Friday, September 30, 2005

The Way It Is

New York Times, The (NY)
September 30, 2005
Author: PAUL KRUGMAN


Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange
stock plunged. Two years ago, Mr. Frist claimed that he did not even know if he owned HCA stock.

According to a new U.S. government index, the effect of greenhouse gases is up 20 percent since 1990.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a 33-year-old Wall Street insider with little experience in regulation but close ties to drug firms, was made a deputy commissioner at the F.D.A. in July. (This story, picked up by Time magazine, was originally reported by Alicia Mundy of The Seattle Times.)

The Artic ice cap is shrinking at an alarming rate.

Two of the three senior positions at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are vacant. The third is held by Jonathan Snare, a former lobbyist. Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group, reports that he worked on efforts to keep ephedra, a dietary supplement that was banned by the F.D.A., legal.

According to France's finance minister, Alan Greenspan told him that the United States had "lost control" of its budget deficit.

David Safavian is a former associate of Jack Abramoff, the recently indicted lobbyist. Mr. Safavian oversaw U.S. government procurement policy at the White House Office of Management and Budget until his recent arrest.

When Senator James Inhofe, who has called scientific research on global warming "a gigantic hoax," called a hearing to attack that research, his star witness was Michael Crichton, the novelist.

Mr. Safavian is charged with misrepresenting his connections with lobbyists -- specifically, Mr. Abramoff -- while working at the General Services Administration. A key event was a lavish golfing trip to Scotland in 2002, mostly paid for by a charity Mr. Abramoff controlled. Among those who went on the trip was Representative Bob Ney of Ohio.

It's not possible to attribute any one weather event to global warming. But climate models show that global warming will lead to increased hurricane intensity, and some research indicates that this is already occurring.

Tyco paid $2 million, most going to firms controlled by Mr. Abramoff, as part of its successful effort to preserve tax advantages it got from shifting its legal home to Bermuda. Timothy Flanigan, a general counsel at Tyco, has been nominated for the second-ranking Justice Department post.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is awash in soldiers and police. Nonetheless, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Blackwater USA, a private security firm with strong political connections, to provide armed guards.

Mr. Abramoff was indicted last month on charges of fraud relating to his purchase of SunCruz, a casino boat operation. Mr. Ney inserted comments in the Congressional Record attacking SunCruz's original owner, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, placing pressure on him to sell to Mr. Abramoff and his partner, Adam Kidan, and praised Mr. Kidan's character.

James Schmitz, who resigned as the Pentagon's inspector general amid questions about his performance, has been hired as Blackwater's chief operating officer.

Last week three men were arrested in connection with the gangland-style murder of Mr. Boulis. SunCruz, after it was controlled by Mr. Kidan and Mr. Abramoff, paid a company controlled by one of the men arrested, Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello, and his daughter $145,000 for catering and other work. In court documents, questions are raised about whether food and drink were ever provided. SunCruz paid $95,000 to a company in which one of the other men arrested, Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari, is a principal.

Iraq's oil production remains below prewar levels. The Los Angeles Times reports that mistakes by U.S. officials and a Halliburton subsidiary, which was given large no-bid reconstruction contracts, may have permanently damaged Iraq's oilfields.

Tom DeLay, who stepped down as House majority leader after his indictment, once called Mr. Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends." Mr. Abramoff funneled funds from clients to conservative institutions and causes. The Washington Post reported that associates of Mr. DeLay claim that he severed the relationship after Mr. Boulis's murder.

Public health experts warn that the U.S. would be dangerously unprepared for an avian flu pandemic.

As Walter Cronkite used to say, That's the way it is.


Edition: Late Edition - Final
Section: Editorial Desk
Page: 31
Index Terms: Op-Ed
Copyright (c) 2005 The New York Times Company
Record Number: 2005-09-30-953512

*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Thursday, September 29, 2005

DeLay ordered to appear in Court Oct. 21st. His lawyers don't want him in cuffs! loL!

DeLay Court Appearance Set for Late Oct.


Thursday September 29, 2005 8:31 PM

By SUZANNE GAMBOA

Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A Texas judge on Thursday ordered Republican Rep. Tom DeLay to appear in court next month to face the charge that he conspired to funnel corporate money to state political campaigns.

The summons calls for DeLay to appear in the court in Austin on . Oct. 21, court officials said.

A grand jury indicted DeLay and reindicted two of his associates Wednesday in an investigation of a political fundraising group DeLay founded, Texans for a Republican Majority.

Prosecutors allege the group was used to channel corporate contributions to 2002 GOP legislative candidates. Texas law bans corporate contributions in political campaigns, except for administrative expenses.

DeLay was forced to surrender his job as House majority leader, the second ranking post in the House, for now.

DeLay's lawyers have said they do not want him to be handcuffed, photographed and fingerprinted when he appears in Austin.


*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

There IS a God!! (Apple Cider and popcorn party time!!)

TOM DELAY INDICTED!!!

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

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.

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.

"I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today," DeLay said.

The White House, meanwhile, called DeLay a "good ally," and said President Bush still considered DeLay a friend and effective leader in Congress.

GOP congressional officials said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., will recommend that Rep. David Dreier (news, bio, voting record) of California step into those duties. Some of the duties may go to the GOP whip, Rep. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri. The Republican rank and file may meet as early as Wednesday night to act on Hastert's recommendation.

Criminal conspiracy is a state felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The potential two-year sentence forces DeLay to step down under House Republican rules.

At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the president still considers DeLay "a good ally, a leader who we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people."

"I think the president's view is that we need to let the legal process work," McClellan said.

*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

From Capitol Hill Blue

The Rant
Dangers of a Drunk Dubya
By DOUG THOMPSON
Sep 23, 2005, 08:39

According to the National Enquirer, President George W. Bush, an alcoholic, is drinking again.

In normal times, such a story in a tabloid like the Enquirer would be dismissed as just another fantasy for the newspaper that normally devotes its front page to gossip about celebrity divorces. But an America with Bush as President is anything but normal and too many warning signs point to the sad fact that Dubya the drunk is back on the bottle. Plus we reported the same thing in a story about Bush’s temper tirades on August 25.

Like the President, I’m a recovering alcoholic. Unlike him, I’ve been sober for 11 years, three months and 16 days. Bush says he quit drinking without help from any organized program. I had a lot of help – from family, friends and Alcoholics Anonymous. As an alcoholic, I can say without hesitation that available evidence tells me that Bush is drinking and drinking heavily.

The signs have been there for too long. Bush fell off a couch after, his aides say, “falling asleep.” He has appeared in public with bruises on his face, the kind of injuries a person would suffer from falling in alcohol-impaired conditions. He disappears from public view for extended periods, takes more vacations than other Presidents, has trouble forming words, appears disinterested in public and mangles his sentences. In other appearances he rambles and appears unable to focus. During the Katrina crisis he displayed little emotion or compassion when confronted with the horrors along the Gulf Coast.

This web site reported last year that the White House physician had placed the President on anti-depressants. If Bush is mixing alcohol and anti-depressant drugs his judgment – which is already suspect – is impaired even more.

“The President all too often is out of control,” a White House source tells me. “People are afraid to risk his anger by telling him things he does not want to hear. Newsweek magazine reported the same thing last week in their story: “How Bush Blew It.”

The Enquirer interviewed Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President.

“I do think that Bush is drinking again,” Frank said. “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.”

Dr. Frank is a highly-respected psychiatrist at George Washington University and his book about the President’s problems has been praised by other psychiatric experts. We interviewed him last year for the stories about the President’s deteriorating mental state and his conclusions confirm Bush is losing it.

White House aides tell me rumors about the President’s drinking began circulating last year in the West Wing along with questions about possible abuse of prescription drugs. They report wide mood swings, cancelled meetings and an ever-decreasing number of aides with direct access to Bush.

“Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office,” Dr. Frank told us in August. “Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state.”

It’s scary enough to have a nutcase in the White House. It’s even scarier to think that nutcase may be drunk.

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

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*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<>
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Friday :: Sep 23, 2005
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005541.php

Top Republican Tells Post: Laura Has Taken Away Bush's Swagger



The vultures, aye, the vultures....

A Washington Post Page One story in Saturday's edition tells us that Bush's trip to Northern Command this weekend is
designed to help Bush look like he is in command once again while trying to regain his swagger. But we also
get these money paragraphs, which tell you everything:


  • (A) growing number of Republicans inside and out of the White House have noticed an administration less
    sure-footed     and slower to react to the political environment surrounding them. A top Republican
    close
    to the White House since the earliest days said the absence of a "reelection
    target"
    and pressure from     first lady Laura Bush and others to soften his
    second-term
    tone conspired to temper     Bush's swagger well before Katrina hit.

  • "A reelection campaign was always the driving principle to force them to get things together," said the GOP operative, who would speak candidly about Bush only if his name was not used. He said the "brilliance of this team" was always overstated. "Part of the reason they looked so good is Democrats were so discombobulated. Since the election, this official said, White House aides reported that Laura Bush was among those counseling Bush to change his cowbo image during the final four years.
  • William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, said the psychological turnabout started with the failed Social Security
    campaign,     billed as the number one domestic priority six months ago.
    "The negative effect of the Social Security [campaign] is     underestimated," Kristol said. "Once you make that kind of mistake, people tend to be less deferential to your decisions." This coincided with a growing number of Republicans losing faith in Bush's war plan, as Republicans such as Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Lindsey O.Graham
    (S.C.)     openly questioned the president's strategy.
  • In a series of private conversations over the past few months, aides began second-guessing how they handled the Social Security debate, managed the public perception of the Iraq war and, most recently, the response to Katrina. The federal CIA leak investigation, which has forced Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and others to testify before a grand jury seemed to distract officials and left a general feeling of unease, two aides said. Aides were calling reporters to find out what was happening with Rove and the investigation. "Nobody knows what's going to happen with the probe," on senior aide said.

Hell, the press is making Bush out to be a cartoon character who needs to go to a military base to regain his image, while top Republicans are openly blaming Laura Bush for neutering her husband. To top it off, and as we have been saying for awhile now, this same top Republican says that team around Bush was never really that good to begin with; they only appeared good

because the Democrats were so worthless.Bigfooter Kristol now says what we knew months ago: if you could stop Bush on Social Security, and were able to mix that with growing unease over Iraq, then his first term signature event and his second term priority would both drag him down. Add to that the uncertainty over Plame, and what you get is the typical second term banana peel. And now it's happened. It must be fun around the house now, with a top Republican saying openly that Laura's got Bush's balls


in her pocket. If Skippy wasn't drinking before, he is now.

Steve Soto :: 10:58 PM :: Comments
(51) :: TrackBack
(2)





Posted by at

Monday, September 19, 2005

Deadline Hollywood

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/43/deadline-finke.php

They Shoot News Anchors, Don’t They?

Media moguls, not looters, killed Katrina’s truth tellers

by NIKKI FINKE

At first, only CNN appeared not to have thoroughly read the proverbial memo. It was the only network, on air and on its Web site, to compare and contrast the wildly contradictory statements by federal, state and local officials, sometimes within hours, but often within minutes of each other. It was CNN that posted the first full transcript of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s profanity- and passion-filled September 2 interview on local radio. It was also CNN that first exposed the gruesome nature of the conditions at the Superdome, at the convention center and in the hospital corridors. Its broadcasters were the first to keep a heart-wrenching online blog during Katrina. Even as late as September 6, political correspondent Ed Henry was the first to counter the claims by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that local officials and not the feds were to blame, by reporting that congressional Republicans, in a secret confab, were giving the Bush administration a big fat F.

Then the fix was in.

On September 8, CNN anchorette Kyra Phillips was chewing into House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for “continuing to criticize the administration, and criticize the director of FEMA... I think it’s unfair that FEMA is just singled out. There are so many people responsible for what has happened in the state of Louisiana.”

Instead of smiling through clenched teeth, the San Francisco Democrat bit back: “I’m sorry that you think it’s unfair. But I don’t . . . If you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll.”

By September 12, even the White House admitted that FEMA had been its own disaster area by pushing out its Arabian-horseman-turned-jackass head, Michael Brown. (Bush finally admitted on Tuesday that the buck was going to stop with him whether he liked it or not. “To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” he said.) That same day, CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, announced the hiring of DeLay’s chief of staff as a top Washington lobbyist. This news, and its timing, prompted Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy to tell the L.A. Weekly: “Time Warner aligning itself with the right-wing DeLay machine should send shudders [down] CNN and HBO. Clearly, TW wants DeLay insurance so it won’t have to face cable-ownership safeguards, à la carte rules and broadband non-discrimination policies.”

For the first 120 hours after Hurricane Katrina, TV journalists were let off their leashes by their mogul owners, the result of a rare conjoining of flawless timing (summer’s biggest vacation week) and foulest tragedy (America’s worst natural disaster). All of a sudden, broadcasters narrated disturbing images of the poor, the minority, the aged, the sick and the dead, and discussed complex issues like poverty, race, class, infirmity and ecology that never make it on the air in this swift-boat/anti-gay-marriage/Michael Jackson media-sideshow era. So began a perfect storm of controversy.

Contrary to the scripture so often quoted in these areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, the TV newscasters knew the truth, but the truth did not set them free. Because once the crisis point had passed, most TV journalists went back to business-as-usual, their choke chains yanked by no-longer-inattentive parent-company bosses who, fearful of fallout from fingering Dubya for the FEMA fuckups, decided yet again to sacrifice community need for corporate greed. Too quickly, Katrina’s wake was spun into a web of deceit by the Bush administration, then disseminated by the Big Media boys’ club. (Karl Rove spent the post-hurricane weekend conjuring up ways to shift blame.)


If big media look like they’re propping up W’s presidency, they are. Because doing so is good for corporate coffers — in the form of government contracts, billion-dollar tax breaks, regulatory relaxations and security favors. At least that wily old codger Sumner Redstone, head of Viacom, parent company of CBS, has admitted what everyone already knows is true: that, while he personally may be a Democrat, “It happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one.”

When it comes to NBC’s parent company, GE’s No. 1 and No. 2, Jeffrey Immelt and Bob Wright, are avowed Republicans, as are Time Warner’s Dick Parsons (CNN) and News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (Fox News Channel). (Forget that Murdoch’s No. 2, Peter Chernin, and Redstone’s co–No. 2, Les Moonves, are avowed Democrats — it’s meaningless because Murdoch and Redstone are the owners.)

Once upon a time, large corporations and their executives typically avoided any public discussion of their politics because partisan positions alienated customers and employees. But all of that changed after GE bought NBC in 1986. For seemingly eons, Immelt’s predecessor, the legendary Jack Welch, was a rabid right-winger who boasted openly about helping turn former liberals Chris Matthews and Tim Russert into neocons. (And Los Angeles Representative Henry Waxman is still waiting for GE to turn over those in-house tapes that would prove once and for all whether Welch, in 2000, ordered his network and cable stations to reverse course and call the election for Bush instead of Gore.)

As for Immelt, he publicly wishes his MSNBC could be a clone of FNC. Not surprising, since he let his network and cable news cheerlead the run-up to the Iraqi war without ever bothering to tell viewers GE had billions in contracts pending. More than half of Iraq’s power grid is GE technology. It was also under Immelt that GE installed a former adviser to W and Condi, who also served as press secretary to former first lady Barbara “Let ’em eat cake” Bush, as NBC Universal’s executive vice president of communications.

And let’s not forget that in October 2004, the Republican-controlled House and Senate and White House okayed a $137 billion corporate-tax bill — dubbed “No Lobbyist Left Behind” — that gave a huge $8 billion tax break to GE, which had bankrolled a record $17 million lobbying effort for it. (Meanwhile, in that same bill, House Republicans at the last minute stripped the movie studios of about $1 billion worth of tax credits because of Hollywood’s near-constant support of the Democratic Party and its candidates.)

Disney, parent company of ABC, has turned most of its extensive radio network and owned-and-operated stations into a 24/7 orgy of right-wing talk. (Sean Hannity is their poster boy.) Disney’s chief lobbyist, Preston Padden, is not only one of Washington, D.C.’s most infamous Republican lobbyists, but he used to work for Rupert Murdoch. Bush even pleaded just days after 9/11 for Americans to “go down to Disney World in Florida.” Meanwhile, Disney World has benefited from special security measures, including extra protection and a federally declared “no-flyover zone.” And let’s not forget that Michael Eisner pulled the distribution plug on Fahrenheit 9/11.

As for Rupert Murdoch, his News Corp. continues to defy a July 2001 FCC order requiring it to divest itself of a TV station in exchange for the agency’s approval to buy 10 TV stations from Chris-Craft Industries Inc. for $5.4 billion. What, Rupert worry? This W cheerleader can rest assured that the FCC will amend its prohibition on owning broadcast outlets and newspapers in the same market.

And lest anyone think there’s no connection between Murdoch’s business and editorial, several news organizations have noticed a détente between the New York Post and Senator Hillary Clinton because Rupert needs congressional Democrats on News Corp.’s side to oppose a change in the Nielsen ratings that could harm its TV stations.


Given all of the above, it comes as no surprise that, as early as that first Saturday, certainly by Sunday, inevitably by Monday, and no later than Tuesday, the post-Katrina images and issues were heavily weighted once again toward the power brokers and the predictable. The angry black guys were gone, and the lying white guys were back, hogging all the TV airtime. So many congressional Republicans were lined up on air to denounce the “blame-Bush game” — all the while decrying the Louisiana Democrats-in-charge — that it could have been conga night at the Chevy Chase Country Club.

And the attitudes of some TV personalities did a dramatic 180.

At MSNBC, right-winger Joe Scarborough had looked genuinely disgusted for a few days by the death and destruction that went unrelieved around him in Biloxi, even daring to demand answers from Bush on down. But Scarborough was back to his left-baiting self in short order. Inside FNC’s studio, conservative crank Sean Hannity had been rendered somewhat speechless by the tragedy. Soon, he was back in full voice, barking at Shep Smith (who was still staking out that I-10 bridge and sympathizing with its thousands of refugees) to keep “perspective.” The Mississippi-bred Smith boomed back in his baritone, “This is perspective!”

FNC’s Bill O’Reilly, who spent last month verbally abusing the grieving mother of a dead Iraqi war soldier, then whiled away the early days of Katrina’s aftermath giving lip to New Orleans’ looters and shooters, eventually blamed the hurricane’s poorest victims for creating their situations and for even expecting any government help at all.

On NBC, Meet the Press host Tim Russert cut off Jefferson Parish’s Andre Broussard during one of TV’s most moving and memorable outpourings of emotion. Instead, to fill up airtime, Russert let Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour praise Bush’s response ad nauseam without reading back Barbour’s sharp criticism of the feds days earlier.

On MSNBC, Hardball’s hard-brained Chris Matthews chided viewers and guests alike not to talk about who’s to blame — unless it was Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco or Mayor Nagin. Interesting how Barbour’s state was also dehydrated and starving, but nobody on TV news blamed him, since he just happens to be a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

And Don Imus skewered Dubya’s “disgusting performance” at the start of his MSNBC TV show (simulcast on the Viacom/CBS-owned Infinity radio network) and then turned over just 24 hours later, directing blame at Mayor Nagin.

Meanwhile, the TV news situation is about to get worse. Incoming Disney CEO Bob Iger has tried repeatedly to dismantle Nightline for a mindless celeb talk show. And CBS chairman Les Moonves wants to reinvent TV news to be more like entertainment shows — as if it’s not that way already — hosted by even prettier people.

Of course, no one could have anticipated that, to their immense credit, TV’s prettiest-boy anchors (CNN’s Anderson Cooper and FNC’s Shep Smith and NBC’s Brian Williams) would be boldly and tearfully relating horror whenever and wherever they found it, no matter if the fault lay with Mother Nature or President Dubya. But the real test of pathos vs. profit is still before us: whether the TV newscasters will spend the fresh reservoir of trust earned with the public to not only rattle Bush’s cage but also battle their own bosses. If not, it won’t be long before TV truth telling will be muzzled permanently.

Email at nikkifinke@deadlinehollywood.com


*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<>
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Message: I Care About the Black Folks

By FRANK RICH

ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.

The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.

In the chaos unleashed by Katrina, these plot strands coalesced into a single tragic epic played out in real time on television. The narrative is just too powerful to be undone now by the administration's desperate recycling of its greatest hits: a return Sunshine Boys tour by the surrogate empathizers Clinton and Bush I, another round of prayers at the Washington National Cathedral, another ludicrously overhyped prime-time address flecked with speechwriters' "poetry" and framed by a picturesque backdrop. Reruns never eclipse a riveting new show.

Nor can the president's acceptance of "responsibility" for the disaster dislodge what came before. Mr. Bush didn't cough up his modified-limited mea culpa until he'd seen his whole administration flash before his eyes. His admission that some of the buck may stop with him (about a dime's worth, in Truman dollars) came two weeks after the levees burst and five years after he promised to usher in a new post-Clinton "culture of responsibility." It came only after the plan to heap all the blame on the indeed blameworthy local Democrats failed to lift Mr. Bush's own record-low poll numbers. It came only after America's highest-rated TV news anchor, Brian Williams, started talking about Katrina the way Walter Cronkite once did about Vietnam.

Taking responsibility, as opposed to paying lip service to doing so, is not in this administration's gene pool. It was particularly shameful that Laura Bush was sent among the storm's dispossessed to try to scapegoat the news media for her husband's ineptitude. When she complained of seeing "a lot of the same footage over and over that isn't necessarily representative of what really happened," the first lady sounded just like Donald Rumsfeld shirking responsibility for the looting of Baghdad. The defense secretary, too, griped about seeing the same picture "over and over" on television (a looter with a vase) to hide the reality that the Pentagon had no plan to secure Iraq, a catastrophic failure being paid for in Iraqi and American blood to this day.

This White House doesn't hate all pictures, of course. It loves those by Karl Rove's Imagineers, from the spectacularly lighted Statue of Liberty backdrop of Mr. Bush's first 9/11 anniversary speech to his "Top Gun" stunt to Thursday's laughably stagy stride across the lawn to his lectern in Jackson Square. (Message: I am a leader, not that vacationing slacker who first surveyed the hurricane damage from my presidential jet.)

The most odious image-mongering, however, has been Mr. Bush's repeated deployment of African-Americans as dress extras to advertise his "compassion." In 2000, the Republican convention filled the stage with break dancers and gospel singers, trying to dispel the memory of Mr. Bush's craven appearance at Bob Jones University when it forbade interracial dating. (The few blacks in the convention hall itself were positioned near celebrities so they'd show up in TV shots.) In 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site had a page titled "Compassion" devoted mainly to photos of the president with black people, Colin Powell included.

Some of these poses are re-enacted in the "Hurricane Relief" photo gallery currently on display on the White House Web site. But this time the old magic isn't working. The "compassion" photos are outweighed by the cinéma vérité of poor people screaming for their lives. The government effort to keep body recovery efforts in New Orleans as invisible as the coffins from Iraq was abandoned when challenged in court by CNN.

But even now the administration's priority of image over substance is embedded like a cancer in the Katrina relief process. Brazenly enough, Mr. Rove has been officially put in charge of the reconstruction effort. The two top deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns. Thus The Salt Lake Tribune discovered a week after the hurricane that some 1,000 firefighters from Utah and elsewhere were sent not to the Gulf Coast but to Atlanta, to be trained as "community relations officers for FEMA" rather than used as emergency workers to rescue the dying in New Orleans. When 50 of them were finally dispatched to Louisiana, the paper reported, their first assignment was "to stand beside President Bush" as he toured devastated areas.

The cashiering of "Brownie," whom Mr. Bush now purports to know as little as he did "Kenny Boy," changes nothing. The Knight Ridder newspapers found last week that it was the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, not Mr. Brown, who had the greater authority to order federal agencies into service without any request from state or local officials. Mr. Chertoff waited a crucial, unexplained 36 hours before declaring Katrina an "incident of national significance," the trigger needed for federal action. Like Mr. Brown, he was oblivious to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the convention center, confessing his ignorance of conditions there to NPR on the same day that the FEMA chief famously did so to Ted Koppel. Yet Mr. Bush's "culture of responsibility" does not hold Mr. Chertoff accountable. Quite the contrary: on Thursday the president charged Homeland Security with reviewing "emergency plans in every major city in America." Mr. Chertoff will surely do a heck of a job.

WHEN there's money on the line, cronies always come first in this White House, no matter how great the human suffering. After Katrina, the FEMA Web site directing charitable contributions prominently listed Operation Blessing, a Pat Robertson kitty that, according to I.R.S. documents obtained by ABC News, has given more than half of its yearly cash donations to Mr. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. If FEMA is that cavalier about charitable donations, imagine what it's doing with the $62 billion (so far) of taxpayers' money sent its way for Katrina relief. Actually, you don't have to imagine: we already know some of it was immediately siphoned into no-bid contracts with a major Republican donor, the Fluor Corporation, as well as with a client of the consultant Joe Allbaugh, the Bush 2000 campaign manager who ran FEMA for this White House until Brownie, Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate, was installed in his place.

It was back in 2000 that Mr. Bush, in a debate with Al Gore, bragged about his gubernatorial prowess "on the front line of catastrophic situations," specifically citing a Texas flood, and paid the Clinton administration a rare compliment for putting a professional as effective as James Lee Witt in charge of FEMA. Exactly why Mr. Bush would staff that same agency months later with political hacks is one of many questions that must be answered by the independent investigation he and the Congressional majority are trying every which way to avoid. With or without a 9/11-style commission, the answers will come out. There are too many Americans who are angry and too many reporters who are on the case. (NBC and CNN are both opening full-time bureaus in New Orleans.) You know the world has changed when the widely despised news media have a far higher approval rating (77 percent) than the president (46 percent), as measured last week in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Like his father before him, Mr. Bush has squandered the huge store of political capital he won in a war. His Thursday-night invocation of "armies of compassion" will prove as worthless as the "thousand points of light" that the first President Bush bestowed upon the poor from on high in New Orleans (at the Superdome, during the 1988 G.O.P. convention). It will be up to other Republicans in Washington to cut through the empty words and image-mongering to demand effective action from Mr. Bush on the Gulf Coast and in Iraq, if only because their own political lives are at stake. It's up to Democrats, though they show scant signs of realizing it, to step into the vacuum and propose an alternative to a fiscally disastrous conservatism that prizes pork over compassion. If the era of Great Society big government is over, the era of big government for special interests is proving a fiasco. Especially when it's presided over by a self-styled C.E.O. with a consistent three-decade record of running private and public enterprises alike into a ditch.

What comes next? Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do.


*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<>
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Bill Maher on Bush. Excellent!

Bill Maher on Bush:

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more.  There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that.  You can't start another war because you used up the army.  And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.  Listen to your Mom.  The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out.  No one's speaking to you.  Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away.  Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team.  It's time.  Time to move on and try the next fantasy job.  How about cowboy or space man?  Now I know what you're saying:  there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in.  Please don't.  I know, I know.  There's a lot left to do.  There's a war with Venezuela.  Eliminating the sales tax on yachts.  Turning the space program over to the church.  And Social Security to Fannie Mae.  Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now.  Why?  Because you govern like Billy Joel drives.  You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal.  You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.  Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans.  Maybe you're just not lucky.  I'm not saying you don't love this country.  I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you.  What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.'

 


*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
 
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
 
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
 
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
 
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

End of the Bush Era - Yee Ha, check popcorn stocks!

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/12/AR2005091201433.html
End of the Bush Era

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005; A27

The Bush Era is over. The sooner politicians in both parties realize that, the better for them -- and the country.

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush's government doesn't work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this.

The Bush Era did not begin when he took office, or even with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It began on Sept. 14, 2001, when Bush declared at the World Trade Center site: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Bush was, indeed, skilled in identifying enemies and rallying a nation already disposed to action. He failed to realize after Sept. 11 that it was not we who were lucky to have him as a leader, but he who was lucky to be president of a great country that understood the importance of standing together in the face of a grave foreign threat. Very nearly all of us rallied behind him.

If Bush had understood that his central task was to forge national unity, as he seemed to shortly after Sept. 11, the country would never have become so polarized. Instead, Bush put patriotism to the service of narrowly ideological policies and an extreme partisanship. He pushed for more tax cuts for his wealthiest supporters and shamelessly used relatively modest details in the bill creating a Department of Homeland Security as partisan cudgels in the 2002 elections.

He invoked our national anger over terrorism to win support for a war in Iraq. But he failed to pay heed to those who warned that the United States would need many more troops and careful planning to see the job through. The president assumed things would turn out fine, on the basis of wildly optimistic assumptions. Careful policymaking and thinking through potential flaws in your approach are not his administration's strong suits.

And so the Bush Era ended definitively on Sept. 2, the day Bush first toured the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina. There was no magic moment with a bullhorn. The utter failure of federal relief efforts had by then penetrated the country's consciousness. Yesterday's resignation of FEMA Director Michael Brown put an exclamation point on the failure.

The source of Bush's political success was his claim that he could protect Americans. Leadership, strength and security were Bush's calling cards. Over the past two weeks, they were lost in the surging waters of New Orleans.

But the first intimations of the end of the Bush Era came months ago. The president's post-election fixation on privatizing part of Social Security showed how out of touch he was. The more Bush discussed this boutique idea cooked up in conservative think tanks and Wall Street imaginations, the less the public liked it. The situation in Iraq deteriorated. The glorious economy Bush kept touting turned out not to be glorious for many Americans. The Census Bureau's annual economic report, released in the midst of the Gulf disaster, found that an additional 4.1 million Americans had slipped into poverty between 2001 and 2004.

The breaking of the Bush spell opens the way for leaders of both parties to declare their independence from the recent past. It gives forces outside the White House the opportunity to shape a more appropriate national agenda -- for competence and innovation in rebuilding the Katrina region and for new approaches to the problems created over the past 4 1/2 years.

The federal budget, already a mess before Katrina, is now a laughable document. Those who call for yet more tax cuts risk sounding like robots droning automated talking points programmed inside them long ago. Katrina has forced the issue of deep poverty back onto the national agenda after a long absence. Finding a way forward in -- and eventually out of -- Iraq will require creativity from those not implicated in the administration's mistakes. And if ever the phrase "reinventing government" had relevance, it is now that we have observed the performance of a government that allows political hacks to push aside the professionals.

And what of Bush, who has more than three years left in his term? Paradoxically, his best hope lies in recognizing that the Bush Era, as he and we have known it, really is gone. He can decide to help us in the transition to what comes next. Or he can cling stubbornly to his past and thereby doom himself to frustrating irrelevance.

postchat@aol.com


*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
 
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
 
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
 
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
 
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Why Bush "really" Returned to New Orleans!

 
Thank you Claudia for this pic!
 
Jammy
 
House Trekkan (as Ja'Krinda)

Where the tides of fortune take us,
no man can know! ~Gowron
 
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
 
I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
 
Posted by at

What Went Wrong?

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050913/what_went_wrong.php

David Corn

September 13, 2005

David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers).

We are not safe.

It was frighteningly too easy to witness the post-disaster disaster in New Orleans and realize that the authorities—the local, state and federal governments—cannot effectively handle any of the nightmare scenarios that have seeped into our post-9/11 collective consciousness. A biological weapons attack? A nuclear detonation? An assault on a chemical weapons plant? Heck, could the government even deal with an outbreak of avian flu among humans? The mismanagement and non-management was stunning, painfully embarrassing—The Economist , on its cover, cried, "The shaming of America"—and lethal.

In the fortnight since Katrina struck and exposed the obvious fault lines of American society—race, class, environmental and public health policy—much has been said and written about the failure of the country's leaders (including the buck-passer at the top) to contend with a situation that had been accurately predicted years ago, and much comment has come on the reasons for this failure: a lack of sufficient concern for the poor of New Orleans, cronyism within the government, a misguided sense of priorities (see Iraq), general incompetence. There have been the inevitable calls for investigations. George W. Bush responded by saying that he will examine what went wrong. Congressional GOPers announced they will establish an investigation controlled by Republicans. Whatever comes out of these likely-to-be unimpressive endeavors, one conclusion is clear and needs no further evidence to support it: the Bush administration has shirked what might be called its First Response responsibilities. And that ought to be a firing offense.

Let's look at the final report of the independent and bipartisan 9/11 commission (the creation of which the Bush White House initially opposed). The chapter entitled "Heroism and Horror" opens with these lines:

Emergency response is a product of preparedness. On the morning of September 11, 2001, the last best hope for the community of people working in or visiting the World Trade Center rested not with national policymakers but with private firms and local public servants, especially the first responders: fire, police, emergency medical service, and building safety professionals.

The chapter ends this way:

Civilians and first responders will again find themselves on the front lines. We must plan for that eventuality. A rededication to preparedness is perhaps the best way to honor the memories of those we lost that day.

After Bush received the 9/11 report, he said, "I look forward to studying their recommendations, and look forward to working with responsible parties within my administration to move forward on those recommendations." But he never moved forward on the first response front. The Katrina screw-up exposed many of the problems that hindered the rescue workers of 9/11: poor communications, lousy coordination, insufficient resources. (As the Times-Picayune of New Orleans noted, if Harry Connick Jr. was able to get into New Orleans after the storm and help neighbors, why couldn't the federal government?) But the tragedy is not merely that we—by which I mean they—did not learn from 9/11, but that the warnings that came after 9/11 were not heeded by the Bush administration.

In June 2003, nearly two years after that horrible day, a task force assembled by the Council on Foreign Relations released a report with a chilling conclusion: the United States was drastically underfunding local responders and remained dangerously unprepared to deal with a catastrophic attack on U.S. soil. The task force—which included former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman, former Admiral William Crowe, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and former CIA chief and past FBI director William Webster—noted:

According to data provided to the Task Force by emergency responder professional associations and leading emergency response officials from around the country, America will fall approximately $98.4 billion short of meeting critical emergency responder needs over the next five years if current funding levels are maintained.

A $100 billion shortfall? How unprepared can a nation be? Though the task force's focus was on terrorist attacks, its findings were relevant for non-terrorism catastrophes. It reported that "on average, fire departments across the country have only enough radios to equip half the firefighters on a shift, and breathing apparatuses for only one-third. Only 10 percent of fire departments in the United States have the personnel and equipment to respond to a building collapse." It noted that "most cities do not have the necessary equipment to determine what kind of hazardous materials emergency responders may be facing." (It also found that "police departments in cities across the country do not have the protective gear to safely secure a site following an attack with weapons of mass destruction.")

The Bush administration, by then mired in the quicksand of Iraq, did not mount a crash program to enhance and support first responders. In fact, it did the opposite. The following year it slashed federal funding for first responders by 30 percent, which entailed defunding entire programs, such as SafeComm, which aimed to insure that the communication systems of various responders are interoperable. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge defended these budget cuts and said the Bush administration had engaged in tough "balancing" of fiscal and security needs. At the same time, the Bush administration was pushing for more tax cuts that would benefit wealthy Americans.

Did the Bush administration make the right call when it came to "balancing" these needs? I'd like to see an investigative panel examine that question—as well as evaluate the Bush administration's response to the Katrina disaster. In some ways, the Katrina disaster is worse than 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. The storm was no surprise. And after 9/11, the government supposedly took steps so it could deal with a dramatic emergency. Still, failure reigned. This is an occasion when an after-action report—as well as dismissals and departures (beyond FEMA chief Michael Brown's resignation)—could come in handy. Some agency, some official has to assume responsibility for making sure that the next disaster is handled slightly less terribly.

But Bush—who underfunded first responders and who praised Brown—is hardly the fellow to review what went wrong. Earlier this week, he defended himself by claiming that he had spoken to the nation about the Katrina emergency early on August 29, the day the storm hit. But he had not yet addressed the nation at that point. If he cannot get his own story straight, how can he untangle the overall mess? As for the Republican-led joint committee, that seems a rigged endeavor. Does anyone believe congressional GOPers can investigate a Republican administration without fear or favor? After all, the Republicans have ducked investigations on Halliburton's contracts in Iraq, the Downing Street memos, Enron, the Valerie Wilson/CIA leak and other matters that might embarrass you-know-who.

In defending their proposal to place a joint House-Senate committee led by Republicans (and containing more Republicans than Democrats) in charge of the post-Katrina inquiry, Republican congressional leadership have pointed to the Iran-contra investigation of 1987. That probe was indeed conducted by a joint committee that featured more Democrats than Republicans. But the target of that investigation was a Republican administration. The best course of action in these situations is to have a bipartisan and independent commission (even if the 9/11 commission had its faults). The second best option is an investigation led by the party not responsible for the wrongdoing (even if that has the potential to lead to lead to a political witch hunt). The worst alternative is the one being peddled by the Republicans: asking the members of one party to examine the actions (or inactions) of the leader of their party.

Tens of thousands—if not hundreds of thousands—of Americans were abandoned by the Bush administration (and ill-served by their local and state officials). People died because of this. And a harsh reality was exposed: In the event of a calamity—whether caused by nature or by terrorists—we cannot expect the government to respond competently. It is scary out there. And the people of New Orleans—and the rest of us—deserve a few answers. If we are on our own, it would be better to know that now rather than later.

Posted by at

Friday, September 09, 2005

POPCORN TIME YET?!?!?

BALTIMORE SUN CALLS FOR BUSH OUSTER!!

After Katrina fiasco, time for Bush to go



By Gordon Adams

September 8, 2005

WASHINGTON - The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that should lead to serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in office.

When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.

When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is repeatedly cut by an administration that seems determined to undermine the public responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that the infrastructure could not survive a major storm, it seems clear someone is playing politics with the public trust.

When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the administration to leave town.

When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.

When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at the New Orleans convention center - where people died and were starving - and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they should be fired, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael Brown in New Orleans last week.

When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.

When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given his walking papers.

When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity that should banish him from office.

When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq, Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their own misjudgments.

We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney.

They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer profiteering behind it.

It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.

Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, was senior White House budget official for national security in the Clinton administration.

Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery


*********************
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<>
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many
of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture:
poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse,
public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level." --Chris Floyd/Counterpunch.org
"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." - Aldous Huxley
Posted by at

Thursday, September 08, 2005

This is the real pits:

Navy Pilots Who Rescued Victims Are Reprimanded

By DAVID S. CLOUD

Published: September 7, 2005

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

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

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

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

Only in recent days, after the federal response to the disaster has come to be seen as inadequate, have large numbers of troops and dozens of helicopters, trucks and other equipment been poured into to the effort. Early on, the military rescue operations were smaller, often depending on the initiative of individuals like Lieutenants Shand and Udkow.

The two lieutenants were each piloting a Navy H-3 helicopter - a type often used in rescue operations as well as transport and other missions - on that Tuesday afternoon, delivering emergency food, water and other supplies to Stennis Space Center, a federal facility near the Mississippi coast. The storm had cut off electricity and water to the center, and the two helicopters were supposed to drop their loads and return to Pensacola, their home base, said Cmdr. Michael Holdener, Pensacola's air operations chief.

"Their orders were to go and deliver water and parts and to come back," Commander Holdener said.

But as the two helicopters were heading back home, the crews picked up a radio transmission from the Coast Guard saying helicopters were needed near the University of New Orleans to help with rescue efforts, the two pilots said.

Out of range for direct radio communication with Pensacola, more than 100 miles to the east, the pilots said, they decided to respond and turned their helicopters around, diverting from their mission without getting permission from their home base. Within minutes, they were over New Orleans.

"We're not technically a search-and-rescue unit, but we're trained to do search and rescue," said Lieutenant Shand, a 17-year Navy veteran.

Flying over Biloxi and Gulfport and other areas of Mississippi, they could see rescue personnel on the ground, Lieutenant Udkow said, but he noticed that there were few rescue units around the flooded city of New Orleans, on the ground or in the air. "It was shocking," he said.

Seeing people on the roofs of houses waving to him, Lieutenant Udkow headed in their direction. Hovering over power lines, his crew dropped a basket to pick up two residents at a time. He took them to Lakefront Airport, where local emergency medical teams had established a makeshift medical center.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Shand landed his helicopter on the roof of an apartment building, where more than a dozen people were marooned. Women and children were loaded first aboard the helicopter and ferried to the airport, he said.

Returning to pick up the rest, the crew learned that two blind residents had not been able to climb up through the attic to the roof and were still in the building. Two crew members entered the darkened building to find the men, and led them to the roof and into the helicopter, Lieutenant Shand said.

Recalling the rescues in an interview, he became so emotional that he had to stop and compose himself. At one point, he said, he executed a tricky landing at a highway overpass, where more than 35 people were marooned.

Lieutenant Udkow said that he saw few other rescue helicopters in New Orleans that day. The toughest part, he said, was seeing so many people imploring him to pick them up and having to leave some.

"I would be looking at a family of two on one roof and maybe a family of six on another roof, and I would have to make a decision who to rescue," he said. "It wasn't easy."

While refueling at a Coast Guard landing pad in early evening, Lieutenant Udkow said, he called Pensacola and received permission to continue rescues that evening. According to the pilots and other military officials, they rescued 110 people.

The next morning, though, the two crews were called to a meeting with Commander Holdener, who said he told them that while helping civilians was laudable, the lengthy rescue effort was an unacceptable diversion from their main mission of delivering supplies. With only two helicopters available at Pensacola to deliver supplies, the base did not have enough to allow pilots to go on prolonged search and rescue operations.

"We all want to be the guys who rescue people," Commander Holdener said. "But they were told we have other missions we have to do right now and that is not the priority."

The order to halt civilian relief efforts angered some helicopter crews. Lieutenant Udkow, who associates say was especially vocal about voicing his disagreement to superiors, was taken out of the squadron's flying rotation temporarily and assigned to oversee a temporary kennel established at Pensacola to hold pets of service members evacuated from the hurricane-damaged areas, two members of the unit said. Lieutenant Udkow denied that he had complained and said he did not view the kennel assignment as punishment.

Dozens of military aircraft are now conducting search and rescue missions over the affected areas. But privately some members of the Pensacola unit say the base's two available transport helicopters should have been allowed to do more to help civilian victims in the days after the storm hit, when large numbers of military helicopters had not reached the affected areas.

In protest, some members of the unit have stopped wearing a search and rescue patch on their sleeves that reads, "So Others May Live."
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