Sen Santorum Wants to Penalize Hurricane Victims

At first blush, I *almost* agree with him, but then you look at it more closely.

First, how do you decide who's who? Everything I've seen (and I welcome facts/ sources on this) indicates that for a whole lot of the people who remained behind, they had no way to get out. Not that they refused to evacuate, but that they wanted to get out and simply didn't have the resources.

So you have people who were desperate to get out, couldn't, and then are penalized on top of that? <shaking head>

Those who stayed, by choice or otherwise, have paid enough. So did those who left.

The local govt in N.O. did NOT care enough about the low income areas, PERIOD. Explain how a parking lot full of school buses was never used? Did they care more about the buses?

There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

I thought about the buses, too, especially after seeing the flooded lots. That's a lot of money sitting on asphalt.

Here in our part of NC I can tell you who drives those buses. Poor, mostly black, mostly women, a lot of them with children.

I can only guess that the same would be true (truer) in New Orleans. I'm also guessing they couldn't be forced to stay and drive those buses to rescue people and risk their own lives, or their childrens.

Were there enough other city employees that could have been organized to drive the buses around to rescue people and still get out before the place was flooded? I don't know.

On SATURDAY, GW declares a federal disaster. That would give local authorities PLENTY OF TIME to get people to drive those buses somewhere and return to help their families.

What you suggest, while it may be true, is that NOBODY WANTED TO HELP ANYBODY??

The local govt in N.O. did NOT care enough about the low income areas, PERIOD. Explain how a parking lot full of school buses was never used? Did they care more about the buses?

Santorum is just another empty suit in Washington looking at the blame game.

woiyo wrote:

The local govt in N.O. did NOT care enough about the low income areas, PERIOD. Explain how a parking lot full of school buses was never used? Did they care more about the buses?

Santorum is just another empty suit in Washington looking at the blame game.

The buses o not drive themselves. Perhaps, there should have been a plan to have drivers available with CDL Class B licenses. There should have been a better evacuation plan. There is a lot of woulda, could, shoulda, like why was the funding slashed by Bush to fortify the levee.

The White House went into action late last week, not to provide relief but to set the Rovian spin machine in motion. One of the tactics is to obfuscate and try to place blame on others. Well, of course, it speaks to the fact that we have the worst President in our history still in office that a lot of people are foooled by these tactics.

Heck, if the Bush admin was as good at coordinating rescue efforts as it is at lying, perhaps "only" hundreds, not thousands, would have been lost.

I find myself in complete agreement with Finn. Somebody get me my smelling salts.

I've seen mandatory evacuations put in place in Florida. All resources are mobilized to get people out or to a shelter and the cops go door to door to tell you to get your ass out or nobody's coming to help you when you call 911. Anybody know if the NO and Missip evacuations were mandatory?