Bush says no to Katrina probe, expects victims will be too busy looking for homes to notice

UPI reports:

“The Bush administration is refusing to allow staff to testify on the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, citing concern for confidentiality.”

Concern for confidentiality? Uh-huh. More credible a reason would have been to say AUMF gave you the authority not to help Katrina victims.

After Katrina the President said:

“When the federal government fails to meet such an obligation, I, as President, am responsible for the problem, and for the solution.So I’ve ordered every Cabinet Secretary to participate in a comprehensive review of the government response to the hurricane. This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. We’re going to review every action and make necessary changes, so that we are better prepared for any challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten our people.

The United States Congress also has an important oversight function to perform. Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough.”

But then again, that was before we found out that the robust executive powers of the president trump all. Now that we know our president is Majestic, the fact that he is stonewalling yet another vital congressional investigation is merely watercooler politics.

Next up on the agenda: pretending other hurricanes didn’t happen either.

In Palestinian elections, murderers vie for crown

Who will win the Palestinian parliamentary elections? A terrorist, or an even bigger terrorist?

Either way, we all lose.

Oh, and for those of you who think these elections will be more than an unfree, unfair (sorry to waste your time, Carter) showtune of sham, think again. “Palestine” is one of the most corrupt among the Arab nations. And that’s saying something.

Sorry no Lotus in the cowdung here. Just another sorry moment in children-slaughtering history.

The Relentless Shrinking of Humanity: A Round-up of some things you need to know now

A dark day just got darker.

First Alito’s impending confirmation (Ask yourself: why are Republicans so bent on taking away our civil rights?) then Google caving in to Red China (“Don’t be evil. Just kidding!”), and now Nice Guy Eddie is dead.

What’s next? Illegal government spying on American civilians? Former NSA head General Michael Hayden saying there is no such thing as “probable cause” in the 4th amendment, which protects innocent civilians against “unreasonable searches and seizures” without a warrant? The Justice Department releasing a report on how “the president’s powers trump” measures put in place by congress to prevent the abuse of executive powers by the president? President Bush claiming congress has given him a carte blanche in the “War on Terror” to spy on Americans with no justification or court order and do what ever else he deemed “necessary force to protect the American people”?

Oh. Wait.

Why do I even bother getting up?

The Katrina Papers: gov’t was warned about levees; but you already knew that

Some people are getting pretty upset over these documents just released that show Homeland Security was warned a day before Katrina hit that a levee breech may occur.

Seriously? You need more proof that the government knew and didn’t do a thing? (Hey, anyone remember 9/11?)

Have you forgotten about this:

[Knowing]

- Max Mayfield, head of the NOAA’s government-run National Hurricane Center called Bush personally to warn him about Katrina?

- Hurricane Pam?

[Not doing a thing]

- “Heckuva job” Bush’s uberinsulting three-day-late fly-by over N.O. devastation after returning from vaycay at Crawford (and taking ANOTHER two days to actually land!)?

- FEMA’s bungled response (forget Katrina, they weren’t even prepared for a tropical depression!)?

- FEMA’s “Can I go home now” Brownie saying repeatedly that he had learned about the chaos at the Convention Center through the media — then reversing that statement after quitting FEMA, and blaming it on lack of sleep? [see "How do you misspeak three times?"]

And so much more.

Do we really need a bunch of documents to whistle-blow this lethal (deliberate?) incompetence out of the water? (pun intended)

Joke’s over. How many more of these scandals and killer debacles will we have to face before someone sends these rotten politicos packing?

More that 3200 men, women and children are still missing. Many due to the events which followed hurricane Katrina. Events that by most accounts could have been prevented.

Let’s hope the next documents out of Washington are George Bush’s walking papers.

Boy shoots girl at MD daycare; NRA: kids hunt the darndest things

Out: school shootings. In: daycare shootings.

Where is Eddie “Guns are toys for grown-ups” Eagle when you need him?

Smoking gun gone missing in Iraq, turns up at magazine with photos of BFF Bush and Abramoff

Ready for this?

Despite vehement White House denials of Bush involvement with the scandal surrounding shamed D.C. lobbyist and insider Jack Abramoff and other prominent Republican house and senate members, and Secret Service scrambles to locate any damning evidence that might prove otherwise, TIME Magazine reports that it has been shown photos of President Bush being chummy with both Abramoff and Raul Garza Sr., the ousted former-chief of the Texas Kickapoo Indians, who’s tribe was represented by Abramoff, at a meeting session arranged by Abramoff. Another photo shows Bush and Abramoff with Abramoff’s three kids.

The White House has issued several denials of Bush’s familiarity with Abramoff, which included contentions that “Available records show that Mr. Abramoff was not in attendance [at the meeting session].” Press Secretary Scott McClellan went a step further, saying in a press briefing that “The President does not know him [Abramoff], nor does the President recall ever meeting him.”

While the pictures themselves haven’t surfaced as of yet, TIME predicts that “they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them.”

Either way what has been made evident here is that Bush knows Abramoff. No random civilian is securing meetings for clients with the president. These pictures constitute the smoking gun Bush & Co. have tried desperately to keep under wraps. Bush will move to attack the leak, but the media needs to take this and run with it. We can’t afford to have another scandal whitewashed out of existence.

Halliburton thinks situation in Iraq not bad enough for soldiers, makes worse

Halliburton engages in wrong doing? Talk about news flash!

The infamous cost-plus no-bid government contractor is charged with providing highly contaminated water from an untreated source to an American military base in Ramadi, Iraq, for over a year without notifying the base’s inhabitants of any concerns.

Haliburton was quick to deny allegations, but unfortunately for them, the allegations were made by several high-level officials at Halliburton.

William Granger, an official with Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the Halliburton subsidiary “who was in charge of water quality in Iraq and Kuwait[,]” said in a July, 2005, memo:

“We exposed a base camp population (military and civilian) to a water source that was not treated…The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River[.]“

Oops.

Also, Ben Carter, a water expert working for KBR, “said he told company officials at the base that they would have to notify the military. ‘They told me it was none of my concern and to keep my mouth shut,’ he said.”
Nice to know they’re still following the Dick Cheney code of conduct after all these years.

As if there weren’t enough, “A July 14, 2005, memo showed that Halliburton’s public relations department knew of the problem.”

“‘I don’t want to turn it into a big issue right now,’ staff member Jennifer Dellinger wrote in the memo, ‘but if we end up getting some media calls I want to make sure we have all the facts so we are ready to respond.’”

Fact: Halliburton has been poisoning American soldiers for over a year and has neglected to inform them of this.

Fact: Halliburton and other no-bid defense industry contractors in Iraq are riding roughshod over business ethics and standards and are providing American troops with a shoddy product and taking employment opportunities away from Iraqi civilians.

Fact: War profiteering is both wrong and dangerous.

Any questions?

Iran to ring in New Year with confetti, nuclear winter opposition group says

United Press International reports a claim by Kenneth R. Timmerman’s Foundation for Democracy in Iran which contends that “Tehran is planning a nuclear weapons test before the Iranian New Year on March 20, 2006.”

The claim, apparently taken off the group’s website, cites anonymous US and Iranian sources without going into any further details.

We will be keeping a close eye on Regime Change Iran for any developments.

Powell exposes War on Terror secrets to UK rag; at White House, comparisons to Michael Moore on stand-by

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a tell-all interview with Jasper Gerard for the Times of London, reveals: black sites exist, torture by proxy is taking place, and the Europeans know all about it. “Such things have benefited us and Europe. To suggest renditions are such a shocking thing to everyone’s sensibilities is a bit much. There are two parties to a rendition, if not more. So I thought Europe overreacted.”

Powell makes several pointed remarks about other topics of interest –

Regarding the faulty intel on Iraq: Powell admits to knowing that the story of Iraq’s procurement of unenriched uranium from Niger “just didn’t hold up,” but doesn’t explain why the President used it anyway.

Regarding Iraqi war plans: Powell says a plan “was available but there was a view that once we got there all we had to do was make sure food was flowing and the oilfields were secured, things would fall into place; but things did not fall into place.” Asked if Bush explicitly ignored warning on the hazards of rushing the Iraqi gates, Powell responds that “…the president was aware of all the possibilities[,]” but refuses to elaborate.

Regarding a purported conspiracy to bomb the al-Jazeera network headquarters in Doha, Qatar: Powell says “I have no vivid recollection,” but suggests the president may have been “jest[ing.]” A naive comment from Powell that “…(Al-Jazeera) is located in a friendly country” is quickly rejoined by the interviewer. “Hmm: so was the village in Pakistan that America bombed to bits the other day.”

Read it all [here].

The river Thames claims the life of Willy the Whale; could your son or daughter be next?

Word on the street is that the River Thames Whale, or Willy (oh, that sharp British wit), died of “convulsions” related to “the stress of being out of the water.”

More likely, however, is that the Thames itself did the big fish in.

The Thames, known to many as “the Great Stink,” is so thoroughly polluted, that Thames Water Utilities, the sewage management firm which handles sewage services for the Thames, makes hardly any bones about admitting, on its own website, that it is the single biggest environmental offender in the business.

Furthermore, as recently as August, 2004, a major sewage incident caused 100,000 fish to die in the Thames. The disaster was blamed on bad weather, but MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford, addressing the matter in front of the EU Commission, called the spill a “pollution scandal” and charged that “it is not just a matter of storm overflows: it does not need unusually heavy rainfall to have these [sewer] outflows; they happen on average once a week. Only one of the 57 outflows is screened and so I have to leave to your imagination the sewage solids that go into the river.”

Ew.

Hopefully the Brits’ bizarre excessive fawning over this unfortunate creature (hey, anyone remember Iraq?) will revitalize a much needed furor over the unbridled polluting of the Thames. If this concern isn’t ignited now, the next thing to die in the poisonous murk of the Thames could very well be an Olympic athlete.