Guest blogged by Winter Patriot
In the past few days I have seen an amazing number of reports indicating that, in the wake of Katrina, things are not as they seem. On the surface, they seem awful. But behind the curtain they may well be much worse.
What else is new?
In this post I will share a few of those articles with you; if you have seen similar reports and wish to share them, please do so.
The reports that caught my eye seem to fall into three more-or-less related categories. For want of better terminology, let’s call the categories “Secrecy”, “Incompetence”, and “Vague Suspicions”.
Secrecy
The constant demand for secrecy is hardly surprising, given the track record of the current administration. No other administration in American history has spent so much money classifying so many documents, and even taking previously unclassified information out of the public domain.
Federal Government Secrecy at All Time High
In total, Washington spent at least $7.2 billion classifying records in 2004. The amount does not reflect spending by the Central Intelligence Agency.
In comparison, the 41 agencies studied spent only $1 declassifying records for every $148 spent keeping them out of reach, the OpentheGovernment.org report concluded. The year before, the government spent $120 to classify documents for every $1 spent making others publicly accessible. According to the compiled records, it cost taxpayers $460 to maintain each classified document last year.
And of course, this makes us wonder what’s being hidden.
In the aftermath of Katrina, photographers are not being allowed on the scene, journalists are being hassled, intimidated, roughed up, and in at least one case, apparently, targeted.
Photojournalists Covering Katrina Fall Victim To Growing Violence, Chaos
Another photojournalist – Lucas Oleniuk of the Toronto Star – was knocked to the ground by police, his gear taken from him initially, when he photographed them shooting at looters and then beating one. In response to the growing violence and an increasing sense of despair among the stranded survivors, some television networks have hired armed private security firms to protect their journalists as they work to cover the story.
Brian Williams of MSNBC: Making the Quarter rounds
At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media… obvious members of the media… armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It’s a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.
Meanwhile, FEMA is asking that no one publish pictures of bodies.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected journalists’ requests to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims.
U.S. agency blocks photos of New Orleans dead
The Bush administration also has prevented the news media from photographing flag-draped caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that the government is trying to block images that put the war in a bad light.
Incompetence
The tales of Incompetence are so startling, it’s almost unfathomable:
Navy Pilots Who Rescued Victims Are Reprimanded
Instead, their superiors chided the pilots, Lt. David Shand and Lt. Matt Udkow, at a meeting the next morning for rescuing civilians when their assignment that day had been to deliver food and water to military installations along the Gulf Coast.
Crew of Navy ship ready to play larger role in relief effort
The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch U.S. Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It can also make its own water – up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore.
The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents.
But today the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven’t been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize the ship.
Guardsmen ‘played cards’ amid New Orleans chaos: police official
…
“We expected a lot more support from the federal government. We expected the government to respond within 24 hours. The first three days we had no assistance,” he told AFP in an interview.
Had enough yet? BenFrank.net has an archive of reports detailing unbelievable negligence…
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Airboaters stalled by FEMA
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A “floatilla of aid” TURNED BACK from New Orleans
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Fearing riots, Guard rejects food airdrops
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Homeland Security won’t let Red Cross deliver food
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US won’t let Canada help Katrina victims
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On BBC: Northern Command was in position, waiting for Presidential orders
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Confirmation of BBC report: Navy Ship still unused 6 Days after Katrina!
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Daley ‘shocked’ as feds reject aid
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Virgina Team turned away- others efforts wasted
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FEMA prevents water, fuel delivery- cuts communication lines!
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Paperwork from DC late to arrive- prevents National Guard from helping
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Guardsmen ‘played cards’ amid New Orleans chaos: police official
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FEMA Chief Brown caught in a LIE.
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Who’s Responsible?
Bush reorganized the government specifically to give the Feds more power in an emergency.
Bush’s Criminal Ignorance: “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the breach of the levees.”
How could we possibly have so much negligence? … unless it’s not ‘negligence’ at all … unless the ‘incompetence’ is deliberate, in which case all these reports begin to make sense…
FEMA Deliberately Sabotaging Hurricane Relief Efforts
The mainstream media has picked up on this story but is whitewashing it as just another ‘failure’ of the federal government in dealing with the crisis.
…
The mission of FEMA has never in reality been to bring people food and water and help in times of crisis. Alex Jones has attended numerous FEMA drills where the whole point of the exercise is to round people up, break up families and institute a brutal police state crackdown.
FEMA need to create a chaotic atmosphere in New Orleans so they can legitimize what they are doing.
We now have multiple reports of police being ordered to guard key infrastructures in order to defend them from FEMA federal agents. Sheriffs in numerous different counties are guarding highways to keep FEMA out. FEMA is being treated as the enemy because they are sabotaging key facilities in an effort to intentionally worsen the already desperate scenes of horror in New Orleans.
Vague Suspicions
I’ve had a very sick feeling, full of vague suspicions, ever since the beginning of last week, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on anything. Prior to today, the best analysis I’d found was from Kurt Nimmo.
Criminal Plot Underway in the New Orleans Swamp
The piece quoted above was written five days ago, and some readers may have found it disgusting. Not all, though. Not by any means. This was made abundantly clear in an article posted today at Raw Story in which John Byrne quotes Christopher Cooper of the Wall Street Journal:
WSJ: White rich elude Orleans chaos, don’t want poor blacks back
The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. “Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically,” he says. “I’m not just speaking for myself here. The way we’ve been living is not going to happen again, or we’re out.”
I could go on and on and on … and I often do. But this is enough, I think. Enough quotes, enough links, enough counterspin, enough outrage. Read ’em and weep. Or better yet, read ’em and think. Read ’em and do something.
Stand up for your country before it’s too late. If it’s not too late already.
Or better yet, Decide that it’s not too late! Stand up for your country! and Do something!
Did somebody say “Impeach Bush”?
WP:
Wow! That’s quite a laundry list of corruption.
The Bush team pulls it off like pros… One might think that a list of screw-ups like this would require some planning.
Great post!
I submitted this in previous comments but am repeating it here ‘cuz it’s even more appropriate…
_______________________________
At a discussion forum I frequent, someone recently asked "How far is too far?"
This far.
This far, and no further.
When thousands of our own citizens die needlessly, and the lives of the living, the dead, and the dying in the aftermath of a disaster, are trivialized by politicians who ignore the fact that they have failed in their mission to serve the people, that is when things have gone too far.
This is the point at which we must, as a nation, stand up and cry defiantly "This far, and no further".
This is the point when thousands of evacuees and millions of Americans must confront their leaders and say "enough".
This is when the "accountability moment", the "Monica moment", the "Plame game", and the "blame game" must be met with realism.
This is when the sound and the fury of a nation scorned through spin must take back the attention of the faux leaders.
This is the point where those who have sown the wind must reap the whirlwind.
Frederick Douglass, appropriately enough, provides us with a few other pertinent quotes:
What else to say? What other thoughts inscribed on the collective subconsious could stir the souls of many to find their voice?
That phrase was created to test the typewriter, but it works well.
Those are the words of Thomas Paine, which he wrote during a time when our nation was in the midst of casting off the demon of tyranny.
They – the fear-mongers, the plastic figureheads, the conniving manipulators, the instapundits – have gone too far.
Collectively, we must all now stand up and shout "Too far! Too much! This far, and no further, shall you advance your petty agendas at the cost of our nation and our lives!"
Before it is too late.
*crossposted on DailyKOS, here.
People, stop acting surprised. The Bushco’s PNAC plan has always been a twisted form of fascism to fill up their pockets with oil money.
Its part of the "cleansing" that must happen if the have mores are to finally take over and the oil companies to own the land and drill out every drum of fuel before peak oil ends.
Its all an act of desperation plain and simple.
Unlike fascists of the past, the PNAC-led crooked mafia is incompetent beyond words. They are so stupid, they even make the likes of Mussolini, Antoine Marinette and Nixon look like angels.
Because of this blatant stupidity, they have almost no control over events "going" the way they want them to. Louisiana wasn’t about to give up their whole state to the band of FEMA children fascists and nobody need think that is happening anytime soon.
But at the same time, FEMA’s goal as directed by PNAC remains true: Scare the bejeesus out of everyone as fast as possible so they either leave or die and the oil companies can move in for the money.
However, no one needs fear the TRUTH. These idiots couldn’t get one thing right, ONE THING, and never have. They are more dangerous to themselves than anyone else, or anyone has ever known. They are so callous and stupid they succeed at killing their own people and then in a horrendous mistake, say playing chess while a tornado destroys Crawford Texas becomes reality.
Like I say, this is about being the opposition and going into the war-battlefield. Give these bastards and their incompetent crooks, their own medicine by cutting through the echo chamber and bringing about impeachment. Bring it about every day in some way and the masterful media manipulation will dissolve like alice in wonderland.
Doug E.
{The very long and plaigiarized comment pasted in this space has been deleted. Nice try, Rj. If you want to paste a paragraph and a link we will allow it. WP}
WP,
WOW! Thank you for all the time and effort and thought you surely must have put into compiling the information in this article, and laying it out in such fine fashion. You are stellar, not to mention fascinating! I had seen some of the info, but hardly all of it. I’ll take a few breaths, and see if there is anything of substance that I can add. This isn’t just a light bulb, it’s a klieg light.
VG
Brian Williams on the Daily Show just now mentioned again the incident posted above by WP, that "..a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media…"
This snippet is from another horrifying eyewitness report, by two paramedics from California. Very, very chilling:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805A.shtml
Paramedics: Police Prevent People from Leaving New Orleans
"Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, paramedics from California who were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans, detail their own
experiences during and after Katrina. Their reports show that official relief efforts were callous, inept, and racist…"
There are alot of horrors reported on truthout.org. This is from Thursday’s NY Times:
Offers Pour In, But the US Is Unprepared
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805B.shtml
Countries are offering aid, food, etc but are being told by the US to send money instead. SOMEONE should tell them (maybe?) to route it through Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore, who have asked for items like diapers, not just cash. I don’t know if they can get it in at this point either though…
Please have a look at this post from Bob Harris.
For me and for many people I know, the end of tolerance for Bush’s Trail of Disaster has been reached. But it’s hard to explain it to others, partly because it’s so confusing and partly because so much of it is so hard to believe and partly because of the nearly insane defenses for Bush that others will put out as if they made sense.
I mean, people will say with a straight face that we shouldn’t be so hard on Fema because logistics take time and confusion is to be expected in a catatastrophe. Sure, but obviously, that’s why you have an agency charged with planning ahead and charged with making sure there are enough resources, prepositioned as much as possible and making sure that communication is clear. Making sure that a ship that could have helped doesn’t sit off the coast for days doing little, as just one example.
WP’s link has the goods too. Too many things to highlight, but here’s one:
snippet—-
In national security: every terrorist on Earth can now see that the U.S. is vastly less capable of providing for its own people than anyone previously thought. I’m guessing here, but it doesn’t seem a real stretch to figure that the perceived effectiveness of (and therefore incentive for) another attack has now leapt dramatically. (And Iraq has sure been a peachy incubator of terrorists.) And even if nobody does anything horrible anytime soon, every American living in a likely earthquake, tornado, or hurricane zone — which is to say, about two-thirds of the population — must now realize that if the shit comes, you may just be on your own.
—————-
PLEASE, PLEASE Remember Katrina the next time you vote. Remember what they did. And act accordingly.
The next elections are a year away. Don’t let what the government did go unanswered. Keep Katrina close to your heart the next time you enter a voting booth. ALL incumbents must go. If you have to vote for a radical, do so. They could not ever do any worse than the current criminals have done.
This is definitely the time to play the blame game, so the future disasters aren’t even worse.
Laura Bush doesn’t understand what the blame game is.
"My husband doesn’t deserve this criticism
Either this crazy bitch is completely tripped up on drugs and lying, or she is utterly oblivious to Bush’s callousness.
There is no physical way the relief disaster was not due in part to racial class racism against the poor. The have mores have admitted it was due EXACTLY to that. And since they have, in fact if it was not due to callous disregard, he would be even more incompetent than Don Knotts.
And that would be truly frightening. even more horrifying than you imagined. So we must assume that he is extremely callous and completely ignored the fact the minorities were being killed and slaughtered.
Now is the time to stress that point in the timeline over and over again, especially when someone like Laura defends it.
Doug
FEMA, if my memory serves me right, this agency is the one that was to be used to enforce Marshall Law, suspending all our rights, etc. FEMA authority was divided into 10 areas, I will have to look back on some of my material. I don’t know what happened when DHS took them over but I keep wondering if this is a ruse, "create the problem and then come up with a solution". Everyone is wondering where is FEMA….just doesn’t feel right to me. Further info at Wealth4freedom.com/FEMA.html
WP
Please encourage people to take to the streets peacefully Sept. 24th. An old fart like me can remember that during the Vietnam War the msm down played the size of the AntiWar movement until 500,000 + appeared on the mall in DC. as well as large demonstrations in other cities. That event was hard to spin. The msm coverage of the war and the govt changed after the people took to the streets in such massive numbers. Never thought I’d say this but "Remember the Ukrane". Those brave people who refused to be bullied and lied to should be an inspiration for all Americans. We must show resistence. Thanks to all of you that make this forum possible.
#16:
"Marshall Law"??? Do you mean "Martial Law" by chance? I am from Germany, English is only my second language, but sometimes i wonder if that isn’t true for a lot of Americans 😉
#3 Doug, you said:
"…These idiots couldn’t get one thing right…"
I think the terrifying fact is that they are very good at one thing: military force.
I hope people READ the horrific stuff WP reported above. I hope people are going to the posted links & reading some of these ABSOLUTELY HORRIFYING EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS about how the military are treating our own people in New Orleans!!
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805A.shtml
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805B.shtml
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705E.shtml
I’ve used up all the words of outrage I can think of.. shameful..criminal..unconscionable..unthinkable..etcetcetc..
THEY ARE DESTROYING US
CALL WRITE EMAIL: DEMAND THEY RESIGN OR IMPEACH THEM
Doug, Laura Bush and Barbara Bush live in a different world than we do. But you have to wonder that all this suffering where is the "compasionate conservatism"
Brian Williams’s comment, "wonder if the helicopters would have gotten there sooner if this had happened in Nantucket or Boston?"
Well, actually everything got to a disaster site in Florida just before the election. People were paid who hadn’t even lost anything in the hurricane.
Here is a listing of bus trips to DC or SF/ LA, most states listed:
Transportation to September 24 National Mass March in DC & regional actions in San Francisco, Los Angeles & Seattle
Texas/Joan:
No, unfortunately they are even incompetent when it comes to the military.
All they do is run in and do run and gun patrols, Rumsfeld hears a disturbance he thinks its world war 3. This is why we have so many deaths of soldiers, because of his neanderthal incompetence as a princeton nerd.
Each and every disaster is due to this piss poor strategy and planning, not even republicans can stand the idiot rumsfeld. And each time a group of "insurgents" or "citizens" set a trap, whether it be in N.O. or Iraq they fall for it and then US soldiers die. That’s what is sickening. He’s bound to blow everyone up by his sheer stupidity.
It is much, much worse than you thought.
Louisiana not responsible for national emergencies, newsflash Laura!
Doug E.
WP –
I’d read every one of those articles (and more) over the last few days and come to the same inecapable conclusions. That’s why I haven’t been around much. Outraged and heartsick doesn’t begin to describe the feeling. And deep, deep anger.
Amen to that Peg (#23).
I copied and pasted this article to Word (so I could read it slowly and in depth), along with the one from RawStory talking about how Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge felt that the flooding was cleansing the poor from low income housing.
I am too sad and depressed by these harsh realities to be angry right now. I also am getting the chest pains that I always feel when I am in deep stress.
But when the sadness and stress leaves, you can bet that this will stir up anger the likes of which I have never had my whole life (until now).
I always try to be the peacemaker and negotiator. But BY GOD, WHY DOES THE PUBLIC NOT WANT TO SEE BUSH AND CHENEY IMPEACHED??? HOW CAN THEY NOT???
The people are poor and dying because they want to be????
How can any Christian rightist approve of this behavior?
I know in my heart that Jesus is weeping much worse than I am right now.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone who thinks that these events are a good thing (e.g. neocons and their apologists) could ever be found acceptable by Jesus into heaven. Their hearts are as cold as Satan’s.
The incompetence is real, but don’t believe any of the nonsense about a secret government plot.
The mention of Alex Jones should send up a red flag. Alex is a fellow Austinite who believes many strange things:
the rulers of the world worship Moloch
feminism is a government plot
environmentalism is a government plot
anyone in favor of gun control is a Nazi
Arnold Schwartzeneggar is part of an Austrian plot to take over America
there are live AIDS vires in the corn, etc.
the Rothschilds funded Hitler
the Quakers are communists
gays actively recruit in our schools
all terror attacks are part of a government plot
Traffic intersection cameras are a government plot.
Thumb-scanning is a government plot.
Most power outages are government plots.
Domestic terror attacks are government plots.
Illegal immigration is a government plot.
The counterculture is a government plot.
there is a secret world elite that can live forever
Vaccines are part of a secret plot to kill 80% of us
etc., etc.
These are all things Alex has said, often many times. We here in Austin love Alex, but you mustn’t believe a word he says.
Let us never forget how corrupt the government is in the state of Louisiana. It’s not just a federal issue. I’ve been living in Louisiana all of my life and my grandparents cannot even remember a time when our state wasn’t a corrupt one.
added note to above –
Seems to me the press see’s a woman governor who’s democrat and a black mayor who’s a democrat and hell…let’s find a white male conservative somewhere that we can blame this on.
Hi Doug – "have mores" is nice, but I like how one of the Red Sox (I think it was Kevin Millar) put it: "the haves and the have yachts"
#18…yeah, you are right..and english is my first and only language..duh. I really qualify to be on this board "incompetence". LOL
Yesterday i saw a link to photos of bodies in NO. I believe it was at Raw Story, but I am not sure – was in a hurry and didn’t bookmark it.
When I went to the link I found a message from the web host say they had to take down the photos because they were they were under a denial of service attack. They alluded to it being the government doing the hacking.
Anyone else come across this or follow up to it?
"because they were they were"
From the department of redundancy department
The Bush Admin doesn’t want the photos to be seen because their credibility would go in the toilet, there’d be a revolt. The pictures are such an embarassment for our government’s failure that they HAVE TO keep them out of sight….like whining children.
Doug E
Today, I found something very very interesting and I spent all day working on the analysis for it. Please take a look at it. On Aug 26, Bush authorized relief for Louisana, prior to the Hurricane. What’s interesting about is that it doesn’t cover the parishes most likely to be hit, it covers the parishes LEAST likely to be hit. Also, it covers the 63% of the red parishes which includes 50% of the red population and 50% of the blue parishes which includes 10% of the blue population.
The parishes covered under Bush’s order are almost exactly the opposite of the parishes listed in Blanco’s request for emergency relief. Bush did not order relief for a single parish Blanco listed as ‘expecting major damage’. Of the parishes she listed as ‘expecting significant damage’, he listed only six. For the parishes where damage was not expected but rather she’d expect them to have a huge influx of refugess, he ordered relief to every single one of those. Two were not mentioned by Blanco as needing federal aid, but Bush sent aid to one.
I find this the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I spent all day today working on it, so please go give it a look and send it out to others. It’s well done and fully sourced.
Bush relief order leaves Louisana’s blue parishes wanting
While you’re there, please contribute to the We The People Project, for use by Mr. Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee. This is the project that helped him with his timeline for the hearings.
Patriot: I don’t anybody has more callous disregard for his opponents than the president does.
He is so infuriated by blacks and so called "democrats", that he does anything in his power to stop their "slimy takeover" according to his mother. He despises his opponents with a passion.
That is very scary isn’t it, a man who has no respect whatsoever for the majority of african americans or people who vote against him. This has been consistent in his way since being raised by Barbara, who is a racist, genocidal freak as near as anybody can tell.
She is an aristocrat and anything that helps the welfare state, helps terrorism in her view. No blacks or poor in our world we’d be alot better off. George follows this mantra. A few times he’s been the opposite of barbara though and helped the poor, wanted to make a difference. I don’t think he knows how and I don’t believe he cares. His disregard for the democratic districts in both states reflects the truth.
Doug E
A lot of Americans don’t seem to care if our military kills a lot of innocent people from other countries.
Now we will see if they care whether Bush kills Americans.
Dems tried to tell America Bush had been a failure at everything he’d ever done and that he was likely to be a failure as president. Now, 10 months after the election, people will have to ask themselves if maybe they’ve made a small mistake by voting for him. Will they be able to be seen in public without being ashamed?
Impeach and convict the Bush administration now. If you don’t your community, your home, your family may be next (especially if you live in a "blue" city or state). Remember what they did to California and New York City and now New Orleans (all "blue").
Doug, thanks for the response. Did you take a look at my analysis? Any comment?
Does anyone know what the source of his decision is?
I’m working on impeaching him. Working on a database of all the corruption and lies, that’s how I came upon this disaster of an order.
It may be why FEMA didn’t move into New Orleans right away… because Bush didn’t give aid and relief to that entire area in this order.
Mary
http://soapbox4truth.org
To #31 Doug Eldritch:
I agree all except for when you said, "A few times [Bush] has been the opposite of Barbara though and helped the poor, wanted to make a difference".
This was just Bush pandering, trying to curry favor and suck away some the Dems.’ vote; as far as Bush "wanting to make a difference", well, believe me it’s not any difference that would help the poor or the middle-class but differences that would advance the agenda of the bourgeoisie. He couldn’t really give a damn about the poor if he tried; having everything handed to him all his life but not being smart, curious or caring enough to try to expand his intellect and awareness, he can’t empathize even if he had to. He is intellectually stilted and has lived in a bourgeois bubble since day one, so he is as he appears, an unconvincing puppet.
#30 Patriot–
Just checked out your research– pretty damning, looks like to me. I hope this gets the attention it deserves from the few honest pols who are still fighting.
Patriot #30
Also see this, which has a clickable map to the parishes Bush orders FEMA to protect Upsidedownland and a lot of questions.
—-snippet—–
Picking up on a thought bouncing around back at TMW after a Chris Floyd post, I thought I’d find out for myself exactly which Louisiana parishes were and were not included in George W. Bush’s declaration of emergency effective August 26th, which you can also reach by clicking the map itself.
I checked the parish map against the White House’s own press release, posted on their own site. I have tried to figure out how this is my own mistake, but I can’t find it. And the results are frankly so bizarre I had to make the graphic in order to properly show you.
Welcome to upside-down-land: the areas at risk for Katrina were quite remarkably the areas not included in Bush’s declaration of emergency.
——-more at link—-
The man says "heartwarming." Yeah, since when are banks warm and fuzzy? Could it be that this arrangement is for corporate/contractor convenience and makes things like say…money laundering easier?…or is that too paranoid?
Jeff Parish banks to open Monday in shared offices
Saturday, 4:13 p.m.
In an unusual move, most banks and savings associations in Jefferson Parish will reopen Monday for limited hours in shared offices.
For example, the Chase Bank location at 3783 Veterans Memorial Blvd. will house not only Chase bankers, but bankers from AmSouth Bank, the Bank of New Orleans, First American Bank and Trust, Guaranty Savings Association and Parish National Bank. Customers of any of those banks and thrifts can get services there.
In all, at least 23 banks and thrifts will open in 13 locations on the East and West banks, although more may join later. The banks will be open from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. and will provide most banking services, such as check cashing. The banks plan to open daily through Friday and may stay open in subsequent weeks until normal banks and branches are able to open. The locations will have 24-hour security.
“Commerce is starting in Jefferson Parish,” said John Ducrest, the commissioner of the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions. “We need to have geographically dispersed banking services.”
The idea was hatched by various bankers and the Louisiana Bankers Association. The bank commissioner said it is very unusual for banks to cooperate in such a manner.
“There’s a lot of competition among bankers,” Ducrest said. “To see this kind of cooperation is heart warming.”
Don’t forget Cheney’s son in law.
So, if we are now more convinced that we are only in ‘recovery’ mode regarding N.O. and we have rough estimates of when water and other services might be restored……
Is there any talk, let alone estimates, of ‘re-patriation’/relocation of evacuees whose homes are in-tact and how and when that may happen?
I still fear that America will shrug even as a major city is confiscated, civil rights excised and it is shown and talked about endlessly…..Like weight-loss or anything else, we ‘feel’ like we’re doing something if we talk about it a lot and it’s all over our media….
The founding fathers and Goddess of Liberty weep. 🙁
#22
""Louisiana not responsible for national emergencies, newsflash Laura!""
Doug was there a "Louisiana Secession" before the storm hit. I missed that part.
Where was Howard Dean during all these attacks? I thought he was a Doctor. Why is he not down there helping?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITIC.../katrina.dean/
Oh here he is.
Dean: U.S. must face ‘ugly truth’ about Katrina
Democratic chairman: Bush lacked vision in handling disaster
Thursday, September 8, 2005; Posted: 1:55 p.m. EDT (17:55 GMT)
(CNN) — Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that in Hurricane Katrina’s wake Americans need to face the "ugly truth" that race and class played a significant role in who lived and died.
Dean also said that "lots of people perished" because the Bush administration lacked "vision" in handling the disaster.
Perhaps God really does what W wants. Katrina takes out Cindy and Rita will make landfall on Saturday Sept. 24th. I can’t help but see a little irony in this. I still will not dismiss Haarp and the Neocon agenda of the people by damned.
Katrina wipes out Cindy and Katrina wipes out Sept. 24. Interesting. The Neocons hate America.
Haarp, Haarp, Haarp, Merifour.
In the past few days I have seen an amazing number of reports indicating that, in the wake of Katrina, things are not as they seem. On the surface, they seem awful. But behind the curtain they may well be much worse.
what is it?