Politics Plus

I was frankly surprised by this ruling, because the Corps of Engineers is immune from suit for damages resulting from building substandard infrastructure like levees that failed.

In a ruling that could leave the government open to billions of dollars in claims from Hurricane Katrina victims, a federal judge said late Wednesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had displayed "gross negligence" in failing to maintain a navigation channel — resulting in levee breaches that flooded large swaths of greater New Orleans.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duval peppered his 156-page decision, issued in New Orleans, with harsh criticism of the Army corps, at one point citing its "insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness" in failing to maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known locally as MRGO.

For more than 40 years, the judge said, the corps had known that a crucial levee protecting suburban St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood would be compromised by the deterioration of the channel. The corps had "myriad" ways to address the problem, he wrote, but failed to do so.

Duval awarded a total of $719,000 to a small group of flood victims that sued the government in April 2006.

But according to Pierce O’Donnell, the lead plaintiff’s counsel, roughly 100,000 New Orleans-area residents and businesses who have filed flood-damage claims with the Army corps were now potentially eligible for payment.

In a phone interview, O’Donnell hailed what he called a historic ruling, one that backed the widely held contention in New Orleans that the 2005 catastrophe was not just the fault of Mother Nature.

"The judge agreed with us that Katrina was not a natural disaster," O’Donnell said. "Katrina was a man-made disaster caused by the Army Corps of Engineers."

In a statement Wednesday, the Army corps said only that the opinion was being reviewed by lawyers from the Army and Justice Department. "We have no further comment at this time as the issues involved in the case are still subject to further litigation," the corps said.

At the heart of the case was maintenance and operation of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.

The channel, which was decommissioned after Katrina, was completed in the 1960s as a shipping shortcut between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. Over the years, the marshy banks of the channel had widened significantly in spots — and long before Katrina hit, experts had warned that the destruction of wetlands could create a funnel effect that would intensify storm surges.

During the trial, attorneys for the government argued that the Army Corps of Engineers was not liable for the post-hurricane flooding because it was immune from civil lawsuits questioning federal flood policy decisions.

But Duval found that such "gross negligence" overrode any immunity claim… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <LA Times>

The basis for the judges decision was that the Mississippi Gulf-River Outlet was not faulty workmanship or maintenance.  It was negligent planning that altered the environment in a way that created the conditions necessary for the flood surge to occur.  This is not over by a long shot.  If the decision survives the Court of Appeals, it will likely end up in SCOTUS.

The suicide rate among our troops is more than double the national average.  Something is clearly wrong with the mental health services we are providing our troops.

Suicides in the U.S. Army will hit a new high this year, a top general said on Tuesday in a disclosure likely to increase concerns about stress on U.S. forces ahead of an expected buildup in Afghanistan.

The findings, released as President Barack Obama inches toward a decision to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, show the number of active-duty suicides so far in 2009 has already matched last year’s record of 140 deaths.

"We are almost certainly going to end the year higher than last year," General Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s vice chief of staff, told a Pentagon briefing.

"This is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way."

Another 71 soldiers committed suicide after being taken off active duty in 2009 — nearly 25 percent more than the end-year total for 2008. Some had returned home only weeks before taking their own lives.

The figures applied only to the U.S. Army. Data from other branches of the armed services was not immediately available.

Chiarelli cautioned against generalizing about the causes of the suicides, or assuming links to combat stress on forces stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said the causes were still unclear and noted that roughly a third of the soldiers who took their own lives had never been deployed abroad.

The Army recently revealed that about one in five lower rank soldiers suffered mental health problems like depression.

The latest data and this month’s shooting spree at a base in Fort Hood, Texas attributed to an Army psychiatrist have raised new questions about the effects of combat stress and the state of the military’s mental health system… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Reuters>

If the General releasing the news says not to link the suicide rate to combat stress or forces stretched this, that virtually guarantees that is the first place we should look.  If one third of the cases had never been deployed, would not stress over seeing comrades return as basket cases and knowing they were next raise stress levels?  Morale stinks, largely because our soldiers have been overused in wars of aggression without letup.  They could not even feel safe in the shower.  Furthermore, any health care system that could continue to employ Major Hasan as a psychiatrist as long as they did id broken.  Our troops are too valuable not to fix it, and if the GOP keeps getting in the way, roll over them.

Every once in a while a story comes along that demonstrates a key truth and, at the same time, is thoroughly entertaining.   This is one of those: On Saturday, a few dozen anti-immigration activists gathered on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol for a Tea Party, part of the nationwide effort by Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC). But somehow, one of the counter-protesters, a “concerned citizen from Minneapolis” named “Robert Erickson,” manged to get on the speaking list. His address started with the standard anti-immigrant rhetoric, but then revealed that he was talking about European immigrants. By this time, however, the crowd was in a frenzy and joined him in his chants of “Columbus go home!” and “Europeans out!”:

Let’s send these European immigrants back where they came from! I don’t care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinous crimes in the history of the world, including genocide and slavery! Its time to restore the sovereignty of people native to this land! I want more workplace raids, starting with the big banks downtown… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>
Here’s the video.
 
Hats off to Robert Erikson!  However he got himself on that speakers list, it was an act of pure genius.  The very notion of getting WASPS to demonstrate against their own ilk is absolutely hilarious.  But most important, he demonstrates that these poor lost fools disengaged their brains long ago.  They happily cheer for and scream against whatever is put in front of them.  Their whole demeanor can be described with just one word: Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!!