Hurricane Editorial Cartoon: Flash Animated

Check this out. (courtesy Daily Kos)

Wanna Hear A Joke?

This is probably going to become a VERY popular link.

Lest We Forget

Here's the damning report of the Administration's cluelessness in dealing with Katrina. Now that the evacuees have moved to better shelter, the finger-pointing and blame-gaming (to quote Scottie McStupid) can really begin. Let's not just go back to our lives as if nothing has changed. Folks, there is a change 20,000 people could be dead. How's that sound?

And from the Senate Democrats...the Security Index. Here's a sampling of how safe we are and how we are being 'protected' from a forthcoming potential security problem:

Homeland Security

Factor by which passengers on mass transit systems exceed passengers on airlines: 16

Funding per passenger the Bush Administration has spent to secure mass transit systems since September 11, 2001: $0.01

Cost of security upgrades needed to protect rail and transit systems as estimated by U.S. transit authorities: $6 billion

Amount of funding designated specifically for rail and transit security in President Bush's budget: $0

Total amount of funding added to the Fiscal Year 2006 Homeland Security Appropriations bill for rail security in the wake of the July 7 London Bombings: $0

Number of provisions in federal law requiring chemical facilities to establish safeguards against a terrorist attack: 0

Number of chemical facilities at which a terrorist strike could threaten the lives of over 1 million people: 123

Percent of cargo arriving at U.S. ports inspected for WMD: <1

Percent of "high-risk" cargo inspected: 17.5

Estimated economic impact of a terrorist attack to a U.S. port: $1 trillion

Percent of Transportation Security Administration Fiscal Year 2005 budget allocated for port security grants: 2.8

Deadline for meeting port security standards set by the Maritime Transportation Security Act: 2004

Year in which MTSA port security standards will be met if port security funding levels remain constant: 2050

Ratio of federal air security screeners to federal surface transportation (rail and public transit) security screeners: 450:1

Arrested Development

Here's another indictment of the Chimp who would be President...who has NEVER grown up. (This is from a newly discovered site that I'm growing to like.)

Broussard in 2008

Here's a man who speaks some sense. Think he's interested in expanding his administration to Washington? Thanks to Billmon's Whiskey Bar.

Kanye West Was Wrong

I learned today that the Chimp actually does care about black people. (turn your sound on)

Trying to Stem Another Tide

The Washington Post speculates on the damage control going on at the White House. I would be ecstatic, if it wasn't so damn sad.

"WASHINGTON -- The Bush White House is known for its ability to remain in control of its message and image, sliding out of crises with barely a scratch. Not this time.

Despite day after day of appearances by President Bush aimed at undoing the political damage from a poor response to Hurricane Katrina, the White House has not been able to regain its footing, already shaken by the war in Iraq and a death toll exceeding 1,880."

Howard Dean's Statement Re Katrina

"Based on today’s reports, it seems clear that President Bush’s visit today is just another callous political move crafted by Karl Rove. It’s just appalling to see how quickly President Bush and Karl Rove have mobilized a political strategy in their own defense, but simply failed to mobilize a swift response to either keep the people in the Gulf Coast region safe in the first place or aid the victims in the aftermath of the storm.

"Thousands of people have lost their lives. Our nation faces difficult times as we address the painful aftermath of Katrina, yet President Bush is worried about shifting blame and passing the buck? Shouldn’t he be worried about restoring stability, plans to evacuate survivors, and ensuring that our communities have the resources they need to help the victims of this tragedy rebuild their lives? Now is a time for leadership not partisanship. This is one failure we will not allow Rove and the GOP attack machine to spin away with their usual barrage of photo-ops, misinformation, smear campaigns and press conferences."

The rest of the story.

Scottie Gets Attacked

It appears that the White House press corps is getting a backbone. From today's Press Secretary meeting with reporters:

"Q Well, let's talk about it. Are you saying the President is -- are you saying that the President is confident that his administration is prepared to adequately, confidently secure the American people in the event of a terrorist attack of a level that we have not seen? And based on what does he have that confidence?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and that's what he made clear earlier today, that obviously we want to look and learn lessons from a major catastrophe of this nature.

Q Yes, but you're telling us today there will be time for that somewhere down the road. Well, what if it happens tomorrow?

MR. McCLELLAN: We can engage in this blame-gaming going on and I think that's what you're getting --

Q No, no. That's a talking point, Scott, and I think most people who are watching this --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's a fact. I mean, some are wanting to engage in that, and we're going to remain focused --

Q I'm asking a direct question. Is he confident --

MR. McCLELLAN: We're going to remain focused on the people.

Q -- that he can secure the American people in the event of a major terrorist attack?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are securing the American people by staying on the offensive abroad and working to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

Q That's a talking point. That's a talking point.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's a fact.

Go ahead.

Q No, it's not."

Barbara Bush Just Sucks

According to The Nation:

"Finally, we have discovered the roots of George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism."

On the heels of the president's "What, me worry?" response to the death, destruction and dislocation that followed upon Hurricane Katrina comes the news of his mother's Labor Day visit with hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston.

Commenting on the facilities that have been set up for the evacuees -- cots crammed side-by-side in a huge stadium where the lights never go out and the sound of sobbing children never completely ceases -- former First Lady Barbara Bush concluded that the poor people of New Orleans had lucked out."

Read the rest, if you dare.

Olbermann Rocks! Again

Check out Keith's response to Katrina and the incompetence that is our government.

Here it is...

Blessed Are The Children

You must read this story about some lost children, and how they were finally found:

From the LA Times:

"BATON ROUGE, La. — In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love."

and it continues:

"At the rescue headquarters, a cool tile-floored building swarming with firefighters and paramedics, the children ate cafeteria food and fell into a deep sleep. Deamonte volunteered his vital statistics. He said his father was tall and his mother was short. He gave his address, his phone number and the name of his elementary school.

He said that the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment building.

The children were clean and healthy — downright plump in the case of the infant, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she said, that "time had been taken with those kids." The baby was "fat and happy."

Well, this now makes two stories about the Hurricane in which I have quoted scripture. Maybe it is a life-changing experience?

We'll see.

Political Fallout

It's good to know that grief over the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe has not stopped the Chimp's team from managing the politics. But, of course, this isn't about politics, now is it?

Love Note to New Orleans

By Andrei Codrescu
www.codrescu.com
www.corpse.org

It’s heart-breaking watching my beautiful city sink, but I’m at a safe distance 90 miles away and my heartbreak is nothing compared to the suffering of people still in the city. New Orleans will be rebuilt, but it will never again be the city I knew and loved. I often compared it to Venice because of its beauty and tenuousness, its love of music, art, and carnival. The problem of engineering the survival of Venice has preoccupied the world for centuries, but very little thought has gone into saving New Orleans in the same way. New Orleans was, and it may be yet, a thriving commercial city crucial to controlling the mouth of the Mississippi River, vital to American industry and access to the Gulf of Mexico. Jean de Bienville founded the city here in 1718, ignoring his engineers’ warning about settling a patch of swampland between the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico and a massive lake to the North. The needs of the American republic continued to compound Bienville’s original sin, requiring more and more engineering to correct nature at one of its grandest meeting points. The wetlands that once served to tame the savagery of the winds are gone, victims of big oil and global warming. The seas are hotter, people, and this is the result! Pay attention, global-warming deniers, this is the real thing! The saving grace of New Orleans was its music, its food, its festivals and its poor. This was the most brutal slave market in America and the northernemost point of the Caribbean trade in guns, rum, and human beings. The slaves and subsequent refugees, immigrants, pirates, and quick-buck artists brought culture with them from Africa and places they ran from. New Orleans music traveled upriver and became America’s music. We’ve been a generator of human and cultural energy for centuries, but all this bounty brought the city no careful engineering, no thought for its future, no world-wide cry of help for its inevitable demise. The Army Corps of Engineers saved the city heroically at least once during the floods of 1927, but it was then as now a response to crisis, no forethought, no concern for the future. So here we are, sinking into the water around us, drowning in our own waste, poverty, incompetence, and the greed of those who came before us. This is the time for straight reporting, of heartbreaking stories, of heroic rescues and superhuman efforts by good-hearted individuals and the weary but always-ready charities. It’s not a time for anger, but I can’t help wondering: what is going to survive of our culture? We already know who’s going to pay for all this: the poor. They always do. The whole country’s garbage flows down the Mississippi to them. Until now, they turned all that waste into song, they took the sins of America unto themselves. But this blues now is just too big.

My Pet Goat, The Sequel

From Editor and Publisher:

"This time, during a catastrophe, the president did not merely dither for seven minutes, but for three days, and his top advisors followed suit. While the media has done a good job in portraying the overall failure of leadership in this weeks hurricane's disaster, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of duty."

Rehnquist

Hey, stop me if you've heard this one already...

People tell me Chief Justice Rehnquist has been dead for 4 days, but FEMA just found him.

*The man hasn't been gone for 24 hours and the jokes begin. I guess the country will survive.*

We Told You So

For all the conservative pundits and true believers out there (and for anyone who is beyond angry at the aftermath of Katrina), I give you this incredible rant.

Read it if you dare, here's an excerpt:

"You say this isn't about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.

Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn't an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox's talking heads liars ON THE AIR.

CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.

Instead of hearing what we had to say about Bush, you called John Kerry a coward, mocked Max Cleland, blamed everything but herpes on Bill Clinton. You enabled Bush into this mess and now you're shocked?

Now, Fox can be outraged, now, Wash Times and Union Leader call Bush weak? Well, his coward ass disappeared in 2001. But you rather blame Michael Moore for that.

He can't even explain the Iraq war to a grieving mother.

So what did you do?

Write the most vile things about her and her dead son. Attacked her patriotism and her honesty."

There's more on this sad story at the link.

The Failure of Supply Side Economics

All week, as we watch the economics of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, I keep harkening back to the GOP's philosophy that we have small government and that each of us is "on our own" when it comes to taking care of our civic, educational, social and economic life.

This article from MyDD.com does a much better job than I ever could of explaining why Supply Side Economics (the ol' trickle down theory) has failed us all, but especially those on the lowest economic rungs of our society. Here's a quote:

"And as Kos has pointed out repeatedly, the supply-siders' agenda has been to shrink the size of government until "we can be drown it in the bathtub". We're seeing the true cost of these policies in New Orleans right now. Spending on priorities like fixing the city's levees was ignored while supply-side tax cuts were pushed to the fore. From large scale economic data to the horrific impact of federal budget cuts on one city, these are the costs of supply-side economics writ large."

This article in today's New York Times also provides a good status report on the effects of Supply Side economics. Here's another quote:

"For liberal economists, the data prove that supply-side economics has failed to deliver under Mr. Bush, just as it did when President Ronald Reagan applied it in the 1980's. Rising corporate profits and dividend payments clearly haven't trickled down into gains for people who don't own companies or stock, says Dean Baker, co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington. "The wage gains," Mr. Baker said, "are concentrated in the upper-income level, just as they were in the 1980's."

A good question to me is: what will the Democrats do in response to the Hurricane's aftermath? Not that everything is political, but it appears that there is a vacuum of leadership that the Democrats should take advantage of, especially while these images are fresh in our minds. (Cue Senator Edwards!) If they don't, then they have no value whatsoever to anyone.

Hillary Slams Oil Companies

Go get 'em, Hillary! While we're all somewhat distracted with the news from the Gulf, gas prices continue to rise, and there's a good chance the oil companies will continue to record profits (*sarcasm*). Hillary's got the story right...here.

I paid $3.31/gallon yesterday...how 'bout you?

Two Americas ... Again

Throughout the 2004 campaign I maintained that John Edwards's "Two Americas" stump speech resonated more than nearly anything I heard from anyone else (including, at the time, Howard Dean's anti-war rhetoric). In the aftermath of the craziness on the Gulf Coast, John continues to talk about it (his email to supporters is below). I would say that everything he says here beats all of the politicians who have appeared on camera during the past several days.

If there was any doubt about it, we are clearly seeing the Two Americas writ large this week. I agree with John that most Americas are surprised to see the desperation and poverty inside America. In my daily life I experience this disconnect all the time. I work in a large American city for a large company. Many of the people I see every day of the week are millionaires whose biggest worry is whether to buy the Volvo, the BMW or the Lexus. Another large decision is what high falutin' college to send their children to, or on which Carribbean island they will spend their winter vacation. Often, these people are heard complaining about how high their taxes are.

Will they realize this week how ridiculous they sound? My hope is that we've reached a tipping point, when people begin to see that we are judged by how we treat the LEAST of us. Anywone who knows me, knows I am not a religious person, but I heard a black congressman quote scripture yesterday, and I want to repeat it here (this is from Matthew 25, verse 35-40):

"'For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

I include John Edwards's email message in its entirety because I think it's vital that we all connect to it. Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

Dear *Beckperson*,

During the campaign of 2004, I spoke often of the two Americas: the America of the privileged and the wealthy, and the America of those who lived from paycheck to paycheck. I spoke of the difference in the schools, the difference in the loan rates, the difference in opportunity. All of that pales today. Today - and for many days and weeks and months to follow - we see a harsher example of two Americas. We see the poor and working class of New Orleans who don't own a car and couldn't evacuate to hotels or families far from the target of Katrina. We see the suffering of families who lived from paycheck to paycheck and who followed the advice of officials and went to shelters at the Civic Center or the Superdome or stayed home to protect their possessions.

Now every single resident of New Orleans, regardless of their wealth or status, will have terrible losses and life-altering experiences. Every single resident will know and care about someone who was lost to this hurricane. But some, ranging from the very poorest to the working class unable to accumulate a cushion of assets to rely upon on a very, very rainy day, will suffer the most because they simply didn't have the means to evacuate. They suffered the most from Katrina because they always suffer the most.

These are Americans some of whom who left everything they possessed behind in order to save those they loved. These are Americans huddled with their children or pushing a wheelchair between rows of those too beaten or weak to stand. In this moment, we have to remember they are part of us, Americans who love their country and are part of our national community. In this moment, it is hard because our hair is clean and our clothes are washed and our eyes are not glazed with hopelessness. But these are our brothers and sisters, and we have to remember this not just for them, but for us. We must finally recognize that when any of us suffer, we are all weaker; it affects us all.

Commentators on television have expressed surprise, saying they think that most people didn't know there was such poverty in America. Thirty-seven million Americans live in poverty, most of them are the working poor, but it is clear that they have been invisible. But if these commentators are right, this tragedy can have a great influence, if we listen to its message.

The people most devastated have always lived on a razor blade, afraid of any setback, any illness, any job loss that could disrupt the fragile balance they achieved paycheck to paycheck. They didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. Some didn't leave their homes because they wanted to protect the hard-won possessions that made their lives a little easier.

The government released new poverty statistics this week. The number of Americans living in poverty rose again last year. Thirteen million children -- nearly one in every five -- lives in poverty. Close to 25 percent of all African Americans live in poverty. Twenty-three percent of the population in New Orleans lives in poverty. Those are chilling numbers. Because of Katrina, we have now seen many of the faces behind those numbers.

Poverty exists everywhere in America. It is in Detroit and El Paso. It is in Omaha, Nebraska and Stockton, California. It is in rural towns like Chillicothe, Ohio and Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Nearly half of the children in Detroit, Atlanta and Long Beach, California live in poverty. It doesn't have to be this way. We can begin embracing policies that offer opportunity, reward responsibility, and assume the dignity of each American.

There are immediate needs in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and the first priority is meeting those, but after that, we need to think about the American community, about the one America we think we are, the one we talk about. We need people to feel more than sympathy with the victims, we need them to feel empathy with our national community that includes the poor. We have missed opportunities to make certain that all Americans would be more than huddled masses. We have been too slow to act in the face in the misery of our brothers and sisters. This is an ugly and horrifying wake-up call to America. Let us pray we answer this call. Now is the time to act.

- John

Thanks, John and Elizabeth Edwards. I only hope the two of you are able someday to be in positions of power. We need people like you in this country today.

In actuality, if we had to go through this Hurricane at all, I wish to God it had been last summer, when voters may have realized the inhumanity of the Chimp and his cohorts. By the way, we're hearing from the VP candidate who lost. Where the hell is Cheney? Hmmm?

The fallout continues and it will be interesting to see whether Americans actually demand some accountability - at long last.