Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill Gets It Right at the Border, Say Enviro Groups

“This bill will restore the rule of law along America ’s border.” ~ Bob Irvin, Defenders of Wildlife

The new immigration bill introduced in Congress December 15 includes important provisions that will help protect wildlife, communities, and natural resources from damage wrought by border walls between the U.S. and Mexico, according to three major environmental organizations.

The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Defenders of Wildlife jointly issued an early and emphatic endorsement statement of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009, introduced by Representative Luis Gutierrez Luis Gutierrez.

To date, at least 633 miles of border walls and barriers have been constructed along the U.S. – Mexico border, and the construction has proceeded quickly and almost entirely without proper consultation or compliance laws. Three dozen environmental, archaeological, religious freedom, historic preservation, cultural, and other laws were waived by former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff Michael Chertoff for border wall construction.

The legislation would replace the border wall’s one-size-fits-all approach to border security with a strategy based on comprehensive analyses of the effectiveness and costs of various security measures, say the supporters. To address negative impacts from existing border infrastructure, the legislation would establish comprehensive monitoring and mitigation programs.

The bill would also ensure full compliance with landmark laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Endangered Species Act that were enacted to promote public health and protect our country’s wildlife and natural heritage.

“Rep. Gutierrez and Rep. Grijalva [who introduced Border Security and Responsibility Act of 2009 (HR 2076) in April] deserve praise for recognizing the need for a responsible border security policy that minimizes harm to our precious borderlands, wildlife, and border communities,” said Sierra Club representative Michael Degnan.

“Much of this country’s rarest and most spectacular wildlife-including jaguar, ocelot, Sonoran pronghorn, and many other species–depend upon the borderlands for survival. This bill would restore crucial protections to such wildlife and help mitigate the widespread damage that has already been done to important habitat and migration corridors,” commented Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Laws that protect our wildlife, our water, our air, and our right to a healthful environment should never have been circumvented by the Bush Bush administration,” added Bob Irvin, Senior Vice President for Conservation Programs at Defenders of Wildlife. “This bill will restore the rule of law along America’s border.”

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Press release sources: Kristina Johnson, Sierra Club; Randy Serraglio, Center for Biological Diversity; Mary Beth Beetham, Defenders of Wildlife.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION: Spectacular photographic slideshow/presentation,”Wildlife and the Border Wall,” explains impact of wall on borderland nature and creatures:

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SUMMARY of GUTIERREZ’ IMMIGRATION BILL: found HERE

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Hannity-come out, come out, where ever you are!

There is now a website that is taking orders for folks that will contribute to Sean’s favorite charity if he follows through on his own statement to be waterboarded for charity. It offers different options for your donations. Its a cute little site with phrases like the following:

Your participation does not constitute an obligation on your part, it is only a statement of your interest in donating to an event such as Sean Hannity growing a pair and getting Waterboarded for Charity.

Ain’t that cute? I love it! Check it out if you are so inclined..Sean will of course never follow through on this..he doesn’t have the stones.

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Bravo Bob Cesca!

His latest HuffPo piece..is spot friggin on:

But it’s not just Bush administration officials they’re defending here. Extrapolating what the torture superfans are suggesting, they appear to believe that in light of the threat of terrorism, any administration should be able to torture, including the current president. In other words: they’re simultaneously accusing President Obama of being an oppressive and tyrannical “fascist,” while also insisting that he should exercise the power to do whatever he wants in order to prevent another terrorist attack. Put yet another way: unchecked government power is awful, unless Sean Hannity is scared. Then it’s excellent. Put a third way: WTF?

Exactly..wtf?? If we can’t keep our moral authority in tact, how is torturing ok on any level? Jesus-effn-Christ, its not rocket science folks.

Also, the fact that the torture methods were used in order to obtain false information to cover-their-smarmy-asses about attacking Iraq..that really chaps my ass. Bob says it best:

The reality is that the Bush torture methods were both horrifying and ineffective. The procedures we’ve read about in the OLC memos were clearly forms of torture as have been previously defined by America’s own standards (you might recognize waterboarding from such famous torturers as the Khmer Rouge, Imperial Japan and North Korea), and by most accounts they’re absolutely ineffective at acquiring decent information. And in fact, as McClatchy reported on Tuesday, the Bush administration used these torture techniques to gather intentionally false information about a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Such fuckery as this deserves to be put on trial..so the whole world can point at the offenders and get indignant as hell..after all, we still have the audacity to complain about China’s human rights abuses….don’t we??

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Obama doesn’t slam the door on prosecuting Bush and Company..

This just in, from MSNBC:

President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to possible prosecution of Bush administration officials who devised harsh terrorism-era interrogation tactics.

He also said Tuesday that he worries about the impact of high-intensity hearings on how detainees were treated under former President George W. Bush.

But Obama did say, nevertheless, he could support a congressional investigation if it were conducted in a bipartisan way.

Obama has said he does not support charging CIA agents and interrogators who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, acting on advice from superiors that such practices were legal. But he also said that it is up to the attorney general whether to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who wrote the memos approving these tactics.

But..Rahm said this weekend that Obama wouldn’t go after the Bush Lawyers. How does this new statement fit with that one?

Your guess is as good as mine m’dear reader….

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Et tu Obama?

Well, I couldn’t stay away from Countdown. Nope, and lemme tell ya..today was one helluva doozy. I learned all about the newly released torture memo’s (courtesy of TPM Muckraker) and how Obama has no interest what so evah in prosecuting those who tortured. I will look at the redacted memo’s shortly, but let me say this…

President Obama is going down the same road President Ford did, only Obama refuses to go after those who tortured. At least the underlings were prosecuted in the Nixon administration. No such luck with the Obama administration. So no one will be held accountable for torturing..no one.

KO’s Special Comment follows, as does his interview with John Dean on the subject. I am horrified that Obama wants to take this route.

But I am not surprised. President Obama has signaled he would lean this way, you just had to pay attention to hear it.

There are people out there that will be able to justify this newest fresh hell brought to us by President Obama..but I am not one of them. I find Obama’s decision unconscionable and wrong on many levels. I salute him for releasing the memo’s, and allowing us to see into the black hearts of the Bush Administration.

But I damn him and curse him for wanting to walk away from doing the right thing.

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Look who is calling the kettle black.

Krazy Karl Rove. This jackass of mythic proportions has the audacity to state in his Wall Street Journal OpEd and on Faux Noise that Obama has…cough..ethical problems, by accusing the Obama administration of working with MoveOn and Americans United for Change on ads they created and ran.

Does this fuckwit have Alzheimer’s? He single-handidly politicized every department and office in the Bush administration for eight years. From ThinkProgress:

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and on Fox News this morning, former Bush political adviser Karl Rove accused the Obama White House of “ethical problems” in its “hard-nosed push” to “pressure Congress to adopt the president’s budget.” “The degree of direction the White House is exerting over a lobby campaign” is “unprecedented,” claimed Rove, referring to ad campaigns by Americans United for Change and MoveOn.org.When Fox’s Bill Hemmer asked Rove how this was different from the “contact with outside groups” he had during the Bush administration, Rove replied that “it’s fine to say the White House is focused on getting our message out to these members,” but that it’s another thing to “sit down and coordinate on ad copy.” Watch it:

And here is Countdown’s piece on Rovers bullshittery:

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A Buccaneer’s Arrogance

Edward M. Liddy grew up in New Brunswick, New Jersey, earned a bachelor’s degree from Catholic University of America in 1968 and a master’s in business administration from George Washington University in 1972. He then began a long career in corporate America, including stops at the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, drug maker G.D. Searle & Co in Skokie, Illinois, and Allstate Corporation in Northbrook, Illinois.

During Edward Liddy’s apprenticeship in the buccaneering life he was exposed to the most influential teachers and lasting experiences. While at Searle, Liddy who was CFO worked for a CEO , Donald Rumsfeld, who has always epitomized the height of arrogance as demonstrated by a successful buccaneer. When he was at Allstate, Liddy presided over the company during and after hurricane Katrina, and Liddy observed first hand the effects of over exposure to risk and subsequent loss of trust when Allstate was faced with the massive losses suffered by homeowners in New Orleans, and Allstate subsequently canceled insurance policies and exited the business of insuring homeowners against casualty, lucrative as the business might have once been and could be.

He joined Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a private equity firm operating in New York and London in 2008, and became a partner for a brief time, before being tapped for his latest expedition in the world of corporate insurance and finance.

Liddy who was a former director of Goldman Sachs (elected in 2003 when Goldman Sachs’ CEO was Henry Paulson, who would go on to be treasury secretary under George W. Bush), was then appointed as CEO of AIG after the ouster of Robert Willumstad by Paulson when the federal government seized AIG in June of 2008.

Throughout his apprenticeship, Edward Liddy was trained by the masters, and had plenty of practice in the art of separating the gullible from the coin of the realm. He became a wizard of the sorcery of making other people’s money in to greater treasure for himself and his backers, while exposing little, if any assets of their own, as part of the risk or underlying cost to produce the treasure chest. In June of 2008, Edward Liddy took the helm of one of the largest privateers ever to sail the financial oceans, which was crewed by a host of cut throat pirates, AIG. Liddy embraced his new shipmates with gusto, when in October of 2008, after United States taxpayers had sunk $84 billion in to loans to AIG to address its insolvency, he defended the decision of his fellow buccaneers to blow $400,000 on a corporate junket to the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California. In his subsequent testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee, Liddy stated that such retreats “are standard practice in our industry.”

Despite being hired by the American people to bring a sense of order, and propriety to AIG, to manage the remaining assets of AIG, to take appropriate actions to staunch the flow of more good money after bad money on behalf of the American people, Edward Liddy hoisted the pirate flag ever higher on his mast when he refuted the wishes of the president of the United Statess and the American people in his letter to Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner on March 14, 2008. Liddy refused to back down on the demand that he rescind the multimillion dollar bonuses paid out to the AIG staff and managers that were responsible for the company’s massive losses in 2008 which resulted in its take over by the United States government.

In closing his letter to the Treasury secretary, Edward Liddy had the pure arrogance to state:

I would not be doing my job if I did not directly advise you of my grave concern about the long-term consequences of the actions we are taking today. On the one hand, all of us at AIG recognize the environment in which we operate and the remonstrations of our President for a more restrained system of compensation for executives. On the other hand, we cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses – which are now being operated principally on behalf of the American taxpayers – if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury.

Edward Liddy seems to have forgotten any early education he might have had at Catholic University of America and George Washington University relative to human moral values and business ethics. Mr. Liddy also seems to have never learned anything about Actuarial Science, which is defined on Wikipedia as:

Actuarial science is the discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in the insurance and finance industries. Actuaries are professionals who are qualified in this field through education and experience. They must demonstrate their qualifications by passing a series of professional examinations.

Instead of sound, prudent, ethical business practices, instead of recognizing his fiduciary responsibility to the owners of AIG (the American taxpayers), Mr. Liddy is concerned about losing the services of those negligent AIG management and staff who made the decisions, made the deals, sold the dubious credit default swap “products” which destroyed the financial viability of AIG. The people and institutions who created, promoted and sold credit default swaps, the people and institutions who packaged the obviously dubious mortgage derivative products that were based upon substandard, and likely in many cases, patently fraudulent loans. The “financial geniuses” at the top of the buccaneering clan, who through gross negligence, if not out and out greed and avarice, who administered the coup de gras to our financial system, might not be incented to continue providing their “expertise and services” to those of us who ultimately are footing the bill for their egregious performance. This attitude, conveyed by Edward Liddy is the height of arrogance.

Maybe it is a Wall Street thing, or more precisely a buccaneering thing. That regardless if someone who may have a prior history of prudent management as an executive in the early stages of his career, may have an educational and work background that indicates a high level of intellectual development, that once that person becomes a member of the Wall Street financial plutocracy, the buccaneering clan, that person loses all ability to identify with or understand or empathize with the lot of the vast majority of the common folk who make up the population of the United States. Those common, hard working folk who through their consumerism, those folk who through their efforts to build their own bit of shared wealth and provide for their families, those folk who sacrifice and try to put something away for the future higher education of their children, those folk who manage to put something aside for their future retirement, so they will not be a burden upon their families or society when they are too old and infirm to work.

The common folk do not exist in the mind or the sphere of influence that the Wall Street managers cocoon themselves in, the world of buccaneers sailing the financial seas on their privateers, trolling not just for gullible common folk, but actually any person or entity, even relatives in the buccaneering clan itself, as targets of opportunity. Once arriving on “the street”, the Wall Street management and sales classes become mesmerized by the riches they see available for plucking, and embrace their role as a part of a buccaneering clan, becoming drunk on their booty. They sneer at the rest of us awash in the roiling seas in their wake, secure in their superior position aboard their privateers, arrogant til the end of time.

The only thing that will hinder, if not sink the current crew of buccaneers, will be to relieve their captain of duty, and clawback, a very apropos term, the treasure distributed as bonuses, and for those crew members who did not already jump ship, even after being paid “retention bonuses”, make them walk the plank. AIG and the American tax paying public do not need to bribe cut-throat pirates to stay aboard while the mess on the deck of AIG is swabbed up, there are plenty of other, honest, ethical, qualified members of the financial seafaring community who are capable of passing out life vests and unwinding the remaining risk exposures at AIG.

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Is Bush behind Chinese oil deal and Russian isolation?

Russia is facing increasing isolation!! What the hell do they care?

Yesterday, we heard that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of orchestrating the conflict in Georgia to benefit one of its presidential election candidates.

“In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Matthew Chance in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Thursday, Putin said the U.S. had encouraged Georgia to attack the autonomous region of South Ossetia. Putin said his defense officials had told him it was done to benefit a presidential candidate — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are competing to succeed George W. Bush — although he presented no evidence to back it up.” Putin accuses US of of orchestrating Georgia war.

It drives me shit house crazy that I agree with the “enemy”-

“As U.S. and Russian envoys exchanged sharp words on Thursday over Iraq and Kosovo at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Georgia, at which Russia found little support for its actions in the Caucasus.” US and Russia trade barbs over Iraq and Kosovo

What a surprise that Russia was lobbying Asian Nations for support against the US and just at the right time to make China stay on our side Iraq and China signed a $3 billion deal this week to develop a large Iraqi oil field:

“…the first major commercial oil contract here with a foreign company since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The 20-year agreement calls for the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. to begin producing 25,000 barrels of oil a day and gradually increase the output to 125,000 a day, said Asim Jihad, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry.” Iraq and China sign $3 Billion oil contract

Knowing this should this surprise you?

“The United States said Thursday it is considering scrapping its civil nuclear agreement with Russia but there was no announcement at this time. The U.S. move came after Russia’s recognition of the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The United States has said the Russian recognition was “unacceptable.” US considers scrapping nuclear agreement with Russia

What the hell does all that tell you? I am happy to say that yes, China’s alliance may be bought but, I now believe they will ally with us, as I keep asserting, and go against Russia in this just developing Forever war to shape the world’s future. I reiterate- With Both sides so firmly entrenched in redrawing the map in Europe thanks to Bush imposing his will for oil- This is just another small piece in the Forever War Bush has guaranteed for our future. You see what he has done in the middle east for oil causing division and Russia and the US both arming them to the teeth to fight this Bush created future mess and it is coming to a head rapidly and at the perfect time for Bush to take total control of our facade of Democracy to prosecute the lie we are living!

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Here’s the Joke

The title of this post is stolen from Beth’s Own Blog. Her blog is a magazine of information, pertinent articles and entertainment. She frequently leaves a joke or funny story on her pages. This one came to me in an e-mail from a great friend of mine, Larry N. Yes, one of the “Larrys” in my list of service buddies. So, without further adieu, Here’s the Joke:

President George W. Bush was scheduled to visit the Episcopal Church outside
Washington as part of his campaign to restore his pathetic poll standings.

His image handler made a visit to the Bishop and said, ‘We’ve been getting a
lot of bad publicity because of the president’s position on stem cell
research, the Iraq war, hurricane Katrina, and the Veterans Administration.
We’ll make a $100,000 contribution to your church if during your sermon you
will say that the President is a saint.’

The Bishop thought it over for a few moments and finally said, ‘The Church
is desperate for funding – I’ll do it.’

Bush showed up for the sermon, and the Bishop began: ‘I’d like to speak to
you all this morning about our President who is a liar, a cheat, and a
low-intelligence numb -nuts who can’t put a compound sentence together.

He bugged out of combat service during the Vietnam War and went AWOL to
avoid a drug test, then had all reports on the sordid event destroyed.

He is the spawn of a Nazi loving great grandfather who smuggled
anti-Americans into this country on his shipping line.

He took the tragedy of September 11 and used it to frighten and manipulate
the American people.

He lied about weapons of mass destruction and invaded Iraq for oil and
money, causing the deaths of tens of thousands and making the United States
the most hated country on earth. It is a three-trillion dollar folly.

He appointed fund-raiser cronies to positions of power and influence,
leading to widespread death and destruction due to government paralysis
after Hurricane Katrina.

He awarded no-bid cost-plus contracts and tax cuts to his rich friends so
that we now have more poverty in this country and a greater gap between rich
and poor than we’ve had since the Depression.

He has headed the most corrupt, bribe-inducing political party since Teapot
Dome.

The national surplus has turned into a staggering national debt of 7.6
trillion Dollars.

Oil rose from $18 to over a hundred per barrel, leading to transportation
costs which the people of America cannot afford, with low minimum wages,
part time jobs, no health insurance, and outsourcing.

Vital research into global warming and stem cells is stifled because he’s
afraid to lose votes from religious kooks.

He is the worst example of a true Christian I’ve ever known, but compared to
Dick Cheney… George W. Bush is a saint.”

Hope you enjoyed the joke. Sad to say, the factual reports about the record of this president is no joke. Go to the polls with fervor and vote others like him out of office. We have nothing to lose in electing someone that will change the way things have been going, especially if the war in Iraq is a priority.

I am currently working as a volunteer for the Veterans For Peace National Convention right here in my backyard. The turnout is great. The lineup of speakers is fantastic. I had the pleasure to meet a member of The American Patriot Instituteas well, none other than Kitchen Window Woman and her husband. I am looking forward to speaking with her more. A full report will be forthcoming with the mandatory pictures of our smiling mugs.

Enjoy the day. Practice peace. Take care and be well.

Peace to All

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Katrina Three Years On & Bushliburton Serves Up More Double Talk

During a flight on board Air Force One on August 20th, Paul Conway, chief of staff to Homeland Security’s Gulf Coast Coordinator was briefing reporters prior to a speaking appearance of George W. Bush, the putative failed leader of Katrina disaster recovery efforts, in which Bush would discuss hurricane recovery efforts. Not surprisingly, even three years on from the time when Katrina hit, administration officials are still incapable of getting their arms around the challenges facing residents of the gulf coast, as noted in this transcript from the briefing aboard Air Force One:

Reporter: What year do you think that the reconstruction is basically going to be finished?

Conway: Well, the target date for the reconstruction is 2011.

Reporter: For everything? I’m talking the Gulf Coast.

Conway: Well, actually, let me — I’m talking about levees, so let me be perfectly clear. The levee protection system for Greater New Orleans, that target date is 2011. If you’re asking overall –

Reporter: I’m asking overall.

Conway: Ma’am, to be quite honest with you, it’s hard for me to estimate that as a federal official, because so much of this depends on how local government and state government and the feds work.

Reporter: So what percentage of the Gulf Coast has been rebuilt in the past three years?

Conway: Well, you would literally have to look at sectors, okay. For example, on education, if you look in the city of New Orleans, education is going along quite well.

Reporter: Do you have overall numbers for the whole Gulf Coast?

Conway: Well, you would have to look at it by sector, ma’am. If you’re talking schools, libraries, that type of thing?

Reporter: What about housing?

Conway: Housing? I can go ahead and start in on that. On the housing issue, everybody knows that there were several different delays on the Road Home program in the state of Louisiana. Now, you have — $7 billion has been transferred in the hands of homeowners; 115,000 — $7 billion — 115,000 homeowners now have received the benefits of the Road Home program. In addition to that, the state is using $1.4 billion in CDBG funds for rental houses.

Reporter: Right, but people don’t understand all this stuff. They want to know what percentage of what was taken away by Katrina has actually been rebuilt in the past three years?

Conway: I would say there are significant portions, but literally, literally, it’s not honest to say — you know, pull out a figure out of the sky and say, X amount is done. You literally have to look by sector.

Reporter: We’re talking about a sector. Let’s talk about housing.

Conway: Okay, in the housing area, you have just about 85% of the pre-Katrina population estimate coming back into the city. And in terms of the actual housing itself, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done still, remaining.

Reporter: There’s no way to quantify it?

Conway: It’s difficult to quantify. You have to go neighborhood by neighborhood and take a look at it, okay.

So it seems there has been big talk, and talk of large sums of government funds being disbursed, but Bushliburton officials really cannot quantify how much real help has reached all of the people displaced by Katrina. What this writer would like to see quantified is two numbers: how many total people were displaced due to Katrina, and how much housing has actually been rebuilt in hurricane effected neighborhoods in the past three years in response?

Are government and business interests trying to “wipe out poverty” in the New Orleans area by simply not allowing the poor and disenfranchised to put a roof over their heads, hoping they will just go away, or for those who had been displaced out of state just not come back? Local activists seem to think so, and have been jailed by their actions as reported at AlterNet.org.

Meanwhile, as we reported at about this time last year in the BFD Blog!, those who were not necessarily displaced, and who live at decidedly higher up on the totem pole, have been able to further enrich their lifestyles with the help of government funds intended for disaster relief:

The Lower Ninth Ward, et al Stand Neglected, While Disaster Relief Funds Subsidize Luxury Condos For Alabama Football Fans

As reported by Jay Reeves of the AP and published by the Huffington Post today, real estate “investors”, we prefer to refer to these people as “grave robbers”, are taking advantage of the federal Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, commonly referred to as “GO Zone”, the intent of which, was to simulate rebuilding in the hurricane impacted communities in the Gulf states. The act provides economic incentives to investors:

The GO Zone contains a variety of tax breaks designed to stimulate construction in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. It offers tax-free bonds to developers to finance big commercial projects like shopping centers or hotels. It also allows real estate investors who buy condos or other properties in the GO Zone to take accelerated depreciation on their purchases when they file their taxes…

“It is a joke,” said Tuscaloosa developer Stan Pate, who has nevertheless used GO Zone tax breaks on projects that include a new hotel and a restaurant. “It was supposed to be about getting people … to put housing in New Orleans, Louisiana, or Biloxi, Mississippi. It was not about condos in Tuscaloosa.”

Dave Toombs, a real estate investor from Irvine, Calif., with no connection to Alabama, bought two new, upscale townhouses at The Traditions, just minutes from campus, as investment properties. He said he hopes to use GO Zone tax benefits when he files his taxes.

“If we qualify for the GO Zone it will be icing on the cake,” said Toombs, who is consulting with an accountant because the rules are complicated. “It’s another plus check to put in the column.”

An investor could write off more than $155,000 of the cost of a $300,000 condo in the first year and use the savings to lower his taxes on other rental income, according to Kelly Hayes, a tax attorney who advises investors in Southfield, Mich. Without the GO Zone tax break, the depreciation benefit from a single year on such a property would typically be just $10,909.

(The tax break is not available to people who buy a home for their own use.)

So if we understand all of this correctly, if we were a resident of California and were to invest in real estate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which is roughly 225 miles inland from the Gulf Coast, the federal government (i.e. the U.S. taxpayers) will subsidize our investment, and if we are leveraged properly, it might result in our not having any federal income tax liability. We would also get a luxury condo out of it that we could use for ourselves, rent out, or sell at a later profit.

But if we were a resident of New Orleans, we would still be standing out in front of our former residence, waiting for some relief, any relief, from our government:

George W. Bush, speaking from the White House Rose Garden, August 31, 2005:

Our third priority is executing a comprehensive recovery effort. We’re focusing on restoring power and lines of communication that have been knocked out during the storm. We’ll be repairing major roads and bridges and other essential means of transportation as quickly as possible…

We’re also developing a comprehensive plan to immediately help displaced citizens. This will include housing and education and health care and other essential needs. I’ve directed the folks in my Cabinet to work with local folks, local officials, to develop a comprehensive strategy to rebuild the communities affected. And there’s going to be a lot of rebuilding done. I can’t tell you how devastating the sights were…

The folks on the Gulf Coast are going to need the help of this country for a long time. This is going to be a difficult road. The challenges that we face on the ground are unprecedented. But there’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to succeed. Right now the days seem awfully dark for those affected — I understand that. But I’m confident that, with time, you can get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it.

The country stands with you. We’ll do all in our power to help you.

How much longer will your constituents in the Gulf states who have lost their homes and still have not received any relief have to wait Mr. President?

Updated August 30, 2007:

For more about the Katrina aftermath, check out Katrina Rembered and we came, we saw, we cried, we left.

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Bushliburton, Masters of Compartmentalization

Photo: Todd Heisler/The Rocky Mountain News

The image was originally published in illustration of Jim Sheeler’s 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning feature writing about the impact of Iraq war casualties to families, in the Rocky Mountain News. It was republished today by the New York Times to illustrate a review by Janet Maslin of Sheeler’s book, “Final Salute – A Story of Unfinished Lives”.

In the book review, Maslin describes the circumstances of the moment captured in the photograph:

Among the eloquent Rocky Mountain News photographs included here is a shocking image — by Todd Heisler, now of The New York Times — of commercial airline passengers looking out plane windows at Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada, trying to see what is happening beneath them. Down there, in the cargo hold, a Marine honor guard is preparing to deliver the flag-draped coffin of Second Lt. James J. Cathey to its final resting place.

This image is truly indicative of how George W. Bush and his enablers would have the American public view the reality of the war in Iraq, as an event compartmentalized, below our consciousness, leaving us in the dark about the harsh realities, or at best, wondering what is going on. The aim of Bushliburton is to keep us all fat, happy and dumb, ever consuming their distortions and outright lies, ever consuming more mindless drivel via the media, ever consuming more hard goods to bolster the industrial economy and burning ever more of the finite amount of oil remaining on this planet, while transferring wealth from the many to the few, while transferring wealth and power away from our people and making future generations beholden to those who represent markedly less free and democratic society.

Read more

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