RUSS FEINGOLD IN 2008? PART II, MY VIEW

Being a lifer from Wisconsin, my viewpoint of Russ Feingold is probably different than most of those who do not reside here. I'm sure there are people who will say that my opinion is biased because Russ and I are from the same state. I think that is true of anyone with a candidate for the highest elected office in the country coming from their state.

Russ Feingold is a good man. He is honest and straight-foward, and he is not afraid to speak his mind. He thinks for himself, and he does not belch the party line. His campaign funds are basically grassroots and out of his own pocket. Very little money comes from corporate contributions.

Out of 100 Senators, Russ was the only one who voted against the (Un)Patriot Act in 2001 when it came up for a vote the first time. He felt that it was being rushed through the Senate, which it was, and no-one was taking the time to really study it to realize the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms we would be loosing.

Russ has been an excellent Senator representing the State of Wisconsin, without a doubt the best in a long time. Bill Proxmier was good, but I think Russ beats him hands down.

Russ is one who really cares about his constituants. Every time that I have signed an on-line petition I have received a letter from him. It has been a form letter, but at least I hear something. I hardly ever receive a response to a petition from my Representative, who is a Republican, and I never receive anything from Senator Herb Kohl, who is a Democrat.

Whenever I have sent a personal letter or email to Russ, I have always received a personal letter in return. Now, you tell me how many people in other states can say that about their Congressmen.

Here's just one example of how much Russ cares about all of us.

There are some of you who know that my wife has invasive lobular carcinoma, the worst form of breast cancer. After her first chemo treatment, which the clinic screwed-up and almost killed her, she was told by the doctor that she couldn't have any more treatments until she had seen a dentist and had gotten her teeth fixed. (Go to her blog for the full story ~~~Sunnyside2day~~~Ramblings...Musings...and Breast Cancer)

I'm sure you all know how hard it is to get in to see a dentist. It's even harder when you don't have a regular one and you have on insurance. My wife spent the better part of two days calling all over southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois trying to find a dentist that would take her in so she coujd get back on her much needed chemo treatments. No luck. The earliest she could get in anywhere was late January 2006.

She even tried the Govenor's office and got no results. Then she called Russ Feingold's office. They took the message and passsed it on. Within two hours one of his ombudsmen called back and told my wife to sit tight, that she was working on the problem. The next day she had gotten my wife an appointment at the best dental clinic in the state. She is now back on her chemo treatments at the best cancer clinic in the state.

Russ really does care about people. He has been such a great Senator for the state of Wisconsin, and the rest of the country, that I hate to loose him.

I do believe he would be an excellent President. If he should decide to run in 2008, he will have my full support and I will do everything I can to get him elected.

RUSS FEINGOLD IN 2008?

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel dated 8 September 2005.

Is Feingold's war stance a battle plan for 2008?
By CRAIG GILBERT
Posted: Sept. 8, 2005
Washington - Since he proposed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2006, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold has met with two reactions within his own party.

The situation looks worse and worse, and Democrats do not look like they have a clear way to go on this. -Sen. Russ Feingold, on Iraq war

I don’t expect any Democratic stampede to set a firm date.- Sen. Joe Biden, on Feingold’s proposal for a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq

One is acclaim from activists, liberals and war critics.

The other is a polite but cold shoulder from the Democratic establishment.

Feingold is almost alone among the party's senators, foreign policy mavens and unofficial 2008 presidential hopefuls in pushing a target date for troop withdrawal.

"He could be either ahead of the curve or a total outlier," one Democratic strategist said last week.

In either case, his stand has obvious implications for his possible dark horse run for the Democratic nomination in 2008.

"Feingold represents the largest share of the Democratic base and how they feel about this issue," Matthew Dowd, strategist for President Bush's 2004 re-election, said in an interview last week.

"It reminds me of what (Howard) Dean did . . . knowing the intensity of the Democratic base on Bush, that whoever took on Bush directly in a vociferous way was going to get a big bump," Dowd said of Dean's unexpected emergence in the Democratic field in 2003.

With rising discontent over the war, Feingold's position may test the public's receptiveness for talk of a troop withdrawal. It also underscores divisions among out-of-power Democrats over Iraq. Those disagreements involve both politics (the party's fear of looking weak or defeatist) and policy: whether stabilizing Iraq and avoiding a quagmire or a failed Iraqi state requires more troops or fewer troops, patience or deadlines.

In an interview Tuesday, Feingold - a longtime critic of the war - said he thinks Democrats have been fearful of discussing withdrawal "because they do not want to take the flak of people saying they are not patriotic, or not interested in the war against terrorism."

He also said that the intense focus in Washington on the disaster along the Gulf of Mexico would make it more difficult to have the kind of debate about Iraq he had hoped to spur. With Hurricane Katrina dominating the news, a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday reported the lowest level of public attention to Iraq since the war started.

"I obviously agree Katrina has to be our top priority at the moment," said Feingold, but "we need to figure out a way to have sustained attention to (Iraq), particularly among Democrats. The situation looks worse and worse, and Democrats do not look like they have a clear way to go on this."

Feingold's call last month for a withdrawal timetable generated a flurry of attention and landed him on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Aug. 21. In the conservative press, it was taken as a sign that Democrats are fracturing over the war.

Like Gene McCarthy?

Columnist Pat Buchanan termed Feingold a present-day Gene McCarthy (the anti-war Democrat of the Vietnam era) and an emerging political headache for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democratic presidential hopefuls who voted for the war and oppose setting a withdrawal date. In a story headlined, "And a dove shall lead them?" the conservative, pro-war Weekly Standard called Feingold "the latest sign that the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party is resurgent."

Among liberal pundits and Internet bloggers, Feingold has been embraced.

"He's gotten a very, very warm reaction from the left-liberal wing of the party," said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and editor of a left-of-center Web site called The Gadflyer.

"He's clearly differentiating himself in terms of potential vice presidential, presidential opportunities as a pioneer on the Iraq issue," Schaller said.

A leading Democratic pollster, who asked not to be identified, said the fight for the 2008 nomination is "all about Hillary," and "Iraq is the one way to differentiate with Hillary if you're Russ Feingold, or (John) Kerry or whoever."

David Sirota, a liberal activist, former congressional staffer and a vocal critic of the party's Washington establishment, said many grass-roots Democrats are "thrilled" by Feingold's move, which Sirota argued was also "very, very smart" politically.

"I think what will happen is if things continue to go as they are in Iraq, more Democrats will basically move to Feingold's position. . . . At that point he has already in a very high-profile way said to voters in all of America and primary voters, 'I am a leader. I am a guy who took this position,' " said Sirota, who echoes Feingold's argument that Democrats can both be tough on terrorism and support getting out of Iraq.

Few want immediate pullout

Sirota points to polls showing that a majority of Americans think the war made them less safe and support full or partial withdrawal. But Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, who studies war and public opinion, says attitudes toward withdrawal are extremely hard to interpret because poll responses are so dependent on how the question is phrased: People overwhelmingly reject an immediate pullout, while much larger and growing percentages favor withdrawal over time.

Feingold hasn't called for immediate withdrawal. He's proposing a "target" deadline of the end of 2006 for full withdrawal, a date he says is "flexible" to account for changing conditions.

For a variety of reasons, no one in the party's Washington leadership and none of Feingold's Democratic Senate colleagues have pushed so directly for a pullout date. Nor has any major Democrat considering a bid for the White House in 2008.

Unlike Feingold, some of those potential candidates voted for the war in 2002, making it awkward now to advocate withdrawal.

And politically, there are fears of being blamed for sowing the seeds of defeat. Political scientist Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said Feingold's position "is not a winner" for Democrats because it plays into the party's perceived softness on defense.

But there's more than politics at work. Derek Chollet, a Democratic foreign policy analyst and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the disagreements within the party reflect a broader lack of consensus in Washington, including among Republicans.

"Experts don't agree on what the best way out is. They don't agree on the fundamental questions. What's the nature of insurgency? If we were to leave or go, which would hurt or help?" said Chollet. "Everybody's divided."

Many Senate Democrats view a pullout as impractical and think a withdrawal date would be self-defeating. Among them is Feingold's fellow Wisconsinite, Sen. Herb Kohl.

Delaware's Joe Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview Tuesday that there will be a growing demand by lawmakers in both parties for answers from the administration about its course in Iraq, but "I don't expect any Democratic stampede to set a firm date."

Biden, also a potential '08 candidate, said that most Senate Democrats simply think it would be a bad policy. Biden noted, "in fairness to Russ," that Feingold's own position is more nuanced than sometimes portrayed, since his deadline is flexible.

'Feeding the insurgency'

Feingold disputes the notion that a withdrawal timetable would encourage the enemy. He argues that an open-ended U.S. occupation is a magnet for insurgents, and that a withdrawal date would reduce the "magnet" effect, help defuse the violence and pressure Iraqi political leaders to resolve their internal differences.

"I think what we're doing now is feeding the insurgency," he said last month.

Feingold's stand has drawn some fire from Republicans.

Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Menomonee Falls said that "a statement by one U.S. senator or one congressman can be very easily picked up and misinterpreted by enemies of our country . . . as the consensus of Congress."

State GOP chair Rick Graber called Feingold's position "completely wrongheaded" and said, "I see it as part of a political effort to appeal to the left wing of his party."

Asked Tuesday about the political implications of his stand on Iraq, Feingold said:

"I've made no judgment at all about whether I'm an '08 candidate. And I can assure you my decision to take a position on this had nothing at all to do with whether or not I am interested in being a candidate. . . . It's just too important to make a political calculation about it. There will be political consequences. But I did not calculate this, nor will I calculate this, on the basis of politics."

CONVOY TO KILN, MISSISSIPPI

I found this article in one of the local papers about a couple from Elkhorn, WI...which isn't too far from where I am...who got enough people to donate enough food and clothing for the evacuees that they were able to fill four semis.
Here's their story. By the way, that's pronuonced Kill not kiln like the oven for pottery.

Elkhorn residents ship four truckloads to Mississippi (Published Thursday, September 8, 2005 11:11:44 AM CDT) By Sue Yanny Gazette Staff ELKHORN -- Jeff and Stacy Whiteman of Elkhorn hoped to collect enough food, water and clothing for Hurricane Katrina survivors to fill two large trucks. They were astonished when they filled four trucks. "Within two days, we collected 20 tons of food, water and clothing, which filled up four trucks," Stacy said. Jeff manages a group of investors in restaurants, including Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre. He spoke with Brett last week after Brett talked with his wife, Deanna, at their home about an hour north of Kiln, Miss. About 50 people who had been displaced by the hurricane were staying at Brett and Deanna's home, but they had little to drink or eat, Stacy said. Deanna had driven around looking for water and food-and found nothing, she said. Brett had a plane fly down with supplies last week for Deanna and their children and the others who were staying at their home, she said. After hearing about the plight of the people in Mississippi through Deanna's accounts to Brett, Jeff and Stacy's hearts went out to them. "Jeff and I were completely beside ourselves," Stacy said. "We were saddened and worried." Jeff and Stacy called people to ask them to donate food, water and clothing so they could take it to Mississippi. They sent e-mails. They went on the radio. The response was overwhelming. Businesses, churches and people from Walworth County and elsewhere brought boxes and bags of supplies to Jeff and Stacy's home and to the Edward Jones investment firm in Elkhorn that Stacy manages. Two women from Burlington told Stacy they couldn't afford to buy anything for the people in Mississippi, but they wanted to donate their time instead. They spent several hours helping pack boxes. A group left for Mississippi in two trucks on Friday evening. Jeff, Stacy and their friend, Brian Kennedy, drove one truck. Stacy's assistant, Kathy Follett, and Kathy's husband, Mark, drove another truck. Jeff, Stacy, Brian, Kathy and Mark arrived at Brett and Deanna's home on Saturday evening. They then drove on to a distribution center in Kiln with law enforcement officials escorting them. Stacy said she couldn't see much in the dark, but what she saw was haunting. "I saw homes flattened, cars in .ditches and downed lines and downed trees everywhere," she said. Officials at the distribution center told Jeff, Stacy and their friends that their trucks with supplies were the first ones that had arrived in Kiln since the hurricane hit. They said they would distribute the items in the morning to survivors who desperately needed them. Deanna and a friend of hers cried when the officials opened the backs of the trucks and saw the supplies. Jeff and Stacy and their friends spent Saturday night at Brett and Deanna's home, where families slept in every room in the house. They headed back to Elkhorn on Sunday morning. The two other trucks-driven by Jeff and Stacy's friends, David Tracy and Ron Ricco-arrived at Brett and Deanna's home on Sunday afternoon and, like the first two trucks, went on to the distribution center in Kiln. Stacy said she and Jeff and their friends brought the supplies to Mississippi because "people needed help." "The people just don't have anything," she said, her voice breaking over the phone. "It's scary and frustrating that these people are living so poorly."

REACHING OUT TO HELP

Here's one man's story of helping the evacuees in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
From a 30 year old doctor, a father of three, the events of one weekend for him and two friends.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1105812&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

PICTURES FROM NEW ORLEANS

From Salon:

New Orleans

If a thousand miles or a three-day weekend has put some emotional distance between you and what happened -- what is happening -- in New Orleans, this collection of photographs will bring you back close.

-- T.G.

BUSH NOT WORRIED ABOUT WMD'S

The asshole was so worried about Iraq having WMD's that he attacked without provocation. Now it seems that he's not worried that we may yet be attacked by someone else with WMD's. And wouldn't this be a prime time now that the whole world knows that the response time of both FEMA and DHS are slow if not totally non-existant.
Now this from Salon:

Another attack? Bush is in no hurry to prepare

George W. Bush used the threat of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction to sell his war in Iraq. Now he's raising the specter of a WMD attack as he tries to dodge criticism arising out of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Speaking to reporters at a Cabinet meeting this morning, the president said he'd lead an investigation into "what went right and what went wrong" in the Gulf Coast. "It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe," Bush said. "And the reason it's important is, is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm. And so I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong."

"Over time"? It was not so long ago that the president thought it necessary to launch a preemptive war against another nation to prevent a WMD attack. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," his national security advisor said back then. But now -- with evidence before us that the United States might not be prepared to respond to a terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- the president says it's not time just yet to start asking any hard questions -- and that he'll be the one doing the asking when that time comes. "There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong," Bush said. "What I'm interested in is helping save lives. That's what I want to do."

That's what everyone wants to do, of course, but it's possible -- indeed, it's necessary -- for the government to do more than one thing at a time. America is at war, as the president likes to say, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina suggests that the country isn't prepared for the sort of attack that could come. If there are changes that need to be made, that process should begin now. Even some of the president's supporters in the Senate understand that much: Republicans Bill Frist and Susan Collins have both indicated that the Senate will investigate the government's response to Katrina. Maybe this is "not a time for politics," all those photo-opportunity-filled presidential visits to Louisiana and Mississippi notwithstanding, but it is time to start asking and answering questions.

-- T.G.

THE BLAME GAME

Chertoff from the Department of Homeland (In)Security says that the responsibility for all the problems lay with the respective state and local governments.
Not so according to what the The Obfuscation Report found. Go read the link.

Lake George: Did Death in New Orleans happen because the citizens are mostly Democrats? Or because they are mostly Black?

BARBARA BUSH IS AN UNCARING BITCH

For all of those who thought the chimp's mother was a wonderful caring woman, read this article from the Nation via Yahoo News.

Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor

IRAQIS BEING CRUSHED BY BUSH'S "DEMOCRACY"

From Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches:


U.S. Influence 'Too Much'

Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail

*London, Sep 5 (IPS) -* U.S. influence in the process of drafting a
constitution for Iraq is excessive and "highly inappropriate", a United
Nations official says.

"It is a matter of public record that in the final weeks of the process
the newly arrived U.S. ambassador (Zalmay Khalizad) took an extremely
hands-on role," Justin Alexander, legal affairs officer for the office
of constitutional support with the United Nations Assistance Mission to
Iraq (UNAMI) told IPS. "Even going so far as to circulate at least one
U.S draft."

Alexander, who oversaw the recent proceedings in Baghdad added: "This
involvement was highly inappropriate for a country with 140,000 soldiers
in country."

Zaid al-Ali, a legal expert who also oversaw the drafting process in
Baghdad, made a similar case at a meeting at the International
Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies in London.

"There are three ways in which the occupation intervened in the context
of Iraq's constitution-writing process," he said. "Firstly, the
occupation authorities selected and affected the makeup of the
commission that was charged with drafting Iraq's transitional law, and
its permanent constitution. Second, the occupation determined the limits
and parameters within which the constitution was to be drafted. Third,
the occupation authorities intervened directly in order to safeguard its
interests in the context of the constitutional negotiations."

Al-Ali said it was significant that one article in the draft
constitution on foreign military bases was dropped from the final
version. "One article contained in a previous draft provided that
setting up foreign military bases in Iraq was to be forbidden, and that
the only way in which this could be deviated from would have been by a
two-thirds majority vote in Parliament."

Al-Ali said "this article was dropped from the final draft of the
constitution."

An alliance including the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars and the
large movement of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said it rejected the draft
and a "political process which had been led by occupiers and their
collaborators."

The group said in a media statement: "We consider this draft as a next
step of this process which does not represent the peoples' will." The
alliance also expressed "major suspicions about the honesty of the next
referendum, which will take place under occupation and with neither
international nor Arabic and Islamic supervision."

Dr. Marinos Diamantides, senior lecturer in law at the University of
London, said the entire drafting process could be illegal under
international law.

"One could argue the entire process is against the law," Diamantides
told IPS. "According to the 1907 Convention (the convention for the
pacific settlement of disputes), the occupying power has a duty to
maintain the legal system of the country it occupies. This is the first
time ever that an occupying power has dismantled the internal law system
of the country it occupies."

He also pointed out that ironically the Sunnis now have power to derail
the upcoming referendum vote by a two-thirds vote in three provinces.
That power was originally intended to give Kurds power to veto the
constitution.

When Iraq's Kurdish and Shia dominated parliament recently approved the
draft, Sunnis immediately began campaigning for a 'no' vote in the
upcoming October referendum. If the draft were to pass the referendum,
it would be followed two months later by election for a government.

At least four provinces are predominantly Sunni, and Sunni clerics have
urged their followers to reject the draft if it does not meet Sunni demands.

Adding further complexity to the already muddled situation, former UN
humanitarian coordinator in Iraq during the sanctions Denis Halliday
believes that even the United Nations has no place in occupied Iraq.

"The UN doesn't have a position in Iraq today," Halliday told IPS. "Once
the invasion took place, the UN became collaborators with the enemy (the
United States)."

Halliday, who had resigned from his UN post in protest against
"genocidal sanctions" added: "This lesson should have been learned in
August, 2003 when our office in Baghdad was blown up, as we were
collaborators. The UN has simply become a tool of the U.S., and Iraqis
can no longer distinguish between the U.S. and the UN."

Justin Alexander said Iraq might need a new constitution. "If Iraq
creates a progressive and effective constitution and laws to implement
the constitution, then this could benefit Iraqis. But in the absence of
mutual reconciliation and an end to the occupation this is all futile."

"US AND THEM"

From Via at Church Of The Front Porch

Slideshow

joe max and driftglass
Us and Them
Music by Pink Floyd

PARALLELS BETWEEN TWO GULFS

We've all heard the comparisons between the war in Iraq and Vietnam.
Today Danny Schechter at Media Channel has a post on the Katrina-War parallels.

"And now that the army has been "deployed" like an occupying force, tensions and incidents invariably follow. It is starting to sound like Iraq."

'The Monterey Herald notes: "The first response of Washington bureaucrats is always an itchy trigger finger -- "security" (suppressing "insurgents") is their main concern, not disaster relief."'

Now, go read the rest: The Katrina-War Parallels

REPORT FROM NEW ORLEANS

People that are still in New Orleans aren't getting food and water. The troops are there, but all they are doing is guarding private property.
A group from A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition got in on Saturday 3 September 2005.
Here's their report:

Eyewitness Report from New Orleans

NUMBERS WILL BE HIGH

From International Clearinghouse:

New Orleans Braces for Staggering Death Toll

Officials are preparing for thousands of dead

By Der Spiegel

09/05/05 -- -- Over the weekend, New Orleans's rescue operation turned into a recovery mission to find the city's dead. There are still no firm estimates for the exact death toll -- but most agree it will be out of the ballpark, at least for a natural disaster in an industrial nation. United States Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt is expecting that 1,000 to 2,000 body bags will be filled. But the city's deeply stressed out mayor, Ray Nagin, who infamously called on President George W. Bush to "fix this goddamned crisis," offered up a staggering figure in interviews.

Here's his equation: The city has close to 500,000 residents and if you conservatively assume that 5 percent remained in New Orleans after the flooding, the numbers could go through the roof. "So you probably have another 50-60,000 out there," he said. "You do the math, man, what do you think? Five percent is unreasonable? Ten percent? Twenty percent? It's going to be a big number." Louisiana's Republican Senator, David Vitter said he believes the figure will exceed 10,000.

The federal Secretary for Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, whose department appears to have failed its first major disaster test, declined to predict numbers. "I think we need to prepare the country for what's coming,'' Chertoff said. "What's going to happen when we de-water and remove the water from New Orleans is we're going to uncover people who died, maybe hiding in houses, got caught by the flood, people whose remains are going to be found in the streets. ... It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine.''

Outrage over the government's initial anemic response to the disaster filled the pages of America's biggest newspapers this weekend. The critics run the gamut from liberal to conservative. New Orleans native daughter and author Anne Rice skewers the federal government for its paltry response to the crisis, and complains that Americans "turned your backs" on the Big Easy. Conservative writer David Brooks says people have lost faith in civic institutions and that what happened in New Orleans was the "moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield." New Yorker editor David Remnick writes of a historical failure by the president. "Over five days last week, from the onset of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast on Monday morning to his belated visit to the region on Friday, Bush's mettle was tested -- and he failed in almost every respect," he wrote.

But Bush's biggest slap in the face didn't come from the Democrats -- it came from his own party. "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of the Republicans. He then urged the president to put former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who showed remarkable strength in his swift reaction to 9/11, in charge of relief operations and restoring order in the South.

But is Bush to blame for denying funds for flood-control projects in New Orleans, as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal alleged this week? Factcheck.org, a nonprofit project run by the Annenberg Center and the University of Pennsylvania has studied the facts and concluded that, yes, Bush has cut funds meant for flood projects but it refuses to "blame" or "absolve" the president. That's a job for Congress -- and a major probe is expected when the legislative body returns to work this autumn. Bloggers from the Bush-supporting "red states" are hot on the trail of their own theory -- a lot of them are linking to this photo of school buses left abandoned in a bus yard this week as evidence that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin failed to muster his own resources. You can follow these threads using Technorati's blog search engine or by viewing the latest posts on Instapundit.

Meanwhile ... the streets of New Orleans are dead silent, like a ghost town. The National Guard seems to have gotten most of the city under control, but there have been shootouts. The National Guard and workers with the Army Corps of Engineers were shot at and returned fire, killing four armed men. According to numerous newspaper reports, 200 members of New Orleans's 1,500-strong police force have walked off the job and two have committed suicide. To keep the remaining officers on the job, the mayor has offered family vacations to Las Vegas after order is restored and the city rebuilt.

LOOTING OR SURVIVAL

Looting There, Looting Here
Fallujah There, New Orleans Here

Juan Cole, Informed Comment

September 4, 2005 In April of 2003 the US military stood by and allowed Baghdad to be looted. Not only were private establishments emptied, but all the major ministries (except the Ministry of Petroleum) were looted and burned. When Iraqis complained to the new occupation authority, the GI's informed them that stopping the looting was "not the mission." The documents from the Baath Foreign Ministry that might have shed light on the dealings of Reagan, Bush senior, Schultz and Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein before 1990 were helpfully burned. The modern history of Iraq, including cabinet meetings from the 1930s and 1940s, mostly went up in smoke (it would be as though the US National Archives for every administration since Roosevelt was burned, along with all microfilm copies). The Iraq Museum, a key repository for ancient Iraqi civilization and the history of humankind, was looted of dozens of major pieces and thousands of lesser ones. The widespread looting and the breakdown of order started Iraq on its descent into chaos. What was the response of the man responsible for one of the most damaging debacles in the history of modern Iraq? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said . . . Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said. In late summer of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina recast New Orleans as a latter-day Atlantis, displacing a million persons and reducing hundreds of thousands to dire poverty, a wave of looting broke out in the city. Some legal scholars argued that where people felt their lives were in danger because of a natural disaster, they actually had the right to take food, medicine and water--and other materials necessary to their survival-- from abandoned stores. So the Bush administration treated Louisiana's Walmart managers the same way it treated Iraqi property holders, right? After all, "stuff happens," right? Free people are free to make errors and commit crimes in times of crisis, correct? Nope. ' "Saying he was carrying a message from U.S. President George W. Bush, New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said police and prosecutors were ready to hunt down a small group of criminals responsible for "horrendous" crimes in the stricken city. "The streets of New Orleans belong to its citizens, not the violent thugs who have stuck their heads up out of holes in an attempt to exploit a national tragedy," Letten told reporters. "Not one inch of that city is going to be ceded to the criminal element," he said in Baton Rouge. "Not one inch." ' So I guess it just depends on whose property is being destroyed and looted, whether Bush bothers to send in US troops to stop looting. The Iraqis are noticing the contrast, and remarking on it. Likewise, there was a city in Iraq just a little smaller than New Orleans (population used to be about half a million), which was Fallujah (population used to be 300,000). Just as New Orleans has been emptied by a natural disaster made worse by Bush's political decisions, Fallujah was emptied by a wholly man-made one-- the Bush-ordered military assault on this civilian city, which aimed at getting at a small group of deadly guerrillas. Two-thirds of the buildings in the city were damaged, and most of its inhabitants were made refugees for months. It is likely that only about half have returned, since water and electricity service is unreliable and rebuilding has been extremely slow. Some inhabitants who returned had to live in tents atop the rubble of their former homes. Other Fallujans lived long months in refugee camps. Some children were separated from their parents, others orphaned. The children of Fallujah had taken no political side and engaged in no military action, but they were displaced (and some killed) along with everyone else. In fact, the reduction of Fallujah did nothing to stop guerrilla violence in Iraq, and rather spread it around. Mosul, a city of over a million that had been quiet, went into rebellion. Some 4,000 policemen resigned (just as many New Orleans policemen disapeared) and this once-quiet city that had been touted as a model under Gen. David Petraeus become unstable for the long term. The Sunni Arabs were so furious about the Fallujah campaign that they refused to vote in an American-sponsored election. The elected parliament therefore was dominated by fundamentalist Shiites and by Kurds, with the Sunni Arabs largely marginalized in the constitution drafting process. The brutal and ill-conceived Fallujah campaign therefore contributed significantly to the current political crisis, in which Sunni Arabs are rejecting the proposed constitution. So the moral of the story is that Bush also treated the New Orleans refugees far better than he did the Fallujah refugees (which he simply ignored). Right? Nope. At first he pretty much ignored them too. Conclusion: Bush cares deeply about the property of rich white people.

THEY'RE STILL DYING AND BUSH STILL DOESN'T CARE

New Orleans, Year Zero

Jeff Wells, Rigorous Intuition

September 4, 2005 When the storm clouds gather 'round you, and heavy rains descend Just remember that death is not the end - Bob Dylan From this morning (an interview can be heard here): Just received a message that people are being kept from leaving this location by FEMA! Harry truman school. 5417 Ehret Road Marrero, LA 70072 Jefferson County Phone: (504) 341-0961 Don Boyle and Danny Walker are at Harry Truman Middle School in Marrero LA, under MARITAL law...living in feces and filth..ppl are dying around him..the GOVT won't let him go....they are DYING..all 60..they had 362 down to 60 still alive...no water, no ice...23 murders, 123 rapes... From today's Independent, stories from the Superdome that make sense the way Abu Ghraib makes sense: "We went there because we thought we would be safe, but instead we were more inmates than anything." James, 31, was born in New Orleans. After what happened in the Superdome, he says, he will never, ever, go back to the city. "I can't go back there after what we've been through." By the last night, he says, the soldiers of the National Guard had given up even patrolling the inside of the arena, leaving it to succumb to its own ugliness and anarchy. "There was babies born and put in the garbage".... When the bathrooms became so foul that going into them was impossible, people began squatting down just anywhere to relieve themselves. "Human beings don't live like that, people in the street don't live like that," she says. FEMA is scrubbing its pages. Here's a cache of a page updated Tuesday, August 31: The same page today has left blank the last date of revision, and has moved ahead the date of the declaration of Hurricane Katrina from August 27 to August 29. How will they survive this crisis? Easy. They'll create another crisis. It's how they govern, by burying one catastrophe with another. Containing disaster is not in their interest. And it's not how Halliburton does business. Katrina accelerates the broadening of the war. Drumbeats to solve the Iran "problem" will likely become deafening in coming weeks. You may want to cover your ears, but you should know what you'll be missing. Your eyes, too. There will be a lot of John Bolton. At least the flags have finally been lowered to half staff, now William Rehnquist has died.

RACISM IN THE BUSH WHITE WHOREHOUSE

So you thought racism in the United States was a thing of the Past? Read this and then tell me racism is dead.

Rodney King in New Orleans

Mike Whitney

September 5, 2005 Racism in America doesn't dress up in a cowl and flowing white robes anymore. Instead, it dons an immaculate blue suit and tie and conceals itself behind the lofty language of democracy, freedom and human dignity; but, its racism all the same. We've seen an explosion of racism in America since George Bush took office. It started out after 9-11 and was aimed exclusively at Muslims; a vulnerable group with a paltry voice in government. The administration took full advantage of their political weakness by tossing whomever they chose in prison without due process and without concern for their personal health or safety. Many, of course, were brutalized and traumatized by a system that still boldly touted human rights from the presidential podium. It was all lies. The cruelty and inhumanity has steadily escalated, as it normally does whenever sadism and arrogance replace the rule of law. The chronicle of abusive treatment at American facilities across the globe is nearly endless; the stories abound of the imaginative and finely-detailed methods of maximizing human suffering. Although they may have failed at everything else, the Bush administration has proved to be an astute practitioner of torture. The primary target of these crimes has been Muslims; neither Guantanamo nor Abu Ghraib have even one Christian or Jewish inmate. In fact, there are special laws for Israeli spies who steal top-secret information from the Pentagon and pass it on through their respective lobbies. Both of the indicted leaders of AIPAC, the American-Israeli lobby, have been released on bond while Muslims, who have been charged with no crime at all, continue to languish in Guantanamo Bay. This is the current state of America's apartheid judicial system. New Orleans adds a new chapter to the Bush digest of calculated bigotry. While the wealthy white families were able to beat a hasty retreat out of doomed city, the poor and black were left to sink in the toxic stew unleashed by America's greatest natural disaster. No one who saw the televised footage of the Convention center and the Superdome had any misgivings about what they were seeing. America's long-lost companion, racial-hatred, had stuck its ugly head up into the camera lens and was pouring out onto living rooms across the land. Bush critic Michael Moore may have summarized the feelings of the nation best when he noted, "C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport".."Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh!" Moore's right; no one can imagine that scenario, because it would never happen. The brunt of the catastrophe was directed at society's cast-offs; the poor and black who couldn't simply load up the $40,000 SUV and take off. They were left to face the rising waters and the government neglect without any prospect of real assistance. When you can't buy your way out, you're left to rot; that's how the "invisible hand" of the free market operates. The message is clear; if you have nothing, you are nothing. Americans have been patting themselves on the back for years about the great strides that have been made in civil rights and social justice. It's all rubbish. Just take a look at the faces of the people who were left to drown in the noxious soup of a force-4 hurricane. We all know who these people are; they are the "other America"; the America that is scrupulously kept out of the media so that the narrative of prosperity, equality and justice can flood the airwaves like the effluent coursing down Bourbon Street. Nothing has been accomplished in civil rights. Even the band-aid programs like bussing, welfare and affirmative action have been dismantled by people who believe that we all begin life on a level playing field. What nonsense. There's no level playing field anymore than there is "compassionate conservatism"; Bush proved that by withholding food and water from starving people for 3 days. What we all saw last week on national TV was the moral equivalent of the Rodney King beating multiplied times 30,000; that's the number of people locked away in the feces-infected Superdome. It gave us all a good look into America's dark-heart, where the evil secret we keep tucked-away in a vault can always be denied; racism. Abandoning those people during a national tragedy was the most blatant, despicable act of racism I've seen in my 53 years of life. The beating of Rodney King pales by comparison. Presently, the African Americans who were stranded in New Orleans are being trundled off to the four corners of the Western states where they'll be disposed of quietly in filthy encampments or religious facilities. Their rage and frustration sent shivers of distress through the body politic and put a hefty dent in our collective sense of self-esteem. Once again, Bush and his vindictive troupe have proved that it is always possible to sink ever-lower in the bottomless well of moral corruption. Courtesy and Copyright © Mike Whitney

COVER-UP AND POLITICAL DAMAGE CONTROL

The Bush (mis)administration has been working overtime of late. Not on hurricane rescue and recovery as one would expect. Their time and energy is being spent on cover-up, political damage control, and putting the blame for their failure on state and local governments.

From the New York Times today:

September 5, 2005 By ADAM NAGOURNEY and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 - Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.

As a result, Americans watching television coverage of the disaster this weekend began to see, amid the destruction and suffering, some of the most prominent members of the administration - Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense; and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state - touring storm-damaged communities.

Mr. Bush is to return to Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday; his first visit, on Friday, left some Republicans cringing, in part because the president had little contact with residents left homeless.

Republicans said the administration's effort to stanch the damage had been helped by the fact that convoys of troops and supplies had begun to arrive by the time the administration officials turned up. All of those developments were covered closely on television.

In many ways, the unfolding public relations campaign reflects the style Mr. Rove has brought to the political campaigns he has run for Mr. Bush. For example, administration officials who went on television on Sunday were instructed to avoid getting drawn into exchanges about the problems of the past week, and to turn the discussion to what the government is doing now.

"We will have time to go back and do an after-action report, but the time right now is to look at what the enormous tasks ahead are," Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said on "Meet the Press" on NBC.

One Republican with knowledge of the effort said that Mr. Rove had told administration officials not to respond to Democratic attacks on Mr. Bush's handling of the hurricane in the belief that the president was in a weak moment and that the administration should not appear to be seen now as being blatantly political. As with others in the party, this Republican would discuss the deliberations only on condition of anonymity because of keen White House sensitivity about how the administration and its strategy would be perceived.

In a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove's tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats.

"The way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials," Mr. Chertoff said in his television interview. "The federal government comes in and supports those officials."

That line of argument was echoed throughout the day, in harsher language, by Republicans reflecting the White House line.

In interviews, these Republicans said that the normally nimble White House political operation had fallen short in part because the president and his aides were scattered outside Washington on vacation, leaving no one obviously in charge at a time of great disruption. Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush were in Texas, while Vice President Dick Cheney was at his Wyoming ranch.

Mr. Bush's communications director, Nicolle Devenish, was married this weekend in Greece, and a number of Mr. Bush's political advisers - including Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman - attended the wedding.

Ms. Rice did not return to Washington until Thursday, after she was spotted at a Broadway show and shopping for shoes, an image that Republicans said buttressed the notion of a White House unconcerned with tragedy.

These officials said that Mr. Bush and his political aides rapidly changed course in what they acknowledged was a belated realization of the situation's political ramifications. As is common when this White House confronts a serious problem, management was quickly taken over by Mr. Rove and a group of associates including Mr. Bartlett. Neither man responded to requests for comment.

White House advisers said that Mr. Bush expressed alarm after his return to Washington from the Gulf Coast.

One senior White House official said that Mr. Bush appeared at a senior staff meeting in the Situation Room on Friday and called the results on the ground "unacceptable." At the encouragement of Mr. Bartlett, officials said, he repeated the comment later in the Rose Garden, the start of this campaign.

So Karl The Fascist Pig Rove is at it again. Blame the state and local governments for the Fed's massive fuck-up. God forbid if the blame is placed where it belongs; on the heads of all those useless fucking assholes and cock-suckers at FEMA and DHS, not to mention all those do nothing bastards in the fucking chimp's administration.

There is enough information out there that should make their damage control effort fall flat on it's face. The MSM has enough of it to make sure the cover-up by Rove and others will be seen for what it is. Come on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, major newspapers, and even you FOX. Don't let the people of this country down. Stand-up and show some balls and tell everyone just how fucked-up and corrupt Bush and his cronies are.

MORE ON KATRINA'S AFTERMATH FROM SALON

Here's more news from Salon.com on some of the bullshit from the government in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina? Karl Rove is on it
The White House launches its damage-control operation. Is it too late?

Is Condi Rice the new Mary Landrieu?
The Democratic senator from Louisiana is apparently done kissing up to George W. Bush. The secretary of state has just begun.

Katrina roils presidential politics
In hurricane's aftermath, is Clinton covering for Bush?

Just horsin' around
The head of FEMA couldn't cut it with the International Arabian Horse Association.