Shakesville

I’ve Had It With These Assholes

The Green Knight:

Capitol Buzz passes this on from the Wall Street Journal:

Ten U.S. Army recruiters are offering volunteer help for Katrina vicitms at Houston's Astrodome. But the recruiters, struggling to keep enlistment up during Iraq war, are also available with options for the jobless.

There, it's official: the military is, in fact, workfare. Really really dangerous workfare.

It’s your lucky day, Joe Nawlins! Now that you’ve survived a hurricane, the possibility of drowning, starvation, thirst, the loss of your entire life, the death of friends and family, and the unimaginable horror of having been stuck in a hellhole for days on end while your government jerked off, you can go to Iraq!

The fucking nerve asking these people to serve their country after their country abandoned them.

Although, by the sounds of what they’re being provided, their choices amount to being a soldier or being a detainee.

Glug: Follow-Up

As a follow-up to my post below, regarding Bush’s executive order allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage, Pam makes a good clarification that I’d like to reiterate here:

Commenter Oddjob rightfully pointed out the "prevailing wage" point, which could, in union jobs mean much higher than the minimum wage. But all bets are off in Right to Work states, which mean traditional union employment (and wages) for the most part, doesn't exist:

As you can see, the right to work in the disaster region is the "right to work for less" and for contractors to make more buxxx. As the Teamster's site notes,

There is a misunderstanding that organizing is somehow different, or more difficult, in so-called right-to-work-for-less states. In fact, organizing law and procedure is the same in right-to-work and non-right-to-work states. The only differences are that workers in states that have passed these so-called right-to-work laws are paid considerably less on average, and the states are more likely to have unfavorable political conditions.

In addition to Thatcher-esquely cracking any unions that may exist, the main MO here seems to be granting greater profit-making potential to the contractors without the government having to spend any more money. If Halliburton contracted to the government for $1 million, their profit margin was limited to whatever they could make above time and materials, both of which were fixed prices. But with the executive order in place, they can pay lower wages (time), thereby increasing their opportunity for profit, and the government doesn’t have to chip in an extra dime. See how that works?

Skidmark II

So, the now-demoted (but not fired, heck no) Brownie’s résumé was a pack of lies.

Now, an investigation by TIME has found discrepancies in his online legal profile and official bio, including a description of Brown released by the White House at the time of his nomination in 2001 to the job as deputy chief of FEMA. (Brown became Director of FEMA, succeeding Allbaugh, in 2003.)

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME.

Oh, and there’s more.

If the administration couldn’t be bothered to vet this guy thoroughly enough to discover blatant lies on his résumé, how secure are we supposed to feel about anything done by The Security President?

I was not about to leave the security of the American people in the hands of a madman.—President Bush, Oct. 8, 2003

Really? Then resign.

Skidmark

FEMA chief Brownie has been demoted.

Asked if he was being made a scapegoat for a federal relief effort that has drawn widespread and sharp criticism, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: "By the press, yes. By the president, No."

It’s all the press’ fault.

Hideous Pigass Conservative of the Day

John Stossel is a lying scumbag who regularly uses the platform that ABC inexplicably continues to afford him to promote his asinine agenda, including smearing Democrats, denying the existence of global warming, wringing his hands about the horrors of taxation, trying to discredit organic foods, mocking workers’ safety regulations, spinning science funding, and general rightwing propagandizing. (Among many others.) Stossel claims to be a libertarian, or libertarianish, but his latest screed at Townhall (you can get a link to the original Townhall column from Media Matters; I'm not linking to them) proves him to be a coldhearted, pigass conservative through and through, as he defends price gougers for making sure necessities go to those who really need it.

Consider this scenario: You are thirsty -- worried that your baby is going to become dehydrated. You find a store that's open, and the storeowner thinks it's immoral to take advantage of your distress, so he won't charge you a dime more than he charged last week. But you can't buy water from him. It's sold out.

You continue on your quest, and finally find that dreaded monster, the price gouger. He offers a bottle of water that cost $1 last week at an "outrageous" price -- say $20. You pay it to survive the disaster.

You resent the price gouger. But if he hadn't demanded $20, he'd have been out of water. It was the price gouger's "exploitation" that saved your child.

It saved her because people look out for their own interests. Before you got to the water seller, other people did. At $1 a bottle, they stocked up. At $20 a bottle, they bought more cautiously. By charging $20, the price gouger makes sure his water goes to those who really need it.

Got that? Raising prices saves babies. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he suggesting that the rich have no self-control whatsoever and will gorge themselves endlessly beyond their need, even in a life or death situation, unless someone steps in to stop them? Who needs a social conscience when we’ve got The Market?

Might the water have been provided by volunteers? Certainly some people help others out of benevolence. But we can't count on benevolence. As Adam Smith wrote, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Consider the storeowner's perspective: If he's not going to make a big profit, why open up the store at all? Staying in a disaster area is dangerous and means giving up the opportunity to be with family in order to take care of the needs of strangers. Why take the risk?

What a wanker! Aside from the fact that the reason we can’t count on benevolence is because of pricks like him who would probably hoard his lifetime supply of water even from mothers of dying children if The Market failed to regulate his unmitigated greed, he conveniently ignores that it was, in fact, the responsibility of the government to see to it that its citizens didn’t die of thirst after a massive natural disaster. (Not to mention that most storeowners didn’t stay around to reap huge profits or be benevolent, but turned tail like anyone else who get out; I can only imagine his opinion of those who “looted” their stores for water.) This guy is totally unbelievable. And ABC should be renamed Wankco for continuing to keep his pigass on their payroll.

As Pure as Fallen Snow

The indictments begin, and yet, Tom DeLay manages to bounce and wiggle his way out of any trouble. The guy's got to be made of flubber.

Texas Grand Jury Indicts DeLay Associates

Wait... a Texas Grand Jury? Geez, these guys must be REALLY crooked.

AUSTIN, Texas - A political organization formed by House Majority leader Tom DeLay and a prominent Texas business group face charges of taking illegal corporate money during the 2002 legislative campaigns.

DeLay, R-Texas, was not indicted by a Travis County grand jury in the charges made public Thursday, although three of his political associates were charged earlier. District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said he had no jurisdiction over DeLay's personal conduct.

Wiggled out of another one. How in the world does he manage to dodge every bullet? Even Batman got hit occasionally. Well, anyway, it's time to play connect-the-dots. La, la, la. See if you can find common ground here: (bolds mine)

District Attorney Ronnie Earle said the five felony indictments against the two groups show a misuse of corporate money to "influence Texas elections in 2002."

The indictment alleges the two groups — Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee and the Texas Association of Business — worked together to circumvent the election code and funnel "massive amounts of secret corporate wealth" into campaigns, Earle said.

State law prohibits use of corporate contributions to advocate election or defeat of state candidates.

Okay... so people have been indicted in influencing Texas elections in 2002 with dirty money. Got it. Circumvented the election code and took a treasure bath. But what about DeLay?

DeLay helped Republicans win control of the Texas Legislature and keep Congress in GOP hands in 2002.

(snip)

Once DeLay helped Republicans win control of the state Legislature in 2002, the majority leader engineered a Republican redistricting plan that gave the state's U.S. House delegation a 21-11 majority in the current Congress. The effort helped Republicans increase their House margin by five seats this year.

So, obviously, he's got his fingerprints all over this...

Kevin Madden, DeLay's spokesman, said the majority leader only played a limited role in the political organization. He served on its advisory board and appeared at fundraising events, Madden said.

Uh, okay, that's a little ridiculous... surely some sort of investigation will...

A complaint filed last year with the House ethics committee alleged that DeLay's activities with TRMPAC violated House rules, but the panel deferred action and has done nothing since.

If any of you need me, I'll be banging my head against the wall all goddamned day.

(There's a cross-post that's sure all that glitters is gold, and it's buying a stairway to heaven)

Glug

I spoke to one of my best friends this evening, and in the course of our conversation, which was, in part, about whether one person can really make a difference, I said to her, “Sometimes I just feel like I’m part of the string quartet on the deck of the Titanic. The only other option is to freak out, so I choose to keep playing my violin.”

I don’t always feel that way. But when I read stories like this, I have to admit, I get that sinking feeling.

President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.

In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused "a national emergency" that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Bush's action came as the federal government moved to provide billions of dollars in aid, and drew rebukes from two of organized labor's biggest friends in Congress, Rep. George Miller of California and Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats.

"The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities," Miller said.

[…]

The Davis-Bacon law requires federal contractors to pay workers at least the prevailing wages in the area where the work is conducted. It applies to federally funded construction projects such as highways and bridges.

Bush's executive order suspends the requirements of the Davis-Bacon law for designated areas hit by the storm.

You read that right. Bush has ordered contractors rebuilding the devastated area don’t even have to pay their workers minimum wage*.

As you’ll no doubt recall, Halliburton has already been awarded a clean-up contract.

So, good luck getting back on your feet, Joe Nawlins, because after losing your home, your job, your health insurance, (if you were fortunate enough to have those to begin with) and quite likely members of your family, the best we can offer you is a job where you’ll make less than if you sling freedom fries at Mickey D’s.

God bless America.

(Hat tip Pam.)

------------------------------

* Or whatever the hell the prevailing wage in the area is.

The 11 Most Heinous Headcases in America

These eleven congressmen, Republican conservatives all, just voted against the $51 billion package (H. R. 3673) for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Horrible human beings, all.

Rep. Joe Barton - TX
Jeff Flake - AZ
Virginia Foxx - NC
Scott Garrett - NJ
John Hostettler - IN
Steve King - IA
Butch Otter - ID
Ron Paul - TX
James Sensenbrenner - WI
Tom Tancredo - CO
Lynn Westmoreland - GA

(Hat tip Ezra.)

I’m not surprised in the least to see the contemptible Hostettler (with whom I’m embarrassed to share a state) on that list, nor the depraved Sensenbrenner and detestable Tancredo. The rest I know nothing about, although I’m sure if I did, I’d wish to be back in my current state of ignorant bliss about what hideous piles of excrement they are.

Ezra thinks this lot “no longer want their jobs,” but I’m afraid such wanton disregard for the needs of a group that is largely poor and black will only endear them to their equally hateful constituents.

Mr. Unpopular

What a difference a week makes.

The Green Knight:

In one week, [Bush’s] approval rating on [his handling of the storm's aftermath] dropped 16 points, and his disapproval rose 46 points.

Say it with me: George Bush is not a popular president.

Downing Street Memos: Action Item

Remember those?

The resolution of inquiry (H. Res 375) introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) now has 65 co-sponsors, and will come to a vote in the House International Relations Committee on September 14th, where it has the co-sponsorship of most of the Democrats and one Republican.

If passed, it will require the White House and the State Department to "transmit all information relating to communication with officials of the United Kingdom between January 1, 2002, and October 16, 2002, relating to the policy of the United States with respect to Iraq." To pass, it needs all the Democrats and three Republicans. The more Congress Members not on the committee who co-sponsor, the more likely some committee members are to vote yes.

So…

Email Your Congress Member

Phone and Fax Your Congress Member

Or call the switchboard tollfree at (888) 818-6641

More info here.

Also, don’t forget about the Sept 15 and Sept 24 rallies. (Patrick at Yelladog has some thoughts (and clarifications) on the rallies to check out, too.)

Shameless Plug

That’s the name of the series Genia at SistersTalk, which is a great blog you can find on my blogroll, is doing on other bloggers, although it’s an appropriate title for the post because I was the first in the series. (You can read my interview here, if you’re desperate to find out more about my mad crushes on Pam, The Heretik, and Lance Mannion.) Second up was Terrance, who writes Republic of T, another excellent blogger who can be found on my blogroll, and whose interview I found really interesting. Check it out, especially if SistersTalk or Republic of T are new names to you.

Good Grrl

Nancy Pelosi to CNN anchor and apparent propagandist Kyra Phillips:

"Kyra, if you want to make a case for the White House you should go on their payroll."

What the Dems have to learn is that when the press is pandering to the White House, they have to be called on it on air and without apology.

Full transcript here (via Atrios). Video here. There's a lot more than just that one comment to make it worth watching/reading. (The interview was also interrupted with breaking news about the discovery of 14 dead bodies in a hospital.)

Two Things to Read

RJ Eskow's written a great post about what's going on in Mississippi right now.

We keep hearing from the Republican excuse makers that the problems in New Orleans are the fault of its Mayor, and of Louisiana's Governor. So how are things in their state, the one with a former GOP party chairman as Governor and two greasy insiders as Senators? Hint: not so great.

Check it out.

And if you're in need of a little levity, check out Mad Kane's trio of FEMA limericks.

Speaking of Antipathy...

Another great photoshopped illustration of exactly what we're all feeling at the moment care of Misty.

For the People

Shaker RM forwards two stories reporting the account of California paramedics Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, who were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Here and here.

RM notes: “I was just reading the Guardian (because our national press seems to have been shut down again) and they had a link to this survivors report about the National Guard or FEMA commandeering buses they had arranged to get themselves out of NO. I'm inclined to think that these guys aren't just incompetent or unskilled in what they were hired to do. It almost has to be willful malevolence.”

I believe I would be hard-pressed to find any news accounts of government action that would summarily contradict that assertion. As story after story comes out about the multitude of failures which defined this debacle, and our president’s commentary amounts to “What didn’t go right?” as if he has been wholly insulated from the horrors unfolding before the nation’s eyes for more than a week now, it becomes apparent that the failures were beyond apathy or incompetence. And that’s because apathy, incompetence, inaction, unpreparedness, chaos, etc. exhibited by the government on such a grand scale is malevolent. Forget the conspiracy theories being floated about the levees being blown to save more valuable property or the government using this as a dress rehearsal for martial law—whether they’re true or not doesn’t even matter in deciding whether their behavior was wicked.

There are sins of commission and sins of omission—and even secular people like myself acknowledge the difference between the two, though we may call them by different names. Even I’ve heard the name Kitty Genovese, though she was murdered within ear- and eyeshot of more than 30 witnesses who didn’t help her, 10 years before I was born. This isn’t the first time I’ve had cause to note that our good Christian president doesn’t seem to have read the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, because conservatives, upon hearing the tale retold with government playing the title role, dismiss it as socialism, nanny-statism, communism, unfair unjust unnecessary!

They’ve no empathy or love for their fellow Americans who suffered such dire fates, and no hint of recognition that their favorite philosopher, a poor man who spent his time ministering to the indigent and the sick, would have been lost had he been of New Orleans rather than of Nazareth. Of course, his message was lost to them long ago.

Yes, this is a story of underfunded levees, and poor evacuation plans, and a cabinet-level department being folded into a larger organization, and the appointment of unqualified hacks, and all the rest. But it is primarily a story about a government—a government meant to be of the People, by the People, and for the People—that let its people down on an unprecedented scale, that let its people die for want of a glass of water.

Call it whatever you want—sin of omission, criminal negligence, hard-heartedness, racism, classism—it doesn’t matter. What these all have in common is antipathy toward the vulnerable and hurting, and that’s bigger, and oh so much worse, than mere incompetence.

Land of the Free

Go read Michael.

Have I Ever Mentioned That I Hate Denny Hastert?

I think I may have, once or twice. Having been an Illinoisan for a decade, I’m well familiar with his despicable antics and his habit of parading his ugly mug out to say outrageously asinine and insensitive things in the midst of crises, but I never quite get used to it. Here’s yet another example of why that fat pot of shit is at the top of my list of loathsome politicos.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, asked about rebuilding New Orleans, volunteered: "It doesn't make sense to me." He elaborated: "I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it ... we ought to take a second look at that." Thus Hastert upheld rugged individualism over a modern federal union. Just a month earlier, as it happened, Hastert had put out a press release crowing about his ability to win federal disaster relief for drought-stricken farmers in his Illinois district. While he was too preoccupied attending a campaign fundraiser for a Republican colleague to travel to Washington to vote for the $10.5 billion emergency appropriation to deal with Katrina's aftereffects, he did finally return to the capital to push for even more drought aid from the Department of Agriculture. Hastert's philosophy is not undermined by his stupendous hypocrisy, for hypocrisy is at the center of the Republican idea. Hastert simply has the shamelessness of his convictions.

Ugh. What a puke-inducer. He’s so manifestly revolting, it’s hard to believe that the Land of Lincoln could produce this tyrannosaurus of turpitude.

No Chemo for You

Oh the blessed irony. Last Tuesday, the 30th—you know, the day all the papers looked like this—President Bush was in San Diego at the Naval Medical Center, with the intention of the visit to thank medics who aided tsunami victims in Southeast Asia. Well, not only was he busily ignoring the needs of the people in New Orleans; his little photo op in San Diego was also preventing patients there from receiving the medical care they need.

The Naval Medical Center in San Diego's Balboa Park was shut down to accommodate a visit by President George W. Bush Aug. 30, RAW STORY has learned, forcing patients to cancel chemotherapy treatments and hundreds of scheduled patient visits.

[…]

"I think it's disgusting. People who are getting chemotherapy or radiation are on a very set schedule. They are not supposed to miss a session or put it off by even a day, because it's based on the life cycle of a cancer cell," the volunteer said, adding that some patients had waited weeks for appointments. "Some had to postpone for quite a while, because the radiation and chemo rooms were full on other days," she added. "They closed everything down just so he [Bush] could have his photo op in the lobby with the corpsmen."

Totally, unremittingly repulsive, these people. They’re like sharks who need to keep swimming to survive, prowling the depths for one photo op after the next.

In the end, he didn’t even get his photo op. His visit was cut short, and though the conventional wisdom was that he ran off to pretend to care about the hurricane, this story notes that he was seen

laboring to ascend steps up to Air Force One, aided by his wife, Laura. A newscaster commented on the President's wavering gait and noted that it was unusual for him not to pause to shake hands with well-wishers at the airport. The broadcast led to local speculation that the President may have encountered a medical problem.

Perhaps a medical problem known as “falling off the wagon,” considering within days he was back to jocularly noting he used to go to New Orleans to get fucked up back in the good ol’ days.

Of course, if he is really sick, that would be sad for him—although I bet no one searching for a photo op would interrupt his much-needed treatment.

Awesome!

Or, an Intentional 'Fuck-You' to the Xenophobic Right.

Dick Cheney told to “Go fuck yourself” while being interviewed about hurricane relief on MSNBC. Crooks and Liars has the video here. Raw Story has the transcript here.

Absolutely brilliant. The thing I love most about it is how perfectly polite and reasonable it sounds in response to what he’s saying.

Wow

Alternet’s Evan Derkacz has just posted an interactive timeline which leads right up to Think Progress’ Katrina timeline beginning on Friday, Aug. 26.

I was interested to see my shitfaced governor Mitch Daniel’s comments on FEMA. Man, I hate that dude.

For more on what's going on now at the Astrodome, see Boing Boing (hat tip Crooks & Liars).