A landmark bill to legalize gay marriage passed the Assembly by a single vote Tuesday and now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not said whether he will sign it.Read the article here. Read More......
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A landmark bill to legalize gay marriage passed the Assembly by a single vote Tuesday and now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not said whether he will sign it.Read the article here. Read More......
The show's success, according to its creator, Sherwood Schwartz, was rooted in the fact that people of entirely different backgrounds were thrown together each week in a comedic setting.LOL Hey, I loved the show, but let's not get carried away, Sherwood. Read More......
"I knew that by assembling seven different people and forcing them to live together, the show would have great philosophical implications," Schwartz said.
Q Well, let's talk about it. Are you saying the President is -- are you saying that the President is confident that his administration is prepared to adequately, confidently secure the American people in the event of a terrorist attack of a level that we have not seen? And based on what does he have that confidence?Read More......
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and that's what he made clear earlier today, that obviously we want to look and learn lessons from a major catastrophe of this nature.
Q Yes, but you're telling us today there will be time for that somewhere down the road. Well, what if it happens tomorrow?
MR. McCLELLAN: We can engage in this blame-gaming going on and I think that's what you're getting --
Q No, no. That's a talking point, Scott, and I think most people who are watching this --
MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's a fact. I mean, some are wanting to engage in that, and we're going to remain focused --
Q I'm asking a direct question. Is he confident --
MR. McCLELLAN: We're going to remain focused on the people.
Q -- that he can secure the American people in the event of a major terrorist attack?
MR. McCLELLAN: We are securing the American people by staying on the offensive abroad and working to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
Q That's a talking point. That's a talking point.
MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's a fact.
Go ahead.
Q No, it's not. And you think people who are watching this think that's -- from what does he derive that confidence, based on the response --
MR. McCLELLAN: David, I'm interested in the people in the region that have been affected and getting them help. We can sit here and engage in this back and forth --
Q The whole country is watching and wondering about some --
MR. McCLELLAN: The time for bickering and blame-gaming is later. The time for helping people in the region is now.
MR. McCLELLAN: You don't want to take away from the efforts that are going on right now. And if you start getting into that now, you're pulling people out that are helping with the ongoing response, Terry. Not at all. The President made it very clear, I'm going to lead this effort and we're going to make sure we find out what the facts were and what went wrong and what went right. But you don't want to divert resources away from an ongoing response to a major catastrophe. And this is a major catastrophe that we -- and we must remain focused on saving lives and sustaining lives and planning for the long-term. And that's what we're doing.Yes, the White House doesn't want a diversion of resources to find out what the hell went wrong last week when Bush was responsible for leaving thousands of Americans to their deaths, while he went on vacation, but they have no problem diverting White House and DOD resources for some pro-Iraq war party they're holding on the national mall later this week.
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.Read More......
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.
Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.
Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield wasn't the only VIP who joined Padres President John Moores in the owner's box last night at Petco Park. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, here to join President Bush at the North Island Naval Air Station today, took in the game, too.Was anyone in the Bush administration paying attention to Katrina? ANYONE?
Even as Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf Coast that Sunday night and early Monday, Aug. 28-29, and the National Hurricane Center was warning of growing danger, the White House didn't alter the president's plans to fly from his Texas ranch to the West to promote a new Medicare prescription drug benefit.NEVER forget that this is what your President was doing while an American city was being wiped out and while thousands of Americans were dying. Read More......
By the time Bush landed in Arizona that Monday, the storm was unleashing its fury on Louisiana and Mississippi. The president inserted into his speech only a brief promise of prayers and federal help.
He continued his schedule in California, and he didn't decide until the next day that he should return to Washington. But it took him another day to get there, as he flew back to Texas to spend another night at his home before leaving for the White House.
Once the president was in Washington, the criticism only intensified.
A co-owner of Shelbyville-based Gowen-Smith Chapel has been deployed to Gulfport, Miss., to help with recovery since Hurricane Katrina, and his business partner here has described the grim task there.There have been many veiled references to a tragically high death toll. This number exceeds all of them.
"DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies," Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security.
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan had not had a full-length press briefing in Washington, D.C. for weeks, and after today, may have wished he had postponed this one. With almost unprecedented vigor, the press corps attacked and probe the federal response to the hurricane disaster, the president's personal responsibility and failure to fire anyone who failed in his or her mission....Definitely, definitely worth a read. It will release some of your pent up frustration.
Q I just want to follow up on David's questions on accountability. First, just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?Uh-oh, someone better tell the President and we are holding him responsible. Read More......
MR. McCLELLAN: The President.
Q All right. So he will be held accountable as the head of the government for the federal response that he's already acknowledged was inadequate and unacceptable?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President's most important responsibility is the safety and security of the American people. He talks about that often. That is his most important responsibility. Again, there's going to be plenty of time to look at the facts and determine what went wrong and what went right and how the coordination was between the state and federal and local authorities. Right now we've got to continue doing everything we can in support of the ongoing operational activities on the ground in the region to help people.
The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday — “New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,” or words to that effect...Borrowing a theme from the lovely and brilliant Wonkette, I decided to check out even more of the "headlines that day." Here they are.
The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday — “New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,” or words to that effect..Really, for Christ sakes, is this how the head of our military gets his info...from the morning papers? If that's true, it's no wonder we are in such a mess in the South and in Iraq. The episode makes it clear that Myers just does what Rove commands.
[F]acing what is clearly a full-scale political disaster, Rove and a handful of other masterful political operatives have gone into overdrive. They are back in campaign mode.For Rove to succeed again, the media has to buy in again. Let's see if they can withstand it. Read More......
This campaign is to salvage Bush's reputation.
Like previous Rove operations, it calls for multiple appearances by the president in controlled environments in which he can appear leader-like. It calls for extensive use of Air Force One and a massive deployment of spinners.
It doesn't necessarily include any change in policy. It certainly doesn't include any admission of error.
It utilizes the classic Rovian tactic of attacking critics rather than defending against their criticism -- and of throwing up chaff to muddle the issue and throw the press off the scent.
It calls for public expressions of outrage over the politicization of the issue and of those who would play the "blame game." While at the same time, it is utterly political in nature and heavily reliant on shifting the blame elsewhere.
The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday — “New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,” or words to that effect. At that time, when those words were in our minds, we started working issues before we were asked, and on Tuesday, at the direction of the secretary and the deputy secretary, we went to each of the services. I called each of the chiefs of the services. One-by-one I called them and said, we don’t know what we will be asked for yet. The levees and the floodwalls had just broken and we know some of what will be asked because we had some requests for assistance already. There is probably going to be more.Actually, General, the headlines were atrocious Tuesday morning. And the levee had not just broken, they'd broken 24 hours before, on Monday morning, you complete idiot. Not to mention, the head of the strongest military in the world gets his news from the morning papers? Putting aside the fact that important people get their news from the Internet, not the morning papers that are at least 12 hours old, you GET YOUR NEWS FROM THE MORNING PAPERS? Is that how you handled 9/11 general? Is it how you make decisions in Iraq - you pick up the Miami Herald and decide who to invade today? Fucking idiot.
When Air Force One dipped below the clouds on Tuesday so the president could peer out the window down at the disaster, the image was uncomfortably imperial.In fact, Bush didn't fly over New Orleans until Wednesday afternoon, a full 60 hours AFTER the hurricane has destroyed the city. Had Newsweek, and the rest of the media, bothered paying more attention to the fact that our president stayed on vacation until the 3d day after the hurricane, they might have gotten this fact right.
The 22 people died together.Read More......
Police believe they tried to escape the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina lashed to one another with a rope.
Rescuers found them last week in this village just east of New Orleans.
No one has identified them yet. No one has tried to figure out who they were or how they knew each other or how far they had come before a rescue crew found them wrapped around a pole.
A trio of Duke University sophomores say they drove to New Orleans late last week, posed as journalists to slip inside the hurricane-soaked city twice, and evacuated seven people who weren't receiving help from authorities.Read More......
The group, led by South Carolina native Sonny Byrd, say they also managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center, where they encountered scenes early Saturday evening that they say were disgraceful.
"We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai," said Hans Buder, who made the trip with his roommate Byrd and another student, David Hankla....
At 2 p.m., the trio decided to head for New Orleans, Buder said. After looking around, they swiped an Associated Press identification and one of the TV station's crew shirts, and found a Kinko's where they could make copies of the ID.
They were stopped again by authorities at the edge of New Orleans, but this time were able to make it through.
"We waved the press pass, and they looked at each other, the two guards, and waved us on in," Buder said....
"Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out," Buder said. "They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don't want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere."
I'm not surprised at what the feds say, they're covering their butts. They're keeping the body counts down because they don't want to horrify the nation. It's worse than Iraq, worse than 9-11. They just don't want to know how many were murdered by bureaucracy.The Republican Party hasn't, at least in my lifetime, believed in Government. They have railed against it for decades, calling it evil.
Senate Democrats said that the move to make Roberts the 17th chief justice of the United States required careful deliberation, particularly given Roberts's relatively short, two-year tenure as a federal appeals court judge.The question we all need to be asking is: Can we trust the man who created the failed Department of Homeland Security and who stayed on vacation during the worst disaster to hit the US to give us a capable Chief Justice? Read More......
"The stakes are higher and the Senate's advice and consent responsibility is even more important," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "If confirmed to this lifetime job, John Roberts would become the leader of the third branch of the federal government and the most prominent judge in the nation."
"But you know the media has a fascination, Larry, and you know this, I'm not saying you but the media has a fascination with the blame game and instead of looking for what can we do to help now there's a lot of why didn't we do something different?"Like father, like son. Andrew, Katrina.
Nationally, these are leaders who won reelection last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping this country safe.I've said it before that these people want to rule on their ability to keep us safe, so fine, let's make that the issue and let's talk about it. Just what steps have these people taken to keep the citizens of America safer? How has the administration managed to spend billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money and then fail so miserably? I'm not waiting for another crap 9/11 report to study what went wrong because I can see with my own eyes this was a failed mission. How many more chances are we to give these bumbling idiots and what are they waiting for? An entire half of the country to be removed from the map?
We could be witnessing a significant moment in America. Hurricane Katrina has revealed some uncomfortable truths about the world's richest and most powerful nation. The catastrophe in New Orleans exposed shocking inequalities - both of wealth and race - and also the relative impotence of the federal authorities when faced with a large-scale disaster. Many Americans are beginning to ask just what sort of country they are living in.... There is a sense that the struggle for the soul of America is gathering pace.Read More......
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