Bush Bashers--Time to Eat Crow? (Katrina)

[rushmc 23]

What would all you Bush Bashers have been saying had Bush not followed the law? He did a great job saving lives????

Ya right



Subject Fw: State, Local Responsibility

This is a post from a fellow over in Merritt Is, FL, a reporter who's been researching what went on before the storm hit:

I think all of Nagin's pomp and posturing is going to bite him hard in the near future as the lies and distortions of his interviews are coming to light. On Friday night before the storm hit Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of NO and they said they'd take it under consideration. This was after the NOAA buoy 240 miles
south had recorded 68' waves before it was destroyed.

President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency Act). Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up. He was told that they didn't think it necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the President's final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in. Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal assistance, that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin mandatory evacuation. After a personal plea from the President, Nagin agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers requesting and authorizing federal action. In frustration the President declared the area a national disaster area before the state of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced preparations.
Rumor has it that the President's legal advisers were looking into the ramifications of using the insurgency act to bypass the Constitutional requirement that a state request federal aid before the federal government can move into state with troops - but that had not
been done since 1906 and the Constitutionality of it was called into question to use before the disaster. Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to NO for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted to fund a marina and support the gambling ships. Toss in the investigation that will look into why the emergency preparedness plan submitted to the federal government for funding and published on the city's web site was never implemented and in fact may have been bogus for the purpose of gaining additional federal funding as we now learn that the organizations identified in the plan were never contacted or coordinating into any planning - though the document implies that they were. The suffering people of NO need to be asking some hard questions as do
we all, but they better start with why Blanco refused to even sign the multi-state mutual aid pack activation documents until Wednesday which further delayed the legal deployment of National Guard from adjoining states. Or maybe ask why Nagin keeps harping that the President should have commandeered 500 Greyhound busses to help him when according to his own emergency plan and documents he claimed to have over 500 busses at his disposal to use between the local school busses and the city transportation busses - but he never raised a finger to prepare them or activate
them. This is a sad time for all of us to see that a major city has all but been destroyed and thousands of people have died with hundreds of thousands more suffering, but it's certainly not a time for people to be pointing fingers and trying to find a bigger dog to blame for localcorruption and incompetence. Pray to God for the survivors that they can start their lives anew as fast as possible and we learn from all the mistakes to avoid
them in the future

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kallend 2,027]

What does that have to do with downgrading FEMA to a non-cabinet level department, diverting FEMA funds away from disaster preparedness, and putting a politically connected lawyer with no emergency management experience as its head? Are you claiming Bush didn't do that?

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rushmc 23]

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What does that have to do with downgrading FEMA to a non-cabinet level department, diverting FEMA funds away from disaster preparedness, and putting a politically connected lawyer with no emergency management experience as its head? Are you claiming Bush didn't do that?

??

Other reports are saying FEMA was there BEFORE the huricane and BEFORE the levees broke. They were coordinating the Red Cross. The Red Cross was DENIDE access by the local authorities.

FEMA is not a first responce organization. They did and are doing thier job. Give it up if that is all you have

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kallend 2,027]

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What does that have to do with downgrading FEMA to a non-cabinet level department, diverting FEMA funds away from disaster preparedness, and putting a politically connected lawyer with no emergency management experience as its head? Are you claiming Bush didn't do that?

??

Other reports are saying FEMA was there BEFORE the huricane and BEFORE the levees broke. They were coordinating the Red Cross. The Red Cross was DENIDE access by the local authorities.

FEMA is not a first responce organization. They did and are doing thier job. Give it up if that is all you have

Surfing the blogs I can find "other reports" that extraterrestrials were there too. Your point?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[mnealtx 0]

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What does that have to do with downgrading FEMA to a non-cabinet level department, diverting FEMA funds away from disaster preparedness, and putting a politically connected lawyer with no emergency management experience as its head? Are you claiming Bush didn't do that?

The point being made (and made and made and made, but the Left can't seem to let go of Bush-bashing long enough to see it) is that it was the responsibility of the LOCAL AND STATE governments to start the ball rolling by activating the LOCAL AND STATE disaster plans and for the STATE GOVERNOR to request aid from the FEDERAL government.

As it happened, the LOCAL AND STATE governments didn't do their jobs, and the President had to do an end-around (as stated above) to be able to get the federal aid started.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Gravitymaster 0]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/katrina/nagin.asp

[rushmc 23]

It would seem snopes is wrong here. A fow news reporter is saying the same thing. The Red Cross also has posts on thier web that states they were not allowed in

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[EricTheRed 0]

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What does that have to do with downgrading FEMA to a non-cabinet level department, diverting FEMA funds away from disaster preparedness, and putting a politically connected lawyer with no emergency management experience as its head? Are you claiming Bush didn't do that?

The point being made (and made and made and made, but the Left can't seem to let go of Bush-bashing long enough to see it) is that it was the responsibility of the LOCAL AND STATE governments to start the ball rolling by activating the LOCAL AND STATE disaster plans and for the STATE GOVERNOR to request aid from the FEDERAL government.

As it happened, the LOCAL AND STATE governments didn't do their jobs, and the President had to do an end-around (as stated above) to be able to get the federal aid started.

The coast guard apparently had no problems going in immediately. I understand they actually watched the forecast and prepostioned resources, and started rescuing people as soon as the 'copters could fly.
It is about leadership.

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050908-090641-4058r.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501418.html

illegible usually

[wmw999 2,446]

There were all kinds of people with poor or no communications with the folks who normally "authorized" them to do things. Of course some of them decided that they needed to wait for someone to tell them they could let folks in, rather than using what they have assigned to them in the brains department.

I'll bet similar stuff happened in Mississippi and Alabama, too, but on a smaller scale.

On the other hand, if the administration as a whole really smacks people for taking initiative, well, then the people they are supposed to serve have really paid dearly for that corporate culture, haven't they

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[masterblaster72 0]

d'uhh...

Same garbage posted by another Bush monkey a few days ago.

You Bush monkeys believe anything you read written by a "journalist" who caters to your views. And it amazes me how vigorously you defend your gutter-low standards for leadership.

I don't think the governor or mayor are very competent either and I don't defend them. But a state of emergency was declared on August 26th.

Please be original.

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[GTAVercetti 0]

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It would seem snopes is wrong here. A fow news reporter is saying the same thing. The Red Cross also has posts on thier web that states they were not allowed in

I assume that is FOX news. Yeah, they NEVER post inaccurate information. 24 hour news NEVER jumps the gun (this includes ALL 24 hour news)

And I went to the REd Cross website. They said they are not allowed in because they want to get people OUT, not treat them in sewage water so they can stay in filth. That does not have anything to do with a State of Emergency being declared.

Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing.

[rushmc 23]

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d'uhh...

Same garbage posted by another Bush monkey a few days ago.

You Bush monkeys believe anything you read written by a "journalist" who caters to your views. And it amazes me how vigorously you defend your gutter-low standards for leadership.

I don't think the governor or mayor are very competent either and I don't defend them. But a state of emergency was declared on August 26th.

Please be original.

Ahh, I didn't expect the insults and name calling this early.

I shouda known

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[mnealtx 0]

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d'uhh...

Same garbage posted by another Bush monkey a few days ago.

You Bush monkeys believe anything you read written by a "journalist" who caters to your views. And it amazes me how vigorously you defend your gutter-low standards for leadership.

'duh.... as opposed to the "Kerry monkeys" that, by omission, give the city/state leaders a pass?

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I don't think the governor or mayor are very competent either and I don't defend them. But a state of emergency was declared on August 26th.

You defend them by omission - I think this may have been the first post where you acknowledge they screwed up.

Quote

Please be original.

I'd ask you to do the same, but I think you might just have a stroke if you had to write something about the President that wasn't filled with vitriol...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kallend 2,027]

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'duh.... as opposed to the "Kerry monkeys" that, by omission, give the city/state leaders a pass?

...

How about blaming JFK, Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman - surely you have some blame for them too.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

• Quote

[mr2mk1g 10]

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"Kerry monkeys"

keep up man - they were Horse-face Kerryites. It's Bush that looks like a monkey.

[mnealtx 0]

If they had been involved in the city/state not activating their emergency plan, then yes, I would.

But since they weren't, I won't.

It's that whole "personal responsibility" thing again...sorry.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[masterblaster72 0]

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You defend them by omission

Don't put stuff into my mouth. I'll say it again: this was a failure of leadership on every level, democrats included. The mayor, governor and president all have that in common: they're incompetent. Every level of government failed.

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I'd ask you to do the same, but I think you might just have a stroke if you had to write something about the President that wasn't filled with vitriol...

If my standards were as low as yours, I'd be content. My opinions are strong, but I'm not blindly partisan as you are. To you what I write is vitriol because you support this president as much as you do. Don't make that my problem.

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[Channman 2]

When people only except news from monkeys at Air America, CNN and Newsweek...you should expect alot of blaster from the master.

Yes sir the truth is coming out and the Dems as usual are over playing their hand. Bush in the last five years has budgeted more money to the Army Cor. of Engineerers for projects in the state of La. than that which was budgeted in the last five years of the Clinton Administration.

La. was and is budgeted more tax dollars for engineering projects than any other state, such as Cal. which has 10 times the population and they came in a distant second.

[Jib 0]

I heard the same story that the governor and mayor screwed the pooch by not allowing federal assistance from a Red Cross volunteer who was in NO in the days after Katrina.

--------------------------------------------------
the depth of his depravity sickens me.
-- Jerry Falwell, People v. Larry Flynt

[rushmc 23]

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You defend them by omission

Don't put stuff into my mouth. I'll say it again: this was a failure of leadership on every level, democrats included. The mayor, governor and president all have that in common: they're incompetent. Every level of government failed.

Quote

I'd ask you to do the same, but I think you might just have a stroke if you had to write something about the President that wasn't filled with vitriol...

If my standards were as low as yours, I'd be content. My opinions are strong, but I'm not blindly partisan as you are. To you what I write is vitriol because you support this president as much as you do. Don't make that my problem.

"but I'm not blindly partisan as you are. "

BBBBWWWWWAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 23]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/national/nationalspecial/09military.html?ei=5090&en=aa642b8c89c27c01&ex=1283918400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1126238795-dGCl9WlaN8lbkCHBy9hw2w&pagewanted=print




Political Issues Snarled Plans for Military Help After Hurricane
By ERIC LIPTON, ERIC SCHMITT
and THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.

For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control.

The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.

As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis.

To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.

While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.

But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.

Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.

"I need everything you have got," Ms. Blanco said she told Mr. Bush last Monday, after the storm hit.

In an interview, she acknowledged that she did not specify what sorts of soldiers. "Nobody told me that I had to request that," Ms. Blanco said. "I thought that I had requested everything they had. We were living in a war zone by then."

By Wednesday, she had asked for 40,000 soldiers.

In the discussions in Washington, also at issue was whether active-duty troops could respond faster and in larger numbers than the Guard.

By last Wednesday, Pentagon officials said even the 82nd Airborne, which has a brigade on standby to move out within 18 hours, could not arrive any faster than 7,000 National Guard troops, which are specially trained and equipped for civilian law enforcement duties.

In the end, the flow of thousands of National Guard soldiers, especially military police, was accelerated from other states.

"I was there. I saw what needed to be done," Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said in an interview. "They were the fastest, best-capable, most appropriate force to get there in the time allowed. And that's what it's all about."

But one senior Army officer expressed puzzlement that active-duty troops were not summoned sooner, saying 82nd Airborne troops were ready to move out from Fort Bragg, N.C., on Sunday, the day before the hurricane hit.

The call never came, administration officials said, in part because military officials believed Guard troops would get to the stricken region faster and because administration civilians worried that there could be political fallout if federal troops were forced to shoot looters.

Louisiana officials were furious that there was not more of a show of force, in terms of relief supplies and troops, from the federal government in the middle of last week. As the water was rising in New Orleans, the governor repeatedly questioned whether Washington had started its promised surge of federal resources.

"We needed equipment," Ms. Blanco said in an interview. "Helicopters. We got isolated."

Aides to Ms. Blanco said she was prepared to accept the deployment of active-duty military officials in her state. But she and other state officials balked at giving up control of the Guard as Justice Department officials said would have been required by the Insurrection Act if those combat troops were to be sent in before order was restored.

In a separate discussion last weekend, the governor also rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general - but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana National Guard.

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Pentagon in August streamlined a rigid, decades-old system of deployment orders to allow the military's Northern Command to dispatch liaisons to work with local officials before an approaching hurricane.

The Pentagon is reviewing events from the time Hurricane Katrina reached full strength and bore down on New Orleans and five days later when Mr. Bush ordered 7,200 active-duty soldiers and marines to the scene.

After the hurricane passed New Orleans and the levees broke, flooding the city, it became increasingly evident that disaster-response efforts were badly bogged down.

Justice Department lawyers, who were receiving harrowing reports from the area, considered whether active-duty military units could be brought into relief operations even if state authorities gave their consent - or even if they refused.

The issue of federalizing the response was one of several legal issues considered in a flurry of meetings at the Justice Department, the White House and other agencies, administration officials said.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales urged Justice Department lawyers to interpret the federal law creatively to help local authorities, those officials said. For example, federal prosecutors prepared to expand their enforcement of some criminal statutes like anti-carjacking laws that can be prosecuted by either state or federal authorities.

On the issue of whether the military could be deployed without the invitation of state officials, the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit within the Justice Department that provides legal advice to federal agencies, concluded that the federal government had authority to move in even over the objection of local officials.

This act was last invoked in 1992 for the Los Angeles riots, but at the request of Gov. Pete Wilson of California, and has not been invoked over a governor's objections since the civil rights era - and before that, to the time of the Civil War, administration officials said. Bush administration, Pentagon and senior military officials warned that such an extreme measure would have serious legal and political implications.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said deployment of National Guard soldiers to Iraq, including a brigade from Louisiana, did not affect the relief mission, but Ms. Blanco disagreed.

"Over the last year, we have had about 5,000 out, at one time," she said. "They are on active duty, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That certainly is a factor."

By Friday, National Guard reinforcements had arrived, and a truck convoy of 1,000 Guard soldiers brought relief supplies - and order - to the convention center area.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security say the experience with Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated flaws in the nation's plans to handle disaster.

"This event has exposed, perhaps ultimately to our benefit, a deficiency in terms of replacing first responders who tragically may be the first casualties," Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for domestic security, said.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has suggested that active-duty troops be trained and equipped to intervene if front-line emergency personnel are stricken. But the Pentagon's leadership remains unconvinced that this plan is sound, suggesting instead that the national emergency response plans be revised to draw reinforcements initially from civilian police, firefighters, medical personnel and hazardous-waste experts in other states not affected by a disaster.

The federal government rewrote its national emergency response plan after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it relied on local officials to manage any crisis in its opening days. But Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed local "first responders," including civilian police and the National Guard.

At a news conference on Saturday, Mr. Chertoff said, "The unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model, one for what you might call kind of an ultra-catastrophe.""

Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker reported from Washington for this article, and Eric Lipton from Baton Rouge, La. David Johnston contributed reporting

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[mnealtx 0]

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Don't put stuff into my mouth. I'll say it again: this was a failure of leadership on every level, democrats included. The mayor, governor and president all have that in common: they're incompetent. Every level of government failed.

Wow...twice in one thread that you've said something (somewhat) derogatory about the local/state gov't!! Better be careful tho - they may take your Dem card if you do it again!

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My opinions are strong, but I'm not blindly partisan as you are. To you what I write is vitriol because you support this president as much as you do. Don't make that my problem.

No, not blindly partisan at all.... nothing like calling members here on the board homosexual for supporting something you dont... That's not vitriolic at all, right?

Let me jog your memory....

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Sorry to interrupt a new suck-off fest here....

Sound familiar?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[masterblaster72 0]

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When people only except news from monkeys at Air America, CNN and Newsweek...you should expect alot of blaster from the master.

Skewed news disgusts me -- be it from the right or the left.

I don't listen to Air America because I don't like being told my opinion, and I don't need to take solace in hearing people echo my sentiments, unlike those who agree with all they hear on Fox News. I don't own cable by choice, so no CNN and I read Newsweek only if it's on a table in the waiting room of a doctor's office.

Not that you care, or that I care if you care, but since you brought it up, BBC and CBC are my news sources.

Your cookie-cutter assumptions don't fit here. I might just vote republican in 2008 if McCain gets the nomination. I never liked Kerry. I voted for many state/local republicans in 2004. I do despise this president and make no apologies for it, and that's because I think for myself and have standards.

In all likelihood my ranting will die down after 2008 because I don't think leadership gets much worse than this. If labeling me or inferring that I'm a terrorist/communist/pansy liberal in the meantime makes you feel better, feel free to do so.

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[bodypilot90 0]

yes I was shocked to find out the state willing with held food and water from the people, must not have been a election year

[kallend 2,027]

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Officials from the Department of Homeland Security say the experience with Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated flaws in the nation's plans to handle disaster.

"This event has exposed, perhaps ultimately to our benefit, a deficiency in terms of replacing first responders who tragically may be the first casualties," Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for domestic security, said.

So there's a deficiency in Federal planning and an acknowledgment that local responders were casualties. I think some of us have been saying that for a week now.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.