Year: 2005

Why is it that the Los Angeles times has just figured this out? Local media has been reporting the story for months.

March 31, 2005 (WAFB TV)
Louisiana officials are stumped. Do officials in our Office of Homeland Security owe the federal government more than 30 million dollars? The feds sent the bill Wednesday for money paid out in the form of grants for a federal flood buyout program. Three former Louisiana Homeland Security employees who oversaw the program are currently under federal indictment.

April 1, 2005 (WAFB TV)
Governor Kathleen Blanco says if the state is forced to pay back the federal government more than 30 million dollars, the state’s children and sick will suffer. This week, FEMA officials sent a letter demanding back 30.4 million dollars back in misspent flood buyout money.

Governor Blanco is very concerned about that FEMA demand letter. She says the state simply does not have that kind of money just laying around. Blanco says a 30 million dollar hit to the state budget would be devastating.

“The regretful thing is if we have to come up with 30 million dollars, it takes away from children, it takes away from the sick… you know, very, very important initiatives.”

According to FEMA, the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security which is the overseeing agency misspent the money over a five-year period. The money is for buying out homes that habitually flood.

U.S. Department of Justice
A federal grand jury has returned two separate indictments charging three members of the State Military Department with offenses related to the obstruction of an audit of the use of federal funds for flood mitigation activities throughout Louisiana, United States Attorney Donald W. Washington announced today.

Two of the individuals charged, MICHAEL C. APPE, 51, of Mandeville, Louisiana, and MICHAEL L. BROWN, 61, of St. Francisville, Louisiana, are senior employees of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Both APPE and BROWN are charged with conspiracy to obstruct a federal audit; BROWN is additionally charged with making a false statement.

Donna Brazile, who has worked tirelessly to prevent George W. Bush from being elected in 2000 and 2004, now endorses his plan for gulf region restoration.

“On Thursday night President Bush spoke to the nation from my city. I am not a Republican. I did not vote for George W. Bush — in fact, I worked pretty hard against him in 2000 and 2004. But on Thursday night, after watching him speak from the heart, I could not have been prouder of the president and the plan he outlined to empower those who lost everything and to rebuild the Gulf Coast.”

But wait, she gets even more mushy:

“I know, maybe better than anyone, that there are times when it seems that our nation is too divided ever to heal. There are times when we feel so different from each other that we can hardly believe that we are all part of the same family. But we are one nation. We are a family. And this is what we do. When the president asked us to pitch in Thursday night, he wasn’t really asking us to do anything spectacular. He was asking us to be Americans, and to do what Americans always do.”

“Mr. President, I am ready for duty. I am ready to stir those old pots again. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.”

Did I wake up in a different country? This is the same Donna Brazile who managed Al Gore’s campaign right? The same Donna B. who used to spread love like this?

“Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. They have no love and no joy. They’d rather take pictures with black children than feed them.”

Didn’t she also tell the Washington Post back in 2000 that she joined the Gore campaign to “make sure the election did not fall into the hands of white boys”?

And isn’t she the one who accused Pappy (Bush 41) of sleeping around?

She had called Vice president George Bush, the Republican candidate at the time, racist, and accused him of having had an affair, with no evidence to back it up. She said publicly, in response to a rumor floated by the Democrats, that Bush had once had an affair, which he denied. “Mr. Bush owes it to the American people to fess up,” she stated, adding that “The American people have every right to know if Barbara Bush will share that bed with him in the White House.” She also accused Mr. Bush of using “every little code word and symbol,” and for criticizing Dukakis for supporting a furlough program that enabled Willie Horton, a black convicted killer, to flee to Maryland where he was arrested for taking a couple prisoner and raping the woman.

So, where did the old Donna go? Is this new love for George W. Bush temporary or a sign that Brazile has crossed the aisle? Yeah, I know the answer.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about her family.

Brazile’s words are clearly led by her vulnerable emotions of the moment. New Orleans is her town. Her family was affected by the hurricane. Some of them had to evacuate to Houston. Her 46-year-old sister Sheila was missing and was rescued only after Donna appeared on CNN begging for someone to go find her. She’s had a lot happen to her over the past few weeks.

We’ll relish this moment for sure. But it’ll be short lived. I’m sure the old “pot stirrer” will be back, involved in the next big democratic campaign throwing out quotes more like the ones she’s known for. When things get nasty again, and they will, I hope Donna the “democratic party strategist” looks back to remember this moment when she locked arms (not horns) with a Republican president as an American ready to report for duty.

Bush announced today that there will be no increase in taxes to pay for gulf coast region restoration.

“You bet it will cost money, but I’m confident we can handle it,” he said.

“It’s going to cost whatever it’s going to cost, and we’re going to be wise about the money we spend,” Bush said a day after laying out an expensive plan for rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast without spelling out how he would pay for it.

George, remember what your Dad did? One word. Don’t.

Let’s have a budget cuttin party instead! Over five years, we can cut our way to affording the costs of Katrina. Hey, if you had to trim your own personal costs and that of your family, what would you do? Increase spending? No way. You’d cut the extras! No more Showtime. No more HBO. Stop drinking $4 lattes…etc., etc., etc. It’s what practical minded people do.

So, let’s get practical. There’s lots of programs where funding can be decreased dramatically or cut altogether.

— Cut funding for public broadcasting. I guarantee that if the decision was to close down or go private, PBS and NPR would go private and survive on corporate sponsorships. National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities – gone. With that we’ve saved nearly $6 billion dollars over 5 years.

— How about we stop contributing to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development? There’s almost $7 billion over 5 years.

— Return to the Treasury any foreign economic assistance funds not expended within three years of obligation. Bang – $5 billion savings over 5 years.

— Repeal the provision of the 2002 Farm Bill that pays farmers to grow more corn for subsidized ethanol production. Whoosh – $20 billion saved over 5 years.

— Eliminating the peanut and sugar subsidy – $1.5 billion over 5 years.

— End federal unemployment subsidies for individuals with taxable incomes over $120,000. $1.6 billion over 5 years.

— Reduce federal aid for mass transit. We can save $49 billion dollars over 5 years.

Kill Superfund. $3.2 billion dollars over 5 years.

— Limit the amounts obligated or expended for travel expenses for officers and employees of the federal government. $2.8 billion over 5 years.

— Cut overhead costs in the executive branch. $5.2 billion over 5 years.

— Stop hiring consultants and the tax payers can save $24.5 billion over 5 years!

— AND ELIMINATE PORK-BARREL SPENDING – THAT’S $136 BILLION DOLLARS over 5 years.

And there’s even more that can be reduced or cut. Let the liberals choose between helping rebuild New Orleans and cutting government waste. Who’s got the guts? Who’s going to put political ambitions aside to help rebuild the gulf coast?

Who?

OK, here’s the quote:

“George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don’t fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.”

(Yep, you read that right. “Pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans…” heh)

Who’s the lefty? Give up?

Cindy Sheehan

While I was caught up in the words and meaning of Bush’s speech last night, others were more focused on the ‘set’. Apparently, a lot went into the stage setup for the president’s presentation. Lighting, color coordination, etc. Here’s what some had to say:

Dan Froomkin, WaPo columnist –

From Bush’s lonely walk to the podium, to the cathedral over his shoulder lit up like Disneyland, to his wooden delivery before an audience of none, there was something particularly off key about all the White House stagecraft imported into the ghostly center of a still half-drowned town.

The New York Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller, acting as pool reporter, informed colleagues yesterday that all the lights and generators needed to create the desired effect were flown in by the White House.

Reporters were not allowed out of their vans while the president spoke, but they demanded a quick tour of the area beforehand.

“Bobby DeServi and Scott Sforza were on hand as we drove up about 8 p.m. or so EDT handling last-minute details of the stagecraft,” Bumiller wrote. DeServi is the White House’s chief lighting designer; Sforza is in charge of visuals.

“Bush will be lit with warm tungsten lighting, but the statue [of Andrew Jackson] and cathedral will be illuminated with much brighter, brighter lights . . . like the candlepower that DeServi and Sforza used on Sept. 11, 2002, to light up the Statue of Liberty for Bush’s speech in New York Harbor,” she wrote.

“Here’s a quote from DeServi on the lit up cathedral: ‘Oh, it’s heated up. It’s going to print loud.’ “

Overheard – Karl Rove on a cell phone…

“Hi, This is Karl Rove calling for Harry and Linda Bloodworth Thomasson.”

Hmm…

Did George W. Bush give a speech tonight? It sure looked like him. That guy’s voice in the video I downloaded and watched sure sounded like him.

Who stole my president?

Since 9/11, I’ve become rather confident in my support of George W. Bush. Watching him stand on that mountain of rubble at ground zero with his arm around that fire fighter made me proud to be an American. Hearing his words every time he said we were gonna hunt down the terrorists; “Smoke ’em outta their holes” and all that. And most things since then…including the choice to go to Iraq, and his will to stay there and finish the job. I’ve been with him all the way.

And then Katrina had to come in and suck all the oxygen out of the air.

Before the hurricane, Bush was doing a pretty good job staying ‘on message’. But since August 29th, it’s been one mess after another. I don’t blame Bush directly for any of the crap that went wrong in the relief effort. I do blame some of the people who are around him, and I think George W. could have done a better job in a few instances. FEMA director Michael Brown was a lame-o, and it’s too bad it took Katrina to reveal that to the world. The president should have known Brown was unqualified to do the job. But ever since Bush showed up on the gulf coast September 2nd, I feel like he’s been playing to a certain group of people, and not all Americans.

I did blog the other day about Bush’s “I take responsibility” talk, and I made an attempt at giving him the benefit of the doubt. I still (mostly) believe in what I wrote. But I felt different after I listened to the words in his speech tonight.

Presidents who give away other peoples money have always given me a bad taste in my mouth. And tonight, while watching George W. Bush, that taste showed up.

Five minutes into the telecast, I expected Bush to pull a wad of bills out of his pocket and start running around laughing hysterically, handing the cash to anyone and everyone. I couldn’t hear his words anymore. All I could see was his hand reaching into my wallet. It’s like he drove me to my bank, walked me up to the ATM machine, put my debit card in and started punching in the pin number. Really! I’m thinking…”Hey, how does he know my pin number?” And then he starts emptying my checking AND savings account while I stand there dumbfounded.

Once he started handing out the candy…it seemed as though he just couldn’t stop. The costs for rebuilding could reach $200 billion or beyond. And this is $200 billion ABOVE AND BEYOND the cost of the war.

I don’t begrudge the federal government helping in some ways. Part of being a citizen of the United States means that you help your fellow man. Bush was right when he said this:

“We have also witnessed the kind of desperation no citizen of this great and generous Nation should ever have to know – fellow Americans calling out for food and water … vulnerable people left at the mercy of criminals who had no mercy … and the bodies of the dead lying uncovered and untended in the street.”

That’s why I felt obligated to give a substantial amount of money (for my household) to Katrina relief efforts. Watching my fellow Americans suffer on the streets of New Orleans was heartbreaking. I don’t want to ever see anything like that again.

But I think Bush went overboard in his relief proposals, and I’m worried because the federal government doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to making sure our tax dollars end up where they’re needed most. All I can see are a bunch of smiling members of Congress looking on as Bush signs the big legislation check. You’ll think they’re smiling because they’re able to help victims of Katrina, but they’re really smiling because the bill being signed also contains a healthy dose of pork for unnecessary programs in their home state.

In the long run, will this huge federal relief package really help improve the lives of people, or will it just extend a life of poverty? Most of the welfare recipients I’ve known have been more than happy to stay welfare recipients. With this speech tonight, Bush has all but guaranteed the free-loaders another decade of dependence on the teat of America. 

Congress already approved $62 billion dollars — mostly to cover costs already incurred. Housing vouchers: $3.5 billion. Special tax cuts: $5 billion. And it doesn’t stop there.

Where is the sanity; the fiscal sanity which is critical at this moment? It’s obvious we’re not going to get it from a president who has suddenly gone money crazy. Ahem, WE’RE STILL FIGHTING A WAR that’s not going to end tomorrow. Another Pentagon supplement is right around the corner.

Shouldn’t some of the financial responsibility be with the people of Louisiana? I gave the amount of money I could give to the charity I trusted the most. Now, I’m being forced to give more money to a spending addicted federal government. 

I hate asking this question, but does Bush really know what he’s getting into? This bill will take generations to pay off if someone doesn’t splash some cold water on this man and the Congress. I fear that there has never been a time where there is more total spending and more wasteful spending in Washington than we have today. If my president won’t limit the amount of tax dollars bleeding out of my hard earned paycheck, who will?

And before you accuse me of the big switch…forget it. I don’t believe for a second that a Democrat could behave any differently than Bush at this moment. The disease isn’t partisan.

Katrina will end up breaking more than physical things. Our governments fix for Katrina will break the bank for my kids, and their kids, and their kids’ kids.

And I’m worried about that. You should be worried too.

UPDATE: Another Read My Lips moment?

I was out of the house and couldn’t watch Bush’s speech. Before I read about it, read about what the media thought of it, read about what people blogged about it, and read the comments on the blogs from people who wrote about it, I need to watch it.

I downloaded a video of the speech from the Political Teen.

Thoughts and comments on the way.

UPDATE: Yikes.

77 year-old song-writer adds his two bits to the “blame the president for Katrina” pile.

Singer/song-writer BURT BACHARACH has attacked US President GEORGE W BUSH for his handling of the Hurricane Katrina rescue operation.

The WALK ON BY star insists America had adequate warning of the horrific disaster which rocked Louisiana and left New Orleans submerged, and yet Bush continued to fund the war against terror instead of protecting his people.

Bacharach, 77, recalls reading newspaper articles months before the hurricane, warning “that (New Orleans) would be engulfed, that people would drown, that bodies would be floating down the road.

“Instead of pushing the funding up, they took most of it away to fight this stupid war, and that’s unforgivable.

“I think Bush is just about the poorest president we’ve ever had. You’d have to go back before I was born to find a worse one.”

Wow, that’s front page news. And for goodness’ sake, Dionne Warwick made “Walk On By” famous. No one cares about the writer of the song. She sang it. She’s the star, OK?

I can hear the staffers at the White House right now…

STAFFER: “Uh, Mr. President? As you know, lots of famous people have made statements about the lack of an expedient response to Hurricane Katrina. Politicians too, from the right and left side of the isle. Well, we thought you might want to know about the latest statement. It’s serious sir. Please, you might want to sit down. Mr. President, Burt Bacharach has gone public with his thoughts.”

BUSH: “Oh no, not Burt! If I’ve lost Bacharach, I’ve lost the country.”

PFFT!

That’s what it cost me to fill up my Toyota Pickup this morning. It used to be that I could barely fit $13 worth of gas in the tank. Not anymore. Today? $32. Ouch.

So, I get to looking at what this guy is doing and I’m ready to buy a car with his engine NOW.

Yep, it’s what you’re thinking. Vegetable oil. The car runs on VEGETABLE OIL! He’s got a freakin bottle of Wesson and he’s filling his tank up. Cool!

Oh, wait a minute, that’s not Wesson…the kind you need costs $3.50 per gallon.

What kind of stupid idiot is this guy? What a dumb idea! I get to fill my tank up with vegetable oil so the interior of my car smells like the theatre lobby at the cinemaplex AND I get to pay more per gallon than I do at my local Shell station?

Nevermind. Go back to your lives, citizens.

That’s what Michael Brown, the former FEMA director told his boss Michael Chertoff, on August 29th as the severity of Katrina became clear. According to Brown, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco and her staff were proving incapable of organizing a coherent state effort and that his field officers in the city were reporting an “out of control” situation.

“I can’t get a unified command established.”

One day later, Brown asked the White House to take control of the response effort.

He said he felt the subsequent appointment of Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré of the Army as the Pentagon’s commander of active-duty forces began to turn the situation around.

In his first interview since being fired as FEMA director, Brown focused most of his criticism at Blanco.

Governor Blanco said Wednesday that she took responsibility for failures and missteps in the immediate response to the hurricane and pledged a united effort to rebuild areas ravaged by the storm, adding, “at the state level, we must take a careful look at what went wrong and make sure it never happens again.” A spokesman for Ms. Blanco denied Mr. Brown’s description of disarray in Louisiana’s emergency response operation. “That is just totally inaccurate,” said Bob Mann, the governor’s communications director. “Everything that Mr. Brown needed in terms of resources or information from the state, he had those available to him.”

As Mr. Brown recounted it, the weekend before New Orleans’s levees burst, FEMA sent an emergency response team of 10 or 20 people to Louisiana to review evacuation plans with local officials.

By Saturday afternoon, many residents were leaving. But as the hurricane approached early on Sunday, Mr. Brown said he grew so frustrated with the failure of local authorities to make the evacuation mandatory that he asked Mr. Bush for help.

“Would you please call the mayor and tell him to ask people to evacuate?” Mr. Brown said he asked Mr. Bush in a phone call.

“Mike, you want me to call the mayor?” the president responded in surprise, Mr. Brown said. Moments later, apparently on his own, the mayor, C. Ray Nagin, held a news conference to announce a mandatory evacuation, but it was too late, Mr. Brown said. Plans said it would take at least 72 hours to get everyone out.

He said, she said, they said, he said again, she said again…

Given what we know about Mike Brown and his ability to fabricate, I have to suspect that a lot of this is about covering himself from the flak that will eventually fly.

There’s going to be a whole lot of this finger pointing/blame stuff going on now that the recovery effort is winding down and rebuilding is ramping up. My hope is that a commission is established to investigate what when wrong and when it went wrong. The group should not include any active or inactive politicians though. The investigation would be a repeat of the 9/11 Commission findings, which ended up tainted by partisan politics. A Katrina Commission should include retired military generals who won’t have any reason to look at the events through political eyeglasses.

We’ll see.