Lawsuit Against Bush Administration Moves Forward

Wow!  Just, WOW! I’ve heard rumors about this story for a while, but this is

the first I’ve seen it in print and that it appears to be of substance.  I can only say - “IF ONLY” this were to come to pass, at least some vindication for others around the globe who’ve been discussing these events and dates for years. The story:

Earlier this year, the Department of Justice, who is defending the six Bush Administration officials, responded to the lawsuit by requesting that the case be dismissed. The Bush tribe is claiming that the planning of the war occurred within the scope of their employment and therefore they have immunity.
Rather than dismissing the case, the Judge asked for additional information. So Mr. Comar filed a 2nd amended complaint back in June. The amended complaint provides more details about the planning of the Iraq war and when it started.
Comar essentially made two points to the court.
The first argument he made was something called judicial estoppel. It prevents a party from taking a position in a case which is contrary to a position they have taken in earlier legal proceedings. In this case, Comar used the Nuremburg Trials as an example.
The Nuremburg Trials, which the United States views as legitimate, held Nazi leaders accountable for their acts of aggression. Comar held that judicial estoppel dictates the Bush Administration and DOJ can’t argue that leaders aren’t accountable for acts of aggression because it runs contrary to the US’s position at Nuremburg.
The second point that was made referred to the Augusto Pinochet trial. In 1999, British Lawyers determined that Pinochet did not have immunity for certain acts he committed while in office such as torture and other violations of international law. These Brits held that Pinochet was not immune because Chile had signed the convention against torture.
Comar’s evidence, shows the Bush/Cheney team started planning the invasion of Iraq as far back as 1997. The amended complaint also explains that the war was motivated by personal enrichment and the war was a “crime of aggression.” and - In light of the treaties and charters that the United States has signed, Comar stated that the defence can’t now claim that acts of aggression are above a leader’s authority. In this case, the Bush Administration.

Read the rest HERE.

Could there finally be justice done in this case? Or, will whoever is president when the case is decided pardon the lot of them.

So far, this story has been successfully swept under the collective media’s rug. Let’s see what happens from here.

No pictures of the vermin until they're in Orange Jumpsuits, sitting in the dock at the Hague.

And so it goes.

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1100 Diagnosed with WTC-Related Cancer. Why, Thank You and FUCK YOU!!!

I'd like to say a few words here, if you don't mind.  FUCK YOU, RUDOLPH GIULIANI (Mayor of 9/11),  FUCK YOU CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN (Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (from 2001 to 2003 in THE CABINET OF GEORGE W. BUSH.) Well, aren't we totally fucking surprised?  Not. 
And a gigantic FUCK YOU TO GEORGE W. BUSH (initiating the coverup in the first place. "No toxins in the air!"  Indeed.  They should die in a fire.  Now this from Yahoo News:

More than 1,000 people who have lived or worked near ground zero, including first responders, have been diagnosed with a cancer related to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, health officials say.
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1,140 people have been certified with a WTC-related cancer. And that number is expected to grow, the Daily News reports.
"There are more cases out there, because we just know of the people in our government-funded medical programs, not those who have been treated by their private doctors,”  Dr. Jim Melius, chairman of the WTC Responder Medical Program, told the newspaper. “Because of the carcinogens in the air at ground zero, people who were exposed are vulnerable. And with cancer, there is a delay.”
Tina Engel, an oncology nurse at North Shore Hospital’s WTC clinic in Queens, told the paper she identified 12 new cases in the last two months and has another 25 patients whose diagnostic test results are pending.
“The good news is that with new federal funding, I get what I need when I need it for our patients," Engel said. "Their biopsies and scans are turned around in a week. Cancer trumps everything.”
As many as 65,000 people, including first responders, became sick from 9/11 exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A Mount Sinai Medical Center study cited by the Daily News found a 15 percent higher cancer rate among first responders than among people who were not exposed to the toxic air.
Marty Cervellion, a 63-year-old city engineer who spent more than two months at ground zero following the attacks, developed gastroesophageal cancer in 2011.
“It was always in the back of everyone’s mind we were in jeopardy given the contamination down there, but the entire world was calling on you," he told the Daily News. "It felt so good to serve, there was no wanting to escape."

Anyone with half a brain (George W. Bush excluded) knew there was no way the air was free of toxic chemicals at the site.  It was only a matter of time before the truth would surface.  Not that the three above care much. Only the Mayor of 9/11 may show his face, but I doubt it. The other two are far away from the spotlight.  And that's as it should be.  Wonder if the media will pick up on this and hunt them down.  Especially Whitman who emphatically denied the rumors of toxins at the site or anywhere in the area.  They ought to be in prison.

And so it goes.
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Weary of "What If's"

"What If?  "If Only..."
You know, if I had a boat, I'd go rowing. This is second-guessing at its very peak. Sandra Day O'Connor:

Now she tells us. More than 12 years after the fact, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said it was probably a mistake for the Supreme Court to hear Bush v. Gore and anoint George W. Bush as president of the United States.

“It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” Justice O’Connor told the Chicago Tribune editorial board on Friday. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’” 

She continued: “Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision. It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.”
The result, she allowed, “stirred up the public” and “gave the court a less than perfect reputation.”

Justice O’Connor’s comments, as fascinating as they are, have to set some kind of record for detachment (she calls the court on which she sat for 25 years “it” — avoiding the more apt “we”) and also for understatement. 

Granted, we don’t know for sure whether Justice O’Connor wanted to take Bush v. Gore. Only four justices have to agree to hear a case. But we do know that she sided with the majority on the actual decision, which stopped the recounting in Florida and gave a one-vote majority in the Electoral College to the man who lost the national popular vote. The ruling was a huge stain on the court’s reputation because it appeared to be — may well have been — blatantly partisan.

Sandy, baby, the public was already stirred up by the giant f**kup that was Florida. I am tired of the "maybe we shouldn't have done that" hind-sight stuff anymore. You did it.  It's done. You can't change it.
Now Shut Up!

And so it goes.
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Captured Moment: Obama Learned of Sandy Hook Shootings

The President reacts as John Brennan briefs him on the details of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The President later said during a TV interview that this was the worst day of his Presidency.  He looks as if he's been punched in the stomach and more is to come.

Compare his body language to that of G. W. Bush as he was briefed about the unfolding events of 9/11. The deer-in-the-headlights expression speaks volumes about his character, or lack thereof.

 

And so it goes.

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FEMA Head To Michael Brown: 'Better To Be Fast Than To Be Late'

On Tuesday I posted an interview with Michael Brown, BushCo's head of FEMA, who botched the Katrina disaster and now has the gall to criticize Obama's quick response to Sandy's devastation.  My personal views aside, the current head of FEMA, no longer the gutted agency it was under Dubya, responds to Brownie's comments today.

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate dismissed criticisms of President Barack Obama's response to Hurricane Sandy lobbed by Michael Brown, who oversaw the disastrous Bush administration response to Hurricane Katrina.
"Better to be fast than to be late," Fugate said in an interview on NPR Tuesday morning.
Brown, whom President George W. Bush infamously praised for doing a "heckuva job" in the aftermath of Katrina in 2005, told a Denver paper that Obama had acted too quickly in mobilizing relief for Sandy.
"Here's my concern," Brown told Denver's Westword on Monday, suggesting that the prompt official response was actually making people complacent. "It's premature [when] the brunt of the storm won't happen until later this afternoon."

Fugate also addressed the role of FEMA, which has been a hot topic since Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he wanted to abolish the agency so that states would have direct responsibility for disaster response.

His campaign later clarified that he would not eliminate FEMA.

"Governor Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,” said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. “As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”

But as Fugate explained on Tuesday, this is exactly how FEMA already works.

"We're a federal government; we're not a national government," he said "Disasters are local. Through state constitutions, the governors are the primary incident commanders for the entire state response in support of that. And the role of the federal government is to support the states when the disaster exceeds their capabilities. And when it's this bad, we work as one team. But we are in support of the governors, as they are in support of the local officials. It's a federal system of government."

Read the rest and listen to the NPR interview HERE.

And so it goes.
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Remember New Orleans

Bush Swiss Trip Canceled Due to Arrest Threats.

A story you will never see, hear, or read at FOX News.

Oh, how I would love to see this come to pass.  Not just for Dubya, but Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice, too. Arrest them, then hold them accountable with an international trial at The Hague.

I know, I know, Nice fantasy, but that's as far as it goes.

Human rights groups have vowed to track George W Bush round the world after their success in forcing him to cancel a trip to Switzerland amid concerns over protests and a threatened arrest warrant.
Katherine Gallagher, a lawyer with the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said: "The reach of the convention against torture is wide. This case is prepared and will be waiting for him wherever he travels next.
"Torturers, even if they are former presidents of the United States, must be held to account and prosecuted."
Although Bush has travelled freely round the world since leaving the White House in January 2009, human rights groups believe he is vulnerable to prosecution after admitting in his autobiography last November that he authorised waterboarding and other interrogation techniques.
"Waterboarding is torture, and Bush has admitted, without any sign of remorse, that he approved its use," said Gallagher, who is also vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights.
Bush's staff, as well as US embassies around the world, will have to factor into their planning of future trips whether a country is a signatory to the convention on torture, as most countries are, which should at least theoretically trigger near-automatic action by legal authorities, and negotiate with governments to ensure there will be no arrest warrants. They will also seek assurances that Bush has diplomatic immunity.
Since the arrest of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998 over alleged murders, senior politicians linked to war, internal conflict and oppression have had to be more careful in their travel plans.

It's a good piece and the rest can be found HERE.

More later.
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It's SNAFU* in America

This damned cold has again brought runny eyes, scratchy throat,  and sinus congestion that feels like my head is stuffed with porridge. We hates it, precious, yes we does.

I arrived home this evening to these interesting (?) stories in the news.

Let's see:

• George W. Bush is afraid to visit Switzerland fearing he may face prosecution for using torture.
  
• Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld won't even consider visiting France for the same reason.
  
• Rightwing-nuts celebrate The Gipper's 100th birthday by ignoring what he didn't do to fight AIDS and basically rewriting his entire legacy. In future history books, Reagan will be portrayed as one of the Founding Fathers. Yes, the stoopid is that strong.
  
• Two gay men await being stoned to death for the crime of homosexuality in 8th century Iran.
  
• Then there's "Breathtaking Footage of Uncontacted Tribe" - let's hope it's not a repeat of the fake one posted a few years ago. This one is in Brazil, while the other was in New Guinea.
  
• Serving only a half term in office before quitting, Sarah Palin now questions President Obama's work ethic. Yes, read that again.

Yep!  Just your typical SNAFU* day in America.

SNAFU = Situation Normal, All F**ked Up.

More later.
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Prelude to Cheney's Katrina

Don't know how I missed this.  From the Center for American Progress:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy Task Force concluded in May 2001 that “advanced, more energy efficient drilling and production methods: reduce emissions; practically eliminate spills from offshore platforms; and enhance worker safety, lower risk of blowouts, and provide better protection of groundwater resources.” At that time, with two oilmen in the White House and two more Texans leading an emboldened Republican majority in the House of Representatives, Big Oil had an unprecedented opportunity to set U.S. energy policy.
Big Oil did not miss the opportunity. A deeper look at the energy legislation based on Cheney’s secret energy task force underscores how the unabashedly pro-oil policies and permissive regulatory environment created during the Bush administration set the stage for Cheney’s Katrina—the BP oil catastrophe.

Read the rest at the link above and be sure to read the piece published earlier in the week: BP Disaster Is Cheney's Katrina by Rebecca Lefton

Both are well worth the read.

More later.
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Big Oil Spent 2.5 Million Lobbying Congress

$249,813,232 spent lobbying Congress since 1990 – Slabbed

Though former oilmen George W. Bush and Dick Cheney occupied the White House for eight years, the oil and gas industry could not win support for repealing bans on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. However, Congress voted in 2008 to lift a ban on offshore drilling. These companies are also wary of cap-and-trade climate change legislation, such as the measure Democratic President Barack Obama supports. Yet Obama still received $884,000 from the oil and gas industry during the 2008 campaign, more than any other lawmaker except his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

In contrast to former President Bush’s largely pro-industry stance on energy and environmental issues, the Democratic-controlled White House and Congress will probably grant these companies fewer favors. Bush consistently rolled back Clinton-era restrictions on commercial uses of federal lands—including nature preserves, national forests and national monuments. To the oil and gas industry’s delight, he got one step closer in March 2005 when Senate Republicans passed a budget resolution containing a filibuster-proof provision to allow for drilling in ANWR.

 And guess which party received the most $$$...Click the subtitle above and read the whole thing, includes graphs and charts.

h/t Editilla

Meanwhile, look out Key West, it's coming your way.

More later.
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Katrina - Another 4th Anniversary Post

This is the beginning of a film by Greg Palast one year after Katrina and since Greg is white he didn't get the same bad press and claims of bias that Spike Lee did for his "When the Levees Broke" but the story is essentially the same. Here is part 1 of Big Easy to Big Empty:

Part 2 is HERE. You can find the rest at this link as well.

I strongly suggest you view this film and ingest what is being reported about the Bush White House and FEMA's negligence. Not to mention that of the ACOE.

And so it goes.
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FBI Raids NOLA Police over Katrina Killings

Katrina stories and investigations are far from over - four years on. Every phone conversation with my sister or friends contains new revelations about the days and weeks following the storm. Now this...From Raw Story:

Nearly four years after the police shootout that took the lives of Ronald Madison and James Brissette on New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge, the FBI raided the offices of the police investigators who had been looking into the deadly incident.

The bureau’s move suggests that the federal government may be serious about seeing police officers prosecuted over the Sept. 4, 2005 shootout, when Madison and Brissette were allegedly killed by police while four others were wounded as they crossed a bridge in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina crisis.

It also suggests the FBI may be worried that New Orleans police are trying — or may in the future try — to destroy evidence of what happened that day.

According to ProPublica, “the police officers involved say they began shooting in response to gunfire from the civilians; that claim is vigorously disputed by the shooting victims.”

“Survivors of the high-profile shooting incident have said they were unarmed when ambushed by officers on the bridge, who came to the site because they heard a radio call that described other police officers in distress,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported last year. “But police officers have maintained that police were in a firefight, shooting only after they were fired upon.”

According to an article in Friday’s Times-Picayune, FBI agents seized “the files and computer hard drives of two officers assigned to investigate police conduct” in the incident.

Last year, the federal government announced it would be investigating the possibility of federal charges against some or all of the officers involved in the shootout, after a state prosecution of the incident fell apart.

According to New Orleans TV station WDSU, the “investigation had been years in the making and the probe into the police department is broader than the events that happened on the Danziger Bridge that left two dead and four wounded.”

Harry Rosenberg, a former US attorney, told WDSU that FBI raids on police homicide squads are rare. “It’s done when the FBI believes evidence may be destroyed if officers or other individuals become aware of a criminal investigation and are likely to dispose of electronic data or paper evidence that might assist the FBI in its investigation,” Rosenberg said.

WDSU also stated that the federal investigation would look at “the police-involved shooting of Adolph Grimes on New Year’s Eve and the death of Henry Glover, whose body was found in a burned out car in the days after Hurricane Katrina.”

The Times-Picayune reported in June that federal authorities are investigating Glover’s death. According to the paper, the owner of the car in which Glover’s body was found said he last saw it in the possession of the New Orleans police, before it was found burned with Glover’s body inside.

“A community group that has been monitoring each of the cases said it’s glad to see the FBI push for more information,” WDSU reported.

“This has been a long time coming,” Evelyn Lynn of the activist group Safe Streets Strong Communities told WDSU. “The police department here has been in crisis for a long time. Having federal help is going to help a lot in terms of the cases and the reforms that we need to make in the department.”

It appears that George Bush isn't the only person who doesn't care about black people. Another piece of our national shame over this disaster.

And so it goes.

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Mike (Milquetoast) Castle Attacked by Crazy Birther

I have no sympathy for my Congress critter. This is a prime example of his reaction to almost every issue. A Bush lap-dog for eight years with nothing to do but rubber stamp whatever BushCo wanted. Watch it if you can, but it's extremely embarrassing. His 'deer in the headlights' expression is classic Castle. The stoopid. It burns.

Old Mike's days are numbered...and it's about time.

More later.

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Safe?!

Note to the Dickster: Go Away!

More later.
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Another Bush Phrase Bites the Dust.

Last month the new administration said it would no longer use "war on terror" and now it has eliminated "enemy combatant" as well.

From the AP via Google:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant. In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But he says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president's own wartime power.

Bush had argued that the president as commander in chief could unilaterally hold prisoners without charge.

The Justice Department says prisoners can only be detained if their support for al-Qaida or the Taliban was "substantial."

Maybe these are only minor changes, but words are powerful and BushCo used many words and phrases as fear mongering talking points to keep us all scared witless.

Ben & Jerry's Creams George W.

OK, it's all in fun, but what if...?

Ben & Jerry have created "Yes Pecan!" ice cream flavor for Obama.

Due to the new flavor's popularity, they asked for suggestions from the public for flavors to commemorate George W.

Here are some of their favorite responses:

- Grape Depression

- Abu Grape

- Cluster Fudge

- Nut'n Accomplished

- Iraqi Road

- Chock 'n Awe

- WireTapioca

- Impeach Cobbler

- Impeach Mint

- Heck of a Job, Brownie!

- Chunky Monkey in Chief

- George Bush Doesn't Care About Dark Chocolate

- WMDelicious

Gulf Coast Recovery?

You know, whenever I hear comments that NOLA is back to normal (it's never been normal, God forbid) I have to look no further than our delightful friends at FEMA. Unfortunately, stories like this one are few and far between. 3.9 billion in hurricane aid still unspent:

WASHINGTON — A massive effort to fix public works destroyed more than three years ago by the Gulf Coast hurricanes remains largely stalled, leaving more than $3.9 billion in federal aid unspent and key repairs far from complete.

The scale of that job is enormous. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has promised $5.8 billion to repair everything from flooded libraries and schools to sewer systems and roads that were ruined when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita obliterated huge sections of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005.

Nearly 3½ years after those storms hit, new FEMA accounting reports show two-thirds of the money to pay for permanent rebuilding work still has not been spent, the latest bottleneck in a recovery long beset by criticism that it has been too slow and inefficient. And despite a handful of high-profile successes, officials who had vowed to speed up the pace of repairs concede it is still going far more slowly than it should.

"I think it can go better. That's almost obvious," says James Stark, who runs FEMA's recovery effort in the region. "Public safety, health and education are critical. That's not proceeding as quickly as I think many people in southeast Louisiana would want." Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered the agency to take a "fresh look" at those roadblocks. Its first report is due Tuesday.

The delays have led to "dilapidated buildings, roads and sewer systems in our communities," says Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who chairs a disaster recovery subcommittee. "As we approach the fourth anniversary of Katrina and Rita, we simply cannot permit billions off dollars to remain bottled up in bureaucratic red tape."

When I visited NOLA last summer few of my old friends wanted to talk about the Katrina/Rita debacle - most are Repubs, after all and didn't want to trash talk the party - (yes, I know) but others shared their stories and pictures and what the related left me speechless. One friend who lost her home on the MS coast (with 2 sons serving in Iraq) waited almost 2 years for a contaminated FEMA trailer. During the waiting period she spent 3 days a week in a tent on her property; the other 4 days with family in LA. Her new home still isn't completed.

Let's pray that President Obama gets on top of this and gets things straightened out.

And so it goes.
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A George Bush Memorial?

Anybody counting the hours? Minutes? Seconds?

Why isn't this over yet?

And so it goes...too slowly.

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Bush's Final Katrina Lie

Having watched Dubya’s final news conference (Thanks be to G*d!) I wasn’t surprised at the spin he put on his reaction to Hurricane Katrina and I was preparing to write about it, but some NOLA folks did it much better. After all, they lived through the nightmare. Bush said:

“Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed…”
– President George Bush’s last official lie about Katrina, Jan. 12, 2009.

Here is just one appropriate response to his BS from one who survived. Over at Humid City, WetBankGuy writes:

In his final press conference, outgoing President George Bush reminds us why I once felt compelled to call him out as a lying sack of shit. *

When challenged on the slow response by the central government to the failure of the Federal levees after Hurricane Katrina sideswiped New Orleans, Bush responded, “there was [sic] 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed.”

No one from New Orleans should be surprised that Bush should end his presidency on a lie about New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood, but we in New Orleans cannot let it go unanswered.

There was a prompt response to the flooding of New Orleans from one arm of the Federal government but it came unbidden. Helicopters from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Louisiana National Guard flew into the city immediately behind the storm, when winds aloft were still blowing at 60 knots, according to the excellent summary of rescue efforts “Katrina: What Went Right” by retired Newsday reporter and volunteer fireman Lou Dolinar. CBS News separately reported that the Coast Guard deployed in spite of the lack of any direction from FEMA or their commander in chief.

Dolinar’s online column clearly stands up on the side of the President’s version of events. He ends his article stating “help was rarely late, delayed, or inadequate.” While that may be true of the Coast Guard and other local or state agencies and volunteers, the same can’t be said of the official response of FEMA and the agencies the Feds actually coordinated.

From reports Dolinar collected, somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 people were rescued by some agency at some point during the week that began with 8-29. According to Dolinar’s excellent summary, the Coasties pulled between 3,000 and 5,000 people from rooftops between Monday and Wednesday, a time frame that we can reasonably call a prompt response. Ultimately the Coast Guard would claim 24,135 total “rescues” and another 9,400 evacuated from medical facilities but this covered the entire Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Louisiana and not the actual number of people air-lifted to safety in New Orleans.

More people were rescued by the Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries Service than by the Coast Guard. The WL&F Service chalked up 20,000 rescues using their own boats and volunteers from the “Cajun Navy,” people from around the region who saw what was happening and immediately hitched up shallow draft fishing and hunting boats and headed to the scene unbidden. More were hoisted to safety by National Guard choppers from Louisiana and other states, or taken away in boats from other agencies like the Lafayette, La. office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

With the exception of the Coast Guard, acting in its normal capacity under extraordinary circumstances, Bush has it flatly wrong. Worse, tries to hide behind behind the brave efforts of the Coast Guard and other non-Federal rescuers the inadequacy of the response of FEMA on his watch. While Bush cut birthday cake with Sen. John McCain and cut brush on his ranch, others stepped in where the lead federal agency–FEMA–failed.

Outside of search-and-rescue, the coordinated Federal response was tardy. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared an emergency and requested Federal assistance the prior week, but the first federal “aid” to reach 30,000 people trapped at the New Orleans Superdome and 25,000 more and the Morial Convention Center did not arrive until Thursday, in the form of National Guardsmen to “restore order”. It wasn’t until Lt. Gen. Russell Honore’ arrived on site on Thursday, Sept. 1 and famously told the Guardsmen at the Convention Center to lower their riffles that real relief efforts began.

At that time, FEMA’s leadership claims to have been unaware of the 25,000 people at the Convention Center even as they were shown repeatedly on national television. Food and water only began to arrive for almost 50,000 survivors in the downtown area on Friday, Sept. 2, four days after the storm. Even by the emergency plan standard of a 72 hour response endorsed by FEMA, it was already a day late. For those who were forced to wade or swim out of their homes with no supplies in hand (under the approved emergency plan, people “evacuating in place” were responsible for their own 72 hours supplies), it was late enough to leave the street in front of the Convention Center littered with the dead.

Anyone who watched closely is painfully aware how slow and disorganized the response to the Federal flood was, at every level of government. The outgoing President has demonstrated once again he is the least lucid chief executive since George III of England.

There’s more HERE, and links to other NOLA bloggers’ take on the comments by the coward in chief.

More later.

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Rick Warren's Africa - AIDS Problem

From Max Blumenthal:

Team Obama likes to cite Warren’s work on AIDS in Africa to combat criticism about the controversial pastor. But how does burning condoms in the name of Jesus save lives?

Once hailed by Time magazine as “America’s Pastor,” California mega-church leader and best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren now finds himself on the defensive. President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer has generated intense scrutiny of the pastor’s beliefs on social issues, from his vocal support for Prop 8, a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage in California, to his comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia, incest and bestiality. Many of Obama’s supporters have demanded that he withdraw the invitation.

Warren’s defense against charges of intolerance ultimately depends upon his ace card: his heavily publicized crusade against AIDS in Africa. Obama senior advisor David Axelrod cited Warren’s work in Africa as one of “the things on which [Obama and Warren] agree” on the December 28 episode of Meet the Press. Warren may be opposed to gay rights and abortion, the thinking goes, but he tells evangelicals it is their God-given duty to battle one of the greatest pandemics in history. What could be wrong with that?

But since the Warren inauguration controversy erupted, the nature of work against AIDS in Africa has gone unexamined. Warren has not been particularly forthcoming to those who have attempted to look into it. His website contains scant information about the results of his program. However, an investigation into Warren’s involvement in Africa reveals a web of alliances with right-wing clergymen who have sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education. More disturbingly, Warren’s allies have rolled back key elements of one of the continent’s most successful initiative, the so-called ABC program in Uganda. Stephen Lewis, the United Nations’ special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told the New York Times their activism is “resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred.”

Warren’s man in Uganda is a charismatic pastor named Martin Ssempa. The head of the Makerere Community Church, a rapidly growing congregation, Ssempe enjoys close ties to his country’s First Lady, Janet Museveni, and is a favorite of the Bush White House. In the capitol of Kampala, Ssempa is known for his boisterous crusading. Ssempa’s stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.

Dr. Helen Epstein, a public health consultant who authored the book, The Invisible Cure: Why We’re Losing The Fight Against AIDS In Africa, met Ssempa in 2005. Epstein told me the preacher seemed gripped by paranoia, warning her of a secret witches coven that met under Lake Victoria. “Ssempa also spoke to me for a very long time about his fear of homosexual men and women,” Epstein said. “He seemed very personally terrified by their presence.”

(snip)

Joining Ssempa at Warren’s church were two key Bush administration officials who controlled the purse strings of the president’s newly minted $15 billion anti-AIDS initiative in Africa, PEPFAR. Ugandan first lady Janet Museveni also appeared through a videotaped address to tout the success of her country’s numerous church-based abstinence programs.

These Bush officials—Randall Tobias, the Department of State’s Global AIDS coordinator, and Claude Allen, the White House’s chief domestic policy advisor—are closely linked to the Christian right. Tobias, the so-called “global AIDS czar,” declared in 2004 that condoms “really have not been very effective," and crusaded against prostitution, until he resigned in 2007 when he was exposed as a regular client of the D.C. Madam’s escort service. Allen, once an aide to the late Senator Jesse Helms, resigned in 2006 after he was arrested for felony thefts from retail stores.

The piece is long but, you know, worth the read. HERE.

Then there's the Alternative Invocation Option.

More later.

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