See Dick Smile, Smile Dick, Smile!

Here are your choices:

A. The increase in cost of blood pressure medicine for military recruiters
B. The increase in dollar ratio of our nation's military to education spending
C. The increase in Prozac sales to U.N. diplomats since John Bolton's arrival
D. The increase in value of Dick Cheney's stock holdings with Halliburton

Take your time. I realize that any one of the above answers is plausible.
Give up? Here's one final hint.

Now, in his defense, Mr. Cheney has stated that he will give all of the proceeds to charity. Time will tell whether or not this is true, but what of all of his friends and business partners that he left behind when he resigned as the CEO of Halliburton? What career to you think Mr. Cheney will enter into when he leaves the White House? This is certain; we will still be in Iraq and he will still have friends in Halliburton.

Our nation has a rich history or war profiteering, as I am sure, most nations do. It is a simple factor of human nature's collision with opportunity. George Washington was quoted as saying "There is such a thirst for gain [among military suppliers]…that it is enough to make one curse their own Species, for possessing so little virtue and patriotism.” Harry S. Truman called it "treason" and Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of an encroaching "Militay Industrial Complex" that was insidiously invading our nations very core.

Can we deny that the invasion is over and the Military Industrial Complex has won? Perhaps you can but I prefer to base my beliefs upon reality.

Why is there no outrage that our nation's largest industrial export sector is weapons of war? Why is there no outrage that our nations 41 President is now a Senior Advisor to the Carlyle Group, a multi-national firm that specializes in Aerospace, Defense, and Energy among other industries? It's headquarters sit conveniently between the White House and Capital Hill.

Why is there no outrage that Halliburton and Brown and Root got no bid contracts, in violation of our nation's laws and when a whislteblower stepped forward, she was fired?

When a nation's top exports are weapons of war, what is it's best marketing strategy? You're living it. Fear, unrest, disorder, and chaos are the adjectives that best describe our nation's foreign policy, and in that environment, the White House's favorite businesses thrive.

Over the last five years we've seen things go from bad to worse to unbeleivible, but at least the people who got us into this mess will find lucritive jobs in the one of the few growth industries of the 21 century.

I am of course speaking of war, weapons and the opportunity to rebuild that which we have destroyed.

What a beautiful legacy for our children.

I'm Sorry

I attempted, again, to put the comment section back in but it immediately allowed a very cruel and vindictive person to anonymously write hurtful things about others. I would love to personally tell that individual why I am so offended by what he (I'm certain it's a he) wrote but I will not continue this line of discussion publically.

Please send me an email, and don't do it anonymously. Better yet, look me in the eye and tell me how you feel.

I strongly encourage anyone who has any feelings about this blog, me or the issues that I write about to contact me, but this comment section is no longer viable. I will not moderate the comments or delete offensive posts, so I have to remove it entirely.

I again apologize and I hope that the individual who posted his opinion will contact me.

Senator Wellstone, You Have a Visitor

Yesterday I received a phone call that we all dread. A dear family friend took her own life in the culminating act of a long and protracted battle with mental illness.

I still remember the day that I met her. My Daughter, who was five at the time, had made a new friend in her class. She was at that friends house and I went by to pick her up. I had already known this family for a few weeks but had not yet met all of the children. They had become dear to me and I truly enjoyed visiting with them and basking in the warmth of their dynamic family life. Mr and Mrs O have several small girls that are as sweet as a contemporary Norman Rockwell painting come alive. I cherished those times when I crossed the veil into their world and feasted upon their vitality.

On this particular day, I rang the door bell and a new face answered the door. As I looked at her face, I thought "another beautiful child to compliment this perfect family." But as she opened the door, I saw her in full and was stunned. As I took in her emaciated physique my inner voice cried out "Oh God! I do not want to go to this girls funeral."

I'll call her Sally, after her favorite photographer Sally Mann. Sally was a beautiful girl, tall and athletic. She was intelligent and artistic. Her chosen medium was black and white photography and in that stark and Spartan world she could capture light and emotion in a way that is difficult to explain but a pleasure to experience. She took many pictures of her sisters in "Edenesque" settings and it all complimented the aura of this beautiful family.

But Sally was battling bulimia and at the time that I met her, she was already losing.

Over the years, to the outside eye, things stayed much the same. My wife and I knew that Sally was getting treatment and we hoped and looked for signs of recovery but if there were any, we could not see them. We took little stories as omens of recovery, 'Sally has a boyfriend. Good! He might help her self image.' 'Sally got into a good photography school. Great! A change of environment might help her.'

They moved a few towns over and we saw much less of them, but we kept up through friends. I missed the energy that they injected into our community. Each time I drove by their old house, I envisioned phantom little girls bouncing on pogo sticks or riding bikes in their driveway. I was heartened by the thought of some other man in that other town driving by their new home and enjoying that which I so missed.

My daughter is now nine and she has not seen her little friend in about a year. When she called me last night to tell me that she had terrible news, it never occurred to me that it could be this. She new that Sally was dead, but she did not know the details.

She did not know that Sally was found by the State Police, on a precipice between life and death, trying to get the courage to jump to her death off of a dam that her family and ours used to picnic at together.

She did not know that Sally was taken into to custody and released to her mother and step-father a few hours later.

She did not know that Sally and her family returned to the dam to get her car and when the stopped next to her vehicle Sally jumped out of the car, raced to the dam and leapt over the side, before her horror stricken parents could prevent her.

She did not know that Sally received a letter on the previous day telling her that her health insurance was no longer going to cover her mental health treatment.

Sally made a choice and on the surface it was a very logical decision. She could continue to die painfully and slowly, wasting away in front of her family and friends or she could do it now. Get it over with once and for all.

We make choices too.

As a nation we choose to open the treasury and pour it's contents into munitions factories. But that's not enough. We must also borrow against our children's futures (the ones who have one) to pay for the destruction that our nation is addicted to.

We choose to grant tax cut after tax cut to the wealthiest few, cutting vital government programs to pay for them.

We choose to treat mental illness as if it is some social problem or character flaw to be dealt with until it becomes too much of a burden.

Just think of what we could accomplish if we could dedicate just a fraction of our obscene defense budget toward our nations health care.

Paul Wellstone did.

In 2001 Paul Wellstone sponsored a bill called the Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act. It simply asked that when insurance companies treat mental illness, the must "provide for equal coverage of mental health benefits with respect to health insurance coverage unless comparable limitations are imposed on medical and surgical benefits. " That's legalese for "mental illness can not be ignored."

That bill was never brought to the floor of the Senate due to heavy pressure on the Republican party by the insurance industry.

In 2002 Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash. Since then the bill, under new sponsorship has been brought forward by Democratic Senators time and time again but the majority will not allow it to come to the floor.

As I prepare to go to this girls funeral and drown in the misery of a family torn apart, I can not help but think that our leaders found time to vote upon flag burning, bringing a brain dead women to testify to Congress, and keep dumping truckload after truckload of cash into an inferno in the middle-east, but could not spare a few minutes and maybe a little cash to save a young woman's life.

She had so much potential. She was so dynamic and full of life, but her insurer chose to cut her loose because she was too expensive. Why can we do that to the mentally ill but not to the elderly or the terminally ill?

Maybe if Paul Wellstone's bill was reversed and it allowed the insurers to treat the physically ill in the same manner that they are treating the mentally ill the bill would have gotten a vote.

The Culture of Life.

Now when I drive by that house, I no longer see the beautiful children playing in my mind. That kind of innocent joy can not exist beside the image of a loved friend dashing herself on the rocky ledges of a scenic gorge.

The picnics too must go. Their's only one way to the recreation area and it's over that dam. I know that if I cross that dam Sally will once again be present at the picnic and somehow it just won't be the same.

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas

Last week, on May 31st, The Imus Show ran a segment in which nationally syndicated talk show host (and ghoul) Jay Severin called in to impart his wisdom. Much laughter and giggling ensued as the two men shared side-splitting jokes about Abu-Ghraib. Well, I can't do it justice, so I'll just let them tell the story:

Severin: "We took terror prisoners, and we treated them essentially to a week in Las Vegas.

Severin: "I have to pay good money to have that done to me. "

Severin: "I didn't see anything that equates with torture being done in Abu Ghraib, but it became a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Severin: "Someone still explain to me what it is that was so terrible at Abu Ghraib, but the facts don't matter anymore, you know, they walked around naked. Big deal. "

Imus: "Boy, you're right about that."

Don't take my word for it. Hear it for yourself.

Source: Media Matters

OK, this may be enough for some of you, but then others might say, "Paul you got all of that stuff from Librul sites and Librul News Services so I don't believe it." "You got it from the 'Blame America first folks."

Sure, fine, let's have a look at the Taguba Report. Major General Antonio Taguba, some of you may recall, was tasked with investigating the allegations of abuse, on behalf of the US Army. Let's see what he says about the hi-jinx and schennanigans that went on in Saddam's most notorious prison.

REGARDING PART ONE OF THE INVESTIGATION, I MAKE THE FOLLOWING SPECIFIC FINDINGS OF FACT:

5. (S) That between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force

6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;

b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;

c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;

d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;

e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear;

f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;

g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;

h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;

i. (S) Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;

j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;

k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;

l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;

m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.

8. (U) In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses

a. (U) Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;

b. (U) Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;

c. (U) Pouring cold water on naked detainees;

d. (U) Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;

e. (U) Threatening male detainees with rape;

f. (U) Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;

g. (U) Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

h. (U) Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

Source: The Taguba Report

Perhaps Jay Severin has "paid good money" for this type of abuse in the past, but to most people this is just plain sick. After having heard his little diatribe, I am sure that there are many of us who would be willing to help him accomplish his twisted, perverted machinations absolutely free of charge.

"They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake I.V. in his arm [to suggest he died under medical care] and took him away. This OGA (other governmental agency) [prisoner] was never processed and therefore never had a number." Ivan Fredrick

"Staff Sgt. Ivan Fredrick had once punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the detainee almost went into cardiac arrest." Sgt. Joseph Darby

Source: Wikipedia

Seriouslyulsy, this is just another of the many cases of The Right Wing Noise Machine attempting to convince it's gullible base that nothing unsavory has happened in Iraq. Those people who find fault in this new "American Pastime" are unpatriotic terror sympathizers. No matter that most of those detained in Abu-Ghraib were eventually released without charge.

A Gaggle of Constitutional Scholars Bitch-Slap King George

Has anyone else noticed how much equivocation is taking place in the regular "liberal" press, when talking about the NSA Spy Scandal. What we have on our hands is nothing short of one branch of the government usurping power that is not delegated to it in the Constitution, while another branch of government abdicates it's constitutionally mandated responsibility to investigate the offense. These responsibilities are clearly delineated in our Constitution under the separation of Powers, but our leaders no longer feel the need to "separate" their power.

This, my friends, is what is referred to as a Constitutional Crisis and to paraphrase Dan Akroyd, in Ghostbusters "A real nasty one, too!"

I have heard various apologists for this criminal assault upon our Constitution say that the President has been authorized to spy on American Citizens by obtaining the War Powers Resolution from Congress. This is a complete fabrication. The argument goes something like this:

When Congress authorized the President to use force, he was granted war powers and in those powers, he has the authority to do whatever is necessary to defend the citizens of the United States. On it's face, this is a ridiculous statement. Are we to believe that in order to protect our liberties and freedoms, from a shadowy and nebulous threat, we must first lose them to our own government? You can believe that,if you must, but I prefer to err on the side of protecting our Constitution.

Whether you choose to agree with me or not is not my concern. However, a group of 14 of our nations most knowledgeable scholars of Constitutional Law do agree with me and this month they wrote a letter to congress stating that "the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable." Now I've worked with lawyers and I've never heard one publicly use the phrase "violate criminal law" lightly, so this sparks my interest.

I really implore you to read this on your own. When you have a good understanding of it, contact your Congressional Representatives and tell them that you are aware of this letter and ask them where they stand on it. Again, I implore you to read this letter on your own and get good and acquainted with it. This is how a Representative Democracy is supposed to work.

Careful reading of this letter will leave little doubt that the authors are correct. They have penned a systematic and thorough evisceration of the NSA Spy Scandal. It utilizes the very arguments that the administration utilizes and then it clearly illustrates what an absurd and baseless attempt to defend their criminal behavior.

Don't even think of arguing with me until you READ THIS LETTER.

A Coalition of the Witless

The walls of the Oval Office must appear as if they are closing in upon a President who finds himself more and more isolated every day. How bad is it? Let’s just say that people who still care about him are careful to keep the pretzels locked in hidden cabinets.

Gone are the real conservatives, who have watched the President rape our economy, drive up our debt, raise our deficit and increase our trade imbalance. Never before and, hopefully, never again will a President’s legacy be so tied to nation building; a word that was synonymous with the most egregious of crimes, during the Clinton presidency.

Gone also are the real Christians, who bore witness as their “false prophet” extolled the virtues of compassion and humility, while his every action reflected malevolence, arrogance and deceit. Most realized that a nation can not be brought closer to God by a leader who condones torture, launches unjust wars and resorts to any lies and any level of underhandedness to satisfy his less than honorable ambitions. Not since Tartuffe has a more transparently hypocritical display of religious piety been witnessed.

Gone are his political allies, who now see him as an unmitigated disaster; political kryptonite to flee in terror, as the shadow of a 2006 mid-term election looms ever larger on the horizon. These political parasites can smell the faintest whiff of the putrid stench of political death, and fear it’s taint with a visceral horror.

Gone are his most trusted confidants and advisors, who have been cloistered into silent bunkers by their lawyers, waiting out the deluge of indictments, accusations and recriminations; the ones who haven’t already been indicted, that is. Each knows what they have done and much of what others have done as well; but what none know is who is willing to sell out and when. It must feel as if you are in an unending game of Russian Roulette, but the game is being played in total darkness and instead of one gun in your hand, all of your collaborators stand in a circle, pointing guns at you…. click…. click…. click.

What he is left with is a rag-tag collection of some of the most unsavory, unethical, misinformed, self-delusional and just plain stupid people, ever allowed to hold sharp objects; and Harriet Miers and Barney of course. To paraphrase, their hero; “what we call humanity’s cesspool, he call’s his base.” And that is how it should be.

Let this coalition of the witless follow him to the very depths of human fallibility, singing his praises every step of the way. Bite your tongue as they assail you for your unjust attacks upon their champion. Suppress your instinct to scream out in a futile attempt to instill reality into this delusional cult and watch it implode in a spectacular display. A poetic and fitting end for a man who so artfully, so cynically used the energy created from the implosion of the World Trade Center to launch his inanely misguided agenda.

Just as those planes weakened the Towers beyond their capacity to maintain their structure, I believe that this presidency has done the same thing to the Republican Party, but now is no the time to rest. We have slogged on for five years to get to this point and I believe that this is the tipping point. Whoever has the will to push the hardest will win the day. Do not allow it to be them.

“Do not go gently into the night. Rage, Rage against the dying of the light!” Dylan Thomas

So Let Me See If I Have This Right....

When You Spoke to God, He Told You to Torture People.

The American people now have a stark choice between good and evil; between those who advocate the "systemic, blatant and sadistic" (Taguba Report) treatment of prisoners or those who don't. Anyone who continues to support the current administration or who fails to support the efforts to have them removed from office and held accountable for their crimes, is equally complicit in their immoral, unethical and criminal conduct. OpEdNews.com

In the five years that the presidency of George Bush has afflicted this nation, not once has he chosen to veto a bill. This was due to the unwavering support that the President received from the Republican Congress. Once Upon a time, George Bush could poop on a roll, call it a hotdog, and the entire Republican congress would run to the Capital lunchroom to get the mustard. Now things are a little different.

I have stated, in the past, that Republicans are often on the same page as Democrats, it just usually takes them about ten years to realize what Democrats have known all along. But this time the utter failure of the Bush Abomination has cut this time in half.

Finally the Republican Senate has decided that The Bush Abomination has even exceeded their overly tolerant standards (not including of course, private acts between consenting adults) on what is moral behavior. Senator John McCain of Arizona brought to the Senate floor a bill that would forbid "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" of prisoners in US custody.

A three hour recess was then called, so that the Senate could muster all available federal resources to scour the Capital in search of spines for the Republican side of the aisle. They were only able to turn up 45. So at the end of the day, 90 Senators stood together and opposed torture while 9, all Republicans, flopped around on the floor of the Senate, in gelatinous opposition.

The ammendment was then attached to the $435 billion Pentagon appropriations bill which the White House now says the President will veto. Yep, that makes sense.

Irony upon irony; the president will prevent the troops from getting the funding that they need to fight the insurgents so that the Bush Abomination can create more insurgents. Yep, that makes sense.

And what will we call it?

Just plain stupid.

How To Talk To A Conservative About Karl Rove (If You Must)

Everything you need to fight back against the right-wing misinformation campaign.

CLAIM: White House Can’t Comment While Investigation Is Ongoing

McClellan: “While that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it.”

FACT: White House Has Repeatedly Commented During the Ongoing InvestigationMcClellan had previously cited that same investigation and then gone on to answer the questions as they pertained to Rove. For example, on October 1, 2003, he said, “There’s an investigation going on … you brought up Karl’s name. Let’s be very clear. I thought — I said it was a ridiculous suggestion, I said it’s simply not true that he was involved in leaking classified information, and — nor, did he condone that kind of activity.” Similarly, on October 10, 2003, McClellan said, “I think it’s important to keep in mind that this is an ongoing investigation.” But he then added with regard to a question about Rove’s involvement, “I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this.”

CLAIM: Rove Didn’t Leak The Name So He’s Not Guilty

Rove: “I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name.”
Rove attorney Robert Luskin said “he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.”

FACT: National Security Law Says Identifying Covert Agent Is IllegalRove at the very least identified Plame as “Wilson’s wife.” Under section 421 of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the disclosure of “any information identifying [a] covert agent” is illegal.

CLAIM: White House Didn’t Push The Story

Rove’s lawyer Robert Luskin claims Cooper manipulated what Rove said to him “in a pretty ugly fashion to make it seem like people in the White House were affirmatively reaching out to reporters to try to get them to report negative information about Plame.”

FACT: There Was An Organized Campaign To Push Leak Info

First, Robert Novak admitted: “I didn’t dig it out [Plame’s identity], it was given to me…. They [the White House] thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.”

Second, Rove told Chris Matthews that Plame’s identity was “fair game.” Third, Time magazine reported the orchestrated campaign against Wilson in October 2003: “In the days after Wilson’s essay appeared, government officials began to steer reporters away from Wilson’s conclusions.”

CLAIM: Conversation Was About Welfare Reform, So Rove Didn’t Do Anything Wrong

National Review’s Byron York: “According to Luskin, the fact that Rove did not call Cooper; that the original purpose of the call, as Cooper told Rove, was welfare reform.”

FACT: What They Spoke About Was IrrelevantThe original purpose of the conversation between Rove and Cooper is irrelevant. It has no bearing on the fact that Rove did identify a covert agent during that conversation.

CLAIM: Plame Wasn’t An Undercover Agent Ed Rogers, former official under Reagan/Bush: “I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don’t think there’s any meaningful investigation about that.”

FACT: Former CIA Officer Who Worked With Plame Verified She Was Undercover Larry Johnson, former CIA officer: “Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were undercover–in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. Government agencies. We had official cover.”

CLAIM: Rove Was Trying To Correct A False StoryRove attorney Luskin added, “What Karl was trying to do … was to warn Time away from publishing things that were going to be established as false.”

FACT: Wilson Was Right, Bush Was Wrong Bloomberg recently reported, “Two-year old assertions by former ambassador Joseph Wilson regarding Iraq and uranium, which lie at the heart of the controversy over who at the White House identified a covert U.S. operative, have held up in the face of attacks by supporters of presidential adviser Karl Rove.”

CLAIM: Wilson Lied About His Trip To NigerFormer Rove deputy Ken Mehlman: “What Joe Wilson alleged was that the vice president, then he said the CIA director sent him to Niger.” [CNN, 7/12/05]

FACT: Wilson Never Said Cheney Personally Sent Him To Niger Bloomberg reported, “Wilson never said that Cheney sent him, only that the vice president’s office had questions about an intelligence report that referred to the sale of uranium yellowcake to Iraq from Niger. Wilson, in his New York Times article, said CIA officials were informed of Cheney’s questions. ‘The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president’s office,’ Wilson wrote.”

Source: Think Progress

Oh My God, Look At The Size of That Cockroach

While some conservatives rail on and on about the paltry charges being levied upon poor Tom DeLay, by that partisan hit man Ronnie Earle, none can deny that unpleasant whiff of brimstone that precedes Mr. DeLay's entry into a room. In fact, no one has ever actually seen Tom DeLay enter a room. Generally there is that tell-tale aroma, quickly followed by a sharp, yet muffled cracking sound and there is Tom DeLay, standing at your side, his hand, locked like a vise upon your wallet, already sliding it out of your pocket.

Two indictments already handed down and a third reported to be on the way, The Cockroach just smiles, showing a disturbing excess of long, sharp, canine teeth, as he says "No sweat fellas, the Hammer's not goin to the slammer tonight!" But he may be speaking too soon.

You see, Tom's not the only guy under indictment in Washington, far from it. Right now in Washington, indictments are practically blowing in the wind like the storied cherry blossoms of spring! A less aromatic breeze for certain, but like Listerine, sometimes it takes a powerful agent to get rid of the really yucky stuff. Tom's buddy Jack Abramoff has a few indictments himself, 11 in fact, and these babies pack a real punch; fraud, extortion, money laundering, he's even being investigated in a murder charge.

Then there’s the Bush Abomination and the Valerie Plame affair. While Bill O’Reilly thinks, that “You don’t care about Karl Rove” the special prosecutor sure does. Today, as I type this blog, Karl is preparing to meet with the special prosecutor for a fourth time. Insiders say that there may be as many as 22 indictments handed out to Bush Abomination officials, some of them, to very high ranking officials.

Ralph Reed, another paragon of right wing virtue, looks to have his bid for Lt. Governor of Georgia spoiled by scandals involving Indian Casinos, influence peddling and fraud.

And then there is Bill Frist, a man who after ten years of health care legislation, finally decided to divest himself of stocks in a company that his family owns. Within a month, the stock plummets and lucky Bill saves himself millions of dollars, but it was about preventing the appearance of conflict of interest, not the money. It’s never about the money. The SEC is not so sure, but hey, they must be a partisan organization as well.

Now, I’m not one to make accusations of guilt by association, but this group has all of the earmarks of an organized crime syndicate. Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff go back many, many years. They are so enmeshed in each other’s political endeavors; it would be no exaggeration to say that they are tighter than a fistful of slugs (disgusting simile intended.) They’re like the evil, human equivalent of S’mores, three parts, that when combined make a much greater whole.

They also hold huge power and influence. The most powerful man in Congress, the most influential lobbyist in the nation and the baby faced all American sociopath who can direct the motivated Christians like the rudder of the Titanic, pack one Hell of a wallop.

And they also make one Hell of a target. Just as Al Capone was eventually brought down for tax evasion, Tom DeLay will probably fall for some financial infraction. His real crimes, of circumventing the will of voters, and supporting slavery in Saipan will remain unknown to most of the slumbering masses, but his shame and punishment will still destroy his political career and follow him like that cloud that always followed the Schleprocks, on the Flintstones.

It won’t be enough, but it will be a beginning.

Just In Case I Have Been Too Subtle For You

January 26, 1998

The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.

The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.

Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.

Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

Sincerely,

Donald Rumsfeld (Current Secretary of Defense)

Richard Perle (Bush Abomination Undersecretary of Defense until scandal forced his resignation)

Paul Wolfowitz (Former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Bush Abomination, architect for war in Iraq, current Director of The World Bank)

Elliott Abrams (Convicted of 2 felonies, later pardoned by GBI, now National Security Advisor to GBII)

John Bolton (Current Ambassador to the UN, former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, under whose watch, no WMD's were discovered in Iraq, but nuclear weapons were produced in Pakistan and North Korea)

Among various others

Source:PNAC

What A Wonderful World

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish president called on the country's Shiite prime minister to step down, the spokesman for the president's party said Sunday, escalating a political split between the two factions that make up the government.

"The fraud has begun right from now. We reject this explanation and we will not recognize any referendum based on this explanation," said Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni politician who was on the body that drew up the draft constitution, but who rejected the final version.Associated Press

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

However, one option under consideration was bombing several villages 30 to 40 miles inside Syria that some officials believe have been harboring Iraqi insurgents. The officials said the U.S. government has complained to the Syrian government about the matter but has not received a satisfactory response.

One other official, however, said military and other intelligence officers say the intelligence on the insurgents' presence in the villages is "not unambiguous." They said it is not clear whether the insurgents are present as a matter of Syrian government policy or local or tribal hospitality, or simply because insurgents have intimidated villagers.

The proposal to take military action, the officials said, reflects the military's increasing frustration with its inability to defeat the insurgency and stop the flow of foreign terrorists into Iraq. Indy Star

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

What is not in dispute is that at the most basic level—of neighborhoods and communities—the tissue of Iraqi society is already rupturing. It's not just Shia who are displacing themselves to be among their own kind, though they are the main victims of the Sunni-led insurgents. Many Sunnis, terrified of death squads and Shia-dominated police who look the other way, are fleeing Shia areas even if they don't support the insurgency.

Abu Mishal. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the National Assembly, concurs: "We never had this even under Saddam ... This is very dangerous."Newsweek

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

"There is no complete set of words that describes the feelings of trying to fly, after someone has bled all over a cockpit. When you're trying to inspect the aircraft for damage and you're having to touch, smell and see blood all over the floor, the seats, the instruments. The smell and sight are something you will never forget.

"When you have to strap into the aircraft and you are sitting on a wet seat from blood and water in an attempt to clean some of it off, it's indescribable. When you strap on shoulder harnesses that are blood soaked, and your feet are sticking to the blood on the floor, it's unforgettable. When the power is turned on in the aircraft and the instruments light up, but are hard to read due to the blood spatters, it's a sight that is burned into your mind. These things are smells, sights, and feelings I pray my children never have to experience." Nevada Appeal

Oh Yeah Louis Armstrong

A Neocon Nursery Rhyme

TIT FOR TAT

"Fallujah was less troublesome than Shiite Najaf in the first weeks of April. But the US insisted on garrisoning troops in a local school, which alarmed parents that their children might be endangered. They mounted a demonstration, and green US troops panicked and shot 17 civilian demonstrators." Jaun Cole Professor of history, University of Michigan

THIS FOR THAT

"Four contractors working for the US army have been killed and their bodies mutilated in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
The group were shot and burnt in their cars, before a cheering crowd dismembered the corpses and hung two of them from a bridge." BBC NEWS

LOOK AT MY GARDEN GROW

Come here to Honor The Fallen.

DEATH AND PAIN

For an accurate count of Civilain Deaths stop by here.

ACTS INSANE

"The mounting evidence from Iraq establishes what many Americans may not want to face: that the highest leaders of the land are violating almost every international agreement relating to the rules of war."

HARVESTING WHAT WE SOW

"The government must now acknowledge that its foreign policy played a significant role in leading up to the London attacks instead of blaming it solely on extreme ideology,"

TEARS AND RENDS

The killings of dozens of children in Baghdad's recent bombings show, according to UNICEF, "a disregard for innocent lives that recalled the recent massacre of children in Beslan, Russia." Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's Executive Director

NEVER ENDS

EXCHANGING BLOW FOR BLOW

JESUS WEPT

A NATION SLEPT

CONTENT WITH WHAT THEY DID NOT KNOW

Matthew, 31, decided that since he’d spent much of his time in Iraq lugging around Du Damaged Equipment, he’d better get tested too. It turned out he was the most contaminated of them all.
Matthew immediately urged his wife to get an ultrasound check of their unborn baby. They discovered the fetus had a condition common to those with radioactive exposure: atypical syndactyly. The right hand had only two digits.

The Pledge of Obedience

The Pledge Of Obedience

I Pledge Obedience
To the Lies
Of the President of the United States
And to the Corporations
For Which He Stands
One Nation, Under Greed
With Fear
And Propaganda for All TM
Owned By Paul Skogstrom

Dateline: Iraq September 11, 2005

Riverbend tells it like it is......

For the 3,000 victims in America, more than 100,000 have died in Iraq. Tens of thousands of others are being detained for interrogation and torture. Our homes have been raided, our cities are constantly being bombed and Iraq has fallen back decades, and for several years to come we will suffer under the influence of the extremism we didn't know prior to the war.

As I write this, Tel Afar, a small place north of Mosul, is being bombed. Dozens of people are going to be buried under their homes in the dead of the night. Their water and electricity have been cut off for days. It doesn’t seem to matter much though because they don’t live in a wonderful skyscraper in a glamorous city. They are, quite simply, farmers and herders not worth a second thought.

Four years later and the War on Terror (or is it the War of Terror?) has been won:

Score:

Al-Qaeda – 3,000

America – 100,000+

Congratulations.

Source Baghdad Burning

The Smoking Gun

Placed in a box
Buried in a pit
Under the foundation
Of a maximum security prison
Surrounded by walls
Patrolled by guards
In a remote corner
Of a distant island
Under restricted airspace
In tumultuous seas

Can you remember how excited you were when you heard, through the media, that the Commerce Department had finally released documents relating to Cheney's Energy Task Force? Do you recall how angry you became when you saw right there, on internal Bush Abomination documents, dated in March of 2001, that part of their energy planning involved maps of Iraqi oil fields!!!!????

No? don't worry, neither do I. But before you run out and buy "The Memory Switch" or some other memory enhancement gizmo, allow me a moment to explain why your memory is so faulty. Well, you see, it isn't.

Here's a little experiment. Open a new window and bring up your Google Search engine. Got it? Good. Now type in this phrase: "Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oil fields" Done? Excellent! Now have a look at the results. I stopped looking for any major media outlets after I went through ten pages of articles. On the tenth page, I did find a hit for The New Yorker. My cynical nature was reaffirmed when I opened the hyperlink and saw that the phrase was hopelessly buried in a long article, appropriately titled BENEATH THE SAND.

So why did the "Corporate" media think that a story about a pre 9/11 task force, headed by our nation's Vice President, looking toward Iraqi oil fields as a part of OUR future energy policy was not newsworthy?

When on March 17, 2003 President Bush warned the Iraqi people "And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people" did it then become newsworthy?

Did it become newsworthy when we found no WMD's in Iraq?

When on September 18, 2003, the President had to admit that "we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," did it then become newsworthy?

Is it newsworthy now that we know that Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil, and hand picked overseer or Iraqi oil production, had to prevent Paul Bremer from privatizing the Iraqi oil industry? According to Mr. Carroll , Paul Bremer adamently pressed him to set up the privatization plan but Carroll stated firmly that "There was to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved."

Let's tally the score, shall we.

The war was about Weapons of Mass Destruction; until it wasn't

The war was about 9/11; until it wasn't

The war was about Democratizing Iraq; until it wasn't.

The war was never about oil; until it was.

And what does it matter? You didn't need to know any of this anyway.

A Category Four Hurricane

A Category Five Act of Compassion

When Hurricane Katrina ripped through downtown New Orleans and the surrounding communities, we observed nature acting with her utmost cruelty and indifference. When our politicians started pointing fingers and carping over who didn't do what and why, we saw government acting with it's utmost ineptitude and vindictiveness. Since then, in the recovery and clean-up effort, we have seen Americans acting with their utmost compassion and honor.

There are so many tales of sacrifice, sharing, giving and caring, that one can almost forget the events that lead up to this disaster and the differences that divide us. We are reminded that, at the end of the day, America is a great nation.

Days become weeks and weeks will become years. Those of us, not directly affected by this tragedy will forget most of those images of the cruel, bitter fates of so many Americans. The Americans who suffered monumental spiritual and physical wounds, at the fury of nature, will recover to whatever capacity they have left. They will endure and they will go on.

But those who sacrificed and gave all that they could, will carry that honor for the rest of their lives.

Nature came and in her contemptuous indifference, she shattered lives and wiped away whole communities. Victims of such horrors endure, or die. Witnesses watch and forget. But those who move into action, seize the initiative, find a place where they can make a difference and do.

If you are not of the first category, you are blessed: do not allow yourself to fall into the second. Show your capacity for good and seize the initiative. Here is an example of someone who did.

A co-worker of mine, realizing that there will be so many families without homes, has decided to donate one. He is offering a home, to be given to a family that survived this horrible tragedy.

This man and I have had "conversations" in the past, that have made fellow co-workers seek refuge under their desks. I would not rule out the possibility of more conversations of this nature, in the future. Needless to say, neither side of the political spectrum has sole ownership of honor and compassion.

Please consider a truly bipartisan act of kindness and charity, that I hope, one day can be emulated by our national leaders. If you have any questions, please contact John at donateahouseforkatrinavictims@yahoo.com.

Please Buy This House

Emulated, that is, after we run this group of knuckle draggers out of Washington.

To Arms, To Arms, The Chickenhawks are Coming

One dozen dozen years ago Henry Wardsworth Longfellow penned what would become his most famous poem. Paul Revere's Ride is the tale of one man's journey into the cold, early April, New England night, to warn his fellow countrymen of the peril that would greet them in the morn.

The poem itself was written in a time of great national turmoil. Politics had become a blood sport. Just days before the south seceded, Preston Brooks, a South Carolina Representative cained Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of Congress. It took him three years to recover from the beating that he received for making statements that "dishonored the south."

The south had much to fight for; the north and south were drifting apart. While the south remained an agricultural, conservative society, steeped in it's history, with many families that traced their roots back to the revolution and before; the north, ever growing through immigration, ever strengthening through industrialization, was flexing it's newly developed political muscle. As it's population grew, so did it's representation in Washington. Federal policy could not favor both disparate societies.

The union crumbled. Abraham Lincoln was elected president and the leaders of the south left Washington. They went back to thier home states, where they seized local armories, took control of military bases, drove out northern soldiers and issued bellicose warnings to the north. The first shot of the civil war had not been fired yet, but war was inevitable.

Longfellow, a staunch abolitionist, knew that we were embarking on a perilous course. He also knew that to fail now, would mean always having a hostile neighbor to the south. At that time, Longfellow was a national hero and what he said had great impact. The poem he wrote was an attempt to tie the nostalgia and pride of the American Revolution to the conflict that was at hand.

Paul Revere became a symbol for the American Spirit; Citizen-Patriot ever ready to drop his plow, grab his musket, and awaken the sleeping masses to the danger that was at hand. Longfellow wished to ignite that spirit in his fellow countrymen, and with this image he did.

Politics is again a blood sport and in a different way, our nation has abandoned us. Our executive branch marched out of the town halls and town squares of America, out of the public schools and public land. It has entered the corporate boardrooms of defense contractors and energy conglomerates where it hungrily feeds from scraps thrown into it's dish. Lapping at the hands of it's corporate masters, it obeys thier every command.

So who is our Paul Revere? Does that American Spirit still reside in any of our hearts? Are there any who would rise to this challenge? I believe that there are. It is personified in an email I recently received from a kind, compassionate woman. She stated..."I feel like it's the end. I stand out in front of my local federal building holding a sign and people just drive by. They don't even look."

Why don't we look? Could it be that we do not look, because in looking at her we would have to accept that we do not have the courage or conviction that she has. If you don't have the courage to even look at her, to even walk up to her and thank her, imagine what it takes to stand in the center of town and expose your soul to every person who passes by.

That is courage! That is conviction! That is the spirit of Paul Revere!

Imagine what our nation would be today had none heeded the call in 1775. Imagine what our nation would be today if none had heeded the call in 1861. Imagine what our nation may become if we do not heed the call now. Become a Patriot. Live the legacy of Paul Revere, awaken your neighbors from the dark night of thier discontented slumber and provide them with an example of courage, of integrity, of what it should mean to be an American.

"A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere. "
Longfellow

Bring Out Your Dead, Bring Out Your Dead!

Here's one -- nine pence.Monty Python

For those of you who read this blog and still don't think that the Bush Abomination is a pack of lifeless ghouls who are constantly conspiring to create more profit off of our misery, this is my advice to you: stop reading this story right now. Exit out of this blog, shut down your computer and turn on Fox News with the volume set at full. Sit on your couch, in the fetal position and rock gently back and forth for several hours. Do not stop until you have a firm mental image of George Bush, dressed in a flowing white robe, giving daisies to clean, happy Iraqi children in a beautiful meadow of green. Once you have achieved this, you may have the fortitude to come back and finish the article, but don't count on it.

You see, we don't just give no bid contracts to our friends for business in Iraq. We give them to our buddies in New Orleans as well. And I'm not talking about an ice cream concession either. We gave the monumental task of taking care of all of the dead to a company who is owned by one of King George's best friends.

Now I expect nothing but croneyism, inside deals, exploitation and profiteering off of our misery from these ghouls. It's just usually not this bad. Once when I would read an article like this, everything would fade to white and I would come to my senses several seconds later, holding my monitor over my head, while making loud, disturbing guttural noises. Now I usually just get a quick taste of bile in my mouth and my left eye twitches a bit. I've come a long way.

My problem with this story is I have been all over the home-page of Service Corporation International, the business in question, and I now know that they are "dedicated to compassionately supporting families at difficult times, celebrating the significance of lives that have been lived, and preserving memories that transcend generations, with dignity and honor. " What I can't find though is what type of wild animals do they use to consume the exhumed and abandoned remains of our loved ones.

Bear with me because this is important. When the remains are exhumed and mixed with the remains of other individuals, to be unceremoniously dumped in the woods, are they then eaten by rats or raccoons or dogs or alligators or skunks or pigs or some combination? Do we, the grieving family, have some choice in this? Is there a form that has the itemized pricing options for the different types of carrion feeders?

Should we decide that we do not want to go the "eco-friendly" recycling route, do we get a rebate if we choose to have our dearly departed crushed down burial vaults so that other vaults can be piled upon them? And if so, is it done in a tasteful, significantly respectful manner?

Ok I guess by now you're wondering where all these questions are coming from. The ghouls that the Bush Abomination has tasked with this job recently paid out a $100,000,000.00 (the zeros make it seem bigger) settlement because they were caught doing all of those things to people who they were paid to inter "with dignity and honor." According to WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge LA "In recent years, the giant firm has been sued in several states for its mishandling of bodies."

Tell me the truth. Did George Bush just poke one of those cute little kids eyes out and stick a daisy in the socket? No... let me help you. Image that it was Terri Schaivo that they fed to the rats.

The Weekly Republican Hypocrite

Richard Mellon Scaife

Knowledge is Power:

Accuracy In Media - Mission Statement: "Accuracy In Media is a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage." Primary benefactors: Allied Educational Foundation, Shelby Cullom Davis, and Richard Mellon Scaife (Billionaire, Philanthropist)

"I think that there has been a massive cover-up about what Bill Clinton's administration has been doing, and what he was doing when he was governor of Arkansas. Listen, [Clinton] can order people done away with at his will. He's got the entire federal government behind him. God, there must be 60 people [associated with Clinton] who have died mysteriously." Richard Mellon Scaife (Billionaire, Philanthropist)

Skogsblog - Mission Statement: To support President Bush in his lawful and wise leadership of the United States of America.

Combat over Bush's Attempt to Separate Soldiers From Pay

Tonight I had a conversation with a young man who had recently returned from serving our country in Iraq. He pointed out that he had found an error in my reporting. I have reported that The Bush Abomination had attempted to cut combat pay and separation pay to our soldiers, while they were serving in a time of war. The soldier stated that his pay actually increased under Bush in 2001.

He was right and so was I. Congress passed a bill in April of 2003 that would increase Combat (imminent danger) Pay from $150 to $225 and Family Separation (Family Allowance) Pay from $100 to $250 a month. This was the first increase in these programs in ten years.

The $225 a month increase is a sizeable pay hike for an underpaid group of guys, especially when you stack up a soldiers pay next to the private contractors. The pay was retroactive to the prior October and unfortunately had a sunset provision to expire on September 30, 2003.

As the provision neared sunset, the Pentagon informed the rank and file that they would not put the money back in. Along with this, they were slashing several other popular programs including 58 schools for soldiers children.

"Betrayal" write that down and put it in your report," said Col. John Kidd, garrison commander of Fort Stewart, Ga., testifying at Tafoya's forum on the need to keep military-run schools on his post. "As a commander, I will fight this tooth and nail. Folks down there are not just militant on this issue. They will march on Washington." Source: Army Times

The Army Times refers to "...a string of actions by the Bush (Abomination) administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty."

So I ask you again, Why do they hate the troops?

See Also:
Military.Com
Repost SF Chronicle

A letter From Wynton Marsalis To YOU

From 9/15/05 Time Magazine

Saving America's Soul Kitchen - How to Bring this Country Together Listen to the Message of New Orleans

By Wynton Marsalis

Posted Sunday September 11, 2005

Now the levee breach has been fixed. The people have been evacuated. Army Corps of Engineers magicians will pump the city dry, and the slow (but quicker than we think) job of rebuilding will begin. Then there will be no 24 hour news coverage. The spin doctors' narrative will create a wall of illusion thicker than the new levees. The job of turning our national disaster into sound-bite-sized commercials with somber string music will be left to the TV. The story will be sanitized as our nation's politicians congratulate themselves on a job well done.

Americans of all stripes will demonstrate saintly concern for one another. It's what we do in a crisis. This tragedy, however, should make us take an account of ourselves. We should not allow the mythic significance of this moment to pass without proper consideration. Let us assess the size of this cataclysm in cultural terms, not in dollars and cents and politics. Americans are far less successful at doing that because we have never understood how our core beliefs are manifest in culture -- and how culture should guide political and economic realities.

That's what the city of New Orleans can now teach the nation again as we are forced by circumstance to literally come closer to one another. I say teach us again because New Orleans is a true American melting pot: The soul of America. A place freer than the rest of the country, where elegance met in indefinable wildness to encourage the flowering of creative intelligence. White, Creoles and Negroes were strained, steamed and stewed in a thick, steamy, below-sea-level bowl of musky gumbo. These people produced an original cuisine, an original architecture, vibrant communal ceremonies and an original form of art: Jazz.

their music exploded irrepressibly from the forced integration of these castes to sweep the world as the definitive American art form. New Orleans, the Crescent City, The Big Easy -- home of Mardi Gras, the second-line parade, the po' boy sandwich, the shotgun house -- is so many peoples favorite city. But not favorite enough to embrace the integrated superiority of it's culture as a national objective. Not favorite enough to digest the gift of it's super-sized soul internationally embodied by the great Louis Armstrong. Over time, New Orleans became known as the national center for frat-party-type decadence and (yeah, boy) great food. The genuine greatness of Armstrong is reduced to his good nature; his artistic triumphs are unknown to all but a handful. So it's time to consider, as we rebuild this great American city, exactly what this bayou metropolis symbolizes for the U.S.

New Orleans has a habit of tweaking the national consciousness as pivotal times. The last foreign invasion on U.S. soil was repelled in the Crescent City in 1815. The Union had an important early victory over the South with the capture of the Big Easy in 1862. Homer Plessy, a black New Orleanian, fought for racial equality in 1896, although it took the Supreme Court 58 years to agree with him and, with Brown v. Board of Education, to declare segregation unequal. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formally organized in New Orleans in 1957. The problem is that we, all of us Americans, have a tendency to rise in that moment of need, but when that moment passes, we fall back again.

The images of a ruined city make it clear that we need to rebuild New Orleans. The images of people stranded, in shock, indicate that we need to rebuild a community. The images of all sorts of Americans aiding these victims speak of the size of our hearts. But this time we need to look a little deeper.

Let's use the resurrection of the city to reacquaint the country with the gift of New Orleans: a multicultural community invigorated by the fine arts. Forget about tolerance. What about embracing? This tragedy implores us to re-examine the Soul of America. Our democracy, from it's very beginnings has been challenged by the shackles of slavery. The parade of black folks across our TV-screens asking, as if ghosts, "Have You seen my father, mother, sister, brother?" reconnects us all to the still unfulfilled goals of the reconstruction era. We always back away from fixing our nation's racial problems. Not fixing the cities levees before Katrina struck will now cost us untold billions. Not resolving the nation's issues of race and class has and will cost us so much more.

Wynton Marsalis, the jazz trumpeter and artistic director of New York City Jazz at Lincoln Center, was born and raised in New Orleans.

Sign the Petition to Create an Independent Katrina Inquiry

Do not allow the Defendants to hand pick there Judge and Jury. Sign this petition and demand some level of accountability for this calamity. If you do not wish to get onto MOVE ON's email list, create a new account with yahoo and never use it again; but SIGN THIS PETITION!

Did I mention that I think it would be nice if you would sign this petition? Good.

THE DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK

I found this article so poignant that I added his URL to my links bar. Please visit him often.
Thank You, John.

This was a very useful excuse that President George W. Bush used successfully throughout his elementary, secondary, under grad, and graduate school studies. It's even an arguement that worked quite handily when his National Guard records went missing. The Dog has yet to cough up those documents.

Once becoming president through another magical eating spree of that very same pooch; chewing up absentee ballot applications, provisional ballots, felon ballots, butterfly ballots and hanging chads, the arguement that worked so well in grammar school came in handy once again.

Then the dog developed an appetite for PDB's, those pesky Presidential Daily Briefings. In early August of 01 those PDB's were almost all chewed up by his trusty dog Spot even before Mr. Bush had a chance to digest them himself.

Now with the PDB process modified just a bit from what is was in the old days, it seems the dog's appetite for cellulouse has remained strong. Once again all PDB's have been eaten or classified so there is no record of what Mr. Bush knew or didn't know leading up to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.

In 2nd grade I once used this very same excuse....it worked. But my teacher said, "Johnny, don't try that again." And I didn't.

So how come our President can use this excuse time after time and nobody calls him on it. Maybe those that would, also have homework of their own that has been devoured by that same dog.

My question is, if it only worked for me once in the 2nd grade, how come Mr. Bush gets to use it multiple times. And it always seems to work. The excuse that Mr. Bush doesn't read seems far fetched but may apply. Why not feed your homework to Fido if it's unreadable anyway?

The now infamous FEMA report predicting its three worst nightmares; A terrorist attack on New York, a category 5 hurricane with total inundation of New Orleans, and a major earthquake in San Francisco.....yup, you got it, eaten by the dog.

Our President has pledged to not point fingers in the wake of this most recent disaster, fearing a self inflicted poke in the eye. We know Bush talks to God and now lately we're learning that God also talks to Mr. Bush. Added to his problems of disappearing homework and inability to read is a growing deafness. Our tone deaf leader has problems hearing or heeding warnings. God does talk to Bush. He just won't listen.


Source:The Daily Double Standard

It's 9 11 Do You Know Where Osama Is?

Well do you George? You see Mr. Bush it has been exactly 1461 days 14 hours and 27 minutes since the first plane slammed into the first tower of the World Trade Center. Initially Mr.Bush, you were all 'Texas Ranger.' You even stated, "I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive." We were all expecting, oh I don't know.... something like this.

But what we got instead was something like this

And Something like this

and something like this

and something like this

and something like this

You see Mr. President, the money that you should have spent on these

You chose to spend on these

And then you decided to drop them on a whole bunch of these

Which created quite a few of these

Which to paraphrase your mom, "... is working very well for" these

Which will create more of these

which allows you to build more of these

Which will make more of these

And then we can have more of these

And what will we call it?

The Culture of life!

From Your Lips To God's Ears

When an article ends with the phrase:

"....this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand " Truthout.org

I just have to share it with you. I only wish I had written it myself.

Barbara Bush and Tom Delay Redefine "Compassion"

These people are such freaks it is incomprehensible. Lose everything, everything that you have ever had; see death all around you, possibly your parents, possibly your children, live in a living hell for several days and watch the weakest of those around you die and what type of compassion can you expect?

"Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston. What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them." Barbara Bush Editor and Publisher September 5, 2005

While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots. The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" Tom Delay Houston Chronicle Blog September 9, 2005

Really Barbara, Tom, if you find this to be such a nice, fun experience I'm sure the American Taxpayers would love to put you (and your sons, Barbara) and anyone else who thinks our response to this disaster was "peachy" in similar accommodations.

Tell me Tom, does this sound "kind of fun" to you? Barbara if it were you, would you consider things to be "working very well?"

Channel 11 Houston
"The Houston Astrodome have come down with the norovirus, a highly contagious illness that causes diarrhea."

San Francisco Chronicle
"My son is crying every night, saying he wants to go back home," Gomez said. "I can't sleep, there are so many people walking around at night. I just stay up and watch my family."

Baltimore Sun
"Emergency psychiatrists have seen it all. But the level of anguish here is really, really, really intense."

Marie Antoinette has nothing on you guys.

Everyone Deserves a Second Chance

Comments are back. Feel free to speak your mind. To those who will use this opportunity to attempt to intimidate me, just remember I am in control and am giving you this opportunity to argue your point. If you have no point, you will only be embarrassing yourself.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt."
Abraham Lincoln.

The Same Old Story

Same Old Song and Dance, My Friend Aerosmith

When the bipartisan 9/11 Commission issued it's report, one of it's major findings was that funds needed to be allocated according to risk. If an area represents a significant national security risk it should get high priority. It was kind of a no-brainer and people got behind it pretty quickly.

"This new law will get Federal assistance to first responders when and where it is needed. At the same time, it will ensure that homeland security spending is directly related to national security preparedness, and not political pork," said Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox (R- CA). "Approval of this bill is directly responsive to the 9/11 Commission's recommendation that homeland security grants be based on risk."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff testified to the Committee on Homeland Security on April 13, 2005, that he intends to make prioritization of spending based on risk a priority of the Department.
Source: Security Info Watch

So what are our nations most likely catastrophic disasters? According to a FEMA report in 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country.The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all.
Source: Houston Chronicle

With this in mind, the 9/11 Commission asked the Department of Homeland Security to conduct studies to determine what portions of our critical infrastructure was at risk and what needed to be done to make them more secure. Among those items determined to be critical infrastructure were the levees of New Orleans. Two reports on this issue were due from the department on this subject. The first was due last April, the second in last June. To date, neither have been done.

This week the two chairs of the commission got together and issued a statement saying that the failure to learn from 9/11 caused unnecessary death in this catastrophe. "The same mistakes made on 9/11 were made over again, in some cases worse," Kean said. "Those are system-wide failures that can be fixed and should have been fixed right away."
Source: 9/11 Panel Critical

So, to all of the powers that be, could you please answer these questions? If we had identified the destruction of New Orleans, as far back as 2001, as the most deadly of our most likely "catastrophic disasters" why:

• did we not follow through with the reports mandated by the 9/11 commission?
• did we gut the funding for SELA by 80% when it was in it's final 2 years to complete a 20 year levee improvement project?
• did we not have a coherent and executable evacuation plan for the city of New Orleans?
• did an emergency response team, already mobilized in Florida, sit for 3 days before helping?
• did FEMA forbid the Red Cross from entering the city of New Orleans?
• did FEMA forbid the Coast Guard from distributing diesel fuel to Jefferson Parrish?
• did a group of 1,000 firefighters, ready to go, sit in Atlanta and watch for several days?
• did the same group of firefighters, upon arriving in New Orleans, pass out fliers rather than assist in the rescue?
• did the New Orleans National Guard have all of it's flood mitigation equipment in Iraq?
• did FEMA terminate the mission of the California Swift Water Rescue teams while they were successfully rescuing people in Jefferson Parrish?
• did hundreds of buses sit idle and flooded in parking lots while thousands of refugees hunkered down in the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center?

These questions need to be answered and they need to be answered right away. There is more than sufficient evidence to prove criminal negligence on the part of many parties involved in this debacle. We need to investigate it while it is fresh in our nations mind, before the art of obfuscation and denial can be plied by people who have proven to be masters at the craft. We owe it to those who are still floating in their attics.

Ignorant Commander-In-Chief Quote of the Week

Knowledge is Power

Nancy Pelosi: Mr. President, we can begin to help these victims of Katrina become whole again. First thing you can do is to replace Michael Brown as the head of FEMA.

President Bush: Why would I do that?

Nancy Pelosi: Because of what happened last week and the failure of FEMA to be the real link between the federal government and the people in need in our country, the social compact.

President Bush: What didn't go right last week?

Source: Crooks and Liars

You're right Mr. President. Nothing comes to mind.

What Went Wrong and What Went Right

What Went Wrong And What Went Right
What Went Wrong And What Went Right
What Went Wrong And What Went Right
What Went Wrong And What Went Right

Suddenly White House press briefings are becoming the best entertainment on television. If you tuned in today you would have witnessed a seen right out of "The Night of the Living Dead," with Scott McClellan as the handsome young protagonist being set upon by a mob of flesh eating zombies (the White House Press Corp.) To paraphrase Shakespeare; "A male escort, a male escort, my kingdom for a male escort!"



Here are some of the more memorable moments.....

Q So no one is prepared to say what went wrong?

MR. McCLELLAN: We will look at back at the facts and we will get to the bottom of the facts and determine what went wrong and what went right. But right now --

Q Will the President support an outside investigation, or does he want to do it himself?

------

Q But, Scott, more concretely, an officer of the Northern Command is quoted as saying that as early as the time Hurricane Katrina went through Florida and worked its way up to the Gulf, there was a massive military response ready to go, but that the President did not order it. It could have been ordered on Sunday, on Monday, on Tuesday -- the call didn't come. Why not?

MR. McCLELLAN: Bill, let's point out a couple of things. There were a lot of assets that were deployed and pre-positioned prior to the hurricane hitting. And you have to look back --

Q These assets were deployed, but the order to use them never came. The Bataan was sitting off behind the hurricane.

MR. McCLELLAN: I know these are all facts that you want to look at and want to determine what went wrong and what went right. I'm not prepared to agree with your assessment just there. There is a much larger picture here that we have to take a look at, and --

------

Q In view of the national crisis, will the President withdraw his proposal for this tax cut for the richest people in the country? And, also, my second question is, why did we turn down foreign help?

MR. McCLELLAN: Actually, I'm glad you brought that up. We have not. We have made very clear -- I made clear last week, the State Department made clear last week that we are going to take people up on their offers of assistance from foreign countries. There are some 94 nations and international organizations that have made offers of assistance -- whether that is cash support or I think water pumps from places like Germany or other areas. We said that if this can help alleviate things on the ground, we're going to take them up on their offers of assistance and we appreciate the compassion from the international community and their offers of assistance.

Q And how about my first question?

MR. McCLELLAN: Your first question?

Q Biggest tax cut, permanent tax cut for the richest people in the country -- in view of the national crisis, in view of the deficit --

MR. McCLELLAN: The highest priority for this administration right now is the ongoing response and recovery efforts --

Q No, no, I'm asking you a question.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I'm responding to your question. The highest priority right now for this government is the ongoing Katrina response and recovery efforts and helping the people who need the help. There are other priorities, too, and we'll be working to address those, as well.

------

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?

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.

Q Well, the President has said that this government can do many things at once: It can fight the war on terror, it can do operations in Iraq, and aid and comfort people in Louisiana. Can it not also find time to begin to hold people accountable? It sounds, Scott, as if the line that you're giving us -- which is, you don't want to answer questions about accountability because there's too much busy work going on --

MR. McCLELLAN: Wrong. No, wrong.

Q -- is a way of ducking accountability.

-------

Don't take my word for it. Enjoy the whole horror show at Editor and Publisher. But be warned, this is not for the squeamish Bush Abomination Supporter!

A Good Timeline Helps Organize a Cluttered Mind.....

Before landfall

August 23 - The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) issues a statement saying that Tropical Depression Twelve had formed over the southeastern Bahamas.

August 24 morning - The storm system is upgraded to Tropical Storm Katrina.

August 25 - The storm is upgraded to become the fourth hurricane of the 2005 season.

First landfall

August 25 6:30PM - Katrina makes its first landfall in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane. At least 11 deaths in Florida are attributed to the storm.

August 26 - Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco declares state of emergency.

August 27 - Katrina is upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane.

August 27 - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls for a voluntary evacuation of the city.

August 27 - President Bush declares a state of emergency in Louisiana

August 28 12:40AM CDT - Katrina becomes a Category 4 hurricane.

August 28 10AM CDT - National Weather Service issues a bulletin predicting "devastating" damage.

August 28 10AM CDT - Mandatory evacuation is ordered for New Orleans City.

August 28 1PM CDT - Katrina becomes a Category 5 hurricane with a highest sustained wind speed of 175 mph and gusts up to 215 mph.

Second landfall















August 29 6:10AM CDT - Katrina makes second landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana as a Category 4 Hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph

August 29 - Katrina makes third landfall near Louisiana/Mississippi border.

August 29 - Morning – President Bush shares birthday photo-op with Senator John McCain















August 29 - 11AM — "Bush visits Arizona resort to promote Medicare drug benefit": “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.”

August 29 - AP: "[ FEMA director] Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments."

Immediate aftermath

August 30 1:30AM CDT - CNN reports that a levee on the 17th Street Canal, which connects into Lake Pontchartrain, suffered a two city-block wide breach. It is later reported that a total of three levees are breached.

August 30 10PM CDT - New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announces that the planned sandbagging of the 17th Street levee breach has failed.

August 30 - 80 percent of New Orleans is underwater.

August 30 - Many instances of looting reported in the city of New Orleans.

August 30 - FEMA refuses to allow volunteer firefighters into New Orleans.

August 31 - The U.S. military starts to move ships and helicopters to the region at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

August 31 - President Bush heads back to Washington from vacationing in Crawford, TX. Though he does not stop in Louisiana, Air Force One flies over the Gulf Coast so that he can view the devastation.

August 31 - The U.S. military starts to move ships and helicopters to the region at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

August 31 - President Bush declares Gulf Coast a Public Health Emergency.

August 31 - Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana orders that all of New Orleans, including the Superdome, be evacuated.

August 31 - New Orleans's 1,500 member police force is ordered to abandon search and rescue missions and turn their attention toward controlling the widespread looting and a curfew is placed in effect. Mayor Ray Nagin calls for increased federal assistance

August 31 11PM EDT - U.S. government weather officials announce that the center of the remnant low of what was Katrina has been completely absorbed by a frontal boundary in southeastern Canada, with no discernible circulation.

August 31 - Condoleeza Rice is photographed as she leaves the smash hit Broadway Musical "Spamalot." The next day she will play tennis with Monica Seles and buy thousands of dollars worth of shoes before being shamed by fellow shoppers into returning to Washington.

September 1 - Governor Blanco says that the death toll may be "in the thousands". (my guess is it will far exceed the $3,000 dollars that Condoleexa Rice is alleged to have spent on a single pair of shoes)

September 1 - The shelter in Houston's Astrodome is ruled full and could not accept any more people.

September 1 - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announces that 4,200 National Guard troops trained as military police will be deployed to New Orleans over the next three days. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco requests the mobilization of 40,000 National Guard troops.

September 1 - California swift water rescue crew units each rescue hundreds in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

September 1 - FEMA halts California swift water rescue crews from conducting further rescues.

September 3 - Ted Koppel on ABC News Nightline interviews FEMA Director Brown who declares that FEMA only became aware of crisis at the superdome on this date. Koppel questions how FEMA could not have known that 1,000s were without food, water, or toilets for days.

September 4 - The Superdome is completely evacuated.

Second week aftermath

September 5 - The 17th Street Canal levee breach is plugged with 3,000 pound sandbags and truckloads of rock.

September 6 - Forced evacuation of New Orleans ordered by mayor.

September 6 - "Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help rescue victims have instead been playing cards, taking classes on the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and lounging at an Atlanta airport hotel for days while they await orders." Some had been waiting for four days.

September 6 - Some firefighters handed their first assignment: "to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas."

September 6 - Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) calls for Michael D. Brown's resignation. Senator Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid voice criticism of handling.

Source: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hurricane_Katrina"

More Reason to Despise Them

A few weeks ago, I told you that Pat Robertson created a business partnership between himself and Charles Taylor, the mass-murdering dictator of Liberia. Here is an excellent article that clarifies that situation and illustrates Robertson's connection with other murderous thugs. Bring in FEMA and this article becomes a Tri-fecta of malfeasance.

Warning: You may feel the need to shower after reading this.

Source:Thought Crimes September 6, 2005

FEMA Helps Pat Robertson Stuff Pockets With Cash
I read about this several days ago, but forgot to post it. Sorry.

Disaster used as political payoffNew York Daily News

Already under fire for its woeful response to Hurricane Katrina, the federal disaster agency appears to have turned hurricane relief donations into a political payoff - until it was challenged.

All last week, FEMA bureaucrats gave prominent placement on the agency's Web site to Operation Blessing, the Virginia-based charity run by controversial right-wing evangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson.

Operation Blessing, with a budget of $190 million, is an integral part of the Robertson empire. Not only is he the chairman of the board, his wife is listed on its latest financial report as its vice president, and one of his sons is on the board of directors.

Back in 1994, during the infamous Rwandan genocide, Robertson used his 700 Club's daily cable operation to appeal to the American public for donations to fly humanitarian supplies into Zaire to save the Rwandan refugees.

The planes purchased by Operation Blessing did a lot more than ferry relief supplies.
An investigation conducted by the Virginia attorney general's office concluded in 1999 that the planes were mostly used to transport mining equipment for a diamond operation run by a for-profit company called African Development Corp.

And who do you think was the principal executive and sole shareholder of the mining company?
You guessed it, Pat Robertson himself.

After the investigation began, Robertson placated state regulators by personally reimbursing his own charity $400,000 and by agreeing to tighten its bookkeeping methods.

The biggest single U.S. recipient of the charity's largess, according to its latest financial report, was Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. It received $885,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2004.

This time, I guess the money will go to hire a hit man to "take out" Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

:: David Allen - 07:21 PM :: Comments (0) TrackBack (0)

Some Lies That I Have Heard of Late

On the Response of FEMA:

"You’re doing a heck of a job." President Bush to FEMA director Michael Brown Friday, September 02, 2005

"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. … Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed 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." Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard On Meet The Press With Tim Russert (Hit this Hyperlink, and watch him break down and Cry.)

"Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially." New Orleans Times Picayune, September 4, 2005

On the Breaching of the Levees:

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," President Bush to Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America September 1, 2005

"Another scenario is that some part of the levee would fail," Suhayda said. "It's not something that's expected. But erosion occurs, and as levees broke, the break will get wider and wider. The water will flow through the city and stop only when it reaches the next higher thing. The most continuous barrier is the south levee, along the river. That's 25 feet high, so you'll see the water pile up on the river levee." Joseph Suhayda Louisiana State University engineer who was studying ways to limit hurricane damage in the New Orleans area. Times Picayune June 24, 2002

On The Bush Abomination's Concern of the Potential Flooding of New Orleans:

"Flood control has been a priority of this administration from day one." Scott McClellan, White House Press Briefing, September 1,2005

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget (from flood control) to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

"One time I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels' office," Parker recalled. "They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for 30 years, and the other was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling apart because of a lack of funding. I said, 'Mitch, it doesn't matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates -- either way it's the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.' It made no impact on him whatsoever." Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, speaking to Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, A Bush Abomination post (Parker was later fired for not supporting the cuts)

On the Death Toll and Why People Stayed Behind in New Orleans:

“Unfortunately that’s (the high death toll is) going to be attributable to a lot of people who did not heed the warnings. I don’t make judgements about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.” Michael Brown , FEMA Director on CNN September, 1 2005

"Once it’s certain a major storm is about to hit, evacuation offers the best chance for survival. But for those who wait, getting out will become nearly impossible as the few routes out of town grow hopelessly clogged. And 100,000 people without transportation will be especially threatened." Times Picayune June 24, 2002

On Why The Federal Aid Took So Long to Materialize:

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said Washington Post September 4, 2005

Correction to This Article A Sept. 4 article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina incorrectly said that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) had not declared a state of emergency. She declared an emergency on Aug. 26. Washinton Post September 5, 2005

Anatomy of Catastrophic Negligence, Hubris and Ignorance

The Following is a timeline of the systematic gutting of FEMA (The Federal Emergency Management Administration.) I guess the Bush Abomination thinks that "Free Market Forces" not only protect the consumer but those who have suffered disaster as well. I must admit that I am a little confused. Is the complete and utter destruction of a world class city, complete with a slow motion human catastrophy part of the "Ownership Society" or "The Culture of Life?" Perhaps time will sort this out.

From The Washington Monthly September 2, 2005

CHRONOLOGY....Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and weep:

January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."

December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management.

March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.

2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."

June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

So: A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.—

Kevin Drum 1:19 PM Permalink TrackBack (0) Comments (276)

Not To Be Redundant....

This story is ongoing, so if you read this and feel that I am harping on an issue, I am. The reason I harp is simple: the more information we get, the more obvious it becomes (even to conservatives) that the "Blame George Bush" list has just been added to.

How Do You Like These Apples?

"One time I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels' office," Parker recalled. "They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for 30 years, and the other was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling apart because of a lack of funding. I said, 'Mitch, it doesn't matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates -- either way it's the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.' It made no impact on him whatsoever." Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, speaking to Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, A Bush Abomination post

Would You Prefer These?

"It's a national disgrace. FEMA has been in the city for three days, yet there is no command and control. The U.S. can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims in Asia but can't bail out the city of New Orleans. The evacuation is almost entirely a Louisiana operation." Terry Ebbert local co-ordinator of the Office of Homeland Security in New Orleans, criticizing FEMA

Now, why is FEMA unfunded? Why did they cut the Budget to SELA (South East Louisiana Administration) flood mitigation project?

To cut taxes to the wealthiest Americans and to wage war on nations that have no involvement in 9/11.

As a nation, we have a lot of soul searching to do. How much more can we take? How much more can he do?

This Just in.....

Paramedics Are On The Scene Administering First Aid To A Reporter Whose Eye Was Poked Out By Scott McClellan's Nose

Excerpt from Today's White House Daily Press Briefing:

REPORTER: There’s a lot of discussion going on about the funding of projects prior to this, whether projects in New Orleans in particular were underfunded because of the Iraq war or for other reasons. Do you find any of this criticism legitimate? Do you think there is any second guessing to be done now about priorities given that [a disaster in] New Orleans was sort of obvious to a lot of the experts?

MCCLELLAN: As I have indicated, this is not a time for politics. This is a time for the nation to come together for those in the Gulf Coast region and that’s where our focus is. This is not a time for finger-pointing or politics. And I think the last thing that the people who have been displaced or the people who have been affected need is people seeking partisan gain in Washington. So if that’s what you’re talking about, that’s one thing. Now, if you’re talking about specific areas, I would be glad to talk about some of those, if that’s what you want.

REPORTER: I’m talking about policy

REPORTER: One project, for instance, is the one where people felt they needed $60 million in the current ‘06 fiscal year, and they were given $10 million. Those types of projects. And a lot —

MCCLELLAN: Which project is this?

REPORTER: Southeast Louisiana Flood Control.

MCCLELLAN: Flood control has been a priority of this administration from day one.

Planning Has Never Been His Strong Suit

If The Levee Breaks Got No Place to Stay...
Oh Well, Oh Well (Led Zeppelin, The Levee Song)

People I work with have made sarcastic references to Hurricane Katarina, asking if I blame President Bush for that as well. No, I do not. Research into this indicates that the hurricanes follow a cyclical pattern and they have been increasing in intensity for some time. This year was predicted to be one of the worst on record so I'll give him a pass on responsibility for the hurricane.

But (with Bush, there is so often a but) he's not going to walk away squeaky clean either.

As we all have all learned over the past few days, New Orleans is actually a city that has been established below sea level. With the Mississippi river on the south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north it sits like an empty bowl, with water lapping at the outer edges, waiting to spill in. Levees, giant wall of earth, create a buffer between the city and the water. Pumps are in place to suck the water back out when flooding occurs. This system is controlled by the Army Corp of Engineers in coordination with various local disaster agencies. As the city is built in swampy land the levees have a tendency of sinking so a major part of the upkeep goes to reinforcing the levees and building them up to the required levels.

Whether or not it is wise to build a city below the water that surrounds it is a fair question but given that it is there, steps must be taken to make it as safe as possible. This is where the COLOSSAL FAILURE OCCURS....

You see the War in Iraq, coupled with the massive tax cuts to the rich have so impoverished our government that we have had to shave a little bit here and there to make ends meet.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

"In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures."--Marcia Demma, chief of the New Orleans Corps' programs management branch.

"...the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement."-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

"The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds."--Al Naomi, Project Manager, Army Corp of Engineers.

Now that we have established a baseline of facts:

• I do not give him a pass on completely gutting the funding for maintenancence and upgrades of the levee and pump systems that protected New Orleans from this type of event.
• I do not give him a pass on the massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans that caused him to cut funding to important programs.
• I do not give him a pass on sending half of the Louisiananna National Guard to Iraq with all of their flood mitigation equipment.
• I do not give him a pass on taking FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) out of the business of dealing with natural disasters and turning it into a subsidiary of the Department of Homeland Security.

What we saw was the result of inadequate levees that broke down and pumps that failed because they were not up to the task of such major flooding and did not have proper backup power.

What we are seeing now is an ineffectual emergency response because FEMA is no longer in the business of "emergency management."

What we will see is more of the same. As a nation, we no longer take proactive measures to prevent disasters. We gut the funding for our social and societal safety nets and then we decry the horror of the inevitableble result. And what do we call it?

The Culture of Life!

Rush is Back on The OxyContin

As many of you may have guessed, and those of you who know me know; I've kind of invested myself heavily in the peace movement lately. The idea of committing to anything less important, while the Bush Abomination continues to sell this stupid war, created by stupid people, as a just war, in the mold of World War II is simply not possible

That being said, after a hard day of blogging, disagreeing with the narrow minded people that I work with and affixing pithy leftist insults on my old Volvo; I need to unwind. That's why most nights you can find me and my peace activist buddies out at bars, groping returning servicemens' girlfriends and then chasing down the servicemen in the parking lot, to stomp them into oblivion. This is, of course a major facet of the peace movement, in the tradition of Ghandi and the Reverend Martin Luther King.

Huh.... What? It's not? We don't do that? But Rush says we do. Honest to god. Hit the hyperlink and see how bad it has become. While the above behavior may pass for political speech with the "Ditto-heads" it don't cut it in the civilized world.

So why do you think that Rush is telling his listeners that peace activists sexually assault women and beat returning veterans into bloody twitching lumps of flesh? I think that I know; everbody...Peace Activist = Violent Sexual Predator and what do we call that? Hate Speech!

I hope that the first peace activist that gets punched in the face by a guy with the words 'Rush' and 'Bush' tattooed on his dragging knuckles, sues Rush Limbaugh for every penny he has.

Until then, if you would like to contact Rush, you can reach him at 1-800-282-2882, rush@eibnet.com and The Rush Limbaugh Show, 1270 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020.

Guess Who's Back Back Again?

Shady's Back, Tell a Friend EMINEM

Most American's knowledge of our history tends to focus on three periods; the American Revolution, the Civil War and World War II. Even these areas are somewhat shaky for most, but beyond that, we really have a pitiful understanding of who we are as a nation.

Throughout history, many colorful characters make a huge stir, and then peter out over time. We all know of Chappiquiddick, Monica Lewinski and Anita Hill, but these are personal indiscretions that have had major effects on individuals but little effect on us as a whole. Why is it that we remember these and forget some very major scandals that had more lasting effects on a great number of people? Could it be that they involve sex, and the media feeds it to us like pushers peddling crack to junkies? Yeah, I think it could.

With this in mind, I ask you to take your mind out of the gutter for a moment and follow me through a tale that has no sex, no pubic hair and no wet drunks stumbling home from a remote bridge. But there will be death, piles of putrid death......

Way back in 1981, while Rick Springfield was pining for "Jessie's Girl," a remote, hot, war torn, Central American nation was coming to terms with a massive atrocity. In El Salvador, a little town by the name of El Mozote was suddenly no longer there. In it's place was an open-air slaughterhouse. It's 800 residents, tortured, machine gunned and burned to death. Of all the men, women and children, in this town there were no survivors. None. Whoever did this, left the bodies where they were murdered, to rot in the hot, tropical sun. The leftist, FLMN guerrillas arrived on the scene and broadcast to the world that there had been a massacre in the jungle.

The American backed government didn't seem to care. America's hilariously misnamed 'Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs,' Elliott Abrams said that the reports "were not credible" and that "it appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the guerrillas." Abrams implied that reports of a massacre were simply FMLN propaganda. But it wasn't.

The guerrillas smuggled several American reporters and cameramen in and the lid was off. The "American smear machine" kicked into high gear and the Reagan Administration started to accuse the reporters of being "communists" and "malcontents," but did nothing to investigate the atrocity.

History has shown that the El Mozote Massacre and dozens of others were committed by a special forces unit, known as "The Atlacatl Battalion." This battalion was trained by American special forces soldiers and continued it's murderous ways for years and years. Eventually, they lost their support after, in 1989, they murdered 6 Jesuit missionaries, their cook and his daughter. One Special forces trainer quipped "We've always had a hard time getting them to take prisoners instead of ears." Funny.

The final tally finds that of the 22,000 atrocities that a 1993 UN Truth Commission investigated in the El Salvador War, 85% of them (that's 18,700 to my mathematically challenged readers) were caused by government troops.

What does Elliott Abrams have to say about that? "The Administration's record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement." What exactly did you set out to achieve Elliott?

Elliott Abrams eventually plead guilty to two counts of lying to congress about his Central American adventures (but not about sex!) but he was pardoned by "Daddy Bush" in a blatant attempt to curtail any future investigations that might eventually lead all the way to the top..

"So why" you ask," are you bringing up all of this old history, Paul?" Because reader, Elliott Abrams once again has his blood-stained fingers in our national affairs.

That's right, say hello to the Bush Abomination's newest "re-engineered" felon: Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams. And while your at it, say hello to a couple of his former clients.

Adolph Hitler and Top Nazi Aids Cloned and Running Amuck in "Blue America"

Hate Speech n Bigoted speech attacking or disparaging a social or ethnic group or a member of such a group.

Fascism n A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Source: Dictionary.com

Rick Santorum (R) on Democrats using the filibuster:
"It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, 'I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It's mine.'" (Democrats = Nazis)

James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family, on Stem-cell research:
"In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind." (Democrats = Nazis)

Bill O'Reilly on Air America Radio:
It's all crazy propaganda. It's the Joseph Goebbels network. (Democrats = Nazis)

Pat Robertson, founder of Christian Coalition of America, in his book Courting Disaster:
"The out-of-control judiciary is the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than Al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War." (Democrats = Nazis)

Pat Buchanan on the removal of Teri Schiavo's feeding tube:
"When the German doctors committed those crimes in the 1930s, even before World War II, they were put on trial for crimes against humanity." (Democrats = Nazis)

nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage on Teri Schiavo:
"The radical Democratic left is an army of soulless ghouls. Being of the living dead, they live in a world of death and try to impose it on we the living. Witness who led the charge: a radical homosexual, Barney Frank. A radical abortion Mafiosa, Barbara Boxer. What is difficult for we the living to comprehend is the reason they can engage in such anti-life abominations is because they have no souls. They have said that the tears of Teri Schiavo are mechanical. They have said that her smile is reflexive. They can rip an emerging child from the womb, murder it, and call this a compassionate act. Like Mengele -- the doctor of death from the Nazi concentration camps -- the radical, soulless Democrats keep referring to "the doctors," as if a medical degree guaranteed humanity." (Democrats = Nazis)

Bill O'Reilly on Michael Moore:
"I believe that he has power now. He has more power than probably anybody else other than Kerry and Edwards. It's scary. It's scary. You know this happened in Nazi Germany. ... Who was the most powerful person in Nazi Germany other than Hitler and Himmler and Goering, who? You guys know? ... Goebbels. The propaganda minister." (Democrats = Nazis)

Michael Savage on Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt:
"Gloria Feldt is the head of the planned deathhood action fund, they kill babies. We're the baby killer people. That's what they ... their logo should be "we kill babies." We eat babies for breakfast. Gloria Feldt ... I haven't seen anyone as vicious as her since Goebbels." (Democrats = Nazis)

Bill O'Reilly on The ACLU:
Fascism, fascism, fascism. Okay? Ah, drive me nuts! Hitler would be a card-carrying ACLU member. So would Stalin. Castro probably is. And so would Mao Zedong. (Democrats = Nazis)

Okay, let's make sure we understand eachother. My opposition to the war in Iraq, my opposition to lying and unethical behavior of my political leaders, my anger at the systematic dismantling of our great nation by a few evil, stupid men puts me in the moral company of a man who mass murdered 6,000,000,000 (the zeros make it seem bigger) jews and several million more gays, gypsies and other minorities? Yeah, that makes sense.

Do these fascists really speak for you? Is this the company you choose to keep?

Peace is Soooo Scary!

I have spent some time considering why so many of you on the right are so viscerally angry over the left wings persistent cries for peace and justice. Just look at the circus that is transpiring in Crawford Texas. A woman, and her supporters, stand in front of the president's ranch in an attempt to force him to address the issues that the press will not cover. Soon a counter group shows up belligerently accusing the peace protestors of being un-American, communists, traitors who are hurting the troops.

These counter-protestors wear the American flag, adorn there cars with yellow ribbons and believe that, in doing so, they are supporting the troops.

Wrong! You are supporting the president. In your blind support of the president, no matter what new scandal has come to surface, you have completely abandoned the troops. Let's look at your support from a different perspective.

If a man were viciously beating his wife on the street corner and you came upon it at the same time as another group, who were attempting to intercede to help the wife would you step in and prevent them? Would you state, "Your involvement is only going to make it worse! You must be anti-marriage. Why do you hate her?"

The simple fact is, George Bush could not be more abusive of the troops. If he made them march in formation past a viewing platform from which he, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were relieving themselves over the railing onto them, it would be an improvement. Let's not forget that it is the Bush Abomination who....

• lied to the world to push this war upon the troops. Every argument that they made when promoting the war with Iraq has turned out to be false.
• fired the General Shinsiki when he stated that the troop levels that they wanted to fight the war with were not sufficient and would result in an insurgency. (how prescient)
• attempted to reduce Combat pay from $225 to $150 a month (this was prevented by house democrats)
• attempted to reduce Family separation Pay from $250 to $100 a month (this also was prevented by house democrats)
• were successful in reducing "geographic rate protection" for soldiers who are based in expensive parts of the country, reducing the pay to these soldiers by up to $250 a month.
• failed to provide adequate body armor and humvee armor to soldiers
• underfunded veteran's health benefits to the tune of $1,000,000,000 (the zeros make it seem bigger)
• created the atmosphere responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and then left a few low ranking enlisted personnel to take the blame.
• On top of all of this, Bush taunted our enemies, telling them"There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on." Bush went on to say "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

Brave words from a chicken-hawk who spends his every living moment behind the world's most effective security shield.

So, if this is the case (and it is) why are you still supporting the Bush Abomination? Why do you still think that you are supporting the troops? Don't tax your brain, I know the answer: although it is obvious to any clear thinking, objective person, you can not bring yourself to see reality. In doing so, you would have to acknowledge that for the last two and a half years you have been supporting the unnecessary death, mutilation, deprivation and living hell for tens of thousands of living human beings. Many of them are children. Many of them are American boys and girls. None of them deserve this. Take your misguided anger and frustration and direct it at the real traitors.

Face this simple reality: You can not be both a decent human being and a Bush Abomination supporter. They are mutually exclusive positions. You decide which one you are.

Beat me as much as you want with your yellow ribbons and American flags, I'm not giving up the moral high ground to an angry delusional mob.

The above image is made up of the faces of 400 soldiers who

paid the ultimate sacrifice in the ultimate quagmire.