Top Items:
The Liberal Avenger:
WINGNUT OUTRAGE OVER FLIGHT 93 MEMORIAL — Let's build a memorial to the tragedy and heroism of 9/11's Flight 93 which crashed in a field in rural Shanksville in Western Pennsylvania! What a great idea! — A committee was formed of surviving 9/11 family members, people from the community and designers/architects.
Discussion:
Jesus' General, Lawyers, Guns and Money, Donklephant, PoliPundit.com, Mark in Mexico, Blogs for Bush and Pam's House Blend
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Paula Reed Ward / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Flight 93 memorial decried as Islam symbol — Memorial's crescent shape criticized as inappropriate — There's a growing outcry that one element of the newly chosen Flight 93 National Memorial represents Islam and is a slap in the face to the passengers and crew members who died on the hijacked plane four years ago.
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
Reuters:
Firms with White House ties get Katrina contracts — FEMA taps Halliburton subsidiary, Shaw Group, Bechtel for cleanup — WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, The Mahablog, democracyarsenal.org, The Moderate Voice, Angry Bear and Sirotablog
Marcus Mabry / Newsweek:
Eye of the Political Storm — A new NEWSWEEK poll suggests President Bush could become Katrina's next casualty. — Sept. 10, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina claimed her first political casualty Friday. Michael Brown, the head of FEMA, the federal disaster readiness and response agency …
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rawstory.com:
SIXTY-SIX PERCENT DISSATISFIED WITH DIRECTION OF COUNTRY — SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT OF MINORITIES BELIEVE RACE WAS THE REASON FOR SLOW RESPONSE: 47 PERCENT SAY 'MAJOR REASON;' — 64 PERCENT OF WHITES SAY IT WAS NOT A REASON AT ALL — New York-President George W. Bush's approval ratings …
Anita Kumar / St. Petersburg Times:
'Average' past trails troubled FEMA chief — WASHINGTON - In 2002, a pair of FBI agents showed up at a small, well-known law firm near Oklahoma City, asking questions about Mike Brown, a former employee being considered for a job at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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Lara Jakes Jordan / Associated Press:Embattled Brown Taken Off Katrina Duty
Discussion:
Pen-Elayne on the Web
Hullabaloo:
Sealing Them In — A couple of days ago I wrote about the "single worst decision" that was made in the wake of the hurricane. I was wrong; there were actually two horrible decisions that created one horrible Catch-22. — The first part of the catch was the decision to keep relief workers with food and water out of the city.
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Ed Driscoll / Ed Driscoll.com:
Katrina Snuff Films: This Is CNN — CNN's situational ethics swing into action again. … It's amusing to go back and look at the media's mindset back then: … If it wasn't necessary to show people plunging to their death, why is it necessary to show them after they drowned?
Discussion:
www.AndrewSullivan.com, Hugh Hewitt, Instapundit.com, The Moderate Voice, Ace of Spades HQ and QandO
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Kathryn Cramer:
FEMA Needs to Tell People What It Intends for Their Homes — I had a fairly thorough look through the FEMA website, and no where could I find any mention of any plans to tell people FEMA's intentions for their homes. There are instructions for registering a claim with FEMA …
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William L. Taylor / New York Review of Books:
John Roberts: The Nominee — The most intriguing question about John Roberts is what led him as a young person whose success in life was virtually assured by family wealth and academic achievement to enlist in a political campaign designed to deny opportunities for success to those who lacked his advantages.
Discussion:
Scared Monkeys, Feministe, The Blogging of the President, The Sideshow, Pandagon and Just a Bump in the Beltway
Seattle Times:
Local FEMA chief had little disaster experience — John Pennington, the official in charge of federal disaster response in the Northwest, was a four-term Republican state representative who ran a mom-and-pop coffee company in Cowlitz County when then-Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn helped him get his federal post.
truthout.org:
Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans — New Orleans - Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" …
Bill Roggio / The Fourth Rail:
The Anbar Campaign Intensifies — The final assault on Tal Afar has commenced. The joint U.S. and Iraqi strike force has begun searching homes door-to-door after targeted airstrikes in the center of town. It is estimated over one-third of the city has been swept by Coalition forces.
RELATED ITEM:
Gordon Russell / Times-Picayune Breaking News Weblog:
Mayor Nagin speaks out — In a stark reminder of how drastically Hurricane Katrina has impacted the lives of New Orleanians, Mayor Ray Nagin has purchased a home for his family in Dallas and enrolled his young daughter in school there. — Nagin, who spoke with The Times-Picayune by telephone from Dallas …
Ewen MacAskill / Guardian:
World summit on UN's future heads for chaos — UK leads last minute effort to rein in US objections — The British government is mounting a huge diplomatic effort this weekend to prevent the biggest-ever summit of world leaders, designed to tackle poverty and overhaul the United Nations, ending in chaos.
Discussion:
Steve Clemons
Jonathan Finer / Washington Post:
Security Contractors in Iraq Under Scrutiny After Shootings — IRBIL, Iraq — The pop of a single rifle shot broke the relative calm of Ali Ismael's morning commute here in one of Iraq's safest cities. — Ismael, his older brother Bayez and their driver had just pulled into traffic behind …
Discussion:
Body and Soul
Atlas Shrugs:
SHOTGUN SEAN - POSTERBOY FOR NRA/SECOND AMENDMENT — I don't even have a category for this moron. Thank G-d for the New York Post though, they run images the MSM wouldn't dare. — "Actor Sean Penn lugs a shotgun through the flooded streets of New Orleans as if he is starring in an action thriller - but he is not.
Discussion:
Instapundit.com