Katrina's POLITICAL aftermath (keep the political discussions HERE)

Also, I can't remember where I read it today (possibly here) but Bush declared Katrina a federal disaster last Sunday which means that it's officially been the federal government's responsibility since then.

badger, remember that this fuck was a Repub legal tool during Whitewater, and also these five words: "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth"

Hardly anyone on the Gulf Coast will believe Chertoff. It seems like political suicide to make such an absurdly false claim when the media can smell the blood in the water. The man's career should be permanently destroyed for that statement alone.

no video yet that I can find. I would definitely argue with the comments on that diary about Russert, I thought he was very sympathetic and angry but kept a calm face. Asking Barbour about the casinos--I took this as more of a line of questioning about economic stuff/insurance issues, possibly a way to 'get' Barbour on those issues. I'm predisposed to like Russert though, he's a lawyer and I admire the discipline this background brings to his questioning of guests.

funny how things work out, innit?

If this were Japan, these officials might have the decency to commit hari-kari.

Has anyone seen recent approval rating numbers?

Sadly once we foisted Bush on the rest of the world last November, it was for another 4 years. He can be impeached, but I'd highly doubt the Republicans (who control every single branch of government now) would do that.

Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes:

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

here's the ZDF.de site. Can somebody look around in this? It's all in German. Colin? Ally?

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush visited the Red Cross' disaster operation center, where they thanked employees. The president also announced that the White House would hold a blood drive on Friday.

"The world saw this tidal wave of disaster ascend upon the Gulf Coast," said Bush, who plans to return to the region Monday. "Now they can see a tidal wave of compassion."

EU and NATO asked for assistance. C4 news said it was for water trucks and ready meals.

I don't think he should be promising any more waves of anything, even metaphorically. How about a squeegee mop of compassion?

It's nice to see that the coverage elsewhere in the world stays focused on the real issue, plain and simple: this is the richest country in the world and people could not be bothered to deal with the problems with the levees beforehand and the emergency response after it happened was a goddamn joke.

A German guy called into the Brian Lehrer show in NYC a few days ago and made the same comment. He was like, "I can't believe you guys are even debating whether the response was adequate. The whole entire world can see your leaders are completely incompetent. First they screwed up Iraq, and now they can't even take care of your own people. I don't understand why you put up with it."

I really believe that George and his band of incompetent and dangerous thugs need to resign. It would be the only honorable and competent thing to do. But wait…

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/09/con05318.html

Katrina's POLITICAL aftermath (keep the political discussions HERE) (666 new answers)

(This makes me think of Hillel, but the echo seems subtle enough that I wonder if it's intentional.)

man, Interdictor got covered over there, too. One of the popular topics of discussion on SA(where he was a poster, and where I lurk), the "what would you do if zombies attacked/post-apoc/Mad Max scenario" thing is a popular topic of discussion. if you're a survivalist and you're suddenly presented with a very real chance to go play, yer gunna take it.

in related news, Lowtax is now fighting with PayPal to release the $28K he raised for relief efforts. They locked the account yesterday for "suspicious behavior."

Alex Swann, spokesman for McLellan, said when the deputy minister invited the vice-president last year she asked not simply to visit Canada but Alberta and the oilsands.

“So energy is going to be the focus of the discussion of the whole visit.

Does he ever have anything on his mind other than oil? oh, yeah -- scaring people with the spectre of another terrorist attack. given that the gov't has proven to be utterly unprepared, incompetant and blind to the facts, i suppose he's right on that account, though.

A proposal to detach the Federal Emergency Management Administration from Homeland Security is to be introduced this week in Congress. Some critics say that the Homeland Security takeover of FEMA added a harmful layer of bureaucracy.

Others have questioned the FEMA leadership of Michael Brown, whose background in law, finance and public service includes no prior emergency-management experience.

I do hope that they split out FEMA. The DHS seems -at least right now- to be an oversized, bumbling beauracracy. I fly a LOT (30,000 miles so far just since January), and so my primary contact with them is with the TSA at the airports. I'm so unimpressed with the mess that they have made out of airport screening, that I can't imagine that they're any more competent on more complicated problems. Airport screening should be simple- you're dealing with a lot of people and luggage, but it's not rocket science. But I read a lot of stories of knives and guns getting through, and there was the episode earlier this summer where they lost some explosives used in an exercise- they were inserted into an actual passenger's luggage, and the screener didn't catch them, so they went all the way to europe (and I beleive were never found). If they can't handle that kind of work, why are we expecting them to be able to handle something crazy complex like disaster recovery efforts?

http://nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04cnd-bush.html