Riding Out Katrina

[Flashermac]

And yet we got C rations issued to us in Vietnam in 1970 that had been made during the Korean War 20 years earlier.

 

::

 

 

p.s. They contained small packs of unfiltered Lucky Strikes and Chesterfields. The fags were so old that they had yellow spots on the paper.

[JJsushi]

Flashermac said:

From our northern cousins:

 

 

 

George Bush, The Man

 

by David Warren

 

The Ottawa Citizen

Sunday, September 11, 2005

 

 

There's plenty wrong with America, since you asked. I'm tempted to say that the only difference from Canada is that they have a few things right. . .

 

 

Unlike his critics, Bush is a man, in the full sense presented by these verses. A fallible man, like all the rest, but a man.

 

 

Tell this guy to go eat some Canadian Bacon and stop being a Bush apologist. Most people just don't get it Bush's administration has been wrought with scandal and incompetence. His poll numbers were paltry prior to Katrina because he is completely out of touch with mainstream America (think iraq war, poor economy and passing legislation that only benefits big business) and all Katrina did was expose him for the incompetent leader that he is. Rhetoric, good old boy charm," I drink beer and like NASCAR just like you" is not enough to appease a pissed off populace this time

[JJsushi]

 

 

Bush's Katrina Recovery Plan and Black Voters: Margaret Carlson

 

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Would President George W. Bush have had the worst three weeks of his administration if Karl Rove wasn't stricken with kidney stones and preoccupied with an investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA agent?

 

Remember Rove's mission: It's not just to make people's blood boil precinct by precinct. It's to break the Democrats' century-long hold on black voters, 11 percent of whom voted for Bush in 2004. If Rove had been at full throttle, would days have passed with Bush praising Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and commiserating with Senator Trent Lott before a black preacher got in the picture?

 

Bishop T.D. Jakes, who appeared with the president in Louisiana on Sept. 5 and at Washington's National Cathedral on Sept. 16, is hardly the poster preacher for poverty. He is a charismatic millionaire from Dallas with his own line of greeting cards. But he finally came to the rescue, changing the conversation from Lott's mansion in Pascagoula to the shameful conditions in New Orleans.

 

Bush's Discovery

 

The kidney stone footnote to history is interesting but unprovable. What we do know is that Rove is on the case now; in fact he's in charge of the recovery.

 

As the effort finally began, Bush discovered, as if it were news, that long before Katrina, people in New Orleans suffered terrible privation from the vestiges of slavery, Jim Crow laws, no credit, few jobs and schools that leave most children behind.

 

``Poverty,'' Bush declared, ``has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.''

 

That's not shocking to those who have watched poverty grow four years in a row while the rich have thrived, but it is shocking to hear from someone who previously blamed ``the soft bigotry of low expectations'' and the war on poverty, not poverty, for keeping blacks down.

 

Last week's words, and Katrina money ($62 billion and growing), have done one critical thing: brought the evangelical pastors who formed the core of Bush's black support back to the fold. They're force-feeding quotes to the media about how great Bush's effort is. But will the most money devoted to poor people since FDR and Lyndon Johnson bring back the people in the pews?

 

Free Marketeers

 

It depends. Exactly how the money is to be found -- or spent -- we don't know yet, and neither does Bush. He can't seem to stop giving speeches long enough to figure it out.

 

At the moment, it looks like the president is going into the Gulf Coast the way he went into the Persian Gulf, betting on untested theories concocted by ideologues. In this case, they're not coming from neocons like Paul Wolfowitz, but from Jack Kemp and other free marketeers, with an emphasis on tax incentives, empowerment, enterprise zones and a suspension of regulations Republicans have long hated.

 

The government procurement process that keeps out insiders and insures price competition takes too long? Let's shortcut that along with environmental and zoning regulations.

 

Where the public sees war and natural disasters, those around Bush see profit centers. Market forces should decide whether (and who) will build suburban trailer parks as far as the eye can see while workers are paid less than the prevailing wage to do so.

 

Evangelical Pastors

 

As for sacrifice or spending cuts, Majority Leader Tom DeLay swears he's not giving back a cent of the pork in the highway bill to help, and I believe him. It's likely that the money to help poor people will come from the very government programs those same people care about most, and by putting ourselves into greater hock with Asia and Europe. With that money, we know Bechtel and Halliburton will do well post- Katrina, but how about the maid raising a family on minimum wages?

 

It didn't take much to woo Bishop Jakes. The cultural politics that captured evangelical pastors in the first place -- sweetened with a pile of federal cash -- will also work on the rank and file if Democrats don't offer an alternative.

 

As afraid of being called bleeding-heart liberals as they were of being called soft on national security, Democrats so far don't have a coherent plan to counter Bush's handing out contracts to the same old cronies and making his tax cuts permanent in the face of a flood of Biblical proportions.

 

The Democrats have a great opportunity: Is an evangelical who's lost the roof over his head going to follow someone saying his biggest fear is gays getting married?

 

As we learned from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disgraceful performance, cronyism and incompetence is a way of life in the Bush White House. Does anyone think those contractors who bilked the U.S. of billions in Iraq will ever pay for it?

 

In an odd way, the arrest on Sept. 19 of Bush's top procurement official, caught up in the case against the world's sleaziest lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, may shine a spotlight on White House business practices. Then there's a chance the next plague to descend on the Gulf Coast won't be a tidal wave of graft.

 

To contact the writer of this column:

Margaret Carlson at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

 

Last Updated: September 22, 2005 00:04 EDT

[JJsushi]

It is crap like this that has allowed a disaster like katrina to put the heat on Bush. The American populace are finally starting to understand that this guy is not about doing what is best for the interests of the average American. Damn near all of the legislation he has proposed has solely been in the interests of big business.

 

 

**********************************************************************************

Bush Relies on Corporate Lobbyists to Help Him Push U.S. Agenda

 

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- On Labor Day, as emergency workers and politicians rushed to Louisiana and Mississippi because Hurricane Katrina had killed hundreds and left thousands of people homeless, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist talked with his staff and sought counsel from trusted allies about delaying a vote on legislation to repeal the estate tax. Frist's outside advisers: lobbyists.

 

Dirk Van Dongen, 62-year-old head of the Washington-based National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, says he was at his weekend home in Manhattan that morning when he received a BlackBerry message from Kyle Simmons, chief of staff for Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell.

 

Van Dongen says he guessed what was in the works. He knew the estate tax repeal vote -- which would financially benefit the wealthiest U.S. citizens -- was scheduled for that week. He also realized the tragedy and politics of the hurricane were changing the agenda in Washington.

 

``It was increasingly obvious that this was a massive event with cataclysmic impact,'' Van Dongen says. ``It was absolutely obvious to me, irrespective of what was on the Senate's calendar, if it was not related to the disaster, it should be set aside.''

 

Van Dongen and his group's own head lobbyist, Jade West, spent much of Labor Day contacting other trade association officials, all of whom came to the same conclusion even though they supported repeal of the estate tax: Put off the vote. Van Dongen says he and West passed on that opinion to Frist, 53, a Tennessee Republican, and McConnell, 63, a Republican from Kentucky. That afternoon, Frist announced the vote would be postponed.

 

The President

 

Since George W. Bush became president in January 2001, it hasn't been unusual for top-ranking U.S. lawmakers and 59-year-old Bush himself to turn to trade group lobbyists for advice in making legislative decisions. The industry associations have staged successful battles ranging from new laws cutting individual income taxes to reducing tariffs in international trade agreements.

 

Van Dongen, whose group represents 40,000 member companies from beer distributors to furniture suppliers, is the dean of a bloc of a half dozen U.S. trade groups. He calls it ``the Gang of Six.''

 

The groups represent companies that employ more than 22 million people and generate at least $5.2 trillion in goods and services, or almost half of U.S. gross domestic product. If the Gang of Six were a country, it would constitute the world's second- biggest economy, eclipsing Japan's $4.7 trillion GDP.

 

`Very Important'

 

The Gang of Six has been gaining in power amid an explosion in Washington lobbying. Companies, industry leaders and other interest groups spent a record $2.14 billion to influence legislation and federal policy in 2004, $670 million more than five years earlier, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a Washington- based company that tracks lobbying spending.

 

``That coalition was very important,'' says Nick Calio, Bush's former chief liaison to Congress. The group played a critical role in getting Bush's $1.35 trillion individual-tax-cut legislation passed in 2001, he says.

 

Before Van Dongen's team started working with the White House on the tax-change proposal, passage was uncertain, says Calio, 52, now New York-based Citigroup Inc.'s top lobbyist. ``There were a lot of recalcitrant Democrats and some Republicans.''

 

In the past, some of these groups have had different goals. A tax break for manufacturers, for example, is of no value to the owner of one restaurant. Now the associations have mapped out a winning strategy by concentrating on issues that benefit all of their members, says Michael Graetz, a Yale University law professor who co-wrote, with Ian Shapiro, the book ``Death by a Thousand Cuts'' (Princeton University Press, 2005) about the groups' lobbying for Bush's 2001 tax-cut plan.

 

`Stick Together'

 

``They've learned, particularly during this administration, that they can do better when they stick together and find common cause,'' he says.

 

The group's influence is even stronger because union membership has fallen in the past decade, says Graetz, 60, a former assistant Treasury secretary under President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father.

 

The percentage of American workers belonging to labor unions declined to 12.5 percent in 2004 from 20.1 percent in 1983, U.S. Labor Department statistics show.

 

In July, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union broke away from the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation. ``The disintegration of organized labor as a major force in the legislative process often means that there is no counterbalance to their views,'' Graetz says. ``You have an 800-pound gorilla battling no one.''

 

`Very Conservative'

 

The Washington-based U.S. Business and Industry Council, which classifies itself as ``very conservative,'' says the White House and the Gang of Six have formed an alliance that is straying from conservative principles such as balancing the U.S. budget and protecting domestic manufacturers.

 

``We emphatically reject the idea that the only way we can restore our competitiveness is to reduce our level of taxation to Third-World levels,'' says Alan Tonelson, 52, a research fellow at the council, which represents about a thousand manufacturers.

 

The coziness between the Bush administration and trade groups has opponents such as Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, crying foul. The 66-year-old representative from Maryland says the groups are carrying water for Bush in return for support on pet issues such as limits to class-action lawsuits, and aren't fighting enough for what should be natural issues for companies.

 

In the past, the Washington-based Business Roundtable, a group of 160 chief executive officers and one of the associations in the Gang of Six, was outspoken about the need to balance the U.S. budget; it's now largely silent, Hoyer says. In 2004, the deficit reached a record $412 billion.

 

`Outraged'

 

``If a Democratic administration had pursued the fiscal policies and put the nation in the fiscal posture it's now in, the business community would be outraged and on the ramparts,'' Hoyer says. ``They're getting benefits, but they're also very concerned that if they are perceived to be opposed to the administration's policies, there will be a cost to pay in terms of direct adverse impact on their corporate interests.''

 

Bill Allison, editor-at-large at the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington group that tracks lobbying, says lobbying by the Gang of Six calls into question whether ordinary U.S. citizens have a role in decisions made in Washington.

 

``When you have a coalition working together, agreeing on common areas of interest and trying to make policy, the question is, Who is making policy in this country?'' Allison, 40, asks. ``Is it these six trade groups, or is it the elected representatives of the people?''

 

Money and Reach

 

In addition to the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, the Gang of Six consists of the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Restaurant Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The independent business federation is based in Nashville, Tennessee; the rest are based in Washington.

 

The money and reach of the trade groups dwarf what's available to unions and consumer and environmental organizations. That's evident in legislation passed this year, including a law that brings class-action lawsuits to federal courts rather than state courts and a law making it harder to erase debts through bankruptcy, says Frank Clemente, director of Washington-based Public Citizen's Congress Watch, a government watchdog group founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader.

 

`Against Consumer Interests'

 

``It's daunting what consumer and public interest groups face,'' Clemente says. ``The big bills that have passed have all been against consumer interests.''

 

The direction of the Bush administration and the Gang of Six may change because of Hurricane Katrina. Senate Majority Leader Frist was under pressure from the Senate's Democratic leader, Nevada's Harry Reid, who warned that a vote on repealing the federal estate tax -- paid by 178 families in Louisiana in 2003, according to the Internal Revenue Service -- would offend too many Americans.

 

``It would be a travesty on top of a tragedy,'' Reid said at a Sept. 5 news conference, after thousands of poor families had been left homeless.

 

Graetz agrees. ``I couldn't imagine Frist going ahead when we've seen a real death tax on the poorest citizens of New Orleans,'' Graetz says. ``I think that Katrina could -- indeed, should -- slow if not stymie the tax-cutting agenda.''

 

The trade associations played a critical role in July in winning congressional passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Cafta ends most tariffs on more than $33 billion of goods traded between the U.S. and Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

 

Last-Minute Lobbying

 

John Engler, 56, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, did last-minute lobbying himself. With the U.S. House of Representatives preparing to vote July 27 on legislation removing trade barriers to Central America, Engler didn't have time to go home after his West Coast flight landed in Washington at 9 p.m.

 

Engler, a former Michigan governor, had his driver take him straight to the Capitol, says Christopher Wenk, the association's director of trade policy.

 

Engler immediately began making phone calls and visiting offices of representatives who hadn't decided whether they would support Cafta, Wenk, 29, says. Engler promised Republicans like Robin Hayes of North Carolina and Robert Aderholt of Alabama that he and his group, the nation's largest industrial organization, would help win back angry constituents if they voted in favor of Cafta. They both voted yes, and the legislation passed, 217 to 215.

 

Election Role

 

The Gang of Six is also increasingly becoming involved in elections, getting employees of member companies out to vote and campaigning for lawmakers such as South Dakota Senator John Thune, who defeated former Democratic leader Tom Daschle in 2004. In addition, Engler's group supports Bush's first nominee to fill one of two Supreme Court openings.

 

Engler's group honors lawmakers who support its positions consistently by having local company leaders set up testimonials in their home states. The Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3 million U.S. companies, assigns ratings to legislators based on their voting records and uses them to determine endorsements for elections.

 

The chamber last year gave Senator Frist a 100 percent rating, while Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy got a rating of 31 percent.

 

Lobbying for Cafta

 

At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, 67, held a reception on a boat docked on the Hudson River for favored candidates and potential contributors. While lobbying for Cafta, Donohue pledged to give double weight to the vote when calculating the next round of ratings that will help determine election support from his group.

 

In the case of Cafta, each group played a different role. The Business Roundtable, whose chairman is New York-based Pfizer Inc. CEO Hank McKinnell, 62, was in charge of counting votes and giving updates to other members of the coalition. McKinnell and about 65 other CEOs also met with lawmakers such as Frist and Reid and told them that passage of the agreement was crucial to convincing the rest of the world that the U.S. supports a dismantling of international trade barriers, says John Castellani, president of the roundtable.

 

Castellani, 54, says his organization brings CEOs to Washington to talk to members of Congress and administration officials. ``We do that regularly, meet with the secretaries of Treasury and Commerce and with the White House economic advisers and staff, because they want to know what's going on in the economy,'' he says.

 

`Whip List'

 

For Cafta, coalition members met weekly at the offices of Trade Representative Rob Portman and House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican. They reviewed lists of undecided lawmakers and assigned letter-writing and phone campaigns within the districts, says Wenk, who works with Mike Baroody, a top lobbyist at the group.

 

``There was a whip list of members who were on the fence,'' Wenk says. ``We have manufacturing plants in every congressional district. The point was to get as many people to touch base with members of Congress as possible.''

 

Van Dongen used a similar model for his Tax Relief Coalition, which helped pass cuts in 2001 and 2003. He kicked it off with a meeting attended by Bush on Feb. 23, 2001, in the Indian Treaty Room of the executive office building adjacent to the White House, Van Dongen says.

 

Bush and Van Dongen

 

The president and Van Dongen faced each other on opposite sides of an inlaid-tile nautical compass at the center of the floor, anchoring the meeting for dozens of industry representatives and administration officials such as then Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and presidential adviser Karl Rove.

 

Bush said the tax cuts were needed to give Americans more money to spend, and the company leaders gave their support, signing on to the premise that the tax cuts would go to individuals and not to specific industries, Van Dongen says. Bush gave Van Dongen, who agreed to lead the coalition, the nickname ``Dirkus.''

 

In May 2003, Bush praised the work of ``my friend Dirk Van Dongen'' in a speech pushing for the tax cuts and singled him out again for thanks a few weeks later when signing the new law. During the fight for the 2001 tax cuts, Van Dongen says he planned lobbying efforts in Room 450 of the Victorian-era Old Executive Office Building.

 

``Dirk sets up management committees, steering committees,'' says Lee Culpepper, 42, until recently the top lobbyist at the restaurant association, headed by Steven Anderson, and a frequent recipient of Van Dongen's BlackBerry messages. ``He is the preeminent organizer.''

 

Espresso

 

One July day this year, Van Dongen discussed that coalition at his favorite eatery, a Connecticut Avenue restaurant called Equinox, which, appropriately, sits on a direct line to the White House two blocks away. Van Dongen is such a regular at the restaurant that the chef appears at his table to offer items other patrons won't see on menus. Van Dongen is partial to frog legs.

 

Van Dongen sets down his espresso to free his hands for an animated description of the business group's ad hoc committees, giving them Leninist-style names, such as executive secretariats. He's friendly, though without the smiles of colleagues such as Dan Danner, chief lobbyist at the National Federation of Independent Business, and Castellani.

 

One picture in the wholesalers' 2003 annual report features Van Dongen in a serious talk with Bush; another shows him standing with his fellow association officers, the only person lacking an ear-to-ear grin.

 

`Similar Objectives'

 

``Coalitions emerge as a logical organizing mechanism for people who have highly similar or identical objectives,'' Van Dongen explains in language that better befits a business school professor than a lobbyist for beer distributors.

 

Van Dongen's ties to the president go back decades. He first met Bush when his father was vice president in the 1980s and says he has met with the younger Bush 20 to 25 times since, always in groups.

 

Van Dongen and other members push for the president's policy goals. In a Dec. 9, 2004, letter to Bush, the Business Roundtable's first point in a list of policy proposals for the president's second term was to reduce the federal deficit.

 

Yet the group is more active on the president's priorities such as Social Security. Roundtable President Castellani, a former businessman who delights in talking about the small-town politics of his native central New York, argues that the administration and industry groups are united because their concerns largely dovetail, such as cutting taxes and removing barriers to free trade.

 

Private Accounts

 

The Gang of Six is now supporting Bush's plan to add private accounts to Social Security. The member groups haven't made much headway against opposition by the Washington-based AARP, the largest lobbying group for the elderly.

 

Castellani, who is heading the effort, says Social Security wasn't the first entitlement program he would have tried to overhaul. ``We probably would have started with Medicare or Medicaid,'' he says. ``But the president picked Social Security reform. And off we go on Social Security reform.''

 

Van Dongen says Gang of Six members are prepared to spend years pushing for changes in Social Security. Even so, the groups say there are limits on how far they'll follow Bush. Van Dongen makes clear they'll support Social Security legislation only as long as private accounts remain part of the proposed new law. Before the hurricane, the Gang of Six consistently pushed for passage of the estate tax repeal.

 

Open Letter

 

On July 20, Van Dongen gathered the Tax Relief Coalition at the distributors' K Street offices to pen a letter to Frist. ``We are writing to reiterate the coalition's continued strong support for full repeal of the death tax,'' they wrote.

 

The next day, Frist agreed to schedule a vote on repeal, despite the fact that Senators Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, and Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, were negotiating a compromise that would haven fallen short of full repeal.

 

The estate tax has wealthy supporters such as Bill Gates Sr., father of Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man. And it affects less than 2 percent of Americans. In 2003, when 2,453,984 people died in the U.S., according to Census Bureau estimates, just 30,627 estate tax returns were deemed taxable by the IRS.

 

Full repeal would cost the U.S. Treasury $290 billion from 2006 to 2015, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Members of the Gang of Six say they oppose the tax because it hurts small businesses and because they believe it's wrong in principle, serving as a form of double taxation.

 

Chamber of Commerce

 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce made its first entry into presidential politics in 2004, contributing $3 million to an independent pro-Bush political committee, the November Fund, which ran ads saying that trial lawyers hurt the economy by pursuing frivolous lawsuits. The Democratic vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, was a former plaintiffs' attorney.

 

To help Bush and congressional Republicans, Jack Faris of the National Federation of Independent Business traveled the length of Interstate 75 in western Ohio in the weeks before the November election, telling businessmen to vote early, get three friends to do the same and call another 10 to urge them to vote.

 

The efforts helped defuse one of the traditional strengths of the unions: getting members out to support Democrats. ``We can't match the resources the other side puts into these campaigns,'' AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says.

 

Prominent Republican

 

The National Association of Manufacturers got its own prominent Republican last year when it hired Engler, who in 1990 defeated a Democratic incumbent governor in Michigan partly by railing against rising property taxes.

 

Engler has moved the manufacturers into new political fights such as judicial confirmations. In August, the group for the first time in its 110-year history endorsed a president's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge John Roberts, 50, whom Bush picked to serve as chief justice. Engler says his organization's analysis suggests that Roberts won't legislate from the bench, creating new plaintiffs' rights that would hurt companies.

 

``The vast majority of cases before the federal courts relate to business issues such as contract law, employment law, regulatory issues and property rights,'' Engler says. ``We have an interest in this confirmation, and we intend to participate in the debate.''

 

Socializing

 

The Gang of Six members socialize as friends while working together on issues. They attended a February event at Equinox when Chef Todd Gray threw a party for Van Dongen to mark his 500th meal at the restaurant. Danner of the small business group and Baroody of the manufacturers' association have houses within a few blocks of each other in Delaware's Bethany Beach.

 

Danner is now working on a new coalition to push for the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, which he says is designed to cut down on frivolous lawsuits. He's working with his usual allies, such as Van Dongen and the Chamber of Commerce.

 

``You do go back to a short list of the same people you know,'' says Danner, settling back in his chair in a conference room off his F Street office. ``You work with them for years, you know them, you like them, you trust them. That's what makes coalitions work.''

 

For now, the lobbyists' list leaves most Democrats, unions and consumer groups out. Hurricane Katrina has done what Gang of Six political opponents couldn't: delay the groups' agenda.

Last Updated: September 23, 2005 00:35 EDT

[JJsushi]

Now our fearless leader wants to get ahead of the curve and the criticism by beating th storm before it hits Texas. I expect him to give a good strong speech.

 

 

**************************************************************

September 23, 2005

After Katrina's Lesson, Bush Is Heading to Texas

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 - Under intense pressure to show that he has learned the practical and political lessons of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush planned on Thursday to pack his foul-weather gear and head to Texas on Friday ahead of Hurricane Rita, trying to make clear that he is directing an all-out federal effort to cope with the storm.

 

Mr. Bush, who was photographed strumming a guitar in San Diego on the morning that New Orleans was being flooded 23 days ago, appeared intent on ensuring there would be no off-message pictures this time and no question of where his attention was focused.

 

"Officials at every level of government are preparing for the worst," Mr. Bush said Thursday morning, adding that the officials were working together "to respond swiftly and effectively."

 

Until now, Mr. Bush has stayed away from disaster zones until the worst is past, out of concern that his presence would be a distraction. But after criticism for a less than hands-on approach immediately after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana coasts, Mr. Bush planned a Texas stop to look at preparations before the forecast arrival of the hurricane early Saturday.

 

He then intends to fly to Colorado Springs, the White House said, to ride out the storm at the headquarters of the Northern Command.

 

Mr. Bush can monitor the hurricane from the Northern Command's operations center, where oversight of the military response to crises in the United States is managed. It is at an airfield just across town from Cheyenne Mountain, where the military once monitored the Soviet Union for nuclear missile launching.

 

Asked whether Mr. Bush's pre-hurricane advance work in Texas was anything more than a photo-op, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said the president "wants to go and be able to see some of the preparations that are under way" and thank police, fire, medical and other emergency personnel who are assembling to work on the storm.

 

"He is the president, and as he indicated to you all, it is his responsibility when it comes to the federal government's role in these hurricanes," Mr. McClellan told reporters, alluding to Mr. Bush's statement last week that he had ultimate responsibility for any federal failures involving Hurricane Katrina.

 

In briefings, the White House, the Homeland Security Department and other agencies said the federal government was acting on multiple fronts and suggested that the goal was a more coordinated, comprehensive and aggressive response to Hurricane Rita than it mustered for Hurricane Katrina.

 

Mr. Bush spoke to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency poured equipment and supplies into the region, including gasoline to head off a possible shortage. The Pentagon prepared to send thousands of active-duty military personnel, if necessary, for relief and rescue efforts.

 

Hurricane Rita, bearing down on Texas as a Category 4 storm with winds of 150 miles an hour, presented a critical test to Mr. Bush, FEMA and the rest of the federal government little more than three weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, exposed serious flaws in Washington's disaster planning and left Mr. Bush politically wounded.

 

As a result, the response to Hurricane Rita differed fundamentally from the preparations as Hurricane Katrina moved across the Gulf of Mexico.

 

FEMA has placed 14 urban search and rescue teams in Texas, compared with seven teams in place before Hurricane Katrina.

 

By Thursday evening, the agency planned to have 45 truckloads of water, 45 of ice and 25 of meals assembled at federal centers in Texas, officials said.

 

Other federal agencies had bigger roles, as well, including the Transportation Department, which has provided 650 buses to Texas and Louisiana to help with evacuations.

 

On Wednesday, the department also started an airlift to move certain people out of Beaumont, Corpus Christi and Houston, an effort that intensified on Thursday. The department planned to fly 20 to 25 flights from Houston to elsewhere in the state by the end of Thursday, moving 4,000 people.

 

With lives on the line and another big swath of the United States facing the prospect of widespread damage to homes, businesses, roads and psyches, Mr. Bush has compelling, substantive reasons to focus on the new storm. But his job is all the more challenging for the political risk it entails after Hurricane Katrina.

 

Despite Mr. Bush's making an open-ended commitment to rebuild New Orleans and address the needs of the rest of the Gulf Coast, his popularity poll numbers remain at or near the lowest of his presidency, his own party is divided over the spending necessary to make good on his promise, and Democrats are attacking him for policies they say have shredded the social safety net.

 

Eric Lipton contributed reporting for this article.

[sayjann]

you were lucky Flashermac.

 

a Friend of mine was a British POW in Korea during the 50's and never recieved any rations from the Allies.

he was tortured time and time again and he never got anything.

i'm sure my Friend would have been grateful for any old crappy food,instead of the staple rice he was given each Day.

 

because of his time in Prison and his work after the Americans deserted the Koreans he has recently been awarded a Medal.

they paid for for all his expenses and the S.Korean President formally presented him with his Medal.

a Man i really admire.

 

i wish i could tell his story but i am not allowed to,due to the the Mods.

[Flashermac]

Sounds like he was captured by the North Koreans. A friend's oldest brother (now deceased) was captured early on by the North Koreans. He said they were unbelievably brutal and hated them with a passion to the day he died. When the PRC entered the war and took over the prisons, he said it was from like night and day. The Chinese were decent to them and he had no hard feelings towards them. But he did die before his time from his treatment as a POW.

 

p.s. How did the Americans desert the Koreans??? (PM me if you wish.)

[JJsushi]

After all of the posturing and blame game, who is going to pay for all of the damage?? As usual not one politician wants to give up his favorite pork program. I guess we will mortgage more of our future by slling our debt to the Chinese, Japanese and Western Europeans.

 

 

 

 

**********************************************************************************

Republicans, Running Congress, Can't Agree on Cuts

 

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Katrina's costs are splitting U.S. Republican lawmakers over budget cuts to pay for recovery, and a stalemate with Democrats over proposed tax cuts makes a compromise increasingly unlikely.

 

A few Republicans, such as Senator George Voinovich of Ohio, say Congress should postpone extending $70 billion in tax cuts to reduce the growing deficit. The White House and congressional Republican leaders flatly reject that. Other Republicans, such as Arizona Senator John McCain, call for delaying a prescription drug benefit for the elderly in Medicare. Again the White House and Republican leaders say they won't hold off on a popular benefit.

 

Democrats refuse to propose any spending reductions to offset hurricane relief -- that by some estimates could reach $200 billion -- saying Republicans must first drop their drive to make permanent the expiring portions of $1.85 trillion in tax cuts. If unresolved the standoff will result in an even bigger budget deficit, analysts said.

 

``There doesn't seem to be any interest on either side to cut costs,'' said Stephen Slivinski, director of budget studies at the Cato Institute, a policy research group in Washington. ``You have to blame the Republicans more because they are in charge. But the Democrats haven't proposed anything more than, `Let's not extend the tax cuts.'''

 

Steve Ellis, vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based group that favors spending restraints, said Americans have been ``digging deep into their own pockets to help the victims of Katrina, and they are going to be looking at their politicians to do the same.''

 

Meet Halfway

 

Democrats insist they won't compromise on spending cuts until Republicans meet them halfway on delaying the extension of tax cuts, said Representative Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat.

 

``When it comes to our challenges, everybody has to have skin in the game,'' Emanuel said.

 

Before Katrina, the Congressional Budget Office had estimated a 2006 budget deficit of $314 billion, down from an estimated $330 billion in the fiscal year ending next week. Since Katrina, Drew Matus, a senior economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, said next year's deficit may swell to a record of $450 billion.

 

Democrats contend that many of the Republicans' proposals, including cutting $35 billion in entitlement programs, will hurt the most vulnerable Americans, such as those displaced by Katrina. The Republicans' plan to extend $70 billion in tax cuts will benefit only the wealthiest Americans, Democrats say.

 

`Haphazard'

 

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg this week called budget-cutting efforts ``haphazard'' and said the White House needs to offer direction. There is no ``working majority'' to pass any budget cuts, he said.

 

As the stalemate lingers, voters are pressing for action, Ellis said.

 

``The people out in the country are starting to say we want this offset,'' said Ellis. ``They're saying we're not just willing to charge it to our children and grandchildren.''

 

Fifty-four percent of U.S. adults in a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll Sept. 16-18 said the recovery should be paid for by cutting spending on the war in Iraq.

 

Fifteen percent of Americans said the government should increase the budget deficit to pay the cost of hurricane recovery and 17 percent called for raising taxes. Only 6 percent said the administration should cut spending for domestic programs, as Bush's advisers and some Republican lawmakers say must be done.

 

Disagreements

 

Not only is there no consensus in Congress on how to pay for Katrina, there's disagreement among lawmakers over whether to find budget offsets at all, said Brian Riedl, federal budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public-policy group in Washington.

 

Some House Democrats questioned why Republicans were calling for budget cuts to pay for a disaster at home when the government is going into debt to pay to rebuild Iraq.

 

``It's the height of hypocrisy to say it's all right to borrow from Beijing to build roads, schools and hospitals in Baghdad, and when it comes to American citizens some of the cuts that have been proposed are directly related to the victims' social services in this country,'' said Representative John Tanner, a Tennessee Democrat.

 

Delaying a Benefit

 

One group of fiscally conservative Republicans, in addition to calling for a delay in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, want to eliminate $24 billion in lawmakers' pet projects attached to a recently passed highway bill. Republican leaders and Bush reject those ideas.

 

Tanner, who said he supports offsets and has called for fiscal restraint for years, said Republicans have to put options on the table.

 

``We've had no input on the ability to influence the balance sheet deterioration,'' he said. Republicans ``are going to have to agree to a budget summit where we can truly address everything, not just offsetting Katrina.''

 

House Democrats are working on a proposal to help offset Katrina costs that should be completed in about a week, said Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

 

The plan will focus on allowing $70 billion in tax cuts to expire and issuing long-term bonds to pay for Katrina costs, which have already exceed $62 billion. ``We're not starting with spending cuts,'' she said.

 

At a forum today to examine the economic effects of Katrina, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said: ``This is not the time to cut Medicaid, cut education and cut food stamps so we can spend billions on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.''

 

Storm and Flooding

 

Representative Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat whose district was heavily damaged by the storm and flooding, said he doesn't think any of the spending should be offset.

 

``I haven't heard anyone say, let's offset what we're doing for the people of Iraq,'' Taylor said. ``I want the people of Southern Mississippi to get the same things we're giving the people of Iraq.''

 

Failure of Congress to reach an agreement will only fuel voter anger at runaway spending, said Riedl.

 

``The American people from Alaska all the way across the country are demanding that lawmakers make difficult choices,'' he said. ``And they ignore those at their peril.''

 

To contact the reporters on this story:

Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge@bloomberg.net

 

Last Updated: September 23, 2005 14:14 EDT

[chuckwoww]

Friday, September 23, 2005 · Last updated 9:17 a.m. PT

 

Idaho weatherman quits, says he wants to pursue hurricane theory. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- A Pocatello weatherman who gained attention for an unusual theory that Hurricane Katrina was caused by the Japanese mafia using a Russian electromagnetic generator has quit the television station.

 

Scott Stevens' last appearance on KPVI-TV was Thursday.

 

His departure comes after station officials learned a link labeled "Make a Donation" on Stevens' Web site, http://www.weatherwars.info, where he expounds on his theory, opened a payment form connected to Stevens' KPVI e-mail address.

 

Still, station manager Bill Fouch, who'd told Stevens he should keep his views separate from his TV role, insisted his former employee wasn't forced out.

 

"Scott advised me several months ago that he wouldn't renew his contract so he could devote full time to this," Fouch said. "He wants to get right at it."

 

Stevens believes a little-known oversight in physical laws makes it possible to create and control storms using a Cold War-era weapon allegedly made by the Russians in 1976. The nine-year KPVI weatherman said he's received 120,000 hits on his Web site in two days, now gets about 100 e-mails a day and has 15 radio bookings in the next five days.

 

"I needed more time to do everything that's been put in front of me," said Stevens, 39. "I have not been able to dedicate the 40 hours a week to this place."

 

Earlier this week, scientists told the Idaho Falls Post Register the theory was bogus.

 

"It's laughable to think it (Hurricane Katrina) could have been manmade," said Rob Young, a hurricane expert at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C.

 

http://tinyurl.com/9q3gx

[Coss]

Sayjann,

 

just curious,

 

"i wish i could tell his story but i am not allowed to,due to the the Mods. "

 

why wouldn't the mods let you tell the story?

 

Cheers

 

Coss