August 28, 2008 archive

1. Reuters reports Gustav threatens Jamaica. “Jamaicans deserted the streets and government offices closed as a strengthening Tropical Storm Gustav took aim at the island on Thursday on a path toward the Gulf of Mexico oil fields as a powerful hurricane…
   Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal put New Orleans residents on alert for possible evacuations from Friday, the third anniversary of Katrina’s strike.”

   According to The Times-Picayune, New Orleans isn’t ready yet for another hurricane. The Area’s flood shield still has danger zones.

   If Gustav heads into southeast Louisiana, scientists and engineers agree that large swaths of the region could be at great risk of flooding from even a moderate storm surge, especially neighborhoods near the Industrial Canal and on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish…

   Almost $13 billion in work remains to be done before the region is protected from a 100-year storm — about the size of Hurricane Rita — and that means much of the hurricane protection system remains at risk…

   The system’s Achilles heel remains the Industrial Canal area, where $695 million worth of structures are planned… But that work, still being designed, won’t start to provide any storm surge protection until this time next year.

   Three years to make a positive difference, but the Bush administration comes up empty handed. Now if Gustav makes landfall as a hurricane, people likely will be killed by a storm in New Orleans… again.

   Meanwhile, the Republicans are wondering if they should push back their convention one week so John McCain can accept his party’s nomination on September 11th. According to Fox Noise, Gustav threatens RNC plans. “Mindful of the pitfalls of hosting cocktail parties while Gulf Coast residents are being evacuated, John McCain’s campaign suggested Thursday that Republicans could postpone their upcoming national convention in St. Paul if Tropical Storm Gustav makes landfall over the weekend.”

   Which Bush administration failure does McCain wish to associate with? 9/11 or Katrina? My guess is 9/11, but then who can say? The Republicans chose to celebrate the nation’s crumbling infrastructure by holding their fête in the Twin Cities.

Four at Four continues the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, Putin feeding Georgia conspiracy theories, and investigations, er a whole lot of nothing, from Congress.

As many of us have been reveling in the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream Speech” and the nomination of an African American man to be President of the United States, our country continues to practice some of the most egregious human rights violations we’ve seen in the last 40-50 years.

I expect the people of Postville, Iowa woke up on Tuesday morning with heavy hearts, knowing exactly what so many in Laurel, MS were feeling the day after an ICE raid in which almost 600 people were arrested and jailed. It seems that, as far as ICE, the Justice Department, and Bushco, Postville was such a great succes that it is likely to be repeated all over the country.

Tomorrow, the whole world will watch as John McCain introduces and appears with his running mate as the Republican ticket in public for the first time. The timing of the announcement is meant to achieve four key goals for the McCain campaign:

1) Keep Obama/Biden from getting the kajillion point bounce they need for the Democratic National Convention to be considered a success.

2) Dominate the weekend news cycle.

3) Generate a little excitement for the moribund Republican Party heading into their dirgefest national convention.

4) Distract us all from an important anniversary.

To The Media: I’m Sorry That The

Democrats United Behind Barack Obama

I’m Sure You’ll Make Up Some Other

Ridiculous Controversy Straight Out Of Your

Little Imaginations I Have Faith In You    

Obama Wins Nomination; Biden and Bill Clinton Rally Party  



 By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: August 27, 2008

DENVER – Barack Hussein Obama, a freshman senator who defeated the first family of Democratic Party politics with a call for a fundamentally new course in politics, was nominated by his party today to be the 44th president of the United States.

The unanimous vote made Mr. Obama the first African-American to become a major party nominee for president. It brought to an end an often-bitter, two-year political struggle for the nomination with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, standing on a packed convention floor electric with anticipation, moved to halt the roll call in progress so that the convention could nominate Mr. Obama by acclamation. That it did with a succession of loud roars, followed by a swirl of dancing, embracing, high-fiving and chants of “Yes, we can.”

Black Delegates Also Bask in Obama’s Big Moment

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By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, August 28, 2008; Page A23

DENVER, Aug. 27 — Lena Taylor, a Wisconsin state senator from Milwaukee, is “overwhelmed” by the history that will be made Thursday night, when Sen. Barack Obama will become the first African American to accept a major-party presidential nomination. Add in that his acceptance will come on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, that it has been 40 years since Robert F. Kennedy predicted the country might elect a black president in four decades, and that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy made a dramatic appearance here this week, and the symbolism boggles her mind

USA

Businesses Cite a Catch-22 After Miss. Immigration Raid



By Spencer S. Hsu, Alejandro Lazo and Darryl Fears

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, August 28, 2008; Page A01

The arrests this week of nearly 600 immigrant workers at a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Miss., are fueling a national debate over a federal system to check new hires’ work documents, a program whose expansion the Bush administration has made a cornerstone of its fight against illegal immigration.

In what they called the largest immigration sweep at a single site in U.S. history, federal agents raided a Howard Industries electrical transformer plant Monday despite the fact that the company last year joined the work eligibility system, called E-Verify.