Katrina's POLITICAL aftermath (keep the political discussions HERE)

Okay, Larry King just asked... jesus, this could be a major policy fuckup decision w/serious blowback....

it's like friendster being in "beta" mode for like a year until everyone got bored with it and moved on to myspace.

it won't get reported for a little while after it happens(maybe 24-48 hours), but stories will get out.

If this is confirmed as truth, the man's life is forfeit. He could never walk the streets of America unprotected.

check this shit out. This is a comment on Interdictor's LJ tonight:

I am a 65 yr. old, white, republican, male, pissed taxpayer.

First I am pissed at the racial crap. Anybody that can look at a human being in torment and care about pigment ain't worth a damn. Has anybody noticed that most of the first responders are white and most of the victims are not? Do not even think about telling me that crap in person.

Second I am pissed at the inconceivably impotent efforts by our Federal Government. I am absolutely furious. I just watched on TV a baby that has been in the convention center for SIX DAYS with inadequate EVERYTHING. I am a real hard old man and I felt tears roll down my face. The Mayor of New Orleans ought to be horse whipped. The Governor of Lousiana ought be tarred and feathered. The President of the mightiest nation on earth ought to be cleaning toilets.

I am one of them well off middle class whites that pays a LOT of taxes. I count it a privledge. I take pride in the response of my home state, Texas, to the refugees.

It ain't about race, it is about stupid and incompetent and arrogant.

If the thin blue line is REALLY this inept, we are ALL in for a lot of misery.

Ray

Something big is happening. People are getting increasingly angry & frustrated, and they're not even in places affected by this.

and they're still gunna vote on repealing the estate tax on tuesday.

oh yeah, and another comment:

Mr. Brown is starting to sound like the former Iraqi Information Minister . . . "No problems there, everything is swell."

Chertoff was a political attack dog in that job, indicting and convicting a raft of Democratic officeholders. But one who Chertoff deliberately let get away was his big buddy, Bob “The Torch” Torricelli, forced to resign his U.S. Senate seat from Sopranoland in a major corruption scandal. Nick Acocella, editor of the respected insider newsletter New Jersey Politifax, recalls that, at the height of the Torricelli scandal, and while Chertoff was U.S. Attorney, he saw The Torch and Chertoff together at a South Jersey Jewish banquet where they embraced and huddled intimately “like twins separated at birth.” One would have thought a federal prosecutor would have kept his distance from a target of criminal investigations that were making daily headlines in the Jersey press.

When Chertoff was named by Bush to head the Justice Department’s Criminal Division--partly because he was a skilled political hitman, who’d also raised a ton of money as financial vice-chair of Bush’s Garden State campaign in 2000-- it’s an open secret in Jersey that he squelched an indictment of Torricelli as a reward for The Torch’s support of key Bush legislation the Democratic Party leadership opposed, including tax cuts for corporations and the very rich. (Many of the fat-cats Chertoff shook down for Bush had also been huge givers to The Torch.)

i keep having flashbacks to Half-Life or something.

Chertoff is a member in good standing in the Federalist Society; a cabal of radical lawyers devoted to the systematic dismantling of the Bill of Rights. Already, they've provided much of the legal rationale for the unlawful detention of aliens, the enhanced powers of the Executive, the indefinite incarceration of POW's and the cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners. They've also made strides in crushing what few regulations still exist to protect both consumers and environment.

Chertoff has been an effective conduit for the Federalist ideology. Following 9-11, he masterminded the round-up of 1100 Muslim suspects; dumping them in prison without bothering to file charges. None of the suspects were provided with attorneys or allowed to challenge the terms of their detention. Instead they were held in solitary confinement, abused, and either deported or released after secret tribunals. Chertoff effectively rescinded the Bill of Rights to pursue his blinkered witch-hunt. His actions made no one any safer, nor were they intended to. They were designed to show how easily legal protections are eviscerated during a national emergency. Don't think Chertoff and co. haven't monitored the affects of hysteria on public sensibilities. For the Bush team, demagoguery is the primary tenet of good governance.

Months after the illegal detentions, the Justice's Dept's Inspector General harshly criticized the draconian and unproductive steps that Chertoff authorized. The General dismissed the arrests as "indiscriminate and haphazard"; a clear violation of basic human rights and civil liberties. His reprimand was shrugged off by the impervious Chertoff, who later admitted to Congress that he would have done the same thing all over again.

in that particular case, troops wound up shooting at them and burning their shanty town to the ground(deliberately going against Presidential Orders)

The wind had barely stopped blowing before Katrina and the storm's aftermath had become the latest front in the nation's political/cultural war. Bush critics are already undermining their own cause with overreaching, as they denounce the president as a racist for allegedly being unconcerned about the suffering of so many black people in New Orleans. But an administration whose FEMA director knew less about on-the-ground conditions in the stricken city this week than the average TV viewer has a real vulnerability.

It will only address the vulnerability with a performance in coming days and weeks that is more in keeping with the GOP's image as the "daddy party," the party of competence, the party that can be trusted in times of crisis. That is the main thing. But symbolism will matter too. No single step would go further to dramatize the GOP's commitment to rebuilding New Orleans than announcing now that the party's 2008 convention will be held in the recovering city. Such a move would signal the party's confidence in the Big Easy's renewal, and put it at the forefront of what should be similar commitments from private actors to do their part to help New Orleans come back.

Critics will call it a transparent attempt to burnish the party's image after the Bush administration "failed" with the initial relief effort. The gesture would, however, reflect the genuine sentiment of Republicans who, like all Americans, want to help a city facing such a bleak future. We heard similar complaints — easily brushed off — about the Republicans coming to New York for last year's convention.

No doubt there will be logistical problems. There were logistical problems putting on big events in New Orleans even in the best of times. But the Republicans held their convention there in 1988, and should return 20 years later. They will go to a city that then will, no doubt, still be scarred by the catastrophe of the last week, but back on its feet, and a perfect venue for a testament to the American spirit. — The Editors

Very odd people.

"Boy, it's great to be here in this building where there was all that death and suffering!"

i'know. i was being sarcastic.