Wanted: GOP demagogues; 4 month temp. position, pays well

So this is the kind of rabid, revolting talk that Americans are going to be subjected to for the next 4 1/2 months - fear mongering at its worst about a would-be Obama administration. What a surprise.

Here are a few despicable examples of the many that have been broadcast over the airwaves in recent weeks. Listen to the video clip above as conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt leaves no demagogic stone unturned when talking about an Obama victory in regard to the USC/Ohio State game on Sept. 13. (Too bad the game isn't on Sept. 11 - that would have been too perfect.) An excerpt:

And none of the USC people will give up their tickets to me. I'd pay fair price. They — they know Ohio State's gonna slaughter the Trojans. They know that they're gonna slaughter the Trojans, and therefore they do not want me there at the bloodbath, since it's probably the last football game we'll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama. I — I would like to see Ohio State slaughter USC. This is what I'm living for right now.

And they said that Jerry Falwell is dead.

But wait, there's more.

John Gibson of Faux News fame recently entertained former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton on his radio show. Wild comedy ensued when the two began fear mongering discussing a possible (probable) Obama Presidency. Take a listen to this claptrap...

GIBSON: The Obama team is going back to some of the old complaints about the war and the war on terror... that the left has been articulating for a long time now, and not really coming up with anything new.

BOLTON: Yeah I think honestly that's an optimistic view of it, that it will simply be a replay of the Clinton administration. It will simply have more embassy bombings, more bombings of our warships like the Cole, more World Trade Center attacks. That would be the best outcome from that perspective.

Does Bolton have any credibility at all? Did he ever as our ambassador to the UN? Many who look at his record would probably strongly conclude that he has none. My favorite Bolton bon mot - speaking about the UN in 1994, he is purported to have said, "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States. [...] The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Quite naturally, Bush nominated him to be our UN ambassador. And Bush wonders why he couldn't get Bolton confirmed in the Senate. In fact, Bush had to use a recess appointment to get him to the UN in the first place. That one ranks right up there with appointing Michael Brown as head of FEMA, a man who had as much experience at handling natural disasters as I do.

Someone needs to give Bolton a little history lesson...

• The September 11 attacks happened on Bush's watch

• The 1993 WTC attack happened a mere 36 days after President Clinton took office

• The attack on the USS Cole happened on Oct. 12, 2000, and the FBI's final report was issued on Jan. 19, 2001. Just imagine those headlines from the right-wingnuts in the media had Clinton responded in the waning hours of his presidency: Bill Clinton retaliates for Cole attack to deflect attention from presidential pardons!!! would have screamed Faux News, etc.

• The embassy bombings? Yes, they happened on President Clinton's watch, and when the U.S. military retaliated on Aug. 20, 1998, Repubes in Congress, who were busy impeaching him for a blow job, cried that he was trying to deflect attention away from the Lewinsky witch hunt scandal.

I'm not absolving President Clinton of all blame for the terrorism that rocked U.S. locations around the world in his second term (and the first WTC attack early in his first), but to blame him for these attacks is absurd, and in the case of 9-11, utterly laughable.

The myth that Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism in the 1990s has been thoroughly debunked, so I'm not going to waste a whole lot of time on it here. All I'll add is that it's been refuted by people who were there, such as Richard Clarke and George Tenet.

My point is that trying to blame Clinton for every bad terrorist attack is absurd, but we've seen these plays called by Republicans before, most recently before the 2006 election. Let's hope they keep trotting out this cliché time and again before November. I don't think a majority of voters could possibly be naïve enough to believe it.

Our poor plants never see it coming

Tonight I'll lead off with two pretty crazy pieces of video I found on YouTube. The first is trying to say something about vegetarianism, I think. I'm not really sure what these people are trying to say, to be perfectly honest. This video can be interpreted in a number of ways.

I don't think I could ever be a full-blown vegetarian - I just love chicken and steak too much, but if people in this country stopped to think about what they're eating these days, vegetarian or not, most would be petrified. Our government has damn near willfully decided to ignore its obligation to taxpayers when it comes to our food supply -- "inspect to protect."

But, even vegans have plenty of reason to worry these days - the problems aren't just with beef and poultry anymore. From peanuts in our peanut butter to spinach, green peppers or onions, E. Coli is just one of the many food-borne illnesses that our federal government seems unwilling or unable to protect us from.

But, the FDA deserves separate scorn on its own, so I will write about that particularly inept government agency in another post soon. The FDA is so bad at doing the job it's actually supposed to be doing, I think it should merge with FEMA. Why not share the ineptitude? FEMA and the FDA could learn from each other how to better screw up a crisis, whether it be a food-borne epidemic or a devastating hurricane claiming hundreds of lives.

Another thought on vegetarianism ... I'm getting tired of people trying to push their morality on others about what to eat. I've known a few people like that in my life, and I do my best to ignore them, but really, it does get on my nerves from time to time.

I do have my limits - I hardly ever eat veal, because I don't like how most of the animals where veal comes from are raised. (Come to think of it - I stopped eating veal years ago.) I don't eat tuna, but if I did, I'd eat dolphin friendly tuna. I'm serious. I'd love to see our government do something about pig farms and factory farms, but nothing will be done about that until we have a new administration in the White House.

613 days to go, but who's counting?

Katrina trailers in FEMA FUBAR limbo

You're looking at a picture of why our federal government doesn't work. Above is a picture of 20,000 trailers, a good portion of them new or in like-new condition, purchased by FEMA in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, at the cost of millions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers.

It turns out many of them weren't needed, so FEMA is now selling them off at fire sale prices. Fair enough, to a certain extent.

My big question is, why not keep some of them on hand, in storage, for the next big natural disaster? Many of them are being stored in Hope, Arkansas, like the ones above, because it's considered one of the safest areas in the south - too far inland for a hurricane to have any significant impact.

But, the million dollar question is - why was FEMA so slow to respond to the tornadoes that hit the south last week? Well over a hundred homes were destroyed, and there the trailers sit. After a bit of public outcry, FEMA agreed to send 30 used trailers to the area. Stop the press!

I understand part of the delay was waiting for President Bush to declare the areas hit by tornadoes federal disaster areas. Fine.

But, once that happened, why not send 150 of them to the tornado-ravaged areas? It's inexcusable that it didn't happen. Why? Because it could and should take one phone call from Bush to his FEMA director, R. David Paulison, to make it happen.

Ring Ring Ring

RDP: Hello, David Paulison here.

W: David, hi, it's the president. Send 150 trailers to the tornado areas, now. Make sure that every displaced family gets one and that no one is left homeless. Make sure it is done in an orderly and fair manner. Implement some safeguards - I want no stories of fraud in the media - how some enterprising individual drove to Alabama and made off with a new trailer on the federal government's dime. Other than that, none of these people should be staying in shelters by the end of the week. Call me if you have any problems or any obstacles, and I'll get 'em out of the way for you, pronto.

RDP: I'll see to it, Mr. President.

##

Wow, that sounds hard. I think that's what they call being a commander in chief. Or, in the infamous words of my college newspaper, in what was one of our worst headlines ever, "Leaders lead people." (Thankfully, that headline wasn't written on my watch.)

Even more frustrating is that FEMA has been broken for years - problems like these span decades and administrations both Democratic and Republican. Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are all examples of FEMA's ineptitude. (And all happening on a Republican president's stewardship, if you're keeping score.)
If problems like these aren't fixed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when are they going to be fixed? What's more, if the unthinkable happens, the detonation of a nuclear bomb, what would our government's response be then?

When I read stories like these, my only thought is that in that situation, the men, women and children in this country would have to fend for themselves. Because we sure as hell can't wait for the government to respond in a timely manner to most natural disaster situations.

Thank GOD last week is over

What a week it was for commuting. I've never been so happy to see a weekend in my whole life.

Wednesday was a day for lovers, but it sure wasn't for drivers. Snow, ice, extreme cold, locusts, earthquakes and tornadoes all pelted Pennsylvania, and, aside from New York State, there are probably at least 40 other states I would have rather been living in.

It took me three hours to get to work, and when I arrived, I found out the school where I teach was closed. Joy. I turned right around and drove home - 3 more hours.

But really, I have no right to complain. There were people on I-78 who spent up to 24 hours in their vehicles, without moving. The National Guard was called up to bring in drinks, baby supplies and ready-to-eat meals to motorists.

And this was just a blizzard. I shudder to imagine how the state would have handled a national or regional emergency if this is the level of competency we get with an ice storm. Absolutely outrageous.

What's more, it's not like we are Georgia, Southern California or Florida, places that rarely if ever see In the last 15 years, I can think of three blizzards off the top of my head, and dozens and dozens of other storms that created mayhem in Pennsylvania.

To his credit, Governor Ed Rendell seems full-hot on the deal.

As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Yesterday, Rendell called for an investigation into what he deemed as the state's "totally unacceptable" response to the crisis and the "total breakdown of communications" among state agencies.

"How could it happen that I wasn't notified until five of 8 p.m. and notified by a state trooper at the residence, not by anybody in the normal chain of command?" Rendell questioned.

He added, "I haven't gotten an acceptable answer as of now and that ticks the heck out of me."

Well, that's a start.

Motorists being stranded on an American highway for 24 hours because of a winter storm is unacceptable and inexcusable.

To make it worse, from my point of view, the state wasn't quite circling the wagons enough to quickly fix the problem.

Case in point: last Thursday, I was traveling on Route 422, about 20 miles west of Philadelphia, but not too far from where motorists were stranded for 24 hours on I-78. While on 422, I noticed a snowplow scraping the roadway and pushing melted snow another foot off the shoulder of the bare route, which was mostly dry and in no way a hazard. A waste of gas and man hours. I can just imagine that situation - a driver collecting OT to scrape a dry roadway, stranded motorists a few counties away be damned.

Rendell seems determined to get to the bottom of the debacle. He has called in James Lee Witt, a former FEMA director during the Clinton Administration who serves a public-safety consultant, to conduct an independent investigation. (Remember the Clinton Administration? Way back when we a federal government much more competent than we do today. At least Rendell didn't hire Michael Brown.) The state Senate's Transportation Committee and Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee are also investigating. A hearing is set for Thursday.

On Friday, Rendell would not rule out the possibility that the state's handling of the storm emergency could result in employee determination(s).

Call me crazy, but if there were massive problems about 40-50 miles away, shouldn't our state have been circling the wagons, calling on all available resources to get the interstate reopened? (On Thursday, sections of I-78 were still closed, and I know this firsthand, because I was detoured around the closed roadway on my way to work - see photos below.)

Thank GOD for timing. This is I-78 in Berks County, not far from Allentown, Pa. I travel this highway, on this very section, every day, and I traveled it about two hours before this photo was taken (in the direction of the lone white car, above right). (AP Photo/The Morning Call, Don Fisher)

This is a view along the same area of I-78 going the other way. An accident shut down the interstate, and while the traffic sat still, the snow and ice came and came and came. By the time the accident was cleared, the highway was impassable. Some sat on the highway for upwards of 24 hours. Governor Rendell had to call out the National Guard to deliver baby supplies, gasoline and meals to cranky, enraged motorists. (AP Photo/The Morning Call, Don Fisher)

I'm just happy I was not one of them.

How many days until spring again?

(Top photo from AP)

Bush: I'll have all the Brownies I want

Just got these postcards in the mail the other day from the aforementioned Xpress Your View. I love it. For those of you who don't remember, Bush's response to Katrina was inexplicably slow; he was vacationing on his non-working ranch in Crawford, Texas when Katrina hit. However, when the Schiavo controversy came to a head, he hopped on Air Force One and flew back to Washington almost immediately to intervene. Pretty telling about where this president's priorities have been.

Anyway, a little bit ago on Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer had a good point about FEMA and Katrina. I'll comment after the video clip below...



So, Congress got some balls recently and told the president that all future FEMA directors have to have at least five years of emergency management experience, and Bush thumbed his nose at Congress.

I can understand Bush's quandary on this one - the president should have the power to pick his own people, but the president shouldn't have the ability to pick completely incompetent people. Part of the problem here is that I don't believe FEMA director requires Congressional approval. Since FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA director is no longer a cabinet-level position (President Clinton raised FEMA director to a cabinet level position in 1993). If Congress feels that strongly about it (and it should, in the wake of Katrina and the government's disastrous handling of it), then it should pass a law requiring Congressional approval of the FEMA director. That way, if Bush or any future president doesn't want to meet a Congressional mandate that the head of FEMA should have X number of years of experience, simply don't confirm him or her.

I can see Bush's point here, but honestly, the public good should override these concerns. FEMA director has historically been a patronage job - a place where a president could give someone a decent paying job for having been a good supporter. But, Katrina changed all of that. We can never have another "Brownie" (former FEMA Director Michael D. Brown) on the job. (Everyone remembers the "Heck of a job, Brownie, heck of a job" crack by President Bush, who had no goddamn clue what was happening on the Gulf Coast when he said it.)

With global warming arguably causing many more super hurricanes, we need someone who can quickly mobilize an effective government response not only to hurricanes, but to all disasters, both man-made and natural.

A real-life Clark Kent

Haven't we heard this song before? Another former Bush administration official is speaking out about this administration's ineptitude in dealing with terrorism, and most importantly, its lack of funding and preparedness for another attack against America. I wonder what Rove and company will do to discredit him.

First, it was Richard Clarke, and his 2004 explosive best selling book, Against All Enemies. In a highly partisan political year, Bush, Rove and Co. went after him just like they've gone after Osama bin Laden. Oops. Bad example. Okay, they went after Clarke like the GOP went after Clinton for having an affair. Yea, that's better.

The new man in Rove's crosshairs is Clark Kent Ervin, currently the head of Homeland Security Program at the Aspen Institute. He was the first Inspector General of the United States Department of Homeland Security, appointed by President Bush in December 2003 in a recess appointment. He served until December 2004, when his term expired. Subsequently, The White House did not submit his name to the Senate for confirmation.

Ervin has written a book , Open Target: How America is Vulnerable to Attack, which details how vulnerable America is to another terrorist attack and the reasons why. His biggest criticism is this administration's lack of funding for the DHS. Read this exchange, between Ervin and Jon Stewart, on a recent airing of The Daily Show:

JS: It feels as though [the Bush administration is] very good at the rhetoric of fighting this war [on terrorism], but don’t apparently have the wherewithal to competently govern it.

CKE: That’s exactly right. You know, it’s as if they think all it takes to secure the homeland is a department called Homeland Security. Creating this department really was the beginning of the job, not the end of it. And from the beginning, the department has been under funded. I say that, rightly as you say, as a conservative republican. I don’t typically call for greater government spending, but you can’t secure the homeland on the cheap.

JS: What are the changes being made? I know now they [Republicans] just came out and said we should get rid of FEMA.

CKE: That’s right, well you know it’s a typical Washington response. Rather than taking the government we have, giving it the money it needs, the leadership it needs, and the culture it needs to work, we are recreating the organizational chart. I had hoped and thought that Secretary [Michael] Chertoff would be a big improvement, but as you say, Katrina was his test, and he obviously failed it. The thing about terrorism is that we won’t have any warning, or if we do it will be very indirect, and if we’re not prepared for something that is not just foreseeable but foreseen, how prepared can we be for the next terror attack?

Just a few weeks ago, Congressional investigators were able to sneak bomb components through 21 airports undetected, even though investigators went out of their way to make it easy to spot them.

JS: You make a point in your book about a report that said that 40 percent of all weapons and bombs, etcetera, you guys were able to sneak into airports, and [Tom] Ridge [The first head of DHS] called you into his office and said, "Why didn’t you say we were successful 60 percent of the time?"

CKE: Rather than making bad results better, they were focused on making bad results sound better. And that in a nutshell is the problem; that accounts for why America remains an open target all these many years after 9-11.

##

Still feel safe? I don't.

The only question now is what the Bush administration will do to Swiftboat Ervin. It's not a question of if, it's a question of how and when. Hey, it's an election year, and the War on Terrorism is arguably Bush's strength, if he even has one left. Do you honestly think that Karl Rove will let attacks on the president's credibility go unanswered? You can be confident that when Rove finishes his attack campaign, some right wing hacks will consider Ervin a real threat who "hates America" and "sides with the terrorists."

Hurricane Katrina was a perfect illustration of how poorly this government can execute any kind of significant federal response to any kind of disaster, be it natural or terrorist. Ervin is merely pointing it out. The DHS has been vastly under funded since its inception in November 2002. Our ports are more open than Paris Hilton and our border agents should have red sheets so they can yell olé! as illegals pour over the border. But hey, thank GOD the GOP controlled Congress just passed another fucking tax cut a few weeks ago, to the tune of $70 billion. Republicans are so out of touch, it's just turning into a comedy hour now. But, it will be no laughing matter when the hotly contested campaigns kick into high gear this summer.

Hurricane Katrina, before it blew off the Bush's administration's shroud of competency, to the tune of $115 billion. Must be time for another tax cut! Great idea - let's pay back all of this money we are borrowing [because of record-high deficits], with interest. What difference will it make? Bush will be long gone, with his two nightmare terms behind us, by the time the bill comes due.

Thanks George!