You might have seen mention of it in news reports or on social media. This holiday marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which caused $125 billion in damage along the Gulf Coast. It was the most damaging tropical cyclone in history, adjusted for inflation.
I’d been in New Orleans on a business trip only a few months earlier. I stayed at the Sheraton on Canal Street, across the street from the French Quarter, where I met a donor, the legendary Louisiana shipping magnate Donald T. “Boysie” Bollinger, and asked him for money for his son’s school.
Fortunately, the Quarter did not flood (and after a couple of drinks, Boysie wrote me a nice check), but in the wake of Katrina’s devastation, I could only watch in horror on television at the widespread human suffering, while the Sheraton appeared to be overrun by looters.
You may recall that various agencies charged with disaster relief and rescue performed poorly, ultimately resulting in the resignation of Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Michael D. “Heckuva Job, Brownie” Brown, who had almost no experience in emergency management. The poor response reinforced the importance of staffing organizations like FEMA with seasoned professionals, not hacks, political cronies and assorted hangers-on. Because, you know, lives are actually at stake.
Now imagine if, two decades later, a major hurricane struck our coast, or an army of twisters tore through Tornado Alley. Would FEMA be able to respond? The agency is currently in turmoil. And many of the Brownie-inspired, post-Katrina reforms at the agency are being rolled back by the Trump administration.
After signing a letter critical of the cuts and the agency’s leadership, 30 FEMA employees were put on leave by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (thinly qualified herself), who recently appointed as acting FEMA head David Richardson, a weapons-of-mass-destruction specialist who was not even aware that the U.S. had a hurricane season. Richardson was preceded by another acting FEMA head, a former Navy SEAL who had no state or local emergency management experience. As the Wall Street Journal reported:
The agency has been plagued by a wave of high-level departures. MaryAnn Tierney, until recently the acting No. 2 official at FEMA, resigned in late May, stating in a message to staff, “Everyone has a line, and I have reached mine.” … [Richardson] has expressed surprise in meetings at the scope of the agency’s mission, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
How exactly would a weak government disaster relief agency react to a major catastrophe? What if Hurricane Erin, a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 160 mph at its peak, had slammed into the southeastern U.S. coast earlier this month instead of turning north? I think we all know the answer to that question. The response to the disaster would be a disaster of its own.
Thank goodness that did not happen and thank goodness we are not yet in the crosshairs of another pandemic because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is arguably in even worse condition.
As you might imagine, much of the turmoil and mass resignations at CDC were prompted by the ghastly vaccine hostility and poor management skills exhibited by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Not only is Kennedy a vaccine skeptic, but he has lied about being one. He once told PBS’s Amna Nawaz that “no vaccine” is safe and effective and that vaccines are the “only medical product … that is allowed to get a license without engaging in safety tests.” During his abortive independent presidential bid, Kennedy was confronted about the statements by CNN’s Kasie Hunt and denied making them. Hunt would have none of it — and she had receipts.
Dozens of senior officials at CDC, including the new director pictured above, resigned last week in protest over Kennedy’s vaccine policy overhaul which they warned could lead to resurgences of deadly and preventable diseases. And it’s possible the worst is yet to come, with additional staff likely to leave and a crisis of credibility unfolding.
Per the Washington Post (gift link):
Under the Trump administration, the agency has slashed billions in funding, shed hundreds of employees and rolled back programs to help Americans quit smoking and to prevent infant and maternal deaths, including support for monitoring sudden unexpected infant deaths. Funding for programs to prevent drowning, youth violence and sexual assault is in limbo, while they are under review by the U.S. DOGE Service.
And here is the money quote from Allan M. Brandt, a public health historian at Harvard:
I never have seen an instance of an advanced, affluent country with among the finest scientific resources and leaders in the world be under assault, not from small pockets of the public or people who have unusual beliefs, but from the government itself. This has just been radically unprecedented.
And here’s a terrific piece in the Bulwark on one scientist’s experience at an agency in crisis:
Are gay marriages not even safe?
Back in June, the Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly to call for the overturning of the Supreme Court ruling from 2015 that essentially legalized same-sex marriage. The Baptists no doubt felt emboldened by the high court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the right to an abortion, in 2022.
One of my greatest disappointments of the last several years is that I’ve alway thought the high court should be in the business of granting additional rights rather than taking them away. The current court appears happy to do the latter.
The topic hits home because it could impact my daughter’s marriage.
Beware the DEI police
When I point out the absurdity of the Trump administration’s war on DEI policies (diversity, equity and inclusion), I’m often asked why I care because it doesn’t really affect me, a straight retired white guy.
Here’s an example of how it does. When Verizon tried to acquire Frontier, the company currently wiring large portions of Connecticut (and other states) with fiber-optic broadband, the FCC told Verizon it would need to halt all DEI practices. The giant corporation complied because it did not want to risk its $20 billion acquisition, and the FCC gave approval.
But individual states also had to approve the merger. As it turns out, California, where Frontier has a very large presence, has a law “that requires regulated utilities to maintain an active DEI plan for suppliers. No DEI plan, no merger approval,” reported Hearst Connecticut’s Dan Haar.
The issue is quietly playing out in the courts. Meanwhile, Frontier is running out of the money needed to maintain the networks it has built out, including in my neighborhood. Verizon is a much larger company with the means to operate the network and keep it going for decades.
I was thinking of switching to Frontier. A comparable plan is about half the price of what we pay Comcast each month, but I am not about to do it if I don’t know whether I can depend on Frontier’s network going forward.
Thank you, Donald Trump.
MAGA needs to consult its beloved Holy Book
Oh and in case you did not think MAGA is a cult that has taken over the federal government, behold this. It was enough to rankle the feathers of Jeff Jacoby, the house conservative on the Boston Globe editorial page.
This is some Kim Jong-Un/Saddam Hussein-level idolatry here — and in honor of Labor Day, no less. And in case you were wondering whether it was real, Grok (Elon Musk’s AI chatbot) confirms:
I’ve seen interviews with devoted MAGA types who profess to be devout Christians. Well, they need to reread the Bible (or perhaps read it for the first time). It states unequivocally that idolatry is a sin. Where? Here is an exhaustive list, starting with Exodus 20:3-6:
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
That is all. Have a nice evening. -TC
What if there’s a disaster? There IS a disaster…… it’s the now-charging-at- you autocracy.
Not only does the Bible warn against idolatry, but it appears that Jesus, with his emphasis on justice and breaking down social barriers, actually practiced DEI.