Bush supporters' aftermath thread

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.

Quote:

In fiscal year 2004, the Corps requested $11 million for the project. The President's budget allocated $3 million, and Congress furnished $5.5 million. Similarly, in fiscal 2005 the Corps requested $22.5 million, which the President cut to $3.9 million in his budget. Congress increased that to $5.5 million. "This was insufficient to fund new construction contracts," according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project fact sheet. The Corps reported that "seven new contracts are being delayed due to lack funds" [sic].

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

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Well said, Fox. I'll be hoping we made the right decision. I can't imagine why the scumbag hasn't conceded the obvious yet. No dignity and it's tough to be quiet about it among the all the suffering around here.

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 really don't know what else she has to specifically ask for. Isn't saying, "bring FEMA" enough? Does she have to ask for the right number of bottles of water? Specify how many MREs should be supplied and when and where? No, once she says "bring FEMA" and desgnates someone to coordinate with them, it should be done ...

Emergency Request Enclosure

This enclosure accompanies: Louisiana Governor Requests Bush To Declare State Of Emergency For Louisisana
Estimated requirements for other Federal agency programs:

Department of Social Services (DSS): Opening (3) Special Need Shelters (SNS) and establishing (3) on Standby. Costs estimated at $500,000 per week for each in operation.
Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH): Opening (3) Shelters and establishing (3) on Standby. Costs estimated at $500,000 per week for each in operation.
Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (OHSEP): Providing generators and support staff for SNS and Public Shelters. Costs estimated to range from $250,000-$500,000 to support (6) Shelter generator operations.
Louisiana State Police (LSP): Costs to support evacuations - $300,000 for a non-direct landfall.
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (WLF): Costs to support evacuations - $200,000 for a non-direct landfall.
Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD): Costs to support evacuations - $2,000,000 for a non-direct landfall.

Totals: $ 9,000,000

Estimated Requirements for assistance under the Stafford Act:


Coordination: $0
Technical and advisory assistance: $0
Debris removal: $0
Emergency protective measures: $ 9,000,000
Individuals and Households Program (IHP): $0
Distribution of emergency supplies: $0
Other (specify): $0
Totals: $ 9,000,000

Grand Total: $ 9,000,000

Statement on Federal Disaster Assistance for Louisiana

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the area struck by Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 29, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action makes Federal funding available to affected individuals in the parishes of Acadia, Ascension, Assumption, Calcasieu, Cameron, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John, St. Mary, St. Martin, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Vermilion, Washington, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana. Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.

Federal funding is available to State and eligible local government in the parishes of Acadia, Ascension, Assumption, Calcasieu, Cameron, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John, St. Mary, St. Martin, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Vermilion, Washington, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance.

Federal funding also is available to State and eligible local governments in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Catahoula, Claiborne, Concordia, Desoto, East Carroll, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, and Winn for emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance.

For a period of up to 72 hours, Federal funding is available at 100 percent of the total eligible costs for emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance. The period of up to 72 hours at 100 percent excludes debris removal.

Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures in St. Mary, St. Tammany and Ouachita Parishes.

Representing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

The Agency said that damage surveys are continuing in other areas and more counties and additional forms of assistance may be designated after the assessments are fully completed in the affected areas.

The Agency said that those who sustained losses in the counties designated for aid to affected individuals and business owners can begin applying for assistance tomorrow by registering online at http://www.fema.gov or by calling 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) or 1-800-462-7585 (TTY) for the hearing and speech impaired. The toll-free telephone numbers will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week until further notice.

Doctors Hamstrung in Relief Efforts

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer
Sun Sep 4, 7:48 PM ET

... Next door in Mississippi, the North Carolina mobile hospital waiting to help also offered impressive state-of-the-art medical care. It was developed with millions of tax dollars through the Office of Homeland Security after 9-11. With capacity for 113 beds, it is designed to handle disasters and mass casualties.

Equipment includes ultrasound, digital radiology, satellite Internet, and a full pharmacy, enabling doctors to do most types of surgery in the field, including open-chest and abdominal operations.

It travels in a convoy that includes two 53-foot trailers, which on Sunday afternoon was parked on a gravel lot 70 miles north of New Orleans because Louisiana officials for several days would not let them deploy to the flooded city, Rich said.

Yet plans to use the facility and its 100 health professionals were hatched days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, doctors in the caravan said.

[/b][/i][/u][/url]"]Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?


Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

Law enforcement officials warn New Orleans' diehards to leave[/i][/u]

By Susannah A. Nesmith, Natalie Pompilio and Erika Bolstad

Knight Ridder Newspapers

... "We have a mandatory evacuation in place," Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said. "Once all the voluntary evacuations have taken place, then we'll concentrate our efforts and our forces to mandatorily evacuate individuals."


But city officials weren't getting much support for a mandatory evacuation from the state or the federal governments. National Guard troops said they wouldn't force people from their homes, and Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she was the only person who could call for such action ...

Press Release
Date: 9/8/2005


Contact:Denise Bottcher or Roderick Hawkins at 225-342-9037


U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT FULLY FUNDS THE USE OF NATIONAL GUARD OPERATIONS IN LOUISIANA FOR HURRICANE RELIEF

In an extraordinary move, the U.S. Department of Defense has granted Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's request to federally fund the use of the National Guard in its support of Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts.[/b]

Give Us Your Huddled Masses
And We'll Keep Them Just Like That

by George Lakoff, AlterNet

It's impossible for me, as it is for most Americans, to watch the horror and suffering from Hurricane Katrina and not feel physically sore. And angry.

It should become a watershed in American politics the moment when the poor, the old, the infirm, the kids and the low-wage workers with no cars, TVs or credit cards burst into America's living rooms and onto its doorsteps in all the anguish of their lives.

Katrina will not go away soon, and she has the power to change America.



The Moral of Katrina is not just

- a failure of execution (William Kristol),
- that bad things happen (Laura Bush),
- the indifference of the "President",
- a lack of accountability,
- a failure of federal-state communication,
- corrupt appointments in FEMA,
- the cutting of budgets for fixing levees,
- the inexcusable absence of the National Guard off in Iraq.

It was all of these and more, but they are the effects, not the cause .

The cause was political through and through - a matter of values and principles. The heart of America's true progressive-liberal values is simple and we need to go back to them: Empathy (caring about and for people)
Responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy).

These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives.

PROMOTING THE COMMON GOOD IS GOVERNMENT'S CENTRAL ROLE.

The right-wing conservatives now in power have the opposite values and principles. Their main value is Rely On Individual Discipline And Initiative. The central principle: Government has no useful role. The only common good is the sum of individual goods. It's the difference between We're All In This Together and You're On Your Own, Buddy. It's the difference between Every Citizen Is Entitled To Protection and You're Only Entitled To What You Can Afford. It's the difference between connection and separation.

It's this difference in moral and political philosophy that lies behind the tragedy of Katrina.



A Deadly Failure, Humanly Caused.

The lack of empathy and responsibility explains Bush's indifference, the government's delay in response, and, in fact, the failure to plan for the security of the most vulnerable.

Minimising the role of government accounts for the demotion of FEMA from cabinet rank, for Michael Brown's view that FEMA was a federal entitlement program to be cut, for the budget cuts in levee repair, for placing more responsibility on state and local government than they could handle, for the failure to fully employ the military, and for the lax regulation of toxic waste dumps contributing to a "toxic stew."

This was not just incompetence (though there was plenty of it), not just a natural disaster (though nature played its part), not just Bush (though he is accountable). This is a failure of moral and political philosophy -- a deadly failure, humanly caused.



The Truth Needs To Be Told Without Delay!

It's a truth that needs to be told, starting now - over and over. There can be no delay. The Bush administration is busy framing it in its own way: bad things just happen, it's no one's fault; the federal government did the best it could - the problem was at the state and local level; we'll rebuild and everything will be okay; the people being shipped out will have better lives elsewhere, and jobs in Wal-Mart!

Unless the real truth is told starting now, the American people will accept it for lack of an alternative. The Democrat response so far is playing right into Bush's framing. By delaying a response for fear it will be called "partisan," the Democratic leadership is allowing Bush to frame the tragedy. And once it is framed, it's hard to reframe! It is time to start now.

http://www.alternet.org/story/25099/
UP! Bush had already been slow to react when the World Trade Centre collapsed. Four years later, he was no quicker to get the measure of Katrina - a cruel lack of leadership at a time when this second major shock for 21st century America is adding to the crisis of confidence for the world's leading power and to international disorder. As happened with 9/11, the country is displaying its vulnerability to the eyes of the world.