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Celebrity claims antigay funeral protest part of ‘antiwar left’

On the Aug. 30 broadcast of his national radio show, elite media celebrity Sean Hannity falsely blamed “the anti-war left” for a Fred Phelps protest at the funeral of a fallen soldier.

Fred Phelps has made a life’s work of protesting the funerals of gay Americans—like murdered student Matthew Shepard—and the funerals of their supporters, such as the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. More recently, he has begun demonstrating outside the funerals of U.S. troops killed during the federal government’s occupation of Iraq, celebrating their deaths as punishment for some Americans’ acceptance of gay people.

After Phelps and supporters demonstrated outside the Aug. 28 funeral of Sgt. Jeremy Doyle of Indianapolis, Hannity said, “I guess this is just another example of how the antiwar left supports our brave troops.”

Hannity also claimed that the peace group Code Pink protested against U.S. troops at a veterans’ hospital. Code Pink members were actually protesting the federal government’s lack of funding for injured soldiers.

http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/katrinadonations.shtm

FEMA directs hurricane donations to Pat Robertson

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website lists organizations to which Americans may donate in order to help the hundreds of thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina. Third on the list is a group called “Operation Blessing,” which is owned by televangelist Pat Robertson.

“How in the heck did that happen?” asked Richard Walden, president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, which has conducted disaster relief for 25 years but was omitted from FEMA’s list. “That gives Pat Robertson millions of extra dollars.”

Robertson, who gained headlines last week for calling for the assassination of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, has called for hurricanes to strike the Gulf Coast as punishment for Disney World’s reaching out to gay Americans as customers.

In the past, the televangelist has used his television program to call for donations to his front group for airlifting refugees from Rwanda. But a later investigation by the Virginia Pilot newspaper showed the planes were not transporting refugees, but diamond-mining equipment for a Robertson-owned business venture. He was also sued by black employees for allegedly making them enter his company’s offices by a back door and eat in a segregated area.

Only two secular groups were allowed on FEMA’s list, and one of them, the American Red Cross, was blocked from entering New Orleans. FEMA also blocked trucks carrying food and water, teams of firemen from Maryland and Texas and boat owners volunteering to rescue victims.

http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/katrinadonations.shtm
“Pat Robertson’s Katrina Cash,” The Nation, Sept. 7, 2005.

Refugees evicted for football fans

Hundreds of refugees from Hurricane Katrina were evicted from Tallahassee hotels to accommodate fans coming to town for the Miami-Florida State game Monday night, the St. Petersburg Times reported Sept. 1.

Many refugees continued to take shelter in the New Orleans Superdome, but the evacuation of that center was interrupted when evacuators pulled out 700 “well-dressed” guests who had been staying at the Hyatt Hotel—much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome for a week.
In related news, George Bush made a speech Sept. 2—shortly after the devastation—joking that Republican senator Trent Lott “lost his entire house,” and promising that the home would be rebuilt. No other homeowners in New Orleans were mentioned. Lott—whose senatorial income alone is $136,000 per year—also owns a home in Jackson, Miss., and has a taxpayer-funded residence in Washington, D.C.

“Lawmakers Lose Homes,” New York Times, Sept. 2, 2005.
“Superdome Evacuations Temporarily Halted,” Associated Press, Sept. 4, 2005.
“FSU-Miami game to force storm victims out of Tallahassee hotels,” Sept. 1, 2005.

Police in suburban New Orleans block evacuees

Police agencies in New Orleans’ southern suburbs were so fearful of the crowds trying to leave the city that they sealed a crucial bridge over the Mississippi and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees, two paramedics who were in the crowd said.

The paramedics and two other witnesses said officers shot guns over the heads of a march of 200 refugees pleading to be let through in the days after the hurricane. New Orleans police had told the crowds to escape across the bridge, but suburban police angrily ordered them away and confiscated their food and water, the four witnesses said.

“It’s unbelievable what the police officers did; they just left us,” said Harold Veasey, a 66-year-old New Orleans resident who spent two horrific days at the convention center.

In related news, a Pentagon official questioned “why [reporters] had so much sympathy for the victims,” instead of the government, CNN News reported. Also, the upper-class magazine American Spectator blamed the disaster on New Orleans’ “dangerous culture,” “politically correct dysfunction” and “barbaric gangster rap culture” and claimed that city police are largely made up of “criminals.”

“Police in Suburbs Blocked Evacuees, Witnesses Report,” New York Times, Sept. 10, 2005.
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002341.html
“Masques of Death,” The American Spectator, Sept. 2, 2005.

Pro-Bush rally to be kept “sterile”

Organizers of the Pentagon’s pro-administration march last Sunday took extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who did not register.

“The march route will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and ‘sterile,’” said deputy assistant secretary of defense, Allison Barber.

“The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force on duty to protect the expected 3,000 registered participants, prepared to arrest anyone who joins without credentials,” said park police chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

The event, officially called the America Supports You Freedom Walk, was billed as a memorial to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks and a show of support for those serving in the military, topped off with a concert by singer Clint Black, known for his pro-war anthems.

Some radio and television stations were co-sponsoring the event, even though media was not allowed to walk along the march route.

Bush supporters welcomed the event as a way to counter the antiwar movement and show support for federal government troops in Iraq, although the event took place on Sept. 11, and the Sept. 11 attacks were not related to the invasion of Iraq.

“Tight Constraints on Pentagon’s Freedom Walk,” Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2005.

“War on terror” costs American lives, expert says

The federal government’s “war on terror” is killing tens of thousands of Americans at home as well as abroad, by taking money away from health care and basic human services, an expert said on Thursday.

Erica Frank of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said she has calculated the cost, in terms of lives, of the Bush administration’s invasion policies.

“The most recent effects of these diversions of funding have been seen in the unfolding tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the surrounding area,” Frank wrote in a commentary published in the British Medical Journal.

On Sept. 11, 2001, 3,400 people died because of the Al Qaeda hijackings, but 5,200 other Americans died that same day—and every day, on the average, before and since—from common diseases, Frank said.

“U.S. war on terror costs more lives than it saves,” Reuters, Sept. 9, 2005.

War took money for hurricane aid

As Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans last week, much of the money and personnel that could have helped refugees were instead being used for the federal government’s occupation of Iraq, Editor and Publisher reported Aug. 30.

In the late 1990s, Congress authorized the building of levees and pumping stations in Louisiana to alleviate possible flooding. But many projects had not been completed by 2003, when the government’s invasion of Iraq, in combination with the administration’s massive tax cuts, eliminated most of the funding. In addition, many National Guard units that would ordinarily help rescue flood victims have been sent to occupy Iraq.

Experts attribute the size of the disaster to global warming caused by human pollution. Scientists have predicted for almost 20 years that the climate change caused by pollution would increase the number and size of hurricanes and other natural disasters; for example, Kerry Emanuel’s 1987 paper “Anthropogenic Effects on Tropical Cyclone Activity.”

“Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? ‘Times-Picayune’ Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues,” Editor and Publisher, Aug. 30, 2005.
“Brace for more Katrinas, say experts,” Agence France-Presse, August 30, 2005.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/glob_warm_hurr.html
http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/anthro.html