In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Say you've lost everything in the hurricane. You get some work in the rebuilding effort.
Ahh... some money to rebuild your life as well.
Except Bush doesn't see it that way. Rebuilding is for rebuilding things - buildings - business - not lives.
AMERICAblog: BUSH SUSPENDS MINIMUM WAGE IN RECOVERY AREA - SLAVE LABOR WAGES HERE WE COME!
- rob 5:51 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Via Atrios.
I kid you not - if you register with the government to walk free (or something inane like that), you get free fake dog tags - so you can, you know, play war along with Bush and his neo con pals. Gee, war is fun and easy, you get to walk, and you get a concert, and you get fake dog tags. Let's invade someonelse so we can get free plastic pop guns.
Freedom Walk Dog TagsMykeru shared the excitement of his walker's gift package with me... The highlight? A set of toy injection-molded silver plastic dog tags...
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Hurrican Katrina - The Onion is on it
God Outdoes Terrorists Yet AgainGovernment Relief Workers Mosey In To Help- rob 5:12 PM - [PermaLink] -
NEW ORLEANS—Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown, leading a detachment of 7,500 relief workers, moseyed on down to New Orleans Monday afternoon. "Well, I do declare, it's my job to see if any of these poor folks need any old thing," Brown said from his command rocker on the command post porch, adding, "Mighty hot day, ain't it?" Follow-up teams of emergency relief workers are expected to begin ambling into the Gulf Coast region as early as this weekend.
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White Foragers Report Threat Of Black LootersWhite Foragers Report Threat Of Black LootersThe Onion does it right again.
NEW ORLEANS—Throughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have reported seeing AfricanAmericans "looting snacks and beer from damaged businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already looted a fortune in diapers."
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Letter to America: It's Time to Dump Dubya.
By banding together, we can help stop this vicious cycle of abuse.
"Dear America,
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Your man is no good. He treats you like crap, lies to you, abuses you, bullies you, exploits you, takes your money. As a friend I want to tell you that you deserve better. You deserve a person that treats you with respect, cares about your welfare, and your children's welfare, but that's not George and it never will be.
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He is selling out your family business, if you let him continue like this how are you going to live? How are you going to feed your children, what happens if you get ill? Everything he has ever touched has turned to shit, he puts any idiot that’ll kiss his ass into positions of power and New Orleans is the result. Kick him out America!
"
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The Bush Administration does not know what Freedom means- Thursday, September 08, 2005 -
Is it America or the Soviet Union that would bring you a headline like this:
Tight Constraints on Pentagon's Freedom Walk
Event Remembering 9/11, Troops to Be Kept 'Sterile,' Limited to PreregisteredOrganizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.Good God that is a pathetic turn out, but proves that Americans have a better understand about what "freedom" means then the Bush folk.
The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.
The America Supports You Freedom Walk will begin at 10 a.m. Sunday in the Pentagon South parking lot and will end with a musical tribute by country music star Clint Black at the JFK Hockey Field near the Washington Monument. The parade route will be lined with snow fencing, allowing only those who preregistered to participate.
The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.
The event, the America Supports You Freedom Walk, is billed as a memorial to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks and a show of support for those serving in the military, topped off with a concert by country singer Clint Black, known for his pro-troops anthem, "Iraq and Roll." Organizers said they expect 3,000 to 10,000 participants.
It isn't a "support your troops" walk, it is blatantly "we support our glorious leader" walk, and is beneath America. But it isn't beneath Bush.
Amidst all the disaster of last week, The US Department of Health and Human Services sent out an email to its employees - urging them not to help out Katrina, no, urging them to join the support our glorious leader march.In twelve days, we will commemorate Patriot Day, a day to remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a day to honor members of the Armed Forces currently serving at home and abroad, and a day to reiterate our commitment to the freedoms we enjoy. I will honor Patriot Day by participating in the Freedom Walk, a memorial event sponsored by the Department of Defense. I invite you as employees of the Department of Health and Human Services to join me.
The Freedom Walk begins at 10 a.m. in the Pentagon's south parking lot, winds two miles through Arlington National Cemetery and over the Potomac River, and ends at the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall where country music star Clint Black will perform. The walk is free, but people must register by visiting www.AmercaSupportsYou.mil
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Editorial: Accountability/Little to be seen on KatrinaIf the human misery that followed Hurricane Katrina has been shocking and painful, the federal government's shifting explanations for its needless severity have been utterly shameful.
That assessment is not part of some political, postdisaster "blame game," but an insistence that accountability for preparing for and responding to a major U.S. disaster be placed squarely where it belongs: the federal government and its emergency-response program, FEMA.
The Bush administration's attempts to shift accountability elsewhere -- first to the victims stuck in New Orleans for not leaving, later to Louisiana officials and "bureaucrats" -- are an appalling use of political tactics in the highly inappropriate realm of human suffering and pain, of lives saved and lives lost.
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Incompetence is bad enough; not taking responsibility for it is shameful. Blaming it on others is a national disgrace.
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FEMA or FIMA (Federal Image Management Agency)
Campaign Vets for FEMA Damage ControlThe guy who callled me back yesterday who was supposedly a spokesman for FEMA? It turns out the WaPo reported as recently as March 2005 that he had been hired as one of three staffers to run a Bush administration Social Security "war room", modeled on the "Coalition Information Centers that promoted the administration message around the world during the war in Afghanistan."
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What's he doing at FEMA now? Is FEMA's only purpose under the Bush administration to do damage control and photo opportunities for the Bush administration? What was it doing 10 days ago? Where were all these folks who should have been applying their skills doing emergency management? When did their contracts start? Were they hired on the plane back from the Devenish-Wallace wedding party?
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I work well with Bush, says Brown, I know horses' asses.
I'm fit for the job, disaster boss sezEmbattled FEMA head Mike Brown insists he is well-qualified to lead the nation's disaster response agency - though he spent his time before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency probing whether a breeder was performing liposuction on a horse's rear end.Third World Cronyism
Brown, who is now engulfed in a storm of calls for his head, was a family lawyer and GOP functionary who also was a roommate of President Bush's campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh.
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Making the Quarter rounds- Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.comWhile we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.Is THIS America?
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.
FEMA accused of censorshipWASHINGTON (Reuters) - When U.S. officials asked the media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, they were censoring a key part of the disaster story, free speech watchdogs said on Wednesday.Journalists are getting restricted access to New Orleans, they are getting restricted access to the survivors, they are getting restricted access to the victims.
The move by the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in line with the Bush administration's ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war, media monitors said in separate telephone interviews.
FEMA is scared of the truth. Is it the shear horror we aren't supposed to learn about? Is is the horrifying amount of dead?
Denying access of the press to the people leads to rumors. How soon before people start hearing stories like this:10:57 Raw transcript of comments by NOLA evacuee Clara Barthelemy: "The 17th street levee was bombed by the Army Corps of Engineers to save the more valuable real estate in the city to keep the French Quarter protected, the ninth ward was sacrificed... people are afraid to speak out... everyone who was near there heard the bombings they bombed seven times. That's why they didn't fix the levees... 20 feet of water. Gators. People dying in water. They let the parishes go, not the city center. Tourist trap was saved over human life. A six year old girl was raped in here.. 9 year old boy killed. A man in the shower beaten. No hot food. No help for elderly."FEMA limiting access only makes stories libelievableeleavable. The truth is that FEMA was crincompetentompetnent, by hiding the truth people will start to believe FEMA and others were simply criminal.
Another evacuee: "Over 20 rapes per night happening inside this place. They bring in national guard for media purposes. Bush wants us to stay here to raise his ratings. Some workers are stealing the good stuff, like shoes."
11:16: Rough transcript of comments by NOLA evacuee, male: "We are treated like prisoners here. Placed under mandatory curfew. We are citizens!"
11:22 Now I'm speaking to someone else, another woman, who says some people report having witnessed "bomb sounds," believe 17th street levee and others were blown up to manage water flow and protect more valuable portions of real estate.
Evacuee Dianne Stafford: "They blew the levee to save the city..." Saying a barge broke the levee. She is from St. Bernard Parish. "More expensive places were saved at the expense of the neighborhoods that aren't as valuable... Rebuilding Bourbon Street matters more to the government... that's what mattered to Governor Blanco...?"
Remember the days when people thought of FEMA as so competent they had conspiracy theories about them? (they were even baddies in the X-Files movie). Those were the days.
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Did Bush and FEMA think the storm was coming from the north?- Wednesday, September 07, 2005 -
Bush orders FEMA to protect UpsidedownlandI 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.
What the hell?
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How callous of Dean, using the hurricane as an excuse to help people - purely political!
Daily Kos: Howard Dean's disaster plan to help Katrina's victimsIn addition to mobilizing our infrastructure to support the housing drive, we have also taken the following steps in the last week:If Dean really cared about the people he wouldn't do anything because then it would show that politics... oh hell I don't know. Look even if it is politics, the politics of helping people seem to be more reasonable then the politics of photo-ops, but what do I know I'm a blogger with more bad grammer and worse spelling then a Bush brother.
* All DNC fundraising events have been cancelled until further notice and donations are being directed to relief organizations.
* The DNC Fall Meeting that had been scheduled to take place this week has been postponed.
* All staff have been given leave to participate in relief operations (many are completing Red Cross training this week and will deploy shortly).
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You will not learn the truth
FEMA Blocks Photos of New Orleans DeadNEW YORK Forced to defend what some critics consider its slow and botched response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from New Orleans.These are Americans. These are Americans dead at home. Bush didn't save them, his whole Presidency is based on the lie that he would. Reality is ugly and reality doesn't support Bush.
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"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman told Reuters via e-mail.
The Bush administration's decision to prevent the news media from photographing flag-draped coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq has fueled criticism that the government is trying to avoid images that put the war in a bad light.
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Is this America?
Evacuees' stories are moving, but fence isn'tIf I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp.
The signs on the buildings say "Community College of Aurora," though for now they're serving as an impromptu Camp Katrina. About 160 hurricane survivors are being housed in the dorms, surrounded by fences, roadblocks, security guards and enough armed police officers to invade Grenada.
There's a credentials unit to process every visitor, an intake unit to provide identification tags and a bag of clothes to every evacuee, several Salvation Army food stations, portable toilets, shuttle buses, a green army-tent chapel with church services three times a day and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible.
It probably was easier for a reporter to get inside Gitmo on Tuesday than to penetrate the force field around Lowry.
But survivors occasionally breached the lockdown and came to the fence to tell their stories, each one astonishing.
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And remember how the press was in a fury for days when planes were late because of a Clinton hair cut
Bush visit halted 3 tons of food being delivered
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FEMA isn't alone in screwing up
Bush's pals do it everywhere (when they aren't watching SPAMalot and buying shoes)
Offers of Aid Immediate, but U.S. Approval Delayed for Days
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I don't have a TV Guide handy (except some from the seventies - don't ask)
Was something good on last Monday night?
FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm HitWASHINGTON - The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.Look it is very difficult for the government to look good and do good. Its decided to just concentrate on the look good. So when starving don't expect food, but do expect a flier delivered by a farmer in a FDA tshirt explaining how the food you'd receive, if there was food available. would meet the strict FDA standards hammered out between the government and industry experts. They'd call the pamphlet "something to chew on," and it'd make you feel proud to be an American... right before you faint from low blood sugar.
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Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.
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- Tuesday, September 06, 2005 -
Firefighters:
We came to mop up a disaster
But we were used to prop up a disaster
we were the prop, he was the disaster
Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMABut as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.We used to mock the Soviet Union for that. For propaganda instead of action.
Listen to us now:On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.Put on your shirt and be happy. Real American wear shirts with Acronyms boldly emblazoned on them - only commies would act first and where proper t-shirts second.
Federal officials are unapologetic.
"I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.By all means let us not talk to reporters. By all means hide what our money is funding. Everyone knows freedoms hates the open air - freedom loves closed doors, secret meetings, and silenced reporters.
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."
The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters.
So what are the 1,400 firefighters doing in Atlanta? I think FEMA is responding to the fire set by Sherman.
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Editorial blasts federal response - Sep 4, 2005Dear Mr. President:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
...
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."
Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."
That's unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.
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America begins to ask some serious questionsWe could be witnessing a significant moment in America. Hurricane Katrina has revealed some uncomfortable truths about the world's richest and most powerful nation. The catastrophe in New Orleans exposed shocking inequalities - both of wealth and race - and also the relative impotence of the federal authorities when faced with a large-scale disaster. Many Americans are beginning to ask just what sort of country they are living in.
...
There is a sense that the struggle for the soul of America is gathering pace.
Hurricane Katrina has posed some fundamental ideological questions. Most obvious is the proper balance between state and federal government. Americans are asking why federal help did not arrive earlier. After the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, federal aid arrived within two days. A century later, New Orleans had to wait five days before an all-out relief operation was launched. The more information emerges, the more irresponsible the federal authorities appear.
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Read: The 'city' of Louisiana - Bloggermann - MSNBC.comPolitician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.
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Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.
But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.
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"The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."
In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.
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Bush's Marketing Campaign may have cost lives
Congressman can't get Bush on the lineMelancon said the communications problems that kept him from meeting with Bush are symptomatic of the problems that have plagued the slow-moving federal response to the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina.I understand the need for security, but Bush's visit was just a PR stunt anyway, so perhaps he should have just stayed away.
In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, just south of New Orleans, victims of the hurricane are still waiting for food and water and for buses to escape the floodwaters, Melancon said. And for the entire time Bush was in the state, the congressman said, a ban on helicopter flights further stalled the delivery of food and supplies.
PR stunt examples: Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu:But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast — black and white, rich and poor, young and old — deserve far better from their national government.People outside America are getting a sign of how fake President Bush really is.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.
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The Modern "Let Them Eat Cake" Moment
"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [she chuckles slightly]is working very well for them."
- Barbara BushAnd here's a link to the audio of the NPR Marketplace segment containing this incredible quote. It's real. Although some people might I suppose call it a nervous giggle rather than a chuckle.
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The White House realizes the true scale of this disaster
A Plan is set in motion. The damage caused by this storm must be minimized!
White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political DamageWASHINGTON, Sept. 4 - Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.Yes Louisiana state officials were doing an awful job, all those people whoe were waiting for aid in Biloxi sure as shootin' are angry at Louisiana.
It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.
The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.
As a result, Americans watching television coverage of the disaster this weekend began to see, amid the destruction and suffering, some of the most prominent members of the administration - Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense; and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state - touring storm-damaged communities.
But Bush's staff knows what is important. Marketing. So Rove and Bartlett are set lose amongst the world yet again to savage truth and threaten those who'd dare speak it.
Let's look at some of their handy work shall we: Boustany, a Man of No PrinciplesBoustany three days ago:And Senator David Vitter (R), Louisianna:Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr., (R-La.), said he spent the past 48 hours urging the Bush administration to send help. "I started making calls and trying to impress upon the White House and others that something needed to be done," he said. "The state resources were being overwhelmed, and we needed direct federal assistance, command and control, and security -- all three of which are lacking."Boustany today:BOUSTANY: Most of the red tape and problems have been at the state level. I have to say that the federal response has been focused on New Orleans with search and rescue operations which is going very, very well at this stage. But we've had a completely ineffectual state response and this is being borne by the local communities to help now. and I have asked the president to take this into consideration, consider that the state response is completely ineffectual and the full range of social and health care needs needs to be met.AFP, Sept. 2nd, 2005:F was for FEMA... but now then Rove is mad at me I need to upgrade that to FEMA is Fantastic! Pathetic."[Sen.]Vitter, speaking to reporters at the emergency response center in Baton Rouge, also said he gave the federal government a grade 'F' for its response to the disaster so far."CNN, Sept. 5th, 2005 ...Anderson Cooper: Senator, on Friday, you gave the federal government an "F" for their efforts. What grade do you gave them right now.
SEN. DAVID VITTER (R), LOUISIANA: Yeah, first of all, Friday, I gave all of the organized government relief effort an "F," state and federal. I think it's turned a corner, in fact, it began to turn later that day, Friday, when it essentially became an unprecedented military operation, not only National Guard, but major active duty military.
And they are already spreading out the lies - trying to blame much of this on the Gov of Louisiana. They're trying to say she didn't declare a state of emergency, except she did - back on Aug. 26th when she knew the storm was coming.
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degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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