CAN PAWLENTY, NORQUIST AND BUSH BE CHARGED AS ACCESSORIES TO MURDER IN THE MINNEAPOLIS BRIDGE COLLAPSE?

I just went upstairs to get dressed for my morning hike and CNN was on. I saw Minnesota Tim Pawlenty speaking. He made a vapid, shallow political speech about the goodness of Minnesotans, upon whose goodwill his career depends. He also talked about the debris removal process. For the sake of the safety of all Americans-- in Minnesota and elsewhere-- that process should include the removal of every elected official who subscribes to the Republican Party ideology voiced by Republican Party Chief Propagandist Grover Norquist (AKA- "Field Marshall of The Bush Plan")

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

If you want Republicans in government, you get the inability for a society to act effectively and efficiently in the case of unforseen tragedies like Katrina or you get bridges with structural problems not being attended to. And low taxes for the very wealthy. You get greed and avarice run wild and contempt for the common good.

As my friend Pachacutec mentioned this morning, "Republican government is structurally deficient. It must be replaced. It kills." Was the bridge structurally deficient? Yes, according to today's StarTribune.

The highway bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River on Wednesday was rated as "structurally deficient" two years ago and possibly in need of replacement.
That rating was contained in the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Bridge Inventory database.

...Many other bridges nationwide carry the same designation that the I-35W bridge received.

Minnesota's right-wing governor, Tim Pawlenty, who vetoed a bill requesting funds for highway repairs and who refused to authorize funds for structural repairs on the bridge, denied this morning that inspections in 2005 and 2006 found any deficiencies. I wonder if second degree murder charges can be brought against him. I doubt it.

Bush would have been crossing that bridge in 3 weeks when he arrived for a fundraiser for right-wing Senator Norm Coleman, a rubber stamp hack Minnesotans are sick and tired of. Bush will be speaking at a fundraising dinner for wealthy Minnesotans happy they didn't have to pay taxes (that might have saved the lives lost in yesterday's bridge catastrophe). Of course, who needs taxes, Republicans-- and the Democrats who think like them-- think you can just you can just raise traffic fines to fix deteriorating highway infrastructure. [Please take special note of the comment at that link.]

An editorial in today's Popular Mechanics makes clear we should get used to things like bridges collapsing if we as a society don't want to spend the money to repair infrastructure. Anti-tax (which amounts, in effect, to anti-society) wingnuts have expressed dismay that a major bridge could just fall down in the United States. I guess they missed this one in California three days ago or this problem over Carr's Creek in New York last year. This one in downtown Albany wasn't quite as bad, but that was a miracle. And the famous collapse of a 100 foot deck of the Mianus River Bridge (I-95) near Greenwich, CT was so long ago... 1983... and only 3 people died.

Our politicians will continue collecting campaign contributions and other bribes from the wealthy, cutting their taxes and endangering our lives for as long as we let them. Just keep voting for Republicans and for Democrats who vote like Republicans. I heard Bush on the radio a few minutes ago. He offered Minnesotans his prayers. He should be impeached.


IF ONLY THE TAX CUTTERS KNEW SOONER

"Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge that plummeted into the Mississippi River was 'structurally deficient,' yet they relied on a strategy of patchwork fixes and stepped-up inspections." But Pawlenty is running around like a chicken without a head trying to close barn doors now.