September 2005 Archives

Karen Williams? Consuelo Maria Callahan? I got nothin. No one seems to be a clear favorite.

What's interesting, though, is that most people are betting that Bush will pick a female, stealth candidate.

UPDATE: Unless he picks Larry Thompson.

Kos is having a slogan contest --

Bush is in the low 40s. The nation is going to shit. Iraq is going to shit. His party is going to jail. And he's still got three years left in his term. He needs a new slogan to help him rally the public to his side. Give him a hand.

This is the best one:"Jesus Hates Democrats"

Although it isn't a slogan, this one made me laugh out loud:"Hey, look over there -- terrorists!"

When giving a customer their change, first place the coins in their hand, then the bills and receipt over them. This way, the coins will not slide off the bills, fall on the floor, annoy the customer, and hold up your line while the customer picks up the coins.

(HT to Matthew)

A few minutes ago I was watching Fox News. Ann Coulter was talking to Neil Cavuto. Granted, I only caught about 20 seconds of it and what I saw was close-captioned. But the gist of it was this: "they," (Bush-haters) tried to get Bush with Cindy Sheehan. That fizzeld so then "they" tried to blame Hurricane Katrina on him. That didn't work so now "they" are trying to smear Bush with Tom DeLay's phony indictment.

They, they, they. Talk about paranoid!

It's similar to the revisionist history of the early 70's: Bush apologists will tell you that Nixon (whom they revere -- remember Cheney and Rumsfeld grew up there) they'll tell you that Nixon was finally hounded out of office by his haters when the haters got the press to cook up the phony Watergate scandal. Never mind that, in reality, it was Nixon's sleazy criminal behavior that finally caught up with him.

Another variant of Bush Apology Syndrome (BAS) posits that bad things just seem to happen to Bush. Poor baby.

For example, today I read this:

It's hard to spin [DeLay's indictment] as anything other than another problem dropped on the pile of troubles our side faces now. Bad news tends to come in bunches, and we've had a bunch lately.

This kind of narrative is a classic example of the passive voice -- "mistakes were made."

People make it sound like a stretch of bad weather instead of what it really is: the direct consequence of years of incompetence and corruption by Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Rice, and all the rest.

This, from the Bookie of Virtues:

I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Well.

Now look: I know where he's coming from. He's interpreting a point made by Steven Levitt in his book Freakonomics -- that legalized abortion (in effect) amounts to pre-emptive capital punishment of a lower-class criminal element. [Note: some have extended that argument to say that the Federal government has lost billions of dollars in tax revenues because these fetuses did not come to term and, ahem, pay taxes. One is tempted to say that you can't have it both ways, but I digress...]

Here's the thing: Bennett is entitled to his own opinion but he is not entitled to his own facts.

Steve Sailer had this to say in The American Conservativeof all places:

...[T]he acid test of Levitt’s theory is this: did the first New, Improved Generation culled by legalized abortion actually grow up to be more lawful teenagers than the last generation born before legalization? Hardly. Instead, the first cohort to survive legalized abortion went on the worst youth murder spree in American history.

OK. So much for the facts.

All that's left is the callous, shallow and tone-deaf Bennett, someone who just doesn't seem to know when to shut up and go away. Simply stop lecturing us about virtue, once and for all.

P.S. I bet he believed all the stories about murder and mayhem at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Concerning Tom DeLay's indictment today on criminal conspiracy charges, I know I'm late to the party (I'm working the graveyard shift), but here are some of my immediate impressions:

1. DeLay isn't the Republican Majority Leader anymore -- but he is symbolic of the Republican Majority. He has handed out so much money, twisted so many arms, and has so many Congressman beholden to him and if the Democrats can't run on that, then they don't deserve to win. Anything. Ever. Again.

2. Calling someone a "Texas Conservative" should now be a convenient shorthand way of saying someone is a crony-rewarding, hammer-dropping, arm-twisting, bribe-taking, lobbyist-loving corrupt hack. I'm just saying.

3. Watch how fast Bush apologists leave skidmarks on the pavement getting away from this guy. In a couple of weeks, it'll be like they'd never heard his name.

4. Tom DeLay will someday leave Congress and return as the highest-paid lobbyist of his generation. And that's saying a lot.

5. Roy Blunt, DeLay's successor, is cut from the same cloth as his mentor.

6. If you think DeLay is the merely the second most powerful man in the House of Representatives, you are vastly underestimating him. There are probably only 3 people more powerful than him in this entire country -- Cheney, Rove and Bush. And would you lookee there -- they're all Texas conservatives!

I'm only sad that he got nailed in September of 2005 and not 12 months later.

Today finds White House counsel Harriet Miers' SCOTUS stock trading at 8.2 cents, up sharply over the last couple of days. Could she be the next associate Justice of the Supreme Court? Well, one thing she has going for her: she's never been a judge so there isn't much of a paper trail -- like John Roberts, no one knows what she thinks about a whole host of issues. And another thing: she is a close personal friend of Bush.

But here's the topper, from an article last summer:

With Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist suffering from thyroid cancer and widely expected to step down after the court term ends this month, it is the counsel's office that has taken the lead in evaluating prospective replacements.

She looked at all the candidates...and picked herself!

The "Dick" Cheney gambit -- brilliant move, Madam Justice. We are not worthy.

Gather around, boys and girls, and let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, long ago, in the 60's, there was a funny, goofy, hip TV sitcom called Get Smart. It was about a secret agent named Maxwell Smart who worked for C.O.N.T.R.O.L. (whose enemies worked for K.A.O.S.) The show pre-dated the surreal nonsense of Airplane! , Naked Gun and, yes, Austin Powers, by at least a couple of decades. It spawned not one but several national catch-phrases ("Would you believe...?" "Missed it by that much", "Sorry about that, chief") and at least one classic bit: "The Cone of Silence," an anti-eavesdropping security device which was so efficient that even those who used it couldn't understand what they were saying. And, of course, there was that signature, lunatic, rotary-dial shoe-phone (left). Hey, Moto -- this boomer would buy that one, for sure!

The show was written by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry who later went on to write The Producers and Saturday Night Live, respectively. They were parodying The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which was, in turn, a parody of the Bond films. It won Emmys and got great ratings.

It was, for a time, the funniest show on television -- but none of this would have been possible without the comic genius of Don Adams. Adams later said that he was surprised that he ended up starring in a comedy because he didn't think of himself as a funny guy. He admitted that he was doing a parody of William Powell in the Thin Man series from the 30's. Whatever it was, he was a joy to watch and just thinking about the hapless Agent 86 makes me smile today. [Note: Even his name was an inside joke.]

RIP, Maxwell Smart. You served your country very, very well.

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing.

He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

The president drops his head to the table and clutches it with his hands.

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching the President.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

(HT to Paula)

No one really knows who Bush will nominate next for the SCOTUS.

But the Intrade Trading Exchange is one place where you can go to make an educated guess. Intrade is a trading exchange for politics, current events, financial indicators, weather & other unique contracts. Their contracts trade between 0 and 100, so you can think of the price at any time to be the percentage probability of that event occurring.

In short, an exchange like this one is the place to look if you believe that a group of bright, motivated people is often smarter than one single genius/insider.

So who are the traders like?

Suprisingly, the most actively traded contract is for AG Alberto Gonzalez, with a bid price of 11.0 cents, and his price has stayed pretty steady throughout the last 30 days. I'd have a hard time believing he'll get the nod.

On the other hand, the highest bid price belongs to Edith Hollan Jones (14.1 cents) and her price is rising. Jones, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is an outspoken conservative:

...[S]he has questioned the legal reasoning which affirms a constitutional right to abortion, advocated streamlining death penalty cases, invalidated a federal ban on possession of machine guns and advocated toughening bankruptcy laws.

Jones has attracted both favorable and unfavorable attention for her opinion in the case of McCorvey v. Hill, which was a request by the original plaintiff of Roe v. Wade to vacate that finding. Jones joined the Fifth Circuit in rejecting the petition on procedural grounds, but took the unusual step of filing a six-page concurrence to her own opinion.

The concurrence credited the evidence presented by McCorvey and sharply criticized the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe, calling it an "exercise of raw judicial power." "That the court's constitutional decisionmaking leaves our nation in a position of willful blindness to evolving knowledge should trouble any dispassionate observer not only about the abortion decisions, but about a number of other areas in which the court unhesitatingly steps into the realm of social policy under the guise of constitutional adjudication," Jones wrote.

In Waltman v. International Paper Co., 875 F.2d 468 (1989), a sexual harrasment case, Jones filed a dissenting opinion. [1]. Jones wrote, "Power cannot be exerted over employees unknowingly. 'Harassment' and 'power' are active nouns that embody an exercise of will."

Is she the one? So far, I'd bet on her. and maybe that's who Patrick Leahy was thinking when voting yes on Roberts now, in anticipation of voting to filibuster Jones later.

It's easy:

1. Survive two hurricanes.
2. Live in the fastest growing city in America.
3. Work for a company that does a lot of government contract work.
4. Most importantly, make sure you're actually AT WORK and not home asleep when The Man shows up.

Well, three out of four ain't bad.

P.S. It's not my fault! I'm working the night shift! I have to sleep during the day! Waah!

Aaron Broussard (president of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana) tears Tim Russert (NBC News) and various bloggers, a new one.

If you are not familiar with the story, just move on. However, if you are, you might take satisfaction from the fact that Broussard stands up to that pampered poodle Russert and gives as good as he gets.

Highlight:

Listen, sir, somebody wants to nitpick a man's tragic loss of a mother because she was abandoned in a nursing home?

Are you kidding?

What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man's mother's death?

They just buried Eva last week. I was there at the wake. Are you kidding me? That wasn't a box of Cheerios they buried last week. That was a man's mother whose story, if it is entirely broadcast, will be the epitome of abandonment. It will be the saddest tale you ever heard, a man who was responsible for safekeeping of a half a million people, mother's died in the next parish because she was abandoned there and he can't get to her and he tried to get to her through EOC. He tried to get through the sheriff's office. He tries every way he can to get there. Somebody wants to debate those things? My God, what sick-minded person wants to do that?

Welcome to Louisiana, Russert, you powdered prig.

Remember how that big old tree missed our house when it fell during Hurricane Katrina?

Yes, well.

Hurricane Rita was a different story.

P.S. At least we still have power.

(HT to Jon Stewart)

The trifecta is complete.

The Republican leadership in the Senate (Frist), House (DeLay) and White House (Rove) are ALL officially under investigation.

What a bunch of crooks.

(HT to Kos)

If I had a store that sold only ice, chain saws, gas and generators...I'd be rich.

P.S. Blogging might be, um, light in the near future. I'll try to keep you posted.

(HT to Tech-Sol)

Any fool can balance a budget. But it's how you do it that really makes all the difference.

Think Progress leads the way:

With great fanfare, and recalling the “Gingrich Revolution” of the 1990s, House conservatives yesterday proposed a broad set of spending cuts they said would help offset the costs of the Katrina reconstruction effort. Their plan, “Operation Offset,” reduces the budget by $500 billion over 10 years, and does so in large part by dismantling programs that invest in middle- and working-class Americans.

Progressives can do better.

As we show, it’s possible to cut far more unnecessary federal spending ($688 billion), accomplish it in half the time (just five years), and do it while upholding the principles of fiscal responsibility and concern for the common good.

Think Progress isolates cost-savings in the following areas:

• Taxes
• Transportation
• Medicare
• Energy
• Defense
• Agricultural Subsidies.

Makes sense to me.

P.S. I take back that crack about "any fool" balancing a budget. It's been 5 years and the Republican majority hasn't done it yet.

David Mamet:

In poker, one must have courage: the courage to bet, to back one's convictions, one's intuitions, one's understanding. There can be no victory without courage. The successful player must be willing to wager on likelihoods. Should he wait for absolutely risk-free certainty, he will win nothing, regardless of the cards he is dealt.

Mamet's poker analogy may be lost on those of you who don't bet at cards, but here it is:

One needs to know but three words to play poker: call, raise or fold.

Fold means keep the money, I'm out of the hand; call means to match your opponents' bet. That leaves raise, which is the only way to win at poker. The raiser puts his opponent on the defensive, seizing the initiative.

Initiative is only important if one wants to win.

In my experience, the winner is (more often than not) the one who wants it more badly than anyone else. In your desire to win, you seize the initiative. In so doing, you put the other player(s) on the defensive. You sow fear, uncertainty and doubt in your opponent.

Sound familiar?

If not, tune back to Mamet:

John Kerry lost the 2004 election combating an indictment of his Vietnam War record. A decorated war hero muddled himself in merely "calling" the attacks of a man with, curiously, a vanishing record of military attendance. Even if the Democrats and Kerry had prevailed (that is, succeeded in nullifying the Republicans arguably absurd accusations), they would have been back only where they started before the accusations began.

What would a winner have done?

One must raise...

A possible response to the Swift boat veterans would have been: "I served. He didn't. I didn't bring up the subject, but, if all George Bush has to show for his time in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter."

I've heard many a Democrat blanch at the thought of playing the game that way. Well, the results of recoiling from that kind of behavior are evident:

One may sit at the poker table all night and never bet and still go home broke, having anted away one's stake.

The Democrats are anteing away their time at the table. They may be bold and risk defeat, or be passive and ensure it.

Take another example: Bush/Rove is calling the Democrats "obstructionists" for thinking about voting no on John Roberts. This is nonsense. Roberts will win regardless -- the Democrats literally have nothing to lose by voting no on Roberts. Obstructionism only means something if you can actually, you know, obstruct.

That said, the only thing that matters is how many votes Roberts will get in the bargain. Anything less that 60 votes will show that Bush is what he really is: a severely weakened chief executive who really cannot stand a bloody fight at this time. Bush MUST have an easy win or else people will conclude that he cannot seem to do ANYTHING right.

You'd think the Democrats would understand this. But no!

The Democrats are folding at the first sign of tough talk. "Waaaaah! We're not obstructionists! We're team players!" That's how Leahy sounds when he makes a show out of casting an agonized yes vote. In effect, Leahy is saying "that's it -- that's where I draw the line -- absolutely no one more conservative than Roberts."

Right -- we've heard that before.

The result? Bush is emboldened to do just the opposite . Why not? He already knows the Dems folded in the last round. He'll do it because he wants to win more than Leahy does. So Bush will take the initiative and put up someone even more conservative in the next round.

That's why I like guys like Howard Dean, Harry Reid, Kos, and the rest -- they understand how this game is being played.

John Edwards, from a recent speech:

This President likes to talk a lot about school vouchers; I’d like a major effort to give working parents who are poor housing vouchers so they have a chance to move into neighborhoods with better schools. That will not only expand opportunity; it will build healthier communities through “cultural integration,” as David Brooks called it.

I like this approach. You can read more about it here.

Just got a look at the trailer for Good Night and Good Luck, the upcoming movie about Edward R. Murrow. Looks pretty good. Here's a synopsis:

[The movie] takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950's America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff - headed by his producer Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba in the CBS newsroom - defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist 'witch-hunts'.

A very public feud develops when the Senator responds by accusing the anchor of being a communist. In this climate of fear and reprisal, the CBS crew carries on and their tenacity will prove historic and monumental.

You can view the trailer here.

On Friday morning in Austin, Texas, the 21-year-old son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- and the nephew of President George W. Bush -- was arrested on charges of public intoxication and resisting arrest. According to the Austin American-Statesman, John Ellis Bush was taken to the Travis County Jail, where he was released on his own recognizance.

On Saturday night in Al Asad (near Anbar in western Iraq), a U.S. soldier on patrol was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded nearby. According to the Associated Press, the soldier was taken to a U.S. military hospital, where he died of his wounds. His name has been withheld, pending notification of next of kin.

(HT to Tim Grieve)

As if to placate Senate Dems and get them to vote for Judge Roberts, several "Republican allies close to the process" said on Monday that Bush intends to nominate a woman to the SCOTUS seat vacated by Judge O'Connor.

Yes, well. Didn't they say that the last time?

Message to Senate Dems: Vote no on Roberts. You won't be seen as obstructionist. The fact is, Roberts will win whatever you do. So you might as well start acting like the opposition party that you are supposed to be.

I read The Note for the same reason I read right-wings blogs: I want to get inside the head of someone different than me to see what it's like in there.

But I am baffled by this recent statement:

The press and the Democrats are still demonizing Karl Rove's involvement in anything and everything, expressing shock and horror that a deputy White House chief of staff with wide-ranging applicable experience is helping to oversee the Katrina response.

What wide-ranging applicable experience does Karl Rove have that makes him qualified to rebuild New Orleans?

A couple of months ago, before Katrina, before Cindy, I wondered if we weren't in a calm before the, um, storm.

Now, Jim Kuntsler is saying something similar:

Take a good look at America around you now, because when we emerge from the winter of 2005 - 6, we're going to be another country.

The reality-oblivious nation of mall hounds, bargain shoppers, happy motorists, Nascar fans, Red State war hawks, and born-again Krispy Kremers is headed into a werewolf-like transformation that will reveal to all the tragic monster we have become.

The new assumption will be that when shit happens you are on your own.

In this remarkable three weeks since New Orleans was shredded, no Democrat has stepped into the vacuum of leadership, either, with a different vision of what we might do now, and who we might become. This is the kind of medium that political maniacs spawn in. Something is out there right now, feeding on the astonishment and grievance of a whipsawed middle class, and it will have a lot more nourishment in the months ahead.

This is what "we" got when "we" voted for Bush -- when stuff happens now, we're on our own. And no Democrat has stepped forward to stop it.

(HT Atrios)

When The American Spectator says you're dead, you're done for:

Publicly, the White House will tell you that it intends to push ahead with two of its big legislative issues throughout the fall: making permanent the first term tax cuts and Social Security reform.

Even privately, with the political and policy debacle that the White House created with its Clintonian response to Hurricane Katrina, policy and political types at 1600 Pennsylvania insist what's left of an agenda is still viable.

But at this stage of the game, barring some imaginative political moves that bear some resemblance to the Bush Administration circa 2002, Republicans on Capitol Hill and even some longtime Bush team members in various Cabinet level departments say this Administration is done for.

Someday, they'll wake up, drink that Bloody Mary and wonder what the hell they were thinking all those years.

P.S. "Clintonian!" Ouch...

From SurveyUSA:

3 polling days after George W. Bush's prime-time speech to the nation from Jackson Square in New Orleans, a "can't win" dynamic is unfolding for the President, according to exclusive SurveyUSA data gathered Friday 9/16, Saturday 9/17 and Sunday 9/18. The number of Americans who now approve of the President's response to Hurricane Katrina is down: 40% today compared to 42% before he announced the Gulf Opportunity Zone. The number of Americans who disapprove of the President's response to Katrina is up: 56% today compared to 52% before the speech. Bush went from "Minus 10" on his Response to Katrina before the speech to "Minus 16" today.

Apparently, Bush sounded so much like a Democrat, he ended up antagonizing his own base:

41% of Americans today say that the city of New Orleans should be rebuilt with "private money," the highest that number has been in the 19 days since the storm. The number of Americans who today say New Orleans should be rebuilt with "public money" is 27%, as low as it has been in 19 days of daily tracking.

The risk for Bush (and his governing majority) is very real: given a choice between a real Democrat and a fake one, people will choose the real Democrat every time.

Gallup Poll update:

9/17-19. MoE 4%. (9/8-11 results in parenthesis)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

Approve 40 (46)
Disapprove 58 (51)

Wow -- in one week, Bush's approval rating went from a "Minus 5" to a "Minus 18".

John Roberts will be confirmed for a seat on SCOTUS. That was clear on day one.

So, what should the Dems do? If they had any smarts, they'd all vote in a block -- all 44 of them -- they'd all vote no. They'd vote no as a way of rejecting a nominee without a record, they'd vote no to reject a nominee who did not offer any insight into his thinking, they'd vote no to reject a nominee who suggested that all his prior legal opinions were at the behest of his clients. They'd vote no because he isn't the kind of man they want on the Supreme Court.

No.

Yeah, I know -- Bush won and now he gets to choose. Fine. Roberts will be confirmed because the Republicans are in the majority. Bush doesn't need the Dems to vote yes. He doesn't need a single one of their votes.

Now, for the Dems, it's over. It was over before it began. Now all that's left is for them to lose. But they should remember that how you lose makes all the difference.

So Dems should vote no to make a point. Dems should vote no so people remember that there is an opposition party and they stand for something. Anything.

Instead, Dems will vote to confirm Roberts to keep their powder dry until the next confirmation battle.

Chris Bowers:

Complicity doesn't keep your powder dry--it deprives you of power entirely. Since 2002, there has been few things more frustrating and empty sounding than Democrats who favored the war going on about the war was a good idea, but Bush conducted the war badly because he didn't bring in our allies, because our humvees don't have enough armor, because the intelligence was bad, or because firehouses are opening in Baghdad while they are closing in America.

Have such statements influenced anyone when they come form people who support the way? Do such statements represent anyone?

[...]

So yeah, keep your powder dry. Keep it dry by locking it in a chest and and burying it underground. Forget where you buried it, and sell your only map of its location to James Dobson. Then go on Fox and tell your opponents that you are unarmed and helpless. Don't forget to tell them where you live, and where you hide all your valuables. A vote for Roberts will do just that.

We don't need a third-party to shake things up. We need a second party.

Is this the most idiotic thing you've ever read, or what?

Here's where we get the money [to rebuild the Gulf Coast]: our citizens earn it in their businesses or by performing their jobs. They spend it on things they need. A lot of those things are imported. The cash ends up in the hands of foreigners. The U.S. government borrows it back.

Note carefully that our consumers now have the stuff, and our government has the cash. Is this a good deal, or what? What the foreigners have is a debt instrument. Good for them.

I'm tempted to say that if they call in their loans, or if they stop lending us money, or stop buying our bonds, or raise interest rates to usurious levels, we're screwed. But I guess there's no arguing with these people.

There's more:

Here is why we take on debt: He who has the cash makes the rules.

This is mindless crap, coated in a layer of cliche, wrapped in a neologism. The only way this makes sense is if we have no intention of ever paying it back. It's like kiting checks! Eesh.

Of course Bush understands this. He's the guy who crashed every business he ever got involved in. Daddy always bailed him out. He couldn't even find oil in Texas.

There's more:

If we have the cash, we get to say how it's spent. Remember, money is power.

Cliches followed by platitudes followed aphorisms. That's what fiscal policy amounts to, today, among conservatives.

Hey, kids! Here's an idea -- let's eliminate all taxes and just borrow 100% of the cost of running our entire government! Yippee!!

There's more:

[Money] is a force you squirt at the world to make it change.

This reads like a 7th grade term paper.

We drive the change, when and where we want. What the foreigners get is a debt instrument. They are passive investors. Those are the best kind.

Right. The government of China is clipping coupons even as we speak. What an idiot.

China is accumulating massive amounts of our debt. Good. Better that than they should have the cash, which they would probably spend on things that we would think are scary. Every dollar we can get them to loan us another dollar they don't have for building battleships.

"Things we would think are scary?"

Is this an adult talking or a 9 year old? P.S. This guy better look up the difference between an asset and a liability. Oh wait, I forgot -- he has no intention of ever paying back what we owe them.

Bush understands this. Too many people don't.

Thank God.

Other than Bush (and the mental giant who wrote this essay) is there anyone -- anyone at all? -- who believes this stuff?

Took the opportunity during the Katrina hiatus to do some rebuilding. I migrated to a new hosting service and I've upgraded to MT 3.2. Some of you may notice that I have not reassigned my domain name yet. I'll do that once all the bugs are out of the MT install.

A couple of things you should know about:

You'll have to login from now on to leave comments. I'm using TypeKey authentication for this. If you have a free TypeKey account, great -- you're good to go.

If you don't have a TypeKey account (or if you have no idea what I'm talking about), you'll be prompted to get one the first time you want to leave a comment. Here's why you should do this:

• Your comments will appear as soon as you submit them.

• It will help reduce or eliminate comment and trackback spam.
  OK, that's more for my benefit, but come on! Who's your friend?

Besides...It's free...you only have to do it once...and your privacy is guaranteed.

If you don't want to register, that's perfectly fine. You can still read the blog if you like. But to leave comments, you must register.

Thanks.

P.S. You will be prompted automatically to get a TypeKey account the first time you leave a comment. Just follow the prompts -- it's easy.

P.P.S. If you have any problems with the new system, or if you have any comments, complaints, etc. please send me an email: ara [at] rubyan [dot] com.

Thanks again.

P.P.P.S. Posts previous to this week have not been migrated yet. Hopefully I'll consolidate everything, asap, but it might be a week or more. Stay tuned.

Krugman:

The Heritage Foundation, which has surely been helping Karl Rove develop the administration's recovery plan, has already published a manifesto on post-Katrina policy. It calls for waivers on environmental rules, the elimination of capital gains taxes and the private ownership of public school buildings in the disaster areas. And if any of the people killed by Katrina, most of them poor, had a net worth of more than $1.5 million, Heritage wants to exempt their heirs from the estate tax.

There's a lot at stake here, but Bush has nothing to lose:

President Bush subscribes to a political philosophy that opposes government activism - that's why he has tried to downsize and privatize programs wherever he can. (He still hopes to privatize Social Security, F.D.R.'s biggest legacy.) So even his policy failures don't bother his strongest supporters: many conservatives view the inept response to Katrina as a vindication of their lack of faith in government, rather than as a reason to reconsider their faith in Mr. Bush.

It's good to be king.

I live in Louisiana now and am reminded of a story about Governor Earl Long.

Once, a lobbyist for the theater exhibitors told Long that he would back him with campaign contributions if Long would repeal the state tax on movie tickets. Long reassured him that he would remove the tax if he got their contributions and was reelected.

Long got the contributions and was reelected.

Later, the lobbyist went into Long's office and said, "Governor, how soon can I tell my clients that you're getting rid of the theater tax?" Long said, "I ain't gonna get rid of any theater tax." The lobbyist said, "But governor, what am I going to tell my clients?"

The governor replied, "Tell 'em I lied."

(HT to David Finn)

I've often said that you can't believe what Bush says; rather, you have to watch what he does.

So...what HAS he done in the past? And how will that affect what he does from this point onward?

To answer the first question:

What he'll do in the near-future is most likely going to be something similar to what he has already done in the recent past: cut spending and benefits on middle class wage-earners while sharply reducing taxes on the wealthiest few. The direct result of this tactic? Record deficits that will have to be paid by our children and grandchildren. In short, Bush has taken our collective credit card, run up the tab and returned it (and the past-due bill) to us for payment. Clearly, fiscal responsibility has never been high on the list of priorities for this administration.

Addressing the second question:

How does that apply to his initiative to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast?

Common sense tells us that there are three ways you can fund the rebuilding effort:

1. Cut spending elsewhere...and/or
   
2. Borrow the money...and/or
   
3. Raise taxes.

We know that option #3 is off the table. Period.

And option #1 has not happened yet over the last five years of this administration. The Republican majority keeps proposing increased spending and this President keeps signing the bills. It has been decades, if not centuries, since a President went this long without vetoing a single bill from Congress. So it is unlikely that fiscal responsibility is in the cards when it comes to fixing the damage from Katrina.

On the other hand, we know that this gang is really committed to pleasing its base, which is most loudly represented by Grover ("make government small enough to drown it in the bathtub") Norquist. So perhaps we'll see drastic spending cuts in the middle-class safety net while (for example) the estate tax is finally repealed once and for all.

In other words: borrow and spend.

What do you think?

Update from Bill Clinton:

On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.

"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.

"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."

Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."

If you are of a certain age, you might remember this iconic image (left) from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. It shows Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos raising their fists in a Black Power salute as the national anthem plays at their medal ceremony.

Flash forward to 2005 and try to imagine my surprise at seeing this 70+ ft. tall billboard the other night in Times Square. It shows Sean Combs (aka Diddy) promoting his clothing line.

All I can say is, God bless America.

Will be on the road -- to a place that's so nice they named it twice.

See you in a couple of days.

Bush:

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

Emphasis added.

Funny -- a simple three-word declaration ("I take responsibility") preceded by a twelve-word condition.

Kevin Drum:

The fact is, conservatives haven't won much of anything in the last 10 years except a PR triumph. Their biggest successes have been on taxes — a Pyrrhic victory at best without corresponding spending cuts — and in the court system, which hasn't actually delivered much real world benefit. Plus they have a war in Iraq, for whatever that's worth. Public opinion simply hasn't allowed them anything more.

Conservatives since Reagan have managed to slow down the march of liberalism — something that was probably inevitable after the 60s anyway — but PR triumphalism aside, that's about it.

I might disagree with his assesssment of the courts -- I don't think we've seen the worst of it yet. But he sees the big picture the same way I do: this administration has not accomplished much of anything that is a net positive.

Tax cuts? That's like me taking your credit card, getting a cash advance with it and giving you the money (and your card) back again. Yippee!

If you're looking forward to John Conyers getting supoena power as newly elected chair of the House Judiciary Committee after the Dems take back the House in 2006, I have two words for you:

"President Cheney."

I'm just saying.

Synagogues burn as Gaza changes hands

You can't reason with people like this, can you?

I thought about what I might want to say this year on the fourth anniversary of 9/11.

Of course, as in previous years, you can read my brother's first-hand account of watching the second tower collapse in lower Manhattan. Or you can read my account of what my daughter wore to school morning four years ago.

Then I noticed that Bush's Saturday radio address linked 9/11, Iraq and Katrina.

Really. I guess I'm not surprised.

That's when I knew that I'd pass along this excerpt from Cunning Realist:

So here we are again. Another year, another September 11th, "the hunt" continues. Listen, after the events of the past two weeks, it's painfully obvious that if this administration cannot help thousands of people trapped for days in one building in a major American city, there is no reason to expect it to bring to justice the two main individuals responsible for the worst-ever attack on American soil.

Are we safer now than we were on Sept. 12? Apparently not.

I want to close with this account from Ray Dougherty:

But above and beyond everything, the one thing I will never forget to my dying day, is the view of the people on the roof and higher floors of the World Trade Center lined up in the windows and on railings. You cannot see their expressions, but it is amazing what a 40 power telescrope reveals.

They often huddled, probably talked about their chances, and sometimes went back into the building, or maybe, just laid on the floor. But then, some went to the edge, and jumped.

Some jumped in pairs, holding hands. I doubt if they were married or lovers. I think it was just two people, alone, desparate, black, white, oriental,who cares - the telescope didn't allow me to distinguish age and race. They would just pair up and jump.

I have thought all day about this. If I were on the roof, and I saw flames on all sides of the building, I would almost certainly jump rather than fry. And if I saw another trembling human alongside of me, I would be much happier holding their hand, and jumping as a pair. Somehow to jump as half of a pair, even if the other half is an ad hoc recent acquaintance, seems to me an infinitely more human way to pass on to the next step, than to take the next step alone.

You want to link Katrina and 9/11? Fine. Then let's remember those poor people who leapt from the towers, holding hands with a stranger. Let's remember them and pledge now that we will make America a place where everyone comes together and no one -- no one -- gets left behind.

Here are some questions that should be getting asked right now:

1. Who will decide what gets demolished in New Orleans?
   
2. Who will bear the demolition costs?
   
3. If you are a property owner, will you be responsible for the cost of demolition?
   
4. If you refuse (or are unable) to pay, what rights do you have?
   
5. What is the process whereby empty property can be acquired through eminent domain?
   
6. What is the appeal process?
   
7. Who has the authority to grant contracts for rebuilding the city?
   
8. Have any contracts already been awarded?

I'd like some answers, please. I'd also like to know who will be asking these questions at the highest levels of the city, state and federal governments.

Here's the thing: we've already seen what happened to the people at the bottom of the pile before the storm hit.

There's a different group of people at the bottom of the pile now, in the aftermath of this storm.

I think someone, anyone, everyone, should be asking some of the questions listed above, right now.

Hurricane Katrina makes our yard a "must-see" tourist stop in East Baton Rouge parish.
If I had a buck for every car that stopped and took a snapshot of our yard, well...

...I'm just saying.