Barbara Bush on the refugee's & the NY Times on Bush
 

Im sure this got covered in the thread with 500 posts. However I do not feel like shifting through all of those. So lets start bitching here:

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out "Very Well" for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans


By E&P Staff / Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK -- Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

The former First Lady's remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" program.

She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."


Bush shows indifference, incompetence

By BOB HERBERT
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

Neither the death of the chief justice nor the frantic efforts of panicked White House political advisers can conceal the magnitude of the president's failure of leadership last week. The catastrophe in New Orleans billowed up like the howling winds of hell and was carried live and in color on television screens across the United States and around the world.

The Big Easy had turned into the Big Hurt, and the colossal failure of George W. Bush to intervene powerfully and immediately to rescue tens of thousands of U.S. citizens who were suffering horribly and dying in agony was there for all the world to see.

Hospitals with deathly ill patients were left without power, with ventilators that didn't work, with floodwaters rising on the lower floors and with corpses rotting in the corridors and stairwells. People unable to breathe on their own, or with cancer or heart disease or kidney failure, slipped into comas and sank into their final sleep in front of helpless doctors and relatives. These were Americans in desperate trouble.

The president didn't seem to notice.

Death and the stink of decay were all over the city. Corpses were propped up in wheelchairs and on lawn furniture, or left to decompose on sunbaked sidewalks. Some floated by in water fouled by human feces.

Degenerates roamed the city, shooting at rescue workers, beating and robbing distraught residents and tourists, raping women and girls. The president of the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world didn't seem to notice.

Viewers could watch diabetics go into insulin shock on national television, and you could see babies with the pale, vacant look of hunger that we're more used to seeing in dispatches from the Third World. You could see their mothers, dirty and hungry themselves, weeping.

Old, critically ill people were left to soil themselves and in some cases die like stray animals on the floor of an airport triage center. For days the president of the United States didn't seem to notice.

He would have noticed if the majority of these stricken folks had been white and prosperous. But they weren't. Most were black and poor, and thus, to the Bush administration, still invisible.

After days of withering criticism from white and black Americans, from conservatives as well as liberals, from Republicans and Democrats, the president finally felt compelled to act, however feebly. (The chorus of criticism from nearly all quarters demanding that the president do something tells me that the nation as a whole is so much better than this administration.)

Bush flew south on Friday and proved (as if more proof were needed) that he didn't get it. Instead of urgently focusing on the people who were stranded, hungry, sick and dying, he engaged in small talk, reminiscing at one point about the days when he used to party in New Orleans, and mentioning that Trent Lott had lost one of his houses but that it would be replaced with "a fantastic house -- and I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever by a president during a dire national emergency. What we witnessed, as clearly as the overwhelming agony of the city of New Orleans, was the dangerous incompetence and the staggering indifference to human suffering of the president and his administration.

And it is this incompetence and indifference to suffering (yes, the carnage continues to mount in Iraq) that makes it so hard to be optimistic about the prospects for the United States over the next few years. At a time when effective, innovative leadership is desperately needed to cope with matters of war and peace, terrorism and domestic security, the economic imperatives of globalization and the rising competition for oil, the United States is being led by a man who seems oblivious to the reality of his awesome responsibilities.

Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Bush has been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude.

But this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is so obviously clueless about matters so obviously important, it means that the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep, deep trouble.

Bob Herbert is a columnist with The New York Times. Copyright 2005 New York Times News Service. E-mail: [email protected]

this is awful, but not surprising, i wonder would she say the same thing about the 30 elderly patients they just found drowned in their hospital beds, left by staff who fled for their lives? :distress: ~

yep, posted before, but it's worth posting. I actually don't really know what to say about anymore about all the news that keeps coming, but I'm still reading it.

The house minority leader Nancy Pelosi said that in talking with Bush she asked him what he thought went wrong last week and he replied he didn't think anything went wrong. She said, would he fire Brown, he said "Why would I do that?" :distress: She said she felt he was dangerously in denial. I can't find her exact quote, it was more powerful than that.

He is grossly incompetent. His negligence during this catastrophe is criminal. How could he? I am glad the press keeps covering this and calling him out.

It was quoted in one of the other threads.
Isn't it time for him to be called on the high crimes and misdememanors? Hillary Clinton is asking for an independent investigation.

I did catch that afterward. She said he is "oblivious". I hope Hillary gets her way, that is what is needed.

What a disgrace
 

Do you guys think things would have been handled any differently if this had occurred during Clinton's presidency?

I'm no fan of Clinton, but I'd venture a guess and say most definitely. The man was no slouch.

:lol: That really captures her essence, its fetching really. :lol:

Can I get a, "Hell yeah!"? Clinton has more capacity for empathy in his pinky than the President has at all.

Who can say for sure because there are so many different players. I do know this though, Clinton would have appeared far more humane in this. For example, he would not have said this was so important that he cut his five week vacation short by two days in an effort to look like he actually gave a shiitte.

I keep saying to myself over and over "And this is the person (Bush) the American people chose to lead their country" (not me personally). It's quite frightening actually. :distress:

I'm still waiting for the people who said they were voting for him because he could protect us to come out of the woodwork.

A. He would not have been on a 5 week vacation to begin with.
B. He would not have appointed someone like Brown to head FEMA, all his friends are smart.
C. IF he had been on vacation he would have come off of it immediately.

I can't prove any of the above since he is not the president. Would this have been handled differently had Gore been awarded the presidency that he won the popular vote for? Again, can I get a "Hell yeah!"?

My heart sinks every time I think of this. When he was working out and acting blase during his campain while Gore was out working hard I was convinced people wouldn't vote for him. I overestimated people. He's handled his presidency in just as careless a manner. :distress:

With the courts ,the house and to a lesser extent the Senate packed with Bush supporters ,sadly he is unlikely to be brought up on charges.After all this is a man who lost the popular and most likely the electoral vote in 2000 and still managed to become President and has so far gotten away with the whole Iraq debacle .And if you look at the polls so far 90% of Republicans think he did a good or great job in responding to Katrina.I guess empathy and the ability to feel how one of these people trapped in New Orleans for 4 + days felt is beyond these people.Self proclaimed Christians who seem to have totally missed out on the basic teachings of Christ "Love they neighbor as thyself' and 'Do unto other as you would have them do unto you'

I do not think Bush broke any laws here. I think he acted carelessly and is a jerk for that. But, that is not against the law.

Isn't gross negligence a crime?

What happened here is genocide by indifference. If there is any justice in the world, him and his current regime will pay in more ways than we can imagine.

Has anything been posted here about Al Gore chartering an American Airlines jet to fly patients and evacuees out of New Orleans?

Yes, we gave reverence to his selflessness. Although some merely commented on his appearance. :rolleyes: i.wish.he.were.president. :(

No - it is not. Moreover, it would be hard to prove Bush was the actual negligent one in this. The case is far stronger against Brown.

It does make you wonder how things would be different if he hadn't had the Presidency taken away from him... how many Iraqis and Americans who have been killed over the last five years would still be alive?

Other than the horrible five day mistake - FEMA has done a pretty good job:

They were there ahead of time in the Dome thanks to W declaring it a DA.

They along with the state evacuated thousands to the Conv. Center after the hurricane left.

Once they got there, they got around 100,000 out and into shelters in three or so days.

They are placing people in housing other than the shelters now and giving them 2,000 per household.

So, when W goes to defend this, he will point to those good things and he is correct - they are good if not great things.

IMO - no matter how good those things are, they cannot make up for:

those five days when FEMA allegedly did not know that around 30,000 were about eight blocks from the Superdome and it was being reported 24/7 on many television stations throughout the world.

rejecting immediately available assistance and instead waiting until they could get their act together and send it in en masse on Friday.

the covering up they are doing now.

But - you can sue people for negligence - can you sue the federal gov't for it, or something similar?? You know, not a criminal suit, a civil one?

The "five day mistake" that you refer to is unforgivable and they won't be getting any praises from me. Ever. Is it wonderful that people finally started getting help? Hell yes. But I cannot overlook how their incompetence led to the deaths and suffering of who knows how many, and for that, I could never fathom saying "FEMA has done a pretty good job." Just my opinion.

The doctrine of sovereign immunity states the Federal Govt. is immune from a lawsuit unless it consents to be sued, which it will not or has not done in this instance.

FEMA began aiding people on Sunday :shrug: But, I think by "finally" you are referring to the five day thing.

Perhaps - but if they pulled you and your baby off of a roof and then brought you to safety and then fed and clothed you and put money in your pocket and found you shelter - you might have an inkling of praise for them.

Again, the five days are unforgiveable - I am not saying otherwise.

Plus when it is done they can tie it up in courts dragging their feet forever while the little guy goes broke from legal fees, right?

Tie Brown up by his ___.

Most lawyers would take this on a contingency fee basis which means they would get a percentage of any monetary settlement as payment in lieu of fees. So, the fee issue is not really there from that perspective.

As for a criminal suit, the Justice Dept would have to initiate that against the FEMA people and the Senate probably would via impeachment against W.

That's...odd...I remember learning something else in my class...which i can't remember the details of. :rolleyes: Isn't there some loophole type thing to that...or something? Actually, my contact just told me he's not aware of any suits successfully being brought against the gov't.
Thanks for the info.

The govt. often expressly waives SI.

Here is some info.

SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY - A doctrine precluding the institution of a suit against the sovereign [government] without its consent. Though commonly believed to be rooted in English law, it is actually rooted in the inherent nature of power and the ability of those who hold power to shield themselves.

In England it was predicated on the concept that "the sovereign can do no wrong", a concept developed and enforced by - guess who? However, since the American revolution explictedly rejected this interesting idea, the American rulers had to come up with another rationale to protect their power. One they came up with is that the "sovereign is exempt from suit [on the] practical ground that there can be no legal right against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends." 205 U.S. 349, 353.

"[S]tatutes waiving the sovereign immunity of the United States must be`construed strictly in favor of the sovereign." McMahon v. United States, 342 U.S. 25, 27 (1951).

11 U.S.C. S 106, "Waiver of Sovereign Immunity," provides:

(a) A governmental unit is deemed to have waived sovereign immunity with respect to any claim against such governmental unit that is property of the estate and that arose out of the same transaction or occurrence out of which such governmental unit's claim arose.

The interest served by federal sovereign immunity (the United States' freedom from paying damages without Congressional consent)

Federal sovereign immunity is readily distinguishable from the states' immunity under the Eleventh Amendment and foreign governments' immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The latter two doctrines allow one sovereign entity the right to avoid, altogether, being subjected to litigation in another sovereign's courts. Pullman Constr., 23 F.3d at 1169. Similar sovereignty concerns are not implicated by the maintenance of suit against the United States in federal court. Federal sovereign immunity has had such broad exceptions carved out of it that, as Pullman Construction concluded, "Congress, on behalf of the United States, has surrendered any comparable right not to be a litigant in its own courts." Id. In the present day, federal sovereign immunity serves merely to channel litigation into the appropriate avenue for redress, ensuring that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." Pullman Constr. at 1168 (quoting Art. I, section 9, cl. 7).

Federal sovereign immunity is a defense to liability rather than a right to be free from trial.

The Supreme Court has ruled that in a case involving the government's sovereign immunity the statute in question must be strictly construed in favor of the sovereign and may not be enlarged beyond the waiver its language expressly requires. See United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 33-35 (1992).

http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/s103.htm

In addition, the govt. will sometimes pay the legal fees on the party suing it pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) - which is too complicated for my finger to type :laugh: A google of that will reveal its many applications.

Thanks. I just got other info that sections of the Fed gov't can be sued, for instance the Dept. of Interior, by the native americans, if the federal courts deem it a constitutional issue. I also just learned there's no laws on the books, or any handy guide, or anything, for the House to base impeachment on. They just get to make it up. Yay.

Those are still express waivers of SI.

Impeachment proceedings can be brought for any offense. The Const. has no requirement in the Constitution that it can only be for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." These are merely the circumstances under which removal from office is obligatory. In the end, the process is so cumbersome and time consuming, it is rarely used and is limited to "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

Is the Pope German? :laugh:

He never took a five week vacation.

Clinton's FEMA director, James Lee Witt was chosen by Governor Blanco to head the releif efforts in LA.

Gore won that election honey. He won the popular vote. They stole Florida.