OP/ED: Congress Should Reject ALL Bush Supreme Court Nominees - Recommend Their Own

Democrat or Republican, Congress should reject ANY nominee that the President sends them. Why? George Bush has proven time and again an inability to select the right people for the right job.

As we've seen domestically with deadly, horrifying results, in the President's choices for key security jobs post 9/11, political patronage was more important than competence with Bush. From Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff, FEMA Director Brown, and especially Patrick Rhode, the Deputy Director of FEMA, the President is incapable of selecting competent personnel for key posts. He chooses political cronies and yes-men over competence EVERY SINGLE TIME. Overseas we've seen incompetence compounded by ignorance, with the President choosing to listen to yes-Generals over more sober military leaders.

The Supreme Court is too important for our nation to let George Bush continue to wreak havoc over this country. This country needs leadership, real leadership. Our nation is challenged on all fronts right now, and our chief executive is in over his head taking our country into deep peril. It's time for Congress to stand up and finally provide this country with the leadership that is desperately needed right now.

A bi-partisan, bi-cameral Congressional committee should convene immediately and create a list of consensus candidates from which the President should, if he has any shred of decency and dignity left, choose. Multiple choice from a list of QUALIFIED candidates is all that this President is capable of handling. The American public has lost faith in its leader at a historic turning point, now is the time for change.

-- Rob in Baltimore

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CNN: Rehnquist Dead

What will happen next... the perfect political storm has begun. Read the rest of this post...

City of Chicago offered feds emergency help last Sunday - feds said no

Chicago Sun-Times

A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck....

Daley said the city offered 36 members of the firefighters' technical rescue teams, eight emergency medical technicians, search-and-rescue equipment, more than 100 police officers as well as police vehicles and two boats, 29 clinical and 117 non-clinical health workers, a mobile clinic and eight trained personnel, 140 Streets and Sanitation workers and 29 trucks, plus other supplies. City personnel are willing to operate self-sufficiently and would not depend on local authorities for food, water, shelter and other supplies, he said.

Read the rest of this post...

National Guardsmen reportedly "played cards" while people died

AFP

A top New Orleans police officer said that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans deputy police commander W.S. Riley launched a bitter attack on the federal response to the disaster though he praised the way the evacuation was eventually handled....

"We expected a lot more support from the federal government. We expected the government to respond within 24 hours. The first three days we had no assistance," he told AFP in an interview.

Riley went on: "We have been fired on with automatic weapons. We still have some thugs around. My biggest disappointment is with the federal government and the National Guard.

"The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep.

"For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in
Iraq if this is what we have."

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Last Saturday Bush gave FEMA the authority to do WHATEVER was necessary in Louisiana, so why is FEMA now saying it wasn't "invited in"?

And just as importantly, why are the White House and FEMA now claiming that they had no idea Katrina was going to be this bad when the president declared an emergency in Louisiana last Saturday, two days before the storm even hit?

Note the specific language from the White House Web site:

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.

"At its discretion." FEMA was given blanket authority by the president, a week ago, to do whatever it deemed necessary to help with this "emergency."

So, we've uncovered yet another lie from the White House and FEMA. FEMA had the authority to intervene a week ago. And Bush declared Louisiana an emergency a week ago, then promptly stayed on vacation another 5 days in spite of the fact that he clearly knew this was an emergency.

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Bush Panicking Over Political Fallout

Bush stayed on vacation for days after the hurricane struck -- as did vice president Cheney and Condi Rice (who BEGAN her vacation after the worst natural disaster in our nation's history battered her home state of Alabama). Bush went on political jaunts, took more than two days to address the country and goofed around while the waters were rising and people were dying. When he finally toured the destruction, Bush joked around in New Orleans about his younger days of hard partying. (Can anyone doubt Cindy Sheehan now? I wasn't sure what to think when she said Bush acted like he was at a party when he was supposed to be comforting grieving families? I thought, "Really?" But now we've seen Bush do the very same thing ON NATIONAL TV.)

But now, now that his POLITICAL life is in danger, Bush is panicking.

As Mr. Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, listened on the sidelines, as did Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the president and Mr. Bush's overseer of communications strategy. Their presence underscored how seriously the White House is reacting to the political crisis it faces.

That's right. People have died because of Bush's dereliction of duty, his complete indifference to human suffering. But what does he do when disaster strikes? He calls in political hacks under investigation for endangering national security and image doctors to repair the POLITICAL damage. Because that's clearly all that Bush cares about. If it isn't, why did Bush stay on vacation for days while people were dying? Why did vice president Cheney stay on vacation for some SIX DAYS after the hurricane battered this country? Why did Sec. of State Condi Rice LEAVE for vacation while New Orleans was spiraling into despair and go to a fancy Broadway show (tickets cost $100 for the connected and powerful people who can score them), play tennis with Monica Seles and buy obscenely expensive shoes on Fifth Avenue? Why did Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld go on a political jaunt with Bush to California on Tuesday instead of getting ready to send in the troops? Kanye West was partly right when he said Bush doesn't care about black people: Bush doesn't care about anybody but himself. Read the rest of this post...

The Military Is Frisking Little Children Before Rescuing Them

I have not seen this, but reader Aaron (who I know and trust) said he just watched ABC World News This Weekend and they showed footage of a black family being rescued from some highway above the waters and put on a military helicopter. But before the family was allowed inside, everyone was frisked -- including a little boy that was maybe ten years old! ABC assured us that military leaders insisted this was necessary. Yes, everyone standing politely by and waiting to be rescued needs to be treated like a criminal and frisked. Is there one example of someone asking to be rescued who then turned on their rescuers? No. Is there anyone who thinks a little 10 year old boy hungry and crying IS A SECURITY RISK? Who lifts the old people out of their wheelchairs so they can be frisked? Who frisks the bodies on the side of the road and floating in the water in case they've been booby-trapped? Who frisks the babies hungry for milk that might be swaddled in explosives? This is the final humilation for these poor, abandoned people.

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Open Thread -- and a Question For Condi

Condi, Did you enjoy "Spamalot" while your home state of Alabama was battered and bruised? And exactly how much did those shoes cost that you bought at Ferragamo while people were dying during the worst natural disaster in our nation's history? Can we see the shoes? And given how obscenely expensive they were, how much money have you personally donated to the relief effort? Read the rest of this post...

Bush faked levee repair for photo op yesterday

From a press release LA Senator Mary Landrieu sent out today:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young annd old - deserve far better from their national governmeent.

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FEMA's Deputy Political Hack on CNN taking no responsibility

Those FEMA "leaders" are amazing. They just are not reality based. CNN just interviewed Patrick Rhode, the Deputy Director of FEMA. What a pig. The buck doesn't stop at FEMA...no, no, no. It's everyone else's fault.

So who is Patrick Rhode, who is charged with saving us in the event of a disaster?

He's a political hack, not a guy with any Emergency Services background:

Before joining FEMA, Mr. Rhode was associate administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration and White House liaison for the Department of Commerce. His first position with the Bush Administration was as special assistant to the President and deputy director of National Advance Operations, a position he assumed in January 2001.

Previously, Mr. Rhode served as deputy director of National Advance Operations for the George W. Bush Presidential Campaign, in Austin, Texas. His other professional credits include serving in communications and public affairs roles in the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, and Entergy Corporation. Earlier in his career, Mr. Rhode was an anchor/reporter with network affiliated television stations in Alabama and Arkansas.

Just great...it sure explains why he can't tell the truth....and doesn't this make you feel safe? Holy Shit, FEMA is a dumping ground for the political hacks.

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Convoy of Relief Busses and Equipment from NYC headed south

I left New Jersey early this afternoon, and on my way back down to Baltimore I ran smack into this:





And here's what it was, from Newsday:

A convoy of 70 city buses, accompanied by an assortment of support vehicles and volunteers, departed lower Manhattan on Saturday morning for a 24-hour trip south to help evacuate victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The caravan, including another 47 vehicles from the city police and mass transit, was expected to arrive in New Orleans on Sunday to start ferrying victims of the hurricane out of the crippled Crescent City. They left from Police Headquarters, just a few blocks east of ground zero.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, cognizant of the nation's outpouring of aid to New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said the city "will help those who helped us." The group that left Saturday will join members of the Fire Department, the NYPD and the city Office of Emergency Management already on site in New Orleans.

It was an amazing site to see, New York City giving of itself to help the people of New Orleans. And it just made me so sad. Here it was Saturday afternoon, holiday weekend traffic, and here are these busses and police equipment (mobile command centers, police cars) plodding through the traffic. How much faster could they have gotten there if the President had taken leadership and put out the call on Monday night? How many people could have been saved having their last moments on earth end in the filth and misery of the Superdome, or the Convention Center?

An utterly preventable human tragedy.

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The Next Horror: Finding and Counting the Dead

All week, we have heard stories and snippets about the subject of the death toll from Katrina. The official counts are very low so far. But those numbers are going to start to rise and over the next days and weeks, we are going to learn just how many of our fellow Americans died in the storm and it's aftermath. The Washington Post gives a preview of what's to come:

Four days after the hurricane hit, the death toll from the Katrina disaster remained elusive Friday in the devastated flood zone of southeastern Louisiana. But it seemed increasingly apparent the body count would exceed several hundred, and fears persisted that it would mount into the thousands.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who toured the area with President Bush, told reporters here in the state capital that the death toll could reach many thousands. But he cautioned that he had no official reports, and there was no word from any Louisiana state agency of an official toll for New Orleans or surrounding areas.

Mississippi officials put their deaths at 147 and rising. Scattered deaths in other southeastern states also may be linked to Katrina.

The sickest and most disgusting part will be when we learn how many of these people died because their government -- and their President -- failed them. Read the rest of this post...

"My Pet Goat, the sequel" - E&P; charges Bush with "dereliction of duty"

Editor & Publisher chief, Greg Mitchell, rightfully charges George Bush with "dereliction of duty." Read this entire commentary and share it widely.

This time, during a catastrophe, the president did not merely dither for seven minutes, but for three days, and his top advisors followed suit....

While a rising chorus in the press has taken the White House, FEMA and the Pentagon to task for performing miserably in their response to the human disaster on the Gulf Coast, few have focused on the most telling aspect of the entire failure. It’s not just incompetence. It’s a shameful lack of concern: The 9/11 “My Pet Goat” dithering on an administration-wide scale.

Simply stated, the president and his top advisers chose vacation over action.

While the media has done a good job in portraying the overall deadly failure of leadership, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of duty....

This follows Bush himself remaining on vacation for more than two days after the storm hit, despite acknowledging this was the worst disaster in the nation’s history. He did take a trip during those days, not back to Washington but out to San Diego to deliver a political speech comparing his Iraq war to World War II. It got little play because nearly everyone else in the country, besides his inner circle, was focused on New Orleans instead. If this didn't have fatal consequences one would be tempted to merely say: Serves him right.

But at least Bush did start heading home late Wednesday. As he did, Secretary of State Rice was still enjoying her vacation in New York.

In fact, that night she enjoyed a few good yucks while attending the silly Broadway play “Spamalot.” Ironically, the Bush team's performance this week did indeed seem like something out of a Monty Python skit. Each, in his or her own way, took a bunch of "silly walks."

Condi also played tennis with Monica Seles and on Thursday went on a shoe-shopping spree on Fifth Avenue until a fellow customer yelled at her for not doing her job and bloggers exposed all of this. Then she hurriedly headed back to Washington. Turns out she was overdue in getting a grip on offers to help that were pouring in from overseas governments and organizations.

Paging Andrew Card: Turns out he was Bush's Maine man....

While the 9/11 “My Pet Goat” episode was certainly illuminating, it’s not certain what might have worked out better that day had the president dropped the book and taken action. But his failure to grab the reins in the hurricane catastrophe for three days this week probably doomed hundreds, or more, to death.

This is not mere incompetence, but dereliction of duty. The press should call it by its proper name.

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Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff outright lied to justify Bush's failure. Fire him now.

As Michael noted below, but it's worth repeating, Chertoff outright lied - LIED - today in order to justify George Bush's outright failure in letting thousands of Americans die in New Orleans this week while he was on vacation.

Here's what Chertoff had the nerve to allege.

Chertoff said the double-barreled hit taken by the New Orleans area -- the hurricane, and the breaching of the city's levees -- is what has complicated the government's response.

"We were prepared for one catastrophe," Chertoff said. "The second catastrophe, frankly, added a level of challenge that no one has seen before."

This is a new variation of the lie Bush was spinning earlier this week, that no one could have ever foreseen the levees breaking. There are two responses to this:

1. We most certainly foresaw a levee breaking, and in fact the media reported on that possibility on Sunday before the storm even hit:

Forecasters fear levees won’t hold Katrina, Daily Advertiser, August 28, 2005

2. By Monday morning - MORNING - the levees had broken wide open. Where was George Bush? On vacation for two and a half more days. Where were YOU? God only knows, because the president didn't meet with you and everyone else until two days later. By Monday morning you already knew the levee had broken and you didn't act until two days, to five days, later.

Does the buck ever stop getting passed in the Bush administration? Or do they think that they can continue to lie while no one notices the dead bodies piling up?

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Remembering New Orleans

Some of my favorite snapshots from my trip there in 2003...





















Read the rest of this post...

Joe loves Mo Dowd

And I do too.

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

Read the rest of this post...

Is Dick Cheney dying? Cheney cancels his vacation

Wow, that there hurricane must be an awful big deal for Dick Cheney to finally appear six days after New Orleans was wiped off the map. Michael Petrelis has the scoop on Dick deigning to grace us with his presence again.

He's been "on vacation" throughout this whole disaster, we've heard nothing from him, and the mainstream media is for some strange reason not asking the question of where he is. Other than Dan Froomkin in the Post, who found out last Wednesday that Cheney was still "on vacation" indefinitely, no one has asked the obvious question as to why Dick Cheney is missing in action during the biggest disaster in decades. Why is the Bush administration's most effective member missing in action during the administration's total melt down? They're hiding him, for one reason or another.

So I'm asking: Is Dick Cheney deathly ill? Read the rest of this post...

Michael Chertoff: We're On Trial

Chertoff just ended another ridiculous press conference. Thankfully, he's facing some tough questions. Here's where Chertoff unconsciously admits they are on trial in front of the American people and being found guilty of incompetence and indifference. Chertoff insists New Orleans suffered two natural disasters -- the hurricane and the levee breaking -- and that NO ONE could have ever anticipated both occurring at once, which is absurd. A reporter asked him why he couldn't have anticipated both and Chertoff just responded:

That's the kind of question which in court the judge usually sustains the objection to. It's called argumentative. But nevertheless...you know... if we had an atomic bomb on top of this...and we could pile on catastrophes...whenever you do a planning process, you have to deal with what is reasonably foreseeable. It is true that you can sometimes have a combination of things that are reasonably foreseeable but that combination is unforeseeable.

Huh? He is out of his mind. An atomic bomb? Chertoff is comparing preparing for a category 4 hurricane and a levee break caused by that hurricane to preparing for the absurd situation of a hurricane AND an atomic bomb being set off. What an insanely ridiculous comparison.

We've seen their own mock games looking at what would happen and EVERYTHING that occurred has been foreseen. Chertoff is lying to the American people when he says a hurricane overwhelming a levee and causing it to break hasn't been foreseen. Read the rest of this post...

The .com of our address is screwing up

I'm just forwarding it now to the blogspot address, it may take up to 24 hours for that to work, so in the meantime, http://www.americablog.org/ does work. Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Bush visit to New Orleans halts food delivery

Jesus Christ.

Whoever halted the food delivery should be fired and brought up on charges of criminal negligence. We need to know who ordered the air traffic stopped, did they know they were stopping the food deliveries, who else knew the food deliveries were being stopped, did anyone object to or know about them being stopped, if so who objected and to whom did they object and what response did they get?

This isn't just a "sad" story, this is criminally negligent. Someone had to affirmatively tell that food to stop. We need to know who, and we need to know if anyone associated with the White House or Secret Service or any other government official knew about this.

From the Times-Picayune (the story was on a breaking news page, it's now moved off, so I'm taking down the link, but it's for real, I copied it off the newspaper's web site)

Bush visit halts food delivery
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

Read the rest of this post...

Michael Chertoff on CNN: He's Thinking About The People Who Are Suffering

Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff just made a remarkable claim:

I can tell you that not an hour goes by that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about the people who are actively suffering in all of these parts of the Gulf.

Exactly what else SHOULD he be thinking about? How clueless can he get?

Michael Chertoff is giving another clueless, tone-deaf press conference. Everything is going great. The plans they had in place have worked terrifically -- if they HADN'T developed these plans, the response in the past would have been much slower, so what you're seeing is a "validation" [his word] of the great work and planning the Bush administration has done. And who could have expected a hurricane AND a levee break. (Uh, everybody?)

He's throwing out a lot of gobbledygook: the National Guard are "citizen-soldiers" (a phrase they've suddenly leaped on in the past day) and it takes time to mobilize them. (Which is exactly why people are angry Bush waited SO LONG to mobilize them in sufficient numbers and he is STILL mobilizing more today long after it was painfully obvious there were not enough boots on the ground.

Another continuing Bush tactic: "legal issues" stopped them from doing their job. We've posted below the legal documents signed by the governnor of Louisiana asking for help. But do they really want us to accept that some form was signed off on and THAT'S why the response has been so incompetent? Do they want us to think a single person in this country would have objected if Bush had acted sooner, if Homeland Security had lived up to its stated mission to take control in catastrophic natural disasters? (Read their own website below.)

And golly, we're diving into national stockpiles to fulfill prescriptions for only the second time in history. Ain't that great? What the hell does he think those stockpiles are for? Read the rest of this post...

Trent Lott Thinks Bush Is Doing Dandy

This was last night (Friday) on CNN (hey, there's a lot to keep track of). Anderson Cooper asked more tough, reasonable questions and politicans like Trent Lott show how completely divorced from reality they are.

Cooper: So you're pleased with the Federal government's response?

Lott: I AM pleased with the federal government's response...this is not a time for complaining...I am really shocked at the comments that are coming.

Yes, how DARE anyone question why Bush and Cheney stayed on vacation and Condi WENT on vacation after the worst natural disaster in our nation's history. Read the rest of this post...

Oops. Dept of Homeland Security Web site claims FULL responsibility for any natural disaster

Again, oops.

The Dept of Homeland Security Web site says the agency will assume "primary responsibility" for any "natural disaster or large-scale emergency." So much for Bush and his surrogates claiming that the buck stops with the mayors and governors of the affected areas.

Click on the photo to see an enlargement of the Dept of Homeland Security web page claiming responsibility.

Preparing America

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.

Read the rest of this post...

Bush can't have it both ways

I just received an excellent email making an excellent point from Luke.

1. Bush, through the director of FEMA, FOX News, and other surrogates, is pushing the spin that the people of New Orleans brought this disaster on themselves by NOT evacuating the city.

2. But Bush is also pushing the spin that no one could have known the disaster would be THIS BIG, so it's unfair to blame Bush for not preparing adequately for the disaster.

3. But if no one could have known the disaster would be this big, then why should we have expected people to evacuate the city?

If we are to blame the citizens of New Orleans for not taking such an "obviously" serious and imminent disaster seriously, then our president should have recognized the same imminent disaster and taken the appropriate preparatory steps. He didn't.

So which one is it, friends of Bush. Should people have anticipated the disaster in advance or not? Read the rest of this post...

And Bush had no idea it would get this bad

Four days before Bush canceled his galavanting vacation, this hit the Weather Service wires Sunday at 5pm Eastern (you can see another version of this release here, it's just as bad if not worse, compares Katrina to Camille, and this is from Sunday MORNING!):

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA...
...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

This was 5pm Sunday, folks. And Bush decided to stay on vacation another 4 days. But he didn't know things would get bad. Really. Read the rest of this post...

The Questions A Shocked America Is Asking Its President

CORRECTION FROM JOHN: The Independent is wrong. It wasn't until Wednesday that Bush surveyed the damage from Air Force One. He didn't return to DC or give his speech until Wednesday afternoon.
----------

Our message is getting out to the MSM. Even overseas they are beginning to focus on the incredible callousness of Bush and Co. The Independent runs down the facts. Here's just the first question:

Why has it taken George Bush five days to get to New Orleans?

President Bush was on holiday in Texas when Katrina struck. He then spent Monday on a pre-arranged political fundraising tour of California and Arizona, which he did not cancel or curtail. On Tuesday he surveyed the hurricane damage - but only from the flight deck of Air Force One, prompting criticism that he was too detached from the suffering on the ground. He didn't give a speech until Tuesday afternoon - 36 hours after the storm first hit - and didn't embark on a proper tour of the region until yesterday. Key advisers have come under fire for similar levels of detachment. As the full magnitude of the disaster unfolded, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was seen buying shoes in New York, and Dick Cheney remained on holiday.

Read the rest of this post...

Condi Speaks!

Condi Rice -- who headed to New York City for a three day vacation AFTER the hurricane struck and who went to a Broadway musical while the flood waters were rising and people were dying -- yes, this Condi Rice cut her vacation short and headed back to DC. And now Queen Condi has deigned to speak to us per the NYT with her concern that people are injecting race into all of this.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an unusual foray into domestic affairs, sharply disputed any suggestion that storm victims had somehow been overlooked because of their race.... "That Americans would somehow in a color-affected way decide who to help and who not to help - I just don't believe it."

"Color-affected way?" What a bland, annoying, clinical comment. In part, she's right: this isn't about race so much as class. And she has none. More importantly, why did the MSM let Condi speak without immediately asking her "Where the hell have you been?"

Condi should be asked again and again: when are you going to apologize for going on vacation to a splashy Broadway musical comedy AFTER the worst natural disaster in our nation's history? When are you going to apologize for shopping for obscenely expensive Ferragamo shoes when misery and despair was spreading through the Gulf States? Why didn't you want to take part in the efforts to focus help ON YOUR HOME STATE OF ALABAMA? Alabama -- the state where she grew up and where the divide between rich and poor is deep and wide -- was struck viciously and Condi couldn't have cared less. Who are these people? Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

This was a week of horrors. What's the latest? Read the rest of this post...

Greta Van Susteren Praises Looter

Have the people at Fox News lost their minds? Shep Smith and Geraldo condemned in the strongest language possible the fiasco at the convention center. (You have to check out the video posted below by John.) And now I'm watching Greta interview a young man (maybe high school age 16-19 or so). He went to a school yard, commandeered a school bus ("You stole it," said Greta bluntly), went around picking people up until it was full and then drove them to Houston because that's where the radio said refugees should go. They pooled money to pay for gas. Think about this for a moment. One young man who had never even driven a bus before in his life acted on his own and was able to get dozens of people safely away and drive them to another state. (The laughable finale was that they were initially refused entry because refugees were supposed to show up in Greyhound buses, not school buses.) Greta called his story inspiring.

Is she crazy? Doesn't she realize Bush called for zero tolerance of looting? This criminal should obviously be arrested, not complimented on national TV. Fox News is going to have a lot to answer for in the coming days. Read the rest of this post...

Blacks and poor: move to the back of the line

The wealthy and the white get preferential treatment, including even luggage service, and are bumped to the front of the line to be evacuated out of NOLA. The Old South rises again.

So tell me again Condi, that race has nothing to do with this response. Read the rest of this post...

Where have the billions of dollars in spending gone since 9/11?

Is there anyone in this administration that can answer this question? It's been four years since 9/11 and yet we still seem to be struggling to find anyone who is accountable for preparing the country for a disaster. This team has never accepted responsibility for anything and yesterday when Bush said that he was "not denigrating anybody in New Orleans" for the failed response, we have to wonder why not? It has been so painfully obvious to Americans and people of the world that this has been a failed response but Bush is not serious enough to kick some ass and get serious. Where is the leadership? This time there are no 98 pound weakling countries to invade and attack and blame for everything.

Bush likes to sell himself as a leader so let's start demanding to know what happened to all of the spending since 9/11. What happened to all of the Homeland Security planning? What happened to the failure to act on this emergency? How can we mobilize troops for Iraq yet we find it so difficult to mobilize troops to rescue and protect our own people? Why has Bush not sacked the FEMA response team and find someone who can show real leadership?

How about a little transparency and accountability with this administration? Are they not spending our tax dollars? It's our money so let's know where it's been spent and how. Read the rest of this post...

Crawford ranch to be opened up for NOLA evacuees?

With the dire need for housing in for those running from NOLA, shouldn't we expect to see Bush lead the way by opening up his massive ranch in Texas for those people suffering? I've seen families (not black, by the way) taken in by other Texans so perhaps Bush can make an attempt to to reach out to the poor and suffering of New Oreans, who he has left to survive on their own, and offer them shelter at his ranch. Is this asking for too much compasssion or doesn't compassion extend to the poor and black? Read the rest of this post...

What impact will Katrina have on ideology?

A very interesting read about the obvious failures of "small government conservatism" (small, at least outside of corporate welfare programs) and the failures of this team to make a case for private/religious response to crisis situation. (On this point, check out TPM's story about the administrations attempt to get the Christian right highlighted in the relief effort, though it quickly died on the vine.)

Bush, of course, has been this strange mixture of government growth and administrative incompetence, almost as if he's running a kamikaze mission to prove the Republican case against government. But conservatives, generally, are all for the private market and individual charity. If Bush really was so uncomfortable with government involvement, he could still do a bang-up job relying on his church/industry connections to create a parallel and powerful rescue effort. The government could take care of the basics, but the private and theological spheres could provide much of the material, cash, and space. In doing, Bush would help discredit Big Government and legitimize the conservative philosophy.

He hasn't. And that he's hasn't demonstrates his basic absence of a driving ideology. He's neither able to effectively deploy government or call on his friends outside of it. He's just incompetent, as I said before, a small man in a big office.

Read the rest of this post...

OMG. They've LOCKED everyone in the convention center and won't let them out, and Geraldo and Shep Smith are going ape shit

This is some of the most amazing TV I have ever seen.


(photos courtesy of Crooks and Liars, who are also hosting the video)

Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith are reporting that the authorities have just locked everyone in the convention center with no escape, and a checkpoint is stopping people from leaving New Orleans. They set up a check point at the bottom of the bridge out of New Orleans, it's the only way out, per Shep Smith, and if you go the checkpoint they turn you around and send you back to New Orleans. Jesus.

Geraldo started crying in the convention center on camera. Shep Smith is going nuts. And then Hannity tries to defend Bush and the government and Shep and Geraldo will have nothing of it. My God, every FOX News viewer just watched this this evening. FOX's own anchors saying the entire federal relief effort is a fiasco. Geraldo is holding a ten month old baby in his arms, who's also trapped in the convention center, he then started chanting "let them go, let them out of here."

OMG. This is an absolute disaster.

Bush needs to finally start acting like the president and accept that the buck stops at his desk. It's time for Bush to step aside and let someone competent handle this crisis before anyone else dies. Read the rest of this post...

FLASHBACK: The levees broke last Monday MORNING, a good 48+ hours BEFORE Bush called off his vacation

The levees in New Orleans broke Monday MORNING, people.

By Monday evening, the Red Cross was already calling this the "largest recovery operation in the organization's history."

How can Bush and his GOP spinmeisters now claim that no one had any idea things were going to be this bad and that's why the federal government was so slow in responding, and that's why he decided to stay on vacation FOR TWO MORE DAYS, Condi Rice decided to go on vacation, and Dick Cheney decided to stay on vacation?

From the Times-Picayune

A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new "hurricane proof" Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina's fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.

As night fell on a devastated region, the water was still rising in the city, and nobody was willing to predict when it would stop. After the destruction already apparent in the wake of Katrina, the American Red Cross was mobilizing for what regional officials were calling the largest recovery operation in the organization's history.

Read the rest of this post...

So is the president a liar or an idiot?

Forecasters fear levees won’t hold Katrina, Daily Advertiser, August 28, 2005

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." George Bush, ABC's Good Morning America, September 1, 2005 Read the rest of this post...