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We go to Louisiana to speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill who has been in New Orleans this past week. He has been looking into how the city has changed to a militarized zone and what that means for the residents who left. [includes rush transcript] Well the Central Business District and the historic French Quarter were neighborhoods in New Orleans that saw relatively little damage. This weekend the city will start re-opening those areas and a few others for businesses and (…)

To thunderous applause and chants in Spanish of "Chavez, friend, the people are with you," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez strode into the United Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew yesterday on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Chavez told the house packed with peace and anti-globalization activists and community and religious leaders that he would soon start to ship heating oil and diesel fuel at below-market prices to poor communities and schools in the United States.
"I felt a (…)

From ’Old Man of the Mountain’, Bush Lies. Update ’Bush Lies’ Tour Sept. 18, 2005
While painting New Hampshire’s ’Old Man of the Mountain’, the rock outcropping that is featured on the NH quarter, I was struck by the profile that remained, after the Old Man fell. The tragic tumble was about May Day of 2003. I was not physically touched by the new profile but metaphysically inspired. Like the painting I did on Sept. 11 in NYC ( see liberty rings on 9-11, Bellaciao), the ’Old Man’ (…)

By FRANK RICH
ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum’s mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.
The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of (…)

by Peter Fredson
Katrina has come and gone and has left both the Gulf Coast and George Bush’s reputation soiled, in tatters, dirtied and in need of a lot of urgent repair. Bush’s credibility is close to zero in many reporters’ estimation; any statement he makes is self-serving and must be scanned carefully for deceit, misinformation and outright lies. His “dry-drunk” attitude, irritability and religious fervor is detrimental to his image of himself.
His entire administration has (…)

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Dec. 1, 2001, in the Houston Chronicle. Because of its relevance to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, it is being republished. New Orleans is sinking.
And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster.
So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage (…)

A TIME investigation reveals discrepancies in the FEMA chief’s official biographies
By DAREN FONDA AND RITA HEALY
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, "the President couldn’t have chosen a better man to help...prepare and protect the nation." But how well was he prepared for the job? Since Hurricane Katrina, the FEMA director has come under heavy criticism for his (…)

by Ward Harkavy
Taking the U.N. by storm, a successful oilman from Venezuela berates an unsuccessful one from Texas
Hugo Chávez, speaking at the U.N. Thursday, showed George W. Bush how to use a bully pulpit. Following Bush by a day, the Venezuelan president generated the loudest applause at the biggest gathering of world leaders in Planet Earth’s 4.55-billion-year-history.
He did it blasting the U.S. for being a bully - and for even using a pulpit to do it. Here’s how the (…)

by Yifat Susskind
On September 14, George W. Bush addressed a gathering of over 170 world leaders at the UN World Summit. His speech came in the wake of international outrage against the US for its attempts to derail the Summit’s original purpose, which was to make progress on reducing global poverty. Given the disconnect between the President’s words and deeds, we offer the following MADRE reality check on some of Bush’s more egregious comments at the World Summit.
"Either hope will (…)

By JOHN SOLOMON
WASHINGTON (AP) - One of the bigger casualties of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath has been the truth itself. From federal emergency managers to Democrats, much fingerpointing - and even the promises not to engage in it - have fallen short of the facts.
For instance, the levees that broke weren’t ones waiting for Army Corps of Engineer repairs as Democrats have implied. They were ones that had already been fortified, and still failed.
And, yes, some in government did (…)