Not Really Surprising
ArchPundit
William Jefferson, Congressman in New Orleans was hit with subpeonas about a week before Katrina. He then used the National Guard as a personal limo service during the flooding. Primary please.
September 2005
ARMPAC & TRMPAC Indictments
Both are effectively controlled by Tom DeLay.
Two associates of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were charged Tuesday with two additional felony charges of violating Texas election law and criminal conspiracy to violate election law for their role in the 2002 legislative races.
The indictment is the seventh this month from a Travis County grand jury investigating the use of corporate money in the campaigns that gave Republicans control of the Texas House.Jim Ellis, who heads Americans for a Republican Majority, and John Colyandro, former executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, already are facing charges of money laundering in the case. Colyandro also faces 13 counts of unlawful acceptance of a corporate political contribution. The use of corporate money to influence political races is illegal in Texas.
The money laundering charges stem from $190,000 in corporate money that was sent to the Republican National Party. The party then spent the same amount of money on seven candidates for the Texas Legislature.
Americans for a Republican Majority, also known as ARMPAC, is DeLay’s national fundraising committee. The Republican from Sugar Land helped create Texans for a Republican Majority.
Money laundering is a first-degree felony with a punishment of 5 to 99 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The two violations of the Election Code constitute a third-degree felonies punishable by a possible prison sentence of 2 to 10 years and a fine of up to $10,000. Criminal conspiracy as charged in this indictment is a state jail felony with a possible punishment of 180 days to 2 years in the State Jail and a fine of up to $10,000.
There is one rule in Texas politics–you can’t use money directly contributed from corporations or unions (that’s one more rule than Illinois) and these clowns seem to have violated it. DeLay is probably immune from prosecution because of jurisdictional issues, but given the breadth of his scandals, this is an important one, but only one.
A Grave Danger To Morale
“You don’t have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.”
Via John Cole
I Have To Hand It To the Governor
The proposition to medical researchers in Missouri was beautiful
It would be hypocritical of me to not say so given this
why not target it to bioscience as part of the funding and try and lure some of the actual research from St. Louis to the Illinois side of the river? Given the movement to potentially ban stem cell research and the wacky moves to introduce ‘intelligent design’ it’s a perfect time to entice bioscience development across the river to a friendly regulatory environment–oh and roads that aren’t crappy. And schools that are decent. And….
Oh, that great Misery bidness climate….
What the Wonder Blunder leaves out is that his party is having a civil war over pro-life issues including embryonic stem cell research and it isn’t clear to me that Blunt is going to be able to stave off the base forever. And don’t forget those pesky creationist bills that keep popping up in the Missouri Lege.
Oberweis on Immigration Again
Greg’s got my take so I won’t repeat it….
Chuck Sweeney tells us that Oberweis is a big fan of the Real ID Act
Oberweis, an Aurora businessman, said Sunday at a Greater Rockford Airport news conference that if he?s elected governor, he will strictly enforce the new federal REAL ID Act, which would render the matricula cards useless.
Under the terms of the REAL ID Act, the state of Illinois has until May 8, 2008, to become fully compliant? with the law?s provisions, Oberweis said.
?Some governments have complained. Others have stated they will disobey the new law. Let me assure you this: In an Oberweis administration, the state of Illinois will move as quickly as possible to adopt the mandates of the REAL ID Act. The safety of our people demands that we do this,? he said
The REAL ID Act is a disaster waiting to happen. The basic requirements aren’t that much different from current Illinois rules as I remember them
A photo identity document (except that a non-photo identity document is acceptable if it includes both the person?s full legal name and date of birth)
Documentation showing the person?s date of birth
Proof of the person?s social security account number (SSN) or verification that the person is not eligible for an SSN
Documentation showing the person?s name and address of principal residence
The kicker is this
Before issuing a DL/ID, the state shall verify, with the issuing agency, the issuance, validity and completeness of each document to be presented
Now, the SoS office is dramatically better than in years past, but can you imagine how hard it will be for the Driver’s License facilities to confirm each piece of identification with a utility, credit card company, Social Security, and/or the County where you were born?
Jim Oberweis wants you to sit in uncomfortable chairs for long, long hours.
Responsibility
President Bush says he takes responsibility for the federal government’s failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina. Details soon.
Accountability doesn’t stop with that statement, but I think it gets the country on the right track to have a serious discussion about how to improve performance in future disasters.
I don’t blame Bush for the levees. That was a long standing problem with wide blame to go around. I don’t think anyone meant to screw-up or meant to have such s disproprotionate impact on the poor and African-American. I do think that we have as a whole failed the poorest amongst us and when it’s a slow catastrophe that plays out in our inner cities every day squelching hope of young people brought up often in tragic circumstances, we don’t pay attention. And we didn’t pay attention to what would happen in the case of a crisis in New Orleans or any other major city.
One part of moving on from that is admitting there were real problems and then engaging people how to address those problems. Given the past with this administration I have little trust that the evaluation of the incident will be full and honest, but I do applaud him for taking this step and hope for more in terms of a serious discussion on these issues.
Now, if we can get Blanco to explain the call-up of the Louisiana National Guard….
DFA Endorsement Time! David Loebsack
I know, there are a couple Illinois Candidates out there too, but, frankly, they weren’t my advisor in College.
So go vote for David Loebsack to be the first DFA Endorsed Congressional Candidate of the cycle!
Not Done With the Blue Language Yet
I’m not linking to them, but let me say one thing to the homophobic asshole who runs Illinois Family Institute
I urge all other bloggers to join me in this salute to Petey LaBarbera, or if you prefer to keep it cleaner, your own salute to the idiot.
I’ll Place Bets on The Time-Picayune as the Pulitzer for Breaking News
If they don’t get it, it would be a sham
The daring escape to paper delivery trucks was an amazing story in itself, but more fascinating is how far ahead of the story they were compared to national news which was ahead of FEMA, DHS and the President for some bizarre reason. For the first several days I was primarily reading NOLA.com updates and watching WWL TV streaming and the picture of what was going on was radically different from what the national media was covering–for one thing, both organizations dealt with facts and did what big media can do better than anyone–collect facts and report them to the public.
Beyond the regular reporting, the story above mentions the message boards–which were literally flooded with requests for people to check on individuals who might have been left behind.
The disaster at the St. Rita’s Nursing home in St. Bernard was relayed through message boards where one man was asking loved ones to write him to get an answer since he didn’t want them to find out on a electronic message board. I wonder what happened to many of the messages because the system seemed to have purged them as the day went on during the height of chaos.
Strange Column on How “good” the response was
Jack Kelly writes a column about how the Hurricane Response was the best ever, which only counts if you rule out any decently handled hurricane. His poster children are
The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne.”
Of course, Hugo and Andrew were before James Lee Witt had professionalized the department and the pressure from Andrew was a big reason. Frances and Jeanne were under the new Bush administration. And the Federal response for Iniki under Bush I was actually faster than any of the above–the administration put a priority on getting that one right after the Andrew debacle.
What he doesn’t mention are the hurricanes handled under Witt which did actually have federal help there in much faster periods of time. The aid was prepositioned and actually delivered it fast. Certainly, after the immediate crisis there were problems, but throughout the 90s the aid was far faster and better planned than before. Yet, Kelly’ uses a source that happens to skip over that and ignores that Iniki had aid in 48 hours. Not always National Guard troops, but FEMA help was there—and afterall the entire premise of the above is a bit odd since any fault for the Louisiana local National Guard is a state problem as was Mississippi’s late response.
Kelly then demonstrates that his editors really suck for not catching blatant falsehoods in his article:
Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.
A better question — which few journalists ask — is why weren’t the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?
Of course, buses didn’t have to come from Houston, though some might well have. Buses were a part of a registry with FEMA that apparently wasn’t activated quickly for some unknown reason. Further there weren’t 2000 buses in New Orleans to use. Scroll down for more on buses and evacuation.
This is just shoddy reporting