SPECIAL REPORT:
'Unacceptable':
The Federal Response to Katrina

“Our nation’s disaster preparedness doesn’t meet the needs that any sizeable disaster might bring.”

—Rosemary and Walter Brasch

       Not even George W. Bush, who believes he is the most macho of all gunslingers, could have stood at the mouth of the Mississippi River and held back the winds and floods of Hurricane Katrina. But, his policies during four and a half years as president led to destruction of people and property that were greater than should have been.
SEPTEMBER 2005
More >>

An Ill Wind and American Policy

[The following column was written in September 2003. The problem predicted, unfortunately, has not been alleviated, and affected the nation’s disaster response to natural disasters, including Katrina.]
      America has already spent more than $80 billion in the past year on its “war on terrorism,“and the president has asked Congress for another $87 billion, most of it to rebuild Iraq. The appropriated budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), dwindling each year, is $1.8 billion.
More >>

George W. Bush—By the Numbers

  George W. Bush likes numbers. A day after he received 50.7 percent of the vote in the 2004 general election, he decided he had a mandate.
AUGUST 2005
More >>

Flip-Flop Flap

      About a week after the nation’s 229th Independence Day celebration the media got a story fit to feed the insatiable interest in scandalous minutiae, unwittingly provided by the national champion Northwestern University women’s lacrosse team. Beneath a headline that quoted the lawyer-brother of one of the players—“You Wore Flip-Flops to the White House?!”—was a well-crafted front-page story in the Chicago Tribune about the team’s meeting with President Bush.
AUGUST 2005
More  >>

Uncle Sam Wants You:
The Identity Stripping of American Citizens

      A little-known provision of the No Child Left Behind Act, signed by President Bush in 2001, requires all public high schools to provide to the Department of Defense the names, ages, phone numbers, and addresses of all males. The government has the data for about 4.5 million high school students. Few parents are aware the data is routinely provided to the government; even fewer are aware they have the right to “opt-out” by signing a form that prohibits the school district from sending personal information to the Department of Defense.
JULY 2005
More  >>

. . . And a Justice for All

     The president of the United States was adamant about how he was conducting his so-called “War on Terror.”
JULY 2005
More  >>

 

More Columns