Why I Believe Bush Must Go – washingtonpost.com
Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly “high crimes and misdemeanors,” to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team’s assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged — perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion — by far the highest in our national history.

Sadly he is correct in saying that we lack the statesmen with the stones to do what is clearly right.

If you put people in charge of running a project they are ideologically committed to proving a failure, it will fail.

That neatly explains a host of failures by the Bush administration, Katrina, Iraq, corruption, Social Security, Medicare Part D, fiscal insanity, etc…

Voting 219-207 largely along party lines, the House defeated an amendment to make the National Security Agency obtain warrants before listening to the international phone calls and reading the e-mails of U.S. citizens.

I guess it’s clear which party favors judicial oversight and which party favors unfettered governement spying. What I’ve failed to understand throughout this debate is, why is the Bush administration allergic to meaningful oversight? They could spy on terrorists just as well under FISA, the only real difference is that they can spy without any judicial review.

The lack of oversight ought to disturb every American who values the sacrafice our soldiers made protect freedom in this country. The tactics used by the Bushites in the “war on terror” spits in the face of everyone who every put on a uniform in defense of this nation. They have betrayed basic American values out of abject, pants-wetting fear of another terror attack.

The billions spent in Iraq would have been better used in securing the homeland, controlling our borders and inspecting inbound cargo. Much blood has been spilled and treasure wasted and we are less safe as a result. Imagine if the devestation from Katrina had been the result of a terror attack. We seem less ready than before to effectively deal with the aftermath.

It’s sad to watch as the reigns of power are held by incompetents and our nation suffers from their narrow-sighted stupidity and avarice.

WASHINGTON – On the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s fateful landfall,
President Bush was confident. His homeland security chief appeared relaxed. And warnings of the coming destruction — breached or overrun levees, deaths at the New Orleans Superdome and overwhelming needs for post-storm rescues — were delivered in dramatic terms to all involved. All of it was captured on videotape.

The Associated Press obtained the confidential government video and made it public Wednesday, offering Americans their own inside glimpse into the government’s fateful final Katrina preparations after months of fingerpointing and political recriminations.

“My gut tells me … this is a bad one and a big one,” then-federal disaster chief Michael Brown told the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29.

The president didn’t ask a single question during the briefing but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”

The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by AP — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Makes you wonder what kind of apocalyptic hell might have broken loose on the Gulf coast had Bush not been “fully prepared.” He then proceded to lie to the press and the public a few days later:

Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm — and Bush was worried too.

The White House, still attempting to spin this issue said:

“I hope people don’t draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing,” Bush spokesman Trent Duffy said, citing a variety of orders and disaster declarations Bush signed before the storm made landfall. “He received multiple briefings from multiple officials, and he was completely engaged at all times.”

If he was “completely engaged” then he’s incompetent. Then there is the small matter of appointing political hacks to important positions that require actual experience and judgement. We deserve better leadership.

Thanks to Americablog

“I reject outright any suggestion that President Bush was anything less than fully involved,” Townsend said. “The president knew full well the danger of the storm.”

That’s a marvelous defense of the President’s ignoring events on the Gulf Coast. He knew about but didn’t do anything anyway? Brilliant, simply brilliant.

eliminating $25 billion in projects from the newly enacted transportation measure.

Good luck with getting congressmen to go along with giving up their favorite pork projects back home.

Read it. I wish I were as coherent and cogent.

1. How about affordable housing, fighting poverty and racism in the rest of the country?
2. Are the actual conservative GOP members of Congress going to go along with it?
3. How the hell are the feds going to pay for all this?

Near as I can tell the answers are, don’t care, probably not and borrow a shit load of money. The GOP wants to push through more tax cuts, destroy more of the social safety net for the rest of the country and balloon the deficit. So much for party discipline. More likely, I think the Bush was mouthing nice words and has no real plans for follow through. I would think that Rove & company know that this plan would not be a political possibility.

G.O.P. Split Over Big Plans for Storm Spending – New York Times

One has to wonder about the sudden turn around, our favorite shrub has never taken responsibility for anything during his presidency.

Why now? Polls, in reactive mode, that is why, not because he has developed a conscience.

You gotta love it.

In contrast to Mr. Brown, who had relatively little experience dealing with disasters and emergency response before joining FEMA, Mr. Paulison has spent his career in the field, having been chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department before joining the federal government in 2001 as administrator of the United States Fire Administration.

So the the Bush administration taps and experienced man has the acting head of FEMA, who would have thought it possible? Sadly it’s not the only key federal agency suffering from an excess of cronyism. The FDA, EPA and the Tresaury all suffer from the same blight. It’s only an acting position at FEMA, there’s still plenty of time to dredge up another party hack from someone’s alumni association.

In apparent responce to massive cluelessness Mike Brown has been sent packing. While Dubya should have clearly fired the dolt, at least he got him out of the way. I guess when your as dumb as a rock, someone like “Brownie” looks competent.

Katrina has proved that federal disaster help is vital, and that Mr. Brown and his team of advance men can’t do the job. What America needs are federal disaster relief people who actually know something about disaster relief.

GULFPORT, Mississippi (AP) — Walking a hurricane-riddled street, Vice President Dick Cheney declared Thursday that much progress is being made in a disaster relief effort he termed “very impressive.”

You have to wonder, exactly WTF VP “I’m a Dick” Cheney is talking about? The White House spin machine is in emergency mode trying to convince the public that they are not in fact bumbling dolts. At least someone was allowed to express their feelings, unlike the GOP’s other “public forums” where dissenters are ejected for exercising their right to speak their mind or even wear a non-approved T-shirt:

While Cheney spoke, a passer-by hurled an expletive at the vice president. “First time I’ve heard it,” Cheney said, when asked if he was hearing a lot of such sentiments.

First time he heard it? At least they spoke a language our famously vulgar VP knows.

Rodriguez said state and federal aid was slow in coming, and that his parish made it through the early days with the help of sheriffs from other states, a contingent of 50 Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other first responders.

Strange how Canadian Mounties got to St. Bernard parish before FEMA. Have I mentioned recently that we have fools leading the disater relief?

The government’s disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000
Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Michael Brown, director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to “convey a positive image” about the government’s response for victims.

So they dispatched a PR offensive in the aftermath of the most destructive hurricane of modern American history? If this doesn’t piss you off, then you’re anti-American. Your countrymen died because of massive incompetence. Yup, your doing a fine job Brownie…

Republicans in Congress on Wednesday rejected calls by Democrats to suspend work on tax cuts, that would mainly benefit the rich, and spending reductions on social programs because of the huge costs of hurricane relief.

Not like we need the money for a war or a major disaster or anything important. Not like there are people suffering and in need of a services that are on the GOP chopping block. It sounds a whole lot like the congressional leadership is saying “fuck ‘em all”.

Critical Condition – Newsweek Hurricane Katrina Coverage – MSNBC.com

Critical Condition
The Health Crisis: Contaminated water. Dysfunctional hospitals. The city’s medical challenge is just beginning.

I’ve spent the last several days reading a lot and writing a bit about the conditions, causes and calamities in NOLA. The Newsweek article cited above describes the long term health challenges posed by a disaster of staggering proportions. Even viewing it from Manila, where I’ll be working until early October, is a soul crushing experience. I really can’t fathom how it must be for those who survived. Sarah Childress writes:

Mental trauma will be the biggest long-term concern, health experts predict. Children, especially those separated from their families, will be hit hardest, overwhelmed by “feelings of abandonment, isolation and disconnection,” says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Typically, neighbors might comfort survivors. But Katrina cut such a wide swath that there’s nobody left standing for anyone to lean on.

For all the heartache, looting, death and massive incompetence. Displayed there’s and occasional gem to found in the fetid water of one of America’s most unique cities. Like the priest who held mass in a church where nothing remained but a floor and a plywood sign announcing when mass would be held. Or another parish where a priest opened his church to survivors who were denied shelter elsewhere because they refused to abandon a beloved pet, often representing the only salvage from another life now destroyed.

Crook and liars has a quote, along with a link to the video of Bob Shieffer’s commentary on the response to Katrina:

Finally, a personal thought. We have come through what may have been one of the worst weeks in America’s history, a week in which government at every level failed the people it was created to serve. There is no purpose for government except to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet as scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality.

As the floodwaters rose, local officials in New Orleans ordered the city evacuated. They might as well have told their citizens to fly to the moon. How do you evacuate when you don’t have a car? No hint of intelligent design in any of this. This was just survival of the richest.”

The old man pulls no punches there. It give me a sense of hope for the MSM. I suppose the smell of rotting American corpses in a major American city has restored some of their sense of mission. The government at all levels needs to bear the blame for this.

We have FEMA to help out where disasters, man-made or otherwise, overwhelm the ability of local authorities to respond. In this case there was enough destruction in NO to gut local officials ability to do much about the aftermath. But, local officials damned well should have made plans to evacuate residents without a car. They did not and people died because of it.

That said, it is painfully obvious that the early response by FEMA was tragically lacking. Heads ought to roll over this, starting with FEMA director Brown and DHS head Chertoff. The highest levels of the Bush administration should be responsible for appointing Brown in the first place and for underfunding FEMA and the Army Core of Engineers flood control projects in the region.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. It’s certain that all levels of government failed at their most basic mission: protecting the lives and safety of the people. While I don’t believe there was any overt racism involved in this mess, I do believe that there was a neglect of the city’s poorest residents who were left to drown like rats. Does the fact that they were predominately black play a roll? I hope that we, as nation, have moved past that kind of thinking. But the fact remains that it happened, and it was both foreseeable and avoidable.

Whatever happened to the pro-states’ rights stance of conservatives? Sounds like they’ve been trampling local authority in a major way.

Far from deferring to state or local officials, FEMA asserted its authority and made things worse, Mr. Broussard complained on “Meet the Press.”

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish’s emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip, said it would be a mistake to abandon efforts to reduce the estate tax, arguing that was precisely what the economy needed to grow. But he said he thought the White House might reconsider what it wanted this fall.

Jeezus friggin’ Christ, I thought I was kidding when I said in an earlier post that the GOP would push another tax cut as the fix for the damage done by Katrina. I bet Ol’ Roy even kept a straight face when he uttered that little gem. Maybe, just maybe, the wealthiest 1% in New Orleans can somehow recover without yet another massive handout from Dubya.