No Justice here!

There will be in the afterlife though.

Thank God there are no fascists in heaven. That eliminates about 25-32% of this country.

Here’s the simple truth. People can be told that something horrible is about to happen. What do they do? Nothing. The people I was directly involved with rescuing had vehicles in their driveways, most of which sat there under water rather than driven away. They were idiots for remaining and thinking that somehow the hurricane wouldn’t affect them at all.

I can understand the government coming in to clear out the people who had no way out. But when you’re told to get out and to get beyond the reach of the storm, many people stayed and were fully capable of evacuating on their own. Those that could leave and chose not to, deserved what happened to them.

For the record, I was over by Mobile, Alabama.

GEORGE BUSH GETS PEOPLE KILLED! PERIOD!!

Before Katrina made landfall, FEMA had set up a command and control center in Baton Rouge. This was done in response to Louisiana Gov. Blanco’s formal request to the Bush White House about 48 hours before Katrina hit. The Bush White House response was to assign and send a FEMA disaster coordinator, a twenty year veteran, to head up this FEMA command and control center in Baton Rouge.

(FoxNews article linked to): “Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans’ emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an “incredibly explosive situation,” and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help.

“This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace,” he said. “FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can’t bail out the city of New Orleans.”

Based on Ebbert’s statement above, the second highlighted part, (and the deadly and slow federal response), I can see where someone would believe that there was no FEMA command and control center anywhere close to Louisiana and New Orleans, but there was. So what happened?

The first highlighted part from Ebbert’s statement, about his observation that FEMA was not offering enough help, provides a clue about what did happen in those first critical days following Katrina’s landfall and the sinking of New Orleans.

I read a short article on-line during those first days, I believe it was posted by a New Orleans reporter displaced to Baton Rouge, who reported from the FEMA command and control center in Baton Rouge that the FEMA disaster coordinator was frustrated and seething about his federal coordination efforts in Louisiana being either blocked or emergency resources being routed elsewhere.

My guess?

There were three Gulf Coast states hit hard, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

We didn’t hear many reports about people suffering and dying in Mississippi and Alabama following Katrina, but then these two states had Republican governors, and knowing how the Bush administration has done “business” over the past eight years, then these two Republican-run states received all the FEMA assistance they requested and needed.

Louisiana and New Orleans were another matter. Louisiana had a Democratic leader, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, while New Orleans also was led by a Democrat, Mayor Ray Nagin.

Can this be any clearer?

The FEMA disaster coordinators in Alabama and Mississippi got everything they requested, and in a timely manner, while the FEMA disaster coordinator in Baton Rouge LA got stiffed, time and again, even as he was frantically trying to get personnel and supplies into New Orleans.

But there’s more.

While the FEMA disaster coordinator was having his efforts blocked by someone higher-up the DHS chain of command, all the way to inner sanctums of the Bush White House, the Republican Party (Karl Rove) launched a smear campaign against Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin, even as these two Democrats were desperately trying to help their fellow Louisianans.

In other words, with the Republican/White House goal during Katrina being to punish the Democrats (Louisiana) while rewarding the Republicans (Alabama and Mississippi), then the lack of federal response in Louisiana and New Orleans for days on end after Katrina made landfall and New Orleans flooded suddenly makes perfect, though Republican perverted, sense.

So if the cops stop me, I can refuse the ticket as their only role is to write checks ?

We have no military in Iraq as we only write checks ?

The Army corp didn’t build the NOLA levees and keep them up as their role is only to write checks ?

And the Coast Guard didn’t pick up people from rooftops but instead flew over NOLA and dropped buckets of checks – kind of like dropping propoganda leaflets in WW II ?

Almost everyone I’ve talked to says “We’re going to move to Houston.’ What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas… And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underpriviledged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.

“Scary,” huh? Wikipedia says she lives in Houston…

Also tripped across this, on the Iraq war:

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this, or do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

Wow. That’s Bush’s mom. No wonder he’s such a callous scumbag.

Lucky them!! This family blindness and insensitivity is generational in the Bush family.

Karl is watching his Rome burn in flames in the final days…and right now, he’s one of the primary arsonists. Only good things happen when Rove hits the airwaves, for his enemies.

FCK YOU! I’ll tell you to your face that THE FEDERAL RESPONSE WAS SLOW!
People died because of your ineffectiveness at running a government.
People died because of your apathy towards them.
I, for one, will NEVER forgot those who were misplaced due to your inability to be an effective leader during our nations crisis.
Because I witnessed them first hand, you mucking foron!

But wait, your buddy says “The federal government is in charge of writing checks. It’s not in charge of the action itself,” Rove said.

Okay, which is it? Was the federal government’s response “not slow”, or was it never in charge of the action?
Kinda contradictory, eh needle dicks?

(sorry folks, but even 3 & 1/2 years later, I’m still steamed so many people died in a situation that could have been prevented)

So the failure of the federal government and the Bush adminstration happen even before the storm came.

This is an important point, and one which a lot of media write-ups gloss over: the drowning of New Orleans was due to the levee failure, not due to any damage directly caused by Katrina itself. The Army Corps of Engineers had been given extensive warning for years that the levees would eventually fail in a high-water situation. They declined to do anything whatsoever about it. The Bush administration in fact reduced the priority of reparing such infrastructure, and the Republicans in congress refused to fund such projects.

The non-Response to the drowning of New Orleans is bad enough; but what’s worse is that the Bush administration essentially caused that disaster in the first place.

Yeah V—keep up the reminders—Lake Ponchartrain flooded New Orleans.

Not to mention those at the stadium. and those who were prohibited from leaving by sherrifs with guns.

Rove should STFU. This is a astoundingly ignorant, callous statement -then again, you have to consider the source.

From FEMA’s own website:

FEMA Mission
The primary mission of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the Nation from all hazards, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters, by leading and supporting the Nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation.
[...]
FEMA also has nearly 4,000 standby disaster assistance employees who are available for deployment after disasters.
FEMA: About FEMA

Conservatives: Always lowering the bar in order to excuse their own piss-poor performance.

he is digging a bigger hole in his legacy

I wish. He’s saturating the airwaves with bullshit, but some will get through. People are stupid, forgetful creatures.