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

Like I said on the other thread, these are the people whose ideological role model, Grover Norquist has been quoted as saying that he wants to shrink the federal government down until it can be drowned in a bathtub. The administration's lack of action is not an accident or the result of poor planning or organization. The lack of a response is an accurate reflection of how Republicans view the role of the federal government.

yeah, i thought about putting it in the not-quite category with missouri, but politically it really aligns these days with other middle and southern appalachian states, coal country notwithstanding. what makes kentucky southern (if it is) and wv not?

(sorry to be off-topic)

http://corner.nationalreview.com

I read it daily because, generally speaking, it is so fucked in the head AND YET these are people who defend, are read by, talk with etc. White House folks. Ergo it's important to track these fools.

(Goldberg is in fact Jewish BTW.)

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And a quick addition to say that over there Dreher just posted this:

GUY HAS A POINT [Rod Dreher]
From an Associated Press dispatch, bad news for the president from a grassroots political analysis:

An old man in a chaise longue lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

Its my understanding that even prior to this disaster NO had the most corrupt police force in the country, so I think you can take it for granted that "helping themselves" was par for the course for the NOPD. Footage I saw was also accompanied by a newscaster saying the cops had publicly stated they had given up trying to stop looting.

otm. the cops ARE the poor people.

as for looting, it strieks me that the looting per se isnt really a pressing issue, so much as the reported violence that is accompanying it.

wv seceded from va whereas we were just wishy-washy.

xpost guys my stepmom's niece's husband is a nola cop. but he'd probably agree with y'all about the corruption on the force.

Arthur Silber's been writing a lot lately on the kind of mindset of the folks in power.

Atrios asks: “Haven’t they done fucking anything in 4 years?”

The answer must be in two parts. Yes, they’ve done a great deal: they’ve consolidated their own power, they’ve demonized all their opponents and smeared them as “unpatriotic” and “anti-American,” and they’ve almost completely neutered the media so that the administration is never seriously questioned by anyone, even by those whose job it is to question them.

But in terms of protecting Americans from a terrorist attack or the aftermath of a natural disaster: no, they haven’t done a fucking thing. They never intended to...

same here. and the reported rapes. that's sickening.

"the Land of Do What Thou Wilt"?

that sounds awesome.

The full answer to your question, to be blunt, is: we don't fucking know! I'm sure the government themselves (or most of it) don't know why things are just not panning out the way they are expected to pan out, as far as recovery efforts. This is a first-time thing for the U.S. in many ways.

Yes, it's incredibly awful and embarrassing... and cruel.

I'm not sure where this comes from but...

"CNN just reporting that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (of California which as a reminder is not a Gulf State) has been leading the charge to get Congress back to Washington, DC for an emergency session. Meanwhile, House Speaker Dennis Hastert has resisted, responding that Congress is already scheduled to reconvene next Tuesday and many Congressmen have important work (fund-raising of their own, not for victims) in their districts that can not be dropped on a moment's notice. Bear in mind that Hastert DID bring the House back from vacation for a special session on a Sunday night to address Terri Schiavo's feeding-tube issue."

xpost Jesus. What a fucking douche Hastert is.

words fail me.

What really concerns me is that there's no real angle for Bush here -- he has nothing really to gain by inaction. In fact, with the Gulf's oil production, he has a lot to lose. You'd think that even for the oil they'd move into gear. The fact that they didn't seems to indicate that they're both hamstrung by earlier poor decisions (FEMA funding), and by sheer incompetence.

Someone earlier pointed out that Bush said "no-one could forsee the levees breaking". Well this is a board of internet mentalists, and we foresaw it. There have been predictions of "this will be worse than Camille" since Saturday. Why weren't troops mobilised then?

Medics talk about the "golden 72 hours" to save people after a disaster. That time is now up, and thousands or hundreds of thousands are still trapped. With no water. In the richest nation on Earth. Why has this happened?

of course, this will not happen.

Know what? FUCK OFF, SMUGLY ANCHORGUY.

Bush Bypasses Senate to Install Official

"Bush used a "recess appointment" Wednesday to name Alice S. Fisher to lead the agency's criminal division. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., had blocked the nomination because he wants to talk to an agent who named Fisher in an e-mail about allegedly abusive interrogations at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo."

its made doubly hard by the fact that reporting in the uk seems so muted (NB I DONT have a TV, so this is skewed). this is a humanitarian disaster, and it seems unprecedented in what it represents. reading of the dying in the streets, the dead bodies. i dont even know what i would think if i read about that happening in the UK, its juts unbelievable. why dont i feel so strongly when worse (eg in terms of loss of life) disasters hit other more impoverished countries? well thats the point isnt it. Q: is louisiana so far from the gaze of gov. power that it migth as well be another country?

Of these three, I feel comparatively lucky to live with the threat of the one prospective disaster that is entirely independent of human action. Global warming = more hurricanes. Dumb foreign policy = more terrorists. But earthquakes, they just happen whenever they want...

Given last week's brouhaha involving him, Hurting, I'd have to say I'd find prioritizing him a *little* strange. Second on the list? Above folks like the Salvation Army?

The thing that is oddly NOT being mentioned at all, as far as human disasters go, is the eventual pandemic. What are doing about that, exactly? "Pandemic? Is that when there's an epidemic of pandas??? OMG!!"

"Next week will be the Senate’s opportunity to address this crisis, and I write to you today to ask that you permit the Senate to do just that. As you know, the current Senate agenda calls for us to consider motions to proceed to estate tax legislation and other issues when we return to session next Tuesday. Given the tragic and devastating events along the Gulf Coast, members of the Senate would have great difficulty explaining why we were debating the estate tax during our first days back when we know hundreds of thousands of families are suffering.

I urge you to take the estate tax and these other items off the table, so that Senators and the resources of the Senate can immediately be focused when where they belong when we return -- on the recovery effort. There can be no more important challenge facing our country in the days ahead than getting relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the agenda of the United States Senate should reflect that priority."

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), September 1st, 2005.

http://www.ob.org/

I dunno, judge for yourself. It appears to be a pretty large-scale international charity. Is the list-placement a little suspect? Maybe. But hardly something to be up in arms about from the sound of it.

By Wesley Clark

...Again, just this past week, there was at least 36 hours notice that a major hurricane was going to hit the Gulf Coast, including likely a devastating blow to New Orleans, which certainly came to pass. The President continued with his regular schedule on Monday and Tuesday in California, Arizona, and Texas to hold some staged Medicare events and enjoy more vacation time, while finally returning to the White House yesterday. The joint task force including National Guard set up by the Pentagon failed to be on the scene in New Orleans in a timely manner to stop the looting and assist in the evacuation. Where is the leadership?

Then just this morning, the President claimed that no one could have anticipated the levee breaches we've seen in New Orleans after Katrina hit. That's not leadership, that's an excuse. In fact, people have predicted this kind of disaster for many years, including President Bush's own FEMA in 2001, when they ranked hurricane flood damage to New Orleans among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing America. Instead, funding was significantly cut back, leaving key engineering projects on hold. Instead, this Administration focused on the war in Iraq, tax cuts, and private sector economic growth without asking the American people to make needed sacrifices for the good of the country. Again I ask you, where is the leadership?...

Oddly, the Red Cross and AmeriCares are NOT blocked. Judgment passed.