Steve Bell

  thanks to Politics in the Zeros

Where do you begin? As bad as it is Bush continues to make it worse. When will the American people impeach the bastard?

How Bush Blew It
Bureaucratic timidity. Bad phone lines. And a failure of imagination. Why the government was so slow to respond to catastrophe.

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

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  thanks to Political Animal

People and business are leaving and they aren't coming back.

We will never return, say survivors of drowned city
As the tide of evacuees rolls into Baton Rouge, Jamie Doward learns that thousands will not go back to New Orleans - and the effect on the economy across the South will be deep and prolonged

For Many Evacuees, There's No Going Home, So They Plan to Stay
There's help finding jobs and housing for Astrodome-dwellers. Two former presidents are there to launch a fundraising effort.

  thanks to Cursor

New Orleans Photographers Weigh Their Options

In the eight days since Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, most if not all of New Orleans' professional photographers have moved to temporary homes in other parts of the country. Like everyone else who called the city home, their future is uncertain. Here are three of their stories.

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  thanks to Conscientious

Cover-Up: Toxic Waters 'Will Make New Orleans Unsafe for a Decade'

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

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Bush suspends prevailing wage rule; more profits for Halliburton

Bush continues to act outrageously and opportunistically to advance his ideological and political agenda and enrich his political allies in this time of national crisis. He has suspended rules for pollution control, tried to use the crisis to enhance fears about social security, hire Halliburton, etc...now he suspends the "prevailing wage" rule in the areas that need decent jobs:

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Those Louisiana ports, once again

They truly are of fundamental importance to the US economy - particularly the agricultural economy of the Midwest. George Friedman of Statfor asks a good question? How effectively can a port function without a city to house, feed and shelter its workers?

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The Color Line
by Billmon

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move. We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

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From Superpower to Superchump

"But it is the image of the U.S. that will be the most affected. When El Salvador has to offer troops to help restore order in New Orleans because U.S. troops were so scarce and so slow in arriving, Iran cannot be quaking in its boots about a possible U.S. invasion. When Sweden has its relief planes sitting on the tarmac in Sweden for a week because it cannot get an answer from the U.S. government as to whether to send them, they are not going to be reassured about the ability of the U.S. to handle more serious geopolitical matters. And when conservative U.S. television commentators talk of the U.S. looking like a Third World country, Third World countries may begin to think that maybe there is a grain of truth in the description."

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