09-15-2005
|
#16 (permalink)
| | |
Quote: Originally posted by VPee@Sep 15 2005, 06:43 AM
Fact of the matter is, the Bush admin has outspent the Clinton admin when it comes to programs that aid the impoverished. How many people know this? NONE. Bush himself can't even get the message out.
| Like offering them the option of enlisiting for a tour in the middle east?
Sounds like a GOP talking point to me. Specifics please.
SG | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#17 (permalink)
| | |
who cares? the real point is that NEITHER administration, regardless of the precise amount of money they wasted, has done ANYTHING noticeable to "aid the impoverished." | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#18 (permalink)
| | |
By all means, Mr Whopper, please explain what, exactly, the Presidents responsibility was, both before and after the storm. Where that responsibility started and stopped and while you're at it, perhaps you could also explain what the Governor and Mayors duties were where the President was concerned and if they lived up to those duties within a reasonable amount of time.
I'll even give you a little help. http://www.fema.gov/library/stafact.shtm#sec305
I doubt you'll actually find out for yourself, though. Par for the course with most of the people complaining and pointing fingers. Governor Blanco not excluded...
"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. " | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#19 (permalink)
| | |
Wow. Like, Newt Gingirch won't even defend Bush on this one, so you KNOW he fucked up. I mean, Newt will back you called black people Niggers and hispanic people Spics--but he came out against the President on this one.
Few people have seen and experienced southern poverty. When they think of poor--too often they think of urban folk living in run-down neighborhoods on public assistance. I have been to rural Mississippi--and I have NEVER before or since seen that type of poverty. People living in shacks on the side of the road--no electricity, no running water.
When over 20% of your people live in this type of poverty--making radio and TV pleas do nothing because they have neither radios nor televisions. The Mayor, Governor, FEMA head and President are ALL to blame for this one. There is no running and hiding. Everyone could have done more. There was no coordination, no unity--no common purpose. Read Time magazine--the feds argued for days over JURISDICTION niceities while people DIED.
Forget all this Dem/Rep stuff. Bush continues to be clueless and we suffer for it. He continues to fuck up and we let him apologize his way out of it. Christ--he was on VACATION and acted like it killed him to come back early. Presidents are supposed to make us feel secure and strong. He failed and the world WATCHED him fail. The buck stops with the HEAD of the Houseshold. And that's him.
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition, criticizing the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and calling on every FEMA official to be fired Quote: Originally posted by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans
An open letter to the President
Dear Mr. President:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don't know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city's death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren't they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn't suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn't have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."
Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."
That's unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.
Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.
When you do, we will be the first to applaud. | | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#20 (permalink)
| | |
Quote: Originally posted by Lex@Sep 15 2005, 03:31 PM
Forget all this Dem/Rep stuff
| This is very true, once the flooding started the politics should have stopped for a while to get it sorted, the reaction to this event has nothing to do with party views or policies and both Republicans and Democrates should have pulled together to show unity over the matter
It's horrible that this kind of event can end in political squabbles played out through the media. A disaster like this doesn't deserve to be reduced to a political feeding frenzy | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#21 (permalink)
| | |
Quote: Originally posted by Dorset+Sep 15 2005, 04:02 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dorset @ Sep 15 2005, 04:02 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Lex@Sep 15 2005, 03:31 PM
Forget all this Dem/Rep stuff
| This is very true, once the flooding started the politics should have stopped for a while to get it sorted, the reaction to this event has nothing to do with party views or policies and both Republicans and Democrates should have pulled together to show unity over the matter
It's horrible that this kind of event can end in political squabbles played out through the media. A disaster like this doesn't deserve to be reduced to a political feeding frenzy [/b][/quote]
Its a shame because it shows how divided the US is these days.
SG | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#22 (permalink)
| | |
Quote: Originally posted by SpeedoGuy@Sep 15 2005, 09:54 AM
Like offering them the option of enlisiting for a tour in the middle east?
Sounds like a GOP talking point to me. Specifics please.
SG
| Who said anything about the war? :eyes:
The poverty rate in 1996 was 13.7% with $191b (12.2% of budget) spent on entitlement programs. The current poverty rate is 12.7% with the 2006 budget calling for $368b (14.6%) to be spent on entitlement programs.
Obviously, spending more money isn't the answer... | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#23 (permalink)
| | |
I think Kanye West said it best, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." I promise you, if those were lower-middle class white people, our government would have been there immediately. And I totally agree with you, Jana. His "apology" isn't an apology. He's a politician. He says what he needs to say to get his popularity points back up. | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#24 (permalink)
| | |
As was said, the help was too late. Everyone in power screwed up (surprise surprise!!!) and just like the help was too late, the apology was too. I don't completely blame Bush (I mean I DO blame him, don't think I like him!) but apparently the gov. of louisiana and the mayor of N.O. both rejected his help at first, saying things were under control. water flooding 80% of a city doesn't look like control to me, but be that as it may, what Bushie and Brownie SHOULD have done was go there anyway, assess it themselves (afterall, they have the higher power) and see for themselves what this "control" was...and if they did (i dont know if they did) and STILL didn't help, which I assume happened, I'm even more disgusted.
Politicians, Political Parties and racial cards aside - The amount of help, the time it took to get there, the sad excuse of an apology - all were atrocious. Am I wrong? | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#25 (permalink)
| | |
Quote: Originally posted by VPee@Sep 15 2005, 05:30 PM
The poverty rate in 1996 was 13.7% with $191b (12.2% of budget) spent on entitlement programs. The current poverty rate is 12.7% with the 2006 budget calling for $368b (14.6%) to be spent on entitlement programs.
Obviously, spending more money isn't the answer...
| 12.7% and climbing for the 4th year in a row, along with the number of Americans without health insurance. The worst increases were among homes with children. This despite jobs added to the economy.
SG | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#26 (permalink)
| | |
From CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/15/kat...nse/index.html Quote: Originally posted by CNN.com
Leadership vacuum stymied aid offers
Doctor: Officials gave hospital staffers mops as people died
Thursday, September 15, 2005; Posted: 8:09 p.m. EDT (00:09 GMT)
A doctor reported that sick people languished in the New Orleans airport while he mopped floors.
(CNN) -- As violence, death and misery gripped New Orleans and the surrounding parishes in the days after Hurricane Katrina, a leadership vacuum, bureaucratic red tape and a defensive culture paralyzed volunteers' attempts to help.
Doctors eager to help sick and injured evacuees were handed mops by federal officials who expressed concern about legal liability. Even as violence and looting slowed rescues, police from other states were turned back while officials squabbled over who should take charge of restoring the peace.
Warehouses in New Orleans burned while firefighters were diverted to Atlanta for Federal Emergency Management Agency training sessions on community relations and sexual harassment. Water trucks languished for days at FEMA's staging area because the drivers lacked the proper paperwork.
Consider the stories of these frustrated volunteers:
# Dr. Bong Mui and his staff, evacuated with 300 patients after three hellish days at Chalmette Medical Center, arrived at the New Orleans airport, and were amazed to see hundreds of sick people. They offered to help. But, the doctor told CNN, FEMA officials said they were worried about legal liability. "They told us that, you know, you could help us by mopping the floor." And so they mopped, while people died around them. "I started crying," he recalled. "We felt like we could help, and were not allowed to do anything."
# Steve Simpson, sheriff of Loudoun County, Virginia, sent 22 deputies equipped with food and water to last seven days. Their 14-car caravan, including four all-terrain vehicles, was on the road just three hours when they were told to turn back. The reason, Simpson told CNN: A Louisiana state police official told them not to come. " I said, "What if we just show up?' He says, 'You probably won't get in.' " Simpson said he later learned a dispute over whether state or federal authorities would command the law enforcement effort was being ironed out that night. But no one ever got back to him with the all-clear.
# FEMA halted tractor trailers hauling water to a supply staging area in Alexandria, Louisiana, The New York Times quoted William Vines, former mayor of Fort Smith, Arkansas, as saying. "FEMA would not let the trucks unload," he told the newspaper. "The drivers were stuck for several days on the side of the road" because, he said, they did not have a "tasker number." He added, "What in the world is a tasker number? I have no idea. It's just paperwork and it's ridiculous."
# Firefighters who answered a nationwide call for help were sent to Atlanta for FEMA training sessions on community relations and sexual harassment. "On the news every night you hear 'How come everybody forgot us?' " Pennsylvania firefighter Joseph Manning told The Dallas Morning News. "We didn't forget. We're stuck in Atlanta drinking beer."
The government's response to Hurricane Katrina has been sharply criticized. Elected officials -- chiefly President Bush, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin -- have acknowledged flaws in the response.
Some take responsibility
"To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said earlier this week. He is expected to unveil the largest disaster relief program in history in an address to the nation Thursday night from New Orleans.
"There were failures at every level of government -- state, federal and local," Blanco told Louisiana legislators Wednesday evening in Baton Rouge. "At the state level, we must take a careful look at what went wrong and make sure it never happens again," she said. "The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility."
Nagin, once angry and embattled, was also conciliatory.
"I think now we are out of nuclear crisis mode, it seems as though myself, the governor and president have done some retrospection as far as what we could have done better, and ultimately we're all accountable at the level of local state and federal government," he told CNN. "And that's what leadership is all about. We should take responsibility and we should try and do better."
While Blanco did not elaborate on her mistakes, Nagin said he mistakenly assumed that if New Orleans could hold out for a day or two, help would surely come.
"I am not going to plan in the future for the cavalry to come in three days," he told CNN. "I'm going to buy high water vehicles, helicopters, whatever I can do to make sure that I am in total control ... of the total evacuation process."
Vice Admiral Thad Allen, of the U.S. Coast Guard, is now heading the federal government's recovery effort. On Wednesday, he encouraged state and local officials to bring their issues to him.
"Whether you're a person or an agency, whatever you're doing, if you have concerns and they're not stated where somebody can act on them, that's just going to fester," he said. "And I, as the principal federal official in this response, am encouraging any leader that wants to talk to me about real or perceived problems of what's going on out there to do that."
Where was Chertoff?
But the men in charge of the federal Department of Homeland Security and FEMA in the critical days immediately after the hurricane haven't shared the blame.
Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary, has offered no explanation as to why he waited three days after the National Hurricane Center predicted a catastrophic hurricane to declare Katrina an incident of "national significance."
In a memo written the day after Katrina made landfall, Chertoff said the Department of Homeland Security will be part of the task force and will assist the [Bush] administration. But the National Response Plan, designed to guide disaster recovery and relief, dictates that the Homeland Security secretary leads the federal response.
Chertoff appointed Michael Brown, then director of FEMA, as the federal official in charge in the Gulf states. Brown was relieved of his post late last week and resigned from FEMA Monday after taking the brunt of the criticism over the response.
Ex-FEMA boss blames governor
Speaking to The New York Times, his first public comments since he was relieved, Brown laid the blame on Blanco and Nagin. He told the newspaper he frantically called Chertoff and the White House in the hours after Katrina hit, telling them Blanco and her staff were disorganized and the situation was "out of control."
"I am having a horrible time," Brown said he told his superiors. "I can't get a unified command established."
Brown told the Times that he had such difficulty dealing with Blanco that he communicated with her husband instead.
"I truly believed the White House was not at fault here," he told the Times.
On August 30, the same day Chertoff wrote his memo, Brown said he asked the White House to take over the response from FEMA and state officials.
A Senate panel launched the first formal inquiry into the response on Wednesday. But the Senate's Republican majority defeated a bid by Democrats to establish an independent commission to investigate the disaster response.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the panel's chairwoman, said the response to Katrina was plagued by confusion, communication failures and widespread lack of coordination despite the billions of dollars spent to improve disaster response since the terror attacks.
'Sluggish' response
"At this point, we would have expected a sharp, crisp response to this terrible tragedy," Collins said. "Instead, we witnessed what appeared to be a sluggish initial response."
One of the issues the committee will examine is whether FEMA should stay under the Department of Homeland Security instead of operating as a separate agency as it had in the past.
Sen. George Voinovich, a Republican from Ohio, said the committee would "get into the bowels" of Homeland Security as its members investigate how the federal government, specifically FEMA, planned for and responded to the disaster.
Members of the former 9/11 commission blasted Congress and the Bush administration for inaction on some of its recommendations. Had they been in place, lives could have been saved, they said.
"If Congress does not act, people will die. I cannot put it more simply than that," said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, referring to what could happen in the next major disaster or terrorist attack. | | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#27 (permalink)
| | |
Quote: Originally posted by Dorset@Sep 15 2005, 10:02 AM
It's horrible that this kind of event can end in political squabbles played out through the media. A disaster like this doesn't deserve to be reduced to a political feeding frenzy
| It's horrible all right. It's horrible that "political squabbles" sentenced people to death, poverty and abandonment.
IMHO, if the press hadn't finally spouted something other than the "party rhetoric"... no help at all would have been provided. | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#28 (permalink)
| | |
Quote: Originally posted by SpeedoGuy@Sep 15 2005, 01:07 PM
This despite jobs added to the economy.
| And just what about all those jobs being added? Most are minimum wage or low paying positions with few or no benefits. The TOTAL number of jobs has increased, but the salaries in most regions of the country are stagnant, or dropping. | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#29 (permalink)
| | |
Amen to that.
Nothing gets people moving like being embarassed on a big stage. | | | |
| | |
09-15-2005
|
#30 (permalink)
| | Banned |
Quote: Originally posted by SUMYUNGUY@Sep 15 2005, 10:11 AM
By all means, Mr Whopper, please explain what, exactly, the Presidents responsibility was, both before and after the storm. Where that responsibility started and stopped and while you're at it, perhaps you could also explain what the Governor and Mayors duties were where the President was concerned and if they lived up to those duties within a reasonable amount of time.
| Why bother? You've made up your mind, and nothing anyone says is going to change it. And the same can be said about me. We, as humans, see what we want to see, and I'm not going to bang my head against the wall trying to force you to agree with what I perceive as obvious. And I'm not going to change my viewpoint just because you say so. In the end, what happened happened. Pointing fingers isn't going to change that. | | | |
| | All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:11 PM. | | 
Latest Threads | | |
|
Latest Posts | | |
|
Latest Blogs | | |
|
