid is black."

This article in the New York Times confirms half of my suspicion -- the Times runs a photograph of Judge Lewis, and he is white. None of the articles mentions the race of the boy, perhaps because he is a juvenile.

In a similar vein, Bob Hebert reports that the Bush administration has fired the head of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Lawrence Greenfield. Greenfield objected to the administration's attempts to cover up data showing that Hispanics and blacks are treated more harshly by police during traffic stops: Truth-Telling on Race? Not in Bush's Fantasyland

I have personal experience with racial discrimination, which favored me, the white chick with the Irish surname. I got a ticket 5 years ago on my way home after a long day in court. It was a bogus ticket -- I turned right on a green right arrow, and a motorcycle cop was waving over everyone going through the light. The two cars ahead of me and the one behind me must have been familiar with this scam, because they ignored the cop & kept going. Me, sucker, law abiding lawyer, I pulled over. The guy gave me a ticket for going through a red light! I was mad, so I appealed. Plus, under Massachusetts law such a moving violation would stay on my insurance for 7 years, costing me hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

I appeared in court on the scheduled date about 3 months later. The cases were heard by the white clerk-magistrate, a woman. A white male police officer sat at the table with a pile of tickets in front of him. Names were called in alphabetical order, so I got to see 20 or so cases before I was called. As a lawyer I was keenly interested in the process, and wanted to figure out the best way to make my case. As it turned out, I brought my game with me. I was white and polite, and that was all that mattered.

There were three types of cases. First, polite white people. They denied the offense, were treated with courtesy, and found not responsible. Their ticket was ripped up, & they walked out home free.

Second, the clueless angry liberals. At least three of these people used the phrase "jack booted thug" in referring to the arresting officer. That just infuriated the clerk-magistrate, and these people were found responsible & had to pay their tickets.

Third, people of color. Didn't matter whether they were polite, or angry. All were questioned harshly, and almost all were found responsible.

I was shocked by this, but found myself with a dilemma. Would I protest the obvious discrimination going on here? Or would I just submit, be polite, and get out of my ticket?

Of course I took the coward's way out. I stepped up, denied the offense, was cautioned (with a smile) to drive more carefully, and walked out absolved. Not a proud moment.

Racism, alive & well in the 21st century.

Slow-Motion Disaster

Wave of Marine Species Extinctions Feared

....For years, many scientists and regulators believed the oceans were so vast there was little risk of marine species dying out. Now, some suspect the world is on the cusp of what Ellen K. Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, calls "a gathering wave of ocean extinctions." Dozens of biologists believe the seas have reached a tipping point, with scores of species of ocean-dwelling fish, birds and mammals edging toward extinction. In the past 300 years, researchers have documented the global extinction of just 21 marine species -- and 16 have occurred since 1972.

Since the 1700s, another 112 species have died out in particular regions, and that trend, too, has accelerated since the mid-1960s: Nearly two dozen shark species are close to disappearing, according to the World Conservation Union, an international coalition of government and advocacy groups.

"It's been a slow-motion disaster," said Boris Worm, a professor at Canada's Dalhousie University, whose 2003 study that found that 90 percent of the top predator fish have vanished from the oceans. "It's silent and invisible. People don't imagine this. It hasn't captured our imagination, like the rain forest."

Women Flee "New" Iraq

A partial draft of the Iraqi constitution is out, and tragically, as expected, Islamic law is enshrined, before a boilerplate paragraph protecting the rights of women.

CHAPTER ONE: Basic Principles

Article (1): The Republic of Iraq is an independent, sovereign nation, and the system of rule in it is a democratic, federal, representative (parliamentary) republic.

Article (2): First, Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:

a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.

b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.

c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.

CHAPTER TWO: Rights and Freedoms

Part One: Rights

Article (14): Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination because of gender, ethnicity, nationality, origin, color, religion, sect, belief, opinion or social or economic status.

Article (15): Every individual has the right to life and security and freedom and cannot be deprived of these rights or have them restricted except in accordance to the law and based on a ruling by the appropriate judicial body.

Article (16): Equal opportunity is a right guaranteed to all Iraqis, and the state shall take the necessary steps to achieve this.

So, you might say, what's the problem? Women's rights are in the constitution, so that's enough, right?

Well, that's not the way Iraqi women see it. For example, Dr. Raja Kuzai, who says this in today's New York Times:

"This is the future of the new Iraqi government - it will be in the hands of the clerics," said Dr. Raja Kuzai, a secular Shiite member of the Assembly. "I wanted Iraqi women to be free, to be able to talk freely and to able to move around."

"I am not going to stay here," said Dr. Kuzai, an obstetrician and women's leader who met President Bush in the White House in November 2003.

Cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich. Cheese sandwich George Bush and all those neo-cons who pretended they cared about women. Iraq is now a giant cheese sandwich.

I miss my curse words.

Who Would Jesus Assassinate?

I guess Pat Robertson's WWJD bracelet stands for "Who Would Jesus Do?"

Did Jesus come to Pat and say, Hugo Chavez? Or did he come up with that on his own.

Onward, Christian soldiers.

The Lighter Side

From Dan Froomkin's column in today's Washington Post:

How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?

Ten.

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness;

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner 'Bulb Accomplished';

7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally 'in the dark' the whole time;

8. One to viciously smear No. 7;

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;

10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Not Really News

Maradona Owns Up to Using Hand in '86 Cup

OK, everyone called Maradona's goal which beat England in their quarterfinal in '86 the "Hand of God", but it was a joke. We all knew it was Maradona, and he did it on purpose.

What a great player, though. Too bad he succumbed to drugs. I had tickets to see Argentina-Greece for the '94 World Cup here at Foxboro, and Maradona tested positive for drugs the day before. So I've only seen him on film.

Iraq War Planned While Ground Zero Still Burned

October, 2001: Earliest Documentation on Iraq War Planning?

Documents released by the National Archives last week included a State Department Powerpoint slide that said:

October 2001 State Department planning on the transition began

Why didn't I read about this in the New York Times? The Washington Post? Oh, that's right, journalism is dead. Long live the corporate media.

Wingnuts: Women's Rights Optional

I caught the end of the re-run of Meet the Press (known in blogtopia as "Press the Meat") and heard an astonishing statement. Checked the transcript today, and yes, I heard right, women's rights are "not critical to the evolution of democracy."

David Gregory was substituting for Tim Russert and he put the following quote from the NYTimes up on the screen:

"[American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay] Khalilzad had backed language [in the constitution] that would have given clerics sole authority in settling marriage and family disputes. That gave rise to concerns that women's rights, as they are annunciated in Iraq's existing laws, could be curtailed. ...

After getting the reaction of Larry Diamond, former advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, also a fellow at the right wing think tank the Hoover Institution at Stanford (& don't get me going on the over-abundance of right wing views on the MSM, where are the liberals?) Gregory turned to Reuel Marc Gerecht, who he had introduced as a "former Middle East specialist for the CIA." (He's also Director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and contributing editor at the Weekly Standard Magazine.) Christopher Allbritton at BacktoIraq in 2002 described Gerecht's "ties to the American Enterprise Institute, a noted right-wing think tank peopled with with conservative cognoscenti with deep ties to the Bush Administration. Lynne Cheney, the veep's wife, is one of its scholars, along with Robert Bork, Newt Gingrich, Jean Kirkpatrick and (drum roll, please) Richard Perle, the bombastic hawk who's been itching to invade Iraq since before Bush ever got into office."

OK, now that we've established his right wing bona fides, here's his answer.

MR. GREGORY: Mr. Gerecht, the consequences of this?

MR. GERECHT: Actually, I'm not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women's social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there's no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective.

So let me get this right. We're sending female soldiers to Iraq to establish a male-supremacy as well as a theocracy? American women are dying for this?

I guess the Bush administration is getting ready to throw the Iraqi women overboard.

They never gave a cheese sandwich* about women's rights anyway.




*I have taken a vow to use the phrase "cheese sandwich" in place of all curse words.

My First Nigerian Spam Email

Returned from vacation to find my first Nigerian spam email! I wonder if my recent change to Verizon DSL service occasioned this new level of spam in my in-box.

Unfortunately for Barrister Belgore, I am not willing to falsely represent myself as the next of kin of his unfortunate client, the deceased Mr. Frederick.

Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2005 10:14:10 +0200 (CEST)


From: Dele Belgore
Fax: 234-1-7590662
Private Email: delebelgore@sooblaw.org
Subject: Next Of Kin To Late Mr. Frederick
Date: August 7th, 2005.

Good Day,

Before I start, I must first apologize for this unsolicited ail to you. I am also aware that this is certainly an unconventional approach to start a relationship, but i believe as time goes on, you will realize the need for my actions. I am Barrister Dele Belgore I知 the Personal Financial Attorney to Mr. Frederick, a national of your country, who used to work with Chevron Nigeria Ltd (CNL).

On the 24 April 2004 21:51 hrs, my client who is Chevron subcontractor including five other people were attacked and killed by the river pirates of the Niger Delta, including one other US oilman, in an attack on workers inspecting abandoned wells in southern Nigeria's strife-torn Niger Delta,. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the Internet, to locate any member of his family but of no avail, hence I contacted through the help of my cousin that works in the AMERICAN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE, planning and industry. (Please visit the homepage for more update.)

(http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/81685/1/.html)

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money that belongs to my client before they get confiscated or declared serviceable by the bank where these huge deposits were lodged. Particularly, the Bank where the deceased had an account valued at about $10.4 million dollars has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated within the next 21 official working days. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 3 years now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you are from the same country and bear the same last name, so that the proceeds of this account valued at $10.4 million dollars can be paid to you and then you and me can share the money. 62% to me and 30% to you, while 8% should be for expenses or tax as your government may require, I have the certificate of deposit that can be used to back up any claim we may make.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this dealt through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch with through my Personal email Address. delebelgore@sooblaw.org

Best Regards,

Barrister Dele Belgore

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Not blog! Posting will be light to non-existent for the next week. I'm going to the beach on Cape Ann. First stop, the Cal Ripken Regionals in Southbury, CT, this weekend, then off to Good Harbor.

Back August 15th or thereabouts.

CNN Dumbs Down

What's the difference between "CNN.com - US edition" and "CNN.com - International", you ask?

Here's the QuickVote question on CNN International:

Are Tony Blair's proposals to deport and exclude from UK those advocating hatred:

Too severe

About right

Too little too late

Here's the QuickVote question on CNN.com US edition:

Can flirting at work hurt your career?

Yes

No

Are we morons because we read CNN.com, US edition, or is CNN.com, US edition, dumbed down for us morons? Is it the chicken or the egg?

Why I Prefer My Fruits &Vegetables Local & In Season

Why the Red Delicious No Longer Is
Decades of Makeovers Alter Apple to Its Core

I never liked the Red Delicious apples, or the yellow. They were always so mealy in texture, besides the flavorless issue. Nothing like going to an apple orchard in October and biting into a Mac you've just picked from a tree.

Other foods ruined by the quest for long life and profit are tomatoes, which are not meant to be light pink, flavorless, or cardboard; and cucumbers with wax on the outside, ewwww.

Plus, another grocery store irritant, PLEASE STOP misting the lettuce and herbs. They aren't meant to be wet all the time, and they rot when I get them home. Fine, fine, mist the peppers and the broccoli if you must, but put the leafy greens in a non-misting area of the produce department. They end up all waterlogged. Do you find yourself whipping your bunch of parsley around before you bag it, just to get the water off? Or is it just me?

Traitor Bob Walks

Novak Walks Off Live CNN Program

Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist whose unmasking of a C.I.A. operative touched off an investigation about a possible leak, stalked off a live appearance on CNN yesterday afternoon after James Carville, the Democratic strategist, accused him of trying to make a particular point "to show these right wingers" that he had "backbone" and was "tough."

The moderator of the program, Ed Henry, later said on the air that he had warned Mr. Novak that he planned to ask him "about the C.I.A. leak case."

***********

After Mr. Carville tried to interrupt Mr. Novak twice, Mr. Novak said: "I know you hate to hear me. But you have to."

Mr. Carville interrupted again, saying of Mr. Novak, "He's got to show these right-wingers that he's got backbone."

A moment later, Mr. Carville said directly to Mr. Novak: "The Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show them you're tough."

Mr. Novak responded with a profanity, before telling Mr. Carville: "I hate that. Just let it go."

He stood up, removed his microphone and walked off.

Novak's exact quote was: "Well, I think that's bullshit. And I hate that. Just let it go."

If you're a TV sort, it's worth staying up until 11:30 p.m. for the re-run of last night's Daily Show on Comedy Central. Jon Stewart was positively gleeful as he showed Novak cursing and walking off, again and again.

Elections in Ohio

Someone posted a comment on this blog about questioning election results in Ohio (I believe I questioned Diebold). Just so the poster knows I'm not the only one:

Matt Taibbi: 'Highly irregular: The Ohio 2004 election story is going to come back'

The facts Taibbi outlines:

* As was the case in Florida, the secretary of state (Kenneth Blackwell, in Ohio), who is in charge of elections, was also the co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign.

* In a technique reminiscent of the semantic gymnastics of pre-Civil Rights Act election officials, Blackwell replaced the word "jurisdiction" with "precinct" in an electoral directive that would ultimately result in perhaps tens of thousands of provisional ballots--votes cast mainly by low-income residents--being disallowed.

* Blackwell initially rejected thousands of voter registrations because they were printed on paper that was, according to him, the wrong weight.

* In conservative, Bush-friendly Miami County, voter turnout was an Uzbekistan-esque 98.55 percent.

* In Warren county, election officials locked down the administration building and prevented reporters from observing the ballot counting, citing a "terrorist threat" (described as being a "10" on a scale of 1 to 10) that had been reported to them by the FBI. The FBI made no such report. Recounts conducted during this lockdown resulted in increased votes for Bush.

* In Franklin County, 4,258 votes were cast for Bush in a precinct where there were only 800 registered voters.

That 98.55% county really gets to me. So the total of number of voters in the hospital, drunk in a bar, high on meth, too lazy to go out, unaware of the political process, totalled less than 1.5% of the county? In America? Something happened.

Can't....Reprogram....Old....Brain....

President Makes It Clear: Phrase Is 'War on Terror'

GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 - President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."

In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.

In recent public appearances, Mr. Rumsfeld and senior military officers have avoided formulations using the word "war," and some of Mr. Bush's top advisers have suggested that the administration wanted to jettison what had been its semiofficial wording of choice, "the global war on terror."

The Times characterizes this as Commander Codpiece overrulling his underlings, but I doubt that. I think Bush gets an phrase that covers a topic in his head, and repeats it every time the topic is raised. Repeat after me: freedom, lessons of 9/11, after 9/11, we had to look at the world differently, I believe in a culture of life, Saddam Hussein was a grave threat, the world is better off without him in power, I recognize that taking Saddam Hussein out was unpopular, I made the decision because I thought it was in the right interests of our security, if you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorist, we've got a great country, I love our values, the best way to defend America is to stay on the offense, we got to be right 100 percent of the time here at home, and they got to be right once, I am not going to shortchange our troops in harm's way, I'm not going to run up taxes, which will cost this economy jobs.

The Chimp knows his lines, and he's sticking to 'em! (Most of these phrases are taken from the second Presidential Debate last October.)

Hackett Loses, to County with a "Technical Malfunction"

I will always be suspicious of close races in Ohio and Florida. Billmon has the inside scoop on Schmidt's late win:

Too Close for Comfort

If you followed the returns last night, you may have noticed that one county in the district -- Clermont -- was extremely late in reporting part of its returns. Clermont is the second largest pool of votes in the district and provided roughly a quarter of all ballots cast yesterday. It's also a GOP stronghold (in a GOP stronghold district) and Jean Schmidt's home turf.

That being the case, it's not a big surprise Schmidt did well there, carrying the county with 58% of the two-party vote -- less than what a GOP candidate can usually expect, but enough to give her nearly a 5,000 vote margin in Clermont, and thus the election.

At about 9:00 PM ET last night, however, things didn't look nearly as good for Ms. Schmidt. In fact, her name looked more like Schmud. With 88% of the district's precincts reporting, including more than half of Clermont's, the count was almost evenly split -- with Schmidt holding a lead of less than 900 votes.

At that point, though, the Clermont election bureau experienced a "technical malfunction" with its optical scan readers:

The Board of Elections in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati, says it's optical scanners haven't counted all the ballots yet because it was so hot -- and humid -- Tuesday.

Board member Tim Rudd says the ballots pick up moisture when it gets hot, making it tougher for the optical scan machines to sort and count.

According to some reports I've seen -- but haven't been able to confirm -- at least part of the count in Clermont's final 91 precincts ended up being done by hand.

In any case, when the humidity had cleared, so to speak, Schmidt had picked up another 9,451 votes, compared to just 6,300 or so for Hackett -- an edge which, interestingly enough, almost equaled her winning margin for the district as a whole.

Very convenient, no? Or, as one local reporter put it:

Schmidt led by less than 1 percent with 88 percent of the precincts in. But she must have felt secure in knowing that the only uncounted precincts were in Clermont County, her home.

Indeed. But was there anything, well, Floridian, about this particular source of comfort? Beats me. Hackett apparently doesn't think so. He conceded before midnight. But some others who watched the count much more closely than I did found it all a bit odd:

Out if 91 precincts [in Clermont], about 12% of the [district] total, the margin went from 0.89% to 3.49%. In other words it almost quadrupled . .

I was projecting that, extrapolating from the first 100 precincts, the last 91 would have about 10,000 votes. In fact, the final tally has them giving out 50% more than that...over 15,000 votes.

Also, while Schmidt's margin in the first 100 [precincts] was about 56% to 44%, the margin is much, much wider in the last 91 -- 60% to 40%.

Also, this puts the overall total well out of range of any recount margin.

Curioser and curiouser. I wouldn't dwell on it so much, if not for the fact that Clermont has already shown a impressive knack for pulling Republican electoral bacon out of the fire, as I noted last week:

The ability of the Rovians to pull fresh GOP votes out of [Warren and Clermont] counties certainly challenged plausibility, and, in Clermont's case, almost defied mathematics. Consider the fact that according to the Census Bureau, Clermont's population rose only 4.4% (about 7,800 souls) between 2000 and 2003, while reported GOP turnout increased by roughly 31% (about 14,600 votes) from 2000 to 2004. This in a county that only had about 122,000 registered voters last year, according to the Cincinatti Enquirer.

Others have highlighted some equally interesting data points from last year's election in Clermont:

Three counties in southwestern Ohio – Butler, Clermont and Warren – provided Bush with a combined plurality greater than his statewide margin of victory. These results, when examined at the precinct level, are almost impossible to explain . . . In Clermont County there were 24 such precincts where Kerry received fewer votes than Gore. In Warren County there were six entire townships where voter registration increased by 28% to 79%. In all three counties, Kerry received fewer votes than Ellen Connally, a little-known, underfunded African-American municipal judge from Cleveland, running for Chief Justice. There must have been at least 13,500 voters who supported both Connally and Bush, or else the certified results are fraudulent. In these three counties, and in Delaware County as well, Bush received more votes than Issue One, the constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage. There must have been at least 10,500 supporters of gay marriage who voted for Bush, or else the certified results are fraudulent.

Of course, none of this proves, or even makes a circumstantial case, that yesterday's election was stolen. Maybe the inhabitants of Clerrmont County really are just unusually witless in their devotion to the GOP cause. I live in a Republican machine county myself, so I know how that goes.

But it's still rather remarkable how often the lightning seems to strike in Clermont -- and at the just the right time, producing just the right amount of votes for an otherwise endangered GOP candidate. Like I said, I'd feel a lot better about it if the party stalwarts who run the county's elections were describing the inner workings of the system to a grand jury -- under oath.

History Lesson from Professor Juan Cole

Fisking the "War on Terror"

Which begins:

Once upon a time, a dangerous radical gained control of the US Republican Party.

Hint: He is not George W. Bush, but I cried when he was elected and re-elected, too.

Prof. Cole traces the history of Al Qaida and radical Muslims, the demon spawn created by the Republican Party. A must read.


What is "Fisking", you ask? I didn't know either, so I went to the Wikipedia:

Fisking

Fisking, or to Fisk, refers to the act of critiquing, often in minute detail, an article, essay, argument, etc. with the intent of challenging its conclusion or theses by highlighting logical fallacies and incorrect facts.

Noontime Update: This post formerly contained an amusing typo, "radical Muslins", which has been corrected. Quilters beware.

Ban Rafi

He used the same steroid Ben Johnson used in 1988, and we're supposed to believe it was an accident? Ban the cheater and all his cheating friends.

Popular Steroid Is at the Center of Palmeiro's Case

The positive drug test that has left Rafael Palmeiro's legacy in doubt involved the potent anabolic steroid stanozolol, a person in baseball with direct knowledge of the sport's drug-testing program said yesterday.

Stanozolol, known by its brand name, Winstrol, was most notably linked to the Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson of Canada, who was stripped of a gold medal in 1988 after testing positive for that steroid.

Stupidity and Steroids Come in Many Forms

Listening to Palmeiro, one could have got the impression that he had unwittingly used something, maybe given to him by another player, that turned out to be laced with a steroid. But yesterday two people in baseball with knowledge of the testing program questioned that impression.

The steroid Palmeiro was found to have in his system was, one of them said, a heavy-duty steroid, a substance often injected, not ingested. It has one of those strange steroid names: stanozolol. It is No. 24 on the list of anabolic androgenic steroids, covered by Schedule III of the Code of Federal Regulations, that appears on Page 160 of the collective bargaining agreement.

George Vecsey:
Orioles' Palmeiro Has Thrown Away His Credibility. Period.

WITH his Wayne Newton mustache and his expensive suit, Rafael Palmeiro oozed sincerity, under oath. He claimed he wanted to distance himself from the accusations of Jose Canseco, sitting right there, who had written that Palmeiro had used steroids when they were teammates in Texas in 1992 and '93.

"I have never used steroids. Period," Palmeiro testified March 17, in front of Congress. "I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never."

Now a new word has crept, and I do mean crept, into Palmeiro's vocabulary. The word is "intentionally." Because Rafael Palmeiro, with his 3,018 hits and 569 home runs, has tested positive for steroids and must sit out a 10-day suspension that sounds more like lifetime suspicion.

**********

Good grief. Given the current suspension, the brazen Canseco now comes off as the most forthright of that sorry lot.

Palmeiro wants us to believe he has no idea how the foreign substance got into his system. But something good will come out of this, he insisted yesterday. From this shameful day onward, Rafael Palmeiro is volunteering to be an object lesson to children.

"You have to be careful what you're taking," he said, adding that children had to be careful about accepting "supplements" and "vitamins."

Of course they must. Children must also be careful not to stuff beans up their noses or stick their tongues against frozen playground poles in winter. But they probably already know that. Only a ballplayer with 20 years in the major leagues is dumb enough to swallow a bunch of stuff without getting it cleared by a doctor or a pharmacist.

Tom Boswell: A Big Star Plays A Bad Hand

[I]n one of the most unexpected announcements ever made in baseball, Palmeiro has been caught, suspended and has actually admitted to using steroids this season. Palmeiro simply claims that he has no idea how they got in his body.

Abducted by aliens? Sat too close to Canseco at the hearing? Got a package in the mail that was intended for Jason Giambi?

**********

Palmeiro and his agent, as well as the Orioles, repeated many times that they could not go into details about Palmeiro's steroid blunder because of some "confidentiality" issues. "I would love to tell what happened to me so that everyone would understand," said Palmeiro, "but under this confidentiality agreement, I cannot get specific."

Unfortunately, what we may have here is a Stupidity Test. As in: How stupid are we? Whose "confidentiality" is being protected? Palmeiro's, of course. If he wanted to explain more, who could stop him from defending his good name? The union and baseball have a confidentiality agreement that prevents them from releasing information. But that doesn't put masking tape over the player's mouth. If Palmeiro had a compelling story, who could force him to stay silent?

Frogmarch Update

Frogmarching continues, albeit slowly.

Rove Very Much Still the Focus of Fitzgerald

From ABC’s The Note this morning:

Based on ABC News sources (and our own video camera) it appears that at least two witnesses testified before the grand jury last Friday, both close associates of Karl Rove.

ABC News has learned that one was Susan Ralston, Rove’s long-time right hand. The other, per ABC News’ Jake Tapper, was Israel “Izzy” Hernandez, Rove’s former left hand (and now a top Commerce Department official). It isn’t clear if either had been asked to testify before last week.

This seems to call for some Chinese restaurant fortune cookie fortune: When the left and the right hand are called, the body will soon be frogmarched.

Frank Robinson: "It's Like (Steroid Cheaters) Didn't Play"

Palmeiro Is Twisting Slowly in the Wind

In an interview on July 8 for "Costas Now" on HBO, Bob Costas asked Washington Manager Frank Robinson, who hit 586 home runs, how he feels about being passed on the career list.

Sammy Sosa passed Robinson last Wednesday. The only active player close to Robinson is Palmeiro, who is 17 home runs from tying him.

If they eclipsed him by cheating with steroids, Costas asked, should they be kept out of the Hall of Fame. "Wipe it out," Robinson said. "That's the way I feel about it. No numbers. It's like they didn't play."

Cheating is cheating. Throw 'em and their records out, like Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson. How can it be a record if you got it by cheating?

N.b., I originally entitled this post "Frank Robinson on Steroids" but changed it when the libelous aspect of that statement occurred to me! Frank Robinson, MVP in both leagues, is a class act.

Paul Hackett

Today Ohio is holding a special election to fill the congressional seat of Rob Portman, Republican who was named U.S. trade representative by President Bush. Hackett, the Democrat, is an Iraq war veteran who is against the war and has criticized President Bush. Schmidt, the Republican, is president of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati and while she reputedly has a steel trap memory for names and faces, can't seem to remember testifying before Tom Noe, the guy at the center of Ohio's Coingate scandal.

Swing State Project has been organizing the netroots. This is a heavily Republican district (Portman won his last election with 70% of the vote) so a win by Hackett would be big.

The race will be close, so hope that Diebold doesn't throw it to Schmidt.

Rafi Was Lying, Too

Today MLB suspended Rafael Palmeiro, the newest member of the 3000 hit club, for violating the league's steroid policy.

You may remember that Palmeiro testified before Congress in March. He pointed his finger at the Congressional subcommittee and said he NEVER did steroids.

Liar.

I believe I called this at the time:

Jose Canseco is an idiot, but he's the only honest player on this panel.

Oh, and President Dumbass believes him: Bush on Palmeiro: 'I believe him'

If baseball had any cojones, all these juicers would be banned from the Hall of Fame, and Roger Maris would be inducted. Pete Rose too.

Dave Rossi is Right On

When I was a kid we got the Binghamton Press thrown on our porch by the newspaper boy every afternoon. It was a crappy newspaper, usually only 8 full pages long plus grocery inserts. But it had one redeeming value: Dave Rossi, a liberal columnist with a pointed wit.

He's still at it! I got my daily email from commondreams.org today, and lo and behold, there was an article by David Rossi:


Published on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 by the Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY)
Court Nominee Lets Rove Hide in Back Pages

Barring disclosure that he is a closet transvestite with a penchant for setting fire to nursing homes, John Roberts appears certain to be confirmed as an associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. But even if he should fail, he will still have performed yeoman service for the Cheney/Bush administration.

By agreeing to have his name put forward to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the high court, Roberts enabled the embattled Karl Rove to escape from our television news programs and the front pages -- and inside pages for that matter -- of our daily newspapers.

**********

Bush could no more fire the loathsome Rove than a blind man could fire his seeing eye dog.

**********

Last Friday, The New York Times, which has addressed this issue with all the enthusiasm of a man attempting to defuse a bomb, returned to its coverage, which has consisted mainly of rambling interviews with anonymous sources bent on portraying Rove and his accomplices as sympathetically as possible. The Times' reporters appear to have access to several leakers of grand jury information, all of them, not surprisingly, eager to portray Rove as favorably as possible. And in what may be a late addition to The Times' stylebook, any sentence that contains a reference to Wilson, his wife and Rove must contain the notation that Rove didn't mention Wilson's wife by name in outing her.

Of course, Wilson had only one wife working at the CIA as far as we know, but every little bit helps when you're trying to stay on the good side of this administration, as The Times has labored mightily, not to mention slavishly, to do.

A closet transvestite with a penchant for setting fire to nursing homes. I'll never be able to think of Roberts any other way.