Top Items:
Time:
How Reliable Is Brown's Resume? — A TIME investigation reveals discrepancies in the FEMA chief's official biographies … When President Bush nominated Michael Brown to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2003, Brown's boss at the time, Joe Allbaugh, declared …
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Spencer S. Hsu / Washington Post:
Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience — Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
New York Times:
Political Issues Snarled Plans for Troop Aid — WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control …
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Adam Entous / Reuters:
CIA leak probe may be nearing end game: lawyers — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York Times reporter Judith Miller, locked up for refusing to reveal who told her a covert CIA operative's name in a probe that may be nearing a conclusion, works part time at the jail laundry helping clean fellow inmates' green jumpsuits and dirty linens.
Discussion:
JustOneMinute
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Arianna Huffington / huffingtonpost.com:
The Judy File: Is Miller Getting Ready to Sing? — This just in: Judy Miller's principled, absolute stand is crumbling. — Buried in the middle of this afternoon's Reuters story on Miller, her lawyer, Floyd Abrams, offers up a bombshell: Miller is looking for an out.
Reuters:
Bush lifts wage rules for Katrina — President signs executive order allowing contractors to pay below prevailing wage in affected areas. — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.
Discussion:
Donklephant, Pam's House Blend, The Left Coaster, NewsHog, Shakespeare's Sister and The Mahablog
Radio Blogger:
Major Garrett updates us on the Red Cross AND the Salvation Army being blocked from helping by Louisiana state officials — HH: Making an encore appearance, and we're very grateful for it, Major Garrett of Fox News Channel. Major, you certainly made waves yesterday. Perhaps the most reported story in America was yours.
Discussion:
Hugh Hewitt, Captain's Quarters, Samizdata.net, Betsy's Page, The Political Teen and The American Mind
Juliette Kayyem / tpmcafe.com:
America Abroad — 42 Minutes of Shame — All of this time about where FEMA should be, whether it should or shouldn't be part of the Department of Homeland Security or an independent agency. Well, I just finished reading the confirmation hearings for Mike Brown's appointment to be Deputy Director of FEMA …
Will / Attytood:
Gulf War III: Why is Blackwater USA patrolling New Orleans with M-16s? — How do you know that we're finally taking the situation in New Orleans seriously? We're sending in the private mercenaries — the very same folks we've called on to do the dirty work in Iraq.
Discussion:
Making Light
Petula Dvorak / Washington Post:
Tight Constraints on Pentagon's Freedom Walk — Event Remembering 9/11, Troops to Be Kept 'Sterile,' Limited to Preregistered — Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert …
Discussion:
AMERICAblog
Thomas Lipscomb / Tech Central Station:
The Machine Stops — As Lake Ponchatrain's waters began to drown his city, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin had the colossal nerve to shout indignantly "Get off your asses, and let's do something" — and then continued doing nothing himself, but add to the deluge by bursting into tears.
MSNBC:
Making the Quarter rounds — We are just back from the French Quarter... checking up on the condition of some old haunts... Arnauds, Brennans... and most of the landmarks that people would remember visiting from even a single Convention-attending visit to New Orleans.
frc.org:
F-Troop — There was a television show in the 1960's called F-Troop about an incompetent band of post-Civil War troops stationed at Fort Courage, somewhere west of the Missouri. Having been forced to deal with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government bureaus these last few days …
Opinion Journal:
Oil for Food as Usual — The U.N.'s worst critics couldn't invent what the Volcker report shows. — "The scandal, quote, unquote, is, in my view, nonsense." Thus did Denis Halliday, a former United Nations Assistant Secretary General, opine in November 2004 on the U.N.'s Oil for Food program.