Thanks for keeping the focus on our plight. I am also one of the lucky ones: still have an apartment and a job. So far my landlord has not raised the rent to astronomical levels.

I am concerned that middle class people will not be able to live in New Orleans. It will be a shame if only wealthy tourists can afford to live here.

We have the classic chicken or the egg scenario: which comes first? levees/rebuilt houses, people/essential services etc. the list could be as long as you can imagine?

Who in thier right mind is going to invest $100,000 or more on a home if you are not sure there will be levees, homeowners insurance, schools, grocery stores, any number of everyday services we all take for granted.

So you rebuild your dream home but it is worth 1/2 what you put into it and still there are no levees.

We need Federal money to save New Orleans. Lets face it, we were a poor state before this all happened we need bold intervention and a bold plan. We do not need empty promises (thanks ever so much Preznit).

New Orleans is a national treasure. New Orleans is one of the most wonderful cities in the world. We must save it.

I actually saw something good on FOX News Cable the other day. The 7 o’clock guy was in a town in MS consisting of Army housing. It was permanent tents on platforms built where the town inland from the beach once stood. All I could think is this is compassionate conservatism. Americans living in not even double wides!
I want them to keep showing these facts to their supporters. I wonder how long they can hang their hat on President Bush and the Republicans.

Amen, ReddHedd.

And now I hear from skippy that the destruction has been too much emotionally for some, that we must now count suicides long after the event into Katrina’s death toll.

I know Redd-Hedd has a lot on the legal commentary plate, and also has heavy playing-with-that-cool-toy-stove-with-the-kids duties ahead. But, along with some other commenters, I hope that she (she, right?) will find time to keep tabs on the legal tricks that will be used for the class and ethnic cleansing that will take place.

I heard one of those year-in-reveiw pundit fests last week. One of the reporters talked about the developers’ plans to turn $50,000 properties into $500,000 properties, and to make it a another Las Vegas (oh, great, I think one is enough). No one else on the show seemed to consider it even interesting. We won’t hear a peep about what will happen in the big media.

It’s all about the money and the power, folks.

The gov’t is deliberately dragging its feet to stress the poorer people to abandon any plans to return, Then, wide-eyed in feigned and saddened shock, they will reluctantly announce that, despite all of their efforts, the people apparently don’t care enough to return to their own city and they have no choice but to condemn the ‘abandoned’ properties and sell them to developers in order to ’save’ NO. Another case of destroying something to save it — for their friends and allies.

Any bets the developers were on board before the water stopped rising?

No, New Orleans will be rebuilt – to, for and by the crooks in control of this country.

And if we don’t like it, so what?

Who cares what we think? Not our ‘government’.

After 9/11 we knew how many (even who) had been killed or was missing. What’s the story for post-Katrina NO and Gulf coast?

How many dead?
How many missing?

Imagine how things might have been different with President Gore: FEMA not downgraded, top-notch managers like Witt in place, perhaps even some work on the levees, people not abandoned to their fate. When will someone point out to these Southern baboons that there are consequences to electing people who do not believe in government?

AikeaGuinea – you might contact the Common Ground folks with your question – I know that Starhawk, in one of her essays linked above, mentions that they were referred to the Souther Baptists when they were trying to identify who in the municipal or fed govt was picking up trash.

I just returned from spending Christmas with my Mom — a Katrina evacuee — in Dallas. We drove to New Orleans to see the remnants of our old house in the Ninth Ward.

The landscape is terrible and I hope to have pictures up on a website soon.

I’ve been looking for reports on possible malfeasance (sp?) by churches. I’ve heard from my Mother, aunt, and others about churches donating furniture, funds, and other resources to evacuees only on condition that they join their churches. Many (if not most) of these resources are provided to these churches from the federal government.

To me, this sounds like a violation of the government’s “faith-based” charities program.

Anyone find any stories about this, or have heard of other evacuees facing similar situations?

Amy Goodman has done a great job of covering under-reported NOLA issues. Besides the missing elderly and disabled there’s the huge problem of missing children.

Problem is, there are just too many isues around New Orleans and this agonizingly slow rebuild. That why I did a book, Katrina & The Lost City of New Orleans. You can find out about it here: http://www.lulu.com/content/170780

Let’s pray for the best for my city.

The WaPo article doesn’t hit at the racial and class tensions in NOLA that are holding up resident’s return.

The Times Picayune had a good article that called it like it is…..
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/f…..129030.xml

My family in New Orleans was lucky. I think. The family home on Bellaire Drive home is gone. But my parents and their cats are fine and living with my brother. My brother’s home was totally untouched. Even the pansies planted a week before were thriving. The giant water oak in the front yard feel towards the neighbor’s house. My sister sold her house a few months before and the rental she lives in was not flooded. All are employed or in secure retirement. They are the very lucky ones. But I see in them a sorrow and uncertainty that has only grown since the storm. They are surrounded by a Dresden type of distruction and have no information with which to make solid decisions. Where is the help? When will their neighbors be home? When will work begin on the levee system? Will another mother of all storms crash into their lives next year or the year after? Where are the Feds?

BTW there are still 3,729 people listed as missing

Thanks ReddHedd
There is so much going on in NOLA that is way under the radar.

One situation that was brought to my attention by a reader yesterday is the fact that FEMA is holding important info that would help workers find missing adults and help displaced adults such as elderly, disabled.

Another reader whose S.O. is a hospital social worker says there are 100’s of elderly in hospitals for which no ID is known. Its a mess.

Those workers have started an online petition to send to Congress to get FEMA to do its job.

They need signatures.

Here’s the link….
http://new.petitiononline.com/…..ition.html

There’s more info at my homepage

No one gives a crap. Look at how many OT posts there are in the comments. I live in Louisiana and most folks here don’t give a crap. To many of them it’s good riddance to bad rubbish. It’s that oh so pleasant mixture of racism and anti-urbanism that has been the staple of republican propaganda for the last 40 years.

That New Orleans was laid low by a hurricane was a tragedy. That we are going to let it die is a crime. Is this what we have come to in this country? Are our values this screwed up? Do we care so little about our people and our communities that we would allow a major urban center to simply die? If you can’t shrink wrap it and discount it at Wal-Mart no one gives a crap.

If I were to propose a bill in Congress, it would be one which would bar all foreclosures in areas affected by Katrina until 6 months after a rebuilding plan has been announced.

Why more Dems aren’t standing up and accusing Bush of delaying reconstruction decisions in order to allow the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi to be grabbed up by Republican-donating land developers, I don’t know.

Some folks are doing amazing work in NO – a collective of activists, pagans, and others called Common Ground Relief – and there’s an update scheduled in Austin tonight for any who are there – see below in Lisa Fithian’s email – also see Starhawk’s 3 reports on working in NO: http://www.starhawk.org/ under “What’s New”

Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 09:26:54 -0600
From: “Lisa Fithian”
Subject: Happy Holiday – Support for New Orleans

December 24, 2005

Dear Friends and Allies,

Seasons greetings to you to all. I hope this email finds you with loved ones and some quiet peaceful time. As many of you know I have been working the last two months in New Orleans with a group called the Common Ground Collective. We are an all volunteer, grassroots, activist organization that is still providing direct relief and support to residents and returning evacuees. I am writing to
ask for your support and let you know about a report back I will be doing in Austin next week. ( see details below)

It is quite amazing being in New Orleans. The utter destruction – miles and miles of it, is impossible to convey. The infrastructure in a major US city collapsed. What is being rebuilt favors middle to upper class predominately
white communities. The reconstruction plans do not adequately address the levees and whole communities are being discouraged from returning. Housing is hard to find, schools, health care facilities and most stores are still closed. Huge areas are still without power and mounds of debris still covers the
streets. Hot water can be hard to find. Phone and mail service is non-existent in some places. It is becoming all to clear that the government and corporate America are planning a land grab preventing many historically Black communities from coming back together again.

New Orleans has similarities to a war zone (military in the streets, Halliburton contracts, ruin and rubble) – and the policies that led us into war in Iraq are at work in New Orleans as well. Each day there is more reason to drive this Administration out and rebuild something new. That is what we are doing in New Orleans

Common Ground has become a light of hope amidst the destruction and greed We talk about Solidarity Not Charity. We are taking a holistic approach- from providing basic food and water to cleaning supplies and tools, a free medical clinic (the first to open after the hurricane) roof tarping, home gutting, clean
up and repair, legal and anti-eviction housing support, a media center which hosts Radio Uprising along with free internet and phone. We have cleaned up, repaired and are now using 2 daycare and one community center.–these will be returned to their owners ready to go. We have done soil and water sampling,
initiated a small bioremediation project, cleaned up three community gardens and
planted one. We are now in the process of setting up a childcare cooperative and
home school program.

We started with $50 and 5 volunteers and have grown to a core group of about 40 “organizers” and hundreds of volunteers. Over thanksgiving week we had 300 volunteers in and have on average 200 volunteers a week now through the end of January.

As I drove back to Austin, literally emerging from a disaster zone, I found the holiday season and nice clean functioning neighborhoods surreal. Life for most
continuing as usual, with few having any clue about what is still really going on – or not going on in New Orleans.

While recouping at home I am hoping to gather some things for when I return next week or have the money to buy once I am there. Specifically we need:

a.. 2 desktop computers – one for our volunteer and another for our administrative operations.
b.. 2-3 laptops to replace some that have been broken or damaged in a recent storm.
c.. Hammers and crow bars, dehumidifiers, heaters,
d.. Starter plants for the gardens – greens, broccoli, kale, cauliflower etc.
e.. A two drawer file cabinet
f.. Vehicles – one good pickup and a box truck
g.. Financial contributions for any of the above.

These are big deal items and there is tons more needed. I’ve tried to focus on a few critical things for the overall operation in this moment. If you can make a donation or have leads on any of the above, they would be greatly appreciated.

Financial donations can be made directly to Common Ground via our website at
http://www.commongroundrelief.org. You can also send a tax-deductible donation to
support my work at the Alliance for Community Trainers, 1405 Hillmont St. Austin, TX 78704. (Please make a note in the memo field.)

I hope you all have a safe, warm and joyful holiday. In this season of giving I ask that you remember those less fortunate than you. Please see what resources you have available to offer the evacuees of the Gulf Coast region and the organizers and volunteers who have showed up to help. Consider coming down to
lend a hand for a week, a month or more. Our work for domestic justice is integral to our work for global justice. Let us commit ourselves in 2006 to end the war in Iraq and the war at home. You too can make a difference and help make something positive come of this all!

Anything you can do is deeply appreciated and desperately needed!

Love and peace,

Lisa

Report Back on New Orleans and the Work of Common Ground. Weds. December 28th
at 8:00 pm at Café Caffine, 909 W. Mary St. Scott Crow, one of the founders of
Common Ground, and I will be sharing stories, showing some photos and a new
promotional video on Common Ground’s work.. I hope to give you a feel for what
is happening in New Orleans so that we may all better understand the severity of the situation and the tremendous possibilities that exist to provide real support and solidarity to thousands of people who have been historically and currently neglected.

I grew up in New Orleans. My family has been there since 1827. My wife and I emigrated to Chicago twenty years ago.

My aunt, nearing the end of her life at 87, escaped with her son to Atlanta. When she learned that her house (in Lakeview) had been flooded, she pretty much gave up. I couldn’t get to the funeral (no flights.)

I am growing increasingly pessimistic that New Orleans can be saved at all. This government (and probably many citizens support this decision) is unwilling to pay for Cat 5 levees, and to restore the wetlands that saved the city for three centuries.

Don’t get me wrong. I am very grateful to Habitat and to the countless Americans who have contributed to the reconstruction of New Orleans. (My contributions have been very modest, directed toward plane tickets and trips to Target for a few displaced friends. One, 85 years old, was evacuated to Phoenix and hospitalized for dehydration.) But the damage is simply too great to be repaired without massive Federal involvement. And the Bushies are incapable of tying their own shoelaces.

Quite a difference, eh, America pre-Dubya, and America post-Dubya…

bobbyg — that story was a couple of weeks ago. i don’t see it in any video archives.

“But the night Bush gave his well lit speech, I realized, again, that we’d just been had. It would all be for show, and little would change. It was just image making, not community making.”

EVERYTHING he does is just a photo-op. His speech in New Orleans, while obscene in its use of Jackson Square as a prop, was unsurprising. I’m only surprised they didn’t have some banal “Victory in New Orleans” phrase tattoo’ed all over the church.

BTW- Bush is the first President in our history to have the annual U.S. budget document festooned with dozens of pictures of his Beloved Leader self posing in Norman Rockwell-esqe photos around the country. He’s even had the Commerce Department insert photos of HIM in the Baldridge Award publications.

Our dilettante Narcissist in Chief. Just thinking about this arrogant ass spikes my BP.

–

someone posted this comment the other day–sorry, but I didn’t keep the originating name. In light of what we know about BushCo/Halliburton et al. financial/mercenary efforts in other areas, it struck me as a question worth pondering:

“Does anyone know how to research how large are the oil deposits under New Orleans’ 9th Ward? Every inquiry I’ve made ends up on a tangential subject. I suspect it’s huge being in the delta. Would be a good reason to discourage repopulating that area. Might end up looking like Oildale, California.”

New thread: “Yet more investigations”

On Christmas morning I was trying to explain to my half-sister in Dublin what the devastation is like in New Orleans. “Imagine the City of Dublin with only 20% suitable for habitation,” is the way I described the situation.

I visited New Orleans on Thanksgiving Weekend and it is easy to see why so many families will have to think long and hard before deciding to return. I hope FDL will continue to remind readers of the terrible devastation…and of our responsiblity as a nation to respond. I’m trying to make a small contribution through the blog I’ve been publishing since the city was flooded.

I have had to move away from a home when my family’s home was taken by the state to make way for an interstate highway. It’s not pleasant.

Experiencing a disaster and hoping to move back must be many times worse.

There are people trying to clean up New Orleans, but I don’t get the impression it’s going to get done quickly or that the federal government is doing much to help.

There are people who think it should be taken from it’s rightful owners and sold at auction to some rich developers. That would, of course, be thievery of the worst kind. It can only make us wonder if the levees weren’t knocked down intentionally.

Considering the thievery happening in our capitol and, by extension, in Iraq, it can’t be a surprise, but that doesn’t make it acceptable either.

We must do our own national disaster cleanup: fix the voting systems, get rid of Bush & Co. return (home) to some kind of normality.

On the subject to post one of my three favorite video clips from 2005:

Amy Goodman in New Orleans over two weeks after Katrina, in a black neighborhood, asking passing military, FEMA, police officials why there are still rotting corpses of poor black people on the street:

http://www.democracynow.org/arti…5/09/12/ 1426218 (segment starts just after 2:00)

Thanks for reminder, Redd

In the early days after the Katrina catastrophe exposed the incompetence and indifference of the Administration, I actually had hope that things would turn around. I thought there would be moves in Congress to reverse the tax breaks for the privileged, the excesses in the new bankruptcy law, the proposed budget cuts on low/middle income folks, the misues of National Guard to fight a war of choice, and so on. I was optimistic that things might improve.

But the night Bush gave his well lit speech, I realized, again, that we’d just been had. It would all be for show, and little would change. It was just image making, not community making.

I hate the climate when the worst sin one can be accused of is political naivete. And they wonder why we’re so angry.

From the AmCon article:

“…Some of the corruption grew out of the misguided neoconservative agenda for Iraq, which meant that a serious reconstruction effort came second to doling out the spoils to the warÂ’s most fervent supporters. The CPA brought in scores of bright, young true believers who were nearly universally unqualified. Many were recruited through the Heritage Foundation website, where they had posted their résumés. They were paid six-figure salaries out of Iraqi funds, and most served in 90-day rotations before returning home with their war stories…

Yep. This shit has been known for quite a while. See

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

—

OT, but potentially huge news in the King George bitch-slapdown effort:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Attorneys for terror suspect Jose Padilla have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether his detention as an “enemy combatant” is constitutional…

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12…..index.html

GeeW is gonna need the likes of Alito on the Supremes to keep his entire “enemy combatant” thing going.

—

Me–wow, the story in the American Conservative is unbelievable. If only I had posted my resume in the right place, I’d be sitting on a pretty little pile of cash right now…

bkny -

Got a link? If true, well, try to imagine my surprise.

—

bobby g: there was a recent news report on the n.o. reconstruction highlighting one of those fancy-schmancy restaurants getting back up and the clientele were very well-fed contractors sitting at tables feasting on 5 course meals; while outside, n.o. residents were lining up at the red cross truck for meals packaged up in styrofoam.

Me -

As I ranted yesterday, the President takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Not to use it as toilet paper, as does this president Who Would Be King.

—

http://amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_24/cover.html

I forgot!!!

See the Cover Story in American Conservative ;)

Barron’s Editorial. It’s behind a firewall, you can get a link from Ameriblog. I got this off a discussion board, and I am including the note at the bottom placed by the poster:

Putting the president above the Congress is an invitation to tyranny. The president has no powers except those specified in the Constitution and those enacted by law. President Bush is stretching the power of commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy by indicating that he can order the military and its agencies, such as the National Security Agency, to do whatever furthers the defense of the country from terrorists, regardless of whether actual force is involved.

Surely the “strict constructionists” on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There’s not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ.

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law.
————————-
When the big money crowd in Corporatist America come after you george, you need to know you are well and truly fckt. The funniest thing is that once this thing gets going and the big money boys go after gw all the little bushbots will really believe it was THEIR idea that he go down.

Please do remember to send letters out supporting impeachment, and contact your House Rep and both state Senators on this issue.

The pressure is on Chimper McFlightsuit – I think he will explosively depressurize over 30,000 feet.

http://fusioner.proboards60.co…..1131129004

^^ Link to the Media Resources Page

bkny -

Yep. That’s what’ll probably happen. A new adult Disneyland / Las Vegas in NOLA. The poor can drive in from their shanty towns to service the affluent and the tourists.

—

Warning: OT

From NY Times:

“December 27, 2005
Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein’s Strangest Theory
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Einstein said there would be days like this.

This fall scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a “cat state.”

No, they were not sprawled along a sunny windowsill. To a physicist, a “cat state” is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive.

These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes they were all doing whatever it was they were doing together, in perfect synchrony. Should one of them realize, like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff and doesn’t fall until he looks down, that it is in a metaphysically untenable situation and decide to spin only one way, the rest would instantly fall in line, whether they were across a test tube or across the galaxy.”

Finally we have a scientific explanation for the “up is down” and “a lie is the truth”spin that comes from the republican media machine. The spinners are merely remarkably coordinated simple, elemental beings.

The great nation that has spent billions of rebuilding Iraq, from soccer fields to yes, levees and damns was unable to muster enough force to save some of its most weak and vulnerable at their most desperate hour.

Don’t know how those Iraqi levees will fare over time, but we can rest assured the damns are built to last.

this comment was made by byron pitts on face the nation. what i find more interesting, is the reaction of bob schieffer. (and it’s worth noting that pitts is black):

SCHIEFFER: Do you think that a lot of those people simply won’t come back?
PITTS: Bob, they won’t come back. They can’t come back. And there is an element in New Orleans who
says perhaps they shouldn’t come back. I’ve talked to businesspeople there who see this as a wonderful
opportunity to rebuild New Orleans. As one man told me, `It can be the Las Vegas of the South,’ that as he
said in the Ninth Ward where there are $50,000 homes, `We can tear those down now and make half-million
dollar homes.’ So I think the face of New Orleans will change. Absolutely.
SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, let’s take a little break here.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_122505.pdf

The Sorrows of the Empire.

The horror of Katrina will be one of the milestones in the decline and fall of America.

The great nation that has spent billions of rebuilding Iraq, from soccer fields to yes, levees and damns was unable to muster enough force to save some of its most weak and vulnerable at their most desperate hour.

The image of the feckless and callous George W. Bush flying over New Orleans in his Air Force One jet looking out of his window, much like a king peering down at his nose and out of castle balcony is the image of Katrina that will forever taint my view of Bush and his corruptocracy.

The sound of his mother, Barbara, saying that when George W. Bush flew over New Orleans that it ‘was the most important thing in the world’ to “these people” will forever ring in my ears.

The sight of the young boy, Charles Evans pointing to all of the stranded and desperate Americans outside of the convention center waiting for help from the local, state and federal government and saying “this is pathetic” is haunting.

Bush using the church as his backdrop photo-op to merely stem the slide in his poll ratings was just another propaganda tool used by Rove to change the sour national mood. Faith as a prop. Sham leadership. Uncaring compassionates. The Sorrow of a once great nation.

-GSD

Ladies, a very Merry Christmas and very Happy New Year.

And just for fun…

SOURCE: REUTERS • ASSOCIATED PRESS • AFP • DRUDGE REPORT

Now for something completely odd: offbeat escapades from 2005

- The guardians of animal nomenclature had mixed feelings over a proposal to name three newly-discovered species of slime-mould beetle after US President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A pair of insect experts reserved the names Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi and Agathidium rumsfeldi for their latest creepy-crawlies.

How becoming, Slime-Mould Beetle…LOL

Morning FDLer’s,

Back home at last from visiting the family for the holiday, missed my daily fix here!

It is my hope that America will do some kind of fund raising, star studded NOLA AID benefit, anything/something this spring to help the Katrina families get back home. So much needs to be done first, like kick Rove’s sorry ass and his cohorts whom have done absolutely nothing as promised.

You are so right Redd, we can never let them think we have forgotten, you know we will keep the pressure on for acceptable results. Come Feb/March will be the 6 month mark which should trigger fresh outrage at the lack of action, cleanup, and resolutions. It’s going to take a 50 state grassroots campaign of justice funds for the Katrina victims to even make a dent towards truly helping them, to counter the government’s deliberate neglect of their duties. What’s it going to take, another class action lawsuit? They seem to be piling up fast don’t they.

This is a huge eminent domain issue. The average property owners can’t do a thing until they are able to be insured. They are under time/money pressure. Eminent domain has made great progress under the republicans. This will be a land grab of epic proportions. All done quietly under the radar while a complicit media provides the cheerleading and touts the great improvements made by the robber barons.

On topic this time :)

Was reading about new defense and intelligence contracts handed out in the DC area, thank you taxpayers, and wondering why there wasn’t enough money to fix the electric lines in New Orleans.

Hmm.

Guess we have to work hard in our offices here, harvesting personal data on American citizens, in order to keep our country “safe”.

It takes a lot of analyst time to go through the records of 57 million Americans who had their personal data stolen in 2005 per WaPo.

But I feel safer! Don’t you?

On Katrina,

Wasn’t Karl Rove put in charge of that recovery? Shouldn’t he hold a press conference or something to let us know what all he’s been doing? With that, I mean.

Snark.

Fitz!

And following with a final comment on the last thread before delving into this one:
I like the Ollie North example, but that won’t connect with wingnuttia, IMO. Try this one on for size:

OJ.

OJ was aquitted of criminal charges despite mountainous evidence against him because there was a perception by the jury that Mark Fuhrman had placed a glove at the crime scene.

In our system of justice, it isn’t enought for a person to BE guilty of a crime. Tip of the Constitutional hat to Madison, Jefferson and the guys for that one, btw. A person has to be PROVEN guilty through the presentation of legitimately-gathered evidence. One may not like that precept of our system, but the remedy is legislative.

OJ was a bad guy who went free because of a perception of a clumsy effort to cut corners with his prosecution. Terrorists may go free as well and it will be the clumsy efforts of this administration to circumvent the law that will be responsible.