Has Obama's Post-Katrina Gulf Coast Recovery Plan Been Sufficient?

As we live through another anniversary of the man-made disaster on the Gulf Coast and the shocking lack of a federal response that caused thousands to die needlessly, thoughts turn again to whether anybody remembers New Orleans and its environs, and whether the proper resources are being deployed to rehabilitate the region. If you listen to the President, of course, his Administration is doing a heckuva job down there. Lots of cabinet members have visited the region, to be followed by the President later this year. The White House has untangled some bureaucracy to allow for more federal assistance to reach the Gulf Coast, and the stimulus has enhanced recovery efforts. And even some local Republicans have praised his approach, particularly the renewed sense of confidence in FEMA.

But that's the White House's spin. And not everyone agrees with it. The Institute for Southern Studies has reported on coalition groups blasting the Army Corps of Engineers for their slow response to restoring the natural barriers - wetlands, marshes, and barrier islands - that could help prevent future hurricanes. New Orleans resident Harry Shearer has more on that. To their credit, the White House has created a federal task force to speed up coastal restoration projects. But on other issues, the ISS has given the Administration low marks.

The Institute of Southern Studies recently released a report that assesses how Washington has handled the storm's aftermath. The ISS asked 50 community leaders to grade the Obama administration's Katrina recovery efforts: Obama got a D+, and Bush was given a D-. If graded on an E for effort curve, Bush probably would have gotten the edge given his authorization of millions in Gulf Opportunity tax credits and bonds, and an extension of time under which developers could use them.

Meanwhile, Obama has done little in seven months beyond distributing $50 million in housing vouchers. Unfortunately, families either won't be able to use them because there aren't enough houses built yet, or the vouchers will be of little use because they only cover a fraction of rents, which have risen substantially since Katrina. He's also instituted a plan to sell FEMA mobile units to families for $1 or $5, but many of those trailers are toxic from formaldehyde leaks.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) did little for recovery and reinvestment in the Gulf Coast area that needed it the most. Since calculations were made based off current population numbers -- many displaced people throughout the country are still waiting to return -- fewer ARRA dollars reached these congressional districts. ARRA's tax credit exchange program, which cashes in states' low income housing tax credits, also excluded the Go Zone tax credits, leaving over 17,000 housing units hanging in the balance.

The Lower Ninth Ward, already struggling prior to the flood, has been particularly slow to return to stability. Only 20% of its residents have returned full-time, and the area has lagged far behind the tourist spots and the Garden District.

The neglect of the Gulf both during and after the storm will not get turned around quickly or easily. I'm tempted to cut the White House a little slack on this one. But on the current trajectory, New Orleans is looking more and more in the post-Katrina period like a restored home for the rich and connected, and a nightmare for the voiceless. And given the moral outrage that the response to the storm correctly engendered, that is unacceptable. We have an obligation to those who were left to rot in the fetid waters, not just to give them a return to the same inequality, but a chance at a better life. Should Obama visit the city before the year ends, he shouldn't go to Bourbon Street, but the Lower Ninth, and he should not just tell them what he will do, but back it up.

Let Them Eat Crawfish Cake

Kicking off his 2012 Presidential campaign, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has decided to screw over poor people.

When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week, it included three different provisions to benefit unemployed workers. The first provided funding to states that allowed for a $25 per week increase in benefits. The second extended the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program which gives 20 weeks of federally-funded unemployment benefits to individuals “who had already collected all regular state benefits,” while the third provision widened the pool of people eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

Today, however, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced his intention to oppose changing state law to allow his Lousiana citizens to qualify for the second two unemployment provisions. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the unemployment insurance payments for those who currently qualify for unemployment insurance.

In all, Jindal turned away nearly $100 million in federal aid for his state’s unemployed residents.

I know a big state on the West Coast that can use it.

For the most part, these "principled" Southern governors have been talking the talk about rejecting stimulus funds but not walking the walk. Jindal is sufficiently crazy enough to go all the way. And of course, he didn't reject the new homebuyers' benefit or anything that would hit someone of less modest means, he rejected aid for the desperate. Unemployment benefits are among the fastest forms of stimulus there are, with really big multipliers, because people in that situation spend the money. But it's considered good strategy now in the Republican Party to try and sink the economy, and it's always been good strategy to harm the poor at the expense of the rich. Jim Clyburn is right here, though I think it's a function of class and not quite race.

The highest-ranking African-American member of Congress on Friday accused Southern governors who oppose economic stimulus spending of indifference to the plight of poor blacks who might benefit from the federal money.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, amplified earlier statements that the governors' hesitation in accepting stimulus money had insulted him because "these four states are in the heart of the black belt."

Clyburn singled out Republican Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi for criticism.

This isn't about traditionally poor communities anymore. Due to the length and breadth of this recession, middle class professionals are now showing up at food banks. And Bobby Jindal wants to make sure that they get no help from the state that they could use to get themselves back on their feet and ready to contribute to the economy again.

Good Presidential material.

...if Jindal wants to really make a name for himself, he could reject federal support to rebuild New Orleans. Now THAT would make him look like a tiger!

Algiers Point Update

Following up on a previous item about white vigilante killings of black residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Police Superintendent of New Orleans says he is "looking into" the allegations. Given the seriousness of that statement, I'm certain it'll be entirely thorough.

In a press release sent to the media and local government officials, Riley said, “he is currently looking into the allegations, and asked if anyone has substantial information relative to any incidents of this type call to the New Orleans Police Department Bureau of Investigations.” [...]

Riley said the NOPD was unaware of this violence prior to the story’s publication. The department, according to Riley’s statement, “did not receive any complaints or information to substantiate any of the allegations of racial conflicts or vigilante type crimes in the City of New Orleans including the Algiers Point on the west bank of the City.”

That's just simply not true. Not only did the authors of the recent report contact the NOPD during the 18-month investigation, but this is not a new story. It was featured in the Spike Lee documentary "When The Levees Broke," for example.

Needless to say, I'm unimpressed that Riley will be "looking into" the incidents, but public pressure will likely leave him no choice. If you haven't yet, sign the Color of Change petition.

...here's the companion video to the Nation/Pro Publica story.

The Shootings At Algiers Point

Allow me to break with all journalistic convention and mention Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, which would be more than what was done during the entire Presidential election. One predictable outcome of that tragedy was the extent to which the conservative noise machine hyped incidents of looting and mayhem, broken down exclusively along racial lines, to "prove" that black people resort to animal instincts in a time of panic. It was not only completely offensive and wrong, but now an astonishing report by The Nation shows that in at least one case, the opposite was true - white vigilantes shot African-Americans in the aftermath of the storm.

The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.

It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. "I just hit the ground. I didn't even know what happened," recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.

The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington's companions--his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. "I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck," Alexander recalls. "I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again." Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander's back, arm and buttocks [...]

Herrington, Collins and Alexander's experience fits into a broader pattern of violence in which, evidence indicates, at least eleven people were shot. In each case the targets were African-American men, while the shooters, it appears, were all white.

The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs--Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that "hundreds of gang members" were marauding through the Superdome. Now it's clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins--in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.

The vigilantes came from Algiers Point, a white enclave in the middle of the city, where the residents stockpiled guns and ammunition after the storm, fearing that blacks would flock to their area, which was relatively unhurt by the storm. They assembled a small group of white males with instructions to shoot anything that moved. The hysteria created by the lurid details of chaos and gang activity led to paranoia and the "frontier justice" that ensued.

Three-plus years later, this is largely an untold story. As AC Thompson says in his story (which should be read in full), no investigation has ever been opened, nobody has been arrested or even interviewed about the multiple shootings and even deaths. If this sounds like something out of the 1950s to you, well I agree.

John Conyers has now responded to the report.

Responding to an investigation published in The Nation into vigilante violence after Hurricane Katrina, Rep. John Conyers Jr. issued a public statement Thursday, expressing concern. The investigation details how, after the storm struck, some white residents in the Algiers Point neighborhood of New Orleans repeatedly attacked African-American men.

In interviews, eyewitnesses--including some of the vigilantes themselves and two men who were blasted with a shotgun--describe a string of shootings in which at least eleven people were wounded or killed. A video accompanying the report features interviews with some of the vigilantes, including one who says, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it."

"I am deeply disturbed by the reported incidents in Algiers Point, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina," said Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, and chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Color of Change, who brought the traditional media around to covering the Jena 6 case after months of activism, is distributing a petition calling for a full investigation into the Algiers Point shootings. Because this was at least in part caused by the media failure of hyping the "black menace" that led to the vigilantism, it's going to take even more pressure to get them involved. Please sign the petition.

Slower And To The Left

As I hoped, Hurricane Gustav changed course slightly, moving to the West and away from New Orleans, and the storm downgraded to a Category 2 storm upon landfall. The eye of the storm is 40 miles west of the city, toward Houma. Now, the Industrial Canal is being overtopped, and some runaway barges and tugboats are flying around in the area, and there are at least six hours to go here. But the absolute worst option has not materialized... yet. And I'm hopeful that the storm is far away enough that we won't see catastrophic flooding.

But you never know. The Port of New Orleans is underwater. If this was a Category 4 storm we'd be in a tremendous amount of trouble. The Army Corps of Engineers simply never built anything to stop water from Lake Pontchartrain to stream in through the Industrial Canal. If there's real breaching, the Lower Ninth is going to fill up. Again.

Thank the stars that evacuation efforts were so successful.

...I think the Republicans are jumping the gun here. It sounds like Laura Bush and Cindy McCain are going to offer nonpartisan messages, but the split-screen potential is not good. Essentially, the RNC cancelled their prime-time schedule today because they had to. Not only did Bush and Cheney cancel, but Arnold Schwarzenegger said he couldn't make it because of the budget crisis. That leaves Joe Lieberman. For the full hour. Not even Larry King would book that.

Meanwhile, you won't get this from the major media, but the GOP delegates are doing plenty of partying. It's not like they're TOTALLY refraining from fiddling while Rome may burn.

UPDATE: CNN reports "spurts of water" are coming into the Lower Ninth Ward already. This isn't that big a storm and the levees are already starting to fail.

Also, there's one 10,000-member event going on as scheduled today in Minneapolis, from the real PUMAs, the Ron Paul libertarians. Since the airtime is all booked, you'd think that the media would head on over and see what the fuss is about, right? Right?

I know the answer to that question.

A Man, A Plan, A Levee

Panamanian strongman John McCain has this idea that, by halting most RNC convention activities and sending Bush and Cheney home, he will be seen as a noble warrior fighting the hurricane all by himself and restoring the Grand Old Party's good name. And that may be true - certainly McCain was aching for a way to keep Bush at arm's length, he would have sent him off if there was the chance of hail somewhere in the country - but if the levees fail again three years after billions of dollars was appropriated to fix them, the conservative failure of government will look hauntingly familiar.

On the eve of Hurricane Gustav's expected arrival, many in New Orleans, from residents of the Ninth Ward to the city's mayor to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, have their doubts about whether the levees will hold.

"There is a real likelihood of getting some overtopping. Additionally, rain is a big factor here," said DHS chief Michael Chertoff about water pouring over the tops of the levees.

Three years since Katrina and $3 billion later, the levees still leak and much of the repair work remains incomplete.

"Huge areas of Louisiana are going to be devastated. We're going in essence to see what Katrina didn't destroy, what Rita didn't destroy in 2005 being destroyed now in 2008," said Ivor Van Heerden, a professor at Louisiana State University who wrote a book about why the levees broke during Katrina.

At best the levees are estimated to be able to withstand water levels rising at the rate of an inch and hour. The coming storm, however, promises much more. In some places storm surge could reach 18 feet.

The Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with repairing the levees, says work was being accelerated.

Despite Congress authorizing $12.8 billion to rebuild the levees, only $3 billion has been spent. The engineers blame red tape, saying the studies, approvals and environmental committees have all slowed down the work.

The Army Corps is already trying to blame it on the environmentalists, but considering that the press recently found engineers filling the levees with newspaper, their protestations aren't really credible. In fact, they failed to use the money and are scrambling to finish in 48 hours what they haven't done in 3 years.

And levee money isn't the only money unspent in New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS — It was the largest housing aid program in American history, billed as the essential government tool that would make New Orleans whole after Hurricane Katrina.

Yet even though about $3.3 billion of federal taxpayer money has been spent here on the cash grant program known as the Road Home, New Orleans on the third anniversary of the hurricane remains almost as much of a patchwork as it did last year, before most of the money was spent.

The program has had no effect on most of the houses in New Orleans, and has played only a limited role in bringing back the neighborhoods most flooded in the storm. And as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the city, many residents are worried that the work already accomplished could be set back.

I hope that the storm makes a hard left and New Orleans is spared, but if it heads in its current direction, the levees are going to fail and the city will again fill with water. And no amount of efforts to care from St. Paul will be able to counteract that shot of a flooded city as a cause of levee failure, again. The evacuation has gone well, and Bush and his team have at least looked attentive, but they don't necessarily get credit for doing their job the second time around, and they certainly get no credit for building substandard levees. Republicans will be forced to own their own failure, both in their inability to build workable infrastructure and their resistance to combat climate change and the stronger, more frequent storms that are a side effect.

...I would also say that a convention without four days of sustained attacks on Barack Obama will be harmful for the GOP's hopes in November, and the inevitable attack will provide the Obama campaign the ability to throw a major hissy fit if they see fit. Gov. Palin's introduction to the country will be dampened as well.

Cat 4

And growing. I have absolutely no faith that DHS and FEMA have the evacuation under control. We're in for more trouble if this hits the Gulf Coast.

Gustav swelled into a fearsome Category 4 hurricane with winds of 145 mph on Saturday as Cuba raced to evacuate more than 240,000 people and Americans to the north clogged highways fleeing New Orleans.

Gustav already has killed 78 people in the Caribbean and the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it could strengthen even more after hitting Cuba and entering the warm Gulf of Mexico on a projected course for the Katrina-battered U.S. coast.

The people who brought you government as the problem are unequipped to deal with crisis, again. Forget cancelling the RNC. Cancel the Republican Party.

UPDATE: When Joe freakin' Lieberman still has questions about FEMA's effectiveness, that makes me want to sob.

Time To Talk About Katrina

There's been a lot of reflection on the fact that Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for President will fall on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. But there's another, more recent milestone associated with the late August time frame. The day after August 28, 2008 will be the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, and the third anniversary of the catastrophic levee failure that caused a man-made disaster in one of America's great cities.

The aftermath of Katrina and Gulf Coast reconstruction has been confined to the outer edges of the Presidential election debate, if it has any presence at all. This is hauntingly familiar to me. In May 2004, the Abu Ghraib pictures first reached the public eye, and after the round of assurances that they were the work of "a few bad apples," the issue receded, and the Democratic nominee remained silent about it for the duration of the fall campaign. Abu Ghraib (and to a lesser extent, Enron) was the Great Unmentionable of the 2004 Election. I'm sure you can come up with a thousand reasons why, but a lot of them went to this pervasive myth that Democrats didn't want to insult the military when their nominee was running on his military record. Never mind that we now know that Abu Ghraib and other torture scandals came directly out of the White House and were often carried out by contractors and the CIA.

I'm seeing Katrina become the Abu Ghraib of 2008, and there's undeniably a racial component to that. We have a disaster that completely discredits conservative theories of governance, but because it disproportionately affected poor black people in New Orleans, our African-American nominee, who has to play by the Jackie Robinson Rules, would be presumed by a clueless media to be stirring up racial warfare, or "playing the race card," or whatever.

It would be a crime if Katrina got lost in the national conversation this year. The failure in the Gulf was not solely attributable to President Bush, it was a conservative failure, a full blooming of their beliefs in laissez-faire, "you're on your own" government that can be drowned in the bathtub, as well as shock doctrine politics in the aftermath, which approve of housing projects to be bulldozed to make way for developers, which foreground the whims of the rich and connected to take precedence over the needs of the struggling and the suffering.

In fact, there's a new documentary being released right before the anniversary of the storm that could catalyze this conversation, and I had the privilege of seeing a preview yesterday. Trouble The Water, directed and produced by the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine follows two residents of the 9th Ward, Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott, as they survive the hurricane and the flood and struggle to survive what comes after. Kimberly picked up a video camera just a week before the storm and documented the events of August 29th from her attic, eliciting stunning footage and an entirely new perspective. First of all, the conservative myth that black Katrina victims were a bunch of whiners and moaners while white flood victims in Iowa "worked together" and showed their true American-ness is revealed as utter bullshit. Kimberly and Scott, along with their fellow residents left behind in the 9th Ward, were nothing short of heroic, saving their neighbors, pulling them from their houses and eventually bringing them to safety. One man, who used an old punching bag as a life raft to save dozens of people, remarks in the film "I never thought God had a purpose for me until that day." This is the story of a community brought together by the violence of the flood and the neglect of the government, forced to become their own first responders.

At one point, in an episode that I certainly never heard before, Kimberly and Scott walk about a mile through the water to a near-abandoned Navy base that was marked for closure and had hundreds of beds. With several dozen 9th Ward residents at the gates, the Navy personnel pulled out ammunition, cocked their rifles and turned their guns on the crowd, saying "Get off our property or we're going to start shooting." Months later the base received a COMMENDATION from Bush for "protecting the integrity of the base."

At its heart, this is actually a deeply conservative in some respects. Thrust into extraordinary circumstances, this couple, which has stayed together for 10 years and raised a family, made their own opportunities, in the face of a government that seemed to be actively working against them, and lifted themselves up in the face of adversity, returning to New Orleans and literally rebuilding the city (Scott becomes a contractor). They entered the storm hustlers and came out activists, organizers, and community symbols. They reflected the best values of America and proved more than deserving of equality of opportunity and access to pursue their dreams.

But that never came. And so while this is a very empowering and affecting film, it also reveals the hollow heartlessness that conservative policies reflect. The makers of Trouble the Water, including executive producer Danny Glover (who was on hand at yesterday's screening) see this film as an opportunity to broaden the conversation and ignite community development and organizing around the underlying issues that the failure of the levees forced into the public consciousness. As Glover said:

“When the hurricane struck the Gulf and the floodwaters rose and tore through New Orleans, it did not turn the region into a Third World country… it revealed one.”

You can do something to further the goals of this powerful film. But the most important thing you can do is to not let this region and this catastrophe be forgotten. This is the first Presidential election since Katrina, and despite that the issues have been almost invisible in the national debate. Aside from the fact that John McCain was celebrating his birthday with George Bush and some cake on the day of the storm, and indeed his entire record with respect to post-Katrina reconstruction, there are serious issues surrounding reconstruction and the suffering of the urban underclass, that never reach the highest levels of the debate because those most affected are essentially voiceless. This film amplifies that voice, and we should all contribute to that effort by refusing to let Katrina fall down the memory hole.

Trouble the Water opens in these cities starting August 22 and throughout the fall. Don't miss it, petition your local theaters for a screening, request a copy for your own organization and tell this story to everyone you know.

UPDATE: Just as an FYI, Katrina does make an appearance in the Democratic platform, and it's an OK statement as far as it goes:

For many in America, Hurricane Katrina conjures up the memory of a time when America's government failed its citizens. When the winds blew and the floodwaters came, we learned that for all of our wealth and power, something wasn't right with
Washington. Our government’s response during Hurricane Katrina is a national shame–and yet three years later, the government has still failed to keep its promise to rebuild.

The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are heroes for returning and rebuilding, and they shouldn’t face these challenges alone. We will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina and restore the region economically. We will create jobs and training opportunities for returning and displaced workers and contracting opportunities for local businesses to help create stronger, safer, and more equitable communities. We will increase funding for affordable housing and home ownership opportunities for returning families, workers, and residents moving out of unsafe trailers. We will reinvest in infrastructure in New Orleans: we will construct levees that work, fight crime by rebuilding local police departments and courthouses, invest and hospitals and rebuild the public school system.

Fine. Now say that every day on the campaign trail for two months.

Shiftless And Lazy

The flooding in Iowa all flowed into the Mississippi River, and now it's a floating hazard running downstream, encountering levees throughout the Midwest and breaching them. 19 levees in all have been compromised in cities in Iowa and Illinois. This is going to play out for the entire week, and Bush is back from his European vacation vowing quick action.

This is a disaster, but it's largely a property disaster. Towns on the river are not surrounded by water on all sides, they have plenty of notice, and deaths have been thankfully minimal. Most reasonable people would see this and be happy that this is not the challenge residents faced on the Gulf Coast. Rush Limbaugh sees it and can only see color.

Limbaugh: I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois—I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property…I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can…whining and moaning—where’s FEMA, where’s BUSH. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

How must it feel to be so aggrieved that any opportunity to denounce blacks as lazy is taken. Never mind that there was one high-profile black man who was working on the front lines of the floods in the Midwest.



Now I could go ahead and debunk all of Rush's lies. The devastation in New Orleans and the Gulf was orders of magnitude above that of Iowa. Nobody in New Orleans shot at cops. The lurid stories of rape and gang warfare weren't true. But there is no point, really. Because all we're seeing here is a stone racist, convinced of his own biases, assured of his beliefs in how Heartland Americans are real Americans.

These next eight years of a black President are going to put him over the top.

No Sympathy For The...

Digby called W. a bad boyfriend for firing Karl Rove in the middle of a church so he couldn't make a scene. It's just awful hard for me to work up any sadness for ol' Turdblossom, especially after I read this. While you read this, try to remember that hundreds of people in New Orleans were dying at the time.

If Bush had not seen what was taking place by Tuesday, Karl Rove had. The first evidence of Rove's involvement in the Katrina disaster occurred on Tuesday afternoon. "Rove understood what a nightmare this was for the president," Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says, "so he went into high gear on the spin thing they're so good at in the White House. Rove had David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana. I was at a press conference and David Vitter walked up to the mike and said, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove.' I looked at the governor and she looked at me, like, 'Why is David Vitter on the phone with Karl Rove?' I mean, he could have been talking to generals, the president himself, but Rove is just a political hatchet man."

Despite his expertise being politics, the administration had made Rove a central player in the handling of the disaster. "A light switch in the White House didn't get turned on without going through Rove," says Adam Sharp, an aide to Landrieu. "It was clear that Rove was the point person for the White House on this disaster." [...]

Instead of supplying relief to the city, Rove had devised a scheme whereby he could blame the failure of government to take action on someone besides Bush. "They looked around," Landrieu says, "and they found a Democratic governor and an African American Democratic mayor who had never held office before in his life before he was mayor of New Orleans -- someone they knew they could manipulate. Ray Nagin had never held public office and here he was the mayor of New Orleans and it was going underwater."

In short, Rove was going to blame Blanco for the failure of the response in Louisiana, and to do that he was going to use Nagin. He had already set the plan in motion on Tuesday with Nagin, who, even though he was a Democrat, was so close to the Republican Party that some members of the African American community in New Orleans called him "Ray Reagan." In 2000, Nagin had actually contributed $2,000 to Bush's campaign when he ran for president.

Rove knew of Nagin's ties to the Republican Party, so more than likely Nagin could be convinced to level his criticism at Blanco and to support Bush when he could. Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame Blanco, the Democrat. It was not a stretch for Nagin. He and Blanco so disliked each other that in Blanco's last race Nagin had endorsed her opponent.

Americans drowning in the middle of a major city and Rove was concerned primarily with finding the right Democrat to blame.

Fired him in the church? He should have used the conveniently placed cross and some nails.

McCain's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Week

I hope somebody's taking notes on this week's travails for John McCain, because if this was October and anyone was paying attention, his entire staff would be fired and the RNC would be gamely talking about random downballot races and how "2012 looks to be an up year."

The week started with a front-page story about his legendary temper, with new stories revealed therein. Then McCain embarked on a "Forgotten Places" tour this week, traveling across the country to places that "conservatives don't normally appear." And now, we know why. In Alabama, he attracted a largely white crowd in the landmark of the civil rights movement, Selma, and praised a ferry that was constructed due to an earmark, after condemning the practice. He then departed for Youngstown, Ohio, where he offered a stirring defense of free trade at a plant which closed earlier in the decade. When asked about the "cheap dumping of foreign goods" on US shores, McCain replied "I can't turn that around," which ought to be comforting to unemployed steelworkers.

Then came multiple gaffes over the situation in New Orleans. First extremist pastor John Hagee, whose endorsement McCain enthusiastically sought, reiterated his belief that Hurricane Katrina occurred as a punishment for a planned gay pride parade in the Crescent City (why Mississippi had to bear the brunt of the storm as well is unclear). McCain had to answer for these charges while docking in New Orleans, and he responded like any adult politician would, by saying "it's nonsense" eight times. Hagee has since retracted the comment, but clearly it made things awkward on McCain's stroll through New Orleans.

Of course, McCain's ideas on New Orleans aren't much better than Hagee's justifications for the hurricane. And Newsweek actually committed some journalism on that front, reaching into recent history to remind everyone that while Bush was galavanting around the country partying and ignoring the fact that New Orleans was underwater, one of his party partners was McCain:



Not only that, but McCain's prescriptions for New Orleans leave much to be desired:

Today he took a walking tour of the Ninth Ward--perhaps the most visible symbol of the Bush administration's inaction in the wake of Katrina--passing a mix of rebuilt homes and vacant, blighted houses. After the tour, McCain addressed reporters in front of a restored church. "Never again will we allow such a mishandling of a natural disaster," he vowed. "Never again."

Yet on the issue of New Orleans, it's still unclear how different McCain and Bush actually are. Speaking about Katrina, McCain, like many other Republicans, has trashed the administration's handling of the storm and has vowed to prevent similar catastrophes. "We can never let anything like that happen again," McCain told reporters on board his Straight Talk Express earlier this week. Still, the senator, who has visited the Lower Ninth Ward twice since the storm, has yet to tread into the far trickier debate over what to do about New Orleans now, a fight that has dragged on and on with little progress since the waters washed part of the city away.

The senator won't present his own plans for recovery, at least not today. Asked earlier this week if he thought the Lower Ninth Ward should be rebuilt, McCain shrugged, considering the question for several seconds. "I really don't know," he finally said. "That's why I am going … We need to go back to have a conversation about what to do: rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is."

Democrats pounced on this errant statement that McCain would be open to tearing down the Ninth Ward, and despite his media constituency running interference for him, there's no question that saying this in the midst of a tour to forgotten places was just a cardinal sin. When he was confronted about it, he claimed that he never said it despite the fact that the quote was only three days old.

McCain is of course completely constricted by his new image as a tax-cutter while still trying to keep alive the flame of the old image as a budget hawk, which essentially means that he won't be able to pay for anything that he proposes. In fact, the Washington Post hit him again, for offering tax proposals that he once considered anathema, and offering no explanation for the sudden change of heart (we know that he's unable to keep the fragile Republican coalition together without claiming to be the second coming of Milton Friedman). This leads to an endless series of contradictions.



McCain ended the week by admitting the country is worse off than it was eight years ago, despite having said the opposite on multiple occasions and offering economic proposals that are identical to Bush's. The New York Times attacked him for offering multiple favors to a wealthy Arizona friend and contributor. Oh, and McCain reveled in private fundraisers throughout this tour of "Forgotten America" this week, including one in Alabama where he got an 80% discount from a municipality on rental space and used PRISON LABOR for the event.

The McCain campaign was charged $250 to use two rooms in the hall, which normally would book for $1,200 on a weeknight. The campaign also was given free labor from Homewood City Jail inmates to set up tables and chairs for the event, avoiding a $100 set-up fee, but did pay a standard $50 cleaning fee.

He also said he would do anything he could to stop the North Carolina GOP from running their stream-of-consciousness "OBAMA WRIGHT GOD DAMNS AMERICA SCARY BLACK ZOMG!!1!" ad, which resulted in the ad running anyway. And while the media certainly gave a ridiculous amount of coverage to this ad as they will any anti-Democratic attack ad, I think the real story is McCain's impotence - not that he's trying hard, or at all, to stop the ad, but the "I deplore their behavior" pose runs a little stale when nothing is done to stop it, and there will be diminishing returns to this trick as McCain spends all his time denouncing and rejecting yet doing nothing substantial to stop the smear campaigns. He's actually in a bind over that as well.

Hell of a week. One thing that is getting lost in this primary fight is that John McCain is a pretty terrible campaigner and general election candidate. The only thing going for him is media interference, but even they can't hide the contradictions and the gaffes and the essential conservatism he's boxed himself into.

Can't Wait To See The Saem Clip On Television For Two Weeks

John McCain's endorser John Hagee, not a bunch of years ago but yesterday:

HAGEE: Yes. The topic of that day was cursing and blessing. … What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God, in time if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it’s called a curse [...]

PRAGER: Right, but in the case, did NPR get, is this quote correct though that in the case of New Orleans you do feel it was sin?

HAGEE: In the case of New Orleans, their plan to have that homosexual rally was sin. But it never happened. The rally never happened.

PRAGER: No, I understand.

HAGEE: It was scheduled that Monday.

PRAGER: No, I’m only trying to understand that in the case of New Orleans, you do feel that God’s hand was in it because of a sinful city?

HAGEE: That it was a city that was planning a sinful conduct, yes.

It's important to note that this is right smack in the center of religious right discourse. It's not all that far from normal. The people John McCain is trying to appeal to with the Hagee endorsement believe this stuff. And McCain continues to be happy to have the endorsement.

On the key demographic of controversial pastors, I think McCain is pulling ahead. Yet the double standard on this is so glaring.

By a twist of fate, McCain's visiting New Orleans tomorrow. Will the question be asked?

Your Federal Emergency Management Agency, Ladies And Gents

I don't know how many years it's been known that the trailers that thousands of Gulf Coast residents are STILL living in are toxic. But the CDC confirmed it this week, and basically told people that have been living in them for two and a half years to "Get out before it's too late!" And, presumably, leave your lungs there or turn them in at Pep Boys.

More than two years after residents of FEMA trailers deployed along the Mississippi Gulf Coast began complaining of breathing difficulties, nosebleeds and persistent headaches, U.S. health officials announced Thursday that long-awaited government tests found potentially hazardous levels of toxic formaldehyde gas in both travel trailers and mobile homes provided by the agency.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which requested the testing by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it would work aggressively to relocate all residents of the temporary housing as soon as possible.

Levels of formaldehyde gas in 519 trailer and mobile homes tested in Louisiana and Mississippi were — on average — about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes, the CDC reported. In some trailers, the levels were nearly 40 times customary exposure levels, raising fears that residents could suffer respiratory problems and potentially other long-term health effects, it said.

Good, problem solved, finally! Whew, good thing that whole poisoning needy families thing is over!

So the next time temporary housing is needed for people who've lost their homes, they would be sure to test for levels of formaldehyde, right? Right!?!?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide mobile homes to victims of last week's tornadoes in Arkansas and Tennessee, despite a health warning about high formaldehyde levels in trailers used by the victims of the 2005 hurricanes.

A FEMA spokesman said the agency would begin the process to vet the mobile homes parked at the airport in Hope, Ark., before releasing them to the Arkansas and Tennessee victims of last week's storms. Spokesman James McIntyre said FEMA will have processes in place to ensure safety.

How reassuring.

Congratulations, FEMA, you've just given this country less credibility on public health than China. By the way, the Chinese factory at that link that produced the active ingredient in the drug that sickened hundreds of people... was never inspected by the FDA.

The FDA and FEMA ought to have a contest over how many people they can sicken.

Welcome To Your Police State

The FBI knows who you are, knows your face, your fingerprints, your palm prints, all of your biometrics.

The increasing use of biometrics for identification is raising questions about the ability of Americans to avoid unwanted scrutiny. It is drawing criticism from those who worry that people's bodies will become de facto national identification cards. Critics say that such government initiatives should not proceed without proof that the technology really can pick a criminal out of a crowd.

The use of biometric data is increasing throughout the government. For the past two years, the Defense Department has been storing in a database images of fingerprints, irises and faces of more than 1.5 million Iraqi and Afghan detainees, Iraqi citizens and foreigners who need access to U.S. military bases. The Pentagon also collects DNA samples from some Iraqi detainees, which are stored separately.

And if they don't get you from an iris scan, they'll treat you like a Gitmo detainee for the crime of trying to shop in New York City:

Last Sunday I and a few other girls began our trip to New York. We were going to shop and enjoy the Christmas spirit. We made ourselves comfortable on first class, drank white wine and looked forward to go shopping, eat good food and enjoy life. When we landed at JFK airport the traditional clearance process began.

We were screened and went on to passport control. As I waited for them to finish examining my passport I heard an official say that there was something which needed to be looked at more closely and I was directed to the work station of Homeland Security. There I was told that according to their records I had overstayed my visa by 3 weeks in 1995. For this reason I would not be admitted to the country and would be sent home on the next flight. I looked at the official in disbelief and told him that I had in fact visited New York after the trip in 1995 without encountering any difficulties. A detailed interrogation session ensued.

I was photographed and fingerprinted. I was asked questions which I felt had nothing to do with the issue at hand. I was forbidden to contact anyone to advise of my predicament and although I was invited at the outset to contact the Icelandic consul or embassy, that invitation was later withdrawn. I don't know why [...]

What turned out was something else. I was taken to another office exactly like the one where I had been before and once again along wait ensued. In all, it turned out to be 5 hours. At this office all my things were taken from me. I succeeded in sending a single sms to worried relatives and friends when I was granted a bathroom break. After that the cell phone was taken from me. After I had been sitting for 5 hours I was told that they were now waiting for guards who would take me to a place where I could rest and eat. Then I was placed in a cubicle which looked like an operating room. Attached to the walls were 4 steel plates, probably intended to serve as bed and a toilet.

I was exhausted, tired and hungry. I didn't understand the officials' conduct, for they were treating me like a very dangerous criminal. Soon thereafter I was removed from the cubicle and two armed guards placed me up against a wall. A chain was fastened around my waist and I was handcuffed to the chain. Then my legs were placed in chains. I asked for permission to make a telephone call but they refused. So secured, I was taken from the airport terminal in full sight of everybody. I have seldom felt so bad, so humiliated and all because I had taken a longer vacation than allowed under the law.

On top of this you have the mainstreaming of Selma-era tactics, where peaceful protest and dissent, in this case the rejection of razing public housing in New Orleans, is repelled with tasers and mace, and it causes barely a ripple.

CNN showed the footage of the melee on a loop while Kyra interviewed reporters and local officials blathering on as she does above, never commenting on the fact that police were spraying people directly in the face with mace and tasering the crowd while protesters writhed on the ground screaming in pain, attended to by their friends and then being picked up and carried off camera.

We've become very comfortable with a police state in the years since 9/11. In the civil rights era, practices like this were what CAUSED change, at least in part. Now they scarcely carry anything beyond a shrug. "Don't tase me bro" was the quote of the year. Torture is actually being debated in civil society. We are dangerously close to losing ourselves altogether.

Voices Of New Orleans

Should have gotten this up yesterday, but I wanted to highlight some thoughts about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from some follks who actually live there and are seeing the reconstruction efforts every day. I'm not saying that nobody else has standing to discuss what the Bush Administration and Congress are or are not doing, but clearly it's a unique perspective.

Here's New Orleans City Councilmember Shelley Midura:

Indeed, you have allocated $116 billion for the Gulf Coast, but that number is misleading. According to the Brookings Institute's most recent Katrina Index report, at least $75 billion of it was for immediate post-storm relief. Thus only 35% of the total federal dollars allocated is for actual recovery and reconstruction. And of that recovery and reconstruction allocation, only 42% has actually been spent. In fact, while your administration touts "$116 billion" as the amount you have sent to the entire area affected by Katrina and the levee failures, the actual long term recovery dollar amount is only $14.6 billion. This amount is a mere 12% of the entire federal allocation of dollars, billions of which went to corporations such as Halliburton for immediate post-storm cleanup work, instead of to local businesses. Contrast that to the $20.9 billion on infrastructure for Iraq that the Wall Street Journal reported in May 2006 that you have spent, and it’s an astonishing 42% more than you have spent on infrastructure for the post-Katrina Gulf region. The American citizens of the Gulf region do not understand why the federal obligation to rebuilding Iraq is greater than it is for America's Gulf coast, and more specifically for New Orleans.

We have more challenges and fewer resources than we've ever had in my lifetime in the City of New Orleans. Yet, other than FEMA repair reimbursements, the only direct federal assistance this city has received from you has been two community disaster loans that you are demanding be paid back even though no other city government has had to pay back these types of loans for as long as our research can determine (at least since the 70’s). These loans are being used to balance the city budget to provide basic services to citizens who need far more than the pre-Katrina basics.

Midura also wrote a version of this at Daily Kos.

Here's noted author and scholar Douglas Brinkley:

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city's long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn't President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government's participation in the rebuilding?

And why are volunteers practically the only ones working to reconstruct homes in communities that may never again have sewage service, garbage collection or electricity?

Eventually, the volunteers' altruism turns to bewilderment and finally to outrage. They've been hoodwinked. The stalled recovery can't be blamed on bureaucratic inertia or red tape alone. Many volunteers come to understand what I've concluded is the heartless reality: The Bush administration actually wants these neighborhoods below sea level to die on the vine [...]

Bold action has been needed for two years now, yet all that the White House has offered is an inadequate trickle of billion-dollar Band-aids and placebo directives. Too often in the United States we forget that "inaction" can be a policy initiative. Every day the White House must decide what not to do.

And here's a stunning blog post from a resident, titled "We Are Still Not OK," which contrasts her thoughts a year ago (italicized) with this year's update (plain text).

1. Most of the city is still officially uninhabitable. We and most other current New Orleanians live in what is sometimes known as The Sliver By The River, a section between the Mississippi River and St. Charles Avenue that didn't flood, as well as in the French Quarter and part of the Faubourg Marigny. In the "uninhabitable sections," there are hundreds of people living clandestinely in their homes with no lights, power, or (in many cases) drinkable water. They cannot afford generators or the gasoline it takes to run them, or if they have generators, they can only run them for part of the day. They cook on camp stoves and light their homes with candles or oil lamps at night.

Power and water have been restored to every part of the city, which is certainly not to say that every individual home has these services. There are still people living in darkened, waterless shells of homes. Since moving out of the relatively sheltered Sliver by the River and into the very different world of Central City, I've learned that there are also people living without these services (particularly water) as a matter of course, not because the services are unavailable but because the people have fallen too far behind on their bills and cannot afford the charge to have them turned back on. I've spread the word that neighborhood folks are welcome to take water from our outside tap, and often hear/see them trudging away with containers in their hands.

6. There is hardly any medical care in the city. As far as I know, only two hospitals and an emergency facility in the convention center are currently operating. Emergency room patients, even those having serious symptoms like chest pains, routinely wait eight hours or more to be seen by a doctor. We have, I believe, 600 hospital beds in a city whose population is approaching (and may have surpassed) 250,000.

More hospitals and private doctors are open for business, but the state of our medical care is still pretty dire. In a city where almost everybody is going crazy in one way or another, there's virtually no help for mental patients, who are usually either held in emergency rooms or jailed. State Attorney General Charles Foti failed in his attempted case against Memorial Medical Center doctors and other medical personnel who stayed through the storm and were accused of euthanizing elderly patients, but Foti's idiocy will probably drive medical personnel out of the city at a time when we desperately need them, and will certainly ensure that fewer will stay through the next storm.

You should read all 13 points, it shocks the conscience.

Those who have endured these two years of inaction and slow renewal are simply living in a different country than everyone else. They're surviving and improving by inches, but what they've already had to go through shouldn't happen in the richest country on the planet. If you haven't signed the petition at When The Saints, please do so.

Republican Priorities

Today is the second anniversary of the tragic levee failure after Hurricane Katrina that led to the flooding of New Orleans and the death of thousands. Clearly, this is a layup for Presidential candidates. You pay tribute to the city and highlight your plans for reconstruction, as John Edwards and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have done.

So what have the Republican candidates worked up for this anniversary?

Rudy Giuliani: Three-line press release, no specifics.
Mitt Romney: Nothing on the front page.
Fred Thompson: Nothing on the front page.
John McCain: Three-paragraph press release, no specifics.
Mike Huckabee: Nothing on the front page, at the top of the site is a news flash that "Gov. Mike Huckabee to Participate in the New Hampshire Republican Presidential Debate on September 5, 2007."
Sam Brownback: Nothing on the front page.
Duncan Hunter: To his credit, Hunter was the only Republican to attend the "Hope and Recovery Summit" in New Orleans on Tuesday, and he writes about it. The story accentuates the positives, but at least he offers a tribute and some specifics.
Ron Paul: Nothing on the front page.
Tom Tancredo: Nothing on the front page.
John Cox: Nothing on the front page.

It's not a scientific study, but it does offer at least a glimpse into the priorities of the Right's Field. The citizens of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans aren't on the top of the list.

UPDATE: I think it makes sense to add this bit of writing from DarkSyde at Kos:

The tragic lesson of Katrina is what will happen when men and women who openly despise our government -- who brag they plan to weaken it until they can drown it in a bathtub -- are allowed to govern. After telling the nation that they and only they could keep us safe from any and all threats, the neo-clowns were caught off guard by a Weapon of Mass Destruction called 'water,' arising from a storm that could be seen lumbering toward the Gulf Coast from the surface of the moon for a week. Choose your leaders wisely; these neo-GOP idiots couldn't run a rib-joint let alone the United States of America. And sooner or later, given the chance, it will be your town they drown in the bathtub.

Two Years Later

I was at a gathering last night for the "premiere" of their new short film When The Saints. Here it is:



Two years ago, a massive levee failure drowned the city of New Orleans and a federal government turned its back. Greedy insurance companies fought tooth and nail against living up to their responsibilities, and the work of FEMA was so continuously incompetent that they almost were better off not showing up at all. If you had the money you could rebuild; if not, good luck to you, you're probably living in a trailer filled with formaldehyde. Conservatives have tried to turn the city into an incubator for right-wing economic policies, which have contributed to leaving the poor in the dust as the most cruel elements of capitalism proliferate. The labor shortage (because there's no housing for lower-wage workers) have led to things like actual slavery on the Gulf Coast. And just 60-70% of the population has returned to New Orleans, which is part of the grand plan to scatter the black population around the country and dilute its political power, turning Louisiana deep red.

I'm ashamed that I have to post this today. The worst thing that has happened in the Bush years is our abdication of our collective responsibility in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One of the speakers last night, who was in New Orleans for the storm and the flood, said that regular people, the ones who volunteered and donated their time, were the only ones keeping the city going. Those dark days that played out on television (and the TV stations didn't provide food or water either, just shot the tragedy) made me physically sick. The only time I took an extended break from this blog since I started it in April 2004 was after Hurricane Katrina. I couldn't take it anymore. If you read my posts from that week, relief gives way to measured criticism gives way to outrage. Here's one on the edge of outrage:

I can't believe this was just said:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will," (President Bush) said.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted. FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO, in December 2001, FEMA listed a potential New Orleans flood as one of the three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing the nation. Only a San Francisco earthquake and another terror attack in New York were listed as likely or as deadly.

These boobs actually sound angry that anyone would question their leadership, (constant quotes of "I know everyone's frustrated, but we're trying,") and then they come out with nonsensical statements like this. Incidentally, does it sound like anything else we might remember?

"I don't think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." -Condoleezza Rice, May 2002

So it goes. The accountability Adminstration desperately tries to spin and shirk repsonsibility while defensively calling for nobody to "play politics" with the disaster. Nobody's playing politics, they're asking questions. If you want to talk about playing politics with a disaster, think about this: four years later, this Administration STILL recalls 9/11 every chance they get. They're STILL planning a commemorative country music concert while New Orleans is under water and more people are dying by the day. There are reports of a shark swimming through the streets of a major American city. The Convention Center is slowly turning into a mausoleum. The government's planning a fucking concert. They're also, because of some insane kind of foolish pride I guess, refusing international aid.

In the media they're starting to ask questions with unusual forcefulness, shaken by the reality on the ground. Where are the airlifts? Where are the food drops? Where are the troops? Why weren't they all pre-positioned? Why did this happen? America is starving for leadership and receiving none. Fuck, the Secretary of State is still on vacation.

I'm so angry I could spit. Give if you can.

I'm reading through it all, the blame-shifting, saying things like "that was a mistake" for people without transportation not to leave the city, responding to an environmental disaster by lifting pollution restrictions so that oil companies could drill more, and on and on. It's got me almost as depressed as I was back then.

Here's something you can do. Sign the petition at WhenTheSaints.org urging the Senate to pass Chris Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Bill of 2007 (S.1668), which would send funds directly to aid rebuilding efforts.

Getting By In George Bush's America

I mentioned before that the Census Bureau released a report showing that the ranks of the uninsured have risen, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of the population. Also in the report was news that the nation's poverty rate has gone down for the first time in the history of this Administration.

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that 36.5 million Americans, or 12.3 percent — were living in poverty last year. That’s down from 12.6 percent in 2005.

The median household income was $48,200, a slight increase from the previous year. But the number of people without health insurance also increased, to 47 million.

36 and a half million Americans are still a lot of people, and what's not remarked upon is that the average income in 2005 is still below that in 2000. And there are still structural issues that imperil both the working poor and middle-class Americans. Home prices have seen their steepest drop in 20 years and foreclosures are up 93% from the same point last year. The housing market has propped up the economy in many areas, and eventually this will result in less homes being built, hurting the construction sector, one of the few providing low-skilled workers with decent jobs. This was eminently predictable, and the new restrictions on bankruptcy protection really make it hard on those foreclosed upon to bounce back. Yet the Federal Reserve and the financial services industry saw fit to bail out rich hedge fund managers to stabilize the global economy by adding hundreds of billions in liquidity, which will give them every reason to do even more harm to the markets in the knowledge that they'll be bailed out down the road. And it only delayed something inevitable; stocks fell precipitously today.

There are still structural problems with this economy. While no-bid contracts proliferate and politicians conspire with big business to take profits out of the public treasury, they turn a blind eye to the real struggles working men and women face every day. We have an entire large American city being just flat-out neglected, only paid attention to on days like tomorrow's tragic anniversary. While infrastructure sits crumbling, while the Gulf Coast goes un-rebuilt, while social spending is meager, historically so compared to the rest of the world, while stratification between rich and poor continues to skyrocket, citing a statistic that a few more people are making a bit more than $20,000 a year as opposed to less seems to be to be irrelevant.

This bit of CW from the original article about the poverty drop is telling:

Poverty has not been a big issue in the campaign, and political scientists said they doubted the new numbers would change that.

“The poor are politically mute,” said Larry Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. “What rational politician would listen to the poor? They don’t vote, they don’t write checks, why care?”

Democrat John Edwards has made fighting poverty a centerpiece of his campaign. But, Jacobs noted, “He’s struggling to raise money and he’s lagging in the polls.”

Those with the voice set the agenda. That's still the case today, and anyone who advocates for them is shouted down. They'll cite a few statistics to ignore the plight of 36 million people who go to bed hungry. It's sickening.

Feeling Minnesota

So if I was an African-American still living in a trailer in New Orleans, and I caught wind of the fact that the President snapped to attention immediately after the death of five people in predominantly-white Minnesota, it wouldn't matter to me that the dead included a Native American and a Hispanic, it wouldn't matter that the district where the bridge collapse occurred is very diverse and is represented by the only Muslim in Congress, Keith Ellison, none of that matters. It would reinforce my opinion that George Bush doesn't care about black people.

And another thing. What Steve Soto said:

In the immediate aftermath of the Minnesota bridge collapse, one of the first talking points to come out from the White House and the GOP spin machine was a charge that Democrats were trying to take political advantage of the tragedy by talking about past GOP under funding at the state and national level. It suddenly became off-limits for the Democrats to point out that Governor Tim Pawlenty and George W. Bush had borne full responsibility for the sorry state of Minnesota’s highways because of their mutual and well-documented insistence that user taxes and taxes of any kind not be raised to maintain or improve infrastructure, and that such needs be met through the current inadequate levels of funding.

This tactic of preemptively deflecting politically damaging attacks by smearing your opponent for taking political advantage of a situation is a part of the Rove/Luntz playbook, and has been in use for well over a decade as a defense mechanism. Whenever you hear any Republican warn Democrats about “taking political advantage” of a tragedy it means that they know they are responsible for the tragedy. It is a tactic they used to defend themselves immediately after Katrina, and it is a warning from the same people who politicized Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, and every terror threat warning of the last six years.

When tragedy occurs is the PERFECT time to "politicize" it, since to the GOP politicize means talking about it. When the nation is at attention, these ideas must be discussed. Otherwise we sink back into apathy and nothing changes.

Forgotten Gulf Coast

New Orleans continues to be an unfolding disaster.

Large parts of the US city of New Orleans are still at risk of flooding in a major storm, a report has found.

Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina lashed the US Gulf Coast, $1bn (£502m) has been spent to fix hurricane-protection systems.

But many areas of the city would still be vulnerable in a storm much weaker than Katrina, the US Army Corps of Engineers study found.

Of course, the city was vulnerable before the storm because of failed workmanship by the Army Corps of Engineers, so maybe they just don't know what they're talking about. We hope.

No wonder Mayor Nagin is looking for international money to help rebuild his still-battered city. The federal government, after TWO YEARS, can't manage to make New Orleans safe. That's a blight on America right there. Many people point to Katrina as evidence of their loss of faith in George Bush and his leadership. But they've turned away from the region, and haven't kept up to know that there is STILL failure happening on the Bayou every day.

It's these kind of stories that make you despair for our country, that make you feel like we can't seem to do anything anymore, and that time will soon run out on us. But I always have hope that things can change if enough people demand it. Right now, that means getting the people responsible for this absolute mess out of office.

UPDATE: This is almost entirely OT, but when I was looking for something on Ray Nagin I came across this great analogy.

One of the strangest political developments of the post 9/11 world was the sudden--and totally inexplicable--transformation of Rudolph Giuliani from eccentric mayor of New York City to foreign policy expert. Almost instantly, a man who didn't seem to know or care very much about foreign policy became the go-to guy whenever a major television network needed someone to discuss various developments in the Global War on Terror [...]

It's like treating Ray Nagin as an expert climatologist because he happened to be Mayor of New Orleans when Katrina hit. If Nagin decided he wanted to be the head of the National Weather Service, would anyone take him seriously? Of course not.