During the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, FEMA found out the hard way that sometimes the press just isn’t feeling very charitable towards the incompetent agency. So when they had a press conference today, the Washington Post’s Al Kamen reveals, it’s way better to just make sure the reporters can’t get there, and then to assign various staffers with make-believe roles as pretend reporters. MORE »

Somehow, the brief political truce engendered by the tragic and inexplicable collapse of a freeway bridge in Minneapolis didn’t last. Against all odds, the most liberal city in the state is no longer thrilled with the response from their ambitious conservative governor. It turns out that a government that may be culpable in the disaster isn’t trusted to clean it up, for some crazy reason. MORE »

Our Federal Highway Administrator is on the case in Minneapolis, investigating why the 35W bridge collapsed and making sure it’s rebuilt speedily and safely. And the man knows plenty about infrastructure disasters — because he used to be one of the guys in charge of Massachusetts’ own Big Dig! MORE »

Commenter Hockeymom with an exclusive Bridgegate ‘08 report: I’m just back from the bridge. Worked for one of our esteemed national networks, doing live shots till 2am. Here’s my personal Wonkette report.

This thing is a mess.

The gov of Minnesota just vetoed a transportation bill that would have funded infrastructure repairs to bridges just like this one. This bridge would have still fallen down, but the money in the bill would have gone to repair other bridges around the state. And the roads/bridges in Minnesota are in bad shape. So expect a lot of fingerpointing.

In other news, I’ve found that “Minnesota Nice” is more than just a phrase. The drunks in the background of our 2am liveshots were completely polite and delightful!

A big-ass bridge collapsed for no apparent fucking reason in your East Coast editor’s hometown yesterday. Nine people are confirmed dead, but with fifty cars tumbling into the river and at least twelve still at the bottom of the fucking Mississippi and 20 (30? 65?) people missing, you can bet that number’s gonna rise a bit over the course of the week.

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Yesterday: MORE »

The National Capital Planning Commission predicts that the entirety of Washington, DC will become a charming and bizarre underwater Victorian photo-postcard, reports the Examiner. MORE »

Joe Lieberman: the most bipartisan man in the history of bipartisanship! He’s so averse to more of this petty inter-party squabbling that he won’t investigate the White House response to Hurricane Katrina after all! Despite, you know, heading the committee that’s supposed to oversee FEMA and kind of promising that he would before that election thing. MORE »

Remember Patrick Rhode? He was the former TV reporter who leveraged a job as deputy advance guy for Bush in 2000 (deputy to the guy who makes sure there’s bottled water behind the podium!) into a gig as deputy director of FEMA. Then New Orleans drowned, and Rhode called FEMA’s response “probably one of the most efficient and effective responses in the country’s history.” MORE »

We would like to like John Edwards because he is folksy and drawls and and his father was a goatherd or something, but this, John, is uncalled for: MORE »

New York Times, today: “Bush Stops in Missouri for Embattled Senator” MORE »