I am, however, for building that wall...

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But it is real hard to forget the damage he and his administration did (which will be ongoing for a REALLY long time) and I will make it my goal to make sure NO ONE forgets. History tends to repeat itself and I intend to do my best to inform so we don't elect another one like him. I am hoping the investigations into the activities of his administration do find resolution so his name will evoke revulsion in all who hear it. Burn 'em at the stake!

Thirty Dead in One Apartment Building

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Behind her, at least 30 of her neighbors in the Quiet Water Beach (search) apartments were dying, trapped in their crumbling two-story building as it was swept away with much of this Mississippi coast community Monday.

We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current, said Schovest, 55, breaking into tears. It was terrifying. You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away when we were trying to swim.

The tragedy at the apartment building represented the biggest known cluster of deaths caused by Katrina. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (search) said the death toll in the county where Biloxi is located could be as high as 80.

The only remaining evidence of the Quiet Water Beach apartments was a concrete slab surrounded by a heap of red bricks that were once the building's walls. A crushed red toy wagon, jewelry, clothing and twisted boards were mixed in with the debris. The four-lane road that separated the building from the beachfront was buckled and covered with rubble.

This is all that's left of my house, said nearby resident Jack Crochet, 56, shaking his head and looking at the rubble. It's never going to be the same. It's over.

The storm also inflicted a punishing blow to Biloxi's waterfront casinos, down the beach from the apartment building. The Grand Casino gambling barge and a second casino broke away from their moorings, ending up in a ditch now filled with water and slot machines.

Basically, it's a total loss, and that's in excess of $100 million to replace what was lost here, Bernie Burkholder, president and chief executive of Treasure Bay Casino in Biloxi, said as he walked around the casino property.

People examined the slot machines to see if they still contained coins, and looting broke out in other areas of Biloxi.

People are just casually walking in and filling up garbage bags and walking off like they're Santa Claus, said Marty Desei, owner of a Super 8 motel in Biloxi. I haven't seen anything like this in my whole life.

The lucky ones in the Quiet Water Beach apartment building and other vulnerable areas of Biloxi described a scene of pandemonium as they fled the rising water. When asked why they ignored evacuation orders, some said they did not think the storm would be that bad; others would not give a reason.

Apartment tenant Landon Williams, a 19-year-old construction worker, said he and his grandmother and uncle ran from the crumbling building as the storm hit. As they later swam through the swirling water and debris, we watched the apartments disintegrate. You could hear the big pieces of wood cracking and breaking apart.

He said the winds flung two-by-fours and drywall.

I lost everything. We can't even find my car, he said. I'm looking through this wreckage to see if I can find anything that's mine. If not, I'm moving on. I think I'll move on to North Carolina and do some work over there. I can't take it here anymore — not after this.

Williams said six of his neighbors in the building who remained behind also survived. As the second story collapsed, they climbed onto the roof and part of it floated away and they floated to a house that made it, he said.

Paul Merritt, 30, surveyed the damage in Biloxi with his 18-year-old wife and their 3-month-old son, Brandon. He said the water rose to the second story of his townhouse, which is less than a block off the beach.

I've never seen destruction of this magnitude, Merritt said. You see this stuff on TV and you hope that it never happens to you. Everything's gone.

Ida Punzo rode out the storm with a friend and two neighbors in her 130-year-old home on the beachfront in Biloxi. The first two floors of the old house were almost completely gone, but she survived.

It was a miracle, Punzo said. This place is held together with God's spit. We're not supposed to be alive.

When are they ever going to start building the new World Trade Center?

Yesterday.

Thirty-nine years after the first concrete was poured into the first trench for the first telephone vault for the first trade center, carpenters built a 168-foot-long wooden trough in a gentle S curve through the south tower footprint at ground zero. From this sinuous sprout, Santiago Calatrava's PATH terminal and transportation hub will emerge.

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Fidel Oliver/Port Authority

Carpenters prepared a wooden trough at the World Trade Center site Thursday.

Don't laugh; it's a milestone day, said Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site and is building the $2.21 billion terminal over the next four years.

Until now, milestones at ground zero have tended to be ceremonial.

There was not a hint of ceremony yesterday. Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were nowhere to be seen in the 70-foot-deep pit. The Freedom Tower cornerstone of July 4, 2004, sat hidden under a blue plywood box.

But anyone looking out from a PATH train screeching around the corner into the temporary World Trade Center station would have seen a crew from the Beaver Concrete Construction Company of Brooklyn.

They're finally doing something with this big hole, said Anthony Martelli, one of the workers, standing inside the newly completed trough. It's about time.

It was Mr. Martelli's first day back at ground zero since early 2002, after a six-month tour cleaning up debris and pulling out pieces of steel. Yesterday, he was building again - he and Paul Klein and Frank De Guida and Robert Manella and Tonino Sacino.

Starting at 7 a.m., they built a trough 18 inches high and 6 feet 3 inches wide out of thick wood planks. Cagelike frames of steel reinforcing bars, or rebar, will be set into the trough beginning today. Then concrete will be poured over the rebar.

That will form the footing of a seven-foot-high concrete retaining wall. The wall will hold about four feet of fill, on top of which ballast will be laid for a temporary PATH track, No. 6, alongside the future Platform D, the fourth and westernmost platform.

Currently, there are five tracks among three platforms, two of which occupy a corner of the south tower footprint, as they did in the original station. Platform D would take up more space in the south footprint and a tiny bit of the north footprint.

Once Platform D and Track No. 6 are usable, in early 2007, other tracks can be taken out of service temporarily to allow construction of the permanent terminal while commuters are traveling through the tubes to and from New Jersey.

The construction manager is a joint venture of Parsons Brinckerhoff, which counts the first New York City subway line among its earliest achievements, and the URS Corporation. A general contractor is to be chosen in the next few months.

Icanda was the contractor in 1966 when the first concrete was poured, at West and Cortlandt Streets. John M. Kyle, the chief engineer of the Port Authority, threw in a silver dollar, a 100-lire coin from Italy, a 5-franc coin from France and a British penny.

Asked about the absence of fanfare yesterday, Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman of the Port Authority, said: I think people have become so jaded by the inordinate amount of ceremonies that have occurred at that site - disproportionate to what's actually happened - that I didn't want to add to that. This is about actually building.

There is a potential snag, however. A lawsuit filed last month by the Coalition of 9/11 Families seeks to halt the project on the ground that it violates a federal law requiring that historic sites not be used for transportation projects unless there are no feasible or prudent alternatives.

Anthony Gardner, one of the plaintiffs, whose brother was killed on 9/11, said the authority had never justified the need for Platform D.

Our focus has always been to ensure the maximum preservation and access to the remains of the footprints for the American people and future visitors to the site, Mr. Gardner said yesterday.

The Port Authority and the Federal Transit Administration have yet to answer the complaint, he said. A spokesman for the authority said it would not discuss pending litigation.

But Steven Plate, deputy director of the priority capital programs department, did talk about the authority's sense of stewardship as he inspected the site, pointing out that the tower footprints had been covered by polyethylene liners and 12 inches of stone fill to protect them during construction. We're very committed, personally and professionally, to preserving the site, he said. Eighty-four of our own perished here.

I don't want to sound melodramatic, but there is no monopoly on caring for the site. This is the Port Authority's home.

I know, I know a "liberal rag"!!!!   ha ha ha

World greets Obama:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122592900344403049.html

Obama's Dour Vision:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122592129148302567.html

What an Obama Presidency Means for Your Money:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122591367859702209.html

Pelosi, Automakers to Meet:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122599560485005549.html

Obamas's Real Opposition:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122593259568103473.html

The stages of grief:

Denial - okay that was last year, just read old Paulson reports.

Anger -  that was Lehman Bros.

Bargaining - TARP anyone?

Depression - 

Acceptance -

I think we have a ways to go until they get over it.....

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/wall-street-bonuses-expects-come-season-despite-bailout/

Paying bonuses this year is likely to result in a lot of backlash from the average American. After all, even with bonuses down dramatically, they are still higher than the average American, who is losing his or her home, makes. Not to mention the government bailout of financial firms, which seems to change daily, is coming from taxpayer dollars. Concerns abound—rightly or wrongly--that some of the $700 billion bailout could go to pay bonuses this year.

Some need to pay close attention to this.........  it's called welfare handouts.  "Entitled mentality".  The working class will get NO tax cuts.  You all will be working to put money in the hands of those that do not.  It makes perfectly good sense.  I've been saying there is no way he can do anything he is leading people to believe he can because 1/3 of people in this country pay NO TAXES.   He has led so many to believe he will cut middle class when he can't.  He is blatantly trying to disguise "government handouts" as "tax credits".   You want your hard earned money going to everyone who doesn't bother to work? 

One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95% of “working families.” He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals[.]

In what appears to be an attempt to call Obama a hypocrite, ABC’s Scott Mayerowitz “reports” today that the President also has a “lavish lifestyle.” Under the title: “Obama’s Perks: Private Jet, Chef Tax-Free,” ABC notes that Obama earns $400,000 dollars a year and even has a private jet:

The president makes $400,000 a year, but hasn’t received a raise from Congress since 2001. He also gets a $50,000 annual entertainment expense account (any unused money at the end of the year must go back to the Treasury.)

Then there is the use of two private jets, Boeing 747s better known as Air Force One. And of course the constant security details, drivers, a private chef, a country vacation estate and the rent-free use of a well-known, 132-room mansion called the White House. The president also used to have a yacht, until Jimmy Carter sold it.

As its evidence that “corporate America” is upset, ABC said that “some Wall Street bloggers” are angry with the compensation cap. But the article cited only one blogger, Dealbreaker.com, who — apparently poking fun at Sen. Claire McCaskill’s statement — remarked, “Some accountability needs to be put in place. We won’t have them kicking sand in the face of taxpayers any longer.” Dealbreaker.com also suggests charging rent for White House tenants.

Comparing the President to Wall Street CEOs is absurd. The “private jet” that Obama uses is Air Force One, which is used as a security precaution and necessary for the dozens of staff and press that accompany the President on every trip. Each use of the jet by the President is regarded as a “classified military operation” in order to ensure the President’s safety.

Furthermore, Obama’s salary is set by Congress (whose members are elected by the public). CEO compensation is decided internally within the company, usually by its board of directors. The problem with recent excessive CEO compensation was that executives receiving federal funds were still rewarded for failure with tens of millions of dollars from their companies.

The President, on the other hand, does not get a bonus for his performance, good or bad. Indeed, Presidents Bush and Obama earn the same salary. County Fair at Media Matters has more.