Below is the text of the letter from Senator Edward M. Kennedy referenced by the President in tonight’s address to a Joint Session of Congress. May 12, 2009 Dear Mr. President, I wanted to write a few final words to you to express my gratitude for your repeated...
Levees Not War
Warming Up for Obama
Senators: Support Public Option, Kennedy’s HELP Committee Plan Tonight President Obama gives a rather important speech to a joint session of Congress. To say we wish him well would be an understatement. We spent most of the day warming up his audience by faxing and...
Does Believing in Social Contract Make Us Socialists? Then So Be It.
Learning What We’re Up Against, and How to Carry On If we’re learning anything from the messy struggles for health care reform and the passage of the stimulus bill back in February (how long ago that feels!)—and it’s far from clear whether anyone is learning...
Senator Kennedy’s Gulf Coast Rebuilding Plan
“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” While others have gone quickly online with some very affectionate and stirring tributes to Senator Kennedy, we wanted to take a...
Feingold Asks Obama for Timetable on Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Think Progress calls attention to a report by ABC News that Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is calling on President Obama for a timetable for when the U.S. will withdraw forces from Afghanistan. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 after the attacks of September...
RT4: Sinking to New Heights
Just a quick word to say hello to our friends gathering in New Orleans this weekend for the fourth annual Rising Tide bloggers’ conference on the recovery and future of the Sunken City. Can’t be there this time—profound regrets—but we’ll be there in spirit and hope to...
Obama, Keep Public Option
“The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform. This is just one sliver of it . . .” —President Obama in Grand Junction, Colo., Aug. 15, 2009 An Open Letter to President Obama Dear President Obama: I campaigned for...
Reform Healthcare Now with a Public Option: An Open Letter to the Senate Finance Committee
The following letter has been faxed and mailed to every Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee, beginning with Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the committee chairman. See below the fold for a list of committee members’ phone and fax numbers. “I mean, people...
Let’s Get Congress, Obama, on Board with the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act
On June 1, Times-Picayune Washington correspondent Jonathan Tilove reported on the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act (H.R. 2269), a bill reintroduced in Congress on May 5 by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and supported by Louisiana congressmen Charlie Melancon, Anh “Joseph” Cao, and Rodney Alexander, among about a dozen others.
Throw Us Somethin’, Mister President
It was good to see the president on Hurricane Season’s eve being briefed by new FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Homeland Security Council president John Brennan on preparations for the upcoming season. We are relieved that the president has appointed serious professionals in these critical positions, as we are encouraged by his nomination of Jo-Ellen Darcy to oversee the Army Corps of Engineers.
Hurricane Season Is Here, Now
We’re marking the first day of hurricane season by calling attention to two pieces of legislation in Congress that could, with popular support, become enacted and result in jobs and new infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. We’re also wondering when our busy president is going to turn his attention to New Orleans and other communities along the Gulf Coast stricken by hurricanes and endangered by coastal erosion and weakened flood protection systems. We know he’s had his hands full, but we’ve been waiting . . .
National Train Day: All Aboard for a Retro- and Pre-Celebration
Usually we call attention to events before they happen, but today we’re retro-celebrating National Train Day that somehow sped past us like a high-speed Amtrak Acela and was gone before we even knew it was coming. On May 9 the second annual Train Day celebrated “140 years of connecting travelers from coast to coast.” (Cool fact: It was on May 10, 1869, that the ceremonial Golden Spike joined the rails of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads at Promontory Summit, Utah, thus completing the Transcontinental Railroad.) So, we’re celebrating a few weeks after the fact, and more than 11 months in advance of the third annual National Train Day.
How Rumsfeld Aggravated Katrina’s Destruction (How Many Died from SecDef’s Turf War?)
The New York Times and other sources have reported on the biblical quotations that adorned the cover pages of Pentagon intelligence briefings sent to the Bush White House (“Therefore put on the full armor of God. . .”) in a GQ profile of former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Not good, especially when the Muslim world had already heard Bush describe the War on Terror as a “crusade.” In our view, however, Draper’s most distressing revelation is that days after Hurricane Katrina, when tens of thousands of victims were in desperate need of rescue and medical care, Rumsfeld refused to deploy a fleet of search-and-rescue helicopters at Hurlburt Field Air Force Base in Florida—only 200 miles from New Orleans—who were waiting for go orders. Indeed, when Bush tried to drag cooperation out of him, Rumsfeld only grudgingly relented.
Fugate Confirmed for FEMA: Help Is on the Way.
It is very good news that the Senate voted last week to confirm W. Craig Fugate as administrator of FEMA. Fugate knows what he is doing. He will be the “anti-Brownie”—every bit as in command as Michael Brown and other Bushies were not. Having directed Florida’s Division of Emergency Management since 2001 (Florida is the most hurricane-prone state), Fugate is by far the best-prepared administrator FEMA will ever have had—even better than the highly respected James Lee Witt who under President Clinton did so much to restore pride and confidence in that long-neglected agency. (See “Fugate for FEMA” [3/17] below, and read Cooper and Block’s Disaster for the sad procession of political appointees who have headed FEMA since its inception in the late 1970s.) When candidate Obama said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” he may have been referring to Mr. Fugate. A thousand welcomes, sir. Can we get you a cup of coffee?
LSU Officials Want to Hear from You! Vice Chancellors, Operators Are Standing By
Sources indicate that LSU is feeling some pressure and has begun (considering?) a review of the dismissal. Could you please help us get Chancellor Martin to reverse the decision and reinstate Drs. van Heerden and Levitan and restore the LSU Hurricane Center with full funding?
An Open Letter to LSU Chancellor Mike Martin Re: The van Heerden Affair
The following letter has been faxed to LSU Chancellor Mike Martin, with copies to engineering dean David Constant, vice chancellors Chuck Wilson, Brooks Keel, and Robert Twilley; Governor Bobby Jindal, senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter; Garret Graves, Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities; and R. King Milling, Chairman, America’s Wetland Foundation.
When Ivor Talks, We Listen (Hear That, LSU?)
The following excerpts are highlights from our interview with Dr. van Heerden just before his book THE STORM was published in 2006. The interview can be read in full here.
LSU Fires van Heerden of LSU Hurricane Center; Director Marc Levitan Resigns in Solidarity
This is definitely one for the Fresh Hell file: Just before the Easter weekend LSU notified Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center, that it would not renew his contract (he is not tenured) and he will be out of a job by May 2010. The university is not saying why—not to him, and not to the public. The firing comes after the university has imposed limits on his contacts with the media, demoted him, and retracted storm surge modeling responsibilities from his direction, among other limitations. Ubiquitous on CNN and in print after Hurricane Katrina—
More Praise for Craig Fugate as FEMA Director-Nominee
We’re tracking the Fugate nomination and hearings process—not scheduled yet—and we’ll keep you posted. In other good news, reported by Mark Schleifstein of the Times-Picayune, President Obama has nominated Jo-Ellen Darcy, a senior Senate adviser on environmental and water projects, to oversee the Army Corps of Engineers. (Garret Graves of Gov. Jindal’s Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration praises Darcy as “tough as nails and a solid choice.”) In the meantime, about Fugate . . .
Senators, a Vote for AmeriCorps Expansion Is a Vote for America’s Wetland Conservation Corps
There is a good, bipartisan bill up for a vote tonight (3/26) or Friday on a generous expansion of funding for AmeriCorps, the national and community service program launched by President Clinton. The bill has been strongly supported by President Obama and by Senator Edward Kennedy, a co-sponsor. The bill would give about $6 billion over the next five years and allow more than a tripling of membership. The House approved the measure by 321 to 105 last week. Senate sponsors are Democrats Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski, and Republicans Orrin Hatch and Mike Enzi. Senators, we salute you.