Author: Trish

What Went Right: Absolutely Nothing. Next?

Trish

Let the spin begin! Bush claims there’s no hurry to investigate the Katrina disaster, but just in case, he’ll head the inquiry. Yeah, that’ll work.

Reuters:

“I think one of the things that people want us to do is to play a blame game,” Bush told reporters. “We’ve got to solve problems. We’re problem solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right, and what went wrong…”

“We’ve got to solve problems. We’re problem solvers.” – George W. Bush, shortly before his nose spontaneously grew six inches

“It’s very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe,” Bush said.

“And the reason it’s important is, is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there’s a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack or another major storm. And so I’m going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong,” he added.

O.K., let’s see if you were paying attention. What’s Bush going to figure out? What went right! And what is his administration? Problem solvers! And why is it important to understand the role of state and local governments too? So we can blame them!

And in case you weren’t properly scared, what could happen to us? A WMD attack! Wha?

Even Trent Lott, who lost his home in the storm, isn’t buying this load of crap. He’s also downright threatening to FEMA Director Mike Brown, Bush’s pick of the litter for problem solving.

“If he doesn’t solve a couple of problems that we’ve got right now he ain’t going to be able to hold the job, because what I’m going to do to him ain’t going to be pretty,” Lott said on CBS.

At least Bush hasn’t kissed Brown on the cheek, unlike poor Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. You know it was all she could do not to ralph up her lunch on the spot. AP:

“I know I don’t need to make any other introduction other than ‘Mr. President,’ ” Blanco said tersely, turning the microphone over to Bush after praising emergency management officials during a stop with Bush at an emergency operations center…

The president, looking choked up as he finished his brief remarks, nodded at Blanco and kissed her on the cheek. She nodded back and both left the podium, headed for separate spots in the crowd.

Blanco has refused to sign over control of the National Guard to the federal government and has turned to a Clinton administration official, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt, to help run relief efforts.

Blanco was not told when Bush would visit the state, nor was she immediately invited to meet him or travel with him. Blanco’s office didn’t know Bush was coming until told by reporters. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said the White House reached out to Blanco’s office on Sunday, but didn’t hear back.

If anyone has the video of that kiss, please send us the link.

Borowitz Tops Himself: Bush Worst Disaster

Trish

Today’s Borowitz Report is beyond great.

Four and a half years after he was first sworn in as president, experts in the field of disaster assessment today called the presidency of George W. Bush the worst disaster in the history of the United States of America…

Dr. Lorraine Cresser…said that the University of Minnesota experts decided to place the current administration at the top of the nation’s list of huge disasters after assessing the damage the White House has caused over the past four and a half years, both at home and abroad.

“After taking a good look at the wreckage the Bush presidency has created, we would estimate the cost of the damage at somewhere in the mid to high zillions,” Dr. Cresser said.

Hours after the University of Minnesota released its findings, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said that given the high price tag, rebuilding the Bush presidency “doesn’t make sense to me.”

…But hours later, the Speaker backtracked somewhat, telling reporters, “Like most Republicans in Congress, I have been drinking very heavily for the past several days.”

Elsewhere, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today that his department would intensify the search for those missing since Hurricane Katrina hit, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

Dismal Labor Day News for Workers

Trish

There’s not a lot for American workers to celebrate this Labor Day, according to research commissioned by the AFL-CIO.

Besides high gas prices and looming winter energy bills, people were already feeling like they couldn’t keep up, according to John Sweeney, head of the union group.

Sarasota Sun-Sentinel:

A record 53 percent of working people say their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living.

Rising health care costs are eating away at Americans’ security…More than 40 million are uninsured and soaring health care bills are one of the top causes of bankruptcies in this country… 73 percent say establishing a national health care system should be a top priority for Congress and the president.

Real wages haven’t risen in 20 years, but for decades family income nonetheless outstripped the family bills, in large part because families had an extra worker in reserve — women. Now the majority of women of working age are working outside the home, and households don’t have more workers to throw into the mix to boost their income. Suddenly family income is declining — it’s down nearly 3 percent between 2000 and 2003…

Working Americans…[are] pinching pennies and clipping coupons, hoping that the one member in their family with a health plan doesn’t see his or her job shipped overseas.

And I thought it was just me. As a single, full-time self-employed person who recently added a part-time job just for the benefits, I’m treading water as best I can.

I think we are headed for some real economic woe, however, because even the people who could afford those massive houses and SUVs are about to get fed up with utility and gas bills sucking them dry. Changes are on the horizon. And I think it will get worse before it gets better.

Ball Keeps Getting Dropped and New Orleans People Keep Suffering

Trish

Jacksonville, Florida was ready for New Orleans’ sick and injured but, once again, somebody up the food chain appears to have dropped the ball.

St. Augustine Record:

The ill and injured from New Orleans emerged from the back of a C-130 Sunday morning to a flight line packed with Jacksonville rescue vehicles. Patients on stretchers were rolled directly into idling ambulances, where doctors waited for them…

The cancellation of a second flight wasn’t publicized until about 2 p.m., leaving about 100 workers and volunteers with a day of uncertainty inside a hangar.

Scores of sailors, Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department workers, Red Cross volunteers and doctors contributed to a federal relief effort as the Air National Guard transported patients from New Orleans to Jacksonville in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

About 100 more patients were expected to arrive in the afternoon, but plans changed at the last minute. The cancellation of a second flight wasn’t publicized until about 2 p.m., leaving about 100 workers and volunteers with a day of uncertainty inside a hangar.

“We’ve been on stand-by for the last few days,” Commanding Officer Chip Dobson said.

Patients who arrived in the morning were taken to nine different hospitals in the Jacksonville area…

At Baptist Medical Center, the staff was ready for a crush that never came.

A nursing supervisor said she offered 47 beds for adults and 13 for children. As of Sunday morning, the hospital served three elderly patients from the New Orleans flight…

Preparations for the event began Tuesday, Dobson said. On that day, workers began setting up supplies in the hangar, he said. The plan followed by all the groups was created in case there was a need for cross-country transport of large numbers of people in need of hospitalization, he said.

“This was an existing plan that has never been activated before,” Dobson said.

It wasn’t immediately clear if more patients would arrive today or in the near future.

Jeez. At what point does the impeachment process begin?

Of Condi’s Shoes and Bush’s Numbers

Trish

The Condi Buying Shoes thing demonstrated something about this administration. The people in it aren’t the cream of the crop. These are folks who would not rise very far in life, were it not for their strange connections and the Bush family capacity to recycle people from previous circumstances. We already know about Dick Wyoming MIA Cheney’s past as an abject failure until he hooked up with the Bushes. And FEMA Director Mike Brown couldn’t even run a frickin’ horse association well enough to keep the job.

The nation becomes divided not simply along partisan grounds, but between those who want the occupant removed from office and those who are just disgusted.

But think about it: Condi is the perfect call center operator, the perfect fast food worker who really doesn’t give a shit and makes that plain. She’s going to provide exactly as much service as required, and that’s it, she’s outta here. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.

An editorial in the Gainesville Sun makes an additional point.

The president has never learned the importance of being a totally Public Man.

…Although the news from Iraq gets most of the blame, it is not the only cause of Bush’s falling numbers. Instead, Bush, like Bill Clinton before him, has allowed his sense of entitled privacy to overwhelm his awareness of public responsibility. Both failed to grasp that as presidents, they are first and foremost Public Men. By ignoring this vital role, they compromised their administrations and sowed the seeds for their fall. […]

Success! Arabian Horses Presumably Safe

Trish

If you don’t agree with Georgie that Brownie did a heckuva job in New Orleans, think again:

“He’s done a hell of a job, because I’m not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm,” said Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade emergency management chief who oversaw emergency response during Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

The Miami Herald published more on the amazingly inappropriate background of FEMA Director Mike Brown today.

Boycott ExxonMobil

Trish

[Photo is of an oil well leaking near Port Fouchon, 100 miles southeast of New Orleans and was taken by Scott Saltzman/Bloomberg News]

A coalition of environmental groups is asking us to boycott ExxonMobil, and when you find out all the reasons why, you’ll say, “My pleasure!”

The campaign, called Exxpose Exxon, is targeting the ugly giant because of greed so huge that it blocks out the sun. From a Sierra Club mailing:

Exxon is leading lobbying efforts in Washington D.C to open the pristine Arctic Refuge in Alaska for drilling…after more than a decade, Exxon has still not yet fully paid for the extreme damage that resulted from the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William sound…and while you and I are being gouged at the gas pump, Exxon is reaping record high profits…over $25.3 billion in 2004…money that is paying for junk science designed to stop and stall action on global warming.

Whew. I’m convinced. But just in case you’re not, guess who Bush awarded the oil to that he’s releasing from the emergency reserves?

New York Times

The Bush administration said it approved a loan of six million barrels from the emergency reserve to Exxon Mobil, and another one million barrels to Placid Refining. A third company, Valero, will receive 1.5 million barrels.

I smell a rat. An oily rat. […]

Message from Katrina to America: Wetlands Matter

Trish

The Gainesville Sun examines a critical factor in what happened to New Orleans.

You can call what happened to New Orleans “devastating,” “unprecedented,” “calamitous” and “profoundly disturbing.”

What you cannot call it is “unpredictable.”

…Neither, strictly speaking, can you call what happened to that “city in a bowl” a “natural disaster.” While it’s true that Katrina was a monstrous hurricane, the damage she wrought was equally “man-made.”

…Message from Katrina to America: Wetlands matter.

…But the wetlands of Louisiana’s southeast coast are an endangered species. Because of extensive alterations to the Mississippi River and poorly planned coastal development, Louisiana has been losing 25 square miles of wetlands a year.

…”Because of continuing land loss, many of coastal Louisiana’s populated areas, including New Orleans, are almost completely exposed to the Gulf of Mexico,” Valsin A. Marmillion, spokesman for America’s Wetland: Campaign to Save Coastal Louisiana, said this week.

“The sad irony of the situation is that the Mississippi River levees, which were intended to protect lives in the 1930s have had the unintended consequence of laying waste to the very wetlands that are the state’s greatest natural protection,” he said.

[…]

‘Why Did It Happen? Who Needs To Be Fired?’

Trish

Bayou Buzz has the transcript of the stirring appearance by the president of Jefferson Parish, La. on Meet the Press today.

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back. Jefferson Parish President Broussard, let me start with you. You just heard the director of Homeland Security’s explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?

MR. AARON BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. I am personally asking our bipartisan congressional delegation here in Louisiana to immediately begin congressional hearings to find out just what happened here. Why did it happen? Who needs to be fired? And believe me, they need to be fired right away, because we still have weeks to go in this tragedy. We have months to go. We have years to go. And whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we’ve got to start with some new leadership.

It’s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. It’s so obvious. FEMA needs more congressional funding. It needs more presidential support. It needs to be a Cabinet-level director. It needs to be an independent agency that will be able to fulfill its mission to work in partnership with state and local governments around America. FEMA needs to be empowered to do the things it was created to do. It needs to come somewhere, like New Orleans, with all of its force immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with common sense and leadership, and save lives. Forget about the property. We can rebuild the property. It’s got to be able to come in and save lives.

We need strong leadership at the top of America right now in order to accomplish this and to…reconstructing FEMA.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Broussard, let me ask–I want to ask–should…
[…]

Katrina Ruins 9/11 Iraq Fest

Trish

It’s an ill wind that blows no good. Maybe the winds of Katrina will do what four years of our logic hasn’t done.

What a difference four years makes.

Republicans were all geared up to commemorate the four-year anniversary of 9/11, and Katrina went and spoiled it. Because what’s the point of showing shots of valiant rescues in New York from back then when the news is full of failed rescues in Louisiana and Mississippi now?

There goes a perfectly good opportunity to pump up the faithful by blurring the line between 9/11 and Iraq, something the Bush administration desperately needs to do. Damn, I hate it when that happens.

What else is different today? Well, Rudolph Guiliani isn’t around to show Georgie how to be stoic yet heroic, for one thing. What Bush really needs to do is send Rudi on a tour of the hurricane sites. He could attend funerals, once people are able to hold them, and be in weddings, once anyone can even think of such things.

Congress isn’t joining hands and singing feelings – I mean, the national anthem – either. Instead, partisanism is at an all-time high, at one-more-degree-and-we’ll-have-civil-war highs to be exact. No one can say or do anything, no matter how noble or innocent, without being accused of playing politics. Which everyone is.

How did we get here? What’s happened to our country? The answer, to me, is four years of George Bush, Karl Rove, Donald “It’s Not Torture If We Do It” Rumsfeld, and Dickface Cheney. It’s people like Colin Powell lying then leaving anyway and being replaced by people who continue to lie but stay on. And it’s all of us who have have failed to mount an effective counter-campaign against these miserable excuses.

It’s an ill wind that blows no good. Maybe the winds of Katrina will do what four years of our logic hasn’t done. Maybe the disaster of Katrina will breathe life into the loyal opposition. But first, we gotta get those folks some help. We are still that nation that stood together four years ago. We just need to remember that.