Headlines you love to see
DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe.
"A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post."Isn't this the case that had the Republicans changing the rules so that you had to be convicted before you stepped down? And then the publicity shamed them so much they changed the rules back. So down steps DeLay. That'll be a fun case to watch.
Joe McCarthy, the hero
From the
San Francisco Chronicle:
"
House Republicans on Tuesday rejected a Democratic resolution to name a post office in Berkeley, Calif., after a longtime local activist and city councilwoman, saying 94-year-old Maudelle Shirek doesn't represent American values."
"Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who led the opposition, said Shirek's background "sets her apart from, I will say, the most consistent of American values.""
"Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who sponsored the resolution, rejected King's comments as unsubstantiated innuendo."
"'They are living in the days, I guess, of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover and decided they wanted to defeat a local district matter, and I think it's outrageous and unconscionable," Lee said in an interview."
""I think that if Barbara Lee would read the history of Joe McCarthy she would realize that he was a hero for America," King said of the senator who launched investigations into alleged communist sympathizers in the 1950s but was ultimately censured by the Senate. King said Hoover, the former FBI director, "was a giant when it came to law enforcement."Wow. Where was I? Joe McCarthy the hero? This is an elected official who believes this. Maybe he spends too much time with Ann Coulter.
Personal Family Matters
Jeb Bush's son was arrested for public intoxication, resisting arrest. "Alia Faraj, the spokeswoman for Jeb Bush said the incident "is a personal family matter" which the governor and his wife "are dealing with privately.'"
He should talk with Michael Schiavo about "
personal family matters". F*cking hypocrite.
Read Mark Morford
Anyone who can use the line "
Dick Cheney, lying awake at night as the leeches drain his soul" is worth reading.
How True
An ugly side to the disaster
Chip Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle writes of a
personal account of being trapped in New Orleans that shows a very ugly side of America. Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky are San Francisco paramedics who were trapped in New Orleans last week and experienced the worst of America. Some lowlights from the article:
"The stranded crowd stared at food and water locked in a drugstore across the street from the hotel only to be shooed away by police officers whenever anyone approached the store. Finally, after hours of cat and mouse, the crowd finally broke into the store. "
"With no food, no water and no transportation out of the city, about 200 of the former hotel guests wandered the streets and tried to set up a camp next to a police command center on Canal Street, where they hoped to get aid, protection and information, the couple said.
But officers told them they couldn't stay, they had no water for them, and they needed to get up on Highway 90, a bridge that spans the Mississippi River, and walk until they saw the rescue buses they promised would be waiting for them. "
"So late Wednesday afternoon, the group set out for a bridge called the Crescent City Connection, where they would find the help they so desperately needed. But when they arrived atop the highway, the paramedics said, they were met by more police officers, this time from neighboring Gretna, La., who weren't letting anyone pass. "
"The officers fired warning shots into the air and then leveled their weapons at members of the crowd, Bradshaw said. He approached, hands in the air, displaying his paramedic's badge.
"They told us that there would be no Superdomes in their city,'' the couple wrote. "These were code words that if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River -- and you weren't getting out of New Orleans.''
The Office
I now know where I've seen Mike Brown before. He's the guy on
NBC's "The Office" who calls himself the assistant manager when his actual title is "assistant to the manager."
According to CNN,
"Brown's biography on the Federal Emergency Management Agency Web site says he had once served as an "assistant city manager with emergency services oversight," and a White House news release in 2001 said Brown had worked for the city of Edmond, Oklahoma in the 1970s "overseeing the emergency-services division." However, a city spokeswoman told the magazine Brown had actually worked as "an assistant to the city manager."
He apparently had a
few other discrepancies:
"
FindLaw is a legal Web site where attorneys can post information about themselves," she says. "It said he was a professor at Central State University in political science. We called Central State (now known as the
University of Central Oklahoma, in Edmund). They said he had never been a professor there, that he had been a student. … But his FindLaw bio says he had been an outstanding professor in political science."
Stupid Things people say
There have been a lot of incredibly stupid and shortsighted things said over the last week by people who should know better. Let's review:
- As "The youngest" pointed out, Barbara Bush stepped up with:
- "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace." "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." Following was the clarification from the White House saying:
-
"Former First Lady Barbara Bush's comments about some hurricane refugees were a personal observation".
- Rick Santorum chimed in with:
- "people who don't heed future evacuation warnings may need to be penalized". He later clarified:
- "he did not mean people who lack cars or other resources."
- Dennis Hastert joined in with:
- "it might not make sense to rebuild New Orleans, noting that a lot of the city "could be bulldozed." He later backpedaled with:
- ""It is important that when we rebuild this historic city that we consider the safety of the citizens first. I am not advocating that the city be abandoned or relocated. My comments about rebuilding the city were intended to reflect my sincere concern with how the city is rebuilt to ensure the future protection of its citizens and not to suggest that this great and historic city should not be rebuilt."
- Mike Brown. Oh where to start? Let's see. How about:
- "New Orleans residents who chose not to heed warnings to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina bear some responsibility for their fates." Forgetting (as did Mr. Santorum) that many had no way to evacuate. (No clarification from him)
- On Thursday Sept 1, When people were still waiting for anything and anyone to show up at the Superdome, at the Convention Center, he offered this assement: ""Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans -- virtually a city that has been destroyed -- that things are going relatively well,".
- While news stations we're reporting the horrible conditions at the convention center for a few days, Brown stepped up to the plate with this one: " We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need". As at least one anchor asked him, "Don't you watch television or listen to the radio? We've known about this for days".
- Michael Chertoff, Director of Homeland Security, brought us this gem: "government planners never imagined the New Orleans disaster could have occurred." Uh, yeah they did.
I know there are more. I haven't even started with George Bush. He'll get his own entry in due time. Now is not the time to play the blame game.
Blame vs. Responsibility
So the line from the White House, the Republican Party and Fox News is
"we're not going to engage in the blame game". Every time you hear that line, think instead, "we're not going to accept responsibility". This administration has NEVER accepted responsibility for anything (WMD's, post war planning, outing CIA operatives. etc.), why would we expect them to start now.
How far are we from Harry Truman's "the buck stops here"? Where is the leadership that has the courage to admit mistakes? Do we really think the response to the next disaster will be any better if there is no admission that FEMA failed so we can learn from that and improve for the next disaster?
Mary Landrieu gets a clue
After I criticized Mary Landrieu for spending time thanking everyone for their help (see Friday's post), I caught her today on ABC's "This Week" threatening to
punch President Bush. I take back what I said Friday.
Emotional Television
If you caught Meet the Press today (it's on again on MSNBC tonight), you saw Aaron Broussard, the President of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, break down while talking with Tim Russert about the federal response to Katrina.
From ThinkProgress.org:
RUSSERT: You just heard the director of homeland security’s explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?
BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. … Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we’ve got to start with some new leadership. It’s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.
Broussard then discussed the difficulties local authorities had with FEMA, including one case where they actually posted armed guards to keep FEMA from cutting their communications lines:
Three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA, we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. When we got there with our trucks, FEMA says don’t give you the fuel. Yesterday — yesterday — FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines…
Finally, Broussard told the tragic personal story of a colleague, and broke down:
I want to give you one last story and I’ll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night! She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us! Nobody’s coming to get us…
An open letter to Senator Mary Landrieu (D), Louisiana
The Honorable Mary Landrieu
Dear Senator:
I heard
your interview with Anderson Cooper September 1st on CNN (
video). I found him very rude. While you were trying to thank a laundry list of politicians (former President Clinton, former President Bush, President Bush, Senator Frist, etc) for their help and support, he interrupted you. He kept saying (does he ever shut up?) that it was difficult to listen to politicians thanking and complimenting each other while there was a dead body nearby that was being eaten by rats, while victims of Katrina continued to suffer because no help had arrived. I think he would have kept going -- pointing out that people were still dying, people were still without food, people were still without water -- if you hadn't, thankfully, interrupted him to again thank the President for his help.
I'm sure you didn't have time to finish the list of politicians you'd like to thank, so I'm offering up this space to post any thank you notes you'd like to send.
Kindest regards,
Dave
Let's watch "Meet the Press" on Sunday
MSNBC
interviews Tim Russert. I'm anxious to see him "chat" with United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.
Some of his points from the interview:
"It’s a question that our country is going to have to look inside its soul and answer. The fact is, those who were well off were able to evacuate the city and those who were poor stayed behind. And those who are suffering and those who are dying are those very same poor people."
"President George W. Bush said the other day that no one expected the levees to break. Well, with all respect, study after study, including FEMA's own tabletop exercises last year, all included the breaking or the giving of the levees. Everyone who had studied the issue knew that with a Category 3, 4 or 5 storm, that was a very strong likelihood."
The Storm after the Storm
From
David Brooks in the New York Times. He discusses how past disasters exposed " the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities" and how we should lool at who is most affected by Hurricane Katrina: "they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come."
DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe.
