I went when I was really young. I think I mainly visited resorts and amusement parks.
Govt. Response to Katrina
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So Bush can lie repeatedly, ignore the UN, and invade a foreign nation, but when it comes to hurricane relief, he’s worried about overstepping his bounds? Am I hearing this right from some people?
My favorite Bushism so far has to be his praise of our eminantely qualified FEMA director: “You’re doing a bang-up job, Brownie!”. Apprently, running a horse-breeding facility provides the perfect training to helm the nation’s largest emergency repsonse organization. Bang-up, indeed!
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So, you support the war in Iraq now.
Good to have you on board.Congress gave Bush the authority to go to war. Suckers!!!
The Gov of LA did not officially accept Federal aid till well after the storm hit.
It’s funny how some people in New Orleans STILL don’t want to leave.
How was it Bush was suposed to get people out. Some still won’t leave!!!
The Mayor Didn’t get people out, the Gov didn’t get people out, BUT Bush could get these people to leave. :roll: sheeesh.
I have to admit, prior to the storm hitting I was wonder if the media was hyping it too much. And I heard several residents of NO say that while the storm was a CAT 5 they believed it would weaken prior to hitting land and they were going to stay (which is common for hurricanes, as this one hit land a a level of CAT 4).
So, I’m sure the leaders of LA were pondering whether they wanted to be on TV Forcibly removing people and enforcing the Mandatory evacuation that was give a full 24 hrs prior to the storm hitting.
Personally, I think that photo of all the school buses under water is pretty funny, in a sad sort of way.
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Bad presidents (E.g., Bush and Johnson) abuse their authority for spurious reasons.
Good presidents (e.g., Lincoln) exceed their authority for a greater good.
All that’s required for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. When the chips are down, Bush shows his true colors. The first time, he spent 8 minutes reading “My Pet Goat” while planes were hitting the Trade Center. This time, he vacationed in Crawford while Orleans died on national TV.
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LOL!!!
Hey, it looks like Michael Moore is a member of this site!!!
LOL!!!
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So Bush can lie repeatedly, ignore the UN, and invade a foreign nation, but when it comes to hurricane relief, he’s worried about overstepping his bounds? Am I hearing this right from some people?
lmao
i was thinking this exact thing this morning.
“How can the guy justify invading another nation, kill thousands of its citizens, and impose its will, but is afraid to send federal aid to a nation that is clearly in over its head??”I’m thinkin’ that the guy dropped the ball again. what a knob.
My favorite Bushism so far has to be his praise of our eminantely qualified FEMA director: “You’re doing a bang-up job, Brownie!”. Apprently, running a horse-breeding facility provides the perfect training to helm the nation’s largest emergency repsonse organization. Bang-up, indeed!
was this before or after he derided the response as being unacceptable?
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@cystic:
So Bush can lie repeatedly, ignore the UN, and invade a foreign nation, but when it comes to hurricane relief, he’s worried about overstepping his bounds? Am I hearing this right from some people?
lmao
i was thinking this exact thing this morning.
“How can the guy justify invading another nation, kill thousands of its citizens, and impose its will, but is afraid to send federal aid to a nation that is clearly in over its head??”I’m thinkin’ that the guy dropped the ball again. what a knob.
My favorite Bushism so far has to be his praise of our eminantely qualified FEMA director: “You’re doing a bang-up job, Brownie!”. Apprently, running a horse-breeding facility provides the perfect training to helm the nation’s largest emergency repsonse organization. Bang-up, indeed!
was this before or after he derided the response as being unacceptable?
There’s so many Bushisms, you need a timeline to sort them all out.
Darth, do you deny this? Regardless, I have to correct myself: Bush spent five minutes reading “My Pet Goat” AFTER the SECOND plane had hit the towers and AFTER being told “America is under attack”. Here’s video if you want it:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/v/bushpetgoat.htm
It’s not like this is a big secret or anything. America’s under attack, I’ll just sit here and read to a bunch of kids. Now that’s leadership!
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Not scaring the kids and taking some time to think of a logical course of action after the WTC for a mere 5 minutes (which is ultra fast as far as I’m concerned, if someone told me my house was destroyed it would take more then 5 minutes to take full effect, let alone 3000 casualties and billions in damages) has no bearing on the fact that the Mayor and Govenor refused to declare a state of emergency through proper channels with proper paperwork and allow the President and his administration to use the funds and manpower already earmarked to assist to do their job.
But nice try to pass the buck.
BTW, worst presidents in history - in order:
Taft - Crook
Nixon - Leader of the Crooks
Grant - Incompetant Drunk
Clinton - Incompetant, Liar
FDR - Biggest national debt in US History with ramifactions still not seen todayBest presidents in history - in order:
Reagan - Saved us from nuclear annihilation
Lincoln - Finally created a state where all US Citizens are equal regardless of race, religion, etc.
Washington - Set the standards for being president
Eisenhower - Created the interstate system and connected the country
Garfield - Didn’t live long enough to do any damage -
this has nothing to do race but more with economic status. If you’re poor you get pizzed on, which as I said before, is much worse than getting pizzed off …these are dis-enfranchised people who have no political voice and so nobody gave a fducj…
So Teddy would have been electricuted a long time ago if he was poor and left that same girl to drown in the creek…
I see articles lambasting the FEMA director for being disqualified to serve. This after a disaster where response seems to be slow.
Did they make a fuss about the appointment? Did they stall it or were they too preoccupied with stopping judicial nominees? Or did they think that a disaster will eventually happen and they can spring the accusation then?
Did Teddy’s actions back then qualify him for Senate? Does his continued drunkeness qualify him to serve the state of MA?
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has no bearing on the fact that the Mayor and Govenor refused to declare a state of emergency through proper channels with proper paperwork and allow the President and his administration to use the funds and manpower already earmarked to assist to do their job.
Keep telling the people of New Orleans that waited at the very least 4 days for the trucks from outside the affect area to show up for no good reason other then a breakdown at the highest level in FEMA and HLS. the local officals have all said they will admit blame and fault when the time comes…something not one member of FEMA or HLS has stated in public. And illregardless how much faith can you put in a Mayor facing a storm of that size and never having been through something like that - he paniced just like you and I. Over at FEMA they simulate these type of situations and come up with plans of action all the time - it’s their job. Sure the Mayor might have paniced and not got all the right things done - HIS CITY WAS ABOUT TO BE WIPED OFF TEH FACE OF THE EARTH. But the higher administration members of FEMA were comfortable at home and in their offices, with no pressure of flooding or dying to cloud their judgement and allow for a plan of attack to be drawn up as it was unfolding - I bet if it was a horse race it would have come off without a hitch ;)
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has no bearing on the fact that the Mayor and Govenor refused to declare a state of emergency through proper channels with proper paperwork and allow the President and his administration to use the funds and manpower already earmarked to assist to do their job.
Because we all know Bush is a “paperwork” and “proper channels” kind of guy :roll:
Oh, and being stunned for a few minutes after the first plane hit is perfectly understandable. Remaining shell-shocked after the SECOND plane hit is inexcusable. At the very least, I would want to know if my family is OK. After all, I’m the president, and this is an attack on America. Hmm, maybe my family is at risk? Maybe I should find out if they’re ok? Nah, gotta finish “My Pet Goat” first.
Edit: Oh, listen to the newly released tapes from dispatchers on 9/11. Listen to them calmly go about their jobs as the planes crash and the buildings implode. You won’t find a single one that froze for even a minute. Now compare that to our Commander in Chief reading a child’s book for five minutes…
But hey, there’s a saying: The American people deserve whoever they elect.
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Darn that liberal media taking all those pictures of stuff.
But in order to show you the real winner in the Who Can Not Respond Correctly game you want to play:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/480/flpc21109012015
Let’s see he got forced out of the…wait…horse judging arena? So like like totally qualifies him to run a federal agency whose mission is to co-ordinate action to national disaster zones…the mayor might have dropped the ball on the school bus action ( who was going to drive them again? ) but FEMA dropped the ball, the stadium and the planet itself by letting this mess spiral out of control for as long as it did.
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I’m all for getting rid of FEMA.
Infact I’m for getting rid of about 90% of the Federal gov’t.
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Thank you…I think you finally see that at least I am not Bush bashing but pointing my anger at the real probably here - an agency that gets millions of dollars every year that was headed by someone with horse judging experience. I hear Paul Ruben’s is looking for work, maybe he is a worthy candidate. :D
As far as getting rid of 90%, well…wouldn’t that put more power at the state level which you guys are saying was the bad thing here in this situation? Not trying to toss another bone but just saying…although trimming FEMA and removing HLS completely would be a nice healthy start to HUGE govt. savings.
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From Drudge…
WHITE HOUSE MULLED SEIZING RELIEF MISSION // Invoke the Insurrection Act? Bush’s senior advisers debated last week whether the president should seize control of the chaotic hurricane relief mission from the governor so that active-duty combat troops could be sent to enforce order… Developing…
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To Haxor…
Yes more power to States.
Yes the State gov’t in LA failed in this case, IMO.
Why? Becasue they looked immediately to Feds to bail them out, without having a plan in the meantime.But the more power locally the better. The more control you have as a voter.
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Absolute power…you know how that goes. Have you looked at the problems most states face with budget managment alone? Now leave them on their own without Federal bailouts left and right and you would be in a giant mess. I believe we need to par out govt at the federal level but to cripple it would cripple the country IMO.
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This is the Continuation of the Drudge headline. It linked to a NYTimes Story.
_September 9, 2005
Political Issues Snarled Plans for Troop Aid
By ERIC LIPTON, ERIC SCHMITT
and THOM SHANKERThis article was reported and written by Eric Lipton, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana’s governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush’s senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.
For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort.
Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s control. The debate was triggered as officials began to realize that Hurricane Katrina exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration’s senior homeland security officials, the hurricane showed the failure of their plan to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated and unable to act quickly until reinforcements arrive on the scene.
As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis.
To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Governor Blanco would have resisted surrendering control of the military relief mission as Bush Administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established. While troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.
But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.
“Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?” asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.
Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.
“I need everything you have got,” Governor Blanco said she told Mr. Bush last Tuesday, when New Orleans flooded. In an interview, she acknowledged that she did not specify what sorts of soldiers. “Nobody told me that I had to request that. I thought that I had requested everything they had,” she said. “We were living in a war zone by then.”
The governor illustrated her stance when, overnight Friday, she rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general - but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana Guard.
Also at issue was whether active-duty troops could respond faster and in larger numbers than National Guard soldiers.
By last Wednesday, Pentagon officials said even the 82nd Airborne, which has a brigade on standby to move out within 18 hours - could not arrive any faster than 7,000 National Guard troops, which are specially trained and equipped for civilian law enforcement duties. In the end, the flow of thousands of National Guard soldiers, especially military police, was accelerated from other states.
“I was there. I saw what needed to be done,” Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said in an interview. “They were the fastest, best-capable, most appropriate force to get there in the time allowed. And that’s what it’s all about.”
But one senior Army officer expressed puzzlement that active-duty troops were not summoned sooner, saying that 82nd Airborne troops were ready to move out from Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Sunday, the day before the hurricane hit.
But the call never came, in part because military officials believed National Guard troops would get there faster and because administration civilians were worried that there could be political fallout if federal troops were forced to shoot looters, administration officials said.
Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, the director of operations for the military’s Joint Staff, said that the Pentagon in August streamlined a rigid, decades-old system of deployment orders to allow the Northern Command to dispatch liaisons to work with local officials in advance of an approaching hurricane.
The Pentagon is reviewing events from the time the hurricane reached full strength and bore down on New Orleans and five days later when Mr. Bush ordered 7,200 active-duty soldiers and Marines to the scene.
After the hurricane passed New Orleans and the levees broke, flooding the city, it became increasingly evident that disaster response efforts were badly bogged down.
Justice Department lawyers, who were receiving harrowing reports from the area, considered whether active-duty military units could be brought into relief operations even if state authorities gave their consent - or even if they refused.
The issue of federalizing the response was one of a number of legal issues considered in a flurry of meetings at the Justice Department, the White House and other agencies, administration officials said.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales urged Justice lawyers to interpret the federal law creatively to assist local authorities. For example, federal prosecutors prepared to expand their enforcement of some criminal statutes like anti-carjacking laws that can be prosecuted by either state or federal authorities.
On the issue of whether the military could be deployed without the invitation of state officials, the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit within the Justice Department that provides legal advice to federal agencies, concluded that the federal government did possess authority to move in even over the objection of local officials.
This act was last invoked in 1992 for the Los Angeles riots, but at the request of Gov. Pete Wilson of California, and has not been invoked over a governor’s objections since the civil rights era - and before that, to the time of the Civil War, according to administration officials. Bush administration, Pentagon and senior military officials warned that such an extreme measure would have serious legal and political implications.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said that deployment of National Guard soldiers to Iraq, including a brigade from Louisiana, did not affect the relief mission, but Governor Blanco said her state troops were missed. “Over the last year we have had about 5,000 out, at one time,” Governor Blanco said. “They are on active duty, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That certainly is a factor.”
By Friday, National Guard reinforcements had arrived, and a truck convoy of 1,000 Guard soldiers brought relief supplies - and order - to the convention center area.
Homeland Security officials say that the experience with Katrina has demonstrated flaws in the nation’s plans to handle disaster.
“This event has exposed, perhaps ultimately to our benefit, a deficiency in terms of replacing first responders who tragically may be the first casualties,” Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland security, said.
Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has suggested the active-duty troops be trained and equipped to intervene if front-line emergency personnel are stricken. But the Pentagon’s leadership remains unconvinced that this plan is sound, suggesting instead that the national emergency response plans should be revised to draw reinforcements initially from civilian police, firefighters, medical personnel and hazardous-waste experts in other states not affected by a disaster.
The federal government rewrote its national emergency response plan after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it relied on local officials to manage any crisis in its opening days. But Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed local “first responders,” including civilian police and the National Guard.
At a news conference Saturday, Mr. Chertoff said: “The unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood, requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model, one for what you might call kind of an ultra-catastrophe. And that’s one in which we are using the military, still within the framework of the law, to come in and really handle the evacuation, handle all of the associated elements. And that, of course, frees the National Guard up to do a security mission.”
Mr. McHale, while agreeing with the problem, offered different remedies. “It is foreseeable to envision a catastrophic explosion that would kill virtually every police officer within miles of the attack,” he said. “Therefore we are going to have to reexamine our ability to back-fill first responder capabilities that may be degraded or destroyed during the initial event.”
He continued, “What we now have to look toward is perhaps a regional capability, probably within the civilian sector, that can be deployed to a city when that city’s infrastructure and first responder capability has been destroyed by the event itself.”
Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and Eric Lipton from Baton Rouge, La., for this article. David Johnston contributed reporting._
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has no bearing on the fact that the Mayor and Govenor refused to declare a state of emergency through proper channels with proper paperwork and allow the President and his administration to use the funds and manpower already earmarked to assist to do their job.
Because we all know Bush is a “paperwork” and “proper channels” kind of guy :roll:
Oh, and being stunned for a few minutes after the first plane hit is perfectly understandable. Remaining shell-shocked after the SECOND plane hit is inexcusable. At the very least, I would want to know if my family is OK. After all, I’m the president, and this is an attack on America. Hmm, maybe my family is at risk? Maybe I should find out if they’re ok? Nah, gotta finish “My Pet Goat” first.
Edit: Oh, listen to the newly released tapes from dispatchers on 9/11. Listen to them calmly go about their jobs as the planes crash and the buildings implode. You won’t find a single one that froze for even a minute. Now compare that to our Commander in Chief reading a child’s book for five minutes…
But hey, there’s a saying: The American people deserve whoever they elect.
The first plane could have been a fluke, a horrible accident. It wasn’t until the second plane that it became evident we were under attack on our own soil for the first time since the Civil War. That’s when shell shock occured FOR EVERYONE, yes, everyone. Was Bill Clinton on tv the instant after the first plane crash? no. Was the speaker of the house? How about the chairman of the joint cheifs of staff? Secretary of defense? Any general??? Why not? Because until the second crash IT WAS CONSIDERED AN ACCIDENT BY EVERYONE, not a terrorist attack.
And yes, the President’s followed all the paperwork. He didn’t declare war on Iraq, Congress did. He didn’t declare war on Terrorism, Congress Did. He didn’t issue warrants for the arrest of Saddam Hussein or Ossama Bin Laden, the Supreme Court did.
Open a law book, open a history book and turn off Michael Moore so maybe you get an actual fact once in a while, Mary.
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I’m all for getting rid of FEMA.
Infact I’m for getting rid of about 90% of the Federal gov’t.
A-men.
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