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The Hornet Tribune
HORIZONS
Stalls: “Therefore, any additional aid we provide ...” Continued from page B1 gency rescue and medical care, and some to expenses like travel and support for aid workers immediately after the quake. That kind of aid continues — the USS Iwo Jima was steaming toward Haiti Thursday to provide more relief after the storm. But without the reconstruction money, Haiti's long-term needs remain unaddressed: Temporary shelters have gone unbuilt, rubble has not been removed and some 1.3 million people remain homeless in and around the capital, unable to find or afford safe places to live. The cholera outbreak has killed more than 440 people and sickened thousands, spreading too quickly to be contained. Now aid groups are rushing to protect the fragile tent camps where an estimated 1.3 million people live ahead of Tropical Storm Tomas, which forecasters said could regain hurricane strength by Friday and dump up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain. Haitian civil protection officials advised all camp residents to find other shelter, but most have nowhere to go. Any significant rainfall could cause widespread flooding in the severely deforested country, with the storm expected to strike nearly every part of the nation of 10 million. "As Haiti faces another natural disaster and is still reeling from the recent cholera outbreak, this is not the time to delay assistance," Sen. John Kerry, the Massa-
chusetts Democrat and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who sponsored the aid bill, told the AP on Thursday. In September, an AP investigation revealed that not one penny of the promised U.S. reconstruction money had arrived, due to a combination of bureaucracy, disorganization and a lack of urgency in Washington. President Barack Obama wasn't able to sign the appropriations bill containing the money until July 29. A subsequent bill to authorize release of the funds stalled, and it took until Sept. 20 for the Obama administration to submit a spending plan in an attempt to free up the money. Crowley told the AP "there has not been a delay," describing the 1007 notification as the final piece of a process that has kept to a schedule laid out in the aid bill. Still, requirements like these can hold up aid money for years. Some of the millions promised by President George W. Bush to help Mexico fight drug cartels still hasn't been released because of conditions that U.S. lawmakers put on that aid. "There is no question we should do everything we can to assist our neighbors in Haiti," Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma wrote in an Oct. 8 letter explaining why he objects to quick approval of the bill Kerry and Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker wrote to authorize the spending. Haiti must first commit to fighting cor-
ruption, and any additional Haiti spending must come only at the expense of other State Department programs, Coburn said. "I do not object to fulfilling our pledge to assist Haiti recover. However, I believe our charity today should not come at the expense of the next generation," Coburn wrote in the letter, addressed to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Therefore, any additional aid we provide must be paid for with cuts to lower priority programs elsewhere within the federal government's bloated $3.7 trillion annual budget." Crowley said the Obama administration has no objection to requiring that Haiti demonstrate "a commitment to accountability by removing corrupt officials, implementing fiscal transparency and other necessary reforms of government institutions, and facilitating active public engagement in governance and oversight of public resources." "We completely agree" that Haitians should account for how U.S. taxpayer money is spent, Crowley said. "Which is why we have worked with Haiti and the international community to make sure that ... the assistance we provide meets the genuine needs of the Haitian people, supports the plan that Haiti has developed and has the desired impact." As Republicans and Democrats point fingers in Washington, some contractors are giving up on recon-
struction projects that depended on the money. For months after the quake, U.S. officials met with contractors to discuss how to apply for the aid money, with plans for building everything from model homes to sanitation systems that could have prevented outbreaks of waterborne diseases like cholera. Jeff Cazeau, a HaitianAmerican procurement attorney in Miami, went to about a dozen of these sessions in Port-au-Prince, Washington and Miami, representing clients wanting to build housing, install solar-powered cell phone towers and put in roads. "But then absolutely nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. The frustration level just got higher and higher and higher," he said. "At some point it became pretty evident that nothing was going to happen and I had to get back to my regular law practice." The human costs have been severe, Cazeau said. "Now you've got a cholera epidemic, a hurricane bearing down on the place, people are living in the roadway medians, in city parks. It's just misery after misery after misery and none of this should have come as a surprise. Everyone was saying back in January that we need to get on this." Mendoza reported from Santa Cruz, California. Associated Press Writer Desmond O. Butler contributed from Washington.
Wipes: “It’s about a very activist agenda in a very ...” Continued from page B1 coln of Arkansas. Even some of the most conservative Democrats such as four-term Rep. Jim Marshall of Georgia and 10-term Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi couldn't withstand the wave. It also snared such veterans as John Spratt of South Carolina, the 14-term chairman of the House Budget Committee, and 14-term Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia. When the new Congress convenes in January, there will be at most 16 white Southern Democratic House members out of 105 seats in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Two races in Virginia and Kentucky were still too close to call, so the total could be as low as 14. The setback continues a four-decade decline for Democrats in the South, where they once dominated. The slide began after the civil rights movement, when Republicans under President Richard Nixon began employing a Southern strategy to retake the region by appealing to white anger over
desegregation. The GOP later highlighted liberal Democratic positions on social and welfare issues. Most of the losing Democrats this year were moderates representing Republican-leaning districts. And the challenges could get even tougher for Southern Democrats as legislatures begin redrawing congressional districts from the 2010 census. With some exceptions, including Mississippi and Louisiana, Republicans control statehouses across the South. They picked up North Carolina and Alabama on Tuesday. The legislatures are likely to loop more conservatives into swing districts that still vote Democratic, making it even harder for white Southerners to hold on in the future. The party's conservative Blue Dog coalition, which was founded in part by Southerners after the last Republican landslide in 1994, lost more than half of its 54 members, many in the South but others in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as conser-
vative-leaning Western states. John Anzalone, an Alabama-based Democratic pollster who specializes in swing-state races, saw six of his House clients lose and said the wave was unavoidable in conservative districts given the economy. He called the election a temporary setback from which Democrats will gradually recover. "It's about a very activist agenda in a very difficult time. That makes people queasy," he said. "These are the guys who didn't vote for the activist agenda yet they were penalized. ... They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Others said that while the economy was the driving factor, party leaders got sidetracked on the messy health care bill debate and at times forced members into difficult votes that weren't necessary. Several conservative Democrats pointed to a contentious emissions-control energy bill that squeaked by in the House but never got a vote in the Senate. "If you know the Senate's not going to pass
something, why bring it up in the House when you also know it's going to be awfully controversial in these districts that are hard to hold," said Rep. Marshall, the Georgia Blue Dog who lost. Marshall and Blue Dog co-chairman Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the party needs more centrist leadership, suggesting Speaker Nancy Pelosi should step aside. "She was certainly an issue in many races, including mine," said Matheson, the only one of the three Blue Dog co-chairs to survive Tuesday, and only narrowly. "I think there's an argument you gotta shake things up." Saunders, the campaign strategist from Virginia, said the party got off track by focusing for so long on the health care bill, which he said was too big and confusing, and played into Republican criticism of government run amok. "The idea that government can force you to buy health insurance just goes against the independent spirit," he said. "It's a cultural thing. Democrats just don't get the culture down here."
Nov. 9, 2010
Regrets: “In my opinion, this is going to be a tempest in a ...” Continued from page B1 saying something that hardly seemed like a fireable offense. Yet the decision also eliminated a distraction — NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard said Williams had long been the subject of the most listener complaints — and allowed NPR's leaders to portray themselves as defenders of oldschool journalistic values. The fallout spread quickly. PBS ombudsman Michael Getler said he had received hundreds of calls or e-mails critical of the decision, even though Williams did not work for public television. When Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina introduces planned legislation to eliminate government funding for public radio, he said it would include television, too. The Williams dismissal also came shortly after the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, a frequent target of conservative critics, donated $1.8 million for NPR to hire people to report on government in all 50 states. One danger for NPR is that Williams' exit calls attention to the network's lack of on-air diversity, said Richard Prince, who blogs about diversity for the Maynard Institute of Journalism Education. Williams was one of its few nonwhite personalities. NPR has two programs hosted by black women, an on-air reporter who is black and another who has just been hired, a spokeswoman said. More than 100 people called or e-mailed Cincinnati's NPR affiliate,
WVXU, with the majority complaining about the decision, said Rich Eiswerth, the station's CEO, president and general manager. Two people canceled their memberships, he said. "In my opinion, this is going to be a tempest in a teapot," Eiswerth said. "The news cycle being what it is — a week from now is a decade in the news cycle — I don't think it will have a big impact on NPR." WAMC radio in Albany, N.Y., said it received several complaints, not necessarily from its members. "There was an organized right-wing attempt to use this to embarrass NPR," said Alan Chartock, the station's president. "NPR had it coming, because they really blew it." But he said the decision to fire Williams might help fundraising for NPR stations in some parts of the country. Fourteen percent of NPR listeners identified themselves as Republican, 40 percent said they were Democrats and 41 percent were independent, according to a survey taken in June by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Among all surveyed by Pew, the breakdown was 25 percent Republican, 33 percent Democratic and 34 percent independent. "With their listeners, (Williams' exit) would be a positive," said Robert Lichter, author of "The Media Elite," a 1986 book that traced political leanings of journalists. "I don't imagine a lot of their listeners are regular Fox viewers."
OVER: “We did talk last week following a rally ...” Continued from page B1 poll in Miami shows Rubio 50 with percent; Crist 25 percent and Meek 19 percent. One political strategist told BlackAmericaWeb.com that some black Democrats have believed for some time that Meek couldn’t win, and, like many other congressional leaders, they fear a Rubio victory in Florida could help Republicans take control of the House during Tuesday’s elections. The Obama administration reportedly knew about Clinton’s discussions with Meek, but deliberately stayed out of the negotiations to protect Obama from being tainted by the perceived botched backdoor deal. Some black voters in Florida, according to The New York Times, say they won’t vote for Meek because they don’t believe Meek has a legitimate shot. Other black voters said when they heard that Clinton tried to talk Meek into dropping out, they were convinced that Meek was finished. “A vote for Meek is a wasted vote,” Kevin Roberson, a postal worker from Miami, told the Times. “I would like for him to win, but you know what? He’s behind,” Betty Chambers, a hospital secretary,
told the newspaper. “And if Rubio wins, we’re in trouble.” Meek has put himself in a precarious position. It’s not likely that he will win on Tuesday, and if he loses, he’ll not only be out of politics - he gave up his congressional seat to run for the U.S. Senate - but he could also fall out of favor with the Democratic Party because of the perception that he’s not a team player. Clinton, for his part, stuck to his version of events during the past three days. "We did talk last week following a rally in Orlando about the race and its challenges," Clinton told reporters. "I didn't ask Kendrick to leave the race, nor did Kendrick say that he would. I told him that how he proceeds was his decision to make and that I would support him regardless." "I still believe he could be the best senator to help Florida and America emerge from the current crisis and build a growing middle class economy," Clinton said. He described Meek as "a close friend" and said their relationship "extends far beyond politics." And he'll be stumping with Meek in Florida on Monday, the eve of Election Day.