It was with great relief that New Orleanians awoke this morning to find their city largely spared by Hurricane Gustav, but many residents are still struggling to rebuild their lives three years after Hurricane Katrina… a rebuilding effort that has been as hampered by government incompetence and cronyism as the disastrously botched relief effort in the storm’s immediate wake.
As it so happens, today is the third anniversary of my post highlighting former FEMA director Mike Brown’s vast emergency management experience as the Commissioner of Judges and Stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association—a post that Brown himself ultimately blamed for his firing—and it is depressing to note that there is little reason to believe that FEMA is any better prepared to deal with a similar disaster. But then, that’s the sort of government we get when we elect leaders who don’t actually believe in government.
But the no-bid contractors have done very well.
The incompetent Republicans wouldn’t do better even if they did believe in government. You can’t turn a Republican into a good public administrator any more than you can turn a tomato into a good car mechanic.
If you want kids 3 years out of law school to be U.S. Attorneys, vote Republican.
If you want rigid ideologues with partisan agendas to be federal judges and Supreme Court justices, vote Republican.
If you want horse show judges to run federal agencies, vote Republican.
If you want to squander trillions of taxpayer dollars, vote Republican.
If you want someone else’s religion force-fed to your kids in public schools, vote Republican.
If you want 1950s-style conformity in which everyone has to dress and think the same way, vote Republican.
A Republican government is about partisanship and grabbing public resources, not good government.
In Wisconsin, a Republican U.S. Attorney who wanted to create a scandal for election purposes railroaded an innocent state employee to prison for awarding a small state contract to the lowest bidder.
A federal appeals court reviewing the case ordered the victim of this abusive prosecution released the same day oral arguments were heard — an unprecedented action in American legal history.
The U.S. Senate is now investigating whether “politics … played an inappropriate role” in this prosecution.
If you want corruption and theft of public money, vote Republican. Look how contracts were awarded after Katrina: To politically connected contractors, without public announcement or bidding, in inflated amounts, and in many cases the work was shoddy and had to be redone or wasn’t done at all.
@4
“If you want rigid ideologues with partisan agendas to be federal judges and Supreme Court justices…”
Funny, you complaining about that…
@10
Can’t imagine why those poor, downtrodden, folks turned right around and elected a Republican Governor. Can you?
The continuing steep plunge in crude prices — now off nearly 30% in just a few weeks after last spring’s dizzying runup to unprecedented levels (shades of the Calif. electricity “crisis”) — strongly points to another price-rigging conspiracy under Republican misrule.
@12 It’s not surprising that voters who elected Ted Stevens, Don Young, and Frank Murkowski — all of whom are under indictment or investigation — voted in an empty suit like Palin. What’s surprising is that election was as close as it was, with the Democrat getting within 8 points of becoming governor of a state that never elects a Democrat to anything. And it appears a growing number of Alaskans are having second thoughts about their local beauty contest runner-up. It’ll be interesting to see how Alaska votes in November. Oh, McCain will probably carry his running mate’s home state … but he’ll have to fight for it and spend resources there. Right now, Alaska is only weakly in the McCain-Palin camp, according to the latest Newsweek poll.
@11 Yes, I’m complaining about that. As a lawyer and former judge, I don’t like to see the rule of law go by the boards. The job of judges is to interpret and enforce laws, not ignore the law to assist in carrying out a partisan agenda. But I don’t expect an ignorant fuck like you to comprehend that. To a Republican like you, everything is for sale.
Hey iBurner – you blog bitch. .. . they didn’t elect a republican governor. The republicans do what they always do – they stole the election. And you pretend to be a Libertarian but you constantly promote the republican position. I guess you’re lying about that too huh cunt?
Goldy, if only your posts showing that bitch Palin is LESS qualified than Brownie – could keep us safe from her!
@15
For a self-described partisan hack like yourself to complain about anyone else doing the same thing smacks of the grossest hypocrisy. Stick that under your tail and sit on it!
@16
Whatever, boy.
Now tell me again, how you were *really* at the Everett Mall, and you just “couldn’t find me”. Freakin’ chickenshit, asshat. You even claimed to have someone with you and you were too gutless to come and talk to me, you puss. Oh, I know. a “Mall” isn’t “public”. Pfft. You’re all mouth, no balls, boy. You know it, I know it, and so does anyone else that reads HA for any length of time.
Go on outside now, and play hide and go fuck yourself, bitch.
I-Burn @ 18
For a self-described partisan hack like yourself to complain about anyone else doing the same thing smacks of the grossest hypocrisy.
So, you don’t see any difference between a partisan hack posting comments on a blog and a partisan hack sitting on a Federal Bench?
So iBurner while hiding in your mom’s basement, do you work up excuses for why you won’t come to DL where there’d be witnesses? Have you managed to fake a DD214 yet?
You fucking cowardly cunt!
@20
Actually, I was referring to a partisan hack who sat on a bench himself, complaining about another setting on a bench somewhere else.
@21
I’ll start looking for excuses when you explain why you were too cowardly to show up at the Everett Mall – where there would be plenty of witnesses, you chickenshit, pusssyboy.
You’re the one who pissed himself at actually facing me boy. You keep remembering that. You’re all mouth, and no balls. Just like I said.
@ 22
You have evidence that he was a partisan hack when he sat on the bench? (I’m not even sure he was ever actually a judge, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.)
@24
The tiger don’t change his stripes, my friend.
@ 25
I see. So, you’re conveniently assuming facts not in evidence.
@26
What facts were in evidence with RR’s original assertion? I responded to his hyperbole and innuendo, not facts, because there weren’t any.
@ 27
What facts were in evidence with RR’s original assertion?
Are you having difficulty understanding the meaning of the phrase “not in evidence”?
@14 “a state that never elects a Democrat to anything”
I see your point and all but that’s not 100%, completely true. An old friend, Frank Kelty, life-time Democrat, was elected mayor of Dutch Harbor/Unalaska five times. Palin actually used to work for Frank back when she sorted crab for a living.
@28
why yes, thank you for asking. Please do explain it.
30:
Sarah Palin’s qualifications to be vice president are…not in evidence.
Now go join Troll and blow each other.
@31
Did I say that she was qualified to be VP? I don’t think I did. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve said anything about her, politically, at all.
Did you at one time say that you’d been in the 75th Reg., 1st or 2nd Batt.?
It’s so cute when iBurner pretends to know something about the military. He couldn’t answer the MOST basic of questions when I tested him. And he won’t show a DD214. Nice try bitch. But really, you could get into trouble for pretending to be a vet. Better stick with your usual bullshit spewing and avoid jail where a punk like you would be sucking dick 24/7.
@ 30
To assume a fact not in evidence is to make an assumption about a statement of fact when there is no evidence to support the assumption. In other words, assuming a fact not in evidence is the logical equivalent of begging the question.
@33
And you could get into trouble for trying to pass yourself off as a human being.
Explain again, why you and your friend wouldn’t come and talk to me at the Everett Mall? If you were there, you saw me sitting at the table by myself. Surely you didn’t really think you had to be afraid in a freakin’ mall? Of course, if you weren’t actually there, as we both know, then you really are too much of a coward to back up your bullshit. All mouth, no balls, boy. Pitiful.
Now, go play on a busy street, bitch.
@34
As RR did in his original post, to which I was commenting. Or does he get a pass because he isn’t a “right-winger”?
@ 35
As RR did in his original post, to which I was commenting.
All Roger did @ 4 was restate the basic Republican platform.
@37
Sure he did.
A comment: You have shown yourself as too intelligent to be so rigidly and reflexively anti-Republican. So why are you? You don’t seriously buy the ‘all Dem. = Good, all Rep. = Bad’ meme so seemingly prevalent on HA?
re 38: My problem with Republicans is that they seem to be able to hold positions that in the real world are mutually exclusive (e.g., That Republicans are the party of sound economic policy and that they are against wasteful government spending, when, in fact, every Republican Administration since Nixon has been a profligate waster of public funds, etc…)without any sign of cognitive dissonance. This indicates stupidity and dishonesty.
Another position of Republicans that relates to the Iraq War is that the oil reserves of Iraq were not being used to benefit the Iraqi people. But, when I point out that the same is true of American oil reserves, they find it ludicrous that anyone would suggest that the same thing they propose for the Iraqi people is the same thing that should be done for the American people.
If you are against making private property public, why are you not against making public property private? There is no way that you can justify privatizing wind corridors that exist on public land.
The American people don’t need T.Boone Pickens to build a bunch of wind generators, for instance. Centralized power generation is a target for terrorists. Wind and solar should be installed on millions of private residences.
T. Boone Pickens advocates energy solutions that benefit al Qaida.
It’s mildly worthy of note that one of the talking points Ray Nagin used in persuading his constituents to get the hell out of town was that even if Gustav wasn’t as big a storm, there was a new potential hazard of some of the thousands of the still-present “FEMA trailers” becoming wind-driven projectiles.
I-Burn @ 38
You have shown yourself as too intelligent to be so rigidly and reflexively anti-Republican.
I don’t think I’m being “rigidly and reflexively anti-Republican.” Are you saying that appointing judges who will overturn Roe v Wade is not an explicit goal of the Republican Party? Or do you think there’s some way to appoint judges who are willing to overturn Roe v Wade without appointing ideologues?