by TChris

As he has done during the invasion and government-building of Iraq, the president wants to spend money for Katrina-related purposes without asking taxpayers to pick up any part of the additional tab. Michael Rooke-Ley makes a compelling case that this is a time for shared sacrifice:

And so, at home and abroad, the levees have broken, exposing two Americas, rich and poor, from the battlefields in Iraq to the streets of New Orleans. Never before have we been such a divided people. If we are to make meaningful strides toward achieving our goals of equal opportunity and justice - among ourselves here at home, as well as with the rest of the world - we must devote ourselves to building communities, not empires. We must commit ourselves to a principle of shared sacrifice.

He makes the argument that shared sacrifice means equal participation in military service by all economic classes:

Appearing on ABC's This Week today, former President Bill Clinton took the offensive against George Bush:

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction." The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had..."

Clinton also criticized Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina:

Via an unsourced news article at Huffington Post: Karl Rove spoke in Aspen this weekend at an off-the-record session:

Karl Rove, President Bush's top political advisor and deputy White House chief of staff, spoke at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend. Here is what Rove had to say that the press wasn't allowed to report on.

On Katrina: The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government...

On The Anti-War Movement: Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an anti-war rally...

On Bush's Low Poll Numbers: We have not been good at explaining the success in Iraq. Polls go up and down and don't mean anything...

by TChris

Four protestors poured their blood over an Army recruiting center in Ithaca, New York in 2003. They hoped recruits would think about the blood -- Iraqi and American -- that they would be destined to shed if they enlisted.

The protestors were charged with felony malicious mischief. Refusing a plea bargain, they went to trial in 2004. A judge who understood the historic role that juries play as a check against the government's power allowed the protestors to explain their motivations when they testified. As a result, the jury deadlocked 8-4 for acquittal.

What should have ended as a symbolic victory for peace -- the prosecutor didn't have the stomach to try the case again after the jury hung -- instead resulted in a federal prosecution. The four Catholic Worker activists will go on trial again Monday, where they face a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

by TChris

As noted here, poor planning has slowed the delivery of services to Gulf Coast evacuees. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that poor planning has "hobbled the rebuilding of Iraq," as this NY Times story reports.

by Last Night in Little Rock

CNN.com reports that Pope Benedict XVI's envoy to the U.S. bring $6M in Catholic Charity aid said on Vatican radio "Many were struck by ... poverty, at times shameful, in rich America."

by Last Night in Little Rock

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has had an ongoing series: FEMA: A Legacy of Waste. They have a new entry today.

The Bush Administration earlier admitted in Congressional testimony posted on its own website that the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency is an "oversized entitlement program." The Sun-Sentinel investigation shows that is exactly how the Bush Administration treated it, doling out money to people not even harmed in storms, to cities not even touched by storms, and on and on.

In a million years, I wouldn't have thought that a 9 month old computer would have a hard drive failure. But, my Dell desktop, which I love, did just that early this morning. After hours of trying to figure out the problem with Dell Tech support, being told to give up, they'll have a tech come over with a new hard drive covered by warranty next week, I had to face the issue of lost data - mostly Quicken stuff and billing - which is pretty critical. Not to mention, all my saved passwords to news sites, subscription services and software programs are gone. There's no solution, until I can bring the old, corrupted hard drive (a Maxtor) with its "code 7 failure" to a data recovery service next week, and decide whether it's worth the $500 to$1,000. they will charge to try and recover the old files.

In the meantime, I've hooked up the the Sony desktop that I used before the Dell, but it has not been updated in 9 months, so it's been many more hours updating Windows and virus and other software - and I have none of my current files.

Bottom line: I haven't felt like blogging, particularly since there's nothing in the news besides FEMA and Judge Roberts, both of which I'm kind of OD'd on... so feel free to take over.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Today's NY Times has a Frank Rich op-ed piece entitled Message: I Care About the Black Folks, which is about the unmasking of George W. Bush.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The NY Times reports today that the Canadian government is undertaking a judicial inquiry into whether four Canadian citizens were detained in NYC and then flown by U.S. government planes to Jordan and Syria for interrogation, possibly under torture, by the U.S. and Canada.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Mayor Nagin says parts of NOLA will be reopening in phases and people should return, as reported here. Vice Adm. Thad Allen, the new director of the NOLA relief effort, says "Not so fast," as reported on CNN.com and FoxNews.com

by Last Night in Little Rock

CNN.com reports here that Congress ordered FEMA in 1997 to study an evacuation plan for NOLA in case of a Category 3 or greater hurricane or levee break but that it apparently never happened.