Today is the end of the reporting quarter for political campaigns. If you plan on giving to your favorite candidates, today is the day to do it.Take a bow Democrats!Hastert is facing a public relations onslaught from the Democrats, who accuse House Republicans of creating an ethical cloud over the Congress.
"The Republicans think that they're above the law. They act out of touch with the needs of the American people, and they must be stopped," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, again charging the GOP has created a "culture of corruption" from the House to the White House.
Greece offered the U.S. free use of two cruise ships on September 4th."Even if the Carnival contract were a good one--and it almost certainly is not--it is inexplicable why FEMA would fail to implement the Greek government's offer of free cruise ships," the senators said. "Unfortunately, this is merely the latest example of poor decision-making by FEMA."
Coburn and Obama have introduced legislation calling for a chief financial officer to oversee how tax dollars are being spent on hurricane recovery efforts. They said the Carnival deal "appears to be a sweetheart government contract."
Myers said the Pentagon is "trying to walk that very fine line between being seen as an occupier and being effective and winning this war, and helping the Iraqis stand up on their feet and take the fight to the enemy."While Cindy Sheehan's point of view may not have been altered by her meeting with Sen. McCain, but McCain's seems to have been altered by meeting with Sheehan and her supporters.McCain offered a blistering reply on the state of the conflict, suggesting Myers' comments were detached from reality.
"Gen. Myers seems to assume that things have gone well in Iraq," the senator said. "Gen. Myers seems to assume that the American people--the support for our conflict there is not eroding. Gen. Myers seems to assume that everything has gone fine, and our declarations of victory, of which there have been many, have not had an impact on American public opinion."
As doubts grow about U.S. military involvement in Iraq, a new poll shows a majority of Americans think that using force to promote democracy is a bad idea.emphasis added.
According to a survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and released Thursday, only 35 percent of those polled favored using military force to overthrow dictators while 55 percent opposed the idea. Less than 17 percent supported the idea of threatening countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan with military force if they did not institute democratic reforms. ***
Asked if they thought the goal of overthrowing Iraq's authoritarian government and establishing a democracy was by itself a good enough reason to go to war, 74 percent said no and 19 percent said yes. Among those who said no, 60 percent identified themselves as Republicans and 86 percent said they were Democrats.
"The sense I get from this is that the American public has become far more skeptical about what is happening in Iraq," said Christopher Whitney, director of studies at the council.
"They don't see the benefits," he said. "They don't see the Iraq war as justifiable in terms of democratization." ***
The findings are consistent with other polls in which a majority of Americans now say they think the Iraq war was a mistake.
On his radio program, Bennet said: I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go downBennett says that his point was that morality alone -- not economics or social science -- should decide the issue of abortion.
[Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)] said he was "appalled by Mr. Bennett's remarks" and called on him "to issue an immediate apology not only to African Americans but to the nation."Vegas odds-makers say the smart money is on Bennett not issuing an apology.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) said in a statement, "At the very time our country yearns for national unity in the wake of hurricane Katrina, these comments reflect a spirit of hate and division."
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) joined in the criticism.
"Not only is his bigotry a disgrace, I am appalled that he is using his radio platform to malign African Americans, which an impressionable listener could mistake for truth," he said in a statement.
One can only presume that Coach Hastert will focus on fundamentals, take it one game at a time and give it 110%.The coach had some trouble executing his plays. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) did have a game plan in place to provide for a leadership transition once Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was indicted Wednesday and forced to step down as majority leader.
It's just that he was blocked by a powerful group of conservative members -- and House Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who told Hastert in a personal appeal he did not want to be eclipsed, even temporarily, by a placeholder who would take DeLay's job.
Hastert apparently did not anticipate that talks from his team with Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) about filling the void created by DeLay's indictment would provoke a backlash. ***
"Yesterday was the toughest day in Denny Hastert's leadership," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), "because of what happened to his friend Tom DeLay."
20 years ago, Peter Roskam's life in politics began in the office of Tom DeLay.I'm glad that DuPage is helping out.So far 1,500 telephones, 200 cell phones, 25 personal computers, a fire engine and an untold number of desks, filing cabinets and workstation divider walls have been earmarked, said County Board member James D. Healy of Naperville. ***
"A used pickup truck sold at auction here would bring $1,000, but giving to [a county government in Mississippi or Louisiana] would save them the $30,000 cost of buying a new one," Healy said.
Healy said an administrator in Hancock County, Miss., which borders Louisiana, told him staff there have established temporary offices in public buildings but lack essential gear to run the government.
What do a bomber, a counterfitter, an LSD dealer, a cocaine dealer, a marijuana dealer, a Quaalude dealer, a bootlegger, a fence, an embezzler and two fraudsters have in common?"Republican culture of cronyism and corruption" -- It's short and has a pretty good ring to it.The major political question raised by the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is not whether Democrats will exploit it, but how effectively they will.
By coincidence, House and Senate Democrats, who are trying harder to coordinate their messages, this week decided to focus on what they called the GOP "culture of cronyism and corruption'' without knowing the DeLay indictment would be unveiled.
"The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom DeLay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), voicing one of many similar comments by Democrats on Wednesday.Well... so far so good.
May I have some more, please...Obama is breaking out.
As the only African-American member of the Senate, Obama has faced some private grumbling for not joining the Congressional Black Caucus in challenging the electoral results in 2004 in Ohio. (Civil rights groups complained that African-American voters there faced long lines and other problems casting their ballots.) But after Hurricane Katrina, Obama toured the devastated areas with Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush and then appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation and ABC’s This Week to blast the federal government’s sluggish response and highlight the racial and economic gaps it exposed. The interviews marked his first appearances on the Sunday morning political shows since taking office. “It was a moment I thought I might add a useful perspective to the debate,” Obama told TIME this week.
Last week, he strongly criticized a proposal, made by a bipartisan commission led by Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, to require photo ID for people to vote. Obama worried that the measure might stop poor people who don’t have driver's licenses from voting. Then, he headed to the Senate floor to declare his opposition to John Roberts’s appointment as chief justice, citing his concerns about how Roberts would vote on civil rights and abortion.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), emerging from a meeting with House GOP leaders, announced that Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the Republican whip, was elected to assume [Rep. Tom DeLay's] role as majority leader on a temporary basis. Hastert also said some duties would be transferred to Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), the Rules Committee chairman, and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the deputy whip.
The indictment was disclosed in Travis County, Tex., on the last day of a grand jury investigating a campaign financing scheme involving allegedly illegal use of corporate funds.
DeLay, 58, attended a meeting in Hastert's office shortly after receiving word of the indictment and said afterward he notified Hastert that he would "temporarily step aside" as majority leader. GOP House rules require that any member of Congress who is indicted must step down from a leadership position. However, there is no requirement that DeLay leave his congressional seat.
In April, your Chicago Sun-Times asked Pete Roskam if the growing cloud of corruption surrounding DeLay meant he should step down from his post as leader:A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.
DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee. ***
As a sign of loyalty to DeLay after the grand jury returned indictments against three of his associates, House Republicans last November repealed a rule requiring any of their leaders to step aside if indicted. The rule was reinstituted in January after lawmakers returned to Washington from the holidays fearing the repeal might create a backlash from voters.
"Trotting out some of ... these old accusations that are two and three and four years old is a little bit tiresome," Roskam said. "I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt."And Roskam's loyalty to, and ongoing relationship with, his mentor is still paying off.
In your Chicago Sun-Times, Daley discussed jaywalking:Run across Lake Shore Drive, Rich?"I don't know about ticketing them. But, it's a safety issue. When someone . . . tries to run across, like Lake Shore Drive, and they get killed, don't blame the city and don't blame the driver," Daley said.
"Jaywalking is very dangerous. A lot of people get seriously injured or killed."
And if you can't believe a self-described methamphetamine addict when she says she's quitting, who can you believe?Ashley Smith, the woman who says she persuaded suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols to release her by talking about her faith, discloses in a new book that she gave him meth during the hostage ordeal.
Smith did not share that detail with authorities at the time. ***
Smith, 27, a widowed mother who gained praise for her level-headedness, says the seven-hour hostage ordeal in March led to the realization that she was a drug addict, and she says she hasn't used drugs since.
It seems to me that Brownie's "experience" is just the sort of dangerous and malignant material that I.T. professionals advise users not to "download".CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Michael Brown, who recently resigned as the head of the FEMA, has been rehired by the agency as a consultant to evaluate it's response following Hurricane Katrina. ***
Later this evening, CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger spoke with a spokesman for FEMA, Russ Knocke, who confirmed that Brown remains on the FEMA payroll. He also said that technically Brown remains at FEMA as a "contractor" and he is "transitioning out of his job." The reason he will remain at FEMA about a month after his resignation, said the spokesman, is that the agency wants to get the "proper download of his experience."
Here's a fact getting far too little attention: The cost this year alone of the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 comes to $225 billion. In other words, the revenue lost because of tax cuts going through this year without any congressional action would more than pay the costs of Katrina recovery.That lost revenue could also address much of the reconstruction cost in Iraq. But we all know that Bush Inc. isn't going to roll back those tax cuts for the hyper-rich -- so do they plan to finance the Iraqi reconstruction?
Maybe Mr. Bush could get some cheerleaders to organize a car-wash to fund the Iraqi reconstruction.An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600, The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.
The public's reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration's attempt to offer citizens 'a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq' has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country. ***
It is understood to be the first time that a US government has made an appeal to taxpayers for foreign aid money.
From your Sun-Times:President Bush decided Wednesday to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Washington's closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.
In June, the State Department listed 14 countries as failing to adequately address trafficking problems, subjecting them all to possible sanctions if they did not crack down. ***
In addition to Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and Kuwait -- another U.S. ally in the Middle East -- were given a complete pass on any sanctions, [Darla Jordan, a State Department spokesperson] said. Despite periodic differences, oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the United States have a tight alliance built on economic and military cooperation. ***
The White House statement offered no explanation of why countries were regarded differently. Jordan also could not provide one.
As many as 800,000 people are bought and sold across national borders annually or lured to other countries with false promises of work or other benefits, according to the State Department. Most are women and children.
Leader in the war on terror, survivor of al-Qaida assassination attempts, advocate of moderate Islam: Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has emerged as a darling of the West since the Sept. 11 attacks.Another AP story in the Union-Tribune details the inhumanity of Pakistani law:
He has won little praise, however, for his response to another blight facing his country: rape and other violence against women.
Hundreds of attacks -- including gang rapes, "honor killings" of wives accused of having affairs and brides murdered for marrying without family consent -- are reported each year. Most go unpunished. ***Last week, Musharraf returned from a U.S. visit marred by controversy over his reportedly telling the Washington Post that many Pakistanis see rape allegations as a way for women to make money and get visas to leave the country. He later denied saying that, but the newspaper said the recorded interview proved he was correctly quoted.
During his trip, the military leader also said Pakistan is unfairly censured over rape and denounced activists he claimed profit from making such accusations "to malign Pakistan, the government and me."
Rights workers retort he is more concerned about shielding the nation's reputation overseas than taking action at home.
"Violence against women is a universal problem," said Kamila Hyat, co-director of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "Many governments have taken serious steps to deal with it. Pakistan hasn't."
She called Musharraf's reported comments "insensitive and rather pointless."
"There are thousands of victims of rape in Pakistan," she said, "and as far as I know, none went abroad" other than a doctor who claimed she was raped by a military officer. The government paid for her to migrate to Canada.
Another rape victim, Mukhtar Mai, barred by Musharraf from traveling to the United States to speak to a rights group earlier this year until Washington protested, said the government's campaign to tackle violence against women "seems limited to talk." ***
Musharraf has condemned violence against women. But he has failed to reform a harsh penal code that makes it extremely difficult to prosecute rape cases and leaves victims vulnerable to adultery charges.
The laws, known as the Hudood Ordinance, make it extremely difficult to prosecute rape cases and leaves victims vulnerable to adultery charges.Rest assured ladies -- once Bush Inc. has secured all the oil in the Middle East, they will get around to protecting your human rights.The ordinance is "like a sword hanging over the heads of the women of Pakistan," said Shahnaz Bokhari of the Progressive Women's Association, which helps victims of violence. According to the government, about 80 percent of the more than 2,000 women jailed in Pakistan were convicted under the ordinance.
The only sure ways to obtain a rape conviction are with a confession by the accused or the testimony of four adult Muslim men who witnessed the assault. A woman's testimony carries half the weight of a man's.
Human Rights Watch said that when the ordinance was first issued, it was common for the victim to be prosecuted for illicit consensual sex ‚– punishable with a long prison sentence.
I always thought that "passed out from choking on a pretzel" story seemed a little phony."I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great.
"I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening."
"All discussions are off the record," admonished the conference's printed schedule. Consequently, I will refrain from specifically quoting panelists and audience members.
Robert Novak is keeping secrets now?
What happened to the Robert Novak we all came to know and love?
You know the rule: Early and often.
In the next thirty seconds you can send a loud and clear message to Congress that we’re ending business as usual.
We asked for your help last week and you came through, giving Christine enough votes to qualify for the final run-off in Democracy for America’s Grassroots All-Star competition. Thank you.
Now we’re asking you to vote again, to give Christine the support she needs to win the DFA endorsement. That endorsement will bring early resources to Christine’s campaign – resources she needs to get her message out, to make it clear that we’re tired of business as usual.Business as usual these days means hard-working Americans don’t have good health care, children don’t have access to a good education and parents don’t have stable, good-paying jobs. We’re closing that business down. We’re sending one of our own to Congress. Christine understands the concerns of everyday Americans. Because she is one.
But she needs your support to make her voice heard. She needs you to add your voice to hers by voting for her in the DFA contest.
Last week, people made their voice heard and gave Christine the support she needed to make this final round. To win this round, and the endorsement that comes with it, we need those votes and more before Saturday, the 24th at 4:00 CST. Winning brings Christine the early resources that make it possible to get her message out loud and strong. Your vote could be the one that makes the difference.
Republicans like business as usual. They think they will have an easy time installing Tom DeLay’s protégé into Henry Hyde’s old seat. They have cleared the field for their hand-picked Grover Norquist ally. Send the message that it won’t be so easy. Vote for Christine.
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The word's etymology is traced to the late 19th Century, "perhaps from French esquiver, 'dodge, slink away.'"Many thanks to Ms. Lindberg for creating a single word that captures the myriad ways that Bush administration failed the people of the Gulf Coast.
But while "esquiver" is a real French word, "esquivalience" is an invention. McKean confirmed this for The New Yorker, saying the New Oxford American team set out to make up a word for "working hard," which they were. But one editor, Christine Lindberg, came up with a word that meant just the opposite."I wanted the word to suggest character weaknesses," Lindberg writes by e-mail, "and words like 'quivering' and 'vacillating' went through my mind and became the glob of brain putty that eventually got fashioned into 'esquivalience.'" ***
Of course, in the world of lexicography, a made-up word can become real simply by having people discuss it -- and then use it.
Lindberg, the inventor of "esquivalience," says the word is real to her. "It is only this recent bit of attention to my infamous little neologism that has reminded me of its fauxness," she says. "I find myself using the word regularly, and I've grown quite fond of it. I especially like the critical, judgmental tone I can get out of it: 'Those esquivalient little wretches.' Sounds literate and nasty all in one breath. I like that."
While "Sky" is a fine name, it doesn't seem "distinctly Chicago." And it doesn't seem particularly "aspirational" or "high energy" either."We wanted the name to have meaning and capture our dreams," CEO and President Margaret Stender told the crowd... We set three important criteria for the name. The name and the logo must be distinctly Chicago, it must be aspirational and encouraging and it must be high energy representing the style and substance that we plan to live by on and off the court.
"And then it dawned on us, there it was, everything Chicago stands for. How it towered, how it inspired, its character, how it stood to face the world. Architects say the Adler Planetarium is the best place in the city to view the spectacular skyline of this city. It is the place to see Chicago reach to the Sky."
"Rip your CDs and post them on p2p networks."Celebrate!
"Crack the crypto on your Tivo, burn the shows to DVD and share them with your friends."
"Never pay for software -- it can all be downloaded for free from the internet."
"Videotape films at movie screenings."
"Information wants to be free."
"Fair use, man -- Fair use!"
The transcript in PDF format.SCHIEFFER: And we turn now to Senator Barack Obama from the state of Illinois. He's in Chicago this morning.
And, Senator, let me ask you about something, first, I had really not thought about, but I found very disturbing. When the admiral said, 'Look, we're still worried about these levees, and if there's another storm, those levees might give way.' Are we putting--or are the officials putting too much emphasis on getting people back into New Orleans so quickly?Senator BARACK OBAMA (Democrat, Illinois): Well, I think it's understandable, Bob, that people want to see the Crescent City rise as quickly as possible, but I think Admiral Allen was exactly right. We want to make sure that we get it right this time, that people are safe, that the situation there is secure, that we have basic infrastructure in the event that there was another hurricane. We're still towards the tail end of hurricane season. So I think that Admiral Allen's caution is appropriate. I'm glad to see that people who have businesses in New Orleans are able to get in, start making some assessments, start making preparations for the rebuilding process.
SCHIEFFER: Senator, there is no question that this hurricane exposed us to a racial divide very much in the same way that the O.J. trial did. African-American people just saw it one way, and it seems that white people saw it another, especially on the slowness of the federal response. Do you believe that racial discrimination played a part in that? The president tried to confront that the other night, and I guess the question I would ask you: Do you think he made any headway in turning that around, that perception?
Sen. OBAMA: Well, I've said before I think that the incompetence in the federal response was color-blind. And I think that what you had in terms of the immediate aftermath of the hurricane displayed an unwillingness to acknowledge that some people can't load up an SUV, fill it up with a hundred bucks' worth of gas and drive and check in to a hotel. So there seemed to be a lack of awareness with respect to poverty and the isolation that many folks experience in a place like the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
I do think there was a broader racial element. The fact is in this country that issues of poverty and issues of race have always been tied together. The president acknowledged this, I think, for the first time, that I can recall, in his presidency, when he gave his speech from New Orleans. And the question now is whether, in fact, there's been an awakening on his part, and his administration, to that intersection of race and poverty, and whether we're finally going to see the compassion in the compassionate conservatism that he announced when he was first running for president.
SCHIEFFER: What do you think the first thing is he ought to do on that front?
Sen. OBAMA: Well, there are a couple of things that I think are a priority. We've already allocated in Congress $62 billion so far to the reconstruction effort. And one of the heartening things about this tragedy has been the enormous wellspring of donations and support from the American people across the board. They also don't want to see that $62 billion or $200 billion wasted. And so this past week, for example, I worked with a Republican colleague, Tom Coburn, to try to institute a CFO, a chief financial officer, to oversee this $62 billion. Make sure that that money is well-spent.
The second thing I think we have to prioritize are putting people in the region back to work. We should be training them to do the environmental cleanup. We have an opportunity to take folks who didn't have skills before and potentially have them participate in the rebuilding of their own communities. And I think that's going to be absolutely vital. And then I think we have to have a long-term plan to think about how do we create better schools than existed before, how do we create greater economic opportunities than existed before? And, you know, one of the things that I've said is that Democrats should not presume insincerity on the part of the president. I think we should, you know, hold out a hand to him and say, 'We're willing to be partners in this process.' But...
SCHIEFFER: Well, on that front, let me just ask you what I think is a key question here. The president says he can do all of this, and he's promised to do everything that it takes without raising taxes. Do you think that's realistic?
Sen. OBAMA: Well, this is where I think the problem comes in. You can't fight a war in Iraq that's costing upwards of $200 billion and rebuild New Orleans and respond to the aftermath of Katrina and try to deal with all the other domestic needs that we have and then cut taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. I mean, there was talk right immediately after the hurricane that the Republicans in the Senate were still going to push forward with the repeal of the estate tax, which is mind-boggling, I think.
We need some adult supervision of the budget process and we need to take responsibility for this process. That's something that we need from the president as well as our congressional leaders.
SCHIEFFER: Senator, thank you so much.
Sen. OBAMA: Thank you very much, Bob.
I know that the story is about women, but I don't see why this commentary would not be of interest to Tribune readers that happen to have male genitals.African-Americans make up about 68 percent of the population of New Orleans, and it appears from the media coverage that they represent a considerably higher proportion than that of the survivors who were trapped inside the city, perhaps as high as 80 percent.
And yet there is another equally important and starkly apparent social dimension to the hurricane disaster that media coverage has put in front of our eyes but that has yet to be "noticed": This disaster fell hard on one side of the gender line too. Most of the survivors are women. Women with children, women on their own, elderly women in wheelchairs, women everywhere--by a proportion of what looks to be again somewhere around 75 or 80 percent.
Women make up 54 percent of the population of New Orleans, so the gender gap is even more dramatic than the race gap. The two gaps need not compete for our attention; they are linked. The majority of victims trapped in New Orleans appeared to be African-American women with their children, and no doubt the ranks of the dead also will be.
The gender gap is no surprise, or shouldn't be. Disaster is seldom gender neutral. In the 1995 Kobe, Japan, earthquake, 1.5 times more women died than men; in the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami, death rates for women across the region averaged three to four times that of men.
The gender, class and race dimension of each disaster needs particular explanation. Feminists working in relief agencies and the UN, for example, identified several factors that explain the gender skew in the 2004 tsunami deaths.In some instances, sex differences in physical strength clearly made a difference in the ability of survivors to climb, cling or run to safety. Prevailing ideologies of femininity played a role in this: strength differences reflect the extent to which women are encouraged or allowed to develop physical strength. ***
The "not noticing" of the gendered dimensions of this disaster by the American media and by the experts who interpreted the disaster to the public through the media is alarming and warrants attention.
Feminist theorists have long pointed to the public invisibility of women, especially women of racial minorities, and the New Orleans case study provides a dramatic example of the "unremarkability" of racialized minority women in the gaze of a predominantly male and white media. In the real world of an unfolding disaster, this comes at a price.The lack of curiosity about the rapes in the midst of the New Orleans disaster is just one aspect of this willful ignorance that is particularly disturbing.
Rapes have been mentioned in several news stories, but always in passing and with no follow-through: no interviews with police officials about the magnitude of rape, no curiosity about the nature of masculinity that contemplates rape even in conditions of extreme human suffering, no disaster experts assuring us that rape-support teams are included in the rescue teams, no discussion about the medical and psychological resources that women who have survived unimaginable tragedy and stress and have also been raped will need.
The whole column will be available later today here.Congress and the public have shoveled new powers upon the White House in the last four years, and the deal was that the White House would use them to protect us. The Bush administration is now protesting that its hands were tied in New Orleans by an indecisive mayor and governor, but it had swaggered before the public as a crew that in a time of crisis could do and would do whatever it takes.
New Orleans was a flood in a small city -- and the White House froze. Imagine if it had been a dirty bomb in a bigger city -- let's say Chicago. Can anyone who has watched the White House flail and fumble over New Orleans believe for a second that the Department of Homeland Security has a serious plan to keep order and empty this city if a radioactive bomb goes off in the Loop, or that President Bush has meditated on such a disaster and will immediately take steps that meet the test of leadership?
Local blogger Eric Zorn and "Brenda Starr" writer, Mary Schmich are on WGN AM (720) right now.
Reuters photos of Georgie writing a note asking Condoleeza Rice if it is possible for him to use the little president's room during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.The photo, which appeared on Reuters' official photo site, was quickly published all over the Web, though dismissed by some as a likely photoshop special. Others suggested that surely someone must have hacked the Reuters site. But a Reuters spokesman on Thursday told E&P the photo was legit.Does anyone else get the feeling that Bush Inc. has lost its handle on the press?
"The photographer and editors on this story were looking for other angles in their coverage of this event, something that went beyond the stock pictures of talking heads that these kind of forums usually offer," explained Reuters' Stephen Naru. "This picture certainly does that."
Laura Bush is reprising her role as her husband's first defender, making several trips to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast as President Bush's approval ratings sink to their lowest level yet. ***Sadly, those unselfish acts of giving were all the acts of private volunteers who were shocked and embarassed by the Bush administration's complete failure to provide timely help to the people of the gulf coast.Mrs. Bush said Tuesday that much more human good than bad has come from the disaster, despite what people see on TV. She said the evacuees she has met in her three trips to the Gulf Coast are hopeful and thankful that they don't have to start from rock bottom because of the donations and the kindness of strangers.
"That's what I've seen at each of the shelters I've visited," she said. "I've never heard a single word of complaint." ***
"We've seen terrible, terrible things and we've seen unbelievably unselfish acts of giving as well by communities all across the United States and, of course, many more unselfish acts of giving than bad things," she said in a speech Tuesday to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"Maybe the media hasn't shown us that much, but we've read about it and we do know about it."
"I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the hurricane," Sen. Barack Obama said last week on the floor of the Senate. "They were abandoned long ago -- to murder and mayhem in the streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness." ***
2008!
Obama, the only African-American in the U.S. Senate, says "the ineptitude was colorblind." But he argues that while -- contrary to rapper Kanye West's attack on Bush -- there was no "active malice," the federal response to Katrina represented "a continuation of passive indifference" on the part of the government. It reflected an unthinking assumption that every American "has the capacity to load up their family in an SUV, fill it up with $100 worth of gasoline, stick some bottled water in the trunk and use a credit card to check into a hotel on safe ground."
When they did focus on race in the aftermath, many Louisianans let their fears take over. Lines at gun stores in Baton Rouge, La., snaked out the door. Obama stops short of calling this a sign of racism. For some, he says, it's a product of "sober concern" after the violence in the city; for others, it's closer to "racial stereotyping."
A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.
Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about". ***
"A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoner and aborted foetus." This material, [an agent of the company] said, was being bought from "bio tech" companies based in the northern province of Heilongjiang, and was being developed elsewhere in China.
He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: "The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile."
[T]his form of government inevitably and invariably produces acts of evil every bit as horrible as those produced by Nazi Germany.And unfortunately, it's like a Nazi Germany that makes all of our stuff.
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1. "I feel the need to stay away from a discussion of specific cases."”
2. "“So while I'’m happy to talk about stare decisis and the importance of precedent, I don'’t think I should get into the application of those principles in a particular area."”
3. "“I do feel compelled to point out that I should not agree or disagree with particular decisions. And I'’m reluctant to do that. That'’s one of the areas where I think prior nominees have drawn the line when it comes to, Do you agree with this case or do you agree with that case? And that'’s something that I'’m going to have to draw the line in the sand."”
4. "“Well, I think that gets to the application of the principles in a particular case. And based on my review of the prior transcripts of every nominee sitting on the court today, that'’s where they'’ve generally declined to answer: when it gets to the application of legal principles to particular cases."”
5. "“Well, again, I think I should stay away from discussions of particular issues that are likely to come before the court again."”
NOTE: I know the photo is of Jimmy Swaggart, but it was the first photo of an insincere, hypocritical, serial-liar that I could find.President Bush for the first time took responsibility Tuesday for federal government mistakes in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and suggested the calamity raised broader questions about the government's ability to handle both natural disasters and terror attacks.
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at a joint White House news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
"And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong," said Bush.
The Web site chicagocrime.org, an innovative overlay of the city’s reported crimes with Google's online mapping technology, today won the $10,000 Grand Prize in the Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.
The site, created as a free public service by online journalist Adrian Holovaty with design input by Wilson Miner, was credited with “setting a new standard for interactive journalism.” Chicagocrime.org allows users to search by the type of crime, the street and neighborhood, or the date and pinpoint the location on a satellite map. One can even track crimes that occur en route to work.
"It is one journalist's ability to see all the pieces and put them together," the Batten judges said, "but every city should provide this as a public service."
I think we are in fact on our way to getting on top of the whole Katrina exercise. -- Vice President Dick Cheney, 9/10/05
Preparing the body for exercise is important for people at any age and all fitness levels. A warm-up period should begin with slow, rhythmic activities such as walking or jogging in place. -- President's Council on Physical Fitness and SportsWell, I guess that explains the Bush administration's delayed response to Hurricane Katrina -- they were just slowly warming-up before starting their "exercise".
Barack Obama was a guest on This Week,and he was very candid in his feeling about the differences and perceptions regarding race in America and the response to Katrina.BARACK OBAMA 2008Video-WMP-low quality (I'll have QT and higher quality for Bittorent later)
Video QT
Bittorrent WMP high quality
Officials at the American Red Cross, which is in the midst of its largest and longest-lasting relief operation in its history, said Saturday that they are seeking 40,000 new volunteers from around the country to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
About 36,000 Red Cross volunteers are currently providing food, shelter and other emergency help to about 160,000 people at 675 shelters in 23 states, an agency spokesman said. But many of the volunteers, who typically serve three-week stints in the field, will be going home soon and replacements are needed.
"We're not going away in a few weeks or even a few months," said Red Cross spokesman John Dengan, who described the recruitment drive as the largest ever for the relief agency.
Those who sign up will have to undergo training, which typically takes about six hours but could take longer for those who perform specialized tasks. Dengan said those who are interested should inquire with their local Red Cross chapters for more information.
Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.
Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. ***
Halliburton alone has earned more than $9 billion [in Iraq]. Pentagon audits released by Democrats in June showed $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq.
But the web of Bush administration connections is attracting renewed attention from watchdog groups in the post-Katrina reconstruction rush. Congress has already appropriated more than $60 billion in emergency funding as a down payment on recovery efforts projected to cost well over $100 billion. ***
On Friday, Kellogg Brown & Root received $29.8 million in Pentagon contracts to begin rebuilding Navy bases in Louisiana and Mississippi. Norcross said the work was covered under a contract that the company negotiated before Allbaugh was hired.
Halliburton continues to be a source of income for Cheney, who served as its chief executive officer from 1995 until 2000 when he joined the Republican ticket for the White House. According to tax filings released in April, Cheney's income included $194,852 in deferred pay from the company, which has also won billion-dollar government contracts in Iraq.
It's a shame that Powell didn't develop this uncanny ability to detect the painfully obvious before he left the administration.There have been a lot of failures at a lot of levels -- local, state and federal. ***
There was more than enough warning over time about the dangers to New Orleans. Not enough was done. I don't think advantage was taken of the time that was available to us, and I just don't know why. ***
I don't think it's racism, I think it's economic. But poverty disproportionately affects African-Americans in this country. And it happened because they were poor.
Go read the whole article. It is a powerful illustration of "the ugly double standards that excuse extreme drug use by the powerful, especially if their connection is a prescribing doctor, and condemns to draconian prison terms the guy who purchases his drugs on the street."[F]or 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. ***
[A confidential report on Rehnquist's medical history prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986] described him as seriously "dependent" on Placidyl from 1977 to 1981. He often consumed three month's worth of the drug in one month before requesting more from Dr. Freeman H. Cary, the attending physician to Congress, who prescribed it. Anonymous sources told the Post that Cary first prescribed Placidyl to Rehnquist in 1971 to help him sleep through his severe back pains, but "Cary reportedly told the FBI that Rehnquist had taken it before." ***
When Rehnquist's drug problem became an issue during the 1986 confirmation hearings, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, defended Rehnquist in a Post story, saying he got into trouble with Placidyl because he was "a very compliant patient" who "followed the advice" of his doctors. Ah, yes, one of the most brilliant jurists of his time was the victim of his rotten doctors for almost a decade! Are we to believe that one of the court's sharpest minds never availed himself of a Physicians' Desk Reference for independent medical information, or in any way tried to educate himself about the drug he was taking in larger and larger quantities? The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Rehnquist no questions about his drug use, and he was, of course, confirmed as chief justice. The debate over whether Rehnquist's drug use might be relevant to his fitness to serve as chief never got started.
Macy Gray just appeared on “Shelter From The Storm: A Concert For The Gulf Coast” wearing a stylish "Barack Obama 2008" t-shirt.
concern for the hundreds of thousands of Americans victimized by Hurricane Katrina, how would you respond?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.The report does not indicate whether he gave the people of New Orleans the finger as he left.
Laura Bush described as "disgusting" comments by rapper Kanye West and Democratic chairman Howard Dean blaming her husband for the disproportionate number of black hurricane victims.Sure he cares about people -- just not enough to give up more than two days of his month-long vacation."I think all of those remarks are disgusting, to be perfectly frank, because of course President Bush cares about everyone in our country," the first lady said Thursday in an interview with American Urban Radio Networks.
"And I know that. I mean, I'm the person who lives with him," she said. "I know what he's like and I know what he thinks and I know how he cares about people."
Of course if the flood area over the Lake was added back into the area of the city proper, the flood zone would very likely streach all the way out to Columbus Park and Midway Airport.
It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but you should have been in that control room where those people were making life and death decisions, people that stayed up and got no sleep and very little food for five to six days straight trying to make the right decisions to save people. What happens when we come up here? They point the finger. You didn't make the right decision here. You didn't take care of my aides there. You didn't do this. You didn't do that. The point is if you look at the big picture, it's a phenomenal accomplishment by everybody involved. It's unbelievable. I am constantly struck by where we are today just a little over a week from the worst catastrophe that this country has seen.Yes, it is unbelievable where we are 10 days after the worst catastrophe this country has ever seen -- and just eight days after the president finally ended the longest vacation in the nation's history.
It's unbelievable that we are fishing Americans' corpses out of New Orleans' flooded streets.The U.S. House of Representatives approved $51.8 billion more in emergency aid for Hurricane Katrina, the most costly disaster in U.S. history. The vote was 410-11.And what kind of a jackasses voted against the Katrina emergency aid bill?
Republicans. Each and every vote against funding emergency operations in the gulf coast was Republican.So when you're pumping that $3 gasoline, stand proud -- you're contributing to the biggest quarterly profit in human history.
Oil companies came under new fire yesterday when it emerged that ExxonMobil's profits are likely to soar above $10 billion this quarter on the back of the fuel crisis.
That's $110 million a day, and more net income than any company has ever made in a quarter. It's also a stunning 69 percent increase over the same period a year ago and a 34 percent jump from the $7.6 billion Exxon made just last quarter.
"Do you realize President Bush has just given a tax break to ExxonMobil?'' thundered Rep. Ed Markey (D-Malden). "Of all the companies in the history of the world that needed a tax break, this month, ExxonMobil should be at the bottom of the list.''
The law gives incentives to producers such as Exxon to expand production, such as for drilling for new wells in deeper waters in the Gulf of Mexico. ***
Even oil company shareholders were critical. Hub fund manager Lee Forker, the head of New England Research & Management, said the profits reflected a failure of oil companies' leadership to invest in future production. ``They're maximizing present cashflows and ignoring the future,'' he said.
ExxonMobil is spending about $5 billion a quarter buying back its own shares.
Forker says the oil companies bear responsibility for recent shortages, because they have held back on investment in new production for years due to a fear of a price collapse. "It could just be a big scam – 'Let's just restrict the supply along with the OPEC countries and we'll all get rich together'" he said. ***Jacques Rousseau, energy analyst at investment bank FBR, yesterday explained that most of the extra money that consumers are paying for gasoline is going straight through to the big companies' bottom line.
The reason? Prices are soaring because of perceived shortages while the cost of producing the gasoline is little changed.
No, it's not the elegant prose to which the readers of this blog have become accustomed, but these are inelegant times.
It's like you went to the hospital with a burst appendix, and when you wake up from surgery, you find out that the doctor has cut your nuts off.
You scream, "What the hell happened here?"
And the surgeon replies, "This isn't the time for fingerpointing -- we've still got to take out that appendix!"
An anti-war demonstration Wednesday outside U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office in west suburban Batavia Wednesday drew peace activist mother Cindy Sheehan, about 100 supporters and a large and vocal crowd of counterdemonstrators. ***
Wednesday's rally in Batavia was one of a dozen or so stops Sheehan is making during a cross-country tour to drum up support for a Sept. 24 anti-war rally in Washington. Other Chicago-area stops included Evanston on Tuesday night and Wheaton on Wednesday night.About 200 people showed up for the Wheaton vigil Wednesday.
Christine Cegelis, a Democrat seeking the U.S. House 6th District seat now occupied by retiring Republican Henry Hyde, was among the crowd."I think this is a good cause," Cegelis said."Sheehan is highlighting the lack of a reason to go to war [in Iraq], the lack of preparedness to go to war and the lack of proper treatment for our returning veterans."
Kathy Slovick, one of the vigil organizers and co-founder of DuPage Against War Now, said: "It's very important for people to see that DuPage residents are not all in lock step with the Bush administration and the people who favor the war in Iraq."
Larry King: He has been at the Astrodome with Oprah Winfrey, as well as with Bill and Hillary Clinton and he just attended a hearing with the heads of national security, with Secretary Rumsfeld and we understand, Senator Obama it got a little testy, true?SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), ILLINOIS: Well, I think there are a lot of us that are still unsatisfied with the answers that have been provided. I think all of us, Republican and Democrat, share the view that we have to focus on making sure that people are safe, secure that they've got housing, that they've got basic sanitation conditions.
But, ultimately we're also going to have to go back and ask some tough questions and this wasn't the forum I guess that various cabinet members thought we needed to ask those questions but there's going to be time over the next month as we stabilize the situation to really figure out what happened last week.
Larry King: Did they get angry these officials?
Sen. Obama: Well, no, you know, I think that their attitude is, is that everything went as well as it could have gone under the circumstances and we're moving forward. And, you know, I recognize the interest at this point in making sure that we don't start doing the Monday morning quarterbacking before the job is done.
On the other hand, the breakdowns were so severe last week and I think that the emotions that the entire country felt were so profound and acute that it's going to be very important for us as a country to process what happened and to make sure that it never happens again.
Larry King: Senator Obama, Dr. Phil wants to ask you something.
Sen. Obama: Go ahead.Dr. Phil: Senator, certainly we're going to have to deconstruct all of this and figure out how to do a better job the next time this happens. How do you -- and we'll learn from that I'm sure.
How do you feel about the plan from this day going forward? I mean clearly we're going to have to break it down, figure out where things went wrong but we are where we are now. How does it look in terms of the readiness, preparedness and responsivity over the next 30, 60, 90 days?
Sen. Obama: Well, you know, I visited Houston as you did and I think all of us were impressed. We've got to I think give great credit to the city of Houston and that entire region for the outstanding work that they've done creating a clean, safe environment for all these displaced populations.
But, I think moving forward we've still got tiny towns in Mississippi, in Louisiana, all across the gulf that are still struggling and we've got to stabilize the situation for them, people who weren't evacuated out of New Orleans.
And then we've got the medium term of finding housing, making sure that people have employment opportunities or at least some income, that children are in school and that as I'm sure you're aware the enormous shock that people are going through is somehow processed and they've got an opportunity to deal with that with professionals.
Dr. Phil: Well, that's true and I know I spent today earlier, Senator and Larry, on the phone with Dr. Russ Newman (ph) and Dr. Judy Andrews, who are with the American Psychological Association and the Texas Psychological Association talking about the disaster response network that has been created in the psychological community here to give these people the short term support, I mean support in the immediate term because you can't get in and do psychotherapy at this point.
What you've got to do is support them, answer their questions, let them know that somebody is listening and try to normalize the feeling so they kind of get down off the wall and realize, OK, we've got to live in the moment and put one foot in front of the other.
But then the question becomes in the long term when the referrals start going to their community mental health centers and people that are dealing with post traumatic stress disorder, they're dealing with anxiety, they're going through the grief process are we going to overwhelm that system?
Just as with 239 evacuees in Texas many of these are children in already overpopulated schools fighting budget problems. Where do we put the children? I mean as the Senator is saying it's so difficult to think about how many fingers this has into American society. ***
Larry King: Senator, do you want to comment on what Dr. Phil just said?
Sen. Obama: You know, I do think Dr. Phil made an important point. We already had tremendous strains on our school systems, on our health systems before the hurricane. You know one of the most profound things that was said to me while I was visiting the Astrodome, one of the women who were there said "You know, I had nothing before the hurricane. Now I have even less."
And I think that describes the state of a lot of folks that were displaced and one of the questions that we're going to have to ask ourselves as a country is how do we address the sense of abandonment that many of these communities felt even before this crisis and how are we going to start getting serious about making sure that children have opportunity?
How are we going to make sure that we're serious about a health care system that can accommodate all people? This compounds those problems and they're going to be born not just in Louisiana and Mississippi but surrounding states like Arkansas and Texas who are going to be tested to the breaking point. ***Larry King: Senator Obama thanks for joining us. We'll be calling on your again, always good seeing you.
Sen. Obama: Wonderful to talk to you, Larry. Thank you.
Larry King: Senator Barack Obama. We'll be right back with more. Don't go away.
Take a look at "Inarguable Failure" and "Beleaguered Bush".
House and Senate lawmakers said they will proceed with a package of $70 billion in tax cuts and $35 billion in entitlement spending cuts, including as much as $10 billion out of a Medicaid program they simultaneously were suggesting expanding.It seems that if the D.C. Republicans were actually concerned about living within their budget they could roll back some of the last four years' tax cuts for the hyper-rich.Before Katrina struck, the House and Senate were at loggerheads over an energy and water spending plan for the fiscal year that begins in October, with the Senate hoping to spend $700 million more than the House on water projects, including $27 million more on flood control in southeastern Louisiana and $20 million more on Louisiana coastal protection. House Appropriations Committee spokesman John Scofield said the committee has received no instructions to budge: "We are committed to living within our budget."
Two photos taken on the same day last week -- one of a grieving New Orleans survivor, the other of President Bush in flagrante photo opp in San Diego. Photoshopped together, they reveal what the horrific scene at the Superdome might have looked like had the president actually shown up there.
But as we all know, Mr. Bush doesn't read newspapers.In an era of tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush consistently slashed the Army Corps of Engineers' funding requests to improve the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain. This year, he asked for $3.9 million, $23 million less than the Corps requested. In the end, Bush reluctantly agreed to $5.7 million, delaying seven contracts, including one to enlarge the New Orleans levees. Former Republican congressman Michael Parker was forced out as the head of the Corps by Bush in 2002 when he dared to protest the lack of proper funding.
Similarly, the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which is supposed to improve drainage and pumping systems in the New Orleans area, recently asked for $62.5 million; the White House proposed $10.5 million. ***
In the ABC interview, he said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Even the most cursory review shows that there have been comprehensive and chilling warnings of a potential calamity on the Gulf Coast for years. The most telling, but hardly the only, example was a five-part series in 2002 by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
I am shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find Halliburton profiting off this catastrophe.Perhaps no city in the United States is in a better spot than Houston to turn Katrina's tragedy into opportunity. And businesses here are already scrambling to profit in the hurricane's aftermath.
Oil services companies based here are racing to carry out repairs to damaged offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico; the promise of plenty of work to do sent shares in two large companies, Halliburton and Baker Hughes, soaring to 52-week highs last week.
"When I heard that there was a 'crowd' at the Convention Center, naturally I assumed that meant 'three.'"And a cartoon here.
"You tell me how are we supposed to airlift supplies to the victims. By some sort of magic bird? Please…"
"Whatever the criticisms and the after-action report may be about what was right and what was wrong looking back, what would be a horrible tragedy would be to distract ourselves by my spending time playing spin control on ‘Meet the Press’ rather than addressing the catastrophe. Oh, wait…"
"If these people are so ill then why do they all look a lot healthier than me?"
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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, 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. ***
At the rescue headquarters, Deamonte volunteered his vital statistics. He said his father was tall and his mother was short. He gave his address, his phone number and the name of his elementary school.
He said the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment building.
The children were clean and healthy--downright plump in the case of the infant, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she said, that "time had been taken with those kids." ***
Deamonte began to give more details to Derrick Robertson, a 27-year-old Big Buddy mentor: How he saw his mother cry when he was loaded onto the helicopter. How he promised her he would take care of his little brother.
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By dooming the DuPage Theatre, Lombard has taken a giant step towards becoming "Villa Park West."For the historic DuPage Theatre, it seems all that's left to do is wait for the wrecking ball.
Stunning a standing-room only crowd Thursday night, the Lombard Village Board voted 4-2 to reject $1.3 million in committed federal and state funds. They'll now accept bids to demolish the theater. ***
"I think it's reached the level of public rancor where people have dug in and it's not reasonable," said David Bahlman, president of the landmarks council.
"Legislators, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and, to a certain extent, the LCPI, all of the advocates from outside of the community are trying to tell them what to do," Bahlman said. "And I think they're reacting with kind of an `it's our town. It's our property. We don't want anyone telling us what to do.'"
Is there a member of this family that can keep from giggling while talking about the utter destruction of a U.S. city and the horror that visted its citizens?In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."
Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them."
From selltheranch.com:You've said that you communicate with God, that you talk to Jesus. So what would Jesus do? Would not Jesus Christ sell one of his luxury homes to help the indigent, huddled masses yearning to breathe free? At auction, your Ranch would fetch at least a couple million dollars. Would Jesus not donate that money to the poor and starving?Note: As the son of a cowboy, I must point out that Bush's Crawford home is not a ranch. Ranches have cattle.
West's new album is available here.A week after being hailed as "the smartest man in pop music" on the cover of Time magazine, and four days after the release of his second album "Late Registration," which is expected to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart tomorrow with sales of nearly a million copies, West appeared beside comedian Mike Myers as one of several entertainers who urged Americans to donate to relief efforts during a telethon broadcast live on NBC and its affiliated networks Friday night.
West did not perform, nor did he deliver the statement that had been written for him, which visibly shocked Myers. Instead, in a nervous and emotional voice, the 28-year-old rapper first criticized the media's portrayal of African Americans in the devastated city of New Orleans and the warnings issued by President Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco that looters would be shot on sight.
"I hate the way they portray us in the media," West said. "If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food. ... They've given them permission to go down and shoot us." ***
West emerged as its new political firebrand, with a larger audience and more access to the mainstream than any rapper since Public Enemy's Chuck D, who declared in the late '80s that rap music "is the black CNN."
Like Chuck D, West grew up in a middle-class family that did not turn its back on the harsh realities of life in the ghetto but viewed political action and education as the paths to reform. His mother, Donda West, recently retired as chairwoman of the English Department at Chicago State University. His father, Ray West, is a former Black Panther active in the South Shore neighborhood, now serving as a Christian marriage counselor.
Unlike Public Enemy, which was famously criticized for embracing some of the anti-Semitic views of the Nation of Islam, West's beliefs reflect those of millions of mainstream Americans strong on family values, the merits of hard work and Christian teachings. Indeed, the message of "Jesus Walks," the phenomenal hit from his 2004 album "The College Dropout," is that anything is possible with the help of Christ, a theme that allies him with many of Bush's core supporters.
But Friday, West's statements were much closer to those being made by critics of the Bush administration from across the racial and political spectra. And while he is being criticized by many on the right -- and will no doubt pay a price with some lost album sales and less radio play in more conservative markets -- he did Americans a service by putting the issue on the table for national debate.
There may be no better way to explain the desperation on the city's ravaged streets than this: In the past few days, two police officers took their own lives and dozens have turned in their badges.Let us all hope that, when the immediate crisis in New Orleans is over, these brave men and women will get the appreciation -- and help -- they deserve.
New Orleans Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley on Sunday identified two officers who committed suicide as Sgt. Paul Accardo, the department's spokesman, and Patrolman Lawrence Celestine. He called both "outstanding cops" and friends.
"Both of them," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Used their own guns."
Several dozen of the city's 1,600 police officers have failed to report for duty, and some have turned in their badges.
Published reports put the number as high as 200, but Riley declined to comment on those figures, saying more than 100 officers may have been trapped in their own homes or unable to reach command centers.
"We just don't know," he said, standing outside a downtown command center set up in the driveway of Harrah's casino. ***
"The most stressing part is seeing the citizens we serve every day being treated like refugees," Riley said. "There were cops walking through the crowd at the convention center and people were coming up to beg for food. Not being able to help is a difficult thing. People were calling our names because we know them and to not be able to help, man, that's stressful."
Yup, there is no one who embodies continuity like Denny.House Speaker Dennis Hastert's retirement, already delayed by a plea from President Bush to stick around, could be put on hold permanently if Democrats get their way, we hear.
Top Republican insiders say that the Illinois lawmaker, who has pledged to stay until 2008, will be urged to continue if New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton gets the party's presidential nomination, as many expect.
"We'll need continuity if she's president," said a key GOP strategist. "We'll need our side organized to fight."
via talkleft
Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.
What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.
For the benefit of the mathematically challenged among us, let me point out that a plan's 0.5% failure rate means that, over time, the plan will fail 1 out of 200 times. In other words, a 1 in 200 chance of the catastrophic destruction of U.S. city is an acceptable risk to the Bush administration.Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the [Army Corps of Engineers] commander, conceded Friday that the government had known the New Orleans levees could never withstand a hurricane higher than a Category 3. Corps officials shuddered, he said, when they realized that Katrina was barreling down on the Gulf Coast with the vastly greater destructive force of a Category 5 --— the strongest type of hurricane.
Washington, he said, had rolled the dice.
Rather than come up with the extra millions of dollars needed to make the city safer, officials believed that such a devastating storm was a small probability and that, with the level of protection that had been funded, "99.5% of the time this would work."
Unfortunately, Strock said, "we did not address the 0.5%."
While federal and state emergency planners scramble to get more military relief to Gulf Coast communities stricken by Hurricane Katrina, a massive naval goodwill station has been cruising offshore, underused and waiting for a larger role in the effort.One of the great things about the men and women in the military is their willingness to follow orders.
The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore.
The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents.But now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven't been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize the ship. ***
"Could we do more?" said Capt. Nora Tyson, commander of the Bataan. "Sure. I've got sailors who could be on the beach plucking through garbage or distributing water and food and stuff. But I can't force myself on people.
"We're doing everything we can to contribute right now, and we're ready. If someone says you need to take on people, we're ready. If they say hospitals on the beach can't handle it ... if they need to send the overflow out here, we're ready. We've got lots of room." ***
"It was a disappointment," Fish said. "I figured we would be a big help in New Orleans. We've got electricity, and the police could have charged up their radios. We've got water, toilets. We've got food."
"However, experts for years had warned of threat to New Orleans."These lying fools cannot be allowed to remain in charge of America's disaster relief while international terrorists continue to threaten our nation.
"But in fact, government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years."
"But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail."
"But New Orleans, state and federal officials have long painted a very different picture."
"But Chertoff seemed unaware of all the warnings."
"But the National Weather Service prediction proved almost perfect."
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.It seems that the people of New Orleans could have used more "extreme acts of looting."
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. ***
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."
And what does Mr. Bush think of the work of his FEMA director?The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster. ***
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.
"He was asked to resign," Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.
Despite the withering criticism and a promised congressional investigation of FEMA's performance, Brown still has the support of his most important constituent.A "heck of a job" making people's lives hell.
In Mobile, Ala., on Friday, Bush said the response to Katrina was unsatisfactory. But he had nothing but praise for his FEMA director. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the president said.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert opposed calling Congress back into session to pass a relief package for Katrina victims:A wise man once told me: "A man's schedule is a reflection of his priorities, and his priorities are a reflection of his values."[Hastert spokesman Ron] Bonjean said calling Members back to town this week is not the best course of action.
One day later, as Carpetbagger pointed out, he was suddenly trying to take credit for the whole idea:
Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said [Hastert] is committed to helping the victims in the Gulf region.
“We’ve approached the Minority Leader [Pelosi] with a proposal to bring the House back into emergency session to pass emergency funding for Hurricane Katrina victims,” Bonjean said.
Today, the Washington Post reports that Hastert skipped out on the vote to attend a fundraiser and an antique car auction:
[After the vote, Hastert] issued a statement saying, “Our prayers and sympathies continue to be with the victims of Hurricane Katrina. In times like these, it is more important than ever for Americans to stand united in helping our fellow citizens.”
But there was one problem: Hastert was not in Washington, and his top lieutenants had to oversee the vote. He was in Indiana attending a colleague’s fundraiser, staff members said, and he later attended an antique car auction.
By 4 p.m., Hastert had reached the Capitol, eager to explain his tardiness and to try again to show his solidarity with Katrina’s victims. The Indiana fundraiser, he told reporters, had been on his schedule “for a long, long time.”
The villain identified by the Bush defenders is Chicago rapper Kanye West.
Sept. 11 was an epochal event in American culture, so it's no surprise that it's everyone's favorite comparison to the destruction of New Orleans. But the more instructive analog is another great urban catastrophe in recent American history: The 1995 Chicago heat wave, when a blend of extreme weather, political mismanagement, and abandonment of vulnerable city residents resulted in the loss of water, widespread power outages, thousands of hospitalizations, and 739 deaths in a devastating week.This summer is the heat wave's 10th anniversary. Yet the event has been largely forgotten as government agencies charged with protecting Americans from disasters have ignored the lessons it offered — and people are dying on the Gulf Coast as a result.
and on and on and on and on...
The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast.
As New Orleans descended into anarchy, top Bush administration officials congratulated each other for jobs well done and spoke of water, food and troops pouring into the ravaged city. Television pictures told a different story.
"What it reminded me of the other day is 'Baghdad Bob' saying there are no Americans at the airport," said Rich Galen, a Republican consultant in Washington. He was referring to Saddam Hussein's reality-challenged minister of information who denied the existence of U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital.
To some critics, President Bush seemed to deny the existence of problems with hurricane relief this week. He waited until Friday to acknowledged that "the results are not acceptable," and even then the president parsed his words. ***
One reason the public relations effort backfired on Bush is that Americans have seen it before.
On Iraq alone, the rhetoric has repeatedly fallen far short of reality. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. The mission wasn't accomplished in May 2003. Most allies avoided the hard work of his "coalition of the willing." And dozens of U.S. soldiers have died since Vice President Dick Cheney declared that insurgents were in their "last throes."
Bush often touts the health of the U.S. economy, which is fair game because many indicators point in that direction. But the public doesn't share his rosy view. The global economy had most Americans worried about job and pension security even before rising gas added to their anxieties.
Bush's spokesman said anybody involved in leaking the identity of a CIA agent would be fired, but no action has been taken against officials accused of doing so.
The president himself promised to fully pay for his school reform plan and strip pork-barrel spending from a major highway bill. The school money fell short. The pork thrived.
The list goes on.
The AP may not approve of West's statement, but his "rant" -- perhaps not "dignified" -- was certainly "heartfelt.""A Concert for Hurricane Relief," a heartfelt and dignified benefit aired on NBC and other networks Friday night, took an unexpected turn thanks to the outspoken rapper Kanye West. Appearing two-thirds through the program, he claimed "George Bush doesn't care about black people" and said America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible." ***
Comedian Mike Myers was paired with West for a 90-second segment that began with Myers speaking of Katrina's devastation. Then, to Myers' evident surprise, West began a rant by saying, "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food."
While allowing that "the Red Cross is doing everything they can," West - who delivered an emotional outburst at the American Music Awards after he was snubbed for an award - declared that government authorities are intentionally dragging their feet on aid to the Gulf Coast. Without getting specific, he added, "They've given them permission to go down and shoot us."
After he stated, "George Bush doesn't care about black people. Please call _" the camera cut away to comedian Chris Tucker.
Concluding the hour a few minutes later, Lauer noted that "emotions in this country right now are running very high. Sometimes that emotion is translated into inspiration, sometimes into criticism. We've heard some of that tonight. But it's still part of the American way of life."
At midday, the evacuation [of the New Orleans Superdome] was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line - much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the stinking Superdome since Sunday.By the way, that story is also from the AP.
"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.
The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, next to the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome.
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. Here's what they had to say.
U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) called the Federal Emergency Management Agency "completely dysfunctional" and "completely ineffective."It just wasn't predictable to anyone in George "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" Bush's administration.
Vitter used harsher language than President Bush, who this morning called federal relief efforts since the storm struck Monday "not acceptable" before leaving for a tour of the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast.
The senator joined New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and others in saying the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.
Vitter said his personal estimate of deaths in Louisiana was 10,000, with the "great majority" of fatalities in New Orleans. The senator rated FEMA's performance "an F, or whatever the grade level is below that."
"I think FEMA has been completely dysfunctional, and I don't understand it because the (hurricane) scenario is completely predictable," he said. "It seems like there has been no coherent plan, and I don't understand, because there has been plans for this scenario for 20 years."
When asked about the difficulties repairing vast sections of broken levees, Vitter said, "Every one of those complications was predictable."
Frustration about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina has reached Chicago City Hall, as Mayor Richard Daley today noted a tepid response by federal officials to the city's offers of disaster aid.
The city is willing to send hundreds of personnel, including firefighters and police, and dozens of vehicles to assist on the storm-battered Gulf Coast, but so far the Federal Emergency Management Agency has requested only a single tank truck, Daley said.
"I was shocked," he said.
"We are ready to provide considerably more help than they have requested," the mayor said, barely able to contain his anger during a City Hall news conference. "We are just waiting for the call."
"Why are these helicopters being used as a backdrop for President Bush, instead of assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina?"
Emphatically stressed a "zero tolerance" stance against looters or any African-American caught with a sandwich.In a fight like that, you don't root for a winner -- you just give 'em both a knife.[M]any readers weighed in, with varying degrees of puzzlement or malice, over the big sigh of relief I heaved Wednesday that the French Quarter wasn't destroyed by Katrina. And while I admit that my whoop of joy rang hollow in light of the devastation caused by the failing levees, I do stand by it. The city could have been blown over before it flooded, and that would make things much, much worse. At least people had roofs to crawl onto.
True, my comments would not have had such an upbeat tone had I been soaking up the disaster on TV instead of working, though I doubt I could have produced the ululating wail of feigned grief emitted by the Tribune's fraud-in-residence, John Kass, who lovingly imagined what the carnage might have been like -- just as he likes to conjure up porkpie-hatted toughs with pinkie rings slouching around City Hall -- before keening for residents of a place he passed through once years ago on a teenage boating lark and never felt the need to visit again for the rest of his life.
Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr., (R-La.), said he spent the past 48 hours urging the Bush administration to send help. "I started making calls and trying to impress upon the White House and others that something needed to be done," he said. "The state resources were being overwhelmed, and we needed direct federal assistance, command and control, and security -- all three of which are lacking."I'm looking forward to a future Kass column in which he explains how it's all the fault of Bill Clinton.
Robert Siegel: We are hearing from our reporter, heÂ’s on another line right now, thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans with no food, zero.Maybe that is because the Homeland Security Secretary has spent the whole day in front of a micrdesperatelyparately trying to convince the American people that the Bush administration is "doing everything humanly possible", instead of actually managing the rescue and recovery of New Orleans.
Chertoff: As I said, IÂ’m telling you we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging. The one about an episode like this is if you talk to someone or you get a rumor or an anecdotal version of something I think itÂ’s dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place.
[Snip]
Robert Siegel: But Mr. Secretary when you say we shouldnÂ’t listen to rumors. These are things coming from reporters who have not only covered many many other hurricanes, theyÂ’ve covered wars and refugee camps. These arenÂ’t rumors, they are saying there are thousands of people there.
Chertoff: I would beÂ…I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who donÂ’t have food and water.
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.Mike Parker is a former Republican congressman.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.
"I'm not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now."
Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water after Katrina blew through with much of the flooding coming after two levees broke.
But the Tribune's John Kass informs us that only American-hating anti-Semites would ask such uncouth questions.Quoth a top Sneed source who has lived in Cuba on and off for 20 years, and who asked to remain anonymous: "I detest Fidel Castro, but I will tell you this. When a hurricane is approaching Cuba, Castro has set up a system to bus everybody out of harm's way before disaster hits.
"We knew the hurricane was going to hit New Orleans and Mississippi hard. Why didn't we send buses in to get the poor people out before disaster hit? We spend millions on recovery and rescue AFTERWARDS . . . when we could have alleviated so much death BEFORE?"
You may want to bookmark this website: ChicagoGasPrices.comConsumers can expect retail gas prices to rise to $4 a gallon soon, but whether they stay there depends on the long-term damage to oil facilities from Hurricane Katrina, oil and gas analysts said Wednesday.
"There's no question gas will hit $4 a gallon," Ben Brockwell, director of pricing at the Oil Price Information Service, said. "The question is how high will it go and how long will it last?"
