A restraining order to halt the evacuees' removal is denied and the second wave of ejections begins, in some cases under guard.
This, I imagine, should produce some heart-breaking video.
The money spent on the trailers seems like a ridiculous waste. I wish the article indicated why the trailers weren't used. I'm a lot more sympathetic about the money cards, though. If there had been stricter controls on who got them, we'd get stories about deserving people not getting the money they're entitled to. Kind of a no-win situation, unfortunately.
But Chertoff ignored reports about the massive waste in the stampede to help Katrina victims after the government was embarrassed by the disaster.
I figured that Chertoff was going to be an asshole but I didn't expect him to be such a moron. As a great person said, "There was a pop quiz on homeland security last week. He failed." And yet, unlike say Louis Fisher, he doesn't have to worry about his job.
I keep having to edit these posts in order to avoid saying things that are probably illegal.
I wish the article indicated why the trailers weren't used.
There's a better article in the NY Times: apparently there are FEMA regulations forbidding the placement of such trailers in a flood plain, and FEMA couldn't work out a non-flood plain location with the LA state government.
I'm a lot more sympathetic about the money cards, though. If there had been stricter controls on who got them, we'd get stories about deserving people not getting the money they're entitled to.
Oh, that doesn't bother me at all. It's comparatively peanuts, and it seems unlikely that anywhere near all the money that wasn't well accounted for was wasted. Immediately after a disaster is the time, if ever, that it makes sense to hand out cash without worrying too much whether the recipient can prove they need/deserve it.
Obviously the DHS, mindful of the attraction of trailer-parks for tornadoes, is creating a magnet for evil-doer tornadoes, in the hopes that it can lure the evil-doing tornadoes THERE so that we avoid fighting them HERE.
Are there any TV reporters who will cover this story? We need that television footage. NY Times articles just don't have that same emotional appeal. And as much as I can't really stand her, we need Oprah down there.
9: True, and I applaud the (late) concern for the dangers of flooding in New Orleans and its surroundings.
I guess it's another of those "bureaucracy can't win" situations, but that's just all the more reason they should have had a better answer than trailers in the first place.
the republicans may be shockingly brilliant, i think. by exploding the size of government in the most incompetent manner possible, not only do they enrich friends and cronies, but they leave the eventual dem an exploding fiscal bomb, and leave the american people believing it is impossible to do anything right at all. magnificent, really.
btw, just our of curiosity, have any of these threads turned to the matter of the vice president shooting an old man in the face? behind in my unf-gg-d-ng.
13: That's what I really think it is. They're enriching their friends, and they just don't care about the aftermath. Remember those income graphs that Kevin Drum posted showing that Republican administrations were worse than Democratic ones for everyone but the very richest (about top 1%)? Except in election years.
You know, I woke up the other morning and (unless it was a dream) Bush was on the radio saying "my tax cuts will put the money in the hands of those who best know how to use it." So, do any of you have shopping disabilities? 'Cause I know I don't.
ah, the action spread to the lube page, and thus no chance to wax poetic on marginal propensity to consume, or talk about conspiracy theories that the old lawyer is dead as shit, but they're dragging it out over a few days hoping the heat will die down until they can scare up a nice terra alert.
Also, what fucking dicks. Ha ha, we shot somebody! Foolish peasant!
This is starting to remind me of Bertie and the Seven Bodies, an awful comic mystery by Peter Lovesey in which
[SPOILERS]
the guests at a shooting party attended by the Prince of Wales (in Victoria's reign) start getting murdered, and it turns out that the year before a servant on the estate had been shot accidentally, and been left untreated while the fops continued to hunt; his sister is now taking revenge (and is of course the first corpse, having faked her own death).
After the victim had a heart attack, I think it's a relatively big deal. And it's not just the secrecy; it's the pathological inability to take responsibility, and the joking about someone your people shot. Amend the 2000-year-old man: Tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when I accidentally shoot you in the face (or send you to your death over non-existent WMDs, whatever).
I may have mentioned here recently that I do not like George W. Bush (and his Administration).
I'll grant that the heart attack makes it a bigger deal. If he dies, it'll be huge, of course. As it stands, meh. It was obviously an accident, hunting accidents happen, etc.
And Ramiro Medellin, a county constable who also works at the ranch, said he had no doubts it was an accident. But it did not surprise him that Salinas did not question anyone the evening of the shooting. Secret Service agents told the sheriff that it was an accident, and he trusted their word.
"This is the federal government, and they run the show," Medellin said Tuesday. "They say who comes and goes. They are in charge. I know from experience."
Rule of law, anyone?
I'm also a little curious about the beer thing (see updates). And the press is, as usual, covering themselves with glory -- this is supposed to say "lucky most of the reporters covering this story aren't hunters," I think, but I like Josh's version.
If they had just said, "Cheney was careless, accidents happen," it would be meh. As it is it exemplifies the usual pattern of dickery and misconduct. Compared the rest of their dickery and misconduct it's still meh, of course, but that's like being a short NBA center.
I'm closer to teofilo - it was clearly an accident, and if the victim recovers, a tempest in a teapot. The secrecy is, I think, a personality tick. Not a good one, but less important here than in all official actions.
As it is it exemplifies the usual pattern of dickery and misconduct.
Exactly. Par for the course for this gang. I see no particular reason for outrage, especially given that their other fuckups have had very serious, real-world consequences involving millions of people.
I'm not going to let them off the hooks for being dicks this time just because they're dicks the rest of the time. And it's not that often that they exhibit their total lack of class in such pure form. Also, I really am kind of bothered by the quote that indicates that the Veep could do pretty much whatever he wanted and local law enforcement would let the Secret Service cover it up.
maybe i'm just weird about this, but for some reason i think it is kind of insane that our vice president SHOT SOMEONE IN THE FACE, and headed back to his undisclosed location. and to the extent i want to think that i'm the one being weird about this, the conduct since seems bizarre even by this admin's macabre standards. i mean, not even a short public statement by him? did he have to be rushed immediately back to his cryogenic crypt?
do people think this would be jokey, no big deal thing if it had been al gore a few years back? or if that lawyer had sprayed cheney in the face?
i don't know, maybe its just that i've been incapable of grasping that our government continually acts in ways that seem utterly surreal to me, yet blow over in a couple turns of the news cycle, but i FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS. if one of my friends shot another in the face, i would think it was quite the big deal. and i grew up in a county where if they hadn't given us the first day of deer season off from school, there wouldn't have been anyone there. unless someone stayed behind hoping a deer would flee to the school, away from the bullety hills.
"Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday."
See, I think I'm still kind of at incredulity. The V.P. of the U.S. shot someone in the face. A 78-year old someone. And didn't bother to tell anyone for, like, a day. And is trying to pass it off as the victim's fault, no big whoop.
Ssume Cheny was negligent, and that medicare covered the medical bills. Can the US recover from Cheney the medical costs caused by the negligence? If the US doesn't act, can we bring a qui tam action in the name of the US? After all, this is the administration that ran on a platform of accepting personal responsibility.
Damn you 39, that was the point I was about to bring up, by copying and pasting an e-mail I sent to Josh Marshall earlier this evening, because it seems like the kind of thing he likes to run with, though I've never e-mailed him or tried to communicate with him in any way before.
Josh-
As far as I can tell, there's (at least one) important question about the Cheney hunting accident which I haven't seen brought up anywhere. Namely, who would win if Whittington hypothetically brought a negligence suit against Cheney. I know many hunting accidents have led to tort cases, so it seems like a good framework with which to view this one. I'm only a law student and don't have the knowledge needed to answer, but I'm sure you must have some readers versed in Texas's negligence law who could. A possible problem with this approach would exist if there weren't enough facts yet available to make a prediction of how the hypothetical case would come out, but I'm not sure that's the case. Even if it were, the question could still be answered by assuming for the purposes of the prediction that everything the White House has said is true. A second problem might involve principles of comparative negligence, but I'd need to know more than I do about Texas law to offer anything on that.
-[my IRL name deleted even though I've said it before]
Crooked Timber's comment quarantining is goofy. I was pretty proud of this crack, but it was comment 29 when I made it, and is now comment 37 and buried in a blizzard of comments from the likes of Tom Grey -- Liberty Dad.
Bad link, yo.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:28 AM
Fixed.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:33 AM
A restraining order to halt the evacuees' removal is denied and the second wave of ejections begins, in some cases under guard.
This, I imagine, should produce some heart-breaking video.
The money spent on the trailers seems like a ridiculous waste. I wish the article indicated why the trailers weren't used. I'm a lot more sympathetic about the money cards, though. If there had been stricter controls on who got them, we'd get stories about deserving people not getting the money they're entitled to. Kind of a no-win situation, unfortunately.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:41 AM
But Chertoff ignored reports about the massive waste in the stampede to help Katrina victims after the government was embarrassed by the disaster.
I figured that Chertoff was going to be an asshole but I didn't expect him to be such a moron. As a great person said, "There was a pop quiz on homeland security last week. He failed." And yet, unlike say Louis Fisher, he doesn't have to worry about his job.
I keep having to edit these posts in order to avoid saying things that are probably illegal.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:48 AM
I figured
When he was appointed, I think.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:50 AM
I wish the article indicated why the trailers weren't used.
There's a better article in the NY Times: apparently there are FEMA regulations forbidding the placement of such trailers in a flood plain, and FEMA couldn't work out a non-flood plain location with the LA state government.
I'm a lot more sympathetic about the money cards, though. If there had been stricter controls on who got them, we'd get stories about deserving people not getting the money they're entitled to.
Oh, that doesn't bother me at all. It's comparatively peanuts, and it seems unlikely that anywhere near all the money that wasn't well accounted for was wasted. Immediately after a disaster is the time, if ever, that it makes sense to hand out cash without worrying too much whether the recipient can prove they need/deserve it.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:56 AM
Obviously the DHS, mindful of the attraction of trailer-parks for tornadoes, is creating a magnet for evil-doer tornadoes, in the hopes that it can lure the evil-doing tornadoes THERE so that we avoid fighting them HERE.
Consider it pre-emptive emergency management.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 9:18 AM
A flood plain. They can't place them in a flood plain.
Jesus.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 9:39 AM
8--You do have to admit that it would be pretty embarrassing if the rivers rose to wash all those little tin death traps out to sea.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 9:44 AM
Are there any TV reporters who will cover this story? We need that television footage. NY Times articles just don't have that same emotional appeal. And as much as I can't really stand her, we need Oprah down there.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 10:12 AM
9: True, and I applaud the (late) concern for the dangers of flooding in New Orleans and its surroundings.
I guess it's another of those "bureaucracy can't win" situations, but that's just all the more reason they should have had a better answer than trailers in the first place.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 10:21 AM
Or, honestly, isn't there someplace in LA that isn't a flood plain? I refuse to believe this was an insoluble problem.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 10:24 AM
the republicans may be shockingly brilliant, i think. by exploding the size of government in the most incompetent manner possible, not only do they enrich friends and cronies, but they leave the eventual dem an exploding fiscal bomb, and leave the american people believing it is impossible to do anything right at all. magnificent, really.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 10:26 AM
9- If only FEMA had the foresight to build a series of levies around the trailers. Then nothing bad could happen.
Posted by Alfi G | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 10:38 AM
btw, just our of curiosity, have any of these threads turned to the matter of the vice president shooting an old man in the face? behind in my unf-gg-d-ng.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 10:47 AM
Nah. Really, what do you say about it? Cheney's an irresponsible incompetent whose first instinct is to conceal his wrongdoing? This is news?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 10:49 AM
13: That's what I really think it is. They're enriching their friends, and they just don't care about the aftermath. Remember those income graphs that Kevin Drum posted showing that Republican administrations were worse than Democratic ones for everyone but the very richest (about top 1%)? Except in election years.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 12:04 PM
You know, I woke up the other morning and (unless it was a dream) Bush was on the radio saying "my tax cuts will put the money in the hands of those who best know how to use it." So, do any of you have shopping disabilities? 'Cause I know I don't.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 12:16 PM
ah, the action spread to the lube page, and thus no chance to wax poetic on marginal propensity to consume, or talk about conspiracy theories that the old lawyer is dead as shit, but they're dragging it out over a few days hoping the heat will die down until they can scare up a nice terra alert.
i spose lube's more fun anyway.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 6:32 PM
heh heh, he said "wax poetic."
About the Cheney-shoots-guy-in-face story, I say this: major non-hunters at TAPPED. (NTTAWWT. Me neither.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 6:43 PM
Also, what fucking dicks. Ha ha, we shot somebody! Foolish peasant!
This is starting to remind me of Bertie and the Seven Bodies, an awful comic mystery by Peter Lovesey in which
[SPOILERS]
the guests at a shooting party attended by the Prince of Wales (in Victoria's reign) start getting murdered, and it turns out that the year before a servant on the estate had been shot accidentally, and been left untreated while the fops continued to hunt; his sister is now taking revenge (and is of course the first corpse, having faked her own death).
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 6:51 PM
It's really not that big a deal, except for the weird secrecy, but it sure is hilarious. The Daily Show last night was great.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 7:25 PM
After the victim had a heart attack, I think it's a relatively big deal. And it's not just the secrecy; it's the pathological inability to take responsibility, and the joking about someone your people shot. Amend the 2000-year-old man: Tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when I accidentally shoot you in the face (or send you to your death over non-existent WMDs, whatever).
I may have mentioned here recently that I do not like George W. Bush (and his Administration).
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 7:36 PM
Yeah, I'm with Matt: shooting a 78-year old man is kind of, you know, a thing.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 7:40 PM
I'll grant that the heart attack makes it a bigger deal. If he dies, it'll be huge, of course. As it stands, meh. It was obviously an accident, hunting accidents happen, etc.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 7:49 PM
Here's a nice quote:
Rule of law, anyone?
I'm also a little curious about the beer thing (see updates). And the press is, as usual, covering themselves with glory -- this is supposed to say "lucky most of the reporters covering this story aren't hunters," I think, but I like Josh's version.
If they had just said, "Cheney was careless, accidents happen," it would be meh. As it is it exemplifies the usual pattern of dickery and misconduct. Compared the rest of their dickery and misconduct it's still meh, of course, but that's like being a short NBA center.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 7:55 PM
I'm closer to teofilo - it was clearly an accident, and if the victim recovers, a tempest in a teapot. The secrecy is, I think, a personality tick. Not a good one, but less important here than in all official actions.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:02 PM
As it is it exemplifies the usual pattern of dickery and misconduct.
Exactly. Par for the course for this gang. I see no particular reason for outrage, especially given that their other fuckups have had very serious, real-world consequences involving millions of people.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:04 PM
I'm not going to let them off the hooks for being dicks this time just because they're dicks the rest of the time. And it's not that often that they exhibit their total lack of class in such pure form. Also, I really am kind of bothered by the quote that indicates that the Veep could do pretty much whatever he wanted and local law enforcement would let the Secret Service cover it up.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:07 PM
Also, this could possibly be used as a metaphor for the Bushies' lack of concern for anyone but themselves.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:09 PM
maybe i'm just weird about this, but for some reason i think it is kind of insane that our vice president SHOT SOMEONE IN THE FACE, and headed back to his undisclosed location. and to the extent i want to think that i'm the one being weird about this, the conduct since seems bizarre even by this admin's macabre standards. i mean, not even a short public statement by him? did he have to be rushed immediately back to his cryogenic crypt?
do people think this would be jokey, no big deal thing if it had been al gore a few years back? or if that lawyer had sprayed cheney in the face?
i don't know, maybe its just that i've been incapable of grasping that our government continually acts in ways that seem utterly surreal to me, yet blow over in a couple turns of the news cycle, but i FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS. if one of my friends shot another in the face, i would think it was quite the big deal. and i grew up in a county where if they hadn't given us the first day of deer season off from school, there wouldn't have been anyone there. unless someone stayed behind hoping a deer would flee to the school, away from the bullety hills.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:25 PM
This bothers me more:
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:33 PM
What, it's a zero-sum game?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:36 PM
Some people may have an infinite capacity for outrage. I'm not one of them.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:37 PM
This excites my contempt. I'm outraged over everything else.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:43 PM
if it had been al gore a few years back?
This ignores that Al Gore is not a manly user of guns like our current VP, blessed be his name.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:46 PM
See, I think I'm still kind of at incredulity. The V.P. of the U.S. shot someone in the face. A 78-year old someone. And didn't bother to tell anyone for, like, a day. And is trying to pass it off as the victim's fault, no big whoop.
Like, wow. It just flabbergasts me, the chutzpah.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 8:48 PM
It's not even chutzpah, it's fucking cowardice. Just like every other aspect of his miserable career.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 9:18 PM
Ssume Cheny was negligent, and that medicare covered the medical bills. Can the US recover from Cheney the medical costs caused by the negligence? If the US doesn't act, can we bring a qui tam action in the name of the US? After all, this is the administration that ran on a platform of accepting personal responsibility.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 9:22 PM
Assume.
Somehow hunting and chutzpah are not words I've often seen together. Maybe it should be chunting.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 9:24 PM
Damn you 39, that was the point I was about to bring up, by copying and pasting an e-mail I sent to Josh Marshall earlier this evening, because it seems like the kind of thing he likes to run with, though I've never e-mailed him or tried to communicate with him in any way before.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 02-14-06 9:45 PM
This comment is entirely for the purpose of moving this thread back into recent comments.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 02-15-06 8:14 AM
Crooked Timber's comment quarantining is goofy. I was pretty proud of this crack, but it was comment 29 when I made it, and is now comment 37 and buried in a blizzard of comments from the likes of Tom Grey -- Liberty Dad.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-15-06 8:17 AM