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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Sage 703 on September 07, 2005, 03:00:00 pm
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9232927 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9232927)
Reprinted from the Associated Press:
September 7th, 2005 1:01 pm
Bush struggles to find the right tone on disaster
WASHINGTON - (AP) The Bush White House is known for its ability to remain in control of its message and image, sliding out of crises with barely a scratch. Not this time.
Despite day after day of appearances by President Bush aimed at undoing the political damage from a poor response to Hurricane Katrina, the White House has not been able to regain its footing, already shaken by the war in Iraq and its death toll exceeding 1,880.
The administration on Tuesday struggled to deflect calls for an accounting of who was responsible for a hurricane response that even Bush acknowledged was inadequate. There were increasing calls for the resignation or firing of Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
??I think it??s clear we??re in damage control now,? said Norman Ornstein, political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.
It??s a troubling position for Bush, already suffering the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.
The mistakes have come one upon the other.
Even as Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf Coast that Sunday night and early Monday, Aug. 28-29, and the national hurricane center was warning of growing danger, the White House didn??t alter the president??s plans to fly from his Texas ranch to the West to promote a new Medicare prescription drug benefit.
By the time Bush landed in Arizona that Monday, the storm was unleashing its fury on Louisiana and Mississippi. The president inserted into his speech only a brief promise of prayers and federal help.
He continued his schedule in California, and he didn??t decide until the next day that he should return to Washington. But it took him another day to get there, as he flew back to Texas to spend another night at his home before leaving for the White House.
Once the president was in Washington, the criticism only intensified.
While a drowned New Orleans descended into lawless misery, Bush delivered remarks from the Rose Garden that were seen as flat and corporate. It was a sharp contrast to the commanding, empathetic president the public rallied around in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In a television interview, Bush said ?? mistakenly ?? that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees in a serious storm.
Even Monday??s trip to the region was a redo, hurriedly arranged by the White House over the weekend after lukewarm response to Bush??s first in-person visit to the Gulf Coast last Friday.
Bush had raised eyebrows on his first trip by, among other things, picking Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. ?? instead of the thousands of mostly poor and black storm victims ?? as an example of loss. ??Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott??s house ?? he??s lost his entire house ?? there??s going to be a fantastic house. And I??m looking forward to sitting on the porch,? Bush said with a laugh from an airplane hangar in Mobile, Ala.
In the same remarks, Bush gave FEMA chief Brown ?? the face for many of the inadequate federal response ?? a hearty endorsement. ??Brownie, you??re doing a heck of a job,? Bush said.
Later in Biloxi, Miss., Bush tried to comfort two stunned women wandering their neighborhood clutching Hefty bags, looking in vain for something to salvage from the rubble of their home. He kept insisting they could find help at a Salvation Army center down the street, even after another bystander had informed him it had been destroyed.
And at his last stop that day, at the airport outside of New Orleans, Bush lauded the increasingly desperate city as a great town because he used go there and ??enjoy myself ?? occasionally too much.?
Perception problem Unlike his galvanizing appearance in the rubble of the World Trade Center just days after the 2001 attacks, Bush has stayed far from the epicenter of New Orleans?? suffering. His only foray into the city was to its edges to watch crews plugging one of the breached levees on Friday.
On Monday, he skipped the hardest-hit coastal areas entirely, choosing instead to visit Baton Rouge ?? a town about 80 miles northwest of New Orleans that sustained no damage. He also went to Poplarville, Miss., to walk the streets of a middle-class neighborhood that seemed to suffer little more than snapped trees, a couple of off-kilter carport roofs and a downed power line or two.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president avoided New Orleans to stay out of the way of search-and-rescue operations.
??It??s going to be almost impossible to overcome the perception about the president that he didn??t show compassion and didn??t get control of the policy failures,? American University political scientist James Thurber said. ??The vivid images that are coming across the television are really destroying his image as a leader.?
White House counselor Dan Bartlett said the president and his aides are unconcerned for now about the unrelenting criticism.
??Emotions are running high. People are tired,? Bartlett said. ??If we focused more of our attention on decisions that have already been made, rather than on those before us, there??s potential for making far greater mistakes. ... We really don??t have time to play the political game right now.?
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002477012&zsection_id=2002462336&slug=kataid07&date=20050907 (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002477012&zsection_id=2002462336&slug=kataid07&date=20050907)
Reprinted from the Washington Post:
September 7th, 2005 1:11 pm
Foreign offers of help ready, waiting
By Elizabeth Williamson / Washington Post
WASHINGTON ?? Offers of foreign aid worth tens of millions of dollars ?? including a Swedish water-purification system, a German cellular-telephone network and two Canadian rescue ships ?? have been delayed for days awaiting review by backlogged federal agencies, according to European diplomats and information collected by the State Department.
Since Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast, more than 90 countries and international organizations have offered to assist in recovery efforts for the flood-stricken region, but nearly all endeavors remained mired yesterday in bureaucratic entanglements ?? in most cases, at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
In Germany, a massive telecommunication system and two technicians await the green light to fly to Louisiana, after its donors spent four days searching for someone willing to accept the gift.
"FEMA? That was a lost cause," said Mirit Hemy, an executive with the Netherlands-based New Skies Satellite, who made the phone calls. "We got zero help, and we lost one week trying to get hold of them."
In Sweden, a transport plane loaded with a water-purification system and a cellular network has been ready to take off for four days, while Swedish officials wait for flight clearance. Nearly a week after they were offered, four Canadian rescue vessels and two helicopters have been accepted but probably won't arrive from Halifax, Nova Scotia, until Saturday. The Canadians' offer of search-and-rescue divers has gone begging.
Matching offers of aid ?? from Panamanian bananas to British engineers ?? with needs in the devastated Gulf region is difficult in a disaster whose scope is unheard-of in recent U.S. history, especially for a country that is more accustomed to giving than receiving aid.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that to his knowledge, all offers of foreign aid have been accepted but must be vetted by emergency-relief specialists.
"I think the experts will take a look at exactly what is needed now," he said.
FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule said the foreign complaints echo those from governors and officials across the nation.
"There has been that common thought that because [offers of aid] are not tapped immediately, they're not prudently used," Rule said. "We are pulling everything into a centralized database. We are trying not to suck everything in all at once, whether we need it or not."
Soon after the flooding, the government of Sweden offered a C-130 Hercules transport plane, loaded with water-purification equipment, and a cellular network donated by Ericsson.
"As far as I know, it's still on the ground," said Claes Thorson, press counselor at the Swedish Embassy in Washington. He said that along with 20 other European Union nations that have pledged money and goods, "We are ready to send our things. We know they are needed, but what seems to be a problem is getting all these offers into the country."
So far, Thorson said, the State Department has denied Sweden's request for flight clearance.
German telecommunications company KB Impuls contacted another company, Unisat, based in Rhode Island, with the idea of contributing an integrated satellite and cellular-telephone system.
The $3 million system could handle 5,000 calls at once, routing them, if necessary, through Germany.
The donor, KB Impuls, would contribute the equipment and two engineers, supplied with their own food, water and generator fuel, to set it up. Unisat contacted another firm, New Skies Satellite, based in the Netherlands with offices in Washington, which agreed to contribute satellite capacity.
New Skies arranged transport, securing a C-130 cargo plane from the Israeli Air Force, to pick up the equipment and technicians from Germany and bring them to Louisiana.
"With one call, I got an airplane," Hemy said. For four days, she and the owner of Unisat, Uri Bar-Zemer, called contacts at FEMA, the American Red Cross, the State Department and members of Congress, trying to find someone to accept the gift.
Finally, the State Department told them that to receive flight clearance, the gift must have a specific recipient.
"I was ringing, ringing, ringing ?? and nothing," Hemy said. Finally, yesterday, she got a call from the U.S. Air Force Joint Task Force Katrina Communication Operations division, thanking the companies for the gift and inquiring about the system's technical specifications.
As of late yesterday the companies were waiting for a written order from the Northern Command to begin the mission.
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http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197 (http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197)
This whole article is good to read. But my particular favorite line is this:
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
For a picture, check out this website:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/6/233139/2154 (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/6/233139/2154)
Full article reprinted below.
Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune
ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
Federal officials are unapologetic.
"I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.
The firefighters - or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to come to Atlanta - knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.
"The initial call to action very specifically says we're looking for two-person fire teams to do community relations," she said. "So if there is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own departments."
One fire chief from Texas agreed that the call was clear to work as community-relations officers. But he wonders why the 1,400 firefighters FEMA attracted to Atlanta aren't being put to better use. He also questioned why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - of which FEMA is a part - has not responded better to the disaster.
The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."
The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters.
On Monday, two firefighters from South Jordan and two from Layton headed for San Antonio to help hurricane evacuees there. Four firefighters from Roy awaited their marching orders, crossing their fingers that they would get to do rescue and recovery work, rather than paperwork.
"A lot of people are bickering because there are rumors they'll just be handing out fliers," said Roy firefighter Logan Layne, adding that his squad hopes to be in the thick of the action. "But we'll do anything. We'll do whatever they need us to do."
While FEMA's community-relations job may be an important one - displaced hurricane victims need basic services and a variety of resources - it may be a job best suited for someone else, say firefighters assembled at the Sheraton.
"It's a misallocation of resources. Completely," said the Texas firefighter.
"It's just an under-utilization of very talented people," said South Salt Lake Fire Chief Steve Foote, who sent a team of firefighters to Atlanta. "I was hoping once they saw the level of people . . . they would shift gears a little bit."
Foote said his crews would be better used doing the jobs they are trained to do.
But Louis H. Botta, a coordinating officer for FEMA, said sending out firefighters on community relations makes sense. They already have had background checks and meet the qualifications to be sworn as a federal employee. They have medical training that will prove invaluable as they come across hurricane victims in the field.
A firefighter from California said he feels ill prepared to even carry out the job FEMA has assigned him. In the field, Hurricane Katrina victims will approach him with questions about everything from insurance claims to financial assistance.
"My only answer to them is, '1-800-621-FEMA,' " he said. "I'm not used to not being in the know."
Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie said his crews would be a "little frustrated" if they were assigned to hand out phone numbers at an evacuee center in Texas rather than find and treat victims of the disaster.
Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government.
"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."
Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
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Hmm, no mention of Cuba's offer of support to the relief effort, though that news is all over Europe.
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What about Somalia's offer to airdrop locusts, though that news is all up in that Horn of Africa BaDunk-A-Dunk.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9216831/..050905 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9216831/..050905)
This is taken from Brian Williams' blog that is kept on MSNBC's website.
Most notably, I'd direct people to read this section, along with the rest of it:
I was on the phone with my wife while at the checkout area when a weather bulletin arrived on my Blackberry, along with a strong caveat from our New York producers. The wording and contents were so incendiary that our folks were concerned that it wasn't real... either a bogus dispatch or a rogue piece of text. I filed a live report by phone for Nightly News (after an exchange with New York about the contents of the bulletin) and very cautiously couched the information. Later, we learned it was real, every word of it. Below are actual excerpts, in the urgent, all-capital-letters style of the medium. Note the time on the message... but more importantly... note the content.
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005
...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...
HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER.
AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED...ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.
THE VAST MAJORITY...OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
The last sentence in that statement is as concise a summation of conditions in New Orleans as is possible. We talked about the document en route to New Orleans. It turned out to be an advance copy of the script for this storm, predicting in unbelievable detail the level of destruction that was by now less than 24 hours away. To me it conjured up the image of a lone forecaster, known but to his or her co-workers, struggling to merge decades-old boilerplate Weather Service wording with the most vivid language possible in a final attempt to warn an entire region.
Begin full text of Brian Williams blog:
? Sept. 5, 2005 | 11:57 a.m. EDT
Now it can be told: Notes on the eve of destruction
Anchor & Managing Editor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I suspect millions of Americans passed this Labor Day weekend the same way: Alternating between watching the coverage (heartened to see relief arriving and rescues progressing as we near the one-week mark, somewhat unbelievably) and steeling themselves to turn away from it to enjoy some semblance of a holiday weekend. Here in the East at least, the sparkling late summer weather combined with a palpable national sadness remind us all of the same time of year exactly four years ago.
Just enough progress has been made... just enough relief is visible on the television screen... to allow the first early, furtive glimpses over our shoulders at what went wrong initially. It is a kind of slow-motion, ongoing outrage that lives are still being lost in this most robust of all nations on earth.
In a strange way, the most outrageous news pictures of this day may be those of progress: The palettes of food and water that have just been dropped at selected landing zones in the downtown area of New Orleans. It's an outrage because all of those elements existed before people died for lack of them: There was water, there was food, and there were choppers to drop both. Why no one was able to combine them in an air drop is a cruel and criminal mystery of this dark chapter in our recent history. The words "failure of imagination" come to mind. The concept of an air drop of supplies was one we apparently introduced to the director of FEMA during a live interview on Nightly News on Thursday evening. (Watch Brian's interview with FEMA Dir. Michael Brown from Sept. 1.) He responded by saying that he'd been unaware of the thousands gathered at the Convention Center. Later that evening an incredulous Ted Koppel on ABC was left with no choice but to ask if the FEMA director was watching the same television coverage as the rest of the nation.
Complaints are still rampant in New Orleans about a lack of information. It's one of many running themes of the past week: There were no announcements in the Superdome during the storm, none to direct people after the storm, no official word (via bullhorn, leaflets or any other means) during the week-long, on-foot migration (and eventual stagnation) that defined life in the downtown section of the city for those first few days. One can't help but think that a single-engine plane towing a banner over the city would have been immeasurably helpful in both crowd and rumor control.
There are a few details from a week ago that are strikingly telling in the light of day a week later. Our team arrived in Baton Rouge Sunday afternoon, Aug. 28. After renting cars, we headed to top off our gas tanks before one last stop at a Wal-Mart for provisions. The air was already frantic, the snack aisles empty and the last of the bottled water were selling out as we watched. I will never forget one particular moment: I was on the phone with my wife while at the checkout area when a weather bulletin arrived on my Blackberry, along with a strong caveat from our New York producers. The wording and contents were so incendiary that our folks were concerned that it wasn't real... either a bogus dispatch or a rogue piece of text. I filed a live report by phone for Nightly News (after an exchange with New York about the contents of the bulletin) and very cautiously couched the information. Later, we learned it was real, every word of it. Below are actual excerpts, in the urgent, all-capital-letters style of the medium. Note the time on the message... but more importantly... note the content.
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005
...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...
HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER.
AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED...ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.
THE VAST MAJORITY...OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
The last sentence in that statement is as concise a summation of conditions in New Orleans as is possible. We talked about the document en route to New Orleans. It turned out to be an advance copy of the script for this storm, predicting in unbelievable detail the level of destruction that was by now less than 24 hours away. To me it conjured up the image of a lone forecaster, known but to his or her co-workers, struggling to merge decades-old boilerplate Weather Service wording with the most vivid language possible in a final attempt to warn an entire region.
Our team arrived at the Superdome an hour later, as the first rain bands came ashore in New Orleans on Sunday night. I filed three special reports for primetime on both coasts, and chatted with some of those seeking shelter. They had been kept in tightly-controlled lines in the pouring rain... they were later allowed to wait under an overhang after protesting. Security was very tight and very physical. A National Guard sergeant told me it was because they didn't want any weapons or alcohol inside. The Guard soldiers were also told to enforce a smoking ban in the Superdome, so they confiscated all cigarette lighters (I should also quickly note that the military meal pouches handed out the next day all contained a pack of matches). Tempers ran high, and many folks in line complained of rough verbal treatment by the Guard, some of which we certainly witnessed. I remember calling the Superdome "the shelter of last resort" on the air that night. That would turn out to be a colossal understatement. I remember a distinctly bad feeling in the air as people stood in long lines that night. It, too, would turn out to be an accurate predictor of what was to come.
This story, this tragedy... will drive the nation's news agenda for the foreseeable future, and it certainly will dominate our broadcast for the days and weeks to come... though the Supreme Court (the death of the Chief Justice, the Roberts confirmation hearings) certainly demands the time and attention of our broadcast as well. We'll go where the stories are. Our extraordinary correspondents, producers and technical crews have been doing unrivalled work in the field, and I plan to re-join them in short order. We'll have more details as airtime nears this evening.
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Welcome to the United States of Kafka!
We should officially rename the White House, The Castle, in all due respect for Kafka's insight and it's fruition right here in the ol' US of A.
A very sad number of days here be we Democrat, Republican, White, Black, Latino, male, female, straight, gay, liberal, conservative, moderate, or any other specific group or combination of groups. :(
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September 7, 2005
Osama and Katrina
By THOMAS FRIEDMAN (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fThomas%20L%20Friedman)
On the day after 9/11, I was in Jerusalem and was interviewed by Israeli TV. The reporter asked me, "Do you think the Bush administration is up to responding to this attack?" As best I can recall, I answered: "Absolutely. One thing I can assure you about these guys is that they know how to pull the trigger."
It was just a gut reaction that George Bush and Dick Cheney were the right guys to deal with Osama. I was not alone in that feeling, and as a result, Mr. Bush got a mandate, almost a blank check, to rule from 9/11 that he never really earned at the polls. Unfortunately, he used that mandate not simply to confront the terrorists but to take a radically uncompassionate conservative agenda - on taxes, stem cells, the environment and foreign treaties - that was going nowhere before 9/11, and drive it into a post-9/11 world. In that sense, 9/11 distorted our politics and society.
Well, if 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush's back, Katrina's put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home.
These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending "intelligent design" as a theology than practicing it as a policy.
For instance, it's unavoidably obvious that we need a real policy of energy conservation. But President Bush can barely choke out the word "conservation." And can you imagine Mr. Cheney, who has already denounced conservation as a "personal virtue" irrelevant to national policy, now leading such a campaign or confronting oil companies for price gouging?
And then there are the president's standard lines: "It's not the government's money; it's your money," and, "One of the last things that we need to do to this economy is to take money out of your pocket and fuel government." Maybe Mr. Bush will now also tell us: "It's not the government's hurricane - it's your hurricane."
An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist - who has been quoted as saying: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" - doesn't have the instincts for this moment. Mr. Norquist is the only person about whom I would say this: I hope he owns property around the New Orleans levee that was never properly finished because of a lack of tax dollars. I hope his basement got flooded. And I hope that he was busy drowning government in his bathtub when the levee broke and that he had to wait for a U.S. Army helicopter to get out of town.
The Bush team has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be another rainy day. Just spend money. You knew that sooner or later there would be a rainy day, but Karl Rove has assumed it wouldn't happen on Mr. Bush's watch - that someone else would have to clean it up. Well, it did happen on his watch.
Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.
So many of the things the Bush team has ignored or distorted under the guise of fighting Osama were exposed by Katrina: its refusal to impose a gasoline tax after 9/11, which would have begun to shift our economy much sooner to more fuel-efficient cars, helped raise money for a rainy day and eased our dependence on the world's worst regimes for energy; its refusal to develop some form of national health care to cover the 40 million uninsured; and its insistence on cutting more taxes, even when that has contributed to incomplete levees and too small an Army to deal with Katrina, Osama and Saddam at the same time.
As my Democratic entrepreneur friend Joel Hyatt once remarked, the Bush team's philosophy since 9/11 has been: "We're at war. Let's party."
Well, the party is over. If Mr. Bush learns the lessons of Katrina, he has a chance to replace his 9/11 mandate with something new and relevant. If that happens, Katrina will have destroyed New Orleans, but helped to restore America. If Mr. Bush goes back to his politics as usual, he'll be thwarted at every turn. Katrina will have destroyed a city and a presidency.
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Originally posted by Jaguär:
Welcome to the United States of Kafka!
We should officially rename the White House, The Castle, in all due respect for Kafka's insight and it's fruition right here in the ol' US of A.
A very sad number of days here be we Democrat, Republican, White, Black, Latino, male, female, straight, gay, liberal, conservative, moderate, or any other specific group or combination of groups. :(
You obviously need to pray (http://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/) more...
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Originally posted by clouds R²:
Originally posted by Jaguär:
Welcome to the United States of Kafka!
We should officially rename the White House, The Castle, in all due respect for Kafka's insight and it's fruition right here in the ol' US of A.
A very sad number of days here be we Democrat, Republican, White, Black, Latino, male, female, straight, gay, liberal, conservative, moderate, or any other specific group or combination of groups. :(
You obviously need to pray (http://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/) more... [/b]
I've lost my faith in politics a long time ago! Also, most man-made Churches are nothing but another sort of politics, just under a different name.
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Originally posted by Jaguär:
I've lost my faith in politics a long time ago! Also, most man-made Churches are nothing but another sort of politics, just under a different name.
Don't you think W's "Prayer Team (http://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/)" is akin to Kim Jong Il's Pleasure Squad (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/13/bio.kim.jongil/)?
<img src="http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7rlxx/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/bush_headache.jpg" alt=" - " />
Think hard.
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Federal officials are unapologetic.
"I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.
these people has brass fuckin balls, thats for sure
rolling out the old Unamerican canard - expect to hear it alot over the next few weeks as they desperately attempt to spin their way out of this
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Originally posted by Jaguär:
Welcome to the United States of Kafka!
We should officially rename the White House, The Castle, in all due respect for Kafka's insight and it's fruition right here in the ol' US of A.
A very sad number of days here be we Democrat, Republican, White, Black, Latino, male, female, straight, gay, liberal, conservative, moderate, or any other specific group or combination of groups. :(
I just read Thomas Paine's Common Sense (http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/) for a class. 229 years ago could not be more timely.
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Originally posted by clouds R²:
<img src="http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7rlxx/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/bush_headache.jpg" alt=" - " />
Think hard.
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Hard work....
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Wall Street Journal Opinion
Blame Amid the Tragedy
Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin failed their constituents.
BY BOB WILLIAMS
Wednesday, September 7, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
As the devastation of Hurricane Katrina continues to shock and sadden the nation, the question on many lips is, Who is to blame for the inadequate response?
As a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, I can fully understand and empathize with the people and public officials over the loss of life and property.
Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government, rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible--local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.
The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center.
The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.
In addition to the plans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill 13 months ago, in which widespread flooding supposedly trapped 300,000 people inside New Orleans. The exercise simulated the evacuation of more than a million residents. The problems identified in the simulation apparently were not solved.
A year ago, as Hurricane Ivan approached, New Orleans ordered an evacuation but did not use city or school buses to help people evacuate. As a result many of the poorest citizens were unable to evacuate. Fortunately, the hurricane changed course and did not hit New Orleans, but both Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin acknowledged the need for a better evacuation plan. Again, they did not take corrective actions. In 1998, during a threat by Hurricane George, 14,000 people were sent to the Superdome and theft and vandalism were rampant due to inadequate security. Again, these problems were not corrected.
The New Orleans contingency plan is still, as of this writing, on the city's Web site, and states: "The safe evacuation of threatened populations is one of the principle [sic] reasons for developing a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan." But the plan was apparently ignored.
Mayor Nagin was responsible for giving the order for mandatory evacuation and supervising the actual evacuation: His Office of Emergency Preparedness (not the federal government) must coordinate with the state on elements of evacuation and assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas. Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation.
The city's evacuation plan states: "The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas." But even though the city has enough school and transit buses to evacuate 12,000 citizens per fleet run, the mayor did not use them. To compound the problem, the buses were not moved to high ground and were flooded. The plan also states that "special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific lifesaving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed." This was not done.
The evacuation plan warned that "if an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials." That is precisely what happened because of the mayor's failure.
Instead of evacuating the people, the mayor ordered the refugees to the Superdome and Convention Center without adequate security and no provisions for food, water and sanitary conditions. As a result people died, and there was even rape committed, in these facilities. Mayor Nagin failed in his responsibility to provide public safety and to manage the orderly evacuation of the citizens of New Orleans. Now he wants to blame Gov. Blanco and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In an emergency the first requirement is for the city's emergency center to be linked to the state emergency operations center. This was not done.
The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. President Bush declared an emergency prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans, so the only action needed for federal assistance was for Gov. Blanco to request the specific type of assistance she needed. She failed to send a timely request for specific aid.
In addition, unlike the governors of New York, Oklahoma and California in past disasters, Gov. Blanco failed to take charge of the situation and ensure that the state emergency operation facility was in constant contact with Mayor Nagin and FEMA. It is likely that thousands of people died because of the failure of Gov. Blanco to implement the state plan, which mentions the possible need to evacuate up to one million people. The plan clearly gives the governor the authority for declaring an emergency, sending in state resources to the disaster area and requesting necessary federal assistance.
State legislators and governors nationwide need to update their contingency plans and the operation procedures for state emergency centers. Hurricane Katrina had been forecast for days, but that will not always be the case with a disaster (think of terrorist attacks). It must be made clear that the governor and locally elected officials are in charge of the "first response."
I am not attempting to excuse some of the delays in FEMA's response. Congress and the president need to take corrective action there, also. However, if citizens expect FEMA to be a first responder to terrorist attacks or other local emergencies (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes), they will be disappointed. The federal government's role is to offer aid upon request.
The Louisiana Legislature should conduct an immediate investigation into the failures of state and local officials to implement the written emergency plans. The tragedy is not over, and real leadership in the state and local government are essential in the months to come. More importantly, the hurricane season is still upon us, and local and state officials must stay focused on the jobs for which they were elected--and not on the deadly game of passing the emergency buck.
Mr. Williams is president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a free market public policy research organization in Olympia, Wash.
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That writer is wrong, wrong, wrong. He says " However, if citizens expect FEMA to be a first responder to terrorist attacks or other local emergencies (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes), they will be disappointed. The federal government's role is to offer aid upon request. "
From FEMA's website:
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency - a former independent agency that became part of the new Department of Homeland Security in March 2003 - is tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from and mitigating against disasters.
As it has for more than 20 years, FEMA's mission remains: to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of "A Nation Prepared." At no time in its history has this vision been more important to the country than in the aftermath of Sept. 11th."
Emphasis mine.
Ummm, so, FEMA should change their mission statement then because clearly the writer of that article (from the WSJ, shocker!) is right and FEMA's own mission statement is wrong.
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I'm certainly not going to exonerate the federal government on this clusterfuck; however, I will clarify who had the "first responder" authority in this situation:
"As much as we try to prepare for catastrophic disasters and to reduce our risk from their devastation, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and other disasters still happen.
When they do, local and state officials are the first to respond. If the loss of life and property overwhelms this response, the federal government ... including FEMA ... is called upon to help."
Source: Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness (http://www.loep.state.la.us/disrecovery/disrecovindex.htm)
Anyone who believes that Nagin and Blanco didn't screw the pooch as much as FEMA is either a partisan hack or a moron.
Or maybe both.
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Ahh, my two favorite Republicans, GGW and Venerable....always there to spin.
Yes, New Orleans city folks are to take some blame, so are Louisiana state officials - and they are. They are accountable and accepting responsibilty. But the national leaders clearly are not.
How can Bob Williams write that article without one mention of the 2004 change to how America responds to domestic crisis? This is Bush Policy post 2004:
Press Releases
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0581.xml (http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0581.xml)
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge Announces Completion of the National Response Plan
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010
January 6, 2005
Fact Sheet: National Response Plan (http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0581.xml)
The U. S. Department of Homeland Security, in partnership with federal departments and agencies, state, local and tribal officials, private sector and national and international associations, today announced completion of the National Response Plan.
??The National Response Plan embodies our nation??s commitment to the concept of one team, one goal -- a safer and more secure America,? said Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. ??Completion of the National Response Plan has been one of my department??s highest priorities, and this achievement is a bold step forward in bringing unity in our response to disasters and terrorist threats and attacks.?
The National Response Plan now establishes a unified and standardized approach within the United States for protecting citizens and managing homeland security incidents. All federal departments and agencies that may be required to assist or support during a national incident will use this Plan, whether from threats or acts of terrorism, major natural disasters, or man-made emergencies. The National Response Plan standardizes federal incident response actions by integrating existing and formerly disparate processes. The Plan uses the National Incident Management System (NIMS) to establish standardized training, organization, and communications procedures for multi-jurisdictional interaction and clearly identifies authority and leadership responsibilities. The Plan also provides a comprehensive framework for private and non-profit institutions to plan and integrate their own preparedness and response activities, nationally and within their own communities.
??With the National Response Plan our nation and its federal, state, local, and tribal response communities now have a comprehensive, all-hazards tool for domestic incident management across the spectrum of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery,? said Ridge. ??The complex and emerging threats of the 21st century demand this synchronized and coordinated plan in order to adequately protect our nation and its citizens.?
The National Response Plan was developed by teams of experts from federal departments and agencies, state, local, and tribal officials, incident response and private sector communities from around the nation. Ridge said, ??We brought together the best of the best in our nation??s incident management and first responder communities for a singular but critical national endeavor, and I am honored to recognize their achievement in completing this landmark Plan and making America safer.?
The National Response Plan fulfills a requirement in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 and provides a core operational plan for all national incident management. When fully implemented, it will supersede the Initial National Response Plan (INRP), the Federal Response Plan (FRP), the U. S. Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan (CONPLAN), and the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan (FRERP).
The National Response Plan and the supporting National Incident Management System establish incident management processes to:
</font>- <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">Improve coordination and integration between federal, state, local, tribal, regional, private sector, and non-governmental organization partners;</font></li>
- <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">Integrate the federal response to catastrophic events;</font></li>
- <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">Improve incident management communications and increase cross-jurisdictional coordination and situational awareness;</font></li>
- <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">Improve federal to federal interaction and emergency support;</font></li>
- <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">Maximize use and employment of incident management resources; and</font></li>
- <font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">Facilitate emergency mutual aid and federal emergency support to state, local, and tribal governments.</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">
The National Response Plan further recognizes the potential magnitude of threats from weapons of mass destruction and severe natural disasters by adoption of a new term, the Incident of National Significance. An incident of national significance is described as an incident with high impact requiring an extensive and well-coordinated response by federal, state, local, tribal, and nongovernmental authorities to save lives, minimize damage, and provide the basis for long-term community and economic recovery.
Interested citizens may view and download a PDF copy of the National Response Plan online at http://www.dhs.gov/nationalresponseplan (http://www.dhs.gov/nationalresponseplan)
Information on FEMA National Response Plan training courses is available through links at the above website.
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We know from experience that the 10 most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm from the Federal Government, and I'm here to help."
-Ronald Reagan
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again, i'm not here to say the feds are all good. everyone messed up. but to have the feds bear the brunt of the criticism is patently unfair. as those mission statements say, fema is there to help coordinate responses. . .but, it's a two way street. if fema isn't getting help or information from the state/city, then how can it do its job? again, it's a two way street, everyone has to work together, and in this case, it didn't happen. to blame the feds solely is a mistake, but a much easier target than the state and/or city leaders.
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Can we also keep in mind the problem that federalism poses in this instance? A lot of people have compared this disaster to 9/11, as it is the only thing on a similar scale in this country that we can really understand.
Comparing the state leadership in these instances, you're invariably going to come up short on the Louisiana side. But a large reason for that rests in one invariable truth: Louisiana has far less money than New York. Regardless of whatever was done pre or post hurricane, Louisiana doesn't have the state resources, because they do not collect as much tax revenue, because their citizens do not make as much money. Want evidence of this? Look into what it costs to rent a luxury apartment in downtown New Orleans, and compare it to say - Arlington, Virginia. Or if you really want some evidence, contrast it with Times Square.
Mandatory evacuations, etc take enormous resources - we're seeing that now. Louisiana simply doesn't have it. And from day one, Louisiana asked for help, knowing that this was the case.
Yes, local and state legislators didn't do much to prevent this tragedy, but tell me what could they have done? They worked closely with FEMA officials who have given them direction on what to do. The governor and mayor are not experts on hurricanes or disaster relief - officials at FEMA are. And they're staffed to respond to these situations when state and local leadership asks for help. If you think that Nagin and Blanco weren't in touch with FEMA prior to the hurricane, you're insane.
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Here's why I blame the Feds more:
Blanco and Nagin were on TV and radio pleading for help and annoucning the devastation, pretty much from the first day. At least they got how awful this was.
When Bush got there two days later, he basically said, on national television:
"I love New Orleans and have fond memories from being here in my younger days. Probably over-indulged here at times too." (he then sort of snickered)
"Trent Lott lost his house, I'll enjoy sitting on his porch one day again soon".
Imagine if Giuliani had stood at Ground Zero and said, "I used to go to Windows on the World and, well, hee hee, kinda got drunk there sometimes. I'll miss the place."
Completely inappropriate. And Michael Brown and Michael Chertloff, the two guys in charge at FEMA....they were so clueless.
"I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water." -Chertloff, as the images are being broadcast around the world.
These are supposed to be the people in charge. Even if the local and state officials were completely incompetent (which they weren't), the Feds totally fell down on the job. Bush is talking about getting drunk in his youth? That's our President? I expect better from our President than I do from the mayor of New Orleans.
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Originally posted by callat703:
Yes, local and state legislators didn't do much to prevent this tragedy, but tell me what could they have done?
New Orleans had considered what to do in case a "catastrophic" storm were heading for them. The plan acknowledged that only like a quarter of residents owned private vehicles and that buses (city as well as private) would have to be used to evacuate those without their own transportation. Instead of doing this, Nagin designated 12 pick up locations and moved everyone to the Superdome.
Nagin also told the Times-Picayune a couple days after the storm that his plan consisted solely of "moving people to higher ground and hoping supplies could be air-lifted into them." In other words, he completely abandoned the hurricane plan.
Despite its name, the "National" Guard is actually run by the state government, not the federal. It was the National Guard that told everyone to go to the Convention Center. It was also the National Guard (acting on the request of the Louisiana Dept of Homeland Security) that consistently refused to allow the Red Cross into the city (http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html).
Also, FEMA usually takes over when the state authorizes them to do so. As of this past weekend, Blanco still had not authorized them to run the show. She has even gone so far as to hire her own advisors to come in and run things.
FEMA and the U.S. Dept of Homeland Security have the tools to tell the state and local authorities to fuck off. They clearly should have used them. FEMA deserves the blame they are getting. Brown's an idiot and should resign/be fired as soon as practical. The point is that this situation was screwed from the beginning; first by Nagin who implemented a half-assed, improvised preparation (probably as a way of avoiding the political embarassment that would have come if he had implemented a hugely expensive evacuation and the city didn't get flooded); and then by Blanco who has simultaneously tried to keep political authority over the situation while expecting the feds to do the work.
In the end, the blame should go to the fact that all those involved acted like what they are - bureaucrats and politicians who are most concerned about protecting their little fiefdoms of power and keeping up appearances.
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While I don't disagree with you entirely, I'd like to raise a separate question. While you're right that the National Guard generally answers to the state government, this changes when the President federalizes the National Guard, thus making it an instrument of the federal government.
From the National Guard website:
"During peacetime each state National Guard answers to the leadership in the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia. During national emergencies, however, the President reserves the right to mobilize the National Guard, putting them in federal duty status. While federalized, the units answer to the Combatant Commander of the theatre in which they are operating and, ultimately, to the President.
Even when not federalized, the Army National Guard has a federal obligation (or mission.) That mission is to maintain properly trained and equipped units, available for prompt mobilization for war, national emergency, or as otherwise needed."
My question is: who had control of the National Guard at this point in time? The President, as a result of his mobilization of the National Guard for deployment to Iraq; or the state government?
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here's why the feds get the blame: no one in virginia/dc/maryland/northern california voted for nagin or blanco. sure, everyone dropped the ball, but the rest of the county can't vote out those two jokers. plus, its federal money that's going to bail out new orleans. if mothernature wiped dc off the map, would you feel safe with williams in charge?
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i'm sure these could have helped evacuate people in new orleans- as the city's evacuation plan imagined.
<img src="http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050901/capt.flpc21109012015.hurricane_katrina_flpc211.jpg?x=380&y=235&sig=NbUvEfVIaferkxoZTiys0Q--" alt=" - " />
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also, they could have sold them and started to pay for levee improvements
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Originally posted by callat703:
My question is: who had control of the National Guard at this point in time? The President, as a result of his mobilization of the National Guard for deployment to Iraq; or the state government?
I don't know the exact answer, but my sense is that the Defense Department only controls those National Guard troops that have been "called-up" while the state retains the authority over those that remain in the state.
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<img src="http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_oct2004/RunawayOstrich.jpg" alt=" - " />
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From the Washington Post Website The Debate section:
Facts and Rumors: Federal Power in a State of Emergency
First, a note to all the Debaters: Ordinarily, Wednesday would mark the beginning of a new week for The Debate -- it's the day a fresh topic would be introduced for discussion until the following Tuesday. But this is no ordinary week. So we're bending the rules to make room for a few more days of Hurricane Katrina, and we'll introduce next week's issue, the Roberts nomination, on Monday -- just in time for the start of his hearings.
But for now, we're still talking about the hurricane, and all the false assertions that have been floating around with regard to who had the power to do what in Louisiana have got to be put to rest. Please allow me to use the text of federal laws and some other reputable sources in order to set the record straight. (My very basic conclusions based on those facts appear in parenthesis.)
Fact: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a State of Emergency for her state on Friday, Aug. 26. Full disclosure: The Post reported last week -- erroneously, it turned out -- that Louisiana had not issued such a declaration. A correction was published on Sept. 5.
Fact: President Bush declared a State of Emergency the next day Saturday before Hurricane Katrina hit.
Fact: Presidential declarations of emergency are made after a request from "the governor of the impacted state, based on finding that the disaster is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the ability of the state and affected local jurisdictions."
[Update: The link above doesn't seem to be working anymore, so here's a copy of the page as it appeared on Aug. 14, 2004, courtesy of archive.org's Wayback Machine. The page does not appear to have changed between when it was archived and when I looked at it yesterday.]
Fact: Blanco sent a letter dated Aug. 28 to Bush -- via the FEMA regional director -- requesting that he "declare a major disaster," and Bush responded by wisely declaring an emergency. There is a very slight difference, funding-wise, between declaring a major disaster and declaring an emergency -- the difference is explained here -- but both authorize "emergency protective measures."
[Update: Thanks to the astute anonymous reader who provided the link to the letter.]
Fact: A declaration of emergency "unleash[es] the support of any or all of 27 federal agencies. It also authorizes reimbursement of emergency work, such as debris removal and emergency protective measures."
Fact: There is a FEMA program called the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System (US&R) -- now part of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate (EP&R) of the Department of Homeland Security. According to federal legislation, it "provides specialized lifesaving assistance during major disasters or emergencies that the President declares under the Stafford Act. US&R operational activities include locating, extricating and providing on-site medical treatment to victims trapped in collapsed structures, victims of weapons of mass destruction events, and when assigned, performing incident command or other operational activities."
(I think we can all agree that such teams would have been immensely helpful on the two to three days immediately following the hurricane. The Coast Guard did a great job, it would seem, of airlifting people out of drowning homes very soon after the flooding happened, and New Orleans police devoted a great deal of time that to performing search and rescue as well. Yes, some deserted, but others stayed and did everything they could to help the city and its residents recover. Perhaps if more search and rescue professionals had been sent in in the immediate aftermath, the police could have spent that time maintaining order in the city.)
Fact: In the Rules and Regulations section of the US&R legislation, "emergency " is defined as "any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, Federal assistance is needed to supplement State and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States."
Fact: In the supplementary information for the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System legislation, it says (I've taken out some of the extraneous numbers and some unnecessary phrases for ease of reading, but the meaning is unchanged):
Section 303 of the Stafford Act authorizes the President of the United States to form emergency support teams of Federal personnel to be deployed in an area affected by a major disaster or emergency. The President delegated this function to the Director of the FEMA under Executive Order 12148. Under E.O. 13286 of February 28, 2003, the President amended E.O. 12148 to transfer the FEMA Director's delegated authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and under Homeland Security Delegation No. 9100, delegated the Secretary's authority under Title V of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which includes the Stafford Act, to the Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R).
Fact: The Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response is Michael Brown.
(So, EP&R director -- the head of FEMA, the guy the New Orleans Times Picayune said should "especially" be fired -- had the authority to dispatch specialized rescue squads right away. Where were they? Why didn't the president, under whose direction the Department of Homeland Security ultimately falls, insist on getting those teams on the ground -- or in the air -- as soon as the levees were breached and the flooding began?)
In 1995, the Washington Monthly wrote about FEMA's miraculous turnaround after its abysmal performance dealing with Hurricane Andrew. In that story was this tidbit from Jeffrey Itell, who conducted a massive study of FEMA's operations, which uncovered that FEMA had extensive powers according to the Stafford Act that, to everyone's detriment, it was not exercising:
We found that without state requests, FEMA could assess the catastrophic area, assess what assistance the state needed, start mobilizing that relief, present its recommendations to the governor, and, if necessary ? get in the governor's face to force the issue of accepting federal help.
This should all still apply -- unless the Department of Homeland Security nullified these common-sense FEMA powers when it subsumed the agency a couple years ago. (If it did, DHS has a lot of explaining to do.)
Again, that's without state requests. (This is not to say the the local authorities couldn't have done more. For starters, they could have taken into account the substantial number of poor Now Orleans residents who wouldn't have the means to evacuate. But they were right in the middle of it all, their resources overwhelmed, whereas the federal emergency management professionals are likely to have vastly more resources (how many helicopters did the New Orleans Police Department have? I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing not as many as the federal government.)
What's important to remember here is that misinformation is swirling, as is not unusual after unprecedented disasters. (David Brooks of the New York Times recalls the news accounts of [insert then-feared minority group here] cutting off the fingers of the dead in order to steal their wedding rings.)
Don't get me wrong, the Debate loves and encourages a wide variety of opinions. But many opinions you'll hear from pundits on both sides of the aisle are based on false assertions. Before buying into one of these logical-but-inaccurate arguments -- many of which probably originated in a spin machine belonging to someone or another -- it makes sense to check that the facts are solid.
By Emily Messner
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for cloudie: http://bushniggas.ytmnd.com/ (http://bushniggas.ytmnd.com/)
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Originally posted by brennser:
Federal officials are unapologetic.
"I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.
these people has brass fuckin balls, thats for sure
rolling out the old Unamerican canard - expect to hear it alot over the next few weeks as they desperately attempt to spin their way out of this [/b]
FEMA is a joke. My brother is a fireman in NC, and was asked by a hospital in Chapel Hill to assist in doing helicopter duty flying with a pilot and neo natal doctors and nurses getting babies from Texas, La, and Miss and taking them to hospitals that can take on the cases. Now he's a fireman with all the bells and whistles on his uniform. However, it took him an entire day to fill out the paperwork, fax it in to FEMA, and then another full day to get a response. Two days wasted on bureaucratic bullshit.
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Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
for cloudie: http://bushniggas.ytmnd.com/ (http://bushniggas.ytmnd.com/)
<img src="http://www.forumspile.com/LOL-Doggy.jpg" alt=" - " />
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Anyone watch Nightline last night? Koppel was talking to the Chief of Police, the Director of New Orleans Homeland Security, and the army General in charge of the troops. He asked them about Nagin's statement that the city was now under martial law. They all had different definitions of "martial law" and different opinions of whether it was in effect or not.
It's pretty frightening to see that there is still nobody in charge down there. Koppel asked the Director of NOLA Homeland Security about all the outside cops who have come to give NOLA cops a break, and who oversees them. The guy just shrugged and said, "we're still trying to get our hands around that."
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Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
for cloudie: http://bushniggas.ytmnd.com/ (http://bushniggas.ytmnd.com/)
Good to know they're still playing the race card. :roll:
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ytmnd clearly a force to be feared in american politics