PunditGuy

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has suspended the return of evacuees to the city, citing the threat from strengthening Tropical Storm Rita.

Under pressure from President Bush and other top federal officials, the mayor Monday suspended the reopening of large portions of the city over the next few days because of the threat of a new round of flooding from a tropical storm.

“I am concerned about this hurricane getting in the gulf. … If we are off, I’d rather err on the side of conservatism to make sure we have everyone out,” Mayor Ray Nagin said.

The announcement came after repeated warnings from top federal officials — and the president himself — that the city was unsafe.

The mayor said his original plan was never intended to put people at risk.

“Now we have conditions that have changed. We have another hurricane that is approaching us,” he said. He warned that the city’s pumping system was not running at full capacity and that its levee system is still in a “very weak position.”

Whether it’s pressure from Bush or another hurricane threat, it is too soon to let tens of thousands of people back in this city when conditions remain as fragile as they are.

Nagin is doing the right thing.

Previously: Nagin has “Larry Vaughn” Syndrome

Others: WaPo |

Tipped by a friend who found this over at Marginal Revolution – When it comes to looking after their elderly population, Danish nursing homes have concluded that weekly BINGO games, shuffleboard, and sponge baths just don’t cut it anymore.

Caregivers in Copenhagen have found that pornography and prostitutes have a greater calming effect on their elderly patients than traditional medical treatment such as drug therapy.

Staff at the Thorupgaarden nursing home in the Danish capital have been broadcasting pornography on the building’s internal videochannel every Saturday night for several years. And if videos and dirty magazines don’t relieve the tension, residents can ask the staff to order a prostitute for them.

The caregivers have told Danish media that pornography is healthier, cheaper and easier to use than medicine, Lars Elmsted Petersen, a spokesman for the Danish seniors’ lobby group Aeldresagen, said.

Earlier this year, the Danish government released a report stating that sexuality is an integral part of life for the elderly and the disabled. It recommended that caregivers help elderly residents satisfy their sexual needs.

I’ve got a multitude of crass comments running through my head, but I…can’t…do it.

Must. Resist. Urge.

Or has Hillary barked out an order for him to fulfill because she can’t get her message out?

It’s hard to know why Bill Clinton suddenly appeared on a Sunday news program to deliver a sharply partisan lashing of George W. Bush and his administration. I don’t think it was caused by low blood sugar.

Bill’s verbal fire was more likely started by two possible ignitors. He is either suffering from a certain lack of media (‘world’) attention, or Hillary is getting nervous about her recent rejection by Democratic colleagues. She’s been known to do this before, and after all, Bill had his moment – it’s now time for Hillary’s closeup. In many ways, she needs the same kind of attention Bill requires, but I’ll tackle that subject another time (I’m not ready or motivated to write the ‘Hillary is a power hungry system manipulator’ meme at this moment).

Whenever former president Bill Clinton perceives that he isn’t being paid attention to, or given the credit he believes he deserves, or is the center of the universe, he acts out. We’ve seen this time and time again. He’ll make an appearance on a late night television program, like David Letterman, to project his ‘cool-ness’ factor. He’ll attend and speak at a policywonk conference somewhere and just ‘accidently’ walk over to the cameras to make a simple comment about anything asked by a reporter. He’ll seek out front page news by doing an interview with a well known newspaper reporter. Or, as he did yesterday, he’ll ask himself onto a TV show like ABC’s ‘This Week’ so he can deliver a multifaceted rant on a variety of hot button topics.

Whatever the reason, he has an insatiable hunger to be recognized, heard from, quoted, seen, and worshipped by the human race. If that’s not happening in some way, he’ll make it happen. And he doesn’t need to expend a lot of energy either. He knows better than anyone that the media will stop in their tracks to create news for him.

That’s what yesterday was all about. And like all the times before, it worked. Bill Clinton is a top story today. His face is being flashed across TV screens today, and his words are being reprinted in newspapers throughout the world. The monster has been fed.

Like the heroin addict with no cost access to pure china white, Bill will bask in the warmth of the media glory he’s created for himself, until the lights dim. Then he’ll do it again, and again, and again.

Others: PoliPundit |  Blogs for Bush | The Moderate Voice | Riehl World View | Bill Clinton is Shameless, The Series |

You can’t help but think that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is a little anxious to ring the cash registers of his city. It seems unfathomable that a couple of weeks after he himself predicted tens of thousands of dead and buildings submerged under water for months, Nagin would be pushing for a return of residents to the evacuated city. Talk about dangling a big carrot in front of their noses. The Big Easy isn’t quite so easy yet. Danger continues to exist.

It seems as though Ray Nagin is stricken with a malady I like to call “Larry Vaughn” syndrome.

Remember the movie Jaws? Larry Vaughn was the major of Amity, the small island community plagued by a big ol’ mutha of a shark. In the movie Mayor Vaughn knew danger existed. He knew if he let people back on the beaches to swim there would be a pretty good chance that they’d be bitten by that shark. But in the end, that didn’t matter. What did matter was opening Amity for business. Tourist dollars. Money. All he had to do was be sure the crowds showed up. Then, the business people would be happy. After all, “Amity means Friendship”.

Does Ray Nagin have a little Larry Vaughn in him? Is he putting the interests of overly excited French Quarter businesses ahead of the safety of visiting tourists and residents who live in New Orleans?

If Nagin is Vaughn, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen is Police Chief Martin Brody.

A weakened levee system and a lack of drinkable tap water will make it “extremely problematic” to follow the New Orleans mayor’s timeline for allowing residents to return to the evacuated city, the head of the federal disaster relief effort said Saturday.

Vice Adm. Thad Allen said federal officials have worked with Mayor Ray Nagin and support his vision for repopulating the city, but he called Nagin’s idea to return up to 180,000 people to New Orleans in the next week both “extremely ambitious” and “extremely problematic.”

Allen called on the mayor to be “mindful of the risks” and said he would inform Nagin of his concerns at a meeting set for Monday.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the newly patched levees, in their current state, would probably not protect the city from the storm surge of a category 3 hurricane. And as we already know, hurricane season isn’t over yet. Danger still exists.

The shark is still in the water.

Keep your head Ray. Listen to Thad. Wait.

In the end, Amity’s beaches closed and remained that way until the risk was eliminated. It’s a good example and a lesson Nagin should pay heed to. Don’t try to be the hero for a few businesses who happen to have a dry floor, plumbing that works, and a couple of kegs of beer on ice. The short term economic gain isn’t worth the potential hazards that still exist.

Others: New Orleans Mayor Defends Return Plan | Business Owners Trickle Back In | Bush Questions Reopening of New Orleans |

UPDATE: Nagin suspends the return of evacuees

A year ago, Floridians wouldn’t have batted an eye at Rita.

But Hurricane Katrina changed everything.

Tourists were told to evacuate the lower Florida Keys on Sunday as a new tropical depression strengthened over the Bahamas and moved toward the vulnerable, low-lying island chain. A hurricane watch was posted for the entire Florida Keys.

“It does look like that there is the potential for it to become a hurricane, near or just before it reaches the Florida Keys,” said Daniel Brown, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center.

The watch means that hurricane conditions with sustained wind of at least 74 mph are possible by late Monday, according to the Miami-based hurricane center. If its sustained wind speed climbs to 39 mph, the depression would be named Tropical Storm Rita, the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Once it enters the gulf, that’s when it’s time to really pay attention.

Others: Rita Headed for the Florida Keys |

Gerhard Schroeder is pulling an ‘Al Gore’, or a ‘John Kerry’; they both work in this case. Exit polls say he’s out, but he’s refusing to concede defeat to Angela Merkel.

Exit polls showed conservative challenger Angela Merkel’s party leading in German parliamentary elections Sunday but falling short of the majority she needed to form a center-right coalition as the nation’s first female chancellor.

Gerhard Schroeder, written off as a lame duck a few weeks ago, finished stronger than expected and refused to concede defeat, saying he could still theoretically remain in power if talks with other parties were successful.

No one “theoretically” remains in power.

Let’s face it, losing stinks. No one wants to be the loser. Moreover, it’s hard to be a gracious loser. You’ve got to stand up in front of supporters who perhaps hate your opponent more than you do. Still, you smile, and in the case of Gerhard, you clasp your hands and raise them above your head in a victory pose. Problem is, the look on your face says it all. You’ve lost.

  

They know it. Angela knows it. Your party knows it.

You can take a bit of solace in the fact that Angela won’t have quite the power she had hoped to have.

Had Merkel reached a majority with the Free Democrats, they would have formed a center-right government to push through her proposals to get the economy going and cut unemployment by making it easier for small firms to fire people, cutting payroll taxes and giving companies more flexibility to opt out of one-size-fits-all regional wage agreements.

If she does become chancellor, she likely will have to water down her program as she partners with a party to her left in order to hold 50 percent of the seats in parliament. Merkel’s party already controls the upper house of parliament.

Analyst suggest that a ‘grand coalition’ between Angela’s party and Schroeder’s party could be formed. But we all know that is wishful thinking. Partisanship is partisanship – here or across the Atlantic in Germany. Every time a decision has to be made a fight will break out.

Not good for either party, and more importantly, not good for the German people. You’ve had control of the ball for awhile Gerhard. Now it’s time to hand it to Angela.

Gooden tag.

Others: David Medienkritik | Schroeder Refuses to Concede | No clear winner after German vote | Germany Weighs Next Move |

Dan Riehl is covering a lot of stuff. Go, read and keep scrolling.

You knew it had to happen, and it has.

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.