Billmon: The Color Line

An anonymous commenter over at Moon of Alabama has posted a link to one of the most compelling personal accounts of the post-Katrina apocalypse that I've read yet.

It's the tale of a pair of paramedics -- and staunch union activists -- from California who were in New Orleans for a professional conference when the hurricane hit, and who (for whatever reason) couldn't or didn't evacuate in time.

There story gives us a glimpse of the courage and ingenuity of ordinary working people -- black and white -- left to fend for themselves as the water rose, the wealthy fled (including some of the same civic "leaders" now planning the mother of all urban renewal projects) and government disintegrated:

Billmon: Hitting the Wall

There are still a lot of things I want to say about Hurricane Katrina and the savage, apocalyptic vision of America that she revealed, floating face down in the water. But last night I came across an account of the search for real bodies -- not metaphorical ones -- in the stinking ruins of New Orleans. It's like something out of the charnel houses of World War II:

Volunteer rescuer Gregg Silverman, part of a 14-boat contingent from Columbus, Ohio, said he expected to find many more survivors in his excursion through the city's flooded streets. Instead, he found mostly bodies.

"They had me climb up on a roof, and I did bring an ax up to where a guy had tried to stick a pipe up through a vent,'' Silverman said. "Unfortunately, he had probably just recently perished. His dog was still there, barking. The dog wouldn't come. We had to leave the dog just up there in the attic.''

As for other bodies his group encountered: "Obviously we are not recovering them. We are just tying them up to banisters, leaving them on the roof.''

It is reported that the state of Louisiana has placed an order for 25,000 body bags.

Juan Cole - 09/09/05

Another Winning Formula for Iraq

Distinguished Middle East historian William R. Polk writes:

' If my comments in my last essay on the suggestion of Scott Gerwehr and Nina Hachigian on how to turn around insurgents “with a little tenderness” depressed you, be of good cheer. All is not lost. I have just read about another winning formula: “How to Win in Iraq” by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. We have to take it seriously because Foreign Affairs probably is and certainly was the pre-eminent American journal in the field. So we should be grateful to Mr. Krepinevich for offering us a way to win.

The Disaster of US Economic Policy in Iraq

An informed observer of the Iraq scene writes:

' For most constructive purposes, it is not worth adding controversy over the Bush Administration’s economic policy in Iraq and early plans to privatize the economy, including the oil industry. Until after there is an elected constitutional government, there can be little structural change in the Iraqi economy. That will not happen until next year at the earliest. This has been the case from the outset. It is the law, which may not be written specifically on one applicable piece of paper, but exists in a powerful and ineluctable way.

Huge Bomb in Basra Kills 16
14 Bodies Discovered in Mahmudiyah

Guerrillas detonated an enormous bomb outside a restaurant in the southern port city of Basra on Thursday, killing 16 persons and wounding 21. Two children were killed in the attack. Basra has occasionally suffered from such guerrilla violence, which is carried out by Salafi Sunni extremists or by the Baath Party underground, but big bombings there have been comparatively rare. The largely Shiite populace keeps its eyes open for infiltrators, as do the Sadrist and Badr Corps militias.

Who is the Enemy, Really?

My talk at the New America Foundation conference on Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose is available in streaming video (windows media player).

Thanks again to Steve Clemons of the Washington Note blog for his key role in setting it up.

Juan Cole - 09/10/05

Private Company Shuts down Baghdad International Airport
More violence in Baghdad

The steady drumbeat of mayhem continued again on Friday. One bomb in Baghdad killed 4 persons, including three policemen, and wounded 9. There were other assassinations and guerrilla violence elsewhere in the country.

The Daily Howler - 09/10/05

THE JOY OF FAKE FACTS! Brownie should never have held his job. But so too with most of the press corps: // link // print // previous // next //

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2005

INTRODUCTION—THE JOY OF FAKE FACTS: Darn it! Yesterday, we almost gave him the Nobel Prize. Then, he had to go and say this:

SCARBOROUGH (9/9/05): FEMA Director Mike Brown has been sent back to Washington, but not fired, we’re told by the Homeland Security Department, after the outrage over his handling of this disaster and his suspect qualifications for the job. His reaction today was this, quote: “I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep.”

Now let’s bring in Louisiana congressman Bobby Jindal from Baton Rouge, who probably hasn’t had a good night’s sleep or a margarita since this storm hit!

What was wrong with what Joe Scarborough said? For our taste, he had toyed with that quote just a bit. Here’s what “Brownie” actually said. Joe—whose “qualifications for the job” aren’t all that great either—knew just which part to leave off:

BROWN (9/9/05): I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep. And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims.

It was a stupid thing for “Brownie” to say, given the way the press corps works—and Scarborough knew which part of his statement to drop.

The Daily Howler - 09/09/05

OUR LATEST FIX! Maybe we’ll “fix” the New Orleans schools? What makes us think we can do that? // link // print // previous // next //

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2005

EXPANDING ON DRUM: We haven’t used the term “refugees,” and we pretty much doubt that we would have. (We also wouldn’t compare scenes from New Orleans to “Mogadishu,” “Haiti,” or “The Third World,” as people have reflexively done—most recently, Doug Brinkley, on C-SPAN this morning.) But we applaud Kevin Drum for his sensible statement about the term “refugee.” “I'm happy to stop using the word if it bothers people,” he sensibly says. But we’d expand upon that a bit; in our view, we should all be a little bit tougher on people like Rep. Dianne Watson (D-CA). Kevin quotes her recent, ridiculous statement—but fails to note how completely phony the statement actually is:

WATSON: These are American citizens, plus they are the sons and daughters of slaves. Calling them refugees coming from a foreign country does not apply to their status. This shows disdain for them. I'm almost calling this a hate crime.

Kevin notes how stupid it is to refer to this as a “hate crime.” But let’s go farther: Who exactly has called the New Orleans storm victims “refugees coming from a foreign country?” Answer: No one has made such a statement. Watson is pleasuring herself.

The Daily Howler - 09/08/05

THE JOY OF RACE! Pseudo-liberals pleasured themselves with dumb, feel-good tales about race: // link // print // previous // next //

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005

THE SUMMER OF 99: Before the unqualified Michael Brown, we had the unqualified Joseph Allbaugh—Bush’s first director of FEMA (and the inept Brown’s college roommate). In the past week, pundits have been asking how these men were ever chosen to head up FEMA; as they’ve done so, our thoughts have drifted back to the press corps’ first puppy-love for Allbaugh, expressed in the summer of 99. At the time, the mainstream press was punishing Gore because Bill Clinton had gotten ten blow-jobs. (What explains the “harsh coverage and punditry” directed at Gore, Howard Kurtz was asking in the Post.) Meanwhile, career liberals were brilliantly looking away, pretending that this wasn’t occurring. But over at the Washington Post, love was in bloom for the wonderful Allbaugh. Predictably, it was Ceci Connolly whose heart was a-flutter. In a pair of front-page stories about Gore’s alleged crazy spending, she offered this anecdote about the big lug, then the Bush campaign chief:

CONNOLLY (7/17/99): Aside from a candidate himself who is notoriously tight-fisted, Bush campaign officials said the designated "Dr. No" on spending is campaign manager Joe Allbaugh, an imposing man with the build of a football linebacker.

One Republican fund-raiser recalled a recent trip to Austin when he witnessed firsthand the Allbaugh ability to say no. Approached to approve $10,000 in expenses, Allbaugh instead tore up the piece of paper, ignoring the aide's response that it was a project signed off on by Allbaugh himself.

Awww! That was fun! (Needless to say, Connolly had no way to know if this story was true.)

Digby: Wishin' and a Hopin'

When asked about why there was such a failure of response to the hurricane considering the lessons of 9/11, McClellan just launched into a litany of "that horrible day...never again...preventing terrorists attacks" as if bringing up the attacks mitigates the scope of their malfeasance rather than exacerbates it. I doubt they can wring much more out of that sponge, but maybe they can. It's been four years since 9/11 and clearly they have actually gotten worse at disaster response, not better. It doesn't seem very smart to keep pointing that out.

Digby: The Single Worst Decision

Many of you have probably already read this report from two EMTs who ended up part of that group stuck on the freeway overpass for days in New Orleans. If you haven't, read it. It's amazing.

If the order to deny relief in order to keep people from resisting evacuation is true, then somebody has committed a horrible, cruel mistake. As these two emergency techs write:

When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Digby: Wrong Turn

There is something very dangerous happening in New Orleans and I'm not talking about the diseased gumbo that has become the flood waters. The combination of blocking the media, forcing evacuations and too many guns is a recipe for disaster. There is going to be trouble.

Digby: Rotting Magnolias

I mentioned before the hurricane hit that I had lived as a child in Mississippi when Hurricane Betsy hit in 1965. I lived in Bay St. Louis, which was at the eye of Hurricane Katrina and seems to have been completely destroyed.

I'm sad to hear it. It was a beautiful little gothic southern town, dripping in drawly, molassas charm and warm hospitality. It was the location for the Natalie Wood and Robert Redford movie version of Tennessee Williams' "This Property is Condemned." I was there when they filmed the scenes down at the abandoned railroad tracks. I haven't been there in many years, but it was like a place out of time when I lived there and I doubt it changed all that much. We had heirloom roses growing in our backyard that locals said had been planted during the antebellum days. Apparently the house was on the site of an old planatation. My school was said to have been Henry Clay's summer home, although I don't know if that was true.

Digby: Letdown

I can't wait to hear what Chris Matthews is going to say about the new Bigfoot that Bush has named today --- Admiral Thad Allen.

Here's a picture of him:



I think he looks the part and he certainly has the experience. And everybody loves a man in uniform. But he's no matinee idol like Rudy or Stormin' Norman. I suspect that Tweety is going to be very disappointed. Big Dick Cheney just flew on home and they appointed an Admiral nobody's ever heard of to be the new Viceroy.

Miss Alli: Here's What Gets Me (Rant)

People are going around and around about who should have done what at what time to get food and water to the victims of Katrina, and to get the buses there to evacuate people from the city who didn't get out on their own, and to get medical care to the elderly so they wouldn't die, and to get control of the shelter areas so that people wouldn't be beaten, raped, and murdered at the convention center and the Superdome. Let's assume we're not deciding who should have done what at what time.

My problem with Bush -- and here, I do indeed address Bush individually, as a guy -- is that during the time that the crisis was developing, from Monday to Friday, he never seemed to experience any actual sense of urgency as a result of the simple fact that people were, minute by minute and hour by hour, dying.

Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash

by MAX BLUMENTHAL

[posted online on September 7, 2005]

Every cloud has a silver lining. Hurricane Katrina has devastated New Orleans, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, and plunging the entire city into chaos. In the hurricane's wake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its director, Michael Brown, forced out of his former job at the International Arabian Horse Association, with no credentials in disaster relief, have become targets of withering criticism. Yet FEMA's relief efforts have brought considerable assistance to at least one man who stands to benefit from Hurricane Katrina perhaps more than any other individual: Pat Robertson.

With the Bush Administration's approval, Robertson's $66 million relief organization, Operation Blessing, has been prominently featured on FEMA's list of charitable groups accepting donations for hurricane relief. Dozens of media outlets, including the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press, duly reprinted FEMA's list, unwittingly acting as agents soliciting cash for Robertson. "How in the heck did that happen?" Richard Walden, president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, asked of Operation Blessing's inclusion on FEMA's list. "That gives Pat Robertson millions of extra dollars."

Pharyngula: Hey! A Sensible and Intelligent Politician!

It's kind of like spotting an ivory-billed woodpecker, but there he is—Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey, plainly speaking his mind in Intelligent Design: It's Not Even Wrong.

Our weakened state of science and mathematics education reverberates throughout national and even global issues, and this should be the focus of our school systems rather than a 'debate' that only diverts attention away from the challenges at hand. The United States must prepare for the changing global economy through fundamental scientific research fueling technological innovation. When the tenets of critical thinking and scientific investigation are weakened in our classrooms, we are weakening our nation. That is why I think the President's off-hand comment about intelligent design as the other side of the debate over evolution is such a great disservice to Americans.

'I Wish I'd Said That'

See the cartoon and suggested caption....--Dictynna

Kansas Prosecutor Says Women's Private Medical Records Are Needed to Prosecute Abortion Clinics

By John Hanna Associated Press Writer
Published: Sep 8, 2005

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Attorney General Phill Kline is seeking access to the medical records of 90 girls and women who had abortions on the grounds the documents would help him prosecute two clinics that provide abortions.

Kline's chief deputy, Eric Rucker, told the Kansas Supreme Court on Thursday that Kline believes the records contain evidence of crimes, including violations of the state's restrictions on late-term procedures and failure to report child sexual abuse.

The Black Commentator: Open Letter

This is an open letter to the man sitting behind me at La Paz today, in Nashville, at lunchtime, with the Brooks Brothers shirt:

You don't know me. But I know you.

I watched you as you held hands with your tablemates at the restaurant where we both ate this afternoon. I listened as you prayed, and thanked God for the food you were about to eat, and for your own safety, several hundred miles away from the unfolding catastrophe in New Orleans.

You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal – and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word – morally scolding the people of that devastated city, heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them – all of them, without distinction it seemed – for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big screen TVs.

Sparrow pathologist helps identify hurricane's dead

By Tracy Burton
Lansing State Journal

GULFPORT, MISS. - Joyce DeJong's day begins at 5 a.m., when she tackles one of the grimmest and toughest tasks in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.

While others are helping the living, DeJong's responsibilities are to the dead.

Soul Freedom

By Bill Moyers, AlterNet. Posted September 10, 2005.

The notion of spiritual freedom is at risk, and the fourth observance of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 is an appropriate time to think about it.

Ed. Note: This article is adapted from Bill Moyer's address this week at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where Judith and Bill Moyers received the seminary's highest award, the Union Medal, for their contributions to faith and reason in America.

At the Central Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, where I was baptized in the faith, we believed in a free church in a free state. I still do. My spiritual forbears did not take kindly to living under theocrats who embraced religious liberty for themselves but denied it to others.

"Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils," thundered the dissenter Roger Williams as he was banished from Massachusetts for denying Puritan authority over his conscience.

Baptists there were a "pitiful negligible minority" but they were agitators for freedom and therefore denounced as "incendiaries of the commonwealth" for holding to their belief in that great democracy of faith-the priesthood of all believers. For refusing to pay tribute to the state religion they were fined, flogged, and exiled.

After Katrina, America's Political Crisis

By Robert Parry
September 9, 2005

The political crisis now confronting the United States can be viewed as a nail-biting thriller in which a harrowing truth slowly dawns on a community, as the threat builds toward a calamity. In movies, the final disaster is usually averted; but in real life, the recognition of the danger sometimes comes too late.

That is the political significance of the public outrage over the Bush administration’s inept response to Hurricane Katrina – as well as the growing recognition that America finally must confront the threat of global warming, that the Iraq War is a death trap, and that the massive budget and trade deficits are mortgaging the nation’s future.

$51B in aid, but it's bottled up

Victims have not seen cash

By MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Congress approved $51.8 billion in Katrina aid yesterday, but it won't get there soon enough for the people who tried - and failed - to get promised emergency payments.

President Bush signed the bill last night. Earlier, he went on TV to tell victims how to get help, saying more than 400,000 people already have signed up for benefits. He told tens of thousands more to apply but said they must be patient as they try to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Security Contractors in Iraq Under Scrutiny After Shootings

By Jonathan Finer

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 10, 2005; Page A01

IRBIL, Iraq -- The pop of a single rifle shot broke the relative calm of Ali Ismael's morning commute here in one of Iraq's safest cities.

Ismael, his older brother Bayez and their driver had just pulled into traffic behind a convoy of four Chevrolet Suburbans, which police believe belonged to an American security contractor stationed nearby. The back door of the last vehicle swung open, the brothers said in interviews, and a man wearing sunglasses and a tan flak jacket leaned out and leveled his rifle.

The Poor Man: Jesus

This is so depressing:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has done it again.

Already under fire for its woeful response to Hurricane Katrina, the federal disaster agency appears to have turned hurricane relief donations into a political payoff - until it was challenged.

All last week, FEMA bureaucrats gave prominent placement on the agency’s Web site to Operation Blessing, the Virginia-based charity run by controversial right-wing evangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson.

It gets better:

Operation Blessing, with a budget of $190 million, is an integral part of the Robertson empire. Not only is he the chairman of the board, his wife is listed on its latest financial report as its vice president, and one of his sons is on the board of directors.

Back in 1994, during the infamous Rwandan genocide, Robertson used his 700 Club’s daily cable operation to appeal to the American public for donations to fly humanitarian supplies into Zaire to save the Rwandan refugees.

The planes purchased by Operation Blessing did a lot more than ferry relief supplies.

An investigation conducted by the Virginia attorney general’s office concluded in 1999 that the planes were mostly used to transport mining equipment for a diamond operation run by a for-profit company called African Development Corp.

And who do you think was the principal executive and sole shareholder of the mining company?

You guessed it, Pat Robertson himself.

Robertson had landed the mining concession from his longtime friend Mobutu Sese Seko, then the dictator of Zaire.

The Poor Man: Pretty Much

This says it all--Dictynna

[Via S.R.]

What Victor Davis Hanson Does to History

Bard of the Booboisie

By WERTHER*

Let us stipulate straightaway: Victor Davis Hanson is the worst historian since Parson Weems. To picture anything remotely as bad as his pseudo-historical novels and propaganda tracts, one would have to imagine an account of the fiscal policies of the Bush administration authored by Paris Hilton.

Mr. Hanson, Cal State Fresno's contribution to human letters, is the favorite historian of the administration, the Naval War College, and other groves of disinterested research. His academic niche is to drag the Peloponnesian War into every contemporary foreign policy controversy and thereby justify whatever course of action our magistrates have taken. One suspects that if the neo-cons at the American Enterprise Institute were suddenly seized by the notion to invade Patagonia, Mr. Hanson would be quoting Pericles in support.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 09/09/05

Eric Boehlert contrasts FEMA's handling of Katrina with last year's hurricanes in Florida, and "Democracy Now!" reports on 'How FEMA overcompensated Florida citizens in the run-up to the presidential election.'

As 'Old-line families plot the future' of New Orleans, a former Clinton Administation official offers up his plan for dealing with an "ugly, troglodyte crowd of ... insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers..." Plus: 'Every crisis an opportunity.'

President Bush, reasoning that requiring contractors to pay prevailing wages in Katrina's aftermath would "increase the cost to the Federal Government," issued a proclamation suspending Davis-Bacon.

Bush aide Karen Hughes assumes her new position, blaming reports of "crime being committed" in New Orleans for tarnishing the U.S. image abroad, and a GOP congressman concerned about public housing gives credit to God. Plus: 'Eight Big Lies.'

Fox News "All Star" Mara Liasson claims that "any time there's a contentious exchange in the White House press room, it makes the press look bad," and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tells CNN's Kyra Phillips that "if you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll."

Divinity School Team Faults AFA Chaplains

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 9, 2005

Filed at 7:54 p.m. ET

DENVER (AP) -- A team from the Yale Divinity School says it has found lingering problems among chaplains at the Air Force Academy, where commanders face allegations that evangelical Christians wield too much influence among cadets and staff.

A new report obtained Friday by The Associated Press says the chaplains' activities may conflict with the goals of school leaders and the Air Force overall.

<>''These inconsistencies confuse expectations and may encourage inappropriate pastoral reactions,'' the Yale group said.

Some in Senate Seek to Change Mercury Rule

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - With a deadline for action approaching, senators from both parties rallied support on Thursday for a resolution that would kill the Bush administration's proposed rule to limit mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Appearing at a midday news conference, the senators said the rule was written to satisfy the utility industry and would take too long to produce benefits, causing serious health problems for thousands of people, especially pregnant women and young children living near the plants.

The senators are trying to send the rule back to the Environmental Protection Agency for reconsideration through a rarely successful procedure known as the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to challenge agency regulations through a resolution that is guaranteed a floor vote.

The deadline for the vote is Monday, although Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said other issues might force him to extend it by several days.

Paul Krugman: Point Those Fingers

To understand the history of the Bush administration's response to disaster, just follow the catchphrases.

First, look at 2001 Congressional testimony by Joseph Allbaugh, President Bush's first pick to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA, he said, would emphasize "Responsibility and Accountability" (capital letters and boldface in the original statement). He repeated the phrase several times.

What Mr. Allbaugh seems to have meant was that state and local government officials shouldn't count on FEMA to bail them out if they didn't prepare adequately for disasters. They should accept responsibility for protecting their constituents, and be held accountable if they don't.

Initial Search Finds Far Fewer Bodies Than Expected in New Orleans

I'll believe it when it is independently verified.--Dictynna

By SEWELL CHAN and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

Published: September 9, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 9 - A preliminary house-to-house search in neighborhoods ruined by Hurricane Katrina yielded far fewer bodies than expected, officials said today, raising hopes that the ultimate death toll might be considerably less than then 10,000 the mayor and others had predicted.

City officials backed down from their threat to forcibly evacuate the remaining residents who had refused repeated entreaties by police officers and National Guard members to leave. But the officials warned that both the public's health and the city's ability to begin rebuilding would be hurt the longer residents refused to leave.

Congressman: Hurricane 'finally cleaned out public housing in New Orleans'

RAW STORY

From the paid-restricted Wall Street Journal's Washington wire: "LOUISIANA LAWMAKERS aim to cope with political fallout."

#

Sen. Landrieu, in spotlight now, could find margins squeezed if thousands of Democratic-leaning African-Americans don't return by her 2008 re-election. Louisiana political analyst John Maginnis says state could even lose one of seven House seats in next redistricting.

Two shaky House incumbents, Democrat Melancon and Republican Boustany, hope response to hurricane rallies voters behind them. House Republican campaign chief Reynolds touts chance to market conservative social-policy solutions; Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge is overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Rogers Cadenhead: Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans

As the situation grew steadily worse in New Orleans last week, you might have wondered why people didn't just leave on foot. The Louisiana Superdome is less than two miles from a bridge that leads over the Mississippi River out of the city.

The answer: Any crowd that tried to do so was met by suburban police, some of whom fired guns to disperse the group and seized their water.

Around 500 people stuck in downtown New Orleans after the storm banded together for self-preservation, making sure the oldest and youngest among them were taken care of before looking after their own needs.

Chief Justice Rehnquist's Drug Habit

Scottish Saying - 'There's a slippery step at everyone's door.' This was Rehnquist's.--Dictynna

The man in full.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, Sept. 9, 2005, at 2:28 PM PT

As we usher the 16^th chief justice of the United States to his celestial reward, let us remember him in full. He labored successfully to return power to the states, treated colleagues with warmth and respect, was said to be a gregarious boss, and, inspired by a judge's costume he saw in the performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, added four silly gold stripes to each sleeve of his judicial robe.

And for the nine years between 1972 and the end of 1981, William Rehnquist consumed great quantities of the potent sedative-hypnotic Placidyl. So great was Rehnquist's Placidyl habit, dependency, or addiction—depending on how you regard long-term drug use—that by the last quarter of 1981 he began slurring his speech in public, became tongue-tied while pronouncing long words, and sometimes had trouble finishing his thoughts.

Court Rules U.S. Can Indefinitely Detain Citizens in Wartime

Watch for an expansion of who can be considered an "enemy combatant"--Dictynna.

Clarification to This Article
A previous online version of this story did not specify that the court ruling applied only during wartime. That has been changed in this version.

Ruling Comes in the Case of 'Enemy Combatant' Jose Padilla

By Jerry Markon

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 9, 2005; 5:45 PM

A federal appeals court ruled today that the president can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil in the absence of criminal charges, holding that such authority is vital during wartime to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit came in the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who was arrested in Chicago in 2002 and designated an "enemy combatant" by President Bush. The government contends that Padilla trained at al Qaeda camps and was planning to blow up apartment buildings in the United States.

Bush Losing Support From His Base

Maybe they are taking the Katrina disaster as proof that Bush isn't God's favorite president after all--Dictynna

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, September 9, 2005; 1:36 PM

Through thick and thin, President Bush has always maintained the ferocious backing of his Republican base.

Until now?

As I wrote in yesterday's column , partisan squabbles are something the Bush White House has found it can handle just fine, because the base hangs tough. But public outrage over the Hurricane Katrina debacle has the potential to transcend politics as usual.

And quite possibly, something is up.

DeLay PAC Is Indicted For Illegal Donations

Corporate Gifts Aided GOP in Texas Races

By R. Jeffrey Smith

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 9, 2005; Page A03

A grand jury in Texas indicted yesterday a state political action committee organized by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for accepting $120,000 in allegedly illegal corporate campaign contributions shortly before and after the 2002 elections that helped Republicans cement their control of the House of Representatives.

The indictment follows a lengthy investigation in Austin that previously had targeted the defunct political action committee's executive director, John Colyandro. He was indicted last year for accepting illegal corporate donations and for illegally laundering $190,000 in corporate funds through the Republican National State Elections Committee that later wound up in the hands of Texas Republican candidates.

Judge Orders Berger to Pay $50,000 for Taking Classified Material

By HOPE YEN

Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005; 2:46 PM

WASHINGTON -- A judge on Thursday ordered Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, to pay a $50,000 fine for illegally taking classified documents from the National Archives.

The punishment handed down by U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson exceeded the $10,000 fine recommended by government lawyers. Under the deal, Berger avoids prison time but he must surrender access to classified government materials for three years.

Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience

'Brain Drain' At Agency Cited

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 9, 2005; Page A01

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Head of Federal Katrina Relief Effort Replaced

Death Toll May Not Be as High as Originally Feared

By William Branigin and Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 9, 2005; 3:57 PM

Federal and local authorities today launched a concerted operation to recover the bodies of people who perished in New Orleans from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, and the nation's homeland security chief announced the replacement of Michael D. Brown as the top federal official on the scene of the Gulf Coast relief effort.

Officials in New Orleans wrapped up a search for survivors and began the body-recovery operation amid indications that the death toll may not be as high as previously feared.

A word from 'Dictynna'...

I am having surgery tomorrow, so probably won't be posting anything for at least the next few days. As soon as I can sit at a computer, I'll resume posting to the blog.

Daily Kos: Bush's use of firemen: props

by kos

Tue Sep 6th, 2005 at 20:36:19 PDT

(bumped -- kos)

This is it. This is absolutely the most fucked up thing ever done by this president, in a long list of fucked up things. Josh Marshall:

On the Al Franken show this afternoon I mentioned this article from today's Salt Lake Tribune which tells the story of about a thousand firefighters from around the country who volunteered to serve in the Katrina devastation areas. But when they arrived in Atlanta to be shipped out to various disaster zones in the region, they found out that they were going to be used as FEMA community relations specialists. And they were to spend a day in Atltanta getting training on community relations, sexual harassment awareness, et al. This of course while life and death situations were still the order of the day along a whole stretch of the Gulf Coast.

It's an article you've really got a to read to appreciate the full measure of folly and surreality.

But the graf at the end of the piece really puts everything in perspective, and gives some sense what the Bush administration really has in mind when it talks about a crisis. The paper reports that one team finally was sent to the region ...

As specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

And I'm not even talking about the "community specialists" nonsense, which is fucked up enough. It's this shit:

Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA

By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune

ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.

The Daily Howler - 09/07/05

KATRINA CREEP (PART 2)! Today, we’ll try to speak so slowly that even professors can follow: // link // print // previous // next //

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2005

WE ALMOST FORGOT: Also amazing this weekend was Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She appeared on Sunday’s This Week roundtable. Try to puzzle this out:

TUCKER (9/4/05): I was one of the people who was very angry watching from the safety of my living room and with the New Orleans portion of my family—I have a sister who lives there with her husband and their small daughter—we were all watching it in the safety of my living room but I was furious and disappointed at my government that this looked like Bangladesh or Haiti or somewhere. And if we don't figure out what went wrong, I don't know how we can correct the mistakes that were made and let me also say that I think one of the things we have to focus on is those people who don't have the resources to get out, and I think that all of the officials knew—local, state and national—that there was a significant portion of residents of that area who didn't have the resources and I have to tell you, I was one of the people who was not aware of that. I'm one of those people—I'm middle class. My sister and her husband are middle class. They had the resources to get out and get to me. And I said, “Why didn't those people leave?” and my sister said, “You don't know how many desperately poor people there are in New Orleans.”

The Daily Howler - 09/06/05

KATRINA CREEP (PART 1)! How fast does FEMA normally act? Oddly, we tried to check facts: // link // print // previous // next //

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2005

THE WEEK’S WORST IN SHOW: The powdered poodles we call a press corps were clearly at their worst last week. As Eric Boehlert noted, David Broder seemed to be typing from Mars in a ludicrous Sunday column (more details below). And then we had George Stephanopoulos on This Week, riding around in a chopper with the hapless Mary Landrieu. Believe it or not, the perfumed pair knew where to go to survey Katrina’s devastation. Incredibly, they choppered straight to Landrieu’s “camp”—to her waterfront (summer?) home, located somewhere outside the city. Try to believe that this powdered pair really hold such high positions:

Digby: Little Lord Pontchartrain

This story about Bush using firefighters as props should be circulated far and wide. I think it is the perfect symbol of the photo-op presidency.



I would like to see it juxtaposed with another one:




Karl Rove believes that politics is TV with the sound turned off. And that's mostly true. What he fails to understand is that people turn the sound way up during big stories like this.

TBogg: Let me rephrase that...

FEMA...the gift that keeps on killing:

Offers of foreign aid worth tens of millions of dollars -- including a Swedish water purification system, a German cellular telephone network and two Canadian rescue ships -- have been delayed for days awaiting review by backlogged federal agencies, according to European diplomats and information collected by the State Department.

Since Hurricane Katrina, more than 90 countries and international organizations offered to assist in recovery efforts for the flood-stricken region, but nearly all endeavors remained mired yesterday in bureaucratic entanglements, in most cases, at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In Germany, a massive telecommunication system and two technicians await the green light to fly to Louisiana, after its donors spent four days searching for someone willing to accept the gift.

James Wolcott: The Long Hot Summer, the Long Cold Winter

Over the weekend Barron's ran an interview with two hedge fund managers and dedicated short sellers, Lee Mikles and Mark Miller, who argued that we were at a dangerous juncture vis a vis the economy and stock market. Since short sellers benefit from falling stock prices, they're prejudiced to the down side, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. (The italics below are mine.)

Barron's asks: "Why do you think we are at an inflection point?

"Mikles: Bottom line, the consumer is broke and he doesn't know it yet. But he is about to find out. All the buckets that propelled consumer spending are empty now, whether it is the increase in mortgage debt, the increase in consumer debt or the reduction in the savings rate. No one statistic will tip the scale at the end of the day. But one very obvious and very curious statistic is that we have dipped into a negative savings rate for the first time. That is not only unsustainable, it is sustainable only for a few months. That's important to note because it tells you consumers are borrowing money to make debt payments. The U.S. consumer has become payment driven. He is driven not by the aggregate amount of debt he possesses but by the amount of the payment. And now the consumer has not only taken his savings rate to nothing, it has turned negative.

White House Press Briefing: Angry Reporters Hit McClellan Hard on Hurricane, Ask if Heads Will Roll

By E&P Staff

Published: September 06, 2005 5:35 PM ET
NEW YORK White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan had not had a full-length press briefing in Washington, D.C. for weeks, and after today, may have wished he had postponed this one. With almost unprecedented vigor, the press corps attacked and probe the federal response to the hurricane disaster, the president's personal responsibility and failure to fire anyone who failed in his or her mission.

Here is a transcript of the relevant portions.

*

Q Scott, the reality at hand right now is that the President said that we still live in an unsettled world. This is an administration that has told us since 9/11 that it's not a matter of "if," but "when" that we could be struck by a terror attack and, obviously, other disasters that are the result of Mother Nature. So at this point, where is the accountability? Is the President prepared to say where this White House, where this administration went wrong in its response to Katrina?

Group: Internal memos show oil companies limited refineries to drive up prices

RAW STORY

Internal Texaco memo, March 1996

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today exposed internal oil company memos that show how the industry intentionally reduced domestic refining capacity to drive up profits, RAW STORY has learned.

The three internal memos from Mobil, Chevron and Texaco illustrate how the oil juggernauts reduced refining capacity and drove independent refiners out of business in an effort to increase prices. The highly confidential memos reveal a nationwide effort by American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying and research arm of the oil industry, to encourage major refiners to close their refineries in the mid-1990s.

Bush’s folly

Gene Lyons

Posted on Wednesday, September 7, 2005

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg&storyid=127691

At times like these, many feel an instinctive wish to rise above politics. With bodies still emerging from the wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina, partisan bickering ought to be the last thing on anybody’s mind. But acknowledging our common humanity shouldn’t blind us to the reality that much of the devastation wrought by the storm is as much a consequence of human folly as nature’s wrath. It does no honor to the dead to pretend otherwise. For more than a generation, pretty much all we’ve heard from Republican (and some Democratic) politicians in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and elsewhere is how the federal government was the source of all domestic ills. Grover Norquist, the Washington political operative widely credited with devising the GOP’s winning strategy, famously stated that he didn’t want to abolish the national government, but shrink it "down to the size where you could drown it in a bathtub."

DeLay points to local officials

House cancels hearings; joint panel to look at Katrina response

Wednesday, September 7, 2005 Posted: 1412 GMT (2212 HKT) Wednesday, September 7, 2005; Posted: 10:12 a.m. EDT (14:12 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House majority leader late Tuesday tried to deflect criticism of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by saying "the emergency response system was set up to work from the bottom up," then announced a short time later that House hearings examining that response had been canceled.

Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said House Republican leaders instead want a joint House-Senate panel set up to conduct a "congressional review" of the issue.

Tempers flared Tuesday during a contentious closed-door meeting between House members and Cabinet secretaries in charge of directing Katrina relief efforts. A Republican representative stood up and said, "All of you deserve failing grades. The response was a disaster," CNN was told by lawmakers emerging from the meeting.

FEMA packed with W's pals

Campaign pros get top jobs

By KENNETH R. BAZINET
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - The three top jobs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bush went to political cronies with no apparent experience coping with catastrophes, the Daily News has learned.

Even if Bush were to fire embattled and suddenly invisible FEMA Director Michael Brown over his handling of Hurricane Katrina, the bureaucrat immediately below him is no disaster professional, either.

While Brown ran horse shows in his last private-sector job, FEMA's No. 2 man, deputy director and chief of staff Patrick Rhode, was an advance man for the Bush-Cheney campaign and White House. He also did short stints at the Commerce Department and Small Business Administration.

Roberts & the 'Apex of Presidential Power'

By Nat Parry
September 6, 2005

What’s at stake with the Supreme Court confirmation of John Roberts, especially with George W. Bush poised to name a second justice, is not only how the United States deals with abortion and other social issues but whether the President will be granted broad authoritarian powers over the nation’s future and the civil liberties of people worldwide.

While much of the focus on Bush’s choice of Judge Roberts has centered on his life-long conservative ideology, including his hostility toward women’s rights, a sleeper issue has been Roberts’s support for giving the Executive nearly unlimited authority, at least when the White House is held by a Republican.

Two Christian Evangelists aim to take over the state's Republican Party

Bill Berkowitz
September 6, 2005

Ohio Players

Two Christian Evangelists aim to take over the state's Republican Party

Despite the subsequent controversy over widespread abnormalities on Election Day 2004, late in the evening of November 2, it was determined that Ohio voters had delivered the final dart to the heart of the presidential hopes of Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

Now, Christian evangelical ministers in Ohio are teaming-up to form a network intent on building on their constituency's extensive contribution to both President Bush's victory and the passage of Issue 1 -- an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage -- and help Christian conservatives take over the state's Republican Party. The Reverend Rod Parsley and the Rev. Russell Johnson are two key players in an effort to wrest control of the GOP from so-called Party moderates. Their job has no doubt been made easier by the fact that Republican Party officials have been enmeshed in a series of political scandals that even includes the state's Republican Governor, Bob Taft. (For more on the governor's troubles, see, MoveOnTaft.org, a website recently jointly established by the conservative American Policy Roundtable and the liberal Ohio Citizen Action).

Navy Pilots Who Rescued Victims Are Reprimanded

By DAVID S. CLOUD

PENSACOLA, Fla., Sept. 6 - Two Navy helicopter pilots and their crews returned from New Orleans on Aug. 30 expecting to be greeted as lifesavers after ferrying more than 100 hurricane victims to safety.

Instead, their superiors chided the pilots, Lt. David Shand and Lt. Matt Udkow, at a meeting the next morning for rescuing civilians when their assignment that day had been to deliver food and water to military installations along the Gulf Coast.

"I felt it was a great day because we resupplied the people we needed to and we rescued people, too," Lieutenant Udkow said. But the air operations commander at Pensacola Naval Air Station "reminded us that the logistical mission needed to be our area of focus."

The episode illustrates how the rescue effort in the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina had to compete with the military's other, more mundane logistical needs.

In Europe, High-Tech Flood Control, With Nature's Help

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: September 6, 2005

On a cold winter night in 1953, the Netherlands suffered a terrifying blow as old dikes and seawalls gave way during a violent storm.

Flooding killed nearly 2,000 people and forced the evacuation of 70,000 others. Icy waters turned villages and farm districts into lakes dotted with dead cows.

Ultimately, the waters destroyed more than 4,000 buildings.

Afterward, the Dutch - realizing that the disaster could have been much worse, since half the country, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, lies below sea level - vowed never again.

After all, as Tjalle de Haan, a Dutch public works official, put it in an interview last week, "Here, if something goes wrong, 10 million people can be threatened."

Bilingual Material in Libraries Draws Some Criticism

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DENVER, Sept. 4 (AP) - On a rainy Saturday, Miereya Gomez thumbed through a book while her two young sons carried comic books to their father in the children's section of this city's Central Public Library.

"We come here mostly for the kids, for books and movies - educational and entertainment - in Spanish and English," Ms. Gomez said.

As the Spanish-speaking population has grown in the United States, libraries have tried to keep pace by stocking up on books, magazines and movies in Spanish.

In some places, however, critics say taxpayer money should not be spent on a population that can include illegal immigrants or on proposals that promote languages other than English.

In Denver, where the foreign-born population tripled between 1990 and 2000, largely because of Mexican immigrants, the public library system is considering reorganizing some of its branches to emphasize bilingual services and material.

A Standout Teacher Who Also Stands Out

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: September 7, 2005

HUNTINGTON, W.Va.

MS. RAY stayed. Twenty-three years, Irene Ray has been teaching at Huntington High, in this small city near the Kentucky border, and once again she was back, for another first day of school. "They changed the hall-pass system again," she said, leafing through a stack of first-day memos with titles like "Asbestos Notification Form." It was 7:15, and she was rushing. "They're going back to the way they did it five years ago."

Ms. Ray never expected to stay, and yet here she was again as the 7:55 bell rang, sipping a Diet Coke, nibbling an Atkins breakfast bar, and greeting students with her usual "Good morning glories." For years she had planned to escape to the big city - Washington, San Francisco, New York. "The U-Haul would be here and I'd be gone," she said. "I wanted to leave so bad. I had the exact date in mind."

Administration's figures on response don't appear to add up

BY CAM SIMPSON

Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - In an effort to show the world that it's finally on top of the catastrophe unleashed by Hurricane Katrina more than a week ago, the Bush administration is producing a seemingly impressive battery of statistics.

Since Friday, as criticism has mounted against the administration for its perceived failure to act sooner, officials have sought to tangibly catalog crucial results, such as "lives saved," "people assisted" and "citizens evacuated."

Dealing With Political Disaster

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; 1:21 PM

President Bush somehow missed the significance of what was happening on the Gulf Coast last week as he and his political guru, Karl Rove, flitted between Texas and California and, finally, Washington.

But now, facing what is clearly a full-scale political disaster, Rove and a handful of other masterful political operatives have gone into overdrive. They are back in campaign mode.

This campaign is to salvage Bush's reputation.

Harold Meyerson: The 'Stuff Happens' Presidency

Wednesday, September 7, 2005; Page A25

We're not number one. We're not even close.

By which measures, precisely, do we lead the world? Caring for our countrymen? You jest. A first-class physical infrastructure? Tell that to New Orleans. Throwing so much money at the rich that we've got nothing left over to promote the general welfare? Now you're talking.

The problem goes beyond the fact that we can't count on our government to be there for us in catastrophes. It's that a can't-do spirit, a shouldn't-do spirit, guides the men who run the nation. Consider the congressional testimony of Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's 2000 campaign manager, who assumed the top position at FEMA in 2001. He characterized the organization as "an oversized entitlement program," and counseled states and cities to rely instead on "faith-based organizations . . . like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service."

Fox's NY affiliate refuses Bush 'no clothes' ad

By Claudia Parsons

Reuters
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; 5:39 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A local affiliate of the Fox television network has rejected a campaign advertisement for a Democratic politician that lampoons President George W. Bush by superimposing his head on a naked torso.

The ad, produced by Brian Ellner, an openly gay candidate for Manhattan borough president, opens with a close-up of Bush's face and zooms out to show the torso from the hips up, with a voice-over saying, "New Yorkers know the emperor has no clothes."

So Much for Mending Fences in Europe

By John F. Harris and Lori Montgomery

Wednesday, September 7, 2005; Page A06

Since winning a second term, President Bush has made four trips to Europe, where his first-term policies on Iraq and other issues made him the most unpopular U.S. president in recent decades. Now comes new evidence at what all this fence-mending has won him with average Europeans: nothing.

A new poll taken in 10 European countries, as well as the United States, shows that Bush's foreign policy is just as unpopular across the Atlantic as it was a year ago.

For Bush, a Deepening Divide

Katrina Crisis Brings No Repeat of 9/11 Bipartisanship

By Dan Balz

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 7, 2005; Page A19

When terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans came together in grief and resolve, rallying behind President Bush in an extraordinary show of national unity. But when Hurricane Katrina hit last week, the opposite occurred, with Americans dividing along sharply partisan lines in their judgment of the president's and the federal government's response.

The starkly different verdicts on Bush's stewardship of the two biggest crises of his presidency underscore the deepening polarization of the electorate that has occurred on his watch. This gaping divide has left the president with no reservoir of good will among his political opponents at a critical moment of national need and has touched off a fresh debate about whether he could have done anything to prevent it.

The "city" of Louisiana (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Well there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.

Paul Krugman: Killed by Contempt

Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.

Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.

Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.

What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action - and he didn't deliver.

New Yorker editor says Bush 'failed in every respect;' And more: 'Cavalier, delinquent, self-deluded'

RAW STORY

"Suntanned and relaxed after a vacation so long that it would have shamed a French playboy, Bush reacted with fogged delinquency, as if he had been so lulled by his summer sojourn that he was not quite ready to acknowledge reality, let alone attempt to master it," pens New Yorker Editor David Remnick in Sept. 12 editions of the magazine.

The New Yorker editor's piece is as unflinching and scathing as any written about the crisis, saying Bush "failed in every respect," and declaring the mismanagement of post-Katrina chaos mirrored the Bush Administration's work in Iraq, where Remnick sees: "the cavalier posture, the wretched decisions, [and] the self-delusions."

Bait and Switch

Barbara Ehrenreich shows how not to look for a job.
By Tyler Cowen and Alan Wolfe
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005, at 3:33 AM PT



From: Tyler Cowen
To: Alan Wolfe
Subject: Barbara Ehrenreich Shows How Not To Look for a Job
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005, at 3:33 AM PT

Dear Alan,

I did not expect to like Barbara Ehrenreich's new experiment, recounted in Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, but even so I am disappointed. The main thing I learned is how not to look for a job.

Ehrenreich gives up her identity and sends around a vita for media/public relations work. After a year of looking—with comic adventures along the way—she has no serious offer. She concludes that the white-collar world is one of "economic cruelty."

Katrina Puts Estate Tax Repeal on Ice

GOP Agenda Shifts as Political Trials Grow
Katrina Puts Estate Tax Repeal on Ice

By Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; Page A06

As Congress returns from its August recess today, Republicans face a far more troubling political landscape than the one they left a month ago, according to lawmakers in both parties.

Gasoline prices have skyrocketed, the Bush administration is being widely criticized for its handling of Hurricane Katrina, and as the war in Iraq grows increasingly unpopular, the president's approval ratings have sunk to an all-time low. Further complicating the picture is a rare double vacancy on the Supreme Court, which could trigger sniping between the GOP's center and right wing if not deftly handled.

OECD warns of ‘economic shock’ from oil prices

By John Thornhill in Paris
Published: September 6 2005 12:10 | Last updated: September 6 2005 13:23

The current surge in oil prices is a major economic shock that is in some ways comparable with that of the 1970s, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Tuesday.

“The level of the price today is not very distant from the levels reached during the great shock at the end of the 1970s,” said Jean-Philippe Cotis, chief economist at the OECD at a press briefing in Paris. “The situation remains very strained on the oil markets.”

When The Saints Don't Go Marching In

E.J. Graff
September 06, 2005

E.J. Graff, a Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center resident scholar, most recently collaborated with former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy on her book Getting Even: Why Women Still Don't Get Paid Like Men--And What To Do About It, newly published by Simon & Schuster. Graff is currently working on a book about American moral values.

You want moral values? This government doesn't have them. That lack is visible in the fetid Third-World swamp we've all been watching in horror. What we're watching is not the consequence of a corrupt government or even an incompetent government. It is the consequence of an immoral government.

Morals, in case Bush et al. have forgotten, grow from the central commandment to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Caring for others in extreme distress is the most basic tenet of morality. Doing so requires a decision to act. Our federal government decided instead to abandon those in need.

Digby: 'We always worried this would happen'

Spreading the poison of bigotry

BATON ROUGE, La. -- They locked down the entrance doors Thursday at the Baton Rouge hotel where I'm staying alongside hundreds of New Orleans residents driven from their homes by Hurricane Katrina.

"Because of the riots," the hotel managers explained. Armed Gunmen from New Orleans were headed this way, they had heard.

"It's the blacks," whispered one white woman in the elevator. "We always worried this would happen."

King of Zembla: Mercs and DVD's

The disaster in New Orleans is Topic A on every political blog, but if you are not yet afflicted with Katrina fatigue you should know that the bard of New Crobuzon, our eminent colleague China Mieville, is performing miraculous spadework at Lenin's Tomb, unearthing stories of startling puissance on what seems like an hourly basis. Two examples, both posted since our last visit yesterday morning:

1.) "In the unsentimental world of business there’s no cataclysm that’s not also an opportunity," writes Mieville, in noting an eerie similarity between Baghdad and New Orleans that Tom Engelhardt missed. The two ravaged cities are both swarming with mercenaries: It was the media who started it. Terrified for the safety of their correspondents among angry poor, NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC and others paid for ‘security services’ to escort them. In point of fact, rather than attacking the media, the 'bad people' of New Orleans, as Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has vociferously complained, have instead had the disgraceful impertinence to complain to the journalists about being left to die, have sought out cameras and begged for help down the lenses. You could argue that separating yourself from your story with armed men might not be the best journalism, but whatever – NBC et al wanted some muscle on their side.

The Mahablog: Beyond Incompetence

Our take-charge president wasted no time today nominating his boy John Roberts for the position of Chief Justice of the SCOTUS. He has called for Roberts to be confirmed in time for the court's new term in October. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation takes effect only when her replacement is confirmed, the Court would have all nine members and Bush can avoid two messy confirmation hearings going on at once.

See? The child can act quickly when he wants to.

Pharyngula: Loose Lips Sink Presidencies

Steve Gilliard posted an angry letter from a 2LT in the Engineer Corps, who cussed out W for his incompetence. It's gone now (unless you want to snoop into the google cache), and the woman who wrote it is facing a court martial.

You can die for this country, but you can't speak out against Emperor Bush.

Arthur Silber: 'They Were Loved'

September 5th, 2005

This really got to me:

In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.

Arthur Silber: And Still, We Refuse to See

How much longer can the Bush administration keep up the fiction that we're winning the war?--Dictynna

September 5th, 2005

Iraq continues to be lost more each day:

Abu Musab Zarqawi’s foreign-led Al Qaeda in Iraq took open control of a key western town at the Syrian border, deploying its guerrilla fighters in the streets and flying Zarqawi’s black banner from rooftops, tribal leaders and other residents in the city and surrounding villages said.

A sign newly posted at the entrance of Qaim declared, “Welcome to the Islamic Kingdom of Qaim.” A statement posted in mosques described Qaim as an “Islamic kingdom liberated from the occupation.”

The Perfect Storm and the Feral City

By Tom Engelhardt

The headline was: "Direct hit in New Orleans could mean a modern Atlantis," and the first paragraph of the story read: "More than 1.2 million people in metropolitan New Orleans were warned to get out Tuesday as [the] 140-mph hurricane churned toward the Gulf Coast, threatening to submerge this below-sea-level city in what could be the most disastrous storm to hit in nearly 40 years." That was USA Today and the only catch was -- the piece had been written on September 14, 2004 as Hurricane Ivan seemed to be barreling toward New Orleans.

The Daily Howler - 09/02/05

A BREAK IN THE ACTION! We’ll delay our current series while we wait for help to arrive: // link // print // previous // next //

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2005

A BREAK IN THE ACTION: Yes, there’s a difference between “breaching” and overtopping,” so Bush’s Thursday morning statement to Diane Sawyer wasn’t necessarily as dim as it looked. We agree with Matt Yglesias’ assessment:

YGLESIAS: Apparently, the president of the United States doesn’t “think anyone anticipated the breaching of the levees.” That's false, of course, but the tragic reality is that none of the relevant policymakers do seem to have anticipated this. And that's insane.

This morning’s Times provides some context. And of course, the inevitable failure-to-question: When Bush made his statement to Sawyer, she simply moved ahead to the next question (a pointless question about the ethics of looting). She didn’t ask him what he meant when he said that no one “anticipated the breaching.” Obviously, many people had anticipated such a disaster over the years. But when our potentially clueless president seemed to say something different, our plainly clueless millionaire anchor simply moved on without comment.

DC Media Girl: Aaron Broussard

9/4/05 13:54:32

ThinkProgress has the transcript of Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard’s appearance on Meet the Press this morning. C&L has the video. The poor man broke down on camera, and who can blame him? Alligators feast on bloated corpses in the streets where so many revelers have enjoyed cocktails during Mardi Gras. A beautiful, romantic, mysterious, utterly unique American city has been drowned and is now ruled by armed junkies. And the federal government continues to lie and obfuscate and try to apportion blame while the world watches OUR AMERICAN CITIZENS die on camera.

Jesus' General: Happy Republicans Fight Litter

David Mazel is proud of the work his little band of merry Republicans do cleaning up litter in Dr. Dobson's back yard.



David sent me the story behind the picture:

After the sign went up, it occurred to Brooks Haynie and me that some of the local Republicans might be a bit miffed. Brooks thought we owed them an explanation. So he got on the agenda of the next GOP district party meeting (we'd both made sure to register as Republicans beforehand). At the meeting he proceeded to explain calmly that some people consider the Republican Party less than fully tolerant toward gay Americans. God only knows where folks would get such an idea, he said, but anyway we at Alamosa's Gay Republican Majority thought we could do our little bit to correct that misperception, and at the same time help beautify the local highways. What's not to like?

Jesus' General: The Perks of Class

King of Zembla: That '60's Show

Courtesy of our rumbustious colleague the Heretik: As you know from previous reports (here, here, and here), the California National Guard is under investigation for dabbling in domestic surveillance -- specifically, collecting intelligence on a Mother's Day antiwar protest organized by Gold Star Families for Peace. John S. Friedman reports in The Nation that the National Guard, the FBI, and the FBI-managed Joint Terrorism Task Forces are engaged in "a coordinated federal effort" to spy on American citizens -- including, in an acid flashback to the bad old days before Frank Church, the infiltration of campus activist groups:

Democratic State Senator Joseph Dunn, whose budget subcommittee oversees funding for the California Guard and who is conducting the state investigation, said financial improprieties may have occurred, as state and federal laws forbid such activities. Dunn told The Nation that he is looking into reports that the Guard in some ten other states, including New York, Colorado, Arizona and Pennsylvania, may have set up its own intelligence units and conducted similar monitoring of antiwar groups. Such controversial directives could be coming from the Pentagon, he speculated . . . .

Pharyngula: Drowning New Orleans

George W. Bush, September 2005:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Scientific American, October 2001:

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh--an area the size of Manhattan--will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn't go very far.

Read the whole thing. It's a detailed description of the problem, with suggestions about what needs to be done to correct it.

Pharyngula: Republican Failure, Republican Blame

I agree in part with Mike Dunford, who thinks there is plenty of blame to go around. It's true that the catastrophe in New Orleans is due to many factors—uncontrollable ones, like the probability of a large hurricane striking the city; passive ones, like Democrats and scientists not fighting stupidity hard enough; active ones, like the dedicated work of Republicans to gut government effectiveness. In a sense, yes, we can say that the disaster is the fault of all Americans.

[...]

We have to wake up. Mike is right to blame scientists and Democrats and all American citizens for allowing this leadership disaster to happen, but we have to look to the source of the decisions that led us to this place. We have to recognize what the goals of the Republican party are.

The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole.

Not by explicit intent, of course, but by neglect, the promotion of incompetence, and short-sightedness. By treating government as a kleptocracy. By governing badly. By pandering to the stupid, by advocating superstition (let's pray and send bibles to New Orleans!), by poisoning our educational system with nonsense, by haring off on destructive wars that enrich corporate cronies, by belittling expertise and favoring ideology, by ignoring freaking reality.

The Mahablog: Drowning the Beast

Via Julie O's They Get Letters, be sure to read this post by P.Z. Myers at Pharyngula.

I agree in part with Mike Dunford, who thinks there is plenty of blame to go around. It's true that the catastrophe in New Orleans is due to many factors—uncontrollable ones, like the probability of a large hurricane striking the city; passive ones, like Democrats and scientists not fighting stupidity hard enough; active ones, like the dedicated work of Republicans to gut government effectiveness. In a sense, yes, we can say that the disaster is the fault of all Americans.

TBogg: Necro-Cons

Interesting story about younger Rehnquist...a bit crude in spots--Dictynna

Crazy-ass racist Michelle MalKKKin has all the links to the rightside as they dry-hump the still warm corpse of William Rehnquist.

Oddly nobody mentions this story:

Lito Pena is sure of his memory. Thirty-six years ago he, then a Democratic Party poll watcher, got into a shoving match with a Republican who had spent the opening hours of the 1964 election doing his damnedest to keep people from voting in south Phoenix.

"He was holding up minority voters because he knew they were going to vote Democratic," said Pena.

The guy called himself Bill. He knew the law and applied it with the precision of a swordsman. He sat at the table at the Bethune School, a polling place brimming with black citizens, and quizzed voters ad nauseam about where they were from, how long they'd lived there -- every question in the book. A passage of the Constitution was read and people who spoke broken English were ordered to interpret it to prove they had the language skills to vote.

By the time Pena arrived at Bethune, he said, the line to vote was four abreast and a block long. People were giving up and going home.