"The Boston gig's canceled. It's OK, it's not a big college town."

I'm finding the Ian Faith logic in noted diaper-wearing Senator David Vitter's decision to put a hold on Craig Fugate's nomination to helm FEMA. It's not like Louisiana has any need for a working FEMA director. Not at the start of hurricane season, anyway.

By the way, if you think this is about the Louisiana Senator having serious concerns about FEMA response to natural disasters in the New Orleans area, well, no, it's about flood insurance and development.

Vitter's fellow Louisiana senator, Democrat Mary Landrieu, backs Fugate. She said, however, that she understands Vitter's concerns, which apparently relate to FEMA's maps of controversial "high-velocity flood zones," a designation related to coastal areas that are at high risk in a hurricane or an area that faces significant risk in the event of a flood. Federal regulations currently prohibit FEMA from funding new construction in such zones, and Louisiana officials want more flexibility.

"When we all understand the problems with a particular nominee, we can all work to address those issues," Landrieu said in a statement.

FEMA doesn't actually want to have to constantly address emergencies, and rebuild homes and businesses in areas which might not be sustainable. And they simply don't want to add to the mess by funding new development in areas that will obviously flood again. But development whores like Vitter and Landrieu don't see a problem with it. Some communities are developed enough that moving them is impractical; New Orleans comes to mind. We have to come to terms with the fact that, in an age of climate change, there are certain parts of this country in which it makes sense not to build. That requires political leadership. Which is sorely lacking in Louisiana.

Red River Flooding And National Service

A spate of winter storms in the Fargo, ND/Moorhead, MN area have threatened homes and businesses as the Red River rises and increases the potential for a catastrophic flood. Thousands of volunteers reinforced dikes and levees, raising the floodwall level to roughly 43 feet, and many communities already submerged have been evacuated. On Friday the water level in the river rose to a level approaching 41 feet, with cresting expected in the next 48 hours. But this morning, freezing temperatures have slowed the rise of the river, as snow has not melted, and the National Weather Service cautiously announced that the river crested at a lower level than predicted. This is positive news suggesting that the levees will hold, but the situation remains dangerous, with more storms in the forecast for next week and the water level still at a record high.

In his weekly radio address, President Obama expressed his support for those affected by the flooding, citing his disaster declarations for North Dakota and Minnesota, the FEMA response and the US Army Corps of Engineers support in coordinating the building of makeshift levees. It's good to see this kind of coordination and attention in the midst of the emergency, not after it.

In addition, the President also connected the situation to the theme of national service that Steve discussed yesterday.

For at moments like these, we are reminded of the power of nature to disrupt lives and endanger communities. But we are also reminded of the power of individuals to make a difference.

In the Fargodome, thousands of people gathered not to watch a football game or a rodeo, but to fill sandbags. Volunteers filled 2.5 million of them in just five days, working against the clock, day and night, with tired arms and aching backs. Others braved freezing temperatures, gusting winds, and falling snow to build levees along the river's banks to help protect against waters that have exceeded record levels.

College students have traveled by the busload from nearby campuses to lend a hand during their spring breaks. Students from local high schools asked if they could take time to participate. Young people have turned social networks into community networks, coordinating with one another online to figure out how best to help.

In the face of an incredible challenge, the people of these communities have rallied in support of one another. And their service isn't just inspirational – it's integral to our response.

It's also a reminder of what we can achieve when Americans come together to serve their communities. All across the nation, there are men, women and young people who have answered that call, and millions of other who would like to. Whether it's helping to reduce the energy we use, cleaning up a neighborhood park, tutoring in a local school, or volunteering in countless other ways, individual citizens can make a big difference.

This is the tradition of national service that conservative commentators have likened to Hitler Youth. This is the call to sacrifice that Chuck Todd doesn't seem to understand because it doesn't involve cutting Social Security or Medicare benefits. Obama's support of national service represents a continuum throughout his campaign and his public life, that we have a responsibility to one another, that we can do our part for change as neighbors and fellow citizens. I would ask those naysayers on the right if they asked the residents of these communities in North Dakota and Minnesota their opinion.

Photo-Op Buddies

No surprise that President Bush parachuted into Iowa, spending lots of resources and the attention of law enforcement, to "show people that he cares". John McCain, of course, just had to follow him, even though the Governor asked him to lay off:

An aide to Gov. Chet Culver said Thursday that Republican presidential candidate John McCain ignored the governor's request to cancel a campaign visit amid a massive flood recovery effort in the state.

McCain toured flood-damaged sites in Iowa on Thursday, including the town of Columbus Junction in the southeast.

Patrick Dillon, Culver's chief of staff, said the governor was concerned that McCain's trip would divert local law enforcement from the flood recovery effort to provide security for McCain.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama canceled a scheduled visit to eastern Iowa last week at the request of state officials.

McCain also opposed funding for flood control in Des Moines as recently as last year.

But he did show up with a camera crew in tow. He "cares." Isn't the first time he's used a backdrop whose funding he called for cutting.

UPDATE: Obama took a whack at McCain on this today.

And just the other day, Senator McCain traveled to Iowa to express his sympathies for the victims of the recent flooding. I’m sure they appreciated the sentiment, but they probably would have appreciated it more if he hadn’t voted against funding for levees and flood control programs, which he seems to consider pork. Well, we do have to reform budget earmarks, cut genuine pork, and dispense with unnecessary spending, as we confront a budget crisis left by the most fiscally irresponsible administration in modern times.

But when it comes to rebuilding America’s essential but crumbling infrastructure, we need to do more, not less. Cities across the Midwest are under water right now or courting disaster not just because of the weather, but because we’ve failed to protect them. Maintaining our levees and dams isn’t pork barrel spending, it’s an urgent priority, and that’s what we’ll do when I’m President. I’ll also launch a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years, and create nearly two million new jobs. The work will be determined by what will maximize our safety, security, and shared prosperity. Instead of building bridges to nowhere, let’s build communities that meet the needs and reflect the dreams of our families. That’s what this bank will help us do.

The larger point is that McCain makes no distinction between "pork" and infrastructure investments that are vital economically. It allows him to demagogue about "reducing government spending" in a blind and morally corrupt way. McCain's America is one where bridges in Minneapolis fall down.

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.

Midwest Katrina?

I'm cooped up in a TV-free office, but is this getting the attention it deserves?

Hospital patients in wheelchairs and on stretchers were evacuated in the middle of the night as the biggest flood Cedar Rapids has ever seen swamped more than 400 blocks Friday and all but cut off the supply of clean drinking water in the city of 120,000.

As many as 10,000 townspeople driven from their homes by the rain-swollen Cedar River took shelter at schools and hotels or moved in with relatives.

About 100 miles to the west, the Des Moines River threatened to spill over the levees into downtown Des Moines, prompting officials in Iowa's biggest city to urge people in low-lying areas to clear out by Friday evening. The river was expected to crest a couple of hours later.

"We are perilously close to topping the levees," said Bill Stowe, public works director in the Iowa capital, population 190,000. He added: "It's time to step out of harm's way."

Only two deaths have been reported so far, but without clean drinking water in Cedar Rapids and the potential for topped levees in Des Moines the situation is, pardon the pun, fluid. There's a local report at this blog and also Iowa Independent. I was out in Des Moines last September and made some friends there, so I hope they're OK.

More broadly, I have to agree with Matt Stoller here. Storms and disruptive weather events like this are catalyzing. They actually do shape opinion if organizations bother to make the proper connections. In this case, the main environmental groups are not.

None of these stories mention climate change, yet, as Joe Romm points out, extreme downpours are exactly what the NOAA found is increasingly common in the last fifty years, with "a 20 percent increase in "very heavy rain events", and these fit with global warming prediction models. Romm goes on to point out that "2007 saw the second most extreme precipitation over the United States in the historical record, according to NCDC's Climate Extremes Index."

So one would think the press would cover global warming in the context of extreme weather. Of course journalists don't. But is this a media problem? Yes, but it's not just a media problem. I looked at the home pages and press pages of the Sierra Club, NRDC, Environmental Defense, the League of Conservation Voters, and Al Gore's We Can Solve It. The Sierra Club is asking for higher mileage standards on cars, NRDC is discussing lead and growing support for action on global warming, the League of Conservation Voters brags about its recent endorsement of Gabrielle Giffords, Environmental Defense asks for lower gas prices, and We Can Solve It puts its new ad front and center.

So yes, the media isn't tying the Iowa floods to global warming. But then, neither are the major environmental groups. As these extreme weather events become more common due to global warming, there will be more competition to tie these events to climate change policy action, a sort of Shock Doctrine in reverse. One interesting irony is that Iowa is ground zero for these floods, and it was in Iowa where none of the major environmental groups backed a candidate - Ed Fallon - calling for a moratorium on coal versus conservative Democrat Leonard Boswell that wants to continue tax breaks for oil companies. Gore, of course, endorsed Boswell, and he and Tipper maxed out to him.

You shouldn't expect people to put two and two together if the leading voices remain silent.

Quake Lake Shake And Bake

It's kind of a masterwork of engineering that Chinese soldiers were able to divert water to lessen the imminent danger of flooding to over a million residents. But they had to divert it through the destroyed city of Beichuan, and survivors had to wash their possessions and even the corpses of their neighbors fly by in the process.

Tuesday's flooding brought more heartache to the displaced. Many said valuables were now lost for good.

"It began flooding early this morning," said shop assistant Zhu Yunhui, 37, who lost loved ones in the quake and said she had kept many tens of thousands of yuan in her home. "Now we can never go back. This is heartbreaking."

Damage in Beichuan from the tremor was so extensive that authorities have decided to rebuild the town at a site dozens of kilometers away and to make the original county seat an earthquake memorial.

The brutal efficiency of this effort is intriguing. China has literally buried the past, washed it away, and rebuilt for the last few decades, so in in many ways it was a symbolic event.

Tough Guy Bush, Now With Kung-Fu Grip

He got out the veto pen again.

An increasingly confrontational President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of popular water projects even though lawmakers can count enough votes to override him.

Bush brushed aside significant objections from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, in thwarting legislation that provides money for projects like repairing hurricane damage, restoring wetlands and preventing flooding in communities across the nation.

This level of opposition virtually assured that Bush would have a veto overridden for the first time in his presidency. He has used the veto very sparingly for most of the time he has been in office, but has made more use of it recently.

Because it took a Democratic Congress for him to realize that he's supposed to be fiscally responsible, right?

By the way, these are badly needed projects, and I can't wait to see Mr. Pissypants when the Congress overrides him and vacates the veto. That's going to be fun.