Times-Picayune Continues Actual Journalism!

This newspaper is amazing! - they have these people that like, go out, and like talk to actual people and then, like investigate to see if the story is actually, like true and stuff. They call them "reporters" - it's like this whole new thing. They go out and, like verify stuff. It's so cool! I think other news agencies ought to start doing that. They could make room on the frontpage! By moving "analysis" to say, the opinion pages.



Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated

Widely reported attacks false or unsubstantiated

6 bodies found at Dome; 4 at Convention Center

By Brian Thevenot
and Gordon Russell Staff writers


After five days managing near-riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.


Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.

At the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, just four bodies were recovered, despites reports of corpses piled inside the building. Only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, said health and law enforcement officials.

That the nation's front-line emergency management believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent. As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

"I think 99 percent of it is bulls---," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong, bad things happened, but I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything. ... Ninety-nine percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state Health and Human Services Department administrator overseeing the body recovery operation, said his teams were inundated with false reports about the Dome and Convention Center.

"We swept both buildings several times, because we kept getting reports of more bodies there," Cataldie said. "But it just wasn't the case."

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities had confirmed only four murders in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina - making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year. Jordan expressed outrage at reports from many national media outlets that suffering flood victims had turned into mobs of unchecked savages.

"I had the impression that at least 40 or 50 murders had occurred at the two sites," he said. "It's unfortunate we saw these kinds of stories saying crime had taken place on a massive scale when that wasn't the case. And they (national media outlets) have done nothing to follow up on any of these cases, they just accepted what people (on the street) told them. ... It's not consistent with the highest standards of journalism."



Yeah. There's that.

[cont]

Cronyism Exposed

Time's in-depth analysis on this issue is first rate.

Novak swinging against the Big Spenders

in defense of Pence and a few other Republicans who used to think that the Republican party was fiscally conservative.

Republican Leadership: Nah, notsomuch really.

Pretty Sweet

Today from The Hill:

So in today’s column, as they say over at Fox News, I will report and you can decide: Misquoted? Or not?

DeLay, Sept. 14:

Q: What are your thoughts about paying for Katrina costs? Specifically, do you like the idea of cuts in discretionary, domestic spending? Or Heritage Foundation is suggesting rescinding all the earmarks in the transportation bill to devoting that to rebuilding infrastructure in (Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama).

A: My answer to those that want to offset the spending is, “Sure, bring me the offsets.” I will be glad to do it, but no one has been able to come up with any yet.

Q: A minute ago, you said that nobody is going to be able to present you with any offsets that would work. That is essentially saying that the federal government is running at such peak efficiency that you can’t find offsets for this. Is the federal government in that good shape in this budget at this point?

A: Yes. After 11 years of Republican majority, we pared it down pretty good.

Q: So are you ready to claim victory in that? Are you guys there

A: I am ready to declare ongoing victory. It is still a process.

DeLay, Sept. 20:Opening statement, on Katrina spending:

DeLay said, “There are programs all over the federal budget that are bloated or wasteful or inefficiently used.”

Q: What portion of Katrina aid do you think is realistic to offset?

A: We are in the process of looking for offsets. I am very glad people are looking for offsets.

Q: Mr. DeLay, last week you said you thought that the federal budget was pretty much cut to the bone; (the) Republican Congress had done a pretty good job in getting rid of the waste. And you sort of indicated that you don’t know where else to look. But today you sound like there are places you can look. What is it?

A: Well, first of all, I never said that. I have been quoted in the last few days in saying there was no fat in the federal government. That is why we have this transcript. I never said that. And the spin on some of the stories are completely out of context of what I said. What I said was, fiscal restraint — and I said it inartfully, I know — I said is an ongoing victory. Ongoing is the operative word.

I'm thinking bullshit was the operative word, but ...

Lynn Sweet, delivered the goods.

Reality check at NYTimes.

500 to be let go. If they'd start with the columnists they'd save the most money and gain the most readership back.





Hey Sulz, how's that front-to-back Bush-hatred workin' out for ya?

Bush Cronyism Again

Hello? Earth to White House. APPOINT QUALIFIED PEOPLE TO ALL POSITIONS CONNECTED IN ANYWAY TO NATIONAL SECURITY - YES!! THAT INCLUDES IMMIGRATION LAW AND BORDER SECURITY!

Malkin's on it.


And Debbie, too.

But Christ, would someone explain to the White House that it's the base that will be the most offended by this crap. It doesn't speak to a meritocracy, and it opens up all policies to questions of competence. Kind of like Gingrich in 1994? What happened to the majority then? Oh yeah, they lost 54 seats in Congress.

O'Reilly getting it right.

Every once in a while, Bill O'Reilly is a true public service. As he was yesterday.

excerpt:

BILL CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: This is a matter of public
policy. And whether it's race based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right and poverty goes up, and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made.

That's what they did in the '80's. That's what they've done in this decade. In the middle, we had a different policy. We concentrated tax cuts on lower income working people, and benefits to low income people to help them move from welfare to work. And we moved 100 times as many people out of poverty. We know what works. And we had a program that was drastically reducing poverty. And they got rid of it. So -- and they don't believe in it...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'Reilly: Believe in what?! What is Mr. Clinton talking about? What program did Mr. Bush get rid of? We called Mr. Clinton's office all day, looking for an answer to that very simple question. We didn't get one. Stephanopoulos sat there like a mummy, challenging nothing. The whole thing's absurd.

Again, here are the facts.
Black homeownership is up 2 percent under President Bush.
Poverty spending is significantly higher under Bush than it was under Clinton.
Educational spending for poor school districts is higher under Bush.

And the poverty rate stood at 13.7 percent halfway through Clinton's tenure.
It is 12.7 percent halfway through Bush's two terms.

This "tax cuts for the rich" business is also blatantly dishonest. It's a ruse for the secular left to institute their income redistribution scheme.

Under President Clinton, the tax rate climbed higher than at any time in history except in World War II. President Bush then came in and cut taxes for everyone. And guess what?

Federal tax revenues will be more this year than at any time during the Clinton administration!

Why? Because business is booming. That's why. Capitalism is working. And the more money corporations and workers make, the more taxes roll in, even at the reduced rate.

So let's recap. Black homeownership up under Bush. Poverty entitlements up under Bush. Educational spending for the poor, up under Bush. Federal tax revenues, up under Bush. Are you taking this down, George Stephanopoulos?


O'Reilly won't get any credit or this in the MSM, of course, or most blogs, who can't stand him . Consolation being that 1) he's right. And 2) around 3.5 million people heard him.

Incompetence isn't Racism.

To paraphrase Nietchze, when I read the words of Richard Cohen, I usually reach for my gun. But he's on to something here.

Like ignorance, incompetence isn't racism. But they taste the same.

Outstanding Editorial

From Washington Times today, telling it like it is.

"...Both President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have sought to give the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, a chance to build a democratic country that would live in peace next to Israel. But Gaza is coming to look more like Afghanistan under Taliban rule than a viable democracy.

Today, it is a place where masked Hamas terrorist operatives openly parade in the streets and vow to destroy Israel and commit mass murder; where terrorists, no longer having to worry about the Israel Defense Forces, routinely smuggle arms and contraband across the Egyptian border, despite the existence of an agreement between Egypt and Mr. Abbas to police the Philadelphi Corridor given up by Israel; and where armed gangs drag people from their homes and loot and destroy property turned over by Israel to the control of the PA without interference from the Palestinian security forces.
..."

The United States has given the P.A. $350 million dollars this year. Your tax dollars at work.

Al-Qaeda and the House of Saud

From Sept 9. but a meaty piece by John Bradley.

The essence of the deal with the Devils:

Townsend implicitly acknowledged in Riyadh that, if bin Laden's goal was to overthrow the House of Saud and subsequently to gain the prestige that would come from the custodianship of Islam's two holy mosques and control of one-quarter of the world's known oil reserves, then the main US policy objective in response must be to guarantee the royal family's survival.

And that is the ballgame right there.

Social Security still the Third Rail?

Josh Marshall, lamenting the Dems inability (or unwillingness) to capitalize strategically (in 06') on the Social Security reforms pushed by President Bush brings up an interesting point. Prima facie, it does seem like a pretty good item for truly articulate Dems who are good on the issue, (Rep. Sprat, Sen. Clinton, etc.) to use to swing wood in their elections. But a few observations:

The SSR debate has changed a bit; irrevocably, I would say. You who would bring up SSR now, and not have something substantive to say in counter to the various Bush and House proposals, will do so at your political peril.

Don't believe me? Consider: Katrina is the death knell of SSR under Bush, I regrettably admit. I didn't love the plan, preferring Rep. Kolbe's, but liked the fact that SSR was being discussed.

But think for a moment if Katrina had gone differently - Bush envokes Insurrection Act on Tuesday and lands with Marine One and the 82nd Airbourne at the Superdome and convention center and starts handing out water and food and refuses to leave the region until all evacuees are safe. Sen. Kennedy says some typical kneejerk red faced thing and is immediately invited by Bush to New Orleans to help - a Pavehawk is sent to his house.Brown is quietly removed and Bush assumes control of FEMA, Kennedy is assigned a section of the city and does a damn good job, then Lott comes, then Landrieu, Bush nominates Roberts from the back of a local's pick-up truck, signs the $10.5 billion legislation on the hood of a humvee, sleeps at a local Marine barracks, criss-crosses the region for days in a helicopter, Old town holdouts start calling him "George" when he comes by, etc. etc., - all on television.....

Or much simpler: had Osama bin Laden been paraded across the front pages in his underwear, or even: had the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites suddenly stumbled into a brilliant and inspiring constitutional compromise - any of these, or any combination of these would dramatically alter the SSR debate right now. To be sure, smart libs like Josh Marshall, and truly, truly dumb ones like Dowd, all would have still found something to hate about Bush, but his entire political capital would have been altered, and the political reality of SSR very different.

The point being that events are wrecking Bush, but the Democrats are not. Bush and Hill Repubs' troubles regarding SSR and a hundred other issues are by and large, circumstances and events, some of their own making (Iraq, Katrina relief missteps) and some not (Katrina itself). But they are certainly not being hobbled or having the agenda changed by the actions or even the inactions of the elected Democrats of this country.

The Democrats, liberals who claim debate and intellectual discourse as by definition virtuous, refused as policy to offer any meaningful alternatives to Republican SSR. Why does this matter? This refusal, placed in the context of a President Bush surging from a success or series of successes, would have been politically, electorally, and functionally catastrophic to the Democrats.

Despite very neutral and disenchanted public opinion on the issue (which George Bush seemed to merely interpret as a healthy challenge) the only real reasons Bush has had to abandon SSR were events, or events handled poorly. Had Bush retained or built political capital, there is little doubt - even from the most reluctant Republican allies of SSR - that before Katrina, Bush would have returned to stump for it again. By Summer of '06, Democrats would have looked peevish and foolish indeed for a continued refusal to even offer ideas on helping preserve the largest and most successful Democratic initiative in the Party history.

Josh is still correct that the Dems must find a way to use the SSR failure to their advantage, but bringing up something that someone else couldn't fix always begs the question - what would you do? With Democrats this inevitably forces them into trying to make a tax increase sound heroic. Better to just avoid the specifics. "Yay! Bush lost!" "We saved Social Security!"

No, actually you didn't. There was a hurricane.

Was just walking by the White House today...

and I looked over and ... well... there it was. The White House.



When did I become the guy that walked past the White House on the way to work...and well, almost didn't notice?

The door was standing open, too. Say what you want about intelligence errors, security issues, federal waste of money etc., and a lot of that I agree with. But we still live in a pretty amazing country.

In the middle of a war, terror attacks around the world, and a hundred other things, and free of molestation or even inquiry from a single guard of any kind, I'm walking by the home of the President. And the doors are even open. I coulda put a Titleist in the Roosevelt Room with a pitching wedge.

Someone more articulate than me can probably explain it better, but I walked to work today exceedingly proud to be an American.

A Riotous Brooks

Lampoon of our lovely Senate.

We join the hearings in progress....

Tom Coburn Well put, Judge Roberts. Yet when I think of the polarization that still divides this great nation ... waaaahhhh ... waaaahhhh. (Senator Coburn breaks down weeping.)

Jeff Sessions This may be a good moment to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that in this country unelected judges don't write the laws. We have unelected lobbyists to do that. Under our system, judges merely interpret the law and decide presidential elections.

Specter Senator Sessions, let me interrupt you right there. We're not here to argue among ourselves and ignore the nominee. We're here to deliver 30-minute speeches disguised as questions and ignore the nominee. So let me turn to Senator Bid - -

Coburn And when I think of the flaws in the reconciliation process! And the gerrymandering! Oh, the suffering! Oh, the humanity! Waaaahhhh ... waaaahhhh. (Senator Coburn collapses and is taken back to his office on a stretcher.)

Specter As I was saying, Senator Biden, you have the floor.

Joseph Biden Jr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought this might be a good moment to give the committee a complete history of my heroic sponsorship of the Violence Against Women Act, but before I do that I'd like to interrupt myself by mentioning that I ride the train every day, often speaking with regular Americans, but before I do that I'd like to interrupt my interruption of myself by asking the chairman to restrain the nominee. During my first round of questioning, the nominee continually interrupted my questions by trying to give answers. I could barely keep up my train of thought on stare decisis.

Edward Kennedy: Starry De Cysis? Didn't she do a fan dance down at that old burlesque house in Providence?

and so on.....

Ah, academia...

Bruce Lawrence, professor of religion at Duke University:

"If you read him [Bin Laden] in his own words, he sounds like somebody who would be a very high-minded and welcome voice in global politics."

link.

Ah, Congress

"His answers are misleading," an exasperated Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) told committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

"They may be misleading," Specter shot back, "but they are his answers." When the laughter in the marble hearing room died down, Roberts said: "With respect, they are my answers. And, with respect, they're not misleading, they're accurate."

---WashPost.

KENNEDY: Judge Roberts, if your position prevailed, it would have been legal in many cases to discriminate in athletics for girls, women. It would have been legal to discriminate in the hiring of teachers. It would have been legal not to provide services or accommodations to the disabled.
Do you still believe today that it is too onerous for the government to require universities that accept tuition payments from students who rely on federal grants and loans not to discriminate in any of their programs or activities?
ROBERTS: No, Senator, and I did not back then. You have not accurately represented my position.
KENNEDY: These are your words.
SPECTER: Let him finish his answer. That was a quite long question.

ROBERTS: Senator, you have selected...
SPECTER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Senator Kennedy just propounded a very, very long question. Now, let him answer the question.
ROBERTS: Senator, you did not accurately represent my position.

You think!?!?

"I do know this: that my faith and my religious beliefs do not play a role in judging. When it comes to judging, I look to the law books and always have. I don't look to the Bible or any other religious source."

Hmmmm.... Pat? Jerry? Your thoughts?

And Iran...Iran So Far Away?

It came from the 80's...


Recent CIA estimates pushed back previous estimates of an Iran with a weaponized nuclear program to as much as 10 years away. Not so say key members of Congress.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) speaking to a pro-Israel audience stressed NOT suicide bombings or Palestinian terrorism or Israel’s future neighbor of Hamastan. It was Iran. Iran. Iran.

“A nuclear weapon going off in a major metropolitan area is the nightmare scenario for everyone. If you are looking for a state that has the technological ability to create nuclear weapons and missiles, and the national will to provide them to those who would strike the heart of the U.S.? Iran. Is. That. State.”

Rep. Kirk, a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve and distinguished naval intelligence officer, and Rep. Israel now head up an Iran Study Group to bring options to the table on U.S. response to a suddenly nuclear Iran. Rep. Israel is founder and chair of the Democratic Study Group on National Security, and was appointed to chair the House Democratic Caucus Task Force on Defense and Military. Both also serve as assistant whips (being one of ten) for their respective party leadership.

“There are no good policy options,” said Steve Israel, a member of the Blue Dog Democrats. “We are looking for the least-worst policy option.”

What is our plan?

Kirk specifically noted that conventional wisdom in the House and the State Dept. is coalescing into two “camps” of policy directions.

Camp 1 is the “it’s too late” camp. We can’t stop it – it’s too far gone. The U.N. is useless and the IAEA spineless and we should just let them have it. We’re going to be stuck with a nuclear Iran, that’s the way it is. And so on. Camp 2 is the “Let Israel do it,” camp. They did it before. We know they can and that way we don’t have to get directly involved.

The problems with all of these options were brought up and then other options were discussed. Primarily the idea being that both of these create more problems than they solve and don’t ultimately solve the real problem of Iran, and in the latter’s case, directly implicate Israel specifically in a world-altering action of dubious nature at best.

Kirk’s idea is to establish a new Camp 3 – finding weaknesses in Iran that can be exploited and hopefully destabilize the mullahs government into something less anti-American. The main revealed weakness offered by Kirk is that Iran refinery capability is so poor they are a net importer of gasoline by 100,000’s of gallons a day. Finding a way to quickly and effectively embargo gasoline could cause economic ruin and force the fall of an already unpopular government.

Downsides to such a plan being that it could inflate already high gasoline prices further (not a automatic because it could also increase world supply), and such acts could also be spun in Iran as anti-Iran instead of anti-Mullah, driving the two sides together instead of apart.

Asked directly by an audience member, “How long do we have to, you know, ‘talk amongst ourselves’ here?” regarding the future of Iran’s weapons program.

For the creation of fissile material that can be transported easily, said Kirk,“probably about a year.” This one year time frame has been echoed by Israeli officials and various members of the IDF.

Missiles and warheads take a bit longer to incorporate but, with the Shahab-3 in production and tested, it seems clear that a nuclear Iran is actually not so far away.

Violence Rewarded

And taught to the next generation.

"I feel a great sense of victory today," said Mr. Hattah, 40, who lives across the tall concrete wall in the Khan Yunis refugee camp and who used to work in this settlement before the second Palestinian uprising began in 2000.

"The Zionists built it and then they destroyed it," he said with satisfaction. "The lesson I've learned, and I will pass it on to my sons, is that no matter how long it takes, the occupiers will leave because of resistance."

Behind him, a settlement synagogue built in the shape of a huge star of David was smoldering, and fires lit inside were sending smoke through the edges of the star. Atop the building, in the dim smoky moment before dawn, a huge green flag of the radical Islamic group Hamas could be seen, with a smaller flag of Palestine flying below it.

-- From NYTimes.


Throughout the piece Erlanger is almost gleeful. Should expect it by now I suppose, but it remains nauseating.

On the Bush Bunker

"Normally, the Guard is under the control of the state governor, but the Feds can take over—if the governor asks them to. Nagin suggested that Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the Pentagon's on-scene commander, be put in charge. According to Senator Vitter, Bush turned to Governor Blanco and said, 'Well, what do you think of that, Governor?' Blanco told Bush, 'I'd rather talk to you about that privately.' To which Nagin responded, 'Well, why don't you do that now?'

The meeting broke up. Bush and Blanco disappeared to talk. More than a week later, there was still no agreement. Blanco didn't want to give up her authority, and Bush didn't press."

From Newsweek. The whole piece presents a decently fair assessment, I think. And, importantly, it doesn't extrapolate into things it doesnt know. Bush and Blanco didn't agree - they spoke privately. That's what we've got.

But I also think the reason the Bush White House dismisses the major media sources is it knows it will never get a fair hearing there. The Bush team deeply distrusts the media, and expects Anti-Bush journalistic malfeasance and bias, like this, and this, and this.

But George Bush is still the President and its still his job to get the right people in the right jobs and that obviously needs to happen. I don't have the tiniest pretention that John Kerry would have shown more empathy or decisiveness; he is gifted in neither. But I do think there can and will be changes in the way President Bush gets information from here on out.

The picture painted by the Newsweek piece reveals again of the consequences of a White House (such as Clinton's during impeachment or Nixon's during Watergate) when the trust and respect between the Administration and the Press is gone. It's no way to run a railroad.

Ah, I Love the Smell of Hypocrisy in the Morning

Senator Durbin, July 19, 2005: “The President had an opportunity to unite the country with his Supreme Court nomination, to nominate an individual in the image of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, by putting forward John Roberts’ name, President Bush has chosen a more controversial nominee and guaranteed a more controversial confirmation process.”

“Now the Judiciary Committee will begin its work. For my part, I will look for one thing -- will this nominee strive to protect the rights of all Americans or will he be a judicial activist with an ideological agenda rather than an independent judge with an open mind.”

Senator Kennedy, September 2005: “Our review of even the limited available parts of his record has raised serious concerns about his role in the early 1980's in seeking to weaken voting rights, roll back women's rights, and impede our progress toward a more equal nation. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, which were due to begin this week, were the opportunity for the Senate and the American people to hear from John Roberts about those extreme views and explain his position on these and many other vital issues facing the country.”

Senator Biden, July 1993: "
"...The public is best served by questions that initiate a dialog with the nominee, not about how she will decide any specific case that may come before her, but about the spirit and the method she will bring to the task of judging. There is a real difference … between questions that focus on specific results or outcomes, the answers to which would risk compromising a nominee’s independence and impartiality, and questions on judicial methods and philosophy. The former can undermine the dispassionate and unprejudiced judgment we expect the nominee to exercise as a Justice. But the latter are essential and contribute critically to our public dialog.

...You not only have a right to choose what you will answer and not answer, but in my view, you should not answer."

Section 5A(3)(d) prohibits a candidate for judicial office from making statements that commit the candidate regarding cases, controversies or issues likely to come before the court. As a corollary, a candidate should emphasize in any public statement the candidate’s duty to uphold the law regardless of his or her personal views.

.......smells like......victory!

A Conservative speaking to a Liberal

After a long argument about the state of things…

Conservative: "Are there none of our leaders that you commend? Have you no heroes?"

Liberal: "Are there none of our leaders that you condemn? Admit you no tragedies"



One answer being, of course, that it is indeed tragic to see no heroes. But far from heroic to refuse to see failures.

Evil Alert

From WSJ. Europe's biggest insurer, Allianz AG, warned that its exposure to Hurricane Katrina could be as much as $583.6 million but said it still expects to reach its 2005 profit target of $4.9 billion. The Munich-based company said Katrina could be the costliest natural disaster in the insurance industry's history.

So that's a loss of around $600 million dollars. The biggest loss in the history of the industry, but it will NOT affect ONE YEAR'S!! profit margin of $5 billion dollars.

Insurance has got to be the one industry that can give lessons in wholly unhinged avarice to OPEC, Exxon, and the U.S. Congress.

FEMA v/v DHS

$52 billion for FEMA? I know. I know. It’s a knee-jerk reaction and in many ways a sincere effort by Congress to “do the right thing”, take action, and not fiddle while New Orleans drowns, but I’m sorry I don’t see it. FEMA is, actually, in fact, a wholly redundant organization. Or that is, it should be. I like Josh’s idea of a terminating corporation.

I agree with Dems who speak of James Witt and the fine work he did to build it up, and make it work. Fine. Good job. Let’s make him the head of DHS. If DHS is going to become what it was supposed to be and what it needs to be to justify its existence, it has to become a more fluid and more integrated thing. Hillary’s idea of removing FEMA is exactly the wrong thing.

When DHS was created it could have and should have assumed total control of FEMA and many other of its disparate agencies arms, and reorganized them under assistantships. These are then given to mid-level technocrats who only have/get their jobs due to experience in the field.

But without full budget control given to the director, and the guts (or permission) to swing an axe, this sort of necessary tanzimat was obviously unavailable and the lion’s share of all these agencies retained their upper tier level, or the political fiefdoms.

Just as the new National Intelligence Director, a half-ass pseudo fix of a deeply rooted institutional bias, is hobbled by the unwillingness of Congress or the Administration to bestow actual power, so too is a Director of Homeland Security buried in interdepartmental cross-agency protocols likely unable to affect real change and therefore get real results. (And in Chertoff's case, seemingly content to do neither.)

Just as the U.S. needs a real Secretary of Intelligence over single comprehensive Department of Intelligence (with a Domestic Directorate of agents operating within U.S. law, and a Foreign directorate of agents operating outside it, like um…every other civilized nation in the world?) the U.S. needs a single Cabinet Secretary in charge of any and all Homeland Security issues, period.

FEMA can and should be wholly consumed by DHS, but a DHS fully understanding of its mandate and responsibility to not just protect the country from attacks, but secure it afterwards as well. DHS is clearly the charge of an experienced logistics command and control expert. Let's get one.

Brown down

Chertoff to go....

Then by-God get an Admiral (Ret.) in there who has done logistics for land and sea war zones for 30 years - with or without first-responders - and knows how to run a railroad top-to-bottom. Period.

Nobody asked Cheney...

Vice President Cheney: "I feel the progress we've made is very significant."

Enterprising reporter: "Mr. Vice-President, would you say the difficulties you've had up until this point are 'in their last throes?'"



woulda been gold....

On the whole government spending shenanigans…

“A billion here, a billion there…pretty soon your talking about real money.”

--Everett McKinley Dirksen attrib.


I agree that these stunning figures - in recent spending and rampant pork - in Congress are disturbing, but there is something that no one ever talks about. I'm really not knowledgeable enough to know how this all shakes out but people and especially the press love to talk about government spending as a by-definition negative force on the "proper" way things "ought to be." The Washington Post recently said that “every earmark is a conscious decision to waste the taxpayers money.”

I'm not an economist and not an expert, but we all know the familiar contrast between hating or distrusting Congress, but happening to think our Rep is just fine - "he/she brings home the bacon" etc, etc. My point is that there is an aspect of this story, often told as a self-evident example of Congressional avarice, that is - whether avaricious or not - quite harmless and occasionally even resoundingly beneficial.

My point is this - Congressional spending is not spending in a vacuum - it is not a disappearance of money. It is, like it or not, money spent largely in America, largely on Americans and largely employing Americans and thus largely taxable in return. I'm no pro-tax, and I too support the tax cuts - I think they are a net stimulus. I am also worried about the debt and deficit, etc. I do want controls and I know such a large debt can effect interest rates, inflation, etc. I get it. Fine, let's have the debate and fight it out, and see who gets what.

But, speaking of domestic spending now, a lot of this "terrible fear" of the government building an extraneous off-ramp somewhere? Or a school in Paduka? Or a museum with some congressman's name on it? I can't get too fired up. That's a few million dollars that put food on the table for probably a couple hundred families for a year, and was in turn taxed, and now we have another off-ramp or a school or a whatever. Yes, we have to care what happens to our money. But when the government spends money - at least in America - the money doesn't vanish into thin air, which is much the way the press reports it. American tax money by and large goes right back to tax-paying Americans in jobs, products and services. Even the universally demonized and occasionally subsidized farm conglomerates, insurance companies or pharmaceutical companies might actually employ good, hardworking patriotic Americans. I'm not referring to anything in particular, I just wonder if this whole debate on spending couldn't be a bit more civil? Maybe, just maybe, it's not the end of the world? Or even the end of Reaganism. Maybe it's just American government, warts and all.

In reality, the highway bill is a jobs bill. Is it that different than FDR’s CCC or TVA? Love them or like them, do we now see those programs as a conscious decision to be wasteful? If we want to debate the role of government in creating jobs and the impact of federal building programs have on creating de facto entitlements and so on, fine. That sounds like a healthy debate and one that should be out there, but calling every single earmark “a waste of money” seems a little extreme to me – such a simplistic, unintellectual, even clumsy assessment from such an elitist cudgel of a newspaper should raise more eyebrows than it has. Ten bucks says WP would be leading the earmark chorus if they could find a way to give Dems credit for it.

Yes, with Katrina we see the very clear argument against the good chairman's $231 million bridge to nowhere and probably a hundred other such earmarks. We don't know when we will need those millions, and times like this show us the importance of keeping things under control and this congress has certainly not even attempted restraint. But it is hardly self-evident truth that all such projects are a "conscious waste of taxpayers money." They are a conscious use of taxpayers money - the waste part is optional.

Master Sun says....

...
First, defeat the enemy’s strategies,
Second, defeat the enemy’s allies,
Third, defeat the enemy’s armies,
Lastly, siege the enemy’s fortresses.

- Sun-Tzu, “The Art of War”