President Lands In Colorado--hides from protestors.
The White House said Friday afternoon Bush dropped his Texas trip because search and rescue teams are being relocated as Hurricane Rita shifts course. Bush said he's trying to find a balance between helping in a crisis and being seen as interfering. He added he has no plans of getting in the way.
September 22, 2005
Soros to help democrats
Billionaire financier George Soros hosted a fundraiser for Senate Democrats last week at his Manhattan home, making his first foray into politics after spending $25 million of his money in an effort to defeat President Bush last year.
Under Schumer's leadership, the Senate Democratic fundraising committee has out raised its Republican partner during the first six months of this year, shocking many political observers.
September 22, 2005
Polls: Paying for Katrina
Similarly, Democratic proposals to pay for hurricane relief efforts have involved letting Bush tax cuts approved in 2001 and 2003 expire as scheduled. Democrats have suggested allowing Bush tax cuts -- which include reduced rates on capital gains and dividends -- to expire in 2008; extending those cuts to 2010, as Republicans have proposed, would reduce government revenue by $70 billion.
September 22, 2005
Poll: Fewer than half think U.S. will win in Iraq
Only 21 percent said the United States definitely would win the war in Iraq, which began when a U.S.-led coalition invaded in 2003 to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Another 22 percent said they thought the United States probably would win.
September 22, 2005
Grand Jury in Pa. Says Church Hid Sex Abuse
After a three-year investigation, a grand jury in Philadelphia reported yesterday that two leading figures in the U.S. Roman Catholic hierarchy, Cardinals John Krol and Anthony Bevilacqua, deliberately concealed the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by at least 63 priests in that city from 1967 to 2002.
September 21, 2005
Reinstate Davis-Bacon Act to Federal contracts
Title: To reinstate the application of the wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act to Federal contracts in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Sponsor: Rep Miller, George [CA-7] (introduced 9/14/2005)
September 21, 2005
GOP plans healthcare cuts for vets
{Navy Times} Possible sources of funding cuts to free up money for Katrina relief include reduced health benefits, consolidation of the three military exchange systems and the closure of the military's stateside school system.
September 21, 2005
O'Reilly lies: Bush Fiscal Record
After making the above claim about Clinton's tax rate, O'Reilly went on to state: "President Bush then came in and cut taxes for everyone. And guess what? Federal tax revenues will be more this year than at any time during the Clinton administration." In fact, as the table below shows, a historical comparison of total revenue proves that -- when adjusted for inflation -- the federal government generated more revenue during the last year of the Clinton administration than it is estimated to receive in fiscal year 2005:
September 22, 2005
O'Reilly Lie: GOP Does Control Judicial Branch
Republican presidents have appointed a majority of the currently active federal judges, including six of the eight current Supreme Court justices and majorities on 10 of the 13 federal courts of appeals. According to a database maintained by the progressive, nonprofit Alliance for Justice, Republican appointees occupy 99 of the 167 currently filled appellate judgeships (59 percent). They also occupy 449 of the 815 currently filled circuit and district court seats (55 percent).
Putting the 'N.Y. Times' On the Spot on Iraq
What will it take, exactly, for The New York Times to declare on its editorial page that the U.S. should begin to bring to a close its adventure in Iraq? Surely the costs of Katrina, fresh troubles in Basra and Najaf, and even the death of one of its reporters, should finally push the paper over the edge.
September 14, 2005
Congressmen Favoring Davis Bacon Act
Title: To reinstate the application of the wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act to Federal contracts in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
September 21, 2005
Global warming cause of intense hurricanes?
NEW YORK - In recorded history, two storms as powerful as Hurricanes Rita and Katrina have never hit the United States in one season. A coincidence, perhaps, but scientists say ocean temperature could be big factor.
September 20, 2005
Harvard Law To Cooperate With Military Recruiters
Harvard Law School will actively cooperate with military recruiters this fall, despite the Pentagon's refusal to sign the school's nondiscrimination pledge, Dean Elena Kagan announced this evening.
September 20, 2005
Frist Sold Hospital Shares Before Drop
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family's hospital corporation about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly 15 percent.
September 22, 2005
Bush/Katrina Poll
Survey USA
August 31-Sept 22, 2005 (animation updated Sept 22}
September 21, 2005
Katrina's Cost May Test GOP Harmony
The resistance suggests that Bush's second term could turn out far rockier and more contentious than his first. One indicator many Republicans are watching to gauge whether Bush is becoming a liability for the party is in Pennsylvania, where Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, is trailing state treasurer Bob Casey Jr. by double digits.
September 21, 2005
Experts Say Faulty Levees Caused Much of Flooding
But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.
September 20, 2005
Gold Rises for Fifth Day as Oil Price Fuels Inflation Concern
Gold for immediate delivery yesterday touched $468.65 an ounce, the highest since January 1988, as oil prices jumped 7 percent on concern Tropical Storm Rita may strengthen into a hurricane before striking Texas. Investors buy gold to hedge against inflation, which erodes the value of other fixed-asset investments, such as bonds.
September 20, 2005
Republicans abandon their base--more government
And what we're seeing is that Katrina is swamping every goal conservatives have, from limiting government to cutting taxes to reforming entitlement programs. Katrina spending has already imperiled plans to repeal the death tax, and Congress is already $60 billion into a spending binge. Handing out $2,000 debit cards was just the beginning. The conservative Congress has brought back the welfare state.
September 16, 2005
Gold Price Settles at 17-Year High on Inflation Fears
NEW YORK — U.S. benchmark gold futures (search) closed at a 17-year high on Friday as robust demand for bullion and jitters over inflation and the U.S. economy stoked a buying spree in the precious commodity for a second straight day.
August 31, 2005
Shell bosses cash in on oil windfall.
THE directors of Shell have cashed in some of the windfall from high oil prices to upgrade their fleet of corporate jets.
September 14, 2005
Tullow Oil Profits Up 660%
LONDON (Reuters) - Tullow Oil posted a 660 percent jump in first half profit on Wednesday on the back of higher oil prices and higher production.
September 15, 2005
Premier Oil profits rise 60 percent
LONDON (Reuters) - Premier Oil posted a 60 percent rise in its first-half net profit to $20.5 million (11.3 million pounds) on Thursday, on the back of higher prices and lower exploration costs.
September 19, 2005
Tons of British aid to be BURNED by Americans
HUNDREDS of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.
US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.
September 19, 2005
GOP split--bankrupt us with tax cuts or . . .
Westmoreland was among 11 House Republicans to vote against Bush's request last week for $52 billion in hurricane aid because it included no budget cuts to offset its cost or safeguards on how the money would be spent.
{note: why didn't the GOP cut programs BEFORE they cut taxes for the rich?]
September 20, 2005
David Safavian: Charged with Obstruction of Justice
David Safavian, a former chief of staff of the General Services Administration and Abramoff lobbying associate, {resigned five days ago} concealed from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with the government when Safavian, a GSA official at the time, joined him on a golf trip to Scotland in 2002, according to an FBI affidavit and government officials.
September 20, 2005
Sacrifice? Don't count on it
In a formal speech from New Orleans last Thursday, Bush did not call upon Americans to sacrifice. The next day, responding to a reporter's question about paying for the massive relief effort, Bush offhandedly said: "You bet it's going to cost money. But I'm confident we can handle it. It's going to mean that we're going to have to cut unnecessary spending."
But in Washington, unnecessary spending is like unnecessary sex: It doesn't exist.
September 20, 2005
O'Reilly's Lie: dems have double digit lead over GOP
But he falsely claimed that, according to the poll, 45 or 46 percent would vote for a Democrat, while 43 percent would vote Republican "next November." O'Reilly subsequently claimed, also incorrectly, that the poll's "midterm Congress test ballot" found that 45 percent would vote for a generic Republican, while 48 percent would vote for the Democrat. In fact, the poll found that 52 percent of Americans would vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress, while only 40 percent would vote for the Republican. O'Reilly's second claim regarding the generic ballot is, in fact, the result of a Pew poll taken in August 1997.
{note: scroll down and read the real Pew Poll]
September 20, 2005
Hume lie: elder Bush never criticized Clinton
On the September 19 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume claimed that President Clinton, in a recent interview on ABC's This Week, did something that President George H.W. Bush "did not do, and that is criticize the sitting president and his administration." But contrary to Hume's assertion, Bush repeatedly criticized Clinton administration policies while Clinton was in office.
September 18, 2005
Clinton launches withering attack on Bush
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.
September 19, 2005
American Spectator: 'this Administration is done for'
But at this stage of the game, barring some imaginative political moves that bear some resemblance to the Bush Administration circa 2002, Republicans on Capitol Hill and even some longtime Bush team members in various Cabinet level departments say this Administration is done for.
September 19, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Guantanamo Bay Hunger Strike
About a quarter of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay are engaged in a hunger strike, and 18 prisoners are being force-fed through tubes or intravenously after about a month of not eating. The prisoners are protesting the frightening reality that detainees have gone three years without trials.
September 20, 2005
Gallup/CNN/USA Today: 58% disapprove of Bush"
Despite President George W. Bush's major address to the country last week, his popularity has sunk to the lowest level of his presidency. According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey, only 40% of Americans approve of his overall job performance, which tied with one previous reading in August as the lowest score he has received since taking office in 2001. His disapproval reading of 58% is two points higher than the previous record measured last month.
September 19, 2005
Iraq defense ministry lost $1 billion
One billion dollars has been plundered from Iraq's defence ministry in one of the largest thefts in history, The Independent can reveal, leaving the country's army to fight a savage insurgency with museum-piece weapons.
September 15, 2005
Pew : Dems take double digit lead over GOP
The Democrats currently hold a 12-point advantage in the congressional horserace. While most partisans say they plan to stick with their party's candidate, independent voters currently lean Democratic by two-to-one (55% to 27%).
September 15, 2005
WJS/NBC poll: Bush hurt by Katrina in Iraq War
WASHINGTON -- Hurricane Katrina has accelerated the erosion in public support for the Iraq war as President Bush's core of supporters dwindles and economic pessimism turns Americans' attention inward.
September 18, 2005
Rasmussen Poll: Bush Katrina Ratings Fall After Speech
September 18, 2005--Thirty-five percent (35%) of Americans now say that President Bush has done a good or excellent job responding to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. That's down from 39% before his speech from New Orleans.
September 16, 2005
Hannity lie: claimed Reagan tax cuts "doubled revenues"
According to the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), when adjusted for inflation to constant fiscal year 2000 dollars, receipts (revenues) increased only from $1.077 trillion to $1.236 trillion during Reagan's term in office. Even in unadjusted (current) dollars, Hannity's claim that revenues "doubled" to more than $1 trillion during the Reagan administration is false: From 1981 to 1988, revenues in current dollars increased from $599.3 billion to $909.3 billion.
September 26, 2005 issue
An Impeachable Offense
Bush: most fiscally irresponsible chief executive in US history
"The Grand Old Spending Party," which explains that "throughout the past 40 years, most presidents have cut or restrained lower-priority spending to make room for higher-priority spending. What is driving George W. Bush's budget bloat is a reversal of that trend." To govern is to choose. And Bush has decided not to choose. He wants guns and butter and tax cuts.
September 16, 2005
Consumer sentiment plummeted to a 13-year low
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence plummeted to a 13-year low in early September, battered by record high gasoline prices and the full force of Hurricane Katrina, a report showed on Friday.
September 16, 2005
Sun-Sentinel called for Brown's resignation a year ago
"It was absolutely incredible. In Miami, the hurricane never hit, it never came on shore, and we found FEMA paid out $31 million for a storm that never came ashore," Mauker said.
September 16, 2005
Global warming 'past the point of no return'
A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.
September 13, 2005
Court Dismisses Global-warming Case Against Utilities
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. federal district court dismissed a lawsuit Thursday filed by eight states that claimed emissions released by the coal-fired power plants of a handful of U.S. utilities contribute to global warming and create a "public nuisance."
September 13, 2005
Bush Goofing Around During Presidential Visit
After Talibani's extended answer, that seemed even longer because no translation service was provided, President Bush offered up "I'm not sure if I agree or not," cueing still more laughter. Off to the side, two members of the Iraqi delegation were whispering Arabic to English translation into the ears of Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Often when a foreign visitor does not speak or is not fully comfortable with English, headphones are passed out with a simultaneous translation. But not today.
September 13, 2005
Power on for Bush. Goes out After Bush
And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.
September 16, 2005
CNN lied: Clinton polls didn't drop after Monica
"Sooner or later, every leader gets in trouble. President Reagan had Iran-Contra. President Clinton had Monica Lewinsky. Like Bush, they had a base that helped them get through it." But Schneider's suggestion that all three presidents had to rely on the support of their base during times of general public unhappiness with their performance is mistaken: While Reagan did see his approval ratings plummet to the low 40s during the Iran-Contra matter, Clinton saw no similar erosion of public support during the Lewinsky matter.
September 16, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Government Seeking to Blame Environmental Groups
The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."
September 13, 2005
Archbishop says gays should be banned from seminaries
O'Brien had told the National Catholic Register, an independent newsweekly, that "anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary," even if they had been celibate for a decade or more.
September 16, 2005
Blame game--Vatican Bans Gay Seminarians
The planned search for homosexuality is part of a Vatican review prompted by the clergy sexual abuse crisis of 229 American seminaries, theology schools, and other institutions that train priests. It is set to begin this month.
September 16, 2005
G.O.P. Split Over Big Plans for Storm Spending
That mindset is troubling to other lawmakers who fear that in addition to a reborn Gulf Coast, something else will rise from the storm: record federal deficits.
[Note from author : What a joke. The GOP didn't mind record deficits after the Reagan tax cuts or during the past four years under Bush 2. What makes anyone think they care about fiscal sanity?]
September 15, 2005
'Triple burp' of methane caused massive global warming
Open University researchers have uncovered startling new evidence about an extreme period of a sudden, fatal dose of global warming some 180 million years ago during the time of the dinosaurs. The scientists' findings could provide vital clues about climate change happening today and in the future.
September 16, 2005
A Bid to Repair a Presidency
The main text of President Bush's nationally televised address last night was the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, but the clear subtext was the rebuilding of a presidency that is now at its lowest point ever, confronted by huge and simultaneous challenges at home and abroad -- and facing a country divided along partisan and racial lines.
September 13, 2005
CNN lied: Poverty rates under Clinton/Bush
But the poverty rate declined every year Clinton was in office, from 15.1 percent when he took office in 1993 to a low of 11.3 percent in 2000; it has risen every year that Bush has been in office, from 11.7 percent in 2001 to 12.7 percent in 2004.
September 15, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Federal Pension Guarantee is Bankrupt
Harry Reid, senate minority leader, said: "Congress has an immediate opportunity to pass legislation enabling both companies to keep pension plans for workers in place. We must not sit by and do nothing while thousands of hard-working Americans' retirement security is at risk." The call was echoed by Johnny Isakson, a senator from Georgia, where Delta is based. In the wake of the largest ever termination of pension plans by United Airlines in April, he jointly introduced the Employee Pension Preservation Act of 2005.
September 15, 2005
National Geographic: Hurricanes Are Getting Stronger
Warming ocean temperatures appear to be fueling stronger, more intense hurricanes around the world, a new study suggests.
The number of storms that reach Category Four and Five "the most powerful, damaging hurricanes" has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, the study finds.
September 15, 2005
Bill Maher Blasts Bush
"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.
"So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "
September 15, 2005
Katrina will raise deficit $200 to $300 billion
Standing in Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter, Bush acknowledged his administration had failed to respond adequately to Hurricane Katrina, which killed hundreds of people across five states. The government's costs for rebuilding could reach $200 billion or beyond.
September 15, 2005
U.S. Treasuries troubled as factory costs doubled
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's regional factory gauge plummeted this month, a fact that ordinarily might have given the government debt market a sizable boost.
But accompanying the stagnation in the sector was a doubling of prices paid by manufacturing firms, which suggested the inflation outlook might have worsened severely in September.
September 15, 2005
Winter Heating Bills Set To Soar--Midewest 71% higher
Consumers nationwide are expected to spend 34 percent more for heating oil this winter than last, 52 percent more for natural gas, 16 percent more for coal and 11 percent more for electricity, according to the preliminary winter fuel projection by the government's Energy Information Administration. The heaviest burden should fall on natural gas customers in the Midwest, the EIA predicts, with costs 71 percent higher than last winter.
September 14, 2005
Confidence Index Falls to Record Low
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Confidence in the U.S. economy fell to a record low in September as the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina made consumers pessimistic about the economy and personal finances, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
September 14, 2005
Retail Sales Decline by Most Since 2001
Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar declined against the euro and the yen after a government report showed U.S. retail sales in August dropped by the most since November 2001.
September 13, 2005
Consumer Confidence drops sharply
NEW YORK, Sept 13 (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence in the economy fell to its lowest level since June 2004, driven down by the concerns over high gasoline prices and Hurricane Katrina's destruction along the Gulf Coast, ABC News and the Washington Post said on Tuesday.
September 14, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
9/11 Commissioners Blast Congress and Bush for Katrina Inaction
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Members of the former 9/11 commission blasted Congress and the Bush administration Wednesday for inaction on some of its recommendations, which the former chairman said could have saved lives in Hurricane Katrina.
"If Congress does not act, people will die -- I cannot put it more simply than that," said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, referring to what could happen in the next major disaster or terrorist attack.
September 14, 2005
Delta, Northwest file for bankruptcy protection
The parent companies of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines on Wednesday filed for bankruptcy protection in a move that could set off an unprecedented restructuring of the US airline industry.
September 14, 2005
GOP Kills Independent Katrina Commission
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Republicans on Wednesday scuttled an attempt by Sen. Hillary Clinton to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate what went wrong with federal, state and local governments' response to Hurricane Katrina.
September 12, 2005
Bush Called Republican Governor, not Democrat Governor
She says that two days after Katrina, desperate for help, she couldn't get through to Bush and didn't get a callback; hours later, she tried again, and they talked.
In fact, Barbour said in an interview with USA TODAY, the president called him three to four times in the wake of Katrina. "I never called him. He always called me," he said.
September 14, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Chertoff Delayed Federal Katrina Response
NEW YORK In a major scoop, three reporters with Knight Ridder's Washington bureau report that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown, was the "federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina."
September 14, 2005
'I take responsibility' for response, Bush says
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," he said during a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. "And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
September 4, 2005
New Ideas or "Whom to blame?"
But the public doesn't need Democrats to tell them what went wrong with Bush's response to the disaster in New Orleans. The public needs Democrats to offer fresh alternatives on the economy and security.
The public, at least according to polls, is ready and eager to think about new ideas. The Democrats may not be.
September 14, 2005
Vietnam Syndrome to Iraq Syndrome
Often discussed by news media, the "Vietnam syndrome" usually has a negative connotation, implying knee-jerk opposition to military involvement. Yet public backing for a war has much to do with duration and justification. A year after the invasion of Iraq began, Noam Chomsky observed: "Polls have demonstrated time and time again that Americans are willing to accept a high death toll -- although they don't like it, they're willing to accept it -- if they think it's a just cause."
September 13, 2005
Poll: 80% feel terror threat is same or worse
Eight in 10 people in the United States think the threat from terrorism is about the same or has grown worse than it was at the time of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a poll found.
September 13, 2005
Limbaugh lie: 'no surplus under Clinton'
Describing the claim that "the Bush administration squandered this giant surplus left by the Clinton administration" as a "Democrat [sic] mantra talking point," nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh falsely asserted that "there never was a surplus" under President Clinton. In fact, from 1998 to 2001, the federal government ran total annual budget surpluses of between $69.2 billion and $236.2 billion, according to figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
September 13, 2005
CBS Lie: Blanco slow to Declare emergency
Reporting on criticism of the government response to Hurricane Katrina, CBS' 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant repeated Newsweek's characterization of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco as "uncertain and sluggish," a characterization accompanying the magazine's false suggestion that as of September 1 Blanco had not yet declared a state of emergency in response to Hurricane Katrina. In fact, Blanco made that declaration before Katrina made landfall.
September 13, 2005
ABC Lie: 2000 school buses.
On September 11, ABC host George Stephanopoulos repeated a falsehood that had reverberated through the right-wing media the preceding week -- that "there were 2,000 buses under water" that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin could have used to evacuate his city before Hurricane Katrina's arrival.
September 12, 2005
CNN lie: Bush polls improving
On the September 12 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux claimed that "we have seen poll numbers improve" since Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen took charge of the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts -- despite the fact that most publicly available polling shows the Bush administration's numbers in a free fall. Later in the program, Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer claimed that Bush's poll numbers are going up -- but used a misleading comparison of different polls conducted by different news organizations using different methodologies in order to do so.
September 12, 2005
Jack Kelly Column littered with lies
In a September 10 column, Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Jack Kelly put forth numerous falsehoods and dubious statements in defense of the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. Kelly's column was quickly embraced by the conservative media: On September 12, it was posted on the Drudge Report and read aloud by Rush Limbaugh on his nationally syndicated radio program.
September 12, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Brooks: "from Day One," White House Decided to Lie
On the September 11 edition of NBC's syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, New York Times columnist David Brooks revealed that he has learned from private conversations with Bush officials who "represent" what "Bush believes" that from its earliest days, the Bush administration adopted a policy of shielding itself from political damage by never publicly admitting any mistake -- even if it meant lying to the media and the American public.
September 13, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Military to reporters: 'no photos, no stories'
Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.
September 13, 2005
End of the Bush Era
And so the Bush Era ended definitively on Sept. 2, the day Bush first toured the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina.
The source of Bush's political success was his claim that he could protect Americans. Leadership, strength and security were Bush's calling cards. Over the past two weeks, they were lost in the surging waters of New Orleans.
August 05, 2005
Democrats : harnessing the power of the blogosphere
The national Democratic Party had written off the Ohio seat because the district is the second-most Republican in the state, but Moulitsas and like-minded bloggers saw it as a chance to put everything they'd been saying to the test. They didn't expect to win, though there was always that hope, but if they could turn a foregone Republican conclusion into a close race where the GOP had to spend money and sweat the outcome, that would be victory enough. The Republicans didn't build their majorities overnight, and it was time for progressives to take a stand. Hackett had zero name recognition at the outset, but he quickly became known in the blogosphere, which raised $400,000 for his race. Every time the other side tried to "Swiftboat" him--using the tactics employed against John Kerry's Vietnam record in the 2004 race--the bloggers struck back.
September 9, 2005
Republican agenda is Over
If there's an upside to Katrina, it's that the Republican agenda of tax cuts, Social Security privatization and slashing government programs is over. It may be too much to predict an upsurge of progressive government, but the environment and issues of poverty, race and class are back on the nation's radar screen. The proper role for government will be debated as we move toward the next presidential election.
September 19 ISSUE, 2005
A five part series
How Bush Blew It
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.
September 11, 2005
Terrorism Could Hurl D.C. Area Into Turmoil
Even those who helped spend the money envision gridlock on the Capital Beltway as residents flee after a truck bombing at the Capitol or a chemical attack on Metro. They see D.C. police, U.S. Capitol Police, the FBI, U.S. Park Police and the departments of Homeland Security and Defense scrambling to figure out who is in charge, strained hospitals overwhelmed with thousands of people in need of medical care and confused downtown workers from the District, Maryland and Virginia who don't know what to do.
September 10, 2005
Feds Drop Media Ban on Katrina Recovery
NEW YORK - Challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed on Saturday not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.
September 9, 2005
Operation Blessing gave half of donations to CBN
According to its most recent filing with the Internal Revenue Service, Operation Blessing gave more than half of its yearly allocation of cash donations -- $885,000 -- to the Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, of which Robertson is also the chairman.
September 9, 2005
Has a More Critical Press Corps Emerged?
Of course, this new attitude was not universal. After George W. Bush told ABC's Diane Sawyer, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" (9/1/05), many outlets questioned Bush's nonsensical claim, pointing out that such predictions were common. But on the front page of the next morning's New York Times (9/2/05), readers saw the headline "Government Saw Flood Risks, But Not Levee Failure," which essentially defended Bush's position.
September 11, 2005
Katrina Timeline
Timeline Hurricane Katrina August 26-September 10 2005
September 10, 2005
Poll: Bush could become Katrina's next casualty
Similarly, public approval of the president's policies on issues from the economy (35 percent) to the war in Iraq (36 percent) to terrorism and homeland security (46 percent) have suffered. Demonstrating the widespread havoc that Katrina has wrought on the president's political fortunes-even far from issues of disaster response-for the first time in the four years since 9/11, more Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of terrorism and homeland security than approve of it.
September 10, 2005
What took so long?
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 - To Democrats, Republicans, local officials and Hurricane Katrina's victims, the question was not why, but what took so long?
Republicans had been pressing the White House for days to fire "Brownie," Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who had stunned many television viewers in admitting that he did not know until 24 hours after the first news reports that there was a swelling crowd of 25,000 people desperate for food and water at the New Orleans convention center.
September 10, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
Neigh to Cronies
W. trusted Brownie simply because he was a friend of a friend. He was a college buddy of Joe Allbaugh, who worked as W.'s chief of staff when he was Texas governor and as his 2000 presidential campaign manager.
The breakdown in management and communications was so execrable that the president learned about the 25,000 desperate, trapped people at the New Orleans convention center not from Brownie, who didn't know himself, but from a wire story carried into the Oval Office by an aide on Thursday, 24 hours after the victims had been pleading and crying for help on every channel. (Maybe tomorrow the aide will come in with a wire story, "No W.M.D. in Iraq.")
September 10, 2005
Guard Stretched too Thin
WASHINGTON - The National Guard is stretched so thin by simultaneous assignments in Iraq and the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast that leaders in statehouses and Congress say it is time to reconsider how the force is used.
Republicans and Democrats alike worry about the service's ability to balance its federal and state missions of fighting wars and responding to domestic crises.
September 10, 2005
Lawyer Is Fired After Talking About Rove
AUSTIN, Texas Sep 10, 2005 — A lawyer with the Texas secretary of state was fired after she spoke to a reporter about presidential adviser Karl Rove's eligibility to vote in the state.
September 9, 2005
DeLay PAC Is Indicted For Illegal Donation
A grand jury in Texas indicted yesterday a state political action committee organized by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for accepting $120,000 in allegedly illegal corporate campaign contributions shortly before and after the 2002 elections that helped Republicans cement their control of the House of Representatives.
September 10, 2005
AP poll: Bush approval 39%
Nearly four years after Bush's job approval soared into the 80s after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush was at 39 percent job approval in an AP-Ipsos poll taken this week. That's the lowest since the the poll was started in December 2003.
September 10, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
CNN asks court for access to recovery of bodies
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - CNN filed suit in U.S. District Court in Houston late Friday to stop government efforts to exclude the media from covering the recovery of bodies from flood-ravaged New Orleans.
September 9, 2005
Wash. Post presented falsehoods, distortions masking Bush administration's failures
In consecutive front-page reports, The Washington Post featured mischaracterizations and outright falsehoods that had the effect of masking the Bush administration's apparent culpability in the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
Michael Grunwald Lie: "the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years,"
Spencer S. Hsu Lie: "the Post failed to mention the contrast between Bush's patronage appointments to FEMA and the appointment of experienced disaster relief professionals that occurred under Clinton."
September 10, 2005
CBO Sees Deficits Growing Under Bush
WASHINGTON -- Even before the cost of Hurricane Katrina is added to the federal ledger, a Congressional Budget Office study commissioned by Democrats predicts President Bush will fail to keep his promise to cut the deficit in half by the time he leaves office.
September 9, 2005
Democrats Say They Will Not Join GOP-Controlled Probe
A grand jury in Texas indicted yesterday a state political action committee organized by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for accepting $120,000 in allegedly illegal corporate campaign contributions shortly before and after the 2002 elections that helped Republicans cement their control of the House of Representatives.
September 09, 2005
FEMA Director Removed From Katrina Duty
Sept. 9, 2005 — Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, under criticism due to his management of Hurricane Katrina as well as reported discrepancies on his resume, has been ousted from disaster relief efforts.
September 10, 2005
U.S. Can Confine Citizens Without Charges, Court Rules
A federal appeals court yesterday backed the president's power to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil without any criminal charges, holding that such authority is vital during wartime to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.
September 08, 2005
Questions raised about Brown's Resume
In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him."
September 09, 2005
AP Poll,Abandon Flooded Areas
An AP-Ipsos poll found that 54 percent of Americans want the vast sections of New Orleans that were flooded by Hurricane Katrina moved to a safer location. About 80 percent of the city was flooded at the height of the disaster. The city, home to about 484,000 people, sits six feet below sea level on average.
September 09, 2005
CIA Agent loses confidence in CIA leadership--resigns
Robert Richer, the second-ranking official in the CIA's clandestine service, has announced his retirement, telling colleagues that he lacked confidence in the agency's leadership, according to current and former intelligence officials.
September 09, 2005
Zogby: Bush would lose election against all of his predecessors since Carter
President Bush's job approval rating took a hit in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, dropping to a historic low of 41%, a new Zogby America poll reveals. The same survey found the nation's forty-third president would lose election contests against all of his predecessors since Jimmy Carter.
September 09, 2005
An Impeachable Offense
FEMA bans Katrina Photos
Inside the Superdome, evacuees huddled with rapists, drug addicts and the dead. The dead were everywhere. It is almost comical that FEMA would talk about treating these victims with dignity and respect. FEMA did not afford the living dignity and respect; that is why there are bodies floating today.
September 09, 2005
Japan plans early Iraq exit
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he would decide on whether to extend the mission after Iraq's referendum on a new Constitution in October and subsequent developments.
September 08, 2005
Powell says U.N. speech a 'blot' on record
"I'm the one who presented it to the world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It is painful now," Powell said in an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC-News.