Hey, it's Heckuva Job Brownie! Here to tell the president that we are NOT "in it together"

Remember the Heckuva Jobber? Yes, Brownie's back, and running off his mindless mouth! Our colleague Zappatero dug out this clip to go with his DailyKos post (see below).

by Ken

Remember how all those Bush regimistas who were so busy sitting on their fat asses -- except for the mangler-in-chief himself, of course, who was busy cutting cake with Young Johnny McCranky -- so they could turn the natural disaster in New Orleans to a man-fanned if not actually man-made catastrophe? It sure is a good thing they were all so thoroughly shunned and prosecuted for their criminal incompetence!

Especially that point man for the thieving ineptitude of right-wing governance, Mikey-Mike "Heckuva Job Brownie," the man who so proudly played with his tiny wienie while the city was being strangled. You figure along about now Brownie should be facing his first parole hearing, and you have to hope they're not going to think seriously about letting him out of the slammer. Let him serve every last second of his sentence.

What? He's not in the slammer? You mean he got off somehow? Huh, not even indicted? Well, thank goodness, the miserable little turd has had the sense to take a vow of silence. Man, if he ever had the nerve to open his mouth in public again . . .

Oops again. Our Colorado-resident colleague Zappatero reported yesterday on DailyKos that not only has the Heckuva Jobber gotten access to a radio microphone at Denver's 850 KOA News Radio, but he actually talks about subjects other than the only one he's familiar with: his own turditude.

And Tuesday night he polluted the air waves with his "thoughts' (for want of a better word) on the president's speech to auto workers in Detroit, reminding them that Republicans has been not only ready but eager to drive a stake through the heart of the American auto industry. Of course, as he pointed out (for internal links, see the onsite version of Zap's post),

[...]It’s been funny to watch some of these politicians completely rewrite history now that you’re back on your feet. These are the folks who said if we went forward with our plan to rescue Detroit, “you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.” Now they’re saying they were right all along. Or worse, they’re saying that the problem is that you, the workers, made out like bandits in all of this; that saving the American auto industry was just about paying back unions. Really? Even by the standards of this town, that’s a load of you-know-what.

* About 700,000 retirees saw a reduction in the health care benefits they had earned.

* Many of you saw hours reduced, or pay and wages scaled back.

* You gave up some of your rights as workers.

* Promises were made to you over the years that you gave up for the sake and survival of this industry, its workers, and their families.

You want to talk about values? Hard work –- that’s a value. Looking out for one another -– that’s a value. The idea that we’re all in it together –- that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper -– that is a value.

That very night our boy the Heckuva Jobber mouthed off on-air. Zap quotes this chunk of the podcast transcript:

@2:40 BO: "Hard work, that's a value.".

@2:42 MB: "What?"

@3:06 MB: "And we're not all in it together."

@3:56 MB: "In terms of getting people a hand up. What's the difference between a hand up and a hand out?"

@4:40 MB Lies about the intent of the statement "I am my brother's and sister's keeper." That good Christian purposefully misinterpreted the Bible, I guess.

@5:20 MB "Say that to Lewis and Clark, say that to the Founding Fathers."

@5:48 MB "They did it without you. And they did it without the Stupid Government."

Did you ever think you'd live to see the day when Heckuva Job Brownie would be flapping his gums ridiculing "Stupid Government"? Is he deaf as well as stupid? Really now, you can't make this stuff up!

I was pleased to see that Zap pounces on the Lewis and Clark bit. "Lewis and Clark did have a little bit of government help, I dare say," he interjects, and he quotes a couple of paragraphs from the Wikipedia article on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Where, you have to wonder, did the Jobberman even hear about Lewis and Clark? More to the point, how did he not manage not to hear that it was entirely a government-sponsored expedition, undertaken at the personal initiative of President Thomas Jefferson, in large part as a follow-up to the government's massive, trans-continent-reaching Louisiana Purchase, also done at President Jefferson's initiative.

How does a piece of doody like Heckuva Job Brownie dare to open his mouth when he has nothing available to shoot out of it except his bottomless ignorance and malicious lies? And, oh yes, scumbag ideology. Here's Zap (again, links onsite):

Of course Michael Brown doesn't want to be his brother's keeper. He showed us that when he was FEMA Director under George Bush. Those are the rock-solid values of today's Republicans: no questions asked, no doubt that about their selfish concerns, no regrets when they fuck things up and their fellow Americans die.

For Republicans like Michael Brown, we are not all in this together. For today's Republicans, it's perfectly clear you are on your own, come hell, high water, or both.

You can only hope that Brownie has the sense to shuffle back to his cell muttering, "I'm a frigging disgrace, I'm a frigging disgrace." Oh wait, he's not in a cell, is he? I keep forgetting.

Which just leaves one question. I understand that we can't stop Heckuva Job Brownie from talking, 'cause we've got free speech here in the U.S. of A., and we're might proud of it. But why is anybody listening?

#

Doesn't this sound like a job for Brownie?

If there's anything FEMA knows how to do, surely
it's taking care of emergency housing needs.

With the District of Columbia girding for the inauguration onslaught, our pal Al Kamen reports in an "In the Loop" item called "Brownie, We Hardly Knew Ye" that "the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the case, ready to make sure everything works out," except for one small hitch:

In preparing for the worst -- an attack on millions of Obama's guests on Jan. 20 -- FEMA seems to have forgotten to plan for its own.

FEMA managers apparently will require 50 to 60 workers on Inauguration Day to staff the National Response Coordination Center, just steps from the Mall. But we're told the brains behind the operation have not given employees any clues as to plans for feeding, sheltering and transporting them amid the chaos that will consume downtown Washington.

"There are no plans for feeding people, sheltering people -- anything," said Leo Bosner, head of FEMA's employees union. "Given the poor planning we've seen out of our bosses the last couple of years, we're kind of worried."

FEMA spokeswoman Debbie Wing said it is not 100 percent certain that the agency will staff the downtown facility, and FEMA is considering staffing response coordinators at an alternative facility in the suburbs. Nonetheless, Wing said, managers will ensure that employees have what they need.

"We have made contingency plans for food and meals for the employees to be catered and also made accommodations for facilities, showers and cots and blankets," Wing said.

So everyone just calm down. FEMA will naturally share those plans with its employees. There's still more than a month to go.

Say, I'll bet the current FEMA management could lay its hands on a supply of trailers -- by February or March.


SPEAKING OF FEMA, AL ALSO REPORTS . . .

. . . that much-admired Clinton-era FEMA Director James Lee Witt "has taken himself out of the running -- apparently for business and personal reasons."

Witt is said to be backing Mark Merritt, an ex-FEMA official who now works for Witt in their consulting firm. Former congressman Nick Lampson (D-Tex.), who won -- and then lost -- the House seat that former majority leader Tom DeLay once held, had been looking at the FEMA slot, we were told, but is now drifting toward some other options.

#

DHS capo "Judge Mike" Chertoff ruffles some Canadian feathers with his, er, unexpected conception of just what constitutes "privacy"

Bag that glass and send it to the lab for prints! Sec'y Chertoff's orders.

"A fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world. They're like footprints. They're not particularly private."
--Homeland Security Secretary "Judge Mike" Chertoff


HS Sec'y Chertoff will go down in history for, um, let's see . . . OK, first, for being the longest-serving out of all the first two overlords of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), having succeeded the legendary Tom "Plastic Sheets 'n' Duct Tape" Ridge (we can't of course count pathetic Rudy Giuliani stooge Bernie Kerik, whose nomination to succeed "Old Plastic Sheets 'n' Duct Tape" had to be withdrawn amidst, well, all that unpleasantness); and, then, for being as such the boss of Heckuva Job Brownie (of FEMA fame, or infamy) through all the unpleasantness down there along the Gulf Coast awhile back; and, finally . . . well, maybe the best is yet to come--as in going down for the third time, maybe?

Now Judge Mike (you'll recall that the secretary sat briefly on the bench of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals being tapped for the DHS job) finds himself in the crosshairs of our lampooning marksman pal Al Kamen in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column today. It seems Sec'y Judge Mike raised some hackles among our persnickety friends to the north. His scheme to do some grand-scale fingerprint swapping among our allies in the English-speaking world ran into unexpectedly stiff resistance from Canadian officialdom:

Wacky Canadians Still Believe in Privacy

By Al Kamen
Friday, April 25, 2008

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff caused a little ruckus up north a couple weeks ago as he was pushing his plan to share databases of international air travelers' fingerprints with the Canadians, Brits and Aussies.

In an interview with an excessively squeamish Canadian reporter, Chertoff was told: "Some are raising that the privacy aspects of this thing, you know, sharing of that kind of data, very personal data, among four countries is quite a scary thing."

Nonsense, Chertoff responded. "Well, first of all, a fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world. They're like footprints. They're not particularly private," he said, according to Canadian news reports and privacy lawyer Peter Swire, a senior fellow and guest blogger at the Center for American Progress.

Absolutely. But the old-fashioned Canadians seem to think otherwise. They even have someone who monitors privacy issues, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, who promptly wrote the minister of public safety and preparedness to object, noting that Canadian law "defines fingerprints as personal information" and that "fingerprints constitute extremely personal information for which there is clearly a high expectation of privacy." That's why, she wrote with a hint of huffiness, "Canadians rightly expect their government to respect their civil liberties and personal information from abuse."

Oh yeah? Well, our Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that you have to have probable cause before you haul someone off and fingerprint them. Justice Byron R. White wrote the opinion, joined by Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, no less.

But in wartime, maybe we have different expectations, okay? As Chertoff, who after all was recently a federal appeals judge, knows quite well, no one should expect privacy in a restaurant or anywhere else where a fingerprint might be left.

And we don't. That's why many diners here are beginning to use gloves when they eat at restaurants and some even wear those hospital booties. Others prefer just a discreet swipe of utensils and glassware with a Wet-Nap to ensure against DNA retrieval from saliva. (There is a growing -- and deplorable -- trend to bring personal cutlery, but that really seems excessive and, in finer establishments, downright disrespectful, especially if it's plastic.)

Is it possible the Canadians thought those signs at beachfront eateries -- "No shirt, no shoes, no service" -- were an effort to maintain appropriate attire? Everyone down here knows the restaurants just wanted to prevent the feds from trying to collect toe prints.

Canadians probably still go to barbershops -- where a single hair in the right hands can provide DNA, general health info, recent drug use data and other information. Our cousins probably haven't read about the growing in-home trim movement here.

And there's an easy way to guard against theft of your secret mattress Sleep Number. Just change the setting every morning before you leave.

#

If "The Judge" becomes our next attorney general, who's going to be his deputy? (Well, yes, naturally we do have a couple of suggestions to offer)

Wouldn't it be great to have the Chertoff-Brown team reunited?

Say, if Homeland Security Sec'y Mikey "Here Come da Judge" Chertoff gets to replace Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" Gonzales as U.S. attorney general (as if anyone could replace Idiot Al), does that mean we can look forward to him bringing his old sidekick "Heckuva Job" Brownie back into gov't service as his No. 2, the deputy attorney general? Of course there are apparently several hundred other "top" jobs open at the Justice Dept. in case The Judge has someone else in mind to be his deputy. (Barney Fife would seem about right.)

But man, wouldn't that be something, having The Judge and our Brownie teamed up again and back in action? Doing for the DoJ, well, what they did for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Oh wait, didn't Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" already do that?