I blame the Louisiana Governor

[Mcwop]

A lot of people are going to go down or look bad in this one:

Corps Pork

[Free Range Lobster]

Thank you Tipp...

[1080Rider]

bossass- I think that is a fair assessment (the blog spot). I agree that no matter what the mayor or governor did at the time of the event Bush should have done something. I don't think he deserves the entire brunt of the blame (the levee's should have been stronger to begin w/) but once the events started happening he should have got people on line immediately. The one question I have though is how much people knew. It sounds as though the storm passed and everyone thought, "whew, we made it" then all of a sudden the water started flowing from the levee breaking. I don't know but i do know it was a total cluster fuck. Again, it seems as though this area was a tragedy just waiting to happen.

[Buster Highmen]

[RW]The Katrina recovery is a disaster. Therefore the government has once again proved that it is failing. Therefore we need to cut taxes and quit wasting federal efforts on futile situations.[/RW]

[LW]The Katrina recovery is a disaster. Therefore the government has once again proved that it is failing. Therefore we need to dump the current administration[/LW]

[1080Rider]

I guess I'm a little different buster. I just think we should get value for our $$$. I don't like taxes but understand they are a necessary evil. Now, for my taxes, I want to get my moneys worth. If I pay taxes and pay taxes but my roads are shit and no one is there to rescue me when a flood hits or I crash an airplane or get stuck in the bc w/ my sled, then I'm not getting my moneys worth and the gov't is fucked. I wish we had a small streamlined gov't that could get shit done. Unfortunately, neither party offers anything like that...

[Free Range Lobster]

I love this administration, really I do.

Times-Picayune


Saturday, September 03, 2005

Bush visit halts food delivery
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

[Buster Highmen]

I guess I'm a little different buster. I just think we should get value for our $$$. I don't like taxes but understand they are a necessary evil. Now, for my taxes, I want to get my moneys worth. If I pay taxes and pay taxes but my roads are shit and no one is there to rescue me when a flood hits or I crash an airplane or get stuck in the bc w/ my sled, then I'm not getting my moneys worth and the gov't is fucked. I wish we had a small streamlined gov't that could get shit done. Unfortunately, neither party offers anything like that...

I think we're on the same page. My remark wasn't directed at you personally. However, I don't think the Libertarian ticket is the way to go. I do think that Americans need to have more participation in the political process.

[Dexter Rutecki]

Everyone thinks it would be great if we got everything in the world for what we pay in taxes--it would be great if dog shit smelled like roses, too. The right never wants to finance anything that won't benefit business directly, and in the short term, and doesn't give a fuck about those without power (=poor people). But the reality is that we need to finance things that don't offer immediate, direct benefits (like levees, bridge maintenance, schools), and people like Bush don't recognize this. People like Gore and Kerry do. To pretend there's no difference is being defeatist simply to avoid admitting to what is true.
And in the long term, even big business is served by taking a more reasonable, long term approach.

[1080Rider]

Buster, I know that it wasn't directed at me. I just threw in my $.02.

Dex- I think you're correct to an extent. Corps and people will benefit from a structured well thought out plan for improving the infrastructure.

[Takes the soap box] I would like to see corps take care of their people better as well as contributing to the underpriveledged. I really thing this is what Reagan wanted too (don't start in, I know he represents all that's evil ) and I think that's why people liked him. The problem is how do you affectuate this? By legislation, prolly not- they'll just hit loop holes. We need a conscious change in mentallity in our country. We're all partners in this deal. I like the japanese model that CEO's don't make more than some percentage than the lowest paid line worker. That way, the more the CEO makes the more the line worker makes, or the better the line worker works, the better off the company and all its employees. I fear this is nothing but a pipe dream. Our culture is going the opposite direction. CEO's don't care about workers, people don't care about eachother and rap music is making people push eachother off of chair lifts. Its just sad... [steps down]

[Dexter Rutecki]

I really don't think Reagan was in any way concerned with the underpriviledged or average worker--trickle down economics was just a way of covering for making the rich richer (which is exactly what Reaganomics lead to). He just was good at putting up a convincing front that people bought into.
Careful with that Paul Krugman/Robert Reich talk of limiting CEO pay to a certain multiple of what the average worker makes--you'll be painted a no-good pinko socialist by all the right wingers in no time!

[natty dread]

[Takes the soap box] I would like to see corps take care of their people better as well as contributing to the underpriveledged. I really thing this is what Reagan wanted too (don't start in, I know he represents all that's evil ) and I think that's why people liked him. The problem is how do you affectuate this? By legislation, prolly not- they'll just hit loop holes. We need a conscious change in mentallity in our country. We're all partners in this deal. I like the japanese model that CEO's don't make more than some percentage than the lowest paid line worker. That way, the more the CEO makes the more the line worker makes, or the better the line worker works, the better off the company and all its employees. I fear this is nothing but a pipe dream. Our culture is going the opposite direction. CEO's don't care about workers, people don't care about eachother and rap music is making people push eachother off of chair lifts. Its just sad... [steps down]

Wow 1080, first blurred, now you, turning liberal on us (apart from the tribute to reaganomics)!!
BTW it's effectuate, esquire.

[1080Rider]

Good catch natty- I fackin' suck at spelling, I actually have to work at it, guess I didn't pay enough attention in jr. high.

[mr_gyptian]

A lot of people are going to go down or look bad in this one:

Corps Pork

I'm curious whether some of these senators, both sides of the aisle, will be willing to divert monies from the highway, energy bills etc. to help fund the recovery of our gulf coast.

I'm all for underage drinking, but how much money do you think the state of Louisiana lost out on because they kept the drinking age at 18? I know that high way dollars were the primary withholding, but I'm pretty sure the amount they didn't get to keep up highway infrastructure could have gone to other things, such as levee infrastructure.

[Blurred]

I'm all for underage drinking, but how much money do you think the state of Louisiana lost out on because they kept the drinking age at 18?

Mardi Gras. Not much.

[DaveTV]

And breeding Arabian horses qualifies one to be FEMA head? - farking political appointee..

[mr_gyptian]

Mardi Gras. Not much.

I was there before I was 18 and after. Getting a drink wasn't a problem.

[natty dread]

I'm all for underage drinking, but how much money do you think the state of Louisiana lost out on because they kept the drinking age at 18? I know that high way dollars were the primary withholding, but I'm pretty sure the amount they didn't get to keep up highway infrastructure could have gone to other things, such as levee infrastructure.

It wasn't Louisiana's responsibility to maintain the levees dumbass. It was the army corps of engineers, whose budget for things like upgrading the levees was slashed by your buddy shrub.
Tax cuts for the top 1%=good. Adequate funding to protect America and its infrastructure=not so much.

[Mcwop]

It wasn't Louisiana's responsibility to maintain the levees dumbass. It was the army corps of engineers, whose budget for things like upgrading the levees was slashed by your buddy shrub.
Tax cuts for the top 1%=good. Adequate funding to protect America and its infrastructure=not so much.

It was partly Louisiana's responsibility, there are local boards for each levee section, locals did have a big say. Also LA's reps in both houses had a lot of say.

Did you read this article - it is a good piece (don't worry they blame Bush in it too).

Bush screwed the pooch on the response, but the levee situation goes way beyond him. A lot of people will burn on the levee issue.

[natty dread]

for appointing his inexperienced republican cronies to head FEMA:

Advance Men in Charge
The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced this week that it didn't want the news media taking photographs of the dead in New Orleans. A FEMA spokeswoman talked unconvincingly about the dignity of the dead. But the bizarre demand, a creepy echo of the ban on news media coverage of the coffins returning from Iraq, is simply the latest spasm of a gutted federal agency.

It's not really all that surprising that the officials who run FEMA are stressing that all-important emergency response function: the public relations campaign. As it turns out, that's all they really have experience at doing.

Michael Brown was made the director after he was asked to resign from the International Arabian Horse Association, and the other top officials at FEMA don't exactly have impressive résumés in emergency management either. The Chicago Tribune reported on Wednesday that neither the acting deputy director, Patrick Rhode, nor the acting deputy chief of staff, Brooks Altshuler, came to FEMA with any previous experience in disaster management. Ditto for Scott Morris, the third in command until May.

Mr. Altshuler and Mr. Rhode had worked in the White House's Office of National Advance Operations. Those are the people who decide where the president will stand on stage and which loyal supporters will be permitted into the audience - and how many firefighters will be diverted from rescue duty to surround the president as he patrols the New Orleans airport trying to look busy. Mr. Morris was a press handler with the Bush presidential campaign. Previously, he worked for the company that produced Bush campaign commercials.

So when Mr. Brown finally got around to asking Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for extra people for Katrina, it wasn't much of a departure for Mr. Brown to say that one of the things he wanted them to do was to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public." We'd like them to stay focused on conveying food, water and medical help to victims.

Political patronage has always been a hallmark of Washington life. But President Bill Clinton appointed political pals at FEMA who actually knew something about disaster management. The former FEMA director James Lee Witt, whose tenure is widely considered a major success, was a friend of Mr. Clinton's when he took office in 1993, but he had run the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. His top staff came from regional FEMA offices.

Surely there are loyal Republicans among the 50 directors of state emergency services. But President Bush chose to make FEMA a dumping ground for unqualified cronies - a sure sign that he wanted to hasten the degradation of an agency that conservative Republicans have long considered an evil of big government. Katrina has proved that federal disaster help is vital, and that Mr. Brown and his team of advance men can't do the job. What America needs are federal disaster relief people who actually know something about disaster relief.

[solstice]

Instead, just kick back and read the words of Lt. Commander Sean Kelly, a Pentagon spokesman for Northern Command:
"Northcom started planning before the storm even hit.... We had the USS Bataan sailing almost behind the hurricane so once the hurricane made landfall, its search and rescue helicopters could be available almost immediately. So, we had things ready. The only caveat is: we have to wait until the president authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion; we have to wait for the president to give us permission."

.....and Federal troops cannot be sent in until the STATE requests it. When in fact the state actually requested help remains a mystery.

[mr_gyptian]

It wasn't Louisiana's responsibility to maintain the levees dumbass. It was the army corps of engineers, whose budget for things like upgrading the levees was slashed by your buddy shrub.
Tax cuts for the top 1%=good. Adequate funding to protect America and its infrastructure=not so much.

"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."


again, this crisis couldn't have happened to a state with a more inept and corrupt government.

[powder11]

"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."


again, this crisis couldn't have happened to a state with a more inept and corrupt government.

I feel sorry that you have to watch fox news to know what your opinions will be. give it a rest blowhard

[freshie247]

The only people who are going down for this are the little people of the Gulf Coast. Bush cronies will get a hardy pat on the ass & a hand out at the golden trough .The "Brain Drain at Fema" shows that by licking Cheney's brown eye,you can get virtually any job in the admin.


Here's a bit from the article!

"But experts inside and out of government said a "brain drain" of experienced disaster hands throughout the agency, hastened in part by the appointment of leaders without backgrounds in emergency management, has weakened the agency's ability to respond to natural disasters. Some security experts and congressional critics say the exodus was fueled by a bureaucratic reshuffling in Washington in 2003, when FEMA was stripped of its independent Cabinet-level status and folded into the Department of Homeland Security.

Emergency preparedness has atrophied as a result, some analysts said, extending from Washington to localities.

"[FEMA] has gone downhill within the department, drained of resources and leadership," said I.M. "Mac" Destler, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. "The crippling of FEMA was one important reason why it failed."

Richard A. Andrews, former emergency services director for the state of California and a member of the president's Homeland Security Advisory Council, said state and local failures were critical in the Katrina response, but competence, funding and political will in Washington were also lacking.

Low rankings
"I do not think fundamentally this is an organizational issue," Andrews said. "You need people in there who have both experience and the confidence of the president, who are able to fight and articulate what FEMA's mission and role is, and who understand how emergency management works."

The agency's troubles are no secret. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes careers in federal government, ranked FEMA last of 28 agencies studied in 2003.

In its list of best places to work in the government, a 2004 survey by the American Federation of Government Employees found that of 84 career FEMA professionals who responded, only 10 people ranked agency leaders excellent or good.

Another 28 said the leadership was fair and 33 called it poor.

More than 50 said they would move to another agency if they could remain at the same pay grade, and 67 ranked the agency as poorer since its merger into the Department of Homeland Security.

[Core Shot]

I feel sorry that you have to watch fox news to know what your opinions will be. give it a rest blowhard

Actually, I think I remember that quote from the Washington Post article that McWop posted a few posts earlier. give it a read - its pretty enlightening.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090702462.html

[mr_gyptian]

I feel sorry that you have to watch fox news to know what your opinions will be. give it a rest blowhard

yeah, those facts suck. especially when you can't dispute them.