Ramblings' Journal

Can this woman be arrested and charged with criminal malfeasance?!?!? In what world does someone prohibit relief agencies from offering aid and delay help from others designed to handle disaster? Tens of thousands of people suffered as a direct result of her inaction. She is not nearly as inept as she is cruel, heartless, and criminally neglegent.

It may be a bit of a stretch to use the term genocide, but it is not much of one. I have to echo what Arboribabe said; what she's doing is almost as bad; committing fatal, willful and criminal neglect on a massive scale for political points, not just against President Bush and the feds, but against Mayor Nagin. Not only will she never forgive him for opposing her bid for the governor's mansion, but her fellow 'RATs will never let her forgive him for supporting President Bush.

Before Katrina hit, sure Nagin could have used those buses to get the people that ended up at the Superdome and Convention Center out of the city, but without the shelters Blanco could have and should have opened, I honestly don't know where he could have put them. That does not excuse him for the rest of the clusterfuck that is New Orleans that can be laid upon him (leaving those buses in flood-prone areas, not having any significant local supplies for the Superdome/Convention Center, allowing the entire focus to be on the Superdome for days, not having flood-resistant communications for the NOPD, among others).

After Katrina passed, I didn't see Blanco lift one finger to evacuate the Superdome/Convention Center while at the same time she was starving them of supplies. I didn't see Blanco open up any new evacuation sites to help evacuate the Superdome or Convention Center; indeed, I don't seem to recall her or her people having an active role in getting the Astrodume complex used as the eventual evacuation site for those in the Superdome.

I don't know nearly enough about NO politics to fully evaluate this possibility, but it would seem that each dead resident would become a guaranteed vote for Blanco and her fellow travellers.

Let’s see - in a 2002 review of their emergency plan, officals predict 100,000 New Orleans' residents will need assistance evacuating in a catastrophe. Katrina comes, they can’t evacuate - so, they publicly announce that The Super Dome will be available as temporary shelter. But they deny entrance to the Red Cross who could have cared for immediate needs at those locations because they want the people (who they already knew couldn’t evacuate without help) to evacuate??

Oh yeah - that’s effective leadership in action...sounds criminally negligent to me....

I don't think she meant any harm. She's just an idiot.

BTW-Although, N.O. voted for her, Nagin supported her opponent, Republican Congressman Bobby Jindal.

Oh you are really going out on a limb this time. OK, listen First of all THERE IS NO LOUSIANA DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY!
Lok at the DHS official web page

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/editorial/editorial_0291.xml

As for the source of the information, the website http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html
which says "The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane."

is a either fake or outdated website.

If you go to www.redcross.org and click on "Disaster FAQs" nothing about Hurricane Katrina is found. If you do a search on site for "Hurricane Katrina" you do not find this site.

There is a story from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette quoting a woman from the Red Cross but she only mentions the Department of Homeland Security and the National Guard

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:GnQFonDvOvgJ:www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm+FEMA+%22Red+Cross%22+%22Continues+to+request%22&hl=en

So, either someone is commiting a hoax or someone screwed up. Considering the source of comments, I'd say someone is pulling a hoax

hangonaminnit ... so, a FOX news reporter - NOT a spokesperson from the Red Cross - is saying that the state dept. of homeland security is preventing the Red Cross from entering the Superdome ...

while it's a lovely echo chamber you have here (I've seen Garret quoted elsewhere) - the story came out over the weekend that FEDERAL officials were prohibiting the Red Cross from helping ...

here's an article with an ACTUAL Red Cross spokesperson:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm

As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

(cont'd)

When Bush declared emergency in LA on Aug. 27 and invoked the Stafford Act, made Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" according to the Fed's own National Response Plan. This is significant!

It means FEMA had full authority and responsibility to do all in its power TWO DAYS BEFORE Katrina hit. It also means it had full power and responsibility to put in place resources PRIOR to the hit, and that included getting medical and food/water resources to the Superdome, which had already been designated as a refuge.

It means the Red Cross should not have even been coordinating with Blanco, but with the DHS/FEMA officials -- but they were MIA!!

Plenty more here:
http://tinyurl.com/79jym

The bitter irony is that the NRP was crafted by DHS to eliminate the very bureacratic snafus that DFS is trying to hide behind now -- which largely didn't exist anyway. If state and local politicians weren't up to the job, if one of the poorest states in the union didn't have adequate resources, or if all the local resources were obliterated in a nuclear attack, FEMA was empowered and obligated to take charge.

If state and local pols were incompetent, MIA, or AWOL, then all the more reason for FEMA to have taken charge -- as Blanco made possible on Aug. 26!

I believe the federal non-response was criminal, and resulted in the unnecessary loss of thousands of lives.

This was a major screwup by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. The Governor declared a state of emergency on Aug. 26th, and FEMA and DHS waited to respond! There is ample evidence to back this up!! We have been failed by the federal government. The anticipation of the levee breach was well documented years before Goerge Bush said that they DIDN'T anticipate that very situation. The reports that came out of New Orleans last week were heartbreaking and that was BEFORE the WHOLE administration got back from their VACATIONS!!

So, let me get this straight: this story cites NO ONE from the Red Cross. Its two sources are a Fox news reporter and a radio talk-how host. And this is supposed to be reliable? Gimme a break.

That URL does look bogus, especially if you look at the REAL FAQ's posted from the RC homepage.

The rightwing noise machine is incredible. The noise goes out now all over, the corrections will be quietly issued by a few sites with integrity, but the vast majority will only hear the initial noise.

This recalls the WaPo incident last week, of repeating an easily-debunked claim from a "senior Bush admin official."

Who is the real source of this disinformation?

This statement has been on the Red Cross website for at least a week:

"The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city."

It was extremely short-sighted policy. The question is, was it Federal policy? FEMA and the Feds were already authorized and in charge at this point.

The Governor doesn't escape any blame in this, of course. But she certainly doesn't get all the blame.

Could any of you Bush apologists explain this then, especially the last paragraph which states that 50 firefighters who volunteered to help out in NOLA were put on a plane for a photo-op with Bush? At the end of the day we are not only going to have to hold Bush and his administration accountable, we're also going to have to hold his supporters accountable just as we did the Nazis in Germany or the Ba'athists in Iraq.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197

Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
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.
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 - or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to come to Atlanta - knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.
"The initial call to action very specifically says we're looking for two-person fire teams to do community relations," she said. "So if there is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own departments."
One fire chief from Texas agreed that the call was clear to work as community-relations officers. But he wonders why the 1,400 firefighters FEMA attracted to Atlanta aren't being put to better use. He also questioned why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - of which FEMA is a part - has not responded better to the disaster.
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.
"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.
On Monday, two firefighters from South Jordan and two from Layton headed for San Antonio to help hurricane evacuees there. Four firefighters from Roy awaited their marching orders, crossing their fingers that they would get to do rescue and recovery work, rather than paperwork.
"A lot of people are bickering because there are rumors they'll just be handing out fliers," said Roy firefighter Logan Layne, adding that his squad hopes to be in the thick of the action. "But we'll do anything. We'll do whatever they need us to do."
While FEMA's community-relations job may be an important one - displaced hurricane victims need basic services and a variety of resources - it may be a job best suited for someone else, say firefighters assembled at the Sheraton.
"It's a misallocation of resources. Completely," said the Texas firefighter.
"It's just an under-utilization of very talented people," said South Salt Lake Fire Chief Steve Foote, who sent a team of firefighters to Atlanta. "I was hoping once they saw the level of people . . . they would shift gears a little bit."
Foote said his crews would be better used doing the jobs they are trained to do.
But Louis H. Botta, a coordinating officer for FEMA, said sending out firefighters on community relations makes sense. They already have had background checks and meet the qualifications to be sworn as a federal employee. They have medical training that will prove invaluable as they come across hurricane victims in the field.
A firefighter from California said he feels ill prepared to even carry out the job FEMA has assigned him. In the field, Hurricane Katrina victims will approach him with questions about everything from insurance claims to financial assistance.
"My only answer to them is, '1-800-621-FEMA,' " he said. "I'm not used to not being in the know."
Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie said his crews would be a "little frustrated" if they were assigned to hand out phone numbers at an evacuee center in Texas rather than find and treat victims of the disaster.
Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government.
"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."
Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But 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.

This is the most idiotic thing I think I've ever read. We all know who the racists here are, and you're definitely one of them. Barbara Bush is another, when she says that it's "Working pretty well" for people in the Astrodome because, you know, they're poor anyway.

Impeach George Bush.

FEMA's own Web site says that THEY are responsible for national disasters, so get over yourself, you moron.

Does anybody seriously doubt that New Orleans would have fared better if FEMA had been headed by a real, professional, disaster management specialist, as it was in the Clinton administration, instead of one of Bush's political cronies with no actual experience in disaster management?

-sigh...
First responders warned of change in training;
(http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-15/11260145419830.xml&storylist=alabamanews)

-quack.
Bush Approval Rating Continues to Drop
(http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=18148)

-next!

I love this post, or at least the comments. Right wing rhetoric - oh so strong when they are alone - seems to disappear in the face of those little things called "facts." Fake government departments, bogus webpages . . . hmm . . . can 2+2 really equal five? Not when there are enough people still willing to unmask this crap.

Geez!! Looks like this post has gotten the attention of the DNC with as many people from the "Blame Bush for Everything" crowd have shown up.

Odd Brian: actually, it was listed in Salon's Daou Report, which is how I ended up here.

I wanted to check the rhetoric. I see you blaming Democrats in LA pretty strongly (and falsely, as previous comments have pointed out), so I went back to read the rest of your coverage.

Ahh, pointing out an Al Sharpton photo op. Where is the mention of all the Bush photo ops? Or the fact that he abused the use of 50 firemen that could have been better used to save lives? I guess that was less newsworthy to you.

I see you had your RNC talking points pretty early on with the "blame game" on the 2nd and "plenty of blame to go around" back on the 4th.

The one on the 4th was when you lied and said that Kathleen Blanco hadn't declared a state of emergency. She had done that NINE days earlier on August 26th and Bush & Co. assumed responsibility on the 27th. Then proceeded to do pretty much nothing for several days.

Well, keep up the good work. You'll have to yell pretty loudly for the lies and misinformation to be heard this time. The media was pretty pissed when they saw the corpses firsthand, so they won't be giving you a free pass to lie. Don't worry, I'm sure it's only temporary.

"the "Blame Bush for Everything" crowd have shown up" - oddbrian

not everything. only those things for which he is responsible. like federal agencies. and activating the crew aboard the Bataan.

small things like that.

uh - a simple search in google gave me listings for the state homeland departments in each state -

Here's the link for the LA office:
http://www.loep.state.la.us/homeland/default.htm

Never underestimate the stupidity and malevolence of the righnuts.

A piece of advice: check your facts and your sources. Don't just run with some tripe pushed on Fox News (that beacon of journalistic integrity).

Bush and his cronies are incompetent idiots. At the very least Chertoff and Brown should be fired.

As for "Dear Leader", he should come clean to the nation, apologize for the screwup, and ask the nation for forgiveness. The nation would forgive him. Of course, this would require statemanship, class, and balls, none of which he has.

After reading the original blog post and all the right-winger cheering that immediately followed, then watching as these wingnut fabrications were torn apart by the good people of the "reality-based community," I asked myself where are all the wingnut cheerleaders now? Then I got to this post:

"Geez!! Looks like this post has gotten the attention of the DNC with as many people from the "Blame Bush for Everything" crowd have shown up."

Oh, there they are, reminding us all that accountablity = "blame game" and WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. :)

I'm just amazed at how many don't understand the limits of federal government. Does the federal response need to be reviewed? Heck yes! But the federal government legally has no jurisdiction in a situation like Katrina unless federal assistance is requested and approved by the Governor's office.

Believe, me, there's plenty of responsibility to go around for this mess - but the "hand-over-the-eyes It's all Bush's doing" rhetoric simply demonstrates ignorance of our constitution and the basic tenents of our system of governance. States were given a large degree of autonomy intentionally. E

veryone, on all sides of the political spectrum, should be doing deep fact checking, not simply repeating the daily talking points.

I've have a hard time listening to you left wing wind bags every since the fringe on your side of the isle embraced the idea that Bush orchestrated the attack on the WTC. And now you guys are placing all of the blame on Bush and giving your demoRAT cronies in the state/local gov't clean passes. BullS**t!! Since when has FEMA been a first responder? Yeah, there's a lot of blame to go around for lack of orchestration and leadership (i.e. in a Giuliani way) from the start of this mess, but don't forget to give your partners in crime their fair share.

Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food
Saturday, September 03, 2005

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

"Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders."

Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.

Though frustrated, Hosler understood the reasons. The goal is to move people out of an uninhabitable city, and relief operations might keep them there. Security is so bad that she fears feeding stations might get ransacked.

"It's not about fault and blame right now. The situation is like an hourglass, and we are in the smallest part right now. Everything is trying to get through it," she said. "They're trying to help people get out."

Obstacles in downtown New Orleans have stymied rescuers who got there. The Salvation Army has two of its officers trapped with more than 200 people -- three requiring dialysis -- in its own downtown building. They were alerted by a 30-second plea for food and water before the phone went dead.

On Wednesday, The Salvation Army rented three boats for a rescue operation. They knew the situation was desperate, and that their own people were inside, said Maj. Donna Hood, associate director of development for the Army.

"The boats couldn't get through," she said. Although she doesn't know the details, she believes huge debris and electrical wires made passage impossible.

"We have 51 emergency canteens on the ground in the other affected areas. But where the need is greatest, in downtown New Orleans, there just is no access. That is the problem every relief group is facing," she said.

"America is obviously going to have to rethink disaster relief," said Jim Burton, director of volunteer mobilization for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Southern Baptists, who work under the Red Cross logo, are one of the largest, best-equipped providers of volunteer disaster relief in the United States. Most hot meals for disaster victims are cooked by Southern Baptist mobile kitchen units. Burton is a veteran of many hurricanes.

"Right now everybody is looking at FEMA and pointing fingers. Frankly, I have to tell you, I'm sympathetic. When in your lifetime have we experienced this? Even though we all do disaster scenario planning, we have to accept the reality that this is an extraordinary event. This is America's tsunami, that struck and ravaged America's most disaster-vulnerable city," he said.

Because New Orleans remains under water, it is different from other cities where Katrina struck harder, but where relief efforts are proceeding normally. Agencies place workers and supplies outside disaster areas before storms, to move in quickly. But there are always delays, Burton said, because nothing is deployed until experts survey the damage and decide where to most effectively put relief services.

The Southern Baptists operate more than 30 mobile kitchens that can each produce 5,000 to 25,000 meals daily, as well as mobile showers and communications trucks equipped with ham radios and cell phones. They are supporting refugee centers in Texas and Tennessee, and doing relief in Mississippi and Alabama. They have placed mobile kitchens around New Orleans to feed people as they come out.

Initially they tried to drive a tractor-trailer kitchen into New Orleans from Tennessee. It was stopped by the Mississippi Highway Patrol because the causeway it would have to cross had been destroyed, Burton said.

His agency has planned for missing bridges. The Southern Baptists' worst-case planning is for reaching Memphis after an earthquake on the New Madrid fault, which in 1812 whiplashed at a stone-crushing 8.1 on the Richter scale. Burton envisions the Mississippi without bridges.

So when state and local Southern Baptists raise money to build a mobile kitchen, he tells them to design it to be hoisted in by helicopter.

After Katrina, he thought he would have to airlift a feeding unit to one isolated town, but a road was cleared, he said. He doubts that dropping a kitchen into the New Orleans' poisoned waters, filled with raw sewage, dead bodies and possible industrial contaminants, would do any good. It made sense to prepare meals outside the area and truck them in or bring people out.

"The most important thing is to get the people out of that environment," he said.

He expects unusual problems to continue, because victims of Katrina flooding will need emergency food for far longer than the usual week or so. He's planning on at least two months.

Like the military, relief work requires a supply chain. Because business management favors just-in-time inventory, rather than stockpiling goods in warehouses, there isn't a huge stock of food to draw on, he said.

"When you go into a local area, it doesn't take long to wipe out the local food inventories," he said.

The Red Cross serves pre-packaged food, including self-heating "HeaterMeals" and snacks, that require no preparation. Yesterday the Red Cross was running evacuation shelters in 16 states, and on Thursday, the last day for which totals were available, served 170,000 meals and snacks in 24 hours.

While emergency shelters typically empty out days after a hurricane or other natural disaster, in Katrina's case they are becoming more crowded, Hosler said. People who had evacuated to the homes of relatives or hotels are moving in because they're out of money or want to be closer to what is left of their homes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Ann Rodgers can be reached at arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.)

Back

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Copyright ©1997-2005 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.

"They're not really big into medical response items," he's obviously never even looked at the Red Cross' website. medical response is what they do. And why are you posting a quote from another reporter, instead of someone who is actually from the Red Cross? And last time I checked, the gov. of LA had declared a state of emergency _and_ written a letter to the President. Why would she do that and then not let the Red Cross in? that makes no sense. I think someone has mixed up a story.

"BLAME GAME" is a phrase used by the guilty, in a childlike attempt to avoid condemnation. I love the fact that this defense has been used under a story which tried lay blame on state-level peons.

Apparrently blaming democrats is "blame work" but blaming Bush is a "blame game".

If a state tells George W. Bush to butt out of their affairs, there is NOTHING he can do, except play gee-tar and eat cake.

Especially if the case involves life and death on a massive scale. He's only a president, not the mayor!

You stupid, fat, filthy fcuks.

Well, now we've reached the level expected when the lefties have no feasible, fact-checked argument: cursing and swearing - very useful.

So, the high points of these comments?

1) There is no state office of homeland security:

Uh, try again: check here for the listings for all states.

2) The Red Cross being denied entrance by order of the Governor's office is a bogus story.

Well, sorry to burst the liberal bubble of denial, but as our gracious host here at Rambling's Journal points out, Major Garret not only further verifies this story, but interviews a Salvation Army official who, on camera, confirms the report. If that doesn't convince you then try this on: CNN actually finally reported on this same story today - *gasp*

And who cares if it's blame work, blame game or "You did it and I'm gonna tell" - there are lessons to be learned from all of this - and that requires full disclosure (regardless of party affiliation), from FEMA (who didn't do right by this) on down to the Mayor and Police department of New Orleans.

Progressive, read your news story a bit more closely.

It says.

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

That's the part written by Ann Rodgers, no doubt an empty headed progressive who likewise doesn't understand that the STATE also has an emergency management department and an office of homeland security. The key is the actual quote she provides from the Red Cross.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

Note that the Red Cross spokeswoman did NOT say "federal". Then she continues.

"Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders."

The National Guard is under the direct control of Governor Blanco, as are the local authorities. The reporter didn't do her homework. Also note that the screaming is that Bush did NOT send in any troops. If he didn't send any, they couldn't have been there to refuse access to the city, now could they?

Please use your brain when you read.

As for those who claim bizarre things such as there not being a state office of homeland security, wouldn't it be easier just to claim that the state of Louisiana couldn't have blocked the aid --- because there is no such state? It would be just as factual and accurate as the rest of the stuff you've been posting.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the federal government was faced with invoking the insurrection act to send troops in, and balked at using it, since it would be stripping the opposing party's female governor of essentially ALL powers during a crisis. In retrospect the feds probably should've done it just to save the lives that Governor Blanco was willing to throw away.

"Was Kathleen Blanco's goal the death of as many of those in the Superdome as possible?"

Can this blogger be arrested for criminal lunacy?

"Was Kathleen Blanco's goal the death of as many of those in the Superdome as possible?"

Can this blogger be arrested for criminal lunacy?

Phaedrus, Southern white Democrats do have a tendency towards this kind of behavior. They created the Klan and used it to spend the better part of 100 years to subjugate blacks and deny them the most basic of rights. Would it really be all that surprising to find out that a Governor with family roots deeply entrenched in this background, might not mind if a few of the "colored" folks kicked off?

Of course, I'm only saying that as a southern white male who grew up listening to morons just like her say these exact same things in private, while kissing your ass in public. Fact is, once they have you on the voter rolls, they don’t need you alive. The Democratic Party will be using your vote long after you’ve given up the ghost, so it isn’t like they need a warm body, when any body will do.

Looking at Louisiana’s particularly racist background, I don’t think you can categorically dismiss these charges, though it would take concrete evidence to convince me of them as well.

Now, ask me why I became a conservative...

Game, set, match, George Turner.

Once more we witness the triumph of "progressive" education and "progressive" reporting over troublesome matters of fact.

Nothing else to see here, folks, move along.

Can this blogger be arrested for criminal lunacy?

This is one of the ways that Stalin filled up his gulags--dubbed any thoughts he didn't like as criminal lunacy. Castro fills up his prisons using this rationale also, so it's not surprising that you're suggesting it.

Blanco tried to kill black people, either purposefully or via incompetence. And you're suggesting that a black man--the owner of this blog--be arrested for exposing it. Who's the loon?

Should the Capo, the Jews who worked inside the death camps transporting victims of gassing to the ovens, cleaning the gas chambers of human excrement and blood, removal of gold from the teeth of the victims, shaving the heads of those going to the gas chambers, have been prosecuted too, assuming they survived?

Just because someone is black, or a Jew doesn't make them anything more than black, or a Jew. Read Uncle Tom's Cabin. I think there is a comic book version out there.

Castro fills up his prisons using this rationale also, so it's not surprising that you're suggesting it.

That may be, it may also be an exaggeration, like Brownie "yer doing a heck of a job's" resume. Propaganda is another word for it. One thing is for damn sure. Castro knows how to handle an emergency. He's a real war presidente.

When Fidel Castro makes you look bad, it's time to take the hemlock.

The Two Americas

Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."

"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site. In a scathing editorial on Thursday, the New York Times said, "nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis."

"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin."

They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff," Valdes observed.

I'm a putz!

RE: Hugo Chavez's comment - Oh yeah, Fidel is such a wonderful person, leader and all around good guy. That is why so many people risk everything to leave his prison of a country and float away in rafts made of old wooden palettes and modifies '56 Buicks!!! What a buffoon!

You have the perfect nic, Hugo...almost. Josef Goebbels would be better. However, you attempts at misinformation are amateurish compared to JG's.

The Superdome trap was laid by Nagin and closed in by Blanco and the Gretna, La. police department. You are the one who needs to do a little reading.

Does anybody seriously doubt that New Orleans would have fared better if FEMA had been headed by a real, professional, disaster management specialist, as it was in the Clinton administration, instead of one of Bush's political cronies with no actual experience in disaster management?

Well, we don't have to wonder, tgibbs. We had that situation during Andrew, and guess what? It turns out that Clinton's "professionals" responded in pretty much the same way that the current department has.

The sad reality is that a federal civil servant is a federal civil servant. Regardless of which politician is riding herd over him, he is still going to be slow, timid in the face of danger, and generally incompetent.