He's STILL doing a heck of a job!

If you just came out of a 5 year coma and are wondering why things are so screwed up, you only need listen to a few minutes of Brownie's testimony to a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to supposedly investigate the unmitigated disaster that New Orleans suffered at the incompetent hands of this idiot. Why do we need a 9-11 type commission when we have these Republican apologists and cover up specialists who are SO dedicated to getting all the facts out there. Amazingly, Michael Brown is STILL on FEMA's payroll as a "consultant". WHAT do you have do to get fired from this administration?! Brownie had the incredible gall to blame the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans, who just by coincidence are Democrats, for all the problems. Apparently, the fact that Brown, like most idealogues installed by this administration of criminals and incompetents, had no experience in the area he was supposed to be running and could not even successfully run horsie shows was not a factor. Democrats mostly shunned this sham of a hearing but the one Democrat who appeared told Brown, "I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans." He should have stolen a quote from the McCarthy Army hearings and simply asked him, "Have you no shame, Mr Brown, have you no sense of shame?"

Kerry Speechwriters a Bit Slow

Why the hell didn't John Kerry give this speech LAST year? If he had given hard hitting type speeches like this that pointed out the hypocricies, corruption, and incompetence of Bush and the crowd that controls him, we wouldn't be in the messes we are today. Kerry would have had more than enough votes counted in Ohio and elsewhere so that any shennanigins by Diebolt wouldn't have mattered.

"Being There"

Remember that great movie about how Chauncey Gardiner, that simple minded fellow who through a hilarious series of events found himself next in line to be President of the United States? Watch it again and you begin to get an idea how the federal government, with all the resources at its command, could have been so incompetent in dealing with the disaster on the gulf coast. We have known for a while now that FEMA has been used as a Chicago-style patronage dumping ground for presidential buddies, bozos and Florida officials who helped "count" the votes in 2000. The fact that "Brownie" didn't bother to ask for aid until five hours after the hurricane passed is about right for an administration led by a dolt who sat there doing nothing for seven agonizing minutes after he was told that America was under attack on 9-11. We now find out from the latest Newsweek that the sycophants and yes-men that Cheney has chosen to baby-sit Bush are so afraid of giving him bad news that they fight about who will have to do it. When they finally get around to it, they then have to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to him what the problem is. Remember this is the guy who proudly stated that he doesn't read newspapers (this explains how he could say "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." when there had only been a nine part Times-Picayune series on just that exact scenario). Now we find out that outside of a little ESPN, this Chauncey doesn't even watch TV news. Who doesn't switch on CNN when there is a national disaster? OK, I can understand his reluctance to watch CNN, but couldn't someone have turned on FOX news for him. In between their reading of press releases written by the RNC, they actually report on some news. Incredibly, an aide had to create a tape of news clips from TV reports so Chauncey could watch it during his flight to the gulf coast last Thursday. Could it be that he was petulantly ignoring the hurricane because it caused him to miss the last two days of his five week vacation or could he (or ANYONE) be that clueless?

Cheney Back, Vacation Resumes

Now that Dick Cheney have finished his own long summer vacation in Wyoming, he is speeding to the Gulf Coast only a week and and a half after the hurricane hit. This schedule is in keeping with "Brownie's" FEMA rapid response plan. The president of vice was also delayed as he had to be sure that the ink had dried on all no-bid contacts for Halliburton to take over the administration of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. There was a further delay as he had to help Halliburton open new off-shore accounts to accept direct deposit of federal Treasury funds for these new contracts, as the current off-shore accounts for Iraq war profiteering are all full. Now that his boots are on the ground, we can expect things to really happen. While en route to New Orleans (via stage coach, apparently) Cheney noted that the hurricane was in its "last throes." I'm sure the refugees will get a little misty eyed when they see his General McCarthy-like figure step out of a helicopter and roll up his sleeves and get to work ensuring that all reconstruction work is carefully doled out to the highest contributors of the 2004 campaign. The only refugees who may have felt better than these are the ones in the Houston Astrodome who were visited by that paragon of compassion, Barbara Bush, who pointed out how "those people" huddled on the floor of yet another sports stadium were "already poor" and so were so much better off. As they say, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.
With Cheney's steady hand in charge, Barb's boy is able to put in for the two days of vacation he was "cheated" out of by the inconvenience of this hurricane. He did try to get his whole five week vacation in as he waited for three days after Katrina hit before doing anything. But finally, he did agree to return to Washington two days early. Bush will probably ask Cheney if he can have a whole week off as several of his August days were "ruined by that dead kid's mother who was so rude as to camp a few miles from my ranch."

The Dumbing Down of the Presidency

Should anyone be surprised that thousands of poor people in Louisiana died while the federal govenment disaster bureaucracy that has been spreading around billions to Bush friendly corporations in the past five years did nothing? Should we surprised that FEMA is headed by a friend of a friend (ie. big money fundraiser) of W who was fired from his previous job of running an organization that held horsie shows? Who's responsible for this disgusting turn of events? Look in the mirror. If you are one of the millions of people who have tuned out politics and only voted, if at all, based on superficial soundbites you heard while watching your reality TV shows, then you are to blame. This sad state of affairs has been going on for at least 25 years. In 1980, a majority of voters decided it would be a good idea to vote for an actor...an actor! as President of the United States! Jimmy Carter was a good and decent man, someone who could get things done. Look what he has accomplished on his own since leaving office. How many houses have been built for the poor, how many countries have held fair elections, hell, how many books has he written? What Carter didn't have were spin doctors to make him look good. The Republicans had that area covered and the money from the venal corporate men who knew that once they had installed their operatives (Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al) in government that the gravy train would never end. Once these operatives were out of office they paid them off with corporate jobs they weren't qualified for but paid them millions so they would be ready to go back in and rape the federal treasury for their corporate masters when the next Republican puppet was installed. The evil right wing cabal provided the money and control of the national media to prop up Reagan and make him look competent while they plundered and stole. Twenty years later they ran a campaign aimed at potential voters who didn't like to pay attention to poilitices that pointed at the idiot son and effectively said, "How hard can it be to be President, Reagan did it." And so we end up with a so-called leader who is acknowledged to be (charitably) less than a genius. If voters are willing to settle for this, why shouldn't he appoint people with no qualifications to head disaster planning and relief? The lesson of Katrina is that elections matter...if you don't pay attention, people die needlessly.

Incompetence = High Crimes

Are we not at the point where the sheer incompetence of the President amounts to an impeachable offense? Does anyone have any confidence that we will survive the next crisis with this monumentally incompetent administration? Our only hope is for the Congress to take the lead and vote articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney and get them out of office as soon as possible. If lying about sex with a willing bimbo is a “high crime and misdemeanor”, then surely the inability to do ANYTHING to help people literally dying in the streets of New Orleans is grounds for being removed from office. But the republicans will say that Bush is doing all he can…after all he cut short his FIVE week vacation by a couple days. He returned to Washington and when the entire country was looking for leadership and hope, gave perhaps the worst speech in the history of the Presidency. And since that point has apparently done nothing. With all the resources of the federal government and the trillions of dollars at the disposal of the Homeland Security Department, to have done as little at this point is not only impeachable but is criminal. And incompetence is the best spin they can put on this. One can clearly argue that the main reason for this inaction is blatant racism. We all see that the faces on CNN in such desperate straits are those of poor, black people. Does ANYONE have any doubt that if these faces were white and wealthy (“I call you my base, heh, heh,heh”) that every Greyhound bus, plane as well as military transports would have instantly been deployed to the area to evacuate these people from this hell hole?
Those of us safely away from the devastation are hit with $4 a gallon gas by the rapacious oil companies. And what’s the response from this administration? Do they point out that the gas in the pipelines has nothing to do with any small reduction on future production and that instantly raising prices as they have is immorally taking advantage of a national tragedy? Of course not, what we get is a reaction that NOW, we can tap the strategic reserve to help Big Oil keep the gas flowing. In the minds of the Republicans, the strategic reserve is not to be used to safeguard the country but only to maximize oil companies’ profits. Congress should immediately repeal the energy bill passed last month that would give these crooks even more billions at the expense of the federal treasury.
The lesson for the rest of us is that it truly matters who we elect to lead us. Does anyone seriously believe that this suffering would be going on under a John Kerry administration? In the next election I work on, if a cynical non-voter tells me that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, (after I resist the urge to beat them senseless), I’ll have a two word response…New Orleans.