They Really Dropped the Ball..

[Brwn_eyes0511]

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200509\NAT20050907a.html

Louisiana Officials Could Lose the Katrina Blame Game
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 07, 2005

(1st Add: Includes information about restoration of Mardi Gras fountain)

(CNSNews.com) - The Bush administration is being widely criticized for the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina and the allegedly inadequate protection for "the big one" that residents had long feared would hit New Orleans. But research into more than ten years of reporting on hurricane and flood damage mitigation efforts in and around New Orleans indicates that local and state officials did not use federal money that was available for levee improvements or coastal reinforcement and often did not secure local matching funds that would have generated even more federal funding.

In December of 1995, the Orleans Levee Board, the local government entity that oversees the levees and floodgates designed to protect New Orleans and the surrounding areas from rising waters, bragged in a supplement to the Times-Picayune newspaper about federal money received to protect the region from hurricanes.

"In the past four years, the Orleans Levee Board has built up its arsenal. The additional defenses are so critical that Levee Commissioners marched into Congress and brought back almost $60 million to help pay for protection," the pamphlet declared. "The most ambitious flood-fighting plan in generations was drafted. An unprecedented $140 million building campaign launched 41 projects."

The levee board promised Times-Picayune readers that the "few manageable gaps" in the walls protecting the city from Mother Nature's waters "will be sealed within four years (1999) completing our circle of protection."

But less than a year later, that same levee board was denied the authority to refinance its debts. Legislative Auditor Dan Kyle "repeatedly faulted the Levee Board for the way it awards contracts, spends money and ignores public bid laws," according to the Times-Picayune. The newspaper quoted Kyle as saying that the board was near bankruptcy and should not be allowed to refinance any bonds, or issue new ones, until it submitted an acceptable plan to achieve solvency.

Blocked from financing the local portion of the flood fighting efforts, the levee board was unable to spend the federal matching funds that had been designated for the project.

By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one tenth of one percent of that -- $1.98 million -- was dedicated to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. State appropriators were able to find $22 million that year to renovate a new home for the Louisiana Supreme Court and $35 million for one phase of an expansion to the New Orleans convention center.

The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding.

The Orleans Levee Board was also forced to defer $3.7 million in capital improvement projects in its 2001 budget after residents of the area rejected a proposed tax increase to fund its expanding operations. Long term deferments to nearly 60 projects, based on the revenue shortfall, totaled $47 million worth of work, including projects to shore up the floodwalls.

No new state money had been allocated to the area's hurricane protection projects as of October of 2002, leaving the available 65 percent federal matching funds for such construction untouched.

"The problem is money is real tight in Baton Rouge right now," state Sen. Francis Heitmeier (D-Algiers) told the Times-Picayune. "We have to do with what we can get."

Louisiana Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen told local officials that, if they reduced their requests for state funding in other, less critical areas, they would have a better chance of getting the requested funds for levee improvements. The newspaper reported that in 2000 and 2001, "the Bond Commission has approved or pledged millions of dollars for projects in Jefferson Parish, including construction of the Tournament Players Club golf course near Westwego, the relocation of Hickory Avenue in Jefferson (Parish) and historic district development in Westwego."

There is no record of such discretionary funding requests being reduced or withdrawn, but in October of 2003, nearby St. Charles Parish did receive a federal grant for $475,000 to build bike paths on top of its levees.

Earlier this year, the levee board did complete a $2.5 million restoration project. After months of delays, officials rolled away fencing to reveal the restored 1962 Mardi Gras fountain in a four-acre park featuring a new 600-foot plaza between famous Lakeshore Drive and the sea wall.

Financing for the renovation came from a property tax passed by New Orleans voters in 1983. The tax, which generates more than $6 million each year for the levee board, is dedicated to capital projects. Levee board officials defended more than $600,000 in cost overruns for the Mardi Gras fountain project, according to the Times-Picayune, "citing their responsibility to maintain the vast green space they have jurisdiction over along the lakefront."

Democrats blame Bush administration

Congressional Democrats have been quick to blame the White House for poor preparation and then a weak response related to Hurricane Katrina. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, joined two of his colleagues from the Transportation and Infrastructure and Homeland Security committees Tuesday in a letter requesting hearings into what the trio called a "woefully inadequate" federal response.

"Hurricane Katrina was an unstoppable force of nature," Waxman wrote along with Reps. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). "But it is plain that the federal government could have done more, sooner, to respond to the immediate survival needs of the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi.

"In fact, different choices for funding and planning to protect New Orleans may even have mitigated the flooding of the city," the Democrats added.

But Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) suggested that Waxman "overlooks many other questions that need to be asked, and prematurely faults the federal government for all governmental shortcomings; in fact, local and state government failures are not mentioned at all in [Waxman's] letter."

Davis wrote that Waxman's questions about issues such as the lack of federal plans for evacuating residents without access to vehicles and the alleged failure of the Department of Homeland Security to ensure basic communications capacity for first responders might "prematurely paint the picture that these are solely, or even primarily, federal government responsibilities.

"This is not the time to attack or defend government entities for political purposes. Rather, this is a time to do the oversight we're charged with doing," Davis continued. "Our Committee will aggressively investigate what went wrong and what went right. We'll do it by the book, and let the chips fall where they may."

The House Government Reform Committee will begin hearings on federal disaster preparations and the response to Hurricane Katrina the week of Sept. 12. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is schedule to hold hearings on the economic recovery from Katrina beginning Wednesday morning.

[SuzeQuze]

Its unfortunate to say the least that in '95 the plans to fix the levee fell apart due to corruption. Strand mentioned there's been a long history of that down there. However, the mayor and the governor had nothing to do with that. Also, no one was dying and being left to rot in their own feces.

[dissention]

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200509\NAT20050907a.html

Louisiana Officials Could Lose the Katrina Blame Game
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 07, 2005


:laugh:

CNS News is a division of Media Research Center. Nice try, but no sale.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

:laugh:

CNS News is a division of Media Research Center. Nice try, but no sale.

I knew that. I didn't know however it was a "grave sin" to post an article from that site though.

[dissention]

I knew that. I didn't know however it was a "grave sin" to post an article from that site though.

It's not a sin to do so, but don't expect people to take any links from it seriously when it's obviously a biased news outlet.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

It's not a sin to do so, but don't expect people to take any links from it seriously when it's obviously a biased news outlet.

Like there are never biased links posted here... :rolleyes:

[dissention]

Like there are never biased links posted here... :rolleyes:

There's no doubt that some do, but you seem to be on a mission to post absolutely nothing other than the most biased, right-wing stuff that you can find. That way it's easy for you to pretend as if you're being persecuted, and whine about it incessantly, for being a Resmuglican when the articles and links you provide are shot down. Try Reuters or WaPo for a change.

[SuzeQuze]

There are many biased sources, however, some are closer to the truth than others.

Al Franken is playing "Finding or Looting" right now. :laugh:

[amber]

Like there are never biased links posted here... :rolleyes:
I'd just also like to point out that your signature quote by Man Coulter is totally inane, and commits at least two logical fallacies - and is therefore a terrible, moronic argument. For your education: (honestly, it's sad you can't see this, because it was published in Der magazine about 10 years ago.)


1. Fallacy: Ad Hominem

Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).



2. Fallacy: Appeal to Ridicule

Also Known as: Appeal to Mockery, The Horse Laugh.

Description of Appeal to Ridicule
The Appeal to Ridicule is a fallacy in which ridicule or mockery is substituted for evidence in an "argument." This line of "reasoning" has the following form:

X, which is some form of ridicule is presented (typically directed at the claim).
Therefore claim C is false.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because mocking a claim does not show that it is false. This is especially clear in the following example: "1+1=2! That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!"

[strandinthewind]

I'd just also like to point out that your signature quote by Man Coulter is totally inane, and commits at least two logical fallacies - and is therefore a terrible, moronic argument. For your education: (honestly, it's sad you can't see this, because it was published in Der magazine about 10 years ago.)


1. Fallacy: Ad Hominem

Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).



2. Fallacy: Appeal to Ridicule

Also Known as: Appeal to Mockery, The Horse Laugh.

Description of Appeal to Ridicule
The Appeal to Ridicule is a fallacy in which ridicule or mockery is substituted for evidence in an "argument." This line of "reasoning" has the following form:

X, which is some form of ridicule is presented (typically directed at the claim).
Therefore claim C is false.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because mocking a claim does not show that it is false. This is especially clear in the following example: "1+1=2! That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!"

I was soooooo going to point this out. So, I'll just add one more - the logic is false because if you remove Ted Kennedy from the equation, the conclusion that Iraq is a mess remains true as verified by every other credible source in the world.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

I'd just also like to point out that your signature quote by Man Coulter is totally inane, and commits at least two logical fallacies - and is therefore a terrible, moronic argument. For your education: (honestly, it's sad you can't see this, because it was published in Der magazine about 10 years ago.)


1. Fallacy: Ad Hominem

Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).



2. Fallacy: Appeal to Ridicule

Also Known as: Appeal to Mockery, The Horse Laugh.

Description of Appeal to Ridicule
The Appeal to Ridicule is a fallacy in which ridicule or mockery is substituted for evidence in an "argument." This line of "reasoning" has the following form:

X, which is some form of ridicule is presented (typically directed at the claim).
Therefore claim C is false.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because mocking a claim does not show that it is false. This is especially clear in the following example: "1+1=2! That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!"

Actually I thought the quote was quite funny...

I just think she had fun with the actual "mocking" part. You know, it's always fun to "mock" Teddy whenever possible.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

I was soooooo going to point this out. So, I'll just add one more - the logic is false because if you remove Ted Kennedy from the equation, the conclusion that Iraq is a mess remains true as verified by every other credible source in the world.

Again with the whole...humor thing.

[dissention]

You know, it's always fun to "mock" Teddy whenever possible.

In the same way it's always fun to mock Ann The Man and her monstrous Adam's apple?

[amber]

Actually I thought the quote was quite funny...

I just think she had fun with the actual "mocking" part. You know, it's always fun to "mock" Teddy whenever possible.
Yes, she definitely did that. But as far as trying to make a point, or sway anyone to her opinion, or have any validity to her claim about Iraq, that sentence is a huge embarrassment.

[SuzeQuze]

In the same way it's always fun to mock Ann The Man and her monstrous Adam's apple?

^ Knew I could count on you. :lol: Man Coulter.

[strandinthewind]

Again with the whole...humor thing.


She is not expressing humor. She is concluding that Iraq is going well because Ted kennedy killed some girl 40 or so years ago. She is using peoples hatred of Ted Kennedy to obscure the travesty in Iraq which she cannot admit. Finally, people will read this and think what she is saying is 100 true, which it is not. So, this is not just innocent humor. It is a clever political ploy to push up W and his failed policies.

[dissention]

^ Knew I could count on you. :lol: Man Coulter.

Oh, no doubt. She's a monstrosity.

[amber]

She is not expressing humor. She is concluding that Iraq is going well because Ted kennedy killed some girl 40 or so years ago. She is using peoples hatred of Ted Kennedy to obscure the travesty in Iraq which she cannot admit. Finally, people will read this and think what she is saying is 100 true, which it is not. So, this is not just innocent humor. It is a clever political ploy to push up W and his failed policies.

Well, I wouldn't call it clever, as I pointed out earlier, but sadly in this country it may be "clever" enough to fool many people. :rolleyes:
And I agree.

[dissention]

Well, I wouldn't call it clever, as I pointed out earlier, but sadly in this country it may be "clever" enough to fool many people. :rolleyes:
And I agree.

Amber, this is the United States. Pulling a quarter from behind someone's ear is considered clever. :laugh:

[strandinthewind]

Well, I wouldn't call it clever, as I pointed out earlier, but sadly in this country it may be "clever" enough to fool many people. :rolleyes:
And I agree.

I used clever because she is clever enough to know this kind of cr*p works and not just in this country and now. It has worked all over the world and for centuries. Hate is a powerful motivator.

[SuzeQuze]

Amber, this is the United States. Pulling a quarter from behind someone's ear is considered clever. :laugh:

:laugh: I love your banner, did you make it?

[macfanken]

It is a clever political ploy to push up W and his failed policies.


Obscure, lie, smear (think Swift Boat Liars)... it's a tactic the Bushies use when things aren't going well for them... and if all of that fails, bring up Bill Clinton (... or Ted Kennedy). :lol:

[dissention]

:laugh: I love your banner, did you make it?

Yes, as crude as it is. Thanks. :xoxo: Wonkette inspired me when she said she was nominating him for Secretary of Take No ****.

[amber]

Amber, this is the United States. Pulling a quarter from behind someone's ear is considered clever. :laugh:

:lol:
Mwah!!!!! Yep, now that I think back, I was one of the few people who found my logic class easy. :rolleyes: Good god.

I used clever because she is clever enough to know this kind of cr*p works and not just in this country and now. It has worked all over the world and for centuries. Hate is a powerful motivator.

true, true - :distress:

[amber]

Secretary of Take No ****.
:lol::lol::lol:
best phrase ever.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Yes, she definitely did that. But as far as trying to make a point, or sway anyone to her opinion, or have any validity to her claim about Iraq, that sentence is a huge embarrassment.

It's a quote...not an article or book. Now those are supposed to "sway", quotes are just funny! ;)

[Brwn_eyes0511]

She is not expressing humor. She is concluding that Iraq is going well because Ted kennedy killed some girl 40 or so years ago. She is using peoples hatred of Ted Kennedy to obscure the travesty in Iraq which she cannot admit. Finally, people will read this and think what she is saying is 100 true, which it is not. So, this is not just innocent humor. It is a clever political ploy to push up W and his failed policies.

Perhaps you are right, maybe I should change the quote in MY signature...maybe a quote for a liberal.

There...that's better!

[SuzeQuze]

Howard Dean's on Ed Shultz now.

[strandinthewind]

Perhaps you are right, maybe I should change the quote in MY signature...maybe a quote for a liberal.

There...that's better!

Bill Maher is hardly a liberal :shrug:

And - in case you did not realize it, his quote that you posted is insulting to Ann Coulter not flattering :laugh: In other words, he is saying she is wrong and too stupid and/or stubborn to admit it :laugh:

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Bill Maher is hardly a liberal :shrug:

And - in case you did not realize it, his quote that you posted is insulting to Ann Coulter not flattering :laugh: In other words, he is saying she is wrong and too stupid and/or stubborn to admit it :laugh:

No actually they are really good friends and he admires her for sticking to her guns. What part of "love" and "refreshing" do you find insulting.

[strandinthewind]

No actually they are really good friends and he admires her for sticking to her guns.

No, he is saying that when she is wrong, she refuses to admit. I mean please explain to me how it is a good thing to be factually incorrect and then sit there and insist you are not. Maybe she should do White House briefings becuase SM could have used some help yesterday and that was exactly what he was doing a la Bagdad Bob "we are not under attack and we are winning against the infidels" :laugh:

also, he is using "love" and "refreshing" in a sarcastic way. he is not being serious. He is using self-deprecating humor to insult her.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

No, he is saying that when she is wrong, she refuses to admit. I mean please explain to me how it is a good thing to be factually incorrect and then sit there and insist you are not. Maybe she should do White House briefings becuase SM could have used some help yesterday and that was exactly what he was doing a la Bagdad Bob "we are not under attack and we are winning against the infidels" :laugh:

also, he is using "love" and "refreshing" in a sarcastic way. he is not being serious. He is using self-deprecating humor to insult her.

No, he is saying that although he find most of what she says "outrageous" (which I'm thinkful for...because most of his views are the extreme opposite) he admires her for sticking to her guns...as he does.

And actually the quote is from a PRO-Ann documentary, in which he is interviewed...and he sticks up for Ann in the entire docu. He also told Jay Leno that she was one of the best dates he has ever had...as long as they don't talk about religion or politics.

[strandinthewind]

Landrieu: Federal Government Failed To Protect American Lives

POSTED: 1:41 pm CDT September 8, 2005
UPDATED: 1:55 pm CDT September 8, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mary Landrieu took to the Senate floor today to accuse the federal government of failing in its "greatest responsibility" -- protecting the lives of Americans after Hurricane Katrina left New Orleans flooded.

Landrieu, who lost her family home in the storm, was surrounded by Senate Democrats as she spoke for 30 minutes in the hushed chamber about her experiences over the past two week. Only one Republican, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, was on the floor.

Landrieu joined her Republican colleague, Sen. David Vitter, in calling for a bipartisan response to the disaster.

But she led Senate Democrats today in proposing a broader aid package than the one Bush proposed.

It would largely bypass the Federal Emergency Management Agency and provide relief funds directly to disaster victims.

Vitter is in Louisiana today.

http://www.wdsu.com/news/4949614/detail.html

[SuzeQuze]

"You ain't gonna bust into heaven with no thousand dollar shoes on." this is a quote from a black woman about Condi's behavior while LA was in crisis. She said God looks at our actions, to help the least of us. But the quote above was the best part.

[strandinthewind]

No, he is saying that although he find most of what she says "outrageous" (which I'm thinkful for...because most of his views are the extreme opposite) he admires her for sticking to her guns...as he does.

And actually the quote is from a PRO-Ann documentary, in which he is interviewed...and he sticks up for Ann in the entire docu. He also told Jay Leno that she was one of the best dates he has ever had...as long as they don't talk about religion or politics.

No spin allowed.

Again, please explain to me how it is a good thing to be factually incorrect and then sit there and insist you are not.

BTW - a pro Ann doc. is a farce. The woman would not know the truth if it bit her, as untasty as that sounds.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

No spin allowed.

Again, please explain to me how it is a good thing to be factually incorrect and then sit there and insist you are not.

BTW - a pro Ann doc. is a farce. The woman would not know the truth if it bit her, as untasty as that sounds.

He is saying nothing about her statements being "untrue" or not researching her "facts" (which say all you want about her...even NYT has commented about how well researched her writings are)...obviously he finds most of them to be outrageous (being Bill Maher and everything), the point that he was making is that she sticks to her guns, no matter what others may think, and he admires her for that and finds it very refreshing.

And if he is insulting her by saying this...then he is also insulting himself in the process. He said she was a version of his self, saying what she means, voicing her opinion...and then not taking any of it back.

[strandinthewind]

He is saying nothing about her statements being "untrue" or not researching her "facts" (which say all you want about her...even NYT has commented about how well researched her writings are)...obviously he finds most of them to be outrageous (being Bill Maher and everything), the point that he was making is that she sticks to her guns, no matter what others may think, and he admires her for that and finds it very refreshing.

What do you think he means by outrageous :laugh: You think he means she is outrageously truthful :laugh: :rolleyes:

For your edification:

outrageous.

1 a : exceeding the limits of what is usual b : not conventional or matter-of-fact : FANTASTIC
2 : VIOLENT, UNRESTRAINED
3 a : going beyond all standards of what is right or decent <an outrageous disregard of human rights> b : deficient in propriety or good taste <outrageous language> <outrageous manners>

then - fanstastic

3 entries found for fantastic.
To select an entry, click on it.
fantastic[1,adjective]fantastic[2,noun]trip[1,verb]

Etymology: Middle English fantastic, fantastical, from Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French fantastique, from Late Latin phantasticus, from Greek phantastikos producing mental images, from phantazein to present to the mind

1 a : based on fantasy : not real b : conceived or seemingly conceived by unrestrained fancy c : so extreme as to challenge belief : UNBELIEVABLE; broadly : exceedingly large or great

2 : marked by extravagant fantasy or extreme individuality : ECCENTRIC

3 fantastic : EXCELLENT, SUPERLATIVE <a fantastic dinner>
- fan·tas·ti·cal·i·ty /(")fan-"tas-t&-'ka-l&-tE, f&n-/ noun

www.merriamwebster.com

And if he is insulting her by saying this...then he is also insulting himself in the process. He said she was a version of his self, saying what she means, voicing her opinion...and then not taking any of it back.

That is why it is called sefl-deprecating humor :shrug:

[Brwn_eyes0511]

What do you think he means by outrageous :laugh: You think he means she is outrageously truthful :laugh: :rolleyes:

For your edification:

outrageous.

1 a : exceeding the limits of what is usual b : not conventional or matter-of-fact : FANTASTIC
2 : VIOLENT, UNRESTRAINED
3 a : going beyond all standards of what is right or decent <an outrageous disregard of human rights> b : deficient in propriety or good taste <outrageous language> <outrageous manners>

then - fanstastic

3 entries found for fantastic.
To select an entry, click on it.
fantastic[1,adjective]fantastic[2,noun]trip[1,verb]

Etymology: Middle English fantastic, fantastical, from Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French fantastique, from Late Latin phantasticus, from Greek phantastikos producing mental images, from phantazein to present to the mind

1 a : based on fantasy : not real b : conceived or seemingly conceived by unrestrained fancy c : so extreme as to challenge belief : UNBELIEVABLE; broadly : exceedingly large or great

2 : marked by extravagant fantasy or extreme individuality : ECCENTRIC

3 fantastic : EXCELLENT, SUPERLATIVE <a fantastic dinner>
- fan·tas·ti·cal·i·ty /(")fan-"tas-t&-'ka-l&-tE, f&n-/ noun

www.merriamwebster.com

You have trouble understanding simple things...I take it.

I already said OF COURSE HE THINKS WHAT SHE SAYS IS OUTRAGEOUS! He is Bill Maher! But the POINT of what he was saying was that he admires her for not backing down...even though HE finds most of what she says outrageous. Again, if his point was to insult then he would not have called her the right-wing version of himself, because then he would be calling most of what he says unfactual and lies.

I mean Jesus Christ, I watched the man say these words in an interview...I think I would know what his tone was...he was ADMIRING ANN and saying what he liked about her...he was very serious.

[SuzeQuze]

Someone told Cheney "go f*ck yourself" today. :laugh: He said it twice.

[dissention]

(which say all you want about her...even NYT has commented about how well researched her writings are)

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Quote, please.

[strandinthewind]

You have trouble understanding simple things...I take it.

I already said OF COURSE HE THINKS WHAT SHE SAYS IS OUTRAGEOUS! He is Bill Maher! But the POINT of what he was saying was that he admires her for not backing down...even though HE finds most of what she says outrageous. Again, if his point was to insult then he would not have called her the right-wing version of himself, because then he would be calling most of what he says unfactual and lies.

If it is outreageous then it cannot be true. Thus and again, how can it be a good thing to keep repeating non-factual things over and over again when you are wrong. just admit you are wrong and move on. How you find the former "quality" in any way admirable I will never know.

Again, he used himself in the statement as self-deprecating humor, which means to simultaneously demean yourself to make the joke funnier.

[dissention]

Someone told Cheney "go f*ck yourself" today. :laugh: He said it twice.

I saw that around noontime on CNN! You could also hear a woman saying "Bastard."

[strandinthewind]

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Quote, please.

I know :rolleyes:

But, here are some of her lies :wavey:

Ann Coulter's lies about Cleland torn to bits

Ann "Nutcase" Coulter wrote a scathing editorial in which she made up a bunch of unforgivable lies about Max Cleland, a US senator who lost three limbs in Vietnam, by way of rebuttal to his criticism of the Bush administration. The Center for American Progress tears apart her editorial, identifying, lie-by-lie, just how full of **** she is.
SAYING CLELAND WAS "LUCKY" TO HAVE LIMBS BLOWN OFF: Coulter said, "Luckily for Cleland? he happened to [lose his limbs] while in Vietnam" and said that had he been injured "at Fort Dix rather than in Vietnam, he would never have been a U.S. Senator." Of course, Cleland probably would not have been dealing with live grenades and enemy fire in the save haven of Ft. Dix. But, then, many top conservatives might not know this because they do not have firsthand knowledge of a combat zone. President Bush did not go to Vietnam because he was in the Texas National Guard. Vice President Dick Cheney did not serve in the military, saying, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." According to the Houston Press in 1999, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) "tried to blame minorities for his lack of military experience" saying, "so many minority youths had volunteered for the well-paying military positions to escape poverty and the ghetto that there was literally no room for patriotic folks" like him. And Rush Limbaugh avoided service by apparently claiming his "anal cysts" prevented him from defending the nation.

and another

Vile Ann Coulter smears a war hero
Joe Conason - The New York Observer

02.18.04 - Finding the bottom of American politics these days is as easy as looking up the latest column by Ann Coulter. In fact, it’s the same thing. Her act may be wearing thin now that she has accused half of the population of treason, but don’t underestimate the kooky commentator. Just the other day, she again managed to shock the conscience of any decent citizen who happened to read her latest screed.

Her current target is Max Cleland, the former United States Senator who left three limbs in Vietnam. The courageous Mr. Cleland prevailed over his terrible injury, and the depression that followed; he was appointed Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Clinton administration and then elected to the Senate from his home state of Georgia.

But Ms. Coulter considers him deserving of scorn and denigration -- and lies about his service, despite his sacrifice -- for one reason alone: Mr. Cleland is a Democrat who dares to speak out against the President.

There was a time when Republicans were the first to defend veterans and the last to attack anyone who had served, regardless of partisan affiliation. That tradition is dead, however, in part because so many of the party’s extremist leaders, who talk loudly about war, managed to avoid military service when their time came. George W. Bush, of course, served far from Vietnam in the Texas Air National Guard’s "champagne unit" at Ellington Air Force Base, apparently thanks to the intervention of his father’s powerful friends.

Now the Democrats seem likely to nominate John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Senator who fought in Vietnam and came home bearing wounds and decorations. Conservatives already have begun to denigrate Mr. Kerry because he joined the antiwar movement when he returned. (The current Republican leadership had their own quiet little antiwar movement: They simply declined to fight, although they thought the war was being fought to save us from godless Chinese communism.)

Inevitably, Mr. Kerry’s war record will be compared with that of the man who calls himself the "war President." By publicly demanding answers about Mr. Bush’s spotty Guard record, Mr. Cleland attracted the malignant attention of Ms. Coulter.

"Max Cleland should stop allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero who lost his limbs taking enemy fire on the battlefields of Vietnam," she writes, claiming that he "lost three limbs in an accident during a routine non-combat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends. He saw a grenade on the ground and picked it up. He could have done that at Fort Dix. In fact, Cleland could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman. ... Luckily for Cleland’s political career and current pomposity about Bush, he happened to do it while in Vietnam."

Denigrating Mr. Cleland became fashionable in Republican circles in the fall of 2002, when his opponents ran television commercials that flashed his face on the screen with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. That ad offended The Gainesville Times, a daily newspaper in northeast Georgia, which called it misleading, offensive and "an irresponsible and repugnant attack on Cleland’s character and sense of patriotism."

But that repugnant ad helped Saxby Chambliss -- a pompous hack who had obtained several draft deferments -- win the Senate race against Mr. Cleland. According to the Coulter definition, that made the ad "patriotic."

What, then, is the truth about Mr. Cleland? On June 9, 1968, the U.S. Army awarded Capt. Max Cleland a Silver Star "for gallantry in action" at the battle of Khe Sanh, one of the war’s fiercest firefights.

According to the citation, he "distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous action. ... When the battalion command post came under a heavy enemy rocket and mortar attack, Capt. Cleland, disregarding his own safety, exposed himself to the rocket barrage as he left his covered position to administer first aid to his wounded comrades. He then assisted in moving the injured personnel to covered positions. Continuing to expose himself, Capt. Cleland organized his men into a work party to repair the battalion communications equipment which had been damaged by enemy fire. His gallant action is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflects great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army."

The 25-year-old captain had volunteered to help relieve the Marines and the Army’s First Cavalry Division trapped at Khe Sanh. The cited action took place four days before the explosion that ripped off both his legs and an arm. The accident occurred while he was disembarking from a transport helicopter, when he reached for a grenade that he thought had dropped from his gear. It had actually been dropped by a new infantryman who had "improperly prepared the grenade pin for easy detonation."

Yes, Mr. Cleland is a true hero. And those who would mock him don’t know what patriotism means.

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16458

______________________________________________________________

BTW - did you know that Canada did not send troops to Nam :wavey:

[strandinthewind]

Oh what the hay - here are many more - poor Ann - liar liar pants on fire.

Appendix 1. Fact-checking Ann Coulter.

(Note: This appendix was produced by the team at Tapped, the daily web log of The American Prospect magazine, who generously granted me permission to reprint for the purposes of this book.)

Chapter 1
ANN COULTER READER CONTEST! We'd almost run out of things to say about that nutty gal, Ann Coulter. But then she went and wrote another book. But it may not be much of a book. Tapped reader U.R. reports that one chapter into Coulter's book -- "I only managed to get through the first chapter," he writes, because "I can't read the book more than a few minutes at a time" -- he's already found two obvious factual errors. On page 7, Coulter writes that Jim Jeffords "opposed Reagan's tax cut, supported the elder Bush's tax hike, supported Clinton's tax hike, and opposed the younger Bush's tax cut." She's right about the first two. But we checked, and Jeffords -- like all Republicans at the time -- voted against Clinton's 1993 budget (which included the tax hike) and for George W. Bush's recent tax cut. The latter is a pretty glaring error, both because it was so recent and because Jeffords' refusal to oppose the cut was a major blow to liberals who thought his party switch would help them defeat it.

(On the same page, Coulter also writes that Jeffords "voted against Clinton's impeachment" -- which is impossible, as the Senate never voted on impeachment. The House has the power to impeach; the Senate only votes on whether or not to convict. Jeffords did, however, vote against conviction. So maybe we're quibbling.)

If Coulter is going to title her book Slander, it would be nice if she would also go to the trouble of proofreading it. But maybe she didn't have time. (She is, after all, a busy girl.) So we've decided to help Coulter out. Starting today, Tapped will hold a reader contest: Fact Check Ann Coulter. We invite our readers to slog their way through Slander and email Tapped with examples of factual errors. Include the page number; we'll take a look in our own copy and post the ones we can verify. As a reward for this difficult, dirty task, the Tapped reader who emails in the most examples will get a free year's subscription to The American Prospect. Let the fact-checking begin!


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Chapter 2
TIME STANDS STILL FOR ANN COULTER. Okay, this isn't exactly a "fact check" of Coulter's new book. It's almost too obvious for that. Nevertheless, we couldn't resist pointing out something this glaring. On page four of her book Slander, Coulter writes that "after the September 11 attack on America, all partisan wrangling stopped dead," and soon continues:


The bipartisan lovefest lasted precisely three weeks. That was all the New York Times could endure. Impatient with the national mood of patriotism, liberals returned to their infernal griping about George W. Bush -- or "Half a Commander in Chief," as he was called in the headline of a lead New York Times editorial on November 5, 2001. From that moment on, the left's primary contribution to the war effort was to complain.
Sorry, Ann, but last we checked, November 5 was just under two months after September 11.



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Chapter 3
FACT CHECK ANN COULTER!: SHOOTING BLANKS ON CROSSFIRE. Okay, this isn't from Slander. It's from Coulter's appearance on Hardball, guest-hosted by Mike Barnicle. We missed this gem, but reader R.L. passed it along:

I will guess that the judges who said the Pledge of Allegiance violates the constitution were appointed by Democrats and not Republicans. I haven't looked at the decision. I haven't even heard about the decision because I've been busy today, but that's a wild guess I'm going to make....Oh, I'm just waiting to see if anyone will take any bets on me on whether the judges who wrote the decision were appointed by a Democrat or Republican.
We think we can safely assume the implication here. In actuality, of course, only one of the two judges was appointed by a Democrat -- Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee. The other was Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, who was appointed by that great liberal, Richard Nixon. This really speaks volumes about just what a hack Coulter is; it requires no elaboration on our part. But perhaps now the chat shows will stop billing Coulter as a "constitutional lawyer." No wonder the profession is held in such low regard.


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Chapter 4

FACT CHECK ANN COULTER!: LEXIS-NEXIS ABUSE. On page 15 of Slander, she writes: "In the New York Times archives, 'moderate Republican' has been used 168 times...There have been only 11 sightings of a 'liberal Republican.'" Coulter does not footnote her methodology in "discovering" this nugget, but we checked using both the Times's own free search page and Lexis-Nexis. Our results? Our Times search reveals twenty-two hits for "liberal Republican" since 1996 -- that is, in just the last seven years. For Lexis, we searched for "liberal Republican" in The New York Times over "all available dates" -- and got 524 documents. Coulter's claim is obviously false. But stay tuned -- Tapped spent all weekend reading Slander and there's lots more to come.

P.S. We also have another non-Slander error, courtesy of reader J.O. In Coulter's latest column on Townhall.com, she writes:

If Arabs were being stopped at airports before Sept. 11 -- and that's a big if -- that was probably wrong. There had been only one terrorist attack here in America by Arabs -- the bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993. (This is excluding Sirhan Sirhan, the first Muslim to bring the classic religion-of-peace protest to American shores, when, in support of the Palestinians, he assassinated Robert Kennedy.)
But Sirhan Sirhan was, in fact, a Christian of Arab descent, not a Muslim. For a relatively recent source on this, you can check out the historian Godfrey Hodgson's 1995 review of Dan Moldea's The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy in The Washington Post. We found it on Lexis, but a quick Google search led us to the citation. Hey, Jonathan, is Coulter phoning it in or what?


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Chapter 5
FACT CHECK ANN COULTER: THE "GORE LIED" LIE. Today's first installment concerns Al Gore's reputation as a lying, exaggerating braggart, gleefully perpetuated by Ann Coulter in her new book, Slander. Coulter eeks out impressive mileage from Gore's supposed lie about having been "the inspiration" for Love Story, Erich Segal's 1970 bestselling-romance-novel-turned-Oscar-nominated-film. She refers to the alleged Love Story lie a whopping four times in Slander -- on pages 145, 154, 159, and 160. But this one has been debunked by Eric Boehlert in Salon, Bob Somersby in the Daily Howler, Robert Parry in The Washington Monthly, and Sean Wilentz in TAP.

The truth is that Gore was the inspiration for the book's hero, Oliver Barrett IV, according to Segal. Segal's reported "denial" of Gore's claim was no denial at all. Speaking to the New York Times's Melinda Henneberger for a follow-up story, Segal said that Oliver Barrett was based on Gore and his Harvard roommate, actor Tommy Lee Jones. He only denied that the female lead, the fiery musician Jenny Cavilleri, was based on Tipper Gore. And even that wrong detail was not Gore's mistake.

What actually happened? On a late-night plane ride in late 1997, shooting the breeze with Time's Karen Tumulty and the Times's Rick Berke, Gore mentioned that the main characters in Love Story were based on him and Tipper. At any rate, Gore said, that's what Segal had told the Nashville Tennessean years ago on his book tour. Segal met Gore and Jones when they were students at Harvard together and Gore was dating Tipper, then a student at Boston University. Tumulty reported this comment in Time but neglected to include in her story the fact that Gore had said explicitly that his only source on Love Story was what the Tennessean had reported some seventeen years prior. But the Tennessean, it turned out, has misquoted Segal, who had said nothing about Tipper.

In Henneberger's follow-up, Segal himself defended Gore: "Al attributed it to the newspaper...They conveniently omitted that part. Time thought it was more piquant to leave that out."

So did Coulter.

DEGREE OF DISHONESTY: 6 ANALYSIS: It's a small detail, but Coulter uses it so often -- and so flagrantly disregards the truth -- that we're giving this one an above-average score.


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Chapter 6

FACT CHECK ANN COULTER: THE SELMA LIE. Live by LexisNexis, die by LexisNexis. That certainly seems to be the case with Ann Coulter's latest book, Slander. Yesterday we exposed a blatantly false statement in her book about the use of the phrase "liberal Republican" in the New York Times, and today we expose another. Here is the relevant passage, from p. 199 of Slander:

Since abortion is not the left's proudest moment, liberals prefer to keep reminiscing about the last time they were giddily self-righteous. Like a senile old man who keeps telling you the same story over and over again, liberals babble on and on about the "heady" days of civil rights marches. Between 1995 and 2001, the New York Times alone ran more than one hundred articles on "Selma" alone. I believe we may have revisited this triumph of theirs sufficiently by now. For anyone under fifty, the "heady" days of civil rights marches are something out of a history book. The march on Selma was thirty-five years ago.
Tapped smelled a rat here. Maybe it was Coulter's repetition of the word "alone"; or maybe it was the fact that the famous 1965 "Bloody Sunday" march was from Selma to Montgomery, not a march "on" Selma. So we searched the New York Times archives on LexisNexis for the word "Selma" for the years 1995-2001. This produced 776 total hits. Of these, 424 were death notices, 18 were wedding announcements, 25 were other sorts of paid notices, 5 were in photo captions, and 234 were either: a) contents listings; b) people with the name Selma; c) references to Selma, California; or d) references to Selma, Alabama that had nothing to do with civil rights (b, c, and d includes letters and op-eds as well as regular articles). Of the remaining 70 items, in our judgment only 16 were centrally concerned with historic happenings at Selma from the civil rights era. The other 54 contained brief mentions of Selma and civil rights but appeared in articles on different topics. Once again, Coulter's dubious claim -- that "between 1995 and 2001, the New York Times alone ran more than one hundred articles on 'Selma'" -- is false.

DEGREE OF DISHONESTY: 5 ANALYSIS: Another misdemeanor for Coulter. It's hard to tell whether this one resulted from deliberate deceit or incorrigible stupidity.


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Chapter 7

FACT CHECK ANN COULTER: LIBERAL CHEAP SHOTS. As Tapped readers know, we've been fact checking Ann Coulter's new book with some regularity lately. And we've got some more on this today, but first, a couple of asides. Lest we be accused of bias against Coulter -- as opposed to mere animus -- let us note that she actually isn't wrong about everything. Yes, we know it's a shock. But Mickey Kaus has the goods.

Now that that's said, though, we'd like to get on to the various problems with Coulter's book. Coulter, herself a paragon of high-minded political dialogue, charges that the left resorts to ad hominem low blows and cheap shots on conservatives, especially women. On p. 17 of Slander, she asks rhetorically: "[W]hich women are constantly being called ugly? Is it Maxine Waters, Chelsea Clinton, Janet Reno, or Madeline Albright? No, none of these. Only conservative women have their looks held up to ridicule because only liberals would be so malevolent."

Coulter apparently forgot John McCain's notorious joke about Chelsea Clinton: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father." And let's not forget Jay Leno calling a man dressed as Reno an "ugly bitch."

Now, is this a "fact check"? Well, note that Coulter says categorically, "No, none of these" -- i.e., none of these women are frequently being called ugly. Coulter's point about low blow attacks is well taken, but her comment plainly isn't true.

DEGREE OF DISHONESTY: 6
ANALYSIS: How could anyone honestly claim that Chelsea Clinton hasn't suffered slights based on her appearance? If Ann Coulter had a movie made about her, it would have to be titled "Say Anything."


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Chapter 8

FACT CHECK ANN COULTER: RONALD REAGAN, COLD WAR HERO. In her new book, Slander, Ann Coulter repeats herself a number of times on a number of points (and we use the term "points" here loosely). Her most beloved mantra, however, is Ronald Reagan's heroic Cold War victory. Coulter returns to Reagan as a sacred mantra, reiterating at least ten times her assertion that Reagan "won the Cold war" (see pp. 16, 33, 34, 125, 130, 132-33, 134, 145, and 197).

Now, mind you, Coulter's book isn't about Reagan. She simply uses Reagan's Cold War victory as the ultimate trump card against liberals who criticized Reagan, then and now. How can they call him stupid, she asks -- and fiscally irresponsible, and a supporter of brutal third-world regimes -- when "the ripe old fellow single-handedly won the Cold War, ending the forty-year threat of nuclear annihilation"? (Aside: Will someone please tell India and Pakistan to get with the program? Nuclear brinksmanship is so fifteen years ago -- it went out with shoulder pads and good punk rock.)

The obvious objection to Coulter is that both the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union took place while Bush Sr. was president. So at the very least, she ought to explain how they're Reagan's doing (she doesn't). More importantly, though, the frequently-touted argument that Reagan deserves credit for exhausting the Evil Empire through huge increases in military spending (with which the Soviets were forced to keep pace) is flawed. Soviet documents released in the 1990s reveal that Reagan's defense policies had little effect on Soviet spending (see, for example, Jonathan Kwitny's Man of the Century). The Soviet Union was going to collapse under its own weight no matter how many peasants U.S.-trained death squads murdered in El Salvador. Reagan deserves credit for disarmament efforts, but those certainly had support from Democrats -- as, to be fair, did huge budget deficits. (For a good summary of how the Cold War ended, see here.)

DEGREE OF DISHONESTY: 5
ANALYSIS: Cold War debates are always murky, and Coulter isn't the first to lionize Reagan, so she isn't lying. Still, Coulter never bothers to back-up her claim with any historical argument, even a flawed one. She glibly refers to Reagan's "winning" as though it were common knowledge, substituting soggy repetition for evidence.


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Chapter 9

FACT CHECK ANN COULTER: MEDIA DARLING AL GORE. This, gentle reader, is the mother of them all. Make sure you're sitting down. Thanks to Coulter whistle-blower K.M.

On page 139 of her new book, Slander -- now a bestseller -- Ann Coulter describes how cruelly the media treated George W. Bush during the election. By contrast, she reports:

[T]he press maintained radio silence on stories embarrassing to Gore. For example, … Al Gore couldn't pick George Washington out of a lineup. In a highly publicized stop at Monticello during Clinton's 1993 inaugural festivities, Gore pointed to carvings of Washington and Benjamin Franklin and asked the curator: 'Who are these guys?' He was surrounded by reporters and TV cameras when he said it. Only one newspaper, USA Today, reported the incident.


Coulter isn't wrong if, by "only one newspaper," she actually means "dozens of newspapers." In the immediate aftermath of the incident, references to Gore's gaffe appeared in USA Today, Newsday, The Washington Times, London's Evening Standard, and, the coup de grace, two articles in Coulter's favorite bulwark of liberal bias, The New York Times. The Associated Press also ran a story with the incident in its headline, so many local papers probably picked it up.

But wait! There's more! The authors of one of the New York Times articles were none other than Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, two of Coulter's most reliable liberal scapegoats, who were both reporters in 1993 when the incident occurred. If these two are co-leaders of the vast, left-wing conspiracy, they sure dropped the ball.

Had enough of the love? We're still not done yet because …Coulter also misquoted Gore! His actual words were "Who are these people?" not "Who are these guys?" It's a small error, but it obviously makes Gore sound more disrespectful of the founding fathers, and even the USA Today article Coulter did find got the quotation right.

DEGREE OF DISHONESTY: 7
ANALYSIS: Either Coulter is purposefully lying, or she is breathtakingly incompetent, even using her favorite research tool, LexisNexis. Have you no sense of decency, madam, at long last?

http://www.whatliberalmedia.com/apndx_1.htm

[DrummerDeanna]

I mean Jesus Christ, I watched the man say these words in an interview...I think I would know what his tone was...he was ADMIRING ANN and saying what he liked about her...he was very serious.


:rolleyes: Once again - we don't have to be so formal around here...you can just call him Jason ;)


:laugh:

[dissention]

:rolleyes: Once again - we don't have to be so formal around here...you can just call him Jason ;)


:laugh:

:lol::lol::lol:

[Brwn_eyes0511]

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Quote, please.

"A great deal of research supports Ms. Coulter's wisecracks." - NEW YORK TIMES

[Brwn_eyes0511]

File under: 'Omission accomplished'
February 19, 2004
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |

Liberals are hopping mad about last week's column. Amid angry insinuations that I "lied" about Sen. Max Cleland, I was attacked on the Senate floor by Sen. Jack Reed, Molly Ivins called my column "error-ridden," and Al Hunt called it a "lie." Joe Klein said I was the reason liberals were being hysterical about George Bush's National Guard service.


I would have left it at one column, but apparently Democrats want to go another round. With their Clintonesque formulations, my detractors make it a little difficult to know what "lie" I'm supposed to be contesting, but they are clearly implying — without stating — that Cleland lost his limbs in combat.


It is simply a fact that Max Cleland was not injured by enemy fire in Vietnam. He was not in combat, he was not — as Al Hunt claimed — on a reconnaissance mission, and he was not in the battle of Khe Sanh, as many others have implied. He picked up an American grenade on a routine noncombat mission and the grenade exploded.


In Cleland's own words: "I didn't see any heroism in all that. It wasn't an act of heroism. I didn't know the grenade was live. It was an act of fate." That is why Cleland didn't win a Purple Heart, which is given to those wounded in combat. Liberals are not angry because I "lied"; they're angry because I told the truth.


I wouldn't press the point except that Democrats have deliberately "sexed up" the circumstances of Cleland's accident in the service of slandering the people of Georgia, the National Guard and George Bush. Cleland has questioned Bush's fitness for office because he served in the National Guard but did not go to Vietnam.


And yet the poignant truth of Cleland's own accident demonstrates the commitment and bravery of all members of the military who come into contact with ordnance. Cleland's injury was of the routine variety that occurs whenever young men and weapons are put in close proximity — including in the National Guard.


But it is a vastly more glorious story to claim that Cleland was injured by enemy fire rather than in a freak accident. So after Saxby Chambliss beat Cleland in the 2002 Georgia Senate race, liberals set to work developing a carefully crafted myth about Cleland's accident. Among many other examples, last November, Eric Boehlert wrote in Salon: "(D)uring the siege of Khe Sanh, Cleland lost both his legs and his right hand to a Viet Cong grenade."

Sadly for them, dozens and dozens of newspapers have already printed the truth. Liberals simply can't grasp the problem Lexis-Nexis poses to their incessant lying. They ought to stick to their specialty — hysterical overreaction. The truth is not their forte.


One of the most detailed accounts of Cleland's life was written by Jill Zuckman in a lengthy piece for The Boston Globe Sunday magazine on Aug. 3, 1997:


"Finally, the battle at Khe Sanh was over. Cleland, 25 years old, and two members of his team were now ordered to set up a radio relay station at the division assembly area, 15 miles away. The three gathered antennas, radios and a generator and made the 15-minute helicopter trip east. After unloading the equipment, Cleland climbed back into the helicopter for the ride back. But at the last minute, he decided to stay and have a beer with some friends. As the helicopter was lifting off, he shouted to the pilot that he was staying behind and jumped several feet to the ground.


"Cleland hunched over to avoid the whirring blades and ran. Turning to face the helicopter, he caught sight of a grenade on the ground where the chopper had perched. It must be mine, he thought, moving toward it. He reached for it with his right arm just as it exploded, slamming him back and irreparably altering his plans for a bright, shining future."


Interestingly, all news accounts told the exact same story for 30 years — including that Cleland had stopped to have beer with friends when the accident occurred (a fact that particularly irked Al Hunt).


"He told the pilot he was going to stay awhile. Maybe have a few beers with friends. ... Then Cleland looked down and saw a grenade. Where'd that come from? He walked toward it, bent down, and crossed the line between before and after." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 5, 1999)


"(Cleland) didn't step on a land mine. He wasn't wounded in a firefight. He couldn't blame the Viet Cong or friendly fire. The Silver Star and Bronze Star medals he received only embarrassed him. He was no hero. He blew himself up." (The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 24, 1999)


"Cleland was no war hero, but his sacrifice was great. ... Democratic Senate candidate Max Cleland is a victim of war, not a casualty of combat. He lost three limbs on a long-forgotten hill near Khe Sanh because of some American's mistake ..." (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sept. 29, 1996)


The story started to change only last year when the Democrats began citing Cleland's lost Senate seat as proof that Republicans hate war heroes. Indeed, until the myth of Republicans attacking Cleland for his lack of "patriotism" became central to the Democrats' narrative against George Bush, Cleland spoke only honorably and humbly about his accident. "How did I become a war hero?" he said to The Boston Globe reporter in 1997. "Simple. The grenade went off."


Cleland even admitted that, but for his accident, he would have "probably been some frustrated history teacher, teaching American government at some junior college." (OK, I got that wrong: I said he'd probably be a pharmacist.)


Cleland's true heroism came after the war, when he went on to build a productive life for himself. That is a story of inspiration and courage. He shouldn't let the Democrats tarnish an admirable life by "sexing up" his record in order to better attack George Bush.

[strandinthewind]

"A great deal of research supports Ms. Coulter's wisecracks." - NEW YORK TIMES


Just like she researched the lies above :laugh:

That you even try to defend her use of lies is astonishing and makes your credibility wane :nod:

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Just like she researched the lies above :laugh:

That you even try to defend her use of lies is astonishing and makes your credibility wane :nod:

EVERYTHING she said about Mr. Max Cleland is TRUE.

[strandinthewind]

File under: 'Omission accomplished'
February 19, 2004
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |

Liberals are hopping mad about last week's column. Amid angry insinuations that I "lied" about Sen. Max Cleland, I was attacked on the Senate floor by Sen. Jack Reed, Molly Ivins called my column "error-ridden," and Al Hunt called it a "lie." Joe Klein said I was the reason liberals were being hysterical about George Bush's National Guard service.


I would have left it at one column, but apparently Democrats want to go another round. With their Clintonesque formulations, my detractors make it a little difficult to know what "lie" I'm supposed to be contesting, but they are clearly implying — without stating — that Cleland lost his limbs in combat.


It is simply a fact that Max Cleland was not injured by enemy fire in Vietnam. He was not in combat, he was not — as Al Hunt claimed — on a reconnaissance mission, and he was not in the battle of Khe Sanh, as many others have implied. He picked up an American grenade on a routine noncombat mission and the grenade exploded.


In Cleland's own words: "I didn't see any heroism in all that. It wasn't an act of heroism. I didn't know the grenade was live. It was an act of fate." That is why Cleland didn't win a Purple Heart, which is given to those wounded in combat. Liberals are not angry because I "lied"; they're angry because I told the truth.


I wouldn't press the point except that Democrats have deliberately "sexed up" the circumstances of Cleland's accident in the service of slandering the people of Georgia, the National Guard and George Bush. Cleland has questioned Bush's fitness for office because he served in the National Guard but did not go to Vietnam.


And yet the poignant truth of Cleland's own accident demonstrates the commitment and bravery of all members of the military who come into contact with ordnance. Cleland's injury was of the routine variety that occurs whenever young men and weapons are put in close proximity — including in the National Guard.


But it is a vastly more glorious story to claim that Cleland was injured by enemy fire rather than in a freak accident. So after Saxby Chambliss beat Cleland in the 2002 Georgia Senate race, liberals set to work developing a carefully crafted myth about Cleland's accident. Among many other examples, last November, Eric Boehlert wrote in Salon: "(D)uring the siege of Khe Sanh, Cleland lost both his legs and his right hand to a Viet Cong grenade."

Sadly for them, dozens and dozens of newspapers have already printed the truth. Liberals simply can't grasp the problem Lexis-Nexis poses to their incessant lying. They ought to stick to their specialty — hysterical overreaction. The truth is not their forte.


One of the most detailed accounts of Cleland's life was written by Jill Zuckman in a lengthy piece for The Boston Globe Sunday magazine on Aug. 3, 1997:


"Finally, the battle at Khe Sanh was over. Cleland, 25 years old, and two members of his team were now ordered to set up a radio relay station at the division assembly area, 15 miles away. The three gathered antennas, radios and a generator and made the 15-minute helicopter trip east. After unloading the equipment, Cleland climbed back into the helicopter for the ride back. But at the last minute, he decided to stay and have a beer with some friends. As the helicopter was lifting off, he shouted to the pilot that he was staying behind and jumped several feet to the ground.


"Cleland hunched over to avoid the whirring blades and ran. Turning to face the helicopter, he caught sight of a grenade on the ground where the chopper had perched. It must be mine, he thought, moving toward it. He reached for it with his right arm just as it exploded, slamming him back and irreparably altering his plans for a bright, shining future."


Interestingly, all news accounts told the exact same story for 30 years — including that Cleland had stopped to have beer with friends when the accident occurred (a fact that particularly irked Al Hunt).


"He told the pilot he was going to stay awhile. Maybe have a few beers with friends. ... Then Cleland looked down and saw a grenade. Where'd that come from? He walked toward it, bent down, and crossed the line between before and after." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 5, 1999)


"(Cleland) didn't step on a land mine. He wasn't wounded in a firefight. He couldn't blame the Viet Cong or friendly fire. The Silver Star and Bronze Star medals he received only embarrassed him. He was no hero. He blew himself up." (The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 24, 1999)


"Cleland was no war hero, but his sacrifice was great. ... Democratic Senate candidate Max Cleland is a victim of war, not a casualty of combat. He lost three limbs on a long-forgotten hill near Khe Sanh because of some American's mistake ..." (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sept. 29, 1996)


The story started to change only last year when the Democrats began citing Cleland's lost Senate seat as proof that Republicans hate war heroes. Indeed, until the myth of Republicans attacking Cleland for his lack of "patriotism" became central to the Democrats' narrative against George Bush, Cleland spoke only honorably and humbly about his accident. "How did I become a war hero?" he said to The Boston Globe reporter in 1997. "Simple. The grenade went off."


Cleland even admitted that, but for his accident, he would have "probably been some frustrated history teacher, teaching American government at some junior college." (OK, I got that wrong: I said he'd probably be a pharmacist.)


Cleland's true heroism came after the war, when he went on to build a productive life for himself. That is a story of inspiration and courage. He shouldn't let the Democrats tarnish an admirable life by "sexing up" his record in order to better attack George Bush.

She is spinning it. He main point was that he was lucky to have three limbs blown off because that is how he got into office. That is just sick no matter how you spin it. Moreover, considering the attack came from the political hit squad of a drugged out AWOL banned pilot lost in Alabama and someone who had better things to do than Nam makes it even sicker. I mean yes Cleland's injuries were the result of an accident, but at least he was there as opposed to these other sub humans who were not willing to risk their lives. Thus, I so call her and you on this utter BULLSHIITTE.

[strandinthewind]

EVERYTHING she said about Mr. Max Cleland is TRUE.

so he was lucky to have lost three limbs? Nice.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

My Readers Respond!:

Dear Ms. Coulter:
I referenced your comment about Max Cleland losing his limbs in a non combat accident to a local talk-show host. He told me I was wrong. I told him he was wrong because you said it in your colomn. He said you distort the truth regularly. Would you please tell me where to find your source for how Max lost his limbs?
Dan, Kansas City

A right-wing hit lady named Ann Coulter charged that Max Cleland, who won a Silver Star in Vietnam and is a prominent Kerry supporter, lost his three limbs while getting ready to drink beer with pals. She said it just as easily could have occurred in the Texas Air National Guard. That's irrelevant, that's vicious, and that's a lie. Captain Cleland lost his legs and an arm on a reconnaissance mission in Vietnam. They don't usually carry lives grenades and M-16s in the Texas Air National Guard. This despicable venom was carried on the Heritage Foundation website.
Al Hunt, CNN's The Capital Gang, February 14, 2004

The reason why Democrats are doing this -- let me give you an example. Today in her column, Ann Coulter attacked Max Cleland, the Vietnam war hero. She said Cleland lost three limbs "in an accident during a routine noncombat mission, where he was about to drink beer with friends. He saw a grenade on the ground and picked it up. He could have done that at Fort Dix as a National Guardsman." Now, that's the sort of thing -- I also have here -- I also have here Cleland's citation for his Silver Star that he received four days before that at Khe Sanh in Vietnam in 1968.
Joe Klein, CNN's Paula Zahn Now, February 12, 2004

It doesn't take much imagination to guess how far into the gutter the presidential race will dip before it's over [such as] the continuing, shameful treatment of former Georgia Senator Max Cleland by the likes of Ann Coulter, who in a recent Townhall.com column derided his loss of three limbs in Vietnam...
Joy-Ann Reid, Miami Herald, February 16, 2004

Friday, it was the Democrats' turn for outrage....The villain in this case is conservative pundit Ann Coulter, whose column on the Heritage Foundation website said that Cleland, who lost three limbs in a grenade accident in Vietnam during the war, "didn't 'give his limbs for his country.'"
Dana Milbank, Washington Post, February 15, 2004

But for sheer, vicious nastiness, no one can compete with Ann Coulter, whose latest error-riddled effusion is an attack on former Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who has been critical of the Bush administration. Apparently in an effort to make George W.'s incomplete in the National Guard look better, Coulter wrote a column distributed by the Heritage Foundation saying Cleland, a triple amputee, had showed "no bravery" in Vietnam, "didn't give his limbs for his country," is not a war hero. My favorite scentence is "Luckily for Cleland...he happened [to lose his limbs] while in Vietnam," her point being that if he had been injured at Fort Dix, he wouldn't be a hero.
Molly Ivins, February 17, 2004.

[B]From "How To Talk To A Liberal If You Must"

ENTER THE COLUMN I JUST POSTED ABOVE...

SECOND "MY READER'S RESPOND" COMING UP...

[wondergirl9847]

Someone told Cheney "go f*ck yourself" today. :laugh: He said it twice.

When I saw him on the news, I went "OMG, he lives!"

One reason why I don't identify with Repubs or Dems (or any political group) is because of the polarization in it. Repubs and Dems (and all other groups) have a set of beliefs and they stick to them, sometimes, NO MATTER WHAT. I have a brain, and would like to use it, thanks. You've got liars everywhere and I don't want to be involved with liars. I know that ya'll will say, "Well, that's all we have, two major groups, you gotta pick one." I really wish the polarized USA would mesh together and in the words of Dr. Phil...(who I don't like, even though I'm quoting him. LOL)...get real.

[SuzeQuze]

A friend on another list believes that lie that the gov never asked for help from the feds. Probably half the people believe it. I hate this administration. They're heartless and possibly souless. And they're probably going to get away with this one too the slimy bastards. Why?

[amber]

A friend on another list believes that lie that the gov never asked for help from the feds. Probably half the people believe it. I hate this administration. They're heartless and possibly souless. And they're probably going to get away with this one too the slimy bastards. Why?
I didn't know some people thought that. Won't Blanco raise holy hell? There's no way that can work, there's been too much publicity.

[wondergirl9847]

Should she have HAD to ask for help? I mean, it was on the news, the weathermen were saying "Oh man, this'll be a doozy. This is serious." They should have been watching and waiting, preparing in advance.

Oh wait, only smart people would have done that. Nevermind.

Perhaps, we all need to email that timeline I posted to all our friends and family. I mean, I get stupid a$$ emails that say "Pass this on and you'll get money.", so why not that list, eh?

[strandinthewind]

Should she have HAD to ask for help? I mean, it was on the news, the weathermen were saying "Oh man, this'll be a doozy. This is serious." They should have been watching and waiting, preparing in advance.

Oh wait, only smart people would have done that. Nevermind.

Perhaps, we all need to email that timeline I posted to all our friends and family. I mean, I get stupid a$$ emails that say "Pass this on and you'll get money.", so why not that list, eh?

She did ask for help - to wit:


August 28, 2005

The President The White House Washington, D. C.

Through: Regional Director FEMA Region VI 800 North Loop 288 Denton, Texas 76209

Dear Mr. President:

Under the provisions of Section 501 (a) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206 (Stafford Act), and implemented by 44 CFR § 206.35, I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting the thousands of citizens evacuating from the areas expecting to be flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

In response to the situation I have taken appropriate action under State law and directed the execution of the State Emergency Plan on August 26, 2005 in accordance with Section 501 (a) of the Stafford Act. A State of Emergency has been issued for the State in order to support the evacuations of the coastal areas in accordance with our State Evacuation Plan and the remainder of the state to support the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan.

Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal.

Preliminary estimates of the types and amount of emergency assistance needed under the Stafford Act, and emergency assistance from certain Federal agencies under other statutory authorities are tabulated in Enclosure A.

The following information is furnished on the nature and amount of State and local resources that have been or will be used to alleviate the conditions of this emergency: • Department of Social Services (DSS): Opening (3) Special Need Shelters (SNS) and establishing (3) on Standby. • Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH): Opening (3) Shelters and establishing (3) on Standby. • Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (OHSEP): Providing generators and support staff for SNS and Public Shelters. • Louisiana State Police (LSP): Providing support for the phased evacuation of the coastal areas. • Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (WLF): Supporting the evacuation of the affected population and preparing for Search and Rescue Missions.

Mr. President Page Two August 28, 2005

• Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD): Coordinating traffic flow and management of the evacuations routes with local officials and the State of Mississippi.

The following information is furnished on efforts and resources of other Federal agencies, which have been or will be used in responding to this incident:

• FEMA ERT-A Team en-route.

I certify that for this emergency, the State and local governments will assume all applicable non-Federal share of costs required by the Stafford Act.

I request Direct Federal assistance for work and services to save lives and protect property.

(a) List any reasons State and local government cannot perform or contract for performance, (if applicable).

(b) Specify the type of assistance requested.

In accordance with 44 CFR § 206.208, the State of Louisiana agrees that it will, with respect to Direct Federal assistance:

Provide without cost to the United States all lands, easement, and rights-of-ways necessary to accomplish the approved work.

Hold and save the United States free from damages due to the requested work, and shall indemnify the Federal Government against any claims arising from such work;

Provide reimbursement to FEMA for the non-Federal share of the cost of such work in accordance with the provisions of the FEMA-State Agreement; and

Assist the performing Federal agency in all support and local jurisdictional matters.

In addition, I anticipate the need for debris removal, which poses an immediate threat to lives, public health, and safety.

Pursuant to Sections 502 and 407 of the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5192 & 5173, the State agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the United States of America for any claims arising from the removal of debris or wreckage for this disaster. The State agrees that debris removal from public and private property will not occur until the landowner signs an unconditional authorization for the removal of debris.

I have designated Mr. Art Jones as the State Coordinating Officer for this request. He will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in damage assessments and may provide further information or justification on my behalf.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Governor Enclosure

ENCLOSURE A TO EMERGENCY REQUEST

Estimated requirements for other Federal agency programs:

• Department of Social Services (DSS): Opening (3) Special Need Shelters (SNS) and establishing (3) on Standby. Costs estimated at $500,000 per week for each in operation.

• Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH): Opening (3) Shelters and establishing (3) on Standby. Costs estimated at $500,000 per week for each in operation.

• Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (OHSEP): Providing generators and support staff for SNS and Public Shelters. Costs estimated to range from $250,000-$500,000 to support (6) Shelter generator operations.

• Louisiana State Police (LSP): Costs to support evacuations - $300,000 for a non-direct landfall.

• Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (WLF): Costs to support evacuations - $200,000 for a non-direct landfall.

• Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD): Costs to support evacuations - $2,000,000 for a non-direct landfall.

Totals: $ 9,000,000

Estimated Requirements for assistance under the Stafford Act:

Coordination: $0

Technical and advisory assistance: $0

Debris removal: $0

Emergency protective measures: $ 9,000,000

Individuals and Households Program (IHP): $0

Distribution of emergency supplies: $0

Other (specify): $0

Totals: $ 9,000,000

Grand Total: $ 9,000,000

__________________________________________________________

Then, FEMA was obviously in charge of NOLA when they, not the state or local govt., were the ones that refused all of the countless aid offers like the truckloads from Walmart, etc.

Moreover, FEMA said it was unaware of the 30,000+ people eight or so blocks form the Superdome, where it was. I mean FEMA people were dropping most of those 30,000 people at the Convention Center and FEMA and W said as of Wed. that it was preparing stuff for all these people. So, yes, the state and local govt. should have done more prior to the storm. But, FEMA apparently took control after that.

[dissention]

"A great deal of research supports Ms. Coulter's wisecracks." - NEW YORK TIMES

Are you quoting from the Maslin review of "Slander"? If so:

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[amber]

I think Christy knows she asked for help, but she wonders, like I do, why that was necessary. Everyone and their mom knew about it, but apparently FEMA and the Fed. Gov't. were out of the loop - is what she's saying.
I wondered that, too, although some of the articles I read here said FEMA did have people ready, but they did not deploy them. I figure that she has to ask for help at least formally, with documents and all that, just because you have to do that sort of thing, but it seems like in this case it should have been just a formality - everyone responsible for bringing help should've already been ready.

[strandinthewind]

I think Christy knows she asked for help, but she wonders, like I do, why that was necessary. Everyone and their mom knew about it, but apparently FEMA and the Fed. Gov't. were out of the loop - is what she's saying.
I wondered that, too, although some of the articles I read here said FEMA did have people ready, but they did not deploy them. I figure that she has to ask for help at least formally, with documents and all that, just because you have to do that sort of thing, but it seems like in this case it should have been just a formality - everyone responsible for bringing help should've already been ready.

I know - I was just showing that she did ask for help because people (not Christy) are saying she did not.

[amber]

I know - I was just showing that she did ask for help because people (not Christy) are saying she did not.
Ah, sorry. The quoting of her, and saying "to wit" confused me.

[gldstwmn]

Someone told Cheney "go f*ck yourself" today. :laugh: He said it twice.

I saw that on the news. Hopefully Crooks And Liars will have the unedited video. :blob1: :blob1: :blob1:

[strandinthewind]

I saw that on the news. Hopefully Crooks And Liars will have the unedited video. :blob1: :blob1: :blob1:

It was all over the news this evening - on more than one channel :eek: Oh well, if it is good enough for the floor of the Senate :shrug:

[dissention]

I saw that on the news. Hopefully Crooks And Liars will have the unedited video. :blob1: :blob1: :blob1:

Did you see Thomas on 360? He was rescued from the water and the doctor and Cooper were talking about the federal government's lack of response and this guy Thomas was protesting "No, no, I don't want to have nothing to do with that" and then proceeded to try and explain that he didn't want his public assistance and food stamps discontinued by saying anything. Once they got off the boat, he whipped out his food stamps and ID. My word.

[gldstwmn]

It was all over the news this evening - on more than one channel :eek: Oh well, if it is good enough for the floor of the Senate :shrug:

I've only caught a few minutes so far. I'm sure I'll see it.

[dissention]

It was all over the news this evening - on more than one channel :eek: Oh well, if it is good enough for the floor of the Senate :shrug:

And Cheney said "That's the first time I've heard anything like that." :laugh:

[gldstwmn]

Did you see Thomas on 360? He was rescued from the water and the doctor and Cooper were talking about the federal government's lack of response and this guy Thomas was protesting "No, no, I don't want to have nothing to do with that" and then proceeded to try and explain that he didn't want his public assistance and food stamps discontinued by saying anything. Once they got off the boat, he whipped out his food stamps and ID. My word.

No, I only got to see the last 15 minutes of Anderson this evening. I'm seriously considering getting TiVo just so I can watch his whole show.

[gldstwmn]

And Cheney said "That's the first time I've heard anything like that." :laugh:

I know. That one cracked me up pretty good. He is one slimy mofo.

[dissention]

No, I only got to see the last 15 minutes of Anderson this evening. I'm seriously considering getting TiVo just so I can watch his whole show.

Not sure if he showed them in the last 15 minutes, but he had pictures of mutilated bodies from the Convention Center that had been mutilated after death. I couldn't believe it. Tomorrow is supposed to have footage from inside the Convention Center.

[dissention]

I know. That one cracked me up pretty good. He is one slimy mofo.

I particularly liked the woman who said he was only touring a site where Republicans who voted for him lived. :laugh: I'll have to find that article for you.

[gldstwmn]

I particularly liked the woman who said he was only touring a site where Republicans who voted for him lived. :laugh: I'll have to find that article for you.

Please do. :nod: :laugh:

[dissention]

Please do. :nod: :laugh:

http://www.newschannel5.tv/News/Other/2499/Cheney--hurricane-cleanup-efforts--impressive
Cheney: hurricane cleanup efforts "impressive"

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - Walking a hurricane-riddled street, Vice President Dick Cheney declared Thursday that much progress is being made in a disaster relief effort he termed "very impressive."

While Cheney spoke, a passer-by hurled an expletive at the vice president. "First time I've heard it," Cheney said, when asked if he was hearing a lot of such sentiments.

Most the people Cheney met with were friendly. Lynne Lofton, whose house further down the street was completely destroyed, was an exception.

"I think this media opportunity today is a terrible waste of time and taxpayer money," she said. "They've picked a nice neighborhood where people have insurance and most are Republicans."

And did you see Pelosi lay the smackdown on CNN this morning? "If you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll!"

[gldstwmn]

http://www.newschannel5.tv/News/Other/2499/Cheney--hurricane-cleanup-efforts--impressive
Cheney: hurricane cleanup efforts "impressive"

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - Walking a hurricane-riddled street, Vice President Dick Cheney declared Thursday that much progress is being made in a disaster relief effort he termed "very impressive."

While Cheney spoke, a passer-by hurled an expletive at the vice president. "First time I've heard it," Cheney said, when asked if he was hearing a lot of such sentiments.

Most the people Cheney met with were friendly. Lynne Lofton, whose house further down the street was completely destroyed, was an exception.

"I think this media opportunity today is a terrible waste of time and taxpayer money," she said. "They've picked a nice neighborhood where people have insurance and most are Republicans."

And did you see Pelosi lay the smackdown on CNN this morning? "If you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll!"

Woohoo! :woohoo:

[gldstwmn]

http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1020

Bush Job Approval Hits 41%—All Time Low; Would Lose to Every Modern President;

[Brwn_eyes0511]

My Readers Respond (Part II)...

For Ex-Senator, Kerry Race Is Chance to Rejoin the Battle
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Excerpt:

One exception is Ann Coulter, the conservative columnist, who has recently taken Mr. Cleland to task for "allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero" when his injuries were the result of an accident, rather than enemy fire.

The accident occurred on April 8, 1968. Mr. Cleland, then a 25-year-old Army captain and communications officer, had taken a helicopter to a hill near Khe Sanh, to set up a radio relay site for battle. He unloaded his equipment and boarded the copter for the return trip, only to change his mind at the last minute, deciding to stay on the hill to finish the job and drink a beer with friends.

As he ducked under the helicopter blades, he spotted a grenade on the ground. Thinking it was his own — and that the pin was intact — he picked it up, and it exploded. "He could have done that at Fort Dix," Ms. Coulter wrote.

__________________________

E-mail to New York Times ombudsman and letter to the editor, which the Times did not print:

Friday, February 27, 2004
To the editor:
Sheryl Gay Stolberg lied about what I wrote ("For Ex-Senator, Kerry Race Is Chance to Rejoin the Battle," February 26, 2004).

I simply pointed out that the same people who are demanding George Bush's dental records from his Alabama National Guard service are routinely "sexing up" Max Cleland's record in order to smear Bush's service and the National Guard. Liberals falsely claim Cleland lost his limbs in combat rather than in an accident. Fantastically enough, Stolberg actually quotes an academic in her article--Merle Black of Emory--who repeats the standard lie, claiming Cleland lost his limbs in "battle." My point was that the truth of Cleland's own accident demonstrates the bravery of all members of the military who routinely come into contact with ordnance.
--Ann Coulter

Friday, February 27, 2004

Dear Ms. Coulter,
Bill Borders, the senior editor in charge of following up on corrections, has asked me to have you clarify your complaint.
Where did Sheryl Stolberg lie about what you wrote in her article?

Ann Coulter's reply:

Friday, February 27, 2004

"One exception is Ann Coulter, the conservative columnist, who has recently taken Mr. Cleland to task for "allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero" when his injuries were the result of an accident, rather than enemy fire."

It is a lie to say I complained that Cleland was being portrayed as a "war hero." My complaint was that liberals were portraying Cleland as having LOST HIS LIMBS IN COMBAT. Stolberg intentionally edited out the rest of that sentence in order to give a completely different meaning to what I said. I wrote: "Cleland should stop allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero WHO LOST HIS LIMBS TAKING ENEMY FIRE ON THE BATTLEFIELDS OF VIETNAM." The point was how Cleland lost his limbs--on the battlefield or in an accident--NOT whether he was a "war hero."

"As he ducked under the helicopter blades, he spotted a grenade on the ground. Thinking it was his own — and that the pin was intact — he picked it up, and it exploded. "He could have done that at Fort Dix," Ms. Coulter wrote."

I did not lightly dismiss Cleland's injuries, which is precisely what this sentence suggests. The point of my saying Cleland could have had an accident with ordnance at Fort Dix was to defend the National Guard by pointing out that all military training is dangerous, even far away from enemy fire. By quoting nothing by my saying "that could have happened at Fort Dix," Stolberg falsely suggests I was dismissing Cleland's accident as not such a big deal. You may read both columns at www.anncoulter.com.

Monday, March 1, 2004

Dear Ms. Coulter,
Thank you for your message.
I include below a response from Bill Borders, senior editor in charge of following up on corrections.

I have studied Ann Coulter's letter about Stolberg, and so have responsible editors in the Washington bureau and on the national desk. We all agree that no correction is needed. Here are Ms. Coulter's two points:
On the "war hero" quote: Stolberg did indeed quote only part of what Coulter wrote. But the rest of Stolberg's sentence renders the rest of Coulter's thought accurately. Stolberg's paraphrase following the words "war hero" precisely defines the "war hero" concept in exactly the way Coulter did, making the point that there was nothing heroic about the way Cleland was wounded. Neither of them is addressing whether he might have been a "war hero" in some other way at some other time. In other words, Stolberg represents what Coulter said exactly right.

On the Fort Dix quote: Coulter says that the Stolberg quote "suggests" that Coulter made light of Cleland's injuries with the Fort Dix quote. But there is really no way that such an interpretation can be read into the Stolberg sentence. Stolberg's use of the Fort Dix quote precisely reflects Coulter's point--that it was in no way a battlefield injury. But nothing in the Stolberg piece says that Coulter or anyone else thinks that Cleland's injuries were not extremely serious. (I mean, how could they? That would be ridiculous.) There is simply no way that STolberg's representation of what Coulter wrote could be interpreted as meaning that Coulter thinks his accident was "not such a big deal."
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

______

POSTSCRIPT: My column: Cleland didn't lose his limbs in combat.
New York Times version: Cleland isn't a war hero.
New York Times ombudsman: those are the same thing.
Once known as "the newspaper of record," the Times is now referred to as "one way of looking at things."

[Brwn_eyes0511]

BTW - a pro Ann doc. is a farce. The woman would not know the truth if it bit her, as untasty as that sounds.

Actually, yes there is... (http://www.anncoulterdoc.com/)

[Brwn_eyes0511]

All of the following for "My Readers Respond! (part II)" and from the previous post...took place after her second article on Cleland was published...

“My Readers Respond! (Part II) continued…

E-MAIL EXCHANGE WITH TIME MAGAZINE

Friday, February 20, 2004
Ann:
I’m a correspondent in Time’s Washington bureau. I’m interested in the back-and-forth over the military service of President Bush and former Sen. Max Cleland.
-- Eric Roston, Time Magazine

Question: 1. Why write a second column about Cleland?

Answer: Liberals were lying—which isn’t new—but the facts were indisputable, and it’s always fun pointing out when liberals are lying.

Question: 2. What role could the veteran vote play in November?

Answer: I am sublimely confident that most military types will vote for Bush.

Question: 3. Traditionally, the Republicans have been popularly thought to be the party of veterans, not Democrats. If Sen. Kerry becomes the
Democratic nominee, could that confuse these traditional categories?

Answer: No.

Question: 4. What is a good definition of “combat mission” and “battlefield”? Is it useful to draw a distinction between “combat” and “combat zone”? Four days before then-Capt. Cleland’s accident, four soldiers were killed near the spot by enemy mortar. Would you characterize it then as occurring in a “combat zone”?

Answer: The Purple Heart committee seems to have figured it out, you may take up your quarrel with them.

Question: 5. The validity of your arguments appear to hinge on how you define these words. How do you explain the discrepancy of what appears to be very technical usages of “combat” and “battlefield” and what appear to be nontechnical uses of words such as “treason” and “slander”?

Answer: a) Again, you may pursue your argument with the people who award Purple Hearts, but whatever else it means, I believe the technical definition of “combat” would include: “a time and place when you are not about to have beer with friends.”
b) I do use treason and slander “technically,” I simply apply the terms to liberals as a group, not a single individual.

Question: 6. You write: “Cleland could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman.” The grenade was said to be dropped by the soldier behind Cleland. The problem, according to people f the scene, was that this soldier had been straightening the pins in his grenades, for easier access during enemy fire. Since that would not likely have been the case at Ft. Dix, do you still stand by that notion?

Answer: Look up the meaning of “ordnance.” As I said in my column, whenever young men and ordnance are put together, there are a staggering number of casualties, which is why military training and discipline are so important. I would hazard a guess that more pilots are killed in National Guard flight training than servicemen are killed by negligently picking up grenades. Perhaps you could put one of your crack investigators on this.

Question: 7. People familiar with Cleland’s experience say that he requested to be moved from a desk job in Saigon, to a place closer to the action. Then from there, he requested to become active in Khe Sanh. Do you believe this to be accurate? If so, does it affect your argument?

Answer: It has absolutely nothing to do with my argument. I hear he’s also nice to his mother. If I ever write about how Cleland treats his mother or write a review of his entire military career I’ll be sure to mention both. I simply accused snivelers like you, who in the blink of an eye have gone from being Army-haters to jock-sniffers for war veterans, of sexing up Cleland’s accident.

Question: 8. Approximately one-third of US casualties in Vietnam were caused by some sort of “friendly fire” or accident. Following your logic, does that mean that none of these soldiers died or were wounded for their country?

Answer: No, o the contrary, they all died for their country, but they did not die in combat. Dishonest reporters like you apparently think that’s not good enough and have insisted on suggesting that Cleland lost his limbs in combat.

Question: 9. You appear to belittle then-Capt. Cleland for being willing to drink a beer under noncombat conditions. Given an opportunity to drink a beer over a hill from the battle of Khe Sanh, would you do so?

Answer: a) I’m not belittling it at all—but I’m glad you’re finally willing to concede it was “noncombat.”
b) It is so breathtakingly stupid to claim I was “belittling” Cleland for “being willing to drink a beer under noncombat conditions” that I question your ability to comprehend anything you read.
c) Yes, I might, but if I then stepped on a grenade, I would not accept canonization from the likes of you or believe that it entitled me to a job for life in the US Senate.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Ann:
Thanks for you help last week. The story was held for space. Will advise. ER
--Eric Roston, Time magazine.

[SuzeQuze]

I didn't know some people thought that. Won't Blanco raise holy hell? There's no way that can work, there's been too much publicity.

I was so frustrated I cried and cried. Hopefully they won't get away with it. I am so sad for those people. This person is very bright and actually believes Faux news. :shrug:

[SuzeQuze]

It was all over the news this evening - on more than one channel :eek: Oh well, if it is good enough for the floor of the Senate :shrug:

Morning Sedition just played the clip. "Go f___ yourself Mr. Cheney. Go f___ yourself." After this happened Cheney canceled his next stop. Nice.

[gldstwmn]

Morning Sedition just played the clip. "Go f___ yourself Mr. Cheney. Go f___ yourself." After this happened Cheney canceled his next stop. Nice.

He did? I didn't hear that part. F*cking cowards.

[SuzeQuze]

He did? I didn't hear that part. F*cking cowards.

:nod: Stephanie Miller said one of her listeners told her that her 8 year old daughter said, "Mom, it's like the Titanic. All the reach people got out but the poor people did not." From the mouths of babes.

[SuzeQuze]

Oh yeah, Brown lied on his resume. He said that he had been a manager of emergency services for his town. However, he was an assistant to the manager, a secretary essentially and had no people reporting to him. His ex boss discusses this in Time magazine, and there is an excerpt on cnn.com. Also, I just heard that the 5 people reporting to Brown also had no experience.

[dissention]

Oh yeah, Brown lied on his resume. He said that he had been a manager of emergency services for his town. However, he was an assistant to the manager, a secretary essentially and had no people reporting to him. His ex boss discusses this in Time magazine, and there is an excerpt on cnn.com. Also, I just heard that the 5 people reporting to Brown also had no experience.

Yup, there's a big story in WaPo about it. :nod:

[Mari]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4227974.stm


Bush declares Katrina prayer day
US President George W Bush has declared Friday 16 September a national day of prayer and remembrance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
He asked agencies in the disaster zone to treat bodies with "dignity and respect", and announced initial aid of $2,000 (£1,090) for displaced families.

Mr Bush spoke as Congress approved a bill providing an additional $51.8bn (£28bn) for the relief effort.

Washington has been accused of reacting too slowly to the disaster.

Vice-President Dick Cheney has arrived in New Orleans as part of a tour of the south to review the progress of relief work.

Some 25,000 body bags are being sent to the city, where thousands are feared dead.


The floodwaters there, contaminated by chemicals and decaying bodies, are believed to contain high levels of E.coli and other bacteria.


Several deaths have been attributed to infected wounds, and the risk of disease outbreaks increases by the day.

But despite Mayor Ray Nagin's order to forcibly evacuate the city, some survivors are still refusing to leave.

'Long haul'

Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Mr Bush announced that every family affected by Hurricane Katrina would receive the initial sum of $2,000 in aid.

He promised that the government would be with the survivors "for the long haul".


KATRINA'S CONFIRMED DEAD
Mississippi - 201
Louisiana - 83
Florida - 11
Alabama - 2
Georgia - 2
Total - 299

"We have many difficult days ahead, especially as we recover those who did not survive the storm," he said.

Government workers should, he added, "honour their memory by treating the dead with the dignity and respect they deserve".

Also on Thursday, a $51.8bn emergency package requested by Mr Bush was approved by the House of Representatives, and a few hours later by the Senate.

The funds, which come on top of $10bn granted last week, will be used mainly to pay for search and rescue operations, drinking water and medical assistance, officials said.

Mr Bush told Congress it should expect further emergency requests.

Raw sewage

After a view of the damage in Gulfport, Mississippi, Mr Cheney flew by helicopter to New Orleans, arriving on an aircraft carrier docked in the Mississippi river where he was briefed on the situation.

He later visited the city centre to see the shattered floodwall on the 17th Street Canal.


We'll all keep our heads down and work our way through this horrible crisis
Shelley, Tucson, AZ, USA


The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says his brief is to bang heads together and make sure that the things that went wrong in the early days of the relief effort are sorted out.

First Lady Laura Bush and Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales are also visiting the area.

Opinion polls suggest Americans are divided along political party lines in their judgement of Mr Bush's performance.

As water is pumped out of New Orleans, the diminishing flood reveals dead bodies, raw sewage, fuel and rusting vehicles.

Only 23 of the city's normal contingent of 148 pumps are in operation along with three portable pumps.

They are said to be pushing out about 60,000 gallons (228,000 litres) of water per second but water remains in about 60% of the city.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4227974.stm

Published: 2005/09/09 01:01:55 GMT


Only got as far as the first alinea. Prayers? Yeah, that'll help. Dignity and Respect? Isn't it a little LATE for that? :mad:

[wondergirl9847]

:nod: Stephanie Miller said one of her listeners told her that her 8 year old daughter said, "Mom, it's like the Titanic. All the reach people got out but the poor people did not." From the mouths of babes.

I don't think that's the case in every situation. Some people are just stubborn. A lot of people couldn't leave for whatever reason, but I don't think that's the case for everyone. Fats Domino...is he poor? Why didn't he leave?

[dissention]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1103003,00.html

How Reliable Is Brown's Resume?
A TIME investigation reveals discrepancies in the FEMA chief's official biographies
By DAREN FONDA AND RITA HEALY

When President Bush nominated Michael Brown to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2003, Brown's boss at the time, Joe Allbaugh, declared, "the President couldn't have chosen a better man to help...prepare and protect the nation." But how well was he prepared for the job? Since Hurricane Katrina, the FEMA director has come under heavy criticism for his performance and scrutiny of his background. Now, an investigation by TIME has found discrepancies in his online legal profile and official bio, including a description of Brown released by the White House at the time of his nomination in 2001 to the job as deputy chief of FEMA. (Brown became Director of FEMA, succeeding Allbaugh, in 2003.)

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

In response, Nicol Andrews, deputy strategic director in FEMA's office of public affairs, insists that while Brown began as an intern, he became an "assistant city manager" with a distinguished record of service. "According to Mike Brown," she says, "a large portion [of the points raised by TIME] is very inaccurate."

Brown's lack of experience in emergency management isn't the only apparent bit of padding on his resume, which raises questions about how rigorously the White House vetted him before putting him in charge of FEMA. Under the "honors and awards" section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University". However, Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here," says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). "He may have been an adjunct instructor," says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of "professor." Carl Reherman, a former political science professor at the University through the '70s and '80s, says that Brown "was not on the faculty." As for the honor of "Outstanding Political Science Professor," Johnson says, "I spoke with the department chair yesterday and he's not aware of it." Johnson could not confirm that Brown made the Dean's list or was an "Outstanding Political Science Senior," as is stated on his online profile.

Speaking for Brown, Andrews says that Brown has never claimed to be a political science professor, in spite of what his profile in FindLaw indicates. "He was named the outstanding political science senior at Central State, and was an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City School of Law."

Under the heading of "Professional Associations and Memberships" on FindLaw, Brown states that from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond. But an administrator with the Home told TIME that Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with." She says there was a board of directors until a couple of years ago, but she couldn't find anyone who recalled him being on it. According to FEMA's Andrews, Brown said "he's never claimed to be the director of the home. He was on the board of directors, or governors of the nursing home." However, a veteran employee at the center since 1981 says Brown "was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here."

The FindLaw profile for Brown was amended on Thursday to remove a reference to his tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association, which has become a contested point.

Brown's FindLaw profile lists a wide range of areas of legal practice, from estate planning to family law to sports. However, one former colleague does not remember Brown's work as sterling. Stephen Jones, a prominent Oklahoma lawyer who was lead defense attorney on the Timothy McVeigh case, was Brown's boss for two-and-a-half years in the early '80s. "He did mainly transactional work, not litigation," says Jones. "There was a feeling that he was not serious and somewhat shallow." Jones says when his law firm split, Brown was one of two staffers who was let go.

[Nixxxed]

BREAKING NEWS:

FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Duties

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050909/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_brown

[Brwn_eyes0511]

BREAKING NEWS:

FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Duties

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050909/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_brown

lol...I was actually just about to post that! :)

[dissention]

BREAKING NEWS:

FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Duties

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050909/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_brown

Well, it's about f*cking time.

I'm sure it'll be all over the news once Bush stops his 9/11 PR scam.

[SuzeQuze]

I guess the lies on the resume could not be spun? Don't let the door hit ya, better yet... Hehe.

[Nixxxed]

Well, it's about f*cking time.

I'm sure it'll be all over the news once Bush stops his 9/11 PR scam.
Yeah, but notice it doesn't say "FEMA Chief removed from office"... :rolleyes:

And about this whole TIME investigation: why the hell didn't they do that 4 years ago, when he was brought into the organization? And are they going to investigate all the other Bush cronie's resumes, or do thousands of people have to die first? :shrug:

[SuzeQuze]

Diss, I found that video of Charmaine Neville's account that you were talking about here. http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=13&y=eom. What she went through is so heinous and should never be forgotten. She managed to save people but she felt bad because she couldn't save enough. In the video she is recounting what she went through to a priest.

[dissention]

Diss, I found that video of Charmaine Neville's account that you were talking about here. http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=13&y=eom. What she went through is so heinous and should never be forgotten. She managed to save people but she felt bad because she couldn't save enough. In the video she is recounting what she went through to a priest.

Everyone should watch that, Suze, and thanks for posting it. I was chilled to the bone when I saw it a couple of days ago. She's a hero and has my adoration for what she did.

[SuzeQuze]

Everyone should watch that, Suze, and thanks for posting it. I was chilled to the bone when I saw it a couple of days ago. She's a hero and has my adoration for what she did.

She is a hero. I can't believe she managed to save anyone under those circumstances. From her account it became clear why the helicopters were being shot at. :distress:

[strandinthewind]

A friend of mine - and I can assure you what he says is the way it is!
___________________________________________________________

Friday, September 09, 2005

DR. BROBSON LUTZ: Beware of myths, but health risks are real
Beware of misguided public health information

After every major hurricane, alarms of infectious diseases abound. Survivors are bombarded with warnings about impending epidemics of cholera, typhoid fever, tetanus, and dysentery. Elected officials routinely warn citizens to watch out for poisonous snakes.

Hurricanes spawn medical misinformation in direct relationship to the ferocity of the winds and water. Each new storm generates its own unique rumors. With Katrina it has been sharks in the flood waters, mosquitoes spreading contagious diseases after feeding off floating corpses and skin blistering toxins in the flood waters.

In 1969 Hurricane Camille devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My classmates at Tulane Medical School wanted to help. Under the tutelage of a professor of epidemiology we traveled to the Mississippi coast and immunized dozens of survivors against typhoid fever. We wanted to help. Actually, we left rescue workers with sore arms that probably impeded their subsequent relief efforts.

As we move forward, the endemic health problems will not be strange and rare diseases. We will have endemic cuts, lacerations and puncture wounds. Skin and soft tissue infections will be the major infectious disease problem. These will be not be caused by the exotic pathogens but by the common ones -- Staphylococcal and streptococcal infections.

Staphylococcal resistance is already well established in Louisiana, and we will see more methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections that are resistant to previously useful antibiotics such as Keflex. The most serious wound infections we will encounter will be from Vibrio vulnificus, a organism well-established in our salt water marshes. This infectious bully usually just targets persons with diabetes, liver diseases and other immune impairments.

The other major infectious disease threat is mosquito-borne viruses. Fortunately, the storm blew away most of our established mosquito population. But survivors will soon repopulate the area and old eggs now submerged in water will hatch and pupate quickly. The increase in the insect population will bring back many bird species probably including those carrying West Nile and St. Louis encephalitis.

Aerial spraying for insects needs to start ASAP with the right chemicals, not the ones that are the cheapest for private contractors to spray. Some chemical supply companies provide “kickbacks” to contractors who use their less effective products just like some of the big drug companies give rebates to hospitals for using their particular brand of drug. Hopefully, the Army will take over all aerial spraying missions.

Flies are also a problem after any disaster in warm areas of the world. After Hurricane Betsy, rescue workers easily spotted the attics containing dead bodies by looking for swarms of black flies on roofs. House to house searches are not necessary to find dead bodies. Follow the fly swarms.

After Katrina, one of our elected officials announced that mosquitoes will transmit disease by biting corpses in our streets. Mosquitoes do not feed off dead bodies. Infectious diseases are not spread this way. Dead bodies on the streets and in the water are an etiologic agent for severe psychological trauma, not contagious diseases.

Earlier this week, I heard that a state health official warned television viewers about cholera and other enteric diseases. Cholera is a pathogen that is rare in our environment. It requires human consumption of food or water contaminated with a causative pathogen which is not even established in our wetlands. Cholera and typhoid are not infections that survivors will face in the upcoming weeks and months.

Former city health director Dr. Rodney Jung told me years ago that snake rumors flourish after each hurricane. Snake sightings do increase with flooding, but no physician I know has ever treated a person for a snake bite related to a hurricane. Fortunately, the alligators displaced by storms are mostly too small to cause injury and the larger ones are not likely to harm humans unless cornered. The small sharks that washed over from Lake Pontchtrain were totally benign.

Tetanus was a problem after the recent Asian tsunami where many persons never had the benefit of childhood immunizations in the first place. Tetanus will not be a problem here. Even though a tetanus booster is recommended every 10 years, the primary series of immunizations for children provides essentially lifetime protection. Adults who got their childhood immunizations are well protected.

Most diarrhea immediately after a storm is stress related and not due to infectious causes. Present supplies of bottled water and uncontaminated food will prevent typhoid fever, salmonella and most other enteric diseases.

The newest mythical threat on the block is mold. I heard a former director of the Centers for Disease Control say on national television that the mold that will be growing in all our flooded houses is “very dangerous”. He has been behind a desk and out of the trenches for too long. Mold growth indicates excessive moisture, but environmental molds are more legal fodder than disease producers.

As we recover, each day will be a challenge. Stress related problems will soar. The first-aid for preventing storm stress is secure water, food and good shelter. Overall trauma such as chainsaw injuries will be the major cause of morbidity post-storm. Gasoline powered generators and gas grills inside are dangerous and carbon monoxide has already claimed several people who survived the storm.

It is time to put medical myths to bed. Our usual cast of bacterial villains will cause trauma-related wound infections. For most healthy adults these infections will range from trivial to mild. For persons with diabetes and other underlying chronic diseases, Vibrio wound infections can be fatal.

Forget about cholera, tetanus, typhoid fever and catching contagious diseases from the dead. Our real medical villains will be storm stress and trauma.

Brobson Lutz, MD
Health spokesman Orleans Parish Medical Society

www.nola.com

[Mari]

Diss, I found that video of Charmaine Neville's account that you were talking about here. http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=13&y=eom. What she went through is so heinous and should never be forgotten. She managed to save people but she felt bad because she couldn't save enough. In the video she is recounting what she went through to a priest.

Oh man. I just watched that and cried. Thanks for posting the link..

the bit where she talks about the young men shooting at helicopters because it's the only way they know to get attention, I hadn't realised that yet. But of course you go crazy when you'd be there and then.
yeah, she's a hero, a real one.

[strandinthewind]

WHY W IS RESP. FOR THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

September 9, 2005

Political Issues Snarled Plans for Military Help After Storm

By ERIC LIPTON, ERIC SCHMITT
and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.

For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control.

The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.

As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis.

To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.

While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.

But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.

Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.

"I need everything you have got," Ms. Blanco said she told Mr. Bush last Monday, after the storm hit.

In an interview, she acknowledged that she did not specify what sorts of soldiers. "Nobody told me that I had to request that," Ms. Blanco said. "I thought that I had requested everything they had. We were living in a war zone by then." [and FEMA was refusing entry to people bringing supplies - sounds like they thought they were in charge to me]

By Wednesday, she had asked for 40,000 soldiers.

In the discussions in Washington, also at issue was whether active-duty troops could respond faster and in larger numbers than the Guard.

By last Wednesday, Pentagon officials said even the 82nd Airborne, which has a brigade on standby to move out within 18 hours, could not arrive any faster than 7,000 National Guard troops, which are specially trained and equipped for civilian law enforcement duties.

In the end, the flow of thousands of National Guard soldiers, especially military police, was accelerated from other states.

"I was there. I saw what needed to be done," Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said in an interview. "They were the fastest, best-capable, most appropriate force to get there in the time allowed. And that's what it's all about."

But one senior Army officer expressed puzzlement that active-duty troops were not summoned sooner, saying 82nd Airborne troops were ready to move out from Fort Bragg, N.C., on Sunday, the day before the hurricane hit.

The call never came, administration officials said, in part because military officials believed Guard troops would get to the stricken region faster and because administration civilians worried that there could be political fallout if federal troops were forced to shoot looters.

Louisiana officials were furious that there was not more of a show of force, in terms of relief supplies and troops, from the federal government in the middle of last week. As the water was rising in New Orleans, the governor repeatedly questioned whether Washington had started its promised surge of federal resources.

"We needed equipment," Ms. Blanco said in an interview. "Helicopters. We got isolated."
Aides to Ms. Blanco said she was prepared to accept the deployment of active-duty military officials in her state. But she and other state officials balked at giving up control of the Guard as Justice Department officials said would have been required by the Insurrection Act if those combat troops were to be sent in before order was restored.

In a separate discussion last weekend, the governor also rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general - but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana National Guard.

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Pentagon in August streamlined a rigid, decades-old system of deployment orders to allow the military's Northern Command to dispatch liaisons to work with local officials before an approaching hurricane.

The Pentagon is reviewing events from the time Hurricane Katrina reached full strength and bore down on New Orleans and five days later when Mr. Bush ordered 7,200 active-duty soldiers and marines to the scene.

After the hurricane passed New Orleans and the levees broke, flooding the city, it became increasingly evident that disaster-response efforts were badly bogged down.

Justice Department lawyers, who were receiving harrowing reports from the area, considered whether active-duty military units could be brought into relief operations even if state authorities gave their consent - or even if they refused.

The issue of federalizing the response was one of several legal issues considered in a flurry of meetings at the Justice Department, the White House and other agencies, administration officials said.

[B]Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales urged Justice Department lawyers to interpret the federal law creatively to help local authorities, [a good thing here] those officials said. For example, federal prosecutors prepared to expand their enforcement of some criminal statutes like anti-carjacking laws that can be prosecuted by either state or federal authorities.

On the issue of whether the military could be deployed without the invitation of state officials, the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit within the Justice Department that provides legal advice to federal agencies, concluded that the federal government had authority to move in even over the objection of local officials.

This act was last invoked in 1992 for the Los Angeles riots, but at the request of Gov. Pete Wilson of California, and has not been invoked over a governor's objections since the civil rights era - and before that, to the time of the Civil War, administration officials said. Bush administration, Pentagon and senior military officials warned that such an extreme measure would have serious legal and political implications.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said deployment of National Guard soldiers to Iraq, including a brigade from Louisiana, did not affect the relief mission, but Ms. Blanco disagreed.

"Over the last year, we have had about 5,000 out, at one time," she said. "They are on active duty, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That certainly is a factor."

By Friday, National Guard reinforcements had arrived, and a truck convoy of 1,000 Guard soldiers brought relief supplies - and order - to the convention center area.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security say the experience with Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated flaws in the nation's plans to handle disaster.

"This event has exposed, perhaps ultimately to our benefit, a deficiency in terms of replacing first responders who tragically may be the first casualties," Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for domestic security, said.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has suggested that active-duty troops be trained and equipped to intervene if front-line emergency personnel are stricken. But the Pentagon's leadership remains unconvinced that this plan is sound, suggesting instead that the national emergency response plans be revised to draw reinforcements initially from civilian police, firefighters, medical personnel and hazardous-waste experts in other states not affected by a disaster.

The federal government rewrote its national emergency response plan after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it relied on local officials to manage any crisis in its opening days. But Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed local "first responders," including civilian police and the National Guard.

At a news conference on Saturday, Mr. Chertoff said, "The unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model, one for what you might call kind of an ultra-catastrophe.""

Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker reported from Washington for this article, and Eric Lipton from Baton Rouge, La. David Johnston contributed reporting.


www.nytimes.com

[SuzeQuze]

The government told the press they couldn't photograph the bodies in N. O. anymore. CNN then filed suit, they are not going to refrain from photographing them. I've seen some heinous images but I think it is somewhat necessary so that people can understand what went on down there. I hope no children have seen them though. I am amazed that CNN has found their cajones for this.

[dissention]

The government told the press they couldn't photograph the bodies in N. O. anymore. CNN then filed suit, they are not going to refrain from photographing them. I've seen some heinous images but I think it is somewhat necessary so that people can understand what went on down there. I hope no children have seen them though. I am amazed that CNN has found their cajones for this.

Anderson Cooper said at the end of 360 that CNN secured a restraining order against the government for trying to censor their coverage.

[SuzeQuze]

Anderson Cooper said at the end of 360 that CNN secured a restraining order against the government for trying to censor their coverage.

Yes I saw this! :thumbsup: What I wouldn't do for that man! :lol: Did you see Brian Williams on the Daily Show? :shocked: He was pretty candid. At the end Jon asked him about the administration and blame and such and Brian said he doesn't do opinions. Then Jon said, alright respond to this if you want cuz I do opinions. Then he went on to say that the administration seems to have a habit of really screwing things up and then claiming, "now is not the time to be looking into this, we must focus on the task at hand." He said it was like being in the car with your father and saying "we're lost" and having him say "we're lost, there's no time for finding a map right now". I'm not sure how valid the analogy is but it was funny at the time. Brian Williams said "I will say this, if that had been Nantucket, or Boston, or Chicago, or any other city those choppers and troops would have been there." He said there was consensus among the reports that that was the case. We see this but I did not expect him to say that in his out loud voice.

[amber]

The government told the press they couldn't photograph the bodies in N. O. anymore. CNN then filed suit, they are not going to refrain from photographing them. I've seen some heinous images but I think it is somewhat necessary so that people can understand what went on down there. I hope no children have seen them though. I am amazed that CNN has found their cajones for this.
:eek: :eek:
What?! (I say like I am suprised). Heinous. Truly fascist.
Can the gov't prevent them from taking pics and filming? CNN can file a restraining order against the gov't. (huzzah!) - can the gov't do the same?

[Livia]

I watched the Daily Show last night - I loved Brian Williams!

[SuzeQuze]

I watched the Daily Show last night - I loved Brian Williams!

Oh that's right, it is a rerun on Fri? He was awesome. :nod:

[dissention]

Yes I saw this! :thumbsup: What I wouldn't do for that man! :lol:

I'm anxiously awaiting the transcript from tonight's show, because that interview with the police officer in New Orleans (his name escapes me, unfortunately) was really great from what I saw, but I missed the first couple of minutes. He really cut through the bull**** and asked that guy some tough questions. Unfortunately, the guy looked like he was about to piss himself.

Did you see Brian Williams on the Daily Show? :shocked: He was pretty candid. At the end Jon asked him about the administration and blame and such and Brian said he doesn't do opinions. Then Jon said, alright respond to this if you want cuz I do opinions. Then he went on to say that the administration seems to have a habit of really screwing things up and then claiming, "now is not the time to be looking into this, we must focus on the task at hand." He said it was like being in the car with your father and saying "we're lost" and having him say "we're lost, there's no time for finding a map right now". I'm not sure how valid the analogy is but it was funny at the time. Brian Williams said "I will say this, if that had been Nantucket, or Boston, or Chicago, or any other city those choppers and troops would have been there." He said there was consensus among the reports that that was the case. We see this but I did not expect him to say that in his out loud voice.

You're kidding! He always comes across as such a wet noodle, so it's very surprising that he said that.

[Livia]

He was no wet noodle last night - he also made a comment about how Ted Koppel went after Michael Brown "like a pinata." He meant that as a compliment, after Jon gave more kudos to the press. :nod:

[SuzeQuze]

He was no wet noodle last night - he also made a comment about how Ted Koppel went after Michael Brown "like a pinata." He meant that as a compliment, after Jon gave more kudos to the press. :nod:

Nope, no wet noodle. I forgot about that pinata comment, awesome!

[Livia]

George Carlin is on Real Time - right now! :p

Edit: Kurt Vonnegut made an appearance via satellite. I love him!! Try to catch the rerun if you didn't see it tonight! :)

[gldstwmn]

George Carlin is on Real Time - right now! :p

Edit: Kurt Vonnegut made an appearance via satellite. I love him!! Try to catch the rerun if you didn't see it tonight! :)

Vonnegut was such a pleasant surprise! I didn't know he was going to be on.
I wish the blowhard at the far end of the table would have let George speak more.

[dissention]

Here's that interview I was talking about regarding the Convention Center, it's a good read.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/09/acd.01.html

COOPER: Joining me from New Orleans, the city's police chief, Superintendent Eddie Compass. Chief, appreciate you joining us again tonight. I want to talk about a couple things. But No. 1, this Convention Center. How did that happen? How -- what can we learn so that never happens again?

SUPT. EDDIE COMPASS, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPT.: Well, we can learn to have people adhere to the mayor's mandate to evacuate. You know, we couldn't stop that. We had the Dome we were trying to secure. We were searching people for weapons at the Dome.

And the Convention Center is just something that just happened before our very eyes. You know, people started drifting towards that, because they ran out of room at the Dome. We had almost 30,000 people there. And then the hotels started letting their staff go and all of the visitors started going to the Convention Center. And you had people who were being rescued, who were being dropped off at the Convention Center. And next thing you know your population --

COOPER: But, I mean, there were local officials telling people to go to the Convention Center. It's not just people that came up with that out of the clear blue sky. I mean, why would officials tell people to go there if there wasn't police protection for them?

COMPASS: Well, they had nowhere else to go. People waiting till the last minute. You had thousands and thousands of people that, literally, had nowhere to go. We never thought that the Superdome wouldn't be big enough you know, from a police standpoint, that our forces was depleted. I mean, we were fighting a battle at the Superdome and we were fighting a battle throughout the city. And then when the Convention Center started to evolve, I sent 100 officers there immediately. You know, and we only were able to secure the perimeters. Because when you look at what was going on inside in the Superdome, they had been searched. In the Convention Center people were walking in there indiscriminately with weapons. So it was a very dangerous place.

COOPER: So the people inside the Convention Center were basically on their own. The old people, the children inside there were basically on their own, prey to whatever roving gangs were around.

COMPASS: Exactly, which was horrible. And, I mean -- my S.W.A.T. Team made 30 entries in that Convention Center. When we were fired upon, we didn't fire back. My S.W.A.T. commander and I had agreed that we would not fire back. My guys would run to where the flash was, start patting individuals down towards the flash. If an officer felt the gun, they'd yell gun the S.W.A.T. Team would then converge and then extract individuals. My S.W.A.T. Team made 30 times.

COOPER: You know, you said that, you know, it sort of, it's people's fault, because they didn't evacuate till the last minute or they chose not to evacuate. But, I mean, didn't you guys know, didn't your local city government know that there were 100,000 people without access to cars in New Orleans. And, I mean, where were the buses that could have been provided for them?

COMPASS: Well the mayor gave all the buses that we had. I mean, we're a city. We're not the federal government. We don't have unlimited resources. When you look at what we did with the mandatory evacuation, we did everything humanly possible. When you -- just look how long it took to evacuate with all the resources --

COOPER: but when you know there's flooding coming, which you knew there was going to likely be with this Category storm as studies had shown, why not order more buses? Did the mayor ask for more buses? Did you ask him to get more buses?

COMPASS: We begged for buses. Asked for buses. We begged for buses. It wasn't a question of us not being prepared. It was a question that the resources weren't there. We used all the buses we had. You don't understand --

COOPER: Who did you beg for the buses? Who were you begging for buses? To the governor?

COMPASS: To the government. We had -- our city was under water. So our buses that we had staged were in high areas where we couldn't get them. So when the water started to recede, the areas where the buses were parked didn't recede. So we were caught. I mean, it was something --. COOPER: But I'm just -- the next time I interview the governor, I want to be able to ask the right questions to try to get these answers. So you're saying you asked the governor for buses?

COMPASS: I didn't personally ask for anything. The mayor asked for the buses. I don't know exactly who he talked to, whether it was the governor or the federal government. I wasn't privy to that. I was too busy fighting the battle on the street. I don't know who the buses were asked of. I don't know. I had my hands full. We were fighting for our lives. So I just wanted the buses to come.

COOPER: Yes. And we've seen that a lot of your officers, you know, working around the clock, day after day after day without any ammo, without any radios. I mean, they did a heroic job. Can you tell me what the policy is right now, though? Are you going to start shooting stray animals? There's a lot of rumors floating around about that. And also, are people being asked to evacuate? Are they allowed to take their animals with them?

COMPASS: The evacuation is being held -- being coordinated by Ms. Sherry Landry, the city attorney. So I'm not allowed to comment on what the plan. I'm strictly law enforcement and security of the city right now. The mayor has given everyone different tasks, so there don't be any mixed messages. I'm strictly law enforcement. The evacuation is taking place, and she's involved with the coordination. That's Sherry Landry, the city attorney.

COOPER: OK. If your officers aren't involved in going to, you know, asking people to leave, you're saying?

COMPASS: The plan that's going to be in place in all the comments involving evacuation will be by Sherry Landry, the city attorney. That was the mayors orders. And, I mean, I work for the mayor, and I'm not going to disrespect him. You know, so I really can't comment on it. I'm sorry.

COOPER: All right. Well we'll try to get her on the show. Hey, Chief, appreciate you joining us. I know these are just incredibly busy times for you, and you're working around the clock. And sleeping in your office, of all places. So, Chief, again, thanks for being on the program tonight.

COMPASS: Thank you for having me.

COOPER: Coming up next on 360, the strain of the storm on the first responders. I mean, these people, these men these women, they are out there in boats. You know, they don't have latex gloves. The chief's officers, they don't have latex gloves on, they don't have face protectors. They're out there still. They're working. I speak with Dr. Phil about the psychological impact on the rescuers and others here.

Also tonight, survivor who for the most part made it unscathed. They have food and their homes don't have much damage. So why are they being told to leave? That's what they want to know. We'll try to find out. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[strandinthewind]

U.S. won't ban media from New Orleans searches

CNN filed suit for right to cover search for bodies of Katrina victims

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

Joint Task Force Katrina "has no plans to bar, impede or prevent news media from their news gathering and reporting activities in connection with the deceased Hurricane Katrina victim recovery efforts," said Col. Christian E. deGraff, representing the task force.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order Friday against a "zero access" policy announced earlier in the day by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security director.

In explaining the ban, Ebbert said, "we don't think that's proper" to let members of the media view the bodies.

The judge was to consider granting a permanent injunction Saturday when the government announced its decision not to enforce the "zero access" policy.

In an e-mail to CNN staff, CNN News Group President Jim Walton said the network filed the the lawsuit to "prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover" the hurricane victim recovery process.

"As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina's landfall along the Gulf," Walton wrote, "CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns."

CNN filed suit against Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, arguing that the officials who announced the decision were acting on FEMA's behalf.

"For an agency to unilaterally ban all coverage of a major component of its governmental function, that is, recovery of the deceased victims of the tragedy, is unprecedented," CNN argued in its legal brief. "Instead, the agency has made a subjective, content-based determination that publicizing the operation would be 'without dignity.'"

CNN's brief argued, "It is not the place of government to replace its own internal judgment for that of a free and independent media."

Because of controversy about how FEMA and other agencies handled the disaster response, CNN lawyers argued, "it is even more vitally important for the public, Congress and the administration to have an independent view of the conduct of this important phase of the operation."

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/10/katrina.media/index.html

[strandinthewind]

FEMA scraps debit cards for checks, deposits

Draining of New Orleans going faster than thought

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency worked to get the word out Saturday to victims of Hurricane Katrina that a program offering them $2,000 debit cards is quickly coming to an end.

The cards, worth between $350 and $2,000, were "in short supply," said FEMA spokesman Tom Costello Friday night.

FEMA said evacuees instead may receive $2,000 through direct deposits to their banks or through mailed checks. Families could apply online at www.fema.gov or over the phone at (800)-621-FEMA.

The debit card program was a pilot project designed to help evacuees get some money quickly, explained FEMA spokesman Michael Widomski in Washington. But for logistical reasons, direct deposits and checks were preferable, he said.

As of Saturday morning, FEMA had given out more than $650 million in expedited assistance, said Widomski. A little more than $13 million had come from debit cards, meaning about 6,700 cards had been handed out.

In Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, cards would continue to be distributed to evacuees sheltered at the major evacuation centers in those cities.

People who have found accommodations are not eligible for them, however.

Electronic signs throughout the three cities urged people not to show up at the evacuation centers to get the debit cards.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross began distributing debit cards Saturday morning at the St. Agnes Church in Houston, instead of at the Reliant Center, said spokesman Gregory Smith.

FEMA has come under fire for its handling of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath under the leadership of Michael Brown. On Friday, he was replaced as the man in charge of the federal relief effort by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen. (Full story)

Draining may proceed quicker than feared

New Orleans could be drained of the toxic floodwaters in about three weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.

It estimates that the outlying areas of Plaquemines could be drained by October 18.

Drier weather, favorable winds, increased pumping capacity and the use of "un-watering breaches" to allow draining are credited for speeding up the progress, the Army Corps said.

It had been estimated the work could take 80 days, since much of the area lies below sea level.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/10/katrina.impact/index.html

[strandinthewind]

Ooooooooo its never ending :eek:

Firms with White House ties get Katrina contracts
FEMA taps Halliburton subsidiary, Shaw Group, Bechtel for cleanup

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

Experts say it has been common practice in both Republican and Democratic administrations for policy makers to take lobbying jobs once they leave office, and many of the same companies seeking contracts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have already received billions of dollars for work in Iraq.

Halliburton alone has earned more than $9 billion. Pentagon audits released by Democrats in June showed $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq.

Watchdog groups take notice
But the web of Bush administration connections is attracting renewed attention from watchdog groups in the post-Katrina reconstruction rush. Congress has already appropriated more than $60 billion in emergency funding as a down payment on recovery efforts projected to cost well over $100 billion.

"The government has got to stop stacking senior positions with people who are repeatedly cashing in on the public trust in order to further private commercial interests," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.

Bush appointees at Halliburton
Allbaugh formally registered as a lobbyist for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root in February.

In lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Senate, Allbaugh said his goal was to "educate the congressional and executive branch on defense, disaster relief and homeland security issues affecting Kellogg Brown and Root."

Melissa Norcross, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said Allbaugh has not, since he was hired, "consulted on any specific contracts that the company is considering pursuing, nor has he been tasked by the company with any lobbying responsibilities."

Allbaugh is also a friend of Michael Brown, director of FEMA who was removed as head of Katrina disaster relief and sent back to Washington amid allegations he had padded his resume -- which he denies.

A few months after Allbaugh was hired by Halliburton, the company retained another high-level Bush appointee, Kirk Van Tine.

Van Tine registered as a lobbyist for Halliburton six months after resigning as deputy transportation secretary, a position he held from December 2003 to December 2004.

On Friday, Kellogg Brown & Root received $29.8 million in Pentagon contracts to begin rebuilding Navy bases in Louisiana and Mississippi. Norcross said the work was covered under a contract that the company negotiated before Allbaugh was hired.

Cheney's relationship with Halliburton
Halliburton continues to be a source of income for Cheney, who served as its chief executive officer from 1995 until 2000 when he joined the Republican ticket for the White House. According to tax filings released in April, Cheney's income included $194,852 in deferred pay from the company, which has also won billion-dollar government contracts in Iraq.

Cheney's office said the amount of deferred compensation is fixed and is not affected by Halliburton's current economic performance or earnings.

Allbaugh's other major client, Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, has updated its Web site to say: "Hurricane Recovery Projects -- Apply Here!"

Shaw said on Thursday it has received a $100 million emergency FEMA contract for housing management and construction. Shaw also clinched a $100 million order on Friday from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Shaw Group spokesman Chris Sammons said Allbaugh was providing the company with "general consulting on business matters," and would not say whether he played a direct role in any of the Katrina deals. "We don't comment on specific consulting activities," he said.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/10/katrina.contracts.reut/index.html

[SuzeQuze]

U.S. won't ban media from New Orleans searches

CNN filed suit for right to cover search for bodies of Katrina victims

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

...
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/10/katrina.media/index.html

one.small.victory :thumbsup:

[SuzeQuze]

Ooooooooo its never ending :eek:

Firms with White House ties get Katrina contracts
FEMA taps Halliburton subsidiary, Shaw Group, Bechtel for cleanup

...
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/10/katrina.contracts.reut/index.html

That's great, one more point God can bring up when they ask why they are in hell. They have no shame.

[irishgrl]

Ooooooooo its never ending :eek:

Firms with White House ties get Katrina contracts
FEMA taps Halliburton subsidiary, Shaw Group, Bechtel for cleanup

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

Experts say it has been common practice in both Republican and Democratic administrations for policy makers to take lobbying jobs once they leave office, and many of the same companies seeking contracts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have already received billions of dollars for work in Iraq.

Halliburton alone has earned more than $9 billion. Pentagon audits released by Democrats in June showed $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq.

Watchdog groups take notice
But the web of Bush administration connections is attracting renewed attention from watchdog groups in the post-Katrina reconstruction rush. Congress has already appropriated more than $60 billion in emergency funding as a down payment on recovery efforts projected to cost well over $100 billion.

"The government has got to stop stacking senior positions with people who are repeatedly cashing in on the public trust in order to further private commercial interests," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.

Bush appointees at Halliburton
Allbaugh formally registered as a lobbyist for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root in February.

In lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Senate, Allbaugh said his goal was to "educate the congressional and executive branch on defense, disaster relief and homeland security issues affecting Kellogg Brown and Root."

Melissa Norcross, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said Allbaugh has not, since he was hired, "consulted on any specific contracts that the company is considering pursuing, nor has he been tasked by the company with any lobbying responsibilities."

Allbaugh is also a friend of Michael Brown, director of FEMA who was removed as head of Katrina disaster relief and sent back to Washington amid allegations he had padded his resume -- which he denies.

A few months after Allbaugh was hired by Halliburton, the company retained another high-level Bush appointee, Kirk Van Tine.

Van Tine registered as a lobbyist for Halliburton six months after resigning as deputy transportation secretary, a position he held from December 2003 to December 2004.

On Friday, Kellogg Brown & Root received $29.8 million in Pentagon contracts to begin rebuilding Navy bases in Louisiana and Mississippi. Norcross said the work was covered under a contract that the company negotiated before Allbaugh was hired.

Cheney's relationship with Halliburton
Halliburton continues to be a source of income for Cheney, who served as its chief executive officer from 1995 until 2000 when he joined the Republican ticket for the White House. According to tax filings released in April, Cheney's income included $194,852 in deferred pay from the company, which has also won billion-dollar government contracts in Iraq.

Cheney's office said the amount of deferred compensation is fixed and is not affected by Halliburton's current economic performance or earnings.

Allbaugh's other major client, Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, has updated its Web site to say: "Hurricane Recovery Projects -- Apply Here!"

Shaw said on Thursday it has received a $100 million emergency FEMA contract for housing management and construction. Shaw also clinched a $100 million order on Friday from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Shaw Group spokesman Chris Sammons said Allbaugh was providing the company with "general consulting on business matters," and would not say whether he played a direct role in any of the Katrina deals. "We don't comment on specific consulting activities," he said.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/10/katrina.contracts.reut/index.html
Jason, that is just disgusting. and EVIL.

[strandinthewind]

The spirit of the people of LA shows through !!!!!!!! Moreover, we are not talking about rich people here. These are likely blue collar workers and IMO are the salt of the Earth.

Times-Picayune

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Guardsmen get treated to Louisiana hospitality
Friday, 8:13 p.m.

By Paul Purpura
West Bank bureau

It started as a chance encounter at a Raceland convenience store, where
a Tennessee National Guardsman went to buy canned ham and a loaf of
bread.

A woman there noticed the soldier’s pending purchase and told him that
that kind of meal in south Louisiana wouldn’t do. And on the spot she
made a couple of phone calls, said 2nd Lt. Steve Haley, a Tennessee
Guardsman.

“Within two hours, they had enough to feed 200-plus” soldiers and
airmen, Haley, of Murfreesboro, Tenn.

The generosity the Tennessee troops are receiving in Lafourche and
Grand Isle is widespread, the soldiers said, and residents there are even doing laundry for the visiting Guardsmen who arrived in the state Sept.1 to help the region repair damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Saturday afternoon, several Tennessee troops gathered at the Naval Air
Station-Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse, where in the back seat of a
Humvee sat a large pot of red beans, thick with sausage slivers, and a
pan of rice. Haley said the meal was a gift from a Lafourche Parish
woman, Haley said.

Holley said people in towns in the parish have laid out tables full of
food and deserts for the troops. “They’ve been eating gumbo,
jambalaya,” he said. “Good food.”

And the people aren’t stingy, Haley said. “’No’ is not an option, and
‘just a little bit’ is not an option, either,” he said.

The soldiers and airmen are part of Task Force Tennessee, which is
assigned to Lafourche Parish and Grand Isle recovery efforts. About 360
Tennessee Guardsmen are in the area, and another 109 were on the way
Saturday, said Col. Garry Hicks, the task force’s commanding officer.

“We have had nothing but -- considering the circumstances -- a most
rewarding experience,” Hicks said. “These people down there put their arms around our people. I have to say those people in Lafourche are a great group of folks.”

www.nola.com

[Mari]

U.S. won't ban media from New Orleans searches

CNN filed suit for right to cover search for bodies of Katrina victims

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

In explaining the ban, Ebbert said, "we don't think that's proper" to let members of the media view the bodies.



That was my first idea when I read this. I just hope no one will recognise their loved ones on tv. But for the good of truth, yes, good that press is allowed.

[strandinthewind]

That was my first idea when I read this. I just hope no one will recognise their loved ones on tv. But for the good of truth, yes, good that press is allowed.

I hope not as well. But, the press traditionally has not shown the faces of the dead or really the dead uncovered. I am just glad they are there to stop the Feds from covering any malfeasance up.

[strandinthewind]

That poor FEMA - someone should explain the difference between an a$$ and an elbow so they know the difference :mad:

Mayors fault FEMA response

BILOXI, Mississippi (CNN) -- Almost two weeks after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, some of the cities hardest hit by the storm are waiting for more help.

"Clearly the FEMA response has been slow," Matthew Avara, mayor of Pascagoula, Mississippi, told CNN Saturday night.

"We got a lot of good people on the ground here that are with FEMA and with the state agencies," he said. "They wear their badges, and they look good. But unfortunately, we just not have seen all the assets and all the resources that we need in our city."

FEMA -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- has been criticized for what state and local officials have said was a slow response to Katrina, which devastated more than 90,000 square miles in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi on the morning of August 29.

FEMA director Michael Brown was recalled to Washington on Friday by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who named Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen to head the hurricane relief efforts.

Slidell, Louisiana, Mayor Ben Morris also slammed FEMA Saturday, saying when the storm hit, "everything we did was on our own."

The situation was gradually changing, he said.

"It's been quite slow, but we do have some of their folks on the ground, and they're working real hard," he said. "Hopefully, they'll get up to speed sometime soon."

Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway told CNN that past experience with storms led him to believe it would take at least three days before any assistance reached his town. He said FEMA was in the city working with local officials.

FEMA said Saturday it has paid $669 million to more than 570,000 households affected by the storm, The Associated Press reported.

www.cnn.com

[estranged4life]

watching any coverage of NOLA lately, Too disturbing and too scary to realize that what happened in a smaller US city, Could and can happen in a larger US city (ie-LA, Chicago, Houston).

So I have decided to focus my attention away from NOLA (Including the charity concerts).

[SuzeQuze]

The shrimping industry was wiped out in N.O. CNN was traveling down there with a shrimper, they boated to his home and he saw the damage there. In speaking of Bush he said "And I voted for the idiot. Shows how bright I am." His 175,000 boat is gone, no insurance, his house is full of mud, he doesn't have anything.

[strandinthewind]

The shrimping industry was wiped out in N.O. CNN was traveling down there with a shrimper, they boated to his home and he saw the damage there. In speaking of Bush he said "And I voted for the idiot. Shows how bright I am." His 175,000 boat is gone, no insurance, his house is full of mud, he doesn't have anything.

OMG - that is soooooo true. I know so many in LA who are saying that. Sadly, much of GA thinks it was all the mayor's fault and the Fed. Govt. reacted as quickly as it could, which is utter BS and I am tired of patiently explaining it over and over again as many of them simply refuse to face facts.

[BombaySapphire3]

OMG - that is soooooo true. I know so many in LA who are saying that. Sadly, much of GA thinks it was all the mayor's fault and the Fed. Govt. reacted as quickly as it could, which is utter BS and I am tired of patiently explaining it over and over again as many of them simply refuse to face facts.
Yeah my best friend lives in Dublin Ga in the middle of the state.He doesn't believe that way or I would have choked him by now but he tells me alot of people around there do .I guess it would take Savannah under 10 feet of water for it to finally sink in ..very sad. :distress:

[SuzeQuze]

Yeah my best friend lives in Dublin Ga in the middle of the state.He doesn't believe that way or I would have choked him by now but he tells me alot of people around there do .I guess it would take Savannah under 10 feet of water for it to finally sink in ..very sad. :distress:

It is really sad. One of my friends blamed the governor for not letting help in and insisted it was true and asserted she would not listen to a word I said to the contrary. That just broke me. :distress: You can't have a discourse when someone just shuts down. And then, why don't they care about facts? I do not understand.

[SuzeQuze]

At the end of 60 Minutes tonight Andy Rooney did his monologue on N.O. He punctuated it by saying George W. Bush is a horrible president. I cannot recall his exact words but that was the meaning and how he closed the show. It shocked me since mainstream media people usually avoid those kinds of comments.

[strandinthewind]

It is really sad. One of my friends blamed the governor for not letting help in and insisted it was true and asserted she would not listen to a word I said to the contrary. That just broke me. :distress: You can't have a discourse when someone just shuts down. And then, why don't they care about facts? I do not understand.

I think it is because the Mayor is a black D and the Gov. is a white woman D - people still somewhere in them think that is lower than W. I will never get it. As you all know, I am all about the facts and the ones here do assign some blame to the Mayor and the Gov. But the overwhelming blame is on FEMA for failing to let readily available supplies in for four or five days until they had their act together. That really cannot be disputed and the Mayor and Gov. had nothing to do with that.

[dissention]

It shocked me since mainstream media people usually avoid those kinds of comments.

Rooney has never shied away from voicing his disdain for Dubya and the Republican party. He takes every opportunity he can to get a dig in at them.

[SuzeQuze]

Rooney has never shied away from voicing his disdain for Dubya and the Republican party. He takes every opportunity he can to get a dig in at them.

Obviously I haven't been watching the show. Someone just told me that no media outlets lean anywhere near right. :shrug: She cited a poll saying only 13% of people believed the president was responsible for what happened in N.O. When I asked her to show me the poll she would not which probably means it was a Fox poll. :rolleyes:

I was doing some Coulter research and I realized that woman is just paranoid. She thinks everyone who isn't conservative is un-American, treasonous, and dangerous. She's scared to death! Her whole career is based on fear of those that are "different" which is really sad not to mention infuriating.

[SuzeQuze]

I think it is because the Mayor is a black D and the Gov. is a white woman D - people still somewhere in them think that is lower than W. I will never get it. As you all know, I am all about the facts and the ones here do assign some blame to the Mayor and the Gov. But the overwhelming blame is on FEMA for failing to let readily available supplies in for four or five days until they had their act together. That really cannot be disputed and the Mayor and Gov. had nothing to do with that.

I agree with this, its a visceral "decision" to blame them.

[strandinthewind]

. . . I was doing some Coulter research and I realized that woman is just paranoid. She thinks everyone who isn't conservative is un-American, treasonous, and dangerous. She's scared to death! Her whole career is based on fear of those that are "different" which is really sad not to mention infuriating.

Not only that, but she tells 1/2 truths - which are just glorified lies. I used to like her because I thought she was joking, but now I realize she is insane and rabid.

[amber]

I was doing some Coulter research and I realized that woman is just paranoid. She thinks everyone who isn't conservative is un-American, treasonous, and dangerous. She's scared to death! Her whole career is based on fear of those that are "different" which is really sad not to mention infuriating.
The root of bigotry and xenophobia is always fear.

[SuzeQuze]

The root of bigotry and xenophobia is always fear.

Yes but I don't know why I never saw her this way before. Maybe because she "appears" very confident and secure but its a facade.

[SuzeQuze]

Not only that, but she tells 1/2 truths - which are just glorified lies. I used to like her because I thought she was joking, but now I realize she is insane and rabid.

Right, and sometimes she outright lies. Her column this week is pathetic, she begins with

In light of the fact that Sen. Teddy Kennedy feels lawyer-client privileged materials should be produced in the case of a public servant — such as John Roberts — we now continue with my imaginary version of Teddy's confidential communications with his lawyer the day after he drove Mary Jo Kopechne off a bridge at Chappaquiddick.

And then her whole "column" is this imaginary discourse. Kennedy cannot make a decision properly because of something that happened decades ago? It is illogical and shameful.

[amber]

Yes but I don't know why I never saw her this way before. Maybe because she "appears" very confident and secure but its a facade.
Well...people are complex, and many fears and opinions are learned in childhood, and therefore deeply ingrained. So, she may be confident and all that, but like the rest of us, prone to believing what we learned when growing up. :shrug:
It's sad - with that amount of Chuztpah, imagine the good if she had grown up/been taught more liberal ideas?
She sucks, though. And badly.

[dissention]

Well...people are complex, and many fears and opinions are learned in childhood, and therefore deeply ingrained. So, she may be confident and all that, but like the rest of us, prone to believing what we learned when growing up. :shrug:
It's sad - with that amount of Chuztpah, imagine the good if she had grown up/been taught more liberal ideas?
She sucks, though. And badly.

Meh, they have Coultergeist, we have Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz, and Mike Malloy. :laugh:

[amber]

Meh, they have Coultergeist, we have Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz, and Mike Malloy. :laugh:
Never for one moment did I feel threatened by Man Coulter's logic, don't worry. :shocked: :laugh:

[SuzeQuze]

Meh, they have Coultergeist, we have Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz, and Mike Malloy. :laugh:

I think Ed Schultz is on his way to becoming a household name. I love him. He is giving direct relief to Katrina victims as in giving them housing, helping them find jobs, enroll in school, etc. He brought them up to North Dakota, the poor things are in for a rude awakening when winter comes! :shocked:

[Nixxxed]

Just read it. And then read it again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/

Excerpt:

HOW BUSH BLEW IT

By Evan Thomas
Newsweek

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

...

[amber]

Yeah. Cancers shouldn't really be president. We're often moody and snappish. :laugh:
Seriously, pretty bad. :shocked: :shocked: He obviously (der magazine) has adverse reactions to dissenting opinions. Basically, he's a big baby. A big, stupid, dangerous, evil baby.

[strandinthewind]

Meh, they have Coultergeist, we have Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz, and Mike Malloy. :laugh:

Well, Brown Eyes claims to have written a paper exhalting Coulter's truths. Maybe he can enlighten us.

[dissention]

Maybe he can enlighten us.

I stand a better chance of being on the receiving end of a hand job from Nicole Kidman.

[strandinthewind]

I stand a better chance of being on the receiving end of a hand job from Nicole Kidman.

well, since your schtick is stale - I would not hold my breathe :wavey: :xoxo:

[dissention]

well, since your schtick is stale - I would not hold my breathe :wavey: :xoxo:

Stale or not, I'd already be an improvement over her ex-husband, considering I'd be able to get it up for her. :laugh:

[strandinthewind]

Stale or not, I'd already be an improvement over her ex-husband, considering I'd be able to get it up for her. :laugh:

Don't you flirt with me ;) ;) ;)

[strandinthewind]

I was mentioning this earlier to a friend here - the new deal seems now to be that private insurers are refusing to even look up insureds by their names. They are instead claiming that they can no longer do that and instead need like three kinds of proof from the insured. When my friend in NOLA explained that they did not have this because of the Hurricane, the ins. company was like - sorry have a nice day. Let's just put it this way - that woman is now probably limping as my friend is a HUGE trial lawyer with connections :eek: But, imagine the peeps without that advantage or the wherewithal to tel them to piss off, etc. :mad:

[gldstwmn]

Just read it. And then read it again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/

Excerpt:

HOW BUSH BLEW IT

By Evan Thomas
Newsweek

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

...

This is a great article. Thanks! :wavey:

[amber]

I was mentioning this earlier to a friend here - the new deal seems now to be that private insurers are refusing to even look up insureds by their names. They are instead claiming that they can no longer do that and instead need like three kinds of proof from the insured. When my friend in NOLA explained that they did not have this because of the Hurricane, the ins. company was like - sorry have a nice day. Let's just put it this way - that woman is now probably limping as my friend is a HUGE trial lawyer with connections :eek: But, imagine the peeps without that advantage or the
wherewithal to tel them to piss off, etc. :mad:

So...they're trying to avoid paying by using beaurocratic hurdles?

It's...pretty hard to believe that an insurance company can't look up someone by name. :shocked:
It's absurd to be that strict about identification.

[strandinthewind]

They gave my friend such grief about it and then refused to open a claim. That is rank BS IMO. The media better not get a hold of that.

[macfanken]

Baltimore Sun editorial...


WASHINGTON - The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that should lead to serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in office.

When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.

When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is repeatedly cut by an administration that seems determined to undermine the public responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that the infrastructure could not survive a major storm, it seems clear someone is playing politics with the public trust.

When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the administration to leave town.

When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.

When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at the New Orleans convention center - where people died and were starving - and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they should be fired, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael Brown in New Orleans last week.

When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.

When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given his walking papers.

When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity that should banish him from office.

When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq, Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their own misjudgments.

We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney.

They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer profiteering behind it.

It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.

[gldstwmn]

So...they're trying to avoid paying by using beaurocratic hurdles?



They're just trying to avoid paying.

[dissention]

They're just trying to avoid paying.

You heard what Rep. Baker from Baton Rouge said?

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

[Mari]

It's certainly vile, but come on. I'm not that surprised. Believe it or not, but they don't have the money for it. At least that's how I understand it. Same thing happened here with damages from natural disasters.

[SuzeQuze]

You heard what Rep. Baker from Baton Rouge said?

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Yes, I heard this, but I forgot who said it. Bastard. Also, Bush put something through to lower the wages workers will get doing the rebuilding. WTF??? Those workers will be the ones who lost everything and he wants to cut wages? Hopefully it will not pass through congress.

[wondergirl9847]

the new deal seems now to be that private insurers are refusing to even look up insureds by their names. They are instead claiming that they can no longer do that and instead need like three kinds of proof from the insured. When my friend in NOLA explained that they did not have this because of the Hurricane, the ins. company was like - sorry have a nice day.

This makes my blood boil! What if this were YOU, would YOU want someone telling YOU that YOU cannot have YOUR insurance money, because YOU don't have proof of it?!?!?!! 3 kinds of proof?!!?!??!

I knew this type of sh*t would happen.

[estranged4life]

Meh, they have Coultergeist, we have Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz, and Mike Malloy. :laugh:

neither have/nor need anyone other than our own thoughts and opinions...

Though we agree with the Democrats that this presidency is a joke.

Brian "I was always skeptical of what our government always told us until April 19,1995...Now I believe NOTHING the US government EVER says" j.

[Nixxxed]

Yes, I heard this, but I forgot who said it. Bastard. Also, Bush put something through to lower the wages workers will get doing the rebuilding. WTF??? Those workers will be the ones who lost everything and he wants to cut wages? Hopefully it will not pass through congress.
It was by Executive Order. I don't think Congress has a choice. I'll try to find you the info...

[Nixxxed]

It was by Executive Order. I don't think Congress has a choice. I'll try to find you the info...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050908-5.html

[Mari]

This makes my blood boil! What if this were YOU, would YOU want someone telling YOU that YOU cannot have YOUR insurance money, because YOU don't have proof of it?!?!?!! 3 kinds of proof?!!?!??!

I knew this type of sh*t would happen.

I think I'd try to kill someone if they told me that!

[SuzeQuze]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050908-5.html

The language of that is confusing. Maybe he should issue an executive order barring profiteering from these folks' hell.

[DrummerDeanna]

The language of that is confusing. Maybe he should issue an executive order barring profiteering from these folks' hell.


tell that to the oil companies :rolleyes:

Louise Slaughter - D-New York just put forth a bill that would cap the gas prices at 2.50 - she had numbers on the oil companies profits in the last three months - they're not hurting let me tell ya. It's disgusting. She's pissed- but since the Congress is majority Republican her poor bill will probably go nowhere...

[estranged4life]

tell that to the oil companies :rolleyes:

Louise Slaughter - D-New York just put forth a bill that would cap the gas prices at 2.50 - she had numbers on the oil companies profits in the last three months - they're not hurting let me tell ya. It's disgusting. She's pissed- but since the Congress is majority Republican her poor bill will probably go nowhere...

you could live in Oklahoma where tomorrow is a vote of the people to increase the gasoline tax another $0.05 a gallon to help pay for the upkeep of state roads & bridges (Bringing the total tax to $0.22 a gallon)...

But dont ya think it is funny how Oil companies are sponsoring the "Yes" vote for this law by stating a vote for "Yes" will 'insure the safety of the children of Oklahoma', I 'wonder why' that would be???

Too bad it is predicted to fail miserably (Thank God!)

Also our Governor Henry is wanting to temporarily repeal the current $0.17 a gallon tax until the end of the year, But the Republicans are saying that would be illegal...Yeah, We dont want those BILLIONAIRE'S oil barons to lose more $$$$ while the rest of us are selling our arms & legs for a gallon.

[SuzeQuze]

tell that to the oil companies :rolleyes:

Louise Slaughter - D-New York just put forth a bill that would cap the gas prices at 2.50 - she had numbers on the oil companies profits in the last three months - they're not hurting let me tell ya. It's disgusting. She's pissed- but since the Congress is majority Republican her poor bill will probably go nowhere...

Probably not but God love her for trying! :thumbsup:

[strandinthewind]

Michael Brown just resigned from FEMA :eek:

[BTFLCHLD]

House Majority leader Tom DeLay was heard talking with a group of young boys who are temporarily staying in the Houston Astrodome after fleeing New Orleans. Delay asked them QUOTE "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" The boys reportedly nodded but looked perplexed by Delay's question.

www.democracynow.com

[SuzeQuze]

House Majority leader Tom DeLay was heard talking with a group of young boys who are temporarily staying in the Houston Astrodome after fleeing New Orleans. Delay asked them QUOTE "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" The boys reportedly nodded but looked perplexed by Delay's question.

www.democracynow.com

And the insensitivity continues to prevail...:confused:

[strandinthewind]

And the insensitivity continues to prevail...:confused:

I think he was trying to cheer them up rather than be serious. Sort of like you tell a child "you are really going to like meeting people at school." But, to each their own.

[amber]

I think he was trying to cheer them up rather than be serious. Sort of like you tell a child "you are really going to like meeting people at school." But, to each their own.
That's kind of what I thought, too. I mean, you don't really want to talk to kids about bad things, or big issues. I mean, maybe he could've said something else that was upbeat, but... :shrug:

[SuzeQuze]

I think he was trying to cheer them up rather than be serious. Sort of like you tell a child "you are really going to like meeting people at school." But, to each their own.

Perhaps, but you don't see how that is insensitive? They lost everything but it's fun? I doubt it is fun. I'm sure they have some fun there, but overall sharing your bedroom with thousands of strangers isn't fun.

[strandinthewind]

Perhaps, but you don't see how that is insensitive? They lost everything but it's fun? I doubt it is fun. I'm sure they have some fun there, but overall sharing your bedroom with thousands of strangers isn't fun.

Well, I agree, but people do that all of the time with little kids in an effort to keep them from facing the truth, which adults usually handle better. Just like you buy a kid an ice cream cone when they are sad. Everyone knows the cone will no solve anything, but it will for a little while.

I guess I just see this as a non-event in the light of so many major mess ups.

On edit - this three seconds of quai niceness does not in any way make DeLay less of an a$$ and a liar.

[BTFLCHLD]

children arent stupid...lets watch the fireworks blow up johnnyboys hand..dont play with matches...happy fourth of july...isnt this fun?

[dissention]

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2005-09-12T183946Z_01_N12488403_RTRIDST_0_KATRINA-BROWN.XML

FEMA revises Brown's bio after exaggeration charges

WASHINGTON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The Federal Emergency Management Agency has quietly revised the official biography of its embattled director, Michael Brown, to correct an error about his background in local government following allegations he exaggerated his disaster relief experience.

Already under fire for a slow response to Hurricane Katrina, Brown was pulled out of the Gulf Coast operations on Friday and recalled to Washington. President George W. Bush is under pressure from Democrats to fire him.

Brown's biography on FEMA's Web site, www.fema.gov, was updated at just after 5 p.m. on Sunday to revise his title while working in local government in Edmond, Oklahoma, in the 1970s.

One correction was made to make clear that Brown had not served as "an assistant city manager," as had been stated in his biography. The new biography states that Brown served as "an assistant to the city manager."

FEMA also revised Brown's role in emergency planning at the time.

[strandinthewind]

children arent stupid...lets watch the fireworks blow up johnnyboys hand..dont play with matches...happy fourth of july...isnt this fun?

of course they are not, but haven't you ever tried to make a bleak situation light with a child by this technique. If you have not, then you are in the vast minority there :laugh:

Again, I depsise DeLay, but I think he did not do anything horrendus here as opposed to elsewhere.

[strandinthewind]

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2005-09-12T183946Z_01_N12488403_RTRIDST_0_KATRINA-BROWN.XML

FEMA revises Brown's bio after exaggeration charges

WASHINGTON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The Federal Emergency Management Agency has quietly revised the official biography of its embattled director, Michael Brown, to correct an error about his background in local government following allegations he exaggerated his disaster relief experience.

Already under fire for a slow response to Hurricane Katrina, Brown was pulled out of the Gulf Coast operations on Friday and recalled to Washington. President George W. Bush is under pressure from Democrats to fire him.

Brown's biography on FEMA's Web site, www.fema.gov, was updated at just after 5 p.m. on Sunday to revise his title while working in local government in Edmond, Oklahoma, in the 1970s.

One correction was made to make clear that Brown had not served as "an assistant city manager," as had been stated in his biography. The new biography states that Brown served as "an assistant to the city manager."

FEMA also revised Brown's role in emergency planning at the time.

Again, those misstatements we talked about were hardly significant in that the mayor corrected the title but also said Brown's duties encompassed what he alleged :shrug:

[dissention]

of course they are not, but haven't you ever tried to make a bleak situation light with a child by this technique. If you have not, then you are in the vast minority there :laugh:


Of course, but I would never approach a child and ask them if being displaced from their home, their possessions, and the life that they knew is FUN. Regardless of his intent, it was stupid and is yet another in a long list of things that demonstrate how detached these rich politicians are from the reality that the rest of the country lives in.

[strandinthewind]

Of course, but I would never approach a child and ask them if being displaced from their home, their possessions, and the life that they knew is FUN. Regardless of his intent, it was stupid and is yet another in a long list of things that demonstrate how detached these rich politicians are from the reality that the rest of the country lives in.

Mountain out of a mole hill - but blind partisanship loves that :laugh:

[SuzeQuze]

Of course, but I would never approach a child and ask them if being displaced from their home, their possessions, and the life that they knew is FUN. Regardless of his intent, it was stupid and is yet another in a long list of things that demonstrate how detached these rich politicians are from the reality that the rest of the country lives in.

Yes, that's what I was thinking. The wealthy politicians are so far removed from real life as to render them clueless.

[strandinthewind]

Yes, that's what I was thinking. The wealthy politicians are so far removed from real life as to render them clueless.

So, if someone poor had tried to cajole them in the same manner it would be okay? I mean do you really think their parents and the people working in the shelters have not tried this technique? Is is only bad when DeLay does it?

Again, I despise DeLay.

[BTFLCHLD]

of course they are not, but haven't you ever tried to make a bleak situation light with a child by this technique. If you have not, then you are in the vast minority there :laugh: Again, I depsise DeLay, but I think he did not do anything horrendus here as opposed to elsewhere. sorry i did not post to make comparisions of behavior... of course that is a technique used with children to make light of situations...but generally the technique isnt used when they are knee deep in chit..."that really isnt chit its mud...woopee!"

[strandinthewind]

sorry i did not post to make comparisions of behavior... of course that is a technique used with children to make light of situations...but generally the technique isnt used when they are knee deep in chit..."that really isnt chit its mud...woopee!"

They are no knee deep in shiitte in any current shelter that I know of and certainly no in the one DeLay was in, which I think was Houston. In fact, the conditions have been reported on very favorably once they left NOLA - and I do not think DeLay was talking about the situation in NOLA :shrug:

[dissention]

Mountain out of a mole hill - but blind partisanship loves that :laugh:

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[SuzeQuze]

So, if someone poor had tried to cajole them in the same manner it would be okay? I mean do you really think their parents and the people working in the shelters have not tried this technique? Is is only bad when DeLay does it?

Again, I despise DeLay.

No it wouldn't be okay and you know I am not arguing that point, it is a different point altogether. The statement is insensitive regardless of who it comes from. Plus, a poor person wouldn't say that because they would have more empathy and more of a clue what the person might be going through.

[strandinthewind]

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

and you are being rationale here :laugh:

Again, if someone poor had tried to cajole them in the same manner it would be okay? I mean do you really think their parents and the people working in the shelters have not tried this technique? Is is only bad when DeLay does it?

Better yet, let's just tell all the youngins that their parents have lost everthing and they have no clue what their fate will be. You would have liked that approach better - come on :laugh:

[BTFLCHLD]

They are no knee deep in shiitte in any current shelter that I know of and certainly no in the one DeLay was in, which I think was Houston. In fact, the conditions have been reported on very favorably once they left NOLA - and I do not think DeLay was talking about the situation in NOLA :shrug:

omg an example of the technique my friend...calm down...
step away from the computer... ;)

[strandinthewind]

No it wouldn't be okay and you know I am not arguing that point, it is a different point altogether. The statement is insensitive regardless of who it comes from. Plus, a poor person wouldn't say that because they would have more empathy and more of a clue what the person might be going through.


I guess I just do not see how an adult trying to make kids forget for a second is bad. Interestingly, your statement "a poor person wouldn't say that because they would have more empathy and more of a clue what the person might be going through" is awfully presumptous. You mean to tell me you know for a fact that not one poor person has tried to cheer their kid up by using this technique. I cannot believe you all are getting so upset by this when there are far larger things to be upset by. Truth be known it came out of DeLay's mouth and you all want to attack it no matter how patently innocuous it was and no matter how universal his technique is :laugh:

[strandinthewind]

omg an example of the technique my friend...calm down...
step away from the computer... ;)

come again?

[amber]

I guess I just do not see how an adult trying to make kids forget for a second is bad. Interestingly, your statement "a poor person wouldn't say that because they would have more empathy and more of a clue what the person might be going through" is awfully presumptous. You mean to tell me you know for a fact that not one poor person has tried to cheer their kid up by using this technique. I cannot believe you all are getting so upset by this when there are far larger things to be upset by. Truth be known it came out of DeLay's mouth and you all want to attack it no matter how patently innocuous it was and no matter how universal his technique is :laugh:
Suprisingly, I agree with you in this case. :) Mountain out of molehill. And I think any other kind of person could say all kinds of strange things to cheer a kid up, or to attempt to lighten the conversation. :shrug:

[BTFLCHLD]

come again? i didnt the first time :rolleyes:

i was stating an example of the technique as you called it and why it fails at best...obv knowing that at the particular moment they werent knee deep in chit...

[BTFLCHLD]

Suprisingly, I agree with you in this case. :) Mountain out of molehill. And I think any other kind of person could say all kinds of strange things to cheer a kid up, or to attempt to lighten the conversation. :shrug: interesting that a mountain is made from a simple molehill post... :laugh: i kind of the like the idea of comforting a child and letting them know that everything is going to be ok, and offering hugs and kind words...not asking "be honest, is this kind of fun?" id have a look of perplexity too..

[dissention]

interesting that a mountain is made from a simple molehill post... :laugh: i kind of the like the idea of comforting a child and letting them know that everything is going to be ok, and offering hugs and kind words...not asking "be honest, is this kind of fun?" id have a look of perplexity too..

Precisely. It's a stupid question.

[dissention]

i didnt the first time :rolleyes:


Thanks for the belly laugh. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[SuzeQuze]

I guess I just do not see how an adult trying to make kids forget for a second is bad. Interestingly, your statement "a poor person wouldn't say that because they would have more empathy and more of a clue what the person might be going through" is awfully presumptous. You mean to tell me you know for a fact that not one poor person has tried to cheer their kid up by using this technique. I cannot believe you all are getting so upset by this when there are far larger things to be upset by. Truth be known it came out of DeLay's mouth and you all want to attack it no matter how patently innocuous it was and no matter how universal his technique is :laugh:

Are you arguing just to argue? You know he's a tool but you'll defend him anyway even though his statement was insensitive. Why is it wrong to have a strong opinion on what he said? Why do I have to share your opinion? I don't and I won't. I can't even say he's insensitive without getting a lecture on having an opinion that is different from yours.

[dissention]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001096643

Public Rates Media Highly on Katrina

NEW YORK - Sixty-five percent of those in a Pew Research Center poll say the media are doing an excellent or good job covering the hurricane disaster in the Gulf.

Eighty-nine percent say television is a main source of news about the disaster, followed by newspapers (35%), the Internet (21%) and radio (17%). The favored network or cable channel is CNN.

For once, I agree. :eek:

[amber]

Are you arguing just to argue? You know he's a tool but you'll defend him anyway even though his statement was insensitive. Why is it wrong to have a strong opinion on what he said? Why do I have to share your opinion? I don't and I won't. I can't even say he's insensitive without getting a lecture on having an opinion that is different from yours.
:lol:
I think he actually just doesn't agree, just like I don't agree. DeLay is still a tool. I just don't think that was excessively tool like behavior. I don't think it was that insensitive in context, either.
No, I'm not arguing just to argue. My opinion is just different. :xoxo:

[strandinthewind]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001096643

Public Rates Media Highly on Katrina

NEW YORK - Sixty-five percent of those in a Pew Research Center poll say the media are doing an excellent or good job covering the hurricane disaster in the Gulf.

Eighty-nine percent say television is a main source of news about the disaster, followed by newspapers (35%), the Internet (21%) and radio (17%). The favored network or cable channel is CNN.

For once, I agree. :eek:

Me too and even more scary is Fox did a bang up job in the field with Smith of, though I despise him, Geraldo :eek: CNN did a great job as well with Cooper.

[strandinthewind]

Precisely. It's a stupid question.

that is used by millions of people everyday and I feel certain many of the parents and older siblings of the young evacuees - are you saying they are bad for that - or is it just DeLay because you hate him?

[strandinthewind]

:lol:
I think he actually just doesn't agree, just like I don't agree. DeLay is still a tool. I just don't think that was excessively tool like behavior. I don't think it was that insensitive in context, either . . . .

Exactly :wavey: :wavey:

[strandinthewind]

On to bigger and better things bound to cause real fun:

Poll: Respondents dissatisfied with Katrina response

(CNN) -- A majority of Americans surveyed disapproved of President Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina, a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found.

In the survey, conducted September 8-11, 43 percent said they approved of Bush's handling of the crisis, while 54 percent said they disapproved.

Fifty-two percent of respondents agreed that Bush was a strong decisive leader while 47 percent did not.

In a poll conducted August 28-30, 60 percent said he was a strong leader and 40 percent said he was not.

Seventy percent of respondents said they favored forming an independent panel to study the government response to the storm.

The results were based on telephone interviews with 1,005 adults and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. Researchers did not try to call some areas of Mississippi and Louisiana that were declared federal disaster areas following the storm.

Respondents asked about the initial response to Katrina gave low marks to everyone involved -- from President Bush to New Orleans residents.

Fifty-five percent said President Bush's initial response was poor, while 44 percent said it was good.

Federal agencies and state and local officials fared worse.

Almost two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) said that federal agencies did a poor job and 36 percent said their initial response was good.

Fifty-nine percent said state and local officials' initial response was poor, while 38 percent said it was good.

More than half of respondents (57 percent) said that New Orleans residents' initial response was poor, while 39 percent said it was good.

When asked about the response "in the last few days," the results were almost reversed.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said that Bush's response was good in recent days, while 40 percent said it was poor.

Federal agencies were handling the storm's aftermath well, according to 56 percent of respondents, while 42 percent said they were handling it poorly.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said that state and local officials were now handling the crisis well while 39 percent said they were still handling it poorly.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said that New Orleans residents were now handling the situation well, while 37 percent said they were doing a poor job.

That section of questions had a margin of error of +/- 5 percent.

Ready for a crisis
When asked if they had confidence in the government's ability to deal with a future natural disaster, about one in five (22 percent) said they had a great deal of confidence, 38 percent said they had a moderate amount of confidence and 40 percent said they had no confidence.

The respondents did not express any more confidence in the government's ability to respond to a terrorist attack -- 21 percent said they had great confidence, 42 percent said they had a moderate amount of confidence and 37 percent expressed no confidence.

Those questions also had a margin of error of +/-5 percent.

Rating the officials
A majority of respondents (54 percent) had an unfavorable view of former FEMA Director Michael Brown, compared to 19 percent who had a favorable opinion and 27 percent who were unsure.

Brown stepped down on Monday after intense criticism of his agency's handling of the storm's aftermath.

Respondents were split on Brown's former boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- 34 percent had a favorable opinion, 33 percent had an unfavorable opinion and 33 percent were unsure.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco had similar numbers -- 32 percent expressed a favorable opinion, 35 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion and 33 percent said that they were unsure.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, while 17 percent said their opinion was unfavorable and 45 percent were unsure.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city and lashed out at the slow response to the storm, was viewed favorably by 43 percent of respondents, unfavorably by 34 percent and 33 percent said they were not sure.

The margin of error for those questions was +/- 3 percent, except for the question about Nagin, which had a sample error of +/- 6 percent.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/12/katrina.poll/index.html

[strandinthewind]

Leave it to ole T Boone:

New Orleans dogs go west

First flight of rescued pets to California homes

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The first major airlift of dogs from the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast left Louisiana on Sunday, carrying about 80 pets to new temporary homes in California.

The Continental Airlines flight from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was chartered for about $50,000 by Texas oil tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, in a movement dubbed "Operation Pet Lift."

Some dogs were placed in cages in the cargo section while others rode in the passenger cabin, where they barked and wagged their tails.

"They'd been in cages far too long. We felt like they needed to be free so they sat on our laps, and we played with them the whole way," said Christine Penrod, Madeleine Pickens' sister, who accompanied the animals on the flight.

About half the dogs were headed for San Diego, with the rest bound for San Francisco. Sunday's move was organized by PetRelocation.com, based in Austin, Texas.

"The goal was to help rescue 200 dogs," Pickens' spokesman Jay Rosser said. "They're overjoyed that they were able to rescue 80, but clearly disappointed and dismayed at the bureaucracy, which prevented them from taking the full 200."

Organizers complained that some legal requirements were impractical, such as waiting out a 30-day quarantine before transporting the animals.

Kelly Harrington, director of disaster response services for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said a makeshift shelter for up to several thousand dogs had been set up at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana, about 45 miles northwest of New Orleans.

She hoped additional dogs would be flown out in the coming days, but said the effort was taking time.

"Every animal has to be vet checked, vaccinated and microchipped ... so we can track these animals in case an owner does find them," Harrington said.

Petfinder.com was setting up a database of pet pictures to help reunite owners with lost animals.

Andrew Rowan, executive vice president of operations for the Humane Society United States, said animals must be moved out of the Gonzales facility quickly to make room for "maybe 50,000 or more dogs and cats in New Orleans that need to be rescued."

"There are vans and cars and trucks all over the place," he said. "Dogs are barking, cats are meowing. It's a tremendous logistical operation to provide the care that these animals need."

The Humane Society's Dave Pauli, director of the Gonzales facility, said 200 animals were shipped out Sunday by truck to Houston, but rescue teams expected to bring in about 300 more in the afternoon.

About 200 animals have been reunited with their owners at the facility.

"That's what keeps us going," Pauli said. "Every one of them brings a tear to your eyes and makes these sleepless nights worth it."

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/11/katrina.dog.flight.ap/index.html

[strandinthewind]

FIRE AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Published on Thursday, September 8, 2005 by the Wall Street Journal

Old-Line Families Escape Worst of Flood And Plot the Future
by Christopher Cooper

NEW ORLEANS - On a sultry morning earlier this week, Ashton O'Dwyer stepped out of his home on this city's grandest street and made a beeline for his neighbor's pool. Wearing nothing but a pair of blue swim trunks and carrying two milk jugs, he drew enough pool water to flush the toilet in his home.
The mostly African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans are largely underwater, and the people who lived there have scattered across the country. But in many of the predominantly white and more affluent areas, streets are dry and passable. Gracious homes are mostly intact and powered by generators. Yesterday, officials reiterated that all residents must leave New Orleans, but it's still unclear how far they will go to enforce the order.
The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline.
Despite the disaster that has overwhelmed New Orleans, the city's monied, mostly white elite is hanging on and maneuvering to play a role in the recovery when the floodwaters of Katrina are gone. "New Orleans is ready to be rebuilt. Let's start right here," says Mr. O'Dwyer, standing in his expansive kitchen, next to a counter covered with a jumble of weaponry and electric wires.
More than a few people in Uptown, the fashionable district surrounding St. Charles Ave., have ancestors who arrived here in the 1700s. High society is still dominated by these old-line families, represented today by prominent figures such as former New Orleans Board of Trade President Thomas Westfeldt; Richard Freeman, scion of the family that long owned the city's Coca-Cola bottling plant; and William Boatner Reily, owner of a Louisiana coffee company. Their social pecking order is dictated by the mysterious hierarchy of "krewes," groups with hereditary membership that participate in the annual carnival leading up to Mardi Gras. In recent years, the city's most powerful business circles have expanded to include some newcomers and non-whites, such as Mayor Ray Nagin, the former Cox Communications executive elected in 2002.
A few blocks from Mr. O'Dwyer, in an exclusive gated community known as Audubon Place, is the home of James Reiss, descendent of an old-line Uptown family. He fled Hurricane Katrina just before the storm and returned soon afterward by private helicopter. Mr. Reiss became wealthy as a supplier of electronic systems to shipbuilders, and he serves in Mayor Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority. When New Orleans descended into a spiral of looting and anarchy, Mr. Reiss helicoptered in an Israeli security company to guard his Audubon Place house and those of his neighbors.
He says he has been in contact with about 40 other New Orleans business leaders since the storm. Tomorrow, he says, he and some of those leaders plan to be in Dallas, meeting with Mr. Nagin to begin mapping out a future for the city.
The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.
The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.
Calvin Fayard, a wealthy white plaintiffs' lawyer who lives near Mr. O'Dwyer, says the mass evacuation could turn a Democratic stronghold into a Republican one. Mr. Fayard, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, says tampering with the city's demographics means tampering with its unique culture and shouldn't be done. "People can't survive a year temporarily -- they'll go somewhere, get a job and never come back," he says.
Mr. Reiss acknowledges that shrinking parts of the city occupied by hardscrabble neighborhoods would inevitably result in fewer poor and African-American residents. But he says the electoral balance of the city wouldn't change significantly and that the business elite isn't trying to reverse the last 30 years of black political control. "We understand that African Americans have had a great deal of influence on the history of New Orleans," he says.
A key question will be the position of Mr. Nagin, who was elected with the support of the city's business leadership. He couldn't be reached yesterday. Mr. Reiss says the mayor suggested the Dallas meeting and will likely attend when he goes there to visit his evacuated family
Black politicians have controlled City Hall here since the late 1970s, but the wealthy white families of New Orleans have never been fully eclipsed. Stuffing campaign coffers with donations, these families dominate the city's professional and executive classes, including the white-shoe law firms, engineering offices, and local shipping companies. White voters often act as a swing bloc, propelling blacks or Creoles into the city's top political jobs. That was the case with Mr. Nagin, who defeated another African American to win the mayoral election in 2002.
Creoles, as many mixed-race residents of New Orleans call themselves, dominate the city's white-collar and government ranks and tend to ally themselves with white voters on issues such as crime and education, while sharing many of the same social concerns as African-American voters. Though the flooding took a toll on many Creole neighborhoods, it's likely that Creoles will return to the city in fairly large numbers, since many of them have the means to do so.

© 2005 Dow Jones & Company

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0908-09.htm

[SuzeQuze]

:lol:
I think he actually just doesn't agree, just like I don't agree. DeLay is still a tool. I just don't think that was excessively tool like behavior. I don't think it was that insensitive in context, either.
No, I'm not arguing just to argue. My opinion is just different. :xoxo:

Yeah, I was just feeling b*tchy I guess. :sorry: :xoxo:

[amber]

Yeah, I was just feeling b*tchy I guess. :sorry: :xoxo:
that's why I laughed. Believe me, I understand. :xoxo: Certainly doesn't bother me. :woohoo:

[strandinthewind]

Yeah, I was just feeling b*tchy I guess. :sorry: :xoxo:

and that is why we love you darlin' :wavey: :wavey: :wavey:

Imagine how boring this joint would be if Diss and I were the only bitchy ones :laugh: :laugh:

[estranged4life]

"The government is so clueless they couldnt find their balls with both hands" :nod:

[sparky]

Baltimore Sun
It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd.

Oh, that is a delicious phrase.

[dissention]

Me too and even more scary is Fox did a bang up job in the field with Smith of, though I despise him, Geraldo :eek: CNN did a great job as well with Cooper.

Geraldo was disgusting. His grandstanding made me physically ill. Loved Shep Smith, though, as much as it pains me to say. Here's a *great* article about Anderson Cooper and his coverage of Katrina that was in New York Magazine today:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/14301/index.html

<3 him.

[SuzeQuze]

and that is why we love you darlin' :wavey: :wavey: :wavey:

Imagine how boring this joint would be if Diss and I were the only bitchy ones :laugh: :laugh:

:laugh: There's a little b*tch in all of us. Oh wait, that's w*tch. ;) Yes, I re-watched Practical Magic over the weekend.

[SuzeQuze]

Geraldo was disgusting. His grandstanding made me physically ill. Loved Shep Smith, though, as much as it pains me to say. Here's a *great* article about Anderson Cooper and his coverage of Katrina that was in New York Magazine today:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/14301/index.html

<3 him.

I hope Anderson wins an award for his coverage. Also, I hope he writes a book. There was so much information and it was all so confusing. It would have to be a book to present it in a cohesive manner.

[SuzeQuze]

Oh, that is a delicious phrase.

Totally, I had to look up troglodyte, which of course is a much more intellectual way to call him and his friends monkeys. :lol:

[irishgrl]

heres another from Newsweek:
How Bush Blew It. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/)

Jason, that article of yours is thought provoking. Im not quite sure how I feel about it but it sure raises some interesting issues........

[irishgrl]

Totally, I had to look up troglodyte, which of course is a much more intellectual way to call him and his friends monkeys. :lol:
a troglodyte is a cave dweller. neanderthal. cro magnon. etc. Ive been calling Bushwad the missing link for some time. :nod:

[dissention]

I hope Anderson wins an award for his coverage. Also, I hope he writes a book. There was so much information and it was all so confusing. It would have to be a book to present it in a cohesive manner.

He needs a Murrow award. :woohoo: Read the article, though, it's a great read. His philosophy towards journalism is what makes him stand out from all of the other talking heads. I particularly liked this:

“Loss is a theme that I think a lot about, and it’s something in my work that I dwell on. I think when you experience any kind of loss, especially the kind I did, you have questions about survival: Why do some people thrive in situations that others can’t tolerate? Would I be able to survive and get on in the world on my own?”

[SuzeQuze]

He needs a Murrow award. :woohoo: Read the article, though, it's a great read. His philosophy towards journalism is what makes him stand out from all of the other talking heads. I particularly liked this:

“Loss is a theme that I think a lot about, and it’s something in my work that I dwell on. I think when you experience any kind of loss, especially the kind I did, you have questions about survival: Why do some people thrive in situations that others can’t tolerate? Would I be able to survive and get on in the world on my own?”

He's a maverick. Imagine deciding to be a reporter and making yourself a fake press pass! :lol: That really was a great article.

[strandinthewind]

Geraldo was disgusting. His grandstanding made me physically ill. Loved Shep Smith, though, as much as it pains me to say. Here's a *great* article about Anderson Cooper and his coverage of Katrina that was in New York Magazine today:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/14301/index.html

<3 him.


I thought Geraldo's was as well, but from a less personal aspect, he was very in your face about the administration's failures, which was the important part :shrug:

[strandinthewind]

heres another from Newsweek:
How Bush Blew It. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/)

Jason, that article of yours is thought provoking. Im not quite sure how I feel about it but it sure raises some interesting issues........

I think you refer to the one about the rich people in NOLA? It was interesting. On the one hand, no one will argue that NOLA does not need to rethink itself in terms of where to put housing and it should go to the safest place it can. But, on the other, politicos whould not take advantage of that, but they will and that is sick.

[dissention]

He's a maverick. Imagine deciding to be a reporter and making yourself a fake press pass! :lol: That really was a great article.

I know! And then selling the videos! :laugh:

He just had a story on about the bridge to Gretna, LA being blocked by police, shooting their shotguns to prevent people from crossing it. There was a couple on that said they and about 80 others, mostly elderly, women, and children, stayed ont he bridge to camp out and once dusk fell, police officers barged in on them and stole water and food. :shocked:

I'll post the transcript once it's up.

[dissention]

I thought Geraldo's was as well, but from a less personal aspect, he was very in your face about the administration's failures, which was the important part :shrug:

Geraldo was too phoney for me, he was grandstanding and overacting to the point where he rivaled latter day Pacino. It was embarrassing. Not to mention the reports out there of him staging his pieces.

[amber]

He needs a Murrow award. :woohoo: Read the article, though, it's a great read. His philosophy towards journalism is what makes him stand out from all of the other talking heads. I particularly liked this:

“Loss is a theme that I think a lot about, and it’s something in my work that I dwell on. I think when you experience any kind of loss, especially the kind I did, you have questions about survival: Why do some people thrive in situations that others can’t tolerate? Would I be able to survive and get on in the world on my own?”
"emo-anchor"
:laugh:
okay, must read the rest. That was funny, though.

[estranged4life]

Leave it to ole T Boone:

New Orleans dogs go west

First flight of rescued pets to California homes

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The first major airlift of dogs from the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast left Louisiana on Sunday, carrying about 80 pets to new temporary homes in California.

The Continental Airlines flight from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was chartered for about $50,000 by Texas oil tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, in a movement dubbed "Operation Pet Lift."


I find it cool that he doesnt seem like most most oil tycoons...He gladly gives $$$ away to help folkz, So much so that when he gave $$$ to his alma-mater Oklahoma State to remodel their aging football facilities, OSU felt honored and named the stadium T.Boone Pickens Field.

[SuzeQuze]

I know! And then selling the videos! :laugh:

He just had a story on about the bridge to Gretna, LA being blocked by police, shooting their shotguns to prevent people from crossing it. There was a couple on that said they and about 80 others, mostly elderly, women, and children, stayed ont he bridge to camp out and once dusk fell, police officers barged in on them and stole water and food. :shocked:

I'll post the transcript once it's up.

Perhaps Murrow isn't turning over in his grave so much anymore. Ugh about the story above. That's atrocious.

My photography teacher often mentioned how your art can become squelched in "school" because you learn what everyone else thinks is "right" instead of being truly creative. Perhaps because Anderson did not go the traditional route to get where he is he has maintained his individuality. For Anderson to have lost his Dad at 10 must have been so hard. My dad also lost his father at a young age, 12. It effected him deeply.

[SuzeQuze]

I find it cool that he doesnt seem like most most oil tycoons...He gladly gives $$$ away to help folkz, So much so that when he gave $$$ to his alma-mater Oklahoma State to remodel their aging football facilities, OSU felt honored and named the stadium T.Boone Pickens Field.

Sounds like a very cool guy. Bless him.

[CreepingDeath]

Geraldo was disgusting. His grandstanding made me physically ill. Loved Shep Smith, though, as much as it pains me to say. Here's a *great* article about Anderson Cooper and his coverage of Katrina that was in New York Magazine today:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/14301/index.html

<3 him.

Thanks for posting that article. After his outstanding coverage of Katrina, I have a whole new-found respect for him.

On a side note- I was in a resturant in Atlanta a couple years ago and he was seated right across from me. Didn't go up to him though. :distress:

[gldstwmn]

Yes, I heard this, but I forgot who said it. Bastard. Also, Bush put something through to lower the wages workers will get doing the rebuilding. WTF??? Those workers will be the ones who lost everything and he wants to cut wages?
Illegals. :nod:

[sparky]

He needs a Murrow award. :woohoo:

Blah blah blah. Sure he's a good reporter. Give him whatever award you want, I just wanna see the guy naked. :] :lol:

[strandinthewind]

Blah blah blah. Sure he's a good reporter. Give him whatever award you want, I just wanna see the guy naked. :] :lol:

Here's the deal - so does Diss :eek:

WE LOVE YOU DISS!!!!!!!

[dissention]

Blah blah blah. Sure he's a good reporter. Give him whatever award you want, I just wanna see the guy naked. :] :lol:

Who doesn't? I needed to have someone else close my mouth for me to stop the drooling after that piece he did on fake tanning where he was practically bareass.

[sparky]

Who doesn't? I needed to have someone else close my mouth for me to stop the drooling after that piece he did on fake tanning where he was practically bareass.

Screen captures ? Links ? Is his chest hair gray ? Did you get to see his undoubtedly cute little butt ? :blob1:

[strandinthewind]

Who doesn't? I needed to have someone else close my mouth for me to stop the drooling after that piece he did on fake tanning where he was practically bareass.

I think it would be poetic if you habd AC got together and gotr married. I would LOVE to see you with that Vanderbilt money and in in NYC society. Remember - he went to Regean's funeral as a guest :eek: and there you'd be in black on his arm :laugh:

[dissention]

Screen captures ? Links ? Is his chest hair gray ? Did you get to see his undoubtedly cute little butt ? :blob1:

No screencaps that I can find, though I could have sworn I saw some on one of the LiveJournal groups. From what I saw, his chest was as smooth as a baby's ass, and no butt shots, it's CNN! He was hella cute in that headcap, though.

[dissention]

I think it would be poetic if you habd AC got together and gotr married. I would LOVE to see you with that Vanderbilt money and in in NYC society. Remember - he went to Regean's funeral as a guest :eek: and there you'd be in black on his arm :laugh:

Pffft. I would have worn Bob Mackie to that man's funeral.

[strandinthewind]

Pffft. I would have worn Bob Mackie to that man's funeral.

The thought of you two going in front of a very very stayed Upper East Side - dare I say Sutton Place - co op board with your ultra modern renovation plans. Please marry him and let me be your valet for a little while.

[sparky]

Pffft. I would have worn Bob Mackie to that man's funeral.

I would have called Bjork and borrowed the Swan dress. And Sparky don't even do drag.

[dissention]

I saw a clip of this guy from Crooks & Liars, it seemed very phoney and was embarrassing to watch. At the same time, so long as he said what he did, whether he personally is an idiot or not, so long as he said it on air.

It's weird that everybody is praising people for doing their job. I fully understand why after such a drought, but it's still conceptually weird.

That's the American media for you. In order to get the kind of coverage that the mainstream media has been doing this past couple of weeks, you had to go online or subscribe to publications like The Nation. To see some journalists who have been nothing but glorified cheerleaders embrace their jobs for once is nothing short of miraculous.

[sparky]

The thought of you two going in front of a very very stayed Upper East Side - dare I say Sutton Place - co op board with your ultra modern renovation plans. Please marry him and let me be your valet for a little while.

I'll arm wrestle Dissention for him. There's a CNN building here in LA in Hollywood.
We can add a second story to my house and build a little studio up by the pool. Forget co-op boards. :lol:

[strandinthewind]

I would have called Bjork and borrowed the Swan dress. And Sparky don't even do drag.

You would not need a wig :wavey: :p :wavey: :p :woohoo: :woohoo:

[dissention]

I'll arm wrestle Dissention for him. There's a CNN building here in LA in Hollywood.
We can add a second story to my house and build a little studio up by the pool. Forget co-op boards. :lol:

:laugh:

I knew one of those LiveJournal groups had a screencap:

http://www.geocities.com/rnareau/08.jpg

[dissention]

I would have called Bjork and borrowed the Swan dress. And Sparky don't even do drag.

The visual of that has me in such a hysterical fit right now, you can't even imagine it. Carry around an egg and you'd be all set.

[strandinthewind]

That's the American media for you. In order to get the kind of coverage that the mainstream media has been doing this past couple of weeks, you had to go online or subscribe to publications like The Nation. To see some journalists who have been nothing but glorified cheerleaders embrace their jobs for once is nothing short of miraculous.

Well, Cooper disagrees with you regarding the Iraqi War. He said journalists did do their job. He said it was just hard to go against the opinion of a former Pres., the Congress for the last 10 or so years, and the current Administration.

[dissention]

Well, Cooper disagrees with you regarding the Iraqi War. He said journalists did do their job. He said it was just hard to go against the opinion of a former Pres., the Congress for the last 10 or so years, and the current Administration.

He was on The Daily Show awhile back and said that it wasn't as good as it could have been. :shrug: And it wasn't. Personally, I thought it was shameful, but that's just me.

[strandinthewind]

He was on The Daily Show awhile back and said that it wasn't as good as it could have been. :shrug: And it wasn't. Personally, I thought it was shameful, but that's just me.


I did not see that one. I saw him on Maher's show.

[dissention]

I did not see that one. I saw him on Maher's show.

I think it was back in February, though I could be wrong. I know that he also said he wasn't sure exactly what could have been done better, which I found quite absurd and if he had only consulted me, I would have told him. Calling these "leaders" to task more for their contradictory statements would have been a start. I'm not saying that wasn't done, but it was done far less than the cheerleading was.

[amber]

I think it was back in February, though I could be wrong. I know that he also said he wasn't sure exactly what could have been done better, which I found quite absurd and if he had only consulted me, I would have told him. Calling these "leaders" to task more for their contradictory statements would have been a start. I'm not saying that wasn't done, but it was done far less than the cheerleading was.
Not only cheerleading, but burying and changing :shocked: important stories.

[strandinthewind]

I think it was back in February, though I could be wrong. I know that he also said he wasn't sure exactly what could have been done better, which I found quite absurd and if he had only consulted me, I would have told him. Calling these "leaders" to task more for their contradictory statements would have been a start. I'm not saying that wasn't done, but it was done far less than the cheerleading was.

Yea - I think the whole coverage of the Iraqi War was on the heels of 10 or so years of just about everyone agreeing SH had some stocked away - the extent of which no one really knew - and there was R&D agreement on this. Then, W goes to the next level after 9/11 ostensibly to ensure that SH does not attack the US like OBL did and most people were like - well SH had or has it coming. I think that general attitude stopped a lot of the bulldog press who, inter alia, did not want to crucify Clinton or the D's in the process - though it is far more complex than that. But, I agree with you mostly.

[SuzeQuze]

Not only cheerleading, but burying and changing :shocked: important stories.

It was shocking at the time. As Lux pointed out, because they weren't doing their jobs. Many people just felt it was inappropriate to go against the president while going into war. But I thought the truth was more important than that.

[dissention]

Perhaps Murrow isn't turning over in his grave so much anymore. Ugh about the story above. That's atrocious.


Here's the transcript. You can click the link and read Lawson's explanation, but he admits to knowing nothing about it, so it's not even worth it.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/12/acd.01.html

COOPER: Well the one fact that no one disputes about this bridge over the Mississippi that you see behind me is that it was closed by authorities after the worst happened in New Orleans. But as for why the bridge was closed, about that there is disagreement, angry and passionate disagreement between those who closed it and those who wanted to get to the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM SHEER, NEW ORLEANS EVACUEE: We walked, probably 200 people, about a two hour trek. We got to the top of the bridge. They stopped us with shotguns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police were shooting guns to keep people from crossing the bridge getting out of the city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well before we talk to the police chief who was one of the people who closed this bridge, because he says there was no place in his small town for hundreds of evacuees to go. We're joined now live in San Francisco by two people who were there at the time. Lorrie Beth Slonsky and Larry Bradshaw. Appreciate both of you being with us.

Lorrie Beth, the police chief of Greta says that they sealed off the bridge because they were worried about the levees breaking there and worried about that they had no place to put you all if you came over. Did anyone say anything to you about that? Or did they give you another reason why they wouldn't let you across?

LORRIE BETH SLONSKY, HURRICANE KATRINA SURVIVOR: What we were told by the deputies is that is that they were not going to allow another New Orleans and they weren't going to allow a Superdome to go into their side of the bridge Greta, and as a matter of fact --

COOPER: What did you think they meant by that?

SLONSKY: Well we can only take the direct quote from the chief himself, which is --

LARRY BRADSHAW, HURRICANE KATRINA SURVIVOR: Yesterday the chief was quoted as saying if we let these people, quote unquote, in, our city would look like New Orleans, burned, looted and pillaged.

SLONSKY: So to us that reeks of absolute racism, since our group that was trying to cross over was women, children, predominantly African-American. I would say out of 100 people you could count three white folks.

COOPER: Well the chief says that his police force is pretty mixed between African-Americans and white people. But describe what you saw on that bridge? I've asked the chief about police firing over the heads of personnel. Did you personally see police do that?

SLONSKY: Yes, we absolutely saw that over our heads. And we also had guns pointed to us directly.

BRADSHAW: Anderson, we were told --

COOPER: So you were -- Ge ahead, Larry.

BRADSHAW: I'm sorry. Anderson, we were told by the commander at the police command post at Jerez (ph), that we should cross that bridge, and there would be buses waiting to take us out. So we were following the advice. We were told we can't go to the Superdome. We can't go to the Convention Center. There's no place else to go. He told us to go across the bridge, which is what we attempted to do. We never --

COOPER: So those New Orleans police officers told you to go across the bridge. They told you there'd be buses there. There weren't buses there. And as you're walking across the bridge, what do you see. You're approaching -- you're on the bridge. And what, it's blocked off by police cruisers?

BRADSHAW: Right. It's a pretty steep incline, because you're coming from the flat surface up to a pretty high bridge, as you can see. So it took a while for the group to make it up there. We had people in wheelchairs, we had people in strollers, people on crutches, so we were a slow moving group. And we didn't think anything when we saw the deputies there. Then all of a sudden we heard shooting. But that wasn't so unique, because we had been hearing shooting every day. But it was so close. Then people come running back toward us in a panic saying the police are shooting at us. And Lorrie Beth and I said that can't be right. That doesn't make any sense.

COOPER: And your crowd dispersed, but a group of you, 80 or so, I understand, decided to just kind of camp out near the bridge. And you say, then the police came and actually took food from you and took away your water? Why did they do that?

SLONSKY: Anderson, this is what was so disheartening to us, is because we were a group of like some really sick older folks and some young folks in between an encampment. And we had food that someone had stolen for us and given to us at this camp, and we had some food as well. So now we were a community that was able to have food and water, and pretty safe shelter in between the minimal traffic going through. It was at dusk time. Right at night time when the sheriff's deputy came up to us and held a gun to us and --

BRADSHAW: Jumped out of his car with the gun aimed at us, screaming and cursing and yelling at us to get the blank-blank freeway. And just, just so rabidly angry. And we tried to reason, we tried to talk. And he was just putting his gun in the face of young children and families. And --

COOPER: Do you know where this sheriff was from? Do you know what department?

BRADSHAW: It said Greta on the police car.

COOPER: All right. I appreciate both of you joining us. This is a really disturbing story. We're trying to find out answers to it. I don't think we're going to get to the answers tonight, but we want to keep following this. We want to talk to as many people on that bridge to find out from as many different perspective. We appreciate you joining us tonight.

[sparky]

:laugh:

I knew one of those LiveJournal groups had a screencap:

http://www.geocities.com/rnareau/08.jpg

Yeeehaw ! :blob1: :] :xoxo:

[dissention]

Yeeehaw ! :blob1: :] :xoxo:

You should have seen him on 360 tonight. For a skinny white dude, he's got some serious junk in the trunk.

[sparky]

You should have seen him on 360 tonight. For a skinny white dude, he's got some serious junk in the trunk.

What, was he in a friggin' Speedo ?

Don't make me get cable again.

[dissention]

What, was he in a friggin' Speedo ?

Don't make me get cable again.

:laugh:

No, jeans, but it was a side shot and his ass jutted out. I was quite pleased.

[Nixxxed]

Don't mean to interrupt the Cooperporn, but just (accidentally) tuned in to Scarborough Country, and Joe Scarborough is practically screaming. Yes, screaming, about the bungled relief efforts, and the fact that "officials" all over the disaster zone are STILL refusing supplies and help from charities.

:eek: Can't wait till Crooks&Liars posts this!