So, Who Actually Buys The Government's Statement That 75% Of The Gulf Spill Is Gone?

I'm really having a difficult time understanding the Obama administration's position with regard to the BP oil spill. At each and every step in what should have been a government controlled investigation, the Obama administration sidestepped the issue and allowed BP to call all the shots.

Now, the government is saying that "all is good," that 75% of the oil has been cleaned up, and in proving that the water is safe, Obama even orchestrated a photo op with his daughter and him in the water off the coast of Florida!

What part of all of the above reminds you of Bush, his "good work, Brownie" comment, and his planned photo op with firemen in NOLA after Katrina?

Yep, all of the above, gosh darn it! No one has been allowed to investigate, tabulate, videotape, explore, examine, view, work at, work with, work for, or even fucking view the spill site unless you either "work" for BP (wherein you signed a document that says you'll be fired if you so much as sigh in the direction of media, and probably contains a lot worse, but I can't say for sure right now, except I would not put it past BP to have a "we'll sue you" clause in it as well), or your are controlled by our corporate government, which of course, means again, you work for BP and not the American people.

Just like the Bush administration refused to let reporters into the really bad areas of NOLA, how they controlled the "reports" of the levees being fixed, and withheld pertinent information about the trailers they tried to herd NOLA residents in (especially those from the Ninth Ward), and basically ignored anyone's opinion about the conditions that didn't work for the inner circle of the Bushies. It was all about "the right party" during that era, and making sure that all the public agencies were staffed by those that bought the party agenda, and regurgitated it verbatim.

Now, with our new and viewer friendly president, whom we expected "change" in how government was going to be run, is pulling the same shit as the Bush administration did! No transparency, no cracking down on the parties responsible, no real investigation, and whooooaaaa nellie, the unbelievable cover-up of the depth of the disaster such that Obama was willing to put his own daughter at risk by actually getting into that seriously infested water. That's a mind blower to me.

Is our president really that beholding to major, non-American corporations, and to the bloody oil money, that he'd put the entire American population at risk just so that BP can "save some money?" This doesn't just impact the gulf area, we are talking about saying it is ok to fish and SELL the fucking fish and EAT the fucking fish (and shellfish) that are in these waters, when they don't even have a test to determine the toxicity of the Corexit used to disperse the oil? They are relying on SMELLING THE FISH? You have got to be kidding me.

You put tainted fish into the open markets across America, and you have no clue the level of contamination contained, and that's ok with you as POTUS? Wow ...

I realize that Obama hasn't lived up to his various promises such as comprehensive health care reform, repealing DADT, rejecting DOMA, closing Gitmo, having an open and transparent government, etc. But to literally put the entire American population at risk by falsely claiming that 75% of the oil has been cleaned up from the Gulf is not about not living up to any promise, but is a clear and deliberate act to expose the American people to real danger at the expense of allowing a corporation to skate through. That's pretty darn bad.

When it is factually provable that Alaska has not fully recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill many moons ago, it is not believable that a spill that was so much larger and dangerous by the tenfold than Exxon Valdez, magically in a few months, has just cleaned itself up! This is horse pucky as my grandfather would say. I am just amazed that these statements can come from the Obama administration, and that they don't feel any sense of duty to humanity to double down on the safety factor. No, it's business as usual. Drill some more, it's ok, there's no oil here ...

We should start a campaign to send Obama and his family fish caught from the Gulf waters on a daily basis and see just how much of it he eats, or he allows his family to eat. Any takers? Any guesses as to whether or not he'll actually eat anything caught in those still contaminated waters?

Uh huh. I thought so.

Finally, Some Justice For Katrina

According to TPM:

A third New Orleans police officer was charged today in connection with the 2005 shootings of unarmed civilians by police on Danziger Bridge, which took place less than a week after Katrina hit the city.

Michael Hunter will plead guilty to obstruction of justice and misprision of felony charges, his attorney tells WDSU in New Orleans. In the past month or so, two other officers have pleaded guilty to charges related to covering up the killings.

Hunter allegedly drove the truck full of officers to the bridge, where they would, according to the government, kill two unarmed civilians and seriously injure four others. And he then allegedly lied to investigators about what happened.

It was a white man's dream, Katrina, and a free for all with regard to putting the "black man" in his place. All the press coverage about the "rapes, murders and thefts" never really panned out and were disproved over time. The killings on the bridge never rang true to me, and finally, almost five years later, justice is being served.

I've never gotten over the disgraceful reaction from the Bush Administration toward the people of NOLA, nor can I get those images of bodies floating in the water, all bloated, from my head, much in the same way I cannot rid myself of the images of 9/11.

Five years later, and much of the 9th ward is still not rebuilt. Go figure, eh?

Mardi Gras Starts Early In New Orleans!

Best Super Bowl game I have ever watched, and I am so glad New Orleans won.

I was never a Saints fan, but after Katrina, and those scenes of the Dome and the people and everything that happened, plus the fact that the owner was going to move the Saints to Texas, I became a staunch Saints fan after that. Especially when the NFL put their foot down and said "uh no, you're fixing the dome and keeping this team in New Orleans."

It was a tight game, but I wasn't so sure the Saints would be able to pull it off, until the start of the second half when they called for the onside kick and recovered. That was a gutsy call for the beginning of the third quarter. The interception in the fourth, taken for the touchdown, however, really put the game out of reach for Peyton and his team. And even if Archie (Manning) isn't celebrating for his son (each of whom have a ring, anyway), you can bet he'll be celebrating with his home town of New Orleans.

Mardi gras starts early tonight, baby! Time for a cocktail! Good thing I have NOLA webcam on!

The link may take a while to load due to the large request for the feed.

Haiti, Katrina, It's A Black Thing

The lack of real action with regard to aiding the Haitians has reminded me very much of how our government responded to the Katrina disaster. See my posts here, here, and here, for just a few of my comments on Katrina.

As with Katrina, aid has been available. Just, no one is doing anything with it. No crews are in the capital, no medical supplies are sent in, and the only people that are actually getting flown out of Haiti are American citizens. Sounds more and more like a "black" thing to me. Like the American military aid ship off the coast just sitting there.

Lack of medical facilities and doctors for tens of thousands of injured people in the decimated Haitian capital is one of the major problems facing aid efforts in the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake. U.S. Naval officials said earlier Saturday that the Vinson nevertheless didn't plan to take on care of earthquake victims, and was awaiting arrival of a ship with more operating rooms to arrive Sunday or Monday and a hospital ship to arrive a few days later on Thursday.

[snip]

Cmdr. Alfred Shwayhat, the senior medical officer who is an endocrinologist, said he had a plan to "treat 1,000 Haitians if necessary," when interviewed aboard the ship on Saturday. But he had received no orders to do so. "If the captain authorizes it, I will take anyone," he said. The Vinson's facility, he said, "exceeds anything in the civilian sector, bar none."

Now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, Katrina! Everyone was allegedly available for help, but no one could do anything until there were "orders" from higher up.

We are just one fucked up country when it comes to actually helping black people and catastrophic events. Seems when faced with help or death, our country errs on the side of death.

It has been a week already, and only private (and very small) groups have actually made it into the capital to assist. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Doctors Without Boarders, and a few others, but that's about it. "Logistics" and "orders" seem to be the excuses made by the Americans who are apparently in charge, and as with the false reports regarding Katrina and all the "killing, raping and pillaging" that was supposed to have been going on, and which, in the end, proved untrue, the excuse in Haiti is that before any help goes in, it has to be "secured."

I am appalled at this country's inability to do anything right over the last ten years. And I would seriously advise the rest of the world to think twice when the next emergency occurs before they decide to let "the Americans" be in charge.

A Moment Of Silence For The Katrina Victims, Past And Current

Three years later, and is NOLA fixed yet?

Just as we can't forget 9/11, America must never forget what it's own government failed to do for its citizens this day in 2005.

Gas Is Now Over $4.00 A Gallon

I've posted numerous times since 2005 on the escalating gas prices, which I find obscene and completely unrelated to world scenarios, output, refineries, or any of the ridiculous excuses being made by oil companies and their cohorts. Gas is now at $4.01 for regular, per gallon, at the station across the street (it is higher is some areas of Los Angeles, but my tracking has always been based on the actual price of the gas station right in front of me)

My first post on the Myth Of The Decreasing Gas Prices pretty much gives one the state of affairs in October 2005. Back then, I noted prices were $2.47 a gallon in Los Angeles over the July 4th holiday weekend, and then rose over 60 cents by September 2005, to $3.07. By December 2005, after Hurrican Katrina, and after raking in billions in unbelievable profits, it dropped the 60 cents back to around $2.47 a gallon.

Unfortunately, that was short lived, as noted in my post Take A Bus, It's Cheaper, Or Holy Shit, Batman, Look At The Price Now, Continued where the price by April 2006 was again over $3 -- more precisely, $3.35 a gallon.

It dropped a dollar as the November 2006 elections were approaching, but as soon as November 7, 2006 passed, the rise was up again. By March 2007, it was back up to $3.21 a gallon. And it hasn't gone down since. In the two months between March 2007 and May 2007, the price increased 34 cents, to $3.55 a gallon. All the while, the oil companies were reaping record BILLION DOLLAR quarterly profits -- for no apparent reason other than they could.

By July 2007, nearly two years after I started tracking the price of gasoline here in Los Angeles, it went from $2.47 to $3.15, topping out at $3.55.

As we approach July 2008, clearly gas prices will be close to $4.47, an increas of approximately $2.00 per gallon over three years FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON.

And Preznut Bush wishes he had a magic wand ... I'd take that wand and stick it right up his ass, then I'd take the gas pump and pump his ass.

Sorry, but with crude oil selling at over $117 a barrel, I'm pretty pissed. Sure, I don't drive a car any more, but I still see the increase in my bus pass, the food at the stores that are shipped in by truck (that pay for gas) as well as other goods that have increased in price due to the cost of shipping said goods by truck.

And still no one squawks about it. Oil company execs are making buttloads of money, hand over foot, and the poor and middle class are paying through the nose. My body part, the butt, wants to fart all over these greedy little bastards.

Elevating The World's Opinion Of America Will Take Years And Years And Years, And Then More Years

So much of the intensity and anger driving the criticisms of the Bush presidency -- certainly my own, and much of what I read (as exemplified above) -- is grounded in a fervent belief in American political values, its political principles and its constitutional framework. The anger comes not from a belief that the U.S. is an evil and corrupt entity, but from the opposite view. It comes from witnessing the all-out assault on these vaunted political principles and values and the complete corruption, close to the destruction, of our country's national character that has made the U.S. such an important and admired presence in the world for so long.

But those who focus on America's flaws to the exclusion of its virtues are but the opposite side of the same Manichean coin from the American exceptionalists who believe that we can do no wrong, that America is inherently Good independent of our conduct in the world. What the Pew poll demonstrates is that the face America has shown to the world during the Bush presidency -- at least insofar as the world perceives it, a vitally important metric -- is a fundamentally different one than they saw previously.

In the last six years, America's brutality, unrestrained aggression, and violation of our own professed values have been transformed from destructive aberration into our defining attributes. And the world's population sees that transformation quite clearly and, as a result, their view of America has transformed along with it.

Greenwald says in three paragraphs what I've been struggling in my mind for months to get out in a post.

I don't see or feel much hope for the near future for this country, either. Despite the obviousness that a Democrat will be the next president, it's not like he/she can just walk into the job, wiggle his/her nose, and undo what the Bush administration solidified these past eight years.

What about the permanent bases in Iraq, the ones that this government is paying for with American tax dollars? I don't expect the next president to be able to unravel or ungrease all the damned palms it took to keep this thing hush hush for so long.

What about all the private contracting that's taken over most of the federal government's business, to the benefit of only a few large corporate CEO's, that are raking in the dollars in inflated contracts for poor to non-existent services? Think about the new embassy in Baghdad, and the "building and safety blunders in a new facility to house the security guards protecting the embassy." Nothing works, but millions have been spent anyway. A new president isn't going to be able to just cancel these bad contracts with a snap of his/her finger.

What about all the destruction of independent press? The damn Wall Street Journal will soon be under the thumb of Master Rupert Murdoch. A new president is not going to simply change FCC rules that got us to this drastic point in time. I mean, come on, that there are still, what, over 40% of Americans still buying into the Iraq-9/11 connection, definitely indicates something is inherently wrong with our news disseminating department.

What about Katrina, where 1,836 people were killed and more than $81 billion in damages occurred? Here are some pertinent quotes from thefirst U.S. Social Forum, attended today in Atlanta by more than 10,000 people:

Jerome Scott of Project South said, "The whole question of the [U.S.] Gulf Coast and the response the government had... pulled the covers on all the evil things that exist in this country."

"They systematically performed genocide behind the guise of a disaster," (Mwalimu) Johnson said.

"The hurt that I feel for New Orleans, point blank murder," Sharon Harshaw of the Mississippi group Coastal Women for Change said at the meeting.

"If you're working in criminal justice, you're talking about Katrina. If you're talking about health care, you're talking about Katrina. If you're talking about housing, you're talking about Katrina. We're living in a nightmare called Katrina. The source is a backwards, capitalist, racist system," one audience member said in public remarks.

"We have sown the wind of mean-spiritedness toward the poor, and lack of humaneness toward the stranger at our door. There is something terribly wrong with our system of economics and values when we have disparities, when any handful of people have more than they'll ever need while millions have less than they will always need," (Joseph) Lowery said.

"We are torn asunder by the erosion of our civil liberties," he added. "We are damaged by the misconception that might makes right and that we can resolve every conflict by sending smart bombs on dumb missions."

No, as I sigh over and over again when thinking about how damaged this country has become, I just hope that I can still be alive long enough to see her recover, because it will be a long, long time coming. It is most certainly not around the corner, not even with a Democrat in the White House.

When Will The Gas Price Sea Saw End?

In May 2007, gas prices hit $3.55 here in Los Angeles, and petty much stayed there until about two weeks ago, when it suddenly started dropping. Today, it's at $3.15, having gone down another four cents from the day before.

Back in 2005 when I started tracking gasoline prices here in Los Angeles, on the 4th of July holiday, the price of gas was $2.47. It went up over $3.00 up to, and through Katrina, but by the end of the year, with congress indicating it might consider a windfall tax, gasoline prices suddenly dropped that sixty cent increase and went back down to about $2.50 a gallon. But, slowly, the prices crept back up to over $3.00 throughout 2006, until election time. Then it dramatically dropped under $3.00, to $2.49 by coincidence, as low as it was over July 4th weekend in 2005. Unfortunately, by January 2007, it started back up, and was over $3.00 again. By March 2007, it was $3.21, and then back to $3.55 (the beginning of this post).

I do not have a clue how gasoline prices can rise and fall over one dollar, between $2.50 and $3.50, yearly, for no apparent reason. I also have no clue why more people are not pissed off.

But, then again, there are still approximately 30 percent of Americans that continue to believe Iraqis flew the planes on 9/11/01.

Photo Op Rebuke

We live in a devastated city and you are a big part of the reason why it sill sits in ruins. Your administration has abandoned our children by savaging their public schools. Your administration has tortured our working class people by refusing to reopen the city’s public housing developments. And your administration is fully complicit in placing our uninsured in harms way by ruthlessly pursuing the privatization of local public healthcare in the aftermath of Katrina. And, finally your administration is guilty of sending our sons and daughters of to war for oil and empire just when we need them most to help us rebuild our community.

Mr. President, we, Katrina Survivors all, do not welcome you to our city, we rebuke you!

Sponsored by Survivors Village, United Front For Affordable Housing.(504)
587-0080.

"...playing politics while our people were dying."

NEW YORK (AP) -- Party politics played a role in decisions over whether to take federal control of Louisiana and other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, former FEMA director Michael Brown said Friday.

Some in the White House suggested only Louisiana should be federalized because it was run by a Democrat, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Brown told a group of graduate students at a lecture on politics and emergency management at Metropolitan College of New York.

Brown said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the hurricane be federalized, making the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster.

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking we had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor and we have a chance to rub her nose in it," he said.

Brown declined to say who in the White House had argued for only taking control of Louisiana, but said that he'd later learned of the situation through Blanco's office and from other officials on the federal level.

Blanco reacted sharply on hearing what Brown had said.

"This is exactly what we were living but could not bring ourselves to believe. Karl Rove was playing politics while our people were dying," Blanco said through a spokeswoman, referring to President Bush's top political strategist. "The federal effort was delayed, and now the public knows why. It's disgusting."

Of course, it's disgusting. Everything this administration does is disgusting. I keep waiting for the mass revolt against them, although I do view the 2006 mid-term takeover as the symbolic "shot over the bow."

I wrote several pieces concerning this administration's handling of rescue and aid efforts during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. It devastated me, and still does when I think about it. Much like how the events of 9/11 still make me cry.

In my lifetime, I have never read about, lived through or seen such a dispicable and corrupt American government as the one that has ruled this country for the last six years.

I will never forget. Don't ever forget.

Another 400 Caught With Their Hands In The Taxpayer's Till

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- More than 400 people -- including government and charity workers -- have been charged so far with illegally benefiting from Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing flooding, according to a Justice Department report released Wednesday.

However, the Katrina Fraud Task Force hasn't even begun to skim the waters, and the number could climb into the thousands, the report stated on the first anniversary of the task force.

Yawn. As if anyone in THIS government is going to do anything about this. Nor is mainstream media or DEMOCRATS going to investigate.

It's all about the government contracts.

FEMA's Michael Brown Looks Back On His Lies -- It's The Talking Points, Man

He’s been doing the talk show circuit since he has apologized and says that he really feels bad about reciting BushCo’s talking points on all the shows during Hurricane Katrina while people were suffering. This is what he said on Hardball:

BROWN: The lie was that we were working as a team and that everything was working smoothly. And how we could go out, and I beat myself up almost daily for allowing this to have happened, to sit there and go on television and talk about how things are working well, when you know they are not behind the scenes, is just wrong.

O‘DONNELL: So let me get this clear. Someone in the White House was telling you to lie?

BROWN: Well, yes. They give you the talking points. Whenever you go out to do any interviews they always have the talking points. Here‘s what the message for today is and here‘s how we are going to spin everything. That‘s just the way Washington, D.C. works and that‘s just wrong.

Well, you’ll see some of his work when I post the video of those performances and you be the judge. We have short memories and while we are a forgiving people at heart–his behavior back then was reprehensible. If you take him at his word then instead of telling the truth and possibly quitting–he chose to lie. And it shows how low this administration will go at trying to deceive our country in a time of crisis. This administration isn’t the only one culpable for the disaster, but it certainly was a big part of it–and they had people lie to cover their shortcomings.

This is all well and good. I read about the growing anger in America, and I hear about the growing anger in America. But, come November, will this anger actually translate into new blood up on the Hill? Will the voice of the people once again be silenced by voting irregularities and anomolies that keep the same toads in power?

It's been a year since Katrina, and tell me, just who is really being punished for the failed emergency policies? Certainly not anyone up on the Hill.

New Orleans, One Year After Katrina

I was thinking about what to post on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Instead, I started reading what I posted back then, and I think I'm going to repost it here.

9/1/05 Karmic Payback, For Fallujah?

I am truly appalled by what I have seen over the last four days on the television and in print concerning this administration’s response to the victims of Katrina. The boys over at AMERICAblog have been all over this, so for the most part, I direct you to check out their blog for serious updates and commentary about the government’s lack of response.

I note over at DailyKos they have a piece up about Canada offering aid and support, and having planes ready. Unfortunately, our government has refused to allow them into our airspace for any aid deliveries. That’s right. Refused to allow them to assist and aid the victims of Katrina. Way to go, George. I also read that our dear friend south of us, Hugo Chavez, has offered aid, including valuable petroleum, which has, of course, been rebuffed by this administration.

Now I read that Pelosi has requested that congress convene early to help with the victims of Katrina by getting a jump start on authorizing funds. Pelosi was rebuffed by house leaders that indicated showing up for work as usual on Tuesday, September 6, after the Labor Day holiday would suffice.

I don’t know where these people’s heads are, but I am convinced it’s mostly up their butts. The lack of response by anyone in authority has gone beyond amazing. The local leaders are freaking out, and Bush stays on vacation, plays guitar, and talks about working hard and democracy on the rise in Iraq, etc., etc., etc. I cannot believe how many references were made comparing Bush to Nero fiddling while Rome burned, which is an apt analogy.

Now we have a full blown refugee crisis on American soil. Go figure. There are inadequate National Guard to assist because a great many are stationed in Iraq, of all places. There is a lack of machinery available because, many of them are located in Iraq, with their National Guard units. There’s no real money available to assist the victims of Katrina because, for one, FEMA is under Homeland Security and is no longer an autonomous entity able to use its resources immediately. Now, FEMA has to get approval, and as was noted in one of the posts on AMERICAblog, FEMA only recently got approval for spending money on a hurricane that passed through the area SEVEN FUCKING WEEKS AGO. So, if anyone is counting on immediate financial assistance, of any kind, from FEMA, they are going to have to wait. Of course, the money coming in seven weeks later from an early hurricane, most assuredly will be editorialized as current funds being immediately disbursed. Yeah, right.

I believe this will end up surpassing 9/11 in the number of deaths, and it will go down as the worst natural disaster in the United States, if not in history (probably have a plague or two that wiped out more, but I’m not in a fact checking mood this morning), at least within the last 100 years. While this administration has been scaring the shit out of ordinary Americans, making them believe that they need to send all their hard earned government money to private contractors and businesses profiteering over in Iraq, the failure to shore up our own soil against natural disasters is beyond pathetic. Making FEMA part of Homeland Security and subordinating its budget to them, reducing the federal dollars yearly to Louisiana earmarked for work in New Orleans, siphoning precious dollars from our homeland and spending it on Iraq projects that primarily line the pockets of a handful of Bush Boys, giving tax breaks in a time of "war" to Bush Boys, all of this just came to a head like a giant pimple on the face of America, located in New Orleans.

I also believe this is the beginning of the end of Bush’s love affair with what he considers his loyal supporters, mainstream America. Judging from what I have read over the past four days, America is steamed and pissed at this administration’s dragging of its feet in getting the aid ball rolling. This was a predicted category 5 hurricane, that ended up coming ashore at a category 3 rating, pretty damned bad no matter how you call it. There was not one fucking national administrative procedure in place prior to Katrina hitting Monday, to assist what would be obvious victims. And it took Bush three whole more days before he got off his ass and made it look like he gave a shit.

His ratings have been tanking. Let’s see how much America loves this president a month down the line when the extent of the death toll is realized, when the 250,000 American refugees crisis is realized, when the actual dollar amount is tallied for relief and it becomes obvious there IS NO REAL MONEY AVAILABLE for this relief, and when it finally becomes painfully obvious that we needed our National Guard troops here on American soil for such disasters, which is what they are prepared to handle in the first place.

I cannot help but feel that the New Orleans predicament is eerily similar to Falluja, which was fully destroyed, almost as if by a natural disaster, albiet, named U.S. Armed Forces. What happened is that the residents of Falluja ended up refugees on their own soil, displaced for months on end, without adequate food, water, electricity, sanitation, etc. Now we have a full blown refugee crisis on American soil, similar in scope and numbers as that in Falluja.

Karmic payback for Falluja, eh?

Cross-posted at MyDD.


9/3/05 Is Our Government Forcing New Orleans Victims To Stay Put? You Betcha!

NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”

It gets worse, as you read on.

I can see the Rove handprints all over this. The smear campaign to make those people of New Orleans stuck in this quagmire out to somehow be low life murdering scum bags. With all the talk about roving armed gangs terrorizing people, there has not been one eye-witness report to confirm any of this. All reports have been "I've been told" this is happening. I even saw one reporter on TV talking on the phone to a doctor, and she asked the doctor how he felt listening to the sniper fire. The doctor started out to state how he felt about it, but then backtracked and actually stated he only heard about the sniper fire. He, himself, did not hear it. Everytime I've watched a reporter ask someone about their feelings concerning the sniper fire and armed gangs, not a one has indicated they actually saw any of this.

It's a Rove thing. Crap all over the messenger, and in this case, the messenger is collectively those stranded in New Orleans. They are the noose in place over Dubya's neck. They have to portray the people we are watching on TV, not as victims, but as perpetrators of mass violence and lawlessness. It's the racist black boogey man, circa 2005 Republican correctness. And it disgusts me.

Then, last night, locking the people up into the convention center, and refusing to let anyone leave the city, just blows my mind. There are check points armed by National Guardsmen, and they are turning BACK anyone that tries to individually and voluntarily leave the city! Well, I am sure if you are white, and you somehow had your SUV packed with other white people, you could get past the check point, if you know what I mean.

To top it off, reading about how Homeland Security has REFUSED to allow the Red Cross to enter the city, is beyond any rational thought. Their excuse -- if the Red Cross was allowed in, and the victims allowed to have food and water, it would encourage people to come to the city and not leave. Yeah, you read that right.

We've seen the Rove smear campaign effectively work, every single time. Will they be successful in making their base believe it?

9/26/05 Just Some Silly Exaggerations, Ooops!

Well, now the truth comes out, about the Superdome and the Convention Center in New Orleans. It seems that all those reports of roving gangs, murders and rapes of children were simply rumors. Wow, how could that be? Oh, I know, it was a town full of black people, and we all know that black people, in that type of situation, just can't control themselves.

I was sickened by all the allegations of rapes and murders and such, especially when it became obvious to THIS astute viewer that the reporters could find NO ONE to corroborate these findings from personal experience. And now, when the workers finally come in to clean up the mess at the Superdome and the Convention Center, what do they find? Six dead bodies at the Superdome, but no dead babies and no rape victims. And how many bodies at the Convention Center? Just four.

That the nation's frontline emergency-management officials believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the news media and even some of the city's top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent.

No Shit, Sherlock! The media just tried like the dickens to portray New Orleans as an angry, uncontrollable black peoples mob, where every white person should fear for their lives. And they say race had nothing to do with the slow response in New Orleans. My ass.

The vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees —— mass murders, rapes and beatings —— have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law-enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

Surprise, Surprise.

"I think 99 percent of it is [expletive]," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong —— bad things happened. But I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything ... 99 percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

EXTREMELY well-behaved for a group of American citizens to be abandoned in such a fashion by the white folks afraid of the black boogeyman.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities have only confirmed four murders in the entire city in the aftermath of Katrina —— making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year.

"I had the impression that at least 40 or 50 murders had occurred at the two sites," he said. "It's unfortunate we saw these kinds of stories saying crime had taken place on a massive scale when that wasn't the case. And they [national media outlets] have done nothing to follow up on any of these cases; they just accepted what people [on the street] told them. ... It's not consistent with the highest standards of journalism."

NOT consistent with the highest standards of journalsim. There it is, in a nutshell. There ARE NO higest standards of jounalism anymore. Just bullshit reporters who outright lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. AND, who get away with the lies, without any retribution or any punishment. Well, unless you consider NOT watching television any sort of punishment of the establishment.

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. Other unidentified evacuees told of children stepping over so many bodies "we couldn't count."

The picture that emerged was one of the impoverished, overwhelmingly African-American 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. The mayor 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 murdered bodies never materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the front lines assert that, while anarchy reigned at times and people suffered indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened.

But, did Oprah do anything to help clear up the misinformation? Hell no. She's about as black as Condi, but richer. So, guess whose base Oprah protected...her white ass base, that's for sure. She did zero to combat the viscious rumours, and played hostess to the perpetuation of the fucking lies.

The 400 to 500 soldiers in the Dome could have been easily overrun by increasingly agitated crowds in the Dome, but that never happened, said Col. James Knotts, a midlevel commander there. While the Convention Center saw plenty of mischief, including massive looting and isolated gunfire, and many inside cowered in fear, the hordes of evacuees for the most part did not resort to violence.

"Everything was embellished, everything was exaggerated," said Deputy Police Superintendent Warren Riley. "If one guy said he saw six bodies, then another guy the same six, and another guy saw them —— then that became 18."

Yeah, that's the truth, baby. Lies and exaggerations. Um, could it be because there were black people all holed up together in two untenable confined spaces? Yeah, that's the ticket.

Inside the Superdome, where National Guardsmen performed rigorous security checks before allowing anyone inside, only one shooting has been verified —— and even that shooting, injuring Louisiana Guardsman Chris Watt of the 527th Engineer Battalion, has been widely misreported, said Maj. David Baldwin, who led the team of soldiers who arrested the alleged assailant.

Watt had indeed been attacked inside one of the Dome's locker rooms, where he entered with another soldier. In the darkness, as they walked through about six inches of water, Watt's attacker hit him with a metal rod, a piece of a cot. But the bullet that penetrated Watt's leg came from his own gun —— he accidentally shot himself during the commotion. The attacker was sent to jail, Baldwin said.

Wow, and mainstream media reported this as ....? See, that's what I mean.

This is what got me so pissed off in the first place, and which resulted in my sabatical from blogging. This country is so fucking racist, and to watch what happened in New Orleans just sickened me to the core. And, on top of that, to watch mainstream media gloss over the race issue as if it just doesn't exist, or if it did, it was not in play with respect to New Orleans, just made me sick to my stomach.

Images of hundreds and thousands of people calmly evacuating New York city, crossing the bridges on foot, is a memory I have of 9/11. Images of hundreds of New Orleans residents attempting to leave on foot, only to be met by white men with guns, forcing them back into the city, is a memory I have of Hurrican Katrina.

And now, to complete the circle, this Administration wants to "round up the black people and put them in confined communities with trailers," which trailers, of course, will be supplied by one of the many subsidiaries of Haliburton. God forbid we actually give these displaced persons the Section 8 vouchers for real residential homes. That's not the ticket, no way! Let's keep track of them AND make money! Yeah, that's the white man's ticket. Always has been.

Anyone that thinks race did not play a role in this bad incident is just a fool, and stupid to boot.

10/4/05 Where Are The Huey Newtons, And Why Aren't They Acting?

WASHINGTON - Minority-owned businesses say they're paying the price for the decision by Congress and the Bush administration to waive certain rules for Hurricane Katrina recovery contracts.

About 1.5 percent of the $1.6 billion awarded by the Federal Emergency Management has gone to minority businesses, less than a third of the 5 percent normally required.

On Tuesday, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and Rep. Donald A. Manzullo, R-Ill., asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether small and minority-owned businesses have been given a fair opportunity to compete for Katrina contracts.

Andrew Jenkins doesn't think so.

Once Katrina's destructive waters receded, he began making calls in hopes of a winning a government contract for his Mississippi construction company.

Jenkins, who is black, says he watched in frustration as the contracts went to others, many of them larger, white-owned companies with political ties to Washington.

"That just doesn't smell right," said Jenkins, president of AJA Management and Technical Services Inc. of Jackson, Miss., noting the region has a higher percentage of blacks and minority-owned businesses that other areas of the country.

To speed aid, many requirements normally attached to government contracting were waived by Congress and the administration. The result has been far more no-bid contracts going to businesses that have an existing relationship with the
government.

There also was an easing of affirmative action rules for contractors and a suspension of a "prevailing wage" law that black lawmakers and business people believe will hurt the disproportionately large number of black hourly workers in the region.

"It sends a bad message," said Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. "What they're basically saying to the minority in New Orleans is, 'We'll make it harder for you to find a job. And if you do, we'll make sure you get paid less.'"

Read more here.

When are you going to wake up? BushBoy and his administration could give a shit about minorities or their small businesses. This is a government free give-away to the rich, and richer. It's all about their money. Get used to it. Or do something about it.

Where are the Huey Newtons and why aren't they acting?

10/13/05 "Camp Amtrak" - Gitmo, New Orleans Style

For those that still deny the racial overtones (and undertones) associated with Katrina relief efforts in New Orleans, I bring you the latest chapter and verse. The story starts out about Robert Davis, the black man that was beat up by several white police officers in New Orleans, and which beating was caught on tape. The officers' official report claims the man was intoxicated in public, but the facts are that Robert Davis was alcohol free for more than 25 years.

So, what is up with the phoney baloney arrests? Read on:

But what did not make it into the tape or national attention was that Davis is just one of more than nearly a thousand people who have suffered in a horrific place the police call "Camp Amtrak," an improvised jail in what used to be the New Orleans bus terminal.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans authorities are arresting hundreds on minor charges such as breaking curfew or public intoxication, housing them in brutal conditions and then pushing them through a court process that forces most into working on clean-up projects at police facilities, according to numerous interviews and documents obtained by TNS.

At the converted Greyhound terminal, which now serves as a different kind of way station, no passengers arrive with luggage. Instead, police bring people in and book them at what used to be a ticket counter. In the back, where travelers used to board buses, police now push detainees into wire pens where they sleep on the concrete in the open air.

In interviews both inside and outside of Camp Amtrak, people who had been through the process told harrowing accounts of police brutality and harsh conditions. Some of them, like Davis, had visible injuries. Many said police had attacked them or others in their cells with pepper spray. All recounted trying to sleep on the concrete floor of the bus parking lot with just one blanket – or in some cases no blanket – to protect them from the cold and the mosquitoes which swoop in on randomly alternating nights here. None was given a phone call or access to an attorney.

"They treat us like shit," said one inmate through the wire cage. Others chimed in. One said he had not been given a blanket the night before because there were not enough to go around. Many worried that their family members did not know where they were because they had not been allowed to contact them.

Michael Resovsky was one of several men outside the jail yesterday waiting to be picked up for a shift of what the sheriff’s department calls "community service." He recalled the night he spent inside: "They threw you a blanket and they gave you those MREs – you know, those meals in a bag – and they take the heater part out of it and the little bottle of hot sauce so you have to eat it cold. And you sleep on the concrete with a blanket, and the smell is not too nice."

"They were coming in there and macing people, and people were hollering and I couldn’t get no sleep, and you know, it was pretty bad," said Resovsky, who is white.

Anthony Jack, another former detainee, added: "It was cold[inside]; I couldn’t sleep." Jack, a black immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, said police had arrested him on his own property and charged him with violating curfew, which in most neighborhoods here is still in affect from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.

"I was in my yard, and a young white guy came by the gate and I was talking to him and the police came and arrested both of us," he recounted. "He was outside breaking curfew; I was inside… behind the gate. The police broke my gate down with a pick-ax. They broke it completely off the fence."

Jack continued: "It makes me really angry, man. It made me realize that the law isn’t working the way it is supposed to."

Sandy Freelander, a relief volunteer from Wisconsin, was also one of the hundreds arrested. He said that he and two friends –one a New Orleanian widely known here for having helped rescue hundreds of people in the Seventh Ward during the flooding – were detained by police in a parking lot last Thursday. He said that they were on their knees with their hands behind their heads when a police officer attacked his friend.

"This middle-aged white [police officer] got real excited about kicking Reggae, Freelander said. "He came running across the parking lot and kicked [Reggae] in the hip while [Reggae] was down on his knees with his hands behind his head. [The officer] pushed [Reggae] on the ground and put his foot to the back of his neck and pointed his gun at him and said he was going to blow his fucking brains out if he moved again. This guy was really excited about beating up the first black guy he saw or something."

Even though Freelander said the three had permission from the owner to be in the parking lot, the police arrested them on charges of criminal trespassing.

Inside, Freelander said his friend was denied medical attention and that they witnessed police pepper-spraying other detainees police handcuffing a woman to a pole and leaving here for hours and other abuse. He, like all others interviewed by TNS said he was not permitted a phone call or legal counsel, even after repeated requests.

Major Troy Poret, part of a team that runs Camp Amtrak, was unapologetic about the treatment of inmates there. He stressed that the police have been working under extraordinary conditions since Hurricane Katrina and that many of the prisoners were from out of state.

"These poor police officers are stretched out as far as they can be and yet you’ve got to mess with a bunch of gourd heads like we have down here and we have to make a jail for these kind of people," he said. "That’s what’s really bad about this whole [situation]."

Poret, like many of the people working at Camp Amtrak, used to work at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a notorious jail among prisoners’ rights activists for its cruel conditions.

Asked whether police were pepper-spraying prisoners, Poret was again unapologetic. "I have randomly had to use it," he said. "We have to use it if they are endangering other people in the pen or endangering their [own] lives.

"Look up at the setup that we have," he said. "It’s an old bus terminal. It’s keeping the bad guys off the streets from harassing the poor people of the New Orleans district from worrying about their houses being broken into or worrying about some drunk laying on their porch…"

When asked why police were denying detainees phone calls, Poret said the station did not have any phones for them to use.

"I have a fax phone and I have one local line [here] and that’s it," he said, "I have a cell phone, but I can’t afford a cell phone bill for a thousand people."

But Freelander stressed how important access to the outside world was during incarceration. "The phone call was the biggest thing," he said. "I mean, how are you supposed to even find out what your options are talking to a lawyer? They’re steamrolling the whole process without giving you any legal representation."

Freelander, Resovsky and Jack all said that in the mornings after their arrest, they were taken to a courtroom upstairs where most prisoners were pressured into pleading guilty and accepting between 40 and 80 hours of unpaid labor.

A visit to the courtroom yesterday confirmed their accounts. In a stark, second-floor room of the Greyhound station, police brought in about 20 inmates who had spent the night in the cages. When they entered the room, public defender Clyde Merritt briefly explained the options while the defendants strained to hear him. In most cases, he told them, they could plead guilty and they would be sentenced to about 40 hours of "community service." If they wished the maintain their innocence, he said, they would be sent to Hunts Correctional Facility where they could wait as long as 21 days to be processed, no matter how minor or unsupported their charges.

Many of the defendants were obviously confused. They swarmed him with questions, but he held them off, telling them that he could not give them individual advice. For that, he said, they would have to retain their own attorneys.

Off to the side, the lone female defendant stood shyly in her pajamas and flip-flops. She later told the judge she had been arrested right in front of her house.

In the end, given the choice between unpaid work and continued incarceration, nearly all chose to plead guilty.

According to documents obtained by The NewStandard, most who pass through Camp Amtrak are brought in on charges of possession of stolen property, looting or violating curfew. But the vast majority of those interviewed or observed in court this week were arrested for alleged curfew violations or public intoxication.

"The situation down there is really bad," said Don Antenen, a prisoner support activist from Cincinnati, Ohio who has been monitoring Camp Amtrak and working to secure legal support for people whose rights have been violated. "It’s not isolated from the rest of the prison system in the United States," Antenen said, "but we’re seeing all of the worst elements of the United States prison system coming all to the forefront and being very concentrated in one location."

He continued: "The police are basically arresting people for curfew violations and public intoxication and just using it as a way to get free labor to clean up the prisons and court houses and the police stations. They’re just using it as a way to get people to do their dirty work for free."

Brandon Toussaint, a black 18-year-old who spoke to TNS as he was waiting to be picked up and taken to perform a day of punishment, said he was arrested going from the downstairs of is apartment complex to another apartment upstairs. Police charged him with violating curfew and public intoxication, and Toussaint accepted forced labor rather than a transfer to Hunts, even though he said he had been wrongly arrested. He said he was worried that he would now have a criminal record, this being his first "offense."

Toussaint said he had already done a few days of work for the police, cleaning up and painting their facilities.

"If they needed someone to clean up their city, they could have just asked," he said.

This is just one example of the abusive behavior going on in New Orleans. Round up the locals on trumped up public intoxication or curfew violations, confine them to a pen with no outside legal assitance to advise them of their basic rights, and then force them to work for a few days instead of being locked up another 21 while awaiting a trial. What's so sad is that many of them, if they did wait, would probably have the case dismissed, but would have spent that time in a pitiful jail. So they choose to plead out and work a few days in the toxic environment of New Orleans.

Ain't our government just grand?

Mother fuckers.

There, I feel better now that I've posted that.

What Is The "Merit Of Electing Republicans When We End Up With This Type Of Stupidity"

In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to "openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity."

Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and "get a response ASAP."

Right out in the open. There it is. Big Oil asks what what are the merits of electing Republicans when they don't do our bidding.

Then there is this little tidbit, tucked away in the press.

More than $500 million in wind farm developments in Minnesota face potential delays because of a federal directive to study the effects of wind turbines on military radar installations.

At least four wind projects in the state -- and more than a dozen elsewhere in the Upper Midwest -- have been temporarily denied safety permits from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Instead, the FAA has sent notices of "presumed hazard" that effectively prohibit construction until the wind farm proposals are reviewed further, or until the Department of Defense completes a study ordered by Congress earlier this year.

Oh, that's a good one. How many things, projects and otherwise, are still "pending" waiting for some government review and/or study that will never be forthcoming? This is the administration's favorite story ... we're waiting for review.

And how about this one.

During the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina, local officials and the Environmental Protection Agency depended on one source to find hotspots of toxic chemicals: a database known as the Toxic Release Inventory.

"This was the only information they had to identify toxic chemicals of any kind in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," says Clayton Northouse, an information policy analyst at OMB Watch, a nonprofit government accountability group.

Until a few weeks ago, the inventory was to be slashed to comply with the Federal Paperwork Reduction Act. The EPA said they were gutting the 20-year-old database to save paper. What they didn't say was that the decision would dramatically reduce pressure on polluters.

Under the plan, companies would report biannually instead of annually and would only have to report toxic releases of more than 5,000 pounds. Currently, the EPA requires reporting of any releases greater than 500 pounds.

Welcome to America, what's left of it.

Take A Bus, It's Cheaper, Or Holy Shit, Batman, Look At The Price Now, Continued

4/27/06: Up to $3.35 now. Forty-four cent increas in two weeks.

How long will Americans put up with the endless excuses and Republican blame game? About as long as it takes for a GOP screw-up to impact their own pocketbook or lives. And that's exactly what is happening right now with energy prices. Understandably then, Republicans are terrified that their jig is up. High gas prices knocked Jimmy Carter out of office, a hardworking and intelligent man, despite being perhaps a little too ineffective at solving some serious problems that got thrown his way. You can imagine Republican anxiety over voter backlash on gas prices when the man-child at the helm is an incompetent, messianic, ex-oil man afraid to hold those in his confidence accountable--but all too happy to lovingly hold hands with his Saudi petrol-baron sweetheart. So I guess no one should really be surprised that the wingers are squealing like a stuck pig that it's not their fault.

4/26/07: Gas price now up to $3.27. The above quote, courtesy of DarkSyde at the Kos.



4/20/06: Up to $3.23 now. It's even higher in Beverly Hills.

4/18/06: Smack me upside the head, but didn't I just see the man change the price from $3.03 to (gasp) $3.17? Hell yeah, I saw that. A fourteen cent jump in one day. And wasn't the Preznut just today saying he'll look into possible price gouging? And Pigs Will Fly, Right Batman?

This little tidbit, just in:

Increases in the "spot" market price of crude oil -- which is the highest price a major oil company would pay for crude oil -- accounted for only 12 cents per gallon. California's percentage sales tax increased fuel prices by another four cents per gallon. More than 40 cents of the 60-cent increase in gasoline prices over 3 1/2 months is attributable to increased refinery and marketing profit margins for the oil companies.

The profit increase of 42 cents, on top of record profits last year, means California gasoline will cost consumers approximately $546 million more in April 2006 than in April of last year.

"Oil companies are opportunistically using the rising world price for crude oil as an excuse to excessively raise gasoline prices and pump up their profits, even though the spot market price for crude has gone up far more slowly than gasoline prices," said FTCR President Jamie Court. "In addition, the spot price is higher than most oil companies pay, since they either harvest their own crude or pay more stable and often much lower contract prices.

"This study should be a wake-up call for California voters who will vote in November on a ballot initiative to tax windfall profits by oil companies so the state can develop alternatives to the petroleum economy."

4/13/06: Only one day later, and the price jumps another two cents, to $3.03. Stay tuned.

4/12/06: Gas stayed relatively at the same level through most of February and March. However, in the last week or so, the price started inching up. Yesterday I left for work and the gas price at the pump across the street was at $2.91. When I got home, it had jumped to $2.97, and by the time the station had closed, it was at $3.01. Ten cents in one day, not to mention an additional twenty-four cents over the two month period from the end of January through March. Spring break, and the prices just soared through the roof. And there is all this talk about the prices going up even further. At it's peak, in October 2005, the price was $3.07. I'm sure we will see it top that over the summer.

1/27/06: Two weeks later, and the price of gas is $2.67, up another 16 cents. 38 cent increase in 20 days. That is an increase of more than a penny a day.

1/11/06: Well, gas prices are jumping again. Today the price across the street is up to $2.51. That would make this latest increase 22 cents in just four days.

UPDATE WHATEVER: 1/9/06 - Gas dropped a bit more. Office station went down to $2.15 and the one across the street down to $2.29. Then, in the span of two days, the one across the street jumped to $2.45, a whole 16 cents in two days. The office station jumed to $2.35, up a whole 20 cents in two days. Stay tuned.

UPDATE XVIII: 12/20/05 - Gas prices dropped considerably this month, with the station across the street down to $2.31 and the office gas station at $2.17. Today, however, they started the increase. Across the street up four cents to $2.35, and at work, up four cents, to $2.21.

UPDATE XVII: 11/29/05 - Just before Thanksgiving, the gas station across the street dropped to $2.55 (with the one at the office down to $2.35). Today, it dropped to $2.49 (with the office gas station down to $2.31).

So, we are almost back to the exact prices that were in effect just prior to the fourth of July holiday weekend. Obviously, Bush's favorite oil companies reaped extremely high, billion dollar profits, for that quarter, where they raised the price of gasoline 60 cents, kept it over $3.00 a gallon retail, and then dropped it back down...all for no apparent reason other than to create those huge billion dollar profits.

This from the oil companies that denied participating in any meetings with the oily veep of this country (oh, let's not look at THAT leaked memo!) and who didn't have to testify under oath. I am truly amazed at the audacity of these oil companies. And there are those that deny this Iraq war is about oil? Ha ha ha ha. Idiots.

UPDATE XVI: 11/18/05 - While the gas station across the street from the residence dropped to $2.67 two or three days ago, it just went down to $2.59 this evening. At the same time, the station near my office, dropped to $2.49, then to $2.47, then to $2.45, then to $2.41.

UPADATE XV: 11/8/05 - Another six cent drop, to $2.71, with the local station at work down to $2.55. How low can it go?

UPDATE XIV: 11/6/05 - News Flash! Gas prices have been dropping like flies in the last two weeks. Yesterday, the local station dropped it another six cents, to $2.79, and the station near my office is down from $2.69 to $2.59.

From the July 4th weekend, through September 4, 2005, the gas prices rose over sixty cents, approximately a penny a day. And, now, in that quarter of earnings for the oil companies, they have reaped in unheard of billions in profits. So much money has been made in the last quarter, thanks to that sixty cents increase in price, that there has begun to be talk up on the Hill of a windfall tax on the oil companies.

I am relatively certain that this sudden sharp decrease in price is to try to steer the talk away from a windfall tax.

UPDATE XIII: 11/01/05 - Dropped from $2.89 to $2.85. On an aside, the station near my office is down to $2.69.

UPDATE XII: 10/29/05 - Dropped again, to $2.89. August 16, 2005 was the last time it was at that price.

UPDATE XI: 10/24/05 - Dropped again - my, my. Now it is at $2.93, a drop of six cents. However, at the work station, it has dropped to $2.75.

UPDATE X: 10/17/05 - Gas at my local station dropped again, four cents to $2.99 on 10/14/05.

As an aside, I have noticed that the station near my workplace not only is cheaper at $2.87, but drops more dramatically than the one near my home.

UPDATE IX: 10/10/05 - Post-Rita price of gas, dropped two cents to $3.05. Hmmm.

UPDATE VIII: 10/5/05 - Post-Rita price of gas back up to the $3.07 it was about ten days ago. So much for the reprieve.

UPDATE VII: 9/30/05 - Post-Rita price of gas went back up, four cents, to $3.03. I guess that drop was short lived, and I expect it to go up another 30 to 60 cents over the next two months.

UPDATE VI: 9/27/05 - Post-Rita price of gas dropped. First, it dropped from $3.07 to $3.05 the day Rita hit. It stayed that way until yesterday, when it dropped to $2.99. The last time the gas companies reduced prices was back in June 2005, just prior to the July 4th holiday. After that, the prices jumped a full $.60 (sixty cents) over a two month period. Does this foretell a gigantic price increase (cough, gouge, cough) in the near future?

I'm bumping this up from my August 10, 2005 post, to the front page. I've been tracking the price of gas in my area for about two months, now, and the current four-day increase of 18 cents leaves me flabergasted.

MIAMI -- More than 600 truckers gathered in their big rigs Wednesday to protest the rising gas prices in South Florida, NBC 6's Hank Tester reported.

Speaking of higher gas prices, and having zero ability to affect said prices, the corner gas station has successfully raised the price over a one month period a total of thirty-four cents. The price over the July 4th weekend was $2.47 for regular. Today, the price is $2.81. A penny a day.

Where are the angry Americans? For that matter, where are the angry world citizens? Fuck the oil fat cats. This is just absurd.

UPDATE: The price today, 8/11/05 is $2.85. It went up another four cents since I first posted this.

UPDATE II: The price today, 8/16/05 is $2.89. I went up another four cents.

UPDATE III: 8/29/05 - Katrina hits the Gulf, and the price of gas went up four cents, to $2.93.

UPDATE IV: 8/31/05 - Post-Katrina, and the price of gas jumped six cents, to $2.99.

UPDATE V: 9/1/05 - Post-Katrina, and the price of gas jumped eight cents, to $3.07.

Asleep at the wheel, and driving the country into a brick wall at 100 MPH

From The Carpetbagger Report:

The lead headline at CNN.com right now reads, "Transcript shows governments underestimated Katrina." That's false. The transcript shows that the various government agencies recognized exactly how serious Katrina was, but also shows a detached president who was confident that everything would work out fine because, well, he said so.

That is exactly the point. The only people underestimating anything about Katrina were the president and his minions. No wonder this government refuses to release any relevant information about any relevant issue concerning just exactly what they were doing. Because, as this video shows, the president was told exactly what to excpect by way of damage to New Orleans from Katrina before the storm hit. And this president went merrily on his way, in the opposite direction, to continue on with his vacation. And then comes his famous excuse about "nobody" ever imagining "that the levees would break."

Liar, liar, liar, liar. And the idiot was just on national television two days before this video came out, reminding the American people that "nobody ever imagined the levees would break." Just in time to put it back fresh. The video even made it on our local news after the basketball game (9ish), something that generally is passed over by those corporate owned media outlets.

Let that sink in. The president was thoroughly briefed about the impending hurricane and the potential damage. They even discussed the Superdome and whether the roof would hold. And, despite all of this, the president just blows the country off and partys on. HE COULD GIVE A SHIT about the people of New Orleans. THEY WERE NOT A PART OF HIS BASE. And, now with elections in New Orleans coming up shortly, a large percentage of the Ninth Ward will not be voting.

Everything about Katrina stinks to the high heavens. This administration has passed the buck around so many times its worth only ten cents now. And at every juncture, Bush put forth his excuse that the damage was so accute that it was not possible for him to have expected it, let alone be prepared for it. And there you have it. The video. Every aspect of the anticipated damage by Katrina was explained to Bush, some of it in very stark, plain and angry language.

Since Bush claims he was never informed of how desparate the conditions would be, and we know he was present when all that information was discussed, one can only conclude the "my pet goat" syndrome kicked in.

This is not a myth. This administration is truly incompetent. Asleep at the wheel, and driving the country into a brick wall at 100 MPH.

Hunger In America

More than 25 million Americans turned to the nation's largest network of food banks, soup kitchens and shelters for meals last year, up 9 percent from 2001.

Those seeking food included 9 million children and nearly 3 million senior citizens, says a report from America's Second Harvest.

[...]

The surveys were done before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. After the hurricanes, demand for emergency food assistance tripled in Gulf Coast states, according to a separate report by the group.

The new report, being released Thursday, found that 36 percent of people seeking food came from households in which at least one person had a job. About 35 percent came from households that received food stamps.

Cousin said the numbers show that many working people don't make enough money to feed their families. She said the food stamp numbers show that the government program, while important, is insufficient.

How are those tax breaks going for these people? Don't they know that the Great President George believes that they are just being lazy and good for nothing, for everyone knows that you are only poor and hungry because you are not living up to your true potential. At least your tax break was supposed to prop you up, so, what happened?

There are milllions and millions and millions of poor, starving and homeless men, women and children, in this country, that just keep getting poorer because of the fiscal policies of this country under this administration.

Do we have to have another Depression before this stops?

White House For Sale

Very good piece over at Raw Story. The downloadable pdf file of the report is quite interesting to read. "The selling the White House" is a very apt term for this administration, and what it has done since being taken over by Rove and Cheney.

A Democratic report by ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee Louise Slaughter (D-NY) declares that Republican ties to lobbyists have cost millions of Americans basic social services, RAW STORY has learned.

The report, available here, blames lawmakers' ties to lobbyists -- who, they say, make an average of $650,000 a year.

"Contractors and corporations have purchased access to a government that is supposed to belong to the people," the Democrats write. The report's bullet points follow.

*14.2 million American seniors (including millions of our sickest and most vulnerable seniors) are stuck in a complicated, expensive, and inefficient Medicare prescription drug program because the Republican Congress and the Bush Administration allowed lobbyists from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to design this program.

*60 million American families who heat their homes with natural gas and 8 million families who heat with heating oil are paying higher bills this winter, even though the Republican Congress recently passed their "national energy plan" into law. Although this plan gives the energy industry billions in new tax breaks and subsidies, it doesn't lower prices for consumers or make our country more energy independent.

*The 150,000 U.S. troops currently deployed in Iraq may not have the equipment they need because of waste, fraud and cronyism by the Republican Congress and the Department of Defense. While Halliburton and other companies with Republican connections get their contracts, our soldiers still don't have the body armor and armored vehicles they need to fight the war.

*750,000 households in the Gulf region are still displaced today, more than 5 months after Hurricane Katrina hit that region, at least in part because the political hacks the Bush Administration put in charge of crucial homeland security functions were not adequately prepared to prepare for or respond to this disaster.

*More than 10 million students and their families will have larger student loans to repay because House Republicans, led by new Majority Leader John Boehner working hand-in-hand with his commercial loan industry allies, cut $12 billion from the student loan program in the recent reconciliation bill and shifted the costs on to students and their families.

Homeless

Hauling everything he owned in a plastic garbage bag, Darryl Travis walked out of the chandeliered lobby of the Crowne Plaza, joining the exodus of Hurricane Katrina refugees evicted from their hotel rooms across the country Tuesday.

The occupants of more than 4,500 government-paid hotel rooms were ordered to turn in their keys Tuesday, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency began cutting off money to pay for their stays.

But, we all know there is no "expiration date" on the Halliburton contracts.

Isn't this pissing anyone off?

A Whiter New Orleans

The study found that if New Orleans' returning population was limited to the neighborhoods undamaged by Katrina, about half the white population would not return and 80 percent of its black population would not.

And this is a surprise?