As the conspiracy theorists descend on the chosen design for the Flight 93 Memorial, Eric Heyl of the Pittsburg Tribune-Review decides to get all Mulder & Sculley and digs into the issue.
White House aide Karl Rove was double dipping on tax deductions for three years -- and in the process may have committed voter fraud. And the lawyer who told the Washington Post about it is out of a job now.
I don't think anyone could have anticipated that Mike Brown would resigned as FEMA director. But just three days after being relieved of duty in the flood ravaged Gulf Coast, Mr Brown tendered his resignation just as President Bush got his first close up look at the destruction in New Orleans.
FEMA may have been late to the party -- but they have a heck of a great rap song. Probably the only one to every use "mitigation" in the lyrics. (fema.gov)
Proving he has a size 10 foot and a size 12 mouth, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) (right) tried comparing life in an evacuaee shelter to a free vacation at summer camp. He was speaking to a group of kids -- evacuated from New Orleans and living in the Astrodome:
I was on Capitol Hill during the 9/11 attacks three years ago. Shortly afterwards, I wrote down my recollections. They were included in the 9/11 Digital Archive, by the Center for History and New Media / American Social History Project & housed now at the Library of Congress.
Here's the story as I told it three years and submitted it in 2002:
I lived four blocks from the Capitol in Southeast at the time. I was supposed to meet a photog for a news conference in the Rayburn Office Building at 10:00, so I was taking my time getting dressed when I heard Charlie and Diane say a small plane had hit the WTC. I remembered the attack in 1993 and expected the worst.
I was glued to the set, seeing the second plane hit live. It was only in the frame for a few seconds, but it seems a thousand thoughts went through my mind. I remember trying to rationalize what I was seeing: maybe it's the police or fire department eyeballing the fire, maybe it's a plane on approach that looks closer because of the telephoto lens. Then the fireball.
I was late getting out of the house. It was a perfect late summer day in DC. I thought how terrible that something like this had to happen on such a beautiful day. I used my cell phone to check with the desk. They wanted me to send the photog I was meeting out with a producer to get reaction from the New York delegation after the news conference.
The sidewalks were crowded with young, Congressional staffers walking in, getting off the Metro, getting to work late. They'd obviously been watching, too. The same look of disbelief was all over the place.
I remember the jet engines overhead. They were there all the time, on the approach to National. Living there, you just shut them out. Couldn't help but hear them that morning.
I took a shortcut through the southeastern entrance of Longworth and into the tunnels connecting the buildings in the Capitol complex. It was probably only a couple of minutes before Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
The desk couldn't reach me in the tunnels. The photog was out of touch coming up from the Rayburn parking garage. They got hold of us outside the news conference. But they were still confused about where to send us. They told us to standby. Big mistake. Within minutes the cell phone network in DC collapsed under the weight of all the calls.
Military officers – lots of one- and two-stars – poured out of hearing rooms. They walked briskly down the halls. They looked like the guys to follow. My photog and I came out in the ‘horseshoe,’ a notch cut into the north side of Rayburn with a semi-circular driveway. An army captain in camo fatigues was standing beside a Humvee, trying to get his cell phone to work.
We walked around the corner and say the thick, black smoke rising from the Pentagon.
Unable to raise the desk, we decided the photog would head towards the Capitol and get whatever video he could. I’d try to find a landline and find out where the desk wanted us. I headed back to the apartment. The sidewalks were crowded again. I have never seen so many cell phones. I counted. Only one-in-three people were actually able to talk to someone.
I got through from the apartment. I was called back to the bureau. The photog was to back up our regular photog at the White House. All I had to do was find him. I grabbed a bottle of water and a pair of cheap Wal-Mart walkie talkies that I figured might come in handy and headed back out the door.
Back outside, I heard more jet engines. I was looking for the planes. While in the apartment, I never heard the sonic boom. F-16s from the North Dakota National Guard, flying out of Langley AFB in Virginia, had dropped out of war speed and taken up station over the city. At the moment, I was walking toward one of the biggest, and most recognizable targets in town. I relaxed a lot when I caught a glimpse of the familiar Falcon shape loitering up there.
Capitol Police were well into evacuating the grounds when I got half way up the hill. I arrived behind the House Office Buildings just as they decided to move the perimeter across the street. Most of the cops were busy moving the barricades. People were trying to cross the street. One Capitol Police officer, directing the crowd looked over and we made eye contact for a second. I’d never seen him before, but he glanced down at my hill credentials. He looked around, as if making sure no one was watching, then motioned me with a slight head gesture toward the Capitol – completely forbidden. I stepped off the curb, and he turned his back. Plausible deniability – everyone in this town is hip to the act.
I walked past a few people, staffers mostly, at least one Capitol cop, straight up the hill. No one stopped me, yelled at me, or asked me where I was going. I made it across Constitution, and onto the Capitol grounds.
It was amazing. Except for the jets overhead, absolutely quiet – no voices, no other manmade sounds. There was no one else around that I could see. Even before 9/11, some one was always there. You were never out of eyesight or earshot of security, even on a holiday weekend at midnight.
I stood there for what seemed like a good half-minute trying to figure out what to do next. No camera, all I’d have is an eyewitness account if anything happened. But it was an incredible, unrepeatable experience.
A Capitol Police officer called out to me from behind, I crossed the street, headed down the hill. I found my photog at the barricades, told him our assignments, and we went to work.
[For more stories from the 9/11 Digital Archive, click the image below.]
Why is it, that 40 Americans who sacrificed their lives to stop a missile attack on Washington have never been awareded the Medal of Freedom (left). Something like that would seem worthy of the nation's highest civilian honor. Instead, we've since seen the former CIA Director who completely missed 9/11 and provided bad intel on Iraq recieve it."Only a small band of civilians, strangers to one another -- without benefit of staff meetings, bylaws, uniforms or task forces -- communicating by cell phone with loved ones who happened to be watching TV -- managed to figure out what was going on in time to thwart a guided-missile attack on Washington.
Brave passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 forced hijackers to crash the plane into an empty field far short of its target."
Every 9/11 since, I have planted daffodils -- the unofficial flower of 9/11. The government of the Netherlands made a gift to New York City of tens of thousands of daffodil bulbs in the wake of the attack.This week we saw a monument for the Flight 93 crash site unveiled. We cannot consecrate the"...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain..."
field where the passengers and crew of Flight 93 anymore than their actions have already done.
In the days after Hurricane Katrina hit, FEMA designated "Operation Blessing" as the number two charity for donations."Judge Roberts can be thankful that a tragedy has brought him some good.” —Rev. Pat Robertson on his 700 Club tv show
Oooooh Noooo!"We know the president said 'I don't think anyone anticipated the break of the levee.' Everybody anticipated the break of the levee, Mr. President. How can it be that Mr. Bill was better informed than Mr. Bush?"Seems Louisianna area television stations have been running public service announcements for two years, in which the Mr Bill clay figure warns people about the danger of levee breaches in major hurricanes.
"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me. One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."
The White House has recalled FEMA Director Mike Brown (left) from the Gulf Coast.
(right) will take over the federal response on the ground in the hurricane zone.
With President Bush's poll numbers sinking faster than a New Orleans Public School bus, it's time to break out the administration's perennial lifesaver -- 9/11.
Speaking at the State Department swearing-in of Karen Hughes (left), President Bush started speaking about the hurricane recovery, then sequed quickly into how Afghanistan was helping with donations, and began comparing the similar "outpouring of sympathy and support" following 9/11. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." -- President Bush on Good Morning America, September 1, 2005.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." -- Condolezza Rice, White House News Conference, May 16, 2002
Politicians have got to be singing the blues over some of the words that slipped out of their mouths over the course of Katrina and it's aftermath.
A Florida homeowners association is barring residents from opening their homes to refugees from Hurrican Katrina.
FEMA Director Mike Brown's only emergency management experience prior to heading the federal agency was as a city government intern -- in the late 1970s.
Vice President Dick Cheney -- returning from vacation six days after Katrina came ashore on the Gulf Coast -- is touring the storm zone on a fact-finding mission for President Bush. The purpose is to find out what went wrong.
