If the Goverment is a car setting out to give every one a ride to work, then for 40 years the Republicans have been puncturing the tires, pouring sand in the gas tank, stealing the distributer cap, and, whenever they can get their hands on the wheel, driving it straight into the nearest ditch and then, pointing to the wreckage as the tow truck backs up to it, saying, See, this proves that people were meant to walk.
And they do this so that they don’t have to chip in on gas.
Category: Issues of the Day
Best line of the day, so far (vintage 1788)
“He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.”
— Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 76 (1788)
Obviously Hamilton never met W.
Best line of the day, so far
“As of Oct. 20, the Second Amendment is probably in the best shape in this country that it’s been in decades.”
— NRA president Wayne LaPierre quoted by The New York Times, commenting as the House passed a bill to protect the gun industry from lawsuits.
Pop Quiz
Whiskey Bar has a copy of Harriet’s re-do. Here’s the first question and answer:
Q: Please describe the importance of the U.S. Constitution in our system of government.
A: The Constitution is a very important document which plays a very important role in our system of government. The importance of the Constitution cannot be overstated, because the role it plays is so important. I am certain that as an Associate Justice — and I plan to be the best ever! — I will have many opportunities to consider the very important role that the Constitution plays in our system of government. However, as I am still reading the document, I feel it would be inappropriate for me to comment further at this time.
Read the rest, it’s the best satire ever!!!
Best line of the day, so far
“[Miers] thus became perhaps the most important judicial nominee in history to be offered what amounts to a do-over on a take-home quiz.”
— New York Times editorial commenting on Senate Judiciary Committee asking Harriet Miers to re-do her questionnaire.
Beats Per Minute
Vernon has returned home to New Orleans and tells of life and work (he’s a doctor) in the aftermath.
Wading Toward Home
The best writing I’ve seen on New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina — New Orleans native Michael Lewis, Wading Toward Home from The New York Times Magazine.
Just wondering
Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 16: “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
But half the time, the lesser light, the moon, is in the daytime sky.
Since Sliced Bread
We’re looking for fresh, new ideas for a better America. Do you have a common-sense idea that will improve the day-to-day lives of everyday Americans? Or an opinion on how working families can succeed in the new global economy?
You have until December 5, 2005, to submit your idea and to weigh in. A panel of judges will select the top 21 ideas. All of America will be able to vote on the finalists, and on February 1, one person will win $100,000—runners up receive $50,000 each.
We support cruel, inhuman treatment
The nine U.S. Senators who voted no on the McCain amendment, which would ban use of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” against anyone in United States government custody. Ninety senators voted yes (there was one absent).
Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)
All the President’s Women
Maureen Dowd begins:
I hope President Bush doesn’t have any more office wives tucked away in the White House.
There are only so many supremely powerful jobs to give to women who are not qualified to get them.
The West Wing is a parallel universe to TV’s Wisteria Lane: instead of self-indulgent desperate housewives wary of sexy nannies, there are self-sacrificing, buttoned-up nannies serving as adoring work wives, catering to W.’s every political, legal and ego-affirming need.
Maybe it’s because his mom was not adoring enough, but more tart and prickly, even telling her son, the president, not to put his feet up on her coffee table. Or maybe it’s because, as his wife says, his kinship with his mom gives him a desire to be around strong, “very natural” women. But W. loves being surrounded by tough women who steadfastly devote their entire lives to doting on him, like the vestal virgins guarding the sacred fire, serving as custodians for his values and watchdogs for his reputation.
Ms. Dowd continues — Condi, Karen, now Harriet.
Best line of the day, so far
“If things go as they are apparently planned, the rebuilt [New Orleans] will be Santa Fe by the bayou — an overpriced city, most of whose residents of color will find themselves priced out even as the city projects a multicultural atmosphere as its main selling point.”
SCOTUS
Some welcome balance about Harriet Miers from Siva Vaidhyanathan at Altercation.
There have been hints that the Dem strategy to shake her up will consist of calling her appointment another example of “cronyism and incompetence.” Some will accuse her of lacking the resume for the job. I say that’s crap for a couple of reasons:
1. For a woman of her generation to achieve all she has is remarkable. She had to work in firms full of the goodest and oldest of the good old boys. Think about all the snide remarks she must have had to put up with over the years. Think of all the men she has had to school. So few women have been appointed to the federal bench that we can’t expect any president to limit himself to judges when considering such an appointment. It’s good to see a president look beyond the usual suspects.2. White House Counsel is a hell of a difficult job, full of constiutional judgements complicated by political contingencies. The very fact that she has served in that job without making headlines is to her credit. Alberto Gonzales was not that deft. Neither was John Dean. So kudos to Miers for serving her client well.That said, I shall now proceed to gather more reasons why she should not serve on the High Court.
Best lines of the day, so far
“President Bush, apparently stung by criticism that he had installed political cronies of spotty experience into critical positions in FEMA, turned to a political crony of spotty experience to fill the open seat on the Supreme Court.”
“The president carefully and deliberately selected as his nominee for the vacant Supreme Court position the first person he ran into in the hallway this morning.”
Tons of Ice on Trips to Nowhere
From an article in The New York Times:
When the definitive story of the confrontation between Hurricane Katrina and the United States government is finally told, one long and tragicomic chapter will have to be reserved for the odyssey of the ice.
Ninety-one thousand tons of ice cubes, that is, intended to cool food, medicine and sweltering victims of the storm. It would cost taxpayers more than $100 million, and most of it would never be delivered.
The somewhat befuddled heroes of the tale will be truckers like Mark Kostinec, who was dropping a load of beef in Canton, Ohio, on Sept. 2 when his dispatcher called with an urgent government job: Pick up 20 tons of ice in Greenville, Pa., and take it to Carthage, Mo., a staging area for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Mr. Kostinec, 40, a driver for Universe Truck Lines of Omaha, was happy to help with the crisis. But at Carthage, instead of unloading, he was told to take his 2,000 bags of ice on to Montgomery, Ala.
After a day and a half in Montgomery, he was sent to Camp Shelby, in Mississippi. From there, on Sept. 8, he was waved onward to Selma, Ala. And after two days in Selma he was redirected to Emporia, Va., along with scores of other frustrated drivers who had been following similarly circuitous routes.
At Emporia, Mr. Kostinec sat for an entire week, his trailer burning fuel around the clock to keep the ice frozen, as FEMA officials studied whether supplies originally purchased for Hurricane Katrina might be used for Hurricane Ophelia. But in the end only 3 of about 150 ice trucks were sent to North Carolina, he said. So on Sept. 17, Mr. Kostinec headed to Fremont, Neb., where he unloaded his ice into a government-rented storage freezer the next day.
“I dragged that ice around for 4,100 miles, and it never got used,” Mr. Kostinec said.
I don’t think so
“Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith plays in Americans’ lives,” she said. When an Egyptian opposition leader inquired why Mr Bush mentions God in his speeches, Hughes asked him whether he was aware that “previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our constitution cites ‘one nation under God’.”
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes quoted by Sidney Blumenthal
The word God does not appear in the Constitution.
Pull over, buddy
Link via Juanita.
Cost of the war in Iraq
Juanita’s Congress Varmint
For the record again, I do not believe that Tom DeLay should have to step down as Majority Leader while he’s under indictment. In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. I opposed this Republican supported rule when they made it – everybody knows they voted for the rule so they could look all church-lady and sanctimonious. Heck, I was even willing to give them the benefit of better thought and supported the move to reverse it a year ago. I think an indictment is just that – an indictment and no proof of guilt. However, Republicans disagree with me about that.
I think there’s petards and hoisting going on here.
Anti-competents
Susan Wood resigns in protest over the politicization of women’s health care? Ha! We’ll show her — we’ll put a vet in charge, instead.
*****
But there is a certain arch, flippant malice to making Edwin Foulke assistant secretary in charge of the health and safety of workers.
Republican appointees who oppose the agencies to which they are assigned are a dime a dozen, but Foulke is a partner from the most notorious union-busting law firm in the country. What he does for a living is destroy the only organizations that care about workers’ health and safety.
Here’s another PP pick: put a timber industry lobbyist in as head of the Forest Service. How about a mining industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional in charge of the public lands? Nice shot. A utility lobbyist who represented the worst air polluters in the country as head of the clean air division at the EPA? A laff riot. As head of the Superfund, a woman whose last job was teaching corporate polluters how to evade Superfund regulations? Cute, cute, cute. A Monsanto lobbyist as No. 2 at the EPA. A lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute at the Council on Environmental Quality. And so on. And so forth.
*****
The terrible lesson of Hurricane Katrina is that public policy is not a political gotcha game. The public interest is not well-served by appointing incompetents or anti-competents to positions of responsibility. Public policy is about our lives.
Best line of the day, so far
“W. doesn’t really need to worry about turning down the lights in the White House. The place is already totally in the dark.”
Maureen Dowd at the end of Wednesday’s column
Short memory; Small person
“… I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area …”
— Governor Blanco letter to President Bush, August 27, 2005
REPRESENTATIVE BUYER: “So I’d like to know why did the president’s federal emergency assistance declaration of August 27th not include the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines?”
[FORMER FEMA DIRECTOR] BROWN: “[I]f a governor does not request a particular county or a particular parish, that’s not included in the request.”
— During sworn testimony September 27, 2005
Pointer via Think Progress
Don’t believe everything you hear and read
As floodwaters forced tens of thousands of evacuees into the Dome and Convention Center, news of unspeakable acts poured out of the nation’s media: evacuees firing at helicopters trying to save them; women, children and even babies raped with abandon; people killed for food and water; a 7-year-old raped and killed at the Convention Center. Police, according to their chief, Eddie Compass, found themselves in multiple shootouts inside both shelters, and were forced to race toward muzzle flashes through the dark to disarm the criminals; snipers supposedly fired at doctors and soldiers from downtown high-rises.
In interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Compass reported rapes of “babies,” and Mayor Ray Nagin spoke of “hundreds of armed gang members” killing and raping people inside the Dome. Unidentified evacuees told of children stepping over so many bodies, “we couldn’t count.”
The picture that emerged was one of the impoverished, masses of flood victims resorting to utter depravity, randomly attacking each other, as well as the police trying to protect them and the rescue workers trying to save them. Nagin told Winfrey the crowd has descended to an “almost animalistic state.”
Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened.
Source: Excerpt from the Times-Picayune
Letter from Louisiana
David Remnick has an excellent piece in The New Yorker on New Orleans and the aftermath of Katrina. Good historical perspective.
Where the money comes from
For Fiscal Year 2005, which ends Friday, the last White House estimate (the July Mid-Session Review) was that there would be $2.140 trillion in receipts and $2.479 trillion in expenditures. That means a deficit of $339 billion. This was before hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Based on this estimate, for every dollar the federal government has spent since last October 1:
- 37½ cents came from individual income taxes
- 32 cents came from Social Security, Medicare and other retirement taxes
- 10½ cents came from corporate income taxes
- 3 cents was generated by taxes on alcohol, tobacco, fuel, telephones, air transportation, etc. (excise taxes)
- 2 cents came from custom duties and government fees (such as $50 for a National Parks Pass)
- 1 cent came from estate and gift taxes
- and 14 cents was borrowed from our children and grandchildren
All of the hurricane money will have to be borrowed.