GOP Deals In Congress Prompt Call For Change
Big Decisions Made Without Democrats

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 24, 2006; A01

House and Senate GOP negotiators, meeting behind closed doors last month to complete a major budget-cutting bill, agreed on a change to Senate-passed Medicare legislation that would have saved the health insurance industry $22 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The Senate version would have targeted private HMOs participating in Medicare by changing the formula that governs their reimbursement, lowering payments $26 billion over the next decade. But after lobbying by the health insurance industry, the final version made a critical change that had the effect of eliminating all but $4 billion of the projected savings, according to CBO and other health policy experts.

I want this bloated, back-room-hatched piece of godawful legislation hung around every GOP incumbent's neck between now and November 2006. Every campaign stop, every radio show, every "meet and greet" by a GOP incumbent, I want some citizen to stand up and say: You actually supported that heap of useless, life-threatening, budget-busting, insurance-company-pandering obscenity of a program? Even I - news junkie that I am - can't keep up with every new nightmare revelation coming up about it. One day, the states say they have to step in during the transition period and pay for prescriptions, the next day the feds are telling the insurance companies should eat the costs, tomorrow ... who knows? The UN will be told to step in and eat it, is my guess.

Must be kismet. Both the Brookings Institution, and the Project on Government Oversight released reports on Katrina today:

Brookings Katrina Index: Tracking Variables of Post-Katrina Reconstruction [pdf]
http://www.brookings.edu/me tro/pubs/200512_katrinainde x.htm

The Brookings Institution has released a number of reports on the efforts to rebuild the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina over the past few months, and a number of them have garnered significant attention by policymakers and other interested parties. This 47-page report authored by Bruce Katz, Matt Fellowes, and Mia Mabanta, gives a detailed data-oriented summary of the recent progress that has occurred.

POGO: Investigations into Katrina Waste and Fraud Detailed.
http://www.pogo.org/p/x/200 5katrina.html

Katrina Contracting
The federal government's response to the Katrina Hurricane could cost up to $200 billion. . . no-bid contracts, outrageously high charges, questionable expenses. The result is that people who need help do not get it.  Please send us your suggestions and ideas for how we can improve it.

(With a tip to the Internet Scout project for the referral to Brookings).

As some of you may know, Lucy Lawless was in the middle of filming Vampire Bats!, a CBS movie, when Hurricane Katrina was barreling towards New Orleans. She was one of thousands who were in the massive traffic jam exiting the city for the safety of Baton Rouge and elsewhere. In the short time she was in New Orleans, she fell in love with the area and its inhabitants, and the tragedy of Katrina struck a chord in her - so many of her friends were and are affected by it. On November 23 & 24, she went to NO for fundraisers, one of which was the New Orleans Louisiana Sheriff's 31st Annual Thanksgiving Day Celebration at the New Orleans House of Blues, the other a fundraiser in Jefferson Parish. Rest assured, Katrina's victims are never far from Lucy's thoughts, and she continues to do what she can to keep awareness of their plight alive.

Her website has her message for and about New Orleans, and further down the page, photos (and embedded video) of her November trip to the city for Thanksgiving.

it seems that katrina relief funding is directly tied to arctic drilling, i.e. their relief package is structured around bidding revenue on drilling projects.

What to do?

Louisiana goes public with the whole ninth yard.  Start here:

December 2, 2005

"Today, I have made available tens of thousands of documents to Washington in an effort to fully and voluntarily comply with requests for information related to the State's preparedness for and response to Hurricane Katrina.  These documents are en route to the House Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. I have instructed my staff to make these documents available to the media. [Gov. Kathleen Blanco]

Full access limited to the media and congress, but there are some docs available on the linked page. [.pdf]

Can we please - please, please, please - start a substantive conversation on race in America?  There are ground rules though - no kicking, screaming, eye-gouging or biting allowed.  All participants have to agree not to put on silly hats or funky bandanas and march around with crosses or guns.  Think I'm being facetious?  OK - try having this discussion without the accompanying folderol.  Someone always has to start the button pushing - and immediately the ears close, the mouths open and for all intents and purposes we might as well be at a Jerry Springer taping.  

The title here is the title of an article in Salon reprinted in full in Spiegel Online.  This from the lede:

Halliburton and its subcontractors hired hundreds of undocumented Latino workers to clean up after Katrina -- only to mistreat them and throw them out without pay.

The link to that article, and a wealth of information on topic is available from Gulf Reconstruction Watch.

In their attempts to gather information the Salon reporters came across this gem:

(James) Hale says that his union's legislative staff has pressed members of Congress for more information; apparently the legislators were told that they could not get copies of the contracts because of "national security" concerns. [Hale is a VP of the Laborer's Union].

Note that all of the work described is being performed on U.S. military installations throughout the Southeast.  Lack of toilet paper and food an issue of national security?

Remember when Bush proclaimed Karl Rove was put in charge of the Gulf Coast Reconstruction:

Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort, which reaches across many agencies of government and includes the direct involvement of Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development.

Looks like he got fired from that job:

WASHINGTON – Donald Powell, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., has been assigned to oversee the federal government's disaster recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast, the Bush administration announced Tuesday.

Powell, 64, a wealthy contributor to President Bush's presidential campaign, will be in charge of the long-term plans to rebuild the states hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the late summer. The sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the first and most damaging of the two, particularly has been widely criticized.

Powell is a Bush crony, one of his "Pioneers" who raised more than $100,ooo for Bush-Cheney '04. He's a rich banker, but qualifications in reconstruction? Nah. But hey. At least he's not a horse lawyer.