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The cash they're wasting is yours
We here in the House Government Reform Committee (Democrats) office have just thrown together a little sub-website highlighting the federal government's spending of large amounts of money in Iraq, on "homeland security" stuff, and now on the response to Hurricane Katrina. And we're thinking that, in light of such profligate and irresponsible spending, it might be a good time to remind folks that hey, It's Your Money.
6,600
That's the number of gay couples who have married in Massachusetts so far. As the New York Times editorial board noted yesterday, the very existence of gay married couples significantly changes the debate. More than twelve thousand gay people have married and, in the words of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, not only "did the crops not wither," but "the Red Sox won the World Series and the Patriots took the Super Bowl." Now denying marriage rights involves breaking existing unions and denying already held rights. I have to imagine that there's some number of children involved in these relationships. I've long thought that many Republicans in power don't actually care whether gay people get married or not. And let's not forget the good number of anti-gay marriage Democrats, like John Kerry. What will be interesting to see is how many of them will starting behaving as if, much to their chagrin, what's done is done and let's move on. How many of them will stand on the wrong side of this debate if it becomes increasingly unwinnable? 6,600 presumably happy couples -- and more and more each day -- may do wonders to change hearts and minds. And votes.
President's Speech
My notes from tonight’s speech, slightly scrubbed:
He’s lecturing us and telling us about all the good that was done in the immediate response. Locally, of course, what the local people did. Just invoked the proper name of a firefighter. That didn’t take long. What he needs to do is to look back, talk about what happened. Ooh, George Bush just made a commitment to stay and rebuild New Orleans. You can take that to the bank. He’s describing what things are like there now. Sounds fabulous. Gonna go buy a ticket. He’s not doing what he needs to do, address the screwed-up-ness of this whole situation. He’s talking about how well things are going and how good the stuff that is gonna be done is gonna be. I think it would only help if he said something like “message: I feel your pain.” Talk about the pain of the people and how we all suffered through this, not give out phone numbers. No mention of the poor suffering disproportionately. He’s defensive and borderline petulant. It’s a policy speech removed from the context of the flooded streets of New Orleans. There are still bodies out there. Does he get that? Does he even know that? Okay, know he’s talking about the deep poverty in the South, born from racial discrimination. Okay, now he’s cooking. And he’s enjoying it more. If you actually believe this stuff, why has it taken you two weeks to say it? He’s proposed the creation of a Gulf Opportunity Zone. Sounds like a good idea. So did going to Mars. (Not really.) Interesting. Just offered up federal land for free for people to build on, calling it urban homesteading. Could that ever even happen? “I as president am responsible for the problem and for the solution.” Does anyone know why he does that jaw shift thing?
For what it's worth.
Katrina Commission
While it is indeed discouraging that a bid to create an independent Katrina Commission failed in the Senate and the House created today a non-bipartisan Bipartisan Select Commission on Katrina, it may help to remember that that it the 9/11 Commission took a long time to get created too. And it was largely through the dogged efforts of the so-called Jersey Girls and other Sept. 11 survivor families that that happened at all. That's one reason why the work that the Louisiana NAACP is doing to organize and give voice to Katrina surivivors is very very important.
Fun with talking points
This is fun. Think Progress released a set of Republican talking points for tonight's Bush speech on Katrina:
President Katrina Speech Talkers:
* America and the Gulf Coast are recovering from one of the greatest natural disasters this country has ever faced.
* Tonight President Bush will talk about how there is some optimism that we can see as we move forward. We’re going to build a better Gulf Coast, a better New Orleans and we’ll work with local officials to make sure that happens.
* This will be a massive funding effort at every level of government. We shouldn’t just look at government - we’re seeing private charities, and the American people’s enormous compassion.
* There were breakdowns of communication and planning at all levels of government - federal, state and local levels. It is very critical we learn why those breakdowns took place in the first place.
* Many parts of this will be chalked up to the fact it was one of the worst storms our country has ever faced. But there were things in a post-9/11 world that our government at all levels should be doing better and President Bush more than anybody else wants to find out why it took place and how it took place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
* Bottom line now is all levels of government must take responsibility. This President is taking responsibility and what we have to do now is look forward.
* Senator Frist and Speaker Hastert have indicated that Congress will conduct a thorough investigation modeled after some of the most serious investigations that Congress has ever undertaken: the 1973 Watergate Committee, the 1987 Iran Contra Committee, the 1994 and 1995 Whitewater Committees and the 1997 Campaign Finance investigation.
* Tonight President Bush will talk about specifically what we’ll talk about to help these tens of thousands of people who are literally living with only the shirts of their backs spread out throughout the country. We have to have a strategy for education and heath care, and he’ll spell those out.
* It’s wrong to say it’s either winning the war on terror or funding aftermath of Katrina. We have to do both that means we’ll have to cut spending where else to make sure we are fiscally prudent with the taxpayer’s dollars.
* There’s always discussion about raising taxes but right when businesses and people are trying to get back on their feet in the gulf coast region, the worst thing we can do with these families is pop them with another tax.
* This is going to require difficult decisions in Washington. It’s going to be important that we don’t have the same ol’ same ol’ that we see in Washington. Tough choices will be to have made and President Bush is willing to do that.
Let's see how well folks repeat 'em. Extra points for exact phrasings.
Catholic Church and its gays
So, it now looks as if the Catholic Church has decided that any man with homosexual inclinations -- even a fully celibate one -- is unfit for the Catholic priesthood. Arg. I stopped considering myself Catholic long ago, but still think of myself as culturally Catholic in a way, in large part because of the quality of Catholics I know and the strong values that were for me part of Catholicism -- focus on family and a belief in the worth of every individual. And there's also a strong current of social justice that at least used to run through the church.
But here today we have a Catholic church that is telling each and every gay man that they are unworthy to make a sacrifice and a commitment that, let's be honest, not all that many men are willing to make. The number of American Catholic priests has dropped more than 25% since those Catholics of my parent's generation were confirmed. Also, we must consider this. I was always taught that being a priest was a response to a calling (one that some think that you could even actually 'hear.' ) So we must now assume that the Church's position is that (1) God don’t call on gays or (2) gays must hang up when God calls.
All this is of course seriously troubling for those gay men who aspire to the priesthood, but what about just your average young gay men raised up Catholic? It’s not exactly a positive experience, good for the old psyche, to grow up in an institution that says that God loves everyone but you. Nearly 30% of gay teenage boys reportedly attempt to kill themselves already. But hell, why not swing for the fences? (Let’s leave aside lesbians for the moment. It’s unclear if their marginality in the church is due to sexuality or gender.)
So I have a challenge to the Catholic Church. Explain to us what is so fundamentally wrong with gay people that even an all-loving God does not love them. Or is your need for a scapegoat so desperate – make no mistake, this is the Church’s way of dealing with its “Boston problem” -- that you’re willing to throw aside an entire group of people and likely further decimate the priesthood without even explaining why? I really have to wonder if this is WJWD.
Self-organizing. Me loves it.
Louisiana NCAAP President Ernest Johnson and sidekick Bob Brigham are doing what from many miles away looks to be remarakble work. The plan is to get evacuees to self-organize in the shelters in which they are staying. They can pick leaders who would then make decisions for the group on living conditions, what to do with the children, that sort of thing. Also, and very importantly, they want to make sure that those who were taken far away from New Orleans (as far away as Montana, Johnson says) can move back if they want to. The thinking is to make sure that they have a black voting base back there because some important decisions on the future of that city are gonna need to be made down there -- and elections to choose the area's leaders begin as early as February of next year. That right there is a smart humanitarian and political response to a horrible situation.
WAPO confirmation hearings blog
The Washington Post's blog covering the Roberts confirmation hearing is spectacular, both in concept and excecution. It's worth reading, both if you can't watch the hearing and even if you can.
Damnnnn
In the NYC Democratic mayoral primary, Freddy Frerrer needed to get 40% of the vote to avoid getting drawn into a runoff with Anthony Weiner. With 100% of the precincts reporting, Frerrer stands at 39.95%. Unless Frerrer accepts the runoff or Weiner gives in, this is when they start getting into counting absentees, challenging individual votes, and going machine to machine to check the numbers. Elections are messy business, as they say, but there’s not a whole lot of room for error in this one and you have to hope that the NYC election equipment (and election procedures) will withstand the scrutiny. Or, alternatively, we’ll have a nice little microcosmatic example of the need for election reform.
UPDATE: Even with Frerrer .05% shy, Weiner just conceded.
Confusing but provocative ride home tonight from Dupont Circle to Lincoln Park (Capitol Hill)
My cab driver was listening to a conservative radio talk program, which I later found to likely be John Batchelor show, as they discussed the federal response to Hurricane Katrina (totally paraphrased):
Host: So Speaker Hastert and Leader Delay are going to form an independent commission and there's gonna be a little bit of Senate, a little bit of House. Republicans and Democrats. And Democrats won't offer up their people. Hastert and Delay are ready to go and have offered up their people but Democrats have not offered up their people. Is that right?
Correspodent: Yes.
Driver, of apparent Arabic provenance, offered that this was part of a "Jewish media conspiracy," though I couldn't really make heads nor tails of his reasoning on that. But when Batchelor said that the American people were rightfully demanding that there be oversight of the many billions that are going to be spent in the Gulf Coast, cabbie said: "$300 billion they spend in Iraq, killing innocent people. Now the American people want oversight of money to help American black people." Basking in the warm courage of a few pints of Yuengling, I asked him why he thought -- really thought -- that the federal government took so long to respond. His response? "Guess they just don't care about poor people."
Coop
I'm sorry but I love me some Anderson Cooper.
UPDATE: New New York magazine article on the Coop as “emo-anchor.”
Calling all New Yorkers
You have 2 hours and 45 minutes to go vote for Andrew Rasiej, if you haven't done so already. Also, you might consider a vote for this guy.
Oprah on the aftermath
This is some of the best, and most horrific, video I have seen of the aftermath of Katrina. Sometimes you have to hand it to Oprah. (Hat tip, Jesse Lee) It is sickening to watch this sort of thing. Literally, makes me queasy. But the very least that we can do here, as well as one of the most important things that we can do, is to demonstrate endurance in pursuing this story for weeks and months and even years to come. We need to see this horror so that we can begin to make right not only what happened to these people, but to remind us why we must never stop working to make things right.
Great moments in televised confirmation hearings
While questioning Roberts on whether Roe vs. Wade is really "settled law" for a Supreme Court justice, Specter just held up a giant chart -- so big that Sen. Grassley had to help him hold it up -- listing 38 cases that upheld Roe and asked Roberts "Do you think Roe might be super duper precedent?"
U.B.L., database manager
Mark Danner's piece in this weekend's NY Times magazine gives us a frightening and concrete example of something I like to talk about but I generally do so in a more vague and less frightening way, namely that it's super important as a matter of national security that we understand and begin to utilize organizing and information-sharing technologies. The article tells us that Osama Bin Laden started out in jihadism by organizing names and contact information of mujahideen into one large database, a "qaeda," if you will. In fact, that database was so important, he named his whole organization after it.
Site down!
First I went and pasted my style sheet over my index template. Then I had some hosting issues. And then, finally, today, the power went down in Los Angeles and apparently took down the server that my site is hosted on. But we seem to be up and running now, so I'll get to posting some old stuff that I wrote and have been holding onto.
Louisiana NAACP: evacuees should form "shelter committees"
LOUISIANA NAACP PRESIDENT CALLS FOR EVACUEES TO TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR OWN DESTINY AND FORM "SHELTER COMMITTEES"
Ernest L. Johnson, President of the Louisiana NAACP called today for Katrina evacuees in shelters to take control of their own destinies by forming SHELTER COMMITTEES.
"Each SHELTER COMMITTEE should elect a Chairperson and a Secretary and begin holding meetings, organizing, and working as a team for better treatment," Johnson said. "In unity there is strength."
Johnson called for each committee to begin writing down the name, telephone number, and next of kin of every shelter resident.
This contact information must be put into the FEMA database for evacuees to receive financial assistance.
Johnson urged each SHELTER COMMITTEE to send this information to 1755 Nicholson Drive, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802, or to fax it to (225) 334-7491.
The Louisiana NAACP is airing public service announcements on radio stations that explain the process for bringing participatory democracy to the shelter system.
"The Louisiana NAACP is with you in solidarity," Johnson said. "The NAACP will stand with all displaced people until each and every one return to a brand-new New Orleans."
Ernest Johnson is available for media interviews.
The animals
Damn, this is one of the powers of blogging. I just watched this clip from Oprah, via Crooks and Liars, on a guy who would just not leave his dog behind. And I had to make a donation, however small, to the ASPCA.
More on limiting the press
Josh Marshall says what I've been starting to think, that there are the beginnings of a concerted effort to limit press access and tamp down the flow of news -- however graphic and disturbing -- that should and must come in the wake of this thing. And he says it very well:
Take a moment to note what's happening here: these are the marks of repressive government, which mixes inefficiency with authoritarianism. The crew that couldn't get key aid on the scene in time last week is coming in in force now. And one of the key missions appears to be cutting off public information about what's happening in the city.
This is a domestic, natural disaster. Absent specific cases where members of the press would interfere or get in the way of some particular clean up operation, or perhaps demolition work, there is simply no reason why credentialed members of the press should not be able to cover everything that is happening in that city.
Think about it.
On journalists being barred from Convention Center and Superdome
So says Brian Williams:
[T]he fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.
Katrina Data Project
I don't know much about it yet but the Katrina Data Project is compiling and organizing data find out about who's missing and who's safe, with an eye on security.
Timeline
Think Progress has released a new hurricane and response timeline.
Our Congress
I’m just sad to see this. One year ago today was Congress’ first day back at work after the August recess. The clock was ticking, quickly, as this was of course a big election year. There is a short supply of days during which to do the hard work of the American people. As we moved closer to November, even the pretense of governing would get lost in the frenzied last days before the election. And so, what are the first items on the agenda? What has Congress teed up as its most pressing matters? For one, a constitutional amendment that would put the full weight of the federal government behind preventing gay people from getting married. Yup. The clock is ticking, the nation needs governing, and we’re preparing for consideration of the Federal Marriage Amendment. God help us. (By way of Bill in Portland Maine)
Houston Chronicle 2001
Andrew Sullivan:
Below is a passage from the Houston Chronicle in 2001, which quoted the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the three likeliest potential disasters to threaten America. They were: an earthquake in San Francisco, a terrorist attack in New York City (predicted before 9/11), and a hurricane hitting New Orleans.
Read this prophetic passage and weep: “The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all. In the face of an approaching storm, scientists say, the city’s less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20ft of water.
“Thousands of refugees could land in Houston. Economically, the toll would be shattering . . . If an Allison-type storm were to strike New Orleans, or a category three storm or greater with at least 111mph winds, the results would be cataclysmic, New Orleans planners said.”
Katrina, of course, was category four.
Wow
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this, this is working very well for them."
- Barbara Bush (Hear the audio. It is just remarkable.)
Thoughts on using "refugees"
There's be talk about how we maybe shouldn't be use the term "refugees." Like how Elijah Cummings said yesterday, "I hate that word." That makes some sense, of course, because of the suggestion that refugees are poor, tattered, foreign (and darker-skinned) people wandering around with no where to go.
An alternative term is one used by international aid workers and others who do this for a living -- "IDP," for "internally displaced people." The difference there, between IDP and refugee is that IDPs are forced to leave one place and then relocate some other place in their country, whereas refugees cross borders and settle there. For the sake of accuracy and the glorious ambiguity of the acronym, using IDP might be useful.
(There's also another alternative that I heard used on the radio today that doesn't work for me at all -- "evacuees." We "evacuate" the Rayburn House Office buidling where I work every so often, because of a plane in the restricted airspace or because of a fire in the building. We wait an hour or two and then turn around and go right back in. An evacuee leaves some place quickly and then goes right back to it later on. Nothing has changed in the interim. That's generally not what we are dealing with here.)
I think there's a strong case to be made for, in fact, sticking with " refugees." To borrow an idea and even steal phrasing from Philip Gourevitch's "We Wish to Inform You that Tommorow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" (on genocide in Rwanda), one of the defining characteristics of the personal situations of the people we're dealing with here is that their entire social universes have likely been wiped out. Complete dislocation, and then destruction of the world from whence you came. That's what refugee connotes. And that's one reason that I think it might make sense to use it here.
Silence
I've been quite here today so far because I had just an enormous amount of personal work that had to get done today, just no way around it.
Leadership II
D.C. Armory to Shelter 400:
A convoy of 10 buses provisioned with food, water and officers to keep the peace left the District yesterday evening bound for the troubled city of New Orleans, hoping to return by Monday with as many as 400 evacuees who will be sheltered at the D.C. Armory.
Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), a leader of the effort, said he hoped it would be only the beginning. He called on other communities in the Washington region to take in those in need.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) echoed Catania's challenge by calling on mayors across the country to open armories, stadiums and gyms to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
...
D.C. police officers will accompany the buses for security, and each bus will have two drivers so the caravan can drive through the night on its 2,200-mile, round-trip journey.
In addition, a fuel tanker will be in the convoy, ensuring enough fuel without lengthy stops.
...
City officials are preparing the armory to accommodate an extended stay by its guests. D.C. public school officials said they will enroll any children who arrive in the bus convoy.
...
The Washington Nationals, Mystics and D.C. United have offered to organize recreational events and make available some tickets to their games.
D.C. officials also will try to help those who come to the District locate missing relatives and get their affairs in order.
Leadership
A leader calls for sacrifice:
With 15,000 people filling the floor of the Astrodome and thousands more evacuees from New Orleans streaming into the city, Houston Mayor Bill White asked residents today to open their garages and homes to hurricane refugees.
“Houston is rising to the call of an unprecedented refugee situation,” White said at a press conference this morning. “People should be asking themselves in this region where they know of a garage or apartment.”
Thousands of children displaced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina have been enrolled in schools throughout the Houston area, and government officials were kicking conventioneers out of several centers so the buildings could be turned into shelters.
“If it takes someone suing us, then sue — and then explain to the American public,” White said.
Tim Russert asks why
Via Atrios:
MSNBC: Tim, there are people in New Orleans shooting at helicopters trying to deliver supplies and evacuate patients, people shooting at rescue boats. The mayor of New Orleans says the federal government doesn’t have a clue about what is going on in his town. There seems to be no one in charge in New Orleans. What’s the problem?
Tim Russert: It’s a question that our country is going to have to look inside its soul and answer. The fact is, those who were well off were able to evacuate the city and those who were poor stayed behind. And those who are suffering and those who are dying are those very same poor people.
It’s just unbelievable. The world is watching the United States of America this week. And we’re watching ourselves.
I think the response across the country has been universal and uniform. After Sept. 11, I think people realized we’d been attacked by an outside enemy and we were not in a position to be criticizing our own government.
That’s not the case with this crisis. The Washington Times — a conservative paper — and the Manchester Union Leader up in New Hampshire both just absolutely denouncing the response of the federal government, state government, local government. They are basically saying the government has one function and that’s’ to protect the citizens and it hasn’t happened this week in New Orleans.
I think liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, are just absolutely outraged and confused at the scenes we’re watching on TV. And the world is watching.
Why are we apparently incapable of rescuing people and in the process of witnessing an American city being lost?
MSNBC: This seems especially troubling to some, when America was able to offer aid to victims of the tsunami, a half a world away, but seemingly can’t do it in one of its own cities.
Russert: And it’s not as if we didn’t know this was coming. There were studies after studies. There were tests after tests. As recently as a year ago there was a tabletop disaster scenario played out as to what would happen to New Orleans in a major hurricane. And the results of those studies have now been proven to be true.
So the questions that have to be asked are:
Why weren’t the poor people evacuated? They don’t have SUVs. They travel by public bus. Could they have been evacuated?
Secondly, in terms of pre-positioning, where were the troops, where were the National Guard? If people were to be sent to the Superdome, why weren’t there cots and water and food there?
Second-guessing is easy, but it is also, I think, a requirement of those in a free society to challenge their government, when the primary function of the government is to protect its citizens and they haven’t been protected.
My God
Just now:
Paula Zahn: Sir, you're not telling me, you're not telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today did you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?
FEMA's Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.
That's funny. Cause Harry Connick Jr. knew about the convention center people yesterday:
A guy just walked past and said that down at the convention center where we have our parade ball every year, the Mayor Morial, Ernest Morial Convention Center, he said that there are hundreds of people down there. This is a rumor, but he said that somebody was taken out that had died. And he said, can you tell anybody. So I'm just telling you. This very nice man...they're trapped in the convention center, apparently a few hundred people. And they've been waiting for help.
Why is this possibly on television!?
CNN is showing a live 'briefing' where the governors of the affected states and emergency officials are telling the President what's going on the ground. Live. On camera. Cause that's where the most effective emergency planning sessions should happen! Haley Barbour is saying things like "the federal government has been great" in a really loud voice, make sure the microphones pick it up. Complete political theater. It's really quite astounding. I have never seen anything like this.
Blame the lady governor
Just want to draw your attention to an idea that's out there now:
The performance of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco in the first days after the Katrina disaster has some wondering whether she's up to the daunting task of guiding her state as its largest city struggles to recover.
Blanco "has come across as a nice person," noted the New York Post's Deborah Orin, but she seems "overwhelmed instead of inspiring."
Need to get up and go to church
For those of you in DC who don't mind going into a church every once in a while, for a good cause:
Friday, September 2, 2005
6:00-7:00 PM
All Souls Church, Unitarian
1500 Harvard Street, NW
(202) 332-5266
http://www.all-souls.org
A collection will be taken for the Unitarian Universalist Association's Gulf Coast Relief Fund.
This service is cosponsored by All Soul's Church Social Justice Ministries and the Unitarian Universalist Association's Washington Office for Advocacy.
Donate. Again.
I've just kicked in a second donation to the Red Cross.
"Desperate SOS"
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin:
"This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the Convention Center and don't anticipate enough buses. Currently the Convention Center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for 15,000 to 25,000 people," he said in the statement read by CNN.
Jack Cafferty
I normally think that CNN's Jack Cafferty comes off as something pretty close to a loony jerk, but I saw him say this (transcribed by lesliet on kos) today and it was brilliant:
I'm 62. I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as bungled and as poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people in the Superdome. What is going on? This is Thursday! This storm happened 5 days ago. This is a disgrace. And don't think the world isn't watching. This is the government that the taxpayers are paying for, and it's fallen right flat on its face as far as I can see, in the way it's handled this thing.
...
We're going to talk about something else before the show's over, too. And that's the big elephant in the room. The race and economic class of most of the victims, which the media hasn't discussed much at all, but we will a bit later.
A newsman reacting with all the passion and outrage that a normal person would and should exhibit in such a situation. Bravo.
Update: video now available.
Ellen DeGeneres
A shaken and emotional Ellen DeGeneres said her 82-year-old aunt had to quickly evacuate her home in Pass Christian, Mississippi, as Hurricane Katrina headed toward the Gulf Coast.
"My aunt has lost everything, she has nothing," DeGeneres told AP Radio Wednesday. "She grabbed four pictures out of her house. She's lost her entire life."
DeGeneres, who was born in Metairie, Louisiana, said her childhood was filled with weekends at her aunt Helen Currie's home, just over the state line from New Orleans.
"It's where I grew up every weekend. I spent all my childhood there," she said. "Pass Christian ... is just gone. There's not one building left -- no church, no nothing."
Concert for Hurricane Relief
Tim McGraw, Harry Connick Jr., and Wynton Marsalis (all native Louisianians) will headline a live concert on NBC tommorow night at 8. Money raised will go to the Red Cross.
Play Poker for Victims of Katrina
Wil Wheaton is hosting an online poker tournament, the proceeds of which will go to victims of Katrina.
Leadership
Wes Clark:
Our country is hurting right now. Our situation in Iraq is floundering; gasoline may reach more than $4 per gallon by Tuesday; and the entire Gulf Coast of the United States is wounded and limping. The common need our people have -- and count on -- to see us through these challenges is leadership. ... Where is the leadership?
Donate
I've been having buckets of trouble with this site this morning. No matter. Please consider donating to the Red Cross here.
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