Army Corps says New Orleans is "completely destroyed." Clinton calls for investigation of fed failure

About time, Bill.

Scary as hell the quotes about the city. It's gone. Under George Bush's watch we lost an entire American city. Bra-vo. Read More......

Hurricane Katrina: The Headlines Tell The Story

Some of the headlines capturing the depth of the devastation:

CRISIS BUILDS IN NEW ORLEANS -- USA Today

OUR TSUNAMI -- NY Post

DAMAGE TO ECONOMY IS DEEP AND WIDE - NY Times business section

PANIC DRIVES GAS PRICES, TEMPERS UP -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

and then:

NEW ORLEANS' NIGHTMARE GROWS -- USA Today

HELP US -- NY Post

CHAOS GROWS IN NEW ORLEANS -- USA Today

NEW ORLEANS IN DESPERATION AND CHAOS -- LA Times

And then:

DESPAIR AND LAWLESSNESS GRIP NEW ORLEANS AS THOUSANDS REMAIN STRANDED IN SQUALOR -- NY Times

ANGER, ANARCHY IN NEW ORLEANS -- USA Today

VIOLENCE, CHAOS MARK EXODUS FROM NEW ORLEANS -- WaPo

NO FOOD, WATER. JUST CHAOS, FEAR. -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution`

WORLD STUNNED AS US STRUGGLES WITH KATRINA -- Reuters

And now:

RELIEF TRICKLES INTO NEW ORLEANS -- USA Today

DOME EFFORTS STALL, FIRES ERUPT -- USA Today

EMPTY, RUINED AND DESPERATE -- Guardian UK

NEW ORLEANS BEGINS COUNTING ITS DEAD -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY -- Time magazine

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? -- Time magazine

A NATIONAL DISGRACE -- NY Daily News Read More......

Hear Barbara Bush laugh at the little people who died in the hurricane

Oh my, this is even worse when you hear the audio.

(I wrote about this below, but we didn't have audio yet.) Read More......

OMG - that is one PISSED OFF Keith Olbermann

Oh, I so wish I'd written what he just said on the air. That man needs to do a lot more commentary. I think my favorite part - yes, definitely my favorite part - is where he says we basically bit our tongue and said "whether I voted for him or not, he's my president." And Keith is right, Bush is no longer MY president.

Watch it here.

You can read the text of what he said here - I'd email this to everyone you know. Read More......

Financial Times: "Bush's policies have crippled disaster response capabilities"

You don't get a headline clearer than that. And this is from their bureau chief, no less.

Financial Times
September 3, 2005

Bush's policies have crippled disaster response capabilities
By Edward Alden

....For the past quarter century in Washington, since the Republican Ronald Reagan rode a conservative backlash all the way to the presidency, US politics has been dominated by the conviction that what was wrong with America would be solved by getting government off the people's backs.

In Washington, the Republican orthodoxy that reigns at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue has dictated that taxes can go down but never up. Federal tax revenues as a percentage of the economy have dropped to the lowest levels since the early 1950s....

But that is little comfort to the tens of thousands stranded in primitive conditions in New Orleans who are begging for government help, and will face months and years of rebuilding their lives even after it comes.

There are at least three reasons why the hurricane may mark a turning point in the US debate over the role of government. First, the deep tax cuts enacted in 2001 - which President George W. Bush now wants extended permanently - left no room for government initiatives that might have prevented the catastrophe and increased capacity to respond.

The Louisiana Army Corps of Engineers had identified some $18bn (£9.8bn) in projects to shore up the levees and improve flood control in New Orleans after last year's vicious hurricane season. Despite warnings from local emergency officials that New Orleans would face disastrous flooding even with a category 3 hurricane (Katrina landed as a category 4), none of those projects was funded. Instead, Army Corps funds in the region have fallen by nearly half since 2001, and the Bush administration has proposed a further 20 per cent cut next year. Hurricane prevention was among dozens of domestic programmes that have been chronically underfunded as taxes have fallen and scarce revenues have been diverted to the war on terrorism.

Second, despite huge increases in spending to fight the war in Iraq, the hurricane revealed how thinly the US military has been stretched. National Guard units, under the control of state governments, are supposed to be the front line for rescuing people and maintaining law and order in natural disasters. But 3,000 of Louisiana's guard troops are in Iraq, as are 4,000 from Mississippi, and many of those back home have recently finished gruelling tours in Baghdad. The hurricane forced local authorities to seek help from guard troops in nearby states, but aid has been far too slow in coming for many of those stranded....

Pico, a network of faith-based community organisations, says: "We are watching catastrophic failure by public officials to respond to those who are most vulnerable." The criticism is ironic - as Washington has scaled down taxpayer-funded public services, it has encouraged such faith-based charities to step into the breach. The Salvation Army was the first group to get aid into the ravaged Mississippi Gulf coast, well before any government help arrived.

With the New Deal in the 1930s, helping those who could not help themselves became a mission that spawned a vast expansion of government's role. After a generation of determined effort the conservative movement has succeeded in squelching that mission. In the aftermath of Katrina, its success appears to have come at high cost.

Read More......

Did the Bush team ignore their own National Response Plan?

It sure looks like it. Now, we can't be too harsh because they created a plan to meet emergency situations just like Katrina way back in, uh December 2004. I mean, who would really expect them to follow their own response plan? So, who's going to ask Bush & Chertoff about this one?

According to the PREFACE, President Bush, "directed the development of a new National Response Plan (NRP) to align Federal coordination structures, capabilities, and resources into a unified, all discipline, and all-hazards approach to domestic incident management. . . .The end result is vastly improved coordination among Federal, State, local, and tribal organizations to help save lives and protect America's communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness, and efficiency of incident management."

Josh Marshall also has full coverage of the lie-meisters at work who seem to be pushing the media to incorrectly report that Governor Blanco of Louisiana did not declare a state of emergency. SHE DID, on August 26.

The lies are coming as quickly as they can throw them right now. Read More......

Barbara Bush says destruction of New Orleans was a good thing for the refugees

Oh, SO not kidding.

From Editor & Publisher

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 wants to move to Houston."

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

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

Oh really? Did you talk to any of the people your son killed, Mrs. Bush? Read More......

Uh-oh, Bush has to do two things at once.

Just saw Russert on NBC Nightly News. He pointed out that Bush now has to rebuild the Gulf States while continuing to manage the war in Iraq. Bush has already completely screwed up Iraq and that took most of his attention. How the hell is he going to handle both Iraq and the post-Katrina rebuilding.

Bush is not up to being our President. All his staff can do is play politics and smear their opponents. These times require serious work.

We're in trouble. Read More......

What If Another Disaster Strikes?

What if -- God forbid -- another natural disaster or terrorist attack strikes another American city within the next six months? Does ANYONE think our scarce resources won't be stretched to the breaking point? We've always talked about having the ability to fight two wars overseas at the same time. Shouldn't we also be ready to react to two natural disasters here at home? With HALF the National Guard sent to Iraq via a backdoor draft, they are unavailable to do the job they were meant for: keeping Americans safe here at home. Read More......

Open Thread

Updates? Read More......

BREAKING: Wolf Blitzer On CNN Has Lost His Mind

Wolf Blitzer on CNN just showed footage of Air Force One taking off from another photo op in Mississippi and this is exactly what he said:

Air Force One is taking off from near Gulfport, Mississippi on its way back to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. The President has been in the region touring once again. He was in the region on Friday. He came back today cancelling so many of his plans for Labor Day, ALL of his plans for Labor Day and for so much of the month of September as he focuses in now one week after this hurricane struck almost exclusively on this tragedy, on this horrible, horrible situation.

Well, guess what: the people of New Orleans had to cancel their Labor Day plans as well. Really, is Blitzer out of his mind? Bush cancelled his plans for Labor Day? The man just spent five weeks in Crawford, Texas on one of the longest Presidential vacations in history. For God's sake, how pathetic is the MSM, trumpeting Bush cancelling his plans for a holiday weekend as if he's made major sacrifice instead of telling people again and again that during the first crucial three days of this disaster when the federal government failed completely and people died unnecessarily, BUSH STAYED ON VACATION. How low are they going to lower the bar for this man? Bush cancelled his plans for Labor Day??!!?? Email Wolf Blitzer here. Unbelievable. Read More......

"Time" Magazine: Bush is dipping his toes into disaster

I'd say Bush dove in head first, but their commentary is blistering:

It isn't easy picking George Bush's worst moment last week. Was it his first go at addressing the crisis Wednesday, when he came across as cool to the point of uncaring? Was it when he said that he didn't "think anybody expected" the New Orleans levees to give way, though that very possibility had been forecast for years? Was it when he arrived in Mobile, Ala., a full four days after the storm made landfall, and praised his hapless Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director, Michael D. Brown, whose disaster credentials seemed to consist of once being the commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association?... And he was so slow.

For good measure, here's a profile of FEMA head Michael Brown in the Miami Herald and his "unlikely background." Read More......

Appointing Roberts as chief justice is insane

I'm sorry, but maybe this man is qualified to be a Supreme Court judge - maybe - with only two years experience IN HIS LIFE as a judge. But now we're going to appoint him as the new chief justice when he's had no experience as a Supreme Court judge whatsoever, and has only two years experience as a judge at all?!

Of course, this par for the course for Bush. Appoint a horse trainer as head of FEMA, make his deputy some political appointee, annoint a Hill staffer as the head of Homeland Security, and on and on. So it's not a big surprise that the head of the Supreme Court would be a guy with no experience whatsoever for that very job.

But at what point do the Democrats finally call Bush on his hubris and his dangerous flippancy? It's one thing to be unsure on Roberts as a justice - hey, Bush won the election, and short of a Bork, I'm not so sure we can demand Roberts be denied an appointment (we can oppose it, to be sure, but to insist on a fillibuster, etc. is quite another story). But to just let Bush make this guy chief justice when he has no experience and, frankly, we have no idea how he will even be as a justice - for good or bad - that's just insane.

No one, on the right or left, should be accepting this appointment. Roberts could be another Clarence Thomas, just sitting on his ass doing nothing, for all we know. You don't appoint someone to run the ship when he has no experience running the ship, and has never even stepped foot on the ship (at least in this case as a judge).

It's time for the Democrats to grow some spine and do something. Read More......

Right-wing blogger calls for Bush to fire "Brownie"

Uh oh. Guess that strategy of blaming the mayor and governor of Louisiana didn't quite work out. So now they're going to throw FEMA's Director Michael Brown under the bus. Because, as well all know, the buck stops with the FEMA director and not the head of Homeland Security (his boss) or George Bush (HIS boss). Read More......

What Went Wrong? Bush Played Hooky!

I watched Bill Maher on Friday and all the Sunday morning news shows and the Monday morning's Today and GMA. I didn't hear one word, one word about the most simple, basic fact of this story.

George Bush stayed on vacation. He didn't get back to work. When the worst natural disaster in our nation's history attacked us, George Bush STAYED ON VACATION. Why did the federal government stumble so badly on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday? Because on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, George Bush stayed on vacation in Crawford, Texas. On Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, vice president Dick Cheney STAYED ON VACATION in Jackson, Wyoming. On Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, Sec. of State Condi Rice WENT ON VACATION in New York City and went to a splashy Broadway musical and bought obscenely expensive shoes. She went shopping.

How much simpler can it be for people to understand? Disaster struck and no one in the Bush administration cared. If they cared, Bush and Cheney and Rice would have gone back to work. How can I watch 2 and a half hours of Sunday morning news programs, where everyone is saying the region faces huge problems and no one is still in charge and not one person asked "Where is Dick Cheney?" Gee, do you think this might be an appropriate task for the vice president? Why did he stay on vacation? Why did we not even see him until Saturday morning? Rumsfeld joined Bush on a political jaunt on Tuesday when he should have been working on sending in the troops. Andy Card was also on vacation during this crisis.

We've repeated this time and time again on Americablog, but astonishingly, the simplest, starkest fact about this disaster is not getting out to the MSM. It's not the first question asked by reporters. Rice hasn't been asked why she stayed on vacation. Cheney is apparently being hidden because he hasn't even offered public words of sympathy for the thousands of dead and the million American citizens who have had their lives devastated. The vice president hasn't said one word about this national tragedy. How can the MSM miss this? I can't even imagine the venomous (and correct) calls for impeachment if Bill Clinton STAYED ON VACATION during the worst tragedy in our nation's history. And Bush is getting a free pass. This must be asked about again and again and again until they apologize.

What went wrong?

BUSH STAYED ON VACATION DURING THE WORST NATURAL DISASTER IN OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY.

CHENEY STAYED ON VACATION DURING THE WORST NATURAL DISASTER IN OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY.

RICE WENT ON VACATION DURING THE WORST NATURAL DISASTER IN OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY.

Why isn't this topic number one for every journalist worth their salt? Read More......

Some Tuesday morning newspaper help for Chertoff

Wonkette's been nice enough to help Chertoff refresh his memory with Tuesday morning newspaper front pages since he lied once again yesterday about seeing an article in the paper about NOLA dodging a bullet. I know that this team has struggled with reality and the truth, but is it possible to go a single day without a lie? Read More......

A Vacation During Disaster Is Unusual? Tell It To Bush

Says the New York Times (without irony):

The crisis put enormous pressure on many police officers and firefighters, pressure some could not withstand. P. Edwin Compass III, the New Orleans police superintendent, said on Saturday that 200 of the 1,500 members of his force had walked off the job and that two others had committed suicide. He said on Sunday that the city had offered to send all members of the police and fire departments and their families on vacations to Las Vegas.

The notion of a vacation in the midst of disaster struck some as unusual. But officials likened it to an R&R; break for combat troops.

The notion of a vacation in the midst of disaster struck some as unusual? How does the notion of a President and Vice President and other top aides STAYING ON VACATION from the very beginning strike them?

Someone please write to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com and point out the grotesque irony of it.

People are criticizing the first responders who are collapsing after working day and night for a week and no one is criticizing Bush for staying on vacation during the worst natural disaster in our nation's history. Read More......

Head of National Hurricane Center briefed FEMA's Brown and Homeland Security's Chertoff on the coming disaster, including levees breaking - LIARS

So Chertoff and Brown are caught lying AGAIN about having had no clue the levees could break.

Time to give those boys a medal, Mr. President. Or maybe you could just make them chief justice. Read More......

New Katrina Poll is BAD news for Bush

This is from Rasmussen, a rather conservative polling outfit.

Just 28% of Americans give say that the federal government has done a good or an excellent job responding to Hurricane Katrina. Another 25% say the government has done a fair job while 45% say poor....

Eighty-five percent (85%) say that the "disaster in New Orleans and surrounding areas [will] have a major impact on the U.S. economy. Consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level in more than two years.

Even among Republicans, there are significant doubts about the federal response to Katrina. Just 47% of those in President Bush's party say the federal response has been good or excellent. Fifty-one percent say fair or poor. Read More......

Boussard Warns of Massive Death Count

From WWL-TV's blog:

10:12: A.M. - Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard: I'm not surprised at what the feds say, they're covering their butts. They're keeping the body counts down because they don't want to horrify the nation. It's worse than Iraq, worse than 9-11. They just don't want to know how many were murdered by bureaucracy.

10:10 A.M. - Broussard: I know what the body count is so far, but I won't horrify the nation

Read More......

White House (Rove) bashing local officials who were working while Bush vacationed

CNN reported that Governor Kathleen Blanco just learned this morning the President's itinerary for his trip today. They are trying to cut her out. Let's not forget, Blanco and Nagin were on the front lines of Katrina while Bush STAYED ON VACATION. But that's not stopping the White House/Rove who are still trashing local and state officials reports the Washington Post:

Late last week, Bush said he was unhappy with the overall response, but the aide made it clear he was most upset with the local plan -- not his own administration's efforts. Bush lost patience with local officials when he learned that thousands of people were sent to the New Orleans convention center for relief only to learn their was no assistance for victims there, the aide said, calling this the "tipping point." Bush infuriated Blanco and other local officials when he sought late Friday night to federalize the relief effort and seize control of National Guard and other operations. The governor refused, and tensions between the federal and local officials worsened.

Bush lost patience? George Bush was on vacation while those local officials were being overwhelmed by the biggest natural disaster ever to hit the country. The President toured Arizona and California on Monday and Tuesday playing politics while people were dying. He didn't leave his VACATION until Wednesday afternoon.

Now, they have the fucking audacity to question the initial response by local officials.

BUSH STAYED ON VACATION. The White House runs a good political smear campaign. They suck at running the country. Read More......

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET YOU PEOPLE TO DO YOUR F*ING JOBS?!?!

I swear, my disgust and hatred of these people grows deeper by the moment. Let me say once again, echoing Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard (joined by many of you on the comments), SHUT THE F*CK UP AND DO YOUR JOB. The situation on the ground is getting worse. There are reports of dysentery in Biloxi - that was in every single disaster scenario, so don't you DARE tell us you couldn't plan for this too.

Condoleezza, if you take another trip to the disaster area without a head of state in tow I will personally make sure you never get any job in the NFL when the reign of you godforsaken bunch of idiots is finally over. GET BACK TO WASHINGTON AND DO YOUR JOB - DEPARTMENT OF STATE. Not sure how to do that? Let me give you a clue. Nations want to send help, others need more prodding. Kuwait, for instance, has 10% of the world's oil, think they could do better than $500 million? I sure as sh*t do.

Michael Chertoff, you can stay talking on TV all you want. You have shown yourself to be such an utter moron that I think that the more you try and do, the more damage you'll do. Stay out of the way, in front of a TV camera making an ass out of yourself repeatedly each hour is a perfect distraction for you.

Media: WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO COVER THESE BULLSH*T PHOTO-OPS? You enable them to waste time with the mutual gratification society. No one in America is any more informed when they are over, it accomplishes nothing.

From AP, via Yahoo:

The Bush administration kept its Hurricane Katrina response and its public relations campaign in overdrive on Sunday, even as first confirmation came from Washington of a dreaded statistic -- that the storm probably killed thousands of people.

Responding to accusations of racial insensitivity, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race."

Rice, who was sent to her native Alabama, was among four Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking administration officials who fanned who out across the storm-ravaged region Sunday. President Bush was planning to return to the area Monday, three days after an initial visit, with appearances in Baton Rouge, La., and Poplarville, Miss.
...
Underscoring the strain of the disaster, Sen. Mary Landrieu (news, bio, voting record), D-La., lashed out at federal officials who she said have denigrated local efforts to deal with the catastrophe.

"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me," she said on the ABC's "This Week." "One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."
...
There also were warnings of new dangers. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said he had received a report from Biloxi, Miss., of dysentery -- a painful, sometimes-fatal intestinal disease that causes dehydration. With hot weather, mosquitos and standing water holding human waste, corpses and other contaminants, diseases such as West Nile virus, hepatitis A, salmonella and E. coli bacteria infections also are a concern, he said on CNN.

"We have the ingredients for a bad situation there," Leavitt said.
...
Local officials had predicted the death toll would reach into the thousands, and federal officials agreed Sunday.

"I think it's evident it's in the thousands," Leavitt said.

Chertoff said an untold number probably will be found dead in swamped homes, temporary shelters where many went for days without food or clean water, or even in the streets once the water is drained from New Orleans, which could take a month or more.

"I think we need to prepare the country for what's coming," Chertoff said on "Fox News Sunday." "It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine." ROB NOTE: CHERTOFF - IT WAS YOUR JOB TO MAKE SURE THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN.
...
Rice -- the administration's highest-ranking black -- became its chief defender against charges that help, particularly to the disproportionately black and poor victims in New Orleans, came too slowly. "Americans don't want to see Americans suffer," she said in Alabama. ROB NOTE: HOW DO YOU HAVE TIME TO PLAY PR GAMES?

On television, Chertoff was omnipresent, dispatched by the administration to appear on all five Sunday news shows after FEMA Director Michael Brown's damage-control efforts met with little success last week.

Chertoff echoed the White House line -- saying the time to place blame will come later, but he also said federal officials had trouble getting information from local officials on what was going on. For instance, he said, they hadn't been told by Thursday of the violence and horrible conditions at the New Orleans convention center.

Michael Chertoff you lying sack of sh*t, you disgust me as a human being. My entire government does. Read More......

The Media are Rove-aholics

Yesterday, Josh Marshall exposed a serious error in both the Washington Post and Newsweek which was obviously put out by the White House. The Post actually ran a correction later in the day, which was documented also at E&P.; Clearly, Rove's smear strategy was accepted by reporters without question. Think about that for a second. The same guy who has lied to them about the Plame affair (even though most of them already knew) is now able to lie about Katrina.

The MSM are Rove-aholics. They know he's bad for them. He lies to them. He gives them bad info. His only M.O. is to smear throught the media, and they let him.

In the NY Times piece that Michael expounds upon below, there is a key passage:

As is common when this White House confronts a serious problem, management was quickly taken over by Mr. Rove and a group of associates including Mr. Bartlett. Neither man responded to requests for comment.

Of course neither man responded to requests for a comment, but we all know that you talked to them and they spun you. Their words are all through your article, but just not "on the record." Here's an idea for the MSM: Since you know Rove and company LIE to you, don't take their info. on super secret double background. Make them go on the record.

Let Karl Rove take credit for trashing Governor Kathleen Blanco, who is actually trying to save lives. Interesting that there is a theme...that Rove loves beating up on women -- Blanco, Cindy Sheehan, Valerie Plame -- but, only through the magic of blind quotes and off the record spinning.

But the MSM are complicit by letting him play this game over and over. They should set up a super double fact check program for anything Rove tells them. The MSM must know it's bad for them and their readers, but they just can't stop their Rove addictions. Read More......

Bush wants Roberts as Chief

Using Roberts to change the subject one more time, at 8:00 am this morning Bush announced he wanted him to be Chief Justice:

President Bush announced this morning that he will nominate John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States.

"The Senate is well along in the process of finding Judge Roberts qualified," Bush said in a statement from the White House in Washington. 'They know his record and his fidelity to the law."

This is a whole new ball game. And timed to distract us all from Katrina.

Karl Rove strikes again. Read More......

Open Thread

Let's get it started... Read More......

Now Bush Will Spring Into Action

And now the real work begins. The relief FINALLY starts to gain some traction so look for Bush and his cronies to get more and more vehement about dismissing criticism -- we're focused on helping people, not the blame game, they'll say. ANYONE who criticizes them will be "playing politics." The farther away they get from those disastrous first days, the more vicious they'll get and the more the American people will instinctively want to hear positive stories of hope rather than the bungled incompetence that shocked us to the core and cost untold numbers of the poor and helpless their lives.

But Bush has two problems. The first problem is that soon we're going to be seeing gruesome images of the dead -- the bloated and discarded bodies of the weak and defenseless that Bush callously ignored during those first crucial 72 hours. The true horror of what happened in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama will stare us all in the face.

The second problem? We're not going to forget that when the worst natural disaster in our country's history attacked us, BUSH STAYED ON VACATION. Why did the relief effort falter during those first crucial days? Because Bush and Cheney and Rice stayed on vacation. They couldn't be bothered to go to work during the worst natural disaster in our nation's history. And we're not going to forget that.

NOTE: So I had this post ready to go. Then I see this NYT article about Karl Rove taking control and it lays out exactly what I'd been expecting -- they don't even try to pretend they're doing anything but exactly what they're doing: treating this disaster as a political problem instead of a humanitarian crisis. How cold and calculating are they that the NYT can just spell out what they're doing and they think no one will catch on or care? Astonishing.

Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett.

Read More......

So what precisely did we learn from 9/11 and $400B in spending?

Now that Rove and Barlett are working on their latest smear campaign (but didn't they say no politics now?) and the entire team is telling us that "now is not the time for criticism" maybe someone in the media can demand answers for what have we learned for emergency planning since 9/11? Give us some concrete examples of how we are better prepared today and show us how those $400 Billion have had an impact on making us safer. Specific examples, please.

We're not the only people who recognize the failures of this administration. We keep hearing from these people that federal government money is not theirs but taxpayers' money, so OK, let's hear how it has been spent and what the results have been. After 9/11 we always heard that nothing like this could have been imagined, but we now know that they all lied and yes, they could have and did imagine it. They then created the Department of Homeland Security which was supposed to protect Americans from disasters, natural and otherwise.

When Chertoff tells the media that this was beyond anything we have ever had it makes me wonder just what the hell his department is planning for. A few kids lighting bottlerockets? A truck carrying Nutrasweet that turned over on a highway? A heavy mist that leaves a city really, really damp? Didn't we already hear after 9/11 that our internal organizations lacked the vision to plan for the un-imaginable? How can anyone in the world have any faith in this team of jokers? For starters, it's time for Brownie to get back on his horse and ride out of town. But that's just for starters.

We sure have come a long way from Truman and "the buck stops here." Read More......

The great white fear and the real looters

From what I've watched on CNN and even somewhat on Fox (can't say about the others) they have been pretty good about making a distinction between so-called looters and survivors. The administration and lackeys like Haley Barbour have struggled to make this distinction and sadly some out there are buying into the "black people are looting" nonsense. For me, this argument is not unlike the traditional race-loaded criticism of welfare recipients that the GOP has always run hard with during campaigns. It's the poor black people who are bilking the system, they like to say, but the reality is different. Sure problems exist, but not to the extent they like to say. Corporate welfare makes anything paid out to welfare recipients look like chump change.

In the post-Katrina situation, sure, we've all seen images of non-essential items being looted but most of the people were trying to survive since Bush's America left them behind to survive on their own. So you tell me, who's the real looter? The survivor or the opportunist? Where's the administration criticism for oil executives who have been scoring record profits recently and now this? Read More......

Miami Herald: Terror War Hurt Storm Response

No debate here:

The chaotic government response to Hurricane Katrina, which even President Bush said was ''not acceptable,'' was the inevitable result of federal policies emphasizing protection from terrorist attacks at the expense of preparing for far more common natural disasters, state emergency officials and other experts said Friday.

As hurricane survivors died along roadsides and at shelters where they were told to take refuge, or pleaded for food and water or a ride to an overcrowded shelter, members of Congress called for hearings to find out how the response to this disaster could have failed so badly when the nation has spent unprecedented billions of dollars in the name of homeland security.

But the answer may not be much of a mystery.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, once a powerful independent agency focused solely on responding to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters that occur on average about four times a month, was placed within the huge Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Homeland Security sends $1.1 billion each year to states to combat terrorism, but $180 million to help prepare for such disasters as Katrina. Much of the terrorism grant money is given under conditions that specifically exclude spending it on items or personnel that would be used in responding to hazards other than terrorism.

MAJOR DISASTERS

Since 1995, the federal government has declared 562 major disasters. All were natural disasters except two terrorist attacks: Oklahoma City in 1995 and the 9/11 attacks.

Read More......

Bush's Incompetence Keeps Doctors Ready To Help Away From The Sick and Dying

We've been deluged in the past day with stories of military ships sitting off the coast with beds and food and water and medical supplies, stories of cities and states around the country that tried to help but were rejected or delayed by Bush, stories of volunteers with vital skills being told to stay away. I pray some major media outlet does a breakdown SOON of all these miscues directly attributable to Bush and his bureaucrats. (And I don't care if the governor of Louisiana is tripped up too; Bush is working so hard to paint her the villain, I tend to resist, but there's no reason to think she didn't screw up too.)

Here's the latest absurdity: hundreds of doctors and paramedics ready to help and being kept away by a sea of red tape.

Among the doctors stymied from helping out are 100 surgeons and paramedics in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital, developed with millions of tax dollars for just such emergencies, marooned in rural Mississippi.

"The bell was rung, the e-mails were sent off. ...We all got off work and deployed," said one of the frustrated surgeons, Dr. Preston "Chip" Rich of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"We have tried so hard to do the right thing. It took us 30 hours to get here," he said. That government officials can't straighten out the mess and get them assigned to a relief effort now that they're just a few miles away "is just mind-boggling," he said.

Eight days in and the incompetence and misery is still staggering. Read More......

Okay, one more time

I took 8 snapshots over as many minutes, so here's a good selection of who's on the site right now, but remember, the picture only captures the LAST HUNDRED visitors, so the rest aren't shown. Enjoy.

And click on the image below to see a much larger and more easily readable blow up image.

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Who's on the blog right now from outside the US?

A new function I found in the hit counter, it lets you see who's reading the blog at this second around the world, at least the last hundred visitors. It's kind of mesmerizing constantly clicking and seeing who's here.

Here's the latest snap shot.



A few of the foreign cities I could discern were Kuala Lampur, lots in Australia, two in Japan, and I think Hong Kong, but not too sure what that is. And obviously, jolly old England.

How about just you foreigners this time, who's on the site outside of the US?

And here are the Amurikans who are on right now:

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