Month: March 2006

15 arrested at White House protesting U.S. torture practices

At the Department of Justice, Bill Streit used passages from the Book of Isaiah to condemn the DOJ’s role in torturing prisoners. “Your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt; Your lips speak falsehood, and your tongue utters deceit . . . Right is repelled and justice stands far off; for truth stumbles in the public square. Honesty is lacking, and the man who turns from evil is despoiled.”

Apparently these are not “Scalia type Catholics,” who listen to the church when it comes to sexual matters but ignore it when it comes to state-sponsored violence.

Good for them, and rockin’ Isaiah reference.

Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina – Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned
President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.” […]
Linked by secure video, Bush’s confidence on Aug. 28 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced “grave concerns” about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren’t enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

“I’m concerned about … their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,” Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:[…]

_Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility — and Bush was worried too.

Wow.  Score one for the Associated Press.

Democrats Vow Not To Give Up Hopelessness | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

WASHINGTON, DC—In a press conference on the steps of the Capitol Monday, Congressional Democrats announced that, despite the scandals plaguing the Republican Party and widespread calls for change in Washington, their party will remain true to its hopeless direction.”We are entirely capable of bungling this opportunity to regain control of the House and Senate and the trust of the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said to scattered applause. “It will take some doing, but we’re in this for the long and pointless haul.”

“We can lose this,” Reid added.

It hurts because it’s true.