Pipelines more important than hospitals to Dick Cheney

According to the Hattiesburg America, a small Mississippi newspaper, Dick Cheney’s office called the South Mississippi Electric Power Association and ordered them to prioritize restoring power to Colonial Pipeline Co. before restoring power to two rural hospitals.

“I considered it a presidential directive to get those pipelines operating,” said Jim Compton, general manager of the South Mississippi Electric Power Association – which distributes power that rural electric cooperatives sell to consumers and businesses.

“I reluctantly agreed to pull half our transmission line crews off other projects and made getting the transmission lines to the Collins substations a priority,” Compton said. “Our people were told to work until it was done.”

Let me reiterate what I said before about the importance of this: in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack on our country, Dick Cheney would save his pipeline before he would save your grandmother’s hospital.

I wonder if anyone died in those two hospitals while the power was off.

I’m not sure whether the South Mississippi Electric Power Association is a state or privately run facility — from what I can see they’re privately owned. I wonder, then, why they didn’t tell Cheney to go Cheney himself.

Continue ReadingPipelines more important than hospitals to Dick Cheney

Fafblog Presents: The Do-It-Yourself Emergency Management Guide!

For those of you who want to heed Bill O’Reilly’s advice that the government can’t protect you, and you should fend for yourself, read up on Fafblog’s plan for emergency disaster relief, including:

  • Make-And-Bake Clay Levee!
  • How to Make a Paper Helicopter
  • Do-It-Yourself National Guard!
Continue ReadingFafblog Presents: The Do-It-Yourself Emergency Management Guide!

I’m more qualified to run FEMA than Michael Brown

Newsday and Time magazine are both doing investigations into FEMA (Fucking Everything More than it is Already) Director Michael Brown’s background, and discovering a bit of resume padding. To put it lightly.

They’re checking each bullet point on his FEMA bio and contacting the businesses, universities and associations he claimed to work for and asking them what he really did for them. The answers are quite a bit different than what’s on his bio.
Among the findings:

Under the “honors and awards” section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists “Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University”. However, Brown “wasn’t a professor here, he was only a student here,” says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). “He may have been an adjunct instructor,” says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of “professor.” Carl Reherman, a former political science professor at the University through the ’70s and ’80s, says that Brown “was not on the faculty.” As for the honor of “Outstanding Political Science Professor,” Johnson says, “I spoke with the department chair yesterday and he’s not aware of it.” Johnson could not confirm that Brown made the Dean’s list or was an “Outstanding Political Science Senior,” as is stated on his online profile.

Hell, look at his entire bio, and I’M more qualified to run FEMA than he is. And I don’t know the first thing about Emergency Management. That might have something to do with the fact that I actually have an I.Q.

Continue ReadingI’m more qualified to run FEMA than Michael Brown

It’s about a nuclear terrorist attack, stupid.

Forget about who did or didn’t fix the levees, how long we knew about Katrina coming, people who refused to evacuate, building below sea level; forget all of that — because it’s just noise from the Republican spin machine.

In the event of a nuclear terrorist attack, your President and Republican-run federal government would do what they did this past week. AND YOU WOULD DIE, like the people in New Orleans.

In the event of a viral biological terrorist attack, your President and Republican-run federal government would do what they did this past week. AND YOU WOULD DIE, like the people in New Orleans.

There would be no warning, there would be no evacuation, there would be no preparation, there would be no one to help you when it happened. The total break down that happened in New Orleans, which is apparent when you listen to the accounts from people first hand; where they didn’t know whether the police were there to help them or hurt them, when they didn’t have information or directions, or any idea how to care for themselves or others, or where to go — that would be YOU IN THAT SITUATION.

And the terrorists, the REAL ones, led by Osama bin Laden, not the fake ones in Iraq, are trying to get nuclear capability or a viral biological capability, while your President is playing war games with our national guard as toys in a foreign country, when they should be here, preparing for a disaster so we don’t all get killed.

Continue ReadingIt’s about a nuclear terrorist attack, stupid.

8 great lies the Bush Administration is telling

Media Matters examines the facts surrounding each of these bogus Republican claims.

1. Bush: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”

2. Chertoff strained credulity in defense of Bush, claimed levee breaks and massive flooding came as a surprise — more than 12 hours after local media reported them

3. Brown: “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day”

4. Chertoff: “Apparently, some time on Wednesday, people started to go to the convention center spontaneously”

5. Chertoff pointed fingers: “New Orleans officials and the state officials … called for the Superdome to be the refuge of last resort”

6. Chertoff falsely minimized federal government’s role in Katrina response as subordinate to states

7. Wash. Post, Newsweek, Gingrich falsely claimed that Blanco did not declare a state of emergency

8. Gingrich falsely claimed that Nagin could “have kept water pumped out” of city had he ensured that pumps worked

Continue Reading8 great lies the Bush Administration is telling

Sen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President

From Editor and Publisher:

Sen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President if He Keeps Hitting Local Response to Katrina

Senator Mary Landrieu, the Democrat of Louisiana (whose father was a mayor of New Orleans), appears to have finally found her voice after offering only cautious criticism of the federal relief effort in the hurricane catastrophe earlier in the week. Today she promised to literally “punch” anyone, “including the president,” who continued to question the local response to the tragedy, considering the gross federal misconduct.

Appearing on ABC’s “The Week” TV program this morning, Senator Landrieu still appeared to be smarting from President Bush’s comments, during his national radio address, that state and local bore a fair share of blame for the slow response. On a copter tour of the area, Landrieu said that if she heard any more criticism from federal officials, particularly about the evacuation of New Orleans, she might lose control.

“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 program. “One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally.”

She burst into tears as she looked at a broken levee. “The President could have funded it,” she said. “He cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life? One little crane.”

She also referred angrily to comments Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had in her city in his younger days.

“Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered,” Landrieu said. “Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?”

Continue ReadingSen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President