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White House Tries to Shift Blame to State/LocalGov


DudeAsInCool

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White House Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials

Excerpts:

...Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5090301680.html

Unbelievable!!!!!!!

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Date: 8/26/2005

Contact:Denise Bottcher or Roderick Hawkins at 225-342-9037

GOVERNOR BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY

BATON ROUGE, LA--Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco today issued Proclamation No. 48 KBB 2005, declaring a state of emergency for the state Louisiana as Hurricane Katrina poses an imminent threat, carrying severe storms, high winds, and torrential rain that may cause flooding and damage to private property and public facilities, and threaten the safety and security of the citizens of the state of Louisiana The state of emergency extends from Friday, August 26, 2005, through Sunday, September 25, 2005, unless terminated sooner.

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...Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

I guess my last post shoots a hole in that lie. We'll be ready for the next one.

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Careful Wolfie. The jackasses in this wolrd might find that remark offensive!!!

:lol:

It'll be hard to find any special group that WON'T be offended. What can you do?

Plus, I don't have anything to worry about anway. Its not like I work for CBS. :lol:

PS. I do apologized to Redneck's mule though. No offense intended. ;)

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Rice Defends Bush Against Racism Charges

September 04,2005 | BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended President Bush on Sunday against charges that the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina showed racial insensitivity.

"Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race," the administration's highest-ranking black said as she toured damaged parts of her native Alabama.

Later, during a service at the Pilgrim Rest AME Zion church outside Mobile, Rice nodded in agreement as the Rev. Malone Smith Jr. advised the congregation, "Wait for the Lord."

"There are some things the president can do; there are some things the government can do," Smith told about 300 worshippers during a rollicking two-hour service. "But God can do all things. I want you to know he's never late. He's always on time."

Rice later echoed the call for patience.

"The Lord is going to come on time -- if we just wait," she said.

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?...=D8CDLDU81.html

I see -- it was God's fault... :reallymad:

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended President Bush on Sunday against charges that the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina showed racial insensitivity.

Right!!!! We all know how Condi is in touch with her roots and I am not talking about her dye job.

Found good pair of pumps yet, Condi? I believe New Orleans has a going out business sale! <_>

"But God can do all things. I want you to know he's never late. He's always on time."

Too bad the goverment wasn't on time. :rolleyes:

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Date: 8/26/2005

yep, i saw that on TV last weekend but these fucks never watch TV news or read on the internets

Rice later echoed the call for patience.

"The Lord is going to come on time -- if we just wait," she said.

i don't believe this shit--was her lord telling her it was cool to buy shoes the other day while people drowned/starved/got killed? i guess so. :mad:.

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MAX BLUMENTHAL - www.salon.com the daou report

Blaming Katrina on Gays, Israel, and Man-on-Horse Sex - I've been stunned at how long it took a prominent member of the Christian right to blame the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina on America's cultural decadence and immorality. Finally, Rick Scarborough of Vision America has stepped up to the plate, blaming Katrina on gay marriage, man-on-horse sex, and Israel for evacuating a portion of the Messiah's planned landing strip....In case you're wondering if this Scarborough guy is just some isolated nut, a Fred Phelps wannabe with no constituency other than his inbred family members, take a look at the list of confirmed speakers for hisCountering the War on Faith Conference...

Confirmed and Invited Speakers

Sen. Rick Santorum

Phylis Schlafly

Ed Meese

David Horowitz

Sen. John Cornyn

Gary Bauer

Congressman Tom DeLay

Judge Roy Moore

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Hon. Zel Miller

Alan Keyes

http://maxblumenthal.blogspot.com/2005/09/...el-and-man.html

These people ought to be locked up if they believe this crap!

:reallymad: :reallymad: :reallymad: :reallymad: :reallymad: :reallymad: :reallymad:

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The can spin all they want - the whole world saw what went down. This NY Times Editorial says it best:

A Failure of Leadership By BOB HERBERT

"Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead"

Neither the death of the chief justice nor the frantic efforts of panicked White House political advisers can conceal the magnitude of the president's failure of leadership last week. The catastrophe in New Orleans billowed up like the howling winds of hell and was carried live and in color on television screens across the U.S. and around the world.

The Big Easy had turned into the Big Hurt, and the colossal failure of George W. Bush to intervene powerfully and immediately to rescue tens of thousands of American citizens who were suffering horribly and dying in agony was there for all the world to see.

Hospitals with deathly ill patients were left without power, with ventilators that didn't work, with floodwaters rising on the lower floors and with corpses rotting in the corridors and stairwells. People unable to breathe on their own, or with cancer or heart disease or kidney failure, slipped into comas and sank into their final sleep in front of helpless doctors and relatives. These were Americans in desperate trouble.

The president didn't seem to notice.

Death and the stink of decay were all over the city. Corpses were propped up in wheelchairs and on lawn furniture, or left to decompose on sunbaked sidewalks. Some floated by in water fouled by human feces.

Degenerates roamed the city, shooting at rescue workers, beating and robbing distraught residents and tourists, raping women and girls. The president of the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world didn't seem to notice.

Viewers could watch diabetics go into insulin shock on national television, and you could see babies with the pale, vacant look of hunger that we're more used to seeing in dispatches from the third world. You could see their mothers, dirty and hungry themselves, weeping.

Old, critically ill people were left to soil themselves and in some cases die like stray animals on the floor of an airport triage center. For days the president of the United States didn't seem to notice.

He would have noticed if the majority of these stricken folks had been white and prosperous. But they weren't. Most were black and poor, and thus, to the George W. Bush administration, still invisible.

After days of withering criticism from white and black Americans, from conservatives as well as liberals, from Republicans and Democrats, the president finally felt compelled to act, however feebly. (The chorus of criticism from nearly all quarters demanding that the president do something tells me that the nation as a whole is so much better than this administration.)

Mr. Bush flew south on Friday and proved (as if more proof were needed) that he didn't get it. Instead of urgently focusing on the people who were stranded, hungry, sick and dying, he engaged in small talk, reminiscing at one point about the days when he used to party in New Orleans, and mentioning that Trent Lott had lost one of his houses but that it would be replaced with "a fantastic house - and I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever by a president during a dire national emergency. What we witnessed, as clearly as the overwhelming agony of the city of New Orleans, was the dangerous incompetence and the staggering indifference to human suffering of the president and his administration.

And it is this incompetence and indifference to suffering (yes, the carnage continues to mount in Iraq) that makes it so hard to be optimistic about the prospects for the United States over the next few years. At a time when effective, innovative leadership is desperately needed to cope with matters of war and peace, terrorism and domestic security, the economic imperatives of globalization and the rising competition for oil, the United States is being led by a man who seems oblivious to the reality of his awesome responsibilities.

Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Mr. Bush has been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude. But this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is so obviously clueless about matters so obviously important, it means that the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep, deep trouble.

http://nytimes.com/2005/09/05/opinion/05herbert.html

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And more evidence of the Bush Administration's incompetence:

Killed by Contempt By PAUL KRUGMAN

Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.

Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.

Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.

What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action - and he didn't deliver.

But the federal government's lethal ineptitude wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming?

Does anyone remember the fight over federalizing airport security? Even after 9/11, the administration and conservative members of Congress tried to keep airport security in the hands of private companies. They were more worried about adding federal employees than about closing a deadly hole in national security.

Of course, the attempt to keep airport security private wasn't just about philosophy; it was also an attempt to protect private interests. But that's not really a contradiction. Ideological cynicism about government easily morphs into a readiness to treat government spending as a way to reward your friends. After all, if you don't believe government can do any good, why not?

Which brings us to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In my last column, I asked whether the Bush administration had destroyed FEMA's effectiveness. Now we know the answer.

Several recent news analyses on FEMA's sorry state have attributed the agency's decline to its inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security, whose prime concern is terrorism, not natural disasters. But that supposed change in focus misses a crucial part of the story.

For one thing, the undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA's preparedness programs.

You might have expected the administration to reconsider its hostility to emergency preparedness after 9/11 - after all, emergency management is as important in the aftermath of a terrorist attack as it is following a natural disaster. As many people have noticed, the failed response to Katrina shows that we are less ready to cope with a terrorist attack today than we were four years ago.

But the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh's successor.

Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency's director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.

That contempt, as I've said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.

The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren't caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen?

http://nytimes.com/2005/09/05/opinion/05krugman.html

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The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.

this is beyond belief but should be used to counter the spin--proof there was nobody in charge despite FEMA's, the whitehouse's and DHS's bullshit.

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Clinton: Government 'failed' people

Former President Bill Clinton on Monday said the government "failed" the thousands of people who lived in coastal communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and said a federal investigation was warranted in due time.

"Our government failed those people in the beginning, and I take it now there is no dispute about it," Clinton told CNN. "One hundred percent of the people recognize that -- that it was a failure."

,,,The elder Bush echoed Clinton's sentiment, telling CNN's Larry King that he is "not satisfied" with the handling of the hurricane's aftermath.

Nonetheless, he defended his son's performance.

"What can he do? He can just go out and do what he's doing today, showing that the federal government's involved, has been involved, will continue to be involved ... He cannot listen to every critic from the editorial page of The New York Times," the elder Bush said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/05/clinton.k...tion=cnn_latest

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Although I have been making an effort to get away from this topic, and just post news articles. I fully believe calling it a blame game is not truly the way it should be expressed.

IMHO, when the commander in chief appoints incompetent people, or his conies do the same thing who is to blame? Well when the same shit happens in a company, it quite often is the CEO that gets the axe. Although impeaching GW Bush right now would only complicate matters, it should remain a viable option in the near future.

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Nonetheless, he defended his son's performance.

"What can he do? He can just go out and do what he's doing today, showing that the federal government's involved, has been involved, will continue to be involved ... He cannot listen to every critic from the editorial page of The New York Times," the elder Bush said.

his widdy boy's gettin shitcanned in newspapers, awwwww! :lol: what can he do or what could he have done? LOL where to begin?

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BBC: has katrina saved US media?

The dithering and incompetence that will be exposed will not spare the commander-in-chief, or the sunny, faith-based propaganda that he was still spouting as he left New Orleans airport last Friday, saying it was all going to turn out fine.

People were still trapped, hungry and dying on his watch, less than a mile away.

Black America will not forget the government failures, nor will the Gulf Coast region.

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Janadas Devan, a Straits Times columnist, tried to explain to his Asian readers how the U.S. is changing. "Today's conservatives," he wrote, "differ in one crucial aspect from yesterday's conservatives: the latter believed in small government, but believed, too, that a country ought to pay for all the government that it needed.

"The former believe in no government, and therefore conclude that there is no need for a country to pay for even the government that it does have. ... [but] it is not only government that doesn't show up when government is starved of resources and leached of all its meaning. Community doesn't show up either, sacrifice doesn't show up, pulling together doesn't show up, 'we're all in this together' doesn't show up."

http://nytimes.com/2005/09/14/opinion/14friedman.html?hp

It's clear to me that the rest of the country is ready to show up... they no longer believe in George or his sleight of hand finger pointing...

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It's clear to me that the rest of the country is ready to show up... they no longer believe in George or his sleight of hand finger pointing...

Dude, did you say that or did he say that?

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