Update: Crooks and Liars has the video:

********
President Bush appeared on Good Morning America today. He said,

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Really? Didn't anyone on his staff tell him about the New Orleans Times-Picayune series Washing Away, which reported:

Though protected by levees designed to withstand the most common storms, New Orleans is surrounded by water and is well below sea level at many points. A flood from a powerful hurricane can get trapped for weeks inside the levee system. Emergency officials concede that many of the structures in the area, including newer high-rise buildings, would not survive the winds of a major storm.

...and in 2004, the emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana raised concerns that the president's budget shifted money away from finishing the levees to pay for the war in Iraq.

I did happen to catch President Bush's hum-drum live speech yesterday. Leading editorials in today's papers are far more critical. The New York Times writes in Waiting for a Leader:

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

The Los Angeles Times:

An article in today's Salt Lake City Weekly lays out the details of the permit flap in the Utah County rave bust of a few weeks ago. The sheriff's argument looks to be pretty thin: He anticipated (as if he had a crystal ball) the rave would exceed 12 hours which would have required an additional permit and other measures.

The promotor, on the other hand, knew his event was for less than 12 hours and planned accordingly:

[Brandon] Fullmer, who scheduled the event for a 9.5-hour period, from 9 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., secured a permit through the Utah County Health Department (UCHD). He took out a $1 million insurance policy, hired security guards, rented portable toilets, obtained a solid-waste permit and met a number of other requirements before booking out-of-state and local DJs.

Since the bust occurred only a few hours into the rave, how is the Sheriff going to establish that it would exceed 12 hours?

“I don’t think there’s any question that the sheriff misapplied the ordinance and acted improperly,” [attorney Brian] Barnard said, adding that the raid was discriminatory and an act of censorship. “If individuals break the law, punish them. But don’t assume that everyone who goes to a rap, hip-hop, or electronic music concert is a criminal.”

Barnard will be representing the promoter and the land owner in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the County.

The Washington Post has an excellent editorial today opposing the Anti-Gang bill that has passed the House. A much different and less punitive version is pending in the Senate. The editorial notes that while the Administration is pushing for the House bill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales doesn't like it:

While Mr. Gonzales's day job requires him to concentrate on clamping down on gangs through law enforcement, he acknowledges that investigations and prosecutions are only a partial answer. A comprehensive strategy, he believes, must include education, prevention and rehabilitation. "I don't want Hispanic kids to not go to school and not get an education," he said. "Sure, we may be able to prosecute them and put them in jail, but that represents a lost future as employees, as future leaders in our community. We can't afford it."

In a nutshell, here's what's wrong with the House bill:

In response to the Supreme Court's decision last term in Kelo approving state seizure of property for economic development, the Texas legislature passed a law restricting such seizures. Texas Governor Rick Perry signed the bill into law Wednesday.

Under the Constitution, governments cannot take private property for public use without ''just compensation.'' Local governments have traditionally used their eminent domain authority to build roads, reservoirs and other public projects. But over decades, the high court has expanded the definition of public use, allowing cities to employ eminent domain to eliminate blight.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that New London, Conn., could take homes for a private development project. But the ruling also allowed states to ban the practice.

My thoughts (personal, not legal) on the Kelo decision are here. Last Night in Little Rock's are here.

Tag: Kelo

The Administration announced insignificant changes Wednesday to the rules for military tribunals at Guantanamo. The two changes being touted:

...the presiding officer, a military lawyer, will now decide questions of law. The other members, who will no longer play a role in most such decisions, will decide questions of fact including guilt or innocence; the presiding officer will no longer have a vote in these matters.

Among other changes is one altering the wording of a rule that during the proceedings, defendants "may be present to the extent consistent with the need to protect classified information." The new wording says defendants "shall be present to the extent consistent ... ."

The changes that were needed but not made include:

It's not just the left criticizing President Bush over his belated response to the Katrina catastrophe, it's also those that used to praise him:

AS THE EXTENT of Hurricane Katrinas devastation became clearer on Tuesday millions without power, tens of thousands homeless, a death toll unknowable because rescue crews cant reach some regions President Bush carried on with his plans to speak in San Diego, as if nothing important had happened the day before. Katrina already is measured as one of the worst storms in American history. And yet, President Bush decided that his plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a speech were more pressing than responding to the carnage.

A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.

by TChris

The New York Civil Liberties Union takes issue with NYPD’s assertion that it behaved with utmost professionalism during last year’s Republican National Convention.

The NYCLU report 'Rights and Wrongs at the RNC: A Special Report About Police and Protest at the Republican National Convention' recommends the establishment of an independent City agency to oversee the planning and management of large demonstrations. The report says the most troubling aspect of the NYPD's actions during the Convention was its resort to mass arrest tactics that resulted in large numbers of innocent people being swept into police custody.

More than 90 percent of the arrests ended with dismissals or acquittals -- hardly stellar police work. The report (pdf) also condemns “the pervasive surveillance of lawful demonstrators, and the illegal fingerprinting and prolonged detention of nearly 1,500 people charged with mostly minor offenses.”

by TChris

Asking mental health professionals whether a delusional woman who drowned her children knew the difference between right and wrong invites speculation.

My own belief is that no forensic psychiatrist can objectively answer the law's narrow question yes or no. There is no "truth" of the matter. Our science cannot yet map the psychotic experience of reality or measure its correspondence to the reality of the law's simplifying assumptions. The narrow right-from-wrong question may seem clear and obvious, but it is premised on assumptions that neither science nor philosophy can verify.

In a commentary published in the Psychiatric Times, Dr. Alan Stone argues that this common touchstone of the “insanity defense” asks the wrong question -- and suggests that no “right question” can easily be formulated.

Eric Boehlert at Huffpo sums it up:

Why did funds stop flowing to the Big Easy? Simple, Bush's war in Iraq was costing too much money.

Editor and Publisher has more on the failure of the Bush Administration to fund preventive measures:

The Governor of Lousiana has ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 475 buses are en route to transport up to 25, 000 people from the Superdome to the Astrodome.

Blanco said she wanted the Superdome - which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people - evacuated within two days, along with other gathering points for storm refugees. The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.

A little bit of history:

The Big Easy

In the land of spicy music and melodic foods - better known as New Orleans - the pursuit of good times is not merely a diversion, but a way of life. From its beginning in 1718 as a French real estate scam, and centuries of settlement by other ethnic cultures, the unlikely city built in the midst of a swamp has remained tenaciously French in style and outlook. In spite of an early history filled with hurricanes, floods and fires, political upheavals and plagues of yellow fever, the French joie de vivre and love of celebrating endured and is still part of the lifestyle.