Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Walter writes


You have the exact questions the pollsters asked and the order in which they were asked? Could you post them please?

Ah, talking points from Fox News. All the blame falls to the state, and none to the federal gov't. Now I understand...

No, I don't know more than you do and what is published in that link:



Could you please give those data, you asked me, for 'your' ABC-poll?

I think your CBS poll results point to the opposite conclusion, Walter. :wink:

The video of that Hume/Garrett exhange can be found ...HERE, Foxy.

There's something of a time misunderstanding, from what I know. There were buses dispatched and they did go and pick people up. But rather than take them out of the city, they took them to the superdome. Speculation is that this was because there were more people than there was time and the trip to the superdome was shorter. When they were finished running (they can't pick people up once the storm hits), I presume they were parked and subsequently flooded the next day -- since that's when the flooding happened. A few days later, buses were dispatched by FEMA to carry people from the superdome to the Houston astrodome. So, a different set of busses, different time in the timeline, different circumstances.

That makes sense...

My friend's emphasis was specifically on the buses sitting empty because people refused to get on -- that's what seemed most unlikely to me. Do you know anything about that aspect?

I'm wondering if she was confused about the period when there were some buses a shortish distance from the Superdome, but they weren't being used for evacuation. Day 2 or 3, maybe. I remember that in context of people at the Superdome being furious that they could see the buses but weren't allowed to get on.

I recall reading that too, but don't know much about it. I'll see what I can find. I can't imagine that people at the superdome would refuse to get on buses that would have gotten them out of there.

Here we go:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1545920#1545920



(It was from the AP article that just kind of kept mutating/ being updated for a long stretch there on the Yahoo homepage.)

Here's the original article, I believe:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5248531,00.html

Double standards. No complaints received over images of dead and dying in Iraq.
No restrictions in publishing pictures of dead Iraqis either.
This is censorship pure and simple, but dressed up as something else.

Actually, you're wrong, McTag.

Many of us said the same thing about showing dead people. It's callous to the families. Some, including me, didn't want pics of Saddam's sons shown.

Okay, back from my afternoon appointments.

Walter asks


Nope. I just put the media polls up there like everybody else does usually without a clue of who made the calls, what questions were asked and in what order they were asked. They are interesting and sometimes even helpful in spotting trends, but in this case, I think they have too wide a margin of disagreement to be particularly useful.

Here is an extremely interesting article.
I will post a link and some relevant paragraphs,but I think its a subscription service...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

Money Flowed to Questionable Projects
State Leads in Army Corps Spending, but Millions Had Nothing to Do With Floods

By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005; Page A01

Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.

Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.






In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in use by barges traveling between the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers.

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke Aug. 30. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," Dashiell said.


There is much more,but I dont like posting entire articles.
If you want to read it but not subscribe,PM me and I will send the whole article to you.

BTW,
Here is an EXTREMELY interesting point,but it will hurt those of you that claim Bush didnt spend money on the levees...

"But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years."

Today, I stopped by our local Convention Center that is currently housing several thousand Louisiana refugees. I spoke to two of the refugees while I was there. They were stressed, discouraged, and hopeful all at the same time. Their number one fear was for loved ones whom they have not heard from since the hurricane. They don't know if they are alive or dead.

I personally think it would be horrible to find out on TV watching a bloated, decaying body being pulled from the water or see your loved one graphically displayed in the evening newspaper. There are times when simple decency should override the public's right to know.

MM, I would like to see that whole article. Would you PM it to me please? Nevermind, the link just worked. (Didn't the first time I tried.)

Take a look at the first few pages of this thread.A truly sick and tragic comedy.You don't see these guys around anymore.I wonder why?

I think you're on the wrong thread, Amigo.

Good article, MM. I googled T. Bennett Johnston and guess what I found. http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromPersonIdPersonTearsheet.jhtml?passedPersonId=219263 Frickin' hilarious. Anybody wonder if there are any Chevron barges going up the river?

On that last point, not to be a stickler and I don't know how much was asked for during the Clinton years, but the Corps was asking for three times what Bush proposed, and the money provided wasn't enough to do what was proposed.

So, even if Bush had given them the money they wanted, it wouldn't have changed this outcome because the work wouldn't have been completed in time anyway. But I wonder if maybe next year they won't get every penny they ask for.

http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html