petsoncrack.org

As quickly as it began, the Army has apparently ended its probe into whether soldiers have been uploading photographs of dismembered Iraqis in exchange for free access to amateur porn. But it's going to be harder than that for the military to rid itself of its problems with pictures.

A federal judge in New York ruled today that the military must release photographs and videotapes showing incidents of alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib. The American Civil Liberties Union began seeking release of the photos in 2003, but the Pentagon has resisted, insisting that citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan might riot if they saw more pictures of what U.S. soldiers and contractors have done.

In his ruling today, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said his job is "not to defer to our worst fears, but to interpret and apply the law, in this case, the Freedom of Information Act, which advances values important to our society, transparency and accountability in government." He said that terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."

-- Tim Grieve

As Iraqis express outrage over the three-year sentence handed down yesterday to Abu Ghraib abuser Lynndie England, the U.S. Army is finally beginning to investigate another photo-related scandal from Iraq. As we reported last week, soldiers serving in the country are apparently trading pictures of the dismembered bodies of dead Iraqis for access to free amateur porn on the Web. The Army now says that it will look into the practice.

As the New York Times reports this morning, the Army investigation comes amid complaints from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Army spokesman Paul Boyce tells the Times that soldiers who posted images of dead Iraqis at Now That's Fucked Up may be guilty of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits conduct unbecoming an officer or enlisted soldier. Another Pentagon official told the Times that posting photos to the site could be viewed as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which provide that "the remains of persons who have died for reasons related to occupation ... shall be respected."

In an interview with the Annenberg School's Online Journalism Review, the proprietor of Now That's Fucked Up said that his site provides a service by offering its "porn community" unfiltered news from the war zone. "I enjoy seeing the photos from the soldiers themselves," said Chris Wilson, a Florida resident who hosts NTFU out of Amsterdam. "I see pictures taken by CNN and the mainstream media, and they all put their own slant on what they report and what they show. To me, this is from the soldier's slant. This is directly from them. They can take the digital cameras and take a picture and send it to me, and that's the most raw you can get it. I like to see it from their point of view, and I think it's newsworthy."

That's not the question for the Army, however. The question the Army must address is whether its soldiers ought to be contributing to such "news coverage" by submitting photos of charred arms, bloody legs and heads with faces blown off in exchange for naked pictures of other people's wives and girlfriends. The answer to that one ought to be obvious, but the Army seems to be dampening expectations for its investigation before it really begins. Pentagon officials tell the Times that it's going to be really hard to identify the soldiers involved in the photos -- despite the fact that some of the pictures depict U.S. troops posing with Iraqi remains -- and Boyce, the Army spokesman, tells the Associated Press that a preliminary inquiry has determined that felony charges against soldiers won't be possible.

-- Tim Grieve

California Wants to Serve a Warning With Fries

By MELANIE WARNER

Q-and-A: Starbucks CEO discusses social responsibility 

Afghan Drug Trade Funds Iraqi Insurgents

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 19, 2005

Insurgents and foreign terrorists in Iraq are being financed in part by the illicit drug trade originating in Afghanistan and passing through Iraq to Europe, congressional and defense sources say. 

Money from Afghan-produced heroin is being used by terror cells to buy weapons and equipment, and pay Iraqi citizens to conduct attacks on U.S. troops and to plant deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs), U.S. officials say. 

In a Sept. 8 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde wrote of an "emerging and dangerous growth of the illicit drug trade in Iraq, especially with heroin, now originating and pouring out of nearby Afghanistan."  "We can no longer ignore the threat to our national security from drugs in Iraq," the Illinois Republican said in the letter, obtained by The Washington Times. 

A senior military official, who spent more than a year in Baghdad's green zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy, said Iraqi intelligence has documented drug routes that cut through Iran, into Iraq and then to Europe via Turkey. The official said some of the heroin cash goes to insurgents.
    
Andre Hollis, the Pentagon's top counternarcotics official in President Bush's first term, said there is growing evidence that the insurgents are buying and selling heroin for profit.
    
"Iraq has become a transit route for drugs, which are sold in both Europe and in Iraq and are used to further destabilize Iraq by funding anti-coalition militant activities in Iraq," Mr. Hollis said in an interview.
    
He said Iran's hard-line Islamic regime, which opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq, is permitting heroin to cross its territory. "Iran doesn't want the drugs to stop in Iran," Mr. Hollis said. "They don't care if they end up in Europe or stay in Iraq." 
 
A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said he had no immediate comment on any heroin-terror link in Iraq. read more…

Nothing says "life is sacred" like an 18-wheeler rollin' down the highway, plastered with ginormous technicolor photos of aborted fetuses. Yee-haw! That's choice. Boing Boing reader lilly Cat says,

This anti-choice/abortion group produces semi trucks with VERY graphic, ten-foot-high images of dead fetuses on the sides. I live in Tallahassee, Florida, which is not a large city, and saw one of these trucks driving down the road this morning. I was appalled. Children see these images and I believe they are way too graphic for children to understand.

"I begged him to let me continue," said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. "People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.

"I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave."

FEMA issued a formal response to Perlmutter's story, acknowledging that the agency does not use voluntary physicians.

"We have a cadre of physicians of our own," FEMA spokesman Kim Pease said Thursday. "They are the National Disaster Medical Team. ... The voluntary doctor was not a credentialed FEMA physician and, thus, was subject to law enforcement rules in a disaster area." read more…

Gallo Boycott over! Buy the union label!

by National Farm Worker Ministry
Wednesday, Sep. 14, 2005 at 11:05 PM

Once again, our solidarity with farm workers has made a difference! Today the UFW announced that they had signed a 30-month contract with Gallo Vineyards, ending the 3 month Gallo boycott.

The new agreement covers all 310 Gallo farm workers in Sonoma County. Including a unilateral raise Gallo granted in April, the Sonoma workers will see their base hourly pay rise 9.5% to $8.98 by the end of the 30-month contract. Those workers hired through labor contractors will have the right to file grievances over discipline and seniority issues for the first time.

The UFW made the contract announcement at noon today on the steps of city hall in San Francisco, three months to the day from the boycott kick-off. NFWM’s California organizer, Ana Rizo, who emceed the event said, “There was great energy as farm workers waved flags and celebrated in solidarity with the supporters who helped in this victory.”

Major Gallo of Sonoma labels include Gallo of Sonoma, Mac Murray Ranch and Frei Brothers. For a list of other union label wines and produce, order our wallet-sized Shopping Guide (http://www.nfwm.org/nfwmresources/resources.shtml)

Further coverage in the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/business/careers/work/la-fi-gallo14sep14,1,7550742.story?coll=la-headlines-business-careers)

Thank you for your support!

Bush asks Condi if he can go to the bathroom

Hard to believe photos of President Bush writing a note asking Condoleeza Rice if it is possible for him to take a bathroom break during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.
Link and Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:36:45 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Judge: RadioShack managers entitled to OT pay

12:00 AM CDT on Friday, September 16, 2005

By MARIA HALKIAS / The Dallas Morning News

A federal judge in Chicago has ruled that several hundred RadioShack Corp. store managers are entitled to overtime pay in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2003 against the Fort Worth-based electronics chain.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer said that some of the 3,300-member class of current and former store managers should be paid overtime because they couldn't be classified as exempt employees under the court's standard.

"Those employees who do not meet the subordinate supervision requirement will be carved out of this class, and be entitled to summary judgment immediately," she wrote in the 21-page ruling last Friday. The rest of the class, which represents about half of 7,000 current and former RadioShack managers eligible to join, will proceed to trial in February.

An attorney at Touhy & Touhy in Chicago, the plaintiffs' law firm, said the number being carved out is "in the hundreds" and the amount due them is in the "millions."

"This case is far from over," said RadioShack spokeswoman Kay Jackson. "The courts have ruled in our favor in similar cases in the past."

The suit argues that store managers should be paid overtime for work beyond 40 hours because they spend more time on sales than on managerial duties.

In recent years, several similar cases have been filed against retailers and restaurant chains, and last year the U.S. Department of Labor issued new regulations.

RadioShack shares rose 79 cents Thursday to $26.43.

Remember Karl Rove and Valerie Plame? The Downing Street memos? Those stories have taken a back seat to Hurricane Katrina, and the GOP would like to keep it that way.

As Senate Republicans Wednesday killed a Democratic plan for an independent, 9/11 Commission-style investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, their colleagues in the House of Representatives were blocking Democratic efforts to learn more about the Bush administration's role in outing Valerie Plame and its efforts to "fix" prewar intelligence on Iraq.

On party-line votes Wednesday, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee and the House International Relations Committee blocked two resolutions that would have asked the Justice Department and the State Department to turn over documents related to the Plame leak. Republicans on the International Relations Committee also blocked two measures that would have sought documents related to prewar intelligence on Iraq.

-- T.G.

Black-only school proposed
Race-based classes touted for teens
New equity boss says it could work

Sep. 14, 2005. 08:39 AM

LOUISE BROWN
EDUCATION REPORTER

The new equity boss at Canada's largest school board says he's in favour of creating a black-focused school as a pilot project for black teens on the brink of dropping out.

He "absolutely" favours race-based statistics to track everything from student achievement and suspensions to the number of black teachers on staff.

Lloyd McKell, newly minted "executive officer of student and community equity" for the Toronto District School Board, says city schools don't do enough to make students of all backgrounds feel valued.

"I would like to see principals holding community meetings before there are complaints about suspensions. I'd like to see an adult at every door greeting each student with a handshake and a guarantee that they'll do everything in their power to make the student feel part of the family," said McKell, 60, whose new job is believed to make him the most powerful equity watchdog at an Ontario school board.

"We know there are whole groups of students who are not doing as well as others — and I understand many families' impatience about this. We need a clear, focused plan of action."

McKell says he believes a black-focused pilot school for students who are too alienated to remain in the system would be helpful, offering more black teachers, an Afro-centric curriculum and a more nurturing environment. read more…

The retailer is accused of failing to enforce its code of conduct, which mandates basic wage and working conditions, for its suppliers.

So poor, so black, so Blitzer

AP Poll: Bush Approval Hits Lowest Level Yet

POSTED: 6:12 am CDT September 10, 2005

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush's job approval has dipped below 40 percent for the first time in the AP-Ipsos poll, reflecting widespread doubts about his handling of gasoline prices and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Nearly four years after Bush's job approval soared into the 80s after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush was at 39 percent job approval in an AP-Ipsos poll taken this week. That's the lowest since the poll was started in December 2003.

The public's view of the nation's direction has grown increasingly negative as well, with nearly two-thirds now saying the country is heading down the wrong track.

"As a nation, we are pretty well stretched," said Barry Allen, a political independent from Reed City, Mich. "I approve of some of the things the president has done, and disapprove of others. Overall, I disapprove."

Allen said he liked some of Bush's economic steps during his first term but has been dissatisfied with the president's economic moves in his second term, his Iraq policy and his handling of gasoline prices.

Allen worries Hurricane Katrina has taken the wind out of an economy that was moving in the right direction.

With gasoline racing past $3 a gallon, Bush's standing on dealing with those prices may be one of his biggest problems -- seven in 10 said they disapprove.

And just over half in the poll, 52 percent, said they disapprove of the president's handling of the hurricane. read more…

Woman Witnesses Boyfriend's Suicide Live on Webcam

Updated Sep.1,2005 22:06 KST

A university student hanged himself in full view of his girlfriend abroad, to whom he had been chatting online via webcam link.

Suwon police said the 27-year-old student identified as Kim was found dead in his studio apartment in Suwon's Jangan-gu on Tuesday at around noon, having hanged himself with a leather belt from a gas pipe on the ceiling.

Kim's girlfriend, a 27-year-old identified as Yang who was studying in the U.K., informed a friend living in Seoul, who in turn called the police.

Police said Kim and Yang had been fighting while video chatting at around 10:00 a.m. when Kim suddenly got up and killed himself.

"Even when I was in Korea, my boyfriend normally used to say extreme and unsettling thing when we fought, like he was going to kill himself,” police quoted Yang as saying. “At first, I though he was just trying to scare me, but I was shocked when I saw his body suddenly drop."

DESPERATE doctors killed their own patients rather than let them die in agony in the face of Hurricane Katrina.

As law and order fell apart in New Orleans, medics were forced to carry out mercy killings on people they knew couldn't make it out alive.

William McQueen, who works for the local authority in Abita Springs, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and laid down in a dark place to die."

One New Orleans doctor is reported to have asked God for "mercy on her soul". She said: "I injected morphine into patients dying and in agony.

"This wasn't murder, this was compassion. They would have been dead within hours, if not days.'The doctor added: "We divided patients into three categories, those who were traumatised but medically fit to survive, those who needed urgent care and the dying.

"It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity."

Advertisement

Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana. read more…

Today’s Progress Report:

Bush's Poor Managerial Record

The fallout of Hurricane Katrina has served as yet another example of the poor leadership and faulty management Americans have witnessed from the Bush administration over the past five and a half years. According to a CBS News poll, 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of Katrina; only 38 percent approve. A Pew Research Center poll showed Bush's approval ratings slipping to the lowest levels of his presidency, with only 40 percent giving Bush a favorable evaluation. "The CBS survey found that almost half the country has little or no confidence in Bush's ability to handle a crisis." The Financial Times writes that a majority of Americans are questioning Bush's leadership skills, and with good reason. After years of witnessing repeated high-profile, mismanaged failures from the administration, the American public is seeing the Katrina catastrophe as just the latest example.

9/11 FAILURES SIMILAR TO THOSE IN KATRINA: The former chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Gov. Thomas Kean, said, "The same mistakes made on 9/11 were made over again, in some cases worse.... Those are system-wide failures that can be fixed and should have been fixed right away." Despite Bush's pledge that he would not "forget the lessons of 9/11, September 2001," Kean and former co-chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, cited parallels between Katrina and 9/11, such as emergency communications problems and a failure to target resources at communities facing the greatest risk. As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches this weekend, Kean warned that changes in leadership need to be made. "There was nobody in charge.... There have got to be clear lines of authority because if there isn't somebody in charge, it costs lives."

RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ HAS BEEN POORLY MANAGED: Yesterday, the top U.S. official in charge of auditing Iraq reconstruction funds said extra funding will be needed to finish key Iraqi reconstruction projects because the U.S. has spent more money than expected on security. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq occurred, U.S. Agency for International Development Director Andrew Natsios said only $1.7 billion would be needed to reconstruct Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz claimed that Iraqi oil money would be able to pay for the country's own reconstruction. The Bush administration then doled out high-dollar reconstruction contracts to close allies and lobbyists until the deteriorating security situation drove away many of the contractors. The Bush administration continued to bungle the reconstruction effort by not spending the appropriated funds at a time when the security situation was becoming more and more untenable. The latest announcement that more money will be needed is the fallout of a poorly managed effort by the administration to reconstruct Iraq.

PRESCRIPTION DRUG BILL ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BUSH'S POOR MANAGEMENT: After initially ensuring the nation that its prescription drug bill would cost $400 billion, the administration's 2006 budget revealed that the cost will actually be $913 billion. With no guarantee that seniors will be afforded competitive drug prices, the plan may end up benefiting drug companies more than those who need it most. U.S. News reported, "White House officials are nervous that the elderly will be disappointed when they focus on the new Medicare prescription drug plan that the president is promoting."

BUSH REMAINS OUT-OF-TOUCH WITH THE PRIORITIES OF MOST AMERICANS: While Bush has dedicated most of his second-term agenda to privatizing Social Security, that plan now appears to be "off the radar." And despite the negative impact that Katrina recovery efforts will have on the nation's deficit, the White House and its right-wing allies have demonstrated a steadfast commitment to keeping tax cuts on the table. The recently passed energy bill, in the wake of Katrina, is demonstrating that it is of little help to Americans who are seeking relief at the gas pump. Most Americans believed the economy was heading in the wrong direction prior to Katrina -- now the need for better economic leadership is more pressing than ever.

Pat Robertson says John Roberts should be "thankful" for Hurricane Katrina because, in the storm's aftermath, the country won't have much tolerance for "inflamed rhetoric" at his confirmation hearings.

Robertson can be thankful for Katrina, too. In the first days of the hurricane, FEMA told visitors to its Web site that there were three good places to send money to help hurricane victims: the American Red Cross, Second Harvest and Robertson's own Operation Blessing. "How in the heck did that happen?" Richard Walden, president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, asks in the Nation. "That gives Pat Robertson millions of extra dollars."

Well, yes it does, and FEMA Director Michael Brown was asked about it yesterday. How did the little known, highly questionable charity of a TV evangelist and assassination advocate make FEMA's shortlist? "We're not turning away help from anybody," Brown said.

FEMA may not be turning away Robertson's help, but the agency has apparently decided to take the spotlight off it. The FEMA Web page that listed the Red Cross, Second Harvest and Operation Blessing has disappeared, replaced by a redirect to a USA Freedom Corps page that lists a number of charities to which one might contribute. Operation Blessing isn't among them.

But that doesn't mean the Bush administration is abandoning its faith-based friends in this time of opportunity. Before the USA Freedom Corps page gets around to the American Red Cross, it offers up a link for the Network for Good, which in turn provides a link to dozens of charitable organizations -- including Operation Blessing.

-- T.G.

The best man for the job?

Anyone who's paying attention knows three things about FEMA Director Michael Brown by now. He was fired from his old job at the International Arabian Horse Association. He didn't know there were people holed up in the New Orleans Convention Center despite the fact that the cable networks had been reporting it for days. And the president of the United States, who likes to call him "Brownie," thinks he's doing a "heck of a job."

Over at the New Republic, Paul Campos is filling in a few more details. As Campos explains, Brown got hired at FEMA because he was a longtime friend of Joe Allbaugh's, who got hired at FEMA because he was a longtime friend of George W. Bush's. But surely Brown had some serious qualifications for becoming FEMA's general counsel and eventually its director, right? He was an accomplished lawyer? A volunteer firefighter? He knew CPR?

Not exactly, Campos says.

Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he has done some digging into Brown's so-called legal career. Here's what he's found: "When Brown left the [International Arabian Horse Association] four years ago, he was, among other things, a failed former lawyer -- a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn't attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job in the wake of charges of impropriety. At this point in his life, returning to his long-abandoned legal career would have been very difficult in the competitive Colorado legal market. Yet, within months of leaving the IAHA, he was handed one of the top legal positions in the entire federal government: general counsel for a major federal agency. A year later, he was made its number-two official, and, a year after that, Bush appointed him director of FEMA."

Scott McClellan won't say whether the president has confidence in Brown now. The real question is, why did he have confidence in him then?

-- T.G.

Katrina: Wish you were here.

 
Two photos taken on the same day last week -- one of a grieving New Orleans survivor, the other of President Bush in flagrante photo opp in San Diego. Photoshopped together, they reveal what the horrific scene at the Superdome might have looked like had the president actually shown up there. Link to full-size. (Thanks T. bias and Soren, who said that it comes from Kazamatsuri)

Previously on Boing Boing:
A tale of two photos -- Mississippi Goddamn

Rumsfeld “You fight a national disaster with the equipment you have”

September 7, 2005

Louisiana National Guard Offers Help By Phone From Iraq

BAGHDAD—The 4,000 Louisiana National Guardsmen stationed in Iraq, representing over a third of the state's troops, called home this week to find out what, if any, help they could offer Katrina survivors from overseas. "The soldiers wanted to know if they could call 911 for anyone, or perhaps send some water via FedEx," said Louisiana National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. The Guardsmen also "would love to send generators, rations, and Black Hawk helicopters for rescue missions," but, said Schneider, "we desperately need these in Iraq to stay alive." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised the phone support, but noted that it would take months to transfer any equipment from Iraq to New Orleans, saying, "You fight a national disaster with the equipment you have."

Government Relief Workers Mosey In To Help

NEW ORLEANS—Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown, leading a detachment of 7,500 relief workers, moseyed on down to New Orleans Monday afternoon. "Well, I do declare, it's my job to see if any of these poor folks need any old thing," Brown said from his command rocker on the command post porch, adding, "Mighty hot day, ain't it?" Follow-up teams of emergency relief workers are expected to begin ambling into the Gulf Coast region as early as this weekend. "They should be getting the trucks good and warmed up anytime now, and they'll be cruising into town just as soon as all the reservists stroll in," said Brown, who is currently at his desk awaiting offers of food, water, and evacuation buses to roll in from "somewhere or other."

Refugees Moved From Sewage-Contaminated Superdome To Hellhole Of Houston

HOUSTON—Evacuees from the overheated, filth-encrusted wreckage of the New Orleans Superdome were bussed to the humid, 110-degree August heat and polluted air of Houston last week, in a move that many are resisting. "Please, God, not Houston. Anyplace but Houston," said one woman, taking shelter under an overpass. "The food there is awful, and the weather is miserable. And the traffic—it's like some engineer was making a sick joke." Authorities apologized for transporting survivors to a city "barely better in any respect," but said the blistering-hot, oil-soaked Texas city was in fact slightly better, and that casualties due to gunfire would be no worse.

White Foragers Report Threat Of Black Looters

NEW ORLEANS—Throughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have reported seeing African­Americans "looting snacks and beer from damaged businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already looted a fortune in diapers." Radio stations still in operation are advising store owners and white people in the affected areas to locate firearms in sporting-goods stores in order to protect themselves against marauding blacks looting gun shops.

continued at theonion.com…

Will Moore turn Katrina into film?

By Jeannette Walls

Will Michael Moore turn his cameras on Katrina?

The controversial filmmaker is “seriously considering” turning the devastating storm and its aftermath into a documentary, says a source. “It has all the elements that made ‘Fahrenheit 911’ such a powerful film,” says a source. “The political outrage, the human suffering, and the incredible footage.”

Moore’s rep didn’t have a comment by press time, but Moore certainly isn’t being silent about Katrina on his Web site. “There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years,” he wrote. “Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can’t. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes, wars, and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show.”

Related Story:

 September 6th, 2005

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them." -- Barbara Bush, Monday, Sept. 5th, 2005 (AUDIO)

The Progress Report

Sep. 7th, 2005

KATRINA
FEMA's Failures

The more you know about the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, the worse it gets. Last night, the Associated Press reported that FEMA Director Michael Brown "waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers." According to internal documents obtained by the AP, Brown specified that part of the workers mission would be to "'convey a positive image' about the government's response for victims" to the public. While it was sent five hours after the storm hit, Brown's letter lacked any sense of urgency -- he requested the workers arrive within two days. The letter politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities." Last week, President Bush praised Brown's efforts, telling him "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

TOP FEMA DEPUTIES MAKE BROWN LOOK QUALIFIED: Before joining FEMA, Brown "spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado." (Brown was forced out "after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.") Brown's top deputies, however, make him look qualified. The number two at FEMA, Chief of Staff Patrick Rhode, was an event planner ("advance man") for Bush's presidential campaign. He had absolutely no emergency management experience before joining FEMA. The number three at FEMA, Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Morris, was a press flak at the Bush campaign. He previously worked for Maverick Media, the firm that produced TV spots for Bush's campaigns. Morris also has no emergency management experience. In contrast, the top deputies of Clinton-era FEMA Director James Lee Witt ran regional FEMA offices for at least three years before assuming senior positions in Washington."

FEMA DIVERTS VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS TO SERVE AS BACKDROP FOR BUSH: Responding to an urgent plea from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, more than a thousand firefighters volunteered to travel to Louisiana to help out. The firefighters thought they were "going to be deployed as emergency workers," but FEMA decided to use them as "community-relations officers." Many of them spent their time passing out fliers with the FEMA phone number. (Shelly Miller, a Mississippi resident whose trailer was severely damaged in the storm, said, "We tried calling FEMA. You can’t get through on the phone lines.") For 50 of the firefighters, their first assignment was "to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas." Many firefighters expressed their disappointment with their role. FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak said any firefighter that criticized the agency should "revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country."

CALL FOR INDEPENDENT COMMISSION: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) called for the creation of an independent commission to investigate government lapses in an effort to ensure the proper lessons have been learned. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) echoed the call for something "comparable to the 9/11 Commission." Former 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer said the federal government's response was "inexcusable" and similarly called for the formation of "a commission to look into the mistakes." The White House initially rejected calls for the creation of a 9/11 Commission, proffering a familiar complaint that it would become a forum for "finger-pointing," as Ari Fleischer stated in the 10/11/02 White House press briefing. Similarly, Bush is again resisting calls for the creation of such a Katrina commission out a desire to avoid "finger pointing or politics," but is instead dispatching Vice President Cheney to the Gulf Coast region to relieve concerns that lessons are being learned. Bush said that deploying Cheney (who has been missing in action), a move which the Los Angeles Times sarcastically heralded as a sign that now we know Bush is serious, will help him determine whether he is meeting his goals.

ADMINISTRATION -- "OPERATION BLESSING" IN DISGUISE: Americans who visited FEMA's website in search of relief organizations last week found the group "Operation Blessing" listed right below the American Red Cross. Operation Blessing is the "aid" group run by televangelist Pat Robertson. As one might guess, the group's reputation is as respectable as its figurehead. "Back in 1994," the New York Sun reports, "during the infamous Rwandan genocide, Robertson used his 700 Club's daily cable operation to appeal to the American public for donations to fly humanitarian supplies into Zaire to save the Rwandan refugees." Relief supplies weren't the only thing the Operation Blessing planes were ferrying. "An investigation conducted by the Virginia attorney general's office concluded in 1999 that the planes were mostly used to transport mining equipment for a diamond operation run by a for-profit company called African Development Corp." Operation Blessing was removed from FEMA's website a few days ago.

BRING THE TROOPS HOME

 IRAQ -- NUMBER OF AMERICANS FAVORING DISENGAGEMENT CONTINUES TO GROW:  Two separate Gallup polls show Americans continuing to sour on the Bush administration's "stay the course" mantra. "Perhaps most revealing," Editor and Publisher writes, "was a new poll which asked 1,007 Americans, 'If you could talk with President Bush for 15 minutes about the situation in Iraq, what would you, personally, advise him to do?'" The poll found that 41 percent said they would tell him to pull troops out of Iraq and end our involvement there -- more than double the second place choice (18 percent), which was to "to finish what we started or be more aggressive." Another Gallup poll "found that 53% of Americans favor a reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq," including 26 percent who prefer withdrawing all troops.

IRAQ -- EUROPEANS' HEARTS AND MINDS ARE UNCHANGED ABOUT BUSH POLICIES: The Washington Post reports that President Bush's fence-mending efforts with Europe in his second term have not achieved many results. Despite making four trips to Europe, a new poll taken in 10 European countries finds that "Bush's foreign policy is just as unpopular across the Atlantic as it was a year ago." The survey, conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, indicated 62 percent of Europeans disapprove of Bush's foreign policies and 59 percent believe the U.S.'s leadership in global affairs is undesirable.

The Iraqi branch of al-Qaida apparently issued a statement Sunday in which it declared that God had answered "the prayers of oppressed" by unleashing Hurricane Katrina on the United States. We heard TV pundits complain that the statement was an attempt to score political points from tragedy. Fair enough, but when will they say the same about the religious right -- or at least start to demand that the more moderate voices on the right repudiate the rantings of their fringe?

As we noted last week, the anti-abortion group Columbia Christians for Life claimed that Katrina is God's punishment for America's tolerance of abortion rights. The proof? The group says a satellite image of Katrina as the hurricane struck land in Louisiana looks just like the ultrasound image of a 6-week-old fetus.

The group is out with a new message now, and it's claiming victory. New Orleans had five operating abortion clinics before Katrina, the group says. Now it has none. "As sad as it is to see the heart-aching loss of life and the suffering of people in New Orleans, " the Columbia Christians say in their latest e-mail message, "we can only give praise to God for sparing the lives of the innocent unborn who have been murdered by the tens of thousands in New Orleans and the rest of the state of Louisiana, year-after-year-after-year, despite prophetic warnings from men of God."

The group continues: "God is not mocked. We reap what we sow ... The city of New Orleans has sown innocent bloodshed and violence in the womb for years and years and has now reaped bloodshed and violence on her streets. May the people in the city of New Orleans be broken by God's Holy Law, receive, by God's grace, his gift of faith ... and receive his great salvation through Christ alone, repenting of their sins, and receiving Jesus Christ (Yahshua Messiah) as their Lord and Savior. Hallelu-Yah ! Then, may New Orleans be delivered from her many sins!"

-- T.G.

The National Football League is refusing to punt Kanye West, despite the rapper's controversial trashing of President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina.

The NFL stood by the hip-hop star Tuesday at a Los Angeles press conference announcing the talent lineup for the upcoming Opening Kickoff special this Thursday.

The roster still includes the Chicago-based rapper, who made waves Friday when he ignored the TelePrompTer and lashed out at the White House response to hurricane victims during NBC's live telethon, saying "George Bush doesn't care about black people." (Video)

The network edited out West's remark from the West Coast rebroadcast and hastily issued a press release that said that the "Gold Digger" rapper's "opinions in no way represent the views of the network."

West was asked several times to comment on his remarks at the NFL press conference, but declined to address the issue, saying that between the hurricane and the controversy, it created "a lot of pressure for one human being."

"I don't want to detract from the show at all, because it's entertainment, and a lot of times, in a time of need, we need entertainment to lift people's spirits," West added.

League spokesman Brian McCarthy, meanwhile, told the Los Angeles Times that West "expressed an unscripted opinion." Performers, McCarthy said, were selected "for their entertainment value, not their political views."

Steve Brener, a rep for the event, did not yet know what songs West is planning to perform during his "medley," aside from a version of "Heard 'Em Say," but it's a safe bet the Time magazine cover subject will not be performing the new track "Crack Music," in which he raps, "Who gave Saddam anthrax?/George Bush got the answers."

In any case, West's performance will be taped 20 minutes before the show comes on live, then will be edited into the telecast.

Some football fans are having an increasingly difficult time buying the league's position regarding halftime and preshow talent tapped by the NFL in its quest to lure increasingly a younger and more diverse demographic.

Last month, many pigskin faithful of the conservative ilk were outraged that the league was launching a campaign featuring the Rolling Stones, whose latest release, A Bigger Bang, features a scathing indictment of the Bush administration in the form of the track "Sweet Neo Con." read more…