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strandinthewind

09-12-2005, 09:13 PM

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!

According to the mayors of several MS and LA cities on Larry King last night, FEMA has yet to help them to any significant degree :eek:

amber

09-12-2005, 09:14 PM

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.
When the gov't decides to go to war is when you should be questioning them the most.

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 09:19 PM

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.

...

They treated them like criminals when they were just looking for water, food, shelter. And to take away water and food? If there were just 80 people there, why couldn't they take them to an auditorium or something? Why were they so mean? These people were dehydrated and starving. Plus they'd seen things no one should see. :distress: I hope Anderson does get to the bottom of this.

Is anyone talking about the horrible things that happened at the convention center anymore? It seems like people have let that go, is it too heinous? Some of the reports from there still haunt me.

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 09:20 PM

When the gov't decides to go to war is when you should be questioning them the most.

That's right. Remember how mean people were to the war protesters?

dissention

09-12-2005, 09:23 PM

That's right. Remember how mean people were to the war protesters?

I certainly do. The cops were f*ckers, too, especially one of them that arrested me at Westover in Chicopee. It amazes me how people these days find protesters so offensive. I don't get it.

dissention

09-12-2005, 09:26 PM

They treated them like criminals when they were just looking for water, food, shelter. And to take away water and food? If there were just 80 people there, why couldn't they take them to an auditorium or something? Why were they so mean? These people were dehydrated and starving. Plus they'd seen things no one should see. :distress: I hope Anderson does get to the bottom of this.

Is anyone talking about the horrible things that happened at the convention center anymore? It seems like people have let that go, is it too heinous? Some of the reports from there still haunt me.

He had video footage of inside the convention center on Friday that was really shocking. Nothing but filth, from wall to wall, and it just looked like a place where people had suffered and died. The one good thing was that they found two abandoned dogs when they went in to film and got them out of there.

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 09:29 PM

I certainly do. The cops were f*ckers, too, especially one of them that arrested me at Westover in Chicopee. It amazes me how people these days find protesters so offensive. I don't get it.

Oooh, you got arrested, you're a badass! Was it our public school experience which brainwashed us to have an inflated sense of nationalism? People who haven't gone to college often see the US as the center of the universe and if you are not for us you must be against us. I think the Social Studies curriculum is part of it. Although here in MA we are liberal so I learned a lot of stuff that would probably make the reds heads spin.

strandinthewind

09-12-2005, 09:37 PM

Reaction to Katrina split on racial lines
More blacks view race as factor in federal response

(CNN) -- White and black Americans view Hurricane Katrina's aftermath in starkly different ways, with more blacks viewing race a factor in problems with the federal response, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.

The poll found that six in 10 blacks interviewed said the federal government was slow in rescuing those stranded in New Orleans after Katrina because many of the people in the Louisiana city were black. But only about one in eight white respondents shared that view.

The numbers were similar on whether the rescues were slower because the victims were poor, with 63 percent of blacks blaming poverty and 21 percent of whites doing so.

The poll, based on interviews with 848 whites and 262 blacks September 8-11, had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points. (Interactive)

In a separate survey on Katrina reaction that was not broken down by race, a majority of those interviewed said they disapproved of President Bush's handling of the disaster. (Full story)

Before the release of the polls, Bush denied allegations that the response to Katrina was slower because the thousands of people stuck in New Orleans were mostly poor and black. (See video on Bush's response to criticism -- 2:28)

"The storm didn't discriminate, and neither will we in the recovery effort," said Bush, who toured the streets of New Orleans on Monday for the first time since the storm hit August 29.

But according the poll broken down by race, blacks were more likely to blame Bush for problems in New Orleans, with 37 percent holding him most to blame for the fact that many residents were trapped inside the city after it flooded.

Twenty percent of blacks primarily blamed New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, 11 percent blamed the residents themselves and 27 percent blamed no one at all.

Among whites, 29 percent blamed Nagin, 27 percent blamed the residents, 15 percent blamed Bush and 24 percent held no one responsible.

Just over half of whites interviewed -- 51 percent -- said bureaucratic inefficiency was a bigger obstacle in the response than neglected domestic needs. But 56 percent of blacks blamed the domestic needs, such as emergency preparedness and infrastructure.

More blacks than whites said they were angry about the government's response to Katrina, 76 percent to 60 percent, and Bush is one target of their ire.

Among blacks, only 15 percent said Bush did a good job in the initial days after Katrina, and 36 percent thought he did a good job in recent days. The number for whites was 49 percent for the initial days and 63 percent more recently.

With federal agencies in general, as compared with ratings for Bush in particular, the approval for the initial response was 13 percentage points lower among whites and 13 points higher among blacks.

On the question of whether Bush cares about black people, 67 percent of whites said they believe the president does care, but only 21 percent of blacks agreed.

A majority of both races said there should be an investigation by an independent panel into problems with the government's response, with 88 percent of blacks and 67 percent of whites backing such an inquiry.

Poll results indicated that issues related to the Katrina response are likely to have more staying power in the black community, with 71 percent of blacks paying close attention to the story, compared with 56 percent of whites.

The reaction to looting in New Orleans in the days after the hurricane also broke down along racial lines.

Half of all whites said people who broke into stores and took things were mostly criminals. Only 16 percent of blacks agreed, with 77 percent saying the looters were mostly desperate people trying to find a way to survive.

Seventy-seven percent of blacks were bothered when the residents who evacuated were referred to as "refugees," while only 37 percent of whites had a problem with the term.

The poll was taken in the days before Monday's resignation by Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (See video on Brown's resignation -- 2:16 )

In the survey, 54 percent of blacks said Brown should be fired, compared with 45 percent of whites.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/12/katrina.race.poll/index.html

dissention

09-12-2005, 09:41 PM

Oooh, you got arrested, you're a badass!

Considering that I was arrested along with nuns from Elms College, the badass factor is slightly diminished. :laugh:

Was it our public school experience which brainwashed us to have an inflated sense of nationalism? People who haven't gone to college often see the US as the center of the universe and if you are not for us you must be against us. I think the Social Studies curriculum is part of it. Although here in MA we are liberal so I learned a lot of stuff that would probably make the reds heads spin.

Public school certainly played a big part in it, definitely. Textbooks are pretty horrific, they always have been. Everything is "America, yeah! Ra ra ra!" with no real perspective.

Livia

09-12-2005, 09:46 PM

Just wanted to mention that Cheney visited Austin over the weekend. There were protesters with signs outside the convention center. One of them said, "Cheney, go FEMA yourself!" :p I'll try to find the pic online and post it.

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 09:49 PM

Considering that I was arrested along with nuns from Elms College, the badass factor is slightly diminished. :laugh:.

Those were some badass nuns! Seriously, they arrested nuns? In their habits and everything? What a disgrace.

Public school certainly played a big part in it, definitely. Textbooks are pretty horrific, they always have been. Everything is "America, yeah! Ra ra ra!" with no real perspective.

Did you see Team America World Police? The theme song, "Americaaaaa, f*ck yeah!" :lol: That about sums it up.

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 09:50 PM

dissention

09-12-2005, 09:52 PM

Those were some badass nuns! Seriously, they arrested nuns? In their habits and everything? What a disgrace.

No, they weren't in full nun regalia, thankfully. :laugh:

Did you see Team America World Police? The theme song, "Americaaaaa, f*ck yeah!" :lol: That about sums it up.

Never seen it, but now I might have to.

amber

09-12-2005, 09:53 PM

Did you see Team America World Police? The theme song, "Americaaaaa, f*ck yeah!" :lol: That about sums it up.

:lol::lol::lol:

Thank you for making me think of that movie. Immediate laughter.

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 09:55 PM

No, they weren't in full nun regalia, thankfully. :laugh:

Never seen it, but now I might have to.

Oh yeah, it parodies the nationalism perfectly! Of course, much is taken too far, particularly the unedited puppet sex scene. :eek:

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 09:56 PM

:lol::lol::lol:

Thank you for making me think of that movie. Immediate laughter.

If you could tell me you'll never leave then I would make love to you right now.

I. Will never. Leave.

:lol:

amber

09-12-2005, 09:58 PM

If you could tell me you'll never leave then I would make love to you right now.

I. Will never. Leave.

:lol:

:lol:

okay, I have to watch it again, I've only seen it once. :distress:

SuzeQuze

09-12-2005, 10:01 PM

:lol:

okay, I have to watch it again, I've only seen it once. :distress:

Me too, but it was recent. Soo hilarious! "We have four terrorists headed east down Bakalakadaka street."

dissention

09-12-2005, 10:11 PM

Who is this crazy woman on Mike Malloy right now?! Send Buddhist monks to New Orleans?! :lol:

strandinthewind

09-12-2005, 10:12 PM

BTFLCHLD

09-12-2005, 10:41 PM

they found two abandoned dogs dis...what are the chances that animals would be put up for adoption? it seems like if people dont claim their animals (they are being kept right isnt that what they are saying?) that they might kill them or what? i cant get to that area and pick one up but no way they would expense getting animals out of there, right? have you heard about anything?

dissention

09-12-2005, 10:47 PM

dis...what are the chances that animals would be put up for adoption? it seems like if people dont claim their animals (they are being kept right isnt that what they are saying?) that they might kill them or what? i cant get to that area and pick one up but no way they would expense getting animals out of there, right? have you heard about anything?

I don't really know what's going on at this point, to be honest. They're putting them in shelters and letting evacuees come in to see if they can find their abandoned pets. I gave a lot of money to the animal advocacy groups that were rescuing them, but now the police are going around and literally killing the animals that haven't been rescued. :distress: It breaks my heart. I'm just worried that they'll end up putting a lot of these rescued animals to sleep later on down the road instead of finding homes for them. I know I'd take some if there were ways I could get to them, that's for sure.

BTFLCHLD

09-12-2005, 10:50 PM

putting a lot of these rescued animals to sleep later on down the road instead of finding homes for them. I know I'd take some if there were ways I could get to them, that's for sure. i know i dont see them feeding.caring down to the last little one...im going to find out what i can and i will let you know what i find :nod:

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 09:05 AM

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 09:14 AM

I thought this was a good article and, I think, someone posted a small part of it earlier - from Newsweek:

How Bush Blew It
Bureaucratic timidity. Bad phone lines. And a failure of imagination. Why the government was so slow to respond to catastrophe.

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.

The president did not growl this time. He had already decided to return to Washington and hold a meeting of his top advisers on the following day, Wednesday. This would give them a day to get back from their vacations and their staffs to work up some ideas about what to do in the aftermath of the storm. President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad.

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.

President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn't read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.

But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

The war in Iraq was a failure of intelligence. The government's response to Katrina—like the failure to anticipate that terrorists would fly into buildings on 9/11—was a failure of imagination. On Tuesday, within 24 hours of the storm's arrival, Bush needed to be able to imagine the scenes of disorder and misery that would, two days later, shock him when he watched the evening news. He needed to be able to see that New Orleans would spin into violence and chaos very quickly if the U.S. government did not take charge—and, in effect, send in the cavalry, which in this case probably meant sending in a brigade from a combat outfit, like the 82nd Airborne, based in Fort Bragg, N.C., and prepared to deploy anywhere in the world in 18 hours.

Bush and his advisers in his "war cabinet" have always been action-oriented, "forward leaning," in the favorite phrase of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They dislike lawyers and sometimes brush aside legalistic (and even sound constitutional) arguments. But this time "Rummy" opposed sending in active-duty troops as cops. Dick Cheney, who was vacationing in Wyoming when the storm hit, characteristically kept his counsel on videoconferences; his private advice is not known.

Liberals will say they were indifferent to the plight of poor African-Americans. It is true that Katrina laid bare society's massive neglect of its least fortunate. The inner thoughts and motivations of Bush and his top advisers are impossible to know for certain. Though it seems abstract at a time of such suffering, high-minded considerations about the balance of power between state and federal government were clearly at play. It's also possible that after at least four years of more or less constant crisis, Bush and his team are numb.

The failure of the government's response to Hurricane Katrina worked like a power blackout. Problems cascaded and compounded; each mistake made the next mistake worse. The foe in this battle was a monster; Katrina flattened the Gulf Coast with the strength of a vengeful god. But human beings, beginning with the elected officials of the City of New Orleans, failed to anticipate and react in time.

Congressional investigations will take months to sort out who is to blame. A NEWSWEEK reconstruction of the government's response to the storm shows how Bush's leadership style and the bureaucratic culture combined to produce a disaster within a disaster.

Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, didn't want to evacuate. New Orleanians have a fatalistic streak; their joyful, jazz-blowing street funeral processions are legendary. After many near misses over the years since Hurricane Betsy flooded 20 percent of the city in 1965, longtime residents prefer to stay put. Nagin's eye had long been on commerce, not catastrophe. A former executive at Cox Communications, he had come to office in 2002 to clear out the allegedly corrupt old guard and bring new business to the city, which has not prospered with New South metropolises like Atlanta. During Nagin's mayoral campaign, the promises were about jobs, not stronger floodwalls and levees.

But on Saturday night, as Katrina bore down on New Orleans, Nagin talked to Max Mayfield, head of the National Hurricane Center. "Max Mayfield has scared me to death," Nagin told City Councilwoman Cynthia Morrell early Sunday morning. "If you're scared, I'm scared," responded Morrell, and the mandatory order went out to evacuate the city—about a day later than for most other cities and counties along the Gulf Coast.

As Katrina howled outside Monday morning and the windows of the Hyatt Hotel, where the mayor had set up his command post, began popping out, Nagin and his staff lay on the floor. Then came eerie silence. Morrell decided to go look at her district, including nearby Gentilly. Outside, Canal Street was dry. "Phew," Morrell told her driver, "that was close." But then, from the elevated highway, she began seeing neighborhoods under eight to 15 feet of water. "Holy God," she thought to herself. Then she spotted her first dead body.

At dusk, on the ninth floor of city hall, the mayor and the city council had their first encounter with the federal government. A man in a blue FEMA windbreaker arrived to brief them on his helicopter flyover of the city. He seemed unfamiliar with the city's geography, but he did have a sense of urgency. "Water as far as the eye can see," he said. It was worse than Hurricanes Andrew in 1992 and Camille in 1969. "I need to call Washington," he said. "Do you have a conference-call line?" According to an aide to the mayor, he seemed a little taken aback when the answer was no. Long neglected in the city budget, communications within the New Orleans city government were poor, and eventually almost nonexistent when the batteries on the few old satellite phones died. The FEMA man found a phone, but he had trouble reaching senior officials in Washington. When he finally got someone on the line, the city officials kept hearing him say, "You don't understand, you don't understand."

Around New Orleans, three levees had overtopped or were broken. The city was doomed. There was no way the water could be stopped. But, incredibly, the seriousness of the situation did not really register, not only in Washington, but at the state emergency command post upriver in Baton Rouge. In a squat, drab cinder-block building in the state capital, full of TV monitors and maps, various state and federal officials tried to make sense of what had happened. "Nobody was saying it wasn't a catastrophe," Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu told NEWSWEEK. "We were saying, 'Thank you, God,' because the experts were telling the governor it could have been even worse."

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got."

Bush, the governor later recalled, was reassuring. But the conversation was all a little vague. Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president. There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed.

By the predawn hours, most state and federal officials finally realized that the 17th Street Canal levee had been breached, and that the city was in serious trouble. Bush was told at 5 a.m. Pacific Coast time and immediately decided to cut his vacation short. To his senior advisers, living in the insular presidential bubble, the mere act of lopping off a couple of presidential vacation days counts as a major event. They could see pitfalls in sending Bush to New Orleans immediately. His presence would create a security nightmare and get in the way of the relief effort. Bush blithely proceeded with the rest of his schedule for the day, accepting a gift guitar at one event and pretending to riff like Tom Cruise in "Risky Business."

Bush might not have appeared so carefree if he had been able to see the fearful faces on some young police officers—the ones who actually showed up for roll call at the New Orleans Second District police headquarters that morning. The radio was reporting water nine feet deep at the corner of Napoleon and St. Charles streets. The looting and occasional shooting had begun. At 2 o'clock on the morning of the storm, only 82 of 120 cops had obeyed a summons to report for duty. Now the numbers were dwindling; within a day, only 28 or 30 officers would be left to save the stranded and fight the looters, recalled a sad and exhausted Capt. Eddie Hosli, speaking to a NEWSWEEK reporter last week. "One of my lieutenants told me, 'I was looking into the eyes of one of the officers and it was like looking into the eyes of a baby'," Hosli recalled. "It was just terrible." (When the AWOL officers began trickling back to work last week, attracted in part by the promise of five expense-paid days in Las Vegas for all New Orleans cops, Hosli told them, "You've got your own demons to live with. I'm not going to judge you.")

At emergency headquarters in Baton Rouge, confusion raged. Though more than 100,000 of its residents had no way to get out of the city on their own, New Orleans had no real evacuation plan, save to tell people to go to the Superdome and wait for buses. On Tuesday, the state was rounding up buses; no, FEMA was; no, FEMA's buses would take too long to get there ... and so on. On Tuesday afternoon, Governor Blanco took her second trip to the Superdome and was shocked by the rising tide of desperation there. There didn't seem to be nearly enough buses, boats or helicopters.

Early Wednesday morning, Blanco tried to call Bush. She was transferred around the White House for a while until she ended up on the phone with Fran Townsend, the president's Homeland Security adviser, who tried to reassure her but did not have many specifics. Hours later, Blanco called back and insisted on speaking to the president. When he came on the line, the governor recalled, "I just asked him for help, 'whatever you have'." She asked for 40,000 troops. "I just pulled a number out of the sky," she later told NEWSWEEK.

The Pentagon was not sitting idly. By Tuesday morning (and even before the storm) the military was moving supplies, ships, boats, helicopters and troops toward the Gulf Coast. But, ironically, the scale of the effort slowed it. TV viewers had difficulty understanding why TV crews seemed to move in and out of New Orleans while the military was nowhere to be seen. But a TV crew is five people in an RV. Before the military can send in convoys of trucks, it has to clear broken and flooded highways. The military took over the shattered New Orleans airport for emergency airlifts, but special teams of Air Force operators had to be sent in to make it ready. By the week after the storm, the military had mobilized some 70,000 troops and hundreds of helicopters—but it took at least two days and usually four and five to get them into the disaster area. Looters and well-armed gangs, like TV crews, moved faster.

In the inner councils of the Bush administration, there was some talk of gingerly pushing aside the overwhelmed "first responders," the state and local emergency forces, and sending in active-duty troops. But under an 1868 law, federal troops are not allowed to get involved in local law enforcement. The president, it's true, could have invoked the Insurrections Act, the so-called Riot Act. But Rumsfeld's aides say the secretary of Defense was leery of sending in 19-year-old soldiers trained to shoot people in combat to play policemen in an American city, and he believed that National Guardsmen trained as MPs were on the way.

The one federal agency that is supposed to handle disasters—FEMA—was dysfunctional. On Wednesday morning, Senator Landrieu was standing outside the chaotic Superdome and asked to borrow a FEMA official's phone to call her office in Washington. "It didn't work," she told NEWSWEEK. "I thought to myself, 'This isn't going to be pretty'." Once a kind of petty-cash drawer for congressmen to quickly hand out aid after floods and storms, FEMA had improved in the 1990s in the Clinton administration. But it became a victim of the Iron Law of Unintended Consequences. After 9/11 raised the profile of disaster response, FEMA was folded into the sprawling Department of Homeland Security and effectively weakened. FEMA's boss, Bush's close friend Joe Allbaugh, quit when he lost his cabinet seat. (Now a consultant, Allbaugh was down on the Gulf Coast last week looking for contracts for his private clients.) Allbaugh replaced himself with his college buddy Mike Brown, whose last private-sector job (omitted from his official resume) had been supervising horse-show judges for the International Arabian Horse Association. After praising Brown ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of job"), Bush last week removed him from honchoing the Katrina relief operation. He was replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen. The Coast Guard was one agency that performed well, rescuing thousands.

Bad news rarely flows up in bureaucracies. For most of those first few days, Bush was hearing what a good job the Feds were doing. Bush likes "metrics," numbers to measure performance, so the bureaucrats gave him reassuring statistics. At a press availability on Wednesday, Bush duly rattled them off: there were 400 trucks transporting 5.4 million meals and 13.4 million liters of water along with 3.4 million pounds of ice. Yet it was obvious to anyone watching TV that New Orleans had turned into a Third World hellhole.

The denial and the frustration finally collided aboard Air Force One on Friday. As the president's plane sat on the tarmac at New Orleans airport, a confrontation occurred that was described by one participant as "as blunt as you can get without the Secret Service getting involved." Governor Blanco was there, along with various congressmen and senators and Mayor Nagin (who took advantage of the opportunity to take a shower aboard the plane). One by one, the lawmakers listed their grievances as Bush listened. Rep. Bobby Jindal, whose district encompasses New Orleans, told of a sheriff who had called FEMA for assistance. According to Jindal, the sheriff was told to e-mail his request, "and the guy was sitting in a district underwater and with no electricity," Jindal said, incredulously. "How does that make any sense?" Jindal later told NEWSWEEK that "almost everybody" around the conference table had a similar story about how the federal response "just wasn't working." With each tale, "the president just shook his head, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing," says Jindal, a conservative Republican and Bush appointee who lost a close race to Blanco. Repeatedly, the president turned to his aides and said, "Fix it."

According to Sen. David Vitter, a Republican ally of Bush's, the meeting came to a head when Mayor Nagin blew up during a fraught discussion of "who's in charge?" Nagin slammed his hand down on the table and told Bush, "We just need to cut through this and do what it takes to have a more-controlled command structure. If that means federalizing it, let's do it."

A debate over "federalizing" the National Guard had been rattling in Washington for the previous three days. Normally, the Guard is under the control of the state governor, but the Feds can take over—if the governor asks them to. Nagin suggested that Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the Pentagon's on-scene commander, be put in charge. According to Senator Vitter, Bush turned to Governor Blanco and said, "Well, what do you think of that, Governor?" Blanco told Bush, "I'd rather talk to you about that privately." To which Nagin responded, "Well, why don't you do that now?"

The meeting broke up. Bush and Blanco disappeared to talk. More than a week later, there was still no agreement. Blanco didn't want to give up her authority, and Bush didn't press. Jindal suggested that Bush appoint Colin Powell as a kind of relief czar, and Bush replied, "I'll take that into consideration." Bush does not like to fire people. He told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to go down to Louisiana and sort out the various problems. A day later FEMA's Brown was on his way back to Washington.

Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as "strangely surreal and almost detached." At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat.

With T. Trent Gegax, Arian Campo-Flores, Andrew Murr, Susannah Meadows, Jonathan Darman and Catharine Skipp in the gulf coast region, and Richard Wolffe, Holly Bailey, Mark Hosenball, Tamara Lipper, John Barry, Daniel Klaidman, Michael Isikoff, Michael Hirsh, Eve Conant, Martha Brant, Patricia Wingert, Eleanor Clift and Steve Tuttle in Washington

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/page/2/

dissention

09-13-2005, 12:23 PM

President Bush will address the nation Thursday at 9 p.m. ET from Louisiana, the White House announces. Details soon.

from cnn.com

Lord - W is reaching for a ratings pull. Hopefully, someone will heckle him a la Cheney. Interestingly, I love how W waited until there was no one in NOLA to actually go into the city - what a brave Commander in Chief :rolleyes:

Fuuuuuuuug. No thanks. People from NOLA were calling in to Mike Malloy last night and saying the same exact thing about him waiting and then touring it for that ridiculous photo-op. I'm getting pretty sick and tired of Blanco and Nagin kissing his ass for the cameras, too, that's for damn sure. It's going to bite them in the bum.

In any event, Nagin will be on Anderson Cooper tonight for a big interview and if go to his CNN page (click my banner), you can send in questions for him. I already sent in, like, 14. :laugh:

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 12:34 PM

Fuuuuuuuug. No thanks. People from NOLA were calling in to Mike Malloy last night and saying the same exact thing about him waiting and then touring it for that ridiculous photo-op. I'm getting pretty sick and tired of Blanco and Nagin kissing his ass for the cameras, too, that's for damn sure. It's going to bite them in the bum.

In any event, Nagin will be on Anderson Cooper tonight for a big interview and if go to his CNN page (click my banner), you can send in questions for him. I already sent in, like, 14. :laugh:

I long for the days when the King lead the troops into battle :nod:

BTW - W admitted just fault in the Katrina disaster :eek:

Mad4stevie

09-13-2005, 05:02 PM

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 05:04 PM

Wow - officials just filed Negligent Homicide charges in 34 of the nursing home deaths :shocked:

These administrators left those people to die and did not evacuate anyone but themselves. Terrible :distress:

How do people live with themselves?

I know - they had interviews with the staff the other night. I just saw bits and pieces, but I think the staff said they tried to save as many as they could, but there was not enough time, etc. - note I could be wrong on this one. I think the interviews are still up on CNN.com - but I cannot access them from this comp.

OMG - that article you posted said the city offered to evacuate them and they declined. I could cry at the thought of that.

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 08:01 PM

A good thing!!!!!!!!!!!!

This picture is from the Baltimore Sun. The plane is carrying nothing but animals that were rescued from the Gulf region :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v602/strandinthewind/dogs.jpg

SIGHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 08:34 PM

Governors handle crisis in own ways

By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has prayed for the dead, comforted the living and defended her leadership after an abrupt emergence onto the national stage.

Some commentators and officials have blamed Blanco for problems such as flawed communication and blocked aid in the aftermath of Katrina.
By Pat Sullivan, AP

How does she cope? Her answer spills out rapid fire: "I have to tune out the political talking heads. The blame game can get in the way of protective efforts. It can sap your vitality. It's the vulture mentality. Woulda coulda shoulda, sitting in their clean spaces, not knowing what's going on in the trenches. They know not of what they speak."

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, once chairman of the national Republican Party, finds himself responsible for helping get 1 million people back on their feet amid unprecedented devastation.

How does he cope? His answer reflects his Yazoo City roots: "You just hitch up your britches and do what you gotta do."

Both governors have faced cameras in tears, made threats to lawbreakers, rejected federal takeovers of relief efforts, fended off questions about whether the federal government came through for them in their time of need. Both are looking at legacies far different than what they had intended.

But there the similarities end.

Blanco, 62, a Democrat from Port Iberia, raised six children and honed her political skills going door to door in Cajun country. Ever since New Orleans was overtaken by floodwaters, the soft-spoken governor has faced stinging criticism.

"She found herself in a desperate situation," says Susan Howell, director of the Survey Research Center at the University of New Orleans. "She's going to rise or fall on the timeline of her decisions."

Barbour, 57, took a 20-year detour to Washington, where he developed close ties to President Bush and other important Republicans as a White House political director, national party chairman and high-powered lobbyist.

He's said and done nothing in the past two weeks that stands to damage a career that could be headed for a White House bid. "He's managing to at least look authoritative," says Marty Wiseman, executive director of the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University. "So far, he gets a passing grade from most people."

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani set the standard for disaster management after 9/11, projecting a compelling mix of command and vulnerability. Some analysts liken Barbour to Giuliani.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, calls Barbour "the only political figure to gain" from the Katrina fiasco. "A Giuliani-Barbour ticket in 2008? Or is it Barbour-Giuliani?" he wondered.

A 'nurturing' style

Blanco's reviews are worse, but so is her situation — a catastrophic hurricane and a catastrophic flood that left a major city in ruins.

Blanco declared a state of emergency Aug. 26 three days before the storm and followed the steps in her disaster playbook. On Aug. 31, she asked Bush for "everything you've got." But some commentators and officials have blamed her for problems such as flawed communication and blocked aid.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., accused Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin of "mind-boggling incompetence." Nagin, who has been criticized for failing to get people without money or cars out of the city before the storm, praised Bush and scored Blanco Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.

Was it the state's responsibility to help Nagin evacuate? "He had a plan, and his plan should have evacuated the city," Blanco said tersely in an interview with USA TODAY.

Was the state handicapped because many of its National Guard troops were in Iraq? "We might have had more feet on the ground quicker," she says. "But we had it all lined up with our neighboring states to come in."

Blanco came to her job without Giuliani's law enforcement background or Barbour's deep knowledge of national politics and government. A stay-at-home mom for 14 years, she was the first woman on the state's Public Service Commission and, in 2003, the first woman elected governor of Louisiana.

John Maginnis, a political newsletter publisher who has observed Louisiana politics for 30 years, says Blanco is not an inspiring speaker and appeared "rattled" on TV after seeing her devastated state. But he also says it was clear that "her heart went out" to Katrina's victims.

"She's an empathetic, nurturing kind of person," he says. "Maybe she is not the towering tower of strength that some people would hope or expect to see."

Lafayette Parish Sheriff Michael Neustrom, a lifelong friend, says Blanco's political style developed in the early 1980s when she ran for the state Legislature. She didn't have the money for TV ads, so she knocked on doors and talked directly to voters. "That was the beginning of her success," he says. "People felt connected. They felt she cared about them."

Part of Blanco's job these days is person-to-person. She spent hours with evacuees at shelters in Houston and Dallas on Sunday night. One woman had just located her mother, her father and her two children after a two-week separation. "We believe we have a flight," Blanco said. "We'll be able to connect that whole family."

The other part of her job is of a different order of magnitude. As she put it last week, "It's as though one region of the state has been erased, and we have to start from the beginning and recreate it."

Blanco has had several skirmishes with Bush and sent signals that she did not trust his administration. She brought in James Lee Witt, former president Bill Clinton's emergency management director, to advise her. She rejected Bush's proposal that the federal government take control of National Guard troops under her command. ("If that would have improved our situation, it would have been a no-brainer," she says).

She says that two days after Katrina, desperate for help, she couldn't get through to Bush and didn't get a callback; hours later, she tried again, and they talked.

Some frustrated officials, including the mayor, have burst into tears and obscenities during the ordeal. But Blanco kept her public reaction measured and now depicts herself and Bush as a team. Her husband met Bush's plane Sunday night in New Orleans, and she rode with him Monday as he toured the city.

"He and I both agree that FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) did not respond as quickly as we needed," she says. "He's going to look at it. He has to."

In her first 18 months as governor, Blanco tried to tighten state ethics rules and pass a $2,000-a-year teacher pay increase financed by a tobacco-tax hike. Both proposals died in the Legislature.

It's a safe bet recovery and rebuilding will dominate the rest of her term. "What are we going to do to make life whole, to heal our state?" she has asked. If she runs for re-election in 2007, she'll be judged by her answers.

No wait for Bush's calls

Barbour hasn't had to wait hours to talk to Bush. In fact, Barbour said in an interview with USA TODAY, the president called him three to four times in the wake of Katrina. "I never called him. He always called me," he said.

Ed Rogers, Barbour's longtime friend and business partner, says Barbour "has a very sophisticated working knowledge of this administration and this city (Washington).

He knows what people can do and what they can't do. He knows who to call, and they know him."

Katrina grabbed Barbour's full attention. The hurricane dealt the Mississippi Gulf Coast "utter devastation," Barbour says: 1 million people significantly affected, tens of thousands "who've lost everything."

By Kyle Carter, The Star via AP
Barbour says the federal government has been "a good partner."

But compared with the complete wipeout next door in Louisiana, the destruction was familiar hurricane damage writ large, and recovery efforts were moving ahead relatively rapidly.

By Friday, as authorities in New Orleans continued to hunt for corpses in toxic waters, Barbour had named a recovery czar — former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale. A damaged vacuum cleaner plant reopened in Biloxi and displaced people started moving into mobile homes. By Saturday, electricity was available to all customers who could accept it.

"The most critical thing is what the private sector does," Barbour says. "Our people need jobs."

The onetime party leader declined to comment on Republican plans to push for tax cuts despite mounting federal deficits driven by Katrina and the Iraq war.

"I just haven't got anything to do with it," he says of the national agenda. "I got a full-time job down here."

Upbeat and good-natured, Barbour also has refused to express much frustration with a federal relief operation even Bush acknowledged was flawed. He repeatedly says the federal government has been "a good partner."

Bush offered Mississippi as well as Louisiana a federal takeover of relief efforts. "I told him we didn't need it," Barbour says, "that we were doing well."

Not everyone appreciates Barbour's positive spin. Steve Bozell of Milton, Fla., said in a letter to The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson that he had made three trips to Biloxi to deliver supplies. "While Barbour was praising FEMA and praising the president's response, reporters and private citizens like me were driving the streets" on a fruitless search for federal relief officials, he wrote.

Wiseman says Barbour is expecting that good behavior "will pay off in a bigger way down the road" when his strapped state needs federal money to rebuild.

Barbour often takes the long view, whether it's avoiding complaints or investing in high technology for his campaign in 2002.

Wiseman used to bring groups of students to visit Barbour year after year in Washington.

"He took time he really didn't have every time we were up there. He welcomed them with open arms," Wiseman says. "Knowing Haley, he was probably thinking, eight to 10 years from now, I may run for governor, and I will need these folks."

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-12-two-governors_x.htm

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 10:06 PM

The plot thickens :eek:

Nursing home owners charged

Attorney: Clients stayed with at-risk patients as Katrina hit

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- The attorney for a couple charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide said Tuesday his clients never abandoned the nursing home where people tried to ride out Hurricane Katrina.

The Category 4 hurricane swamped St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, near New Orleans, killing 34 people August 29.

On Tuesday, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. charged Mable and Salvador Mangano Sr., both 65, with 34 counts of negligent homicide. (Watch the attorney general explain the charges -- 4:23)

The Manganos, who face up to five years on each count, surrendered to Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigators in Baton Rouge and posted bail.

Jim Cobb, an attorney for the Manganos, told CNN that his clients said they were never told about the mandatory evacuation, and the couple was concerned that if they moved their patients, many would have died.

The owners stayed in the nursing home through the storm with their children, grandchildren, and nieces and nephews, he said.

Tammy Daigle, a nurse at St. Rita's, agreed that the Manganos didn't want to risk losing any patients.

"Instead of endangering their lives, they [the Manganos] thought they could stay safely in the building with all of them," she told CNN.

Foti said the patients should have been moved to a safer place.

"They did not die of natural causes; they drowned," Foti told reporters. "Thirty-four people drowned in a nursing home where they should have been evacuated."

He said the owners had plenty of opportunity to move their charges out of the facility. The Manganos were asked if they wanted to evacuate the building and were offered buses; in addition, they had signed last April a contract with Acadian Ambulance to provide transportation in the event an evacuation was needed, Foti said, but "they were never called."

Dr. Bryan Bertucci, a coroner, said he called all five nursing homes in the parish as the storm was threatening the city, and all but St. Rita's said they were evacuating their patients.

By Sunday at 2 p.m., when the danger was imminent and a mandatory evacuation order had been issued, he called back and spoke with Mrs. Mangano.

"I told her I had two buses with two drivers that would take them wherever they want," Bertucci told CNN.

But he said he was told that five special needs patients could not be evacuated. "She said, 'I have five nurses, I have a generator, and I've spoken to the families and they said it was OK.' "

The Manganos had a spotless record for 20 years, and the home was well-regarded in the community, Cobb, their attorney, said. Eighty-five percent of the patients were from St. Bernard Parish, he said.

"At the end of the day the relatives of these people decided that it was best for their relatives to be there," he said.

Workers at the nursing home called each family, Cobb said, to tell them they were prepared with supplies and medicine and were staying at the home. Only six people came to get family members, he said.

Bertucci said the Manganos had provided good care before the storm, but he found fault with their decision not to evacuate. "I think they made a poor decision," he said.

Foti said it was unclear whether all 34 bodies were patients, family members or people who had sought refuge in the home.

Between 40 and 50 other people were rescued from the facility, St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens has said. Cobb said the Manganos "saved 52 lives."

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/13/katrina.nursinghome/index.html

dissention

09-13-2005, 10:11 PM

The plot thickens :eek:

Nursing home owners charged

The Louisiana AG was on Anderson Cooper (filling in for Nagin, I assume, because Nagin backed out five minutes before airtime, so I had zero chance of having even ONE of my 15 questions that I sent in asked :laugh: ) and he talked about how they just wouldn't evacuate until it was too late. These people are being rightfully charged.

strandinthewind

09-13-2005, 11:22 PM

Sorry about your questions :mad: I think you should post them here. Did you concentrate on the Feds mess up or did you ask about the Mayor's and Gov.'s as well?

Also, FYI

Louisiana State Law, defining negligent homicide:

§32. Negligent homicide

A. Negligent homicide is the killing of a human being by criminal negligence.

B. The violation of a statute or ordinance shall be considered only as presumptive evidence of such negligence.

C. Whoever commits the crime of negligent homicide shall be imprisoned with or without hard labor for not more than five years, fined not more than five thousand dollars, or both. However, if the victim was killed as a result of receiving a battery and was under the age of ten years, the offender shall be imprisoned at hard labor, without benefit of probation or suspension of sentence, for not less than two nor more than five years.

and rhen

LA R.S. 14:12

Criminal negligence exists when, although neither specific nor general criminal intent is present, there is such disregard of the interest of others that the offender's conduct amounts to a gross deviation below the standard of care expected to be maintained by a reasonably careful man under like circumstances.

__________________________________________________________

Looks like it fits. It is al little odd seeng as how they, according to the article, ran such an great nursing home for so long - and this. The defense will point out that that negates that they would have "such disregard of the interest of others that the offender's conduct amounts to a gross deviation below the standard of care expected to be maintained by a reasonably careful man under like circumstances." The prosecution will be able to cut through that though because no matter how good they were prior to this, the standard is "a reasonably careful man under like circumstances" and I know of no one who sould not have evacuated these poor souls.

Anyway, that's my $0.02

strandinthewind

09-14-2005, 09:36 AM

Last night Howard Dean was on Hannity and Colmes and said:

There was a big squabble over who was going to have control. The thing that's so disturbing is that the Congressional Research Service today, which is totally non-partisan, came out today and said that Governor Blanco did everything she could. Which means obviously they thought that the real screw-ups were at the federal level, and they were.

I tried to find where the Congressional Research Service ( http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRS/ ) actually said Governor Blanco did everything she could. AllI could find was the following September 7, 2005, letter from Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee (footnotes omitted):

I write to request that CRS review the applicable law and legal requests pertaining to Hurricane Katrina, and confirm whether or not the necessary steps were taken to give the Federal government in general, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in particular, the legal authority needed to act to save lives and mitigate the damage stemming from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.

Given that the Administration has described the Hurricane as the largest natural disaster in our nation's history, it is inconceivable to me that they would permit a bureaucratic issue to interfere with the performance of its job. However, it appears to me that the State of Louisiana took all necessary and appropriate actions to permit federal engagement. Some in the White House and Congress appear to want to derail any inquiry of this matter by labeling attempts to assess accountability as a "blame game." In my view, such labeling is not only misguided, but has potentially deadly implications, as it is essential to determine what went wrong and who is responsible so that we can correct shortcomings and avoid a similar debacle in the future.

An immediate review of the legal authority is necessary due to the continuing confusion in the media and the public concerning whether or not FEMA's actually had the necessary authority to respond under the law. For example, Monday's New York Times reports that "the administration is ... working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials in New Orleans and Louisiana, who, as it happens are Democrats." I also understand that White House officials provided information to the Washington Post claiming that "[A]s of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency," and to Newsweek, asserting that "Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco seemed uncertain and sluggish, hesitant to declare martial law or a state of emergency, which would have opened the door to more Pentagon help."

My own review of the facts and law indicates the following:

The Stafford Act, the relevant statute concerning natural disaster relief, provides that "[a]ll requests for a declaration by the President that a major disaster exists shall be made by the Governor of the affected State." The Act goes on to specify that such a request is "a prerequisite to major [federal] disaster assistance" and details various information which is to be included in such a request.

On Saturday, August 27 and Sunday, August 28, Gov. Kathleen Blanco wrote to President Bush requesting that the president "declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina." The letters reference the Stafford Act and itemize the severity and magnitude of Hurricane Katrina and specifically requests federal assistance.

On Saturday, August 27, President Bush issued a Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana. He "declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana" and by its terms "authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency to the local population." The White House statement also references the provisions of the Stafford Act.

The DHS website provides that "in the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or other large scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort."

For your convenience, I have attached copies of all of the above materials to this letter.

In my judgment, it would appear to be relatively straightforward that the Governor's letter, combined with the declaration by President Bush granted DHS and FEMA full and complete authority to respond to Hurricane Katrina and to provide necessary aid and assistance to Louisiana and the other affected States. However, it would be extremely helpful if you could confirm to me whether or not I am reading the law correctly.

Given the importance and urgency of this issue, I would ask that you please provide us with a detailed analysis no later than Monday, September 12, 2005. Please feel free to contact Perry Apelbaum or Ted Kalo of the Judiciary Committee staff, at 2142 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 (tel. 202-225-6504, fax 202-225-4423), with any questions or requests for any additional information.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this issue.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/letters/crsemergencyprocedureltr9705.pdf

Does anyone know anything about this or where the actual report/opnion is located?

dissention

09-14-2005, 10:05 AM

Sorry about your questions :mad: I think you should post them here. Did you concentrate on the Feds mess up or did you ask about the Mayor's and Gov.'s as well?

I asked about the federal, local, and state responses. I like Nagin, but he gets no free pass from me. I didn't save the questions before sending them, but one of them was about why he tried to enforce mandatory evacuations after the hurricane knowing full well that no one would leave without their pets. Then I asked if he felt everything that could possibly be done to save the stranded animals was done before instructing officers to kill them. Another one was why his statements regarding the federal response to this were so contradictory; he'd say one thing and then change his tune the next day, and so on and so on. I'm telling ya, I sent a ****load of questions (individually so that I had a greater chance of one being asked :laugh: ).

Looks like it fits. It is al little odd seeng as how they, according to the article, ran such an great nursing home for so long - and this. The defense will point out that that negates that they would have "such disregard of the interest of others that the offender's conduct amounts to a gross deviation below the standard of care expected to be maintained by a reasonably careful man under like circumstances." The prosecution will be able to cut through that though because no matter how good they were prior to this, the standard is "a reasonably careful man under like circumstances" and I know of no one who sould not have evacuated these poor souls.

Anyway, that's my $0.02

There's no defense that they could possibly put on that would excuse them of the deaths of 34 people. They're going down.

strandinthewind

09-14-2005, 10:10 AM

^^^^^

There have been several articles regarding the efforts to rescue the dogs and cats - I never read they were instructed to kill them :eek:

dissention

09-14-2005, 10:16 AM

^^^^^

There have been several articles regarding the efforts to rescue the dogs and cats - I never read they were instructed to kill them :eek:

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/photography/2005/katrina_video/straydogs.html

Warning: It's incredibly disturbing and may cause you to lose your breakfast. I don't know how these people can live with themselves. I can't comprehend officials being instructed to shoot these creatures.

However pointless it may seem, you can fill this out:

http://www.helpinganimals.com/f-dpetition.asp?c=ha_kat_net

estranged4life

09-14-2005, 01:44 PM

but sure is funny:

The doctor is in
The heckler who cursed Vice-President Dick Cheney on live television has become a bit of a hero among foes of the Bush administration.

The man, who had just visited his hurricane-destroyed home at the time he told the veep to "Go [bleep] yourself Mr. Cheney," has been identified as Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency-room physician who plays in alternative rock bands.

He has been lauded on various Web sites and blogs, has set up his own Web site that discusses the incident, has been attempting to sell a tape of the incident on eBay, and even links to a line of "Go [Bleep] Yourself Mr. Cheney" merchandise - including T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, a baby bib, and a dog shirt, emblazoned with the now-infamous line.

"So we survived the worst disaster in the history of our nation," Marble writes on his Web site, "Only to have a politician come to our neighborhood to try to score some brownie points after totally screwing up the rescue efforts????"

Livia

09-14-2005, 04:29 PM

^^^^^ I hope he intends to donate 100% of his merch profits to Katrina Relief organizations.

strandinthewind

09-14-2005, 04:34 PM

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/photography/2005/katrina_video/straydogs.html

Warning: It's incredibly disturbing and may cause you to lose your breakfast. I don't know how these people can live with themselves. I can't comprehend officials being instructed to shoot these creatures.

However pointless it may seem, you can fill this out:

http://www.helpinganimals.com/f-dpetition.asp?c=ha_kat_net

I think that Sheriff was acting too early. I would be all for euthanizing the animals if they were stark raving mad or suffering, but clearly that was not the case of the many they showed. I guess the good side, if there is one, is that the NG and others appeared to be saving many despite the shooting. Just heartbreaking.

On edit - I thought I posted this - these poor anilmals should have been allowed to be evacuated as well and any person who left their animal in a flood area in a hurricane ought to be prosecuted :mad:

SuzeQuze

09-14-2005, 05:02 PM

estranged4life

09-14-2005, 05:07 PM

The Ledge was down for me most of the day, you guys too?

seems this website and a few other FM-related websites were down at the same time, each and every time...Makes one wonder don't it?

Oh, Love yer sig pic of Al "Personality of a casserole" Gore and his 'hand puppet' Stuart "Al Franken" Smalley :lol:

SuzeQuze

09-14-2005, 05:14 PM

seems this website and a few other FM-related websites were down at the same time, each and every time...Makes one wonder don't it?

Oh, Love yer sig pic of Al "Personality of a casserole" Gore and his 'hand puppet' Stuart "Al Franken" Smalley :lol:

:laugh: Thanks. Those are "My Two Als".

Well, Nancy's site is on the same server so hers tends to go down with The Ledge. As far as others go I don't know.

estranged4life

09-14-2005, 05:24 PM

Well, Nancy's site is on the same server so hers tends to go down with The Ledge. As far as others go I don't know.

hopefully it's just server related...But I would still be aware of the hackers out there, Who may think this website would be a perfect target.

estranged4life

09-14-2005, 06:42 PM

By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo

NEW ORLEANS -- Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force. Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served in Iraq on the personal security details of the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.

"This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS (Continental United States)," a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. "We're much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq."

Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans returned from Iraq as recently as 2 weeks ago.

What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract from the federal and Louisiana state governments.

Blackwater is one of the leading private "security" firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has several US government contracts and has provided security for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations. The company rose to international prominence after 4 of its men were killed in Fallujah and two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge in March 2004. Those killings sparked the massive US retaliation against the civilian population of Fallujah that resulted in scores of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees.

As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."

Officially, Blackwater says it forces are in New Orleans to "join the Hurricane Relief Effort." A statement on the company's website, dated September 1, advertises airlift services, security services and crowd control. The company, according to news reports, has since begun taking private contracts to guard hotels, businesses and other properties. But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general law enforcement activities including "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals."

That raises a key question: under what authority are Blackwater's men operating? A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington Post he knows of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security. "We believe we've got the right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of public safety." he said.

But in an hour-long conversation with several Blackwater mercenaries, we heard a different story. The men we spoke with said they are indeed on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and the Louisiana governor's office and that some of them are sleeping in camps organized by Homeland Security in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. One of them wore a gold Louisiana state law enforcement badge and said he had been "deputized" by the governor. They told us they not only had authority to make arrests but also to use lethal force. We encountered the Blackwater forces as we walked through the streets of the largely deserted French Quarter. We were talking with 2 New York Police officers when an unmarked car without license plates sped up next to us and stopped. Inside were 3 men, dressed in khaki uniforms, flak jackets and wielding automatic weapons. "Y'all know where the Blackwater guys are?" they asked. One of the police officers responded, "There are a bunch of them around here," and pointed down the road.

"Blackwater?" we asked. "The guys who are in Iraq?"

"Yeah," said the officer. "They're all over the place."

A short while later, as we continued down Bourbon Street, we ran into the men from the car. They wore Blackwater ID badges on their arms.

"When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?,'" said one of the Blackwater men. He was wearing his company ID around his neck in a carrying case with the phrase "Operation Iraqi Freedom" printed on it. After bragging about how he drives around Iraq in a "State Department issued level 5, explosion proof BMW," he said he was "just trying to get back to Kirkuk (in the north of Iraq) where the real action is." Later we overheard him on his cell phone complaining that Blackwater was only paying $350 a day plus per diem. That is much less than the men make serving in more dangerous conditions in Iraq. Two men we spoke with said they plan on returning to Iraq in October. But, as one mercenary said, they've been told they could be in New Orleans for up to 6 months. "This is a trend," he told us. "You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations."

If Blackwater's reputation and record in Iraq are any indication of the kind of "services" the company offers, the people of New Orleans have much to fear.

Jeremy Scahill, a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, and Daniela Crespo are in New Orleans. Visit www.democracynow.org for in-depth, independent, investigative reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Email: [email protected]

http://www.democracynow.org/static/Overkill.shtml

gldstwmn

09-14-2005, 06:47 PM

I won't be able to read that without flipping out. :( I will fill out your form.

The Ledge was down for me most of the day, you guys too?

Yes. It was.

strandinthewind

09-14-2005, 06:48 PM

I won't be able to read that without flipping out. :( I will fill out your form.

The Ledge was down for me most of the day, you guys too?

Oh No darlin' - its a video :eek:

strandinthewind

09-14-2005, 06:56 PM

On what Brian posted - NOLA is in a bad way now. Many people have millions in art in some of those houses. Many have hired private security that helicoptered in a few weeks ago. If it were my art in my house, I would probably do the same. Also, it is widely reported down there that there is well organized art and other theft going on outside of any looters that remain and the police are too busy to stop it nor would it be fair to expect them to. I mean it would be a little hard to justify using public forces to save your Monets instead of someone's life or recovering someone's body and giving it a burial. Interestingly, the police are seemingly glad these private security forces are taking care of blocks as it frees up the police to go after other crime.

Anyway - I am not justifying the stuff in that article, I am just explaining why many have hired private security details.

BTFLCHLD

09-14-2005, 07:16 PM

SuzeQuze

09-14-2005, 10:24 PM

strandinthewind

09-15-2005, 12:30 PM

Oh that Karl Rove :rolleyes:

September 15, 2005

Bush to Focus on Vision for Reconstruction in Speech Tonight

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - President Bush is to pledge in an address to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday night that the federal government will provide housing assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina and also help reimburse the states for costs they have absorbed in taking in evacuees, a White House official said Wednesday.

The commitments are part of a series of initiatives that the president is expected to announce as he tries to recover from the political fallout over the government's handling of the storm.

The initiatives will encompass education, health care and other social services, with specific housing and job assistance for people who return to New Orleans to live. White House officials said the president would not call for any set-asides or quotas for minorities in reconstruction contracts.

The proposals were still in the planning stages on Wednesday night, and officials said the 9 p.m. address, the president's first major speech on the hurricane, would not be a State of the Union "laundry list" of proposals. Instead, they said, it would focus more generally on Mr. Bush's vision for the reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, with the federal government playing a supportive role to what White House officials are calling a "home-grown" plan that must be created by city and state authorities.

"We're in the beginning of the rebuilding at this point, and there are a lot of ideas that people are expressing," Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday. "The president wants people to think big."

Mr. McClellan indicated that Mr. Bush would not use the speech to name a "reconstruction czar" to oversee the effort. A number of White House officials have advised the president to name such a czar, with Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of forces in the 2001 war in Afghanistan, being a favorite of Republicans who are pushing the idea.

White House officials also played down the notion that Mr. Bush would offer a "Marshall Plan" for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, as the Senate Republican leadership called for in a letter to the president on Wednesday. "We stand ready to work with you to lay out a comprehensive approach to the coordination of relief and development efforts through a 'Marshall Plan' for the Gulf Coast as soon as possible," said the letter, signed by Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and others.

Instead, administration officials and a Republican close to the White House said Mr. Bush would offer some general principles about "building a better New Orleans" with stricter construction standards to try to avoid a replay of the recent catastrophe. Republicans said Mr. Bush would not mention a price tag, in large part because of budget and political pressures from House Republicans and other supporters angry about administration spending.

Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort, which reaches across many agencies of government and includes the direct involvement of Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development.

As of Wednesday, few if any members of Congress had been informed by the administration of the president's plans. But Congressional leaders nonetheless offered Mr. Bush advice on his speech.

"I want him to reassure the people that the big part of this fight is ahead of us, and he's going to make sure that the federal government does a better job, does its part," Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday night. "We're all to blame to a degree." Mr. Lott added that Congress should never have passed legislation, as the White House wanted, that made the Federal Emergency Management Agency part of the Department of Homeland Security.

"We went along with that, and I guess we'll have to go back and try to rewrite the history, but that should be an independent agency reporting only to the president of the United States," Mr. Lott said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/politics/15bush.html?ei=5070&en=3b1d53523999af00&ex=1127448000&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print

strandinthewind

09-15-2005, 12:34 PM

^^^^

1. Note the Frist posturing

2. Rove is already in charge - so what's the big deal

3. Though I despise Lott, at least he had the sand to admit an error.

strandinthewind

09-15-2005, 12:59 PM

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But, I hear from my friends there that the ins. companies are behaving mostly okay. I hear State Farm is issuing $2,500 initial checks to all policy holders with coverage and they will consider that amount int he final total. So, at least those people have some cash.
___________________________________________________________

Flood-damage insurance limits dismay residents

Homeowners policies cover only so much

Federal flood policies don't cover loss of use

By Jeffrey Meitrodt
Staff writer

Carol Hess hoped she had shed her last tear over the ruins of what used to be her lovely four-bedroom house in Slidell. But an hour after the adjuster from State Farm came to visit her hurricane-ravaged property this week, Hess was crying again.

Though Hurricane Katrina's storm surge dumped the contents of two neighboring townhouses into her back yard, crushing the back of her garage and driving a mountain of debris into her living room, the adjuster told Hess that virtually none of the damage would be covered by her homeowner's policy.

His explanation: The debris came by water, not wind. And that means Hess' claim will be filed through her flood insurance policy.

The debate about whether claims should be filed under homeowners or flood insurance policies is one that several hundred thousand policyholders are coming up against as they try to figure out how to pay for Katrina-related property damage.

"It's not a black-and-white answer because each claim is different," said Bill Mellander of the Allstate Natural Catastrophe team in Northbrook, Ill.

Homeowners policies provide compensation for damage resulting from high winds, but do not cover flood damage. The only water losses covered under a homeowners policy are those that occur after a windstorm has damaged a building, such as when water pours into the structure because a fallen tree created a hole in the roof.

Flood damage is covered by federal flood insurance, which is a type of coverage held by a fraction of homeowners. Flood insurance, however, only covers damages up to $250,000.

As a result, many homeowners would prefer to see their claims handled through homeowners insurance. And some policyholders are arguing that wind from the storm caused the levee breach that flooded the city, and that any water damage should be covered under a traditional storm policy.

"In this event, the big (question) will be: What's wind and what's water?" said Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America.

Hunter said it will be hard to make a case that wind led to the flooding. "I think that argument may have a class-action lawsuit to follow it," he said.

The debate was addressed on Friday at a meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on Insurance. At the meeting, some Louisiana lawmakers said they would like the federal government to create a special appropriation to cover the difference between flood insurance and homeowner's policy payouts.

Carol Hess and her husband, Bobby, have paid $364 a year for their flood policy. And State Farm adjuster Steve Evans said his week that the Hesses will be able to recover a maximum of $155,800 for damage to their Eden Isles home and its contents under the policy. If the adjuster had blamed the damage on the hurricane, the Hesses could have gotten as much as $277,918, according to their homeowners' policy, which cost $1,640 annually.

The news blew them both away.

"My house is demolished and you're telling me it was a flood," complained Bobby Hess, 58, a retired air-conditioning mechanic. "But water didn't pick up this roof and dump it in my back yard. This furniture didn't come by water. It was pushed here by the wind. It makes no sense to me. I am totally disgusted with the whole thing."

Carol Hess couldn't hide her disappointment: "I paid $1,600 a year for nothing."
This scene will likely be replayed countless times in the coming months, as insurance adjusters spread out across southeastern Louisiana, where most of the damage from Katrina was caused by water, not wind.

While representatives of various insurance companies promise that each claim will be handled on an individual basis, they also note that the rules of the insurance business haven't changed in Katrina's wake. That means any damage caused to a home by rising water is covered by flood insurance, not a homeowner's policy.

"A flood is defined as rising water, and it doesn't matter why the water is rising," said Jeff Albright, chief executive of the Independent Agents and Brokers of Louisiana. "If it rains faster than it can be pumped away, that's a flood. If a wind blows the Gulf of Mexico or some other body of water ... into the city, that is a flood and it is covered under flood insurance. Rising waters, by definition, are excluded from a homeowner's policy."

For insurers, the distinction could save them billions of dollars. Any losses from flood insurance are covered by the federal government, and with damage from Katrina now estimated at $200 billion, it's easy to see why adjusters aren't anxious to make exceptions.

In many parts of New Orleans, most of which lies below sea level, flood insurance is required by mortgage companies. But according to the Insurance Information Institute, about half of New Orleans residents still don't have flood insurance, compared with a national average of about 80 percent.

Some homes in the New Orleans area that were affected by the 17th Street Canal flooding don't carry flood insurance because they are not in a flood plain.
Bobby and Carol Hess could have gotten rid of their flood policy last year, when they paid off their 15-year mortgage. But they didn't even consider a change.

"I always took the advice of my insurance agent," said Carol Hess, 57, an administrative worker for the IRS in New Orleans. "I asked several times if I had adequate coverage, and they said yes."

Based on several property sales near their home on Moonraker Drive, Hess figures her house was worth about $350,000 before the storm. She estimates the family's personal property, including two small boats, was worth about $70,000.

Most of that property is now lying in her driveway or the front yard.

"This is the worst I've seen so far," said Evans, who has visited hundreds of water-logged homes in his six years as a catastrophe specialist for State Farm.

To mitigate the damage to the two-story home, Bobby Hess removed everything that got wet when 3 feet of water inundated the property, including the kitchen cabinets, the first-floor furniture, the carpeting and the appliances. He even ripped out four feet of sheet rock on every wall, figuring it was the only way to stop mold from taking over the entire house.

He also hauled out an eight-foot dresser that belonged to a neighbor across the nearby canal. It was one of many artifacts that washed up in his living room. The fact that so much debris made it into his house still stuns him.

As he does ever time a major storm marches across the Gulf toward New Orleans, Hess covered each door and window of his home with a half-inch of plywood, all of it carefully labeled. Then he and his wife headed to a hotel in Montgomery, Ala.

Despite his precautions, storm surge drove debris right through his sliding glass doors, shattering the glass and bending the frames. The water also dumped about five feet of shattered timber in his back yard, as well as a water heater and two refrigerators. The only thing Carol Hess recognizes in the mess is their riding lawnmower, which is barely visible.

"Who is going to clean up this mess?" she asks Evans, who works as an adjuster on behalf of both the National Flood Insurance Program and State Farm. "The majority of this is not ours. Does the parish pick this up? Does the insurance company?"

Once again, because Evans has determined that the primary cause of the damage was rising water, the answer comes as a blow. Hess is told that her policy will only cover the removal of debris that is in her house or touching it - she and her husband are responsible for everything else.

After studying a copy of her homeowners' policy, Carol Hess walks over to Evans and points to an item marked "loss of use." She asks him what it means.

Evans acknowledges that her home is now "uninhabitable," and says that if the damage had been caused by a hurricane, she would have been entitled to up to two years of additional living expenses. But the government offers no such coverage with flood policies, he notes.

For Carol Hess, the answer is the last straw. She and her husband have been living in their son's small Madisonville home for the past two weeks, but their daughter-in-law is expecting a baby next month. They will have to move out soon and were hoping to rent a trailer and live in their driveway with air-conditioning supplied with a generator. Now, they don't know how they will pay for it.

"What are we supposed to do?," asks Hess, crying.

Evans suggests contacting FEMA, which is expected to hand out billions of dollars in disaster relief.

"There is a lot of money coming into this state," Evans says. "I'm sure a lot of it is going to help people like you with your uninsured losses."

That doesn't console Hess. "I called FEMA a week ago. I have yet to hear from them."

Six hours after arriving at their home, Evans hands Bobby Hess a check for $10,000 to cover damage to their personal belongings. Ultimately, he says, the couple will get $31,400 for their personal property - he just needs them to finish an inventory first.

Evans said it would take another week to give them a check for the damage to their home. Again, he said it could reach their policy limit of $124,400 - or less than half of what the owners think it is worth.

Evans is apologetic. "I wish there was something different I could tell you," Evans told the Hesses. "But the government wrote this policy; we're just here to administer it."

Carol Hess isn't mollified. "I know the coverage is dictated by the government, but the damage is being determined by State Farm."

Staff writers Mary Judice, Jaquetta White and Rebecca Mowbray contributed to this report. Jeff Meitrodt can be reached at [email protected].

www.nola.com

SomeKindaMother

09-16-2005, 02:34 PM

We don't have 'TV' (the kids call it 'channel tv') at home, and my home computer crashed. We have my college daughter's laptop here for a minor repair, so I have just been catching up on all these atrocities. It sickens and repulses me.

We have a small 2 bedroom seperate basement home on our property completely furnished, with kitchen and bathroom... and I want to bring someone here...a small family. I have good friends who called some agency (sorry, don't know who) and offered to go bring a family to live with them, but the offer was refused and they were instead told to send money. I wonder if we can just drive somewhere, pick people up and bring them back? I don't mean to sound stupid, I'm really curious. Do you all think this is a bad idea? I have 5 kids, one in college--4 still at home. We have never done anything like this before, but I don't know really how else to help. What is the best way to help? I could possibly go volunteer somewhere for a week or so? What is the best thing to do?

Kelly

Just to update...our 'family' will be here tomorrow. One of the churches has sent a van for them today. 2 parents, 3 kids, and a grandmother. The place is too small for that many to stay for a long time, but they will be staying temporarily until they find a more suitable place. Then someone else will likely move in.

Kelly :)

dissention

09-16-2005, 02:35 PM

Just to update...our 'family' will be here tomorrow. One of the churches has sent a van for them today. 2 parents, 3 kids, and a grandmother. The place is too small for that many to stay for a long time, but they will be staying temporarily until they find a more suitable place. Then someone else will likely move in.

Kelly :)

You're a beautiful person. :xoxo: I hope it works well and that you and your home can be of good comfort to them.

SomeKindaMother

09-16-2005, 02:40 PM

You're a beautiful person. :xoxo: I hope it works well and that you and your home can be of good comfort to them.

Thank you. I hope it works well for them too. I'm excited... and really want them to be able to rest comfortably without worry for a little while.

Kelly :)

SuzeQuze

09-16-2005, 03:01 PM

Thank you. I hope it works well for them too. I'm excited... and really want them to be able to rest comfortably without worry for a little while.

Kelly :)

That's wonderful. :angel:

DrummerDeanna

09-16-2005, 04:16 PM

Who! Just read your update Kelly -that's awesome!!

I really hope that it goes well for you - and for that family :)

dissention

09-16-2005, 07:05 PM

Eeek, who saw the police chief and the city official going at it on AC 360? :eek: And that interview right afterwards was even more vicious. I am in shock that these people have been without shelter or any type of roof over their heads for three weeks now. Where is the relief?

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 12:35 PM

September 19, 2005
Clinton Levels Sharp Criticism at the President's Relief Effort
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 - Former President Bill Clinton, asked by President Bush to help raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, offered harsh criticism of the administration's disaster-relief effort on Sunday, saying "you can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up."

Mr. Clinton's comments in an interview on the ABC News program "This Week" could prove awkward for the White House, given President Bush's eagerness to involve his Democratic predecessor in a high-profile role to raise money for the hurricane's victims. His remarks came days after the president gave a televised speech from New Orleans, trying to seize the momentum amid other attacks on the administration's performance.

The White House has been under siege from critics, assailed first for the effectiveness of its response to the storm, and challenged more recently by questions about the long-term fiscal implications of its plans for rebuilding in the Gulf states.

Mr. Clinton argued that lower-income Americans had done better under the economic policies of his administration than they are doing now, saying the storm highlighted class divisions in the country that often played out along racial lines.

"It's like when they issued the evacuation order," he said. "That affects poor people differently. A lot of them in New Orleans didn't have cars. A lot of them who had cars had kinfolk they had to take care of. They didn't have cars, so they couldn't take them out."

"This is a matter of public policy," he said. "And whether it's race-based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made. That's what they did in the 80's; that's what they've done in this decade. In the middle, we had a different policy."

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, did not respond directly to Mr. Clinton's remarks about the hurricane-relief effort or mention the former president by name. But in a statement on Sunday, Mr. McClellan suggested it was unfair to link the plight of low-income victims of the hurricane to the economic policies of the Bush administration.

"There is a deep history of injustice that has led to poverty and inequality, and it will not be overcome instantly," he said, adding that President Bush "from Day 1 has been acting boldly to achieve real results for all Americans."

He added, "Do we think in new and bold ways by focusing on innovative programs that work for all Americans, or do we embrace failed policies of the past which have resulted in too many being left behind?"

Throughout Mr. Bush's presidency, Mr. Clinton has often been critical of his successor, and he repeated many of those criticisms in the Sunday interview in discussing the invasion of Iraq, the growing federal deficit and other issues. But it was the directness of his criticism of President Bush's policies related to domestic disaster relief that appeared most likely to cause aggravation at the White House.

Noting statistics that showed a significant drop in poverty during his presidency, Mr. Clinton said, "You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up, and when you tell people to go do something they don't have the means to do, you're going to leave the poor out."

Mr. Clinton has reunited with President Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush, in a fund-raising campaign for Katrina victims, much as they worked together to raise millions of dollars for relief efforts after the Asian tsunami last year. Mr. Clinton said the two had raised $90 million to $100 million so far for hurricane victims.

Mr. Clinton drew a sharp distinction between the performance of the government's disaster-relief agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in his administration and today. "I think we did a good job of disaster management," he said.

While not using the name of Michael D. Brown, the FEMA director who resigned last Monday after criticism of his performance in the Katrina disaster, Mr. Clinton praised the performance of his FEMA director, James Lee Witt, and said Mr. Witt had been especially sensitive to the needs of low-income people because "both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."

Mr. Clinton said he was especially disturbed that many of the people who lost homes in the hurricane had no property insurance.

"Everything they owned was in their little home," he said. "And if we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out and also lots of empty vans" to save the belongings of those with no home or flood insurance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/national/nationalspecial/19clinton.html

SuzeQuze

09-19-2005, 04:11 PM

Nagin has called for an evacuation of NOLA again because of the tropical storm.

dissention

09-19-2005, 04:30 PM

Nagin has called for an evacuation of NOLA again because of the tropical storm.

Nagin is a fool. He shouldn't be allowing all of those people back, especially now that all of those mold spores are drying up and going into the air. Watch a lot of the people who returned develop respiratory problems, just like those is New York who were told the air was fine.

After watching all of this unfold, I've gone from respecting Nagin to thinking something is terribly off. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.

amber

09-19-2005, 04:32 PM

Nagin is a fool. He shouldn't be allowing all of those people back, especially now that all of those mold spores are drying up and going into the air. Watch a lot of the people who returned develop respiratory problems, just like those is New York who were told the air was fine.

After watching all of this unfold, I've gone from respecting Nagin to thinking something is terribly off. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.
In what way do you not trust him? What could be the fishy part, IYO?

BTFLCHLD

09-19-2005, 04:37 PM

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 5, 2005

dissention

09-19-2005, 04:38 PM

In what way do you not trust him? What could be the fishy part, IYO?

He's very crafty. He was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off not too long ago, telling the Associated Press that the CIA was going to slip him something to kill him off and telling Larry King that they were ready to take him out. Then came the pho-ops and about-face as soon as the feds started pointing fingers at him and Blanco. Now, he's kissing Shrub's royal ass at every opportunity. Something about him is very calculating and it's rubbing me the wrong way. Not to mention that I think it's wholly irresponsible on his part to be telling citizens to come back to New Orleans.

amber

09-19-2005, 04:44 PM

He's very crafty. He was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off not too long ago, telling the Associated Press that the CIA was going to slip him something to kill him off and telling Larry King that they were ready to take him out. Then came the pho-ops and about-face as soon as the feds started pointing fingers at him and Blanco. Now, he's kissing Shrub's royal ass at every opportunity. Something about him is very calculating and it's rubbing me the wrong way.
Oh, yeah. That's par for the course, I think, and LA politicians are notoriously slippery. I thought you had something a bit more specific in mind, relating to the fact that he was letting people back in, and now he wants to evacuate. :)

SuzeQuze

09-19-2005, 04:47 PM

I've been feeling the same way about him - something isn't quite right there.

dissention

09-19-2005, 04:49 PM

Oh, yeah. That's par for the course, I think, and LA politicians are notoriously slippery. I thought you had something a bit more specific in mind, relating to the fact that he was letting people back in, and now he wants to evacuate. :)

It's irresponsible. By all accounts, the levees are "very weak" and another storm could cause them more harm. Did he not think about that? It's pretty foolish to tell people to come back, especially with the extreme health risks, with the full knowledge that the levees are still weakened and another evacuation will probably be necessary since this is just the beginning of hurricane season. On the other hand, I wouldn't be too surprised if he struck up a deal with BushCo for him to call people back to New Orleans just so that BushCo could save face by publicly saying that it's not safe for Nagin to be advocating evacuees to return. I'd bet money that might be what's going on.

amber

09-19-2005, 04:49 PM

I've been feeling the same way about him - something isn't quite right there.
Well...don't you guys probably think he just made some kind of creepy weird deal with the administration?

amber

09-19-2005, 04:54 PM

It's irresponsible. By all accounts, the levees are "very weak" and another storm could cause them more harm. Did he not think about that? It's pretty foolish to tell people to come back, especially with the extreme health risks, with the full knowledge that the levees are still weakened and another evacuation will probably be necessary since this is just the beginning of hurricane season. On the other hand, I wouldn't be too surprised if he struck up a deal with BushCo for him to call people back to New Orleans just so that BushCo could save face by publicly saying that it's not safe for Nagin to be advocating evacuees to return. I'd bet money that might be what's going on.
Okay, yeah. :) I could see that. But, it's pretty lame of him.

dissention

09-19-2005, 04:55 PM

I've been feeling the same way about him - something isn't quite right there.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one. :laugh:

On another note, I just read that Oprah donated $10 million.

dissention

09-19-2005, 04:59 PM

Okay, yeah. :) I could see that. But, it's pretty lame of him.

He's a politician, therefore he's lame by default. :laugh:

And here's a sickening read:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1106213,00.html
Looking for a Corpse to Make a Case
Senators look for a wealthy casualty of Katrina as evidence against the estate tax

By MASSIMO CALABRESI
Posted Saturday, Sep. 17, 2005

Federal troops aren't the only ones looking for bodies on the Gulf Coast. On Sept. 9, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions called his old law professor Harold Apolinsky, co-author of Sessions' legislation repealing the federal estate tax, which was encountering sudden resistance on the Hill. Sessions had an idea to revitalize their cause, which he left on Apolinsky's voice mail: " Jon Kyl and I were talking about the estate tax. If we knew anybody that owned a business that lost life in the storm, that would be something we could push back with."

If legislative ambulance chasing looks like a desperate measure, for the backers of repealing the estate tax, these are desperate times. Just three weeks ago, their long-sought goal of repeal seemed within reach, but Katrina dashed their hopes when Republican leaders put off an expected vote. After hearing from Sessions, Apolinsky, an estate tax lawyer who says his firm includes three multi-billionaires among its clients, mobilized the American Family Business Institute, a Washington-based group devoted to estate tax repeal. They reached out to members along the Gulf Coast to hunt for the dead.

It's been hard. Only a tiny percentage of people are affected by the estate tax—in 2001 only 534 Alabamans were subject to it. And for Hill backers of repeal, that's only part of the problem. Last year, the tax brought in $24.8 billion to the federal government. With Katrina's cost soaring, estate tax opponents need to find a way to make up the potential lost income. For now, getting repeal back on the agenda may depend on Apolinsky and his team of estate-sniffing sleuths, who are searching Internet obituaries among other places. Has he found any victims of both the hurricane and the estate tax? "Not yet," Apolinsky says. "But I'm still looking."

amber

09-19-2005, 05:08 PM

But I don't get how dead estate tax people will help his bill. :confused: I see that it's disgusting, but I'm not getting his angle....

GypsySorcerer

09-19-2005, 05:16 PM

He's very crafty. He was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off not too long ago, telling the Associated Press that the CIA was going to slip him something to kill him off and telling Larry King that they were ready to take him out. Then came the pho-ops and about-face as soon as the feds started pointing fingers at him and Blanco. Now, he's kissing Shrub's royal ass at every opportunity. Something about him is very calculating and it's rubbing me the wrong way. Not to mention that I think it's wholly irresponsible on his part to be telling citizens to come back to New Orleans.
Yeah, I couldn't believe he wanted to let people back in. I did read where he was a life-long Republican and switched parties so he could get elected. :shrug:

SuzeQuze

09-19-2005, 05:22 PM

Glad to hear I'm not the only one. :laugh:

On another note, I just read that Oprah donated $10 million.

Holy sh*t. Good for her.

SuzeQuze

09-19-2005, 05:25 PM

But I don't get how dead estate tax people will help his bill. :confused: I see that it's disgusting, but I'm not getting his angle....

I think the angle would be, "You want to punish the poor family of this guy who was victimized by Katrina?" I don't know. Its completely lame and disgusting and these guys should be ashamed of themselves.

GypsySorcerer

09-19-2005, 05:26 PM

Holy sh*t. Good for her.
I tuned into her show this afternoon and she announced it. She's also set up a "gift registry" on her site where you can purchase items for the Katrina victims....from a house to toasters and towels.

SuzeQuze

09-19-2005, 05:27 PM

I tuned into her show this afternoon and she announced it. She's also set up a "gift registry" on her site where you can purchase items for the Katrina victims....from a house to toasters and towels.

That's cool! I wish I could have seen the show today.

dissention

09-19-2005, 05:27 PM

Yeah, I couldn't believe he wanted to let people back in. I did read where he was a life-long Republican and switched parties so he could get elected. :shrug:

It wouldn't surprise me at this point, unfortunately. :(

amber

09-19-2005, 05:27 PM

I think the angle would be, "You want to punish the poor family of this guy who was victimized by Katrina?" I don't know. Its completely lame and disgusting and these guys should be ashamed of themselves.
That's totally retarded. So many people died. Most of them weren't billionaires. Whatever, could I ralph, hurl, or barf any more about this whole thing? :mad:

SuzeQuze

09-19-2005, 05:41 PM

That's totally retarded. So many people died. Most of them weren't billionaires. Whatever, could I ralph, hurl, or barf any more about this whole thing? :mad:

Its vile. I doubt a single wealthy person died.

dissention

09-19-2005, 05:54 PM

Its vile. I doubt a single wealthy person died.

Anderson is doing a story on how insurance companies and real estate plan on cashing in on Katrina tonight. :woohoo:

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 06:52 PM

I think all this Nagin slamming is mostly unfounded. Here is a quote from nola.com

Nagin said he had wanted to reopen some of the city's signature neighborhoods over the coming week in order to reassure the people of New Orleans that "there was a city to come back to." He said he had strategically selected ZIP codes that had suffered little or no flooding.

But "now we have conditions that have changed. We have another hurricane that is approaching us," Nagin said. He warned that the city's pumping system was not yet running at full capacity and that the levees were still in a "very weak position."

He ordered residents who circumvented checkpoints and slipped back into the still officially closed parts of the city to leave immediately. Those areas include the historic French Quarter, the Garden District, Uptown and the central business district.

Nagin also urged everyone already settled back into Algiers to be ready to evacuate as early as Wednesday.

The city requested 200 buses to assist in an evacuation, his office said. They would start running 48 hours before landfall from the downtown Convention Center and a stadium in Algiers.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, in a televised address Monday, urged residents of coastal southwest Louisiana to also make preparations to leave.

"We are taking Rita very, very seriously," Blanco said. "Prepare your family, prepare your house for the possibility of evacuation."

Tropical Storm Rita was headed toward the Florida Keys and was expected to become a hurricane, cross the Gulf of Mexico and reach Texas or Mexico by the weekend. But forecasters said it could veer in Louisiana's direction.

"We're watching Tropical Storm Rita's projected path and, depending on its strength and how much rain falls, everything could change. Residents moving into the area may have to evacuate again," said Col. Duane Gapinski, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers task force that is draining New Orleans and repairing the levees.

Under the mayor's plan, Algiers opened Monday, and Uptown, the Garden District and the French Quarter were supposed to reopen one ZIP code at a time between Wednesday and next Monday, bringing a total about 180,000 of New Orleans' half-million inhabitants back.

The dispute over that plan was just the latest example of the lack of federal-local coordination that has marked the disaster practically from the start.

Nagin saw a quick reopening as a way to get the storm-battered city back in the business of luring tourists. But federal officials warned that such a move could be a few weeks premature, pointing out much of the area does not yet have full electricity and still has no drinkable water, 911 service or working hospitals.

With the approach of Rita, Bush added his voice, saying he had "deep concern" about the possibility that New Orleans' levees could be breached again.

In addition, Bush said there are significant environmental concerns. New Orleans still lacks safe drinking water, and there are fears about the contamination in the remaining floodwaters and the muck left behind in drained areas of the city.

"The mayor — you know, he's got this dream about having a city up and running, and we share that dream," the president said. "But we also want to be realistic about some of the hurdles and obstacles that we all confront in repopulating New Orleans."

Bush said White House chief of staff Andrew Card had been pressing the matter with Nagin. The concerns were also echoed by the top federal official in charge in New Orleans, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, who went on one news show after another to warn that city services may not be able to handle the influx of people.

Before reversing course Monday, a clearly agitated Nagin snapped that Allen had apparently made himself "the new crowned federal mayor of New Orleans."

It was not immediately known if Nagin had a meeting with Allen, who said over the weekend that he intended to have a frank discussion with the mayor on Monday.

About 20 percent of the city is still flooded, down from a high of about 80 percent after Katrina, and the water was expected to be pumped out by Sept. 30.

But officials with the Army Corps of Engineers said the repairs to the levees breached by Katrina are not yet strong enough to prevent flooding in a moderate storm, much less another hurricane.

Nagin did not give any specifics about how he plans to enforce the renewed evacuation order.

In the raucous French Quarter, about a half-mile from where Nagin made his announcement, businesses were getting up and running, and bars were serving cold beers to National Guardsmen and passers-by.

Del Juneau, owner of a Bourbon Street lingerie shop, said it would be premature to order an evacuation based on the storm nearing Florida. "Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?" he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Down the street at the Famous Door, bartender C.B. Dover, said: "If we have a forced evacuation, we'll go. If it's not forced, we're not going anywhere." Dover said the mayor "has been overreacting the whole time. ... He's reacting emotionally, and you can't do that."

Earlier in the day, as residents began streaming in at the mayor's invitation, cars were backed for two hours at an Interstate 10 checkpoint into the city. Tractor-trailers, emergency vehicles and National Guard trucks shared the highway with cars towing trailers full of hurricane gear and pickup trucks with their beds loaded with water, cleaning materials and coolers.

It was clear that at least some of the traffic was headed to sections of the city that had not yet officially opened.

Algiers, a neighborhood of 57,000 just across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter, is home to many of the companies that make floats for Mardi Gras parades. Unlike much of the rest of the city, it saw little damage from Hurricane Katrina three weeks ago and has electricity and drinkable water.

"Obviously we need to get businesses up and running any way we can," said Barry Kern, whose float businesses is stocked to the rafters with oversized imaginary creatures. "If we don't start somewhere, where do we start?"

Elsewhere across the city, where the damage was more severe, much of the sentiment seemed to be with the mayor and his attempts to reopen the city quickly.

"Send Bush here and we'll make him a po' boy and tell him to leave us alone," Kathleen Horn said as she cleaned up the debris piled in front of Slim Goodies Diner on Magazine Street in Uptown.

That makes sense to me :shrug:

Also, many many areas of NOLA had homes that suffereed little to no damage.

Finally, many people have slipped in since at least a week and a half ago, esp. in Jefferson Parish, most of which was not comparatively significantly effected.

Nixxxed

09-19-2005, 07:47 PM

Psssssssst! Google the word "failure".

dissention

09-19-2005, 10:25 PM

I think all this Nagin slamming is mostly unfounded.

Not really. There's something about him that seriously rubs me the wrong way. I can't exactly put my finger on the pulse of it, but that's how I feel. He reminds me of The Three Faces of Eve a bit. From a raving lunatic who was convinced the CIA was trying to kill him to a silent asskisser of the highest order.

In any event, there was a bit on Anderson Cooper earlier that disturbed me a bit. None of the people currently in and who stayed in New Orleans that feel Nagin is an incompetent fool over all of this would dare go on camera to say so. I found that a little disturbing, as if they thought they'd face retaliation over it.

dissention

09-19-2005, 10:28 PM

In addition, Bush said there are significant environmental concerns. New Orleans still lacks safe drinking water, and there are fears about the contamination in the remaining floodwaters and the muck left behind in drained areas of the city.

"But we also want to be realistic about some of the hurdles and obstacles that we all confront in repopulating New Orleans."

Precisely. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd agree with Bush on anything. Fill the bathtub and hand me a razor.

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 10:52 PM

Not really. There's something about him that seriously rubs me the wrong way. I can't exactly put my finger on the pulse of it, but that's how I feel. He reminds me of The Three Faces of Eve a bit. From a raving lunatic who was convinced the CIA was trying to kill him to a silent asskisser of the highest order.

In any event, there was a bit on Anderson Cooper earlier that disturbed me a bit. None of the people currently in and who stayed in New Orleans that feel Nagin is an incompetent fool over all of this would dare go on camera to say so. I found that a little disturbing, as if they thought they'd face retaliation over it.

I meant the slamming for allowing the people to return to the uneffected areas was unfounded. He is not my fav. person, but no politician is :cool:

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 10:55 PM

Precisely. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd agree with Bush on anything. Fill the bathtub and hand me a razor.

I agree with him here to. But, Nagin's plan was for this week and now that Rita is a threat he withdrew it. Also, the plan was initially mostly for the uneffected areas, which I do not see a problem with repopulating if the people understand the risks of no power, water, etc., which I can assure you almost all New Orleanians know :laugh:

May I go on record here as saying that if Rita causes flooding in NOLA and able bodied people ignore the current evacuation order, they ought to leave them stranded :mad:

dissention

09-19-2005, 10:55 PM

I meant the slamming for allowing the people to return to the uneffected areas was unfounded.

Well, no. I think it's too soon for so many people to be allowed back. With all of the dry mold and spores in the air, it's unsafe. Don't forget how the government said the air in New York was fine after 9/11 and all of the health problems that resulted from that rank BS.

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 10:59 PM

Well, no. I think it's too soon for so many people to be allowed back. With all of the dry mold and spores in the air, it's unsafe. Don't forget how the government said the air in New York was fine after 9/11 and all of the health problems that resulted from that rank BS.

That mols spore cr*p is just that - ca*p. People have been living with that in NOLA since it was founded. But, it makes good copy. I mean all that cr*p about "if you get in the bad water - you will get sick" was cr*p - I mean how many people actually got sick from exposure to that water? I can think of none reported and remember it was predicted that thousands would die from it? Henny Jenny anyone :laugh:

Also and again, many areas were uneffected - so other than a threat from Rita, I say let the people there go back to their homes and begin the process of rebuilding.

On edit - the 9/11 air was contaminated by the dust clouds formed when the buildings fell. These dust clouds contained large quantities of asbestos, pulverized glass and concrete, radioactive material from smoke alarms, silicone from computers, etc., all of which is not in the NOLA scenario :shrug:

dissention

09-19-2005, 11:04 PM

That mols spore cr*p is just that - ca*p. People have been living with that in NOLA since it was founded. But, it makes good copy. I mean all that cr*p about "if you get in the bad water - you will get sick" was cr*p - I mean how many people actually got sick from exposure to that water? I can think of none reported and remember it was predicted that thousands would die from it? Henny Jenny anyone :laugh:

Honey, all of that stewy water is being drained, drying out, and turning to dust that's well on it's way to being airborne. :shrug: Why risk respiratory problems from breathing that **** in?

Also and again, many areas were uneffected - so other than a threat from Rita, I say let the people there go back to their homes and begin the process of rebuilding.

Kinda funny how just last week they were forcibly removing people from their homes in areas that were unaffected. All of this has been handled so ridiculously that sometimes you can't help but laugh at their incompetence.

dissention

09-19-2005, 11:12 PM

On edit - the 9/11 air was contaminated by the dust clouds formed when the buildings fell. These dust clouds contained large quantities of asbestos, pulverized glass and concrete, radioactive material from smoke alarms, silicone from computers, etc., all of which is not in the NOLA scenario :shrug:

Yeah, stuff that infected the air that the EPA said was fine to breathe. :laugh: .

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 11:18 PM

Yeah, stuff that infected the air that the EPA said was fine to breathe. :laugh: .

Well, they could not very well evacuate Manhattan, several cities in New Jersey, Brooklyn, and Staton Island could they :laugh:

Seriously, I thought most of reports indicated only the responders were significantly effected once the dust settled - though the govt.'s actions were ridiculous in any event as seen here http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050827003632243

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 11:20 PM

. . . Kinda funny how just last week they were forcibly removing people from their homes in areas that were unaffected. All of this has been handled so ridiculously that sometimes you can't help but laugh at their incompetence.

Other than the threat of Rita, people have to return at some point to the uneffected areas and I say that now, as opposed to last week, only less than 20% of the city is under a foot of water and some of the public water is potable and some of the power is coming back on - it is as good a time as any.

dissention

09-19-2005, 11:22 PM

Well, they could not very well evacuate Manhattan, several cities in New Jersey, Brooklyn, and Staton Island could they :laugh:

Well, no, but don't tell people the air is perfectly fine, either. :laugh: Christie "Frisky" Whitman was a babbling fool.

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 11:24 PM

Well, no, but don't tell people the air is perfectly fine, either. :laugh: Christie "Frisky" Whitman was a babbling fool.

But, how much of a threat was it to the citizens on the UWS and such? I do not remember reading anything that said the areas far from the actual ground zero were okay or at least as okay as any other day in a city with 2 millions cars :laugh:

But, I agree, she was wrong for saying that around ground zero.

dissention

09-19-2005, 11:28 PM

But, how much of a threat was it to the citizens on the UWS and such? I do not remember reading anything that said the areas far from the actual ground zero were okay or at least as okay as any other day in a city with 2 millions cars :laugh:

You're missing the point. That lying bitch publicly told New Yorkers that the air around Ground Zero posed no health risks. That was an outright lie, regardless of how many people were affected by it. The EPA's own studies even contradicted what she said, but her and Bush stifled the reports. Maybe her involvement with Citigroup was the reason she lied through her caps, who knows, but the fact is that she lied.

strandinthewind

09-19-2005, 11:37 PM

You're missing the point. That lying bitch publicly told New Yorkers that the air around Ground Zero posed no health risks. That was an outright lie, regardless of how many people were affected by it. The EPA's own studies even contradicted what she said, but her and Bush stifled the reports. Maybe her involvement with Citigroup was the reason she lied through her caps, who knows, but the fact is that she lied.

I agree that she lied and the post I sited indicated that - so I am not arguing with you there :shrug:

I was just asking another question of the air quality not around ground zero.

dissention

09-19-2005, 11:41 PM

I was just asking another question of the air quality not around ground zero.

I'm sure it didn't pose serious health risks to people, but they still should have been told the risks were present. There's no excuse for lying to them, but what can one expect from Frisky Christie?

dissention

09-19-2005, 11:43 PM

Other than the threat of Rita

That dude Rob that is in Florida covering Rita for CNN is hot. Please let it be a slow storm like Ophelia. :lol:

SuzeQuze

09-20-2005, 07:38 AM

Anderson is doing a story on how insurance companies and real estate plan on cashing in on Katrina tonight. :woohoo:

I'm sorry I missed it. The stupid gym didn't have CNN on. How was it? I love him.

Randy has links on her site to her favorite journalists. I read a recent piece by a woman on there, her name escapes me right now, but she pointed out that the residents of New Orleans now have lots of money due to all of the aid that has poured in, they are no longer poor. It is a matter of allocating the money appropriately. There are orgs that support workers and the poor in NOLA and if they could be instrumental in allocating the resources then all of the people could be taken care of. It really made sense and sounded like a dream, I don't know if it can happen in this time and place.

SuzeQuze

09-20-2005, 07:43 AM

That mols spore cr*p is just that - ca*p. People have been living with that in NOLA since it was founded. But, it makes good copy. I mean all that cr*p about "if you get in the bad water - you will get sick" was cr*p - I mean how many people actually got sick from exposure to that water? I can think of none reported and remember it was predicted that thousands would die from it? Henny Jenny anyone :laugh:

Also and again, many areas were uneffected - so other than a threat from Rita, I say let the people there go back to their homes and begin the process of rebuilding.

On edit - the 9/11 air was contaminated by the dust clouds formed when the buildings fell. These dust clouds contained large quantities of asbestos, pulverized glass and concrete, radioactive material from smoke alarms, silicone from computers, etc., all of which is not in the NOLA scenario :shrug:

Not to mention lead. Each cathode monitor has 4 lbs of lead in it! :shocked:

dissention

09-20-2005, 10:42 AM

I'm sorry I missed it. The stupid gym didn't have CNN on. How was it? I love him.

He followed a real estate agent around who was trying to get her hands on as much property as possible and he was ultra snarky with her. She was walking down streets filled with rubble and other assorted junk, and he made a crack about her high heel shoes. :laugh:

They were live from Kenner where the police chief and city official got into an argument last week over shelter for those hundreds of people. Nothing has been done for them yet. :shocked: He went into their damaged apartments to show how bad it is; mold is everywhere, everything was flooded, walls are falling down, etc.

Randy has links on her site to her favorite journalists. I read a recent piece by a woman on there, her name escapes me right now, but she pointed out that the residents of New Orleans now have lots of money due to all of the aid that has poured in, they are no longer poor. It is a matter of allocating the money appropriately. There are orgs that support workers and the poor in NOLA and if they could be instrumental in allocating the resources then all of the people could be taken care of. It really made sense and sounded like a dream, I don't know if it can happen in this time and place.

I don't trust this government to allocate that money appropriately, unfortunately. :o

SuzeQuze

09-20-2005, 10:52 AM

He followed a real estate agent around who was trying to get her hands on as much property as possible and he was ultra snarky with her. She was walking down streets filled with rubble and other assorted junk, and he made a crack about her high heel shoes. :laugh:

Hmm, so she wants to buy up property? Who's selling? She should be ashamed of herself. The city isn't even pumped out yet.

They were live from Kenner where the police chief and city official got into an argument last week over shelter for those hundreds of people. Nothing has been done for them yet. :shocked: He went into their damaged apartments to show how bad it is; mold is everywhere, everything was flooded, walls are falling down, etc.

I don't trust this government to allocate that money appropriately, unfortunately. :o

Jesus, they still haven't done a thing for those people? :confused: I don't trust the gov with that money either. But if more people thought like Naomi Klein, I would worry less, and this country would be a much better place. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1566199,00.html

strandinthewind

09-20-2005, 12:17 PM

This is what I was saying - I mean Mayor N.'s choice was logical at the time :shrug:

New Orleans mayor defends repopulation plan
White House names official to head inquiry

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- With Hurricane Rita heading for the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Tuesday defended his decision -- now reversed -- to repopulate parts of his already storm-ravaged city.

Nagin called off the plan on Monday because of fears that Rita could reflood the city which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Nagin's plan had called for about 180,000 people -- about a third of the city's population -- to return within the week. (Watch the mayor announce his decision -- 1:51)

Speaking to CNN's "American Morning," Nagin said, "I would take that bet again."

"The facts are that the 911 [emergency response] system will be up and operational this Wednesday," Nagin said. "The facts are we have electricity in probably 60 to 75 percent of the city -- some sections even as high as 95 percent. The facts are we're repopulating the areas that had little to no flooding."

He added that most of those who were allowed to repopulate had transportation and could evacuate on their own.

On Monday, Nagin called on those who had already returned to re-evacuate, four days after he announced businesses and homes in certain areas would be open for residents and proprietors.

Nagin said his city's levees and flood walls were weakened by Katrina's August 29 impact, which left many neighborhoods on the eastern side of the Mississippi River under water.

As Rita roiled, the White House announced Tuesday that homeland security adviser Frances Townsend will lead an internal inquiry into the federal response to Katrina.

Townsend -- formerly with the U.S. Coast Guard -- will follow up on President Bush's September 6 pledge to investigate "what went wrong and what went right." (Full story)

Bush is scheduled to make a fifth trip to the hurricane-damaged region Tuesday, with his first stop in Gulfport, Mississippi.

The latest five-day forecast from the National Hurricane Center has Rita making landfall near Galveston, Texas, on late Friday or early Saturday.

However, because of the erratic nature of hurricane movements, forecasters issued a "cone of probability" which showed the potential path of the storm could vary from northern Mexico to southeast Louisiana.

After Rita enters the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, further strengthening -- perhaps to a Category 3 hurricane -- is expected.

The storm's center was forecast to pass over or near the Florida Keys later Tuesday.

The amphibious warships USS Iwo Jima and USS Shreveport have orders to sail out of New Orleans on Wednesday if Hurricane Rita continues on its current track, the U.S. Northern Command said.

The Iwo Jima has been functioning as a military command center for the city.

Dan Hitchings, an Army Corps of Engineers official in Baton Rouge, told CNN that after Katrina, the 350 miles of levees and flood walls that protect the New Orleans area are capable of withstanding only little more than "normal tidal surges."

On Monday, Nagin said he was concerned that the pumping stations that empty the city, most of which sits below sea level, would not be able to handle the rain or storm surge of a strong hurricane.

Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation for residents of the east bank of the Mississippi, and recommended evacuation for districts on the west bank, which did not see much flooding after Katrina.

"I am hopeful that people have seen the effect of Katrina and they understand the threat of a Category 3 coming right behind Katrina," he said, "and that we won't have the struggles in getting people out like we had the last time."

About 150 buses were available for the evacuation at the city's downtown convention center -- the scene of so much misery in the early days after Katrina's destruction -- and at a football stadium in Algiers, the city announced.

Lt. Col. Bill Doran, Operations Division chief for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said the city would have to be evacuated 72 hours before Rita's landfall.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/20/katrina.impact/index.html

BTFLCHLD

09-22-2005, 10:15 AM

U.S to Burn 400,000 Rations of Food For Hurricane Survivors
The Mirror newspaper of Britain is reporting that the U.S. government plans to incinerate 400,000 rations of food shipped from Britain to feed starving Hurricane Katrina survivors. According to the paper, the Food and Drug Agency has determined that the NATO ration packs are unfit for human consumption even though they are eaten by British troops in Iraq. Thousands of gallons of pear juice donated by Israeli relief agencies have already been destroyed. Food from Spain and Italy has also been judged unfit for human consumption.

www.democracynow.com

strandinthewind

09-22-2005, 10:34 AM

gldstwmn

09-22-2005, 10:34 AM