OMG, Rehnquist dies. Fuck it.

[saracat]

Pat Robertson's prayers came true. And at such a fortuitous time for Bush! I am almost out of hope. Is there anything to feel okay about?

[TayTay]

1. Not today there isn't

I don't know about you, but I am going to place a phone call to Sen. Frist and call him a traitor for even suggesting that we pass the Estate Tax Repeal. I think he's a friggin traitor to suggest this at this time.

Sigh! I think I'll also call the White House and call that bastard a coward on line. He is a frigging coward for trying to offload the responsibility for what happened to the relief effort in NOLA to state and local authorities. I think everytime that bastard appears in public, people ought to chant, Coward, coward, coward. Cuz that's what he is. A dirty little, turn tail and run, coward.

[saracat]

2. You know I am supposed to be going to a special training and

information session sponsored by Emily's list next week. It was supposed to be in conjunction with the DNC Meeting which was canceled. They apparently heard about my big pro choice mouth and they want more aggressively pro choice women to both run for office and manage campaigns. And I was referred to them. I was really excited and thought the air was clearing. Now I am numb with shock and think it is pointless. Sigh. I will still go, but I wonder if it is all worth anything. Fuck it all. America is a third world country. And I don't like it here.

[Island Blue]

3. Please don't give credit to Pat Robertson' prayers.

Rehnquist was very old and very sick. Old, sick people die. Pat Robertson and his voodoo dolls had nothing to do with this. I'm really sorry to get snippy, it's just that I loathe Pat Robertson almost as much as I do Bush. I think he's a very dangerous man.

[wisteria]

9. Robertson is no favorite of mine either!

I have never liked him, consider him a bit crazy, but Bush remains my top pick for most despised person. I didn't think it was possible to despize him more than I did after the election, but the New Orleans disaster and his lack of caring and his blatant photo-ops, and now his administration trying to blame others for his incompentance has taking me well over the top. I ask myself a lot lately, how this man could be our presdient? He screws up everything he does and we still have three more years with man-God help us all!

[TheDonkey]

4. Good news and Bad news with this

Some good news is that at least it is Rehnquist a ultra-rightwing nut who will probably be replaced with a slightly more moderate (just because * is so unpopular now) or so we can hope.

Democrats won't be afriad to fillibuster, this is the opening they have been prepared for.

[TayTay]

5. The Democrats are going to be pissed when they get back

They have been withholding fire because the suffering and desperate have to be attended to first.

There is so much to indict the Bush Admin on that it just makes your head spin. The Democrats occupy the moral high ground on this. Bush is trying to spin that the state and local guys dropped th ball on this. Bullshit. There are millions of people who saw this disaster unfold on TV and saw that Bush was off eating cake and playing guitar. The Democrats have the moral high ground here.

We have a debacle in Iraq
We have an Administration that is looking down the barrel of an indictment for the treason of the Plame case
We have a cowardly President who won't meet with the mother of a soldier killed in his war
We have a cowardly, stupid and indifferent bastard who screwed up the relief effort in the Gulf.

This guy is toast. He can spin all he wants, but the Perfect Storm of abandonment of responsibility and accountability is headed for him. He should resign now, running away is what that little coward does best.

Democrats should hold the Roberts hearings back until 9/12 or 9/13. Rehnquist's death should force a postponement. Which we should have had anyway since the most important thing in the country right now is to save the people in harm's way.

[Island Blue]

6. I do hope they come back fired up

and ready to kick some Republican ass. I think the public will be on their side if they do.

[saracat]

7. Boy ,do I hope you are right TayTay!

The situation is very confusing to me. I don't have quite as much faith in the Dems. I would like to, but I haven't seen anything to give me faith.Many repukes are angry with Bush but many are towing the Party line and many more than I thought. I hear a lot of NO deserved it, and no one is taking the racism issue seriously. In fact, I think it weakens the argument against Bush. I don't think he hates Blacks. I don't think he gives two shits about anyone. I think he probably hates all middle class and poor people regardless of color.
The callousness of my fellow Americans is really hard to bear, and frightening.The Rehnquist factor will deflect from Bush's damage in NO. And that is wrong, but it will happen. I am not sure the people of this country care enough yet.And that makes me very depressed. I wanted to vomit when I heard the Surgeon General describe NO as an "opportunity for volunteerism ,which is one of this President's "pet" projects" like this is a fucking ladies luncheon or charity bazaar! And the head of Homeland Security(Deucheland Auberalis) praising FEMA for an incredibly well done job! :puke: of what, kissing Bush's ass while people die?
We need a massive sea change immediately or it is hopeless. I sure hope you are right. I don't want to live like this. There has got to be a better way.

[TayTay]

8. Have you been watching the coverage

or reading the newspapers. Every major newspaper in the country, including all the conservative and even some of the Rethugs ones have condemned George W. Bush and his fricking band of clowns for this disaster in New Orleans. Show me a single news source that hasn't blasted Bush for his callous ineptitude. And it's just beginning. We have Bush by the short and curlies on this one and the Democrats are about to get out the garlic press.

Item: Mary Landreiu writes to the news media to complain about the staged event at the levees. Seems that all sorts of equipment was brought in so that the President could have a good photo-op when he went to the levee. Let the folks in middle-America think the levees were job one. Ms. Landreiu flew over the same levees today and there is ONE piece of equipment filling in the levee at 17th & Canal. One. This is all over European media and CBS on 60 Minutes is putting it all over US news tomorrow night.

Item: Bush's photo-op yesterday where he hugged two AA girls and told them to get over to the trucks (or tents or that building that he should have known didn't exist anymore) That relief area was dismantled as soon as Bush left. German TV captured this and showed it live. US TV is picking this up as well.

Item: That fircking incompetent moron Brown has no qualification to be FEMA director. He failed as head of the US Arabian Horse federation and was asked to resign. The NYTimes has an article on how much of a boob this guy is and how he never should have been selected.

The shit is hitting the fan. This tragedy and national disgrace unfolded on national TV. It is only going to get worse. There will be demands for hearings on accountability. And the State of LA is not going to roll over and give Bush the Coward what he wants.

The shit has hit the fan. You can't stop this. You can't pretend the dead of NEw Orleans don't exist. You can't erase the image of dead grandmothers and dead babies from the Superdome. And you can't erase the memories of the rescue workers who were told not to go into NOLA until Bush arrived on Friday. They wanted the photo-op. These people are screaming to the media that this actually happened. The shit has hit the fan here honey and it's not going away.

And oh my Gawd are Democrats going to come down like the wrath of Gawd on Bush. Landriue's letter on her web site is just the beginnning of the response. That one will look like a tea party invitation in a few days. Believe it.

[whometense]

10. I believe.

Good god, you go watch a movie for a couple of hours, come back to check online, and all hell has broken loose.

I believe. I just have no concept of how all this is going to play out. I have absolutely no doubt that the dems will be enraged. To me the true quesion is what the repukes are going to do. Will they stay in line like good little soldiers? Or will they pick up on the exponentially growing rage in the country and moderate their line to save their own asses?

Did any of you take a look at the comments on Steve Gilliard's rant thread? Most sounded like something you or I might have written. But then there were the hardline wingnuts, still spewing poison, still clinging to their Bush the Almighty true believer shit. It boggles the mind.

[wisteria]

13. You know, I'm tired of the Repub rant that everybody is out to get Bush

and its all a big conspiracy against him. Why shouldn't we want to get him and point out his incompetence.

[jillan]

12. Tay Tay, I have to correct you on one thing...

The tragedy didn't unfold on national TV... it unfolded on INTERNATIONAL TV!!! I caught that on one of the news shows yesterday, they were showing public response from France, Israel, GB, China.

Everyone was really sypathetic, except one woman from Russia (forgot to mention Russia above) She said something along the lines of big man Bush invading countries and can't control what happens in his own country.
Guess he's not so big afterall!

I didn't know that about the staged event for *'s visit. What an Asshole!

[karynnj]

14. I can't believe he had the nerve to create bogus photo opts

That is so utterly dispicable. (I hadn't seen any TV - as I went to a community beach party - where the few people who mentioned it (in a pretty Republican town) were appalled at the disaster and Bush.

It will be interesting to see if the press starts to show Bush as we see him.

[MH1]

17. "Nail meet hammer" - * doesn't care about ANYONE.

The problem I have with people claiming racism is that they are mistaken, and using inflammatory terms like racism obscures the real evidence, which is even worse - that * just doesn't care about other people at all.

I don't think he likes rich people any better than poor or middle-class people. He just likes better what they can do for him.

[Der Blaue Engel]

25. People are missing the big picture about racism

The truth is, that racism is a huge factor, and you HAVE to see that if you look at the faces on television. Do you really think it's a coincidence most of the victims are black?

It can't be reduced to "Bush is a racist" and didn't care about African Americans. It's much worse than that. It's institionalized racism in this country that everyone has tried to brush under the rug. Tax breaks for the ultra-rich, cuts to welfare and programs that shore up infrastructures, taking advantage of the poor by offering cheap incentives for them to sacrifice themselves in Iraq because they have no other options for work in this country thanks to Bush's administration over the past four years, the disregard for those in poverty who could not possibly evacuate and the subsequent "they chose not leave" rhetoric: THAT is the face of racism in this that leaves poor and overwhelmingly black communities to be fucked in situations of national disaster. It is not all attributable to Bush, but to many, many sources, but his administration has overwhelmingly exacerbated these issues.

In addition, Bush, in my opinion, has made critical errors in judgement, and maybe it's just his handlers, but a brain-dead middle-class white woman got him to take action because he thought it would make him look good, and it never occurred to him (or his handlers) how bad it would look not to show immediate and effective concern over these people.

Believe it.

[TayTay]

26. This is the logical conclusion of Reaganomics

and it goes back 25 years. Hell, it was ten year ago that the Rethugs in Congress passed that mess of a 'Welfare Reform' program that basically abandoned the poor.

Statistics are funny things. The overwhelming majority of poor in America are white. (Yup, white.) Appalachia, the South, pockets everywhere. But this is a smaller percentage of the white population than poverty is for the AA population. (Statistics are funny things.) Poverty cuts across race, religion, etc. (The majority of poor in WV are white. Northeast poor are a mix, with a lot of poor hispanics, blacks and whites. Look at Maine, again, those are dirt poor whites.)

The majority of the poor in NOLA were AA. That fact stares us in the freakin face from our TV screens. It is a fact. The only way that we are going to make it any better is to find a way to bridge the lies and racism that keep one set of poor people from seeing that they are the same, basically, as another set of poor people. The poor in West Virginia have more in common with the poor in NOLA than they do with a fat ole middle-aged white lady in Massachusetts. (LOL!)

The tragedy of Rethuglicanism is that they successfully separated people who have every reason to have common cause into opposing groups, marginalized both groups and made them compete for dwindling attention, dollars and care from local state and the federal government. This was planned. Divide and conquer.

The challenge to the Dems is to make people see common ground and vote their coomon interest. It won't be easy.

[MH1]

27. Yes. I think what I meant was that it's not an

immediate, in-the-moment racism that some are implying. Institutionalized racism, absolutely. Consequences of effed-up policies, for sure.

I just don't think it's helpful to yell "racism" at every turn. The biggest problem here was incompetence, negligence, and general callousness. The reason the effects are racist is because of all the things you mention.

I disagree though that "a brain-dead middle-class white woman got him to take action"; it was the fear of retribution from his cash cow so-called christian base.

[TayTay]

28. Whoops, and I didn't mean that.

I meant that it will take an effort to get poor people to see themselves as having common interests to get things better. My job is to try to convince the well-off around me that this is also in their interest as it builds a better, stronger and safer country. And it makes us a better people in our own eyes and the eyes of the world.

Sorry about that.

[MH1]

29. Heh, I was replying to Blue Angel.

I think I agree with everything you were saying. It's a little deep for me tonight though.

:-)

[Der Blaue Engel]

31. Right.

And he knew there was nothing to fear from that same base in ignoring impoverished Blacks. That's what I'm saying, is that this is all interconnected. The so-called christian base, neocons, theocons, whatever you want to call them, value certain kinds of life.

I saw the movie Crash a few weeks ago and was very troubled by the fictionalized truth it put in front of my face...and now it sits in front of me in living color on television, live and ugly. This country has a long, long way to go to deal with its racism, and it was never more obvious to me than it has been this week.

It didn't help that my partner and I went to see The Constant Gardner yesterday to "escape"...it brought the global racism from which all of this stems into sharp relief. I felt like killing myself afterward out of despair.

[wisteria]

11. I hope you are right!

And I agree, the hearings should be postponed.

[TayTay]

15. Believe it. Work for it. Make it happen

The dead and suffering all across the Gulfport region deserve to have a full accounting of what went wrong in this disaster. They are taxpaying American citizens, rich and poor, black and white and brown, all religions, all everything.

We cannot allow this outrage, this betrayal of America to go unanswered. It is a national, and international disgrace.

[globalvillage]

16. This is just the first wave of outrage.

Wait until the waters recede and the body count is announced. When people see what's underneath, there will be another outcry. We've only seen part 1 the downfall of GWB over this fuckup. NOLA is his Waterloo, and there's no amount of spin that will save his sorry ass now. It just remains to be seen where we will allow him to live in exile. I think we should just build a wall around Crawford and post some guards.

Now that the evacuation is almost complete, I'm ready to see pissed-off Kerry. I expect nothing less from him or the rest.

[TheDonkey]

30. Very true, there is so much going wrong now. Dems need to step up to the

plate. The bush administration continues to be a disaster for this country.

[MH1]

18. Well apparently Landrieu came out swinging on MTP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4624398

Of course there is already a post to that thread, along the lines of "oh no! where are the progressive Democrats? we can't let the DLC take the lead in bashing the rethugs!"

[Mass]

19. I think the progressive Dems recognize there is a lot of blame for

everybody:

- Sure Bush showed a lack of leadership (that should not surprise us anymore) and of total carelessness; The aftermath was a total disaster by itself.

- However, in the case of NO, how can we justify that a Democratic mayor had a press conference in July explaining that poor people in NO were on their own in case of an evacuation. Images were showing plenty of buses stranded in NO underwater. FGS, why did Nagin not order that these buses were taken to start to evacuate poor people.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/July_2005_article_reveals_Red_Cross_told_poor_Youre_on_your_o_0902.html

July 2005 article reveals New Orleans told poor: 'You're on your own'.

Some people in NO want that this guy is a heroe. I have serious issues with that.

[MH1]

20. Well... why were there "no resources"?

I don't know about the political economics of LA, but every state I know about is hard hit by *'s tax cuts and cutbacks in programs like Medicaid. It's a double whammy: from what I understand, many states have their tax rate tied to the federal government's, or at least to whatever is taxable income for federal purposes. Makes the calculation simpler for the taxpayer and probably the state, but in that case a federal tax cut automatically reduces state revenues, too. Next, feds either cut programs and the states try to pick it up, or they impose new rules and don't provide sufficient funding, like NCLB.

In the long run there may be some benefit to forcing the states to control and tax more, but the transition is awful, and that is what LA and most other states are dealing with.

I don't think we should call Nagin a hero, but be careful about excoriating him. I'm thinking his hands were probably tied.

[Mass]

21. Well, in this case, he and other LA elected officials should have

been more vocal. I think this is where the Dems fail, not when they dont call Bush a liar, but when they dont ask help for the poorest of all very vocally.

I was crying when I saw those buses that were under water. Why were they not used. Why was the national guard called to evacuate the city. I think somehow, all these questions need to be asked as badly as the question about the horrible post hurricane management.

This is really a question of " poor people left behind" litterally, and democrats should not be afraid to ask the question (that is if they care about really poor people, who may not vote anyway).

[saracat]

22. Many of the poor probablly wouldn't have gotten on the buses.

Remember, many have very good reason not to trust the government. And many would have felt, mistakenly, safer at home.And it wouldn't have been a real"choice"but onre made out of fear and misinformation.(But they were right to fear the government!)

[Mass]

23. May be , but all these questions must be asked

That is if we care about people, not just political gain.

[MH1]

24. Absolutely, I agree 100% with you on that.

With certain exceptions, we should be very careful about trying to make heroes or villians out of anyone involved in this mess. (Exceptions being the people on the ground who are the real heroes, and certain members of the * admin that we already knew as villains long before this).

And the dem message needs to be loud and clear that we need to get back to where emergency response is a non-partisan issue, and where all levels of government know how to work together to mount an effective response.

[karynnj]

32. Maybe not, but at least they would have had the option

Also, if there were good evacuation plans set up well before and people knew the general outline of what they were because there was an education effort by the government, they might feel better about the government and react with less fear. If they knew they would be taken to places where food, water and cots were simultaneously going to be sent (from some remote locations) and that they would get transportation back when things were over, more people would have gone. (I would assume they have summer camps - as the Northeast, Mid Atlantic and Chicago area do - ours are closed now until next summer - rustic as they are, they would look great to NO people)