by TChris

Expect the White House to deflect any investigation that asks the questions posed today by Harry Reid:

In a letter to the Senate's Homeland Security Committee chairwoman, Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, pressed for a wide-ranging investigation and answers to several questions, including: "How much time did the president spend dealing with this emerging crisis while he was on vacation? Did the fact that he was outside of Washington, D.C., have any effect on the federal government's response?"

by TChris

When the federal sentencing guidelines were still binding on judges, a judge would sometimes sentence apologetically, explaining that the sentence was required by law even if undeserved. Judge John E. Steele in Florida told Elizabeth Thompson that her 30 year sentence was unfair. His complaint wasn't unusual.

Steele's statement was not unlike statements made by many federal judges, both conservative and liberal, around the country who complained for years that the sentencing guidelines forced them to hand down excessively long sentences.

Thompson was fortunate that Judge Steele voiced his disapproval of the result.

by TChris

The poor always suffer first, last, and most. As New Orleans degrades into a pool of toxicity, Prof. Hari Osofsky reminds us that the burdens of enviornmental disasters are borne disproportionately by the poor.

Hurricane Katrina's aftermath demonstrates this country's crisis of environmental justice. As the endless images cruelly reveal, the effects of this hurricane were not distributed randomly. Low-income people of color lived in more vulnerable situations and had fewer options.

Update: Brian Williams of NBC:

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.

Update: Blogger Bob Brigham reports by e-mail:

We are in Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans. At the National Guard checkpoint, they are under orders to turn away all media. All of the reporters are turning they're TV trucks around. Things are so bad, Bush is now censoring all reporting from NOLA. The First Amendment sank with the city.

And the war, it keeps on taking...

Four security professionals, Ronald Hyatt, Robert McCoy, Robert Pole and Ryan Young, serving in Iraq with Triple Canopy were killed on Wednesday while conducting a protective security operation for the U.S. Department of State in Basra.

"It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our colleagues," said Ignacio "Iggy" Balderas, CEO of Triple Canopy. "They were an elite corps of highly skilled security professionals who died in continued service to their country. Our thoughts, prayers and support go out to their families."

They weren't soldiers, so they probably won't appear on any Defense Department list. But, one still has to ask, as Neil Young did years ago in "Ohio", how many more?

by Last Night in Little Rock

One good thing about the Neo-Cons is that they don't pay attention to The Daily Show or any show on Air America Radio because it provides comic relief and exposes them for the fools they are.

Everyday this past week, both sources lined up the video or audio of various Administration flacks, including the President, repeating the "phrase of the day." One can imagine Karl Rove faxing it around every morning: "This is the li[n]e for the day." After the third time, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Tonight's on The Daily Show was "The Blame Game" being spoken by the President, DHS Secretary Chertoff, Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency Director Brown ("Brownie, you're doin' a great job" destroying a great city and my Presidency, not that I can't do a good job of it myself).

On the Al Franken Show Wednesday was the line about "It was in all the papers: New Orleans dodged a bullet," as to why DHS and FEMA were caught with their pants down after the storm. Chertoff, Joint Chief of Staff General Myers, and others dutifully repeated the phrase to absurdity. There was no such article in any paper. They made it up. Franken was outraged today, as well he should have been, because I was outraged listening to it. Liars.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Chicago Tribune today has a classic editorial by John Kass: "Mother's remark puts silver foot in Bush's mouth."

I saw some interviews with holdouts in New Orleans - those that say they won't leave. It's so sad. There's no place else they want to go, they don't want to give up on their city. It's their past and present, and they can't imagine anything different for the future.

For them, some Jackson Browne, from Hold On Hold Out [clip here]:

Hold a place for the human race
Keep it open wide
Give it time to fall or climb
But let the time decide
...Hold on hold out, hold on
For the countless souls beaten by their goals
Keep a hold on now
....If you hold your ground it'll turn around
Keep a hold somehow
Hold on hold out, keep a hold on tight

Of course, they really do need to leave. The toxins, bacteria and diseases will be rampant and devastating. I wish I could think of a happier song for them.

by Last Night in Little Rock

George W. Bush "wanted posters" are available at CafePress (shirts), here, and here, for crimes against humanity.

And that was before he and his feckless lackies shamelessly scre**d the pooch on Katrina and still can't admit what the rest of the world already knows: George Bush is an insensitive punk who would sell out his own citizens for political gain, unless, of course, they are fat cat contributors to the Republican Party or the precious group of the rich that got tax refunds at the expense of the New Orleans levee project. In other words, less than 1% of the people, and the other 99% can be duped into voting for "homeland security." What a farce. Watching the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency is like watching a Three Stooges movie. If I wasn't so pissed, I would cry.

The Guardian reports that the waters of New Orleans are ten times over their toxic limit.

The disclosure from the first tests conducted by the US government into conditions in New Orleans added a growing urgency to an order for thousands of inhabitants remaining in the wretched city to leave or face forced evacuation.

At least three deaths from bacterial infections have been reported from the carnage wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The EPA warned that there was a risk not just from drinking water but from skin contact as well. "Human contact with the floodwater should be avoided as much as possible," said Stephen Johnson, an EPA administrator.

by Last Night in Little Rock

CNN.com reported about an hour ago in its "Breaking News" e-mail alerts that between 25 to 30 bodies have been found in a nursing home in St. Bernard Parish outside New Orleans. (Nothing on CNN.com as of the time of this post.) The NY Times reported today that the elderly in Katrina's path were hard hit.

This apparently is a cost of the Bush Administration's extolation of "personal responsibility" for their own lives. They should have just evacuated, like all the "white people" with cars. They probably were trapped in their rooms or died in their beds. I pray they did not even know what was happening to them.

As Barbara Bush would say, the evacuees are better off anywhere else other than in New Orleans, like a dormitory for 20,000, since they had nothing to begin with. "Let them eat cake."

And so it goes...

Update:

Soledad O'Brien on CNN's Larry King Live reports "more than 30" dead at nursing home.

From CNN tonight:

• FEMA has 25,000 body bags on hand.
• 70% of New Orleans police are homeless.
• New Orleans Remains 60% under water
• 15,000 people are still in New Orleans, many refusing to leave.
• Dr. Henderson was on again. He said people died because of the late response. Mostly old people but babies too. One woman delivered a baby at the Superdome or Convention Center and it died.
• Michael Brown is standing his ground, back giving interviews and refusing to resign