Saturday, September 10, 2005

Lost Everything? An 'Evacuee'? Join the Army!

Look I have a great deal of respect for the military and it's role in our society (although Ike was onto something), but this? SO f@#king wrong:
From a bad novel? Actually from the WSJ: "Ten U.S. Army recruiters are offering volunteer help for Katrina evacuees at Houston's Astrodome. But the recruiters, struggling to keep enlistment up during Iraq war, are also available with options for the jobless. "Our intent is to approach the evacuees at the right time for them,'' says Army spokesman Douglas Smith."
I am, at a loss for words.
"Our intent is to approach the evacuees at the right time for them"
But make no mistake: we WILL approach them.

Josh Marshall also points out the CNN story how the worst disaster in U.S. history is leading to Fat Times in Cronyville!
Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Profiting From Disaster

WOW. The agenda is just out in full force isn't it?
Bush lifts wage rules for Katrina: President signs executive order allowing contractors to pay below prevailing wage in affected areas.

President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.

In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused "a national emergency" that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

[snip]

The Davis-Bacon law requires federal contractors to pay workers at least the prevailing wages in the area where the work is conducted. It applies to federally funded construction projects such as highways and bridges.

Bush's executive order suspends the requirements of the Davis-Bacon law for designated areas hit by the storm.
Gee, that didn't take long did it? Anyone care to guess what else they'll do in the name of 'national emergency'?

Gentrification By Nature

And it just keeps getting better and better as 'Old Money' & the Oligarchs shed any pretense of caring for their fellow man. Salon notes a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about "Old-Line Families Escape Worst of Flood and Plot the Future"... Ready?
But the Journal does provide a glimpse into the thinking of some of the other rich white folks who have survived Katrina relatively unscathed. The Journal introduces us to one James Reiss, a man who "helicoptered in" an Israeli security company to protect his New Orleans home from looters. When the city is rebuilt, Reiss says, it should be a very different place than it was before. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," Reiss tells the Journal. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
Yes, I think we all hear you loud and clear... asshole.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Disturbing

Back from NYC & Boston and ready to blog, so let's put on our classics and push things forward with this story from Nancy Pelosi about an exchange she had with with W.:
Pelosi, speaking at a news conference, said Brown had "absolutely no credentials" when Bush picked him to run FEMA.

She related that she urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Brown.

"He said, 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.

"I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

"Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added.
Oh Nancy, don't you know that you're already in the bullyboys' sights?

Another great story is about a shopper confronting Condi Rice in NYC (from Salon.com):
The White House sought to turn back the rising tide of anger among blacks by deputizing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. During the early days of the hurricane and flood, she had been vacationing in New York, taking in Monty Python's "Spamalot" and spending thousands on shoes at Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue. In the store, a fellow shopper reportedly confronted her, saying, "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!" -- prompting security men to bodily remove the woman. A week after the hurricane, Rice mounted the pulpit at a black church in Whistler, Ala. "The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time," she preached, "if we just wait."
You wait, we'll be helping the living the way "the Lord Jesus Christ" told us to you bloody heretic.

>sigh< So much evil, so little time.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Unbelievable

Sorry for the lack of posts, but we've been on the move (in semi-vacation mode) for almost the last week... and what happens? ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. LITERALLY. The cover of the New York Times yesterday (click on 'More Photos,' go to 'Day 5' pic #12) said it all... and the Bush Administration should be ashamed of themselves.

Government must do for the people what the people what they cannot do for themselves.

What you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.

But these folks have never heard, or believed, these sentiments.

More when we're back...