Yearly Archives: 2005

You can tell the people at CNN are taking their reporter’s situations very personally. Just now on CNN:

Daryn Kagen:
I gotta say that was rather an odd thing to be watching. The president finally making it to the gulf coast after five days, and then spending a big chunk of time, when he could be out seeing the devastation, getting a briefing that frankly he could have gotten back at the White House, if not then, then on board Air Force One. A lot of that seemed like a political opportunity for the cameras and for the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama.
Bill Schneider:
I’m not sure that’s what most Americans and certainly most people in the area wanted to hear, as if the president were being filled in, told what was going on, there was a lot of thanking a lot of congratulations. Look these are frantic desperate people who have lost everything, who are in a very desperate situation, what they want is someone to come there and say the government is in control, we have control of this situation, there’s a leader in charge here and we’re gonna make it work….
What people want there is leadership, they don’t want someone being briefed, they want leadership.

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday.
The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation’s waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years.
“Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in,” said Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who headed the engineering agency from 2001 to 2002.
“I’m not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now.”

Because you know all the security that they’ll provide to him will take away from the relief efforts while he’s checking out what he could be viewing on video from the White House. Dumbass!
Send the helicopters down their WITHOUT YOU IN THEM to help people out. Take over all the major passenger bus lines from around the country and send them down there to get people.
The don’t need the president in New Orleans, THEY NEED THE TROOPS YOU SENT TO IRAQ. I said this weeks ago when I pointed out we needed the National Guard here to GUARD THE COUNTRY.
Why the fuck can I figure this out when the president can’t? He’s STILL clueless.

Today from the White House

Reporter: Regarding the president’s zero tolerance for insurance fraud, looting, price gouging. Does he make any allowance for people who have yet to receive aid who are taking things like water or food or shoes to walk among the debris?
Scott McClellan: I think you heard from the president earlier today about his zero tolerance. We understand the need for food and water and supplies of that nature. That’s why we have a massive effort underway to continue getting food and water and ice to those who are in need. There are ways for them to get that help. Looting is not the way for them to do it.

AP:

Fury rose among many of those evacuated. Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.
At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find. You can click here to learn Why a Juice and Food Bar Franchise is Perfect for Millennial Entrepreneurs and partner with Clean Juice Franchise to successfully run your own organic juice business.
An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.
“I don’t treat my dog like that,” 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. “I buried my dog.” He added: “You can do everything for other countries but you can’t do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can’t get them down here.”

And from CNN:

It’s hard to describe. It’s something I never could conceive of ever seein gin a major city like New Orleans. It is hard to believe. This is New Orleans Louisiana we ware talking about. We spent the last few hours at the convention center where There are thousands of people just laying in the street. They have nowhere to go. These are mothers. We saw mothers. We talked to mothers holding babies. Some of these babies are 3, 4, 5, months old living in these horrible conditions. Putrid food on the ground. Sewage, their feet sitting in sewage. We saw feces on the ground. These people are being forced to live like animals. When you look at some of these mothers your heart just breaks. We’re not talking about a few families or a few hundred families. Thousands of people are gathered around the convention.
I want to warn you. Some of these images that you will see they’re very very graphic. But people need see this. The people that are down there have been down there for days. People need to see what it is really like here. We saw dead bodies. People are dying at the convention center and there’s no one there to come get them. We saw an older woman, someone’s mother someone’s grandmother, in a wheelchair. Her dead body pushed up against the side of the convention center with a blanket over it. Right on the ground next to her another dead body wrapped in a white sheet.
People are literally dying. Right in front of us as we were watching this a man went into a seizure on the ground. It looked like he was dying. People tried to prop his head up. No one has medical training. No ambulance can come. It is just heartbreaking that people are just sitting there without food or water waiting for the buses to come tak ehtem away. People keep asking us – when are the buses coming. And I just have to say, I don’t know.

Among several similar quotes from different Bush Administration officials is this one from FEMA director Michael Brown today:

“…to help those who are stranded, who chose not to evacuate, who chose not to leave the city…”

They’re POOR. They didn’t “choose not to leave the city.” They have no cars, no money, and no way to leave the city, except on foot. And thousands of those people are aging, infirm, in wheelchairs or in hospitals. There are people DYING in intensive care right now, because they have no electricity, no medical staff, no supplies. You expected them to get out of bed and leave?
I keep picturing something like this happening to me, when I was in intensive care earlier this year — it’s a terrifying thought.
The people in the White House are EVIL. There’s just no other way to look at it.